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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 25: 1879
   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
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"This Year Also"

   (No. 1451A)

   FOR THE NEW YEAR - 1879.

   FROM THE SICK CHAMBER OF C. H. SPURGEON.

   "This year also." Luke 13:6.

   AT the opening of another year and at the commencement of another
   volume of sermons, we earnestly desire to utter the word of
   exhortation, but alas, at this present, the preacher is a prisoner and
   must speak from his pillow instead of his pulpit! Let not the few words
   which we can put together come with diminished power from a sick man,
   for the musket fired by a wounded soldier sends forth the bullet with
   none the less force. Our desire is to speak with living words, or not
   at all. He who enables us to sit up and compose these trembling
   sentences is entreated to clothe them with His Spirit, that they may be
   according to His own mind.

   The interceding vinedresser pleaded for the fruitless fig tree, "let it
   alone this year also," dating, as it were, a year from the time wherein
   he spoke. Trees and fruit-bearing plants have a natural measurement for
   their lives--evidently a year came to its close when it was time to
   seek fruit on the fig tree and another year commenced when the
   vinedresser began, again, his digging and pruning work. Men are such
   barren things that their fruitage marks no certain periods and it
   becomes necessary to make artificial divisions of time for them. There
   seems to be no set period for man's spiritual harvest or vintage, or if
   there is, the sheaves and the clusters come not in their season and
   hence we have to say, one to another--"This shall be the beginning of a
   new year."

   Be it so, then. Let us congratulate each other upon seeing the dawn of
   "this year also," and let us unitedly pray that we may enter upon it,
   continue in it and come to its close under the unfailing blessing of
   the Lord to whom all years belong.

   I. The beginning of a new year SUGGESTS A RETROSPECT. Let us take it
   deliberately and honestly. "This year also"--then there had been former
   years. The dresser of the vineyard was not, for the first time, aware
   of the fig tree's failure and neither had the owner come, for the first
   time, seeking figs in vain. God, who gives us "this year also," has
   given us others before it--His sparing mercy is no novelty! His
   patience has already been taxed by our provocations. First came our
   youthful years when even a little fruit unto God is peculiarly sweet to
   Him. How did we spend them? Did our strength run all into wild wood and
   wanton branch? If so, we may well bewail that wasted vigor, that life
   misspent, that sin exceedingly multiplied.

   He who saw us misuse those golden months of youth, nevertheless affords
   us "this year also," and we should enter upon it with a holy jealousy
   lest what of strength and ardor may be left to us should be allowed to
   run away into the same wasteful courses as before. Upon the heels of
   our youthful years came those of early manhood when we began to muster
   a household and to become as a tree fixed in its place. Then, also,
   fruit would have been precious. Did we bear any? Did we present unto
   the Lord a basket of summer fruit? Did we offer Him the first-fruits of
   our strength? If we did so, we may well adore the Divine Grace which so
   early saved us! But if not, the past chides us and, lifting an
   admonitory finger, it warns us not to let "this year also" follow the
   way of the rest of our lives!

   He who has wasted youth and the morning of manhood has surely had
   enough of fooling--the time past may well suffice him to have worked
   the will of the flesh--it will be a superfluity of haughtiness to
   suffer "this year also" to be trod down in the service of sin. Many of
   us are now in the prime of life and our years already spent are not
   few. Have we still a need to confess that our years are eaten up by the
   grasshopper and the canker-worm? Have we reached the half-way house and
   still know not where we are going? Are we fools at forty? Are we half a
   century old by the calendar and yet far off from years of discretion?
   Alas, great God, that there should be men past this age who are still
   without knowledge!

   Unsaved at sixty? Unregenerate at seventy? Unawakened at eighty?
   Unrenewed at ninety? These are each and all startling words! Perhaps
   they will fall upon ears which they should make tingle, but they will
   hear them as though they heard them not. Continuance in evil breeds
   callousness of heart and when the soul has long been sleeping in
   indifference,

   it is hard to arouse it from the deadly slumber. The sound of the
   words, "this year also," makes some of us remember years of great
   mercy, sparkling and flashing with delight. Were those years laid at
   the Lord's feet? They were comparable to the silver bells upon the
   horses--were they "holiness unto the Lord?

   If not, how shall we answer for it if "this year also" should be
   musical with merry mercy and yet be spent in the ways of carelessness?
   The same words recall some of us our years of sharp affliction when we
   were, indeed, dug about and fertilized. How went those years? God was
   doing great things for us, exercising careful and expensive husbandry,
   caring for us with exceedingly great and wise care--did we render
   according to the benefit received? Did we rise from the bed more
   patient and gentle, weaned from the world and welded to Christ? Did we
   bring forth clusters to reward the dresser of the vineyard? Let us not
   refuse these questions of self-examination, for it may be this is to be
   another of these years of captivity, another season of the furnace and
   the refining pot! The Lord grant that the coming tribulation may take
   more chaff out of us than any of its predecessors--and leave the wheat
   cleaner and better.

   The new year also reminds us of opportunities for usefulness which have
   come and gone--and of unfulfilled resolutions which have blossomed only
   to fade. Shall "this year also" be as those which have gone before? May
   we not hope for Grace to advance upon Grace already gained and should
   we not seek for power to turn our poor sickly promises into robust
   action? Looking back on the past we lament the follies by which we
   would not willingly be held captive "this year also," and we adore the
   forgiving mercy, the preserving Providence, the boundless liberality,
   the Divine love of which we hope to be partakers "this year also."

   II. If the preacher could think freely, he could carry the text at his
   pleasure in many directions, but he is feeble and so must let it drive
   with the current which bears it on to a second consideration--the text
   MENTIONS A MERCY. It was in great goodness that the tree which cumbered
   the soil was allowed to stand for another year. Prolonged life should
   always be regarded as a gift of mercy. We must view "this year also" as
   a grant from Divine Grace. It is wrong to speak as if we cared nothing
   for life and looked upon our being here as an evil or a punishment. We
   are here "this year also" as the result of love's pleading and in
   pursuance of love's designs.

   The wicked man should count that the Lord's longsuffering points to his
   salvation and he should permit the cords of love to draw him to it. O
   that the Holy Spirit would make the blasphemer, the Sabbath-breaker and
   the openly vicious to feel what a wonder it is that their lives are
   prolonged "this year also!" Are they spared to curse, riot and defy
   their Maker? Shall this be the only fruit of patient mercy? The
   procrastinator who has put off the messenger of Heaven with his delays
   and promises--ought he not wonder that he is allowed to see "this year
   also?" How is it that the Lord has borne with him and put up with his
   vacillations and hesitations? Is this year of Grace to be spent in the
   same manner?

   Transient impressions, hasty resolves and speedy apostasies--are these
   to be the weary story over and over again? The startled conscience, the
   tyrant passion, the smothered emotion! Are these to be the tokens of
   yet another year? May God forbid that any one of us should hesitate and
   delay through "this year also." Infinite Pity holds back the axe of
   Justice--shall it be insulted by the repetition of the sins which
   caused the uplifting of the instrument of wrath? What can be more
   tantalizing to the heart of goodness than indecision? Well might the
   Lord's Prophet become impatient and cry, "How long halt you between two
   opinions?" Well may God Himself push for a decision and demand an
   immediate reply!

   O undecided Soul, will you swing much longer between Heaven and Hell
   and act as if it were hard to choose between the slavery of Satan and
   the liberty of the Great Father's home of love? "This year also" will
   you sport in defiance of Justice and pervert the generosity of Mercy
   into a license for still further rebellion? "This year also" must
   Divine Love be made an occasion for continued sin? O do not act so
   basely, so contrary to every noble instinct, so injuriously to your own
   best interests! The Believer is kept out of Heaven "this year also" in
   love and not in anger. There are some for whose sake it is necessary he
   should abide in the flesh--some to be helped by Him on their heavenward
   way--and others to be led to the Redeemer's feet by His instruction.

   The Heaven of many saints is not yet prepared for them because their
   nearest companions have not yet arrived and their spiritual children
   have not yet gathered in Glory in sufficient number to give them a
   thoroughly heavenly welcome! They must wait "this year also" that their
   rest may be the more glorious and that the sheaves which they will
   bring with them may afford them greater joy. Surely, for the sake of
   souls, for the delight of glorifying our Lord and for the increase of
   the jewels of our crown, we may be glad to wait below "this year also."

   This is a wide field, but we may not linger in it, for our space is
   little and our strengths even less.

   III. Our last feeble utterance shall remind you that the expression,
   "This year also," IMPLIES A LIMIT. The vinedresser asked for no longer
   a reprieve than one year. If his digging and fertilizing should not
   prove successful, he would plead no more and the tree would be cut
   down. Even when Jesus is the Pleader, the request of mercy has its
   boundaries and times. It is not forever that we shall be let alone and
   allowed to cumber the ground. If we will not repent, we must perish! If
   we will not be benefited by the spade we must fall by the axe! There
   will come a last year for each one of us! Therefore let each one say to
   himself--Is this my last?

   If it should be the last with the preacher, he would gird up his loins
   to deliver the Lord's message with all his soul and bid his fellow men
   be reconciled to God. Dear Friend, is "this year also" to be your last?
   Are you ready to see the curtain rise upon eternity? Are you prepared,
   now, to hear the midnight cry and to enter into the marriage supper?
   The Judgment and all that will follow is surely the heritage of every
   living man--blessed are they who, by faith in Jesus, are able to face
   the bar of God without a thought of terror! If we live to be counted
   among the oldest inhabitants we must depart at last--there must be an
   end and the Voice must be heard--"Thus says the Lord, this year you
   shall die."

   So many have gone before us and are going every hour, that no man
   should need any other memento and yet man is so eager to forget his own
   mortality and, thereby, to forfeit his hopes of bliss, that we cannot
   too often bring it before the mind's eyes. O mortal Man, what do you
   think? Prepare to meet your God, for you must meet Him! Seek the
   Savior, yes, seek Him before another sun sinks to its rest!

   Once more, "this year also," and it may be for this year, only, the
   Cross is uplifted as the lighthouse of the world-- the one Light to
   which no eye can look in vain! Oh that millions would look that way and
   live! Soon the Lord Jesus will come a second time and then the blaze of
   His Throne will supplant the mild radiance of His Cross! The Judge will
   be seen rather than the Redeemer! Now He saves, but then He will
   destroy! Let us hear His voice at this moment! He has given us another
   day, let us be eager to avail ourselves of the gracious season! Let us
   believe in Jesus this day, seeing it may be our last!

   These are the pleas of one who now falls back on his pillow in very
   weakness. Hear them for your souls' sakes and live! Amen.
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The Covenant Pleaded

   (No. 1451B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Have respect unto the Covenant." Psalm 74:20.

   HE will succeed in prayer who understands the science of pleading with
   God. "Put Me in remembrance: let us plead together," is a Divine
   command. "Come now, let us reason together" is a sacred invitation.
   "Bring forth your strong reasons, says the Lord," is a condescending
   direction as to the way of becoming victorious in supplication.
   Pleading is wrestling--arguments are the grips, the feints, the throes,
   the struggles with which we hold and vanquish the Covenant Angel! The
   humble statement of our needs is not without its value, but to be able
   to give reasons and arguments why God should hear us is to offer
   potent, prevalent prayer.

   Among all the arguments that can be used in pleading with God, perhaps
   there is none stronger than this--"Have respect unto the Covenant."
   Like Goliath's sword, we may say of it, "There is none like it." If we
   have God's Word for a thing we may well pray, "Do as You have Said,"
   for as a good man only needs to be reminded of his own words in order
   to be brought to keep them, even so is it with our faithful God--He
   only needs that we remind Him of what He has said--to do them for us.
   If He has given us more than His Word, namely, His Covenant, His solemn
   Compact, we may, then, with the greatest composure of spirit, cry to
   Him, "Have respect unto the Covenant," and then we may both hope and
   quietly wait for His salvation.

   I need not tell you, for you are, I trust, well-grounded in that
   matter, that the Covenant here spoken of is the Covenant of Grace.
   There is a Covenant which we could not plead in prayer, the Covenant of
   Works, a Covenant which destroys us, for we have broken it. Our first
   father sinned and the Covenant was broken. We have continued in his
   perverseness and that Covenant condemns us. By the Covenant of Works
   none of us is justified, for we still continue to break our portion of
   it and to bring upon ourselves wrath to the uttermost. The Lord has
   made a new Covenant with the Second Adam, our federal Head, Jesus
   Christ our Lord--a Covenant without conditions, except such conditions
   as Christ has already fulfilled.

   It is a Covenant ordered in all things and sure which now consists of
   promises only--which run after this fashion-- "I will be to them a God
   and they shall be to Me a people." "A new heart also will I give them
   and a right spirit will I put within them." "From all their
   transgressions will I cleanse them." It is a Covenant, I say, which
   once had conditions in it, all of which our Lord Jesus fulfilled when
   He finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in
   everlasting righteousness. And now the Covenant is all of promise and
   consists of Infallible and eternal shalls and wills which shall abide
   the same forever.

   We shall talk of the text thus--What is meant by the plea before us,
   "Have respect unto the Covenant"? Then we will think a little of where
   it derives its force. Thirdly, we will consider how and when we may
   plead it. And we will close by noticing what are the practical
   inferences from it.

   I. Let us begin by this--WHAT IS MEANT BY THE PLEA, "Have respect unto
   the Covenant"? It means this, does it not? "Fulfill Your Covenant, O
   God! Let it not be a dead letter. You have said this and that, now do
   as You have said. You have been pleased by solemn sanction of oath and
   blood to make this Covenant with Your people. Now be pleased to keep
   it. Have You said and will You not do it? We are persuaded of Your
   faithfulness, let our eyes behold Your Covenant engagements fulfilled."
   It means, again, "Fulfill all the promises of Your Covenant," for
   indeed all the promises are now in the Covenant! They are all yes and
   amen in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us!

   And I may say without being unscriptural that the Covenant contains
   within its sacred Charter every gracious Word that has come from the
   Most High, either by the mouth of Prophets or Apostles, or by the lips
   of Jesus Christ Himself! The meaning in this case would be--"Lord keep
   Your promises concerning Your people. We are in need. Now, O Lord,
   fulfill Your promise that we shall not lack any good thing. Here is
   another of Your promises--'When you pass through

   the waters, I will be with you.' We are in rivers of trouble! Be with
   us now! Redeem Your promises to Your servants. Let them not stand on
   the book as letters that mock us, but prove that You meant what you
   wrote and said and let us see that You have power to make every jot and
   tittle good of all You have spoken. For have You not said, 'Heaven and
   earth shall pass away, but My Words shall not pass away?' Oh, then have
   respect unto the promises of Your Covenant."

   In the connection of our text there is no doubt that the suppliant
   meant, "O Lord, prevent anything from turning aside Your promises." The
   Church was then in a very terrible state. The Temple was burnt and the
   assemblage broken up. The worship of God had ceased and idolatrous
   emblems stood in the Holy Place where once the Glory of God shone
   forth! The plea is, "Do not suffer the power of the enemy to be so
   great as to frustrate Your purposes, or to make Your promises void." So
   may we pray--"O Lord, do not suffer me to endure such temptation that I
   shall fall! Do not suffer such affliction to come upon me that I shall
   be destroyed, for have You not promised that no temptation shall happen
   to me but such as I am able to bear and that with the temptation there
   shall be a way of escape? Now have respect unto Your Covenant and so
   order your Providence that nothing shall happen to me contrary to that
   Divine agreement."

   And it also means, "So order everything around us that the Covenant may
   be fulfilled. Is Your Church low? Raise up in her midst, again, men who
   preach the Gospel with power who shall be the means of lifting her up!
   Creator of men, Master of human hearts, You who can circumcise human
   lips to speak Your Word with power, do this and let Your Covenant with
   Your Church, that You will never leave her, be fulfilled! The kings of
   the earth are in Your hands. All events are controlled by You! You
   order all things, from the minute to the immense! Nothing, however
   small, is too small for Your purposes! Nothing, however great, is too
   great for Your rule! Manage everything so that in the end each promise
   of Your Covenant shall be fulfilled to all Your chosen people."

   That, I think, is the meaning of the plea, "Have respect unto the
   Covenant." Keep it and see it kept. Fulfill the promises and prevent
   Your foes from doing evil to Your children. Precious plea, assuredly!

   II. And now let us see FROM WHERE IT DERIVES ITS FORCE. "Have respect
   unto the Covenant." It derives its force, first, from the veracity of
   God. If it is a covenant of man's making we expect a man to keep
   it--and a man who does not keep his covenant is not esteemed among his
   fellows. If a man has given his word, that word is his bond. If a thing
   is solemnly signed and sealed, it becomes even more binding and he that
   would run back from a covenant would be thought to have forfeited his
   character among men.

   God forbid that we should ever think the Most High could be false to
   His Word! It is not possible! He can do all things except this--He
   cannot lie--it is not possible that He should ever be untrue. He cannot
   even change--the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. He
   will not alter the thing that has gone out of His lips. When, then, we
   come before God in prayer for a Covenant mercy we have His truthfulness
   to support us. "O God, You must do this. You are a Sovereign--You can
   do as you will, but You have bound Yourself by bonds that hold Your
   majesty--You have said it and it is not possible that You should go
   back from Your own Word!" How strong our faith ought to be when we have
   God's Truth to lean upon! What dishonor we do to our God by our weak
   faith, for it is virtually a suspicion of the fidelity of our Covenant
   God!

   Next, to support us in using this plea, we have God's sacred jealousy
   for His honor. He has told us, Himself, that He is a jealous God. His
   name is Jealousy--He has great respect unto His honor among the sons of
   men. Hence this was Moses' plea--"What will the enemy say? And what
   will You do unto Your great name?" Now, if God's Covenant could be
   trifled with and if it could be proven that He had not kept the promise
   that He made to His creatures, it would not only be a dreadful thing
   for us, but it would bring grievous dishonor upon His name and that
   shall never be! God is too pure and holy and He is altogether too
   honorable ever to run back from the Word that He has given to His
   servants.

   If I feel that my feet have almost gone, I may still be assured that He
   will not suffer me wholly to perish, else were His honor stained, for
   He has said, "They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out
   of My hands." He might give me up to my enemies so far as my deserts
   are concerned, for I deserve to be destroyed by them--but then His
   honor is engaged to save the meanest of His people and He has said, "I
   give unto them eternal life." He will not, therefore, for His honor's
   sake, suffer me to be the prey of the adversary, but will preserve me,
   even me, unto the day of His appearing! Here is a good foothold for
   faith!

   The next reflection that should greatly strengthen us is the venerable
   character of the Covenant. This Covenant was no transaction of
   yesterday--before the earth was, this Covenant was made! We may not
   speak of first or last with God,

   but speaking after the manner of men, the Covenant of Grace is God's
   first thought. Though we usually put the Covenant of Works first in
   order of time as revealed, yet in very deed the Covenant of Grace is
   the older of the two. God's people were not chosen yesterday, but
   before the foundations of the world! And the Lamb slain to ratify that
   Covenant, though slain 1800 years ago, was in the Divine purpose slain
   from before the foundations of the world. It is an ancient
   Covenant--there is nothing so ancient!

   It is to God a Covenant which He holds in high esteem. It is not one of
   His light thoughts--not one of those thoughts which lead Him to create
   the morning dew that melts before the day has run its course, or to
   make the clouds that light up the setting sun with glory which soon
   have lost their radiance. No, it is one of His great thoughts--yes, it
   is His eternal thought, the thought out of His own inmost soul--this
   Covenant of Grace. And because it is so ancient and to God a matter so
   important, when we come to Him with this plea in our mouths we must not
   think of being staggered by unbelief, but may open our mouths wide, for
   He will assuredly fill them! Here is Your Covenant, O God, which of
   Your own spontaneous Sovereign will You did ordain of old, a Covenant
   in which Your very heart is laid bare and Your love which is Yourself,
   is manifested! O God, have respect unto it and do as You have said and
   fulfill Your promise to Your people!

   Nor is this all. It is but the beginning! In one sermon I should not
   have time to show you all the reasons that give force to the plea--but
   here is one. The Covenant has upon it a solemn endorsement. There was
   the stamp of God's own Word--that is enough! The very Word that created
   the universe is the Word that spoke the Covenant! But, as if that were
   not sufficient, seeing we are unbelieving, God has added to it His
   oath! And because He could swear by no greater, He has sworn by
   Himself! It were blasphemy to dream that the Eternal could be perjured
   and so He has set His oath to His Covenant in order that, by two
   immutable things wherein it is impossible for God to lie, He might give
   to the heirs of Grace strong consolation!

   But more, that venerable Covenant thus confirmed by oath was sealed
   with blood! Jesus died to ratify it! His heart's blood bedewed that
   Magna Charta of the Grace of God to His people. It is a Covenant which
   God the Just must keep! Jesus has fulfilled our side of it--has
   executed, to the letter, all the demands of God upon man! Our Surety
   and our Substitute has at once kept the Law and suffered all that was
   due by His people on account of their breach of it. And now, shall not
   the Lord be true and the Everlasting Father be faithful to His own Son?
   How can He refuse His Son the joy which He set before Him and the
   reward which He promised Him? "He shall see His seed: He shall see of
   the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied."

   My Soul, the faithfulness of God to His Covenant is not so much a
   matter between you and God as between Christ and God, for now it so
   stands--Christ, as our Representative, puts in His claim before the
   Throne of Infinite Justice for the salvation of every soul for whom He
   shed His blood--and He must have what He has purchased! Oh what
   confidence is here! The rights of the Son, blended with the love and
   the veracity of the Father, makes the Covenant to be ordered in all
   things and sure! Moreover, remember, and I will not detain you much
   longer with this, that up till now nothing in the Covenant has ever
   failed! The Lord has been tried by millions of His people and they have
   been in trying emergencies and serious difficulties--but it has never
   been reported in the gates of Zion that the promise has come up
   short--neither have any said that the Covenant is null and void!

   Ask those before you who passed through deeper waters than yourselves.
   Ask the martyrs who gave their lives for their Master, "Was He with
   them to the end?" The placid smiles upon their countenances while
   enduring the most painful death were evident testimonies that God is
   true! Their joyous songs, the clapping of their hands in the fire and
   their exultation even on the rack or when rotting in some loathsome
   dungeon--all these have proven how faithful the Lord has been! And have
   you not heard with your own ears the testimony of God's dying people?
   They were in conditions in which they could not have been sustained by
   mere imagination, nor buoyed up by frenzy and yet they have been as
   joyful as if their dying day had been their wedding day!

   Death is too solemn a matter for a man to play a masquerade. But what
   did your wife say in death? Or your mother, now with God? Or what of
   your child who had learned of the Savior's love? Can you not recall
   their testimonies even now? I think I hear some of them and among the
   things of earth that are like the joys of Heaven, I think this is one
   of the foremost--the joy of departed saints when they already hear the
   voices of angels hovering near and turn round and tell

   us in broken language of the joys that are bursting in upon them--their
   sight blinded by the excess of brightness and their hearts ravished
   with the bliss that floods them! Oh it has been sweet to see the saints
   depart!

   I mention these things, now, not merely to refresh your memories, but
   to establish your faith in God. He has been true so many times and
   never false--and shall we now experience any difficulty in resting on
   His Covenant? No, by all these many years in which the faithfulness of
   God has been put to the test and has never failed, let us be confident
   that He will still regard us and let us pray boldly--"Have respect unto
   the Covenant." For, mark you, as it has been in the beginning, it is
   now and ever shall be, world without end! It shall be to the last saint
   as it was with the first! The testimony of the last soldier of the host
   shall be, "Not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord God has
   promised."

   Only one more reflection here. Our God has taught many of us to trust
   in His name. We were long in learning the lesson and nothing but
   Omnipotence could have made us willing to walk by faith and not by
   sight. With much patience the Lord has brought us, at last, to have no
   reliance but on Him and now we are depending on His faithfulness and
   His Truth. Is that your case, Brothers and Sisters? What then? Do you
   think that God has given you this faith to mock you? Do you believe
   that He has taught you to trust in His name and has brought you this
   far to put you to shame? Has His Holy Spirit given you confidence in a
   lie? And has He worked in you faith in a fiction? God forbid! Our God
   is no demon who would delight in the misery which a groundless
   confidence would be sure to bring to us.

   If, then, you have faith, He gave it to you and He that gave it to you
   knows His own gift and will honor it! He was never false yet, even to
   the feeblest faith--and if your faith is great, you shall find Him
   greater than your faith, even when your faith is at its greatest!
   Therefore be of good cheer. The fact that you believe should encourage
   you to say, "Now, O Lord, that I have come to rest upon You, by Your
   Grace , will You fail me? I, a poor worm, know no confidence but Your
   dear name--will You forsake me? I have no refuge but Your wounds, O
   Jesus; no hope but in Your atoning Sacrifice; no light but in Your
   light--will You now cast me off?"

   It is not possible that the Lord should cast off one who thus trusts
   Him! Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have
   compassion on the son of her womb? Can any of us forget our children
   when they fondly trust us in the days of their weakness? No, the Lord
   is no monster! He is tender and full of compassion, faithful and
   true--and Jesus is a Friend which sticks closer than a brother. The
   very fact that He has given us faith in His Covenant should help us to
   plead--"Have respect unto the Covenant."

   III. Having thus shown you, dear Friends, the meaning of the plea and
   where it derives its force, we will now pause a

   minute and observe HOW AND WHEN THAT COVENANT MAY BE PLEADED. First, it
   may be pleaded under a

   sense of sin--when the soul feels its guilt. Let me read to you the
   words of our Apostle, in the eighth chapter of Hebrews, where he is
   speaking of this Covenant at the 10th verse. "For this is the Covenant
   that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the
   Lord; I will put My Laws into their minds and write them in their
   hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.
   And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his
   brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least
   to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
   their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

   Now, dear Hearer, suppose that you are under a sense of sin? Something
   has revived in you a recollection of past guilt, or it may be that you
   have sadly stumbled this very day and Satan whispers, "You will surely
   be destroyed, for you have sinned." Now go to the great Father and open
   this page, putting your finger on that 12th verse and say, "Lord, You
   have in infinite, boundless, inconceivable mercy entered into Covenant
   with me, a poor sinner, seeing I believe in the name of Jesus. And now
   I beseech You have respect unto Your Covenant. You have said, 'I will
   be merciful to their unrighteousness'--O God be merciful to mine! You
   have said, 'Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
   more'--Lord, remember no more my sins! Forget forever my iniquity!"

   That is the way to use the Covenant! When under a sense of sin, run to
   that clause which meets your case! But suppose, beloved Brother or
   Sister, you are laboring to overcome inward corruption with intense
   desire that holiness should be worked in you? Then read the Covenant,
   again, as you find it in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah at the 33rd
   verse. It is the same Covenant, only we are reading another version of
   it. "This shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of
   Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will put My Law in their
   inward parts, and write it in their hearts." Now, can you not plead
   that and say, "Lord, Your Commandments upon stone are holy, but I
   forget them and break them. But, O my God, write them on the fleshy
   tablets of my heart! Come, now, and make me holy! Transform me! Write

   Your will upon my very soul that I may live it out, and from the warm
   impulses of my heart serve You as You would be served. Have respect
   unto Your Covenant and sanctify Your servant."

   Or suppose you desire to be upheld under strong temptation, lest you
   should go back and return to your old ways? Take the Covenant as you
   find it in Jeremiah at the 32nd chapter at the 40th verse. Note these
   verses and learn them by heart, for they may be a great help to you one
   of these days. Read the 40th verse of the 32nd chapter of Jeremiah.
   "And I will make an Everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not
   turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put My fear in their
   hearts, that they shall not depart from Me." Go and say, "O Lord, I am
   almost gone, and they tell me I shall finally fall, but O, my Lord and
   Master, there stands Your Word! Put Your fear in my heart and fulfill
   Your promise that I shall not depart from You." This is the sure road
   to final perseverance!

   Thus I might take you through all the various needs of God's people and
   show that in seeking to have them supplied they may fitly cry, "Have
   respect unto the Covenant." For instance, suppose you were in great
   distress of mind and needed comfort? You could go to Him with that
   Covenant promise, "As a mother comforts her children, even so will I
   comfort you--out of Zion will I comfort you." Go to Him with that and
   say, "Lord, comfort Your servant." Or if there should happen to be a
   trouble upon us, not for yourselves, but for the Church--how sweet it
   is to go to the Lord and say, "Your Covenant runs thus--'the gates of
   Hell shall not prevail against her.' O Lord, it seems as though they
   would prevail! Interpose Your strength and save Your Church."

   If it ever should happen that you are looking for the conversion of the
   ungodly and desiring to see sinners saved, but the world seems so dark,
   look at our text again--the whole verse. "Have respect unto the
   Covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations
   of cruelty"--to which you may add, "But You have said that Your Glory
   shall cover the earth and that all flesh shall see the salvation of
   God." Lord, have respect unto Your Covenant! Help our missionaries,
   speed Your Gospel, bid the mighty angel fly through the midst of Heaven
   to preach the everlasting Gospel to every creature! Why, it is a grand
   missionary prayer, "Have respect unto the Covenant." Beloved, it is a
   two-edged sword to be used in all conditions of strife and it is a holy
   balm of Gilead that will heal in all conditions of suffering!

   IV. And so I close with this last question, WHAT ARE THE PRACTICAL
   INFERENCES FROM ALL THIS?

   "Have respect unto the Covenant." Why, that if we ask God to have
   respect unto it, we ought to have respect unto it ourselves! Have a
   grateful respect for it. Bless the Lord that He even condescended to
   enter into Covenant with you. What could He see in you to give you a
   promise, much more to make a Covenant with you? Blessed be His dear
   name, this is the sweet theme of our hymns on earth and shall be the
   subject of our songs in Heaven!

   Next, have a believing respect for it. If it is God's Covenant, do not
   dishonor it. It stands sure. Why do you stagger at it through
   unbelief?--

   "His every work of Grace is strong As that which built the skies!

   The Voice that rolls the stars along Speaks all the promises."

   Next, have a joyful respect for it. Awake your harps and join in praise
   with David--"Although my house is not so with God, yet has He made with
   me an Everlasting Covenant." Here is enough to make a Heaven in our
   hearts while yet we are below--the Lord has entered into a Covenant of
   Grace and peace with us and He will bless us forever! Then have a
   jealous respect for it. Never suffer the Covenant of Works to be mixed
   with it. Hate that preaching--I say not less than that-- hate that
   preaching which does not discriminate between the Covenant of Works and
   the Covenant of Grace, for it is deadly preaching and damning
   preaching!

   You must always have a straight, clear line, here, between what is of
   man and what is of God, for cursed is he that trusts in man and makes
   flesh his arm! And if you have begun with the Spirit under this
   Covenant, do not think of being made perfect in the flesh under another
   Covenant! Be you holy under the precepts of the heavenly Father, but be
   you not legal under the taskmaster's lash! Return not to the bondage of
   the Law, for you are not under Law, but under Grace! Lastly, have a
   practical respect for it. Let all see that the Covenant of Grace, while
   it is your reliance, is also your delight. Be ready to speak of it to
   others! Be ready to show that the effect of its Divine Grace upon you
   is one that is worthy of God, since it has a purifying effect upon your
   life!

   He that has this hope in Him purifies himself even as He is pure. Have
   respect unto the Covenant by walking as such people should who can say
   that God is to them a God and they are to Him a people. The Covenant
   says, "From all their

   idols will I cleanse them." Then don't love idols. The Covenant says,
   "I will sprinkle pure water upon them and they shall be clean." Then be
   clean, you covenanted ones, and may the Lord preserve you and make His
   Covenant to be your boast on earth and your song forever in Heaven! Oh
   that the Lord may bring us into the bonds of His Covenant and give us a
   simple faith in His dear Son--for THAT is the mark of the covenanted
   ones! Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 74. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK."--237, 228, 742.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sick Man Left Behind

   (No. 1452A)

   FROM THE SICK ROOM OF

   C. H. SPURGEON.

   JANUARY 12, 1879.

   "But Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." 2 Timothy 4:20.

   THESE are among the last words of Paul the Apostle, for we find them in
   the closing verses of the last of his Epistles. The chapter reminds us
   of a dying man's final adieu to his best friend, in the course of which
   he calls to mind the associates of his life. Among his memories of love
   we find Paul recollecting Trophimus who had frequently shared with him
   the perils of rivers and perils of robbers which so largely attended
   the Apostle's career. He had left the good man ill at Miletum and as
   Timothy at Ephesus was within an easy journey of him, there was no need
   to add a hint that he should visit him, for he would be sure to do it.

   The love of Jesus works great tenderness and unity in the hearts of His
   disciples. The overflow of our Lord's great soul has saturated all His
   true followers with brotherly affection--because Jesus has loved Paul,
   Paul loves Timothy and Timothy must love Trophimus. From this love
   there arises communion of feeling so that in sympathy they share each
   other's joys and griefs. When one member rejoices, the body
   rejoices--and when one member suffers the whole body suffers with it.
   Trophimus is sick and Paul cannot forget him, though he, himself,
   expects in a few weeks to die a martyr's death! Neither would he have
   Timothy ignorant of the fact, though twice, within a few verses, he
   hurries him to come to Rome, saying, "Do your diligence to come shortly
   unto me."

   If Timothy could not personally visit the sick friend, yet it was well
   that he should know of his affliction, for he would then remember him
   in his prayers. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God."
   Let us remember those who are one with us in Christ and especially let
   us bear on our hearts all those who are afflicted in mind, body, or
   estate. If we have had to leave Trophimus at Miletum, or at Brighton,
   or at Ventnor, let us leave our heart's love with him. And if we hear
   that another Trophimus lies sick not far from our own home, let us
   accept the information as in itself a sufficient summons to minister to
   the afflicted friend.

   May holy sympathy pervade all our souls, for however active and zealous
   we may be, we have not yet reached a perfect character unless we are
   full of compassion, tender-hearted and considerate of the sorrowful,
   for this is the mind of Christ. Simple as the statement of our text
   certainly is, it is found in an Inspired Book and it is, therefore,
   more than an ordinary note in a common letter. Like another verse of
   the same chapter, "The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when you
   come, bring with you, and the books, but especially the parchments,"
   has been judged to be beneath the dignity of Inspiration, we think not
   so. The God who counts the hairs of our heads in Providence may well
   mention His sick servant on the pages of Inspiration!

   Instead of quibbling at the littleness of the recorded fact, let us
   admire "the love of the Spirit" who, while He lifts Ezekiel and Daniel
   above the spheres and raises the language of David and Isaiah to the
   utmost pitch of poetry and eloquence, yet deigns to breathe in such a
   line as this--"Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." Can we learn
   anything more from this plain line of Apostolic penmanship? Let us see.
   If the same Divine Spirit who Inspired it, will shine upon it, we shall
   not read it in vain!

   I. From the fact that Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletum we learn that
   IT IS THE WILL OF GOD THAT SOME GOOD MEN SHOULD BE IN ILL HEALTH.
   Whatever the malady may have been which affected Trophimus, Paul could
   certainly have healed him if the Divine Spirit had permitted the use of
   his miraculous powers to that end. He had raised up Eutychus from death
   and he had given back the use of his limbs to the cripple at Lystra. We
   feel, therefore, fully assured that had God allowed the Apostle so to
   use his healing energy, Trophimus would have left his bed and continued
   his journey to Rome.

   Not so, however, had the Lord willed. The good fruit-bearing vine must
   be pruned and Trophimus must suffer-- there were ends to be answered by
   his weakness which could not be compassed by his health. Instantaneous
   restoration could have been given, but it was withheld under Divine
   direction. This doctrine leads us away from the vain idea of chance. We
   are not wounded by arrows shot at a venture, but we smart by the
   determinate counsel of Heaven! An overruling hand is everywhere
   present, preventing or permitting ill and no one shaft of disease is
   ever let fly by stealth from the bow of death! If someone must be ill,
   it was a wise Providence which selected Trophimus, for it was better
   for him to be ill than Titus, or Tychicus, or Timothy.

   It was well, too, that he happened to be ill at Miletum near to his own
   native city, Ephesus. We cannot always see the hand of God in
   Providence, but we may always be sure that it is there. If not a
   sparrow lights on the ground without our Father, surely not a child of
   the Divine family is laid low without His sacred will! Chance is a
   heathenish idea which cannot live in the Presence of an everywhere
   present, living and working God! Away with it from every Christian
   mind! It is dishonoring to the Lord and grievous to ourselves!

   This also delivers us from regarding affliction as being always brought
   upon men by their personal sin. Many a sickness has been the direct
   result of intemperance, or some other form of wickedness--but here is a
   worthy, well-approved Brother laid aside and left on the road through a
   malady for which he is not blamed in any measure. It is too common,
   nowadays, for men to be of a hard and cruel spirit and ascribe the
   illnesses, even, of those who are true children of God to some fault in
   their habits of life. We wonder how they would like to be dealt with in
   this manner if they were suffering and could wash their hands in
   innocence in reference to their daily lives?

   In our Lord's day they told Him, "Lord, he whom You love is sick." And
   Solomon, long before that time, wrote, "Whom the Lord loves He
   corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights." This was a
   much better, more humane and more truthful speech than the frozen
   philosophy of modern times which traces each man's sickness to his own
   violation of natural law and, instead of pouring in the balm of
   consolation, pours out the sulfuric acid of slanderous insinuation! Let
   the afflicted examine himself to see if the rod is not sent to correct
   some secret evil and let him diligently consider where he may
   amend--but far be it from us to stand at his bedside like judges or
   lictors and look upon our friend as an offender as well as a sufferer!

   Such brutality may be left to the philosophers, but it would ill become
   the sons of God! We may not think a shade the less of Trophimus because
   he is sick at Miletum. He is probably a far better man than any of us
   and perhaps for that very reason he is more tried. There is gold in him
   which pays for putting into the crucible--he bears such rich fruit that
   he is worth pruning--he is a diamond of so pure a water that he will
   repay the lapidary's toil. This may not be quite so true of any of us
   and, therefore, we escape his sharper trials. Let us, as James says,
   "count them happy that endure," and like David, say, "Blessed is the
   man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your Law."

   What do the Scriptures say? --"For whom the Lord loves, He chastens and
   scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God
   deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father
   chastens not?" Lazarus of Bethany, Dorcas, Epaphroditus and Trophimus
   are a few of that great host of sick folk whom the Lord loves in their
   sicknesses, for whom the promise was written, "The Lord will strengthen
   him upon the bed of languishing: You will make all his bed in his
   sickness."

   II. We have only strength and space for mere hints and so we notice,
   secondly, that GOOD MEN MAY BE LAID

   ASIDE WHEN THEY SEEM TO BE MOST NEEDED--as Trophimus was when the aged
   Apostle had but a scanty

   escort and required his aid. Paul needed him, badly enough, soon after
   he had been obliged to leave him at Miletum, for he writes sorrowfully,
   "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is
   departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
   Only Luke is with me." "And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus." How glad
   he would have been with Trophimus, for we see how he begs Timothy to
   come with all speed and to bring Mark, whose service he greatly needed
   with him.

   Yet not even for Paul's sake can Trophimus be suddenly raised up! His
   Lord sees it to be necessary that he should feel the heat of the
   furnace and into the crucible he must go. We think that the Church
   cannot spare the earnest minister, the indefatigable missionary, the
   faithful deacon, the tender teacher--but God thinks not so! No one is
   indispensable in the household of God! He can do His own work not only
   without Trophimus, but even without Paul! Yes, we go further--it
   sometimes happens that the work of the Lord is quickened by the decease
   of one upon whom it seemed to depend! When a

   broad, far-spreading tree is cut down, many smaller trees which were
   dwarfed and stunted while it stood, suddenly shoot up into vigorous
   growth--even so, one good man may do much and yet, when he is removed,
   others may do more!

   Temporary illnesses of great workers may call to the front those who
   would otherwise, from modesty, have remained in the rear--and the
   result may be a great gain. Poor Trophimus had, in his healthier days,
   been the innocent cause of bringing Paul into a world of trouble, for
   we read in Acts 21:27 that a tumult was made by the Jews because they
   imagined that Paul had brought Trophimus into the Temple and so had
   defiled it. Now, when he could have been of service, he is sick and, no
   doubt, it was a great grief to him that it should be so. Yet for him,
   as oftentimes for us, there was no alternative but to submit himself
   under the hand of God and feel that the Lord is always right.

   Why do we not yield at once? Why do we chomp the bit and paw the
   ground, restless to be on the road? If our Lord bids us stand still,
   can we not be quiet? Active spirits are apt to become restive spirits
   when under the restraining hand-- energy soon sours into rebellion and
   we quarrel with God because we are not allowed to glorify Him in our
   own way--a foolish form of contest which at bottom means that we have a
   will of our own and will only serve God upon condition of having it
   indulged!

   Brothers and Sisters, he who writes these lines knows what he writes
   and this is the verdict of his experience--God's work needs us far less
   than we imagine and God would have us aware of this fact, for He will
   not give His Glory to human instruments any more than He will allow His
   praise to be bestowed on graven images!

   III. Our text clearly shows us that GOOD MEN WOULD HAVE THE LORD'S WORK
   GO ON WHATEVER BECOMES OF THEM. Paul did not desert Trophimus, but left
   him, because a higher call summoned him to Rome. Trophimus, we may be
   sure, did not wish to delay the great Apostle, but was content to be
   left. No doubt they both felt the separation but, like true soldiers of
   Christ, they endured hardness and, for the sake of the cause, parted
   company for a while. It would be a great grief to a true-hearted worker
   if he knew that any fellow-laborer slackened his pace for his sake. The
   sick in an army of an earthly monarch are necessarily an impediment,
   but it need not be so in the army of the King of kings!

   Spiritual sickness is a sore hindrance, but sickness of body should not
   delay the host. If we cannot preach we can pray. If one work is out of
   our reach, we can try another and if we can do nothing, our inability
   should serve as a call to the vigorous to be doing all the more!
   Trophimus is sick, then let Timothy be the more energetic! Trophimus
   cannot attend the Apostle, then let Timothy be the more diligent to
   come before winter! Thus, by acting as an incentive, the lack of one
   man's service may produce tenfold more in others who are awakened to
   extra exertions.

   Brethren, it will be the sweetest alleviation to the pains of a sick
   pastor if he sees you each and all nerved to special diligence. His
   enforced rest will be the better enjoyed if he knows that the Church of
   God is not a sufferer because of it. And his whole mind and spirit will
   minister to the health of his body if he sees the fruit of the Spirit
   of God in all of you, keeping you faithful and zealous. Will you not
   see to this for Jesus' sake?
     __________________________________________________________________

The Rider on the White Horse and the Armies with Him

   (No. 1452B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And I saw Heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He thatsat upon
   him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He does judge
   and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were
   many crowns; and He had a name written, thatno man knew, butHe Himself.
   And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is
   called The Word of God. And the armies which were in Heaven followed
   Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out
   of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the
   nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treads the
   winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on
   His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
   LORDS." Revelation 19:11-16.

   THE beloved John was, above all other men, familiar with the humble
   Savior. He had leaned his head upon His bosom and knew better than any
   other of the Apostles the painful beatings of His Lord's sorrowful
   heart. Never from his mind could be effaced the likeness of Christ, the
   visage more marred than that of any man. He had seen the dear Sufferer
   on that dreadful night when He was covered with gory sweat in
   Gethsemane. He had seen Him after He had been buffeted and scourged in
   Herod's palace and Pilate's Hall. He had even stood at the foot of the
   Cross and seen his Divine Master in the extreme agonies of death! And,
   therefore, the tender, affectionate heart of John would never permit
   his Master's suffering image to fade from his memory.

   Truly, if he had spoken to us in vision--in symbolic terms--concerning
   what he had seen of his Lord and Master here below, he would have
   described Him as a footman going forth alone to the fight with no
   armies following Him, for all His disciples forsook Him and fled,
   Himself wearing no glittering armor, but with His garments dipped in
   blood and with His face smeared with shame. He would have told us how
   the solitary Champion fought alone amid the dust and smoke of the
   battle and how He fell and bit the dust, so that His foe set his foot
   upon Him and for a moment rejoiced over Him. He would have told us how
   He leaped, again, from the grave and trod down His adversaries and led
   captivity captive. Such would have been, only in far nobler terms,
   John's description of his first sight of his wrestling warrior Lord.

   But now, in the passage before us, a door was opened in Heaven and the
   disciple whom Jesus loved saw what else he had never seen--what else he
   had never imagined! He saw the same warrior Lord, but after quite
   another fashion. If John had continued to look with the eyes of sense
   at Christ and His followers even to this day and had viewed the battle
   as it is to be seen in history upon earth, he would have said that he
   saw the same despised and rejected One at the head of a band of equally
   despised and rejected, leading them to prison and to death. He would
   have told you how to this very day the banner of the Gospel is borne
   aloft amid smoke and dust and Christ crucified is proclaimed amid
   contention and ridicule. He would have drawn in black colors the scene
   of the battle, the great battle which is raging among the sons of men
   at this very hour.

   But now a door was opened in Heaven and John saw the scene as God sees
   it. He looked upon it from Heaven's point of view and saw the conflict
   between good and evil, between Christ and Satan, between the Truth of
   God and error! He saw it in Heaven's own clear view and he then wrote
   the vision that we, also, might see it. Oh, if we are sharers in this
   conflict; if we are following the Lamb wherever He goes; if we are
   pledged to the Truth of God and to the right; if we are sworn to the
   precious blood of Atonement and to the grand doctrines of the Gospel,
   it will do us good and stir our blood

   to stand on one of the serene hilltops of Heaven, above the mists of
   earth and look upon the battle which rages still upon the earth and
   will rage on till Armageddon shall conclude the war!

   If we can behold the scene, God strengthening our eyes, it may
   strengthen our hands for the conflict, our hearts for the fray. When
   the door was opened in Heaven, the first thing that the Seer of Patmos
   noticed was our Captain! Let us look at Him, first. Afterwards he saw
   His followers. And then he marked the mode of warfare and caught a
   glimpse of the great defeat of the foe.

   I. First, then, JOHN SAW OUR CAPTAIN, the King of kings! Let us notice
   His glorious state. He says, "I saw and behold a white horse; and He
   that sat upon him." While Jesus was here, as we have already said, He
   was a foot soldier. He had to plunge knee-deep through mire and dirt
   and walk as wearily as any of the rest of the warrior company. But now
   that He has ascended, though He continues to fight, it is in another
   fashion. Of course the terms are symbolical and none will take them
   literally, but our Lord is here described as sitting upon a gallant
   steed, charging His foes upon a snow-white horse. This means that
   Christ is honored. He is no weary, dusty, fainting foot soldier now, I
   guarantee you!

   Time was when Solomon said that he saw servants upon horses and princes
   walking in the dust--and so it was with Christ--Pilate and Herod rode
   the high horse and Jesus walked in pain and dishonor. But now, like a
   greater Mordecai, He rides on the King's horse, for this is the Man
   whom the King delights to honor! In royal state our Jesus goes forth to
   war, not as a common soldier, but as a glorious Prince, royally
   mounted! By a horse is denoted not only honor, but power. To the Jews
   the employment of the horse in warfare was unusual, so that when it was
   used by their adversaries they imputed to it great force.

   Jesus Christ has a mighty power today--a power which none can measure.
   He was crucified in weakness, but where is the weakness now? He gave
   His hands to the nails and His feet to be fastened to the wood but He
   does so no longer. Now He has mounted on the horse of His exceeding
   great power and He rules in Heaven and in earth and none can stay His
   hand, or put Him to dishonor, or dispute His will! O you that love Him,
   feast your eyes upon Him this day! It is not for me to speak--to do so
   were but to hold a candle to the sun--but gaze upon Him for yourselves
   and let your eyes be satiated with the image, as you see Him, once
   despised and rejected, now taking to Himself His great power!

   Here is symbolized swiftness, too. Christ had to walk when He was here
   and go from city to city, scarcely getting through them all till His
   time was accomplished. But now His Word runs very swiftly. He has but
   to will it and the voice of His Gospel is heard to the utmost ends of
   the earth! Their line is gone out through all the earth and their Words
   to the end of the world! Everywhere is the Gospel preached, if it is
   but for a testimony against them, and today is fulfilled before your
   eyes the Words of the Prophet Zechariah, "The Lord of Hosts has visited
   His flock, the house of Judah, and has made them as His goodly horse in
   the battle, and they shall fight because the Lord is with them."

   The color of the horse is meant to denote victory. The Roman conqueror,
   when he enjoyed a triumph, on returning from a campaign, rode up the
   Via Sacra on a white horse and the Romans crowded to the housetops to
   gaze upon the hero as he exhibited his spoils. Now Jesus Christ is
   admired of angels and elect spirits who throng the windows of Heaven to
   gaze upon Him who is glorified by His Father! There is a pale horse and
   his name that sits on him is Death, and there is a horse red with
   blood, and yet another black with judgment. But His is a white horse
   significant of comfort and ofjoy to all that know and love Him!

   He comes to fight, but the fight is for peace. He comes to destroy, but
   it is to destroy His people's enemies! He comes as a conqueror, but it
   is as a delivering conqueror who scatters flowers and roses where He
   rides, breaking only the oppressor, but blessing the citizens whom He
   emancipates. Again, I say, I scarcely like to speak upon this theme--it
   seems too great for me--but I would bid the saints of God who have wept
   at Gethsemane now lift up their eyes and smile as they see that same
   Redeemer who once lay groveling beneath the olive trees now riding on
   the white horse! Your Lord at this moment is no more despised, but all
   the Glory that Heaven itself can devise is lavished upon Him!

   John looked into the open vault of Heaven and he had time not only to
   see the horse, but to mark the Character of Him that sat upon it. He
   says that He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. By this
   you may know your Lord. He has been a faithful and true Friend to you.
   O soldiers of the Cross, when has He ever deceived you? When has He
   failed you, or forgotten you? Faithful? Ah, that He is, faithful to
   every Word that He has spoken. And true? Do you not recognize Him, for
   is He not the Truth--the very Truth of God? Has He not kept every
   promise that He has made you and have you not found His teachings to be
   everlastingly settled upon Divine veracity?

   And faithful and true has He been to the great Father. The work He
   undertook to do He has accomplished! He has in nothing drawn back from
   the Covenant engagements under which He laid Himself of old. He stood
   as the Surety of His people and He has been faithful and true to that
   smarting Suretyship. He came to be the Deliverer of His elect and He
   has worked the deliverance. He has not turned either to the right hand
   or to the left, but He has been faithful and true to every pledge which
   He gave to His Father for the deliverance of His chosen.

   Yes, and even His enemies, though they give Him many a black word,
   cannot say that He is not faithful and true! He has not played false,
   even to the basest devil in Hell, nor has He deceived, in any respect,
   the basest man that lives. Nor will He, for when the day comes to keep
   His Word of terror, He will make the penalty tally to every syllable of
   the threat and mete out vengeance with a line and judgment with a
   plummet--and even His adversaries, though they shall forever rue the
   fact--shall confess that His name is Faithful and True! They called Him
   many ill names when He was here. They said He had a devil and was mad.
   But now it is acknowledged that His name is Faithful and True. We
   acknowledge it with intense delight and are glad to think that He leads
   the troops of Heaven to the fight.

   John still looked and, as he gazed with opened eyes, he marked the mode
   of action and of warfare which the Champion employed, for he says, "In
   righteousness He does judge and make war." Jesus is the only king who
   always wars in this fashion. There have been brilliant exceptions to
   the general rule, but war is usually as deceitful as it is bloody and
   the words of diplomatists are a mass of lies. It seems impossible that
   men should deliberate about peace and war without straightway
   forgetting the meaning of words and the bonds of honesty! War still
   seems to be a piece of business in which truth would be out of
   place--it is a matter so accursed that falsehood is most at home
   there--and righteousness quits the plain.

   But as for our King, it is in righteousness that He does judge and make
   war. Christ's Kingdom needs no deception-- the most plain speech and
   the clearest truth--these are the weapons of our warfare! The
   Jesuitical craft which speaks not what it means; the priestcraft which
   undermines the faith of men in God to teach them faith in their fellow
   men; the falsehood which does not teach a doctrine at the first but
   gradually insinuates it into feeble minds; the craft which creeps into
   houses and leads astray silly women who are in bondage to their
   lusts--this has nothing to do with the kingdom of Christ. "In
   righteousness does He judge and make war." He bids His champions come
   forth with nothing but His Word and speak that Word faithfully, as they
   receive it, whether men will hear or whether they will not.

   He tells His people, wherever they are, to live righteously, soberly
   and in all integrity. And He Himself shakes off, as a man shakes off a
   viper from His hand, anything that is unrighteous, everything that is
   contrary to the Truth of God and holiness. This is our Champion and I
   guarantee you are right glad that He sits on the white horse and has
   the upper hand. Since He fights after this fashion, the more of such
   warfare the better for mankind! John, still gazing into the open door,
   saw a little--not much--of the Person of His blessed Master.

   And, of course, he looked, first, into those eyes, those dear eyes
   which had so often been filled with tears and that, at the last, were
   even red with weeping. John gazed into them, or wished to do so, but he
   had to cover his own eyes, for they were dazzled. He says, "His eyes
   were as a flame of fire." Think tonight of your Master on the white
   horse with such eyes as these. Why are they like flames of fire? Why,
   first, to discern the secrets of all hearts! There are no secrets here
   that Christ does not see. There is no lewd thought, there is no
   unbelieving skepticism that Christ does not read. There is no
   hypocrisy, no formalism, no deceit that He does not scan as easily as a
   man reads a page in a book. His eyes are like a flame of fire to read
   us through and through and know us to our inmost soul!

   Oh, think of this and if you have any deceit, tremble before Him in
   whose spirit there is no guile! Those eyes, like a flame of fire,
   belong to our Champion that He may understand all the plots and crafts
   of all our foes. We are sometimes alarmed--we say that the machinations
   of Rome are very deep and that the plots of infidelity dive very low.
   But what does it matter? His eyes are like a flame of fire--He knows
   what they are doing! He will confound their politics; He will expose
   their knavish tricks and still lead on His host conquering and to
   conquer! Let us never fear while He is on the white horse with such
   eyes as His!

   It was natural that John should carry his glance from the eyes to the
   brow and as he looked at our Champion on the white horse he saw that on
   His head were many crowns. The last he had seen there was a crown of
   thorns--but that was gone and in the place of the one crown of the
   thorns of the earth he saw many crowns of the jewels of Heaven! There
   rests the crown of creation, for this Word made Heaven and earth! There
   is the crown of Providence, for this Man now rules

   the nations with a rod of iron! There is the crown of Grace, for it is
   from His royal hand that blessings are bestowed! There is the crown of
   the Church, for be it known to all men that there is no Head of the
   Church but Christ, and woe unto those who steal the title!

   He is head over all things to His Church and King in the midst of her.
   Yes, on His head are many crowns, placed there by individual souls that
   He has saved. We have each one tried to crown Him in our poor way and
   we will do so as long as we live. All power is given unto Him in Heaven
   and in earth and, therefore, well may multitudes of diadems fill that
   august brow which once was belted with thorns! Glory be unto You, O Son
   of God! Our hearts adore You tonight as we contemplate You on Your
   white horse!

   Still looking at Him, John saw one thing more, namely, His vesture. He
   says that His vesture was dipped in blood. Oh, but this is the grandest
   thought about our Master, wherever He may be, that He is always a real
   Man wearing the bloody garment! As the atoning Sacrifice, He is at His
   best! We love Him as we see the white lily of His perfect Nature, but
   the rose of Sharon is the flower for us, for its sweet perfume breathes
   life to our fainting souls! Yes, He bled and this is the greatest thing
   we can say of Him. His life was glorious, but His death transcends it!
   A living Christ, a reigning Christ--we are charmed as we think of
   this--but oh, the bleeding Christ, the bleeding Christ for me!

   As the blood is the life, so is His blood life to us--the life of the
   Gospel, the life of our hopes--and one delights to think of Him that,
   though He rides the white horse, He has never taken off the bloody
   shirt in which He won our redemption! He looks like a Lamb that has
   been slain and still wears His priesthood! Whenever He goes out to
   conquer, it is with this harness on, this vesture dipped in blood! Oh,
   preach Him, you, His servants! Preach Him in His blood-red vesture! You
   shall never see souls saved if you portray Him in any other kind of
   coat! You take His own garment from Him and put on that of another--and
   you pretend that you are making Him more illustrious as you put on Him
   a scarlet robe! But His own blood is His beauty and His triumph! Let
   Him come before us in that and our hearts shall crown Him with loudest
   acclaim.

   One other thing John saw and that was His name. But here he seems to
   contradict himself. He says that He had a name which no man knows, yet
   he says that His name was the Word of God. Oh, but it is all true, for
   in such a One as our Master there must be paradoxes. No man knows His
   name! None of you know all His Nature. His love passes your knowledge.
   His goodness, His majesty, His humiliation, His Glory--all these
   transcend your mind! You cannot know Him. Oh, the depths! If you plunge
   deepest into the mystery of the Incarnate God you can never reach the
   bottom of it. "No man knows the Son but the Father." And yet you do
   know His name, for you know that He is "the Word of God."

   And what does that mean? Why, when a man would show himself, he speaks.
   "Speak," said the philosopher, "that I may see you." A man's speech is
   the embodiment of his thought. You know his thought when you hear his
   word, if he is a truth-speaking man. Now, Christ is God's Word. That is
   His heart, spoken out to you. His inmost thoughts of love are printed
   in great capital letters and set before you in the living, loving,
   bleeding, dying Person of the Incarnate Son of God! Thus is He called
   the Word of God and, in that capacity, it becomes us to delight
   ourselves exceedingly in Him and to exalt because He is now riding
   triumphantly upon His white horse.

   II. Thus have I bid you gaze at what John saw. Time chides me, however,
   and I can only ask you next, if you have seen the brightest One of all
   upon the white horse, just to look at HIS FOLLOWERS. "The armies which
   were in Heaven followed Him upon white horses. See, then, that Christ
   has a great following--not one army, but, "armies"--whole hosts of
   them--numbers that cannot be counted! My Lord is not the chief of a
   small band, but He has a great host. There are some who think that all
   Christ's followers go to their little Bethel and so they all sit down
   on the top of their own Mount Zion and sweetly bless the Lord who shuts
   out the rest of mankind. But I tell you, your little Bethel would not
   make a stable for the horses of His lieutenants!

   He has great armies following Him, for a countless number out of every
   people and nation and tongue has He redeemed with His most precious
   blood. And these that follow Him, you notice, are all mounted. They
   followed Him on white horses. They are mounted on the same sort of
   horses as Himself, for they fare as He fares. When He walks, they must
   walk. When He bears a Cross, they must carry crosses, too. But if ever
   He gets a crown, He cries, "They shall be crowned, too." If ever He
   gets on horseback, He will have His saints on horseback with Him, for
   it is not like He that He should ride and they should walk.

   Remember Alexander and how he kept up the spirit of his soldiers?
   Whenever the troops were thirsty, Alexander would not drink. And when
   they marched on foot, Alexander footed it with them. So is it with our
   Master--He has been marching here in the rough ways with us and He will
   let us ride in the Glory ways with Him when the time shall come. The
   armies of Christ followed Him on white horses. Look steadily at these
   white horses, for I want you to observe the armor of their riders.
   Cromwell's men wore at their sides long iron scabbards in which they
   carried swords which oftentimes they wiped across the manes of their
   horses when they were red with blood.

   A dreadful story that is to read, brave as were those Ironsides. But if
   you look at these troops there is not a sword among them! Not a
   scabbard dangles! Not a piece of metal flashes back the sunlight!
   Neither helmet nor breastplate is there, nor does there seem to be a
   pistol at the holster. They are not armed with lance or pike and yet
   they are riding forth to war! Do you want to know the armor of that
   war? I will tell you. They are clothed in white linen--white and clean!
   Strange battle array this! And yet this is how they conquer and how you
   must conquer, too. This is both armor and weapon. Holiness is our sword
   and our shield! This is pike and gun.

   If we but live as Christ lives and follow Him, we shall conquer, for no
   sword can come at him that lives to God-- since should it slay his
   body, it cannot touch his soul, he lives and conquers still! Think of
   this, and never ask for any other weapon but this in the day of battle.
   Yet I have said they were all on horses which shows you that the saints
   of God have a strength that they sometimes forget. You know not that
   you ride on a horse, O child of God! But there is a supreme invisible
   power which helps you in contending for Christ and for His Truth. You
   are mightier than you know and you are riding more swiftly to the
   battle and more rapidly over the heads of your foes than you ever
   dreamed!

   When a door shall be opened in Heaven to you and you get to the
   battle's end, you will say, "Bless the Lord, I, too, rode on a white
   horse. I, too, conquered when I thought I was defeated. I, too, by
   simple obedience to His will and keeping the faith and walking in His
   Truth, have been more than conqueror through Him that loved me." And is
   not this a grand sight, this Man--this "bonny Man," as Rutherford calls
   Him--on His white horse and all these bright ones following after Him
   in all their glorious array?!

   III. And now we must close, for the bell has tolled just now to show
   that the hour is up, but we cannot end till we have spoken of THE
   WARFARE. What is this warfare? There cannot be war without a sword, yet
   if you look all along the ranks of the white-robed armies there is not
   a sword among them! Who carries the sword? There is One who bears it
   for them all! It is He, the King, who comes to marshal us! He bears a
   sword. But where? It is in His mouth! Strange place! A sword in His
   mouth! Yet this is the only sword my Lord and Master wields. Mohammed
   subdued men with the scimitar, but Christ subdues men with the Gospel!

   We have but to tell out the glad tidings of the love of God, for this
   is the sword of Christ with which He smites the nations! Be His mouths,
   my Brothers! Be His mouths, my Sisters! Tell the children in your
   Sunday school classes! Tell the poor in the corners of the streets!
   Tell by your little printed pamphlets if you cannot by your voices, all
   the story of how He loved us and gave Himself for us--for this is the
   sword of our warfare--it goes forth from the mouth of Christ! Let us be
   content to fight with this and nothing else! And for those who will not
   yield to it, our Leader has a hand as well as a tongue and He says that
   He will rule the nations with a rod of iron!

   And if you will read history through, you will find that all nations
   that reject the Gospel have to suffer for it. I select one instance.
   The Gospel came to Spain years ago and multitudes of the nobility were
   converted. But they had their public executions and burnt the saints
   and the accursed Inquisition stamped out the Gospel in Spain. And to
   this day the nation cannot rise. It will, I trust, by God's forgiving
   mercy, but for centuries she that ruled the nations and covered the
   deep with her armadas has been sitting groveling in her poverty and
   sloth, for Christ has ruled her with a rod of iron and so will He rule
   all nations that reject the testimony of His mouth.

   If the sword of His mouth is not heeded, then comes the last of this
   dread warfare--and may God grant that we may never know it--when His
   foot shall do it, for He treads the winepress of the fierceness and
   wrath of Almighty God! Ah, what a crush must that be which will come
   upon the clusters of Gomorrah from the foot which once was nailed to
   the tree! Who stomped that sinner's soul and crushed it down? Was he an
   angry angel with a sword of fire? No, it was the Christ of God, the Man
   of Love rejected and despised! Fiercer than a lion on prey is Love when
   once provoked! When Love turns to Jealousy, its fires are like coals of
   juniper which have a violent flame.

   Beware, you despisers, lest you continue to despise. Submit to the
   sword of His mouth, lest you be destroyed by His hands! Be wise, when
   once His hands begin to smite, lest you have to feel His foot, for it
   is all over then! May you and I each have a white horse with which to
   follow Christ. But we never shall unless we are His followers here. We
   must put on the snow-white garments now! Here they are, ready for
   you--the righteousness of Christ will be given to any man who accepts
   Him and believes on Him! And when your snow-white garments are once on,
   He will give you the horse of His sacred strength and you, even you,
   following in the tracks of your gallant Leader, shall ride on,
   shouting, "Victory, victory, victory, through the blood of the Lamb."
   The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORESERMON--Revelation 18:21-24; Revelation
   19. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--45, 324, 851.
     __________________________________________________________________

Eternal Faithfulness Unaffected By Human Unbelief

   (No. 1453)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." 2
   Timothy 2:13.

   THIS is one of the five faithful sayings which the Apostle mentions.
   All those faithful sayings are weighty and important. I suppose that
   they may have come into the possession of the Church by having been
   uttered by some of those Prophets who were raised up to cherish the
   infancy of the Church, such as Agabus and the daughters of Philip and
   others. These may have been some of their more remarkable sayings which
   laid hold upon the minds of good men; were quoted by the preachers and
   teachers and so became current throughout the Church. Such golden
   sayings were minted into proverbs and passed from hand to hand,
   enriching all who received them. To the saints they became "familiar in
   their mouths as household words" and were specially named faithful or
   true sayings.

   No doubt the Apostle Paul gave his endorsement to many of these holy
   proverbs, but five of them he has encased in the amber of Inspiration
   and handed down for our special note. Perhaps it may interest you to
   notice them as they occur. The first one, probably the best one, is in
   the First Epistle of Timothy, first chapter, and the 15th verse, "This
   is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
   came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." I can suppose
   that the good news was frequently conveyed by humble-minded Christians
   to the outside world in that short and compact form--"Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners,''" so that it was commonly known to be
   a saying among Christians. It was the way in which those who could not
   preach a sermon and, perhaps, could scarcely compose a sentence for
   themselves, learned the pith and marrow of the Gospel and had it in a
   concise and simple form for instructing others. Converts were in the
   habit of telling this to their heathen friends and acquaintances
   wherever they went, that they might know what Jesus Christ had come to
   do and might be led to believe on His name.

   The next faithful or true saying is in the First Epistle of Timothy,
   the third chapter and the first verse. "This is a true saying , If a
   man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work." Any man who
   desires to oversee the Church of God and to be in the midst of the
   people as a shepherd, desires a good work. He will bring himself great
   anxiety, labor and travail, but the work is honorable and has so large
   a spiritual reward that a man is wise to choose it and to give his
   whole life to it. Another of these faithful sayings will be found in
   the First Epistle of Timothy, the fourth chapter, and the eighth verse,
   for so the words run, "For bodily exercise profits a little: but
   godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life
   that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and
   worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we both labor and suffer
   reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all
   men, specially of those that believe."

   Godliness has the profit of this life and the next and, therefore,
   godly men are content to suffer, because they expect and receive an
   abundant blessing as the result thereof at the hand of God. Such a
   proverb as this was greatly needed in persecuting times and it is still
   valuable in these greedy days when men find godliness a hindrance to
   their hasty snatching at wealth and, therefore, turn aside unto ways of
   dishonesty and falsehood. The next is the one which constitutes our
   text. We will not, therefore, read it again till we come to handle it.
   But the fifth is in Titus, the third chapter, and the eighth
   verse--"This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that you
   affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be
   careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable
   unto men." That those who believe in Jesus should manifest the holy
   character of their faith by their lives is another one of these
   faithful sayings which comes with all the greater force from Paul
   because he, above all men, was free from any suspicion of legality, or
   the putting of human merit into the place of the Grace of God which is
   received by faith.

   And now, coming to the faithful saying before us, it may not strike you
   at first, but scholarly men have observed that the 11th , 12th and 13th
   verses assume the form of a hymn. The Hebrew hymns were written in
   parallelisms, not, of course, in rhymes, and these three verses are
   thought to have been one of the oldest of Christian hymns--

   "It is a faithful saying: For if we are dead with Him,

   We shall also live with Him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with
   Him: If we deny Him, He also will deny us: If we believe not, yet He
   abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself."

   This is a miniature Psalm--one of those Psalms and hymns and spiritual
   songs with which the saints of God were known to edify one another. I
   am sure this last part of this brief hymn is well worthy to be regarded
   as a faithful saying among ourselves. Brethren, we may often mention
   it. We may frequently quote it. We may roll it under our tongue as a
   sweet morsel. We may pass it from one to another as a classic saying of
   Christian wisdom--"If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot
   deny Himself."

   In handling it at this time I would divide it into two folded parts.
   The first double portion is, the sad possibility, with the consoling
   assurance. "If we believe not"--sad possibility, "yet He abides
   faithful"--consoling assurance. The second part of our subject is the
   glorious impossibility and the sweet inference that we may draw from
   it. The glorious impossibility is--"He cannot deny Himself and the
   inference we draw from it is the obverse or converse of our text--If we
   believe, He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself.

   I. To begin, then, with THE SAD POSSIBILITY AND THE CONSOLING
   ASSURANCE--If we believe not, yet He abides faithful." I must take the
   sad possibility first--"if we believe not," and I shall read this
   expression as though, first of all, it concerned the world in general,
   for I think it may so be fairly read. If we believe not--if mankind
   believes not, if the race believes not, if the various classes of men
   believe not--yet He abides faithful. The rulers believe not and there
   are some that make this a very great point. They said concerning Jesus,
   "Have any of the rulers believed on Him?"

   If Lord So-and-So hears the preacher, there must be something in what
   he says. Englishmen are wonderfully impressed with the judgment of a
   duke or an earl and even with that of titled folk of lower degree. If
   any of the rulers believe in Him, who among worshippers of rank would
   raise a question? Is it published under authority? Do the great ones
   subscribe to it? "Oh, then," says one, "it must be good and it must be
   true." Now, I venture to say that all history proves that the Truth of
   God has very seldom been accepted by the rulers of this world and, for
   the most part, the poorest of the poor have been more able to perceive
   the Truth than the greatest of the great have ever been!

   There would have been no Christianity in the world at the present
   moment if it had not found a shelter in workshops and in cottages. It
   has flourished among the despised poor when it has been condemned by
   the great ones of the earth. Well, Sirs, if we believe not--that is, if
   our greatest men, if our senators and magistrates, princes and
   potentates, believe not--it does not affect the Truth of God in the
   smallest conceivable degree--"yet He abides faithful." Many, however,
   think it more important to know on which side the leaders of thought
   are enlisted and there are certain persons who are not elected to that
   particular office by popular vote, who, nevertheless, take it upon
   themselves to consider that they are dictators in the republic of
   opinion.

   They are advanced men and far ahead of the old school of Divines. Some
   of us think that they are advancing in the direction of going backwards
   and that they are putting ignorant guess-work into the room of proved
   doctrine and solid, experimental, Scriptural teaching. Still, as in
   their own opinion they are our superiors and pioneer the way of
   progress, we will, for a moment, think of them as such. Now, in our
   Lord's day the advanced thinkers were not on His side at all-- they
   were all against Him--and after He had departed, the greatest peril of
   the Church of God arose from the advanced thought of the period. The
   Gnostics and other Grecian thinkers came forward and threw their
   philosophical mud into the pure stream of the Gospel till there was no
   plain statement which was not rendered mythical, mystical, confused, or
   clouded, so that only the initiated could possibly understand it.

   The Gospel of Jesus Christ was meant to be the most plain Truth that
   ever shone upon the sons of men. It was meant to be legible in its own
   light by the young, the unlearned and the simple. But the advanced
   thinkers took the Gospel and twisted it, colored it, adorned it and
   bedaubed it till by the time it came through their various processes
   you would not have known it to be the same thing at all! And, in fact,
   Paul said that it was not the same thing, for he called it, "another
   gospel," and then he corrected himself and said it was not
   another--"But there are some," he said, "that trouble you."

   However, we need not care because of these wise men, for if they
   believe not, but becloud the Gospel, yet God abides

   faithful!

   If over there in the groves where Socrates and Plato gathered disciples
   by their philosophy; if over there, I say, there should not be found a
   single philosopher who believes in God, so much the worse for the
   philosophers! It does not affect the Gospel or our faith in it--if they
   believe not, He abides faithful! If Paul at the Areopagus gets no
   sympathy except from two or three and, in fact, they have only asked
   him there to "hear what this babbler says" and though they all, as they
   go home, say that Paul is beside himself and mad--and a setter forth of
   strange gods--yet Paul is right and the Lord abides faithful! Yes, and
   I venture to enlarge this thought a little more. If the rulers do not
   believe and if the philosophical minds do not believe--and if, in
   addition to this, public opinion, so called, rejects it--yet the Gospel
   is still the same eternal Truth of God.

   Public opinion is not the test and gauge of the Truth of God, for
   public opinion has continually altered and it will continue to alter.
   The aggregate thinking of fallible men is less than nothing when set
   against the one solitary mind of God, who is Infallible, as He reveals
   it to us by the Holy Spirit in the Words of Truth in the Scriptures.
   But some think that the old Gospel cannot be right because, you see,
   everybody says that it is out of date and wrong. That is one reason for
   being the more sure that it is right, for the world lies in the Wicked
   One and its judgment is under his sway. What are multitudes when they
   are all under the influence of the Father of Lies?

   The greatest majority in the world is a minority of one when that man
   is on God's side. Count heads, do you? Well, count by the millions if
   you like, but I shall rather weigh, than count--and if I speak the
   Truth of God--I have more weight on my side than can be found in a
   million who believe not! I wish we all partook of the spirit of
   Athanasius when he said, defending the Deity of his great Master, "I,
   Athanasius, against the world." You must learn to stand alone! When you
   know that you have a grip on revealed Truth, you may not set all the
   judgments of men in comparison with the eternal and Infallible judgment
   of the mighty God! No, though we believe not, that is, the mass of us
   and nations of us, "yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself."

   I want to ask your thoughtful attention to one consideration here. Have
   you not often heard it said that ministers ought to be abreast of the
   times; that theology should be always toned and varied so as to suit
   the advanced thought of the wonderful period in which we live? And as
   this is a time when infidelity appears to be in the very air, we are
   told that we ought to sympathize with it very earnestly and heartily,
   for it is a form of struggling for the Light which we ought to
   encourage. Now, this is another sort of talk from what I hear from the
   Apostle Paul. He has no sympathy with it! He put his foot on it. "Let
   God be true and every man a liar"--that is the style in which he
   speaks! As to going in to study the philosophies in order to tune the
   Gospel to their note, he says, "I determined not to know anything among
   you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

   When he finds that this style of doctrine does not please the Jew and
   that it is a stumbling block to him and that it does not please the
   Greek, but makes him sneer and call it foolishness, does the Apostle,
   therefore, say, "Come here, dear Jewish Friend. I have a way of putting
   this which will show you that I do not quite mean what you thought I
   did. I used the word, "Cross," in a certain sense not at all
   objectionable to Judaism"? Does he gently whisper, "Come to me, my
   learned Greek Friend and I will show you that your philosophers and I
   mean the same thing"? Not a bit! No, he stands fast and firm to Christ
   crucified and salvation by His blood, as, by God's Grace, I trust we
   are resolved to do. Though we believe not--that is, though the whole
   world believe not--yet God's Gospel is not to be altered to suit human
   whims and fancies, but in all its forms, in all its Divine authority,
   unpaved, uncut, worked out as a whole, it is still to be proclaimed,
   for, "He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself."

   Now, having spoken of our text as referring to the world in general, it
   is, perhaps, a more sorrowful business to look at it as referring to
   the visible Church in particular. The Apostle says, "Though we believe
   not," and surely he must mean the visible Church of God. And does the
   Church of God ever fall into such a state that we may say of it, "It
   believes not"? Yes, the visible Church has many and many a time
   fearfully turned aside. Go back for a type of it to the wilderness. The
   children of Israel were brought up out of Egypt with a high hand and an
   outstretched arm. They were fed in the wilderness with angels' food and
   made to drink of water from the Rock--but they were continually
   doubting their

   God--

   "Now they believe His word

   While rocks with rivers flow. But soon with sin they grieve the Lord,
   And judgments lay them low."

   And what happened? Did God depart from His purpose to give the land
   that flowed with milk and honey to the seed of Abraham? Did He break up
   the Covenant and grow weary of it? No--Abraham's seed inherited the
   land and they dwelt therein, every man under his own vine and fig tree.
   Though the visible people of God rejected Him full often, so that for
   their unbelief they died in the wilderness, yet He remained
   faithful--He did not, He could not deny Himself. Well, now, it comes to
   pass, sometimes, according to this type, that the visible Church of God
   apostatizes from the Truth of God. The Doctrines of Grace, the Truths
   of the Gospel are obscured, beclouded, scarcely preached--preached with
   gaudy words or hid behind ceremonies and rites and all sorts of things.

   And what happens? Are the foundation Truths removed? Is the eternal
   verity reversed? Has God recalled His promises? Oh no! "He abides
   faithful: He cannot deny Himself." Alas, the Church of God seems to
   lose, sometimes, her faith in prayer! Her pleading assemblies become
   scarce. Her prayer for men's conversion is scarcely raised. Few come
   together to supplicate the Lord and besiege the Mercy Seat. But what
   then? Does God change? Does He forsake His cause? Oh, no: "He abides
   faithful: He cannot deny Himself." At such times the Church almost
   loses her faith in the Holy Spirit and looks upon preaching as,
   perhaps, a necessary evil to be borne with--not as the vehicle by which
   the Holy Spirit saves men. They have small confidence in God's Word
   that, "By the foolishness of preaching" He will "save them that
   believe."

   They do not expect the kingdom of Christ to be predominant, but they
   say, "Since the fathers fell asleep what long ages have dragged along
   and what slow progress Christianity has made! It is a hopeless cause.
   Let us be content to let the heathen world alone." At such time they
   lose all heart and all faith in God! Have we not seen large portions of
   the visible Church of God decline into such a state as this till we
   have been ready to ask with our Master, "When the Son of Man comes,
   shall He find faith on the earth?" But, what then, my Brothers and
   Sisters? Suppose we should live to see a degenerate Church everywhere?
   Suppose it should become like Laodicea, till the Lord should seem to
   spew the visible Church out of His mouth because she has become neither
   hot nor cold?

   Suppose He should say of the professing Church of today as He did of
   Shiloh of old--"Go now to Shiloh where My place was at the first and
   see if there is one stone left upon another that is not cast down"? He
   took the candlestick away from Rome and He may take that candlestick
   away from other Churches, too. But would that prove that God was
   unfaithful, or that He had denied Himself? No, Beloved, no! His
   faithfulness would then be seen in the judgment with which He would
   visit an unfaithful Church. Yes, and it is seen today. You shall see a
   Church which does not believe in the simple Gospel grow few and feeble.
   According as the Churches cease to be evangelical, they are diminished
   and brought low. A Church that neglects prayer becomes disunited,
   scattered, lethargic, all but dead.

   A Church that has no faith in the Holy Spirit may carry on her
   ordinances, but it will be with barren formality and without power from
   on high--all of which proves the faithfulness of Him who said, "If you
   walk contrary to Me, I will walk contrary to you." If they cast away
   from them that which is their strength, it is but faithfulness on God's
   part that they should become weak. All the history of the Church, if
   you read it, from the days of Christ till now, will go to show that He
   deals with His Church in such a way as to make her see that He is
   faithful, whatever she may be. He will help her when she turns to Him.
   He will bless her when she trusts Him. He will crown her when she
   exalts Him. But He will bring her low and chasten her when she turns,
   in any measure, aside from the simplicity of her faith. Thus does He
   prove that He is still faithful.

   Once more, my Brethren, I will read the text in a somewhat narrower
   circle. "If we believe not"--that is to say, if the choicest teachers,
   preachers and writers believe not, yet He abides faithful. One of the
   most shocking trials to young Christians is the fall of an eminent
   teacher. I have known some that have been almost ready to give up their
   faith when someone who appeared to be very earnest and faithful has
   suddenly apostatized. Such things have happened in our memory, to our
   intense grief and I want, therefore, to put it very, very plainly. If
   it should come to pass that anyone whom you revere as having been blest
   to your soul--whom because you have received from him the Word of
   Life--if such a one upon whom you may, perhaps, have learned much,
   should, in the future, turn out not to be true and faithful and should
   not believe, do not follow his unbelief, for "if we believe not, yet He
   abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself."

   Peter denies his Master--do not follow Peter when he is doing that, for
   he will have to come back weeping and you will hear him preaching his
   Master again. Worse still, Judas sells his Master--do not follow Judas,
   for Judas will die a wretched death and his destruction shall be a
   warning to others to cling more closely to the King. You may see the
   man who stood like a cedar in Lebanon fall by one stroke of the devil's
   axe, but do not, therefore, think that the trees of the Lord, which are
   full of sap, will fall, too. He will keep His own, for He knows them
   that are His.

   Pin not your faith to any man's sleeve. Let not your confidence rest on
   any arm of flesh, neither say, "I believe because of the testimony of
   such a one and I hold to the form of sound words because my minister
   has held it," for all such props may be pulled away and all of a sudden
   may fail you! Let me put this very, very plainly. If we believe not--if
   those that seem to be the choice teachers of the age, the most
   successful evangelists of the period--if those who seem to stand the
   highest in the esteem of God's people, should, in an evil hour, forsake
   the eternal verities and begin to preach to you some other gospel which
   is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I beseech you follow us not, whoever
   we may be or whatever we may be!

   Suffer no teachers, however great they may be, to lead you to doubt,
   for God abides faithful! Keep to the revealed will and mind of God--for
   "He cannot deny Himself." Here, then, is the fearful possibility and
   side by side with it rims this most blessedly consoling assurance--"He
   abides faithful." Jesus Christ abides--there are no shifts and changes
   in Him. He is a rock and not a quicksand! He is the Savior whether the
   rulers and the philosophers believe in Him or refuse Him; whether the
   Church and her ministers are true to Him or desert Him. He is the same
   Savior, God-Man, sitting supreme upon the Truth of God. "Why do the
   heathens rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the
   earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the
   Lord and against His anointed? He that sits in the heavens shall laugh:
   the Lord shall have them in derision. Yet," says He, "have I set My
   king upon My holy hill of Zion."

   They cannot affect the imperial throne of our immortal Lord! He is
   still "the blessed and only Potentate" and so He must be, let them say
   what they will! And as Christ remains the same Savior, so we have the
   same Gospel. They have improved upon it, they tell us! Well, well, I
   feel so satisfied with the Gospel as I get it from Paul and the
   Inspired Apostles that I would rather not have this improved gospel if
   they will allow me to keep to the old original. But so it is, like
   babies pleased with new toys, they cry their "modern thought" and
   culture and advanced ideas! He that has once tasted the old wines does
   not desire the new, because he says, "The old is better."

   Our Savior and His Gospel abide the same! The Gospel of Paul, the
   Gospel of Augustine, the Gospel of Calvin, the Gospel of Whitefield,
   the Gospel of any succession offaithful men you like to mention
   suffices us. He abides faithful! And as the Gospel is the same, so does
   Christ remain faithful to His engagements to His Father. He has
   promised to keep those whom the Father gave Him and He will keep them
   even to the end. And when the sheep shall pass again under the hands of
   Him that counts them, He will say, "Of all whom You gave me I have lost
   none." "He abides faithful." To sinners all over the world He says that
   if they come to Him, He will not cast them out and He is faithful to
   that. He graciously promises that "whoever calls upon the name of the
   Lord shall be saved." And He will be faithful to that.

   He is also faithful to His saints. He has promised to preserve them to
   His eternal kingdom and Glory and He will preserve them. He says, "I
   give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any pluck them out of My hands"--and He has held them in His
   loving grasp and He will hold them even to the end! And all this,
   though all the unbelief in the world should rise against Him! He will
   stand to every Word He has spoken and carry out every promise He has
   declared, though all should distrust and deny. "Yes and amen in Christ
   Jesus" are all the promises, henceforth and forever--and we shall find
   it so.

   II. And now we have but a little time to spend upon the second very
   important part of our text, which is A

   GLORIOUS IMPOSSIBILITY WITH A SWEET INFERENCE THAT MAY BE DRAWN FROM
   IT. "He cannot deny

   Himself." Three things God cannot do. He cannot die. He cannot lie. And
   He cannot be deceived. These three impossibilities do not limit His
   power, but they magnify His majesty, for these would be infirmities,
   and infirmity can have no place in the Infinite and Ever-Blessed God.
   Here is one of the things impossible with God--"He cannot deny
   Himself." What is meant by that?

   It is meant, first, that the Lord Jesus Christ cannot change as to His
   Nature and Character towards us, the sons of men, for if He were to
   change He could only change from one state to another--from a better to
   a worse or from a worse to a better. If from a better to a worse, that
   were to deny Himself, indeed, by ceasing to be as good as He is by
   Nature.

   And if from a worse to a better, that were to deny Himself by proving
   that He was not, before, so good as He might have been! In no one point
   can Jesus Christ be changed, for He is "Jesus Christ, the same
   yesterday, today and forever." If in any point He changed, He would, in
   that point, deny Himself. But He cannot do this, for being God He
   changes not.

   His Word cannot alter. I want you to notice this, because His Word is
   so conspicuously Himself. His name shall be called the Word of God.
   Yes, He is Himself the Logos, the Eternal Word, and that Word cannot
   change. "The grass withers, and the flower falls away, but the Word of
   the Lord endures forever and this is the Word which by the Gospel is
   preached unto you." O servant of the Lord, the assurance which Paul and
   Peter gave, you may give! That same Word of mercy which those first
   messengers of Heaven went forth to declare, you may declare, for it
   still stands the same! He cannot deny His Word since that Word is
   Himself and He cannot deny Himself. He cannot, beloved Friends,
   withdraw the salvation which He has presented to the sons of men, for
   that salvation is, indeed, Himself.

   Jesus is the salvation of Israel. If a sinner wants to know where
   salvation lies, we point him to the Christ of God. He is not only a
   Savior, but He is Salvation itself! And His salvation cannot be
   changed, for if it were changed He would be Himself changed or denied
   and He cannot deny Himself. There is still the same pardon for the
   chief of sinners; still the same renewing for the hardest hearts; still
   the same generous response to those who have strayed most; still the
   same adoption into the family for aliens and foreigners. His salvation,
   as Peter preached it at Pentecost, is the salvation which we preach to
   sinners today. "He cannot deny Himself." And then the Atonement is
   still the same, for that, too, is Himself--He has, by Himself, purged
   our sins.

   He Himself is the Sacrifice. Well did the poet say--

   "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power."

   Because it is His blood, it must be unchanged in efficacy. He cleanses
   away our sins by Himself. His blood is His life and He always lives.
   And since He always lives, He is "able to save to the uttermost them
   that come unto God by Him." Blessed be His name, the atoning Sacrifice
   has not, even in the smallest degree, lost its efficacy! It is just as
   mighty as when it washed the dying thief from the foulness of Hell into
   the purity of Heaven and carried him from the gallows to a throne! Oh,
   how blessed must its power be to have cleansed so foul a wretch and to
   have placed him with the Master Himself in Paradise the same day! The
   Atonement cannot change, for that would involve that Jesus had denied
   Himself.

   And the Mercy Seat, the place of prayer, still remains, for if that
   were altered He would have denied Himself, for what was the Mercy Seat,
   or propitiatory, but that golden lid upon the Covenant Ark? What was it
   but Christ Himself, who is our Propitiatory, the true Mercy Seat? You
   may always pray, Brothers and Sisters, for if prayer were denied its
   efficacy, God would have denied Himself! This is His memorial, "The God
   that hears prayer," and if He does not hear prayer He has denied
   Himself and ceased to be what He was. Jehovah will never so deny
   Himself as to become like Baal, a deaf God--to imagine it would be
   blasphemy!

   And here is another sweet thought--Christ's love to His Church and His
   purpose towards her cannot change, because He cannot deny Himself and
   His Church is Himself. I mean not that visible Church of which I spoke
   just now, which is a mixed multitude, but I mean that invisible Church,
   that spiritual people, that bride of Christ which no man sees, for she
   is prepared in darkness and curiously worked in the lowest parts of the
   earth--and her Lord Himself will never actually see her till she is
   perfected, even as Adam never saw Eve, but slept until the great God
   had finished His bride and presented her in all her matchless beauty to
   be His sister and spouse. The day comes when the Lord Jesus Christ
   shall thus receive His perfected bride--and meanwhile He cannot change
   towards her, but His espousals shall be confirmed. She was taken out of
   His side when He lay in deep sleep of death and she is fashioned to be
   like He, so that when in joy He shall behold her, His joy and her joy
   shall be full. No, He will never, never deny her, for He cannot deny
   Himself. His plan of love shall be carried out and all His thoughts of
   Grace fulfilled.

   Nor will any of His offices towards His Church and people ever fail.
   The Prophet shall be Prophet forever--"He cannot deny Himself." The
   Priest shall be a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec and
   will never refuse to offer our prayers and praises and to cleanse our
   souls, for He cannot deny Himself. The King will never cease to reign,
   or doff His crown, or lay down His scepter, for He cannot deny Himself.
   The Shepherd will forever keep the flock. The Friend will

   eternally stick closer than a brother. The Husband will still love His
   spouse. All that He is in relation to His people shall continue and
   abide, for He abides faithful. "He cannot deny Himself."

   Now, my last word is about an inference. The text says, "If we believe,
   not, yet He abides faithful." It runs on that supposition. Now,
   Brethren, take the other supposition--suppose we do believe? Will He
   not be faithful in that case, too? And will it not be true that He
   cannot deny Himself? I will suppose that a sinner is, at this moment,
   saying, "I believe that Christ can save me. I will go and ask Him, I
   will go and trust Him." Ah, He will not deny Himself by rejecting your
   cry! I tell you, if He were to shut you out, dear Soul, whoever you may
   be, if you go to Him, He would deny Himself! He never did deny Himself
   yet. Whenever a sinner comes to Him, He becomes his Savior. Whenever He
   meets a sick soul, He acts as his physician.

   Now, I have heard of persons who have been physicians who were ill, or
   weary and needed rest--an accident has happened and they have felt
   inclined to get out of the way, if they could, because they were very
   hard-worked and worn out. They have told their servant to say, "My
   master is not at home!" But my Master never denied Himself! He will
   never get out of the way of a sinner! If you go to Him, you will find
   Him at home and on the look-out for you! He will be more glad to
   receive you than you will be to be received, for He "waits to be
   gracious." As Matthew sat at the receipt of custom, waiting for the
   people to pay their dues, so does Christ sit at the receipt of sinners
   waiting for them to mention their needs!

   He is watching for you. I tell you again that He cannot reject
   you--that would be to alter His whole Character and "un-Christ"
   Himself! To spurn a coming sinner would un-Jesus Him and make Him to be
   somebody else, and not Himself any longer. "He cannot deny Himself." Go
   and try Him! Go and try Him. I wish some trembling soul would, at this
   moment, go and cast Himself upon Christ and then report to us the
   result. Come, poor quivering Seekers, sing in your heart, unbelieving
   as you are, that hymn of ours--

   "I can but perish if I go, I am resolved to try! For if I stay away, I
   know I must forever die."

   Oh, but if you were to perish at His feet, you would be the first that
   ever did so out of all those who have ever come to Him! And that first
   man has never been seen yet! Go and try my Lord and see for yourselves.

   Well now, you Christian people, I want you to come, also. If you
   believe your Lord, He will be faithful to you. Suppose it is a time of
   trouble with you? He will be faithful to you--go and cast your burden
   upon Him. Suppose at this time you are much exercised with spiritual
   distress? Go to the Lord as you did at first, as poor, guilty,
   rebellious sinners--and cast yourself upon Him and you will find Him
   faithful. "He cannot deny Himself." If my Lord were not kind to me
   tonight when I go to Him with my burdens, I should think that I had
   knocked at the wrong door because the Lord has been so good and so
   faithful to me up to now that it would take my breath away if I found
   Him changed! Oh, how good, how exceedingly good is my Lord! Did not we
   sing just now--

   "He by my side has always stood: His loving kindness, oh, how good!"? I
   could sing that with all my heart and I hope many of you could
   earnestly join with me. You have a dear mother, or a fond wife, or a
   choice friend and none of them has ever spoken anything but kindness to
   you--if, therefore, in some dark hour you were to go to them and,,
   instead of showing sympathy, they gave you sharp words and you could
   evidently see that they did not love you, how surprised you would be!
   So should I be if I were to meet anything but love from my dear Lord
   after all these years of tenderness! There is no fear of it, for "He
   cannot deny Himself."

   So I finish by saying that we shall find it so in connection with the
   things of His kingdom and the concerns of His Truth. There is a great
   uproar just now about the God of Providence and they call me, I know
   not by what names, for speaking the Truth for my Master. Well, what
   comes of it? Shall we, therefore, be afraid? No! If we believe, we
   shall find Him faithful--He will not deny Himself. Is the good old
   cause really in danger from skepticism and superstition? Speaking after
   the manner of men, it may seem so, but it never really is so. Even if
   it were tottering, we must not put our hand upon the Ark of the Lord to
   steady it.

   God's cause is always safe! I do not know whether we may live to see
   it, but as surely as the Lord lives the Truth of God will be triumphant
   in England! They may tell us that Puritanism is thrust to the wall, but
   it will take the crown of the causeway yet. The old cause goes back a
   little to take a breath, but she will make such a leap in this land as
   shall utterly surprise the soothsayers, for the Lord will make the
   Diviners mad and they that count the towers and say that Zion is
   utterly fallen shall not know where to hide their heads! The devil once
   flew all over Europe and said, "It is all mine. Here they are, selling
   indulgences and the Pope and I are master of it all."

   But there was a poor monk who had not, himself, seen the Light of God
   but for a short time, who nailed his theses on the door of a Church and
   from that hour the Light of Christ began to spread all over Europe! And
   do you think the Lord is short of Luthers? Do you imagine that He has
   no sword or spear left in His armory? I tell you He has as many
   instruments within reach as there are stars in the sky! When the
   influence of the Gospel appears to recede, it is like the tide when it
   is ebbing out. Steadily it goes back and if we did not know better, we
   should begin to think that the silver waves would all give place to
   mire and shingle--yet when the hour comes, at the very minute--the
   waters pause and remain at one point awhile.

   Then up comes the first wave of the wash and another and another and
   another and another, rising, advancing, conquering the shore till the
   set has come to her fullness again! So must it be and so shall it be
   with the ocean of the Truth of God! Only let us have faith and we shall
   see the Gospel at the flood, again, and old England covered with it!
   Doubt what you like, Brothers and Sisters, but do not doubt Divine
   Truth or doubt God! Hold on to the side that is most disgraced and
   dishonored--that has the worst word from men--for Christ and His Church
   usually have the bleak side of the hill. Be content to breast the
   stream with courage learned from your Redeemer and Lord, for the day
   comes when to have stood with the Truth and with the Son of the Highest
   will be the grandest honor that a creature can have worn. May that
   honor be ours, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Timothy 2. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWM HYMN BOOK"--192, 664, 196.

   TO MY BELOVED CHURCH AND CONGREGATION:

   DEAR FRIENDS--After a long and severe illness I am now on my way to the
   South of France to seek rest and gather strength in a less trying
   climate. The Church has requested me to take three months' furlough and
   as this corresponds with the serious counsel of physicians and
   judicious friends, I shall probably accept the considerate advice. I
   have promised to correspond with you and with my sermon readers, week
   by week, by a note appended to the sermon, or by a short discourse such
   as I have written during the last two weeks.

   This, then, to commence with--I have reached Paris [Jan. 18, 1879] by
   easy stages and I am none the worse for the traveling, but all the
   better for the change. Snow is falling heavily and may detain us, but
   if not, we hope to be at Mentone next Wednesday. It would have been a
   far greater pleasure to me to have been able to occupy my pulpit, but
   as this must not be, I am right glad to speak by the press. May the
   weekly sermon be used by the Lord in a greater degree, now that the
   preacher's voice ceases for a while to proclaim His Gospel. One great
   favor I have to ask of you all--will you unite in hearty prayer that
   there may be a great revival at the Tabernacle during my absence?

   You have united to celebrate the 25th year of my pastorate by noble
   testimonies which I have dedicated to the Lord's work. Now unite with
   even greater ardor in seeking a great, a surpassing, a crowning
   spiritual blessing! The Lord's own Word is, "Bring you all the tithes
   into the storehouse and prove Me now, herewith, if I will not open the
   windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing, that you shall not have
   room enough to receive it." You have fulfilled the precept, now enquire
   for the promise!

   The Lord has guaranteed heavenly blessing, a Divine blessing, an
   overwhelming blessing--do not be content without it, or it will look as
   if you despised the promise of the Lord. We stand on vantage ground,
   now. Let us plead with double importunity, saying, "I will not let You
   go unless You bless me." Then will the windows open and the Divine hand
   pour out the benediction of His Spirit--and salvation shall come to
   multitudes through Christ Jesus our Lord. My love be with you all.
   Yours for Jesus' sake, C H. SPURGEON
     __________________________________________________________________

The Empty Seat

   (No. 1454A)

   WRITTEN WHEN AWAY FROM HIS PEOPLE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "David's place was empty." 1 Samuel 20:27.

   IT was quite right that David's place should be empty because Saul
   sought to slay him and he could not safely sit in the presence of an
   enemy who had twice before cast a javelin at him to "smite him even to
   the wall with it." Self-preservation is a law of Nature which we are
   bound to obey--no man should needlessly expose himself to sudden death.
   It were well if many a seat were empty for this reason, for there are
   places exceedingly dangerous to the soul from which men should rise and
   flee at once. Where Satan sits at the head of the table, no man should
   tarry. There is the seat of the scorner, of which the Psalmist
   spoke--God grant that those who have occupied it may leave it in
   trembling haste. There is the settle of the drunkard, the chair of the
   presumptuous and the bench of the sluggard from each of which it were
   wisdom to depart.

   May the Grace of God make such a change in all who have frequented the
   gatherings of the frivolous and the assemblies of the wicked that they
   may never be found in them again, but may be missed by their old
   companions who shall ask, "Why did the son of Jesse come not, neither
   yesterday nor today?" The javelin of temptation may soon destroy
   character, prospects and life, itself, and he is guilty of the grossest
   folly who exposes himself to it by placing himself where the arch-enemy
   finds chosen opportunities to work his deadly will.

   At this time I shall use David's empty place for quite another purpose
   and shall note, first, that in your assemblies at this time there are
   SEATS EMPTIED BY DEATH. Before I had left the shores of England for the
   space of two days I received the grievous intelligence that two out of
   the membership of my Church had been called Home in one day. Of a
   Sister, the wife of an earnest and well-beloved Deacon it must be
   said--her place is empty. And of a Brother who had been her friend and
   mine, the same expression must be employed. Our sympathies must now
   flow forth to a bereaved husband and also to a widow in whose hearts
   there are places sorrowfully emptied and in whose homes there will be
   an empty chair and an empty couch which will force from their eyes
   rivers of tears whenever they look upon them.

   It is our firm hope and confident belief that in these cases the loss
   of the House of God below is the gain of the House of God above--they
   fill other and better places and even those who loved them best and
   miss them most would not wish to call them back again. Jesus wills that
   His own should be with Him where He is and we cannot deny that He has a
   right to have them. Do not their eyes behold the King in His beauty?
   Would we deprive them of the vision? May the thought of the bliss of
   the departed yield solace to the surviving and may Divine consolations
   be richly given by the Holy Spirit in the hour of painful bereavement.

   Our places will be empty soon and we shall be missed from our
   accustomed pews in the House of Prayer--let the seats which have been
   just vacated remind us of this and silently call to our remembrance the
   precept--"Be you also ready." Use well your places for hearing the
   Gospel, for gathering at the Communion Table and for meeting for prayer
   while yet the opportunities remain to you, for the time is short and an
   account will have to be rendered. Love well those who are spared to you
   and do them all the good you can, for their places will not hold them
   forever. Cheer the aged, console the desponding, help the poor, for
   they will soon be beyond your reach and when you look for them you will
   be told that David's place is empty.

   Permit me also to remind you that among your assemblies there are SEATS
   EMPTIED BY SICKNESS for a while. You will not forget one place, the
   most conspicuous, which would be empty were it not filled by willing
   ministers who supply our lack of service. The Providence which empties
   that place is so wise and good that, though we cannot understand its
   object, we are sure that it will work for good and for the Glory of
   God. May I ask that, often as I am missed, I may have a fresh interest
   in your prayers, for these are a minister's wealth and a pastor's
   portion. Many others of the Lord's family are also sick and detained at
   home. They sigh as they remember the happy days when they went up to

   the House of God in company and mingled in the solemn feasts of
   Zion--but for them there are now no more the thunders of our united
   shouts of praise, nor the deep Amens of our forms of prayer--and they
   envy the very swallows that build their nests under the eaves of the
   sanctuary.

   Many of us have such afflicted ones in our own families and God forbid
   that we should cease to sympathize with them in their deprivations. Yet
   long continuance of health may dry the fountains of pity and lead to
   forgetfulness of the sorrows of others. Therefore it is no superfluity
   when we remind the healthy that there are others far less favored to
   whom it is one of their sharpest sorrows that their places at public
   worship are empty. Let us pray that a portion may be sent to their
   homes, according to the old Law of David, "as his part is that goes
   down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarries by the stuff:
   they shall part alike." Let us try to make this rule of battle a matter
   of fact by carrying home to the Lord's prisoners as much of the sermon
   as we can.

   Jacob did not go down at the first to Egypt, for he was aged and
   infirm, but his sons brought back corn for him, none the less. In
   telling the sick and bedridden the Truths of God which we have heard,
   our own memories will be refreshed. We are bound with those who are in
   bonds and we suffer with the suffering and, therefore, if we are living
   members of our Lord's mystical body, it is to us a matter of personal
   interest that David's seat is empty. In every well-ordered congregation
   there are SEATS EMPTIED BY HOLY SERVICE. Many Christian professors
   appear to think that their entire religious duty begins and ends with
   attendance upon the means of Grace--no village station receives their
   ministry, no ragged school enjoys their presence, no street corner
   hears their voice--but their pew is filled with commendable constancy.

   We do not condemn such, yet show we unto them a more excellent way. We
   know scores of Brothers and Sisters who come to one service on the
   Sabbath for spiritual food and then spend the rest of the day in active
   labor for their Lord. They are not so unwise as to leave their own
   vineyard untended by neglecting personal edification, but when this is
   earnestly attended to, they hear their Master's call and go forth into
   the great harvest and use the strength which their spiritual meal has
   given them. In this way they are even more benefited than if they were
   always "feeding," for holy exercise helps their mental digestion and
   they all the more completely assimilate their sacred food! And, in
   addition, they have struck a blow at the spiritual selfishness which
   tempts us to enjoy religious feasts and to make ourselves comfortable
   while sinners are perishing around us.

   Many are the Christians whose places ought to be empty during part of
   the Lord's Day--they are able-bodied and gifted and they ought not to
   eat the fat and drink the sweet all day long but should be engaged in
   carrying portions to those for whom otherwise nothing would be
   prepared. When the great king made a wedding feast for his son, he sent
   forth his servants into the highways and hedges to compel the
   wanderer's to come in. Did he starve those servants? Assuredly not! Yet
   he was not content to invite them to the table and leave the outsiders
   to hunger and faint. His servants found it to be their meat and their
   drink to do the will of him that sent them and to finish his work. Even
   so will Believers receive edification while they are seeking the good
   of others--like swallows, which feed on the wing--they shall find
   heavenly meat while they fly in the ways of service.

   The Holy Spirit delights to give more "oil for the light" to those who
   are diligently shining amid the darkness. Yet, let me add a warning
   here--I have known some young Believers who have lacked prudence and
   have carried a good thing too far. Before they have well learned, they
   have been eager to teach and to do so they have ceased learning! Their
   multiplied engagements have left them no time for their own instruction
   and they have left an edifying ministry to enter upon labor for which
   they were not qualified. Wisdom is profitable to direct. The most of
   Christians need to fill their seats for a part of the Sabbath to hear
   the Word of God and very few can afford to spend the whole day in
   seeking the good of others. We grieve to meet with some who are absent
   from the Lord's Table for months because of their zealous occupations.
   This is presenting one duty to God stained with the blood of another!

   It is the positive duty of every disciple to obey the Lord's command,
   "This do you in remembrance of Me" and efforts which necessitate
   neglect of the Divine precept must be curtailed. Often ought we to show
   His death until He comes. School teaching, street preaching, visiting
   the sick and so forth cannot be regarded as a substitute for hearing
   the Word and commemorating the death of the Redeemer! We must have time
   to sit at the Master's feet with Mary, or soon, like Martha, we shall
   be cumbered. Nevertheless, despite this word of caution, I am often
   glad to hear that "David's place was empty."

   It is to be feared that too easily we could find SEATS EMPTIED FOR NO
   GOOD REASON. Ministers in many congregations are distressed by the
   irregular attendance of their hearers. A little rain, a slight
   indisposition, or some other frivolous excuse will keep many at home. A
   new preacher has come into the neighborhood and the rolling stones are
   moved in his direction for a season to the grievous discouragement of
   the pastor. This evil of irregular attendance is most manifest at
   weekday services--there, often enough, David's seat is empty. No, not
   David's, for he longs to be even a doorkeeper in the house of his
   God--we mean the seat of Didymus, who was not with the Apostles when
   Jesus came--of Demas, who loved this present evil world and of many a
   Hearer who is not also a doer of the Word of God!

   In many a congregation those who gather at meetings for prayer are
   shamefully few. I have no reason to complain of this as a fault among
   my own beloved people to any large extent and yet I cannot shut my eyes
   to the fact that there are some members of the Church who would have to
   carry their memories a long way back to remember what a Prayer Meeting
   is like. Little do they know what they have lost by their neglect. Ah,
   my Friend, does that refer to you? Is David's place empty? Then mend
   your ways and fill it! Of all soul-refreshing seasons, I have often
   found week-night services to be the best. Like oases in a desert, these
   quiet periods amid the cares of the week wear a greenness peculiar to
   themselves. Come and try whether your experience will not tally with
   mine. I believe you will find it good to be there.

   Children, it is said, should be fed like chickens, "little and often,"
   and to my mind, short, lively services coming frequently, on Sundays
   and week-days, are more refreshing than hearing two or even three long
   sermons on one day in the week only. At any rate it is good for us to
   keep the feast with our Brethren and not to make them ask, "Why did not
   the son of Jesse come either yesterday or today?" I must take the
   liberty of being very personal to the usual attendants at the
   Tabernacle. Dear Friends, do not let your seats be empty during my
   absence. I shall be distressed beyond measure if I hear that the
   congregations are declining!

   The best preachers we can obtain are selected to address you and,
   therefore, I hope you will see no need to forsake your usual place. If
   you do so, it will reflect but small credit upon your pastor's
   ministry, for it will be manifest that you are babes in Grace,
   dependent upon one man for edification. "All are yours, whether Paul,
   or Apollos, or Cephas," and if you are men and women in Christ Jesus,
   you will get good out of them all and will not say, "Our own blunt
   Cephas is away and we cannot hear anyone else."

   I beseech you be very regular in your attendance during my absence,
   lest those who preach to you should be discouraged and ourselves, also.
   Above all, keep up the Prayer Meetings. Nelson said, "England expects
   every man to do his duty" and, at this time, which is an emergency in
   our Church history, I would say--the Church expects every member to
   sustain all meetings, labors and offerings with unflagging energy--and
   especially to keep up the Prayer Meetings. There, at any rate, let it
   not be said of any of you, "David's place was empty."

   Grace, mercy and peace be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Poor Man's Prayer

   (No. 1454B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Remember me, O Lord, with the favor that You bear unto Your people: O
   visit me with Your salvation; that I may see the good of Your chosen,
   that I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation, that I may glory
   with Your inheritance." Psalm 106:4,5.

   BELOVED, we always reckon it a very hopeful sign when a man begins to
   think of personal religion. Merely to come with the crowd and
   professedly to worship is but poor work. But when a man gets to feel
   the weight of his own sin and to confess it with his heart before
   God--when he wants a Savior for himself and begins to pray alone that
   he may find that Savior--when he is not content with being the child of
   pious parents, or with having been introduced into the Church in his
   childhood after the fashion of certain sects. When he pines for real
   godliness, personal religion, true conversion--it is a blessed sign,
   indeed! When a stag separates itself from the herd, we reckon that the
   dart has struck home--the wound is grievous and the creature seeks
   solitude--for a bleeding heart cannot bear company. Blessed are God's
   woundings, for they lead to a heavenly healing!

   We are still more glad when this desire for personal salvation leads a
   man to prayer--when he really begins to cry out before God on his own
   account--when he has done with the prayers he used to repeat by rote
   like a parrot and bursts out with the language of his heart! Though
   that language may be very broken, or consist only of sighs and tears
   and groans, it is a happy circumstance. "Behold, he prays" was enough
   for Ananias--he was sure that Paul must be converted! And when we find
   a man praying and praying earnestly for personal salvation, we feel
   that this is the finger of God and our heart is glad within us!

   The passage before us is one of those earnest personal supplications
   which we love to hear from any lips. I will read it again and then
   proceed to use it in two or three ways. "Remember me, O Lord, with the
   favor that You bear unto Your people: O visit me with Your salvation;
   that I may see the good of Your chosen, that I may rejoice in the
   gladness of Your nation, that I may glory with Your inheritance." Now,
   first, this is a very suitable prayer for the humble Believer--it was a
   humble Believer who first uttered it. Next, it would make a very
   suitable petition for a penitent backslider. And, thirdly, it would be
   a very sweet Gospel prayer for a seeker. May the Spirit of God bless
   the Word to each of these characters.

   I. First, then, this is an admirable prayer for a poor humble
   Christian. I think I can hear him using the very words. Notice with
   interest the first fear felt by this poor trembling Christian. He is
   afraid that he is such a little one that God will forget him and so he
   begins with, "O remember me with the favor which You bear to Your
   people." I know this man well. I think very much of him, but he thinks
   very little of himself. I admire his humility, but he often complains
   that he feels pride in his heart. He is a true Believer, but he is a
   sad doubter. Poor man, he often hangs his head, for he has such a sense
   of his own unworthiness. I only wish he had an equal sense of Christ's
   fullness to balance his humility.

   He is on the road to Heaven, but he is often afraid he is not and that
   makes him watch every step he takes. I almost wish some confident
   professors were altogether as doubtful as he is if they would be half
   as cautious. He is afraid to put one foot before another lest he should
   go wrong and yet he mourns his lack of watchfulness! He is always
   complaining of the hardness of his heart and yet he is tenderness
   itself! Dear Soul--you should hear him pray! His prayers are among the
   most earnest and blessed you ever listened to, but when he is finished,
   he is afraid he never ought to have opened his mouth. He is not fit to
   pray before others, he says. He thinks his prayers the poorest that
   ever reach the Throne of God. Indeed, he is afraid they do not get
   there but spend themselves as wasted breath.

   He has his occasional gleams of sunlight and when he feels the love of
   God in his soul he is as merry as the cricket on the hearth. There is
   not a man out of Heaven more joyous than he when his hope revives. But,
   oh, he is so tender about sin that when he finds himself growing a
   little cold, or in any measure backsliding, he begins to flog
   himself--at which I

   am very glad, but he also begins somewhat to doubt his interest in his
   Lord, of which I am not glad, but pity him much and blame him, too,
   though with much sympathy for him. Now, I am not quite sure about this
   good man's name--it may be Little-Faith, or Feeble-Mind. Or is it Mr.
   Despondency I am thinking of? Or am I talking of Miss Much-Afraid? Or
   is it Mr. Ready-to-Halt? Well, it is someone of that numerous family.

   This poor soul thinks, "Surely God will forget me!" No, no, dear Heart,
   He will not forget you! It is wonderful how God thinks of little
   things. Mungo Park picked up a little bit of moss in the desert and as
   he remarked how beautifully it was variegated, he said, "God is here:
   He is thinking of the moss and, therefore, He will think of me." Once
   upon a time a little plant grew right in the middle of the forest and
   the trees stretched for many a mile all around it and it said to
   itself, "The sunlight will never get at me. I have a little flower
   which I would gladly open, but it cannot come forth till the sunbeam
   cherishes me. Alas, it will never reach me! Look at the thick foliage!
   Look at the huge trunks of those towering oaks and mighty
   beeches--these will effectually hide the sun from my tiny form."

   But in due season the sun looked through the trees like a king through
   the lattices and smiled on the little flower, for there never was a
   flower that God has not thought of and provided for! Say you not right
   well that "each blade of grass has its own drop of dew," and do you
   think that God will forget you, little as you are? He knows when
   swallows fly and when ants awake and gather their food and will He not
   think of you? Because you are little you must not suspect the love of
   your heavenly Father! Mother, which child is that which you never
   forget? If you ever went to bed at night and left one of the children
   out of doors, I know which one it was not. It was not the babe which
   lies helpless in your bosom. You never forget that. And you helpless
   ones, you timid trembling ones, if the Lord must forget any, it would
   be the strong, but certainly not you! As you breathe the prayer,
   "Remember me with the favor that You bear to Your people," the Lord
   answers you, "I do earnestly remember you still."

   Observe next, that this poor trembling heart seems to be in great
   trouble for fear the Lord should pass it by, but at the same time feels
   that every good thing it can possibly receive must come from the Lord
   and must be brought to it by the Lord. Note the words--"O visit me with
   Your salvation," as if he had said--"Lord, I cannot come to You! I am
   too lame to come, I am too weak to come, but visit me. O Lord, I am
   like the wounded man between Jericho and Jerusalem-- I am half dead,
   and cannot stir. Come to me, Lord, for I cannot move to You. Visit me,
   for only Your visits can preserve my spirit. I am so wounded and sorely
   broken and undone, that if You do not visit me with Your salvation even
   as if I never had been saved before, I must be lost."

   Now, poor Trembler, let me whisper a half word into your ear and may
   God the Holy Spirit make it a comfort to you. You need not say, if you
   have a broken heart, "Lord, visit me." Do you not know that He dwells
   in you, for is it not written, "To this man will I look and with this
   man will I dwell, even with him that is poor and of a contrite spirit,
   and that trembles at My Word"? Are you not the very person? I wish you
   could rejoice at God's Word, but as you cannot, I am glad you tremble
   at it, for you are the man that God has promised to dwell with.
   "Trembles at My Word"'--lay hold on that and believe that the Lord
   looks towards you and dwells with you!

   What a plaintive prayer this is! Carefully consider that this poor,
   weak, humble, trembling one longs to partake in the blessings which the
   Lord gives to His own people and in the joy which He has in store for
   them. This is the way in which he speaks, "I hear many Christians
   around me say that they know and are persuaded--O that I had a little
   of their certainty! I hear them speak so confidently, with such full
   assurance and I see the light leap out of their eyes when they talk
   about their sweet Lord and Master and all His love to them--oh, how I
   wish I could talk so! Poor me, I am only able to say, 'Lord, I believe:
   help You my unbelief.' I see them sitting at a loaded table and they
   seem to feast most abundantly, but as for me, I am glad it is written
   that the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the Master's table, for if
   I get a crumb now and then, I feel so happy with it!

   "But I wish I could sit and feast where others of God's children do. Oh
   that I could talk of rapt fellowship and close communion and joy and
   overflowing bliss! They tell me, some of them, that they sit down on
   the doorstep of Heaven and look within and see the golden streets and
   that, sometimes, they hear stray notes from the harps of the blessed
   ones in the far-off country. Oh, how I wish I had a sip of these joys!
   But, woe is me, I dwell in Mesech and sojourn in the tents of
   Kedar--the only music that I hear is the din of a sinful world--the
   viols of them that make merry in wantonness. I miss those precious
   things which the saints delight in."

   Poor sorrowing Heart, let me say to you, and say in God's name--If you
   love your Lord, all things are yours. They are yours freely to enjoy
   even at this moment! The Lord denies you no Covenant blessing. Make
   bold to appropriate the sacred joys, for if you are the least child in
   the family, yet the heritage of God's children is the same for
   everyone! There is no choice thing that God will keep away from you.
   No, if there is one morsel more dainty than another it is reserved for
   such as you are! Be bold, then! If you are the Benjamin in the family,
   you shall have Benjamin's mess which is 10 times larger than any other!
   He will comfort you and bless you.

   Only be of good cheer and when you are praying, "Favor me with the
   favor which You bear to Your people," let your faith hear Him say, "I
   am your portion." Rejoice in the Lord your God! Lift up the hands that
   hang down and confirm the feeble knees. Is not my text a sweet prayer
   for you? Pray it in faith and be at peace.

   II. We will now look another way and say that our TEXT IS A SUITABLE
   PETITION FOR A POOR PENITENT BACKSLIDER. I know there are backsliders
   here, though, alas, I am not sure that they are penitent. Only the Lord
   can read their hearts. But if they are penitent, I can hardly conceive
   a more suitable petition for them than that which is before us. It is
   clear that this poor, pleading backslider feels that he has forgotten
   His God. Have you done that? You have been a Church member and you have
   gone sadly astray. Have you quite forgotten His Commandments? You
   thought you loved Him. You used to pray, at one time. You had some
   enjoyment in reading and in hearing the Word.

   But now you find your pleasure somewhere else. You have left your first
   love and gone after many lovers. But, oh, if the Lord is gracious to
   you, you are lamenting your forgetfulness and though you have not
   remembered Him, the prayer leaps to your lips, "Lord, remember me!"
   Blessed be His name, He does not so easily forget us as we forget Him.
   If you are a truly penitent backslider, your feelings of repentance
   prove that God remembers you! It is He that sets you weeping and makes
   you sorrow for your sin! If you had been altogether forgotten of God,
   you would not have any desire to return to Him! But those inward pangs,
   those secret throes, those desires to be restored to the Lord--these
   prove that He remembers you with the favor which He has towards His
   people.

   And, then, I think your next trouble will be this--you feel that you
   have lost your fellowship with Christ and you are right in so feeling,
   for, "How can two walk together except they are agreed?" How could
   Christ have fellowship with you in the ways of folly? Do you think
   Christ would come and talk comfortably to you while you are frivolous,
   or while you are unclean? How could that be? All joyful communion
   between your soul and God is broken and well may you pray, "O visit me
   with Your salvation. Come back to me, Lord. Come and dwell in me
   again--

   'Why should my foolish passions roam? Where can such sweetness be As I
   have tasted in Your love, As I have found in Thee?'

   Come back, my Lord, and visit me with Your salvation." Is not this a
   prayer made on purpose for you?

   And, next, you observe in the text that the poor backslider is longing
   to get a sight of the good things which for a long time have been hid
   from him. He Cries, "That I may see the good of Your chosen." He has
   been out among the swine, but he could not fill his belly with the
   husks. He has been hungering and thirsting and now he remembers that in
   his Father's house there is bread enough and to spare. Backslider, do
   you remember that tonight? You know you are not happy and you begin to
   perceive that you never will be happy while you are living in the far
   country. If you had not been a child of God you might have made a happy
   worldling after the sort of happiness that worldlings know, but you are
   spoiled for a worldling if you have ever known the love of God! And you
   have known that, or else you have been, indeed, a hypocrite! Do you not
   sigh to the Lord to give you these good things again?

   Well, He will freely give them to you and He will not upbraid you. Come
   and try Him! He is ready to press you to His bosom and to forget and
   forgive the past and accept you in the Beloved. The poor backslider
   praying in the words of my text longs to taste once more the joy he
   used to feel and, therefore, he says, "That I may rejoice in the
   gladness of Your nation." And, again, he wants to be able to speak as
   he once could--"that I may glory with Your inheritance." Poor man, he
   is ashamed to speak to sinners. He hangs his head in company, for there
   are some that call him a turncoat. He does not like to have it known
   that he was once a Christian and, therefore, he comes stealing in to
   the assembly of the saints as if he hoped no one would know him.

   There he is, but he feels half ashamed to be there--and yet he wishes
   that he were once more with the Christian brotherhood and could rejoice
   with them. My poor Friend, you used to be bold as a lion for Christ and
   now you turn tail

   and fly! How can you be bold with all those inconsistencies? There was
   a time when you might have made a martyr, but now what a coward you
   are! And who wonders that you are so when they know that secret sin has
   sapped and undermined your profession and made you weak as water? I beg
   you to pray the prayer--"That I may glory with Your inheritance." You
   will never again make your boast in the Lord till you are restored,
   till you come back as you came at first with the old cry, "Father, I
   have sinned before You and am no more worthy to be called Your son."
   Come back even now, my Brother, and get another application of the
   blood of sprinkling. Look again to Jesus!

   Ah, and I may here say, even if you have not backslidden, look again to
   Jesus! Those of us who have not fallen had better look to Him with our
   Brothers and Sisters who have fallen, for there is the same blessing
   needed by us all. We have all wandered to some extent. Come, let us
   look at those dear wounds anew! Can you not see Him? I think He hangs
   before me now! The crown of thorns is on His head and His eyes are full
   of languid pity and tearful grief. I see His face stained with spit and
   black and blue with cruel bruises! I see His hands--they are fountains
   of gore. I see His feet--they gush with rivulets of crimson blood. I
   look upon Him and I cry, "Was ever grief like Yours, O King of
   Sorrows?"

   And as I look I remember that the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
   all His people--and, looking--my sin departs from me because it was
   laid on Him! Looking, my heart yearns to love and then yearns to leap!
   Looking, I come back to where I stood before and now, once again,
   Christ is my All and I rejoice in Him! Have you gone through that
   process, Backslider? If you have done so while I have been speaking,
   let us praise God together!

   III. The last use I have to make of my text will, I hope, be beneficial
   to many here present. It is this--THIS IS A

   VERY SWEET PRAYER FOR A POOR SORROWING SEEKER. I beg all who desire
   conversion to remember this

   prayer. They had better jot it down and carry it home with them, or,
   better still, breathe it to Heaven at once. Consider it well. To begin
   with, it is a sinner's prayer. "Remember me, O Lord!" A sinner's
   prayer, I say, for the dying thief rejoiced to use the words. He could
   not have reached down for a prayer-book and said a collect, poor man,
   when he was dying--and there was no need he should. This is the best of
   prayers--"Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom."

   Trembling Sinner, what suited the dying thief may well suit you!
   Breathe it now, "Forget my sins, my Father, but remember me! Forget my
   delays; forget my rejecting of a Savior; forget the hardness of my
   heart, but, oh, remember me! Let everything pass away from Your mind
   and be blotted from Your memory but, dear Father, by the love of the
   Lord Jesus, remember me!" Sinner, do not go home without presenting
   that prayer to God! Note, again, it is the prayer of a lost one. "Visit
   me with Your salvation." Nobody wants salvation unless he is lost.
   People may talk about salvation who do not feel that they are lost, but
   they do not know anything about it and do not really desire it.

   Lost Soul, where are you? Are you lost in a thousand ways--lost even to
   society? Well here is a fit prayer for you-- "Visit me with Your
   salvation." Jesus Christ has not come to seek and to save those who do
   not need saving, but He has come on purpose to seek and to save those
   who are lost. You are the man He came to bless. Look to Him and you
   shall find that He is the Savior you require. "Visit me with Your
   salvation"--I cannot get this prayer into your hearts, but God can--and
   I am praying in my own soul that many of you in the galleries, or down
   below there, may now be crying, "Visit me with Your salvation."

   Farther, remember that our text is the prayer of one who has a dim
   eye--"That I may see the good of Your chosen." We have told the seeker
   to look to Jesus, but he complains, "I try to look, but I cannot see."
   Beloved Seeker, I do not know that you are bid to see. You are bid to
   look and if you could not see when you looked, you would at least have
   obeyed the Gospel command. The looking, the looking would bring
   salvation to you! But for dim eyes Christ is the great cure. He can
   take away the cataract and remove the gutta serena. Pray tonight,
   "Lord, open my blind eyes that I may see the good of Your chosen." Then
   it is a prayer for a heavy heart. "That I may rejoice in the gladness
   of Your nation." The seeking soul moans out, "O that I had a little
   joy, or even a trembling hope! If it were ever so small a portion of
   light I should be glad." Pray for joy. The Lord waits to give it and if
   you believe in Jesus your joy shall be full.

   And in the last place--not to detain you till you are weary--our text
   is the prayer of a spirit that is humble and laid in the very dust. It
   cries to God to enable it to glory with His inheritance because it is
   stripped of all other glory, emptied of its own boasts. Practically its
   plea is, "Lord, give me to boast in Your mercy and Your goodness, for I
   have nothing else to boast of." Now, beloved Hearer, this prayer I
   would most earnestly press upon you and I would press it upon you for
   these reasons.

   Just think for a moment. Supposing you are living now without seeing
   the good of God's chosen, without being saved, what a wretched life it
   is to live! I cannot understand what men do without God! I cannot
   comprehend how they live. Do you have no cares? "Oh," you say, "we have
   anxieties in shoals." Well, where do you take them? I find I have
   troubles enough, but I have a God to take them to! What do you do with
   many troubles and no God? Do your children never distress your mind?
   How can you live with bad children and no God? Do you ever lose money
   in your business? Do you ever feel distracted? Do you ever say, "What
   shall I do? Which way shall I turn?"

   I suppose you do. Then what do you do without a helper or a guide? Poor
   weak thing as I am, I run under the shelter of my Father's wings and I
   feel safe enough. But where do you go? Where do you fly? What is your
   comfort? I suppose you are something like the poor creatures condemned
   to death in old times to whom they gave a stupefying drink so that they
   might die without feeling the horror of death--surely you must be under
   a strong delusion that you can believe a lie, for if you were in your
   senses you could not do without a God--no, not with your beautiful
   gardens and fine parks and wealth and riches and much less--many of
   you--with your poverty and hard labor!

   Poor man without a God, how do you keep up your spirits? What comfort
   is there in your life? No prayer in the morning, no prayer at
   night--what days, what nights! Oh, men, I could as soon think of living
   without eating, or living without breathing, as living without prayer!
   Wretched naked spirits your souls must be without God to cover them!
   But if it is bad to live without Christ--and I am sure it is--what will
   it be to die without Him? What will it be to look into the future and
   find no light--no light and nobody that can bring you any? You have
   sent to the minister and he has spoken with you, but he cannot help
   you. You have had the prayers of your family who are sobbing at the
   thought of losing you, but you are looking out, alone, like one that
   gazes upon an angry sea in a cold winter's storm--and you can see
   nothing but the palpable dark.

   Or, to change the metaphor, you are like a man on yonder wreck. Look,
   he is clinging to the mast! He hears the blast go whistling by him and
   soon it comes back howling around him, as if hungry for its prey. He
   can hear the seabirds screaming in the sky and they seem to prophesy
   his doom. The waves break over him, drenching him with their brine till
   he is ready to freeze as he hangs between Death's awful jaws. The
   lifeboat has been there and carried off all it can and it will never
   come back and, though he clings with desperation, he knows it is a
   forlorn hope. He will drift out to sea and his corpse will lie where
   pearls lie deep, in the caverns where many thousand skeletons have
   bleached these many years. His case is terrible to the last degree and
   yet it is a feeble picture of a soul leaving the body without an
   interest in Christ's salvation!

   Before you get into that state, cry to God, "Remember me, O Lord, with
   the favor that You bear unto Your people. O visit me with Your
   salvation!" But the mist darkens and the tempest lowers in tenfold fury
   when we come to think what it must be to rise again from the tomb
   without Christ. When that last shrill clarion has sounded and every
   grave and cemetery shall have given up their sleepers. When the sea has
   yielded up the dead that are there and battlefields are swarming with
   the myriad slain that live again! When in the sky shall be seen the
   Great White Throne and upon it the Son of Man who bled for sinners, now
   come to judge and to condemn His adversaries--what will men then do if
   they have no personal religion, no interest in Christ, no portion in
   His salvation? Scripture tells us that they will ask the rocks to hide
   them and the hills to cover them! But they have no hearts of
   compassion--they will yield no shelter. There will be no refuge for the
   ungodly and nothing before them except the fiery indignation and wrath
   of God. "Turn! Turn! Why will you die?"

   This is a common scene to many of you, this great gathering in the
   Tabernacle. I must confess I cannot look upon it without emotion,
   though I see it twice each Sunday. Here are all of you, and I, a lone
   man, standing here to talk to you in God's name. It is as much as my
   soul is worth if I am not earnest with you, but ah, I am not half as
   earnest as I ought to be. Yet hear me once more! I am a true prophet at
   this hour--when I warn you that you shall see this sight again if you
   reject the Savior. Across the flames of Hell you will see it and you
   will say to yourself, "The preacher warned us. He told us to cry to God
   for mercy. He pointed us to the Savior. He bade us pray and pray then
   and there."

   You will remember my entreaties and then you will renew your agony with
   a wail which shall never end! You will cry, "God called, but I refused!
   He stretched out His hands, but I regarded Him not and now the day of
   Grace is past and the Christ whom I despised laughs at my
   calamity--there is no hope--no hope! I knocked too late at Mercy's
   door. My

   lamp went out. I was a foolish virgin and I am shut out in outer
   darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

   In the name of the everlasting God I pray you submit yourselves to
   Christ your Lord at once and you shall live! Amen. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 51. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--51, 584, 556.
     __________________________________________________________________

Every Man's Necessity

   (No. 1455)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You must be born again." John 3:7.

   WHEN men are perishing all around you it would be cruel to waste time
   in attempting to interest their minds or to amuse their fancies. We
   must do something more practical and give earnest heed to their
   pressing necessities. Is it famine which slays them? Let us feed them.
   Is it cold? Let us supply them with covering. Is it disease? Let us
   administer medicine. When the case is urgent, we confine ourselves to
   necessities and attend with our whole heart to that which must have our
   attention. That which may can wait, but that which must demands our
   immediate care.

   Now, the spiritual needs of men are urgent and among them the most
   pressing is their regeneration--they must be born again or they are
   lost! Therefore, at this time we will dwell on this topic and give it
   our whole consideration, letting other interesting matters wait till
   this most weighty business is happily over. This is a must and we must
   press it upon you at once with our whole heart! Our earnest desire is
   for a great ingathering of souls to the garner of salvation, but in
   order to this they must be born again. We have had many of you hovering
   round about us like birds around the fowler, but you are not, as yet,
   taken in the Gospel net. This state of things cannot content us--we
   need to see you decided for Christ and truly born again.

   You have long been hearers, but, alas, you remain hearers, only, and
   are not "doers of the Word of God." We do not want the fault to lie
   with us--if you continue unsaved it shall not be because we have not
   preached the Gospel and kept to preaching it and preached it as a
   matter of life and death! Again, then, we aim at the one point, the
   point of absolute necessity--"You must be born again." We trust that if
   one arrow does not reach the mark, another may. At any rate, we will
   continue driving at the one target--the conversion of your souls. O you
   who as yet have not been brought to know the Lord, may the Holy Spirit
   guide the arrow at this hour!

   And now we will have a little simple talk about the great experience
   called regeneration, or the new birth, without which no man can see the
   kingdom of Heaven, much less enter it.

   I. And we shall remark concerning it, in the first place, that the
   change which is worked in us by the new birth is MOST THOROUGH. "You
   must be born again." A new birth is the most sweeping and entire
   process conceivable. It is, in fact, more than a change, it is a
   creation. Regeneration is a great deal more than reformation of life,
   or a becoming religious, for it is not, "You must be washed, you must
   be improved, you must be elevated," but, "you must be born." It is not
   enough that the present life, as already possessed, should be
   renovated; that the existing nature should receive fresh vigor and new
   tone, but "you must be born again"--a new life must be received and no
   improving the present life will suffice in its place.

   It is also a great deal more than any change of opinion. I am always
   afraid of those persons who glory in being converted from one set of
   religious opinions to another. The best converts to a Church are those
   who are brought into it from the world--those who migrate from other
   sections of Christianity are not often the most valuable acquisitions.
   Sometimes, like the convicts who leave their country for their
   country's good, they benefit their party best by leaving it and do not
   come to the newly adopted section of the Church as an unmixed gain. The
   text says not, "You must change your opinions and drink in new
   notions," but, "You must have a new nature; you must be born again."
   Notions may be altered again and again and yet the man may be no nearer
   being a child of God--but let the nature be changed by the Holy
   Spirit--and then the matter is accomplished!

   This it is and nothing short of this can land a man in Heaven--he must
   become a new creature in Christ Jesus. The process of the new birth is
   so thorough that it is a great deal more than an alteration of a man's
   way of thinking, even upon the best of topics. A man may now think it
   his duty to be religious, whereas once he was debauched. He may now
   conceive it to be his duty to be sober, whereas before he was a drunk.
   He may feel it his duty, now, to be diligent, whereas

   before he was a sluggard. But all these put together would not amount
   to a new birth! We rejoice in reformation of any sort. The less sin
   there is in the world the better, but, for all that, the vital point
   will not have been reached with all the alterations of thought and even
   of life, of which a man is capable!

   The text remains in force after all the renovations, conversions and
   reformations that are possible to unaided flesh and blood--and it cries
   with stern, unchanging voice--"You must be born again." The person
   concerned may have passed through a long series of ceremonies. He may
   have been received with a welcome into a so-called church and from the
   hands of those who think themselves priests there may have distilled
   the aqueous imposture which is said to regenerate the soul. But there
   is something more needed than priests can convey, or than water can
   effect. Our Lord Jesus Christ meant something far other than the hocus
   pocus of an empty form when He said, "You must be born again."

   I say in the presence of all that have been baptized in infancy and all
   that have been baptized in adult age but were not Believers--you, even
   you, baptized infidels--"Fou must be born again!" If you have been
   baptized and re-baptized, but are still unbelievers and have not the
   Spirit of God in your souls, "you must be born again." What does all
   this mean? And what is the signification of this so thorough change? Do
   not the words evidently mean that a new nature must be created in us?
   For a life, a nature is the production of a birth. At a birth there
   comes into the world a life which was not there before.

   There must come into us a new life to which, by nature, we are perfect
   strangers--something far beyond that which belongs to us as we are born
   after the flesh--a life that was not latent in the infant, to be
   gradually developed in the training of the child, but a life which is
   altogether absent till Divine Grace implants it there. "You must be
   born again"--you must be created again, or as the Scriptures say,
   "Begotten again unto a lively hope." The life within you must be as
   fresh a creation as was the light when God spoke it, or as was the
   world when God formed it out of nothing! A work of Divine power must be
   exercised upon you equal to that which raised the Lord Jesus from the
   dead and gave Him

   Glory!

   With a new life in the matter of our ordinary birth there begins a new
   experience. To the new-born child everything is new. Every pain, every
   sensation of pleasure is all novel to him--he has known nothing of all
   this before. And though we may have attained to manhood, or even to old
   age when we are born again, the spiritual life is all a fresh
   experience. There are new feelings of contrition; there is a new faith;
   there is a new joy, a new hope--everything is new--"Old things have
   passed away and all things have become new." Though the man may have
   traversed many paths and experienced many sensations, yet the moment he
   is born again, he is a stranger in a strange land and he is led in a
   way which he knows not and in paths which he has not seen. All young
   souls just born to God, however old they may be as to the bodily
   reckoning, rejoice in the sacred novelty of the new life and they thank
   and bless God who has put His hands, a second time, to the work and
   quickened them into newness of life.

   Now, as there is a new life, a new nature and a new experience, so is
   there to the child born and the man regenerated a new world. It is all
   new to the child--its brothers and sisters surprise it. When it is
   taken into the open air and sees the green fields for the first time,
   it marvels at them! To the little one everything is fresh. It lives in
   a museum; it is surrounded with wonders! Even the toys which grown-up
   people look upon with so much contempt are quite marvels to the little
   one--it is charmed with them all. A Christian, a man or woman born
   again, lives in a new world. It is all new to him now, as I remember to
   have heard a young girl say, when first she found the Savior. When she
   came to confess her faith in Christ she said, "Either I am altogether
   changed, or else the world is"--and I could not help telling her I
   hoped it was both--I hoped she herself was changed and that this change
   had produced the other, so that all things had become new.

   There is a new Heaven and a new earth reserved for us, by-and-by, and
   even now, while we are in this world, it is no longer to us what it is
   to the carnal man. To the twice-born, the world is turned upside down.
   The things we once loved we cease to care for. Former objects of
   ambition we count but dross, while things that were contemptible become
   to us objects of supreme solicitude. The Holy Spirit having changed us,
   our views of all around us are entirely different. Such must be your
   experience, dear Hearer, or you will live as carnal men and die in your
   sins. You must experience this Divine creation, no matter who you may
   be--there can be no exceptions--you must know this great change or be
   lost!

   You may have been dandled on the lap of piety; the name of Jesus may
   have mingled with the hush of your first lullaby; you may scarcely, at
   first, have heard any music but that of holy hymns; you may have been
   taught morality and

   sanctity by the example of many generations of ancestors. But, be you
   who you may, or what you may, you must receive a new life and you must
   pass through a new experience--and you must live in a new world or be
   lost! You must live in the spiritual world where all is new. You must
   converse with God, a thing unknown to you before. You must converse
   with His Son to whom you have been a stranger. You must feel the power
   and energy of the Spirit working in you, a matter which you have never
   known till now, or there is no hope for you!

   Note that every birth brings into operation a new force. A new worker
   is born. He is feeble as yet, but those little feet will yet be strong
   for running and those tiny hands will yet become dexterous at some
   useful craft. And so, when a soul is born to God, it feels a new power
   within and it becomes a new force. It is obedient to a power which it
   never recognized before and a power is put forth from it which it had
   not been able to exercise before and did not even understand. A new
   power has come among men when another soul is born to God--the
   spiritual world is stronger and the carnal world is all the weaker for
   the birth of another spiritual man.

   I do not know how to put the matter better than this, but I think I
   have shown you that regeneration is a most thorough change. To be born
   again is no child's play. It is not enough for a man to rise under a
   sermon and say, "I have been impressed and touched by it and I believe
   I am converted." There is a vast difference between saying, "I am born
   again," and really undergoing the heavenly birth. It is not making a
   profession, or even maintaining it with credit for years which will
   suffice, for, alas, some have seemed almost Apostles and yet have been
   altogether sons of perdition! You must come to know vitally, indeed,
   and of a truth in your own soul what it is for the flesh to be
   crucified with Christ and for a new life to be implanted in you
   supernaturally as the work of the Holy Spirit, or else you cannot enter
   into the Kingdom of God. The work is radical, spiritual, marvelous,
   Divine!

   II. In the second place it is MOST WONDERFUL. It is most wonderful in
   the sense of mystery--as to the manner of it. It is not easy to preach
   from this text and attempt to go minutely into details for, if we did
   so, we might venture too far. I have read treatises upon the subject
   which were far too destitute of delicacy and calculated to disgust
   rather than to impress. We do not pry and must not pry into a Divine
   secret. "You hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell where it comes, or
   where it goes; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."

   Who knows how the Holy Spirit works? That He works by means of the Word
   of God we know. That He blesses the Truth of God read in a book or
   heard from the minister--this we know--but how it is He enters into the
   heart; how it is He creates a spirit within us; how he begets in us the
   spiritual life--who can tell but God only? But then we do not need to
   know--it is enough for us to be assured of the fact--the manner we need
   not pry into. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." They
   know experimentally what it is to be born again, but they themselves
   could not explain how it is that the sacred wind blows, nor how the
   Spirit operates upon the human heart.

   Many discussions there have been as to whether the Spirit of God, as it
   were, comes nakedly into contact with the nature of man, or whether He
   always works in and by Truth and thought, and so on. Into all this it
   is not necessary for us to go. We would rather admire, wonder and
   adore, for these are better than merely to comprehend since a man may
   understand all mysteries and yet be as a sounding brass and a tinkling
   cymbal. It is a mystery as to the supernaturalness of the operation,
   for true regeneration is always supernatural. There is no doubt that
   moral persuasion does much with men; that the influence of association
   will often improve men's manners and habits; that great results may
   flow from education, especially if it is of the right kind. And that
   much may be developed in mankind that is admirable, honest, lovely, and
   of good repute.

   But this is nothing to the purpose, since it is not what our Savior
   meant--it falls short of the new birth and is, indeed, quite another
   thing. The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the blessed Trinity must as
   much come to work upon us as God came forth to work upon this world in
   its creation, or else we are not born again. It is not enough that we,
   of ourselves and in the energy of our old nature begin to pray, repent
   and so on, for all that which can come of our flesh will still be
   flesh. In regeneration it is the Spirit who begins by infusing the life
   and then the new nature begins to pray and repent. That which is born
   of the Spirit is spirit and, therefore, the new birth must be a
   spiritual operation in order to produce that spiritual nature without
   which we cannot see and enter into the things of God.

   This is a solemn matter for you, my Hearer, if you have been merely an
   attendant upon the means of Grace and a lover of the outward forms of
   religion. Do I mean to tell you that you must undergo a change which is
   beyond your own working, which all the men in this world and all the
   angels in Heaven could not work in you, but which God Himself

   must perform? I do mean that--I mean nothing less than that! "Am I to
   understand," you say, "that almighty power must work upon me as much as
   in my creation?" I mean that and that it needs as much power to cause
   you to be born again as it did to make a world! Yes, and that the same
   power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead when He had slept three
   days in the grave is needed in all its fullness to raise you from your
   death of sin--and must be exerted if ever you are raised at all.

   It is a wonderful thing that the Spirit of God should condescend to
   undertake this work and that the Lord should set Himself a second time
   to the work. It is surprising that when the vessel was marred upon the
   wheel and spoiled, instead of breaking it up and consigning it to
   destruction, He should put forth all His power again and fashion the
   clay to His own model! He stoops to make us twice born, new-created,
   begotten again, that we might at the last come to wear the image of
   Jesus, the First-Born among many Brethren. "You must be born
   again"--the Infinite Jehovah must deign to be, a second time, our
   Creator or we must hopelessly perish!

   This work is wonderful because of the grandeur of the relationship into
   which it introduces us. The child that is born has a father from the
   very fact of its birth and we that are born from above cry, "Abba,
   Father," from the very fact that we are regenerated! Adoption gives us
   the rights of children, but only regeneration gives us the nature of
   children! Because we are sons, God sends forth the Spirit of His Son
   into our hearts, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." If I have been born
   again, no matter what my station in life or position in society, God is
   my Father and it follows that Jesus Christ is my Brother--and this not
   merely in form and in name as men call each other Brethren when there
   is no actual relationship--but there is a real relationship between us
   and Christ Jesus and the Divine Father, for we are made "partakers of
   the Divine Nature."

   We are the sons of God, and if sons of God, then are we brothers and
   sisters of Christ! It must be so and it follows from this that if
   children, then heirs, and if Christ is the heir, we are joint-heirs
   with Him. My Brethren, what privileges spring out of the relationship
   which arises from the new birth, for our Father pledges Himself for our
   support, for our comfort, for our education, for all that is necessary
   for our perfection in the day of the home-bringing when we shall see
   Him face to face! What can happen to a man so great as to be born
   again? Suppose some of the poorest of the earth who have swept the
   streets for a paltry pittance should suddenly be elevated by royal
   favor to the peerage. Or imagine that by some revolution of the wheel
   of Providence they should become emperors and kings--yet what of that?

   The change would be extraordinary and men would wonder at it, for the
   passages in history which have been thought most noteworthy have been
   those wherein paupers have mounted from the dunghill to the throne and
   fishermen have cast aside their rough garments to put on the imperial
   purple. But these strides from nothingness to greatness are
   inconsiderable and trifling compared with rising from being a slave of
   Satan to become a son of God! To be elevated by God Himself from the
   darkness and degradation and bondage under which we are brought by the
   Fall and by actual sin, to the liberty, to the glory, to the eternal
   blessedness of the children of God--this surpasses all conception! This
   can only be ours through our being born again!

   Our first birth makes us sons of Adam; our second birth makes us sons
   of God! Born of the flesh, we inherit corruption--we must be born of
   the Spirit to inherit incorruption. We come into this world heirs of
   sorrow because we are sons of the fallen man. Our new life comes into
   the new world an heir of Glory, because it is descended from the Second
   Man, the Lord from Heaven! Thus I have spoken upon the wonderful
   character of this work as well as upon the thoroughness of it.

   III. Now, let us remark, in the third place, that wonderful and
   mysterious as the new birth must always be, it is MOST MANIFEST. The
   house knows when a child is born. There are mysteries surrounding its
   birth, but the fact is apparent enough. You shall soon hear its cry in
   the nursery and before long its prattle in the parlor. You shall see
   the joy of the parents as they clasp their offspring and the care with
   which they watch for its good. So in the new birth, we know not how the
   Spirit works, but we know that He does work and we soon see that a
   marvelous change has come over those whom He has made possessors of the
   heavenly seed, creatures of the new life! Those who know converted
   persons best are among the first to perceive the transforming miracle
   of Grace.

   Do you not think that Elstow knew when John Bunyan had found the
   Savior? The bell-ringers knew it--there was no more Sabbath-breaking!
   And the few poor, godly people that used to meet at Bedford knew it,
   for he crept into their midst and began to ask them about the things
   which had become the delight of his soul. We sometimes hear of a person

   being born again and not knowing it--a somewhat singular matter. Yet I
   suppose that such an event, after a fashion, very commonly happens in
   the Episcopalian denomination, because if persons are born again in
   infant baptism there are thousands in London who have undergone the
   change! But I am sure that they cannot be sure of it, for their own
   lives would not tell them so and their own emotions and feelings would
   not lead them to any such belief.

   Regeneration is a poor business if these baptized rebels are
   regenerate! Why, at that rate our prisons swarm with regenerated
   thieves and our streets are infested with regenerated harlots! And
   occasionally we have regenerate murderers--all born again in their
   baptism, made children of God, members of Christ and inheritors of the
   Kingdom of Heaven. The lie is sickening! The devil himself laughs at
   it! Of all transparent falsehoods, surely that of baptismal
   regeneration is the grossest! It is a marvel that men who live and walk
   among sane persons should ever fall into it. Ah, Sirs, where the true
   Heaven-given life is found, there is something to show for it!

   Does a man say, "I am regenerate"? Come, then, Sir, what is the
   difference in you? What life do you lead? Have you a higher objective
   than the ordinary sons of men? Are you swayed by higher motives? Are
   there diviner impulses pulsing in your soul than those which stir the
   hearts of worldlings? "For except your righteousness exceed that of the
   scribes and Pharisees," the best of worldlings, "you cannot enter into
   the kingdom of God." If the love of Christ within does not make us
   better than the best of worldly men, we give no evidence of having
   experienced the renewing work of God the Holy Spirit! The heavenly life
   is very manifest--and it is all the more so from the fact that there
   are certain signs which always attend and attest the new birth.

   Persons may be born again and yet they may not be able to see with us
   in certain points of doctrine, but there are some things which all the
   regenerate agree about. For first, every soul that is born again
   repents of its sin. If a man lives in his sin as he used to do, he must
   not pretend that he is a twice-born man, or he will mightily deceive
   himself. If he can look upon sin in the same light as he did before; if
   he can find pleasure in it, yes--if he does not unfeignedly turn from
   it with loathing and seek the mercy of God to blot it out--he knows
   nothing of what regeneration is! Again all the regenerate have faith.
   They all agree in finding the sole ground of their hope in the blood
   and merit of Jesus. Meet them anywhere and they will tell you they have
   no confidence except in the Savior's precious blood. He is all their
   salvation and all their desire. They rest upon this Rock, every one of
   them, and no matter what high professors they may be, or what lofty
   offices they hold in the Church, if Christ is not their one and only
   trust, they know not what it is to be born again!

   In addition to this, all that have passed from death unto life pray. If
   it really rises from the heart, prayer is an infallible mark of the new
   birth. If it can be said of a man, "He does not pray," then he is still
   dead in his sins, the Spirit of God has not renewed his soul. I might
   mention some other holy signs which are invariable accompaniments of
   the new birth, but these three will suffice for all practical purposes.
   You can test yourselves, Beloved, by them. Have you repented? Have you
   faith towards God? Do you rejoice to draw near to God in prayer? If
   these things are in you, they are marks of the new life, for they were
   never yet found in the spiritually dead!

   Do you groan over sin? A corpse does not groan--gracious mourning over
   transgression is one of the surest proofs of inward spiritual life.
   Trust in Jesus is an equally clear sign of spiritual life, for the dead
   man does not know what it is to trust. And genuine prayer is equally a
   certain token of life received from above. A pang of penitential grief,
   a thought of holy trust and a yearning of inward prayer are more than
   all the unregenerate upon earth can compass, even though they should be
   doctors of divinity or cardinals of the church!

   This new life, the new birth, is a very manifest thing from the power
   that it puts into men after it has had time to develop itself. At first
   converts are trembling and weak, but if they have received the new life
   they gather strength and there is a power in it which the Church soon
   rejoices in and which the devil trembles at. This power, of course, can
   be kept under restraint by unbelief and other follies, but it ought to
   have full range and should never be repressed. I often wish our
   Christian people were a little more natural in their expression of what
   they feel. If any Brother cries, "Amen" very heartily after prayer,
   many look at him, but in the primitive Church it was the universal
   custom of those who joined in prayer to say, "Amen," by way of
   endorsing it and making it their own. I wonder why Christian people
   have, to so large an extent, given up the practice? It is a most fit
   and proper one and ought to be restored.

   I read the other day of a good Bible Christian Brother who sometimes,
   when his heart was merry within him with joy in the Holy Spirit, would
   even leap for joy as he went to the pit to work. Why should he not do
   so? Yet you do not like

   the look of it, do you? I would a good deal sooner a man should be as
   nimble as David before the ark than be as sleepy as some Christians
   are, who, if they have any joy, repress it and never let it out--they
   are afraid of expressing their joy for fear they should be misjudged.
   Let it not be so with you! If you let the new life within you have its
   own course, you may be thought eccentric, but in those eccentricities
   will lie your force! Who is he that shall cramp us and hold us in when
   the eternal Spirit quickens us? If God has blotted out our sins, we
   will praise and magnify His name! And if we have been delivered from
   going down into the Pit, we will tell others of it and not hold our
   tongues!

   Even though our testimony may not be delivered in the most classical
   style and our telling forth of the precious Savior's love may not be
   all that the educated may wish it to be, yet if we should hold our
   peace, the stones of the street would cry out and, therefore, we must
   and we will speak! He that has a well within him bubbling up must let
   it gush forth--and he that has the new life within him will, in one
   form or other, become a power in the midst of his fellow men and the
   secret will ooze out that he is a twice-born man! I cannot linger
   longer. Regeneration is a thorough change and a wonderful change--but
   it is a manifest change and in some men it is especially so. Be it our
   aim to prove to a demonstration that we are born from above!

   IV. But now, very briefly, regeneration is a MOST IMPERATIVE change.
   You must, you must, you must be born again! You may be rich or you may
   be poor, but "you must be born again." You may be intelligent, you may
   be educated, you may be talented, but "you must, you must be born
   again." Many things are desirable, but one thing is necessary,
   imperatively necessary--you must, you must, you must be born again!

   This imperative necessity may be seen from many points of view. We
   cannot mention them all, but just one or two. If you are not born
   again, you have no life, no spiritual life. The first birth gave you
   bodily life and mental life, but it did not give you spiritual life--it
   could not do so, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh and no
   more. Now, you must have spiritual life or else you are dead in
   trespasses and sins and to all that has to do with spiritual
   blessings--to a spiritual Gospel, a spiritual salvation, a spiritual
   Heaven--to all these things you are dead as the corpses in their graves
   are dead to the business of today.

   There may be great changes taking place in politics--trade may be very
   prosperous, or it may be depressed, but the dead man has no interest in
   the nation or its commerce--how can he have? So is it with you. Until
   you are born again, the spiritual world is shut to you and you are
   indifferent to it. Angels may be rejoicing and Believers may be
   rejoicing over saved souls, but you care nothing about it. The Lord
   Jesus Himself may be seeing of the travail of His soul, but it is
   nothing to you and it must be nothing to you because you are dead! Oh
   if our bodies could take the shape of our souls, there would be many
   carcasses sitting before me in these pews! Ah, strange and ghastly
   sight! We thank God that He conceals the spiritual from our eyes, else
   we might, in horror, leave the places where we sit because we should
   find ourselves in close companionship with the dead! What a horrible
   thing a dead soul must be if our spirits could now perceive it as our
   senses would perceive a corpse!

   Let us pause here to realize striking facts in this connection. Some of
   you are linked in marriage with the spiritually dead. Some of you have
   dwelling in your house the children of your care who are dead while
   they live. You will sit tonight at the supper table with the
   spiritually dead! Regard them in that light and your hearts will,
   perhaps, be moved to pray more intensely for them than you have ever
   done. You that sit regularly in this place, I would like you to
   remember this fact when this house is crowded. Think, "In my pew there
   are sitting an unconverted man and an unconverted woman--and they are
   dead." We don't expect them to feel for themselves, but we do expect
   the living to feel for them. My dear Hearers who are unrenewed, do you
   not see that you must be born again, for unless you are so, you will
   remain dead to spiritual things?

   Furthermore, remember that a man who is not born again has no spiritual
   capacity. We must be receivers, first, in the spiritual life, but the
   dead sinner as yet, until God quickens Him, can receive nothing. How
   often are the saints of God spiritually comforted, instructed and
   enriched under the preaching and hearing of the Word of God? But it is
   their spiritual nature that receives the enrichment. The unregenerate
   have no spiritual nature--they are carnal, sold under sin--their mental
   powers, as well as their bodily appetites, are enslaved. Therefore they
   have no power to receive the blessing. The gracious and ever-blessed
   rain of the Spirit comes, but they are not like Gideon's fleece ready
   to drink it in, but like a hard stone upon which the drops may descend
   but cannot be saturated with the moisture, nor softened by it.

   Unregenerate men are broken cisterns which it is vain to attempt to
   fill. Even if God's own Grace were to come to them it could not be
   retained, for they have not the capacity to hold it.

   Only the spiritual can receive the spiritual! You must, then, be born
   again to have a spirit by which spiritual things are discerned and
   received. Do you not see that you must be born again? Once more, you
   must be born again because without the Sprit of God you are not the
   children of God and, consequently, you have no spiritual inheritance.
   The Spirit causes us to be born--that birth makes us children and our
   being children makes us heirs. If we are not born again we are not
   children, therefore we are not heirs and we are out of the heritage,
   for God's heritage of Glory is for the heirs of Grace and for none
   others. And none shall come into the eternal portion but those who are
   born in His house and are His true sons and daughters. Universal
   fatherhood, whatever that may be, brings us common mercies, but it is
   the special fatherhood which God has towards the living in Zion which
   brings us special blessings!

   You must, then, be born again or lose all share in the Divine
   inheritance. No soul can ever cross the threshold of Heaven that has
   not received the new life. No matter how abundant its prayers, nor how
   multiplied its acts of religiousness, unless it has been born again,
   the gates of Paradise are forever fastened against it. Banished from
   the Presence of Jehovah's Glory, there is only one other place where it
   can dwell--and that must be where their worm dies not and their fire is
   not quenched. "You must be born again."

   V. I will finish my discourse by saying that this new birth is
   EMINENTLY PERSONAL. "You must be born again." The idea of proxy is
   quite apart from the figure of the text. A man is born himself, in
   propria persona--no other can be born for him--so here the change which
   must be worked in us must be personally experienced and individually
   known and felt. What delusion it is to fall back upon a parent's
   godliness or a godfather's promises, or to imagine that the minister or
   the so-called priest can stand before God for us! "You"--"you must be
   born again" and if you are not, you shall never enter the Kingdom of
   God!

   Now, I think I hear passing through the congregation at this moment the
   whisper of many hearts who are saying, "This is very discouraging. We
   like to hear, 'Only believe and you shall be saved.' We are glad to be
   told that, 'whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has everlasting
   life.' But this distresses us, for it does not open the door as wide as
   we could wish." Believe me, I am very glad to tell you of the free and
   wide Gospel of Grace! It is joyful work for me to bring that welcome
   message to you and I am sure I bring it as constantly as I come upon
   this platform. My most frequent note is--"Look unto Christ and be saved
   all you ends of the earth." But at the same time, God forbid that you
   should be built up upon a false foundation, or that your faith and
   confidence should stand apart from the Truth of God as it is in Jesus.
   It will be found to be wood, hay and stubble if it is so.

   But you say my sermon is discouraging--had you not better ask, "Is it
   true?" A person has been building a house and we see him piling up
   stones, but he has never dug out a foundation! It is certainly
   discouraging to him to tell him that it is not the right way to build a
   house, but it will be a great mercy for him to be discouraged in a work
   which is so foolish. It will be a great saving to him, in the long run,
   if all that he has already built should come down at once and he should
   even now begin at the beginning once more and lay a good foundation and
   make sure work of it. It would be foolish to cry out, "Do not
   discourage him!" He ought to be discouraged. Yes, indeed, we would
   discourage all that will end in disappointment. The fact is, your
   efforts, your doings and your merits, all of them, at their very best,
   must be a failure and it is a good thing for us to tell you so.

   "But what am I to do?" asks one. That, permit me to remind you, is not
   the best question for you to ask, for if the work of salvation were
   what you must do, surely it would be left undone! You may put the
   question, "What must I do to be saved?" but we will point you away from
   doing and we will tell you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that
   you may be saved. If you persist in saying, "What must I do," we will
   tell you that the sooner you look away from all that you can do, the
   better--for the work of salvation from sin is the work of the Spirit of
   God in you and you must come to look to Him through Jesus Christ that
   He may work in you all those graces and gifts which shall adorn your
   future life. Faith looks to the blood of Jesus for the pardon of sin
   and then looks to Him for His Spirit to overcome the power of sin
   within the heart--nor does she look in vain--but if you look elsewhere
   you will search till your eyes fail you and never see your desire.

   Would to God we could bring you, not only to discouragement, but to
   despair of yourselves! When you shall feel you are powerless we shall
   have hope of you, for then you will leave yourselves in the hands of
   Him who can do all things!

   When self's strength is gone, God's strength will come in. "Oh, but you
   tell me I must have Divine power working in me." We do tell you
   that--we can tell you nothing less--and if that power is ever at work
   in your soul, its first effect will be to bring you to confess this and
   you will fall down before the footstool of Divine Mercy and say, "Lord
   save me, or I perish. God be merciful to me a sinner." I do not want to
   rouse your activity, you unconverted people--I want to rouse you to the
   conviction that you are lost and I pray God the Holy Spirit may so
   convince you! I wish not to make you think, "we can cure ourselves,"
   but oh that you would feel that you are diseased and that, though you
   have destroyed yourselves, your remedy lies in a higher hand--that you
   must look to Jesus, only, for healing!

   To get the supernatural element into the matter is that which we would
   strive for and may God the Holy Spirit help us in it. We would have you
   look away from what is in you or can come from you and trust to what
   Christ did on the Cross, to what the gracious Father is waiting, still,
   to do and what the Holy Spirit is sent on purpose to work in you that
   you may be saved! Oh that you may begin to pray for the Divine power!
   May you never rest in anything short of the Divine working in your
   spirit. It is to this we would bring you!

   Now you know all this and have known it for years, the most of you. To
   know it--ah, how great a privilege if not abused! How great a
   responsibility if the knowledge shall end here! Yet to know it, oh how
   sad unless you feel it! To feel that, "I must be born again," and to be
   wretched till I am renewed in heart is a good beginning! I pray that
   you may go home and feel, "There is no pillow in this world that will
   suit my head till I have laid it upon the Savior's bosom. There is no
   bliss that can give me solace till I have found pardon in the wounds of
   my Redeemer." God grant you may sigh and pant in this way and we shall
   then believe that you are regenerate! May you receive the Lord Jesus
   and He will give you power to become the sons of God, for those who
   believe in Him were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
   nor of the will of man, but of God!

   Then shall you know the secret of regeneration and the Lord, Himself,
   shall be revealed in you. Then shall you know that you are blessed of
   the Lord, for flesh and blood could not have revealed this unto you.
   May the Holy Spirit be within you evermore. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 3:1-21. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--456, 448, 461.

   TO MY HEARERS AND READERS AT THE TABERNACLE AND ELSEWHERE:

   BELOVED FRIENDS--By the tender kindness of God, the journey here was
   made without excessive fatigue and now I trust that genial weather will
   bring with it rapid restoration. This place has participated in the
   severe weather which has swept over the Continent, so that I miss, just
   now, the bright sunshine to which I have been formerly accustomed. Yet
   it is comparatively warm and so far is beneficial to an invalid. Rest
   is the main thing and rest I hope to find, that I may come back to you
   strengthened for sacred service.

   It is at the request of many that I write these few lines, otherwise I
   should be better content to say nothing about myself. Tottering on my
   staff today in weakness, I hopefully look forward to the time when I
   shall stand among you in fullness of vigor. God grant that mental and,
   above all, spiritual strength may be given me for the preaching of the
   Word in your midst and that my long bodily affliction may assist to
   that end.

   I trust I shall not be forgotten in your prayers when it is well with
   you. I hope also that the various enterprises such as the College and
   Orphanage will not be allowed to languish because their President is
   ill. Peace be to you all. Yours very heartily, C H. SPURGEON. MENTONE,
   January, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

Peace--a Fact and a Feeling

   (No. 1456)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
   Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1.

   WONDERFUL is the power of faith. In the Epistle to the Hebrews our
   Apostle tells us of the marvelous exploits which it has worked in
   subduing kingdoms and obtaining promises, in quenching the violence of
   fire and stopping the mouths of lions, in braving perils and doing
   deeds of prowess. Still, to us personally, one of the most wonderful of
   its effects is that it brings us justification and consequent peace.
   "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." If we know the
   justifying power of faith and the way in which, like a hand, it puts
   upon us the matchless garment of the Savior's righteousness, we shall
   value that faith as our first parents did the gracious hand of God
   which made coats of skins and covered their nakedness. The little faith
   we have will make us crave for more! And every need we feel will make
   us long to prove its virtue in our own souls to meet our own personal
   case by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

   Now, faith brings to the soul, according to the text, two blessings. It
   is not the creator of these things, but the conveyance, the channel,
   the conduit pipe through which these favors come to us. First, it
   brings us a state of peace-- "being justified by faith." And, secondly,
   it bring us a sense of peace--"we have peace with God through our Lord
   Jesus Christ."

   I. Our first thoughts shall be about that most important of all
   matters--A STATE OF PEACE WITH GOD. In our natural state we have no
   peace. God is angry with us because we are sinful and we are at
   variance with God because He is holy. God cannot agree with us--"Can
   two walk together except they are agreed?" And we cannot agree with
   God, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject
   to the Law of God, neither indeed can be." There is a breach between
   the rebellious creature and the righteous Creator. Sad that it should
   be so, but such is the case by nature with every man that is born of
   woman. We are set against the Lord. We kick against His Providence, we
   rebel against His commands, we resist His Holy Spirit, we reject His
   love as manifested in the death of Christ and we would live and die in
   this hostility if it were not for His almighty Grace.

   Before we can enjoy peace within our hearts there must be a state of
   peace established between us and God. We must submit ourselves to the
   Lord and He must forgive the past and make with us a Covenant of peace,
   or else there is no peace for us. "There is no peace, says my God, unto
   the wicked." Let me briefly explain to you the way in which we come to
   possess peace with God. We are condemned criminals, though we do not
   consider ourselves to be in such a critical condition. We persist that
   we are righteous! We decline to acknowledge the jurisdiction of God's
   Law and we refuse to acknowledge the justice of its sentence.
   Therefore, before we can have peace with God we must be brought into
   court, hear the indictment against us and be put on our trial.

   When thus arraigned we must put in our plea. Do you plead, "Not
   guilty"? Then, Man, you challenge your Accuser to bring forward the
   evidence which will soon spoil your conceit and crush you with its
   weight! Before there can be peace between us and God we must, with all
   our hearts, plead "guilty." We must confess the truth, for God will
   never agree with liars, nor with those who indulge self-deception. He
   is a God of Truth and dissemblers can have no communion with Him. Being
   guilty, we must take the place of the guilty--it is our proper
   position--and it is due to the Judge of all the earth that we take it.
   To refuse to do so is contempt of court! There is mercy for a sinner,
   but there is no mercy for the man who will not acknowledge himself a
   sinner. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
   our sins." But if any man says that he has no sin he is a liar and the
   truth is not in him. And there cannot be peace between him and God
   while he is in that humor.

   It seems a stern demand and very galling for our pride, to have to
   stand in the dock and in answer to the question, "Guilty or not
   guilty?" reply, "Guilty, Lord, guilty. Whatever the consequences may
   be, guilty." But to some of us it no

   longer seems to be difficult because we could not now plead otherwise!
   We are so conscious of our guilt that we cannot escape from a sense of
   it. "If I wash myself with snow water and make my hands ever so clean,
   yet shall You plunge me in the ditch and my own clothes shall abhor
   me." We cannot look upon a single day without being convicted of sin
   and, in reviewing our past lives from our childhood, we are over and
   over constrained to blush at the memory of our waywardness and our
   willfulness, our perverseness and our provocation. The faults and the
   follies that have tracked our course haunt us till our very looks would
   tell the truth though our tongues were silent.

   To plead guilty has now become a positive, though a painful, relief to
   us. It is the ending of a vain show which we found it hard to keep up.
   It is coming to the bottom of the matter and knowing the worst of our
   case. Dear Hearer, before you can have peace with Heaven you must take
   up your true position and plead guilty! I pray the Holy Spirit to lead
   you to do so. It is His work to convict us of sin and if He shall
   exercise His Divine office upon any of us, we shall no longer profess
   like the Pharisee that we are not as other men, but like the publican
   we shall heartily pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

   Supposing that with confusion of face, contrition of heart and awakened
   conscience we admit and acknowledge our inexcusable guilt, the next
   thing requisite to our peace is that we should admit the justice of the
   Divine sentence and revere, instead of reviling, the Judge of all the
   earth, against whom we have so grossly revolted! There are men who will
   say, "Yes, I am guilty and sinful, but still, the penalty is out of
   proportion to my criminality. I cannot believe that God will deal so
   severely with the offenses of His creatures." Now, however rational
   such reflections may sound, they certainly are not acceptable with God.
   Of this thing, my Friend, I guarantee you--if the Holy Spirit has ever
   shown you sin in its natural hideousness and deformity--you will think
   nothing too bad for it. You will cry from the depths of your soul, "Let
   it be condemned, let it be punished."

   I would not, if I could, lift a finger to prevent God from punishing
   sin. Whatever a man sows, that must he reap-- the result of sin must
   follow its commission. The foundations of society would be undermined
   and there would be no living in the world if there were no laws, or if
   laws might be violated with impunity. There would, indeed, be no proof
   that there was a great Judge of all the earth if He did not do right.
   And if He does right, He must punish sin, for it ought to be punished.
   Were I the judge of the quick and the dead, the first thing that I
   would do would be to condemn myself, for I deserve condemnation and
   punishment, Neither would it yield my heart the least comfort to be
   told that God could wink at sin. I want not such a God, neither could I
   endure to think that the Law of righteousness was thus relaxed.

   My conscience would not be relieved of a sense of obligations I could
   not deny, nor of impurities I could not cleanse, nor of wrongs I could
   not rectify by a suspicion that the Majesty of Heaven had threatened a
   damnation which did not exist! I pray the Spirit of God to bring you,
   my Hearer, not only to be convinced of sin, but of righteousness and of
   judgment to come. God is righteous in fixing a day in which He will
   judge the world by the Man, Christ Jesus, according to our Gospel. This
   appears to be a painful process, to be bound to confess your guilt and
   then to bare your neck to the sword of vengeance and say, "You will be
   justified when You judge, and will be clear when You condemn, for
   against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight."
   Yet, there cannot be any peace with God till we come to it--because
   there can be no peace with the God of Truth where there is any
   prevarication. Lasting peace must be founded upon everlasting Truth.
   The fact is, we are guilty and we deserve the punishment which God
   apportions to guilt--and we must agree with that Truth of God, grim as
   it looks, or else we cannot be friends with God.

   The next essential to our receiving justification is this--the prisoner
   is guilty, sentence is pronounced and he admits the righteousness of
   it--he is asked if he has anything to say why the sentence should not
   be executed and he stands speechless! And now comes in the abounding
   mercy of God, who, in order to our peace, finds a Substitute to bear
   our penalty, and reveals to us this gracious fact. He puts His Son into
   the sinner's place! Voluntarily does the Divine Savior take upon
   Himself our nature and come under the Law--and by a Sovereign act,
   Jehovah lays upon Him the iniquity of us all! That sin, having been
   laid on Christ, He has borne it and carried it away. In His own body He
   bore it on the tree. The transgressions of His people were made to meet
   upon His devoted Person--those five wounds tell what He suffered! That
   marred Countenance bears the tokens of His inward grief! And that cry,
   "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" indicates to us, as far as
   we are able to understand it, what He endured when He stood in the
   sinner's place the Sin-Bearer and the Sacrifice.

   When the Lord enables the soul to perceive that Christ stood in its
   place, then the work of appropriating the justification is going on.
   Christ died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,"
   for He, "made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be
   made the righteousness of God in Him." He was, "made a curse for us: as
   it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Christ has
   once suffered for sin and this is the foundation of our peace. The
   point wherein faith comes into contact with pardon is when faith
   believes that the Son of God did come and stand in the sinner's place.
   And when faith accepts that Substitution as a glorious gift of Grace
   and rests in it, and says, "Now I see how God is just, and smites
   Christ in my place. Seeing He condemned me before I had personally
   sinned, because of Adam's sin, I see how He can absolve me, though I
   have no righteousness, because of Christ's righteousness. In another
   did I fall and in Another do I rise! By one Adam I was destroyed: by
   another Adam am I restored! I see it! I leap for joy as I see it and I
   accept it as from the Lord."

   This is not quite all, for now here stands the guilty one who has
   acknowledged the sentence and he has seen the sentence executed upon
   Another. What then? He takes his place as no longer liable to that
   sentence. The penalty cannot be exacted twice. It were neither in
   accord with human or Divine righteousness that two individuals should
   be punished for the same offense unless both were guilty. When God
   devised the plan of Substitution, the full penalty demanded of the
   guiltless Surety was clearly intended to bring exemption to the guilty
   sinners. That Jesus should suffer vicariously and yet those for whom He
   paid the penalty in drops of blood should obtain no acquittal could not
   be! When God laid sin upon Christ, it must have been in the intent of
   His heart that He would never lay it on those for whom Christ died.

   So then, there stands the man who was once guilty, but he is no more
   condemned because Another has taken upon Him the condemnation to which
   he was exposed. Still more, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ came
   voluntarily under the Law, obeyed the Law, fulfilled the Law and made
   it honorable according to the Infinite purpose and will of God, the
   righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer. While Christ stands
   in the sinner's place, the believing sinner stands in Christ's place!
   As the Lord looked upon Christ as though He had been a sinner, though
   He was not a sinner, and dealt with Him as such, so now the Lord looks
   upon the believing sinner as though he were righteous, though, indeed,
   he has no righteousness of his own! And He loves him and delights in
   his perfect comeliness, regarding him as covered with the mantle of his
   Redeemer's righteousness and as having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any
   such thing!

   This is wonderful doctrine, and it is the doctrine of the Word of God.
   It is the doctrine whereon faith can feed and rest! And when faith
   receives it, she says to the soul, "Soul, you are free from sin, for
   Christ has borne your sin in His own body on the tree. Soul, you are
   righteous before God, for the righteousness of Christ is yours by
   imputation." Without any works of your own, you are yet justified
   according to the righteousness of faith, even as faithful Abraham, of
   whom it is written, "He believed God and it was counted unto him for
   righteousness." This is a wonderful exchange, the putting of Christ
   where the sinner was and of the sinner where Christ was!

   And, now, what does the court say? The court says, "Not guilty!
   Absolved! Acquitted!" And what is the condition of the man towards God?
   Why, he can say--

   "Now freed from sin, I walk at large; My Sa vior's blood's my full
   discharge. At His dear feet my soul I lay, A sinner saved I'll homage
   pay.

   NOW do I love the Lord and I know that the Lord loves me." By this
   process we have come to the Truth before God and we have dealt with
   each other on the line of Truth. There has been no fabrication or
   falsehood. Justice has been vindicated, mercy has been magnified and we
   are justly forgiven. Strange fusion of vehement Grace and vindictive
   wrath! Behold how Judgment and Mercy have linked hands together in the
   Person of the dying, bleeding, rising Son of God! This is the way by
   which we obtain justification. The soul may well have a settled peace
   when it has realized and received such a justification as this, seeing
   it is a peace consistent with justice. The Lord has not winked at sin.
   He has not treated sin as if it were a trifle. The Lord has punished
   transgression and iniquity. The rod has been made to fall and the
   blessed shoulders of our Lord have been made to smart under the
   infliction.

   If justice had never been satisfied, the human conscience would not
   have been content. The proclamation of unconditional mercy would never
   have satisfied a human mind. If we had to preach to you that God
   forgave you irrespectively of an atonement, no awakened conscience
   would welcome the tidings. We would still have to confront the
   question, "Where is justice, then?" We should be unable to see how the
   Law could be vindicated, or the moral

   government of God maintained. We are quite at rest when we see that
   there is as much justice as there is mercy in the forgiveness of a
   believing soul and that God is as glorious in holiness when He passes
   by sin as He would have been if He had cast the whole race into the
   abyss of unfathomable woe!

   Nor need there be any morbid apprehension as to whether all the
   evidence that could be produced against us at our trial has been
   brought forward. Nobody can come in and say "Though you have been
   exonerated upon a partial trial, upon a more searching investigation
   your guilt could have been proven." We can reply, "But it was proven!"
   There was the best of evidence to prove it, for we confessed it! There
   was no other evidence needed and nothing further could have been
   brought since we pleaded guilty to every charge! If you bring any
   further accusation, we can only say that we pleaded guilty without
   reserve. It was all in the indictment--we did not attempt, for a
   moment, to cloak or conceal any guilt we had incurred. We confessed it
   all before the Lord and admitted to it--but since the Lord Jesus Christ
   took it all, there is no cause for reopening the proceedings! There
   cannot be a second trial through a writ of error--the case is
   thoroughly disposed of--the prisoner has pleaded guilty to the capital
   charge and has borne the utmost penalty of the Law by his Substitute,
   which penalty God Himself has accepted. His acquittal is such as he can
   rest upon with implicit reliance.

   Moreover we know that, being justified, we are now at peace with God
   because there cannot be any more demands made against us. All that was
   against us, Christ took away! "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." The death of our great Redeemer has
   abounding merit in it, seeing that He was the Son of God. All the
   transgressions and iniquities that could ever be raked up against us
   were all laid to His charge and His Atonement, by one offering, has put
   an end to them all. We are not afraid, therefore, that anything fresh
   will be raised against us. Again, our acquittal is certified beyond all
   question and the certificate is always producible. Somebody might say
   to a prisoner, "How do you know that you were acquitted?" He cannot
   produce any writing. On the record of the court it stands, and yet,
   perhaps he has no means of access to the court record.

   But, Beloved, you and I have a writ of acquittal which is always
   visible. Faith can see it tonight. "What is that?" you ask. It is the
   risen Christ, for Jesus Christ, "died for our sins and rose again for
   our justification." You all know how that was. He was cast into the
   prison of the grave until it had been certified that our liabilities
   were fully discharged and--

   "If Jesus never had paid the debt He never had been at freedom set." He
   was our Hostage and His body was held in durance till it was certified
   that there was no further claim against any one of His people. That
   done, He rose again from the dead for our justification. He is at the
   Father's right hand and He could not be there if any of our iniquity
   remained on Him. He took our sins but He has our sins no longer, for on
   the Cross He discharged and annihilated them all so that they ceased to
   be--and He has gone into Glory as the Representative and the Substitute
   of His people, cleared from their imputed liabilities--clean delivered
   from anything that could be brought against Him on their account.

   So long as we see the Lord Jesus sitting on the Throne of Glory, we may
   boldly ask, "Who is he that condemns? Christ has died, yes rather, has
   risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
   intercession for us." We know our justification to be forever complete
   and beyond challenge, for Jesus keeps the place of acceptance for us!
   And lastly, on this point, it was a justification from the very highest
   court. You know how it is in law--a matter may be decided in your
   favor, but there is an appeal to a higher court--and such are the
   glorious uncertainties of law that a sentence which has been confirmed
   in several courts may, after all, be reversed when it comes before the
   highest authorities. But you and I pleaded guilty before God. There is
   no higher authority than that of God Himself! When Jesus stood in our
   place, we did not put Him there--nor did He put Himself there--it was
   the act and deed of the Eternal Father! Is it not written--"The Lord
   has laid on Him the iniquity of us all"?

   It is not only true as a matter of personal faith that--

   "I lay my sins on Jesus,"

   but as a matter of fact of a far earlier date the Lord laid them on
   Him! There is no higher authority than the Lord's and therefore do we
   cry, "it is God that justifies, who is he that condemns?" We have been
   taken into the highest court of all and there we have been cleared
   through Jesus' blood--have we not cause to be fully at peace with
   God--"being justified by faith"? Precious doctrine! Oh to rest in it
   with a childlike confidence from now on and for evermore!

   II. I now come to the second part of the subject, which is this. Faith
   brings us into the state of peace which I have

   explained and afterwards FAITH GIVES US THE SENSE OF PEACE. "Therefore
   being justified by faith, we have

   peace with God." Will you please notice that the sense of peace follows
   upon the state of peace. We do not get peace before we are justified,
   neither is peace a means of justification. No, Brethren, we are first
   justified. "While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died
   for the ungodly." God justifies the ungodly. We have no peace till that
   is done. There may seem to be peace, but it is a horrible peace--the
   peace of death and of daring presumption.

   It is the peace when a man says, "Peace, peace," when there is no
   peace, and talks about rest when he has a conscience seared as with a
   hot iron--and a mind drugged with presumption so that he sleeps that
   awful sleep which is the presage of waking up in Hell! From such peace
   may God deliver us! But real peace--the peace of God--and peace with
   God must spring out of our being justified in the way which I have been
   trying to describe. The man who is justified according to the text has,
   at this moment, a sense of peace with God, but this is only true of
   those who are justified by faith. Here I want you to observe--for every
   word is instructive--that we have peace with God, "through Jesus Christ
   our Lord."

   Many children of God lose their peace, in a measure, and part of the
   reason of it is because they begin to deal with God absolutely. None of
   us will ever experience true peace with God except through Jesus
   Christ. I like that strong expression of Luther, bald and bare as it
   is, when, in commenting on the Epistle to the Galatians, he says, "I
   will have nothing to do with an absolute God." If you have anything to
   do with God absolutely, you will be destroyed! There cannot be any
   point of contact between absolute Deity and fallen humanity except
   through Jesus Christ, the appointed Mediator. That is God's door--all
   else is a wall of fire! You can, by Christ, approach the Lord, but this
   is the only bridge across the gulf.

   Whenever you, dear Soul, begin to deal with God according to your own
   experience, according to your own frames and feelings, or even
   according to the exercises of your own faith--unless that faith keeps
   its eye on Christ--you will lose your peace! Stand out of Christ and
   what a wretched creature you are! Have you attempted to approach the
   Eternal King without His chosen Ambassador? How presumptuous is your
   attempt! The Throne of Divine Sovereignty is terrible, apart from the
   redeeming blood! Peace with God must come to us by the way of the
   Cross. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we gain it and through Him we keep
   it.

   There are some among you who, I trust, are really Believers in Christ
   who are constantly prone to fret and say, "I have no lasting peace. I
   am a Believer in Jesus and I have a measure of peace at times, but I do
   not enjoy fullness of peace." Well, now, we must look at this a little
   and the more closely we inspect it, the more convinced we shall be that
   peace is the right of every Believer. What is there now between him and
   God? Sin is forgiven! What is more, righteousness is imputed! He is the
   object of eternal love! He is more than that--he is the object of
   Divine complacency! God sees him in His Son and loves him. Why should
   he not be at peace? "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in
   God," said Jesus, "believe also in Me." Christian, there is no ground
   of quarrel between you and your heavenly Father. God, for Christ's
   sake, has forgiven you. To you the Lord virtually says, "Come now and
   let us reason together, though your sins are as scarlet, I have made
   them as wool. Though they are red like crimson, I have already made
   them as snow."

   When He says, "They shall be," He is speaking to the sinner, but to you
   they are so. You are justified. Why have you not peace, then? You have
   a claim to it and you ought to enjoy it. What is the reason why you do
   not possess it? I will tell you. It is your unbelief. You are justified
   by faith, remember. And it is by faith that you obtain peace with
   God--when you are doubting and fearing instead of simply
   believing--when you are questioning and grumbling--then it is that you
   lose your peace! But in proportion as your faith stands, so will your
   peace with God abide. I feel certain that the text tells us that every
   justified man has peace with God--and if so, why is it that I hear poor
   souls crying, "I believe, but I do not enjoy peace"? I think I can tell
   you why it is. You make a mistake as to what this peace is. You say, "I
   am so dreadfully tempted. Sometimes I am drawn this way and sometimes
   the other, and the devil never lets me alone." Listen. Did you ever
   read in the Bible that you were to have peace with the devil?

   Look at the text--"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace
   with God." That is a very different thing from having peace with Satan!
   If the devil were to let you alone and never tempt you, I should begin
   to think that you belonged to him for he is kind to his own in his own
   way, for a while. He has a way of whispering soft things into their
   ears and then with dulcet notes and siren songs he lures them to
   eternal destruction. But he worries with a malicious joy those whom he
   cannot destroy, for in their case he has great wrath, knowing that his
   time is short. He expects to see you

   soon in Heaven, out of gunshot of him and so he makes the best of his
   opportunities to try, if he can, to distress and injure you while you
   are here. You will soon be so far above him that you will not be able
   to hear the Hell-dog bark and so he snaps at you now to see if he can
   hurt you, as once he did your Master when he wounded His heel.

   You never had a promise of being at peace with the Prince of Darkness,
   but there is another promise which is far better! It is this--"The Lord
   shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." A bruise it shall be when
   we have him under our feet--we will triumph like our Master in the
   breaking of his head. Till then, depend upon it, the enmity between the
   seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman will continue and there
   will be no truce to the war. Do I hear another tried one saying, "Alas,
   it is not the devil, it is myself that I fear. I feel the flesh
   revolting and rebelling. Lusts that I thought were slain have a
   terrible resurrection. When I would do good, evil is present with me.
   Sin assails me with all awful power by reason of the weakness of my
   spirit and the strength of my flesh, and I cry, 'O wretched man that I
   am!'"

   Listen again. Did the Lord ever promise that you should have peace with
   the flesh? Oh no, the moment you were converted there began a battle
   between the flesh and the spirit--and that battle will last till that
   flesh of yours shall lie low in the dust from where it came and your
   spirit, delivered from its bondage, shall ascend to God! You must not
   suppose that as long as you are in this body, the flesh will help you.
   Ah no, you will cry with Paul, "O wretched man that I am, who shall
   deliver me from the body of this death?" You are harassed and hampered
   by the rising corruption of your nature and it will still rise. Your
   Brethren will still say of you, "What will you see in the Shulamite? As
   it were the company of two armies." The flesh is striving against the
   spirit and the spirit against the flesh--and though the lion shall, one
   day, lie down with the lamb, the flesh will never agree with the
   spirit. As the Lord has war with Amalek forever and ever, so there is
   war between the spirit and the flesh so long as the two are in the same
   man. There is no promise of peace with the flesh, then, but we have
   peace with God.

   "Ah," says another, "I have little peace, for I am surrounded by those
   that vex me. When I serve the Lord they malign and misrepresent me with
   scoff and slander. They take up an evil report against me. Woe is me
   that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul
   is among lions, even among them that are set on the fire of Hell. They
   give me no rest." Yes, but I smile as I think of it. Did you ever dream
   of having peace with the wicked? Peace with such as turn aside to their
   crooked ways? Peace with the workers of iniquity? Vain thought! Peace
   in this world where your Lord was crucified? Peace with those that hate
   you for His sake? Why, did He not say to you at the first, "If the
   world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you
   were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are
   not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
   world hates you."

   What? Do you expect to wear a crown of gold where Jesus wore a crown of
   thorns? The confessors and martyrs of ancient times never reckoned upon
   peace with the world. Nor did the Apostle Paul, for he said, "The world
   is crucified to me, and I unto the world." You have no promise of the
   world's love, but you have a promise of this sort, "These things have I
   spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you
   shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the
   world." "And this is the victory which overcomes the world, even our
   faith." I pray you, then, do not misconstrue the text! It does not say
   that you shall either have peace with the devil, or peace with the
   flesh, or peace with the world--but it does say that you have peace
   with God, which is infinitely better!

   "Still," says one, "I find that I sin every day and I hate myself for
   sinning. I cannot get to my bed at night but I feel grieved in my soul
   that I am not more like Christ and that I cannot grow in Grace as I
   desire. I do not seem to make the advance in the Divine Life that I
   hoped I would and I am full of sin. Whatever I do is stained with
   defilement. Wherever I go, I seem to fall one way or another into
   something that wounds my conscience and hurts me." Yes and the Lord
   never said that you should have peace with sin. I am delighted to find
   that sin stings you and that you hate it. The more hatred of sin the
   better! A sin-hating soul is a God-loving soul. If sin never distresses
   you, then God has never favored you. Unless you hate sin, you do not
   love holiness, and if you hate sin, you cannot have any peace with it.
   You will never be satisfied till you are perfect--and when will you be
   perfect? Why, when you wake up in your Lord's likeness! That will be
   the hour of your perfection, but till then sin will vex you. Then shall
   you have no Canaanite to harass you and there shall be war with Amalek
   no more, when the last enemy is slain, when sin is extirpated and you
   shall be near and like your God! You have no promise of peace with sin,
   nor need you wish for one, for you have peace with God!

   To come back, again, to what is promised and, indeed, to what is not
   only promised but really bestowed and communicated to us--"Being
   justified by faith, we have peace with God." Most assuredly we do enjoy
   peace with God in

   this respect--that we know He loves us. He would not have given His Son
   to die for us if He had not. He would not have devised this matchless
   plan of Justification if He had not loved us. Moreover, we feel a
   fervent love to Him in return. We do not love Him as we wish to do, nor
   as we hope to do, but we do love Him for all that. We can say, "Lord,
   You know all things; You know that I love You."--

   "Yes, I love You and adore, Oh for Grace to love You more." Of the
   excellence and virtue of this peace we have daily, hourly proof, for we
   are now not afraid to go to our Covenant God for all necessary things
   and to seek His face for help in time of trouble. Why, to some of us
   this resorting to God has become so habitual that we speak with Him
   every hour of the day!

   Nothing happens but we fly to Him for counsel or for succor. We no
   longer ask leave to do so, for He has given to us the private key and
   the perpetual permit of access. We have not always such settled peace
   with our fellow creatures, for at times we so much lack of confidence
   in them that we could not divulge to them our troubles--but we have
   peace with God! We have such an amity that we can always have recourse
   to Him, assured of His sympathy and His readiness to come to our relief
   in every time of need. Our habit of prayer proves that we have peace
   with God--we would not think of praying to Him if we believed that He
   was our adversary, or if we doubted His good-will. If we felt any
   enmity in our hearts to Him we should not go to Him as we do, with a
   childlike hope in time of distress.

   This peace with God makes us delight in Him. I am sure that every soul
   here that has been justified by faith delights in God. You do not
   always feel Him equally near, but when He is near it is the joy of your
   spirit. What are the best and happiest moments you ever know? Are they
   not those in which you have communion with God? What days can you
   reflect upon with the greatest satisfaction and ardently wish to have
   repeated? Are they not those in which His majesty and mercy have been
   so revealed to your spirit that with mingled awe and sweetness you have
   realized intensely His power and His Presence? Oh, what a good God He
   is! Bad as we are, how good He is! Now, take care that you indulge this
   delight often. If you delight in anything else, you will be an
   idolater. And remember, He has said, "Delight yourself in the Lord and
   He will give you the desire of your heart."

   You cannot be too delighted with your God! Is He not Perfection itself?
   Are we not, in all respects, rejoiced to have such a God? We would not
   have one attribute changed nor one appointment of His sovereign will in
   the least degree moved from its order. Let Him be as He is and do as He
   pleases and our souls shall delight in Him. "Yes, though He slay me,
   yet will I trust in Him." Now, when you can delight in God, though you
   cannot delight in yourself, it shows that you have peace with Him and
   are justified!

   Then, Brothers and Sisters, this peace also shows itself in our
   acquiescing in all that He does in His rough Providences. You know that
   a hypocrite is like a strange dog that will follow a man as long as he
   casts him a bone or a bit of meat. But a true Believer is like a man's
   own dog that will follow him when he gives him nothing, and even when
   he deals him a cuff or a blow. A true Believer says, "Shall I receive
   good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not also receive evil? If
   He chastens me, I would sooner be chastened by my Father than I would
   be caressed by Satan." It were better to smart till one were black and
   blue under the rod of God, than to be set upon a high throne by the
   world or the devil. When he offers you the kingdoms of this world, be
   sure that you say to the foul fiend, "Get you behind me!" But when the
   Lord hands you the bitter cup, be sure to say, "Your will be done," and
   take it cheerfully at His hands. If we feel an agreement with our
   Lord's will, it shows that we are at peace with Him.

   One more evidence of being at peace with God is when you can, with
   confidence, look forward to the time of your departure out of this
   world and say, "I can die, if You, O Lord, are with me." When you can
   fall in with the words of the hymn we were singing just now--

   "Bold shall I stand in that great day,

   For who anything to my charge shall lay?

   While through Your blood absolved I am,

   From sin's tremendous curse and shame?" We are not afraid of the day of
   judgment because we have peace with God and, therefore, we are not
   afraid to die. There is concord and harmony between the righteous God
   and His redeemed people and fear is banished. He has given us His
   Spirit to dwell in our hearts and now we desire that each rising wish
   may be prompted by His will. Our mind is agreed with the mind of God.
   He wishes us to be holy and we wish to be holy. He would kill sin in us
   and we long to have it

   killed. He wishes us to obey and we desire to obey. He would have us
   seek His Glory and we desire that He should be glorified in us, in our
   whole spirit, soul and body. The lines of our life run parallel with
   the life of God, though upon a lower level--we can never be as He is in
   the Glory of His Nature, but we desire to be holy as He is holy.

   The life within us is Divine, for we have been begotten again by
   Himself and, from now on we are in Christ and Christ in us--and so we
   are at peace with God. Go your way, my Brothers and Sisters, and swim
   in this peace! Bathe your weary souls in seas of heavenly rest until
   you come to the place where not a wave of trouble shall ever roll
   across your peaceful breasts and may the very God of Peace sanctify you
   wholly and preserve you blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
   Christ. Faithful is He that calls you, who also will do it. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 5. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--775, 397, 708.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   DEAR FRIENDS--The sermon is so long that only a line or so is left for
   me. I will say the less of myself. The warm sunny days which I have
   spent in this retreat are, by God's blessing, bringing back to me
   health and strength. I shall be happy, indeed, if my mental and
   spiritual vigor should also be renewed by the removal of the daily care
   which pressed upon me. If it is so, my hearers shall be the gainers,
   for all my strength has been and always shall be laid out in my
   ministry.

   I am right glad to hear that special services are commencing at the
   Tabernacle and I entreat all the Brothers and Sisters there to throw
   all their energies into them. Pray that the Holy Spirit may work
   mightily and glorify the Lord Jesus in the midst of the congregations!
   And then set to work to fetch in the people from the outside. Gather
   them! Gather them from hedges and highways and crowd the Gospel feast!
   The preachers are among you whom God has widely blest, but how can they
   benefit the people if they do not come to hear them? Make the services
   known and press those to come who do not usually attend public worship.

   We long to see souls saved--do we not? My heart cannot be content while
   men are being lost! I cannot be among the crowds to preach, but my
   inmost soul prays for those who are indulged with that privilege and
   for you, also, who have the joy of helping in the work of the Lord. I
   am bound to thank those generous friends who continue to send aid to
   the various works under my care--the Lord reward them.

   To each and all my hearers and readers I send my hearty Christian
   salutations, C H. SPURGEON MENTONE
     __________________________________________________________________

Seekers Directed and Encouraged

   (No. 1457A)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And you shall seek Me and find Me, when you shall search for Me with
   all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13.

   THIS was a part of the direction which God gave by His servant to the
   captives in Babylon. They were to remain quiet in Babylon until the set
   time came for their deliverance and then there would be granted to them
   a gracious visitation from God which would move them to repentance and
   incite them to prayer. Then might they be quite sure that the time had
   come for their deliverance, when they sought the Lord with their whole
   heart. It is a general principle that a blessing is about to come from
   the All-Merciful One when we are moved to pray for it with all our
   heart. The Lord of Grace may send us blessings before we search for
   them, for He is a Sovereign and often far outstrips what we might have
   expected, but His promise runs, "Seek and you shall find it," and it is
   with the promise that we have most to do. A cheering assurance is given
   to those who seek in hearty earnest and to this requirement of
   heartiness we must give earnest need.

   At this time I shall not attempt instruction, but strive to drive home
   the Truth of God into the heart and conscience. I pray the Holy Spirit
   to help me and I ask the prayers of those who have power with God, that
   the Word may be as a goad to waken, bestir and urge onward those upon
   whom it is used. Our address will be, first, to the unconverted.
   Secondly, to backsliders. And thirdly, to this Church, or any other
   Christian people.

   I. And first TO THE UNCONVERTED. Our text has a word for you. "You
   shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your
   heart" You have lost your God--you are at a distance from Him. Your
   sins have separated you from your Maker and nothing will ever be right
   with you--really right--till you get back to your God. You are a sheep
   away from its shepherd; you are a prodigal son away from his father and
   you will never be right, I say, till, as a sheep, you get back to the
   fold, and as a son that has rebelled, you are reconciled to your
   Father.

   You need your God and you will never be right till you find Him. You
   are therefore stirred up by the text to "search for" Him. You are not
   to sit still with folded arms and say, "He will come if He will." The
   prodigal said, "I will arise and go to my father," and some such spirit
   must be in you, or we cannot hope well of you. You must search for the
   Lord. In this search it will be of no use for you to look within your
   heart, for it is empty and void of anything godlike and altogether
   estranged from God. Expect not to find the remedy in the disease! No
   one turns to his empty purse in the hope that it will supply his
   necessities, for poverty is not the source of riches! It were vain to
   look for the living among the dead, therefore look not for Grace and
   salvation in yourself!

   Neither will it be the path of wisdom to endeavor to perform good works
   of your own, hoping to set yourself right by your own exertions in
   gaining merit. Man, the whole mischief is that you are separated from
   God and you must get back to Him! The best works done while you are at
   enmity with your Lord and King are only part and parcel of the proud,
   presumptuous sin which rejects the Savior and sets up itself in His
   place. It would have been quite right for the prodigal to wash himself
   and cease from feeding the swine! It was most desirable that he should
   leave the harlots and the riotous living in which he had indulged, but
   if he had done all that and nothing more, the great mischief would not
   have been cured, for the radical evil lay in his being away from his
   father's house.

   That is the essential wrong in your case, O unconverted man,
   unconverted woman! You will never be perfectly happy and right till you
   are reconciled to God! You are allowed to search for Him and what a
   privilege that is! When Adam sinned, he could not go back to Paradise,
   for with a flaming sword in his hand there stood the cherub to keep the
   way that he might not touch the Tree of Life. But God, as far as the
   garden of His mercy is concerned, has moved that fiery sentinel and
   Jesus Christ has set angels of love to welcome you at Mercy's gate! You
   may come to God, for God has come to you! He has taken upon Himself
   your nature and His name is Emmanuel, God With Us!

   Yes, the Infinite became a man and He that built yonder arch of Heaven
   and hung it with those starry lamps, came down below to be subject to
   lowly parents, to work in a carpenter's shop and to die upon a felon's
   gallows, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."
   Search for Him and you must find Him, for so stands His own Word, "You
   shall seek Me and find Me." The text, however, demands that our
   searching after God should be done with all our heart. There are
   several ways of seeking God which must prove failures. One is to seek
   Him with no heart at all. This is done by those who take their book and
   read prayers, never thinking what they say, or who attend a dissenting
   place of worship and hear another person pray, but never join in it.

   This is done by those who bend the knees at eventide and mutter pious
   words, but never think--who rise in the morning and repeat sacred
   sentences and never consider--who with regard to Divine things are as
   little thoughtful as if the Gospel were all a legend or an old wives'
   fable, not worth an hour's meditation. I have seen young women,
   sometimes, when I have been traveling, reading those trashy novels
   which they purchase at the railway stall. And I have seen them waste
   their tears on some imaginary heroine or hero and yet they and others
   hear about the majesty and the love of God without emotion and read of
   Heaven and Hell--and Christ and God--with scarcely a tear or a thought!
   Dear Friend, you will never find the Lord if you seek Him in a
   heartless, unthinking manner. God is not mocked! If any of you have
   fallen into a formal religion and seek the Lord without your heart, you
   are seeking in vain!

   Some seek God with a false heart. They flame with zeal and would have
   their friends know it, for they say as Jehu did to Jehonadab, "Come
   with me and see my zeal for the Lord!" But their heart is not true
   towards God. Their piety is an affectation offeeling and not deep
   soul-work. It is sentimentality and not the engraving of God's Spirit
   upon the heart. Beware of a false religious excitement--of being borne
   up with religious gas as some are, inflated like balloons by a revival,
   only to burst, by-and-by, when they need something to support them. God
   grant us to be saved from a lie in the heart, for it is a deadly
   canker, fatal to all hope of finding the Lord.

   Some seek Him, too, with a double heart--a heart and a heart, as the
   Hebrew puts it. They have a heart towards God and they have a heart
   towards sin--they have a heart towards the pardon, but they have, also,
   a heart towards the transgression. They would gladly serve God and
   Mammon. They would build an altar for Jehovah and still keep Dagon in
   his place. If your heart is divided, you will be found lacking. Those
   prayers will never get to Heaven which only fly upward with one wing.
   If one oar pulls towards earth and the other towards Heaven, the boat
   of the soul will revolve in a circle of folly and never reach the happy
   shore. Beware of a double heart! And some seek God with half a heart.
   They have a little concern and are not altogether indifferent. They
   think when they pray, or read, or sing, but the thought is not very
   intense. Superficial in all things, the Seed is sown in stony ground
   and soon it is withered away, because there is no depth of earth. The
   Lord save us from this!

   Now, you that are seeking Christ, remember that if you would find Him
   you must neither seek Him without heart, nor with a false heart, nor
   with a double heart, nor with a half heart, but "You shall find Me,"
   says the Lord, "when you shall search for Me with all your heart."
   Nobody gets on in the world who is half-hearted. If a man needs money,
   he must hunt for it morning, noon and night. If a man longs for
   knowledge, he cannot take a book and ladle it into his brain with a
   spoon--he must read and study if he is to be a scholar. If a man
   desires to rise in such an age as this, he cannot do it without stern
   labor. Great discoverers, eminent artists and powerful orators have all
   been men of hard work. Handel, who composed such majestic music,
   practiced so often on his harpsichord that he hollowed out the keys
   like spoons through his constant use of them!

   Nothing is to be done without earnestness and you may not expect that
   God is to be found, pardon is to be received and Grace to be had while
   you have only one eye open and are not half awakened out of sleep. What
   did Jesus say?-- "The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the
   violent take it by force." Heaven's celestial bastions must be stormed
   by downright importunity! You must take the knocker of Heaven's gate
   and not drop it from your fingers with a dainty tap, but hammer at
   Mercy's door again and again till you make the infernal deeps of
   despair resound with your desperate knocks and cause Heaven, itself, to
   echo with your hopeful determination that you will enter in, or know
   the reason why! Oh, knock and knock and knock and knock again, for the
   door shall be opened when you knock with all your hearts!

   Surely, dear Friends, if any men have reasons to bring their whole
   hearts into action, you unconverted people are the people! I am sure
   that if I were to intimate to you that a hundred pounds of gunpowder
   were stowed away in yonder center seat and the probability was that it
   would soon explode, you would not remain very long in this Tabernacle,
   but

   would hurry out with all your heart! But any destruction that could be
   caused by gunpowder, as far as its effects on earth are concerned,
   could be nothing at all as compared with the overwhelming destruction
   which will come upon body and soul to men who are under the wrath of
   God! That wrath of God abides on every one of you who are not
   converted!

   God is angry with the sinner every day and if it is so, your position
   is the most perilous one conceivable! You will soon die! Do not be
   vexed with my reminding you of it. We are compelled to see it, some of
   us, who watch large congregations. Never does the same assembly meet in
   this place twice and I suppose between Sabbath and Sabbath it happens
   almost invariably that some hearer goes to his account. Certainly in
   this Church we lose all the year round more than one per week of our
   friends. It is true, then, that you will soon have to die--how will you
   bear to close your eyes on all mortal things without a hope of immortal
   joy?

   To go before the dread tribunal of your Maker and your Redeemer
   unwashed in the precious blood--with all your sins from the first day
   of your life till now about your neck like millstones--to sink
   forever--how can you bear it? Think of this and if you do, you will
   have good reason for seeking your God with all your heart! Remember,
   also, that after death comes judgment. We must all appear before the
   Judgment Seat of Christ! And after the Judgment comes the final award,
   which to those who have rejected Christ will be eternal destruction
   from the Presence of the Lord and the Glory of His power. Do not, I
   pray you, defy the wrath of God or dare His infinite displeasure! He,
   Himself, has said it, "Beware you that forget God, lest I tear you in
   pieces and there be none to deliver."

   Surely every man in his senses who knows that he is exposed to such an
   imminent risk as this will, with his whole heart, seek the Lord! But
   why is it that when men search with all their heart they find God? I
   will tell you. The only way in which we can find God is in Jesus
   Christ. There He meets with men, but nowhere else, and to get to Jesus
   Christ there is nothing on earth to be done but simply to believe in
   Him. It is a matter which does not take a moment. Believe God's
   testimony about Jesus Christ--trust yourself with Jesus Christ and
   salvation is yours! The saving Word is near you, in your mouth and in
   your heart, and that is why when men seek the Lord with their whole
   hearts they find Him, for before they called, the Lord was ready to
   answer!

   Jesus was always ready, but other wishes and other thoughts made the
   seeker unready. Sins were there and lusts of the flesh and all manner
   of obstacles to hinder the man. When a man comes to seek God with all
   his heart, he lets those things go and soon sees Jesus. Then, too, a
   man becomes teachable, for when a man is in earnest to escape from
   danger he is glad enough to be told by anybody. If I had lost my way
   and feared I might fall over a precipice, I should be glad for the
   tiniest child to tell me the right road and a man is likely to learn
   who is willing to be taught! This seeking God with all his heart makes
   a man quick in understanding. Before, he was a dolt, because his heart
   was not in it, like a boy at school who does not want to learn.

   When a man seeks God with all his heart, you do not need to preach fine
   sermons to him--he does not crave elegance or eloquence--no, tell Him
   Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and that "there is
   life for a look at the Crucified One," and he jumps at it! "That is
   what I want," he says. The Spirit of God has made him eager to learn
   and so he catches, at once, at the blessed message and believes in
   Jesus. Half a heart, or no heart, or a double heart will not see what
   is as plain as a pikestaff and will not accept a Gospel which is as
   glorious to God as it is simple to man! I charge you, then, you that
   seek the Lord, to be whole-hearted in it, for you cannot expect peace
   and joy in the Holy Spirit till all those straggling affections and
   wandering desires are tied up into one bundle and your entire being is
   eager in the search for God in Christ Jesus.

   II. I cannot spare the seeker any more time, for I need to have five
   minutes with THE BACKSLIDER. Backsliders, you have left your Lord.
   Perhaps you have left the Church, or the Church has left you by putting
   you outside its pale and deservedly so, because you were a dishonor to
   it. I am glad you come among us to worship. You have had to be cut off
   from our fellowship because of your sad conduct, but you still stick to
   us and I am glad to see you. I always feel hope for you as long as you
   love the old house. I am glad that though you are not recognized as a
   child in it, and do not feel that you ought to be, yet you still wait
   under the window to hear the family sing.

   When the children of God are feasting together at the Table I have
   marked you looking on and wishing you were again in the happy
   household. I do not know whether you are God's children or not. I
   cannot judge your hearts. I call you backsliders, not because I am sure
   you are really so, for it is very possible that you made a false
   profession and you afterwards did what was natural you should do--you
   broke down in trying to carry out a practical lie. I will not try to

   judge that, but I will say this to you--surely, if there are any people
   in the world who ought to be whole-hearted in seeking after God, you
   are the people!

   If I am to be lost, I pray God I may not perish as an apostate or a
   backslider! O you who once made a profession of religion, I cannot
   understand how you can dare to think of the Judgment Day, for you will
   not be able to plead ignorance, for you knew the Truth of God and
   professed to believe it! You will not be able to say, "I never heard of
   these things." No, but you came to the Communion Table and you joined
   the Church! You even preached to others, or you taught in the Sunday
   school! You ran over at the mouth about Divine things though you were
   empty at the heart. How speechless you will stand at the last dreadful
   day with your old regimentals hanging about you to prove that you were
   deserters! You will not be able to lift a finger or utter a word in
   defense of yourself!

   And what will you do when you go down to Hell? The Prophet represents
   the king of Babylon as going there and as he descended the little petty
   princes whom he put to death, who were lying there in their dungeons in
   the prison of Hell, rose and, leaning on their elbows, looked at him
   and said," Have you become like one of us?" I think I hear the drunk
   rising up and saying to you, "What? And are you here after all? You
   used to preach sobriety to me and warn me of the drunk's doom." Ah, my
   Hearers, hypocrites are damned as well as drunks! Then will speak the
   woman whom you talked about reclaiming and what a sneer she will meet
   you with and say, "You needed a refuge yourself, you hypocrite!" Then,
   too, will speak your neighbors who never went to a place of worship,
   whom you thought were so very bad because you went there and forgot
   what you heard.

   They will say, "This is what came of your going to the Tabernacle and
   hearing Spurgeon! Is this the result of your joining the Church and
   going to the Communion Table?" What answer can you give when those eyes
   shall leer on you and those lips shall hiss in derision at you? Others
   shall say, "I never had the opportunities you had. I was never warned
   as you were. I never rejected Christ as you have done--I never stained
   the robes of His Church and wounded Him anew in the house of His
   friends as you have done." Then they will insult and triumph over you!
   If a prince of the blood were sent to a common jail, what a misery it
   would be to him.

   I pity every man who has to work upon the treadmill, so far as he can
   deserve pity, but most of all the man who has been delicately brought
   up and scarcely knows what labor means, for it must be hard, indeed,
   for him. Ah, you delicate sons and daughters of Zion--you whose mouths
   were never stained with a curse and whose hands have never been defiled
   with outward sin--if your hearts are not right with God, you must take
   your place with the profane and share with them. What do you say to all
   this? Do you say, "I would gladly return and find acceptance in
   Christ"? To you the text expressly speaks! Then shall you "find Me when
   you shall search for Me with all your heart."

   III. My last word is to you, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and
   especially to you, the members of this Church. Thus says the Lord, "You
   shall seek Me and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your
   heart." Brethren, we need the Lord to be always among us. We have had
   His Presence very graciously, but I am always troubled lest any sin of
   ours should cause Him to depart. I dread anything like a decline in
   zeal and ardor, generosity, prayerfulness and holy living among any of
   us, lest the Glory should depart and Ichabod be written on our walls.
   We hunger for our God, for I trust we can say we love Him.

   Can you say that? I heard this last week a story about that mighty
   preacher, Robert Hall, which touched me as I heard it. A friend related
   that Robert Hall was riding, one day, through a little hamlet on his
   way to preach at a country town. It snowed very heavily and Mr. Hall
   was passing through the village, unaware of the state of the road
   beyond. A Christian man who knew him well, cried out, "Mr. Hall, you
   must not go farther! The snow is very deep! You cannot get through it,
   you must come in." Mr. Hall stopped at the house and rested awhile. He
   looked out of the window and saw that it kept on snowing. He looked out
   again and it snowed more heavily than before and his friend said to
   him, "You cannot go, Mr. Hall, you cannot get there."

   "But," he said, "Sir, I must go." "Sir," said the good man, "you
   cannot. It is impossible. You cannot get to the place; the roads are
   blocked up." So the great preacher agreed to remain if he could deliver
   his sermon. "I must preach, Sir; I must preach, Sir. I cannot remain
   unless I preach." His host went round the hamlet, knocked at the doors
   of the cottages and got a few people together into his home. Mr. Hall
   preached a wonderful sermon. The good man seemed to mount to Heaven in
   preaching from the words, "I saw no temple therein." When the people
   had gone home he said to his

   friend, "My dear Sir, I am afraid I am not a child of God." "Why, Mr.
   Hall, how can you say such a thing as that?" "But I am afraid I am a
   hypocrite, Sir."

   "Well, nobody else is afraid of that about you, Mr. Hall. And I cannot
   think how you can give way to such a notion." "Ah, but I want to ask
   you a question, Sir. What do you think is a sure sign that a man is a
   child of God?" "Mr. Hall," said the good man, "you ought to know better
   than I do. I cannot undertake to instruct you." "I need to know, Sir,
   and shall be obliged by your judgment," said Mr. Hall. "Well," said the
   man, "this is what I think is a sure sign--if a man really loves God,
   he must be a child of God and there must have been a change in Him."
   "Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Sir, for that word," said Mr. Hall, "that
   is just what I needed. Love God, Sir? I love Him with my whole soul."

   "And," said the good host, in talking to my friend, "you should have
   heard how Mr. Hall went on about God! It was wonderful to hear him,
   Sir. He praised Him above all things. He said all that was good about
   Him and he kept saying, 'I cannot help loving such a Being as God is,
   and if that proves that I am saved, then I am sure of it, for I must
   love Him.'"

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, we love God with all our hearts and,
   therefore, we desire to have Him glorified in our midst. Do you not, my
   Brethren, vehemently desire this? I know you do! How, then, shall the
   Lord be honored? He may be glorified by holier living. How is that to
   be done? The text says we shall find Him if we seek Him with all our
   hearts and in finding Him we shall find holiness. I have given up the
   idea that I shall ever get a Church in which all hearts will seek God
   earnestly. I know you will not all be alive and full of fervor, for
   some of you are a dishonor to the Church! You will never help us, but
   you will remain among us as dead weights. How I wish I could hope
   otherwise, but I dare not deceive myself or you.

   I do expect, however, that all who have the life of God really in their
   souls will give their whole hearts to the Glory of God and will do it
   intensely. I look to them to seek the Lord by prayer, praying much for
   God to be glorified and to back up their prayer by effort, cheerfully
   seeking to take their full share in the extension of the Redeemer's
   kingdom. Brethren, did Christ die for you? Yes or no? If He did, then,
   in the name of common honesty, live unto Him, for you cannot be your
   own--He has bought you with a price! When you were baptized in the name
   of The Sacred Three, did you mean it? If you did, in the name of the
   Truth of God, live unto God, for you confessed that you were dead to
   the world and buried with Christ and that you should always live unto
   Him!

   When the last time you came to the Communion Table, did you really
   believe that Jesus gave Himself for you and did you know that you
   feasted upon His flesh and drank His blood by faith? Then, I say, in
   the name of both honesty and the Truth of God, live as souls should
   live who have eaten better than angels' meat and have Christ within
   them! I try to speak as earnestly as I can, but usually when I reach my
   home I say to myself, "What are you doing? You did not awaken those
   people, or yourself either! You are getting dull and old--you are not
   half so zealous as you used to be in your younger days."

   I try to stick big pins into myself in a spiritual fashion, to wake
   myself up, again, for fear I should fall into the same drowsy state as
   some I know of, whose preaching is little better than articulate
   snoring. They are sound asleep and as a natural consequence their
   people are asleep, too. If this Book is true, the most of us are not
   living as we ought to live! If there is a Heaven, we are not living in
   the joy which the hope of it ought to inspire! If there is a Hell and
   some of our own children are going down to it, we do not act towards
   them as if we believed in their danger! We are acting like monsters and
   not like men if we suffer our fellow creatures to be lost without
   lifting a finger for their salvation! Awake! Arise, my Brothers and
   Sisters!

   Oh, Church of God in this place and Church of God everywhere, shake
   yourself from the bonds of your neck! Arise and sit down on your throne
   of power, O daughter of Zion! Put on your strength as in the ancient
   days, for strength shall be yours if you search after the Lord with all
   your heart! God grant that as a Church we may be thoroughly earnest in
   seeking for a display of His saving power and He shall have the glory!
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEORFE SERMON--Matthew 11. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--429, 503, 549.

   TO MY CHURCH AND PEOPLE:

   DEAR FRIENDS--I am hoping and praying that the special services at the
   Tabernacle may excel all that have gone before. To urge you to the
   utmost earnestness about them, I have written the short sermon of this
   week. It would give me great joy to hear, as I feel sure I shall, that
   in this as in all the other works of the Church, you are abundantly
   filled with zeal and constancy.

   My one concern is lest the Lord's work should suffer by my absence. I
   entreat you, do not permit it to be so in any point or degree. The damp
   and dull weather, which has reached us even here, has somewhat retarded
   my progress to health and strength, so that I remain a very feeble
   traveler, but yet I am greatly improved and feel that my mind and
   spirits are the better for the rest.

   To all of you, from the bottom of my heart, I send my sincere love in
   Christ Jesus. Yours to serve while there remains any life in me,

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   Mentone, February 6, 1879.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Numbered People

   (No. 1457B)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "According to the commandment of the Lord they were numbered by the
   hand of Moses, everyone according to his service and according to his
   burden: thus were they numbered by him, as the Lord commanded Moses."
   Numbers 4:49.

   ISRAEL in the wilderness is admitted, in some respects, to have been a
   type of the Church in its present condition. The tribe of Levi was, in
   a peculiar and inner sense, the type of that peculiar people who under
   the great High Priest are set apart for the service of the Lord and His
   Church. To them the transport of the holy vessels from place to place
   was committed, each family of the tribe being made responsible for the
   safe and reverent transport of a certain part of the sacred furniture.
   Since nothing in the service of the God of order may be left to hazard,
   but everything is in order, those persons who in hackneyed phrase cry
   out against, "system," ought to be told that the Lord has always had a
   system, not only in Nature and Providence, but also in His own courts.

   There is an admirable "economy" in the palace of the great
   King--whatever of disorder, waste and riot there may be surrounding
   other monarchs--nothing of the kind will be found beneath the shadow of
   the Divine Throne. He who counts the stars and calls them all by their
   names, leaves nothing unarranged in His own service. His Church,
   therefore, should exhibit the discipline of an army and all His
   warriors should know how to keep rank. Though we are not under the Law,
   we are not without Law to Christ, nor do we wish to be, for His
   commandments are not grievous. At this season, when our Church is
   making a most earnest effort to glorify the Lord by seeking
   conversions, we would muster all the servants of our Master and summon
   each one to take his appointed place and service.

   The work of the Lord is to be done, done well and done by us all most
   cheerfully and heartily. Gather, therefore, together and let each
   redeemed one take up his burden and bear it before the Lord in due
   order! To this end, like Moses, we would call you out, one by one, and
   give you a charge as from the Lord. Our text contains authority for the
   muster roll, appointment for the individuals and account of the actual
   execution of the command. Upon each of these, an absent officer of your
   company will try to say a little as the Holy Spirit may enable him.

   I. Here is, first, AUTHORITY FOR THE MUSTER ROLL. "According to the
   commandment of the Lord they were numbered." It was not left to Moses
   to number the people without Divine sanction, else the deed might have
   been as evil in the sight of the Lord as that of David when he made a
   census of the nation. Neither may any man at this day number the saints
   of the Lord, at his own discretion, to enterprises for which they were
   never set apart. The armies of Israel are none of ours to lead where we
   will, nor even to reckon up that the number may be told to our own
   honor. The counting of Apostles and disciples is lawful enough, for it
   was frequently done in the best days of the Church, but statistics may
   be taken in such a spirit as to be the occasion of sin.

   In no such manner would we now number the host unto the battle, but
   would summon the chosen of the Lord to the Lord's work and in the
   Lord's name. Believers in Christ Jesus, you are now called forth to do
   suit and service, because, like the tribe of Levi, you are the Lord's.
   He views you as the Church of the firstborn, as the redeemed from among
   men and as His peculiar portion and inheritance and, therefore above
   all other men you are under His special rule and governance. The Lord
   said unto Moses, "The Levites shall be Mine: I am the Lord," and He has
   made the same declaration concerning all those that fear the Lord and
   that think upon His name--"They shall be Mine, says the Lord, in the
   day when I make up My jewels."

   Upon whom shall we call to perform the work of the Lord but upon those
   who are His own? To these belong a devout care for the interest of true
   religion and an earnest zeal for the Glory of God. Obligations as
   powerful as they are, are honorable upon them. "You are not your own,
   you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in
   your spirit, which are God's." Do you feel a shrinking from being
   numbered and called out for active service? Is not

   this an evil and unworthy sensation? Should you not far rather account
   it your glory to be called out with the dedicated ones?

   Brothers and Sisters, you are further called because this is a charge
   laid upon you of the Lord, to whom you specially belong. The Levites
   (Num. 4:3) were ordained "to do the work in the tabernacle of the
   congregation." They were not numbered with the rest of the nation, for
   their vocation was altogether different and their whole business was
   "about holy things." You see in this, your calling, Brethren, for you
   are also ordained that you may live unto the Lord alone. To whom does
   the work of God belong but to His children? Who should serve the Lord
   Christ and gather in His wanderers but those whom He has called to that
   office? If you refuse the honorable yoke, how will the work of mercy be
   done? Can it be left to hirelings, or will the spiritually dead perform
   the service of the living God? No, it is your charge and you must do
   it.

   Again, Brethren, the Lord may well call you to this service, seeing He
   has given you to His Son, even as He gave the Levites to Aaron, as it
   is written (Num. 3:9), "They are wholly given unto him out of the
   children of Israel." The Lord had also said, "Bring the tribe of Levi
   near and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister
   unto him." They were happy, thus, to serve the head of their own tribe
   and more happy, still, are we to serve the Lord Christ who is the
   Firstborn among many Brethren. Because you belong to Christ, therefore,
   hide not yourselves from His service, but come forward with joy!

   Once more, the Lord has constituted you the servants of all His people,
   even as He said of the Levites that they were to "do the service of the
   children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation." We are
   debtors to all our Brethren and we are their servants to the full
   extent of our power. The greater we are in the Church, the more are we
   the servants of all! It is ours to fulfill this service, or else we are
   untrue to the position of Christians who are all called in love to
   serve one another. Here are a few of the claims which the Lord has upon
   you--will you not acknowledge the supreme authority which calls you to
   active service?

   II. Under our second head we shall notice the APPOINTMENT OF THE
   INDIVIDUALS--"Everyone according to his service and according to his
   burden." By our varied gifts, positions, offices and opportunities, we
   are as much set apart to special services as were the sons of Kohath,
   Gershon and Merari. One family bore the ark and the other the holy
   vessels; another had charge of the sacred hangings and a third carried
   the boards and the pillars and framework of the tabernacle. But supreme
   authority had set each family its own special service and burden. Even
   thus is it among ourselves and so let us see to it that we observe the
   Divine appointment.

   "Having, then, gifts differing according to the Grace that is given to
   us, whether ministry let us wait on our ministry, or he that teaches,
   on teaching; or he that exhorts, on exhortation: he that gives, let him
   do it with simplicity. He that rules, with diligence; he that shows
   mercy, with cheerfulness." Great evils arise out of persons mistaking
   their calling and undertaking things of which they are not capable.
   And, on the other hand, the success of Christian work, in a large
   measure, arises out of places of usefulness being filled by the right
   men. In the march through the wilderness the sons of Merari never
   interfered with the burdens of the sons of Kohath, or the arrangements
   would have been sadly disturbed--each one took up his allotted load and
   went on his way rejoicing, no one jostling his fellow.

   If we could bring all our workers into the same order, how like an army
   with banners would the Church become and how beautiful would be her
   battle array! "A place for everyone and every one in his place" should
   be the practical slogan of our congregations and the people should be
   numbered, not according to worldly rank or self-estimate, but,
   "everyone according to his service." It is to be noticed, here, that
   the Levites only rendered this service, "from thirty years old and
   upward, even unto fifty years old."

   We rejoice that it is not so among us under the Gospel, for there is
   work for the young people and also for the aged! Little children and
   young men and maidens may take their places among the servitors of the
   Prince of Peace! And he who leans upon his staff for very age shall not
   find himself dismissed from his Master's beloved service. No women are
   mentioned as bearers of the tabernacle and its holy furniture. It was a
   work for which they were scarcely fitted and an economy under which
   they were seldom employed. Here, too, we have a great change, for there
   is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus--and in their own way, the
   Sisters are our fellow servants, even as they are our fellow heirs.
   Never can women be forgotten in any enumeration of the forces of the
   Church! What could we do without them?

   Let it not be forgotten, then, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the great
   Head of the Church, calls out all His redeemed to His service and that
   He lays upon each one a burden which no one else can carry. It should
   be the joy of each Believer to know what it is that his shoulders are
   permitted to bear and then he or she should gladly take up the
   ennobling load. There can be no exemption unless a man will dare to
   claim that he is his own and was never bought with a price. Each one
   throughout life must be "steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the
   work of the Lord."

   III. Thirdly, our text is the summary of the chapter in which we have
   an ACCOUNT OF THE ACTUAL FULFILLMENT OF THE LORD'S COMMAND BY MOSES. He
   numbered each family and cast up the total of the tribe, at the same
   time mentioning in detail the peculiar service of each. We would
   imitate him at this important moment and take the census of those who
   are consecrated to the Lord's own service. Where are you, then, who can
   bear the heavier service of the sanctuary, carrying its pillars and the
   boards and the sockets? You are now needed to speak in the meetings, to
   lead the people in prayer, to order the assemblies and to take the
   heavier work of this holy business!

   The Lord Jesus should have able men to speak for Him--He deserves the
   best of the best. Now is the hour, where is the man? Let no diffidence
   or love of ease keep one back who might make known the Gospel and win a
   soul for Jesus! By the curse of Meroz when they came not to the help of
   the Lord against the mighty, we would charge all Christians of
   influence and ability to hasten to the field! But where are you who can
   only carry the pins and the cords? Your burden is lighter, but probably
   your strength is also less--and lighter though your load may be, the
   matters which you carry are quite as essential as the pillars and the
   boards! Where are you?

   You who can say a few words to lonely enquiring ones; you who can do no
   more than pray, where are you? At your posts, or idling? Answer and
   answer quickly, for time and need are pressing! If the load which you
   can carry is so very small, be all the more ready to bear it. Are you a
   lover of the Lord Jesus and do you wish to be omitted from the roll
   call? If so, let it be known to yourself and stated plainly to your
   conscience--do not pretend to be a laborer and remain a loiterer--but
   openly avow to your soul that you stand all the day idle and feel fully
   justified in so doing! Deny your Lord His due, but do it to His face!
   Tell Him openly that you do not mean to spend your days in glorifying
   His name!

   Do you shrink from this honest refusal of service? You need not do so
   because it is at all unusual, for as Nabal said, "there are many
   servants, nowadays, that break away, every man from his master." It is
   plain, however, that you have no stomach for so clear a rejection of
   your Lord. Come, then, and take your place among those who are striving
   together to honor their Lord! At this time your help will be precious.
   Seek a new anointing and then hasten to the work. Is not the Holy
   Spirit in you? Does He not prompt you to seek the salvation of others?
   Is not the Lord Jesus the Model to which Grace conforms you? How can
   this be if you have little or no love for the souls of your neighbors?

   Your pastor calls you, though far away! By all our mutual love he
   beseeches you to fulfill your ministry, every one according to his
   service and according to his burden. But, far above this, your God,
   your Savior, your Comforter call you with one voice! Can you refuse the
   heavenly vocation?
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sermon Upon One Nothing by Another Nothing

   (No. 1458)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Though I am nothing." 2 Corinthians 12:11.

   THE Divine discipline had succeeded well with the Apostle Paul. There
   was danger of his being exalted above measure by the abundance of the
   Revelation which he received and, therefore, there was given him a
   thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him--this trial
   fully answered its purpose and Paul remained a lowly-minded servant of
   Jesus Christ. His humility comes out in the incident before us. He was
   compelled to defend himself and prove his Apostleship and this he does
   very thoroughly but very modestly. In the midst of strong expressions
   of self-assertion, every one of them truthful and none of them
   exaggerated, his true humility is as manifest as if he had been
   unveiling his inward faults, or writing his, "Confessions."

   Augustine in his, "Retractations," is no more humble than Paul in his
   self-vindication. It is easy for a man to use lowly expressions when he
   is writing about his own faults and the Grace of God which saved him
   from them, but it is not so easy to maintain the virgin blush of
   modesty when called in necessary self-defense to vindicate one's own
   character and mention one's own achievements. Indignation is generally
   awakened in such a case and humility creeps out of the way-- the more
   amazing is it, then, to find Paul esteeming himself as nothing, even
   when answering the cruel depreciations of his opposers.

   Read verse 11 and see the lowly heart of the man--"I have become a fool
   in boasting; you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended
   of you: for in nothing was I behind the most eminent Apostles, though I
   am nothing." Beloved, when we have to take the same medicine, may it
   have as sure an effect upon us as it had upon Paul. If it should be
   necessary for us to be buffeted, or to endure a thorn in the flesh, may
   the affliction be as much sanctified to its end as it was in his case!
   Alas, I am afraid that some have many thorns in the flesh and yet are
   not humble. They have many buffetings and yet are lifted up and, what
   is worse still, they have never enjoyed a perilous abundance of
   Revelation to lift them up, but rather they have been surfeited with an
   abundance of that which is gross and earthy and yet they are not
   humble.

   Though they have no good thing to glory in, they have exalted
   themselves above their brethren and have spoken harshly of them and to
   them and have been exceedingly high and haughty in all that they have
   done. Such persons may expect to be stopped in their boasting before
   long. May God grant that a little thorn may be enough for us; that one
   touch of the knife may suffice to let out our proud blood; that a
   little buffeting by the messenger of Satan may avail to prevent our
   being exalted above measure, for has not the Lord said, "Be you not as
   the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose month
   must be held in with bit and bridle"?

   A tittle trial ought to suffice to ballast us, for I am sure we have
   nothing so abundant in the way of Revelations and spiritual attainments
   that we should feel inclined at all to boasting. It is a great shame if
   we have fallen into the danger which Paul escaped and have fallen into
   it without rhyme or reason. He who is proud about nothing is a fool in
   capitals. I desire to call your attention to the fact that although
   Paul was undoubtedly humble and the discipline of God had helped to
   keep him so, yet there is not a particle of cant in any of his
   expressions. There is no trace of the whine of hypocrites revealing,
   rather than concealing, their self-conceit. Humility has been well
   defined as having a just estimate of yourself. There is no humility in
   such self-depreciation as would lead you to deny what God has worked in
   you, or worked by you--that might be willful falsehood and certainly
   would be grievous error.

   Falsehood is not a constituent element of anything that is gracious--we
   are not required to call five talents one in order to be humble. If we
   make a fair and just estimate of ourselves, we shall certainly discover
   nothing to boast about and we shall not, then, be likely to borrow from
   the lips of others words and confessions which do not accurately
   represent our character, or state our feelings and, ought not,
   therefore, to be employed by us. The mimicry of humility is

   a very common piece of masquerading. You shall find persons speaking in
   very lowly terms of themselves, but they do not expect you to believe
   them. A Brother who has called himself worldly in prayer, if you should
   tell him in private conversation that you were glad to hear his
   truthful description of himself, would not take it at all kindly, but
   would ask who and what are you that you should judge him! He would tell
   you he is as spiritual as you are and perhaps more so.

   A monk, we remember, confessed that he was so great a sinner that he
   had broken all the commandments. But when afterwards one of his friends
   began to charge him with breaking first one commandment and then
   another, the hypocrite averted that he had not broken any one of them!
   Men are so little humble that when they smite on their breasts they may
   be still boasting in their hearts! Mock humility creeps around us,
   cringing and fawning, but every honest man loathes it and we may be
   sure that God loathes it, too. Now, if the Apostle had said that he was
   not an Apostle at all, that he had never suffered anything for Christ,
   or done anything to spread the Gospel, he would have been speaking, as
   some say, humbly. But this is a mistake--he would have been telling
   lies!

   He, therefore, does nothing of the kind. He says that he is not a whit
   behind the very chief of the Apostles; speaks of his sufferings and his
   toils; told of the manifestations of Divine Grace to his soul and, yet,
   for all that, he finishes his detail of experience by saying, "Though I
   am nothing." Brothers and Sisters, do not deny what God has done for
   you, or by you! Look at all of it and value it and bless the Lord for
   it! But still, when all is said and done you must, no, I trust you
   cheerfully will come back to this--"Though I am nothing"--speaking
   truthfully all the while and not using a good expression for a sort of
   religious fashion's sake, but because it is deeply felt to be quite as
   true that you are nothing as it is true that God has blessed you!

   I shall endeavor at this time, as the Spirit of God shall help me, to
   speak upon this very remarkable expression of the Apostle, "Though I am
   nothing." O, that both the preacher and his hearers may be able to
   enter into the spirit and soul of the text and make it all our own!

   I. And first, we shall say of it that this was OTHER MEN'S ESTIMATE OF
   HIM. Everyone did not value the great Apostle as we do, but many spoke
   ill of him. Perhaps he meant, "though I am nothing in the opinion of my
   detractors.''" I hardly think he intended it, but still, he may have
   included that in its meaning. He may have meant, "I am not a whit
   behind the most eminent of the Apostles, though in the judgment of
   others I am nothing." I mention this point, first, because it may
   comfort any earnest servant of God who is faithfully serving his Master
   but finds himself undervalued and despised by those from whom he
   expected sympathy and help.

   You may be starting in the Christian life as a young man full of zeal
   and fervor, but you dwell among a people who count you hot-headed and
   self-conceited and do their best to thwart you. You are like Joseph
   among his brothers and the archers sorely shoot at you. You are looked
   upon as a dreamer and a pretentious fool. Your companions are as rough
   to you as were David's brothers when he came down to the host--they
   charge you with pride and willfulness. Be comforted about this trial if
   you are, indeed, a true-hearted soldier of Jesus Christ, for if Paul
   heard that in the judgment of many his personal presence was weak and
   his speech was contemptible--and if many other eminent men have been
   frowned upon and misjudged--you need not wonder if the same thing
   happens to you! It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his
   youth--bear it and profit by it!

   The case is harder with older servants of God. After a long life of
   usefulness, Churches often forget all that a man was and did in his
   vigorous times and now that the elasticity of his mind has abated, they
   treat him with indifference. His ministry is now more solid and full of
   experimental teaching--an ungenerous race of hearers do not say that
   his preaching has become weighty, but they complain that the old
   gentleman is "very heavy" and they cannot endure his prosiness. The
   good old man, who deserves to be honored by his congregation, runs the
   risk of being elbowed out and reckoned as a worn-out nobody. You must
   not marvel, my dear Brother, if foolish lovers of novelty should so
   treat you! It is inexcusable and yet it is common. It wounds your heart
   and makes you wish to be gone to the better land, but do not let it too
   sorely vex you, for the same thing happened to him at whose feet you
   would be glad to sit--I mean the Apostle of the Gentiles--who, when he
   was "such an one as Paul the Aged," knew that to many he was nothing.

   In following up the subject, we observe that Paul was nothing, first,
   in the estimation of hatred. His Jewish brethren, when he was, with
   them, the slave of their prejudices and an advocate of their
   principles, thought him some great one. He was a leader among them, a
   Pharisee among the Pharisees, a man deeply taught in rabbinical lore, a
   scholar to be gloried in, a zealot to be trusted! Then Paul was
   something! But when he went over to the hated sect and became a
   worshipper of

   the Nazarene, he was nothing! The bigot spat at the very mention of his
   name. He was an apostate, a worthless fellow, a madman, a nothing! He
   became an alien and worse, a castaway and a curse. Such is, in a
   measure, the case when men become thoroughly and bravely followers of
   Jesus. The world's market price of them falls a hundred per cent.

   If a scientific man is of infidel principles, he is cried up as an
   eminent thinker and discoverer. But should he be a true Christian and
   know 20 times as much as his fellows, he is a person of antiquated
   views and narrow notions. If a preacher proclaims novel heresies, then
   he is declared a man of advanced thought, a leader abreast of the
   times--though, indeed, there may be nothing in him but an affectation
   of singularity and lack of reverence for the Word of God! He who is
   content with the exceeding broadness of the Divine testimony and asks
   no greater liberty than that of the Truth of God, is, in certain
   quarters, reported to have narrowed his soul and to be possessed of but
   slender intellect.

   Of course, it has always been so, but I think it is easier to call a
   man a fool than to prove him to be so and it is a great deal easier to
   boast of your own wonderful powers, the expansiveness of your mind and
   the great progress that you have made in thought, than it will be to
   convince really thoughtful and experienced men who walk with God that,
   after all, the new is better than the old and that the inventions of
   man's fancy are better than the doctrines of Divine Revelation! That
   is, however, the custom of men who, being short of arguments, seize
   upon the weapons of contempt. If you are not of their way of thinking
   you are not a thinker at all! If you will chime in with their notions,
   you are worthy of all honor! But if yon differ from them, you must be
   nothing. Paul was marked at zero by the measurement of those who hated
   him.

   He was also nothing in the valuation of envy. There arose, even in the
   Church of Christ, certain ones who loved preeminence and found the
   Apostle already in the highest place. False brethren claimed to be
   Apostles and, in order to maintain their pretensions, they questioned
   the Apostleship of Paul. They strove to rise by pulling down one who
   was superior to themselves. Who was Paul? they asked. He could write a
   weighty and powerful letter, but if you came to listen to him, his weak
   eyes, his short stature and his cramped resolve to know nothing but
   Christ crucified caused him to make a sorry figure as an orator! They,
   themselves, with enticing words and fair speeches, boasted that they
   far excelled him.

   Where was the excellency of his words? Where was the depth of his
   wisdom? He was nothing and they sneered at him and exalted themselves.
   The Apostle knew all this and was by no means crushed, thereby, for he
   could stand even before envy. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, envy has a
   wonderful skill in the cruel arts of slander and detraction--if the
   envious cannot quench the sun, they can at least point to its spots, or
   raise a dust to blind men's eyes to its brightness! Many a hero of the
   Truth of God has been despised for the very reason which ought to have
   secured him honor. It is an unfortunate thing for some men, if they
   love their own ease, that they have risen to conspicuous usefulness,
   for in a middle place they might have been allowed to be something, but
   jealousy is now resolved to rate them as nothing.

   If Paul had wanted to be comfortable and repose had been his objective,
   he had only to subside into the common ranks of the lukewarm Laodiceans
   and then he would have been far less plucked at. Zeal and holiness, if
   they are accompanied with a measure of success, will secure a man that
   contempt among the envious which is the homage that evil hearts must,
   of necessity, pay to goodness. Again, the Apostle was, evidently,
   nothing to those who desired that Christianity should make a fair show
   in the flesh. Certain brethren had come among the Believers who brought
   with them human wisdom and thought to adorn the doctrine of Christ and
   cause the offense of the Cross to cease. Gnosticism was the "modern
   thought" of the Apostle's age and of the era which followed it. It was
   a translation of the Gospel into the language of the schools and the
   evaporation of its true life and meaning in the process.

   Our Apostle abhorred the wisdom of words. "We use," says he, "great
   plainness of speech." He tore the mask from off those half heathens who
   made the Cross of Christ of no effect by their philosophizing and,
   therefore, they retaliated by declaring that he was not a man of a
   great mind--that, in fact he was nothing! Other teachers arose who were
   opposed to the philosophical way, but they must take the way of
   tradition and ritualism, declaring that men must be circumcised, or
   else their faith in Christ would be of no avail. Such persons dwelt
   much upon the observance of holy days and months and so on, and thus
   stirred up the spirit of the Apostle till he came forth and cried, "I,
   Paul, say unto you, that if you are circumcised, Christ shall profit
   you nothing! By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified."

