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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 27: 1881
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sitting of the Refiner

   (No. 1575)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall
   purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they
   may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Malachi 3:3.

   THIS is spoken of as one of the results of the coming of the Lord--He
   would test and try all things, destroy the false and the evil and make
   those pure whom He permitted to remain. Behold, the Promised One has
   come! He whom Israel sought suddenly appeared in His Temple as the
   Messenger of the Covenant. Glad were the eyes of Simeon, Anna and all
   those who waited for Him--and glad, this day, are our voices as we
   proclaim that the Messiah has appeared! The glorious Son of God, the
   Anointed of the Most High has been among men and faithful witnesses
   have testified concerning Him, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of
   the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth."

   That coming, heralded by songs of angels and prophetic of countless
   blessings, should have been a day of unmingled light to men, but
   because of hypocrisy, pride and self, it was not so. On the contrary,
   it was to many a day of darkness and not of light. We have abundant
   historical evidence that our Lord's first Advent was a day of great
   trial to the Jewish people and when we remember the siege of Jerusalem
   and kindred events, we do not marvel that the Prophet asked, "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 fuller's soap."

   His ministry tried the religion, the orthodoxy and the saintship of the
   period--and because it revealed the hollow-ness of the whole of the
   profession of the day--it awakened all the enmity of the religious
   classes. Those who were the leaders of the so-called religious thought
   of the age were awakened to hate the Lord Jesus and to take a delight
   in nailing Him to the Cross, for His teaching was so true and good that
   their word-chopping and ceremony-making could not endure it! Our Lord,
   when He came, sat as a refiner and assayed the age then present--and
   ever since then His Gospel in the world, His Spirit, His teaching, yes,
   the very fact of His life--these all together have been a test, a
   trial, a sort of standard of weights and measures among men.

   All things are on trial. You are constantly hearing of this time and
   that time as being "crises" and the saying is true. There is always a
   crisis of something or other during these days of the Lord's sitting as
   a refiner. All things are being thrust into the furnace and the fire is
   kept burning at a white heat--and nothing evil can abide the flame.
   Everything that is good shall be conserved, purified, made
   brilliant--but all that is evil, be it what it may, the whole world
   over-- since Christ has come, shall be tried and dissolved as by fire.
   When our Lord comes the second time, the trial will be still more
   intense. "Who shall abide the day of His coming" when He shall still
   further be revealed and when His purpose shall be that of judgment
   rather than of mercy?

   It is well for us to know that whenever Jesus Christ draws near to a
   soul He comes in utmost mercy to make it clean. Because He is, in
   Himself, the Incarnation of ineffable Love, His coming always means
   that He is about to purify the soul, for the highest mercy is to rid us
   of sin. The grandest thing that God, Himself, can do in the purpose of
   His love is to purify us into His own glorious holiness! Christ loved
   His Church and this is how He showed it--"He gave Himself for it, that
   He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or
   wrinkle, or any such thing."

   The Well-Beloved seeks to purify His chosen by the washing of water
   through the Word of God. It is the way His love takes, for true love
   does always choose the way of holiness. That love which would lead its
   beloved into sin is lust-- it deserves not the name of love! But true
   love will always seek the highest health and wholeness (which is
   holiness) of its object. Pure affection will grieve to see a fault,
   mourn over a folly and seek to remove a blot.

   Perfect love seeks the perfection of the thing it loves. Such is the
   perfect love of Christ--whenever He comes to a soul in love He comes as
   a refiner. He comes with this objective--to take away the dross from
   the silver and to make the fine gold still purer. In His sharpest
   dispensations He means no ill to us, but the most good, seeking not to
   grieve, but to lead

   us to the eternal blessedness of which the root and flower are both
   found in absolute perfection. If any of you, my Hearers, are seeking
   the Lord at this time, I want you to understand what it means--you are
   seeking a fire which will test you and consume much which has been dear
   to you.

   We are not to expect Christ to come and save us in our sins! He will
   come and save us from our sins and, therefore, if you are enabled by
   faith to take Christ as a Savior, remember that you take Him as the
   Purger and the Purifier, for it is from sin that He saves us. "They
   shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their
   sins." This is the particular salvation which He aims at. Though He
   does deliver men from Hell, it is by delivering them from the sin which
   is the fuel of Tophet's flame. Though He does give us Heaven, yet His
   way of bringing us to Heaven is by giving us a heavenly mind--a heart
   obedient to the holy and loving Father.

   The refinement of our nature and character is the way in which His
   infinite love most wisely displays itself. We are going to talk of this
   purifying process. "He shall sit as a refiner." How is the refining
   carried on? It is carried on in part by the Word of God. "Is not My
   Word like a fire?" Wherever the Gospel is preached thoroughly, out and
   out, it is a wonderful consumer of dross! I have known certain
   congregations that have been dead in worldliness--the haunts of wealthy
   professors whose love to Christ was a mere pretense. Close to them I
   have seen another Church which has been lively in spirit and full of
   zeal for the Lord. What was the difference? The reason has usually been
   this--that in the one case there was man's ministry and in the other
   there was the Word of the Lord!

   Ministries of the Spirit worldly people cannot bear. They are
   displeased with a plain testimony. It rasps their conscience. There is
   no need to turn them out of the Church--they drop away of themselves.
   It is not the place for them; it is too hot for them, I mean too holy,
   too spiritual, too devout. By-and-by they are offended and murmuring,
   they prepare to emigrate. There are so many things that they do not
   approve of--they see so much that is dreadfully orthodox, narrow-minded
   and bigoted--that they trot off among their own cattle. Yes, and so
   they should. That is God's way of keeping His flock to itself. Those
   that are rooted up by the Word of God are best rooted up. We may always
   be practicing this kind of separating the tares from the wheat, for it
   leaves the testing with God and a man's own conscience and, therefore,
   no injustice will be done.

   It would be ill by excommunications to seek to root up the tares from
   among the wheat, lest we root up the wheat with them, but by the Word
   of God, if it is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, the process
   will be always going on. God's furnace stands in Zion. If any of you
   are ever displeased by the Word, I pray you are displeased--we shall
   certainly never alter the Word for you! If the Truth of God comes too
   closely home to your consciences and angers you, be angry, not only
   with him that speaks it, but with Him from whom it comes--and then you
   will see the folly of such anger and humble yourselves before God,
   accept His Truth--which will live and your sin shall die. God grant it
   may be so!

   Another purging operation is by causing His chosen to have more
   fellowship with His own blessed and glorious Self. Of all the means of
   purging the heart, none surpasses this, for when the Lord, in great
   mercy, draws His child near to Him and makes Him feel His love and know
   it beyond a doubt, then the favored heart longs to be holy in all
   things. When the Lord fills His servant full of His love and makes him
   to be overjoyed with the sweet consciousness that he is the Beloved's
   and that the Beloved is his, then a holy jealousy burns within the soul
   and the heart cries, "Is there anything that can grieve the Beloved?
   Let it be slain! Is there anything that I think, or wish, or say, or
   do, that might break the sacred spell of communion and cause Him to be
   gone? Let it be driven out at once!"

   The heart institutes a diligent search that, if possible, it may put
   away the accursed thing so that Christ may not be grieved. Of all fires
   that ever burned, this is one of the fiercest. Jealousy is cruel as the
   grave and a holy jealousy does stern work in our hearts with sin! It
   hangs up the darling sin before the face of the sun and calls upon the
   fowls of Heaven to come and feast upon the slain! Oh, that we knew
   Christ better and lived more in the Light of His Countenance, for then
   we would be purged as with the spirit of burning! After all, the Holy
   Spirit is the great fire that burns in Zion to purge Believers from the
   love of sin. It is He that makes use of the Word, makes use of
   fellowship and makes use of everything else to sever sin from the saint
   and take away the dross from the silver. He is the immediate Agent of
   our sanctifica-tion--all else we must regard as only the means in His
   skillful hands. To Him be our love and our praise evermore!

   As a subsidiary means the Lord uses Providence. I have no doubt that He
   very frequently uses gracious Providences, as we call them--that is,
   Providences which please us by gratifying our natural wishes. Some
   people have been sanctified by prosperity, but I do not think very many
   have. Few good medicines are pleasant to the palate. If we were as we
   ought

   to be, every joy that comes to us would tend to make us grateful and so
   it would make us love God--and what is that but to be more like God and
   more holy? But, alas, in that we are weak through the flesh, the
   gentler modes of Love more often fail than her rougher processes. It
   remains then, that if we cannot be preserved in honey, we must be
   salted with fire lest corruption should take hold upon us.

   Such is the stubbornness of our flesh, that the Lord uses for fuel in
   His furnace sharp and heavy trials of different kinds. Adversity
   assumes many forms and in each and all of its shapes the Lord knows how
   to use it for His people's benefit. Christ sits as a Refiner when He
   takes away prosperity and brings the wealthy down to poverty. He often
   refines men by the losses which they sustain of beloved friends.
   Bereavement burns like a furnace blast and, oh, how much of carnal love
   has been consumed by it! We have known persons greatly purified by the
   Holy Spirit by passing through depression of spirit, inward grief and
   soul sorrow. Spiritual pain has been blessed to some and physical pain
   to more.