   By declaring the plain Gospel of salvation by Grace through faith, he
   laid the axe at the root of all ritualism, as he had before done at the
   root of all rationalism. Straightway the high churchmen discovered that
   Paul was nothing! He might have decorated the Gospel with learning and
   made it palatable to the Greeks, or he might have cramped it with

   tradition and made it agreeable to the Jews, but he scorned to do
   either. When Peter went a little in the Jewish direction, Paul
   "withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed" and,
   therefore, some cried up Cephas, but cried down Paul and, according to
   their account, he was just nothing.

   May the Lord grant to all of us who preach the Gospel a willingness to
   be lightly esteemed! May the Lord give us all Divine Grace to be fools
   in the estimation of modern wise men! May we have enough backbone of
   holy firmness to be conservative of the old Truth and to be careless of
   the ridicule of the worldly wise. May we have enough loyalty to Christ
   to be willing to be despised for His sake! May we be man enough not to
   care one atom whether we are in honor or dishonor, so long as our
   conscience is clear that we have faithfully preached Jesus Christ and
   Him crucified! The day shall come when he who has borne the most
   disgrace for Christ will be esteemed the happiest and most honored man
   alive-- and when he who was counted the greatest fool for Christ shall
   be acknowledged to be among the wisest of men and shall shine as the
   stars forever and ever.

   Will we not cheerfully consent to be nothing for His sake who made
   Himself of no reputation for our sakes? Will we not, with John, rejoice
   that He must increase and that we must decrease? It is our joy to see
   Him All in All and if any shame or contempt borne by us could lift up
   His name but one hair's breadth, we would rejoice with joy unspeakable.
   After all, what is man's opinion? The balances are not those of the
   sanctuary and the weights are not those of justice. The verdict of
   earth will be reversed by the judgment of Heaven, for that which is
   highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God! When any
   measure of injustice grieves us, we should console ourselves with the
   remembrance that so persecuted they the Prophets that were before us
   and yet the Prophets have lost no real honor! They also despised our
   Master and yet His Throne has lost none of its Glory.

   Thus have we discussed a meaning which some have seen in the text and
   if it is not the first sense of it, at any rate it is a truth which may
   be profitably remembered.

   II. But now, secondly, we have here in the words of the Apostle HIS OWN
   ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF. "Though I am nothing." Our first observation upon
   the Apostle's valuation of himself is that it is a very great
   correction upon his original estimate of himself, for in former days he
   carried a high sail and would by no means lower his flag to any man.
   When he was on the road to Damascus to hunt the saints, he was on
   first-class terms with himself and thought that he was doing God a
   great service. He was somebody then, both good and great, a Hebrew of
   the Hebrews; as touching the Law, a Pharisee. You might have ridden
   many a mile to find his equal. Saul was like his namesake of old, head
   and shoulders above all others. But Paul was of quite a different
   stature--short and even diminutive. I refer, of course, to his height
   in his own esteem, He would not, then, have claimed that he was
   nothing, for he was a student of the Law and a great deal more besides.

   This corrected estimate very much resulted from the enlightenment which
   he received at his conversion. What a flood of light does the Lord pour
   in upon a man's soul when he brings him to Himself! At first it almost
   blinds him, so that like Paul, he admits, "I could not see for the
   brightness of that light." It was so in my own case. I had often been
   down into the cellar of my heart and I rather admired the purity and
   order of the place. It seemed to me to be festooned and decorated and
   it boasted a good share of vegetation and a considerable life of its
   own. A dim, flickering light sufficed to show me, as I thought, that it
   was by no means a very foul place, but rather the reverse! I could not
   be so vain as to say that I thought it absolutely perfect in
   cleanliness and beauty, but still, it was as well as could be expected
   and far better than the most of other hearts.

   Now, it was ordained that this flattering illusion should be dispelled.
   One day, as I went into this vault, there came one with a larger candle
   than I had been known to carry and what I saw surprised me beyond
   measure! I saw that the festoons which I imagined to be special
   decorations were huge cobwebs heavy with dust! The vegetation, too, I
   saw was all blanched and much of it a noxious growth, while the life
   which I had somewhat boasted of, I was ashamed to look upon or even to
   think of! That candle shining in the cellar of my soul had worked a
   melancholy change in my thoughts of myself and foolishly I resolved
   never to permit so bright a light to enter there, again, as if to hide
   the evil was to remove

   it!

   But things could not remain as they were, for one day there came
   Another who did me a worse, yet better turn, for He descended into my
   cellar and removed certain shutters which had long excluded the light
   of day. When next I entered the vault I was ready to swoon for very
   flight, for a dunghill was sweetness to it--it was the concentration of

   abominations! There were all manner of creeping things, loathsome and
   polluting! I was ready to die at the sight. But, to tell the truth, I
   did not, even then, see it all, for the window was still so much
   covered over with thick cobwebs and filth that the whole of the light
   did not enter. Yes, I fear I have not even yet seen all the pollution
   of my nature, but I thank God I have seen enough to make me cry to Him
   who is able to cleanse! Hercules turned a river into the Augean stable
   and purified it and my Lord Jesus has, with His own blood, purged my
   nature--but this I know, I am nothing--less than nothing in my natural
   state.

   I have but given you a parable of what the Apostle saw in himself when
   the Law came with its condemning power into his soul. During those
   three days in which the scales were on his eyes and he was blind, not
   seeing the sun for a season, he turned all his sight within and saw
   himself. Then great Saul dwarfed into little Paul and the learned rabbi
   shriveled into a poor Brother who was glad to receive humble Ananias
   and to learn from him what he was yet to do. He who hectored over the
   Church of God now meekly arose and was baptized, calling upon the name
   of the Lord. Three days of glorious light, so bright that it made him
   blind, had corrected his estimate of himself--and it was in memory of
   that lesson and of all that he had learned subsequently that he said,
   "Though I am nothing."

   Beloved Friends, the force of that estimate had increased by a growing
   belief in the Doctrines of Grace. If you wish to find the free will of
   man very much extolled, you must not read in the Epistles of Paul. If
   any of you desire to write an essay upon the dignity of human nature,
   or to preach a sermon upon the glory which still remains in man despite
   his fallen state--the recuperative power of human nature despite its
   disease--you will gain little help from our Apostle! I could refer you
   to certain modern Divines for a good deal of stuff of that kind, but
   the Apostle of the Gentiles does not deal in that material. His
   indictment against humanity in the first chapter of Romans is as
   terrible as it is true. "Dead in trespasses and sins" is his
   description of man's condition--Sovereign Grace is his only remedy!

   He tells us of being born again and of being newly created by the work
   of God. He tells us of justification by faith through Grace by the
   righteousness of Jesus Christ, but he has not a word to say of human
   power or merit. If ever a man could say, "Grace! Grace!" and did say it
   and kept on saying it most distinctly, it was the Apostle Paul! In
   proportion as he learned the fullness, freeness, richness and
   sovereignty of Divine Grace did he see, side by side with it, the
   nakedness, the filthiness, the nothingness of man and so he who could
   best glory in the Grace of God thought less and less of himself and
   said, "Though I am nothing."

   In addition to this his own internal experience had very much helped
   him to feel that he was nothing, for he had experienced great spiritual
   struggles. "Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
   body of this death?" was not once or twice his cry, but he often felt
   the law of his old nature struggling against the law of his mind and he
   lived in lifelong conflict with the evil which he saw within himself,
   therefore feeling daily that salvation must be of Grace alone and that
   he himself was nothing and less than nothing.

   Beloved, I feel sure that when the Apostle said that he was nothing, he
   meant that he was nothing in comparison with his Lord. He had seen the
   Glory of His Master up yonder in Heaven and he had preached that Glory
   among the sons of men and, as for himself, he could not find any figure
   to represent his own insignificance. The smallest of figures was too
   large for him. He dared not describe himself by the figure one and so
   he put down a zero and declared, "I am nothing." When a man's heart is
   filled with adoring reverence of the Redeemer, he shrinks into nothing
   and feels a kind of self-annihilation passing over his spirit. And, if
   you have never seen the Lord, but only heard of Him, you may aim at
   humility, but when your eyes see Him, then will you have it, for you
   will abhor yourself in dust and ashes. Our Apostle had in the fullest
   sense seen the Lord and, for that reason, with emphasis, he cried,
   "Though I am nothing."

   He meant, next, that he was nothing to boast of--that albeit he had
   been a night and a day in the deep and had been stoned and had been
   beaten with rods, and had been a faithful sufferer for Christ--albeit
   that he had preached the Gospel in the regions beyond, not building
   upon another man's foundation, yet in all these he saw nothing whatever
   of which he could boast, but he was still nothing. I remember well a
   talkative Christian who supposed herself to possess very remarkable
   attainments, very much of the same character as those who swarmed
   around us a few months ago, people who were of very superfine
   hot-pressed quality. I wish them every blessing, but I am not at all
   enamored of their pretensions, wonderful as they are.

   Now, this superior person was talking of the marvelous things which she
   had felt, known and done. She was, if not quite perfect, in remarkable
   danger of becoming so! She turned to an aged Christian in the company
   and said, "But you,

   dear Brother, do not say a word." Now, you know there are individuals
   who say little, who think all the more and our old friend was one of
   them, but still remained silent. "Come," she said, "have you no
   religious experience?" The old man said very quietly, "I never had any
   to boast about." That remark I heartily endorsed! If we attain to the
   highest experience and rise very near to God and conquer open sin we
   shall still have to look within and say, "I am nothing." Boasting is a
   sure sign offailure wherever it is found--even a giant like Goliath had
   hardly done boasting before he fell beneath the sling and stone of a
   ruddy youth!

   Restrain every feeling of pride! No, chase it from your soul, for it is
   foolish and will lead to further folly. It is a noxious insect which
   will corrupt whatever it lights upon, gaudy though its wings may be.
   King Herod was soon eaten of worms when he began to be blown up with
   pride. Where there is the most precious Grace, there is always a
   jewel-case of humility to keep it in. Gilded wood may float, but an
   ingot of gold will sink. Diotrephes was a nobody and loved the
   preeminence. Paul was not a whit behind the chief of the Apostles, yet
   he said, "Though I am nothing." If we reach the Apostle's point of
   conscious nothingness we had better stop there, for there is no place
   safer and happier and none more consistent with the facts of the case!
   Those who are lowly, are excellent, but pride is pestilent. The
   possession of Grace secures a measure of self-deprecation and in
   proportion as that Grace increases, the thermometer of self-estimation
   will fall. Below zero is the proper point for us--for in truth we are
   less than the least of all the saints!

   The Apostle meant, next, that he was nothing to trust in. "Though I am
   nothing." We begin our Christian life by trusting in Christ, alone, and
   we shall continue so to trust as to His merit. But we are very apt to
   get wrong in other matters. We begin with a sense of being very weak
   and foolish and we look to Jesus only for strength and guidance. But
   after a while we think ourselves growing into deeply experienced and
   well-instructed Christians and the temptation is to lean somewhat to
   our own understanding and stability. All this comes of evil and will
   lead to further evil. I recollect well a person asking a Brother of my
   acquaintance to lend him a certain sum of money. This my friend was
   willing to do, but the man added, "You know you can trust me. I have
   been a Christian now 35 years and I am past temptation."

   My friend, like a wise man, buttoned his pocket very quietly and said
   he must decline to make him a loan. He had intended to do so till that
   vainglorious speech was made. That boaster failed the next day and was
   discovered to have been an arrant rogue! Whenever a man says, "I am
   past temptation," he reveals the pride of his heart! And whenever any
   of us even dream of such a thing about ourselves, we have need to
   tremble for fear that some terrible fall is near. Yet that thought does
   come across us, though we do not utter it--we half think in our hearts
   that those inexperienced young men may go wrong, but that we who are
   middle-aged men are not so likely to be overthrown. Yet grievous sins
   in Churches are as common among the more advanced as among the young.

   Most, if not all, of the great falls recorded in the Bible happened to
   middle-aged and old people! Think of the drunkenness of Noah and of Lot
   and the sin of Reuben, Judah, David and Peter and you will see that
   these were not hotheaded boys, but experienced men who should have
   acted better. We must come to this--I am nothing--I am strong in the
   Lord when He strengthens me, but I am as weak as an infant without His
   aid. I may know a great many things as the Lord continues to teach me,
   but if His Grace were removed I should be as foolish and ignorant as
   when I first came into His school. "In me, that is, in my flesh, there
   dwells no good thing." Within my nature there is no stay for my
   confidence. I am nothing to trust in.

   "Though I am nothing," again, means this--I am nothing worth
   considering--as if he said, "If there is any good thing for me to do, I
   never calculate whether I shall be a loser by it or a gainer, for I am
   not worth taking into the account. If Christ's kingdom will but come,
   it does not matter whether Paul lives or Paul dies. I am nothing in
   comparison with His Glory." I think he meant this, also--"I am of small
   consequence. Christ's kingdom will go on without me. Souls will be won
   without me. His Glory will be promoted in the world even if I am no
   more alive to work for His cause. I do not count myself to be a person
   of such consequence to His Church that the Lord needs me. He may use
   me, but if He does not use me, He will use somebody else. I am but a
   pen and He can produce many such. If He does not write with one, He can
   write with another--I am nothing. If I am now a trumpet in His hand, He
   can blow through another if He chooses to lay me aside, for rams' horns
   are common enough and the walls of Jericho will not stand for lack of
   them." I think that was what he meant by, "Though I am nothing."

   I pray God we may make a low estimate of ourselves and never dream
   ourselves to be essential to God's cause. I shall yet spend a few
   minutes more in speaking of our own estimate of ourselves, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, and may we all be

   made, by Divine Grace, to say "Though I am nothing." I will tell you
   why I wish that we may come to this. It is because it will be
   exceedingly beneficial to us if, with deep sincerity, we feel that we
   are nothing. It will prevent pride and that which will prevent pride is
   worth a fortune. It will prevent our being mortified, as we sometimes
   are, because notice is not taken of us when we have done something that
   we thought was greatly praiseworthy. If we say, "Though I am nothing,"
   we do not expect people to talk much about a nothing, nor do we wish
   them to do so--we are glad to get into the shade and if we do not
   receive a single word of commendation we are content to have worked for
   the Lord in quietness.

   No man will look for honor among his fellows when he acknowledges that
   he is nothing! This humility will also prevent severe censures of
   others. We are all very handy at picking holes in our Brethren's coats,
   but when we are nothing we shall draw back our hand and say, "It does
   not become a nothing and a nobody to be finding fault with other
   people." I sometimes wish that those who criticize ministers would
   think of this. I do not believe that a public person can nowadays say
   five plain words which some critic or other will not misunderstand or
   misrepresent. I wish they would try to speak or write themselves and
   see whether others could not pull them to pieces quite as readily! You
   will be greatly helped in avoiding censoriousness if you have a lowly
   view of yourself so as to say--"Though I am nothing."

   This will also help you to avoid all self-seeking. Why should you seek
   your own praise if you are nothing? There is no good in seeking for
   great things for a nothing! If you are nothing, you will keep your
   motives clear. You will seek the Glory of God and not your own. If you
   are nothing, self-denial will become very easy to you. You will be
   willing to be a doormat to God's temple for His saints to wipe their
   feet upon if you can be more serviceable there than in any other
   capacity. A man who feels himself to be nothing will be easily
   contented. He who is nothing does not need a thousand a year to
   maintain his dignity. He who is nothing, having food and raiment, is
   content. It would be a pity to spend a great deal upon nothing so he
   that is nothing thanks God for what he has and eats his bread and
   drinks his cup of water and blesses God that he has all that and Jesus
   Christ, too!

   Mr. Somebody needs a large estate and a heap of money and when he has
   that, Mr. Somebody need much more and is never satisfied. Then, too, he
   has so many calls that he cannot afford to give anything away, while he
   who is nothing has his weekly tithe to bring, for he feels himself to
   be nothing but a steward and must use his Master's goods faithfully. He
   who knows himself to be nothing is also full of gratitude. If you catch
   him alone, you will find the tears in his eyes and if you question him,
   he will tell you that he was weeping to think that God should ever have
   loved him, for he is such a nobody. He was wondering at his election,
   marveling that Eternal Love should have pitched upon him. He was
   wondering at redemption, admiring that the Lord Jesus Christ should
   have shed His blood for him! He was wondering at effectual calling,
   amazed that the Holy Spirit should ever have called him. He was
   wondering at the persevering love of God, that the Lord's mercy should
   have endured his ill manners so long. He was wondering that there
   should be a Heaven for him, wondering that there should be eternal life
   for Him. "Though I am nothing," he says, "yet Infinite Grace is mine!"

   How can there be all this for a nobody? Great God, how good You are! Is
   not all this a sweet commendation of a lowly spirit? He that lives in
   the Valley of Humiliation, among the lilies, dwells where the birds
   sing all day and the gazelles and the does of the field lie down in
   peace! Now, I finish with this one thought. When the Apostle says,
   "Though I am nothing," that word shows that there was a fact in the
   background. He had been telling us that he was once caught up into the
   third Heaven and had enjoyed a special Revelation of Christ. Yes,
   beloved Believers, we have had our banqueting days when the banner over
   us was love. We have been very near the Beloved and we have been made
   to drink the spiced wine of His pomegranate and He has manifested
   Himself to us as He does not unto the world. All this you know, and I,
   also, know it, "though I am nothing."

   In addition to this, "the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we
   are glad," by enabling us to serve His cause. If we have not been
   stoned and scourged, yet we have borne something for Christ and borne
   it cheerfully. If we cannot emulate the Apostle in abundance of
   service, yet the Lord has not left us without fruit unto His Glory and
   this we are right glad of, though we heartily add, "though I am
   nothing." We can also believingly say--"though I am nothing," yet the
   Spirit of God dwells in me. "Though I am nothing," the Spirit of God
   uses me! I want you not to forget the background of mercy which sets
   out this poor noticing and make it look all the less, albeit that it
   makes it all the sweeter for it to be so little. Oh, yes, and there is
   a Heaven for me and there is eternal life for me and there are the
   three Persons of

   the Divine Trinity sworn to save me! And Heaven and earth may pass
   away, but I shall never perish, neither shall any pluck me out of
   Jesus' hands, "though I am nothing." His angels are commissioned to
   keep me, and He, Himself, in Covenant, has given His oath and promise
   to preserve me, "though I am nothing."

   "Though I am nothing." Does it not make your soul laugh with
   inexpressible delight to think that you shall wear a crown of life that
   fades not away and that your hands shall strike the strings of a harp
   which shall pour forth immortal melody though you are nothing? My heart
   dances while I feel that the pearly gates, the streets of gold, the
   goodly company of angels and the assembly of the firstborn are for me,
   "though I am nothing"! Dearly Beloved, go away with "Though I am
   nothing" in your mouths, but yet say, "Yet has He loved me with an
   everlasting love and because He has set His love upon me, He will
   deliver me and set me on high! Since I was precious in His sight I have
   been honorable and He has loved me and He gave more than Egypt and
   Ethiopia for me, 'though I am nothing.'"

   The Lord bless you and if there is a sinner here who is somebody, may
   the Lord turn him into nobody! But if there is a nobody here, may the
   Lord bless him, for he is the sort of man that Jesus saves! O Soul, you
   must be nothing if God is to save you! You must come down from your
   high horse! You must give up your trust in works and ceremonies and
   natural goodness and be nothing! And when you are nothing, then will
   Jesus Christ be All in All to you! He is a full Christ for empty
   sinners. He gives life to dead sinners, healing to sick sinners and
   clothing to naked sinners! But if you are full and rich and lively in
   yourselves, you may go your way--He will have nothing to do with you.

   If you are nothing. If you are clean emptied out and stripped and done
   for, ground to powder, crushed, and rendered helpless, you are of those
   for whom Jesus shed His precious blood! Come, trust in Him and find
   eternal life!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Corinthians 11:13-33;
   12:1-12. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--625, 627.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   BELOVED FRIENDS--Yesterday I was gladdened by a telegram from our
   well-beloved deacon, Mr. Murrell. "All going well. Tabernacle crowded
   each service. All friends united and hearty, expecting great results
   this February." This was more precious to me than a banknote for a
   large amount! I have no greater joy than to hear that the Lord blesses
   the work at home. For myself, as you desire to hear frequently of my
   welfare, I can only say that the weather here is variable and I have
   varied with it, but yet I am greatly refreshed and in a fair way to
   recover strength. I still lean heavily upon my staff and can only
   totter a short distance, but my spirits are revived and my mind is
   regaining its tone. Pray for me daily, as I also do for you with all my
   heart.

   Your loving friend,

   C.H. SPURGEON

   Mentone, February 11, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

Satan's Punctuality, Power and Purpose

   (No. 1459A)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "Then comes the devil, and takes away the Word out of their hearts,
   lest they should believe and be saved." Luke 8:12.

   IT is a great comfort that such multitudes are willing to hear the Word
   of God. Even though many should turn out to be as the rock, the
   wayside, or the thorny ground, still it is a cheering circumstance that
   the Seed can be sown broadcast over so large an acreage. Yet the
   thoughts excited by the sight of a vast congregation are not all
   pleasurable-- the question most naturally arises--What will come of all
   this preaching and hearing? Will the heavenly Seed produce a harvest or
   fall on barren soil? The thoughtful Christian, in considering this
   question, takes into consideration the condition of the persons
   addressed and remembers that many are unprepared for the Gospel. So far
   from being like a field furrowed to receive the Seed, they are like a
   heavily traveled road.

   They hear the Gospel and so far we are hopeful of them, but they have
   no idea of allowing it to enter their inmost souls. The ground of their
   hearts is already too much occupied. Other feet will tread there and
   speedily obliterate the sower's footprints and as for the good Seed, it
   may lie where it falls--entrance into the inner man it can have none.
   Nor is this all, the anxious observer remembers that there is yet
   another difficulty--the arch-enemy of God and man is opposed to the
   salvation of souls and, therefore, he is present with destructive power
   wherever the Seed of the Word is being sown.

   It is of this we shall now speak--the activity of Satan during the
   preaching of the Gospel. He is out of sight, but we may not allow him
   to be out of mind--he does all the more mischief if men sleep. Let us
   watchfully turn our eyes towards him and prove that we are not ignorant
   of his devices. Our Divine Lord, in the words before us, reminded His
   hearers of the devil's punctuality--"then comes the devil," or his
   power--"and takes away the Word out of their hearts." And of his
   purpose, which is the prevention of saving faith--"lest they should
   believe and be saved." At this time, when special services are being
   held, it may be well to bring these points clearly forward that all may
   be warned against the Wicked One and so, by the Grace of God, his
   designs may be frustrated.

   I. First observe the Evil One's PUNCTUALITY. No sooner does the Seed
   fall than the fowls devour it. Our text says "then," that is, then and
   there "comes the devil." Mark renders it, "Satan comes immediately."
   Whoever else may loiter, Satan never does. No sooner does a camel fall
   dead in the wilderness than the vultures appear. Not a bird was
   visible, nor did it seem possible that there could be one within a
   radius of many miles, yet speedily there are specks in the sky and soon
   the devourers are gorging themselves with flesh! Even thus do the
   spirits of evil scent their prey from afar and hasten to their
   destroying work.

   The lapse of time might give opportunity for thought and thought might
   lead to repentance and, therefore, the enemy hurries to prevent the
   hearer from considering the Truth he has heard. When the Gospel has
   somewhat affected the hearers, so that in some slight degree it is in
   their hearts, then swifter than the flight of the eagle is the haste of
   the devil to take the Word out of their hearts. A little delay might
   put the case beyond Satanic power, hence the promptness of diabolic
   activity. O that we were half as quick and active in the service of our
   Lord! One half as prompt to seize every opportunity for blessing the
   souls of men!

   No doubt Satan acts at times directly upon the thoughts of men. He
   personally suggested to Judas the selling of his Master and many
   another black insinuation has he cast into men's minds. Like the foul
   vulture which constantly feasted itself upon the vitals of Prometheus,
   so does the devil tear away the good thoughts which would be the life
   of a man's soul. Insatiably malicious, he cannot endure that a single
   Divine Truth should bless the heart. Fearful blasphemies, lewd
   imaginations, gross unbeliefs, or vain frivolities the devil casts into
   the mind like infernal bombshells to destroy any newborn thought which
   looks toward Christ and salvation!

   At one time he fascinates the mind and another he terrifies it. His one
   aim is to distract the man's thoughts from the Gospel and prevent its
   lodging in the conscience and heart. As Satan cannot be everywhere
   present at one time, he frequently does his evil work by his servants,
   sending the inferior spirits to act as fowls in devouring the Seed and
   these, again, employ various agents. With great cunning are the common
   incidents of life used in the evil business, so that even by things
   indifferent in themselves, the purposes of the adversary are brought
   about. The preacher has some specialty in his manner, utterance, or
   appearance--and this becomes the bird which devours the Seed--the
   hearer is so taken up with a trifling oddity in the minister that he
   forgets the Truth of God which was spoken!

   An anecdote was related, an illustration employed, or a word used which
   awakened a memory in the hearer's breast and away went the Word out of
   his heart to make room for mere vanity. Or if the sermon was preserved
   to its close, it then encountered a fresh peril--a lost umbrella, an
   extra pressure in the aisle, a foolish jest overheard in the crowd, or
   the absurd dress of an unknown person-- any one of them may answer the
   devil's purpose and snatch away the Word. Little does it matter whether
   the Seed is devoured by black crows or white doves, by great fowls or
   little sparrows--if it does not abide in the heart, it cannot bring
   forth fruit and hence the devil arranges that somehow he will take away
   the Seed at once.

   If he never visits a place of worship at any other time, he will be
   sure to be there when a revival has begun--"then comes the devil." He
   lets many a pulpit alone, but when an earnest man begins preaching,
   "Satan comes immediately."

   II. Secondly, we will now, for a moment, notice his POWER. "And takes
   away the Word out of their hearts." It is not said that he tries to do
   it, but that he actually does so. He sees, he comes and he conquers!
   The Word is there and the devil takes it away as easily as a bird
   removes a seed from the wayside. Alas, what a sway has the Evil One
   over the human mind and how ineffectual is the preacher's work unless a
   Divine power is put forth with it!

   Perhaps from the striking manner in which it was stated, a little of
   the Truth of God abides in the memory, but the enemy takes it quite out
   of the heart--and so the main part, the all-important part of our work
   is undone! We may be foolish enough to aim at the head only, but he who
   is crafty beyond all craft deals with the heart. Anyone may win the
   intellect--if Satan can keep the affections he is quite content. To the
   man's heart the good Seed is lost, the fowls have devoured it. It has
   become to him nothing, having no power over him, no life in him. Not a
   trace is left--no more than there would be a mark remaining of seed
   cast on the wayside after the birds had taken it away--so effectual is
   the work of the Prince of the Power of the Air.

   When Satan thinks it worth his while to come, and come immediately, he
   means business and he takes care that his errand shall not fail. His
   power is partly derived from his natural wisdom. Fallen as he now is,
   he was once an angel of light and his superlative faculties, though
   perverted, defiled and dimmed by the blighting influence of sin, are
   still vastly superior to those of the human beings upon whom he tries
   his arts. He is more than a match for preacher and hearer united if the
   Holy Spirit is not there to baffle him. He has also acquired fresh
   cunning by long practice in his accursed business! He knows the human
   heart better than anyone, except its Maker. For thousands of years he
   has studied the anatomy of our nature and is conversant with our weaker
   points. We are all young and inexperienced compared with this ancient
   tempter--all narrow in our views and limited in our experience compared
   with this serpent who is more subtle than all the beasts of the
   field--what wonder that he takes away the Word which is sown in hard
   hearts!

   Moreover, he derives his chief power from the man's condition of soul.
   It is easy for birds to pick up Seed which lies exposed on a hard path.
   If the soil had been good and the Seed had entered it, he would have
   had far greater difficulty, he might even have been foiled. But a hard
   heart does the devil's work for him in great measure. He need not use
   violence or craft--there lies the unreceived Word upon the surface of
   the soul and he takes it away. The power of the Evil One largely
   springs from our own evil. Let us pray the Lord to renew the heart that
   the testimony of Jesus may be accepted heartily and may never be taken
   away. Great is the need for such prayer!

   Our adversary is no imaginary being, his existence is real, his
   presence constant, his power immense, his activity indefatigable. Lord,
   match him and overmatch him! Drive away this foulest of fowls! Break up
   the soil of the soul and let Your Truth truly live and graciously grow
   within us!

   III. Our short sermon closes with the third point, which is the devil's
   PURPOSE. He is a sound theologian and knows that salvation is by
   believing in the Lord Jesus and, therefore, he fears above all things
   lest men should "believe and be saved." The substance of the Gospel
   lies in those few words, "believe and be saved," and in proportion as
   Satan

   hates that Gospel, we ought to prize it. He is not so much afraid of
   works as of faith. If he can lead men to work, or feel, or do anything
   in the place of believing, he is content. But it is believing that he
   dreads, because God has coupled it with being saved.

   Every hearer should know this and be instructed to turn all his
   attention to the point which the devil considers to be worthy of his
   whole activity. If the Destroyer labors to prevent the heart's
   believing, the wise will have their wits about them and regard faith as
   the one thing necessary. "Lest they should believe and be saved" Satan
   takes away the Word out of their hearts. Here also is wisdom--wisdom
   hidden within the enemy's cunning. If the Gospel remains in contact
   with the heart, its tendency is to produce faith. The Seed abiding in
   the soil springs up and brings forth fruit and so will the Gospel
   display its living power if it dwells within the man and, therefore,
   the devil hastens to take it away.

   The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit and the devil does not like
   to see it lie near the sinner for fear it should wound him. He dreads
   the influence of Truth upon the conscience and if he cannot prevent a
   man's hearing it, he labors to prevent his meditating upon it. "Faith
   comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"--to obliterate that
   which has been heard is the Satanic method of preventing faith. Here,
   again, is a practical word for the ear of prudence--let us keep the
   Gospel as much as possible near the mind of the unconverted--let us sow
   and sow again, in the hope that some grain may take root.

   Countrymen were known in planting certain seeds to put in "one for the
   worm, and one for the crow, and then a third which would surely grow,"
   and we must do the same. In the book of Jeremiah the Lord describes His
   own action thus--"I spoke unto you rising up early and speaking, but
   you heard not; and I called, but you answered not." Surely, if the Lord
   Himself has thus continued to speak to an unanswering race, we need not
   murmur if much of our preaching should appear to be in vain! There is
   life in the Seed of the Gospel and it will grow if it can be put into
   the soil of the heart! Let us, therefore, have faith in it and never
   dream of obtaining a crop except by the old-fashioned way of sowing
   good Seed. The devil evidently hates the Word--let us, then, keep to it
   and sow it everywhere!

   Reader or Hearer, you have often heard the Gospel--have you heard it in
   vain? Then the devil has had more to do with you than you have dreamed!
   Is the thought a pleasant one? The presence of the devil is defiling
   and degrading and he has been hovering over you as the birds over the
   high-road and lighting upon you to steal away the Word. Think of this!
   You are missing, by your unbelief, fellowship with the Father and with
   His Son Jesus Christ--and instead thereof you are having fellowship
   with Satan!

   Is not this horrible? Instead of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you as He
   dwells in all Believers, the Prince of Darkness is making you his
   resort, coming and going at his pleasure into your mind! You remember
   Jacob's dream of a ladder and angels ascending and descending from
   himself to Heaven? Your life experience may be set forth by another
   ladder which descends into the dark abyss--and up and down its rungs,
   foul spirits come and go to yourself! Does this startle you? The Lord
   grant it may! Do you desire a change? May the Holy Spirit turn your
   heart into good ground and then shall the Seed of Divine Grace grow in
   you and produce faith in the Lord Jesus!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Dual Nature and the Duel Within

   (No. 1459B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my
   mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my
   members." Romans 7:23.

   I QUESTION whether any man understands himself and I am quite certain
   that no Christian does. "Great is the mystery of godliness" in more
   senses than one! The Believer is a great riddle to those who observe
   him--"he is discerned of no man." He is equally an enigma to himself.
   The frequency of books like Venning's, "Orthodox Paradoxes," and good
   Ralph Erskine's, "Believer's Riddle," is not at all amazing, for a
   thousand riddles may be made about the Christian since he is a paradox
   from beginning to end. As Plato used to say of each man that he was two
   men, so may we with emphasis say of each Christian that he is two men
   in one.

   Oftentimes to himself the evil man within him appears to be uppermost
   and yet, by the Grace of God, he never can be, for the ultimate victory
   belongs to the new and spiritual life. We see in every Christian what
   was seen in the Shulamite in the Song, "as it were the company of two
   armies." This is not always known by the Believer when he commences the
   new life. He starts knowing that he is a sinner and that Jesus is his
   Savior, but as he proceeds, he finds that he is more a sinner than he
   thought he was. Many surprises await him and some things which, if he
   is not prepared for them, will stagger him as though some strange thing
   had happened to him.

   Perhaps my discourse on this subject may prevent a new convert from
   being overwhelmed with unexpected storms and help him to solve the
   question which will arise in his mind, "If I were a child of God, could
   it be thus with me?" Our first head will be, THERE ARE IN ALL BELIEVERS
   TWO PRINCIPLES. The Apostle speaks of the law of his mind and then of
   another law in his members warring against the law of his mind. The
   converted man is a new man in Christ Jesus, but the old nature remains
   within him. The first life in a Christian, in order of time, is the old
   Adam nature. It is there from the first. It is born of and with the
   flesh and it remains in us after we are born of the Spirit, for the
   second birth does not destroy in us the products of the first birth.

   Regeneration brings into us a new and higher principle which is
   ultimately to destroy the sinful nature, but the old principle still
   remains and labors to retain its power. Some fancy that the carnal mind
   is to be improved, gradually tamed and sanctified--but it is enmity
   against God and is not reconciled to God--neither, indeed, can be. The
   old nature is of the earth, earthy, and must be crucified with Christ
   and buried with Him, for it is altogether too bad for mending! This old
   nature lives in our members, that is to say, its nest is the body and
   it works through the body.

   There are certain appetites of ours which are perfectly allowable, no,
   even necessary to existence, but they can be very easily pushed to
   sinful extremes and then that which is lawful and right becomes a nest
   for that which is unlawful and wrong. It is a commendable thing that a
   man should seek to provide for his own household, yet how many crimes
   and how much covetousness come into the world from an inordinate
   indulgence of that desire? A man may eat and drink, yet it is through
   those appetites that a thousand sins are engendered. A man, when he is
   in his right condition, puts a bit into the mouth of his desires and
   holds them in as with bit and bridle. His higher nature governs his
   bodily appetites, but not without great effort, for ever since the fall
   of Adam, the machine works irregularly and is not properly controlled
   by that which should be the ruling force.

   I have heard of some professors who dream that sin is utterly destroyed
   in them and that they have no more evil tendencies and desires. I shall
   not controvert their notion. If it is so, I congratulate them and
   greatly wish it were so with me. I have, however, had some little
   experience of perfect people and I have generally found them the most
   disagreeable, touchy and sensitive persons in the world! And some of
   them have turned out to be such detestable hypocrites that I am rather
   afraid of a person who has no imperfections. As soon as I learn that a
   Brother states that he has lived for months

   without sin, I wonder whether his secret vice is lewdness, or theft, or
   drink--and I feel sure that somewhere or other there is a leak in the
   ship!

   The sin which lurks in the flesh will grow weaker in proportion as the
   holy principle, of which I have to speak, grows stronger. And it is at
   no time to be tolerated or excused--we are to fight against it, conquer
   it and ultimately it is to be destroyed in us, root and branch--yet
   there it is and let not the young Christian be staggered when he finds
   it there. When we are born again there is dropped into our soul the
   living and incorruptible Seed of the Word of God which lives and abides
   forever. It is akin to the Divine Nature and cannot sin because it is
   born of God--it has no tendency to sin, but all its appetites are
   heavenward and Christ-ward. It never stoops from its high position; it
   is always aspiring towards Heaven. It is at deadly enmity with the old
   nature which it will, in the end, destroy, but, as I have said before,
   it has its work to do and it is a work which, assisted even by Divine
   strength, will not be accomplished all at once. It is a warfare which,
   when it seems ended, has often to be renewed, since, after long and
   victorious campaigns, the routed enemy returns to the field.

   Now, I would like each Christian to be assured that he has this second
   principle in him. It may be weak; it may be struggling for an
   existence; but it is there, my Brothers and Sisters! If you have
   believed in Jesus, you have the life which hates sin and makes you
   repent when you have fallen into it. That is the life which cries,
   "Abba, Father," as often as it thinks of God. That is the life which
   aspires after holiness and delights in the Law of God. This is the
   new-born principle which will not permit you to be at peace if you
   should wander into sin. It finds no rest but in the bosom of that God
   from whom it came and in likeness to that God from whom it sprang.

   These are the two principles which make up the dual man--the flesh and
   the spirit--the law of the mind and the law of sin, the body of death
   and the spirit of life.

   We notice, secondly, that THE EXISTENCE OF THESE TWO PRINCIPLES IN A
   CHRISTIAN NECESSITATES A CONFLICT, even as the text says, "Another law
   in my members warring against the law of my mind." The lion will not
   lie down with the lamb in us! Fire will not be on good terms with
   water. Death will not parley with life, nor Christ with Belial. The
   dual life provokes a daily duel. I am not sure that the conflict
   between the new nature and the old is felt by all young Christians at
   first. Frequently Christian life may be divided into three stages--the
   first period is that of comfort in which the young Christian rejoices
   in the Lord and his principal business is to sing and tell what God has
   done for him. The more of this the better!

   After that, very often comes the stage of conflict--instead of being
   children at home we have grown into men and therefore we must go to
   war. Under the old law, when a man was married, or had built a house,
   he was excused from fighting for a season, but when that was over, he
   must take his place in the ranks. And so is it with the child of
   God--he may rest awhile but he is destined for the war. The period of
   conflict is often succeeded, especially in old age, by a third stage
   which we may call contemplation, in which the Believer sits down to
   reflect upon the goodness of the Lord towards him and upon all the good
   things which are in store for him.

   This is the land Beulah which John Bunyan describes as lying on the
   edge of the river and so near to the Celestial City that you can hear
   the heavenly music across the stream and, when the wind blows that way,
   you can smell the sweet perfumes from the gardens of the blessed! That
   is a stage which we must not expect to reach just now. My young Friend,
   inasmuch as you are at first weak and tender, the Lord may be pleased
   to screen you from a great many temptations and from the uprisings of
   your flesh. But the probabilities are that before long you will put
   down your harp and take up your sword--and your joy of spirit will give
   place to the agony of conflict.

   Sin is in you, lurking in secret places, though it has not as yet
   leaped forth upon you as a young lion on its prey. You, perhaps, have
   thought, "I shall do better than those who have gone before me. I shall
   shine as a brilliant saint." Let not him that puts on his harness boast
   as though he takes it off. There are fights before you and I warn you
   of them, so that when you remove from the state of content to the state
   of conflict you may confess, "Before it came to pass I was warned of
   this and, therefore, I am prepared for it."

   The reason of the fight is this--the new nature comes into our heart,
   to rule over it--but the carnal mind is not willing to surrender its
   power. A new throne is set up in the heart and the old monarch,
   dethroned, outlawed and made to lurk in holes and corners, says to
   himself, "I will not have this. Why should it be? Here am I, who was
   once this man's

   king, snubbed and made to hide myself as though I were a stranger! I
   will get the throne back again." Master Bunyan, in his, "Holy War,"
   which is a very wonderful allegory, describes Diabolus, you know, as
   having his city taken from him.

   But, after the city had been taken, there lurked in the holes and
   corners of that city certain subjects of Diabolus and these were always
   plotting and planning how they could get the city back. They opened the
   gates at night to let in their old king. They sowed discontent among
   the inhabitants. This is the reason for the perpetual strife within our
   souls. The old lusts that are under ban and curse and which we are
   hunting to crucify, put their heads together and labor to regain
   dominion! The flesh will wait till you are in a very quiet frame of
   mind and feel very secure--and then it will come down upon you with its
   evil fascinations!

   At another time it may be you are in great trouble and you feel ready
   to sink--and then comes the devil upon you like a roaring lion, hoping
   to destroy your faith. He knows how to time the temptation and the
   flesh knows how to rise in insurrection when we are off our guard and
   when surrounding circumstances are all conducive to sin. We cannot be
   too watchful, for the flesh will rebel all of a sudden. We may get it
   down and think we have fettered it securely, but, ah, it finds its
   hands, it breaks its bonds and lets fly an arrow at our heart! You
   said, "I shall never be angry again," and while you were congratulating
   yourself on the sweetness of your temper, you were, all of a sudden,
   provoked from quite a new quarter and your wrath boiled over again.

   "No," you said, "I never shall be impatient again," and yet within a
   few moments you were as full of murmuring as ever you had been in your
   life! Till the flesh lies in the grave, sin will not be dead! And let
   me warn you that the flesh may be doing us more mischief when it seems
   to be doing no mischief at all than at any other time! During war the
   sappers and miners will work underneath a city and those inside say,
   "The enemy is very quiet; we hear no roaring of cannon, we see no
   capturing of Malakoiffs. Where can the enemy be?" They know their
   business well enough and are laying their mines for unexpected strokes.

   Hence an old Divine used to say that he was never so much afraid of any
   devil as he was of no devil. That is to say, when Satan does not tempt,
   it is often our worst temptation! To be let alone tends to breed a dry
   rot in the soul. "He has not been emptied from vessel to vessel," said
   the Prophet of old, "he is settled upon his lees"--this spoke he of one
   who was under Divine displeasure. Stagnation is one of the worst things
   that can happen to us and so it happens that we are never secure. Thus,
   dear Friends, I have showed you that there is a conflict within. And
   let me congratulate you if it is a conflict. The ungodly know no such
   inward warfare! They sin and they love it--but where there is spiritual
   conflict the Grace of God is present!

   We do sin, but we hate sin! We fall into it, but we loathe it and fight
   against it. And every true child of God can say honestly that there is
   nothing in this world he dreads so much as to grieve his God. If you
   were dead in sin you would have no trouble about it, but those inward
   pangs, those deep emotions, those bitter sighs and cries, that
   exclamation of, "Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from
   the body of this death?" all indicate spiritual life! While I
   sympathize with your sorrow I congratulate you that you feel it, for
   this is one of the marks of a child of God! Forget not that in renewed
   men there are two opposing forces and that these necessitate a
   life-long war.

   Thirdly, we must now note that this warfare SOMETIMES LEADS US INTO
   CAPTIVTY. Observe, "I see another law in my members warring against the
   law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which
   is in my members." "What does that mean?" asks one. It means that when
   you sin it will be captivity to you if you are a child of God. The
   sinner may find pleasure in sin, but you will not if you are God's
   child. You will be like a slave in chains, locked up in a horrible
   dungeon when you fall into sin.

   But does the old nature make Christians captives? Yes, in this way.
   First, many a Christian feels himself in captivity for the very fact
   that the old nature has risen within him. Let me explain myself.
   Suppose that the old nature suggests to you some sin--you hate the sin
   and loathe it and you despise yourself for lying open to be tempted in
   such a way. The very fact that such a thought has crossed your mind is
   bondage to your pure spirit. You do not fall into the sin--you shake
   off the serpent--but you feel its slime upon your soul.

   Do you not know what it is to have a very violent tendency towards an
   evil, the very thought of which is detestable to you? Your renewed mind
   exclaims, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" But
   yet the flesh says, "Do it, do it, do it!" and pictures the sweetness
   and the pleasure of it. With your whole soul you set yourself against
   the temptation. The cold sweat stands upon your brow at the very
   thought of your falling into so foul a transgression and

   you cry to God in prayer! But yet the captivity of your soul is great
   while the trial lasts and even in the remembrance of it. You say to
   yourself, "I am afraid I dallied with the temptation. The bait would
   not have been so alluring to me if there had not been some consent of
   my soul to it."

   You also charge your heart with folly, saying, "Though I did not commit
   that sin, yet there was a hankering after it in me." Though others
   could not condemn you, but must even honor your self-denial, yet you
   condemn yourself for any degree of inclination in the wrong direction
   and you feel that the temptation has brought you, at once, into
   captivity. What a difference there is between a spot on one thing and a
   spot on another! A man makes a spot with ink on my coat and nobody
   perceives it--but if he were to cast a drop upon this white
   handkerchief, how soon everybody would see it!

   The old nature is like a black coat, too dark to show a blot--but one
   spot of temptation falling on the pure white linen of the new nature
   troubles us exceedingly--we see it and we loathe it and we cry out to
   God that we may get rid of it. The very passing of temptation across a
   renewed soul brings it into captivity. I stood one day in Rome looking
   at a very large and well executed photograph of a street and an ancient
   temple. I had never seen so fine a photograph, but I noticed that right
   across the middle of it was the trace of a mule and a cart. The artist
   had done his best to prevent it, but there was the ghost of that cart
   and mule all along the way, right across the picture. I do not say it
   spoiled it, but it certainly did not improve it.

   Even so, oftentimes, when our heart is most cleansed and bears best the
   image of God, right across the fair picture comes the trace of a
   temptation and we are grieved. An observer unskilled in art might not
   notice the mark on the photograph, but a careful artist, with a high
   ideal, is vexed to see his work thus marred. And so with moral
   stains--that which the common man thinks a trifle is a great sorrow to
   the pure-hearted child of God and he is brought into captivity by it.

   Sometimes, too, a Christian's captivity consists in his losing his joy
   through the uprising of the flesh. I speak what I am sure many of the
   children of God here know. You are rejoicing in the Lord and triumphant
   in His name and, by-and-by, some corruption struggles for the mastery.
   "It shall not rise," you say. You put it down but it strives and you
   strive, too--and in the struggle, the joy of the Lord, which was your
   strength, seems to be taken away from you. A sense of the dreadful fact
   that the leprosy is in the house of clay in which you live terrifies
   you and you are so anxious to get the leprosy out of the walls that you
   would sooner see the old house decay into dust than live where evil so
   readily approaches you! This sight of inbred sin may cast a chill upon
   your joy. You want to sing the praises of God, but the temptation comes
   just at that very minute and you have to battle with it and the song
   gives place to a battle cry.

   It is time for prayer and you are in the attitude of devotion, but
   somehow you cannot control your thoughts--they will roam here and there
   under the force of the flesh. My thoughts frequently seem like a lot of
   colts let loose, tearing over the fields of my soul without restraint.
   In holy contemplation you try to concentrate your thoughts upon the
   subject in hand and you cannot--very likely somebody knocks at the door
   at the same time, or a child begins to cry, or a man begins to grind an
   organ under your window--how can you meditate? All things seem to be
   against you. Little outside matters which are trifling to others will
   often prove terrible disturbers of your spirit and what others smile
   at, you are made to weep over, for the flesh will lay hold of the most
   paltry concerns to prevent your coming into communion with the Lord
   your God. Thus by taking away our joy, and marring our fellowship, the
   old corruption within us leads us into captivity.

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, this is not all, for we do not always
   escape from actual sin. We do, in moments of forgetfulness, that which
   we would willingly undo and say that which we would willingly unsay.
   The spirit was willing to be perfect, but the flesh was weak--and then
   the consequence is, to a child of God--that he feels himself a captive.
   He has yielded to treacherous blandishments and now, like Samson, his
   locks are shorn. He goes out to shake himself as he did before, but the
   Philistines are upon him! His God is not with him and it will be a
   happy thing for him if he does not lose his eyes and come to grind at
   the mill like a slave. Oh, what need we have to be on our guard and to
   look to the Strong for strength, for this old nature within us will
   bring us into captivity if it can and will hold us there!

   But I must close with this reflection, that THIS WARFARE AND THIS
   OCCASIONAL TRIUMPH OF THE FLESH MAKE US LOOK TO CHRIST FOR VICTORY. The
   Apostle asks, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And
   his reply is, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Brothers and
   Sisters, I am persuaded that there is no place so safe and none so
   proper and fitting for any of us as a sinner's place at the foot of the
   Cross. I have read a great deal about perfection in the flesh and I
   have tried to get it. I have also tried to pray after the fashion which
   I suppose a perfect man would pray--but the theory will not hold water
   as far as I am concerned.

   When I went up to the temple in that way and tried to pray, I found a
   Pharisee at my elbow. A good way off I saw a poor sinner, striking his
   breast and saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner," and I perceived
   that he went away justified, while I stood there and envied him. I
   could not stand it! I went back to my old place at the sinner's side
   and smote my breast, uttering the old cry, "God, be merciful to me, a
   sinner." Then I, too, felt at ease and I went home justified and
   rejoicing in the Lord! Beloved, whenever there is a question between me
   and the devil as to whether I am a child of God, I have given up
   seeking evidence in my own favor, or turning to my experience to prove
   that I am in a state of Grace, for that cunning old lawyer knows more
   about my infirmities than I do and can very soon bring two to one
   against me!

   My constant way is to tell the accuser," Well, if I am not a saint, I
   am a sinner, and Jesus came into the world to save sinners, therefore I
   will go to Christ and look to Him again." The devil cannot answer that!
   You that are oldest in the Divine Life--and I speak to some who have
   known the Lord these 50 years--I am sure that you find times in which
   no mark, evidence, or experience is worth a penny to you by way of
   comfort and you are led to adopt the simple expedient which I have
   recommended to all the tempted ones. It will be wise to always live
   upon Jesus! Begin, again, at the foot of the Cross where you began at
   first, with the old cry--

   "Nothing in my hand I bring! Simply to Your Cross I cling."

   That is the way to conquer sin, as well as to overcome despair for,
   when faith in Jesus comes back to your soul, you will be strong to
   fight with your corruptions and you will win the victory, which you
   will never gain if you allow your struggles with your sins to drive you
   away from your Savior. Let us resort, then, to Christ who gives us the
   victory and let us, the longer we live, praise Christ the more!

   You young Christians, you do not yet know what a dear Savior you have
   found! You know you have found Him, but He is a dearer Christ than you
   think He is! You were naked and He has clothed you--yes, He has put the
   armor upon you which will ward off the darts of the arch-enemy. You
   were hungry and He has fed you--yes, but He has fed you with immortal
   bread-- He is nourishing a Divine Life within your soul! He has given
   you peace and you are grateful for it--yes, but He has given you a
   peace which passes all understanding--that shall keep your heart and
   mind! You say it is sweet to find Him with you. So it is, but oh, how
   sweet it will be to have Him with you when you pass through the fires
   and are not burned; when you go through the floods and are not drowned;
   when you enter upon the final struggle and are not afraid!

   Oh, Beloved, we may find out and shall find out, more of our own needs,
   but we shall also discover more of Christ's all-sufficient fullness!
   The storm will become more terrible, but the Pilot's power to rule that
   storm will only be the more displayed! The ship may rock to and fro
   till all her timbers are strained and her keel may threaten to snap in
   two, but--

   "He will preserve it, He does steer Even when the boat seems most to
   reel, Storms are the triumph of His art." He will bring His people
   safely through the howling wilderness and the land of great drought. Be
   not afraid, you that have begun the Divine pilgrimage, for His fiery
   cloudy pillar will attend you! Dragons there are, but by the sword of
   the Spirit you shall wound the dragon as of old he was wounded at the
   Red Sea. There will be death to fight with, but Christ has died and you
   shall be victorious over the grave. Expect conflict! Be not astonished
   when it comes, but as confidently expect victory and shout in prospect
   of it!

   As surely as the Lord has called you to this celestial warfare, He will
   bear you through it! You shall sing on the other side of Jordan unto
   Him that loved you and washed you from your sins in His blood! In the
   haven of the blessed, in the land of the hereafter, in the home of the
   holy where the weary are at rest, you shall sing the high praises of
   God and the Lamb! I would to God this sermon had a relation to all
   those who hear or read it, but I fear it has not. I can only hope that
   those who have no conflict within may begin to feel one. May God grant
   that you may not rest quiet in sin, for to be at peace with sin is to
   be sleeping yourself into Hell!

   May God awaken you, that you may flee to Christ for mercy at this very
   hour and there shall be joy in His Presence. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR: OWN
   HYMN BOOK" -435, 644, 769.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Meat and Drink of the New Nature

   (No. 1460)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed." John
   6:55.

   WE know that the Savior spoke of spiritual, not carnal things, and He
   spoke of Himself not as being in any sense meat for our bodies--that
   could not be--but as being food for our souls. This statement is very
   plain to us, but those who heard it at the first, found it very
   difficult to understand. Nor need we wonder, for men of the schools who
   play with letters, words and phrases, frequently meet with difficulties
   where none exist. The Jews of our Lord's day had fallen into the
   foolish habit of taking words to pieces and dwelling upon the syllables
   and letters until they seemed to have lost all power of getting at the
   plain meaning which ordinary language was intended to convey. They
   blinded their own eyes with the pretense of superior wisdom; made
   puzzles and riddles out of plain words; raised a lot of dust and sat
   down in it blinded to the end.

   Our God has taught us more and given us to understand more clearly, for
   His Holy Spirit has given us back the childlike spirit so that we are
   willing to see the natural sense which words were meant to reveal. Now
   we see great force and clear expressiveness in that very language which
   seemed, before, to conceal the Savior's meaning. It was a veil to the
   Jews and they saw not--it is an instructive parable to us, which,
   instead of hiding the Truth of God, shadows it out to us and softens
   the light for our weak eyes. We see, I fear, even now but dimly, for
   our spiritual sight is scarcely clear as yet, but we see, blessed be
   God for that, and we see Jesus and something of His loving meaning. We
   do more than see--we enjoy and, therefore, know to the life what it is
   to feed upon His flesh, which is meat, indeed, and to drink His blood,
   which is drink, indeed.

   We cannot attempt to explain the deep mysteries of our text, but
   rather, as the swallow touches the brook with his wing and is away
   again, we will glance at these crystal waters of this sacred Truth of
   God and then up and away! The text teaches us, first, what Christ must
   be to us. We shall consider, secondly, what is bound up in this. And,
   thirdly, what reflections naturally arise out of it.

   I. WHAT CHRIST MUST BE TO US. The answer from the text is, He must be
   our meat and drink. He must be everything to us--the one thing
   necessary, the indispensable, necessary all-sufficient supply. He must
   be the source of strength, the support of life and we must feel Him to
   be so. He must, to come back to the figure, be meat and drink to us.
   Our Lord, in speaking to the Jews, was doubtless thinking of the
   Paschal Lamb and of the time when Israel came out of Egypt--when they
   not only had the blood of the lamb sprinkled upon their houses for
   their security, but the lamb, itself, within them as their sustenance.

   They sat down to feed upon it before they enjoyed the fullness of
   redemption by passing out of Egypt from under the bondage of Pharaoh.
   They did not understand that symbol and they little knew what our great
   Lord and Master meant when He employed it to set forth Himself and
   said, "My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed." Our
   Lord Jesus Christ must be to us, then, our spiritual meat and drink.
   What do we mean by that? First, that the doctrine of God Incarnate must
   be the food of our souls. Brothers and Sisters, we have no doubt as to
   the true and proper Deity of our Lord Jesus. We have long since passed
   out of the region of controversy about that, for He has been God to us
   in the work of salvation and in the new creation which we have
   experienced through His power.

   We have, moreover, no doubt about His humanity, but we do not usually
   dwell enough upon it. We are bound to adore His Deity, but we must not
   forget that He is as truly Man as if He were not God, and as much a
   Brother to us as if He were not the Son of the Highest. Jesus is
   assuredly Man. Now feed on this. The man Christ Jesus heads up a new
   race--as the first Adam headed up the race of old and was our federal
   head to stand or fall for us, and we were to stand or fall in him--so
   is there now a new Head who brings us up from the ruin of the first
   Adam's fall and puts us into a new position before the living God.
   There is a Man who has redeemed us! There is a Man who has made all the
   men in Him

   well-pleasing to God. There is a Man who represents manhood in
   perfection in the Glory above. There is a Man in whom all Believers
   are--even as we read that Levi was in the loins of Abraham when
   Melchisidec met him!

   We are in Christ and we now stand before the eternal Throne in that
   blessed representative Man. Feed on this doctrine! Jesus is a real Man,
   though clothed with all power He is God and yet He is the mirror of
   tenderness! He rules all things and yet is touched with the feeling of
   our infirmities. You must believe this and you must receive it--and you
   must rest upon it--otherwise you have no life in you. Some try to turn
   this fact into a myth, but, indeed, it is no parable or figure of
   speech, for the Christ who spoke these words was there before them--one
   whom they had often seen eat and drink! He spoke of Himself with His
   own lips and was not a phantom or apparition, but a solid existence of
   flesh and blood. So, then, it is upon the historical Christ, whose
   existence is a matter of fact, that my soul must feed as I believe Him
   to be both Human and Divine.

   But this is not all--the food to be fed upon is not merely God
   Incarnate, but Christ suffering. Notice that He puts it, "My flesh is
   meat, indeed, and My blood is drink indeed"--when the flesh and the
   blood are mentioned separately, death is implied. The two being divided
   and being named together in one connection are the token and emblem of
   our Savior's vicarious Sacrifice. We also, (I am speaking of the
   Brothers and Sisters worshipping here), have long ago passed beyond the
   region of controversy as to the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus
   Christ our Lord. If it is not so, then is our preaching vain and our
   hope is also vain and we are yet in our sins. We have no hope of
   eternal life save that which begins, centers and ends in the Sacrifice
   of Jesus Christ! "This Man, when He had offered one Sacrifice for sins
   forever, sat down at the right hand of God"--that is our sole hope.

   He has made expiation for sin--

   "He bore, that we might never bear, His Father's righteous ire."

   We are now to build up our souls by feeding upon the suffering, the
   crucified, the dead, the buried Christ, as having stood as our
   Representative and as having endured death in our place. You cannot
   obtain comfort apart from this if you have felt the weight of sin! And
   you cannot continue happy apart from this great historical fact if you
   are conscious of sin. Fly, my Hearers, into the wounds of Jesus and,
   like doves, you shall find shelter in that Rock! And with eager wings
   you may glide over the waste of human thought without finding a rest
   for the soles of your weary feet till you light upon the Truth of God
   of the great Substitution.

   "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the first bell of
   Heaven's marriage peal--and the second has an equally sweet note of its
   own--"Christ died for our sins." Ring them both often! Listen to them
   as they sound forth, "God with us, Christ for us." Incarnation,
   Substitution--was there ever better meat and drink for a hungry soul?
   This surely satisfies the desire of the most hungry spirit--"The blood
   of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." I have, as it were,
   in those few words set out the viands of the feast.

   But now I would have you note that our Lord must be to us meat and
   drink--and meat is not intended to look at, but to feed on. I heard the
   other day that in a certain Socinian place of worship they have gone
   the length of setting the bread and wine on the table for the people to
   look at, but they suppose that it is quite unnecessary that they should
   actually eat and drink. It is fittingly done of them--that is
   consistent with their creed. They have no Christ to feed upon! There is
   nothing in their belief which could feed the soul of a mouse, if a
   mouse had a soul! Why should they attempt to feed the people in figure
   when really they have no Incarnate God or atoning Savior? If it is,
   indeed, true that in one of their places of worship they have exhibited
   the bread and wine instead of handing it out to be eaten, it is
   remarkably typical of their bloodless, lifeless gospel! Their Christ
   who is no Deity! Their Jesus who is no Sacrifice for sin!

   How can the soul find food there? But we must beware lest we,
   ourselves, should ever rest content with merely glancing at Christ and
   not partaking of Him. What is to be done with food, with meat and
   drink? It is to be received! Food on the table does not nourish! It
   must be taken into the hand. The cup on the board will never cheer--it
   must be lifted--it must be appropriated. I know that many of you have,
   by a humble but brave faith, appropriated Christ as He is set before
   you in the Gospel. He has bid you come and eat and you have come
   pressed by a sore famine that was in your soul. You have come and you
   have said, "He is mine," and you have taken Him to yourselves by simple
   childlike confidence in Him. You have done well--continue to do the
   same.

   "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him." Go on
   receiving Him. "To whom coming," says the Apostle, "as unto a living
   stone." Regard Him not as one to whom you have come by one act and have
   done with Him, but as one to whom you come continually! "Of His
   fullness have all we received and Grace for Grace," but we are going on
   receiving by continuing to believe in Him! Hold on to this. Having
   begun in the spirit, do not hope to be perfected by the flesh! Do not
   think that you are to be fed, afterwards, on something other than
   Christ, but go on receiving, appropriating and taking home the great
   Truths concerning your Lord. Here, my Brethren, is the life of your

   faith.

   But even appropriating is not enough to constitute feeding. After
   taking the morsel, it is put into the mouth and received inwardly--the
   draught of wine is poured into the throat and it disappears. Receive
   the Truth of God not only as a matter of creed, but drink it in as the
   ox sucks in the water when he stands up to his knees in the pool. Take
   Christ into your very soul--into your heart's belief as well as into
   your mind's belief! Mental beliefs shift and change, but the inward
   soul's belief never alters. I reckon that we know nothing rightly till
   we have absorbed it and made it part and parcel of ourselves. The vital
   Truths with regard to our Lord Jesus must go down into the inward parts
   of the soul, as the food descends into the secret parts of the belly to
   feed the entire man.

   And you know what becomes of the food. It is taken up by the Nature,
   itself, and becomes transmuted into it. After its digestion, it passes
   through various processes and ultimately becomes the life-blood out of
   which is built up nerve, muscle, sinew, bone, flesh, heart. Everything
   comes of it. Now, you must so believe in Jesus that no longer is it a
   matter of question with you whether you will retain Him or not, for if
   you have inwardly received Him, you cannot lose Him forever. Oh that
   blessed "Quis separabitV--"Who shall separate us from the love of God,
   which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" It is difficult to deprive a person
   of that which he has received mentally, for facts learned in childhood
   are remembered even to old age.

   No one could compel another to forget, but yet without such compulsion
   the memory might relax its hold through lapse of years--the mind might
   part with that which it has received, but no known power could take
   away from a man that which he has eaten and assimilated! A person may
   very readily pick my pocket of my wallet, but what I ate yesterday he
   cannot steal! That is mine--it is joined to myself and has built me up.
   I do not know what portion of my flesh comes of my morning meal, or of
   my mid-day repast, but there it is and there it must be. It has entered
   into me and never can be taken away from me. So when the soul takes in
   Christ's Truth with that simple childlike faith which is the mouth, the
   Truth goes into the soul and is thought over, trusted in, delighted in
   and becomes so part and parcel of the inner consciousness and of the
   new nature of the man that it would be utterly impossible to tear away
   that Truth from him!

   Pound a true Christian in a mortar and every single atom would say, "I
   belong to Christ." Grind him finer than the smallest dust of the
   threshing floor and every minute particle would still say, "Christ is
   in me." For so it is that the Christ has entered the man, permeated his
   nature, become his very life and now it is, "I live, yet not I, but
   Christ lives in me." Now is the text fulfilled in us, "For you are dead
   and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
   shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in Glory." "Abide in
   Me," said our Lord and He gave His own promise to be with us forever.
   That is the result of eating Christ and to this we must come!

   Beloved, I have thus explained the matter as well as I can, but as old
   Rollock says, "The only way to understand feeding upon Christ is to
   feed upon Christ." This is a practical, personal, experimental
   business. In learning certain acts you must, yourself, become a
   practical scholar, the master cannot teach by merely setting the
   copy--the scholar must imitate it line by line with his own hand--and
   so here I can teach little by words only, you must practice what is
   spoken. Now feed on the Lord Jesus! Let each one of you do it. I know
   what some will do--they will not feed on Christ, but they will pick
   over the heavenly bread like dainty folks who have no stomach for their
   meat. This bit of Christ they would have, but the other does not suit
   their taste--Justification by Faith they would have, but not
   Sanctification--they do not like that.

   It is a whole Christ you and I must have--a whole Christ as to every
   part of His teaching, Character, work and offices. We must receive Him
   into ourselves without division, rejoicing to take Him just as He is.
   Especially must we receive the spirit of Christ, for, "if any man have
   not the spirit of Christ he is none of his." We must partake in the
   loving spirit, the self-denying spirit, the generous spirit which lives
   not within itself, but goes forth in forgiveness of injuries and in
   seeking to benefit all mankind. We must have Jesus in us, delighting to
   take in the whole of Him, for He says

   farther on in this very chapter, "He that eats Me"--that is even more
   comprehensive than His, "flesh and His blood"-- "He that eats Me, even
   he shall live by Me." The entire Christ must be taken into the soul to
   build up the inner man.

   II. Now, secondly, WHAT IS BOUND UP IN THIS EATING OF HIS FLESH AND
   DRINKING OF HIS BLOOD? Here we will take you back to the context. And
   notice, first, that there is, for this eating the flesh and drinking
   the blood of Christ, such an essential necessity that he who has not so
   eaten and drank has no spiritual life at all. It is a strong word,
   "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
   have no life in you." He does not mean that they have no natural
   life--He is speaking about spiritual things.

   Some that are as foolish as Judaizers in the matter of sticking to the
   letter tell us that this means existence and that no man's eternal
   existence is certain except that of a Believer in Christ. That dogma is
   not taught here, certainly. Our Lord is not speaking of existence--He
   is speaking of a far higher thing than existence, namely, life. Have
   you ever learned the difference between death and non-existence and
   between life and existence? If you have not, you are babes in
   understanding and you will often be blundering and losing your way in
   the midst of texts of Scripture. A man may exist in everlasting death,
   as, alas, all who die unbelievers must do. But blessed is he who lives!
   Blessed is he who shall live forever! Let me repeat the word,
   "lives"--I did not say "exists."

   What a glorious thing is life! Yet, if I had to explain to you what
   life is, I might find it far easier by some action of my own to show
   that I lived than to tell you exactly what life is. He, however, who
   eats Christ has life. He who has not done so has not life. Do you
   understand this--that unless you have received Christ by faith into
   your souls you have no life? You can work, you can walk, you can
   speak--you have all sorts of natural life--but you have not the life
   everlasting of which Jesus speaks! The life of God is not in you! You
   are dead and what a frightful condition that is--and to what greater
   horror does it lead! For wherever there is death, the dead thing will
   go a stage farther on. And what is that stage? Corruption!

   Only leave a corpse alone long enough and it must corrupt. Flesh
   corrupts necessarily. Already there are some signs of corruption about
   every ungodly man--outward sin and especially the inward sin of
   rejecting Christ are grievous corruptions. Your worm has begun to
   devour, even the worm that never dies. Then will be reached another
   stage, for corruption must be cast into the fire. For utter rottenness,
   the end must be burning! O Sinner, your fire has begun to burn--the
   fire that will never be quenched--for sin is the kindling of Hell! It
   is an awful thing to abide in death and yet he that believes not on
   Christ is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of
   God! It is enough to make you spring from your seats, O you that are
   unbelievers, to think that you are not waiting to be tried--you are
   condemned already!

   This is not a state of probation, as I often hear it said. Your
   probation is past! You are condemned already because you have not
   believed on the Son of God--and death is now upon you. The sentence has
   already begun to take effect and it will go on to the consummation of
   corruption till, at last, the Lord shall say, "Bury My dead out of My
   sight," and you must be driven from the Presence of the Lord and from
   the glory of His power. There is no life in you unless you have
   received Christ! Will you think of this, you thinkers? Only think of
   your being dead! Will you think of this, you ceremonialists to whom the
   outward Baptism and the outward Lord's Supper and the church attendance
   and the chapel going are everything? Unless you have fed on Christ
   there is no life in you!

   Then comes, in the next place, the further Truth of God, namely, that
   all who have received Jesus Christ as their meat and drink have eternal
   life. "Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life." I do
   not know how our Brethren who doubt the final perseverance of the
   saints manage to escape from the plain teaching of the text. There are
   always ways of getting over everything--you can drive a coach and six,
   they say, through any form of human language. But it does seem to me
   that if I have eternal life I must eternally live and cannot possibly
   die! if I have eternal life--if words mean anything--I am an eternally
   saved man! If I have received Jesus Christ into my soul, I have the
   life in me which will no more die than the life of God, for God's own
   life is eternal life and if I have received such life as His, how can I
   perish?

   I shall not be slain by sin--the life in me cannot sin because it is
   born of God! The life in me will throw off the darts of temptation if
   it is eternal life. There remains nothing for it but to shake off the
   death which often surrounds it by reason of the old man and to mount up
   like a bird set free from its cage, singing because of its escape,
   singing in the joy of life and winging its happy way upward to the
   Throne of God! Rejoice then, dear Friends, that if you have received
   Christ, you have eternal life in actual possession at this moment!
   "Sometimes I don't feel it," you say. Do not try to live

   by feeling! It is the most uncertain thing in the world. You might as
   well try to live by the barometer. Feeling goes up and down, up and
   down and changes more often than the moon. It is hard, uncomfortable
   living. Live by faith, for it is written, "the just shall live by
   faith." Your life is a life of trust. Keep to it.

   "Ah, but I see so much about me that grieves me." Thank God it grieves
   you! If you see sin and it does not grieve you, it is a token of death!
   But if it grieves you, there is life in you, notwithstanding all the
   death that surrounds it. You may have seen a spark in the midst of a
   heap of autumn leaves which are all damp and will not burn, but only
   smolder and smoke. And yet that spark continues to live and the very
   smoke from the heap proves it is so. There is One who will not quench
   the smoking flax but will fan it till it rises to a flame, and then it
   will devour the leaves which covered it and dry up the dampness which
   sought to destroy it!

   Furthermore, if you believe in Jesus and have received Him, you have
   gathered a life in which Christ gives us the victory, even through His
   name--life which will rise and rise and rise and conquer all sin. The
   Believer's inner life must come to absolute perfection and tread every
   sin beneath its feet. Very different is this from the doctrine that a
   man who is a child of God may sin as he pleases and yet be saved! That
   doctrine is of the devil! But this is quite another doctrine and
   ministers to holiness. The quickened man will not willingly and
   habitually sin, for His Seed remains in him and he cannot sin because
   he is born of God. The tone and tenor and bearing of his life will be
   towards holiness and not towards sin-- and the Lord who is able to keep
   him from falling will preserve him to His eternal kingdom and glory and
   He that has begun a good work in him will perfect it unto the day of
   Christ.

   Our Lord, having thus given us the negative and the positive in our
   text, tells us that His flesh and blood, or Himself, received into the
   soul are most efficient nourishment--in it is satisfaction. "My flesh
   is meat indeed." The Greek word is "truly," or, some say, "true meat."
   Now that which we eat for the body is not true meat. As George Herbert
   says, "When you are at your meat, eat a bit and then say, 'Earth to
   earth I commit.'" It is a deadly business. It is burying earth in earth
   and that living grave of earth will be, itself, buried in earth,
   by-and-by. The eating of material meat is the poor building up of a
   fabric that must ultimately crumble into nothingness. The meat we eat
   has all the elements of dissolution about it before we receive it and
   it only feeds for a short time and, therefore, it is not meat, indeed.

   In the matter of mental food, how much there is which is not bread and
   can never satisfy the mind. There is nothing in the world that can fill
   a soul to the fullest, but Jesus. Perhaps I address some thinker who
   has been trying to satisfy his soul by sniffing up the east wind of
   speculative philosophy. Ah, well, if you swallow a dose of Kant, or
   Hegel, Schleicrmacher, or any one of those gentlemen--if you do not
   feel as if you had been eating bubbles and bladders, your mental
   constitution and mine greatly differ! There is nothing in them but gas,
   or less substantial vapor. Why, a man may take down their books--a
   whole dozen of them--and devour their contents and then say, "What is
   it? Is it not much ado about nothing? These thoughts are dreams,
   vacuums, airy nothings!" All the philosophies that ever were invented
   could not satisfy a soul!

   The worst of it is that many do not want to be satisfied. "We," they
   say, "would sooner be seekers after truth than finders of it." They
   somewhat differ from men of practical common sense who, ordinarily,
   would rather have money than earn it and would rather eat their dinners
   than hunt for them. Still, that is their way and, if they like it, I
   suppose they must have it. Every creature after its own order! But if
   you want to be fed, dear Friends, depend upon it, nothing will feed you
   but Christ! There was a man of great appetite who lived many years ago
   and he began to feast ravenously. He was such a drinker that I may say
   of him that he drank up Jordan at a draught and he was such an eater,
   that, if you heard the story of what was brought to his table, you
   would be like the Queen of Sheba, utterly astonished, and say that the
   half was not told you!

   His name was Solomon and he fed his soul with all the arts and sciences
   and with all the poetries and luxuries of the age. Nor did he refrain
   from laughter and wantonness. There was not a cup he did not drain, nor
   a dainty from any land, nor a fruit from any tree of which he did not
   eat. Yet when he rose up from that abundant banquet, all he had to say
   was, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" I have seen a poor soul feed
   on Christ in a very humble cottage, upon a bed in a little room where
   she has lain alone almost all day and all night long, year after year,
   with many aches and pains and scarcely able to lift her hand to her
   head--with little but dry bread and a cup of water--and yet I have seen
   in that bedridden woman's pain-worn face a fullness of satisfaction! I
   have known her speak like one that had not a wish ungratified, nor a

   grief worth mentioning. I have beheld her when, in her sufferings she
   could scarcely speak, and yet her every word was essential poetry when
   she spoke of Him, her best Beloved, who had filled her soul even to
   overflowing!

   There is no food indeed, no drink indeed, for soul and spirit, but that
   which you find in the Incarnate God and in the Sacrifice of Christ! O
   you hungry, come here and eat that which is good and let your soul
   delight itself in fatness! O you thirsty, come here, for behold the
   waters are flowing freely and the wines on the lees are ready for you
   in Christ Jesus! That is what is bound up in feeding upon Jesus! There
   is satisfaction in Him!

   And then there is bound up with it one other matter, namely,
   in-dwelling. I go over the same ground again. The Lord Jesus says, "He
   that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me and I in him."
   When you have eaten bread, it dwells in you and you in it--it goes into
   you and it is in you--it becomes part of yourself and you live by it
   and in its strength. It is a part of the fabric in which you dwell.
   Even so, he that believes in Christ lives in Christ. He does not merely
   go to Christ, but he enters into Christ. I delight to remember that I
   am not merely under the shadow of my Lord, but, as David in the caverns
   of Engedi, so does my soul hide herself right away in Jesus. We dwell
   in Him and are at home!

   Moreover, He enters into us by our feeding upon Him so that He becomes
   our life, the spring of our being, the object of our desire, the motive
   force of our service! We are woven together--Christ warp and ourselves
   woof--woven together in a living loom and so conjoined that it were
   hard to tell where He ends who has no end and where we begin who are
   lost in Him! We are less than the least of all saints and yet members
   of His body who is Lord of All! We must leave the mystery remarking
   that if we have fed on Christ for ourselves, we have proof of what good
   meat it is we have fed on and we shall always pray, "Lord, evermore
   give us this bread."

   III. I need your attention for a few minutes while, in the third place,
   we consider WHAT REFLECTIONS ARISE OUT OF THIS TRUTH. I will simply
   throw them out for you to turn over for yourselves. They occurred to me
   when I was hearing a Brother preach upon a kindred subject. They took
   hold of my soul! May they prove useful to you. And the first was this.
   If I have a life that feeds on Christ, what a wonderful life it must
   be. My bodily life is wonderful, yet it only feeds on the fruits of the
   earth. My mental life is a marvel, but I know that I can build it up
   with literature and thought. Above all these I have a life which cannot
   feed on anything but the flesh and blood of the Son of God! What a life
   that must be!

   What a wonderful being a man is when God is in him! I almost reverence
   the meanest saint when I think of this, for he bears about with him not
   a Kohinoor, but a gem of life, compared with which the queenly diamond
   pales into a glittering vanity! O Love Divine, do You tabernacle in the
   sons of men? I have been speaking of mysteries, but I ask you to
   explain which is the greater mystery, the Incarnation of God in Christ
   or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Believers? They are two
   wondrous stoops of Deity which can only be likened to each other, being
   each one without parallel. The spiritual life given to the regenerate
   must be a life of inconceivable excellence and heavenliness since it
   can only feed on Christ Himself.

   The next thought is, if we have the life that feeds on such meat as
   this, how strong it must be. They say of such-and-such men that they
   may well be strong, seeing what good food they have. Yes, but see what
   food we have--how strong we must be! Do we know our own strength? I do
   not mean our natural strength, for that is weakness, but I mean the
   strength which lies in the new Nature when it has fed on Christ! O
   Brothers and Sisters, we are strong to do! We are strong to be! We are
   strong to suffer! And to take an easy illustration of this--the one
   that occurs to me first--look at how the saints have suffered. Take
   down "Foxe's Book of Martyrs." Read of Marcus Arethusa, stung to death
   by wasps without a sigh!

   Think of Blandina tossed on the horns of bulls, exposed in a red-hot
   iron chair and yet never flinching! Give up Christ? They never dreamed
   of such a thing! Think of Lawrence on the gridiron and other
   innumerable heroes who were made strong because Christ was in them!
   Yes, and turn to humble men and women over yonder in Smithfield who
   could clap their hands while every finger burned like a candle and
   could shout, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" Why, they fed on the
   flesh and blood of Christ and that made them mighty! They were tortured
   on the rack like Anne Askew and yet they scorned to yield. Brave woman!
   The priests and the friars could not vanquish her! Neither could all
   the Bishop Bonners in the world burn Christ out of poor Tomkins!

   When Bonner held the poor man's finger over the candle and said, "How
   will you like that in every single limb of your body?" Tomkins smiled
   at the bishop and said that he forgave him the cruelty that he was
   doing him. Christ in a man makes him a partaker of Divine strength. Do
   you not think, my Brothers and Sisters, that as you are not called to
   suffer, you ought to lay out your strength in the line of doing,
   giving, self-denial and serving Christ by holy living? Certainly you
   should try to do so and your strength will be found equal to it! You do
   not know how strong you are, but Paul shall tell you--"I can do all
   things through Christ that strengthens me." Well may you do all things
   if you have fed on Him who is All and in all!

   Then a third reflection crossed my mind. If we have a life that feeds
   on this, how immortal it must be. We have a text to prove that and we
   have given it to you already--"He that believes on Him has everlasting
   life." When a man has nothing but bad food, you do not wonder that he
   dies. It is little marvel that they died by millions in India and
   China, considering how little nourishment they had during the famine.
   But if you and I eat Christ, eat the Incarnate God and drink His blood,
   how can we die? What? Kill a man that has even a particle of Christ in
   him? The devil cannot do it--he knows his Master! And what does Christ
   say? "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish,
   neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand."

   Oh, blessed Truth of God! We live, not only because our life is itself
   eternal, but because it feeds on eternal meat! We keep on receiving
   Christ day by day, for we live upon Him. Eating is not a work that we
   finished 25 years ago, but we continue to feed upon Jesus and,
   therefore, we live. Feeding upon Christ does not mean being converted
   and then saying, "I am safe and have no more need to care." Ah, no! It
   means beginning to receive Him in conversion and continuing to feed
   upon Him forevermore! And they who do this may be sure that their life
   is immortal! The next thought that struck me was this--if we feed on
   such meat as this, how that life must develop. I do not quite see in
   myself and, I may say that I do not see in some Believers, the full
   result I should like to see from such food.

   Has this man been eating such Divine food? Let us hear him. He cries,
   "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" He is doing Christ's work
   spasmodically, feebly, sleepily. He does it without joy and is soon
   weary. Is this all he is going to do? Is this all he is going to be? Oh
   no, Brothers and Sisters, "It does not yet appear what we shall be." We
   shall grow! We shall grow! When I hear a man talk about being perfect
   in the flesh, I hope for the best and trust that he is not willfully
   lying. At any rate, I do not believe him! I would like to see his
   perfection rather than to hear him talk about it! I have generally
   found that when a cart needs a bell, it is a dust cart. I never knew
   the people of the Bank of England ring a bell when they were going
   through the streets with bullion and I do not think it is likely that a
   man who has much Grace will boast of it!

   Yet I do believe that we can be developed into something very
   wonderful. A man may grow in Grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
   till his conversation is in Heaven and he becomes wholly consecrated to
   the Lord--hating sin and living like Enoch who walked with God. There
   have been such men and there are such men and women still among us
   whose lives glitter with the light of God--why should not we be like
   they are? They are stars in God's firmament and they shine in the Glory
   of the Most High! The Lord grant us that feeding on the Divine meat we
   may develop till the image of Jesus is perfected in us!

   And, lastly, he who is thus fed, dear Friends, what company he must
   keep! "He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me," says
   Christ, "and I in him." What heavenly company is this! He goes home at
   night to his poor family, perhaps, and there is nothing great about his
   house that you can see--but if your eyes are opened you will see that
   it is a king's palace--and if you are one of the Lord's and can step
   inside, you will see that he has "come to the general assembly and
   Church of the firstborn whose names are written in Heaven and unto God
   the Judge of All, and unto the spirits of just men made perfect,"
   because he that has Christ in him has Heaven around him!

   All good things are attracted by Christ in man. Put down a little honey
   and see how wasps and flies and bees come all around it! What is the
   sweetest honey in the universe? It is Christ--and if you have Christ in
   you, His name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins
   love Him and they will come where He is. I will tell you--Christ is
   never without God and he that has Christ has the company of the Father!
   And Christ is never without the Spirit of God, for the Spirit of God is
   upon Him and he that has Christ is never without the Spirit! What
   Divine society is this! Our Lord Jesus is never unattended by a retinue
   of sublime intelligences and so if Christ is in you, He will give His
   angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways! They shall bear
   you up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.

   Prince of the blood royal of Heaven! O Peer of God's own kingdom, you
   are more nearly related to the King of kings than the peers of the
   realm can be to the Queen, for are you not married to the Prince
   Imperial? Is He not coming to receive you to Himself, that where He is,
   you may be, also? If you are feeding on Him, your union with Him is
   complete! If He is your food; if He is your raiment; if He is your
   dwelling place; if He is your All in All, I think I may compare you to
   that angel of whom Milton sang, even Uriel, who dwelt in the center of
   the sun! It is there we live--in the very substance and essence of all
   things and all things move around us like satellites around a central
   globe, for we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar
   people inasmuch as we have fed on Christ--and Christ dwells in us and
   we in Him!

   1 have not said anything to the unconverted and yet I have meant it all
   for them. When you spread a dainty feast, you practically invite the
   family to come and dine. It is the very best way of enticing them. If
   they are hungry, the meats on the table will make their mouths water
   and they will long to partake. Oh, my Hearers, whoever you may be, if
   your mouths water after Christ, come and have Him for He is free to
   every soul that hungers and thirsts after Him! The Lord give Him to you
   at once, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OFSCRIPTUREREAD BEFORE SERMON--John 6:41-71. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--260, 820, 761.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   BELOVED FRIENDS, By the time that this note is printed, the Special
   Services at the Tabernacle will be drawing to a close and it will be
   meet to harrow in the seed with renewed supplication. Shall so much
   effort be in vain? It cannot be and yet everything depends upon the
   mighty working of the Spirit of God and, therefore, we must seek His
   face if we would see large results! I suggest that every sermon reader
   should spend a special time in prayer, next Lord's Day, in pleading for
   the revival of Evangelical religion.

   The Times pronounced the funeral oration of the Evangelical party, but
   it is not dead, even, within the Established Church and certainly not
   among Dissenters! Let us, however, pray that it may exhibit more
   vigorous life. There is need of such supplication, but it must be
   presented in faith and with holy importunity. So let it be.

   For myself, one word only. I am recovering and rest is restoring mind
   and heart. Pray for me. Yours to serve always,

   C H. SPURGEON, Mentone, February 20, 1879.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Seven Sneezes

   (No. 1461A)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "The child sneezed seven times." 2 Kings 4:35.

   THE child was dead. Although he had been the special gift of Divine
   promise and was therefore doubly prized by his parents, yet the little
   lad was not secure from the common hazards of life. He was in the
   harvest field in the heat of the day and a sunstroke struck him down.
   His father bade one of his young men carry him home and he died on his
   mother's knees. The brave woman was heartbroken, but, being full of
   energy and spirit, she rode off to Elisha, the man of God, to tell him
   her sorrow and to upbraid him with the short-lived blessing which had
   come to her through his prayers. She clung to the Prophet in the hour
   of her bitter sorrow and he, with his whole heart, sympathized in her
   motherly grief.

   He hastened to the chamber where the dead child was laid upon the bed
   and there, alone, he exercised the sacred power of prayer--again and
   again he wrestled and at length prevailed--so that in the glad
   Shunammite's case it was true that, "women received their dead raised
   to life again." Such is the power of faith when it uses the weapon of
   all prayer--even the gates of the grave cannot prevail against it! The
   Prophet's mode of operation, when he lay upon the child and put his
   mouth upon the boy's mouth, "and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands
   upon his hands," is full of instruction.

   Spiritual life is the gift of God, but if the dead are to be raised by
   our means, we must enter into hearty sympathy with them. We must create
   spiritual contact and become, in a great measure, identified with those
   whom we would bless. The Holy Spirit works by those who feel that they
   would lay down their own lives for the good of others and would impart
   to them not only their goods and their instructions, but themselves, if
   by any means they might save some. O for more Elishas! For then we
   should see more sinners raised from their death in sin!

   The first clear evidence that the child was restored to life was his
   sneezing. Doubtless it greatly rejoiced the Prophet's heart. We, too,
   who are seeking the good of others, will greatly exult if we are
   favored to see gracious tokens in those for whose good we labor. At all
   Gospel meetings earnest people should be on the look-out for persons
   convicted of sin, awakened in conscience, or in any other manner made
   to feel the power of the life-giving Spirit. It will be well if these
   persons watch with instructed eyes, so that they do not look for what
   they will never see, nor overlook that which should give them full
   contentment.

   Of natural life we may discern the tokens more readily than those of
   spiritual life. We need practice and experience in reference to this
   more mysterious matter or we may cause great pain to ourselves and to
   those whom we would befriend. Possibly we may gather instruction from
   the signs of life which contented the Prophet--the child sneezed seven
   times. This evidence of life was very simple. Nothing is more genuine
   than a sneeze. It is so far from being artificial that it is
   involuntary! As a rule we sneeze not because we will, but because we
   must. No instruction, education, talent, or acquirement is necessary to
   a sneeze, nor even to a series of seven sneezes--it is the act of a
   child, or of an illiterate peasant, quite as much as of a philosopher
   or a Divine.

   Yet Elisha asked no further evidence of life. He did not require the
   little lad to repeat a Psalm, or walk a mile, or climb a tree. He knew
   that he was alive although the act of the newly-given life was of the
   most elementary kind. Just so, let us feel thankful when we hear the
   first groan of distress or see the first tear of repentance!
   Hopefulness is a helpful element in the success of those who have to
   deal with seeking sinners. We ought not to expect too much of
   enquirers. We ought not to be satisfied without signs of life, but the
   faintest sign of life ought to encourage us and lead us to encourage
   them.

   Very little knowledge can be looked for in enquirers. Elisha did not
   ask the child to say his Catechism. Very little strength will be found
   in them. Elisha did not bid the child move the table, the stool and the
   candlestick with which the room was furnished. No, the sneeze proved
   life, though it was inarticulate and the uninstructed expression of
   untrained

   vitality. Repentance for sin, desire after holiness, child-like trust
   in Jesus, tearful prayer, careful walking, delight in the Word of God
   and intense self-distrust are among the elementary tokens of life--the
   sneezes of those freshly raised from the dead. Such tokens are to be
   seen in all the truly living in Zion, whether old or young and,
   therefore, they are not proofs of growth, but of life--and it is life
   that we have to deal with at first--growth is a later consideration.

   Elisha did not leave the child upon the bed until he had developed into
   a man, but as soon as he had heard him sneeze, he said to the mother,
   "Take up your son." And we would earnestly say to every Church in whose
   midst a soul has been born unto God, "Take up your son." Receive the
   convert though he is weak in the faith! Carry the lamb in your bosom,
   cherish and nurture him till life has girded itself with manly
   strength.

   This evidence of life was, in itself, unpleasant. To the child it was
   no pleasure to sneeze. We would, most of us, prefer to be excused from
   sneezing seven times! Many of the surest marks of the new life are by
   no means pleasurable. The regenerate are not at once happy--on the
   other hand they are often in great bitterness for their sins and in
   sore anguish because they have pierced their Savior! The Divine life is
   not born into the world without pangs. When a man has been nearly
   drowned and animation is restored by rubbing, the first movements of
   the blood within the veins causes tingling and other sensations which
   are exquisitely painful.

   Sin causes numbness of soul and this is attended by an absence of
   sensation--this is changed when life comes with its look of faith, for
   the first result is that men look on Him whom they have pierced and
   mourn for Him. Some regard pleasurable emotions as the clearest signs
   of Grace, but they are not so. "I am so happy," is frequently a far
   less certain token than, "I am so grieved because I have sinned." We do
   not think much of the song of, "Happy Day," unless it has been preceded
   by the mournful ditty--

   "O that my load of sin were gone!" A sneeze, again, is not very musical
   to those who hear it and so the first signs of Grace are not, in
   themselves, pleasing to those who are watching for souls. Our minds may
   be greatly pained to see the sorrow and despondency of the stricken
   heart and yet that which we see may be, none the less, a certain sign
   of renewed life.

   We cannot take delight in heartbreak and convulsion of soul when
   considered in themselves--on the contrary, our earnest endeavor is to
   apply the balm of the Gospel and remove such pains--yet are they among
   the most assured marks of the life of God in the soul in its earlier
   stages and we ought to be thankful whenever we see them. That which
   worldlings condemn as melancholy is often to us a hopeful sign of
   thoughtfulness! And the self-despair which the ignorant deplore is
   cause for congratulation among those who pray for conversions! We
   delight in the sorrows of penitents because of their results--otherwise
   we take no delight in human grief, but the very reverse.

   "The child sneezed seven times," the evidences of life were very
   monotonous. Again and again there came a sneeze and nothing else. No
   song, no note of music, not even one soft word, but sneeze, sneeze,
   sneeze, seven times! Yet the noises wearied not the Prophet, who was
   too glad to hear the sounds of life to be very particular about their
   musical character. The child lived and that was enough for him. Much of
   the talk of enquirers is very wearisome--they tell the same melancholy
   tale over and over again. Answered a dozen times, they return to the
   same questions and repeat the same doubts. If one were seeking interest
   and variety, he would not look for it in the painful repetitions of
   persons under conviction of sin!

   But when we are watching for men's souls we do not grow weary even
   though, in themselves, the utterances of the newly awakened are
   frequently among the most tiresome of communications! They are often
   difficult to understand, involved, confused and even absurd. They
   frequently betray culpable ignorance and sinful obstinacy, combined
   with pride, unbelief and self-will--and yet in them there is a secret
   something which betokens an awakening to the higher life and,
   therefore, we cheerfully lend our ear!

   After days of exhortation and consolation we find them still
   floundering in the Slough of Despond, sticking fast in the mire out of
   which they seem half unwilling to be drawn! We must render them the
   same help over and over again and point out the stepping stones for the
   hundredth time. Better that our service should be monotonous than that
   a soul should perish! The poor child may sneeze seven times if it will
   and we will gladly hear it, for it is a joy to know that it lives--and
   our poor neighbor may repeat his painful story until 70 times seven, if
   therein we can discover traces of the work of the Spirit upon his soul!

   Let us not be disappointed because at the first we get so little which
   is interesting from young converts. We are not examining them for the
   ministry--we are only looking for evidences of spiritual life--to apply
   to them the tests which would be proper enough for a doctor of divinity
   would be both cruel and ridiculous. In preachers of the Gospel we
   expect variety and wish we could have more of it, but from the babe in
   Grace we are quite content to hear a cry and a cry is not a subject for
   musical variations any more than a sneeze!

   Yet the sound which entered the Prophet's ears was a sure token of life
   and we must not be content with any doubtful or merely hopeful signs.
   We want evidences of life and these we must have. We long to see our
   friends really and truly saved. Do but prove to us that they have
   passed from death unto life and we rejoice in the lowest form of that
   proof, but with less than this we cannot be quiet. Mere resolves to
   reform, or even reform itself, will not end our anxiety! No fine talk,
   or expressed emotion, or remarkable excitement will at all content
   us--we want them to be converted--to be born again from above, to be
   made new creatures in Christ Jesus!

   The child might have been washed and dressed in his best clothes, but
   this would not have fulfilled the Prophet's desire. The lad might have
   been decked with a chaplet of flowers and his young cheeks might have
   been rouged into the imitation of a ruddy blush, but the holy man would
   have remained unsatisfied--he must have a sign of life. However simple,
   it must assuredly be a token of life or it would be in vain. Nothing
   could have been more conclusive than a sneeze! We remember a case in
   which a loving watcher fancied that a corpse moved its arm, but it was
   only imagination seconding the wish of affection. There could, however,
   be no room for a mistake in a sneeze, much less in seven sneezes! The
   Prophet might safely call in the mother and commit to her care her
   undoubtedly living boy. So we, also, ask for indisputable marks of
   Grace and till we see them we shall still pray and watch and feel
   painful anxiety.

   So far we have kept to the text and as our space is limited we can only
   add these few precepts. Let the Lord's living ones believe that He can
   raise the spiritually dead. Let them make the ungodly their daily care.
   Let them bring them where souls are quickened--namely, under the sound
   of the Gospel--and then let them prayerfully and wisely watch for
   results. The more watchers in a congregation, the better. They will be
   the preacher's best allies and greatly increase the fruit of his
   labors.

   What do you say, dear Friends in Christ, can you not attempt this
   service? It requires Graces rather than gifts, affection rather than
   talent. Awaken yourself to the delightful service and watch until you
   see the signs of spiritual vitality. However unnoticed by others, let
   them not escape your eyes and ears and heart, but be ready to take care
   of the newly-quickened one, even if there is no more to be said of them
   than, "the child sneezed seven times."
     __________________________________________________________________

Eyes Opened

   (No. 1461B)

   DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And God opened her eyes." Genesis 21:19.

   THERE was a well of water close to Hagar, all the while, though she saw
   it not. God did not cleave the earth and cause new waters to gush
   forth, nor was there need. The well was already there, but for all
   practical purposes it might not have been there, for she could not see
   it. The water was gone in her bottle, her child was dying of thirst and
   she was ready to faint--and yet the cool spring was bubbling up hard by
   the spot! It was necessary that she should see the well, quite as
   necessary as that the well should be there and, therefore, the Lord, in
   great compassion, led her to see it, or, as the text puts it, "God
   opened her eyes."

   This was a small matter compared with the creation of a new-form rain,
   but our God does very little things as well as very great things when
   there is need for them. The same God who divides the Red Sea and makes
   the Jordan to be dried up, opens a poor woman's eyes. The same God who
   came with all His chariots of fire to Paran and with all His holy ones
   to Sinai and made the mountain utterly to smoke in His Presence, is He
   of whom we read, "and God opened Hagar's eyes." The Infinite Lord is at
   home in doing little things. He counts the stars, but He also numbers
   the hairs of our heads. Remember that the same God who molded the orb
   on which we dwell, also fashions every tiny dewdrop! And He who makes
   the lightning bolt to fly through the midst of Heaven, wings every
   butterfly and guides every minnow in the brook!

   He prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, but He also prepared a
   little worm to destroy the gourd. How condescending He is, since He
   carefully attends to minor matters for His children and not only kills
   for them the fatted calf, but puts shoes on their feet. Sometimes very
   little things become absolutely necessary, for they act as the hinges
   of history, the pivots upon which the future turns. How frequently the
   whole course of a man's career has been affected by a moment's thought.
   The word of a child has affected the destiny of an empire--the chance
   expression of a speaker--as men talk of chance, has fired races with a
   new passion and changed times and shaken kingdoms.

   The Lord works gloriously by agents and events small and despised. God,
   by opening Hagar's eyes, secured the existence of the Ishmaelite race,
   which even to this day remains--from the little comes the great. There
   may be persons present who need but very little to enable them to enter
   into eternal life--they need only that their eyes should be opened! May
   the Lord grant them that favor! O that He may now bid many a Hagar see
   His salvation! Why should the thirsty souls wait any longer? Everything
   is ready--they are on the borders of salvation--but they need that
   their eyes should be opened.

   Our subject at this time shall be the opening of eyes, taking rather a
   wide range, because it is a wide subject, and hoping that both to those
   who see and to those who cannot see, there may come a gracious opening
   of the spiritual eye.

   I. Our first head shall be that IF OUR EYES WERE FURTHER OPENED, THE
   RESULT TO ANY ONE OF US WOULD BE VERY REMARKABLE. We are at present
   limited in our range of sight. This is true of our natural or physical
   vision, of our mental vision and of our spiritual vision. And in each
   case, when the range of sight is enlarged, very remarkable discoveries
   are made. God has been pleased to open the natural eyes of mankind by
   the invention of optical instruments. What a discovery it was when,
   first of all, certain pieces of glass were arranged in connection with
   each other and men began to peer into the stars!

   What a change has come over the knowledge of our race by the invention
   of the telescope! How much of truly devout, adoring thought and of
   deep, intense, unutterable reverence has been born into the world by
   the Lord's having, in this sense, opened men's eyes! When he turned his
   telescope upon the nebulae and discovered that these were innumerable
   stars, what a hymn of praise must have burst from the reverent
   astronomer's heart! How infinite You are, most glorious Lord! What
   wonders have You created! Let Your name be had in reverence forever and
   ever!

   Equally marvelous was the effect upon human knowledge when the
   microscope was invented. We could never have imagined what wonders of
   skill and of taste would be revealed by the magnifying glass and what
   marvels of beauty would be found compressed within a space too small to
   measure! Who dreamed that a butterfly wing would display art and wisdom
   and a delicacy never to be rivaled by human workmanship? The most
   delicate work of art is rough, crude, raw, compared with the most
   common object in Nature! The one is the production of man, the other
   the handiwork of God!

   Spend an evening with the microscope and if your heart is right, you
   will lift your eye away from the glass to Heaven and exclaim, "Great
   God, You are as wonderful in the little as You are in the great and as
   much to be praised for the minute as for the magnificent!" While we
   say, "Great are You, O God, for You made the great and wide sea and the
   leviathan whose lot it is to play there," we feel that we can also say,
   "Great are You, O Lord, for You made the drop of water and have filled
   it with innumerable living things."

   Our physical eyes opened by either glass, reveal strange marvels and we
   may infer from this fact that the opening of our mental and spiritual
   eyes will discover to us equal wonders in other domains and thus
   increase our reverence and love towards God. Suppose, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, that our eyes could be opened as to all our past lives. We
   have seen them, for we have traveled through them. But it was very
   cloudy when I went that way--I do not know how it was with you. None of
   us have our eyes thoroughly opened yet--we have up to now been
   traveling through life as men who journey in a mist. Even the things
   which have come close to us and have most affected us, have been
   hidden, as it were, in that which is not light, but visible darkness.

   And now, if we could look back upon the whole length of life--40, or
   50, or 60, or 70 years with our eyes opened-- how amazing it would
   look! Our childhood--how different that period would now appear with
   God's light upon it! Those early struggles for a livelihood--we thought
   them difficult--but we already begin to see what discipline there was
   in them and how necessary they were for us. Those losses and
   crosses--why even with our present partial sight we can see how much
   they were for our good! Yet there remains in life some singular things
   which we cannot, as yet, explain.

   Why was the favorite son taken away just when all our hopes were to
   have been fulfilled in him? Why was the husband struck down when the
   little children were so dependent? Why was the wife removed when a
   mother's care was most needed? Why fell that daughter sick so suddenly?
   Why were we, ourselves, balked in the moment of success? If our eyes
   could be opened so that we could see what would have been if things had
   gone differently, we would, all of us, thank God that our lives were
   ordered as they have been! Have you never heard of one who was
   grievously lamenting the death of his favorite son and, falling asleep,
   dreamed that he saw his boy alive, again, and that he beheld the life
   which that son would have led?

   It was such a life that he wept in his dream and, waking, he blessed
   God that his son could never act according to what he had seen in
   vision--it was better that he should be dead. Repine no more, my
   sorrowing Friend, for that which you would have kept in your bosom
   might have turned into a viper! That which you thought a treasure might
   have burned in your heart like coals of fire! Providence has ordered
   all things wisely and if our eyes were opened, we would bow in adoring
   reverence and magnify the God who has done all things well! Our vision
   will be strengthened one day so that we shall see the end from the
   beginning--and then we shall understand that the Lord makes all things
   work together for good to them that love Him.

   And now suppose, again, our eyes should be opened upon the future. Yes,
   would you not like to spy into destiny? My curiosity is, probably, as
   great as yours, but still it is balanced by another faculty and I
   declare that if I could see into tomorrow I would refuse to look! There
   is a desire in man to know what lines are written for him in the book
   of fate-- whether they shall be bright or dark. Ah, dear Friend, if
   your eyes could be opened as to all that is to happen, what would you
   do? If you were wise and knew your future, you would commit it unto
   God--commit it to Him though you do not know it! If you were wise you
   would wish to spend that future in His service if you knew it--spend it
   in His service though it is hidden from you!

   If you knew what would happen, you would feel great need for faith--you
   do not know what will happen, but your need of faith is precisely the
   same! Trust in God, come what may! This thing is certain--that to live
   unsaved and unforgiven is a very dangerous condition! God help you to
   get out of it at once by flying to Jesus for present salvation and
   finding it on the spot! If you knew the future, it might make you idle,
   but it ought to make you diligent! If you knew the future, it might
   make you vain, but it should make you humble! If you knew the future,
   it might make you

   despondent, but it should make you trust! At any rate, knowing nothing
   at all about it, obey the voice of the Holy Spirit who says, "Commit
   your ways unto the Lord: trust also in Him and He shall bring it to
   pass: and He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your
   judgment as the noon-day."

   If our eyes were opened, again, on another point, as to the existence
   of angels, we would see marvels! We will enter into no speculations but
   what a sight would be before us if suddenly we could behold all the
   creatures that are round about us! The Prophet of old prayed for a
   young man that his eyes might be opened and immediately he saw horses
   of fire and chariots of fire round about Elisha! So do angels encircle
   the people of God! "The angel of the Lord camps round about them that
   fear Him." "He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all
   your ways: they shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your
   foot against a stone." "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth
   to minister to them that are heirs of salvation?"

   Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth, both when we sleep and
   when we wake and, if we were more like those pure spirits and more
   familiar with their Master, we should feel more gratitude to Him for
   setting them round about us. Fear not, you are not alone, O child of
   God! Your Father never calls off your bodyguard! The evil spirit comes
   to tempt you, but the Lord has set His sentinel angel to keep watch
   that no ill may approach you. If the Lord opened the eyes of His
   greatly beloved servants to see how many of these mighty intelligences
   are silently guarding them, they would cease to complain of loneliness
   while in the midst of such a thronging ministry of willing friends!

   And what, once more, if your eyes could be opened to look into Heaven?
   Where it is we do not know. It is not very far away. At any rate, the
   glorified know what we do here, for they rejoice over one sinner that
   repents! Evidently, too, it takes not long to travel there, for it was
   eventide when Jesus told the thief that he should be with Him in
   Paradise that very day and you may be sure he was there! Oh, that we
   could see the place of unveiled Glory and unmingled bliss as we shall
   see it in an instant when our Father's messenger, called Death, shall
   strike the scales from our eyes, or rather, remove these dim optics
   with which we blunderingly see and let our naked spirit gaze on the
   reality of things without these hindering eyes which do but inform us
   of their outward show!

   Oh, what glories shall we see then! What splendor above the light of
   the sun! What music, sweeter than harpers harping with their harps!
   What glory! Solomon knew not the likes of this! There is the Light of
   all lights, the Delight of all delights, the Heaven of heavens, the Sun
   of our soul, our All in All--Jesus Christ, the Truth of God! What bliss
   to be with Him--with Him forever and ever! Break, eternal morning!
   Break even now! Would God that, at least for once, till the day breaks
   and the shadows flee away, we had our eyes opened to see the Glories
   beyond--then this poor world would be despised by us--we would forget
   its pains and pleasures!

   We would rise superior to all its influences and we would rise to be
   heavenly ourselves! Wait awhile, Brothers and Sisters. Wait for a very
   little while. Wait a "wee and dinna weary," as the Scottish woman said,
   and you shall see it all--

   "Just when You will, O Bridegroom, say, 'Rise up, My lo ve, and come a
   way!' Open to me Your golden gate Just when You will, or soon or late."
   So far, I have wandered from the text, but now, in my second head, I
   will come back to it.

   II. IN SOME THINGS OUR EYES MUST BE OPENED. Those I have spoken about
   are desirable in a measure, but these are absolutely necessary. For
   instance, as to Divine salvation, our eyes must be opened. Hagar's case
   is a strange one. Picture it. She is thirsty and her boy is dying--her
   instincts are quickened by her love to her child and yet she cannot see
   a well of water. There it is! Close to her! Do you not see it? Just
   there! She cannot see it till her eyes are opened. It is as plain as a
   pikestaff, but she does not perceive it.

   Now, this is a graphic representation of the position of many a seeking
   sinner. There is the way of salvation and, if there is anything plain
   in the world, it is that road of life! The fact that two times two make
   four is no plainer than-- "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved." "Look unto the Son of God and live"--what can be more
   simple? And yet nobody did ever understand the doctrine of, "believe
   and live," till God opened his eyes! The well is there, but the thirsty
   soul cannot see it. Christ is there, but the sinner cannot see Him.
   There is the Fountain filled with blood, but he does not know how to
   wash in it.

   There stand the words, "Believe and live"--simple words that need no
   explanation! They are legible by their own light and so plain that the
   wayfaring man, though a fool, may comprehend them! Yet, till the
   Eternal Light flashes upon

   the darkened eyeballs of the sinner, he cannot and he will not perceive
   the self-evident Truth of God! Why this inability to see? I suppose
   Hagar's eyes were somewhat darkened by her grief. She was
   broken-hearted, poor woman and, therefore, her eyes were not so clear
   as usual.

   So some souls have such grief for sin; such sorrow for having offended
   God; such fear of wrath to come that they cannot perceive the Truth of
   God which would comfort them. What ails you, poor Soul? What ails you?
   It is well that you grieve for sin, but Christ has come to put it away!
   It is well that you mourn your lost estate, but Christ has come to save
   you and there He is, right before you if you can but see Him! It was
   unbelief, too, that darkened Hagar's eyes. God had appeared to her
   years before, you remember, when she was in very much the same plight,
   and He had given her a promise that He would make of her son that was
   to be born a great nation. She might have reflected that this could
   never happen unless the boy's life was preserved--and since he could
   not live without a drink of water she should have felt confident that
   water would be forthcoming.

   She was unbelieving, but it is not ours to judge her for, alas, we are
   unbelieving, too! Anxious Soul, is that your case? Oh, if you could
   believe! Truly, you have good cause! It should not be hard to believe
   what God says, for He cannot lie! But, still, unbelief darkens many an
   eye. There are many who cannot see because of self-conceit. When great
   Self feasts his eyes upon his own good works or religious performances,
   of course he cannot see the way of salvation by Christ alone! The Lord
   take these scales from your eyes, poor Sinner, for Self is a great
   maker of darkness! Nothing more surely holds a soul in gloom than a
   conceit of its own powers. How I wish I could so put the Gospel as to
   win men from self! I preach the plan of salvation as plainly as ever I
   can. I use very homely metaphors. I have sometimes even employed what
   the more refined call vulgar expressions--I would be more vulgar,
   still, if I could thereby help a soul to see Christ!

   I tell you Jesus is near to you and within your reach and that
   salvation is close at your feet! You have but to trust in the Lord
   Jesus Chris, and you shall be saved! But I know that, after all is said
   and done, if you ever see Christ, it will be because the Holy Spirit
   opens your eyes. I cannot open them, nor any other mortal man! Since
   the world began it has not been known that any man has opened the eyes
   of one that was born blind. Oh, that the Lord would be pleased, now, to
   open the eyes of every sinner here to see salvation in the atoning
   blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

   III. I must leave that point and finish with one more. IN OUR PRESENT
   CASE IT IS VERY DESIRABLE THAT

   OUR EYES SHOULD BE OPENED. To many it is imperatively necessary at this
   very moment, for if not now recovered from their blindness they will
   die in their sins! In this great throng there are some to whom it is
   pre-eminently desirable that their eyes should be opened at once to see
   what the inevitable result of their present mode of life will be, for
   their blindness is the source of great peril to them. That young
   gentleman who is spending his money upon the race course and loose
   society--I should think he might see with half an eye what will come of
   his conduct! The devil never runs express trains to Hell--there is no
   need for them--for you can go there fast enough by racehorses!

   The turf has furnished to many an express method of ruining their
   fortunes and their souls! Get into that line of things--and all it
   means and all the society that goes with it--and your future needs no
   prophet. Many young men do not think till it is too late to think. I
   wish I could put a cool hand upon that hot brow and stop that young man
   and make him stand still and consider. O that the Lord would open his
   eyes! And that young woman who has begun to look (not much, as yet) on
   what is called gaiety. Ah, the Lord stop you, my Sister, and open your
   eyes before you go one step farther--for one step farther may be your
   ruin!

   And that tradesman who has begun--no, he has not quite begun as
   yet--but he is thinking about a course of trade which will land him in
   something more shameful than bankruptcy. I pray the Lord to open his
   eyes that he may see matters in the true light. I see a man before me
   who is about to commit moral suicide. O for a gleam of light, just now,
   and a touch of that finger which can open blind eyes! I cannot
   particularize and go into every case, but I have upon me a strong
   impression that I am speaking to some young man whose future depends
   upon his prudent pausing and careful consideration before he puts his
   foot down again. One step more and you fall! I beseech you, stand still
   and hear what God would speak to you! Turn, turn from your sins and
   seek your Savior, now, and He will be found of you at once and there
   shall be a life honorable and bright before you to His Glory! But if
   you go one step farther in the way in which the tempter's charms, like
   siren music, would entice you, you are lost forever! God help you,
   therefore, to stop, and may it be said of you, "God opened his eyes."

   Now, leaving all these themes of thought, I would remind you that we
   are about to gather at the Communion Table and there we should sit with
   opened eyes. Those who love the Lord cannot endure to sit as blind men
   in His palace, but they long for all the sight which Grace can give
   them. First, we would have opened eyes that we may see Jesus to be very
   near us. Do not think of Him, just now, as if He were far away in
   Heaven. He is there in His glorious Personality, but His spiritual
   Presence is here, also. Did He not say, "Lo, I am with you always" and,
   "If I go away I will come again"? He abides with us by His Spirit
   forever! Come, let us sit while this sacramental feast is going on, and
   sing--

   "Amidst us our Beloved stands,

   And bids us view His pierced hands.

   He points to His wounded feet and side,

   Blest emblems of the Crucified

   If now with eyes defiled and dim,

   We see the signs but see not Him,

   Oh may His love the scales displace,

   And bid us see Him face to face!

   Our former transports we recount,

   When with Him in the holy mount,

   These cause our souls to thirst anew,

   His marred but lovely face to view." We desire that you may have your
   eyes opened to see what you are in Christ. You complain that you are
   black in yourselves--but you are most fair in Him! You lament that you
   are so wandering, yes, but you are fixed in Him! You mourn that you are
   so weak--yet you are strong in Him! A good man went, the other day, to
   visit a poor child who was dying--a child whom the Lord had taught many
   things--and the dear little fellow, as he put out his wasted hand said,
   "So strong in Christ." He could hardly lift a finger and yet he knew
   that his weakness was clothed with power in Christ!

   We are poor puny things, but we can do all things through Christ! We
   are poor foolish things, but we are wise in Christ. We are
   good-for-nothing things, but we are so precious in Christ, so dear to
   God in Christ as to be numbered with His jewels and known as the Lord's
   peculiar portion! We are sinful creatures in ourselves and yet we are
   perfect in Christ Jesus and complete in Him. These are strong
   expressions, but as they are Scriptural, they are assuredly true. How
   blessed we are in our Covenant Head! The Lord open our eyes to see
   this.

   Lastly, dear Friends, may the Lord open your eyes to see what you will
   be in Him. Ah, what will you be in Christ? In a very little while we
   shall be with Him. Many of our members have gone home to Jesus and one
   very earnest Brother, very diligent in working for the Master--a young
   man of whom we expected much--has been swept away by the receding tide
   while bathing in the sea. He has gone to his rest, I doubt not. Older
   friends have also ascended to God just lately, rejoicing to enter into
   the joy of the Lord.

   Between now and next month's Communion some of us will, probably, have
   departed to the Father. Let our eyes be opened to behold, by faith, the
   Glory soon to be revealed. It may almost make you laugh for joy to
   think of your head wearing a crown--that poor head of yours! These poor
   aching knees and weary feet--there will be no more toil for them! That
   poor scantily furnished room, hard fare, narrow means and weary labor
   will all be exchanged for mansions of rest, bread of bliss and new wine
   of delight! You know each pavement stone between here and your house,
   for you come so often to the Tabernacle--but you will be walking the
   streets of gold before long to the eternal Temple above! Instead of
   noisy streets you will traverse paths of rest amid the songs of seraphs
   and the Psalms of the redeemed and that, perhaps, within a month.

   Yes, in less than it takes the moon to fill her horns you shall be
   where the Lord God and the Lamb are the eternal Light! Certain of us
   are nearer Heaven than we think. Let our hearts dance for joy at the
   bare thought of such speedy joy! Let us go on our way blessing and
   magnifying Him who has opened our eyes to see the Glory which He has
   prepared for them that love Him, which shall be ours before long. God
   bless you for Christ's sake.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Genesis 21:1-21. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--852, 785.

   Eyes Opened LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   TO MY FRIENDS IN ENGLAND,

   Until yesterday the weather here has been so unsettled that it was not
   favorable to my complaint, but now I hope it has taken a turn for the
   better and will be more suitable for rheumatic joints. It has taken me
   six weeks to get rid of the disease and now I hope to spend the rest of
   my sojourn here in gathering strength. If it may please God to permit
   me to return in full vigor to my delightful work, I shall indeed
   rejoice! Till then be so good as to maintain by your prayers and
   liberality the good works over which I have so long presided, so that
   there may be no lack. College, Orphanage, Colportage and Evangelists
   are all work and must not be forgotten. May the Lord's own blessing
   rest on them all.

   Yours heartily, C. H. SPURGEON,

   Mentone, February 28, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

The Yoke Removed and the Lord Revealed

   (No. 1462)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They shall know that I am the Lord when I ha ve broken the bars of
   their yoke." Ezekiel 34:27.

   BUT do not all men know that God is the Lord? They should know it, for
   He is clearly to be seen in the works of Nature. Even where no
   Revelation has come, yet Heaven and earth and sea and the rain which
   brings with it fruitful seasons--filling men's hearts with food and
   gladness--all proclaim the Most High! But man, by wisdom, knows not
   God. He shuts his eyes to evidences brighter than the sun and in his
   willful blindness he sets up an image of wood or stone or gold or
   silver--bows before it and calls that his God! This is the sin of the
   nations, that they changed the Glory of the incorruptible God into an
   image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts
   and creeping things.

   But do not all know God in this land--this land where there is so much
   Gospel teaching--where we boast of our open Bible and of our Protestant
   pulpit? Alas, no! There are multitudes who have heard of God and who
   say that they believe in Him, but who have no personal acquaintance
   with Him and do not, in the sense of the text, know that He is the
   Lord. Ah, dear Friends, there is no knowing God except by personal
   acquaintance with Him! And there is no personal acquaintance with Him
   except by His own revealing of Himself to our spirit! You may read as
   much as ever you will and hear as long as ever you please, but until
   your own spirit comes into contact with the Spirit of God, you do not
   and cannot know the Lord! You know the report of Him which you have
   heard with the hearing of the ear, but that is a small matter unless it
   leads to something higher.

   There are, I fear, a great many "Christian" people whom we must not
   judge, for they keep up outwardly all that is to be expected in the
   Christian character according to the common run of profession,
   nowadays, who, nevertheless, do not truly know God by spiritual
   fellowship with Him. Their faith stands upon reason--it is based upon
   argument and appeals to the intellect--but it has never led to personal
   knowledge and acquaintance. The Lord is, to them, a logical
   abstraction, not a beloved Person. Or, perhaps, which is somewhat
   worse, their faith as to God rests upon excitement, upon association,
   upon the eloquence of a favorite preacher, or something of that sort.

   Now, in such cases as this, God is not so known as He should be and,
   after a while, if another god is preached, a different god from the God
   of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they leave the true God for the false. In
   these days of worldly wisdom men set up a fresh deity who is more
   effeminate and pliable than the glorious God of Moses and of Aaron, the
   God of the fathers and the Prophets! And, straightway, those who know
   not the only living and true God, for there is but one, run after this
   new god, newly set up by these modern Divines who have manufactured him
   in their studies as certainly as ever the Hindu manufactures mud gods
   by the river Ganges! They bow before this new god and cry out against
   the Jehovah of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as if He were to be judged by
   them and to be no more accounted Lord!

   It is amazing to hear them speak of the, "stern Deity of the Old
   Testament," and of, "the semi-enlightened views of Moses and Isaiah."
   As for us, we heartily love Him who made known His ways unto Moses and
   His acts unto the children of Israel--and we desire no other God. Those
   who know the Lord know that He is still the I AM THAT I AM,
   unchangeable in all respects! And we know that the God of our Lord
   Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, is the same God who revealed Himself
   at Paran and came with sound of thunder at Sinai! The God who manifests
   Himself in Jesus Christ is He who spoke to our fathers and the
   Prophets, for He is the one glorious Lord God!

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, there is no fear of your running after
   the new gods if you have once known the true God! If, by experience you
   have been brought into fellowship with the Most High and felt His power
   and seen His Glory, you will be confirmed in those things which He has
   taught you and which His Spirit has engraved upon your soul as with an
   iron pen and written with the point of a diamond.

   It appears from the text that there is a process by which God's own
   people are brought to know the Lord. This process takes place when He
   breaks the bars of their yoke. Then they know that the Lord is God! It
   is clear, therefore,

   that He must first of all permit His own chosen, for a wise purpose, to
   come into bondage. They must be in bondage, or else they would not wear
   the yoke and there would be no opportunity for the Lord to break that
   yoke. I do not commend the bondage--it is a thing to be deplored--but,
   as Augustine once cried out, "Beata culpa!" "Happy fault!" when he saw
   how sin had made space for the wonderful display of Divine Grace. So I
   venture to say, "Blessed bondage, which gives an opportunity for our
   God to come in and set His children free! And by thus breaking the bars
   of their yoke to teach them that He, Himself is the Lord."

   Let us now describe, by the help of God's Spirit, who alone can teach
   us, this process of breaking the bars of the yoke by which the
   emancipated know that the Lord is God. There are two things to be
   considered. First, that the Lord does break the bars of the yoke of His
   people. And, secondly, that then they know Him to be the Lord. It is
   not difficult to show that THE LORD BREAKS THE BARS OF THE YOKE OF HIS
   PEOPLE, for the yokes which they wear at different times are many and,
   in the breaking of each one of these, they learn that He is the Lord.

   You cannot forget the first yoke of which you were conscious. It was a
   yoke of iron--but you had worn it for many years without feeling it. A
   spark of Divine Life dropped into your bosom and then you began to
   perceive that a yoke of sin, of guilt, of condemnation under the Law
   was firmly fixed upon your neck. If you felt as I felt, it was, indeed,
   an iron bondage and the iron entered into your soul! We can well
   understand the feeling of some, who, when wearing this yoke, wish that
   God had made them frogs, or toads, or snakes, or anything sooner than
   that they should be men and, being men, should be sinful and obnoxious
   to Divine wrath!

   It is a horrible thing to be a sinner--and when the horror is fully
   perceived it brings a little Hell into the soul. What stings of
   scorpions, or teeth of lions, or lashes of a whip of wire can be more
   sharp and cutting than reflections such as these--"I have sinned and
   cannot undo the sin. I have provoked God and can make no atonement for
   my provocation. I deserve His wrath and can present no plea why that
   wrath should not come upon me"? The fabled Atlas, when the world
   pressed on his shoulders, was not more loaded than an awakened
   conscience pressed with its own iniquities! It is easy to talk of
   conviction of sin, but to feel it is quite another matter! It puts the
   soul under saws and under harrows of iron and makes it pass through the
   brick kiln.

   Sin on the conscience is a specter which will haunt you by night as
   well as by day--and drive sleep away from your eyes till your soul
   chooses strangling rather than life. I say not that conviction is
   equally terrible in all cases, but some have felt this yoke to be
   exceedingly heavy and I believe that all God's people, when the Lord
   begins to deal with them, to a greater or lesser degree, are bowed down
   beneath the oppressive bondage. Happy is the hour when the Lord breaks
   that yoke! He, alone, can remove it but He does it most
   effectually--and then we know that He is Jehovah our God that brought
   us out of the house of bondage! To emancipate a soul from the thralldom
   of sin is a labor worthy of God--and to His liberating hand be Glory
   forever and ever!

   Then the awakened soul begins to be conscious of a second yoke. More or
   less, according to temperament and circumstances and so on, but still,
   in each case we somewhat feel the yoke of natural corruption and inbred
   sin. The moment we become Christians, an inward battle begins. The old
   self will not tolerate the intruder--the new creature in Christ
   Jesus--and a conflict ensues. The converted man will be clean rid of
   some sins and scarcely ever feel a temptation to them. Notably, some
   men who have been given to certain evil habits have never been tempted
   that way again, but the flesh has taken a turn and rebelled in another
   direction.

   I have known a man, after conversion, tempted to commit a totally new
   sin for him and the suggestion has been a galling yoke. A passion which
   before he did not know to be in his soul has been awakened and he has
   seen the meshes of a net gradually encompassing him--then has he cried
   out because of the oppression put upon his sin-hating heart! If a
   Believer has gone very deep in sin before conversion, he will often
   have a hard battle of it arising from the recollection of old
   transgressions, old habits and old lusts. You may get the serpent out,
   but the slime of the reptile still remains--it needs the sanctifying
   power of the Spirit of God to purge its former lurking places.

   If a lion has long had his lair in a thicket, the hunters may chase him
   out, but his den is there and likely enough, cubs will come forth when
   least expected. And so it is with evil in the heart of man. An old cask
   smells of the wine it held. It will need a great deal of scalding to
   sweeten it and even then, if you put pure water into it, there will
   soon be a taste of the old liquor about it. In certain of our petty
   wars we never seem to come to an end--the natives are not at peace nor
   will they keep quiet--they watch for an opportunity and break out
   again.

   It is so with the war in the Christian's soul. You may presume that sin
   is completely dead in you, but it laughs while you are boasting and
   before long it will make you weep to think that you were so readily
   deceived. I have known a Christian man to have a temptation come upon
   him and though he has not yielded to it in any degree, it has clouded
   his joy and put a yoke on his neck. The temptation comes. He hates it,
   but it comes. He goes to God and prays against it, but it comes. He
   watches every step he takes, but there it comes! It seems to pursue him
   like his shadow. He would go to the ends of the earth to get rid of it,
   but there it is--it dogs his footsteps.

   He kneels down to pray and there it is. It is like the old story of the
   Scot people who thought they had ghosts in their house so moved away to
   be rid of them--but as they moved, they heard a noise in the butter
   churn--the mischievous spirits were going with them! So have we known a
   Christian man move and shift and try to get away from a temptation--but
   there it has been--the torment of his life, a sword in his bones
   piercing him to the heart with daily anguish. To some men of God,
   temptation to a certain sin has been a galling yoke for years without
   end! They have cried to God, with their hair almost on end for horror
   of the sin and yet the suggestion to the evil has thrust itself upon
   them, as if it would not be refused!

   Read in Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding," how he was haunted with that
   thought of selling Christ and how the words seemed to ring in his
   ears--"Sell Him! Sell Him! Sell Him! Sell Him! Sell Him!" till at last
   he inadvertently said, or thought he said, "Let Him go if He will." And
   then the devil gloried over him and said, "You have sold Christ!" For
   the ten thousandth time Satan was a liar in his accusations. Honest
   John had done nothing of the sort, but he had been so plagued and
   perplexed with the temptation that he scarcely knew what he said or
   thought! Madame Bubble, too, is difficult to shake off when she courts
   a poor pilgrim. Her seductions are only to be resisted on our knees and
   even then they give us terrible twists. You do not all understand this
   and I do not wish you should. But if you are now experiencing what I
   describe, I would have you remember that the Lord can break this yoke,
   also, and tear away each one of its bars. Very joyful is the
   deliverance and when it comes, the text is abundantly fulfilled--"They
   shall know that I am the Lord when I have broken the bars of their
   yoke."

   Another yoke which the Lord's people have too often borne is that of a
   perpetual tendency to unbelief. Unbelief lies in us all! It is the sin
   of mankind--the root sin--the taproot of all sorts of iniquity. Blessed
   are those who believe and are strong in faith! The Lord be praised
   whenever He brings us to full assurance! But there are certain of God's
   people who are so very prone to unbelief that on the very slightest
   turn of circumstances they begin to fret. At little troubles they grow
   nervous and as to their own spiritual state, they appear to themselves
   to be in jeopardy every hour. Often the only proof of their spiritual
   life which they can, themselves, perceive, is their wish to be right,
   their desire to avoid sin and their longing after God.

   They cannot say that they have much joy or much peace through
   believing, neither can they expect it, for their faith is so
   exceedingly weak. Others call them, "killjoys," because they mope and
   mourn so much and, in truth, they reflect but small credit upon their
   religion. They act more as scarecrows to keep others away than as
   attractions to draw them in. Some of the Lord's people seem to be born
   in the shade and to live in the shade, as if they were descended from
   the old troglodytes, or cave dwellers, and love to be buried before
   they are dead. This habit of mind is to be condemned, nor should any
   who fall into it think lightly of it.

   But, dear Friends, we must not be severe upon others, or condemn them.
   We must, on the contrary, feel that they are putting a very heavy yoke
   upon themselves and that the burden weighs down their spirits and
   crushes the joy out of them. There are many about whose interest in
   Christ nobody who knows them can have any doubt at all, whose Christian
   consistency is beyond all question, whose prayerfulness, whose love of
   the Word of God, whose simple, child-like trust in Jesus Christ is
   manifested to everybody except themselves. They are, nevertheless, in
   heaviness through anxiety as to their state. Their faces shine to
   others, but they share not in the brightness. No one has a doubt about
   them, but they are full of doubts for themselves! May the Lord bring up
   such Brothers and Sisters out of their prison and then shall they know
   that He is the Lord when He has broken the bars of their yoke.

   Some Christians are also loaded with a yoke through great trouble. We
   come together and we look cheerful and happy, but we do not know the
   burden of the person sitting in the pew with us. In such an assembly as
   this on Thursday nights I know there is many a merchant who has come
   from the City where he has been driven to his wits' end all day long
   and he scarcely knows what he shall do. So he has said, "Well, I will
   just run into the House of God and I will hear what

   the Lord may have to say to my soul." Many and many a time a sweet
   promise has come home to the bewildered child of God and he has gone
   away feeling that the Master had sent a message to Him through His
   servant.

   I have known the housewife come up to the House of God in the same
   state--one child is sick and another sickening. The husband, perhaps,
   walking in a way that grieves the tender Christian heart of the wife,
   and home affairs are anything but as they should be. But while she has
   sat before the Lord, there has come a Word from the Oracle of comfort
   and Hannah has been no more sad! Some of our Brothers and Sisters have
   a perpetual cross to carry. If we knew what they have to suffer in
   business, suffer in body, suffer in the domestic circle--if we knew the
   weight they have to carry--we should very often communicate to them
   words of comfort, whereas now, through our not knowing, they are left
   unheeded and there is little or no Christian sympathy manifested.

   Ah, dear Brother, it may be that you have been made to carry a very
   heavy yoke for years, but when the Lord shall break the bars of your
   yoke, then shall you know that He is the Lord! I can bear witness that
   trial has been a great blessing to me. I do not know that I have
   learned much except in trouble! What little I know has been whipped
   into me and I suspect it is so with most of my Master's family. By
   scourging He instructs every son that He receives! But when you have
   been in sore perplexity and difficulty and did not see your way out of
   it and could not, in fact, get out of it yourself--then have you known
   that the Lord was God when He has, Himself, appeared before you and
   broken the bars of your yoke! With a song you have magnified His
   surprising Grace and blessed His delivering love!

   I have not time, however, to mention all the various yokes, but I would
   say, next, that many yokes which God's people bear they cannot break
   themselves. When the sinner bears the yoke of sin he cannot get it off.
   He may tug and tug, but he only galls himself and fixes the yoke
   tighter than ever. The riveted fetter of sin is not to be shaken off!
   Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? If so,
   then he who is accustomed to do evil may learn to do well by himself,
   apart from Divine Grace! The yoke of despondency of mind and, very
   frequently, the yoke of temporal trouble, will be such that a man
   cannot free himself from them.

   "Stand still and see the salvation of God," is sometimes the very best
   advice you can give to a man in distress. He is like a drowning
   man--the more he struggles, the quicker he goes down. He cannot help
   himself. The Lord often puts His people, on purpose, into positions
   where there is an end of the creature, where all carnal hope fails,
   where you look all around and not a single ray of light gladdens your
   weary eyes till the star of Bethlehem breaks forth and heralds the
   morning! But, dear Friends, let us remember that though yokes are very
   many and some of them are such that we cannot possibly break them off,
   yet there is no yoke but what the Lord can readily enough take from His
   people. To remove the yoke of sin He brings the pardoning blood of
   Jesus near and our heavy load departs. As for the power of sin over us,
   we overcome it through the blood of the Lamb.

   As for our daily cares, we cast our cares on Him who cares for us. As
   for our despondencies of spirit, our soul has heard Him say, "Let not
   your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me."
   Nothing is impossible with God and, therefore, dear Friends, though the
   peculiar form of your distress at this time is known to none but your
   heavenly Father and yourself, I am quite safe in saying that God can
   remove it in an instant if He pleases. He lifts the beggar from the
   dunghill and sits him among princes. He brings forth those that are
   bound with chains. Though you have lain among the pots, yet shall you
   be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with
   yellow gold.

   One of His saints of old recorded his experience in these words, "Out
   of the depths have I cried unto You, O God, and You heard me." His
   experience is that of all the captives who trust in the Lord. No
   condition is so dark that He cannot, at once, enlighten it and no case
   is so hopeless that He cannot instantly relieve it. Do you believe
   that? Are you sure of it? Why, the very belief of that fact ought to
   minister comfort to your mind! One other reflection comes to me and it
   is this. We may expect the Lord to break the bars of our yoke. If He
   can do it and we are His people, we may expect Him to do it. Our
   children look for a great deal from their fathers and I think you will
   find that friends and relatives frequently expect much more of you than
   they are likely to get--but none ever expected more of God than God has
   been pleased to bestow.

   "My soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from Him." You
   know, if your child were sick and you could heal him, he would not be
   rash in expecting you to do it. And if your child were carrying an
   intolerable load and you, as his father, could release him from it, it
   would be only a natural expectation that he should reckon that you
   would do so. Oh you, then, that are oppressed--expect to be set free!
   Captives under the bondage of sin, since you feel sin to be a slavery,
   you are the Lord's prisoners of hope! Oh, you that have the deepest
   sense of guilt and have written the blackest

   things against yourselves, expect the Lord to set you free! If He had
   meant to destroy you, He would have left you to bear your sin in utter
   indifference and would not have convinced you of it.

   What can be the good of His giving you two Hells--one here and another
   hereafter? No, He is judging you now! He is bringing you to pronounce
   sentence against yourself that you may plead guilty and that He may
   absolve you through His abounding Grace! Christian, He is bringing you
   low; He is stripping you; He is casting you into the mire; He is
   beating you small as the dust of the streets and all because by this
   means He will make you see your nothingness and will cause you more
   fully to appreciate the splendor of His Grace and the all-sufficiency
   of His power! Knowing this, faith may help us to rejoice in tribulation
   the moment it arrives, saying, "Here is my Father's black horse come to
   my door to bring me a new token of love from Him."

   "We glory in tribulation, also, knowing that tribulation works
   patience, and patience experience, and experience hope." O Ground,
   welcome the spade that is to turn you into a garden! O Soul, welcome
   the affliction that is, through infinite mercy, to make you bring forth
   fruit unto your God! Then shall you know that the Lord is God when He
   has broken the bars of your yoke--and this you may expect Him to do!
   Thus much upon the first head, namely, that the Lord does break the
   bars of His people.

   II. Now, secondly, WHEN HE DOES THIS, THEN THEY KNOW HIM TO BE THE
   LORD. Here we come to

   personal experience. Beloved, when we have great deliverances from
   bondage, then we begin to see the Divine attributes displayed. You all
   believe God to be very powerful, for you have heard His voice in the
   thunder and seen His might in the tempest. But when you have been
   brought into very deep distress and God has brought you out of it with
   a high hand and an outstretched arm, then you have said, "Now I see His
   power! No hand but His could have moved that burden and He has done
   it."

   I do not suppose that all of you can go with me in this, but you who
   have done business in great waters have seen the works of the Lord and
   His wonders in the deep. You have known times when if anybody had told
   you that you would be delivered you would have said, "Impossible!
   Impossible!" Yet you have been delivered and you have cried out, "This
   is the finger of God! Now I know that there is a God in Israel, for He
   has done for me what no man could have accomplished, no, nor the angels
   of God!" You have felt the power of God come so near to you that you
   have said, like Jacob, "How dreadful is this place!" Awe has
   overwhelmed you at the thought that God should display such power
   towards such an unworthy one as you, to lift you up from such depths of
   trouble!

   You must also have seen with wonderful vividness the attribute of
   wisdom. You have been all in a snarl. You have done your best and you
   have made things worse. You have gone for advice and the advice has
   perplexed you. You have looked in all directions and the more you have
   looked, the less hope you have seen. And then, all of a sudden, God's
   finger has seemed to be put out and all the knots have been untied and
   His Word has been fulfilled--"I will make the crooked places straight
   and the rough places plain."

   You have had clear sailing where rocks appeared to hem you in--and when
   you have safely passed both Scylla and Charybdis you have magnified the
   Divine Pilot and been astounded at His Infallible wisdom! Then have you
   called Him, "the only wise God," and felt that He has abounded towards
   you in all wisdom and prudence. The path of your feet, as you have
   looked back upon it, has shone with mercy and you have said, "What a
   blessed road is this by which I have been led! I thank God that I came
   this way! It is the best path that I have ever trod--the most
   soul-enriching yet! What wisdom has been shown towards me! I have had a
   considerable trouble, but it has saved me from one a thousand times
   worse. I have been a great loser but, still, I am a greater gainer than
   a loser! I would not have missed this trial though I dreaded it! I
   would not have missed it for a thousand worlds! No one could have told
   me how this was to be done, nor by what process I was to be released,
   but now I know that the Lord is exceedingly wise and wonderful in
   counsel--blessed be His name!"

   If any caviler had answered you, "I do not believe in Providence--it is
   all stuff and nonsense!" I do not suppose that you would have had much
   more patience with such a person than I should have and that is
   wonderfully little, for I am of the mind of a good old man to whom I
   was speaking yesterday, who said, "Mainly I read my Bible and having
   read it about 50 years and having tried it and lived by faith upon
   God--the modern humbug of the free-thinkers does not bother me. I know
   better! I never argue about it. I have lived upon the old doctrines and
   know the truth of them." You will see, as I quote his words, that he
   put it rather strongly! But I am altogether of the old man's mind.

   Gentlemen waste their words when they try to make me doubt the
   overruling Presence and personal interference of the Lord in the
   affairs of His people. They might as well tell me that I have no
   father, or that I never had a mother and that my parents never treated
   me kindly. I know what I know and I know this--the Lord is kind in all
   His ways and that His Providence does continually interpose on behalf
   of His praying people! If the learned doubters cannot see a
   Providence--well, perhaps no special Providence has been sought for by
   them or vouchsafed to them. If they have no God and no Providence, of
   course they cannot bear witness to what they do not know! Let them go
   home and pray God to teach them.

   But we know that God does appear for us and are not to be beaten out of
   it. And we expect to accumulate much more personal evidence upon that
   subject between this and Heaven, for we shall again suffer times of
   dark distress in which God will appeal for us and we shall know that He
   is the Lord by His breaking the bars off our neck! The Lord's love is
   also clearly revealed in our deliverances. Have you not sat down with
   tears of gladness in your eyes and said to yourself, "What a God He is!
   Oh, what a God He is!" Have you not almost wanted to get up into a high
   pulpit, with all the world around you, that you might bear witness to
   His Grace to you on each particular occasion? My feet were almost gone,
   my steps had well-near slipped. I was in a great strait. I was hemmed
   in. I knew not what to do and I had grieved Him by my sin and wandered
   from Him.

   But though I had forgotten Him, He did not forget me! Though I was
   unbelieving, He was faithful! Though I was foolish, He was wise and He
   set my feet into a large room--therefore is my mouth opened and my
   heart constrains me to speak well of His name before many witnesses. I
   know that there are some of you who never will be able to tell what
   love God has manifested to you. The poet, though he strained the sense,
   yet spoke the truth when he said--

   "But O eternity's too short To utter half Your praise."

   We shall never get through it, Brothers and Sisters! There is no fear
   of our stopping the eternal music for lack of matter, for the goodness,
   the Grace and the love of God to us are past finding out and are
   altogether infinite! When we have had the bars of our yoke suddenly
   broken, then the Divine love in its boundless length and breadth has
   been conspicuously before us and we have known the Lord.

   Thus I might speak of each of the Divine attributes, but I choose
   rather to pass to another topic. It is this. When the bars of our yoke
   have been broken, it is often in answer to prayer and because that
   liberty has come in answer to prayer, we have exclaimed, "Now I know
   the Lord." If you have gone to God 20 times about a thing--(no, 20
   times would be nothing). If you have risen in the night watches and
   cried with groans and tears about your burden! If you have walked your
   garden or walked the streets and all the while your soul has been
   crying, "My Father, deliver me!" pleading every argument your soul knew
   with God that He would come to your rescue--then, when the rescue has
   come--you have known the Lord! An answered prayer is a window into
   God's existence, a proof of His faithfulness, an evidence of His
   Presence. There you see that He is and that He is the Rewarder of them
   that diligently seek Him.

   So, again, we know Him from another reason--the special hand of God is
   often seen in the breaking of the yoke of His people--the special hand.
   Those who look at Providences carefully, will often wonder at the
   specialties of God about little things. For instance, about the
   time--the exact time. God never is before His time and He is never
   late. He times His mercies to the tick of the clock. If they had come a
   little before, they might have been misused. If they came a little
   later, our spirit might have been broken and the steed might have been
   starved while the grass was growing. There it is--the moment the hand
   of the devil lifted the dart, the hand of the Eternal lifted the shield
   so that the dart was turned aside. Wonderful are the punctualities of
   God!

   You have noticed them. I am sure you must have done so. You have met a
   friend by accidentally going down one street when you generally went
   another--and that very friend has been the one that you most needed to
   see. I have known what it is to go out of my way and to complain of
   myself for having made such a blunder and thus wasting
   half-an-hour--till I have seen the person that I wanted to meet above
   all men, but had not thought of him as the right person to enquire
   of--and he has told me exactly what I wanted to know! I was going the
   right way when I was going out of the way! But often it is so and so
   you shall find it and you shall have to lift up your hands and say,
   "Now, also, do I know the Lord--time, place, circumstances, words,
   little petty details, small things--He has had a hand in them all."

   "Blessed be God," I said, to a dear one today, "for our great God, that
   He loves us in great troubles." "And," she replied, "blessed be His
   name that nothing is too little for Him." So do I say tonight! Blessed
   be His name for breaking the little bars of our yoke and for removing
   the great yokes by such small but effectual means! We most admire those
   little touches which are so Omnipotent! The magicians of Egypt turned
   water into blood, or pretended to do it, and they brought forth
   frogs--but when once Aaron began to make the dust into tiny life, they
   could not counterfeit the wonder and they said, "This is the finger of
   God!" Frequently by minute marvels God reveals Himself most clearly to
   the secret souls of His people and they hear, in His still small voice,
   more of His mind than in His thunder and mighty wind.

   Dear Friends, if you have passed through any great and special
   deliverances, you will join with me in feeling that the Presence of God
   is often vividly perceived. I fear that the Presence of God is not
   often felt as it ought to be at a dinner table when a number of people
   are met together and are enjoying themselves. But I remember my feeling
   the Presence of God at a dinner table on a memorable occasion. There
   was a very large sum of money to be paid for the building of the
   Orphanage and I was up with certain friends at Regent's Park--dining at
   the house of one of our Brothers. I there mentioned that I was short of
   some 2,000 pounds to meet an account which would very soon be due, but
   that I was sure that God would graciously give it, for it was His work
   and He would supply its needs in answer to prayer.

   We were discussing as to whether it was not rather bold to speak too
   positively about answers to a prayer of such a kind and while we were
   still discoursing, there came a telegram from the Tabernacle to me,
   saying, "A person unknown has called and left 2,000 pounds in bank
   notes for the Orphanage." I read the telegram to the friends assembled
   and their gratitude and astonishment abounded! My dear old friend, Dr.
   Brock, who is now with God, said, "Put down your knives and forks and
   let us bless the name of the Lord." And he stood up and poured out His
   heart in a most wonderful manner in devout thankfulness to the Answerer
   of prayer! We all heartily joined in that act of devotion. The Lord was
   there--we felt His Presence as much as if it had been a sacramental
   supper, for the Lord had drawn so near to us. If someone had said to us
   just then, "Well, you know, this is a coincidence, a mere coincidence,"
   we should have laughed and I, for one, would have said, "It is a very
   blessed coincidence and I hope it will go on coinciding, for truly it
   coincides with the promise and with my faith in God."

   The devil does not give his followers such coincidences! Let me say
   that I have prayed and God has heard me and we can boldly say, "Now I
   know the Lord, for He has broken the bars of my yoke in answer to
   prayer and I have felt Him near." Yes, and we feel Him so near that
   often we are obliged to utter words of praise!

   See what the Israelites did when they had been in Egypt making bricks
   without straw and seeing their male children destroyed by a merciless
   tyrant. It was a happy, happy time for them when, at midnight, they
   came out of Egypt! Do you wonder, after they had crossed the Red Sea
   and Pharaoh and his chariots had all been drowned in the midst of it,
   that when they saw their enemies dead upon the shore, Miriam took her
   timbrel and all the daughters of Israel went forth with music chanting,
   "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his
   rider has He thrown into the sea"?

   "Be quiet, good women! The philosophers have discovered that God is the
   'totality of existence' and that He has no personality and,
   consequently, never interferes with the fixed laws of matter! You must
   not believe that He drowned those Egyptians by His own act and deed! It
   was an extraordinary natural phenomenon which occasionally happens just
   about that time and place! You ought rather to wonder at the marvelous
   laws of gravitation by which these Egyptians have sunk under the
   water."

   Thus some superfluously wise fool might have prated to the women of
   Israel! But what would they have thought of him? What would Miriam have
   said to that? Modern philosophers explain all miracles away and
   Colenso, with a slate, figures the whole story of the Exodus into thin
   air! What would Moses have said to him for a bishop? In the presence of
   that miracle, with their shoulders still red with the lash, their faces
   still grimed with the brick dust, conscious that they had been in
   bondage and knew it--and were now free and that none but the eternal
   Jehovah could have set them free-- the sons of Jacob would have pitched
   the philosophers into the Red Sea along with the Egyptians! I almost
   wish they were there, for they are of no use among us nowadays!

   Infinite Mercy lets the creatures live, but we shall not cease from our
   glorying in our God because of what they call their criticism. In our
   case is fulfilled the promise, "They shall know that I am the Lord when
   I break the bars of their yoke." Beloved, if you do not know the Lord
   personally, do not talk about Him, nor pretend to know Him! But if you

   know Him, be not afraid of being called dogmatic because you speak
   confidently! Read the Epistles of John and see how the beloved disciple
   harps upon that word. He says, "we know." "We know." "We know." "We
   know." The word occurs, perhaps, 40 times in those short Epistles. Know
   what you know, and when you know it, do not be driven from it, but let
   the text be fulfilled in your experience, "They shall know that I am
   the Lord when I have broken the bars of their

   yoke."

   If your sins have been forgiven, if you have been brought up out of the
   horrible pit and out of the miry clay. If you have been delivered from
   the power of sin, so as, "to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord,"
   or aim at it. And if you have been blessed in Providence with answers
   to prayer and many a time rescued as from between the lion's jaws, then
   say, "The Lord lives and blessed be my Rock--and I will walk by faith
   in Him. As for others, let them say what they will and doubt what they
   please--my soul follows hard after the Lord, for His right hand upholds
   me."

   There I leave the subject, praying that every one of you may have the
   bars of your yoke broken, for then shall you know the Lord, and not
   till then. The Lord bless you evermore. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ezekiel 34 HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--708, 126, 660.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Gazelles and the Deer

   (No. 1463A)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "By the gazelles, and by the deer of the field." Solomon's Song 2:7.

   THE spouse was in the full enjoyment of fellowship with her Beloved.
   Her joy was so great as almost to overpower her and yet so nearly does
   fear tread upon the heels of joy, she was filled with dread lest her
   bliss should come to an end. She feared lest others should disturb her
   Lord, for if He were grieved, she would be grieved, also, and if He
   departed, the banquet of her delight would be over. She was afraid even
   of her friends, the daughters of Jerusalem. She knew that the best can
   interrupt fellowship as well as the worst and, therefore, she entreated
   even Zion's daughters not to sin against Zion's King. Had they awakened
   her Beloved and broken His sacred peace, she would not have found a
   recompense in their company, but would rather have regarded them with
   scorn for having robbed her of her chief delight.

   The entreaty which she used is a choice specimen of Oriental
   poetry--she charges them, not as we should prosaically do, by
   everything that is sacred and true--but "by the gazelles, and by the
   deer of the field." So far as we understand her meaning we will
   endeavor to profit by it during our brief meditation. It touches one of
   the most mysterious points of the secret life of the Believer and we
   shall much need the guidance of the Holy Spirit while we endeavor to
   open up its meaning. "The gazelles and the deer of the field" are
   creatures of great BEAUTY. Who can gaze upon them as they wander among
   the ferns without an inward admiration?

   Now, since nothing can be more lovely than communion with Jesus, the
   spouse exhorts the daughters of Jerusalem, by all the loveliest objects
   in Nature, to refrain from disturbing it. No one would wish to drive
   away the gazelle, but would feast his eyes upon it and yet its graceful
   elegance can never be compared with that beauty of holiness, that
   comeliness of Grace which is to be seen in fellowship with Jesus! It is
   beautiful from both sides! It is a lovely display of condescension for
   our beloved Lord to reveal Himself to us and, on the other hand, it is
   a charming manifestation of every admirable virtue for a Believer to
   enter into fellowship with his Lord. He who would disturb such mutual
   communion must be devoid of spiritual taste and blind to all which is
   most worthy of admiration.

   As one delights to see the red deer in the open glades of the forest
   and counts them the finest ornaments of the scene, so do men whose eyes
   are opened rejoice in the saints whose high communion with Heaven
   renders them beings of superior mold to common mortals. A soul in
   communion with its God is the admiration of angels! Was ever a lovelier
   sight seen than Jesus at the table with the beloved disciple leaning on
   His bosom? Is not Mary sitting at our Master's feet a picture worthy of
   the choicest art? Do nothing, then, O you who joy in things of beauty,
   to mar the fellowship in which the rarest beauty dwells! Neither by
   worldly care, nor sin, nor trifling, make even the slightest stir which
   might break the Beloved's repose. His restful Presence is Heaven below
   and the best foretaste of Heaven above--in it we find everything that
   is pure, lovely and of good report. It is good and only good! Why,
   then, O daughters of Jerusalem, should you stir up our Beloved and
   cause His adorable excellence to be hidden from us? Rather join with us
   in preserving a joy so fair, a bliss so comely!

   The next thought suggested by--"by the gazelles, and by the deer of the
   field"--is that of TENDER INNOCENCE. These gentle creatures are so
   harmless, so defenseless, so timid, that he must have a soulless soul
   who would do them harm or cause them fright. By all, then, that is
   tender, the spouse beseeches her friends not to disturb her Beloved. He
   is so good, so kind, so holy, harmless and undefiled that the most
   indifferent ought to be ashamed to molest His rest! About Him there is
   nothing to provoke

   offense and everything to forbid it. He is a Man of Sorrows and
   acquainted with grief. He gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks
   to them that plucked off His hair. He hid not His face from shame and
   spitting. Being reviled, He reviled not again, but in His death agonies
   He prayed for His enemies.

   Who, then, could find cause for offense in Him? Do not His wounds ward
   off the blows which might be challenged had He been of another
   character? Who will wish to vex the Lamb of God? Go elsewhere, you
   hunters! "The Gazelle of the morning" has already sweat great drops of
   blood falling to the ground! When dogs compassed Him and the assembly
   of the wicked enclosed Him, He felt the full of grief--will you afflict
   Him again? In fellowship with Jesus there is a tenderness which ought
   to disarm all opposition and even command respectful deference! A soul
   communing with the Son of God challenges no enmity! The world may rise
   against proselyting zeal, or defiant controversy, or ostentatious
   ceremonialism--for these have prominence and power and are fair game
   for martial spirits--but fellowship is quiet, retiring, unobtrusive,
   harmless.

   The saints who most abound in it are of a tender spirit, fearful to
   offend, non-resistant and patient-- surely it would be a superfluity of
   cruelty to wish to deprive them of their unselfish happiness which
   deprives no hearer a drop of pleasure and costs no eye a tear! Rather
   let even those who are most indifferent to religion pay a generous
   respect to those who find their delight in it. Though the worldling may
   care nothing for the love which overpowers the Believer's ravished
   spirit, let him tread with reverent care when he passes the closet of
   devotion, or hears a stray note from the song of meditative gratitude.

   Rough men have paused when they have suddenly come upon a fair gazelle
   grazing in a secluded spot--they are so charmed at the sight of such
   tender loveliness, they have scarcely dared to move a foot lest they
   should alarm the gentle animal! And some such feeling may well forbid
   the harsh criticism or the vulgar laugh when even the infidel beholds a
   sincere heart in conversation with its Lord. As for those of us who
   know the blessedness of fellowship with Jesus, it behooves us to be
   doubly jealous of our words and deeds, lest in a single instance we
   offend one of the Redeemer's little ones and cause him to lose, even
   for an hour, his delight in the Lord! How often are Christians careless
   about this, till at the sight of some professors the more spiritual may
   well take alarm and cry out in anguish, "I charge you, O you daughters
   of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and by the deer of the field, that you
   stir not up, nor awake my love, till He pleases."

   A third thought most certainly had place in the mind of the anxious
   spouse. She meant to entreat and persuade her friends to silence by
   everything which sets forth LOVE. The lilies and the gazelles have
   always been sacred to love. The poet of the Canticles had elsewhere
   used the symbol of the text to set forth married love. "Let her be as
   the loving gazelle and pleasant doe" (Prov. 5:19). If ever there was
   true love in all this selfish world, it is the love of Jesus, first,
   and next the love of His people. As for His love, it passes the love of
   women--many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown it.
   And as for the love of the Church, He who best knows it says, "How fair
   is your love, My Sister, My Spouse! How much better is your love than
   wine! And the smell of your ointment than all spices!"

   If love, therefore, may plead immunity from war and ask to have its
   quietude respected, the spouse used a good argument when she pleaded,
   "by the gazelles and by the deer of the field," that her royal
   Bridegroom's rest of love might not be invaded. If you love, or are
   loved, or wish to be loved, have a reverent regard for those who
   commune with Jesus, for their souls take their fill of love--and to
   drive them from their bliss would be inexcusable barbarity! O you who
   have any hearts to feel for others, do not cause the bitterest sorrow
   by depriving a sanctified soul of the sweetest of delights! Draw not
   near here with idle tales, or wanton speech, or empty mirth--the place
   where you stand is holy ground--for surely God is in that place where a
   heart, enamored of the altogether Lovely One, delights itself in the

   Lord!

   O that all Believers were so anxious to retain the enjoyment of Divine
   love that they would warn off every intruder, whoever he might be! The
   daughters of Jerusalem were welcome to visit the spouse at fitting
   times. She, on another occasion, bade them carry a message for her to
   her Beloved One and gave

   them a full description of His surpassing charms. But when her Lord was
   with her at the banquet, she only asked of them that they would not
   come between her and the sunshine of His Presence. Nor do we wonder at
   her jealous fear, for we have had a sip of those sweets which she had
   tasted and we would sooner lose all else than lose the luxury of Divine
   Love! It is such joy as cannot be imagined by those who have never
   partaken of it! It is such joy as can never be rivaled even in the
   Paradise above, if in that place there is any other joy than that which
   springs from Divine Love! Let none, then, deprive us of its continued
   enjoyment. By the sanctities of true love let every friendly mind
   assist us to preserve the hallowed quiet so essential to communion with
   our Lord.

   Once more, upon the very surface of the figure lies the idea of
   delicate sensitiveness. The gazelles and the deer of the field soon
   disappear if anything disturbs them. In this respect they represent the
   speediness with which the Beloved departs when He is annoyed by sin. He
   is as a deer or a young gazelle for this quality, among many others,
   that while He comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the
   hills, He also soon withdraws Himself. The Lord our God is a jealous
   God. In proportion to the fire of love is the heat of jealousy and,
   therefore, our Lord Jesus will not brook a wandering affection in those
   greatly beloved ones to whom He manifests Himself.

   It needs constant watchfulness to maintain constant fellowship. Hence
   the spouse entreats and beseeches those who came near her not to give
   offense to her Lord. They might do this unwittingly, hence she warns
   them. They might do it in wanton carelessness, hence she "charges"
   them. She would have them speak softly and move gently, lest He should
   be disturbed. Should we not feel the same anxiety that nothing in our
   families, or in any of our relations or connections should be tolerated
   by us so as to envelope us in the wrong and grieve our Lord? Should we
   not especially watch every thought of our mind, desire of our heart,
   word of our tongue and deed of our hand lest any of these should offend
   Him and break our rapturous communion?

   If we would be favored above others we must be more on our guard than
   others are. He who becomes "a man greatly beloved" must keep his heart
   with sevenfold diligence, for to whom much is given, of him much will
   be required. Kings will bear from common subjects behavior which could
   not be endured in favorites. That which might cause but slight pain
   from an enemy, will sorely wound if it comes from a friend. Therefore
   the favored spouse may well use, in her entreaty, the name of the most
   tenderly susceptible of love's favorites and plead, "by the gazelles,
   and by the deer of the field."

   Dear Friend, do you know what communion with Jesus means? If so,
   imitate the spouse whenever you are in the enjoyment of it. Be jealous
   of yourself and all around you, that the Well-Beloved may not be vexed.
   Aim at the maintenance of life-long communion. Remember how, for
   centuries, Enoch walked with God--our lives are but a span compared
   with his--why should we not always come up from the wilderness leaning
   on our Beloved? The Holy Spirit has almighty power. Let us ask and
   receive, that our joy may be full! If you do not understand this
   precious secret, may the Lord reveal it to you even now. You must first
   receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior, or you can never know Him as
   your Bridegroom. Faith must trust Him before love can embrace Him.

   You must be brought to be washed, or you can never be brought to be
   banqueted. Pant after the Redeemer as the deer pants after the water
   brooks and when you have drank of the Water of Life, then shall you be
   as a gazelle let loose! Then, too, your feet shall be like deer's' feet
   and you shall be set upon your high places. When this shall have been
   made your own by experience, you shall understand the text and shall
   also breathe the prayer of another verse of the same song--"Make haste,
   my Beloved, and be like a gazelle or young stag upon the mountains of
   spices."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Rising Sun

   (No. 1463B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise
   with healing in His wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as
   calves of the stall." Malachi 4:2.

   THE Jews expected that the coming of the Messiah would exalt every one
   of the Israelite race. Their expectations were great, but they were
   also carnal and sensuous since they looked for an earthly king who
   would make the despised nation victorious over all its enemies and
   enrich every man of Abraham's race. The Scriptures gave them no ground
   for such universal expectations, but quite the reverse. In the chapter
   which is now before us the Prophet explains that the coming of Christ
   would certainly be like the rising of the sun, full of glory and of
   brightness, but the results would not be the same to all. To those who
   thought that they were righteous and despised others, but who were
   wicked in their conversation--the rising of that sun would bring a
   burning, withering day.

   Read the first verse. "The day comes that shall burn as an oven and all
   the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble." They shall
   not be like plants full of sap that would flourish in the tropical
   heat, but like stubble which becomes drier and drier until it takes
   fire--"and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord, that
   it shall leave them neither root nor stock," for so might it be
   translated, and then the figure would be congruous throughout. It would
   scorch up the stubble in which there was no life, so intense would be
   the heat. Now that was the consequence of Christ's coming. The religion
   of the Jews at His coming was dry and dead, like stubble.

   The Pharisee thought that he was righteous because he put on a broad
   phylactery, tithed anise and mint, cumin and such trifles. The Sadducee
   thought much of himself because he was a man of common sense, a
   thinker, a rationalist. And other sects of that period found equally
   frivolous grounds for glorying. The ministry of Christ dried them right
   up and they have ceased to be. We use the name of Pharisee and Sadducee
   today, but there is no person in the world who would like to wear
   either name!

   The result of Christ's coming, by His Spirit as well as by His personal
   Advent, is always much the same. Should the Spirit of God visit this
   Church with revival it will not have an equally beneficial effect upon
   all. To some, the rising of this Sun will bring healing and blessing;
   but to others it will bring scorching and withering. Know you not that
   the summer which fills the corn and makes it hang its golden head,
   blushing in very modesty for the blessing which has come upon it,
   fetches up also the noxious weeds from their secret lairs?

   Tares gather encouragement from the sun as well as does the wheat and
   so the bad come to their ripeness as well as the good. But the ripeness
   of that which is bad is only a hurrying on to destruction-- the dryness
   of the stubble is the preparation for its being utterly consumed. We
   may well pray for revival, but we must not suppose that to the mere
   formalist a revival will bring a blessing. It may possibly disgust him
   and drive him from religion altogether. He will discover that he has no
   true religion as he sees the work of the Spirit of God around him and
   so the day of the Lord will, to him, "burn as an oven"--and being proud
   and at the same time doing wickedly, his empty profession of religion
   will consume like the stubble.

   The coming of the Messiah was to bring to another class a fullness of
   blessing and it is of these we have to speak. "But unto you that fear
   My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise," not with scorching, but,
   "with healing in His wings; and you shall go forth"--you shall not be
   dried up, burnt and destroyed--but you shall "grow up as calves of the
   stall." You shall obtain great blessings through the Presence of your
   Lord! Two things will take up our attention. The first is, the
   description of the people

   of God--"Unto you that fear My name." And the second is, the blessing
   which is promised to them-- "the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with
   healing in His wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of
   the stall."

   I. Here are TRUE SAINTS DESCRIBED. Let us look at them. The description
   may be divided into two parts. First, here is their abiding
   character--they fear the name of the Lord--and secondly, we gather from
   the text their Providential character, a character which is not always
   theirs, but into which they sometimes fall, namely, that they need
   healing, for were they not sick there would be no need of the promise
   that the Sun of Righteousness should arise upon them with healing in
   His wings!

   Notice then, first, their abiding character--they fear the name of the
   Lord. I am delighted to think that this promise is given to this
   particular character, for it thus comes to beginners in Grace. "The
   fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"--it is not the highest
   Grace, nor the loftiest attainment of the spiritual nature. Bless the
   Lord, therefore, you weak and feeble ones, that the promise is given to
   you! You fear the Lord. There are times when we ask ourselves whether
   we know the rapture of love and we greatly question whether we ever had
   the assurance of faith, but even then, we know that we have an awe of
   God.

   Jonah in the ship was in a very sinful state of mind and was fleeing
   from God, but yet he did not hesitate to say, "I am an Hebrew and I
   fear the Lord." This is the abiding character of the saints in their
   worst state. If they backslide, they still fear the name of the Lord.
   They fear it at times very slavishly, with the spirit of bondage, but
   they fear it. They lose the evidence of their sonship and they cease to
   walk in the light, but they still have a fear of the Most High--they do
   not treat Him lightly, they could not sin against Him cheaply--there is
   still within their hearts a sense of His greatness.

   It generally assumes the form of a reverence of His Person. They know
   there is a God and they are sure that He made the heavens and the
   earth. They are equally clear that He is everywhere present, marking
   the ways of men. Others may blaspheme, but they cannot; others may sin
   and make merry with it, but sin costs them dear; others may feast
   themselves without apprehension, but they cannot, for they fear the
   Lord. I know that this expresses all true religion and has a very
   comprehensive meaning, but it suits my purpose just now to view it as a
   description of Believers, which is true of them all, into whatever
   state they may come. They still fear the Lord.

   Now, Soul, do you tremble before God? There is something in that. I do
   not ask you whether you tremble at Hell. That were no sign of Grace,
   for what thief will not tremble at the gallows? I do not ask you if you
   are afraid of death. What mortal man is not, unless he has a good hope
   through Divine Grace? But do you tremble in the Presence of God because
   you have offended Him? And do you tremble in the presence of sin lest
   you should offend Him? Does it ever come over you thus--"How can I do
   this great wickedness and sin against God?" Just as some men are kept
   back from crime by the fear of the law, are you kept back from folly by
   the fear of God? Just as some are impelled to energy by the fear of
   poverty, so are you impelled to the Divine service by a sense of the
   fact that not to serve Him is to abide under His wrath?

   It is a low and small matter compared with the higher Graces which God
   works in His people, but it is still a precious thing to tremble, even,
   at His Word. I am glad to think that many of you have lately begun to
   fear God. I bless His name that you cannot live, now, as you once did.
   You are uneasy in your former careless way. I am right glad of it and
   though I cannot be sure that this fear may not be a slavish fear, yet I
   hope for the best and pray that it may ripen into that real fear of God
   which is always a work of Grace in the soul, so that the promise of our
   text may belong to you.

   Now, Beloved, I have said that the description which is here given of
   the people of God denotes not only their abiding character, that they
   fear the Lord, but it also mentions their occasional character. They
   sometimes fall into a condition which they deplore and the text
   intimates this, first, by the fact that the Sun of Righteousness is to
   arise upon them, for this implies that they were in the dark until
   then. Whatever other light there may be, we, every one of us, know that
   until the sun rises our condition is one of comparative darkness.

   There are children of God who walk in darkness, dear children of God,
   too. Indeed, I am inclined to think that every child of God gets into
   the dark sometimes. Some begin with brightness and then they get a
   cloudy time in the middle of their experience; while others have their
   worst darkness at last. Knox and Luther had their sharpest temptations
   when they came to die. It has been well said that God sometimes puts
   His children to bed in the dark. It does not matter, for they wake up
   in the light--in the eternal morning! But a dark season usually happens
   to us somewhere between the new birth and Heaven--perhaps to make the
   brightness all the brighter when the night shall be forever ended.

   Are you in the dark at this moment, dear Brother, and are you wondering
   at it because everybody else seems so lively in their religion? Dear
   Sister, does it seem to you as if, though you have been a Believer for
   years, you were never in a worse state than now, while others are
   rejoicing? Then ask yourself--Do you still fear the Lord? Is your soul
   humbled in the Presence of His majesty and have you a desire for His
   Glory? Never despair! The Sun shall rise upon you soon! Very clear is
   it from the text, too, that the children of God may sometimes be in ill
   health, for the Sun of Righteousness is to arise upon them with healing
   in His wings--which would not be so necessary a promise if they were
   not sick.

   A Christian may be bowed down with grievous spiritual maladies. His
   pulse may beat slowly; his heart may become feeble; he may be alive and
   that may be about all. Lethargy may seize him, palsy may make him
   tremble despondently. He may have wandered from his God. Alas, even a
   feverish fit may be upon him, in which he shakes with unbelief from
   head to foot! It may be his eyes have become so blinded that he cannot
   see afar off and his ears may be dull of hearing. He may be like the
   fools in the Psalm, whose souls abhorred all manner of meat.

   He may have put away from him the comforts of the promises and he may
   be brought very low--yet he shall not die, but live and proclaim the
   works of the Lord--for the soul sickness of a saint is not unto death!
   He shall be recovered from it and he shall sing of the Lord whose name
   is, "Jehovah Rophi, the Lord That Heals You." Oh, child of God, if you
   are in a sick and sorrowing state, cry mightily unto your Lord and the
   Sun of Righteousness shall arise upon you with healing in His wings!

   Note, again, that the children of God, according to our text, may be in
   a condition of bondage, for it is said that when the Sun of
   Righteousness arises, "they shall go forth as calves of the stall."
   Understand the figure. The calf in the stall is shut up, tied up with a
   halter at night, but when the sun rises, the calf goes forth to the
   pasture. The young bullock is set free! So the child of God may be in
   bondage. The remembrance of past sins and present unbelief may halter
   him up and keep him in the stall, but when the Lord reveals Himself, he
   is set free! Even true children of God may sometimes have to cry like
   Paul that they are sold under sin. They may forget the blood of
   redemption for a season and think themselves still to be slaves--and
   yet they are the true children of God. Hence the beauty of the promise
   that they shall go forth.

   Yes, and there is more in the text. The children of God may be in such
   a state that they are not growing, for else we should not have the
   promise, "You shall go forth and grow up" when the Sun of Righteousness
   shall shine. Do you, my dear Brother, feel as if you had not grown in
   Grace for months? You need the Sun of Righteousness to shine upon you
   and you will grow as the plants do! The trees are all bare in winter
   and their branches apparently dead--but bring us the spring sun and the
   buds will begin to swell, the leaves will appear and the trees shall
   blossom and yield fruit! So shall it be with you. The Lord has not left
   you! You may have stopped growing for a while, but you shall grow
   again!

   Once more, the child of God may get into such a condition that he has
   lost his joy, for I will tell you a secret about the text--it might be
   and probably ought to be translated, for the Septuagint has it so, and
   the Hebrew has that force, "They shall go forth and leap like calves of
   the stall." The young cattle may have been kept under cover in the
   winter, but when the sun brings the spring, the fields are green and
   you let the calves loose. There is joy about the creatures' movements!
   Even so, when the Lord appears to His people, they move with delight
   and dance for joy of heart! The Lord's love within them shall make them
   give expression to their joy! I pray that you may feel this intense
   delight in Gospel liberty and leap for joy!

   Thus I have described the people to whom the promise comes.

   II. My second and most pleasing duty is TO OPEN UP THE PROMISE ITSELF.
   "The Sun of

   Righteousness shall arise." Child of God in the dark, in prison,
   ungrowing and unhappy, what a promise is here for you! "The Sun of
   Righteousness shall arise." His rising is to do it all! There is
   nothing for you to do--no works for you to perform in order to get the
   needed blessing. The Sun of Righteousness shall arise! Now, the rising
   of the sun is one of the most wonderful things in Nature, not merely
   for its grandeur and beauty, but for its sublime display of strength.
   Who could hold back the horses of the sun? What hand could block the
   golden wheel of his chariot, or bid him stay his course?

   The time is come for him to rise and lo, he delights the world with
   dawn! Holy Spirit, such is Your power! When it is Your time to work,
   who can stand against You? As the sun floods the whole earth with his
   splendor and no power can hinder his movements, so will the Holy Spirit
   work and none can stop Him. Plead then, this promise tonight and
   cry--"O Sun of Righteousness, arise upon those that fear You! Come in
   all Your majesty and wealth of Grace! Pour upon us Your light and heat
   and life and fill this place with Your Glory!"

   Now mark what will be the result of His rising. As soon as ever this
   Sun is up and Christ begins to shine upon His people, they enjoy a
   clear light! They were in the dark before, but they are in the light,
   now! I have been living, for a while, in a country where the sun is
   everything. The temperature and the atmosphere are made salubrious and
   delicious, I had almost said celestial, by his presence. When he shines
   not, the sick pine and the healthy are gloomy! But when clouds no
   longer veil his face, we are as in the garden of the Lord! Everything
   depends upon the sun! Step down into a valley where he has not shone
   and you will find frost--cross the street into the shade and you shiver
   in the cold.

   So clear does the atmosphere become through the removal of all fogs and
   mists that sometimes we have seen a hundred miles across the sea,
   rising up like a fair vision, the distant mountains of Corsica! I
   cannot help using the illustration because it is so distinctly before
   me! When the Sun of Righteousness arises upon a Christian and shines
   full upon him, he does not see islands a hundred miles away, but he
   sees the golden gates of the Celestial City, the King in His beauty and
   the land that is very far off--for the Presence of Christ endears the
   atmosphere and enables us to see the invisible! Unto you that fear His
   name may the Sun of Righteousness arise and give you just such
   clearness and light!

   But according to the text, the Sun of Righteousness, when He rises on
   those that fear the Lord, gives them healing. There is healing in His
   wings. By the wings of the sun are meant the beams that shoot up from
   it into the air, or seem to slant down from it when it is aloft in the
   sky. There is really healing to men's bodies in the sun. Have we not
   seen them come to the sunny land consumptive, doubled with
   weakness--and as they have sat in the sun and warmed themselves for a
   few weeks, the wounds within the lungs have begun to heal and the
   consumptive man has breathed again and you have seen that he would
   live? Some have gone there who scarcely could speak and beneath the sun
   they began to speak again, like men whose youth has been renewed! The
   sun is the great physician. Where he enters not the physician will be
   needed, but where he shines, men speedily revive.

   As for the Sun of Righteousness, oh, how He heals the sick! I would
   like you sick Christians to sit in His sunlight by the year together,
   if you did nothing else but bask there as animals delight to bask in
   the sun. The flowers know the sun and they turn their cups to him and
   drink in of the health he gives them from his golden store. Oh, that we
   had as much sense to know the Sun of Righteousness, that we might by
   prayer, meditation and holy living, bask and sun ourselves in His
   delicious beams! We shall be strong, indeed, if He rises upon us with
   healing in His wings. He has risen, but we wander into the shade! He
   has risen, but we get into the ice wells of worldliness and sin--and
   shut out His warmth--and then we wonder why we are sick, but sick we
   always shall be till we come out into the Light again and Jesus shines
   on us from morn till eve!

   I must not enlarge upon any one point, for my time is limited, but I
   would have you notice how the text says that when the Sun of
   Righteousness shines, the Christian gets his liberty. "You shall go
   forth." I have been staying where the invalid does not venture out if
   the wind blows and if there is a little chill

   and the sun is not bright he must stay indoors or lose the benefit he
   has received. But when the sun is out and the air is calm, then he goes
   forth and leaves his bedroom and is all alive once more. There are
   Christians who have been kept indoors a long time. They have not walked
   the length of the promise, nor spied out the breadth of the Covenant,
   nor climbed to the top of Pisgah to gaze upon the landscape!

   Beloved, if the Sun of righteousness, even the Lord Jesus, shall shine
   upon you, you will go forth not only to enjoy Christian life, but to
   enter into Christian service--and you will go further afield to bring
   others to Christ! Then you will begin to grow! That is another effect
   of the sun and how wonderfully the sunlight makes things grow. Here we
   have in our hot-houses little plants that we think so wonderful that we
   show them to our friends and put them on our tables as rarities. But I
   have seen them in the sunny south 10 times as large growing in the open
   fields because the sun has looked upon them! The rarities of our
   country are the commonplaces of the land of the sun!

   1 have known Christians who have received a little faith and been
   perfectly astonished at it--and God has blessed them with a little love
   to Jesus--and they have felt as though they were splendid saints! But
   if they lived in the sunlight they might move mountains by their faith
   and their love would lead them to devote their whole life to Jesus--and
   yet they would not be astonished. The Sun of Righteousness can produce
   fruits rich and rare. Our cold, sunless land, beneath its cloud and
   fog--what can it yield in the winter? In more favored parts of the
   earth, even in our winter, the trees are golden with fruits. So is it
   with the soul. What can it grow if it lives in worldliness? What can it
   produce if it lives to itself? But when it knows the love of Jesus and
   the power of His Grace, even in its worst estate it brings forth the
   richest and the rarest fruit to the glory of His Grace!

   I shall close by exhorting my fellow Church members to live in the
   sunlight. Get out of the shadows! There are dreary glens in this world
   where the sun never shines--they are called glens of pleasure and
   sometimes the pale moon looks down on them with sickly ray. But the
   saint knows the light of the sun from the light of the world's moon.
   Get away from those chill places into the clear light. "But," says one,
   "I did not know there were joys in religion." My dear Friend, do you
   know true religion, then? For it is, "a thing of beauty and a joy
   forever." He who knows not Christ has seen the sun, but till he has
   known Him, he has seen but the glow-worm's glitter! Peace, deep peace,
   he never knew who never knew the power of the blood! And joy, real joy,
   such as angels call joy, he never knew who never trusted in the
   Savior's atoning Sacrifice!

   Oh, come you depressed and distressed and despondent ones whose
   religion has been slavery and whose profession has been bondage--get a
   true Baptism into Christ by faith in Him and when you have been plunged
   into the Godhead's deepest sea, then shall you know a joy and peace
   which pass all understanding! The world gives them not--it cannot take
   them away. "Unto you that fear the Lord, the Sun of Righteousness shall
   arise with healing in His wings." I want to encourage those who fear
   the Lord a little, I mean the seekers. Come into the Light! Come and
   welcome! None will question your right! I never heard of anybody, yet,
   who said, "I must not sit in the sun. The sun is not mine."

   The lords of this world have hedged in every acre and there is scarcely
   a sterile mountainside which is not guarded with, "trespassers beware."
   But they cannot hedge in the blessed sunlight! No, not even for an
   hour. Through the poor man's window, though the glass is broken and
   stuffed up with rags, a beam of sunlight will pierce its way as gladly
   as into the halls of monarchs! It shines on the beggar's rags as well
   as on the prince's scarlet and it is free! When Diogenes bade Alexander
   get out of his sunlight, he had a right to do so, for the sunlight
   belonged as much to Diogenes in his tub as to Alexander who had
   conquered a world! O meanest of the mean in your own judgment; lowest
   of the low in your own esteem; guiltiest of the guilty as your
   conscience calls you before God--know that the Sun of Righteousness has
   risen and His light is free!

   Come into the sunlight! Come into the sunlight! "Oh, but I shall get
   better soon. I am sick, but I shall get better soon." Come into the
   sunlight, Man, for there is healing beneath the wings of the Sun of
   Righteousness, but nowhere else. "I am kindling a fire. I am hoping
   that I may get warm by the sparks of my own kindling." Come into the
   sunlight, Man. What were all your fires? Though you should set

   Lebanon upon a blaze and take all the timber that ever grew on Sirion
   to make a pile, what were it as compared with yonder mighty furnace of
   the sun which has burnt on for ages and will burn on till the last eye
   of mortal man shall have looked upon it?

   O Soul, go not about with your whims and your fancies to save yourself!
   Come into the sunlight! Come into the sunlight, Man! "But perhaps I may
   not." Who is the poorer if the sunlight shines on you? There is enough
   for others even though it pours its floods on you. The sun is no
   brighter if you have not his beams! He will be no duller though you and
   a thousand like you should lie by the century together basking in his
   light. So with Jesus! "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
   bodily." If you take all the mercy that can be needed to lift you up
   from the gates of Hell, to Heaven, itself, He will have as much mercy
   left!

   If all the merit you can need to save your condemned spirit and make
   you into a child of God should be yours, as I pray it may, there will
   be as much merit left in Christ as ever! Why keep back? Why keep back?
   "But I am so base." Does not the sun shine on dunghills? May not the
   mercy of God shine on you, you dunghill sinner? You cannot be too low!
   You cannot be too vile! The infinite mercy of God, like the infinite
   light of the sun, can reach you. "Alas, I am dark." And what night was
   too dark for the sun to turn it into day? "Alas, I am cold." But what
   iceberg was too cold for the sun to thaw it? What winter was too severe
   for the sun to turn it into summer?

   Yield yourself up, you icicle! Yield to the sun and it will melt you.
   Yield yourself up, you dead and shriveled twig, to that dear sunbeam
   which waits to kiss you and it will awaken life within you, and warm
   you till you shall be loaded with rich fruit, to the praise and glory
   of the Sun of Righteousness which has risen upon you! The Lord grant it
   may be so with us all, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Malachi 3, 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--795, 799, 19.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   DEAR FRIENDS--Although I am still weak upon my knees, I am so greatly
   refreshed in spirit that I feel able to return to preach on Sunday,
   April 13. Glad tidings of the Lord's work at home have greatly cheered
   me and I am also rejoiced that most of the work committed to me has
   prospered during my absence. This is a great point gained, for now all
   will know that the work is a living one and does not depend upon
   personal oversight. I heartily thank all the workers and givers, and
   most of all our gracious God who has kept them faithful. Right glad
   shall I be to see the beloved Tabernacle people again. I beg to be
   daily remembered in prayer and I am Yours to serve,

   C.H. SPURGEON

   Mentone, March 14, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

A Refreshing Promise

   (No. 1464)

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "I will water it every moment," Isaiah 27:3.

   WHEN the Lord is most intent on justice He is, at the same time,
   earnest in His love. The day of vengeance of our God is also the
   acceptable year of the Lord. In the Scripture before us, the Prophet
   says, "Behold, the Lord comes out of His place to punish the
   inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity," (Isa. 26:21), and he
   foretells that the Lord will come forth as one armed with a great and
   strong sword to smite the fiercest of His enemies with a deadly wound
   (Isa. 27:1). Yet before He had bared His arm for the battle, He
   prepared chambers of refuge for His people that they might dwell as
   within closed doors until the tempest of indignation was past (Isa.
   26:20). The shouts of war did not prevent the Lord from remembering His
   beloved and His song of love concerning her, for He says, "In that day
   sing you unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I
   will water it every moment."

   Happy people, who even in the day of wrath are satisfied with favor!
   Blessed heirs of Grace who hear the just and terrible Avenger say
   concerning them, "Fury is not in Me" (v. 4). The love of the Lord
   towards His whole Church goes forth to each individual member--the care
   which He displays towards the vineyard is exercised upon each vine
   which He has planted. So, then, we may without hesitation believe that
   the Lord will do for us, personally, that which He promises to do for
   His people as a whole! Or else there would have been exceptions stated
   and the Word of God would have run thus--I will water a part of My
   vineyard, but a portion of the plants shall be left to be dried up."
   The Lord's Word is so truthful that it would never raise ungrounded
   expectations by general statements if there were, indeed, cases not
   included therein.

   We are always safe in concluding that if the Lord had meant to shut out
   one believing soul from a privilege, He would have mentioned it, for He
   has not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth, anything which
   would deny the happiness of any one of His people. This, then, beloved
   Friends, is the pledge of love concerning the spiritual life of my soul
   and yours--and the soul of every humble Believer in Jesus--"I will
   water it every moment." This is a precious promise and the more we
   meditate upon it, the more rich it will appear. May we now be watered
   by the Holy Spirit while we meditate upon this promised watering!

   In warm climates irrigation is essential to fertility, therefore
   travelers see on all sides, pools and watercourses, wheels, cisterns
   and channels for the water to flow in. The watering arises from
   necessity and it is carefully attended to because otherwise the farmer
   or gardener would look in vain for fruit. I remarked to a gardener in
   the South of France that the weather was bad, but he replied that it
   was good for the garden, for the rain gave plenty of water and that was
   the chief thing. In Paradise it was no mean advantage to its verdant
   bowers that a fourfold river pursued its course through its midst and
   that before the rain had fallen upon the earth there went up a mist
   from the earth and watered the face of the ground.

   From the necessity and value of water to the plants of the earth, the
   Lord would teach us our own need of His Grace and the preciousness of
   that Grace--and render His promise of supply the more delightful to our
   souls. That we may prize the goodness of the Lord in the promises
   before us, we shall consider the necessity of our being watered; the
   manner in which the Lord promises to supply our need and the certainty
   that He will do so. O for a living meditation, not upon the letter of
   the Word, only, but upon its innermost teaching!

   I. There is a great NECESSITY for the watering promised in the text.
   This we might conclude from the promise itself, since there is not one
   superfluous Word of promise in the whole Scriptures! It becomes more
   evident when we reflect that all creature life is dependent upon the
   perpetual outgoing of Divine power. Existence is a continued creation,
   for the creatures have no power within themselves to preserve their own
   being--even the solid rocks and the great mountains would reek away as
   so many shadows if eternal Omnipotence did not, every moment, keep them
   in being. The

   world is not like a wheel, which, having received a great push from a
   strong hand, continues to revolve long after the hand is withdrawn,
   but, Divine energy goes forth continually to uphold all things which
   God has made.

   Now, the same law holds good in the more choice and illustrious works
   of God in the kingdom of Grace and multitudes of illustrations of this
   are to be found in Holy Writ. Believers are stones, but their upholding
   comes continually from the foundation--they are branches perpetually
   sucking nourishment from the stem--members of the body always deriving
   life from the Head. Towards God we are streams and not fountains; rays
   of light, not suns; lamps which must be trimmed and nourished with oil;
   sheep which need unceasing care and feeding. The inner life cannot live
   upon itself! It is one mark of its presence that the Believer is not
   only dependent as a creature, but feels it as a living, sensible,
   instructed and trustful creature. The Christian has no quarrel with the
   hint of utter weakness which is implied in the text, for he is well
   aware that he must be watered, each moment, or he will dry up from the
   root and cease to be.

   Moreover, the Truth of God is specially certain as touching the
   Believer, for a multitude of agencies are at work to dry up the
   moisture of His soul. As far as this world is concerned, he is planted
   in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. His sorrows tend to
   parch him like a hot wind from the desert and earthly joys are still
   more like a sirocco which burns as an oven. Satan's temptations scorch
   and wither our hearts unless the Water of Life is abundantly laid at
   our root--and the men of the world act after the same manner. If we
   trusted in ourselves, we should soon be as the heath in the desert, or
   as the grass upon the housetops. Indwelling sin is especially a
   devouring blast and would, if it acted without check and
   counterbalance, turn the garden of the soul into a desolate wilderness.
   We are as plants set in the blaze of a tropical sun upon which a
   burning oven pours forth its tremendous heat. One moment without Divine
   watering and shade would dry us up root and branch.

   Neither have we any other source of supply but the living God. "All my
   springs are in You." We have the ordinances and means of Grace, but we
   cannot, of ourselves, fetch a blessing from them. The Spirit of God is
   as the dew and the rain, but we cannot command His influences--these
   lie altogether at the Sovereign disposal of the Lord. To convince us of
   our utter impotence in the matter, the Lord asks us in the Book of Job,
   "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds that abundance of water may
   cover you?" No, the bottles of Heaven drop at Jehovah's bidding and
   unless His good pleasure gives the land its refreshment, "the dust
   grows into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together," the brooks
   are dried up and the springs of water fail. None can afford us a drop
   of spiritual water unless the infinite depths of Divine Grace overflow
   to us and the Lord visits the heart and waters it from the river of God
   which is full of water. Therefore the need that we cry with David, "I
   stretch forth my hands unto You: my soul thirsts after You, as a
   thirsty land."

   Remember, also, that our need of Divine watering is clearly seen when
   we consider what drought, barrenness and death would come upon us if
   His hand were withdrawn. Then would be fulfilled in us the prophecy of
   Jeremiah, "Their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they
   came to the pits and found no water; they returned with their vessels
   empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
   Because the ground is chapped, for there was no rain in the earth, the
   plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads." Then would our leaf
   wither and our root fail. As for fruit--there would be none and we
   should be only fit for burning! Without watering every moment, the most
   faithful among us would be cast forth and be only fit for the
   fire--every Prophet would become a Balaam, every Apostle a Judas, every
   disciple a Demas! We must be watered and watered every moment, or we
   die! Lord, save us, or we perish! Look down from Heaven and behold and
   visit this vine and the vineyard which Your right hand has planted.

   II. This point is clear and our experience daily brings it under our
   notice. Let us now carefully regard THE MANNER in which the Lord
   promises to water His people--"I will water it every moment." Our first
   thought is excited by the perpetual act--"every moment" the Lord will
   water the vineyard! There is never a moment in which it ceases to need
   it and, therefore, the supply is as constant as the demand. He further
   says, "Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day," so that at all
   hours of the night, as well as of the day, the Lord's care is over His
   people! Mercy knows no pause! Grace has no canonical hours, or rather
   all hours are alike canonical--yes, and all moments, too.

   We may stop our asking, but God does not stop His giving! We may not
   perceive the flowing of His Grace and yet they are never suspended, no,
   not for a moment, or else it were not true--"I will water it every
   moment." This leads us to rest assured of our final perseverance, since
   His perseverance in watering will produce our perseverance in budding,
   leafing and fruit-bearing, else His watering were in vain, His Grace
   ineffectual, His purpose defeated and it would not be true that none
   had hurt the vineyard. Glory be to the great Keeper of the vines, He
   will give a good account of His

   charge, saying, "Of all that You gave Me, I have lost none." Between
   here and Heaven there will never be a moment in which the Lord will not
   water His people and, therefore, never a moment in which they will be
   dried up and left to perish. Let faith lay hold of this and gather
   strength from it.

   Nor is this all--the Lord's watering is a renewed act. He does not
   water us once in great abundance and then leave us to live upon what He
   has already poured out. He does not cause so much rain to fall in one
   day as may water the earth for seven years, or there could not, then,
   be a daily dependence upon Him for rain and dew! Neither does He give
   Grace enough to His servants at any one time to serve them for a month,
   or a week, or a day, or even an hour--He waters them "every moment"
   that they may know that at no one instant of time can they do without
   Him. He placed the whole fountain of Living Water in His Son, for in
   Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But in our case He
   releases His showers that we may seek and obtain new out-flowing of the
   Eternal Life and every moment come under new debts to His infinite
   love.

   It is very sweet to have it so, for thus we have, each moment, a reason
   for coming to Him, inasmuch as every moment He has something to impart
   to us. If we are conscious at this moment of our poverty, we need not
   despair, nor even hang our heads, for the next moment has its appointed
   watering and before the clock has ticked, faith may receive a flood of
   Grace, according to the promise, "I will pour water upon him that is
   thirsty and floods upon the dry ground." Attention should be gratefully
   directed to the fact that the watering promised by the Lord is a
   personal act-- "I will water it." Apollos waters, but he cannot do it
   of himself, nor can he do it every moment, nor at all except as an
   instrument in the hands of God! The Lord does His work effectually--as
   in Creation He spoke not in vain, but He spoke and it was done. So in
   Grace He waters and we are watered, indeed!

   Sweet is the Truth of God that we are not left to second causes or
   agents--these might fail us in the hour of need, yes, they must prove
   liars if we depended on them--for it would be impossible for any of
   them, or all of them put together to water us every moment! But the
   all-sufficient God, out of the measureless stores of Grace, can and
   will, in His own Person, supply all His saints forever, giving them to
   be filled with His fullness and never to know a need. Not even to
   angels has He left the care of His saints, but He, Himself, through the
   mediation of His dear Son, does every moment keep and water us by His
   effectual Grace! How condescending is this on the Lord's part! He who
   leads forth the stars by their armies, bows the heavens to visit your
   soul and mine, taking care that there shall be a channel for the Water
   of Life to flow to the poorest and meanest of His people!

   How near this brings the Lord to us and what an idea it gives us of His
   perpetual active Presence. As the gardener stands over the plant,
   gently pouring the water all around it and upon it so as to feed the
   roots and wash the leaves, even so does the Lord, as it were, stand
   over His people, watching over them for good and dispensing His Grace
   with all wisdom and prudence as they are able to receive it. Our need
   calls for His abiding Presence and His love vouchsafes it. Every moment
   is the Lord near us, for every moment He waters us. Every moment does
   He love us because His love is actively demonstrating itself in
   condescending actions.

   His love suggests the watering and the watering proves His love. He is
   never weary of the work which He has, Himself, undertaken in love and
   which He will not delegate to others because He is so well pleased with
   doing it Himself.

   III. This much suffices to fill our slender space--let us now, in the
   third place, consider THE CERTAINTY that the Lord will water every
   plant that His own right hand has planted. Here a vast number of
   arguments suggest themselves, but we will content ourselves with the
   one ground of confidence which is found in the Lord Himself and His
   previous deeds of love. The Lord our God is true and cannot lie and,
   therefore, if He says, "I will water it," we need no further guarantee
   that it will be done. "Has He said, and shall He not do it?" Has He
   ever broken the Word which has once gone out of His mouth? Assuredly
   not!

   The Lord is mighty and cannot, therefore, leave His promise unfulfilled
   from lack of power to make it good. He may safely say, "I will,"
   because nothing is impossible with Him! Man's, "I will," is often an
   empty boast. Never is it so with the Lord of Hosts! Our souls need
   supplies so great as to drain rivers of Grace, but the all-sufficient
   God is able to meet the largest demands of the innumerable company of
   His people and He will meet them to His own honor and Glory forever.
   Here, then, we see His truth, His power and His all-sufficiency all
   pledged to provide for His chosen and we may be sure that the guarantee
   will stand. The Immutability and Omnipresence of God both speak to the
   same effect. The

   Lord has watered His people up to now and, as He cannot change, they
   may expect the same treatment at His hands. He will neither revoke His
   promise nor cease from fulfilling it.

   Moreover, He can be with His needy servants every moment as His promise
   implies, for it will never be said of Him, "Perhaps He is pursuing, or
   He is on a journey, or He sleeps and must be awakened." While He is
   working in Heaven and on earth and in all deep places, yet can His
   gracious hand be busy among the tender plants of His Grace and that at
   all times, yes every moment! If we needed further confirmation we might
   well remember that the Lord has already watered His vineyard in a far
   more costly manner than it will ever need again. The Lord Jesus has
   watered it with a sweat of blood and can it be supposed that He will
   leave it now? Gethsemane worked for the Church much beyond any future
   need which can possibly arise to her--He who spared not His own blood
   will not withhold watering from those He has redeemed!

   Dear Friend, you and I have already cost the Savior so much that there
   is no fear of His parting with us, or losing His reward in us by giving
   us over to barrenness! Jesus has already fulfilled, on our behalf, a
   weightier engagement than that which is contained in the text. He said,
   "I will redeem it," and He has kept His Word--and now, if He declares,
   "I will water it," it would be a superfluity of unbelief to distrust
   Him! Up to now the sacred promise has been fully kept, for we have been
   graciously preserved in spiritual life. Times of drought have befallen
   us and yet our soul has not been suffered to famish! Why, then, should
   we question the goodness of the Lord as to years to come?

   His delight is in us as much as ever, because Jesus, in whom He beholds
   us, is as fair and lovely as ever! And therefore we may expect the same
   kindness from the same loving heart. He has not only pledged Himself to
   water His people, but again and again He has spoken to the same effect.
   Hear how Isaiah speaks by the Holy Spirit--"And the Lord shall guide
   you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your
   bones: and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of
   water, whose waters fail not."

   Jeremiah also speaks to the same effect in his 31st chapter at the 12th
   verse. Shall the Lord run back from His Covenant? Shall we so much
   blaspheme His name as to suppose that He will be false to His
   engagements? Unbelief, hide your guilty head! Doubting one, be
   comforted--He who said, "I will water it every moment," must not be
   dishonored by your guilty suspicions, for He will do even as He has
   said! It is true your heart is, by nature, barren and dry, but what has
   that to do with the promise of Free Grace so as to render it of no
   effect? Is not your parched and desolate condition rather to be viewed
   as a reason why the Lord should open the windows of Heaven above you
   and pour out His blessing?

   One thing is never to be forgotten--we are the Lord's. Therefore, if He
   does not water us, He will, Himself, be the loser. An owner of
   vineyards, if he should allow them to be parched with the drought,
   would derive nothing from his estate. The vineyard would be dried up
   and he would receive no clusters. With reverence it is spoken--Our Lord
   Himself will never see the travail of His soul in untended vines, nor
   in hearts unsanctified and unrenewed, nor in men whose Graces droop and
   die for lack of Divine refreshing! The Lord must carry the work through
   or lose what He has done-- and that would not be consistent with the
   foresight of His wisdom or the purpose of His heart!

   He chose us. He bought us. He delights in us. He put His very Glory in
   pawn concerning us and we may, therefore, be sure beyond all doubt that
   he will water us to the end. Does He water us every moment? Then let
   His praise continually be in our mouths. Does He thus care for us? Let
   us, then, watch for the advance of His cause, the extension of His
   kingdom, the good of His people. He who is thus watered should water
   others! If the Lord puts within us a well of Living Water through His
   Divine watering, then let us give forth to others rivers of Living
   Water! Yet let not this be our first thought, but rather let us go away
   crying, "Lord, make my soul as a watered garden! Saturate my fleece!
   Fill my vessel to the brim and keep it full forever! Fulfill this Word
   unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope, and water me
   every moment, even me."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Son Glorified by the Father and the Father Glorified by the Son

   (No. 1465A)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and said,
   Father, the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may
   glorify You." John 17:1.

   THIS was a prayer after a sermon. These words Jesus spoke and then He
   lifted up His eyes to Heaven in supplication. No discourse should be
   unattended by prayer, for how can we expect a blessing on what we have
   heard or spoken unless we ask it of the Lord? The sower should water
   with many a supplication the seed that he has sown and the hearer
   should diligently seek the favor of Him who gives bread to the eater as
   well as seed to the sower. It was a prayer in connection with the
   Lord's Supper. Surely above all things, prayer should mix with every
   part of our attendance at the sacred table. Dare we come to the sacred
   feast without prayer? Can we sit there without prayer? Can we retire
   without prayer? If so, let us not wonder if the ordinance should be a
   mere form and unrefreshing to our souls. With sermon and with sacrament
   let us mingle the salt of supplication without prescribing how much.

   Observe the attitude of the prayer. The Savior, it appears, prayed with
   uplifted eyes. There is much in this outward manifestation of His
   devotion. We have not time to enter into it fully, but this may
   suffice--the uplifted eyes showed to Whom He was speaking and it bore
   testimony that that He was not idly drawing the bow at a venture, but
   directing His prayer unto God and looking up as the arrow ascended to
   His Father's Throne. It showed, also, that He was looking away from and
   above His disciples and their sympathy, above all the world and its
   enmity and even above Himself. His outlook was towards the
   Invisible--this is for our instruction. He could have prayed with eyes
   closed if it had so pleased Him, but His were the opened eyes of faith
   and love which could look into the face of God and could yet look upon
   all things round without distraction and, therefore, it was not
   necessary for Him to draw down the curtains of His eyelids, but He
   gazed into the opened Heaven.

   Notice the commencement of His prayer, for it furnishes our text. He
   began by saying, "Father." He did not say, "Our Father." "Our Father"
   is for us, for we, in the filial relationship which we sustain, are
   many. But, "Father," is for Him, for He is one and He is such a Son as,
   in some respects, we can never be. Into the mysterious doctrine of the
   eternal filiation it is not ours to enter, but we know it to be a Truth
   of God. "Father," is a word appropriate to our Lord's lips, alone, in
   its highest conceivable sense and how grandly it comes from Him! It
   shows His love to God, His confidence in God, His complete resignation
   to the Divine will and His sweet acquiescence in it. He is about to be
   broken in pieces with the iron rod of His Father's vengeance, but He
   calls Him, "Father." He is about to drink that cup of wormwood and gall
   which would have been Hell to us if He had not drained it dry, but He
   says, "Father."

   And herein He sets us an example--in all times of tribulation let us
   fall back upon our sonship, our adoption and the fatherhood of our
   great God! To our Father let us go, for to whom else should a child so
   naturally fly? Where else can we go but to our Father who knows what we
   have need of before we ask Him and who will never desert His own, but,
   like a father pities his children, will pity them that fear Him? The
   prayer itself--the very fact of the prayer--shows us His manhood. Jesus
   pleads--He must be Man. He lifts His eyes to Heaven and He cries,
   "Father"--He must be like ourselves, a Man.

   But the prayer, in some respects, speaks of the Deity which it scarcely
   veils. As in some statues which you must often have looked upon with
   admiration, you seem to see the face of the figure through the marble
   veil, so it is here in the prayer of Christ that the God shines through
   the Man. It is such a prayer as only He might offer who is God as well
   as Man. Dare you say, "Father, glorify me, that I may glorify You"?
   That would be a presumptuous expression for creature lips to utter!
   Only He who counted it not robbery to be equal with God, though He made
   Himself of no reputation, might thus pray! Though He cries to God,
   "Father, glorify Your Son," yet may He add and put no explanatory
   sentence

   with it, "that Your Son also may glorify You." He is able to return all
   the Glory God may give and has the power as much to magnify the
   Father's name as the Father may magnify His name. Here I see the
   Humanity, but I admire and adore the Deity of our blessed Lord.

   The first sentence of His prayer reveals His foresight--"Father, the
   hour is come"--the hour ordained in the eternal purpose. The hour
   prophesied of which Daniel sought to know. The hour towards which all
   hours had pointed. The central hour--the hour up to which men dated and
   from which they shall date again if they read time right. The hinge,
   pivot and turning point of all human history! The dark, yet delivering
   hour! The hour of vengeance and of acceptance. "The hour is come." He
   knew it. His inward Infallible foresight made Him know that now was the
   time for Him to offer up Himself a Sacrifice for sin. His expression
   is, however, very choice. "The hour is come." His faith thinks it but
   an hour--the midnight of Gethsemane, the morning of the scourging, the
   day of the crucifixion--all are but an hour, a short space.

   Now is He in trouble, for His time of travail is come. But He counts it
   as an hour for joy of that which shall be born into the world by His
   grievous pangs! Thus His love and patience make Him despise the time of
   shame and reckon it but a brief interval. The foresight of which we
   have spoken makes Him look beyond the hour. You and I look into the
   hour of darkness, as a frequent rule, and see no further, for our eyes
   are dim through unbelief. But He goes on beyond the hour and His prayer
   is, "Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You." He fixes
   His eyes upon the Glory that was yet to be revealed and for joy of that
   He counts even His death to be but an hour--looking upon it as soon to
   be over and lost in the Glory of His Father!

   In all this, Brothers and Sisters, let us imitate our Lord and let us
   keep our eyes not on the present, but on the future; not on this light
   affliction, which is but for a moment, but on the far more exceeding
   and eternal weight of Glory which will come of it. And let us with holy
   confidence, whenever our hour of darkness arrives, resort to our God in
   secret. The best preparation for the worst hour is prayer! The best
   remedy for a depressed spirit is nearness to God! In this, then, let us
   follow our Master and may the Holy Spirit help us to do so. Let us now
   consider the essential words of the prayer. They are twofold and in
   them we find first a petition for Himself--"Father, glorify Your Son."
   And, secondly, the motive of that petition--"that Your Son also may
   glorify You."

   I. Begin, then, with THE PETITION FOR HIMSELF and I invite you to
   observe it as an answered petition. More than 1,800 years have rolled
   away since those Divine Words fell from our blessed Master's lips and
   they have been answered and are still being answered! We shall not look
   upon them from the standpoint of the Apostles, but from our own, and
   regard the prayer as one which is granted. And, first, it was answered
   in and during His sufferings. Some of the early fathers confined the
   sense of these words to the passion of our Lord and I like their strong
   expressions when they say that His Cross was His Throne and Gethsemane
   was as glorious as Olivet, if not more so--for the glory of the Cross
   would be a wonderful theme if man had mind and words enough to expound
   upon it.

   Do we speak of ignominy? Doubtless He died a felon's death. Do we speak
   of shame? No doubt they spat upon Him and derided Him. Do we speak of
   weakness? No doubt He slept in a grave. But in His ignominy, shame and
   weakness, Jesus is most honorable, adorable and strong! Faith sees a
   moral and spiritual splendor about her crucified Lord which outshines
   all the previous glories of His eternal Throne. I shall not so confine
   the sense of the words, but yet that sense must be included. The Son of
   God was glorified while He was dying and it was one part of His Glory
   that He should be able to bear the enormous load of human guilt. As a
   race we lay crushed beneath it.

   A thousand Samsons could not relieve us! Angels and archangels,
   cherubim and seraphim could never lift the stupendous mass! But this
   one Man, alone, with no help--in weakness of body and in death
   pangs--bore away the enormous load of human guilt! The chastisement of
   our peace was upon Him--the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all!
   What a load it was! And that He could bear it was, indeed, a display of
   His Glory. The lost in Hell cannot bear the wrath of God! An eternity
   of suffering will not have discharged the dreadful penalty and yet He
   bore that burden in an hour! Oh, marvelous strength of the Incarnate
   God! Glorious are You, indeed, O Christ, upon Your Cross! More
   glorious, even, than in that moment when, with a word, you shall shake
   not only earth, but also Heaven, for now the weight of angry Heaven
   rests on You and You stand fast beneath it. Glorify Him, Beloved, you
   for whom He bore that weight! Glorify Him that He was able to endure
   it!

   He was glorified, also, in the manner in which He bore it, in that He
   sustained it without shrinking or starting back. There was no guilt or
   guile in Him, though questioned again and again before Caiaphas, Herod
   and Pilate. There were no angry speeches when He was brow-beaten,
   buffeted, blindfolded and spit upon. He displayed nothing but
   gentleness, even when His enemies had pierced His hands and His
   feet--nothing but triumphant pity and almighty love even when they
   mocked His agonies. They could not anger Him with all their reviling
   and when they cried, "Let Him come down from the Cross and we will
   believe on Him," yet He did not loosen a hand from the cruel tree to
   smite the scorners nor shake His feet free from the nail to spurn the
   blasphemers.

   When you think of His physical agonies, of His mental torture, of His
   spiritual darkness--when you consider that all the powers of earth and
   Hell were let loose upon Him. And when, worst of all, you remember that
   the Father's face was hidden from Him till He cried, "Why have You
   forsaken Me?" and yet consider that our Champion, having begun the
   redeeming work, went through with it and never drew back His hands from
   the Covenant which He had made, nor flinched under the strokes He
   bore--I say He was glorious in His passion and His prayer was heard!
   The Father did glorify His Son even on the tree! It was an hour of
   Glory that might dazzle angels' eyes--that hour when He said, "It is
   finished," and gave up the ghost. What had He finished? He had finished
   that which saved His people! He had peopled Heaven with immortal
   spirits who shall delight in Him forever and had shaken the gates of
   Hell! God indeed glorified His Son in enabling Him to bear and bear so
   well, all the weight of sin and the penalty that was due to it.

   And now, today, Beloved, we see that God glorified His Son in His death
   because in dying He saved His people. I do not believe for a single
   moment that the result of Christ's death ever was, or ever could be,
   uncertain. That which He intended to do by it, will be done and has
   been so far done to the last jot and tittle up to this moment. His
   great object was the redemption of His chosen--"Christ loved His Church
   and gave Himself for it." It is said of a certain company that they
   sing, "He has redeemed us from among men." Now, when He died, He did
   not render the redemption of His people possible, but He ransomed them
   completely.

   By His agonies and death He did not merely give a bare hope of the
   pardon of sin, but He hurled the sin of all His elect into the depths
   of the sea in that same moment! He did not merely make the salvation of
   men a possibility if they would, but He saved His people then and
   there! He finished the work which He came to do, in proof whereof it is
   written that, "this Man, after He had offered one Sacrifice for sins
   forever, sat down at the right hand of God." And He would not have sat
   there if His work had not been done! According to the words of the
   Prophet, He had finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought
   in everlasting righteousness, for He had offered an effectual Atonement
   which none can deny. And so the Father glorified His Son, even when He
   died, since He accepted His redeeming blood on the behalf of His
   people.

   The Father glorified His Son by making Him, even in the hour of His
   passion, to be victorious over all His enemies. Those nailed feet
   bruised the serpent's head so that he could never resume his former
   power. Those nailed hands grasped the serpent of sin and strangled it!
   And that dying head, as it bowed itself, smote Death with its own
   sword, as David smote Goliath, for He, "death by dying slew." The
   powers of evil were tremendous. Think of sin, of Satan and of
   death--but all their hosts were defeated in that one pitched battle of
   which the Cross was the banner and the dying Redeemer the Champion! O
   glorious Lord, You have led captivity captive, making a show of Your
   adversaries openly even on Your Cross, and nailing to the accursed tree
   the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. Yes, the Father
   glorified You even there while yet You were in the agonies of death!

   Beside this, there were some outward signs of the glory of Christ even
   in His death which we can scarcely stop to mention. Did not the Temple
   rend her veil? Did not the Sun conceal his face? Did not the rocks
   split and the dead arise? Was not all Jerusalem filled with tremor and
   did not the centurion cry, "Truly, this was the Son of God"? Yes, the
   Father glorified His Son even when it pleased Him to bruise Him and to
   put Him to grief! With one hand He smote and with the other hand He
   glorified! There was a power to crush, but there was also a power to
   sustain working at the same time. The Father glorified His Son.

   And now, Beloved, what shall I say concerning the Father glorifying the
   Son after His death and as the result of it? I will not attempt to
   expound it, but I will simply say that the rending of the veil at the
   moment of His death was the glorifying of Christ--for now there is a
   way to the Throne of God made manifest for us, which before had been
   closed. Then the opening of His pierced side was another glorifying of
   Him, for this day the double fountain is to Believers the

   effectual cleansing of both the guilt and the power of sin! And thus
   the Savior's pierced heart glorified Him in its power to bless. Then
   that poor body lay in the gave--I call it poor, for so it
   seemed--wrapped in linen and the spices. But, Beloved, the Father
   glorified even that dead Body which men thought to be corruptible, for
   it saw no corruption!

   During the three days and nights no worm could come near it, nor trace
   of decay. That crystal vase in which the rich ointment of the Savior's
   soul had dwelt must not be injured. "Not a bone of Him shall be
   broken." Beautified by those scars as when a skillful artist renders an
   image more lovely than before by marks of the engraver's tool, that
   body must be safely guarded by watching angels till the morning came.
   It barely dawned. As yet the sun was rising and lo, the Sun of
   Righteousness, Himself, arose! As a man arising from his couch puts on
   his garments, so did our Lord put on the vesture of the Body which He
   had laid aside and came again into the world alive as to His Body and
   His Soul--a perfect Man!

   Oh, it was a grand glorifying of Christ when the Father raised Him from
   the dead and He was seen by His disciples once again! Death had no
   bands to hold Him. The sepulcher's ward could not confine the
   unequalled Prisoner. Declared to be glorious by His Resurrection from
   the dead, His prayer was heard! And before long, when a few weeks had
   passed over Him, there came another Glory--for from the brow of Olivet
   He gently ascended, floating in the air from the company of His
   disciples, rising up in the midst of angels till a cloud received Him
   out of human sight--

   "They brought His chariot from on high To bear Him to His Throne. They
   clapped their triumphant wings and cried, 'The glorious work is
   done!''"

   His Father glorified Him and now He sits at the right hand of God!
   Words, you are dumb things, you cannot tell of His present Glory!

   Early the other morning there came to my bedside a Brother to awaken me
   whose face seemed to beam with joy as he said, "In my sleep last night
   I thought I saw the Lord upon His Throne! And oh, the Glory which the
   Father put upon Him! I wish I could fall asleep again that I might
   continue to dream on." The tears were in his eyes, as he said, "Oh, the
   Glory of Christ! Oh, the Glory of Christ!" I reminded him of how Mercy
   laughed in her sleep and Christiana asked her why, and when she told
   her dream, the matron said she might well laugh if she so dreamed!
   Happy are those who, sleeping or waking--living or dying--may but get a
   glimpse of His Glory! Nothing ever ravishes my heart like the thought
   of my Lord's being glorified! Oh, if I could, by some means, help to
   honor Him! If only I may but be the earthen vessel in which His
   treasure should be stored, or the trumpet by which His name might be
   proclaimed! That would be joy enough for me!

   And you all feel the same, you who love Him. You delight to think how
   high His Throne is and how bright is His Countenance, and how
   resplendent are His courts. Have patience. You shall see Him soon, for
   the Father will glorify Him in the Second Advent. He tarries; He
   tarries long, as we think, yet He says, "Behold, I come quickly; and My
   reward is with Me." He is coming to be glorified, even among the sons
   of men! So shall the prayer of the text be fulfilled in the golden ages
   yet to dawn--and then throughout eternity!

   II. We pause a moment and then we shall briefly think of THE MOTIVE OF
   HIS PRAYER. "Father, glorify Your Son, that your Son also may glorify
   You." Do notice this. When you pray, it is a grand thing to pray with a
   clean heart but selfishness is uncleanness. In our blessed Lord there
   was no selfishness. He said, "I seek not My own Glory" and even in this
   prayer that word of His is true, for He only seeks Glory that He may
   glorify the Father. Beloved, the desire of our Lord is granted, for God
   is glorified in Jesus Christ more than in any other way.

   The Glory of God in Nature is inconceivable. This round world and all
   that dwell therein. The open sea calmly mirroring the sky or ruffled
   with tempests. The wondrous expanse of Heaven, fleecy with clouds, or
   blue beneath a torrid sun, or lit up with innumerable stars. Yon hills
   with all their forests. Yon laughing valleys with their lowing herds
   and bleating flocks--"These are Your glorious works, Parent of good,
   almighty," You get Glory from every flickering blade of grass or frond
   of fern and every flitting insect and creeping worm mean Your praise!
   There is nothing but what glorifies You, from leviathan to a minnow.
   Yet all Nature put together fails to reveal all Your glorious
   attributes! The Divine faithfulness, justice and truth are scarcely
   manifest in Nature, though traces of them may be seen--but in the face
   of Jesus, who is the express Image of the Father, God is glorified to
   the fullest!

   In the death of Christ, above all things, God is glorified, for there
   all the attributes of God are seen. There was the power which sustained
   Christ beneath His more than Herculean task. There is the love which
   surrendered the Darling of

   its bosom that He might die instead of traitors. There is the justice
   which would not, could not forgive sin without satisfaction. There is
   the Truth of God which had threatened to punish and did punish--which
   had promised to give a Savior and did give Him. There is the
   faithfulness to the Covenant which kept that Covenant at such a dread
   expense. There is the wisdom which planned the marvelous way! O,
   salvation by a Substitute--no, let me put it all together--the
   wholeness, the holiness of God! Yes, all His attributes are seen, each
   one equally magnified in the death of Jesus Christ. He is glorious and
   the Triune God is glorified in Him.

   And now, Beloved, God is glorified in the death of Christ by the love
   of all those whom Jesus saves; by the sacred awe and filial fear of all
   whom Jesus brings to the Father's feet; by the ardent, patient devotion
   of all who are consecrated in heart and feel the sacred flame of love
   to Christ setting their souls on fire! Up there in Heaven, where the
   white-robed never cease to sing--and here below where martyrs were
   burned for their love of God; where confessors defied all adversaries
   to spread abroad the Glory of His name; where humble Christians suffer
   in patience, or labor on with diligence, or walk in holiness--the
   Father's name is glorified through the passion of the Christ of God!

   We had many things to say, but time fails us and, therefore, we close
   with these three observations which we want to leave upon your minds.
   The first is this. Christ's motive should be ours. When you ask a
   blessing from God, ask it that you may glorify God by it. Do you pine
   to have your health back again? Be sure that you want to spend it for
   Him. Do you desire temporal advancement? Desire it that you may promote
   His Glory. Do you even long for growth in Grace? Ask it only that you
   may glorify Him! If there is anything that you dare wish and pray for,
   put it so--"Father, bless Your child that Your child may, in return,
   bless You and serve You." Those are clean prayers which have such a
   motive--all others have the taint of self about them. God help you to
   do everything for His Glory--to speak for His Glory, to live for His
   Glory, to die for His Glory--and then you shall rise again and live
   forever for His Glory! Happy, happy is the man whose lot this shall be!
   Let this be the desire which masters you, even that which moved your
   Lord!

   Next, Christ's theology should be ours. What is that? Why, first that
   He is to be glorified and, secondly, that the Father is to be
   glorified! Error sometimes blows one way and sometimes another. In
   years gone by, the difficulty was to bring men to glorify the Lord
   Jesus--they would worship God--but not the Christ of God. And so there
   came the great Arian fight and afterwards Socinian controversies, for
   they would not glorify Christ. Oh, you who have been saved by Him, I am
   not afraid of you on that point, but nowadays there appears to be, in
   some minds, a forgetfulness of the Father!

   Christ is loved, for He died, but many seem to look upon the Father as
   having no share in the wondrous work of redemption! But, Beloved, they
   are one in our salvation! Father, Son and Spirit agree in one in our
   redemption and it would be fatal, indeed, for us to set one Person of
   the Divine Trinity above the other two! Let all men honor the Son even
   as they honor the Father--and honor the Father even as they honor the
   Son! It would be traitorous to Christ's inmost wish if we were to
   glorify the Son and fail to reverence and love the Father!

   Lastly, let every Believer here see His security. Is it not a most
   wonderful guarantee of the safety of everyone for whom Christ died,
   that the Glory of Christ and the Glory of the Father--and I may add the
   glory of the blessed Spirit--are all equally concerned in the salvation
   of the believing soul? Dare I say it? It would be a blot upon the
   everlasting Glory if one believing soul were ever lost! Then were God's
   Truth no longer sure; His faithfulness no longer firm; His love no more
   immutable! His power might be doubted--His changeableness would be
   proven. But, Beloved, it cannot be! Christ will not lose a sheep of His
   flock, nor will the Comforter lose a spirit in which He has once began
   to indwell! You can rest in this!

   Abide without doubt or fear in Christ, for the mountains shall depart
   and the hills be removed, but the Covenant of His love shall not be
   removed from you, says the Lord that has mercy on you. Believe in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, dear Hearers and these Divine privileges shall be
   yours! And as I prayed just now, so I pray yet again, that these things
   may belong to every soul in this house without exception, through faith
   in Christ Jesus, by the work of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 17. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--416, 412, 233.

   The Colportage Society conducted by Mr. Spurgeon supports 82 men in
   needy districts and does a great work in selling Bibles and healthy
   literature. Owing to the depression of trade and the falling off of
   subscriptions, this branch of holy service is, at this moment, in a
   difficult position and will soon be in urgent need unless the Lord
   should move some of His stewards to help. It seems necessary to give
   this announcement so that friends may know that there is a channel for
   their gifts and a reason for bringing them forth. Mr. Spurgeon feels
   confident that by some means or other the present necessity for the
   Lord's work will be graciously supplied and furnish fresh occasion for
   gratitude and increased faith.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Royal Prerogative

   (No. 1465B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me: I kill,
   and I make alive; I wound, and I heal." Deuteronomy 32:39.

   THERE is but one God--Jehovah is His name--the "I AM." That one God
   will not endure a rival. Why should He? He made all things and sustains
   all things. Should a creature that His own hands have made be set up in
   rivalry with Him? If it is a great man like Nebuchadnezzar, if he says,
   "Behold this great Babylon which I have built," God will send him to
   eat grass among the bulls and make him to know that no man is great in
   the sight of God! What a provocation it must be to God to see men
   bowing down before idols fashioned by their own hands! What a
   degradation to man that he should worship gold, or silver, or wood, or
   stone--and what a grievous dishonor to the great God of all! And it
   seems to me to be the worst of all dishonors when God sees the image of
   His own dear Son made into an idol and men prostrate themselves to
   worship the representation of the Cross on which redemption was lifted
   on high!

   This must touch His sacred soul and vex Him to the uttermost, for God
   is God, alone, and beside Him there is no other. He will not give His
   Glory to another, neither His praise to graven images. In the text
   before us the great Ego is seen. The Lord says, "I, even I." That Ego
   is so great that it fills all places and, therefore, there can be no
   room for another. "I, even I, am God, and there is no god with Me."
   "Besides Me," He says in another place, "there is none else." Oh, to
   have such lofty thoughts of God that we can have no consideration for
   anything that would rob Him of the Glory which is so exclusively His
   own! Gladly would we burn with a holy jealousy which abhors the idea of
   a rival god and casts the name of Baal out of its mouth with utter
   loathing!

   In the text the Lord claims the sovereign prerogative of life and
   death. He says, "I kill, and I make alive." It is He from whom we first
   of all receive our being. His hand kindles the torch of life and from
   Him comes the quenching of the flame. No angel's arm could save us from
   the grave, nor could a myriad of angels confine us there when once
   again He shall bid us rise. God kills and God makes alive. Royal
   personages have usually been very jealous of the prerogative of life
   and death, but our great God has it without bound or limit. He reigns
   supreme. "I kill," He says, "and I make alive." From the connection in
   which the text stands, it is clear that the Lord alludes to the making
   of nations, or to the destroying of nations.

   It was God that made Israel to be a people. It was God that cast out
   the Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites from being nations before Him. It
   was God that raised up Chaldea and Babylon and then strengthened Persia
   to break Babylon in pieces and Greece to destroy Persia--and Rome with
   iron feet to break down Greece--and when the time had come it was He
   who spoke to the city of the seven hills and she, too, lost her royal
   power. Kingdoms and thrones belong to the Lord and the shields of the
   mighty are lifted on high or laid in the dust as He wills. Though they
   regard it not, there is a King of kings and Lord of lords--and when the
   long page of history shall be unrolled and men shall be able to see the
   end from the beginning with enlightened eyes--they shall know that all
   through the ages the disregarded and neglected God, the unseen and even
   unthought of God, was still reigning evermore! Across the pages of
   earth's long record shall be written in right royal hand, "I kill, and
   I make alive." In Providence God is absolute, the blessed and only
   Potentate whose sovereign will knows no dispute.

   At this time, however, I purpose to carry this great Truth of God away
   from the realm of Providence into the kingdom of Grace. We shall
   confine ourselves to that second sentence--"I wound, and I heal." On
   this Word we shall make three observations, the first being that none
   but the Lord can wound or heal. Secondly, that the Lord can wound and
   heal. And, thirdly, that the Lord does wound and heal--three thoughts
   which are closely connected and yet are marked by instructive shades of
   difference.

   I. First, NONE BUT THE LORD CAN WOUND OR HEAL. To begin at the
   beginning--the Lord alone can spiritually wound. When we have to deal
   with human hearts, our first effort has to be to wound them. Naturally,
   man thinks himself whole-hearted and in sound health, but he is not so.
   The great object of the Gospel ministry, at first, is to convince men
   of sin, to humble them before God--in fact, to wound them, to cut them
   to the heart. But no man can wound without the Lord. I speak without
   any measure to my utterance--no preacher can truly wound the human
   heart. He may speak very honestly and plainly. He may speak with deep
   pathos and true affection. He may wield, at times, the thunders of God
   and at other times the soft and gentle bands of love may be in his
   hands, but in no way can the preacher get at the heart of men unless
   his Master is with him.

   Charm you ever so wisely, O wise man, the adder is deaf and it is in
   vain that you use your enchantments. As well convince the wild winds,
   or convert the wayward waves, as hope to touch the human heart till God
   makes bare His arm! It is the Holy Spirit's work to convince of sin and
   until He puts forth His power, the preacher may preach himself dumb
   with weariness and blind with weeping, but no result can possibly
   follow. And what is true of preachers is true of all the teachers in
   the Sunday school, of all the earnest folk that go about to speak
   personally to men, yes, and of the most tender mother and the most
   earnest father! There is no wounding the child's heart--there is no
   breaking it down into contrition by the most tender arguments or the
   wisest counsels! You will come back and say as we have done many times,
   "Who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord
   revealed?"

   Yes, dear Friends, and the most solemn Truths of God which, in
   themselves have a natural tendency to wound the heart, nevertheless
   cannot do it apart from the work of God Himself. There is the Sword
   and, in itself, it is sharp and cutting, but no man can handle it! The
   eternal arm must be revealed, or the hide of behemoth will not feel the
   weapon! A sword will cut through a coat of mail if a Coeur-de-Lion has
   the wielding of it--but not in a child's hand will it wound to killing.
   God must take the Scripture in His hands and use it to the dividing of
   joints and marrow, or sinners will escape its power. Terrible Truths
   there are in the Bible which ought to make men shake, but they hear
   them and deny them--they even laugh at them and continue in sin!

   Sweet truths there are which ought to make a rock shed tears, but you
   may tell of Gethsemane's bloody sweat and the five dear wounds of Him
   who was found guilty of excessive love and yet men will hear it and go
   their way, each man to his farm and to his merchandise and forget it
   all. I grant you the Truths of God are powerful, but not until the
   mighty God applies them to the heart and conscience! And in addition to
   the Truth of God, Providence itself may come and work upon the heart of
   men, but cause no wounding of the right sort. I have seen the ungodly
   brought to destitution and poverty by their extravagances and brought
   to sickness and death's door by their lusts--and yet they have not been
   wounded.

   They have seen the result of sin; they have even felt it in the marrow
   of their bones and yet the dogs have gone back to their vomit. They
   have still clung to their idols and held to their abominations! The
   burnt child dreads the fire, but the burnt sinner thrusts his hand into
   the flames again. We have seen men so sick that they have trembled at
   the thought of death and it has been supposed from what they said, that
   they were really impressed--and if they were restored to health would
   lead another life--but, alas, we have seen them restored to health and
   sinning worse than before! The wicked breaks his bands asunder. They
   cast their cords from them. All the terrors of
   Providence--bereavements, losses, sicknesses--all have failed with the
   unregenerate. Their stone heart has turned the edge of the plow which
   sought to break it up. Men have wearied all the agencies of Grace and
   Providence, but yet they have not been wounded! Their heart is stout as
   that of leviathan, "yes, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone."
   None can effectually wound the heart but God, alone.

   Now, the same thing is true about the healing--none but the Lord can
   heal. Of course there is no need with regard to those who were never
   wounded. Nobody can heal such persons. I have known some preachers try
   to do that, though it has always seemed to me to be poor work to try to
   heal men who have never been wounded; to preach mercy to persons who
   think that they have no sin; to preach Grace to men who dream that they
   have merits of their own. Christ did not do so! He said, "I came not to
   call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole have no need
   of a physician, but those that are sick." There is no healing, then,
   for those who are not wounded--and equally there is no healing those
   who are wounded unless God lays His hands to their sore.

   Have you ever met with spiritually wounded persons? If you have, if you
   are a Believer, your whole heart has gone out towards them and, drawing
   examples from your own experience and promises from the Word of God and
   sweet encouragements from Gospel doctrine, you have labored to pour a
   healing balm into their bleeding wounds. But have you not often failed?
   No, apart from the Spirit of the living God, have you not always failed
   and must you not fail? Ah, dear Friends, it is one thing to talk of a
   wounded spirit, but it is quite another thing to feel a wounded spirit!
   And you may talk about healing, too, but it is quite another thing to
   receive the healing and quite another thing to apply it.

   Let God cut a man with His great Sword as once He smote me, and I
   guarantee you that no ordinances will heal him! "No," says a friend,
   "come and hear a sermon." He hears it, but the preaching makes him
   worse and he feels more sad than ever. I have known persons foolish
   enough to persuade such seekers to come to the Communion Table! They
   have only eaten and drunk condemnation to themselves! While they have
   been at the Table they have known themselves to be intruders and their
   hearts have bled more than ever. You can easily pacify a man whose
   sense of sin is a mere pretense, just as you may soon heal the
   imitation wound--but it is not so with one who has the arrows of the
   Lord rankling within him--he needs Divine surgery!

   As for the hypocritical penitent, give him outward sacraments and he
   believes that he is all right. But if God has wounded him, all the
   sacraments under Heaven will never minister consolation to him. He must
   go to God for that, for only in Christ Jesus can it be found. All the
   preachers, yes, and all the doctrines of the Bible, sound and true as
   the preachers may be, and inspired as the doctrines certainly are, will
   fail to comfort a bleeding soul until the eternal Lord shall bow
   Himself from His Throne in Heaven and bind up the broken in heart! I
   know it is so! Gospel Truth is sufficient, in itself, to comfort all
   that mourn, but it will comfort nobody so long as the natural unbelief
   of the heart remains.

   Get a hold of a lacerated spirit, torn with unbelief and try what you
   can do. Say, "Trust in the Lord, my Friend," and he replies, "I cannot
   trust." Tell him Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and
   he says he knows that, but he cannot get hold of it. Go on to tell him
   how the Lord receives the very chief of sinners. Do your duty with him,
   for whether you can heal him or not, you are bound to set the Gospel
   before him--but you shall find that you have worked in vain if you have
   gone in your own strength and forgotten the prayerful spirit and the
   humble reliance which are so necessary to success. God can use you to
   heal a broken heart, but you cannot do it yourself!

   Unconverted Hearer, look not to us as though we could do anything for
   you, but look only to Jesus! Ah, Friend, if I could wound you and if I
   could heal you, it would do you no good! If I could convert every
   sinner here, of what use would the human conversion be? Have you never
   heard of Mr. Rowland Hill being met, one evening, by a drunken man who
   staggered up to him and said, "Hallo, Mr. Hill, I am one of your
   converts!" "Ah," said Mr. Rowland Hill, "very likely, but you are none
   of God's converts, or else you would not be drunk."

   Now, our converts, if they are our converts, will be very poor
   productions. If one man can convert you, another man can unconvert you!
   That which is worked by the flesh can be undone by the flesh! "You must
   be born again. Except a man is born from above, he cannot see the
   kingdom of God." Unless there is a work of Grace in the soul which the
   will of man, the will of the flesh, blood, birth, education, teaching
   can never work--unless, I say, there is a supernatural power exercised
   upon us, we shall never see the face of God at the last with
   acceptance! So there is the first Truth of God--God alone can wound and
   God alone can heal.

   II. And now, secondly, THE LORD CAN WOUND AND HE CAN HEAL. What a mercy
   this is and how comfortably it encourages the Christian to go about his
   work! The Lord can wound. He can pierce the most unlikely heart. Look
   at Saul of Tarsus. You would never have thought, when he was hurrying
   to Damascus to drag the saints to prison, that he would ever be humbled
   and made to cry out, "What will You have me do?" The Lord knew His man
   and just when he was on the brow of the hill and could see Damascus in
   the plain, and was ready to devour the saints, the Lord let fly an
   arrow! Down went one Saul of Tarsus, so wounded that it took three days
   to extract the arrow!

   This was amazing, for Saul was like leviathan, of whom we read, "The
   sword of him that lays at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the
   habergeon"--yet the arrow of the Lord laid him low! The Lord can wound
   men in very unlikely places. I have known the arrow of conviction come
   home to a man who had not entered a place of worship for years. Such is
   the infinite Sovereignty of God that He calls them a people that were
   not a people, and even those who sought Him not He seeks out. Yes, even
   in the haunts of sin, a man is not safe from the arrows of God--I mean
   the arrows of God's

   infinite Love! God can still touch the conscience. Leviathan, you know,
   is wrapped about with scales, "shut up together as with a close seal,"
   yet there is a weak point even in leviathan!

   The cunning hunter knows how to find it out and though there are some
   men so skeptical, so atheistic, so obstinate, so profane, so abominable
   that nobody dares to come near them, yet have we known it--attribute it
   to the praise of Sovereign Grace--the Lord has smitten even these with
   His great and strong Sword and afterwards He has healed them by His
   mighty Grace. Never despair of anybody! If salvation were man's work
   you might despair, but since it is God's work, despair of none! The
   wretch who is the nearest approach to an incarnate devil may yet become
   as an angel of God! Such is the Grace of God that though men make a
   league with Death and a covenant with Hell, He can break their leagues
   and disannul their covenants, take the prey from between the jaws of
   the dragon and get to Himself renown! The Lord can wound, then.

   He can wound some that have been sitting under the Gospel for years and
   have defied its power. My arrows have rattled against your harness and
   I have said, "It is all in vain," but I pray my Master, one of these
   days when I am drawing a bow at a venture, may be pleased to direct it
   between that joint of the harness which I feared did not exist-- that
   little joint where the shoulder piece does not fit close to the
   breastplate. I have feared that you were encased as in the scales of
   leviathan, of which we read, "One is so near to another that no air can
   come between them: they are joined one to another." Yet the Lord can
   send in His arrow and make the proud heart feel the power of His
   glorious Truth! The most thoughtless, the most careless, the most
   abandoned are still within range of the Lord's bow!

   What a very sweet side of the Truth is the second part of it--namely,
   that He can heal. There are some awful cases of bleeding wounds! I
   wonder whether I have in this audience any souls desperately wounded? I
   have known the heart bleed as though it would bleed to death beneath
   the sword of conviction. Some are driven to despair and have been ready
   to lay violent hands upon themselves in the bitterness of their souls.
   Let it ring out like a trumpet that these poor despairing ones may hear
   it--the Lord can heal! There is no case so desperate but what
   Jehovah-Jesus can recover it! Despair, you must let your captives go!
   Despondency, you must open your prison when Jesus comes! Has He not
   come forth from the Father on purpose that He may loose the captives
   and say to the shackled ones, "Go free"?

   The wounds which God gives are apt to fester. You remember how the
   Psalmist said, "My wounds stink and are corrupt"? When there is bad
   blood, we have known men's wounds to become horrible and some souls who
   have had their conscience awakened have become a terror to themselves.
   "I cannot be saved," they say. "I cannot pray. How should such a wretch
   as I am ever pray? I cannot hope for mercy. It would be an astonishment
   to Heaven and Hell, too, if ever I found mercy." Listen to me and let
   your heart believe it--you may certainly recover! God, who does all
   things and to whom nothing is impossible, can heal your wounds though
   they reek with corruption! If you lie at Hell's gate; if you seem to be
   half in Topher already, His arm is strong enough to help you!

   If you will look to Christ lifted up on the Cross, there is pardon,
   life, acceptance, joy and Heaven for you, even for you! He that wounded
   you will heal you! He that has broken you will bind you up! He that has
   killed you will make you alive! Let your ears take in the gladsome
   message which I am bid to deliver you--"I wound, and I heal." Yet let
   me charge you not to look for a cure anywhere but to God in Christ
   Jesus! Shun the thought of being healed except the Lord shall heal you!
   I dread lest a wounded soul should go to a minister or to a priest, or
   to the most religious person in the world and think to get healing from
   man! Your wounds are meant to drive you to your God. Seek Him and no
   one else!

   To your knees, now, in your private chamber, or if you have not one,
   get alone even in the street, for you can be alone in a crowd--but go
   to God with your bleeding heart! Tell Him, "I am a sinner. Lord, I am
   all but a damned sinner! I have been such an offender that I scarcely
   dare to hope, but I hear that You can heal me and give me comfort. Oh,
   for Jesus' sake be merciful to me! I thank you that you have wounded
   me--it were better for me to be wounded than to be as indifferent and
   careless as I used to be. But now, Lord, do not altogether break me to
   pieces and treat me as an enemy! My spirit fails unless You comfort me.
   Oh, look upon me!" If you cannot say as much as that, yet let your
   tears drop and look up, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Do
   but cry to Him and you shall find healing, for God can heal you and
   none else.

   Away with those who dream that outward religiousness can do you good!
   Away, away with the deceivers who would tell you that they can give you
   pardon! No man living can absolve his fellow sinners--the pretense is
   the superlative of blasphemy! God is in Christ Jesus reconciling the
   world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And He

   has committed to us the Word of reconciliation and we are glad to
   proclaim that Word and point you to the Lord Jesus who is exalted on
   high to give repentance and remission of sins!

   III. Now I come to my third and last point, and that is--THE LORD DOES
   WOUND AND DOES HEAL. I have

   two things, here, tonight. I will only show them to you and have done.
   First, I have a bundle of arrows which I have seen shot at different
   times from the bow of God so as to wound men. I cannot shoot them at
   you just now, but I will show them to you. I have known Him shoot this
   arrow at a man--the arrow of continual gentleness. He has been very
   good to the sinner and continued His kindness to him for years.

   Augustine tells of one to whom God was so wonderfully kind and the man
   was so wonderfully bad, that at last he grew astonished at God's
   goodness! And since the Lord continued to load him with benefits, he
   turned round and cried, "Most benignant God, I am ashamed of being Your
   enemy any longer. I confess my sin and repent of it." How I wish that
   that arrow would pierce your hearts! It is one which readily penetrates
   a noble mind. The more gross and animal natures do not feel it, but
   where God has left some little spark of nobility, a man more readily
   feels, "I cannot go on and sin against a God so good." It is a very
   sharp arrow, but it is dipped in love and it wounds most sweetly.

   Here is another--God is angry with the wicked every day. Oh, if that
   Truth of God would go home to some of you, "God is angry with me, for I
   have broken His holy Law." Surely it would cut you to the quick! I do
   not like anybody to be angry with me, but oh, to have the Lord angry
   with me! How could I endure it? Dear Hearer, I hope you will feel the
   smart of this warning. It is very easy for you to hear it and for me to
   speak it, but if you once feel it, it will tear your heart and fill
   your loins with agony!

   Another arrow--"He that believes not is condemned already." You are not
   to be condemned at the last in the future--you are condemned NOW! You
   are not in a state of probation--you have already been proven and you
   have failed--and you are walking this earth at this moment as a
   condemned criminal! Ah, if that barbed iron were to enter your soul, it
   would wound you, indeed. Here is another arrow--"The wicked shall be
   turned into Hell, with all the nations that forget God." "These shall
   go away into everlasting punishment." Many have been playing with that
   arrow lately--it is a very sharp tool and he had best beware who toys
   with it! Let the Lord send it home and it will kill a man's proud hopes
   and vain presumptions as quickly as any arrow in the quiver of the
   Almighty!

   Here is another--"You have destroyed yourself." Your present state of
   ruin and danger is your own fault! You have brought it upon yourself
   and you have nobody to blame but yourself that you are a lost man. Ah,
   that will rankle and pain the soul as though a sword were in the bones!
   And here is another--"You are dead in sin. You have destroyed yourself,
   but you cannot save yourself." I have seen a man get that into his
   flesh a little way and he has been livid with anger. He has bit his
   lips and said, "I will never hear that preacher again. Why, he made out
   my case to be hopeless!" The man is sure to come again. He is like a
   great fish in a stream with a hook in his jaws. He will draw out a good
   deal of line and we will let him have it, but he must come to a stop
   before long with that solemn Truth of God to hold Him! He struggles
   hard but that sharp text is not soon dislodged from the heart--"O
   Israel, you have destroyed yourself."

   Thus I might continue to show you a sample of the weapons with which
   God wounds men. He has His two-edged sword, His spear, His arrows, His
   battle axe and weapons of war. You say, "I do not feel them." No, and I
   cannot make you feel them. I have told you before that it is not my arm
   that can wield them! But when God is pleased to use any of these, the
   people fall under Him. "Well," says one, "I do not think that I shall
   be wounded." No, but I am glad you are in the battle, because when the
   arrows are flying they may strike you as well as anybody else! I have
   had to deal with wounded ones that I never reckoned upon seeing in such
   a condition.

   Oh, what gashes have I seen in men that had been given to all sorts of
   fashionable sins and who had sneered at religion! They have come here,
   at first, from the most miserable motives, but they have had to come
   again and weep and cry before the Lord with broken hearts! You never
   know where bullets may find their mark! You who are the servants of
   Satan are on dangerous ground when you come near a faithful ministry.
   No, I will alter it--you are on blessed ground--where the slain of the
   Lord have been many and where the people of God are earnestly praying
   for you! I know at this moment they are putting up the prayer, "Lord,
   send the arrows home! Send the arrows home." Their prayers will prevail
   with God and He will bare His arm. There is no mistake about this
   matter--He "will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will
   have compassion on whom He will have compassion." When He puts His arm
   to

   the work, who shall stand against Him? He will do all His pleasure.
   Glory be to His blessed name, He can wound and He does wound according
   to His eternal purpose!

   Now I will hold up before you the bottle of balm. When a soul is
   wounded, the Lord applies His sacred surgery to the heart. He has
   healed some of us. The particular bottle of balm which He used in
   healing me is one which I know well and shall never forget. This was
   the label, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth,
   for I am God, and beside Me there is none else." Why, do you know I was
   afraid of God until I heard that God was in Christ and that I was to
   look to God in Christ and that the very God whom I dreaded would save
   me? That Revelation came home with Divine power to my soul! The
   preacher said, "Look. This is all that is needed." "There," he said, "a
   fool can look! A little child can look! A half idiot can look! A dying
   man can look!" "Look," he said, "and it is done."

   Did I really understand him--that I was only to look to Christ dying on
   the Cross for me and see God making an Atonement for my sins in the
   Person of His Son--that I was only to look and I should live at once?
   It was even so and I did look! My burden passed away and from that hour
   I can say what Cowper has so sweetly said in the hymn--

   "Ever since by faith I saw the stream

   Your flowing wounds supply,

   Redeeming lo ve has been my theme,

   And shall be tiil I die."

   Oh, what a bottle of balm that is--redeeming love! How sweetly it drops
   into the soul! The Lord shows the wounded man that though he is full of
   sin, He can put that sin away without any violation of Justice when the
   soul believes in Jesus! Now let the balm drop a minute. "All we like
   sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way"-- that
   fact gives us wounds. But now, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity
   of us all"--no balm of Gilead was ever so potent as that!

   Poor guilty Sinner, if you will now trust Christ, your sin is yours no
   longer! It was laid 1,800years ago upon the back of Christ, your great
   Surety! He was punished for it and He has cast it into the depths of
   the sea. You are forgiven, go in peace! Here is another drop of
   balm--When a man is wounded he feels that he cannot help himself--but
   then there comes in this precious Truth--the Spirit of God can do it!
   God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son and that Spirit helps our
   infirmities so that, though we know not what we should pray for as we
   ought, that Spirit is waiting to help us to pray!

   O you wounded ones, may the great Spirit show you at this time the
   Person of the dear Son of God--God and Man! May He show you that Person
   wounded, covered with a bloody sweat and put to death! And may He
   sweetly whisper in your ear tonight, "He was your Substitute--He bore
   that you might never bear the wrath of God." Then you will say as you
   go out of this house, "He can heal, for He has healed me. He has made
   me leave my despair and even my doubts behind me. Now will I sing unto
   my Beloved a song--

   ' Jesus has become at length My salvation and my strength.'"

   So have I preached to you nothing but God in Christ Jesus and I am glad
   to have Him to preach to you. Suppose that there is a bad young man
   here at this time who has left his home and run away from his father?
   He has done wrong, very wrong, and, instead of going to a tender loving
   father and saying, "Father, forgive me," he is afraid of punishment
   and, therefore, he has run away. There is an advertisement for him in
   the paper, inviting him to come home. Now, what has he to do to be
   right with his father? This poor, wandering, wayward, lost boy has got
   among the very scum of London and he is being ruined and starved to
   death. What must he do?

   Boy, you must go home to your father! Go home to your father! He loves
   you; he is pining for you; he is grieved at heart about you! Oh, if he
   saw you tonight, it would break his heart to see you in your rags! He
   wants you to come home! Do you not see that it would be very foolish
   for that lad to say, "I shall get into an institution," or, "I shall
   try to earn money." Your father is rich, good, wise and kind--the best
   thing you can do is to go home to your father! Going home to your
   father, all will be right.

   Now, take up the parable. All of us have left our Father and have
   journeyed into a far country. We shall never get right, again, except
   by going back to Him from whom we have gone astray. And Jesus--God in
   Christ Jesus--is waiting to welcome us! He is grieving over us right
   now! We have only to go to Him, for He says that He will never cast out
   one that comes to Him. "I do not know how He can receive me," says one.
   Well, go anyway and try Him! "I cannot pray."

   You can pray, dear Friend. "But not properly." Do not try to pray
   properly. Pray your heart out, as you can, and ask to be helped.

   I know that some poor souls are in such a state that they would be glad
   if we would write them out a prayer. I was talking only a little while
   ago to one in distress and he said to me, "Oh, Mr. Spurgeon, you do not
   know how ignorant we are and when we are under a sense of sin, you do
   not know how foolish we are. If you would sometimes put the very words
   into our mouths it would do us good." And I thought he was right,
   because I find the Lord saying in Scripture, "Take with you words and
   say"--and He tells them what to say. Come now, poor Soul, if you want
   to find God, let us pray a minute:

   "O God, save us, for You alone can do it. Of Your great mercy heal our
   wounds, or else we must bleed to death. We cast ourselves upon Your
   promise in Christ Jesus Your Son--grant us now Your salvation, we
   beseech You, for His sake! Amen."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Deuteronomy32:1-39. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--187, 233, 235.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   DEAR FRIENDS--I had intended to be home to preach on April 6, but as
   dear friends at home press me to make the rest longer, I have so far
   yielded as to wait here another week. And I now propose to be home on
   the 13th of April. My knees are still feeble, but in all other respects
   I feel fit to return. Moreover, I long to be preaching in my own pulpit
   among my own people and I must come home, though I somewhat dread the
   cold weather. Please pray for me, that I may have an active mind in a
   body which will allow of its full exercise and that the blessing of God
   may rest on my future labors far more than on those of past years. I
   find that funds are coming in very slowly for the College and the
   Colportage has a pressing need. Earnest fellow workers will only need
   to know this. Yours to serve in love for Jesus' sake,

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   Mentone, March 20, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

The Three Whats

   (No. 1466)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON

   "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; hat you may know
   whiat is he hiope of His calling, and whiat are he richies of he glory
   of His inhieritance in he saints, and whiat is he exceeding greatness
   of Hispower toward us who believe, according to the working of His
   mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the
   dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the hea venly places."
   Ephesians 1:18-20.

   [On a night when the Tabernacle was thrown open to all comers, the
   ordinary hearers vacating their seats for the occasion.]

   You see the text begins with a personal experience within the mind and
   judgment--"the eyes of your understanding being enlightened."
   Everything depends upon the opened eyes! The scene may be fair and the
   light may be bright, but if the sight is gone, all is in vain. Zedekiah
   had his eyes put out by the king of Babylon and then he was taken down
   to the imperial city, but as for being able to enjoy anything, he might
   as well have been in a desert. There were vast halls, palaces, hanging
   gardens and a city wall which was the wonder of the world, so that
   Babylon is called, by the Prophet, "the glory of kingdoms and the
   beauty of the Chaldees' excellency"--but the blinded monarch beheld
   nothing of all the grandeur of the golden city and to him her wealth
   was as though it had not been.

   Thus is it with us by nature--we have no apprehension of spiritual
   things, no power to discern eternal good--our foolish heart is
   darkened. Therefore the Lord must first enlighten the eyes of our
   understanding, or else, however precious the Truth of God and however
   clearly it may be stated, we shall never be able to apprehend it. I
   find there is a rendering of the text which runs thus, "The eyes of
   your heart being enlightened," and it strikes me that this version has
   about it the appearance of being the correct one, because Divine things
   are usually better seen by the heart than by the understanding.

   There are a thousand things which God has revealed which we shall never
   understand and yet we can know them by a loving, trusting experience.
   Our Savior says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
   God." The purifying of the heart is the enlightening of the spiritual
   eyes. Strange as it may seem, the true eyes of the renewed man is
   seated rather in the heart than in the head--holy affections enable us
   to see and, as far as possible, to understand Divine things. I pray
   that in each one of us the eyes of our heart may be enlightened so that
   we may know spiritual things as they are best known.

   Now, the prayer of our text was offered for Christians--for converted
   persons, for those who had faith in Christ Jesus and love to all the
   saints--yet Paul says that he never ceased to pray that their eyes
   might be enlightened. Yes, Brothers and Sisters, he who sees most needs
   to have his eyes enlightened to see more, for how little as yet of the
   Glory of God have any of us beheld? Even that favored pilgrim who has
   been led by the shepherds to the top of Mount Clear, to stand there
   with telescopic glass and gaze into the glories of Immanuel's land has
   yet only begun to perceive the things which God has prepared for them
   that love Him!

   I pray God that if we already see, we may see more, until our eyes
   shall be so strengthened that the light of the New Jerusalem shall not
   be too strong for us, but amid the splendor of God which outshines the
   sun, we shall find ourselves at home. But if Believers need to have
   their eyes enlightened, how much more must those who are unconverted?
   They are altogether blind and, consequently, their need of
   enlightenment is far greater. They were born blind and the god of this
   world takes care to further darken their minds. Around them there
   broods a sevenfold midnight, the gloom of spiritual death. "They meet
   with darkness in the daytime and grope in the noonday as in the night."

   O blind eyes, may Jesus touch you! May the Spirit bring His sacred eye
   salve to make you see and, tonight, though it is not ours to give you
   eyes, we will tell you what is to be seen, hoping that, perhaps, while
   we give the description, God may give you eyes with which to verify our
   report. Perhaps even the reporting of these things may set you longing
   for them and, when you have but a longing, God will hear you! If that
   longing is turned into a prayer and that prayer is kindled by a spark
   of faith, that longing shall be the beginning of light to your soul and
   you shall see the salvation of

   God!

   Tonight, then, there are two things we shall ask about--what things are
   to be seen and known according to the text? And, secondly, why it is
   our anxious desire that every person here should see and know these
   things?

   I. First, then, WHAT IS TO BE SEEN AND KNOWN ACCORDING TO THE TEXT?
   When you heard me read it, you must have noticed that it contains three
   "whats." "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may
   know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory
   of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of
   His power toward us who believe." Upon these three "whats" I shall try
   to speak tonight--may the Holy Spirit speak through me to all your
   souls.

   Our first point is, "What is the hope of His calling?" A great many
   persons never think about religion because they cannot believe that
   there is much in it. If they had half an idea of what is to be gained
   by it, even now, and of the unspeakable blessedness which will come of
   it throughout eternity, surely their own desire to benefit themselves
   would incline them diligently to consider it even if they went no
   further. So promising a matter is at least worth looking into, for it
   would be a great pity to miss present and eternal happiness if it can
   be had. But no, they suppose it to be a very small and trifling thing,
   fit only for the thoughts of priests and women and such weak folk--and
   so they neglect it, despise it and look after other business.

   Tonight, while I try to tell what is the hope of the Christian man's
   calling, I boldly claim your best consideration! If the preacher may
   not request it on his own account, he may assuredly ask it on the
   ground that his theme deserves it. Perhaps while we are speaking of the
   worth of this hope and you are lending an attentive ear, the Lord may
   lead you to seek His face. Is it not written, "Incline your ear and
   come unto Me, hear and your soul shall live"? Many a man has been
   tempted to start upon a voyage by hearing much of the land to which he
   sails. Praise his goods and you will find buyers for the merchant. Such
   is our desire at this time--we would so speak of the hope of our
   calling as to allure those who are eager after sweets to taste and see
   that the Lord is good!

   The idea of the text seems to me to be illustrated well by the
   patriarch Abraham. Abraham was living in his father's house in Ur of
   the Chaldees when a call came to him. That call came from God. He was
   to separate himself entirely and to get away to a land which he had
   never seen. What was the hope of that calling? It was the hope that God
   would give him a seed and give to that seed a land to dwell in. Thus
   spoke the Lord unto him--"I will make of you a great nation and I will
   bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing: and I
   will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in
   you shall all families of the earth be blessed."

   The great nation which should spring from him would possess the land in
   which he was to wander as a pilgrim and a stranger, according to the
   Word of the Lord--"For all the land which you see, to you will I give
   it, and to your seed forever." For the sake of that hope Abraham
   forsook everything and dwelt in tents, a pilgrim and a sojourner with
   God, living entirely by faith, but living grandly and sublimely--and
   thus becoming the father of all Believers throughout all ages, greater
   than a prince among the sons of men.

   Now, there comes to every man who is a true Christian, a call from God.
   We speak of it by the name of, "effectual calling." The Spirit of God
   personally applies the Truth of Scripture to the heart and makes the
   chosen man to feel that it belongs to him. The Believer perceives that
   he is separated from others by the Sovereign Grace of God and that,
   therefore, he must come out from the world and no longer live according
   to the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears, but by faith upon
   God as seeing Him who is invisible.

   This makes the Believer very different from the rest of mankind. Those
   who walk by sight do not understand him. They generally misrepresent
   him and frequently they hate him--but he is content to be unknown, for
   he remembers it is written, "You are dead and your life is hid with
   Christ in God." "Therefore the world knows us not because it knew Him
   not." But what is the prospect which leads the Believer to this life?
   What is the hope of his calling? Brothers and Sisters, let me describe
   the hope of those of us who have come out to walk by faith in Christ
   Jesus!

   We have already obtained abundantly enough to reward us for obedience
   to the call and, even if nothing were shut up in the closed hand of
   Hope, her open hand has greatly enriched us! Christian, you already
   have in possession the forgiveness of your sins, acceptance in Christ,
   adoption into the Divine family and the nature, rank and rights of a
   child of God! You already possess that which makes you among the
   happiest of mankind and you often feel that if it should turn out that
   there is no hereafter--and if you should die like a dog--yet still your
   faith in God has given you such consolation and such strength, such
   peace and such joy that you would bless God that ever you had it! Our
   hope has not injured us either as to character or to happiness and even
   if it turned out to be false, we are at least as well off as the
   unbeliever!

   Still, our main possession lies in hope. We carry a bag of spending
   money in our hands, but the bulk of our wealth is deposited in the Bank
   of Hope. What, then, is the Christian's hope? Well, first, he hopes and
   believes that he shall be under Divine protection forever and ever;
   that he shall be the object of Divine Love time out of mind and when
   time shall be no more. He hopes that all things shall work together for
   his good in the future as he perceives they have done in the past and
   as he is persuaded they are doing now. He expects a stormy voyage, but
   because Christ is at the helm, he hopes to come to the fair haven at
   last.

   He expects to be tempted, but he hopes to be upheld. He expects to be
   slandered, but he hopes to be cleared. He expects to be tried, but he
   hopes to triumph. Sustained by this hope he dreads no labors and fears
   no difficulties--

   "He holds no parley with unmanly fears, Where duty bids he confidently
   steers. Faces a thousand dangers at her call, And, hoping in his God,
   surmounts them all." His hope is that all through life, whether that is
   long or short, (and he has not much care about the number of his
   years), underneath him will be the everlasting arms! He hopes that the
   Lord will be his shepherd and he shall not want. He hopes that goodness
   and mercy will follow him all the days of his life. Therefore he is not
   afraid to die, for then he expects to come into actual possession of
   his best possessions!

   He looks for his best things last. He believes that when it is time for
   him to depart, Jesus will come and meet him-- and the thought of that
   meeting puts aside all idea of the grim terrors of the grave! His hope
   leaps over the grave and lands him in a glorious resurrection! Does not
   the hope of our calling open grandly? We hope, also, and have good
   ground for it, that after death at the Day of Judgment we shall have,
   as we believe we have now, a perfect justification! A dread assize will
   be held. Upon a great White Throne reflecting all things and brilliant
   with its purity, Jesus the Judge of all will sit and He shall separate
   the mass of mankind into two portions as a shepherd divides the sheep
   from the goats.

   We know that in that day He will discern those who believed in Him and
   trusted Him and obeyed Him and sought to be like He and we hope that we
   shall be of that blessed number! For us there shall be no sentence of
   condemnation, for it is written, "There is therefore now no
   condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." We hope for a sentence
   of acquittal and we, therefore, challenge the judgment which others
   dread. Clothed with a Divine Righteousness, we await, with expectation,
   the day which shall make the impenitent wish that they had never been
   born! Hope takes into her consideration the most dreaded of all events
   and weaves it into her song. The end of all things is not the end of
   hope! Is not this brave hoping?

   The hope of a man who sings on forever--living in the circle of Divine
   Love, dying beneath the protection of Divine Power and abiding in the
   judgment justified by Divine Justice--accepted in the Beloved and
   beloved of the Father! What else can we hope for? We hope for absolute
   perfection! The God who has changed our hearts will continue the good
   work of sanctification till He has taken every sin out of us, every
   desire for sin, every possibility of sin! We expect Him to renew our
   minds and prevent our making so many mistakes in judgment. We expect
   Him to renew our hearts that they may be wholly set on Divine and
   heavenly things! We expect Him to renew our entire spirit till, when
   the prince of this world comes, he shall find nothing in us--no tinder
   for his sparks, no corruption in which to sow his evil seed. We hope to
   be perfect, even as God is perfect. As Adam, when he came from his
   Maker's hand, so shall we be and something more, for we shall possess a
   life in Christ which our unfallen progenitor knew not in Paradise.

   We hope, also, that this body of ours will be perfected. It will lie in
   the grave and disintegrate into dust unless our Lord Jesus should come
   before our death--of this we make small account--having no very intense
   desire to avoid the

   grave wherein our glorious Redeemer lay! We have nothing to lose, but
   much to gain by dying, for therein we put off our mortality that at the
   Resurrection we may put on immortality--

   "Corruption, earth, and worms

   Shall but refine this flesh,

   Till when the Lord, our Savior, comes

   We put it on afresh."

   We expect that then our body shall be raised--changed, but still the
   same as to identity. For us is the promise of the Scripture--"I will
   ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from
   death." When our body awakes, though sown in corruption, it shall be
   raised in incorruption! Though sown in weakness it shall be raised in
   power! Though sown a body only fit for the soul, it shall be raised a
   body meet for our highest nature, even for our spirit!

   As we have borne the image of the earthly we shall also bear the image
   of the heavenly. Our body shall be fashioned like unto the body of
   Jesus Christ Himself! We are looking forward to a time when we shall
   have done with aches and pains, with weariness and decay, with old age
   and its infirmities and with all liability to death. We expect
   perpetual youth to be our portion and that joy shall thrill through
   every nerve and sinew of our frame, which now, alas, so often becomes
   the theater of agony! Yes, this is our hope--perfection of spirit, soul
   and body--for Christ has redeemed the whole and He will have the whole
   to be His inheritance! And in the whole of our manhood His glorious
   image shall be reflected forever!

   What else is the hope of our calling? Why, that being thus cleared in
   judgment and made absolutely perfect, we shall forever--for eternal
   duration is the glory of our heritage--we shall forever enjoy infinite
   happiness! We do not know what form, the joys of eternity will take,
   but they will take such form as shall make us the most happy. We shall
   have Heaven's best, yes God's best, and what that is, who among us can
   guess, though he uses all his knowledge and gives the reins to his
   expectancy? "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into
   the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love
   Him; but He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit."

   And, as far as we understand that Revelation, we are taught by it that
   we shall enter into a state of complete rest and perfect peace; a state
   of holy delight and of serene and blissful activity; a state of perfect
   praise; a state of satisfaction; a state, probably, of progress, but
   still of completeness at every inch of the road; a state in which we
   shall be as happy as we are capable of being, every vessel, little or
   great, being filled to the brim! We shall be supremely blessed, for at
   the right hand of God there are pleasures forevermore. This is the hope
   of our calling!

   Nor even now have we come to an end, for something more yet remains.
   You say, "Can there be more?" Yes, we expect to be forever in a
   condition of power, honor and in relationship to God. We hope to be
   brought so near to God that all the universe shall distinctly see that
   we are courtiers of the palace of the great King, yes, princes of the
   blood royal of the skies! We shall be very near to God, for we shall be
   with Jesus where He is and sit upon His throne. We shall serve our God
   and see His face while we serve Him--and His Glory will be reflected
   upon us and from us--and we shall be His dear sons and daughters in
   Christ Jesus forever and ever!

   There is not an angel in Heaven with whom the meanest saint might wish
   to change estates, for though the angels excel us, now, we shall
   certainly excel them in the world to come--we shall be nearer the
   Eternal Throne than any one of them, inasmuch as Christ Jesus is our
   brother and not the brother of angels. He is God-and-Man in one Person
   and there was never God and angel in the same union. We shall be next
   to the Creator--let us speak it with bated breath but leaping heart--we
   shall be next to the eternal God, one with His only-begotten Son, who
   is one with Himself! This is the hope of our calling!

   Oh Sirs, is not this worth having? Is not this worth striving for? When
   you count the cost, what cost is worth the counting? Might not a man,
   for this, lay down all that he has, yes, and his life, also, to keep
   this pearl of great price? And what if you should miss it? What if you
   should miss it? What if it could be proven, as it never will be, that
   there are no pains of Hell and no eternal wrath--yet is this not
   enough--to have lost this immortality of glory, this immortality of
   honor and of likeness to God? This pain of loss--may none of us ever
   incur it--for it is Hell to lose Heaven! It is infinite misery to miss
   infinite happiness! To be within an inch of an immortality of bliss and
   honor and to let it slip by--will not this be an endless torment to the
   soul?

   To clutch the pleasures of an hour, all earth-stained as they are,
   shall we renounce the ecstasies of eternity? To snatch at bubbles which
   break before we can grasp them, shall we let unfading glories go? For
   the mere sake of dwelling at ease

   by escaping thought shall we let boundless blessings run by us,
   counting ourselves unworthy of them and so losing them? I pray that you
   may know "what is the hope of His calling" and that when you know it,
   you may cry, "I will have it! If it is to be had, by God's Grace, I
   will have it now!" So may it be, for Christ's sake.

   And now I turn to the second, "what," of the text and that is more
   marvelous, still! I am sure I cannot preach the text out--it is too
   great for me, but here it is--"That you may know what are the riches of
   the glory of His inheritance in the saints." Mark well that God's
   people are, by Grace, made to be His saints, His select, His holy
   ones--and then they are viewed as His inheritance! The whole world is
   God's. The cattle on a thousand hills and all lands and seas are His
   and yonder starry worlds which in profusion are sown in space are all
   His! But He deigns to call sanctified men and women His inheritance in
   a special sense! They are His peculiar treasure, His crown jewels, dear
   and precious to Him. "The Lord's portion is His people, Jacob is the
   lot of His inheritance."

   I want you to think of this grand Truth of God, because practical
   results flow from it. If you and I are believers in Jesus, we are God's
   inheritance--and the Lord has what the Apostle calls, "the riches of
   the glory of His inheritance in the saints." But how can God make
   riches out of poor men and women? They are believers in Jesus, but what
   is there in them that He counts to be riches--riches of glory, too? We
   answer, first, He has spent riches of love upon them, for He loves
   them, poor as they are and sick and sorry as they often are! He loved
   them from before the foundation of the world--and you know how precious
   a thing becomes when you love it. It is a beloved keepsake and you
   would not part with it for a mint of gold. It may have little intrinsic
   value, but if you have long set your heart upon it, how dear it becomes
   to you.

   God has loved His people so long and so intensely with such an
   unbounded love that there is a wealth in them to His heart! Oh, that we
   knew something of "the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
   saints" as measured by the gauge of love! Moreover, the Lord has spent
   a wealth of wisdom on His saints. A material may be almost valueless at
   first, but when a wise man has exercised his thought and skill upon it,
   the value may be enhanced a thousand-fold. But God has thought of His
   saints forever! Eternal Wisdom found her delights with the sons of men
   and occupied herself on their behalf before the foundation of the
   world! "How precious, also, are Your thoughts unto me, O God, how great
   is the sum of them!"

   God's wisdom has exhibited itself at its full in the plan of
   redemption. I scarcely hear of His deliberating for any purpose except
   for the salvation of His people, but in that matter we continually read
   of, "the counsel of His will," to show us that, speaking after the
   manner of man, the Lord has reasoned within Himself how best to save
   His own people. His thoughts of wisdom and prudence have been exercised
   upon His saints and, therefore, it is that there is a riches of glory
   about them. What is more, when the riches of His love and of His wisdom
   had been expended, it came to pass that it was necessary that He should
   spend a life of suffering upon them.

   Look to the glorious landscapes of rock and hill and dale and
   mountain--turn your eyes from grassy slope to snowy summit sparkling in
   the sun--and while you admire all things, remember that God has
   costlier works than these! None of these cost the Lord an Incarnation
   and a death! Look, if you will, to all the majestic halls of Heaven
   where the lamps of Glory are lit with supernal splendor, but neither
   angel, nor cherubim, nor seraphim cost their Lord bloody sweat! Then
   look at His people--view "His inheritance in the saints"--for it is
   there that the Son of God, taking upon Himself human nature, sighed and
   groaned and sweat great drops of blood and felt the agonies of death!

   As the Lord looks over all that He has made, He sees nothing that has
   cost Him suffering and death till He comes to His people! Jesus knows
   what the saints cost Him. He estimates them at a rate usual among men,
   for men say, "The price is what it will fetch," and Jesus knows what
   His people fetched when He redeemed them by giving Himself for them!
   Measured by that standard, God has, indeed, riches of glory in His
   inheritance in the saints! And then there comes great glory to God from
   the workmanship which He puts into His people.

   When He made the world it was with a voice. "He spoke, and it was
   done." When He made the things that are, He had but to will and they
   stood forth--but in the making of a Christian it needs the labor of the
   Godhead--Father, Son and Holy Spirit must all work to create a new
   creature in Christ Jesus! The Father must beget, the Son must redeem,
   the Spirit must regenerate--and when this is done, the Godhead's
   Omnipotence must be put forth to keep a Christian alive and to perfect
   him and present him "faultless before the Presence of God with
   exceeding joy." An artisan can put into a small piece of iron of no
   worth at all so much labor that it shall be valued at scores of
   pounds--and the Triune God can

   expend so much workmanship upon our poor nature that a man shall be
   more precious than the gold of Ophir! Valued thus, the Lord may well
   speak of "the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints."

   Now, as I desire, if I can, to lead you into a sense of this glory for
   a minute, I should like you to accompany me while I speak somewhat
   carefully but yet enthusiastically about what the Christian becomes
   when God has perfected His work upon him. Notice, then, that when, at
   the last, the Believer shall have been perfected by the work of the
   Spirit, as he will be, man will be an extraordinary creature! Listen!
   God has made matter and upon matter has impressed His will and from the
   tiniest drop to the mightiest orb matter never disobeys the Law which
   God imposes upon it. This is a great triumph. Call it, "the law of
   gravitation," or whatever you will, it is quite certain that all
   inanimate nature is put under law by the Most High and that it never
   rebels!

   Huge as this great universe is, God has as complete power over it as
   you have over the ball which you toss in your hand. This is glorious,
   but still it is small glory compared with that which God obtains from
   His people when they arrive at Heaven, for they will not be merely
   dead, inert matter governed by laws, but they will be full of life and
   moral freedom--and yet they will be as completely subject to the Divine
   mind as are the atoms of matter. This will be an achievement,
   indeed--to have produced free agents which will be under no control of
   force, but perfectly at liberty and yet will be forever absolutely
   obedient to the Divine will!

   Listen again. The perfected saints will be creatures of a very peculiar
   form, for they will not be pure spirit, dissociated from matter. I
   understand yonder spirits before the Throne standing in their obedience
   because they have no materialism to hamper them and drag them down.
   Angels are spirits without material bodies and they obey God, listening
   to His commands, but a perfected saint is a creature in which the
   material is linked with the spiritual! Such are we now and I suppose,
   in a measure, such shall we abide--and yet there will be no sin in us,
   no violation of the Divine command! Man is a strange mixture. He is
   next akin to Deity and yet he is brother to the worm!

   We are partakers of the Divine Nature and the children of God--and yet
   as to our bodies we are linked to rocks and stones and grosser things.
   Man renewed by Grace touches the center in Christ Jesus, but being man
   he sweeps the circumference of creatureship and includes within himself
   a summary of the whole creation. He has been called a microcosm, or a
   little world and so, indeed, he is. Such a creature God is now
   perfecting. A being in whom dust and Deity each own a kindred. Such a
   being, purified from taint of evil, shall greatly glorify God!

   Think, again, dear Friends. There once stood a bright spirit in Heaven,
   leader of the angels, but the place was too high for him and the Son of
   the Morning fell from Heaven and dragged others with him. God is
   making, by His Grace, beings who will stand next to His Throne, but
   will remain forever reverently loyal. They will be peers in His
   kingdom, but they will never be proud or ambitious. We, my Brethren,
   though in full possession of our free agency, shall never fall from our
   eternal glory, but shall be forever faithful! We shall have passed
   through such an experience of sin; we shall so intensely feel our
   indebtedness to Grace; we shall so fervently love the dear Redeemer
   that we shall cast our crowns at His feet and we shall ascribe our joy
   to Him, alone, and so shall never dream of revolting from Him.

   God is thus making beings whom it will be safe to exalt to honors so
   near His own--will not this be a triumph of power and goodness? Can you
   think of it, that you will be one of such favored creatures, if indeed
   you are a Believer? These beings will have known evil. Think of that!
   The unfallen angels have never actually known evil, but in restored man
   shall be fulfilled the devil's lie made into God's truth--"You shall be
   as gods, knowing good and evil." They shall hate evil as the burnt
   child dreads fire and they shall love righteousness because by
   righteousness they have been saved-- and in righteousness they have
   been created anew! How wonderful will that creature be which has known
   sin and remains a free agent--and yet will never yield to folly but
   abide forever in holiness held by bonds of love!

   Oh, when I think of the destiny of a child of God, my eyes sparkle, but
   my tongue refuses to utter what I think! What a being are you, O man!
   What are you that God should visit you? He has made you "a little lower
   than the angels," but in Christ Jesus He has crowned you with glory and
   honor and given you dominion over all the works of His hands, yes, in
   Christ He has raised you up and made you to sit with Him in the
   heavenly places, far above principalities and powers and your time to
   reign and triumph forever is hard at hand! How glorious is God in His
   people! God in Christ Jesus, seen in the Church, who is like unto you?

   Now, the point is that if this is the riches of God's Glory in His
   inheritance in the saints, you may read it in another way and say,
   "This is the riches of our inheritance, too, for what shall we be if
   God is to have us for an inheritance?" Will

   you miss it? Will you miss it? Will you miss it? If this is a dream, I
   could wish to die rather than have the illusion dispelled! But it is
   fact, as God's Word is true! Will you miss it, then? Oh, if there were
   crowns to be scrambled for, most men are ambitious enough to seek for
   one, though it might be a curse to them! If there is gold, or if there
   is fame, men have but to hear the chink of the metal or the blast of
   the trumpet and many stir themselves to win! But here is honor, glory
   and immortality in Christ--and it is to be had for the asking, it is to
   be had by simply believing and trusting in Jesus Christ--will you have
   it? Oh, foolish hand that is not stretched out to receive it! Oh,
   foolish heart that does not pray for it! God grant you to know what is
   the "riches of His inheritance in the saints," that you may seek to be
   a part in that inheritance and seek it now!

   Now, the third "what"--" What is the exceeding greatness of His power
   toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power,
   which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set
   Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places." I thought I heard
   somebody saying, "Woe is me! Woe is me! I hear of what man may be. I
   hear of what God may make of him, but, woe is me--it will never come to
   my lot! I am so weak, so fickle, so irresolute, so frail! Woe is me! I
   am undone. I have no strength!"

   Now, the third "what" is this--"that you may know what is the exceeding
   greatness of His power toward us, who believe." Now, learn this and
   know it, that in the conversion, preservation and salvation of any one
   person, God exhibits as great a power as He manifested when He raised
   Jesus Christ from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the
   heavenly places! The salvation of no man in the world is by his own
   strength. It is by the power of God, "for we are His workmanship." This
   fact should greatly relieve you who are discouraged--the thing is
   impossible with you--but it is not impossible, or even difficult with
   God! He that has worked us to the same thing is God and He is quite as
   able to work it in you, my dear Hearer, as to work it in the Apostle
   Paul himself. God can do all things!

   Now, when our Lord Jesus lay in the tomb, He was dead, but God
   quickened Him. Jesus was imprisoned in the sepulcher and the stone at
   the grave's mouth was sealed and guarded--but the stone was rolled
   away, the guards were frightened and the Lord of Life rose from among
   the dead! Every sinner is shut up in the tomb of sin by evil habits,
   but Christ can roll away the stone and the sinner can come forth a
   living man! Our Lord continued on earth among men for several days and,
   despite human enmity, no man hurt Him, for He had received a Life and a
   Glory which they could not approach. The saints also abide here among
   men and many seek to destroy them, but God has given them a new life
   which can never be destroyed, for He has hedged it about from all its
   adversaries.

   All the powers of darkness fought against the Lord Jesus Christ, but,
   through the power of God, He conquered them all. I think I see Him,
   now, ascending up on high leading captivity captive in the power of
   God. So, my Brothers and Sisters, you will be opposed by the powers of
   darkness and by your own evil heart, but you shall conquer, for God
   will put forth the same power in you which He manifested in His dear
   Son and you, too, shall lead captivity captive! I see the Lord Jesus
   entering the pearly gates and climbing to His Throne. There He sits and
   none can bring Him down! And you, too, believing in Jesus, shall have
   the same power to tread down all your foes, your sins, your
   temptations, till you shall rise and sit where Jesus sits at the right
   hand of God!

   The very same power which raised Christ is waiting to raise the drunk
   from his drunkenness; to raise the thief from his dishonesty; to raise
   the Pharisee from his self-righteousness and to raise the Sadducee from
   his unbelief. God has power among the sons of men and this power He
   puts forth in making them to be a people that shall show forth His
   praise. Oh, that you knew what is the exceeding greatness of His power
   toward us who believe, because then you would fling away despair. There
   remains nothing for you in this case but to submit to the Divine power!
   God will work in you--be willing to be worked upon!

   O Spirit of the Lord, work in our hearers this good will! Drop
   yourselves like plastic clay at the Potter's feet and He will put you
   on the wheel and mold you at His pleasure. Be willing, it is all He
   asks you--be trustful, it is all His Gospel requires of you and,
   indeed, both will and trust He gives you! "If you are willing and
   obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." Be willing to let go of
   the sin which ruins you! Be willing to learn the Truth of God which
   will renew you! Be willing to sit at Jesus' feet; be willing to accept
   a finished salvation at His hands and all the power that is needed to
   lift you from this place to the starry gates of Heaven is waiting to be
   shed upon you! God give you to know this and so to rest in Jesus and be
   saved!

   II. The last word is to be upon the second head--WHY WE WISH YOU TO SEE
   AND KNOW ALL THIS. I have, in effect, been all along enforcing this
   second head as the sermon has progressed and so I shall not need to
   detain you many minutes, except with a practical recapitulation. We
   want you to know the hope of His calling that you may not neglect it,
   nor set anything in competition with it. I tried, as my poor words
   enabled me to tell you, what a hope the calling of God gives the
   Christian. I charge you, do not let it go! I shall probably never meet
   the most of you again and if any shall say to you

   afterwards, "Well, what did the man say?" I would like you to be
   compelled to say, "He said this--that there is a future before us of
   such Glory that he charged us not to lose it. There are the
   possibilities of such an intense delight forever and ever that he
   besought us to ensure that delight by accepting Christ and His way of
   salvation."

   Next we want you to believe the riches of the glory of His inheritance
   in the saints, that you may see where your hope lies. Your hope lies in
   not being your own any more, but in being the Lord's and so realizing
   "the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints." The
   saints belong to their Lord--your salvation will be found in
   experimentally knowing that you are not your own because you are bought
   with a price--yes, in admitting at this moment that your honor and
   happiness are found in being the Lord's! If you are your own, you will
   spend yourself and be ruined--but if you are Christ's--He will take
   care of you. Oh, if I thought that I had a hair of this head that
   belonged to only myself, I would tear it out! But to be owned by Jesus
   altogether--spirit, soul and body--to be Christ's man in the entireness
   of my being, this, I say, is glory, immortality and eternal life! Be
   your own, and you will be lost! Be Christ's and you are saved!

   The closing thought is this. We want you to know the exceeding
   greatness of God's power that you may not doubt, or despond, or
   despair, but come now and cast yourselves upon the Incarnate God and
   let Him save you! Yield yourselves unto Him that the great Glory of His
   power may be manifest in you as in the rest of His people. I don't want
   you to go until you have really hidden these things in your hearts to
   ponder them in the days to come. I set bread before you--do not merely
   look at it, but eat a portion now and carry the rest home to eat in
   secret! Our preaching is often too much like a fiddler's playing.
   People come to see how it is done and then they pass round the
   question, "What did you think of him?"

   Now, I do not care two straws what you think of me, but I do care a
   whole world what you think of Christ and of yourselves and of your
   future state! I pray you forget the way in which I put things, for that
   may be very blundering and faulty! But if there is anything in the
   things, themselves, consider them with care. If you judge the Bible to
   be a fraud and that there is no Heaven to be had, then go--sport and
   laugh as you please--for you will only act consistently with your
   erroneous imagination! But if you believe God's Word to be true and
   that there is a glorious hope connected with the Christian's high
   calling, then in the name of prudence and common sense why do you not
   seek it? Give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids till
   you find it!

   I ask the Lord's people here present and I know that there are many
   such in the audience tonight, to pray that this appeal may have an
   effect upon many in this great crowd--that they may seek the Lord at
   once with full purpose of heart. O Spirit of God, work it, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ephesians 1; 2:1 HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--176, 757, 728.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   DEAR FRIENDS--Accept my most loving salutations. May all Grace abound
   towards each one of you and may your joy and peace be multiplied
   thereby. I feel daily improving in health and strength; only my knees
   remain feeble. I still adhere to my determination, if the Lord wills,
   to preach on Lord's-Day, April 13. May His Presence, then, be with us.
   I earnestly entreat the prayers of all who know how to plead with God
   that when I return among you it may be in the fullness of the power of
   the Holy Spirit and that my usefulness may be increased a hundredfold.
   Surely all the suffering I have endured and all the rest I have enjoyed
   should bring forth some fruit unto God! Yet so feeble are we that we
   profit nothing unless the Spirit of the Lord quickens us. By all the
   affectionate interest which you have up to now shown in my ministry,
   intercede for me, I beseech you, that I may yet be made a blessing to
   myriads,

   Yours in heartiest love, C.H. SPURGEON

   Mentone, March 27, 1879
     __________________________________________________________________

The Oil and the Vessels

   (No. 1467A)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto
   her son, Bring me another vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a
   vessel more. And the oil ceased."

   2 Kings 4:6.

   So long as there were vessels to be filled, the miraculous flow of oil
   continued and it only ceased when there were no more jars to contain
   it. The Prophet spoke no word to stop the multiplying process and the
   Lord did not set any boundary to the bountiful marvel--the poor widow
   was not lacking faith in God, but in her supply of empty vessels!
   Nothing else in the universe restrained the flow of oil, but the need
   of vessels to receive the oil stopped it at once. The vessels failed
   before the oil--our powers of receiving will give out long before God's
   power of bestowing! This is true in reference to our PROVIDENTIAL
   CIRCUMSTANCES. So long as we have needs, we shall have supplies, and we
   shall find our necessities exhausted far sooner than the Divine bounty.

   In the wilderness there fell more manna than the tribes could eat and
   there flowed more water than the hosts could drink. And as long as they
   were in a desert land and required this provision, it was given to
   them, but when they reached Canaan and fed on the old corn of the land,
   the special supplies ceased--but not till then. In the same manner the
   Lord will feed His people till they need no more. The widow's apparent
   source of supply was only one pot of oil, but this continued to stream
   forth as vessel by vessel was placed underneath it! So shall the little
   with which the Lord endows His poor people continue to be sufficient
   from day to day, till the last day of life, like the last vessel, shall
   have been filled.

   Some are not content with this, but would have the oil run beyond the
   last vessel, even after their deaths, never resting till they have
   hoarded their thousands and have buried their hearts in gold dust. If
   the oil will but run till the last vessel is full, what more do we
   need? If Providence secures us food and raiment till we end this mortal
   life, what more can we require? Doubtless in the dispensation of wealth
   and other talents to His servants, the Lord considers their capacities.
   If they had more vessels they should have more oil. The infinitely wise
   God knows that it is better for some men to be poor than rich--they
   would not be able to bear prosperity and so the oil does not flow,
   because there is not a vessel to

   fill.

   If we are able to receive an earthly gift, it will then be a good thing
   to us and the Lord has declared that He will not withhold any good
   thing from those who walk uprightly. But a talent which we could not
   receive so as to use it properly would be only a curse to us and,
   therefore, He does not burden us with it. All that we can hold we shall
   have--all that we really need; all that we shall be sure to employ to
   His Glory; all that will minister to our highest good--God will pour
   forth from His inexhaustible fullness and only when He sees that the
   gifts would be wasted by becoming superfluities, or burdensome
   responsibilities, or occasions for temptation, will He restrain His
   power and the oil shall cease.

   Rest assured that God's bounty will keep pace with your true capacity
   and, "verily you shall be fed." The same principle holds good with
   regard to THE BESTOWAL OF SAVING GRACE. In a congregation, the Gospel
   is as the pot of oil and those who receive from it are needy souls,
   desirous of the Grace of God. Of these we have always too few in our
   assemblies. Many are the vessels of oil, filled to the brim and
   fastened down--the full Pharisee, the self-satisfied professor and the
   proud worldling are such--for these the miracle of Grace has no
   multiplying power for they are ready to overflow even now. A full
   Christ is for empty sinners and for empty sinners only! As long as
   there is a really empty soul in a congregation, the Word of God will go
   forth as a blessing, but no longer.

   It is not our emptiness, but our fullness which can hinder the
   outgoings of Free Grace. While there is one soul conscious of sin and
   eager for pardon, Grace will flow. Yes, while there is one heart weary
   of indifference and anxious to be wounded, Grace will flow. "I feel,"
   says one, "exceedingly unfit to be saved." You are evidently empty and
   there is room in you for the oil of Grace. "Alas," cries a second, "I
   feel nothing at all! Even my own unfitness does not distress

   me." This only shows how utterly empty you are and in you, also, the
   oil will find space for its flow. "Ah." sighs a third, "I have become
   skeptical! Unbelief has made me hard as the nether millstone." In you,
   also, there is large storage for Grace.

   Only be willing to receive! Stand like the oil jar with opened mouth,
   waiting for the oil to pour forth from the miraculous pot. If the Lord
   has made you willing to receive, He will not be long before He has
   given you Grace upon Grace. O that we could meet with more emptied
   souls! Why should the Lord's wonders be cut short for lack of persons
   who need to have them worked upon them? Are there no needy souls about?
   Have all men waxed rich, or is it a vain presumption which possesses so
   many hearts?

   Hidden away in corners where they weep their eyes out because they
   cannot weep and break their hearts because their hearts will not
   break--and cry before the Lord because they feel they cannot pray, or
   feel, or hate sin--hidden away in corners, I say, there are truly empty
   souls and for these the heavenly oil is still running, is running now!
   "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they
   shall be filled." No exception in the narrative before us was taken to
   any vessel so long as it was empty. There was one qualification and
   only one--the power to receive indicated by emptiness. Come, then, you
   needy souls, come to the eternal Fountain and receive a wealth of
   blessing, freely given because you need it and because the Lord Jesus
   loves to bestow it!

   The same is true with regard to OTHER SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS. All fullness
   dwells in our Lord Jesus and, as He needs not Grace for Himself, it is
   stored up in Him that He may give it out to Believers. The saints with
   one voice confess, "Of His fullness have we all received." The limit of
   His outpouring is our capacity to receive and that limit is often set
   by our faithless prayers--"we have not because we ask not, or because
   we ask amiss." If our desires were more expanded our receipts would be
   more extended. We fail to bring empty vessels and, therefore, the oil
   is stopped. We do not sufficiently see our poverty and do not,
   therefore, enlarge our longings. O for a heart insatiable for Christ, a
   soul more greedy than the grave itself which is never satisfied! Then
   would rivers of the heavenly oil flow in upon us and we should be
   filled with all the fullness of God.

   Frequently we limit the Holy One of Israel by our unbelief. Nothing
   hinders Grace like this impoverishing vice. "He did not many mighty
   works there because of their unbelief." Unbelief declares it to be
   impossible that more oil should come from the oil pot and so refuses to
   bring more vessels under the pretense of a humble fear of presumption
   and thus robbing the soul and dishonoring the Lord. Shame on you, you
   mother of famine, you drier up of flowing wells! What shall be done
   unto you, you lying traitor! What coals of juniper are fierce enough
   for you, you wicked unbelief? We mourn that our joy is departed, that
   our graces languish, that our usefulness is restrained. Whose fault is
   this? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings? No,
   verily, we have stopped, ourselves, the bottles of Heaven! May infinite
   Mercy save us from ourselves and lead us, now, to "bring here vessels,
   even empty vessels not a few."

   Pride also has a horrible power to stop the Divinely-given oil. When on
   our knees we feel no pressing necessity, no urgent need, no special
   danger and, on the contrary, we feel we are rich and increased in goods
   and have need of nothing, do we wonder, then, that we are not refreshed
   and feel no delight in the holy exercise? Have we not heard the Lord
   saying, "Bring Me another vessel"? And as we have answered, "There are
   no more vessels," can we be surprised that the oil is ceased? May the
   Lord save us from the parching influence of conceit! It will turn an
   Eden into a wilderness! Poverty of soul leads to fullness, but carnal
   security creates barrenness! The Holy Spirit delights to comfort every
   hungry heart, but the full soul loathes the honeycomb of the Spirit's
   consolations and leaves it to itself till it is famished and cries out
   for heavenly bread.

   Of this one thing let us be sure--there is an abundance of Grace to be
   had as long as we hunger and thirst after it-- and never shall a single
   willing heart be forced to cry, "The oil is ceased," so long as it has
   an empty vessel to bring. The same Truth of God will be proved in
   reference to THE PURPOSES OF GRACE IN THE WORLD. The fullness of Divine
   Grace will be equal to every demand upon it till the end of time. Men
   will never be saved apart from the Atonement of our Lord Jesus, but
   never will that ransom price be found insufficient to redeem the souls
   that trust in the Redeemer--

   "Dear dyingLamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
   all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

   Neither will His intercession lose any of its prevalence for those who
   come to God by Him. To the last hour of time it shall never be said
   that a single sinner has sought His face in vain, or that an empty
   vessel has at last been found which Jesus cannot fill!

   The power of the Holy Spirit to convict, convert, console and sanctify
   shall also abide the same to the end of the age. Never will there be
   found a weeping penitent whom He cannot cheer with a lively hope and
   lead to Jesus for eternal salvation! Never will there be a struggling
   Believer whom He cannot lead on to certain and complete victory!
   Perfection, itself, He shall always be able to work in all the saints,
   even meetness for their holy heritage above. None of us should despond
   when we discover anew our own natural inability and deadness. Our hope
   was never based on created power--a lively hope has its foundation in
   the Omnipotence of the Holy Spirit--and that cannot be the subject of
   question or of change. For the salvation of all the elect, the sacred
   Trinity will work together till all shall be accomplished.

   Whatever remains behind as to the purposes of God, He has power to
   achieve. If there should stand before us a row of empty vessels bearing
   the names of Babylon overthrown, the Jews converted, the nations
   evangelized, the idols abolished and so forth, we must by no means be
   disheartened, for all these vessels of promise shall be filled in due
   time. The Church of the present day is feeble and her supplies are
   quite inadequate to the enterprise before her, yet as out of one pot of
   oil many vessels were filled which were far greater than itself--so by
   His poor and despised Church, through the foolishness of preaching--the
   Lord will fulfill His august designs and fill the universe with praise!
   "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give
   you the kingdom."

   With this assurance, believing men may boldly go forth among the
   heathen! The nations are empty vessels and there are not a few of them!
   God has given us His blessing upon our cruse of oil and all we have to
   do is to pour out and continue to pour out till there is not a vessel
   left. We are very far from that consummation--even in our congregations
   all are not saved--even in our families many are not converted! We
   cannot say, "there is not a vessel left," and, blessed be God, neither
   may we suspect that the oil will cease! With hopeful earnestness let us
   bring the empty vessels beneath the sacred outflow that they may be
   filled!

   How glorious will be the consummation when all the chosen shall be
   gathered in! Then there shall not remain a seeking soul to be saved,
   nor a praying heart to be comforted, nor a wandering sheep to be
   sought! Not a vessel shall be found throughout the universe needing to
   be filled and then shall the oil of mercy cease to flow and Justice,
   alone, hold her court. Woe unto the ungodly in that day, for then the
   empty vessels shall be broken to shivers! As they would not receive the
   oil of Love, they shall, each one, be filled with the wine of wrath!

   May infinite Grace preserve each one of us from such a terrible doom.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Two Sorts Of Hearers

   (No. 1467B)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But be you doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving
   yourselves. For if any is a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is
   like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholds
   himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man
   he was. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty, and
   continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the
   work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." James 1:22-25.

   JAMES has no speculations. "By their fruits you shall know them," seems
   to have taken possession of his mind and he is always demanding
   practical holiness. He is not satisfied with the buds of hearing--he
   wants the fruits of obedience! We need more of his practical spirit in
   this age, for there are certain ministers who are not content with
   sowing the old seed, the same seed which, from the hand of Apostles,
   confessors, fathers, reformers and martyrs produced a harvest unto God.
   They spend their time in speculating as to whether the seed of tares
   grown under certain circumstances may not bring forth wheat--whether,
   at any rate, good wheat would not be the better for the admixture of
   just a little sprinkling of tare seed!

   We need somebody to take these various theories, put them into a
   cauldron, boil them down and see what is the essential practical
   product of them. Some of you may have seen in the newspapers a short
   time ago an article which fastened itself upon my mind--an article with
   regard to the moral state of Germany. The writer, himself a German,
   says that the skepticism of the professed preachers of the Word of God,
   the continual doubts which have been suggested by scientific men and
   more especially by professedly religious men as to Revelation, have now
   produced upon the German nation the most frightful consequences.

   The picture which he gives makes us fear that our German friends are
   treading upon a volcano which may explode beneath their feet. The
   authority of the government has been so severely exercised that men are
   beginning to weary of it and, meanwhile, the authority of God has been
   put so much out of the question that the basis of society is
   undermined. I need not, however, ground my remarks upon that article,
   for the French Revolution at the end of the last century remains in
   history as an enduring warning as to the dread effects of philosophy
   when it has cast suspicion upon all religion and created a nation of
   infidels. I pray God that the same may not happen here, but the party
   of "modern thought" seem resolved upon repeating the experiment! So
   greatly is the just severity of God ignored and so trifling an evil is
   sin made out to be that if men were to be doers of what they hear and
   carry out what has been taught from certain professedly Christian
   pulpits, anarchy would be the result! Free-thinking always leads that
   way. God keep us from it!

   While preachers too often toy with preaching, how much there is among
   hearers of the same fashion? Hearing is often merely a critical
   exercise and the question after a sermon is not, "How was that Truth of
   God fitted to your case?" but, "How did you like him?" as if that had
   anything to do with it! When you hear music, do you ask, "How did you
   like the trumpet?" No, it is the music--not the instrument--that your
   mind thinks about! Yet many persons always consider the minister rather
   than his message. Many contrast one preacher with another when they
   should contrast themselves with the Divine Law. Thus hearing the Gospel
   is degraded into a pastime and judged to be little better than a
   theatrical entertainment.

   Such things must not be! Preachers must preach as for eternity and look
   for fruit--and hearers must carry out what they hear, or otherwise the
   sacred ordinance of preaching will cease to be the channel of blessing
   and will rather be an insult to God and a mockery to the souls of men!
   I shall, not, at great length, but I hope with much earnestness, speak
   of two classes of hearers--the unblessed class, and the second, the
   class who according to the text, are blessed in their deed.

   I. First, THE UNBLESSED CLASS. They are hearers, but they are described
   as hearers who are not doers. They hear--some of them pretty regularly,
   others of them only now and then just to while away an hour--and they
   hear with considerable attention because they appreciate good speaking.
   They are interested in doctrine, perhaps, having a little knowledge of
   the Christian system, and they like to discuss a point or two.
   Moreover, they are anxious to be able to say that they heard
   Such-and-Such preach, of whom his fame has gone abroad. But as to doing
   what they hear, that has not entered their minds.

   They have heard a sermon on repentance, but they have not repented.
   They have heard the Gospel cry, "Believe!" but they have not believed.
   They know that he who believes purges himself from his old sins, yet
   they have had no purging, but abide as they were. Now, if I address
   such, let me say to them--it is clear that you are and must be
   unblessed. Hearing of a feast will not fill you! Hearing of a brook
   will not quench your thirst! The information that there is gold in the
   Bank of England will not enrich you--you need cash in your own pocket.
   The knowledge that there is a shelter from the storm will not save the
   ship from the storm. The information that there is a cure for a disease
   will not make the sick man whole. No, gifts must be grasped, blessings
   must be appropriated and made use of if they are to be of any value to
   us. O Sirs, you know what you should do but you have not done it! You
   have been half-inclined to attend to eternal things, but you have let
   them go and so you are still among those unblessed hearers who hear in
   vain!

   Next, these hearers are described as deceiving themselves. "Deceiving
   yourselves," says James. What did they deceive themselves about? Why,
   probably they thought they were considerably better for being
   hearers--much to be commended and sure to get a blessing! They would
   not have been happy if they had not heard the Word of God on Sunday and
   they look with disgust upon their neighbors who make nothing of the
   Sabbath. They, themselves, are very superior people because they are
   regular Church-goers or Chapel-goers. They have a sitting, a hymnbook
   and a Bible--is not that a good deal? If they stayed away from a place
   of worship for a month they would be very uneasy. But though they do
   not believe that going to a place of worship will save them, yet it
   quiets their conscience and they feel themselves more at ease.

   I should like to feed you for a month on your theory. I would rattle
   the plates in your ears and see whether you would be fed. I would not
   accommodate you with a bed at night. Why should I? I would preach you a
   discourse upon the benefit of sleep. Nor need I even give you a room to
   occupy--I would read you an eloquent dissertation upon domestic
   architecture and show you what a house should be! You would very soon
   quit my door and call me inhospitable if I gave you music instead of
   meat! And yet you deceive yourselves with the notion that merely
   hearing about Jesus and His great salvation has made you better men!

   Or, perhaps, the deceit runs in another line--you foster the idea that
   the stern Truths of God which you hear do not apply to you. Sinners?
   Yes, certainly--the preacher addresses sinners and they may get good
   out of it--but you are not a sinner, at least not in any special sense
   so as to need looking after. Repentance? Most people ought to repent,
   but you do not see any reason why you should repent! Looking to Christ
   for salvation? "Excellent doctrine," you say, "excellent doctrine!"
   But, somehow, you do not look to Him for salvation. Here is the
   Scriptural verdict upon this opinion of yours--"Deceiving yourselves."
   The Gospel does not deceive you! It tells you, "You must be born again,
   you must believe in Jesus Christ or be lost." The preacher does not
   deceive you! He never said half a word to support the notion that
   coming to this place would be of any service to you unless you would
   yield your hearts to Christ! No, he has learned to speak plain English
   about such matters. You deceive yourselves if, being hearers and not
   doers, you derive comfort from that which you hear!

   And then, again, according to our text, these people are superficial
   hearers. They are said to be as a man who sees his natural face in a
   glass. Now, even a casual hearer will often find the preaching of the
   Gospel to be like looking in a glass and seeing himself. When a glass
   was first exhibited to some fresh discovered Negro tribe, the
   chieftain, as he sees himself, is perfectly astonished. He looks and
   looks again and cannot make it out. So is it in the preaching of the
   Word of God-- the man says, "Why, those are my words! That is my way of
   feeling." I have often known hearers exclaim, "Why, that is the very
   expression I used as I was coming along." They feel like she of old who
   said, "Come, see a Man which told me all things that I ever did."

   Such a person reads his Bible and he says, "Come, see a Book which
   tells me all things that I ever did. Is not this God's Book?" The fact
   is that the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
   the heart. As you have seen hanging up in the butcher's shop the
   carcasses of animals cut right down the center, so the Word of God is
   "quick and

   powerful, piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit, ofjoints and
   marrow." It opens up a man to himself and makes him see himself. He is
   quite astonished and cannot make it out! I have no doubt many of you
   here who are unconverted have felt this under a searching sermon.

   When you have been reading the Scriptures you have been perfectly
   astonished at the way in which you have been revealed to
   yourselves--but it has been superficial work. If a man looks at himself
   in a glass and then puts down the mirror and goes his way, he has made
   but very poor use of it, for it was intended to lead him to remove
   spots and improve his personal appearance by washing. Looking in the
   glass and noticing a black mark on your forehead is mere child's play
   if you do not wash the spot away! To see yourself as God would have you
   see yourself in the glass of Scripture is something, but you must
   afterwards go to Christ for washing or your looking is very superficial
   work. God grant that if you are made to feel the revealing power of the
   Word of God you may at once come to the practical point and, "wash and
   be clean."

   The text accuses these persons of being hasty hearers--"he beholds
   himself and goes his way." They hear a sermon and they are off! They
   never give the Word time to operate--they are back to business, back to
   talk and idle chit-chat the moment the service ends. Enquirers'
   Meetings are often eminently useful because they give people a little
   opportunity to think over what they have heard--while much of hearing
   is not followed up with thought and so it is ineffectual. We get much
   more out of meditation than out of hearing. Like the cattle, we must
   chew the cud if we would get nutriment from spiritual food, but few do
   this.

   It is a great mercy for us, considering the quantity of nonsense there
   is in the world, that we have two ears so that we can let idle words go
   in one ear and out the other! But it is a great pity that we should use
   those two ears in such a way in reference to the Word of God. Let it
   have a home, dear Friend! Do not let the Gospel come in one ear and out
   the other! How are you to prevent it? Why let it come in both ears! Let
   it have two roads right down to the soul and shut your ears when the
   Truth has thoroughly entered in and compel it to abide in the chamber
   of your soul. How much of blessing would come to men if they carried
   the Word of God home with them! How much a blessing they would receive
   if they took the text to pieces, weighed it, considered it and prayed
   for a personal application of it. Then they would become spiritually
   wise by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. But, alas, they are hasty
   hearers--they look in the glass and go their way.

   One other thing is said about them, namely, that they are very
   forgetful hearers--they forget what manner of men they are. They have
   heard the discourse and that is the end of it. You know the story of
   Donald's coming home a little sooner from church than usual and his
   wife enquiring, "What? Donald! Is the sermon all done?" He replied,
   "No, no, it is all said, but it has not begun to be done yet."

   But while it has not begun to be done, it often happens that the sermon
   has ended with many hearers. They have listened to it, but it has ran
   through them like water through a sieve and they will remember no more
   of it till the Judgment Day. There is no sin in having a bad memory,
   but there is great sin in refusing at once to obey the Gospel. If you
   cannot remember the text, or even remember the subject tomorrow
   morning, I shall not blame you. But the remembrance of the spirit of
   the whole thing, the drinking in and absorption into yourself of the
   Truth of God--that is the main matter and the carrying of the Truth
   into practice is the essence of the business.

   That traveling dealer did well who, while listening to Mr. William
   Dawson, when he was speaking about dishonesty, stood up in the midst of
   the congregation and broke a certain yard measure with which he had
   been in the habit of cheating his customers. That woman did well who
   said that she forgot what the preacher talked about, but she remembered
   to burn her bushel when she got home, for that, too, had been short in
   measure! Never mind about remembering the sermon if you remember at
   once to practice it! You may forget the words in which the Truth of God
   was couched if you will but let it purify your life!

   It reminds me of the gracious woman who used to earn her living by
   washing wool. When her minister called upon her and asked her about his
   sermon and she confessed that she had forgotten the text, he said,
   "What good could it have done you?" She took him into her back place
   where she was carrying on her trade. She put the wool into a sieve and
   then pumped on it. "There, Sir," she said, "your sermon is like that
   water. It runs through my mind, Sir, just as the water runs through the
   sieve. But, then the water washes the wool, Sir, and so the good Word
   of God washes my soul." David,

   in the 103rd Psalm speaks of those who remember the Lord's commandments
   to do them--and that is the best of memory! Mind that you have it.

   Thus I have described certain hearers and I fear we have many such in
   all congregations--admiring hearers, affectionate hearers, attached
   hearers--but all the while unblessed hearers because they are not doers
   of the work. We have wondered how it was that they never confessed
   themselves to be followers of Christ, but we suspect that they have
   never made such a confession because it would not be true. And yet they
   are very good, very kind--helpful to a good cause and their lives are
   very upright and commendable--but we grieve that they are not decided
   Christians. One thing they lack--they have no faith in Christ. It does
   surprise me how some of you can be so favorable to everything that has
   to do with Divine things and yet have no personal share in the good
   treasure.

   What would you say of a cook who prepared dinners for other people and
   yet died of starvation? Foolish cook, you say. Foolish hearer, say I!
   Are you going to be like Solomon's friends, the Tyrians, who helped to
   build the temple and yet went on worshipping their idols? Sirs, are you
   going to look on at the Table of Mercy, admire it and yet refuse its
   provisions? Does it give you a thrill of pleasure to see so many taken
   from the highways and the hedges and brought in and will you stand
   outside and never partake yourself? I always pity the poor little boys
   on a cold winter night who stand outside a steaming cook shop window
   and look in and see others feasting, but have none themselves. I cannot
   understand you! All things are ready and you are bid and persuaded to
   come--and yet you are content to perish with hunger! I pray you think
   of yourselves and I ask the Spirit of God to make you doers of the
   Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

   II. But, now, a few minutes for those who are BLESSED HEARERS--those
   who get the blessing. Who are they? They are described in the 25th
   verse--"But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty, and
   continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the
   work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." Now, notice that this
   hearer who is blessed is, first of all, an earnest, eager, humble
   hearer. Note the expression. He does not look upon the Law of liberty
   and go his way, but he looks into it. It is the same word which is used
   in the passage, "which things the angels desire to look into," and the
   Greek seems to imply a sort of stooping down to look intently into a
   thing.

   Thus is it with the hearer who obtains the blessing--he hears of the
   Gospel and he says, "I will look into this. There is a something here
   worth attention." He stoops and becomes a little child that he may
   learn! He searches as men do who are looking after diamonds or gold. "I
   will look into it," he says. "My mother used to tell me that there was
   something charming in it and my father died triumphantly through the
   influence of it--I will investigate it. It shall not be for lack of
   examination that I let it slip." Such an individual hears intently and
   earnestly, laying his soul open to the influences of the Truth of God,
   desiring to feel its holy power and to practice its Divine commands.
   That is the right kind of hearer-- an earnest listener whose senses are
   all awakened to receive and retain all that can be learned.

   It is implied, too, that he is a thoughtful, studious, searching
   hearer--he looks into the perfect Law. I call you back to the figure.
   As a man will put an insect under a glass and inspect it again and
   again through the microscope--looking at the wings; at each joint of
   the back and at every part of the creature under his eye--so a hearer
   who desires a blessing looks closely into the Word of God. He is
   sacredly curious! He enquires. He pries. He asks all those who should
   know. He likes to get with old Christians to hear of their experiences.
   He loves to compare spiritual things with spiritual--to dissect a text
   and see how it stands in relation to another--and to its own parts, for
   he is in earnest when he hears the

   Word.

   Alas, dear Friends, as I have said before, many hearers are too
   superficial! They listen to what is said and that is the end of
   it--they never search for the marrow of the bones. The hearer who
   obtains a blessing, first gives his whole heart up to attention and
   afterwards keeps his heart saturated with the Truth by an earnest,
   diligent, searching study of it! And so, by the Spirit's teaching, he
   discovers what is the mind of God to his soul. Then this hearer goes
   further. Looking so steadily he discovers that the Gospel is a Law of
   liberty--and, indeed, it is so! Blessed is the condition of those who
   are free from the Law of Moses and have come under Law to Christ who
   emancipates the soul from every form of bondage!

   There is no joy like the joy of pardon! There is no release like
   release from the slavery of sin! There is no freedom like the liberty
   of holiness, the liberty to draw near to God! He who hears the Gospel
   aright soon discovers that there is that in it which will remove every
   fetter from his soul! He looks and looks, and at last loves that
   perfect Law of liberty which

   sets his heart at large to run in the way of God's commands! Would God
   that all of you understood it and had a share in its benefits. This is
   the man who is blessed while he hears!

   But it is added that he continues therein. If you hear the Gospel and
   it does not bless you, hear it again. If you have read the Word of God
   and it has not saved you, read it again. It is able to save your soul!
   Have you been searching through one gracious, earnest Book and did it
   not seem to fit your case? Try another. Oh, if men would search for
   salvation as they search after hidden treasure it would not be long
   before they found it! I remember, when I was seeking Christ, how I read
   through Doddridge's, "Rise and Progress of Religion" with an avidity
   such as I showed when as a boy I read some merry tale, for I devoured
   each page greedily.

   When I had done with Doddridge, I read Baxter's, "Call to the
   Unconverted," which did me good, but yielded me no comfort. I read each
   page and drank in every word, though the book was exceedingly bitter to
   me. I needed Christ and if I could find Him and Eternal Life through
   Him, it did not matter to me how often my eyes grew weary with lack of
   sleep while reading! Oh, if you come to that--that you must have
   Jesus--you shall have Him! If your soul is brought to feel that you
   will search Heaven and earth through, if necessary, but you will find
   the Savior, that Savior will soon appear to you! The hearer who gains
   salvation, "looks into the perfect Law of liberty," and continues
   therein.

   Lastly, it is added that this man is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer
   of the work and he shall be blessed in his deed. Is he bid to pray? He
   prays as best he can. Is he bid to repent? He asks God to enable him to
   repent. Is he bid to believe? He says, "Lord, I believe: help my
   unbelief." He turns everything that he hears into practice. I wish that
   we had thousands of hearers of that sort. I remember reading of a
   certain person who heard of giving a 10th of our substance to God.
   "Well," said he, "that is right and I will do it." And he kept his
   promise. He heard that Daniel drew near to God three times a day in
   prayer. He said, "That is right; I will do it." And he practiced a
   threefold approach to the Throne of Grace each day. He made it a rule
   every time he heard of something that was excellent, to practice it at
   once. Thus he formed holy habits and a noble character--and became a
   blessed hearer of the Word.

   Now, dear Friends, our text does not say that such a man is blessed for
   the deed, but it says that such a man is blessed in the deed. He who
   does what God bids him shall not be blessed for it, but he shall be
   blessed in it. The happy result will come to us in the act of
   obedience. May God grant you Grace, whenever the Gospel is preached, to
   stir yourself up with the energy which God's Spirit infuses into you
   and say, "I will do it. I will not dream about it, or talk about it, or
   question about it, or say I will do it and put it off, but now, at
   once, the act commanded shall be done." I finish with this practical
   suggestion. The remaining portion of life is short with some of you who
   hear me this day. Gray hairs are upon you here and there and, according
   to the course of nature, you must soon stand before your Judge.

   Would it not be well that you thought about another world and
   considered how you shall face your Lord at the Last Great Day? The
   Gospel says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," which, in other words,
   means, "Trust Him." Repent. Confess your sin, forsake it and look to
   Christ for cleansing. That is the way of salvation--"He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved." You know all about the way of life. I
   am telling you a tale which you have heard a thousand times, but the
   question is, when is it going to be done? "Soon, Sir," you say.

   But were you not here when this Tabernacle was opened? "Yes," you say,
   "I think I was." You said, "soon," then, and you say, "soon" now! You
   will say, "soon," I expect, until that word, "soon," will be met with
   the heavy sentence-- "Too late! Too late! You cannot enter now." Take
   heed that this is not your case before this day has ended! Some men die
   very suddenly. A sister came to me this morning and said, "My father is
   dead. He was well in the morning He came home from the shop, seemed a
   little ill and died all of a sudden." Seeing that life is so
   precarious, would it not be best that you should immediately seek the
   Lord while He may be found and call upon Him while He is near?

   I would suggest that you do not begin gossiping and talking on the way
   home, today, but that you get alone quietly for a little while. Do you
   reply that you have no place where you can be alone--this is not
   true--you can find some place or other. I remember a sailor who used to
   find his prayer closet at the masthead--nobody came up there to disturb
   him. I knew a carpenter who used to get down in a sawpit to pray. There
   are many such places. The streets of London, when crowded, are about as
   lonely as anywhere and Cheapside may be as good as the mountain side if
   your heart desires real solitude.

   Some of you, I fear, never think at all. As far as thinking goes, if
   your brains were taken out, many of you would get on almost as well
   without them. The brains of some people are only useful as a sort of
   salt to keep them from rotting by

   death. Little thinking is done by the great mass of the people except
   the thought, "What shall we eat and what shall we drink?" Do, I pray
   you, think a little! Pause and consider what God, the Lord, sets before
   you. Be a doer of the work. Do what God bids you. As He bids you
   repent, repent. As He bids you believe, believe! As He bids you be
   baptized, be baptized. As He bids you pray, pray. As He bids you accept
   His Grace, God helping you, do it. Oh, that it might be done at once
   and to the Lord shall be praise world without end! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--James 1. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--483, 538, 992.

   If those who profit by these sermons will promote their circulation,
   they may be doing as much good as if they preached themselves. The
   preacher, in returning to his pulpit, would feel greatly cheered if he
   found that the circulation of the sermons largely increased. A
   judicious word may gain a subscriber to whom the reading may be useful.
   Would not some of our readers find the distribution of the discourses
   an easy and efficient mode of Christian service?
     __________________________________________________________________

The Philosophy and Propriety of Abundant Praise

   (No. 1468)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 13, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness, and
   shall sing of Your righteousness." Psalm 145:7.

   THIS is called "David's Psalm of praise" and you will see that all
   through it he is inflamed by a strong desire that God may be greatly
   magnified. Hence he uses a variety of expressions and repeats himself
   in his holy vehemence. Run your eyes down the Psalm and notice such
   words as these--"I will extol You." "I will bless Your name." "Every
   day will I bless You." "I will praise Your name forever and ever."
   "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." "One generation shall
   praise Your works to another." "I will speak of the glorious honor of
   Your majesty." "Men shall speak of the might of Your terrible acts" and
   other words of the same meaning down to the last verse--"My mouth shall
   speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh bless His holy name
   forever and ever."

   David is not content with declaring that Jehovah is worthy of praise,
   or with pleading that His praise ought to be felt in the heart, but he
   will have it publicly spoken of, openly declared, plainly uttered and
   joyfully proclaimed in song. The inspired Psalmist, moved by the Holy
   Spirit, calls upon all flesh, yes, and upon all the works of God to
   sound forth the praises of the Most High! Will we not heartily respond
   to the call? In following out his design of praise, David had spoken in
   verse five of the majesty of God, the glorious King. His eyes seems to
   be dazzled by the glorious splendor of the august Throne and he cries,
   "I will speak of the glorious honor of Your majesty." Then he thinks of
   the power of that Throne of majesty and of the force with which its
   just decrees are carried out and, so, in verse six he exclaims, "Men
   shall speak of the might of Your terrible acts and I will declare Your
   greatness."

   Here he speaks briefly both as to the majesty and the might of the
   dread Supreme, but when he turns his thoughts to the Divine goodness,
   he enlarges and uses words which indicate the stress which he lays upon
   his subject and his desire to linger over it. "They shall abundantly
   utter," says our text, "the memory of Your great goodness." Now, our
   desire, this morning, is that we, also, may praise and magnify the name
   of the Infinite Jehovah without limit and may especially have our
   hearts enlarged and our mouths opened wide to speak abundantly of His
   great goodness. O that in the whole of this congregation the text may
   become true--"They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great
   goodness"--and having uttered it in plain speech, may we all rise a
   stage higher and, with gladsome music, sing of His righteousness!

   You see our objective, an objective in which, I trust, you all
   sympathize. Come, one and all, and praise the Lord! Is the invitation
   too wide? Observe the ninth verse--"The Lord is good to all: and His
   tender mercies are over all His works. All Your works shall praise
   You." I will not limit the invitation of the Lord since you all drink
   of the river of His bounty! Render to Him, all of you, such praises as
   you can. But there is a special invitation to His saints. Come and
   bless His name with spiritual, inward, enlightened praise. "Bless the
   Lord, O house of Israel. You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord." In
   your heart of hearts, extol, adore and make Him great, for it is
   written--"Your saints shall bless You."

   Verily this shall not be written in vain, for our souls shall bless the
   Lord this day as the Holy Spirit shall move within us! We shall speak
   upon two things that we may promote the objective we have in view. The
   first is, the method of securing the abundant utterance of God's praise
   as to His goodness. And, secondly, the motives for desiring to secure
   this abundant utterance.

   I. THE METHOD OF SECURING THE ABUNDANT UTTERANCE OF THE DIVINE PRAISE
   CONCERNING HIS GOODNESS. Our text gives us the mental philosophy of
   abounding praise and shows us the plan by which such praise may be
   secured. The steps are such as the best mental philosophy approves.
   First, we shall be helped to abundant praise by careful observation.
   Notice the text--"They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great
   goodness." Now, in order to memory, there must first of all be
   observation. A man does not remember what he never knew! This is

   clear to all and, therefore, the point is virtually implied in the
   text. In proportion as a fact or a truth makes an impression upon the
   mind, in that proportion is it likely to abide in the memory.

   If you hear a sermon, that which you remember afterwards is the point
   which most forcibly strikes you while you are listening to the
   discourse. At the time you say, "I will jot that down, for I should not
   like to forget it, for it comes so closely home to me." And whether you
   use your pencil or not, Memory obeys your wish and makes a record upon
   her tablets. It is so with the dealings of God towards us. If we want
   to remember His goodness, we must let it strike us--we must notice it,
   consider it, meditate upon it, estimate it and allow it to exert its
   due influence upon our hearts--then we shall not need to say that "we
   must try and remember," for we shall remember as a matter of course.
   The impression being clearly and deeply made will not easily fade away,
   but we shall see it after many days.

   The first thing, therefore, towards the plentiful praising of God is a
   careful observation of His goodness. Now, see what it is that we are to
   observe--God's goodness. Too many are blind to that blessed object.
   They receive the bounties of His liberality and are in His care, but
   they attribute all that they receive to themselves or to secondary
   agents. God is not in all their thoughts and, consequently, His
   goodness is not considered. They have no memory of His goodness because
   they have no observation of it! Some, indeed, instead of observing the
   goodness of God, complain of His unkindness to them and imagine that He
   is needlessly severe.

   Like the unprofitable servant in the parable, they say, "I knew You,
   that You are an austere man." Others sit in judgment upon His ways, as
   we find them recorded in Holy Scripture, and dare to condemn the Judge
   of all the earth! Denying the goodness of Jehovah, they attempt to set
   up another god than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who for this
   enlightened 19th Century is a god much too just. In this house,
   however, we worship Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--the
   God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ--and none other than
   He. In many a place of worship this day they adore new gods, newly come
   up which our fathers knew not--not like the God of the Old Testament,
   who, in the opinion of modern philosophers, is as much out of date as
   Jupiter himself.

   This day we say with David, "This God is our God forever and ever." "O
   come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Jehovah our
   Maker. For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the
   sheep of His hands." As we find the Lord revealed both in the Old and
   the New Testament, making no division in the Revelation, but regarding
   it as one grand whole, we behold abundant goodness in Him! Mingled with
   that awful justice which we would not wish to deny, we see surpassing
   Grace and we delight that God is Love. He is gracious and full of
   compassion. He is slow to anger and of great mercy. We have no
   complaints to make against Him! We wish to make no alteration in His
   dealings or in His Character! He is our exceeding joy--our whole heart
   rejoices in the contemplation of Him. "Who is like unto You, O God?
   Among the gods who is like unto You?"

   We are, then, to consider what many will not so much as believe--that
   there is great goodness in Jehovah, the God of Creation, Providence and
   Redemption--the God of Paradise, of Sinai and of Calvary. We are to
   thoroughly acquaint ourselves with Him as He has made Himself known and
   we are continually to consider His great goodness, that we may retain
   the memory of it. If we are willing to see, we shall not lack for
   opportunities of beholding His goodness every day, for it is to be seen
   in so many acts that I will not commence the catalog since I should
   never complete it! His goodness is seen in Creation--it shines in every
   sunbeam, glitters in every dewdrop, smiles in every flower and whispers
   in every breeze.

   Earth and sea and air, teeming with innumerable forms of life, are all
   full of the goodness of the Lord! Sun, moon, and stars affirm that the
   Lord is good and all terrestrial things echo the proclamation. His
   goodness is also to be seen in the Providence which rules over all. Let
   rebellious spirits murmur as they may, goodness is enthroned in
   Jehovah's kingdom and evil and suffering are intruders! God is good
   towards all His creatures and especially towards the objects of His
   eternal love for whom all things work together for good.

   It is, however, in the domain of Divine Grace that the noblest form of
   Divine goodness is seen. Begin with the goodness which shines in our
   election and follow the silver thread through redemption, the mission
   of the Holy Spirit, the calling, the adoption, the preservation, the
   perfecting of the chosen--and you will see riches of goodness which
   will astound you! Dwell where you may within the kingdom of redemption
   and you will see rivers, yes, oceans of goodness! I leave your own
   minds to remember these things and your own lips to abundantly utter
   the memory of the Lord's great goodness in the wonders of His
   salvation! It is not my design to speak for you, but to stir you up to
   speak for yourselves!

   The point which struck the Psalmist and should strike us all, is the
   greatness of the goodness. The greatness of the goodness will be seen
   by the contemplative mind upon a consideration of the person upon whom
   the goodness lights. "Why me?" will often be the utterance of a
   grateful spirit. That God should be good to any of His people shows His
   mercy, but that He should make me to be one of His and deal so well
   with me--here His goodness exceeds itself! Why me? Is this the manner
   of man, O Lord? What am I, and what is my father's house? It is great
   goodness because it visits persons so insignificant, yes more--so
   guilty and so deserving of wrath! Blessed be God that He is good to
   persons so ungrateful-- to persons who cannot, even, at the best, make
   any adequate return--who, alas, do not even make such return as they
   could! Ah, Lord, when I consider what a brutish creature I am, it is
   easy to confess the greatness of Your goodness!

   The greatness of the goodness becomes apparent when we think of the
   greatness of God the Benefactor. "What is man that You are mindful of
   him, or the son of man that You visit him?" That God Himself should
   bless His people. That He should come in the form of human flesh to
   save His people. That He should dwell in us, walk in us and be to us a
   God--a very present help in trouble--is a miracle of love! Is not this
   great goodness? I can very well understand that the infinity of His
   benevolence should commit us to the charge of angels, but it is amazing
   that it should be written, "I the Lord do keep it: I will water it
   every moment lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day."

   Oh, the greatness of such personal condescension, such personal care! O
   heir of Heaven, from the fountain of all goodness shall you drink and
   not only from its streams! God Himself is your Portion and the lot of
   your inheritance! You are not put off with creatures--the Creator,
   Himself, is yours! Will you not remember this and so keep alive the
   memory of His goodness? The greatness of the goodness is, on some
   occasions, made manifest by the evil from which it rescues us. Nobody
   knows so well the blessing of health as he who has but lately been
   tortured in every limb--then for his restoration he blesses Jehovah
   Rophi, the healing Lord. None know what salvation from sin means like
   those who have been crushed beneath the burden of guilt and have been
   racked by remorse.

   Did you ever feel yourself condemned of God and cast out from His
   Presence? Did the pangs of Hell commence within your startled
   conscience? Did your soul long for death rather than life, while thick
   clouds and darkness shrouded your guilty spirit? If so, when the Lord
   has put away your sin and said, "You shall not die." When He has
   brought you forth from the prison, broken your bonds asunder and set
   your feet upon a rock, then has the new song been in your mouth, even
   praise forevermore! Then have you known it to be great goodness which
   thus delivered you. We may imagine what the bottom of the sea is like
   and conceive what it must be to be borne down to the lower deeps where
   the weeds are wrapped about the dead men's brows, yet, I guarantee you
   that our imagination but poorly realizes what Jonah experienced when
   the floods compassed him about and he went down to the bottom of the
   mountains!

   When the Lord brought his life up from corruption, then he had a strong
   and vivid memory of the great goodness of God, seeing he had been
   delivered from so great a death! It is in the storm that we learn! O
   praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the
   children of men! If I might have it so, I could wish my whole life to
   be calm as a fair summer's evening when scarcely a zephyr stirs the
   happy flowers. I could desire that nothing might again disturb the
   serenity of my restful spirit--but were it to be so, I suspect I should
   know but little of the great goodness of the Lord. The sweet singer in
   the 107th Psalm ascribes the song of gratitude not to dwellers at home,
   but to wanderers in the wilderness--not to those who are always at
   liberty, but to emancipated captives--not to the strong and vigorous,
   but to those who barely escape from the gates of death. Not to those
   who stand upon a sea of glass, but to those who are tossed in tempests
   upon a raging ocean. Doubtless so it is--we should not perceive the
   greatness of goodness if we did not see the depth of the horrible pit
   from which it snatches us.

   You were almost ruined in business, Friend, but you escaped with the
   skin of your teeth--then you praised God for His great goodness! Your
   dear child was given up by the physicians; your wife apparently
   sickened for death--but both these have been spared to you and herein
   you see the heights and depths of mercy! Now, therefore, lay up this
   great goodness in your memory to be the material for future Psalms of
   praise! Nor is this the only way of estimating God's great
   goodness--you may estimate it by the actual greatness of the benefits
   bestowed. He gives like a king! No, He gives like a God! Behold, your
   God has not given you a few minted coins of gold, but he has endowed
   you with the mines, themselves! He has not, as it were, handed you a
   cup of cold water, but He has brought you to the flowing fountain and
   made the well, itself, your own. God Himself is ours! "The Lord is my
   Portion, says my soul."

   If you must have a little list of what He has given you, ponder the
   following items--He has given you a name and a place among His people.
   He has given you the rights and the nature of His children. He has
   given you the complete forgiveness of all your sins and you have it
   now. He has given you a robe of righteousness and you are wearing it
   now. He has given you a superlative loveliness in Christ Jesus and you
   have it now. He has given you access to Him and prevalence at the Mercy
   Seat. He has given you this world and world to come. He has given you
   all that He has! He has given you His own Son! And how shall He now
   refuse you anything? Oh, He has given like a God!

   The greatness of His goodness this tongue can never hope to tell and so
   I ask you to think it over in a quiet hour at home. As for myself, I
   will speak of my Lord as I find Him, for the old proverb bids us do so.
   Whatever you shall say, Brothers and Sisters, I have nothing to speak
   but what is good of my God, my King from my childhood until now. He
   amazes me with His mercy! He utterly astounds me with His loving
   kindness! He causes my spirit to almost swoon away with delight beneath
   the sweetness of His love! Yet He has not spared me the rod, nor will
   He and, blessed be His name for that, also! "Shall we receive good at
   the hands of the Lord and shall we not also receive evil?" asked the
   Patriarch.

   But we will go beyond that and assert that evil is no evil when it
   comes from His hands! Everything is good which He ordains. We may not
   see it to be so at the time, but so it is. Our heavenly Father seems to
   rise from good to better and from better to yet better in infinite
   progression! He causes the roadway of our life to rise higher and
   higher and carries it over lofty mountains of loving kindness. Our life
   path winds always upward to yet higher summits of abounding
   mercy--therefore let His praise increase and the name of the Lord be
   still greater and greater!

   I want to urge you, dear Friends, to observe the goodness of God
   carefully for your souls' good. There is a great difference between
   eyes and no eyes--yet many have eyes and see not. God's goodness flows
   before them and they say, "Where is it?" They breathe it and they say,
   "Where is it?" They sit at the table and they are fed upon it! They
   wear it upon their limbs! It is in the very beating of their heart and
   yet they say, "Where is it?" Be not blind! "The ox knows his owner and
   the ass his master's crib"--let us not be more crude than beasts of the
   field--but let us know the Lord and consider well the greatness of His
   goodness!

   I have said that the text contains the philosophy of great praise and
   we see this in the second stage of the process, namely, diligent
   memory. That which has made an impression upon the mind by observation
   is fastened upon the memory. Memory seems to be in two things--first in
   retaining an impression and then in recollecting it at a future time. I
   suppose that, more or less, everything that happens to us is retained
   in the mind, but it is not easy to reproduce the fainter impressions
   when you wish to do so. I know in my own mind a great many things that
   I am sure I remember, but yet I cannot always recollect them
   immediately. Give me a quarter of an hour to run through a certain
   arrangement of ideas and I shall say, "Oh yes, I have it. It was in my
   mind, but I could not recall it at the time." Memory collects facts and
   afterwards recollects them. The matters before us are recorded by
   memory, but the tablet may be mislaid--the perfection of memory is to
   preserve the tablet in a well-known place from which you can fetch it
   forth in a moment.

   I have dwelt rather long upon observation with the view that you may
   begin aright from the beginning and, by getting vivid impressions, may
   be the better able to retain and recall them. We cannot utter what we
   have forgotten and, therefore, the use of close observation to make a
   strong memory touching the Lord's great goodness. How are we to
   strengthen our memory as to God's goodness? First, we should be well
   acquainted with the documents in which His goodness is recorded. A man
   may be said to keep in memory a fact which did not happen in his own
   time, but hundreds of years before he was born--he remembers it because
   he has seen the document in which the fact is recorded.

   In a certain sense this is within the range of memory--it is within the
   memory of man, the united memory of the race. Beloved, be familiar with
   the Word of God! Store your memory with the ancient records of His
   great goodness! Drink in the whole narrative of the Evangelists and
   despise not Moses and the Prophets. Soak in the Psalms and the Song of
   Solomon and such Books till you come to know the well-recorded goodness
   of the Lord! Have His Words and deeds of goodness arranged and at your
   fingertips because they are in your heart and then you will be
   abundantly sure to utter the memory of His goodness, for "out of the
   abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."

   Next, if you would strengthen your memory, diligently observe the
   memorials. There are two in the Christian Church. There is the memorial
   of your Savior's death, burial and resurrection which is set forth in
   Believers' Baptism, wherein we are buried and risen with the Lord
   Christ. Forget not that memorial of His deep anguish when He was
   immersed in grief and plunged in agony, for He bids you observe it. And
   as for the Holy Supper, never neglect it, but be

   often at the table where, again, you set forth His death till He comes.
   He has bid you do this in remembrance of Him-- devoutly cherish the
   precious memorial!

   Great events in nations have been preserved upon the memory of future
   generations by some ordained ceremonial and the Lord's Supper is of
   that kind. Therefore observe well the Table of the Lord that you forget
   not His great goodness. Look how the Jews kept their Exodus in mind by
   means of the Paschal Lamb--how they ate it after the sprinkling of the
   blood--how they talked to their children and told them of the
   deliverance from Egypt, abundantly uttering the memory of God's
   goodness and then after supper they sang a hymn, even as our text bids
   us sing of the righteousness of God. Strengthen your memories, then, by
   reverent attention to the historical documents and the memorial
   ordinances.

   Still, the most important is the memory of what has happened to
   yourself, your own personal experience. I will not give a penny for
   your religion unless it has taken effect upon yourself. The power of
   prayer! What of that? Did you ever receive an answer to prayer? Did you
   ever wrestle with the angel and come away victorious? What do you know
   about prayer if you never prayed? You are very orthodox? Yes, but
   unless the Doctrines of Grace have brought to your soul the Grace of
   the doctrines--and you have tasted and handled them--what do you know
   about them? Nothing certainly to remember! O, dear Heart, were you ever
   born again? Then you will remember His great goodness! Were you ever
   cleansed from your sin and justified in Christ? You will remember His
   great goodness! Have you been renewed in heart so as to hate sin and
   live in holiness? If so, you will remember because you know something
   which flesh and blood have not revealed unto you. Let every personal
   mercy be written upon your personal memory!

   I have heard that the science of mnemonics, or the strengthening of the
   memory, for which I have not a very high esteem, lies in the following
   of certain methods. According to some, you link one idea with
   another--you remember a date by associating it with something that you
   can see. Practice this method in the present case. Remember God's
   goodness by the objects around you which are associated with it. For
   instance, let your bed remind you of God's mercy in the night watches
   and your table of His goodness in supplying your daily needs. My
   garments, when I put them on this morning, reminded me of times when my
   hands were unable to perform even that simple task. All around us there
   are memoranda of God's love if we choose to read them.

   The memory of some deed of Divine goodness may be connected with every
   piece of furniture in your room. There is the old armchair where you
   wrestled with God in great trouble and received a gracious answer. You
   cannot forget it-- you do not pray so well anywhere else as you do
   there--you have become attached to that particular chair. That thumbed
   Bible, that particular one I mean--it is getting rather worn, now, and
   is marked a good deal, but, nevertheless, out of that very copy the
   promises have gleamed forth like the stars in Heaven and, therefore, it
   helps your memory to use it. I remember a poor man giving me what I
   thought great praise. I visited him in the hospital and he said, "Ah,
   you seem to have hung this room round with your texts, for everything
   reminds me of what I have heard you say, and as I lay here I recollect
   your stories and your sayings." In much the same way we should remember
   what God has done for us by looking at all the various places,
   circumstances, times and persons which were the surroundings of His
   mercy. O for a clear remembrance of the goodness of God!

   Memory is sometimes helped by classification. You send a servant to a
   shop for a variety of articles--she will forget some of them unless you
   so arrange the order that one suggests another. Take care, then, to set
   God's mercies in order before you and reckon them up in number, if you
   can, and so fix them in your memory. At other times, when persons have
   very bad memories, they like to write down on a piece of paper that
   which is important to remember. I have often done so and have placed
   the paper where I have never found it again. A thread around the
   finger, or a knot in a handkerchief and many other devices has been
   tried. I do not care what it is, so long as you try and remember God's
   mercy to you by some means or other. Do make some record of His
   goodness.

   You know the day in which you lost that money, do you not? "Yes, very
   well." You remember the day of the month of Black Friday, or Black
   Monday, up in the City. You have evil days indelibly noted in the black
   pocketbook of memory--do you remember, as well, the days of God's
   special loving kindness to you? You should! Take pains to make notes of
   notable benefits and to mark remarkable blessings and so you shall, in
   future days, utter the memory of God's great goodness! The first two
   processes for securing abundant praise are observation and remembrance.

   The next is utterance "They shall abundantly utter." The word contains
   the idea of boiling or bubbling up like a fountain. It signifies a holy
   fluency about the mercy of God. We have quite enough fluent people
   about, but they are, many of them, idlers for whom Satan finds abundant
   work to do. May the Lord deliver us from the noise of fluent women--but
   it matters not how fluent men and women are if they will be fluent on
   the topic now before us. Open your mouths! Let the praises pour forth!
   Let rivers of it come! Stream away! Gush away all that you possibly
   can! "They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness."
   Do not stop the joyful speakers--let them go on forever. They do not
   exaggerate--they cannot!

   You say they are enthusiastic, but they are not half up to the pitch
   yet! Bid them become more excited and speak yet more fervently. Go on,
   Brother, go on! Pile it up! Say something greater, grander and more
   still fiery! You cannot exceed the Truth of God! You have come to a
   theme where your most fluent powers will fail in utterance. The text
   calls for a sacred fluency and I would exhort you to exercise it
   liberally when you are speaking of the goodness of God. "They shall
   abundantly utter it"--that is, they shall constantly be doing it--they
   shall talk about God's goodness all day long! When you step into their
   cottages they will begin to tell you of God's goodness to them! When
   you bid adieu to them at night you shall hear more last words upon
   their favorite theme!

   Very likely they will repeat themselves, but that does not matter, you
   cannot have too much of this truly good thing. Just as the singers in
   the temple repeated again and again the chorus, "His mercy endures
   forever," so may we repeat our praises! Some of God's mercies are so
   great and sweet that if we never had another thought throughout
   eternity, the recollection of the single favor might forever remain!
   The splendor of Divine Love is so great that a single manifestation of
   it is often all that we can bear! To have two such revelations at once
   would be as overpowering as though God should make two suns when one
   already fills the world with light! Oh, praise the Lord, my Brothers
   and Sisters, with boundless exultation! Awaken all your faculties to
   this Divine service and abundantly utter the memory of His goodness!

   You cannot praise abundantly unless your memory supplies materials and,
   on the other hand, your memory will lose strength unless you utter what
   you know. When you went to school and had a lesson to learn, you found
   out that by reading your lesson aloud you learned it more quickly, for
   your ears assisted your eyes. Uttering the Divine goodness is a great
   help to the memory of it! By teaching we learn--by giving the Truth of
   God expression, we deepen its impression upon our minds.

   Now I come to the last part of this admirable process. When we have
   abundantly uttered, then we are to sing. In the old Greek mythology,
   Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, is the mother of the Muses and surely
   where there is a good memory of God's loving kindness the heart will
   soon produce a song! But what is surprising in the text is that when
   the joy is described as mounting from plain utterance to song it takes
   another theme--"Sing of Your righteousness." When the heart is most
   adoring and selects the grandest theme for reverent song, it chooses
   the meeting of goodness and righteousness as its topic. How sweet is
   that canticle--"Mercy and Truth are met together, and Righteousness and
   Peace have kissed each other." The Atonement is the gem of the heart's
   poetry. Do not your hearts burn within you at the very mention of the
   glorious deed of Jesus, our great Substitute?

   Parnassus is outdone by Calvary! The Castalian spring is dried and
   Jesus' wounded side has opened another fountain of song! The goodness
   of the Lord to us in all the blessings of His Providences we gladly
   chant, but when we tell of the Grace which led our Lord Jesus to bleed
   and die, "the Just for the unjust to bring us to God," our music leaps
   to nobler heights! Incomparable Wisdom ordained a way in which God
   should be righteous to the sternness of severity and yet should be
   good, illimitable good, to those that put their trust in Him! Lift up,
   then, your music till the golden harps shall find themselves outdone!
   Thus, we have explained the method of securing an abundant
   utterance--may the Holy Spirit help us carry it out.

   II. In the second place, we shall very briefly note THE MOTIVES FOR
   THIS ABUNDANT UTTERANCE. These

   are right at our fingertips. The first is because we cannot help it.
   The goodness of God demands that we should speak of it. If the Lord
   Jesus, Himself, should charge His people to be silent as to His
   goodness, they would scarcely be able to obey the command. They would,
   like the man that was healed, blaze abroad the mighty work that He had
   done. But, bless His name, He has not told us to be quiet--He allows us
   to abundantly utter the memory of His great goodness! The stones of the
   street would cry out as we went along if we did not speak of His love!

   Some of you good people seldom speak of the goodness of God! Why is
   this? I wonder how you can be so coldly quiet. "Oh," said one in his
   first love, "I must speak or I shall burst" and we have sometimes felt
   the same when the restrained testimony was as fire within our bones! Is
   it not a sacred instinct to tell what we feel within? The news is too
   good to keep! Indulge to the fullest the holy propensity of your
   renewed nature! Your soul says, "Speak," and if etiquette says, "Hush,
   they will think you a fanatic," regard it not, but speak aloud and let
   them think you are a fanatic if they please! Sir, play the organ very
   softly when the subject is your own praise, but when you come to the
   praises of God, pull out all the stops--thunders of music are all too
   little for His infinite goodness!

   Another motive for abundantly uttering the praises of God is that other
   voices are clamorous to drown it. What a noisy world this is with its
   conflicting and discordant cries. "Lo here," cries one. "Lo there,"
   shouts another. This uproar would drown the notes of God's praise
   unless His people uttered it again and again! The more there is said
   against our God, the more should we speak for Him. Whenever you hear a
   man curse, it would be wise to say aloud, "Bless the Lord." Say it
   seven times for every time he curses and make him hear it. Perhaps he
   will want to know what you are doing and you will then have an
   opportunity of asking what he is doing--and he will have more
   difficulty in explaining himself than you will in explaining yourself.

   Try, if you can, to make up for the injuries done to the dear and
   sacred name of God by multiplying your praises in proportion as you
   hear Him spoken ill of. I say unless you give forth abundant utterance,
   God's praise will be buried under heaps of error, blasphemy, ribaldry,
   nonsense and idle talk! Abundantly utter it so that some of it, at
   least, may be heard! Praise the Lord abundantly because it will benefit
   you to do so. How bright the past looks when we begin to praise God for
   it. We say, "I am the man that has seen affliction," and we are to fill
   the cup of memory with gall and wormwood--but when we see the goodness
   of God in it all, we turn the kerchief with which we wiped our tears
   into a flag of victory--and with holy praise, in the name of our God,
   we wave the banner!

   As for the present, if you think of God's mercies, how different it
   seems. A man comes to his dinner table and does not enjoy what is there
   because he misses an expected dainty. But if he were as poor as some
   people, he would not turn his nose up, but would bless the goodness
   which has given him so much more than he deserves! Some I know, even
   among Christians, are growlers in general and always finding fault. The
   best things in the world are not good enough for them. Ah, my Brother,
   abundantly utter the memory of God's goodness and you will find nothing
   to grumble about--nothing to complain about--but everything to rejoice
   in! As for the future, if we remember God's goodness, how joyfully we
   shall march into it. There is the same goodness for tomorrow as for
   yesterday and the same goodness for old age as for youth--the same God
   to bless me when I grow gray as when I was a babe upon my mother's
   breast. Therefore, forward to the future without hesitation or
   suspicion, abundantly uttering the loving kindness of the Lord.

   Again, I think we ought to do this because of the good it does to other
   people. If you abundantly talk of God's goodness you are sure to
   benefit your neighbors. Many are comforted when they hear of God's
   goodness to their friends. Draw a long face and lament the trials of
   the way--sit down with somber brethren and enjoy a little comfortable
   misery and see whether crowds will ask to share your vinegar.--

   "While here our various needs we mourn, United groans ascend on high,"

   says Dr. Watts, and I am afraid he speaks the truth, but very few will
   be led in this way to resolve--"We will go with these people, for we
   perceive that God is with them." Is it good reasoning if men say,
   "These people are so miserable that they must be on the way to Heaven"?
   We may hope they are, for they evidently need some better place to
   live, but then it may be questioned if such folks would not be wretched
   even in Heaven!

   You smile, dear Friends, as if you said you would not be much attracted
   by sanctimonious misery, nor do I think you would. Therefore do not try
   it yourselves, but, on the contrary, talk much of the goodness of the
   Lord! Wear a smiling face! Let your eyes sparkle and go through the
   world as if you are not slaves under the lash, or prisoners in bonds,
   but the Lord's free men! We have glorious reasons for being happy--let
   us be so and soon we shall hear persons asking, "What is this? Is this
   religion? I always thought religious people felt bound to be down in
   the dumps and to go mourning and sighing all their days." When they see
   your joy they will be tempted to come to Christ! There is a blessed
   seductiveness in a holy, happy life. Praise, then, His name! Praise His
   name forevermore! Abundantly utter the memory of His great goodness and
   you will bring many to Christ!

   Such happy utterance will help, also, to comfort your own Christian
   friends and fellow sufferers. There is a deal of misery in the
   world--just now more than usual. Many are sorrowing from various
   causes. Therefore, my dear Friends, be happier than you ever were. That
   venerable man of God, now in Heaven, our dear old father Dransfield,
   when it was a very foggy morning in November, used to always come into
   the vestry before the sermon and say, "It is a dreary morning, dear
   Pastor. We must rejoice in the Lord more than usual. Things around us
   are dark, but within and above all is bright. I hope we shall have a
   very happy service today." He would shake hands with me and smile till
   he seemed to carry us all into the middle of summer. What if it is bad
   weather? Bless the Lord that it is not worse than it is! We are not
   altogether in Egyptian darkness--the sun does shine now and then--and
   we are sure it is not blown out.

   So, when we are sick and ill, let us thank God that we shall not be ill
   forever, for there is a place where the inhabitants are no more sick.
   And now, today, if your harps have been hanging on the willows, take
   them down! If you have not praised the Lord as you should, begin to do
   so! Wash your months and get rid of the sour flavor of murmuring about
   bad trade and bad weather! Sweeten your lips with the pleasant
   confection of praise. I will tell you this, Brothers and Sisters, if
   any of you shall confess to me that you have sinned by going too far in
   blessing God, I will, for once, become a priest and give you
   absolution! I never tried my hand at that business, before, but I think
   I can manage as much. Praise God extravagantly if you can. Try it! I
   wish you would say within yourself, "I will go beyond all boundaries in
   this matter," for there are no boundaries to the deserving of an
   ever-blessed God!

   Lastly, let us praise and bless God because it is the way in which He
   is glorified. We cannot add to His Glory, for it is infinite in
   itself--but we can make it to be more widely known by simply stating
   the truth about Him. Don't you want to give honor to God? Would you not
   lay down your life that the whole earth might be filled with His Glory?
   Well, if you cannot cover the earth with His praises as the waters
   cover the sea, you can at least contribute your portion to the flood!
   Oh, keep not back your praises, but bless and magnify His name from the
   rising of the sun to the going down of the same!

   It will lift earth upward and heavenward if we can all unite in
   praise--we shall see it rising as it were beneath our feet--and
   ourselves rising with it until we shall stand as upon the top of some
   lofty Alp that has pierced the vault of Heaven! And we shall be among
   the angels, feeling as they feel, doing as they do and losing ourselves
   as they lose themselves in the eternal hallelujah of, "Glory, and
   honor, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might be unto Him that
   sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever."
     __________________________________________________________________

                          Prayer Perfumed with Praise

   A Sermon

   (No. 1469)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 20th, 1879, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
   requests be made known unto God."--Philippians 4:6.

   ACCORDING TO THE TEXT, we are both by prayer and supplication to make
   known our requests unto God. If any distinction be intended here, I
   suppose that by prayer is meant the general act of devotion and the
   mention of our usual needs; and by supplication I think would be
   intended our distinct entreaties and special petitions. We are to offer
   the general prayer common to all the saints, and we are to add thereto
   the special and definite petitions which are peculiar to ourselves. We
   are to worship in prayer, for God is to be adored by all his saints,
   and then we are to beseech his favours for ourselves, according to the
   words of the text, letting our requests be made known unto God. Do not
   forget this second form of worship. There is a good deal of
   generalizing in prayer, and God forbid that we should say a word
   against it, so far as it is sincere worship, but we want to have more
   of specific, definite pleading with God, asking him for such-and-such
   things, with a clear knowledge of what we ask. You will hear prayers at
   prayer-meetings, in which everything is asked in general but nothing in
   particular, and yet the reality and heartiness of prayer will often be
   best manifested by the putting up of requests for distinct blessings.
   See how Abraham, when he went to worship the Lord, did not merely adore
   him, and in general pray for his glory, but on a special occasion he
   pleaded concerning the promised heir, at another time he cried, "O that
   Ishmael might live before thee," and on one special occasion he
   interceded for Sodom. Elijah, when on the top of Carmel, did not pray
   for all the blessings of providence in general, but for rain, for rain
   there and then. He knew what he was driving at, kept to his point, and
   prevailed. So, my beloved friends, we have many wants which are so
   pressing as to be very distinct and definite, and we ought to have just
   so many clearly defined petitions which we offer unto God by way of
   supplication, and for the divine answers to these we are bound to watch
   with eager expectancy, so that when we receive them we may magnify the
   Lord.

   The point to which I would draw your attention is this: that whether it
   be the general prayer or the specific supplication we are to offer
   either or both "with thanksgiving." We are to pray about everything,
   and with every prayer we must blend our thanksgivings. Hence it follows
   that we ought always to be in a thankful condition of heart: since we
   are to pray without ceasing, and are not to pray without thanksgiving,
   it is clear that we ought to be always ready to give thanks unto the
   Lord. We must say with the Psalmist, "Thus will I bless thee while I
   live; I will lift up my hands in thy name." The constant tenor and
   spirit of our lives should be adoring gratitude, love, reverence, and
   thanksgiving to the Most High.

   This blending of thanks with devotion is always to be maintained.
   Always must we offer prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. No
   matter though the prayer should struggle upward out of the depths, yet
   must its wings be silvered o'er with thanksgiving. Though the prayer
   were offered upon the verge of death, yet in the last few words which
   the trembling lips can utter there should be notes of gratitude as well
   as words of petition. The law saith: "With all thy sacrifices thou
   shalt offer salt;" and the gospel says with all thy prayers thou shalt
   offer praise. "One thing at a time" is said to be a wise proverb, but
   for once I must venture to contradict it, and say two things at a time
   are better, when the two are prayer and thanksgiving. These two holy
   streams flow from one common source, the Spirit of life which dwells
   within us; and they are utterances of the same holy fellowship with
   God; and therefore it is right that they should mingle as they flow,
   and find expression in the same holy exercise. Supplication and
   thanksgiving so naturally run into each other that it would be
   difficult to keep them separate: like kindred colours, they shade off
   into each other. Our very language seems to indicate this, for there is
   small difference between the words "to pray," and "to praise." A psalm
   may be either a prayer or praise, or both; and there is yet another
   form of utterance which is certainly prayer, but is used as praise, and
   is really both. I refer to that joyous Hebrew word which has been
   imported into all Christian languages, "Hosanna." Is it a prayer? Yes.
   "Save, Lord." Is it not praise? Yes; for it is tantamount to "God save
   the king," and is used to extol the Son of David. While we are here on
   earth we should never attempt to make such a distinction between prayer
   and praise that we should either praise without prayer or pray without
   praise; but with every prayer and supplication we should mingle
   thanksgiving, and thus make known our requests unto God.

   This commingling of precious things is admirable. It reminds me of that
   verse in the Canticles where the king is described as coming up from
   the wilderness in his chariot, "like pillars of smoke, perfumed with
   myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant." There is the
   myrrh of prayer, and the frankincense of praise. So, too, the holy
   incense of the sanctuary yielded the smoke of prayer which filled the
   holy place, but with it there was the sweet perfume of choice spices,
   which may be compared to praise. Prayer and praise are like the two
   cherubim on the ark, they must never be separated. In the model of
   prayer which our Saviour has given us, saying, "After this manner pray
   ye," the opening part of it is rather praise than prayer--"Our Father
   which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," and the closing part of it
   is praise, where we say, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the
   glory, for ever and ever. Amen." David, who is the great tutor and
   exemplar of the church as to her worship, being at once her poet and
   her preacher, takes care in almost every psalm, though the petition may
   be agonizing, to mingle exquisite praise. Take for instance, that psalm
   of his after his great sin with Bathsheba. There one would think, with
   sighs and groans and tears so multiplied, he might have almost
   forgotten or have feared to offer thanksgiving while he was trembling
   under a sense of wrath; and yet ere the psalm that begins "Have mercy
   upon me, O God," can come to a conclusion the psalmist has said: "O
   Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise," and
   he cannot pen the last word without beseeching the Lord to build the
   walls of Jerusalem, adding the promise, "then shalt thou be pleased
   with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole
   burnt offering: then shalt they offer bullocks upon thine alter." I
   need not stop to quote other instances, but it is almost always the
   case that David by the fire of prayer warms himself into praise. He
   begins low, with many a broken note of complaining, but he mounts and
   glows, and, like the lark, sings as he ascends. When at first his harp
   is muffled he warbles a few mournful notes and becomes excited, till he
   cannot restrain his hand from that well-known and accustomed string
   which he had reserved for the music of praise alone. There is a passage
   in the eighteenth Psalm, at the third verse, in which indeed he seems
   to have caught the very idea which I want to fix upon your minds this
   morning. "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so
   shall I be saved from mine enemies." He was in such a condition that he
   says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men
   made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of
   death prevented me." Driven by distress, he declares that he will call
   upon the Lord, that is, with utterances of prayer; but he does not
   alone regard his God as the object of prayer, but as One who is to be
   praised. "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;" and
   then, as if inspired to inform us of the fact that the blending of
   thanksgiving with prayer renders it infallibly effectual, as I shall
   have to show you it does, he adds, "So shall I be saved from mine
   enemies."

   Now, if this habit of combining thanksgiving with prayer is found in
   the Old Testament saints, we have a right to expect it yet more in New
   Testament believers, who in clearer light perceive fresh reasons for
   thanksgiving; but I shall give you no instance except that of the
   writer of my text. Does he not tell us in the present chapter that
   those things which we have seen in him we are to do, for his life was
   agreeable with his teachings? Now, observe, how frequently he commences
   his epistles with a blending of supplication and thanksgiving. Turn to
   Romans 1:8-9, and note this fusion of these precious metals--"First, I
   thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is
   spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I
   serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I
   make mention of you always in my prayers." There is "I thank my God,"
   and "I make mention of you always in my prayers." This was not written
   with a special eye to the percept of our text; it was natural to Paul
   so to thank God when he prayed. Look at Colossians 1:3--"We give thanks
   to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for
   you." To the same effect we read in First Thessalonians 1:2--"We give
   thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our
   prayers." Look also at Second Timothy 1:3--"I thank God, whom I serve
   from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have
   remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day." And if it be so in
   other epistles, we are not at all surprised to find it so in
   Philippians 1:3-4--"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
   always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy."
   Nor need I confine you to the language of Paul's epistle, since it is
   most noteworthy that in Philippi itself (and those to whom he wrote
   must have remembered the incident) Paul and Silas prayed and sang
   praises unto God at midnight, so that the prisoners heard them. It is
   clear that Paul habitually practised what he here enjoins. His own
   prayers had not been offered without thanksgiving; what God hath joined
   together he had never put asunder.

   With this as a preface, I invite you to consider, carefully and
   prayerfully, first, the grounds of thanksgiving in prayer; secondly,
   the evil of its absence; and thirdly, the result of its presence.

   I. First, then, there are REASONS FOR MINGLING THANKSGIVING WITH
   PRAYER. In the nature of things it ought to be so. We have abundant
   cause, my brethen, for thanksgiving at all times. We do not come to God
   in Prayer as if he had left us absolutely penniless, and we cried to
   him like starving prisoners begging through prison bars. We do not ask
   as if we had never received a single farthing of God before, and hardly
   thought we should obtain anything now; but on the contrary, having been
   already the recipients of immense favours, we come to a God who abounds
   in lovingkindness, who is willing to bestow good gifts upon us, and
   waits to be gracious to us. We do not come to the Lord as slaves to an
   unfeeling tyrant craving for a boon, but as children who draw nigh to a
   loving father, expecting to receive abundantly from his liberal hands.
   Thanksgiving is the right spirit in which to come before the God who
   daily loadeth us with benefits. Bethink you for awhile what cause you
   have for thanksgiving in prayer.

   And first you have this, that such a thing as prayer is possible, that
   a finite creature can speak with the infinite Creator, that a sinful
   being can have audience with the thrice-holy Jehovah. It is worthy of
   thanksgiving that God should have commanded prayer and encouraged us to
   draw near unto him; and that moreover he should have supplied all
   things necessary to the sacred exercise. He has set up a mercy seat,
   blood besprinkled; and he has prepared a High Priest, ever living to
   make intercession; and to these he has added the Holy Ghost to help our
   infirmities and to teach us what we should pray for as we ought.
   Everything is ready, and God waits for us to enquire at his hands. He
   has not only set before us an open door and invited us to enter, but he
   has given us the right spirit with which to approach. The grace of
   supplication is poured out upon us and wrought in us by the Holy Ghost.
   What a blessing it is that we do not attempt prayer with a
   peradventure, as if we were making a doubtful experiment, nor do we
   come before God as a forlorn hope, desperately afraid that he will not
   listen to our cry; but he has ordained prayer to be the ordinary
   commerce of heaven and earth, and sanctioned it in the most solemn
   manner. Prayer may climb to heaven, for God has himself prepared the
   ladder and set it down just by the head of his lonely Jacob, so that
   though that head be pillowed on a stone it may rest in peace. Lo, at
   the top of that ladder is the Lord himself in his covenant capacity,
   receiving our petitions and sending his attendant angels with answers
   to our requests. Shall we not bless God for this?

   Let us praise his name, dear friends, also especially that you and I
   are still spared to pray and permitted to pray. What if we are greatly
   afflicted, yet it is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed. If
   we had received our desserts we should not now have been on praying
   ground and pleading terms with him. But let it be for our comfort and
   to God's praise that still we may stand with bowed head and cry each
   one--"God be merciful to me a sinner." Still may we cry like sinking
   Peter, "Lord save, or I perish." Like David, we may be unable to go up
   to the temple, but we can still go to our God in prayer. The prodigal
   has lost his substance, but he has not lost his power to supplicate. He
   has been feeding swine, but as yet he is still a man, and has not lost
   the faculty of desire and entreaty. He may have forgotten his father,
   but his father has not forgotten him; he may arise and he may go to
   him, and he may pour out his soul in his father's bosom. Therefore, let
   us give thanks unto God that he has nowhere said unto us--"Seek ye my
   face in vain." If we find a desire to pray trembling within our soul,
   and if though almost extinct we feel some hope in the promise of our
   gracious God, if our heart still groans after holiness and after God,
   though she hath lost her power to pray with joyful confidence as once
   she did, yet let us be thankful that we can pray even if it be but a
   little. In the will and power to pray there lies the capacity for
   infinite blessedness: he who hath the key of prayer can open heaven,
   yea, he hath access to the heart of God; therefore, bless God for
   prayer.

   And then, beloved, beyond the fact of prayer and our power to exercise
   it, there is a further ground of thanksgiving that we have already
   received great mercy at God's hands. We are not coming to God to ask
   favours and receive them for the first time in our lives. Why, blessed
   be his name, if he never granted me another favour, I have enough for
   which to thank him as long as I have any being. And this, moreover, is
   to be recollected, that whatever great things we are about to ask, we
   cannot possibly be seeking for blessings one-half so great as those
   which we have already received if we are indeed his children. If thou
   art a Christian, thou hast life in Christ. Art thou about to ask for
   meat and raiment? The life is more than these. Thou hast already
   obtained Christ Jesus to be thine, and he that spared him not will deny
   thee nothing. Is there, I was about to say, anything to compare with
   the infinite riches which are already ours in Christ Jesus? Let us
   perpetually thank our Benefactor for what we have while we make request
   for something more. Should it not be so? Shall not the abundant
   utterances of the memory of his great goodness run over into our
   requests, till our petitions are baptized in gratitude. While we come
   before God, in one aspect, empty handed to receive of his goodness, on
   the other hand we should never appear before him empty, but come with
   the fat of our sacrifices, offering praise and glorifying God.

   Furthermore, there is this to be remembered, that when we come before
   God in the hour of trouble, remembering his great goodness to us in the
   past, and therefore thanking him, we ought to have faith enough to
   believe that the present trouble, about which we are praying, is sent
   in love. You will win with God in prayer if you can look at your trials
   in this light:--"Lord, I have this thorn in the flesh. I beseech thee,
   deliver me from it, but meanwhile I bless thee for it; for though I do
   not understand the why or the wherefore of it, I am persuaded there is
   love within it; therefore, while I ask thee to remove it, so far as it
   seemeth evil to me, yet wherein it may to thy better knowledge work my
   good, I bless thee for it, and I am content to endure it so long as
   thou seest fit." Is not that a sweet way of praying? "Lord, I am in
   want, be pleased to supply me; but, meanwhile, if thou do not, I
   believe it is better for me to be in need, and so I praise thee for my
   necessity while I ask thee to supply it. I glory in mine infirmity,
   even while I ask thee to overcome it. I triumph before thee in my
   affliction, and bless thee for it even while I ask thee to help me in
   it and to rescue me out of it." This is a royal way of praying: such an
   amalgam of prayer and thanksgiving is more precious than the gold of
   Ophir.

   Furthermore, beloved, whenever we are on our knees in prayer, it
   becomes us to bless God that prayer has been answered so many times
   before. Here thy poor petitioner bends before thee to ask again, but
   ere he asks he thanks thee for having heard him so many times before. I
   know that thou hearest me always, therefore do I continue still to cry
   to thee. My thanksgivings urge me to make fresh petitions, encouraging
   me in the full confidence that thou wilt not send me away empty. Why,
   many of the mercies which you possess today, and rejoice in, are
   answers to prayer. They are dear to you because, like Samuel, whom his
   mother so named because he was "asked of God," they came to you as
   answers to your supplications. When mercies come in answer to prayer
   they have a double delight about them, not only because they are good
   in themselves, but because they are certificates of our favour with the
   Lord. Well, then, as God has heard us so often and we have the proofs
   of his hearing, should we ever pray with murmurings and complainings?
   Should we not rather feel an intense delight when we approach the
   throne of grace, a rapture awakened by sunny memories of the past?

   Again, we ought to pray with thanksgiving in its highest of all senses,
   by thanking God that we have the mercy which we seek. I wish we could
   learn this high virtue of faith. When I was conversing lately with our
   dear friend George Miller, he frequently astonished me with the way in
   which he mentioned that he had for so many months and years asked for
   such and such a mercy, and praised the Lord for it. He praised the Lord
   for it as though he had actually obtained it. Even in praying for the
   conversion of a person, as soon as he had begun to intercede he began
   also to praise God for the conversion of that person. Though I think he
   told us he had in one instance already prayed for thirty years and the
   work was not yet done, yet all the while he had gone on thanking God,
   because he knew the prayer would be answered. He believed that he had
   his petition, and commenced to magnify the Giver of it. Is this
   unreasonable? How often do we antedate our gratitude among the sons of
   men! If you were to promise some poor person that you would pay his
   rent when it came due, he would thank you directly, though not a
   farthing had left your pocket. We have enough faith in our fellow-men
   to thank them beforehand, and surely we may do the same with our Lord.
   Shall we not be willing to trust God for a few months ahead, ay, and
   for years beforehand, if his wisdom bids us wait. This is the way to
   win with him. When ye pray, believe that ye receive the boons ye ask,
   and ye shall have them. "Believe that ye have it," says the Scripture,
   "and ye shall have it." As a man's note of hand stands for the money,
   so let God's promise be accounted as the performance. Shall not
   heaven's bank-notes pass as cash? Yea, verily, they shall have
   unquestioned currency among believers. We will bless the Lord for
   giving us what we have sought, since our having it is a matter of
   absolute certainty. We shall never thank God by faith and then find
   that we were befooled. He has said, "All things whatsoever ye shall ask
   in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." And therefore we may rest
   assured that the thanksgiving of faith shall never bring shame into the
   face of the man who offers it.

   Once again, and then I will say no more upon these grounds of
   thanksgiving; surely, brethren, if the Lord do not answer the prayer
   which we are offering, yet still he is so good, so supremely good, that
   we will bless him whether or no. We ought even to praise him when he
   does not answer us, ay, and bless him for refusing our desires. How
   devoutly might some of us thank him that he did not answer our prayers
   when we sought for evil things in the ignorance of our childish minds.
   We asked for flesh, and He might have sent us quails in His anger, and
   while the flesh was yet in our mouths his wrath might have come upon
   us; but in love he would not hear us. Blessed be his name for closing
   his ear in pity! Let us adore him when he keeps us waiting at his
   doors; thank him for rebuffs, and bless him for refusals, believing
   always that Ralph Erskine spoke the truth when he said:

   "I'm heard when answered soon or late,

   Yea, heard when I no answer get:

   Yea, kindly answered when refused,

   And treated well when harshly used."

   Faith glorifies the love of God, for she knows that the Lord's roughest
   usage is only love in disguise. We are not so sordid as to make our
   songs depend upon the weather, or on the fulness of the olive-press and
   the wine-fat. Blessed be his name, he must be right even when he seems
   at cross purposes with his people; we are not going to quarrel with
   him, like silly babes with their nurses, because he does not happen to
   grant us every desire of our foolish hearts. Though he slay us we will
   trust in him, much more if he decline our requests. We ask him for our
   daily bread, and if he withhold it we will praise him. Our praises are
   not suspended upon his answers to our prayers. If the labour of the
   olive should fail, and the field should yield no fruit; if the flock
   should be cut off from the fold, and the herd from the stall, yet still
   would we rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation.
   Blessed Spirit, raise us to this state of grace and keep us there.

   Of that which we have spoken this is the sum: under every condition,
   and in every necessity, draw nigh to God in prayer, but always bring
   thanksgiving with you. As Joseph said to his brethren, "Ye shall not
   see my face, except your brother be with you;" so may the Lord say to
   you, "You shall not receive my smile unless you bring thankfulness with
   you." Let your prayers be like those ancient missals which one
   sometimes sees, in which the initial letters of the prayers are gilded
   and adorned with a profusion of colours, the work of cunning writers.
   Let even the general confession of sin and the litany of mournful
   petitions have at least one illuminated letter. Illuminate your
   prayers; light them up with rays of thanksgiving all the way through;
   and when you come together to pray forget not to make melody unto the
   Lord with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs.

   II. Secondly, I shall drive at the same point, while I try to show THE
   EVIL OF THE ABSENCE OF THANKSGIVING in our prayers.

   First and foremost, we should be chargeable with ingratitude. Are we to
   be always receiving and never to return thanks? Aristotle rightly
   observes: "A return is required to preserve friendship between two
   persons," and as we have nothing else to give to God except gratitude,
   let us abound therein. If we have no fruit of the field, let us at
   least render to him the fruit of our lips. Have you no thanks to bring?
   How, then, can you expect further favours? Does not liberality itself
   close its hand when ingratitude stands in the way? What, never a word
   of gratitude to him from whom all blessings flow! Then may even the
   ungodly despise you.

   Next, it would argue great selfishness if we did not combine praise
   with prayer. Can it be right to think only of ourselves, to pray for
   benefits and never honour our Benefactor? Are we going to import the
   detestable vice of avarice into spiritual things, and only care for our
   own souls' good? What, no thought for God's glory! No idea of
   magnifying his great and blessed name! God forbid that we should fall
   into a spirit so mean and narrow. Healthy praise and thanksgiving must
   be cultivated, because they prevent prayer from becoming overgrown with
   the mildew of selfishness.

   Thanksgiving also prevents prayer from becoming an exhibition of the
   want of faith; for indeed some prayer is rather a manifestation of the
   absence of faith than the exercise of confidence in God. If when I am
   in trouble I still bless the Lord for all I suffer, therein my faith is
   seen. If before I obtain the mercy, I thank God for the grace which I
   have not yet tasted, therein my faith is manifest. What, is our faith
   such that it only sings in the sunshine? Have we no nightingale music
   for our God? Is our trust like the swallow, which must leave us in
   winter? Is our faith a flower which needs the conservatory to keep it
   alive? Can it not blossom like the gentian at the foot of the frozen
   glacier, where the damp and chill of adversity surround it? I trust it
   can, it ought to do so, and we ought to feel that we can praise and
   bless God when outward circumstances appear rather to demand sighs than
   songs.

   Not to thank God in our prayers would argue willfulness, and want of
   submission to his will. Must everything be ordered according to our
   mind? To refuse to praise unless we have our own way is great
   presumption, and shows that like a naughty child we will sulk if we
   cannot be master. I might illustrate the willfulness of many a
   supplication by that of a little boy who was very diligent in saying
   his prayers, but was at the same time disobedient, ill-tempered, and
   the pest of the house. His mother told him that she thought it was mere
   hypocrisy for him to pretend to pray. He replied, "No, mother, indeed
   it is not, for I pray God to lead you and father to like my ways better
   than you do." Numbers of people want the Lord to like their ways
   better, but they do not intend to follow the ways of the Lord. Their
   minds are contrary to God and will not submit to his will, and
   therefore there is no thanksgiving in them. Praise in a prayer is
   indicative of an humble, submissive, obedient spirit, and when it is
   absent we may suspect willfulness and self-seeking. Very much of the
   prayer of rebellious hearts is the mere growling of an angry obstinacy,
   the whine of an ungratified self-conceit. God must do this and he must
   do that, or else we will not love him. What baby talk! What spoiled
   children such are! A little whipping will do them good. "I have never
   believed in the goodness of God," said one, "ever since he took my dear
   mother away." I knew a good man whose child was on the verge of the
   grave; when I went to see her he charged me not to mention death to
   her, for he said, "I do not believe God could do such an unkind action
   as take my only child away." When I assured him that she would surely
   die in a few days, and that he must not quarrel with the will of the
   Lord, he stood firm in his rebellion. He prayed, but he could not bless
   God, and it was no marvel that his heart sank within him, and he
   refused to be comforted, when at last his child died, as we all felt
   sure she would. He became afterwards resigned, but his want of
   acquiescence cost him many a smart. This will not do; this quarreling
   with God is poor work! Resignation comes to the heart like an angel
   unawares, and when we entertain it our soul is comforted. We may ask
   for the child's life, but we must also thank the Lord that the dear
   life has been prolonged so long as it has been, and we must put the
   child and everything else into our Father's hands and say, "If thou
   shouldest take all away, yet still will I bless thy name, O thou Most
   High." This is acceptable prayer, because it is not soured by the
   leaven of self-will, but salted with thankfulness.

   We must mingle our thanksgivings with our prayers, or else we may fear
   that our mind is not in harmony with the divine will. Recollect, dear
   friends, that prayer does not alter the mind of God: it never was the
   intent of prayer that it should attempt anything of the kind. Prayer is
   the shadow of the decrees of the Eternal. God has willed such a thing,
   and he makes his saints to will it, and express their will in prayer.
   Prayer is the rustling of the wings of the angels who are bringing the
   blessing to us. It is written, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and
   he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." It is not said that he
   will give the desire of his heart to every Jack and Tom; but you must
   first delight in the Lord, and when your mind finds all her joy in God
   then it is clear that God and you, as far as it can be, are standing on
   the same plane and moving in the same direction, and now you shall have
   the desire of your heart because the desire of your heart is the desire
   of God's heart. Character, as much as faith, lies at the basis of
   prevalence in prayer. I do not mean in the case of the prayer of the
   sinner when he is seeking mercy, but I mean in the habitual prayers of
   the godly. There are some men who cannot pray so as to prevail, for sin
   has made them weak, and God walks contrary to them because they walk
   contrary to him. He who has lost the light of God's countenance has
   also lost much of the prevalence of his prayers. You do not suppose
   that every Israelite could have gone to the top of Carmel and opened
   the windows of heaven as Elijah did. No, he must first be Elijah, for
   it is the effectual, fervent prayer, not of every man, but of a
   righteous man, that availeth much; and when the Lord has put your heart
   and my heart into an agreement with him then we shall pray and prevail.
   What did our Lord say--"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you,
   ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." Doubtless
   many lose power in prayer because their lives are greivous in the sight
   of the Lord, and he cannot smile upon them. Will any father listen to
   the requests of a child who has set himself up in opposition to
   parental authority? The obedient, tender, loving child, who would not
   wish for anything which you did not think right to give, is he whose
   requests you are pleased to consider and fulfil; yea, more, you even
   anticipate the wishes of such a child, and before he calls you answer
   him. May we be such children of the great God.

   III. And now, in the third place, let us consider THE RESULT OF THE
   PRESENCE OF THIS THANKSGIVING IN CONNECTION WITH PRAYER. According to
   the context, the presence of thanksgiving in the heart together with
   prayer is productive of peace. "In everything by prayer and
   supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
   God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
   your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Now that peace, that
   conscious calm, that divine serenity, which is described as the peace
   of God, is not produced by prayer alone, but by prayer with
   thanksgiving. Some men pray, and therein they do well; but for lack of
   mixing thanksgiving with it their prayer agitates them, and they come
   away from the closet even more anxious than when they entered it. If
   they mingled in their petitions that sweet powder of the merchants,
   which is called praise, and mixed it after the art of the apothecary,
   in due proportions, the blessing of God would come with it, causing
   repose of heart. If we bless our gracious Lord for the very trouble we
   pray against; if we bless him for the very mercy which we need, as
   though it had already come; if we resolve to praise him whether we
   receive the boon or not, learning in whatsoever state we are therewith
   to be content, then "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
   will keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." Brethren, as you value
   this divine rest of spirit, as you prize constant serenity of soul, I
   beseech you, mingle praises with your prayers.

   The next effect of it will be this: the thanksgiving will often warm
   the soul, and enable it to pray. I believe it is the experience of many
   who love secret devotion that at times they cannot pray, for their
   heart seems hard, cold, dumb, and almost dead. Do not pump up unwilling
   and formal prayer, my brethren; but take down the hymn-book and sing.
   While you praise the Lord for what you have, you will find your rocky
   heart begin to dissolve and flow in rivers. You will be encouraged to
   plead with the Lord because you will remember what you have aforetime
   received at his hand. If you had an empty wagon to raise to the mouth
   of a coal-pit, it might be a very difficult task for you; but the work
   is managed easily by the common-sense of the miners. They make the full
   wagons, as they run down, pull the empty wagons up the incline. Now,
   when your heart is loaded with praise for mercy received, let it run
   down the incline, and draw up the empty wagon of your desires, and you
   will thus find it easy to pray. Cold and chill prayers are always to be
   deplored, and if by so simple a method as entreating the Lord to accept
   our thanksgiving our hearts can be warmed and renewed, let us by all
   means take care to use it.

   Lastly, I believe that when a man begins to pray with thanksgiving he
   is upon the eve of receiving the blessing. God's time to bless you has
   come when you begin to praise him as well as pray to him. God has his
   set time to favour us, and he will not grant us our desire until the
   due season has arrived. But the time has come when you begin to bless
   the Lord. Now, take an instance of this in Second Chronicles
   20:20--Jehoshaphat went out to fight with an exceeding great army, and
   mark how he achieved the victory. "They rose early in the morning and
   went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth,
   Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of
   Jerusalem; believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established;
   believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper. And when he had consulted
   with the people he appointed"--what? warriors, captains? No, that was
   all done, but he "appointed singers unto the LORD, and that should
   praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to
   say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they
   began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the
   children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah;
   and they were smitten." Victory came when they began to sing and
   praise. You shall get your answers to prayer when you multiply your
   thanksgivings in all your prayers and supplications: rest you sure of
   that.

   Our thanksgiving will show that the reason for our waiting is now
   exhausted; that the waiting has answered its purpose, and may now come
   to a joyful end. Sometimes we are not in a fit state to receive a
   blessing, but when we reach the condition of thankfulness, then is the
   time when it is safe for God to indulge us. A professing Christian came
   to his minister once and said, "Sir, you say we should always pray."
   "Yes, my friend, undoubtedly." "But then, Sir, I have been praying for
   twelve months that I might enjoy the comforts of religion, and I am no
   happier than before. I have made that my one perpetual prayer, that I
   might enjoy the comforts of religion, and I do not feel joy nor even
   peace of mind; in fact, I have more doubts and fears than ever I had."
   "Yes," said his minister, "and that is the natural result of such a
   selfish prayer. Why, dear friend," he said, "come and kneel down with
   me, and let us pray in another manner, Father, glorify thy name! Thy
   kingdom come.' Now," said he, "go and offer those petitions and get to
   work to try to make it true, and see if you do not soon enjoy the
   comforts of religion." There is a great deal in that fact: if you will
   but desire God to be glorified, and aim at glorifying him yourself,
   then shall the joys of true godliness come to you in answer to prayer.

   The time for the blessing is when you begin to praise God for it. For,
   brethren, you may be sure that when you put up a thanksgiving on the
   ground that God has answered your prayer, you really have prevailed
   with God. Suppose you had promised to some poor woman that you would
   give her a meal tomorrow. You might forget it, you know; but suppose
   when the morning came she sent her little girl with a basket for it,
   she would be likely to get it I think. But, suppose that she sent in
   addition a little note in which the poor soul thanked you for your
   great kindness, could you have the heart to say, "My dear girl, I
   cannot attend to you today. Come another time"? Oh dear no, if the
   cupboard was bare you would send out to get something, because the good
   soul so believed in you that she had sent you thanks for it before she
   received your gift. Well, now, trust the Lord in the same manner. He
   cannot run back from his Word, my brethren. Believing prayer holds him,
   but believing thanksgiving binds him. If it is not in your own heart,
   though you be evil, to refuse to give what you have promised when that
   promise is so believed that the person rejoices as though he had it;
   then depend upon it the good God will not find it in his heart to
   refuse. The time for reception is fully come because thanksgiving for
   that reception fills your heart. I leave the matter with you. If you
   are enabled to pray in that fashion, great good will come to
   yourselves, and to the church of God, and to the world at large by such
   prayers.

   Now, I think I hear in this audience somebody saying, "But I cannot
   pray so. I do not know how to pray. Oh, that I knew how to pray! I am a
   poor, guilty sinner. I cannot mix any thanksgiving with my
   supplications." Ah, my dear soul, do not think about that just now. I
   am not so much preaching to you as I am preaching to the people of God.
   For you it is quite enough to say--"God be merciful to me a sinner."
   And yet I will venture to say that there is praise in such a petition.
   You are implicitly praising the justice of God, and you are praising
   his mercy by appealing to him. When the prodigal returned, and he began
   his prayer by saying, "I am not worthy to be called thy son," there was
   in that confession a real praise of the father's goodness, of which he
   was unworthy to partake. But you need not to think about this matter at
   present, for first you have to find Jesus, and eternal life in him. Go
   and plead the merit of Jesus, and cast yourself upon the love and mercy
   of God in him and he will not cast you away: and then another day, when
   you thus have found and known him, take care that the thanksgiving for
   your salvation never ceases. Even when you are most hungry, and poor,
   and needy in the future continue to bless your saving Lord, and say,
   "This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him: and because the LORD
   inclined his ear unto me I will praise his name as long as I live."

   God bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Philippians 4.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK."--18 (Vers. 1.), 1001, 982.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Question for Hard-hearted Hearers

   (No. 1470)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen?" Amos
   6:12.

   THESE expressions are proverbs, probably taken from the familiar adages
   of the country, but, anyhow, right worthy to be used as proverbs. The
   wiser men become, the more sententious are their utterances, the more
   terse and full of meaning are their sayings and, therefore, the wisdom
   of the wise condenses into proverbs and the language of Prophets is
   sure to abound in them. But a proverb is generally a sword with two
   edges, or, if such a metaphor might be tolerated, it has many edges, or
   is all edge and hence it may be turned this way and that way and its
   back stroke will be as sharp as its direct cut, for every part of it
   will have force and point. A proverb has often many bearings and you
   cannot always tell what was the precise meaning of him who uttered it,
   except by the connection.

   Now, I believe that the connection would abundantly tolerate two senses
   in this place. An ancient commentator asserts that there are seven
   meanings of it and that any one of them would be consistent with the
   context. I cannot deny the assertion, for if it is correct, it is only
   one among many instances of the manifold wisdom of the Word of God.
   Like those curious carved Chinese balls in which there is one ball
   within another, so in many a holy text there is sense within sense,
   teaching within teaching and each one worthy of the Spirit of God.

   The first sense of the text I would say just a word or two upon is
   this--the Prophet is expostulating with ungodly men upon their pursuit
   of happiness where it can never be found. They were endeavoring to grow
   rich and great and strong by oppression. The Prophet says, "you have
   turned judgment into gall and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock."
   They had transformed the judgment seat into a place where justice was
   bought and sold and the Book of the Law was made to be the instrument
   of chicanery and high-handed fraud. "Yet," says the Prophet, "there is
   no gain to be gotten this way--no real profit, no true happiness. As
   well may horses run upon the rock and oxen plow the sand--it is a
   foolish attempt, it is labor in vain."

   And truly, dear Hearers, if there are any of you, and probably there
   are, who try to content yourselves with this world and hope to find a
   Heaven in the midst of your business and your family without looking
   upward for it, you labor in vain! If any of you endeavor to find
   pleasure in sin and think that it will go well with you if you despise
   the Law of God and seek your own pleasure by breaking the natural laws
   which concern your body, you will find that you have made a great
   mistake! You might as well seek for roses in the grottoes of the sea,
   or look for pearls on the bare pavements of the city! You will find
   what your soul requires nowhere but in God. To seek after happiness in
   evil deeds is to plow a rock of granite. To labor after true prosperity
   by dishonest means is as useless as to till the sandy shore.

   "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your
   labor for that which satisfies not?" Young man, you are killing
   yourself with ambition and if your objective were worthy, we might not
   be so grieved, but your ambition is selfish--you seek only your own
   honor and emolument--and this is a poor, poor objective for an immortal
   soul. And you, too, Sir, are wearing out your life with anxiety--your
   mind and body both fail you in endeavoring to amass riches, as if a
   man's life consisted in the abundance of the things which he possesses!
   You are plowing a rock! Your avarice will not bring you joy of heart or
   content of spirit, but will end in failure.

   And you, too, who labor to weave a righteousness by your works apart
   from Christ and fancy that with the diligent use of outward ceremonies
   you may be able to do the work of the Holy Spirit upon your own
   heart--you, too, are plowing thankless sand! No harvest will ever repay
   your self-elected toils. Merit can no more spring from human hands than
   fruit from an iron rod! The strength of fallen nature exerted at its
   utmost can never rescue a soul from the storm of wrath which awaits the
   guilty. You may row hard to bring that galley of yours to shore, but it
   shall be broken by the fierce storm. Why, then, attempt the impossible
   when faith would, in a moment, calm the sea and bring the ship to
   shore?

   Woe unto those who kindle a fire, surround themselves with sparks and
   delight themselves in the blaze of their own kindling, for they shall
   have this of the Lord--they shall go down in sorrow!

   So far, I believe, I have not misread the text, but have mentioned a
   very probable meaning of the words as they stand in the context. But,
   still, another strikes me which I think equally suitable and upon it I
   shall dwell, by God's help. It is just this. God will not always send
   His Prophets to warn people, or employ His ministers to call them to
   repentance. When it turns out that men's hearts remain obdurate and
   they do not and will not repent, then God will not always deal with
   them in mercy. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." There is a
   time of plowing, but when it comes to be quite evident that the heart
   is willfully hardened, then Wisdom, itself, suggests to Mercy that she
   should give over her efforts. "Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one
   plow there with oxen?"

   No, there is a limit to the efforts of kindness and in fullness of time
   the labor ceases--the rock remains a sterile rock, forever unplowed.

   I. Taking that sense, we shall speak upon it and remark, first, that
   MINISTERS LABOR TO BREAK UP MEN'S HEARTS. This is the first effort of
   the wise preacher. The servant of Christ who teaches the Gospel,
   whatever he may be called, is a sower of seed--and though it may appear
   useless to sow seed upon rocks, we are bound, while acting as
   evangelists, to sow our Seed everywhere. Broadcast is our Master's
   rule--"Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature." Hence in our Lord's parable a handful fell upon the highway
   where the birds devoured it and another handful fell upon the rocky
   soil where it sprung up, but tomorrow perished because it had not depth
   of earth.

   It was no business of the sower to select the soil. He was to sow as he
   went along, for so his Master told him. But I think he would not be
   blamed, but commended if he threw double handfuls over there where the
   soil was evidently rich and well prepared! As a sower he was to sow
   broadcast and leave the Seed to fall where it might under the guardian
   care of Him who sent Him to sow. But when he became a farmer, he would
   have further duties and among the rest, that of breaking up the fallow
   ground that he might no longer sow among thorns.

   We have so often sown on the rock and have been so frequently
   disappointed because of the hardness of the unrenewed heart, that much
   time must be spent by the pastor, as a lover of men's souls, in trying,
   by the power of the Holy Spirit, to break up the hard earth--to make it
   so that it will be receptive of the Seed and ready to nurture the
   Living Grain after it has fallen there. There are many Truths of God
   which are used in this plowing and driven in like sharp plowshares to
   break up the heart. Men must be made to feel that they have sinned and
   they must be led to repent of sin. They must receive Christ, not with
   the head, only, but with the heart--for with the heart man believes
   unto righteousness.

   There must be emotion--we must cut into the heart with the plowshare of
   the Law. A farmer who is too tenderhearted to tear up and harrow the
   land will never see a harvest! Here is the failing of certain
   Divines--they are afraid of hurting anyone's feelings and so they keep
   clear of all the Truths which are likely to excite fear or grief. They
   have not a sharp plowshare on their premises and are never likely to
   have a stack in their barn. They angle without hooks for fear of
   hurting the fish and fire without bullets out of respect to the
   feelings of the birds! This kind of love is real cruelty to men's
   souls. It is much the same as if a surgeon should permit a patient to
   die because he would not pain him with the knife, or by the necessary
   removal of a limb. It is a terrible tenderness which leaves men to sink
   into Hell rather than distress their minds! It is a diabolical love
   which denies the eternal danger which assuredly exists and argues the
   soul into presumption because it thinks it a pity to excite terror and
   so much more pleasant to prophesy smooth things.

   Is this the spirit of Christ? Did He conceal the sinner's peril? Did He
   cast doubts upon the unquenchable fire and the undying worm? Did He
   lull souls into slumber by notes of flattery? No, but with honest love
   and anxious concern He warned men of the wrath to come and bade them
   repent or perish! Let the servant of the Lord Jesus in this thing
   follow his Master and plow deep with a sharp plowshare which will not
   be balked by the hardest clods! This we must school ourselves to do. It
   may be contrary to our impulses and painful to our feelings, but it
   must not be left undone to gratify our love of ease and our desire to
   please our hearers.

   If we really love the souls of men, let us prove it by honest speech
   which costs us pain; by earnest warning which it is more grievous to us
   to utter than to others to hear! This part of our work is essential to
   man's welfare and can by no means be omitted. The hard heart must be
   broken, or it will refuse the Savior whose Glory lies very much in His
   being sent to bind up the broken-hearted. There are some things which
   men may or may not have and yet may be saved--but

   those things which go with the plowing of the heart are indispensable
   and, therefore, men must have them or hopelessly perish! The heart must
   be broken up--there must be a holy fear and a humble trembling before
   God! There must be an acknowledgment of offenses committed and a
   penitent petition for mercy. There must, in a word, be a thorough
   plowing of the soul before we can expect that the Seed should bring
   forth fruit!

   II. But the text indicates to us that AT TIMES MINISTERS LABOR IN VAIN.
   "Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen?" There
   are some hearts--there are some in this house tonight, there are some
   who are always here--who are very hard soil. When the plowman plows, he
   soon discovers what he is at work upon. I do not suppose that anybody
   but a minister with considerable experience will understand what I say
   when I declare that there is a sympathy between the preacher of the
   Gospel and his hearers of a very intimate kind, even as there is a
   mutual action between the soil and the plowman.

   Though our hearers are silent, they probably speak more to the preacher
   than he does to them. In a short time a plowman feels whether the plow
   will go or not and so does the minister. He may use the very same words
   in one place which he has used in another, or they may seem to him to
   be so, but he feels in the one place great joy and hopefulness in
   preaching, while with another audience he has heavy work and little
   hope mingles with it. The plow in the last case seems to jump out of
   the furrow--and a bit of the blade is broken off every now and then. He
   says to himself, "I do not know how it is, but I know I can't get on at
   this," and he becomes conscious that his Master has sent him to work
   upon a particularly heavy soil. The people were so far attentive that
   nobody was asleep--they seemed to drink in every word and yet they were
   as unmoved as so many statues!

   They did not feel and did not appear as if they could feel anything.
   The preacher was ready to stop and burst into tears to see how utterly
   unfeeling his audience had become, but that did not alter them. He
   hoped it was no vain regard for his own reputation which distressed
   him, but that a sincere desire for their good and for the honor of the
   Truth of God moved him to holy jealousy. But he felt a kind of
   heart-breaking coming over him because he could make no headway. He was
   doing his best. The very same that he had done in other places with
   abounding success and with a sense of joyous ease, he was now doing in
   heaviness of spirit, conscious that he was wasting effort and that his
   pleadings were lost upon the people.

   All laborers for Christ know that this is occasionally the case. You
   must have found it so in a Sunday school class. You must have known it
   to be so in a cottage meeting or in any other gathering where you have
   tried to teach and preach Jesus. You have said to yourself every now
   and then, "Now I am plowing a rock. Before, I turned up rich soil which
   a yoke of oxen might plow with ease and a horse might even run at the
   work. But now the horse may tug and the oxen may wearily toil till they
   gall their shoulders--but they cannot cut a furrow--the rock is
   stubborn to the last degree." There are such hearers in all
   congregations. They are as iron and yet they are side by side with a
   fine plot of ground!

   Their sister, their brother, their son, their daughter--all these have
   readily felt the power of the Gospel, but they do not feel it. They
   hear it, respectfully hear it and they allow it free course so far that
   they permit it to go in one ear and out the other, but they will have
   nothing more to do with it. They would not like to be Sabbath-breakers
   and stay away from worship. They, therefore, do the Gospel the
   questionable compliment of coming where it is preached and then
   refusing to regard it! They are hard, hard, hard bits of rock--the plow
   does not furrow them.

   Many, on the other hand, are equally hard, but it is in another way.
   The plow seems to touch them when they hear the Word of God preached,
   but it is in seeming only--the impression is not deep or permanent.
   They receive it with joy, but retain it not. They listen, apparently
   with deep attention and they are ready enough to go to a place of
   worship, as often as ever you like, but it never comes to practice with
   them. They will hear about repentance, but they never repent. They hear
   about faith, but they never believe. If we were to preach anything
   other than the Truth of God they would be indignant, for they are very
   good judges of what the Gospel is--but they have never accepted the
   Gospel! They will not eat, but still they insist that good bread shall
   be put on the table. They will not wash, but they will have the hose
   continually open before them.

   They are great sticklers for the very things which they personally
   reject. They are moved to feeling--they shed tears occasionally. A
   sentimental tale would make them weep fast enough and, sometimes, the
   pathos of the preacher stirs them in the same manner, for a time, but
   their hearts are not really broken up by the Word. They go their way
   and forget what manner of men they are. Their transient feeling is
   rather an illustration of their hardness than an instance of true

   emotion. They are hard, hard, hard, rocky-hearted through and through!
   They are stony-souled enough to mock the Word of God by feeling and yet
   not feeling--by the imitation of a sensibility which never amounts to
   spiritual sensation. We have such in this congregation--the Lord have
   mercy upon them! While I am speaking, I hope the description will come
   home to them and that each one of them may listen for himself and feel
   the plowshare tearing its rough but useful way.

   Now, all this is worse because certain of these people, these
   rocky-hearted people, have been plowed for years and they become harder
   instead of softer! Once or twice plowing, a broken share or two and a
   disappointed plowman or two, we might not mind if they would finally
   yield--but these have, since their childhood, known the Gospel and
   never given way before its power! It is a good while since their
   childhood, now, with some of them! Their hair is turning gray and they
   are getting feeble with years. I am addressing those who have heard the
   Word of God preached in sincerity and earnestness, now, scores and
   hundreds of times! You have heard wagonloads of sermons! You have been
   entreated and persuaded times beyond number! You have had invitations
   and expostulations multiplied ad infinitum!

   Yes, and you have been prayed over and wept over, but your hearts are
   still rocky--labor has been lost upon you. In fact, you used to feel
   the Word, in a certain fashion, far more, years ago, than you do now!
   The sun, which softens wax, hardens clay--and the same Gospel which has
   brought others to tenderness and repentance has exercised a contrary
   effect upon you and made you more thoughtless, more hardened, more
   worldly and more contemptuous of Divine things than you were in your
   youth! We knew it would be so--we told you so years ago--for though we
   are always unto God a sweet savor, we are among men a savor of death
   unto death as well as of life unto life! I fear that this sad result is
   being illustrated in your case.

   Why are certain men so extremely rocky? Some are so from a peculiar
   dullness of nature. There are many people in the world whom you cannot
   very well move. You would have to put a piece of dynamite under them
   before you could alarm them, they are so very quiet and cool about
   everything! They are the same in business--there is nothing sanguine
   about them, no excitability, no possibility of stir or emotion. They
   have a great deal of granite in their constitution and are more nearly
   related to Mr. Obstinate than to Mr. Pliable. Now, I do not think very
   badly of these people because one knows what it is to preach to an
   excitable people and to get them all stirred up and to know that at the
   end they are none the better, but relapse into inaction, whereas some
   of the more dull and immovable people, when they are moved, are moved,
   indeed! When they feel, they feel intensely, and they retain any
   impression that is made.

   A little chip made in granite by very hard blows will abide there,
   while the lashing of water, which is easy enough, will leave no trace
   even for a moment! It is a grand thing to get hold of a fine piece of
   rock and to exercise faith about it! The Lord's own hammer has mighty
   power to break and, in the breaking, great Glory comes to the Most
   High. Worse, still, certain men are hard because of their
   infidelity--not heart-infidelity all of it--but an infidelity which
   springs out of a desire not to believe which has assisted itself by
   manufacturing doubts and discovering difficulties. These difficulties
   exist and were meant to exist, for there were no room for faith if
   everything were as plain as the nose on one's face! These people have
   gradually come to doubt, or to think that they doubt essential Truths
   of God and this renders them impervious to the Gospel of
   Christ--another sad means of hardening the heart till it rivals
   granite.

   A much more numerous body are very orthodox people, but very
   hard-hearted people for all that. Worldliness hardens a man in every
   way. It often dries up all his charity to the poor because he must make
   money and he thinks that the poor societies are quite sufficient
   excuses for neglecting the offices of charity. He thinks how
   comfortable poor people are when they are attended to by relieving
   officers! He pretends to believe that our union houses are perfectly
   palatial establishments and that it would be wicked to give away a
   penny because he might be helping an imposter and encouraging idleness!
   At any rate, it is better for him to take care of his worthy self and
   give the penny to Number One!

   Worldliness hardens him in that way and so it does with regard to other
   things. He has no time to think of the next world--he must spend all
   his thoughts upon the present one. Money is tight and, therefore, he
   must hold it tight and when money brings in so little interest, he
   finds another reason for being the more niggardly. He has no
   opportunity for prayer--he must get down to the counting house. He has
   no time for reading his Bible--his ledger needs him. It is of no use to
   speak to him about eternal things, for he is thoroughly engrossed with
   the affairs of time. You may knock at his door, but his heart is not at
   home--it is never at home--it is always in the counting house where he
   lives and moves and

   has his being. His god is his gold; his bliss is his business; his all
   in all is himself! What is the use of preaching to him? As well may
   horses run upon a rock, or oxen drag the plow across a field sheeted
   with iron a mile thick!

   With some, too, there is a hardness produced by what I might almost
   call the opposite of stern worldliness, namely, a general levity. Some
   are naturally butterflies--they never think or want to think! Half a
   thought exhausts them and they must be diverted or their feeble minds
   will utterly weary! They live in a round of pleasure and amusement.
   Their chief delight is giggling--it does not amount to laughter, for it
   is downright earnest men that laugh--these are too silly, too frivolous
   for anything but mere childish giggling! They go through the world as
   if it were a stage and all the men and women only players. It is very
   little use preaching to them--there is no depth of earth in their
   superficial nature. Beneath a sprinkling of shifting, worthless sand,
   lies an impenetrable rock of utter stupidity and senselessness!

   I might thus multiply reasons why some are harder than others, but it
   is a well-assured fact that they are so and there I leave it to notice
   a third point.

   III. I shall now ask everybody to judge whether this running of horses
   upon a rock and this plowing there with oxen shall always be continued?
   I assert that IT IS UNREASONABLE TO EXPECT THAT GOD'S SERVANTS SHOULD

   ALWAYS CONTINUE TO LABOR IN VAIN. These people have been preached to,
   taught, instructed, admonished,

   expostulated with and advised--shall this unrecompensed work be always
   performed? We have given them a fair trial-- what do Reason and
   Prudence say? Shall we be bound to continue till we are worn out by
   this unsuccessful work? We will ask it of men of business! We will ask
   it of men who plow their own farms--do they recommend perseverance when
   failure is certain? Shall horses run upon the rock? Shall one plow
   there with oxen? Surely not forever!

   I think we shall all agree that labor in vain cannot be continued
   forever if we, first of all, think of the plowman. He is not much and
   he does not need to be much considered, but still, his Master will
   think of him. See how weary he grows when the work discourages him. He
   goes to his Master with, "Who has believed our report, and to whom is
   the arm of the Lord revealed? Why have You sent me," he asks, "to a
   people that have ears but hear not? They sit as Your people sit and
   they hear as Your people hear--and then they go their way and they
   forget every Word that is spoken--and they obey not the voice of the
   Lord by His servant."

   See how disappointed the preacher becomes! It is always hard work when
   you appear to see no progress although you do your utmost. Nobody likes
   doing work which will not pay and from which nothing comes! I once
   looked over a military prison and I saw the soldiers carrying shot from
   one end of a yard to the other. And it was remarked to me by the warden
   that some time ago they made the men pile the shot at one end in a
   pyramid and then take it back to the other end of the yard and pile it
   there. But as that gave them some kind of amusement, the work was not
   thought sufficiently irksome and so they made the culprits carry a shot
   to one end of the yard and bring it back, and thus no pile was formed
   at either end!

   The growing of the little pyramid, though they knew they would have to
   move it again, afforded a measure of interest to the prisoners and as
   the work was to be a matter ofpunishment and not of interest, even that
   was denied them. How frequently we have felt like those poor soldiers
   in prison, for we have carried the Gospel and brought it back again,
   seeing no result to our endeavors! With many of you, our work has been
   all wasted, all useless! Now, will God keep His servants in such work?
   If they were His prisoners in a military prison, it would be natural He
   should! But they are not-- they are His sons and He loves them! Will He
   keep them to such weary work as this?

   Must they always do that which discourages and disappoints them? No
   man, whoever he may be, likes to be given work which appears to be
   altogether a waste of time and effort. To his own mind it seems to have
   a touch of the ridiculous about it and he fears that he will be
   despised of his fellows for aiming at the impossible. Shall it, then,
   always be our lot to treat with hard-hearted men and women? Will the
   great Farmer bid His plowmen spill their lives for nothing? Must His
   preachers continue to cast pearls before swine? Shall they continue to
   speak to deaf ears? Must they always expostulate with stones and
   prophesy to those who are less sensible than the beasts of the field?

   If the consecrated workers are so bid of their Lord, they will
   persevere in their painful task--but their Master is considerate of
   them and I ask you, also, to consider whether it is reasonable to
   expect a zealous heart to be forever occupied with the salvation of
   those who never respond to its anxiety? Shall the horses always plow
   upon the rock? Shall the oxen always labor there? Then think
   again--there is the Master to be considered. The Lord--is He always to
   be

   resisted and provoked and yet continue to have patience? Many of you
   have had eternal life set before you as to be received by simply
   believing in Jesus Christ--and you have refused to believe.

   Now, my Lord might have said to me, "Go home. You have done your duty
   with them. Never set Christ before them again--I am not going to have
   My Son insulted." If you offer a beggar in the street a shilling and he
   refuses and will not have it, you cheerfully put it into your purse and
   go your way--you do not stand there begging him to have his needs
   relieved. But, behold, our God in mercy has been begging sinners to
   come to Him, imploring them to accept His Son! In His condescension He
   has even come down to be like a salesman in the market, crying, "Ho,
   everyone that thirsts, come to the waters and he that has no money,
   come buy wine and milk, without money and without price." In another
   place He says of Himself, "All day long have I stretched out My hands
   to a disobedient and gainsaying generation."

   Well, if the Lord of Mercy has been refused and the Lord of Love has
   been despised so long in the sight of you who reverence Him, does not
   some indignation mingle with your pity--and while you love sinners and
   would have them saved--do you not feel in your heart that there must be
   an end to such insulting behavior and such matchless patience? You
   cannot always be pleading with those who will not be persuaded, for he
   that refuses you refuses Him that sent you! I ask those whose hearts
   are hard to think of the matter in this light and if they do not
   respect the plowman, yet let them have regard to his Master.

   And then, again, there are so many other people who are needing the
   Gospel and who would receive it if they had it, that it seems as if it
   would be wise to leave off wearying oneself about these people who will
   not have it. What did our Lord say? He said that if the mighty things
   which had been done in Bethsaida and Chorazin had been done in Tyre and
   Sidon, they would have repented! What is more amazing, still, He says
   that if He had worked the same miracles in Sodom and Gomorrah which He
   worked in Capernaum, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes!
   Well, then, does it not occur to us at once to give the Word of God to
   those who will have it and leave the despisers to perish in their own
   willfulness? Does not Reason say, Let us send off this medicine for the
   sick where there are sick people who will value it, for these people
   refuse it"?

   There are thousands of people willing to hear the Gospel! See how they
   crowd wherever the preacher goes--how they tread upon one another in
   their anxiety to listen to him! And if these people who hear him every
   day will not receive the message of God, "in God's name," he says, "let
   me go somewhere else where there is a probability of finding soil that
   can be plowed." "Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there
   with oxen?" Must I work always where nothing comes of it? Does not
   reason say, let the Word of God go to China, to India, or to the utmost
   parts of the earth where they will receive it, for those who have it
   preached in the corners of their streets despise it and think it a
   common thing, if not an utter nuisance?

   I shall not lengthen out this argument, but shall just put the question
   again. Would any one of you continue to pursue an object when it proved
   to be hopeless? Have you ever attempted to make a child who has been in
   a fit and fretful, happy and good-tempered? You have said many kind and
   gentle things and you have used a few sharp words, too, but as my
   little lord would not come round, you have said to yourself, "Then let
   him sulk until he has had it out." And if the Lord has sent His
   servants to speak kind, gracious, tender things and men will not hear,
   do you wonder if He should say, "Let them alone. They are joined unto
   their idols. Let them alone."

   There is a limit to the patience of men and we soon arrive at it. And
   assuredly there is a limit, though it is long before we outrun it, to
   the patience of God! "At length," He says, "it is enough, My Spirit
   shall no longer strive with them. Now will I henceforth let them
   alone." If the Lord does this, can any of us blame Him? Is not this the
   way of Wisdom? Does not Prudence, itself, dictate it? If we put it to
   any man of thoughtful mind here, he will say, "Yes, yes, it cannot
   always be that the rock should be plowed by the oxen."

   IV. Fourthly, THERE MUST BE AN ALTERATION, then, and that speedily. Can
   this be altered? Can the oxen be

   taken off the rock? Yes, it can be easily done and very likely it will
   happen before long to some hard hearts now before me. It can be done
   three ways. First, the person can be taken away so that the
   unprofitable hearer shall no more hear the Gospel from the lips of his
   best-approved minister. There is a preacher who evidently touches the
   man a little and has some sort of power over him, but, as he rejects
   his testimony and remains impenitent, the preacher shall be removed to
   another town. The hearer shall now hear monotonous discourses which
   will not touch his conscience nor disturb his lethargy. He shall go
   into a lone village, or a foreign land where he shall be no longer
   persuaded and entreated--and

   there he will sleep himself into Hell! That may be readily enough
   done--perhaps some of you are making arrangements, even now, for your
   own removal from the house of hope.

   Another way is to take away the plowman. He has done his work as best
   he could, now call him off from his hopeless task. Let him go Home. He
   is weary--let him go Home to his Master! The soil would not break up,
   but he could not help that, let him have his wages. He has broken his
   plow at the work--let him go Home and hear his Lord say, "Well done."
   He was willing to keep on at the disheartening labor as long as his
   Master bade him, but it is evidently useless, Therefore let him go
   Home, for his work is done. He has been sick, let him die and enter
   into his rest. This is by no means improbable.

   Or, there may happen something else. The Lord may say, "Now, that piece
   of rock shall never trouble the plowman any more. I will take it away."
   And he may take it away in this fashion--the man who has heard the
   Gospel but rejected it will die. I pray my Master that He will not
   suffer this to happen in the case of any one of you, that you should
   die in your sins--die impenitent--for then we cannot reach you any more
   or indulge the faint hope for you! No prayers of ours can follow you
   into eternity! The most ardent lover of your souls cannot hope that
   there shall be an escape for you after death! There is one name by
   which you may be saved and that name is sounded in your ears--the name
   of Jesus! But if you reject Him now, even that name will not save you,
   for He shall be your terror!

   From His face you shall flee away and your great cry shall be, "Rocks,
   hide me! Mountains, fall upon me! Hide me from the face of Him that
   sits upon the Throne and from the face of the Lamb." You will dread Him
   and well you may dread Him, though at this hour He waits to be gracious
   to you. I pray you do not destroy your own souls by continuing to be
   obstinate against Almighty Love. Oh that the Lord might do for you what
   we cannot! May He make you willing in the day of His power, for
   otherwise, as surely as you live and God lives, if it comes to close
   quarters with you and your offended God--with no Christ between to be
   the Mediator--it will go hard with you! "Beware," He says, "you that
   forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver
   you."

   Do not mind anything that I say on my own, but look at the Word of God
   for yourselves and you shall find that the Inspired Scripture has in it
   terrible threats against impenitent sinners! And there is no imagery,
   (though borrowed from the mediaeval times, against which our
   adversaries make so much noise), there is no imagery that at all
   exaggerates the terror which must actually fall upon every soul that
   commits suicide by rejecting the Savior and spits into the face of
   God's own Christ by saying, "I would sooner be lost than have Him to
   save me," for that is, virtually, what every unbelieving soul is
   saying! O God, grant that some better thing may happen!

   I close by asking, is there any alternative to all this? Can nothing
   else be done? This soil is rock--can we not, somehow sow it without
   breaking it? No, it must be broken. "You must be born again." "Except a
   man receive the kingdom of Heaven as a little child he can in no wise
   enter therein." There must be repentance, for without repentance there
   is no remission of sin. But is there not a way of saving men, somehow,
   without the Gospel and without the Grace of God? The Lord Jesus did not
   say so--He told us to preach as follows--"He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be damned." He
   does not hint at a middle course or hold out a "larger hope," but He
   says, "he that believes not shall be damned," and so he must be.

   God grant that no soul here may dream that there may, perhaps, be some
   back door to Heaven, for the Lord has provided none. What then? Shall
   the preacher be permitted to continue his fruitless toil of plowing?
   Yes, he is willing. He is willing if there is only half a hope left
   him--willing to go on and say--"Hear, you deaf and see, you blind, and
   look you dead!" He will even speak so this day, for his Master bids him
   preach the Gospel to every creature! But it will be hard work to repeat
   the word of exhortation for years to those who will not hear it!
   Happily, there is one other turn which affairs may take! There is a God
   in Heaven! Let us pray to Him to put forth His power! Jesus is at His
   side--let us invoke His interposition! The Holy Spirit is almighty--let
   us call for His aid!

   Brothers who plow and my Brothers and Sisters who help us as we plow
   and long for our success, cry to the Master for help! The horse and the
   ox evidently fail, but there remains One above who made both ox and
   horse and who is able to work great marvels! Did He not once speak to
   the rock and turn the flint into a stream of water? Let us pray to Him
   to do the same now! And, oh, if there is one who feels and mourns that
   his heart is like a piece of rock, I am so glad he has come so far as
   feeling it, because he who feels that His heart is a rock gives some
   evidence that the flint is beginning to be

   transformed. O Rock, instead of smiting you tonight, as Moses smote the
   rock in the wilderness and erred therein, I would speak to you!

   O Rock, would you become like wax? O Rock, would you dissolve into
   rivers of repentance? O Rock, fall down with that wish! Echo to the
   voice of exhortation! O Rock, break with that good desire! O Rock,
   dissolve with that longing for God because He is working upon you now!
   Who knows, but at this very moment you shall begin to crumble? Do you
   feel the power of the Word? Did the sharp plowshare touch you, just
   now, and did you begin to break up? Break and break again, till by
   contrition you are broken in pieces all asunder, for then will the good
   Seed of the Gospel come to you and you shall receive it into your
   bosom--and we shall all behold the fruit thereof!

   And so I will fling one more handful of good Seed and have done. If you
   desire eternal life, trust Jesus Christ and you are saved at once.
   "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth," says
   Christ, "for I am God, and beside Me there is none." He that believes
   in Him has everlasting life! "Like as Moses lifted up the serpent in
   the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
   believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." O Lord,
   break up the rock and let the Seed drop in among its broken
   substance--and get a harvest from the dissolved granite, at this time,
   for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Concealing the Words of God

   (No. 1471)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 27, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have not concealed the Words of the Holy One." Job 6:10.

   (On behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society).

   JOB'S dire distress was aggravated by the remarks of his friends.
   Eliphaz the Temanite opened fire against him in such words as
   these--"Behold, you have instructed many and you have strengthened the
   weak hands. Your words have upheld him that was falling and you have
   strengthened the feeble knees. But now it is come upon you and you
   faint; it touches you, and you are troubled." As much as to say, you
   can preach but you cannot practice. Where are your sermons and advice
   to others now? It was a shameful thing to throw in the good man's teeth
   his testimonies in former days, but Job, who under all his sorrow
   always retained his clearness of intellect and singular shrewdness,
   took the words of Eliphaz and used them for his own comfort.

   They were bread and meat to him, though brought in a raven's mouth.
   "Yes," he said, "I have comforted many and my words have instructed the
   ignorant and strengthened the feeble, and this is so much my comfort in
   the hour of my affliction that I dare even ask God to let loose His
   hand upon me and end my life. Let Him not spare me, for I have the
   testimony of my conscience that I have not been disloyal to my God. The
   taunt of my accuser proves that I have not concealed the Words of the
   Holy One."

   It is always well to be able to turn the enemy's guns upon him and to
   extract comfort from that which was meant to grieve us. Job made no
   idle boast when he said that he had not concealed the Words of the Holy
   One, for we know from his history that he had been a bold confessor of
   the Truth of God. We are informed that he was carefully watchful as to
   his own family that the Words of the Holy One should be there esteemed
   and known, especially that grandest of all holy Words concerning
   sacrifice and atonement, for we read that when his children had kept
   birthdays at each other's houses and had fulfilled their days of
   feasting, "Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the
   morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them
   all: for Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in
   their hearts. Thus did Job continually."

   He was earnest for the purity of his family and the keeping up of the
   sacrifices which were typical of the cleansing of sin--and thus he made
   known to his descendants the central Word of all the Words of the Holy
   One. Even in the time of his affliction the Patriarch had not spoken
   other than according to the mind of God. What said he when he had lost
   all his possessions and was left without a child? "Naked came I out of
   my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there: the Lord gave, and
   the Lord has taken away; and blessed be the name of the Lord." And when
   his wife, seeing him covered with a loathsome disease, bade him curse
   God and die, he did not withhold his testimony from her, but said,
   "What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not
   receive evil?"

   These were words given him of the Lord in the moment of his need and he
   shunned not to utter them with all his heart! The Inspired Testimony
   about this holy man is that, "in all this did not Job sin with his
   lips." It is clear that in his prosperity Job was a most faithful
   witness for God. We will not speculate about the time or the place in
   which he lived, but wherever he lived, he was a man of great influence
   and was held in high esteem. He says, "When I went out to the gate
   through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street, the young men
   saw me and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. The
   princes refrained talking and laid their hand on their mouth."

   This influence was always exerted for the cause of truth and
   righteousness, which is always the cause of God. In the 29th chapter he
   says of himself, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when
   the eye saw me, it gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor
   that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The
   blessing of him

   that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart
   to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment
   was as a robe and a diadem." He was thus, by his conduct, a perpetual
   protest against sin; a continued proclamation of justice,
   righteousness, mercy and love in the age in which he lived. And he
   could, therefore, say without any word of egotism, "I have not
   concealed the Words of the Holy One."

   This was now a comfort to him when all other comforts failed--he knew
   that his affliction was not the fruit of a treacherous departure from
   God, or a cowardly concealment of his faith. He felt that he could face
   death and even long for it because he had been loyal to his God and
   faithful to the light which had been given him from on high. It was not
   self-righteousness which led Job to speak thus, but only such a use of
   the sure evidences of Grace as would be natural and proper in any godly
   man in the hour of his extremity. It is the nature of obedience to
   yield peace to the heart and no one can be blamed for enjoying that
   peace. It cannot be wrong for our consciences to bear testimony to the
   sincerity and purity of our lives, nor wrong that when our hearts
   condemn us not, we have confidence towards God.

   He who is most undivided in his faith in Jesus may, nevertheless,
   derive comfort from having been enabled to be loyal to his God. Did not
   Paul bless God for much the same faithfulness as Job claimed when he
   said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
   kept the faith"? Happy shall he be who has a clear testimony within his
   soul that he has declared the Truth of God in all honesty and
   earnestness, even to the end. Job had not refrained from an open
   confession of his own faith in God--he had been known in the gates of
   the city as a worshipper of the Lord, a perfect and an upright man--one
   that feared God and eschewed evil. He had never hidden his faith, but
   had acknowledged one God whom he here calls the Holy One.

   While many gods and lords divided the fealty of nations, Job was true
   to the one only God and believed His Words as they were revealed to
   him. Nor was he content with an open confession of his own faith. Job
   had made a continued communication of what he knew to others. He had
   taught his family--there all teaching should begin. He had taught his
   fellow citizens by his example--the most powerful of all teaching.
   Never had he wandered into idolatry, or worshipped the sun when it
   shined, or kissed his hand to the queen of heaven, but, on the
   contrary, he had avowed the one and only Lord without fear. He asks,
   "Did I fear a great multitude, or did the contempt of families terrify
   me that I kept silence?" So faithful had he been that he cries, "Let me
   be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity." This
   was high ground to take, but it evidently strengthened the good man's
   heart to bear his troubles and it will do the same for us if we can win
   the same witness from our consciences.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, this is a comfort we ought to seek. It
   should be our care that when we come to die, we may not have to cry, "I
   was ashamed of Jesus and now I shall find Him ashamed of me! I hid His
   Truth in unrighteousness, wrapping my talent in a napkin! What shall I
   do, or where shall I turn? A servant unfaithful to His trust, I have to
   give an account of my stewardship and I cannot do it! Woe is me!" God
   grant that we may be able to say with Job, "I have not concealed the
   Words of the Holy One."

   Many professors will greatly need to alter their ways, or they will be
   covered with confusion in the Day of the Lord. Blessed and holy is he
   who can declare with David, or rather with David's son, "I have not hid
   Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness
   and Your salvation: I have not concealed Your loving kindness and Your
   Truth from the great congregation" (Psa. 40:10). We have more of the
   Words of the Holy One than Job had and should, therefore, be the more
   anxious to make them known. I suppose he had no Inspired Book to
   read--he could not have had any more than the Books of Moses and
   probably he had not those--but the Lord spoke to him as He often spoke
   to the Prophets in the olden time and he had also learned those Truths
   of God which had been handed down from the earliest days from father to
   son.

   Now we have a vast mass of sacred literature and we have, besides that,
   the Word Himself, who is the hope of our souls and the Lord of our
   hearts! O Brethren, if we wickedly hide what God has revealed to us, we
   shall be veiling a great light and we shall heap up guilt like the
   hills! When we come to die, we shall feel a misery proportionate to the
   enormity of our crime--we shall be tortured with agonizing thoughts for
   having, as far as we were able, quenched the Spirit and blotted out the
   testimony of the Most High! God forbid that we should be guilty of such
   an enormity!

   Job, according to the language of our text, evidently had a great
   reverence for every Word of the Lord. He would not have used that term,
   "the Holy One," if he had not felt the holiness of the Words,
   themselves, and if he had not stood in solemn awe of Him who spoke
   them. He felt that they must not be concealed, because the Words of the
   Holy One

   should have free course and be published abroad. Should not the word of
   a king be circulated through the length and breadth of his dominions?
   Have you and I such a reverence for every revealed Truth of God? Do we
   stand in awe of every Word of God? If we do, it will be well for us if
   we practically express our homage after the fashion of David, who said,
   "With my lips have I declared all the judgments of Your mouth."

   The words which God speaks are uttered that we may speak them! It is
   the best homage to a word to hear it and to repeat it. Let us proclaim
   God's Words abroad--they are light and are not meant to be hidden! Such
   candles ought never to be put under a bushel. To hide the Divine Words
   would be a great sin against the Most High--and to warn you against it
   will be the aim of this morning's discourse. I shall speak with the
   earnest prayer that both to myself and to each one of you there may be
   a personal voice from God stirring every conscience as to this matter
   and making each one of us enquire whether or not we, also, can say, "I
   have not concealed the Words of the Holy One."

   We shall divide our subject thus. First, we shall have a little to say
   about the sin to be avoided. Then we will give some strong arguments
   for avoiding it. And, thirdly, suggest some methods by which we may be
   enabled to avoid it.

   I. Here is A SIN TO BE AVOIDED, concealing the Words of the Holy One.
   Now, we can conceal those words from ourselves as well as from others.
   "How can we conceal them from ourselves?" you ask. I think that very
   great stress must be laid upon this form of the evil which lies at the
   root of the second shape of it. We can conceal the Word of God from
   ourselves in many ways. The Law of God speaks with a searching and
   threatening voice--it tells us of our sin, it forewarns us of the
   punishment--and it sets our danger, both present and future, before our
   mind's eyes.

   But there are thousands of persons who never give the Law an
   opportunity of being heard in their hearts--they turn a deaf ear to
   anything which is unpleasant to them--they do not like to face the
   honest Truth of God. You know why this is. Why doesn't a man who is
   bankrupt in business take any pleasure in his books? Why is it that he
   postpones all settlements and endeavors to forget his affairs? Is it
   not because his ruin is near at hand? If there is any Truth of God, my
   Friend, that you are afraid of, you have cause to be afraid of it! But
   let me forewarn you that there is no escaping from a fact by
   endeavoring to forget it!

   Every honest man, every brave man, every man who is truly a man, would
   like to face his true condition and see what and where he is. One of
   the prayers which I commend to your frequent use is this, "Lord, let me
   know the very worst of my case that I may not be living upon vain
   pretensions and may not be pluming myself with being in a happy
   condition while all the while I am in awful danger." Let it never be
   said of any one of you that you concealed the Words of the Holy One
   about yourselves by refusing to feel their force lest they should end
   the flattering visions of your fond conceit! Love the Truth of God even
   though it cuts you to the quick. Ask God to search you and try you and
   to make you sensible of sin and of judgment to come--this is the part
   of honesty and common sense. You will be foolish, indeed, if you
   conceal the Words of the Holy One from your conscience and so flatter
   your soul into destruction.

   Others conceal the Gospel Word, that Word which speaks of the free gift
   of pardoning mercy, which is of many offenses unto justification. They
   go about to find out some way of their own for self-salvation and do
   not submit themselves unto the righteousness of God. Beloved, pray the
   Lord to help you to know the Gospel thoroughly and to understand its
   glorious simplicity, its sweet freeness and boundless fullness! Do not
   put out the light which, alone, can lead you to eternal life! Do not
   shut your eyes to the Divine Lamp--do not conceal from yourselves those
   humbling but yet soul-saving doctrines which make for your souls
   eternal peace! Shut not against yourselves the one gate of Paradise.
   Hide the Gospel in your heart, by all means, but hide it not from your
   heart, lest you sin against your own soul.

   I ought, also, to warn every Christian here of concealing any of the
   Words of God from himself, by accepting half the Truth of God and
   rejecting the rest. Receive the whole of Revelation. Some professors
   have favorite texts and choice portions of Scripture--and they regard
   other parts of the Word with aversion--avoiding them as much as
   possible because they do not agree with their system of divinity and
   need much squaring before they will fit in with their foregone
   conclusions! They do not read such passages, or they read them
   carelessly, or a commentator is sought out who, by the exercise of much
   ingenuity, will impute another meaning than the true one to the Words
   of God.

   Brothers and Sisters, open your souls to Divine Light! Give the Word of
   God free admittance into your spirits! Lay no embargo upon any form of
   the Truth of God! Demand no toll for the commodities of Heaven. Let
   your mind be an open port, carrying on a free trade in the treasures of
   the Gospel. Believe whatever God says, because God says it, though you
   may not always see its why and wherefore or perceive its internal
   consistency. Be prepared and even anxious to know

   the whole Truth of God as far as you can know it and let it pervade
   your entire being with its holy influence. It will be a terrible thing
   if one of these days you shall have to say, "I rejected a great Truth
   of God. I had a suspicion that it was so, but I did not wish to believe
   it and so I shut my ears to its evidence. I had a leaning towards the
   opposite view and I felt committed to it and so refused to change."
   Open both your eyes, my Brothers and Sisters. If you cannot see
   everything, yet see all you can see and pray the Lord to take each
   scale away that you may know all the Truth and so the Truth may make
   you wholly free.

   There is, again, a concealing of the Truth from ourselves in one other
   respect, namely, when we try to avoid the Word of command. There are
   some professed Christians of peculiar doctrinal opinions to whom the
   word, "duty," is something dreadful and if the preacher dwells upon
   Gospel precepts they call him, "legal." I am not much in awe of that
   word, myself, for being interpreted it means, lawful, and none of us
   would like to be unlawful preachers. These folks insinuate that the
   preaching of the practical precepts of the Gospel is in conflict with
   the Grace of God and is little better than preaching up human merit!
   Whereas the doctrine of God our Savior is always a doctrine according
   to holiness and good works are the sure results of true faith.

   True Gospel preaching does not decry holy living! No, it sets up the
   highest possible standard and declares the way to reach it! Beware of
   picking and choosing in reference to the commands of Christ! Some
   professors object to much of the teaching of Him whom they call Master
   and Lord. The forgiving of injuries as we hope to be forgiven; the
   non-resistance principle of turning the other cheek when one is
   struck--these are very objectionable to ordinary religionists. Such
   precepts are denounced as impracticable and it is asserted that they
   cannot be carried out. Doing unto others as you would that they should
   do to you is regarded as a golden precept for other people to practice
   towards our dear selves, but not at all a practical maxim from us to
   the general public!

   When persons speak of our Lord's precepts as good but impracticable,
   they make Him out to be an amiable simpleton! Is this their reverence
   for the Incarnate Wisdom? I need not stop to quote examples, but there
   are many such things in the Word of God as precepts which good men
   decline to see, which, indeed, they declare that they cannot see! If
   you put a gold piece over the boldest printed verse in the Bible you
   will not be able to see the passage--and there are some whose profits
   in business, whose position in life, above all, whose "respectability"
   will not allow them to see certain precepts and so they do not see them
   and they pass through life without obeying the most plain commands of
   the Lord! I pray you do not do so, for willful ignorance is no excuse
   for disobedience.

   It is written, "He that knew his master's will, and did it not, shall
   be beaten with many stripes." And, mark you, he that did not know his
   master's will, but might have known it and deliberately declined to
   know it, shall take his place with those who bear the heavier
   punishment! The plea of ignorance will be of no use to such persons
   except it is to make them also take their place with the man who
   receives the few stripes and so they shall partake in both the greater
   and the lesser scourging, inasmuch as they are worthy to range with
   both kinds of offenders! Try to know what God would have you do and
   pray that by His Holy Spirit, when you know it, you may put it into
   speedy and cheerful practice and this shall be a comfort to you.

   Still, the point I want to bring out is that the holy man in our text
   had not concealed God's Truth from others. We can do this in many ways.
   We can conceal the Words of the Holy One by not confessing the Truth of
   God at all. A Christian, but he never said so! He hid himself along
   with Joseph of Arimathea, although he never offered his new tomb to his
   Lord. He justified himself by the example of Nicodemus, though he never
   brought spices for his Lord's burial! There was a time when there might
   be secret disciples of Christ, but that was before the Cross was lifted
   up! It is written, concerning our Lord's death, that the thoughts of
   many hearts shall be revealed by it and now Christ's followers follow
   Him openly. I should not like to be among those who expect to slink
   into Heaven by a back door some dark night and intend never to disclose
   themselves till they throw off the mask and stand before the wondering
   eyes of angels!

   Christians who passed through the world disguised as unregenerate men?
   No, no! Our Lord has said, "He that confesses Me before men, him will I
   confess. But he that denies Me, him will I deny." Do not run risks upon
   that score! If you love the Lord, say so! If you expect Him to
   acknowledge you, acknowledge Him. We may conceal the Words of the Holy
   One, although we have made an open confession, by a sinful silence
   about the Gospel towards others. I am afraid I would not be too
   censorious if I said that there are many professors of religion who
   never talk of Christ to others and never seek the salvation of anybody.

   Are there any such people here in this gallery, or down below in this
   area? You have found a medicine which has healed your soul, but you
   never mention it to the thousands who are sick around you? You have not
   even named it to your own children? Can such cruelty be possible? Where
   do you sit? Are you there? No, good people, do not move away from him!
   I hope he still has something human about him, though certainly not
   much that is humane. You were hungry and you have found bread and you
   have eaten it--and yet though thousands are around you perishing with
   hunger, you have no pity on them? Many loaves are in your stores at
   home, but you spare none for these starving ones! You eat your morsel
   alone and all the while thousands are dying outside your window, yes,
   they are perishing by the millions. Do you care nothing for their woes?
   Are you a man or a demon? The Lord have mercy upon you! I will say no
   more than this, for I think I need not prove that it must be an
   atrocious sin for a man to know the Words of the Holy One and not to
   make them known to others. This sin is easily committed by a silence
   which pleads modesty, but which ought to confess to
   cowardice--therefore be aware of the cheat!

   Some who speak often, nevertheless conceal the Words of the Lord by
   their own words. The Roman Catholic Church stands convicted of
   concealing the Words of the Holy One by the use of the Latin tongue in
   the daily service. Whatever there is of good in the "mass," ought to be
   spoken in such language that everybody can understand and receive it.
   But instead, the people stand and look on and know not what is being
   done! And if there is anything that might edify and instruct, they are
   not cognizant of it because it is hidden from them by words unknown to
   them.

   Protestant! You condemn this practice, but are not many of you as
   guilty yourselves? Did you listen to that splendid sermon? What
   rhetoric! What oratory! But those poor people in the aisles did not
   understand a word, or if they did, they only comprehended disconnected
   sentences and lost the soul of the discourse. Is this right? Is this
   according to the Scriptural idea of preaching? "Oh, but," you say, "the
   great man does not preach to that class of people." But His Master did
   and He bade men take note that in the Gospel dispensation the poor have
   the Gospel preached unto them! He would have His ministers preach so
   that they can be understood of all men! It is a pity when you hang the
   Cross with your artificial flowers until you hide the wounds of Christ.
   Down, down, down with all your tawdry rhetoric! Your so-called
   eloquence deserves a curse since it robs the simple of a blessing! Few
   things have so much damaged the Church of God as "the wisdom of words."
   A sweet and solemn simplicity which a child can comprehend is after the
   fashion of our Master, therefore let us aim at it. When you talk about
   Jesus Christ, make your speech very plain, lest under the ornaments of
   your language you should conceal the Words of the Holy One.

   The thing can be done, again, by clouding the Truth of God with error.
   There is such a thing as laying a substratum of the Truth of God and
   then overlaying it with human opinions, after the manner of the
   boastful school of modern thought whose novelties are set before us as
   the matured fruit of the culture of the 19th Century--this also is
   concealing the Words of the Holy One! You may, perhaps, have seen
   ancient parchments containing words of holy Writ which have been
   covered over and then re-written with popish legends--these palimpsests
   (that is their technical name) are the types and symbols of the
   discourses of the philosophical divines of the school of culture. The
   Gospel of Jesus Christ is hidden by their so-called "thought"--their
   own thoughts are set before the thoughts of God! What shall we say to
   such thinking but that it is a presumptuous setting up of human
   intellect above the Revelation of the Lord? What shall we say of such
   culture but that it cultivates a pride which had better have been cut
   up by the roots? It conceals the Words of the Holy One that fallible
   man may sit upon the throne of wisdom and make his own religion and be
   his own god!

   We may yet further conceal the Words of God by an inconsistent life.
   You have often heard it said that the worldling does not read his
   Bible, but he reads professing Christians--he never troubles to read a
   chapter, but he reads his godly relatives. Many a man has found Christ
   through reading some dear and venerated mother whose living and dying
   experience has been God's testimony to his soul. See, then, if our
   lives are crooked, perverse, unkind, ungenerous, unholy, selfish,
   un-Christly--we conceal the Words of God--for men will not read a true
   Gospel in us, nor have a true idea of our religion. They will not care
   to hear a Gospel which produces such characters as ourselves, if those
   characters are unlovely.

   Men lay all our faults at the door of our Master and thus we crucify
   Him afresh. They say, "That is your religion," though they must know
   better. They will always say so, for after this manner the enemies of
   God have always gloried over Israel. He who lives not after a godly and
   holy sort is guilty of concealing the Words of the Holy One in the most
   injurious manner. Let us all try to avoid this sin because it is
   contrary to the practical genius of Christianity which

   commands godly men to shine as lights in the world. Sinful silence, as
   to the blessed Word of Grace, is rebellion against our Lord's last
   command--"Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature." Therefore, be not chargeable with so grave a crime.

   II. In the second place we will give a mere outline of the ARGUMENTS
   FOR AVOIDING THIS SIN. The subject is weighty and deserves a longer
   consideration, but time compels me to condense. And first, the man who
   conceals the Word of God is out of order with God. God speaks that He
   may be heard and that His mind may be known. The evident design of
   words is to make known the speaker's mind. To run parallel with God's
   wish, therefore, is to give His Words free course to the ends of the
   earth.

   you who profess to be a child of God, will you run counter to the
   design of the Most High? And when He speaks, will you, by concealing
   His Words, make Him to be as though He spoke not? Such a silence is out
   of gear with the whole course of Nature. "The heavens are telling the
   Glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork: day unto day utters
   speech, and night unto night shows knowledge." The whole Creation,
   after its own inarticulate manner, proclaims its Maker and Preserver!
   Rocks find a voice and waters have a tongue. Stars sing by shining and
   darkness preaches by its solemnity. Should man, alone, be dumb? God
   forbid that he should be Creation's silent chord when every other
   string is vibrating with praise! No, let us pray the Holy Spirit to put
   us into order with God and with His universe--and let us no more
   conceal His Words!

   If you wish to see the sin of concealing the Gospel, think of the
   consequences which would have followed if others had done so. If the
   Apostles had never risked their lives to preach, what had the nations
   been? If martyrs had never yielded their blood in testimony, would not
   thick darkness have brooded over the nations? Imagine the consequences,
   if you can, if Luther had taken the advice of his godly but timid
   friend, when he said, "Get to your cell and pray: meddle not with
   things too high for you." Imagine what history would have been if
   Wycliffe, Tyndal, Calvin, Zwingli and all those lights of the world had
   hidden themselves through cowardice! They would have been guilty, but
   we would have been miserable!

   Now, what would have been criminal in them must be evil in us, also, in
   proportion to our degree. We owe it to coming generations that we pass
   on the torch of the Truth of God as it has been handed down to us. Let
   us not be unfaithful to our trust. If we conceal the Words of the Holy
   One, we shall evidently err because the motive for so doing can hardly
   be supposed to be other than sinful. If we conceal God's Truth, it will
   probably be out of cowardice--and to be a coward under the command of
   such a Captain as ours is treason! Probably self-love will be the
   ruling motive, but we are told expressly that he who loves his life
   shall lose it and that Christ is to be better loved than life itself.

   Those who do not love the Word of God are often moved by pride which
   cannot stoop to be despised. Or fear which dreads ridicule, or love of
   the world which seeks the applause of men. Is it not atrocious
   ingratitude to Him who was derided and spit upon for our sakes if we
   hide His glory to escape from shame? I feel it difficult to conceive an
   argument for concealing God's Word which would hold water for a single
   moment! Certainly I can invent none which will bear the test of the
   great trial to which we all must come. If, then, the motive of such
   concealment is evil, it must, itself, be evil.

   1 have already hinted that common humanity requires that if we have
   received the precious Truth of God, we should not conceal it. I feel as
   if your natures responded to the remark and that I needed not again
   enforce it, having done so already. If you love men; if you would make
   them happy here; if you would save them from perishing hereafter, I
   beseech you make known to them with holy earnestness the way of
   salvation contained in the Words of the Holy One! For if not, let it be
   known that all the results of concealment will be chargeable against
   you! If the next generation should become more wicked than the present
   and still more ignorant of the Gospel, the fact will be chargeable upon
   those who conceal the Words of God today!

   If the masses, through not knowing the Gospel, reject it and continue
   in their sin, the calamity and crime will be charged upon those dumb
   lips which never speak of Jesus! If sinners sink to Hell, passing out
   of this world unsaved and they have come into contact with Christian
   men who gave them no warning, on whose hands will their blood be found?
   Yes, more--remember that even if sinners are saved by some other agency
   it does not exonerate those who neglected to warn them--for since the
   silence naturally tended to destruction, those who were guilty of it
   shall be judged as if the uninstructed were destroyed even though, by
   God's interposition, it is not so! If the natural result of any line of
   conduct

   is prevented by Divine interference, its criminality is by no means
   lessened. The conduct itself may be judged by what it would naturally
   result in if it were left to itself.

   Many a man has been guilty of murder who, nevertheless, did not
   actually spill his fellow's blood because he did that which he knew
   would kill. And it is no praise of his that death did not come of it.
   So, if a corrupt, unholy silence would slay a soul, even though that
   soul is saved, the wickedly silent one is guilty of soul murder all the
   same. You are shifting uneasily in your seats, some of you--this is a
   good sign--for many might do so without being too sensitive. How again,
   dear Friends, can any man prove his loyalty to his God or his likeness
   to the Savior if he continues to conceal the Words of the Holy One?
   What can you do for God but obey Him? And when He speaks to you, you
   must gladly make known to others the Truth which has sounded in your
   ears!

   How can you be like Jesus, your professed Master, if you have no
   witness to bear for the good of men? He went about doing good. His life
   was transparent. He wore the Gospel on His sleeve, spoke it with His
   eyes and revealed it in His daily life! How can you be like He if you
   smuggle away the Gospel as if it were contraband to be hidden away from
   all eyes? How can you bury the priceless Truth of God like a miser who
   hoards up his cankered gold? Tell all the heavenly message! Tell it all
   around! Tell it so long as you have a voice! If you are a true servant
   of God, you can not stifle the voice of Jesus, who, out of Heaven cries
   to the sons of men!

   Now, think once more and we shall see the sinfulness of the conduct we
   denounce. What will it be to meditate upon your dying bed of having
   known the Truth of God, but having never, in any way, assisted to
   spread it? What will it be to die with eternity just before you and to
   reflect, "I have been a member of a Church many years, but I have never
   brought in a single convert. I sat in my pew and I knew the Divine
   Secret, but I never even told a child of it. Neither by pen nor tongue
   did I make Jesus known. I left that to the minister. I knew there were
   good people about who cared for men's souls, but I had no such
   feeling--I kept myself to myself and felt no anxiety about my
   neighbors. I had very little care as to whether souls were saved or
   not. I was glad when I heard of an increase in the Church, but not very
   particularly so. I was rather sorry when things were down--not so sorry
   that I lost my appetite, or lay awake 10 minutes. I did not trouble
   myself more than I could help, for I was foolish enough to dream that
   the best thing I could do was to consult my own interests and I fancied
   that my chief end was to enjoy myself forever."

   Now, I can imagine such a person sorely beset with horrors when he
   comes to die and struggling hard to get anything like a glimpse of
   hope. His whole life has been that of selfishness--how can he be a
   Christian? Conscience will ask him, "Is this Christ-like, this keeping
   back of the Divine Bread from the perishing millions; this concealing
   of the Light of God? Surely you are no follower of the Crucified!" How
   will such conduct look at the Last Great Day? The Lord Jesus will say
   to some, "I was hungry and you gave Me no meat: I was thirsty and you
   gave Me no drink." Now mark, these sentences refer to temporal bread
   and water, but they must be more emphatic, still, when they relate to
   spiritual things! If the Lord Jesus shall say, "There were hungering
   souls and you professed to know the Gospel, but you gave them no meat.
   There were thirsty souls and you professed to have drunk of the Water
   of Life and you gave them no drink," can there be any answer? Will not
   such persons stand speechless--dumbly confessing the justice of the
   sentence, "Depart, you cursed"?

   III. I shall close by mentioning one or two METHODS BY WHICH WE MAY
   AVOID THIS SIN. I am speaking, now, to you who have believed in Jesus
   and are truly His own disciples. First, take care that you make an open
   profession of your faith. Come out from the world and unite with the
   people of God. If you do not make a profession, I do not see how you
   can be found innocent of the charge of concealing the Lord's Words.
   When you have done that, keep yourself clear of sinful silence by very
   often speaking to others of the things of God.

   I was greatly pleased this week when a Brother minister said to me, "A
   man has just joined our Church; a rough man who mixed in company that
   was not likely much to improve him and yet he has been really made a
   new man. He was accustomed to go round to houses with small casks of
   beer for a large brewery and among the rest he called at a certain
   house where the servant is a member at the Tabernacle. She had not seen
   him more than once or twice before she began to ask him whether he knew
   the Savior and to question him about his soul. And when he called each
   month she spoke to him, again, till at last he who had never thought of
   religion, nor entered a place of worship at all, was brought to the
   feet of Jesus and has become an honor to the Church of which he is a
   member."

   This minister said, "I hope all your members do as that servant does."
   I told him I knew a great many of you did, but no doubt some of you did
   not. You who do not, may well fidget upon your seats as you take home
   the hint! From now on, at every opportunity speak of Jesus to those
   around you, lest you be found guilty of concealing the Words of the
   Holy One! Some of you cannot speak very much because you are naturally
   diffident and slow of speech. Try and overcome the infirmity, but if
   you cannot do so, do not conceal the Words of the Most High on that
   account, but write letters of personal entreaty. You can do this, can't
   you? Some of you can write very well, indeed, and you write so much
   that it is much easier for you to write than for friends to read! As
   you can write so well, write for Jesus Christ--write earnestly and
   lovingly for Jesus!

   You can also circulate what has been written by other people, though I
   do not think it so good a thing to do as writing, yourself. You may
   send tracts and sermons, but let them be such as you may hope that
   people will read. Sometimes you may write out part of a tract and it
   will attract them all the more for being your own handwriting. Another
   thing may be done. If you feel that when you have spoken and written
   you have still not done much, help other people who have greater gifts.
   A great deal may be done by imitating Aquila and Priscilla who helped
   Apollos. It is not given to everybody to preach to large numbers, or to
   preach at all--but you can often pick out a young man and say, "I will
   help him in his education and encourage him in his first efforts." You
   can always help young men by filling the offering box, which supports
   the College. [Seminary.]

   I married a gentleman on this platform, some time ago, who said to me,
   "I wish I could preach, but I will tell you what I will do. I will
   support a man to preach--I will find the money and you will find the
   man." I told him I must have him speak, too, as best he could. He said
   he would, but he wished to have somebody to speak better. Men of wealth
   should copy this example. Help the tract distributors, help the city
   missionaries, help all those who publish the Word of

   the Lord! [If the Holy Spirit is thus burdening you, a great
   print/audio ministry is Mt. Zion Publications, a ministry of Mt. Zion
   Bible Church, in Pensacola, Florida. Write them at 2603 W. Wright St.,
   Pensacola, FL 32505, USA.]

   And lastly, and this morning most to the point, there are the heathen
   perishing for lack of knowledge. Millions of voices call out of the
   darkness to you, "Come over and help us! You have the Light of God,
   bring it to us! You have the Living Bread, come and feed us! We perish,
   we perish, we perish." Brothers and Sisters, the heathen are perishing!
   Will you let them perish? I wish that some young men here would go for
   missionaries. One of the leaders of a missionary society cheered my
   heart last week when he took out of his pocket an old sermon of mine,
   marked and crossed and scored. He said, "You will like to see that, Mr.
   Spurgeon." "What about it?" I asked. "That was given to me by a young
   man who has joined our mission. He read that sermon and marked the
   passages which touched his heart and now he is at work in China.

   I looked upon that sermon with great delight! I think I felt more
   pleased with that old sermon than if I had received a wreath of gold. I
   felt gratified that I had brought a young and fervent heart to devote
   itself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Give me the same joy, each of you! And
   if you cannot go among the heathen, personally, help others to do so!
   Give, this morning, a liberal collection and may God accept it at your
   hands for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Glory, Unity and Triumph of the Church

   (No. 1472)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Glory which You gave Me, I have given them; that they may be
   one, even as We are One: fin them, and You in Me, that they may be made
   perfect in one; and that the world may know that You ha ve sent Me and
   ha ve lo ved them, as You have loved Me." John 17:22-3.

   SOME words serve many uses and have many meanings. We are very apt to
   make mistakes if we give the same sense in all places to the same word.
   The word, "world," throughout Scripture is used with a very remarkable
   variety of meaning and one had need to have his wits about him and to
   read carefully in order to know what is the precise force of the term
   in each place where it occurs. In the text before us it is evident that
   Christ had a view to the world--He desired that the world might know
   that the Father had sent Him and might know, also, that God had loved
   His people even as He had loved His Son. From the somewhat altered
   expression in the 21st verse, we feel convinced that our Lord did not
   limit His desires for the world to its having a bare knowledge of these
   facts, but wished that it should also believe them, for thus runs the
   verse--"That the world may believe that You have sent Me."

   He wished, then, that this "world" might do exactly what He elsewhere
   says His own disciples had already done-- "O righteous Father, the
   world has not known You: but I have known You, and these have known
   that You have sent Me." Certainly there is a world for which Jesus did
   not pray, for He said, "I pray for them: I pray not for the world," yet
   here there is a world for which, if He does not actually pray, He yet
   prays that certain gracious events may occur in order that certain
   results may be produced upon the world.

   I say again, the word, "world," therefore, has many shades of meaning
   ranging from that jet black meaning in which the, "world lies in the
   Wicked One" and, that other, "love not the world, neither the things
   that are in the world," upward to the milder senses in John 1:10, "He
   was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him
   not." And yet higher to the brighter meaning, "The kingdoms of this
   world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." It is not
   in the worst sense that our text speaks of the world, but in the same
   manner as we find it used in such passages as these, "The Lamb of God,
   which takes away the sin of the world." "God was in Christ, reconciling
   the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." And
   again in 1 John 2, "And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not
   for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

   It is certain that, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only
   begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
   everlasting life," and we cannot suppose that the great Redeemer would
   refuse to pray for those for whom He was given. I understand in this
   particular place by the word, "world," the whole mass of mankind upon
   the face of the earth who are not as yet converted. Among them there is
   an elect part, for our Lord speaks of some men who shall yet believe on
   Him through the word of His servants, but these, at this present
   moment, are undistinguished from the rest. I understand here by the
   word, "world," all as yet unrenewed out of the whole living family of
   man--and on account of these our Lord would have His believing people
   brought into that admirable condition which we shall now attempt to
   describe.

   For the sake of the world He would have the Church in a high state of
   holy beauty and strength. May His gracious prayer be answered in all of
   us by the working of the Holy Spirit! I trust that I may say of all of
   you, my Beloved in Christ, that you are living with this objective. At
   any rate, I know that you desire to live for the Glory of our Lord
   Jesus and the salvation of men. We would make all men see what is the
   fellowship of this mystery, for we would have all men to be saved and
   come to the knowledge of the Truth of God. Our wish is to bring
   multitudes to the Savior and to conquer

   province after province of this revolted world for King Jesus. "Let the
   whole earth be filled with His Glory" is a prayer which we cannot, dare
   not, would not fail to pray!

   Half the world would be a poor reward for the Redeemer's travail. "The
   earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." Even here, where He was
   despised and rejected of men, our Lord must reign with fullness of
   Glory, having dominion from sea to sea and from the river even to the
   ends of the earth! This is the consummation towards which we are
   tending, by the Grace of God. We are striving earnestly for it,
   according to His working, which works in us mightily. Daily we labor to
   bring others into subjection to that blessed Sovereignty under which we
   delight to dwell!

   In this place our Lord tells us that this desirable end is to be
   brought about by a marvelous unity which, described in our text, is a
   unity of men with Christ, a unity of these men in Christ with one
   another and the unity of Christ Himself with the eternal Father. "I in
   them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." Let us
   speak about this unity this morning, always keeping in mind the drift,
   end and objective of it, namely, that the world may believe that God
   has sent the Lord Jesus.

   First, then, let us think upon the great means of that unity And then,
   secondly, upon the unity itself. Lastly, let us more fully consider the
   effect to be produced by it.

   I. First, then, let us reflect upon THE GREAT MEANS OF THE UNITY which
   Christ proposes here. It lies, in a nutshell, "The Glory which you gave
   Me I have given them," with this objective, "that they may be one, even
   as We are One." Here our blessed Lord does not speak of what He will
   give to His disciples, though there is a Glory which is laid up for
   them which the faithful shall receive at the last--but He mentions a
   Glory which He has already given them. This could not be the
   incommunicable Glory of His Godhead, for that was His by Nature and not
   by the Father's gift. He speaks throughout the whole of His prayer in
   the capacity of the Mediator who is both God and Man in one Person and
   the Glory which He says He had given to His people is a Glory which the
   Father had given to Him in His complex Person as Incarnate God.

   We are to regard, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ as speaking here as
   Immanuel, God With Us, who, though He counted it no robbery to be equal
   with God, had made Himself of no reputation and taken upon Himself the
   form of a Servant. He appeared on earth as the Son of Man, the Son of
   God--but even in that condescending capacity He was surrounded with a
   Glory of which John speaks in his first chapter, "And the Word was made
   flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the
   only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth." As the Word made
   flesh, the Father has given our Lord exceeding Glory. The explanations
   of the words before us are as many as the words themselves and I
   suppose there is a measure of truth in each of them. I do not think it
   possible in one sermon, perhaps not in a hundred, nor even in a
   thousand, to bring out all that is intended here! Therefore I shall not
   attempt any such a task, but shall only follow one narrow track of
   practical thought, even as one passes through a field of corn along a
   narrow pathway gathering a few ears as he moves along.

   It seems to me that a main part of the Glory of our Lord, when on
   earth, lay in the moral and spiritual Glory of His Character. He was,
   indeed, glorious in holiness and this is evidently the Glory which He
   transfers to us. See the second Epistle to the Corinthians, the third
   chapter and 18th verse, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a
   glass the Glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory
   to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." To the same effect are
   Peter's words in his first Epistle, "If you are reproached for the name
   of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit of Glory and of God rests upon
   you." The essence and cause of the Glory which the Father gave the Son
   was, first of all, that He endowed Him with the Holy Spirit. "God gives
   not the Spirit by measure unto Him; the Father loves the Son and has
   given all things into His hand" (John 3:34, 35).

   The Holy Spirit descended upon our Lord in His Baptism and abode upon
   Him so that in the power of the indwelling Spirit He lived, spoke,
   acted and in all that He did, the Spirit of God was manifest! In Him
   was fulfilled the Word of the Lord by the Prophet Isaiah, "And there
   shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall
   grow out of His roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
   the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and
   might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall
   make Him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord." In this
   Spirit there is Glory, for the Prophet further says, "His rest shall be
   glorious."

   Now this Glory, our Lord Jesus has given to all His disciples. Upon
   each true disciple, the Spirit of God rests according to his measure.
   If we have not the anointing to the fullest, it is either from lack of
   capacity or by reason of our

   own sin, for the Spirit of God is given to the saints--He dwells with
   us and shall be in us always. My Brothers and Sisters, I would to God
   we realized this, that the Glory of the Holy Spirit which was given to
   Christ is also given to us, so that it is ours to think, to feel, to
   speak, to act under His guiding influence and supernatural power! What
   are we apart from the Holy Spirit? How can we hope to convince even one
   man, much less the world, that God has sent His Son unless the Holy
   Spirit is with us?

   But if He will come and I trust He has come upon many of us--if He will
   take possession of every faculty and rule and reign in us in all the
   splendor of His holiness--then we shall, indeed, become a power for the
   conversion of mankind! Behold the Lord Jesus has given us this Spirit
   and in that power let us forever live. Owing to this endowment of the
   Holy Spirit, there rested upon Jesus Christ a wondrous Glory in many
   respects. One of His first Glories was that as Man He knew the name and
   Character of God. He knew what no man knows unless it is revealed to
   him by the Holy Spirit, namely, the Nature, attributes and mind of God.
   "The pure in heart shall see God," and those pure eyes of His had seen
   God to the fullest!

   Has He not given us that same vision of the Father? Yes, for He tells
   us, "He that has seen Me, has seen the Father." And again in the sixth
   verse, "I have manifested Your name unto the men which You gave me out
   of the world." Our eyes have been opened by the blessed Spirit of God
   to see the invisible and our understandings have been strengthened to
   know the incomprehensible! Now, according to the language of the
   Apostle, we, "know God, or rather are known of God." "No man has seen
   God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
   Father, He has declared Him." Not to the fullest have we beheld the
   Father, but still, according as we have received this Glory which
   rested upon Christ we have been made to know the Father! And now we
   have access to the heavenly; we are familiar with the Divine; we speak
   with the Most High and delight ourselves in the Lord!

   As we gaze into the unspeakable Glory, we discern something of the
   holiness, the justice and the wisdom of Jehovah and we behold yet more
   of His great mercy and abounding love. We were once blinded, but now it
   is our Glory that we see and know the Lord our God! Henceforth we
   become like our Lord in another beam of His Glory, for we, also, begin
   to manifest the Divine name unto the sons of men who dwell around us!
   The Church, like the moon, reflects the Glory of the great Father of
   Lights and so is glorious with the borrowed splendor which her Lord
   puts upon her. Christ's knowledge of the Father is given to us and we
   endeavor to make it known to others. If men would see God, let them
   look at Jesus, for there is He to be seen! And, with bated breath, we
   add--let them look at Christ's people, for there, also, is God
   revealed! It is the Glory of the saints that they are the mirrors of
   the Divine Character! And when they wear the Glory which Jesus has
   given them, they manifest the eternal name unto those whom the Lord has
   ordained to bless by their means!

   The Glory of our Lord consisted, next, in the power of the Spirit in
   His receiving, keeping and giving forth the Word of God. Our Lord Jesus
   was a full Revelation of the mind of God. "The Law was given by Moses,
   but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ." He knew the plan of
   God--that blessed method of infinite love--and He imparted it to His
   followers. "I have given unto them the Words which You gave Me; and
   they have received them." The depository of the Divine Word was
   Christ--and this was greatly to His Glory. Is not the logos, THE WORD,
   one of the brightest of His titles? But now, this day, He has given to
   us the Word, speaking it into our souls and, from now on we are to hold
   forth the Word of Life in the midst of a crooked and perverse
   generation.

   Would you know the mind of God? It is not merely in a book--it is still
   incarnated in men in whom the Spirit of the Lord is present! Still does
   the Lord make known His mind and will by the earnest, fervent teaching,
   pleading and lives of those in whom the Spirit of God dwells! Do you
   think this to be a small Glory? Why, my Beloved, the Glory of
   possessing the Spirit of God; the Glory of knowing the eternal God; the
   Glory of having received His Word is such as distinguishes the chosen
   man above his fellows infinitely more than all the crowns, titles and
   decorations which monarchs can bestow! Tell me not of your stars and
   garters, your ribbons and your crosses--to be made partakers of the
   Holy Spirit and guardians of the Truth of God is a greater Glory than
   the princes of this world can so much as imagine!

   This Glory of the Lord Jesus also lay in the sanctification of His
   blessed Person. He said, "For their sakes I sanctify Myself." Look at
   how consecrated to God He was from His childhood till He said, "It is
   finished!" What holiness shone upon His very brow where a guileless
   soul unveiled itself in brave sincerity! You could not have been with
   Him at a funeral or at a marriage banquet, in a sick chamber or in the
   midst of a crowd, in the presence of carping adversaries or

   in the bosom of His family of 12 without being charmed by that Divine
   Holiness which hedged Him round about! There was about Him a sweetness
   of unspeakable affection and a majesty of unsullied purity which made
   Him glorious above all the sons of men! His enemies spat upon Him, but
   that very spit was the unconscious homage which malignant evil pays to
   conquering goodness!

   The ungodly crucified Him, but even in that very act there was a sort
   of confession that they were baffled and confused and could not stand
   before Him! They cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" because His perfect
   purity rendered their own wickedness inexcusable and lashed their
   conscience with reflections which could not be borne. Our Lord's moral
   Glory was great, for He was the pattern and paragon of everything that
   is lovely and of good repute--and He was wholly sanctified unto God!
   This is the Glory which He gives to us! His prayer is, "Sanctify them
   through Your Truth: Your Word is Truth."

   His disciples live unto holiness and are known as a people zealous of
   good works. I have to speak as I find matters laid down in the Word of
   God and if you do not find them to be so in yourselves, my Brothers and
   Sisters, then you must judge yourselves by the Word of God so that you
   are not judged at the last and condemned! So it is that those who have
   truly received Christ become a special, marked and separated people.
   They are as much consecrated to God as the priests were under the old
   dispensation and, therefore, they live for God, they live unto God and
   their whole being is subjected to the mind of God! This is a high state
   of Grace, but nothing less than this ought to content any Christian!

   Well, then, our great Master gives us, next, the Glory of His own
   mission. "As You have sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent
   them into the world." It is the Glory of Jesus that He is the Messiah,
   the Sent One--and now, behold, He sends all His servants to be messiahs
   or missionaries to mankind! Christ Jesus was sent to reveal the Father,
   sent to reclaim the wandering souls of men, sent to seek and to save
   the lost--and this is exactly what every true Christian is sent into
   the world to do--he is commissioned to reveal God in his every act and
   word! He is commissioned to win back rebellious hearts! He is
   commissioned to save the sons of men and bring them up out of the
   horrible pit into which their sins have cast them!

   This is a Glory, indeed, for they that turn many to righteousness shall
   shine as the stars forever and ever. What a promise is that, "And
   saviors shall come up on mount Zion, and the kingdom shall be the
   Lord's." Every Christian man, according to his measure, becomes among
   his race what Jesus was when He was here below, the Friend of men, the
   Seeker of the lost. Again, I trust your glad hearts appreciate this
   Glory, for let me say it is such a Glory that if it involves much
   strict living and much self-denial--if it involves much disgrace,
   misrepresentation, reproach--and even should it involve death by
   martyrdom, blessed is the man upon whom all these things come because
   the spirit of Glory and of Christ rests upon him!

   The true glory of any man is the man himself, the character he bears
   and not the estate which he possesses. My Brothers and Sisters, can I
   hope that you have a resplendent spiritual character? Dare I hope to
   win the same myself? Let us look again at this Glory of the Son of God!
   Christ Jesus was the Man of men, the model Man, the most manly Man in
   all respects and yet He was, of all men, the most fully subordinated to
   the Divine Law and the most obedient in all things to the Father's
   will! See your calling, my Brethren! You, too, are not to be common
   men, nor to belong to the herd that run foolishly after their own
   lusts--but you are to be model men, manly and brave, yet always
   submissive to the great Father of your spirits. We are to be such men
   that those who look upon us may wish that there were such as we are.

   Jesus was especially a model in His perfect self-abnegation. What did
   He seek for Himself? A kingdom? Yes, but a kingdom whose crown was made
   of thorns--a kingdom of suffering love. What did He live for? That He
   might be glorified? Yes, but that He might be glorified by saving
   others while refusing to save Himself! His crowning Glory is that He
   humbled Himself and made Himself of no reputation and became obedient
   to death, even the death of the Cross! Such shall you and I be if we
   have the Glory of Christ resting upon us--we shall give up, forever,
   all self-seeking, all desire to shine, all wish to be great, all
   craving to be rich--and we shall live not unto ourselves, but unto Him
   that died for us!

   We are to live for God's Glory and for Christ's purpose in the
   conviction of the world and if we do, the Spirit of Glory will be
   resting upon us. The matchless Man of Nazareth had this Glory--that He
   was one with God. The objectives, aims and thoughts of God were His
   objectives, aims and thoughts. His life ran parallel with the path of
   the Most High. This Man was accepted of God--the love of God ever
   rested upon Him--He had access to God, He could speak with the Father
   when He would and answers out of the excellent Glory were vouchsafed
   Him. He was prevalent

   with God, for His prayers brought down and still bring down countless
   blessings upon the sons of men! He was the Son of God and He overcame
   the world in the power of His sonship.

   Now, this Glory which the Father gave Him, He has given us, that we,
   too, may be accepted; that we, too, may have access; that we, too, may
   have prevalence in prayer; that we, too, may have the Spirit of
   adoption and that we, too, may trample upon sin and overcome the hosts
   of darkness. This is the Glory which rests upon all the faithful! Mark
   well that wherever this Glory is seen, true unity is developed. Suppose
   I were to find a man living in the likeness of Christ with this
   spiritual Glory conspicuous upon him? It may be that he is poor and
   illiterate, but what of that? Suppose he is a coal heaver--the Glory of
   his character will be, none the less, more conspicuous than the dust!
   Then let us find another man on whom the same spiritual Glory rests and
   we will suppose that he is an earl, a supposition which, thank God, is
   not an impossible one!

   The Glory will be none the more dim because of the good man's honors.
   There, then, are the two--coal heaver and coroneted. And does it need
   half an eye to see that the Glory of each is one? The holy consecration
   in each case is the same and the degrees of rank do not affect the
   essential beauty of either! Is it not the same life which dwells in all
   saintly bosoms and the same love which prompts each holy deed? In a
   princess or in a dairyman's daughter; in a scholar or in a peasant, the
   glory of a high character is one. If you found among a savage tribe a
   single convert, truly consecrated to Christ and living unto God
   according to the measure of his light, his manners might be rude and
   his knowledge slender, but there would be upon him the same kind of
   Glory which you would mark as adorning a polished, educated Christian
   lady who, in the midst of her circle, spends a lovely life for Jesus.

   Should the untutored convert die by the spear of the savage whose soul
   he sought to bless, he is written in the same roll of martyrs as that
   which bears the names of bishops and Apostles. Holiness is everywhere
   most precious! Unselfishness is in any instance beyond all price! Let
   us see love to God and love to men and they are everywhere alike and
   reveal a oneness of inward life! In fact, oneness with Him who is the
   true life of men! If you bring a company of common Christians together
   and they begin discoursing and discussing, I dare say they will jangle
   and debate world without end! But if you could select a number of those
   upon whom the Glory rests which the Father gave to His Son, I will
   guarantee you this, that within a short time they will be all on their
   knees together, or singing together, or engaged in some form of loving
   fellowship!

   The people who are not one with each other are those who are not one
   with Christ! But once filled with His Spirit, we are one of necessity.
   You cannot help it, it is scarcely a matter of duty--it becomes a
   matter of necessity that you who have the love of Christ within you
   should love the Brothers and Sisters! Spiritual men are so essentially
   one, that like two drops which close together, they have an increasing
   tendency to unite. Spiritual men may wear different denominational
   names and may differ in their conscientious convictions on some
   matters, but these things do not hinder union--they rather give a zest
   to it! If the Glory which the Father gave to Christ is resting upon
   these, they have discerned the mystical unity which encompasses them
   all and they are delighted to acknowledge it by deeds of brotherly love
   rendered with spontaneous cheerfulness, blessing him who performs them
   and those who receive the benefits!

   Beloved, those in whom Christ lives are not uniform, but one.
   Uniformity may be found in death, but this unity is life! Those who are
   quite uniform may yet have no love to each other, while those who
   differ widely may still be truly and intensely one. Our children are
   not uniform, but they make one family. Sons born at the same birth may
   exhibit a remarkable difference of character and yet the father may be
   seen in both and they may be equally one in the family circle and in
   all the love which makes home the abode of happiness. So it is with all
   Believers--born of the same everlasting Father, they are one in spirit,
   one in character, one in objective, one in aim--yes, one in the fullest
   sense.

   At this moment, despite apparent differences, the whole host of the
   spiritual are one and they press forward as with the tramp of one man
   against the common foe. I speak not ofprofessors. I speak not of the
   external church. I speak not of the mixed multitude that come up out of
   Egypt and debase the character of our Israel! I speak of those of whom
   Christ could say to His Father, "The Glory which You have given Me I
   have given them"--these are one as the Father and the Son are One, but
   mere professors are not!

   II. Time flies too rapidly, alas, and therefore we must, with great
   brevity, think upon the second point, namely, THE UNITY ITSELF. As I
   have remarked, it is not uniformity. This our Lord says nothing of.
   Though we are one body in Him, yet all the members have not the same
   office--the eye is very different from the ear--and the foot has not
   the same

   form as the hand. Neither does He speak of any formal organization by
   which unity is to be secured. How many have tried to create a
   mechanical union and have made confusion worse confusion! Their
   eagerness for unity has threatened to dash everything to shivers! The
   very first step towards a visible unity of the Church is, with most
   men, that they shall fix a standard of what the Church ought to be and
   cut off everybody who will not conform to their idea!

   See how certain Brothers, to show how they hate sectarianism, invent a
   new sect and diligently earn from their fellow-Believers the character
   of being more bitter and bigoted than any other professors! The
   oddities of non-sectarians are the scandal of the age! They have talked
   of union and scattered the saints right and left. Let us follow
   practical methods and we shall find them in the unity which the text
   describes.

   First, it is written--"I in them." Christ lives in His people and we
   are to act so, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that onlookers shall
   say, "Surely Christ lives again in that man, for he acts out the
   precepts of Jesus. Did you notice how he bore the insult? Did you
   notice how he laid himself out to oblige and to serve? Did you observe
   how, without introducing religious talk, he gradually steered the
   conversation towards that which is to edification? Do you see how, if
   he stays in a hotel, or if he sojourns in a family, or if he sits in a
   workroom, his presence is soon felt by the pleasure which he diffuses,
   the confidence which he inspires?" He is everyone's friend when he is
   needed--the servant of all, the example of all. His voice is always for
   peace and if he does, now and then, speak upbraidingly, men's
   consciences admit that he is just. Such a man honors his Lord by
   reminding men of Him.

   Our first consideration should not be, "Now I am here, how can I be
   comfortable?" but, "I am here, how can I please others for their good?
   How can I relieve the distressed, help the weary, or cheer the sad?" It
   is a grand thing to do good in little ways. It is a glory to be the
   sweetener of life at home, the self-forgetting friend of all around.
   The world, before long, confesses that Christ is in such a man! The
   true Christian is Jesus come to life! His name implies this--how is he
   a Christian who is not like Christ? We commonly say that the oil upon
   the head runs down to the skirts of the garment--is it so? Is the love
   of Jesus, the generosity of Jesus, the zeal of Jesus, the gentleness of
   Jesus, the consecration of Jesus to be seen in us? If so, the Glory of
   Jesus rests on us! But if not, we have need to begin again and do our
   first works.

   The next point of the union is. "You in Me." That is, God is in Christ.
   This is manifestly true, for you cannot read the life of Christ without
   seeing God in Him. "Come, now," said one to an unbeliever, "what do you
   think of the life of Christ?" "I am free to confess," said the other,
   "that it seems to me to be a very marvelous life and in every way
   worthy of praise." "You do not, however, think Jesus Christ to be God?"
   "No, I do not." "But suppose," said the Christian, "that God had been
   here among men in human form--could He have acted more purely or more
   benevolently?" "No," said the other, "If I admit the possibility of
   such a thing, I am not able to conceive of anything more divinely
   good." "Why, then," said the Christian, "do you not see that in very
   deed God was in Christ Jesus and He was One with God?" So we believe
   and we rejoice greatly to hear our Lord say, "I and my Father are One."
   See, then, the unity of Christ in us and God in Christ Jesus!

   This brings about the union of Believers with the Father--being one
   with Christ and Christ being One with the Father. The point is reached
   for which our Lord prayed, "That they all may be one; as You, Father,
   are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us: that the
   world may believe that You have sent Me." Couple this with Believers
   being one with each other and you get the being, "made perfect in one,"
   of which our text speaks. If you and I are one in Christ and one with
   Christ, then we are one with God, seeing Christ is One with God--and
   thus not in some few characteristics are we alike and one in name, but
   in life, in aim and in desire!

   Brothers and Sisters, if you and I are living for the same design which
   our Lord lived for and if the very life which quickens us is the life
   of Jesus, then, since Jesus lives always for the same thing which God
   purposes and works out, then surely there is a grand unity--the likes
   of which is not found in the universe! This has great depths in it,
   which is grounded upon a mystical, spiritual union, but I leave the
   depths of doctrine, just now, to speak upon the experimental and
   practical Truths of God which grow out of the matter of fact.

   Moved by the same love of holiness; inspired by the same spirit of
   love, tenderness and kindness, the eternal Father's will is the will of
   the Son and the Spirit works in us to will and to do according to the
   good pleasure of the Lord. According to the measure of Grace, the
   members of the body feel and move in union with the Head, who also is
   in union with the Father. "Your kingdom come" is God's will thrilling
   through all the members of the body of Christ. Death to sin,
   destruction of strife, the end of injustice, the chasing away of every
   form of error--these are the common objectives

   of the Father and of all those whom He has begotten. The propagation of
   the Truth of God, the increase of love, the reign of gentleness and
   peace among men--these are the mind of God, the mind of Christ and the
   mind of all the saints--and so are we one with each other by ties
   spiritual and Divine!

   III. I could not enlarge upon that subject though I wished to do so,
   for I must now notice THE EFFECT WHICH THIS PRODUCES according to our
   Lord's prophecy and prayer. First, it will convict the world of the
   Truth of Christ's mission--"That the world may know that You have sent
   Me." How will they know it? Why, when they see such characters as I
   have so feebly tried to paint! When they see men who are no longer
   selfish, hard and ungenerous--when they see men no longer governed by
   their passions, no longer earth-bound--when they see loving men, men
   who desire that which is holy, just and good! When they see men living
   for God, the world will say, "Their Master must have been

   sent of God."

   Such men as these, alas, are so uncommon. And they are so precious when
   we find them that if the Lord Jesus has created such by His teaching
   and His Spirit, by their fruits may we know them, even as we know His
   people and He is manifestly sent of God. And then, Brothers and
   Sisters, not only will their characters convince the world, but their
   unity will convince it because the ungodly world will say, "We see the
   glory of Christianity in the poor man and we see the same in the rich
   man. We see a glory about a Christian prince and we see the same glory
   about a Christian needle woman! And we observe that when these people
   meet each other there is a Divine union among them, for they are one.
   Surely their Master must be sent of God."

   Christian people have things to talk about which others do not
   understand and they pursue one common objective which others disregard.
   Whether they have little or much, they yield their all to one common
   cause and objective. Whether possessed of little ability or great
   ability, they are alike consecrated. One spirit breathes in them! See
   how they love one another! Even the world can see that while its great
   ones are always contending, these dwell in love! The world can easily
   see that while common men emulate each other and strive as to who shall
   be the greatest, these only strive to serve the common cause, to help
   each other and to stoop for their fellows' good! The world cannot help
   perceiving the divinity of the mission of Christ which has produced
   this perfect love and union among His followers. Then do they say,
   "assuredly God must have sent their Leader, Christ Jesus, or He could
   not have produced such results."

   Do you ask me where we see this? I reply that it is far too little
   seen, but when we shall see it in the whole Church, then will the world
   be convinced! Oh, my Brethren, only fancy a Church of the size of this,
   put down in this south of London, made up of holy men and holy women
   like Christ, who, with all their imperfections, as to the general bent
   and current of their lives are living unto God and for the Glory of
   Christ and for the good of their fellow men! Picture such a Church in
   perfect unity and I tell you it would present an argument for
   Christianity which would infinitely surpass all the books of analogy
   and evidence which have ever been written! This would be a nut which
   the adversary could not crack! It would baffle all his criticisms and
   syllogisms!

   One individual Christian has often presented to the most desperate
   unbeliever a difficulty which has staggered him. "I could be altogether
   an atheist," said one, "if it were not for my aged mother. While I see
   her peace of mind, her holy living, her gentle, quiet temper, I cannot
   but believe that there is a power in religion which I cannot
   understand." If we would convince the world, my Brothers and Sisters,
   it must be by the Glory which God has given to His Son resting upon
   each and all of us and so compacting us together, fusing us into one
   mass of living union! Only in the foundation of unity in Christ can the
   battle be won!

   But the world is also to be convinced of the Father's love to us--"And
   have loved them as You have loved Me." Shall we ever convince them of
   that? Yes, when the world sees bodies of truly consecrated men and
   women living together in holy love, then they will also see much joy,
   much peace, much mutual consolation--and they will perceive that the
   very stars in Heaven fight for them, that the Providence of God makes
   all things work together for their good--and that the Lord has a
   special care over them as a shepherd has over his flock. Then they will
   say, "These are the people that God has blessed. Look how He loves
   them!" They perceive, however, that they have to suffer and that they
   are afflicted and despised--and so they come to say, "God seems to love
   them just as He loved His Son, whom He did not spare from suffering,
   pain and grief, but whom He upheld under all"--and so they learn that
   God has the same special regard for those Christ-like ones that He has
   for their Master and Lord. They shall be made to see this! It will be
   forced upon them!

   Moreover, as these men and women grow more and more like Jesus the
   world will conclude that since God loved Jesus, He must love those who
   are like Christ! Why, do not even the ungodly, though they would be
   loath to confess it, take a kind of delight in a high and noble
   character? They have an admiration for it and their conscience tells
   them that God admires those in whom His Christ has produced it. They
   cannot avoid the feeling that God loves holy and loving people--and
   that it is great love on His part to make them what they are. So far
   the world becomes convinced.

   But somebody may say, "What does our Lord mean by the world's knowing
   and believing this?" I answer that, doubtless, a part of the world will
   be convinced that Christ was sent of God. And part will be convinced
   that God loves His people. And yet they will stand out in obstinacy
   against God, for to the end even the Gospel, itself, will be a savor of
   death unto death to some!

   Well, you and I have answered the purpose of God even upon such
   characters when it comes to pass that they are without excuse. But it
   is evident from this chapter that there is another part of the world
   who will not only know and believe historically, but will do this
   spiritually--that part of the world comprehended in our Lord's
   prayer--"Neither pray I for those alone, but for them, also, who shall
   believe on Me through their word." And I take it, Brothers and Sisters,
   that when the day shall come that Christians are Christians, then we
   shall see great masses of the world convinced of the Truth of
   Christianity and large numbers of the world suppliant at Jesus' feet!

   The Christianity which is presented to the public gaze I would not be
   unduly censorious, but I fear it is often a Christianity which the
   world does well to despise. When the Jew went to Rome and asked for
   Christianity, he saw the Christians, so called, worshipping the Virgin
   Mary and images of saints and relics and bones and I know not what. And
   he justly said, "The Lord has said to Israel, 'The Lord your God is one
   God,' and, 'You shall not make unto yourself any graven image, nor the
   likeness of anything that is in Heaven above nor in the earth beneath.
   You shall not bow down to them nor worship them.'" On the strength of
   such revelation the Jew rejected the Christianity of Rome and he did
   well. Don't you agree?

   Now, here comes another Christianity which has lately displayed itself
   to many heathen nations. It comes with the Bible in its knapsack and
   the Martini-Henry rifle in its hand. Is not this a fine combination for
   conversion? Jesus comes before the Zulu riding upon a Gattling gun! Of
   course, these poor heathen know nothing about our political
   combinations, but if they suppose that Christians are invading their
   land, will they, therefore, love Christ? Missionaries, here is a
   difficulty for you to explain--how will you deal with it? You come from
   a Christian nation, a nation which enjoys the unspeakable privilege of
   a national Church, a nation which salutes the savages in Christ's name
   with shot and shell!

   Will they receive Christianity coming in such guise? If they do not,
   small blame can we pour upon them--they will be only acting according
   to the light of reason and common sense! If there shall ever come a
   Christianity which suffers long, is kind, does no evil but seeks good
   to its neighbor; which teaches love to God and love to man; which seeks
   not its own, but lays itself out for others, then I do not say that an
   ungodly world will be enamored of it if left to itself, but I do
   believe that the Spirit of God will go forth with it and will convict
   men of sin and of righteousness and of judgment--and then shall the
   scattered family of Adam accept the one true faith and enter into a
   league of amity with each other--and there shall be Glory to God in the
   highest, on earth peace, good-will towards men! Love conquers all. Love
   is the logic which convinces!

   Notice two passages of Scripture with which I finish. One thing you
   want the world to know is that you are the Disciples of Christ. "By
   this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one
   to another." Does our Lord wish the world to be convinced? How does He,
   Himself, act? Hear Him! "But that the world may know that I love the
   Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let
   us go hence." Love, you see again, proves the unity of the Son with the
   Father! And here again, in this second text, it is the love of the
   Father to the chosen which is to be the sign unto the world. Therefore,
   let love abound. Let it be all the weapons of our war!

   I know I have preached very feebly to you this morning upon such a
   theme. The subject is a great deal too much for my limited capacity,
   but it is good for us to feel how little we are, how low we are. It is
   good to look above our struggling selves to something much beyond our
   present attainments. I lie prostrate on my face before the Lord and
   confess that I have not yet attained all that I have set forth to you
   and, I suspect, that your confession is very like my own. Let us not be
   discouraged, for by Grace we are on the way and we will not rest till
   we reach the goal! O for Grace so to live unto God in Christ Jesus that
   the world shall never be able to answer the argument of our lives! Help
   us, O Spirit of the Lord! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Forts Demolished and Prisoners Taken

   (No. 1473)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 11, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself
   against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought
   to the obedience of Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5.

   THIS chapter presents the remarkable spectacle of a minister of the
   Gospel of Peace going forth to war! At first sight we wonder how the
   meek and gentle Paul should speak about warring and talk of pulling
   down strongholds and "having a readiness to revenge all disobedience."
   The surprise is all the greater because he is going to war in the
   Church--a shepherd entering the fold with a sword! One would not so
   much marvel that he carried his weapons against the outside world, but
   on this occasion it is within the Church at Corinth that he is about to
   commence a campaign! Yet observe how earnestly he deprecates the
   conflict; how he beseeches them by the meekness and gentleness of
   Christ to spare him a task which was so unpleasant to his feelings as
   to deal sternly with those whom he would far rather have commended.

   But the wonder ceases when we find that the shepherd fights only with
   grievous wolves and even in that conflict declares, "though we walk in
   the flesh, we do not war after the flesh." Note, moreover, that his
   weapons are of a peculiar kind, "The weapons of our warfare are not
   carnal." He is not about to assault his antagonists in the Church with
   bitter words of railing such as they used against him--he is not about
   to meet the philosophers with such philosophies and sophisms as those
   with which they assailed the Gospel! And neither is he coming forth
   with any kind of temporal weapon to inflict anything of injury upon the
   leaders in error--his weapons are of a very different sort. They are
   not carnal, but spiritual.

   Trials under a Public Worship Act he knew nothing of. An appeal to
   Caesar upon Church matters never crossed his mind. For the Church of
   God ever to avail itself of force or compulsion in order to propagate
   its doctrines would be contrary to the spirit of Christianity! For the
   Christian bishop to become a soldier, or employ the secular arm would
   seem to be the very climax of contradiction! A warrior ambassador is a
   dream of folly! I remember a story which illustrates that absurdity.
   When a certain bishop-prince in the olden times went forth personally
   to battle and was taken prisoner, the Pope sent word to the king who
   had captured him that he was to set him at liberty at once, for he was
   a son of the Church.

   The king, with considerable wit, sent back to the Pope the coat of
   armor which the bishop had worn on the field with this message, "This
   have we found--know now whether it is your son's coat or not." And so
   we might send back, I think, to the nominal Church, the black and
   blood-stained gown of the Inquisition, the garb of the headsman and the
   hangman, the smoke-browned raiment of those who lit the Smithfield
   fires and even the parchments on which are written the Test and
   Corporation Acts and the Act of Uniformity and say, "Know now whether
   these are your sons' coats or not." Is the raiment of a man of war the
   vestment of a servant of the Lord? Are robes of legal authority the
   adornments of heralds of peace?

   Jesus Christ did not thus array His Apostles when He sent them forth to
   war and not with such weapons did Paul arm himself when he entered the
   conflict. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal." Yet the
   spiritual weapons which can be wielded by the Christian minister and,
   indeed, by every Christian, are not to be despised, for while not
   fleshy, they are mighty through God! God is in them! God is with those
   who use them! The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; the
   arrows of the Truths of God which pierce the consciences of men; the
   weapon of all-prayer; the influence of the Holy Spirit--that Divine
   Power--such weapons as these are, by God's power, made mighty to the
   overthrow of spiritual principalities and powers!

   The Truth of God and holiness are the appointed engines for the pulling
   down of the castles of evil! Blessed is he who in every conflict for
   God takes heed to use no other weapons than those which the Lord has
   hung up in the tower of

   David built for an armory--where hang a thousand bucklers, all shields
   of mighty men! Those only can fight the Lord's battles successfully who
   come to Him to be armed for the fight and reject all fleshy force. The
   spiritual shall be victorious, but others must fail!

   The passage, if I were to confine it to its immediate connection, would
   represent Paul as dealing with those lofty ones who had usurped
   authority in the Church at Corinth; who denied his Apostleship and set
   themselves up as superior to him while they, themselves, preached error
   and led the people astray. Paul declared that when he came among them
   armed with the power with which God had clothed him, he would overthrow
   every proud opposition and convince them all of the Truth of God to
   their conversion or to their confusion. But I shall speak rather of a
   warfare carried on in individuals--a warfare in our own souls--for what
   is true of the triumphs of the Gospel in the masses is true because it
   gains the same conquest over individuals.

   While I am speaking of the war of the Gospel against sin within the
   heart of man, may you who have never felt its power be praying that it
   may conquer even you. and may those who have experienced its sacred
   Omnipotence be pleading to be yet more completely subjugated to its
   sway--

   "Great King of Grace, our hearts subdue, May we be led in triumph, too,
   As willing captives to our Lord, To sing the victories of His Word."
   There are three things in the text worthy of our observation. The first
   is fortresses demolished, "casting down imaginations and every high
   thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God."
   Secondly,prisoners seized, "bringing into captivity every thought." and
   thirdly, prisoners led away captive--for such is the force of the
   Greek, "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of
   Christ"--as if the captured ones were taken away and put under new
   service to the anointed Prince.

   I. First, let us look at FORTRESSES DEMOLISHED. When the Gospel
   endeavors to penetrate the human heart it meets with earthworks of
   prejudice which men have cast up to screen their minds from the force
   of the Truth of God. Many things are opposed to the knowledge of God.
   The objective sought is that men may be brought to know God--to know
   who He is and what He is. To know their relation to Him as fallen men.
   To know His plan of restoration. To know Him in Christ Jesus and to
   know as to love Him, to obey Him and to become like He. This is the
   great objective for which the Gospel is sent into the world--that the
   knowledge of the Glory of God may cover the earth as the waters cover
   the sea.

   But men desire not the knowledge of God's ways and shut up their hearts
   against the entrance of Divine Light by much evil reasoning and
   imaginations. Some are garrisoned against the knowledge of God by the
   feeling that they do not need to know God. The masses of our fellow
   countrymen are not so much opposed to the Gospel as indifferent to it.
   They pass by our places of worship and they see their neighbors
   entering and sometimes they say, "Who preaches there?" But, "What is
   preached there?" is a question seldom asked. Religious enquiry seems to
   be very dull at the present time. Time was when the announcement of
   evangelical doctrine excited universal attention, though at the same
   time almost universal opposition--that opposition was better than a
   state of stagnation like the present.

   Men nowadays pass by the Cross as if a dying Savior were nothing to
   them. Graceless zealots, as they call them, may fight about their
   creeds--as for them--they have something more practical to think about.
   "What shall we eat? What shall we drink? And how shall we be clothed?"
   are far more important questions to them, than, "What must we do to be
   saved?" This entrenchment has to be carried and the Gospel does carry
   it by the power of the Holy Spirit, for it flashes conviction on the
   soul, creates alarm, awakens apprehension and so storms the stronghold
   of indifference and utterly demolishes it! When the Holy Spirit
   convicts a man of sin, of righteousness and of judgment to come, he is
   indifferent no longer!

   We call him an, "enquirer," and the name is correct, for he does
   enquire about the weightiest matters which concern eternity, God,
   Heaven, Hell and his own immortal destiny. He desires to know, at
   first, more than he is, at that time, capable of learning! He questions
   about high mysteries which are for men in Christ rather than for
   babies! But most of all, he wants to know, "How can I be at peace with
   God?" If the Holy Spirit does but apply to a man's heart such a Truth
   of God as this--that he is already condemned because he has not
   believed in Christ--then indifference is as a bulging wall and as a
   tottering fence! Even If a man had no other sin, it is quite sufficient
   to condemn him forever, that he

   neglects his God and turns away from his Savior, for unbelief is an act
   of high treason against the Divine Majesty, plucking at the crown jewel
   of Jehovah's truthfulness. Hence "the wicked shall be turned into Hell
   with all the nations that forget God." Lay this gun in a proper
   position and let it be fired by the Eternal Spirit against the
   indifference of the human heart and it soon casts down the wall of
   carelessness!

   Then the sinner discovers that if he does not know his God, it were
   better for him that he had never been born! He finds out that if he
   does not know his Savior, he is doomed to endless woe and this makes
   him cry out in anguish of heart, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"
   Among the other, "imaginations," with which man fortifies himself is
   the idea of many that they know already. Trained from their childhood
   in false doctrine, they hold fast to it and defy the Gospel to reach
   them. They are Christians by birth, they say, forgetting the Inspired
   Declaration, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which
   is born of the Spirit is spirit." Others make up their minds as to what
   the knowledge of God ought to be and, of course, they quarrel with
   God's view of things. They fashion a god and a gospel after their own
   fond notions and then they dream that they have reached the summit of
   wisdom! They refuse to go to school to learn Christ and when He says,
   "Except you are converted and become as little children, you shall in
   no wise enter into the kingdom of God," they turn from Him with
   disdain! They know quite enough and are resolved to learn no more.