   In itself, pain will sanctify no man--it may even tend to wrap him up
   within himself and make him morose, peevish, selfish. But when God
   blesses it, then it will have a most salutary effect--a softening
   influence. Sorrow is made to act as a kind of flux upon the hard metal
   to make the dross separate from the precious ore. Yes, affliction is
   what most Believers think of when they read such a passage as this, but
   I warn them not to think too much of it, for that is not the Refiner's
   only fire, nor is it even His best fire. Affliction is but one part of
   the machinery of the Royal Refinery--one of the fluxes by which the
   great Lord separates the precious from the vile.

   I desire to call your attention to the text by leading you to mark
   three things. First, I want you to watch the attitude of the Refiner.
   "And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Secondly, the
   object of His refining--"He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge
   them as gold and silver." And, thirdly, the result of the refinement,
   "That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."

   I. Notice carefully THE ATTITUDE OF THE REFINER--"He shall sit." The
   posture would not have been mentioned had it not been instructive.
   Sitting looks like the attitude of indifference. There is the metal
   vexed with a white heat--here is the Refiner sitting down! There is the
   child of God upon the bed of pain and he cries, "My Lord, come and help
   me!" And there the Refiner sits--He looks on, but does not stir a hand.
   The child of God is sinking in trouble. He fears, like Peter, that the
   next step may drown him and there is his Lord, calm and unmoved! When
   the Apostolic ship was out at sea and tossed in the tempest, Christ was
   asleep in the back part of the vessel! Unbelief dares challenge His
   love because of this apparent apathy--how can He sit still and see us
   suffer?

   She mutters--"He is indifferent! He does not care." "Don't You care
   that we perish?" is the cry of Unbelief and before the heart actually
   utters it, it begins to think, "Where is the tenderness of Christ?
   Where is the gentleness of God? Am I thus to be tortured? Am I thus to
   be tried? Am I thus to be tossed from billow to billow without a
   Helper?" Yet after all our crying and tears the Refiner still sits!
   Yes, He, to all appearances, disregards our prayers and entreaties and
   fulfils the description of the text--"He sits." It is amazing how often
   God seems utterly indifferent to His people and how Christ, filled with
   compassion because He has been tried in all points like as we are, yet
   seems to look down upon our sorrows with undisturbed serenity.

   I once heard a Welshman preach in his own native tongue. It was a
   sermon in which he got into the spirit of his subject and spoke as one
   Inspired. He used a very simple illustration when he said, "The mother
   has her dear babe upon her knee. It is time for washing. She washes its
   face. The little one cries. It loves not the soap; it loves not the
   water and therefore it cries. Here is a great sorrow! Listen to its
   lamentations! It is ready to break its heart! What does the mother do?
   Is she sorrowful? Does she weep? No! She is singing all the while
   because she understands how good it is that the child should suffer a
   little temporary inconvenience in order that its face, all smeared and
   foul, should become bright and beautiful again! Thus does the great
   Father rest in His love and rejoice over us with singing while we are
   sighing and crying."

   Ours is but a child's sorrow, sharp and shallow, of which the greatest
   source is our own ignorance of the great designs of the Perfecter of
   men! The Lord pities our childish sorrow, but He does not regard it so
   as to stop His hands from His cleansing work. "Let not your soul spare
   for his crying," said Solomon--and our wise Father, when He is
   chastening us, does not spare us for our crying. What if the metal that
   is put into the furnace should be sensitive when the crucible is hot
   and should cry out, "Oh, take me out! The fire is too hot! I cannot
   bear it. I am dissolving! I am melting! Take me out"? Would the assayer
   regard the entreaties of the metal? Ah, no! And so, when we are in the
   furnace, the Refiner

   sits still. Why should He be flurried? He knows what He is doing and He
   knows that His Divine methods are wise and

   Infallible.

   He is not hurting the silver, but doing it lasting service. He is not
   even putting it through a needless process. He is taking the shortest
   way of working when He seems to be longest in His assays. There is a
   haste that is not good speed and God uses not such haste as that--He
   moves at the pace of perfection and that may seem slow to us. He shall
   sit as a Refiner till you shall ask, "Does He care at all for me?"
   Carnal reason may judge as it pleases as to the indifference of Him who
   seems to sit at ease while His people are melted in the flames, but
   faith is full-well assured that in the attitude of the Divine Refiner
   there is real attention. Why does the Refiner sit, but because He is
   resolved to steadily watch the crucible? He will not go away and leave
   it, even for a moment, lest the heat should grow too great or a certain
   point should be passed over when His Presence would be essential to the
   success of the process.

   I have often heard that a refiner sits and looks at the silver till he
   can see his own reflection in it. Though I have heard that venerable
   story many times and can see the evident moral of it, I have my
   suspicions as to its being a matter of fact. I certainly should not
   like to be the refiner who had such a task to do, for when a crucible
   is in the white heat of the furnace, it is almost enough too burn out
   your eyes to look at it even for an instant! I do not believe that any
   human being could watch a mass of molten silver glowing in the furnace
   till he saw his own image there. Christ's eyes can bear the blaze and
   He can watch us in the fires, but I do not use the illustration because
   I have my doubts about the truth of it.

   Our Lord sits as the Refiner at the furnace mouth because He is all
   attention. He has, as it were, given up all other cares just to sit
   there and watch His treasure. He is determined that His servants shall
   be purified--that the sons of Levi shall be purged--and so there He is,
   everything else laid aside, giving His whole heart and soul to those
   whom He is refining. "Oh" you say "but you exaggerate if you talk about
   the Lord's giving all His heart and soul to one of His people." No, I
   do not. The Lord Jesus watches each one of His people as intensely as
   if He had no other. Finite minds must have a center, somewhere, and as
   that center changes, so our circumference of thought and action shifts.
   But God's center is everywhere and His circumference is nowhere!

   Each one of us may be in the center of the Divine mind and yet none of
   the redeemed may be any the less near because of it. Jesus watches each
   one--you, me, 50,000 others--all of them His chosen ones that are
   undergoing the purifying process. He watches each one as if there were
   never another for His blessed eyes to rest upon. He is all attention,
   watching not as children gaze on soldiers in the fire, but as practical
   refiners watch their precious metal! Poor, bowed Heart, Jesus is all
   attention! His sitting down is not because He forgets, but because He
   remembers!--

   "God's furnace does in Zion stand, But Zion's God sits by, As the
   refiner views His gold, With an observant eye." Always observing,
   always watching. Jesus shall sit--"He shall sit as a refiner."

   But we may notice more than this. I think I see in the sitting down of
   the Refiner a settled patience, as if He seemed to say, "This is stern
   work and I will sit down to it, for it will need care, time and
   constant watchfulness. This metal may need to be purified in a furnace
   of earth seven times, but I am set upon the perfecting of the work and,
   therefore, here I place Myself. I shall bear with this man till I have
   delivered him from his faults. I shall bear with this woman till I have
   made something of her--till I have taken away that which weakens and
   injures her character. I mean to bear with this poor, petulant,
   unbelieving, complaining, selfish, groaning mortal--My Spirit has given
   him some love for Me and some life in Me--and, therefore, I will bear
   with him till his life and love shall have conquered all earthly
   grossness and he shall be a lump of pure metal fit for My Father's
   treasury."

   The Lord has had boundless patience with some of us already, for we
   required a world of purifying and we have been very slow to receive it.
   How many sermons have we heard and yet how little have we been purified
   by the Word of God? How often has the Spirit striven with us and yet
   every thought is not yet brought into captivity? How often have we had
   near and true fellowship with Christ and yet have again forsaken Him?
   How frequently have we had to endure the furnace of affliction and yet
   our dross and tin are not removed? The Refiner still perseveres with
   settled resolve of ceaseless love. He will not give up His gracious
   task. He did not come hastily to the furnace door and shut us in and
   then leave us while He minded other matters. He has been sitting near
   His work ever since He began it--even as the refiner sits close to his

   work--and He means to stay as long as the work remains unfinished. He
   will not be gone till all is over. Here, then, Faith sees Divine
   attention and settled patience where Unbelief dared to suspect
   unfeeling indifference!

   I find, in looking at the original, that the word for, "sit," is one
   which is used many times in Scripture for the posture of a king upon a
   throne--it is a sort of regal sitting down. So that we have here the
   posture of power. "He shall sit as a refiner," signifies, then, I take
   it, that He who seems indifferent, but who is constantly observant and
   patient, is seated on His Throne possessing infinite power over all
   things so that the process which He is watching can be checked or
   quickened according to His own will and wish. He reigns as a Refiner.
   He has power over every coal, over every single jet of gassy flame! He
   has power over every breath of air that fans the fire and over the
   furnace to its inmost center and its utmost vehemence. He has power
   over the metal, itself, and its dross and all that is excellent about
   it as well as all that is vile.

   Oh, this is a grand consolation! He that has undertaken to purify us
   can do it, for He sits on the Throne of boundless might! Nothing short
   of an Omnipotent Savior could have saved me! It were ill news for me if
   men could show that Christ were not Divine, for short of a Divine
   Redeemer I know I shall never be perfected! No strength but that which
   made me can make me new! Only He that says, "I kill and I make alive,"
   can ever kill my sin and make me alive unto God. Oh, Christian, this
   ought to be a delight to you, that He who sits as a refiner sits on the
   Throne while He is refining you and exercises Sovereign Grace and
   infinite power while dealing with your soul! Jesus reigns in the work
   of sanctification, having all things at His disposal, and He can and
   will perform that which He has begun--

   "Grace will complete what Grace begins, To save from sorrows or from
   sins. The work that wisdom undertakes Eternal mercy ne'er forsakes."
   Eternal power performs what everlasting love designs.

   So I conceive that the text may also teach us the perfect perseverance
   of Christ in the work of the purifying of His people. "He shall sit as
   a refiner." Might not your backsliding, after you had once reached a
   great height of sanctity, have disappointed Christ and made Him leave
   you? Yes, if it were not true of Him, "I am God: I change not," He
   would have left you to be consumed! But you are not consumed because,
   from His blessed purpose He will not swerve. Oh, how many times you and
   I have seemed to make advances towards purity but have gone back,
   again, to folly, thus manifesting the abundance of our alloy! It did
   seem as if, at last, the blessed flame of Grace had begun to make us
   bright and yet we have dulled again back to the old state.

   And where is the Refiner? Has He gone? By no means. There He is! He has
   been sitting as a refiner and He is still sitting! That is a blessed
   text--"He shall not fail nor be discouraged." There is much to
   discourage Him, but He is not discouraged! There is much to make Him
   relinquish the work, but He determines not to fail in it. His mind is
   made up and well it may be, for He has paid in bloody sweat and in His
   heart's blood, the ransom price to purchase us and He will never leave
   half-effected what He has spent His life to achieve! What He has
   redeemed, He will refine! Gethsemane and Calvary have bound the Refiner
   to His task.

   He undertook a stupendous labor and He went through with it till He
   shouted from the Cross, "It is finished!" And, therefore, we may rest
   assured that He will go on with the further portions of His great
   enterprise till, from His Throne above He will say, "It is finished,"
   as He surveys every one of us, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such
   thing"--pure lumps of gold and silver brought Home by Himself without a
   speck of dross about us. Oh, blessed hope! Where should we dare to
   indulge it but in the Presence of an almighty Savior whose Immutable
   oath has bound Him to carry out the work of our perfection?

   II. Now, dear Brothers and Sisters, suffer a few words upon THE GREAT
   OBJECTIVE OF OUR LORD'S REFINING WORK. This point has come up all
   along. May the Spirit of God instruct us concerning it. The great
   objective of His refining is that He may deliver us from all evil and
   make us perfect. Remember, the subjects of purifying are His own chosen
   ones--"He shall purify the sons of Levi." Levi was the tribe taken out
   of the rest for God's service. The Lord has a people whom He has set
   apart unto Himself and these He will purify! Do others think that He
   does them an injustice by this act of choice?

   Would they like to be purified? Then, depend upon it, He will not
   refuse them! No, the quarrel lies in words and has no truth in it. Men
   pretend to be angry with electing love, though they have no desire for
   it, themselves! God's election is

   an election to holiness and this is a thing which men, in their heart
   of hearts, do not desire. Sirs, if you do not wish for purification and
   holiness, why should you quarrel with God because He doesn't give it to
   you? Yet unholy men rave at election to holiness and call it partiality
   and I know not what, besides! You dogs in the manger, will you always
   howl at God because He gives to His own sheep that which you will not
   care to have? If you wish for it, you may have it! Free is the Gospel
   to every soul under Heaven that desires it!

   The Lord proclaims, "Whoever will, let him come and take the Water of
   Life freely," but if men turn their backs on Heaven's ever-flowing
   Fountain, shall they, afterwards, quarrel with the election of God
   because He causes some to come whom He makes willing in the day of His
   power? They may quarrel if they will, but high overhead rolls the dread
   thunder of that awful Word of God, "He will have mercy on whom He will
   have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have
   compassion." God is Sovereign in His gifts of Grace and does after His
   own mind. He refuses Grace to none, but yet He will have a people of
   His own on whom His sanctifying work shall be wrought. "He shall purify
   the sons of Levi."

   The Refiner begins His work by convicting His people of their need of
   purity. "What? Purify the sons of Levi? Do they need it? Surely,
   Reuben, Manasseh, Gad--these might need purifying--but Levi opens and
   shuts the door of the House of God! It is a Levite that sacrifices,
   that enters within the veil. Does he require purifying?" Yes, that he
   does. "He shall purify the sons of Levi"--the best, the very best, the
   holiest--those that come near to God--the true silver and the real
   gold! He shall purify these! Brother, Sister, have you a notion that
   you do not need purifying? Discard it, for if we walk in the light as
   God is in the light and have close fellowship with God, yet we still
   need the cleansing blood. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son," still
   cleans us from all sin." Still we need the purging Spirit or else there
   remains enough of evil about the man that is nearest Heaven's gates to
   make a Judas Iscariot of him if Grace does not prevent. "He shall
   purify the sons of Levi"--the pure shall be purified and the clean
   shall be yet further cleansed.

   Did you ever notice that the branch which feels most of the knife and
   gets most of the pruning is not the dead branch? Not that withered,
   crooked branch does the gardener wound with the knife! No, the best
   branch that bears most fruit is most worthy of the gardener's visits
   and shall be most favored with them. That ore which has the most gold
   in it, in proportion to the quartz, is the likeliest to get into the
   fire. He that has most of refinement is he on whom Christ will carry
   out his refining work. "He shall purify the sons of Levi."

   Further, observe that He not only convinces them of their need of this
   purity, but He remedies their impurity. He shall actually purify them
   as gold and silver! The point is the thoroughness of it. This piece of
   wood which makes my pulpit, if it is defiled, it is dusted and it is at
   once sufficiently cleansed. Your platters are washed--that is all. Your
   furniture may need beating, dusting and many processes, but there is
   nothing thorough in them compared with the metaphor of the text--"He
   shall purify them as gold and silver." They must go into the fire. The
   purging that God gives His people is not the washing of the outside of
   the cup and platter! It is the cleansing of the soul, the heart--the
   purging of the man-- a fiery purging! Fire does not merely go about--it
   penetrates and passes right into it. The metal is hot! It is melted! It
   flows--the fire has dissolved the mass.

   We say in the hymn, "Refining fire, go through my heart," and that is
   the nearest approximation of language. But fire does something more
   than go through the metal. It seems to get into the very essence and
   nature and character of the metal and fuses it all, making it all feel
   its supreme force. The Lord's purification of His people, in order to
   make them fit to be with Him in Heaven, is a fire process--it is
   mysterious, inward, penetrating, consuming, transforming. His Spirit
   burns like fire! His Word, like fire, goes through and through the
   soul! His holy fellowship causes us to say, "My heart melted while my
   Beloved spoke." And His fiery trials, too, when blest by the Spirit,
   seem to melt the very being of the man.

   This process is intended to be thorough, that it may be abiding. If you
   get a piece of gold or silver, though it has been through the fire, it
   may grow dull but it cannot, again, become impure and alloyed. Silver
   will soon oxidize upon the surface, but for all that, the bulk of the
   silver vessel is not injured at all--it remains pure silver after it
   has been through the fire. The work is done and done thoroughly. The
   purifications of God will last throughout eternity. Have you ever
   reflected upon the fact that when Christ's refining work is done upon
   us there will never be any need for it again? Blessed be God, there is
   no purgatorial fire! We need not dread that we have yet to pass through
   purging flames in another world, for Jesus has well-refined the sons of
   Levi and they are clean every whit!

   Believers are taken up to Heaven at once--as soon as they quit this
   world. If we were not thoroughly purified before we entered there, we
   should be under a strong temptation to pride. Only think of yourself
   with a palm branch, my Brothers and Sisters! You fought very badly,
   too. You with a harp in your hand! Is there not a temptation to strike
   just one gentle string in praise of what you did or suffered? Say not
   that you could not be thus tempted--why, an angel fell from Heaven! The
   Son of the Morning--a greater being than you--could not stand amidst
   the glories of Paradise! Pride dragged Lucifer from Heaven and hurled
   him down to the darkest deeps!

   Oh, joy, joy, joy! The same shall never happen to you! You will never
   be proud in Paradise--you will never be discontented in Heaven. Do you
   say, "I should think not"? I do not know. If you could go to Heaven as
   you are, you would be. You would be sorry to think that there is no
   temple there and no more sea. And a great many things might make you
   dissatisfied, but you will not be discontented, for you will be
   purified! You will not speak sharply to your neighbor in Heaven! You
   will not think he sings too loudly or is too demonstrative in his
   worship! You will not quarrel with anybody in Heaven, for you will have
   nothing in you which can lead to sin!