   A large proportion of our fellow men are in this condition and are
   perfectly content and satisfied to remain as they are. Graduates in the
   university of self-importance--full of ignorance and equally full of
   pride--they scarcely deign to give Christ a hearing and hardly go as
   far as the Athenians who said, "What will this babbler say?" Nothing
   shuts the heart more completely against the knowledge of God than the
   conceit that we already know and need no teaching from above! It is
   written of the true Church, "All your children shall be taught of the
   Lord," but many are not such children, for they are wise in their own
   eyes and refuse instruction!

   But, O Sirs, how the Holy Spirit casts down this imagination when He
   makes men feel that they are blind by nature and lets them know that
   the natural man understands not the things which are of God, for they
   are spiritual and must be spiritually discerned! A little heavenly
   Light suffices to reveal to men their darkness, for if they will but
   think, they must admit that if God deigns to teach us in the
   Scriptures, it must be because apart from them we are ignorant! There
   is no need of Revelation and the Bible is worthless; there is no need
   of an Incarnate Deity and Calvary is a superfluity if men already know
   God apart from the Lord Jesus and the Word by which He is pleased to
   reveal Himself! But let the Holy Spirit bring this home to a man's
   heart and he begins to cry out against his own pride! He bemoans his
   own blindness and he is quite willing to become a fool that he may be
   wise, a child that he may sit at Jesus' feet!

   Another entrenchment, behind which many are securely hiding, is the
   idea that if they do not know God they can find Him out without His
   help. This is a very general notion, nowadays. Scientific thought is
   supposed to be the way for finding out God and the old Scripture is out
   of date which says," Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your
   soul shall live." Plain truth is, in this wonderful century, of small
   account--men crave to be mystified by their own cogitations. Many glory
   in being too intellectual to receive anything as absolute
   certainty--they are not at all inclined to submit to the authority of a
   positive Revelation! God's Word is not accepted by them as final, but
   they judge it and believe what they like of it.

   This is madness! I speak to those who believe in the Scriptures and I
   say if, indeed, there is a Revelation, it becomes us to be silent
   before it and accept it without dispute! The Lord knows what is better
   than we can ever know and if He has been pleased to speak plainly and
   solemnly His Word, it is ours to believe what He says because He says
   it! It may be all very well to prove that such-and-such a Revelation of
   God is consistent with reason, consistent with analogy, consistent with
   a thousand things--but the attitude which needs such argument is a
   spirit of rebellion against God! If there is a Revelation, every part
   of it is of authority and must be believed. Human thought is not the
   arbiter of Truth, but the Infallible Word is the end of all strife.

   It is not ours to say what the Truth of God must be, or what we think
   it should be, or what we would like it to be-- but reverently to sit
   down with open ears and willing heart to receive what God has spoken.
   If an astronomer were to refuse to examine the stars and teach an
   astronomy invented in his own brain, he would be an idiot! And those
   who treat theology in the same fashion are not much better! "Surely,"
   says one, "we ought to modify our beliefs by public opinion and the
   current of thought." I say, "NO," a thousand times! The Incorruptible
   Word of God lives and abides forever and

   is incapable of modification! To modify is to adulterate, nullify and
   render it of no effect, so that it becomes another gospel and, indeed,
   no Gospel.

   The thought of tampering with the revealed Truth of God is vicious and
   ought not to be tolerated by any Christian for a second! The Gospel of
   Jesus Christ is not a thing which is to be molded according to the
   fashion of the period--it is "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today,
   and forever." Whether the Greek philosophy rules or is exploded.
   Whether some more modern theory blazes up or smolders down is small
   concern of ours, for we are set to preach the one unvarying Gospel of
   Jesus Christ sent down with the Holy Spirit from Heaven! No man was
   ever led to a saving faith by our meeting him half way and consenting
   to his unbelief! No real faith was ever worked in man by his own
   thoughts and imaginations--he must receive the Gospel as a Revelation
   from God, or he cannot receive it at all.

   Faith is a supernatural work wherever it is found and if we think that
   we can beget faith in ourselves or others by the use of the fleshy
   weapons of philosophy, we shall certainly be foiled! The Scriptures
   pressed home by the Holy Spirit are God's power unto salvation--not
   men's cogitations and imaginations! There is the Revealed
   Gospel--reject it at your own peril! There is Jehovah's Revelation of
   Himself to men--receive it or be damned! This is the ground to go upon
   if we would speak as the oracles of God. God grant that proud thinkers
   may come upon this ground and become Believers.

   Here we are boldly met by some who say, "We do not need this doctrine
   which you call the 'knowledge of God.' We already know of something
   better. We tell you that your Gospel, about which you make such a fuss,
   is outworn and done with." Treat it so, Sirs, and perish, if you will,
   but as for us, we will mourn day and night over your unbelief. You will
   surely destroy your souls in rejecting the Divine Testimony, but in so
   doing you will prove that Word to be true which says that the Gospel is
   a savor of death unto death as well as of life unto life.

   You know better, you say, but how can this be? Do you know God better
   than God knows Himself? Do you know more about His way of reconciling
   men to Himself than His own Messenger, the Lord Jesus Christ, knows? Do
   you profess to know better than the Eternal Spirit who inspired the
   Scriptures? It is to those Scriptures that we crave your reverent
   attention and not to any assertions of ours--we pray you will not
   reject them! I heard one say the other day that he never felt any
   desire to pray and never had prayed in all his life. And though I
   looked at him with sorrow, I could only say to him, "Dead men never
   cry. You are dead in sin and so have not the Divine breath. You have
   not been born again. You have not a new nature or a right spirit--if
   you had, you could not help praying and believing."

   To me his statements were confirmations of Bible teaching concerning
   the real state of all unregenerate men. The Gospel, as we have said
   before, wherever it creates faith, begets it by its own power and by
   the power of the Eternal Spirit convincing men of the Truth of God and
   enlightening those whom the Lord our God has chosen. Now, where the
   Gospel comes, it undermines and overturns everything which opposes the
   Truth of God and makes a man feel that of God he knows nothing until
   the Lord reveals it to him.

   Find a sinner made conscious of sin and you have found a man who does
   not know better than his God! Find a man with an awakened conscience
   and you have found a man who does not know better than his God! Find
   one who believes in Christ, sits at Jesus' feet and the more he learns
   the more surely have you found in him a man who does not know better
   than his God, but who still cries out to be taught more that he may
   possess to the fullest the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of
   Jesus Christ.

   There is yet another entrenchment behind which some hide themselves
   from the knowledge of God and that is, "I never can know. I do not know
   and I never can know. I despair of ever being able to know the Lord."
   In this despair the rebel entrenches himself as in a very cannon and
   becomes desperate in his resistance to the Gospel. Yet even this
   rampart is cast down by mighty Grace! When the Holy Spirit comes with
   the Word of reconciliation, the sinner catches at the idea of Atonement
   by a Substitute. He is charmed by the Truth of God, "I am lost in
   myself, but saved in Christ. I am in myselfjudged and condemned for
   sin, but in Christ I see my sin laid on Another and put away." He
   catches at that Truth, so simple, so sublime and as he believes it, he
   begins to know Him whom to know is eternal life!

   The Spirit of God, as He shines with Divine Light into the soul, soon
   sweeps away the Egyptian darkness of despair and in the Light of God
   the man sees light! You see what my drift is? It is just this, that
   there are certain walls of reasoning, reckoning, thinking--our version
   calls them "imaginations"--which are to be cast down and the Gospel
   does this when used by the Holy Spirit! Nor is this all, for with the
   walls, the battlements fall. Man, having devised the

   fortress of reasoning, erects towers of pride on them which the Apostle
   calls, "high things," of which he says that the power of God casts down
   "every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God."

   These lofty castles are such as the following--"I have a noble nature
   within me. My instincts are towards right. I have not done much amiss.
   I am as good as my neighbor. I can overcome any temptation. I am
   persuaded that I can fight my own way into eternal happiness," and all
   such vain ideas. Let but the Gospel come with power and all these
   citadels are laid low! Away they go, like Jericho's old bulwarks,
   rocking and reeling till, in a cloud of dust, they thunder to their
   fall! In how many cases we have seen this to be so! Fine men have come
   into this place--men that knew a great deal better than anything they
   could find in the Bible--they have come in quite confident that nothing
   would ever change them!

   These have sat down like ancient knights, mailed from head to foot,
   invulnerable to any shafts of ours--but the Blessed Spirit has found an
   arrow in some simple saying that we have gathered from God's blessed
   Word, and, lo, the proud warriors have fallen in the dust! Convinced
   that they were ignorant and foolish, the formerly proud boasters have
   begun to cry, "What must we do to be saved?" And before long, being
   made champions of the faith, it has been their delight to humbly yield
   judgment, will and heart to the obedience of Christ! O that the Lord
   would thus storm the prejudices and self-conceits of all my unconverted
   hearers and sweep them away by His mighty love!

   II. After a breach has been made and the city has been taken, PRISONERS
   ARE TAKEN. This is our second point. The text runs thus, "Bringing into
   captivity every thought." The word translated, "thought," has a very
   broad meaning, but its best explanation is that which is placed first
   in the lexicon, "everything which comes from the mind." The mind is
   like a city and when it is captured, the inhabitants which swarm its
   streets are the thoughts--and these are taken prisoners. Look at the
   process which I will rapidly describe.

   The Gospel comes with power to the heart of a man and he begins to fear
   the wrath of God and the judgment to come. Look how he trembles! Christ
   has captured his thoughts of self-security. He no more says, "Though I
   add drunkenness to thirst, it shall surely be well with me." On the
   contrary, he cries, "I am guilty! I have broken God's Law and I am
   condemned." The Lord has captured his thoughts of self-righteousness.
   This is the man who yesterday boasted in himself that he was righteous!
   The pure and holy Law of God has come near his conscience and he feels
   guilty and, therefore, cries for mercy!

   Now he begins to pray, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" And it is
   clear that his thoughts of independence; his ideas that he could do
   without God are made prisoners! His thoughts of pleasure in alienation
   from the Great Father are now slain, for he desires to draw near to the
   Most High. Look! A little hope begins to dawn! He hopes that there may
   be salvation for him. His thoughts of rebellious despair are led
   captive in fetters of iron. Praise the Lord! Watch him further. The
   Spirit of God encourages him and he comes to believe in Jesus--his
   self-trust is a prisoner. That Jesus died for sinners is a Truth of God
   which now he accepts and he casts himself upon it--his proud intellect
   is a captive and he gladly bows at the Redeemer's feet!

   Listen to him as he sings, "I am forgiven! God assures me of it! I am
   justified because I have believed in Jesus! Oh, how I love His precious
   name." His inmost heart is captured--all the thoughts of his love are
   now subdued and the Savior whom he once despised, he now adores! Look
   how, with gratitude, he brings his alabaster box to break it and pour
   the sweet perfume on the Savior's feet! Jesus has won his heart! And
   Jesus holds it in a willing captivity and, therefore, the man
   consecrates himself to Christ--to live and to die for Him!

   Thus the whole mind of the man, yes, the whole man, has thrown down its
   rebellious weapons and surrendered unconditionally to the conquering
   arm of the Lord Jesus! I dwell very briefly upon this point because I
   wish to enlarge upon the last.

   III. These prisoners are to be LED AWAY INTO CAPTIVITY--"Bringing every
   thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." Monarchs of the
   olden times, such as the kings of Assyria and Babylon, when they
   subdued a country, removed the people a far distance away from their
   old haunts to find new homes. Now, when the Lord captivates the
   thoughts of our mind, He leads them away, conducting them to another
   reason altogether. The offspring of the mind He guides into the
   spiritual realm where they delight in the Lord and bow themselves
   before Him.

   Let us look at this procession of captives led away to Grace, the
   triumph of the Conqueror to settle them down in another region under
   another King! From the highest to the lowest, all the faculties of the
   soul are made to pass under the yoke--I shall not attempt a list
   according to mental science, but mention them as they occur to me. He
   who, being

   made conscious of his sin, believes in Jesus Christ submits all the
   thoughts of his judgment and understanding to the obedience of Christ
   and this is a great point gained. Before, he put bitter for sweet and
   sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for darkness--but now,
   when he is in difficulty about a moral question he asks his Lord!

   Now, if pleasure tempts him, he judges whether it is sweet by the
   question whether it would be sweet to his Lord! Now, if a certain
   doctrine is stated, he weighs it not in the balances of his own
   thoughts, much less in the scales of popular opinion, but he asks,
   "What did my Master say? What would the Lord Jesus think of this?" He
   suspends his own judgment upon his Master's judgment. He does not say,
   "I am a law unto myself," but he says, "Christ is the Way and in His
   steps I desire to follow." Thus his reason is led into captivity to the
   higher reason and understanding of his supreme

   Lord!

   If there is a Truth of God which he does not know, he tries to learn
   it. If his Lord sets it before him as a lesson and if it is hidden from
   him, he is content not to know. His prayer is, "Lord, teach me, or else
   I shall never learn. I wish to have my understanding developed to the
   fullest, but let it be under Your sweet Light. Let my mind blossom and
   open all its flowers beneath the sunlight of Your Divine instruction."
   I know it is not so with some professed Christians, for they too often
   invent their own doctrines and think out their opinions apart from
   their Master. To think is admirable, but not if we mean, thereby, to
   supplement the teachings of Christ, or to improve upon them, or to
   accommodate them to popular theories in science and philosophy!

   For my part, true science may say what it will and never lack for an
   attentive listener while I live--the more loudly it shall speak the
   better--if it will speak facts and not theories--if it will tell me
   what God has done and not what man has dreamed! All that true science
   ever can discover must tally with the Word of Revelation, for God
   speaks in Nature nothing but the same Truth as He has written in the
   Holy Scriptures. Let our wise men ransack earth to its center and climb
   to Heaven and make inquisition through every star--the testimony of
   universal Nature, if heard aright, shall never contradict the Inspired
   utterances of the Holy Spirit!

   The evil is that the wise men add their own inferences to the facts as
   if they were of equal authority. What, then, is to be done? Shall we
   alter the deductions of the fallible or try to shape the declarations
   of the Infallible? The question is not difficult to answer! We are not
   to revise the statements of the Bible, but the inferences of the
   philosophers! When philosophy contradicts Revelation, what do I say? So
   much the worse for philosophy! In spite of the perpetual restlessness
   which I see in many who are forever mending that which is perfect in
   itself, my understanding is happy to delight in the Infallible
   testimonies of Jehovah! Let those fellows change--we shall not! Let
   them come up to us--verily, believers in God's Revelation will never go
   down to them, for that would be to be disloyal to our Master, Christ,
   whose teachings are too sacred for us to knowingly alter a letter of
   them!

   Whatever others may do, it is the delight of those who have felt the
   overwhelming power of the Divine Spirit to find in Christ the wisdom
   with which their intellect is more than content. The same power of the
   Truth of God and of the Holy Spirit leads captive the will. My Lord
   Will-be-Will, as Bunyan describes him, is a very stout fellow. Some men
   think he is exceedingly obstinate, "I will and I will, and I will," and
   by no means can they be made to yield. In truth, the will has a
   wonderful power over all the faculties and rules them like a despot. It
   is boasted that the will of man is free, yet Luther was quite correct
   when he called it a slave! Never is it so much a slave as when it brags
   of its own liberty! Let the Spirit of God come into the heart and apply
   with power the Gospel of Jesus Christ--and the human will no longer
   glories in its freedom, but surrenders and is subjugated!

   It still remains a will, but the will of God is supreme over it. Hear
   it describe itself--"Lord, this is my will, or what I want to be my
   will. 'Not as I will, but as You will.'" Look how the will wears its
   golden fetters and kisses them with happy lips, so glad to find true
   freedom in being subdued to the obedience of Christ! It is also very
   beautiful to see how human hopes are spell-bound by Divine Grace. These
   winged things were known to flutter no higher than the tainted
   atmosphere of this poor world--but now they find stronger pinions and
   soar aloft to things not seen as yet, eternal in the heavens! The man's
   fears, too, all nestled in the ruins of his sinful joys, were awakened
   by the voices of his fellow man. But now, ennobled by Divine Grace,
   they ascend into another sphere! They cover their faces with their
   wings before the Throne of God, while the man fears to grieve the Holy
   Spirit, fears to offend against the Father's love, fears to do anything
   which would dishonor the Savior. His joys and sorrows are now found
   where they never went before--he rejoices in the Lord and he sorrows
   after a godly sort.

   His memory also now retains the precious things of Divine Truth, which
   once it rejected for the trifles of time! His powers of meditation and
   consideration keep within the circle of the Truth of God and holiness,
   finding green pastures there. This done, you shall see the same
   enthrallment cast over the Christian man's desires and aspirations. He
   has flung away his old ambitions and aspires to nobler things. He is
   not without his longings, but he longs for heavenly blessings. His
   wishes and desires to fly to Christ as doves to their windows. His
   affection, which is no longer set upon things upon the earth, but on
   things above, draws his desires upward. He pines for holiness, for
   usefulness, for the Glory of God! His own glory he discards and is
   willing to be of no repute so long as he may but make the name of Jesus
   famous among the sons of men!

   I would to God, dear Brothers and Sisters, that this sacred vassalage
   would be more fully felt by every motion of the mind so that no desire
   would dare to wander even for a moment! The same blessed servitude
   binds the man's plots and designs. He still plans, but it is not for
   his own aggrandizement--his grandest design is to bring jewels to the
   crown of Christ! He now arranges his life with circumspection and with
   diligence--not with cunning and craftiness--for holiness is his policy
   and his scheme of life is sanctity. Does not this talk of mine sound
   rather like sarcasm to some who profess to be Christians? If it does,
   stand convicted, for it is not I that am wrong in this, but you--for
   every thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of
   Christ! And even when we are thinking about common things or matters
   that have to do with business, we are to be serving our Lord, for,
   "every thought," not some thought, is to be bowed unto the obedience of
   Christ.

   It is a wicked error to conceive that so much of our life ought to be
   religious and so much to be secular. A Christian's whole life is to be
   his religion and his religion is to saturate his whole life! You are as
   religiously to eat your meals as you eat at the Lord's Table! You are
   as religiously to speak the Truth of God in your parlor as you would in
   the pulpit! Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, it is all to
   be done to the Glory of God! The great thought you are to have in
   opening your shops, in trading, in toiling, in furnishing your houses,
   in nursing your children and even in taking recreation, is still to be,
   "How can I glorify God in all this?" All, ALL, must be brought into
   captivity to Christ!

   When a man yields himself to Jesus, he should comprehend his house, his
   money, his body, his time, his wife, his children--everything in the
   deed of surrender--for He who bought us with His precious blood did not
   buy us with a reserve and leave the devil a mortgage upon us! We are
   our Lord's unencumbered freehold forever! We are His own conquered
   portion which He took out of the hand of the Amorite with His sword and
   with His bow and, therefore, over the whole of our being He has an
   absolute and undivided right of property!

   The renewed man's love and hate are both held captive by the power of
   Divine Grace. He loves Jesus truly and intensely. He hates sin with his
   whole soul. Indignation is a hard thing to tame, but to my mind it is a
   grand thing to see a man's anger made the servitor of Christ so that he
   only grows indignant when he wars with that which is mean, cruel,
   unjust, un-Christlike! Then he does well to be angry, for his anger is
   but virtue on fire! It is a fair sight to see Christ's sacred bands
   worn by our tastes which are so volatile and hard to constrain.
   Concerning tastes, it is never wise to dispute, but Jesus' love creates
   a delicacy of mind, a discernment of that which is tender and gentle,
   pure and heavenly-- an abhorrence of that which is evil so that the
   Lord's redeemed become very connoisseurs in things moral and Divine.

   The fancy, too--that impalpable cloud painted as by the setting sun,
   that will-of-the-wisp of the spirit--even this is impressed into royal
   service and made to wear the colors of Christ so that men even dream
   eternal life! When godly men give their imagination rein, even Pegasus
   bears a royal burden and in his flight from the actual to the
   imaginative he feels the golden bridle of the King's rule restraining
   and directing all his airy motions. Yes, the Holy Spirit wins an
   undisputed sway, "bringing into captivity every thought to the
   obedience of Christ." Do you not wish for this complete subjection, you
   to whom Jesus is God and Lord? I know you do and, what is more, I am
   sure you wish for the time when that which is worked in yourselves
   shall be accomplished in all mankind!

   Christ's Gospel has not come into the world to be co-equal with other
   faiths and share a divided kingdom with differing creeds. False gods
   may stand face to face to each other in one Pantheon and be at peace,
   for they are all false together, but where Christ comes, Dagon must go
   down--not even the stump of him must stand! Truth is of necessity
   intolerant of falsehood! Love wars with hate and justice battles with
   wrong. Christ Jesus will be All in All and sit upon the Throne alone.
   May the day come in which obedience to Christ shall be universal! What
   a scene would present itself if every thought of every human being were
   in holy subjection to Christ! Not a poor woman would sing beneath her
   lowly

   roof of thatch without rendering holy adoration--while on the throne,
   neither queen nor prince would plan anything but what should be for the
   Glory of Jesus Christ!

   No council chamber would know a policy which would be contrary to the
   Prince of Love, nor would the freest thinker think anything contrary to
   the thoughts of Jesus. The wild men of the plain would cease to forget
   the Lord and the civilized dwellers in cities would no longer cast off
   His fear. The common people, in multitudes, would seek Him and the
   nobles would study how to honor Him. How happy will the time be when
   all inventive genius shall own the sway of Jesus and man shall desire
   no more to fashion weapons of war, but only to design that which shall
   minister to the well-being of mankind! When art with pencil and chisel
   shall refrain from all which excites lascivious thoughts and
   perpetuates the memory of blood and slaughter, but shall bow at Jesus'
   feet to honor God by setting Nature's beauties before reverent eyes!

   How glorious will it be when Learning, poring over its classic books,
   shall find in human wisdom trophies for the surer wisdom of Jesus! And
   when Study, searching by the midnight lamp, shall seek out the heights
   and depths of Divine Love! It charms me to think of every poet singing
   Divine songs for earth's great King, drinking no more from the
   Castellan fountain, but finding all their springs in God alone! Then,
   too, shall Music compose her most harmonious symphonies and pour forth
   her richest notes in worship of the redeeming Lord, while Eloquence, no
   longer declaiming in the defense of wrong, shall spend her force in the
   maintenance of peace and righteousness and in the extolling of the
   Lord! Dawn even now, auspicious day! Why does the night hang so heavy?
   Why bides the darkness around us for so many ages?

   Great Captain of Salvation, You can achieve the victory! We have
   compassed this Jericho these many days, but still the walls have not
   fallen! Up, You mighty man of war, for You are such, and come to the
   battle and then the battlements of sin will fall. "The Lord is a man of
   war: Jehovah is His name." Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the
   Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old! Are You
   not He that has cut Rahab and wounded the dragon? Because of truth and
   righteousness, ride forth in Your majesty! For peace on earth and glory
   to God in the highest, come forth in the glory of Your might with the
   everlasting Gospel, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
   that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
   captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Middle Passage

   (No. 1474)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "O Lord, I have heard Your speech, and was afraid; O Lord, revive Your
   work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known;
   in wrath remember mercy." Habakkuk 3:2.

   (In commemoration of the completion of the 25th year of his Ministry
   over the Church meeting in the Tabernacle).

   HABAKKUK had the sadness of living at a time when true religion was in
   a very deplorable state. The nation had, to a great extent, departed
   from the living God. There was a godly party in the kingdom, but the
   ungodly and idolatrous faction was exceedingly strong. The Lord
   threatened judgment on the people on account of this and it was
   revealed to the Prophet that an invasion by the Chaldeans was near at
   hand. The Prophet, therefore, was filled with anxiety as to the future
   of his country because he saw its sinful condition and knew where it
   must end. The book of his prophecy begins with the earnest question of
   intercession, "O Lord, how long?" His spirit was stirred within him at
   the sin of the people and his heart was broken by a vision of the
   chastisement which the Lord had ordained.

   It becomes all who bear witness for God to thus be stirred in soul when
   they see the name of God dishonored and have reason to expect the
   visitations of His wrath. A man without a heart of compassion is not a
   man of God. Yet Habakkuk was a man of strong faith, a happy
   circumstance, indeed, for him in evil times, for if faith is needed in
   the fairest weather, much more is needed when the storm is gathering!
   And if the just must live by faith even when the morning begins to
   break, how much more must they do so when the shadows are deepening
   into night? Those who have tender hearts to weep over the sins of their
   fellows also need brave hearts to stay themselves upon God.

   Habakkuk's name, by interpretation, is the embracer and I may say of
   him that he truly was one who saw the promises afar off and was
   persuaded of them and embraced them. He took fast hold upon the
   goodness of the Lord and rested there. In reading his book, one is
   struck by the way in which he realized the Presence of God. Fitly does
   he entitle his book, "the burden which Habakkuk the Prophet did see,"
   for in the vividness of his apprehension he is eminently a "seer." He
   perceives the Presence of God and bids the earth keep silent before
   Him. He beholds the Divine ways in the history of the chosen people and
   feels rottenness entering into his bones and a trembling seizing him.

   God was very real to him and the way of God was very conspicuous before
   his mental eyes. Hence his faith was as vigorous as his reverence was
   deep. It is in his prophecy that we read that wonderful Gospel sentence
   upon which Paul preaches many sermons, "The just shall live by
   faith"--and it is in this prophecy, too, that we find that notable
   resolution of Faith when, under the worst conceivable circumstances,
   she says or sings, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither
   shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the
   fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
   and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the
   Lord, I will joy in the 'God of my salvation.'"

   Now, Beloved, it will be well for us if we have much of Habakkuk's
   spirit and are grounded and settled by a strong confidence in God. If
   so, while we may have somber views, both as to the present and the
   future, we shall be freed from all despondency by casting ourselves
   upon Him whose ways are everlasting. His goings forth of old were so
   grand and glorious that to doubt Him is to slander Him! His Nature is
   so unchangeable that to reckon upon the repetitions of His gracious
   deeds is but to do Him the barest justice.

   In the text which I have selected this morning with an eye to the
   celebration of the 25th year of our happy union as pastor and people, I
   see three points upon which I wish to dwell. The first is, the
   Prophet's fear--"O Lord, I have heard Your speech, and was afraid." The
   second is the Prophet's prayer--"O Lord, revive Your work in the midst
   of the years,

   in the midst of the years make known." And the third is the Prophet's
   plea--"In wrath remember mercy," coupled with the rest of the chapter
   in which he practically finds a plea for God's present working in the
   report of what He had done for Israel in the olden times.

   I. First, then, I want you to NOTICE THE PROPHET'S FEAR--"I have heard
   Your speech, and was afraid." It is the fear of solemn awe--it is not
   dread or terror, but reverence. Read it in connection with the 20th
   verse of the preceding chapter--"But the Lord is in His holy temple:
   let all the earth keep silence before Him. O Lord, I have heard Your
   speech, and was afraid." All else was hushed and then, in the solemn
   silence, he heard Jehovah's voice and trembled. It is not possible that
   mortal men should be thoroughly conscious of the Divine Presence
   without being filled with awe. I suppose that this feeling in unfallen
   Adam was less overwhelming because he had no sense of sin, but surely
   even to him it must have been a solemn thing to hear the Lord God
   walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

   Though filled with a childlike confidence, yet even innocent manhood
   must have shrunk to the ground before that majestic Presence. Since the
   Fall, whenever men have been favored with any special Revelation of
   God, they have been deeply moved with fear. There was a great Truth of
   God in the spirit of the old tradition that no man could see God's face
   and live, for such a sense of nothingness is produced in the soul by
   consciousness of Deity that men so highly favored have found themselves
   unable to bear up under the load of blessing. Isaiah cries, "Woe is me!
   For I am undone; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!"
   Daniel says, "There remained no strength in me." Ezekiel declares,
   "When I saw it, I fell upon my face." And John confesses, "When I saw
   Him, I fell at His feet as dead."

   You remember how Job cried unto the Lord, "I have heard of You by the
   hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Why I abhor myself, and
   repent in dust and ashes." Angels, who climb the ladder which Jacob
   saw, veil their faces when they look on God! And as for us who are at
   the foot of that ladder, what can we do but say with the Patriarch,
   "How dreadful is this place"? Albeit that it is the greatest of all
   blessings, yet is it an awful thing to be a favorite with God! Blessed
   among women was the Virgin Mother, to whom the Lord manifested such
   high favor, but for this very reason to her it was foretold, "Yes, a
   sword shall pierce through your own soul also." Blessed among men was
   he to whom God spoke as a friend, but it must be that a horror of great
   darkness should come upon him. It is not given to such frail creatures
   as we are to stand in the full blaze of Godhead, even though it is
   tempered by the mediation of Christ, without crying out with the
   Prophet, "I was afraid." "Who would not fear You, O King of nations?"

   Habakkuk's awe of God was quickened by the "speech" which he had heard.
   "O Lord, I have heard Your speech," which is, by some, rendered,
   "report," and referred to the Gospel of which Isaiah says, "Who has
   believed our report?" But surely the meaning should rather be looked
   for in the context and this would lead us to interpret the "report" as
   relating to what God had done for His ancient people when He came from
   Teman, cleaving the earth with rivers and threshing the heathen in
   anger. The Prophet had been studying the history of Israel and had seen
   the hand of God in every stage of that narrative--from the passage of
   the Red Sea and the Jordan on to the casting out of the heathen and the
   settlement of Israel in Canaan.

   He had heard the speech of God in the story of Israel in the silence of
   his soul. He had seen the deeds of the Lord as though newly enacted and
   he was filled with awe and apprehension, for he saw that while God had
   great favor for His people, yet He was provoked by their sins. And
   though He passed by their transgressions many and many a time, yet He
   did chasten them and did not wink at their iniquities. The Prophet
   remembered how God had smitten Israel in the wilderness till the graves
   of lust covered many an acre of the desert! He remembered how He had
   smitten them in Canaan, where tyrant after tyrant subdued them and
   brought them very low. He remembered the terrible judgments which the
   Lord had sent, one after another, thick and threefold upon His guilty
   people, fulfilling that ancient Word of His, "You, only, have I known
   of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your
   iniquities."

   He saw that burning text, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God,"
   written in letters of fire all along the history of Jehovah's
   connection with His elect people and so he cried, "O Lord, I have heard
   Your speech, and was afraid." Probably, however, Habakkuk alludes to
   another source of apprehension, namely, the silent speech of God within
   his prophetic bosom, where, unheard by men, there were intimations of
   coming vengeance which intimations he afterwards put into words and
   left on record in the first chapter of his book. The Chaldeans, a
   people fierce and strong were coming up. They were a bitter and hasty
   nation, terrible and dreadful. They were swifter than leopards and
   fiercer than evening wolves.

   These were hastening towards Judah as mighty hunters hurry to the prey
   and in the spirit of prophecy Habakkuk saw the land parched beneath the
   hoofs of the invading horses; princes and kings led away into
   captivity; the garden of the Lord turned into a desolate wilderness and
   Lebanon, itself, shorn of its forests by the hand of violence. The fear
   of this frightful calamity made him tremble, as well it might, for
   Jeremiah himself scarcely found tears enough to bewail the Chaldean
   woe!

   Now, my Brethren, when the Lord leads His servants to look from their
   watchtowers and to guess the future by the past, we are also afraid.
   When we see God's chastisement of a sinful people in years gone by and
   are led to prognosticate the probable future of a sinful people in the
   present day, then do our hearts fail us for fear lest the Lord should
   avenge Himself upon the guilty nation in which we dwell! We are also
   afraid for ourselves with great fear, for we, also, have sinned. Thus,
   you see, the Prophet's fear was made up of these three things--first, a
   solemn awe inspired by the near Presence of the Lord who cannot look
   upon iniquity, lest haply He should break forth upon the people as a
   consuming fire. Secondly, an apprehension drawn from the past report of
   God's ways which He had made known to Moses and His acts to the
   children of Israel, lest He should again smite the erring nation. And
   then, thirdly, a further apprehension which projected itself into the
   future, that the Lord would execute the threats which He had so
   solemnly uttered by His Prophets and permit the Chaldeans to treat His
   people as though they were so many fishes of the sea to be taken in
   their net and devoured.

   Putting those three things together, I advance to the Prophet's special
   subject of fear which has been generally overlooked but is very
   conspicuous in the text. The Prophet was afraid because of the
   particular period of national life through which his people were
   passing. They had come, if I read his prayer correctly, to "the midst
   of the years," or the middle period of their history. Habakkuk's
   ministry was not exercised in the first ages when Moses and Samuel
   prophesied, nor yet in these latter days wherein we live, upon whom the
   ends of the earth have come. He probably ministered 600 years before
   the coming of Christ--somewhere in the very center of human history--if
   that history is to make a week of thousands as to its years as many
   have imagined.

   With regard to the Israelite people, they were now far removed from the
   day, "when Ephraim was a child." They were in their middle life when
   the best things ought to have been developed in them. The heroic age
   was gone and that unpoetical, matter of fact era was come in which men
   labored in the very fire and wearied themselves for very vanity and,
   therefore, like a tender intercessor, the Prophet cries, "O Lord,
   revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years
   make known." The application to ourselves which I want to make this
   morning is drawn from the fact that we, also, as a Church, have reached
   "the midst of the years." Under the present pastorate we are like
   mariners in mid ocean, distant 25 leagues, or rather years, from the
   place of our departure and making all sail for the further shore.

   As to any service we may expect, personally, to render, we are
   certainly in the midst of the years if not near to their end. In the
   course of Nature we could not expect that more than another 25 years of
   service could be compassed by us, [Brother Spurgeon died January 6,
   1892, less than 13 years later.--eod]nor are we so foolish as to reckon
   even upon that! We have, at any rate, come to middle life in our Church
   relationship now that we celebrate our silver anniversary. Brothers and
   Sisters, there is about "the midst of the years" a certain special
   danger and this led the Prophet, as it shall lead us at this time, to
   pray, "O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst
   of the years make known."

   Youth has its perils, but these are past! Age has its infirmities, but
   these we have not yet reached! It is ours, then, to pray against the
   dangers which are present with us "in the midst of the years." The
   middle passage of life with us as individuals and with us as a Church
   is crowded with peculiar perils. Have you never noticed how previous
   dispensations have all passed away in their prime, long before they had
   grown gray with years? Upon the golden age of Paradise and perfection
   the sun went down before it was yet noon! The Patriarchal period saw a
   few of its hoary fathers wearing the veneration of centuries, but in a
   few generations men with lengthened lives had grown so skilled in sin
   that the Flood came and swept away the age before it had yet began to
   fade!

   Then came the Jewish state with its judges and its kings--and scarcely
   have we read that Solomon built a great house for the Lord before we
   perceive that Israel has gained the zenith of her glory and her
   excellence declines. Even so was it in the Christian Church of the
   first ages, so far as it was a visible organization. It began
   well--what hindered it? It was in full health and strength when it
   defied the lions and the flames and laughed emperors to scorn! But
   before long Constantine laid his royal hand upon it and the Church
   became sick of the king's evil--the cruelest of all diseases to the

   Church of God. This malady, like a canker, ate into her very heart and
   defiled her soul so that what should have been a spiritual empire
   chastely wedded to the Lord Christ became the mistress of the kings of
   the earth!

   Her Middle Ages were a night of darkness which even yet casts its dread
   shade across the nations. It seems as if the middle passage of
   communities cannot be safely passed except by a miracle of Divine
   Grace. The morning comes with a dawn of bright beams and sparkling
   dews, but before long the sun is hot and the fields are parched, or the
   sky is black with clouds and the glory of the day is marred. This is a
   matter of constant anxiety to the lover of his race who knows the
   jealousy of God and the frailty of His people, lest in the midst of the
   years the people should turn aside from their faithfulness and forget
   their first love and, therefore, the Lord should be provoked to remove
   their candlestick and leave them to their own devices. O Lord, my God,
   grant this may not happen unto this, Your Church!

   What, then, are the dangers of this middle passage? First, there is a
   certain spur and stimulus of novelty about religious movements which,
   in a few years, is worn out. I well remember when we were called, "a
   nine days wonder," and our critics prophesied that our work would
   speedily collapse! Such excitement had been before and had passed
   away-- and this would be one among other bubbles of the hour! The nine
   days have lasted considerably longer--may nine such days follow them in
   God's infinite mercy! Now, whatever detractors might say, we know that
   there was then a life, an energy, a freshness about everything which
   was done by us as a Church which we could hardly expect to continue
   with us for all these years.

   Youthful novelty has certainly gone and the danger is that a community
   should be greatly weakened by the ceasing of that force which, in some
   cases, has been all the power possessed. Lady Huntingdon, in a letter
   to Mr. Berridge, deplored the fact that every new work, after a season,
   seemed to grow lifeless. Berridge remarked that in this the primitive
   Churches were much like our own and that after the former rain which
   falls at seed-time there is often a dry interval until the latter rain
   descends. I fear the good man's remark is sadly correct. From an
   admirable fervor, many cool down to a dangerous chill! This is to be
   bemoaned where it has occurred and it is to be feared where, as yet it
   has not happened, for such is the natural tendency of things. Beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, I have prayed to God that when what is called the
   esprit de corps is gone from us, the Esprit de Dieu may still abide
   with us! I have prayed that when the spirit which grows out of our
   association with each other declines, we may be sustained by the Spirit
   which unites us all to the Lord Jesus!

   The middle passage becomes difficult, then, because things grow
   ordinary and commonplace which before were striking and remarkable. I
   do not know that this would matter much if it were not too often the
   case that with the stimulus of novelty certain other excitements also
   vanish. We tremble lest the people who prayed mightily at first should
   restrain prayer before the Lord; lest those who made many
   self-sacrifices should think that they have done enough; and lest those
   who have consecrated themselves unto the Lord should imagine that they
   began upon too high a key and cannot keep up the music to such a pitch.
   We tremble lest a people who have loved the souls of men and have been
   like mighty hunters before the Lord after sinners, may suddenly dream
   that they are excused from more effort and may leave others to do
   mission work for their Lord. It is an ill day when a feeling of
   satisfaction begins to creep over us, but this is one of the perils of
   "the midst of the years." I pray the reliance on God in which we began
   should never depart from us.

   It often happens, in the commencement of religious movements, that men
   are weak and few and feeble and despised--but they trust in God and so
   they grow strong--and their strength becomes their overthrow. The
   tendency of our proud nature is to cease from childlike confidence in
   God when once it feels strong enough to rely upon itself! The Lord says
   not by many nor by few--and if even for a moment we should glory in our
   numbers and think that now we are powerful for the achievement of any
   work which we may undertake--we shall grieve the Spirit of God and He
   may, in holy jealousy, leave us to barrenness. This is to be dreaded
   beyond all things!

   My Brethren, it is a glorious thing to be weak, that we may have the
   strength of God resting on us! It is a glorious thing to be poor and
   mean and despised, that the Lord may take such weak instruments and get
   unto Himself Glory by the use of them! But it is a grievous evil if in
   the mid-day of prosperity, the Church should vex the Spirit of God by
   self-confidence and cause Him to withdraw His sacred succors! Another
   danger arises out of the pride of achievement. When men are beginning
   to work for Christ, they feel that they cannot do anything without Him
   and they trust in God to give them strength--and He answers their
   humble cry and does great things by them. But when a good work is
   worked, we

   are apt to feel, "We have won our laurels. We have borne the burden and
   the heat of the day and we may now rest." This is fatal to progress! We
   shall do no more when we imagine that we have done enough!

   You know the story of the painter who broke his palette, put down his
   brush and told his wife that he would never paint again for the
   artistic faculty had departed from him? When she enquired how he was
   aware of the sad fact, he answered, "The last picture I produced
   realized my ideal and satisfied me and, therefore, I am certain that I
   have lost my power as a painter." It certainly is so that we are fit
   for Christ's service only as long as we feel that we have as yet done
   nothing and are merely at the beginning of our purposed service. Those
   who pine for greater exploits have not yet spent themselves, but the
   danger lies in saying, "I have finished my day's work. Soul, take your
   ease." From my heart I dread the middle hour of life's day, both for
   myself and you, for therein so many think it no ill, like the Italians,
   to take a siesta, or mid-day sleep--and then it is that the enemy is
   upon them!

   There is, too, a pride of experience which is apt to grow upon churches
   and individuals, like moss upon old trees, when men are "in the midst
   of the years." They feel--"We are not now the young, simple, silly
   people that we once were. We are not now to be overcome by temptation
   or misled by error. We shall, beyond all doubt, remain sound in faith
   and pure in life even to the end." It is from the egg of carnal
   security that the canker worm of backsliding is hatched-- therefore we
   must mind what we are doing "in the midst of the years." Besides, I
   think, dear Brethren, all Christians must be conscious that after a
   continuance in doing well we are apt to be assailed by weariness.

   Apart from our Lord's promised aid we faint--we die in the long race
   which He has set before us. Labor leads to lassitude, and suffering to
   impatience. Grace is needed to prevent the decays of Nature. When the
   natural spirits sink, we grow depressed and complain that our warfare
   is hard and our travail bitter. And with this there is apt to mingle a
   sense of disappointment because we have not achieved all that our
   sanguine hopes expected. We scarcely rejoice that something has been
   done because so much remains unaccomplished! When the mind is thus
   wearied, the spirit faints at the prospect of a further and, perhaps, a
   heavier strain--and this makes the central regions of life wonderfully
   trying to Zion's pilgrims. We are apt to be slack in the service of God
   by reason of what we have already done, though, we must confess, that
   is very little. Satan knows how to take advantage of our fainting
   moments--to make cowards of us if he can. Therefore be aware of his
   devices.

   If we have stood like watchmen on the walls for years, the tendency is
   to relax our vigilance. If we have borne a protest for many years, the
   thought will suggest itself that it will be folly to be singular any
   longer and wise to yield to the current of the times. Then the enemy
   sneeringly whispers, "Who are you and what have you done with all your
   testifying and separate walking and Puritanical precisions? All that
   you have accomplished is insignificant enough! The world still lies in
   the Wicked One and error is still rampant! Give up the battle, for you
   cannot win!" In the midst of the years, what with weariness and lack of
   faith, the heart is apt to yield to the infernal suggestion! Therefore,
   Brothers and Sisters, let a mighty prayer go up from the whole Church
   to our Redeemer God, "O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the
   years, in the midst of the years make known."

   II. Thus have I indicated the prophet's fear and now I would conduct
   you, secondly, to consider THE PROPHET'S PRAYER--"O Lord, revive Your
   work." His first request is for revival. He means, "Lord, put new life
   into us. Your cause began with life, but the tendency of all around it
   is to make it die, therefore, Lord, quicken it anew, give it another
   birthday and restore all the force and energy of its first love. Give
   us a new Pentecost, we beseech You! Give all the spiritual endowments
   which came with the tongues of fire and so enrich us anew. Revive us!
   Help us to begin again! Start us anew in life."

   That is the petition and it seems to me to be one of the wisest
   requests that ever fell even from a Prophet's lips! Let us use it.
   Lord, now that we have been 25 years together, let us feel as fresh as
   if the race were now beginning. Give us back the dew of our youth that
   we may do our first works and something more. Let us have, with the
   maturity of age, the freshness of youth! And let us run without
   weariness in Your ways because Your Spirit has quickened us. Our
   dependence is upon You, even for life itself! Breathe on us once more!
   And that life, as I understand it, is to come upon God's people
   themselves--"Revive Your work." What is God's work? Why, it is God's
   people! For we are His workmanship!

   True revival must first come upon the Churches themselves. In all
   Churches there is much that is not God's work and we do not ask to have
   it revived, but rather that it may be put away. But wherever there is
   anything that is God's work-- any of the mind of Christ any sincere
   prayer, faith, hope, love, consecration--we earnestly cry, "O Lord,
   revive Your

   work." Only living saints are, in the exact sense of the word, capable
   of revival--we can only revive those in whom life is already found. O
   Lord, quicken Your people! He means God's work in each one of us, for
   we each need revival--may the Lord send it to us now so that if gray
   hairs are upon us here and there, and we know it not, we may become
   young again through His free Spirit! If the fountain of our life runs
   low, may the Lord touch the secret springs and flood us again with holy
   zeal. To save us from the perils of "the midst of the years" we need to
   have life anew imparted to us.

   But the Prophet also refers to God's work by His people as well as in
   them. May the Lord put new life into His cause. It is an awful thing to
   see a dead Church. I have seen such a thing with my own eyes. I
   remember very well preaching in a chapel where the Church had become
   exceedingly low and somehow the very building looked like a sepulcher,
   though crowded that one night by those who came to hear the preacher.
   The singers drawled out a dirge while the members sat like mutes. I
   found it hard preaching--there was no go in the sermon--I seemed to be
   driving dead horses.

   After the sermon I saw two deacons, the pillars of the Church, leaning
   against the posts of the vestry door in a listless attitude and I said,
   "Are you the deacons of this Church?" They informed me that they were
   the only deacons and I remarked that I thought so. To myself I added
   that I understood, as I looked at them, several things which otherwise
   would have been a riddle. Here was a dead Church comparable to the ship
   of the ancient mariner which was manned by the dead! Deacons, teachers,
   minister, people--all dead--and yet wearing the semblance of life--

   "The helmsman steered, the ship moved on,

   Yet never a breeze up blew;

   The mariners all began to work the ropes,

   Where they were known to do.

   They raised their limbs like lifeless tools

   We were a ghastly crew."

   May the Lord save us from becoming such a ghastly crew! Now, to prevent
   our getting into that state, and we easily may--so that instead of
   devotion there shall be routine and instead of life and energy there
   shall be dead orthodoxy and dull propriety--we must cry, "O Lord,
   revive Your work in the midst of the years."

   The Prophet further asks for a fresh Revelation of the Lord--"In the
   midst of the years make known." When You have made us live, then shall
   we have power to know and, therefore, make Your Truth known to us. Did
   he not intend by this petition that the Lord should make known that the
   work was His own? "Revive Your work in the midst of the years make
   known," that men may not say, "this was only an excitement which the
   spirit of the people carried on for a few years," but may be forced to
   confess that this is the finger of God because it continues and abides.
   O Lord, in our case make the world know that it is Your work because
   You do not forsake it!

   Convert multitudes again! Build up the Church again! Increase the
   people again! Multiply the joy again! Pour out the Holy Spirit upon
   Your witnesses again with signs following! But I think he chiefly means
   make known Yourself. In the midst of the years make known Yourself, O
   Jehovah! Reveal in the midst of Your Church, Your power to save! Make
   known the Person and Sacrifice of the Well-Beloved in whom Your Grace
   and vengeance strangely join. Make known the power of the Holy Spirit
   who convicts of sin and afterwards comforts by leading the sinner to
   the Cross. Make known Yourself, Eternal Father, as You receive
   prodigals into Your bosom and kiss them with the kiss of love and make
   high festival concerning their return to You! The Prophet longed that
   God would be seen in the midst of His people and this, above all
   things, is our hearts' desire!

   Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, it is vain and idle for us to think that
   any good can come of human speech or human song or human worship of any
   kind apart from God Himself being there! There must be supernatural
   power put forth or men will never turn from darkness to light, nor rise
   from death to life. What is the Church worth if the Lord is not known
   in the midst of her? Write Ichabod upon her walls, for the Glory has
   departed when her God has gone! The Prophet virtually prays that God
   would do again for His Church what He did for her in the olden times.
   We have just read the whole chapter--what a wonderful poem it is! We
   can only, in a very prosaic way, condense its meaning.

   First, with the Prophet, we exult in the manifestation of the Divine
   Glory. "His Glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His
   praise, and His brightness was as the light; He had horns coming out of
   His hands." Thus was Jehovah seen and our heart's prayer is, "Lord,
   show Yourself in this way again! Once more display Your Glory. Stretch
   out Your hands which have the horns of power going forth from them.
   Exalt Yourself in the conversion and the salvation of men that the
   multitude may see how glorious is the Lord our God."

   Observe how the Prophet speaks of God's power against His enemies. The
   Midianites came up upon Israel in such numbers that, like grasshoppers,
   they could not be counted. But the Lord smote them and utterly cut them
   off. Hear how the Prophet describes their overthrow--"I saw the tents
   of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did
   tremble." And well they might, when Jehovah came forth to smite them!
   Now our prayer is that the Lord would shine forth so gloriously in the
   midst of His Church that the powers of superstition and skepticism may
   be made to tremble at His Presence! I have looked upon their tents and
   I have seen them multiplying their idols and their gods! I have looked
   upon their curtains within which they have spoken proud words of carnal
   wisdom against the Most High-- and my heart has said, "Let the Lord
   dwell in the midst of His people and manifest His power as in former
   ages and these tents shall be in affliction and utterly pass away."

   Moreover, the Prophet sees all Nature and Providence subservient to God
   and so he grandly sings, "Was the Lord displeased against the rivers?
   Was Your anger against the rivers? Was Your wrath against the sea that
   You did ride upon Your horses and Your chariots of salvation? If God is
   with His people, all things are on their side--the stars in the heavens
   fight for them--the wheels of everlasting Providence full of eyes
   revolve with watchful wisdom, working out purposes of benediction. "All
   things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
   the called according to His purpose." And all this, the Prophet says,
   was done for the saving of His people! Pharaoh and his horses were
   drowned in the sea, but as for Jehovah, when He went to save His
   people, the seas could not overwhelm Him, "You did walk through the sea
   with Your horses, through the heap of great waters."

   Can you not see the horses and the chariot plowing through the midst of
   the sea, while the Eternal King darts His arrows on either side that He
   may deliver His people? This is the language of imagery, but the facts
   surpass all poetry! God can be with a people and He can leave them--but
   when He is with them, their power is exalted by His power and majesty
   and the Truth which they uphold is as a banner borne aloft to
   continuous victory! Only we must wait upon the Lord in prayer and seek
   His face in faith, crying from our hearts, "O Lord, revive Your work in
   the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known."

   III. In the third place, let us consider THE PROPHET'S PLEA, that it
   may be our own this morning. He had first this plea--"Lord, it is Your
   work; therefore revive Your work." We take the words out of his mouth
   and pray in like manner, "Lord, if this is our work, end it. If it is
   man's work, break it down! But if it is Your work, revive it." Have we
   not said unto our souls that we will preach and we will believe nothing
   but what is revealed of God in the Scripture? Have we not promised we
   will not yield one hair's breadth to the opposers of Revelation because
   of their so-called science and thought? Is it not so?

   We have lifted the old banner of our fathers and preached the doctrines
   of the Grace of God where the very center is Christ crucified, a
   Substitute for believing men! This has been our one theme, our staple
   subject in preaching and ministering at all times. Now, Lord, if this
   is not Your Truth, for Your name's sake, blight it and let us follow it
   no more! But if it is Your Truth, set Your seal to it here and in every
   other place where the name of Jesus is proclaimed! This is good
   pleading! "It is Your work. We cannot do it! We will not attempt to do
   it, but Lord, if it is Yours, You must do it--we hold You to it by
   humble faith."

   But the best plea is the one he mentions, "In wrath remember mercy."
   That is a plea which suits all of us! Mercy, mercy, mercy! You might
   well smite both the shepherd and the sheep, but have mercy! You might
   well take away the candlestick and leave us in the darkness, but in
   wrath remember mercy! You see the coldness of heart and the
   inconsistency of life of some of Your professed people and You might,
   therefore, give up Your Zion to desolation, but, Lord, remember mercy!
   Remember it, for You know it, for mercy is a dear attribute of Yours.
   Remember Your mercy in the Everlasting Covenant when You chose Your
   people. Remember Your mercy in the seal of that Covenant when Your
   only-begotten Son was given up to death! Remember all the mercy You
   have had upon us these many years of our provocation! Remember mercy
   and still favor us, not because we have any good thing in us or about
   us that can deserve Your love, but for Your mercy's sake. Out of Your
   free rich Sovereign Grace, for mercy's sake still "revive Your work in
   the midst of the years." It is good pleading--be sure to use it.

   One more plea is implied in the rest of the chapter, namely, "You have
   worked great wonders, O Lord, do this again in the midst of the years."
   Here have You heard our prayers. Lord, hear our prayers in the midst of
   the years! Hear them now! Here have You helped the feeble against the
   strong. Lord, strengthen us again! Here have You brought the chief of

   sinners to Jesus' feet. Lord, do the same again! That is our prayer. By
   all Your glorious marching through the wilderness when You led your
   people and scattered their foes before them; when the rocks gave them
   water and the heavens dropped with bread. By all the wonders of Your
   Grace to Your people of old, since they are still Your people, "revive
   Your work in the midst of the years."

   With this I finish, observing that when the Prophet had pleaded and his
   soul was at rest, he sat down and there were three things which
   remained upon his mind. Peering into the future he saw the sheen of the
   Chaldean helmets and the brightness of their cruel swords. He saw the
   whole land turned into a wilderness--and as he watched, he saw that the
   fig trees did not blossom, the vines brought forth no fruit, the olives
   withered. He heard no lowing of cattle, bleating of sheep. He saw that
   famine covered all the land and he said, "Lord, let it all come as I
   have seen; but Your ways are everlasting, and in the thick darkness You
   have always worked Your will. You have never been defeated and You have
   never failed Your people. Therefore, as for me, I will rejoice in the
   Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

   That is the posture in which I want you all to be found. We have been
   assured by people who think they know a great deal about the future
   that awful times are coming. Be it so. It need not alarm us, for the
   Lord reigns! Stay yourself on the Lord, my Brothers and Sisters, and
   you can rejoice in His name. If the worst comes to the worst, our
   refuge is in God! If the heavens shall fall, the God of Heaven will
   stand! When God cannot take care of His people under Heaven, He will
   take them above the heavens and there shall they dwell with Him!
   Therefore, as far as you are concerned, rest, for you shall stand in
   your lot at the end of the days.

   And then there came over Habakkuk a second spirit. Now, he said, seeing
   God has worked all these wonders of old, and is capable of doing them
   over again, I will go back to my work despite the lowering clouds, for,
   "the Lord God is my strength and He will make my feet like does'
   feet"--like the gazelle's feet upon the crags of the mountains--"and He
   will make me to walk upon my high places." O for this assurance of
   safety and strength in the Lord! We are in the middle passage, but if
   we have faith in God all is safe! We may go and leap in our duties over
   the mountains and the hills and not be afraid that our foot shall slip!

   We fall without our God, but with God our feet shall never slide! He
   keeps the feet of His saints and when the wicked shall be silent in
   darkness, then shall the strength of the Lord be seen! Having thus felt
   that he could always trust God whatever might happen and that he should
   be upheld whatever might occur, what does Habakkuk say? He goes home
   about his business and what is the one business he is set upon? He
   indicates it in his last sentence, which is not a sentence at all, but
   the final words of his prayer. "To the chief singer on my stringed
   instruments." He seems to say, "All that remains for me is but to love
   and sing and wait until the angels come to bear me to their King." "All
   that I have to do, now," he seems to say, and I want you to say the
   same, "is just to feel that all is safe in the Eternal hands."

   As for me--

   "I'll praise Him while He lends me breath, And when my voice is lost in
   death, Praise shall employ my nobler powers! My days of praise shall
   never be past, While life, and thought, and being last,

   Or immortality endures."
     __________________________________________________________________

Crowning Blessings Ascribed to God

   (No. 1475)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY 18, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You crown the year with Your goodness." Psalm 65:11.

   (The second Sermon in commemoration of the completion of 25 years of
   his Ministry in the midst of the Church assembling in the Tabernacle).

   GODLY men in olden times felt God to be very near them and they
   attributed everything they saw in Nature to the direct operation of His
   hand. They were not accustomed to speak of "the laws of matter," "the
   operation of natural forces" and "the outcome of different causes."
   They thought more of the First Cause, the foundation and pillar of all
   existence--and they saw Him at work on all sides. Hear how the Psalmist
   sings, "You make the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.
   You visit the earth and water it. You prepare them corn when you have
   so provided for it. You water the ridges thereof abundantly; you settle
   the furrows thereof: you make it soft with showers; you bless the
   springing thereof. You crown the year with Your goodness."

   God was very near in those days. As Herbert says--

   "One might ha ve sought and found You presently At some fair oak, or
   bush, or cave, or well." If the result of our philosophy has been to
   put God farther off from the consciousness of His creatures, God save
   us from such philosophy and let us get back, again, into the simple
   state in which we were children at home and God, our great Father,
   worked all things for us! Let us note the distinct mention of God
   throughout the Psalm, for it is well worthy of notice. And let our
   speech be more after the olden sort--with less of our supposed
   knowledge in it and a good deal more concerning the Presence and the
   goodness of God.

   I am not about to use our text in reference to the outside world and to
   the husbandry of man, but we shall see how true it is within the
   Church, which is the husbandry of God. The language was meant to
   describe the field of Nature. but it is equally true of the garden of
   the Church. I am going to use the text in this way because of the
   peculiar circumstances under which we meet, celebrating, as we do, the
   25th year of our happy union together as pastor and flock--a period
   which has, to the fullest extent been crowned with the goodness of the
   Lord! If I use the text for spiritual purposes I shall not err, for
   there is always a most striking analogy between the world of Grace and
   the world of Nature so that it would be hard to find anything said by
   Inspiration concerning the visible world which might not be correctly
   spoken with regard to the spiritual world.

   But I do not depend upon that fact for my justification--I refer you to
   the Psalm itself. It is clear that it was written to praise God, not
   alone for His works in the harvest field and abroad upon the sea, but
   for His wonderful goodness towards His people, for thus the Psalm
   begins, "Praise waits for You, O God, in Sion." It is Zion's hymn which
   lies before us and, therefore, the Church which Zion represented may
   well appropriate the language and use it for herself! She may well say,
   concerning all the Lord's mercy to her in her plowing, her sowing, her
   watching and the glad harvest of her spiritual husbandry, "You crown
   the year with Your goodness."

   The spirit of the text is joyful gratitude and my soul is so filled
   with it that I do not need so much to preach to you as to lead you in
   holy adoration of God for the great mercies with which He has
   surrounded us as a Church and congregation from the first day even
   until now!

   I. And so our first head is DIVINE GOODNESS ADORED. "You crown the year
   with Your goodness." Whatever of acceptable service we have rendered
   and whatever of real success we have achieved has come from the Lord of
   Hosts who has worked all our works in us! Whatever holy results may
   have followed from earnest efforts and whatever honor

   has redounded unto God from them is the Lord's doings and it is
   marvelous in our eyes! "Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto Your
   name be glory for Your mercy and for Your Truth's sake." Your goodness,
   not ours, has crowned the work! Your goodness, indeed, makes every good
   work good and gives to every good its crown. From its first conception,
   even to its ultimate conclusion, all virtue is of You. From blade to
   full corn all the harvest is of You, O Lord, and to You let it be
   ascribed! Let us, therefore, praise the Lord with all our hearts for 25
   years of prayer and effort, of planning and working, of believing and
   rejoicing which He has crowned with His goodness!

   We will try to follow the run of the Psalm and our first note shall be
   this--praise must be for God alone. "Praise waits for You, O God, in
   Sion." Not for men, nor for priests, nor for pastors, presbyters,
   bishops, ministers, or whatever you choose to call them--"Praise waits
   for YOU, O God, in Sion." Whoever shall have done well in the midst of
   the Church, let him have the love of his Brethren, but let all the
   praise be unto You, O Most High! Far be it for the axe to exalt itself
   and forget him that fells therewith, or for the sword to deprive the
   conqueror of his glory. Praise is silent while the best of men are
   passing by--it lays its finger on its lips till the Lord approaches and
   then bursts forth in gladsome song because He appears!

   Whatever else you do, my Brothers and Sisters, be sure that your soul
   magnifies the Lord and abhors the very idea of self-glorification. If
   the Lord has blessed you, shake off, as Paul shook off the viper from
   his hand, any idea of ascribing praise to yourself! We are mere vanity
   and to us belong shame and confusion of face--these are, so to speak,
   our belongings--the only dowry our fathers have left to us. What are we
   that the Lord should bless us? Did you bring a soul to Christ the other
   day? Bless the Holy Spirit who helped you, by His power, to do so
   Divine a deed! Did you bear bold testimony for the Truth of God but
   yesterday? Bless Him who is the faithful and true Witness, that at His
   feet you learned how to be true--and by His Spirit were enabled to be
   brave! "Not unto us! Not unto us!" With vehemence we deprecate the idea
   of honoring ourselves!

   Again and again we put away the usurper's crown which Satan proffers
   us. How can we endure the base proposal? Shall we rob God of His Glory?
   Even He from whom we derive our very existence? Perish, O pride,
   abhorred of God and man! O Lord, keep me from the approach of that
   shameful evil! Brothers and Sisters, if you have any esteem among men,
   cast your crown at Jehovah's feet and there let it be for the honor of
   God only! In this spirit every action of the Christian Church ought to
   be done, for what says the second clause of the Psalm? "Unto You shall
   the vow be performed." Brothers and Sisters, we ought to praise God in
   all that we do by doing it to His praise! There must be no motive of
   this kind--"I must give because others give. I must attend
   such-and-such a meeting because otherwise I should be missed." Cast
   away from you, I pray you, the service of any master but your Lord in
   Heaven, for you cannot serve two masters!

   Honor the Lord in all that you do. Whether you teach the classes of the
   school, or preach at the corner of the street, or hand a tract to a
   passerby, or preach to the multitude, let the vow be performed as unto
   the Lord. It is wonderful how sweet it is to do service when it is
   expressly done for Him. I do not marvel that the woman broke the
   alabaster box over Him. Breaking precious boxes and spilling priceless
   nard may be hard work of itself to selfish flesh and blood, but it
   becomes a self-gratifying luxury to do it unto Him. When our whole life
   shall be doing service unto the Well-Beloved whom to serve is honor and
   delight and for whom to die were an unspeakable bliss --then shall we
   have learned how to live! Lord, You crown the year with Your goodness
   and, therefore, we would do all things as unto You, expecting Your
   Grace to assist our service; Your love to accept it; Your pity to
   forgive it and Your power to make it effectual to Your own Glory! Oh,
   that I had but power--and God the Holy Spirit has that power--first to
   take away from each of us all thought of self-glorification! And then
   to consecrate our entire being, even to our pulse and breath, to His
   praise whose love has made us what we are!

   Further, Brothers and Sisters, in praising God we may be helped to do
   so and to see how He crowns the year with His goodness when we remember
   our answered prayers as a Church. What says the second verse? "O You
   that hears prayer, unto You shall all flesh come." I say it and there
   is no boasting in the saying of it, but there is a glorying in God that
   prayers have been heard which have been put up by this Church in ways
   and manners which have not been less than marvelous! Such of you as
   have been with us from the beginning will remember times when, in our
   weakness and in our poverty, we cried to the Lord for help because of
   our need--and He heard us! Especially was this the case concerning the
   building of the house in which we are now assembled. Ah, how speedily
   He helped us! How liberally! How like a God!

   When we have needed means to feed the children of our Orphanage, the
   Prayer Meeting on Monday night has been followed by a response before
   the week has gone round! When two or three of us have met together,
   unknown to all the rest, to lay special siege to Heaven upon the
   appearance of troubles which we did not wish to tell to others, we have
   seen the arm of God made bare among us and we could no more doubt it
   than we could doubt our own existence! Oh, you that have had your
   prayers answered, praise the Lord who crowns your supplications with
   His acceptance! Remember that it is because of prayer that, as a
   Church, we have continued to advance from strength to strength--and
   shall not our praises balance our prayers? If the Lord gives goodness,
   shall not we give gratitude? Our prayers confessed our dependence--we
   felt that our years could never be crowned unless the Lord drowned
   them--and now that the blessing has come, let our praises prove our
   thankfulness while we cry, "You crown the years with your goodness."

   And, beloved Friends, it may greatly increase our praise of God for all
   His goodness if we think of our many sins. Have we tried to serve Him?
   Alas, how often have we failed! The iniquities of our holy things might
   long ago have provoked the Lord to wrath. Among us has there not been
   much that His pure and holy eyes must have grieved over? The watchers
   of the Church have sometimes come together in sore dismay over this and
   that which they have seen among the brotherhood and they have cried to
   God that He would put away the evil thing from among us, or help us to
   overcome the Evil One and reclaim the wandering. Nobody knows but God
   all the cares and anxieties which surround those that watch over such a
   flock as this! Who is sufficient for these things? Have we been made
   sufficient? Then infinite Grace has done the deed!

   The best of us, whoever they may be, will be the first to bow before
   the Lord. And those among us who have exhibited a Christly character
   and have served the cause of Christ heartily will the most deeply feel
   that if the Lord had taken the candlestick out of its place and left us
   in the darkness, we had well deserved it. Eternally blessed be the name
   of the Ever Merciful! When we have sinned, we have always had an
   Advocate before the Throne of God and the blood of sprinkling has ever
   been upon us to make us clean in the sight of the Lord! Blessed be His
   name! Though iniquities prevail against us, yet, as for our
   transgressions, He has purged them away and still does His Church lift
   up her face and live in the smile of His love, rejoicing and
   triumphant! Beloved, this ought to make us praise God with all our
   hearts and the Psalmist manifested the wisdom of Inspiration in
   reminding us of it.

   And once more, the sacred privileges which infinite mercy has bestowed
   upon us should compel us with glad alacrity to magnify the name of God!
   See how the Psalm proceeds--"Blessed is the man whom You choose, and
   cause to approach unto You, that he may dwell in Your courts. We shall
   be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, even of Your holy
   temple." Many now present first learned in this house their election of
   God, for here they were called by almighty Grace and enabled to
   approach their heavenly Father! Blessed be the choosing and calling
   Lord who now gives us access to Himself and nearness to His Person! Do
   you remember when you first drew near to Him with weeping eyes and
   melting hearts because His love had broken down your rebellious wills?
   Oh, it was a sorrowful coming, but it was a true coming, for God was
   calling you!

   And do you remember, afterwards, when you came to Him with glad hearts
   and rejoicing eyes, for the Lord had put away your sin and you stood
   "accepted in the Beloved"? Oh, that glad day! Last Sunday we
   sang--"Happy day, happy day." And we may sing it every day and every
   morning and evening of our lives and not sing it too often! The Lord
   who chose us and called us and made us to approach Him has not, since
   that day, become our enemy, for He has allowed us ever since to dwell
   in His house! We are His children! We have not called upon Him like
   strangers, but we have dwelt in His house as sons and daughters! He has
   been abiding with us and we have been made to abide in Him! Shall we
   not praise Him for this? This very house of prayer has been, to some of
   you, a quiet resting place. You have been more at home here than when
   you have been at home.

   I am bound to say that you remember more happy times you have had here
   than anywhere else--and these have put out of your memory the sad
   records of your hard battling in the world even for a livelihood! I
   know that many of you live by your Sabbaths. You step over the
   intervening space from Lord's-Day to Lord's-Day as if the Lord had made
   a ladder of Sabbaths for you to climb to Heaven! And you have been fed
   in the Lord's house as well as rested. I know you have, for he who
   deals out the meat has been fed himself and when he is fed, he knows
   that others have like appetites and need like food and know when they
   get it! You have clapped your hands for very joy when redeeming Grace
   and dying love have been the theme and infinite, sovereign, changeless
   mercy has been the subject of the discourse!

   You have been blessed every happy Sabbath you have had, my Brothers and
   Sisters--every holy Monday evening's Prayer Meeting--every occasion on
   which God has met with you in any of the rooms of this building when a
   few of you, at early morning or late in the evening have met together
   for prayer! Every time, the visits of Jesus' love have charmed your
   soul up to Heaven's gate! By all of these bless and magnify His name
   who has crowned the years with His goodness! There had been no food for
   us if the Lord had not given us manna from Heaven! There had been no
   comfortable rest for us if He had not breathed peace upon us! There had
   been no coming in of new converts, nor going out with rapturous joy of
   the perfected ones up to the seats above if the Lord had not been with
   us and, therefore, to Him be all the praise!

   I do not suppose that any stranger here will understand this matter. It
   may even be that such will judge that we are indulging in
   self-acclamation under a thin disguise--but this evil we must endure
   for once! You, my Brothers and Sisters, who have been together these
   many years, know what is meant and you know that it is not within the
   compass of an angel's tongue to express the gratitude which many of us
   feel who, for these 25 years, have been banded together in closest and
   heartiest Christian brotherhood in the service of our Lord and Master!
   Strangers cannot guess how happy has been our fellowship, or how true
   our love! Only eternity shall reveal the multitude of mercies with
   which God has visited us by means of our association in this Church! It
   is to some of us friend, nurse, mother, home all in one!

   If we sing more heartily about ourselves as recipients of Divine Mercy
   than some might think comely, we can only say that we cannot help it.
   If you drop in at a marriage and there is much said at the wedding
   feast about the family and its history, you need not go and put it in
   the papers, nor even criticize the family greetings too closely. Very
   likely they do seem to look too exclusively at home affairs, but pardon
   them for once. Well, whether men forgive me or not, I must and will
   speak! But all I have to say is to ascribe every good thing unto the
   Lord, alone, even to the God of Abraham, "the God of the whole earth
   shall He be called."

   II. Now we will turn to a second point. In the second place, THE
   ENCIRCLING BLESSING OF THE DIVINE GOODNESS IS TO BE CONFESSED. The
   Psalmist sings--"You crown the year with Your goodness." As though God
   circled the year and put a coronet about its head--a gem for every
   month, a pearl for every day--a matchless crown of unceasing goodness
   which surrounds the whole year! Now I venture to say that the period of
   25 years, or a whole quarter of a century, wears its royal crown even
   more conspicuously than any single year! From the first day even until
   now God has enclosed the whole time with His goodness. I make no
   exceptions! We had a dark day, once, when we were scattered with
   sorrow, but as I read the fifth verse of the Psalm, it is easy to work
   it into our praise--"By terrible things in righteousness will you
   answer us, O God of our salvation."

   Standing happily among you, addressing you in this calm and quiet
   manner, recall that night in which the multitude seemed to be taken
   with sudden panic and to rush madly from the house--and then we heard
   of dead and wounded in our congregation--and the preacher's heart was
   broken till he felt it would be well to die! Yet out of that calamity,
   with all its unspeakable grief, there sprang a blessing, the fruit of
   which we still continue to reap. Yes, I make no exception to anything!
   Sick and ill, oftentimes, has the preacher been, but valued lessons
   have thus been taught to him and through him taught to the people.
   Sickness has fallen here and there and sometimes affliction and
   poverty--but you have, all of you, learned something under the rod and
   you have blessed God for His fatherly discipline filled with eternal
   benefits! Yes, Lord, it is true in our case, "You crown the year with
   Your goodness."

   Now, let us just look at this all-encircling goodness of the Lord which
   we have seen from the first day till now. I saw it, first of all, in
   inspiring the few Brethren that met together as a Church with
   confidence in God at the very outset. Our first meeting for prayer was,
   I think, more largely attended than our first sermon. The Church was
   diminished and brought low, but the Brethren prayed with great reliance
   upon God and showed no sign of distrust. They did not say, "Die." They
   did not believe in becoming extinct, but every man seemed resolved to
   set his face like a flint to win prosperity at the hands of God--and
   for this I thank Him! Is He not said in our Psalm to be the confidence
   of the ends of the earth? This confidence was the beginning of an
   endless chain of goodness!

   Then the Lord was pleased in infinite mercy to prepare men's hearts to
   hear the Gospel. It was not possible, they said, that great places
   could be filled with crowds to hear the old-fashioned Gospel! The
   pulpit had lost its power, so unbelievers told us, and yet no sooner
   did we begin to preach in simple strains, the Gospel of Christ, than
   the people flew as a cloud and as doves to their windows! And what
   listening there was at Park Street, where we scarcely had air enough to
   breathe! And when we got into the larger place, what attention was
   manifest! What power seemed to go with every

   word that was spoken! I say it, though I was the preacher, it was not
   I, but the Grace of God which was with me! There were stricken down
   among us some of the most unlikely ones! There were brought into the
   Church and added to God's people some of those that had wandered far
   away from the path of Truth and Righteousness--and these, by their
   penitent love, quickened our life and increased our zeal!

   The Lord gave the people, more and more, a willingness to hear and
   there was no pause in the flowing stream of hearers, nor in the
   incoming of converts. The Holy Spirit came down like showers which
   saturate the soil till the clods are ready for the breaking! And then
   it was not long before we heard on the right and on the left the cry,
   "What must we do to be saved?" We were busy enough in those days in
   seeing converts and thank God we have been ever since! We had some
   among us who gave themselves up to watch for the souls of men and we
   have a goodly number of such helpers now, perhaps more than we ever had
   and, thank God, these found and still find many souls to watch over!
   Still the arrows fly and still the smitten cry out for help and ask
   that they may be guided to the great healing Lord. Blessed be God's
   name for this! He went with us all those early days and gave us sheaves
   even at the first sowing, so that we began with mercy and He has been
   with us even until now--till our life has become one long harvest-home!

   I am bound to acknowledge with deep thankfulness that during these 25
   years the Word has been given me to speak when the time has come for
   preaching. It may look to you a small thing that I should be able to
   come before you in due time, but it will not seem so to my Brothers in
   the ministry who remember that for 25 years my sermons have been
   printed as they have been delivered. It must be an easy thing to go and
   buy discourses at sixpence or a shilling--each ready lithographed--and
   read them off as hirelings do. But to speak your heart out every time
   and yet to have something fresh for 25 years is no child's play! Who
   shall do it unless he cries to God for help? I read but the other day a
   newspaper criticism of myself in which the writer wondered that a man
   should keep on, year after year, with so few themes and such a narrow
   groove to travel in!

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, it is not so! Our themes are infinite for
   number and fullness! Every text of Scripture is boundless in its
   meaning! We could preach from the Bible throughout eternity and not
   exhaust it! A narrow groove? The thoughts of God narrow? The Divine
   Word narrow? They know it not, for His commandments are exceedingly
   broad. Had we to speak of politics or philosophy, we had run dry long
   ago--but when we have to preach the Savior's everlasting love--the
   theme is always fresh, always new! The Incarnate God, the atoning
   blood, the risen Lord, the coming Glory--these are subjects which defy
   exhaustion! Yet we bless the Eternal Spirit who gives both seed to the
   sower and bread to the eater, that we have had spiritual food for our
   people as often as the season has come round! I must render my special
   praise and if at any time you have been blessed by the Word of God I
   have spoken, you must render your tribute, too.

   All these years He has crowned us with His goodness by giving us the
   good Word to preach in His name. But, dear Brothers and Sisters, I am
   most happy to thank God for crowning the years with His goodness by
   helping us in the reaping and gathering in of souls. I say, "us,"
   advisedly. Here we have had a Church which from the first began to seek
   the souls of men. If any of you do not work for Christ, I should think
   you have a hard time of it among us, for one or another is pretty sure
   to use the ox-goad upon you! Both by example and by precept and by the
   general spirit of the brotherhood, idlers stand rebuked! Our Brothers
   and Sisters from the first began working for the good of men as best
   they could. Not in a fine, artistic manner--I do not think we ever
   tried that--we did it in a very bland manner, but we went at it with
   all our hearts.

   Our young Brothers tried their hands at teaching and preaching--very
   likely it was intellectually very poor preaching--but it was full of
   heart and it did good in spite of its many imperfections. The teaching
   and the looking after converts; the trying to form new churches; the
   opening of Prayer Meetings and all sorts of holy works were not done
   after any set fashion--but somehow they were done and often done with a
   desperate valor and a simple faith which surprised and cheered me!
   Often and often have I brushed the tears from my eyes when I have
   received from some here present offerings for the Master's work which
   utterly surpassed all my ideas of giving. The consecration of your
   substance by some among you has been Apostolic! I have known those who
   have so given from their poverty that they have sometimes given all
   that they had--and when I have even hinted at their exceeding the
   bounds of prudence, they have seemed hurt and pressed the gift, again,
   for some other work of the Master whom they love.

   The Lord knows every one of your hearts--where you have come short He
   knows and may His Grace forgive--but where, as I most honestly bear
   witness, many here have gone up to the measure of their ability and
   even beyond it, He knows and will reward! For your zeal, industry and
   consecration I must bless the Lord who crowns the years with His
   goodness! There are few among you, I should think, who have worked for
   the Master who have not seen most encouraging results in the
   conversions of those for whom you have cared. Certainly there are many
   among you between whom and myself there might pass a telegraphic glance
   awakening glad memories. You have brought to me one after another souls
   that you have won. You wanted me to speak to them personally because
   you have an idea that I might be more tender than anybody else. I am
   afraid you think too highly of me in this respect. Still I have been
   right glad to see those you brought to me because they were your
   children.

   How glad I have been that, inasmuch as I brought you to Christ through
   His Grace, when you have brought others to Christ I have seemed to be a
   sort of grandfather in your midst, rejoicing in your joy, triumphing in
   your success! And I mean it sincerely when I say that I look upon many
   of you with an intense love and satisfaction because God has made you
   great winners of souls. You have not sat here to listen to me and to
   enjoy your Sundays, but you have been sowers of the good Seed. You have
   many times denied yourselves the privileges of God's house that you
   might go and look after others--and the Lord has given you your wages!
   How many you have brought back whose feet had almost gone! How many you
   have helped by sweet encouragement when they have been depressed! I
   know not all your labors of love, but God knows!

   This much I do know, that the pastorate of this Church is practically
   carried out by the Church itself! Beloved elders labor with a diligence
   which I cannot commend too highly, still it were impossible with 5,000
   persons to care for, that a few men should fulfill the service. You
   watch over one another in the Lord and for this I bless Him, to whom
   must be rendered all the praise. I feel the more free to speak about
   what He has worked by you and in you because you will not take any
   glory to yourselves but lay it at His feet. Lord, You have blessed us
   exceedingly beyond what we asked or even thought--and in return we
   bless You!

   When I remember how, as a boy, I stood among you, Brothers and Sisters,
   and feebly began to preach of Jesus Christ and how these 25 years
   without dissension, yes, without the dream of dissension, in perfect
   love compacted as one man, you have gone on from one work of God to
   another and have never halted, hesitated or drawn back, I must and will
   bless and magnify Him who has crowned these years with His goodness!

   III. Now I come to my closing point. It is this--THE CROWNING BLESSING
   IS CONFESSED TO BE OF God-- not only the encircling blessing but the
   crowning blessing. What is the crown of a Church? Well, some Churches
   have one crown and some another. I have heard of a church whose crown
   was its organ--the biggest organ, the finest organ ever played--and the
   choir the most wonderful choir that ever was. Everybody in the district
   said, "Now, if you want to go to a place where you will have fine
   music, that is the spot." Our musical friends may wear that crown if
   they please. I will never pluck at it or decry it--I feel no temptation
   in that direction!

   I have heard of others whose crown has been their intellect. There are
   very few hearers. Indeed, not as many people by one-tenth as there are
   seats, but then they are such a select people, the elite, the
   thoughtful and intelligent! The ministry is such that only one in a
   hundred can possibly understand what is said and the one in the hundred
   who does understand it is, therefore, a most remarkable person! That is
   their crown! Again I say I will not envy it. Whatever there may be that
   is desirable about it, the Brother who wears it shall wear it all his
   days for me. I have heard of other crowns--among the rest, that of
   being "a most respectable church." All the people are respectable. The
   minister, of course, is respectable. I believe he is, "Reverend," or,
   "Very Reverend," and everybody and thing about him is, to the last
   degree, "respectable."

   Fustian jackets and cotton gowns are warned off by the surpassing
   dignity of everything in and around the place. As for a working man,
   such a creature is never seen on the premises and could not be supposed
   to be--if he were to come he would say--"The preacher preaches double
   Dutch or Greek, or something of the sort." He would not hear language
   which he could understand! This is not a very brilliant crown, this
   crown of respectability--it certainly never flashed ambition into my
   soul.

   Our crown under God has been this--the poor have the Gospel preached to
   them, souls are saved and Christ is glorified! O my beloved Church,
   hold fast what you have, that no man take this crown away from you! As
   for me, by

   God's help, the first and last thing that I long for is to bring men to
   Christ! I care nothing about fine language, or about the pretty
   speculations of prophecy, or a hundred dainty things! I desire only to
   break the heart and bind it up--to lay hold of a sheep of Christ and
   bring it back into the fold is the one thing I live for! You, also, are
   of the same mind, are you not? Well, we have had this crowning blessing
   that, as nearly as I can estimate, more than 9,000 persons have joined
   this Church. If they were all alive now, or all with us now, what a
   company they would be! Some have fallen asleep and many are members
   with other churches, working for the Master where they are probably
   more influential than they could have been at home. Some of our members
   we were glad to lose because our loss was the gain of the universal
   Church. We sent them out to colonize and so to increase the Master's
   kingdom. For these 9,000 and more let God be praised! It is a crown in
   which we must and will rejoice.

   But another crown to any Church, I think, is when its members are
   maintained in their profession. If many are added and then they are
   scattered again--if they do but come to go, if they are found and then
   straightway lost--what is the benefit of it? But this has been our
   crown of rejoicing, that we have seen the young converts matured in
   Divine Grace. The blade has become the ear and the ear has become the
   full corn in the ear for which God is thanked! And there has been this
   about it, that as we built together as living stones, so we have
   remained together! I have a great many faults and I often wonder how it
   is you put up with me, but we have not thought of parting--the mortar
   which holds us together in the building is very binding. I am not so
   much surprised that I put up with you, for it is my duty and office to
   bear with all and none of you have caused me grief except such as have
   walked unworthy and grieved the Spirit of God. We have gone on well
   together, under God's blessings, these many years and have no
   hesitation about continuing in the same loving unity.

   During these 25 years I have had to attend to the quarrels and
   differences of scores of little Churches where their weakness should
   have been the strongest argument for union. Men usually divide when
   they are already too few for the work and this is a most grievous evil
   under the sun. Churches torn apart with contention have laid the
   wretched differences before me and I have had many a heavy burden to
   carry while trying to set things right. But I have not had to spend one
   five minutes in seeking to heal a breach in this Church or maintain its
   unity! The Lord has given us brotherly love and unto His name be
   praise! Brothers and Sisters who have been members of other Churches
   where you have seen trouble, you know what a comfort it is to be
   connected with a Church where we endeavor to walk in love to one
   another and where the noise of war has not disturbed our gates.

   Truly I must say and I do say it, "O Lord, You give peace in our
   borders and You fill us with the finest of the wheat. You crown the
   years with Your goodness." But is this all? We ought to bless God for
   the fruit-bearing ones that have been among us. Workers of all sorts
   are found for the different agencies of the Church as they are required
   and God has given us some whom He has honored exceedingly who are our
   strength for home work. But, besides that, this Church has, this day,
   an army of above 400 ministers trained at her side who are now
   scattered all over the globe preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
   while as a militia we have some 80 or more disseminating godly books!
   Best of all, we have a growing band of missionaries! My heart leaped
   within me on Monday night when I heard the young people and saw how one
   and another of our Brothers were devoting themselves to mission work.
   This I reckon to be the brightest crown of all! If the Lord will but
   infuse the missionary spirit into us and force out many to go abroad to
   preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ our cup will run over and we shall
   again have to say, "Praise waits for You, O God, in Sion, for You crown
   the years with your goodness."

   Last of all, and never to be forgotten, during these 25 years there
   have gone from us to the upper realms about 800 who had named the name
   of Jesus. Professing their faith in Christ, living in His fear, dying
   in the faith they gave us no cause to doubt their sincerity and,
   therefore, we may not question their eternal safety. Many of them gave
   us in life and in death all the tokens we could ask for of their being
   in Christ and, therefore, we sorrow not as those that are without hope.
   Why, when I think of them, many of them my sons and daughters now
   before the Throne of God, they fill me with solemn exultation! Do you
   not see them in their white robes? Eight hundred souls redeemed by
   blood! These are only what we know of and had enrolled. How many there
   may have been converted here who never joined our earthly fellowship,
   but, nevertheless, have gone Home, I cannot tell.

   There probably have been more than those whose names we know, if we
   consider the wide area over which the printed sermons circulate. They
   are gathering Home, one by one, one by one, but they make a goodly
   company! Our

   name is Gad, for "a troop comes." Happy shall we be to overtake those
   who have marched out ahead of us and entered into the Promised Land!
   Let us remember them and by faith join our hands with them. Flash a
   thought to unite the broken family, for we are not far from them, nor
   are they far from us, since we are one in Christ! This, too, is our
   crown.

   And now I want one thing more. There is such a thing as a greed that is
   never satisfied and I have a great greed upon me now. I frankly confess
   my covetousness. Whenever the Lord gives us any great spiritual gift we
   want more, nor are we blamed for this, but bid to covet earnestly the
   best gifts! This, then, is my further desire. I should be rejoiced
   beyond measure if, on this night and during the next two or three days
   in which we keep holy day and bless the Lord for His goodness, some
   Brothers and Sisters were moved by the Holy Spirit to undertake some
   new work for Christ which they had not thought of before. Come, my
   Brother, may the Lord crown this year this day with His goodness by
   putting it into your heart to break up new soil and sow a fresh field
   for Jesus! Have you been an idler? Buckle up! Today join the laborers
   and leave the loiterers! Get to the Master's work!

   Have you already been diligent? I have more hope in appealing to you!
   Brother, Sister, try something more-- something more tonight! Roll over
   in your mind what there is that is left undone in the branch of holy
   service for which you are fitted, or for which you might get to be
   fitted and engage in it at once! Come now! Consecrate yourself to the
   Lord anew tonight and pray Him to lift you to a higher platform and
   into a nobler state of consecration! That would be a blessed crowning
   of the years with His goodness! And what if some young men here were to
   say, "We shall prosper in business, no doubt, for we feel up to the
   mark for it. God has given us brain and skill and a fair opening, but
   inasmuch as we have capacity we will consecrate it"?

   I hear the sorrows of China borne on the wailing of the wind and the
   sighing of the sea! Millions upon millions are perishing for lack of
   knowledge--will no one pity them? The need of India's teeming
   population cries to us in voices which pierce the heart--will no one
   listen and help? A voice comes forth from the excellent Glory, "Whom
   shall I send, and who will go for Us?" It were a crown to end the year
   with if there came from this and that set of useful, earnest Christian
   men the reply of individual hearts, "Here am I! Here am I! Send me!"
   The Lord give us this crown!

   One thing more. Oh, if some hearts would yield themselves to the Savior
   tonight! If some were converted tonight, what a crown that would be to
   finish up these years with! Testimonial, Sirs? No testimonial can ever
   be given to the preacher which can equal a soul converted! These are
   the seals of our ministry and the wages of our hire! Socrates, on his
   birthday, had a present given him by each of his students. Some brought
   less and some brought more. Among the rest there was one who had
   nothing in the world to bring and so he came to Socrates and said,
   "Master, I give you myself. I love you with all my heart." The sage
   judged this to be the most precious of all the tributes.

   Will not some of you cry, "I do not know that I could be a missionary,
   or that I have any gifts, or talents, or substance that I could
   contribute, but, Lord, I give my heart to You to be renewed by Grace"?
   God bring you, poor sinner, to Jesus' feet to surrender your whole
   nature to His sway that He may wash it in His blood, fill it with His
   Spirit and use it for His Glory! He says, "My son, give me your heart,"
   and when the heart is yielded, He accepts the gift! May the Eternal
   Spirit lead many to give themselves thus to Jesus this night and it
   will be the crowning joy of all the years! Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus, the Judge

   (No. 1476)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 25, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it
   is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the quick and the
   dead." Acts 10:42.

   You will notice throughout this short address by Peter how very careful
   he is to speak not at all upon his own authority, but wholly upon the
   authority of the Most High. He commences his conversation by saying
   that God had shown him that it would be right for him, as a Jew, to
   commune with Gentiles. God had shown it to him--he had not, therefore,
   broken through Jewish law as the result of his own judgment, but under
   Divine direction. He goes on to commence his sermon by saying, "The
   Word which God sent unto the children of Israel." He had come,
   therefore, not with a Word of his own inventing, but with a Word of
   God's sending. "That Word, I say, you know." Then he speaks of Jesus of
   Nazareth Himself as anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. And
   he speaks of himself and his fellow Apostles as "witnesses," bearing
   testimony to what the Lord Jesus had done.

   Now, this way of speaking was, perhaps, rendered the more necessary by
   the mistaken reverence which Cornelius had rendered to his person, for
   he fell down at the Apostle's feet and worshipped him, but it should be
   the constant habit of all the ministers of Christ. It is ours to keep
   within the boundaries of our commission and shield ourselves behind its
   authority. What are we that we should, of ourselves, have anything to
   say unto you, my Brothers and Sisters? What is our authority and by
   what right can we speak of ourselves? Verily, we have no such power
   over you and if we come unto you in our own name, bid us not God speed!

   Every true minister must speak because he is commanded to speak. He
   must speak what he is commanded to speak and he must be prepared to
   fall back upon the authority of the Word of God continually. "If they
   speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in
   them." Only if the testimony of any man is in accordance with the Word
   of God, is God with him and it would be perilous to reject his
   testimony. The Apostle was not long in his address before he came to
   the doctrine of the judgment of all men by Jesus Christ. He says that
   he was commanded to preach it and, therefore, he did preach it. It may
   not be called, "the Gospel," but it is certainly a most important
   accessory Truth to the Gospel--it is one of those doctrines without
   which a Gospel ministry would not be complete. I mean that if in any
   testimony concerning Christ the doctrine that He shall come a second
   time to judge the world were utterly neglected, such a testimony would
   not be a complete Gospel.

   Hence you find that Paul, when he preached to the famous congregation
   of the Areopagites, took care to insist upon this Truth of God. In Acts
   17:30, 31, he says, "The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now
   commands all men everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day in
   the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He
   has ordained; whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He
   has raised Him from the dead." This was also a part of Paul's subject
   when he stood before Felix--"he reasoned of righteousness, temperance
   and judgment to come"--and this made Felix tremble, for there is great
   force of conviction in that solemn Truth of God.

   The doctrine of the judgment of the world by Christ was used by Peter
   and Paul and other Apostles as a sort of preliminary Truth which they
   insisted upon before they came to the essence of the Gospel which
   consists in preaching Jesus Christ as a Savior. They plowed with this
   doctrine before they sowed the invitations of the Gospel. They did not,
   however, lay the axe to the root and then forget to proclaim the Word
   of Grace--they preached the terrors of the Lord, not in a legal, but a
   Gospel manner! Peter does so in this case, for he first speaks of
   Christ in the judgment and then in verse 43 he adds, "To Him give all
   the Prophets witness, that through His name whoever believes in Him
   shall receive remission of sins."

   This morning, in obedience to the same command, I shall try to speak,
   first of all, upon the message. And, secondly, upon the evident
   importance to be attached to it which we shall, in a great measure,
   gather from the words of our text. May the Holy Spirit, who in Peter's
   day fell on all those who heard his word, fall, also, upon you as you
   are led to believe in the Lord Jesus!

   I. First, let us consider THE MESSAGE which God commands all His
   servants to declare. That message begins with the assurance that there
   is a moral government. There is a Judge over the race of men--we are
   not as the locusts, of whom Solomon says that they have no king. The
   world is not left unobserved of God to be as a den of wild beasts, or a
   pond of fish where everyone devours his fellow and none calls them to
   account. Men are not permitted to do whatever is right in their own
   eyes, but there is a Law and a Governor over them. God has committed
   all authority unto His Son and Jesus Christ, at this moment, reigns and
   rules over the whole race of men, taking account of all the actions
   that are done in their bodies and making note of everything in order to
   the summing up of all things by-and-by. There is a Law, there is a
   rule, there is a government over the human commonwealth. The race is
   not left to anarchy--Jesus Christ is Head of all.

   That being announced, we have to go on to say that there will be a
   judgment. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
   judgment." As the result of there being a government over mankind, an
   assize will be held where cases will be tried and justice will be
   administered. This, indeed, is the sanction and support of the Law,
   that it will call men to account. Its voice of power proclaims, "O you
   house of Israel, I will judge you everyone after his ways." There will
   be a day of final account. I need not stop to quote the numerous
   passages of Scripture which assert that every one of us must give an
   account of himself before God, for we are fully persuaded that "we
   shall all stand before the judgment seat of

   Christ."

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, we think that all reasonable persons will
   conclude that there must be a judgment if they will only consider the
   Character of God. Being the Ruler of the world, He must do justice. We
   should count any man who was made a king but a miserable counterfeit of
   a monarch if he never administered justice at all. If we had a state
   without laws, or laws without punishments for those who broke them, we
   should be, indeed, in a wretched condition and our king would be the
   mimicry of royalty! But such is not the case in the kingdom of Him who
   rules over all! It is said of our Lord, "You love righteousness and
   hate wickedness"--this makes us feel that He wills to do justice. And
   as assuredly as He has power to punish transgression, we feel certain
   that He will do so.

   There will come a day in which He will judge the acts of men because
   His Character is not such that He could or would trifle with evil. "Be
   not deceived, God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, that shall he
   also reap." "The Father who, without respect of persons, judges
   according to every man's works" will not permit offenders to insult His
   Laws with impunity! It is wrapped up in the very idea of God that He is
   Judge of all the earth and must do right--and to do right He must hold
   a final court in which He will "render to every man according to his
   deeds." The character of man equally involves a judgment, for he is
   evidently a responsible being and this is dear to anybody who cares to
   open his eyes.

   We count not the cattle of the hills or the fish of the sea
   responsible--let them do what they may. No one blames the wolf that he
   howls, or the lion that he devours. But when we come to think of man,
   we regard him as a creature whose actions have a moral quality about
   them and are either right or wrong. In fact, he is a responsible agent.
   Surely, where there is responsibility there is a law and where there is
   a law there must, some day or other, be rewards for well-doers and
   punishments for malefactors. The constitution and nature of man
   inevitably require this, or else his responsibility is given to him in
   vain.

   Now, the present tangled condition of the world's history requires that
   there should be a day of rectification at the end of time. At this
   moment we often see the wicked prosper while the righteous are abased.
   At this day the mirth and the jollity are often connected with sin,
   while sorrow and grief go hand in hand with godliness in many and many
   an instance. Remember how the wise man argued and be persuaded by his
   reasoning--"Moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that
   wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was
   there. I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the
   wicked." Since the actions of men are evidently now left unpunished and
   highhanded sin holds power, there must come a righting of the wrong and
   a clearing of the just. The Judge of all the earth must do right and
   how can this be but by a final adjustment in which it shall be clearly
   seen that though the wicked prosper for a while, they are as bullocks
   fattening for the slaughter--and though the righteous suffer for a
   while, it is but as the gold suffers in the furnace--that it may come
   forth purified.

   Every heart that has ever groaned under the oppressor's wrong; every
   soul that has ever writhed under the proud man's arrogance must feel
   that there must be an end to the reign and riot of evil and a time in
   which innocence shall be avenged. Every Job may lift himself up before
   his false accusers and say, "I know that my Avenger lives and that He
   will stand in the latter day upon the earth." Moreover, there is in the
   consciences of most, if not of all men, a testimony to a coming
   judgment. I will not say of all men, for I believe that some manage to
   drug their self-consciousness as at last to quiet all their fears. But
   the most of men believe in a judgment to come and in their more
   thoughtful moods are alarmed.

   There is more faith as to the judgment than we dream of in those who
   are most profanely daring in their speeches against God. The reason why
   they speak so exceedingly proud is because their consciences make them
   cowards--and to veil their cowardice they use bombastic words. These
   are the men that tremble first--the men that first cry out for mercy
   when the hand of God begins to touch them! How very seldom do you find
   a man die in stolid unbelief! At some time or other, reason will speak
   and conscience will be heard--and then that "dread of something after
   death" makes men cling, even, to the most wretched state--choosing,
   rather, to bear the ills they have than fly to others! They know not of
   the universal conscience, or almost universal conscience, that speaks
   like a prophet within the soul and tells of a throne of judgment, a
   Heaven and a Hell!

   Now, whether we had or had not this argument to support us would make
   not one jot of difference to those of us who believe in the Word of
   God. What God says would always be enough for us, even if the nature of
   things and the apparent force of reason should flatly contradict His
   Word. Yes, I will even put it in that harsh way! We are always glad
   when we get the subordinate help of arguments fetched from the nature
   of things and so forth, but we care very little about them. We have
   accepted the Bible as God's Revelation. We believe the teaching of this
   Book to be Infallible and inasmuch as the Scriptures declare that there
   is a judgment to come, we confidently look for it.

   Now, according to the Revelation of the Gospel, this judgment will be
   conducted by the Man, Christ Jesus. God will judge the world, but it
   will be through His Son whom He has ordained and appointed to actually
   carry out the business of that last tremendous day. He who shall sit
   upon the Throne is "the Son of Man." He will be thus enthroned, I
   suppose, partly because it is involved in His mediatorial office in
   which the Lord has put all things in subjection under His feet. He is
   at the right hand of God--"angels and authorities, and powers being
   made subject unto Him." God has been pleased to put the world, not
   under the direct government of personal Deity, but under the government
   of the Mediator, that He might deal with us in mercy.

   That Mediator is Prophet, Priest and King--and His kingship would be
   robbed of its Glory if the King had not the power of life and
   death--and the power of holding court and judging His subjects. Jesus
   Christ, therefore, being mediatorial King and Sovereign and all power
   being given unto Him in Heaven and in earth, will take unto Himself His
   great power at the last and will judge the nations. This high position
   is also awarded to our Lord as an honor from the Father by which shall
   be wiped away every trace of the shame and dishonor through which He
   passed among the sons of men. The kings of the earth stood up to judge
   Him, but they shall stand before Him to be judged! The rulers took
   counsel together to condemn Him, but the rulers shall stand at His bar
   to be, themselves, condemned!

   Pontius Pilate and the chief priests shall all be there. And Caesar and
   all Caesars and Czars and emperors and kings and princes shall do
   homage before Him in the lowest manner by standing before His judgment
   seat as prisoners to be tried by Him. There will be no remembrance of
   the scepter of reed, for He shall break His enemies with a rod of iron!
   There shall be no marks of the crown of thorns, for on His head shall
   be many a diadem! Men shall not, then, be able to think of Him as the
   Man of tears with His visage sadly marred by grief and shame, for His
   eyes shall be as flames of fire and His Countenance as the sun shining
   in its strength!

   O Cross, whatever of shame there was about you shall be wiped out
   forever among the sons of men, for this Man shall sit upon the Throne
   of Judgment! The Father designed to put this honor upon Him and He has
   right well deserved it. Jesus Christ as God has a Glory which He had
   with the Father before the world was. But as God-Man, He has a Glory
   which His Father has given Him to be the reward of that labor of life
   and death by which He has redeemed His people. "Give unto the Lord
   glory and strength" is the ascription of all His saints and God, the
   Everlasting Father has done this unto His Son, concerning whom He has
   sworn that every knee shall bow before Him and every tongue shall
   confess that He is Lord to the Glory of God the Father!!

   "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints to execute
   judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of
   all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all
   their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." I
   want you especially to remember that in the Holy Scriptures we are
   perpetually reminded, in reference to the Judgment, that it is a
   judgment by the Man Christ Jesus. There must be special reason for this
   honor done to the Manhood of our Lord, or it would not be so
   continually insisted upon. Daniel, in his prophecy, (7:13), says--"I
   saw in the night visions and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with
   the clouds of Heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought
   Him near before Him."

   The coming One in his vision was "the Son of Man" and we all know to
   whom that title belongs. Hence our Lord Himself very early in His
   ministry took care to claim for Himself this power of governance and
   judgment. Turn to John 5:22 where He says, "The Father judges no man,
   but has committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor
   the Son, even as they honor the Father." Then, in verse 27, He gives us
   the reason for His being thus ordained to be the Judge--"And He has
   given Him authority to execute judgment, also, because He is the Son of
   Man." So that not only does Daniel see Him as the Son of Man, but Jesus
   Christ, Himself, declares that the authority to judge is given to Him
   because He is the Son of Man--there being in that fact a peculiar
   reason why He should be Judge of all mankind.

   Your memories will at once allow you to recollect that in the famous
   pictures drawn by our Lord wherein He describes the Judgment, (Matt.
   25:31, 32), He takes care to begin by saying, "When the Son of Man
   shall come in His Glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall
   He sit upon the Throne of His Glory: and before Him shall be gathered
   all nations: and He shall separate them, one from another, as a
   shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." He does not call Himself
   the Son of God in this case, but says, "The Son of Man shall come in
   His Glory." So is it, too, in Matthew 13:41--"The Son of Man shall send
   forth His angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
   that

   offend."

   This it was which seems to have struck the Apostle Paul so much when he
   quoted from the Psalms and applied the language to Christ, in Hebrews
   2--"What is man, that You are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that
   You visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned
   him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of Your hands:
   You have put all things in subjection under his feet." Whereon he says,
   "We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor." It is as Son of God as
   well as Man--having an intense sympathy both with the King and with the
   subjects-- having manifested His Grace even to the rebellious and being
   yet filled with intense love to the Father and His Law. If we could
   have the election of a judge, what being could we suppose more
   impartial or so impartial as the Lord, who, though He counted it not
   robbery to be equal with God, yet made Himself of no reputation, and
   took upon Himself the form of a Servant, and was made in the likeness
   of sinful flesh?

   O blessed Judge, be You at once enthroned by the choice of the whole
   creation! This Person is peculiarly suitable to be Judge because He has
   a perfect knowledge of the Law. Yes, Your Law is My delight, He says.
   He put on righteousness as a garment. The Lord Jesus Christ, from His
   youth up, was an exceedingly deep scholar of the Law of God. He grew,
   as a Child, in wisdom concerning the will of God. His ears were opened
   to hear as He learned, that He might know how to speak a word in season
   to them that are weary. He knows the Law, for He made Himself subject
   to it and kept it in all its parts. This is the first requisite of a
   judge--to be thoroughly acquainted with the statute-book.

   Yet further, He knows, also, the evil of law-breaking. What a Judge is
   this whom God has appointed, who, strange to say, has Himself suffered
   for sin though in Him was no sin, for He was holy, harmless, undefiled
   and separate from sinners! Yet the sting of sin, which is death, He has
   endured and the curse of sin has passed upon Him, as it is written,
   "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." With what precision, then,
   can He judge who, being both God and Man and knowing well the Law, has
   also an intimate acquaintance with all the heinousness and wickedness
   of law-breaking! Well did the Father choose Him to be the Judge of the
   quick and the dead! It puts judgment beyond a fault when He who is the
   Friend of sinners is made the Judge of sinners. Thus much, then,
   concerning the fact that there will be a judgment and that this
   judgment will be conducted by the Man, Christ Jesus.

   Now, observe, that this judgment will concern all mankind. He will
   judge the quick and the dead, that is, those who will be alive at His
   coming He will judge as well as those who have already died. He may
   come before some of us shall die. The time of His advent we cannot
   guess, but we shall certainly appear before His Judgment Seat whenever
   He shall fix the assize. The summons will exempt no man--from the
   utmost ends of the earth they shall come! None will be able to hide

   themselves in solitary places, or to find shelter among the crowded
   cities. Here and there a criminal escapes the vigilant eyes of human
   law. Though it is difficult to do so, there have been cunning men who,
   year after year, have managed by various disguises to escape
   recognition and have continued their depredations and evaded the
   police. But there shall be no such instance among all that shall be
   alive and remain at the coming of the Lord!

   And as for the dead who have died in past ages, they shall all rise
   again. What prodigious multitudes! What crowds that baffle all
   arithmetic! Yet shall they all be arraigned and tried--all the living
   and all the dead of Christian lands and heathen lands--of antediluvian
   ages and of ages upon which the ends of the earth have come. Kings,
   princes and every bondman, rich and poor, small and great, shall all
   stand in that Last Great Day in Christ's great Judgment Hall. It
   concerns you, my Brothers, as it does me. It concerns you, my Sisters,
   and your children as well as those who have gone before. As surely as
   the Lord lives, the things that are seen shall pass away--mountains and
   hills shall flee before Him and rocks shall be melted down at His
   Presence--but His Word shall never pass away! And behold, He comes!
   "Behold, He comes with clouds and every eye shall see Him! And they,
   also, which pierced Him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail
   because of Him."

   Just a few words concerning this Judgment. When He does come, that
   judgment will be a very eminent one. It will be a judgment fixed by the
   peremptory ordinance of God, for the text says that He has "ordained"
   Jesus to sit as Judge. It is by ordinance and decree that Jesus Christ
   will take the Throne. He takes not this honor upon Himself on His own
   authority, but He claims the Throne as One that was ordained of God as
   was Aaron. In all His offices He quotes the Divine decree and for this,
   the last of all, He has the ordinance of God to be the Judge of the
   quick and the dead. Everything done will be by Divine authority--there
   will be the stamp and seal of the everlasting God set upon everything
   that shall be transacted on that grand occasion. The whole trial will
   be most solemnly conducted. I shall not, for a single moment, attempt a
   description of the scene. There is room, indeed, for imagery and
   poetry, but we have none of these and need them not this morning. This
   will suffice--"For the Lord, Himself, shall descend from Heaven with a
   shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and
   the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thess. 4:16).

   There shall be shouts when He comes, as if all the angelic bands lifted
   up their voices in acclamation and, above them all, one voice shall
   ring out most majestically, the voice of the archangel! And yet above
   all other sounds a trumpet call shall thunder forth, most dreadful to
   the ears of ungodly men. Louder than ten thousand thunders shall it
   peal over earth and sea and none shall be able to resist the summons.
   Then, in His descent, the Judge shall pass into the region of the
   clouds. He shall sit upon a Great White Throne and every eye shall see
   Him--and also they which crucified Him. His coming will be with great
   pomp of angelic splendor, fit for the state of such a King and for the
   solemnity of such a day!

   That judgment will be very searching, for the Apostle Paul tells us in
   2 Corinthians 5:10 that we shall give an account for the deeds done in
   the body, each one according to what he has done, whether it is good or
   whether it is bad. And our Savior, in Matthew 12:36, informs us that
   for every idle word that man shall speak he must give account in the
   Day of Judgment--words, therefore, will be put in evidence as well as
   actions. Yes, and there will be an account taken in that day of things
   which never reached the publicity of words, for you know how Solomon
   closed up the book of Ecclesiastes by saying that, "God will bring
   every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good
   or whether it is evil." Paul also says, "God will judge the secrets of
   men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel."

   Such things as were never known by our fellow creatures and were
   forgotten by ourselves shall be revealed and judged. Imaginations,
   lusts and desires of the soul, secret thoughts and passions and
   murmuring shall be laid open before all men--and before God shall a
   reckoning be made. That Judgment will be of a very exact kind. It will
   proceed upon evidence and documentary testimony--slander and hearsay
   will not be mentioned. No condemnation will come upon good men through
   the whisperings of malicious tongues, but everything shall be done in
   due order and according to the rules of the Court of Heaven.

   Listen to this--"And I saw a Great White Throne and Him that sat on it,
   from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was
   found no place for them: and I saw the dead, small and great stand
   before God, and the books were opened"--documentary testimony brought
   into court as evidence--"and another book was opened, which is the Book
   of Life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were
   written in the books, according to their works." Don't you see that the
   judgment will be done by record and solemn affidavit, in that great
   Court of King's Bench? There

   will be no hurry, no passing over judgment with a light hand--all will
   be done in truth, equity and according to facts recorded by the
   Infallible Omniscience of God.

   And what severity of justice will then be seen, for things will not be
   judged by their outward appearance, but put to thorough test and trial!
   Hear the words of the Lord--"Every man's work shall be made manifest:
   for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and
   the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." Well may we
   cry with Malachi, "But who may abide the day of His coming? And who
   shall stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like a
   fuller's soap." The sentences which will then be pronounced will be so
   just as to be indisputable and even the condemned will admit the
   justness. At the Last Great Day not one of the condemned shall be able
   to deny his guilt nor the justice of the sentence! Though sent to Hell,
   he will feel it is what he deserves.

   You remember when the king came in to see the guests and found a man
   that had not on a wedding garment, the intruder could make no excuse,
   but stood speechless? There shall be an assent in every human mind to
   the sentence of the Christ of God--it shall flash such awful conviction
   into the soul of every sinner that, though he is damned, his own soul
   shall say, "Amen," to the condemnation! Oh, what a Judgment Day will
   that be in which everyone shall be certain, even in his own sad case,
   that the verdict of the Judge is bright as the sun with righteousness
   and cannot be appealed against! This, surely, will be the Hell of
   Hell--that it is deserved even in its utmost pang and bitterest pain.
   Oh, my Hearers, will any of you have to say, "Amen," to your own
   condemnation? I pray the Lord to save you from such a fate.

   That verdict will be final and irreversible. When Jesus has once
   pronounced it, there will be no appeal, no suing out of a writ of
   error, no reversal of the decree. He Himself has said it--"These shall
   go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life
   eternal." There will be no delay in execution, nor escape from the
   doom! There will be no steeling of the heart to endure it and no
   outliving the doom! It will last on in all its terror, the final
   verdict of the Judge of all the earth, pronounced by the Christ of
   Love! I know not how to speak upon such a theme as this, but must leave
   it as it stands before you. May the Holy Spirit impress it upon your
   minds.

   II. I desire, in the second place, to call your attention for a little
   while to THE EVIDENT IMPORTANCE OF THIS MESSAGE. Its importance may be
   gathered from the text because it says, "He commanded us to preach
   this." Did the eternal God give a command for us to preach this Truth
   of God? Then He must know, in His infinite wisdom, that there is a
   great necessity for its being declared. But please notice the way in
   which the command is to be executed. "He commanded us to preach." Now,
   to preach means to herald, to proclaim. Lo, we this day precede the
   great Judge as the trumpeters go before our judges on assize day and
   this is our cry, "He comes! He comes! He comes! The Man of Nazareth,
   Jesus, the Crucified, is coming, appointed Judge of the quick and the
   dead!"

   And we are to cry this with all the loudness of voice and earnestness
   of tone and solemnity of manner which become the heralds of the King of
   kings! Whether you believe it or not, He comes! Whether you trifle with
   it or not. Whether you are rebels or loyal subjects, He comes and that
   speedily! He comes to judge the world in righteousness and the people
   in equity. Thus we make solemn proclamation in His name, declaring to
   you a fact which you will do well to hear with serious hearts and
   thoughtful minds.

   But then it is added that we are "to testify that it is He." Having
   given the proclamation, we are then to solemnly bear witness and to
   speak the fact over and over again for God, adding our own belief that
   it is surely true. In the Greek, this word, "testify," is very
   forcible, something like the affirmation which those of us who account
   it wrong to take an oath are known to make in courts of law. We give
   our solemn affirmation and truthful testimony that it is so. It is the
   truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that we declare when
   we tell you that Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of Man, is coming
   upon the clouds of Heaven to judge the quick and the dead. We are to
   speak of this as a thing we know and are certain of--and we are to
   stand before men and whether they will hear, or whether they will
   forbear--testify that it is so. That which is to be both proclaimed and
   testified in obedience to the Divine command is no mean matter. Listen
   and take heed, I beseech you.

   And this is to be done "unto the people"--not to some few, but to all
   the people--to the Gentiles, to the nations. Wherever we go, this is to
   be part of our proclamation as the heralds of Christ, "Behold, He comes
   to judge mankind." To you, my Hearers, even to you is this word of
   warning sent! Will you not regard it? Now, Brethren, there is
   importance in this, not only according to the text, but from other
   reasons. If you think awhile, you will see that it sheds a great light
   upon the future of the ungodly. Whatever you, my Brother, choose to say
   of the wrath of God which is

   revealed concerning the impenitent, please think of this! It may be you
   feel troubled about its dread severity and eternity--but let this ease
   your perplexity that the Judge upon whom the sentence depends is Jesus
   Christ, the Savior of men!

   I feel perfectly safe in leaving the future of the wicked in such hands
   as His! And however terrible may be His own words--and they are
   terrible to the last degree--about the future of the lost, I, for one,
   can never quarrel with Him. If it were Moses that spoke, if he spoke
   for God, I dare not challenge him, yet there might be the temptation.
   But when He speaks who is the Son of Man, let all the earth keep
   silence before Him! The severity which He exercises must be inevitable
   severity--you can be sure of that. If there is pain, anguish and wrath
   to every soul of man that does evil, then, since it is the Christ who
   will pronounce it, it will be because it must be and cannot be helped,
   but must be so in the nature of things. Therefore we bow before this
   dreadful doctrine of Scripture and, instead of trying to quiet men in
   their sins, we know the terrors of the Lord and we beseech them, in
   Christ's stead, that they be reconciled to God--

   "You sinners, seek His face, Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
   shelter of His Cross And find salvation there." Fly into the clefts of
   that rock which otherwise will grind you to powder when it falls upon
   you!

   This doctrine, too, that Christ is Judge, ought never to be forgotten
   because it reflects great Glory upon Him. Ah, sons of men, you may
   despise Him, but He is your Master! You may say, "Let us break His
   bands asunder and cast His cords from us," but Jehovah's own decree has
   set Him as King upon His holy hill of Zion! You may, if you will, bite
   your lips and rage and rave against the Incarnate God, Jesus our Lord
   and King, but you shall stand before Him as surely as you live, to
   confess the blindness and the futility of your opposition and to be
   made to bow your knees in terror if you will not bend them, now, in
   reverence! Yes, He is King! The world may say what it wills and there
   may come darker times than these, but the lone star gleams afar with
   undying brightness--the Star of the morning which ushers in the eternal
   day! Jesus comes and when He comes, light breaks for all that are on
   His side--and the black and murky darkness of an endless night shall
   descend on all that are His foes.

   I close by noticing that the importance of this doctrine is very great
   if we remember its beneficial effect upon our everyday life. I
   constantly hear silly people, wicked persons, say, "Tell the people
   about something that has to do with today--about cleanliness and
   honesty and all that!" As if we did not do that and as if we were not
   the first to exhort men to fulfill all manner of social duties, do we
   not bid them think on whatever things are pure, honest, temperate and
   of good repute? And if I want men to live righteously, soberly and
   honestly, I know of no motive that can have greater weight with them
   than this of a judgment to come! Take that away from us and what have
   we to urge upon the sons of men at all? If they are to die like brutes,
   they will live like brutes! If there is no hereafter, they do well to
   say, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

   This, though it looks like a future thing, is one of the present-day
   questions of every hour. You are stewards--you will have to give your
   account. Your Lord will come and question you as to your use of His
   goods. Will anybody in his senses tell me that this is unpractical?
   Surely every reasonable man will admit that for the promotion of right,
   truth and holiness, this is one of the most practical considerations
   that can possibly be found. If God will judge men at the last, it
   behooves men to see how they live today. Another special benefit of
   this Truth of God is its convincing and awakening power. Men tremble
   when they hear of judgment to come and they are led to cry, "What must
   we do to be saved?" Men begin to confess their sins when they are told
   that the Law by which they will be judged is spiritual and reaches even
   to the thoughts and intents of the heart. "Then," they say, "who can
   stand before His Presence when once He is angry? If even to think an
   evil thought, or to lust an evil desire brings condemnation, who among
   us can stand when the heart-searching God shall sift the sons of men?"

   This is the reason why it ought to be preached, for only penitents
   convinced of sin are likely to accept the remission of sins. This is
   the plow which makes furrows for the good Seed! This is the surgeon's
   knife which prepares for the reception of the healing balm. And O, my
   Brothers and Sisters, you all know how quickening this doctrine is to
   Christians! We do not fear the Day of Judgment--we do not dread the
   thought of standing before our Lord Jesus because we have a plea which
   we know will answer every purpose! Our plea is this--we have been
   tried, condemned and punished already! Judge of all, You know when we
   were tried, judged and condemned! Look! In Your hands are the nail

   prints which are the witnesses that You bore our sins in Your own body
   on the tree! Look! On Your side You wear the ruby gem which tells how
   Your own heart made expiation for the guilt of all that trust in You!

   We are not afraid, for there is no judgment for him who is judged
   already! There is no punishment for him who is punished already in a
   Substitute whom God has accepted! Yet this expectation of judgment
   quickens us to holy duty-- we feel that since the Master comes, we
   would be as men that look for their Lord and stand with our loins
   girded, doing service, expecting to hear His footstep at any moment--

   "O watch and pray! The Judge is at the door!

   Before His flaming bar you soon must stand.

   O watch! And keep your garments spotless pure,

   And then shall you be found at His right hand." I shall be glad if any
   word that I have spoken upon this Truth of God shall strike and stick
   and abide in your hearts-- and make those think who have been most
   thoughtless concerning the world to come. Years ago a gentlewoman had
   been spending an afternoon at cards and the evening at a ball and
   such-like amusements. She came home very late and found that her maid,
   who was sitting up waiting for her, was reading a book. "Ah," she said,
   "are you still poring over your dull books? They make you moping and
   melancholy."

   The lady retired to her chamber but she couldn't sleep. In the night
   she was troubled and fell a-weeping. Sleep forsook her. She tossed to
   and fro and at length she called her maid, who asked, "Madam, what ails
   you? I thought I left you very merry and well." "Oh," she said, "but I
   looked over your book and I only saw one word and that word stings me.
   I cannot sleep. I cannot bear it!" "What word was it, Madam?" "It was
   that word, 'ETERNITY.' Oh, Maid," she said, "it is very well for me to
   sport and play and waste my time as I have done, but oh, eternity,
   eternity, eternity! How can I face eternity?"

   And so that night was turned to weeping and to prayer. I could wish the
   same might happen, now, to many of you. The Judge is at the door! Jesus
   comes to judge you--will you have Him, now, to be your Savior? If not,
   His coming will cause you to weep and wail--and that throughout
   eternity! Remember that word, ETERNITY. God bless you all. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus Admired In Them That Believe

   (No. 1477)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 1, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in
   all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in
   that day." 2 Thessalonians 1:10.

   WHAT a difference between the first and second comings of our Lord!
   When He shall come a second time it will be to be glorified and
   admired, but when He came the first time it was to be despised and
   rejected of men. He comes a second time to reign with unexampled
   splendor, but the first time He came to die in circumstances of shame
   and sorrow. Lift up your eyes, you sons of Light, and anticipate the
   change which will be as great for you as for your Lord--for now you are
   hidden even as He was hidden and misunderstood even as He was
   misunderstood when He walked among the sons of men! "We know that when
   He shall appear, we shall be like He; for we shall see Him as He is."
   His manifestation will be our manifestation and in the day in which He
   is revealed in Glory, then shall His saints be glorified with Him.

   Observe that our Lord is spoken of as coming in His Glory and as, at
   the same time, taking vengeance in flaming fire on them that know not
   God and that obey not the Gospel. This is a note of great terror to all
   those who are ignorant of God and wickedly unbelieving concerning His
   Christ. Let them take heed, for the Lord will gain Glory by the
   overthrow of His enemies and those who would not bow before Him
   cheerfully shall be compelled to bow before Him abjectly. They shall
   crouch at His feet! They will lick the dust in terror and at the glance
   of His eyes they shall utterly wither away! As it is written, they
   "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the Presence of
   the Lord and from the Glory of His power."

   But this is not the main objective for which Christ will come, nor is
   this the matter in which He finds His chief Glory, for, observe, He
   does this, as it were, by the way when He comes for another purpose. To
   destroy the wicked is a matter of necessity in which His spirit takes
   no delight, for He does this, according to the text, not so much when
   He comes to do it as when He shall come with another objective, namely,
   "To be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in them that
   believe." The crowning honor of Christ will be seen in His people and
   this is the design with which He will return to this earth in the
   latter days--that He may be illustrious in His saints and exceedingly
   magnified in them.

   Even now His saints glorify Him. When they walk in holiness they do, as
   it were, reflect His light. Their holy deeds are beams from Him who is
   the Sun of Righteousness. When they believe in Him they also glorify
   Him, for there is no Grace which pays lowlier homage at the Throne of
   Jesus than the Grace of faith whereby we trust Him and so confess Him
   to be our All in All. We glorify our gracious Lord, but, beloved
   Brethren, we must all confess that we do not do this as we could
   desire, for, alas, too often we dishonor Him and grieve His Holy
   Spirit. By our lack of zeal and by our many sins we are guilty of
   discrediting His Gospel and dishonoring His name.

   Happy, happy, happy day when this shall no more be possible--when we
   shall be rid of the inward corruption which now works itself into
   outward sin! Happy day when we shall never dishonor Christ again but
   shall shine with a clear, pure radiance like the moon on the Passover
   night when it looks the sun full in the face and then shines upon the
   earth at her best. Today we are like vessels on the wheel half
   fashioned, yet even now, somewhat of His Divine skill is seen in us as
   His handiwork. Still the unformed clay is only in part seen and much
   remains to be done. How much more of the great Potter's creating wisdom
   and sanctifying power will be displayed when we shall be the perfect
   products of His hand! In the bud and germ our new nature brings honor
   to its Author, but it will do far more when its perfection manifests
   the Finisher.

   Then shall Jesus be glorified and admired in every one of us when the
   days of the new creation are ended and God shall usher in the eternal
   Sabbath by pronouncing His Grace-work to be very good. This morning, as
   God shall help me,

   I shall speak, first, of the special glorification of Christ here
   intended. And, secondly, I shall conclude the sermon by calling your
   attention to the special considerations which this grand Truth of God
   suggests.

   I. Let us consider carefully THE SPECIAL GLORIFICATION HERE INTENDED.
   And the first point to note is the time. The text says, "When He shall
   come to be glorified in His saints." The full glorification of Christ
   in His saints will be when He shall come a second time according to the
   sure word of prophecy. He is glorified in them now, for He says, "All
   Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them." But as
   yet that Glory is perceptible to Himself rather than to the outer
   world. The lamps are being trimmed--they will shine before long. These
   are the days of preparation before that Sabbath which is, in an
   infinite sense, a high day.

   As it was said of Esther, that for so many months she prepared herself
   with myrrh and sweet odors before she entered the king's palace to be
   espoused of him, even so are we now being purified and made ready for
   that august day when the perfected Church shall be presented unto
   Christ as a bride unto her husband! John says of her that she shall be
   "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This is our night
   wherein we must watch, but behold, the morning comes--a morning without
   clouds--and then shall we walk in a seven-fold light because our
   Well-Beloved has come! That second advent of His will be His
   revelation--he was under a cloud here and men perceived Him not, save
   only a few who beheld His Glory--but when He comes a second time, all
   veils will be removed and every eye shall see the Glory of His
   Countenance. For this He waits and His Church waits with Him. We know
   not when the set time shall arrive, but every hour is bringing it
   nearer to us and, therefore, let us stand with loins girt, awaiting it.

   Note, secondly, in whom this glorification of Christ is to be found.
   The text does not say He will be glorified "by" His saints, but "in His
   saints." There is a shade of difference, yes, more than a shade,
   between the two terms! We endeavor to glorify Him, now, by our actions,
   but then He will be glorified in our own persons, character and
   condition. He is glorified by what we do, but He is, at the last, to be
   glorified in what we are. Who are these in whom Jesus is to be
   glorified and admired? They are spoken of under two descriptions--"in
   His saints," and, "in all them that believe." In, "His saints" first.
   All those in whom Christ will be glorified are described as holy ones,
   or saints--men and women who have been sanctified, made pure and whose
   gracious lives show that they have been under the teaching of the Holy
   Spirit. Their obedient actions prove that they are disciples of a Holy
   Master, even of Him who was "holy, harmless, undefiled and separate
   from sinners."

   But, inasmuch as these saints are also said to be Believers, I gather
   that the holiness which will honor Christ at the last is a holiness
   based on faith in Him. It is a holiness of which this was the
   root--that they first trusted in Christ and then, being saved, they
   loved their Lord and obeyed Him. Their faith worked by love and
   purified their souls and so cleansed their lives. It is an inner as
   well as an outer purity arising out of the living and operative
   principle of faith. If any think that they can attain to holiness apart
   from faith in Christ they are as much mistaken as he who should hope to
   reap a harvest without casting seed into the furrows! Faith is the bulb
   and saintship is the delightfully fragrant flower which comes of it
   when planted in the soil of a renewed heart.

   Beware, I pray you, of any pretense to a holiness arising out of
   yourselves and maintained by the energy of your own unaided wills--as
   well look to gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles! True
   saintship must spring from confidence in the Savior of sinners and, if
   it does not, it is lacking in the first elements of truth. How can that
   be a perfect character which finds its basis in self-esteem? How could
   Christ be glorified by saints who refuse to trust in Him? I would call
   your attention, once again, to the second description, "All them that
   believe." This is enlarged by the hint that they are believers in a
   certain testimony according to the bracketed sentence--"because our
   testimony among you was believed."

   Now, the testimony of the Apostles was concerning Christ. They saw Him
   in the body and they bore witness that He was "God manifest in the
   flesh." They saw His holy life and they bore witness to it. They saw
   His death of grief and they witnessed that "God was in Christ
   reconciling the world unto Himself." They saw Him risen from the dead
   and they said, "We are witnesses of His Resurrection." They saw Him
   rise into Heaven and they bore witness that God had taken Him up to His
   right hand. Now, all that believe this witness are saved. "If you shall
   confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart
   that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." All who,
   with a simple faith, come and cast themselves upon the Incarnate God,
   living and dying for men and always sitting at the right hand of God to
   make intercession for them--these are the people in whom Christ will be
   glorified and admired at the Last Great Day.

   But inasmuch as they are first said to be saints, be it never forgotten
   that this faith must be a living faith--a faith which produces a hatred
   of sin, a faith which renews the character and shapes the life after
   the noble model of Christ-- thus turning sinners into saints. The two
   descriptions must not be violently rent asunder. You must not say that
   the favored people are sanctified without remembering that they are
   justified by faith! Nor may you say that they are justified by faith
   without remembering that without holiness no man shall see the Lord! So
   at the last, the people in whom Christ will be admired will be those
   holy ones who were saved by faith in Him.

   So far, then, we see our way, but now a question arises--by whom will
   Christ be thus glorified and admired? He shines in His people, but who
   will see the Glory? I answer first, that His people will see it. Every
   saint will glorify Christ in himself and admire Christ in himself. He
   will say, "What a wonder that such a poor creature as I am should be
   thus perfected! How glorious is my Lord who has worked this miracle
   upon me!" Surely our consciousness of having been cleansed and made
   holy will cause us to fulfill those words of John Berridge which we
   sang just now--

   "He cheers them with an eternal smile, They sing hosannas all the
   while. Or, overwhelmed with rapture sweet, Sink down adoring at His
   feet." This I know, that when I personally enter Heaven I shall forever
   admire and adore the everlasting love which brought me there! Yes, we
   will all glorify and admire our Savior for what He has worked in us by
   His infinite Grace.

   The saints will also admire Christ in one another. As I shall see you
   and you shall see your Brothers and Sisters in Christ all perfect, you
   will be filled with wonderment, gratitude and delight! You will be free
   from all envy and, therefore, you will rejoice in all the beauty of
   your fellow saints--their Heaven will be a Heaven to you--and what a
   multitude of Heavens you will have as you will joy in the joy of all
   the redeemed! We shall as much admire the Lord's handiwork in others as
   in ourselves and shall, each one, praise Him for saving all the rest!
   You will see your Lord in all your Brethren and this will make you
   praise and adore Him world without end with a perpetual amazement of
   evergrowing delight.

   But that will not be all. Besides the blood-bought and ransomed of
   Christ, there will be on that great day of His coming all the holy
   angels to stand by and look on and wonder. They marveled much when
   first He stooped from Heaven to earth and they desired to look into
   those things which, then, were a mystery to them. But when they shall
   see their beloved Prince come back with ten thousand times ten thousand
   of the ransomed at His feet--all of them made perfect by having washed
   their robes and made them white in His blood--how the principalities
   and powers will admire Him in every one of His redeemed! How they will
   praise that conquering arm which has brought home all these spoils from
   the war! How will the hosts of Heaven shout His praises as they see Him
   lead all these captives captive with a new captivity in chains of love,
   joyfully gracing His triumph and showing forth the completeness of His
   victory!

   We do not know what other races of innocent creatures there may be, but
   I think it is no stretch of the imagination to believe that as this
   world is only one speck in the creation of God, there may be millions
   of other races in the countless worlds around us--and all these may be
   invited to behold the wonders of redeeming love as manifested in the
   saints in the day of the Lord! I seem to see these unfallen
   intelligences encompassing the saints as a cloud of witnesses and in
   rapt vision beholding in them the love and Grace of the redeeming Lord.

   What songs! What shouts shall rise from all these to the praise of the
   ever-blessed God! What an orchestra of praise will the universe become!
   From star to star the holy hymn shall roll till all space shall ring
   out the hosannas of wondering spirits. "The Wonderful, The Counselor,
   The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," shall
   have brought home all that men wondered at and they, with Himself,
   shall be the wonder of eternity! Then shall Satan and his defeated
   legions and the lost spirits of ungodly men bite their lips with envy
   and rage and tremble at the majesty of Jesus in that day! By their
   confessed defeat and manifest despair, they shall glorify Him in His
   people in whom they have been utterly overthrown!

   They shall see that there is not one lost whom He redeemed by blood;
   not one snatched away of all the sheep His Father gave Him; not one
   warrior enlisted beneath His banner fallen in the day of battle, but
   all more than conquerors through Him that loved them! What despair
   shall seize upon diabolic spirits as they discover their total defeat!
   Defeated in men who were once their slaves! Poor dupes whom they could
   so easily beguile by their craftiness--defeated even in these! Jesus,
   triumphant by taking the lambs from between the lion's jaws and
   rescuing His feeble sheep from their power,

   will utterly put them to shame in His redeemed! With what anguish will
   they sink into the Hell prepared for them because now they hear with
   anger all earth and Heaven and every star ringing with the
   shout--Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent
   reigns and the Lamb has conquered by His blood!

   You see, then, that there are enough spectators to magnify Christ in
   His saints and so, fourthly, let us inquire in what degree will the
   Lord Jesus be glorified? Our answer is it will be to the very highest
   degree. He shall come to be glorified in His saints to the utmost, for
   this is clear from the words, "to be admired." When our translation was
   made, the word, "admired," had, to ordinary Englishmen, a stronger
   flavor of wonder than it has to us now. We often speak of admiring a
   thing in the softer sense of loving it, but the real meaning of the
   English word and of the Greek, also, is wonder--our Lord will be
   wondered at in all them that believe!

   Those who look upon the saints will feel a sudden wonderment of sacred
   delight. They will be startled with the surprising Glory of the Lord's
   work in them. "We thought He would do great things, but this! This
   surpasses conception!" Every saint will be a wonder to himself. "I
   thought my bliss would be great, but not like this!" All His Brothers
   and Sisters will be a wonder to the perfected Believer. He will say, "I
   thought the saints would be perfect, but I never imagined such a
   transfiguration of excessive glory would be put upon each of them! I
   could not have imagined my Lord to be so good and gracious."

   The angels in Heaven will say that they never anticipated such deeds of
   Grace--they knew that He had undertaken a great work--but they did not
   know that He would do so much for His people and in His people. The
   first-born sons of light, used to great marvels from of old, will be
   entranced with a new wonder as they see the handiwork of Immanuel's
   free Grace and dying love! The men who once despised the saints, who
   called them canting hypocrites and trampled on them and perhaps slew
   them--the kings and princes of the earth who sold the righteous for a
   pair of shoes--what will they say when they see the least of the
   Savior's followers become a prince of more illustrious rank than the
   great ones of the earth and Christ shining out in every one of these
   favored beings? For their uplifting Jesus will be wondered at by those
   who once despised both Him and them!

   My next point leads us into the very heart of the subject--in what
   respects will Christ be glorified and wondered at? I cannot expect to
   tell you one tenth part of it! I am only going to give you a little
   sample of what this must mean-- exhaustive exposition were quite
   impossible to me. I think with regard to His saints that Jesus will be
   glorified and wondered at on account of their number--"a number that no
   man can number." John was a great arithmetician and he managed to count
   up to 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel. But that was
   only a representative number for the Jewish Church. As for the Church
   of God, comprehending the Gentile nations, he gave up all idea of
   computation and confessed that it is "a number which no man can
   number." When he heard them sing, he says, "I heard a voice like the
   voice of many waters and like great thunder."

   There were so many of them that their song was like the Mediterranean
   sea lashed to fury by a tempest--no, not one great sea in uproar, but
   ocean upon ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific piled upon each other,
   and the Arctic upon these, and other oceans upon these, layers of
   oceans--all thundering out their mightiest roar! And such will be the
   song of the redeemed, for the crowds which swell the matchless hymn
   will be beyond all reckoning! Behold, you who laughed at His kingdom!
   Look how the little one has become a thousand! Now look, you foes of
   Christ who saw the handful of corn on the top of the mountains--see how
   the fruit shakes like Lebanon and they of the city do flourish like
   grass of the earth!

   Who can reckon the drops of the dew or the sands on the seashore? When
   they have counted these, then shall they not have guessed at the
   multitude of the redeemed that Christ shall bring to Glory! And all
   this harvest from one grain of wheat, which, unless it had fallen into
   the ground and died, would have remained alone! What said the Word? "If
   it dies, it shall bring forth much fruit." Is not the prophecy
   fulfilled? Oh Beloved, what a harvest from the lone Man of Nazareth!
   What fruit from that glorious Man--the Branch! Men esteemed Him
   stricken, smitten of God and afflicted-- and they made nothing of
   Him--and yet there sprang of Him (and He as good as dead) these
   multitudes which are as many as the stars of Heaven! Is He not
   glorified and wondered at in them? The day shall declare it without
   fail.

   But there is quality as well as quantity. He is admired in His saints
   because they are, every one of them, proofs of His power to save from
   evil. My eyes can hardly bear, even though it is but in imagination, to
   gaze upon the glittering ranks of the white-robed ones where each one
   outshines the sun--and they are all as if a seven-fold midday had
   clothed them! Yet all these, as I look at them, tell me, "We have
   washed our robes--for they were once defiled. We have made them

   white--but this whiteness is caused by the blood of the Lamb." These
   were heirs of wrath even as others! These were dead in trespasses and
   sins! All these, like sheep, had gone astray and turned, everyone to
   his own ways! But look at them and see how He has saved them, washed
   them, cleansed them, perfected them! His power and Grace are seen in
   all of them.

   If your eyes will pause here and there, you will discover some that
   were supremely stubborn--whose neck was as an iron sinew--and yet He
   conquered them by love! Some were densely ignorant, but He opened their
   blind eyes! Some grossly infected with the leprosy of lust, but He
   healed them! Some under Satan's most terrible power, but He cast the
   devil out of them! Oh, how He will be glorified in special cases! In
   you drunks made into saints! In you blasphemers turned into loving
   disciples! In you persecutors who breathed out threats, taught to sing
   everlastingly hymns of praise! He will be exceedingly glorified in
   such!

   Brothers and Sisters, beloved in the Lord, in each one of us there was
   some special difficulty as to our salvation-- some impossibility which
   was possible with God though it would have been forever impossible with
   us. Remember, also, that all those saints made perfect would have been
   in Hell had it not been for the Son's atoning Sacrifice. This they will
   remember more vividly because they will see other men condemned for the
   sins with which they, also, were once polluted! The crash of vengeance
   upon the ungodly will make the saints magnify the Lord the more as they
   see themselves delivered! They will each feel--

   "Oh were it not for Grace Divine, That fate so dreadful had been mine."

   In each one, the memory of the horrible pit where they were drawn and
   the miry clay out of which they were lifted shall make their Savior
   more glorified and wondered at.

   Perhaps the chief point in which Christ will be glorified will be the
   absolute perfection of all the saints. They shall then be "without spot
   or wrinkle or any such thing." We have not experienced what perfection
   is and, therefore, we can hardly conceive it. Our thoughts are too
   sinful for us to get a full idea of what absolute perfection must be,
   but, dear Brethren, we shall have no sin left in us, for they are,
   "without fault before the Throne of God" and we shall have no remaining
   propensity to sin. There shall be no bias in the will towards that
   which is evil--it shall be fixed forever upon that which is good. The
   affections will never be wanton again--they will be chaste for Christ.
   The understanding will never make mistakes. You shall never put bitter
   for sweet, nor sweet for bitter. You shall be "perfect, even as your
   Father which is in Heaven is perfect."

   And truly, Brothers and Sisters, He who works this in us will be a
   wonder! Christ will be admired and adored because of this grand result.
   O mighty Master, with what strange moral alchemy did You work to turn
   that morose dispositioned man into a mass of love! How did You work to
   lift that selfish Mammonite up from his hoarded gains to make him find
   his gain in You? How did You overcome that proud spirit, that fickle
   spirit, that lazy spirit, that lustful spirit--how did You contrive to
   take all these away? How did You extirpate the very roots of sin and
   every little rootlet of sin out of your redeemed so that not a tiny
   fiber can be found? "The sins of Jacob shall be sought for and they
   shall not be found, yes, they shall not be, says the Lord." Neither the
   guilt of sin nor the propensity to sin--both shall be gone-- and Christ
   shall have done it and He will be "glorified in His saints, and admired
   in them that believe."

   This is but the beginning, however. There will be seen in every saint,
   in that last wondrous day, the wisdom and power and love of Christ in
   having brought them through all the trials of the way. He kept their
   faith alive when otherwise it would have died out. He sustained them
   under trials when they would have fainted. He held them fast in their
   integrity when temptation solicited them and they had almost slipped
   with their feet. Yes, He sustained some of them in prison, on the rack,
   at the stake and still kept them faithful! One might hardly wish to be
   a martyr, but I reckon that the martyrs will be the admiration of us
   all, or rather Christ will be admired in them. However they could bear
   such pain as some of them did for Christ's sake, none of us can guess,
   except that we know that Christ was in them suffering in His members.
   Eternally will Jesus be wondered at in them as all intelligent spirits
   shall see how He upheld them so that neither tribulation, nor distress,
   nor nakedness, nor famine, nor sword could separate them from His love!

   These are the men that wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
   destitute, afflicted, tormented--of whom the world was not worthy--but
   now they stand arrayed as kings and priests in surpassing glory
   forever! Verily, their Lord shall be admired in them! Don't you agree?
   Recollect, dear Friends, that we shall see, in that day, how the
   blessed Christ, as "Head over all things to His Church," has ruled
   every Providence to the sanctification of His people. We then will

   understand how the dark days begat showers which made the plants of the
   Lord to grow; how the fierce sun which threatened to scorch them to the
   root filled them with warmth of Divine love and ripened their choice
   fruit.

   What a tale the saints will have to tell of how that which threatened
   to dampen the fire of Grace made it burn more mightily; how the stones
   which threatened to kill their faith was turned into bread for them;
   how the rod and staff of the Good Shepherd was always with them to
   bring them safely home! I have sometimes thought that if I get into
   Heaven by the skin of my teeth I will sit down on the Glory Shore and
   bless Him forever who, on a board, or on a broken piece of the ship,
   brought my soul safely to land! And surely they who obtain an abundant
   entrance, coming into the fair havens, like a ship in full sail without
   danger of shipwreck, will have to praise the Lord that they thus came
   into the blessed Port of Peace! In each case the Lord will be specially
   glorified and admired.

   I cannot stop over this, but I must beg you to notice that as a king is
   glorious in his regalia, so will Christ put on His saints as His
   personal splendor in that day when He shall make up His jewels. It is
   with Christ as it was with that noble Roman matron who, when she called
   at her friends' houses and saw their trinkets, asked them to come next
   day to her house and she would exhibit her jewels. They expected to see
   rubies, pearls and diamonds, but she called in her two boys and said,
   "These are my jewels." Even so will Jesus, instead of emeralds,
   amethyst, onyx and topaz, exhibit His saints! "These are My choice
   treasures," He says, "in whom I will be glorified."

   Solomon surely was never more full of glory than when he had finished
   the temple--when all the tribes came together to see the noble
   structure and confessed it to be "beautiful for situation, the joy of
   the whole earth." But what will be the Glory of Christ when all the
   living stones shall be put into their places and His Church shall have
   her windows of agates and her gates of carbuncle and all her borders of
   precious stones? Then, indeed, will He be glorified, when the 12
   foundations of His new Jerusalem shall be courses of stones most
   precious, the likes of which was never seen!

   Now, inasmuch as my text lays special stress upon believing, I invite
   you, just for a minute, to consider how as Believers as well as saints,
   the saved ones will glorify their Lord. First, it will be wonderful
   that there should be so many brought to faith in Him--men with no God
   and men with many gods; men steeped in ignorance and men puffed up with
   carnal wisdom; great men and poor men--all brought to believe in the
   one Redeemer and praise Him for His great salvation! Will He not be
   glorified in their common faith? It will magnify Him that these will
   all be saved by faith and not by their own merits. Not one among them
   will boast that he was saved by his own good works, but all of them
   will rejoice to have been saved by that blessedly simple way of
   "Believe and live."

   They will all praise God they were saved by Sovereign Grace through the
   atoning blood--looked to by the tearful eye of simple faith! This, too,
   shall make Jesus glorious, that all of them, weak as they were, were
   made strong by faith; all of them personally unfit for battle were yet
   made triumphant in conflict because by faith they overcame through the
   blood of the Lamb! All of them shall be there to show that their faith
   was honored, that Christ was faithful to His promise and never allowed
   them to believe in vain. All of them standing in heavenly places, saved
   by faith, will ascribe every particle of the Glory to the Lord Jesus
   only--

   "I ask them where their victory came? They, with united breath, Ascribe
   their conquest to the Lamb, Their triumph to His death."

   They believed and were saved, but faith takes no credit to itself--it
   is a self-denying Divine Grace--and puts the crown upon the head of
   Christ and, therefore, is it written that He will be glorified in His
   saints and He will also be admired in all them that believe.

   I have scarcely skirted the subject, even now, and time is falling me.
   I want you to reflect that Jesus will be glorified in the risen bodies
   of all His saints. Now, in Heaven they are pure spirits, but when He
   shall come, they shall be clothed again. Poor body, you must sleep
   awhile, but what you shall be at your awaking does not yet appear. You
   are now the shriveled seed, but there is a flower to come of you which
   shall be lovely beyond all thought! Though sown in weakness, this body
   shall be raised in power! Though sown in corruption, it shall be raised
   in incorruption! Weakness, weariness, pain and death will be banished
   forever! Infirmity and deformity will be all unknown! The Lord will
   raise up our bodies to be like unto His glorious body! Oh, what a
   prospect lies before us!

   Let us remember that this blessed resurrection will come to us because
   He rose, for there must be a resurrection to the members because the
   Head has risen. Oh, the charm of being a risen man, perfect in body,
   soul and spirit! All that charm

   will be due to Christ and, therefore, He will be admired in us. Then
   let us think of the absolute perfection of the Church as to
   numbers--all who have believed in Him will be with Him in Glory. The
   text says He will be "admired in all them that believe." Now, if some
   of those who believe perished, He would not be admired in them--but
   they will all be there, the little ones as well as the great ones.

   You will be there, you poor feeble folk who, when you say, "Lord, I
   believe," are obliged to add, "help You my unbelief." He shall be
   admired in all Believers without a single exception and, perhaps, there
   shall be more wonder at the going to Heaven of the weak Believers than
   at the stronger ones. Mr. Greatheart, when he comes there, will owe his
   victories to his Master and lay his laurels at His feet. But fainting
   Feeblemind and limping Ready-to-Halt with his crutches, and trembling
   Little-Faith--when they enter into rest, will make Heaven ring with
   notes of even greater admiration that such poor creeping worms of the
   earth should win the day by mighty Grace! Suppose that one of them
   should be missing at the last? Stop the harps! Silence the songs! No
   beginning to be merry while one child is shut out! I am quite certain
   if, as a family, we were going to sing our evening hymn of joy and
   thankfulness, if mother said, "Where is the little mite? Where is the
   last one of the family?" There would be a pause. If we had to say--she
   is lost--there would be no singing and no resting till she was found!

   It is the Glory of Jesus that as a Shepherd He has lost none of His
   flock! As the Captain of salvation, He has brought many sons to Glory
   and has lost none--and hence He is admired, not in some that believe,
   nor yet in all but one--but He is "admired in all them that believe."
   Does not this delight you, you who are weak and trembling, that He will
   be admired in you? There is little to admire in you at present, as you
   penitently confess, but since Christ is in you now and will be more
   fully manifested in you, there will be, before long, much to admire!
   May you partake in the excellence of our Divine Lord and be conformed
   to His likeness that He may be seen in you and glorified in you.

   Another point of admiration will be the eternal safety of all His
   believing people. There they are safe from fear of harm. You dogs of
   Hell, you howled at their heels and hoped to devour them but, lo, they
   are clean escaped from you! What must it be to be lifted above gunshot
   of the enemy where no more watch shall need to be kept, for even the
   roar of the Satanic artillery cannot be heard? Oh glorious Christ, to
   bring them all to such a state of safety, You are, indeed, to be
   wondered at forever! Moreover, all the saints will be so honored, so
   happy and so like their Lord that everything about them will be themes
   for never-ending admiration!

   You may have seen a room hung round with mirrors and when you stood in
   the midst you were reflected from every point--you were seen here and
   seen there and there again and there again--and so every part of you
   was reflected. Just such is Heaven! Jesus is the Center and all His
   saints, like mirrors, reflect His Glory. Is He human? So are they! Is
   He the Son of God? So are they sons of God! Is He perfect? So are they!
   Is He exalted? So are they! Is He a Prophet? So are they, making known
   unto principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God! Is He a
   Priest? So are they! Is He a King? So are they, for He has made us
   priests and kings unto God and we shall reign forever and ever! Look
   where you will along the ranks of the redeemed, this one thing shall be
   seen--the Glory of Christ Jesus, even to surprise and wonder!

   II. I have no time to make those SUGGESTIONS with which I intended to
   have finished and so I will just tell you what they would have been.
   First, the text suggests that the principal subject for
   self-examination with us all should be--Am I a saint? Am I holy? Am I a
   believer in Christ? Yes or no?--for on that yes or no must hang your
   glorification by Christ, or your banishment from His Presence. The next
   thing is--observe the small value of human opinion. When Christ was
   here the world reckoned Him to be a nobody and while His people are
   here they must expect to be judged in the same way!

   What do worldlings know about it? How soon will their judgment be
   reversed? When our Lord shall appear, even those who sneered will be
   compelled to admire. When they shall see the Glory of Christ in every
   one of His people, awe-stricken, they will have nothing to say against
   us--no, not even the false tongue of malicious slander shall dare to
   hiss out a serpent word in that day! Never mind them, then. Put up with
   reproach which shall so soon be silenced. The next suggestion is a
   great encouragement to enquirers who are seeking Christ, for I put it
   to you, you great sinners--if Jesus is to be glorified in saved
   sinners, would He not be glorified, indeed, if He saved you? If He were
   ever to save such a rebel as you have been, would it not be the
   astonishment of eternity?

   I mean you who are known in the village as Wicked Jack, or known as a
   common swearer--what if my Master were to make a saint of you! Bad raw
   material? Yet suppose He transformed you into a precious jewel and made
   you to be as

   holy as God is holy--what would you say of Him? "Say of Him," you say,
   "I would praise Him world without end!" Yes, and you shall do so if you
   will come and trust Him! Put your trust in Him! The Lord help you to do
   so at once and He shall be admired even in you forever and ever!

   Our text also gives an exhortation to Believers. Will Jesus Christ be
   honored and glorified in all the saints? Then let us think well of them
   all and love them all. Some dear children of God have uncomely bodies,
   or they are blind or deformed, or maimed. And many of these have scanty
   purses and it may be the Church knows most of them as coming for alms.
   Moreover, they have little knowledge, little power to please. And they
   are uncouth in manners and belong to what are called the lowest ranks
   of society--do not, therefore, despise them--for one day our Lord will
   be glorified in them! How He will be admired in yonder poor bedridden
   woman when she rises from the workhouse to sing hallelujah to God and
   the Lamb among the brightest of the shining ones! Why, I think the
   pain, the poverty, the weakness and the sorrow of saints below will
   greatly glorify the Captain of their salvation as they tell how Divine
   Grace helped them to bear their burdens and to rejoice under their
   afflictions!

   Lastly, Brothers and Sisters, this text ought to encourage all of you
   who love Jesus to go on talking about Him to others and bearing your
   testimony for His name. You see how the Apostle Paul has inserted a few
   words by way of parenthesis? Draw the words out of the brackets and
   take them home, "Because our testimony among you was believed." Do you
   see those crowds of idolatrous heathens and do you see those hosts of
   saved ones before the Throne of God? What is the medium which linked
   the two characters? By what visible means did the sinners become
   saints? Do you see that insignificant looking man with weak eyes? That
   man whose bodily presence is weak and whose speech is contemptible? Do
   you not see his bodkin and needle case? He has been making and mending
   tents, for he is only a tent-maker.

   Now, those bright spirits which shine like suns, flashing forth
   Christ's Glory, were made thus bright through the addresses and prayers
   of that tent-maker! The Thessalonians were heathens plunged in sin and
   this poor tent-maker came in among them and told them of Jesus Christ
   and His Gospel! His testimony was believed, by God's Grace, and that
   belief changed the lives of his hearers and made them holy--and they,
   being renewed, came at last to be perfectly holy and there they
   are--and Jesus Christ is glorified in them!

   Beloved, will it not be a delightful thing throughout eternity to
   contemplate that you went into your Sunday school class this afternoon
   and you were afraid you could not say much, but you talked about Jesus
   Christ with a tear in your eyes and you brought a dear girl to believe
   in His saving name through your testimony? In years to come that girl
   will be among those that shine out to the Glory of Christ forever! Or
   you will get away this evening, perhaps, to talk in a lodging house to
   some of those poor, despised tramps. You will go and tell one of those
   poor vagrants, or one of the fallen women, the story of your Lord's
   love and blood--and the poor broken heart will catch at the gracious
   Words of God and come to Jesus--and then a heavenly character will be
   begun and another jewel secured for the Redeemer's diadem!

   I think you will admire His crown all the more because, as you see
   certain stones sparkling in it, you will say, "Blessed be His name
   forever! He helped me to dive into the sea and find that pearl for Him
   and now it adorns His sacred brow!" Now, get at it, all of you! You
   that are doing nothing for Jesus, be ashamed of yourselves and ask Him
   to work in you that you may begin to work for Him! And unto God shall
   be the Glory, forever and ever. Amen and amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Thessalonians 1:11. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--92, 873, 861.
     __________________________________________________________________

Greater Things Yet Who Shall See Them?

   (No. 1478)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 8, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto you, I saw you
   under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than
   these. And He said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Henceforth
   you shall see Heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
   descending upon the Son of Man." John 1:50,51.

   WE cannot help making a few remarks upon the narrative before we
   proceed to the distinct subject of discourse. Certain catch words are
   exceedingly worthy of notice since they are abundantly full of
   instruction. When Nathanael had doubts as to whether the Messiah could
   come from Nazareth, Philip answered Him, "Come and see." Now, those
   were the precise words which the Lord Jesus had Himself used to His
   earliest disciples when they began to follow Him--He said to them,
   "Come and see." It is always safe for us to use over again words which
   God has blessed. Did the Master say, "Come and see"? Then we cannot do
   better than say what Jesus said and use, as near as possible, the
   Inspired expressions.

   Was that short sentence, "Come and see," made useful to other souls?
   Then those who would win souls cannot do better than use such Gospel
   nets as have been tried and proven efficient in their own cases. Let
   none of us say that we cannot speak to others about their souls. There
   was one passage of Scripture which was the means of our conversion and
   we cannot do better than repeat it in hearty tones to others, hoping
   that what God has blessed to us, He may bless to others. Short as were
   the inviting words, "Come and see," it was full of wisdom. Our Lord
   knows the philosophy of the human mind and understands how best to
   produce faith in doubting hearts. "Come and see" is the sure cure for
   unbelief.

   Some would tell doubters to sit down and think and create faith by
   reflecting on the nature of things. We may long consider the state of
   man and the condition of our own nature before we shall thereby be
   enlightened as to the way of salvation. If we would judge of Christ we
   must consider Christ, Himself. He is His own best argument! The cobweb
   spinnings of conceited brains are easily broken through, but the facts,
   the indisputable facts of the Savior's life and death hold the
   understanding and the heart as with iron bands. As our Savior said and
   as His servant, Philip, said, even so say we to all who would know
   Christ, "Come and see"!

   Be not blinded by prejudices or misled by preconceptions, but read His
   story for yourselves. Seek His face for yourselves and taste and see
   that the Lord is good! Personal communion with Jesus is still the best
   evidence of His personal excellence and His power to save. Brothers and
   Sisters, have you any doubts about the Master? "Come and see." Do you
   say within yourself, "Can He save such an one as I am?" "Come and see."
   Do your sins cast you down and cause you to despair because you fear
   that even the Redeemer's blood cannot cleanse you? "Come and see." See
   Him as the Son of God and the Son of Man! See Him in His life of
   holiness and in His death of substitution! Or see Him, if you will, up
   yonder at the right hand of God, making intercession for sinners!

   And as you are looking upon Him, faith will steal in upon you through
   the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the mind's eye that must look and
   by that look, repentance and faith find entrance to the soul. "Come and
   see," for nothing will save a man but a personal sight of a personal
   Savior. Therefore, "Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of
   the world." The Lord Himself says, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
   the ends of the earth." Our Lord Jesus Christ seems to have so approved
   of the advice of Philip that He, Himself, followed it up and kept to
   the same form of expression.

   Did Philip say, "Come and see"? Then the Lord Jesus says, "Before
   Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you: you
   have come to see Me, but I have already seen you: there has been an
   antecedent look on My part: I saw you before you did know anything
   about Me, or had even heard of Me from Philip." Nor does our Lord
   change His note even to the end of the conversation, but closes it by
   saying, "Because I said unto you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you

   believe? You shall see greater things than these." There, you see, is
   the great plan of salvation as it is worked in us! First the Savior
   sees us, even when we are a great way off. Then we come and see and our
   hearts find rest in our Redeemer. And then, in later days, He gives us
   yet brighter and clearer views of Himself and of His Kingdom!

   Oh, who would not come and see if this is so? If at our first coming
   and seeing we find life and rest, what must those still greater things
   be which are yet to be revealed? All that faith has yet discovered is
   but a foretaste and an earnest of more glorious sights which shall yet
   be opened up before our favored eyes, for Jesus Himself says, "You
   shall see greater things than these."

   Other parts of the conversation are equally worthy of notice, as
   showing how fully the mind of the childlike Nathanael and the holy
   Child Jesus responded to each other, as all true and childlike minds
   always do. Our Lord, as soon as He saw Nathanael, called him, "an
   Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile." Jesus knew his simple, frank,
   open-hearted character and he produced an example of it, for Nathanael
   did not blush with mock modesty and pretend to question the praise, but
   in the simplest and most unaffected manner, he tacitly admitted the
   description to be true and said, "From where do You know me?" He felt
   in his own conscience that he was a true son of that wrestling Jacob
   who became prevailing Israel and, in accepting the title, he made his
   words responsive to those of Jesus, for he said in effect, "True, I am
   an Israelite, but You are the King of Israel."

   To this our Lord seemed to reply, "You are an Israelite, and you have
   acknowledged Israel's King. And now you shall have Israel's privileges
   for, like he, you shall see Heaven opened and the angels of God
   ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Thus, as in water, face
   answers to face, so did the heart of man to man in the communion of
   these two guileless spirits! Their thoughts were so true that they
   harmonized like the parts of well-composed music! Their words so
   frankly bespoke their hearts that they answered to one another like the
   echo to the voice. This is the character of the communion between our
   Master and His sanctified ones. He says, "I am the Good Shepherd," and
   the heart replies, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

   The spouse says, "Yes, He is altogether lovely," and her Bridegroom
   replies, "You are all fair, My love, there is no spot in you." Our Lord
   calls us, "My love, My dove, My undefiled," and we, being in full
   communion with Him, reply, "My Beloved is mine and I am His." As upon
   the sea in time of storm, deep calls unto deep, so within the
   sanctified heart, in heavenly calm, truth calls unto truth--one word of
   love wakes up another--the commendation given by condescending love
   brings forth the praise of grateful affection. But to produce this
   mutual sympathy there must be a common character, a similar absence of
   guile, for this is the great condition of fellowship with Jesus.

   God's ways towards us are made to meet our own in a most instructive
   way. "With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful. With an
   upright man You will show Yourself upright. With the pure You will show
   Yourself pure and with the obstinate You will show Yourself obstinate."
   When His children open their hearts to Him, He opens His mind to them.
   When they are true Israelites, He gives them the true Israel's
   privileges. When they acknowledge Him to be a great and glorious King,
   He makes them to see the great things of His Kingdom. May it be ours
   through Grace to be as little children, even as Nathanael was, for so
   shall we behold the Kingdom of God!

   With those prefatory remarks we come at length to consider the promise
   of our Lord Jesus to Nathanael. May the Holy Spirit instruct us! I
   think I am warranted in saying that this is the Savior's first personal
   Word of promise and it is instructive that He gave it, not to the most
   talented, but to the most simple-hearted of His disciples. It was,
   moreover, no mean promise, but full of the largest conceivable meaning.
   "You shall see greater things than these." Those must be very great
   things which were greater than what Nathanael had already seen--there
   is room for boundless expectation in the words! It was promise which
   brought another linked with it as part and parcel of it. How often one
   Divine blessing is like a link of a chain of gold and draws another
   with it--"You shall see greater things than these" is followed by,
   "henceforth you shall see Heaven open."

   The beauty of it, in this instance, is that albeit Nathanael obtained a
   promise for himself at first, "you shall see," yet this drew on the
   promise for all his brethren, for the 51st verse does not run,
   "hereafter or henceforth you shall see Heaven open," but henceforth,
   "you shall see Heaven open." It is a great thing to receive a personal
   promise, but it is a greater thing, still, to secure a promise for all
   our Master's household! Happy Nathanael to have been the occasion for
   the proclamation of the opening of Heaven and the commerce between
   Heaven and earth--the communion of saints with the things in Heaven
   through their Mediator and Lord! This is the highest form of blessing
   when we are not only favored,

   ourselves, but are made the occasion for enriching others! Was not this
   the choice inheritance of Abraham, "I will bless you and you shall be a
   blessing"?

   In considering the words which our Savior spoke to Nathanael, I should
   like you to notice first, the favored man to whom He spoke them. Then
   the gracious reward which is described in them. And lastly, the special
   sight comprised in that reward. In all this may we be actual partakers
   and not mere lookers.

   I. Let us think of THIS FAVORED MAN. Nathanael was "an Israelite,
   indeed, in whom is no guile." He was one of those who were not only of
   the chosen seed after the flesh, but after the Spirit. He was noted for
   being a simple-minded, unsophisticated person--as honest as the day. He
   was a truthful man who knew nothing of policy, or craft, or double
   dealing, or reserve. He was a man out of whom all the twists had been
   taken--an upright and downright man--true to the core and transparent
   as clear glass!

   He was not a Jacobite, a child of the crafty supplanter, but an
   Israelite, an Israelite, indeed, with the Jacob extracted out of him.
   He was pure, simple-hearted, ingenuous--not childish, but yet
   thoroughly childlike. To such a man the Word of God was given, "You
   shall see greater things than these." Notice, first, that he was a man
   who honestly made enquiries which fairly suggested themselves. Before
   he became a Believer, he did not, as some do, invent doubts and raise
   questions, which questions are merely raised for question's sake. He
   did not put queries to Philip which he could have answered himself, nor
   seek to entangle his instructor by artful speech. Nothing of the sort.
   He sought truth, not controversy and word-chopping.

   The two questions which he put came out of his heart and were points
   which seemed to be vital to him. He did not go about to discover
   difficulties, but they occurred to him then and there and he spoke them
   out with honest plainness. He was told that the Messiah had been found
   and that He was Jesus of Nazareth. I am sure he was well acquainted
   with Holy Writ and he did not recollect any text in which the Christ
   was said to come out of Nazareth and, therefore, he thought within
   himself, "I read of Bethlehem Ephratah, that out of it shall He come
   forth who is to be Ruler in Israel, but I do not remember a word
   concerning Nazareth." Without a moment's hesitation, he put the
   question, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

   Nazareth was a poor, miserable little place of unsavory reputation.
   This, then, was a difficulty--a true and real difficulty--and he stated
   it and was content to, "come and see." When the Savior met him with the
   words, "Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile," he enquired,
   "From where do You know me?" A most natural question to ask, for on its
   answer would depend the value of the words. Might it not happen that
   this accurate description of himself might have come to Jesus by
   report? If a correct description of Nathanael's character had reached
   the Savior by Philip or any other friend, then it did not prove
   anything. But if Jesus knew it by His own perception and could read the
   character of a man to whom He was a stranger, then Nathanael knew what
   conclusion to draw! So he only asks the question because it ought to be
   asked and not to be a trick question.

   How I love to meet with seekers who, though they are in difficulties,
   are willing to be led out of them and are not studying how to invent
   more! Some of you cannot find peace in Christ because you willfully
   darken the atmosphere around yourselves. You are not assailed by doubt,
   but you invite doubt to assail you! You believe a great deal more than
   you care to admit, but you do not want to believe and are fishing for
   excuses for your unbelief. It is a sad state of mind for a man to be
   in--to be trying to discover reasons why he should not be saved--but
   that is what many are doing. That is a wretched mind which manufactures
   difficulties and complicates plain things because it cannot or will not
   take a thing in its straightforward, simple meaning, but must be
   puzzled and perplexed.

   Some men are too intellectual to believe the poor man's Gospel--the
   poor man runs and reads the Gospel--the Gospel of, "Believe and live."
   The intellectual must be mystified, or excited, or driven to
   despair--or else they refuse to believe. There is a craving in some men
   for something that will appall them and fill them with despair. Is not
   this folly? Wait not for such sensations, I pray you! If you do, you
   will miss the blessing! But if, even while as yet you have not received
   full faith, you are honest enough to admit of none but honest
   difficulties, there is in you some good thing towards the Lord God of
   Israel and the Lord is praised for it.

   This Nathanael without guile was, next, a man who honestly yielded to
   the force of the Truth of God. Omniscience was proven to be an
   attribute of Christ to Nathanael by the pointed remark which Jesus
   addressed to him. What was Nathanael doing under the fig tree? "I
   know," says one, "for I have heard it said he was praying." Well, I did
   not say he

   was not praying, but I will defy anybody to prove that he was! What was
   Nathanael doing under the fig tree? We frequently read, in the Talmudic
   writers, of learned rabbis who studied the Law under the fig tree. Was
   Nathanael studying the Law? I did not say he was not, but I will defy
   anybody to prove that he was! What was he doing under the fig tree?
   There are only two people who could have told us and both of these are
   silent on the matter. Both Jesus and Nathanael knew, but no one else!

   What he was doing under the fig tree, we may not pretend to guess, for
   it is more instructive to leave it in the dark-- our Lord's words were
   a kind of secret sign to Nathanael, all the more conclusive because
   perfectly unknown and uninterpreted by the rest of mankind. Whether he
   was going to be baptized by John the Baptist and sat down there to
   think of what he was doing. Or whether, having been baptized, being on
   the way home, he suddenly felt an impression that he must sit in that
   place and wait--he knew not why--I may not profess to know. But it was
   an important moment to his own mind and he remembered it as such. As
   soon as Jesus said, with a look, "When you were under the fig tree,"
   Nathanael was startled into a conviction that his secret heart was
   known to Jesus.

   Under that tree he had done, or said, or thought something known only
   to himself. How had the Person before him known of that deed? It was
   true that his deed, or word, or thought under the fig tree was a pure,
   simple and honest one, but how did Jesus know? "If He knows that I was
   under the fig tree and knows what I was doing there. And if He read my
   simple-minded, guileless character when I was there, then He is the Son
   of God, the King of Israel!" This was Nathanael's immediate conclusion
   and the argument was very clear and complete.

   Similar reasoning was used by others soon after Nathanael's conversion
   and with the same result. When our Lord said to the woman of Samaria,
   "Go, call your husband and come here," and she replied, "I have no
   husband," He answered, "You have well said, I have no husband, for you
   have had five husbands and he whom you now have is not your husband: in
   that said you truly." Then the woman said, "Come, see a Man which told
   me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" It was good
   argument, for Omniscience proves Godhead. An Omniscient one here in
   human flesh among the sons of men must be the Anointed of God! He must
   be the Lord's Christ!

   I do not know whether Nathanael remembered the passage of Scripture,
   but this was the kind of argument used by the great God, Himself, when
   He proved Himself to be God in Isaiah 44:5. Notice how the passage, in
   many of its words, is parallel to our text. 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. "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and His
   Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts; I am the First, and I am the Last; and
   beside Me there is no God." And what is the proof of it? "Who, as I,
   shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for Me, since I
   appointed the ancient people? And the things that are coming, and shall
   come, let them show unto them." He challenges the false gods to tell
   what was being done in secret places and what was to be done in the
   future and He gives this as a proof of His Godhead!

   The heathen oracles attempted prophecy because they saw how clearly it
   would prove the existence of their gods. Our Lord is a discerner of
   hearts, reading them as a scholar scans his books and we know Him to be
   our God. Nathanael had drunk into the very essence of that wonderful
   139th Psalm. No greater proof of Godhead can be given than the fact
   that all things are naked and open before the Lord! "O Lord, You have
   searched me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand
   my thoughts afar off." When I sat under the fig tree You did read my
   heart.

   "You compass my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my
   ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, You know
   it altogether. You have beset me behind and before, and laid Your hands
   upon me. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from
   Your Presence?" All this, you see, is a manifestation of Godhead.
   Nathanael argued, therefore--"He saw me when nobody else did! He read
   my character in a simple act, an act which other people might have
   misunderstood and thought me a fool! He perceived the uprightness of my
   heart and now I know that He is certainly Divine!"

   Notice, further, the blessing of our text comes to a man who in simple
   honesty believes much upon the evidence of one assured fact. It is
   proven that Christ can see in secret and read men's hearts--and from
   this, in addition to His Divinity, Nathanael infers that "He is a great
   Teacher"--and he makes his first confession of faith by calling Him,
   "Rabbi." He is sure that He who knows all things is worthy to be a
   teacher and he gives Him the teacher's title. Then, as we have already
   said, he perceives that if He is Omniscient, He is Divine and he makes
   the confession, "You are the Son of God." And, not

   satisfied with that, he sees that if He is, indeed, the Son of God, He
   must be Ruler and Lord and, therefore, he calls Him the King of Israel.

   See here how he drinks into the spirit of the second Psalm, where Son
   and King are the two great notes of harmony. "Yet have I set My king
   upon My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord has said
   unto Me, You are My Son; this day have I begotten You. Kiss the Son
   lest He is angry and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled
   but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." Gladly
   does Nathanael submit Himself to the Son and proclaim Him King of
   Israel. Was not this the first time that our Lord had been actually
   proclaimed as King since He had come into His public ministry? Was not
   this the answer to the wise men's question when they followed His star
   from regions far remote?

   Here was He who was born King of the Jews! This guileless man, who
   seemed to lack shrewdness, had seen more than his fellows. His eyes,
   undimmed by falsehood or suspicion, had seen the King, though His
   humiliation had unclothed Him of His royal mantle and taken off His
   crown. See, then, Beloved, that the gist of our first head is this--It
   is the pure in heart that shall see God! We must be honest and sincere;
   we must be clear of all subtlety and craft; we must be transparent as
   glass before Him or else the Lord will not reveal Himself to us or by
   us! He loves the guileless and the true--and when He has made us thus,
   He will fill us with light but not till then. Note, again, that those
   who are ready to believe upon sure evidence--for Nathanael needed
   that--are the men who shall see more and more. Nathanael did not
   require the evidence to be repeated to Him again and again--he saw the
   argument at once and yielded himself to it. When a point is once
   proven, it is proven--and that is an end of it.

   One conclusive argument is as good as 20 to an unsophisticated mind.
   Those who are willing to see shall see. Heaven is open to those from
   whose eyes the scales of prejudice are removed. The Lord manifests
   Himself to those who manifest themselves to Him. If you will be
   Christians of the highest type, you must be true to the core and you
   must realize Christ and believe in Him with that mighty faith which
   sees Him and realizes Him as close at hand. The Presence and the power
   of Jesus must be undoubted by your soul--they must be as much a matter
   of fact to you as your own existence--and then yours shall be the words
   which we are now about to consider--"You shall see greater things than
   these."

   II. Let us now look at THE GRACIOIUS REWARD. Only a few words upon it.
   Because this simple-hearted man had believed upon the one argument of
   the Lord's discernment of his heart, he was favored with the promise of
   seeing greater things. By these words our Lord meant that His
   perceptions would become more vivid. Do you believe? You shall see! If
   we demand to see first, we shall never believe! But if we are willing
   to believe we shall, by-and-by, see.

   There is a growth in faith which renders it not the less faith and yet
   approximates it more and more nearly to sense. I mean, "sense," in its
   best signification--so that what at first we believe, simply upon the
   testimony of God, we come, by-and-by, to believe upon personal
   experience. We believe until we so realize the Object of faith that we
   look at the things which are not seen and see Him who is invisible.
   From this we go further, still, until we both taste and handle of the
   good Word of Life and faith becomes the substance of things hoped for.
   From looking to Christ we come to live, move and have our being in Him.
   The eye of faith gathers strength. At first it sees Christ through its
   tears and that look saves the soul, though it perceives comparatively
   little of Him. But in later days the eye of faith becomes so powerful
   that it emulates that of the eagle which can gaze upon the sun at
   midday. Thus faith becomes a second sight. Remember our Lord's words to
   Martha, "Said I not unto you, that if you would believe you should see
   the Glory of God?" "Do you believe? You shall see."

   This was not all our Lord's meaning. He virtually promised that
   Nathanael should discover other Truths of God than he as yet knew. "You
   shall see greater things than these." Now, what is there greater to be
   seen than the Omniscience of Christ? "Such knowledge is too wonderful
   for me: it is high: I cannot attain unto it." Is there anything greater
   than this? Yes, so the Savior says! I suppose He means this--First, as
   you have seen My Omniscience in your own case, you shall go on to see
   it in the case of all mankind, for by My Cross shall the thoughts of
   many hearts be revealed and by My Gospel shall men be revealed unto
   themselves. The Word of God is quick and powerful and is a discerner of
   the thoughts and intents of the heart--and when Nathanael came to
   preach it in later years, he found it so and saw for himself that
   Christ read every man's heart.

   How wonderfully do we know this to be true in our time and in this
   place, for here the Word of God finds us out and lays us bare to our
   own consciences! You have been startled in your seats, sometimes. You
   have wondered how it could be

   that not only in the gross has your experience been set before you, but
   even in little details there have been minute touches which have amazed
   you with the distinctness of the Divine knowledge! Our Lord did not
   say, "I saw you under a tree," as if it might have been an oak or an
   olive, but He spoke definitely of "the fig tree." Even so does He cause
   His ministers to be very minute and particular so that you wonder where
   their knowledge comes from! And so, when this is done on a large
   scale--as it is done whenever Christ is preached--then is it true that
   we see greater things than when, for the first time, we perceive that
   our own character is revealed.

   He would see "greater things," next, because he would see more of the
   Godhead. Did you see Omniscience? You shall see Omnipotence! Did you
   discover that I could read your heart? You shall learn that I can
   change your heart! Did you find that My eyes could glance into the
   secrets of your soul? You shall find My Word casting out devils,
   healing the sick and hushing the storms! You shall see clearer ensigns
   of My Godhead than this one experiment in the reading of the heart. The
   Lord, in calling Himself the Son of Man, opens up to Nathanael one of
   those greater things. He had perceived Him to be the Son of God by His
   reading his heart and it was a great thing to perceive the Godhead, but
   it was a greater wonder, still, to see that Godhead linked with
   humanity!

   Jesus, as Son of God, is glorious, but at the same time as Son of Man,
   He has a double Glory! Our Lord seemed to say to Nathanael, "You have
   believed that I am the Son of God--you shall see the Son of Man." And
   is this a greater thing? In one sense it is a descent for Jesus to be
   the Son of Man, but yet, you who know how to read the riddle aright
   will say that the Godhead is not half so wonderful in itself as when it
   comes to be united with our humanity. The Incarnation has about it a
   mystery which is not seen, even in the mystery of the Godhead! That
   there should be a God, heathens might spell out--but that this God
   should come in human flesh among us--this is the mystery which angels
   desired to look into! Nor may I forget that the idea of our Lord as
   King of Israel is not so great as His connection with all nations which
   is displayed in His title, Son of man. He is not confined in His Grace
   to Israel, as Nathanael probably thought, but He is Brother to our
   entire humanity! Here was another of the greater things!

   Note further that Nathanael had only seen an opened heart, but now he
   was to see an opened Heaven. He had seen Christ's eyes entering into
   his secrets, but he was now to see communications established between
   the lowly hearts of men and the secrets of Heaven! He saw how Christ,
   Son of God, dwelt among men--he is now to see how the abodes of God and
   man shall be blended in one and high communion maintained between earth
   and Heaven. I come back to the one thought, that the sight of greater
   things is reserved for guileless Believers. To those who already have
   much by faith, more shall be given. Beloved, as a Church and people, we
   have seen great things in this place in the work of the Lord among us.
   And we have lately celebrated with much joy and thankfulness the loving
   kindness of the Lord to us--let us make this a new starting point and
   hear the Lord say--"From this day will I bless you."

   We desire to see much greater things than we have known and, in order
   to this, we must have more faith. And that faith must be more simple
   and childlike. The rule of the Kingdom is that according to our faith,
   so shall it be unto us. Unbelief bars the way of mercy. We tie the
   hands of Jesus if we have no faith. Is it not written, "He could not do
   many mighty works there because of their unbelief"? We must believe or
   we shall not be established, nor shall our works prosper. Whatever we
   have accomplished has been worked by faith, but we believe that we
   might have done a hundred times more if we had manifested a hundred
   times more faith. May the Lord grant us downright, honest, simple faith
   and then we shall see greater things than these, for all obstacles will
   be removed and eternal love will work wonders among us!

   Faith makes a man a fit instrument for God to use and, therefore, God
   does great things by him. If you are unbelieving, God will no more use
   you than a warrior would use a reed for a weapon! He works no wonders
   by unbelieving ministers and unbelieving churches, for these are not
   prepared to be blessed--they are not vessels fit for the Master's
   use--rust is upon them of the worst kind. When your heart is resting in
   the Lord, expecting to see His arm made bare and quietly waiting to see
   how He will glorify Himself and fulfill His promises, then will you see
   greater things! When faith fails, it disqualifies us and sets us aside
   even as in the case of Moses and Aaron, to whom the Lord said, "Because
   you believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of
   Israel, therefore you shall not bring this congregation unto the land
   which I have given them."

   We must have faith, for faith fulfils the condition which is virtually
   appended to every promise. Has not the Lord promised to answer the
   prayers of those who cry unto Him believingly? But as for the wavering,
   He has said, "Let not

   that man expect to receive anything of the Lord." Is not faith our very
   life? "The just shall live by faith." Is it not our entrance into
   blessedness? We see that Israel in the wilderness could not enter into
   Canaan because of unbelief. All the promises are for Believers--there
   are none for unbelievers. "As you have believed so be it unto you,"
   stands as the measure of blessing--there is no other. Strong faith,
   coupled with a guileless character, brings a man into the special,
   complacent love of God, for, albeit that He loves all His elect, He
   does not delight in all alike. There were Apostles among the
   disciples--there were three choice ones out of the twelve--there was
   one peculiar favorite out of the three!

   He is dearest to God who trusts Him most completely and is most
   childlike and true. God will do most by that man who is most reliant
   upon Him and most open with Him. David, who makes the Lord, alone, to
   be his confidence, is the man after God's own heart. And Abraham, who
   in faith could even give up his only son, is the friend of God. We
   shall never be full-gown with God until we become too little to dare to
   doubt; too insignificant to venture to question and too true to suspect
   the Lord. Increase in faith is the one thing necessary to our advance
   in the Divine life and work--and may the Holy Spirit work it in us for
   Christ's name's sake!

   III. We have only a minute or two in which to mention THE SPECIAL SIGHT
   which was promised to Nathanael. He was to see an opened Heaven. The
   gates of Glory are not only opened now to Believers, but they are
   carried right away and Heaven is laid open to all its citizens, even to
   those who dwell below. This is a great joy to the believing heart, for
   free communion with Heaven is the delight of our spirit.

   I cannot enlarge upon this, which is worthy of another sermon, but I
   may not say less than this--that in Christ the saints are brought very
   near to God, for even now they have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. The
   franchise of the new Jerusalem is extended to these low-lying regions
   in which we sojourn. The veil is torn and we have access to the
   holiest. The wall of separation is removed and now the abode of the
   Church below is an adjunct of Heaven, a suburban district of the
   metropolitan city of the New Jerusalem. The gates shall not be shut,
   nor a division created, nor communion suspended. Is not that a glorious
   thing, that in the Person of Christ Jesus, Heaven is laid open to earth
   and earth laid open to communications with Heaven?

   Do you know that, Beloved? It is a simple thing to talk of, but do you
   know it? Have you taken up your citizenship, so that you can say,
   "Truly our citizenship is in Heaven"? While you are sitting under that
   fig tree do you know what it is to sit in the heavenly places, together
   with Christ? Are you risen and reigning with Him even now? If so, this
   is a joyful state of things and one which should cause you much
   assurance! We are now dwelling in the house of our God, or at the very
   least we are sitting by the very gate of Heaven! Our condition is known
   to the Lord and He is near to help us. We suffer not unseen and labor
   not unobserved. Nothing hinders God from helping us--nothing hinders us
   from securing His aid.

   Then the Lord went on to promise that he should see that the communion
   between Heaven and earth, by the way of the Mediator, is not only
   possible, but actual. The ladder is set and there are angels ascending
   and descending upon it. God hears, helps and speaks with believing men
   of pure heart. Observe, that according to the text, the angels ascend
   first. It does say, "Descending and ascending," as we might naturally
   suppose, but they ascend first because when Jesus was on earth they
   were already here and ascended at His bidding to carry His messages
   upward! When Jesus Christ was here, He was never without His bodyguard
   of angels and these were His messengers to the courts above.

   We, today, Beloved, are surrounded by the forces of the Eternal--they
   have not to come to us for the first time--lo, they have, these many
   years, kept watch and guard around the fold of the redeemed! And when a
   new danger comes, they are prompt to do the part of watchers and of
   guardians and to carry tidings to the sentinels of Heaven. Let us pray,
   for as we pray our prayers ascend to Heaven and our praises, too. If we
   lead an angelical life, our thoughts will always be going up to Heaven
   or returning. Beloved, have you realized this--that as you have
   believed in Christ upon the testimony of His Word, you have now the
   right of access to the Eternal Throne at all times? You have but to
   speak and God will hear you!

   Some of God's people do not know much about this. Praying is a
   religious exercise with them--a very proper exercise, but it is not
   speaking with God--it is not doing business with God and obtaining
   supplies at His hands. It is a ladder without angels, or, if you
   please, with ascending angels only, but none coming down with heavenly
   gifts! Beloved, I hope you have not fallen into this error. What? Is
   not prayer real with you? Do you expect nothing from it? Would you send
   an angel on a fool's errand? Do these ascend to Heaven in mere sport
   and rush up and down to do nothing? Let us

   mean business when we pray, or we shall be mockers of the Divine
   Majesty! Too many come before God and ask for everything in general but
   nothing in particular--and they get but scant answers to their
   pointless prayers.

   Many more are very slack in prayer and, therefore, they starve their
   souls. Many angels must go up if many are to come down! Prayer must be
   constant and real with us. We should live as if we really had power
   with God, as if like, Elijah, we could go the top of Carmel and pray a
   bronze sky away and deluge the earth with showers of blessings! Are you
   unable so to live like this? Then the fault lies at your own door.

   What was next? Nathanael was to see angels descending upon the Son of
   Man, that is to say, he was to see heavenly spirits and blessings
   coming down to man by Jesus Christ. He who truly believes in Christ and
   is without guile, shall have continual blessings from on high--all
   Heaven shall be opened to him! God will help him by Providence; will
   help him by Grace; will help him by actual angels and will help him
   spiritually by the all power which He has given unto Christ in Heaven
   and in earth. How earnestly do I desire that this Church, this morning,
   may see for itself what my eyes have seen for myself--for my faith sees
   Heaven opened to supply the needs of Christ's work and all the might of
   God working to achieve His purposes!

   I am just entering upon another work for God. We have had enough of
   these enterprises, some say, why not wait? I am forced to go forward
   and onward! I must go, nor do I fear, for lo, I see Heaven opened and
   the angels of God ascending and descending, by the way of Christ Jesus,
   to bring us help! We may venture. There is no venture in it--we may
   trust God for anything! We may trust God for everything and just go
   straight on! It looks like walking on water, sometimes, to trust
   Christ--especially about gold and silver--but we need not fear! The
   waters shall be a sea of glass beneath our feet if we can but simply
   trust!

   But oh, we must purge ourselves! We must be without guile! There must
   be no self-seeking! There must be a simple-hearted desire for God's
   Glory and for nothing else! We must sink self--Christ must reign! And
   then we must trust and go forward. I hope we are right in this matter.
   And if so, we shall see the salvation of God! Nothing can stop us.
   Behold, this day all things work together for good to them that love
   God. The stones of the field are in league with us! Yes, it is not on
   earth, alone, that we find allies, but the stars in their courses fight
   against our foes and all Heaven is on the stir to befriend us in the
   service of God! See how the ladder swarms with coming and going angels!
   Heaven surrounds those who are doing Heaven's work! God Himself is with
   us, for our Captain and His host, which is very great, is round about
   us even as horses of fire and chariots of fire were round about the
   Prophet.

   All things shall be given that are needed and as our day, our strength
   shall be. Brace yourselves, my Brothers and Sisters, for a new
   endeavor! Be strong in the Lord and you shall see greater things than
   these. Full of weakness, yet stand in His strength, each one, and play
   the man! Say, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me."
   Omnipotence is waiting to gird your loins! Buckle it about you and
   become mighty through God! Our Head, Christ Jesus, has all power in
   Heaven and in earth and that power He pours into all His members!

   By faith I commit myself and I trust, also, my beloved Church and
   Friends, to farther efforts for our Lord, relying upon His Word, "You
   shall see greater things than these," and fully believing that through
   Christ Jesus all the forces of Heaven are in alliance with us and the
   will of the Lord shall surely be accomplished!

   PORTIONS OFSCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 1:35--51;
   Genesis28:10--22. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--H2, 335, 317.

   [Mr. Spurgeon alludes to the Girls' Orphanage. The fund has just
   commenced and land has been purchased. A large amount will be needed,
   but there is a great God to look to!]
     __________________________________________________________________

The Work of Grace the Warrant for Obedience

   (No. 1479)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 15, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up your bed and
   walk." John 5:11.

   (On behalf of the Mansion House Fund for the Hospitals of London).

   JUST a few observations upon the narrative itself. It was a feast day
   and Jesus Christ came up to Jerusalem to find opportunities for doing
   good among the crowds of His countrymen. I see all the city glad; I
   hear the voice of rejoicing in every house as they hold high festival
   and eat the fat and drink the sweet. But where does Jesus keep the
   feast? How does He spend His holiday? He walks among the poor, whom He
   loves so well. Behold Him in the hospital! There was one notable
   Bethesda or house of mercy in Jerusalem--it was a poor provision for
   the city's abounding sickness, but such as it was, it was greatly
   prized. There was a pool which every now and then was stirred by an
   angel's wing and worked an occasional cure. Around it charitable
   persons had built five porches and there, on the cold stone steps, a
   number of blind and crippled and withered folk were lying, each one
   upon his own wretched pallet, waiting for the moving of the waters.

   There were the weary children of pain, fainting, while others were
   feasting. They were racked with pain amid general rejoicing. They were
   sighing amid universal singing! Our Lord was at home amid this mercy,
   for here was room for His tender heart and powerful hands. He feasted
   His soul by doing good. Let us learn this lesson, dear Friends, that in
   the times of our brightest joys we should remember the sorrowful and
   find a still higher joy in doing them good. It well becomes us in
   proportion as a day is gladsome to ourselves, to make it so to the sick
   and poor around us. Let us keep the feast by sending portions to those
   for whom nothing is prepared, for, otherwise, the famishing may bring a
   curse upon our feasting.

   When we are prospered in business, let us set aside a portion for the
   poor. When we are full of health and strength, let us remember those to
   whom these privileges are denied and aid those who minister to them.
   Blessed shall they be who, like the Lord Jesus, visit the sick and care
   for them. Coming into the hospital, our Lord noticed a certain man
   whose case was a very sad one. There were many painful cases there, but
   He singled out this man and it would seem that the reason for His
   choice was that the poor creature was in the worst plight of all. If
   misery has a claim on pity, then the greater the sufferer the more is
   mercy attracted towards him. This poor victim of rheumatism or
   paralysis had been bound 38 years by his infirmity!

   Let us hope there was no worse case on all Bethesda's porches!
   Thirty-eight years is more than half the appointed period of human
   life! One year of pain or paralysis has a weary length of torture about
   it, but think of thirty-eight! We may well pity the man who endures the
   pangs of rheumatism even for an hour--but how shall we sufficiently
   pity him who has not been free from it for hard on 40 years? Even if
   the case were not one of pain, but of paralysis, the inability to work
   and the consequent poverty of so many years were, by no means, a small
   evil. Our Lord, then, selects the worst case to be dealt with by His
   curing hands as a type of what He often does in the kingdom of
   Grace--and as a lesson of prudence to us--instructing us to give our
   first aid to those who are first in point of need.

   The man whom Jesus healed was by no means an attractive character. Our
   Savior said to him, when he was healed, "Sin no more, lest a worse
   thing come unto you," from which it is not an improbable inference that
   his first infirmity had come upon him by deed of vice or course if
   excess. In some way or other he had been guilty of that which brought
   upon his body the suffering which he was enduring. Now, it is
   considered generally to be a point beyond all dispute that we should
   help the worthy but should refuse the worthless--that when a man brings
   a calamity upon himself by wrong doing--we are justified in letting him
   suffer that he may reap what he has sown.

   This cold Pharisaic idea is very congenial to minds which are bent upon
   saving their coins! It springs up in many hearts, or rather in places
   where hearts ought to be, and it is generally regarded as if it were a
   rule of prudence which it would be sinful to dispute--an infallible and
   universal axiom. Now, I venture to say that our Savior never taught us
   to confine our alms to the deserving! He would never have bestowed the
   grand alms of Grace on any one of us if He had carried out that rule!
   And if you and I had received no more at the hands of God than we
   deserved, we should not have been in this house of prayer! We cannot
   afford to cramp our charity into a sort of petty justice and sour our
   almsgiving into a miniature law court. When a man is suffering let us
   pity him, however the suffering has come.

   When a man had been in misery so long as 38 years, it was time that his
   infirmity should be more considered than his iniquity and that his
   present sorrow should be thought upon more than his former folly. So
   Jesus thought and, therefore, He came to the sinner, not with reproach,
   but with restoration! He saw his disease rather than his depravity and
   gave him pity instead of punishment. Our God is kind to the unthankful
   and to the evil--be you, therefore, merciful as your Father, also, is
   merciful. Remember how our Lord said, "Pray for them that despitefully
   use you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in
   Heaven; for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
   sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

   Let us imitate Him in this and wherever there is pain and sorrow let it
   be our joy to relieve it. In addition to the supposition that this man
   had, at some time, been grossly guilty, it seems pretty clear from the
   text that he was a poor, shiftless, discouraged, inanimate, stupid sort
   of person. He had never managed to get into the pool, though others had
   done so who were as infirm as himself. He had never been able to win a
   friend or secure a helper, though from the extreme length of his
   infirmity one would have thought that at some period or another he
   might have found a man to place him in the pool when the angel gave it
   the mystic stir.

   The Savior's asking him, "Do you want to be made whole?" leads us to
   think that he had fallen into such a listless, despairing, heart-sick
   condition that though he was daily at the edge of the pool as a matter
   of habit, he had not only ceased to hope, but had almost ceased to
   wish! Our Lord touched the chord which was most likely to respond,
   namely, his will and desire to be made whole--but the response was a
   very feeble one. His answer shows what a poor creature he was, for
   there is not a beam of hope in it, or even of desire--it is a wail, a
   hopeless dirge, a grievous complaint--"I have no man, when the water is
   troubled, to put me into the pool and while I am coming, another steps
   down before me."

   But the utter imbecility and lack of brains of the poor creature is
   most seen in the fact that like a simpleton he went to Christ's enemies
   and told them that it was Jesus that had made him whole! I am sure
   there was no malice in his thus informing our Lord's enemies, for if
   there had been, he would have said, "It was Jesus who bade me take up
   my bed," whereas he worded it thus, "It was Jesus which had made him
   whole." I hardly dare, however, to hope, as some do, that there was
   much gratitude about this testimony, though, doubtless, the poor soul
   was grateful. I conceive that his long endurance of pain, acting upon a
   weak mind, had brought him to an almost imbecile state of mind, so that
   he spoke without thought.

   Our Lord did not, therefore, require much of him. He did not even ask
   for a distinct acknowledgement of faith from him, but only for that
   small measure of it which might be implied in his answering the
   question, "Do you want to be made whole?" This poor man evinced none of
   the shrewdness of the man born blind who answered the Pharisees so
   keenly--he was of quite another type and could do no more than state
   his own case to Jesus. Thank God, even that was enough for our Lord to
   work with! The Lord Jesus saves people of all sorts. He has among His
   disciples men of quick and ready wit who can baffle their opponents,
   but quite as often--

   "He takes the fool and makes him know

   The wonders of His dying love:

   To bring aspiring wisdom low,

   And all its pride reprove."

   So here He chose this poor simpleton of a creature and worked a great
   marvel upon him, to the exceeding praise of His condescending Grace.
   Note well that this man's mind, though there was not much of it, was
   all engrossed and filled up with the fact that he had been made whole.
   Jesus, to him, was, "He that made me whole." Of the person of Jesus he
   knew next to nothing, for he had only seen Him for an instant and then
   he didn't know that it was Jesus. His one idea of Jesus was, "He that
   made me whole."

   Now, beloved Brothers and Sisters, this was natural in his case and it
   will be equally natural in our own. Even when the saved ones are more
   intelligent and of larger mind than this poor paralytic, they must
   still chiefly think of the Son of God as their Savior--as He that made
   them whole. If I do not know much about the Lord, yet I do know that He
   has saved me! I was burdened with guilt and full of woes and could not
   rest day nor night until He gave me peace. If I cannot tell anything
   much concerning the glory of His Person, His attributes, His
   relationships, His offices, or His work, yet I can say, "one thing I
   know, whereas I was blinded by error, now I see! Whereas I was
   paralyzed by sin, I am now able to stand upright and walk in His ways."

   This poor soul knew the Lord experimentally and that is the best way of
   knowing Him. Actual contact with Him yields a surer knowledge and a
   truer knowledge than all the reading in the world. In the kingdom of
   Christ wonderful facts transpire, such as conversion and finding peace
   with God--and happy are they to whom these facts are personal
   experiences! When men are turned from the error of their ways and when
   their heart finds rest and peace in Christ, great deeds are done by the
   Lord Jesus. And if you are acquainted with these two things, even
   though you should be ignorant of a great deal else, be not afraid of
   exaggerating their importance, but set your mind on them and call Jesus
   by that name--"He that made me whole."

   Think of Him under that aspect and you will have a very valuable and
   influential idea of Him. You shall see greater things than these, but
   for the present let these happy and sure facts be much upon your mind,
   even as his being made whole was upon this man's mind. As for the
   quibbling Pharisees, you observe that they took no notice of the
   glorious fact of the man's cure--they willfully ignored what Christ had
   done and they fell full swoop upon that little insignificant
   circumstance that it had been done on the Sabbath! And then they spent
   all their thoughts and emotions upon that side issue. They say nothing
   of the man's being restored, but they rage because he carried his bed
   on the Sabbath!

   It is much the same with the men of the world in this day. They
   habitually ignore the fact of conversion. If they do not deny it, they
   look upon it as being a trifle--a matter not worth caring about. Though
   they see the harlot made chaste, the thief made honest, the profane
   made devout, the despairing made joyful and other moral and spiritual
   changes of the utmost practical value, they forget all this and they
   attack some peculiar point of doctrine, or mode of speech, or diversity
   of manner and raise a storm concerning these!

   Is it because the facts, themselves, if fairly looked at, would
   establish what they do not care to believe? The fact that Christianity
   is doing marvels in the world, such as nothing else ever did, they
   persistently forget. But that fact is just what you and I must as
   persistently remember! We must dwell upon what Christ has, by His Holy
   Spirit, worked within our nature by renewing us in the spirit of our
   minds. And we must make this work of Grace a fountain of argument which
   shall establish our faith and justify our conduct. This poor man did
   so! He did not know much else, but that he had been made whole he did
   know--and from that fact he justified himself in what he had done.

   "He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up your bed and
   walk." This is the Truth of God which I want to enlarge upon this
   morning--first, by saying that the work of Christ furnishes us with a
   justification for our obedience to His commands--"He that made me
   whole, the same said unto me"--that is our complete justification for
   what we do! In the second place, the work of Jesus Christ throws upon
   us an obligation to do what He bids us--if He that made me whole says
   to me, "Take up your bed and walk," I am bound to do it and I ought to
   feel the obligation of His goodness pressing upon me. And, in the third
   place, it is not only a justification and an obligation, but the deed
   of Grace becomes a constraint to obedience--He that said unto me,
   "rise," and so made me whole, by that same word of power made me take
   up my bed and walk!

   The power which saves us also moves us to obey our Savior. Not with our
   own might do we fulfill the will of our Lord, but with power which the
   Healer gives us in the same hour. You see the drift, therefore, of our
   discourse. May the Holy Spirit lead us into the power of this Truth,
   for I am persuaded that a sense of the Lord's work within us is a great
   force and should be excited and applied to the highest ends.

   I. First, then, this is our JUSTIFICATION for what we do when we obey
   Christ. This poor man could not defend the action of taking up his bed
   and walking, for his enemies were learned in the Law and he was not.
   You and I could defend it very easily, for it seems to us a very proper
   thing to do under the circumstances. The weight of his bed was not much
   more than that of an ordinary great coat, it was a simple rug or mat
   upon which he was lying--there really was no violation of God's Law of
   the Sabbath and, therefore, there was nothing to excuse.

   But the Rabbis laid down rules of which I will give you but one
   specimen--"It is unlawful to carry a handkerchief loose in the
   pocket"--but if you pin it to your pocket or tie it round your waist as
   a belt, you may carry it anywhere because it becomes a part of your
   dress. To my unsophisticated mind it would have seemed that the pin
   increased the ponderous burden and so there was the weight of the pin
   more than was necessary! This was quite a weighty business according to
   Rabbinical estimates. The most of the Rabbinical regulations with
   regard to the Sabbath were absolutely ludicrous, but this poor man was
   not in a position to say so or even to think so, for, like the rest of
   his countrymen, he stood in awe of the scribes and doctors.

   These learned Pharisees and priests were too much reverenced for this
   poor creature to answer them in their own manner, so he did what you
   and I must always do when we are at all puzzled--he hid behind the Lord
   Jesus and pleaded, "He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take
   up your bed." That was quite enough for him and he quoted it as if he
   felt that it ought to be enough for those who questioned him. Truly it
   ought to have been so! I may not be able to find in my own knowledge
   and ability an authority equal to the authority of learned unbelievers,
   but my personal experience of the power of Grace will stand me in as
   good a stead as this man's cure was to him. He argued that there must
   be in the man who made him whole enough authority to match the greatest
   possible rabbi that ever lived!

   Even his poor feeble mind could grasp that and, surely, you and I may
   do the same--we can defend ourselves behind the breastwork of our
   Savior's gracious work--and the consequent authority which belongs to
   Him. There are certain ordinances to which a Christian man is bound to
   attend, about which the world raises a storm of questions. The world
   does not take notice that this man was once a drunk and has, through
   Divine Grace, become sober and so has become a good father, a good
   husband and a good citizen. It lets that miracle pass by unheeded--but
   if he is going to be baptized, they at once object to the ordinance!

   Or if he is going to join a Christian Church they straightway jeer at
   him as a Presbyterian, or a Methodist--as if it matters what sort of
   name they give him--so long as he is a better man than themselves, is
   redeemed from sin, taught to be upright, chaste and pure in the sight
   of God. The work of Grace counts for nothing with them, but just the
   peculiarity of sect, or the peculiarity of religious rite is made a
   world of. Blind creatures to despise the medicine which heals because
   of the bottle which contains it, or the label by which it is named!
   However, our answer is, "He that made us whole," the same gave us a
   command and by that command we will abide. We seek no justification but
   this--that He who worked a miracle of Grace upon us bade us do it.

   What if I am about to be baptized as a Believer? The same that said,
   "Believe," said, "Be baptized." He who gave me salvation, the same
   said, "He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved." Over against
   all objections we set the Divine authority of Jesus Christ! He by whose
   blood we are cleansed and by whose Spirit we are renewed is Lord and
   Lawgiver to us! His precept is our sufficient guarantee. If we go to
   the Communion Table and revilers say, "What is the use of eating a
   piece of bread and drinking a drop of wine? Why think so solemnly of so
   small a matter?" We reply, He that made us whole, the same said, "Do
   this in remembrance of Me." We renounce what He has not ordained, but
   we cling to His statutes.

   If He had commanded a rite still more trivial, or a ceremony still more
   open to objection in the eyes of carnal man, we would make no further
   apology than this--He who has created us anew, given us a hope of
   Heaven and led us to seek after perfect holiness--He has bid us do it.
   This is our final reply and although we could find other
   justifications, they would be superfluous. This stands for our
   defense--the Savior commands it! The same apology applies to all the
   doctrines of the Gospel. I say again, ungodly men will not admit, or if
   they admit it they ignore it, that the Gospel works a marvelous change
   in men's hearts. If they need proof, we can find them instances by the
   hundreds and by the thousands of the reclaiming, elevating and
   purifying power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

   The Gospel is daily working spiritual miracles, but this they
   forget--and they go on to find fault with its peculiar doctrines.
   Justification by faith they frequently quarrel with. "Well now," they
   say, "that is a shocking doctrine! If you teach men that they are to be
   saved by faith, alone, and not by their works, of course they will lead
   loose lives! If you continually declare that salvation is of Grace,
   alone, and not of merit, the inevitable result will be that men will
   sin that Grace may abound." We find a complete answer to this calumny
   in the fact that Believers in justification by faith and in the
   Doctrines of Grace are among the best and purest of men--and in fact
   these Truths work holiness!

   But we do not care to argue thus. We prefer to remind our adversaries
   that He who has caused us to be regenerate men, Himself taught us that
   whoever believes in Him shall be saved and expressly declared that he
   that believes in Him has everlasting life. By the mouth of His servant,
   Paul, He has said that by Grace are men saved through faith and that
   not of themselves, it is the gift of God! He has also told us that by
   the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified and He has bid us
   declare that "the just shall live by faith." He who is daily, by His
   Gospel, turning men from sin to holiness has given this for the sum
   total of the Gospel we are to preach--"Look unto Me and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth."

   If this Gospel does not make men better and change their evil natures,
   you may question it if you like, and we do not wonder that you
   should--but while it continues its purifying work we shall not blush or
   stammer when we declare the doctrines which are its essence and life!
   Our regeneration proves to us our Lord's authority and upon that we are
   prepared to base our creed. To us the best of evidence is His work
   within us and in that evidence we place implicit faith. The same
   applies to all the precepts which the Christian is called upon to obey.
   For instance, if he is true to his colors, he keeps himself aloof from
   all the sinful pleasures, practices and policies of the world in which
   others take delight and, consequently, the ungodly world says that he
   is peculiar, precise and self-opinionated.

   This is the answer for all Christians--"He that made us whole, the same
   said to us. 'You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
   Come you out from among them and be you separate, touch not the unclean
   thing and I will receive you.'" If you follow the precepts of the Lord
   Jesus Christ you may meet all charges of peculiarity by urging the
   supremacy of the Savior whose power has made you a new creature! Where
   His Word is, there is a power to which we bow at once! It is not ours
   to question our Savior, but to obey Him! We are cleansed by His blood!
   We are redeemed by His death! We live by His life and, therefore, are
   not ashamed to take up His Cross and follow Him. This apology ought to
   suffice even those who oppose us, for if they felt as grateful as we
   do, they would also obey. They ought, at any rate, to say, "We cannot
   blame these men for doing as Jesus bids them because He has done so
   much for them."

   Surely the poor man who had been paralyzed 38 years could not be blamed
   for obeying the command of One who, in a moment, restored him to health
   and strength! If he became His servant for life, who would censure him?
   Who would say that he too tamely submitted? Should not such a
   Benefactor exert a boundless influence over him? What could be more
   natural and proper?

   Now, you unconverted people must excuse us, if we, in obedience to our
   Lord Jesus, do many things which, to you, seem very peculiar, for
   though we would not needlessly offend, we cannot please you at the risk
   of displeasing our Lord. We do not owe so much to you as we owe to Him!
   We do not owe so much to the whole world as we owe to the Lord Jesus!
   In fact, truth to tell, we do not feel that we owe anything to the
   world! The time past suffices us to have worked the will of the
   Gentiles, for when we are asked the question, "What fruit had you,
   then, in those things whereof you are now ashamed?" We have to confess
   that we had no fruit, except the sour grapes which set our teeth on
   edge. Like the shipmen who put out to sea against Paul's advice, our
   only gain has been loss and damage!

   In serving the world, we found the labor wearisome and the wages death.
   But as for our Lord Jesus, we owe Him everything and so you must excuse
   us if we try to follow Him in everything. It seems to us that this is
   an excuse which you ought to accept from us as covering the whole
   ground--but if you refuse it we are not at all dismayed, for it quite
   suffices us, yes, more than suffices us--it makes us glory in what we
   do! Does Jesus command? Then it is ours to obey! Objectors may say,
   concerning one of His ordinances, it is unsuitable to the climate, it
   is indecent, it is needless, it is I do not know what--all this is no
   concern of ours--if Jesus bade us do it, His command stands for us in
   the place of reasoning! He who made us whole, gives us sufficient
   excuse for obedience in that very fact.

   "Oh, but it is contrary to what the fathers teach and to what the
   Church teaches." We care not the snap of our finger for all the fathers
   and all the churches under Heaven if they go contrary to what our Lord
   teaches--for they did not make us whole and we are not under obligation
   to them as we are to Him! The authority of Jesus is supreme because it
   is from His lips that we received the Word which healed the sickness of
   our sin. This satisfies our conscience, now, and it will do so amid the
   solemnities of death! How can we make a mistake if we follow the Words
   of Jesus in all things? My Brethren, we can plead His precepts as our
   guarantee at the Last Great Day before the Judge of the quick and the
   dead! What better plea can we have than this, "You did make us whole
   and You did bid us do this"?

   Such a justification of our conduct will make our death pillow soft and
   our resurrection bright with joy! Instead of admitting that this is not
   an ample justification, let us go further, still, in the strength of
   it! If the world has accounted us

   vile for obeying our Lord, let us be still viler! And, inasmuch as He
   that made us whole said, "Go you into all the world and preach the
   Gospel to every creature," let us endeavor to spread abroad everywhere
   the savor of His name, consecrating ourselves body, soul and spirit to
   the extension of His Kingdom! He who made us whole will yet make the
   world whole by His own wondrous power! Have we not abundantly shown
   that our Lord's command is a solid justification of our conduct?

   II. And now, secondly, the cure brought forth AN OBLIGATION--"He that
   made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up your bed, and walk." The
   argument takes this form--first, if He made me whole, He is Divine, or
   He could not do this miracle. Or, to say the least, He must be divinely
   authorized--and if He is Divine, or divinely authorized, I am bound to
   obey the orders which He issues. Is not that a plain argument which
   even the poor, simple mind of the paralytic man was able to grasp and
   wield?

   Let us try and feel the force of that argument ourselves. Jesus who has
   saved us is our God--shall we not obey Him? Since He is clothed with
   Divine power and majesty, shall we not scrupulously endeavor to know
   His will and zealously endeavor to carry it out in every point as His
   Spirit shall enable us? In addition to the Divine Character which the
   miracle proved and displayed, there was the goodness which shone in the
   deed of power and touched the poor man's heart. His argument was--"I
   must do what my great Deliverer bids me. How can you think otherwise?
   Did He not make me whole? Would you have me, whom He has thus
   graciously restored, refuse to fulfill His desire? Must I not take up
   my bed the moment He gives me strength to do it?

   "How can I do otherwise? Is this to be the recompense I pay to my good
   Physician--to refuse to do what He asks of me? Do you not see that I am
   under an obligation which it would be shameful to deny? He restored
   these limbs and I am bound to do with them what He orders me do with
   them. He says, 'walk,' and since these once withered feet have been
   restored, shall I not walk? He bids me roll up my bed and since I could
   not have used my hands till just now, His Word gave them life--shall I
   not use them to roll up my bed at His bidding? These poor shoulders of
   mine were bent with weakness, but He has made me stand upright! And
   since He now bids me carry my bed, shall I not throw the rug on my
   shoulders and bear the easy load which He lays upon me?"

   There was no answering such reasoning. Whatever might have been the
   claim of Jesus upon others, He clearly had an indisputable right to the
   loyal obedience of one whom He had made perfectly whole! Follow me
   briefly in this, Brothers and Sisters. If you have been saved by the
   Grace of God, your salvation has put you under obligation to do what
   Jesus bids you. Are you redeemed? Then you are not your own--you are
   bought with a price! Have you been, in consequence of what the Lord has
   done for you, rescued from Satanic slavery and adopted into the Divine
   family? Then it clearly follows that because you are sons and
   daughters, you should be obedient to the Law of the household--for is
   not this a first element of sonship--that you should reverence the
   great Father of the family?

   The Lord has been pleased to put away your sin. You are forgiven--but
   does not pardon demand amendment? Shall we go back to the old sins from
   which we have been cleansed? Shall we live in the iniquities from which
   we have been washed by the blood of our Lord Jesus? That were horrible
   to think of! It would be nothing less than devilish for a man to say,
   "I have been forgiven and, therefore, I will sin again." There is no
   remission where there is no repentance! The guilt of sin remains on
   that man in whom the love of sin still remains. Let us practically feel
   the force of this and follow after purity and righteousness!

   Brothers and Sisters upon whom Christ has worked His great work, you
   have experienced the love of God and, therefore, if God has so loved
   you, you are bound to love Him in return! If God has so loved you, you
   must also love your brother. Do not love of God and love of man spring
   up as a sure consequence of the love of God shed abroad in the heart?
   Does not everyone see the necessity which calls for the one love to
   follow the other? And love is the mother of obedience--thus everything
   connected with our Lord lays us under obligation to obey Him! There is
   not a single blessing of the Covenant but what necessarily entails its
   corresponding duty--and here I scarcely like to say duty--for these
   blessings of the Covenant make duty to be our privilege and holiness to
   be our delight!

   Therefore, redeemed from sin, we would live no longer in sin!
   Therefore, made heirs of Heaven, we endeavor to lead the heavenly life
   so that even while we are below, our conversation may be in Heaven from
   where we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren, He that
   made you whole has commanded this and that to be done by you! I counsel
   you to keep the King's Commandments. As Mary said to the waiters at the
   wedding at Cana, so I say to you--"Whatever He

   says unto you, do it." Does He bid you pray, then pray without ceasing!
   Does He bid you watch as well as pray? Then guard every act, thought
   and word!

   Does He bid you love your Brethren? Then love them with a pure heart!
   Does He bid you serve them and humble yourself for His sake? Then do so
   and become the servant of all! Has He said, "Be you holy, for I am
   holy"? Then aim at this by His Holy Spirit! Has He said, "Be you
   perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect"? Then
   strive after perfection, for He that made you whole has a right to
   direct your ways and it will be both your safety and your happiness to
   submit yourselves to His commands!

   III. Enough, however, upon that. We now call your attention, in the
   third place, to the text under the sense of CONSTRAINT--"He that made
   me whole, the same said unto me, Take up your bed and walk." He made
   him whole by saying, "Rise, take up your bed." The carrying of the bed
   was part and parcel of the cure. The first part of the healing word was
   "rise," but the second was, "take up your bed." Now, it was not an
   ordinary word which Jesus spoke to that man--a mere word of advice,
   warning, or command--it was a word full of power like that which
   created light out of darkness. When the Lord said to the poor man,
   "Rise," he rose.

   A thrill went through him--those stagnant blood vessels felt the
   life-blood stir and flow--those dormant nerves were awakened to
   sensations of health! Those withered sinews and muscles braced
   themselves for energetic action, for Omnipotence had visited the
   impotent man and restored him. Oh it must have been a wondrous joy to
   the long enervated, nerveless, powerless frame, to be capable of
   healthy motion--to be equal to bearing a happy burden! The joyful man
   rolled up his bed, threw it on his back and marched abroad with the
   best of them! The bed-carrying was part of the cure and proof of the
   cure.

   The paralytic had not been called upon to deliberate as to whether he
   should rise or not, but Jesus said, "Rise," and he stood upright! The
   same word said, "Take up your bed." The bed was up at once and,
   according, to the last word, "walk," the man walked with delight! It
   was all done by the power of the one thrilling sentence which tarried
   not to be questioned, but accomplished the end for which the Lord had
   sent it. Not unwillingly did the restored man carry his bed, yet he did
   it of constraint, for the same power which made him whole made him
   obedient. Before the Divine energy had touched him, he seemed scarcely
   to have any will at all. The Lord had to hunt to find a will in him,
   saying, "Do you want to be made whole?"

   But now he cheerfully wills obedience to his Benefactor and in the
   force of the command, he carried out the Lord's behest. I say that his
   taking up his bed and walking was done by Christ's enabling and done by
   Christ's constraining-- and I pray that you may know by experience what
   this means. What I want you to feel is this--"I cannot help obeying
   Christ, for by His Holy Spirit He has spoken me into a life which will
   never die and never be vanquished! He has spoken a Word in me which has
   a continuous force over me and thrills me through and through
   constantly. I can no more help seeking to obey Christ than this man
   could help carrying his bed when the Lord, by a Word of power, had bid
   him do

   so."

   Brothers and Sisters, look at this and be instructed and warned. Do you
   feel reluctant, this morning, to enter upon your Lord's service because
   of conscious weakness? Has the devil tempted you to draw back from
   obedience because of your unfitness? Do you hesitate? Do you tremble?
   Surely you need to draw near to the Lord, again, and hear His voice
   anew! Take your Bibles and let Him speak to you, again, out of the Word
   and may the same thrill which awoke you out of your death-sleep wake
   you out of your present lethargy! There is need that the Living Word of
   God should come home to your inmost soul with that same miraculous
   power which dwelt in it at first. "Lord, quicken me," is David's
   prayer, but it suits me every day and I think most of God's people
   would do well to use it daily.

   "Lord, speak life unto me now as You did at first. Speak power, speak
   spiritual force into me." "The love of Christ constrains us," says the
   Apostle. This constraint is what we need to feel more and more. We need
   Divine Life perpetually to bear us forward to acts of obedience! We do
   not need to destroy willinghood, but we would have it quickened into
   entire subservience to the will of the Lord! Like Noah's ark on dry
   land, the will keeps its place by its own dead weight-- O for a flood
   of Grace to move, to lift, to bear it up--to carry it away by a mighty
   current! We would be borne before the love of Christ as a tiny piece of
   wood is drifted by the Gulf stream, or as one of the specks which dance
   in the sunbeam would be carried by a rushing wind.

   As the impulse which began with Jesus found the poor man passive
   because utterly unable to be otherwise and then impelled him on to
   active movements as with a rush of power, so may it always be with us
   throughout life. May we forever yield to the Divine impulse! To be
   passive in the Lord's hands is a good desire, but to be what I would
   call actively passive, to be cheerfully submissive, willing to give up
   our will--this is a higher spiritual mood! We must live and yet not we,
   but Christ in us! We must act and yet we must say, He that made me
   whole bade me do this holy deed and I do it because His power moves me
   to do it! If I have done well, I lay the honor at His feet. If I hope
   to do well in the future, it is because I hope for strength from Him to
   do well, believing that He will work in me by that same power which
   converted me at the first! Beloved, endeavor to abide under this
   influence. May the Holy Spirit bring you there!

   My last word is a practical lesson. The Church of God on earth at this
   present time anxiously desires to spread her influence over the world.
   For Christ's sake we wish to have the Truths of God we preach
   acknowledged and the precepts which we deliver obeyed. But mark, no
   Church will ever have power over the masses of this or any other land
   except in proportion as she does them good. The day has long since
   passed in which any Church may hope to prevail on the plea of history.
   "Look at what we were," is a vain appeal--men only care for what we
   are.

   The sect which glorifies itself with the faded laurels of past
   centuries and is content to be inactive today is very near to its
   inglorious end. In the race of usefulness, men nowadays care less about
   the pedigree of the horse and more about the rate at which it can run.
   The history of a congregation or a sect is of small account compared
   with the practical good which it is doing. Now, if any Church under
   Heaven can show that it is making men honest, temperate, pure, moral,
   holy--that it is seeking out the ignorant and instructing them, that it
   is seeking out the fallen and reclaiming them, that, in fact, it is
   turning moral wastes into gardens and taking the weeds and briars of
   the wilderness and transforming them into precious fruit-bearing
   trees--then the world will be ready to hear its claims and consider
   them.

   If a Church cannot prove its usefulness, the source of its moral
   strength will have gone and, indeed, something worse than this will
   have happened, for its spiritual strength will have gone, too! A barren
   church is manifestly without the fruitful Spirit of God. Brothers and
   Sisters, you may, if you will, dignify your minister by the name of
   bishop. You may give to your deacons and elders grand official titles.
   You may call your place of worship a cathedral. You may worship, if you
   will, with all the grandeur of pompous ceremonies and the adornments of
   music and incense and the like--but you shall have only the semblance
   of power over human minds unless you have something more than these!

   If you have a Church, no matter by what name it is called, that is
   devout, that is holy, that is living unto God, that does good in its
   neighborhood, that, by the lives of its members, spreads holiness and
   righteousness--in a word, if you have a Church that is really making
   the world whole in the name of Jesus--you shall, in the long run, find
   that even the most carnal and thoughtless will say, "The Church which
   is doing this good is worthy of respect. Therefore let us hear what it
   has to say." Living usefulness will not screen us from persecution, but
   it will save us from contempt! A holy Church goes with authority to the
   world in the name of Jesus Christ, its Lord, and this force, the Holy
   Spirit uses to bring human hearts into subjection to the Truth of God!

   Oh, that the Church of God would believe in Jesus' power to heal sick
   souls! Remember that this man who was sick for 38 years, had been ill
   longer than Christ had lived on earth! He had been afflicted seven
   years before Christ was born! And even so this poor world has been long
   afflicted. Years before the Pentecost, or the birth of the present
   visible Church, the poor sinful world lay at the pool and could not
   move. We must not be hopeless about it, for the Lord will yet cast sin
   out of it. Let us go, in Jesus Christ's name, and proclaim the
   everlasting Gospel and say, "Rise, take up your bed and walk," and it
   shall be done and God shall be glorified and we shall be blessed!

   PORTION OFSCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 5:1-23. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--909, 331, 787.

   SPURGEON'S TESTIMONIAL--The Sermons and Speeches delivered in
   commemoration of the 25th year of his Pastorate. Passmore and
   Alabaster. At our express desire the publishers have issued this
   handsome volume for a shilling. It is a choice memorial of a rare event
   and every one of our friends should preserve a copy. It will soon be
   out of print and unobtainable. [And so it is!--EOD]
     __________________________________________________________________

                          Constant, Instant, Expectant

   A Sermon

   (No. 1480)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, June 22nd, 1879, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Continuing instant in prayer."--Romans 12:12.

   THIS is placed in connection with a large number of brief but very
   weighty precepts. Prayer has a distinct relationship to all Christian
   duties and graces. It is not possible for us to carry out the holy
   commands of our Lord Jesus unless we are abundant in supplication. The
   Romans at the time that Paul wrote to them were subject to persecution,
   and in this verse he mentions two remedies for impatience under such
   afflictions, remedies which are equally effectual under all the trials
   of life. The old physicians tell us of two antidotes against poison,
   the hot and the cold, and they dilate upon the special excellence of
   each of these: in like manner the apostle Paul gives us first the warm
   antidote--"Rejoicing in hope," and then he gives us the cool antidote,
   "Patient in tribulation." Either of these, or both together, will work
   wonderfully for the sustaining of the spirit in the hour of affliction;
   but it is to be observed, that neither of these remedies can be taken
   into the soul except they be mixed with a draught of prayer. Joy and
   patience are curative essences, but they must be dropped into a glass
   full of supplication, and then they will be wonderfully efficient. How
   can we "rejoice in hope" if we know nothing about prayer to the God of
   hope. Whenever your hope seems to fail you and your joy begins to
   sink,--the shortest method is to take to your knees. By remembering the
   promise in prayer hope will be sustained, and then joy is sure to
   spring from it, for joy is the first-born child of hope. As for
   "patience," how can we be patient if we cannot pray? Have not holy men
   of old always sustained themselves in their worst times of grief and
   depression by betaking themselves to prayer? Mind that you do the same.
   Impatience will be sure to follow prayerlessness, but the endurance of
   the divine will grows out of communion with God in prayer. I like that
   beautiful, though sad, picture of the Norwich martyr, Hudson, of whom
   Foxe tells us that, when he stood at the stake with the chain about him
   to be burnt, he fell under a cloud. The Lord had withdrawn the light of
   his countenance from him, and therefore this man of God slipped from
   under the chain to have a few minutes alone with God. Some thought that
   he was about to recant, and his fellow martyrs began exhorting him to
   be steadfast and to play the man, but this dear believer knew what he
   was at, and when he had spoken with his God he came back to the stake
   with a bright and beaming countenance, saying, "Now, I thank God, I am
   strong, and fear not what man can do unto me," and stood in his place
   with his fellow sufferers and there burned quick to the death without
   fear. Oh the power of prayer! If we do but know how to get in contact
   with the Eternal and and Omnipotent, we shall be joyful and patient in
   all tribulations, and bravely endure even the keen edge of death.

   Prayer is to be exercised in all things, for from its position in the
   present context we are taught that it is not without prayer that we
   proceed to "distribute to the necessities of the saints." Because we
   have prayed for them we are ready to befriend them by deeds of love. If
   we have not been accustomed to pray for the brethren, we shall not be
   "given to hospitality"; much less shall we "bless them which persecute
   us." prayer is the life-blood of duty, the secret sap of holiness, the
   fountain of obedience. Upon prayer as spoken of in the text may the
   Holy Spirit help us now to meditate.

   Three things I shall speak upon which will be remembered the better by
   being linked with three words--Instant, constant, expectant.

   I. First, then, Instant--"Continuing instant in prayer." It may be
   proper a this stage to say that there words, though I shall dwell upon
   them in the English, are not identical with the Greek, in which there
   is but one word. I do not know that a better translation could possibly
   be given, and so I shall content myself with the very words of our own
   version. The word "instant," as used by our translators, meant
   pressing, urgent, importunate, earnest. The Greek word is said to have
   the signification of "always applying strength in prayer," or
   continuing with all your might in prayer. Our prayer is to be full of
   strength; "blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." Master Brooks
   saith that the word is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs, which will
   never give up the game till they have got it. A hunting dog when in
   pursuit of its victim works itself into full motion, using every limb
   and muscle to follow as fast as possible. If you catch a glimpse of it
   you will see that it throws itself forward with intense eagerness, the
   whole body and soul of the dog is in motion towards one object; no
   portion of him lingers, not so much as a glance is given to anything
   else, the whole creature is instant after the game which it pursues,
   urgently pressing, hot foot, as we say, to overtake the prey. Now, this
   is the way in which we are to pray. Prayer as a mere form is but a
   mockery; prayer in a languid, half-hearted manner may be more
   dishonouring to God than honouring to him; we ourselves may be rather
   injured by lukewarm prayer than benefited by it. Prevalent prayer is
   frequently spoken of in Scripture as an agony--"striving together with
   me in your prayers." We frequently speak of it as "wrestling," and we
   do well, for so it is. In wrestling a man hath all his mind as well as
   all his body occupied with the desire to overthrow his antagonist. Now
   he bends and twists, and anon he strains and stretches: now he uses one
   foot and then another; he tries his arm and stretches: now he uses one
   foot and then another; he tries his arm and now his leg; he shifts his
   ground, he shifts his ground, he takes up another position, and he
   keeps his eye perpetually open lest he should be caught unawares. He
   hath both his hands eager for a grip, his whole body ready for a throw:
   the whole man is in his wrestling. After such a manner pray ye; the
   whole of your mind, your memory, your judgement, your affection, your
   hopes, your fears, and even your imagination must be concentrated upon
   this labour of prayer. May the Holy Ghost work in you this
   comprehensive ardour, this energy of the whole man. We must go with our
   whole soul to God or he will not accept us. It will be ill for us if we
   are half-hearted, for it is written, "their heart is divided; now shall
   they be found faulty." "The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and
   the violent take it by force." We are exhorted to "knock," and as our
   model we are directed to him who at midnight aroused his slumbering
   friend. We are exhorted to be importunate, like the widow with the
   unjust judge. We are to pray as if all depended upon our praying;
   though after all that praying is in itself an affect of a cause which
   has existed long before. We are to be as importunate as if God were
   unwilling, and to plead as earnestly as if he did not already know far
   better than we do what things we have need of. Earnestness must be
   present in all our prayers or they will return to us unanswered: this
   is reasonable enough. Shall God be expected to give to us that which we
   do not value? If we do not value the blessing sufficiently to be eager
   in seeking it, is it not right that he should withhold it until we are
   in a better mind? Are we to worship God with a divided reverence? Are
   we to treat him as though it were quite enough for him if we gave him a
   stray thought, or a half-hearted desire, now and then, as a sort of
   compliment? Can we expect that he will receive our sacrifice if we lay
   no fire under it? If we have no impetuous earnestness of spirit, can we
   expect that we shall be accepted? He loathes the lukewarm, will he not
   loath our prayers? See how we deal with our fellow men; if they ask a
   favour of us and we see that they care but little about it, we are in
   no great haste to put ourselves about to do them the turn, but if they
   are very pressing, we yield to their entreaties; and so doth God in his
   mercy yield to their entreaties of his people. As one hath very
   prettily said, the nurse when she hath her child in the cradle, though
   it beginneth to cry and whinny a little, she leaves it and continueth
   at her household work, and when it cries a little more, and a little
   more she still hearkens, but she lets it be where it is. But when at
   last the babe takes to vehement crying, then straightway she presses it
   to her bosom with many a kiss and a kindly word. Children of God, you
   must cry mightily unto the Lord, and pour out your hearts like water
   before him, and then will he have regard unto the voice of your cry,
   and it shall be unto you even according to your desire. Instancy in
   prayer is needful; we must be fervent or burning, or we shall not
   prevail.

   How are we to attain to this urgency? God's gracious Spirit must give
   it to us, but what are the methods by which, under his direction, we
   may become instant in prayer?

   I answer first, let us study very thoroughly the value of the mercy
   which we are seeking at God's hand. Seeker, take heed to this.

   Whatever it is that thou are asking for, it is nor trifle. Look at it.
   If it be a thing about which thou art not certain that it would be
   according to God's mind, lay it aside: thou hast no right to be very
   fervent about that which is of questionable necessity. If this may or
   may not be good for thee, put up thy requests to the great Father
   gently once or twice, and then lay them lightly in Jesus' hand. But
   when thou art certain that the blessing sought for is a good and
   necessary thing for thy soul, then in order that thy spirit may be
   strong in prayer get a deep sense of it's value, its goodness, and its
   necessity; examine it as a goldsmith inspects a jewel when he wishes to
   estimate its worth. A man's ardour in pursuit will be in proportion to
   his consciousness of the value of that which he pursues. Get thou to
   feel what a precious thing grace is, what it cost the Lord to bring it
   to thee; what blessings it brings with it for time and for eternity,
   and when thy heart sees that it seeks after an unspeakably precious
   gift, then will its desire be stirred up to pray with intense longings.

   When thou hast done this, meditate much upon thy necessities that thou
   mayest get a sense of thy need of the mercy thou art seeking. See thy
   soul's poverty and thine own undeservingness. Look at what will happen
   to thee unless this blessing come. If it be some absolutely
   indispensable spiritual blessing, picture to thyself where thou wilt be
   if God should withhold it, what evils will spring of thy continuing in
   want of it, and what further wants may yet beset thee. The more thy
   need smites thee the more eagerly wilt thou cry unto the Lord
   concerning it. Art thou desirous of bread for thy soul, be hungry, and
   let thine hunger eat into thy heart. Art thou desirous of the water of
   life; be thirsty, and let thy thirst burn thee till thou art dried up
   like a potsherd. Let thy necessities have liberty, by meditation, to
   seize thee and to distress thee with a sense of thine emptiness and
   nothingness. Nothing sets a man more eagerly upon prayer than a deep
   sense of his need of that which he is seeking at the Lord's hand. He
   will eagerly seek for garments who shivers in his nakedness amid the
   winter's blast. He will earnestly long for home who feels himself lost
   upon a moor in the midst of a midnight fog. Get thou a consciousness of
   where and what thou art apart from Christ and from the mercy of God,
   and then, when thou perceivest well thy need, this, with a sense of the
   greatness of the blessing, will much quicken thee as to instancy in
   prayer.

   Endeavour also to get a distinct consciousness of the fact that God
   must give thee this blessing, or thou wilt never have it. It requires
   time to think over these things, therefore set thyself apart awhile
   from all other occupations, and think on these matters. Say to
   thyself--Here is such and such a spiritual mercy, and I can never get
   it out of myself, for I am a dry well. Nothing can come out of nothing,
   and I am nothing. I cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean, and I
   am unclean. This spiritual blessing I cannot obtain from my fellow-man;
   nor king nor priest could bring it to me. I cannot climb to heaven
   after it, nor dive into the abyss to find it; nor earth nor heaven can
   yield it, nor can either time or eternity produce it. God alone must
   give it to me, and he is a sovereign, he has a right to give or to
   withhold. I cannot claim it of him as a matter of right, he must give
   it to me of his mere mercy, it must be a boon of undeserved favour. Oh,
   if you get that truth well wrought into your soul you will pray
   earnestly, and you will use the right arguments,--"Have mercy upon me,
   O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of
   thy tender mercies." God alone can help you, and if he refuse you are
   undone for ever, therefore cry mightily unto him.

   Further to make you instant in prayer endeavour eagerly to desire the
   good thing. Stand not before God if thou wouldst win at his hands, as
   one who will be content whether or no. Say not "Give it or withhold it,
   it is all one to me. I knock at thy door, and if thou open I will be
   somewhat pleased, but if thy door be shut I will be pleased too." Oh
   no; such listlessness will never prevail with God. There are times when
   you must be brought to this condition that you will not be denied.
   There is a holy "impudency," as the Puritans were wont to call it, to
   which we must be brought, in which we shall with holy boldness dare to
   say like Jacob, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Such
   language would be blasphemy if it were not permitted, it would be
   presumption if it were not encouraged; but there is little fear of our
   being too bold, for in these times men are more inclined to keep at a
   distance than to come too near. We are permitted to use the liberty of
   obedient, loving children. We are allowed in the holy confidence of
   faith to resolve that we will seek until we find, we will ask until we
   receive, we will knock until the door is opened unto us. Our case is
   urgent, and we must needs press it till our suit is gained. Never was a
   man brought to such a pass by the grace of God but what speedily the
   Lord was pleased to open the hand of his liberality and give him
   according to his desire; but this vehemence must be manifested. A
   certain person is mentioned in John Bunyan's "Holy War," Whose name is
   Mr. Desiresawake, and their prayers lie dormant like certain wild
   beasts in winter; fain would I stir them out of their dens. Wake up,
   man, wake up when you pray, for it is insulting to God to give him
   sleepy worship. Dreaming at praying and playing at praying, as some do,
   are grievous sins. No, no, prayer must be heart work, soul-work, spirit
   work. Prayer ought to be the sweat of the soul, it should sometimes be
   even as the bloody sweat of an agonizing heart, crying mightily unto
   the Lord, as Jesus did in the garden. To such the Lord sendeth down his
   angel to strengthen them or in some way heareth their pleadings in that
   concerning which they were filled with anguish. Intensity of desire
   must be exhibited or else it may come to pass that the time of the
   bestowal is not yet come.

   I will suppose, dear brother, that you have followed these directions
   so far by the help of God's Spirit, and now you know your need of the
   mercy, and something of the value of it; you see that God alone can
   give it you, and you are anxiously desirous to have it. Now comes the
   tug of war; you are to plead with all your might. Gather up all your
   faculties to see whether this thing be a matter of promise or no. Take
   down the Book, your charter and your Father's will, and see if there be
   any part of the charter which promises this good thing to you. When you
   have found the promise lay your finger on it. Better still, with your
   spirit grasp it in your hand, and go before God with it. If your prayer
   be as Luther calls it, "bombarda Christianorum," the Christian's great
   gun with which he doth bombard heaven, then surely the promise is the
   shot which he sends forth. Plead the promise by saying, "Lord, do as
   thou hast said. Fulfil this word unto thy servant upon which thou hast
   caused me to hope." If you do not seem to prevail with one promise seek
   out another and plead it. This, perhaps will be more to the point,--a
   promise which your very soul seems to suck in as though it were spoken
   to you newly and freshly, as if never another man had ever received it.
   Spread this second promise before the Lord. Nothing pleases him more
   than seeing his own word pleaded by his own children. Try this, and if
   it is manifest that you have not succeeded turn to yet another promise,
   and another and another and another, and then plead, "For thy name's
   sake, for thy truth's sake, for thy covenant's sake" ; and then came in
   with the greatest plea of all, "For Jesus' sake and in his name, for
   the blood's sake, I plead with thee, my God. O thou that hearest
   prayer, wilt thou not keep touch with thine own word, and be true to
   thine own Son?" You have prevailed there. By that sign you have
   conquered. Again it shall be seen that the Lord hath hearkened to the
   voice of a man.

   Still there is one thing more wanted, and that is strong faith, not
   only that God is, but that he is the rewarder of them that diligently
   seek him. You cannot be instant in prayer, nay, you cannot offer an
   acceptable prayer at all except as you believe in the prayer-hearing
   God. The modern wise men assure us, with a patronizing air, that prayer
   is a pious exercise, exceedingly beneficial to ourselves, but quite
   inoperative with God. They are kind enough to allow us to pray, only we
   must not suppose that it has the slightest effect. And do they think
   that we are such idiots that we would stand and whistle to the wind and
   find good for our souls in such a stupid proceeding? They must have
   formed their notion of our mental condition from their own if they
   imagine that we should pray if we knew that God did not hear us, and
   would not answer us. Prayer apart from the idea of a hearing God is not
   praying; it is soliloquizing, or, in plainer words, a silly talking to
   yourself, such as one sees in half-witted old persons who have outlived
   what few senses they once possessed. You must believe that God is, and
   that your pleadings are a part of the divine way of blessing you, or
   else you are not praying but maundering and chattering. The Lord does
   really listen to the pleadings of his people, and though he does not
   alter his ordinance and his decree, yet in some way or other he makes
   the prayers of his people to be an efficient link in the machinery of
   his providence and grace, so that not without prayer doth he bless
   them, but with it he doth bless them abundantly. Dear friends, may the
   Lord the Holy Spirit stir us all up to be instant in mighty, energetic
   prayer.

   II. Now, secondly, comes the CONSTANT--"continuing instant in prayer."
   To go back to the hunting dog with which we set out. We saw him rushing
   like the wind after his game, but this will not be enough if it only
   lasts for a little; he must continue running if he is to catch his
   prey. It matters not how fast the stag-hound goes if after having kept
   the pace awhile he begins to slacken--the stag will escape from him. It
   is a sign of failure in the iron trade when the furnaces are blown out;
   when business flourishes the fire blazes both day and night; and so
   will it be with prayer when the soul is in a flourishing state. If
   prayer be the Christian's vital breath, how can he leave off praying?

   We must maintain the ardour of prayer; we must be intense always.
   Prayer is not to be a thing of yesterday, but of to-day, and to-morrow,
   until it changeth into praise above. Perhaps prayer will continue even
   in heaven. Certainly the souls under the alter cry "How long?" and
   unfulfilled prophecies yet big with future events will be pleaded even
   there. Praise, however, is the chief characteristic of the future
   state, as prayer is the characteristic of the present one. We are to
   get into a good pace--"instant in prayer," and then to keep it
   up--continuing instant in prayer. "That is difficult" says one. Who
   said it was not? All the processes of the Christian life are difficult;
   indeed, they are impossible apart from the abiding help of the divine
   Spirit: but "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities." Now then, brethren,
   that we may be helped to keep up our fervency in prayer, please to
   notice that prayer must be continuous, because it is so singularly
   mixed with the whole gospel dispensation. As the incense filled the
   temple, so does prayer fill the gospel economy. The blood was upon the
   mercy seat, and upon the alter, and the laver, and the candlestick, and
   the book; it was sprinkled everywhere in the Jewish Tabernacle, and
   thus atonement was the most conspicuous object in the worship
   prescribed by the law of Moses; but next to this, prayer was most
   prominent in the continual calling upon God, and in the smoke of the
   incense by which prayer was symbolized. It is the high privilege of
   those who are believers in Jesus to draw nigh unto God with their
   petitions perpetually. The whole church, like the twelve tribes, is
   instantly serving God day and night in prayer, hoping for the
   fulfillment of the promise of the glorious appearing. "Behold, he
   prayeth" is the very mark of the individual Christian, and the unity,
   the life, and the spirituality of the church are best seen in prayer.

   "Nor prayer is made on earth alone;

   The Holy Spirit pleads;

   And Jesus, on the eternal throne,

   For sinners intercedes."

   Prayer was dear to Jesus when he was the Man of Nazareth upon the
   mountain's lonely side; and prayer is dear to him now that as the Son
   of God he intercedes in glory. Even to him the covenant hath this
   condition of prayer appended, "Ask of me, and I will give thee the
   heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
   thy possession." Prayer is the atmosphere which surrounds Emanuel's
   land: as the clouds hang on the mountains, so doth prayer linger over
   every great mercy of God.

   Prayer is connected with every covenant blessing. Why, beloved, it is
   to him that calleth upon the name of the Lord that the promise of
   salvation is given. Our heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those
   that ask him. Justification was given to the publican rather than to
   the Pharisee, because he had offered humble, believing, acceptable
   prayer ; whereas the Pharisee asked nothing, but only glorified
   himself. Adoption begets prayer, for it brings us the spirit of
   adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. From election right onward to
   perfection in Christ there is no blessing of the covenant but what is
   understood, received, enjoyed, fed upon, and practically used in the
   way of prayer. Those who would safely navigate the sea of life must
   pray their passage to heaven.

   Moreover, beloved, prayer has been connected with every living
   spiritual experience you have ever had. Will you kindly look back to
   the hour when you were under the fig tree and Jesus saw you. Were you
   not at prayer? When you first arose to go to your Father, was not you
   first step a prayer? When you received the assurance of salvation, was
   it not in answer to prayer? When his banner over you has been love,
   have you not felt it sweet to pray? When you have feasted at his table,
   and he has revealed himself to you as he does not to the world, have
   you not then been in the spirit of prayer? The hill Mizar and the
   Hermonites--places you never can forget, those choicest of spots, which
   seem as you look back along the vista of life to be gleaming with a
   supernatural splendour--has not prayer been connected with them all?
   There has been nothing grandly great or good in your spiritual life,
   but Jabbok has flowed near it, and the top of Carmel has been near to
   view, where you have wrestled with God and have prevailed.