   See how splendidly the Refiner will do His work, then, so that
   throughout eternity, when this poor world shall all dissolve in smoke
   and the sun shall have burnt out like an expiring coal--when the moon
   shall be black as a sackcloth of hair and all earth-born things shall
   have grown hoary and given way to corruption's finger--you shall still
   be young and fresh and pure and perfect as the God that loved you and
   that made you so! Oh, well may we be content to let the fire burn and
   let the coals glow as much as they will since it can be only for a very
   little while and then come the ages, the eternities, the God, the
   Christ, the Heaven which He has prepared for us when we are prepared
   for them!

   This, then, is the objective of His refining.

   III. Thirdly, and to conclude, WHAT WILL BE THE IMMEDIATE RESULT OF
   THIS REFINING AS CHRIST

   CARRIES IT ON? It will be this--"That they may offer to the Lord an
   offering of righteousness." First, these Levites shall attend to their
   business. They ought to have been working at the Temple, but they had
   forgotten their high calling. The sons of Levi had taken up their
   portion in the world, though their God had never given them any, for He
   gave no portion to Levi when the land was divided among the tribes.
   "The Lord's portion is His people" and the Lord is the portion of their
   inheritance. The Levites had gotten away from their spiritual calling
   and had given themselves up to mind this and that--but it is pleasant
   to observe that when God purifies them, they begin to do their own
   business--"That they may offer to the Lord."

   Oh, Beloved, if you have been refined by the Word of God; if you have
   been refined by the Spirit; if you have been refined by heavenly joys;
   if you have been refined by sanctified sorrows, you wish to serve God
   much more than ever you did before. You now pray that if you have lived
   to self in any degree, you may be forgiven, for you wish to live to
   Christ and to Him alone! Now, as a Levite, you say, "What can I do for
   God? There is nothing here worth living for, but to love and serve Him.
   Here, Lord, tell me what You would have me to do. I desire to do it at
   once." Brothers and Sisters thank God for every trial you have suffered
   if it leads you to offer your sacrifice! I will bless God for all I
   have endured, myself, if I am enabled to fulfill my priesthood, for are
   we not a nation of priests, a peculiar people, set apart to offer
   sacrifice to God? And this is to be the result of refinement--that we
   do good work and service unto God.

   Some of you need a little pushing on in this direction, for I know a
   great many Christians who live as if the main point in religion was to
   enjoy yourself. "I enjoyed that sermon. I enjoyed that Prayer Meeting."
   Yes, that is quite right. But have you done anything? Have you served
   the Master? Have you offered anything to Jesus? Have you brought forth
   fruit to His Glory? Oh, it is a good thing to be watered! It is a
   blessed thing to stand in the warm sunlight and grow! But after the
   watering and the sunshine must come the fruit-bearing or we shall be
   barren fig trees, after all! And so it is in the text, you see--"That
   they may offer unto the Lord an offering."

   And then, next, they are not only to do their work, but they are to do
   it well. "They must offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness,"
   for, oh, we may do much for God that looks very pretty, but when we get
   into trial and look back upon our service by the furnace light we do
   not think much of it! Have you ever taken a little time to look back
   upon your service to God and have you not wondered at yourself that you
   have done it so badly? Have you not said, "Please, God, may I address
   that class again? By Your Grace I will be more passionately in
   earnest." Have you not said, "Please, God, may I get out to that
   village to preach again? This time, by Your Grace, I will speak with
   all my soul and nothing else but Christ shall be my theme."

   Have we not often wished we could do our lifework over again that we
   might do it better? I do not think that there is any use in that wish.
   Let us improve what is to be done in the future rather than wish to
   undo the past! Let us buckle on our harness and ask God to give us more
   spiritual intensity that what is done may be a sacrifice offered in
   righteousness unto the Lord. And then another result of this
   purification is that they were accepted, for the next verse says, "Then
   shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as
   in the days of old." When God accepts our persons, He accepts our
   offerings--but if we are not ourselves accepted--then that which we do
   is rejected. When the Lord Jesus Christ enables us to live by faith in
   Him and to see that we are "accepted in the Beloved," and when that
   faith helps us to work in a right spirit and serve God from a pure
   motive, then we, ourselves, and our work are pleasant unto God as in
   former days.

   God grant that the blessed processes of His Providence and of His Grace
   which are being carried on in His people may be carried on in you and
   me that we may serve God with perfect hearts all our days! I think I
   heard somebody say, "I do not want putting through that process. I do
   not wish for such purifying." Have you seen the great masses of slag
   that they throw out from the furnace? They lie in great heaps at the
   pit's mouth. Will these be a picture of you and your eternal condition?
   Reprobate silver shall men call them because God has rejected them!
   Will you be the slag cast away? The dross left forever? Oh, Eternity!
   Eternity! What must it be to be shipwrecked on your shoreless sea and
   drifted forever as a waif and stray from God and hope! Eternity!
   Eternity! What must it be to be rejected and cast away from the
   Presence of God and from the Glory of His power--thrown out upon the
   waste heap of the universe, forever given up!

   God save any man from that! Oh, it were worth wading through a thousand
   Hells to obtain that which makes existence worth having--namely,
   rightness with God! But, oh, if there were nothing else to lose but
   God's love; nothing else to earn by neglect of Divine things but to be
   rejected of God, I would plead with you with my whole soul that you
   would seek the Lord now! Cry mightily to the Divine Savior that He may
   now purge you with His precious blood from all the guilt of sin! Cry to
   Him that He may then go on with the second process by which He shall
   purge you from the power and habit and defilement of sin--and make you,
   like Himself--immaculate before the Omniscient! God grant it, for
   Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Throne of God and of the Lamb

   (No. 1576)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it." Revelation 22:3.

   WE shall take these words as referring to Heaven. Certainly it is most
   true of the Celestial City as well as of the millennial city, that the
   Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. This theme of surpassing
   interest intimately concerns all of us who are Believers, for to the
   eternal rest at the foot of the Throne we are constantly looking. Were
   it otherwise, I fear there would be little prospect of our ever passing
   the heavenly portals. We do not suppose that a man is shooting at a
   target if he does not look that way. Nor can we imagine that a man's
   ambition is fixed on Heaven if he has no thoughts or aspirations toward
   Heaven.

   The pilgrim turns his steps towards the place he is desirous to reach.
   Though he cannot catch a glimpse of the distant spot which is the goal
   of his hope, yet his eyes are in that direction. Let him climb a hill
   on a clear day and you will see how he strains his eyes to catch a
   glimpse of tower or spire, minaret or battlement of the city he is
   seeking. When he descends the valley and the outlook is dreary, he
   solaces his soul with songs in the night that tell of "a day's march
   nearer home." The anticipated greetings of friends gladden his heart.
   After a noble fashion the prospect of Heaven lights up our sad days
   with gleams of Glory, while our happy Sabbaths here, below, have often
   made us long for the sanctuary on high.

   In the crowded courts of this Tabernacle our fancy has pictured the
   Temple above of living stones and countless worshippers. Bunyan speaks
   of Mount Clear from which, with aid of telescope, the Celestial City
   might be seen in the distance. We have enjoyed intervals when no clouds
   or mists have obstructed our outlook and these have usually come to us
   on the Lord's days. A friend of mine, when he went to reside in
   Newcastle-on-Tyne, was looking over a newly-built house that was to let
   and as he looked out of the window in the top room, the landlord said
   to him, "You can see Durham Cathedral from here on a Sunday." My
   friend, failing, at first, to catch his meaning, said, "Why on Sunday
   more than any other day? "Well," said he, the furnaces are not going
   and the smoke is not rising to darken the atmosphere."

   I was not surprised to hear that the passing incident supplied my
   friend with a parable the next time that he preached. On special
   Sabbaths we peer into the city of which our text says--"The Throne of
   God and of the Lamb shall be in it." God grant that our meditations may
   stir your longings upward and that our discourse may excite your
   desires towards Heaven! Come, then, let us think about the Throne of
   God and of the Lamb and of the place where it is. But stop a moment--I
   want you to look round and take a preliminary survey of the scene. Do
   you notice that this Throne is the "Throne of God and of the Lamb"?

   Doubtless you know where John got that phrase, that title for
   Christ--"the Lamb." It is almost peculiar to Himself. You catch the
   note in Isaiah--Jesus is celebrated as a Lamb in his prophecies. You
   hear the name in an Epistle of Peter and in the Acts of the Apostles as
   a quotation from the evangelical Prophet. But with John it is a most
   familiar term. John, the best beloved of all the disciples of Jesus,
   loves this sweet symbol and delights to speak of his Lord as "the
   Lamb." This John bad been a disciple of that other John, the Baptist,
   whose chief and choicest sermon, which lingered most in his mind and
   memory, was couched in words like these--"Behold the Lamb of God, which
   takes away the sin of the world."

   John the Baptist struck a note which vibrated throughout the whole life
   of John the Divine. In Patmos John recalls his early impressions, for
   old men delight in the scenes and sayings of their youth. When John
   began his Gospel, he was absorbed in, "the Word." Now that he unfolds
   the wondrous scroll of vision, he portrays "the Lamb." As the keynote
   of Redemption, the name recurs frequently in his writings and, in his
   closing book, the name comes back to him with all its music and he
   dwells upon it with evident delight. The word, "arnion," as used in the
   Book of Revelation, might be translated, "a little lamb." It is a
   diminutive in the Greek text, expressive, as Dean Woodhouse observes,
   of tenderness and

   love. And in such sense our Savior, Himself, used it in addressing
   Peter after His resurrection--"Do you love Me? Feed My lambs."

   I refer to the idiom without any wish to see the common rendering
   altered, but it seems to show a marvelous degree of familiarity in
   John's mind with his blessed Master, when he looks upon Him as the
   little Lamb to be loved, for you know how apt we are to express
   affection in diminutive terms. "My little dear," or, "my little
   darling," are expressions that trip sweetly from our tongues. On the
   other hand, were we to say, "my dear big daughter," or, "my dear tall
   son," the words would sound awkward. We naturally give diminutive names
   to our favorites. Thus you will observe, dear Friends, that while our
   Divine Lord has names of infinite majesty which appeal to our loftiest
   homage, He also has names of pure simplicity like, "the Holy Child
   Jesus" and "the Little Lamb," when He appears to us innocent as a babe,
   or suffering, as a Sacrifice.

   I. The sublime adoration of the heavenly host is offered to the Lamb
   that was slain and has redeemed us to God by His blood out of every
   kindred and tongue, people and nation. In order to behold the Throne of
   God and of the Lamb, you must, first of all, get a sight of the Lamb. I
   invite you, therefore, in the words of John the Baptist, to "BEHOLD THE
   LAMB OF GOD, which takes away the sin of the world." Look at Him in the
   dawn of His ministry, when first He comes within the range of mortal
   vision--a Man, a lowly Man, one chosen out of the people. About Him
   there is neither form nor comeliness to make Him at all remarkable! He
   is one who did not strive, or cry, or cause His voice to be heard in
   the streets. He was not a pretentious, nor an ambitious Man, but one
   who could say of Himself, and nobody could dispute it, "I am meek and
   lowly in heart."

   He was born in Bethlehem. He grew and waxed strong in spirit. He
   increased in wisdom and stature. I suppose that when He was a child He
   spoke as a child, understood as a child and thought as a child--I know
   that He lived with His parents and was subject to them. In His mature
   years, when He was manifested to Israel, we behold Him, the Sinless
   One, endowed with the common faculties and afflicted with the common
   infirmities of our mortal race. He suffered the breath of slander. He
   wept with mourners. He groaned beneath the burden of care and smarted
   under the pangs of pain. He lived and He died in the presence of many
   witnesses--what further evidence could be desired that Jesus was a Man
   and not a myth--a lamb-like Man--and none of your pretenders to
   greatness?

   His Character, too, is so purely natural that the example of excellence
   He sets needs no explanation. The gentle disposition that drew little
   children around Him; the kindly temper that bore reviling without
   anger; the love He showed to the poor and destitute; the respect He
   paid to the outcasts of society and, above all, His kindly notice of
   publicans and harlots as sheep gone astray who were capable of being
   restored, claim our gratitude and cause us to regard Him as the model
   of goodness for all generations. Such is the Man whom all the kindreds
   of this earth must ultimately acknowledge as "the Lamb of God, which
   takes away the sin of the world."

   How lamb-like He is! Thus you see the Lamb of God among men--will you
   track His footsteps still farther on till He becomes the Lamb of
   Sacrifice and actually takes the sin of man upon Himself that He may
   bear its penalty? What an extraordinary night that was when He rose up
   from the supper table and said to His disciples, "Let us go." He went
   to a certain garden where He had been accustomed to spend nights in
   meditation. He went there to pray. And oh, what a prayer it was! It was
   such surely as Heaven never heard before or since. In an agony He
   prayed more earnestly and yet more earnestly, till, "He sweat, as it
   were, great drops of blood, falling to the ground."

   He cried to the Father, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."
   Then did the heavy cloud of human sins overshadow His soul and the
   ghastly terrors of all His people's guilt brood over His spirit! He
   proved the hour of dread and the power of darkness. Arrested by one who
   had eaten bread with Him, He was betrayed into the hands of
   conspirators. By an Apostle who turned apostate, He was sold for a few
   paltry pieces of silver. From the place of private retreat and of
   secret prayer, He was hurried off to prison and to judgment. Before
   Herod and Caiaphas and then before Pontius Pilate He was arraigned. All
   through the night He was falsely accused and foully mocked, scourged,
   spit upon and treated with the utmost contempt.

   So was His heart broken within Him because of the reproaches of them
   that reproached God which fell upon Him. Deserted by His disciples,
   denounced by the priests, despised by the populace, He was, at last,
   delivered up to the malice of His foes and sentenced by Pilate. He was
   led away to be crucified--still His patience was conspicuous and when
   He was led as a lamb to the slaughter He opened not His mouth. Now you
   shall see the full weight of sin pressing upon "the

   Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world." Every morning and
   every evening there had been a lamb sacrificed in the Tabernacle as the
   type and emblem of this Lamb of God who was yet to come. A pretty
   little innocent lamb that a child might fondle was brought up to the
   priest and its warm blood was made to flow in pain and it was offered
   as a sacrifice upon the altar.

   But now He comes--the last of all lambs! The first, too--the real lamb,
   the Lamb of God, of which the others were but types. He they took
   silent, passive, submissive--and nailed Him to the Cross. There He hung
   in the glare of the sun till the torture of tender nerves in His hands
   and feet produced such fever in His flesh that He said, "My strength is
   dried up like a potsherd and My tongue cleaves to My jaws and You have
   brought Me into the dust of death." Such was the dissolution of His
   entire frame. It seemed as if He had no longer a solid body--it was
   melted with bitter pain. There He hung, men jeering Him till, at last,
   the sun could bear the sight no longer and veiled his face! The earth
   could no more endure to be the stage for such a tragedy and began to
   rock and reel!

   The very dead were stirred as though they could not slumber in their
   graves while such a deed was done, so tombs were opened and many arose!
   Oh, it was a wondrous spectacle! Those that saw it smote upon their
   breasts and went upon their way. It was the Son of God "bearing, that
   we might never bear, His Father's righteous ire." Behold Him bruised
   between the upper and nether millstones of Divine Justice in your place
   and mine, that God, without the violation of His holy Law, might turn
   to us in infinite mercy and blot out our transgressions and quench the
   devouring fire of His wrath! Say, then, Beloved, have you ever seen
   this sight? Have you so seen it as to sing with our poet--

   "My soul looks back to see The burdens You did bear, When hanging on
   the cursed tree, And hopes her guilt was there"? Do you trust Him? Are
   you believing Him? His cry from the Cross is, "Look unto Me and be you
   saved, all the ends of the earth." Have you looked? If so, then you
   have had the preliminary sight and I pray God to so strengthen the eyes
   of your understanding that you may gaze more intently on this vision of
   the Apocalypse--"The Throne of God and of the

   Lamb."

   II. BEHOLD THE THRONE! Let us see it, first, from the Lamb's side of
   it. Of course there is only one Throne-- God and the Lamb are not
   divided. The Lamb is God and the interests of God and the Lamb are one.
   The one kingdom of God, even the Father, is identical with the kingdom
   of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Acknowledging the oneness of the
   Throne, we proceed to inspect it from the point of view in which the
   Lamb chiefly challenges our notice. You will remember that He is
   portrayed to us as, "the Lamb in the midst of the Throne." So John
   beheld Him, as you read in the 5th chapter of Revelation and the 6th
   verse.

   But I would not have you make any mistake about the meaning of that
   phrase. Dr. Watts constructed a poor paraphrase of the passage when He
   said--

   "Our Jesus fills the middle seat Of the celestial Throne."

   There is no such idea in Holy Scripture. "The midst of the Throne"
   means the front of the Throne, according to the Greek. The Lamb was not
   on the Throne in that vision, but standing immediately before it. That
   is a position in which our Lord Jesus Christ would have us see Him. I
   will show you, presently, that He is on the Throne, according to our
   text, but not according to the passage which I have just now quoted. In
   the previous narrative of the 5th chapter, where the Lamb is said to be
   in the midst of the Throne, it means in the front of it--in the
   center--standing there that we might draw near and approach the Throne
   of God through Him.