   Now, beloved, we are commanded to be constant in our instancy. Is not
   this right? Is there any time when we can afford to slacken prayer?
   Would you kindly put your finger on the map of the way, and tell me
   where a Christian man may leave off praying? Is it when he prospers?
   No, for then he needs grace to carry a full cup with a steady hand. Is
   it when he is in distress? Doth not nature itself teach us that in time
   of affliction we should especially draw near to God in prayer? When
   should he pray, nay, when should he not pray? Where may he pray? The
   answer is, he may pray everywhere, for as one has well said, a man who
   carries his temple about with him is always in a place where he may
   pray ; and know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy
   Ghost? Wherever you go you carry your temples with you, and therefore
   be sure that you do pray. If you are on the housetop with Peter pray
   there, and if waiting at table with Nehemiah, pray there: if in the
   field with Isaac or on the mountain with the Lord, or in the sea with
   Jonah, or in a prison with Joseph, or in the article of death with
   Stephen, pray there.

   "Long as they live should Christians pray,

   For only while they pray they live."

   When they are under the wings of the cherubim crying unto God at his
   mercy seat then are they in the secret place of the tabernacle of the
   Most High, and then shall they abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

   But specially we ought to be constant in prayer, because such
   remarkable gifts are vouchsafed to importunity. God often gives
   liberally to prayer when it speaks but once, but frequent pleading
   begets abundant answering. That is the most soul-enriching prayer which
   is long in winning its way with God. When prayers like great ships have
   been long on the voyage you may hope that they have gone far and have
   gathered rich cargoes and will come home freighted with all the
   goodlier merchandise. If you can but quietly hope, and patiently wait,
   all will be well. The very choicest blessings of heaven are reserved
   for the Elijahs who can say, "Go again seven times," for the men who
   come again and again and again and never faint. Wait then upon the Lord
   with holy importunity of prayer, and your reward shall more than repay
   you. It is good for us to be compelled to pray like this ; it brings us
   up from spiritual childhood to perfect manhood. Therefore be ye
   constant in prayer, and gather strength for importunate pleadings.

   No reason can be given why we should not continue in prayer. I can
   suppose one brother saying, "I feel I cannot pray." When you feel you
   cannot pray, be sure that you are more in need of prayer than ever. Is
   not a disinclination to prayer one of the saddest marks of your soul's
   condition, one of those reasons which ought above all others to drive
   you to the mercy-seat? "Would you say the same, sir, if I tell you that
   I can pray?" Precisely the same, for now when the wind is favourable
   you should hoist all sail. If you cannot make progress now, when will
   you? Therefore pray when you can pray, and pray when you cannot pray.
   "Alas, sir, I cannot get beyond a groan." Brother, be not distressed,
   for the best praying in all the world consists of "groanings that
   cannot be uttered." We may sometimes have a doubt whether the Spirit of
   God helps us to pray in cheerful prayers, though I do not say that
   there is any need for the doubt,--but we cannot have a question about
   our sad prayings, for it is expressly said he "maketh intercession for
   us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Do you think that the chief
   end of a Christian's life is to be comfortable? It is often more good
   to us to mourn like doves than to sing like nightingales. Sometimes
   there may be more prayer in a sigh than in a long oration. Often do I
   myself personally look back upon times of bondage when I cried to God
   with all my soul, and thought I did not pray, and I wish that I prayed
   now as I did then. Therefore always pray; whether you feel in a mind
   for prayer or not, still pray. The fisherman at Mentone keep on fishing
   with their great net; ay, by the score these fishermen take it out and
   haul it in again, and frequently they get no more than one little
   sardine for their pains. Many and many a time I have seen no more than
   they could hold in their hand as the produce of a net which covered
   acres of the sea. But why do they go on? Because they are fishermen,
   and cannot do anything else. You and I are praying men, and there is
   nothing else we can do but wait upon the Lord. So if, after many a
   throw of the net, we get but one small answer, we will try again, for
   this is all we can do. "Lord, to whom should we go but thee?"

   Continue in prayer because the continuance of our instancy in prayer is
   the test of the reality of our devotion. Men that are in business and
   are in earnest cannot afford to open the shop and do a little
   occasional trade, and then put up a notice, "The proprietor of this
   shop has gone out for an excursion, and will resume his business when
   he feels inclined to." This would be trifling, and not trading; and it
   is so in prayer: a little bit of praying and then a stretch of neglect
   will prove a delusion and a snare. A poor simpleton who had never been
   to sea before, when he was going to Australia, asked a friend on board
   the vessel what the sailors did with the vessel at night. "Do of a
   night," was the reply, "Why, sail as fast as they can go." "I did not
   know," he said, "they worked in the night, I thought they stopped the
   ship." He must have thought he was out on some pleasure excursion along
   the coast, and that the yacht would anchor when the sun went down; but
   he was in an ocean clipper which was out for work and not for play. The
   man who means business must sail whether it is dark or light; and so in
   prayer we must serve God instantly, both day and night. Real prayers
   are constant prayers. There is a fish, you know, that sometimes
   attempts to fly, but it is no bird for all that. It only takes a little
   flight and then it is in the water again; but a true bird keeps on the
   wing, especially if it is such a bird as the eagle, whose untiring wing
   bears it above the clouds. Beware of prayers which leap up like a
   grasshopper and are soon down again. Let your prayers have the wings of
   a dove, let them fly away from earth and rest in God. Hypocrites pray
   by fits and starts, the genuine Christian "prays without ceasing."

   Beware of judging yourselves by certain spasms of prayer. When I put my
   lamp out last night, as I thought, it flashed up, then went down again,
   and yet again flashed up; it did so many times, as I stood waiting, but
   I knew it must go out ere long. Some have a way of flashing a prayer or
   two, but their piety is only a dying light, it will all be over soon.
   Continue instant in prayer, it shall be the test of whether your prayer
   is a lamp of the Lord or a dying light of your own kindling.

   Beloved, we must continue in prayer, but the Holy Spirit alone can
   enable us to do it. We may, however, be much helped in it by
   occasionally setting apart a special time. Days of prayer and hours of
   prayer, and set seasons of prayer are very helpful. We ought to have
   our appointed seasons each day, but special times over and above our
   regular custom may stir the fire and enable it to burn more brightly.
   To unite with other Christians in prayer is often very helpful. Private
   prayer is more important than public prayer under any aspects, and is a
   better test of a Christian; still public prayer often reacts upon
   private devotion, and when two or three are together, and are agreed as
   touching the kingdom, their supplications will often be helpful to each
   other and obtain the thing which they desire.

   III. Our last word EXPECTANT. It is not in the text verbally, but it
   must be there really, because there will be no such thing as instancy
   or constancy unless there is an expectation, and a belief that God can
   and will give that which we seek. Let us go back to our dog again: the
   dog would not run at so great a rate if he did not expect to seize his
   prey; but see how every limb is stretched with intensity, and he goes
   over hedge and ditch after his game because he has almost seized it,
   and though it flies before him with all its might, yet he close upon
   it. There is no praying with any fervour unless there is faith that God
   will hear you; at least if instancy can be felt for a while, constancy
   cannot be kept up long without it. Expectancy that God will hear. I was
   awakened at about four o'clock this morning by a sharp shrill sound. I
   thought it was a swallow screaming by the window, and I fell asleep
   again. A young bird had found its way into my room, and was crying for
   liberty. I left my bed and opened the window to let the captive free.
   It did not seem to know its way, and so I caught it and gently placed
   it at the window, and in a moment it flew to the oak tree close by and
   sat itself down. I watched its movement. The moment it had perched
   itself comfortably it began to utter sharp cries, and it turned its
   little head round on all sides as if looking for some one. It was
   crying for its mother, and why? Because it expected to be fed. And why
   did it expect to be fed? Because it had been fed before. If it had been
   a full-grown bird, it would not have called for food, but would have
   helped itself; but this poor little creature had been nourished by its
   parents, and it was looking round to be supplied again. This is why we
   pray. O Lord, thou hast supplied our wants so long and so often in
   answer to prayer, that we are in the way of it; and now we pray, not
   only because we ought to do so, but because it has become natural to us
   to pray, and we expect thee to hear us. When thou dost hear us we bless
   thee, but we are not surprised, as though it were a strange thing. Thy
   truth causes great admiration but no astonishment, for it is like thee
   to keep thy word, We are poor dependent children, and thou a wise and
   tender Father; thou has never left us and thou wilt never leave us, and
   so we continue instant in prayer, because we are expectant of thy
   grace. Some professors seldom exercise expectancy in prayer, but the
   soul of prayer is gone when you have no expectation. God will the cry
   of your desire, but the hand into which he will put the mercy is the
   hand of your expectation. You must believe that you have the blessing,
   or you will not have it unless it be by some extraordinary mercy beyond
   what is promised. His usual way is to raise our expectations so that we
   look out for the favour, and then he sends it. If some people looked
   out for answers to prayer they might soon have them, for their prayers
   would be answered by themselves. I was reminded of that by a little boy
   whose father prayed in the family that the Lord would visit the poor
   and relieve their wants. When he had finished, his little boy said,
   "Father, I wish I had your money." "Why so?" "Because," he said, "I
   would answer your prayers for you." "Which prayers, John?" "Why,
   father, you prayed that the poor might be helped, and you could do it
   very well with your own money." I like better still that story of the
   good man at the prayer-meeting, who reading the list of prayers found
   one for a poor widow that her distress might be relived, so he began to
   read it, but stopped and added, "we won't trouble the Lord with that, I
   will attend to that myself." Numbers of prayers are of that kind: we
   are praying God to do what we ought to do ourselves, and that is sheer
   impertinence. If we really prayed in earnest, expecting to be heard,
   our answer would often come in this very way, by our being stirred up
   to see that the Lord had heard us. The Lord might well say to us, "Thou
   sayest, Thy kingdom come; arise and help to make my kingdom come! Thou
   askest that my name may be hallowed; go thyself and hallow my name."
   Oh, that we had the expectancy which would teach us practical action,
   so that we should find the answer to our prayer given before we asked,
   according to the promise, "Before they call I will answer them, and
   while they are yet speaking I will hear."

   I had many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now, for the
   time has passed. I shall close by recommending to all of you one simple
   but very comprehensive prayer. It was offered by a poor man in Fife,
   and it was copied out by the Duchess of Gordon, and found among her
   papers when she died. "O Lord, give me grace to feel my need of thy
   grace! Give me grace to ask for thy grace! Give me grace to receive thy
   grace!" See ye not what scope there is for prayer! You will never need
   to leave off pleading for want of subjects. Continue, therefore, to be
   instant in it.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 12.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK."--30, 981, 978.

   GIRLS' ORPHANAGE.--We have purchased "The Hawthorns," near the Boys'
   Orphanage, for £4,000, in order to commence an institution for
   fatherless girls. We earnestly desire to pay the money when it is due,
   namely, on the 15th of July next. This will need not only liberal help,
   but help given speedily, for the time is very limited. Up to this
   moment, in all our movements, we have paid our way with ready money,
   and it would rejoice our heart if we should be enabled to do so now.
   About £1,200 has been given or promised.

   C.H. Spurgeon.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Red Heifer

   (No. 1481)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 29, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer
   sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how
   much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit
   offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
   works to serve the living God?" Hebrews 9:13,14.

   BELOVED Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you dwell in great nearness to
   God. He calls you "a people near unto Him." His Grace has made you His
   sons and daughters and He is a Father unto you. In you is His Word
   fulfilled, "I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their
   God, and they shall be My people." Remember that your favored position
   as children of God has placed you under a peculiar discipline, for now
   God deals with you as with sons--and sons are under household law. The
   Lord will be sanctified in them that come near to Him. Special favor
   involves special rules. There were no strict laws made as to the
   behavior of the Amalekites, Amorites and Egyptians because they were
   far off from God and the times of their ignorance He winked at.

   But the Lord set Israel apart to be His people and He came and dwelt in
   the midst of the congregation. The sacred tent wherein He displayed His
   Presence was pitched in the center of the camp and there the great King
   uplifted His banner of fire and cloud! Therefore, as the Lord brought
   the people so near to Himself, He put them under special laws, such as
   belong to His palace rather than to the outskirts of His dominion. They
   were bound to keep themselves very pure, for they bore the vessels of
   the Lord and were a nation of priests before Him. They ought to have
   been spiritually holy, and being in their childhood, they were taught
   this by laws referring to external cleanliness.

   Read the laws laid down in Leviticus and see what care was required of
   the favored nation and how jealously they were to keep themselves from
   defilement. Just as the children of Israel in the wilderness were put
   under stringent regulations, so do those who live near to God come
   under a holy discipline in the house of the Lord. "Even our God is a
   consuming fire." We are not, now, speaking of our salvation, or of our
   justification as sinners, but of the Lord's dealings towards us as
   saints. In that respect we must walk carefully with Him and watch our
   steps that we offend not. Our earnest desire is to behave ourselves in
   His house that He may always permit us to have access with boldness to
   His Presence and may never be compelled to reject our prayers because
   we have been falling into sin.

   Our heart's desire and inward longing is that we may never lose our
   Father's smile. If we have lost fellowship with Him, even for an hour,
   our cry is, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come
   even to His seat," for when we are in fellowship with God we are happy;
   we are strong; we are full of heavenly aspirations and emotions.
   Beneath the sky there is no joy like that of communion with God--it is
   incomparable and inexpressible and, therefore, when we lose the
   Presence of God, even for a little while, we are like a dove bereaved
   of its mate which ceases not to grieve. Our heart and our flesh cry out
   for God, for the living God! When shall we come and appear before God?

   Now, Beloved, in order that we may learn how to renew our fellowship
   with God whenever we lose it by a sense of sin, I have selected the
   subject of this morning. If the Holy Spirit will graciously enlighten
   us, we shall see how the conscience can be kept clean so that the heart
   may be able to dwell with God. We shall see our danger of defilement
   and the way by which our uncleanness can be put away--may we have Grace
   given to avoid the pollutions which would hinder fellowship--and Grace
   to seek the purification by which uncleanness is removed and fellowship
   restored.

   I shall first endeavor to describe the type which is alluded to by the
   Apostle in the words, "The ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean."
   And then, secondly, we shall magnify the Antitype, dwelling upon the
   words, "How much more

   shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered
   Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
   serve the living God?"

   I. LET US DESCRIBE THE TYPE. In the 19th chapter of Numbers you will
   find the type. Be so good as to open your Bibles and refresh your
   memories. First, the type mentions ceremonial defilements which were
   the symbols of the uncleanness caused by sin. The Israelites could very
   readily render themselves unclean so as to be unfit to go up to the
   tabernacle of God. There were uncleannesses connected both with birth
   and with death; with meats and with drinks; with garments and with
   houses. The rules were very minute and all-pervading so that a man
   could scarcely move abroad or even remain within his own tent without
   incurring uncleanness in one way or another--and becoming unfit to
   enter the courts of the Lord or to be an accepted member of the
   congregation.

   In the passage in Numbers which is now before us, (19:16), the one
   source of defilement dealt with is death. "Whoever touches one that is
   slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a
   man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days." Now, death is peculiarly
   the symbol of sin as well as the fruit of sin. Sin, like death, defaces
   the image of God in man. As soon as death grasps the body of a man, it
   destroys the bloom of beauty, the dignity of strength and drives forth
   from the human form that mysterious something which is the token of
   life within. However comely a corpse may appear for a time, yet it is
   defaced--the excellence of life has departed and, alas, in a few hours,
   or at longest in a few days, the image of God begins utterly to pass
   away--corruption and the worm commence their desolating work and horror
   follows in their train. Abraham, however much he may love his Sarah,
   soon becomes anxious to bury his beloved dead out of his sight.

   Now, what death does for the "human face," sin does for the spiritual
   image of God upon us. It utterly defaces it. Human nature in perfection
   is a coin of the realm of God, minted by the great King. But by sin it
   is battered and defaced--to the great dishonor of the King whose image
   and superscription it bears. Hence sin is most obnoxious to God and
   death is obnoxious as the type of sin. The defilements which came to
   the Israelite by death must have been very frequent. As a whole
   generation died in the wilderness, most of the inhabitants must again
   and again have come under the Law of uncleanness on account of the
   death of parents or friends. In the field a man was at once unclean if
   he dug up human remains, or plowed over a grave, or found a body slain
   by accident. How frequent, therefore, were the occasions of defilement!

   But ah, my Brothers and Sisters, not so frequent as the occasions of
   pollution to our consciences in such a world as this, for in a thousand
   ways we err and transgress--

   "Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of
   shade," where never sin might reach my soul again! But it is in vain to
   sigh in this fashion. Even if we could escape from the throng of men,
   we should not, thereby, escape from sin. The Israelite might meet with
   defilement even in his tent. I have already reminded you that these
   statutes about the dead present to us only a part of the occasions of
   defilement which surrounded the people of Israel--they were much more
   numerous than this. A man might become unclean even in his sleep, so
   closely did the Law track him into his most secret places and surround
   his most unguarded hours.

   Even thus does sin beset us. Like a dog at one's heels, it is always
   with us! Like our shadow, it follows us, go where we may. Yes, and when
   the sun shines not and shadows are gone, sin is still there. Where
   shall we flee from its presence and where shall we hide from its power?
   When we would do good, evil is present with us. How humbled we ought to
   be at the recollection of this! The Israelite became unclean even in
   the act of doing good, for assuredly it was a good deed to bury the
   dead! A man would be defiled, if, out of charity, he helped to inter
   the poor, or the slain, or the poor relics of mortality which might be
   exposed upon the plain--and yet this was a praiseworthy action.

   Alas, there is sin even in our holy things. A morality so pure that no
   human eye can detect a flaw may yet be faulty to the eye of God.
   Brothers and Sisters, sin stains our piety and pollutes our devotion!
   We do not even pray without needing to ask God to forgive the prayer.
   Our acts of faith have a measure of unbelief in them, for the faith is
   never so strong as it ought to be. Our penitential tears have some grit
   of impenitence in them and our heavenly aspirations have a measure of
   carnality to degrade them. The evil of our nature clings to all that we
   do. Who shall bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!

   One way or another defilement will come upon us. We have been once
   washed in the blood of Jesus and we are clean before the bar of God.
   And yet in the Divine family we need that our feet be washed after
   walking awhile in this dusty world and there is not one disciple who is
   above the need of this washing. To one and all our Lord says, "If I
   wash you not, you have no part in Me." The touching of the dead not
   only made the man unclean, but he became a fountain of defilement. "And
   whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the soul that
   touches it shall be unclean until evening." While a man was unclean he
   might not go up to the worship of God and he was in danger of being cut
   off from among the congregation, "Because," says the Law, "he has
   defiled the sanctuary of the Lord."

   Pollution went forth from the polluted. Do you and I sufficiently
   remember how much evil we are spreading when we are out of communion
   with God? Every ungenerous temper creates the same in others. We never
   cast a proud look without exciting resentment and bad feelings in
   others. Somebody or other will follow our example if we are slothful--
   and thus we may be doing great mischief even when we are doing nothing!
   You cannot even bury your talent in a napkin without setting an example
   to others to do the same and were that example followed by all, how
   dreadful would be the consequences! Observe that I am not now speaking
   of sinners, but of the saints of God!

   As the ordinances in the chapter in Numbers before us were for Israel,
   so these things are spoken to those in whom the Spirit of the Lord is.
   My soul's longing is that we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all
   well-pleasing and may not become unfit for communion with Him. This
   uncleanness prevented the man from going up to the worship of God and
   it separated him from that great, permanent congregation which was
   called to dwell in God's house by residing all around the Holy Place.
   He was, so to speak, excommunicated, suspended--at any rate, in his
   communion he could bring no offering--he could not stand among the
   multitude and view the solemn worship. He was unclean and must regard
   himself so.

   Do children of God ever get there? Ah, dear Friends, so far as our
   consciences are concerned, we, too, often come among the unclean! We
   are not polluted as the heathen, nor condemned with the world, but as
   children of God we feel that we have erred and our conscience smites
   us. Sin is already put away from us, as we are criminals tried before a
   judge, but it comes upon the conscience even as a child's faults cause
   him to grieve. It is from the conscience that this uncleanness is to be
   purged and our whole sermon is upon that matter. I speak not of the
   actual taking away of sin before God, but the removal of its defilement
   from the conscience so that communion with God may be possible.
   Remember the word of the Lord, "Your iniquities have separated between
   you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will
   not hear."

   When sin is on your conscience it needs no law to prevent your
   communion with God, for you cannot approach Him--you are afraid to do
   so and you have a distaste for it. Until the pardoning blood speaks
   peace within your spirit, you cannot draw near to God! The Apostle
   says, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
   having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies
   washed with pure water." It is the washing which enables us to draw
   near. We shrink. We tremble. We find communion impossible until we are
   made clean. So much about the defilements described in the chapter. Now
   concerning the cleansing which it mentions.

   The defilement was frequent, but the cleansing was always ready. At a
   certain time all the people of Israel brought a red heifer to be used
   in the expiation. It was not at the expense of one person, or tribe,
   but the whole congregation brought the red cow to be slain. It was to
   be their sacrifice and it was brought for them all. It was not led,
   however, up to the Holy Place for sacrifice, but it was brought forth
   outside the camp and there it was slaughtered in the presence of the
   priest. It was wholly burnt with fire, not as a sacrifice upon the
   altar, but as a polluted thing which was to be made an end of outside
   the camp. It was not a regular sacrifice or we should have found it
   described in Leviticus. It was an ordinance entirely by itself, as
   setting forth quite another side of truth.

   To return to the chapter. The red heifer was killed before the
   uncleanness was committed, just as our Lord Jesus Christ was made a
   curse for sin long, long ago. Before you and I had lived to commit the
   uncleanness, there was a Sacrifice provided for us. For the easing of
   our conscience we shall be wise to view this sacrifice as that of a
   substitute for sin and consider the results of that expiation. Sin on
   the conscience needs, for its remedy, the result of the Redeemer's
   Substitution. The red heifer was slain--the victim fell beneath the
   butcher's axe. It was then all taken up--skin, flesh, blood, dung,
   everything. No trace of it must be left and it was all burnt with fire,
   together with cedar wood, hyssop and

   scarlet wool which, I suppose, had been used in the previous sprinkling
   of the heifer's blood and so must be consumed with it. The whole was
   destroyed outside the camp!

   Even as our Lord, though in Himself without spot, was made sin for us
   and suffered outside the camp, feeling the withdrawing of God while He
   cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Ah, what it cost our
   Lord to come into our place and to bear the iniquities of men! Then the
   ashes were collected and laid in a clean place accessible to the camp.
   Everybody knew where the ashes were and whenever there was any
   uncleanness they went to this ash heap and took away a small portion.
   Whenever the ashes were gone, they brought another red heifer and did
   the same as they had done before--so that there always might be this
   purification for the unclean. But while this red cow was slaughtered
   for all and the blood was sprinkled towards the Holy Place for all, no
   one derived any personal benefit from it in reference to his own
   uncleanness unless he made a personal use of it.

   When a man became unclean he procured a clean person to go on his
   behalf to take a little of the ashes and to put them in a cup with
   running water. Then he had the clean person sprinkle this water of
   purification upon him, upon his tent and all the vessels in it. By that
   sprinkling, at the end of seven days, the unclean person was purified.
   There was no other method of purification from his uncleanness but
   this. It is so with us. Today the Living Water of the Divine Spirit's
   sacred influences must take up the result of our Lord's Substitution
   and this must be applied to our consciences. That which remains of
   Christ after the fire has passed upon Him, even the eternal merits--the
   enduring virtue of our great Sacrifice--must be sprinkled upon us
   through the Spirit of our God. Then are we clean in conscience, but not
   till then.

   We have two degrees of purification by this means, as in the type. Our
   Lord rose again on the third day--and blessed are they who receive the
   third day justification by the Resurrection of the Lord. Thus is sin
   removed from the conscience. But as long as we are here in this body
   there will be some trembling, some measure of unrest because of sin
   within. Blessed be God there is a seventh-day purification coming which
   will complete the cleansing! When the eternal Sabbath breaks, then
   shall be the last sprinkling with the hyssop and we shall be clean and
   we shall enter into the rest which remains for the people of God and
   clean every whit! We shall come before God, at last, without spot or
   wrinkle, or any such thing, and be as able to commune with Him as if we
   had never transgressed, being presented faultless before His Presence
   with exceedingly great joy!

   Thus much concerning the type with which we have already mingled some
   degree of exposition.

   I. LET US MAGNIFY THE GREAT ANTI-TYPE. "For if the blood of bulls and
   of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies
   to the purification of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of
   Christ?" How much more? He does not give us the measure but leaves it
   with a note of interrogation. We shall never be able to tell how much
   more, for the difference between the blood of bulls and of goats and
   the blood of Christ--the difference between the ashes of a red cow and
   the eternal merits of the Lord Jesus must be infinite! Let us help your
   judgments while we set forth the exceeding greatness of our mighty
   Expiator by whom we are reconciled to God.

   First, then, our defilement is much greater, for the defilement spoken
   of in the text is on the conscience. Now, I believe that the Israelite,
   when he was rendered unclean by touching a corpse by necessity, or a
   piece of a bone by accident, felt nothing on his conscience, for there
   was no sin in the matter--he was only ceremonially unclean and that was
   all. His ceremonial disability troubled him, for he would be glad to go
   up to the tabernacle of the Lord and hold fellowship with the hosts of
   Israel. But there was nothing on his conscience. If there had been, the
   blood of bulls and goats could not have helped him.

   Beloved, you and I know what it is, at times, to have defilement upon
   the conscience and to go mourning because we have erred from the Lord's
   commands. The ungodly do not thus sorrow--their conscience, by fits and
   starts, accuses them, but they never listen to its accusations so as to
   feel their inability to draw near to God. No, they will even go with a
   guilty conscience to their knees and pretend to offer to God the
   sacrifice of prayer and praise while they are unforgiven, alienated and
   rebellious! You and I, if we are, indeed, the Lord's people, cannot do
   this! Guilt on our conscience is to us a horrible thing. There are no
   pains of body--there are no tortures inflicted by the Inquisition which
   are at all comparable to the whips of burning wire which lash the
   guilty conscience!

   You hear persons speak about the horrible figures of medieval ages with
   regard to Hell and the strong metaphors sometimes used by the orthodox
   to this day. Let them remember that they are only figures and then let
   any man who has felt the agonies of a guilty conscience judge whether
   the figures can possibly be overdrawn! It is an awful thing to feel

   yourself guilty. And the better a man you are, the more will it grieve
   you to be consciously in a wrong state. I ask any truly regenerate man
   here who at bottom has an assurance that his sin is already forgiven
   before God, whether he can do wrong without smarting? Whenever you have
   transgressed and you are conscious of it, though you do not doubt the
   love of God to you, are you not like one who has all his bones broken?
   I know you are and the better a man you are, the more intense will have
   been the terror of your spirit while guilt has been upon your
   conscience in any degree.

   Well, now, that which can take guilt off the conscience must be
   infinitely greater than that which can merely put away a ceremonial
   defilement! Brothers and Sisters, guilt on the conscience is a most
   effectual bar to drawing near to God. The Lord bids His people come
   near to Him and there is a way of access always open. But as long as
   you are conscious of sin, you cannot use that way of access. We can
   come to God as sinners to seek pardon but we cannot come before the
   Lord as dear children while there is any quarrel between us and our
   great Father. No, we must be clean or we cannot approach our God! See
   how the priests washed their feet at the laver before they offered
   incense unto the Lord. We cannot have fellowship with God while there
   is a sense of unconfessed and unforgiven sin upon us.

   "Be you reconciled to God" is a text for saints as well as for sinners!
   Children may quarrel with a father as well as rebels with a king. There
   must be oneness of heart with God, or there is an end to communion and,
   therefore, must the conscience be purged. The man who was unclean could
   have come up to the tabernacle if there had been no Law to prevent it
   and it is possible that he could have worshipped God in spirit,
   notwithstanding his ceremonial disqualification. The defilement was no
   barrier in itself except so far as it was typical--but sin on the
   conscience is a natural wall between God and the soul. You cannot get
   into loving communion until the conscience is at ease! Therefore I
   charge you, fly at once to Jesus for peace!

   Beloved, if our consciences were more fully developed than they are, we
   should have as great a sense of the frequency of our uncleanness as
   ever the thoughtful Israelite had of his danger of ceremonial
   uncleanness. I tell you solemnly that the talk which we have heard
   lately about perfection in the flesh comes of ignorance of the Law and
   of self. When I have read expressions which seem to claim that the
   utterers were free from sin in thought, word and deed, I have been
   sorry for the deluded victims of self-conceit and shuddered at their
   spirit. The sooner this boasting is purged out of the Church of God the
   better. God's true people have the Spirit of Truth within them,
   convincing them of sin and not the proud and lying spirit which leads
   men to say they have no sin!

   True saints abide in the place of penitence and constant faith in the
   atoning blood and dare not exalt themselves as the Pharisee who cried,
   "God, I thank You that I am not as other men are." "There is not a just
   man upon earth that does good and sins not" (Ecc. 7:20). Why, Beloved,
   according to my own experience, we are constantly being defiled by
   being in this polluted world and going up and down in it. As a man
   could not take a walk without stumbling over a grave, nor could he shut
   himself up in his house without the danger of death entering there, so
   are we, everywhere, liable to sin. It seems all but inevitable so long
   as we are in this body and in this sinful world that we should come
   into contact with sin in some form or other--and any contact with sin
   is defiling.

   Our Lord could live among sinners and remain undefiled because there
   was no evil in His heart--but in our case sin outside awakes the echoes
   from within and so causes a measure of consent and defilement. The
   will, more or less, yields the temptation and when the will does not
   yield, the imagination plays the traitor and the affections parley--and
   so betray the soul. Although it may be accompanied with a resolve not
   to fall into evil, the very thought of evil is sin. Sin does not cross
   over the sensitive plate of our soul as it is exposed in its daily
   camera without leaving, even if we do not see it ourselves, some trace
   and stain which God sees.

   Our fellow men are a terrible source of defilement to us. Did you not
   notice in the chapter which we read (Numbers 19) that he who touched
   the dead body of a man was unclean seven days? Now, if you look in
   Leviticus 11:22, you will see that whoever touched the carcass of an
   unclean beast was only unclean until the evening! Thus a dead man was
   seven times more defiling than a dead beast! Such is God's estimate of
   fallen, unregenerate man--and it is a just one--for wicked men do many
   things which brute beasts never do. All ungodly men defile us and I am
   not sure that I may end there. The truth is still wider. I do not care
   how you pick your company--and you ought to pick it with great
   care--but even if you associate with none but saints, they will be an
   occasion of sin to you at some time or other!

   There will be something about them, yes, even about their holiness
   which may cause you to idolize them, or envy them and, in some way or
   other, cause you to sin. You cannot, as you are a man of unclean lips
   and dwell among a people

   of unclean lips, be altogether without uncleanness and, therefore, you
   will always have need to use the way of cleansing which the Lord has
   prepared and revealed. Remember that in the type the least touch
   defiled--if they only picked up a bone, the Israelites were unclean! If
   they only walked over a grave they were unclean! My Brethren, the best
   of you can hardly read in the newspaper an account of a crime without
   some taint clinging to you! You cannot see sin in another without
   standing in fearful jeopardy of being, in some degree, infected.

   Sin is of so subtle and penetrating a nature that long before we are
   aware, it tarnishes our brightness and eats into our spirit. The pure
   and holy God, alone, is undefiled. But as for the best of His saints,
   they need to veil their faces in His Presence and cry, "Unclean,
   unclean!" Under the old Law men who did not know it might be unclean. A
   man might have touched a bone and not be aware of it, yet the Law was
   just as much in effect. He might walk across a grave and not know it,
   but he was still unclean. I fear that our proud sense of what we think
   to be our inward cleanness is simply the stupidity of our conscience!
   If our conscience were more sensitive and tender, it would perceive sin
   where now we congratulate ourselves that everything is pure. My
   Brothers and Sisters, this teaching of mine puts us into a very lowly
   place, but the lower our position, the better and the safer for us, and
   the more we shall be able to prize the expiation by which we draw near
   to God. Since the stain is upon the conscience, its removal is a far
   greater work than is the removal of a mere ritual uncleanness.

   Secondly upon this head, our sacrifice is greater in itself. I will not
   dwell upon each point of its greatness lest I weary you, but notice
   that in the slaughter of the heifer, blood was presented and sprinkled
   towards the Holy Place seven times, though it came not actually into
   it. So in the Atonement through which we find peace of conscience there
   is blood, for "without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."
   That is a settled decree of the Eternal Government and the conscience
   will never get peace till it understands the mystery of the blood. We
   need not only the sufferings of Christ, but the death of Christ, which
   is set forth by His blood. The Substitute must die. Death was our doom
   and death for death did Christ render unto the eternal God. It is by a
   sense of our Lord's substitutionary death that the conscience becomes
   purged from dead works.

   Furthermore, the heifer itself was offered. After the blood was
   sprinkled towards the tabernacle by the priestly hand, the victim
   itself was utterly consumed. Read now our text--"Christ, who through
   the eternal Spirit offered up Himself without spot unto God." Our Lord
   Jesus Christ gave not merely His death, but His whole Person, with all
   that appertained to it, to be our substitutionary Sacrifice. He offered
   Himself, His Person, His Glory, His holiness, His life, His very Self
   in our place. But, Brothers and Sisters, if a poor heifer, when it was
   offered and consumed, made the unclean man clean, how much more shall
   we be cleansed by Jesus, since He gave Himself, His glorious Self, in
   whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily? Oh what a Sacrifice is
   this!

   It is added that our Lord did this "through the Eternal Spirit." The
   heifer was not a spiritual, but a carnal offering. The creature knew
   nothing of what was being done, it was the involuntary victim. But
   Christ was under the impulses of the Holy Spirit, which were poured
   upon Him and He was moved by Him to render up Himself a Sacrifice for
   sin. Hence somewhat of the greater efficacy of His death, for the
   willingness of the Sacrifice greatly enhanced its value. To give you
   another and probably a better interpretation of the words, there was
   the Eternal Spirit linked with the Manhood of Christ, our Lord, and by
   Him, He gave Himself unto God. He was God as well as Man, and that
   Eternal Godhead of His lent an infinite value to the sufferings of His
   human frame, so that He offered Himself as a whole Christ, in the
   energy of His eternal power and Godhead.

   Oh, what a Sacrifice is that on Calvary! It is by the blood of the Man
   Christ that you are saved, and yet it is written, "The Church of God
   which He"--that is God--"has redeemed with His own blood." One who is
   both God and Man has given Himself as a Sacrifice for us! Is not the
   Sacrifice inconceivably greater in the fact than it is in the type?
   Ought it not most effectually to purge our conscience? After they had
   burnt the heifer, they swept up the ashes. All that could be burnt had
   been consumed. Our Lord was made a Sacrifice for sin. What remains of
   Him? Not a few ashes, but the whole Christ, which still remains, to die
   no more, but to abide unchanged forever! He came uninjured through the
   fires and now He always lives to make intercession for us! It is the
   application of His eternal merit which makes us clean and is not that
   eternal merit inconceivably greater than the ashes of an heifer can
   ever be?

   Now, my Brethren, I want you, for a moment, to remember that our Lord
   Himself was spotless, pure and perfect. And yet--speak it with bated
   breath--God "has made Him to be sin for us," even Him who knew no sin.
   Whisper it

   with still greater awe, "He was made a curse for us"--yes, a curse, as
   it is written, "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." That red
   heifer, though without spot and never having borne a yoke, was regarded
   as a polluted thing. Take it out of the camp. It must not live. Kill
   it. It is a polluted thing; burn it right up, for God cannot endure it!
   Behold and wonder that God's own Ever-Blessed, adorable Son in
   inconceivable condescension of unutterable love, took the place of sin,
   the place of the sinner--and was numbered with the transgressors!

   He must die! Hang Him up on a cross! He must be forsaken of men and
   even deserted of God! "It pleased the Father to bruise Him; He has put
   Him to grief; He shall make His soul an offering for sin." "All we,
   like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way
   and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all"--not merely the
   punishment, but the iniquity, the very sin itself was laid upon the
   Ever-Blessed! The wise men of our age say it is impossible that sin
   should be lawfully imputed to the innocent. That is what the
   philosophers say, but God declares that it was done! "He has made Him
   to be sin who knew no sin." Therefore, it was possible! Yes, it is
   done! It is finished! The Sacrifice, then, is much greater. "How much
   more," we may cry exultingly as we think of it, "shall the blood of
   Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to
   God, purge our conscience from dead works to serve the

   living God?"

   Now we will go a step further. As the defilement and the Sacrifice were
   greater, so the purging is much greater. The purifying power of the
   blood of Christ must be much greater than the purging power of the
   water mixed with the ashes of the heifer, for, first, that could not
   purge conscience from sin, but the application of the Atonement can and
   does do it. I am not going to speak, this morning, about doctrine at
   all, but about fact. Did you ever feel the Atonement of Christ applied
   by the Holy Spirit to your conscience? Then I am certain of it that the
   change upon your mind has been as sudden and glorious as if the
   darkness of midnight had glowed into the brightness of noonday!

   I remember well its effects upon my soul at the first--how it broke my
   bonds and made my heart dance with delight! But I have found it equally
   powerful since then, for when I am examining myself before God, it
   sometimes comes to pass that I fix my eyes upon some one evil which I
   have done and I turn it over until the memory of it eats into my very
   soul like caustic acid, or like a gnawing worm, or like coals of fire!
   I have tried to argue that the fault was excusable in me, or that there
   were certain circumstances which rendered it almost impossible that I
   could do otherwise. But I have never succeeded in quieting my
   conscience in that fashion!

   Yet I am soon at rest when I come before the Lord and cry, "Lord,
   though I am Your own dear child, I am unclean by reason of this sin!
   Apply, again, the merit of my Lord's atoning Sacrifice, for have You
   not said--"If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
   Christ the Righteous?" Lord, hear His advocacy and pardon my offenses!"
   My Brothers and Sisters, the peace which thus comes is very sweet. You
   cannot pray acceptably before that peace and you may thank God that you
   cannot, for it is a dreadful thing to be able to go on with your
   devotions under a sense of guilt as when the conscience is at rest! It
   is an ill child that can be happy while its father is displeased! A
   true child can do nothing till he is forgiven.

   Now, the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer upon the unclean was not
   comprehensible as to its effect by anybody who received it. I mean that
   there was no obvious connection between the cause and the effect.
   Supposing an Israelite had been unclean and had been sprinkled with
   this water? He might now go up to the house of the Lord--but would he
   see any reason for the change? He would say, "I have received the water
   of separation and I am clean, but I do not know why the sprinkling of
   those ashes should make me clean except that God has so appointed."
   Brethren, you and I know how it is that God has made us clean, for we
   know that Christ has suffered in our place! Substitution explains the
   mystery and, therefore, it has much more effect upon the conscience
   than an outward, ritualistic form which could not be explained.
   Conscience is the understanding exercised upon moral subjects and that
   which convinces the understanding that all is right soon gives peace to
   the conscience.

   Time presses and therefore I will only say that as the ashes of the
   heifer were for all the camp, so are Christ's merits for all His
   people. As they were put where they were accessible, so may you always
   come and partake of the cleansing power of Christ's precious Atonement.
   As a mere sprinkling made the unclean clean, even so may you come and
   be cleansed even though your faith is but little and you seem to get
   but little of Christ. O Brothers and Sisters, the Lord God in His
   infinite mercy gives you to know the power of the great Sacrifice to
   work peace in you--not after three or seven days, but at once! And
   peace not merely for a time, but forever!

   One riddle I must explain to you. Solomon, according to the Jewish
   tradition, declared that he did not understand why the ashes of the
   heifer made everybody unclean except those who were unclean already.
   You saw in the reading that the priest, the man who killed the red cow,
   the person who swept up the ashes and he who mixed the ashes with water
   and sprinkled them were all rendered unclean by those acts--and yet the
   ashes purified the unclean! Is not this analogous to the riddle of the
   bronze serpent? It was by a serpent that the people were bitten--and it
   was by a serpent of brass that they were healed! Christ's being
   regarded as unclean that we become clean and the operation of His
   Sacrifice is just like that of the ashes, for it both reveals
   uncleanness and removes it.

   If you are clean and you think of Christ's death, what a sense of sin
   it brings upon you! You judge of the sin by the Atonement. If you are
   unclean, drawing near to Christ takes that sin away!--

   "Thus while His death my sin displays

   In all its blackest hue,

   Such is the mystery of Grace,

   It seals my pardon, too."

   If we think we are unclean, a sight of the atoning blood makes us see
   how unclean we are. And if we judge ourselves unclean, then the
   application of the atoning Sacrifice gives our conscience rest.

   Now, what is all this business about? This slain heifer--I understand
   that, for it admitted the unclean Israelites to the courts of the Lord.
   But this Christ of God offering Himself without spot by the Eternal
   Spirit--what is that for? The object of it is a service far higher--it
   is that we may be purged from dead works to serve the living God! The
   dead works are gone; God absolves you; you are clean and you feel it.
   What then? Will you not abhor dead works for the future? Sin is death.
   Labor to keep from it! Inasmuch as you are delivered from the yoke of
   sin, go forth and serve God! Since He is the living God and evidently
   hates death and makes it to be an uncleanness to Him, get to living
   things! Offer to God living prayers and living tears!

   Love Him with living love! Trust Him with living faith! Serve Him with
   living obedience! Be all alive with His life-- not only have life--but
   have it more abundantly! He has purged you from the defilement of
   death, now live in the beauty and glory and excellency of the Divine
   Life and pray the Holy Spirit to quicken you that you may abide in full
   fellowship with God! If an unclean person had been made clean and had
   then said, "I will not worship the Lord, neither will I serve Him," we
   should account him a wretched being! And if any person here were to
   say, "My sin is forgiven and I know it, but I will do nothing for God,"
   we might well cry, "Ah, wretched man!" What a hypocrite and a deceiver
   such a person must be!

   Where pardon is received at the hands of the Lord, the soul is sure to
   feel a love to God rising within itself. He who has had much forgiven
   is certain to love much and to do much for Him by whom that forgiveness
   has been obtained. The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Numbers 19. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--395, 561, 303.

   Spurgeon's Birthday Book and Autographic Register. COMPILED FROM THE
   WORKS OF C. H. SPURGEON. "Our young friends delight in possessing
   birthday albums and here is one which is fit for a queen! We will say
   nothing of the contents, but the binding is simply gorgeous. Whether in
   cloth or not, we think we might venture to say that it is second to
   none. Facsimiles of the autographs of the Pastor and his wife are given
   in their proper places."--The Sword and the Trowel, PASSMORE &
   ALABASTER 4, Paternoster Buildings and all Booksellers.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Change of Masters

   (No. 1482)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 6, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of
   righteousness." Romans 6:18.

   MAN was made to rule. In the Divine original he was intended for a king
   who should have dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowl of the
   air and the fish of the sea. He was designed to be the lord-lieutenant
   of this part of creation and the form of his body and the dignity of
   his countenance indicated it. He walks erect among the animals, while
   they move upon all fours. He subjugates and tames them to perform his
   will and the fear and dread of him is upon all creatures, for they know
   their sovereign.

   Yet is it equally true that man was made to serve. At his beginning he
   was placed in the garden to keep it, to dress it and so to serve his
   Maker. His natural feebleness, his dependence upon rain, sun and
   dew--his instinctive awe of an unseen and Omnipotent Spirit indicate
   that he is not the chief of the universe, but a subordinate being whose
   lot it is to serve. We find within man various powers and propensities
   seeking to get dominion over him so that his mind is also capable of
   servitude. The appetites which are essential for the sustenance of his
   bodily frame, even such as eating and drinking, endeavor to master
   him--and if they can, they will do so--and reduce him below the level
   of the swine. Man is in part spirit, but he is also in part animal--and
   the animal strives to get dominion over the spiritual--and in many,
   many men it does so till they are utterly degraded.

   Nothing can be worse than a soul enslaved by such a body as that of
   man! The brute nature of man is the worst sort of brute. There is no
   beast in wolf, or lion, or serpent that is so brutish as the beast in
   man. Did I not tell you last Sunday that whereas, according to the
   Levitical Law, he that touched a dead animal was unclean till the
   evening, he who touched a dead man was unclean seven days? For man,
   when his animal nature rules him, is seven times more a polluting
   creature than any of the beasts of the field! If evil aims at ruling
   man, the good Spirit also strives with him. When God, in His infinite
   mercy, visits man by His Spirit, that Spirit does not come as a neutral
   power to dwell quietly within man and to share His heart with the
   Prince of Darkness--He enters with full intent to reign!

   Therefore there is a conflict which cannot be ended by an armistice,
   but must be carried on to the end. And that end will be found either in
   the driving out of the evil or in the thrusting out of the good--for
   one or the other, either the Prince of Darkness or the King of
   Light--will have dominion over man. Man must have a master! He cannot
   serve two masters, but he must serve one. Of all sorts of men this has
   been true and it has, perhaps, been most clearly seen in those who were
   evidently made to lead their fellow men. It is specially seen in such a
   man, for instance, as Alexander, a true king of men, so heroic and
   great-hearted that one does not wonder that armies were fired with
   enthusiasm by his presence and drove everything before them.

   Alexander conquered the world and yet on occasions he became the
   captive of drunkenness and the slave of his passionate temper. At such
   times the king of men, the vanquisher of armies was little better than
   a raving maniac! Look for further illustration at the busts of the
   emperors of Rome, the masters of the world. Study their faces and mark
   what groveling creatures they must have been! Rome had many slaves, but
   he who wore her purple was the most in bonds. No slave that ground at
   the mill, or died in the amphitheatre, was more in bondage than such
   men as Tiberius and Nero who were the bond-slaves of their passions!

   High rank does not save a man from being under a master--neither does
   learning nor philosophy deliver men from this bondage, for the teachers
   of liberty have not, themselves, been free, but it has happened as the
   Apostle says, "while they promise them liberty they themselves are the
   servants of corruption." Solomon himself, with all his wisdom, played
   the fool and though he was the most sagacious ruler of his age, he
   became, for a while, completely subject to his fleshly desires. Man is
   born to be a servant and a servant he must be!

   Who shall be his master? That is the question! Our text proves the
   point with which I have started, for it speaks of "being made free from
   sin" and in the same breath adds, "You became the servants of
   righteousness." There is no in-between--there does not appear to be a
   moment left for an independent state, but out of one servitude we pass
   into another. Do not think I made a mistake in the use of the word,
   servitude! I might have translated the Greek word by that of slave and
   have been correct. "Being made free from sin, you were enslaved to
   righteousness." The Apostle makes an excuse for using the figure and
   says, "I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of
   your flesh."

   He did not know how else to describe it, for when we go from under the
   absolute power of sin, we come at once into a like subjection to
   righteousness! As we were governed and swayed by the love of sin, so we
   become, in a similar manner, subject to the forces of Grace and the
   Truth of God! As sin took possession of us and controlled our acts, so
   Grace claims us as its own, takes possession of us and rules us with an
   absolute sway. Man passes from one master to another, but he is always
   in subjection! I have often heard of free will, but I have never seen
   it! I have met with will and plenty of it, but it has either been led
   captive by sin or held in blessed bonds of Grace.

   The passions drive it here and there like a rolling thing before a
   whirlwind. Or the understanding sways it and then, according as the
   understanding is darkened or enlightened, the will acts for good or
   evil. In any case, the bit is in its mouth and it is guided by a power
   beyond itself. However, I leave that question and call attention, this
   morning, first of all to our change of masters--"Being made free from
   sin, we become the servants of righteousness." Secondly, to the reasons
   for that change. And thirdly, to the consequences of that change.

   I. We begin with our CHANGE or MASTERS. We must have a master, but some
   of us, by Divine Grace, have made a change of masters infinitely to our
   advantage! In describing this inward revolution we will begin with a
   word or two upon our old master. The Apostle says in the verse
   preceding our text, "We were the servants of sin." How true that is!
   Those of us who now believe and are free from sin were all, without
   exception, the servants of sin! We were not all alike enslaved, but we
   were all under bondage. Sin has its uniformed servants. Did you ever
   see a man dressed in the full uniform of sin? A fine suit, I guarantee
   you!

   Sin clothes its slave with rags, with shame and often with disease.
   When fully dressed in Satan's uniform the sinner is abominable, even to
   his fellow sinners. If you want to see sin's uniformed servants dressed
   out in their best or their worst, go to the prisons and you will find
   them there. Or go to the dens of infamy in this great city, or to the
   liquor bars, or to the places of vicious amusement and you will find
   them there. Many of them wear the badge of the devil's drudgery upon
   their backs in poverty and rags. Their faces bear the blotches born of
   drunkenness and their very bones reveal the consequences of their vice.
   Satan has regimentals for his soldiers and they are worthy of the
   service!

   But great folks have many servants who are out of uniform and so has
   sin. We were not all open transgressors before our new birth, though we
   were all the servants of sin. There are many slaves of evil whom you
   would not know to be such if you only saw the surface of their
   characters! They do not swear, or steal, or commit adultery, or even
   break the Sabbath outwardly. On the contrary, they are most moral in
   their conduct. They are the servants of sin, but they are secretly so,
   for fear of rebuke. They are non-professing sinners and yet sincerely
   in love with sin. They just now stood up and sung the hymn! They bowed
   their heads in prayer and they are now listening to this sermon!

   No one can tell the difference between them and the servants of Christ
   by their exterior. But at heart they reject the Son of God and refuse
   to believe in Him, for they love the pleasures of sin and the wages of
   unrighteousness. A kind of selfish caution restrains them from overt
   acts of transgression, but their heart loves not God and their desires
   are not towards His ways. O, my dear Hearer, if you are setting up your
   own righteousness in your soul as an anti-Christ against God's Christ.
   If you are kicking against the sway of the Divine Spirit. If you are
   secretly living in sin. If you are following out some sweet sin in
   secret, even though you dare to appear in the uniform of Christ, you
   are still the slave of sin!

   Hypocrites are worse slaves than any others because they are laid under
   the restraints of religious men without enjoying their
   consolations--they practice the sins of the ungodly without their
   pleasures! Every hypocrite is a fool and a coward! He has not the will
   to serve the Lord and yet he has not the courage to serve the devil out
   and out. These go-betweens are, of all sorts of people, the most to be
   pitied and the most to be blamed. As long as we are unbelievers we are
   the servants of sin, but we are not all outdoor servants of sin. Sin
   has its domestic servants who keep quiet, as well as its soldiers who
   beat the drum!

   Many keep their sin to themselves--nobody hears of them in the street,
   they raise no public scandal--and yet at heart they are the faithful
   followers of wickedness and rebellion. Their idols are set up in secret
   chambers, but they are heartily loved. Their desires and aspirations
   are all selfish, but they try to conceal this fact even from
   themselves. They will not serve God, they will not bow before His Son
   and yet they would shrink from declaring their rebellion! They are
   amiable, admirable and excellent in their outward deportment, but they
   are the indoor servants of Satan, for all that, and their heart is full
   of enmity against God.

   Some of us confess that it was so with us. When none found fault with
   us we were, nevertheless, rotten in heart. We used to pray, but it was
   a mockery of God. We went up to God's house, but we regarded not His
   Word and yet, in all this, we prided ourselves that we were righteous!
   There are, however, many Believers who were once outdoor servants of
   Satan, sinning openly and in defiance of all law. I thank God that
   there are some here who are now the servants of Christ, upon whom I can
   look with great delight, although they were once the open, overt,
   zealous, diligent servants of Satan! Now they are washed, renewed and
   sanctified. Glory be to God for it!

   Oh that the Lord would take some more great sinners inside this house
   and turn them into great saints, for bold offenders make zealous lovers
   of Jesus when He puts away their sins! They love much because they have
   had much forgiven and, inasmuch as they desperately sinned, so do they
   devoutly love. And their surrender to Christ is as entire and
   unreserved as their former surrender to the service of evil. In this
   let God be praised! Still, let us all humbly bow before the Truth of
   God we are now speaking of and admit with great humiliation of spirit
   that we were the servants of sin!

   In passing on we notice, next, the expression of the Apostle, "Being
   then made free from sin." Through Divine Grace we have been led to
   trust the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal salvation and, having done so,
   we are at this moment free from sin. Come, you who trust the Savior's
   name, and rejoice in the words before us, for they describe you! You
   are made free from sin--not, you shall be, but you are! In what sense
   is this true? First, in the sense of condemnation. The Believer is no
   more condemned for sin! Your sin was laid on Christ of old and He, as
   your Scapegoat, took it all away. "There is therefore now no
   condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."

   You are acquitted and justified through the Lord, your Righteousness.
   Clap your hands for joy! It is a mercy worth 10,000 worlds! You are
   made free from the damning power of sin now and forever. Next, you are
   made free from the guilt of sin. As you cannot be condemned, so does
   the Truth go further--you cannot even be accused! Your transgression is
   forgiven you! Your sin is covered--"As far as the east is from the
   west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." "Who shall lay
   anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is
   he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes, rather, that is risen
   again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
   intercession for us."

   You are delivered from sin's guilt at this moment--"made free from
   sin." You are in consequence free from the punishment of sin. You shall
   never be cast into Hell, for Jesus has suffered in your place and the
   justice of God is satisfied. As a believer in Christ, there is no
   bottomless pit for you--for you no undying worm, for you no
   unquenchable fire! And, guilty as you are by nature, Christ has made
   you so completely clean that for you is reserved the, "Come, you
   blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you before the
   foundation of the world."

   Nor is this all. You are made free from sin as to its reigning power
   and this is a point in which you greatly delight. Sin once said to you,
   "Go," and you went. It says, "Go," now, but you do not go! Sometimes
   sin stands in your way when Grace says, "Go," and then you would gladly
   run. Sin opposes and hinders, but you will not yield to its demands,
   for Grace holds dominion. You push, you struggle, you resolve that sin
   shall not be lord of your life, for you are not under the Law but under
   Grace. Sin hides itself in holes and corners of your nature, sulks in
   the dark about the streets of Mansoul, plots and plans, if it can, to
   get the mastery over you, but it never shall--it is cast out of the
   throne and the Holy Spirit sits there ruling your nature--and there He
   will sit until you shall be perfected in holiness and shall be caught
   up to dwell with Christ forever and ever!

   "Made free from sin." I wish I could now leave off preaching and get
   into a quiet pew and sit down with you and meditate upon that
   thought--chewing the cud as you farmers say--and getting the juice out
   of this rich pasturage. "Made free from sin." Why, as I pronounce those
   blessed words I feel like an escaped American slave in the old slave
   days when he leaped upon British soil in Canada! After all his running
   through the woods and crossing of hills and rivers, he was free! How he
   leaped for joy! How he cried with delight! Even so did we exult in our
   liberty when, at the first, our Lord Jesus set us free! You who were
   never slaves and never felt the taskmaster's lash--you do not know the
   value of

   liberty! And so, in spiritual things, if you have never felt the
   slavery of sin and have never escaped from it into the good land of
   Grace where Christ has made you free, indeed, you do not know the joy
   of the redeemed.

   I am free! I am free! I am free! I that was once a slave to every evil
   desire! I am made free by Omnipotent Love! I have escaped from the
   taskmaster's fetters and I am the Lord's free man! Let all the angels
   praise my redeeming Lord! Let all the spirits before the Throne of God
   praise the Lord who has led His people out of bondage, for He is good,
   for His mercy endures forever! Now, how came we to be free? We have
   become free in three ways. First, by purchase, for our Savior has paid
   the full redemption money for us and there is not a halfpenny due for
   us. Blessed be His name, there is no mortgage on His inheritance! The
   price is all paid and we are Christ's unencumbered property forever.
   Here we stand, at this moment, free because we are ransomed and we know
   that our Redeemer lives! Our body, soul and spirit are all bought with
   a price and in our complete manhood we are Christ's.

   Next, we are free by power as well as by purchase. Just as the
   Israelites were the Lord's own people, but He had to bring them out of
   Egypt with a high hand and an outstretched arm, so has the Lord, by
   power, broken the neck of sin and brought us up from the dominion of
   the old Pharaoh of evil and set us free. The Spirit's power--the same
   power which raised Christ from the dead--yes, the same power which made
   the heavens and the earth, has delivered us and we are the ransomed of
   the Lord! And then we are free by privilege. "Unto as many as believed
   Him, to them gave He the privilege to become the sons of God." God has
   declared us free. His own royal, majestic and Divine decree has bid the
   prisoners go forth! The Lord Himself looses the prisoners and declares
   that they shall no more be held in captivity. Price and power and
   privilege meet together in our liberty!

   How came we to be free? I will tell you another story. We are free in a
   strange way. According to the chapter in which we find our text, we are
   free because we have died. If a slave dies, his master's possession of
   him is ended. The tyrant can rule no longer--death has relaxed his
   hold. "He that is dead is free from sin." Sin comes to me and asks me
   why I do not obey its desires. I have a ready reply. "Ah, Master Sin, I
   am dead! I died some 30 years ago and I do not belong to you any more.
   What have you to do with me?" Whenever the Lord brings a man to die in
   Christ--the blessed, heavenly death unto sin--how has sin any more
   dominion over him? He is clear from his old master because he is dead!
   Our old master lives to us, but we do not live to him. He may make what
   suit he pleases--we will not acknowledge his rights.

   Some of us have made a public claim of our freedom by death, for we
   have been buried and the Apostle says, "Know you not that so many of us
   as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?
   Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as
   Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father, even so
   we, also, should walk in newness of life." We do not trust in the
   burial of baptism, for we know that there would have been no truth in
   it if we had not been dead first. But it is still a blessed sign to us
   that inasmuch as we died, we have also been buried. Whenever the devil
   comes to us we can, each one, say to him, "I am no servant of yours. I
   died and was buried-- did you not see me laid in the liquid tomb?" Oh,
   it is a blessed thing when the Lord enables us to feel a clear
   assurance that our baptism was not a mere form, but the instructive
   token of a work within the soul worked by the Divine Spirit which set
   us free from the thralldom of sin!

   A third thing has happened to us--we have risen again. According to
   Paul's teaching we have risen in the Resurrection of Christ--a new life
   has been given to us--we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. We are not
   the same people that we once were. Old things have passed away, behold
   all things have become new. If some of you were to meet your old selves
   you would not know yourselves, would you? My old self does not know me
   and cannot make me out. I am dead to him, as to his reigning power, and
   buried, too, so that I can never be his subject, nor he ever be the
   king of my heart. Yet he struggles to dwell within me and seems to have
   as many lives as a cat! Every now and then my old self sneeringly cries
   to my true self, "What a fool you are." My true self answers, "No, I
   was a fool when you had sway, but now I have come to my right mind."

   Sometimes that old self whispers, "There is no reality in faith" and
   the new self replies, "There is no reality in the things which are
   seen. This world is a shadow but Heaven is eternal." "Ah," says the old
   self, "you are a hypocrite!" "No," says the new self, "I was false when
   I was under your power, but now I am honest and true." Yes, Brothers
   and Sisters, we are risen with Christ! With Him we died and were buried
   and with Him we are risen and, therefore, we are free! What slave would
   remain under the dominion of a master if he could say, "I died, Sir.
   You cannot own me now, for your ownership only extended over one life.
   I was buried--did you own me when I was buried? I have risen again and
   my

   new life is not yours. I am not the same man that I was and you have no
   rights over me." We have undergone this wondrous death and resurrection
   and so we can say, this morning, with heartfelt joy, "We are made free
   from sin!"

   We are also free from sin in our hearts--we no longer love sin--in
   fact, we loathe the thought of it! We are free from sin as to our new
   nature--it cannot sin because it is born of God. We are free from sin
   as to God's purpose about us, for He will present us, before long,
   blameless and faultless before His Presence with exceedingly great joy!
   We do not belong to sin. We refuse to serve sin. By the Grace of God we
   are made free from it.

   Now, the third part of this change of masters is this--"you became the
   servants of righteousness." So we have, by God's Grace, and we are now
   in the possession of righteousness and under its rule. A righteous God
   has made us die to sin! A righteous God has redeemed us! A new and
   righteous life has been infused into us and righteousness now rules and
   reigns in us! We do not belong to ourselves, but we yield ourselves up
   entirely to the Redeemer's sway through His Spirit and, the more
   completely He rules us, the better. The text says we are enslaved to
   righteousness and so we wish to be. We wish we were so enslaved that we
   could not even will a wrong thing nor wish an evil thing! We desire to
   give ourselves up wholly and absolutely to the Divine sway so that the
   right, the true and the good may hold us in perpetual bonds.

   We abandon ourselves to the supremacy of God and we find our liberty in
   being entirely subjected to the will of the Most High. This is a change
   of masters with which I know that some of you are well acquainted. I am
   afraid, however, that others of you know nothing about it. May the Lord
   grant that you may be made to know it before you go to sleep tonight.
   May you be delivered from the black tyrant and brought into the service
   of the Prince of Peace straightway!

   II. Secondly, let us survey the REASONS FOR OUR CHANGE. How do we
   justify this change of masters? A man who makes frequent shifts is not
   good for much. But we changed our old master because he never had any
   right to us and we were illegally detained by him. Why should sin have
   dominion over us? Sin did not make us! Sin does not feed us! Sin has no
   right to us whatever--we never owed it a moment's homage! We are not
   debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh. Our old master cannot
   summon us for desertion, for he stole our services.

   Besides, our old master was as bad as bad could be. You never saw his
   portrait, but he that would paint a picture of sin would have to put
   upon the canvas all the monstrosities that ever existed and all the
   horrors that were ever imagined! And these would have to be exaggerated
   and condensed into one before they could fairly depict the deformity of
   sin. Sin is worse than the devil, for sin made the devil a devil--he
   would have been an angel if it had not been for sin. Oh, who would
   serve the destroying tyrant who of old cast down, even, the stars of
   light and turned angels into fiends?

   We ran away from our old master because we had never any profit at his
   hands. The Apostle says, "What fruit had he then?" Ask the drunkard,
   "What did you get by the drink?" Who has woe? Who has redness of the
   eyes? Ask the spendthrift what he gained by his debauchery. He would
   hardly like to tell you and I certainly should not like to repeat his
   tale. Ask any man that lives in sin what he has gained by it and you
   will find it is all loss. Sin is evil and only evil and that
   continually! We have found that out and, therefore, we have quit the
   old master and taken up with the new. Beside that, our old master, Sin,
   brought us shame. There was no honor in serving him. His work is called
   by Paul, "those things whereof you are now ashamed."

   We are, in the sight of God, yes, and in our own sight, ready to blush
   scarlet at the very thought of the evil in which we once took delight!
   Sin is a groveling, mean, despicable thing and we are ashamed of having
   been connected with it. Moreover, its wages are death and this is
   dreadful to think upon. Sin at one time was pleasant to us, but when we
   found out that sin led its servants down to Hell and plunged them into
   unquenchable fire, we renounced its rule and found another lord. But
   why did we take up with our new Master? We could not help it for it was
   He that set us free! It was He that bought us! It was He that fought
   for us! It was He that brought us into liberty! Ah, if you could only
   see Him, you would not ask us why we became His servants!

   In the first place, we owe ourselves wholly to Him. And in the next
   place, if we did not, He is so altogether lovely, so matchless and so
   charming, that if we had a free choice of masters we would choose Him a
   thousand times over, for He is the crown and glory of mankind! Among
   the sons there is none to be compared to Him. If you want us to justify
   our service of Him, we tell you that service is perfect freedom and
   supreme delight. We have had to suffer a little, sometimes, when His
   enemy and ours has barked at us and the ungodly have called us ill
   names--but we count it honor to suffer for Jesus' sake, for He is so
   sweet and so good, that if we had a thousand lives and could give each
   one away by a martyr's death, we count Him worthy of those lives, so
   sweet is He to our hearts' love!

   Why have we taken our new Master? Why, because He gives us, even now, a
   present payment in His service! If there were no hereafter we would be
   satisfied with the present delight He gives us, but in addition to that
   He has promised us, as a future reward, eternal life at His right hand!
   We think, therefore, that we have more than sufficient reason for
   becoming the servants of Jesus Christ who is made of God, unto us,
   righteousness. Dear Hearers, how I wish that you would all enter my
   Lord's service by faith in His name!

   III. In the third place and very practically, I want to talk to those
   who are servants of God, about THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS CHANGE. You
   have become the servants of Righteousness and the first consequence is
   that you belong wholly to your Lord. Have you recognized this? I know
   numbers of Christian people--I hope they are Christian people, for in
   some points they seem as if they were--but if I were asked to look at
   their lives and give an opinion as to whom they belong, I should be
   compelled to say, "They seem mostly to belong to themselves." To whom
   does their property belong? "To themselves." To whom does their time
   belong? "To themselves." To whom does their talent belong? "To
   themselves."

   As far as I can see, they lay all out upon themselves and live for
   themselves. And what do they give to God? If they are rather generous
   they give Him the candle ends, the parings of the cheese and little
   odds and ends--three penny-bits and things they do not want and can
   give without missing them. There are hundreds of professors who never
   gave God anything that cost them a self-denial--no, not so much as
   going without a dish on the table, or a picture on the wall, or a ring
   on the finger! There are numbers of professing Christians who spend a
   deal more on the soles of their boots than on Christ and many women who
   spend more on the feathers and the flowers which deck their bonnets
   than on their Savior!

   Yes, and I have heard of men who said they were perfect and yet they
   were worth half a million of money and were hoarding up more! Sinners
   dying and being damned and missionaries without support--and yet these
   absolutely perfect men are piling up gold and letting the cause of
   Christ suffer for lack of means! It is not my theory of perfection, no,
   it does not seem to me to come up to the idea of a common Christian who
   says he is not his own! If you are really saved, Brothers and Sisters,
   not a hair of your heads belongs to yourselves! Christ's blood has
   either bought you or it has not! And if it has, then you are altogether
   Christ's, every bit of you--you are neither to eat nor drink, nor sleep
   but for Christ--"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Have you
   ever got a hold of that? Just as a Negro used to belong to the man that
   bought him, every inch of him, so you are the slave of Christ! You bear
   in your body the brand of Lord Jesus and your glory and your freedom
   are therein. That is the first consequence of being set free from
   sin--you became the servants of righteousness.

   What next? Why, because you are Christ's, His very name is dear to you!
   You are not so His slave that you would escape from His service if you
   could--no--you would plunge deeper and deeper into it! You want to be
   more and more the Lord's. His very name is sweet to you. If you meet
   with the poorest person who belongs to Christ, you love him and though,
   perhaps, some who are like Christ in other respects may have awkward
   tempers, you put up with their infirmities for His sake. Where there is
   anything of Christ--there your love goes forth. I remember when I left
   the village where I first preached. I felt that if I had met a dog that
   came from Waterbeach I should have petted him--and such is the love we
   have for Christ--that the lowest and weakest thing that belongs to Him
   we love for His sake! The very sound of His name is music to us and
   those who do not love Him, we cannot endure.

   Haydn, the great musician, one day walked down a London street. Turning
   into a music-seller's shop, he asked the salesman if he had any select
   and beautiful music. "Well, Sir," he said, "I have some sublime music
   by Mr. Haydn." "Oh," said Haydn, "I'll have nothing to do with that."
   "Why, Sir, you come to buy music and will have nothing to do with Mr.
   Haydn's composition! What fault can you find with it?" "I can find a
   great deal of fault with it, but I will not argue with you: I do not
   want any of his music." "Then," said the shopkeeper, "I have other
   music, but it is not for such as you," and he turned his back on him!

   A thorough enthusiast grows impatient with those who do not appreciate
   what he so much admires. If we love Jesus we shall sometimes feel an
   impatient desire to get away from those who know Him not. You do not
   love Christ? What kind of man can you be to be so blind, so dead? You
   can be no friend of mine if you are not a friend of Christ's. I would
   do anything for your good, but you cannot yield me delight or be my
   bosom friend unless you love my Lord, for He has engrossed my heart and
   taken entire possession of my spirit. If you have thus become a servant
   of righteousness, you will weary of that which does not help you in His
   service and the name of your Master will be as the choicest music to
   you.

   And now, dear Friends, let me mention another result. All your members
   are henceforth reserved for Christ. What does the Apostle say? "When
   you were the servants of sin you were free from righteousness." When
   Satan was your master you did not care about Christ, did you? You had
   no respect for Him and if anybody before you said, "Take them away--I
   do not want to hear them." You wholly were in agreement for evil. Now,
   in the same way, yield yourself up wholly to Christ, and say, "Now,
   Satan, when I was yours I did not yield obedience to Jesus. But now
   that I am Christ's, I can yield no obedience to you."

   If Satan brings sin before you, say, "I cannot see it--my eyes are
   Christ's." And if he would charm you with the sweet sound of temptation
   say, "I cannot hear it--my ears are Christ's." "Oh," says Satan, "seize
   on this delight." You answer, "I cannot reach it--my hands are
   Christ's." "But taste this sweet draught," says he. You say, "I cannot
   take it--my lips are Christ's, my mouth is Christ's, ALL my members are
   Christ's." "Well, but you can form a judgment, can't you, about this
   error?" "My understanding is Christ's." "Oh, but listen to this new
   thing!" "No, I do not want to hear. I have found Christ, who is new
   enough for me. I do not want your novel discoveries. I am dead to them.
   I do not want to be worried with arguments which dishonor my Lord--take
   them away. When I was a servant of sin, I would not meddle with the
   Truth of God, and now that I am a servant of Christ I will not trifle
   in the opposite direction. I have done with all but Jesus."

   Think my Brothers and Sisters! When we were servants of sin, in what
   way did we serve it? Just as we used to serve sin, so ought we to work
   for Jesus! I do not speak to all here present, but I speak to many who
   were sinners of an open kind. How did you serve sin? I will answer for
   them. They did not require to be egged on to it. They did not need any
   messenger of the devil to plead with them and urge them to unholy
   pleasures and unclean delights. Far from it! Some of their own
   companions thought them too imprudent. Now, dear Friends, you ought not
   to need your ministers or Christian friends to stir you up to good
   works. You ought to be just as eager after holiness as you were after
   sin! Evil was very sweet to you once. You used to watch for the day
   when you could indulge in a sweet sin, did you not? When the time was
   coming round when you could take a deep draught of iniquity, you took
   the almanac and looked for it as a child for his holidays.

   Brother, Sister, serve Christ in the same way! May His Holy Spirit help
   you to do so. Watch for opportunities of doing good! Do not need
   whipping to do your duty. Instead of requiring to be urged forward in
   evil, we needed homing back, didn't we? Our parents had to put the rein
   upon us! Sometimes Mother would say, "John, stop that." And Father
   would cry, "My boy, do not do this evil thing!" We needed a great deal
   of restraint. I wish I had a band of Christians round me who needed
   holding back in the service of Christ! I have not met with that sort
   yet. I am prepared with many kinds of curbs when and if I meet with a
   high-mettled Christian who goes at too great a rate in His Lord's
   service!

   For the most part, my Master's horses are fonder of getting into the
   stables than out into the hunting field. I have not met with one who
   has done too much for the Lord! I shall never be guilty of too much
   work, myself! I wish I could go like the wind in serving Jesus.
   Brothers and Sisters, be just as hot to honor Christ as you once were
   to dishonor Him! As you have given the devil first-rate service, let
   Christ have the same. You remember, in the days of your sin, some of
   you, how thoroughly you went in for it, that you never stopped at any
   expense--did you? Oh no, if you needed pleasure in sin, away went the
   five pounds and the hundreds!

   How often do I meet with men, particularly those given to drink, who
   get pounds in their pockets and never know where they go--but they will
   never leave off till all is spent--be it little or much! Poor fools,
   poor fools! Yet I wish we could serve Jesus Christ thus unstintedly. No
   expense should be reckoned so long as we can honor Him and bless His
   name! Bring forth the alabaster box! Break it--never mind the chips and
   pieces--pour out the oil and let Jesus have it all! It was thus I
   served Satan and thus would I serve Christ! Yes, and the poor slaves of
   sin not only do not stop at expense, but they are not frightened by any
   kind of loss. Look at how many lose their characters for the sake of
   one short hour of sin!

   How many are wringing their hands, now, because none will trust them
   and they are cut off from decent society because of one short-lived
   sin! They ruin their peace and think nothing of it. A quiet conscience
   is the brightest of jewels but they fling it away to enjoy their sin!
   They will lose their health, too, for the sake of indulging their
   passions. The devil says, "Drink, drink! Drink yourselves blind!" And
   they do it as eagerly as if it were for their good! They are martyrs
   for Satan. Never did a Zulu fling himself upon death for his king so
   recklessly as these servants of Satan yield

   themselves for his service. They will do anything! They will destroy
   their health and, what is worst of all, destroy their souls, forever,
   for the sake of sin's brief delights.

   They know that there is a Hell. They know that the wrath of God abides
   forever on guilty men, but they risk all and lose all for sin. In that
   same way should we serve our Lord! Be willing to lose our character for
   Him. Be willing to lose our health for Him. Be willing to lose our life
   for Him. Be willing to lose all, if by any means we may glorify Him
   whose servant we have become! Oh, who will be my Master's servant? Here
   He comes! Do you not see Him? He wears upon His head no diadem but a
   crown of thorns! Running down His cheeks you see the spit flowing! His
   feet are still rubied with their wounds and His hands are still
   bejeweled with the marks of the nails!

   This is your Master and these are the signs of His love for you! What
   service will you render Him? That of a mere professor who names His
   name but loves Him not? That of a cold religionist who renders
   unwilling service out of fear? I pray you, Brothers and Sisters, do not
   so dishonor Him! I lift the standard this morning to enlist beneath the
   banner of Christ those who will be Christ's men and women from head to
   foot! And happy shall the Church be! And happy the entire Israel of God
   if a chosen number shall enlist and remain true to their colors! We
   need no more nominal Christians--lukewarm Christians whom my Master
   spues out of His mouth!

   We need men and women on fire with love--consecrated all over,
   intensely devoted--who, by the slavery from which they have escaped and
   by the liberty into which they have entered, are under oath to spend
   and be spent for the name of Jesus till they have filled the earth with
   His Glory and made all Heaven ring with His praise! The Lord bless you,
   Beloved, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 6. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--116 (SONG II), 658, 119 (SONG III).
     __________________________________________________________________

The Present Crisis

   (No. 1483)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 13, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offense,
   and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early."

   Hosea 5:15.

   THE Lord does not always tell us what He will do. "Verily You are a God
   that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior." He has told us that
   "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing" and our Lord Jesus has
   said, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the
   Father has put in His own power." When He does make known to us what He
   is about to do, it is not to gratify our curiosity but to direct our
   conduct. In this case the Lord speaks aloud concerning His intentions.
   He had grown weary with chastening His people and, therefore, He was
   about to withdraw Himself from them and leave them alone, as a man
   leaves a hopeless work, or as a judge leaves the bench and gives the
   prisoner over to condemnation

   He says, "I will go and return to My place," as if His waiting time was
   over and He would no longer remain in their midst to be provoked by
   their obstinacy. This withdrawal would occasion the non-acceptance of
   their prayers and offerings, even as He had said in a former verse,
   "They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord;
   but they shall not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them." This
   He tells them in order that they may be led to implore Him to remain
   with them. Or that if He is already gone, they may, by hearty
   confession of their sin and an immediate seeking of His face, prevail
   upon Him once more to visit them in His Grace. If God is about to go,
   then all is going, even hope itself is. The Divine departure is the
   worst of calamities and, therefore, it is but right that those who are
   threatened with such a judgment should put their thoughts together,
   consider their ways and use the best means to hold Him by the skirts
   before He has departed, or to bring Him back again before He has
   effectually closed the door between Him and them. There should be an
   eager desire to bring the King back so that once more the heart may sun
   itself in the light of His favor.

   Dear Friends, I shall speak, this morning, with the most anxious desire
   to be practical. I am longing and praying in my heart that wherever sin
   has begun to separate us and God, we may be stirred up to acknowledge
   our offenses and to seek His face. And that where such a separation has
   long existed there may arise an intense desire of the whole soul to
   return from its banishment and draw near to God. We shall, this
   morning, use our text, first, in reference to our national troubles,
   for the words were originally spoken with regard to the national
   troubles of Israel and Judah. Secondly, we shall use it in reference to
   our personal trials as Believers. And then, thirdly, in its relation to
   the personal trials of the unconverted. Instructive lessons may be
   learned here in each of the three cases. May the Holy Spirit speak the
   Truth of God home to our hearts.

   I. And first, with regard to OUR PRESENT NATIONAL TROUBLES. I desire to
   speak of these things as before God in all sincerity and simplicity. I
   know it is impossible to touch upon such a subject without being
   suspected of political bias, but I can truly declare that from all such
   partiality I desire to be freed so that I may speak, not as a partisan,
   but as the servant of the living God. Calmly and solemnly would I speak
   words of soberness and truth and justice. It is a burden to my heart to
   speak a hard word of my own beloved country and if I seem to do so it
   is not in wantonness, but because of a pressure upon my conscience
   which will not let me be silent.

   Surely no one will deny that our country is passing through a season of
   great and grievous adversity. We have been perplexed for many months
   and even for years with perpetual rumors of wars. For a long time no
   man knew, when he went to bed at night, but what the journal of the
   morning would inform him that our nation had plunged into war with at
   least one of the great powers of Europe. Our policy has been such,
   whether wise or unwise, that we have been

   constantly on the verge of conflict. It is amazing that we have escaped
   from embroiling ourselves in a long and serious war, for many a time
   the flames of contention have threatened a general conflagration.

   This disquietude, itself, has been a serious injury to the prosperity
   of our country, for trade and commerce make prosperous voyages upon the
   waters ofpeace--but even before those waters are disturbed by the
   storms of actual war-- while only the threat of battle ruffles the
   surface, they make small headway or are driven back. Commerce is timid
   as a dove and is fluttered by every turmoil or whisper of coming
   trouble. In a thousand ways political agitations stab at the heart of
   national prosperity! In addition to this we have been actually engaged
   in two wars at least--wars certainly expensive and questionably
   expedient. In these two conflicts it is impossible for us to gain honor
   since they are cases of the mighty assailing the feeble.

   Laurels gained from nations so far inferior to us would have been
   unworthy of a place upon the brow of a brave nation. We have invaded
   one country and then another with no better justification than the law
   of superior force, or the suspicion of future danger. Disaster has
   followed upon the heels of disaster and at the end of it all there are
   great expenses to be met. Our acts of aggression must be paid for, not
   only with the blood of our soldiers, but with the sinew and sweat of
   our working men.

   Results of industry which ought to have gone to support the arts and
   promote the comfort and advancement of the race have been thrown away
   in wasteful feats of arms. The food which should have fed our children
   has been flung into the mouth of the lion, to be devoured by war, that
   its evil spirit may become yet more ravenous. Willful waste, it is to
   be feared, will be followed by woeful need unless God, in His mercy,
   shall interpose. We have meddled in many things and have threatened at
   least three of the great quarters of the globe either with our fleets
   or our armies. Nothing could content us till we had drawn the sword
   against a brave, though savage people, whose fighting may well be
   fierce, since it is for their invaded fatherland!

   These wars, whatever their issue, are serious calamities. On the back
   of all this war has come depression in trade. Everywhere there is
   complaining and not without cause. Even the most cheerful of men who
   have always been rejoicing when others have lamented, have begun, at
   last, to look very serious and to admit that the times are threatening.
   Striving tradesmen wonder whether they shall be able to "provide things
   honest in the sight of all men." Many a man now plans and labors but
   his care and toil earn but a scant reward. All trade is dull and some
   trade is dead. Some branches of industry are already paralyzed and
   there is but little prospect of their ever being revived.

   The land mourns and men's hearts sink for fear. Matters are not so bad
   as despondency would paint them, but even hope is unable to draw a
   cheerful picture. It is a day of darkness and of gloominess--a day of
   clouds and of thick darkness. As if all this were not enough, the
   heavens refuse to assist the processes of our farmers. For the most
   part, the hay crop, so necessary for the cattle, may be regarded as
   lost and now great peril is upon the corn. In some places the corn is
   too backward to have suffered much at present, but in others the
   prospects are dark, indeed. It seems certain that a continuance of this
   constant rain must deprive us of the most precious fruits of the earth.

   Farmers are beginning to cry out bitterly and there is a demand that
   prayer should be offered in all the churches for fair weather. May God
   be pleased to look upon our land and deliver us in this hour of
   trouble, for, indeed, it is a time of loss and ruin to thousands! If
   ever prayer was needed, it is surely at this hour! You who live in
   London do not know much about what is happening to the crops and what
   the eye does not see, the heart does not rue--but to our agricultural
   friends this ill weather is a matter of most serious
   consideration--they are suffering very heavily. No one can doubt that
   the badness of trade affects the farmer in common with the rest of the
   community--and now comes the further burden of sunless skies, winter in
   summer and the clouds returning after the rain.

   In the first matter, that of a warlike policy, we may, by God's
   goodness, make a change. It may be possible that before long better
   principles will come to the front and we may no longer be made to
   appear as a nation of snarlers and growlers, breathing defiance and
   delighting in war. God grant it speedily! But as to the two other
   matters, what can we do? We are powerless to quicken trade! We are
   certainly powerless to stay the bottles of Heaven. If God wills it, the
   clouds will gather from day to day and drench our fields with their
   pitiless downpour. Deluge will follow deluge till the corn shall rot in
   the fields if God so determines.

   Prayer is therefore desired and well it may be! But by some, prayer is
   desired as if it were quite certain that if certain pious words are
   repeated the rain must necessarily cease and the weather become
   favorable. I am not quite so sure! Let

   prayer be offered, by all means, but only under certain conditions can
   it prove effectual. I know of many reasons why it may be possible that
   such prayers as are likely to be offered will not be heard, but instead
   the threatened judgment of God may, nevertheless, come upon us. I
   desire, this morning, to speak about prayer in the way of warning, lest
   men should place an unwise confidence in the formality of reading a
   form of prayer in churches, or uttering extempore formalities in
   meeting houses.

   Few men believe more thoroughly in the power of real prayer than I do
   and I have tested and proved it in many remarkable ways so fully that I
   have no doubts as to its efficacy and heartily magnify the name of our
   prayer-hearing God. But we must still use our understandings, lest we
   be deceived and come to expect what we shall not receive. I would call
   to your recollection the fact that, under certain circumstances, God
   does not answer prayer. Our text says, "I will go and return to My
   place, till they acknowledge their offense." And, if this is the case,
   there will be no answering of prayer till repentance is manifested.

   Sometimes the heavens are brass, even to good men, and their cries
   reverberate and come back into their own ears, not without a blessing
   to themselves, but still without any visible reply as to the people for
   whom their intercessions were offered. It is not every sort of prayer
   that God will hear, for He says by His servant Isaiah, "When you spread
   forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you: yes, when you make many
   prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood" (Isa. 1:15).
   Intercession is sometimes useless, for Jeremiah tells us, "Then said
   the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me, yet My mind
   could not be toward this people" (Jer. 15:1).

   Ezekiel also warns us that the presence of the godly may not, at all
   times, avert judgment, for thus says the Lord, "Son of man, when the
   land sins against Me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out
   My hand upon it and will break the staff of the bread thereof and will
   send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: though
   these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver
   but their own souls by their righteousness, says the Lord God" (Ezek.
   14:13, 14).

   David, doubtless, prayed earnestly that he might escape from the
   chastisement of his sin when he numbered the people, but it could not
   be removed. He had a choice of three evils, but one of the three was
   inevitable. When God has come to this point with a people, that He must
   and will smite them, prayer is their only resource and even that may
   fail to avert the threatened stroke. A child may have so transgressed
   that his father may feel bound to punish him and then he will not spare
   the rod because of his crying. I pray God that the rain may cease, but
   if it should be continued, it will not be because the Lord cannot help
   us, or has ceased to answer prayer.

   Here is the secret of it all--I tremble as I quote the words--"Behold,
   the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither His ear
   heavy that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between
   you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He
   will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood" (Isa. 59:1-3).
   Remember, too, that not only may God withdraw Himself in anger, but it
   may be His determination to punish a people out of a far-seeing design
   for their good. Perhaps, as a nation, we have had too much prosperity.
   Ease and plenty have begotten pride and luxury and these may have
   weakened the spirit of the nation. It may have become absolutely
   necessary for this favored nation, if it is to still be the stronghold
   of liberty and the fortress of Gospel Truth, that it should again
   endure those northern blasts of adversity which have aforetime
   strengthened it at heart.

   It will not be the first time that our land has suffered for her good.
   Bad harvests and decaying trade are not new things to Englishmen! There
   linger among us now a few venerable men and women who can tell us of
   the straits of the old war time--of how there was great scantiness of
   bread, heaviness of taxation and frequent alarms from abroad and riots
   at home. What a long and dreary time it was when the sound of cannon
   might almost be heard across the straits and watch fires were ready on
   every cliff and height! Yet good came of the affliction and since that
   gloomy time the country has made rapid progress in many respects!
   Especially in civil and religious freedom--may it be so again! I would
   not wish ill to my country, but if our fellow men will not remember God
   except in adversity, adversity, itself, might be desired by the kindest
   heart.

   If true religion is to be cast into the dust by boastful infidelity! If
   a bastard popery is to be allowed to occupy our national churches! If
   drunkenness is to remain shameless and almost universal! If the
   language of the common people is to become filthy and obscene! If the
   exaltation of one favored sect above its fellow Christians--a crying
   deed of injustice-- is to be perpetually endured! If our nation is to
   shed the blood of weaker nations and send its armies into lands which
   are

   none of ours--then it will not be a strange thing if the Lord resolves
   to punish--and it will be hard for the righteous man to find an
   argument with which to plead for pity! When the offense is repented of,
   the punishment will be withdrawn--but can we expect pardon on any other
   terms? Can we even ask for it? The verdict of the sternly just would
   rather be, "Let the rod fall," than, "Let it be withdrawn," if only by
   severe means the nation can be made to put away its evil deeds!

   In our text God declares that He will not give audience to His erring
   people, but will retire into His secret place until they acknowledge
   the offense and seek His face. It may be so with our nation at this
   time. And if it is, we need to be exhorted to something more than
   public prayer! There is need of a work more thorough and more difficult
   than the public use of a devotional form! But, says one, "We hope we
   shall have national prayer." I hope so, too, but will there be a
   national confession of sin? If not--how can mere prayer avail? Will
   there be a general desire to do that which is just and right between
   man and man? Will there be a declaration that England's policy is never
   to trample on the weak or pick a quarrel for her own aggrandizement?

   Will there be a loathing of the principle that British interests are to
   be our guiding star instead of justice and right? Personal interests
   are no excuse for doing wrong! If they were so, we should have to
   exonerate the worst of thieves, for they will not invade a house until
   their personal interests invite them! Perhaps the midnight robber may
   yet learn to plead that he only committed a burglary for fear another
   thief should take the spoil and make worse use of it than he! Does the
   footpad stop a passenger on the road for any other than his own
   interests? When our own interests are our policy, nobility is dead and
   true honor is departed--but I fear that only a minority are of this
   mind.

   Will the nation repent of any one of its sins? Will it settle itself
   down like the people of Jerusalem during the great rain of Ezra's time
   and do that which is right in the sight of God? Remember what they said
   in that day--"The people are many and it is a time of much rain, and we
   are not able to stand without, neither is this a work of one day or
   two: for we are many that have transgressed in this thing." If stern
   reformation went with supplication, I am persuaded that prayer would
   prevail. But while sin is gloried in, my hopes find little ground to
   rest upon. But will there be general prayer? No, there will not. I
   speak sadly, but I speak no more than the truth.

   There are numbers among us who say that prayer is of no use with regard
   to the winds and the clouds, for certain laws govern the weather and
   prayer cannot affect those laws. These men, therefore, will not pray
   and there are multitudes of others of the same spirit whose atheism is
   practical though it is unavowed. How, then, can prayer be general when
   such vast numbers utterly disregard it? Turn your eyes to Nineveh! When
   Jonah threatened that great city and, upon its repentance the judgment
   was withdrawn, of what character was its humiliation? From the king on
   the throne even to the beasts in the field--all were clothed with
   sackcloth and fasted and cried out to God--and therefore we marvel not
   that He heard them!

   Will there be any such crying to God among us? I think not! A defiant
   silence will seal millions of lips. But what of those who are supposed
   to pray? Are all these men of the Elijah stamp, whose fervent prayer
   could open or shut the windows of Heaven? We dare not put much
   confidence in the prayers which will be offered. Will they be offered
   in faith by a tenth of those who will repeat them? I wish I could hope
   so. By many, the public prayer will be regarded as absolutely
   ridiculous--and by many more as a mere matter of form which it is
   proper to use--but in which no confidence, whatever, can be placed.

   Do not, therefore, say, if the rain should continue by the month
   together, that prayer was ordered by the Archbishop of Canterbury and
   that God did not hear it and, therefore, all prayer is idle! No, but
   see what kind of prayer it will be and how little connected it will be
   with confession--and how little it will be general and how little it
   will be sincere-- and then you will not wonder if no comfortable answer
   comes of it. It may be that my text will be the sole answer of the
   Lord--"I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their
   offense, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me
   early."

   What, then, is to be done? This much is to be done--all hope for a
   country lies in the true Believers who dwell there! Remember Sodom and
   how it would have been spared had there been 10 righteous men found
   there and know that you, also, are the salt of the earth by whom it is
   to be preserved! Loathe the spirit of those who say that because we are
   citizens of Heaven we are to have nothing to do with the concerns of
   men below. A more un-Christianlike sentiment, a more

   selfish sentiment never degraded spiritual minds! Wherever the Jews
   dwelt, in the days of their scattering, they were commanded to care for
   the good of the people among whom they dwelt.

   Here are the words of the Lord by Jeremiah--"Seek the peace of the city
   where I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the
   Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall you have peace." Surely
   Christians are not to be less generous than Jews! Happily we are not
   under a despot! In England we are our own governors and the man, who,
   in this land does nothing to secure the good government of the country
   is, by his silence, on the side of wrong! You cannot shirk your
   responsibility except by clearing out of the land altogether--and then,
   if it suffers by your absence, you will still be found guilty. You are
   part and parcel of the nation, for you share in its protection and
   privileges and it is yours, as Christian men and women, to feel that
   you are bound, in return, to do all you can in the midst of it to
   promote truth and righteousness.

   What then? What course should we now pursue? Let us make confession of
   sin on behalf of the people as Moses and Jeremiah and Daniel did! You
   may not consider that to be sin which I judge to be so, but, my
   Brothers and Sisters, you see sin enough all around you of one sort or
   another. Take it to yourself and, as the high priest went in to the
   Holy Place to plead for the people, so you act as a priest before God
   in your quiet personal devotions! Confess the sin of this nation before
   God! If it will not repent, repent for it! Stand as a sort of
   consecrated sponsor before God and let the sin be on your heart till
   you fall on your face before the Most High! Remember, the saints are
   intercessors with God for the people! You are God's remembrancers and,
   as you are called to make mention of His name, keep not silent day nor
   night, but in this hour of trouble pour out your hearts before Him!

   Get up to your Carmels and cry aloud, you that know how to cry unto
   God, that He may send deliverance! And when you have prayed for this
   people and asked the Lord to forgive its sin and also to take away the
   chastising rod, then all of you promote, by your daily lives, your
   precepts and your actions, "whatever things are true, whatever things
   are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
   whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report." Be on
   the side of temperance and sobriety--be on the side of peace and of
   justice--be on the side of everything that is according to the mind of
   God and according to the law of love! Love God and your fellow men and
   seek to promote all interests which look that way.

   I believe that a country can never have a larger blessing, a truer
   safeguard for the present, or a firmer security for its future
   greatness than a band of praying men and women who make mention of it
   before the Throne of God! English history, from the first day till now,
   is as full of instruction as the history of Israel from Egypt even to
   Babylon. Did you ever read Cowper's wonderful description of the care
   which God has taken of this little island? How He has favored and
   protected it? When all the nations were in arms against it, they could
   not touch its shore for God was there! And, on the other hand, the Lord
   has laid us low and made us suffer when we have boasted of our fleets
   and armies. Our nation has been as much under the peculiar and especial
   Providence of God as were the descendants of Jacob themselves and,
   therefore, God deals with us as He does not deal with other nations!

   The smothering of black men with smoke in the caves to which they had
   fled. The burning down of human habitations and the hunting of men as
   if they were wild beasts is greater iniquity with us than it would have
   been in savages, or even in Papists or Mohammedans! Our religion is
   higher, nobler, purer than theirs! We ought to be ashamed to act as
   they do! Bloodshed, by some nations, God winks at, for they know but
   little better--but a country which has in it the very sun of the Gospel
   shining in the fullness of its strength should set to the world an
   example which it can follow and, if it does not, it may expect to have
   trouble after trouble and blow after blow from the hand of God!

   Thus have I spoken what was burdening my heart. Make what you will of
   it--it is the warning of an honest lover of his country who fears the
   Lord and fears none besides! Judge me to have spoken with political
   bias or not and censure me as you choose. I could say no less, or I
   would gladly have held my peace. Before God I am clear in this thing of
   any attempt but an upright one. May God grant that my feeble protest
   may touch the hearts of those who ought to feel its truth. I am not
   very confident that it will be so, for we have fallen upon evil times
   and the heart of the people has waxen gross.

   II. And now, secondly, let us view the text in reference to our
   PERSONAL TRIALS AS BELIEVERS. Brothers and Sisters, let us now commune
   with one another concerning the ways of God with our own souls. The
   Lord will not cast off His people--notwithstanding their faults, they
   are His own children and they shall be His children forever. But when

   His children sin, God is sure to chasten them for it. "You only have I
   known of all the people, therefore will I punish you for your
   iniquities." He leaves His enemies alone for a while, but He smites His
   sons. His foes shall go unpunished till the end shall be--but as for
   His beloved, He is exceedingly jealous over them and He will make them
   smart when they sin.

   Has the Lord been chastening any of us of late? Has the moth been in
   our estates, or has the lion been tearing our peace? Let us turn at His
   rebuke! Let us say unto the Lord, "Show me why You contend with me.
   Lord, if You are smiting me, I would not be as the horse or as the mule
   which have no understanding, but I would turn unto You at once, before
   You smite me again." It is good to repent at once and seek our heavenly
   Father's face. For, note next, when chastisements are of no avail,
   withdrawment follows!

   The Lord has promised that He will not forsake His people, nor will He
   utterly do so, but there are withdrawments which are not included in
   that promise. God may so hide Himself from His servants that they may
   have no conscious fellowship with Him, no enjoyment of His Word, no
   power in prayer. In fact, they may pray and He may shut out their
   prayer. Their life may be sapless and spiritless; joy and peace may
   flee. They may possibly try, at such times, to make up for their loss
   by enjoying the world. They may run after carnal pleasures and vain
   amusements, but they cannot fill their minds with them--they have no
   joy with such empty vanities--Grace has made them incapable of finding
   soul food in the corn and wine of earth. They must have their God or
   die!

   Let me tell you most solemnly that it is a very sad thing when God has
   withdrawn from a believing spirit and the more holy a man has been, the
   more sadly will he lament that he is now under a cloud and the more
   earnestly will he cry, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him, that I
   might come even to His seat!" When these withdrawments of God are
   painfully felt, then we should begin most eagerly to search out the sin
   which has caused them, for sin is at the bottom of it all. If,
   Believer, there is a quarrel between your Beloved and yourself, is
   there not a cause? Our Lord Jesus is no fitful lover who, in a moment,
   will leave the soul which is espoused to Him merely to indulge a whim!
   Far from it! He never trifles with us, but treats our love as a sacred
   thing. There is some grave cause whenever the Beloved frowns.

   Then is the time for a thorough search, a sweeping of the house and a
   cleansing out of all things that offend. Throughout the heart, the
   understanding and the lips, let a thorough search be initiated and if
   any sin is detected--and it will not be long before it will be--let it
   be brought to light and judged. Set it in the light of God's
   Countenance and there confess it and lament it. Offer no excuses and
   explanations, but honestly confess the wrong and leave it! Have you
   restrained prayer? Confess it! Have you neglected the reading of the
   Word of God? Confess it! Have you been neglectful of your children and
   your family as to training them in the nurture of the Lord? Confess it!

   Has there been laxity in your contact with the world? Have you given
   way to flippancy and levity? Have you been proud? Have you been
   slothful? Have you indulged too much in the pleasures of the table? Has
   your heart set itself upon your wealth? Then bring the idols out and
   let your heart see the wounds which they have given you and what it is
   that you have doted on and what these things are which have come
   between you and your God! Surely you will be ashamed of them when you
   consider that their love is the price for which you have parted with
   your Savior's Presence! Is this a goodly price that your Lord was
   exchanged for by you? Judas's pieces of silver were not more
   contemptible than these poor paltry bribes! Lament the treachery of
   your heart and hear Him ask you, "Do you love Me?" Do not hesitate to
   answer, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You."

   But, Beloved, when you have obtained a sense of the sin or sins which
   separate you from God and have made a full confession, then take care
   that you seek the Lord with hopefulness and confidence, for,
   notwithstanding all this, you are still His child and must not give way
   to a paralyzing despair. You are married to Christ and there is no
   divorce with Him, "for the Lord, the God of Israel, says He hates
   putting away." He will not cast off forever, nor put away His erring
   spouse. Come, therefore, to Him with humble confidence! He has torn and
   He will heal. He has struck and He will bind us up. Seek His face, for
   His face is towards you! The very face of God is Jesus Christ! The Son
   of God is He in whom we see the Father! Even as you see a man in his
   countenance, so God is seen in Christ! Seek God in Christ Jesus, for
   thereby good shall come unto you.

   Do not say, "It is of no use, I have backslidden and revolted again and
   again and He will now refuse me totally." No, He will not reject you!
   You are not out of reach of His love--He will turn, again, and have
   compassion on you, for He delights in mercy! If He withdraws, it is
   only that you may sigh after Him and seek after Him. A nurse, when her
   little child will go away from her and fall into danger, will sometimes
   hide herself from it to teach it better. She still sees the

   child, though the little one cannot see her. She is near to help, but
   the child cannot find her and so it begins to cry for her and does not
   rest till she is found. The child will not so soon wander again.

   Even so may the Lord hide His face to make us cry after Him, but He is
   very near us, all the while, and He will yet be found of us. "Behold,"
   says He, "I stand at the door and knock. If any man open to me I will
   enter in." It is not much, is it, to open the door? That is all He
   asks. Open and let Him in, for He adds, "and I will sup with him." "Ah,
   Lord," say to Him, "we have no provision fit for You." But know
   assuredly He brings His supper with Him and we sup with Him and He with
   us! He only wants you to lend the house, by opening your heart, for He
   has brought the food! Yes, He is, Himself, our Bread from Heaven!

   Now, to whom is this spoken? To sinners? No, no, it is spoken to the
   Church of Laodicea, which was "neither cold nor hot." Her Lord was
   ready to spit her out of His mouth and yet in mercy He cries, "Behold,
   I stand at the door and knock." O Backslider, Jesus waits to be
   gracious to you! He longs to restore you! Only acknowledge your
   transgression and return to Him! Be of good cheer as to acceptance, for
   He casts out none who come to Him. End this backsliding for there need
   be no more misery! God help you to rise, this very day, into a closer
   walk with Him and may He keep you by His side forever! To be out of
   fellowship with God is for the heart to be in a state of spiritual
   disease. Things must be wrong within when we are wrong with God. When
   we do not walk in the Light, as God is in the Light, there is some evil
   in the eye of the soul. Dread the evil and cry for healing!

   To be away from God is to be in a state of spiritual weakness. Samson
   may shake himself as at other times, but he can do no deeds of strength
   when the Lord has departed from him. God is our strength and God's
   hiding makes us weak as water! If the Lord should leave us, we cannot
   plead with Him and prevail, nor can we plead with men and win them for
   Christ. Our strength has departed--both towards God and towards
   man--when our fellowship with God is suspended. Our heart cannot leap
   like a young roe upon the mountains--our spirit limps as one whose
   bones are broken. We cannot even gaze through the gates of pearl to see
   the Glory which the Spirit reveals, for our eyes are dim so that we
   cannot see afar off when Jesus is away.

   If you are in this condition, you are in an evil case--carking care
   invades you, anxieties annoy you, your temper gets the mastery, Satan
   accuses--and conscience trembles! Your spirit is like that of a carnal
   man and you are apt to speak unadvisedly with your lips and to be
   readily moved by every external influence. What is worse, when a man is
   out of fellowship with God, he is in danger of presumptuous sins!
   David, on the terraces of his palace, had not been walking with God, or
   else the sight of Bathsheba had not caused him so grievous a fall. Lose
   communion with Christ and you are on the verge of a folly which will
   stain your character and terribly mar your life! It is only when we are
   near to God that we are safe--therefore let a sense of danger drive us
   to Him at once!

   I speak from a widespread observation as well as from an inward
   experience. There is but a step between distance from God and the
   nearness of temptation and sin. If God thinks much of you, He will have
   you near Him, or else He will make you miserable. He will not permit
   you to rejoice except in Himself! If your love is not worth His having,
   you may love whom you like. But when He loves you much, He will be very
   jealous over you and if He finds you are content to be without His
   company, He will make you suffer for such wantonness ingratitude! That
   By-Path Meadow business--that going down the green lane to get off the
   pebbles of the right road; that getting away from Christ to have a
   taste of the world's sweet delusions; that coming down from our high
   places as if we had grown weary of being happy and were discontented
   with an angelic life--all that means a succession of afflictions and
   regrets which can only, at the very best, end in our getting to Christ,
   again, with broken bones.

   Such wanderings are painful, end how they may! David's life, before his
   sin--how different it was from his life afterwards! You can always tell
   which Psalms he wrote before his transgression--they are so jubilant,
   so full of holy rejoicing! But afterwards, when he sings, it is in a
   bass voice. He sweeps his harp, but the strings are disordered. He
   loves his God, but it is the solemn, tearful love of repentance rather
   than the bright sparkling love of delight in God. Do not err, my
   beloved Brothers and Sisters, for error brings sorrow. "Little
   children, keep yourselves from idols." If you have gone aside to evil,
   then seek early the face of God and He will be found of you in Christ
   Jesus!

   III. And now my time is almost spent. I have but a few minutes to use
   on the third head and I would, therefore, speak few words, but speak
   them very earnestly, indeed. We shall now think of THE PERSONAL TRIALS
   OF THE SINNER. Oh, you that are unconverted, if God means to save you,
   He will, before long, begin by chastening you in body or in

   mind. You will have trouble! You are a wandering sheep and God will
   send His black dog after you to fetch you to the fold. If one trouble
   does not do it, you will have another and another and another! Perhaps
   I speak to some who, as the result of Providential chastening and the
   work of conscience on their spirit, have already been awakened--let
   them take heed of trifling with their awakening!

   After that earnest sermon, or after reading that stirring book, you
   began to pray, but your desires and feelings have now subsided. I would
   have you greatly grieve over this. Let me warn you that God may
   withdraw Himself from you altogether. Some have been sitting in this
   Tabernacle, now, for years from whom I fear God has withdrawn Himself,
   for you used to feel much moved by the Gospel, but it is not so now!
   You would not come when you were called and admonished, but you
   revolted more and more--and now His mercy is growing weary of you. You
   were smitten again and again, but you still rebelled and now God says,
   "Let him alone." This is a more terrible calamity than you suspect--
   unless it is averted, it will be your ruin!

   I may be speaking to some strangers here who, at one time, had a
   disturbed conscience, but they have grown very callous of late. You are
   in danger of eternal wrath but you are amazingly carefree! You can even
   make jokes about religion, can't you? Poor souls! I fear the Lord has
   given you over for a time, at least--I hope not forever! Do you ask me
   what you should do? I reply that according to our text it is high time
   for you to seek the Lord! You were smitten before you tried
   self-righteousness, Church-going, Chapel-going, sacraments and so
   forth--as the Prophet says, you went to king Jareb, but he could not
   heal you of your wounds. You must now return to your God or you will
   never be right. It is vain to look to priests, or sacraments, or
   religion--all these things put together are nothing!

   You must have personal dealings with your God and you must confess your
   sin to Him, or you will be eternally undone. Go and do it this morning!
   Tell Him all that you know about your sin and ask Him to have mercy
   upon you for Jesus' sake. Seek to know Him as He manifests Himself in
   Jesus. Be willing to believe whatever He pleases to reveal. Be anxious
   to be reconciled to Him. Long to be at peace with the great God who
   made the heavens and the earth. Why should there be a quarrel between
   your Creator and your soul? The way of reconciliation is by the blood
   of His Son, Jesus Christ. You must, therefore, trust Jesus and then you
   shall find the peace of God. Oh may His Spirit help you to do this now!
   Seek Him and seek Him intensely, resolving that you will never cease to
   seek till you find God full of mercy and love to you. Come, I pray you,
   and turn unto the Lord, now, and may the Holy Spirit aid you in doing
   so.

   He has torn and He will heal you. He has struck and He will bind you
   up. After two days He will revive you. On the third day He will raise
   you up and you shall live in His sight! God Himself must heal you, or
   you will never be healed! He who has broken your heart must give you
   comfort or you will never have any! Hasten to your chamber at once and
   then upon your knees cry out unto God with the prayer of faith. Be not
   content with your own sense of sin. Do not say, "I am doing fine, for I
   have felt my guilt." No, your sense of sin may be but the first drop of
   a shower of eternal remorse. Get away to God in Christ and rest not
   till you are there.

   Oh, if I had the power to put this into fitting and forcible words I
   would implore every man and woman that I look upon not to live without
   God! He made you and you cannot be happy without Him. While He is angry
   with you, you cannot be at peace! He bids you come to Him. The blows of
   His Providence are meant to separate you from the love of sin and drive
   you to your God! In Jesus Christ, the great Father stretches out His
   arms to you and says, "Come now, and let us reason together: though
   your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they
   are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

   Believe in Jesus and live! "Seek you the Lord while He may be found!
   Call upon Him while He is near! Let the wicked forsake his ways and the
   unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He
   will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
   pardon." God bless you, my beloved Friends, for His name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Hosea 5. HYMNS FROM "OUR 0WN
   HYMN BOOK"--605, 620, 614.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Motto

   (No. 1484)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 20, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "With goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men."
   Ephesians 6:7.

   THIS sentence was expressly addressed, in the first place, to
   "servants," which term includes and, first of all intends, those who
   unhappily were slaves. There were many slaves in the Roman Empire and
   the form of bondage which then existed was of the bitterest kind. I can
   imagine a slave becoming a Christian and so finding peace as to his
   former guilt and obtaining renewal of heart--and then, although
   rejoicing in the Lord, I can well conceive that he would often be
   downcast in view of his sad condition as a slave. I see him sitting
   down and moaning to himself, "I am a bondsman under a tyrant master. I
   have already endured many cruelties and may expect many more. I would
   be free, but there is no hope of escape, since there is no place to
   which I can flee, for Caesar's arm is long and would reach me at the
   very ends of the earth. I cannot purchase my liberty, nor earn it by
   long years of faithful servitude.

   "Neither can my fellow salves and I effect our deliverance by
   rebellion, for this has been tried and has ended in terrible bloodshed.
   I am hopelessly a slave. What shall I do? How shall I sustain my fate?
   My life is well-near intolerable--would to God it were at an end." I
   can imagine the poor slave going to his cramped bed under the stairs--
   for in any hole or corner, the Roman slave might find such little rest
   as was allowed him--and there he would almost wish to sleep himself
   into another world. Being a Christian, as I have supposed, he pours out
   his heart before God in prayer and, in answer to his cry, the Lord
   Jesus sets before him the rich consolation which He has provided for
   all that mourn--consolation strong enough to enable him to endure to
   the end and glorify the name of Jesus even under such hard conditions!

   While yet troubled in mind, this freeman of the Lord, who is yet in
   bonds to man, is met by the Savior Himself. He appears to him--I will
   not say in such form as could be perceived by the eyes, but in clear
   enough vision to be exceedingly influential over his spirit. Jesus
   stands before him. The five wounds adorning Him like precious rubies
   are infallible tokens! The face lit up with an unearthly splendor is
   still marked with the old lines of sorrow and the head bears the crown
   of thorns still about its brow. The poor slave casts himself at his
   Redeemer's feet with astonishment, with awe and with intense delight!
   And then I think I hear those dear lips which are as lilies dropping
   sweet-smelling myrrh saying to His poor servant, "Fulfill your service
   bravely. Do it unto Me. Forget your tyrant master and remember only Me.
   Bear on, work on, suffer on and do all as unto Me and not unto men."

   Then I think I see the broken-hearted captive rising up refreshed with
   inward strength and I hear him say, "I will even bear the yoke until my
   Lord shall call me away! Unless His Providence shall open for me a door
   of liberty, I will patiently abide where I am and suffer all His will,
   hopefully and joyfully serving because He bids me do it for His sake."
   A vision which would so greatly comfort the poor Roman slave in his
   extremity may well stand before each one of us. Let us each hear our
   Savior say, "Live unto Me and do all for My sake." Our service is so
   much more pleasant and easy than that of slaves--let us perform it
   "with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not to men." Our
   princely motto is, "I serve"--be this sentence emblazoned on our banner
   and used as the battle cry of life's campaign!

   Notice well that the Holy Spirit does not bid us leave our stations in
   order to serve the Lord. He does not bid us forego the domestic
   relations which make us husbands or wives; parents or children; masters
   or servants! He does not suggest to us to put on a peculiar garb and
   seek the seclusion of a monastery, or the retirement of monastic or
   conventual life. Nothing of the kind is hinted at! But rather He bids
   the servant continue in his or her service--"with goodwill doing
   service." Our great Captain would not have you hope to win the victory
   by leaving your post! He would have you abide in your trade, calling,
   profession and all the while serve the Lord in it, doing the will of
   God from the heart in common things.

   This is the practical beauty of our holy faith--that when it casts the
   devil out of a man it sends him home to bless his friends by telling
   them what great things the Lord has done for him. Grace does not
   transplant the tree, but bids it overshadow the old house at home, as
   before, and bring forth good fruit where it is! Grace does not make us
   unearthly, though it makes us unworldly. True religion distinguishes us
   from others, even as our Lord Jesus was separate from sinners, but it
   does not shut us up or hedge us round about as if we were too good or
   too tender for the rough usage of everyday life! It does not put us in
   the salt box and shut the lid, but it casts us in among our fellow men
   for their good!

   Grace makes us the servants of God while we are the still servants of
   men--it enables us to do the business of Heaven while we are attending
   to the business of earth--it sanctifies the common duties of life by
   showing us how to perform them in the light of Heaven. The love of
   Christ makes the lowliest acts sublime. As the sunlight brightens a
   landscape and sheds beauty over the most common scene, so does the
   Presence of the Lord Jesus! The spirit of consecration renders the
   offices of domestic servitude as sublime as the worship which is
   presented upon the sea of glass before the Eternal Throne by spirits to
   whom the courts of Heaven are their familiar name.

   I suggest my text to all Believers as the motto of their lives! Whether
   we are servants or masters, whether we are poor or rich, let us take
   this as our watchword, "As to the Lord, and not to men." From now on
   may this be the engraving of our seal and the motto of our coat of
   arms! May it be the constant rule of our life and the sum of our
   motives. In advocating this gracious aim of our being, let me say that
   if we are enabled to adopt this motto it will, first of all, influence
   our work itself. And, secondly, it will elevate our spirit concerning
   that work. Yet let me add, thirdly, that if the Lord shall really be
   the All in All of our lives, it is, after all, only what He has a right
   to expect and what we are under a thousand obligations to give to Him!

   I. Our subject opens with this reflection, that if from now on whether
   we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the
   Lord, THIS CONSECRATION WILL GREATLY INFLUENCE OUR ENTIRE WORK. Do you
   say, my Brothers and Sisters, that from now on your whole life shall be
   a service of the Lord? Then it will follow, first, that you will have
   to live with a single eye to His Glory. See how in verse 5 we are told,
   "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the
   flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
   Christ"? If we do, indeed, live "as to the Lord," we must necessarily
   live wholly to the Lord.

   The Lord Jesus is a most engrossing Master. He has said, "No man can
   serve two masters," and we shall find it so. He will have everything or
   nothing! If, indeed, He is our Lord, He must be our only Sovereign, for
   He will not tolerate a rival. It comes to pass then, O Christian, that
   you are bound to live for Jesus and for Him alone. You must have no
   coordinate or even secondary objective or divided aim--if you divide
   your heart, your life will be a failure. As no dog can follow two hares
   at one time, or he will lose both, certainly no man can follow two
   contrary objectives and hope to secure either of them. No, it behooves
   a servant of Christ to be a concentrated man--his affections should be
   bound up into one affection--and that affection should not be set on
   things on the earth, but on things above.

   His heart must not be divided, or it will be said of him as of those in
   Hosea, "Their heart is divided; now shall they be found wanting." The
   chamber of the heart is far too narrow to accommodate the King of kings
   and the world, or the flesh, or the devil at the same time. We have no
   wish, desire, ambition, or exertion to spare for a rival lord--the
   service of Jesus demands and deserves all. Such is the eminence of this
   objective, that all a man has or can have by reason or strength must be
   spent this way if he is to win. Nor is this too much for our great Lord
   to expect from those for whom He has done so much.

   To whom should I give a part of myself, my Master? You have redeemed me
   wholly and I am altogether Yours--take full possession of me! Who else
   can be worthy of my heart? Who else can have a right to set foot within
   the province where You are King? No, rule alone, blessed and only
   Potentate! As You, alone, have redeemed me, alone treading the
   winepress of wrath for me, so shall You be sole Monarch of my soul! You
   are all my salvation and all my desire and, therefore, You shall have
   all my homage and service. With such a Lord to be served, the current
   of our life must run in only one channel--that He may have it all and
   none may run to waste.

   Next, to do service to the Lord, we must live with holy carefulness,
   for what says the context? We are to serve, "with fear and trembling."
   In the service of God we should use great care to accomplish our very
   best and we should feel a deep anxiety to please Him in all things.
   There is a trade called paper staining, in which a man flings colors
   upon paper to make common wall decorations. And by rapid processes
   acres of paper can be speedily finished. Suppose that the paper

   stainer should laugh at an eminent artist because he had covered such a
   little space, having been stippling and shading a little tiny piece of
   his picture by the hour together? Such ridicule would, itself, be
   ridiculous! Now the world's way of religion is the paper stainer's way,
   the daubing way--there is plenty of it and it is quickly done.

   But God's way, the narrow way, is a careful matter. There is but little
   of it and it costs thought, effort, watchfulness and care. Yet see how
   precious is the work of art when it is done and how long it lasts--and
   you will not wonder that a man spends his time upon it. Even so, true
   godliness is acceptable with God and it endures forever and, therefore,
   it well repays the earnest effort of the man of God. The miniature
   painter has to be very careful of every touch and tint, for a very
   little may spoil his work. Let our life be a miniature painting--"with
   fear and trembling" let it be worked out. We are serving the thrice
   Holy God who will be held in reverence of them that come near to Him.
   Let us mind what we do.

   Our blessed Master never made a faulty stroke when He was serving His
   Father. He never lived a careless hour, nor let drop an idle word. Oh,
   it was a careful life He lived--even the night watches were not without
   the deep anxieties which poured themselves forth in prayer unto God!
   And if you and I think that the first thing which comes to hand will do
   with which to serve our God, we make a great mistake and grossly insult
   His name! We must have a very low idea of His infinite majesty if we
   think that we can honor Him by doing His service half-heartedly, or in
   a slovenly style. No, if you will, indeed, live "as to the Lord, and
   not unto man," you must watch each motion of your heart and life, or
   you will fail in your design. Living as to the Lord means living with a
   concentrated spirit and living with earnest care that our one service
   may be the best of which we are capable when at our best estate. Alas,
   how poor is that best when we reach it! Truly, when we have done all,
   we are unprofitable servants, but even then, that all is seldom
   reached.

   Further, if from now on our desire is to live "as to the Lord, and not
   unto men," then what we do must be done with all our heart. "In
   singleness of your heart," says the context. And again, in the sixth
   verse, "As the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
   heart." Our work for Jesus must be the outgrowth of the soil of the
   heart. Our service must not be performed as a matter of routine--there
   must be vigor, power, freshness, reality, eagerness and warmth about
   it--or it will be good for nothing. No fish ever came upon God's altar
   because it could not come there alive--the Lord needs none of your
   dead, heartless worship! You know what is meant by putting all our
   heart into all that we do-- explain it by your lives! A work which is
   to be accepted of the Lord must be heart-work throughout--not a few
   thoughts of Christ, occasionally, and a few chill words and a few
   chance gifts and a little done by way of by-play--but as the heart
   beats so must we serve God! It must be our very life!

   We are not to treat our religion as though it were a sort of weekend
   farm which we were willing to keep going but not to make much of, our
   chief thoughts being engrossed with the home farm of self and the world
   with its gains and pleasures. Our Lord will be aut Caesar aut nullus,
   either ruler or nothing! My Master is a jealous Husband--He will not
   tolerate a stray thought of love elsewhere and He thinks it scorn that
   they who call themselves His beloved should love others better than
   Himself! Such unchastity of heart can never be permitted--let us not
   dream of it! We may not claim to be His if we give Him only lip
   service, brain service or hand service--He must have the heart!

   Oh, our beloved Lord, You did not spare Your heart from agony for us!
   The lance opened it with all its costly double flood for our unworthy
   sakes! Therefore You cannot be content to receive, in return, lifeless
   forms and cold pretences! You did live, indeed--there was no sham about
   Your life. In all You did You were intense. The zeal of Your Father's
   house had eaten You up. You were clad with zeal as with a cloak which
   covered You from head to foot. Let us live somewhat after this glorious
   fashion, for a servant only truly lives when he lives as his master.
   "He that is perfect shall be as His Master." If we are to live to the
   Lord, the fountains of our soul must flow with boiling floods and our
   life must be like a great Icelandic geyser casting up its columns of
   water which seethe and boil as they rise.

   As great earthquakes shake the very center, so must there be movements
   of life within us which stir our soul with vehement longings for Jesus
   and with intense yearnings for His Glory. All our light and life must
   turn to love and that love must be all on flame for Jesus. If we truly
   live unto Christ it must be so! What else says the passage before us?
   If we say--from now on I will do the will of God as to the Lord and not
   unto men, then we must do it under subjection, for note well the words,
   "doing the will of God." Some people's religion is only another way of
   doing their own will. They pick and choose what precepts they will keep
   and what they will neglect. They choose what doctrines they shall hold
   and what they shall refuse--their spirit is not bowed into sacred
   servitude, but takes license to act according to its own

   pleasure. The freedom of a Christian lies in what I will venture to
   call an absolute slavery to Christ! And we never become truly free till
   every thought is brought into subjection to the will of the Most High.

   Now, if from now on I live to God, I have no longer any right to say,
   "I will do this or that," but I must inquire, "My Master, what would
   You have me do?" As the eyes of the maidens are to their mistress, so
   are our eyes up to You, O Lord. Believer, your Master is to will for
   you from now on! It is idle to say, "I shall live as to the Lord and
   not unto men," when all the while we intend to live in our own fashion!
   Which is to be master, now, self or Christ? On every point this
   question must be settled, for if on any point we assume the personal
   mastery, the rule of Jesus is wholly refused! To go or to stand still,
   to suffer or to be in pleasure, to be in honor or to be in disgrace is
   no more to be our option, or if we have a momentary choice it is to be
   cheerfully resigned before the Sovereignty of Him whom we have now
   taken to be our All in All. There is no being a Christian if Christ
   does not have the throne in the heart and life. It is but the mockery
   of Christianity to call Jesus Master and Lord while we do not do the
   things which He commands!

   Again, we must do all this under a sense of the Divine oversight.
   Notice in verse 6 it is said of servants, "Not with eye service, as
   men-pleasers." What a mean and beggarly thing it is for a man only to
   do his work well when he is watched! Such oversight is for boys at
   school and mere hirelings. You never think of watching noble-spirited
   men. Here is a young apprentice set to copy a picture--his master
   stands over him and looks over each line, for the young rascal will
   grow careless and spoil his work, or take to his games if he is not
   well looked after. Did anybody thus dream of supervising Raphael and
   Michelangelo to keep them to their work? No, the master artist requires
   no eyes to urge him on.

   Popes and emperors came to visit the great painters in their studios,
   but did they paint better because these grandees gazed upon them?
   Certainly not! Perhaps they did all the worse in the excitement or the
   worry of the visit. They had regard to something better than the eyes
   of pompous people. So the true Christian needs no eyes of man to watch
   him. There may be pastors and preachers who are better off for being
   looked after by bishops and presbyters, but fancy a bishop overseeing
   the work of Martin Luther and trying to quicken his zeal! Or imagine a
   presbyter looking after Calvin to keep him sound in the faith! Oh, no!
   Gracious minds outgrow the governance and stimulus which comes of the
   oversight of mortal man. God's own Spirit dwells within us and we serve
   the Lord from an inward principle which is not fed from without.

   There is about a real Christian a prevailing sense that God sees him
   and he does not care who else may set his eyes upon him--it is enough
   for him that God is there. He has little respect for the eyes of man.
   He neither courts nor dreads them! Let the good deed remain in the
   dark, for God sees it and that is enough! Or let it be blazoned in the
   light of day to be pecked at by the censorious, for it little matters
   who censures, since God approves! This is to be a true servant of
   Christ--to escape from being an eye-servant to men by becoming, in the
   most sublime sense, an eye-servant of God-- always working beneath the
   eyes of God. If we did but realize this, how well we should live! If
   now I remember, as I try to do, that God hears each word I speak to you
   from this pulpit--that He reads my soul as I address you in His
   name--how ought I to preach?

   And if you go to your Sunday school class this afternoon and picture
   Jesus sitting among the boys and girls and hearing how you teach
   them--how earnestly you will teach! At home when you are about to scold
   a servant, or in the shop, when you think to do a rather sharp thing,
   if you think your Master stands there and sees it all, what a power it
   will have over you! Our lives should all be spent under the spell of,
   "You see me, God," and we should each be able to declare, "I have set
   the Lord always before me." One more thought, and it is this. If from
   now on we are to serve the Lord, and not men, then we must look to the
   Lord for our reward and not to men. "Knowing," says the eighth verse,
   "that whatever good thing any man does, the same shall he receive of
   the Lord, whether he is bond or free."

   Wages! Is that the motive of a Christian? Yes, in the highest sense,
   for the greatest of the saints, such as Moses, have "had respect unto
   the recompense of the reward." And it were like despising the reward
   which God promises to His people if we had no respect whatever unto it.
   Respect unto the reward which comes of God kills the selfishness which
   is always expecting a reward from men. We can postpone our reward and
   we can be content, instead of receiving present praise, to be
   misunderstood and misrepresented. We can postpone our reward and we can
   endure, instead of it, to be disappointed in our work and to labor on
   without success--for when the reward does come how glorious it will be!

   An hour with Jesus will make up for a lifetime of persecution! One
   smile from Him will repay us a thousand times over for all
   disappointments and discouragements. Thus you see, Brothers and
   Sisters, that if we do, in very deed, make

   this our rule and maxim--"As to the Lord, and not to men"--our work
   will be shaped and fashioned most wonderfully. May God grant that the
   influence of this motive may manifestly sway our whole life from now on
   until we close it for this world and commence it anew where we shall
   not need to shift our course, but shall continue eternally to live to
   the Lord alone!

   II. May the Holy Spirit guide us while we reflect, secondly, that
   should this text become the inspiration of our life IT WOULD GREATLY
   ELEVATE OUR SPIRITS. What would it do for us? First, it would lift us
   above all complaining about the hardness of our lot, or the difficulty
   of our service. "Alas," says one, "I am worn out! I cannot keep on at
   this rate. My position is so terribly trying that I cannot hold on much
   longer--it strains not only muscle and sinew, but nerve and heart.
   Nobody could bear my burden long! My husband is cruel, my friends are
   unkind, my children are ungrateful." Ah, poor heart, there are many
   others who wear the weeping-willow as well as yourself!

   But be of good courage and look at your case in another light. If the
   burden is to be borne for Jesus' sake, who loved you and gave Himself
   for you--by whose precious blood you are redeemed from the pains of
   Hell--can you not bear it? Can you not bear it? "That is quite another
   thing," you say. "I could not bear it for a sneering master. I could
   not bear it for a passionate, obstinate mistress. But I could do
   anything and I could bear anything for Jesus." This makes all the
   difference--

   "For Him I count as gain each loss, Disgrace for Him, renown. Well may
   I glory in His Cross, While He prepares my crown!"

   We are satisfied to bear any cross so long as it is His Cross! What
   wonders men can do when they are influenced by enthusiastic love for a
   leader!

   Alexander's troops marched thousands of miles on foot and they would
   have been utterly wearied had it not been for their zeal for Alexander.
   He led them forth conquering and to conquer. Alexander's presence was
   the life of their valor, the glory of their strength. If there was a
   very long day's march over burning sands, one thing they knew--that
   Alexander marched with them! If they were thirsty, they knew that he
   thirsted, too, for when one brought a cup of water to the king, he put
   it aside, thirsty as he was, and said, "Give it to a sick soldier."
   Once it so happened that they were loaded with the spoil which they had
   taken and each man had become rich with goodly garments and wedges of
   gold. Then they began to travel very slowly with so much to carry and
   the king feared that he should not overtake his foe. Having a large
   quantity of spoil which fell to his own share, he burned it all before
   the eyes of his soldiers and bade them do the same that they might
   pursue the enemy and win even more!

   "Alexander's portion lies beyond," he cried! And seeing the king's own
   spoils on fire, his warriors were content to give up their gains, also,
   and share with their king. He did, himself, what he commanded others to
   do--in self-denial and hardship he was a full partaker with his
   followers. After this fashion our Lord and Master acts towards us. He
   says, "Renounce pleasure for the good of others. Deny yourself and take
   up your cross. Suffer, though you might avoid it. Labor, though you
   might rest, when God's Glory demands suffering or labor of you. Have
   not I set you an example?" "Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes
   He became poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich." He
   stripped Himself of all things that He might clothe us with His Glory!
   O, Brothers and Sisters, when we heartily serve such a Leader as this,
   and are fired by His Spirit, then murmuring, complaining, weariness and
   fainting of heart are altogether gone! A Divine passion carries us
   beyond ourselves--

   "I can do all things, or can bear All suffering if my Lord is there."

   Next, this lifts the Christian above the spirit of laziness. I believe
   great numbers of working men--I am not going to judge them for
   it--always consider how little they can possibly do to earn their
   wages. The question with them is not, "How much can we give for the
   wage?" That used to be. But now, it is, "How little can we give? How
   little work can we do in the day without being discharged for
   idleness?" Many men say, "We must not do all the work today, for we
   shall need something to do tomorrow--our masters will not give us more
   than they can help and, therefore, we will not give them more than we
   are obliged to." This is the general spirit on both sides and as a
   nation we are going to the dogs because that spirit is among us--and we
   shall be more and more beaten by foreign competition if this spirit is
   cultivated.

   Among Christians such a notion cannot be tolerated in the service of
   our Lord Jesus. It never does for a minister to say, "If I preach three
   times a week it is quite as much as anybody will expect of me,
   therefore I shall do no more." It will never be right for you to say,
   "I am a Sunday school teacher. As long as I get to class on time--some
   of you do not do that--and as long as I teach until the class time is
   over, I need not look after the boys and girls through the week. I
   cannot be bothered with them--I will do just as much as I am bound to
   do, but no more." In a certain country town it was reported that the
   grocer's wife cut a plum in two, for fear there should be a grain more
   than weight in the parcel. The folks called her Mrs. Split-Plum. Ah,
   there are many Split-Plums in religion! They do not want to do more for
   Jesus than may be absolutely necessary. They would like to give good
   weight, but they would be sorry to be convicted of doing too much.

   Ah, when we get to feel we are doing service for our Lord Jesus Christ,
   we adopt a far more liberal scale! Then we do not calculate how much
   ointment will suffice for His feet, but we give Him all that our box
   contains. Is this your talk, "Bring the scales, this ointment cost a
   great deal of money and we must be economical. Watch every drachma,
   yes, every scruple and grain, for the nard is costly"? If this is your
   cool manner of calculation, your offering is not worth a fig! Not so
   spoke that daughter of love of whom we read in the Gospels, for she
   broke the box and poured out all the contents upon her Lord. "To what
   purpose is this waste?" cried Judas. It was Judas who thus spoke and
   you know, therefore, the worth of that observation! Christ's servants
   delight to give so much as to be thought wasteful, for they feel that
   when they have, in the judgment of others, done extravagantly for
   Christ, they have but begun to show their hearts' love for His dear
   name. Thus the elevating power of the spirit of consecration lifts us
   up above the wretched stinginess of mere formality.

   Again, this raises us up above all boasting of our work. "Is the work
   good enough?" asked one of his servant. The man replied, "Sir, it is
   good enough for the price and it is good enough for the man who is
   going to have it." Just so, and when we "serve" men we may, perhaps,
   rightly judge in that fashion. But when we come to serve Christ, is
   anything good enough for Him? If our zeal knew no respite. If our
   prayers knew no pause. If our efforts knew no relaxation. If we gave
   all we have of time, wealth, talent and opportunity. If we should die a
   martyr's death a thousand times, wouldn't He, the Best Beloved of our
   souls, deserve far more? Ah, that He would! Therefore is
   self-congratulation banished forever! When you have done all, you will
   feel that it is not worthy of the matchless merit of Jesus and you will
   be humbled at the thought! Thus, while doing all for Jesus stimulates
   zeal, it fosters humility--a happy blending of useful effects.

   The resolve to do all as unto the Lord will elevate you above that
   craving for recognition which is a disease with many. It is a sad fault
   in many Christians that they cannot do anything unless all the world is
   told of it. The hen in the farmyard has laid an egg and feels so proud
   of the achievement that she must cackle about it--everybody must know
   of that one poor egg till all the country round resounds with the news!
   It is so with some professors--their work must be published or they can
   do no more! "Here have I," said one, "been teaching in the school for
   years and nobody ever thanked me for it! I believe that some of us who
   do the most are the least noticed and what a shame it is."

   But if you have done your service unto the Lord you would not talk so,
   or we shall suspect you of having other aims! The servant of Jesus will
   say, "I do not need human notice. I did it for my Master. He noticed me
   and I am content. I tried to please Him and, by His Grace, I did please
   Him and, therefore, I ask no more, for I have gained my end. I seek no
   praise of men, for I fear lest the breath of human praise should
   tarnish the pure silver of my service." This would lift you above the
   discouragement which sometimes comes of human censure. If you seek the
   praise of men you will, in all probability, fail in the present and
   certainly you will lose it in the future, sooner or later. Many men are
   more ready to censure than to commend--and to hope for their praise is
   to seek for sugar in a root of wormwood.

   Man's way of judging is unjust and seems fashioned on purpose to blame
   all of us, one way or another. Here is a Brother who sings bass and the
   critics say, "Oh yes, a very fine bass voice, but he could not sing
   treble." Here is another who excels in treble and they say, "Yes, yes,
   but we prefer a tenor." When they find a tenor they blame him because
   he cannot sing bass. No one can be candidly praised, but all must be
   savagely censured! What will the great Master say about it? Will He not
   judge thus--"I have given this man a bass voice and he sings bass and
   that is what I meant him to do. I gave that man a tenor voice and he
   sings tenor and that is what I meant him to do. I gave that man a
   treble voice and he sings treble and so takes the part I meant him to
   take. All the parts blended together make up sweet music for My

   ears"?

   Wisdom is justified of her children, but Folly blames them all round.
   How little we ought to care about the opinions and criticisms of our
   fellow men when we remember that He who made us what we are and helps
   us, by His Grace, to act our part, will not judge us after the mode in
   which men carp or flatter, but will accept us according to the
   sincerity of our hearts. If we feel, "I was not working for you; I was
   working for God," we shall not be much wounded by our neighbors'
   remarks. The nightingale charms the ear of night. A fool passes by and
   declares that he hates such distracting noises! The nightingale sings
   on, for it never entered the little minstrel's head or heart that it
   was singing for critics--it sings because He who created it gave it
   this sweet faculty! So may we reply to those who condemn us--"We live
   not unto you, O men! We live unto our Lord." Thus do we escape the
   discouragements which come of ungenerous misapprehension and jealous
   censure.

   This, too, will elevate you above the disappointments of failures, yes,
   even of the saddest kind. If those you seek to bless are not saved, yet
   you have not altogether failed, for you did not teach or preach having
   the winning of souls as the absolute ultimatum of your work--you did it
   with the view of pleasing Jesus--and He is pleased with faithfulness
   even where it is not accompanied with success. Sincere obedience is His
   delight even if it leads to no apparent results. If the Lord should set
   His servant to plow the sea or sow the sand, He would accept his
   service. If we should have to witness for Christ's name in the stocks
   and by stones--and if our hearers should be even worse than blocks of
   marble and should turn and tear us apart--we may still be filled with
   contentment, for we shall have done our Lord's will and what more do we
   need? To plod on under apparent failure is one of the most acceptable
   of all works of faith and he who can do it, year after year, is
   assuredly well-pleasing unto God.

   This lifts us above disappointment in the prospect of death. We shall
   have to go away from our work soon, so men tell us, and we are apt to
   fret about it. The truth is we shall go on with our work forever if our
   service is pleasing to the Lord! We shall please Him up yonder even
   better than we do here! And what if our enterprise here should seem to
   end as far as man is concerned? We have done it unto the Lord and our
   record is on high and, therefore, it is not lost. Nothing that is done
   for Jesus will be destroyed--the flower may fade, but its essence
   remains! The tree may fall, but its fruit is stored! The cluster may be
   crushed, but the wine is preserved! The work and its place may pass
   away, but the glory which it brought to Jesus shines as the stars
   forever and ever!

   Yes, and this lifts us above the deadening influence of age and the
   infirmities which come with multiplied years. What little we can do, we
   do it all the more thoroughly for Jesus as our experience ripens! If we
   must contract the sphere, we condense and intensify the motive. If we
   are living unto Christ, we love Him even when our heart grows cold to
   other things. When the eyes grow dim earthwards, they brighten towards
   Heaven! When the ears can hardly hear the voice of singing men and
   singing women, it still knows the music of Jesus' name! And when the
   hands can do little in human business, they begin feeling for the
   strings of the celestial harp that it may make melody for the
   Well-Beloved! I know of nothing which can possibly elevate our spirit,
   as workers for Christ, like the sense of doing all unto the Lord and
   not unto men! May the Spirit of God help us to rise into this perfect
   consecration!

   I have not time to say more than just this word. A due sense of serving
   the Lord would ennoble all our service beyond conception. Think of
   working for Him--for HIM, the best of masters--before whom angels count
   it glory to bow! Work done for Him is, in itself, the best work that
   can be, for all that pleases Him must be pure and lovely, honest and of
   good report. Work for the eternal Father and work for Jesus are works
   which are good and only good! To live for Jesus is to be swayed by the
   noblest of motives. To live for the Incarnate God is to blend the love
   of God and the love of men in one passion. To live for the ever-living
   Christ is elevating to the soul, for its results will be most enduring.
   When all other work is dissolved this shall abide.

   Men spoke of painting for eternity, but we, in very deed, serve for
   eternity. Soon shall all worlds behold the nobility of the service of
   Christ, for it will bring with it the most blessed of all rewards. When
   men look back on what they have done for their fellows, how small is
   the recompense of a patriotic life! The world soon forgets its
   benefactors. Many and many a man has been borne aloft in youth amidst
   the applause of men and then, in his old age, he has been left to
   starve into his grave. He who scattered gold at first, begs for pennies
   at last --the world called him generous while he had something to give,
   but when he had bestowed all, it blamed his imprudence! He who lives
   for Jesus will never have ground of complaint concerning his Lord, for
   He forsakes not His saints.

   No man has ever regretted what he did for Jesus, except that he may
   regret that he has not done 10 times more! The Lord will not leave His
   old servants. "O God, You have taught me from my youth and up to now
   have I declared Your wondrous works. Now, also, when I am old and
   gray-headed, O God, forsake me not." Such was the prayer of David and
   he was confident of being heard. Such may be the confidence of every
   servant of Christ. He may go down to his grave untroubled! He may rise
   and enter the dread solemnities of the eternal world without a fear,
   for service for Christ creates heroes to whom fear is unknown!

   III. I close by saying that if we enter into the very spirit of this
   discourse, or even go beyond it--if from now on we live only for Jesus,
   so as never to know pleasure apart from Him, nor to have treasure out
   of Him, nor honor but in His honor, nor success but in the progress of
   His Kingdom--WE SHALL EVEN THEN HAVE DONE NO MORE THAN HE DESERVES AT
   OUR HANDS. For, first, we are God's creatures. For whom should a
   creature live but for his Creator? Secondly, we are His new creatures,
   we are the twice-born of Heaven--should we not live for Him by whom we
   have been begotten for Glory? As many as have believed in Jesus are the
   produce of that Divine power which raised the Son of God from the
   dead--shall they not live in newness of life? God has taken this pains
   with us, that He has made us twice over and He has made a new Heaven
   and a new earth for us to dwell in--whom should we serve with all our
   mind but Him by whom we have been made anew?

   Then comes in redemption. We are not our own, for we are bought with a
   price. We dare not be selfish! We may not put self in opposition to
   God. But I must go further--we may not allow self to be at all
   considered apart from God. Even when it seems that self and God might
   both be served at the same time, it must not be--self in any degree
   will spoil it all. We are never to be masters, but always servants--and
   to serve ourselves is to make ourselves masters. Turn your eyes, O my
   heart, to the Cross and see Him bleeding there whom Heaven adored! He
   is the Light of Glory, the joy and bliss of perfect spirits--and yet He
   dies there in pangs unutterable--dies for me! O bleeding heart, my name
   was engraved upon You! O tortured brain, Your thoughts were all of me!

   O Christ, you loved me and love me still! And that I should serve You
   seems but natural! That I should pray to serve with intense white-hot
   enthusiasm is an impulse of my life. Do you not confess it so, my
   Brothers and Sisters? Besides, remember you are one with Christ. Whom
   should the spouse serve but her Husband? Whom should the hand serve but
   the Head? It scarcely is service. Christ is your alter ego, your other
   self--no, your very self--should you not live for Him? You are bone of
   His bone and flesh of His flesh and, therefore, you must love Him. Let
   a Divine selfishness impel you to love your Lord.

   No hand, I think, counts it hard to be serving his own head. Surely, it
   can be no hardness to do service to Him with whom we are joined by
   bonds and bands of vital union! He is our Head and we are His body and
   His fullness. Let us fill up His Glory! Let us spread abroad the
   praises of His name! God help us to never finish this sermon, but to
   begin it now and go on preaching it in our lives, world without end!
   For Heaven shall be in this--"Not unto us, not unto us, but to Your
   name be praise!" And the beginnings of Heaven are with us now--the
   youth, the dawn of Glory, in proportion while we say from our very
   souls--"Whether we live, we live unto the Lord. And whether we die, we
   die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the
   Lord's."

   And so shall it be from now on and forever! As to those that know
   nothing of this, seeing they know not Christ, may the Lord bring them
   to believe in Jesus Christ this day, that they may, through His Grace,
   become His servants. Amen and amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 6. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--145, 660, 661.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Withered Hand

   (No. 1485)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 22, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON.

   "And, behold, there was a man which hadhis hand withered... Then says
   He to the man, Stretch forth your hand. And he stretched it forth; and
   it was restored whole, like as the other." Matthew 12:10,13.

   NOTE well the expression. Jesus "went into their synagogue and, behold,
   there was a man which had his hand withered." A mark is set, as it
   were, in the margin, as if it were a notable fact. That word, "behold"
   is a sort of note of exclamation to draw attention to it. "Behold,
   there was a man which had his hand withered." In many congregations, if
   there should step in one of the great and mighty of the land, people
   would say, "Behold, there was a duke, an earl, or a bishop there." And
   although there were, occasionally, some great ones in our Savior's
   congregation, I find no notes of admiration about their presence, no,
   "beholds," inserted by the Evangelists as if to call attention to their
   appearance. No doubt if there were, in a congregation, some person of
   known intelligence and great learning who had earned a high degree,
   there are persons who would say, "Did you know that Professor Science
   or Doctor Classic was present at the service?" There would be a,
   "behold," put to that in the memories of many!

   There were persons well learned, according to the learning of the day,
   who came to listen to Christ, but there are no "beholds," about their
   having been present. Yet in the synagogue there was a poor man whose
   hand had been withered and we are called upon to note the fact! It was
   his right hand which was withered, the worse of the two for him, for he
   could scarcely follow his handicraft or earn his bread. His best hand
   was useless! His breadwinner failed him. I have no doubt he was a very
   humble, obscure, insignificant individual. He was probably in great
   poverty because he could not work as his fellow craftsmen could. And he
   was probably not a man of any rank, or learning, or special
   intelligence. His being in the assembly was, in itself, nothing very
   remarkable.

   I suppose he had been accustomed to go to the synagogue as others of
   his townsmen did. Yet the Holy Spirit takes care to mark that he was
   present and to have the word, "behold," hung out like a sign that it
   might be regarded as a special subject for consideration that the
   crippled man was there! And tonight, dear Friends, it matters very
   little to the preacher or to the congregation that you are here, if you
   are some person of note or consequence, for we make no note of
   dignitaries here and attach no special consequence to anyone in this
   place where the rich and the poor meet together!

   But if you happen to be here as a soul needing a Savior. If you happen
   to be here with a spiritually withered hand so that you cannot do the
   things that you would and you are needing to have that hand restored to
   you, there shall be a "behold," put to that--and especially shall it be
   doubly emphatic if, tonight, the Master says to you, "Stretch out your
   withered hand"--and if Divine power shall restore that hand and a deed
   of Grace shall be accomplished! What our Lord needed on that particular
   Sabbath morning was somebody to work upon, somebody whom He might heal
   and so defy the traditional legality of the Pharisees who said that it
   was wrong to heal on the Sabbath!

   Christ did not want their health that morning--He looked for their
   sickness that He might illustrate His healing power. He did not want
   any greatness in anybody there--but He did want some poor needy one in
   whom He could display His power to heal. And that is just the case
   tonight. If you are rich and increased in goods and have need of
   nothing, my Master does not want you! He is a Physician and those who
   practice the healing art look out for sickness as their sphere of
   operation. If we were to tell a wise physician of a town where nobody
   was sick and everybody enjoyed perfect health, he would not settle
   there unless he wished to retire from his practice. My Master does not
   come into the assemblies where all feel themselves quite content with
   themselves--where there are no blind eyes, no deaf ears, no broken
   hearts, no withered hands--for what do such folks need with a Savior?

   He looks around and His eyes fix themselves upon pain, upon necessity,
   upon incapacity, upon sinfulness, upon everything to which He can do
   good--for what He wants in us mortals is the opportunity to do us
   good--and not a

   pretense on our part that we can do Him good! I begin with this because
   my talk tonight will be very simple and it will only be meant for those
   of you who need my Lord and Master. Those of you who do not need Him
   can go. But you that need Him, it may be you shall find Him tonight and
   there shall be the record kept in Heaven, not of those who were here,
   who said, "We see," nor of those who said, "Our hand is strong and deft
   for labor," but there shall be a register of blind ones who shall say,
   "You Son of David, open our eyes," and of withered ones who shall,
   tonight, stretch out their withered hands in obedience to His Divine
   command!

   I do not know that our crippled friend, when he went to the synagogue
   that morning, expected to get his withered hand healed. Being, perhaps,
   a devout man, he went there to worship, but he got more than he went
   for! And it may be that some of you whom God means to bless tonight do
   not know why you have come here. You came, perhaps, because you somehow
   love the ordinances of God's House and you feel happy in hearing the
   Gospel preached. You have never yet laid hold of the Gospel for
   yourselves. You have never enjoyed its privileges and blessings as your
   own, but still you have a hankering after the best things.

   What if, tonight, the hour has come--the hour which Sovereign Grace has
   marked in red letters in the calendar of love--in which your withered
   hand shall be made strong and your sins shall be forgiven? What bliss
   if you shall go your way to glorify God because a notable miracle of
   Grace has been worked in you! God grant it may be so by the power of
   the Holy Spirit! I entreat those of you who love the Master to pray Him
   to work wonders at this time upon many--and His shall be the praise!

   I. First, we will say a little about THE PERSON TO WHOM THE COMMAND IN
   OUR TEXT IS ADDRESSED. "Then said Jesus to the man, stretch forth your
   hand." This command was addressed, then, to a man who was hopelessly
   incapable of obeying. "Stretch forth your hand." I do not know whether
   his arm was paralyzed, or only his hand. As a general rule, when a
   thorough paralysis, not a partial one, takes place in the hand, it
   seizes the entire member and both hand and arm are paralyzed. We
   usually speak of this man as if the entire limb had been dried up and
   yet I do not see in either Matthew, Mark, or Luke, any express
   declaration that the whole arm was withered. It seems to me to have
   been a case in which the hand, only, was affected.

   We used to have, not far from here, I remember, at Kennington Gate, a
   lad who would frequently get on the step of the omnibus and exhibit his
   hands, which hung down as if his wrists were broken, and he would cry,"
   Poor boy! Poor boy!" and appeal to our compassion. I fancy that his
   case was a picture of the one before us, in which, not the arm,
   perhaps, but the hand had become dried up. We cannot positively decide
   that the arm was still unwithered, but we may notice that our Lord did
   not say, "Stretch out your arm," but, "your hand," so that He points to
   the hand as the place where the paralysis lay. If He had said, "Stretch
   out your arm," as the text does not declare that the arm was dried up,
   we should have said that Christ bade him do exactly what he was capable
   of doing and there would have been no miracle in it.

   But inasmuch as Jesus says, "Stretch forth your hand," it is clear that
   the mischief was in the hand and so it was telling him to do what he
   could not possibly do, for the man's hand was assuredly withered. It
   was not a sham disease. He had not made a pretense of being paralyzed,
   but he was really incapable. The hand had lost the moisture of life.
   The spirits which gave it strength had been dried out of it and there
   it was, a withered, wilted, useless thing with which he could do
   nothing. And yet it was to such a man that Jesus said, "Stretch forth
   your hand." This is very important for us to notice because some of
   you, under a burden of sin, think that Christ does not save real
   sinners--that those people whom He saves are, in some respects, not
   quite so bad as you--that there is not such an intensity of sin about
   them as about your case, or if an intensity of sin, yet not such an
   utter hopelessness and helplessness as there is about you. You feel
   quite dried up and utterly without strength.

   Dear Hearer, it is exactly to such as you that the Lord Jesus Christ
   directs the commands of the Gospel! We are bid to preach to you,
   saying, "Believe," or at other times, "Repent and be baptized, every
   one of you! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."
   These commandments are not addressed, as some say they are, to sensible
   sinners, but to insensible sinners, to stupid sinners, to sinners who
   cannot, so far as moral ability is concerned, obey the command at all!
   Such are bid to do so by Him, who in this case bade the man do what he
   naturally, in and of himself, was quite incapable of doing--because,
   you see, if he could stretch out his hand, himself--there was no
   miracle needed, for the man's hand was not withered at all!

   But it is clear that he could not move his hand and yet the Savior
   addressed him as if he could--in which I see a symbol of the Gospel way
   of speaking to the sinner--for the Gospel cries to him in all his
   misery and incapacity, "To you, even to you, is the word of this
   salvation sent." This very incapacity and inability of yours is but the
   space in which the Divine power may be displayed and, because you are
   thus incapable and because you are thus unable, therefore to you does
   the Gospel come that the excellency of the power may be seen to dwell
   in the Gospel and in the Savior Himself and not at all in the person
   who is saved! The command, then, which brought healing with it, was
   addressed to one who was utterly incapable.

   But, mark you, it came to one who was perfectly willing, for this man
   was quite prepared to do whatever Jesus bade him do. If you had
   questioned him, you would have found no desire to retain that withered
   hand and no wish that his fingers should remain lifeless and useless.
   If you had said to him, "Poor man, would you like to have your hand
   restored?" tears would have been in his eyes and he would have replied,
   "Yes, that I would! That I might earn bread for my dear children. That
   I might not have to go about begging and have to depend upon the help
   of others, or only earn a hard crust with this left hand of mine. I
   wish, above all things, that I could have my hand restored!"

   But the worst of many unconverted people is that they do not want to be
   healed--do not want to be restored! As soon as a man truly longs for
   salvation, then salvation has already come to him! But the most of you
   do not wish to be saved. "Oh," you say, "we truly wish to be saved." I
   do not think so, for what do you mean by being saved? Do you mean being
   saved from going to Hell? Everybody, of course, wishes that! Did you
   ever meet a thief that would not like to be saved from going to prison
   or being locked up by a policeman? But when we talk about salvation, we
   mean being saved from the habit of wrong-doing--being saved from the
   power of evil, the love of sin, the practice of folly--and the power to
   find pleasure in transgression.

   Do you wish to be saved from pleasurable and gainful sins? Find me the
   drunk who sincerely prays to be delivered from drunkenness! Bring me an
   unchaste man who pines to be pure! Find me one who is an habitual liar
   and yet longs to speak the truth! Bring me one who has been selfish and
   who in his very heart hates himself for it and longs to be full of love
   and to be made Christ-like! Why, half the battle is won in such cases.
   The initial step is taken. The parallel holds good in the spiritual
   world. The character I have in my mind's eye is the case of a soul
   desiring to be what it cannot be and to do what it cannot do--and yet
   desiring it. I mean the man who cries in agony, "To will is present
   with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not." "I would,
   but cannot, repent. My heart feels like a stone. I would love Christ,
   but, alas, I feel that I am fettered to the world! I would be holy,
   but, alas, sin comes violently upon me and carries me away!"

   It is to such people that Jesus Christ's Gospel comes with the force of
   a command. Will you be made whole, my Friend? Then you may be! Do you
   desire to be saved from sin? You may be! Do you wish to be emancipated
   from the bondage of corruption? You may be! And this is the only way in
   which you may be saved--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall
   be saved." His name is called Jesus, for He shall save His people from
   their sins. He has come on purpose to do this to real sinners--not to
   mere pretenders--for it is clear that He cannot save men from sins if
   they have none! He cannot heal withered hands if there are no withered
   hands to be healed! He comes to you who need Him, to you that are
   guilty, to you whose hands are withered! Even to you is this glorious
   word of the good news proclaimed! God grant you Grace to hear it
   believingly and to feel its power!

   II. Secondly, I want to speak a little upon THE PERSON WHO GAVE THE
   COMMAND. It was Jesus who gave it. He said, "Stretch forth your hand."
   Did our Lord speak this in ignorance, supposing that the man could do
   so? By no means, for in Him is abundant knowledge! He had just read the
   hearts of the Pharisees and you may be sure that He who could read
   those subtle spirits could certainly see the outward condition of this
   patient. He knew that the man's hand was withered and yet He said,
   "Stretch forth your hand." When I read in Scripture the command,
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," I am sure that Jesus Christ knows
   what He is saying. "Go you," He said, "into all the world and preach
   the Gospel to every creature."

   Yes, to every creature. Suppose that some of His disciples had been
   very orthodox and had come back and said, "Lord, was there not a
   mistake about the persons? Why preach to every creature? Are not some
   of them dead in sin? We would rather preach to character." I have heard
   some of Christ's professed servants say that to bid dead sinners live
   is of no more use than to shake a handkerchief over the graves in which
   the dead are buried. And my reply to them has been,

   "You are quite right. Do not do it, for it is evident you are not
   called to do it. Go home and go to bed. The Lord never sent you to do
   anything of the kind, for you admit you have no faith in it." But if my
   Master sent me as the herald of resurrection and bade me shake a
   handkerchief over the graves of the dead, I would do it! And I should
   expect that this or that handkerchief, if He commanded it to be shaken,
   would raise the dead, for Jesus Christ knows what He is doing when He
   sends His servants.

   If He does not send us, it is a fool's errand, indeed, to go and say,
   "You dead men, live." but His commission makes all the difference! We
   are to say to the dead, "Awake, and Christ shall give you life." What?
   Wake, first, and then get life? I shall not try to explain it, but that
   is the order of the Scripture--"Awake, you that sleep, and arise from
   the dead, and Christ shall give you life." If my Master puts it so, I
   am quite satisfied to quote His words. I cannot explain it, but I
   delight to take Him in His own way and blindly follow His every step
   and believe His every word! If He bids me say, "Arise from the dead," I
   will gladly do it right now! In the name of Jesus, you dead ones, live!
   Break, you hard hearts! Dissolve, you hearts of steel! Believe, you
   unbelievers! Lay hold on Christ, you ungodly ones!

   If He speaks by His ministers, that word shall be with power--if He
   speaks not by us, it is little matter how we speak! Well may the
   judicious Brother say that there would be no use in his bidding the
   dead arise, for he confesses that his Master is not with him. Let him,
   therefore, go home till his Master is with him! If his Master were with
   him, then would he speak his Master's words and he would not be afraid
   of being called foolish. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who says to this
   man with the withered hand, "Stretch forth your hand." To me it is a
   sweet thought that He is able to give power to do what He gives the
   command to do.

   Dear Soul, when you are bid to believe and you stand with tears in your
   eyes and say, "Sir, I cannot understand and I cannot believe," do you
   not know that He who bids you believe can give you power to believe?
   When He speaks through His servants, or through His Word, or directly
   by His Spirit upon your conscience, He who bids you do this is no mere
   man, but the Son of God! And you must say to Him, "Good Lord, I beseech
   You give me, now, the faith which You ask of me. Give me the repentance
   You command." And He will hear your prayer and faith shall spring up
   within you! Did you never notice, dear Souls, Christ's way of doing His
   work? His way is generally this--first, to give the command, then to
   help the heart to turn the command into a prayer--and then to answer
   that prayer by a promise.

   Take these specimens. The Lord says, "Make you a new heart." That is
   clearly a command. But by-and-by you find the Psalmist David, in the
   51st Psalm, saying, "Create in me a clean heart, O God." And then, if
   you turn to Ezekiel, you get the promise, "A new heart, also, will I
   give you." First, He commands you; next He sets you praying for the
   blessing and then He gives it to you! Take another. The command is,
   "Turn you, turn you, why will you die, O house of Israel?" Then comes
   the prayer, "Turn me and I shall be turned, O Lord." And then follows
   the blessed turning of which the Apostle Paul speaks when he says that
   God has sent His Son to bless us by turning every one of us from his
   iniquity!

   Take another case and let it refer to purging. We find the Lord
   commanding us to "purge out the old leaven" and straightway there comes
   the prayer, "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." And then on
   the heels of it comes the promise, "I will surely purge away your
   dross." Or, take another kind of precept, of a sweeter sort, belonging
   to the Christian. You are continually told to sing--"Sing praises to
   God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises." In
   another place we meet with the prayer, "Open my lips and my mouth shall
   show forth Your praise." And in a third Scripture we have the Divine
   promise, "This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth
   My praise." See, then, the Master's way of going to work--He commands
   you to believe, or repent. He then sets you a-praying that you may be
   enabled to do it and then He gives you Grace to do it so that the
   blessing may really come to your soul!

   Everywhere that Gospel commands are uttered by Christ, Himself, to
   men's hearts, they, receiving them, find the ability coming with the
   command. "But He is not here," says one, "He is not here!" Verily I say
   unto you in His name, He is here! His words are, "Lo, I am with you
   always, even to the end of the world"--till this dispensation shall be
   ended Christ will be where the Gospel is preached! Where His message is
   honestly and truthfully delivered with the Spirit of God, there Jesus
   Christ, Himself, is virtually present speaking through the lips of His
   servants! Therefore, dear Soul with the withered hand, Jesus Himself
   says to you tonight, "Stretch forth your hand." He is present to heal
   and His method is to command. He now commands! O gracious Spirit, be
   present that men may obey!

   III. It is time for a few words upon another point and that is upon THE
   COMMAND ITSELF. The command itself was, "Stretch forth your hand." I
   notice about that command that it goes to the very essence of the
   matter. It is not,

   "Rub your right hand with your left." It is not, "Show your hand to the
   priest and let him perform a ceremony upon it." It is not, "Wash your
   hand." No, it is, "Stretch it forth." That was the very thing he could
   not do and thus the command went to the very root of the mischief. As
   soon as the hand was stretched out it was healed! And the command went
   directly to the desired mark.

   Now, my Lord and Master does not say to any of you sinners tonight, "Go
   home and pray." I hope you will pray, but that is not the great Gospel
   command! The Gospel is, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall
   be saved. Paul stood in the dead of night, with the trembling jailer
   who hardly understood his own question, when he cried, "Sirs, what must
   I do to be saved?" And Paul, according to the practice of some, should
   have said, "We must have a little prayer," or, "You must go home and
   read the Bible and I must further instruct you until you are in a
   better state." He did nothing of the sort! But then and there Paul
   said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."

   There is no Gospel preached unless you come to this, for salvation
   comes by faith and by nothing short of it. That is just the difficult
   point, you tell me. Yes, and at the difficult point this command
   strikes and says, "Stretch forth your hand." Or in the case of the
   sinner, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." For, remember, all that any
   of you ever do in the matter of eternal life which has not faith in it,
   can be nothing, after all, but the effort of your carnal nature--and
   that is death! What can come of the movements of death but a still
   deeper death? Death can never produce life! Prayer without faith? What
   sort of prayer is it? It is the prayer of a man who does not believe
   God! Shall a man expect to receive anything of the Lord if he does not
   believe that God is and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently
   seek Him?

   "Oh, but I must repent before I believe," says one. What kind of
   repentance is that which does not trust God--does not believe in God?
   An unbelieving repentance--is it not a selfish expression of regret
   because of punishment incurred? Faith must be mixed with every prayer
   and every act of repentance or they cannot be acceptable! And,
   therefore, we must go right straight to this point and demand faith,
   saying, "Believe and live." "Stretch forth your hand." That stretching
   forth of the hand was entirely an act of faith. It was not an act of
   sense. As a matter of sense and nature, the man was, I say, weariless
   for it. He only did it because his faith brought the ability! It was a
   pure act of faith, that stretching out of the hand.

   "I still do not understand," says one, "how a man can do what he cannot
   do?" But you will understand a great many other wonderful things when
   the Lord teaches you, for the Christian life is a series of paradoxes!
   And for my own part, I doubt an experience unless there is something
   paradoxical about it. At any rate, I am sure that it is so that I, who
   can do nothing of myself, can do everything through Christ which
   strengthens me! The man who is seeking Christ can do nothing. But if he
   believes on Christ, he can do everything--and his withered hand is
   stretched out. But, in addition to its being an act of faith, it seems
   to me it was an act of decision. There sit the haughty, frowning
   Pharisees. Your imagination can easily picture those fine-looking
   gentlemen with fringes on their garments and phylacteries across their
   foreheads.

   There, too, are the scribes all wrapped up in their formal array--very
   grave and knowing men. Persons were almost afraid to look at them, they
   were so holy and so contemptuous. Look, there they sit like judges at
   court to try the Savior! Now, Christ does, as it were, single out this
   poor man with a withered hand to be His witness. And by His command He
   practically asks him which he will do--will he obey the Pharisees or
   Him? It is wrong to heal on the Sabbath, say the Pharisees. What do you
   say, you with the withered hand? If you agree with the Pharisees, you,
   of course, will decline to be healed on the Sabbath--and you won't
   stretch out your hand! But if you agree with Jesus, you will be glad to
   be healed, Sabbath or no Sabbath!

   Ah, I see. You will stretch out your hand and break away from the
   tyrants who would keep you withered! The man did as good as vote for
   Christ when he stretched forth his hand! Many a soul has found peace
   when, at last, he has held up his hand and said, "Sink or swim, lost or
   saved! Christ for me! Christ for me! If I perish I will cling to His
   Cross and to Him, alone, will I look, for I am on His side, whether He
   will have compassion upon me or not." When that act of decision is
   performed, then comes the healing! If you hold up your hand for Christ,
   He will make it a good hand, though now it is all paralyzed and
   drooping, like a dead thing. Unworthy as you are, He has the power, as
   you hold up your hand for Him, to put life into it and to give you the
   blessing your heart desires!

   I think I hear somebody say, "Oh, Sir, you would not be praising me too
   much if you were to say that I do wish to be saved and saved in
   Christ's own way! I would give my very eyes to love Him." Ah, you need
   not lose your eyes! Give Him

   your trust; give Him your soul's eyes! Look to Him and live! "Oh, that
   I could be saved," says one. "How I long for it." May the Holy Spirit
   lead you to resolve in your own soul that you will not be saved by
   anybody but Christ. O that you would determine--

   "He that suffered in my stead, Shall my Physician be. I will not be
   comforted

   Till Jesus comforts me."

   When that is done, I do not doubt that through faith in the Physician
   you will be quickened by Divine power and you will find healing at
   once!

   IV. So I will just lead you on, in the fourth place, to notice THIS
   MAN'S OBEDIENCE. We are told that he stretched forth his hand. Christ
   said, "Stretch forth your hand." Mark says, "And he did so." That is to
   say, he stretched forth his hand. Now, observe that this man did not do
   anything else in preference to what Jesus commanded, though many
   awakened sinners are foolish enough to try experiments. Christ said,
   "Stretch forth your hand" and he did so. If, instead of that, the man
   had walked across the synagogue and brought himself up to Christ, the
   Master would have said, "I bade you do no such thing. I bade you
   stretch forth your hand."

   Suppose he had then, with his left hand, begun to grasp the roll of the
   Law as it stood in the synagogue and had kissed it out of
   reverence--would that have been of any use? The Master would only have
   said, "I bade you stretch forth your hand." Alas, there are many, many
   souls that say, "We are bid to trust in Jesus, but, instead of that, we
   will attend the means of Grace regularly." Do that, by all means, but
   not as a substitute for faith, or it will become a vain confidence! The
   command is, "Believe and live." Attend to that, whatever else you do.
   "Well, I shall take to reading good books. Perhaps I shall get good
   that way." Read good books, by all means, but that is not the
   Gospel--the Gospel is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall
   be saved."

   Suppose a physician has a patient under his care and he says to him,
   "You are to take a bath in the morning. It will be of very great
   service to your disease." But the man takes a cup of tea in the morning
   instead of the bath and says, "This will do as well, I have no doubt."
   What does his physician say when he enquires--"Did you follow my
   instructions?" "No, I did not." "Then you do not expect, of course,
   that there will be any good result, for you have disobeyed me." So we,
   practically, say to Jesus Christ, when we are under searching of soul,
   "Lord, You bid me trust You, but I would rather do something else.
   Lord, I need to have horrible convictions; I need to be shaken over
   Hell's mouth; I need to be alarmed and distressed." Yes, you need
   everything but what Christ prescribes for you--which is that you should
   simply trust Him!

   Whether you feel or do not feel, you should just come and cast yourself
   on Him, that He may save you and He, alone. "But you do not mean to say
   that you speak against praying, reading good books, and so on?" Not one
   single word do I speak against any of those things--any more than if I
   were the physician I quoted, I should speak against the man's drinking
   a cup of tea. Let him drink his tea! But not if he drinks it instead of
   taking the bath which I prescribe for him! So let the man pray--the
   more the better. Let the man search the Scriptures, but, remember, that
   if these things are put in the place of simple faith in Christ, the
   soul will be ruined! Let me give you a text--did you ever hear it
   quoted properly? "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you
   have eternal life; but you will not come unto Me that you might have
   life." That is where the life is--in Christ--not even in searching
   Scripture, good as the searching of Scripture is! If we put even golden
   idols into the place of Christ, such idols are as much to be broken as
   if they were idols of mud or idols of dung! It matters not how good an
   action is--if it is not what Christ commands--you will not be saved by
   it. "Stretch forth your hand," He says. That was the way by which the
   healing was to come--the man did nothing else and he received a
   gracious reward.

   Notice that he did not raise any questions. Now this man had a fair
   opportunity of raising questions. I think he might very fairly have
   stood up in his place and said, "This is inconsistent, good Master. You
   say to me, 'Stretch forth your hand.' Now, You know that if I can
   stretch forth my hand, there is nothing wrong with me and, therefore,
   there is no room for Your miracle. And if I cannot stretch forth my
   hand, how can You tell me to do so?" Have you not heard some of our
   friends who like to make jests of holy things and scoff at our
   Doctrines of Grace declare that we teach, "You can and you can't; you
   shall and you shan't"? Their description is right enough, though meant
   to ridicule us. We do not object to their putting it thus if it so
   pleases them.

   We teach paradoxes and contradictions to the eyes if you only consider
   the letter--but if you get down into the innermost spirit, it is within
   these contradictions that the eternal Truth of God is found! We know
   that the man is dead in trespasses and sins--steeped in a spiritual and
   moral torpor out of which he cannot raise himself--yet we, by the
   Master's own command say, "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the
   dead and Christ shall give you life!" Or, in other words, we say to the
   withered hand, "Be you stretched out," and it is done! The blessed
   result justifies that very teaching which in itself seems so worthy of
   sarcastic remarks!

   Notice further that the man did what he was told to do--stretch out his
   hand. If you had asked him, "Did you stretch out your hand?" perhaps he
   would have said, "Of course I did. Nobody else did." "Wait a minute, my
   good man. Did you of yourself stretch out your hand?" "Oh, no," he
   would say, "because I have tried many times before and I could not, but
   this time I did it." "Then how was it that you were able to do it?"
   "Jesus told me to do it and I was willing--and it was done." I do not
   expect that he could have explained the rationale of it and, perhaps,
   neither can we. It must, indeed, have been a very beautiful sight to
   see that poor, withered, limp, wilted hand, first hanging down and then
   stretched out before all the people in the middle of the synagogue! Do
   you not see the blood begin to flow, the nerves gaining power and the
   hand opening like a reviving flower?

   Oh, the delight of his sparkling eyes! As at first he could only fix
   them upon the little finger and the thumb to see if they were really
   all alive! Then he turned, looked at that blessed One who had healed
   him and seemed anxious to fall down at His feet and give Him all the
   praise! Even so, we cannot explain conversion and regeneration and the
   new birth and all that--but we know this--Jesus Christ says, "Believe,"
   and we believe! By our own power? No! But as we will to believe (and He
   gives us that will) there comes a power to do according to His good
   pleasure. I look around me, wondering where is the man with the
   withered hand, tonight, or where is the woman with the withered hand.
   To such I would say, in my Master's name, "Stretch out that hand of
   yours."

   It is an auspicious moment. A great thing shall be done unto you.
   Believe now! You have said before, "I can never believe." Now trust
   Jesus. Sink or swim, trust Him!--

   "Venture on Him, venture wholly! Let no other trust intrude, None but
   Jesus Can do helpless sinners good."

   Our Lord Jesus never casts away a sinner who trusts in Him. Oh, I would
   almost put it like this--If you do not feel that you can come, or ought
   to come to Christ, being so unworthy, sneak in! Sneak into His house of
   mercy, just as you have known a hungry dog sneak in where there has
   been something to eat! The butcher, very likely, would deal him a kick
   if he saw him after a bone, but if he once gets it, he may as well make
   off with it and keep it to himself!

   There is this blessed thing about my Master--if you can get a crumb
   from under His table, He will never take it away from you, for He never
   casts out those that come. However they come, He neither turns them
   away nor takes back the blessing. He never says, "Come here, Sir, you
   have no right to hope in My Grace." Remember the woman in the crowd
   that dared not come to Christ before His face, but who came behind Him
   and touched the hem of His garment? She stole the cure from Him, as it
   were, and what did He say? "Come here, My woman, come here. What have
   you done? O, what right had you to touch My garment and steal a cure?
   For this a curse shall come upon you"? Did He speak thus in
   indignation? Not at all! Not at all!

   He bade her come and she told Him the truth. And He said, "Daughter, be
   of good cheer. Your faith has made you whole." Get at Him, Soul! Behind
   or in front, push for a touch of Him! Make a dash at Him! If there is a
   crowd of devils between you and Christ, plow your way through them by
   resolute faith! Though you are the most unworthy wretch that ever
   trusted Him, trust Him now so that it may be told in Heaven that there
   is a bigger sinner saved today than ever was saved before! Such a
   salvation will make Christ more glorious than He ever was! And if yours
   is a worse case than He ever touched with His healing hands to this
   day, well then, when He has touched and healed you, as He will, there
   will be more praise to Him in Heaven than He ever had before!

   O soul, I wish I could persuade you to draw near to Him, but only my
   Master can do it! May He draw you by His great Grace!

   V. The last thing to consider is THE RESULT OF THIS STRETCHING OUT OF
   THE MAN'S HAND IN

   OBEDIENCE TO THE COMMAND. He was healed! I have already tried to set
   before you the fact that the healing was

   manifest. It was also immediate. The man had not to stand there a long
   time, for his hand was straightway healed--and yet the cure was
   perfect, for his hand was whole like the other. It was just as useful
   as his left hand had been, with all the extra dexterity which naturally
   belongs to the right. It was perfectly healed, though healed in a
   moment! You may depend upon it, it was permanently healed for, though I
   have heard it said that saved souls fall from Grace and perish, I never
   believed it, for I have never read of any of the cases which our Lord
   cured that they became bad again. I never heard of a withered hand that
   was healed and was paralyzed a second time. Nor will it ever be! My
   Master's cures last forever!

   I remember seeing in the shop windows, some years ago, that there was
   to be had within a "momentary cure" for the toothache. I noticed after
   a few months that the proprietor of that valuable medicine, whatever it
   was, had discovered that nobody needed a momentary cure and so the word
   "momentary" was changed for the word, "instantaneous," which was a
   great improvement. I am afraid that some people's salvation is a
   momentary salvation. They get a sort of Grace and then they lose it.
   They get peace and, by-and-by, it is gone. What is needed is permanence
   and there is always permanence in the work of Christ! "The gifts and
   calling of God are without repentance" and His healing is never
   revoked.

   O Soul, do you see, then, what is to be had at this moment from Jesus?
   Healing for life! Deliverance from the withering power of sin
   throughout life and eternity! This is to be had by cheerful obedience
   to the matchless command, "Stretch forth your hand," or, in other
   words, "Trust, trust, trust!" Only this week I was talking with one who
   said he could not trust Christ and I said, "But, my dear Friend, we
   cannot have that. Could you trust me?" Yes, he could trust me. "Why can
   you trust me and not trust the Lord Jesus? I will put it another way.
   If you said to me I cannot trust you, what would that imply?"

   "Why," he said, "it would mean, of course, that you were a very bad
   fellow, if I could not trust you." "Ah," I said, "that is exactly what
   you insinuate when you say you cannot trust Jesus, for he that believes
   not has made Him a liar! Do you mean to say that God is a liar?" The
   person to whom I spoke drew back with horror from that consequence and
   said "No, Sir, I am sure that God is true." Very well, then. You can
   certainly trust One who is true! There can be no difficulty in that! To
   trust and rest upon One whom you cannot doubt must follow as a matter
   of course upon your good opinion of Him. Your belief that He is true is
   a sort of faith. Throw yourself upon Him now. Just as I lean upon this
   rail with all my weight, lean like that upon the mercy of God in Christ
   Jesus! That is faith!

   If God's mercy in Christ cannot save you, be lost! Make it your sole
   hope and confidence. Hang on your God in Christ Jesus as the vessel
   hangs upon the nail. As a man casts his whole weight upon his bed, so
   throw yourself unreservedly upon the Divine Love which was seen in
   Jesus and is still seen there! If you do this, you shall be saved! And
   I do not mean merely that you shall be saved from Hell, for the power
   of faith, working in you by God, the Holy Spirit, shall save you from
   loving sin! Being forgiven, you will, from now on, love Him who
   forgives you and you will receive a new principle of action which shall
   be strong enough to break the bars of your old habits! And you shall
   rise into a pure and holy life! If the Son shall make you free, you
   shall be free, indeed--and free you shall be at once if you now trust

   Him!

   The Lord grant His blessing, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Shame and Spitting

   A Sermon

   (No. 1486)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, July 27th, 1879, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off
   the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."--Isaiah 50:6.

   OF WHOM SPEAKETH THE PROPHET this? Of himself or of some other? We
   cannot doubt but what Isaiah here wrote concerning the Lord Jesus
   Christ. Is not this one of the prophecies to which our Lord Himself
   referred in the incident recorded in the eighteenth chapter of Luke's
   Gospel at the thirty-first verse? "Then he took unto him he twelve, and
   said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are
   written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be
   accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be
   mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall
   scourge him and put him to death." Such a remarkable prophecy of
   scourging and spitting as this which is now before us must surely refer
   to the Lord Jesus; its highest fulfillment is assuredly found in Him
   alone.

   Of whom else, let me ask, could you conceive the prophet to have spoken
   if you read the whole chapter? Of whom else could he say in the same
   breath, "I clothe the heavens with blackness and I make sackcloth their
   covering. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that
   plucked off the hair" (vv. 3, 6). What a descent from the omnipotence
   which veils the heavens with clouds to the gracious condescension which
   does not veil its own face, but permits it to be spat upon! No other
   could thus have spoken of Himself but He who is both God and man. He
   must be divine: how else could He say, "Behold, at my rebuke I dry up
   the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness" (v. 2)? And yet he must at the
   same time be a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," for there is
   a strange depth of pathos in the words, "I gave my back to the smiters,
   and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from
   shame and spitting." Whatever others may say, we believe that the
   speaker in this verse is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the
   Son of God and the Son of man, our Redeemer. It is the Judge of Israel
   whom they have smitten with a rod upon the cheek who here plaintively
   declares the griefs which He has undergone. We have before us the
   language of prophecy, but it is as accurate as though it had been
   written at the moment of the event. Isaiah might have been one of the
   Evangelists, so exactly does he describe what our Saviour endured.

   I have already laid he fore you in the reading of the Scriptures some
   of the passages of the New Testament wherein the scourging and the
   shame of our Lord Jesus are described. We saw Him first at the tribunal
   of His own countrymen in Matthew 26, and we read, "Then did they spit
   in his face, and buffeted him: and others smote him with the palms of
   their hands." It was in the hall of the high priest, among His own
   countrymen, that first of all the shameful deeds of scorn were wrought
   upon Him. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." His
   worst foes were they of His own household; they despised and abhorred
   Him, and would have none of Him. His own Father's husbandmen said among
   themselves--"This is the heir; let us kill him, and let us seize on his
   inheritance." This was His treatment at the hand of the house of
   Israel.

   The same treatment, or the like thereto, was accorded Him in Herod's
   palace, where the fingering shade of a Jewish royalty still existed.
   There what I might venture to call a pattern mixture of Jew and Gentile
   power held court, but our Lord fared no better in the united company.
   By the two combined the Lord was treated with equal derision (Luke
   23:11). "Herod with his men of war set him at naught, and mocked him,
   and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe."

   Speedily came His third trial, and He was delivered altogether to the
   Gentiles. Then Pilate, the governor, gave Him up to the cruel process
   of scourging. Scourging as it has been practiced in the English army is
   atrocious, a barbarism which ought to make us blush for the past, and
   resolve to end it for the future. How is it that such a horror has been
   tolerated so long in a country where we are not all savages? But the
   lash is nothing among us compared with what it was among the Romans. I
   have heard that it was made of the sinews of oxen, and that in it were
   twisted the knucklebones of sheep, with slivers of bone, in order that
   every stroke might more effectually tear its way into the poor
   quivering flesh, which was mangled by its awful strokes. Scourging was
   such a punishment that it was generally regarded as worse than death
   itself, and indeed, many perished while enduring it, or soon
   afterwards. Our blessed Redeemer gave His back to the smiters, and the
   plowers made deep furrows there. O spectacle of misery! How can we bear
   to look thereon? Nor was that all, for Pilate's soldier's, calling all
   the band together, as if there were not enough for mockery unless all
   were mustered, put Him to derision by a mock enthronement and a mimic
   coronations and when they had thus done they again buffeted and smote
   Him, and spat in His face. There was no kind of cruelty which their
   heartlessness could just then invent which they did not exercise upon
   His blessed Person: their brutal sport had full indulgence, for their
   innocent victim offered neither resistance nor remonstrance. This is
   His own record of His patient endurance. "I gave my back to the
   smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my
   face from shame and spitting."

   Behold your King! I bring Him forth to you this morning in spirit and
   cry, "Behold the Man!" Turn hither all your eyes and hearts and look
   upon the despised and rejected of men! Gaze reverently and lovingly,
   with awe for His sufferings and love for His Person. The sight demands
   adoration. I would remind you of that which Moses did when he saw the
   bush that burned and was not consumed--fit emblem of our Lord on fire
   with griefs and yet not destroyed; I bid you turn aside and see this
   great sight, but first attend to the mandate--"Put off thy shoes from
   off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." All
   round the cross the soil is sacred. Our suffering Lord has consecrated
   every place whereon He stood, and therefore our hearts must be filled
   with reverence while we linger under the shadow of His passion.

   May the Holy Spirit help you to see Jesus in four lights at this time.
   In each view He is worthy of devout attention. Let us view Him first as
   the representative of God; secondly, as the substitute of His people,
   thirdly, as the servant of Jehovah; and fourthly, as the Comforter of
   his redeemed.

   I. First, I invite you to gaze upon your despised and rejected Lord as
   THE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD. In the Person of Christ Jesus, God Himself
   came into the world, making a special visitation to Jerusalem and the
   Jewish people, but at the same time coming very near to all mankind.
   The Lord called to the people whom He had favored so long and whom He
   was intent to favor still. He says, in the second verse, "I came" and
   "I called." God did in very deed come down into the midst of mankind.

   Be it noted, that when our Lord came into this world as the
   Representative of God, He came with all His divine power about Him. The
   chapter before us says, "Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot
   redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up
   the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness." The Son of God, when He was
   here, did not perform those exact miracles, because He was bent upon
   marvels of beneficence rather than of judgment. He did not repeat the
   plagues of Egypt, for He did not come to smite, but to save; but He did
   greater wonders and wrought miracles which ought far more powerfully to
   have won men's confidence in Him because they were full of goodness and
   mercy. He fed the hungry, He healed the sick, He raised the dead, and
   He cast out devils. He did equal marvels to those which were wrought in
   Egypt when the arm of the Lord was made bare in the eyes of all the
   people. It is true He did not change water into blood, but He turned
   water into wine. It is true He did nor make their fish to stink, but by
   His word He caused the net to be filled even to bursting with great
   fishes. He did not break the whole staff of bread as He did in Egypt,
   but He multiplied loaves and fishes so that thousands of men and women
   and children were fed from His bounteous hand. He did not slay their
   first-born, but He restored the dead. I grant you that the glory of the
   Godhead was somewhat hidden in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, but it
   was still there, even as the glory was upon the face of Moses when he
   covered it with a veil. No essential attribute of God was absent in
   Christ, and every one might have been seen in Him if the people had not
   been willfully blind. He did the works of His Father, and those works
   bore witness of Him that He was come in His Father's name. Yes, God was
   personally in the world when Jesus walked the blessed fields of the
   Holy land, now, alas, laid under the curse for rejecting Him.

   But when God thus came among, men He was unacknowledged. What saith the
   prophet? "Wherefore when I came was there no man? when I called was
   there none to answer?" A few, taught by the Spirit of God, discerned
   Him and rejoiced; but they were so very few that we may say of the
   whole generation that they knew Him not. Those who had some dim idea of
   His excellence and majesty yet rejected Him. Herod, because he feared
   that He was King, sought to slay Him. The kings of the earth set
   themselves, and the rulers took counsel together, against the Lord, and
   against His anointed. He was emphatically and beyond all others
   "despised and rejected of men." Though, as I have said, the Godhead in
   Him was but scantily veiled, and gleams of its glory burst forth ever
   and anon, yet still the people would have none of it, and the cry,
   "Away with him. away with him, let him be crucified," was the verdict
   of the age upon which He descended. He called and there was none to
   answer; He spread out His hands all the day long unto a rebellious
   people who utterly rejected Him.

   Yet our Lord when He came into the world was admirably adapted to be
   the Representative of God, not only because He was God Himself, but
   because as man His whole human nature was consecrated to the work, and
   in Him was neither flaw nor spot. He was untouched by any motive other
   than the one desire of manifesting the Father and blessing the sons of
   men. Oh, beloved, there was never One who had His ear so near the mouth
   of God as Jesus had. His Father had no need to speak to Him in dreams
   and visions of the night, for when all His faculties were wide awake
   there was nothing in them to hinder His understanding the mind of God;
   and therefore every morning when His Father wakened Him He spoke into
   His ear. Jesus sat as a scholar at the Father's feet that He might
   learn first, and then teach. The things which He heard of the Father He
   made known unto men. He says that He spoke not His own words but the
   words of Him that sent Him, and He did not His own deeds, but "my
   Father," saith He, "that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work." Now, a man
   thus entirely agreeable to the mind and will of the great God was
   fitted to be the Representative of God. Both the alliance of His
   manhood with the Godhead and its perfect character qualified it to he
   the fittest dwelling of God among men. Yes, dear friends, our Saviour
   came in a way which should at once have commanded the reverent homage
   of all men. Even His great Father said, "They will reverence my Son."
   Enough of the Godhead was manifested to impress and nor more, lest it
   should alarm. With a soul of gentlest mold and a body like our own He
   was altogether adapted to be the Representative of God. His errand,
   too, was all gentleness and love, for He came to speak words in season
   to the weary, and to comfort those that were cast down: surely such an
   errand should have secured Him a welcome. His course and conduct were
   most conciliatory, for He went among the people, and ate with publicans
   and sinners; so gentle was He that He took little children in His arms,
   and blessed them; for this, if for nothing else, they ought to have
   welcomed Him right heartily and rejoiced at the sight of Him. Our text
   tells us how contrary was their conduct towards Him to that which He
   deserved instead of being welcomed He was scourged, and instead of
   being honored He was scorned. Cruelty smote His back and plucked off
   the hair from His face, while derision jeered at Him and cast its
   spittle upon Him. Shame and contempt were poured upon Him, though He
   was God Himself. That spectacle of Christ spat upon, and scourged
   represents what man virtually does to his God, what he would do to the
   Most High if he could. Hart well puts it--

   See how the patient Jesus stands,

   Insulted in his lowest case!

   Sinners have bound the Almighty hands,

   And spit in their Creator's face.

   When our parents broke the command of their Maker, obeying the advice
   of the devil rather than the Word of God, and preferring a poor apple
   to the divine favor, they did as it were spit into the face of God; and
   every sin committed since has been a repetition of the same contempt of
   the Eternal One. When a man will have his pleasure, even though it
   displeases God, he as good as declares that he despises God, prefers
   himself, and defies the wrath of the Most High. When a man acts
   contrary to the command of God he does as good as say to God, "This is
   better for me to do than what Thou bidst me do. Either Thou art
   mistaken, in thy prohibitions, or else Thou dost willfully deny me the
   highest pleasure, and I, being a better judge of my own interests than
   Thou art, snatch at the pleasure which Thou dost refuse me. I judge
   Thee either to be unwise or unkind." Every act of sin does despite to
   the sovereignty of God: it denies Him to be supreme and refuses Him
   obedience. Every act of sin does dishonor to the love and wisdom of
   God, for it seems to say that it would have been greater love to have
   permitted us to do evil than to have commanded us to abstain from it.
   All sin is in many ways an insult to the majesty of the thrice Holy
   God, and He regards it as such.

   Dear friends, this is especially the sin of those who have heard the
   gospel and yet reject the Saviour, for in their case the Lord has come
   to them in the most gracious form, and yet they have refused Him. The
   Lord might well say, "I have come to you to save you, and you will not
   regard me. I have come saying to you, Look unto me and be ye saved all
   the ends of the earth,' and you close your eyes in unbelief. I have
   come saying, Let us reason together: though your sins be as crimson,
   they shall be as wool,' but you will not be cleansed from your
   iniquity. I have come with the promise, All manner of sin and iniquity
   shall be forgiven unto men.' What is your reply?" In the case of many
   the answer is, "We prefer our own righteousness to the righteousness of
   God." If that is not casting spittle into the face of God I know not
   what is, for our righteousnesses are well described as "filthy rags,"
   and we have the impudence to say that these are better than the
   righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Or if we do not say this when we
   reject the Saviour we tell Him that we do not want Him, for we do not
   need a Saviour: this is as good as to say that God has played the fool
   with the life and death of His own Son. What greater derision can be
   cast upon God than to consider the blood of atonement to be a
   superfluity? He who chooses sin sooner than repentance prefers to
   suffer the wrath of God rather than be holy and dwell in heaven
   forever. For the sake of a few paltry pleasures men forego the love of
   God, and are ready to run the risk of an eternity of divine wrath. They
   think so little of God that He is of no account with them at all. All
   this is in reality a scorning and despising of the Lord God, and is
   well set forth by the insults which were poured upon the Lord Jesus.

   Woe's me that it should ever be so. My God! My God! To what a sinful
   race do I belong. Alas, that it should treat thine infinite goodness so
   despitefully! That Thou shouldst be rejected at all, but especially
   that Thou shouldest be rejected when dressed in robes of love and
   arrayed in gentleness and pity is horrible to think upon. Do you mean
   it, O men? Can you really mean it? Can you deride the Lord Jesus who
   died for men? For which of His works do ye stone Him, when He lived
   only to do good? For which of His griefs do you refuse Him, when He
   died only that He might save? "He saved others, himself he cannot
   save," for He had so much love that He could spare Himself. I can
   understand your resisting the thunder of Jehovah's power, for I know
   your insanity; but can you resist the tenderness of Jehovah's love? If
   you do I must charge you with brutality, but therein I wrong the
   brutes, to whom such crimes are impossible. I may not even call this
   cruel scorning diabolical, for it is a sin which devils never did
   commit, perhaps would not have committed had it been possible to them.
   They have never trifled with a Redeemer, nor rejected the blood of the
   seed of Abraham. Shall the favored race spit upon its friend? God grant
   we may be brought to a better mind. But there is the picture before
   you. God Himself set at naught, despised, rejected, put to shame,
   perpetually dishonored in the Person of His dear Son. The sight should
   breed repentance in us. We should look to Him whom we have scourged,
   and mourn for Him. O Holy Spirit, work this tender grace in all our
   hearts.

   II. And now, secondly, I want to set the Lord Jesus before you in
   another light, or rather beseech Him to shine in His own light before
   your eyes:--AS THE SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS PEOPLE. Recollect when our Lord
   Jesus Christ suffered thus it was not on His own account nor purely for
   the sake of His Father, but He "was wounded for our transgressions, he
   was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
   him; and with his stripes we are healed." There has risen up a modern
   idea which I cannot too much reprobate, that Christ made no atonement
   for our sin except upon the cross: whereas in this passage of Isaiah we
   are taught as plainly as possible that by His bruising and His stripes,
   as well as by His death, we are healed. Never divide between the life
   and the death of Christ. How could He have died if He had not lived?
   How could He suffer except while He lived? Death is not suffering, but
   the end of it. Guard also against the evil notion that you have nothing
   to do with the righteousness of Christ, for He could not have made an
   atonement by His blood if He had not been perfect in His life. He could
   not have been acceptable if He had not first been proven to be holy,
   harmless, and undefiled. The victim must be spotless, or it cannot be
   presented for sacrifice. Draw no nice lines and raise no quibbling
   questions, but look at your Lord as He is and bow before Him.

   Understand, my dear brothers and sisters, that Jesus took upon Himself
   our sin, and being found bearing that sin He had to be treated as sin
   should be treated. Now, of all the things that ever existed sin is the
   most shameful thing that can be. It deserves to be scourged, it
   deserves to be spit upon, it deserves to be crucified; and because our
   Lord had taken upon Himself our sin, therefore must He be put to shame,
   therefore must He be scourged. If you want to see what God thinks of
   sin, see His only Son spat upon by the soldiers when He was made sin
   for us. In God's sight sin is a shameful, horrible, loathsome,
   abominable thing, and when Jesus takes it He must be forsaken and given
   up to scorn. This sight will be the more wonderful to you when you
   recollect who it was that was spat upon, for if you and I, being
   sinners, were scourged, and smitten, and despised, there would be no
   wonder in it; but He who took our sin was God, before whom angels bow
   with reverent awe, and yet, seeing the sin was upon Him, He was made
   subject to the most intense degree of shame. Seeing that Jesus stood in
   our stead, it is written of the eternal Father that "He spared not his
   own Son." "It pleased the Father to bruise him: he hath put him to
   grief"; He made His soul an offering for sin. Yes, beloved, sin is
   condemned in the flesh and made to appear exceeding shameful when you
   recollect that, even though it was only laid on our blessed Lord by
   imputation, yet it threw Him into the very depths of shame and woe ere
   it could be removed.

   Reflect, also, upon the voluntariness of all this. He willingly
   submitted to the endurance of suffering and scorn. It is said in the
   text, "He gave his back to the smiters." They did not seize and compel
   Him, or; if they did, yet they could nor have done it without His
   consent. He gave His back to the smiters He gave His cheek to those
   that plucked off the hair. He did not hide His face from shame and
   spitting: He did not seek in any way to escape from insults. It was the
   voluntariness of His grief which constituted in great measure the merit
   of it. That Christ should stand in our stead by force were a little
   thing, even had it been possible; but that He should stand there of His
   own free will, and that being there He should willingly be treated with
   derision, this is grace indeed. The Son of God was willingly made a
   curse for us, and at His own desire was made subject to shame on our
   account. I do not know how you feel in listening to me, but while I am
   speaking I feel as if language ought scarcely to touch such a theme as
   this: it is too feeble for its task. I want you to get beyond my words
   if you can, and for yourselves meditate upon the fact that He who
   covers the heavens with blackness, yet did not cover His own face, and
   He who binds up the universe with the girdle which holds it in one, yet
   was bound and blindfolded by the men He had Himself made; He whose face
   is as the brightness of the sun that shineth in its strength was once
   spit upon. Surely we shall need faith in heaven to believe this
   wondrous fact. Can it have been true, that the glorious Son of God was
   jeered and jested at? I have often heard that there is no faith wanted
   in heaven, but I rather judge that we shall want as much faith to
   believe that these things were ever done as the patriarchs had to
   believe that they would be done. How shall I sit down and gaze upon Him
   and think that His dear face was once profaned with spittle? When all
   heaven shall lie prostrate at His feet in awful silence of adoration
   will it seem possible that once He was mocked? When angels and
   principalities, and powers shall all be roused to rapture of harmonious
   music in His praise, will it seem possible that once the most abject of
   men plucked out the hair? Will it not appear incredible that those
   sacred hands, which are "as gold rings set with the beryl," were once
   nailed to a gibbet, and that those cheeks which are "as a bed of
   spices, as sweet flowers," should have been battered and bruised? We
   shall be quite certain of the fact, and yet we shall never cease to
   wonder, that His side was gashed, and His face was spit upon? The sin
   of man in this instance will always amaze us. How could you commit this
   crime? Oh, ye sons of men, how could ye treat such an One with cruel
   scorn? O thou brazen thing called sin, thou hast, indeed, as the
   prophet saith, "a whores forehead"; thou hast a demons heart, hell
   burns within thee. Why couldst thou not spit upon earthly splendors?
   Why must heaven be thy scorn? Or if heaven, why not spit on angels! Was
   there no place for thy spittle but His face? His face! Woe is me! His
   face! Should such loveliness receive such shame as this? I could wish
   that man had never been created, or that being created, he had been
   swept into nothingness rather than have lived to commit such horror.

   Yet, here is matter for our faith to rest upon, Beloved, trust
   yourselves in the hands of your great Substitute. Did He bear all this
   shame? Then there must be more than enough merit and efficacy in this,
   which was the prelude of His precious death--and especially in His
   death itself--there must be merit sufficient to put away all
   transgression, iniquity, and sin. Our shame is ended, for He has borne
   it! Our punishment is removed: He has endured it all. Double for all
   our sins has our Redeemer paid. Return unto thy rest, O my soul, and
   let peace take full possession of thy weeping heart.

   III. But time fails us, and therefore we will mention, next, the third
   light in which it is our desire to see the Saviour. Beloved, we desire
   to see the Lord Jesus Christ AS THE SERVANT OF GOD. He took upon
   Himself the form of a servant when He was made in the likeness of man.
   Observe how He performed this service right thoroughly, and remember we
   are to look upon this third picture as our copy, which is to be the
   guide of our life. I know that many of you are glad to call yourselves
   the servants of God; take not the name in vain. As Jesus was, so are
   you also in this world, and you are to seek to be like Him.

   First, as a servant, Christ was personally prepared for service. He was
   thirty years and more here below, learning obedience in His Father's
   house, and the after years were spent in learning obedience by the
   things which He suffered. What a servant He was, for He never went
   about His own errands nor went by His own will, but He waited always
   upon His Father. He was in constant communication with heaven, both by
   day and by night. He says, "He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth
   mine ear to hear as the learned." The blessed Lord or ever the day
   broke heard that gentle voice which called Him, and at its whisper He
   arose before the sunrise, and there the dawning found Him, on the
   mountain side, waiting upon God in wrestling prayer, taking His message
   from the Father that He might go and deliver it to the children of men.
   He loved man much, but He loved His Father more, and He never came to
   tell out the love of God without having as man received it fresh from
   the divine heart. He knew that His Father heard Him always, and He
   lived in the spirit of conscious acceptance. Have you ever noticed that
   sometimes a passage will begin, "At that time Jesus answered and said,"
   and yet there is no notice that He had been speaking to anybody before,
   or that anybody had been speaking to Him? What He said was an answer to
   a voice which no ear heard but His own, for He was always standing with
   opened ear, listening to the eternal voice. Such service did Jesus
   render, and you must render the same. You cannot do your Lord's will
   except you live near to Him. It is of no use trying to preach with
   power unless we get our message from our heavenly Father's own Self. I
   am sure you as hearers know the difference between a dead word which
   comes from a man's own brain and lip, and a living word which the
   preacher delivers fresh as the manna which fell from heaven. The word
   should come from the minister like bread hot from the oven, or better
   still, like a seed with life in it; not as a parched grain with the
   germ dead and killed, but as a living seed which roots itself in your
   souls, and springs up to a harvest. This made our Lord such a good
   servant that He listened to His Father's voice and yielded Himself to
   the Father's will to perfection.

   Our text assures us that this service knew no reserve in its
   consecration. We generally draw back somewhere. I am ashamed to say it,
   but I mourn that I have done so. Many of us could give to Christ all
   our health and strength, and all the money we have, very heartily and
   cheerfully; but when it comes to a point of reputation we feel the
   pinch. To be slandered, to have some filthy thing said of you; this is
   too much for flesh and blood. You seem to say, "I cannot be made a fool
   of, I cannot bear to be regarded as a mere impostor"; but a true
   servant of Christ must make himself of no reputation when he takes upon
   himself the work of his Lord. Our blessed Master was willing to be
   scoffed at by the lewdest and lowest of men. The abjects jeered at Him;
   the reproach of them that reproached God fell upon Him. He became the
   song of the drunkard, and when the rough soldiery detained Him in the
   guard-room they heaped up their ridicule, as though He were not worthy
   of the name of man.

   They bow their knees to me, and cry, "Hail, King":

   Whatever scoffs or scornfulness can bring,

   I am the floor. the sink, where they it fling:

   Was ever grief like mine?

   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?

   Herod and Pilate were the very dross of men, and yet He permitted them
   to judge Him. Their servants were vile fellows, and yet He resigned
   Himself to them. If He had breathed upon them with angry breath, He
   might have flashed devouring fire upon them, and burned them up as
   stubble; but His omnipotent patience restrained His indignation, and He
   remained as a sheep before her shearers. He allowed His own creatures
   to pluck His hair and spit in His face. Such patience should be yours
   as servants of God. We are to be willing to be made nothing of, and
   even to be counted as the offscouring of all things. It is pitiful for
   the Christian to refuse to suffer, and to become a fighting man,
   crying, "We must stand up for our rights." Did you ever see Jesus in
   that posture? There is a propensity in us to say, "I will have it out."
   Yes, but you cannot picture Jesus in that attitude. I defy a painter to
   depict Him so: it is somebody else, and not Christ. No! He said, "I
   gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
   hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."

   There is something more here than perfect consecration in the mere form
   of it, for its heart and essence are manifest in an obedient delight in
   the will of the Father. The words seem to me to express alacrity. It is
   not said that He reluctantly permitted His enemies to pluck His hair,
   or smite His back, but it is written, "I gave my back to the smiters,
   and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair." He could not delight
   in it; how could He delight in suffering and shame? These things were
   even more repugnant to His sensitive nature than they can be to us; and
   yet, "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross,
   despising the shame." He was ready for this dreadful treatment, for He
   said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened
   until it be accomplished!" He was ready for the cup of gall, and
   willing to drink it to its dregs, though it was bitterness itself to
   Him. He gave His back to the smiters.

   All this while--now follow me in this next point--there was no
   flinching in Him. They spat in His face, but what says He in the
   seventh verse. "I have set my face like a flint." If they are about to
   defile His face He is resolved to bear it; He girds up His loins and
   makes Himself more determined. Oh, the bravery of our Master's silence!
   Cruelty and shame could not make Him speak. Have not your lips
   sometimes longed to speak out a denial and a defense? Have you not felt
   it wise to be quiet, but then the charge has been so excessively cruel,
   and it has stung you so terribly that you hungered to resent it. Base
   falsehoods aroused your indignation, and you felt you must speak and
   probably you did speak, though you tried to keep your lips as with a
   bridle while the wicked were before you. But our own beloved Lord in
   the omnipotence of His patience and love would not utter a word, but
   like a lamb at the slaughter He opened not His mouth. He witnessed a
   good confession by His matchless silence. Oh, how might--how gloriously
   mighty was His patience! We must copy it if we are to be His disciples.
   We, too, must set our faces like flints, to move or to sit still,
   according to the Father's will, to be silent or to speak, as most shall
   honor Him. "I have set my face like a flint," saith He, even though in
   another place He cries, "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the
   midst of my bowels."

   And do you notice all the while the confidence and quiet of His spirit?
   He almost seems to say, "You may spit upon Me, but you cannot find
   fault with Me. You may pluck my hair, but you cannot impugn my
   integrity; you may lash my shoulders, but you cannot impute a fault to
   Me. Your false witnesses dare not look Me in the face: let Me know who
   is mine adversary, let him come near to Me. Behold, Adonai Jehovah will
   keep Me, who is he that shall condemn me! Lo, they all shall wax old as
   a garment, the moth shall eat them up." Be calm then, O true servant of
   God! In patience possess your soul. Serve God steadily and steadfastly
   though all men should belie you. Go to the bottom of the service, dive
   even to the very depth, and be content even to lie in Christ's grave,
   for you shall share in Christ's resurrection. Do not dream that the
   path to heaven is up the hill of honor, it winds down into the valley
   of humiliation. Imagine not that you can grow great eternally by being
   great here. You must become less, and less, and less, even though you
   should be despised and rejected of men, for this is the path to
   everlasting glory.

   I have not time to expound the last two verses of the chapter, but they
   read you a noble lesson. "He gave his back to the smiters"; if, then,
   any of you walk in darkness and have no light, this is no new thing for
   a servant of God. The chief of all servants persevered, though men
   despised Him. Follow Him, then. Stay yourselves upon God as He did, and
   look for a bright ending of your trials. He came out into the light
   ultimately, and there He sits in inconceivable splendor at His Father's
   right hand, and so shall all the faithful come out of the cloud and
   shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Only bear on
   with resolute patience, and glory shall be your reward, even as it is
   His.

   IV. Lastly, I am to set Him forth in His fourth character, as THE
   COMFORTER OF HIS PEOPLE; but I must ask you to do this, while I just,
   as it were, make a charcoal sketch of the picture I would have painted.

   Remember, first, our blessed Lord is well qualified to speak a word in
   season to him that is weary, because He Himself is lowly, and meek, and
   so accessible to us. When men are in low spirits they feel as if they
   could not take comfort from persons who are harsh and proud. The
   Comforter must come as a sufferer; He must come in a lowly broken
   spirit, if He would cheer the afflicted. You must not put on your best
   dress to go and visit the daughter of poverty, or go with your jewels
   about you to show how much better off you are than she. Sit down by the
   side of the downcast man and let him know that you are meek and lowly
   of heart. Your Master "gave his back to the smiters, and his cheek to
   them that plucked off the hair," and therefore He is the Comforter you
   want.

   Remark not only His lowliness, but His sympathy. Are you full of aches
   and pains this morning? Jesus knows all about them, for He "gave his
   back to the smiters." Do you suffer from what is worse than pain, from
   scandal and slander? "He hid not his face from shame and spitting."
   Have you been ridiculed of late? Have the graceless made fun of your
   godliness? Jesus can sympathize with you, for you. know what unholy
   mirth they made out of Him. In every pang that rends your heart your
   Lord has borne His share. Go and tell Him. Many will not understand
   you. You are a speckled bird, differing from all the rest, and they
   will all peck at you; but Jesus Christ knows this, for He was a
   speckled bird, too. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
   from sinners," but not separate from such as you. Get you to Him and He
   will sympathize with you.

   In addition to His gentle spirit and His power to sympathize, there is
   this to help to comfort us--namely, His example, for He can argue thus
   with you, "I gave my back to the smiters. Cannot you do the like? Shall
   the disciple be above his Master?" If I can but get on the doorstep of
   heaven and sit down in the meanest place there I shall feel I have an
   infinitely better position than I deserve, and shall I think of my
   dear, blessed Lord and Master giving His face to be spit upon, and then
   give myself airs, and say, "I cannot bear this scorn, I cannot bear
   this pain!" What, does the King pass over the brook Kedron, and must
   there be no brook Kedron for you? Does the Master bear the cross, and
   must your shoulders never be galled? Did they call the Master of the
   house "Beelzebub," and must they call you "Reverend Sir?" Did they
   laugh at Him, and scoff at Him, and must you be honored? Are you to be
   "gentleman" and "lady" where Christ was "that fellow"? For His birth
   they loaned Him a stable, and for His burial He borrowed a grave. O
   friends, let pride disappear, and let us count it our highest honor to
   he permitted to stoop as low as ever we can.

   And, then, His example further comforts us by the fact that He was calm
   amid it all. Oh, the deep rest of the Saviours heart! They set Him up
   upon chat mock throne, but He did not answer with an angry word; they
   put a reed into His hand, but He did not change it to an iron rod, and
   break them like potters' vessels, as He might have done. There was no
   wincing and no pleading for mercy. Sighs of pain were forced from Him,
   and He said, "I thirst," for He was not a stoic; but there was no fear
   of man, or timorous shrinking of heart.

   The King of Martyrs well deserves to wear the martyr's crown, for right
   royally did He endure: there was never a patience like to His. That is
   your copy, brother, that is your copy, sister--you must write very
   carefully to write as well as that. You had need your Master held your
   hand; in fact, whenever children in Christ's school do write according
   to His copy, it is always because He holds their hand by His Spirit.

   Last of all, our Saviour's triumph is meant to be a stimulus and
   encouragement to us. He stands before us this morning as the Comforter
   of His people. Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners
   against Himself lest ye be weary and faint in your minds; for though He
   was once abased and despised, yet now He sitteth at the right hand of
   God, and reigns over all things; and the day is coming when every knee
   shall bow before Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
   Lord, to the glory of God the Father. They that spat upon Him will rue
   the day. Come hither, ye that derided Him! He has raised you from the
   dead, come hither and spit upon Him now! Ye that scourged Him, bring
   your rods, see what ye can do in this day of his glory! See, they fly
   before Him, they invoke the hills to shelter them, they ask the rocks
   to open and conceal them. Yet it is nothing but His face, that selfsame
   face they spat upon, which is making earth and heaven to flee away.
   Yea, all things flee before the majesty of his frown who once gave His
   back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.
   Be like Him, then, ye who bear His name; trust Him, and live for Him,
   and you shall reign with Him in glory forever and ever. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah l; 53:1-7; Matthew
   26:62--68; Luke 23:8--11; Matthew 27:27--30.

   HYMNS FROM "Our Own Hymn Book"--327, 937, 268.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Prophet Like Unto Moses

   (No. 1487)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 3, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Lord your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of
   you, of your brethren, like unto me; unto Him you shall hearken;
   according to all that you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the
   day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the
   Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die
   not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they
   have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren,
   like unto you, and will put My words in His mouth; and He shall speak
   unto them all that I shall command Him. And it shall come to pass, that
   whoever will not hearken unto My words which He shall speak in My name,
   I will require it of him." Deuteronomy 18:15-19.

   MAN, the creature, may well desire communion with his Creator. When we
   are right-minded we cannot bear to be like fatherless children, born
   into the world by a parent of whom we know nothing whatever. We long to
   hear our father's voice. Of old time, before sin had entered into the
   world, the Lord God was on the most intimate terms with His creature,
   man. He communed with Adam in the garden. In the cool of the day He
   made the evening to be seven-fold refreshing by the shadow of His own
   Presence. There was no cloud between unfallen man and the Ever-Blessed
   One-- they could commune together, for no sin had set up a middle wall
   of partition.

   Alas, man, being in honor, continued not, but broke the Law of his God
   and not only forfeited his own inheritance, but entailed upon his
   descendants a character with which the holy God can hold no converse.
   By nature we love that which is evil and within us there is an evil
   heart of unbelief in departing from the living God--consequently,
   communion between God and man has had to be upon quite another footing
   from that which commenced and ended in the glades of Eden. It was
   condescension at the first, which made the Lord speak with man, the
   creature. It is mercy, unutterable mercy, now, if God deigns to speak
   with man the sinner!

   Through His Divine Grace, the Lord did not leave our fathers altogether
   without a word from Himself even after the Fall, for between the days
   of Adam and Moses there were occasional voices heard as of God speaking
   with man. "Enoch walked with God," which implies that God walked with
   him and had communion with him. And we may rest assured it was no
   silent walk which Enoch had with the Most High. The Lord also spoke to
   Noah, once and again, and made a Covenant with him. And then He, at
   still greater length and with greater frequency, spoke with Abraham,
   whom He graciously called His friend.

   Voices also came to Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. And celestial beings
   flitted to and fro between earth and Heaven. Then there was a long
   pause and a dreary silence. No Prophet spoke in Jehovah's name; no
   voice of God in priestly oracle was heard, but all was silent while
   Israel dwelt in Egypt and sojourned in the land of Ham. So completely
   hushed was the spiritual voice among men that it seemed as if God had
   utterly forsaken His people and left the world without a witness to His
   name.

   But there was a prophecy of His return and the Lord had great designs
   which only waited till the full time was come. He purposed to try man
   in a very special manner, to see whether he could bear the Presence of
   the Lord or not. He resolved to take a family, multiply it into a
   nation and set it apart for Himself. And to that nation He would make a
   revelation of Himself of the most extraordinary character. So He took
   the people who had slaved among the brick kilns of Egypt and made them
   His elect--the nation of His choice--ordained to be a nation of
   priests, a people near unto Him if they had but Grace to bear the
   honor.

   Though they had lain among the pots, with a high hand and an
   outstretched arm He delivered them and with gracious love He favored
   them so that they became for beauty and excellence as the wings of a
   dove that are covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold. He
   divided the Red Sea and made them a way of escape and afterwards set
   that sea as a barrier between them and their former masters. He took
   them into the wilderness and there fed them with manna which dropped
   from Heaven and with water out of the rock did He sustain them. After a
   while He began to speak to them as He had never spoken to any nation
   before.

   He spoke with them from the top of Sinai, so that they heard His Voice
   out of the midst of the fire and in astonishment they cried, "We have
   seen this day that God does talk with man and he lives." But the
   experiment failed. Man was not in a condition to hear the direct Voice
   of God. On the very first day the people were in such terror and alarm
   that they cried out, "This great fire will consume us! If we hear the
   Voice of the Lord our God any more we shall die." As they stood still
   at a distance to hear the words of God's perfect Law they were filled
   with great fear. So terrible was the sight that even Moses said, "I
   exceedingly fear and quake."

   The people could not endure that which was commanded and entreated that
   the word should not be spoken to them any more. They felt the need of
   someone to interpose--a daysman, an interpreter--someone was needed to
   come between them and God. Even those among them that were the most
   spiritual and understood and loved God better than the rest confessed
   that they could not endure the thunder of His dreadful Voice. And so
   their elders and the heads of their tribes came to Moses and said, "Go
   you near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say: and speak you
   unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto you; and we will
   hear it, and do it."

   The Lord knew that man would always be unable to hear his Maker's voice
   and He, therefore, determined not only to speak by Moses, but to speak
   by His servants, the Prophets, raising up here, one, and there,
   another. And then He determined, as the consummation of His
   condescending mercy, that at the last He would put all the words He had
   to say to man into one heart and that word should be spoken by one
   mouth to men, furnishing a full, complete and unchangeable revelation
   of Himself to the human race! This He resolved to give by One of whom
   Moses had learned something when the Lord said to Him in the words of
   our text, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren,
   like unto you, and will put My words in His month; and He shall speak
   unto them all that I shall command

   Him."

   We know assuredly that our Lord Jesus Christ is that Prophets like unto
   Moses by whom, in these last days, He has spoken unto us! See Peter's
   testimony in the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and
   Stephen's in the seventh chapter of the same book. "This Man was
   counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who has built
   the house has more honor than the house," yet did He bear a gracious
   likeness to Moses and therein His Apostles found a sure argument of His
   being, indeed, the Messiah, sent of God.

   The subject of this morning's discourse is the Lord's speaking to us by
   Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man--and our earnest aim
   is that all of us may reverently hear the Voice of God by this greatest
   of all Prophets. Brothers and Sisters, this is the Word of God unto you
   this morning, that very Word which He spoke on the holy Mount, when the
   Lord was transfigured and there appeared with Him Moses and Elijah
   speaking to Him. And out of the excellent Glory there came the words,
   "This is My beloved Son, hear you Him." This is my message at this
   hour--"Hear you Him."

   He says to you all this day, "Incline your ear and come unto Me: hear,
   and your soul shall live. Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat you that
   which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." "See that
   you refuse not Him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused Him
   that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away
   from Him that speaks from Heaven." Our meditation will run in this
   line--first, we will think for a moment upon the necessity for a
   Mediator. Secondly, upon the Person of the Prophet-Mediator whom God
   has chosen. And, thirdly, upon the authority with which this Mediator
   is invested, by which authority He calls upon us this day to listen to
   God's Voice which is heard in Him.

   I. We begin by considering how urgently there existed THE NECESSITY for
   a Mediator. I need but very short time to set this forth. There was a
   necessity for a Mediator in the case of the Israelites, first, because
   of the unutterable Glory of God and their own inability to endure that
   Glory, either with their eyes, their ears, or their minds. We cannot
   suppose

   that the revelation of God upon Sinai was the display of all His
   greatness. No, we know that it could not be such, for it would have
   been impossible for man to have lived at all in the Presence of the
   Infinite Glory.

   Habakkuk, speaking of this manifestation, says, "God came from Teman
   and the Holy One from mount Paran. His Glory covered the heavens and
   the earth was fall of His praise. And His brightness was as the light;
   He had horns coming out of His hands." But he adds, "There was the
   hiding of His power." Despite its exceeding Glory, the manifestation
   upon the mount of God at Horeb was a subdued manifestation and yet,
   though it was thus toned down to human weakness, it could not be borne!

   The unveiling of Jehovah's face, no mortal eye could bear! The voice
   with which God spoke at Sinai is by Moses compared to the voice of a
   trumpet waxing exceedingly loud and long--and also to the roll of
   thunder--and we all know the awe-inspiring sound of thunder when it is
   heard near at hand, its volleys rolling overhead. How the crash of peal
   on peal makes the bravest heart, if not to quail, yet still to bow in
   reverent awe before God! Yet this is not the full Voice of God--it is
   but His whisper. Jehovah has hushed His Voice in the thunder, for were
   that voice heard in its fullness, it would shake not only earth, but
   also Heaven.

   If He were for once to unveil His face, the lightning's flame would
   pale to darkness in comparison. The Voice of the Lord God is
   inconceivably majestic and it is not possible that we, poor creatures,
   worms of the dust, insects of a day, should ever be able to hear it and
   live! We could not bear the full revelation of God apart from
   mediatorial interposition. Perhaps when He has made us to be pure
   spirits, or when our bodies shall have been "raised in power"--made
   like unto the body of our Lord Jesus--we may then be able to behold the
   glorious Jehovah, but as yet we must accept the kindly warning of the
   Lord in answer to the request of Moses, "you cannot see My face, for
   there shall no man see Me and live."

   The strings of life are too weak for the strain of the unveiled
   Presence. It is not possible for such a airy, spider-like thread as our
   existence to survive the breath of Deity if He should actually and in
   very deed draw near to us. It appeared clearly at Sinai that even when
   the Lord did accommodate Himself, as much as was consistent with His
   honor, to the infirmity of human nature, man was so alarmed and afraid
   at His Presence that he could not bear it--and it was absolutely
   necessary that instead of speaking with His own Voice, even though He
   whispered what He had to say, He should speak to another apart and
   afterwards that other should come down from the mount and repeat the
   Lord's words to the people.

   This sufficient reason is supported by another most weighty fact,
   namely, that God cannot commune with men because of their sin. God was
   pleased to regard His people Israel at the foot of Sinai as pure.
   "Moses went down from the mount unto the people and sanctified the
   people; and they washed their clothes." They had abstained, for awhile,
   from defiling actions and as they stood outside the bounds they were
   ceremonially clean--but it was only a ceremonial purity. Before long
   they were really unclean before the Lord and in heart defiled and
   polluted. The Lord said of them, "O that there were such a heart in
   them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always,
   that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!"

   He knew that their heart was not right even when they spoke obediently.
   Not many days after the people had trembled at Sinai they made a golden
   calf and set it up and bowed before it, provoking the Lord to jealousy
   so that He sent plagues among them. It is quite clear that after such a
   rebellion, after a deliberate breach of His Covenant and daring
   violation of His commands, it would have been quite impossible for God
   to speak to them, or for them to listen to the Voice of God in a direct
   manner. They would have fled before Him because of His holiness which
   shamed their unholiness! And because of their sin, which provoked His
   indignation. Because of their wandering, instability and treachery of
   their hearts, the Lord could not have endured them in His Presence.

   The holy angels forever adore with that threefold cry, "Holy, holy,
   holy Lord God of Sabaoth," and He could not permit men of unclean lips
   to profane His Throne with their unholy utterances. Oh no, my Brothers
   and Sisters, with such a sense of sin as some of us have and as all of
   us ought to have, we should have to cover our faces and cower down in
   terror if Jehovah, Himself, were to appear! He cannot look upon
   iniquity, neither can evil dwell with Him, for He is a consuming fire.
   While we are compassed with infirmity we cannot behold Him, for our
   eyes are dimmed with the smoke of our iniquities. If we would see even
   the skirts of His garments, we must first be pure in heart and He must
   put us in the cleft of the rock and cover us with His hands.

   If we were to behold His stern justice, His awful holiness and His
   boundless power apart from our ever-blessed Mediator, we should
   dissolve at the sight and utterly melt away, for we have sinned. This
   double reason of the weakness of our nature and the sinfulness of our
   character is a forcible one, for I close this part of the discourse by
   observing that the argument was so forcible that the Lord Himself
   allowed it. He said, "They have well spoken, that which they have
   spoken." It was no morbid apprehension which made them afraid. It was
   no foolish dread which made them start, for Wisdom, in the person of
   Moses, said, "I do exceedingly fear and quake."

   The calmest and meekest of men had real cause for fear. God's face is
   not to be seen. An occasional glimpse may come to spirits raised above
   their own natural level, so that they can, for a while, behold the
   King, the Lord of Hosts--but even to them it is a terrible strain upon
   all their powers--the wine is too strong for the bottles. What said
   John, when he saw, not so much absolute Deity, but the Divine side of
   the Mediator? "When I saw Him I fell at His feet as dead." Daniel, the
   man greatly beloved, confesses that there remained no strength in him
   and his comeliness was turned into corruption when he heard the Voice
   of God!

   And Job said, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now
   my eyes see You; therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes." No, God
   knows it is not silly fright nor unbelieving fear--it is a most seemly
   awe and a most natural dread which takes hold of finite and fallible
   creatures in the Presence of the Infinite and Perfect One! These frail
   tabernacles, like the tents of Cushan, are in affliction when the Lord
   marches by in the greatness of His power. We need a Mediator. The Lord
   knows right well that our sinfulness provokes Him and that there is, in
   us--in the best here present--that which would make Him to break out
   against us to destroy us if we were to come to Him without a covering
   and propitiation. We must approach the Lord through a Mediator--it is
   absolutely necessary.

   God Himself witnesses it is and, therefore, in His mercy He ordains a
   Mediator, that by Him we may be able to approach His Throne of Grace.
   May the Holy Spirit make this Truth of God very plain to the
   consciousness of all of us and cause us to sing with the poet--

   "Till God in human flesh I see,

   My thoughts no comfort find;

   The holy, just, and sacred

   Three are terrors to my mind.

   But if Immanuel's face appears,

   My hope, my joy begins;

   His name forbids my slavish fear,

   His Grace remo ves my sins."

   II. This brings us to consider THE PERSON of the appointed Mediator and
   in my text we obtain a liberal measure of information upon this point.
   Read these blessed words, "The Lord your God will raise up unto you a
   Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren." Dwell with sweetness
   upon this fact that our Lord Jesus was raised up from the midst of us,
   from among our brethren! In Him is fulfilled that glorious prophecy, "I
   have exalted One chosen out of the people." He is one of ourselves, a
   Brother born for adversity. He was born at Bethlehem, not in fiction,
   but in fact--He lay in the manger where the horned oxen fed. He was
   wrapped in swaddling cloths and dependent on a woman's loving care as
   any other baby might be. He was like ourselves in His growth from
   Infancy to Manhood, increasing in stature as we do from our childhood
   to our riper age. Though the holy Child Jesus, He was yet a Child and,
   therefore, He was subject to His parents.

   And when He came forth as a Man, His was no phantom manhood, but true
   flesh and blood! He was tempted and He was betrayed. He hungered and He
   thirsted. He was weary and He was sorely amazed. He took our sicknesses
   and He carried our sorrows. He was made in all points like unto His
   brethren. He did not set Himself apart as though He were of an
   exclusive caste or of a superior rank, but He dwelt among us--the
   Brother of the race, eating with publicans and sinners--always mingling
   with the common people. He was not One who boasted His descent, or
   gloried in the so-called blue blood, or placed Himself among the
   Porphyro-geniti who must not see the light except in marble halls. He
   was born in a common house of entertainment where all might come to Him
   and He died with His arms extended as a pledge that He continued to
   receive all who came to Him!

   He never spoke of men as the common multitude, the vulgar herd, but He
   made Himself at home among them. He was dressed like a peasant, in the
   ordinary smock of the country--a garment without seam, woven from the
   top

   throughout. And He mixed with the multitude, went to their marriage
   feasts, attended their funerals and was so much among them, a Man among
   men, that slander called Him a glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of
   publicans and sinners. In all respects our Lord was raised up from the
   midst of us, One of our own kith and kin. "For this cause He is not
   ashamed to call us brethren."

   He was our Brother in living, our Bother in death and our Brother in
   resurrection, for after His Resurrection He said, "Go, tell My
   Brethren." And He also said, "My Father, and your Father; My God, and
   your God." Though now exalted in the highest heavens, He pleads for us
   and acts as a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling of our
   infirmities. God has graciously raised up such a Mediator and now He
   speaks to us through Him. O sons of men, will you not listen when such
   an One as Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man, is ordained to speak of
   the eternal God? You might be unable to hear if He should speak again
   in thunder, but now He speaks by those dear lips of love! Now He speaks
   by that gracious tongue which has worked such miracles of Grace by its
   words! Now He speaks out of that great heart of His which never beats
   except with love to the sons of men--will you not hear Him? Surely we
   ought to give the most earnest heed and obey His every word.

   Moses was truly one of the people, for he loved them intensely and all
   his sympathies were with them. They provoked him terribly, but he still
   loved them. We can never admire that man of God too much when we think
   of his disinterested love to that guilty nation. See him on the
   mountain as Israel's advocate! The Lord said, "Let Me alone that I may
   destroy them, and I will make of you a great nation." That proposal
   opened up before Moses' eyes a glittering destiny! It was within his
   grasp that he should become the founder of a race in whom the promises
   made to Abraham should be fulfilled! Would not the most of men have
   greedily snatched at it?

   But Moses will not have it! He loves Israel too well to see the people
   die if he can save them. He has not an atom of selfish ambition about
   him. And so with cries and tears he exclaims," Why should the Egyptians
   speak and say, For mischief did He bring them out, to slay them in the
   mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from
   Your fierce wrath and repent of this evil against Your people." He
   prevailed with God by his pleading, for he identified himself with
   Israel. Moses did, as it were, gather up all their grief and sorrow
   into himself, even as did our Lord. True Israelite was he, for he
   refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter! He cast his lot
   with the people of

   God.

   This is just what our blessed Lord has done. He will not have honor
   apart from His people, nor even life unless they also live. He saved
   others, Himself He could not save. He would not be in Heaven and leave
   His saints behind! He loved the people and so proved Himself to be One
   chosen out of their midst, a Brother among brethren. Mark well that
   while thus our Lord is our Brother, the great God has, in His Person,
   sent us One who is lifted up above us all in the knowledge of His mind.
   Thus says the Lord (v. 18), "I will put My words in His mouth." Our
   Lord Jesus Christ comes to us inspired by God. Not alone He comes, nor
   of His own mind, but He says, "The Father is with Me: I do always the
   things which please Him: the Father that dwells in Me, He does the
   works." Both in word and work He acted for His Father and under His
   Father's inspiration.

   Brothers and Sisters, I beseech you not to reject the message which
   Jesus brings, seeing it is not His own, but the sure message of God!
   Trifle not with a single word which Jesus speaks, for it is the Word of
   the Eternal One! Despise not one single deed which He did, or precept
   which He commanded, or blessing which He brought, for upon all these
   there is the stamp of Deity! God chose One who is our Brother that He
   might come near to us and He put His own royal imprimatur upon Him that
   we might not have an Ambassador of second rank, but One who counts it
   not robbery to be equal with God, who, nevertheless, for our sake has
   taken upon Himself the form of a Servant that He might speak home to
   our hearts. For all these reasons, I beseech you despise not Him that
   speaks, seeing He speaks from Heaven!

   The main point, however, upon which I want to dwell is that Jesus is
   like Moses. There had been no better mediator found than Moses up to
   Moses' day. The Lord God, therefore, determined to work upon that model
   with the great Prophet of His race and He has done so in sending forth
   the Lord Jesus. It would be a very interesting task for the young
   people to work out all the points in which Moses is a personal type of
   the Lord Jesus. The points of resemblance are very many, for there is
   hardly a single incident in the life of the great Lawgiver which is not
   symbolic of the promised Savior.

   You may begin from the beginning at the waters of the Nile and go to
   the close upon the brow of Pisgah and you will see Christ in Moses as a
   man sees his face in a glass. I can only mention in what respects, as a
   Mediator, Jesus is like

   Moses, and surely one is found in the fact that Moses, beyond all that
   went before him, was peculiarly the depository of the mind of God. Once
   and again we find him closeted with God for 40 days at a time. He went
   right away from men to the lone mountaintop and there he was, 40 days
   and 40 nights, and did neither eat nor drink, but lived in high
   communion with his God! In those times of seclusion he received the
   pattern of the tabernacle, the Laws of the priesthood, of the
   sacrifices of the holy days and of the civil estate of Israel--and
   perhaps the early records which compose the Book of Genesis. To whom
   else had God ever spoken for that length of time as a man speaks with
   his friend?

   Moses was the peculiar favorite of God. From the first day of his call,
   when he was keeping his father's flock at the back of the desert, right
   to the day when God kissed away his soul on the top of Nebo, he was a
   man greatly beloved to whom God manifested Himself as to no other. Hear
   the Lord's own words to Aaron and Miriam. "And He said, Hear now My
   words: If there is a Prophet among you, I the Lord will make Myself
   known unto Him in a vision, and will speak unto Him in a dream. My
   servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all My house. With Him will
   I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches: and
   the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Why, then, were you not
   afraid to speak against My servant Moses?"

   In this our Lord Jesus is like Moses, only He far surpasses him, for
   the communion between Christ and the Father was very much more
   intimate, seeing that Jesus is, Himself, essential Deity, and, "in Him
   dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Cold mountains and the
   midnight air continually witnessed to His communion with the Father.
   Nor these, alone, for He abode with the Father! His language was always
   spoken out as God was speaking within Him. He lived in God and with
   God. "I know," He said, "that You hear Me always." Instead of having to
   point out when Christ was in communion with the Father, we have rather,
   with astonishment, to point out the one moment when He was not in
   communion with the Father, even that dread hour when He cried, "My God,
   My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

   Only that one time did the Father leave Him and even then it was
   inexplicable and He asked the reason for it-- though He knew that He
   was suffering as the Substitute for man--yet did His desertion by God
   come upon Him as a novelty which utterly overwhelmed Him so that He
   asked in agony why He was forsaken. Moses, to take another point, is
   the first of the Prophets with whom God kept up continuous Revelation.
   To other men He spoke in dreams and visions, but to Moses by plain and
   perpetual testimony. His Spirit rested on him and he took of it to give
   thereof to Joshua and to the 70 elders, even as Jesus gave of His
   Spirit to the Apostles.

   Sometimes God spoke to Noah, or to Abraham and others--but it was only
   upon certain occasions and, even then, as in the case of Abraham and
   Jacob, they must fall asleep to see and hear Him best. But with Moses,
   the Lord abode perpetually! Whenever he willed, he consulted the Most
   High and at once God spoke with him and directed his way. So was it
   with Christ Jesus. He needed not to behold a vision--the spirit of
   prophecy did not occasionally come upon Him and bear Him out of
   Himself--for the Spirit was given Him without measure and He
   perpetually knew the very mind and heart of God. He was always a
   Prophet, not sometimes a prophet, like he of old, of whom we read, "The
   Spirit of God came upon him in the camp of Dan." Or like others of whom
   it is written, "The Word of the Lord came to them."

   At all times the Spirit rested upon Jesus--He spoke in the abiding
   power of the Holy Spirit more so than did Moses. Moses is described as
   a Prophet mighty in word and deed and it is amazing that there never
   was another Prophet mighty in word and deed till Jesus came. Moses not
   only spoke with matchless power, but worked miracles. You shall find no
   other Prophet who did both. Other Prophets who spoke well worked no
   miracles, or only here and there--while those who worked miracles, such
   as Elijah and Elisha, have left us but few words that they
   spoke--indeed, their prophecies were but lightning flashes and not as
   the bright shining of the sun.

   When you come to our Lord Jesus you find lips and heart working
   together with equal perfectness of witness. You cannot tell in which He
   is the more marvelous--in His speech or in His acts. "Never man spoke
   like this Man," but certainly never man worked such marvels of mercy as
   Jesus did! He far exceeds Moses and all the Prophets put together in
   the variety and the multitude and the wonderful character of the
   miracles which He did. If men bow before Prophets who can cast down
   their rods and they become serpents--if they yield homage to Prophets
   who call fire from Heaven--how much more should they accept Him whose
   Words are matchless music and whose miracles of love were felt even
   beyond the boundaries of this visible world?

   The angels of God flew from Heaven to minister to Him. The devils of
   the Pit fled before His voice and the caverns of death heard His call
   and yielded up their prey! Who would not accept this Prophet like
   Moses, to whom the Holy Spirit

   bore witness by mighty signs and wonders? Moses, again, was the founder
   of a great system of religious law and this was not the case with any
   other but the Lord Jesus. He founded the whole system of the Aaronic
   Priesthood and the Law that went with it. Moses was a Lawgiver--he gave
   the Ten Commandments in the name of God--and all the other statutes of
   the Jewish polity were ordained through him. Now, till you come to
   Christ you find no such Lawgiver--but Jesus institutes the New Covenant
   as Moses introduced the old!

   The Sermon on the Mount was an utterance from a happier Sinai and,
   whereas Moses gives this and that command, Jesus gives the same in
   sweeter form and in a more Divine fashion and embodies it in His own
   sacred Person. He is the great Legislator of our dispensation He is the
   King in the midst of Jeshurun giving forth His commands which run very
   swiftly and they that fear the Lord are obedient to them. Time will
   fail us, or we would mention to you that Moses was faithful before God
   as a servant over all his house and so was Jesus as a Son over His own
   house! Jesus was never unfaithful to His charge in any respect, but in
   all things ruled and served to perfection as the Anointed of the
   Father. He is the faithful and true Witness, the Prince of the kings of
   the earth.

   Moses, too, was zealous for God and for His honor. Remember how the
   zeal of God's house did eat him up? When he saw grievous sin among the
   people, he said, "Who is on the Lord's side?" and there came to him the
   tribe of Levi and he said, "Go in and out, and slay you, everyone, his
   men that were joined to Baalpeor." Herein he was the stern type of
   Jesus who took the scourge of small cords and drove out the buyers and
   sellers and said, "Take these things away: it is written, My Father's
   house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of
   thieves," for the zeal of God's house had eaten Him up.

   Moses, by Divine Grace, was very meek and, perhaps, this is the chief
   parallel between him and Jesus. I have said, "by Divine Grace," for I
   suppose by nature he was strongly passionate. There are many
   indications that Moses was not meek, but very far from it until the
   Spirit of God rested upon him. He slew the Egyptian hastily and in
   later years he went out from the presence of Pharaoh "in great anger."
   Once and again you find him very angry--he took the tablets of stone
   and dashed them in pieces in his indignation, for "Moses' anger waxed
   hot," and that unhappy action which occasioned his being shut out of
   Canaan was caused by his "being provoked in spirit so that he spoke
   unadvisedly with his lips" and said, "Hear now, you rebels! Must I
   fetch you water out of this rock?" Divine Grace had so cooled and
   calmed him that in general he was the gentlest of men and when his
   brother and sister thrust themselves into his place and questioned his
   authority, it is written, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all
   the men which were upon the face of the earth."

   In his own defense he has never anything to say--it is only for the
   people and for God that his anger waxed hot. Even about his last act of
   hastiness he says, "God was angry with me for your sake," not for his
   own sake. He was so meek and gentle that for 40 years he bore with the
   most rebellious and provoking nation that ever existed! But what shall
   I say of my Master? Let Him speak for Himself. "Come unto Me, all you
   that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest: take My yoke
   upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you
   shall find rest unto your souls." Our children call Him, "Gentle Jesus,
   meek and mild." The Man Jesus is very meek above all men that are upon
   the face of the earth. He has His indignation--

   "Like glowing often is His wrath, As flame by furious blast up blown,"
   for He can be angry and the wrath of the Lamb is the most awful wrath
   beneath the sun! But still, to us, in this Gospel day, He is all love
   and tenderness. And when He bids us come to Him, can we refuse to hear?

   So meek is the Mediator that He is Love itself, Incarnate Love! He is
   so loving that when He died, His only crime was that He was "found
   guilty of excess of love." Can we be so cruel as to reject Him? O
   Brothers and Sisters, do not refuse to listen to the voice of this
   Tender One by whom God speaks to you! Our Lord was like Moses in
   meekness and then, to sum it all up --Moses was the Mediator for God
   with the people and so is our blessed Lord. Moses came in God's name
   and set Israel free from Pharaoh's bondage. Jesus came to set us free
   from a worse bondage and He has achieved our freedom. Moses led the
   people through the Red Sea and Jesus has led us where all the hosts of
   Hell were overthrown and sin was drowned in His most precious blood!

   Moses led the tribes through the wilderness and Jesus leads us through
   the weary ways of this life to the rest which remains for the people of
   God. Moses spoke to the people for God and Jesus has done the same.
   Moses spoke to God for the people and Jesus always lives to make
   intercession for us. Moses proposed himself as a sacrifice when he
   said, "If not, blot my name out of the Book of Life." But Jesus was an
   actual Sacrifice and was taken away from the land of the living for our
   sakes, being made a curse for us! Moses, in a certain sense, died for
   the people, for he could not enter into the land, but had to close his
   eyes on Nebo.

   Those are touching words, "The Lord was angry with me for your
   sakes"--words which, in a more Divine sense, may be fitly applied to
   Jesus--for God was angry with Him for our sakes. Right through to the
   very end our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, is a Prophet like
   Moses, raised up from the midst of His brethren. O my Hearers, listen
   to Him! Turn not your ear away from this Prophet of Prophets, but hear
   and live!

   III. I close with that point and if my words are very few let them be
   weighty. Let us think of THE AUTHORITY of our great Mediator and let
   this be the practical lesson--Hear you Him. Brothers and Sisters, if
   our hearts were right, the moment it was announced that God would speak
   to us through Jesus Christ, there would be a rush to hear Him! If sin
   had not maddened men, they would listen eagerly to every Word of God
   through such a Mediator as Jesus! They would write each golden sentence
   on their tablets! They would hoard His Words in their memories! They
   would wear them between their eyes! They would yield their hearts to
   them!

   Alas, it is not so, and the saddest thing of all is that some talk of
   Jesus for gain and others hear of Him as if His story were a mere tale
   or an old Jewish ballad of 1,800 years ago. Yet, remember, God still
   speaks by Jesus and every Word of His that is left on record is as
   solemnly alive, today, as when it first leaped from His blessed lips! I
   beseech you remember Christ comes not as an amateur, but He has
   authority with Him--this Ambassador to men wears the authority of the
   King of kings! If you despise Him, you despise Him that sent Him--if
   you turn away from Him that speaks from Heaven, you turn away from the
   eternal God and you do despite to His love! Oh, don't do it!

   Note how my text puts it. It says here, "Whoever shall not hearken unto
   My words which He shall speak in My name, I will require it of him." My
   heart trembles while I repeat to you the words, "I will require it of
   him." Today God graciously requires it of some of you and asks why you
   have not listened to Christ's voice. Why is this? You have not accepted
   His salvation. Why is this? You know all about Jesus and you say it is
   true, but you have never believed in Him! Why is this? God requires it
   of you! Many years has He waited patiently and He has sent His servant
   again and again to invite you. The men of Nineveh sought mercy in their
   day and yet you have not repented! God requires it of you!

   Why is this? Give your Maker a reason for your rejection of His mercy
   if you can--fashion some sort of excuse, O you rebellious ones! Do you
   despise your God? Do you dare His wrath? Do you defy His anger? Are you
   so mad as this? The day will come when He will require it of you in a
   much more violent sense than He does today! The day comes when you
   shall have passed beyond the region of mercy and He will say, "I called
   you and you refused, why is this? I did not speak to you in thunder. I
   spoke to you with the gentle voice of the Only Begotten who bled and
   died for men--why did you not listen to Him? Every Sabbath My servant
   tried to repeat the language of His Master to you--why did you refuse
   it? You are cast into Hell--why did you not accept the pardon which
   would have delivered you from it?"

   You were too busy! Too busy to remember your God? What could you have
   been busy about that was worth a thought as compared with Him? You were
   too fond of pleasure. And do you dare insult your God by saying that
   trifling amusements which are not worth the mentioning could stand in
   comparison with His love and His good pleasure? Oh, how you deserve His
   wrath! I pray you consider what this means, "I will require it of him."
   You who still harden your hearts and refuse my Master, go away with
   this ringing in your ears, "I will require it of him! I will require it
   of him. When he lies dying alone in that sick chamber I will require it
   of Him! When he has taken the last plunge and left this world and finds
   himself in eternity, I will require it of him! And when the thunder
   wakes the dead and the great Prophet like Moses shall sit on the Great
   White Throne to judge the quick and the dead, I will require it of Him!
   I will require it

   of Him."