   To the awful Throne of God there could be no access except through a
   Mediator--He stands, therefore, in the front of the Throne between us
   and the invisible Sovereign God, as Interposer and Interpreter, one of
   a thousand, the Daysman who can lay His hand upon both. This is a
   beautiful thought. Jesus, according to the former vision of this
   revelation, is in the front of the Throne where God always sees Him
   before He sees us. I cannot endure the sight of God until I see Him in
   Christ--and God cannot bear the sight of me till He sees me in Christ!
   Wonderful is that text in the book of Exodus, "When I see the blood I
   will pass over you." He does not say, "When you Israelites see the
   blood I will pass over you."

   Why, they were not in a position to see it, for they were inside the
   house and the blood was outside, on the lintel and on the two side
   posts. It is true, they had seen the lamb as it was slain, for you
   remember that the whole assembly of the

   congregation was to kill it between the two evenings and they also saw
   much upon their having seen it as upon God's continually seeing
   it--"When I see the blood I will pass over you." In like manner, the
   Covenant security of the saints arises from God the Father looking to
   His Son Jesus Christ as their Surety and Sacrifice, rather than from
   the constant exercise of their faith. Hence we rightly plead in our
   hymn--

   "Him and then the sinner see: Look through Jesus' wounds on me."

   There, then, our Lord Jesus stands in front of the Throne of God
   interceding for us, interposing for us, opening the way for us to
   approach to God, even the Father! I have drawn your attention to this
   previous vision as a preliminary to that of our text in which the
   position of Jesus Christ is upon the Throne, reigning there, clothed
   bodily with all the power of the Godhead. Do not forget that it is so.
   The Lamb is on the Throne of God--co-equal and co-eternal with the
   Father, very God He is, very God He always was! We do not forget the
   Glory which He had with the Father before the earth was, but it is as
   God-Man Mediator that He is now, in His complex Person, invested with
   heavenly honors--

   "This is the Mian, the exalted Man, Whom we unseen adore. But when our
   eyes behold His face, Our hearts shal love Him more."

   The full glory of His Person as Son of God and Son of Man shall be
   manifested when He shall be beheld upon the Throne of God. He who once
   appeared as the sacrificed and slaughtered Lamb shall reign with
   supreme authority--the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings and
   Lord of lords! It is the Throne of God and of the Lamb. The power thus
   conferred upon Him, the Lamb, not only possesses by right and title,
   but He exercises it in deed and in truth. "All power," said our risen
   Redeemer, "is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth." He rules now with
   unlimited sway and the scepter of His kingdom is a right scepter.

   As Joseph was exalted in Egypt and Pharaoh said, "See, I have set you
   over all the land and the people cried before him and bowed the knee;
   and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt," even so we read of
   Jesus, "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 and
   that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord in the glory
   of God the Father." The rebellious are not exempted from His rule!
   Though they conspire against Him, they shall be utterly confounded. One
   might fancy that there was a slight strain of language in Pharaoh's
   fiat, that, "without Joseph no man shall lift his hand or foot in all
   the land of Egypt"--but there is no exaggeration if we apply the words
   to Christ--for it is a fact that every man living is responsible to
   Jesus for the thoughts and imaginations of his heart.

   Jesus Christ is King forever! The Throne of Heaven is the Throne of God
   and of the Lamb! His dominion over Nature always appears, to me, a
   delightful contemplation. I like to think of the sea roaring and the
   floods clapping their hands in His praise. He it is who makes the
   fields joyful and the trees of the forest glad. His pencil paints the
   varied hues of the flowers and His breath perfumes them. Every cloud
   floats over the sky blown by the breath of His mouth. Lord of all the
   realms of life and death, His Providence runs without knot or break
   through all the tangled skeins of time. All events, obvious or obscure,
   great or small, are subject to His influence and fostered or frustrated
   by His supremacy! The Lord reigns and of the increase of His government
   and peace there shall be no end!

   Your royal prerogative, O Lamb of God, extends over all the realms of
   Grace! You, O Lord Jesus, dispense mercy as seems good in Your sight.
   As the Father raises up the dead and quickens whom He will, even so He
   has given to the Son to have life in Himself and to quicken whomever He
   pleases. As Head of the Church, His benign control is absolute among
   the members of His body. In the bestowment of spiritual gifts and in
   the appointment to sacred offices, He rules and regulates--and nothing
   is too minute to escape His notice! How pleasant to my poor heart to
   think that He who bowed His head to shame is now exalted as God Over
   All to such a seat of honor! I feel that no disgrace I could incur; no
   injury I could sustain in preaching His name and publishing His fame,
   could be of any account in comparison with my joy in seeing Him
   exalted!

   Let me starve in a prison or die in a ditch, if only Christ is
   glorified! The old soldiers of Napoleon, rank and file, reveled in the
   triumphs of their general. When they fell on the battlefield with
   shouts of victory ringing in the air, they seemed to think light of
   death so long as the Emperor had won renown and the eagles of France
   were in the ascendant! Live forever, royal Lamb! Reign forever,
   victorious Lord! As for us, who or what are we? Brothers and Sisters,
   let us

   follow Him in the tribulation of the hour while the fight is fierce and
   so shall we find ourselves in His train when His triumph is trumpeted
   forth before the assembled universe. "Blessing and honor, and glory and
   power be unto Him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb forever
   and ever." What lowly reverence we owe to Him who occupies such a
   Throne of boundless empire! Approach Him, then, with profound humility,
   but mingle with it the most childlike confidence.

   Beloved, we see before us the grandeur of God and the gentleness of a
   lamb! The infinite Creator and the innocent creature are linked
   together in lovely union. He who is God over all, blessed forever, has
   resources amply sufficient to meet your utmost needs. You do not come
   to a finite helper when you draw near to Christ. In trusting to the
   merit of His blood, you have an all-prevalent plea and full security
   for pardon, peace and acceptance. You come to the Throne of the Lamb
   and that Throne of the Lamb is the Throne of God! "My God shall supply
   all your needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus." There
   is no stinted provision in such a treasury! All the riches of the Glory
   of God are treasured up in Christ Jesus and Christ has all this wealth
   to bestow upon His redeemed family.

   I do not know what hope and expectations the Socinian can cherish with
   a man-Christ, or an Angel-Christ, or a semi-divine Christ as a guide to
   immortality. They may honor Jesus of Nazareth for the purity of the
   life He lived on earth, but I need God, in human flesh, to save my soul
   and the death of the Son of God to wash away my sin! I find the fight
   of life so fierce that no hand but that which made the heavens can ever
   give me the victory! I place myself on the Incarnate God who bled and
   died, is gone into the excellent Glory and sits down, there, upon the
   Throne, Lord over all! I trust His saving strength to bear me through!
   Let me challenge you, my Hearers. Are you trusting Him and placing
   yourselves only and wholly upon Him? Could you be content with anyone
   less than a Divine Savior? If you are born from above you could not!
   Magnify His name, then, and worship Him in the quiet of your hearts at
   this good hour.

   Well, that is the aspect of the Throne from the side of the Lamb. Let
   us now take another look and behold the Throne of God. The Throne of
   God is the Throne of the Lamb! But the Throne of God, if we view it as
   sinners with a sense of guilt upon our conscience, is an object of
   terror, a place to flee from. Our poet was right when He said--

   "Once 'twas a seat of burning wrath, And shot devouring flames! Our God
   appeared, consuming fire And vengeance was His name."

   I remember when I had such terrible apprehensions of God and I know
   that they were founded upon the Truth of God, for the Lord is terrible
   to unforgiven men. Now I do not disdain, as some do, to sing, "Though
   You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comforted
   me." Not that there has been a change in God. It is the view of God
   which the sinner is able to take which has been changed--and that
   change has been effected by Christ!

   From everlasting to everlasting Jehovah is the same--in Him there is no
   variableness! Jesus did not die to make the Father love us, or to melt
   His aversion into affection. No, blessed be the God and Father of our
   Lord Jesus Christ, He loved us with an eternal love and chose us in the
   Person of Christ before the foundation of the world! Still, His justice
   was outraged by the transgressions we committed and, as a holy and just
   Sovereign, His anger was kindled against us as sinners--and that anger
   was no less justly appeased by the death of Christ when He put away our
   sins by the sacrifice of Himself. By His precious blood a full
   Atonement was made. Henceforth, eternal praises to His name, the Throne
   of God is the Throne of the Lamb!

   It is a throne of righteousness, but no less a throne of Grace. There,
   on the Throne of the Almighty, mercy reigns. According to the merit of
   the Sacrifice and the virtue of the Atonement, all the statutes and
   decrees of the kingdom of Heaven are issued. The Altar and the Throne
   have become identical. From that Throne no fiery bolt can ever again be
   hurled against the Believer, for it is the Throne of the Lamb as well
   as the Throne of God. Oh, what comfort there is for suffering saints in
   this conjunction of Majesty and Mercy on the Throne of the Highest! The
   Sovereignty that is signified by this Throne must certainly be
   unlimited. The Throne of God is the Throne of an absolute Monarch who
   does as He wills among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants
   of this lower world.

   From that Throne the proclamation comes like a peal of thunder, "The
   Lord reigns! Let the people tremble!" God's Throne of Sovereignty is
   not a Throne of arbitrary power, for the Lord is perfect and holy and
   His will is just and right. In acting according to the purpose of His
   own will, He abounds towards us in all wisdom and goodness. The
   sternness of law is linked with the sweetness of love because, while
   the Throne of Heaven is the Throne of God, it is still the Throne of

   the Lamb. I fear that I fail to find the words that will express my
   thoughts, but this empire of God and the Lamb endears itself to our
   hearts. There is about it a kingly kindliness and a majestic mercy most
   charming to the mind. Do any ask, What throne is that? To whom does it
   belong? We answer--it is the Throne of the great and glorious God and
   it is the Throne of the lowly lovely Lamb.

   The glorious Lord is gentle as a child. The lamb is lordly as a lion.
   Referring to the Book sealed with seven seals, described in the 5th
   chapter, St. Bernard said, "John heard of a lion and saw a Lamb; the
   Lamb opened the Book and appeared a Lion." But, behold, here it is,
   "the Throne of God and of the Lamb." Take off your shoes, O Seer; the
   place where you stand is holy ground, for God is here! Come, little
   children, there is charm enough to entice you, for the Lamb is here. It
   is the Throne of God! Therefore fall down before it with awe and
   self-abasement! But it is the Throne of the Lamb--therefore you may
   stand up before it without fear.

   Does not a rich blend of splendor and tenderness dawn on your
   apprehension? Are you not sensible of some present effect on your
   souls? Do you not feel the charming sweetness and the overpowering
   light? John tells us in the first chapter what his own sensations were,
   when the Son of Man appeared to him in the midst of the seven
   candlesticks, vested with the insignia of Priest and King. First, he
   says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Then he adds, "And
   He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, 'Fear not; I
   am..."'--Ah, when you recognize who He is, fear gives place to faith
   and trust succeeds to trembling! Be of good courage, then, you faint
   and timid disciples! Why do you come creeping with bated breath to the
   Throne of heavenly Grace? Will you always cry in the same strain,
   "Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners"?

   Such you were, but you are not so now! You are washed in the blood of
   the Lamb! You are His dear children. You have received the spirit of
   adoption. When you pray, say, "Our Father which are in Heaven." Let it
   be your pleasure, as it is your privilege, to hold nearer communion
   with God than Israel did, for no bounds are set about the mount. They
   had to stand at a distance. They dared not draw near lest they should
   die. They did even entreat that the terrible words might not be spoken
   to them any more-- but you are a people near to Him and dear to Him and
   the Throne to which you owe allegiance is the Throne of God and of the
   Lamb! I am painfully conscious, as I proceed, that the subject is too
   much beyond my grasp to mold it into a sermon. This is not preaching. I
   have been merely holding up the text and trying to suggest thought
   after thought as the Glory of my Lord's kingdom occurred to my mind.

   But what can any of us say in the Presence of God and of the Lamb? Our
   proper position is to fall down upon our faces and worship! Isaiah saw
   the Lord sitting upon a Throne, high and lifted up, and His train
   filled the Temple! Above it stood the seraphim--pure and sinless as
   they were, their homage was lowly and obeisant! Each one had six wings.
   With two he covered his face; with two he covered his feet and with two
   did he fly. In the Presence of the Eternal, language fails us except
   the one adoring cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts! The whole
   earth is full of His Glory!" The only other exclamation appropriate to
   utter would be, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and
   riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."

   III. One fact remains to be noticed--it is this--the Throne of God and
   of the Lamb is in Heaven. BEHOLD, THEN, THE THRONE IN HEAVEN. We must
   pass beyond this earthly region and join the company of those who
   people the celestial realm before we can see the Throne of God so as to
   obtain a complete view of it. Is not this among the chief joys of
   Heaven?--

   "I'd part with all the joys of sense,

   To gaze upon Your Throne. Pleasures spring fresh forever thence,
   Unspeakable, unknown."

   There are many ideas of Heaven and I suppose, according to each man's
   character, will be the prospects he cherishes and the answer he gives
   when the question is asked--"What must it be to be there?" So abundant
   are the joys which the Lord has prepared for them that love Him, that
   there is ample scope for imagination. There is the great wall, with its
   12 glittering foundations--and there are the 12 gates and the 12
   pearls.

   There, too, is the Tree of Life with its 12 manners of fruits. Who
   shall ever understand all the meaning of the symbols used by holy men
   to set forth the Paradise of God? Nor are the Scriptures our only
   source of information, for our sighs below are prophecies of the
   blessings laid up for us. The toil-worn laborer thinks of Heaven as a
   land of rest and he shall find it so. On the other hand, the relish
   that we have for religious worship and the delight we take in Christian
   work

   leads us to think of Heaven as a sanctuary where the servants of God
   can serve Him day and night--we shall find it so. For my part, I
   sympathize with both expectations, for though they sound contrary, they
   need not clash. The rest of glorified spirits, so far from being a sort
   of suspended animation, will rather consist of a joyous refreshment in
   enthusiastic service.

   And the ministry of ransomed hosts, instead of wearying them, will
   awaken them to fly more swiftly, to sing more loudly and to serve God
   more diligently as they see His face! Are there not tempted ones among
   you who smile as they think that there shall be no sin in Heaven? To
   Paul, when in prison, knowing that the hour of His departure was at
   hand after a life of preaching the Word of God and enduring
   persecution--the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the Righteous
   Judge gave him was, just then, the most welcome anticipation! As the
   warriors look for a crown, so on the other hand friends look for
   communion. To loving hearts, great is the bliss of Heaven's unbroken
   fellowship of saints-- it will, indeed, be a great joy in Heaven to see
   all who loved the Lord below. How happy we shall be when these blessed
   reunions take place!

   Still, I think that all of you will agree with me that the Heaven of
   Heaven is that we shall be "with Christ, which is far better"--that we
   shall behold His face and partake of His Glory. The Throne of God and
   of the Lamb will be the center of our delights! To have reached Home in
   the heavenly Father's House; to have seen our elder Brother and to be
   sure that we shall abide with Him and go out no more--oh, that is what
   we pant for! We long to hear His voice welcoming us to our new abode--

   "Come in, you blessed, sit by Me! With My own life I ransomed thee!
   Come, taste My perfect flavor. Come in, you happy spirit, come! You now
   shall dwell with Me at home! Yon blissful mansions, make him room, For
   he must stay forever."

   Beloved, our song will be to Him who loved us and yet we shall need to
   tell others of our love to Him. You cannot wash His feet with your
   tears because He will wipe all your tears away! You cannot honor Him
   with your substance there as you can here, for there will be no widows
   and orphans whom you can relieve, no poor and needy ones whom you can
   feed and clothe and visit--doing to His disciples as you would do unto
   Him.

   But oh, to fall before Him and then to gaze upon Him! He looks like a
   lamb that has been slain and still wears His priesthood. Oh, for a
   sight of Him! One said, "See Naples and die." But oh, if we could only
   see Christ--even on earth for a minute--we would be content to die and
   go Home with Him straightway! Nor would we ask leave, first, to go and
   bid them farewell which are at our house. What hallowed communion with
   Him we shall enjoy there. In His Church below He has given us some
   pleasant foretaste of His sweet converse, but there the Lamb that is in
   the midst of the Throne shall always feed them and shall lead them to
   living fountains of water!

   There is a text that I have been turning over in my mind for many
   years. I need to preach from it, but I cannot understand it clearly
   enough at present. I hope to preach from it one day before I go to
   Heaven. If not, I will preach from it up there when I shall have
   realized its full significance. Ah, do not smile! We shall have some
   opportunities in Heaven to testify of Christ, for we shall make known
   unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places the manifold
   wisdom of God! It is difficult to imagine that we will be able, always,
   to explore the whole of the unsearchable riches of Christ! The passage
   I am referring to is that in which Jesus says, "In my Father's house
   are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to
   prepare a place for you."

   Like Thomas, I am prone to ask questions. What is there to be prepared
   and in what respect does Heaven, as a place, need to be made ready? I
   do not like to think of Heaven as a half-built habitation, or as fully
   built, yet only partly furnished. What does this mean--this preparing
   of a place for us? Perhaps our Lord's going there made Heaven ready and
   its mansions meet for the occupation of His disciples. Heaven would
   hardly be a home for saints in the absence of the Savior. As I do not
   know the angels and never was acquainted with any of them, I doubt very
   much whether I should feel at home in their company if Jesus were not
   there, too. There are a few saints up yonder whom I once knew and
   dearly loved. But one needs to be introduced to the whole of the
   residents, to the general assembly and Church of the First-Born in
   Heaven. How can this happy familiarity be brought about?

   Now that Jesus is there we have a Friend on high whom we have known and
   who has known us who can introduce us to all its inhabitants and
   acquaint us with all its joys. His Presence is the Light and the Glory
   of the Celestial City. My place will be prepared when I am safe in His
   arms, leaning on His gentle breast. There may be much work for the
   Builder before all the plans and purposes of the eternal Architect are
   completed. Of that I do not know--of that, therefore, I cannot speak.
   Jesus has gone to prepare a place for His people and we very distinctly
   perceive that He is preparing His people for the place.