   My Master will require of me how I have preached to you and I sincerely
   wish it were in my power to put these things in better form and plead
   with you more earnestly. But, after all, what can I do? If you have no
   care for your own souls, how can I help it? If you will rush upon
   eternal woe. If you will despise the altogether Lovely One through whom
   God speaks to you. If you will live day after day carelessly and
   wantonly, throwing away your souls, oh, then, my eyes shall weep in
   secret places for you, but what more can I do but leave you to God? At
   the last I shall be compelled to say, "Amen," to the verdict which
   condemns you forever!

   God grant that such a reluctant task may not fall to my lot in
   reference to any of you, but may you now hear and obey the Lord Jesus
   and find eternal salvation at once, for His dear name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

More and More, or Less and Less

   (No. 1488)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 10, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more
   abundance: but whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even what
   he has." Matthew 13:12.

   Two great general principles are conspicuous in the Gospel. The first
   is that God gives of His Grace to the empty-- "He has filled the hungry
   with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty." The second
   principle is that where God has given a measure of Grace He is known to
   give more--"He gives more Grace." There is no stint with the Lord of
   Love and no limit to the abundance of Divine Grace which those who come
   to Him may receive. He gives Grace to those who have none and more
   Grace to those whom He has already favored. These two principles do not
   contradict each other, but help to make each more complete.

   In their proper order they exhibit both sides of one Truth of God and
   give us instruction as to the Lord's dealings with two different stages
   of spiritual condition. Each principle has its own range. Are you as
   yet unsaved? Then the principle which you have to do with is this, that
   God will fill the empty and feed the hungry. You have to go to Him with
   nothing of your own except your needs and ask for everything at His
   hands. Your wisdom is to hasten to the Savior just as you are, tarrying
   not to gather a price which you may carry in your hands, but coming
   empty-handed to the generous Lord. In all your sinfulness you must look
   to Him for pardon. In all your nakedness you must fly to Him for
   clothing. In all your weakness you must cry to Him for strength. Yes,
   in all your death you are to look to Him for life, even as He has said,
   "Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
   you light."

   Take care that you are quite clear upon this point, for unless your
   eyes can discern this, your whole soul will be full of darkness. Grace
   is for the undeserving, the guilty, the needy--otherwise it would not
   be Grace. The Gospel is not the Law and, therefore, it does not demand
   a holy character as a condition of receiving its blessings. It comes to
   sinners as they are, casts on them an eye of pity, forgives their sins
   and makes them new creatures and holy creatures. In dealing with the
   sinner, God acts on the principle of undeserved love and unmerited
   favor. Trembling Sinner, you have to go to Him with your empty bucket
   that He may fill it out of the deep well of His overflowing love!

   When a man has received Grace, or when he professes to have done so, he
   comes under the second principle. He must take care that he has,
   indeed, and of a truth received that which God in the Gospel presents
   to him, for if he does not at the very beginning really and truly
   receive the true Grace of God, he will begin with falsehood and end in
   shame. He must see to it that he has the beginnings of Grace or he
   cannot have the increase. If there is a mistake as to the actual
   receipt of Christ into the heart, there may be an appearance of having
   Christ and this appearance may last for a while, but as there is really
   nothing commenced, there will be no addition.

   While I am like the unsown soil, I am simply to receive the Seed when
   it is scattered. But after the scattering of the Seed, if I think I
   have received it, I must see to it that I am not deceived. I must watch
   that the Word of God does really lodge in the furrows of my soul, for
   unless that is the case, beyond all question--so far from obtaining
   growth in Grace, I shall, by-and-by, lose what I think I have and I
   shall be openly proven to be barren and unfruitful. If I have received
   the light of Heaven into my soul, however small its beginnings, the
   Lord will add a gracious increase. And as I follow on to know Him, I
   shall be as the shining light which shines more and more unto the
   perfect day. If I am a mere pretender, I shall fade away, but if I am a
   sincere Believer I shall become brighter and brighter.

   I shall endeavor to use this last principle at this time for our
   warning and instruction. May the Holy Spirit greatly bless it to our
   hearts so that those who profess to be the people of God may make sure
   that their profession is founded on the Truth of God and may those who
   are mere hearers of the Gospel be disturbed in their consciences and
   awakened from the sleep of death!

   I. First, we shall study this principle as IT IS ILLUSTRATED IN THE
   PARABLE OF THE SOWER. YOU will not fail to observe that this saying of
   our Lord occurs in three Evangelists in connection with the parable of
   the sower. Besides our text, you will find it in Mark 4:24 where it is
   at the close of the parable of the sower. You will meet with it again
   in Luke 8:18, still in connection with the same parable. The principle
   must be very important, or else our Lord would not have taken care to
   have it recorded by three Evangelists. And He must have intended that
   we should read it in the light of the parable, or He would not have
   connected it with it.

   That parable was spoken in reference to the hearing of the Word of
   God--and it is concerning the Word of God and its blessings that He
   says, "Whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more
   abundance: but whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even what
   he has." To know the mind of the Spirit it is always wise to view a
   passage in its context. We do this with the writings of men if we wish
   to understand them and reason, itself, teaches us to do likewise with
   the Word of God.

   Let us consider our text in its original context. Each Evangelist has
   given a shade of difference to his record. In Matthew, where we take
   our text, the words stand in connection with the hearing of the Word of
   God--not any mode of hearing--but hearing, itself. Read the ninth
   verse--"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." There are some who hear
   not, for "their ears are dull of hearing." There are others of whom it
   is written, "Blessed are your ears, for they hear." Beloved, we must
   take care that we truly hear what we hear, for if we do not, we shall
   soon lose all power to hear. But if we hear the Truth of God
   attentively and heartily, we shall be privileged to hear it yet more
   fully and to make larger profit by listening to it, even as our Lord
   says, "He answered and said unto them, It is given unto you to know the
   mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given. For
   whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance."

   Our Savior's first picture in the parable of the sower is that of the
   Seed falling upon the wayside or the hard road. There was much traffic
   through the field--a footpath, which was packed hard by many feet, ran
   from one end to the other--and a handful of Seed fell upon it. So the
   Gospel falls upon men who are occupied with obstinacies, prejudices,
   pursuits, ambitions, cares--and these have so much traffic through
   their minds that they are hardened towards the Gospel and it never
   reaches the inner man--it lies, a rejected thing, upon the hard
   surface. When they hear it, they hear it and that is all. As the saying
   goes, "it goes in one ear and out the other." The Truth never enters
   the man! They would not like to altogether absent themselves from
   religious services and yet they do much the same thing, for only their
   bodies are there--their hearts are far away, engaged with very
   different themes. They bring to the preacher ears which are sealed up
   and eyes which are curtained against the light. They see, but do not
   perceive! They hear, but do not understand!

   What is the sure result of this mimic hearing? The Savior in the
   parable pictures the birds of the air as taking away the Seed which
   fell upon the roadside and devouring it--and He tells us by way of
   explanation that Satan comes and takes away the Word, lest later it
   should obtain an entrance into the heart. Thus is the text
   fulfilled--"Whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even what he
   has." How many of our hearers are of this kind! They lose what they
   have because the fact of the matter is they never had it! Their
   attendance at worship is coming and going, coming and going and nothing
   more. Like a dog in and out of the fair, they have no business to do
   when they go to the house of God. They are no more the better by their
   going and coming than the door which swings on its hinges and turns in
   and turns out and then rests in its place.

   Such persons, like the wayside, do not receive anything and, receiving
   nothing, they continue to receive nothing. No, they even go from bad to
   worse, for though they received nothing at first, they at least seemed
   to do so, but in due course even that seeming disappears. They become
   less likely to profit by the Gospel and more and more hardened against
   it. While those who really do hear and drink in the Truth of God become
   capable of hearing and understanding more-- more mysteries are opened
   up to them, deeper Truths are revealed and they perceive a greater
   sweetness and a more Divine power in the Word of God.

   Those who do not receive the Word lose what little notional knowledge
   of the Word of God they once possessed. Though it may be the same
   preacher and the same preaching of the same doctrines, yet the results
   are very different--to those who have a part and a lot in the matter,
   the paths of the Lord drop fatness--while to careless, unbelieving
   hearers the ministry becomes more dull every day till they cry out,
   "What a weariness it is." Satan is doing his work thoroughly and is
   taking away from the hard heart all desire towards the Word of God and
   all interest in it.

   In Mark 4:25 our text is used in reference to the doctrine which is to
   be heard. The Savior, in the 24th verse says, "Take heed what you
   hear." I would press that important exhortation upon you all as most
   necessary at this time. Nowadays people do not care what they hear. If
   a man can speak fluently; if he can be rhetorical and sensational; if
   he can tell many pretty stories; if he can use claptrap and bombasts,
   he will have many hearers! Time was with our fathers when, if a man
   went half an inch astray as to orthodoxy, they would have nothing to do
   with him! And though we would not have you so censorious, for we are
   not to make a man an offender for a single word, yet we would have you
   jealous for the Truth of God! If we, or an angel from Heaven preach any
   other Gospel than that which you have received, I charge you not to
   listen to it! Be the good sheep of the Good Shepherd, of whom it is
   written, "a stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice
   of strangers."

   The false shepherds try to charm you with their excellent speech, but
   be deaf to their charms. False doctrine is a poisoned dish, however
   daintily it may be served! The false teachers would, if it were
   possible, deceive the very elect. But you know what the Savior said,
   "All that ever came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep
   did not hear them." "Take heed what you hear." A man cannot bear false
   doctrine long without being injured by it. He may, at the first, say,
   "I like the man, I admire his cleverness although I dissent very much
   with what he says." This is treacherous ground to stand upon, for
   imperceptibly evil comes of it--"their word does eat as does a canker."
   You cannot expose the soil of your heart to a continual sowing of tares
   because some tare or other will take root and, by-and-by, instead of
   having the good wheat growing in your soul, there will spring up the
   tares whose end is to be burned and you will have lost the harvest
   which should have been produced in your spirit.

   The wise man says, "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causes
   you to err from the words of knowledge." "Beware of false prophets
   which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
   wolves." "Be not carried about with many and strange doctrines, for it
   is good that the heart be established with Grace." Therefore take heed
   what you hear! There are many who, when they hear the Gospel, are,
   according to our Lord's second picture, mere superficial hearers. They
   take some heed to their hearing, but not to what they have heard, for
   if they regarded the value and dignity of the Word of God, they would
   take it more thoroughly to heart and it would permanently affect their
   lives. These are they who receive the Word in stony places.

   When the Gospel comes to them they catch at it without much
   consideration--they are hot and eager for it and rejoice because it has
   come in their way--"And with joy they receive it." They sing and shout
   at once, "Happy day! Happy day! This is the Gospel for me! I have found
   peace and Heaven and will never be anxious again!" These people have
   not counted the cost, or weighed the Truth of God, or entered into its
   inner meaning and spiritual certainty. There has been no repentance of
   sin, no sense of guilt, no humbling before God, no brokenness of
   spirit, no inner conflict and no work of the Holy Spirit in the soul.
   It has all been a sort of happy-go-lucky business in which they caught
   at what came in their way and promised them fair. They will soon fling
   away that which they have so inconsiderately embraced--when the sun is
   up, the plant which has no root will wither--when persecution arises,
   the unregenerated convert will be offended.

   Our Savior warns us against this in the language of the text. If you
   truly receive what you hear, you shall have more, for unto everyone
   that has, more shall be given and he shall have abundance. But if, like
   the stony ground, you never really have the Seed, but simply allow it
   to sprout in the surface-soil which conceals the rock of your unrenewed
   nature, then under trial you will lose what you have--the sprouting of
   the grain so prematurely will only end in an equally rapid withering
   and all will be gone. Oh, my dear Hearers, be sincere and solid in all
   things! Believe what you believe and take care that what you believe is
   worth believing and is the very Truth of the living God!

   Let it sink deep into your soul and take root there. I pray you do not
   espouse religion as a man puts on his coat to take it off again--let it
   be woven into the woof and warp of your being! Let it be part and
   parcel of yourselves, running like a thread through all your thoughts,
   desires and aims, so that if anything else of yourselves should be torn
   away, yet it would be impossible to tear away from you the blessed
   Gospel because it is in and of you--a component part of your truest
   selves. If you thus receive the Gospel and give it root-hold, you shall
   know more and more of its blessings. But if you do not thus receive it,
   but leave it to a rootless sprouting of mere surface religion, it shall
   be taken away from you when trouble and persecution arise.

   In Luke 8:18 this grand principle is used in reference to taking heed
   how we hear. Our Lord said--"Therefore take heed how you hear. For
   whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever has not, from him
   shall be taken even that which he seems to have." Many are attentive to
   the Gospel and they have some discernment and will not listen to what
   is unsound, so that they regard what they hear and yet they have small
   consideration for how they hear it--and that especially on one point.
   The suitable way to hear the Gospel is to give it full and entire
   possession of the heart. The Gospel is exclusive. It will not be one of
   two masters. I would have you, my Brothers and Sisters, be among "the
   exclusive Brethren" in a very excellent and admirable sense of the
   term.

   Our Savior gives us a picture of the non-exclusives, who are set forth
   as the Seed sown among thorns. The soil received the good Seed after a
   fashion and then it received the nettles and the thorns. And these
   nettles and thorns and wheat all began to grow together--a happy
   family, some would say--but a devil's garden is nearer the truth. In
   these days such a garden is projected on a large scale by some of our
   public writers and speakers. The Church and the world are to become
   one--and saints and sinners are to blend together in one universal
   round of play-going. We are actually urged by persons who suppose
   themselves to be Christians, to renew the old league which was
   established in the days of Noah and brought on the Flood--when the sons
   of God and the daughters of men joined in alliance because the sons of
   God thought that they should greatly improve the world by uniting with
   it.

   At this time we are told that it is wrong on our part to forsake the
   debasing amusements of the ungodly, for if we would join with them, we
   might improve their tone and quality! If Heaven would go down to Hell,
   Hell would be greatly improved! See how benevolent Satan has become and
   how anxious to be reformed? Hear the voice of God which runs in another
   manner--"Come you out from among them! Be you separate and touch not
   the unclean thing." "If any man loves the world, the love of the Father
   is not in him." Beware of religious play-going and pious theatricals,
   for they are a snare into which only the vain and foolish will fall!
   Let thorns be thorns and let not wheat attempt to grow among them.

   See that plot of ground? How charming is its aspect--wheat springing up
   with its green blades among the thorns and thistles! Is it not a
   delightful compromise? What was the end of this conglomeration? Why,
   the wheat died--it was choked and could not grow in such uncongenial
   society! Don't you know that if you receive Christ you must cast out
   the love of the world? Christ will be aut Caesar aut nullus--either
   King or nobody! He will have the whole of our heart or none of it! We
   must altogether give ourselves up to His influence and to His sway, for
   if we set up another king and say to him, "You shall reign and Christ
   shall reign, too," Christ will not have it! He will up and away, for
   His jealousy will not endure a rival and His sovereignty will not
   tolerate a consort.

   Take care, then, how you hear the Gospel! Hear it, knowing it to be the
   only Word of God which can save your souls. Receive it into your being
   to become everything to you, for if you do not, there shall be taken
   away from you that Gospel which you think you have, since you have not
   afforded it the reception which it demands and deserves. If you say to
   sin, self and all else, "Be gone! My heart is for Christ, alone. This
   good Seed must not be cumbered with such weeds as you are," then the
   Truth is in you and shall be more and more fully apparent within you,
   bringing forth fruit abundantly after its kind. In the context with
   this parable, then, the sum and substance of our text is this--the Word
   of God must truly dwell in us and then it will dwell in us richly. But
   if it enters not, in very deed, into the heart, we shall lose it
   altogether before long.

   The Jewish people heard Christ preach the Gospel and because never Man
   spoke as He did. They listened to Him, but they never received His
   Word, for they understood not His meaning. They only caught at the
   symbols under which He couched the sacred mysteries, but the mysteries
   themselves they knew not. Consequently, after a little while, they grew
   angry with the Divine Messenger of the Covenant. They persecuted Him
   and hounded Him to death. While He gave them loaves and fishes and
   there was something to be got by hearing, they hung upon His lips in
   crowds--but when He offered them no longer any other food than the
   Bread of Heaven, then they straightway lifted up the heel against Him
   and would have none of Him.

   In consequence of this, the preaching of the Word of God ceased among
   them. The Apostles turned to the Gentiles, who gladly received the
   Truth and the Jewish nation was left in blindness, in which, alas, it
   abides unto this day! The same is constantly happening among us now.
   Men hear the Gospel, but they do not receive it into their hearts and,
   therefore, after awhile they grow weary of it--they are tired of being
   perpetually reminded of a danger in which they do not believe and of
   being invited to a feast which they despise--and, therefore, they turn
   upon their heels and go. If, from

   force of habit, they remain, the Gospel seems to have lost all power
   over them and they have no appreciation of its ministry. What they once
   had is taken from them because they never truly had it--they are
   blinded by the Light which they refused to see, choked by the morsels
   which ought to have been their food and cast down to Hell by the Rock
   on which they should have mounted to Heaven.

   He who receives gets more! He who does not receive loses what he seemed
   to have. There is no standing still--there is a necessary movement one
   way or other. In this business a man daily grows richer or poorer. This
   is no stagnant sea. The current bears all vessels onward either to the
   fair havens or to the black sea of eternal ruin. Here stands the
   inevitable decree--he who has shall have--he who is a mere pretender
   and has not, shall lose even his power to seem to have!

   II. Let this suffice. And now, dear Friends, let us try and bring out
   the same principle IN REFERENCE TO THE EXPERIENCE OF ALL GRACIOUS
   SOULS. Our experience verifies the truth of the text, "Whoever has, to
   him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." In the world
   among men it is commonly observed that it never rains but it pours.
   Where you see a sheep there is generally a flock. Money makes money.
   Poverty remains poor. Lack of capital brings bankruptcy. A company
   starts on imaginary or borrowed capital--it makes a fuss and a noise,
   but it never prospers. By-and-by it breaks up and all is lost--and yet
   it never had anything of its own to lose. Thus it verifies to the
   letter the Truth of God--whoever has not, from him shall be taken away
   even what he has.

   Ordinarily, prosperity is a hen which likes to lay where there is a
   nest egg and when one swallow of success comes, others will follow it.
   Certainly we have found it so in the things of Grace--where Grace has
   been given, more Grace comes! Spiritual capital well worked multiplies
   the stock and spiritual wealth is realized where there is a solid base
   to begin upon. Let us give examples. When a man believes the Gospel in
   its most elementary form, that man will soon be taught the higher
   Truths of God. When we begin with some people by telling them the plain
   way of salvation, they raise doubts and quibbles. "But" is their
   favorite word. They cry, "I cannot see this and I cannot understand
   that."

   We never thought they would see it or understand it, for they generally
   desire to understand the most difficult parts of the Gospel, first,
   like a man who must stand on the top of Mont Blanc before he has
   reached the valley at its base! Imagine the folly of such a
   conversation as this--"Here are your letters, my child. This letter is
   A." "Sir, I cannot learn A B C, for as yet I cannot read a single line
   of Homer's Iliad." "Come then, my child, and learn the multiplication
   table." "Alas, Sir, I cannot do it, for I am not yet acquainted with
   differential calculus." Surely the child mocks us and is unwilling to
   learn! The elements can be mastered, although the higher grades of
   study have not been reached. Half the difficulties of unbelievers is
   the result of unreadiness to be taught!

   When a man says, "I understand very little, but I know that I am a
   sinner and I perceive that Christ came into the world to save sinners,
   therefore I will trust Him to save me," that man has something and he
   shall have more! When a seeker confesses, "I am very foolish and slow
   of comprehension, but I perceive that I need a new heart and that only
   the Spirit of God can renew me and, therefore, I seek Him for His
   Grace"--then it is clear that he has some belief--and to him shall be
   given so that he shall have more abundance! If you are struggling with
   unbelief, be willing to believe what you can believe--have a will
   towards believing.

   Dear Friend, if you cannot yet follow the Lord into the depths, He will
   save you if you follow Him into the shallows as far as you can. If you
   are staggered by any one Truth of God, do not, therefore, reject your
   Lord, but be willing to accept that which does not stagger you. Touch
   the hem of His garment if you cannot reach His Divine Person, and you
   shall soon find that your faith in the elementary Truths of the Gospel
   will, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, lead you to an understanding of
   the deeper mysteries! Use your starlight and you shall soon have
   sunlight!

   As it is with faith, so is it with the possession of any real, genuine
   Grace. Take repentance for instance. A man may say, "My heart is hard
   and I cannot repent as I would." No, my dear Friend, but do you really
   hate evil and do you labor to avoid the faults into which you formerly
   fell? Do you mourn and regret mistakes, errors and transgressions of
   which you are convicted? Well, then, this repentance of yours will
   deepen--you will come to be very sensitive, one of these days, and you
   will chasten yourself even for a sinful thought. Though now you cannot
   reach the sensitiveness which you long for, yet, if your repentance is
   real, though it is weak at first, to him that has shall be given and
   your repentance shall grow.

   If there is in your heart an evident love of sin, it is idle for you to
   hope that your repentance will increase, for you have none! Your green
   bay tree is not the weeping willow and will never grow into one,
   however much it may spread.

   But the least twig of the willow, if planted by the watercourses, will
   be sure to flourish. Take faith, again. If you really believe in Jesus
   Christ and look only to Him for salvation, that faith, though it is
   very weak, will become strong. If it is, there at all it will wax great
   in the soul. But if you say, "I think I believe," and yet you really do
   not believe, you will never grow in faith. In fact, the faith you think
   you have will, in the day of trouble, vanish altogether and you will
   find yourself in despair.

   If you will really trust my Lord and Master, though your faith is but
   as a grain of mustard seed, yet, if it is real, you shall have more and
   more till your faith can move mountains and pluck up trees. It is God's
   plan to add more to the first little deposit of faith, even as a master
   builder adds stone to stone till the structure is complete. It is so
   with love to God. Who among us loves God as he would wish to love Him?
   We sigh out--

   "Yes, I love You and adore, Oh, for Grace to love You more." But,
   Beloved, the point you have to watch is not so much the possession of
   the flaming love of a Samuel Rutherford or a Madame Guyon, but the
   making sure of even the lowest degree of genuine love to Jesus! See
   that it is true even if it is feeble. A spark of fire is true fire and
   is quite enough to begin with. It turns everything with which it comes
   in contact into its own nature and it spreads by the force of its own
   intensity.

   The same is true of love. If you have real fire, it will burn, but if
   you have only a painted fire, it will not increase. A painted love of
   Christ, by which I mean the mere imitation of love to Him, will not
   increase, but will eventually disappear altogether. See that you truly
   love Jesus. I implore and beseech you to mind this. Do not fake love,
   but feel love. Give Him your whole heart, for lip love is mockery. How
   can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me? It is the same
   with zeal for God's Glory--we are, none of us, as zealous as we ought
   to be for Christ--but the way to get to be flamingly zealous for His
   name is to be truly zealous at the first. If you desire His Glory,
   though that desire is faint, it will become more and more intense. If
   you feel that you must live to praise Him. If you desire to be made
   willing, even, to die to praise Him, you will, before long, feel
   seraphic zeal.

   True Grace must grow--there is no fear about its increase. If the bulb
   of the lily is really alive, the fair flower will crown its stem before
   long. But if it is a dead bulb to start with, you may place it in the
   best soil and water it every moment, but nothing will come of it. A
   seed may be so small that you can scarcely see it and yet, if it is a
   living seed, none can tell how much it will develop. But if it is one
   of those dead seeds which are far too plentifully mixed up with the
   seedsman's parcels, you may do what you will with it but its only
   change will be decay. You see, then, that where there is true Grace, we
   should not despise the day of small things, but look for more Grace and
   a grander display of the Divine power.

   The way in which the promise of the text is carried out by our gracious
   God is worthy of observation. "Whoever has, to him shall be given." If
   this is connected with the parable of the sower it becomes clear that
   God gives more by a process of growth. And then, turning the Truth of
   God the other way, we see that all growth in Grace is still the gift of
   God and we should not forget that it is so. If you have any faith, if
   you are to grow strong, the same Grace that gave you your first
   confidence in Christ must give you more. It is quite true that there is
   a growing power about the inner life, but its growing power is
   dependent upon the immediate working of God upon it! If he were to
   cease to communicate more Grace, the new life must cease to grow. Well
   says the Apostle, "He gives more Grace." You grow, but that growth is
   God's gift and you must look to Him for it. Why didn't the Lord give us
   the largest measure of Grace to begin with-- why promise more abundance
   as an after result? I think it is because we value Grace all the more
   when it comes to us little by little.

   Again, it is to our good to be exercised to get more Grace. A poor
   woman is allowed to go and glean in a field. Your generosity might say,
   "Come, my good woman, I will give you the corn and you shall not have
   the trouble of gleaning." But this might not be so good a thing for her
   as to allow her to gather the wheat by her own efforts. It is often
   much better to enable the poor to help themselves than to help them
   without their own exertions. God is wise towards us--He means to give
   us the corn--but He decides that we shall glean it and so exercise
   ourselves unto godliness. We are to become rich in Grace, but it is to
   be by heavenly trading.

   Growth is a gift--remember that. God's Grace is received, not as a dead
   external thing, but as a living outgrowth and for outgrowth there must
   be inner life. You, then, who hope that you have a little genuine Grace
   in your souls, may

   well take courage. Let the Truth of God contained in the text cheer
   you--unto you shall more be given and you shall have more abundance. Do
   not think, because you have but little faith, you are always to be
   doubting and trembling. You shall grow out of it, my Brother, my
   Sister, as your faith becomes established. Do not suppose that because
   your hands have been weak and your knees have been trembling, they are
   always to be so. We are not always to be infants in arms-- we are daily
   nearing fullness of stature.

   You are very glad to have little ones at home. They may be dear tiny
   babies, but you are not at all dissatisfied with their being so little,
   seeing it is right that they should be. A baby of six months is not
   expected to be very tall. You are pleased to have a son though he is
   little--you even admire his littleness! But, suppose your child should
   live 20 years and should still remain a baby in stature? You would be
   sorely distressed and say, "Surely my child is a dwarf. What a sad
   thing that my boy should be so deformed." You young beginners need not
   mind being little--we expect you to be so-- but it does not do for you
   older folks who have been Christians these 20 years to still be babies,
   for, if so, we shall begin to be afraid that you are not a child of the
   Lord's own family, for Divine life grows!

   A dead post which we saw in the ground 20 years ago is still the same
   post, no bigger, no smaller--and only altered by becoming rotten
   underground. But the tree which you saw 20 years ago--what a difference
   there is in it! It was then a sapling which you could bend, but now it
   has become as an iron pillar and there is no moving it! So ought it to
   be with us and we must aspire to have it so. May God the Holy Spirit
   work it in us, for Jesus' sake. The main point, however, to come to, is
   this--have we really obtained the first living principle? Have we
   really the heavenly Seed in our souls? I cannot preach to you at this
   time as I should like because it is not so much a subject for discourse
   as for personal use. O for a discerning eye to look through a window
   right into the heart of each one of you!

   The most of you profess to be the people of God, but are you really so?
   I have no reason to suspect you--have you any reason to suspect
   yourselves? You were converted, you say, but was it conversion or not?
   You say, "I do believe in Jesus," but is it that real faith which
   hangs, alone, upon Him? You know a person may be a long time a
   professor and not find out that he has deceived himself even for scores
   of years--and I am afraid that there are some who will never open their
   eyes to their willful self-deceit till they find themselves in Hell! Oh
   do not let us go on increasing the number of the Church without duly
   searching ourselves to see whether we truly belong to the number of the
   faithful.

   A prince may get his treasury full of shining stones, but what if they
   should all turn out to be paste gems? A collector of coins might
   accumulate a multitude of them--there are dealers who will gratify his
   taste and supply him with an endless number of counterfeits--but if a
   master of the science should look over his treasures and condemn them
   as mere shams, what a disappointment would befall him! Brothers and
   Sisters, let each one of us test himself--let us ask the Lord to search
   us lest we be found destitute of Grace. To him that has, more shall be
   given--but if we have not true Grace, it shall not be given to us--and
   we shall even lose what we have.

   III. I must now mournfully conclude with THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRUTH AS
   EXEMPLIFIED IN THE EXPERIENCE OF THE INSINCERE. Insincere men and women
   find that what they had is taken away from them. I will illustrate this
   point very rapidly. It is in this way. Many who hear the Gospel have
   been brought up to do so from their childhood. But if they do not
   heartily receive the Gospel, they, in many instances, give up
   attendance upon the outward means of Grace when they get away from the
   restraints of religious society. They find it dull work to sit so long
   and listen to drowsy prayers and dull preaching. They find it
   uncomfortable to get into crowded congregations; cold to be in small
   ones and unhealthy to sit in the close atmosphere of a Meeting House.

   They see many faults in the service and grumble quite cleverly. At
   first they stay away one part of the day. Once is quite enough for
   them, they say--they cannot stand twice. Then, by-and-by, every excuse
   is made for staying at home. Sometimes it is wet. At another time they
   feel a little out of sorts. These things would not keep them from
   business, but a very little suffices to excuse a man's staying at home
   on Sunday. At length they do not go at all. Thus there is taken away
   from them what they really did not have--they did not really hear and
   now they do not nominally hear. There are thousands of people in London
   at home, today, hardly dressed even at this hour, from whom is taken
   away all wish to hear the Gospel.

   Here is another form of the same thing. The man keeps on hearing, but
   not having received the Gospel, he loses all power to appreciate it. "I
   do not know what has come over our minister," he says, "I used to, at
   one time, feel something when he was preaching, but it is not so now.
   He is getting old and has about spun himself out." Other people do not

   think so, however, for they have been converted and blessed under his
   ministry. What has happened? Why, this man has lost what he seemed to
   have, namely, the power to appreciate the Gospel! He remembers the day
   when he used to stand in the aisles all the time, longing to catch
   every syllable, and then would go home and get on his knees and, after
   a fashion, pray for mercy. Nothing affects Him now. Tremble, my
   Hearers, if that is your case, for you are going fast to Hell, with
   nothing to stop you! You are dying at the root and will continue to
   lose all sensation until death ends in corruption!

   In certain persons this takes yet another form. They received the Grace
   of God in a way and there was an effect produced upon them, but it all
   disappeared. I have seen an unconverted man admirably reformed for a
   time by hearing the Word. The drunkard's cup has been given up and foul
   language has ceased! There has been a great moral improvement for which
   we have all been very glad. But, alas, it has not lasted. Unless Gospel
   work is inward heart-work--if it merely lies in external
   reformation--the man often goes back to be worse than he was before.
   The evil spirit which had left him, returns, and takes with it seven
   other spirits more wicked than itself! And they enter in and dwell
   there--and the last end of that man is worse than the first. If the
   Gospel does not save you, it may, in the end, even make you worse! If
   it is not a savor of life unto life, it will become a savor of death
   unto death.

   One more version of this same Truth of God and I have done. Some appear
   to receive the Word even farther than those in whom it produces an
   external reformation, for they make a confession of faith in Christ.
   They pray and perhaps they preach. Their voices are heard in Christian
   assemblies and they appear to live the lives of Christians. I have seen
   them even become eminent for supposed sanctity--but if they have not
   really and truly received the Word of God, what a miserable life theirs
   must be! They do not get the secret comfort of true religion and yet
   they have to keep up an appearance of it! Surely the poorest people in
   the world are those who have to keep up appearances and have not the
   means with which to do it--they are always getting in debt and yet have
   to look everybody in the face. I always pity a penniless nobleman, the
   Earl of Nowhere, Lord Lackland!

   Many professors are in the same plight--they have a name to live and
   are dead. They do not really believe what they profess to believe. They
   have a shrewd suspicion that all is not right within and, therefore,
   they get no comfort from all their religious talking and doing. It is a
   task, a dreary, cheerless task. They have no proof in their own hearts
   of the Truth of the Gospel, for they lack the internal evidence which
   is the best of all. Their religion has never changed them, nor stirred
   the deeps of their being and at last it becomes impossible to keep up
   the charade! Just as with a man who continues to live beyond his means,
   there comes a time when he must be bankrupt and so there comes a time
   with the spiritual deceiver when he cannot keep it up any longer.

   Look at Judas! He sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver and a
   rope--that was his way out of his profession. Others have become
   grosser skeptics and viler haters of Christ than others--their
   hypocrisy has curdled into blasphemy. Others have settled down in utter
   indifference, callousness, carelessness and have slept themselves into
   Hell. Where the cheat is kept up till the end, what a waking awaits the
   deceiver! He will have to go from the hearing of the Gospel to the
   howling of the lost--from his pew in the house of God to his place in
   Hell! He will have to be dragged away from the cup of the Lord, to
   drink, in very deed, the cup of devils--he will be shut out from the
   association of the saints to dwell forever with the condemned!

   He will then realize that the God whom he professed to worship has
   rejected him when Jesus Himself shall say, "I never knew you! Depart
   from Me, you workers of iniquity." God saves us from such a doom, for
   His sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Plague of the Heart

   (No. 1489)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, AUGUST 10, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Whatever prayer and supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your
   people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart,
   and spread forth his hands toward this house: then hear in Heaven, Your
   dwelling place, and pardon, and do, and give to every man according to
   his ways, whose heart You know; (for You, even You only, know the
   hearts of all the children of men) that they may fear You all the days
   that they live in the land which You gave unto our fathers." 1Kings
   8:38-40.

   (When the regular congregation unanimously left their seats to be
   occupied by strangers, who crowded the building to its utmost
   capacity).

   You all know that the Temple at Jerusalem was the one place of
   sacrifice throughout all the holy land, for thus had the Lord spoken,
   "Whatever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers
   which sojourn among you, that offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, and
   brings it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to
   offer it unto the Lord: even that man shall be cut off from among his
   people." According to God's Law there was one altar and it was counted
   a high crime when the tribes which dwelt beyond Jordan built another.
   And their brethren sought them, saying, "Rebel not against the Lord in
   building an altar besides the altar of the Lord our God" (Josh. 22:19).
   As there was only one high priest, so there was only one altar--and
   sacrifice might not be offered anywhere else but on that altar at
   Jerusalem.

   Therefore, when a man wished to present his offerings to God, he went
   up to the Temple which Solomon dedicated by the prayer in which our
   text occurs. The people afterwards built altars on high hills and in
   green groves, but these places and the sacrifices offered there were
   contrary to the mind of God. There was but one altar and one
   sacrifice--and that was at the Temple. That is why, when the godly
   Israelite prayed, he looked towards the one place of sacrifice, not in
   superstition, but in believing remembrance of the one sacrifice and the
   one altar and the one glorious token of the Divine Presence which shone
   over the Mercy Seat within the veil. He knew that God could only accept
   him through the one sacrifice and, therefore, he looked that way.

   The people especially looked toward the Temple in prayer in times of
   national calamity. In drought, or when the crops were consumed by
   locusts or by caterpillars, or when blast and mildew destroyed the hope
   of harvest, or in time of war or pestilence, their supplications were
   presented unto the one Jehovah--all eyes looking towards His one sacred
   shrine where the one sacrifice smoked upon the altar. But although
   there were those special opportunities and God heard their prayers as a
   nation, it is very pleasant to observe that He regarded the griefs of
   individuals. Every man, says the text, that knew the plague of his own
   heart, was to spread forth his hands towards that one place of
   sacrifice and pray. And God would forgive him and deliver him.

   That is my subject tonight. The Lord will hear whatever prayer and
   supplication is made by any man in reference to his own personal
   affliction if his heart is turned towards God's own temple. But what is
   that temple? And where is it? There are now no material temples beneath
   the whole Heaven unless the bodies of Believers may be so called--and
   no one thinks of looking to them. No, "The Most High dwells not in
   temples made with hands." No one place is more sacred than another--

   "Where'er we seek Him, He is found, And everyplace is hallowed ground."

   There remains one Temple, however, and that is the body of the Lord
   Jesus Christ. He is Temple, Altar and Sacrifice! And if you would look
   the right way in prayer and if you desire your prayers to be answered,
   you must look to Him by the eye of faith.

   Look! There He sits at the right hand of God! Having finished the one
   Sacrifice and made Atonement for sin forever, there He sits--Priest,
   Altar, Offering, Temple--and every true supplicant must enter into the
   holiest by His blood, "by a new and living way, which He has
   consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh."
   Whoever beneath the wide heavens is conscious of the plague of his own
   heart or has anything that plagues him or anything that troubles him,
   he may turn his eyes towards Christ, the true Temple, with a certainty
   that God will hear his prayer and answer his request and send him
   deliverance. "We have an Altar," and that Altar is our Lord's own
   blessed Person! We have but one and we tremble for those who set up
   another--and to that One we look with confident hope, being assured
   that the Sacrifice once offered there has made our peace with God and
   procured acceptance for our supplications--

   "We build no altar--You have died

   We deck no priestly shrine.

   What need have we of creature-aid?

   The power to save is Thine."

   But now I must come nearer to the point in hand. The text speaks of
   "every man which shall know the plague of his own heart." I am going to
   talk to you about that knowledge and the plague with which it deals.
   These are home affairs that we shall speak of tonight--not matters
   beyond our line and unpractical--but our own personal concerns. "Every
   man the plague of his own heart." A great many men think they know the
   plague of other people's hearts and there is a great deal of talk in
   the world about this family, that person and the other. I pray you let
   the scandals of the hour alone and think of your own evils. This night
   let each man consider his own home affairs and not other people's
   business. He would be a bad farmer who plowed other people's lands and
   left his own untilled. He would be a poor gardener who used his hoe on
   other men's weeds and not on his own.

   Tonight I pray you let each man think of home affairs. Yes, and let him
   think of heart affairs, for whatever may be wrong about us, the worst
   place to have anything wrong is the heart. Out of it are the issues of
   life. We can endure the burdens of life, but "a wounded spirit, who can
   bear?" A plague in the body is not half so bad as a plague in the
   heart--a plague in the soul--of all plagues the plague of the heart is
   the worst. It is not the plague of another man's heart which I have to
   think of tonight, but the plague of my own heart, for the text speaks
   of knowing, "Every man the plague of his own heart."

   It is a dreadful mischief that there should be a plague in the heart,
   for a plague is a dreadful thing. A plague means, first, something
   which brings pain and there is many a secret heartache in this world
   where we least suspect it. If you could take the roofs off the houses
   of London, strange sights would be seen. But if once you could proceed
   to put a window into every heart, some of those whose faces look the
   happiest would appear to us to be among the most miserable of men! The
   plague of the heart means pain, care, worry, grief and trouble of mind.
   But it means more than that, for the plague is a disease.

   Now, a diseased heart is something terrible. Often we see it reported
   that a man died suddenly of disease of the heart, which, I suppose,
   frequently means that the doctors do not know what he died of--but
   certainly, anything that kills the heart is a disease in a most
   important organ. The hand may be cured, or we may even lose it and
   live--but when the heart is affected, the whole system gets out of gear
   and life, itself, verges dangerously upon the edge of death. As it is
   with the heart of the body, so is it with the soul's heart--its
   depravity, or, in other words, its moral disease--puts all the
   faculties out of order and ruins our whole nature.

   Nothing can be right with the immortal nature till the heart is cured
   of the plague which came upon it through the Fall. The worst point
   about the plague of the heart is the fact that if it is not removed, it
   will ultimately bring death upon the soul. Plague in the heart is
   mortal and I would be much surprised if I have not in this great
   congregation some who have a present pain, a present disease of the
   heart and who will--unless God, in His Grace, leads them to adopt the
   cure we shall set before them tonight--perish through this deadly
   plague! O that while I am speaking to you, the Holy Spirit may lead
   many a sin-sick soul to breathe out some such desire as that expressed
   by John Newton when he wrote--

   "Physician of my sin-sick soul, To You I bring my case.

   My raging malady control, And heal me by Your Grace. Pity the anguish I
   endure, See how I mourn and pine! For never can I hope a cure From any
   hand but Thine. Lord, I am sick, regard my cry, And set my spirit free!
   Say, can You let a sinner die, Who longs to live for Thee?"

   To come to close quarters. Our first point will be forms of this
   plague. The next will be mode of treatment and the third will be, help
   to be expected.

   I. First, let us mention various FORMS OF THIS PLAGUE OF THE HEART.
   They are very many, perhaps almost as many as there are hearts,
   themselves. Some have this plague of the heart in the form of a
   terrible memory. With blood-red lines, remorse has scored their
   memories in an ineffaceable manner. We need not go into particulars--a
   secret something known scarcely to anyone but themselves hides away in
   the most tender part of their nature and eats away at their vitals.
   They sinned--sinned terribly--and the sin haunts them.

   They could be happy if they could forget, but that one sin is always
   before them as though a blood spot were painted on their very eyeballs.
   They are reminded of it by the simplest events, for it seems as though
   God had put an accusing tongue into the stones they tread upon and the
   walls which surround them. Even their beds refuse them repose. They
   wake in the darkness and sit in speechless horror. Or if they fall
   asleep, the visions of the night scare them. Few know of their fault
   and yet they imagine that they are universally suspected. Nobody has
   cried shame upon them, but they cry shame upon themselves.

   It may not be only one sin, but perhaps all their sins in one pack bark
   at them and pursue them like bloodhounds eager to devour. They can hear
   the voice of their sins above all notes of music or shouts of laughter.
   When they would be quiet and at rest, they cannot be, for they are
   tossed to and fro like an ocean in a storm. They have the plague of
   remembered sin upon them and see no remedy for it. Tonight it is my
   gladsome message that there is a cure for this form of heart-plague--an
   effectual cure! Transgression can be blotted out! Even the greatest
   trespass can be altogether forgiven! Sin can be put away so that it
   shall not be mentioned against you any more nor ever! Blessed be God
   for this! If this is the plague of your heart, have confidence and
   embrace the cure tonight!

   With others it takes another shape. Their heart-plague has assumed the
   form of dissatisfaction and unrest. They cannot be quiet. They are like
   the troubled sea which cannot rest. They were a little pleased at one
   time when they had a new scheme on hand to divert their thoughts and
   amuse their minds. The scheme has prospered, but that prosperity has
   brought them no contentment--they must now be at something else--and
   while the new plan is in full swing, they will, a little, forget. But
   when that, also, is accomplished, they will sit down and cry, "What
   next? I am sick of all things and most of all of myself! Life is worry
   and disappointment. I cannot be quiet. I crave a something, I know not
   what." There are hundreds and thousands of men who have all that heart
   can wish and yet are miserable. On the other hand, I could point you to
   many hundreds who have but little in this world and yet are almost as
   happy as the angels! They are in full contentment rejoicing in their
   God.

   The plague in the heart rages fiercely in those who lack nothing except
   the power to enjoy what they have. They have succeeded in their
   learning and gained their degree, but increased learning has only
   enlarged the sphere of their disquietude. They have succeeded in
   business and have retired, but retirement is a weariness to them. They
   have prospered in everything and this has become their adversity! Like
   the man of old, they cry, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." They
   mourn over all earthly good, saying, "There is nothing in it. It is an
   empty thing. Woe is me! Where is rest for my soul?"

   Again, it is my glad errand, tonight, to tell you where perfect rest
   and sweet contentment can be found--where your soul shall dwell at ease
   and possess the earth and inherit worlds to come--and your peace shall
   be like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea! May
   the Lord God, the Holy Spirit, help you to avail yourselves of the
   blessed peace stored up in the one great Sacrifice which every
   unresting heart may have if it will only come to Him!

   This plague takes another shape and I mention several that I may come
   home to many hearts and depict many experiences. In many it is a
   wretched tendency to some one sin which, nevertheless, the man in his
   better moments does not wish to commit. Some are horribly plagued by
   their passions. They stand out against them, occasionally, and come to
   a pause and resolve, "It shall not be. In the name of everything that
   is good, it shall not be!" They hate and despise themselves for it and
   yet they yield to overwhelming lust and are hurried forward by their
   passions like sear leaves in the tempest, or spray dashed aloft by a
   storm.

   Many individuals are plagued with the temptation to strong drink. They
   vow that they will abstain, but the serpent stings--they thirst for the
   firewater and will have it though it degrades their manhood below the
   level of the swine! With others, wantonness and chambering have gained
   the mastery and the plague is foul, indeed. With another class it is
   ungovernable anger, quickness of wrath, or that slow-burning,
   smoldering fire called malice which is nearest akin to the fire of
   Hell. Better burn with a life-long fever than be the prey of these
   fierce heats. Some know the evil which wraps about them like a python.
   They wish to resist it and yet they are so fascinated by the sin that
   they cannot tear away the serpent folds!

   Many are as though they were taken in a net, or garmented about with
   lusts till they are comparable to Hercules of old when he put on the
   tunic which burned into his flesh and clung to his body--and when he
   labored to tear it off as best he could--he tore away his flesh with
   it. Many are enshrouded in a horrible robe of habit which has become a
   part of their being, the very skin of their souls. They cannot get rid
   of that awful tunic of fire--a tendency to sin. To them, also, I have
   the joy to proclaim, in the name of God, the All-Merciful, that from
   this they can be redeemed! They can be delivered from the bondage of
   corruption and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of
   God!

   In others, this plague of the heart is a wretched indecision--a
   perpetual vacillation. They are resolved at times, but their resolve
   ends in nothing. Oh, there are numbers of men who know it
   themselves--that they can never succeed in life because they are
   "everything by turns and nothing long." Especially in matters of
   religion they wax and wane like the moon. Today they repent. Tomorrow
   they return to their sin. Today they are in earnest. Tomorrow they are
   careless. Today they are almost persuaded to be Christians. Tomorrow
   they are quite persuaded to find pleasure in sin. False as the waves
   and fickle as the winds, they are never long enough in one place to
   take root anywhere. Unstable as water, they shall not excel.

   Who can heal them of this moral palsy? Can nothing convince them to
   choose the right direction? Yes, there is One who can convince them!
   There is One who can throw the weight of His sweet love into the
   quivering balance and make it turn in the right direction! O hesitating
   mortal, if you have Grace to look, tonight, towards the one Sacrifice,
   the Holy Spirit will root you and ground you in love--Jesus will make a
   steadfast man of you and you shall yet say, "O God, my heart is fixed!
   My heart is fixed! I will sing and give You praise!"

   I have known this plague of the heart in some to take the form of a
   mournful hardness, so that they cry, "I would, but cannot, repent! I
   would feel, but I cannot feel! I seem to be given up, seared as with a
   hot iron and insensible!" This is a fearful plague--perhaps worse than
   all I have previously mentioned because more fatal! Is there, then, no
   hope? Yes! There is One who can make the dead to live, who can take
   away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh and it is His name we
   preach tonight, the name of Jesus who shall save His people from their
   sins! There are others whom I meet pretty constantly who have a
   faintness of heart, a despondency of spirit which is their plague. They
   cannot believe that there is mercy for them.

   They cannot hope that they could live a new life. At times they feel a
   desire to turn unto the Lord, but they think it is impossible--and that
   grim impossibility drives them back from Christ--and forward to yet
   grosser sin. Many a man has said, "Because there is no hope, therefore
   will I sin to the very length of my tether. I cannot be saved and so I
   may as well have the pleasures of sin to the fullest." I pray, dear
   Hearer, do not let despair thus saddle you and ride you, for there is
   no cause for it! There is salvation where Jesus goes and He is here
   tonight! No man need say he is denied a hope since Christ came into the
   word to seek and to save that which is lost! Oh, my Hearer, hope as
   long as you live! To the very confines of death's dominions and to the
   borders of Hell-shade, let these words of mercy fly, "There is hope!
   There IS hope!" For the most hopeless there is still hope. "Let the
   wicked forsakes his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let
   him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our
   God, for He will abundantly pardon."

   One other form of heart-plague is a constant dread of the future.
   Multitudes of persons are always under apprehension and especially
   under apprehension of death. You must not mention death in some
   places--the very word is horrible. Some would like, I dare say, that
   the etiquette of the age should respect their coward fears and be as
   daintily absurd as that of the French monarch who would not allow death
   to be mentioned in his presence. When his secretary read the words,
   "the death of the king of Spain," he sharply asked, "What is that? What
   is that?" in anger, that such a thing should be mentioned in his sacred
   presence! The secretary was obliged to say that it was a circumstance
   which occasionally happened to kings in Spain.

   Scores of people would like us to be just as delicate as that upon the
   subject of their end. But, O Sirs, you must die! The youngest among us
   who is in best health will die--may die soon--but where the snows of
   winter lie upon your heads and where the tenement already begins to
   crumble through old age, death must come. Are you not prepared, my
   Friend? Are you not prepared? Then I do not wonder that you tremble at
   the very thought of being summoned before your Maker. But be not as the
   ostrich which hides its silly head from the hunter and then dreams of
   being secure! Learn to look death in the face, for it will soon stare
   you out of countenance.

   Do you call yourself a Christian and are you afraid to die? Oh, if God
   had made you such a man as you ought to be, you would not dread to die,
   for death is a mere undressing to the true Believer--an undressing
   which leads to his being arrayed in Glory! Death to the saint is the
   gate of endless joy and shall he dread to enter there? To such as are
   in Christ who have looked to the one Temple, to the one Sacrifice, to
   the one Priest, to the one Altar, the fear of death is gone! Within
   them God has worked such a work and for them Christ has prepared such a
   Heaven that without apprehension they may look through the gates of
   pearl and often clap their hands for very joy as they sing--

   "See that Glory how resplendent! Brighter far than fancy paints! There
   in majesty transcendent, Jesus reigns, the King of saints! Spread my
   wings, my soul, and fly Straight to yonder world of joy!"

   So elevated is the joyous experience of the true Believer that death to
   him would be unmingled gain! He knows it to be so and, therefore, at
   times he is even in haste to be gone! Have I, in any of these
   descriptions, picked you out, tonight, my dear Friend? Have you a
   heart-plague like any of these? Or is it some other form of the great
   spiritual pestilence? I cannot tarry to describe it, for now I want to
   speak upon the mode of treatment. May the Holy Spirit help you to feel
   the plague and accept the remedy upon the spot!

   II. You desire to get rid of this heart-plague--effectually rid of
   it--let us consider, then, the MODE OF TREATMENT which will work a
   cure. I hope you are not so foolish as to say, "I shall not think about
   the matter, for it would only plague me more." That is a very bad habit
   and only such as a frivolous or a wicked person would follow. A man is
   in a trade and he says to his clerk, "Don't bring me the books. I do
   not want to know anything about my accounts. Don't let me see my book
   or ledger. I had rather not be troubled with them." The confidential
   clerk replies, "Sir, I think you ought to see your account at the
   bank." "No," answers the silly one, "I should not like to be perplexed
   with figures, balances, losses and deficits. I should not enjoy my
   dinner if I attended to these matters--let us drive dull care away and
   enjoy life while we may. Don't worry me. Keep those wretched books
   away."

   I do not think it needs a prophet to foretell that this tradesman will
   soon be in his creditors' hands with very small assets. By such
   avoidance of knowing his position, he will be ruined as sure as
   doomsday. And whenever a man dares not look into the state of his soul
   and dreads a half-an-hour alone, he may conclude that there is
   something rotten in the state of Denmark--something far, far gone with
   regard to his soul's estate. He need not question that, I think. But
   let us not be so unwise, for the first mode of treatment we prescribe
   tonight, in order to the remedy, is that every man should know the
   plague of his own heart, that is to say, he should endeavor to get a
   true and accurate knowledge of his spiritual condition as in the sight
   of God.

   What is this sin that troubles you? Honestly look at it. What is this
   fear that haunts you? Do you know what it is? I would advise you to
   write it down and see it in black and white. What is this tendency to
   sin that enslaves you? What is this wretched indecision? Get a
   diagnosis of the disease and be sure it is a correct one. Look your own
   case through and through. It very much helps towards salvation when a
   man knows something of his need of it--and he will be very much

   helped to a sense of his need if he will impartially examine his own
   state. If I might ask such a thing--I fear it would not be granted, but
   I am sure good would come of it if I could get it--I ask that every
   person, tonight, on his going home, would sit down in his chamber, look
   into the state of his heart before God and then write on a piece of
   paper one of two words--"saved," or, "lost."

   My Friend, do not write that word, "saved," unless you can honestly and
   sincerely say, "I have looked to the Savior and He has saved me." But
   suppose you are forced, in honesty to your conscience, to write down
   the word, "lost," as your true description? It will be both wise and
   useful to do so. I have known this to be done in cases in which, before
   the morning light, that piece of paper has been burned and another word
   has been written in its place--even the bright consoling word, "SAVED!"
   Only foolish people object to enquiry as to their state--do not be one
   of them. Write down the condition of your soul! Take stock and make
   sure. Write down, "impenitent," if you are so! Put it before you in
   black and white. Write, "unbelieving," if you are so. It cannot hurt
   you to know the truth--and it may be of lasting benefit to you. We
   prescribe that to begin with.

   Then, next, as Solomon bade those who knew the plague of their own
   heart turn their eyes to the great sacrifice at the Temple, the next
   thing to do is to turn your eyes to God. You cannot help yourself and
   nobody on earth can help you. Your case, apart from Divine Grace, is
   desperate! This heart-plague will not die out of its own accord, nor
   will any change of your outward condition eradicate it. Turn, then, to
   the great Physician and cry to Him thus, "Lord God, You did make me!
   You can mend me! You did make me! You can make me over again! I am
   lost! Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, You can save me!" Look heavenward
   and Christward. Look to the bleeding Lamb, to the risen Redeemer!

   To look within will breed despair, but to look to Christ on the Cross,
   no, to Christ now at the right hand of God, will beget lively hope!
   Jesus is "able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him,
   seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them"--to look to Him is
   the main part of the cure! Bring God into the business! Bring Christ
   into your trouble for here lies your cure! Look that way, I pray you.
   Look and live!

   And when you have looked that way, the next thing to do is to spread
   the trouble before God. Some do not know how to pray. When you cannot
   pray, say, "O Lord, teach me to pray." But you say you do not
   feel--then I would urge you to confess, "Lord, I do not feel. My heart
   is hard. Lord, cause me to feel." Oh, but you say you are so disquieted
   and so restless. Go and tell Him, "Lord, I am so disquieted. I cannot
   rest. Help me. Help me!" Tell it all to Jesus without reserve. I am
   persuaded that if you will confess the plague to God, you will soon
   find help from that act of confession. The Lord Jesus will speedily
   relieve your conscience in a very special and effectual manner. Tell it
   to no man--tell it to God alone. Judas confessed to the priests and you
   know what he did next. Confess to God and you shall not go forth to
   hang yourself, but you will go forth to find that He is able to help
   you, for, "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
   us our sins, and to save us from all unrighteousness."

   Pour out your heart before Him and it will ease you mightily. After
   confession is made, with your eyes to the Sacrifice, pray with your
   eyes still upon the Lord Jesus. Pleading the blood of Jesus, be
   importunate for pardon. No man has truly sought God in prayer, looking
   to Jesus Christ, and been refused--and there never shall be such a man!
   I remember how I was struck with what my mother said to me when she was
   pleading with me to lay hold on Christ and I was despairing. She said,
   "There was never yet a man so wicked as to say that he had sincerely
   sought the Lord and asked mercy at His hands through Christ and yet had
   been denied."

   I thought that I had done so and I felt sure that the Lord had refused
   me--and I half resolved in my mind that I would say as much! But I have
   never said it--I sought Him again and found Him, to the joy of my
   spirit! So shall it be with you, poor, weary Seeker. You shall find Him
   soon if you seek Him with your whole heart! Eternity shall not reveal a
   single instance in which Christ Jesus cast away a sinner that came to
   Him! All Hell shall be searched through and they shall ask them, "Is
   there one here that can say that Christ rejected him when he came to
   Him?" And, though glad enough to blaspheme, there shall not be found
   among the damned a single tongue that shall dare to utter such a
   baseless slander against the Friend of sinners!

   My Hearers, if you repentantly believe and yet are rejected, you will
   be the first! Come, then! Yes, come tonight and confess the plague of
   your heart, with your eyes to Christ, and then plead with God, "Lord,
   save me!" I would put words into your mouth if I could, to say, "Lord,
   save me! I am lost! Save me! There is a disease in my heart, heal it! I
   confess my great sin, Lord, blot it out! I acknowledge my present
   depravity and tendency to sin, Lord, tear up my sin by the roots!

   You know my disquietude and my hardness of heart, Lord, give me peace!
   There is something in me, I scarcely know what it is, that I must get
   rid of--Lord, rid me of it, for Jesus' sake! Oh, for Your Son's sake!
   For His blood's sake! For His death's sake! For His Resurrection's
   sake, I beseech You, hear me!"

   Earnest, childlike pleading shall certainly have its answer. Only
   believe that the Lord can do this and He will do it. Faith is the
   starting point of salvation--yes, it brings you to salvation, itself.
   Jesus Christ said, "Believe you that I am able to do this?" And the
   poor man answered, "Lord, I believe." Follow his example! My Lord Jesus
   Christ is God as well as Man. He is the Son of the Highest and He came
   into this world and took the form of man. And in that form He suffered,
   the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God! Why, then, should we doubt
   Him? The merit of His precious blood is exceedingly great beyond
   compare and He would have us believe in its eternal efficacy--why
   shouldn't we?

   Do you say you cannot believe? Read over the story of the four
   Evangelists and then sit still, awhile, and think it all over. He who
   suffered so is God! The Incarnate God died this shameful death to save
   the guilty! Surely as you look, you will believe! The Holy Spirit will
   create faith in you by His own Inspired Testimony. You will say, "I
   know not how it is, but faith comes stealing over me. I believe the
   dying Savior's love and I cast my soul upon Him." That is the way of
   salvation--just to rest in Christ! As the pitcher hangs on the nail, so
   must we hang on Christ. As the baby lies in its mother's arms without
   fear, so must we lie in the arms of Jesus. We must be nothing and
   Christ everything! When we do this, by God's Grace, we shall get
   rest--rest from all the plague of the heart.

   III. I close, lest I weary you, by mentioning, in the third place,
   HELPS WHICH WE MAY EXPECT TO RECEIVE if we follow the treatment which I
   have tried to describe. The first help we shall get according to our
   text is, "Then hear in Heaven, Your dwelling place, and forgive." In
   answer to your confession and your prayer and your looking to the great
   Altar and Sacrifice, there shall come a free pardon from the court of
   Heaven! What a splendid word that is, "forgive," when you know God's
   sense of it. It is to cast into the depths of the sea all memory of
   sin! It is to blot it out as a paid debt; to drive it away as a cloud;
   to cover it so that it is out of sight forever; to cast it behind His
   back, yes, even to cause it to cease to be as though it had never been!

   I know one who differed from his friend and spoke, under a
   misunderstanding, more sharply than the case required. His friend was
   quite able to fight his own battles and say sharp things, too. The case
   was cleared up and misapprehension removed--and he who had been first
   offended said in all heartiness, "Let us take the sponge and clean the
   slate and begin anew, as if the past had never been." The other was a
   good man and true, but he paused so much in his reply that the first
   Brother does not feel that he had healed the wound and felt tempted to
   say, "Say straight out that you do not mean to forgive and then I shall
   know where you are."

   A limping reconciliation is half a feud. But when God forgives, He
   means it, and the offense is gone forever! He cleans off the record. It
   is all gone, every trace of it. I think I see that slate with your sins
   written on it, tonight--a long and heavy score--but if you go to the
   Lord as I have described, He will wipe it all off. As far as the east
   is from the west He will remove your transgressions from you! Do you
   remember the story of Martin Luther when Satan came to him, as he
   thought, with a long black roll of his sins which truly might make a
   swaddling-band for the round world? To the archenemy Luther said, "Yes,
   I must admit to them all. Have you any more?" So the foul fiend went
   his way and brought another longer roll, and Martin Luther said "Yes,
   yes, I must admit to them all. Have you any more?"

   The accuser of the Brethren, being expert at the business, soon
   supplied him with a further length of charges till there seemed to be
   no end to it. Martin waited till no more were forthcoming and then he
   cried, "Have you any more?" "Were not these enough?" "Yes, that they
   are. But," said Martin Luther, "write at the bottom of the whole
   account, 'The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!'"
   Brothers and Sisters, this was a receipt in full, stamped in such a
   manner that even Satan could not question the correctness of it!
   However many or however few--all our sins are gone when the atoning
   blood comes in!

   I have an ugly thing in my study. It is a piece of iron with a sharp
   point to it at the top and the bottom is formed of a rounded piece of
   wood. It is not an ornamental object, especially as it holds impaled
   upon it a fine selection of bills which are inclined to go yellow and
   dusty. Bills are horrible things, but though I have a lot of them, they
   never horrify me in the least, for though they are very many and some
   of them are for large amounts, yet there is not one of them but what
   has Her Majesty's head in the corner with the name of the creditor to
   whom I have paid it. I have no fear of these records either day or
   night! In fact, it is a comfort to keep them, now that they are
   discharged! When I look at the old bills, I

   think of my old sins, pierced through by my Lord and kept in my
   penitent memory as a witness to the value of His blood which has set me
   free from sin's tremendous debt!

   Here is the receipt for them all--"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." Some of you, I dare say, can look, tonight,
   at many of your transgressions. Are the bills all receipted? Are your
   sins all blotted out? Then you can bless the name of the Lord that the
   plague of your heart is gone! You are not afraid to live or afraid to
   die, for perfect pardon, irreversible pardon--pardon which makes a
   sweep of all transgression and sinks it as in a bottomless sea, from
   which it never can be washed up forever--pardon, perfect pardon is
   yours in Christ Jesus! How sweetly this now rings out! Is there any
   music of silver bell that can equal it? Pardon! Pardon!--

   "Earth has a joy unknown in Heaven! The new-born peace of sins
   forgiven! Tears of such pure and deep delight, You angels! Never dimmed
   your sight."

   The freeness, fullness, perpetuity and completeness of pardon is its
   greatest joy! Our Lord does nothing by halves, but plunges the whole of
   our guilt into the sea of His own blood where it is drowned forever
   and, being justified by faith, from now on we have peace with God
   through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is the first help we will mention
   and who shall say that it is not a grand one?

   Did you notice in my text two little words, which follows pardon--"and
   do"? Now, when the Lord forgives a man's sins, He then begins to do for
   him many wonderful things. For instance, that hardness of the heart He
   melts down; that uneasiness He quiets; that tendency to sin He destroys
   by imparting a new tendency--a tendency to holiness. The Lord can make
   the old sinner to become a baby in Grace so that he shall be just as if
   he were born again--no, he shall be born again! An old man who had
   lived a vicious life, sat down in his cottage a sad remnant of
   humanity, a worn-out waster of life--and when his little grandchild
   came with curly locks and clambered up his knee, he patted his cheeks,
   and murmured to himself, "O God, if I could be a little child again and
   begin anew!"

   That wish of many shall be fulfilled to all who look to Jesus! "Except
   you be converted and become as little children, you shall in no wise
   enter into the kingdom of Heaven." "You must be born again." The mercy
   is that you may be born again! New life shall enter old hearts, or old
   hearts shall be made new and filled with eternal life which forever has
   the dew of its youth! Turning your eyes to the great Sacrifice, Altar,
   Temple, Priest, even Jesus Christ, and crying to Him the prayer of
   faith, His Spirit will come upon you and, working miracles upon you,
   will make you a new creature in Christ Jesus! Old things shall pass
   away and all things shall become new.

   After that the Lord will continue to do great things for you. He will
   keep you to the end--He will lead you from strength to strength and
   from joy to joy! He will make you useful and that is what you never
   dreamed you could be! The thorny waste shall bear fruit a hundred-fold!
   He will take you from among sinners and put you among saints. And
   putting you among the saints, He will make your very experience of sin
   to be instrumental for good. As none make better gamekeepers than old
   poachers when they are reclaimed, so none seem better able to bring
   others to Christ than those who know what sin and salvation mean by
   actual experience! Such persons talk of what they have felt in their
   own case and, when they are saved, they speak of a salvation which is
   manifest to everybody--for they are such changed men and changed women
   that no one can deny the power of Grace upon them!

   How eagerly do I hope that my Lord Jesus will quarter on the enemy
   tonight! O Lord, come in and capture some out of this crowd! Say to
   many who throng this building, "Tonight I must abide in your house." O
   my Brothers and Sisters, lives no longer an indifferent life! Begin to
   care for your soul's eternal interests! No longer oppose your Savior!
   Become one of His disciples! He has many such as you are and He does
   not despise them because they once rioted in sin! On the contrary, He
   binds them to Himself by the greatness of their former guilt! They love
   Him much because they have had much forgiven and they serve Him all the
   more earnestly because of what He has done for them. The Lord grant
   that the same may happen in your case, for Jesus Christ's sake--and He
   shall have all the glory. Amen and Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Contention Ended and Grace Reigning

   (No. 1490)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 17, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For I will not contend forever, neither will I always be angry; for
   the spirits would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made. For
   the iniquity of his covetousness was I angry, and smote him: I hid and
   was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. I have
   seen his ways, and will heal him: I will also lead him, and restore
   comforts to him and to his mourners." Isaiah 57:16-18.

   The high and holy One that inhabits eternity is here speaking with
   Himself concerning Israel. The Lord is holding high soliloquy. He is
   not so much addressing the sons of men, bidding them do this or that,
   as speaking to Himself of what He intends to do among them. He allows
   His Prophet to stand where he can hear the sacred soliloquy of the
   great Supreme. And he hears it and then, under the dictate of the
   Divine Spirit, he records it in the Inspired Book where it remains to
   this day for our instruction. Hear, then, these words of the living God
   and let your hearts be satisfied concerning the secret purposes of
   Jehovah!

   Although the Lord may say many things to Himself which we do not hear
   and which it were not well that we should hear, yet He never retracts
   in secret what He has spoken in public! So we may rest assured that He
   never speaks in the dark places of the earth concerning the house of
   Jacob, "Seek you My face in vain." No decree of God is contrary to the
   Gospel--we may always be sure of that. Whenever He unveils before us
   His private thoughts, we never find them to be less gracious than His
   published Words. The same love which spoke itself through Prophets and
   Seers dwells in the silent heart of God and abides forever at the
   fullest even when it finds no voice.

   In the verses before us we find words of exceedingly great mercy and
   special tenderness. And we see moving before our adoring eyes the
   eternal Wisdom, the infinite Patience and the immutable Love of the
   great Father. May it please the Lord, in very truth, to restore
   comforts unto His mourners by the subject which shall now engage our
   attention, for under the blessing of the Holy Spirit it is in every way
   calculated to cheer the contrite heart.

   I. The first Truth of God to which I call your attention is that God
   contends with men and that THE DIVINE CONTENTION IS WELL DESERVED on
   their part. He says, "I will not contend forever," in which it is
   implied that He does contend sometimes. Where He has purposes of
   eternal Grace, the Lord, at the opening of His saving work, comes into
   contention with men. Smiting comes before saving. He bends His bow and
   points His arrow against the heart's sin before He pours out His balm
   for the heart's wound. He usually gives the spirit of bondage before He
   sends the spirit of sonship--He thunders by the Law before He waters
   the soul with the soft shower of the Gospel. Nor need we wonder at
   this, for there is so much in man that is altogether opposed to the
   Divine Nature and alien to the object and design of God, that there
   must be a conflict till the opposing principle is overcome and removed.
   The strong man will not go out except by force and neither will the
   Lord enter the soul except as a Conqueror.

   First I would speak of this to the seeking sinner. It may be that there
   are, in this house, anxious persons who were once careless and at ease,
   but now there is a striving within them and a conflict which rages
   terribly. The Lord has a controversy with them. However unhappy it
   makes them, I am right glad that they are feeling the inward strife.
   Anything is better than the horrible calm of the dead sea of spiritual
   indifference! My Friend, your deadly peace is broken; your fatal sleep
   is ended; the magic spell of Satan has lost all its power; you are
   awakened and sadness rules the hour. Your wisest friends are glad of
   this--they welcome your return to feeling even as we rejoice to
   discover signs of life in one who has been snatched from a watery
   grave!

   There is now some hope for you. The Spirit of God has come to you as a
   spirit of bondage and this makes you fear, but fear is often the
   outrider of faith. The Lord's design in contending with you is to
   convince you of your sin. You will never see sin to be exceedingly
   sinful unless the Holy Spirit throws His own light upon it. You love
   sin too much to deal with it impartially--you are so tainted by it in
   your nature that your conscience by no means censures you so much as
   your iniquity deserves. Though some say that conscience is the
   vicegerent of God, there is nothing in the Scriptures to prove that
   statement, neither is it true. Conscience is an imperfect guide and
   monitor--and like all the other faculties, it is weakened and vitiated
   by the Fall so that it is a very prejudiced judge of right and
   wrong--and too often it puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

   Conscience is often blinded by self-love and at all times apt to
   slumber. Until the Holy Spirit quickens your conscience, you will never
   discover the enormity of sin. You may know it to be evil as a matter of
   dogma, but you will not feel it to be evil as a matter of experience,
   nor will you see how greatly, how continually, how wickedly you have
   offended the Law of God unless the Lord opens your eyes. This He
   intends to do and He will not cease to strive with you till His purpose
   is performed! My dear Friend, the Lord will probably keep up the
   controversy in your soul until your beauty consumes away and, instead
   of admiring yourself, you come to loathe yourself! Though you wash
   yourself with snowwater and make yourself ever so clean, yet will He
   plunge you in the ditch till your own clothes shall abhor you. You
   shall see your righteousness to be filthy rags and your person to be
   under the curse--and then part of the Lord's design will be
   accomplished!

   The next reason for the Lord's contending with you will begin to
   operate when the first purpose has been accomplished. You will, in your
   self-abasement, be driven to look to the Grace of God. It is hard to
   part a man from his sin. It is still harder to divorce Him from his
   self-righteousness and this is a part of the Lord's contention with
   awakened souls--He determines to rid them of all self-confidence
   because it is false confidence--and they, on their part, appear to be
   resolved to hold to self as long as there is a rag or a thread left.
   That our salvation is entirely of the Grace of God is a lesson which we
   are slow to learn and yet we must learn it or perish.

   Dear anxious one, if ever you are saved it must be by an act of
   undeserved favor on God's part! I do not care who you are, you are
   guilty and if you escape execution, a free pardon will have to be given
   to you by the Great King for reasons found in Him alone, for there is
   nothing in you which can constitute a claim for mercy. You may never
   have fallen into adultery or murder, nor even have committed theft or
   false witness, but the same Grace is needed to save you as to save an
   adulteress or a murderer! You have no merit to plead, nor any claim
   upon God--such claims as you had as a creature you have forfeited and
   you have done nothing to create any other. You have committed treason
   against God and you are already condemned by His unquestionable
   justice. If you shall ever be saved, it must be by a high act of the
   Lord of Mercy, passed in His infinite Sovereignty, not because of
   anything in you deserves it, but because He will have mercy on whom He
   will have mercy and He will have compassion on whom He will have
   compassion.

   So stands the matter and this controversy between you and your God is
   meant to bring this fact before you and push the question to an issue
   with you. When the Lord contends with a Mansoul and the Law of the Lord
   enters his spirit, it hides pride from him and lays his glory in the
   dust. In fact, the truly awakened man cannot find a place low enough to
   lie in, nor words black enough in which to describe himself! He is
   driven to a deep spiritual despair of self and to a horror of soul at
   his presumption in having dared to offend against the God of
   Heaven--and a still deeper horror that he should have transgressed
   against the Christ of Love and should have rejected Him year after
   year! May God bring you down to this prostrate condition if He has not
   done so already!

   If the Lord has now begun to trouble you, He will not have done with
   you till He has laid you even with the ground! This will not only make
   you know that you must be saved by Grace alone, but it will cause you
   to value Grace, itself, as more to be desired than much fine gold! A
   soul with whom God has entered into the lists prizes every Word of
   promise and every single look of Grace, for he sees himself to be in an
   evil plight unless Divine Grace shall intervenes. The tears of Jesus
   over sinners are very precious to hearts with whom God is contending.
   But more precious is the blood, the blood of Jesus with which He takes
   away sin. They can speak lightly of Grace who have never had a heavy
   heart on account of their transgression--but give a man to feel the
   burden of sin and the faint hope of Grace will be worth all the king's
   jewels to him!

   O Sirs, sin is a burden such as an angel's shoulders could not bear! It
   crushes a man not only into the dust but into the grave! No, even there
   he cannot find rest! If nothing else were prepared for the impenitent
   in the next world except a sight and sense of their own sin, it would,
   of itself, create a Hell within the human bosom! Stake and rack are
   nothing compared with the torments of remorse! It is God's design to
   make us feel something of this, that we may bless His name if He does
   but look upon us or think upon us in a way of Grace and that we may
   praise and magnify Him with all our hearts forever and ever when He
   freely pardons us for His own sake and accepts us in Christ Jesus. Do
   you wonder that God has a contention with seeking souls when such
   necessary and beneficent designs are answered thereby?

   Moreover, no one can be surprised that the Lord lets forth a measure of
   His wrath upon seeking sinners when we see how they behave, even while
   they are seeking. We have known them red hot one day and icy cold
   another and, albeit that they long for mercy, you will see them, at
   certain seasons, acting as if they despised it! At times they tremble
   at God's Word and then they are hardened against it. I may be speaking
   to some of you who know that during the time of your conviction of sin
   you have tried to stifle your feelings and you have sought to kill the
   messenger within who has so effectually awakened you. Many of you have
   run after carnal amusements and evil pleasures in order to drown
   conscience and escape from rebuke. Others of you have run to this, that
   and the other pretended way of salvation instead of running to Christ,
   alone, for His free Grace. All this provokes the Most High and,
   therefore, it cannot be amazing that the Lord should have a contention
   with you.

   But now I turn to the people of God. Sometimes, my Brothers and
   Sisters, our Lord has a contention with us. And then He covers the
   daughter of Zion with a cloud in the day of His anger and He burns
   against Jacob like a flaming fire which devours round about! This is
   not at all amazing when we consider how unworthy we often live towards
   His sacred name. Indeed, "it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not
   consumed." His contention with us will show itself, occasionally, in
   adverse Providences. He will aim a deadly shaft at the beloved objects
   of our heart--perhaps not once, alone, does the arrow fly, but He seems
   to empty out His quiver and finds no other targets but the breasts of
   those who are our other selves. With one Believer the Lord contends by
   a sickness in his own person. With another by the pining away of a
   beloved wife or child.

   The contention which the Lord has with His elect frequently displays
   itself in troubles connected with their temporal circumstances. Nothing
   prospers with them. They make a ship to go to Tarshish for gold and it
   is broken by a storm. A worm eats up all their increase. The
   caterpillar devours the garden and the locust, or the blight, or the
   drought, or the exceeding moisture destroys the produce of the field.
   When God has a controversy with His own people He smites again and
   again in this fashion. Nor does He stop at bruises and bleeding wounds.
   Our heavenly Father never spares the rod! No sin of Eli can be alleged
   against Him.

   Even more severe are His blows when it comes to be a controversy
   carried on by His Spirit within the mind. When the light of God's
   Countenance is withdrawn. When conscience is allowed to point out
   inconsistencies, hypocrisies and wanderings of heart. When the promises
   cease to be wells of comfort; when the means of Grace appear to be dry
   and barren. When private prayer becomes rather a task than a pleasure
   and communion with God seems to be little more than looking up to an
   angry Father who only frowns--this is much worse than any Providential
   chastisement! When God smites a man in the heart, the blow is a
   staggering one.

   The affliction of the soul is the soul of affliction. God will touch
   His people in their bone and their flesh and in their very hearts. Ah,
   my Brethren, if you remember your laxity in life, your dullness in
   prayer, your forgetfulness of God's Word, your hardness of heart at
   times towards poor sinners, your indifference to the Lord's cause, the
   lack of life, the need of love, the absence of power, the need of
   holiness, the need of the mind of Christ within, the lack of delight in
   the Divine will--you will perceive that there is quite enough in us to
   lead the Lord to have a controversy with us! Has He not said that He
   will walk contrary to us if we walk contrary to Him? Is it not His
   special Word to us, "You only have I known of all the people of the
   earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquity"?

   Chastisement must come to the beloved child of a wise father. The
   servant may escape. The bastard may know no touch of the rod. But the
   true-born and well-beloved child of God must smart if he sins, not
   because his Father dislikes him, but because He loves him! The dearer
   we are to the heart of God the more jealous He is and the more does He
   resent any wandering of our heart from Him. His love is strong as
   death, blessed be His name! But as a natural consequence His jealousy
   is cruel as the grave! He will not endure impurity of heart in the
   beloved object of His eternal choice.

   I have, however, said enough upon this topic, if we are now ready to
   confess that the Divine contention with us is well deserved.

   II. We now advance to the next Truth of God, namely, that THIS DIVINE
   CONTENTION WILL COME TO AN

   END WITH THE CONTRITE. We know that it will be so, for the Words are
   very clear--"For I will not contend

   forever, neither will I be always angry." Oh, hear this, you humble and
   contrite ones with whom God has been contending! Here is a word of
   gracious, absolute, unconditional promise for you! May the Holy Spirit
   enable you to draw consolation from it!

   The question arises--when may we expect that this promise will be
   fulfilled? Kindly notice the verse which precedes the text, for that
   assures us that God has no controversy with the humble and the
   contrite. This is self-evident, for He declares that with such He will
   dwell and the God of Grace will not dwell in a house that is full of
   contention! He contends where He does not abide, but where He abides
   there is peace. When a man is humble and contrite, then God's
   contention with him has come to an end. Omnipotence will not lift its
   hand to overthrow one who yields himself up. Greatness does not strike
   a fallen foe who craves forgiveness. Majesty will not wreak vengeance
   upon suppliant misery. Crouch in the dust and Jehovah's wrath, which
   like His thunderbolt smites lofty things, will pass you by!

   Surrender unconditionally, be you saint or sinner! Throw down the
   weapons of rebellion, doff the plumes of pride and sue out a pardon on
   your bended knee. Cry out, "Lord, I am undone, for I have done ill! I
   am cast away, for I have cast Your fear away! I must die, for I have
   slain myself! But God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Majesty is ever
   pitiful to misery. Nor is it majesty, alone, that you may look to with
   hope, but Mercy, also, is your friend. Mercy is very speedy where
   confession is complete. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
   just to forgive us our sins." Be humbled, for to such God gives Grace.
   The river of His goodness flows along the low valleys. Talk no more of
   your good works. Boast no longer of your Christian experience, your
   bright profession, your precise religiousness--but fall at Jesus' feet
   and lie down.

   Tears for your eyes are more becoming than rings for your ears!
   Sackcloth suits your case rather than fine attire. Be humble because
   you are a nobody! Be contrite because you are a sinner. It is wonderful
   how the pity of God has, in some cases, been excited even by a
   temporary repentance. When wicked Ahab rent his clothes and put
   sackcloth upon himself, the Lord took note of it and said, "Do you see
   how Ahab humbled himself before Me? Because he humbled himself before
   Me I will not bring the evil in his days." When the Ninevites repented,
   though probably there was very little spiritual about their humbling,
   yet it was sincere as far as it went and the Lord turned from His
   fierce anger and there was a reprieve for the wicked city! This plainly
   shows that the Lord is speedily moved by true humiliation--and if any
   soul will but lie before Him in self-abasement and lowliness--He will
   no longer contend, but will put away His anger.

   Besides, His truth is compromised in this matter for He has given a
   promise of Grace which runs thus, "Humble yourselves in the sight of
   the Lord and He shall lift you up" (James 4:10). He cannot spurn those
   who submit themselves before Him, for it is written, "Though the Lord
   is high, yet has He respect unto the lowly." He is full of Grace and
   that Grace is for the poor and needy. Condescension to the lowly is His
   Glory, as the blessed Virgin sang of old, and as many fainting ones may
   sing at this moment if they will--"He has put down the mighty from
   their seats and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry
   with good things and the rich He has sent away empty."

   The Lord delights in mercy and His mercy delights to come to those who
   are most abased in their own esteem and judge themselves to be least
   worthy of it. We are quite sure that the Divine contention will come to
   an end with the humble and contrite because, as we have said, the
   promise is, "I dwell in the high and holy place with him, also, that is
   of a contrite and humble spirit." Do not say, dear cast down one, "God
   will never look at me. I have no hope, no strength, no merit." This
   self-abasement prepares you for Him! By this is your house swept and
   emptied for God to dwell in! He has two houses--one is above, in Glory,
   and that high house above is none too high for Him.

   His other dwelling is below in all His condescension and the lowliest
   heart is none too lowly for Him. He comes not to wholehearted men who
   bear their heads aloft and scarcely acknowledge their need of His
   favor--He comes not to those who trust in themselves and think but
   little of His Grace--

   "He bids His a wful chariot roll Far downward from the skies, To visit
   every humble soul That low before Him lies."

   Lowly roofs attract Deity. He comes to those who are broken in heart
   and when He comes, the contention is over. And what else does the Lord
   promise to do? He says He will dwell with the humble and He adds that
   He will revive them. You are fainting now, poor Soul. You are very
   feeble. You are as one that is slain--the Lord will come and revive
   you--that is, give you new life. He will give you life enough to hope
   in His mercy; life enough to believe in Jesus Christ, His dear Son;
   life enough to see your transgression covered forever, never to be laid
   to your charge. He will not contend forever, for, on the contrary, He
   will revive the spirit of the humble.

   Perhaps He means, by adding a second, "revive," to make us a promise of
   comfort, "to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Weeping one, He
   will wipe away those tears! Despairing sinner or desponding saint, if
   you will lie low at His feet, He will stoop to you and cheer your
   heart! So anxious is He to cheer His mourners that the third Person of
   the blessed Trinity has undertaken this special work! The Holy Spirit,
   the Comforter, loves to come where there is comforting work to do! Look
   up, now, from your beds, you soul-sick ones, for the Great Physician
   comes to heal you! He ends the inner conflict of your nature by
   becoming, Himself, your peace! Look up now, you that sit in darkness,
   in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, bound with affliction and iron,
   for the time of your deliverance has come!

   I know your plight, for I have been in it myself, and while I am
   speaking to you I am remembering the time when my chains clanked as I
   walked and when, as I lay down to sleep, they entered into my soul so
   that the visions of the night alarmed me! Job's cry was mine--"I was at
   ease, but He has broken me asunder! He has also taken me by my neck and
   shaken me to pieces and set me up for His mark." Thus was it with me
   once, but it was not so forever, for in tender pity my Lord laid down
   the sword and spoke comfortable words to me. Just when I had come to
   the worst and I thought no hope would ever visit me, I was made to
   realize the blessed Truth of the text, "I will not contend forever,
   neither will I be always angry," and of that other promise, "With this
   man will I dwell, even with him that is poor and of a contrite spirit
   and that trembles at My Word."

   Encouraged by my own experience of great love, I feel bound to comfort
   others! Penitent hearts, He will revive you! He will give you comfort
   again! Your mourning He will turn to dancing and your sackcloth into
   beautiful array! Do not, I pray you, sorrow as those that are without
   hope! This is not the den of despair--so long as this life lasts, it is
   the hill of hope! Neither are you a person who has any cause to
   despair, since those whom the Lord chastens, He certainly has not cast
   away. Men do not prune the vine which they mean to root up and cast
   into the fire! This chastening is not unto death. There is a measure to
   your stripes which cannot be passed and there will be a speedy and
   happy end to the scourging!

   The Lord's anger endures but for a night and that night will end in a
   hopeful dawn. When your proud spirit is conquered, the Lord's
   controversy with you is ended!

   III. I would now ask your loving attention to this choice fact, that
   GOD HIMSELF FINDS REASONS FOR ENDING THE CONTENTION. We could not have
   found any, for in ourselves there is much cause for the Lord's anger
   and none for His Grace. A convinced sinner can give no reason why he
   should be saved. It is a part of his conviction that his mouth is
   closed as to self-justification. He can make neither apology nor
   appeal--he feels that he will have to say, "Amen," to his own damnation
   if God drives him away from the Mercy Seat. But the Lord Himself finds
   reasons for His Grace! Two of these He mentions in our text.

   The first is found in human weakness, and its inability to bear the
   Divine contention. "I will not contend forever, neither will I always
   be angry; for the spirits would fail before Me, and the souls which I
   have made." The Lord's chastisement is meant to be corrective, not
   destructive! His intent is curing, not killing and, therefore, He will
   not make His medicine too potent, or His surgery too severe. He presses
   His heavy hand on the sinner until he cries out with David, "Day and
   night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the
   drought of summer." He felt as destitute of life-moisture as if God had
   wrung him out as men do a wet sheet and made him dry as cloth which has
   hung up in the hot sun. All his life and spirits were gone out of him
   and he felt that his bones were dried and fit only for the morgue.

   When things have come so far, the merciful Lord says, "But I do not
   desire to kill him. I do not purpose his destruction, for I hate
   nothing that My hands have made. No, I love with all my heart this
   poor, troubled soul whom it is in My mind to bless." "The Lord does not
   afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." He aims at whipping
   self out of us, but it is not His will to crash the humble under His
   feet. In measure will He debate with us, for He aims at our

   conviction and conversion--not at our condemnation. If He were to go
   forth to fight against us, it would be as when fire enters into battle
   with briars and thorns! He would go through us and burn us all
   together.

   Our weakness shall plead for us, even as it is said in the 78th Psalm,
   at the 38th and 39th verses--"But He, being full of compassion, forgave
   their iniquity and destroyed them not: yes, many a time turned He His
   anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath. For He remembered they
   were but flesh; a wind that passes away, and comes not again." Upon
   certain strong minds God lays a heavy lead of conviction, as, for
   instance, upon John Bunyan, whose five years of inward contention you
   will find mapped out in his, "Grace Abounding." But these cases are not
   the rule and in such instances the Lord means to make a peculiarly
   useful and experienced man. In the formation of a competent leader and
   a spiritual champion, the Lord exercises the man to make him expert in
   dealing with others.

   But He does not do this with poor, weak minds which are rendered still
   weaker by the assaults of Satan and their inward fears. "He gathers the
   lambs in His bosom and does gently lead those that are with young." "I
   will not contend forever," He says, "for the spirits should fail before
   Me, and the souls which I have made." Some men, under a sense of sin,
   have been driven to lay violent hands upon themselves. Others have been
   scarcely able to eat or drink and many have been severely injured in
   their health by the inward corrosion caused by strong conviction. A
   sense of sin fills some souls with gall and wormwood to such a degree
   that they are drunk with it and are as men at their wits end--but God
   stays His rough wind and holds in the rage of His tempest.

   In due time He says to Moses, "Stand back, and let your law-work cease;
   you have been faithful as My servant, now retire and let My Son come
   in, for He is meek and lowly in heart, and those who tremble at My Word
   shall now find rest unto their souls by His knowledge." Yes, this is
   God's reason for being gentle with His people--"For My name's sake will
   I defer My anger, and for My praise will I refrain for you, that I cut
   you not off." Sometimes when He sends them correction after correction,
   chastisement after chastisement, they can scarcely bear up under it.
   But it is never His intention to destroy His own children and,
   therefore, He stays His hand and says that He will not always chide,
   nor keep His anger forever, for, "Like as a father pities his children,
   so the Lord pities them that fear Him; for He knows our frame; He
   remembers that we are dust."

   If any of you are enduring such a variety of troubles that you are
   staggered and feel that you can hold up no longer, then you must appeal
   to the pity of the Lord. If your heart is like a lily when the stalk is
   bruised, drooping on its stem, and your soul is pining like a
   consumptive child and your heart is melted like wax in the midst of
   your bowels, let your weakness appeal to God! Yes, it is appealing even
   now! He says, "I know their sorrows. I have surely seen the affliction
   of My people and I have heard their cry. I have visited their
   transgression with the rod and they are brought very low, but they can
   bear no more, therefore shall the sighing of the prisoner come before
   Me." The Lord marks man, "fragile," as we do boxes of glass which must
   not be roughly handled lest they are broken. In this frailty He finds a
   reason for tenderness--let His name be adored for it!

   His second reason is, to my mind, even more extraordinary. It is given
   in the next verse--"For the iniquity of his covetousness was I angry,
   and smote him: I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the
   way of his heart." This argument is founded on the inoperativeness of
   the Divine contention upon the heart which is to be won. The Lord says,
   "I was angry with him and smote him." Did he repent? No. I hid My face
   from him. Did he humble himself? "He went on backsliding in the way of
   his heart." What is the reason of this wicked petrifying of the heart?
   Here is the key to the cause--

   "Law and terrors do but harden

   All the while they work alone.

   Nothing but a blood-bought pardon

   Can dissolve a heart of stone." Affliction often drives the child of
   God into impatience and, of itself, it has a hardening and not a
   softening influence. Even the convictions worked in us by the Spirit of
   God are often perverted into causes of unbelief and Satan comes in and
   drives the soul to unworthy thoughts of God. Such is our evil heart
   that it even curdles self-loathing and hatred of sin into a reluctance
   to go to God and into a persuasion of the impossibility of mercy! I
   have known humiliation and self-despair, which are so much to be
   desired, lead to unbelief which is the saddest of all crimes.
   "Therefore," says the Lord, "I will not contend any longer; for My
   anger seems to excite rebellion rather than to subdue

   it."

   See a wise father when he has a proud and obstinate boy who has become
   estranged. He puts him under strict rule and discipline and he chides
   and chastens him. But if the child evidently grows more stubborn; if he
   is manifestly of such a spirit that the more you drive him, the more he
   will not be driven, his father says within himself, "I will try other
   methods with him and see what gentleness will do." Such is the mind of
   God who says--"For the iniquity of his covetousness was I angry and
   smote him: I hid and was angry and he went on backsliding in the way of
   his heart. I have seen his ways and will heal him: I will also lead
   him, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners."

   If wrath will not humble us, the Lord may yet, in His Grace, try what
   love can do. He will love us to a better mind, till our heart sings--

   "And do You still invite my love, And court me to be blessed? Will You
   my friend and patron prove, My refuge and my rest? Convinced, ashamed,
   amazed, I now Obey Your gracious call. To love's command I freely bow,
   And offer You my all."

   IV. This brings us to the fourth and last point which is this--God
   Himself, having found a reason why He should cease from contention, no,
   two reasons, the one in our weakness and the second in the failure of
   His own chastisement by reason of the flesh--HE INVENTS AND PROPOSES
   ANOTHER METHOD FOR ENDING HIS CONTENTIONS and making us right with
   Himself. Here it is and we note, in the first place, that it is an
   astonishing method--"I have seen his ways, and will heal him." Hear
   this, O you heavens, and be astonished, O earth! God's mercy is not
   blind mercy! He is merciful in spite of His clear vision of our sins!
   "I have seen his ways, and yet I will heal him." If God had not seen
   man's sin, His passing by it would be easy to understand. What the eye
   does not see, the heart does not regret.

   But it is wonderful that it should be written, "I have seen his ways,
   and will heal him." The Lord seems to say, "I see him become more
   obstinate the more I smite him. I see him provoking Me over and over
   again though I chide with him. I see not only his ways, but I see
   through his ways the rebellious heart which dwells within. I see that
   he is worthless, undeserving, ill-deserving and Hell-deserving! I see
   that his mind is set on mischief, that he is altogether estranged from
   Me, even from his birth, and that his whole nature is tainted with
   rebellion." Yet the Lord adds that astonishing word of Grace, "I have
   seen his ways, and will heal him." O Soul, God sees what you are! He
   knows your secret wickedness and you have not half such an idea of your
   own sin and perverseness as He has! And yet, over the head of it all
   leaps the eternal, boundless mercy, "I have seen his ways, and will
   heal him."

   Note that it is an effectual method. "I have seen his ways, and will
   heal him"--not, "I will smite him again," but, "I will treat his sin as
   if it were a disease." That is a very wise thing to do with persons who
   grievously offend you. When a man's action is very provoking, I like to
   hear people say, "Surely he must be a little wrong in the head. Poor
   man, he must be out of order or he would not act so." Put the best
   construction you can upon an offense and treat it as if it arose out of
   disease. It is true that sin is much more than a disease and God might
   treat us altogether and only from its criminal side, but still it is a
   disease and, therefore, He resolves to treat it as such.

   Our great Lord in effect cries, "Oh, this wicked creature of Mine will
   not acknowledge its Creator! This sinful child of Mine will persist in
   rebelling against My love! Surely something ill's him. I will not
   chasten him again, but I will treat him as a sick man and I will heal
   him. I will change his nature. I will take away the heart of stone out
   of his flesh. I will give him a heart of flesh. I will take those dry
   eyes and fill them with tears. I will take that dumb tongue and inspire
   it with prayer. I will take that careless heart and melt it with holy
   penitence. I have seen his ways and will heal him." It is an
   astonishing way! It is an effectual way!

   Notice further that it is a tender way--"I will also lead him." Observe
   that word. The sinner will have his own way and the Lord has been
   driving him into another, but he will not go. Now the Lord will come to
   him in gentleness and lead him. He will say, "Come now, let us reason
   together." He will appeal to him, and say, "Do not contend with Me any
   longer. I can strike hard and I could, if I would, strike you into
   Hell! Do not fight with Me. Let us make peace." "As I live," says the
   Lord, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, but that he
   should turn unto Me and live." Come unto the Lord, you poor
   broken-hearted one! He has only strived with you to wean you from your
   sin and make it

   possible for Him to save you! Stand not up in your puny insignificance
   to contend against your God! Do not brazen it out with Him--the mere
   strap of His belt will break you--as for His sword, if He uses it upon
   you, you are utterly slain!

   Come, for He will put your sin away. He will cease from His fierce
   anger and reveal His love. He proclaims pardon. Free Grace and dying
   love are the charming bells which ring you into the banquet of Grace.
   The Lord leads the contrite soul step by step--there is no driving--but
   like as a shepherd goes before his sheep, so the Lord Jesus goes before
   broken, humble and contrite spirits--and they know His voice and follow
   Him.

   Observe, also, how complete is this method. As if all that went before
   were not enough, it is added, "I will restore comforts to him and to
   his mourners." How tender this is! He will take away the sorrow as well
   as the sin, the killing grief as well as the killing disease! He will
   give us the true balm of Gilead and will pour such wine and oil into
   our gaping wounds that all shall be healed and the bones which He had
   broken shall rejoice! I do not know whether I have succeeded in
   striking you all with an impression of my Master's great love, but it
   is very much upon my soul at this time. It amazes me that though He has
   been contending with us, after all it is no contention of His heart,
   but only of His hands!

   When we have resisted and kept up the contention, He says, "I have
   struck you and you revolt more and more. Why should you be struck any
   more? Your whole head is sick and your whole heart faint with My
   striking you. I will chasten you no more, but change My method. I have
   brought you down almost to death's door by affliction and yet you still
   kick and struggle, as if the last breath in you should be spent in
   fighting against Me. I will conquer you, but if it cannot be
   accomplished by fear, it shall be achieved by love. If you will not
   yield to My thunder, you shall yield to My sunshine! If you will not
   bow before My Throne, you shall fall before My Cross. I will die for
   you and so I will win you. I will let My own heart be broken for you,
   that at last you shall look at Me and your heart shall be broken. I
   will love you. I will love you into life. I will love you up from the
   very gates of Hell. I will love you till you love Me."

   O irresistible Love! Who can stand against You? O Lord, this morning
   Your people, if they have rebelled, come weeping back to You to ask
   You, again, to give the kiss of reconciliation! We yield! We yield,
   submitting ourselves without reserve to You! Many a poor sinner who has
   given up the hope of being saved under the crushing blows of conviction
   and chastisement, should now cry, "I can hold out no longer--

   "Lord, what hard heart can still withstand,

   And still rebellious prove?

   Refuse to bow to Your command,

   Or to accept Your love?

   O'ercome by glorious Grace,

   I now my former war give over.

   To Your command I gladly bow,

   And would contend no more."

   Oh, come, you wanderers, and rest in Jesus! Come, you most lost, most
   ruined, most hopeless and find Heaven begun in Christ! Oh, you that sit
   on the edge of Hell, who have made a Covenant with Death and a league
   with Satan, whose death warrant seems to be signed and put into your
   hands so that you read it by the flames of Hell, whose fury you
   anticipate--come to Jesus and that handwriting of death shall be
   blotted out! The impending judgment seems even now to scorch your
   souls--come and find deliverance from it, for God Himself invites you!
   Tarry no longer! May Jesus sweetly lead you to Himself. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Remember Lot's Wife

   (No. 1491)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 24, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "RememberLot's wife." Luke 17:32.

   IT was the purpose of God always to maintain a testimony for truth and
   righteousness in the midst of this ungodly world. For this end of old
   He set apart for Himself a chosen family with whom He had fellowship.
   Abraham was the man whom God chose, that in him and in his household
   the witness might be preserved. This chosen family was called out and
   separated from its ancestors and led to dwell apart as wayfaring men in
   the land of Canaan. They were not to go into the cities and mingle with
   other races, but to dwell in tents, as a separate tribe, lest their
   character should become polluted and their testimony should be
   silenced. It was the Lord's intent that the people should dwell alone
   and not be numbered among the nations.

   Abraham, being called, obeyed and went forth, not knowing where he
   went. His separated life gave great exercise to his faith and so
   strengthened it that it became a calm, unstaggering assurance and this
   enabled him to enjoy a quiet, sublime and happy career, dependent only
   upon God and altogether above as well as apart from man. With him was
   his nephew, Lot, who also left Haran at the Divine call and shared with
   the Patriarch his wanderings in Canaan and in Egypt. He was not a man
   of so noble a soul, but was greatly influenced by the stronger mind of
   his Uncle Abraham. He was sincere, no doubt, and is justly called
   righteous Lot, but he was more fit to be a follower than a leader. He
   also sojourned in tents and led the separated life until it became
   necessary for him to become an independent chieftain because the flocks
   and herds of the two families had so greatly multiplied that they could
   not well be kept together.

   Then came out the weak side of Lot's character. He did not give Abraham
   the choice in selecting a sheep walk, but like all weak natures, he
   selfishly consulted his own advantage and determined to go in the
   direction of the cities of the plain of Jordan where well-watered
   pastures abounded. This led to his dwelling near the cities of the
   plain, where crime had reached its utmost point of horrible
   degradation. We read that "he pitched his tent toward Sodom." He found
   it convenient to be near a settled people and to enter into friendly
   relations with them, though he must have known what the men of Sodom
   were, for the cry of them had gone forth far and wide. Thus he began to
   leave the separated path.

   After a while he went further, for one step leads to another. He was a
   lover of ease and, therefore, he gave up the tent life, with its many
   inconveniences, and went to live with the townsmen of Sodom--a thing to
   be wondered at as well as deplored. He did not cease to be a good man,
   but he did cease to be a faithful witness for his God. Abraham seems to
   have given him up altogether from that day, for we find that noble
   Patriarch enquiring of the Lord concerning his heir, saying, "Lord God,
   what will You give me, seeing I go childless and the steward of my
   house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" And the Lord said, "This shall not
   be your heir." Now, this enquiry would have been needless had Lot been
   still reckoned to belong to the chosen seed, for naturally Lot was the
   heir of Abraham--but he forfeited that position and gave up his portion
   in the inheritance of the elect house by quitting the separated life.

   Lot, although he dwelt in Sodom, was not happy there. Neither did he
   become so corrupt as to take pleasure in the wickedness of the people.
   Peter says that God delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy
   conversation of the wicked. He tried to bear his protest in the place,
   but signally failed, as all must do who imitate him. His witness for
   purity would have been far more powerful if he had kept apart from
   them, for this is the protest which God demands of us when He says,
   "Come you out from among them, be you separate." In the midst of the
   world, which lies in the Wicked One, Lot lived on--not without greatly
   degenerating in spirit--until the kings came and carried him away
   captive. Then by the intervention of Abraham he was delivered from the
   captivity which threatened him and brought back again.

   This was a solemn warning and you would have thought that Lot would
   have said, "I will go back to Abraham's way of living. I will again
   become a sojourner with God. Sodom's walls without God are far less
   safe than a frail tent when

   God is a wall of fire around it." His vexation with the conversation of
   the lewd townsmen ought to have made him long for the sweet air of the
   wild country, but it was not so. He again settles down in Sodom and
   forgets the holy congregation which clustered around the tent of
   Abraham. Being, still, a man of God, he could not be allowed to die in
   such society--it was not to be endured that "just Lot" should lay his
   bones in the graveyard of filthy Sodom.

   If God would save a man, He must fetch him out from the world--no man
   can remain part and parcel of an ungodly world and yet be God's elect
   one, for this is the Lord's own words to the enemy at the gates of
   Eden--"I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed
   and her seed." Did He not also say to Pharaoh, "I will put a division
   between My people and your people?" The Lord will sooner burn all Sodom
   down than Lot shall continue to be associated with its crimes and
   dragged down by its evil spirit. And so it came to pass that Lot was
   forced out--he was placed in such a strait that he must either run for
   his life or perish in the general burning.

   Happy had it been for him if he had lived all the while in the holy
   seclusion of Abraham. He would not, then, have lost the inheritance for
   his seed, nor have passed away under a dark, defiling cloud, nor have
   missed his place among the heroes of faith of whom Paul writes in the
   famous chapter of Hebrews--"These all died in faith, not having
   received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were
   persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were
   strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

   Here I must pause, or you will think that I have misread my text and
   that I am preaching from the words-- "Remember Lot"--and, indeed, I
   might profitably do so, for there is much of warning in the history of
   Lot himself. If Christian men are so unwise as to conform themselves to
   the world, even if they keep up the Christian character in a measure,
   they will gain nothing by worldly association but being vexed with the
   conversation of the ungodly--and they will be great losers in their own
   souls--their character will be tarnished, their whole tone of feeling
   will be lowered and they themselves will be wretchedly weak and
   unhappy. Conformity to the world is sure to end badly sooner or
   later--to the man himself it is injurious and to his family ruinous.

   But the text says, "Remember Lot's wife" and, therefore, I must let the
   husband go and call your attention to her, who, in this case, is "his
   worse half." When the time for separation arrived, Lot's wife could not
   tear herself away from the world. She had always been in it and had
   loved it and delighted in it. Though associated with a gracious man,
   when the time came for decision, she betrayed her true character!
   Flight without so much as looking back was demanded of her, but this
   was too much--she did look back and thus proved that she had sufficient
   presumption in her heart to defy God's command and risk her all--to
   give a lingering love-glance at the condemned and guilty world. By that
   glance she perished.

   That is the subject of our discourse. The love of the world is death.
   Those who cling to sin must perish, whoever they may be. Do not omit to
   notice the connection of the text, for there our Lord bids us hold the
   world with a loose hand and always be ready to leave it all. When we
   are called to it, we are to be ready to go forth without a particle in
   our hands. "In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his
   stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that
   is in the field, let him, likewise not return back." They were not to
   hold life, itself, dear, but to be ready to lay it down for His sake,
   for He said, "Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and
   whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it."

   To be divided from the world--its possessions, its maxims, its
   motives--is the mark of a disciple of Christ and, in order to keep up
   the feeling of separateness among His followers, our Lord bade them,
   "Remember Lot's wife." She is to be a caution to us all, for God will
   deal with us as with her if we sin as she did. "The thing which has
   been is the thing which shall be." If our hearts are glued to the
   world, we shall perish with the world! If our desires and delights look
   to the world and if we find our comfort in it, we shall have to see our
   all consumed and shall be ourselves consumed with it in the day of the
   Lord's anger. Separation is the only way of escape--we must flee from
   the world or perish with it!

   "Depart you, depart you, go you out from there, touch no unclean thing;
   go you out of the midst of her; be you clean, that bear the vessels of
   the Lord."

   I. "Remember Lot's wife." And our first point shall be--REMEMBER THAT
   SHE WAS LOT'S WIFE. She was the wife of a man who, with all his faults,
   was a righteous man. She was united to him in the closest possible
   bonds and yet she perished! She had dwelt in tents with holy Abraham
   and seemed to be a sharer in all the privileges of the separated

   people--and yet she perished! She was dear to one who had been dear to
   the father of the faithful and yet, for all that, she perished in her
   sin!

   This note of warning we would strike very loudly, for, commonplace as
   the truth is, it needs often to be repeated that ties of blood are no
   guarantees of Divine Grace. You may be the wife of the saintliest man
   of God and yet be a daughter of Belial. Or you may be the husband of
   one of the King's daughters and yet be, yourself, a castaway! You may
   be the child of a prophet and yet the curse of the prophet's God may
   light upon you! Or you may be the father of a most gracious family and
   yet still be an alien to the commonwealth of Israel. No earthly
   relationship can possibly help us if we are personally destitute of the
   spiritual life.

   Our first birth does not avail us in the kingdom of God, for that which
   is born of the flesh is, at its very best, flesh, and is prone to sin
   and will certainly perish. We must be born again, for only the new
   birth, which is of the Spirit and from above, will bring us into
   Covenant bonds. O you children of godly parents, I beseech you look to
   yourselves that you be not driven down to Hell from your mother's side!
   O you relatives of those who are the favorites of Heaven, I beseech you
   look to yourselves that you die not within sight of Heaven in spite of
   all your advantages! In this matter, remember Lot's wife.

   Being Lot's wife, remember that she had, since her marriage, shared
   with Lot in his journeys and adventures and trials. We cannot tell
   exactly when she became Lot's wife, but we are inclined to the belief
   that it was after he had left Haran, for when Abraham left Haran we
   read that he took "Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son," but we
   do not read of Lot's wife. The name of Abraham's wife is given, but of
   Lot's wife there is no mentioning whatever. Again, we read, "Abram went
   up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him,
   into the south." "And Lot, also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and
   herds, and tents." But nothing is said about his having a wife.

   She must have been a person of very small consideration, for even when
   it is certain that Lot was married, when he was taken captive and
   afterwards rescued by Abraham, all we find is this--"And Abraham
   brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and
   his goods, and the women also, and the people." We suppose that Lot's
   wife is included under the word, "the women." Now the Holy Spirit never
   puts a slight upon good women--in connection with their husbands they
   are generally mentioned with honor--and in this book of Genesis it is
   specially so.

   Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel have each an honorable memorial and as no
   mention is made of Lot's wife we may infer that she was not worthy to
   be mentioned. She could hardly have been an inhabitant of Sodom, as the
   Jewish traditions asserts, unless she was a widow, as they say, and the
   daughters mentioned were hers by a previous marriage. For at the
   destruction of Sodom, Lot had marriageable daughters and it would not
   seem that Lot had then been separated from Abraham for many years.
   True, the women of Sodom may have been given in marriage at an earlier
   age than was usual with the Abrahamic stock and, if so, Lot's wife may
   have been a native of Sodom, for it is possible that he dwelt there for
   20 years.

   More probably, however, either in Canaan or in Egypt, Lot married a
   Canaanite or an Egyptian woman--a person utterly unworthy to be taken
   into the holy household and, therefore, the marriage is not recorded.
   It was the custom of that elect and separated family, as you know, to
   send back to Padanaram to fetch from there some daughter of the same
   house, that the pure stock might be preserved and that there might be
   no connection with the heathen. It was Abraham's desire for Isaac and
   he charged his steward to carry it out, saying, "And I will make you
   swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven, and the God of the whole earth,
   that you shall not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the
   Canaanites, among whom I dwell: but you shall go unto my country, and
   to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac."

   This also was Isaac's desire for Jacob, for we read, "And Isaac called
   Jacob, and blessed him, and charged him, and said unto him, You shall
   not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padanaram, to
   the house of Bethuel your mother's father; and take you a wife from
   there of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother." It seems to me
   that Lot had married a heathen woman and so her name is omitted.
   Whether it is so or not, it is certain that she had shared with Lot in
   the capture of the city of Sodom--she had seen the ruthless sword slay
   the inhabitants and she, herself, with her husband, had been among the
   captives--and she had been delivered by the good sword of Abraham. So
   you see that she had been a partaker of her husband's trials and
   deliverance and yet she was lost.

   It will be a sad, sad thing if there should come an eternal severance
   between those united by marriage bonds--that we should live together,
   work together, suffer together and should be delivered, by the
   Providence of God, many a time

   together--and should see our children grow up together and yet should
   be torn asunder at the last, never to meet again! This is a prospect
   which we dare not think upon. Tremble, you whose love is not in Christ,
   for your union will have an end! What says the Savior? "I tell you, in
   that night there shall be two in one bed; the one shall be taken, and
   the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one
   shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the
   one shall be taken, and the other left." It matters not how close the
   association, the unbeliever must be divided from the living child of
   God! If you cling to the world and cast your eyes back upon it, you
   must perish in your sin, notwithstanding that you have eaten and drunk
   with the people of God and have been as near to them in relationship as
   wife to husband, or child to parent. This makes the remembrance of
   Lot's wife a very solemn thing to those who are allied by ties of
   kindred to the people of God.

   Lot's wife had also shared her husband's privileges. Her husband had
   not forgotten his association with Abraham and he could not have failed
   to communicate this knowledge to her. The one God was worshipped and
   Lot's wife was present. She knew of the gracious Covenant which God had
   made with His separated people and she knew that her husband was one of
   the families. She had apparently cast in her lot with the chosen people
   of God though her heart was not in it but she, nevertheless, joined
   their sacred songs and their holy prayers. She saw the daily provision
   which God made for His people and the joy which Abraham had in abiding
   under the shadow of the Almighty. Even in Sodom her husband kept up
   such separateness as he could in such an evil place and she saw the
   goodness of the man with all his mistakes.

   When Sodom must be destroyed, the angels came to their house and she,
   herself, helped to entertain them. She received the merciful warning to
   escape as well as her husband and she was urged as much as he to flee
   from the wrath so near at hand. Thus is it with many of you who are
   enjoying all sorts of Christian privileges and are yet unsaved! You
   come to the Lord's Table and eat and drink of the memorials of His body
   and blood--and yet you remain unsaved. You seem to be part and parcel
   of the Church of God and if there is any privilege or advantage, a
   share of it is set before you. If there is any fellowship you are not
   excluded--if there is any joy it is not denied you. You will have to
   say at last, "Lord, Lord, we have eaten and drunk in Your Presence and
   You have taught in our streets," and, oh, how wretched it will be to
   hear Him say, "I never knew you! Depart from Me, you workers of
   iniquity." It must be so if your souls are clinging to sin and you are
   casting a yearning eye to the ungodly world! It must be so and if you
   need proof, "remember Lot's wife."

   Lot's wife had shared in her husband's errors. It was a great mistake
   on his part to abandon the outwardly separated life, but she had stayed
   with him in it and, perhaps, was the cause of his so doing. I suppose
   he thought he could live above the world spiritually and yet mingle
   with its votaries, even as some now do who enter into worldly company
   and yet hope to walk with God in spirit. He said to himself, "It is
   very uncomfortable to wander alone in this deserted wilderness and to
   dwell in these temporary tents. I wish I had a more abiding dwelling
   and could mingle on peaceable terms with those around me." He ceased to
   look for the city which has foundations whose Builder and Maker is God
   and he wanted to take up citizenship in the world. I should not wonder
   if Lot's wife influenced him in that way. He was a man of weak mind and
   while his uncle had him under his wing, he was right enough, except
   that even then he had what a writer calls, "a lean-to religion"--he did
   not stand alone, but leaned upon Abraham.

   When he was married it is probable that his wife assumed the ruling
   place and guided the way of his life. She began to think that it was a
   pity that the family should live in such separation, so unfashionable,
   so rigid, so peculiar and all that. She tossed her head and cried,
   "Really, people must mix with society and not keep up old-fashioned,
   strait-laced ways! You might as well be dead as be shut out from life."
   When her husband had an opportunity of getting out of that rigid style
   by leaving his uncle, she said she would like to go down Sodom way
   because it would be nice for the girls and give them a taste of
   something liberal and refined. The old style was all very well for such
   an antiquated couple as Abraham and Sarah, but Lot and herself belonged
   to a younger generation and were bound to get into a little society and
   find eligible matches for their young people. It would be well for them
   to dress better than they could learn to do if they always kept roaming
   about like gypsies.

   You see, Abraham's people did not study the fashions at all and were a
   very vulgar sort of shepherds who had no ideas of refinement and
   politeness. And it was pity that people in Lot's station in life should
   always associate with mere sheep-shearers, drovers and the like. If
   they got to Sodom there would be nice parties, dances and all sorts of
   things! Of

   course the people were a little loose and rather fast--they went to
   plays where modesty was shocked and gathered in admiration around
   performers whose lives were openly wanton--but then you see one must be
   fashionable and wink at a good deal! We cannot expect all people to be
   saints and, no doubt, they have their good points. By some such talk
   Mistress Lot gained her husband over to her way of thinking.

   They did not mean to actually go into the worst society of Sodom, but
   they intended to make a careful selection and go only a little way.
   Surely they could be trusted to know where to stop. So they pitched the
   tent towards Sodom where it was within an easy walk of the town--a
   little separated, but not far. If anything did happen that was very bad
   they could move away and no harm would be done--but until they saw the
   harm of it they liked the neighborhood and the ways of the townsfolk.
   It was no doubt wise, they said, to go and see Sodom and know the
   people, for it would be ridiculous to condemn what they had not seen!
   They would therefore try it and give the young people some idea of what
   the world was like.

   Very sweet the city life became. The free and easy ways of Sodom came
   to be enjoyable. Not the gross part of Sodom life--Lot could not bear
   that--and it made Mistress a bit uncomfortable at times, but the
   liberal spirit, the fine free bearing of the people, their gaiety and
   artistic culture were quite to her mind and so she was right glad when
   her husband put away the old tent, had a sale of the sheep and lived as
   a retired grazier in the west end of the city. I think I am not
   mistaken in the conjecture that Mistress Lot's influence brought her
   husband there and when there, introduced him to the best families and
   found suitors for the daughters who had been fully imbued with the
   liberal ideas of the place. At any rate, whatever were Lot's faults,
   she was a partaker in them. She was with him in the choosing the plain
   of Jordan; with him in the pitching of the tent towards Sodom; with him
   in actually settling in Sodom and I could almost hope with him in
   bearing as good a protest as they could against the vilest of Sodom's
   sins--but certainly with him in giving up the strictness and severity
   of the separated life.

   Yet at last she was separated from him forever! For his errors,
   notwithstanding their grievous mischief to him, did not utterly destroy
   the life of God in his soul. As for her, she never had any spiritual
   life and now, when she is called to leave Sodom, she shows her love to
   it by a distinct disobedience to God and an open turning to the doomed
   city. And so she perishes. Oh, you that are Christian people because
   your friends are Christian people! You that associate with us because
   it happens to be the way in which you were brought up! The time will
   come when the secret attachment of your hearts towards a giddy world
   will show itself most clearly and in a fatal moment you will give a
   look of love towards sin which will prove you do not belong to the
   people of God! Then will it happen to you according to the word of the
   Apostle, "It had been better for them not to have known the way of
   righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy
   commandment delivered unto them."

   II. And now, secondly, "Remember Lot's wife" and remember that SHE WENT
   SOME WAY TOWARDS BEING SAVED. Mistress Lot so far believed the message
   that came to her about the destruction of the city that she was
   awakened. She rose early as her husband did and she prepared to leave
   the house. She ran down the streets; she passed the city gate; she
   reached the open plain along with her husband. She was willing, for a
   while, to run with him, following his example. She did so for a
   considerable distance till she began to think over what she was doing
   and to consider what she was leaving. And then she slackened her pace
   and lingered behind.

   Remember, then, that she did go part of the way towards safety and yet
   she perished! And so many may go part of the way towards Christ and
   they may go a little way out of the world--but if their hearts still
   linger with the ungodly, they will perish, notwithstanding all. There
   is one very solemn thought and that is that the angels' hand had
   pressed her wrist. When they said, "Up, get you gone" and Lot
   lingered--the men laid hold upon his hand and the hand of his wife. So
   it is expressly said. An angel's hand had pressed her wrist to draw her
   forth to safety and she had gone a little way under that sacred
   constraint--and yet she perished.

   Some of you may have had spiritual touches upon the conscience and
   heart which you will never be able to quite forget and the
   responsibility of this will cling to you, though you have drawn back
   from godliness and your heart cries after vanity and lusts after its
   idols. This woman was actually out of Sodom and she was almost in Zoar,
   the refuge city, and yet she perished! How near she was to the little
   city of escape, I cannot tell, but she was certainly almost there and
   yet she perished. Almost saved, but not quite. Let me repeat those
   words, for they describe some of you who are present at this hour--and
   they may be your epitaph if you do not mind what you are about--"ALMOST
   SAVED, BUT NOT

   QUITE." Escaped from the vilest form of sin, but not truly in Christ!
   The mind not weaned from its idols, iniquity not given up in the soul,
   though perhaps given up in outward deed!

   O you who are ALMOST SAVED, BUT NOT QUITE, "Remember Lot's wife."

   III. This brings me to a third point of remembrance, which is
   this--remember that though she went some way

   towards escape, SHE DID ACTUALLY PERISH THROUGH SIN. The first sin that
   she committed was that she lingered

   behind. Moses tells us, "Lot's wife looked back from behind him." That
   is, the good old man was making such haste as he could, but she, though
   she had run side by side with him, lingered in the rear--I should not
   wonder but what the same angel had one of them by the right hand and
   the other by the left while the other angel brought the two daughters
   on behind. But Lot's wife slackened her pace and fell behind.

   That is the first sin with most people who profess religion, but are
   not true to God--they begin to backslide by creeping along very
   slowly--they are not half so earnest as they used to be, so they lag
   behind. One service a day is sufficient. A very little reading of the
   Bible contents them. They do not quite give up the appearance of
   prayer, but still there is very little of it. They do not see the good
   of being in such a fury over religion. They do not see why they should
   exercise any sacred violence to take the kingdom by force. They linger.
   It is because, after all, the world is master of their hearts! They
   would, if they dared, be as worldly and as ungodly as others--and they
   finally prove their true character by slackening their pace.

   Having slackened her pace, the next thing she did was she disbelieved
   what had been told her. You must remember that their flight out of
   Sodom was to be an act of faith, for the angel said, "Look not behind
   you." That Sodom was to be destroyed did not appear at all likely, for
   it was a bright morning. They were to fly with as much haste as if they
   could see the fire-shower falling, but they were not to see it. Their
   flight was to be urged forward by faith in the angels' words. Faith may
   be as well exhibited by not looking as by looking. Faith is a look at
   Christ, but faith is a not looking at the things which are behind.
   Lot's wife saw the sun rising, so we are told--"the sun had risen upon
   the earth when Lot entered into Zoar."

   She saw the bright dawning and everything lit up with it and it came
   across her mind--"It cannot be true! The city is not being destroyed.
   What a lovely morning! Why are we thus running away from house, goods,
   friends and everything else on such a bright, clear morning as this?"
   She did not truly believe--there was no real faith in her heart--and
   therefore she disobeyed the law of her safety and turned her face
   towards Sodom. Yet, mark you, she had received the angels in her house;
   she had seen them blind the wicked mob around her door; she had heard
   their majestic words of persuasion and felt their kind compulsion--she
   had plenty of evidence that God was speaking--but she doubted the truth
   of His Word and here was the very essence of her sin!

   What if some of you that have mingled with the godly--and have been
   numbered with them and have participated in their worship,
   should--nevertheless come short because of unbelief? It is by no means
   improbable, for out of all that came out of Egypt there were only TWO
   that entered into Canaan! They could not enter in because of
   unbelief--their carcasses fell in the wilderness. May it never come to
   pass with any of us that we shall leave our carcasses outside of the
   eternal hope because we, too, do not believe in Him who is invisible,
   but must walk according to the sight of the eyes! Having gotten so far
   as lingering and doubting, her next movement was a direct act of
   rebellion--she turned her head-- she was told not to look, but she
   dared to look.

   Rebellion is as much seen in the breach of what appears to be a little
   command as in the violation of a great precept. Our fall at the first
   came from the plucking of forbidden fruit--and this woman's death came
   by a look! Take care of little things. There is life in a look and here
   is a case in which there was death in a look. She looked, but why did
   she look? I suppose it was this--her heart was that way. She loved
   Sodom and she abhorred the separated life. She had led her husband and
   her children away from the peculiar people of God, for she felt that
   she would rather mix with the reprobate multitude than with the chosen
   few! She was not of the spirit that could walk with God, alone--she
   clung to society and to sin. Though she was running for her life, she
   thought of her household stuff and of the ease of Sodom--and she looked
   back with lingering eyes because she wanted to be there.

   And it came to this, that as her eyes went back, her whole body would
   have gone back if time had been allowed. She already lingered. She
   would have soon turned. That one glance betrayed which way her soul was
   going! A little thing in professors may show what they are and we may
   readily betray the inward turning of the soul by an act as simple as
   that of

   turning the neck to look towards Sodom. This was her sin. Now, dear
   Friends, let us remember Lot's wife, each one of us, by learning a
   personal lesson. Here is a hard thing--we must go outside the camp or
   utterly fail. Can you maintain the life of God and walk with Christ and
   be separate from the world?

   Many of you cannot. You may pretend to do so, but you cannot, it is
   beyond you. I fear that the number of true Christians in the world is
   very much less than we suppose. We are encumbered with a host of people
   who call themselves Christians, but are as much of the world as other
   people--whose inheritance is in the world, whose pleasure is in the
   world, whose speech is worldly--and who are altogether of the world.
   And because they are of the world the world loves its own and,
   therefore, there is little or no strife between them and the world!
   Alas, I fear the Church is not true to itself and, therefore, the world
   begins to love it. It says, "You have come to live with us and do as we
   do. You do not bear your awkward protests as you used to do and so we
   need not to burn you as we did your fathers. You are hail fellows well
   with us and, therefore, we will treat you kindly."

   Only let as live as Christ lived and we shall find the dogs of this
   world howling at us as they used to do at our forefathers! My Hearers,
   can you live the separated life? If you can, God help you and bless you
   in it! But if you cannot, remember though you do not so go into Sodom
   as to indulge in its most gross sins, yet the very looking at it, the
   wishing for it, the desiring to be there shows where your heart is and
   your heart's tendency is your true character. You will be judged
   according to the going of your heart. If your heart goes toward the
   mountain to escape and if you have desired to be with Christ to be His
   separated follower, you shall be saved.

   But if your heart still goes after evil and sin, his servants you are
   whom you obey and from your evil master you shall get your black
   reward!

   IV. Here comes our remembrance of Lot's wife in the fourth and most
   solemn place and that is--remember that HER DOOM WAS TERRIBLE.
   "Remember Lots wife." Remember that she perished with the same doom as
   that which happened to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah but that
   doom befell her at the gates of Zoar. Oh, if I must be damned, let it
   be with the mass of the ungodly having always been one of them! To get
   up to the very gates of Heaven and to perish there will be a most awful
   thing! To have lived with God's people. To have been numbered with them
   and to be joined to them by ties of blood--and then, after all, to
   perish--will be horrible, indeed! To have heard the Gospel. To have
   felt the Gospel, too, in a measure, and even to have amended one's life
   because of it. To have escaped from the filthiest corruption of the
   world and to have become moral, amiable, excellent and yet to still not
   have been weaned from the world, not to have been divorced from sin and
   so to perish--the thought is intolerable!

   That same brine and brimstone which fell upon the inhabitants of the
   four cities overtook Lot's wife! She was on the margin of the shower
   and as it fell she was salted with tar--she was turned into a pillar of
   salt where she stood! Dreadful doom! On the verge of mercy to be slain
   by justice! On the brink of salvation to be the victim of eternal
   wrath! This came upon her all of a sudden, too. What a picture! She
   stops as she is fleeing--she turns her head! She scarcely looks! The
   gaze is not long enough to single out her own house--and, lo, she is
   turned into a pillar! The fire-salt has fallen on her! She will never
   move again! She had not time to start or turn and, with her neck just
   as it was, she stands as a statue of salt--a warning to all who should
   pass that way.

   I do not suppose Lot's wife to be standing there now, as some travelers
   have imagined--the pillar was not even there in Christ's day, for if it
   had been, as Bengel very properly remarks, our Lord would have said,
   "See Lot's wife." But as she was not there, He said, "Remember" her.
   Her doom came all of a sudden, without a further warning or a moment's
   time to consider. What if sudden death should strike some of you down
   at this moment? You professors who still love the world--what if you
   now fell dead? You professed Christians who sneak in among the ungodly
   to have a suck at their pleasures, suppose you should be struck down in
   the theater one of these days! You that pretend to be Christians and
   frequent the dance saloons--suppose you should fall dead there! It
   would not be a new thing under the sun, for God deals severely with
   those who profess to come under His Covenant--He has jealous laws for
   those who join His Church and yet have not the Grace of God in their
   hearts.

   These men die not the death of common men, but are often overtaken by
   strange punishments that the world may see that the Lord has set a wall
   of fire around His Church which none may break through on peril of
   their lives. Ananias and Sapphira entered the Church, but they could
   not live there--a glance of Peter's eyes and they fell dead before him!
   Such judgments still purge the ranks of the professing Church as all
   that observe must know, for the Lord will be sanctified of

   them that come near to Him. "For this cause," says the Apostle, "some
   are sickly among you, and many sleep," because the discipline of God
   goes on in the midst of His visible Church. He lets the world alone
   till the fire-shower comes, but to those that profess to be His people,
   He is always a jealous God. I speak strong things--strong things are
   needed in these compromising days. May the Holy Spirit impress these
   weighty facts on all your hearts.

   The worst point, perhaps, about the perishing of Lot's wife lay in that
   she perished in the very act of sin and had no space for repentance
   given her. In the instant she turned her head she was a pillar of salt.
   It is a dreadful thing to die in the very act of sin--to be caught away
   by the justice of God while the transgression is being perpetrated! Yet
   such a thing may happen and let those who profess to be Christians and
   yet parley with sin, "remember Lot's wife" and how swift God is to deal
   out His judgment against professors who betray His holy name and cause.
   I cannot help going back to the text I started with, which was one of
   my own making, and that is, "Remember Lot." Though Lot himself was a
   righteous man and escaped from the doom of the wicked city, yet I
   cannot help tracing the death of Lot's wife, in some degree, to her
   husband.

   When a man walks with God and imitates God, he gets to beget
   character--that is Abraham. When a man walks with a holy man and
   imitates him he may rise to be a good character but he will be a weak
   one--that is Lot. But when one walks with Lot, the weak character, and
   only copies him, the result will be a failure--that is Lot's wife. It
   is like the boy's copy book. If he will copy the top line, the boy
   makes an Abraham line. But if the next time he does not look at the top
   line, but imitates the second--that makes a Lot line--very far short of
   the first. If he next copies No. 3, the Lot line, the result will be a
   poor affair--that is Lot's wife. Beloved, we are to live having the
   perfect Father for our example, looking and following in His steps! And
   if we do so by the power of the Spirit, we shall reach a grand, noble,
   Abrahamic character.

   But suppose you get to imitate some good man and he is your standard?
   You will make a second-rate Christian! It will be a weak affair, like
   Lot. And then if your wife and children get to copying you, oh, the
   mischief that must come of it! Lot ought to have been firmer, more
   steadfast, more thorough. He had no business going to Sodom. If he had
   said to his wife, "No, my Wife, we belong to a chosen people. God
   called us out of Haran and away from the gods of our fathers that we
   might live a separated life. And here I am going to stay and you must
   stay with me," she would have had to obey, or else if she had not done
   so, Lot was not to do evil to please his wife. She could not have
   learned the ways of Sodom-- she might have given her heart, still, to
   the world, but she could not have been so clearly mixed up with it and
   her daughters could not have been so evil as they were if he had
   resolved to live apart from the town's people.

   I Believe that fathers and husbands ought to take the lead in the
   management of their families and parents are bound to arrange their
   households after a godly fashion. Do not say, "Oh, we cannot manage our
   families." You must do it! Eli failed in this and, instead of being
   firm, he timidly said, "Do not do this, my sons." Poor dear old Eli--he
   did not like to get into trouble with his sons by finding fault with
   them. But what did his softness cost him? The Lord smote his family
   because he had not ordered his household aright. If Christian men leave
   their families to go anyway they choose, they will soon find the Lord
   has a quarrel with them. And if the children and if the wife should,
   after all, perish, it will be a horrible thought for the head of the
   household, even if he is a saved man, that it was his ill example which
   caused their ruin.

   It was partly Lot's own doing that his wife became what she was. If Lot
   had never gone to Sodom, his wife would not have perished near it. Look
   to yourselves lest you lead others astray! Keep near to God and you
   will be blessed and become a blessing to others. Abraham did not have
   this trouble with Sarah, nor Isaac with Rebekah, for they walked with
   God and their influence was felt in their tents. Live near to God and
   let your own life be according to the command which God gave the
   Patriarch--"Walk with Me and be you perfect," and you shall see that He
   will bless your household and your children after you.

   But if you do not thus walk before the Lord, you will have to "remember
   Lot's wife." May God add His blessing on these words, for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The First Note of My Song

   (No. 1492)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 31, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Who forgives all your iniquities." Psalm 103:3.

   I am a firm believer, not only in the Inspiration of the Psalms,
   themselves, but also in the correctness of their order. I believe that
   Paul was right when he called a certain Psalm, "the Second Psalm," and
   that those are wrong who so disarrange the book as to make it the
   sixteenth. Anything to certain radicals in theology is better than the
   established order-- they change for change sake! Many attempts have
   been made to arrange the Psalms chronologically and critics have
   shifted them about at their pleasure, according to this theory or that.
   Their wisdom is utter folly! The Psalms as they stand have an order
   most appropriate and instructive.

   If time permitted I could illustrate this in many ways, but for this
   present it is more in the line of my discourse to observe that we could
   not have understood so well the 103rd Psalm if we had not first read
   the thirty-second. You remember how the 32nd begins? "Blessed is he
   whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the
   man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity." The pardoned man is
   blessed and then he blesses God. First the full, deep, effective
   blessing comes to him freely from the Lord and then he reflects the
   blessing and exclaims in joyful gratitude, "Bless the Lord, O my Soul."

   First, we are blessed with the pardon of sin and then we bless God for
   the pardon of sin. The Divine blessing enters our hearts loaded with
   good things. We gladly receive the heavenly messenger and then it
   begins to sing like a minstrel at a feast, nor does it long sing alone
   for all that is within the house of our manhood arouses itself to join
   in the strain and never is better music made this side the heavenly
   places than when all that is in us is stirred up to magnify and bless
   God's holy name! Our text is one stanza of the never-ending "song of
   loves."

   In the verse before us the most wonderful point, to my mind, is the
   attribute of God which David selects for special praise--"All that is
   within me bless His holy name." You might have expected to read,
   "gracious name," or, "merciful name," but you find it written "holy
   name." Indeed, this is the emphatic point of the wonder of forgiven
   sin, that a holy God should pass it by! If God could wink at iniquity;
   if there were something in His Nature which rendered sin tolerable to
   Him, it would be a slight thing that He should allow it to go
   unpunished. But because He is a holy God--righteous, just and pure--who
   cannot look upon iniquity, whose fury burns against evil, therefore it
   becomes wonderful even to amazement that He should forgive our
   iniquities!

   To accomplish this wonder, the miracle of the Cross was worked by
   unspeakable love. O man, you have but to gain a true idea of that
   holiness which is like a consuming fire, that holiness which even
   angels cannot gaze upon, but of which they sing, "Holy, holy, holy,
   Lord God of Hosts"--you have but to gain a glimpse of that unutterable
   perfection and you will abhor yourself in dust and ashes--and then you
   will marvel to think that the Thrice Holy One should have spared your
   guilty soul! How abhorrent is your depravity in His sight and yet He
   does not smite you! What are you but a mass of pollution? And yet the
   Infinitely Pure has considered you in love! What are you but a sink of
   impurity? And yet the All-perfect One has looked upon you in
   compassion!

   Do you believe in Him and accept His dear Son? Then Grace has looked
   upon you! Before the glance of Omnipotent Love, your sin shall
   disappear and your iniquity shall forever vanish! O blessed deed of
   boundless mercy! If, indeed, the royal pardon has been sent to us from
   the court of Heaven, we may right heartily say, "Bless the Lord, O my
   Soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name, who forgives all
   your iniquities." In these latter days, among the other wonderful
   things which have been developed, we have been enriched by a school of
   thinkers who kick against the doctrine of Justification by Faith and
   rebel against the idea of the Atonement and the forgiveness of sin.

   The meager gospel which they proclaim to us poor fallen wretches is
   this--If you do wrong, there is no help for it. You will have to reap
   the consequences. If you do right you will, of course, bring your
   hearts into a healthier condition and you will be happy in proportion.
   But if you do wrong there is no hope for you--there will certainly come
   upon you the result of evil and you will suffer till you work yourself
   right. "Do not flatter yourself," they say, "with any idea of Grace and
   mercy interposing--there is either no God, or if there is one, He will
   take no notice of your prayers, but will let you develop in your own
   way. The fictions of substitution, imputation and pardon are mere
   delusions, or pious subterfuges unworthy of rational men."

   These "men of culture" and "modern thought" are intent upon robbing us
   of the essence of the Gospel! Under cover of enforcing a Truth of God
   which nobody denies, they undermine the special doctrine for which
   Revelation was given. It is true that upon man's character his true
   condition depends, but this by no means disproves the interposition of
   supreme love. Woe to us if their philosophy should be true--and woe to
   them, also--yes, woe to the whole world if their denial of our best
   hope should be accepted for truth! As for us, this gracious forgiveness
   which they deny touches the chief spring of our soul and stirs us with
   a hope of better things! This very Grace which they deprecate as though
   it were immoral and could not work men towards holiness, is the cause
   in our soul of hatred of sin and the source of our hearts' noblest
   aspirations after holiness!

   Moved by gratitude, we long to honor our pardoning God, who, though He
   is glorious in holiness, is also glorious in Grace when He blots out
   sin! We would gladly prove, by our lives, that we have not received
   this gift of mercy in vain, by letting all men see that we are now dead
   to sin and cannot live any longer therein. Evangelism does not flatter
   mere morality by making it the rival of Christ, but it is the highest
   promoter of all that is honest, temperate and of good report, as our
   daily conversation shall prove. The grand Truth of God of forgiven sin
   is our subject at this time. I hope I cannot say anything which will be
   new to you upon this point, for if I could, it would look as if you did
   not already understand this early privilege of true Believers.

   Many of you understand it and enjoy it and, therefore, I can only bring
   to your remembrance old facts. But these, like well-stored and ripe
   fruit, will be exceedingly sweet. I spread the table, not with foreign
   delicacies and novel dainties, but with the everyday fare of the great
   Father's house. Our sermon will be simple, but I trust it will be most
   consoling. It will not display the ability of the speaker, but it will
   reveal the Grace of His Master and this is my heart's desire. "I
   believe in the forgiveness of sins," is one of the most blessed
   sentences of the creed. Dear Friends, we do most joyfully believe in
   it, and, what is more, we enjoy the truth personally as a matter of
   fact in our own case! May we feel the joy of it at this good hour. O
   Holy Spirit, bear witness with the water and the blood!

   I. In speaking of the pardon of sin, I shall remark, first, that it is
   A PRIMARY BLESSING. Observe, it is put first in the catalog given by
   the Psalmist. It is not written, "Who heals all your diseases, who
   forgives all your iniquities." No, but the list commences thus, "Who
   forgives all your iniquities." Forgiveness leads the van and stands in
   the forefront of the host of mercies. When the angels of God meet us,
   the first messenger of love that comforts our heart brings in his hand
   pardon for our transgressions. As the olive leaf in the dove's mouth
   proved to Noah that all the waters were receded, so does a sense of
   forgiven sin assure us that our great griefs are ended and our liberty
   and joy has come. Pardon shines first of the stars of mercy.

   A main reason for this is the fact that we never enjoy a mercy as a
   mercy from God till we receive the forgiveness of sins. A man lives
   while his sin is unforgiven. He eats, he drinks, he sleeps, he wakes
   and talks about enjoying life--but none of these things are received by
   him as gifts from God. If he thinks upon God at all, the Divine name is
   a terror to him. He does not eat his bread as though it were given by a
   Father's hand, nor does he put on his garments as though he were
   clothed by Divine love. That cannot be while he abides under Divine
   anger! The unpardoned sinner is barely able to see God as his
   Benefactor--as his Father he knows Him not. God does bestow mercies
   upon unpardoned men and women, but they cannot receive them as such
   until, first of all, they come to know that their transgression is
   forgiven.

   Brethren, there are many mercies which are not given at all and cannot
   be given until first of all the pardon of sin has been bestowed. It
   would be out of place and inconsistent to give the blessings of the
   Covenant to unpardoned sinners. For instance, why should God heal the
   diseases of a man under condemnation for sin? It is but a scant mercy
   which would seek the health of a man condemned to die--by all means
   relieve his pain, but his disease you may leave alone! We cannot

   expect God to crown a man with loving kindness and tender mercies while
   he is still dead in sin and lives in daily dread of a second death--an
   eternal death.

   A coronation for a condemned criminal would be a superfluity of
   inconsistency. To crown a hardened convict who lies in the cell of
   Newgate awaiting his execution would be a wretched mockery! How could
   it be that God should wreathe a chaplet of favors for a man who has
   refused His mercy and willfully abides under His wrath on account of
   unconfessed and unpardoned sin? How could our spiritual youth be
   renewed like the eagle's, or our mouth be satisfied with good things
   while as yet we are doomed to die and are withering away in our
   wickedness? What are good things to a tortured conscience and what is
   renewed youth to a soul racked by remorse? No, pardoned sin must clear
   the road for the march of Divine Grace--this jungle of iniquity must be
   removed to make a highway for our God.

   The application of the blood of sprinkling must be felt! The cleansing
   power of the Atonement must be known or the rest of the blessings of
   the Covenant will never reach us. And well may the Lord place this
   mercy first because when it comes, it ensures all the rest! The
   forgiveness of sin is the dawn of the day which is always followed by
   the clearer light. God does not pardon us and then leave us to perish
   of our spiritual diseases--but when once He grants a plenary
   absolution, then His Spirit exercises His healing art and recovers us
   of the leprosy of sin. When the Lord forgives all our iniquities, it is
   not long before we perceive that our life is redeemed from destruction,
   crowned with loving kindness and satisfied with good things to the
   renewal of its youth!

   Pardon never comes alone--troops of blessings attend it! The voice of
   the turtle dove, which speaks peace because of pardoned sin, also tells
   that the rain is over and gone and that the fruits of the Spirit will
   soon appear. He who gave His Son's blood to wash us will withhold no
   good thing from us! He who has said to us, "Your sins are forgiven
   you," has given us a grant of all necessary good in that one sentence
   of His love! Like the comet nucleus, which bears a streaming train of
   light behind it, so does forgiveness draw along with it a far-reaching
   glory of boundless favor. Well may this blessing be set first since it
   carries all the rest in its loins--

   "When dreadful guilt is done a way No other fears we know. That hand
   which scatters pardons down, Shall crowns of life bestow."

   There is this, also, to be thought of, that the pardon of sin comes
   first that it may be seen to be an act of pure Grace. If any other
   blessing had preceded it, our legal spirits would have dreamed of merit
   and fitness--if any attainment had been reached by us before the
   forgiveness of sins was given, we might have been tempted to glory in
   self--but now we perceive that God forgives our sins before He heals
   our moral diseases and, therefore, there is no room for pride to set
   her foot. While the man is still white with the leprosy of sin, the
   Lord visits him in pity to show that He looks for nothing in man as the
   motive power of His love. While yet the sinner has his judgment
   perverted, his affections polluted and his desires depraved--even while
   he is full of the plague of his own heart, God says to him--"I have
   forgiven you."

   This, therefore, is pure Grace and is set in the foreground that its
   sovereignty and freeness may be written before our eyes as with a
   sunbeam. God pardons men as sinners just as He finds them,
   notwithstanding that they have nothing to recommend them to Him. Their
   disease is so foul that they might have been spurned for their
   loathsomeness if it were not for His boundless love! But seeing them
   plunged in evil and dead in sin, He magnifies His mercy by quickening
   them to new life and forgiving them all their trespasses.

   Brothers and Sisters, on this first head I want to be very practical
   and say to you--let us seek this forgiveness of sin as a primary
   blessing if we have not yet obtained it. If the Holy Spirit puts it
   first, let us seek it first. Be wise, O you who feel your guilt, and do
   not go about, first of all, to make a reformation in yourselves and
   then to come to God for mercy. But come to Him, first, and then see
   after other things. When you come to Him, do not ask Him to first heal
   your soul's disease, but first to forgive your iniquities! Follow God's
   order and you cannot go amiss! There is infinite wisdom in all the
   Lord's arrangements. Do not, I pray you, try to make that first which
   God makes second, nor that second which God makes first!

   You are guilty, ask for pardon at the outset. Through Jesus Christ a
   free pardon is proclaimed, pardon for sins of the deepest dye! Pardon
   bought and sealed with His atoning blood! Come and receive it just as
   you are. Though there is nothing in you to commend you to the Divine
   regard, you are now in just such a state as best prepares you for His
   Sovereign Grace. Are you startled at this statement? It is neither more
   nor less than the Truth of God! You are empty,

   therefore there is room in you for the fullness of Divine mercy! You
   are polluted, therefore there is opportunity to show the power of the
   blood in cleansing you! You are guilty and there is space for
   undeserved mercy. Plead your guiltiness and say, "Lord, pardon my
   iniquity, for it is great." Do not urge any extenuation, but as you are
   guilty, say, "Forgive me." In your confessed guiltiness there is space
   for the great King to do as He wills and put away your sin by a
   sovereign act of mercy.

   Let your first desire be pardoned sin! Do not wait till first you
   understand all mysteries, but get your sins forgiven! Do not first
   labor to attain a perfect life--get your sins forgiven! Do not first
   make a profession, join a Church and put on outward religiousness. Get
   your sins forgiven! There David's Psalm begins and there yours must
   began if God, in love, accepts it--"Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and all
   that is within me bless His holy name; who forgives all your
   iniquities." That is our first head. Pardon is the primary
   blessing--seek it as such.

   II. Forgiveness is A PRESENT BLESSING. This is very apparent in the
   text, which is in the present tense--"Who forgives all your
   iniquities." Not, "who will, perhaps, forgive you on your death bed."
   Not, "Who did forgive you years ago and now condemns you." No, it is,
   "Who forgives"--is now forgiving daily, hourly, momentarily--is
   continually forgiving your iniquity. I want to bring this fact of a
   present blessing before your minds briefly, but very clearly. This
   privilege the Believer has actually obtained--all his sins are forgiven
   at this moment of time. Blessed be the name of the Lord, we are even
   now washed from sin!

   We shall grow in Grace, but we shall never be more completely pardoned
   than when we first believed! We shall one day stand before the glorious
   Presence of God in His own sacred courts and see the Well-Beloved and
   wear His likeness, but we shall not even then be more perfectly
   forgiven than we are at this present moment! Sin depresses our
   spirit--the consciousness of it often makes us weep in secret and yet
   none of it is imputed to us--every grain of it is as far removed from
   us as the east is from the west. Rejoice, Believer, that the Spirit
   bears this witness--"God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you." As many
   as have looked to Christ upon the Cross are now justified by faith and
   have peace with God. They are at this moment cleansed from all sin
   through the application of the precious blood of Christ. This is a
   matter of present fact, and not of mere hope.

   According to the text this present mercy is perpetually bestowed--He
   still forgives our iniquity--there is perpetuity in it. At this very
   moment I may be mourning my sin, but God is forgiving it. Alas, I may
   be sinning, for even in the holiest deeds we do there is still sin--but
   even then God is still forgiving! If, indeed, you are a Believer in
   Jesus Christ, the Lord is at all times forgiving you! As constant as
   your sin, so constant is His forgiveness! Never fall into the notion of
   some that the one forgiveness which we received at the first has
   rendered it unnecessary for us to seek new forgiveness, and unnecessary
   for us to offer new confession. It is not so! The Lord is always
   forgiving and it is for us to still be seeking that blessing!

   We ask each day for daily bread though the promise has made it sure,
   and so must we daily seek mercy, though it is already promised. Our
   Lord said, "After this manner also pray you," and a part of that prayer
   is, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against
   us." I know that certain brethren say that the Lord's prayer is not for
   Believers--but their dictum in such a case is not worth the breath they
   waste in delivering it! I am quite satisfied, for one, to pray as my
   Lord taught me. If they prefer to pray as their whims teach them, it is
   at their own risk! Besides, I read that we are to confess our sins, one
   to another--and sins to another are certainly sins towards God! If,
   then, we are to confess to our fellow men the wrongs which we have done
   to them, it will take a great deal of reasoning to convince me that we
   are not to confess the wrongs which we do towards our heavenly Father!

   There should be daily confession, for even, "if we walk in the light as
   God is in the light"--and that is a very high condition--and if we have
   fellowship with God clearly and distinctly, yet even then we shall need
   to have the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us from all sin. We still
   sin even when walking in the light and still need that Jesus should
   cleanse us by His blood. Herein is our consolation, that Jesus is
   always cleansing us--"He forgives all your iniquities." You are often
   sinning, but He is always forgiving you! You are often wandering, often
   erring, often grieving Him, but "He forgives all your iniquities."

   I do not feel like preaching when I touch this text! I heartily wish I
   could sit down and have a happy cry over this blessed Truth--that my
   God is, at this moment, forgiving me! Oh, poor Heart, you have much to
   chide yourself for, but your Lord forgives you! You are a frail,
   foolish, unstable, selfish, wayward thing, but He forgives you!
   Whatever your

   faults, known and unknown, He is forgiving you now! Even while you are
   lamenting your many transgressions, He is casting them behind His back
   and hurling them into the depths of the sea! While I speak to you with
   my voice, my own heart is singing inwardly, "Bless the Lord, O my Soul,
   who forgives all your iniquities."

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, this mercy of pardon is knowingly
   received. We know that we are forgiven. "Presumption," says one! Simply
   the Truth of God, say I! Do you think David would say, "Bless the Lord,
   O my Soul, who may or may not have forgiven me." Ah, no! He speaks of
   favors which he had consciously received! Nobody ever sings over
   uncertain blessings. I say again, nobody ever sings over an uncertain
   pardon! A doubt as to our forgiveness is fatal to all joy, for it lets
   in the dread fear of Divine wrath! Absolute certainty must be realized
   before a heart can make a song concerning the forgiveness of sin. When
   by faith we accept the Lord Jesus to be our All in All, we are as clear
   about God's having forgiven us our sins as we are about our having
   committed them!

   Upon our believing, we have as good evidence of being cleansed as we
   had of having been foul! Our sense of guilt arises from our knowledge
   of the Law and that is clear. But our sense of forgiveness comes from
   our knowledge of the Gospel--and that is equally clear. I am not sure
   that I was condemned if there is a question about the Law. But there is
   no question and, as a sinner, I am condemned. In the same way I am not
   assuredly absolved if there is a question about the Gospel--but as
   there is no question about the Gospel, I am assuredly absolved because
   I believe in Jesus. Resting in Christ and trusting alone in Him, you
   and I may have a present conscious sense of pardon--we may know our
   forgiveness and be beyond doubt concerning it. May God bring us to that
   happy condition!

   Then, Brothers and Sisters, this present blessing is immediately
   efficient, for it secures us a present right to all that is involved in
   being pardoned. If a man is forgiven his offenses, he has peace towards
   God. He has boldness to enjoy access to God and reason to expect that
   his petitions will be answered. The stone which was lying at the door
   blocking his acceptance is now rolled way. He is a justified man and he
   is accepted in the Beloved. God treats him as just and rewards him as
   such. The man is free from guilt, for God has absolved him. He is
   worthy in the sight of the great Judge of all the earth. "Being
   justified by faith" we have--ah, my Brethren--we have not only what the
   Apostle tells us, but we have untold blessings! We have time and
   eternity, life and death, earth and Heaven, Christ and God! These are
   ours now! We have a present portion in all the Covenant promises and
   provisions.

   The practical point is this--if this forgiveness of sin is a present
   blessing, seek for it today! Seek it at once! Do not be satisfied
   unless you are forgiven now! Do not be satisfied unless you are
   forgiven every day and all the day! Do not put off your soul with a
   bare hope, but labor for certainty! Do not foolishly postpone it in the
   mere chance that at the last pinch, when you come to die, you may be
   forgiven, but cry for it now! Why, man alive, if I knew I could gain
   pardon when I came to die I should not like to spend the interval
   without it. It is such a privilege to be forgiven that I want it at
   once and cannot endure delay. Oh, the sense of pardoned sin! What
   sweetness! What rest! I know its rapture in my own heart--it is my
   support and my delight--making my heart to be all music and dancing!

   We, at this present hour, joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by
   whom we have received the Atonement. I charge you, do not postpone this
   matter--why should you put off joy? O repenting Sinner, believe that
   you can have forgiveness through Christ Jesus and you shall have it!
   Going to God through Jesus Christ with a humble confession of your sin,
   you shall TODAY enjoy the Father's kiss of reconciliation and your
   conscience shall be thoroughly purged from the least taint of sin. May
   the Holy Spirit work this present sense of forgiveness in you all.

   III. Thirdly, this is a PERSONAL BLESSING. I cannot resist the
   tendency, in reading, to lay the stress upon the word, "your." "Who
   forgives all your iniquities." Our Lord is a blessed God to forgive
   anybody, but that He should forgive me is the greatest feat of His
   mercy! A good Brother wrote me the other day, "Mercy had reached its
   zenith when it saved me." He thought so of himself and we may each one
   think the same of his own case--

   "'Tis Grace, 'tis glorious Grace indeed, Grace without parallel! Great!
   But how great? Does far exceed The power of speech to tell."

   You can all rejoice that God forgives iniquity, but your rejoicing will
   never reach so high as when you know that He forgives all your
   iniquity. Honey is not sweet except to him that tastes it. "But may we
   know this personally?" asks one. I answer, "Yes." Some of us know that
   God has forgiven us, because we have the character which He describes
   as being forgiven.

   He forgives those who confess their sin--"If we confess our sin, He is
   faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all
   unrighteousness." We have made confession before His face and we
   believe His Word and are, therefore, sure that He has cleansed us. He
   has promised mercy to those who forsake their sins. Having forsaken our
   sins, we look to be forgiven for Christ's sake. Forgiveness is also
   freely promised to those who look to Jesus for it. We are looking to
   Him and we are forgiven. Are you not Believers? Then there is no hope
   for you--but if you are trusting alone in Jesus Christ, your iniquity
   is blotted out. He that believes is justified from all things from
   which he could not be justified by the Law of Moses. In repentance, in
   confession of sin, in forsaking sin and in faith in our Lord Jesus, we
   have the marks of pardoned sinners and these marks are apparent in our
   souls.

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, if you have any doubt about whether the
   Lord forgives you, now, it will be well for you to make sure that you
   accept His way of salvation. It is by faith in His dear Son. Do you
   need any other way? He forgives because Jesus stood in the sinner's
   place and He puts the sinner into Christ's place. Are you satisfied
   with that great plan of salvation by Substitution, by Atonement, by
   Sacrifice? "Oh," I hear you say, "Satisfied with it! I am delighted
   with it! It is all my salvation and all my desire." Then, if you have
   accepted what God sets before you, it is not possible that He should
   refuse you the blessing which He has promised. What says the Scripture?
   "Through His name whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of
   sins."

   As sure as you have received Christ, your sin is removed from you! It
   cannot be that a man has Christ and has his sin, too, for his iniquity
   must be covered to whom Christ is All in All. Yes, we have this pardon
   personally and pleasantly, for we believe in Jesus. Do you not believe
   in the Divine Word and testimony concerning the pardon of sin? Have you
   not heard the Lord God declare that His Son has forever put away sin by
   the Sacrifice of Himself? What better evidence do you need than the
   Infallible Word? Do you look for feelings, signs, tokens, or other
   things to corroborate the witness of your God? Is He an unreliable
   witness? Is not His Word enough--alone, and by itself? It is so to
   those that have believed and it ought to be so to all men! For my own
   part, I had rather venture my soul upon one Word of God in the sacred
   Scriptures than upon all the whispers of angels that men have ever
   heard, all the visions that men have ever seen and all the ecstasies of
   delight that saints have ever felt! All the world, all the Church and
   all Heaven put together cannot make up the weight of one sentence of
   God's Word!

   One Truth of God I would like to mention. It is this--we know that we
   are, at this moment, forgiven, because we at this moment give to the
   Lord Jesus Christ that look which brings forgiveness. I will put aside
   all the past. I will put aside all our experience, all the change of
   heart which we hope we have undergone and I will put the matter
   altogether apart from the past. If I never did look to You, Immanuel,
   crucified for me, I look to You now! If I have never rested in You
   before, I will rest in You now--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Your kind arms I fall! Be You my
   strength and righteousness, My Jesus, and my All!"

   Oh, then, we are forgiven! We must be forgiven! Never a soul did give
   that look without finding forgiveness of sin as surely as the Israelite
   found healing when he looked to the bronze serpent!

   So, Beloved, if that is the case, I want you to view this blessing as a
   personal possession and seek it as such. I would to God that all of you
   that hear me would seek personal forgiveness at this moment! Do not
   think of the preacher, or the heavy style in which he sets forth this
   Truth of God, but think of yourself and your personal need of
   cleansing! Think nothing, just now, of those that sit at your side, but
   seek for mercy at the hand of God, each man, each woman, each child for
   himself, or herself! Pardon is to be had--rest not till you have it! It
   will not do you any good if all the rest of the congregation should be
   pardoned if sin should remain upon you!

   Breathe, then, the personal prayer to a personal Savior--"God be
   merciful to me, a sinner." Trust in Christ for yourself and you shall
   sing, today, "Who forgives all my iniquities." Blessed be His name!

   IV. I have now a fourth point to call your attention to, and that is,
   this is A PERFECT BLESSING. "Who forgives all your iniquities." For,
   remember, the forgiveness spoken of in the text is a Divine one. It is
   God that forgives all our iniquities! A man's forgiveness, when we have
   wronged him, is to be sought. And when we get it, we shall find, in
   many instances, that it is a poor, half-hearted affair. Men often say
   they forgive, "but"--now that very hesitation in their speech shows it
   is not a full and free forgiveness! But when God does anything, He does
   it thoroughly.

   Now, listen, just this minute. When God charges sin upon a man He does
   it after a very high standard, for every idle word that man shall speak
   he shall be brought into judgment. When God condemns man, He does it
   after an equally elevated standard and when God punishes man, He does
   it after a solemn and awful manner. The new gods that have lately come
   up have a little Hell because they are little gods--but my God, the God
   of the whole earth--has a great Hell and a fearful doom, for what He
   does is done by rule of strict justice.

   Believe me, He pardons to the same scale! All His acts are of a sublime
   character. The standard of punishment is the standard of forgiveness.
   You know how He judges, how He condemns, how He punishes--after that
   same thorough, Godlike manner He forgives! He makes a clean sweep of
   sin, according to that blessed Word, "The day comes, says the Lord,
   when the sin of Jacob shall be sought for and it shall not be found:
   yes, it shall not be, says the Lord." "I will subdue all their
   iniquities, and cast their transgressions into the depths of the sea."
   "I have blotted out your iniquities as a thick cloud, and as a cloud
   your sins." "They shall not be mentioned against you any more,
   forever!"

   Oh, it is a perfect blessing, for it is a Divine pardon and, you see,
   its completeness is expressed in that word, "all." "Who forgives all
   your iniquities." He does not remove the great ones and leave the
   little ones to rankle. Nor doe He leave the little ones and leave one
   great black one to devour us, but, "ALL" of them He covers and
   annihilates with the effectual Atonement made by His dear Son. And then
   notice the word which in our text expresses sin--"iniquities." Pull it
   to pieces--it is in-equities--the matters in which we are not,
   according to equity. Sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we go beyond.
   Sometimes we do not act in equity towards our friends, our relatives,
   or strangers. We constantly fail to act in strict equity towards God.

   Now, He says, all our in-equities--everything in which we fall short of
   the perfect rule of equity, or go beyond that rule--all these He
   forgives! What a blessed, comprehensive word this is. I was reading the
   other day in a very delightful little book, entitled, "Never Say
   'Die,'" which is admirably calculated to comfort a seeking soul, these
   few words which struck me forcibly. The writer says, "All our
   righteousness are as filthy rags. If you will bring your good living
   and your precious righteousness to Christ, you must make sin of the
   whole lot--there is nothing else you can do with it--and ask to have it
   all forgiven. The man who will be saved by his own righteousness says
   hopelessly, 'die,' to his own soul. You must cast all this splendid
   rubbish of yours on the heap along with the oaths and the lies, the
   drinking and Sabbath-breakings, the foul living--and let the
   ever-flowing stream that keeps eddying round wash it all away."

   As I read it, I thought--That is what I will do with mine! I will put
   my sermons, my prayers, my almsgiving-- everything on the same heap as
   my sins and let them go together! Lord, be pleased to forgive all my
   in-equities, my good works and my bad works. I might have tried to sort
   them a little, but one is so much like the other that I fling them all
   overboard and swim to glory on the Cross. We have no hope but in our
   Lord Jesus--we need pardoning mercy for all we have ever done--for sin
   has been mixed with it all! I advise you, my Hearer, to put the whole
   life you have lived into one lump, and say, "Lord, forgive me the whole
   of it! I cannot acknowledge every sin, for I do not know them all! Sin
   is such a subtle thing that it has penetrated into my most holy
   thoughts and desires. But, Lord, cleanse me from all sin through the
   atoning blood." "Who forgives all your iniquities."

   What a blessed thing is this! For when God once forgives, He forgives
   forever! He never plays fast and loose and He never brings to mind,
   again, that of which He has said, "I will remember it no more." O my
   Brothers and Sisters, if you are pardoned once, you are forgiven once
   and for all! Irreversible acquittals God bestows, "for the gifts and
   calling of God are without repentance." Immutability is stamped upon
   the patent of our pardon! Until God can change or lie, He never will
   bring to mind, again, the sin of that man whom He has pardoned. "Your
   sins are forgiven you--go in peace."

   Now, I want you, practically, to use this head by seeking to obtain
   this pardon as a complete thing. Hosts of professing Christians never
   reach to this. Many of you do not believe that you are or can be
   completely pardoned. But such pardon is possible. Do not rest till you
   have it! You will never know true peace of mind until it is yours. The
   Roman Catholic cannot believe that God pardons him altogether and he
   never knows that he is safe. It is a very poor thing you gain by being
   a Roman Catholic. If you get the best you can, you go to "purgatory"
   when you die! It is great cry and very little wool! But in the faith of
   Jesus Christ you get present and eternal pardon!

   However great our cry is, it is never equal to the wool, for what a
   great blessing it is to receive immediate, absolute, eternal salvation
   on the spot so that if you live as long as Methuselah the
   transgressions of all those years are covered! And if you die at once,
   all your offenses are put away through the precious blood of Jesus
   Christ! Seek for this heavenly

   gift! Do not rest till you are as sure of perfect forgiveness as of
   your own existence--and when you have this glorious gift of Grace say,
   "Bless the Lord, O my Soul, who forgives all your iniquities."

   V. In the fifth place, this is a PRICELESS BLESSING. It is a blessing
   which could not be purchased by a life of holiness. If we have once
   committed sin and should, from now on, be absolutely spotless, yet our
   previous sin would absolutely condemn us--

   "Could my zeal no respite kno w, Could my tears forever flow, All for
   sin could not atone, You must save and You alone."

   Put on a hair shirt and an iron girdle. Fast day and night. Cover
   yourself with the bruises of your scourging. Starve as a mendicant or
   shut yourself up in a hermitage--the sin of the past will remain the
   same. Weep tears of blood, but their crimson will not wash out the
   crimson of your sin! That spot, that blood-red spot upon the soul
   defies removal! Wash it with your heart's blood and it would still be
   there.

   Though you could bleed as every wave that breaks upon our island's
   shores and fill the Atlantic with a crimson flood. Though you should
   gather all the seas that ever flowed together and wash and wash with
   niter and much soap till you had polluted all the ocean with your
   filth--it would still remain. In vain you cry, "Out, damning spot." The
   spot abides and will abide unless Almighty love shall take it out
   forever. Only God Himself can forgive and by Him no price can be
   accepted in the form of future obedience, for all that you can promise
   is already due and the promise, itself, will be broken.

   What is more, this forgiveness could not be purchased by an eternity of
   suffering in Hell. There they lie in anguish, which God grant we may
   never know, but they are as far off from the expiation of their sin as
   when they first came there. When the world grows gray and sun and moon
   die out and time has spun its utmost thread, the last will be as far
   off from the expiation of their sin as ever! There is no getting rid of
   sin by suffering! Still must the lost suffer, for still their sin
   remains. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," as surely
   as the righteous go away into eternal life. But though it could not be
   purchased by a life of holiness nor by an eternity of woe, forgiveness
   has been procured! This pardon which is freely preached today to all
   who believe in Jesus has been purchased and there is He that procured
   it, sitting at the right hand of God the Father--a Man like unto
   ourselves--but yet equal with the Ever-Blessed One!

   If you ask me how He procured forgiveness, I answer that He shows His
   hands--the scars are there. He shows His feet. He shows His side--the
   scars of His wounds are there. He shows His heart that was broken for
   our guilt. He shows His blessed Person which underwent the baptism of
   Divine wrath that He might deliver us from being plunged into those
   tremendous deeps! O Son of God, You have redeemed us, but what a price
   have You paid in the bloody sweat of Your face and the sorrowful
   breaking of Your heart! And now, today, we accept freely, gladly, what
   You have so dearly earned!

   What else do we say? Why, that if we are pardoned through such an
   Atonement, then are we Christ's forever! We ought to show deep
   gratitude and the least we can do is to confess, "We are not our own!"
   We ought to go out singing with all our heart, "He has put away my
   transgressions and covered my iniquities." The Lord grant it may be so,
   for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ

   (No. 1493)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 7, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined
   in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God
   in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6.

   THE Apostle is explaining the reason for his preaching Christ with so
   much earnestness--he had received Divine light and he felt bound to
   spread it. One great motive power of a true ministry is trusteeship.
   The Lord has put us in trust with the Gospel; He has filled us with a
   treasure with which we are to enrich the world. The text explains in
   full what it is with which the Lord has entrusted us--He has bestowed
   upon us the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of
   Jesus Christ and it is ours to reflect the light, to impart the
   knowledge, to manifest the Glory, to point to the Savior's face and to
   proclaim the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Having such a work before
   us, we faint not, but press onward with our whole heart.

   I. With no other preface than this we shall ask your attention this
   morning, first, TO THE SUBJECT OF THAT KNOWLEDGE in which Paul
   delighted so much. What was this knowledge which, to his mind, was the
   chief of all and the most worthy to be spread? It was the knowledge of
   God--truly a most necessary and proper knowledge for all God's
   creatures! For a man not to know his Maker and Ruler is deplorable
   ignorance, indeed! The proper study of mankind is God. Paul not only
   knew that there is a God, for he had known that before his
   conversion--none could have more surely believed in the Godhead than
   did Paul as a Jew.

   Nor does he merely intend that he had learned somewhat of the Character
   of God, for that, also, he had known from the Old Testament Scriptures
   before he was met with on the way to Damascus. Now he had come to know
   God in a closer, clearer and surer way, for he had seen Him, Incarnate,
   in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle had also received
   the knowledge of "the Glory of God" Never had the God of Abraham
   appeared so glorious as now! God in Christ Jesus had won the adoring
   wonder of the Apostle's instructed mind. He had known Jehovah's Glory
   as the One and only God. He had seen that Glory in creation, declared
   by the heavens and displayed upon the earth. He had beheld that Glory
   in the Law which blazed from Sinai and shed its insufferable light upon
   the face of Moses.

   But now, beyond all else, he had come to perceive the Glory of God in
   the face, or Person, of Jesus Christ and this had won his soul! This
   special knowledge had been communicated to him at his conversion when
   Jesus spoke to him out of Heaven. In this knowledge he had made great
   advances by experience and by new Revelations--but he had not yet
   learned it to the fullest, for he was still seeking to know it
   perfectly by the teaching of the Divine Spirit and we find him saying,
   "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the
   fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death."

   Paul knew not merely God, but God in Christ Jesus! Not merely "the
   Glory of God," but "the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The
   knowledge dealt with God, but it was Christward knowledge! He pined not
   for a Christless Theism, but for God in Christ! This, Beloved, is the
   one thing which you and I should aim to know. There are parts of the
   Divine Glory which will never be seen by us in this life, speculate as
   we may. Mysticism would desire to pry into the unknowable--you and I
   may leave dreamers and their dreams--and follow the clear light which
   shines from the face of Jesus. What of God it is necessary and
   beneficial for us to know, He has revealed in Christ! And whatever is
   not there, we may rest assured it is unfit and unnecessary for us to
   know.

   Truly the Revelation is by no means scant, for there is vastly more
   revealed in the Person of Christ than we shall be likely to learn in
   this mortal life--and even eternity will not be too long for the
   discovery of all the Glory of God which

   shines forth in the Person of the Word made flesh. Those who would
   supplement Christianity had better first add to the brilliance of the
   sun or the fullness of the sea! As for us, we are more than satisfied
   with the Revelation of God in the Person of our Lord Jesus and we are
   persuaded of the truth of His Words, "he that has seen Me has seen the
   Father." Hope not, my Brothers and Sisters, that the preacher can
   grapple with such a subject! I am overcome by it!

   In my meditations I have felt lost in its lengths and breadths. My joy
   is great in my theme and yet I am conscious of a pressure upon brain
   and heart, for I am as a little child wandering among the mountains, or
   as a lone spirit which has lost its way among the stars. I stumble
   among sublimities. I sink with amazement. I can only point with my
   finger to that which I see, but cannot describe it. May the Holy
   Spirit, Himself, take of the things of Christ and show them to you! We
   will, for a minute or two, consider this glory of God in the face of
   Jesus Christ historically.

   In every incident of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord's
   Anointed, there is much of God to be seen. What volumes upon volumes
   might be written to show God as revealed in every act of Christ from
   His birth to His death! I see Him as a Baby at Bethlehem lying in a
   manger and there I perceive a choice Glory in the mind of God, for He
   evidently despises the pomp and glory of the world which little minds
   esteem so highly. He might have been born in marble halls and wrapped
   in imperial purple, but He scorns these things and, in the manger among
   the oxen, we see a Glory which is independent of the trifles of luxury
   and parade.

   The Glory of God in the Person of Jesus asks no aid from the splendor
   of courts and palaces. Yet even as a Baby, He reigns and rules! Mark
   how the shepherds hasten to salute the new-born King, while the magi
   from the far-off East bring gold, frankincense and myrrh and bow at His
   feet. When the Lord condescends to show Himself in little things, He is
   still right royal and commands the homage of mankind. He is as majestic
   in the minute as in the magnificent; as royal in the Baby at Bethlehem
   as in later days in the Man who rode through Jerusalem with hosannas!
   See the holy Child Jesus in the Temple when He is but 12 years old,
   sitting in the midst of the doctors, astonishing them with His
   questions! What wisdom there was in that Child!

   Do you not see there an exhibition of the Truth of God that "the
   foolishness of God is wiser than men"? Even when God reserves His
   wisdom and gives forth utterances fit for a child, He baffles the
   wisdom of age and thought. Watch that youth in the carpenter's shop.
   See Him planing and sawing, cutting and squaring, working according to
   His parent's commands, till he is 30 years of age. What do we learn
   here when we see the Incarnate God tarrying at the workman's bench? See
   we not how God can wait? Is not this a masterly display of the leisure
   of the Eternal? The Infinite is never driven out of His restful pace of
   conscious strength.

   Had it been you and I, we would have hastened to begin our lifework
   long before! We could not have refrained from preaching and teaching
   for so long a period! But God can wait and, in Christ, we see how
   prudence tempered zeal and made Him share in that eternal leisure which
   arises out of confidence that His end is sure. The Godhead was
   concealed at Bethlehem and Nazareth from the eyes of carnal men, but it
   is revealed to those who have spiritual sight with which to behold the
   Lord. Even in those early days of our Lord, while He was yet preparing
   for His great mission, we behold the Glory of God in His youthful face
   and we adore.

   As for His public ministry, how clearly the Godhead is there! Behold
   Him, Brothers and Sisters, while He feeds 5,000 with a few loaves and
   fishes and you cannot fail to perceive therein the Glory of God in the
   commissariat of the universe, for the Lord God opens His hands and
   supplies the need of every living thing! See Him cast out devils and
   you learn of the Divine power over evil! Hear Him raise the dead and
   you must reverence the Divine prerogative to kill and to make alive!
   See Him cure the sick and you think you hear Jehovah say, "I wound, I
   heal." Hear how He speaks and Infallibly reveals the Truth of God and
   you will perceive the God of knowledge to whom the wise-hearted owe
   their instruction!

   Set over against each other are these two sentences--"Behold, God
   exalts by His power; who teaches like He?" and "Never man spoke like
   this Man." It is always the Lord's way to make His Truth known to those
   of humble and truthful hearts and so did Jesus teach the sincere and
   lowly among men. Observe how Jesus dwelt among men, wearing the common
   smock-frock of the peasant, entering their cottages and sharing their
   poverty! Mark how He even washed His disciples' feet! Herein we see the
   condescension of God who must stoop to view the skies and bow to see
   what angels do-- and yet He does not disdain to visit the sons of men!

   In wondrous Grace He thinks of us and has pity upon our low estate.
   See, too, the Christ of God, my Brothers and Sisters, bearing every day
   with the taunts of the ungodly--enduring "such contradiction of sinners
   against Himself--

   and you have a fair picture of the infinite patience and the marvelous
   longsuffering of God! And this is no small part of His Glory. Note well
   how Jesus loved His own which were in the world, yes, loved them to the
   end! And with what tenderness and gentleness He bore with them, as a
   nurse with her child, for here you see the tenderness and gentleness of
   God and the love of the great Father towards His erring children.

   You read of Jesus receiving sinners and eating with them and what is
   this but the Lord God, merciful and gracious, passing by transgression,
   iniquity and sin? You see Jesus living as a physician among those
   diseased by sin, with the one aim of healing their sicknesses--and here
   you see the pardoning mercy of our God, His delight in salvation and
   the joy which He has in mercy. Beloved, I cannot go through the whole
   life of Jesus Christ--it is impossible, for time would fail us--but if
   you will, yourselves, select any single incident in which Jesus
   appears, whether in the chamber of sickness or at the grave, whether in
   weakness or in power, you shall, in each case, behold the Glory of God!

   Throughout His ministry, which was mainly a period of humiliation,
   there gleams forth in the Character, acts and Person of Jesus, the
   Glory of the everlasting Father. His acts compel us not only to admire
   but to adore! He is not merely a Man whom God favors, He is God
   Himself! What shall I say of His death? Oh never did the love of God
   reveal itself so clearly as when He laid down His life for His sheep,
   nor did the justice of God ever flame forth so conspicuously as when He
   would suffer in Himself the curse for sin rather than sin should go
   unpunished and the Law should be dishonored! Every attribute of God was
   focused at the Cross and he that has eyes to look through his tears and
   see the wounds of Jesus shall behold more of God there than a whole
   eternity of Providence or an infinity of creation shall ever be able to
   reveal to Him. Well might the trembling centurion, as he watched the
   Cross, exclaim, "Truly, this was the Son of God."

   Do I need to remind you, too, of the Glory of God in the Person of
   Christ Jesus in His Resurrection, when He spoiled principalities and
   powers, led Death captive and rifled the tomb? That is, indeed, a
   godlike speech, "I am He that lives and was dead, and behold I am alive
   forevermore and have the keys of Hell and of death." His power, His
   immortality, His eternal majesty all shone forth as He left the shades
   of death!

   I will not linger over His Ascension when He returned to His own again.
   Then His Godhead was conspicuous, for He again put on the Glory which
   He had with the Father before the world was. There, amid the
   acclamations of angels and redeemed spirits, the Glory of the
   conquering Lord was seen. By His descent He had destroyed the powers of
   darkness and then He ascended that He might fill all things as only God
   can do. I would only hint at His session at the right hand of God, for
   there you know how--

   "Adoring saints around Him stand, And thrones and powers before Him
   fall.

   The God shines gracious through the Mian, And sheds sweet glories on
   them all."

   In Heaven they never conceive of Jesus apart from the Divine Glory
   which perpetually surrounds Him. No one in Heaven doubts His Deity, for
   all fall prostrate before Him, or now and then all seize their harps
   and wake their strings to the praise of God and the Lamb!

   The Glory of God will most abundantly be seen in the second advent of
   our Lord. Whatever of splendor we may expect at the advent, whatever of
   Glory shall surround that reign of a thousand years, or the end when He
   shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father--in every
   transaction which prophecy leads us to expect--God in Christ Jesus will
   be conspicuous and angelic eyes shall look on with adoring admiration
   as they see the eternal Father glorious in the Person of His Son!

   These are great themes--we do but mention them and leave them to your
   quiet thought. It is enough to point to a table if men have appetites
   for food. But now I will ask you to think of the Glory of God in the
   face of Jesus Christ, in the same line of thought, only putting it in
   another fashion. Treat it by way of observation. When you look upon the
   material universe you can see, if your eyes are opened, somewhat of the
   Glory of God. The reverent mind perceives enough to constrain the heart
   to worship and yet, after awhile, it pines for more.

   I have often heard the earth spoken of as the mirror of God's image.
   But when I was traveling among the Alps and saw many of the grandest
   phenomena of creation such as glaciers, avalanches and tempests, I was
   so impressed with the narrowness of visible things in comparison with
   God that I wrote such lines as these--

   "The mirror of the creatures lacks space To bear the image of the
   Infinite.

   'Tis true the Lord has fairly writ His name,

   And set His seal upon creation's brow,

   But as the skillful potter much excels

   The vessel which he fashions on the wheel,

   E'en so, but in proportion greater far,

   Jeho vah's self transcends His noblest works.

   Earth's ponderous wheels would break, her axles snap,

   If freighted with the load of Deity.

   Space is too narrow for the Eternal's rest,

   And time too short a footstool for His Throne." If your mind has ever
   entered into communion with God, you will become conscious of the
   dwarfing of all visible things in His Presence. Even when your thought
   sweeps round the stars and circumnavigates space, you feel that Heaven,
   even the Heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him. Everything conceivable
   falls short of the inconceivable Glory of God!

   When you come, however, to gaze upon the face of Christ Jesus, how
   different is the feeling! Now you have a mirror equal to the reflection
   of the eternal Face, for, "In Him dwells all the fullness of the
   Godhead bodily." His name is "Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God." He
   is the Image of God, "the brightness of His Glory and the express Image
   of His Person." If your conception of Christ is truthful, it will
   coincide with the true idea of God and you will exclaim, "This is the
   true God and eternal life." Like Thomas, you will salute the wounded
   Savior with the cry, "My Lord and my

   God."

   Truly, "God was manifest in the flesh"--not a part of Him, but God in
   perfection. In the visible creation we see God's works, but in Christ
   Jesus we have God Himself, Emmanuel, "God with us." The Glory of God in
   the face of Jesus Christ is most sweetly conspicuous because you are
   conscious that not only are God's attributes there, but God Himself is
   there! In the Person of Jesus we see the Glory of God in the veiling of
   His splendor. The Lord is not eager to display Himself--"Verily You are
   a God that hides Yourself," said the Prophet of old. The world seems to
   be created rather to hide God than to manifest Him, at least it is
   certain that even in the grandest displays of His power we may say with
   Job, "There was the hiding of His power."

   Though His light is brightness itself, yet it is only the robe which
   conceals Him. "Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment." If
   thus God's Glory is seen in the field of creation as a light veiled and
   shaded to suit the human eye, we certainly see the same in the face of
   Jesus Christ. Where everything is mild and gentle--full of Grace as
   well as Truth. How softly breaks the Divine Glory through the human
   life of Jesus--a babe in Grace may gaze upon this brightness without
   fear! When Moses' face shone, the people could not look at him, but
   when Jesus came from His transfiguration the people ran to Him and
   saluted Him! Everything is attractive in God in Christ Jesus! In Him we
   see God to the fullest, but the Deity so mildly beams through the
   medium of human flesh that mortal man may draw near and look and live.

   This Glory in the face of Jesus Christ is assuredly the Glory of God,
   even though veiled, for thus in every other instance does God, in
   measure, shine forth. In Providence and in Nature such a thing as an
   unveiled God is not to be seen and the revelation of God in Christ is
   after the same Divine manner. In our Lord Jesus we see the Glory of God
   in the wondrous blending of the attributes. Behold His mercy, for He
   dies for sinners! But see His justice, for He sits as Judge of the
   quick and the dead. Observe His Immutability, for He is the same
   yesterday, today, and forever! And see His power, for His voice shakes
   not only earth but also Heaven. See how infinite is His love, for He
   espouses His chosen, but how terrible His wrath, for He consumes His
   adversaries. All the attributes of Deity are in Him--power that can
   lull the tempest--and tenderness that can embrace little children. The
   Character of Christ is a wonderful combination of all perfection's
   making up one perfection and so we see the Glory of God in the face of
   Jesus Christ, for this is God's Glory, that in Him nothing is excessive
   and nothing is deficient. He is all that is good and great--in Him is
   light and no darkness at all.

   Say, is it not so seen in Jesus our Lord? When I think of God I am led
   to see His Glory in the outgoing of His great heart, for He is
   altogether unselfish and unsparingly communicative. We may conceive a
   period when the Eternal dwelt alone and had not begun to create. He
   must have been inconceivably blessed, but He was not content to be
   enwrapped within Himself and to enjoy perfect bliss alone. He began to
   create and probably formed innumerable beings long before this world
   came into existence--and He did this that He might multiply beings
   capable of happiness. He delighted to

   indulge His heart by deeds of beneficence, manifesting the inherent
   goodness of His Nature. In whatever God is doing, He is consulting the
   happiness of His creatures, being in Himself independent of all, He
   loves to bless others.

   He is living--we speak with awe in His Presence--He is living, even He,
   not unto Himself, but living in the lives of others, rejoicing in the
   joy of His creatures! This is His Glory and is it not to be seen most
   evidently in Christ Jesus, who "saved others, Himself He could not
   save"? Do you not see the great unselfish Glory of God in Christ Jesus?
   When did He ever live unto Himself? What single act of His had a
   selfish purpose? What word ever sought His own honor? In what deed did
   He consult His own aggrandizement? Neither in life nor in death did
   Christ live within Himself--He lived for His people and died for them!
   See the Glory of God in this!

   There are two things I have noticed in the Glory of God whenever my
   soul has been saturated with it and these I have seen in Jesus. I have
   sat upon a lofty hill and looked abroad upon the landscape and seen
   hill, dale, woods, fields and I have felt as if God had gone forth and
   spread His Presence over all. I have felt the outflow of Deity. There
   was not a pleasant tree, nor a silvery stream, nor a cornfield ripening
   for the harvest, nor mountain shaggy with pines, nor heath purple with
   heather but seemed aglow with God! Even as the sun pours himself over
   all things, so does God--and in the hum of an insect, as well as in the
   crash of a thunderbolt, we hear a voice saying--"God is here." God has
   gone forth out of Himself into the creation and filled all things! Is
   not this the feeling of the heart in the Presence of Christ?

   When we come near Him, He is the all-pervading Spirit. In any of the
   scenes in which Jesus appears, He is Omnipresent. Who but He is at
   Bethlehem, or at Nazareth, or at Jerusalem? Who but He is in the world?
   Is not He to us the everybody, the one only Person of His age? I cannot
   think of Caesar or Rome, or all the myriads that dwell on the face of
   the earth as being anything more than small figures in the background
   of the picture when Jesus is before me! He is to my mind most clearly
   the fullness, filling all in all--all the accessories of any scene in
   which He appears are submerged in the flood of Glory which flows from
   His all-subduing Presence. Truly the outgoing Glory of God was in
   Christ.

   But you must have had another thought when you have felt the Glory of
   God in Nature--you must have felt the indrawing of all things towards
   God. You have felt created things rising unto God as steps to His
   Throne. As you have gazed with rapture on the landscape, every tree and
   hill has seemed to drift towards God, to tend towards Him, to return,
   in fact, to Him from whom it came! Is it not just so in the life of
   Christ? He seems to be drawing all things to Himself, gathering
   together all things in one in His own personality. Some of these things
   will not move, but yet His attraction has fallen on them, while others
   fly with alacrity to Him, according to His Word, "I, if I am lifted up,
   will draw all men unto Me."

   Thus those observations of the Glory of God, which have been suggested
   to us by Nature are also abundantly verified in Christ and we are sure
   that the Glory is the same. I cannot express my own thoughts to you so
   clearly and vividly as I would, but this I know, if you ever get a
   vision of the Glory of God in Nature and if you then turn your thoughts
   toward the Lord's Christ, you will see that the same God is in Him as
   in the visible universe and that the same Glory shines in Him, only
   more clearly. There is one God and that one God is gloriously
   manifested in Christ Jesus. "No man has seen God at any time; the
   Only-Begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared
   Him."

   Let us now treat this thought of the Glory of God in the Person of
   Christ by way of experience. Have you ever heard Christ's doctrine in
   your soul? If so, you have felt it to be Divine, for your heart has
   perceived its moral and spiritual glory and you have concluded that God
   is in it for sure. Has your heart heard the voice of Christ speaking
   peace and pardon through the blood? If so, you have known Him to be
   Lord of all! Did you ever see the fullness of His Atonement? Then you
   have felt that God, Himself, was there reconciling the world unto
   Himself.

   You have understood the union of the two titles, "God, our Savior."
   Beloved, you have often felt your Lord's Presence and you have been
   admitted into intimate communion with Him. Then I know that a profound
   awe has crept over you which has made you fall at His feet and in the
   lowliest reverence of your spirit you have acknowledged Him to be Lord
   and God. But when He has bent over you in love and said, "Fear not."
   When He has opened His heart to you and shown you how dear you are to
   Him, then the rapture you have felt has been so Divine that you have,
   beyond all question, known Him to be God!

   There are times when the elevating influence of the Presence of Christ
   has put His Godhead beyond the possibility of question--when we have
   felt that all the Truths of God we ever heard before had no effect upon
   us compared with the

   Truth that is in Him--that all the spirits in the world were
   ineffectual to stir us till His Spirit came into contact with our
   spirit! In this manner His Omnipotent, all-subduing, elevating love has
   proved Him to be none other than "very God of very God." Thus have we
   spoken of the supremely precious object of Christian knowledge.

   II. Secondly, let us say a few words in noticing THE NATURE OF THIS
   KNOWLEDGE. How, and in what respects do we know the Glory of God in the
   face of Jesus Christ? Briefly, first. We know it by faith. Upon the
   testimony of the Infallible Word we believe and are sure that God is in
   Christ Jesus. The Lord has spoken and said, "This is My beloved Son,
   hear you Him." We accept as a settled fact the Godhead of the Lord
   Jesus and our soul never permits a question upon it. We know that the
   Son of God has come. We know that He has given us an understanding that
   we may know Him that is true and that we are in Him that is true, even
   in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

   Knowing our Lord's divinity by faith, we next have used our perceptive
   faculty and, by consideration and meditation we perceive that His life
   furnishes abundant evidence that He was God, for God's Glory shines in
   that life. The more carefully we pay attention to the details given us
   by the four Evangelists, the more is our understanding persuaded that
   no mere man stands before us. If, my Brothers and Sisters, your
   spiritual nature was set at the task to try and describe how God would
   act if He were here, what God would be if He became Incarnate and dwelt
   among men--I am sure you would not have been able to imagine the life
   of Christ. But if someone had brought to you the description given by
   the Evangelists, you would have said, "My task is done! This is,
   indeed, a noble conception of God manifest in the flesh."

   I do not say that the wise men of this world would suppose God to have
   thus behaved, for their suppositions are sure to be the reverse of the
   simple, unaffected, open-hearted conduct of Jesus! But this I do say,
   that the pure in heart will at once see that the acts of Christ are
   like the doings of God! He has done exactly what a pure intelligence
   might suppose God would have done! The more we have studied the more we
   have seen the Glory of God in Christ. And now we have come further than
   this, for we feel an inward consciousness that the Deity is in Christ
   Jesus. It is not merely that we have believed it and that we somewhat
   perceive it by observation, but we have come into contact with Christ
   and have known, therefore, that He is God.

   We love Him and we also love God. And we perceive that these two are
   One and the more we love truth and holiness, and love, which are great
   traits in the Character of God, the more we see of these in Christ
   Jesus. It is by the heart that we know God and Christ--and as our
   affections are purified, we become sensible of God's Presence in
   Christ. Oftentimes when our soul is in rapt fellowship with Jesus, we
   laugh to scorn the very thought that our Beloved can be less than
   Divine! Moreover, there is one other thing that has happened to us
   while we have been looking at our Lord. Blessed be His name, we begin
   to grow like He! Our beholding Him has purified the eyes which has
   gazed on His purity. His brightness has helped our eyesight so that we
   see much already and shall yet see more.

   The light of the sun blinds us, but the light of Jesus Christ
   strengthens the eyes. We expect that as we grow in Grace we shall
   behold more and more of God's Glory--but we shall see it best in the
   Well-Beloved, even in Christ Jesus our Lord! What a sight of God we
   shall enjoy in Heaven! We are heading that way and, as we get nearer
   and nearer, our sight and vision of the Glory of God in Christ is every
   day increased! We know it, then! We know it! We believe it! We are
   conscious of it! We are affected by it! We are transformed by it! And
   thus at this day we have "the light of the knowledge of the Glory of
   God in the face of Jesus Christ!

   III. Thirdly, let us gratefully review THE MEANS OF THIS KNOWLEDGE. How
   have we come at it? That brings us to read the text again--"For God,
   who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our
   hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the
   face of Jesus Christ." Why did not everybody see the Glory of God in
   Jesus Christ when He was here? It was conspicuous enough. Answer--it
   matters not how brightly the sun shines among blind men.

   Now, the human heart is blind--it refuses to see God in Creation except
   after a dim fashion--and it utterly refuses to discern God in Christ.
   Therefore He is the despised and rejected of men. Moreover, there is a
   god of this world, the Prince of Darkness, and since he hates the Light
   he deepens and confirms the natural darkness of the human mind, lest
   the Light should reach the heart. He blinds men's minds with error and
   falsehood and foul imaginations, blocking up the windows of the soul
   either with unclean desires, or with dense ignorance. We, at one time,
   did not perceive the Glory of God in Christ because we were blind, by
   nature, and were darkened by the Evil One. As only the pure in heart
   can see God, we, being impure in heart, could not see God in Christ.

   What, then, has happened to us? To eternal Grace be endless praise! God
   Himself has shined into our hearts--that same God who said, "Light be,"
   and light was, has shined into our hearts! You know creation's story,
   how all things lay in black darkness? God might have gone on to make a
   world in darkness if he had pleased, but if he had done so, it would
   have been to us as though it had never been, for we could not have
   perceived it. Therefore He early said, "Let there be light." Now, God's
   Glory in the face of Jesus Christ might have been all there and we
   should never have discerned it-- and as far as we are concerned it
   would have been as though it had never been if the Lord had not entered
   into us and the thick darkness and said, "Let there be light."

   Then burst in the everlasting morning, the light shined in the darkness
   and the darkness fled before it. Do you recollect the incoming of that
   illumination? If you do, then I know the first sight you saw by the new
   light was the Glory of God in Jesus Christ! In fact, that light had
   come on purpose that you might see it--and at this present moment that
   is the main delight of your soul, the choice subject of your thoughts!
   In the light of God you have seen the light of the Glory of God, as it
   is written, "In Your light we shall see light." One thing I want to say
   to comfort all who believe. Beloved, do you see the glory of God in
   Christ Jesus? Then let that sight be an evidence to you of your
   salvation.

   When our Lord asked His disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of
   Man, am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the
   living God." Now note the reply of the Lord Jesus to that
   confession--"Blessed are you, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood has
   not revealed it unto you, but My Father which is in Heaven." If you can
   delight in God in Christ Jesus, then remember, "no man can say that
   Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit," and you have said it! And
   this morning you are saying it! And, therefore, the Holy Spirit has
   come upon you.

   "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." You believe
   this and, therefore, you are born of the Father. "Whoever denies the
   Son, the same has not the Father: but he that acknowledges the Son has
   the Father also." You love God and you are His--the Spirit of God has
   opened your eyes and you are saved. While I have been preaching, this
   morning, a number of my hearers have been saying, "We care nothing
   about Jesus Christ. His name is a most respectable one in our religion.
   We call ourselves Christians, but as to seeing the Glory of God in Him
   when He was a Baby and when He was despised and rejected of men, we
   know nothing of it. No doubt He is exalted now in Heaven and we worship
   Him, though we hardly know why. But we see no special Glory in Him."

   Others of you have been saying, "Yes, God was in Christ Jesus
   reconciling the world unto Himself and He has reconciled me to Himself.
   I never loved God till I saw Him in Christ. I could never have any
   familiarity with God till I saw His familiarity with me in the Person
   of His Son. I never understood how I could be God's son till I
   understood how God's Son became a Man. I never saw how I could be a
   partaker of the Divine Nature till I saw how His Son became a partaker
   of the human nature and took me up unto Himself that He might take me
   up unto His Father."

   Oh, Beloved, do you delight in Jesus Christ? Is He all your salvation
   and all your desire? Do you adore Him? Do you consecrate yourself to
   His honor? Do you wish to live for Him and to die for Him? Then be sure
   that you belong to Him, for it is the mark of the children of God that
   they love God in Christ Jesus!

   IV. So I finish by mentioning, in the fourth place, THE
   RESPONSIBILITIES OF THIS KNOWLEDGE. There have been considerable
   debates among the interpreters as to the precise meaning of this text
   and some of them think it means that Paul is giving a reason why he
   preached the Gospel. This makes the verse run thus--"For God, who
   commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts,
   that we might give out, again, the light of the knowledge of the Glory
   of God in the face of Jesus Christ." God gave light to the Apostles
   that they might show forth the light of the knowledge of God in the
   face of Jesus Christ to the nations.

   I do not know whether this is the exact run of the text, but I know it
   is true. Never is a gleam of light given to any man to hide away--and
   to spiritual men the great object of their lives, after they have
   received light--is to reflect that light in all its purity. You must
   not hoard up the light within yourself--it will not be light to you if
   you do. Only think of a person when his room is full of sunlight saying
   to his servant, "Quick, now! Close the shutters and let us keep this
   precious light to ourselves." Your room will be in the dark, my Friend!
   So, when a child of God gets the light from Christ's face, he must not
   say, "I shall keep this to myself," for that very desire would shut it
   out. No, let the light shine through you! Let it shine everywhere!

   You have the light that you may reflect it. An object which absorbs
   light is dark and we call it black. But hang up a reflector in its
   place when the sun is shining and it will not appear black--it will be
   so bright that you will hardly be

   able to look at it! An object is, itself, bright in proportion as it
   sends back the light which it receives. So you shall find, as a
   Christian, that if you absorb light into yourself, you will be black,
   but if you scatter it abroad you shall be brilliant-- you shall be
   changed into the very image of the light which you have received--you
   shall become a second sun!

   I noticed last Sabbath evening, when I came into this pulpit, that, at
   the angle of the building before me, on the left hand the sun seemed to
   be setting. And I saw the brightness of his round face and yet I knew
   it to be the wrong quarter of the heavens for the sun to be setting
   there. Perhaps you will observe that there is a peculiar window on the
   other side of the street and it was reflecting the sun so well that I
   thought it was the sun himself and I could hardly bear the light! It
   was not the sun, it was only a window, and yet the radiance was
   dazzling. And so a man of God, when he receives the light of Christ,
   can become so perfect a reflector that to common eyes, at any rate, he
   is brightness itself! He has become transformed from glory to glory as
   by the image of the Lord!

   Brothers and Sisters, if you have learned the Truth of God, manifest it
   and make it plain to others! Proclaim the Gospel, not your own
   thoughts, for it is Christ that you are to make manifest! Teach not
   your own judgments, conclusions and opinions, but the Glory of God in
   the face of Jesus Christ! Let Jesus manifest Himself in His own light.
   Do not cast a light on Him, or attempt to show the sun with a candle.
   Do not aim at converting men to your views, but let the light shine for
   itself and work its own way. Do not color it by being like a painted
   window to it, but let the clear white light shine through you that
   others may behold your Lord.

   Scatter your light in all unselfishness. Wish to shine, not that others
   may say, "How bright he is," but that they, getting the light, may
   rejoice in the Source from which it came to you and to them. Be willing
   to make every sacrifice to spread this light which you have received!
   Consecrate your entire being to the making known among the sons of men
   the Glory of Christ. Oh, I wish we had swift messengers to run the
   world over to tell the story that God has come down among us! I wish we
   had fluent tongues to tell in every language the story that, coming
   down among us, God was arrayed in flesh like our own and that He took
   our sins and carried our sorrows.

   Oh, that we had trumpet tongues to make the message peal through Heaven
   and earth that God has come among men, and cries, "Come unto Me all you
   that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"! Oh for a
   voice of thunder to speak it, or a lightning pen to write it across the
   heavens--that God has reconciled the world unto Himself by the death of
   His Son, not imputing their trespasses unto them--and that whoever
   believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life! I cannot command thunder
   or lightning, but here are your tongues, go and tell it this afternoon!
   Here is my tongue and I have tried to tell it, and may it be silent in
   the dust of death before it ceases to declare that one blessed
   message--that God in Christ Jesus receives the sons of men in boundless
   love!

   Tell it, Brothers, with broken accents, if you cannot speak it more
   powerfully. Whisper it, Sisters, gently whisper, if to none other, yet
   to your little children and make the name of, "Emmanuel, God with us,"
   to be sweet in your infant's ears. You are growing in strength and
   talent, young man--come, consecrate yourself to this. And you,
   gray-beard, before you lie down on your last bed to breathe out your
   spirit, tell the love of Jesus to your sons that they may tell it to
   their sons and hand it down to coming generations, that mankind may
   never forget that the "Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we
   beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full
   of Grace and truth." God bless you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The One Foundation

   (No. 1494)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 14, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For no other Foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which
   is Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 3:11.

   BUILDING is very important, but the first question must always concern
   the foundation. However quickly, however cleverly a man may build, if
   the foundation is unsound, he is a foolish builder. And however slowly,
   however laboriously a man may proceed, his building will not put him to
   shame if he has set his walls erect upon a firm basis. This is
   emphatically true in spiritual things, for there, the foundation is of
   the utmost importance. The hearer of the Word of God who is not a doer,
   also, comes to a fatal end because, as the Savior says, he has built
   upon sand and, therefore, his fabric in the day of storm and flood is
   swept away. But he who hears the Word and does it is secure because he
   digs deep and lays his foundation upon a rock and, therefore, his
   building survives the rains of trial from above, the floods of
   persecution from without and the mysterious winds of Satanic temptation
   which howl from every quarter.

   The best masonry must crack and fall if the groundwork is unstable--the
   higher the pinnacle, the speedier its fall if the base is insecure. As
   to what the foundation is in the religion of Jesus Christ, there is no
   question. This verse declares it to be decided beyond controversy. A
   man may build the superstructure, in some measure, according to his own
   tastes and judgment, but it must be based upon the one Foundation.
   There may be room for varieties of style in the upper building, but
   there can be no variety in the groundwork. That is fixed forever by the
   unchanging God, who says, "Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation stone."

   It must be acknowledged that all Christian minds and lives do not take
   exactly the same form and fashion--there are among the best of
   Christian builders certain grades of excellencies--one man builds with
   gold, another with silver and a third with precious stones. But as to
   the foundation, all are on a level, Christ is all and in all! Whether
   the gracious life is rich as a golden palace, or pure as a temple of
   silver, or substantial as a tower of marble. Whether it is public or
   obscure, wide or narrow, it must, in every case, be built upon the same
   basement of eternal Rock--"for no other Foundation can anyone lay than
   that which is laid."

   You may say, "we will agree to differ" about matters which concern the
   superstructure, but we must agree to agree as to the Foundation, for if
   we are not at one with the plain statement of the text, we are in the
   wrong. The Apostle is dogmatic to the very last degree--"No other
   Foundation can anyone lay." "But," says one, "various teachers did lay
   other foundations." The Apostle will not admit that they were
   foundations--they were not worthy of the name--the imposture was too
   shallow to succeed. No builder, if he looked upon a heap of sand poured
   into an excavation, would admit that it was a foundation. If he saw a
   mass of decayed vegetation and garden rubbish heaped together, no
   architect would for one moment allow it to be spoken of as foundation!

   Paul declares that there is but one Foundation, and that there is none
   beside it, or beyond it-- and that the one only, unalterable,
   immovable, everlasting Foundation is Jesus Christ! It is not to be
   imagined that there are other foundations somewhat differing and only a
   little inferior to the Lord Jesus--there is no other and no other can
   be laid. It is not a question of comparison, but of monopoly! All other
   groundworks and principles, whatever may be said in their praise, are
   mere lies if they are set forth as foundations, for the Lord Jesus has
   exclusive possession of that title and in Him, alone, all that is
   fundamental is summed up--"Neither is there salvation in any other: for
   there is no other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be
   saved."

   And truly, when you think that God, from all eternity, has made His
   only-begotten Son to be the Foundation and Cornerstone, it will be seen
   that this Rock goes deep into the very nature of things, yes, deep as
   infinity itself and, therefore, there cannot be two of the kind, for of
   whom else is it written that verily He was foreordained before the

   foundation of the world? Of whom else is it said, "I was set up from
   everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was"? When you think
   that this Foundation is nothing less than Divine, for Christ is very
   God of very God, it is as impossible that there should be two
   foundations as that there should be two Gods!

   You must imagine two redemptions before you can conceive of two
   groundworks for our confidence. Who will dream of two atonements, two
   Saviors, two Christs? Yet must such a thing be before there can be two
   foundations! None but Jesus, the Divine Savior, could sustain the
   weight of a single soul with all its sins, much less of all the souls,
   which are built up into the Temple of God! Jesus alone can sustain our
   eternal interest, deliver us from eternal wrath, or lift us into
   eternal bliss. "There is one God and one Mediator between God and men,
   the Man, Christ Jesus." His own words in prophecy are very
   positive--"I, even I, am the Lord, and beside Me there is no Savior."
   And equally expressive is His personal declaration--"I am the way, the
   truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by Me."

   I will sketch out my discourse with these four lines which I may not
   always be able to keep from intersecting, but they shall each be marked
   deeply and broadly so that none can help seeing them. First, there is
   no Church but what is built on Christ. Secondly, there is no Gospel but
   what is built on Christ. Thirdly, there is no hope of salvation but
   what is built on Christ. And fourthly, there is no Christian but what
   is built on Christ.

   I. First, there is NO CHURCH BUT WHAT IS BUILT ON CHRIST, I mean, of
   course, no true, no real Church. There are many churches in the world,
   so called, but this may be laid down as a first principle that there is
   but one Church and that this one Church is built upon Christ, alone.
   Whatever community, congregation, hierarchy, sect, or corporation may
   call itself a Church, or even the Church, if it is not built upon
   Christ, is not a Church at all. No matter how great in numbers, nor how
   ancient, nor how wealthy, nor how learned, nor how pretentious,
   bigoted, dominant, or exclusive it may be--it is not Christ's Church if
   it is not built upon Christ!

   To begin with, a foundation is the first portion of a building and so
   is the Lord Jesus first and foremost with His Church, for His people
   were chosen in Him. God has always had in His purpose and decrees a
   chosen people, but He has had no such people apart from Christ. The
   Apostle says, "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." We were chosen in Christ Jesus! He is "the First Born among
   many brethren" and the Lord has "predestinated us to be conformed to
   the image of His Son." The first setting apart of the Church and making
   it to be the peculiar inheritance of God was in connection with
   Christ--

   "Christ is My first elect,' He said, Then chose our souls in Christ our
   Head."

   We were never otherwise chosen, nor otherwise beloved, nor otherwise
   appointed to eternal life than as regarded in Christ Jesus and one with
   Him. No single soul can be said to be elect otherwise than as it is
   considered in connection with Christ. Much less, then, is there a
   Church of God apart from the eternal purpose concerning Christ Jesus,
   the Covenant Head and federal Representative of His people. The
   foundation must be laid first and so was our Lord Jesus Christ first
   appointed. "Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for
   a foundation stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure
   foundation." Jesus is called by the Father, "My elect in whom My soul
   delights," and there are none elect except such as are in Him in the
   eternal purpose of Divine Grace.

   But next, a foundation is the support of all and there is no Church but
   that which derives all its support from Christ Jesus. If there is any
   company of people calling themselves a Church who depend for salvation
   and eternal life upon anything besides, or beyond the merit of Christ's
   atoning blood, they are not a Church! That all things are of God and
   that He has reconciled us unto Himself by Christ Jesus is a Truth of
   God never to be doubted. The atoning Savior is the Cornerstone of the
   Church. He is the one Rock of our salvation, the one pillar of our
   strength. As living stones, we are built up into a spiritual house, but
   we, one and all, rest and depend upon Him and upon no other.

   To us the Word of the Lord has come with power, "Therefore let all the
   house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, whom
   you have crucified, both Lord and Christ." The great atoning Sacrifice
   of Christ must be the sole reliance of the whole Church as well as of
   each individual. And this must be set forth with great clearness and
   distinction as its first and greatest doctrine of salvation by Christ
   Jesus, in whom we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness
   of sins according to the riches of His Grace.

   The Atonement taken away, no Church remains. Call the community a
   religious club if you like, but it is no Church when once the Atonement
   made by the Lord Jesus, through His death in the place of His people,
   is denied or ignored. Nor do we judge a community to be worthy of the
   name of a Church which places its dependence for its present power and
   future progress anywhere but in the almighty Savior. Jesus says,
   "Because I live you shall also live," and the Church must draw its
   daily life from the immortality of her glorious Head. He that loved us
   and died for us and rose again is pledged to keep His own and on that
   pledge let them repose their faith. Because all power is given unto Him
   in Heaven and in earth, therefore we go forth to teach the nations.

   He has said, "Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the
   world," therefore we have strength to go forth for the conquest of the
   world. But if we depend upon an arm of flesh, upon the secular power,
   upon carnal wisdom, upon education, or eloquence, or prestige, or upon
   our own zeal and ardor and not upon Christ, we are leaving the Rock for
   sand! We cannot thus build up Christ's Church, nor ought we to attempt
   it. The strength of a living Church is the living Christ. We must be
   very careful on this point, that when we are zealous in building, we
   build only upon Christ and by Christ, for edifices otherwise erected
   will fall in heaps. We must, as a Church, not only rely upon the Christ
   that died, but upon the Christ who is gone into Glory and sits at the
   right hand of God, ruling and reigning on our behalf--who also shall
   shortly come to gather together the scattered and to reign among His
   own.

   The true Church, like a vine, derives its life sap for its branches
   from Jesus and from no other source. She can say of her glorious
   Redeemer, "My Soul, wait only upon the Lord, for my expectation is from
   Him." Other communities may lean on princes, but she comes up from the
   wilderness leaning on her Beloved. Other congregations may look to
   human greatness for support, but her eyes are towards the hills where
   comes her help--her help comes from the Lord which made Heaven and
   earth!

   Furthermore, a foundation has the shaping of the building and the true
   Church shapes and forms itself upon the Lord Jesus as its ground plan
   and outline. The shape of a building must, to a very large extent, be
   determined by its foundation. If you have ever traced the foundations
   of an ancient abbey or castle, as they have appeared on a level with
   the soil, you have proceeded to infer the form of the building from the
   run of the ground line. Here was a sharp angle; there was a circular
   tower; there was a buttress and there was a recess. The building must
   have followed the ground line and so must every true Church be built
   upon Christ in the sense of following His Word and ordinances to the
   best of its knowledge and understanding.

   The law of Christ is the law of the Church. All the decrees of popes
   and councils. All the resolutions of assemblies, synods, presbyteries
   and associations. And all the ordinances of men as individuals, however
   great they are, when they are all put together, if they at all differ
   from the Law of Christ, they are mere wind and waste paper! No, they
   are worse--they are treasonable insults to the majesty of King Jesus!
   Those who build apart from the authority of Christ build off of the
   Foundation and their fabric will fall. There is no Law and no authority
   in a true Church but that of Christ Himself. We who are His ministers
   are His servants and the servants of the Church--not lords or
   lawmakers. To His Law a faithful Church brings all things as to the
   sure test.

   As churches we are not legislators, but subjects. It is not for us to
   frame constitutions, invent offices and decree rites and
   ceremonies--but we are to take everything out of the mouth of Christ
   and to do what He bids us, as He bids us and when He bids us.
   Parliaments and kings have no authority whatever in the Church--Christ
   alone rules! If any portion of a Church is not based upon Christ, it is
   a mere deforming addition to the plan of the great Architect and mars
   the temple which God has built. What a blessed thing it is to feel that
   you belong to a Church which has the Rock under it because it is
   constituted by Christ's authority! We feel safe in following an
   ordinance which is of His commanding, but we should tremble if we had
   only custom and human authority for it.

   How secure we feel in believing a doctrine which is of our Lord's
   teaching, for we can say, "this is not mere opinion; this is not the
   judgment of a wise man; this is not the decree of councils, but this is
   the Master's own declaration." Not one of His Words shall ever fall to
   the ground. There is in His authority no change--His Word is forever
   settled in Heaven and He is, in Himself, the same yesterday, today and
   forever. Steadfast is that Church which carefully follows His guiding
   line, but that which departs from His fixed rule and authority has left
   the Foundation and therein ceased to be a Church.

   A foundation is indispensable to a building and so Christ is
   indispensable to a true Church. In a house you could do without certain
   of the windows. You might close in a door and you might remove parts of
   the roof and it might still be a house, but you cannot have a house at
   all if you take away the foundation! And so you cannot have a Church of
   Christ if Jesus Christ is not there as the Foundation and Cornerstone.
   When sermons are preached without so much as the mention of Christ's
   name, it takes more than charity--it requires you to tell a lie to say,
   "That was a Christian sermon." And if any people find their joy in a
   teaching which casts the Lord Jesus into the background, they are not
   His Church, or else such teaching would be an abomination to them.

   Yet I have heard it said that from some ministries you may go away like
   Mary Magdalene from the sepulcher, exclaiming, "They have taken away my
   Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." One told me the other
   day that he had heard a discourse from a Christian pulpit which would
   have been applauded by Jews and Muslims, for there was not a trace of
   Christ in it. Another declared that in another place he heard priests,
   clergy and sacraments so much puffed up that as for faith in the Lord
   Jesus it seemed to be a very small matter. Brothers and Sisters, this
   is not so in the Church of Christ! There the Lord Jesus is Alpha and
   Omega--first and last--beginning and end! True Christians make much of
   Christ! Indeed, they make all of Him!

   And as for priests and preachers we say, "Who then is Paul, and who is
   Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to
   every man"? O Brothers and Sisters, let us see to this! If anything is
   put into Christ's place we make it an Antichrist and we are not
   Christians, but anti-Christians! The true Church says, "Give us what
   learning and eloquence you will, but we cannot be content unless Christ
   is glorified! Preach us what you may, we will never be satisfied unless
   He who is the express Image of the Father shall be set forth in our
   midst." Then, I say, she speaks like the true bride of Christ, but if
   she can be content to see her Lord dishonored she is no chaste spouse
   of Christ!

   Let us put this, our first point, in a few sentences. It is not the
   union of men with men that makes a Church if Jesus Christ is not the
   center and the bond of the union. The best of men may come into bonds
   of amity and they may form a league, or a federation for good and
   useful purposes--but they are not a Church unless Jesus Christ is the
   basis upon which they rest. He must be the ground and Foundation of the
   hope of each and of all. Neither can a Church be created by a mere
   union to a minister. It is most good and pleasant to see Brethren
   dwelling together in unity--it is most advantageous that between the
   pastor and his flock there should be perfect love, but the relationship
   must not be exaggerated beyond due bounds.

   Brethren, there must be no glorying in men, nor blind following of
   them! A body formed of individuals whose religion lies in drinking in
   the theories and opinions of a religious teacher falls short of being a
   Church of God. The Church is not built on Paul, nor upon Apollos, nor
   upon Cephas, but upon the sole authority of Jesus Christ! We are not to
   be believers in Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or Whitefield, but in Christ!
   Of such believers a true Church must be composed. Neither is a Church
   made by the following of any particular form or rite. We have one Lord,
   one faith, one Baptism-- and we are bound to be loyal to Christ in His
   ordinances as in all else--but it is not the practice of an ordinance
   which constitutes a Church!

   It is well to be united and bound together in loyalty to the faith once
   delivered to the saints, but unless there is vital, personal union with
   the Person of Christ on the part of the members of the Church, their
   association may constitute a league for the defense of orthodoxy, or a
   confederation for the maintenance of a form of religious thought, but
   it is not a Church! No, most blessed Lord, You must be there, or
   nothing is there! Pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, evangelists--
   these are courses of precious stones in the heavenly temple--but
   without You they are no Church, for the Foundation is needed--You, my
   Lord, are needed!

   All Your saints come to You and rest on You, O Christ, and in You all
   the building, fitly framed together, grows unto an holy Temple in the
   Lord. You are the Stem from which it branches, the Head in which it
   lives, the Shepherd by whom it is fed, the Captain by whom it is
   marshaled, the Husband to whom it is married! You are, indeed, the All
   in All of the Church which You have redeemed with Your own blood--

   "God has a sure Foundation given,

   Fixed as the firm decrees of Heaven!

   The changeless everlasting Rock,

   That braves the storm, and bides the shock.

   There build the gates of Hell in vain

   Against that Rock their war maintain.

   Christ is the Rock, the Cornerstone,

   God rears His beauteous house thereon."

   Thus far, then, we have declared that there is no Church except that
   which is built on Jesus Christ. This Truth of God we assert in the face
   of all men--let them make what they will of it.

   II. Secondly, we assert that there is NO GOSPEL BUT WHAT IS BUILT ON
   JESUS CHRIST. There are many pretended gospels in the world. Paul said
   once, "another Gospel," and then he corrected himself and said, "which
   is not another," for strictly speaking there is only one Gospel and
   there cannot be two! The good news, God's Good News to men, is one.
   There never were two gospels, for there never were two Savior's or two
   redemptions and there never will be! But a Savior and a redemption are
   necessary to a Gospel and, therefore, there can be only one. The
   Foundation of the Gospel is one, namely Jesus Christ, and there is no
   other possible foundation.

   For, first, there is but one Mediator, by whom God speaks Words of
   Grace. "There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man,
   Christ Jesus." If then, Beloved, any man shall come to you and say,
   "God has spoken to me and bid me say to you somewhat other and above
   what Jesus has said," receive him not! If any man says to you, "I have
   a revelation from Heaven and God bids me speak," if he speaks not
   according to the Words of Christ Jesus, he is a false prophet and comes
   not from God at all. Yes, moreover, if bishop, or council, or Church
   speak otherwise than Christ has spoken, the Truth of God is not in any
   of them!

   All that ever spoke from God, both before Christ and after Christ, have
   spoken after their manner and measure in the same fashion as Christ
   Jesus, the Lord, for the voice of God is not two, but one, and the Word
   of God is not two or three, but one. And now, at this day, you may rest
   quite certain that if God has anything to say to us, He has, in these
   last days, spoken to us by His Son and His own hand has closed and
   sealed the Revelation of God. Woe unto us if we hear Him not and woe
   unto us if we listen to other voices! Indeed, if we are the sheep of
   Christ, we shall not regard new voices, for our Lord has said it, "A
   stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of
   strangers." The true Gospel comes through Christ as the Mediator and
   through Him alone--and that which comes otherwise is not the Gospel.

   The true Gospel has Christ's Divine Person as its glory and there can
   be no Gospel without this. Christ is God and in Him dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily. In the Person of Christ the Divinity
   has come down to us to heal our diseases and remove our griefs. Now, if
   you hear of a Gospel which begins by saying that Christ is not the
   Only-Begotten of the Father, or that He is not the Son of God, close
   your ears to it, for it is not the Gospel of God! Unless Jesus is
   extolled as God over all, blessed forever, the preaching is not the
   Gospel!

   Jesus Christ is the essence of the Gospel--He is the Good News, as well
   as the medium of it. The good news is that God has sent His
   only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him.
   Eternal redemption has been obtained for us by the life, death and
   Resurrection of the Lord Jesus--this is the Gospel. There is pardon
   through His blood, justification through His righteousness and
   sanctification through His Spirit. Complete salvation is freely
   provided for Believers in Him and the Grace of God through Him is
   abundantly displayed to the very chief of sinners! God has made Him to
   be unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption--in
   fact, all the blessings that are needed to lift man up into the favor
   of God--and keep him there forever, are stored up in the Person of
   Jesus, in whom God's love has displayed itself to the fullest degree.
   Jesus is the sum and substance, crown and glory of the Gospel.

   If then, you hear a gospel in which the freewill of man is spoken of as
   the main agent. If you hear a gospel in which the works of man, or the
   forms and ceremonies practiced by priests are set up as being
   fundamental things, reject such teaching, for it is not the good news
   from Heaven! The only Good News is this, "God was in Christ,
   reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
   them." Let others preach what they please, as for us, "we preach Christ
   Crucified." Jesus Himself preached the very Gospel of the Gospel when
   He cried, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest."

   Now then, Brothers and Sisters, for I speak to many of you who teach
   the Gospel, I beseech you to remember my simple text of today and, from
   now on, teach nothing apart from Christ. The teaching of doctrines is
   not the teaching of the Gospel if those doctrines are held in a dry,
   didactic style apart from Christ. Suppose I preach the doctrine of
   election. That is one thing--but unless I preach that we are chosen in
   Christ I have left out the Foundation and my teaching

   crumbles to the ground as a bowing wall or as a tottering fence!
   Suppose I preach final perseverance, it is well. But I have not
   preached the Gospel unless I show that it is because Jesus lives, we
   shall also live and that the preservation of the saints depends on
   their union with Him!

   Suppose I am teaching justification--it is not the true justification
   unless it is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus which I hold
   forth! Here I commend to you the example of the earlier preachers of
   the Church. From such of their writings as remain, we gather that they
   dwelt much upon the actual events of the Redeemer's life. They are not
   always so clear as one could wish upon the great doctrines as Paul
   gives them to us, but there is one point in which they excel. You may
   not hear enough from them about justification by faith, but you hear a
   great deal concerning the precious blood of Christ! They do not always
   speak so clearly upon regeneration as we would desire, but they speak
   much of the Resurrection of Christ and of the newness of life which His
   saints enjoy because of it!

   Pardon to them is a washing in the blood of Christ. Conversion is being
   called by Christ. Resurrection is a risen Christ. Everything is brought
   out as a matter of fact arising from the actual life and death of the
   Savior and I am free to confess that I greatly admire this way of
   preaching the Gospel. How does Paul put it? What was the Gospel to him?
   Hear him--"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I
   preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand;
   by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto
   you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first
   of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
   according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose
   again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen
   of Cephas, then of the twelve."

   Thus, you see, Paul's body of Divinity was the life and death of that
   only embodied Divinity, the Lord Jesus. My Brothers and Sisters, always
   set forth the Gospel in close connection with your Lord, fetching it,
   as it were, out of Him. The juice of the grape is pleasant, but if you
   would know what it is in all its purity keep the grapes near you and
   press them in the vineyard where they grow. So the Gospel is the wine
   of Christ, but it is sweetest when it flows fresh from the cluster.
   Preach Jesus Christ when you preach His doctrine, or else you may make
   the doctrine to be like the stone at the door of His sepulcher, whereas
   it ought to be like a throne of ivory on which, like another Solomon,
   your Lord sits resplendent! Some preach experience and they do
   well--but they should be exceedingly careful to keep Jesus very
   prominent.

   We have a school of Brothers who preach little else than experience and
   I do not condemn them. But what is the experience of a poor fellow
   sinner to me? How does it help me to hear that he groans as I do, or
   sings as I do? It may be of some small service to me, but there are
   more excellent things! I need to know how Jesus felt and what Christ
   can do for my Brother and for me. Experience is admirable when Jesus
   Christ is set forth in it, but if you take up an experimental vein of
   things, whether of human corruption, or have human perfection and Jesus
   Christ in the background, you are marring the Gospel! Jesus is the one
   Foundation and there is no Gospel apart from Him!

   So, too, with practice. By all means let us have practical preaching
   and plenty of it! And let it come down sternly and faithfully on the
   vices of the times. But merely to preach against this and that vice and
   extol this and that virtue is a mission fit enough for Socrates or
   Plato, but does not well become a minister of Jesus Christ! Set Jesus
   forth, my practical Brother! His example shames vice and encourages
   virtue! Set Him up as the mirror of all perfection and in Him men will
   see what they ought to be and learn how to come at it. Jesus Christ,
   then, is the only Gospel! We leave that point, being abundantly sure
   that you are persuaded of it.

   III. Thirdly. THERE IS NO HOPE OF SALVATION BUT THAT WHICH IS BUILT
   UPON CHRIST. This is

   another point upon which I need not speak much. I will only spend a few
   minutes in talking upon certain other hopes. No doubt some think it
   must be well with them because they were brought up from their
   childhood most respectably. Their parents were excellent Christian
   people and they believe that they, themselves, having never done
   anything very wrong, are no doubt safe.

   Ah, my dear Hearers, if this is your only hope, you are lost, for you
   are dead in sin! That which is born of the flesh, the best of flesh
   that ever was is flesh and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
   of God! You must be born again! You must have a far better hope than
   any which can spring out of your birth and your relations. "Yes, but,"
   says someone, "I had all the ceremonies of the Church performed upon
   me." Yes, and it makes no difference to me what Church it was. If you
   are building, even, upon rites which God has given, they will not
   suffice you--they cannot bear the

   weight of your soul. Baptism, the Lord Supper, or 50,000 sacraments, if
   men were to make so many, would not help you one solitary inch! The
   only Foundation for your soul's hope must be Christ and none of these
   outward things.

   "Ah," says another, "but I have diligently performed a great many good
   works." I would to God you had 10 times as many good works, but if you
   have committed one single sin, no works can save you! All the good
   works of the best men that ever lived would make but a rotten
   foundation for them if they were to place reliance on them. Abound in
   good works, but do not trust them! Human merit is a foundation of sand.
   "But I have had special spiritual feelings," says one. "I have been
   broken down, I have been lifted up." Yes, you may have been crushed
   down to Hell's door and lifted up to Heaven's gate--but there is
   nothing in feelings and excitements which can be a ground of hope.

   "Why," says one, "it has troubled me that I have not had these
   feelings." Do not let it trouble you, but go to Jesus Christ and rest
   in Him! Feelings or no feelings! High frames and low frames are all
   delusions if they are trusted in. We can no more be saved by our
   feelings than by our works. "Oh, but," says another, "I have confidence
   that I am saved, for I have had a wonderful dream and, moreover, I
   heard a voice and saw a vision!" Rubbish all! Dreams, visions, voices?
   Throw them all away! There is not the slightest reliance to be placed
   upon them. "What, not if I saw Christ?" No, certainly not, for vast
   multitudes saw Him in the days of His flesh--and died and perished,
   after all! "But surely a dream will save me." It will give you a dreamy
   hope and when you awake in the next world your dream will be gone!

   The one thing to rest upon is the sure Word of testimony--Christ Jesus
   came into the world to save sinners and whoever believes in Him is not
   condemned. I believe in Him and, therefore, I am not condemned! Why do
   I believe my sin to be forgiven? Because Jesus died to put away the
   sins of Believers and there is no condemnation to those who are in Him!
   Why do I believe myself to be justified? Because he that believes is
   justified--the Word of God says so. How do I know that I am saved?
   Because Jesus Christ has declared that whoever believes in Him is not
   condemned! To believe in Him is to trust in Him, to make Him my
   Foundation! I trust in Him. He is my Foundation and I am saved, or else
   His Word is not true.

   I know that His Word is true and, therefore, I am at rest. It is
   written, "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." I believe in
   Him, therefore I have everlasting life! I have His promise that I shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck me out of His hands, therefore I
   shall never perish, neither shall any separate me from His love. You
   see, then, there is no hope of salvation but what is fixed upon Christ
   alone! And I invite and entreat you, if any of you have any hope which
   goes beyond Christ or besides Christ, get rid of it! Throw it on a
   dunghill and loathe it as an insult to God! Do as the man did with the
   bad bank note. When he found it was a forgery he buried it and ran away
   as fast as he could, for fear anybody should think the note had ever
   been in his possession!

   So, if you are trusting in anything that is not of Christ, bury your
   faith and run away from it, for it is a false confidence and will work
   ill to your soul! Let your faith cry, "None but Christ!" All-saving
   faith delights in that cry. For eternal salvation, "no other Foundation
   can anyone lay than that which is laid."

   IV. Our last point is this--THERE IS NO CHRISTIAN BUT THE MAN BUILT ON
   JESUS CHRIST. Here is a Christian and of one thing in him I am sure--I
   cannot tell whether he holds Arminian views or Calvinistic views, but
   if he is a Christian he has no Foundation but Christ. Here is a person
   who reverences the Pope. Here is another who glories in the name of
   Protestant. Here is a third who is a Baptist--which is the Christian
   out of these? I answer, he is the Christian that is built on Christ,
   whoever he may be. But if he can do without Christ, he is not worthy of
   the name of Christian!

   What do we mean? Why this. I mean first, every man to be a Christian
   must rest His whole soul upon Christ as to eternal salvation. There
   must be no stuttering or stammering over that! There must be no mixing
   up the merits of Jesus with priests or ceremonies. No, it must be a
   clear--a straight line--Christ for me! Christ everything for me--my one
   and only hope! Any deviation here is fatal. On the Cross is written,
   Spes unica and it remains the one and only hope of a burdened soul.

   Next, if you are to be a Christian, Christ must be your model. By the
   aid of His Holy Spirit, you must try to do what He would have done in
   your position and under your circumstances. You are not to say, "I
   cannot follow Christ in this." You are never to renounce His
   leadership. If you do, you must give up being a Christian because you
   are bound to take up His Cross and follow Him. He claims to be your
   King when He becomes your Savior. A true Christian is a man who builds
   upon Christ, as his Model, as walls are built on a foundation. A true
   Christian is one whose growing up is in

   Christ, for, strange to say, the Temple of God grows. Nor need we
   wonder, for it is a living temple. I have seen magnificent pieces of
   architecture masterpieces and it has struck me, when I looked at them,
   that they must have grown.

   An ordinary, clumsy bit of work displays the mason and the carpenter,
   but perfect architecture looks as if it grew! And Christ's Church does
   grow, for Christ's people grow. But all our growing up must come out of
   Christ. When a man says, "Years ago I used to worship with these
   Christian people and I felt very happy with them, but I have now more
   education and have got beyond them," he is guided by his pride and not
   by Divine Grace. No true Christian talks so! The higher he grows, the
   more he grows into Christ! The wiser he is, the more he shows the
   wisdom of Christ. If he has begun aright, he may advance as far as he
   can, but he never can advance beyond Christ. He will get to be less and
   Christ will be more and more to him, for he is not a Christian who does
   not stick to this--that the Foundation goes as far as he means to go
   and he builds never beyond that--but builds upward upon that and upon
   that alone.

   And he, again, is the true Christian who lives for Christ, to whom
   Christ's Glory is the great object of his being. He is a Christian who
   reckons that time wasted which is not used for Jesus--that substance
   wasted which is not used in obedience to Jesus--who considers that he
   does not live except as Christ lives in him. Brothers and Sisters, I
   pray that you may all be Christians of this sort--only let it be with
   you forevermore Jesus Christ. I do not like to preach a sermon without
   feeling the presence of my Master. I have done so, but never to my own
   comfort. I cannot bear to come away from the Monday evening Prayer
   Meeting without feeling that the Lord has been there and He generally
   is.

   The true heart does not like to engage in any kind of enterprise
   without first consulting Him and doing it in His sight. We are a very
   busy Church and I want you, as a busy Church, doing a great deal to
   always keep the Master near you. The most holy work gets to be mere
   routine--to be done mechanically--unless we enjoy His dear love and
   sweet Presence and blessed smile in the doing of His will. Sit at
   Jesus' feet with Mary as well as work for Him like Martha. May He be
   the Foundation of everything, not only of the Church, but of our hope,
   of our character, of every little thing we

   do!

   When you are laying the first stone of a new enterprise, lay it upon
   Christ with fair colors. Set it in the vermilion of His precious blood!
   Perfume it with the oil of gratitude and lay it upon Him alone! And so
   shall you, by His Grace, build for eternity and glorify His precious
   name! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The King-Priest

   (No. 1495)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 21, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He shall sit and rule on His throne; and He shall be a priest on His
   throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." Zechariah
   6:13.

   LET us first look at the historical setting of this passage. It would
   seem that three Jews of the captivity had come from Babylon with a
   contribution towards the building of the temple at Jerusalem under
   Zerubbabel and Joshua. Their names are given in the 10th verse of the
   chapter before us. Now, the Jews at Jerusalem had become exceedingly
   exclusive and, in some measure, rightly so. They would not accept help
   for the building of the Temple from Samaritans because they were a
   mixed race. They had said to them, "You have nothing to do with us to
   build a house unto our God, but we ourselves together will build unto
   the Lord God of Israel."

   Possibly they had begun to feel some coolness with reference to the
   captivity at Babylon inasmuch as if any did not come back to their own
   land, their descent must be proven before they would be acknowledged.
   If they would not quit the ease and comfort of the towns in which they
   were settled and come up to Jerusalem to work with their brethren,
   could they be sure that they were really Israelites? At any rate there
   would need to be some enquiry into the pedigree of anyone offering
   gifts to make sure they might not be receiving help from Samaritan
   pretenders.

   There was, however, no difficulty about the acceptance of the offerings
   in this case, for the Prophet Zechariah was bid to hasten down that
   same day and meet the three worthy Jews from Babylon. He was to accept
   for the Lord the tribute which they had brought and make of it crowns
   of silver and gold. He was then to go with these Brothers and Josiah,
   the son of Zephaniah, their host, down to the Temple, call for the High
   Priest, Joshua, or Jesus, the son of Josedech, and place these coronets
   of silver and gold upon his head.

   This was to be done, not as an honor to the individual, but as a
   prophetic token that there would, in due time, arise One who would be a
   Priest crowned with many crowns. This illustrious Person, who is
   called, "the Branch," was to spring out of the decayed house of David,
   like a shoot from a tree which has been cut down even to the stump--
   according to the prophecy of Isaiah--"and there shall come forth a rod
   out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots"
   (11:1). He was to be both a Priest and a King even as David had
   prophesied in the 110th Psalm--"The Lord has sworn, and will not
   repent, You are a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."

   Now Melchizedek combined the king and the priest in one person, as also
   does our Lord Jesus of whom Zechariah spoke. This royal Priest was to
   build the real Temple of God, which the Temple at Jerusalem could never
   be, for the Highest dwells not in temples made with hands. It was also
   intimated by the Prophet that as at that particular time men had come
   from afar and had brought offerings to the Temple, so in the days of
   this great Priest-King many should come from the uttermost ends of the
   earth and should, themselves, be built into the Temple of the Lord God.

   This is the historical setting of our text. Now we have to learn its
   spiritual lesson. May the Holy Spirit be our Instructor. Last Sabbath
   morning we spoke of the Foundation of the Temple of God. We saw how--

   "The Church's one Foundation Is Jesus Christ, our Lord."

   We may not forget that He who is the Foundation is also the Builder of
   the spiritual house--"He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He
   shall bear the glory." There is but One who is the true Architect and
   Master Builder of the Church of God, even Jesus Christ! His hands have
   laid the foundation of the house, His hands shall also finish it. So
   great is the fullness of our Lord Jesus that no figures can exhaust His
   Character--He is not only Foundation and Builder, but He is the
   "Headstone of the corner"--the Pinnacle as well as the Basement, the
   Omega as well as the Alpha, the Finisher as well as the Beginner.

   He begins, He carries on and He completes the Divine structure of the
   Church and when all this is done, it is He that establishes the
   structure, provisions and furnishes it, keeps and preserves it and,
   best of all, it is He that is the Glory in the midst, dwelling in the
   Church, as a monarch in His own halls and making it to be a palace as
   well as a temple! It is the Lord Jesus who walks among the golden
   candlesticks of the Church, who loads her table with bread and wine and
   sends forth His rod of power from her midst. As a King as well as a
   Priest, He dwells in His palace-temple. As the Shekinah was the Glory
   of the Tabernacle of God among men in days of old, so is the Presence
   of Jesus the Glory of the Church at this hour. "Lo, I am always with
   you; even unto the end of the world" is our pillar of cloud and of
   fire, our glory and our defense.

   Our text tells us that the promised Builder of the spiritual temple
   will inhabit and build it in His double Character as Priest and King.
   The Church is built up by none other than by this Melchisidec and it is
   built by Him in virtue of both His offices as King and Priest. As King
   He puts forth power and as Priest He displays holiness. As a King He
   builds up the walls and as a Priest He sanctifies them unto the Lord.
   At this moment it will be well for our faith to open her eyes and look
   up into Heaven, itself, and see our great exalted Priest-King sitting
   at the right hand of God and yet at the same time working, by His
   Spirit, among men for the perfecting of His Church below. Our Solomon
   is both reigning and building! Of His Throne we may well say, "there
   was not the same in any kingdom," and of His Temple we may also add
   that it is "exceedingly magnificent, of fame and glory throughout all
   countries."

   I shall try, this morning, to set our Lord Jesus before you, as far as
   I can, in that double Glory which is peculiar to Himself--in the
   majesty of His royalty and the holiness of His priesthood. Such lights
   meet not in any other star! To no one else belongs the royal
   priesthood, save only that He reflects His own brightness upon His
   brethren, whom He has made to be priests and kings! The subject will
   run thus--first let us consider the glorious combination of offices in
   the Person of Christ. Secondly, let us notice the happy result of
   it--"the counsel of peace shall be between them both." And then,
   thirdly, let us suggest the action on our part which is harmonious
   thereto--make crowns and set them upon the head of Jesus.

   I. First, then, I want you to consider at this time THE GLORIOUS
   COMBINATION which is found in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
   Note, first that He is King and of Him, as King, it is written, "He
   shall sit and rule upon His throne." One has the idea of ease suggested
   by the expression. Few kings have been able to sit and rule. Most have
   been forced to rise and rush here and there to defend their
   sovereignty! No other seat in the world is so uneasy as a throne! We
   have seen monarchs elevated by their soldiers, or borne aloft by the
   fickle throng--bayonets or ballot boxes have been the frail supports of
   their thrones.

   The last few centuries have been a sorry time for kings. As once men
   feared to be thought Prophets, so might men in revolutionary times have
   cried out, each one, "I am not a king nor the son of a king." But our
   Lord Jesus sits upon a Throne which knows no trouble--once and for all
   He has bled and died and now He has gone into Glory never to be
   disturbed again. The Lord who has set Him on the Throne by an
   unalterable decree, has His enemies in derision and Jesus waits in
   perfect rest until His foes shall be made His footstool. Publicly
   recognized as King of kings by the Divine enthronement which His Father
   has given Him, He is not a King warring for a disputed crown, nor
   battling to drive invaders from His realm--He sits and rules upon His
   Throne!

   Sitting is the posture of abiding as well as resting. Jesus reigns on
   and will reign on so long as the moon endures. "Your throne, O God, is
   forever and ever." Even we, who are yet young, have seen dynasties come
   and go and we have seen the kingdoms of the earth moved and tossed to
   and fro as the waves of the sea. But the Throne of Jesus has not been
   shaken, for it is written, "The Lord sits upon the flood; yes, the Lord
   sits King forever." "The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high above
   all the people." "The Lord shall reign forever and ever." Hallelujah!
   As a King, He is described as sitting upon His own Throne. He has not
   usurped the throne of another, but His right to sovereignty is
   indisputable. He is well qualified to be King of men since He is their
   Redeemer.

   His Father has given Him a crown as the reward of the travail of His
   soul, even as He promised, "Therefore will I divide Him a portion with
   the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He
   poured out His soul unto death." He sits upon a Throne which He has won
   by conquest, for He has vanquished the powers of darkness and led
   captivity captive. His right to His Throne can never be disputed, for
   it is accorded to Him by the enthusiastic approval of all His people.
   Do we not sing--

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

   There is no monarch so secure as He! He is really and truly King by
   Divine right. He is King by descent, for He is Son and heir of the
   Highest. He is King by His own intrinsic excellence, for there is none
   to be compared to Him. And he is King by His own native might and
   majesty, for He Himself holds His Throne against all comers and shall
   hold it till all enemies shall be under His feet. Thus is He spoken of
   as King.

   A hint or two is given as to His position as Priest, namely, that He is
   first, Priest, before He is King, for so was the type in the text.
   Joshua, the son of Josedech was already High Priest and then he was
   crowned with the gold and silver crowns. Now, the kingdom of which we
   speak today it not that of Christ's essential royalty as by Divine
   Nature and, therefore, Lord of All, but that which His Father has given
   Him, because, "Being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and
   became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Why God also
   has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name,
   that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven,
   and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue
   should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
   Father."

   Jesus reigns because He died. For the suffering of death He is crowned
   with glory and honor. The saints in Heaven sing, "You are worthy to
   take the Book and to open the seals thereof, for You were slain, and
   have redeemed us to God by Your blood." We note, too, with regard to
   our Lord's Priesthood, that He is said to sit, for if He sits as King,
   it is implied that He sits as Priest. Indeed, it is expressly said, "He
   shall be a Priest upon His throne." Now, of no other priest is it said
   that he sits, for the Apostle says, "Every priest stands daily
   ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can
   never take away sins." There was no seat provided within the Holy Place
   for Aaron, or for any of the priests--they were servants of God and
   they stood, daily ministering.

   "But this Man, after He had offered one Sacrifice for sins forever, sat
   down at the right hand of God; from that time waiting till His enemies
   be made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever
   them that are sanctified." Jesus still sits forevermore in quiet
   expectancy, for all His work is done--there is no merit to be worked
   out to complete His righteousness, no sufferings to be endured to
   perfect His Atonement. "It is finished," He said, as He gave up the
   ghost--and it is finished! And in token thereof, Jehovah says to Him,
   "Sit You at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool." So
   far, then, we have a glimpse of the King sitting on His Throne and of
   the Priest, crowned and resting from His labors--we have seen each
   office.

   Now we are to see the two combined in the Lord Jesus. And to make the
   combination clear we shall notice, first, that as a Priest, He is
   royal. And then, secondly, that as a King, He is priestly. Consider,
   now, that as a Priest, our Lord is royal. He was a Priest when He
   honored the Law by His death. He was a Priest when He took upon Himself
   our sins and bore them, offering His own soul as the Victim upon the
   Altar of His body. He was to the fullest, a Priest when He presented
   His one Sacrifice for sin. But never let it be forgotten that even
   then, in His Nature, He was a King! The sword of vengeance awoke
   against the Man who was Jehovah's Fellow even when He bled. The Laws
   which He vindicated had been ordained by Himself and it adds a special
   Glory to His priestly work of Atonement that it was worked by the royal
   Lawgiver Himself.

   The subjects broke the Laws, but it was the King who bore the penalty!
   He that is under law offends, but He that made the Law came under the
   Law that He might make amends to the injured honor of His own justice!
   This was a notable deed of love and of justice combined. Let us be even
   more amazed at the Sacrifice of our great High Priest, because of the
   dignity of His Nature and the supremacy of His rank, for He made
   Himself of no reputation and took upon Himself the form of a Servant!
   Our Lord stooped to the lowest service for our sakes when He was acting
   a Priest among us in these lower realms.

   He presented Himself as an Offering for sin and men scourged Him, spat
   upon Him and hung Him up like a felon-- and in all this shame and
   suffering we look to Him as our Savior! Thus He made expiation for sin.
   But though we are to look to Him in that capacity for the pardon of
   sin, as men sought cleansing from a priest, we must never forget that
   now He expects homage from us and we must come to Him for government as
   men pay obedience to a king. Think of Him as the Crucified One as much
   as you will, for as such He is your atoning Sacrifice, but remember
   that this same Jesus which

   was crucified, God has proclaimed to be both Lord and King. Trust in
   the Man of the crown of thorns must foster and nourish reverence for
   the Lord who wears many crowns.

   We must not only trust but worship. We must never separate from that
   shame and spitting the fact that the four living creatures and the
   elders prostrate themselves before the Lamb and sing unto His praise,
   "You are worthy to take the Book, and to open the seals thereof: for
   you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood."--

   "Salvation to God, who sits on the Throne, Let all cry aloud, and honor
   the Son! The praises of Jesus the angels proclaim, Fall down on their
   faces and worship the Lamb." O you that come to Him today laden with
   guilt and full of fears to wash yourselves in the fountain which He
   filled from His own veins, you must also come to obey Him and to walk
   in His statutes! You may not come to Him merely that you may get your
   sins forgiven--you must come to be cleansed from the power of evil--and
   to yield yourselves unto God. Jesus was given that He might be Leader
   and Commander to the people, as well as their Deliverer and Savior.

   A true disciple looks to His Master for ruling as well as for teaching
   and he expects to render obedience as well as to receive instruction.
   There may be no separation between these two points--our Priest to save
   must always be regarded as our King to rule. He puts away sin, but He
   expects to reign over the forgiven spirit. He washes our feet, but He
   looks to see that we also practice His precepts and example of love,
   for He says--"You also ought to wash one another's feet." At this
   moment in Heaven, if your eyes of faith can see the Lord Jesus, you
   perceive that He is pleading for His people as a Priest. It is a
   priest's duty to offer intercession for those over whom he is
   appointed--and this Jesus does continually.

   Has He not said, "For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace, and for
   Jerusalem's sake I will not rest"? He always lives to make intercession
   for them that come to God by Him. But do not forget that our Lord does
   not make intercession otherwise than royally. There is no prostration,
   now, amidst the olives of the gloomy garden; no bloody sweat; no strong
   crying and tears. He says not, "Not as I will, but as You will," but He
   urges His case in another fashion. The interceding Priest has laid
   aside His bloodstained garments and put on His robes of holiness for
   Glory and for beauty! He wears the jeweled breastplate; ephod of gold
   and blue and purple and scarlet; miter and fine linen and gold; and
   girdle of needlework the High Priest wore on favored days--all typical
   of the Glory of the Lord Jesus now that He has gone within the veil.

   With authority He pleads with God from the Throne of His power. He asks
   and He has. He speaks and it is done, for the Intercessor of the saints
   before the Throne of God is now the King immortal, eternal,
   invisible--the only wise God, our Savior! Oh, what prevalence there is
   in His plea! And when we give Him our cause to plead, how confident we
   may feel that the blessing will come to us. As a Priest our Redeemer
   not only pleads with God, but He blesses the people. It was the work of
   the High Priest to pronounce the benediction over the house of Israel.
   Jesus does that, but He does it royally! I mean He does it with the
   power of a king as well as with the commission of a priest. He does not
   merely wish us good, but He works us good! There is Omnipotent
   Sovereignty at the back of the priestly benediction. He that speaks and
   declares His people to be justified, accepted, preserved and blessed is
   He who can make good His words. The benediction of Jesus, the Priest,
   is the benediction of Jesus the King! Let us rejoice and be glad in
   this.

   And now, Beloved, it is as a Priest that Jesus sends out His Gospel to
   the ends of the earth. In that Gospel He invites men to come to Him
   that He may purge them from their uncleanness. Today He speaks by us,
   His ministers, and bids men come to the great Priest that He may heal
   them of their leprosy and deliver them from all manner of defilement.
   But, mark you, it is an invitation from a King as well as from a
   Priest--and he that rejects it shall be counted guilty of disloyalty
   and high treason! "He that believes not shall be damned." It is not, O
   sons of men, that Jesus offers you salvation and leaves it up to you
   whether you will have it or not! If you reject it your rejection will
   be required at your hands! Beware, you despisers, and wonder and
   perish!

   The invitation to the wedding of the great King is made freely, of His
   voluntary bounty, but if any who are bid shall refuse to come, the King
   will be angry and send forth His armies against those who thus proclaim
   their enmity. Jesus is not only Priest, asking you to come to Him and
   receive of His forgiving love, but He is King as well--and He will
   break, with a rod of iron, all that dare to trample on His blood and
   slight His priestly Grace. Thus I have put forward the combination in
   one form and testified that Jesus, as a Priest, is right kingly in all
   that He does.

   Let us now turn the other side of the Truth towards the light and see
   that as a King He always retains His priestly Character and, in the
   deeds of His Sovereignty, He acts not otherwise than as the High Priest
   of His people. The Lord Jesus Christ is King over all at this very
   moment. He reigns over the whole world and, notwithstanding all this
   hurly-burly of affairs, this perpetual clamor of wars and rumors of
   wars, His kingdom rules over all! Our Lord is Master of the game and He
   shall surely win at the end. "The government shall be upon His
   shoulders."

   But, blessed be His name, our Lord's kingly majesty is ever softened
   and sweetened by His priestly tenderness, otherwise He would have
   crushed this world out of existence long ago! If Rule had been all and
   Mercy had not claimed her share, Justice would have swept away this
   rebellious race! If Jesus were not Priest as well as King, He would say
   to His angels, "Go and smite that nation which refuses My Gospel.
   Destroy Antichrist that lifts his triple crown against My Sovereignty.
   Go and scourge that favored nation which, having the Gospel of peace,
   yet chooses war and with high looks and lofty words provokes
   bloodshed."

   He does not destroy because His office is to forgive and save! A priest
   must show longsuffering, gentleness and compassion, for, to that end,
   is he taken from among men and ordained for men in the things of God.
   Such is our Lord--"He is not slack concerning His promise, but He is
   longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all
   should come to repentance." This longsuffering of the King leads to
   repentance--its intent is man's salvation. We, who are short of
   patience, cry eagerly to Him, "Come, O King. Come, O King!" But He
   answers, "I tarry yet a while in mercy that still more may be gathered
   to My name and may wash themselves in My atoning blood." Think of this,
   my Brothers and Sisters! Do not lower Christ's Sovereignty, but at the
   same time learn to see it shining with gentler beams through the medium
   of His priestly Character!

   And, now, today, among His servants, Jesus alone is King and as King He
   commands us. He lays certain laws upon His servants and He bids us
   teach all men to observe His statutes. But, oh, it is so sweet to think
   that our King in Zion is also a faithful and merciful High Priest,
   touched with a feeling of our infirmities, ready to help us and prompt
   to forgive us. My Brothers and Sisters, though Jesus commands you, yet
   He pities your weakness and helps you to obey. He has given you a Law,
   but He knows your feebleness and so He gives you Grace to keep it! Yes,
   and when you do not keep it, He has pity upon the ignorant and upon
   them that are out of the way--and your sins of ignorance and of
   transgression He continues, still, to put away.

   When His servants were about Him here on earth, He not only gave His
   commands to them, but He prayed for them that they might be kept from
   disobeying in the hour of trial. And He restored them when they had
   fallen. He not only ruled His little band of followers, but He kept
   them in the name of the Lord. He was their King and their Priest, too.
   Read the commands of Jesus with becoming reverence, for He is your
   king! But let them not distress you, for He knows your weakness and
   will help you to do what, of yourself, you are incapable of doing! He
   is King, but the priestly garment is always over the kingly
   vesture--whatever the ornaments of His imperial splendor, He is still
   clothed with a garment down to the feet. The priesthood covers all and
   removes all cause of dread from every believing mind.

   The same is true of our great King when He goes out to war. He is the
   Lord mighty in battle--in righteousness He does judge and make war. The
   Psalmist cries, "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O most mighty, with
   Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride prosperously
   because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and Your right hand
   shall teach You terrible things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of
   the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under You." But the wars of
   Christ are not like the wars of earthly monarchs. His sword is not in
   His hand, but it goes out of His mouth--and with this He smites and
   rules the nations! He is clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, but it
   is His own blood!

   Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled
   in blood, but this is a warfare of another fashion, for He wrestles not
   with men, but with their sins! Not with princes and armies, but with
   falsehood and iniquity! His victories are not those of mighty men who
   return from the fray amidst the groans of widows and the cries of
   orphans, but His bloodless triumphs make glad the poor and the
   oppressed and only crush down principalities and powers and spiritual
   wickedness in high places, bringing good to all who seek His face! He
   is a King, but always the patron and true Priest of men. Among
   ourselves at this day, Beloved, we who know Him delight to acknowledge
   Him as our King. O Lord Jesus, You greater Joseph, the Shepherd and
   Stone of Israel, all our sheaves pay obedience unto Your sheaf and all
   Your father's children bow down before You!

   You more glorious Judah, You are He whom Your brothers shall praise!
   Unto You shall the gathering of the people be! The Chief among 10,000
   and the altogether lovely are You. Yes, Beloved, this glorious One is
   our Brother and delights to be regarded as a Priest taken from among
   men, being one of ourselves, able to sympathize with our infirmities!
   Our Lord is higher than the highest and yet He stoops as low as the
   lowest. He is kingly even to Deity and yet so truly a Priest that in
   all our afflictions He is afflicted! He is not ashamed to call us
   brethren. Ruler of our race, He is yet partaker of our flesh and blood
   and He is acquainted with all our sorrows. True King and yet true
   Priest.

   Thus I would have you blend the idea in both ways and see Jesus as a
   royal Priest and a priestly King--

   "Jesus, the King of Glory, reigns On Sion's heavenly hill. Looks like a
   lamb that has been slain, And wears His priesthood still." Such is your
   Lord. May your view of Him be clear; your faith in Him be firm; your
   love to Him be fervent; your joy in Him be overflowing and your
   obedience to Him be constant. Trust the Priest and serve the King! And
   always pay your vows unto Him who is "a Priest upon His throne."

   II. Secondly and very briefly, we shall now meditate upon THE HAPPY
   RESULT of all this. The text says, "The counsel of peace shall be
   between them both." I confess myself unable dogmatically to interpret
   this passage, for there are no less than three possible meanings. I
   must give them all and leave you to judge for yourselves. The most
   natural reading, to my mind, is that when we shall see, in the Person
   of Christ, the King and the Priest combined, the counsel of peace shall
   be between them both. These offices, the King and the Priest, being
   combined in one, shall make a deep and lasting peace for us--a peace
   arranged by the deep thought and counsel of God--and therefore full of
   wisdom, truth, and certainty. When we see the Lawgiver Himself making
   Atonement for our transgressions, we have peace, indeed! When Ruler and
   Savior meet in one Person, the rest is sure and profound.

   Beloved, if this is not the meaning of the passage, it is at least a
   precious Truth of God. If we need peace, we can only obtain it by
   knowing Christ as Priest and King. The counsel of peace must lie
   between these two. Oh, do you know Christ, my dear Hearers, as your
   Priest? Have you seen Him offering Sacrifice for your sin? Does He
   stand, instead of you, before God? Do you present your prayers and your
   praises to God through Him? Well, then, you have begun to know what
   peace is, for peace comes through the blood of Jesus the Priest--peace
   by His righteousness, peace by His Sacrifice.

   But if, knowing this, you are still in trouble of heart, remember that
   you need to know Him, also, as your King. When He subdues your
   iniquities; when the power of sin is taken away as well as the guilt of
   it, then you shall know the perfection of peace. "Take My yoke upon
   you," He says, "and learn of Me, and you shall find rest unto your
   souls." It is not in a mere belief in Christ as your Savior that you
   will ever get perfect peace--it is by yielding up yourself unto Him
   that He may rule and reign over you completely. This Man shall be the
   peace when He is Lord as well as Priest. As long as your will rebels
   against your Redeemer's rule, you cannot have unbroken rest. It is idle
   for you to talk about trusting in the blood of Jesus unless you submit
   to His scepter!

   The Cross itself cannot save you if you divorce it from the crown. Your
   Savior must be a Priest upon His Throne to you. His blood must be on
   your conscience and His yoke must be upon your neck. There is no
   counsel of peace until it is between both these--the kingly Priest, the
   priestly King, alone, can make and maintain the peace of God within
   you. That is a great and deep Truth of God--may we learn it well. But
   it is thought by some wise men that the text means the counsel of peace
   shall be between Jehovah, the Father, and the Son. I am not sure that
   such a meaning would suggest itself to every reader and as the most
   obvious meaning is generally to be preferred, I will not contend for
   this second meaning.

   However, as an interpretation, it is certainly not too far-fetched and,
   even if it cannot be sustained, it is certainly a very great Truth of
   God. It is between God, the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ, our
   Melchizedek, or King-Priest, that the counsel of peace has been
   established on our behalf. You never know God so as to have peace with
   Him till you know God in human flesh. Only the Incarnate God can end
   the trouble of your spirit. Yes, and it must be that Incarnate God
   bleeding, suffering, dying, making expiation for sin and then rising to
   the Throne and ruling over all that must be seen before you can
   perceive how the infinitely glorious Jehovah can be at peace with you.
   God in Covenant is God at peace with man.

   There was a counsel between the Trinity at the making of man, "Let Us
   make man" and so, also, there was a counsel between the Divine Persons
   at the redemption of man--the counsel of peace is between them both. It
   is a joy for us to know that between Jesus, our Priest-King, and the
   Everlasting God, peace has been established for us. Peace which never
   can be broken! Our first Covenant head, Adam, broke the treaty and left
   us at war with God. But the second Adam has fulfilled and established
   the Covenant of Grace and, believing in His name, we have peace with
   God!

   But there is a third meaning and although I am not sure of it as the
   sense here, it is assuredly a blessed Truth and appears to me to be
   congruous with the connection. Let me go back to the historical
   circumstances. Here were these three men that had come from Babylon.
   The Prophet is to take them to the house of a Jew in Jerusalem. There
   might be some little differences between these men and the Jerusalem
   Jews. These Babylonian Jews had not come up to dwell in Jerusalem, but
   Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, was a resident there and he might have
   demurred and have said, "We cannot take your present to the Temple
   because you do not bring yourselves and come to abide with your own
   people."

   No, but they were to go up, together, bearing the gold and silver
   crowns and put them upon the head of the priest. They were to go up in
   unity and love--and they were to furnish in their own persons, types of
   other far-off ones who should come to the great crowned Priest whose
   coming the Prophet had foretold. Thus said the Prophet, "They that are
   far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and you shall
   know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me unto you." Now, certainly, it
   is in Jesus Christ, the Priest and King, that the Jews who were near
   and the Gentiles who were afar off are brought together and made one!

   In Him the middle wall of partition is broken down and the counsel of
   peace is between us both. The day shall come when our glorious Lord
   shall be more clearly manifested than now, in the glory of His Second
   Advent and when the Jews shall behold Him as the priestly King and bow
   before Him. Then shall the fullness of the Gentiles also be gathered in
   and the Lord Jesus Christ shall reign over the whole earth. May that
   day speedily dawn! We have reason to expect it, therefore, let us pray
   for it and strive for its coming. Jesus the Priest and King is the
   uniter of the divided nations! Jew and Gentile are, after all, of one
   blood and one God is the Father of all--why should they not become one?
   "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," but one touch of Jesus
   Christ shall do it infinitely better--shall do it once and for

   all!

   III. I close with the third point, which is this--THE ACTION WHICH IS
   HARMONIOUS WITH THESE

   TRUTHS. The connection of our text suggests to us to do exactly what
   the prophet Zechariah advised the Babylonian Jews and Josiah to do. I
   will read you what he said--"Take silver and gold and make crowns and
   set them upon the head of Joshua" or Jesus. This is what is to be done.
   First, "take." "Take silver and gold." That is, bring the choicest
   things you have. If Jesus Christ is Priest, should you not bring your
   offerings to Him! If Jesus Christ is King, should you not bring tribute
   to your King!

   If you have gold and silver, bring them, for to Him shall be given of
   the gold of Ophir. If you have talent, which is much more valuable than
   gold and silver, bring ability, tact, genius--bring all the
   acquisitions of learning, all the acquirements of experience--and all
   your natural talents and consecrate them all to Him. Whether you have
   these or not, bring your heart, which is more precious, by far! It is
   the very essence of your being--make this a crown for Jesus. Come,
   bring your soul, your life, your all. Has He redeemed you? Then be His
   forever! Is He your King? Do not mock Him with a half-hearted
   service--be loyal to such a Sovereign and serve Him with spirit, soul
   and body. Take silver and gold and bring them to Him. Bring your whole
   being to Him.

   What next? "Take," then, "make." "Make crowns." Come, my Brothers and
   Sisters, I invite you to this occupation! You say, "We are neither
   goldsmiths nor silversmiths." Nevertheless, make crowns! Try your
   hands, this morning, and make crowns for Jesus with such material as
   you have. Fashion the crown of memory. Think of what He has done for
   you from the first day until now. Interweave and intertwist the
   recollections of the past--hammer out the gold of gratitude--set in it
   the gems of love and make a crown for His dear head. Make crowns by
   holy contemplation and thought! Think how great your Lord is and how
   great He deserves to be blessed, ever-blessed!

   Then make crowns of purposes of what you hope to be and do. Plot and
   plan within your spirit something you have not yet done, which you are
   able to do before you go home to Heaven. Look for some child you may
   teach; some sinner you may woo and win; some treasure you may spend for
   Jesus; some precious promise you may whisper in the ears of the
   distressed; some holy enterprise you may suggest to earnest youth. Make
   crowns! It seems to me so sweet that it should be

   said, "Set them upon the head of Jesus." Brothers and Sisters, let us
   crown Him ourselves. We hope to do so in Heaven-- let us do it here.
   Our love shall be the gold, our praise shall find the gems, our
   thanksgivings and our humble labors shall furnish the silver and then
   we will set the golden chaplets about His brow which once was torn with
   thorns for us! Crowns for Jesus! Crowns for Jesus! Crowns for our
   priestly King! Let us make and bring them.

   I return to that blessed precept, "Set them upon the head of Jesus."
   Whenever we have made a crown, let us take care to put it on His head
   ourselves. Have you ever, when you have been doing something for Him,
   or giving something to His cause, wished that you could present it to
   Him personally? Well, you may do so in spirit and that is as much a
   matter of fact as if you did it bodily. With your shoes off your feet,
   let your spirit draw near to Jesus and, in thought, offer to Him the
   deed which you have worked. Speak to Him and tell Him that this is done
   only for Him. I do not know a greater pleasure upon earth than to think
   of something you can do for Jesus--and then to do it for Him and to
   tell Him so!

   "Jesus, I did it all for You. I thought not of my Brothers and Sisters'
   praise, nor do I think of it now, but I did this deed for You alone.
   Here is the best crown I can make and by Your Grace I put it on Your
   head." The love of Jesus will suggest and produce many a deed which
   otherwise had never been done. If you have a beautiful alabaster box,
   it is not pleasant to break it and if you have choice ointment, it is
   not according to nature to pour it out upon another. No, but when you
   are before His feet, the feet of Jesus, your Lord, then is it a delight
   to break the alabaster box and to pour out its fragrant contents for
   Him! The utmost waste is economy when it is done for Him! And to
   sacrifice strength, soul, health, life is to save it all when it is
   spent for Him!

   Where should it go? Where should my all go? For what should my bodily
   frame be consumed? For what should my soul be poured out but for His
   honor? Do you not feel it so? You will, if you distinctly recognize
   that He is King and Priest. You will bring crowns to put on His head if
   you know who and what He is. And what is said last? It is said that
   this should be a memorial to those three men and to the brother who had
   entertained them. I suppose these crowns of silver and gold were hung
   up in the Temple and, when anybody said, "What are those crowns,
   yonder?" it would be answered, "Those are crowns which were made, by
   order of the Prophet Zechariah, by Heldai and Tobijah and Jedaiah, who
   came from Babylon. And they are in memory of those men and of the
   hospitality of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, who entertained them at
   his house when they came. They are hung up in the Temple in honor of
   the coming priestly King and in memory of those four men who presented
   an offering to the Lord."

   It seems very amazing that God should allow, in His house, memorials of
   His servants, but He does so. And our great priestly King allows
   memorials of His people in His Temple now. We shall never forget, shall
   we, while the world stands, the sacrifice of Paul and how he made
   crowns and set them on the head of Jesus? Never while the earth lasts
   shall we forget the sacrifice of John, Peter and James. No, the Church
   will not forget the sacrifices of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wycliffe.
   And the holy lives and ardent ministries of Whitefield and Wesley shall
   not be forgotten in the Church because they made crowns and set them on
   the head of Jesus!

   "Oh," you say, "but we must not remember men!" "No," I say, "we may
   remember men and, women, too, for our Lord has set us the example.
   "Wherever this Gospel is preached there shall this which this woman has
   done be mentioned for a memorial of her." My Master thinks much of His
   people and in the plenitude of His great goodness the little things
   which they do for Him are held in remembrance. Did he not say of
   Cornelius, "Your prayers and your alms have come up as a memorial of
   you"? This is sweet to think upon. While our King-Priest shall have the
   crowns and wear them, yet we, if we bring love tokens and honorable
   spoils to Him, shall be remembered, too, in that day when He shall
   award the praise to His people, saying, "Well done, good and faithful
   servants."

   The Lord whom we serve will immortalize our service by uniting it with
   His service! We shall rest from our labors, but our works shall follow
   us. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance! They shall
   shine forth as the sun when their Lord's Glory shall be revealed. Their
   Priest shall make them priests! Their King shall make them kings and
   they shall forever be filled with the vision of the Priest upon His
   Throne. So may it be with us! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Among Lions

   (No. 1496)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 4, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My soul is among lions." Psalm 57:4.

   SOME of you cannot say this and you ought to be very thankful that you
   are not obliged to do so. Happy are you young people who have godly
   parents and who dwell in Christian families. You ought to grow like the
   flowers in a conservatory, where killing frosts and biting blasts are
   unknown. You live under very favorable circumstances. Your soul, I
   might almost say, is among angels, for you dwell where God is
   worshipped, where family prayer is not forgotten, where you can have a
   kindly guidance in the hour of difficulty and comfort in the time of
   trial. You dwell where angels come and go and God, Himself, deigns to
   dwell! Happy should young people be in such circumstances! How grateful
   and how holy you ought to be!

   I want all who dwell where everything helps them, to remember the many
   gracious ones who dwell where everything hinders them. You who live
   near the Beautiful Gate of the temple must not forget the many who are
   sighing in the tents of Kedar. If your soul is not among lions, praise
   God for it--and then let your sympathies go out towards those who
   mournfully complain--

   "My soul with him that hates peace Has long a dweller been. I am for
   peace, but when I speak, For battle they are keen."

   It is a Christian duty to "remember them that are in bonds as bound
   with them." And whenever our own favored circumstances lead us to
   forget those who are persecuted and tried, our very mercies are working
   mischief in us. "We are all members, one of another." If one member
   suffers, all the rest should suffer with him and, therefore, we will
   turn our thoughts towards our persecuted Brothers and Sisters tonight,
   that our united supplications may sustain them under their difficulties
   and, if the Lord is so pleased, may even deliver them.

   When may a Christian truly say, "My soul is among lions"? Such is the
   case when, either from our being members of ungodly families, or from
   having to gain our livelihood among unconverted and graceless people,
   we are subjected to reproach and rebuke and to jest and jeer for Jesus
   Christ's sake. Then we can say, "My soul is among lions." I know that
   many in this congregation are the only ones in their family whom God
   has called. I bless His name that He is often taking one of a household
   and a lone one of a family and bringing such to Jesus. Some quite
   un-Christian person who thinks not of God drops in here out of
   curiosity and God meets with him and he becomes the first of his kith
   and kin to say "I am the

   Lord's."

   Frequently when converts come to cast in their lot with us, they will
   say, "I do not know one in all my family who makes any profession of
   godliness. They are, all of them, opposed to me." In such a case the
   soul is among lions and it is very hard and trying to be in such a
   position. Well may we pity a godly wife bound to an ungodly husband!
   Alas, full often a she is married to a drunk whose opposition amounts
   to brutality. A tender, loving spirit that ought to have been cherished
   like a tender flower is bruised and trod under foot--and made to suffer
   till her heart cries out in grief, "My soul is among lions!" We little
   know what life-long martyrdom's many pious women endure.

   Children also have to bear the same when they are singled out by Divine
   Grace from depraved and wicked families. Only the other day there came
   under my notice one who loves the Lord. I thought that if she had been
   a daughter of mine I should have rejoiced beyond all things in her
   sweet and gentle piety, but her parents said, "You must leave our house
   if you attend such-and-such a place of worship. We do not believe in
   these things and we cannot have you about us if you

   do." I saw the grief which that state of things was causing and though
   I could not alter it, I mourned over it. Woe unto those who tyrannize
   over my Lord's little ones!

   Nobody knows what godly working men have to put up with from those
   among whom they labor. There are some shops where there is religious
   liberty, but frequently the working men of this city are great tyrants
   in matters of religion. I tell them that to their faces--if a man will
   drink with them and swear with them, they will make him their
   companion--but when a man comes out to fear God, they make it very hard
   for him. And pray, dear Sir, has not a man as much right to pray as you
   have to swear? And has he not as much right to believe in God as you
   have to disbelieve? It is a wonderfully free country, this wonderfully
   free country! Almost as free as America in the olden times when every
   man was free to beat his own slave, for now the working man claims
   freedom to laugh and swear at every other working man who chooses to be
   sober and religions!

   There are large factories all over London where a Christian man has to
   run the gauntlet of sneers from morning to night which never ought to
   come upon the face of honest men and which never would come if Britons
   were as fond of freedom as they profess to be! They declare that they
   never will be slaves, but they are slaves--slaves to their own
   ungodliness and drunkenness--the great mass of them! And only where
   Divine Grace comes in and snaps the chain do men become free at all. If
   one serious man sets his face steadfastly to serve God, the baser sort
   seem as if they must get him under their feet and treat him with every
   indignity that malice can devise. It may be all in sport, but the
   victim does not think so.

   Do not tell me that persecution ceased when the last martyr burned!
   There are martyrs who have to burn by the slow fire of cruel mockery
   day after day. But I bless God that the old grit is still among us and
   that the old spirit still survives, so that men defy sneers and slander
   and hold on their way! I could tell stories which would both shock you
   and delight you of what is said and done by the common order of English
   working men against those who profess religion--and how courageously
   the righteous and the true bear it all and, in the long run, conquer,
   too--they oftentimes win their mates to confess the same faith!

   They call us all cants and hypocrites and the like, but they know
   better! And if they had a grain of manliness, they would cease from
   such lying. A true Briton gives that liberty to others which he claims
   for himself and if he does not choose to be religious himself, he
   stands up like a man to defend the rights of others to be so if they
   choose! Now, then, you British workmen, when shall we see you doing
   this? The text speaks of a soul among lions. Why did the Psalmist call
   them lions? "Dogs" is about as good a name as they deserve! Why call
   them lions? Because at times the Christian man is exposed to enemies
   who are very strong--perhaps strong in the jaw--very strong in biting,
   tearing and rending.

   Sometimes the Christian man is exposed to those who loudly roar out
   their infidelities and their blasphemies against Christ--and it is an
   awful thing to be among such lions as those. The lion is not only
   strong but also cruel. And it is real cruelty, which subjects
   well-meaning men to reproach and misrepresentation. The enemies of
   Christ and His people are often as cruel as lions and would slay us if
   the law permitted them to. The lion is a creature of great
   craftiness--creeping along stealthily and then making a sudden
   leap--and so will the ungodly creep up to the Christian and, if
   possible, spring upon him when they can catch him in an unguarded
   moment. If they think they spy a fault in him, they come down upon him
   with all their weight!

   The ungodly watch the righteous and if they can catch them in their
   speech, or if they can make them angry and cause them to speak an
   unguarded word, how eagerly they pounce upon him! They magnify his
   fault, put it under a microscope of 10,000 power and make a great thing
   of it. "Report it! Report it!" they say. "So would we have it!"
   Anything against a true-born child of God is a sweet nut for them! Such
   as are daily watched, daily carped at, daily abused, daily hindered in
   everything that is good and gracious--go with your tears before the God
   you serve and cry to Him, "My soul is among lions."

   Now, it is to such that I am going to speak tonight. A little, at
   first, by way of comfort. And then a little by way of advice.

   I. First, BY WAY OF COMFORT. You are among lions, my dear young Friend,
   then you will have fellowship with your Lord and with His Church. Every
   Lord's Day and every time we meet, this benediction is pronounced upon
   you, that you may enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Fellowship
   with the Holy Spirit brings you into fellowship with Jesus and this
   involves your being conformed to His sufferings. Now, your Lord was
   among lions. The men of His day had not

   a good word to say of Him. They called the Master of the house,
   Beelzebub--they will never call you a worse name than that. They said
   that He was a drunk and a winebibber--possibly they may say much the
   same as that of you and it will be equally false.

   You need not be ashamed to be pelted with the same dirt that was thrown
   at your Master! And if it should ever come to this, that you should be
   stripped of everything and false witnesses should rise up against
   you--and you should even be condemned as a felon and taken out to be
   executed--your lot will still not be worse than His. Remember that you
   are the followers of a Crucified Lord and cannot expect to be the
   world's darlings! If you are Christians, the Inspired description of
   the Christian life is the taking up of the cross! Do you expect to be
   dandled on the knees of that same ungodly world which hung your Master
   upon the Cross?

   No. You know that he who is the friend of this world is the enemy of
   God. This Truth of God is unchangeable. It is just as certain, today,
   as it was in years gone by that, "the evil hates the righteous and
   gnashes his teeth at him." You may pick up a fashionable religion and
   get through the world with it very comfortably, but if you have the
   true faith, you will have to fight for it. If you are of the world, the
   world will love its own. But if you are not of the world because the
   Lord has chosen you out of the world, the world will hate you! When a
   villager goes up the little street the dogs do not bark at him, for
   they know him well. But when a stranger rides along, they set up a
   howl. By this shall you know whether you are a citizen of the world or
   a pilgrim towards the better land.

   Nor was your Master alone. Remember the long line of Prophets that went
   before Christ? Which of them was it that was received with honor? Did
   they not stone one and slay another with the sword? Did they not cut
   one in pieces with a saw and put others to death with stones? You know
   that the march of the faithful may be tracked by their blood. And after
   our Lord had gone to Heaven, how did the world treat the Church? In the
   streets of Rome and all large cities, the fierce cry was often heard,
   "Christians to the lions! Christians to the lions! Christians to the
   lions!"

   At the dead of night men cry, "Fire!" when a house is blazing. A mob
   will cry, "Bread!" when they are starving. But the cry of old Rome that
   was dearest to the Roman heart and most expressive of their horrible
   enmity to goodness was, "Christians to the lions!" Of all the gallant
   shows the Roman Empire ever saw that excited the populace beyond all
   things else was to see a family--a man and his wife, perhaps, and a
   grown daughter and son and three or four children-- all marched into
   the arena, the big door thrown open and lions rushing out to spring
   upon them and tear them to pieces!

   What harm had the Christians done? They had forgiven their enemies!
   That was one of their great sins! They would not worship the gods of
   wood and stone. They would not blaspheme the name of Jesus whom they
   loved, for He had taught them to love one another and to love all
   mankind. For such things as this, men raised the cry, "Christians to
   the lions! Christians to the lions !" All along, this has been the cry
   of the world against all who have faithfully followed in the steps of
   Jesus Christ. Just now the merciful hand of Providence prevents open
   persecution, but only let that hand be taken away and the old spirit
   will rage again! The seed of the serpent still hates the Seed of the
   woman--and if the old dragon were not chained, he would devour the
   man-child as he has often tried to do. Do not deceive yourselves--in
   one form or other the old howl of, "Christians to the lions!" would
   soon be heard in London if almighty power did not sit upon the Throne
   and restrain the wrath of man.

   You who have to suffer a measure of persecution for Christ's sake ought
   to be very glad of it, for you are counted worthy not only to be
   Christians, but to suffer for Christ's sake. Do not, I pray you, be
   unworthy of your high calling, but endure hardness as good soldiers of
   Jesus Christ should. In these afflictions you are having fellowship
   with your Head and with His mystical body, therefore be not ashamed.
   Here is another thought. If you are among lions you should thereby be
   driven nearer to your God. When you had a great many friends, you could
   rejoice in them. But now that these turn against you and the Truth of
   God has come home to you that, "A man's foes shall be they of his own
   household," what ought you to do? Why, get closer to God than you ever
   were before!

   Jesus Christ so loved His Church that He said, as He looked at His poor
   disciples, "These are my mother, and sister, and brother." You should
   do what your Master did--make His Church your father and mother and
   sister and brother! No, better still, make Christ all these to you and
   more! Take the Lord Jesus to be everything that all the dearest of
   mortals could be and far more. Sing that charming verse, which is a
   great favorite of mine, for it was very precious to me in days gone
   by--

   "If on my face, for Your dear name,

   Shame and reproach should be,

   All hail reproach, and welcome shame,

   If You remember me."

   Be sure that you live near to God. All Christians ought to do so, but
   you especially should be driven by every false accusation, by every
   caustic remark, by every cutting sentence nearer to your Father's
   bosom. The more they rebuke you the more constantly should you abide
   under the cover of His sacred wings and find your joy in the Lord!

   And, getting close to Christ, let me say to you, now, by way of advice
   and by way of comfort, too, endeavor to be very calm and happy. Do not
   mind it. Take as little notice of the scoffer as you can. It is a grand
   thing to have one deaf ear! Mind that you keep yourself very deaf to
   slander and reproach as the Psalmist did when he said, "I was as a man
   that hears not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs." One blind eye
   towards the folly of enemies is often of more use to a man than two
   that are always looking about with suspicion. Do not see everything; do
   not hear everything. When there is a hard word spoken, do not notice
   it, or, if you must hear it, forget it as quickly as you can.

   Love others all the more, the less they love you--repay their enmity
   with love. Heap coals of fire upon them by making no return to a hard
   speech except by another deed of kindness. Very seldom defend
   yourself--it is a waste of breath and casting pearls before swine. Bear
   and bear again! Remember that our Lord has sent us forth as sheep among
   wolves and sheep cannot defend themselves. The wolf can eat all the
   sheep up if it likes, but, do you not see, there are more sheep in the
   world, now, than there are wolves, 10,000 to one? Though the wolves
   have had all the eating and though there never yet was a sheep that
   devoured a wolf, yet the sheep are here and the wolves have gone! The
   sheep have won that victory and so will Christ's little flock.

   The anvil is struck by the hammer and the anvil never strikes in return
   and yet the anvil wears the hammer out! Patience baffles fury and
   vanquishes malice. The non-resistance principle involves a resistance
   which is irresistible. The steady patience that cannot be provoked, but
   which, like Jesus, when reviled reviles not, is certain of conquest.
   This is what you persecuted ones need to learn, to get more near your
   God when you are among the lions in order to be the more calm and
   patient as men rage against you.

   A third piece of comfort is this. Please remember that although your
   soul is among lions, the lions are chained. When Daniel was thrown into
   the lions' den, the lions were hungry and would soon have devoured him,
   but you know why it was that they could not touch him. Ah, the angel
   came. Just as the fierce lions were about to seize Daniel, down he came
   swift from Heaven and stood in front of them. "Hush!" he said--and they
   lay as still as a stone. So says the text--"My God has sent His angel
   and shut the lions' mouths." They had fine teeth, but their mouths were
   shut! If the Lord can easily shut a lion's mouth, He can as easily
   quite the mouth of an ungodly man! He can take all trouble off of you,
   if He wills it, in an instant!

   And He can give you a smooth path to Heaven when it pleases Him. Only
   remember that if everything on the road to Heaven were smooth, Heaven
   would not be so sweet at the end and we should not have an opportunity
   of displaying those Christian Graces which are brought out and educated
   by the opposition of the world. God will not quench the fire of
   persecution, for it consumes our dross--but He will moderate its power
   so that not a grain of pure metal shall be lost. The lions are chained,
   dear Friend! They can go no farther than God permits. In this country
   the most they can do, as a rule, is to howl--they cannot bite--and
   howling does not break bones, so why, then, be afraid?

   The man who is afraid of being laughed at is not half a man, but almost
   deserves the scorn he receives. Never mind what is said. Talking will
   not hurt you. Harden your spirit against it and bear it gallantly. Go
   and tell your Lord of it if your heart fails you and then go forward,
   calm, as your Master did, fearing nothing, for God will bear you
   through. The lions can roar, but they cannot tear--fear them not.

   Another fact for your comfort is this--when your soul is among lions,
   there is another lion there as well as the lions that you can see. Have
   you never heard of Him? He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah! How
   quietly He lies! How patiently He waits by the side of His servants!
   The jest, the jeer, the noise continues and He lies still. If He only
   would--if He thought it wise--if it were not for His superlative
   patience He has only to rouse Himself for one moment and all our
   enemies would be destroyed! Our great Lord and King could have had 20
   legions of angels when He was in the garden for the lifting of His
   finger, but He continued alone, a suffering Man.

   If He willed it at this day, He could sweep the ungodly away as chaff
   before the wind! His longsuffering is for their salvation, if haply
   they may turn and repent. If your faith is as it should be, it will be
   a great joy to you to know that He is always with you; that He is
   always near you. If He is ever absent from others of His servants, He
   is never away from His persecuted servants. Ask the Covenanters among
   the mosses and the hills and they will tell you that they never had
   such Sabbaths in Scotland as when they met among the crags and set
   their scouts to warn them against Claverhouse's dragoons. When Cargill
   or Cameron thundered out the Word of God, with what power was it
   attended! How sweetly was the blessed Bridegroom with His persecuted
   Church among the hills!

   There is never such a time for seeing the Son of God as when the world
   heats the furnace seven times hotter. There is the flaming furnace--go
   and stand at the mouth of it and look in. They threw three bound men in
   their clothes and in their hats into it and the flame was so strong
   that it killed the soldiers who threw them in! But look! Can you see
   them? Nebuchadnezzar himself comes to look. See how greatly he is
   astonished! He calls to those around him and he demands, "Did not we
   cast three men bound into the furnace? Look! There are four! A strange,
   mysterious form is that fourth! They are walking the coals as if they
   walked in a garden of flowers. They seem full of delight! They are
   walking as calmly as men do when they converse in their gardens in the
   cool of the day! And that fourth, that mysterious fourth is like the
   Son of God!"

   Ah, Nebuchadnezzar, you have seen a sight that has often been seen
   elsewhere. When God's people are in the furnace, God's Son is in the
   furnace, also! He will not leave those who will not leave Him. If we
   can cling to Him, rest assured that He will cling to us, even to the
   end! Fear not the lions, then. Our Samson would turn upon them and tear
   them in a moment if their hour were come--

   "Jesus' tremendous name Puts all our foes to flight! Jesus, the meek,
   the angry Lamb, A Lion is in fight. By all Hell's host withstood,

   We all Hell's host overthrow. And conquering them, through Jesus' blood

   We still to conquer go."

   Again, I want to comfort you with this word--you whose souls are among
   lions should remember that you will come out of the lions' den
   unharmed. Daniel was cast into the den. Darius could not sleep that
   night and when he went in the morning he did not expect to find a bone
   of Daniel left and so he began crying out to him. How surprised he must
   have been when Daniel replied that his God had preserved him! How
   thankful he was to fetch him out of the den! You, too, dear child of
   God, will come out of the den all right. There will be a resurrection
   of God's people's bodies at last and there will be a resurrection for
   their reputations, too!

   The slanderer may belie the character of a true man, but no true man's
   character will ever be buried long enough to rot. Your righteousness
   shall come forth as light and your judgment as the noonday. You need
   not be afraid but, as Daniel rose from the den to dignity, so will
   every man who suffers for Christ receive honor and glory and
   immortality "in that day." Remember that if you are now among the
   lions, the day is hurrying on with speed when you shall be among the
   angels! Our Lord and Master, after being in the wilderness with the
   wild beasts, found that "angels came and ministered to Him." Such a
   visitation awaits all the faithful.

   What a change those martyrs enjoyed who took a fiery breakfast on
   earth, but supped with Christ that very day after riding to Glory in a
   chariot of fire! If you have to suffer now, even all that can possibly
   be wreaked of vengeance upon you for Christ's sake, you will think
   nothing of it when you have been five seconds in Heaven! Indeed, it
   will be a subject of congratulation that you were permitted, in your
   humble measure, to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake!
   Therefore be comforted, you young people, and march on with heroic
   step. I see a soldier or two here tonight and I am right glad that we
   have generally a block of red coats in the congregation. I know that
   often in the barracks it is hard for a Christian man to bear witness
   for Jesus Christ.

   Many and many a soldier has found his path as a Christian to be
   extremely difficult. He has had to sail very carefully, like a ship
   among torpedoes, and only Divine Grace has kept him safe. Some of you
   who reside in large establishments,

   where you sleep in rooms with great many others, find it difficult,
   even, to kneel down to pray. Mind that you do it, though. Do it at
   first right bravely and keep it up! Never be ashamed of your colors.
   Begin as you mean to go on--and go on as you begin! If you begin
   parleying, you will soon lose all their respect and make it worse for
   yourself. In the name of Jesus Christ let me beseech you to be firm and
   steadfast even unto death!

   Be comforted, for there has no new thing happened to you. It is no
   novelty for the followers of Jesus to be ridiculed and despised. He
   came to send fire on the earth and it has been kindled well near 2,000
   years. The fiery path is the old road of the Church militant--therefore
   tread it and be glad that you are permitted to follow the heroes of
   Heaven in their sacred way!

   II. Now, a few words BY WAY OF ADVICE. Of course this does not deal
   with all of you who are now present. I hope that many of you dwell
   among the godly. Still there are some whose soul is among lions and to
   them I give this counsel. First, if you dwell among lions, do not
   irritate them. If I happened to be among lions, I would not tease them.
   I would take good care that if they were cruel and fierce I did not
   make them so. I have known some who I hope were Christians, who have
   acted very unwisely and have made matters worse for themselves.

   There is such a thing as ramming religion down people's throats, or
   trying to do so. You can put on a very long face and try to scold
   people into religion. This will not do. Never yet was anybody bullied
   to Christ and there never will be. Some are very stern and make no
   allowances for other people--these may be good, but they are not wise.
   What is a rule to you and to me may not be a rule to everybody else. We
   said, the other Sunday, that we should not think of eating what we give
   to swine, but we do not, therefore, say, "These swine must not have
   their slop." No, no! It is good enough for them. Let them have it.

   And as to worldly people and their amusements, let them have them, poor
   things. They have nothing else, let them have their mirth. I would not
   touch their joys, nor would you, for they would be no pleasure to you.
   But do not, as a new-born man, go and set yourself up as the standard
   of what the ordinary sinner, dead in sin, is to be! He cannot come up
   to our standard. Do not be perpetually finding fault! That is pulling
   the lions' whiskers and the creatures are very likely to growl at you.
   If your soul is among lions, be gentle, be kind, be prudent, be
   tender--sometimes be silent. A good word is on your tongue, but there
   are times when you must not say it--for the life of you, you must not
   say it--for it would rouse the lions and make more sin than needs be.

   Sometimes a Truth of God needs defending, but, my inexperienced and
   untaught Brother, do not try to defend it, for you have not the
   strength. The champion of infidelity will challenge one who is weak and
   uninstructed and he overthrows him--and he who came forth valorously is
   beaten in argument. He was not up to the mark in knowledge and so he
   was vanquished! And then, what do the adversaries say? Why, they boast
   that the Truth is disproved and that Christ is beaten. Nothing of the
   kind! The British empire was not defeated when a regiment of our
   soldiers were slain at Isandula--and the Truth and cause of Christ is
   not defeated when some weak champion full of zeal rushes to the front
   when he ought to have kept in the rear.

   I do not say much on this point because we have not much rash zeal,
   nowadays, and it would be a pity to check what honest zeal there is.
   But still, there is such a text as, "Be you wise as serpents and
   harmless as doves." Put your finger on your lips when you are
   irritated. You cannot speak to the purpose when you are perturbed and
   are likely to be angry. Be quiet and bide your time. Many a man would
   do more good for the cause of God if he would not irritate ungodly
   people. Leave them alone--seek their salvation lovingly and
   tenderly--but when your efforts to do them good only provoke them to
   sin, try another way. Do not go on with that which angers them--invent
   another method. I believe that some Christians make half the opposition
   which they get from the world by their own ill tempers and stupidity.
   They challenge conflict. Their actions seem to say, "Who will fight
   me?" and then, of course, somebody takes up the challenge. Do not act
   foolishly! If your soul is among lions and they are inclined to be
   quiet, do not needlessly excite them.

   Secondly, if your soul is among lions, do not roar, yourself, for that
   is very easy to be done. We have known some who we hope were Christians
   who have met railing with railing, hard words with hard words, bitter
   speeches with bitter speeches. The ungodly are lions, but you are
   not--do not try to meet them in their own line. You will never roar as
   well as they do! If you are a Christian, you have not the knack of
   roaring. Leave them do it. Your way of meeting them is not by losing
   your temper and abusing your antagonists and so becoming a lion,
   yourself--you must conquer them with gentleness, patience, kindness and
   love!

   I pray you, dear Brothers and Sisters who have to bear a good deal for
   Christ's sake, do not get soured in spirit. There is a tendency in a
   martyr age to become obstinate and pugnacious. You must not be so.
   Love, love, love! And the more you are provoked, love the more!
   Overcome evil with good. I think it necessary to mention these cautions
   because I know many require them. Again, if your soul is among lions,
   do not be cowardly. Have you never heard that a lion is afraid of a man
   if he looks him steadily in the face? I am not sure about that piece of
   natural history, but I am quite certain that it is true with regard to
   the ungodly world.

   If a man will bear himself calmly. If he will be unmoved, determined,
   resolute and steadfast, he will overcome the adversary. "When a man's
   ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with
   him." If you give way a little, you will have to give way a great deal.
   If you give the world an inch, you will have to give it a mile as sure
   as you are alive. If you will not yield an inch, no, nor yet a
   barleycorn, but stand steadfast, God will help you. Courage is what is
   needed. The world, after a while, says of any man, "It is of no use
   laughing at him--he does not mind it. It is of no use calling him hard
   names--he only smiles at you. It is useless to be his enemy, for he
   will not be yours. He will only be your

   friend."

   Then the world whispers, "Well, after all, he is not so bad a fellow as
   we thought he was. We must let him have his own way." There is a big
   human heart somewhere down in men if you can but get at it and, after a
   while, when truth and righteousness have suffered and been denounced,
   men turn round and are almost ready to carry on their shoulders with
   hosannas the same person whom, a little while before, they longed to
   crucify. Do not be a coward! Do not be a coward!--

   "Stand up! Stand up for Jesus! The fight will not be long. This day the
   noise of battle, The next the victor's song."

   Even if the fight were long, for such a Master as Jesus it were worth
   while to endure 10,000 years of scorn and, moreover, the reward at the
   end will repay us a thousand-fold!

   If your soul is among lions, then do not go out among them alone. "Then
   whom shall I take with me?" asks one, "there is not a Christian in the
   shop." Take your Lord with you! Be absolutely sure that you do that.
   Now, my dear Friend, I know what they said yesterday and how they
   bantered you and you were tart and short with them because you were not
   in prayer in the morning as you ought to have been. If your mind had
   been more calm and gentle as the result of prayer, you would not have
   minded it one-half so much. Take your Master with you and whenever you
   have to speak, remember that He is standing at your side and try to say
   what you would like Him to hear. And then, when you have made your
   defense, you will be able to say, "Good Master, I think I have not
   dishonored You, for I have spoken Your words."

   Oh, live near to Christ if you live among lions! Those of you who
   endure opposition make the best Christians. Many that have been
   distinguished for Christ in later life have had to rough it a little at
   first. "It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth." If I
   could bring a garden-roller and roll the grass for you all the way from
   here to Heaven, do you think that I would do it? Certainly not! A rough
   place or two is good for you--it tries and strengthens pilgrim feet! A
   child will never become a man if he is carried about, all his life,
   like a baby. You must run alone. You must learn the arts of holy
   warfare or else you will not be fit to be a soldier of the Cross, a
   follower of the Lamb! May His good Spirit help you to keep in
   fellowship with Christ that He may guard and protect you from every
   temptation and persecution.

   Further, let me say to you that if your soul is among lions and you
   feel very weak about it, you are permitted to pray the Lord to move you
   in His Providence to quieter quarters. A Christian man is not bound to
   endure persecution if he can help it--"When they persecute you in one
   city flee to another." You are quite warranted in seeking another
   situation. There may be reasons why you should remain under the trial
   and, if so, take care that you do not overlook them. Prudence may make
   you avoid persecution, but cowardice must not mingle with the prudence!
   That prayer which says, "Lead us not into temptation," gives us, as it
   were, a permit to move from places where we are much tempted and
   sometimes it is the duty of the Christian to seek some other sphere of
   labor, if he possibly can, where he will not be so much tried.

   One thought more--the braver thing is to ask for Grace to stay with the
   lions and tame them. "My soul is among lions." Well, if the Lord makes
   you a lion tamer, that is the very place where you ought to be! In some
   of our districts in London as soon as ever a man is converted he feels
   that he cannot live there any longer and this makes the district
   hopeless. My dear Friend, Mr. Orsman, working in Golden Lane, as it
   used to be, told me that his was an endless task because as soon as
   ever the people were converted they would say, "Would you have me live
   here any longer, in such a horrible place as this?" They naturally felt
   that as they had grown sober, decent and respectable, they should move
   into a different locality and they did so--and the result is that the
   old spot does not improve.

   Sometimes the Christian man should say, "No, God has made me strong in
   Grace and I will stop here and fight it out. These are lions, but I
   will tame them. I believe that God has put me here on purpose to bring
   my fellow workmen to the Savior and, by His Grace, I will do it." Now,
   if I were a lamp, I daresay that if I had my choice of where I should
   burn, I should choose to blaze away in a respectable street. I should
   like to scatter my light in front of the Tabernacle! But surely if I
   were a really sensible lamp I should say to myself--"If there are only
   a few lamps and all the streets have to be lit, there is more necessity
   to light up a back slum or a blind alley than to adorn a main street.
   Therefore let me shine in the dismal courts. In a lonely, dark place
   where murder may be done--there let me act as guardian of the night and
   detective of the villain."

   A wise lamp would say, "I came into the world to give light and I
   should like to give light where light is most needed. Hang me up in
   Mint Street, or in St. Giles's, or away there by the back of Kent
   Street where I may be most useful." And now, Christian people, is there
   not sense about this advice? Is there not reason in it? Would not your
   Master have you go where you are most needed and should you not,
   therefore, if your soul is among lions, say, "Thank God it is so. These
   people are not going to conquer me, but I am going to conquer them"?

   What a beautiful spectacle was that which was exhibited by the Moravian
   Brethren in their grand times! They could not land on one of the West
   Indies to preach the Gospel to the Negroes, for the planters would not
   have anybody there but slaves. So two Brothers sold themselves for
   slaves and lived and died in bondage that they might teach the poor
   Negroes of Christ! It is said that there was a place in Africa where
   persons were shut up whose limbs were rotting away through leprosy and
   other diseases. Two of these Brethren climbed up a wall and saw these
   poor creatures--some with no legs and others with no arms. They asked
   to be allowed to go in to win souls for Christ and the answer was, "If
   you enter you can never come out again because you would bring
   contagion. You go in there to die, to rot away as the lepers

   do."

   These brave men went in and died that they might bring the lepers to
   Christ! I hope that we have some drops of that grand Christian blood
   still in our veins! And if we have, we shall feel that we could go to
   the gates of Hell to win a sinner! You are not like your Master unless
   you would die to save men from Hell. You will bear jests and jeers and
   count them nothing if you can but win souls. So stop where you are, my
   stronger Brothers and Sisters--if your souls are among lions, tarry and
   tame the lions!

   It will be a grand thing for you to come, one day, to the Church
   meeting with two or three of your neighbors whom you have been the
   means of converting to Christ. I like to see a man march, if he can do
   it, with a tame lion on each side! When a man has, by God's Grace,
   brought some of those that were drunks and swearers to the feet of
   Jesus, oh, it is a grand triumph! It has been my business for many
   years to be a lion tamer and I delight in it! If there is any lion of
   the sort here, I wish the Master would tame him and make him lie down
   and crouch at His feet. There is the place for us poor sinners--at the
   feet of Christ.

   But do not be afraid of sinners, dear Friends, for how can you tame
   them if you tremble at them? Go forth to win them in the strength of
   the living God and you shall yet see the lion lie down with the
   lamb--and a little child shall lead them. Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Self-righteousness--a Smoldering Heap of Rubbish

   (No. 1497)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Which say, Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier
   than you. These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that burns all the day."
   Isaiah 65:5.

   THE Apostle Paul shall be our interpreter here. You remember how in the
   10th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans he quotes from this chapter
   and says, "Isaiah is very bold and says, I was found of them that
   sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me.
   But to Israel He says, all day long I have stretched forth My hands
   unto a disobedient and gainsaying people"? Isaiah was very bold to
   speak the Gospel so plainly, when a legal spirit prevailed, and very
   bold to defy the enmity of his own nation by declaring that they would
   be rejected for their sins, while the far-off heathen would be brought
   in by Sovereign Grace. He was bold to denounce hypocrites to their
   faces and to smite a proud nation with the threats of the Lord. Perhaps
   it was for this boldness that he suffered a cruel death by the hands of
   Manasseh.

   The application of the passage to Israel is just thus. Year after year
   God dealt with great patience towards His chosen people, but they
   seemed to be desperately set upon idolatry in one form or another.
   Sometimes they worshipped Jehovah, but then they did it under figures
   and symbols, whereas He has expressly forbidden that even His own
   worship should be thus celebrated. He who said in the First
   Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me," also said in the
   Second, "You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness
   of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
   or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down
   yourself to them, nor serve them."

   At other times they altogether rejected Jehovah and worshipped Baal and
   Ashtaroth and whole troops of the gods of the heathen and thus they
   exceedingly provoked the Lord. They also practiced necromancy, or
   pretended communion with the dead, witchcraft and sorcery and all
   manners of abominable rites like the depraved nations around them. When
   this open rebellion was given up, as it was after the captivity, for
   the Jews have never been guilty of idolatry since that day, they fell
   into another form of the same evil, namely, self-righteousness--so that
   when our Lord came, He found self-righteousness to be the crying sin of
   Israel--the Pharisees carrying it to such a pitch as to render it
   utterly ridiculous!

   They reckoned that the touch of a common person polluted their
   sacredness so that they needed to wash after walking down a street.
   When they traversed the ways, they took the edge of the pavement so
   that they might not brush against the garments of the passers-by. And
   even in the Temple, in prayer, they stood by themselves lest they
   should be defiled! Their whole spirit is expressed in the words of the
   text, "Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier than
   you." God declares this to be as obnoxious to Him as smoke in a man's
   nose. He could not bear it. He was no more able to tolerate their
   self-righteousness than to endure their idolatry.

   It is this last form of the evil of the Israelite heart which I am
   going to speak about this morning because it is a phase of evil which
   is now common among us. Self-righteousness is rampant in our own day!
   There are many who come up to the courts of the Lord's house and mingle
   among the followers of Christ who still say, "Stand by, for I am holier
   than you." Our sermon is meant to be a cannonade against
   self-righteousness--that righteousness which a man makes a show of his
   own doings, his own feelings, his own alms, prayers, or sacraments--all
   such righteousness is to be utterly despised!

   I. The first point is this--THE SIN OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS GROWS UP
   AMONG RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. It is not always the sin of the outside world,
   for many outsiders do not pretend to any righteousness at all and I
   fancy they think all the better of themselves for that! This is an idle
   plea which needs not many words to expose. "I make no profession," says
   one. This is about as honorable a confession as if a thief should boast
   when caught at picking pockets,

   "I do not make any pretense to be honest," or a liar, when detected,
   should turn round and cry, "I never professed to speak the truth."
   Would you have men glory in not professing to be honest or true? Yet,
   surely, they do no worse than one who boasts that he does not profess
   to fear God. Such a man has gone to a considerable pitch of iniquity
   before he can bronze his face to make his glory in that which is his
   shame.

   Among those who profess to be religious, self-righteousness very
   frequently comes in because they have not truly received the religion
   of Jesus Christ. If they were true Believers they would be humble and
   contrite, for self-righteousness and faith in Christ are diametrically
   opposed. He that is saved by Grace finds no room for glorying in
   himself. What says the Apostle? "Where is boasting, then? It is
   excluded." The word is, it is shut out and it has the door shut in its
   face. A sinner washed in Jesus' blood and clothed in Jesus'
   righteousness glories only in the Lord! He has done, once and for all,
   with that particular form of sin which glories in self. It is
   detestable in his sight. His cry is "God forbid that I should glory
   save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

   Many who mingle with Christians and are religious in a certain sense
   because they practice the forms of religion, are known to put the forms
   into the place of the Holy Spirit. With them, in Baptism, the washing
   in water is everything, but the burial with Christ which it sets forth
   is quite unknown. With them the partaking of the bread and the wine are
   everything at the Lord's Table, but the spiritual feeding upon the body
   and blood of Christ is not understood. With them, the place of worship
   is everything, but the spirit of worship is lacking. The broken heart,
   the contrite spirit, the soul that trembles at God's Word, the heart
   that joys in the Lord--they are strangers to all this though they can
   sit as God's people sit, though they can hear as God's people hear and
   look as if they were all that saints should be.

   These persons, too, even when they do not join the Christian Church but
   only worship or seem to worship with Christians, are very apt to think
   that they must be better than other people because they do so. They are
   not openly Sabbath-breakers. Is there not something in this? Yes, there
   is something in it, certainly, and we will not say a word against it.
   But there is not everything in it and certainly not enough in it to
   make a perfect righteousness of it! The bed is shorter than that a man
   may stretch himself on and the covering is too narrow for a man to wrap
   himself in. "Oh, but I have occupied a seat in an orthodox Chapel for
   many years." Yes, that may be, and if you have not received the Gospel,
   those sermons which you have heard will rise up against you in judgment
   to your condemnation!

   It is true you close your eyes in prayer, but if you never pray, do you
   not mock God with a pretense of doing it? And may it not turn out that
   your religiousness is only an impudent provoking of God to His face?
   Avoid the tendency to say, "We are certainly much better than the
   outside world and if God is hard with us, He will be hard with a great
   many." Avoid this, I say, for it is the danger of outwardly religious
   people who are not savingly converted to dream that they are somewhat
   advantaged by a mere attendance on the means of Grace. Should an
   Egyptian rub his shoulders against an Israelite, would it turn him into
   an Israelite? Will living near a rich man make you rich?

   Because the Lord Jesus eats and drinks in your streets, are you,
   therefore, safe, even though you have never believed on Him? Be not
   deceived by such a notion! Do you forget that cry of our Lord's, "Woe
   unto you, Chorazin. Woe unto you, Bethsaida"! Did He not proclaim woe
   to the very places where His voice was most often heard and where His
   miracles were most often worked? Beware, I pray, you outwardly
   religious people, lest you fall into the sin of self-righteousness and
   fancy that you are holy when you are not!

   II. THIS IS A SIN WHICH FLOURISHES WHERE OTHER SINS ABOUND. We read of
   these people, that they did evil before the eyes of God and chose that
   wherein He delighted not. They blasphemed God and polluted themselves
   with unhallowed rites, communing with demons and the powers of
   darkness--and pretending to speak with departed spirits and yet for all
   that, they said--"Stand by yourself, I am holier than you."
   Self-righteousness is never more ridiculous than in persons whose
   conduct would not bear scrutiny for a moment!

   Look at the Pharisee with his phylactery and his broad-hemmed garment
   standing there in conscious perfection! Look at him and feel disgust,
   for the wretched hypocrite has been secretly devouring a widow's house
   and his heart is full of wickedness! In his greediness and lust he
   makes clean the outside of his cup and platter, but within he is full
   of extortion and excess! Hear how the devil derides him. "Ah, ah," he
   laughs with satanic glee, "the outside may be as you will. What care I,
   as long as the inside is foul!" It is dreadful that any man should be
   self-righteous, but it is monstrous that men of openly evil lives
   should dare to set up such a pretense.

   Such persons know, if they will but think, that they are trying to palm
   off a barefaced lie! Yet it is common enough in spiritual things for
   those who are naked, poor and miserable to declare that they are rich
   and increased in goods! How are they able to keep up this imposture
   upon their own consciences? Is it not a part of their spiritual
   madness? The very blindness which makes them choose sin prevents their
   seeing how sinful it is and enables them to fancy that all is well. As
   men who wear spectacles of colored glass find all things tinted with
   their own hue, so does a self-righteous heart impart a tint to actions
   till the worse appears the better and sin glitters like righteousness.

   Moreover, self-righteous men, like foxes, have many tricks and schemes.
   They condemn in other people what they consider to be very excusable in
   themselves. They would cry out against others for a 10th part of the
   sin which they allow in themselves! Certain constitutional tendencies,
   necessities of circumstances and various surroundings all serve as
   ample apologies. Besides this, if it is admitted that they are wrong
   upon some points, yet in other directions they are beyond rebuke! If
   they drink, they do not swear! And if they swear, they do not
   steal--they make a great deal out of negatives. If they steal, they are
   not greedy and miserly, but spend their gains freely. If they practice
   fornication, yet they do not commit adultery! If they talk filthily,
   yet they boast they do not lie.

   They should be counted good because they are not universally bad. They
   do not break every hedge and, therefore, they plead that they are not
   trespassers. As if a debtor for a hundred pounds should claim to be
   excused because he does not owe two hundred! Or, as if a highwayman
   should say, "I did not stop all the travelers on the road. I only
   robbed one or two and therefore I ought not to be punished." If a man
   should willfully break the windows of your shop, I guarantee you, you
   would not take it as an excuse if he pleaded, "I did not break them
   all! I only smashed one sheet of plate glass." Pleas which would not be
   mentioned in a human court are thought good enough to offer to God! O
   the folly of our race!

   Besides, these people will make righteousness this way--they plead that
   if they do wrong, yet there are some points in which they are splendid
   fellows. "You should see how grandly I acted on such an occasion. You
   will think me almost a saint and quite a hero if you will but fix your
   eyes on that one particular virtue. Drink, Sir? No! I never touch a
   drop." I am glad you do not, but still, if you live in lying, or in
   pride, your abstinence is a short piece of stuff to make a garment out
   of. The mere fact that you are not a drunk is so far so good, but it
   goes a very little way towards the perfect righteousness which God's
   Law demands.

   Some one thing in which the unconverted man may excel is put in to make
   up for his deficiencies in a hundred other things. By hook or by crook
   a man will make out that he is not so bad as he seems to be--the
   inventiveness of self-esteem is extraordinary! Those who come with the
   language of repentance but without the spirit of it are sometimes the
   most self-righteous of all, for they say. "I am all right because I am
   not self-righteous." They make a self-righteousness out of the supposed
   absence of self-righteousness! "Thank God," they say, "we are not as
   other men are, nor even as these self-righteous people." Hypocrites all
   the way through!

   Have you ever heard of the monk who said he was a very great sinner? He
   said that he had broken all the Ten Commandments, that he was as bad as
   Judas and deserved to be hanged as well as he! But when his confessor
   began to go over the Commandments, he said about each one of them,
   "Holy father, I have not broken that, I have kept that." He was a
   sinner in the gross but not in detail! A sinner by name but not in
   reality--so he said--and hosts of people virtually say the same. Listen
   to them--"Yes, Sir, of course I am a sinner. We are all sinners." But
   if you bring one fault home to them, straightway they bristle up! Who
   are you that you should speak evil of them? They have done nothing
   amiss--they are most excellent people--and you will go a long way to
   find anybody better than they are and so on!

   Oh, this horrible self-righteousness! It is not merely to be found in
   the man who attends his Church regularly and reads his prayers
   daily--it is found in the man who will not go to his Church nor say his
   prayers! The harlot has her self-righteousness. The thief, the drunk,
   the profane still have their self-justifications. Yes, and it may be
   seen even in Atheists who have cast off all fear of God and then stand
   in an elevation of self-esteem which hardly any other man can match!
   Hear him--"I have proved my freedom of thought and nobility of mind! I
   am the model man! As for these Christians, they are cants and
   hypocrites and believers in Christ are either fools or knaves. No man
   has any honest and rational convictions but myself! I can improve upon
   the Bible and criticize the life of Christ! Stand by yourself. I am
   holier than you."

   This weed of self-righteousness will grow on any dunghill! No heap of
   rubbish is too rotten for the accursed toadstool of proud self to grow
   upon!

   III. As self-righteousness grows among sins to our surprise, so IT IS,
   IN ITSELF, A GREAT SIN. One is almost startled to find self-esteem
   placed after such a list of sins as this chapter records. To the Jew,
   the eating of swine's flesh and broth, of all abominable things, was a
   great pollution--and self-righteousness is classed with it--it is even
   placed with necromancy and witchcraft. To us, drunkenness and swearing
   are sins in rags, but self-righteousness is sin in a respectable black
   coat. It is an aristocratic sin and does not like to be put down with
   the common ruck. And if we even call it sin, yet many will plead that
   it is only so in a very refined sense.

   But God does not think so. He classes it with the very worst and He
   does so because it is one of the worst. For a man to be self-righteous
   is, in itself, a sin of sins. For, first, it is blasphemy! Perhaps you
   do not see that. Follow me, then. God is holy. Here comes this base
   imposter and boasts, "And I am holy, too." Is not that a ludicrous and
   contemptible form of blasphemy? It is profanity in its very essence!
   The cherubim are crying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts: Heaven
   and earth are full of the majesty of Your Glory" and amid it all there
   is heard this squeaking pretender, whining, "And I am holy, too!"

   O wretched egotist, you do at once lie and blaspheme! The heavens are
   not pure in His sight! He charged His angels with folly and do you,
   that are born of woman and defiled from head to foot, dare to talk
   about righteousness? Righteousness, indeed, when you are but a mass of
   sin! This self-righteousness is idolatry, for the man who counts
   himself to be righteous, by his own works worships himself!
   Practically, the object of his adoration is his own dear, delectable,
   excellent self! All his confidence is in himself! His boasting is in
   himself and, though he may sing Psalms to God with his voice, yet his
   heart is really singing hymns to himself and he is saying to himself,
   "You have done well, my Soul. There is something great and bright in
   you. You deserve much of your Creator. You shall surely enter Heaven on
   your own terms. At your worst you have never been so bad as your fellow
   men--at your best you are a right noble being and a brilliant reward is
   your due."

   What is this but idolatry in its worst form? Then, again, it is
   profanity, for it calls God a liar. The Lord declares that no man is
   righteous. He says that He looked from Heaven and surveyed the sons of
   men and He saw that, "There is none righteous, no, not one." To this
   Divine assertion self-righteousness gives a flat contradiction, for it
   claims to be, itself, holy! God declares that we have gone astray and
   altogether become unprofitable and He proves that He believes this, for
   He sets Christ to bleed and die for the world of sinners, as it is
   written, "All we, like sheep have gone astray. We have turned,
   everyone, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
   us all." But He could not lay our iniquity upon Jesus if we had none,
   nor impute transgression to Christ if there were no sin in us!

   And thus the self-righteous man virtually declares that God is false
   and speaks not the strict truth, since he claims to be an exception to
   the rule. He testifies that God's "No, not one," is false, for he
   himself is one righteous person and, therefore, there may be others.
   Though God says that by the works of the Law no flesh shall be
   justified in His sight, yet this man says, "By the works of the Law I
   shall be justified," and so he profanes the Word of the Most High and
   questions the Truth of God, which is as the apple of Jehovah's eye. It
   is clear beyond all question that self-righteousness is, in itself, a
   great, God-defying sin! May the Lord deliver us from it and, by the
   Holy Spirit, work in us a humble, lowly faith in Jesus Christ, the
   Lord.

   IV. In the fourth place we would remark that SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS THE
   FRUIT OF MAN'S OWN

   THOUGHTS. Look at the second verse of the chapter--"I have spread out
   My hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walks in a way
   that was not good, after their own thoughts." Those who have high
   thoughts of themselves do not walk according to God's Commandments, but
   according to their own notions. If any man thinks himself to be
   righteous in himself, he has never derived that idea from God's Law.
   Read the Ten Commandment. Understand their spirituality and know that
   they concern not only overt deeds but thoughts and imaginations--and
   you will see that the Law condemns us all without exception.

   It proves our guilt, reveals our proneness to evil, pronounces a curse
   upon us and gives us over to condemnation. It pays us no respect, but
   shuts us up in hopeless despair. A man who is self-righteous,
   therefore, did not derive his self-esteem from a true consideration of
   the Law. No Jew that stood at Sinai and saw the mountain on a smoke and
   heard the Words which sounded forth with noise as of tempest and
   trumpet, dared to stand there and say, "I am righteous." But crouching
   away, moving further and further from the burning mountain, the best
   Israelite begged that the Words might not be spoken to him anymore, for
   he could not endure the terror of that thrice holy Law.

   A Pharisee stands on an elevation raised by his own fancy, for the Law
   would pull him down and never, for a moment, set him up. His proud
   notions come not from the Law and certainly not from the Gospel, for
   the Gospel knows no man after the flesh as righteous. It regards all
   men as sinners and comes to them with pardon! It treats men as lost and
   comes to save them! If there is a man in the world who is pure and
   perfect by nature, the Gospel has nothing to say to him, for it was not
   intended to meet such a case. Its medicines are not for those upon whom
   the sickness of sin has never come, for, "the whole have no need of a
   physician, but they that are sick."

   Our great Lord came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to
   repentance! Jesus is the sinner's friend. Christ came to wash away
   stains, not to flatter men into a notion of their spotlessness. He came
   to heal the sick, not to applaud the vigorous. To such as are righteous
   in themselves there is not a single syllable of promise in the entire
   Gospel--why should there be, for they don't need it? Self-righteousness
   is a child which neither Law nor Gospel will own--it is born in the
   house of folly and it is nursed by human fancy!

   Self-righteous people are not much inclined to search the
   Scriptures--they do not read them with an understanding heart so as to
   get the meaning--they rather make the Bible say their own meaning and
   twist it to support their own pleasing dreams. Like a battery of
   ordnance of the strongest kind, both Law and Gospel fire into the
   sinner's righteousness and sink it, like a riddled hulk, into the deeps
   of the sea! "But cannot a man arrive at a religion by his own unaided
   thoughts?" asks one. A great many have tried it, but the very idea is
   absurd! Facts about God and man are to be learned--not invented.

   Suppose a man were to think out the science of botany but never went to
   see the flowers? He would deliver strange botanical lectures,
   misleading and absurd, for no cogitation upon what a flower ought to be
   would always require a man to guess at what flowers really are. Suppose
   a man who never looked at the stars were to despise the telescope and
   depend on his thoughts for his astronomy? Would he not make strange
   work of it? We have heard of the German who carefully thought out in
   his own inward consciousness, a camel, and there are many people of the
   same order of learned ignorance and profound folly. Such do not look at
   what the Gospel is, but they have their own notions of what it ought to
   be-- they do not look at what Revelation declares, but at what their
   own precious thoughts can manufacture.

   Half the people in the world make their own theology and are either too
   idle or too proud to be guided by the Infallible Scripture. As many a
   vintner composes his own wine, so do these concoct their own doctrine
   and by this means they arrive at a high opinion of their own goodness.
   Like the spider, they make their web out of their own bowels--they are
   righteous and by no stretch of the imagination the sort of persons
   which the Word of God declares them to be! He whose foundation is his
   own dream is certain to be deceived.

   Listen, O man, and learn wisdom! God's thoughts are not your thoughts!
   Neither are His ways your ways and in the day when He comes to deal
   with your fancied righteousness, He will make short work of it and you
   will have to cry, "We all fade as a leaf and all our righteousnesses
   are as filthy rags, and our iniquities, like the wind, have carried us
   away." The sooner that happens the better, for if it comes not until
   you get into the next world, it will be dreadful, then, to be found
   naked where you never can be clothed--to have your fancied riches melt
   into a poverty from which you never can recover--to be made a bankrupt
   where you thought yourself wealthy and in a world where you never can
   begin again!

   Woe to those who make eternal shipwreck while they dream that they are
   steering straight to the desired haven! God save you from setting up to
   furnish yourselves with inspiration. You are not Oracles and should
   never dream of being so! Search the Scriptures to know the facts of
   your case and then you will recoil from the very idea of the
   righteousness of unrenewed man! Your glory will become your shame! Your
   spangled robes will turn to worthless rags and you will accept, with
   humble gratitude, the righteousness which is of God by faith!

   V. This leads us on to our fifth remark which is
   this--SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS THIS VICE ABOUT IT,

   THAT IT ALWAYS LEADS TO DESPISING OTHERS. That is the meat of the text.
   They said, "Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier
   than you." The self-righteous think thus of one another--one sinner
   dreads pollution from another--one rebel is alarmed lest he should be
   made disloyal by another! Think of a wretch condemned to die for his
   sin and yet afraid that a fellow criminal might soil his innocence! To
   what a pitch of madness does pride lift itself! "Do not come near me; I
   am holy," cries the man steeped in sin! Oh, the absurdity of
   self-righteousness! This pride is loathsome to the last degree!

   But this pride is seen to be still more loathsome when the proud
   self-deceiver bids the lowly penitent man stand off. The repenting
   publican has his eyes opened to his real state and he goes up to the
   Temple and prays, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." He does not dare
   look up, he is so broken-hearted. But yonder Pharisee is bold to thank
   God for his own surpassing virtues! Look how he gathers up his garment
   for fear the fringe of his raiment should touch the ground whereon the
   publican has set his polluting feet! Why, Sirs, that publican was one
   of God's jewels and this abominable Pharisee was a mere dunghill
   reeking with offensive self-conceit! He did not know it, but his
   self-righteousness made him despise the very man of whom God has said,
   "To this man will I look, and with him will I dwell; even to him that
   is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at My Word."

   "Oh," says one of my free-thinking but self-righteous hearers, "I hate
   such cant! Confessing sin is all nonsense. I cannot endure to hear such
   talk." We are well aware of that, good Sir, but this weighs not with
   us. We know you very well and recognize in you an old acquaintance of
   some 1,900 years standing. Proud Pharisees never can endure penitent
   publicans, nor their Savior, either. They are always saying of the
   Lord's ministers that which they once said of Him, "This man receives
   sinners and eats with them." They find fault with the great Advocate
   and His clients, with the great Physician and His patients--but the
   Redeemer's kingdom waits not their patronage and fears not their
   opposition! If you reject the banquet of mercy and will not come to it,
   there are others who shall and your refusal shall bring on your own
   head the contempt you now reserve for others!

   Yes, and this self-righteous spirit dares to pour its bitterness upon
   the most gracious men. If you need a thoroughpaced persecutor, find a
   self-righteous man! I tell you there is no venom in the heart of
   dissolute, debauched men against Christianity that is at all comparable
   to the poison of asps which lie in the heart of the self-righteous man!
   Who was it in Jerusalem that hunted down the saints? It was not some
   son of Belial who railed at them. I daresay that many a Jerusalem
   rioter said, "What does it matter? They have their ways and I have
   mine--let the men alone." But there was one man in Jerusalem who, above
   most others, thought that verily he had kept all the Commandments of
   God from his youth up and was utterly blameless--and he hated the
   Christians because they preached a doctrine which struck at his
   self-esteem.

   Therefore he despised men who were a hundred times better than himself!
   He dragged them into the synagogue and scourged them to compel them to
   blaspheme. And when he had done all he could in his own country to
   worry them, he obtained letters from the High Priest that he might go
   to Damascus to hunt them even in strange cities! He verily thought he
   did God service when he breathed out threats and bloodshed against
   God's own children! Yes, it is so, and must be so--they that are born
   after the flesh persecute them that are born after the Spirit. Ishmael,
   the child of Hagar the bondwoman, which comes from Sinai, in Arabia,
   hates the Isaac that is born of the free woman, according to promise.
   There is a deadly feud between these two and this is a part of the sin
   of self-righteousness, that it sets itself so bitterly against Christ
   and His people and is the direst opponent that the Gospel has among
   men.

   We see the self-righteous spirit, at times, display itself in the
   papers when they touch on religious subjects. One of them lately
   condemned the hymn--

   "Sinner, nothing do, either great or small, Jesus did it, did it all,
   long, long ago." This is shocking doctrine, so they say, for it denies
   salvation by good works! Of course, editors of papers are good judges,
   for they are so exceedingly careful of our morality and so studious
   never to insert anything that could injure our purity! That precious,
   plainspoken bit of Gospel verse is too much for our pious friend, the
   editor, and he is afraid that it will hurt our morals!

   Self-righteousness is always afraid of the Gospel, lest the
   uncompromising Truth of God should unmask its self-deceit. Why, Sirs,
   the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone is the essence of
   Protestantism and the soul of the Gospel! That Christ Jesus came into
   the world to save sinners and that salvation is not by works of
   righteousness which we have done, but by the Sovereign Grace of God who
   passes by transgression, iniquity and sin is the great Truth for which
   Reformers protested and martyrs died! Let those who deny it look to
   themselves.

   VI. But I must pass on to observe that SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS MOST
   ABOMINABLE IN THE SIGHT OF

   God. What does He compare it to? He says, "It is a smoke in My nose, a
   fire that burns all the day." At the bottom of the garden we gather
   together the dead leaves and all the rubbish of the garden. The heap is
   lighted and it keeps on burning and smoldering all day--and if you go
   and stand in the eye of the wind, your eyes will smart, your nose will
   be offended

   and you will feel that you cannot bear it. As you see the refuse
   burning, smoking, smoldering all day, it will tell you what the Lord
   thinks of man's righteousness.

   This is His opinion of those who say," Stand by, I am holier than you."
   Their boasted righteousness is a burning heap of rubbish pouring forth
   a thick smoke most obnoxious to Him. We do not wonder that He thus
   scorns and abhors proud, self-righteousness, for God is a God of Truth
   and Truth cannot bear a lie--and self-righteousness is a mass of lies!
   He who is of perfect Nature cannot bear mere pretense. It is so among
   men in common matters. You introduce a man of real learning to a person
   who has purchased for himself a sham degree and who boasts that he is a
   classical scholar-- mark his disgust when the pretender quotes a Latin
   author and in the very first sentence gives false facts! The truly
   learned man says, "He is a disgrace to his title. Let me get away from
   him! He pretends to be a doctor and yet he makes all these blunders."
   He who possesses the reality is indignant with the counterfeit!

   Now, God is truly holy and cannot, therefore, bear that these men
   should talk about a holiness which they have no claim to and vaunt
   themselves and brag within themselves of a thing that is not theirs.
   The true God, therefore, calls them a smoke in His nose. Moreover,
   self-righteousness is such a proud thing. God is always provoked with
   pride. It is one of the evils which His soul hates! He daily fits His
   arrow upon His string to fetch down the proud in heart. The
   self-righteous man is proud in himself and proud with a contemptuous
   sneer at others and, therefore, the Lord abhors him. Self-righteousness
   also denies the wisdom of God's plan and is utterly opposed to it.
   God's present plan of working in the world goes upon the theory that we
   are guilty--being guilty, He provides a Savior for us and sends us a
   Gospel full of Grace.

   His whole system is a gigantic blunder if we are or can be righteous in
   and of ourselves! The work of the Holy Spirit is needless if we can be,
   of ourselves, fit for Heaven! The whole character of this gracious
   dispensation is a mistake if man is not guilty! The man who says, "I am
   righteous," virtually casts a slur upon a work which is meant to be the
   highest display of Divine Love and Wisdom. He is like the Greek to whom
   the Cross of Christ was "foolishness." I venture to say that
   self-righteousness, in effect, makes Christ Himself to be a superfluity
   and this, my Brothers and Sisters, is the unkindest cut of all! This is
   a stab at the heart of the great Father!

   Did Jesus come down from Heaven and take our Nature because we were
   sinners? And in that Nature did He give Himself as a Sacrifice that He
   might put away sin--and was all this a mistake? Calvary, are you a
   blunder? Bleeding Savior, were You an amiable enthusiast, putting away
   sin which did not exist and filling a fountain for the removal of
   stains which are not to be found? Yet self-righteousness involves all
   this! If one sinner has a right to be self-righteous, so has another!
   And then it comes to this--that God should deal with us all on quite
   another theory and, instead of His dear Son coming to the world to die
   for us as sinners, we might all go to Heaven without an Atonement or a
   Savior! Do you think God can bear such a slur upon Christ, such a
   trampling on the precious blood of His own Son? Can even long-suffering
   bear this?

   I may be speaking to some who have never considered what their
   self-righteousness means, but I hope they see it now. Get rid of it, my
   dear Friends! Put off your ornaments of fancied virtue and put the dust
   and ashes of confession on your heads. Go home and tear your finery to
   pieces and put on the robe of heavenly righteousness--otherwise you
   will be, as long as you live, nothing but that smoking heap of weeds at
   the bottom of the garden! And whereas you think you are a bright and
   shining light, God's thoughts will be the reverse, for He will count
   you to be a mere smother of smoke in His nose--a fire that smolders all
   day.

   VII. The last point and one of the most practical is this, that
   SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS MOST EFFECTUALLY BARS A MAN FROM ALL HOPE OF
   SALVATION. We cannot be saved unless we become truly holy, but, my
   Brothers and Sisters, no man ever becomes truly holy who is content
   with a false holiness. If he says, "I am holy," he never will be holy.
   The student who enters college as a wise man will probably remain a
   fool. You never can win wisdom till you confess your folly. The man who
   says, "I am rich," but is under a delusion which makes him call copper,
   gold, will never be rich--it is a first necessity that he be able to
   estimate his true estate. And so self-righteousness shuts a man out
   from real righteousness most effectually.

   It also prevents the heart from repentance. How can you repent if you
   have never sinned? How can you mourn your failure to obey while you
   conceive that you have always kept the Law? It shuts you out, too, from
   faith. You never will believe in Jesus Christ while you believe in
   yourself. "How can you believe," said Christ, "that receive honor one
   of

   another?" If you can save yourself, you do not need a Savior and,
   consequently, you will never trust in the Savior of sinners. Man.
   Woman. While you are righteous, Christ and your heart will never agree!
   He brings you water, but you are not thirsty! He brings you the Bread
   of Life, but you are not hungry! He has made a raiment of needlework
   for you, but you are not naked! He comes to enrich you, but you are not
   poor! He comes to give you pardon, but you are not guilty! He comes to
   give you Everlasting Life, but you are not dead!

   What is there, then, in Christ for you? Nothing--and so you will never
   have Christ. All the entreaties of God, even such as are described in
   this chapter when He stretches out His hands all day, will never make a
   self-righteous person come to Him. The prodigal did not say, "I will
   arise, and go unto my father" while he could fill his belly with the
   husks that the swine ate. Soul poverty and destitution bring a man to
   God--and God may call as long as He wills--man never will come as long
   as he can be independent of his heavenly Father and so
   self-righteousness is the ruin of all who harbor it.

   Let me warn you who have heard the Gospel continually, that if you are
   self-righteous, the privileges which you enjoy will be all neutralized
   and cease to be privileges. If you do not come to Jesus when He
   stretches out His hands, He will call others who are not, now, a people
   and He will be found of those that sought Him not. You are first, now,
   in point of privilege, but the first shall be last while those outside
   that have not heard the Gospel shall hear it and be saved! And so the
   last shall be first. God will turn the tables upon you--the children of
   the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness where there shall be
   weeping and gnashing of teeth--while many shall come from the east and
   from the west and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God. Beware, you who
   are self-righteous, lest, because you put yourselves to be the head,
   God should make you the tail, for then all your Sabbath privileges and
   Gospel hearings will be like millstones about your necks, to sink you
   low as the lowest Hell!

   What is the remedy for all this? The remedy is just this. God says,
   "Behold Me." That is to say, He bids you cease from doting upon your
   own fancied beauties and worshipping your own foolish image. Look first
   to the holy God and tremble! Can you, of yourself, ever be like He
   is--pure, spotless and glorious? Can you ever hope to deserve anything
   from Him? Look to Him and despair!

   Then comes the second, "Behold Me." See Christ Jesus on the Cross
   dying, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God! As you see Him
   dying, your self-righteousness will die. You will say, "He would never
   have suffered thus for me unless I had sin to repent of. God would
   never have put Him to this grief for me unless I had been sadly guilty.
   I should never have needed such a Savior if I had not been a great
   transgressor. In the heights and depths of dying love I read the
   heights and depths of my accursed sin! In the infinity of the Atonement
   I read the boundless blackness of my guilt and lie humble before God.
   At the same time, in that perfect Divine righteousness, which has put
   away sin, I see the hope of a sinner and as a sinner I look to Christ
   for everything."

   If you do this, it is well. God blesses you. May everyone here be
   enabled to do this immediately and unto God shall be the glory forever
   and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Mistrust of God Deplored and Denounced

   (No. 1498)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 5, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "How long will it be before they believe Me?" Numbers 14:11.

   THE children of Israel were very prone to unbelief. They wanted
   something visible to worship and to trust. They could not learn the
   lesson of faith in the one great Invisible and, therefore, they were
   one day bowing before an idol and the next they were murmuring against
   the true God. Their life was according to the flesh, after the sight of
   the eyes and the hearing of the ears and so they praised God when
   Pharaoh was drowned and when manna lay round about their camp, but the
   moment they were in need or difficulty and saw no supply or relief,
   they could not trust in God, but began to mistrust and murmur. With
   what wonderful longsuffering the Lord bore with them! His mercy seemed
   to outrun their unbelief!

   They cried for water and they doubted God's power to give it to them in
   the desert sands, but lo, the smitten Rock poured forth a crystal
   stream! Then they cried for bread and charged the Lord with bringing
   them into the wilderness to kill them with hunger--and yet, in answer
   to their murmuring--the heavens were opened and there fell a shower of
   angels' food for them to feast upon! They then clamored for meat and
   they had not long began their unbelieving murmuring before a strong
   wind brought them up quail till they fed, even to the full! Such
   liberal answers to their vexatious murmuring ought to have silenced
   their fears and they should have exhibited confidence in their great
   Friend! Yet they did not do so, but for 40 years they provoked the
   Lord.

   The incident before us relates to that great and terrible provocation
   in which the longsuffering of God came to a pause. They sent spies into
   Canaan and when they were informed by 10 false-hearted men that the
   giants were in the land and that the inhabitants of it dwelt in walled
   cities which they could not hope to capture, they then began to accuse
   the Lord according to their former manner, denying His power to fulfill
   His ancient Covenant and give them the land that flowed with milk and
   honey! This time the Lord lifted His hand and swore that they should
   not enter into His rest.

   Let us be warned by this fact that there is a limit to the
   longsuffering of God and especially when it is tried by distrust. He
   may bear with unbelief for a time and, blessed be His name, for a long
   time, for He remembers that we are dust. But when it comes to willful
   perseverance in unbelief, the Lord will not forever be thus provoked.
   It behooves us to listen to the words of Paul--"Let us, therefore,
   fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of
   you should seem to come short of it." This morning my one subject is
   this sin of unbelief which I desire to deal with in the fear of God and
   in the power of His Holy Spirit.

   I. Our first head shall be the sin of Israel is here DEFINED--"HOW long
   will it be before they believe Me?" Observe that God's account of all
   the murmuring, discouragement and fear which these people felt was
   simply that they did not believe Him. They doubtless said that they
   were naturally afraid of their enemies--the Anakim, the sons of the
   giants-- these would overtop and overcome them. They seemed like
   grasshoppers in the sight of such gigantic beings and, therefore, they
   might well tremble. Had the Anakim been ordinary men, however numerous
   their bands, Israel declared that they should not have been afraid. But
   these huge monsters created a natural and unavoidable fear.

   "No," says God, "that is an idle excuse! No fear of giants would enter
   their minds if they believed Me. How long will it be before they
   believe Me?" If these sons of Anak had been 10 times as tall as they
   were, yet the almighty Lord could vanquish them! And if their cities
   had been literally, as well as figuratively, walled up to the skies,
   yet Jehovah could smite them out of Heaven and cast their ramparts into
   the dust! Gigantic men and fortified cities are nothing to Him who
   divided the Red Sea! When the Omnipotent is present, opposition
   vanishes. This was so clear that if the Israelites were afraid, the
   real reason was that they did not believe their God.

   So, my Brothers and Sisters, let us strip our discouragements and
   murmuring of all their disguises and see them in their true character
   and they will appear in their own naked deformity as discrediting God.
   It is true the difficulty before us may appear great, but it cannot be
   great to the Lord who has promised to make us more than conquerors. It
   is true the circumstances may appear unusually perplexing, but they
   cannot perplex Him who has promised to guide us with His counsel! And
   since we are well aware of this, it is clear that the true reason why
   we are so dismayed is not to be found in the difficulties and the
   circumstances, but in our misgivings of God.

   "Ah, but," these people might have replied, "we fear because of our
   weakness. We are not a trained host like the armies of Egypt. We know
   not how to fight against chariots of iron! We are only feeble men with
   all these women and children to encumber our march. We cannot hope to
   drive out the hordes of Amalekites and Canaanites. A sense of weakness
   is the cause of our terror and complaint." But the Lord puts the matter
   very differently. What had their weakness to do with His promise? How
   could their weakness affect His power to give them the land? He could
   conquer Amalek if they could not! Caleb had told them, "If the Lord
   delight in us, then He will bring us into this land." They knew that
   their feebleness had not prevented the Lord's bringing them out of
   Egypt, despite the pride and power of Pharaoh--and they must have known
   that He could, with equal ease, overthrow the Canaanites and their
   armies. Their weakness could only be a foil to the Glory of the Divine
   power, so that it would be made the more conspicuous!

   We, also, when we plead our weakness, ought to be ashamed, for we know
   that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. If we
   probe to the bottom of those doubts and fears which apparently arise
   out of a sense of our own weakness, we shall find that they spring from
   mistrust of God! Our trembling is not humility, but unbelief! We may
   mask it however we please, but that is the state of the case as God
   sees it and He sees it in truth. The question is not, "How long will
   they be weak?" but, "How long will it be before they believe Me?" "No,
   no," the people may have said, "we are not murmuring against God! It is
   against Moses and Aaron. They made a mistake when they brought us into
   the wilderness and they have undertaken an enterprise which they cannot
   carry through--we blame these two men for their foolhardiness."

   But the Lord would not have it so. Moses and Aaron were only His
   instruments and mere second causes. The Lord will not allow that the
   quarrel is with them, but He asks, "How long will it be before they
   believe Me?" Thus, Brethren, we sometimes fix upon our fellow man--his
   infirmity, his shortsightedness, his lack of wisdom--and we say that we
   do not doubt God but we can never feel secure while our leaders or our
   friends are such poor, unwise creatures. If you put this pretext to the
   test, you will see that it avails nothing, for God can use what
   instruments He pleases, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas. And He can
   accomplish His purposes despite their frailty.

   His Word is not to fall to the ground because of the medium through
   which He carries it into effect. Strip our distrust of the agents whom
   God employs of all the masks with which it seeks to disguise itself and
   it comes to this--we do not believe God! Our dreading and complaining
   are often a kind of practical atheism. I mean this, that if God has
   pronounced a promise and we doubt its fulfillment for any cause
   whatever, we think and feel as if there were no God! We profess to
   believe that the promises of Scripture are the promises of God,
   Himself, and it follows that if we doubt their fulfillment, we do as
   good as deny the Godhead of the Promiser, since he who cannot or will
   not keep his promises cannot be God.

   The Word of the true God has been proven to be Omnipotent by its
   creating force and, therefore, promises which are not of the same power
   cannot be the Word of the one almighty God! Dare we make it out that
   God speaks frivolously and that His solemn promises are like the false
   words of man which mock the ears and disappoint hope? Are God's
   promises like yon sere leaves which the passing wind bears into
   forgetfulness? Then I say that such a god is no god at all and such a
   conception sets up a false god and robs the true God of His essential
   Character. Is it not so? Sometimes we put our doubts in one shape and
   sometimes in another--and we are apt to claim that we do not really
   doubt God for we know that He both can and will keep His promises as a
   rule--but for certain reasons we doubt whether He will keep His Word to
   us.

   We talk of our unworthiness and so on, but, being interpreted, our
   inmost thought is that we can believe anything of God but that which is
   the most necessary for us to believe! We believe all other Words but
   that very one which we are most called upon to credit! Strange faith,
   which will exert itself everywhere but where it is needed! We claim
   that if things were otherwise than they are, we could believe God--and
   what is this but to say that under existing circumstances

   we do not conceive Him to be worthy of our confidence? He who doubts
   that particular promise which God speaks to him may as well doubt all
   the rest, since they all hang together and they are either all of them
   lies or all of them eternal Truths of God! Yes, this is the essence of
   it--our timorous suspicions of any one promise are a reflection upon
   the Lord Himself!

   So, Brothers and Sisters, I come back to that first point and solemnly
   declare that though our doubts and fears are called, oftentimes, by
   more respectable names because we do not like to see their sin in all
   its nakedness, yet they come to this--that we do not believe the
   ever-blessed God! If we look at our discouragement and mistrust in this
   light, we shall no longer pity, but blame ourselves--and instead of
   excusing, we shall accuse our heart of a great crime. Mistrust towards
   God is not a mere weakness--it is a wickedness of the most grave order.

   II. We will now proceed, in the second place, to further DESCRIBE this
   sin of not believing. I would remark, first, that at the first blush it
   would seem incredible that there should be such a thing in the universe
   as unbelief of God. That God should manifest Himself to man so as to
   make a promise to Him is indescribable condescension! One would think
   that the high and lofty One would abide in His eternal silence, or
   communicate Himself to the most exalted creatures rather than speak to
   such a being as man. What is man that God should be mindful of him and
   speak to him? Yet we believe that the Lord has often spoken to us by
   His Prophets and in these last days by His Son.

   Now, if an angel altogether unacquainted with human history could be
   informed that God had spoken to men, I imagine that his astonishment
   would be overwhelming if we also informed him that men have disbelieved
   Him. "What?" he would ask. "What? Dare to disbelieve the Lord? Doubt
   the Lord, whose infinite love stooped to speak with His creature? God,
   who is essential Truth and cannot possibly lie nor deceive--are there
   creatures vile enough to perpetrate such an insult upon their Maker,
   their Benefactor? Can they suspect the infinitely Pure of deceit? Dare
   they question the Truth of the Perfect One whom cherubim adore?"

   I say that an angel would be staggered at such blasphemy! Why, look,
   Sirs--the Lord spoke to nothingness and out came this globe, swathed in
   the swaddling bands of darkness! He spoke again and forth leaped the
   light and all things were quickened into life and clothed with beauty!
   The power of His Word was all creating--and is it to be imagined or
   conceived that this Word can be a lie? Jehovah's Word is but Himself in
   action! His will making itself manifest! And is it to be supposed that
   this can be a lie under any conceivable circumstances whatever? My
   Brothers and Sisters, it is sorrowful to have to confess that what
   looks like inconceivable blasphemy has, nevertheless, been perpetrated
   abundantly by the sons of men! Shame on our race that it should ever
   have insulted the Most High God! Oh, the incredible infamy which lies,
   even, in the bare thought of calling in question the veracity of God!
   It is so vile, so unjust, so profane a thing that it ought to be
   regarded with horror as a monstrous wrong!

   Consider, next, that, though unbelief certainly exists, it is a most
   unreasonable thing. If God has made a promise, on what grounds do we
   doubt its fulfillment? Which of all the attributes of God is that which
   comes under suspicion? Probably the first distrusted attribute will be
   His power. Have not men said, "Can God furnish a table in the
   wilderness? Or can He deliver us out of the deep waters?" Let us think
   of this. Has the Lord promised to supply and deliver? Then, my dear
   Friend, do you really, in your sober senses, question the power of God
   to do as He has said? Has He not made the heavens and the earth? Do not
   all things subsist by His continuous power? Is anything too hard for
   the Lord? Is His arm shortened that He cannot save? Is His hand
   paralyzed that He cannot achieve His purpose? The more we consider the
   supposition that God is unable to keep His promises, the more we
   discard it with indignation! It is not to be entertained for a moment!

   What, then, is it God's goodness that we suspect? After He has filled
   the world with bounty and multiplied His loving kindnesses to His
   creatures--above all, after He has given from His bosom His
   only-begotten Son to die as the fulfillment as well as the seal of the
   great promises of His Covenant--dare we question His goodness? Do we
   call God evil? Do we impute unkindness to Him? Let horror seize us at
   the suggestion of such thought! Let our bones quake that we should ever
   tolerate the hideous libel upon Him whose very name is good! For what
   is "God" but "good" written in brief? It must come back to this with
   which we started, that we suspect the Truth of God and yet the more we
   shall consider the supposition, the more we shall be alarmed by its
   blasphemous character.

   Do you believe, O Man, the creature of God, that your Maker can belie
   Himself? Do you imagine that He can forswear Himself? With reverence do
   I speak the word and awe is upon me as I utter it--do you profanely
   dream that He

   can perjure Himself? Every promise of His is virtually sealed with that
   oath by which the Covenant is confirmed. He has lifted His hand to
   Heaven and sworn by Himself because He could swear by no greater, that
   by two immutable things wherein it was impossible for God to lie we
   might have strong consolation! Reason itself teaches that the Judge of
   all must, Himself, be just! And this He could not be if He were not
   true. Truth enters into the very conception of God--a false god is no
   god. Any other doubt in the world may plead some ground and guarantee,
   but a doubt of God's Truthfulness is utterly unreasonable--and if sin
   had not filled man with madness--unbelief would never find harbor in a
   single bosom!

   Again, because this sin is so unreasonable, it is also most
   inexcusable. Let me try, if I can, to frame an excuse for doubting the
   truthfulness of the Lord our God. Look back upon your own experience
   and take with it the experience of all men that have ever lived and
   find, if you can, a single instance in which God has been untrue to the
   Word He has spoken. We challenge eternity to divulge such an instance!
   We appeal to all mankind, from Adam to the latest born-- and to angels,
   yes--and to devils themselves, to produce one single case in which
   Jehovah has turned from a promise or from a threat so as to forfeit His
   Word. His faithfulness is indisputable! The ages witness it! Now, if
   there had been one instance, we might be justified in our misgivings.
   If we could find one authenticated case, fully established, in which
   God had acted contrary to His promise, or failed to keep His Word, then
   we might lawfully distrust. But as we can never find such a case, what
   excuse can we make?

   Moreover, when a man is suspected of untruthfulness, we usually impute
   to him some motive for it--he has something to gain by the lie and,
   therefore, we suppose he will prove false. But what motive can be
   imputed to the Lord Most High which could lead Him to forfeit His Word?
   He knows all things from the beginning and, therefore, even if it were
   supposable that to keep a promise would be inconvenient to Him, He
   would never have made it, for He would have foreseen that
   inconvenience. God is not bound to promise and, therefore, if the good
   deed were not to His mind, He would not promise to perform it! Nor has
   God changed, since immutability is essential to His being. If,
   therefore, He has uttered a Word, you may rest quite sure that it will
   stand fast--an unchangeable Being cannot be fickle and run back from
   His promise.

   Why, my Friends, it is to God's Glory to keep His Word! As it is to the
   glory of every man to be upright, so is it to the Glory and honor of
   God to be faithful to His solemn declarations. Even on the lowest
   conceivable ground, the Lord's own interests are bound up with His
   Truth. All the Glory of His name and the honor of His Divine Person
   bend towards the keeping of His Word. There is no supposable reason why
   the Lord should not be true! How dare we, then, without the slightest
   cause, cast suspicion upon the truthfulness of the Most High? My dear
   Brothers and Sisters, I venture to say that unbelief of God's word
   ought, therefore, to be impossible.

   It ought to be impossible to every reverent-hearted man. Does he know
   God and tremble in His Presence and shall he think of distrusting and
   doubting Him? No one that has ever seen Him in contemplation and bowed
   before Him in sincere adoration would not be amazed at the impertinence
   that would dare to think that God could lie! O reverent heart, it ought
   to be to you beyond the bounds of possibility that you should doubt the
   Truth of the promises of God! And this ought to still be more
   impossible, if such an expression may be used, to God's own children!
   You could not make a true-hearted child suspect his father of
   falsehood. If he heard such an accusation brought against a loving and
   kind father he would be indignant! He would not want to hear rebutting
   evidence, he would say, "It is impossible! I know my father, I know his
   character. I have seen him; I understand him; I cannot endure to hear
   him slandered and I do not need to hear him defended, for of this I am
   sure--he cannot lie."

   In the child's case there might be a partiality and the father might
   have been guilty. But in the case of the children of God no such
   possibility exists, for our Father is the God of Truth. Oh, my
   Brethren, shall it ever be said that the children of God doubt their
   Father? I have heard some professing Christians say that they find it
   hard to believe His promises and yet they do not appear to think that
   they have said a dreadful thing--yet a very dreadful thing it is! What
   must be their opinion of God if they find it hard to believe Him? Think
   of it again--a child of God finding it hard to believe his own
   Father--his heavenly Father! Ah, wretched sin! Wretched insult to God!
   If we were not so false-hearted, ourselves, we should never dream of
   the Lord's being so and, if we were not conscious of being chargeable
   with lies, the thought that God might fail to fulfill His Word would
   never be tolerated. It is horrible!

   If it has crossed your mind, scuttle it and, with many tears, confess
   it before God, for to a child of God it ought to be impossible to doubt
   His Father's truthfulness! To some children of God that impossibility
   ought to be still more striking because certain of us have received
   special and Infallible proofs of the Lord's faithfulness to His
   promises. He has answered the prayers of some of us in a way that has
   drowned our eyes with tears of joy! He has made us laugh like Sarah
   when the child of promise was given to her. We have felt amazed at the
   mighty goodness of our God and for us to doubt, now, would be
   impossible! We ought to settle it in our minds that, come what may,
   though the earth were removed and the mountains cast into the midst of
   the sea--though everything should alter and the laws of Nature should
   be changed and day and night forget their time--yet would we never
   suppose, nor allow others to suppose that God could be false to His
   promises and break His Word!

   I am resolved and, my Brethren, you will join with me in it and may God
   give us Grace to carry it out--to doubt the evidence of my eyes, but
   not to doubt God--for our eyes have often deceived us, but Jehovah,
   never! Light may play tricks with these poor optics, but the Lord has
   never spoken to mock us, nor said what He cannot perform. Resolve, my
   Brothers and Sisters, to doubt your ears and deny your hearing sooner
   than doubt your God, for sounds are often imaginary and ears are
   speedily duped! Resolve to doubt your most deliberate judgment rather
   than one Word of the Lord. How often have you been mistaken? Even when,
   according to mathematical calculations, it seems as certain as that
   twice two make four, that God cannot execute His Word--deny the
   mathematics but never doubt God. There is nothing certain under Heaven
   but God! Uncertainty is upon all things but upon His Word!

   If you consult with friends and in their judgment they all unanimously
   conclude that the case is hopeless and that the promise cannot be
   fulfilled, reject them all and refuse to consult with flesh and blood!
   Let God be true and every man a liar! Yes, and everything a liar! Doubt
   your own feelings as much as you please--it is seldom that they are to
   be relied upon. Mistrust, as I have already said, your own senses--they
   are but very fallible reporters of fact--but never distrust your God!
   If devils, or even angels could stand in squadrons and swear
   unanimously that God had failed--call them liars, too, for God cannot,
   cannot, cannot lie!

   The things which are seen are, after all, but mere shadows and
   dependent for their appearing and continuing upon the Lord, alone. Why,
   then, confide in them at the expense of your confidence in God? God,
   only, is true, and when you have no hope but in Him, alone, you have
   all the hope worth having! They say of us who trust in God, alone, that
   we have nothing to look to. Our answer is that faith in the unseen God
   is the highest reason and is grounded on the surest fact! His unseen
   arm is stronger than all that angel or human eyes can ever see and
   there is more potency in God, who is neither to be heard nor seen, than
   in all the crash of whirlwinds or the glare of tempests. There is no
   power but in Him and, therefore, no certainty of Infallible Truth but
   in the Word which He has spoken.

   Look, Sirs, every promise in God's Word comes to you, first, from the
   Father's lips--will you doubt Him? It next comes by the Holy Spirit,
   who reveals it--will you doubt Him? Beware lest you sin against the
   Holy Spirit! It comes, next, sealed with the blood of Jesus! Will you
   doubt Him? Will you suspect your Savior? A single doubt of a promise of
   God casts a stigma upon Father, Son and Holy Spirit and is a triple
   transgression against the triune God! O the venom that lies in a single
   suspicion of the Most High! It is strange how you and I can enter into
   confidence and conviction about many things and yet we cannot exercise
   the same confidence towards our God!

   You all believe in the laws of matter. You expect that the law of
   gravitation will bring a weight downward if you throw it from the
   window--why are you so sure? Because you have seen the rule in action
   so often that you now expect to see it carried out--and yet the law of
   gravitation might be suspended! Indeed, it has been suspended, for at
   the Red Sea the floods stood upright as a heap and the depths were
   congealed in the heart of the sea! You all expect the sun to rise in
   the morning and to set at his appointed time because he has kept his
   daily marches for many years. And yet there was a time when there was
   no sun to rise or set and there will be a time when the sun shall be
   turned into darkness and day and night shall cease. Can you trust the
   temporary and yet doubt the eternal? You all expect the seasons of the
   year to come and go, but they might be reversed by God right easily.

   Now, if we can believe in the laws of Nature which are evidently
   changeable and which will one day certainly come to an end, how is it
   that we cannot believe in God whose regularity in the keeping of His
   promises has been as great as the regularity of day and night, of
   seedtime and harvest, cold and heat and whose permanent Immutability
   will run on throughout eternity? O that we were wise! O that we were
   commonly honest with God and spoke of Him as we have

   found Him! Then we should doubt Him no more, but abide in fixed and
   steadfast confidence! O Holy Spirit, work us to this end!

   III. This brings me, in the third place, to dwell upon this sin very
   much in the same way, only with this heading, the sin bitterly
   DEPLORED. We have all been guilty of it. Some, here, are living
   constantly in the commission of it. But what I need to call to your
   remembrance is this, that in any one case of doubting the truthfulness
   of God there is the full venom of the entire sin of unbelief. That is
   to say, if you distrust the Lord in one, you doubt Him altogether. You
   say that you can believe the Lord about other things, but there is one
   particular point which staggers you. But is it not clear that the man
   who is convicted of one falsehood is no longer trustworthy?

   The Scripture calls Him, "God who cannot lie." Do you think He can lie
   once? Then He can lie and the Scripture is broken! "Ah, but I mean He
   may not keep His promise to me. I am such an unworthy person." Yes, but
   when a man forfeits his word, it is no defense for him to say, "I told
   an untruth, but it was only to an unworthy person." No, the truth must
   be spoken irrespective of persons! I have no right to deceive even a
   criminal! Do you dare say that to one person the Lord can be untrue? If
   it can be so, He is not a true God any more! It only needs one
   falsehood, one breach of promise, one lie to be proven and you have
   smitten the character of the accused to the very heart--you would not
   dream of doing such a thing to the great God!

   You may as well doubt Him about everything if you distrust Him upon any
   one matter. Get but the promise from God and there is an Infallible
   necessity that He will keep it, be it a little promise or a great one,
   for the character of a truthful Being is all square and He is false in
   nothing! Do you reply that you doubted Him upon a very trivial matter
   and it was only a little mistrust? Alas, there is a world of iniquity
   in the faint discredit of the thrice holy Lord! Reflect, then, with
   sorrow that we have been guilty of this sin, not once, but a great many
   times. Timorousness and suspicion spring up in some bosoms like weeds
   in the furrows. They sing the Lord's praises for a great deliverance
   just experienced, but the next cloud which darkens the sky fills them
   with fear and they again mistrust Divine Love. Their heavenly Father
   delivers them, helps them, comforts them and they say they will never
   doubt again. But in a short time another trial looms in the distance
   and they are despondent and dismayed.

   Now, I will read to you, and I will read to myself these words of God
   which make up our text--"How long will this people provoke Me? And how
   long will it be before they believe Me for all the signs which I have
   showed among them?" Another thought upon this point and it is this--are
   there not some professing people of God who do not seem to live a life
   of faith at all? I mean some who have no faith about their temporal
   circumstances at all and almost look upon living by faith as if it were
   a kind of fanaticism which they admit to be very pious and good, but
   they can never come up to it. Yet faith should be an everyday thing
   with us.

   In the life of Abraham how few acts are mentioned of outward religion,
   of long retirements, fasts, public services, sacraments and so
   forth--but how clear it is that his daily secular and domestic life was
   a living unto God as a pilgrim and a sojourner with Him. There is no
   visible line between secular and sacred in the Patriarch's life--it was
   all sacred! It is an evil distinction which says so far is spiritual
   and so far is secular. My Brothers and Sisters, your whole lives must
   be spiritual lives! There must be faith in God about your home, your
   families and your neighbors. Some look upon faith as a kind of Sunday
   Grace to be laid up in the Ark of the Covenant with Aaron's rod but,
   indeed, it is an everyday faculty, a Grace for the table, a Grace for
   the cupboard, a Grace for the pocket, a Grace for the market, a Grace
   for the nursery and a Grace for the sick bed!

   The life of God's people is not to be lived within the four narrow
   walls of a Meeting House--it is lived wherever they are, for in every
   place the just shall live by faith! The religion of a Christian is to
   be the whole of his life and faith is to run through it like a thread
   through a coral necklace. We are to believe God as much when He says,
   "Your bread shall be given you and your water shall be sure," as when
   He says, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Oh, for
   more household faith, more Saturday faith, more real faith! Let us
   blush and never cease to blush that we have had so little of

   it!

   IV. Lastly, as we have now deplored this sin, we shall conclude by
   spending a moment or two in heartily DENOUNCING IT. This sin of
   unbelief, if there were no other reason for denouncing it, let it be
   reprobated because it insults God. I feel an infinite enmity to
   unbelief because it so terribly misrepresents and calumniates my God.
   If any man were to say to me, "Your father breaks his word," I would
   not suffer the accuser to go unanswered and assuredly I cannot

   be silent when my heavenly Father is thus slandered! Our race fell by
   believing the old dragon's base charge against God when he said to the
   woman in his vile serpentine language, "You shall not surely die!" He
   thus called God a liar!

   Away with you, you subtle serpent! Away with you! Go and eat the dust
   that is your predestinated meat, for God cannot speak that which is not
   true--He is Truth itself! How greatly does unbelief dishonor the Lord!
   What shame it casts upon the splendor of His name! Alas, that there
   should be going up and down this world creatures denying the existence
   of their Creator and other beings who admit that there is a God and
   believe that He has spoken and given promise of good things to come,
   but treat His Word as if it were worthless and unfit to be trusted! Oh,
   hateful, abominable, loathsome mistrust which dares to treat the Lord
   as unworthy to be believed!

   This is sufficient reason for denouncing it and yet, since weaker
   reasons may, perhaps, help the stronger, let me mention that we are
   bound to hate unbelief because it is the ruin of the great mass of our
   race. Why are men lost? All their sins which they have done cannot
   destroy them if they believe in Jesus, but the damning point is that
   they will not believe in Him. Thus says the Scriptures--"He that
   believes not is condemned already." Why? "Because he has not believed
   on the Son of God." God Himself hangs on a tree in human form and
   bleeds to death bearing the sin of man and yet men turn their backs on
   this infinite display of love and refuse to believe it? Therefore do
   they deserve to sink to death and

   Hell!

   I look upon the myriads now in outer darkness and I ask, "Who slew all
   these?" The answer is, "They could not enter into Heaven because of
   unbelief--they perished because they would not believe in the testimony
   of God concerning reconciliation by the blood of His Son." May we not
   well hate this murderous unbelief?

   We may hate it, again, because it brings so much misery and weakness
   upon the children of God. My Brothers and Sisters, if we believed God's
   promises, we should no longer be bowed down with sorrow, for our sorrow
   would be turned into joy. We would glory in our infirmities! Yes, we
   would glory in tribulation, also, seeing the good result which the Lord
   brings forth from them. The man who steadily believes His God is calm,
   quiet and strong. If men fail him, his God supports him. Suppose his
   business fails him--his chief business is to serve his God and that has
   not failed! If he is, himself, sick and racked with pain, he resigns
   himself to the great Father's chastening hand and patience is given.

   If health is utterly failing--he leaves himself with God that he may
   take down his tabernacle, curtain by curtain, confident that he will
   build it again in nobler form. When death approaches, he so fully
   believes in God that he feels it will be gain to him to pass out of
   this state of trial into everlasting blessedness at the Lord's right
   hand--and so he is always happy! How strong such a man becomes! The
   weakness which comes of fear and trembling does not touch him! His
   heart is fixed and, therefore, he has all his strength under control
   and can bring it to bear upon the place where it is needed.

   I do not know whether you have thought of the prowess of Samson. His is
   a very poor character in many aspects, but yet what a true hero he is
   when you view him in the light of his faith! It was not that he was
   physically strong by nature, but that he believed God and strength came
   upon him. As a Believer in God he trusted that the Lord could make his
   sinews and muscles strong enough for any task which was allotted him.
   And so, when the gates of Gaza shut him in, he rose up from his sleep
   and bowed himself before the huge doors--and with a mighty tug lifted
   them up! And as the bars were fastened to the posts, he pulled up posts
   and all and carried the whole away to the top of the hill--not as a
   feat of Herculean strength--but as an act offaith in God!

   But now the Philistines are upon him! He is upon a rock and cannot
   escape. He believes in God and he quails not before the host. There are
   a thousand of the enemy and he is but one--he looks for a weapon and
   there is nothing handy for him to fight with but a dried bone which
   once had made the jaw of an ass. What does it matter? He trusts in God
   and not in the weapon! Look how the Philistines flee before him, or
   would do so if they could, for with feet and knee and hands Samson is
   upon them! And his terrible arm sweeps them down in rows--this great
   child-man was a terrible Believer, but when the Divine fury of his
   faith was upon him, he was altogether irresistible! He never thought of
   odds against him, nor staggered at the promise through unbelief!

   It was a grand deed for one man to fling himself upon a thousand! I
   like him better in such silent daring than even when he cries, "Heaps
   upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men."
   Only believe God and you can do anything! If the Lord should bid you
   shake the world, you could do it by faith! Plucking up sycamore trees
   by the roots and hurling mountains into the sea are mere sport for
   faith, which before now has subdued kingdoms, worked

   righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions and quenched the violence of
   fire! She has grander things to do than the mere slaying of
   Philistines, for she wrestles with principalities, powers and spiritual
   wickedness in high places and comes off more than conqueror through Him
   that loved her!

   And yet, my Friend, are you hiding in the rear? Are you lying in the
   background? Are you being nursed and cared for as a babe? Shall it
   always be so? Will you forever be a mere child? If you do not believe,
   you will never grow strong, but he that believes comes to the full
   development of that celestial manhood which is akin to the manhood of
   the Christ of God in whom we live! One very shocking point about this
   unbelief is that it has hampered the work of Christ in the world. The
   Christ that can save is a Christ believed in, but of a Christ who is
   not believed in it is written--"He did not many mighty works there
   because of their unbelief." The reason why, at this time, whole nations
   lie under popery or heathendom is that the Church has not faith enough
   for their conquest! There is no straitening in God--our limit lies in
   our own timorous hearts!

   The first thing to be done is for Zion to believe in God and then the
   rod of His strength shall go forth out of her midst and she shall
   become "Fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with
   banners." If the Son of Man should now come on the earth, where would
   He find faith? Where would He discover a high degree of it? You know
   what most Churches do--there is the regular performance of worship
   service; the regular preaching of an orthodox sermon as dry as it is
   orthodox; the regular meeting of a few people for a Praying Meeting in
   which there is no real prayer; and the regular revolution of a
   spiritual barrel organ, from which all spirituality has long ago been
   ground out! Nothing comes of this lifeless routine and it was never
   likely that there could be anything, for out of death, only death can
   come.

   When we began to preach in faith, believing that men must be saved by
   the Gospel, they will be saved by it! When we go forth to battle,
   confident that the weapon of the Gospel in the hand of God cannot fail,
   it will not fail! It is lack of faith on our part which causes the
   eternal God to put His right hand into His bosom and keep it there!
   When once the Holy Spirit has worked a mighty faith in us--and we shall
   never have it till He does--then will the Lord lay bare His arm and we
   shall see marvelous things! His own right hand and His holy arm will
   get Him the victory! The world has never seen, since Apostolic times,
   what yet shall happen in our own day if we will but believe!

   If we will but confide in God, our young men shall see visions and our
   old men shall dream dreams and then shall be poured out upon the Lord's
   servants and handmaidens of His own Spirit and they shall prophesy!
   Then will the world wake up and cry, "The old fanaticism has come back!
   These men are drunk with new wine!" It will only be that they speak as
   the Spirit gives them utterance, for He works mightily where faith is
   mighty! But He is restrained because of this wretched, wicked,
   insulting, blasphemous unbelief of ours that persists in suspecting the
   Lord! Forward, Brothers and Sisters!

   God the Holy Spirit helping you, resolve in your hearts this day that
   you will doubt all the boasted discoveries of science! You will doubt
   all the affirmations of the wise! You will doubt all the speculations
   of great thinkers! You will doubt all your own feelings and all the
   conclusions drawn from outward circumstances! Yes, and everything that
   seems to be demonstrable to a certainty, you will doubt! But NEVER,
   NEVER, NEVER, while eternity shall last, will you suffer the thought to
   pass your mind that God can ever, in the least degree, run back from
   anything that He has spoken, or change the Word that has gone forth
   from His lips!

   Thus have I spoken for Him. May His Holy Spirit make it powerful on
   your minds, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lessons of the Foot-washing

   (No. 1499)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 12, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and
   that He was come from God, and went to God; He rose from supper, and
   laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After
   that He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples
   'feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." John
   13:3-5.

   IT seems to me that the true text of this enacted sermon of the
   foot-washing is to be found in the first verse of the chapter--"Having
   loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Our
   Lord washed the feet of His disciples to show that to the last moment
   of His communion with them He was full of the deepest and truest love
   to them and was willing to perform the most menial action for their
   good. Nor was this all, for we may regard that one condescending act as
   the pledge and type of His daily kindness towards all His own which are
   in the world. Those deeds of love, which the foot-washing sets forth,
   are continuous among us and are the sure tokens of His abiding love to
   us.

   Our Lord's affection for His people is not a transient passion. He
   loved them before the earth was. He continues to love them and He
   always will love them, even when these heavens and this earth shall
   have passed away. In token of the continuance of His love, He has left
   on record this washing of His disciples' feet, not because He only did
   it once, but because it is a type of what He is always doing. Even in
   His Glory He is caring for His saints with that same condescending love
   which led Him to wash their feet. And He is acting towards them,
   spiritually, in the same way.

   The love of Christ will assuredly endure all the strain that can ever
   be put upon it, for at the time when He acted as menial servant to His
   disciples, His love was enduring and enduring right gloriously, three
   great trials--any one of which might have broken it had it not been
   altogether Omnipotent. For, first, He was about to go away from them.
   Much of human love needs the presence of its object for its
   maintenance. It is, alas, seldom true that "absence makes the heart
   grow fonder." Jesus was about to depart out of this world to the Father
   and, with the exception of one brief interval, He was to walk no more
   in the midst of His chosen, or sit at table with them.

   Out of sight, however, they would not be out of mind. Though He was
   just about to take the last terrible journey of death, yet He forgot
   them not, but graciously made them see that He would remember them
   still. If you will remember the style of His going, His thoughtfulness
   of His friends becomes the more remarkable. He was about to leave them
   by a cruel and ignominious death and, according to the common conduct
   of men, it would not have been amazing if He had sought pity and
   comfort from them--instead of which He forgot Himself and all the pain,
   grief and death which lay before Him and spent all His time and
   strength upon the comfort and establishment of His followers!

   When He knew that the hour was come when He must depart out of the
   world with unutterable pangs, He still loved His own with an
   all-absorbing love. There was much in the prospect of His grievous
   departure which might, for a season, have diverted His thoughts from
   them. But they lay so close to the center of His soul that even under
   such circumstances He washed their feet!

   Next, it is to be remembered that our Lord was well aware that one of
   them had already entertained the idea of betraying Him. There sat one
   at the table who had held a secret interview with the Pharisees and
   chief priests--and had taken money as a bribe for his Master's blood.
   You cannot so dissociate a leading disciple from the rest as not to
   feel that the whole band was thereby disgraced and the Lord might very
   well have said, "I will discard My Apostles, for they have betrayed
   Me." And then you remember that those who did not sell Him or betray
   Him, nevertheless all forsook Him and fled--forsook Him when they ought
   to have rallied round Him and have spoken up for Him at the judgment
   seat.

   None of them appeared in answer to the question, "Who shall declare His
   generation?" Like timid hares, they fled at the first bark of the dogs.
   It would not have been amazing, had His been a human love, if He had
   said, "They are unworthy of Me--their confidence dies out when they see
   My sorrow--they betray Me--they forsake Me, therefore I will let them
   go and care for them no more." No, but knowing what they were, our Lord
   took a towel and girded Himself and washed their feet, yes, washed the
   traitor's feet and gently handled that heel which had been lifted up
   against Him--washing from it the dust gathered in its secret walk upon
   the traitor's errand!--

   "The sight might kings themselves convert, God only could so far
   submit: Satan is in the traitor's heart, The Lord Most High is at his
   feet." This act of tender, considerate affection, performed under such
   circumstances to men who acted towards Him in such ungenerous style,
   proves to us that His love will bear the strain of our ill behavior,
   our lack of fidelity and our thousand grievous failures. Having loved
   His own which are in the world, He loves them to the end.

   There was a third strain, and a powerful one, too. Our Savior knew that
   the Father had committed all things into His hands. He knew that there
   was but a brief interval before He should die and then He would ascend
   to the Father's right hand and sit there eternally as God Over All,
   blessed forevermore! Yet He did not disdain to do a slave's work for
   His beloved ones. Oftentimes circumstances alter affections. A man
   grows rich and great and forgets his friends. This we would not suspect
   of Jesus if His had not been a greater change than we mortals can
   possibly experience. But His was a surpassing accession of glory--from
   being plunged in ignominy and shame He was exalted to receive the
   homage of angels and the adoration of the whole universe! One would
   think that in the prospect of such honors, though He loved His own, He
   would not so love them as to become their Servitor and, all in
   disarray, stoop down before them, even to their feet, and do the
   service of a bondsman!

   No wonder that Peter raised an objection suggested by reverential awe.
   Who could, without protest, receive such humble service from such
   hands? Yet our Lord did this with Heaven's supernal Glory descending on
   Him! He disrobed Himself, though angels longed to cast the imperial
   purple about His shoulders! With all things in His hands, He yet took a
   towel and wiped the disciples' feet! Beloved, if our Lord's love bore
   these three strains, we may, like the Apostle, be persuaded that
   neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
   things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
   other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which
   is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

   I invite you now, therefore, to see your Savior's enduring and
   continuing love as set forth to us in this symbolic washing of His
   disciples' feet and in similar acts of which it is a symbol. I shall
   ask you to view it, first, as the type of His continuous love. And
   secondly, as the example of that love as it should be reflected by His
   people. May the Holy Spirit be our Interpreter and open to us this
   choice cabinet of love tokens!

   I. First we will look upon this washing of the disciples' feet as THE
   TYPE OF OUR LORD'S CONTINUOUS LOVE TO US. We will view it in four
   lights. First, Christ Jesus still acts as the Host of His people. Has
   it never struck you how much the life of Christ with His people lay in
   intense familiarity with them? How in common things He displayed His
   brotherhood with them? He began His ministry at a feast at Cana of
   Galilee, working His first miracle at a wedding. Again and again we
   find Him eating with His disciples. The last thing He did was to sit at
   supper with them and He still says to His Church, "Behold, I stand at
   the door and knock: if any man open to Me I will enter in and sup with
   Him and

   he with Me."

   His own figure for the opening of the new dispensation is a
   supper--"Blessed is he that shall eat bread at the marriage supper of
   the Lamb." We do not always view our communion with Christ in this
   homely light and I fear we forget that the acquaintance of Christ with
   His people was one of great intimacy and familiar communion, for they
   did eat and drink with Him and He with them. At this time, also, Jesus
   is the Host of His Church, providing the Gospel Supper and entertaining
   us right royally. Instead of meat, He gives us His flesh to eat, rarest
   of dainties and He cries, "My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is
   drink, indeed."

   He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. He
   satisfies our mouth with good things so that our youth is renewed like
   the eagles! And, mark you, the Lord is a Host who goes through with His
   Divine hospitalities and leaves nothing incomplete. In the East the
   master of the house would wash his guests' feet if they were persons
   whom he

   sought to honor. You remember how Abraham bade the angels turn into his
   tent and also said to them, "Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched
   and wash your feet." Even so our Master entertains us at His table, not
   as paupers, but as guests, yes, and not as guests of an ordinary kind,
   but as friends of the highest class, dear to His soul, whose feet He
   will wash! He can truly say of us, "Since you were precious in My
   sight, you have been honorable and I have loved you." He treats us as
   distinguished persons who shall not sit among mean men, but shall have
   their portion among princes.

   This foot-washing, once done, was a fair representation of that
   honorable entertainment which the King extends to all believing souls
   when He bids them come to His banqueting table and drink of the wine
   which He has mingled. I like to think of the Lord as my Host and of
   myself as no mere waif and stray, but as a welcome guest to whom He is
   daily fulfilling all a host's part, granting me all I want, yes, all
   that I wish for! He Himself gives us honors and comforts us more than
   could be expected, even, from our most familiar friend. Look, He even
   washes our feet! What better token need we of His abiding love? Since
   He continues to entertain His whole Church and treats us all as
   distinguished visitors, it is clear that He still loves us.

   My second rendering of the passage is that He cares for our minor
   matters with a personal interest. Jesus washed their feet and this
   showed a very tender and familiar consideration of their little needs.
   That He should ease their weary hearts I can understand. That He should
   enlighten their clouded brains I can understand. But that He should
   wash their feet is amazing! A little soil on their feet--will He attend
   to that? Yes, that He will, and personally, too. He will, Himself, take
   the basin and the towel and wash their feet! Had they been diseased
   with leprosy it would seem natural that He should touch them and say,
   "Be clean." Or had they been blind or crippled, it would have been
   probable that He would touch their eyes or heal their limbs.

   But a mere defilement of their feet is so a small a matter! Would He
   attend to that? He might have left them to wash one another's feet,
   might He not? Surely He had but to suggest it and they would have
   cheerfully waited on each other. Peter, at any rate, would have been
   first to obey and to his Lord's command he would have replied, "Wash
   them? That I will, with delight!" But no. The Lord laid aside His own
   garments and took a towel and He performed the kindly deed for them!
   Brothers and Sisters, take your little things to Christ! Those trials
   of which your heart says, "They are too small. Though they prick me
   like thorns in the flesh and give me pain, yet they are really too
   trifling for me to mention in prayer."

   Not so! The Lord loves us to trust Him thoroughly. This is a token of
   His love, of His continued affection, that even to the little things He
   will look--even to your smallest problems He will condescend and you
   may ask Him! Oh, it is bold asking, but you may do it! You may ask Him
   to wash your feet, for He will do even that! Do not, I pray you, cause
   your own love to be put under suspicion through a deficiency in your
   childlike confidence in your condescending Lord! I confess I have often
   required more faith to pray about some tiny matter of my own than about
   a thousand things which concern my Master's Kingdom. And yet when faith
   is broad and large, love knows that all matters which grieve the minds
   of His servants touch the heart of the Master and that all which works
   our good works also His delight. We must believe in Him so much that we
   can trust each day's cares with Him, believing that He still washes His
   disciples' feet by attending to their minor needs and grief--

   "He overrules all mortal things, And manages our mean affairs. On
   humble souls the King of kings Bestows His counsels and His cares."

   We will now take a third reading of it. This washing of the disciples'
   feet means that He provides refreshment for His people. I do not
   suppose that many here present know what an intense pleasure it is, in
   extremely hot countries, to have the feet washed upon coming in after a
   weary walk. The servant pours forth fresh cool water from a pitcher
   upon the feet when they are aching with a long journey and hot with
   burning heat and dust. The result is delightfully refreshing! Our Lord
   washed His disciples' feet, not only because cleansing was desirable,
   but also for their pleasure and solace. He takes great pleasure in
   giving joy to His followers. He desires that His joy should be in us
   that our joy may be full. He does not want us to be like paupers who
   have to be content with bare necessaries, but to be gentlemen-commoners
   upon His bounty who shall be served right royally, like princes of the
   blood whom even the King, Himself, does not disdain to wait upon.

   When does the Lord give us these refreshments? He often does this after
   a journey--I mean after a severe trial. When, as pilgrims to Heaven, we
   have been wearied by the greatness of the way, the Master comes and
   manifests Himself to us and refreshes us. Sometimes, also, this good
   cheer comes before the trial, for these disciples were now about to
   enter upon a very rough road--they were doomed to travel through the
   rest of their lives without the personal Presence of their Master and
   He seems to say, "Before you set out I will wash your feet. A little
   refreshment of this kind will strengthen you at the start. And when you
   are further on your way, the very remembrance of it will come to you
   like a cool stream of water fresh from the pitcher." So the Master was
   pleased to refresh them after a journey and before a journey and the
   refreshment was intended, as I have already said, for their souls'
   delight. It was a feast at which they sat and He wished them to enjoy
   everything that could make them happy at His table.

   Brethren, I have told you that this foot-washing is a type of our
   Lord's continuous love to us, a type which is followed by action like
   itself and so it is, in this respect, for He is often refreshing us.
   Have you not tasted of His cordials? We speak far less of our spiritual
   delights than we might do, but if we would open our mouths, we could
   tell of rapturous times, when, though weary and cast down, we have been
   graciously revived! Sweet promises have been applied to us by our
   Lord's own hands--like cold water poured upon hot and weary feet--and
   by this means we have been bathed in rest. A sense of His love has come
   over us like a dream and yet we were never more awake in our lives! We
   have been entranced and yet most sober and calm.

   Our Lord's love is a dear delight and, when we realize it, the bells of
   Heaven seem to be ringing close against our ears and choirs of angels
   to have come down from Glory to make music in our chambers! At such
   times we often wonder why we were so gladdened, but when, the next day,
   an extraordinary trouble sets in, we discover the reason and perceive
   that we have been well nourished that we may go a forty days' journey
   in the strength of this meat! Yes, we have had those refreshments in
   this house when the Word has been preached, or when some joyful hymn
   has borne us on its wings to Heaven! Or, best of all, at the Communion
   Table! Nor here alone, for in our own quiet chambers and in the night
   watches the Lord has refreshed our hearts, for He gives songs in the
   night. These sweet renewals and lifting up are the tokens that, having
   loved His own, He loves them to the end.

   This is the foot-washing all over again, for Christ is still busy at
   His works of love. Though He lays not aside His garment today, nor
   comes among us like a Servant, yet even from the highest Throne in
   Glory He has ways of executing the same purposes of kindness. Still He
   gives us inward delight and this joy becomes our strength, making us
   swift as a young roe to run upon His gracious errands! The weariness
   which makes the feet heavier is removed by joyful fellowship and so we
   are washed and refreshed. We who are His ministers need much of this,
   that we may be as gazelles let loose, giving goodly words.

   Our fourth view of the text is more full and accurate, namely, that
   Christ continues to guard the purity of His Church, for though it was
   not all His meaning, yet by washing their feet He certainly intended
   their cleansing, for after He had done it He said, "You are clean: he
   that is washed is clean every whit." Our Lord watches over the
   purification of all those who are His own and this is a great joy to us
   who love His Church and are concerned for her honor. To see professors
   defile themselves is heart-breaking work to loving pastors and our only
   comfort is that Jesus is quite as jealous of the holiness of His people
   as ever we can be.

   Beloved, I live while I see your pure and holy conversation! But when I
   see impurity, worldliness and evil among you, it cuts me to the heart!
   And were it not that I know my Lord is watching over the purity of His
   people, I would gladly lay down and die. From the occasion which our
   Lord selected for the foot-washing, it is clear that He would have us
   seek the special purifying power of His Presence during religious
   ordinances. I really cannot tell at what point of the evening's
   proceedings our Lord washed His disciples' feet and, if you read the
   chapter, you will be somewhat puzzled. It is "before the Passover," yet
   it is said, "supper being ended," which, I suppose, would be better
   rendered, "supper being in progress," for after the washing our Lord
   took a sop, dipped it and gave it to Judas and, therefore, the supper
   was not over.

   Or if one supper may have come to an end, another was just commencing.
   Was this feast the Passover? Was it the Lord's Supper? Was it the first
   of the agape, or love feasts, in which the early Church delighted?
   Which was it? I do not know and I am not much concerned to know. The
   Lord Jesus Christ made the Passover melt into the Lord's Supper so that
   you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins! No violent jerk
   occurred in leaving the lines of the Jewish

   dispensation for the Christian--for our Lord's disciples went up to the
   Temple to pray after the veil was torn in two and the legal ceremonies
   had lost their meaning.

   There was a gradual sliding of the one economy into the other and, on
   the memorable night of the washing of the feet, I suspect that our
   Master ate and drank with His disciples at a common meal just as the
   early Christians did when they met together at their love feasts--then
   probably followed the actual Passover celebration, a night before its
   time-- and this gradually dissolved into the Lord's Supper of which the
   cup was "the cup after supper." Anyway, it does not matter much, but it
   is clear that we need our feet washed before we come to His Table, "Let
   a man examine Himself and so let Him eat of this bread."

   We also need our feet washed while we are at His Table, for there is
   sin in our holiest things and even when we come most near to our Lord,
   we need that He wash us according to that text, "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." Even when
   we walk in the light and have clearest fellowship with God, the Lord
   Jesus continues to cleanse us from all sin! And I am sure we need
   washing after supper. When we come away from worship we have need to
   get alone and cry, "Cleanse me from secret faults. Let my lack of
   devotion or my coldness in it be forgiven! Let my lack of zeal, my
   scantiness of faith and the wandering of my heart be all washed away by
   You, my Lord and Master, for I much need it."

   Our Lord is so anxious for the purification of His people that He is
   frequently giving them a sweet sense that their transgressions in holy
   things are put away and thus He seems to say to them, "I have accepted
   your sacrifice. I have received your prayers and tears and presented
   them unto My Father. I have washed you and you are clean. Go in peace."
   This is one of the acts of His continuous love, this daily washing of
   our feet! We must all have this frequent washing by our Lord--it is
   absolutely necessary. There is a "must" in the case--as we must be born
   again, so we must be made holy. It would be to our Lord's dishonor to
   be followed by disciples who do not walk in integrity and uprightness.
   As He is, Himself, perfectly holy, He desires to have around Him a holy
   people purged from all defilement. He is so anxious that He should have
   such a people that, sooner than they shall not be washed, He will act
   the part of a Servant and wash their feet Himself.

   "Be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." You that follow in
   His footsteps, walk with clean feet. Come not up with the miry clay
   still sticking to you, but wash, wash daily and follow your pure Master
   with pure and cleansed hearts, with careful and obedient feet, so that
   all may see that you are the disciples of the Undefiled! His ministers,
   especially, need this or the people will never cry," How beautiful upon
   the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings." Brothers
   and Sisters, pray for us that we may experience this to the highest
   degree! These constant washings which are the testimony of Christ's
   continued love we must all receive. Did He not say to Peter, "If I wash
   you not, you have no part with Me"? If Jesus does not make you holy,
   you are not His.

   Brother, if you live in sin and love it, you cannot love God! Unless He
   truly purges your life and makes you to walk in a clean path, you are
   not His, for He purges His own--such as riot in iniquity prove that
   they are of their father, the devil, for they do his works. Whom Jesus
   loves He purifies. He loved His Church and gave Himself for it that He
   might sanctify and cleanse it. If, then, you are unholy, ungracious,
   dishonest, unrighteous--how can you say that you belong to His Church?
   He washes the feet of all who are His disciples and if your feet are
   filthy, you belong not to the faithful band.

   This washing must be spiritual--no external form will suffice. Christ
   washed the feet of Judas with water, but inasmuch as Judas had never
   been bathed in the laver of regeneration and had never been purged in
   the fountain of forgiving love, that washing which Christ gave to his
   feet did him no spiritual good! And you, my Friend, may use what
   external ablutions you will and perform whatever religious ceremonies
   you please, but unless your spirit has been renewed by the Holy Spirit
   and your heart purged in the sight of God, you still have no part nor
   lot with Christ's disciples! The mercy is that this purification, which
   is so necessary and which must be of a spiritual kind, is very readily
   given!

   I admire the beauty of the figure in its simple ease. The Scripture
   does not say that our Master was nailed to the Cross and poured forth a
   stream from His heart in order to wash His disciples' feet. No,
   although the act by which He cleansed them was very condescending, yet
   it was not painful or laborious. He laid aside His garments, girded on
   the towel and

   5

   took the pitcher and straightway proceeded to wash the disciples' feet.
   It was easily done and whatever there was upon the feet was soon
   removed--it needed no suffering, no dire grief on Jesus' part!

   For our first washing from the guilt and condemnation of sin it needed
   that Jesus should lay down His life and fill the cleansing fountain
   with atoning blood. But for the later removal of sin, the Lord uses an
   easy process of love. He does, by His Spirit, speedily cleanse us from
   iniquity, even as our feet are soon washed. How, readily, therefore, we
   ought to go to Christ about the purging of our consciences from dead
   works! I have heard it said that the sinner finds great difficulty in
   going to Christ at first--that is sadly true--but I have also noticed
   that sometimes there is a difficulty in continuing to go to Him every
   day of our lives.

   To go as a sinner and get washed from sin needs faith, but it also
   requires a steady confidence to resort to Jesus under a thousand
   conscious failures and backsliding year after year. I sit down in my
   chamber and I feel I am a forgiven man-- about that I am quite sure
   and, therefore, I shall never be cast into Hell. But this day I spoke
   unadvisedly with my lips, or I grew angry, or I am conscious that I was
   proud, or I have been frivolous and worldly, or I have been
   selfish--and at the remembrance of those sins I lose my peace and feel
   I cannot pray. Communion with God seems gone while these faults stare
   me in the face! The arch-enemy whispers, "You cannot get back into your
   former happy state."

   At such times let us say to him, "O you enemy, I can and will return
   into fellowship, for my dear Lord and Master has only to take the basin
   and wash my feet and this He can do right speedily." O my Brothers and
   Sisters, when a sense of sin revives upon the conscience, do not be
   persuaded by unbelief that there is an impossibility of escaping it! Go
   straight to your Master and say, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than
   snow," and He will cleanse you and once again you shall joy and rejoice
   in Him! Remember the words of our hymn concerning the fountain of
   Divine Grace--

   "This fountain from guilt not only makes pure, And gives, soon as felt,
   an Infallible cure. But if guilt removed returns and remains, Its power
   may be proved again and again."

   Mark, however, that this washing must be given us by our Lord Himself.
   He must first wash our feet before we can wash one another's feet. I
   think I see the Well-Beloved, now, as He pours the pure water on their
   ankles! Mark how He takes their feet into His kind and tender hands and
   washes them clean. And then He wipes them with the towel! He continues
   to do this to us, even now, in a spiritual sense! It is His own dear
   love that takes away sin from the conscience so that it does not linger
   there to foul and mar it. Often I think He seems to kiss those feet and
   say, "Dear child, you are now clean. Watch your footsteps and keep your
   garments that they be not defiled again. Yet even if they are, I will
   wash them again, for I still live to cleanse you and put away your
   transgressions. I mean, before long, to make you as perfect as Myself,
   without spot or wrinkle or any such thing."

   Nor may I leave this point till I bid you mark the condescension of
   this personal washing, for Abraham did not, himself, wash the angels'
   feet, but said, "Let a little water be fetched and wash your feet." And
   Joseph did not personally wash his brother's feet, but the steward of
   his house brought them in and gave them water and they washed their
   feet! But Jesus does it all Himself. O my Soul, bow down before Him and
   adore His unparalleled love!

   Thus I have shown you that this foot-washing is a symbol of our
   Redeemer's continuous acts of love. Jesus is always our Host and,
   therefore, He washes our feet. He always cares for our little matters
   and in this sense washes our feet. He is always providing refreshments
   for His people in their pilgrimage to Heaven and thus He washes their
   feet. He is always guarding the purity of His Church and people--and
   so, in the fullest sense--He washes their feet.

   II. Secondly, we come to practical matters as to ourselves. As THE
   MODEL OF HIS OWN LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE, our Lord washed their feet. The
   love of the saints is their Lord's love in them, which has filled their
   vessels to the brim and is now running over. Christ's love is the Sun
   and our love is the moonlight which we are able to give forth because
   the Sun has looked upon us. Love is first freely imparted and then
   plenteously diffused. Jesus says, "The water that I shall give him
   shall be in him a well of water." And then again, "Out of his belly
   shall flow rivers of living water."

   What we receive, we impart and the Grace which works in us at the
   first, before long works by us. Let us look at this foot-washing in
   reference to ourselves and our duty and office in the midst of our
   Brethren. We learn, first, that there will always be need of service in
   the Church and always need of service in the particular direction of
   promoting purity. The Apostles were 12 strong men--surely they did not
   require a servant! Yes, they did--they must have a servant! They

   could not do without a servant and, therefore, their Lord supplied the
   vacant place. And now that the Lord is gone, His Church still needs
   servants and servants to wash feet, or else all will go amiss.

   On earth the Church will never be so clean that it will have no need of
   foot-washing. The Church will never be able to dispense with purifying
   service till the Lord shall come. You, my Brother and Sister Christian,
   may never expect to join a Church where there will be nothing for you
   to do--do not even desire such a position of idleness! We shall never
   get among a community so pure that we shall see no faults in our
   Brethren and never shall we, ourselves, be so good that they will see
   no faults in us! Therefore let us render and receive a happy, mutual
   service in the Church by which the sanctification of one and all will
   be promoted. In those words, "If I then, your Lord and Master, have
   washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another's feet," our Lord
   speaks as though He would have us reckon upon acting as servants for
   the benefit of each other. Let us cheerfully accept the position!

   We see, next, that we are not to advocate the abrogation of such
   service, or pretend that we have reached a point at which we can
   dispense with it. The stoic would say, "Washing feet? What is the good
   of it? What need of washing a man's feet? If he needs it, let him wash
   them himself. The first law of Nature is self-love--let every man see
   to it himself. What have I to do with my Brother's feet? Let him wash
   his own. What has he to do with my feet? Let him mind his own
   business." That is anti-Christianity! Christianity says, "I am willing
   that others should help me to be holy and I am also willing to help
   others to the same end. I am so imperfect that I am willing that
   anybody should point out my faults and rebuke me for them. And I am so
   anxious that my Brother should be holy that I will lovingly help him to
   conquer sin."

   Sometimes it is more humbling to have your own feet washed than to wash
   other people's and, therefore, sometimes our pride says, "You shall
   never wash my feet." Yet it must be so and pride must sit still like a
   child and be both washed and wiped. Again, I perceive that to many it
   is easy to stoop to the poor, but hard to yield to their equals in
   estate or in ability. I know those who will do a thousand things for a
   poor man, but they would not do the same service to those of their own
   rank. You say, "As for that poor soul, I do not mind conceding many
   points to him, but this other man will crow over me if I yield to his
   weakness and he will expect me to do it again! And so I may be thought
   to be a person of no spirit who can easily be put upon and made a
   general hack."

   That also is the speech of anti-Christianity. True Christianity impels
   us to render and to accept that service which is mutual among true
   saints. He who kindly reminds me of my faults helps me to be
   better--let me not be angry with him, but value him for his
   faithfulness. On the other hand, I must never hint at a failing in a
   Brother unless I believe that he will be the better for it and even
   then I must do it gently, for I am not to scald my Brethren's feet, but
   to use cool, sparkling, living water in the washing of them. Refining
   by fire is God's work--refreshing with water is ours. We are to rebuke
   in love, not in wrath! We are to wipe as well as wet, to comfort as
   well as correct.

   In the world they criticize--that is the business of the public press
   and it is very much the business of private circles. Hear how gossips
   say, "Do you see that spot? What a terrible walk that man must have had
   this morning--look at his feet! He has been very much in the mire, as
   you can see, for there are the traces upon him." That is the world's
   way. Christ's way is very different. He says nothing but takes the
   basin and begins to wash away the stain. Do not judge and condemn, but
   seek the restoration and the improvement of the erring. Say to your
   faulty Brother, "I am very anxious if I may take away your spots. I
   would not wish to point them out if I did not feel that I should
   thereby help you to get rid of

   them."

   I fear that many professors follow the world's way and indulge in what
   we call gossip, which is usually slander and misrepresentation, or, in
   other words, lying! The best of men may have to endure this, but it is
   a great pity it should be so. Why will people find pleasure in throwing
   dirty water over their neighbors? Do you make yourself any better by
   blackening others? Do you expect to rise by pulling others down? Scorn
   such attempts! An ambition which suggests such evil means is only
   worthy of a fiend. O you who truly love your Lord, cease from cruel
   witticisms and spend your strength in humble and loving washings of
   your Brothers and Sisters feet and so shall we all become happier,
   because more like our Lord.

   This foot-washing among disciples should be done very cheerfully.
   Nobody asked the Master to bring the basin--no one would have thought
   of such a thing! It was His own heart of love that made Him do it, out
   of spontaneous affection for those whom He had chosen. Let us also be
   ready to perform any office for our Brethren, however lowly. If there
   is a position in the Church where the worker will have to toil hard and
   get no thanks for it, take it and be pleased with it! If

   you can perform a service which few will ever seek to do, themselves,
   or appreciate when performed by others, yet occupy it with holy
   delight! Covet humble work and when you get it, be content to continue
   in it. There is no great rush after the lowest places--you will rob no
   one by seeking them!

   The first place we must have an election for and poll the whole
   community--but for the very lowest there is no great
   ambition--therefore select such a place and while you will escape envy,
   you will also gain a quiet conscience. If we were more thoroughly
   Christ's, we should cheerfully and voluntarily push ourselves into the
   places of self-sacrifice, counting it our chief honor to serve God and
   the Church in ways which are obscure and despised, because in so doing
   we shall be saved from the Pharisaic spirit which desires the praise of
   man. When we do anything for Christ's people, not only should we do it
   cheerfully, but thoroughly. How well our Lord took up the Servant's
   place! He disrobed Himself until He stood prepared for His task in much
   the same undress as an attendant at the Turkish baths who takes off all
   his upper garments.

   Our Lord was ready to do His work. He put off all that would hinder
   Him, for He meant real washing and not a mere form. When you are going
   to serve your Brethren, do it heartily! Give your Lord zealous and
   earnest service! Strip to your shirt sleeves, if need be, to serve
   Christ and His people. Do not attempt to play the fine gentleman--is it
   not far nobler to be a real Christian? Observe how each point of our
   Lord's procedure is marked by the Evangelist. "He rose from supper and
   laid aside His garments; and took a towel and girded Himself. After
   that He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples'
   feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded."

   He might have left them to wipe themselves, but, no, He must finish His
   love work! "He wiped them with the towel with which He was girded."
   Whenever you serve a Brother or Sister for Christ's sake, do it
   thoroughly. Begin it heartily, go on with it steadfastly and do not
   leave off till the deed is done! If anything is to be done slovenly,
   let it be something which is done for you! But Jesus and His people
   must have the best which our ability can render. Give the saints of God
   the pick and choice of your productions--if you wash their feet, wash
   them well! The foot of the meanest servant of Christ is more honorable
   than the head of the greatest emperor that ever wore a diadem! It will
   be seen in eternity to be a greater honor to have performed the most
   menial service for a true child of God than to have been honored and
   decorated with stars and garters in the service of the mightiest
   monarch. Lay yourselves out for thorough service of your Lord in His
   people and try to be always doing this.

   I feel quite sure of my ground in having said that this foot-washing
   was meant to be a type of what our Lord is always doing, because He
   puts it thus--"If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet;
   you also ought to wash one another's feet." Evidently the inference
   would be, "If I did this but once, you ought to wash one another's feet
   once." But since the moral is, "You ought always to wash one another's
   feet," the doctrine is that, in effect, our Lord is always washing the
   feet of His people. Let us carry out the lesson and be always in a
   servant's attitude among our fellow disciples. Let us always be on
   bended knee, with the basin and the towel near at hand! Let us always
   be willing to relieve those who are in need, to restore those who
   stumble, to reclaim those who wander and to edify and perfect all the
   body of Christ as far as our ability will permit. Be it ours to promote
   the holiness of our entire fellow Christians at all times!

   You say it is the pastor's business to look after the Church. I know it
   is, but the true pastor's wisdom is to set the members of the Church
   looking after one another! "Bear you one another's burdens and so
   fulfill the Law of Christ." In my own case, the pastorate of one person
   over 5,000 members is ridiculous unless it is exercised by impressing
   all the members with the necessity, the duty, the privilege of mutual
   oversight--each one seeking to do good to the other according as he has
   opportunity.

   Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus who washed His
   disciples' feet. Love one another, I implore you and in honor prefer
   one another. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also
   on the things of others. Let brotherly love continue and always so live
   that when your Master looks down upon you He may joy and rejoice in
   you, as I trust He does this day. May this, our beloved Church, be for
   many a year a pattern of unity and peace within and of strength and
   activity without, so that a witness may be borne for pure and undefiled
   religion and a model set up in which shall be seen the handiwork of the
   Spirit who creates love in the hearts of the saints!

   Little children, love one another. Amen.

   [This sermon was originally titled, "The Teaching of the Foot-Washing.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Number 1500, Or Lifting Up the Bronze Serpent

   (No. 1500)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 19, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and putit upon a pole, and it came
   to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the
   serpent of brass, he lived." Numbers 21:9.

   THIS discourse, when it shall be printed, will make 1,500 of my sermons
   which have been published regularly, week after week. This is certainly
   a remarkable fact. I do not know of any instance in modern times in
   which 1,500 sermons have thus followed each other from the press from
   one person and have continued to command a large circle of readers. I
   desire to utter most hearty thanksgivings to God for Divine help in
   thinking out and uttering these sermons, sermons which have not merely
   been printed, but have been read with eagerness and have also been
   translated into foreign tongues. These sermons are publicly being read
   on this very Sabbath in hundreds of places where a minister cannot be
   found. These sermons God has blessed to the conversion of multitudes of
   souls.

   I may and I must joy and rejoice in this great blessing which I most
   heartily ascribe to the undeserved favor of the Lord! I thought the
   best way in which I could express my thankfulness would be to preach
   Jesus Christ, again, and set Him forth in a sermon in which the simple
   Gospel should be made as clear as a child's alphabet. I hope that in
   closing the list of 1,500 discourses, the Lord will give me words which
   will be blessed more than any which have preceded them, to the
   conversion of those who hear it or read it. May those who sit in
   darkness because they do not understand the freeness of salvation and
   the easy method by which it may be obtained be brought into the light
   by discovering the way of peace through believing in Christ Jesus!
   Forgive this prelude. My thankfulness would not permit me to withhold
   it.

   Concerning our text and the serpent of brass. If you turn to John's
   Gospel you will notice that its commencement contains a sort of orderly
   list of types taken from Holy Scripture. It begins with the creation.
   God said, "Let there be light" and John begins by declaring that Jesus,
   the eternal Word, is "the true light, which lights every man that comes
   into the world." Before he closes his first chapter, John has
   introduced a type supplied by Abel, for when the Baptist saw Jesus
   coming to him, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the
   sin of the world." Nor is the first chapter finished before we are
   reminded of Jacob's ladder, for we find our Lord declaring to
   Nathanael, "Hereafter you shall see Heaven open and the angels of God
   ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

   By the time we have reached the third chapter we have come as far as
   Israel in the wilderness and we read the joyful words, "As Moses lifted
   up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
   up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
   everlasting life." We are going to speak of this act of Moses this
   morning, that we may, all of us, behold the bronze serpent and find the
   promise true, "everyone that is bitten, when he looks upon the bronze
   serpent, shall live."

   It may be that you who have looked before will derive fresh benefit
   from looking again, while some who have never turned their eyes in that
   direction may gaze upon the lifted up Savior and, this morning, be
   saved from the burning venom of the serpent, that deadly poison of sin
   which now lurks in their nature and breeds death to their souls. May
   the Holy Spirit make the word effectual to that gracious end!

   I. I shall invite you to consider the subject, first, by noticing THE
   PERSON IN MORTAL PERIL for whom the bronze serpent was made and lifted
   up. Our text says, "It came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any
   man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Let us notice that
   the fiery serpents, first of all, came among the people because they
   had despised God's way and God's bread. "The soul of the people was
   much discouraged because of the way." It was God's way--He had chosen
   it for them and He had chosen it in wisdom and mercy--but they murmured
   at it.

   As an old Divine says, "It was lonesome and loathsome," but, still, it
   was God's way and, therefore, it ought not to have been loathsome--His
   pillar of fire and cloud went before them and His servants, Moses and
   Aaron, led them like a flock--and they ought to have followed
   cheerfully. Every step of their previous journey had been rightly
   ordered and they ought to have been quite sure that this compassing of
   the land of Edom was rightly ordered, too. But no, they quarreled with
   God's way and wanted to have their own way. This is one of the great
   standing follies of men--they cannot be content to wait on the Lord and
   keep His way--they prefer a will and way of their own.

   The people, also, quarreled with God's food. He gave them the best of
   the best, for "men did eat angels' food," but they called the manna by
   an opprobrious title, which in the Hebrew has a sound of ridicule about
   it and, even in our translation, conveys the idea of contempt. They
   said, "Our soul loathes this light bread," as if they thought it
   unsubstantial and only fit to puff them up because it was easy of
   digestion and did not breed in them that heat of blood and tendency to
   disease which a heavier diet would have brought with it. Being
   discontented with their God, they quarreled with the bread which He set
   upon their table, though it surpassed any that mortal man has ever
   eaten before or since.

   This is another of man's follies--his heart refuses to feed upon God's
   Word or believe God's Truth. He craves for the flesh-meat of carnal
   reason, the leeks and the garlic of superstitious tradition and the
   cucumbers of speculation! He cannot bring his mind down to believe the
   Word of God, or to accept a Truth of God so simple, so fitted to the
   capacity of a child. Many demand something deeper than the Divine, more
   profound than the infinite, more liberal than Free Grace. They quarrel
   with God's way and with God's bread and, therefore, there comes among
   them the fiery serpents of evil lusts, pride and sin.

   I may be speaking to some who have, up to this moment, quarreled with
   the precepts and the doctrines of the Lord and I would affectionately
   warn them that their disobedience and presumption will lead to sin and
   misery. Rebels against God are apt to wax worse and worse. The world's
   fashions and modes of thought lead on to the world's vices and crimes.
   If we long for the fruits of Egypt, we shall soon feel the serpents of
   Egypt! The natural consequence of turning against God like serpents is
   to find serpents waylaying our path. If we forsake the Lord in spirit,
   or in doctrine, temptation will lurk in our path and sin will sting our
   feet.

   I beg you carefully to observe, concerning those persons for whom the
   bronze serpent was specially lifted up, that they had been actually
   bitten by the serpents. The Lord sent fiery serpents among them, but it
   was not the serpents being among them that involved the lifting up of a
   bronze serpent--it was the serpents having actually poisoned them which
   led to the provision of a remedy. "It shall come to pass that everyone
   that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live." The only people who
   looked and derived benefit from the wonderful cure lifted up in the
   midst of the camp were those who had been stung by the vipers.

   The common notion is that salvation is for good people; salvation is
   for those who fight against temptation and salvation is for the
   spiritually healthy. But how different is God's Word! God's medicine is
   for the sick and His healing is for the diseased! The Grace of God,
   through the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, is for men who are
   actually and really guilty. We do not preach a sentimental salvation
   from fancied guilt, but real and true pardon for actual offenses! I
   care nothing for sham sinners--you who never did anything wrong, you
   who are so good in yourselves that you are all right, I leave you--for
   I am sent to preach Christ to those who are full of sin and worthy of
   eternal wrath!

   The serpent of brass was a remedy for those who had been bitten. What
   an awful thing it is to be bitten by a serpent! I dare say some of you
   remember the case of Gurling, one of the keepers of the reptiles in the
   Zoological Gardens. It happened in October, 1852, and therefore some of
   you will remember it. This unhappy man was about to part with a friend
   who was going to Australia and, according to the account of many, he
   had a few drinks with him. He drank considerable quantities of gin and
   though he would probably have been in a great passion if anyone had
   called him drunk, yet reason and common sense had evidently become
   overpowered.

   He went back to his post at the gardens in an inebriated state. He had,
   some months before, seen an exhibition of snake-charming, and this was
   on his poor muddled brain. He must emulate the Egyptians and play with
   serpents! First he took out of its cage a Morocco venom-snake, put it
   round his neck, twisted it about and whirled it round about him.
   Happily for him it did not arouse it so as to bite. The assistant
   keeper cried out, "For God's sake put the snake back," but the foolish
   man replied, "I am inspired." Putting back the venom-snake, he
   exclaimed, "Now for the cobra."

   This deadly serpent was somewhat torpid with the cold of the previous
   night and, therefore, the rash man placed it in his bosom till it
   revived and glided downward till its head appeared below the back of
   his waistcoat. He took it by the body, about a foot from the head, and
   then seized it lower down with his other hand, intending to hold it by
   the tail and swing it round his head. He held it for an instant
   opposite to his face and like a flash of lightning the serpent struck
   him between the eyes. The blood streamed down his face and he called
   for help, but his companion fled in horror!

   And, as he told the jury, he did not know how long he was gone, for he
   was "in a maze." When assistance arrived, Gurling was sitting on a
   chair, having restored the cobra to its place. He said, "I am a dead
   man." They put him in a cab and took him to the hospital. First his
   speech went--he could only point to his poor throat and moan. Then his
   vision failed him and lastly his hearing. His pulse gradually sank and
   in one hour from the time at which he had been struck, he was a corpse.
   There was only a little mark upon the bridge of his nose, but the
   poison spread over his body and he was a dead man.

   I tell you that story that you may use it as a parable and learn never
   to play with sin and also, in order to bring vividly before you what it
   is to be bitten by a serpent. Suppose that Gurling could have been
   cured by looking at a piece of brass--would it not have been good news
   for him? There was no remedy for that poor infatuated creature, but
   there is a remedy for you! For men who have been bitten by the fiery
   serpents of sin, Jesus Christ is lifted up--not only for you who are,
   as yet, playing with the serpent; not only for you who have warmed it
   in your bosom and felt it creeping over your flesh--but for you who are
   actually bitten and are mortally wounded! If any man were bitten so
   that he has become diseased with sin and feels the deadly venom in his
   blood, it is for him that Jesus is set forth today. Though he may think
   himself to be an extreme case, it is for such that Sovereign Grace
   provides a remedy!

   The bite of the serpent was painful. We are told in the text that these
   serpents were "fiery," a word which may, perhaps, refer to their color,
   but more probably has reference to the burning effects of their venom.
   It heated and inflamed the blood so that every vein became a boiling
   river, swollen with anguish. In some men that poison of asps which we
   call sin has inflamed their minds. They are restless, discontented and
   full of fear and anguish. They write their own damnation--they are sure
   that they are lost--they refuse all tidings of hope. You cannot get
   them to give a cool and sober hearing to the message of Grace. Sin
   works in them such terror that they give themselves over as dead men.
   They are in their own apprehension, as David says, "free among the
   dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom God remembers no
   more."

   It was for men bitten by the fiery serpents that the bronze serpent was
   lifted up and it is for men actually envenomed by sin that Jesus is
   preached. Jesus died for such as are at their wits' end--for such as
   cannot think straight, for those who are tumbled up and down in their
   minds, for those who are condemned already--for such was the Son of Man
   lifted up upon the Cross! What a joyful thing that we are able to tell
   you this. The bite of these serpents was, as I have told you, mortal.
   The Israelites could have no question about that, because in their own
   presence, "much people of Israel died." They saw their own friends die
   of the snakebite and they helped to bury them. They knew why they died
   and were sure that it was because the venom of the fiery serpents was
   in their veins. They were left without an excuse for imagining that
   they could be bitten and yet live.

   Now, we know that many have perished as the result of sin. We are not
   in doubt as to what sin will do, for we are told by the Infallible Word
   that, "the wages of sin is death," and, yet again, "Sin, when it is
   finished, brings forth death." We know, also, that this death is
   endless misery, for the Scripture describes the lost as being cast into
   outer darkness, "where their worm dies not and their fire is not
   quenched." Our Lord Jesus speaks of the condemned going away into
   everlasting punishment where there shall be weeping, wailing and
   gnashing of teeth. We ought to have no doubt about this! But most of
   those who profess to doubt it are those who fear that it will be their
   own portion--they know that they are going down to eternal woe
   themselves and, therefore, they try to shut their eyes to their
   inevitable doom.

   Alas, that they should find flatterers in the pulpit who pander to
   their love of sin by piping to the same tune. We are not of their
   order! We believe in what the Lord has said in all its solemnity of
   dread and, knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men to escape
   from them. But it was for men who had endured the mortal bite, for men
   upon whose pallid faces death began to set his seal, for men whose
   veins were burning with the awful poison of the serpent within

   them--for them it was that God said to Moses, "Make you a fiery serpent
   and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that
   is bitten, when he looks upon it shall live."

   There is no limit set to the stage of poisoning. However far gone, the
   remedy still had power! If a person had been bitten a moment before,
   though he only saw a few drops of blood oozing forth and only felt a
   little smart, he might look and live! And if he had waited, unhappily
   waited, even for half an hour and speech failed him and the pulse grew
   feeble, yet if he could but look he would live at once! No boundary was
   set to the virtue of this Divinely ordained remedy, or to the freedom
   of its application to those who needed it. The promise had no
   qualifying clause, "It shall come to pass that everyone that is bitten,
   when he looks upon it, shall live."

   And our text tells us that God's promise came to pass in every case,
   without exception, for we read--"It came to pass, that if a serpent had
   bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Thus I
   have described the person who was in mortal peril.

   II. Secondly, let us consider THE REMEDY PROVIDED FOR HIM. This was as
   singular as it was effectual. It was purely of Divine origin and it is
   clear that the invention of it and the putting of power into it was
   entirely of God. Men have prescribed several medicines, decoctions and
   operations for serpent bites--I do not know how far any of them may be
   depended upon, but this I know--I would rather not be bitten in order
   to try any of them, even those that are most in vogue! For the bites of
   the fiery serpents in the wilderness there was no remedy whatever,
   except this which God had provided and, at first sight, that remedy
   must have seemed to be a very unlikely one.

   A simple look to the figure of a serpent on a pole? How unlikely to be
   a cure! How and by what means could a cure be worked through merely
   looking at twisted brass? It seemed, indeed, to be almost a mockery to
   bid men look at the very thing which had caused their misery. Shall the
   bite of a serpent be cured by looking at a serpent? Shall that which
   brings death also bring life? But herein lay the excellency of the
   remedy, that it was of Divine origin--for when God ordains a cure He
   is, by that very fact, bound to put potency into it. He will not devise
   a failure, nor prescribe a mockery! It should always be enough for us
   to know that God ordains a way of blessing us, for if He ordains, it
   must accomplish the promised result.

   We need not know how it will work, it is quite sufficient for us that
   God's mighty Grace is pledged to make it bring forth good to our souls.
   This particular remedy of a serpent lifted on a pole was exceedingly
   instructive, though I do not suppose that Israel understood it. We have
   been taught by our Lord and know the meaning. It was a serpent impaled
   upon a pole. As you would take a sharp pole and drive it through a
   serpent's head to kill it, so this bronze serpent was exhibited as
   killed and hung up as dead before all eyes. It was the image of a dead
   snake. Wonder of wonders that our Lord Jesus should condescend to be
   symbolized by a dead serpent!

   The instruction to us, after reading John's Gospel, is this--our Lord
   Jesus Christ, in infinite humiliation, deigned to come into the world
   and to be made a curse for us. The bronze serpent had no venom of
   itself, but it took the form of a fiery serpent. Christ is no sinner
   and in Him is no sin. But the bronze serpent was in the form of a
   serpent and so was Jesus sent forth by God, "in the likeness of sinful
   flesh." He came under the Law and sin was imputed to Him and,
   therefore, He came under the wrath and curse of God for our sakes. In
   Christ Jesus, if you will look at Him upon the Cross, you will see that
   sin is slain and hung up as a dead serpent--there, too, is death put to
   death, for, "He has abolished death and brought life and immortality to
   light"--and there is also the curse forever ended because He has
   endured it, being "made a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is
   everyone that hangs on a tree."

   Thus are these serpents hung up upon the cross as a spectacle to all
   beholders, all slain by our dying Lord. Sin, death, and the curse are
   as dead serpents now. Oh, what a sight! If you can see it, what joy it
   will give you! Had the Hebrews understood it, that dead serpent
   dangling from a pole would have prophesied to them the glorious sight
   which this day our faith gazes upon Jesus slain and sin, death and Hell
   slain in Him! The remedy, then, to be looked to, was exceedingly
   instructive and we know the instruction it was intended to convey to
   us.

   Please remember that in all the camp of Israel there was but one remedy
   for a serpent bite and that was the bronze serpent--and there was but
   one bronze serpent, not two. Israel might not make another. If they had
   made a second, it would have had no effect. There was one and only
   one--and that was lifted high in the center of the camp, that if any
   man was bitten by a serpent he might look to it and live. There is one
   Savior and only one! There is no other name given

   under Heaven among men whereby we must be saved. All Grace is
   concentrated in Jesus, of whom we read, "It pleased the Father that in
   Him should all fullness dwell."

   Christ's bearing the curse and ending the curse; Christ's being slain
   by sin and destroying sin; Christ bruised as to His heel by the old
   serpent, but breaking the serpent's head--it is Christ alone that we
   must look to if we would live. O Sinner, look to Jesus on the Cross,
   for He is the one remedy for all forms of sin's poisoned wounds! There
   was but one healing serpent and that one was bright and lustrous. It
   was a serpent of brass and brass is a shining metal. This was
   newly-made brass and, therefore, not dull, and whenever the sun shone
   on it, there flashed forth a brightness from this bronze serpent. It
   might have been a serpent of wood or of any other metal if God had so
   ordained, but He commanded that it must be of brass, that it might have
   brightness about it.

   What brightness there is about our Lord Jesus Christ! If we do but
   exhibit Him in His own true metal He is lustrous in the eyes of men. If
   we will but preach the Gospel simply and never think to adorn it with
   our philosophical thoughts, there is enough brightness in Christ to
   catch a sinner's eye--yes, and it does catch the eyes of thousands!
   From afar the everlasting Gospel gleams in the Person of Christ. As the
   bronze standard reflected the beams of the sun, so Jesus reflects the
   love of God to sinners and, seeing it, they look by faith and live!

   Once more, this remedy was an enduring one. It was a serpent of brass
   and I suppose it remained in the midst of the camp from that day
   forward. There was no use for it after Israel entered Canaan, but, as
   long as they were in the wilderness, it was probably exhibited in the
   center of the camp, hard by the tabernacle door, upon a lofty standard.
   Aloft and open to the gaze of all hung this image of a dead snake--the
   perpetual cure for serpent venom! Had it been made of other materials
   it might have been broken, or have decayed--but a serpent of brass
   would last as long as fiery serpents pestered the desert camp. As long
   as there was a man bitten, there was the serpent of brass to heal him.

   What a comfort is this, that Jesus is still able to save to the
   uttermost all that come to God by Him, seeing He always lives to make
   intercession for them. The dying thief beheld the brightness of that
   serpent of brass as he saw Jesus hanging at his side and it saved him!
   And so may you and I look and live, for He is "Jesus Christ, the same
   yesterday, today, and forever."--

   "Faint my head, and sick my heart,

   Wounded, bruised, in every part. Satan's fiery sting I feel Poisoned
   with the pride of Hell But if at the point to die,

   Upward I direct my eye,

   Jesus lifted up I see,

   I live by Him who died for me."

   I hope I do not overlay my subject by these figures. I wish not to do
   so, but to make it very plain to you. All you that are really guilty,
   all you who are bitten by the serpent, the sure remedy for you is to
   look to Jesus Christ who took our sin upon Himself and died in the
   sinner's stead, "being made sin for us that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him." Your only remedy lies in Christ and
   nowhere else. Look unto Him and be you saved!

   III. This brings us, in the third place, to consider THE APPLICATION OF
   THE REMEDY, or the link between the serpent-bitten man and the brass
   serpent which was to heal him. What was the link? It was of the most
   simple kind imaginable. The bronze serpent might have been, if God had
   so ordered it, carried into the house where the sick man was, but it
   was not so. It might have been applied to him by rubbing--he might have
   been expected to repeat a certain form of prayer, or to have a priest
   present to perform a ceremony. But there was nothing of the kind. He
   had only to look!

   It was well that the cure was so simple for the danger was so frequent.
   Bites of the serpent came in many ways. A man might be gathering
   sticks, or merely walking along and be bitten. Even now in the desert
   serpents are a danger. Mr. Sibree says that on one occasion he saw what
   he thought to be a round stone, beautifully marked. He put forth his
   hand to take it up, when, to his horror, he discovered that it was a
   coiled living serpent! All day long, when fiery serpents were sent
   among them, the Israelites must have been in danger. In their beds and
   at their meals; in their houses and when they went abroad they were in
   danger.

   These serpents are called by Isaiah, "flying serpents," not because
   they fly, but because they contract themselves and then suddenly spring
   up so as to reach to a considerable height. A man might be well off his
   tent floor and yet not be

   beyond the reach of one of these malignant reptiles. What was a man to
   do? He had nothing to do but to stand outside his tent door and look to
   the place where gleamed afar the brightness of the serpent of brass!
   And the moment he looked, he was healed! He had nothing to do but to
   look! No priest was needed, no holy water, no hocus-pocus, no
   mass-book-- nothing but a look!

   A Romish bishop said to one of the early Reformers, when he preached
   salvation by simple faith, "O Mr. Doctor, open that gap to the people
   and we are undone!" And so, indeed, they are, for the business and
   trade of priestcraft are ended forever if men may simply trust Jesus
   and live. Yet it is even so! Believe in Him, you sinners--for this is
   the spiritual meaning of looking--and at once your sin is forgiven! And
   what, perhaps, is more, its deadly power ceases to operate within your
   spirit. There is life in a look at Jesus! Is not this simple enough?

   But please notice how very personal it was. A man could not be cured by
   anything anybody else could do for him. If he had been bitten by the
   serpent and had refused to look to the serpent of brass and had gone to
   his bed, no physician could help him. A pious mother might kneel down
   and pray for him, but it would be of no use. Sisters might come in and
   plead; ministers might be called in to pray that the man might live;
   but he must die in spite of their prayers if he did not look. There was
   only one hope for his life--he must look to that serpent of brass!

   It is just so with you. Some of you have written to me begging me to
   pray for you. And so I have, but it means nothing unless you,
   yourselves, believe in Jesus Christ. There is not beneath Heaven, nor
   in Heaven, any hope for any one of you unless you will believe in Jesus
   Christ! Whoever you may be, however much bitten of the serpent and
   however near to die, if you will look to the Savior you shall live! But
   if you will not do this, you must be damned, as surely as you live. At
   the Last Great Day I must bear witness against you that I have told you
   this straight out and plainly--"He that believes and is baptized shall
   be saved: he that believes not shall be damned."

   There is no help for it. You may do what you will, join what Church you
   please, take the Lord's Supper, be baptized, go through severe penance,
   or give all your goods to feed the poor--but you are a lost man unless
   you look to Jesus, for this is the only remedy! And even Jesus Christ
   Himself cannot, will not, save you unless you look to Him. There is
   nothing in His death to save you. There is nothing in His life to save
   you unless you will trust Him. It has come to this-- you must look--and
   look for yourself.

   And then, again, it is very instructive. This looking, what did it
   mean? It meant this--self-help must be abandoned and God must be
   trusted. The wounded man would say, "I must not sit here and look at my
   wound, for that will not save me. See there where the serpent struck
   me? The blood is oozing forth, black with the venom! How it burns and
   swells! My very heart is failing. But all these reflections will not
   ease me. I must look away from this to the lifted up serpent of brass."
   It is idle to look anywhere except to God's one ordained remedy. The
   Israelites must have understood as much as this, that God required us
   to trust Him and to use His means of salvation. We must do as He bids
   us and trust in Him to work our cure--if we will not do this, we shall
   die eternally.

   This way of curing was intended that they might magnify the love of God
   and attribute their healing entirely to Divine Grace. The bronze
   serpent was not merely a picture, as I have shown you, of God's putting
   away sin by spending His wrath upon His Son, but it was a display of
   Divine Love. And this I know because Jesus Himself said, "As Moses
   lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
   lifted up. For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten
   Son." He was plainly saying that the death of Christ upon the Cross was
   an exhibition of God's love to men and whoever looks to that grand
   display of God's love to man, namely, His giving His only-begotten Son
   to become a curse for us, shall surely live.

   Now, when a man was healed by looking at the serpent, he could not say
   that he healed himself, for he only looked and there is no virtue in a
   look. A Believer never claims merit or honor on account of his faith.
   Faith is a self-denying Grace and never dares to boast. Where is the
   great credit of simply believing the Truth of God and humbly trusting
   Christ to save you? Faith glorifies God and so our Lord has chosen it
   as the means of our salvation. If a priest had come and touched the
   bitten man, he might have ascribed some honor to the priest. But when
   there was no priest in the case; when there was nothing except looking
   to that bronze serpent, the man was driven to the conclusion that God's
   love and power had healed him.

   I am not saved by anything that I have done, but by what the Lord has
   done. To that conclusion God will have us all come--we must all confess
   that if saved, it is by His free, rich, sovereign, undeserved Grace
   displayed in the Person of His dear Son.

   IV. Allow me one moment upon the fourth head, which is THE CURE
   EFFECTED. We are told in the text that, "if a serpent had bitten any
   man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." That is to say, he
   was healed at once. He had not to wait five minutes, or five seconds.
   Dear Hearer, did you ever hear this before? If you have not, it may
   startle you, but it is true. If you have lived in the blackest sin that
   is possible up to this very moment, yet if you will now believe in
   Jesus Christ, you shall be saved before the clock ticks another time!
   It is done like a flash of lightning! Pardon is not a work of time.

   Sanctification needs a lifetime, but justification needs no more than a
   moment. You believe, you live! You trust Christ, your sins are gone!
   You are a saved man the instant you believe! "Oh," says one, "that is a
   wonder." It is a wonder and will remain a wonder to all eternity. Our
   Lord's miracles, when He was on earth, were mostly instantaneous. He
   touched them and the fevered ones were able to sit up and minister to
   Him. No doctor can cure a fever in that fashion, for there is a
   resultant weakness left after the heat of the fever is abated. Jesus
   works perfect cures and whoever believes in Him, though he has only
   believed one minute, is justified from all his sins. Oh the matchless
   Grace of God!

   This remedy healed again and again. Very possibly, after a man had been
   healed, he might go back to his work and be attacked by a second
   serpent, for there were broods of them about. What had he to do? Why,
   to look again! And if he was wounded a thousand times, he must look a
   thousand times! You, dear child of God, if you have sin on your
   conscience, look to Jesus! The healthiest way of living where serpents
   swarm is never to take your eyes off the bronze serpent at all. Ah, you
   vipers, you may bite if you will, but as long as my eyes are upon the
   bronze serpent, I defy your fangs and poison, for I have a continual
   remedy at work within me! Temptation is overcome by the blood of Jesus!
   "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith."

   This cure was of universal efficacy to all who used it. There was not
   one case, in all the camp, of a man that looked to the serpent of brass
   and yet died. And there never will be a case of a man that looks to
   Jesus who remains under condemnation! The Believer must be saved. Some
   of the people had to look from a long distance. The pole could not be
   equally near to everybody, but so long as they could see the serpent it
   healed those that were afar off as well as those who were near. Nor did
   it matter if their eyes were feeble. All eyes were not alike keen. Some
   may have had to squint, or had dimness of vision, or only one eye--but
   if they did but look, they lived!

   Perhaps the man could hardly make out the shape of the serpent as he
   looked. "Ah," he said to himself, "I cannot discern the coils of the
   bronze snake, but I can see the shining of the brass." And he lived!
   Oh, poor Soul, if you cannot see the whole of Christ nor all His
   beauties, nor all the riches of His Grace, yet if you can but see Him
   who was made sin for us, you shall live! If you say, "Lord, I believe;
   help You my unbelief," your faith will save you! A little faith will
   give you a great Christ and you shall find eternal life in Him.

   Thus I have tried to describe the cure. Oh that the Lord would work
   that cure in every sinner here at this moment. I do pray He may! It is
   a pleasant thought that if they looked to that bronze serpent by any
   kind of light they lived. Many beheld it in the glare of noon and saw
   its shining coils and lived. But I should not wonder that some were
   bitten at night and by the moonlight they drew near and looked up and
   lived. Perhaps it was a dark and stormy night and not a star was
   visible. The tempest crashed overhead and from the murky cloud out
   flashed the lightning, cleaving the rocks asunder. By the glare of that
   sudden flame the dying man made out the bronze serpent and though he
   saw but for a moment yet he lived.

   So, Sinner, if your soul is wrapped in tempest and if from out the
   clouds there comes but one single flash of light, look to Jesus Christ
   by it and you shall live!

   V. I close with this last matter of consideration--here is A LESSON FOR
   THOSE WHO LOVE THEIR LORD. What ought we to do? We should imitate
   Moses, whose business it was to set the bronze serpent upon a pole. It
   is your business and mine to lift up the Gospel of Christ Jesus so that
   all may see it! All Moses had to do was to hang up the bronze serpent
   in the sight of all. He did not say, "Aaron, bring your censer and
   bring with you a score of priests and make a perfumed cloud." Nor did
   he say, "I myself will go forth in my robes as Law-Giver and stand
   there."

   No, he had nothing to do that was pompous or ceremonial! He had but to
   exhibit the brass serpent and leave it naked and open to the gaze of
   all. He did not say, "Aaron, bring here a cloth of gold, wrap up the
   serpent in blue and scarlet and fine linen." Such an act would have
   been clean contrary to his orders. He was to keep the serpent unveiled.
   Its power lay in itself--not in its surroundings. The Lord did not tell
   him to paint the pole, or to deck it with the colors of the rainbow.
   Oh, no! Any pole would do!

   The dying ones did not need to see the pole--they only needed to behold
   the serpent. I dare say he would make a neat pole, for God's work
   should be done decently, but still the serpent was the only thing to
   look at. This is what we have to do with our Lord. We must preach Him,
   teach Him and make Him visible to all! We must not conceal Him by our
   attempts at eloquence and learning. We must have done with the polished
   lancewood pole of fine speech and those bits of scarlet and blue in the
   form of grand sentences and poetic periods. Everything must be done
   that Christ may be seen and nothing must be allowed which hides Him.
   Moses may go home and go to bed when the serpent is once lifted up. All
   that is needed is that the bronze serpent should be within view both
   day and night. The preacher may hide himself so that nobody may know
   who he is, for if he has set forth Christ, he is best out of the way.

   Now, you teachers, teach your children Jesus. Show them Christ
   Crucified! Keep Christ before them. You young men that try to preach,
   do not attempt to do it grandly. The true grandeur of preaching is for
   Christ to be grandly displayed in it. No other grandeur is needed! Keep
   self in the background and set forth Jesus Christ among the people,
   evidently crucified among them. None but Jesus, none but Jesus! Let Him
   be the sum and substance of all your teaching. Some of you have looked
   to the bronze serpent, I know, and you have been healed. But what have
   you done with the bronze serpent since? You have not come forward to
   confess your faith and join the Church. You have not spoken to any one
   about his soul. You put the bronze serpent into a chest and hide it
   away. Is this right?

   Bring it out and set it on a pole! Publish Christ and His salvation! He
   was never meant to be treated as a curiosity in a museum. He is
   intended to be exhibited in the highways that those who are sin-bitten
   may look at Him. "But I have no proper pole," says one. The best sort
   of pole to exhibit Christ upon is a high one so that He may be seen the
   further. Exalt Jesus! Speak well of His name. I do not know any other
   virtue that there can be in the pole but its height. The more you can
   speak in your Lord's praise, the higher you can lift Him up, the
   better! But for all other styles of speech there is nothing to be said.
   Lift Christ UP!

   "Oh," says one, "but I have not a long standard." Then lift Him up on
   such as you have, for there are short people about who will be able to
   see by your means. I think I told you once of a picture which I saw of
   the bronze serpent. I want the Sunday school teachers to listen to
   this. The artist represented all sorts of people clustering round the
   pole and as they looked, the horrible snakes dropped off their arms and
   they lived! There was such a crowd around the pole that a mother could
   not get near it. She carried a little babe, which a serpent had bitten.
   You could see the blue marks of the venom. As she could get no nearer,
   the mother held her child aloft and turned its little head that it
   might gaze with its infant eyes upon the bronze serpent and live.

   Do this with your little children, you Sunday school teachers! Even
   while they are yet little, pray that they may look to Jesus Christ and
   live, for there is no boundary set to their age. Old men, snake-bitten,
   came hobbling on their crutches. "Eighty years old am I," says one,
   "but I have looked to the bronze serpent and I am healed." Little boys
   were brought out by their mothers, though as yet they could hardly
   speak plainly, and they cried in child language, "I look at the great
   snake and it blesses me." All ranks, sexes, characters and dispositions
   looked and lived! Who will look to Jesus at this good hour? O dear
   Souls, will you have life or not? Will you despise Christ and perish?
   If so, your blood be on your own head! I have told you God's way of
   salvation! Lay hold on it. Look to Jesus at once! May His Spirit gently
   lead you to do so. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Refuges of Lies and What Will Become of Them

   (No. 1501)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 26, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the
   plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the
   waters shall overflow the hiding place." Isaiah 28:17.

   OVER against amazing mercy, the Holy Spirit sets awakening judgment.
   The acceptable year of the Lord is also the day of vengeance of our God
   and the sentence which shall confirm the righteous in his righteousness
   is attended by another which says, "He that is unjust let him be unjust
   still." When the Lord shall come to be glorified in His saints, He
   will, at the same time, take vengeance in flaming fire upon those that
   know Him not. In the present instance, in the 16th verse of this
   chapter, the Lord declares "Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a
   stone, a tried stone" and then, immediately in our text, He speaks of
   another laying--"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and
   righteousness to the plummet."

   Upon the roses of Grace grow the thorns of Justice. Whenever the Lord
   bares His arm for mercy towards Believers, He gives a backstroke to His
   enemies. Therefore, even the activity of love wears a threatening
   aspect to those who live impenitent, wedded to their sins, since it is
   accompanied by an energetic display of justice. Take care that you
   remember this, you who are unbelievers and yet dream of some millennial
   benediction, or latter day glory which may bring salvation to you. Is
   it not written, "Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what
   end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness and not light"?

   Whatever good may be in store for Believers there is none for you! The
   pillar of fire which will give light to the Lord's Israel will be
   darkness to you, O you Egyptians! To those who are out of Christ, even
   the greatest triumphs of Divine love will be terrible--they shall
   behold and wonder and perish--they shall see the plentiful goodness of
   the Lord but they shall not eat thereof, but die in the gate. These are
   heavy tidings for you who love not the Lord, but they are as true as
   they are heavy--as certainly as Mercy lays her Foundation, as surely
   will Judgment sweep away those who reject it and build upon another.
   Nor shall there be long space between the rejection of the blessing and
   the execution of the curse. Longsuffering will have an end and then the
   swift-footed executioner shall overtake the sinner and woe shall be
   unto the hairy scalp of him that goes on in his iniquities.

   Another great Truth of God should never be forgotten--it is this--a
   great privilege involves a great responsibility. It is a great
   privilege to hear the Gospel, but woe unto those who shut their ears to
   its warnings and invitations, for it shall ring out their death-knell.
   It is a very high favor to see the Foundation which God has laid in
   Zion and to be exhorted to build upon it. But of those who reject that
   Foundation, vengeance will be exacted. Upon whomever this Stone shall
   fall, it shall grind them to powder! In proportion to the love which
   gave the Only Begotten to be the Foundation of a sinner's hope will be
   the Divine indignation against those who reject Him.

   You who see Jesus set forth before you as the Cornerstone of the Lord's
   own choosing and yet perversely turn aside to prepare false refuges of
   your own will have to answer to God for this insult to His Son, this
   despite to His Spirit! Every hour in which you make lies your refuge
   and hide yourselves under falsehood, you increase your guilt. O that
   you would consider this! But I hear one say, "We have no refuge or
   hiding place and do not feel that we need any." I answer that this very
   self-conceit of yours is your refuge! Every man knows in his own
   conscience that he needs a shelter of some sort to screen himself from
   stern Justice. He supplies his conscience with something in the form of
   a shield because he inwardly knows that he is not able to appear before
   God without some sort of apology, or attempt at justification.

   Let him cripple his conscience as much as he pleases, there is a
   something within him which tells him that everything is not right. He
   may brag as he likes, but he has at least a suspicion of danger, a fear
   of coming judgment! Even as a man

   needs the shelter of a cave, a hut, or a house for his body, so he
   needs a refuge for his soul. And when he rejects the solid Refuge which
   the mercy of God has provided in Christ Jesus, he sets to work to build
   another shelter and to lay for himself another foundation where he may
   repose.

   Our desire this morning is anxiously and solemnly to warn men of what
   will come of their willfulness and to lead them to look a little before
   them and spy out, through the telescope of Scripture, the sure future
   of their ungrounded hopes. Thus I trust they may be led to abandon all
   false refuges and may be guided by the Spirit of God to accept the sure
   Foundation which God has laid for His believing people. O how I long
   that you may, all of you, be right for eternity! I would not have one
   of you perish, any more than I would wish to perish myself. O Holy
   Spirit, bless my feeble words to the good of these, my beloved people!
   May my weakness of thought and speech never hinder You from working,
   but rather, in this hour of my infirmity, You speak, Blessed Spirit,
   with greater power!

   First, let us see the Lord judging false refuges. Secondly, let us
   picture their destruction. And thirdly, let us take the warning which
   such a subject should convey to every thoughtful mind.

   I. LET US SEE THE LORD JUDGING MAN'S REFUGES. He says, "Judgment also
   will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." Observe that
   however carelessly we may judge ourselves, God will not so judge us. We
   may take things at second hand and view them very lightly, but God
   makes personal observation and takes a careful survey. We may foolishly
   say, "Do not let us trouble ourselves too much or become too anxious,
   things will no doubt get right one of these days," but God is in
   earnest and there is no trifling with Him. Observe that His survey is
   performed with the utmost accuracy. He will not judge according to the
   sight of the eyes or the hearing of the ears, but He will go into
   matters and make a thorough search.

   An ordinary builder sent to examine a house would probably content
   himself with hastily looking to see whether the walls were
   perpendicular and whether the work was of the quantity and quality
   specified in the contract. He could tell this pretty nearly with his
   eyes, or by measuring with his feet. But if a very careful and
   scientific survey were needed, he would then produce his plummet and
   his line and try everything by the regular accepted tests of builder's
   work. And hence our text describes the Lord as laying judgment to the
   line and righteousness to the plummet--that is to say, He makes a
   deliberate trial of our confidences, compares our hopes with our
   conduct, our beliefs with His Truth--and our expectations with the
   facts of the case. He measures and gauges and gives an accurate
   estimate of what we are and where we are.

   O that we might have Grace to invite such a test at once by praying,
   "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts!" If
   the Lord will help us to know ourselves, now, it will save us from a
   sad discovery at the last. Let us examine ourselves, because God will
   examine us on the Judgment Day! Let us come to the plummet and to the
   measuring line and give up random hopes and hasty confidences. Better
   the distress of honest anxiety than the presumption of foolhardy
   rashness! It is much better to be afraid where there is no cause for
   fear than to be at ease where there is no ground for confidence. Well
   did Cowper say--

   "He that never doubted of his state, He may, perhaps, he may, too
   late."

   He who takes things for granted may find himself to be a fool in that
   day when folly will never again have opportunities for wisdom. All
   things will, in the end, be put into the scales and weighed--and
   Infallible Justice shall give its final decision! It is wise to
   anticipate that final and irreversible verdict by a present and honest
   searching of the grounds of our hope. According to the connection of
   our text, there are three ways by which we may, all of us, judge
   whether our confidences are refuges of lies or not. For, first, if they
   are safe hiding places, such as will bear the brunt of the coming
   storm, they are founded upon Christ. "Behold, I lay in Zion for a
   foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure
   foundation."

   Now examine, my dear Friend, your hope for eternity. Is it the hope
   which God has set forth in Scripture? Is it based and bottomed upon the
   work of the Lord Jesus? For if not, as the Lord my God lives and as
   your soul lives, it will fail you in the day of trial! If God laid the
   Foundation and you accept it, you may feel quite sure about it, for God
   never yet laid down a fiction as the groundwork of faith. He never
   mocked human reliance, yet, and never will! If the Lord laid the
   Foundation you need not hesitate to build on it, for the responsibility
   of its security is with the Lord and not with us. We may fairly put it
   thus with our hearts in hours when all things are questioned--if our
   faith is vain, at least we have

   grounded it where Divine Revelation commanded us to ground it! If there
   is a failure, it is not ours only, but a failure on the part of Him who
   laid the Foundation for us!

   But such a thing shall never be--the Christ of God never fails! We
   shall find Jesus to be what the Father declares Him to be, a sure
   Foundation which shall support us in life, bear us up in death and
   sustain us throughout eternity. Come, search yourselves, and try your
   hopes by this test! Hang this plummet against your wall--do you stand
   even with it? Is Jesus Christ All in All to you? Do you rest on Him and
   on Him alone? If so, you are surely saved! But if not, you have made
   lies your refuge! He then gives us a second test and that is if our
   confidence is a right one, it comes to us through faith, for it is
   written in the 16th verse, "He that believes shall not make haste." He
   shall not be confused. He shall not run away in trepidation and alarm.
   He shall not be in a hurry to anticipate the day of blessing, nor be in
   distress about the hour of trial. "He that believes" is the man whose
   soul is fixed on the sure Foundation and, therefore, abides in peace.

   Now, my Hearers, do you believe for your salvation, or do you look to
   your own feelings and doings? If your hope is grounded upon sight, or
   feeling, or working--it will one day fail you. Do you rest on
   ceremonies, upon something performed by a priest or a minister, or are
   you resting upon outward religiousness, upon attending the means of
   Grace and bowing, kneeling and standing like Christians? Then I warn
   you that these sandy foundations will be washed away when the floods
   come! Have you faith in Jesus Christ? Do you believe the Infallible
   Word of God and do you confide in His Infallible Son? If you do this,
   Heaven and earth shall pass away, but never shall your Foundation be
   moved! Your hope shall stand firm as the Throne of God!

   Judge yourselves, then, by this--bring this plummet and this line to
   bear upon the building that you have been erecting for years--and
   remember that if it is not of faith it is all in vain! Salvation is of
   Grace through faith! By faith the sinner is justified and the just
   lives by faith! Without faith it is impossible to please God, therefore
   see to it that you have the faith of God's elect or your hope is
   vanity! A third test seems to me to be proposed in my text, "Judgment
   will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." Here, then,
   is the test of righteousness. If our hope is sound, it is a holy,
   sanctifying hope which purges us from sin and breeds in us all that is
   true and good.

   This is a test which some do not like to apply. They are wonderfully
   pleased when we are preaching the Gospel of believing, but when it
   comes to fruit--to the declaration that true faith works by love--they
   fight shy of it. But I beseech you, my Brothers and Sisters, be not
   like these foolish persons! Court those tests which are the most
   searching and thorough, that you may make sure work for eternity.
   Exercise a loving severity toward your own soul. Be lenient to every
   other person, but be sternly severe to your own case. Without holiness
   no man shall see the Lord. Have you this holiness? The faith that is
   without works is dead, being alone. Have you the works which prove the
   sincerity of faith? If the Grace of God does not change your character;
   if it does not make you hate sin and strive after that which is right,
   just and good, then it is not the Grace of God at all! You have but the
   form and are without the power of it. Is this the case with you? Come,
   do not flinch, but go through with it and deal fairly with your own
   soul!

   We shall now apply these tests to certain refuges which I am sure will
   turn out to be refuges of lies. A few of these we will mention at
   length. The first is the hope which some men ground upon their own
   moral goodness. "It will be all right with me," says one, "for I have
   not done anything much amiss. If I have been faulty, we are poor,
   imperfect creatures and we cannot help it. On the whole my aims and
   objectives have been greatly superior to those of the bulk of mankind.
   I do not think I can have incurred much wrath from God, or that I need
   be under any apprehension as to being judged of Him at the Last Great
   Day."

   Alas, my Friend, yours must be a refuge of lies, for it will not stand
   trial by the first plummet! It is not based upon the Foundation which
   God has laid! Your hope has nothing to do with Christ, that precious
   Cornerstone. It is evident that you do not want Him, or His blood, or
   His righteousness, for you are altogether independent of such help. Why
   should God have taken the trouble to lay a foundation in the blood of
   His own Son when it is evidently quite a superfluity, since you can
   save yourself? Do you not see that, inasmuch as you rely upon your own
   moral goodness, you as good as tell the Lord that the gift of His dear
   Son and His death on Calvary were all a mistake, a Savior was not
   required and an Atonement was not needed? If you can save yourself, so
   can others, and the whole plan of Grace becomes an absurdity. I feel
   sure that since you cannot stand this first test your refuge is a false
   one.

   Now, try the second touchstone as to faith. You have no faith in God.
   Your hope is not based on faith in Jesus--you have no faith except
   faith in yourself. You are trusting to the works of the Law, but do you
   not know what the Scripture says, "By the works of the Law there shall
   be no flesh justified in His sight"? You are opposing the Revelation of
   God-- He declares that men are not saved by works, but by Grace, and
   you, on the other hand, claim salvation by your own works! You are
   under a gross delusion and your trust is a refuge of lies! Moreover, my
   gentle boaster, is not this plea of moral goodness a lie from top to
   bottom? In the calmness of your mind can you prove this excellency of
   yours? Your outward life may have been comparatively pure, but I am not
   sure of that if all were known.

   Look back and see whether there are not more stains than you thought,
   more grave faults than you would like to confess. You have a very
   flattering memory, which obliges you by forgetting things which it
   would be inconvenient to remember. Your righteousness is little better
   than a house of cards and if you ever blow upon it with anxious breath
   it will come tumbling down! I call upon you to put away such folly and
   to open your eyes to facts. Please remember that even if your outward
   life may have been correct, God regards the heart and takes account of
   the inner life. Your thoughts, have they not gone after evil? Your
   imagination, has it never delighted in sin? Have there been no corrupt
   desires, no selfish ambitions? Hare you come up to the standard of
   God's perfection? I will ask you no more questions--I know you have
   not, for the testimony of the Searcher of all hearts is this, "There is
   none that does good, no, not one."

   Therefore I know that you have not done good. You, like your fellow
   men, are a sinner and condemned! I beseech you put away this vain
   glorying and seek a better refuge. A spider's web is not slighter than
   this confidence of yours! A bubble is not more frail, or a breath more
   unsubstantial. If this is your shelter, it is worse than no shelter!
   The fig leaves of our first parents, when they were all dry and
   shriveled, were a better covering than our poor merits. If we were not
   maddened by our sins, we should never be so insane as to dream of
   pleading our own excellence before God! If we had any just idea of what
   holiness is, we should confess our iniquity and then close our mouth in
   the silence of self-condemnation. Lay but justice to the line and
   righteousness to the plummet and our personal moral excellence is seen
   to be as a bowing wall and as a tottering fence.

   I have noticed, however, in the second place, that a number of persons
   make a refuge for themselves out of the notion offate. They say,
   "Everything is settled and determined and ordained and, therefore, if I
   am to be saved, I shall be saved. And if I am to be lost I shall be
   lost. After all, we are creatures of circumstances and are like the
   fish of the sea taken in a net, or sea birds caught in the wind,
   driven, we scarcely know where. Let us hope that all may come right at
   last, but we cannot help it whatever may occur." I have no hesitation
   in saying that this refuge is a refuge of lies. It would not endure one
   of the tests and assuredly not the last, for its tendency is to deny
   all moral obligation and, therefore, it is no friend to holiness. It
   deliberately charges God with the creature's sin and makes out the
   sinner to be the injured person and clear of the guilt of his own acts.

   Many persuade themselves that they believe it, but it is such a poor,
   paltry shelter that I wonder they are not ashamed to mention it! In the
   bottom of their hearts those who urge it know better. Look here, good
   Sir, and see your own inconsistency. Why did you punish your boy this
   morning for willful disobedience? Why did you not say to him, "I will
   not chide with you, my Son, nor chasten you, though you provoked me,
   for you cannot help it, you are ordained to it"? The thief that broke
   into your house the other day, did you lie still and let him take your
   silver? If he was ordained to have it, he would have it--why did you
   open the window and cry for help? When the thief was taken, did you say
   to the magistrate, "Do not punish him, he could not help it. No doubt
   some Divine decree led him here"?

   The scoundrel that called you, "liar," the other day, and knocked you
   down in the street--did you rise up and with a quiet smile thank him
   for it, for he could not help it, he was only the agent of a Divine
   purpose and the instrument of an Omnipotent Predestination which he
   could not resist? You never thought of such folly! You feel that those
   who injure you are responsible and you treat them accordingly. Now
   mark--you are responsible, too. It is a Truth of God that all things
   are fixed, but it is not a Truth that, therefore, men may live in sin
   and lay the blame upon God! Whatever foreordination and predestination
   may be or may not be, they leave men free agents and responsible being,
   or else both Law and Gospel are absurdities and the Bible is ill
   written.

   In other matters men do not act on the supposed inferences of fate, but
   on the evident necessities of everyday life-- why not in religion? It
   may be true that everything is fixed and doubtless so it is, but
   because it is fixed, whether I shall live or not, do I, therefore,
   refuse to eat? Because it is fixed whether I shall sleep or not, do I
   refuse to undress and get

   into my bed? Because it is predestinated whether I shall be rich or
   not, do I leave my shop and get away and leave my goods to sell
   themselves? No, verily, predestination or no predestination, you are
   all eager to get gain! Men are not such idiots in other things as they
   pretend to be in the things of God! The plea of fate is a fool's refuge
   worthy only of a brainless sot!

   Since it will not stand even my feeble brush, you may be sure that it
   will all dissolve beneath the iron rod of the Prince of Truth! It is in
   vain for you to say, "We were delivered to work this iniquity," for you
   know that you sin willingly and you refuse Christ deliberately. You
   choose the evil and turn your backs on the good and, therefore, your
   ruin must be laid at your own doors. Cease, then, from the vain
   endeavor to justify yourselves and seek unto the Lord and His Christ!

   The third shelter of lies which many fly to is a hope based upon novel
   doctrines. Each age would gladly have its own Gospel and the present is
   not behind hand in the desire to be its own prophet. Many are ready to
   help in this presumptuous design. Certain Divines attain to eminence by
   undermining the Gospel they pretend to defend and forging new theories
   upon the anvils of their own fancy. Men who would never have been known
   if they had acted honestly, have gained a cheap notoriety by vending
   heresy and yet wearing the garb and eating the bread of orthodoxy! The
   most fashionable form of this evil, just now, is the production of
   novelties with regard to the future punishment of the wicked.

   False Prophets prophesy smooth things and talk of a larger hope, which,
   being interpreted, is this--that men may live very much as they like
   but some time or other, and somehow or other, character will cease to
   operate upon destiny and the righteous and the wicked will stand on a
   par. This is the old doctrine of falsehood with which the sinner
   blesses himself in his heart, saying, "I shall have peace though I walk
   in the imagination of my heart."

   The punishment of sin has been doubted from the very beginning. The
   chief of all subtle thinkers said in the garden of Eden, "You shall not
   surely die!" By this larger hope, insinuated rather than boldly stated,
   the serpentine philosopher tempted the woman and ruined our race.
   Pleased with his success, he continues to use the same artifice,
   asserting either that sin is trivial, or that penance can remove it, or
   that Hell is temporary, or that the soul will be annihilated, or some
   other form of the same radical lie. His perpetual cry is, "You shall
   not surely suffer what God threatens! You may sin and yet there is a
   hope larger than the Revelation of Jesus Christ, wider than the Savior
   has proclaimed."

   In this refuge there is no Christ and no faith in Him--and assuredly
   there is nothing in it that conduces to holiness. Mark its influence
   wherever it is received. When any of our friends embrace the novel
   theology, do they become more devout, more earnest, more gracious, more
   holy as the result of it? I think not. Are these the persons who make
   our Prayer Meetings a power? Are these the winners of souls? Are these
   the men who speak much of Jesus and live in daily fellowship with Him?
   Do we see them more careful to avoid conformity to the world? Our
   witness is that the consequences are the reverse. Did you ever hear of
   a man who was converted from vice by hearing that sin would be lightly
   punished and who, in proportion as he grew purer in life, grew more
   heterodox in his views?

   Such an instance would be a rarity, if, indeed, it ever existed! But
   when a man who holds orthodox doctrine, backslides and declines, as a
   general rule he finds it convenient to adopt some novel hypothesis in
   order that he may feel comfortable in his sin. Is it not so? So far as
   my observation goes, these modern notions go with looseness of life,
   with worldliness of heart, with decay of prayerfulness and with
   backsliding from the living God. And as you lay this line and plummet
   to them, it will soon be seen that they are refuges of lies. At any
   rate, Sirs, suppose your larger hope should turn out to be correct? In
   what respect will the orthodox be the losers? But suppose your larger
   hope should turn out to be a mere delusion? What will become of you who
   venture your all upon it?

   We are, in any case, upon the safe side of the hedge and this is no
   small advantage when the weightiest interests are at stake. Suppose
   there shall be no Hell? If I am a believer in Christ, it matters not to
   me. But suppose there is--and there is--then you who are unbelievers
   are in an evil plight! If you do not catch this will-o'-the-wisp of a
   larger hope, as I believe you never will, then where are you? It
   behooves every man not only to make sure, but to make doubly sure!
   About the soul we need the utmost certainty. I would counsel you to dig
   deep and see what you are resting on. I would have you make sure that
   you do not permit a falsehood to lie like a worm at the root of your
   hope! Seek to know the reason for your building on Christ and when you
   have ascertained that, then look for God's guarantee for placing stone
   upon stone in the building up--and without this do not rest!

   Nothing but Divine authority ought to content you in the business of
   eternity. The views and hypotheses of the learned Dr. Somebody are of
   no value to me, for I can theorize for myself if I have a mind to. I
   need facts and certainties, for I dread every refuge of lies. Alas, we
   have another brood of men whose refuge is that they make a profession
   of religion. "I am always at a place of worship," says one. "I am never
   absent from a single service and, what is more, I joined the Church
   some years ago and I have kept up my membership. I have been baptized
   and I come to the Lord's Table with great regularity. I feel a good
   deal of pleasure in religious exercises. I am not sure that I was ever
   born again. I am not sure that I ever repented of sin. I am not sure
   that I try to live a holy life, but still I am a member of a Church and
   that is a great comfort to me."

   Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, this will not do! Unless this membership
   of yours with a visible Church is backed up by holy living and unless
   there is an inward resting upon Jesus Christ and a vital faith whereby
   you hold fast to Him, your name may be on the Church roll, but it will
   not be found written in the Lamb's Book of Life! And this profession of
   yours, instead of blessing you, will curse you! If you are not savingly
   converted, you are guilty of a daily hypocrisy and chargeable with
   sacrilege for appropriating sacred things to which you have no right!
   Unconverted one, you are an intruder into the family of Christ; an
   interloper at the feast of the King of kings! Search yourselves lest,
   being found at the bridal feast without a wedding garment, you should
   be cast out into outer darkness!

   You need not be hurt by the exhortation, for those of us who speak to
   you are often forced to carry out a severe search within our own
   hearts. How often I put myself through my paces with many an anxious
   question! I have taught others, but do I know the Truth for myself? I
   have brought others to Christ, but have I come to Christ myself? What
   if, after having preached to others, I, myself, should be a castaway?
   What the Lord's ministers feel bound to do to themselves, surely you
   need not be too proud to endure! If you are doing very little for your
   Lord and Master compared with others, you may well be very anxious and
   careful, for the doom of unprofitable servants is not a light one and
   barren trees are not always allowed to stand. "Oh," says one, "but I do
   not like heart-searching." Then I am afraid for you. You who do not
   examine yourselves; you who are not willing to be tested and tried by
   the Word of God, you cause us serious suspicion lest you may have built
   very rapidly with wood, hay, stubble and yet your whole structure will
   be consumed in the last great fire!

   Let me speak a word concerning certain ones who have a hope of being
   saved which does not sanctify them, for there are professors who feel
   sure they are Christians and will go to Heaven and yet they show no
   sign of being prepared for it. They live as others live and yet imagine
   that they shall not die as others die! They have an outward film of
   morality upon their lives, but underneath it there is worldliness and
   love of sinful pleasure. How dare they hope? If they sow iniquity shall
   they reap perfection? Can a man go to Heaven who is not heavenly? Can
   lovers of worldly pleasure enter into the dwellings of the perfect? O
   Sirs, if your hope does not lead you to follow after holiness, away
   with it! God help you to away with it at once and to begin aright.
   Above all things dread an empty, baseless hope of Heaven, for it will
   make Hell all the more terrible!

   Some, too, make a refuge of their old experience. Now, an old
   experience which is all old is a manifest deception. A true experience
   continues and grows day by day. Not with one even pace each day, but
   still, as a whole, the Divine life goes forward to perfection--but
   where it does not do so, but comes to an end--it is not the Divine life
   at all. Have you never heard of the man who wrote down his experiences
   of religion when a young man so that he might fall back upon it in
   later years? He lived in neglect of all godliness but, having already
   experienced religion, as he said, and having made a record of it and
   put it away with the title deeds of his farm, he dreamed that when he
   came to die he might fetch it out and comfort himself with his
   evidences of salvation!

   His daughter went to the drawer and found that the mice had eaten it.
   Ah, dear me, it was not much loss, for that hope which is grounded on a
   musty experience which is not supported by a present love of God,
   present prayer, present fellowship and present striving against sin, is
   a lie! It is all in vain to say, "I know I did experience such-and-such
   a thing a dozen years ago when I joined the Church." What of that? If a
   man is alive, now, he does not need to prove it by going back to the
   records of his youth! Present life is its own evidence. If you are not
   living to God, today, I care not a button what you profess to have done
   20 years ago! If you had a true faith then, you have it now--and if you
   have no faith now, you are in the gall of bitterness.

   It is true that he that believes in Christ is saved, but we must have
   proof of it in the consequent life. If the man is not saved from living
   in sin, we infer that he has not believed. And if he does not persevere
   to the end, we are sure that he is not one of the Lord's own--"for if
   any man draw back," says the Lord, "my soul shall have no pleasure in
   him." This is the test of true faith. Those who have really believed do
   not draw back unto perdition, for they have believed unto the salvation
   of their souls. Oh, then, I pray you, if your imaginary experience in
   former times has dissolved into present carelessness and sin, do not
   attempt to hide behind it! It will not endure the line and the plummet,
   therefore put it away and seek God this day that He may begin a sound
   work of Grace upon your souls.

   I hope I have said enough by way of laying the line and the plummet to
   false refuges. May the Lord awaken the carnally secure and lead them to
   forsake their useless hiding places and shelter themselves in Christ.

   II. Very briefly let us, in the second place, PICTURE THE DESTRUCTION
   OF THESE REFUGES OF LIES. A

   man has been very comfortable in one or other of these refuges for a
   good number of years, but at last he is getting old and is laid aside
   to think. Infirmities are increasing, death is drawing near and he
   takes a look into the dark future. He finds himself facing an eternal
   state and he has need of all his confidences and hopes to sustain him.
   Now, what happens? His spirit undergoes a great storm and what is the
   result? Does he dwell in a fortress which defies the hurricane? No, his
   shelter is so frail that, according to the text, "the hail shall sweep
   away the refuges of lies."

   A cold, hard Truth of God falls from Heaven like a hailstone and
   crashes right through the glass roof of his false confidence! He looks
   up astonished and, lo, another and another forgotten Truth descends
   with the same violence and crushes through all opposition till it
   smites his soul. He had always hoped, good, easy man, that sunshine and
   quiet would last forever and then his glass house would have been all
   he needed. He never reckoned on these hailstones! Great Truths of God
   which he forgot, neglected and despised, come rattling down upon him
   from Heaven in awful earnest and with deadly aim. He must think and he
   has much to think of--but no means of forgetting any of it. His
   conscience, which he tried to smother, awakes, and as it awakes the big
   hailstones of Truth come through his roof faster and faster.

   Down falls all his comfort and peace of mind as hailstone after
   hailstone pounds all his hope to pieces! "After all, I never was born
   again and the Scripture has well said, 'You must be born again.' I
   never yielded up my selfishness and I cannot be saved unless Christ is
   my King. I did not really close in with Christ and cast my naked soul
   on Him--I trusted in something else and I am lost forever!" Great
   hailstones thus follow each other and against them the deceived heart
   has no defense. Presently the storm comes up with tremendous wind and
   the hailstones are hurled forward like terrible artillery and the naked
   soul finds its refuge utterly swept away--not a thread of it remains!
   His refuge fails the man and his soul, unhoused, unsheltered, starts
   back in horror!

   It starts back in vain! God has now to be met and the soul has no
   hiding place! The fire eyes of the Most High are burning the heart
   through and through and rocks and hills refuse a shelter. God grant
   that this may not be your case and that it may not be mine. May it
   never be said of us, "When they shall say peace and safety, then sudden
   destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and
   they shall not escape." Let us fly to Jesus at once! Let us most
   solemnly exercise faith in Him now! I pause while this is done. Is it
   so? Have you rested upon the Son of God for everything? Then you may go
   forward and neither fear hailstones nor coals of fire, for he that
   believes in Him shall never be confounded!

   Another impressive picture is set before us in the text. "The waters
   shall overflow the hiding place." Imagine one who, in the time of
   Noah's flood, does not choose to enter into the ark for he does not
   care to be tied down to God's way of deliverance. Salvation by an ark
   is too simple, too childish--he wants a more philosophic way. Besides,
   he does not care to be cooped up with Noah and a handful of
   narrow-minded people who shut them in and shut everybody else out. He
   has broader views and, therefore, he has found a shelter on the side of
   the hill--in a great cave where thousands can assemble and enjoy a
   liberty denied them within the pale of the ark! It is utterly
   preposterous to suppose the flood will ever reach so high as this
   elevated cave! It is hundreds of feet above the plain and, in the
   judgment of the wisest men, it is more than safe.

   After a day or two of extraordinary rain the man would look down from
   his hiding place and see the waters covering all the lower area and
   creeping up the valleys foot by foot. And he would remark upon the
   abundance of rain, but scoff at the idea of a general deluge. He would
   be easy, hoping that the rain would cease, but as it continued he would
   begin to think, "I may not be quite so safe after all." Imagine his
   horror when the flood, at last, fills up the ravine and creeps up

   the rocky steep. With cruel lips, seeking his destruction, the water
   threatens the cave in which he thought to dwell so safely. At last it
   penetrates his hiding place! It climbs to the very roof! It sweeps over
   his head and his false confidence has proved his ruin. Such will be the
   end of all that hide themselves, but hide not in Christ!

   I will tell you in what fashion this overthrow will come. First, the
   mirth of the mind is damped with doubt. The man does not feel so easy
   as he used to be. He is afraid that God's Word may be true and that
   things will go amiss with him. Soon the doubt has oozed into his refuge
   and become a pool of fear--the man is sadly afraid and the dread
   saturates and dissolves all his joy. The Truth of God's Word still
   further comes home to his conscience and he begins to be more and more
   alarmed. Nor does he continue long in one place, for he is growingly
   distressed--the waters are evidently advancing upon him and he cannot
   escape.

   He has come to be altogether dismayed. He hardly knows what will become
   of him and within a little while, unless God's mercy shall prevent and
   enable him to find the true shelter, he will be drenched in despair and
   washed away in terror. At last he cannot believe that there is any
   salvation possible for him. He hears death and Hell approaching and his
   flesh creeps with horror. Let him alone and you will find him filled
   with terror. If his conscience is really awake, he will dread to go to
   sleep at night lest he should never wake again! I have seen such in
   their dying moments afraid of everything, fearing alike to live or to
   die.

   At last the man is taken away and where is he? Lost, lost, lost! The
   hail has swept away his refuge and the flood has overwhelmed his hiding
   place. He has perished forever from the Presence of the Lord and from
   the Glory of His power. None can find a ransom for him. He rejected the
   Foundation which God laid and sought to find a refuge for himself-- and
   he has been taken away in his presumption.

   III. Time fails us, but I want you TO LEARN THE LESSON OF WARNING which
   I have just strength enough to indicate in a few words. May the Holy
   Spirit bless it, though I am scarcely able to express my thoughts. The
   first lesson of warning is let us build on God's Foundation. He knows
   better than we do what is right and safe. Come, you wise people, be as
   children and believe your God! Come, you who like something of your own
   imagining, and for once yield your own fancies. Indulge your whims upon
   some common business, but in this matter it will be safer to believe
   God's Word than to continue dreaming and devising for yourself.

   You may be a very intelligent person, but will you compete in
   intelligence with God? Very likely you may know a hundred times more
   than I do. You may know a thousand times more if you choose to think
   so, but you cannot have a better hope than mine, for I rest on Jesus
   Christ alone! You may have what hope you like, but I would not change
   with you for all your learning. My hope lies in simply coming to Jesus
   and depending upon Him and learning how to love Him. I recommend the
   same to you. Come, and from the love of Jesus learn how to be a
   Christian! Learn to be holy! Learn to be unselfish! Learn to live
   according to God's Word.

   There is a power about faith in Christ to give a man the mastery over
   himself--a power to be found nowhere else. I have seen the drunk, the
   thief, the harlot believe in Jesus Christ and become converted--and
   from that very day they have become gracious, godly, pure-minded
   people! I have never seen anything else make such a change in men as
   faith does! We may surely speak as we find and use a remedy of which we
   see the cure. We have, moreover, tried it ourselves and, therefore, we
   speak what we know. Therefore come and rest in Jesus and when you come
   to die you will at least be able to feel, "I have God's sanction for
   the Foundation I have built upon and therefore it cannot fail." O may
   the Holy Spirit bring you to this!

   Again, let your refuge be wholly built up of Divine Truths. Do not try
   to comfort yourself with a lie. Dear Friend, let the Truth of God be
   all in all to you! Counterfeit coin enriches no man. Have nothing to do
   with false and flattering teachings. If your hope is not built on
   solid, substantial matters of fact, give it up and get one that is! If
   your hope of being saved depends on a dream, or a voice you thought you
   heard in the air, or some other such nonsense, put it away! Build upon
   your Lord's life, death and resurrection--build upon God's
   promises--build by the work of the Holy Spirit with faith and you shall
   have the reward of eternal life!

   In a word, rest on Jesus, the eternal Son of God made flesh and
   bleeding to death for man! Build on His complete work and there
   only--and then if winds blow and waters rage you shall be safe, safe
   forever! God bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Satan in a Rage

   (No. 1502)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 2, 1879,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Woe to the inhibitors of the earth and of the sea! For the devil has
   come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but
   a short time." Revelation 12:12.

   THE great battle in the heavenlies has been fought--our glorious
   Michael has forever overthrown the dragon and cast him down. In the
   highest regions the great principle of evil has received a total defeat
   through the life and death of our Lord Jesus. Atonement has been made
   for human sin and the great quarrel between God and man has come to a
   happy end. Everlasting righteousness has been brought in and the peace
   of God reigns in Heaven. The conflict, from now on, rages here below
   and in these inferior regions the Prince of this world is warring
   mightily against the cause of God and truth. Much woe does this cause
   to the sons of men--woe which will never end till his power is
   altogether taken away.

   Observe concerning our archenemy that he exercises forethought and care
   as to the evil enterprise to which he has set his hand. Whatever
   foolish men may do, the devil thinks. Others may be heedless and
   thoughtless, but he is anxious and full of consideration. He knows that
   his time, or, "opportunity" is short and he bides his time till its
   close, for he is no careless waster of time and forgetter of the end.
   He values his opportunity to maintain his kingdom, to distress the
   people of God and to dishonor the name of Christ. And since it is but a
   short one, he treats it as such. He infers the brevity of his time from
   the victory which Jesus has already gained over him.

   In reading the chapter, we saw how the Man-Child who is to rule all
   nations with a rod of iron was caught up unto God and to His Throne.
   And then we saw the war in Heaven and how the devil was cast out into
   the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Then was a loud voice
   heard on high, "Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of
   our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren
   is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Right
   well may the old serpent conclude that he will be routed on earth since
   he has already sustained so dire a defeat that he has fallen from
   Heaven never to rise again!

   Because the Man-Child, Christ Jesus, has met him in conflict, met him
   when as yet all his power was unbroken and has cast him down from his
   high places, he is persuaded and well he may be, that his reign is
   ended and that his opportunity is short. He feels about him, even now,
   a chain which is lengthened for a while, but which shall be drawn into
   shorter compass and fastened down, by-and-by, so that he shall roam the
   earth no longer, but lie as a captive in his prison. Fallen as this
   apostate spirit has become, he has wit enough to look forward to the
   future! O that men were half as wise and would remember their latter
   end!

   I beg you to notice this fact concerning the evil spirit, that you,
   too, may learn to acquire knowledge and then use it for practical
   purposes. Why should it always be that the powers of darkness appear to
   act more wisely than the children of light? For once I would point out
   a matter in which our worst foe may read us a lesson. Among men there
   are some who know a great many important matters, but act as if they
   did not know them--their knowledge is so much waste stored up in the
   lumber room of their minds and never brought into the workshop to be
   used for practical purposes. For instance, we know our mortality and
   yet live as if we never meant to die! There is great necessity for many
   of us to pray, "Lord, teach us to number our days that we may apply our
   hearts unto wisdom."

   We must know that our time is short and that our life will soon come to
   an end and yet we fail to know it practically, for we are not as
   earnest as dying men ought to be. In this, the archenemy is not so
   foolish as we are, for he so well knows that his time is short that he
   remembers the fact and is actuated by it. Note well the direction in
   which this knowledge operates upon him. It excites his emotions. The
   deepest emotion of which he is capable is that of anger, for he knows
   not

   how to love. Wrath is his very soul, as hatred is his very life! He
   knows nothing of gentleness, nothing of affection and, therefore, the
   fact that his time is short moves within him his master passion and he
   has great wrath.

   His evil nature is all on fire and his excitement is terrible! How much
   the shortness of our time ought to stir our hearts! With what ardency
   of love and fervency of zeal ought we to pass the days of our
   sojourning here! Knowing that the time of our departure is at hand and
   that the season in which we can serve God among the sons of men is very
   brief, we ought to be excited to flaming zeal and passionate love! We
   are not half stirred as we ought to be. Devils feel great hatred--how
   is it that we do not feel great love? Shall they be more eager to
   destroy than we are to save? Shall they be all alive and shall we be
   half dead?

   Nor is the result of knowing that his time is short merely emotional on
   the part of the archenemy, for, in consequence of his great wrath he is
   moved to make earnest efforts. His energy is excited! He persecutes the
   woman whose Seed he dreads and he pours floods out of his mouth against
   her. There is nothing which Satan can do for his evil cause which he
   does not do. We may be half-hearted, but he never is. He is the very
   image of ceaseless industry and indefatigable earnestness. He will do
   all that can be done in the time of his permitted range. We may be sure
   that he will never lose a day.

   My Brothers and Sisters, you and I, on the other hand, should be moved
   by the shortness of our opportunity to an equal energy of incessant
   industry, serving God continually because, "the night comes wherein no
   man can work." My Friend, if you want your children brought to Christ,
   speak to them, for they will soon be without a father! If you wish your
   servants to be saved, labor for their conversion, for they will soon be
   without a mistress! If you desire your brother to be converted, speak
   to him, for your sisterly love will not much longer avail him.
   Minister, if you would save your congregation by the Spirit of God,
   seek to do it at once, for your tongue will soon be silent. Teacher in
   the Sunday school, if you would have your class gathered into the Good
   Shepherd's fold, treasure up every Lord's Day opportunities, for in a
   short time the place which knows you, now, shall know you no more
   forever!

   Thus, as of old the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen
   every man his plowshare and his axe and his shovel, so have I bid you
   quicken your diligence by the example of the Prince of Darkness. Shall
   we not learn wisdom from his subtlety and zeal from his fury? Shall he
   discern the signs of the times and, therefore, bestir himself, and
   shall we sleep? Shall evil compass sea and land and shall the children
   of God creep about in idleness? God forbid! By the great wrath of the
   old dragon, I beseech you, my Brothers and Sisters, awake out of your
   sleep!

   The text tells us that the shortness of Satan's opportunity excites his
   wrath and we may gather a general rule from this one statement--namely,
   that in proportion as the devil's time is shortened, his energy is
   increased and we may take it as an assured fact that when he rages to
   the uttermost his opportunities are nearly over. He has great wrath,
   knowing that his time is short. I hope there will be something of
   instruction in this and of comfort for all those who are on the right
   side. May the Holy Spirit make it so!

   In the world around us we must not consider that things go altogether
   amiss when the powers of evil become strong. We should be foolish if we
   wept in despair because the tares are ripening, for is not the wheat
   ripening, too? True, the dead become more and more corrupt, but if the
   living become more and more active, why should we lament? Because
   blasphemy grows loud; because infidels seek to undermine the foundation
   of the faith, or because the clouds of superstition grow more dense, we
   must not, therefore, conclude that we have fallen upon evil times, the
   like of which were never seen before. Not so! Oftentimes the
   development of evil is an indication that there is an equal or a
   greater development of good--and the climax of ill is frequently its
   end.

   Do you not know that in the world of Nature the darkest time of the
   night is that which precedes the dawning of the day? May it not be the
   same in the spiritual and moral world? Does not the old proverb tell
   us, concerning the year, that "as the day lengthens the cold
   strengthens"? As the spring comes with lengthened days, the frosts
   often grow more sharp and hard. Is it not also plain to the simplest
   mind that the turning of the tide happens when the ebb has reached its
   utmost? Even so, when evil is at its height, it is nearest to its fall.
   Look for confirmation in the pages of history. When the tale of bricks
   was doubled, Moses came to deliver the oppressed! When Pharaoh would by
   no means let the people go and his yoke seemed riveted upon the neck of
   Israel, then the right arm of God was made bare and the Red Sea beheld
   His vengeance!

   When despots grow most tyrannical, liberty's hour is coming. When the
   lie becomes exceedingly bold and wears a bronze forehead, then it is
   that the Truth of God confounds her. When Goliath stalks abroad and
   defies the armies of Israel, then is the stone already in the sling and
   the David hard at hand to lay the giant low. Do not, therefore, dread
   the advent of greater opposition, nor the apparent increase in strength
   of those oppositions which already exist, for it has always been so in
   the history of events that the hour of the triumph of evil is the hour
   of its doom. When Belshazzar profanes the holy vessels, the handwriting
   blazes on the wall! And when Haman is at the king's banquet seeking the
   blood of the whole race of the Jews, the gallows are prepared for him
   upon his own roof! It shall be seen, even to the last hour of history,
   that the devil rages the more when his empire is the nearer to its end.

   At the very last he shall go about to deceive the nations which are in
   the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together
   to battle. They shall come up in great hosts, fierce for the conflict,
   to "the battle of the great day of God Almighty" at Armageddon. It
   shall then seem as if the light of Israel must be quenched and the
   Truth of God utterly extinguished. But in that dread hour the Lord
   shall triumph gloriously and He shall smite His adversaries to their
   final overthrow. Then shall the angel standing in the sun invite the
   vultures and all the fowls that fly in the midst of Heaven to gather to
   the grim feast of vengeance to eat the flesh of horsemen and men of
   might! Then, also, shall the devil that deceived them be cast into the
   Lake of Fire and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.
   Then, also, shall the shout be heard, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the
   Lord God Omnipotent reigns!" On the greatest possible scale, the
   greatness of the dragon's wrath is a sure prophecy of the end of his
   reign!

   Now, what is true on a great scale is true in the smaller one.
   Missionaries in any country will generally find that the last onslaught
   of heathenism is the most ferocious. We shall find, whenever the Truth
   of God comes into contact with falsehood, that when error is driven to
   its last entrenchments, it fights for life, tooth and nail, with all
   its might! Its wrath is great because its time is short. In any village
   or town in England, or in any other country, whenever the opposition to
   the Gospel reaches its most outrageous pitch and men seem as if they
   would murder the preacher of the Word, you may reckon that the power of
   the opposition is almost over. After the mad fit, active persecution
   will cease and there will come a time of calm and, perhaps, of general
   reception of the Gospel.

   When once the bad passions of mankind shall have boiled up, they will
   cool down again. Has not the Lord promised to restrain it? As the
   burning heat of the noontide sun lasts not forever, but gradually
   abates when it has reached the hottest point, so is it with the wrath
   of man which the foul fiend so often uses for his base purposes. The
   same truth will apply to every individual man. When God begins His
   great work in a sinner's heart, to lead him to Christ, it is no bad
   sign if the man feels more hatred to God than ever; more dislike to
   good things than before. Nor need we despair if he is driven into
   greater sin than ever. The ferocity of the temptation indicates the
   vigor with which Satan contends for any one of his black sheep.

   Satan will not lose his subjects if he can help it and so he drives
   forth all his strength to keep them under his power. And he is
   especially vigilant and furious when the power of Grace is about to
   prevail for their salvation. I will not, however, dwell upon this
   point, because it is to be the subject of our discourse. The general
   fact is further illustrated in the cases of many Believers. There are
   times when, in the Believer's heart, the battle rages horribly; when he
   hardly knows whether he is a child of God at all and is ready to give
   up all hope. He is so distracted he cannot pray or praise. He cannot
   read the Scriptures without horrible thoughts. It seems as if he must
   utterly perish--no space is given him in which to refresh his
   heart--the attacks are constant and violent. But such dreadful
   excitements are often followed by years of peace, quiet usefulness,
   holiness and communion with God!

   Satan knows that God is about to set a limit to his vexations of the
   good man and so he rages extremely because his opportunity is short. It
   is very remarkable that some of the greatest of the saints have died in
   the midst of the most fearful conflicts for the same reason--the dog
   howled at them because he knew that they would soon be out of his
   reach. You would not suppose that Martin Luther, a man so brave and
   strong that he could defy the Pope and the devil, should, on his dying
   bed, be woefully put to it--and yet it was so--his worst struggle was
   the closing one. He was more than a conqueror, but the fight was
   severe, as if the devil, that old coward, waited until he had his
   antagonist down! Waited until he was weak and feeble and then leaped
   upon him to worry if he could not devour him. Truly Luther had worried
   the devil and we do not wonder at the malice of the fiend. Satan knew
   that Luther would soon be out of the reach of his fiery arrows forever
   and, therefore, he had to have a last shot at him.

   It was precisely the case with John Knox who, being observed to sigh
   deeply, was asked the cause of it and replied, "I have formerly, during
   my frail life, sustained many tests and many assaults of Satan. But at
   present he has assailed me most fearfully and put forth all his
   strength to devour and make an end of me at once. Often before has he
   placed my sins before my eyes. Often he has tempted me to despair. He
   has often endeavored to ensnare me by the allurements of the world, but
   these weapons were broken by the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
   Now he has attacked me in another way--the cunning serpent has labored
   to persuade me that I have merited Heaven and eternal blessedness by
   the faithful discharge of my ministry.

   "But, blessed be God who has enabled me to beat down and quench this
   fiery dart by suggesting to me such passages of Scripture as
   these--'What have you that you have not received?' 'By the Grace of God
   I am what I am: not I, but the Grace of God in me.' Upon this, as one
   vanquished, he left me. And I give thanks to my God through Jesus
   Christ, who has been pleased to give me the victory. And I am persuaded
   that the tempter shall not again attack me, but, within a short time, I
   shall, without any great pain of body or anguish of mind, exchange this
   mortal and miserable life for a blessed immortality through Jesus
   Christ."

   Do you wonder that the devil was eager to have another knock at one who
   had given so many knocks to his dominion? Do not, therefore, be at all
   surprised if Satan rages against you! Do not marvel if you should seem
   to be given into his power, but rather rejoice in this, that his great
   wrath is the token of the shortness of his time! He wages war with us
   all the more cruelly because he knows that he will ultimately be
   defeated! His degraded mind delights in petty malice--if he cannot
   destroy, he will disturb--if he cannot kill, he will wound. Subtle as
   he is, he acts right foolishly in pursuing a hopeless object. In his
   war against any one of the Seed of the woman, he knows that he is
   doomed to defeat and yet he gnaws at the heel which breaks his head!

   It is the doom of evil to persevere in its spite after it knows that it
   is all in vain--to be forever vanquished by the invincible Seed of the
   living God--and yet forever to return to the fray! He is forever
   rolling upward, a huge stone which returns upon him! This is a true
   picture of the devil vainly laboring to remove the Truth of God out of
   its place. His is, indeed, "labor in vain."

   I thought this morning that I would call attention to one particular
   instance which is seen in the soul that is coming to Christ, in whom
   Satan often has great wrath knowing that his time is short. My
   objective is to comfort those who are awakened and are seeking the
   Savior. If they are sorely beset, I long that they may find peace, rest
   and hope very speedily. When the poor man who was possessed with an
   evil spirit was being brought to Christ, we read that, "as he was a
   coming, the devil threw him down and tore him." That is the way with
   the great enemy--when he is about to be cast out, his energy is more
   displayed than ever--that if possible he may destroy the soul before it
   has obtained peace with God. May the sacred Comforter help me while I
   try to speak encouragingly upon this subject.

   I. Our first head shall be, How DOES SATAN KNOW WHEN HIS TIME IS SHORT
   IN A SOUL? He watches over

   all souls that are under his power with incessant maliciousness. He
   goes about the camp like a sentinel, spying out every man who is likely
   to be a deserter from his army. In some men's hearts he dwells at ease,
   like a monarch in his pavilion-- their minds are his favorite
   mansions--he goes in and out whenever he pleases and he makes himself
   wonderfully much at home. He counts the man's nature to be his own
   inheritance and he works within him after his own evil pleasure.

   Alas, the deceived man yields his members as instruments of
   unrighteousness and is willingly held in thralldom. In such a case all
   the man's faculties are so many chambers for Satan to dwell in and his
   emotions are so many fires and forges for Satan to work with. But,
   by-and-by, if Divine Grace interposes, there comes a change and Satan,
   who has lived there 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, begins to think that he
   shall not be able to keep this residence of his much longer. He
   perceives that his time is short and, I suppose, he perceives it first
   by discovering that he is not quite so welcome as he used to be.

   The man loved sin and found pleasure in it, but now sin is not so sweet
   as it was, its flavor is dull and insipid. The charms of vice are
   fading and its pleasures are growing empty, vain and void--and this is
   a token of a great change. Once, whenever a pilgrim sin came that way,
   the soul kept open house to entertain it with all hospitality, but now
   it is not half so eager. Even the home-dwelling habitual lusts do not
   yield so much content as before and neither is so much provision made
   for them. The black prince and his court are out of favor and this is
   an intimation that he must soon be

   gone. When sin loses its sweetness, Satan is losing his power. The
   adversary perceives that he must soon stretch his dragon wings when he
   sees that the heart is growing weary of him and is breaking away from
   his fascinations.

   He grows surer of his speedy ejectment when he does not get the
   accommodation he used to have. The man was once eager for sin. He went
   in the pursuit of vice, hunted after it and put himself in the way of
   temptation. Satan reigned securely, then, but now he begins to forsake
   the haunts where sin walks openly and he abandons the cups of
   excitement which inflame the soul. You find him going to a place of
   worship, listening to a sermon, whereas before he frequented the
   theater and enjoyed a loose song at a music hall. The devil does not
   like this change and takes it as a warning that he will soon have to
   give up the key. The man does not drink as once he did, nor swear as
   once he did. Nor does he yield himself up with readiness to every
   temptation. The fish is getting shy of the bait!

   The awakened man has not decided for Christ, but he is no longer at
   ease in bondage, no longer the glad slave of iniquity. He is on the
   wrong road, but he does not run in it. On the contrary, he pauses, he
   heaves a sigh and wishes he could leave the evil road. He wishes he
   knew how to leap a hedge and get into the narrow way. Satan marks all
   this and he says to himself, "There is not the preparation made for me
   that there used to be. There is little readiness to run on my errands
   and therefore I perceive that my time is short."

   He is still more convinced of the shortness of his possession of a
   man's heart when he hears a hand, whose power he has felt, knocking at
   that heart's door. He knows the kind of knock it is--a gentle, but an
   irresistible knocking upon the heart. Continual, perpetual,
   persevering--the knock of One who means to enter! The knock as of one
   that has a hole in his hand. He knocks not as one whose power lies in a
   blow, but as one whose tears and love are his battery of attack. He has
   an energy of compassion, an irresistibleness of gentle love and as
   Satan hears the knock and perceives that the tenant of the house hears
   it, too, and is half inclined to open the door, he is afraid. When the
   heart relents at the sound of the Gospel summons, he trembles more. If
   the knocking still continues, waking up the tenant in the dead of
   night, a sound heard amid the noise of traffic and above the laughter
   of fools, he says, "My time is short."

   He knows the hand, which broke his head of old, and its knocking is
   ominous to him. He knows that in the gentleness of Jesus there is an
   irresistible energy which must and will prevail and he, therefore,
   counts that his possession of the tenement is precarious when the
   Gospel is felt upon the heart. Between the knocks he hears a voice that
   says, "Open to Me! Open to Me, for My head is wet with dew and My locks
   with the drops of the night!" And Satan knows that this pleading Voice
   bodes the downfall of his power.

   Another indication to the enemy that his time is short is when he knows
   that the tenant of the house steals away, sometimes, to court and asks
   for a guarantee of ejectment against him. You know what I mean--when
   the man feels that he cannot, himself, get rid of sin and cannot, in
   his own strength, conquer Satan and, therefore, cries, "O God help me!
   O God, for Christ's sake, drive out the old dragon from my soul, I
   beseech You." This is asking for a guarantee of ejectment! This is
   going to the court of Heaven and pleading with the great King to issue
   a summons and send His officer to throw out the intruder, that he may
   no longer pollute the spirit.

   "Ah," says the Evil One, "this is not the place for me much longer.
   Behold he prays!" More fierce than the flames of Hell to Satan are the
   prayers of convicted sinners! When they pray, he must be gone. He must
   cry "boot and saddle" when men sound the trumpet of prayer! There is no
   tarrying in the camp any longer when the advance guard of prayer has
   come to take possession! One thing more always makes Satan know that
   his time is short and that is when the Holy Spirit's power is evidently
   at work within the mind. Light has come in and the sinner sees and
   knows what he was ignorant of before. Satan hates the light as much as
   he loves darkness and, like an owl in the daylight, he feels that he is
   out of place.

   Life comes in, too, by the Holy Spirit. The man feels! He becomes
   sensitive! He becomes penitent! And Satan, who loves death and always
   abides among the tombs, is bound to flee before spiritual life! The
   Holy Spirit is beginning to work upon the man very graciously and Satan
   knows every throb of the Spirit's power, for it is the death of his
   power and so he says, "I will go to the place from where I came out,
   for this house trembles as if it were shaken with earthquakes and
   affords me no rest." Joyful tidings for a heart long molested by this
   fierce fiend! Away, you enemy, your destruction shall soon come to a
   perpetual end!

   II. This brings me, secondly, to notice that, inasmuch as the shortness
   of his tenure excites the rage of Satan, we must next observe HOW HE
   DISPLAYS HIS GREAT WRATH. His fury rages differently in different
   persons. On some he

   displays his great wrath by stirring up outward persecution. The man is
   not a Christian yet. He is not actually converted yet, but Satan is so
   afraid that he will be saved that he sets all his dogs upon him. The
   poor soul goes into the workshop and though he would give his eyes if
   he could say, "I am a Christian," he cannot quite say so--and yet his
   workmates begin to pounce upon him as much as if he were, in very deed,
   one of the hated followers of Jesus!

   They scoff at him because he is serious and sober; because he is
   beginning to think and to be decent; because he begins to listen to the
   Gospel and to care for the best things. Before the Man-Child was born,
   the dragon was longing to devour Him! Before the man gets to be a
   Christian, the Prince of the power of the air labors, if possible, to
   destroy him. The devil will lose nothing through being behind. He
   begins as soon as ever Grace begins!

   Now, if the Grace of God is not in the awakened man and his reformation
   is only a spasm of remorse, it is very likely that he will be driven
   back from all attendance upon the means of Grace by the ribald remarks
   of the ungodly. But if the Lord Jesus Christ has really been knocking
   at his door and the Spirit of God has begun to work, this opposition
   will not answer its purpose. The Lord will find wings for this poor
   soul, that he may flee away from the trial which, as yet, he is not
   able to bear. I have sometimes known such opposition even tend to undo
   Satan's work and answer quite the opposite purpose.

   I know one who was much troubled about the Truth of Scripture and about
   the doctrines of the Gospel although he was a sincere searcher into the
   Truths of God. He commenced to attend this house of prayer and to
   listen to the Gospel, rather as an enquirer than as a Believer. As yet
   he could not say that he was a Christian, though he half wished he
   could. Now, it came to pass that the opposition which he immediately
   received from the world strengthened his faith in the Bible and became
   a sort of missing link between him and the Truth of God. The sneers of
   his friends acted in this way. He said to himself, "Why should they all
   attack me on the bare supposition of my being a Christian? If I had
   been a Muslim or a Jew, they would have regarded me with curiosity and
   left me alone. But inasmuch as they only suspect me of becoming a
   Christian, they are all down upon me with contempt and anger. Now (said
   he), why is this? Is not this a proof that I am right and that the Word
   of God is right, for did it not say that there should be enmity between
   the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman?"

   The devil did not know what he was doing when he opposed that young man
   and made a Believer of him by that which was meant to drive him into
   unbelief! If the men of this world oppose the faith of our Lord Jesus
   Christ more fiercely than any other, surely it must be that there is
   something special in it! There must be something opposed to their
   sinful ways or to their proud hopes--something which is of God! That
   was the inference which my young friend drew from the treatment he
   received and that inference established him in the faith! Thus, you
   see, Satan often hopes to save his dominion when his time is short by
   vehement persecution against the awakened sinner.

   Much worse, however, is his other method of showing his wrath, namely,
   by vomiting floods out of his mouth to drown, if possible, our newborn
   hope. When the hopeful hearer as yet has not really found peace and
   rest, it will sometimes happen that Satan will try him with doubts,
   blasphemies and temptations such as he never knew before. The tempted
   one has been amazed and has said to himself, "How is this? Can my
   desire after Christ be the work of God? I get worse and worse! I never
   felt so wicked as this till I began to seek a Savior." Yet this is no
   strange thing, fiery though the trial is. Satan will suggest all the
   doubts he can upon the Inspiration of Scripture, the existence of God,
   the Deity of Christ and everything else that is revealed till the poor
   heart that is earnestly longing for salvation will scarcely know
   whether there is anything true at all!

   The man will be so tumbled up and down in his thoughts that he will
   hardly know whether he is on his head or his heels. "They reel to and
   fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end." The
   more they read the Bible; the more they attend the means of Grace, the
   more are they tempted to be skeptical and atheistic! Doubts they never
   knew, before, will torment them even while they strive to be devout.
   The evil tenant has notice to quit and he makes up his mind to do all
   the damage within his power while he is yet within the doors. See how
   he breaks up precious Truths of God and dashes down the richest
   hopes--and all with the detestable design of venting his spite upon the
   poor soul!

   At such time, also, Satan will often arouse all the worst passions of
   our nature and drive them into unknown riot. The awakened sinner will
   be astonished as he finds himself beset with temptations more base and
   foul than he has ever felt before! He will resist and strive against
   the assault, but it may be so violent as to stagger him. He can
   scarcely believe that the flesh is so utterly corrupt. The man who is
   anxiously seeking to go to Heaven seems, at such a time, as if he were

   dragged down by seven strong demons to the eternal deeps of Hell! He
   feels as if he had never known sin before, nor been so completely
   beneath its power! The Satanic troopers sleep as a quiet garrison while
   the man is under the spell of sin, but when once the heart is likely to
   be captured by Immanuel's love, the infernal soldiery put on their
   worst manner and trample down all the thoughts and desires of the soul!

   Satan may also attack the seeker in another form, with fierce
   accusations and judgments. He does not accuse some men, for he is quite
   sure of them and they are his very good friends. But when a man is
   likely to be lost to him, he alters his tone and threatens and
   condemns. He cries, "What, you saved? It is impossible! You know what
   you used to be. Think of your past life!" Then he rakes up a very Hell
   before the man's eyes. "You!" he says, "why even since you have
   pretended to be a little better and have begun to attend the means of
   Grace, you know you have looked back with a longing eye and hungered
   for your old pleasures! It is quite out of the question that you should
   be a servant of Christ! He will not have such a scarecrow as you in His
   house! The great Captain will never march at the head of a regiment
   which is disgraced by receiving such as you."

   Bunyan describes Apollyon as standing across the road and swearing by
   his infernal den that the pilgrim should go no further or there he
   would spill his soul. Then he began to fling at him all manner of fiery
   darts and among them was this one, "You did faint at first setting out,
   when you were almost choked in the gulf of Despond. You were almost
   persuaded to go back at the sight of the Lions. You have already been
   false to your new Lord!" Think for a moment of the devil chiding us for
   sin! Oh, that the poor burdened soul could laugh at this hypocritical
   accuser, for he hates to be despised and yet he right well deserves it!
   Laugh at him, O virgin daughter of Zion, for this great wrath of his is
   because his time is short! Who is he that he should bring an accusation
   against us? Let him mind himself--he has enough to answer for! When he
   turns an accuser, it is enough to make the child of God laugh him to
   scorn. Yet it is not easy to laugh when you are in this predicament,
   for the heart is ready to break with anguish!

   Once more. Satan at such times has been known to pour into the poor
   troubled mind floods of blasphemy. I do not remember, as a child,
   having heard blasphemy. Carefully brought up and kept out of harm's
   way, I think it could only have been once or twice that I ever heard
   profane language. And yet, when I was seeking the Lord, I distinctly
   remember the spot where the most hideous blasphemies that ever passed
   the human mind rushed through my mind! I clapped my hands to my mouth
   for fear I should utter one of them! They were none of my inventing,
   neither had I revived them from my memory--they were the immediate
   suggestions of Satan himself, who was determined, if possible, to drive
   me to despair!

   Read the story of John Bunyan's five years of torture under this
   particular misery and you will see how Satan would say to him, "Sell
   Christ! Sell Christ! Give up Christ," and as he went about his daily
   business, he would have it ringing in his ears, "Sell Christ! Sell
   Christ!" When at last, in a moment of worry, he thought he said, "Let
   Him go if He will," then came the accusation, "Now it is all over with
   you! Jesus will have nothing to do with you! You have given Him up! You
   are a Judas, you have sold your Lord!" Then when the poor man sought
   the Lord with tears and found peace, again, some other dreadful
   insinuation would dog his heels. John Bunyan was too precious a servant
   of the devil for him to lose him easily. And the enemy had, perhaps,
   some idea of what kind of servant of God the converted tinker would
   become-- and what sort of dreams would charm the hearts of many
   generations--and so he would not let him go without summoning all the
   tribes of Hell to wreak their vengeance on him if they could not detain
   him in their service. Yet Bunyan escaped and so will others in like
   cases.

   Oh, bond slave of the devil, may you have Grace to steal away to Jesus!
   Hasten away from Satan's power at once, for otherwise he will, as long
   as he has any opportunity, manifest his great wrath towards you.

   III. Thirdly and briefly, let us think HOW ARE WE TO MEET ALL THIS? How
   must Satan be dealt with while he

   is showing his great wrath because his power is short? I should say,
   first, if he is putting himself in this rage, let us get him out all
   the more quickly. If he would remain quiet, even then we ought to be
   anxious to be rid of his foul company. But if he shows this great rage,
   let us out with him straight away. In God's name let the dragon be
   smitten if he must be raving! If there is any opportunity of getting
   him out, back door or front door, straight away do not let us loiter or
   linger even for a single hour--a devil raging, making us blaspheme and
   then accusing us--tempting us and betraying us, is such a dangerous
   occupant of a heart that he is not to be borne with! Out he must go and
   out at once. Better have a den of lions dwelling in our house than the
   devil within our heart.

   Lord, turn him out at once by Your Grace. We decide, once and for all,
   to wage war with him! We will linger no longer. We dare not! We will
   procrastinate no more, it is more than our lives are worth. No, not
   tomorrow, but today out must the tyrant go! No, not after we leave this
   Tabernacle, but here, in this very pew, O Lord, drive the old dragon
   from his throne with all his hellish crew! That is the first advice I
   give you--let the enemy be cast out at once by Divine Grace. And the
   next thing is, inasmuch as we cannot get him out by our own unaided
   efforts, let us cry to the Strong for strength, who can drive out this
   Prince of the power of the air. There is life in a look at Jesus Christ
   and as soon as that life comes, away goes this Prince of Darkness as to
   his domination and reigning power!

   Oh, Soul, there is nothing left for you but to look to Jesus Christ
   alone! Worried as you are and almost devoured, now is your time to put
   your trust in Jesus who is mighty to save! You know the text which
   speaks of the shepherds taking out of the lion's mouth two legs and a
   piece of an ear? The sheep was almost devoured, but still the shepherd
   pulled out from between the lion's jaws the last relics of his prey.
   And if you seem to be reduced to two legs and a piece of an ear, still
   our glorious Shepherd can pull you out from between the lion's teeth
   and make you whole again, for He will not lose His sheep even at its
   last extremity!

   What can you do against Satan? You would gladly be rid of him--what can
   you do? Do nothing but this--cry to his Master against him! Satan is
   mighty--set the Almighty One upon him! He accuses you--refer him to
   your Advocate! He brings your sin before you--throw the blood of
   Atonement in his face! Here is a text that will drive him down to his
   den--"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." And,
   "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus
   Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Have
   done with battling with the wily foe! Do not answer the old deceiver!
   If he tells you, you are a blasphemer, admit it! If he says you are
   utterly lost, admit it--and then cast yourself at Jesus' feet and HE
   will overcome your foe and set you free!

   One more comfort for you and it is this--the more Satan rages, the more
   must your poor, troubled heart be encouraged to believe that he will
   soon be gone. I venture to say that nothing will make him go sooner
   than your full belief that he has to go. Courageous hope is a weapon
   which he dreads. Tell him he must soon be gone. He has been accusing
   you and pouring venom into your ears and making you believe that it is
   your own blasphemy, whereas it is not yours, but his. Say to him, "Ah,
   but you will be gone soon. You may rage, but you will have to be gone."

   "I have full possession of you," he says, "soul and body, and I triumph
   over you." Say to him, "And would you triumph over me as you do if you
   did not know that you will soon be driven out?" "Ah," says he, "you
   will be lost, you will be lost." He howls at you as if ready to devour.
   Say to him, "If I was sure to be lost, you would not tell me so, you
   would sing sweet songs in my ears and lure me to destruction--you have
   to go, you know you have to." "Oh," says he, "it is impossible you
   should be saved! You will be damned. You will have the hottest place in
   Hell." "Yes," reply to him, "but who sent you to tell me that? You
   never spoke the truth yet! You are a liar from the beginning and you
   are only saying this because you have to go! You know you have to go."

   Tell him so and it is not long before he will depart. Say, "Rejoice not
   over me, O my enemy; though I fall, yet shall I rise again." Tell him
   you know his Master. Tell him he may nibble at your heel, but you
   recollect one that broke his head. Point to his broken head he always
   tries to hide if he can. Tell him his crown is battered to pieces and
   tell him where that deed was done and by whose blessed hand! And as you
   tell him these things, he will shrink back and you shall find yourself
   alone with Jesus! Then will Jesus say to you, "Where is your accuser?"
   You will look around and the enemy will be gone. And then your blessed
   Master will say, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."

   The Lord grant us to get such a riddance of our archenemy and to get it
   this very moment for Christ's dear sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             How to Read the Bible

   A Sermon

   (No. 1503)

   Delivered by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Have ye not read?...Have ye not read?...If ye had known what this
   meaneth."--Matthew 12:3-7.

   THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES were great readers of the law. They studied
   the sacred books continually, poring over each word and letter. They
   made notes of very little importance, but still very curious notes--as
   to which was the middle verse of the entire old Testament, which verse
   was halfway to the middle, and how many times such a word occurred, and
   even how many times a letter occurred, and the size of the letter, and
   its peculiar position. They have left us a mass of wonderful notes upon
   the mere words of Holy Scripture. They might have done the same thing
   upon another book for that matter, and the information would have been
   about as important as the facts which they have so industriously
   collected concerning the letter of the old Testament. They were,
   however, intense readers of the law. They picked a quarrel with the
   Saviour upon a matter touching this law, for they carried it at their
   fingers' ends, and were ready to use it as a bird of prey does its
   talons to tear and rend. Our Lord's disciples had plucked some ears of
   corn, and rubbed them between their hands. According to Pharisaic
   interpretation, to rub an ear of corn is a kind of threshing, and, as
   it is very wrong to thresh on the Sabbath day, therefore it must be
   very wrong to rub out an ear or two of wheat when you are hungry on the
   Sabbath morning. That was their argument, and they came to the Saviour
   with it, and with their version of the Sabbath law. The Saviour
   generally carried the war into the enemy's camp, and he did so on this
   occasion. He met them on their own ground, and he said to them, "Have
   ye not read?"--a cutting question to the scribes and Pharisees, though
   there is nothing apparently sharp about it. It was very a fair and
   proper question to put to them; but only think of putting it to them.
   "Have ye not read?" "Read!" they could have said, "Why, we have read
   the book through very many times. We are always reading it. No passage
   escapes our critical eyes." Yet our Lord proceeds to put the question a
   second time--"Have ye not read?" as if they had not read after all,
   though they were the greatest readers of the law then living. He
   insinuates that they have not read at all; and then he gives them,
   incidentally, the reason why he had asked them whether they had read.
   He says, "If ye had known what this meaneth," as much as to say, "Ye
   have not read, because ye have not understood." Your eyes have gone
   over the words, and you have counted the letters, and you have marked
   the position of each verse and word, and you have said learned things
   about all the books, and yet you are not even readers of the sacred
   volume, for you have not acquired the true art of reading; you do not
   understand, and therefore you do not truly read it. You are mere
   skimmers and glancers at the Word: you have not read it, for you do not
   understand it.

   I. That is the subject of our present discourse, or, at least the first
   point of it, that IN ORDER TO THE TRUE READING OF THE SCRIPTURES THERE
   MUST BE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THEM.

   I scarcely need to preface these remarks by saying that we must read
   the Scriptures. You know how necessary it is that we should be fed upon
   the truth of Holy Scripture. Need I suggest the question as to whether
   you do read your Bibles or not? I am afraid that this is a magazine
   reading age a newspaper reading age a periodical reading age, but not
   so much a Bible reading age as it ought to be. In the old Puritanic
   times men used to have a scant supply of other literature, but they
   found a library enough in the one Book, the Bible. And how they did
   read the Bible! How little of Scripture there is in modern sermons
   compared with the sermons of those masters of theology, the Puritanic
   divines! Almost every sentence of theirs seems to cast side lights upon
   a text of Scripture; not only the one they are preaching about, but
   many others as well are set in a new light as the discourse proceeds.
   They introduce blended lights from other passages which are parallel or
   semi-parallel thereunto, and thus they educate their readers to compare
   spiritual things with spiritual. I would to God that we ministers kept
   more closely to the grand old Book. We should be instructive preachers
   if we did so, even if we were ignorant of "modern thought," and were
   not "abreast of the times." I warrant you we should be leagues ahead of
   our times if we kept closely to the Word of God. As for you, my
   brothers and sisters, who have not to preach, the best food for you is
   the Word of God itself. Sermons and books are well enough, but streams
   that run for a long distance above ground gradually gather for
   themselves somewhat of the soil through which they flow, and they lose
   the cool freshness with which they started from the spring head. Truth
   is sweetest where it breaks from the smitten Rock, for at its first
   gush it has lost none of its heavenliness and vitality. It is always
   best to drink at the well and not from the tank. You shall find that
   reading the Word of God for yourselves, reading it rather than notes
   upon it, is the surest way of growing m grace. Drink of the
   unadulterated milk of the Word of God, and not of the skim milk, or the
   milk and water of man's word.

   But, now, beloved, our point is that much apparent Bible reading is not
   Bible reading at all. The verses pass under the eye, and the sentences
   glide over the mind, but there is no true reading. An old preacher used
   to say, the Word has mighty free course among many nowadays, for it
   goes in at one of their ears and out at the other; so it seems to be
   with some readers--they can read a very great deal, because they do not
   read anything. The eye glances but the mind never rests. The soul does
   not light upon the truth and stay there. It flits over the landscape as
   a bird might do, but it builds no nest there, and finds no rest for the
   sole of its foot. Such reading is not reading. Understanding the
   metering is the essence of true reading. Reading has a kernel to it,
   and the mere shed is little worth. In prayer there is such a thing as
   praying in prayer--a praying that is in the bowels of the prayer. So in
   praise there is a praising in song, an inward fire of intense devotion
   which is the life of the hallelujah. It is so in fasting: there is a
   fasting which is not fasting, and there is an inward fasting, a fasting
   of the soul, which is the soul of fasting. It is even so with the
   reading of the Scriptures. There is an interior reading, a kernel
   reading--a true and living reading of the Word. This is the soul of
   reading; and, if it be not there, the reading is a mechanical exercise,
   and profits nothing. Now, beloved, unless we understand what we read we
   have not read it; the heart of the reading is absent. We commonly
   condemn the Romanists for keeping the daily service in the Latin
   tongue; yet it might as well be in the Latin language as in any other
   tongue if it be not understood by the people. Some comfort themselves
   with the idea that they have done a good action when they have read a
   chapter, into the meaning of which they have not entered at all; but
   does not nature herself reject this as a mere superstition? If you had
   turned the book upside down, and spent the same times in looking at the
   characters in that direction, you would have gained as much good from
   it as you will in reading it in the regular way without understanding
   it. If you had a New Testament in Greek it would be very Greek to some
   of you, but it would do you as much good to look at that as it does to
   look at the English New Testament unless you read with understanding
   heart. It is not the letter which saves the soul; the letter killeth m
   many senses, and never can it give life. If you harp on the letter
   alone you may be tempted to use it as a weapon against the truth, as
   the Pharisees did of old, and your knowledge of the letter may breed
   pride in you to your destruction. It is the spirit, the real inner
   meaning, that is sucked into the soul, by which we are blessed and
   sanctified. We become saturated with the Word of God, like Gideon's
   fleece, which was wet with the dew of heaven; and this can only come to
   pass by our receiving it into our minds and hearts, accepting it as
   God's truth, and so far understanding it as to delight in it. We must
   understand it, then, or else we have not read it aright.

   Certainly, the benefit of reading must come to the soul by the way of
   the understanding. When the high priest went into the holy place he
   always lit the golden candlestick before he kindled the incense upon
   the brazen altar, as if to show that the mind must have illumination
   before the affections can properly rise towards their divine object.
   There must be knowledge of God before there can be love to God: there
   must be a knowledge of divine things, as they are revealed, before
   there can be an enjoyment of them. We must try to make out, as far as
   our finite mind can grasp it, what God means by this and what he means
   by that; otherwise we may kiss the book and have no love to its
   contents, we may reverence the letter and yet really have no devotion
   towards the Lord who speaks to us in these words. Beloved, you will
   never get comfort to your soul out of what you do not understand, nor
   find guidance for your life out of what you do not comprehend; nor can
   any practical bearing upon your character come out of that which is not
   understood by you.

   Now, if we are thus to understand what we read or otherwise we read in
   vain, this shows us that when we come to the study of Holy Scripture we
   should try to have our mind well awake to it. We are not always fit, it
   seems to me, to read the Bible. At times it were well for us to stop
   before we open the volume. "Put off thy shoe from thy foot, for the
   place whereon thou standest is holy ground." You have just come in from
   careful thought and anxiety about your worldly business, and you cannot
   immediately take that book and enter into its heavenly mysteries. As
   you ask a blessing over your meat before you fall to, so it would be a
   good rule for you to ask a blessing on the word before you partake of
   its heavenly food. Pray the Lord to strengthen your eyes before you
   dare to look into the eternal light of Scripture. As the priests washed
   their feet at the laver before they went to their holy work, so it were
   well to wash the soul's eyes with which you look upon God's word, to
   wash even the fingers, if I may so speak--the mental fingers with which
   you will turn from page to page--that with a holy book you may deal
   after a holy fashion. Say to your soul--"Come, soul, wake up: thou art
   not now about to read the newspaper; thou art not now perusing the
   pages of a human poet to be dazzled by his flashing poetry; thou art
   coming very near to God, who sits in the Word like a crowned monarch in
   his halls. Wake up, my glory; wake up, all that is within me. Though
   just now I may not be praising and glorifying God, I am about to
   consider that which should lead me so to do, and therefore it is an act
   of devotion. So be on the stir, my soul: be on the stir, and bow not
   sleepily before the awful throne of the Eternal." Scripture reading is
   our spiritual meal time. Sound the gong and call in every faculty to
   the Lord's own table to feast upon the precious meat which is now to be
   partaken of; or, rather, ring the church-bell as for worship, for the
   studying of the Holy Scripture ought to be as solemn a deed as when we
   lift the psalm upon the Sabbath day in the courts of the Lord's house.

   If these things be so, you will see at once, dear friends, that, if you
   are to understand what you read, you will need to meditate upon it.
   Some passages of Scripture lie clear before us--blessed shallows in
   which the lambs may wade; but there are deeps in which our mind might
   rather drown herself than swim with pleasure, if she came there without
   caution. There are texts of Scripture which are made and constructed on
   purpose to make us think. By this means, among others, our heavenly
   Father won d educate us for heaven--by making us think our way into
   divine mysteries. Hence he puts the word in a somewhat involved form to
   compel us to meditate upon it before we reach the sweetness of it. He
   might, you know, have explained it to us so that we might catch the
   thought in a minute, but he does not please to do so m every case. Many
   of the veils which are cast over Scripture are not meant to hide the
   meaning from the diligent but to compel the mind to be active, for
   oftentimes the diligence of the heart in seeking to know the divine
   mind does the heart more good than the knowledge itself. Meditation and
   careful thought exercise us and strengthen the son for the reception of
   the yet more lofty truths. I have heard that the mothers in the
   Balearic Isles, in the old times, who wanted to bring their boys up to
   be good slingers, would put their dinners up above them where they
   could not get at them until they threw a stone and fetched them down:
   our Lord wishes us to be good slingers, and he puts up some precious
   truth in a lofty place where we cannot get it down except by slinging
   at it; and, at last, we hit the mark and find food for our souls. Then
   have we the double benefit of learning the art of meditation and
   partaking of the sweet truth which it has brought within our reach. We
   must meditate, brothers. These grapes will yield no wine till we tread
   upon them. These olives must be put under the wheel, and pressed again
   and again, that the oil may flow therefrom. In a dish of nuts, you may
   know which nut has been eaten, because there is a little hole which the
   insect has punctured through the shell--just a little hole, and then
   inside there is the living thing eating up the kernel. Well, it is a
   grand thing to bore through the shell of the letter, and then to live
   inside feeding upon the kernel. I would wish to be such a little worm
   as that, living within and upon the word of God, having bored my way
   through the shell, and having reached the innermost mystery of the
   blessed gospel. The word of God is always most precious to the man who
   most lives upon it. As I sat last year under a wide-spreading beech, I
   was pleased to mark with prying curiosity the singular habits of that
   most wonderful of trees, which seems to have an intelligence about it
   which other trees have not. I wondered and admired the beech, but I
   thought to myself, I do not think half as much of this beech tree as
   yonder squirrel does. I see him leap from bough to bough, and I feel
   sure that he dearly values the old beech tree, because he has his home
   somewhere inside it in a hollow place, these branches are his shelter,
   and those beech-nuts are his food. He lives upon the tree. It is his
   world, his playground, his granary, his home; indeed, it is everything
   to him, and it is not so to me, for I find my rest and food elsewhere.
   With God's word it is well for us to be like squirrels, living in it
   and living on it. Let us exercise our minds by leaping from bough to
   bough of it, find our rest and food in it, and make it our all in all.
   We shall be the people that get the profit out of it if we make it to
   be our food, our medicine, our treasury, our armourv, our rest, our
   delight. May the Holy Ghost lead us to do this and make the Word thus
   precious to our souls.

   Beloved, I would next remind you that for this end we shall be
   compelled to pray. It is a grand thing to be driven to think, it is a
   grander thing to be driven to pray through having been made to think.
   Am I not addressing some of you who do not read the word of God, and am
   I not speaking to many more who do read it, but do not read it with the
   strong resolve that they will understand it? I know it must be so. Do
   you wish to begin to be true readers? Will you henceforth labour to
   understand? Then you must get to your knees. You must cry to God for
   direction. Who understands a book best? The author of it. If I want to
   ascertain the real meaning of a rather twisted sentence, and the author
   lives near me, and I can call upon him, I shall ring at his door and
   say, "Would you kindly tell me what you mean by that sentence? I have
   no doubt whatever that it is very dear, but I am such a simpleton, that
   I cannot make it out. I have not the knowledge and grasp of the subject
   which you possess, and therefore your allusions and descriptions are
   beyond my range of knowledge. It is quite within your range, and
   commonplace to you, but it is very difficult to me. Would you kindly
   explain your meaning to me?" A good man would be glad to be thus
   treated, and would think it no trouble to unravel his meaning to a
   candid enquirer. Thus I should be sure to get the correct meaning, for
   I should be going to the fountain head when I consulted the author
   himself. So, beloved, the Holy Spirit is with us, and when we take his
   book and begin to read, and want to know what it means, we must ask the
   Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning. He will not work a miracle, but he
   will elevate our minds, and he will suggest to us thoughts which will
   lead us on by their natural relation, the one to the other, till at
   last we come to the pith and marrow of his divine instruction. Seek
   then very earnestly the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for if the very
   soul of reading be the understanding of what we read, then we must in
   prayer call upon the Holy Ghost to unlock the secret mysteries of the
   inspired word.

   If we thus ask the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit, it will
   follow, dear friends, that we shall be ready to use all means arid
   helps towards the understanding of the Scriptures. When Philip asked
   the Ethiopian eunuch whether he understood the prophecy of Isaiah he
   replied, "How can 1, unless some man should guide me?" Then Philip went
   up and opened to him the word of the Lord. Some, under the pretense of
   being taught of the Spirit of God refuse to be instructed by books or
   by living men. This is no honouring of the Spirit of God; it is a
   disrespect to him, for if he gives to some of his servants more light
   than to others--and it is clear he does--then they are bound to give
   that light to others, and to use it for the good of the church. But if
   the other part of the church refuse to receive that light, to what end
   did the Spirit of God give it? This would imply that there is a mistake
   somewhere in the economy of gifts and graces, which is managed by the
   Holy Spirit. It cannot be so. The Lord Jesus Christ pleases to give
   more knowledge of his word and more insight into it to some of his
   servants than to others, and it is ours joyfully to accept the
   knowledge which he gives in such ways as he chooses to give it. It
   would be most wicked of us to say, "We will not have the heavenly
   treasure which exists in earthen vessels. If God will give us the
   heavenly treasure out of his own hand, but not through the earthen
   vessel, we will have it; but we think we are too wise, too heavenly
   minded, too spiritual altogether to care for jewels when they are
   placed in earthen pots. We will not hear anybody, and we will not read
   anything except the book itself, neither will we accept any light,
   except that which comes in through a crack in our own roof. We will not
   see by another man's candle, we would sooner remain in the dark."
   Brethren, do not let us fall into such folly. Let the light come from
   God, and though a child shall bring it, we will joyfully accept it. If
   any one of his servants, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, shall have
   received light from him, behold, "all are yours, and ye are Christ's,
   and Christ is God's," and therefore accept of the light which God has
   kindled, and ask for grace that you may turn that light upon the word
   so that when you read it you may understand it.

   I do not wish to say much more about this, but I should like to push it
   home upon some of you. You have Bibles at home, I know; you would not
   like to be without Bibles, you would think you were heathens if you had
   no Bibles. You have them very neatly bound, and they are very fine
   looking volumes: not much thumbed, not much worn, and not likely to be
   so, for they only come out on Sundays for an airing, and they lie in
   lavender with the clean pocket handkerchiefs all the rest of the week.
   You do not read the word, you do not search it, and how can you expect
   to get the divine blessing? If the heavenly gold is not worth digging
   for you are not likely to discover it. often and often have I told you
   that the searching of the Scriptures is not the way of salvation. The
   Lord bath said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
   saved." But, still, the reading of the word often leads, like the
   hearing of it, to faith, and faith bringeth salvation; for faith cometh
   by hearing, and reading is a sort of hearing. While you are seeking to
   know what the gospel is, it may please God to bless your souls. But
   what poor reading some of you give to your Bibles. I do not want to say
   anything which is too severe because it is not strictly true--let your
   own consciences speak, but still, I make bold to enquire,--Do not many
   of you read the Bible m a very hurried way--just a little bit, and off
   you go? Do you not soon forget what you have read, and lose what little
   effect it seemed to have? How few of you are resolved to get at its
   soul, its juice, its life, its essence, and to drink in its meaning.
   Well, if you do not do that, I tell you again your reading is miserable
   reading, dead reading, unprofitable reading; it is not reading at all,
   the name would be misapplied. May the blessed Spirit give you
   repentance touching this thing.

   II. But now, secondly, and very briefly, let us notice that IN READING
   WE OUGHT To SEEK OUT THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF THE WORD. I think that
   is in my text, because our Lord says, "Have ye not read?" Then, again,
   "Have ye not read?" and then he says, "If ye had known what this
   meaneth"--and the meaning is something very spiritual. The text he
   quoted was, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice"--a text out of the
   prophet Hosea. Now, the scribes and Pharisees were all for the
   letter--the sacrifice, the killing of the bullock, and so on. They
   overlooked the spiritual meaning of the passage, "I will have mercy,
   and not sacrifice"--namely, that God prefers that we should care for
   our fellow-creatures rather than that we should observe any ceremonial
   of his law, so as to cause hunger or thirst and thereby death, to any
   of the creatures that his hands have made. They ought to have passed
   beyond the outward into the spiritual, and all our readings ought to do
   the same.

   Notice, that this should be the case when we read the historical
   passages. "Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered,
   and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and
   did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither
   for them which were with him, but only for the priests?" This was a
   piece of history, and they ought so to have read it as to have found
   spiritual instruction in it. I have heard very stupid people say,
   "Well, I do not care to read the historical parts of Scripture."
   Beloved friends, you do not know what you are talking about when you
   say so. I say to you now by experience that I have sometimes found even
   a greater depth of spirituality in the histories than I have in the
   Psalms. You will say, "How is that?" I assert that when you reach the
   inner and spiritual meaning of a history you are often surprised at the
   wondrous clearness--the realistic force--with which the teaching comes
   home to your soul. Some of the most marvelous mysteries of revelation
   are better understood by being set before our eyes in the histories
   than they are by the verbal declaration of them. When we have the
   statement to explain the illustration, the illustration expands and
   vivifies the statement. For instance, when our Lord himself would
   explain to us what faith was, he sent us to the history of the brazen
   serpent; and who that has ever read the story of the brazen serpent has
   not felt that he has had a better idea of faith through the picture of
   the dying snake-bitten persons looking to the serpent of brass and
   living, than from any description which even Paul has given us,
   wondrously as he defines and describes. Never, I pray you, depreciate
   the historical portions of God's word, but when you cannot get good out
   of them, say, "That is my foolish head and my slow heart. o Lord, be
   pleased to clear my brain and cleanse my soul." When he answers that
   prayer you will feel that every portion of God's word is given by
   inspiration, and is and must be profitable to you. Cry, "open thou mine
   eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."

   Just the same thing is true with regard to all the ceremonial precepts,
   because the Saviour goes on to say, "Have ye not read in the law, how
   that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath,
   and are blameless?" There is not a~single precept in the old law but
   has an inner sense and meaning; therefore do not turn away from
   Leviticus, or say, "I cannot read these chapters in the books of Exodus
   and Numbers. They are all about the tribes and their standards, the
   stations in the wilderness and the halts of the march, the tabernacle
   and furniture, or about golden knobs and bowls, and boards, and
   sockets, and precious stones, and blue and scarlet and fine linen." No,
   but look for the inner meaning. Make thorough search; for as in a
   king's treasure that which is the most closely locked up and the
   hardest to come at is the choicest jewel of the treasure, so is it with
   the Holy Scriptures. Did you ever go to the British Museum Library?
   There are many books of reference there which the reader is allowed to
   take down when he pleases. There are other books for which he must
   write a ticket, and he cannot get them without the ticket; but they
   have certain choice books which you will not see without a special
   order, and then there is an unlocking of doors, and an opening of
   cases, and there is a watcher with you while you make your inspection.
   You are scarcely allowed to put your eye on the manuscript, for fear
   you should blot a letter out by glancing at it; it is such a precious
   treasure; there is not another copy of it in all the world, and so you
   cannot get at it easily. Just so, there are choice and precious
   doctrines of God's word which are locked up in such cases as Leviticus
   or Solomon's Song, and you cannot get at them without a deal of
   unlocking of doors and the Holy Spirit himself must be with you, or
   else you will never come at the priceless treasure. The higher truths
   are as choicely hidden away as the precious regalia of princes;
   therefore search as well as read. Do not be satisfied with a ceremonial
   precept till you reach its spiritual meaning, for that is true reading.
   You have not read till you understand the spirit of the matter.

   It is just the same with the doctrinal statements of God's word. I have
   sorrowfully observed some persons who are very orthodox, and who can
   repeat their creed very glibly, and yet the principal use that they
   make of their orthodoxy is to sit and watch the preacher with the view
   o framing a charge against him. He has uttered a single sentence which
   is judged to be half a hair's breadth below the standard! "That man is
   not sound. He said some good things, but he is rotten at the core, I am
   certain. He used an expression which was not eighteen ounces to the
   pound." Sixteen ounces to the pound are not enough for these dear
   brethren of whom I speak, they must have something more and over and
   above the shekel of the sanctuary. Their knowledge is used as a
   microscope to magnify trifling differences. I hesitate not to say that
   I have come across persons who

   "Could a hair divide

   Betwixt the west and north-west side,"

   in matters of divinity, but who know nothing about the things of God in
   their real meaning. They have never drunk them into their souls, but
   only sucked them up into their mouths to spit them out on others. The
   doctrine of election is one thing, but to know that God has
   predestinated you, and to have the fruit of it m the good works to
   which you are ordained, is quite another thing. To talk about the love
   of Christ, to talk about the heaven that is provided for his people,
   and such things--all this is very well; but this may be done without
   any personal acquaintance with them. Therefore, beloved, never be
   satisfied with a sound creed, but desire to have it graven on the
   tablets of your heart. The doctrines of grace are good, but the grace
   of the doctrines is better still. See that you have it, and be not
   content with the idea that you are instructed until you so understand
   the doctrine that you have felt its spiritual power.

   This makes us feel that, in order to come to this, we shall need to
   feel Jesus present with us whenever we read the word. Mark that fifth
   verse, which I would now bring before you as part of my text which I
   have hitherto left out. "Have ye not read in the law, how on the
   Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are
   blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than
   the temple." Ay, they thought much about the letter of the Word, but
   they did not know that he was there who is the Sabbath's Master--man's
   Lord and the Sabbath's Lord, and Lord of everything. oh, when you have
   got hold of a creed, or of an ordinance, or anything that is outward in
   the letter, pray the Lord to make you feel that there is something
   greater than the printed book, and something better than the mere shell
   of the creed. There is one person greater than they all, and to him we
   should cry that he may be ever with us. o living Christ, make this a
   living word to me. Thy word is life, but not without the Holy Spirit. I
   may know this book of thine from beginning to end, and repeat it all
   from Genesis to Revelation, and yet it may be a dead book, and I may be
   a dead soul. But, Lord, be present here; then will I look up from the
   book to the Lord; from the precept to him who fulfilled it; from the
   law to him who honoured it; from the threatening to him who has borne
   it for me, and from the promise to him in whom it is "Yea and amen."
   Ah, then we shall read the book so differently. He is here with me in
   this chamber of mine: I must not trifle. He leans over me, he puts his
   finger along the lines, I can see his pierced hand: I will read it as
   in his presence. I will read it, knowing that he is the substance of
   it,--that he is the proof of this book as well as the writer of it; the
   sum of this Scripture as well as the author of it. That is the way for
   true students to become wise! You will get at the soul of Scripture
   when you can keep Jesus with you while you are reading. Did you never
   hear a sermon as to which you felt that if Jesus had come into that
   pulpit while the man was making his oration, he would have said, "Go
   down, go down; what business have you here? I sent you to preach about
   me, and you preach about a dozen other things. Go home and learn of me,
   and then come and talk." That sermon which does not lead to Christ, or
   of which Jesus Christ is not the top and the bottom, is a sort of
   sermon that will make the devils in hell to laugh, but might make the
   angel of God to weep, if they were capable of such emotion. You
   remember the story I told you of the Welshman who heard a young man
   preach a very fine sermon--a grand sermon, a highfaluting, spread-eagle
   sermon; and when he had done, he asked the Welshman what he thought of
   it. The man replied that he did not think anything of it. "And why
   not?" "Because there was no Jesus Christ in it." "Well," said he, "but
   my text did not seem to run that way." "Never mind," said the Welshman,
   "your sermon ought to run that way." "I do not see that, however," said
   the young man. "No," said the other, "you do not see how to preach yet.
   This is the way to preach. From every little village in England--it
   does not matter where it is--there is sure to be a road to London.
   Though there may not be a road to certain other places, there is
   certain to be a road to London. Now, from every text in the Bible there
   is a road to Jesus Christ, and the way to preach is just to say, How
   can I get from this text to Jesus Christ?' and then go preaching all
   the way along it." "Well, but," said the young man, "suppose I find a
   text that has not got a road to Jesus Christ." "I have preached for
   forty years," said the old man, "and I have never found such a
   Scripture, but if I ever do find one I will go over hedge and ditch but
   what I will get to him, for I will never finish without bringing in my
   Master." Perhaps you will think that I have gone a little over hedge
   and ditch to-night, but I am persuaded that I have not for the sixth
   verse comes in here, and brings our Lord in most sweetly, setting him
   in the very forefront of you Bible readers, so that you must not think
   of reading without feeling that he is there who is Lord and Master of
   everything that you are reading, and who shall make these things
   precious to you if you realize him in them. If you do not find Jesus in
   the Scriptures they will be of small service to you, for what did our
   Lord himself say? "Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye
   have eternal life, but ye will not come unto me that ye might have
   life"; and therefore your searching comes to nothing; you find no life,
   and remain dead in your sins. May it not be so with us?

   III. Lastly, SUCH A READING OF SCRIPTURE, as implies the understanding
   of and the entrance into its spiritual meaning, and the discovery of
   the divine Person who is the spiritual meaning, IS PROFITABLE, for here
   our Lord says, "If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy,
   and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.~ It will
   save us from making a great many mistakes if we get to understand the
   word of God, and among other good things we shall not condemn the
   guiltless.

   I have no time to enlarge upon these benefits, but I will just say,
   putting all together, that the diligent reading of the word of God with
   the strong resolve to get at its meaning often begets spiritual life.
   We are begotten by the word of God: it is the instrumental means of
   regeneration. Therefore love your Bibles. Keep close to your Bibles.
   You seeking sinners, you who are seeking the Lord, your first business
   is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; but while you are yet in
   darkness and in gloom, oh love your Bibles and search them! Take them
   to bed with you, and when you wake up in the morning, if it is too
   early to go downstairs and disturb the house, get half-an-hour of
   reading upstairs. Say, "Lord, guide me to that text which shall bless
   me. Help me to understand how I, a poor sinner, can be reconciled to
   thee." I recollect how, when I was seeking the Lord, I went to my Bible
   and to Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," and to Alleine's "Alarm,"
   and Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," for I said in myself, "I am afraid
   that I shall be lost but I will know the reason why. I am afraid I
   never shall find Christ but it shall not be for want of looking for
   him." That fear used to haunt me, but I said, "I will find him if he is
   to be found. I will read. I will think." There was never a soul that
   did sincerely seek for Jesus in the word but by-and-by he stumbled on
   the precious truth that Christ was near at hand and did not want any
   looking for; that he was really there, only they, poor blind creatures,
   were in such a maze that they could not just then see him. Oh, cling
   you to Scripture. Scripture is not Christ, but it is the silken clue
   which will lead you to him. Follow its leadings faithfully.

   When you have received regeneration and a new life, keep on reading,
   because it will comfort you. You will see more of what the Lord has
   done for you. You will learn that you are redeemed, adopted, saved,
   sanctified. Half the errors in the world spring from people not reading
   their Bibles. Would anybody think that the Lord would leave any one of
   his dear children to perish, if he read such a text as this,--"I give
   unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
   any pluck them out of my hand"? When I read that, I am sure of the
   final perseverance of the saints. Read, then, the word and it will be
   much for your comfort.

   It will be for your nourishment, too. It is your food as well as your
   life. Search it and you will grow strong in the Lord and in the power
   of his might.

   It will be for your guidance also. I am sure those go rightest who keep
   closest to the book. Oftentimes when you do not know what to do, you
   will see a text leaping up out of the book, and saying, "Follow me." I
   have seen a promise sometimes blaze out before my eyes, just as when an
   illuminated device flames forth upon a public building. One touch of
   flame and a sentence or a design flashes out in gas. I have seen a text
   of Scripture flame forth in that way to my soul; I have known that it
   was God's word to me, and I have gone on my way rejoicing.

   And, oh, you will get a thousand helps out of that wondrous book if you
   do but read it; for, understanding the words more, you will prize it
   more, and, as you get older, the book will grow with your growth, and
   turn out to be a greybeard's manual of devotion just as it was
   aforetime a child's sweet story book. Yes, it will always be a new
   book--just as new a Bible as it was printed yesterday, and nobody had
   ever seen a word of it till now; and yet it will be a deal more
   precious for all the memories which cluster round it. As we turn over
   its pages how sweetly do we recollect passages in our history which
   will never be forgotten to all eternity, but will stand for ever
   intertwined with gracious promises. Beloved, the Lord teach us to read
   his book of life which he has opened before us here below, so that we
   may read our titles clear in that other book of love which we have not
   seen as yet, but which will be opened at the last great day. The Lord
   be with you, and bless you.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 119:97-112.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--445, 119 (Song I.), 478.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Swift Camels

   (No. 1504)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in
   multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry. And Solomon reigned
   over all kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and
   unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all
   the days of his life. And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty
   measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen,
   and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside
   harts, and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl. For he had
   dominion over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even
   to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace
   on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every
   man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba,
   all the days of Solomon. And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of
   horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen. And those
   officers provided victuals for King Solomon, and for all that came unto
   King Solomon's table, every man in his month: they lacked nothing.
   Barley also and straw for the horses and camels brought they unto the
   place where the officers were, every man according to his charge." 1
   Kings 4:20-28.

   We will read a few verses first, and at the close of them you will find
   the text.

   The last words are the text for this occasion. From the whole passage
   you will see that the kingdom of Israel under the sway of Solomon was a
   fair type of the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps it most
   exactly describes His future dominion, in the long-expected Glory of
   the latter days. The present state of the Church may be compared to the
   reign of David, splendid with victories, but disturbed with battles.
   But there are better days to come, days in which the kingdom shall be
   extended and become more manifest--and then the Lord Jesus Christ shall
   be even more conspicuously seen as the Solomon of the kingdom, "who
   shall have dominion from sea to sea."

   Yet even now, as "we that have believed do enter into rest," so do we
   also enter into the richest provision which is made in the Covenant of
   Grace, even at this present time. And I may say of all who have come
   under the sway of Christ, that we dwell in a region of peace, seated,
   every man, under his vine and fig tree and none making us afraid.
   "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
   Jesus," and, "therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with
   God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "The peace of God which passes all
   understanding" does keep our heart and mind by Jesus Christ.

   Israel under Solomon had abundance as well as peace. What says the
   historian? They were "as the sand which is by the sea in multitude,
   eating and drinking and making merry." It is said that there was such
   plenty in the land in Solomon's time that gold was of no more value
   than silver and silver became of little more value than iron! And as
   for the other metals, they were little accounted of. So common had
   precious metals become, they were scarcely precious any longer, they
   were so plentiful! The whole land flowed with milk and honey and the
   people rejoiced and were glad. Certainly the Lord Jesus Christ has
   brought His people into a state of the greatest plenty, for, "all
   things are yours; whether things present, or things to come; or life,
   or death; all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's."

   What plenty must that man have to whom the Lord has said, "No good
   thing will I withhold from them that walk uprightly"! "Whatever you
   shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." He has given us
   carte blanche in prayer. He has put into our hands the keys of His
   treasury and has bid us take what we will! He has said, "Delight
   yourself also in

   the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." And He has
   added, "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it." If we have not, it is
   "because we ask not, or because we ask amiss."

   So, too, we dwell in a kingdom which is ruled with wisdom. It is said
   of Solomon, in this chapter, that he had wisdom and understanding
   exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand on the sea
   shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of
   the east country and all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Is not this,
   also, our honor and privilege? Behold, this day the Lord Jesus Christ
   is "made unto us wisdom." "We have an unction from the Holy One, and
   know all things" while we dwell in Him, for, "the secret of the Lord is
   with them that fear Him, and He will show them His Covenant." "If any
   man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine." "All your children
   shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your
   children."

   Therefore we dwell under a rule of wisdom, which wisdom imparts itself
   to each one of us according to his capacity to receive it, yes, even to
   those whose experience is but shallow--"to teach the young men wisdom,
   and the babes knowledge and discretion." "If any man lacks wisdom, let
   him ask of God that gives to all men liberally and upbraids not."
   Israel had a king who was full ofpower. Solomon had squadrons of horse
   and chariots of war and he was so strong that the kings of the earth
   dared not come into conflict with him, but paid him tribute. As for our
   King, He has better forces than horses and chariots of war, for He has
   but to speak to His Father and He will presently send Him 20 legions of
   angels!

   All power is delivered unto Him in Heaven and in earth. The fullness of
   the Godhead dwells in Him for the defense and help of His people. And
   if you will but open your eyes, you shall see horses of fire and
   chariots of fire round about your Lord. Hosts of angels are ascending
   and descending upon the Son of Man and all Heaven is in motion for the
   purposes of God in Christ Jesus. Not an angel stands still beneath the
   sway of Christ, but each one either ascends or descends to do his
   Master's bidding! Talk of mighty princes--He is the Prince of the kings
   of the earth, the "blessed and only Potentate," to whom belongs rule
   over all principalities and powers!

   I might go on with the parallel, but that is not the object of my
   discourse. The great kingdom of Solomon was managed by a well-appointed
   body of officers and certain persons were set over each province, who,
   among other duties, had to provide for king Solomon's table and stable.
   The table was very sumptuously furnished, as you saw in the reading,
   and in the stable stood horses of war and also swift camels which were
   used in the same manner as our modern post-horses--to carry messages
   rapidly from one station to another. These swift horses and camels were
   made to run from town to town with the royal mandates and thus the
   whole country was kept in speedy communication with the capital.
   Appointed officers were bound to provide for these horses and camels
   and all else that concerned the king's business.

   My subject at this time will illustrate the likeness between this
   arrangement and the methods of our Lord's kingdom.

   I. First we shall note that EACH OF SOLOMON'S OFFICERS HAD A CHARGE.
   The text says, "Every man according to his charge." We have officers
   about modern courts who may be highly ornamental, but when you have
   said that, there is very little else to add. On high days and holidays
   they wear many decorations and glitter in their stars and garters and
   sumptuous garments--but what particular charge they fulfill, it is
   beyond my power to say. In Solomon's court all his officers had a
   service to carry out, "every man according to his charge."

   It is exactly so in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are
   truly His, He has called us to some work and office and He wills us to
   discharge that office diligently. We are not to be gentlemen-at-ease,
   but men-at-arms; not loiterers, but laborers; not glittering spangles,
   but burning and shining lights! It is an exceeding glory to be the
   lowest servant of King Jesus! It is more honor to be a dishwasher in
   Christ's kitchen than to be a peer of the realm! The meanest position
   that can be occupied in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, if any can be mean
   in such a service, has a touch of Divine Glory about it and if we
   rightfully discharge it, though it is only to wash the saints' feet, we
   partake in the honor of our Master, who Himself did not disdain to do
   the same.

   But no man is put in any office in the Church that he may merely be
   ornamental. We are set in our places with an end and design, every man
   according to his charge--every woman according to her charge. My dear
   Brother, you do not occupy the post of a minister or a pastor that you
   may be respected, but that you may "adorn the doctrine of God, your
   Savior, in all things." You are not, my dear Brother, ordained to be an
   elder or a deacon in a Church that our Lord may put honor upon you,
   though He does put honor upon you in it, but that you may bring glory
   to God--that the people may see the Grace of God in you--and may
   magnify God in you! Churches were not made for ministers, but ministers
   for

   churches! We who are officers in the Church are not ordained for our
   own sakes, but for the people's sake and we should always remember that
   fact and live with it before our eyes.

   Dear Friend, if you are called to teach in the school. If you are
   called to visit from house to house, or to act as a City Missionary, or
   a Bible Woman, you have work to do and you must do it well, or render a
   sorrowful account at the last. Office is not given to you that you may
   get credit by it and have the honor of filling it, but that you may do
   real service to your Lord and Master Jesus Christ. No servant of Christ
   can be faithful if he regards that title as one of barren honor
   involving no responsibility. If we would be servants and officers under
   our great King, we must bow our necks to the yoke and not imagine that
   it will suffice to bind burdens upon other men's shoulders and act as
   lookers-on ourselves. It is said of Job's cattle, that "the oxen were
   plowing and the asses were feeding beside them." But in our Lord's
   fields, we must all be oxen and steadily keep to the furrow.

   Those who served Solomon were officers under a strict king, for such
   was his wisdom that he would not tolerate unfaithfulness in any office.
   He chose the best men and so long as he retained them, he meant
   business and expected prompt attention. If they did not do their duty,
   he did his and sent them packing. It is very much so in the Church of
   Jesus Christ. I am not speaking as if the children of God could perish,
   but I do say this--in the service of Christ if you are not a faithful
   servant you will soon have to make room for another. You may be laid
   aside by sickness and then you will have suffering instead of serving.
   Or you may be made to drop into the rear rank and go behind and weep in
   sorrow because you did not faithfully do your duty in the front.

   Remember that text, "The Lord your God is a jealous God," and rest
   assured that our Lord Jesus Christ is like His Father--He will have the
   diligent obedience of His servants and their faithful zeal--or else He
   will chastise them and take away their commissions! "Be you clean," He
   says, "that bear the vessels of the Lord," for He will be had in
   reverence of them that are about Him--and unholy servants and
   unfaithful servants shall soon find that their Master can do without
   them. Many a minister has had to come away from a place of advantage
   because he did not zealously use it to win souls and lead the people on
   to the holy war.

   I do not doubt that many rising officers have been sent back to the
   ranks because the Commander-in-Chief could not have patience with them
   any longer in their positions. They were removed because they
   discouraged their fellow soldiers and checked the progress of the
   campaign. Do not suppose that our Lord Jesus Christ is any less strict
   in His discipline than Moses, for love is always severe towards those
   it highly favors. I greatly question the love of that man who can
   tolerate unchastity in his wife--certainly the Husband of the Church
   will not do so! The love of our Lord Jesus is of so fervent a character
   that He cannot bear a divided heart, or a negligent walk in any of us.
   There is a text which some Christian people do not like and so they cut
   the heart out of it--"Our God is a consuming fire."

   They say, "God, out of Christ, is a consuming fire." The text does not
   say that! It speaks of, "Our God," and that means our Covenant God, our
   God in Christ and it is God in Christ Jesus who is a consuming fire!
   Beware how you deal with Him, for while His love is strong as death,
   His jealousy is cruel as the grave! And if our hearts and motives and
   aims in His service once become divided, it will be as great a crime as
   if one of Solomon's servants should have been playing into the hands of
   Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Solomon would have taken care that a man
   who had two lords should not have him for one of them! None of us can
   serve two masters--certainly, if Christ is one of them, He will be the
   only one! A divided heart is abhorrence to the loving Savior and we
   must not insult Him with it.

   The officers of Solomon were also obliged to recollect that the orderly
   working of the whole system depended upon each one of them. That is to
   say, Solomon had so arranged it that there was a certain troop of
   horses in a certain town and the appointed officer must see to their
   fodder--barley and straw were to be on the spot in full quantity for
   the horses at that particular depot. It would not have done to send it
   anywhere else and, if an officer had failed to supply his department,
   the horses must have starved and the system been thrown out of gear.
   Now, in any well arranged Christian Church, a Christian who is not
   faithful to his charge little knows what mischief he does. But, as far
   as he can, he puts the whole machine out of gear and, apart from the
   interposing mercy and supreme wisdom of Christ, he would throw the
   whole economy of the Lord's house into disorder.

   Brothers and Sisters, we think when we neglect a part of our service
   that it ends there, but it does not! A father neglects his duty to his
   children--there is mischief to the child, but it goes further--that
   child in later life spreads the evil by his example and transmits it to
   his descendants. Yes, to his children's children after him! A Christian
   man in a

   Church keeps in the background when he should be in the front, or he
   comes to the front when he should be in the rear and this is just the
   upsetting of the whole business so that affairs cannot move smoothly.
   The little Church cannot prosper because an influential member is where
   he ought not to be!

   In a great house, the servants must keep their places and if the cook
   will persist in doing the chambermaid's duties and does not prepare the
   meals, everything is in a muddle! And if, on the other hand, the maid
   who has to clean the rooms neglects that duty, but thinks she must be
   in the kitchen, there will be no comfort either by day or by night! You
   can all see the bearing of this upon a Christian Church. To change the
   figure, a Church is like a house and if the windows are put where the
   doors should be, or if what should make the roof is laid on the floor,
   the house is out of order. To be "fitly framed together" is the true
   condition of the Lord's house.

   The Church is also compared to the body. If the eye should transfer
   itself to the foot, or if the ear should move to the hand, or if the
   hand should take the place of the foot, or the foot should attempt to
   do the work of the mouth, our comely frames would become monstrosities!
   So it must be in the system of the Church of Jesus Christ if His
   arrangements are broken through. Under God everything depends upon each
   child of God having his "charge" and looking well to it. If he does not
   look well to his own department, the Christian man does damage to
   others as well as to himself.

   In Solomon's kingdom it came to pass that the spirit of the king
   infused itself into all his officers and, therefore, the country was
   well governed. Beloved, I pray that it may be so with this Church and
   with all the Churches of Jesus Christ, that the Spirit of our great
   King may infuse itself into us all! Nothing makes men fight like having
   a hero for a leader. When Cromwell came to the front, nobody was
   afraid. Away went the cavaliers like chaff before the wind when once he
   was present! And, surely, when our glorious Master, the Captain of our
   salvation, the Standard Bearer among ten thousand, is seen to be in the
   midst of a Church, then everything goes well and we all fight with
   confidence and daring.

   One man sometimes seems to have the power of pervading thousands of
   other men. His spirit appears to govern, to move, to stir the hearts of
   his fellow men till the man lives in them all! And so is it supremely
   with the Lord Christ! We live in Him and He lives in us. If we are all
   moved by the Spirit which dwells in Jesus--the Spirit of love, of
   self-denial, of consuming zeal and of ardor--then all will be done
   gloriously! If we imitate His consecration, His prayerfulness, His
   boldness and His gentleness, what a troop shall we make and how well
   will our Solomon's kingdom be administered!

   Only one more thought here. When Solomon's kingdom came to mischief it
   was through one of his officers. You remember that when Solomon died,
   Jeroboam split the kingdom in two and he was a runaway servant.
   Whenever a Church comes to ruin, we grieve to confess that it is
   generally through its own officers. I fear it is more often the
   ministers than any other persons! The great heresies which have
   infested the Church have not sprung from the mass of the people, but
   from certain famous leaders. And at this day the heart of our Churches,
   I believe, is infinitely more sound than the ministry! I wish it were
   not so, but I cannot conceal my fears.

   When our Lord was betrayed, it was not by private followers such as
   Mary Magdalene, Zaccheus, or Joseph of Arimathaea--but by Judas, the
   treasurer of the College of Apostles. It was an Apostle who sold his
   Master for 30 pieces of silver. Still the fault is equally grievous if
   it is committed by the lowest officer. As I have already said, we are
   all servants--we are all clothed with responsibilities and we can, if
   the Holy Spirit shall leave us to it, do grievous damage--more damage
   than the outside world can ever accomplish!

   Let the raging crowd surround Zion's walls! Let them cast up their
   banks and seek to shoot their arrows there. But lo, the virgin daughter
   of Zion has shaken her head at her foes and laughed them to scorn! But
   when the traitor comes within--when it is written, "Judas, also, which
   betrayed Him, knew the place"--then is the Master betrayed in the
   garden where He resorted for prayer. When from the heart of the Church
   there springs a serpent, even her Head must be stung! Let the question
   go round, "Lord, is it I?" And may God, in His Grace, grant that none
   of us may ever betray our charge and so bring damage to the glorious
   cause and kingdom of our blessed King!

   II. Our second head is somewhat like the first. We now note that EACH
   MAN WAS BOUND TO ACT

   ACCORDING TO HIS CHARGE--"Every man according to his charge." The
   officers were bound to obey their orders, first, as to matter. Certain
   of them had to provide fat oxen for Solomon's table and others had to
   see that the roebucks were hunted and that the fowls were hunted for
   the same purpose, while others were commissioned to provide the barley
   and the straw for the horses and the camels. As I have already said, if
   they had gone out of place--if the man who had to

   provide the barley for the horses had fed the chickens with it and if
   the officer who was bound to hunt the roebucks had occupied himself
   with carting the straw--there would have been great confusion.

   And so, dear Brother, when you will not do what you were evidently
   meant to do and are quite able to do, but must attempt something quite
   out of your range, all goes amiss. Observe your own body--if your ear
   were to have a feeling that it ought to eat instead of hear, the mouth
   would be interfered with and the feeding of the frame would be very
   badly done. The eye is a very serviceable member, but if it persisted
   in refusing to see and must take to hearing, we should be run over in
   the streets! Each member has its own office in the body and must attend
   to its own work and not to the office of another.

   Dear Friend, have you found out what you can do--what the Lord has
   fitted you to do and what He has blessed you in doing? Then keep to it
   and do it better and better! And by no means complain of your vocation.
   Do not find fault with others whose work differs from your own. The eye
   would be very foolish if it should say, "Do not tell me about that
   frivolous member, the ear--it is of no use--it only knows what it is
   told and it is so blind that it could not see a house if it were within
   a yard of it, nor even a mountain a mile high." Equally idle would it
   be if the ear should say, "Do not tell me about the mouth. It is a
   selfish organ, always wanting to be fed. It is good for nothing, for it
   cannot hear and if a cannon were fired off close to it, it would not
   perceive it."

   Neither may the mouth say, "That roving foot is always running about.
   Why does it not work like the hand?" Nor may the hand find fault with
   the tongue because it boasts great things and does nothing. There would
   be sad confusion in the body if such a spirit prevailed! But the hand
   keeps to its work and even there is a subdivision of service. The
   little finger plays a part which the thumb cannot fulfill. And there is
   something for the thumb which the forefinger cannot do. So should it be
   in the Church of God--you should each find out what you can do and then
   seek, God the Holy Spirit helping you, to do that to the very best of
   your ability out of love to Jesus Christ.

   Observe that with Solomon it was "every man according to his charge" as
   to measure, for if a man had charge of a stable where there were 2,000
   horses, he had to send in more barley and straw than the officer who
   superintended a smaller stable of only 500 horse. The purveyor who was
   ordered to supply Solomon's table with fat bullocks had to send more
   than he who fed the tables of the inferior officers. Note this well,
   for certain of us are bound to do much more than others. Some of us
   bear heavy responsibilities and if we were to say, "I shall do no more
   than anybody else! I need not overburden myself," we should be unfit to
   occupy the position to which God has called us.

   Dear Friends, I am not afraid that any of you will do too much for
   Jesus Christ, but I would like you to try! Just see now whether you can
   be too ardent, too self-sacrificing, too zealous, or too consecrated!
   It is a pity that such a thing is never attempted. I have never known
   anybody who could accuse himself of so rare a crime! Oh, no, we all
   feel that all we can do, and more, is well deserved by our blessed
   Master who has given us our charge. Do not forget that you who are
   fathers ought to be better men than those single men who have no
   children to look up to them and to copy their example. You who are
   large employers ought to be better men because your workmen will watch
   how you live. You who have talents and abilities ought to be more
   active than those who have none, for five talents call for more
   interest than one.

   Remember the rule of proportion. If you have five talents and your
   brother has only one, you may do twice as much as he does and yet fall
   short. He is faithful with his small capital, but your proportion is
   five times as much and, therefore, twice as much falls short of what is
   expected from you. Many a servant girl gives her four penny-piece to
   the offering and if the same proportion were carried out among those
   who are wealthy, gold would not be so rare a metal in the Lord's
   treasury! A tithe may be too much for some, but a half might not be
   enough for another! Let it be, "Every man according to his charge," as
   to measure as well as to matter. "Every man according to his charge,"
   applied to place, for if the servant who had to send in barley for the
   camels to Jerusalem had sent it off to Joppa, or if the Joppa man had
   sent all his fodder to Jericho, there would have been considerable
   trouble and outcry in the stables!

   And if the fatted beef and the venison for Solomon's table, when he
   stopped in the house of the forest of Lebanon, had been sent over to
   his other house on Mount Zion, the king would have had his table poorly
   supplied. Some men are not satisfied to serve God in their proper
   place--they must run 50 miles off, or a hundred, before they can work.
   Is this right? I remember a little text in the Proverbs--"As a bird
   that wanders from her nest, so is a man that wanders from his place."
   There is a sphere for every star which decks the sky and a blade of
   grass for every drop of dew which spangles the mead. Oh that everyone
   would keep his place!

   Very much depends on position. Statues upon a building may look
   magnificent and seem to be in fine proportion, but if those statues
   were, one night, to say, "We do not like standing up here in this
   exposed place. We will walk down and stand in the public square," you
   would see, at once, that the artist never meant them to be there, for
   they would be out of proportion in their new position. So a man is a
   man when he keeps his niche, but he may be a nobody if he leaves it.
   Many a man have I known who has done nothing till he has found his
   place and then he has astonished his friends. I find it so with young
   men entering the ministry--a Brother has not succeeded. In fact, he has
   been an utter failure in his first position and yet, when God has
   opened the proper door for him, he has done marvels! Why did he not
   succeed before? Because he was out of his place.

   The best thing applied to the purpose for which it is not suited is a
   mere waste. And the best man in an unsuitable position may unwittingly
   be a hindrance to the cause he loves. Solomon's officer would have been
   very foolish if he had sent his barley down to Dan when it was his duty
   to supply Beersheba! Find your place, good Brother, and do not be in a
   hurry to move. He who works in a shop in a dozen towns in a dozen years
   will, at the end, look in vain for a shop which will hire him! The
   spirit of roving tends to poverty. Those who are eager to move because
   they imagine that they will leave their troubles behind them are much
   deceived, for these are found everywhere. You may soon get into some
   such predicament as Jonah, who thought that all would be well if he
   could avoid Nineveh trials, but he had forgotten the troubles of being
   aboard ship in a storm.

   I do not suppose he ever ran away to Tarshish again. That one
   experiment satisfied him and I hope you will profit by his experience.
   Do not try running away on your own account, for if you endeavor to
   escape your Lord's hard work, I would have you remember that the sea is
   quite as tempestuous now, as ever, and whales are fewer now than in
   Jonah's day--and not at all so likely to carry a live man to shore!
   Keep your place, "every man according to his charge." Once more, every
   man was to act according to his charge as to time, because the passage
   speaks of each one, "in his month." If the January man had taken care
   to provide for Solomon's table in February, what would have happened?
   There was a man for February and there would have been two supplies for
   one month, but none for the first weeks of the year!

   If the August officer had kept back the corn till September which was
   needed by the horses and the camels in August, what would the poor
   creatures have done during that month? While the barley was coming, the
   steeds would have been starving. In serving Christ there is a great
   deal in being up to time, punctual in everything. Not tomorrow,
   Brother-- not tomorrow, that is somebody else's day--today is the day
   for you! Up and do the day's work. Some soul is to be won for Christ,
   some Truth of God to be vindicated, some deed of kindly charity to be
   worked, some holy prevalent prayer to be offered and it is to be done
   at once.

   As always tomorrow's sun has risen, see that you have carried out your
   charge, for time in reference to these solemn matters is life.
   Promptness we always admire in responsible persons. If they have any
   public duty to do, we cannot endure to see men leaving matters in
   arrears, to be done by-and-by, or never done at all. If Jesus Christ
   "straightway" did this and that, as Mark always takes care to tell us
   He did, let us imitate His promptness and serve God without the
   sluggard's delays.

   III. I close with the third point, that EACH MAN WOULD RECEIVE SUPPLIES
   "ACCORDING TO HIS

   CHARGE." I do not quite understand the precise and definite bearing of
   my text. Surely it means not only that one set of officers was to send
   in the barley, but that another set of officers was to receive the
   barley and the straw in proportion to the number of horses and camels.
   "Barley also and straw for the horses and camels brought they unto the
   place where the officers were, every man according to his charge." That
   is to say, according to the number of horses to be provided for, such
   was the amount of corn and of straw that was sent in for their food.

   So I gather, first, that concerning the servants of our Lord Jesus
   Christ a great charge from Him is a guarantee of great supplies. There
   is something very comfortable about this as to temporals. Some declare
   that God sends mouths and does not send bread, or at least they say He
   sends the mouths to one house and the bread to another. If it is so,
   those who get too much bread should send it round to their neighbors.
   Yet I note that somehow where there are mouths, bread does come. It
   often amazes me, I must confess, and it brings tears to my eyes when I
   see it and, indeed, it is perfectly amazing that poor widows with a
   swarm of little children feed them in some fashion.

   The poor woman comes to the Orphanage about a little boy and she does
   not like to part with him, but need compels. And when we have said, "My
   good woman, how many children had you when your husband died?" she has

   replied, "Seven, Sir, and none of them able to earn a penny." "You have
   been fighting your way alone these three or four years, how have you
   done it?" "Ah, Sir," she answers, "God only knows. I cannot tell you."
   No, no and there are many of God's dear children who could not tell you
   how they lived, but they have lived and their children, too! The Lord
   leaves them a great charge and in His own way He sends a supply. Most
   of us have found that if our King sends us the camels, He sends us the
   barley. It has been so in my case in the matter of our 250 orphan
   children at Stockwell. Our gracious God has always sent us enough and
   the boys have known no lack. And when we receive another 250 children
   and have girls as well as boys, I feel sure our heavenly Father will
   provide for them all.

   I hope you will all remember that the provision must come
   instrumentally through the Lord's own people and much of it through the
   readers and hearers of the sermons, but come it will! If my Lord puts
   more camels into my stable, I shall look for the corresponding increase
   in the barley and the straw, for I am quite sure He will send it. When
   I think of my dear friend, Mr. George Muller, with 2,050 orphan
   children and nothing to depend upon, as they say, but just prayer and
   faith, I rejoice greatly! He never has a fear or a need and is as
   restful as if he were an Incarnate Sabbath! If we had 20,000 orphans to
   feed, our Master is quite able to supply them all! He feeds the
   universe and we may well trust Him. If we have a simple, childlike
   faith, we shall find that a great charge is a guarantee of a great
   supply--"Every man according to his charge."

   As it is in temporals, so is it in Grace. When God gives a man a few
   people to look after, He gives him Grace enough. And when He gives him
   10 times that number, He gives him more of His Holy Spirit. And when He
   gives him a hundred times that number, He increases the Divine
   anointing. If the Lord sends you a little trial, dear Brother, you
   shall have Grace enough. And if He sends you a huge trial, you shall
   still have Grace enough! If He gives you some little work to do in the
   back settlements, your strength shall be as your day. And if He allots
   you a great charge in the front of the enemy's fire, you shall not come
   short. "Every man according to his charge." You will not have a
   farthing's worth of Grace over.

   You shall never have so much that you can boast about it and talk of
   having lived for months without sinning and the like kind of nonsense!
   You shall be forced to feel that when you have done all, you are an
   unprofitable servant. Never in my life have I had, in the morning, left
   from yesterday's manna as much as would cover a three penny-piece. I
   have always been so hungry that I have had to devour all I could get
   then and there. I have lived from hand to mouth--the hand has been that
   of my Lord, which is always full, and the mouth has been mine--and it
   has been always gaping for more. When, in my ministry, I have had a
   double quantity of food, I have had a double number to feed upon it!
   The Lord's Grace has been sufficient for my necessities, but it has
   never left me room for glorying in self. Still, take it as a sure fact
   that a great charge is a guarantee of a great supply.

   Now we will turn the Truth of God over and say that a great supply
   indicates a great charge. O that some would think of this! A man has
   grown richer than he used to be. Brother, with more barley and more
   straw you ought to keep more camels. I mean that God did not send that
   corn for the mice to destroy, but He means it to be eaten. When God
   gives men money or means of any sort, they ought to feel that they are
   His stewards and must use all they have for their Master! If you do not
   use it, but hoard it, it will happen to you as once befell a little
   brook. It had always been running and rippling along, rolling its
   gladsome stream down to the river and thus always emptying itself, but
   remaining full. This little brook became greedy and said, "I have been
   too extravagant. I have made no provision for the hot summer weather. I
   always give all I get--it keeps running through me in one perpetual
   stream and none of it stays. This must be altered. I will make a great
   store and become full."

   So there came a bank across it--it was dammed up and the waters kept on
   swelling and rising. After a little time the water turned green and
   foul. It became encumbered with all sorts of weeds, was the haunt of
   all manner of creeping things and gave forth an offensive smell. It
   became a very great nuisance to the villagers and they called in the
   sanitary commissioners to get rid of it, for it was breeding fever.
   What now, you once sparkling brook? What an end has come to your bright
   and cheerful life! Do you see the drift of the parable? Remember that
   in Palestine there is one sea which always receives and never gives
   out. What is its name? The Dead Sea. It must always be the Dead Sea
   while this is its character. If they were to cut a channel into the
   great ocean, to let its waters run away, it might grow sweet, but
   otherwise it never can do so.

   The man who receives much but gives nothing is dead while he lives! He
   who has great receipts should reckon that he has a great charge and act
   accordingly. When a Brother has great talents, great possessions, great
   influence--when he is

   great at anything--by God's Grace let him say, "God requires great
   things of me; for to whom much is given, him shall much be required."
   It is a law of the Kingdom of Christ--a law which He will take care is
   always carried out. So I finish up with this. Somebody will say, "I
   could almost wish that I could escape from the responsibility of being
   a servant of Christ." Dear Brother, take note of these two or three
   facts. You cannot better your circumstances as a servant of Christ by
   diminishing your charge! If you say, "I shall not attempt quite so
   much," you will not improve your circumstances by that course, for if
   you diminish work, the Lord will diminish the strength.

   Our great Solomon will stop some of the supplies if you have fewer
   camels to feed and so you will be no better off. If you have to keep
   six, He will give you provision for six. If you take to keeping three,
   He will only give you supplies for three and you will be poorer, rather
   than richer! Neither can you improve your circumstances by entirely and
   only increasing the supply! For if you receive more straw and barley,
   certainly our Solomon will send you more camels! When you have more
   strength you will have more trials. When God's children do not
   discharge their service with the means which He entrusts to them, He
   frequently lets them take shares in a "limited liability company" which
   is the same thing as throwing your money into the river. Or He leaves
   them to become shareholders in a breaking bank with unlimited
   catastrophe as its capital--and this is more terrible still!

   It often happens to a man who has scraped and saved and yet stinted the
   cause of Christ, that in his later years, he is in straits and he cries
   to himself, "It is all gone and I wish I had used it better before it
   went. It would have been far better to give it to the Lord than to see
   the lawyers devour it." Ah, your sin has found you out! Your Master
   could not trust you and so He has taken away His goods from you and now
   you wish that you had behaved yourself. Let us take warning from such
   bad managers and let us see to it that as our charge is, so we cry for
   supplies--and that as the supplies come, we use them wisely.

   Everything for Jesus, the glorious Solomon of our hearts, the Beloved
   of our souls! Life for Jesus! Death for Jesus! Time for Jesus! Eternity
   for Jesus! Hand and heart for Jesus! Brain and tongue for Jesus! Night
   and day for Jesus! Sickness or health for Jesus! Honor or dishonor for
   Jesus! Shame or glory for Jesus! Everything for Jesus, "every man
   according to his charge." So may it be! Amen.

   [The original title of this sermon was The Dromedaries.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Prayer to God in Trouble an Acceptable Sacrifice

   (No. 1505)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 9, 1879

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you
   shall glorify Me." Psalm 50:15.

   THE Lord God in this Psalm is described as having a controversy with
   His people. He summons Heaven and earth to hear Him while He utters His
   reproof. This indictment will show us what it is that the Lord sets the
   greatest store by, for His complaint will evidently touch upon that
   point. We are informed most plainly that the Lord had no controversy
   with His people concerning the externals of His worship. He does not
   reprove them for their sacrifices and burnt offerings. He even speaks
   of these symbolic sacrifices and says--"I will take no bullock out of
   your house, nor he goats out of your folds." His complaint was not
   concerning visible ceremony and outward ritual and this shows that He
   does not attach so much importance to outward things as most men
   suppose Him to do.

   His complaint was concerning inner worship, soul worship, spiritual
   worship! His reproof was that His people did not offer thanksgiving and
   prayer and that their conduct was so inconsistent with their
   professions that, clearly, their hearts went not with their outward
   formalities. This was the essence of the charge against them. They were
   faulty, not in visible religiousness, but in the internal and vital
   part of godliness--they had no true communion with God though they kept
   up the appearance of it. We see, then, that heart worship is the most
   precious thing in the sight of the Lord. We learn what is that
   priceless jewel which must be set in the gold ring of religion if the
   Lord is to accept it.

   Nor is it hard to see why it is so, for it is plain that if a man had
   kept the ritual of the old Law to the very fullest, he still might not
   be, in sincerity, a worshipper of God at all. He might drive whole
   flocks of his sheep to the Temple door for sacrifice and yet he might
   feel no spiritual reverence for the Most High. It has been proven times
   without number that the most careful and zealous attention to external
   ceremonies is quite consistent with the absolute absence of any true
   apprehension of God and hearty love for Him. Habit may keep a man
   outwardly religious long after his mind has forgotten the Lord! Yes,
   the conscious lack of inward and vital Grace may drive a man to a more
   intense zeal in formalities in order to conceal his defect.

   It is written, "Israel has forsaken his Maker and builds temples." You
   would think if he built temples he must recognize his God, but it was
   not so. Within those buildings he hid himself from Him who dwells not
   in temples made with hands. Beneath the folds of vestments, men smother
   up their hearts so that they come not to God. Fine music drowns the cry
   of the contrite soul and the smoke of incense becomes a cloud which
   conceals the face of the Most High! Great sacrifices might often be an
   offering made to a rich man's personal pride. No doubt certain kings
   that gave great contributions to the house of God did it to show their
   wealth or to display their generosity, somewhat in the spirit of Jehu,
   who said to Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, "Come with me and see my zeal
   for the Lord."

   A great sacrifice might be nothing more than a bid for popularity and
   so an offering to selfishness and vanity. With such sacrifices God
   would not be well pleased. Alas, how easy it is to defile the worship
   of God and nullify its quality till, like milk which is soured, it may
   be utterly rejected. I am sure you know right well that it may be so in
   the simplest form of public worship such as our own. Bare as is our
   mode of service, there is room for self. Singers may lift up their
   sweet voices that others may hear how charmingly they sing. Ministers
   may preach with graceful eloquence that they may be admired as men who
   are models of exquisite speech. Believers may even pray devoutly that
   their fellow Christians may see how gracious they are.

   Alas, this blight of self may come into any and every part of outward
   service and turn the worship of God into an occasion for
   self-glorification! Thus does Belshazzar drink out of the vessels of
   the sanctuary while the buyers and sellers turn the temple into a den
   of thieves. Wonder not, therefore, that God looks with but scant
   complacency--I was about to say with bare tolerance--upon the abundance
   of outward worship because He sees how easy it is for it not to be His

   worship at all, but a mere exhibition of man's carnal glorying. Many,
   too, have performed outward worship with a view to merit somewhat of
   the Lord--they have supposed that God would be their debtor if they
   were zealous in furnishing His altars and frequenting His courts. If
   they have not put it in that coarse form, it has certainly come to
   that, that they hoped to be held worthy of particular regard if they
   were zealous above others.

   Some have superstitiously dreamed of obtaining prosperity in this world
   by observing holy days and seasons. And many more have hoped to have it
   set to their account at the Last Great Day that they have heaped up the
   offertory, or given a painted window, or built an almshouse, or
   attended daily service year by year! Now, what is this but an offering
   to selfishness? The man performs pious and charitable deeds for his own
   good and this motive flavors the whole of his life so that the taint of
   self is in every particle of it! The Jew might offer bullocks or sheep
   for his own salvation and what would this be but the manifest worship
   of self? It brought no glory to God and did not mean His praise. Wonder
   not, therefore, if the Lord speaks thus slightingly of it all.

   What the Lord missed in His people was not temple rites and offerings,
   for in those they abounded. He missed the fruit of the lips giving
   glory to His name! He missed, first, their thankfulness, for He says
   unto them, "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay your vows unto the
   Most High." And next He missed in them that holy, trustful confidence
   which would lead them to resort to Him in the hour of their
   need--therefore He says, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will
   deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." Brothers and Sisters, have you
   failed in these two precious things? Do you fail in thankfulness? The
   Lord multiplies His favors to many of us--do we multiply our thanks?
   The earth gives back a flower for every dewdrop--are we, alike,
   responsive to plenteous mercy? Do the bounties of His Providence and
   the favors of His Grace teach us how to sing Psalms unto the
   Ever-Merciful?

   Do we not too often permit Divine mercies to come and go in silence as
   if they were not worthy of a thankful word? Have we a time and season
   for God's praise? Is it not too often huddled into a corner? We have a
   closet for our prayers, but no chamber for our praises! Do we make it a
   point in life that whatever is neglected, the praises of God shall have
   full expression? Do you, my Brothers and Sisters, give thanks in
   everything? Do you carry out to the fullest this sentence-- "From the
   rising of the sun to the going down of the same the Lord's name is to
   be praised"? May I also venture to ask whether you pay your vows to
   Him? In times of sickness and sorrow you say, "Gracious Lord, if I am
   recovered, or if I am brought out of this condition, I will be more
   believing, I will be more consecrated. I will devote myself only to
   You, O my Savior, if You will now restore me."

   Are you mindful of these vows? It is a delicate question, but I put it
   pointedly because a vow unredeemed is a wound in the heart. If you have
   failed in your grateful acknowledgments, remember that these are the
   things which God looks for more than for any ceremonial observance or
   religions service. He would have you bring your daily thankfulness and
   your faithful vows to Him, for He is worthy to be praised and it is
   meet that unto Him should the vow be performed. It is not to
   thankfulness, however, that I am going to ask attention, this morning,
   as much as to the other sacrifice--namely, prayer in the day of
   trouble.

   Let me say at the outset that I am struck with wonder that God should
   regard it as being one of the most acceptable forms of worship--that we
   should call upon Him in the day of trouble! Such prayers seem to be all
   for ourselves and are forced from us by our necessities--and yet such
   is His condescending love that He puts them down as being choice
   sacrifices and places them side by side with the thankful paying of our
   vows. He tells us that our call for His help in the hour of distress
   will be more acceptable to Him than the oblations which His own Law
   ordained--more pleasing than all the bullocks and rams which liberal
   princes could present at His altars! Be not backward then, Beloved, to
   cry to Him in your hour of need! If it pleases Him and profits you, you
   ought not to need a single word from me to excite you to do what seems
   so natural, so comforting, so beneficial!

   Are our cries of anguish and our appeals of hope acceptable to God?
   Then let us cry mightily to Him! Are any of you in the black waters?
   Call upon Him! Are you in the hungry desert? Call upon Him! Are you in
   the lions' dens and among the mountains of the leopards? Call upon Him!
   Whether you are in peril as to your souls or your bodies, do not
   hesitate to pray at once, but say to yourself, "Why should I linger?
   Let me tell the Lord of my grief right speedily, for if He counts my
   call a worthy sacrifice, assuredly I will present it with my whole
   heart!" Let us look to this matter and see the value of this form of
   adoration.

   Our first head shall be that calling upon God in the day of trouble
   brings honor to God in the very act. Secondly, it brings honor to God
   in His answer, for there is coupled with such a prayer the blessed
   assurance, "I will deliver you." And thirdly, it brings honor to God in
   our later conduct, for it is written, "You shall glorify Me."

   I. May the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, enable us to see that CALLING
   UPON GOD IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE

   BRINGS GLORY TO HIM IN ITSELF. I beg you to notice the time that is
   specially mentioned. Calling upon God at

   any time honors Him, but calling upon Him in the day of trouble has a
   special mark set against it as peculiarly pleasing to the Lord because
   it yields peculiar Glory to His name. Note then, first, that when a man
   calls upon God, sincerely, in the day of trouble, it is a truthful
   recognition of God.

   Outward devotions suppose a God, but prayer in the day of trouble
   proves that God is a fact to the supplicant. The tried pleader has no
   doubt that there is a God, for he is calling upon Him when mere form
   can yield no comfort. He wants practical matter-of-fact help and he so
   realizes God that he treats Him as real and appeals to Him to be his
   Helper. God is not a mere name or a superstition to him--he is sure
   that there is a God, for he is calling upon Him in an hour when a farce
   would be a tragedy and an imposture would be a bitter mockery. The
   afflicted supplicant perceives that God is near him, for he would not
   call upon one who was not within hearing. He has a perception of God's
   Omnipotence by which He can help and of God's goodness which will lead
   Him to help.

   You can see that he believes in God's hearing prayer, for a man does
   not call upon one whom he judges to be a deaf Deity, or upon one whose
   palsied hand is never outstretched to help. The man who calls upon God
   in the day of trouble evidently possesses a real and sincere belief in
   the existence of God, in His personality, in His power, in His
   condescension and in His continual active interposition in the affairs
   of men. Otherwise he would not call upon Him! Many of your beliefs in
   God are a sort of religious parade and not the actual walk of faith.
   Many have a holiday faith which enables them to repeat the creed and
   say with the congregation, "I believe in God the Father Almighty," but
   in very deed they have no such belief.

   Do you, my Hearer, believe in God, the Father Almighty, when you are in
   trouble? Do you go to the great Father at such times and expect help
   from Him? This is real work and not hypocritical play! There is solid
   metal about the faith which follows the Lord in the dark, cries to Him
   when the rod is in His hand and looks to Him, not for sentimental
   comforts in prosperity, but for substantial help in bitter adversities!
   What we need are facts--and trial is the test of fact. Sharp furnace
   work does away with mere pretense and this is one of its great uses,
   for that Grace which, like the salamander, lives in the fire, is Grace,
   indeed. I say again, that very many publicly declared creed faiths are
   mere shams which, like the leaves of autumn's trees, would wither and
   fall if one sharp winter's frost should pass over them.

   It is not so when a man, in the dire hour of his distress, casts
   himself upon God and believes He is able to succor and to help him.
   Then there is evidence of true reliance and real confidence in a real
   God, whom the mind's eye sees and rejoices in. It is this actuality,
   this making God real to the soul which makes our calling upon God in
   the day of trouble so acceptable to Him. There is more here, however,
   than this first good thing. When a man calls upon God in the day of
   trouble it is because he seeks and, in some measure, enjoys a spiritual
   communion with God.

   "Call upon Me in the day of trouble." That call is heart language
   addressed to God! It is the soul really speaking to the great Father
   beyond all question! How easy it is to say a prayer without coming into
   any contact with God! Year after year the tongue repeats pious
   language, just as a barrel organ grinds out the old tunes--but there
   may be no more converse with the Lord than if the man had muttered to
   the ghosts of the slain! Many prayers might as well be said backwards
   as forwards, for there would be as much in them one way as the other.
   The abracadabra of the magician has quite as much virtue in it as any
   other set of mere words. The Lord's Prayer, if it is merely rehearsed
   as a form, may be a solemn mockery. But prayer in the day of trouble is
   honest speech with God, or at least a sincere desire in that direction.

   Many are the words which pass between the Lord and the afflicted saint.
   He cries, "Make haste to help me, O Lord, my Salvation. Be pleased, O
   Lord, to deliver me. Hide not Your face from me, for I am in trouble.
   Hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer!" With multiplied entreaties
   does the heart thus hold converse with the Lord and the Lord takes
   pleasure in it. He loves to have His people draw near to Him in spirit
   and in truth. And, because calling upon Him in the day of trouble is an
   undoubted form of fellowship, therefore He regards it with complacency.
   Now, as I have already said, in the sacrifice of bullocks there was no
   communion with God in the case of a great many--and in external
   devotion, whether it is performed in a cathedral or in a humble
   barn--there is frequently no coming near to God.

   But when we believingly call upon God in the day of trouble, then there
   is no mistake in the matter--we are holding converse with God--"the
   righteous cry and the Lord hears." Union with the unseen, spiritual
   Father, is genuine, indeed, when it is carried on against wind and
   tide, under pressure of sorrow and weight of distress. May the Lord
   give us Divine Grace to carry it on whatever may happen to us! Yet is
   there more than this, for the soul not only comes into God's Presence,
   but in calling upon God in the day of trouble it is filled with a
   manifest hope in God. It hopes in God for His goodness, for it is a
   belief in that goodness which is the reason why it feels able to pray
   at all. The soul hopes in His mercy, or it would dwell in silence and
   never lift up another cry to Heaven.

   Amid a sense of deserved wrath, the heart has a trust in infinite Grace
   and therefore its call. A soul calling upon God honors His
   condescension. The troubled one says within himself, "I am less than
   the least of all His creatures, yet He will regard me. When I consider
   the heavens, the work of His fingers, I am amazed that He should visit
   man, but I believe that He will do so and that He will condescend to
   look upon the contrite and humble and deliver them out of their
   distresses." There is a hope, then, in such a prayer which honors God's
   goodness and condescension and equally pays tribute to His faithfulness
   and His all-sufficiency. He has promised to help those that call upon
   Him, therefore do we call upon Him! And He has all power to keep His
   promise, therefore do we come to Him and spread our case before Him.

   Little as the act of calling upon God in the day of trouble seems to
   be, it puts crowns upon all the attributes of God in proportion to the
   spiritual knowledge of the supplicant. I venture to say that if the
   greatest king of Israel had presented before God, on some solemn day,
   10,000 of the fattest of fed beasts and poured out rivers of oil, it
   might be highly possible that God would not be so well pleased with all
   that royal zeal as with the cry of a poor humble woman whose husband
   was dead and whose two sons were about to be taken for slaves--who had
   nothing in the house except a little oil and then in her extremity
   cried--"O God, the Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow,
   out of the depths deliver me!"

   There may be more honoring of the Lord in a plowboy's tears than in a
   princely endowment! More homage to the Lord in the humble hope of a
   dying pauper than in the pealing anthems of the cathedral or the great
   shout of our own mighty congregation! The publican's confession and his
   hope in the mercy of God had more worship in it than the blast of the
   silver trumpets and the ringing out of the golden harps! And the songs
   of the white-robed choristers who stood in the courts of the Lord's
   house and led the far-sounding hallelujahs of Israel could not match
   the publican's prayer! This calling upon God in the day of trouble,
   again, pleases the Lord because it exhibits a clinging affection to
   Him. When an ungodly man professes religion, as such men often do, he
   is all very well with God as long as God pleases him.

   Sunshiny weather makes such a man bless the sun. If God smiles upon
   him, he says that God is good. Yes, but a true child of God loves a
   chastening God. He does not turn his back when the Lord seems angry
   with him--it is then that he falls prostrate in humble supplication and
   cries, "Show me why You contend with me! I will not believe You to have
   any real spite against me. If You smite me there must be some wise and
   good cause for it, therefore show me, I beseech You." It is very sweet,
   Brothers and Sisters, when God sends you a great deal of trouble, to
   love Him all the more for it. This is a sure way of proving that ours
   is not a hireling love which abides while it gets its price and
   disappears when wages fail.

   God forbid that we should have Balaam's love of reward and Judas's
   treacherous greed! A dog will follow a man as long as he throws him a
   bone, but that is a man's own dog which will follow him when he strikes
   him with the whip and will even wag its tail when he speaks roughly to
   him! Such Christians ought we to be who will keep close to God when He
   is robed in thunder. It is ours to will that God shall do what He wills
   and ours to call upon Him in the day of trouble and not to call out
   against Him when times are hard.

   I would trust my God as unreservedly as Alexander trusted his friend
   who was also his physician. The physician had mixed a medicine for
   Alexander, who was sick, and the potion stood by Alexander's bed for
   him to drink. Just before he was to drink, a letter was delivered to
   him in which he was warned that his physician had been bribed to poison
   him and had mingled poison with the medicine. Alexander read the letter
   and summoned the physician into his presence. When he came in,
   Alexander at once drank up the cup of medicine and then handed his
   friend the letter. What grand confidence was this! To risk his life
   upon his friend's fidelity! Such a man might well have friends! He
   would not let the accused know of the libel till he had proved beyond
   all disputes that he did not believe a word of it!

   Is not our heavenly Father in Christ Jesus worthy of even a grander
   faith? Shall I always mistrust Him? The devil tells me, O Master, that
   this affliction which I am suffering will work me ill. I do not believe
   it! Not for a moment do I

   believe it and to prove that I have no suspicion, I accept it joyfully
   at Your hands. I joy and rejoice in it because You have ordained it and
   I call upon You to make it work to my lasting good. I will take bitter
   at Your hand as well as sweet and the gall shall be honey to me! If we
   act thus we shall be imitating the patience of Job. When his wife told
   him to curse God and die, what did he say? "You speak as one of the
   foolish women speaks. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God
   and shall we not receive evil?" It seems to me we cannot glorify God
   better than by thus calling upon Him in the day of trouble and thus
   showing that we do not believe ill of Him, or suspect Him of error or
   unkindness. We go further and are assured that Infallible Wisdom and
   Infinite Love are at the bottom of every trial which afflicts our
   spirit--thus we glorify the Lord.

   There is in connection with this clinging affection a most steadfast
   confidence. They who call upon God in the day of trouble become quiet,
   unshaken and abide in full assurance as to the Lord on whom they rely.
   O troubled one, do not be agitated! Do not run away to others, but call
   upon God in calm faith! Do not sit down in silent despair and
   fretfulness, but call upon God! Do not be soured into a morose state of
   mind, nor go into the sulks, but call upon the Lord as one who cannot
   be driven to curse or to be in a passion, but gives himself to prayer.
   It is a blessed thing when we can say, "Though He slay me, yet will I
   trust in Him" and can feel that whatever happens to us, we never will
   start aside from our firm conviction that the Lord is good and His
   mercy endures forever.

   It was a brave speech of Zwingli when, amid furious persecutions, he
   said, "Had I not perceived that the Lord was preserving the vessel, I
   should long ago have abandoned the helm. I behold Him through the
   tempest strengthening the cordage, adjusting the yards, spreading the
   sails and commanding the very winds. Should I not, then, be a coward
   and unworthy the name of a man, were I to abandon my post? I commit
   myself wholly to His sovereign goodness. Let Him govern. Let Him hasten
   or delay. Let Him plunge us into the bottom of the abyss--we will fear
   nothing." Those are the words which I admire--"Let Him plunge us into
   the bottom of the abyss--we will fear nothing." This is the bravery of
   a child who knows no dread because he is in his father's hands and his
   trust in his father cannot admit a fear.

   Calling upon God enables men to face trouble and play the man since
   they doubt not of a blessed outcome from all things, however contrary
   they may seem to be. Our business is to be as confident in God at one
   time as at another since He is the same evermore and mere changes in
   circumstances are matters unworthy to be taken into the estimate. What
   are circumstances while Almighty God has the rule of them? In fine,
   this it is which God accepts as honoring Him, that in the day of
   trouble we should take all our troubles to Him, pour out our hearts
   before Him and then leave the whole case in His hands! The childlike
   uncovering of the heart to God, alone, is very precious to Him. There
   are times when it is wise to advise a troubled heart to be quiet before
   men--

   "Bear and forbear and silent be, Tell no man your misery."

   But it is always wise to bare the bosom to the Lord's eyes. Is the
   slander too vile to be communicated even to a single friend? Then
   follow the example of Hezekiah and spread Rabshakeh's letter before the
   Lord! Is the trial too severe, inasmuch as others are obliged to suffer
   with you and are, therefore, turned to speak bitterly against you? Then
   imitate David at Ziklag and encourage yourself in the Lord your God!
   Hide nothing! Reserve nothing! Tell it all and then trust about it all.
   When you have once put the burden before the Lord, leave it with Him.
   Do all that lies in you, that prudence can dictate, or common sense
   suggest, or industry effect--but still make the Lord your mainstay,
   your buckler, your shield, your fortress and high tower. Say to
   yourself, "My Soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from
   Him."

   If you can do this, not once and again, but throughout your whole life,
   you will glorify the Lord greatly and in your holy confidence and
   childlike faith the Lord will take as much delight as in the golden
   harps which ring out His perfect praises before His eternal Throne! If
   we could reproduce Job and Enoch in one person, the patient saint
   continually walking with God, we should, indeed, show forth the Glory
   of our heavenly Father. And why not? Blessed Spirit of God, You can
   work us to this thing! A critic may sneeringly say, "It is a very
   natural thing for a man to cry out to God in the day of trouble. And
   certainly a selfish thing to run to the Lord because you need His
   help." "Besides," says another, "it must be a very distracted prayer
   that such a person offers. And anyway, faith under troublous
   circumstances is a very elementary virtue."

   But, my good Sirs, listen! Surely the Lord knows best what pleases Him
   and if He declares His delight in our calling upon Him in the day of
   trouble, why should we dispute Him? It is so, for He has said it! As
   for us who dare not raise such

   quibbles, let us not be moved by them, but continue to call upon Him in
   the day of trouble and we shall certainly glorify His name.

   II. When we call upon God in the day of trouble IT BRINGS HONOR TO GOD
   THROUGH THE ANSWER which the prayer obtains. "I will deliver you." I
   ask you, troubled saints, to follow me while I repeat the text with
   variations, for that is about all I shall attempt. "Call upon Me in the
   day of trouble"--there is the prayer commanded. "I will deliver
   you"--there is the answer promised. In these words we have a practical
   answer. It is not merely, "I will think about you, I will hear you, I
   will propose plans for you and somewhat aid you in working them out."
   No, it is, "I will deliver you. You shall have solid, substantial aid.
   Either I will keep you out of the trouble of which you are afraid--you
   shall be delivered by never having to endure it--the Egyptians that you
   see today you shall see no more forever. You dread the stone at the
   mouth of the sepulcher, but you shall find it rolled away.

   "Or else, if you must come into the trouble, I will deliver you while
   you are in it. Like Noah, you shall be surrounded by the deluge, but
   the floods shall not overflow you. Like the three holy children, you
   shall be in the furnace, but the fire shall not burn you. You shall go
   through the trouble triumphantly, as Israel went through the Red Sea on
   foot. You shall have such sustaining Grace that you shall glory in
   tribulation and rejoice in affliction. I will also bring you out of it
   altogether--for these things have an appointed end. Like Joseph, you
   shall come forth out of prison to sit upon the throne. Like David, you
   shall leave the caves and the rocks of the wild goats and I will set
   your feet in a large room. Like Daniel, you shall be taken from among
   lions and set among princes." The promise may be kept in several forms,
   but in one shape or another it must be carried out, for He who cannot
   lie has said, "I will deliver you."

   Dear Friend, grips those words and never let them go! You troubled
   ones, the Lord says, "Call upon Me." Have you already been in much
   supplication? Now, then, take to yourselves what the Lord Himself gives
   you--"I will deliver you." Somehow or other a way of escape must be
   made, for God's Word never fails and He has said, "I will deliver you."
   Notice, next, that it is a positive answer. It is not, "I may, perhaps,
   deliver you," but, "I will." It is not, "I will endeavor to do it,"
   but, "I will deliver you." Did unbelief say, "But how?" Friend, leave
   the "how" with God! Ways and means are with Him! He says, "I will
   deliver you." To turn round and ask, "How?" is to forget that He is God
   All Sufficient!--

   "Remember that Omnipotence Has servants everywhere."

   Unbelief is very ready with its questions and too often it enquires,
   "When?" Friend, leave the "when" with God! He does not tell us when,
   but the deliverance must come at the right time because if He were not
   to deliver us till after we had perished, it would be no deliverance at
   all! If deliverance came too late, it would be a mere mockery. The
   promise comprehends within itself the implied condition that it shall
   be a timely deliverance, for otherwise how should the delivered one
   live to glorify the name of the Lord? Again I would say to you, dear
   Friend, get a grip of this promise, "I will deliver you." Do not let my
   Master's promise be blown away like the sere leaves from the trees, but
   hold it fast as for life! Wave this before you and your foes will flee
   as from a two-edged sword! Quote the Divine words, "I will deliver
   you," and legions of devils will flee before you! Remember how Paul put
   it--"Who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver: in whom
   we trust; that He will yet deliver us."

   Notice next, that the promise is personal. "I will deliver you." It is
   not said, "My angels shall do it," but, "/ will deliver you." The Lord
   God Himself undertakes to rescue His people. "I will be a wall of fire
   round about them." "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every
   moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Then, too, it
   is personal to its object--it is the same man who calls upon God in
   trouble who shall be a partaker of the blessing! "Call upon Me in the
   day of trouble, I will deliver you." It is personal, personal to you!
   Therefore, dear Friend, personally believe in this personal promise of
   your God!

   Remember, also, that it is permanent. You pleaded this promise, some of
   you, 50 years ago--it is as sure today as it was then. If you have a
   banknote and take it to the bank and get the cash, it is done with. But
   my Master's banknotes are self-renewing. You can plead His promise
   hundreds of times over, for His Word abides forever. It is fulfilled
   only to be fulfilled again! Like a springing well, which is always full
   and flowing, so my Lord's Grace-words abide and continue in all their
   wealth of blessing. God's promise made 2,000 years ago is as valid as
   if it had been uttered this morning and never yet expended upon a
   single soul. "Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver
   you" is a word for this very hour.

   Where are you at this moment, you troubled, downcast one? You said just
   now, "I shall never be happy any more." Recall those words. Eat them
   with bitter herbs of repentance--"Trust in the Lord forever, for in the
   Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." You said, "That blow has crushed
   me. I could have borne anything else, but this trial I cannot bear."
   Tush! Do you know what you can bear? What did the Apostle say? "I can
   do all things through Christ which strengthens me." Only have faith in
   God and obey and believe the text--"Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
   I will deliver you."

   Can you not take God at His Word? If you can, you shall find His
   promise true and God will be glorified in delivering you. What praise
   will come to His name if He lifts you up out of the low dungeon! If He
   snaps your fetters! If He tears away your entanglements! If He makes
   plain your intricate path! If He brings you through difficulties which
   now seem to be impossibilities and gives you to rejoice in Him through
   them all! Why, then, His name will be glorified far more than by the
   offering of 10,000 bullocks and rivers of oil!

   III. Lastly, if you trust your God in your distress and are, therefore,
   delivered, THE LORD WILL BE GLORIFIED IN YOUR CONDUCT AFTERWARDS. When
   a man prays to God in the hour of trouble and gets deliverance, as he
   is sure to get it, then he honors his great Helper by admiring the way
   in which the promise has been kept and by adoring and blessing the
   loving Lord for such a gracious interposition. I know some of you have
   seen enough of the hand of the Lord in your own cases to make you
   wonder and admire forever and ever.

   Next, you will honor Him by the gratitude of your heart in which the
   memory of His goodness will forever be recorded. This devout gratitude
   of yours will lead you, in due season, to bear testimony to His
   faithfulness. You will be indignant at unbelief and will war against it
   by personal witnessing. You will be very tender towards those who are
   now in trouble, as you once were, and you will long to tell them of the
   blessed rescue which God is prepared to perform for them as He did for
   you. Your mouth will be open; your witness will be enlarged; you will
   speak as a man who has tasted and handled these things for himself.
   Others will be impressed as you tell the story of what the Lord has
   done for your soul.

   At the same time, you will personally grow in faith by the experience
   of your heavenly Father's love and power. And in days to come you will
   glorify Him by increased patience and confidence. You will say, "He has
   been with me in six troubles and He will be with me in the seventh. I
   have tried and proven my God and I dare not doubt Him." Your serenity
   of mind will be more deep and lasting and you will be able to defy the
   power of Satan to drive you out of your joy in God. I know, also, that
   you will try to live more to His praise. As you see Him bring you out
   of one difficulty and then another you will feel bound to His service
   by fresh bonds. You will become a more consecrated man than you ever
   have been. You will jealously protect your remaining days from being
   wasted by sloth or desecrated by sin.

   And let me tell you that even when you die and come up the banks of
   Jordan on the other side, you will long to glorify your God! When the
   angels meet you, I should not wonder but what one of the first things
   you will do will be to say, "Bright spirits, I long to tell you what
   the Lord has done for me!" Even as you are going up towards the
   celestial gates, as Bunyan pictures, I should not wonder if you began
   to say to your guide, "Help me to sing! I cannot be silent. I feel I
   must--

   "Sing with rapture and surprise

   His loving kindness in the skies." Should the bright spirit remind you
   that you are climbing to the choirs where all the singers meet, you may
   answer, "Yes, but I am a special case! I came through such deep waters!
   I was greatly afflicted. If one in Heaven can praise Him more than
   another, I am just that one." The angel will smile and say, "I have
   escorted many a score up to Glory who said just the same thing."

   We each one owe most to God's Grace and hope to praise Him best. Some
   of you may think that you are love's deepest debtors, but I know
   better. I am not going to quarrel with you, but I know one who is so
   undeserving and yet receives such mercy that he claims to take the
   lowest place and most humbly to reverence boundless Grace. Yes, I
   myself, less than the least of all saints, claim to have received most
   at His hands! I would gladly love Him most, for towards me He has shown
   the utmost love in treating me as He has done.

   Am I not saying for myself that which you each would say for yourself?
   I know it is so and, therefore, it is that God is glorified by the
   reverence and love of those whom He delivers in answer to prayer. I
   want you to notice with care the

   persons mentioned in the first clause of the text. You do not see
   yourself--you only hear of yourself. It is "Call upon Me." God is
   there. There is no direct mention of you--you are hidden. You are such
   a poor, broken, dispirited creature that all you can do is to utter a
   cry and lie in the dust! There stands the mighty God and you call upon
   Him! Now, look at the next clause, "/ will deliver you."

   Here are two persons! The Lord stands first, the Ever Glorious and
   Blessed "I." And way down there are you. "I will deliver you," poor,
   humble, but grateful "you." Thus we see the Lord unites with His poor
   servant and the link is deliverance. When you come to the third clause,
   do you see where you are? You are placed first, for the Lord now calls
   you into action--"Fou shall glorify Me." What a wonderful thing it is!
   For God to put glory upon us is easy enough, but for us to put glory
   upon Him? This is a miracle of condescension on the part of our God!
   "You shall glorify Me." "But," says one in this place, "I love the
   Lord, but / cannot glorify Him. I wish I could preach, I wish I could
   write sweet hymns, I wish I had a clear voice with which to sing out
   the Redeemer's praises--but I have no gifts or talents and, therefore,
   / shall never be able to glorify Him."

   Listen! You will be cast into trouble one of these days and when you
   are in trouble you will find out how to glorify Him! Your extremity
   will be your opportunity! Like a lamp which shines not by day, you will
   blaze up in the dark! When the day of trouble is come you will cry,
   "Lord, I could not do anything for You, but You can do everything for
   me. I am nothing, but Lord, in my nothingness, I, poor I, do trust You
   and fling myself upon You." Then you shall find that you have glorified
   Him by your faith! I think you might almost be content to have the
   trouble, might you not? It seems as if you could not glorify Him any
   other way and to glorify Him is the main object of your existence.

   Some Christians would scarcely have brought any glory to God if they
   had not been led by paths of sorrow and made to wade through seas of
   grief. God gets very little glory out of many professors and He would
   have still less if they had been allowed to rust their souls away in
   comfort. The brightest of the saints owe much of their clearness to the
   fire and the file. It is by the sharp needle of sorrow that we are
   embroidered with the praises of the Lord. We must be tried that the
   Lord may be glorified! We cannot call upon Him in the day of trouble if
   we have no such day--and He cannot deliver us if we have no trouble to
   be delivered from! And we cannot glorify Him if we are not made to see
   the danger and the need in which He displays His love.

   I leave the blessed subject of the text with you, as a souvenir, till
   we meet again. The Lord be with you till the day breaks and the shadows
   flee away. Pray, also, that He may abide with me and with all my
   Brothers in the ministry. And may we all, in yonder world of rest,
   glorify Him who will then have delivered us completely from all evil,
   to whom be glory forever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Choice Comfort for a Young Believer

   (No. 1506)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me: Your mercy, O Lord,
   endures forever: forsake not the works of Your own hands." Psalm 138:8.

   CONTINUALLY I am clearing the ground and laying the foundation of
   eternal salvation in the Grace of God which was manifested in Christ
   Jesus when He came into the world to save sinners. This I did this
   morning and the Lord has set His seal thereon right speedily, which is
   to me a sure proof that the frequent preaching of the foundation Truths
   of God is according to the mind of God. That necessary work cannot be
   done too often, for men need to hear the true Gospel as often as they
   hear the striking of the hour and even then, they forget it. Yet do not
   all forget. There are a few, like those who were saved with Noah, who
   seek the Ark of salvation and live.

   To those who have newly come to put their trust in Jesus I wish to
   speak this evening and I do so with much delight, for as the sight of
   the new-born babe makes glad the mother, so does the news of a new-born
   soul fill me with exceeding joy! Good tidings have come to my ears! We
   do not often sow and reap quite so quickly as I have done on this
   occasion, for since this morning's service I have hopeful evidence that
   God has blessed the Word to many souls and my beloved fellow helpers,
   who watch around this congregation like scouts around an army, report
   that the slain of the Lord have been many.

   Now, between half-past twelve o'clock this morning and this time in the
   evening such souls have gone a day's journey towards Heaven and already
   they have begun, I dare say, to question themselves and possibly to be
   exercised with some few fears. Thus early they may have met with lions
   in the way, or have found worse than real lions in their own fears.
   They have only lately known the Lord, but already they are growing
   anxious and looking into the future with a somewhat troubled gaze.
   Therefore we come forth lovingly as a shepherd hastens to cherish the
   newborn lambs. We come to the little ones with words of good cheer, for
   they need them and we have special orders from our Master to see that
   they are tenderly comforted.

   We trust to also speak to those who have known the Lord for many years,
   some words of help with regard to matters which may now be causing them
   alarm. The consolations of the Lord are very reviving and they abound
   in number, therefore let small and great partake of them. "Comfort you,
   comfort you My people, says your God." When a man becomes a Christian
   and the Grace of God commences its work in his soul, he learns to be
   serious and thoughtful. That is one of the first noticeable changes in
   him. He renounces his former carelessness and indifference and becomes
   a sober, considerate man in whose mind there is a deep concern as to
   his own character in the sight of God. He is concerned about the
   temptations he meets with in his walk among the sons of men lest these
   temptations should be too much for him and he should be betrayed into
   sin.

   He longs to lead a holy life. In fact, holiness is his great concern.
   He prays that he may leave such a life behind him for others to
   remember as shall be worth their following as an example. He asks
   himself, "Will the hope I have just obtained really endure to the last
   days of my life? Will it sustain me amidst the pangs and weaknesses of
   death? Is it truly such that when I go before the burning Throne of
   God, Himself, I need not tremble?" Such matters were sport to him
   once--they are serious questions now. He has thrown down the cap and
   bells of the jester and taken up the staff of a pilgrim and the sword
   of a warrior, confessing in an unmistakable manner that "life is real,
   life is earnest."

   He is a man of concern now, concerned about his soul's affairs, his
   sins, his life, his death, his eternal salvation. A solemn air is about
   him--he hears the wheels of eternity sounding in his ears, he girds his
   loins for his lifework and he puts away childish things. This is all
   well, but as every state has its dangers, so the peril of religious
   concern is despondency. Thoughtfulness soon degenerates into distrust
   and holy anxiety easily rusts into unbelief. The more a man looks
   within him, the less he can trust himself, and the more a man looks
   around him, the more he feels that he is in

   danger and so he is apt very early in his Christian course to be
   downcast and much afraid and to say within himself, "I shall surely one
   day fall by the hands of the enemy. My confidence will prove to be a
   delusion and my conversion a fiction." He is fearful as to the result
   of future temptations like a fresh recruit in the battle who feels
   certain that every boom of the cannon proclaims his death.

   Now I want, if God will help me, to meet such fears tonight. May the
   Divine Spirit enable us to have a strong and mighty faith in God, not
   only with regard to past transgression, which is clean gone through the
   atoning blood, but with regard to all the difficulties and dangers of
   the present and future. And may we drink into the spirit of the text
   which is now before us--"The Lord will perfect that which concerns me:
   Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever: forsake not the works of Your own
   hands."

   Here, first, we see that God fills us with assurance--"The Lord will
   perfect that which concerns me." Secondly, He gives us rest in His
   mercy--"Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever." And thirdly, He puts
   prayer into our hearts and supplies us with a plea--"Forsake not the
   works of Your own hands." May God, the Holy Spirit most graciously help
   us in this meditation.

   I. At the beginning of our text, to meet our fears about the future,
   THE LORD FILLS US WITH ASSURANCE. "The Lord will perfect that which
   concerns me." You see the assurance is, first, that God is realty at
   work on our behalf. Get a grip of this, you troubled ones, and by a
   personal faith say, "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me." You
   have come to Jesus and trusted your soul in His hands--we take it for
   granted that you have done so--then it is certain that the Lord has
   brought you to this state of mind, for never did a man in this world
   simply come and trust in Christ unless the Spirit of God had led him to
   it. What says the Savior? "No man comes unto Me except the Father which
   has sent Me draw him."

   You would never have come to a simple reliance upon the mediatorial
   work and Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus if there had not been a work of
   Grace in your soul! Every effect has a cause and all spiritual faith is
   created in the heart by the Holy Spirit. Since the Lord has begun to
   save you, your confidence with regard to the future must be that He who
   began this good work will continue to operate in your soul. If the work
   of God upon your heart were discontinued--your life, your hope, your
   faith, your love would be discontinued, too--for you only live because
   the Holy Spirit lives and works in you! The same power which first made
   the world and built yonder arch of azure must sustain it still, or the
   world would feel its final crash and the blue dome would utterly
   dissolve.

   Continued outgoings of power from the Creator are essential to the
   continued existence of creation! There is neither power, nor life, nor
   being apart from God. This is true in the kingdom of Grace as much as
   in that of Nature--we are gracious because God gives us Grace and we
   keep His ways because the Lord keeps us by His power unto salvation.
   The new life within us has been created by the Lord and by Him it must
   be sustained. Let no one of my hearers forget this. You are to put your
   reliance upon the working of the eternal power and Godhead within your
   soul, for there is the fountain of Grace and from there the streams
   must flow.

   Now mind you, if you base your reliance upon your own perseverance,
   your own prayerfulness, your own spirituality, your own strength of
   resolution, or your own settledness of purpose, you will learn that
   "cursed is he that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm." Of all the
   men in the world who are unfit to be trusted, the most unfit one is
   yourself! It were almost better to trust your fellow man than to trust
   in yourself. "Trust in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is
   everlasting strength." I think you will see that the first clause of
   the text means just this--"The Lord will perfect that which concerns
   me," not, "I will perfect it myself," but, "The Lord will do it." There
   is a consciousness that God is at work and the full assurance that He
   will still be at work in order to complete that which He has commenced.

   Have you obtained a religion which is not the work of God? Then I would
   exhort you to get rid of it! If your religion shines and glitters and
   seems to you to be inexpressibly lovely, yet if it has budded out of
   your own nature, or is the result of your own free will and is not
   traceable to the operation of Divine Grace and to Divine Grace alone,
   do as the man did with the bad banknote--throw it down on the highway,
   or into a ditch and run sway from it. Let no one know that the homemade
   counterfeit belongs to you! For it is worthless now and it will prove
   deceptive at the last. But if the religion you have received is the
   work of God, then be certain that He who began the work will perfect
   it. Be well assured that He who works in you to will and to do of His
   own good pleasure will always find a pleasure in thus working and will
   never forsake the work of His own hands.

   The Psalmist, however, did not merely believe that God was at work and
   would be at work, but he affirms that He will complete the work. "The
   Lord will perfect that which concerns me." Has He begun it? Then, my
   Soul, rest sure of this, that He will finish it! Have you ever seen an
   unfinished work of God? If you had been present on the second or the
   third day of the week of Creation you might have seen a work
   unfinished. Before the morning stars sang together over a perfect
   creation, many things were made, but the complete chain of being was
   not as yet visible. But did the Almighty pause in the middle of the
   week and leave His design unfinished?

   How would the record of creation run? That God had made the light but
   had not made the sun? That He had made the waters, but had not divided
   them from the land, or said to the sea, "Up to here shall you go, but
   no farther"? No, the first day of Creation was a guarantee of the five
   which followed it and of the grand day of rest which crowned the week!
   You might have been certain from that very first day when He said, "Let
   there be light," that He meant to make eyes to see the light. And when
   there were living creatures for each domain of Nature, beasts of the
   field, fowl of the air and fish of the sea, you might be morally
   certain that He meant to crown the kingdom of Nature by bringing forth
   into it a being to whom He should say, "I have made you to have
   dominion over the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea and whatever
   passes through the paths of the sea."

   God's beginnings ensure His endings. He makes no mistake in the plan
   and feels no weariness in the execution and, therefore, when He puts
   forth His hand He never draws it back till His work is done. It is
   always so. Devils of Hell and men under their influence, no doubt think
   to stop the path of God in Divine Providence, but He who can lift the
   telescope of prophecy and can see the end of the present age, may also
   hear the ultimate millennial song of, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the
   Lord God Omnipotent reigns" going up from every hill and dale of this
   emancipated earth! No machinations of Hell or craft of the Prince of
   Darkness can ever prevent the Lord from bringing about the consummation
   of His promise for which His Church is daily praying.

   Here then, youthful Believer, is your confidence--you have begun to be
   a Christian! God's Grace has just changed your heart. You are anxiously
   asking, "How shall I persevere to the end? How shall I arrive at
   perfection?" You shall be kept and perfected by the Lord in whom you
   trust! The same power which commenced a good work in you can complete
   it and will complete it! Do you doubt it? Think of what is done at the
   beginning of spiritual life and let this confirm you as to its end. The
   Holy Spirit raises men from the dead--can He not keep them alive after
   He has made them alive? He brings His people out of Egypt in the day
   that they believe--do you think that He who brings them out cannot
   preserve them in the wilderness till He lands them in Canaan?

   He has already given us Christ to be the Bread of Heaven, will He not
   furnish us with that Bread till we shall enter into the purchased
   possession? Let us rest in confidence! Our Alpha will be our Omega and
   He will secure every letter which lies between, for it is not His way
   to lay a foundation without building thereon even to the top stone!
   Now, I want you to have this blessed confidence that God is at work and
   will finish what He has begun and I would have you carry this
   confidence into everything. You may take it into Providence--the Lord
   will perfect that which concerns you there. Dear Friend, you have a
   plan on hand. You say, "I wish I could be sure that I shall carry it
   through. Can you tell me?" No, I cannot. I can tell you this, however,
   that if it really ought to be your purpose, if it is God's plan for you
   for life, you will carry it through.

   I have known men, actuated by their own folly, obstinately choose a
   pursuit for which they were not fit. And in such cases one of the best
   things that the Lord can do for them is to make them suffer shipwreck
   and lose their all. It would have been a bad case for our friend Jonah
   if he had really gone down to Tarshish, for I do not know what he would
   have done there--he could not have turned sailor, for no crew would
   have endured so sour a comrade! It was a great mercy for him when he
   was thrown into the sea and was forced to travel towards Nineveh in the
   fish's belly. And so, sometimes we enter upon a giant scheme of our own
   inventing, but it is not the Lord's scheme and so it comes to nothing.
   Like Jehosaphat, we make ships of Tarshish go to Ophir for gold, but
   they go not for they are broken at Eziongaber as Jehosaphat's navy was.
   And we complain, perhaps, but it is better to submit, for it comes
   forth from the Lord of Hosts who is amazing in counsel and excellent in
   working.

   He often perfects that which truly concerns us by taking us away from
   that which never ought to concern us. It may be, dear Hearer, that the
   Lord is dealing thus with you. You have been setting up in business in
   the direction of your own choice and not of His. So He ends that matter
   by a heavy loss and you may be very thankful that He does. But that
   course

   of life which you have submitted to His wisdom, which you have taken up
   in obedience to the plain indications of His Providence which you
   follow out with integrity, walking before the Lord with all singleness
   of purpose and committing your way unto Him--that course of life, I
   say, shall have His blessing and none shall be able to put you on one
   side. He will perfect, in your case, that which concerns you.

   The Lord told David that he should be a king. It did not look very
   likely when he was a lowly shepherd, but since such was the purpose of
   the Eternal, there was no keeping the son of Jesse off the throne! He
   is called to court and there Saul's javelin almost makes an end of him!
   He goes to battle and takes a giant's head and that brings the king's
   envy upon him. He is hunted like a partridge on the mountains by those
   who thirsted for his life, but he must be king--no Saul or Deog could
   hinder the Divine decree--David must be king! Though he will not lift a
   hand to smite Saul, yet must his persecutor vacate the royal seat for
   him. Judah shall acknowledge him, but half a crown shall not be enough.
   Speedily shall Israel submit to him. The Lord must perfect that which
   concerns him and make him king over the whole nation and establish the
   throne to his seed after him.

   Now, my Brother, if the Lord has called you to the work of the
   ministry, the devil cannot shut the mouth that God opens! If He has
   called you to any post of honor or difficulty in His Church, or for His
   cause, you will arrive at it and your hands shall be sufficient for
   you. Whatever may stand in the way, the Lord will carry you through and
   perfect that which concerns you. Rest you sure of that! "If I thought
   so," says one, "I should be much more quiet than I am." Think so, my
   Brother, and be quiet! "Oh, but I should feel more confidence." Have
   confidence, Brother! Perhaps that very confidence will be the means to
   the end and help you to succeed. "Such assurance would make me more
   patient and I should not put out my hand so hastily if I knew that what
   I am hoping for would come in due time."

   Do not put out your hand hastily, Brother. Keep back just as David did
   when there was Saul lying before him sound asleep and his spear was
   ready for fatal use. Then his friend said to him, "Let me smite him but
   this once." It could have been done in an instant and the crown would
   have been gained by a single stroke! But David did not take the
   business into his own hands--he would leave matters with God. Though a
   sin may seem to be the straight line which leads to an end, yet be sure
   of this, that it is always the longest way! The nearest way to be a
   gainer forever is to be a loser for the present for conscience sake,
   while the road to failure and to shame is found in the tempting path of
   hastening to be rich. Be sure that it is no business of yours to
   perfect that which concerns you in Providence. God has promised to do
   it and only presumption will dare to interfere. "Stand still and see
   the salvation of God" is often the wisest policy as well as the truest
   heroism. Take care that you put not forth an unbelieving hand to snatch
   the unripe fruit from the tree. Wait, and in patience possess your
   soul.

   But this, dear Friends, is more especially true in the work of Grace in
   the heart. In that case the Lord will perfect that which concerns you.
   You have only a little faith. It looks like a spark and scarcely can be
   called a flame, but it will increase until it burns aloft like a beacon
   fire. The Lord will give you an Abrahamic faith if you will wait upon
   Him for it and exercise what faith you already possess. Trust Him,
   trust Him with your faith! Trust Him with your trust! You have a little
   love and you sigh to be altogether taken up with affection for your
   Lord--such affection shall be worked in you before long--even that
   "perfect love, which casts out fear." Trust God with your love and the
   God of Love will reveal Himself in you till your whole soul is
   saturated with gratitude!

   You have some little of the likeness of Christ already. Walk before the
   Lord in all confidence and He will sketch the image of Christ upon your
   character to perfection and you shall become so manifestly Christly
   that men shall know you to be Christ's disciple by your very speech!
   You are a long way from being perfect, you say. Ah, but you shall be
   perfect--the Lord will perfect that which concerns you. Will you know
   yourself, Brother, when you are made perfect? I do not expect to see
   you coming up these aisles when you have reached that point, for
   another and better assembly will claim you and gain you! If at some
   future period of your sojourn here I should hear you say, "I am
   perfect," I shall know better at once, for you will prove your pride by
   your silly bragging! Yet you will, one day, be completely holy and
   spotlessly pure.

   You and I and all those who trust in Christ shall be perfect--every sin
   cast out, every virtue brought to harmonious completeness. We shall be
   holy as our Father in Heaven. "Oh," says one, "that is the best news I
   ever heard! Shall I be perfect?" Yes, as surely as you are in the
   perfect Christ, so surely shall you be perfect with Him. We shall be
   holy, unblameable and unreprovable in His sight in the day of His
   appearing. Even while we are here, we are struggling after

   perfection--this is the goal to which we run--this is the target at
   which we aim. That we may perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord and
   be sanctified spirit, soul and body is the high ambition of our lives!
   Let us never despair of it, for there stands the promise--"The Lord
   will perfect that which concerns me."

   Now, if this is true in Providence and true of the work of Grace in us,
   it is also true of the work of Grace all around us. How often do I go
   before the Lord with the weight of this Church and all its institutions
   upon me! I cry from my heart, "What will come of them all?" Then it is
   my confidence and delight that the Lord will perfect that which
   concerns me! Up to now He has helped me in a marvelous manner and why
   should I fancy that He will forsake me, seeing that with all my heart I
   desire to honor Him? Only have trust in God, you who live for the Glory
   of Christ and, as your day your strength shall be. You shall go forth
   conquering and to conquer if your sword is drawn only in Christ's
   quarrel!

   If your charge is but a few children in the Sunday school, or if it is
   the raising of a cause for Christ in a hamlet or a village, only give
   your whole soul to it and rest in God and you shall find Him perfecting
   that which concerns you! Why, we have not half the confidence in God
   about our religious efforts that we ought to have! We go to work with a
   faint heart and tremblingly hope that perhaps we shall succeed. Look
   how amazed we are when we find a soul converted here and there--and
   what a noise we make over a solitary convert--like a hen that has laid
   a single egg and must tell all the world about it! If we had more
   confidence in God, we would expect converts by the hundreds and we
   would have them!

   We should go to work with the great weapon of the Gospel which God has
   put into our hands and, with the power which God has promised, we would
   see the kingdom given unto Messiah and the pleasure of the Lord would
   prosper in His hands! May we have faith enough to be certain that our
   unchanging God will perfect that which concerns us. So I leave that
   first part, trusting that our hearts may be filled with quiet assurance
   by the Holy Spirit.

   II. And now, secondly and very briefly, THE LORD GIVES US REST IN HIS
   MERCY, for what says the text, "Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever."
   See, my Brothers and Sisters, how this works in us rest from fear?
   "Alas!" sighs one troubled heart, "I fear I shall fall into many sins
   between here and Heaven." Well may you have that dread, my Brother. But
   you may readily overcome the fear by singing in your heart, "Your
   mercy, O Lord, endures forever." The blood of Atonement will never fail
   and, therefore, mercy will always endure. "If any man sin, we have an
   Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous."--

   "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
   all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

   Your sins between here and Heaven shall be forgiven you, so let the
   dread of condemnation be banished!

   Then comes up another fear--"But I do not see how I am to be perfected.
   My nature is so vile. I find such resistance to the Divine operations.
   The flesh struggles against the Spirit and I cannot get my rebellious
   flesh to be subject to the Law of God." The answer to this distressing
   lament is the same as in the former case--"His mercy endures forever."
   He will bear with you and forbear beyond all bounds. None but a God
   could have patience with you, but the Lord is God and not man! Some of
   God's children were the most crooked people that ever were in this
   world and it must be sovereignty which chose them, for they are by no
   means naturally desirable or attractive.

   It was hard work, even, for a Moses to have patience with them of old.
   Though he was the meekest of men, yet his anger waxed hot against them
   and he said, "Hear now, you rebels!" But their God had no such angry
   words for them-- He was still patient and bore with them for 40 years.
   Brother, Sister, He will have patience with you because His mercy
   endures forever. He has been teaching you faith, but how slowly you
   have learned! There is a man who has been learning faith these 25 years
   and he still is an unbeliever at times. Doubts frequently mar the face
   of his assurance, but the Lord still bears with his unbelief and goes
   on to teach him, little by little, line upon line, precept upon
   precept.

   There is one here who has been taught love. Yes, for the past 40 years
   that Brother has been learning love to the Lord and love to the
   Brethren, spelling out the lessons of love, letter by letter. He is in
   the infant class even now, but the Lord is having a deal of patience
   with him and He will yet make him tender, considerate and affectionate.
   Let us hope it will be soon, for his own sake, and still more for the
   sake of his Brethren to whom he acts so roughly. Many of God's people
   are very slow learners--they have been at school these 20 years and
   cannot yet read their own titles to eternal mansions, though penned in
   capitals by their Redeemer's own hand!

   As for myself, I am more brutish than any man and other teachers would
   long ago have lost patience with me, but "the Lord will perfect that
   which concerns me, for His mercy endures forever." Between now and
   Heaven, dear Brothers and Sisters, some of you will, perhaps, have to
   pass through a great deal of affliction and some of us who are called
   daily to see others suffer, feel much tenderness towards those who are
   the children of affliction and, therefore, we speak with great sympathy
   when we say, "Do not shudder with regard to those pains and tremors
   which may come over your poor trembling frame, for His mercy endures
   forever. He will make your bed in your sickness and underneath you
   shall be the everlasting arms."

   Between here and Heaven, perhaps you will experience a great many
   needs. It may be you have been afraid of poverty. You have not a very
   large sum of money in the bank and you have not a very large sum in
   your pocket, either, and sometimes you are out of work. Many times you
   hardly know what you shall eat or what you shall drink--be this your
   comfort--"His mercy endures forever." "Having food and raiment let us
   be content, for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you."
   All the streams may dry, but the brook Cherith will flow on and even if
   that chosen rivulet should fail, behold, God has a widow woman at
   Zarephath who will feed you! Though she has nothing herself but a
   handful of meal and a little oil in the cruse, yet you shall both live
   upon it till the famine is over.

   The heir of Heaven shall not lack for the bread of earth while God
   lives, for it is written, "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shall you
   dwell in the land and verily you shall be fed." "He gives food unto all
   flesh, for His mercy endures forever." "Your bread shall be given you."
   At last, unless the Lord should suddenly appear, there will come the
   hour of death which, by many, is exceedingly dreaded. You will gather
   up your feet in the bed and bid adieu to all temporal things. And then
   the enduring mercy of God shall be your abounding consolation! A large
   part of our fears about death are idle. One man of God always feared
   death, but he might have spared himself his wretchedness, for he fell
   asleep one night in apparently excellent health and died in his sleep!
   He never could have known anything about dying, for on his face were no
   tokens of pain or struggle, nor was there any reason to believe that he
   ever awoke till he lifted up his eyes amid the cherubim!

   Beloved, if we die awake and even if we die in pain, we shall yet hope
   to die triumphantly! If we do not die shouting victory, we hope that we
   shall peacefully fall asleep--the Lord, Himself, kissing away our soul
   into the eternity of joy-- "for His mercy endures forever." "He will
   perfect that which concerns me." Now, I want you young friends,
   especially, who are just beginning life, each one to feel, "Now, I am
   going to put myself and all my temporal circumstances, all my fears,
   all my engagements, my living, my dying, everything into the hands of
   God and there I am going to leave it. I will trust Him with my all. In
   the beginning I will trust Him and I will do so even to the end and go
   my way with this calm confidence, 'He will perfect that which concerns
   me, for His mercy endures forever.'"

   I remember hearing one of our evangelists once say that some Christian
   people, when they first profess to be Christians, are like a man who is
   going a long distance by rail, but only takes a ticket for a short
   distance and then he has to get out and make a rush for new tickets as
   he goes along. "Now," said he, "there are other Believers who know
   better and take a ticket all the way through at the first, which is by
   far the wiser way." Some trust the Lord to keep them for a quarter of a
   year and others for a month. But when I believed in Christ Jesus, I
   thank His name, I trusted Him to save me to the end! I sought for and
   obtained a finished salvation which is my joy and hope at this moment!
   I took a ticket all the way through and I have not had to get a fresh
   ticket yet. I have sometimes thought I should, but when I have run to
   the office, they have handed me back my old ticket, the one I lost, the
   same one as before--and I knew it to be the same, for it bore this
   stamp upon it--"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."

   The Believer is saved at first by believing and he shall be so to the
   last. Do not trust a rickety salvation which may break down with you--a
   temporary, trumpery salvation which may only last you for a time and
   then fail to embrace with all your heart that Divine promise--"I will
   never leave you nor forsake you." Cry out after the Living Water which
   shall be in you as a well of water springing up unto everlasting life
   and suck the marrow out of this text, "He that believes in Me has"--has
   then and there, down on the nail--"has"--now, today, "has everlasting
   life"--not life for a time, but life everlasting as surely as he
   believes in Christ!

   III. This brings me to conclude with the third clause of our text which
   is a prayer. The Lord, having given His people

   Grace to rest in His mercy, PUTS IT INTO THEIR HEARTS TO PRAY AND
   SUPPLIES THEM WITH A PLEA--

   "Forsake not the works of Your own hands." To my mind, it is a very
   touching prayer. "Lord, You have begun the work

   upon me; go on to finish it, for if You do not, it will never be
   finished. If You leave it, it is left undone and I am undone, indeed.
   But do not forsake the work of Your own hands." It is such a prayer as
   the clay might put up when it is revolving on the potter's wheel. The
   potter is using his best skill and producing an article of great
   beauty, bringing out its shape and form as it spins round before him.

   Already you can see something of what it will be--the design does not
   yet perfectly appear, but you can guess it. But suppose the potter were
   to stop the wheel, take up the clay and fling it back, again, into the
   lump? That vessel would never be finished, for it cannot finish itself.
   It has no power to shape itself in any degree and so if it were
   rational clay and could speak, it would say, "Forsake not the work of
   your own hands. Persevere in what you have begun." This is a prayer
   which you and I may well bring before God, whose workmanship we are! "O
   God, if I have only a little faith, yet You gave it to me. Oh, give me
   more! If You have given me only a desire after You, yet that desire is
   a Divine creation! Have respect unto it, I pray You, and fulfill it."

   This is a powerful argument with our gracious God, for, Brothers and
   Sisters, He does not give you a little Grace to tantalize you. Now He
   has given you a hunger and thirst after Him--suppose He does not
   satisfy you? That hunger and that thirst will be cruel gifts! He has
   taken away from you the power to be happy in the world, has He not?
   Well, if He does not intend to give you His own Divine happiness, why
   has He made you weary of the world and the pleasures of sin? A dog
   likes bones and I am sure I would not teach him to leave his bones or
   turn him into a man if, afterwards, I had to say, "Now you have become
   a man, there is nothing for you. If you want a meal you must try the
   bones again." No, no! He who makes us hate the world means to give us
   something better! He who makes us loathe sin means to cleanse us from
   it! He who begins to build in our souls is not a foolish Builder of
   whom it shall be said, "This man began to build, but was not able to
   finish."

   Do you think, Brothers and Sisters, that the Lord has found out
   something in you which is so bad that it baffles Him and compels Him to
   give up His work? If it were so, why did He ever begin it? He knew what
   would be in you. The prescient eye of God foresaw every sin and every
   tendency to sin in the heart of every man that lives--and so when He
   began His work He knew all that it would require to perfect it. He has
   not gone forth to fight the devil in you to discover that He is not
   strong enough to meet him! Oh, no, He knows the force of your evil
   nature, the force of your hasty temper, the force of that obstinate
   self-love, the force of that imperious pride, the force of that dogged
   will--He knows all this, nor can anything take Him by surprise and,
   therefore, since He has begun to save you, rest assured that He will
   accomplish His design!

   His hand is not shortened, nor His heart dismayed. You may cry to Him
   out of the utmost depths and be quite assured that He can and will,
   even there, carry on His purposes of love, for He will not forsake the
   work of His own hands. Go to Him, then, in prayer! Plead with Him
   mightily! Prayer is the channel appointed to convey to you the
   blessing. Open the valves and let the stream flow into your heart.
   Whenever you feel as if you must be broken in pieces like a poor
   earthen pot, then cry to Him--"Lord, forsake not the work of Your own
   hands. Oh, do not leave me, for I bear the print of Your hands! Be
   patient with this ill-worked clay and work upon me till You shall have
   made me a vessel unto honor fit for Your own special use."

   The closing word is just this. I have often preached to you salvation
   to sinners, as sinners, just as you are and I have bid you, in my
   Master's name, come and receive that free mercy which He presents to
   the guilty, even to the guiltiest of all, when they will but take it
   and trust in His dear name. Now, I supplement that by advising you to
   carry the rule of faith into every part of your life. Trust the Lord
   Jesus for everything! Do not come, tonight, to trust in Christ half
   way, but for all things commit yourself into His eternal keeping, for
   He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
   His Presence with exceedingly great joy. If you Believers have been
   trusting the Divine Lord to keep you--but if you are keeping
   yourselves--get beyond that and trust in Him to keep you that you may
   keep yourselves! If you have said, "I believe that He will be faithful
   to me if I am faithful to Him," go much farther, for it will never do
   to stop there.

   Trust in Him to make you faithful to Him! Do not suffer the pivot to
   rest in you--put the whole stress and burden upon the Lord Jesus. If
   you retain any, "if," or, "but," about your eternal salvation, it will
   be a thorn in your pillow and a serpent at your heel. If you are the
   cornerstone and mainstay of your own salvation, you are lost! You must
   hang upon the sure nail, Christ Jesus, all the burden and all the glory
   of His Father's house. As for depending on your own

   watchfulness, or constancy, or anything else of your own, I want you to
   get right away from it and now, once and for all, by an act which you
   shall rejoice in as long as you live, commit your whole future--time
   and eternity--into the pierced hands of Him who says that He gives to
   His sheep eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any
   pluck them out of His hands!

   In this one thing I would have you be as I am, for I have no shade of
   hope apart from the Lord Jesus, either as to my pardon or my
   perseverance, my new birth or my ultimate perfection. I want to know
   what is to become of me in death and what is to become of me when I
   live, again, in eternity. And if I could not have a far-reaching faith
   which flung itself across the awful gulf that separates this world from
   the next, my religion would yield me but small comfort. But
   to-night--and may everybody here be enabled to do so--I do put my whole
   self, my soul, my body, my engagements, my prospective sufferings, my
   future troubles, my labors--everything which has to do with me or about
   me into those same hands which bought me when they was nailed to the
   tree!

   He shall keep me, or I shall never be kept! Once and for all I make a
   deposit of my eternal interests and leave them with Him whose honor it
   is to keep safely that which is committed to Him. He is able to
   preserve me and I have done with it. I hand over my all to Him. Come,
   my Brothers and Sisters, do the same and when you have done so be of
   good cheer! A man takes his money into his bank and leaves it. He does
   not go back in a quarter of an hour and say, "Mr. Cashier, have you my
   money safely?" "Yes, Sir." "Well I want to see it." They would not want
   such a man to deal with their bank long, for he has no confidence and
   will be more trouble than profit.

   Put in your all with Jesus and leave it there! Make a permanent
   investment. Draw the interest of it and spend it in present enjoyment,
   but leave your all as a permanent investment and sing with me--

   "I know that safe with Him remains,

   Protected by His power, What I've committed to His hands

   Till the decisive hour.

   Then will He own my worthless name

   Before His Father's face,

   And in the New Jerusalem

   Appoint my soul a place."
     __________________________________________________________________

Soul Saving Our One Business

   (No. 1507)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
   1 Corinthians 9:22.

   IT is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master
   passion. Such a man is sure to be strong and if the master principle is
   excellent, he is sure to be excellent, too. The man of one objective is
   a man, indeed. Lives with many aims are like water trickling through
   innumerable streams, none of which is wide enough or deep enough to
   float the merest cockleshell of a boat. But a life with one objective
   is like a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to the ocean
   a multitude of ships and spreading fertility on either side. Give me a
   man not only with a great objective in his soul, but thoroughly
   possessed by it--his powers all concentrated and he on fire with
   vehement zeal for his supreme objective--and you have put before me one
   of the greatest sources of power which the world can produce!

   Give me a man engrossed with holy love as to his heart and filled with
   some masterly celestial thought as to his brain and such a man will be
   known wherever his lot may be cast and I will venture to prophesy that
   his name will be remembered long after the place of his sepulcher shall
   be forgotten. Such a man was Paul. I am not about to set him upon a
   pedestal, that you may look at him and wonder, much less that you may
   kneel down and worship him as a saint. I mention Paul because what he
   was, we ought, every one of us to be. And though we cannot share in his
   office, not being Apostles and though we cannot share in his talents or
   in his inspiration, yet we ought to be possessed by the same spirit
   which actuated him and, let me also add, we ought to be possessed by it
   in the same degree!

   Do you object to that? I ask you what was there in Paul, by the Grace
   of God, which may not be in you? And what had Jesus done for Paul more
   than for you? He was divinely changed and so have you been if you have
   passed from darkness into marvelous light! He had much forgiven and so
   have you, also, been freely pardoned. He was redeemed by the blood of
   the Son of God and so have you been--at least you profess to have been.
   He was filled with the Spirit of God and so are you if you are truly
   such as your Christian profession makes you out to be. Owing, then,
   your salvation to Christ, being debtors to the precious blood of Jesus
   and being quickened by the Holy Spirit, I ask you why there should not
   be the same fruit from the same sowing?

   Why not the same effect from the same cause? Do not tell me that the
   Apostle was an exception and cannot be set up as a rule or model for
   common folk, for I shall have to tell you that we must be such as Paul
   was if we hope to be where Paul is. Paul did not think that he had
   attained, neither was already perfect. Shall we think him to be so?
   Shall we think him to be so as to regard him to be matchless and so be
   content to fall short of what he was? No! Let it be our incessant
   prayer, as Believers in Christ, that we may be followers of Paul so far
   as he followed Christ! And where he failed to set his feet in his
   Lord's footprints, may we even outstrip him and be more zealous, more
   devoted to Christ than even the Apostle of the Gentiles! O that the
   Holy Spirit would bring us to be like our Lord Jesus Himself!

   At this time I shall have to speak to you upon Paul's great objective
   in life. He tells us it was to "save some." We will then look into
   Paul's heart and show you a few of the great reasons which made him
   think it so important that at least some should be saved. Then,
   thirdly, we will indicate certain of the means which the Apostle used
   to that end. We will speak with this end in view--that you, my dear
   Hearers, may seek to "save some." That you may seek this because of
   potent reasons which you cannot withstand and that you may seek it with
   wise methods such as shall, in the end, succeed.

   I. First, then, Brothers and Sisters, WHAT WAS PAUL'S GREAT OBJECTIVE
   IN HIS DAILY LIFE AND MINISTRY? He says it was to save some. There are
   ministers of Christ present, at this hour, together with City
   Missionaries, Bible-Women, Sunday school teachers and other workers in
   my Master's vineyard. And I make bold to enquire of each one of
   them--is this your objective in all your Christian service? Do you,
   above all things, aim at saving souls? I am afraid that some have
   forgotten this grand objective. But, dear Friends, anything short of
   this is unworthy to be the great end of a Christian's life!

   I fear there are some who preach with the view of amusing men and as
   long as people can be gathered in crowds and their ears can be tickled
   and they can retire pleased with what they have heard, the orator is
   content and folds his hands and goes back self-satisfied. But Paul did
   not lay himself out to please the public and collect the crowd! If he
   did not save them, he felt that it was of no use to interest them.
   Unless the Truth of God had pierced their hearts, affected their lives
   and made new men of them, Paul would have gone home crying, "Who has
   believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"

   It seems to be the opinion of a large party in the present day that the
   objective of Christian effort should be to educate men. I grant you
   that education is, in itself, an exceedingly valuable thing, so
   valuable that I am sure the whole Christian Church rejoices greatly
   that at last we have a national system of education which only needs to
   be carefully carried out and every child in this land will have the
   keys of knowledge in his hand. Whatever price others may set upon
   ignorance, we are promoters of knowledge--and the more it can be
   spread, the better shall we be pleased. But if the Church of God thinks
   that it is sent into the world merely to train the mental faculties, it
   has made a very serious mistake, for the objective of Christianity is
   not to educate men for their secular callings, or even to train them in
   the politer arts or the more elegant professions, or to enable them to
   enjoy the beauties of Nature or the charms of poetry.

   Jesus Christ came not into the world for any of these things, but He
   came to seek and to save that which was lost! And on the same errand
   has He sent His Church--and she is a traitor to the Master who sent her
   if she is beguiled by the beauties of taste and art to forget that to
   preach Christ and Him Crucified is the only objective for which she
   exists among the sons of men! The business of the Church is salvation!
   The minister is to use all means to save some! He is no minister of
   Christ if this is not the one desire of his heart. Missionaries sink
   far below their level when they are content to civilize--their first
   objective is to save. The same is true of the Sunday school teacher and
   of all other workers among children--if they have merely taught the
   child to read, to repeat hymns and so forth, they have not yet touched
   their true vocation. We must have the children saved! At this nail we
   must drive and the hammer must come down upon this head always--if by
   all means I may save some--for we have done nothing unless some are
   saved!

   Paul does not even say that he tried to moralize men. The best promoter
   of morality is the Gospel. When a man is saved, he becomes moral--he
   becomes more--he becomes holy. But to aim first at morality is
   altogether to miss the mark! If we did attain it--and we shall not--yet
   we should not have attained that for which we were sent into the world!
   Dr. Chalmers' experience is a very valuable one to those who think that
   the Christian ministry ought to preach up mere morality, for he says
   that in his first parish he preached morality and saw no good whatever
   arising out of his exhortations. But, as soon as he began to preach
   Christ Crucified, then there was a buzz and a stir and much
   opposition--but Grace prevailed!

   He who wishes for perfumes must grow the flowers. He who desires to
   promote morality must have men saved. He who wants motion in a corpse
   should first seek life for it and he who desires to see a rightly
   ordered life should first desire an inward renewal by the Holy Spirit.
   We are not to be satisfied when we have taught men their duties towards
   their neighbors, or even their duties towards God--this would suffice
   for Moses, but not for Christ! The Law came by Moses, but Grace and
   Truth came by Jesus Christ. We teach men what they ought to be, but we
   do far more--by the power of the Gospel applied by the Holy Spirit, we
   make them what they ought to be by the power of God's Spirit. We put
   not before the blind the things that they ought to see, but we open
   their eyes in the name of Jesus! We tell not the captive how free he
   ought to be, but we open the door and take away his fetters! We are not
   content to tell men what they must be, but we show them how this
   character can be attained and how Jesus Christ freely presents all that
   is essential to eternal life to all those who come and put their trust
   in Him.

   Now observe, Brothers and Sisters, if I, or you, or any of us, or all
   of us, shall have spent our lives merely in amusing men, or educating
   men, or moralizing men--when we shall come to give an account at the
   Last Great Day, we shall be in a very sorry condition and we shall have
   but a very sorry record to render. For of what use will it be to a man
   to be educated when he comes to be damned? Of what service will it be
   to him to have been amused when the trumpet sounds and Heaven and earth
   are shaking and the Pit opens wide her jaws of fire and swallows up the
   unsaved soul? Of what use, even, to have moralized a man if he is still
   on the left hand of the Judge and if, "Depart, you cursed," shall be
   his portion? Blood red with the murder of men's souls will be the
   skirts of professing Christians unless the drift and end and aim of all
   their work has been to "save some."

   Oh, I beseech you, especially you, dear Friends, who are working in
   Sunday and Ragged Schools and elsewhere, do not think that you have
   done anything unless the children's souls are saved! Settle it that
   this is the top and bottom of the business and throw your whole
   strength in the name of Christ and by the power of the Eternal Spirit
   into this one objective--if by any means you may save some and bring
   some to Jesus that they may be delivered from the wrath to come! What
   did Paul mean by saying that he desired to save some? What is it to be
   saved? Paul meant by that nothing less than that some should be born
   again--for no man is saved until he is made a new creature in Christ
   Jesus! The old nature cannot be saved--it is dead and corrupt. The best
   thing that can be done with it is to let it be crucified and buried in
   the sepulcher of Christ.

   There must be a new nature implanted in us by the power of the Holy
   Spirit or we cannot be saved. We must be as much new creations as if we
   had never been--we must come a second time as fresh from the hand of
   the Eternal God as if we had been molded today by Divine wisdom as Adam
   was in Paradise! The Great Teacher's words are, "The wind blows where
   it wishes and you hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell where it
   comes nor where it goes; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit."
   "Except a man is born again from above he cannot see the kingdom of
   God." This, then, Paul meant, that men must be new creatures in Christ
   Jesus and we must never rest till we see such a change worked upon
   them! This must be the objective of our teaching and of our praying,
   indeed, the objective of our lives, that "some" may be regenerated.

   He meant, in addition to that, that some might be cleansed from their
   past iniquity through the merit of the atoning Sacrifice of the Son of
   God. No man can be saved from his sin except by the Atonement. Under
   the Jewish Law it was written, "Cursed is everyone that continues not
   in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them." That
   curse has never been reversed and the only way to escape from it is
   this--Jesus Christ was made a curse for us, as it is written, "Cursed
   is every one that hangs on a tree." Now, he who believes in Jesus, who
   puts his hand upon the head of Jesus of Nazareth, the Scapegoat of His
   people, has lost his sins! His faith is sure evidence that his
   iniquities were of old laid upon the head of the great Substitute. The
   Lord Jesus Christ was punished in our place and we are no longer
   obnoxious to the wrath of God. Behold, the sin-atoning Sacrifice is
   slain and offered on the Altar and the Lord has accepted it--and is so
   well pleased that He has declared that whoever believes in Jesus is
   fully and eternally forgiven!

   Now, we long to see men thus forgiven. We pine to bring the prodigal's
   head to the Father's bosom, the wandering sheep to the Good Shepherd's
   shoulder, the lost piece of money into the owner's hands and until this
   is done, nothing is done! I mean, Brothers and Sisters, nothing
   spiritually, nothing eternally, nothing that is worthy of the agony of
   a Christian's life, nothing that can be looked upon as deserving of an
   immortal spirit's spending all its fires upon it. O Lord, our soul
   yearns to see Jesus rewarded by the salvation of the blood-bought. Aid
   us to lead souls to Him!

   Once more. When the Apostle wished that he might save some he meant
   that being regenerated and being pardoned, they might also be purified
   and made holy, for a man is not saved while he lives in sin. Let a man
   say what he will, he cannot be saved from sin while he is the slave of
   it! How is a drunk saved from drunkenness while he still riots as
   before? How can you say that the swearer is saved from blasphemy while
   he is still profane? Words must be used in their true meaning. The
   great objective of the Christian's work should be that some might be
   saved from their sins--purified and made white--and made examples of
   integrity, chastity, honesty and righteousness as the fruit of the
   Spirit of God. And where this is not the case we have labored in vain
   and spent our strength for nothing.

   Now, I declare before you all that I have, in this house of prayer,
   never sought anything but the conversion of souls. And I call Heaven
   and earth to witness--and your consciences, too--that I have never
   labored for anything except the bringing of you to Christ that I might
   present you, at last, unto God accepted in the Beloved! I have not
   sought to gratify depraved appetites either by novelty of doctrine or
   ceremony, but I have kept to the simplicity of the Gospel. I have kept
   back no part of God's Word from you, but I have endeavored to give you
   the whole counsel of God. I have sought out no fineries of speech, but
   have spoken plainly and right straight at your hearts and consciences.
   And if you are not saved, I mourn and lament before God that up to this
   day, though I have preached hundreds of times to you, yet I have
   preached in vain!

   If you have not closed in with Christ. If you have not been washed in
   the fountain filled with blood, you are waste pieces of soil from which
   no harvest has yet come. You tell me, perhaps, that you have been kept
   from a great many sins; that you have learned a great many Truths of
   God by coming here. So far so good! But can I afford to live for this,

   merely to teach you certain Truths or keep you back from open sins? How
   could this content me if I knew all the while that you were still
   unsaved and must, therefore, after death, be cast into the flames of
   Hell? No, Beloved, before the Lord I count nothing to be worthy of your
   pastor's life, soul and energy but the winning of you to Christ!
   Nothing but your salvation can ever make me feel that my heart's desire
   is granted!

   I ask every worker here to see to this, that he or she never turns
   aside from shooting at this target and at the center of this target,
   too, namely, that we may win souls for Christ and see them born to God
   and washed in the fountain filled with blood! Let the workers' hearts
   ache and yearn--and their voices cry till their throats are hoarse--but
   let them judge that they have accomplished nothing whatever until, at
   least, in some cases, men are really saved! As the fisherman longs to
   take fish in his net. As the hunter pants to bear home his spoil. As
   the mother pines to clasp her lost child to her bosom, so do we faint
   for the salvation of souls! And we must have them, or we are ready to
   die. Save them, O Lord, save them for Christ's sake!

   But now we must leave that point for another.

   II. THE APOSTLE HAD GREAT REASONS FOR SELECTING SUCH AN OBJECTIVE IN
   LIFE. Were he here I

   think he would tell you that his reasons were something of this kind.
   To save souls! If they are not saved, our God is greatly dishonored!
   Did you ever think over the amount of dishonor that is done to the Lord
   our God in London in any one hour of the day? Take, if you will, this
   prayer hour, when we are gathered here ostensibly to pray. If the
   thoughts of this great assembly could all be read, how many of them
   would be dishonoring to the Most High? But outside of every house of
   prayer, outside of every place of worship of every kind, think of the
   thousands and tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, who have
   all this day neglected the very semblance of the worship of the God who
   has made them and who keeps them in being!

   Think of how many times the door of the gin-palace has swung on its
   hinges during this holy hour! Think how many times God's name has been
   blasphemed at the drinking bar! There are worse things than these, if
   worse can be, but I shall not lift the veil. Transfer your thoughts to
   an hour or so later, when the veil of darkness has descended. Shame
   will not permit us even to think of how God's name is dishonored in the
   persons of those whose first father was made after the image of God,
   but who pollute themselves to be the slaves of Satan and the prey of
   bestial lusts! Alas! Alas for this city! It is full of abominations of
   which the Apostle said, "It is a shame, even, to speak of those things
   which were done of them in secret."

   Christian men and women, nothing can sweep away the social evil but the
   Gospel! Vices are like vipers and only the voice of Jesus can drive
   them out of the land! The Gospel is the great besom with which to
   cleanse the filthiness of this city but nothing else will avail. Will
   you not, for God's sake, whose name is every day profaned, seek to save
   some? If you will enlarge your thoughts and take in all the great
   cities of the Continent--yes, further still--take all the idolaters of
   China and India, the worshippers of the false prophet and the
   Antichrist, what a mass of provocation have we here! What a smoke in
   Jehovah's nose must this false worship be! How He must often put His
   hand to the hilt of His sword as though He would say, "Ah! I will ease
   Myself of My adversaries." But He bears it patiently. Let us not become
   indifferent to His longsuffering, but day and night let us cry unto Him
   and daily let us labor for Him if by any means we may save some for His
   Glory's sake.

   Think, dear Friends, also, of the extreme misery of this, our human
   race. It would be a very dreadful thing, tonight, if you could get any
   idea of the aggregate of the misery of London at the present moment in
   the hospitals and the workhouses. Now, I would not say half a word
   against poverty--wherever it comes, it is a bitter ill--but you will
   mark as you notice carefully, that while a few are poor because of
   unavoidable circumstances, a very large mass of the poverty of London
   is the sheer and clear result of profuseness, lack of forethought,
   idleness and, worst of all, drunkenness. Ah, that drunkenness! That is
   the master evil! If drink could be gotten rid of, we might be sure of
   conquering the very devil himself! The drunkenness created by the
   infernal liquor dens which plague the whole of this huge city is
   appalling!

   No, I did not speak in haste, or let slip a hasty word. Many of the
   liquor dens are nothing less than infernal--in some respects they are
   worse, for Hell has its uses as the Divine protest against sin--but as
   for the gin palace there is nothing to be said in its favor. The vices
   of the age cause three-fourths of all the poverty! If you could look at
   the homes tonight, the wretched homes where women will tremble at the
   sound of their husband's foot as he comes home, where little children
   will crouch down with fear upon their little heap of straw because the
   human brute who calls himself, "a man,"

   will come reeling home from the place where he has been indulging his
   appetites--if you could look at such a sight and remember that it will
   be seen 10,000 times over tonight, I think you would say, "God help us,
   by all means, to save some." Since the great axe to lay at the root of
   the deadly upas tree is the Gospel of Christ, may God help us to hold
   that axe there and to work constantly with it till the huge trunk of
   the poison tree begins to rock to and fro and we get it down and London
   is saved--and the world is saved from the wretchedness and the misery
   which now drips from every branch!

   Again, dear Friends, the Christian has other reasons for seeking to
   save some--chiefly because of the terrible future of impenitent souls.
   That veil which hangs before me is not penetrated by every glance, but
   he who has his eyes touched with heavenly eye-salve sees through it and
   what does he see? Myriads upon myriads of spirits in dread procession
   passing from their bodies and passing--where? Unsaved, unregenerate,
   unwashed in precious blood, we see them go up to the solemn bar where,
   in silence, the sentence comes forth and they are banished from the
   Presence of God--banished to horrors which are not to be described nor
   even to be imagined! This, alone, were enough to cause us distress day
   and night! This decision of destiny has about it a terrible solemnity.

   But the Resurrection trumpet sounds! Those spirits come forth from
   their prison. I see them returning to earth, rising from the Pit to the
   bodies in which they lived! And now I see them stand--multitudes!
   Multitudes! Multitudes! Multitudes--in the Valley of Decision. And HE
   comes with the crown upon His head and the books before Him, sitting on
   a Great White Throne. And there they stand as prisoners at the bar! My
   vision now perceives them--how they tremble! How they quiver like aspen
   leaves in the gale! To where can they flee? Rocks cannot hide them!
   Mountains will not open their bowels to conceal them! What shall become
   of them? The dread angel takes the sickle, reaps them as the reaper
   cuts up the tares for the oven--and as he gathers he casts them down
   where despair shall be their everlasting torment! Woe is me, my heart
   sinks as I see their doom and hear the terrible cries of their too-late
   awaking!

   Save some, O Christians! By all means save some! By yonder flames and
   outer darkness and the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of
   teeth, seek to save some! Let this, as in the case of the Apostle, be
   your great, your ruling objective in life, that by all means you may
   save some! For, oh, if they are saved, observe the contrast. Their
   spirits mount to Heaven and after the Resurrection their bodies ascend,
   also, and there they praise redeeming love! No fingers more nimble on
   the harp strings than theirs! No notes more sweet than theirs, as they
   sing, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood,
   be Glory forever and ever." What bliss to see the once rebellious
   brought home to God and heirs of wrath made possessors of Heaven!

   All this is involved in salvation. O that myriads may come to this
   blessed state. "Save some"--oh, some at least! Seek that some may be
   there in Glory! Behold your Master! He is your Pattern. He left Heaven
   to save some. He went to the Cross, to the grave, to "save some." This
   was the great objective of His life, to lay down His life for His
   sheep. He loved His Church and gave Himself for it, that He might
   redeem her unto Himself. Imitate your Master! Learn His self-denial and
   His blessed consecration if by any means you may save some! My soul
   yearns that I personally may "save some," but broader is my desire than
   that. I would have every one of you, my beloved Friends, associated
   here in Church fellowship, to become spiritual parents of children for
   God!

   Oh, that each of you might "save some!" Yes, my venerable Brothers and
   Sisters, you are not too old for service. Yes, my young Friends, you
   young men and maidens, you are not too young to be recruits in the
   King's service! If the kingdom is ever to come to our Lord and, come it
   will, it never will come through a few ministers, missionaries, or
   evangelists preaching the Gospel. It must come through each of you
   preaching it--in the shop and by the fireside--when walking abroad and
   when sitting in the chamber. You must, all of you, be always
   endeavoring to "save some." I would enlist you all afresh tonight and
   bind anew the King's colors upon you! I would that you would fall in
   love with my Master all over again and enter a second time upon the
   love of your espousals! There is a hymn of Cowper's which we sometimes
   sing--

   "O for a closer walk with God!"

   May we get to have a closer walk with Him and if we do, we shall also
   feel a more vehement desire to magnify Christ in the salvation of
   sinners. I would like to press the inquiry upon my hearers tonight, you
   who are saved--How many others have you brought to Christ? You cannot
   do it by yourself, I know, but I mean how many has the Spirit of God
   brought by you? How many, did I say? Is it quite certain that you have
   led any to Jesus? Can you remember one? I pity

   you, then! "Write," said Jeremiah, "Write that man childless." That was
   considered to be a fearful curse! Shall I write you childless, my
   beloved Friends? Your children are not saved, your wife is not saved
   and you are spiritually childless! Can you bear this thought? I pray
   you wake from your sleep and ask the Master to make you useful.

   "I wish the saints cared for us sinners," said a young man. "They do
   care for you," answered one, "care very much for you." "Why don't they
   show it, then?" he asked, "I have often wished to have a talk about
   good things, but my friend, who is a member of the Church, never
   broaches the subject and seems to study how to keep clear of it when I
   am with him." Do not let them say this about you! Tell them about
   Christ and things Divine and make this your resolve, every one of you,
   that if men perish they shall not perish for lack of your prayers, nor
   for lack of your earnest and loving instructions! God give you Grace,
   each one of you, to resolve, by all means, to save some and then to
   carry out your intentions!

   III. But my time is almost gone and therefore I have to mention, in the
   last place, THE GREAT METHODS WHICH THE APOSTLE USED. How did he, who
   so longed to, "save some," set about it? Why, first of all, by simply
   preaching the Gospel of Christ. He did not attempt to create a
   sensation by startling statements. Neither did he preach erroneous
   doctrine in order to obtain the assent of the multitude. I fear that
   some evangelists preach what, in their own minds, they must know to be
   untrue. They keep back certain doctrines, not because they are untrue
   but because they do not give scope enough for their ravings and they
   make loose statements because they hope to reach more minds. However
   earnest a man may be for the salvation of sinners, I do not believe
   that he has any right to make any statement which his sober judgment
   will not justify.

   I think I have heard of things said and done at revival meetings which
   were not according to sound doctrine, but which were always excused by
   "the excitement of the occasion." I hold that I have no right to state
   false doctrine even if I knew it would save a soul! The supposition is,
   of course, absurd! But it makes you see what I mean. My business is to
   bring to bear upon men, not falsehood, but the Truth of God and I shall
   not be excused if, under any pretense, I palm a lie upon the people.
   Rest assured that to keep back any part of the Gospel is not the right,
   nor the true method for saving men. Tell the sinner all the doctrines.
   If you hold Calvinistic doctrine, as I hope you do, do not stutter
   about it, nor stammer over it, but speak it out! Depend upon it, many
   revivals have been worthless because a full-orbed Gospel was not
   proclaimed.

   Give the people every Truth of God, every Truth of God baptized in holy
   fire, and each Truth will have its own useful effect upon the mind. But
   the great Truth is the Cross, the Truth that "God so loved the world
   that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should
   not perish, but have everlasting life." Brethren, keep to that! That is
   the bell for you to ring. Ring it, man! Ring it! Keep on ringing it!
   Sound forth that note upon your silver trumpet, or if you are only a
   ram's horn, sound it forth and the walls of Jericho will come down!
   Alas for the fineries of our "cultured" modern divines. I hear them
   crying out and denouncing my old-fashioned advice. This talking about
   Christ Crucified is said to be archaic, conventional and antique--and
   not at all suitable to the refinement of this wonderful age!

   It is astonishing how learned we have all grown lately. We are getting
   so very wise, I am afraid we shall ripen into fools before long, even
   if we have not arrived at it already! People need "thinking" nowadays,
   so it is said, and the working men will go where science is deified and
   profound "thought" is enshrined. I have noticed that as a general rule
   wherever the new "thinking" drives out the old Gospel there are more
   spiders than people--but where there is the simple preaching of Jesus
   Christ, the place is crowded to the doors! Nothing else will crowd a
   meeting house, after all, for any length of time, but the preaching of
   Christ Crucified!

   But as to this matter, whether it is popular or unpopular, our mind is
   made up and our foot is put down. We have no doubts or questions as to
   our own course. If it is foolish to preach up Atonement by blood, we
   will be fools! And if it is madness to stick to the old Truths of God
   just as Paul delivered them, in all their simplicity, without any
   refinement, or improvement, we mean to stick to it even if we are put
   in the stocks as being incapable of progressing with the age, for we
   are persuaded that this "foolishness of preaching" is a Divine
   ordinance and that the Cross of Christ which stumbles so many and is
   ridiculed by so many more, is still the power of God and the wisdom of
   God! Yes, just the old-fashioned Truth of God--if you believe, you
   shall be saved--we will stick to that and may God send His blessing
   upon it according to His own eternal purpose.

   We do not expect this preaching to be popular, but we know that God
   will justify it before long. Meanwhile, we are not staggered because--

   "The Truths we love, a sightless world blasphemes As childish dotage
   and delirious dreams! The danger they discern not they deny-- They
   laugh at their only remedy--and die."

   Next to this, Paul used much prayer. The Gospel alone will not be
   blessed. We must pray over our preaching. A great painter was asked
   what he mixed his colors with and he replied he mixed them with brains.
   That is well for a painter, but if anyone should ask a preacher what he
   mixes the Truth of God with, he ought to be able to answer--with
   prayer, much prayer. When a poor man was breaking granite by the
   roadside, he was down on his knees while he gave his blows and a
   minister passing by, said, "Ah, my Friend, here you are at your hard
   work! Your work is just like mine--you have to break stones, and so do
   I." "Yes," said the man, "and if you manage to break stony hearts, you
   will have to do it as I do--down on your knees." The man was right. No
   one can use the Gospel hammer well except he is much on his knees. But
   the Gospel hammer soon splits flinty hearts when a man knows how to
   pray. Prevail with God and you will prevail with men. Fresh from the
   closet to the pulpit let us come, with the anointing oil of God's
   Spirit fresh upon us. What we receive in secret, we are to cheerfully
   dispense in public. Let us never venture to speak for God to men until
   we have spoken for men to God! Yes, dear Hearers, if you want a
   blessing on your Sunday school teaching, or any other form of Christian
   labor, mix it up with fervent intercession!

   And then observe one other thing. Paul went to his work always with an
   intense sympathy for those he dealt with--a sympathy which made him
   adapt himself to each case. If he talked to a Jew, he did not begin at
   once blurting out that he was the Apostle to the Gentiles, but he said
   he was a Jew, as Jew he was. He raised no questions about nationalities
   or ceremonies. He wanted to tell the Jew of Him of whom Isaiah said,
   "'He is despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted
   with grief," in order that he might believe in Jesus and so be saved.
   If he met a Gentile, the Apostle to the Gentiles never showed any of
   the squeamishness which might have been expected to cling to him on
   account of his Jewish education. He ate as the Gentile ate and drank as
   the Gentile did. He sat with him and talked with him. He was, as it
   were, a Gentile with him.

   He never raised any question about circumcision or uncircumcision, but
   solely wishing to tell him of Christ who came into the world to save
   both Jew and Gentile and to make them one. If Paul met with a Scythian,
   he spoke to him in the barbarian tongue and not in classic Greek. If he
   met a Greek, he spoke to him as he did at the Areopagus, with language
   that was fitted for the polished Athenian. He was all things to all
   men, that he might, by all means, save some! So with you, Christian
   people--your one business in life is to lead men to believe in Jesus
   Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit--and every other thing should be
   made subservient to this one objective. If you can but get them saved,
   everything else will come right in due time.

   Mr. Hudson Taylor, a dear man of God, who has labored much in Inland
   China, finds it helpful to dress as a Chinaman and wear a pigtail. He
   always mingles with the people and, as far as possible, lives as they
   do. This seems to me to be a truly wise policy. I can understand that
   we shall win upon a congregation of Chinese by becoming as Chinese as
   possible and, if this is the case, we are bound to be Chinese to the
   Chinese to save the Chinese! It would not be amiss to become a Zulu to
   save the Zulus, though we must mind that we do it in another sense than
   Colenso did. If we can put ourselves on a level with those whose good
   we seek, we shall be more likely to effect our purpose than if we
   remain aliens and foreigners and then talk of love and unity.

   To sink myself to save others is the idea of the Apostle. To throw
   overboard all peculiarities and yield a thousand indifferent points in
   order to bring men to Jesus is our wisdom if we would extend our
   Master's kingdom! Never may any whim or conventionality of ours keep a
   soul from considering the Gospel--that were horrible, indeed. Better
   far to be personally inconvenienced by compliance with indifferent
   things, than to retard a sinner's coming by quarrelling about trifles.
   If Jesus Christ were here today I am sure He would not put on any of
   those gaudy rags in which the Puseyite delights himself. I cannot
   imagine our Lord Jesus Christ dressed out in that style. Why, the
   Apostle tells our women that they are to dress themselves modestly and
   I do not think Christ would have His ministers set an example of
   tomfoolery!

   But yet, even in dress, something may be done on the principle of our
   text. When Jesus Christ was here, what dress did he wear? To put it in
   plain English, He wore a smock frock. He wore the common dress of His
   countrymen--a

   garment woven from the top throughout, without seam--and I think He
   would have His ministers wear clothes which are most like the clothes
   which their hearers wear in common--and so, even in dress, associate
   with their hearers and be one among them. He would have you teachers,
   if you want to save your children, talk to them like children and make
   yourselves children if you can. You who want to get at young peoples'
   hearts must try to be young. You who wish to visit the sick must
   sympathize with them in their sickness. Get to speak as you would like
   to be spoken to if you were sick. Come down to those who cannot come up
   to you.

   You cannot pull people out of the water without stooping down and
   getting hold of them. If you have to deal with bad characters you must
   come down to them, not in their sin, but in their roughness and in
   their style of language so as to get a hold of them. I pray God that we
   may learn the sacred art of soul-winning by adaptation. They called Mr.
   Whitefield's chapel at Moorfields, "The Soul Trap." Whitefield was
   delighted and said he hoped it always would be a soul trap! Oh that all
   our places of worship were soul traps and every Christian a fisher of
   men, each one doing his best, as the fisherman does, by every art and
   artifice, to catch those they fish for! Well may we use all means to
   win so great a prize as a spirit destined for eternal weal or woe!

   The diver plunges deep to find pearls and we may accept any labor or
   hazard to win a soul. Rouse yourselves, my Brothers and Sisters, for
   this God-like work and may the Lord bless you in it! I commend these
   wandering thoughts to your earnest attention. I pray the ungodly to
   think of what their ruin will be unless they come to Jesus and trust in
   Him. And I ask Believers to be doubly earnest, from this time forth, in
   laboring to save the souls of men! And may God send us such a blessing
   that we shall not have room to receive it! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Philosophy of Promise

   (No. 1508)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 29, 1879,

   BY C.H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "New things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them."
   Isaiah 42:9.

   GOD has often foretold things to come by the lips of His Prophets. I
   need not give you even a single specimen of the multitudes of instances
   in which events which could not have been guessed at--which, indeed,
   were highly improbable and unlikely--were nevertheless foretold by the
   Spirit of God through the Prophets and actually came to pass. The Lord
   claims this as a proof of His Godhead. It is His special prerogative to
   possess Omniscience, the knowledge of everything and, therefore,
   Prescience, or the knowledge of that which will happen in years to
   come. These are attributes of God, alone, and often He challenges idols
   to produce instances in which they have exercised foresight and
   predicted things to come. They had their oracles, which were the
   mimicry of prophecy, but they continually failed, whereas Jehovah's
   Word stood fast even in jots and tittles and thus His eternal Godhead
   was proven.

   The imitation of this attribute by the magicians and prophets of the
   false gods proved that they saw this to be an exclusive attribute of
   Deity and their perpetual confusion in their attempts proved, with
   equal clearness, that their mock deities did not possess it. I think it
   most admirable and it seems another instance of the foresight of the
   Holy Spirit, that the words of my text should stand where they do, for
   it may not be unknown to some of you that the modern critics, who
   always try, if they can, to tear the heart out of every text and are
   never satisfied until, like swine, they trample beneath their feet
   every cluster of Eshcol--these modern critics, I say, have dared to
   ascribe one part of the Book of Isaiah to a second Isaiah, as they call
   him, who wrote after the times of Christ.

   They do this, you see, because the Prophecy so plainly describes our
   Lord Jesus Christ that men who will not believe in God, or in the
   Inspiration of His Holy Bible, are driven to invent the notion that a
   prophecy was written after the event. Truly, it might as well have been
   written afterwards, as before, for it is so accurate. But here, as if
   the Lord foresaw that there would come, in the last days, scoffers, He
   bids His servant, in these express words, claim that He speaks things
   before they come to pass--"Behold, the former things are come to pass,
   and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of
   them."

   It remains, therefore, for these sham Christian critics either to
   accept the fact that Isaiah's book contains actual Prophecies, or else
   to reject it altogether. Their specious pretense of believing the book
   to be authentic while they deny its prophetic character is exposed by
   the words before us. It is not, however, about Prophecy that I am going
   to speak at this time. I wish to bring forth a general principle--the
   principle that our gracious Lord usually gives a promise of that which
   He means to bestow. Before His favors come into our hands, the sound of
   them falls upon our ears! Since God is full of mercy and Grace, He has
   resolved to give great blessings to the sons of men, but He gives not
   without prudent arrangement and, therefore, His wisdom fixes times for
   the bestowal of His gifts.

   A certain fullness of time of which He often speaks was necessary
   before the coming of Christ. Our Lord could not appear in human flesh
   until that appointed time had come. But while His wisdom bade Him stay,
   the fulfillment of His love was so great that He must begin to speak of
   the grand Covenant blessing! Before the Lord Jesus came, the Father was
   continually speaking of His coming! Before He had given Him from His
   bosom to die, He so delighted in what He was going to do and He took
   such pleasure in the result of His glorious gift that He must speak
   about it! And so in countless promises He spoke with the sons of men
   concerning the great deed of love. This seems to me a clear proof of
   how heartily He went about the great work of our redemption--because He
   dwelt so much upon the prospect of it that He revealed His thoughts in
   Prophecy and promise.

   If you are going to do some kindness to a friend and the time has not
   quite come for it, yet you cannot keep your purpose a secret. If you
   think it will minister to his comfort to receive a promise of it, you
   are sure to give him some

   cheering hint or comforting intimation. The thought is pleasant to
   yourself and you wish him to share your anticipation. You wish him to
   get a sight of the good thing before he gets a taste of it. Before he
   actually obtains the help, itself, you wish to see him cheered with the
   prospect and so you turn his mind hopefully in the kindly direction.
   Love is so fond of its object that it is not content with blessing it
   by a solitary act--before the time comes for the actual blessing, love
   casts forth a fragrance, as a forecast of the flower which is yet in
   bloom and not fully opened.

   It is for this reason that the Lord antedates His mercy and informs His
   people of things to come before they actually spring forth. Wisdom
   waits its time to fulfill, as we have said, but Grace gives the promise
   beforehand that it may ease its own soul of the load of its beneficence
   and give comfort to those who are to receive the blessing. Hence almost
   everything that God gives to His people is made a matter of promise. He
   not only means to bestow the favor, but He tells us He means to bestow
   it and He has a practical purpose in this information. The philosophy
   of promise is my topic at this time. Why are Covenant blessings the
   subject of promises? Why does not the Lord give us the blessing without
   previous intimation? It would be as effectual. Why does He, before it
   comes, promise it again and again? I shall give five answers to a
   question which might admit of fifty.

   I. And the first is this. GOD SPEAKS THESE THINGS BEFORE THE BLESSING
   COMES IN ORDER TO DISPLAY HIS GRACE. First, to display the freeness of
   His Grace. You will notice that the promise to which He specially
   alludes is this, "To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
   from the prison house." Now these blind and captive persons had not
   sought Grace. They had not pleaded for eyes, nor asked for liberty. In
   fact, they were not even born in the days of Isaiah! It is a case like
   that of Jacob quoted by Paul, "The children not being yet born," the
   promise was made irrespectively of them. Unsought, unbought, unthought
   of, the promise came that He would open the blind eyes and bring the
   prisoners out of the prison house.

   This, I say, proves the freeness of God's Grace, that He makes a
   promise before we know our need or seek His face. When He makes a
   promise of pure Grace, He does not come to us and say, "If this," and,
   "if that," and, "if the other." No, He comes with, "I will," and, "I
   will," and, "I will," and, "I will," before we seek Him, before we have
   any desire towards Him, yes, and before we have any sense of need of
   Him. There are many conditional promises for which we ought to be very
   thankful, but the foundation of them all is an absolute, unconditioned
   Covenant of Grace. A redemption was provided for me before I lived and,
   consequently, before I could have known that I was a slave. The Spirit
   of God was given that I might live before I knew that I was dead and,
   consequently, before I could have made an appeal for spiritual

   life.

   The blessings of the Covenant of Grace, my dear Hearers, were laid up
   in store for God's chosen people ages ago. Before the Fall actually
   took place, the Covenant had arranged for the recovery of the Church of
   Christ. These blessings have been in existence and provided for many of
   you, albeit that even now, perhaps you do not know your need of them
   and have not yet begun to seek the Lord that you may find Him, for the
   Lord, in mighty Grace, comes to men long before they come to Him. Their
   first sincere thought towards Him is caused by His having thought of
   them!--

   "No sinner can be beforehand with Thee. Your Grace is most sovereign,
   most rich, and most free." The promise of the Covenant runs thus--"I
   will call them My people that were not My people, and her Beloved that
   was not beloved." The Grace of God comes thus spontaneously from the
   heart of God and He foretells its working and declares that He will
   save His chosen in order that it may be seen beyond all dispute to be
   the outcome of His own deliberate purpose and the act of His sacred
   Sovereignty and boundless lave.

   I think the Lord also tells us what He is going to do before He does it
   that we may see the fullness of His Grace. The Lord says that He will
   come, not to men who are looking for Him, but to those who have blind
   eyes and, therefore, cannot look! He says that He will come, not to
   those who are coming to Him, though He will do that, but to those who
   cannot come to Him because they are shut up as in a prison. Notice the
   passage--they are blind prisoners and cannot come forth--and yet the
   Lord comes to take the film from their eyes and to tear the iron bar
   from the window and set the captive free, not because there is any
   goodness in the poor blind prisoner at the present moment, nor because
   there ever will be any, but simply because the Lord is full of mercy
   and delights to display His Grace.

   Christ died for the ungodly. Jesus came to seek and to save that which
   was lost. He is a Physician and, therefore, comes not to seek the
   whole, but the sick. To make us know this glorious fairness of His
   Grace, He informs us beforehand

   of what He is about to do. Moreover, I think it is not only to show the
   freeness and the fullness of His Grace, but the power of it, for He
   speaks very positively. He says that He will open the blind eyes and He
   will bring out the prisoners from the prison. Can He do this? Yes, that
   He can. There can be no question about His ability! When the Lord
   resolves to save, save He can! Some people believe in a great god in
   Nature, but in a very little God in Grace. The god of Nature can do
   everything, they say, and they believe in physical miracles--but
   according to their notions, the God of Grace has to consult the will of
   man and He has to halt and hesitate until the dead man will arise and
   give himself life and unwilling man will change his own will!

   I believe in the Omnipotence of God in the kingdom of Grace and that He
   can change a heart of stone to flesh and break the iron sinew of the
   stubborn will and bow men before Him. To me the Almighty is as supreme
   in the realm of mind as in the world of matter. I do not doubt the free
   agency of man--on the contrary, I see daily evidence of it! I believe
   man to be a free agent and yet he is not and cannot be more powerful in
   any respect than the Lord of All! The Lord knows how to be master in
   the kingdom of the human will and, without violating that will in any
   degree, He can achieve the eternal purpose of His love. To triumph over
   mere dead matter is nothing compared with the glory of the Lord's rule
   over mind, thought, intellect and will! He will have mercy on whom He
   will have mercy and He will have compassion on whom He will have
   compassion, and yet he that comes to Him, He will in no wise cast out.

   The Lord's Grace is irresistible--His purpose shall stand and He will
   do all His pleasure. "This is taking high ground," says one. It is
   ground blessedly high for sinking sinners! It is such ground as we need
   who are utterly lost and ruined and undone! You that can help
   yourselves may go and do it, but we who cannot do so are glad to find
   that God knows what He is going to do and speaks with the tone of a
   Sovereign and with the voice of One who has not to ask help from
   others, but who can work all things according to the counsel of His own
   will. "Before they spring forth I tell you of them," He says. Because
   His Grace is mighty, He thus speaks of what is going to be done. Oh
   listen to me, you blind ones who cannot open your own eyes! Christ has
   come to open them!

   O you lost sinners who cannot save yourselves, Christ has come to save
   you! Oh, you that are all but damned and lie at Hell's gate expecting
   the flame, have hope, for Christ has come to save that which was lost!
   O you firebrands that almost smoke in the burning, He comes to pluck
   you out of the fire! He does not come to help you to save yourselves,
   but to save you! He does not approach you with measured steps in order
   that you may come half way to meet Him, but He comes all the way to you
   in your death, your ruin, your poverty, your misery, your blindness,
   your captivity! He comes to achieve salvation and He proclaims what He
   is about to do in order that He may have the Glory of it.

   That is our first head, then. The Lord announces His purposes of love
   to display His Grace.

   II. Secondly, Brothers and Sisters, I think the Lord announces the
   Covenant blessings He is about to bestow IN ORDER TO AWAKEN OUR HOPES.
   Many poor souls would actually die before they were saved if they did
   not get some little hope, every now and then, while they are in a
   seeking state. I am not speaking haphazardly, now, I am speaking of
   cases that I know--poor tempted, troubled ones--to whom the promises
   are as a brook by the way of which they drink and lift up their heads.
   Some of you come to Christ apparently very easily. Thank God for it!
   But I know others who cannot get at the Lord Jesus for the press. They
   even try to look to Him, but they are blinded by their tears. I cannot
   excuse their unbelief, but I pity their poor trembling spirits. They
   are coming to Christ, but they are like the child of whom we read that,
   "when he was a coming the devil threw him down and tore him." They are
   sadly torn and cannot get to Christ.

   Now, when the Lord tells His people what He will do, they are cheered
   with expectation. When they read such texts as these, "A new heart also
   will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you," and, "I
   will put My Law in your hearts, and you shall not depart from Me," and,
   "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more forever."
   "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
   though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool"-- poor souls
   catch at such words of promise and learn how to hope. "Oh!" they say,
   "if that promise might be true for me, then I would not perish! Perhaps
   the Lord will look in mercy upon me." Every now and then the Lord saves
   a great big sinner--an unusually black sinner--and what does He do with
   him? He makes him a walking advertisement of His mercy so that others
   see the infinite Grace of God!

   Men cry out in wonder," What? Has So-and-So found Christ? Then why
   should not we?" Perhaps the man may have been guilty of great
   iniquities. He may have been a ringleader in wickedness. But the Lord
   takes him and washes him

   from his sin and opens his mouth to praise His name! When such an one
   begins to speak of Divine love, poor tormented spirits catch at the
   words and they say, "Why should not I find mercy? Why should not I be
   saved?" When such a man becomes a living proof of what God can do, the
   promise stands out to the life before the poor sinner's eyes and he
   says, "Ah, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps there is salvation for me!"

   John Bunyan, who had been a drunken tinker, went about preaching the
   everlasting Gospel like a man who had been in the condemned cell and
   had received a pardon! And I tell you the villagers gathered to listen
   to such a one as he because they wondered at God's mighty Grace! They
   said, one to another, "Has Mr. Bad-Man become a pilgrim? Then why
   should we not start our pilgrimage, also? Has infinite Mercy changed
   his heart? Then why should it not change ours?" I would have you pluck
   up courage, any sinners among you who are here at this time! Supposing
   you to be the very worst persons that ever lived and supposing you to
   have the worst temper, the worst disposition, the worst besetting sins
   and the worst habits that any men have ever had, I tell you the Lord,
   in great mercy, has saved just such as you and He has promised, still,
   to deal with great sinners in a way of great love!

   Seize hold of this blessed fact! Weave a hope out of it and say, "I
   need not despair--not even I. I need not plunge into great sin under
   the notion that I cannot be saved. 'He is able also to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him.' He can save me! He has said, 'Him
   that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out,' and if I come to Him, He
   will not cast me out. I will not despair, then, or sit down and say
   there is no hope! I deserve to be with the devils in Hell, but why
   should I not be among the saints in Heaven? I deserve to be banished
   forever, but why should there not be a crown in Heaven for me?

   "Ah, will not the saints wonder when they see me come in? The angels
   will look down from their harps and say, 'What? Is he here?' Then I
   will tell the story of what the Lord has done and set them wondering
   over again, till even they shall say, 'It has never been so before!
   Here comes the biggest, blackest, most Hell-deserving wretch that ever
   did enter Heaven! Lift up a loftier song than ever! Louder and louder
   yet! Let the song ring through the heavenly arches, for Love has
   out-loved itself and Grace has out-graced itself above all it has ever
   done before!"

   I pray God that some despairing soul may grasp these cheering facts and
   be comforted. I am trying to throw the big net to catch a whale of a
   sinner if he is floating anywhere near my boat. I know if the Gospel
   net once encloses him, it will hold him, for not a single mesh of it
   will give way despite his size and his struggling. I would like to put
   the Gospel so wide and so broad that the sheep which is hunted by the
   dog of Hell farthest away from the fold may, nevertheless, come back to
   the great and gracious Shepherd of Souls. Why, Beloved, even God's own
   believing people need to be told, at times, of what God will do in
   order to encourage their hope.

   Look how the Lord deals with His persecuted ones. When they are hunted,
   slandered, despoiled of their goods, what does He do? He makes them
   know that they have a richer inheritance in Heaven! He sets before them
   the joys which He has prepared for them that love Him. Now, He might,
   if He liked, have kept all about Heaven to Himself and so have made it
   a surprise to us and, indeed, some seem to think that He has done so,
   but in this they are ill advised. We know much about Heaven even now.
   "Why," says one, "the Scripture says, 'Eye has not seen, neither has
   ear heard.'" I know it does, but why do you stop in the middle of a
   text? You make it say the reverse of what it intends to say! Hear the
   whole of it. "Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into
   the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love
   Him; but He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit."

   By chopping it in halves you made the passage say the very opposite of
   what it intended! Your eyes have not seen and your ears have not heard,
   but His Spirit has told you concerning the things which He has prepared
   for you--and this is no little privilege. I need not stay to tell you
   how much the Lord has told us about the eternal state, as to our being
   with Jesus where He is, that we may behold His Glory and may be sharers
   in that Glory forever. He has told us this to cheer us up while on the
   road, to encourage us that we may never sink in despair. Going to lie
   down and die, Brother? Do you know how near you are to Heaven? Perhaps
   you will be there in a month! Going to give it all up now? Will you be
   so foolish as to leave the battle just as the victory is won? Brother,
   does the devil tell you to turn back? He knows how near you are to
   Glory!

   You are something like Columbus when he was within three days sail of
   America and the sailors bade him stay his course. He could not, would
   not reverse his venturous ship, but pushed on and found the new world!
   Some of us may be within a very few days' sail of Heaven and yet do not
   know it--and the devil has the impudence to persuade us to go

   back. Shall we listen to the impudent fiend? No, by the Grace of God,
   never! If the journey is long, the end will repay us for it. If the
   voyage is rough, the brave country will make amends for all the
   tempests which have wreaked their vengeance upon us. Onward, onward, be
   our course! To help us to persevere even to the end, the Lord has made
   the new things known to us and has told us of them before they spring
   forth.

   Two good answers to the question are now before us and each one is an
   argument for adoration.

   III. But now, thirdly, why has the Lord told us about the mercies He
   intends to give? To EXERCISE OUR FAITH. The Gospel of God is a Gospel
   for Believers and one of God's great objectives in the whole
   arrangement of the Gospel system is to educate our confidence in Him. I
   remember speaking, once, with a Brother upon the room which God has
   left for faith to work. We were speaking about the various defenses
   which have been used to prove the veracity of the Christian religion
   against infidel assaults and I was remarking upon the manifest failure
   of certain of them which appeared exceedingly strong, at one time, but
   are now abandoned because under new attacks they have manifestly
   failed.

   My friend was deploring that this book and the other, which had once
   been considered as standard works, seemed to have lost power over this
   generation. It came to the minds of both of us that if God had made the
   Christian religion so clear that you could make an axiom of it, or
   prove it as easily as you show that twice two make four, there would
   have been no room for faith at all--and then the Divine system of
   salvation would have taken another course, for faith would have
   occupied a very narrow space in it. The Lord intends that men should
   exercise faith in His Word, for He knows that faith is necessary to us
   if we are to be delivered from sin. A man cannot be saved if He does
   not trust His God. And when a man is brought to trust His God, he is
   practically saved.

   You ask, "How is that?" If a man has a servant and that servant has
   fallen out with his master, if it is desirable to bring that servant to
   obedience, the first thing to do is to make him believe in his master.
   If he believes his master to be good, true, kind and noble, you have
   gained the servant's obedience. He will be reconciled to his master and
   will be right well content to serve him. So that faith and trust,
   though they appear to be such minor things that we wonder why they
   should be the great requirement of the Gospel, are not small matters
   after all! They are the pivot upon which character turns. When I bring
   my mind down to this, that I believe God and accept the Bible as His
   Revelation, I am getting right. If when I cannot understand the Word of
   God I believe it as much as if I did understand it, then I have in
   heart become obedient to God. I have taken up the place which a
   creature ought to occupy towards His Creator and the act of trusting
   and believing has become the pivot upon which I turn as my mind seeks
   the Lord. And by its means I get into a right condition with Him.

   Therefore does the Lord, before He gives us a mercy, say to us,
   "Believe in Me and you shall have it. Believe in the Atonement made by
   My dear Son and you shall have pardon. Believe in My willingness to
   forgive you and submit yourself and cast yourself at My feet and I will
   forgive and bless you." It is not a hard thing that He requires. It is
   not a wrong thing. It is an act of the heart which is good for us all
   round and, becomes the instrument in the hand of the Spirit of
   reconciling us to God. The Lord has told us what great things He is
   going to do for sinners and I want you to answer the question--Do you
   believe that He can do this? Come now, you that are ungodly and
   graceless, do you believe that God can save you? Can He make you holy?
   Can He make you gracious?

   You have many sins, but do you believe that Christ can blot them all
   out in a moment and make you to be as though you had never committed
   them, casting them behind the back of God, Himself, so that they shall
   never be mentioned against you any more? Can you believe all this? If
   you can believe it, can you also believe another thing, namely, that He
   is willing to do this deed of love? Can you believe that the great
   Father does not will that you should perish and has no joy that you
   should be lost? Can you believe that it will give Him delight to
   receive you? That He will be glad to press you to His bosom and make
   you His child and that you should be reconciled to Him? Can you believe
   this? By the wounds of God, by the blood of the Son of God on Calvary,
   I say you ought to believe it, for He that loved sinners well enough to
   die cannot be unwilling that they should be saved!

   You can believe His power and His willingness, you say. Well, the only
   thing that you have to do, now, in order to be saved this moment is to
   act out your belief upon these two points. He can and He is
   willing--throw yourself upon that power and will. Trust yourself with
   Jesus, now! That is the one demand of the Gospel--"Believe and live."
   Rest in the knowledge that He has reconciled you to Himself in Christ
   and that He forgives you now because you trust alone in His

   Son for your eternal salvation. Will you do this at once? Will you rest
   on Christ Jesus? Then, "Your sins, which are many, are all forgiven."
   You are a saved man!

   "Oh, but how," you ask, "do I know that I am saved?" You shall feel and
   know that you are saved if you believe, for you shall find yourself,
   from this time, loving the things which you did before hate and hating
   the things which you did once love--and that simple act of trusting
   which seems so insignificant will transform you and will become the
   hinge on which your life shall turn. Believing in Christ, you shall go
   out of this house saying, "I am a forgiven man and I love the God who
   has forgiven me. I am washed in the blood of Christ and from now on
   will I serve Him--

   'Lord, in the strength of Grace,

   With a glad heart and free,

   Myself, my residue of days,

   I consecrate to Thee.'

   I am Christ's man forever! I will not grieve Him, by the help of His
   Holy Spirit. I will live to His praise. I will tell others what He has
   done for me and my entire life shall be a life of obedience if He will
   but help me and keep me and sustain me by His gracious power."

   You see now why the blessings of Grace are foretold--that they may
   become objects of faith. God give you faith to exercise upon them now.

   IV. Fourthly, and very briefly, these things are told us before they
   come to pass THAT THEY MAY EXCITE OUR PRAYER. After hope and faith,
   prayer is quite sure to follow. Note the order--the Lord says that
   Christ shall come to open the eyes of the blind--here is Grace. I
   pictured the blind man just now as saying, "Jesus is come to open the
   blind eyes; why should He not open mine?" Here is hope. Next the blind
   man goes on to say, "He says that He will do it if I trust in Him. I
   know He can. I believe He will. I will trust Him." Here is faith. What
   is the very next thing that the blind man does? Why he begins to pray
   to Him. "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." Here is prayer.

   As soon as the first little drop of faith falls into a man's soul, he
   begins to pray, "Lord, You have promised pardon to Believers. Give that
   pardon to me. You have promised a new heart. Give a new heart to me.
   You have promised eternal salvation to as many as obey Christ. Lord,
   give me eternal salvation." Oh that blessed gift of faith! It soon
   brings a man to his knees. When he hopes that he may gain the blessing.
   When he believes that he may have it--then he begins to cry for it--and
   if he cries with real faith, he has already obtained the blessing for
   which he is seeking! While he is pleading, God is hearing!

   Think of those poor people in the prisons. There they sit in darkness
   and they make no sound but groans. But suddenly a Voice is heard. Jesus
   comes to set the captives free! It is repeated, "He comes, He comes to
   loose the ones in bondage." Inside the prison there shines a Light in
   the midst of the darkness and the prisoners say, "If He comes, why
   should not He come to us? Blessed be His name, we hope He will come to
   us." And now you can hear them cry, "Come! Come! Come, Lord! Come
   quickly! Break these chains! Dispel this darkness. Set us free." And it
   is not long after the prisoner of hope begins to pray, before the walls
   totter and the captive is free as a bird of the air. The Lord thus, as
   it were, holds out the mercy so that His dear ones may ask for it, cry
   for it, struggle for it! And that so they may get the double blessing
   of being taught to pray as well as to receive the answer of their
   prayers!

   O you that are the people of God, I want you to learn this lesson, that
   all God's promises which are not fulfilled are meant to stimulate you
   to pray! We read a chapter just now in which the Lord says that the
   isles shall wait for God. Pray for it! He has promised to give His Son
   the heathen for His inheritance. Pray that the heathen may be the
   heritage of your Prince! Every promise should be turned into prayer! I
   believe that the whole earth will yet be "filled with the knowledge of
   the Lord as the waters cover the sea," but not without prayer. Even
   Christ must pray. Is it not written, "Ask of Me and I shall give you
   the heathen for Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
   for Your possession"? Christ is to come, but He has taught His Church
   to say, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

   There is no picture of the princely reign of Christ but what should at
   once awaken our desires and those desires should be set on fire with
   prayer. Thus says the Lord, "For this will I be enquired of by the
   house of Israel to do it for them." And yet if the Lord does not do
   some great thing before His Church prays greatly, the good thing is not
   coming just yet. We do have good Prayer Meetings in this Tabernacle,
   thank God. It is the joy of my heart to see so many assemble to pray,
   though some of you do not come as I wish you did. You do not know what
   you lose, you who do not come to our delightful Prayer Meetings. You
   are more losers by being away than we are by losing your company. We
   are

   sorry to miss you, but our sorrow is on your account, for you do not
   know what you lose. We ought to meet for prayer-- we cannot expect the
   blessing unless we do!

   I have little to say on that score, by way of rebuke, to you who
   compose my regular congregation, for you do not, many of you, sin in
   that direction. But I know some churches where the Prayer Meeting is a
   mere form. It is such a little affair that they might put it in a dish,
   cover it up, lock it up in the pantry and say nothing about it. It is a
   miniature concern, a very sick dwarf! If God blessed some Churches in
   London in proportion to their prayers, He would not bless them much,
   for the Prayer Meetings are held in the vestry and that is not full,
   nor one-half full at the best. A Prayer Meeting in the Chapel, itself,
   would look like a drop in a bucket and so they hide the nakedness of
   the land by holding a hole-and-corner meeting in the vestry. Such
   things as Prayer Meetings in the Chapel are not expected--a snug little
   room is quite large enough. Alas, there are not many Brethren to pray!
   Two or three prose so long and so drearily that they fill up the
   evening and then they ask the Lord to forgive their shortcomings--they
   would do better to ask forgiveness for their longcomings which are the
   death of all fervency.

   There is not much prayer in their long sermonizing and the whole
   business is far more formal than real. Scant will be the blessing if
   the Lord is going to bless them in proportion to their prayers. Do you
   wonder that the minister cannot preach when the people do not pray? I
   see some of you up from the country. Perhaps you are deacons and yet do
   not attend the Prayer Meetings yourselves! I have known such things and
   I cry shame upon you! And then you find fault with the minister. Have
   you never heard of the minister who suddenly seemed to fail and, when
   the people complained, he said, "Ah, I may well fail, for I have lost
   my prayer book!" Someone said, "I did not know you used a prayer book,
   Sir." "Oh!" said he, "my prayer book used to be written on the hearts
   of my people and while they prayed for me, God blessed me and I had
   success. But they have given up praying for me so what can I do?"

   Do you want the man to make bricks without straw? Surely the least
   thing you can do is to find him straw for the bricks and you can only
   find that by means of earnest, united prayer! The sinew of the
   minister's strength under God is the supplication of his Church. We can
   do anything and everything if we have a praying people around us! But,
   when our dear friends and fellow helpers cease to pray, the Holy Spirit
   hastens to depart and "Ichabod," is written upon the place of assembly.
   Promises of the mercy of the Lord, dear Friends, are sent to you on
   purpose that you may pray for the covenanted gifts and you shall not
   have them unless you seek His face for them.

   V. Last of all, the Lord tells you what He is going to do and in this
   He has yet another objective in view, namely, TO

   FOSTER GRATITUDE AND ASSURANCE WHEN THE MERCY HAS BEEN RECEIVED. When
   the blessing comes,

   the man who has received it declares, "I know that this came from God
   because He promised to give it. I know that God was in all this because
   I can see He has acted according to His own declaration. His Word has
   not returned to Him void. He has done what He said, when He said, and
   as He said--surely this thing is of the Lord!" Then comes the
   inference-- "If He has done all this for me in the past, He will do as
   much for me in the future. He told me that He would help me and He has
   helped me. He assures me that He will still be my Helper and I am sure
   He will, for He changes not--

   "Each sweetEbenezer I ha ve in review, Confirms His good pleasure to
   help me quite through."

   This is God's way of breeding assurance in the minds of His people. If
   you notice in the next chapter, the one argument which God seems to
   use, there, is, "I will because I have." I will read it to you. "Thus
   says the Lord that created you, O Jacob, and He that formed you, O
   Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your
   name; you are Mine." What then? "When you pass through the waters I
   will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overflow you."
   Do you think that I have redeemed you to drown you? "When you walk
   through the fire you shall not be burned." Do you think that I created
   you to be destroyed and redeemed you that the flames should consume
   you? I have loved you. I have redeemed you. Therefore I will help you
   and keep you even to the end." This is God's argument of consolation.
   Do you not see the force of it?

   Look in the third verse, "I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and
   Seba for you. Since you were precious in My sight, you have been
   honorable, and I have loved you: therefore will I give men for you, and
   people for your life." If I paid a full ransom once, I will stick at no
   expense to gain My precious purchase. If I gave Egypt and Ethiopia
   once, I will give the same, again, and I will have My redeemed ones set
   free. You are Mine, and I will not lose you. I will spend all Heaven
   but what I will bring you safely home to Myself. See, He says, "I have
   created him; I have formed him, yes, I have

   made him," and therefore He says, "/ will bring your seed from the east
   and gather you from the west." I know of nothing except the sure
   promise and oath of the glorious Jehovah which is worthy to be the
   ultimate foundation of our hope!

   Beyond that, I know of nothing that is so firm a foundation for our
   hope as our past experience of the faithfulness of God. If the Lord had
   meant to be unfaithful, He would have been unfaithful long ago. If it
   had been possible for Him to cast away His people, He would have cast
   you and me away years ago. Does a man bestow much care and labor and
   expense on that which he intends to leave unfinished? Does a wise man
   begin to build a house and then leave the structure unroofed and
   incomplete? Will God begin the work of Grace in you and not complete
   it? Will He bring you so far on the road to the Golden City and then
   leave you and put you to shame? Shall it be said in eternity, "This man
   trusted in God and God failed him. This poor sinner rested in the blood
   of Christ, but Christ could not save him"?

   Never, oh never! The Lord has given you many promises and He has
   fulfilled them in order that, today, in your present difficulties and
   tomorrow in your new troubles, you may stand firm as a rock and feel,
   "He will help me. Yes, He will uphold me! Yes, He will deliver me!
   Therefore my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed, trusting in the
   Lord."--

   "I know thatsafe with Him remains

   Protected by His power,

   What I've committed to His hands

   Till the decisive hour.

   Then will He own His servant's name

   Before His Father's face,

   And in the New Jerusalem

   Appoint my soul a place."

   Such faith as this is God's due. He deserves nothing less than
   unmingled confidence! He has never lied to any of you-- never doubt Him
   till He gives you cause for suspicion! Rest--quietly wait and patiently
   hope--and you shall see the salvation of God! As surely as the Lord
   lives, He will not forsake your believing soul, but will be always at
   your side till He has done that which He has spoken to you and brought
   you Home to dwell at His right hand with His dear Son forever and ever.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Best of All Sights

   (No. 1509)

   WRITTEN AT MENTONE,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "But we see Jesus." Hebrews 2:9.

   IN Holy Scripture faith is placed in opposition to the sight of the
   eyes and yet it is frequently described as looking and seeing. It is
   opposed to carnal sight because it is spiritual sight--a discernment
   which comes not of the body, but arises out of the strong belief of the
   soul, worked in us by the Holy Spirit. Faith is sight in the sense of
   being a clear and vivid perception, a sure and indisputable discovery,
   a realizing and unquestionable discernment of fact. We see Jesus, for
   we are sure of His Presence. We have unquestionable evidence of His
   existence and we have an intelligent and intimate knowledge of His
   Person. Our soul has eyes far stronger than the dim optics of the body
   and with these we actually see Jesus. We have heard of Him and upon the
   witness of that hearing we have believed--and through believing there
   has come to us a new life which rejoices in new light and in opened
   eyes--and "we see Jesus." In the old sense of sight we speak of Him as
   of one "whom having not seen we love," but in the new sense, "we see
   Jesus."

   Beloved Reader, have you such a renewed nature that you have new senses
   and have you, with these senses, discerned the Lord? If not, may the
   Holy Spirit yet quicken you and, meanwhile, let us whom He has made
   alive assure you that we have heard His voice, for He says, "My sheep
   hear My voice." We have "tasted the good Word of God." We have touched
   Him and have been made whole. We have also known the smell of His
   fragrance, for His name to us is "as ointment poured forth." And now,
   in the words of our text, "we see Jesus." Faith is all the senses in
   one and infinitely more! And those who have it not are in a worse case
   than the blind and deaf, for spiritual life itself is absent.

   I. Come, then, beloved Brothers and Sisters, whose eyes have been
   illuminated, let us muse awhile upon our privileges, that we may
   exercise them with delight and praise the Lord with them! First, let us
   regard the glorious sight of Jesus as COMPENSATION. The text begins
   with, "but," because it refers to some things which we do not yet see
   which are the objects of strong desire. "We see not yet all things put
   under Him." We do not as yet see Jesus acknowledged as King of kings by
   all mankind and this causes us great sorrow, for we wish to see Him
   crowned with Glory and honor in every corner of the earth by every man
   of woman born.

   Alas, He is to many, quite unknown. He is rejected and despised by
   multitudes! In fact, He is by comparatively few regarded with reverence
   and love! Sights surround us which might well make us cry with
   Jeremiah, "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of
   tears," for blasphemy and rebuke, idolatry, superstition and unbelief
   prevail on every side. "But," says the Apostle, "we see Jesus," and
   this sight compensates for all others, for we see Him now no longer
   made a little lower than the angels and tasting the bitterness of
   death, but, "crowned with Glory and honor!" We see Him no more after
   the flesh, in shame and anguish! But far more ravishing is the sight
   for we see His work accomplished, His victory complete, His empire
   secure!

   He sits as a Priest upon the Throne, at the right hand of God, from now
   on waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. This is a Divine
   compensation for the tarrying of His visible kingdom, because it is the
   major part of it. The main battle is won! In our Lord's endurance of
   His substitutionary griefs and in the overthrow of sin, death and Hell
   by His personal achievements, the essence of the conflict is over.
   Nothing is left to be done at all comparable with that which is already
   performed! The ingathering of the elect and the subjection of all
   things are comparatively easy of accomplishment now that the conflict
   in the heavenly places is over and Jesus has led captivity captive! We
   may look upon the conquest of the kingdoms of this world as a mere
   routing of the beaten host now that the power of the enemy has been
   effectually broken by the great Captain of our salvation.

   The compensation is all the greater because our Lord's enthronement is
   the pledge of all the rest. The putting of all things under Him, which
   as yet we see not, is guaranteed to us by what we do see. The exalted
   Savior has all power given unto Him in Heaven and in earth--and with
   this, "all power," He can, at His own pleasure, send forth the rod of
   His

   strength out of Sion and reign in the midst of His enemies! With Him
   are all the forces necessary for universal dominion. His white horse
   waits at the door and whenever He chooses, He can ride forth conquering
   and to conquer! At a word from His lips the harlot of Babylon shall
   perish, the false prophet shall die and the idols of the heathen shall
   be utterly abolished. The empire of wickedness is as a vision of the
   night, a black and hideous nightmare pressing on the soul of manhood,
   but when He awakes, He will despise its image and it shall melt away.

   Turn we then, wiping our tears away, from the wretched spectacles of
   human superstition, skepticism and sorrow to the clear vision above us
   in the opened Heaven! There we see "the Man," long promised, the Desire
   of all nations, the Deliverer, the death of Death, the Conqueror of
   Hell--and we see Him not as one who girds on His harness for the
   battle, but as one whose warfare is accomplished, who is waiting the
   time appointed of the Father when He shall divide the spoil! This is
   the antidote to all depression of spirit, the stimulus to hopeful
   perseverance, the assurance of joy unspeakable!

   II. Nor is this sight a mere compensation for others which, as yet, are
   denied us--it is, in itself, the cause of present EXULTATION. This is
   true in so many ways that time would fail us to attempt to enumerate
   them. "We see Jesus" and in Him we see our former unhappy condition
   forever ended. We were fallen in Adam, but we see in Jesus our ruin
   retrieved by the second Adam. The legal Covenant frowned upon us as we
   beheld it broken by our first federal head. The new Covenant smiles
   upon us with a whole Heaven of bliss as we see it ordered in all things
   and sure in Him who is Head over all things to the Church. Sin once
   doomed us to eternal despair, but not now, for He who has put away sin
   by the Sacrifice of Himself has justified His people by His
   Resurrection!

   The debt no longer burdens us, for there, in eternal Glory, is the Man
   who paid it once and for all! A sight of Jesus kills each guilty fear,
   silences each threat of conscience and photographs peace upon the
   heart. There remains nothing of all the past to cause a dread of
   punishment, or arouse a fear of desertion, for Christ who died always
   lives to make intercession for us, to represent us before the Father
   and to prepare for us a place of everlasting rest! We might see
   ourselves as dead under the Law were it not that He has blotted out the
   handwriting which was against us. We might see ourselves under the
   curse were it not that He, who was once made a curse for us, now reigns
   in fullness of blessing! We weep as we confess our transgressions, but
   we see Jesus and sing for joy of heart, since He has finished
   transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting
   righteousness!

   The same is sweetly true of the present, for we see our present
   condition to be thrice blessed by virtue of our union with Him. We see
   not as yet our nature made perfect and cleansed from every tendency to
   evil--rather do we groan, being burdened because of the sin which
   dwells in us--the old man which lusts and rebels against the blessed
   dominion of Grace. And we might be sorely cast down and dragged into
   despair were it not that, "we see Jesus" and perceive that in Him we
   are not what the flesh would argue us to be. He represents us most
   truthfully and looking into that mirror we see ourselves justified in
   Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, adopted of the Father, dear to
   the Eternal heart! Yes, in Him raised up together and made to sit
   together in the heavenlies!

   We see self and blush and are ashamed and dismayed, "but we see Jesus"
   and His joy is in us and our joy is full. Think of this, dear Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, the next time you are upon the dunghill of
   self-loathing. Lift up, now, your eyes and see where He is in whom your
   life is hid! See Jesus and know that as He is, so are you before the
   Infinite Majesty! You are not condemned, for He is enthroned! You are
   not despised nor abhorred, for He is beloved and exalted! You are not
   in jeopardy of perishing, nor in danger of being cast away, for He
   dwells eternally in the bosom of the Lord God Almighty! What a vision
   is this for you, when you see Jesus and see yourself complete in Him,
   perfect in Christ Jesus!

   Such a sight effectually clears our earthly future of all apprehension.
   It is true we may yet be sorely tempted and the battle may go hard with
   us, but we see Jesus triumphant and by this sign we grasp the victory!
   We shall, perhaps, be subjected to pain, to poverty, to slander, to
   persecution and yet none of these things move us because we see Jesus
   exalted and, therefore, know that these are under His power and cannot
   touch us except as He grants them His permission to do so. Death is at
   times terrible in prospect, but its terror ceases when we see Jesus who
   has passed safely through the shades of the sepulcher, vanquished the
   tyrant of the tomb and left an open passage to immortality to all His
   own!

   We see the pains, the groans and dying strife--see them, indeed,
   exaggerated by our fears--and the only cure for the consequent alarm is
   a sight of Him who has said, "He that believes in Me, though he were
   dead, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall
   never die." When we see Jesus--past, present and to come--we are summed
   up in Him and over all shines a glorious life which fills our souls
   with unspeakable delight!

   III. Thirdly, "we see Jesus" with most glad EXPECTATION. His glorious
   Person is to us the picture and the pledge of what we shall be, for "it
   does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall
   appear, we shall be like He; for we shall see Him as He is." In
   infinite love He condescended to become one with us here below, as says
   the Apostle, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and
   blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." And this
   descent of love on His part to meet us in our low estate is the
   assurance that His love will lift us up to meet Him in His high estate!
   He will make us partakers of His Nature, inasmuch as He has become
   partaker of our nature.

   It is written, "Both He that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are
   all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren."
   What bliss is this that we should be like the Incarnate God! It would
   seem too good to be true, were it not after the manner of our Lord to
   do great and unsearchable things for us! Nor may we alone derive
   comfort as to our future from His Person--we may also be made glad by a
   hope as to His place. Where we see Jesus to be, there shall we also be!
   His Heaven is our Heaven! His prayer secures that we shall be with Him
   where He is, that we may behold His Glory. Today we may be in a
   workhouse, or in the ward of a hospital, or in a ruinous hovel, "but we
   see Jesus" and we know that before long we shall dwell in the palace of
   the great King!

   The Glory of Jesus strikes the eyes at once and thus we are made to
   exult in His position, for it, too, is ours. He will allow us to sit
   upon His Throne, even as He sits upon the Father's Throne. He has made
   us kings and priests unto God and we shall reign forever and ever.
   Whatever of rest, happiness, security and honor our glorious Bridegroom
   has attained, He will certainly share it with His spouse--yes, and all
   His people shall know what it is to be heirs of God, joint heirs with
   Jesus Christ, if we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified
   together! How soon our condition shall rise into complete likeness to
   the ascended Lord, we cannot tell, but it cannot be long and it may
   even be a very short time. The veil of time is, in some cases very
   thin--another week may be the only separation.

   And then! Ah, then! We shall see Jesus and what a sight will it be!
   Heaven lies in that vision. 'Tis all the Heaven our loving hearts
   desire! The sight of Jesus which we now enjoy is a foretaste of the
   clearer sight which is reserved for us and, therefore, it will be a
   happy wisdom to be much in the enjoyment of it. A thousand things tempt
   us away and yet there is not one of them worth a moment's thought in
   comparison! What are works of art and discoveries of science compared
   with our Beloved? What are the gems which adorn the brow of beauty, or
   the eyes which flash from the face of loveliness, if placed in rivalry
   with Him?

   Other matters, weighty and important, call for our thoughts and yet
   even these we may place in a second rank when Jesus is near. We may not
   be doctors of divinity, much as we would desire to be deeply instructed
   in the Truths of God, "but we see Jesus." Into many mysteries we cannot
   pry, "but we see Jesus." Where the Divine Sovereignty harmonizes with
   human responsibility is too deep a problem for us, "but we see Jesus."
   The times and the seasons baffle us, the dispensation of the end is
   dark to us, "but we see Jesus." Glory over us, you far-seeing Prophets!
   Deride us, you deep-glancing philosophers! We leave you to your
   boasting! We are poor, short-sighted beings and know but little--but
   one thing we know--whereas we were once blind, now we see and, "WE SEE
   JESUS!"

   This sight has made us unable to see many things which now dazzle our
   fellow men. They can see priestly power in a certain set of men like
   themselves. This we cannot see, for "we see Jesus," as ending the line
   of sacrificing priests and bestowing a common priesthood upon all the
   saints. Many see great wisdom in the various schools of doubt in which
   we see nothing except pretentious folly, for "we see Jesus" and all
   human wisdom pales before the wisdom of God which is perfected in Him!
   Certain of our brethren see perfection in the flesh, "but we see
   Jesus." Others see the Church and their own sect, "but we see Jesus!" A
   few see nothing but their own separateness from everybody else and the
   peculiar excellence of their exclusiveness, "but we see Jesus."

   Come, Beloved, let us get to our secret chambers of communion and see
   Jesus there as from the hill of Pisgah! Let us turn the pages of
   Scripture and see Jesus there amid the beds of spices! Let us frequent
   ordinances, especially the breaking of bread, and see Jesus there! Let
   us watch in our experience as we are conformed unto His sufferings and
   see Him there! Let us go into the field of holy labor and, as we gird
   ourselves and put on the yoke of service, let us see our Master there!
   Yes, in all things let us learn to see our Lord, for Nature and
   Providence, experience and Scripture are hung with mirrors which
   reflect Him!

   Till the day breaks and the shadows flee away, let us continue to gaze
   upon Him, till our eyes shall actually see Him for ourselves and not
   another! Be this the grand distinction of our lives--whatever others
   may see or not see, "WE SEE JESUS!"
     __________________________________________________________________

The Hunger-Bite

   (No. 1510)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "His strength shall be starved." Job 18:12.

   Bildad was declaring the history of the hypocritical, presumptuous and
   wicked man. And he intended, no doubt, to insinuate that Job was just
   such a person--that he had been a deceiver and that, therefore, God's
   Providence had at last revealed him and was visiting him for his sins.
   In this, Bildad was guilty of great injustice to his friend. All the
   three miserable comforters of Job were mistaken in the special aim of
   their discourses and yet, concerning the speeches of each one, it may
   be said that their general statements were, for the most part, true.
   They uttered truths, but they drew mistaken inferences and they were
   ungenerous in the imputations which they cast upon Job. It is true
   that, sooner or later, either in this world or the next, all
   conceivable curses fall upon the hypocrite and the ungodly man, but it
   is not true that when a Christian is in trouble, we are to judge that
   he is suffering for his sin! It would be both cruel and wicked for us
   to think so.

   Nevertheless, because what Bildad said was, in the most part, true,
   though unkindly and wrongly applied, we feel ourselves quite at liberty
   to take a text out of his mouth. It is true of many persons that their
   strength shall be starved-- and I shall speak concerning these words in
   three ways, noticing, first, that this is a curse which will surely be
   fulfilled upon the ungodly. Secondly, this is a discipline which God
   often exercises upon the self-righteous when He means to save them.
   And, thirdly--and it is grievous work to have to say it--this is a form
   of chastisement upon Believers who are not living near to God as they
   ought to be--their strength becomes starved or weak.

   I. First we shall view our text as A CURSE WHICH WILL BE FULFILLED UPON
   THE UNGODLY. "His strength shall be starved." It is not said that they
   are starved merely, but that their strength is. And if their strength
   is starved, what must their weakness be? When a man's strength is
   bitten with hunger, what a hunger must be raging throughout the whole
   of his nature! Now, a large proportion of men make their gold to be
   their strength, their castle and their high tower and, for a while they
   rejoice in their wealth and find great satisfaction in gathering it, in
   seeing it multiplied and in hoping, by-and-by, that it shall come to
   great store.

   But every ungodly man ought to know that riches are not forever and
   often they take to themselves wings and fly away! Men of colossal
   fortunes have dwindled down to beggars--they made great ventures and
   realized great failures. None are secure. As long as a man is in this
   world, he is like a ship at sea, he is still liable to be shipwrecked.
   O you that are boasting in your gold and calling your treasure your
   chief good, the day may come when your strength will be starved and,
   like the victims of famine, you will find yourselves helpless--you
   whose money answered all things and made you feel omnipotent!

   But it will be said, of course, that it is not in every case that the
   ungodly man's strength of wealth is starved and I willingly concede it.
   But it comes to pass in another fashion. How many there are who keep
   their wealth and yet, for all that, are very poor? It is not that the
   gold goes, but it stays by them and does not comfort them! I do not
   know which would be the worse of the two--to be hungry for lack of
   bread, or to have abundance of bread and yet remain hungry, eat
   whatever you might. Thousands in this world are precisely in that
   condition! They have all that heart could wish, if their heart were
   right, but it seems nothing to them because they have envy in their
   spirits.

   Remember Haman. He is invited to the banquet of wine. He is a chief
   noble of the empire. He has his monarch's favor. But all that avails
   him nothing because Mordecai sits in the gate. Envy has cankered his
   soul and if he were able to mount to the throne of Ahasuerus, himself,
   it would make no difference to him--he would be unhappy there--and all
   because one poor Jew will not bow to him! There are persons going up
   and down Cheapside every day who are intolerably wretched about a
   something which they would hardly like to mention to reasonable men. A
   wretched trifle frets them like a moth in a garment and all the glory
   of their position is eaten away--their strength is starved.

   Where the canker does not happen to be envy, it may come to be a
   passion akin to it, namely, revenge. Alas, that we should have to talk
   of revenge as still existing upon this earth after Christ has been here
   and taught us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
   debtors." Yet there are ungodly men who even think it right to foster
   resentments. A word uncourteously spoken; a deed unkindly done will be
   laid up and an opportunity sought for retaliation. Or, if not, a hope
   will be cherished that some blight, or blow from God may fall upon the
   offender. And if that offender still bears himself aloft, lives right
   merrily and makes no recompense for the wrong done, the aggrieved one
   has eaten out his own heart with chagrin and the strength of his wealth
   has been starved!

   Where this has not been the case, it has, perhaps, more frequently
   happened that persons have been afflicted by avarice. Nothing more
   tends to impoverish a man than being rich. It is a hard thing to find a
   rich man who enjoys riches! A rich man is a man who has all he wants
   and many a man is rich on a few shillings a week. A poor man is a man
   who does not get what he wants and people with thousands a year are on
   that list. In fact, where shall you find such poverty as among those
   poor rich men? The miser is often pictured as afraid to sleep because
   thieves may break in--he rises at midnight to look over his hoarded
   treasure! He is afraid lest bonds, securities, mortgages and the like
   may, after all, turn out to be mere waste paper! He frets and stews and
   mars his life because he has too great a means of living--such a man
   may not be very common, but it is an easy thing to find people who have
   very much and yet are just as careful, just as grasping, just as
   fretful after more as if they had but newly started in business and
   were almost penniless--their strength is starved.

   If somebody had told them, "You will one day reach to so many thousand
   pounds," they would have said, "Ah, if ever I get that amount I shall
   be perfectly satisfied." They have saved that sum long ago and 10 times
   as much! And now they say, "Ah, you don't know what it is to want money
   till you have a good portion of it. Now we have so much we must have
   more. We are up to our necks in the golden stream and we must swim
   where the bottom cannot be touched." Poor fools! They have enough water
   to float them, but they must have enough to drown in! One stick is a
   capital thing for a lame man, as I know right well, but a thousand
   sticks would make a terrible load for a man to carry! When anyone has a
   sufficiency, let him be thankful for so convenient a staff, but if he
   will not use what he has until he has accumulated much more, the
   comfort of his substance is gone and his strength is starved.

   There are cases in which the hunger-bite does not take a shape which I
   could well describe. Instances are met with of persons who have made
   their gold their strength who are altogether unrestful. Some have
   thought that their brain was diseased, but it is likely that the
   disease was lower down in their hearts. We have known wealthy men who
   believed themselves to be poor and were haunted with the idea that they
   should die in the poor house, even when they were worth a million! And
   others who have quarreled about the division of a farthing, when the
   loss of 10,000 pounds would have been a flea bite to them! In great
   substance they have found no substantial rest.

   They have often wished they could be as cheerful as their own menial
   servants. As they have lolled in their carriage and looked at the rosy
   cheeks of the urchins in the village, they have coveted their health
   and felt willing to wear their rags if they could possess their
   appetites. As they have looked upon poor persons with family loves and
   domestic joys-- and felt that their own joys were few in that
   direction--they have greatly envied them. It is a great mercy when the
   worldling is made uneasy in this world--it is a ground for hope that
   God means to wean him from his idols! And, alas, there are some who do
   not rest here and will not rest hereafter. They have no rest in all
   that God has given them under the sun and yet they will not fly to Him
   who is the soul's sure repose. I need not dwell for another moment upon
   the failure of the strength which is found in riches. It is the same
   with all sorts of men who try to find comfort out of Christ and away
   from God--"their strength shall be starved."

   What a melancholy instance of this is Solomon. He had an opportunity to
   try everything in his quest for the chief good and, in fact, he did
   test everything--so that we need not repeat the experiment. He was the
   great alchemist who tried to turn all manner of metals into gold, but
   failed with them all. At one time he was building great palaces and
   when the building fit was on him, he seemed happy. But when once the
   gorgeous piles were finished, he said, "Vanity of vanities: all is
   vanity." Then he would take to gardening and to the planting of rare
   plants and trees and to the digging of fountains. But when he had done
   enough of this he looked upon his orchards and vineyards and again
   muttered, "Vanity of vanities: all is vanity."

   Then he thought he would try laughter and madness-- he would test the
   comic side of human life, as well as the useful. So he plunged into all
   manner of pleasures and gathered to himself singing men and singing
   women and all delights of the flesh. But after he had drank deep of
   that cup, he said, again, "Vanity of vanities: all is vanity." Poor
   Solomon! He had great strength, but his strength was starved! He looked
   here and there, up and down, on the right hand and on the left and
   found no bread for his soul. He snatched at shadows and tried to feed
   himself with bubbles! He was devoured with hunger in the midst of
   plenty! And where the humble people of Israel were blessing the God who
   satisfied their mouth with good things and renewed their youth like the
   eagles, poor Solomon was complaining that there was nothing new under
   the sun and that it was better for a man not to be born than to have
   lived at all!

   Now remark that if this hunger does not come upon the ungodly man
   during the former part of his life, it will come to him at the close of
   it. While we have much to do and our minds are occupied, we may be able
   to put off thought, but when, at last, God sends us that messenger with
   the bony hand, whose oratory is soul piercing--the dullness of whose
   eyeless eyes darts fire into the soul--then will all human strength be
   starved! When death is left alone with the man, then he perceives that
   his money bags contain nothing precious because he must leave them. How
   now with his broad acres? How now with his large estates? How now with
   his palatial residence? How now with all that he called dear? How now
   with his doctor's degree and his learning? How now with his fame and
   his honor? How now, even, with his domestic comforts and the joys of
   life? They are all hunger-bitten!

   When he comes to die they cannot help him. The soul that is within him,
   which he would not allow to speak, now opens its hungry mouth and
   cries, "You have denied me bread! God, and God alone, could fill me and
   you have denied me God! And now you feel the hunger which has come upon
   me and you must feel it and feel it, too, forever." Alas, alas, alas,
   for a man to have spent all his life in earning a disappointment,
   laboring hard to lose his soul, sweating and straining to lose the
   race, tugging and toiling to be damned! But that is the case of many a
   man and that is where the tide drifts with all mankind who seek for
   lasting good apart from God and apart from the blood and righteousness
   of God's dear Son. Of each one of them it shall be said, "His strength
   shall be starved."

   I have said these things mournfully to my own heart. But I would say to
   any of you who may not be rich, but who are looking for your good in
   your own little home and the comforts of it--any of you young men who
   are seeking the great object of life in learning or the like--if you
   are not living for God, your strength will be starved! If you do not
   "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," whatever you
   gain and however satisfied you may be for a little while, an awful
   hunger must ultimately come upon you and you will then lament that you
   spent your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that
   which satisfies not!

   II. Briefly, in the second place, we shall speak of our text as
   indicating A KIND OF DISCIPLINE THROUGH

   WHICH GOD PUTS THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS WHEN HE MEANS TO SAVE THEM. Many
   people are very religious

   and yet are not saved. They are unsaved because they go about to
   establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves to
   the righteousness which is of God in Jesus Christ. Now, these persons
   may, for a while, be very well satisfied with their own righteousness
   and if they are not the children of God they will be satisfied with it
   for life. Some of them talk in this way--"I don't know that I ever
   wronged anybody. I have always been honest and honorable in my
   transactions and I have brought up my children respectably. I have had
   a hard fight of it and, for all that, nobody could say that I ever
   disgraced my character."

   It is not very long ago that I was driven by a cabman, an aged man, and
   when I got out of his cab I referred to his age and he remarked upon it
   himself. I said, "Well, I trust when this life is over you will have a
   portion in a better world." "Yes, I think so, Sir," he said. "I was
   never drunk, that I know of, in my life. I was always reckoned a civil
   man. I never used bad language and I go to Church sometimes." He seemed
   to be perfectly satisfied and was quite astonished that I did not
   express my assurance of his safety. His confidence is the common
   reliance of all classes of Englishmen and though they may not always
   put it in that shape, yet that is the notion--that by a sort of
   goodness, a very poor and mangled goodness--men may, after all, enter
   Heaven.

   Now, when God means to save a man, the hunger of the heart comes in and
   devours all his boasted excellence. Why, a spiritually hungry soul
   would take 50 years of self-righteousness and swallow them up like a
   morsel and cry for more! Our goodness is nothing compared with the
   demands of the Law and the necessities of the case. Our fine
   righteousnesses, how they shrivel up like autumn leaves when the Spirit
   of God acts as a frost to them! Our virtues are as a meadow in the

   4 The Hunger-Bite Sermon #1510

   spring bedecked with golden kingcups, but when the Spirit of God blows
   upon it, the grass withers and the flowers fade, for all flesh is grass
   and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of grass. It is a part
   of the operation of the Holy Spirit to wither all the goodliness of
   human nature and to destroy all those lovely flowers of natural virtue
   in which we put such store, cutting them down as with a mower's scythe.
   In truth, there is none good, no, not one! We are all shut up in
   unbelief and sin by nature. In the best of natures, sin affects the
   whole body, "the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint"--and it
   is a great blessing when the Holy Spirit makes us feel this! Painful is
   the feeling, but blessed is the result when, once and for all, our
   strength is starved.

   Yes, and there are some who are very satisfied because, in addition to
   a commendable life, they have performed certain ceremonies to which
   they impute great sanctity. There is a theory abroad, nowadays, which
   some persons who are not in either the lunatic or the idiot asylum
   believe, namely, the theory that sacramental performances convey Grace!
   It is wonderful how a rational being can ever think so, but there are
   persons who are, apparently rational in other things, who believe that
   the sprinkling of drops of water upon an infant's brow regenerates it!
   They believe, also, the absurdity that the eating of bread and the
   drinking of wine really convey Christ to the soul, and so on! They
   insist that aqueous applications and materialistic festivities can
   bring spiritual good to the heart--a monstrous doctrine worthy of the
   priests of Baal--but so foolish as to make one doubt his ears when he
   hears it stated!

   Because they have gone through these operations and have been confirmed
   and I do not know what besides, many are content! Others, who happen to
   belong to a dissenting community, have passed through the ordeal of
   joining the Church or have attended class meetings and have subscribed
   to the various societies and so, they think, they are saved! Heirs of
   Hell will rest content with such outward things, but heirs of Heaven
   never can! Their strength, if they make external religion their
   strength, will, by-and-by, be starved and they will cry out," My God,
   my soul pants for You as the hart pants for the water-brooks. I cannot
   be satisfied with outward forms, I need inward Grace and I cannot be
   content with being told that the Grace went with the form! I need to
   know the Grace of God in truth! I long to feel it! I pine to exhibit it
   in my own life."

   To be told I was born again when I was a babe will not satisfy me! I
   need to feel the inner life, the new life of God within my spirit! To
   be told that I did eat Christ when I ate the bread will not content me!
   My heart longs to know that Christ is really the hope of Glory in me
   and that I am living upon Him! If I cannot have communion with God and
   with His dear Son for myself in my very soul, I turn with loathing from
   every substitute--ritualistic, priestly, or otherwise! Beloved, I would
   have you flee from every sacrament to the Savior! I would have you flee
   away from ceremonies to the Cross of Christ! There is your only hope!
   Look to Him by faith--for all the rest without this is but outward and
   carnal--and can minister no good to your spirit. May your strength be
   starved if you are resting in anything which is external and
   unspiritual!

   Many a person has known what it is to have this hunger-bite go right
   through everything he rested in. I once knew what it was to get a
   little comfort from my prayers before I found the Savior. But when the
   Spirit of God dealt with me, I saw that my prayers needed praying over
   again. I thought I had some sort of repentance and I began to be
   content with it. But when the Spirit of God came, I found that my
   repentance needed to be repented of! I had felt some confidence in my
   Bible readings and hoped that my regular attendance at public worship
   would bring me salvation, but I found that I was only reading the Word
   of God--not believing it! I was hearing it, but not accepting it! I was
   increasing my knowledge and my responsibility and yet was not rendering
   obedience to God!

   Dear Soul, if you are resting anywhere short of Christ, may your
   strength be starved! You are at your strongest when you are utter
   weakness apart from Him. When you rest in Him completely and only in
   Him, then is salvation accomplished in you, but not till then! May God,
   in His infinite mercy, grant that all your strength apart from Christ
   may be starved and that speedily!

   III. Lastly, and very earnestly--and perhaps this last part may have
   more reference to most of you than anything I

   have said--I believe THERE ARE MANY OF GOD'S SERVANTS WHOSE STRENGTH IS
   LAMENTABLY

   HUNGER-BITTEN. In this age we are all busy and through being busy we
   are apt to neglect the soul-feeding ordinances. I mean the reading of
   Scripture, the hearing of the Word, meditation upon it, prayer and
   communion with God. Some of you do not rise as soon as you might in the
   morning and prayer is hurried over. And too often at eventide you are
   half-asleep with the many cares of the day and prayer is offered in a
   slovenly way.

   Nor is this all, for during the day when, if you were as you should be,
   you would be praying without ceasing, there is this to think of and
   that and the other--and such a pressure of business that prayers are
   few. How can you pray? You did at one time! You used to get a text of
   Scripture in the morning and chew it all day--and you used to get much
   sweetness out of it and your soul grew. But now, instead of a text of
   Scripture, you have pressing engagements as soon as you are out of bed!
   You would, now and then, steal into a mid-day Prayer Meeting, perhaps,
   or get two or three minutes alone. But you have gradually dropped that
   habit and you have felt justified in doing so for, "really, time is so
   precious and there is so much to do in this age of competition."

   Dear Friend, I am not your judge, but let me suggest that you are
   becoming starved through not feeding upon the Word of God. Souls cannot
   be strong without spiritual meat any more than bodies can be well when
   meals are neglected. There is a good rule I have heard mothers say
   about children and chickens--"little and often"--and I think it is true
   with Christians. They need little and often during the day--not a long
   passage of Scripture, perhaps memory would fail--but a short passage
   now and a short passage then and a little prayer here and a little
   prayer there. It is wonderful how souls grow in that way. Alas, I fear
   all this is neglected and spiritual strength is starved! Let us begin,
   from this time forward, to give attention to the sustenance of our
   souls! Let us daily feed upon the Word of God that we may grow-- and so
   shall our strength no more be starved.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Genesis

   [1]21:19

   Leviticus

   [2]11:22

   Numbers

   [3]3:9   [4]4:3   [5]4:49   [6]14:11   [7]19   [8]21:9

   Deuteronomy

   [9]18:15-19   [10]32:39

   Joshua

   [11]22:19

   1 Samuel

   [12]20:27

   1 Kings

   [13]4:20-28   [14]8:38-40

   2 Kings

   [15]4:6   [16]4:35

   Job

   [17]6:10   [18]18:12

   Psalms

   [19]40:10   [20]50:15   [21]57:4   [22]65:11   [23]74:20   [24]103:3
   [25]106:4   [26]106:5   [27]138:8   [28]145:7

   Proverbs

   [29]5:19

   Ecclesiastes

   [30]7:20

   Song of Solomon

   [31]2:7

   Isaiah

   [32]1:15   [33]26:20   [34]26:21   [35]27:1   [36]27:3   [37]28:17
   [38]42:9   [39]44:5   [40]50:6   [41]57:16-18   [42]59:1-3   [43]65:5

   Jeremiah

   [44]15:1   [45]29:13

   Ezekiel

   [46]14:13   [47]14:14   [48]34:27

   Hosea

   [49]5:15

   Amos

   [50]6:12

   Habakkuk

   [51]3:2

   Zechariah

   [52]6:13

   Malachi

   [53]4:2

   Matthew

   [54]12:3-7   [55]12:10   [56]12:13   [57]12:36   [58]13:12
   [59]13:41   [60]25:31   [61]25:32   [62]26   [63]26:62   [64]27:27

   Mark

   [65]4:24   [66]4:25

   Luke

   [67]8:12   [68]8:18   [69]8:18   [70]13:6   [71]17:32   [72]23:8
   [73]23:11

   John

   [74]1:10   [75]1:50   [76]1:51   [77]3:7   [78]3:34   [79]3:35
   [80]5:11   [81]5:22   [82]6:55   [83]13:3-5   [84]17:1   [85]17:22-3

   Acts

   [86]10:42   [87]17:30   [88]17:31   [89]21:27

   Romans

   [90]1:8-9   [91]5:1   [92]6:18   [93]7:23   [94]12:12

   1 Corinthians

   [95]3:11   [96]9:22

   2 Corinthians

   [97]4:6   [98]5:10   [99]10:5   [100]12:11

   Ephesians

   [101]1:18-20   [102]6:7

   Philippians

   [103]1:3-4   [104]4:6

   Colossians

   [105]1:3

   1 Thessalonians

   [106]4:16

   2 Thessalonians

   [107]1:10

   2 Timothy

   [108]2:13   [109]4:20

   Hebrews

   [110]2   [111]2:9   [112]9:13   [113]9:14

   James

   [114]1:22-25   [115]4:10

   1 John

   [116]2

   Revelation

   [117]12:12   [118]19   [119]19:11-16
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [120]21:19

   Numbers

   [121]4:49   [122]14:11   [123]21:9

   Deuteronomy

   [124]18:15-19   [125]32:39

   1 Samuel

   [126]20:27

   1 Kings

   [127]4:20-28   [128]8:38-40

   2 Kings

   [129]4:35

   Job

   [130]6:10   [131]18:12

   Psalms

   [132]50:15   [133]57:4   [134]65:11   [135]74:20   [136]103:3
   [137]106:4-5   [138]138:8   [139]145:7

   Song of Solomon

   [140]2:7

   Isaiah

   [141]27:3   [142]28:17   [143]42:9   [144]50:6   [145]57:16-18
   [146]65:5

   Jeremiah

   [147]29:13

   Ezekiel

   [148]34:27

   Hosea

   [149]5:15

   Amos

   [150]6:12

   Habakkuk

   [151]3:2

   Zechariah

   [152]6:13

   Malachi

   [153]4:2

   Matthew

   [154]12:3-7   [155]12:10   [156]12:13   [157]13:12

   Luke

   [158]8:12   [159]13:6   [160]17:32

   John

   [161]1:50-51   [162]3:7   [163]5:11   [164]6:55   [165]13:3-5
   [166]17:1   [167]17:22-3

   Acts

   [168]10:42

   Romans

   [169]5:1   [170]6:18   [171]7:23   [172]12:12

   1 Corinthians

   [173]3:11   [174]9:22

   2 Corinthians

   [175]4:6   [176]10:5   [177]12:11

   Ephesians

   [178]1:18-20   [179]6:7

   Philippians

   [180]4:6

   2 Thessalonians

   [181]1:10

   2 Timothy

   [182]2:13   [183]4:20

   Hebrews

   [184]2:9   [185]9:13-14

   James

   [186]1:22-25

   Revelation

   [187]12:12   [188]19:11-16
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

   1. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons25/cache/sermons25.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=21&scrV=19#xvii-p6.1
   2. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons25/cache/sermons25.html3?scrBook=Lev&scrCh=11&scrV=22#xl-p44.2
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