   Listen, now. Lend me your ears and hearken to this concluding word that
   I have to say to you. We are now hastening our steps heavenward. We
   long to reach the happy plains because there is not only a rest to be
   enjoyed, but a festival to be celebrated. The marriage supper of the
   Lamb draws near. His Church shall be prepared as a bride adorned for
   her husband. We that are with Him, following in His train, called,
   chosen and faithful, are only engaged to Him as yet, but we are going
   to that place where the Voice shall be heard, "The marriage of the Lamb
   is come and His bride has made herself ready."

   I halt. I dare not advance a step farther! I bring you to the margin of
   this blessed ocean of infinite delight! Oh, for a plunge into it--into
   the Godhead's deepest sea of love! Is there a more intimate relation
   into which our Lord Jesus Christ shall hereafter take His beloved
   people whereby we shall be forever united to Him? Shall we know the
   fullness of His love in a communion of which it were not lawful for a
   man to speak? Was this one of the unspeakable words which Paul heard
   when he was caught up into Paradise? Can it be that this marriage scene
   is the last act of the new creation, as it was of the old creation when
   the Lord God found and formed a helpmeet for Adam? "This is a great
   mystery. I speak concerning Christ and the Church."

   Till the day breaks and the shadows flee away, let us wait for the
   Bridegroom's appearing and the bringing home of the bride. As virgins
   that look forward to the marriage day, let us keep our lamps trimmed
   and see to it that there is oil in our vessels, lest when the cry is
   heard, "The Bridegroom comes," any of us should need to nurse the
   dimly-burning spark or despairingly cry, "Our lamps are gone out!" Let
   us all be ready that we may go in through the gates into the city. Some
   of you, alas, are not able to feel the joy which this subject excites
   in our breasts. You cannot take delight in the Throne of God and of the
   Lamb. God grant you may.

   Come, now, to the Throne of Grace with open confession and secret
   contrition. It is the Throne of God who knows the nature of your sin!
   It is the Throne of the Lamb who bore the penalty of sin and can put it
   away! Come to the Throne of the Lamb that was slain! I entreat you to
   come now! And so shall you find peace and reconciliation--and you shall
   be made meet to enter into the joy of your Lord! I pray God to bless
   this whole congregation, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sin Subdued

   (No. 1577)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He will subdue our iniquities." Micah 7:19.

   BUT lately I tuned my harp to the music of forgiven sin and we sang of
   pardon bought with blood, finding our keynote in the words of
   David--"Who forgives all your iniquities." It was a sweet subject to
   all our hearts, for we all have a portion in it, seeing we are all
   sinful and have need to be forgiven--therefore did our souls dance to
   the high sounding cymbals as we rejoiced in the complete pardon which
   our gracious God has given to all who believe in Jesus. But, Beloved,
   the pardon of sin is not enough for us--we have another equally urgent
   need. If the Lord would forgive us all our sins we could not be happy
   with that alone. "Who forgives all your iniquities" is not perfect
   music till we add to it the next note, "who heals all your diseases."

   We feel that we have within us a tendency to sin and that tendency is
   our misery. From this tendency we must be emancipated, or we are no
   more free than the captive who has had the manacles removed from one
   wrist but feels the iron eating into the other arm! We wish to be
   delivered from every propensity to sin--yes, to be rescued altogether
   from its power. God has now given us a new life and this will never be
   easy till the last link of the chain of sin is utterly removed. Since
   our new birth there remains no rest for us short of being perfectly
   like our God in righteousness and true holiness. The heavenly Seed
   within us must and will grow--and as it increases in the soul, it will
   expel the power of evil, for it cannot endure the least particle of it.

   We may now be called "the Irreconcilables," for we can never be at
   peace with evil. We cannot tolerate sin. The thought of it pains us and
   when we fall into a sinful act we are cut to the quick. We thirst to be
   pure! We pant to be holy and we shall never be satisfied until we are
   perfectly so. We, dear Friends, who have been awakened by the Holy
   Spirit, find that we are by nature under the power of sin. It will not
   be an easy thing for us to escape from the terrible tyranny of sin--not
   without the putting forth of great power can the iron yoke be broken.
   What little experience we have had in the Divine Life leads us to see
   that there is an immense difficulty before us, making our upward
   progress one of conflict and labor. A dreadful power has our nature in
   subjection and that power cannot easily be overcome.

   Ever since the Fall sin has taken possession of us. This flesh of ours
   lusts to evil--the propensities of our nature which are not, in
   themselves, sinful, are made by our depraved hearts to be the occasions
   of concupiscence and transgression. We cannot eat, or drink, or talk,
   or sleep but what there is a tendency to sin in each of these
   conditions. Out of the simplest movements of our being, evil can arise.
   Actions which are incidental to the very fact that we are men--actions
   which are neither morally good nor morally evil become, nevertheless,
   the nests in which sin lays its eggs and hatches them so that every
   propensity of ours, even that which is, in itself, natural and fitting,
   readily becomes polluted and depraved through the indwelling of sin in
   our nature.

   Sin poisons the wellhead! Sin is in our brain--we think wrongly. Sin is
   in our heart--we love that which is evil. Sin bribes the judgment,
   intoxicates the will and perverts the memory! We recollect a bad word
   when we forget a holy sentence. Like a sea which comes up and floods a
   continent, penetrating every valley, deluging every plain and invading
   every mountain, so has sin penetrated our entire nature! How shall this
   flood be stopped? This enemy so universally dominant, so strongly
   entrenched--how shall it be dislodged? It has to be driven out somehow,
   every particle of it, and we shall never rest until it is. But by whom
   shall iniquity be subdued? How satisfactory the assurance of our text,
   "He will subdue our iniquities"!

   We find that our inward enemies are assisted by allies from without.
   The world which lies in the Wicked One is always ready to assist his
   dominion within us. We cannot walk down a street but we hear language
   which pollutes us. We can scarcely transact business in our own
   counting houses without being tempted. If we stay at home there is
   temptation there and if we go abroad it is the same. The most retired
   are not free from sin, no, their very retirement may only be a

   sinful selfishness which shirks imperative duty. We cannot do good to
   others without running some risk, ourselves, and if we cease from godly
   endeavors because we would not jeopardize our own spiritual comfort, we
   are already taken in the snare!

   We cannot mix in politics in any degree, with the purest desire for our
   country's welfare, without breathing tainted air. We cannot try to curb
   the social evil but we feel that we are on treacherous ground--yet we
   may not flinch from duty because of its perils. We shrink like the
   sensitive plant that is touched by the finger--we fold and furl up all
   the feelings of our being because of the sin which touches us when we
   mingle with men. We often close up all the gates and windows of the
   soul because we are conscious that the enemies without are calling to
   the enemies within and saying, "We will conquer you yet!"

   Moreover, that mysterious spirit, the devil, is always ready to excite
   our flesh and to urge on the world. I have beard that some people doubt
   his existence. Very likely they are so friendly with him that they
   would not like to betray him and so they deny that he hides in their
   hearts. But those who are his enemies do not try to conceal him, but
   acknowledge with sad humiliation of heart that they are very conscious
   of his power. A wind from him will come sweeping through our spirit in
   the calmest hour of devotion and in a minute we are disturbed and
   distracted! We have had our thoughts all going up towards Heaven and in
   a moment it has seemed as if they were all sucked down into the
   bottomless Pit, merely because that evil spirit has spread his dragon
   wing mysteriously over us and created a horrible downdraft which our
   poor brain could not at once resist.

   We have to fight, then, not only with sin, but with the flesh, which,
   like a Gibeonite, has become a hewer of wood and a drawer of water for
   the devil--we have to fight with the world which "lies in the Wicked
   One," steeped up to the throat in sin. And we have to fight with Satan,
   himself. "We wrestle not with flesh and blood," or else we would gird
   on the sword and go in for knocks and blows and cuts and thrusts and
   have the battle out! No, but we wrestle with "principalities and powers
   and spiritual wickedness in high places." And what is to become of such
   poor, frail, feeble, weak creatures as we are? Who can subdue these
   great and mighty kings? With so many in league against us, what can we
   do? What is to become of us?

   My text is the answer to that question--"He will subdue our
   iniquities." That same blessed God who has pardoned our sins will
   conquer them! They may fight against us, but He will be more than a
   match for them. Their fighting will end in their destruction.
   Omnipotence has marched into our hearts to trample down the power of
   sin. Eternal faithfulness has called in invincible strength and Divine
   Majesty to do battle against the serried hosts of darkness and we shall
   overcome! "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory, through our Lord
   Jesus Christ." I am going to speak briefly upon seven points, if time
   shall hold out for me to do so, and each of these seven points will
   show phases of the energy of evil which God will subdue.

   I. One of the first powers of evil which a man perceives when the
   heavenly life begins to breathe within him is THE FASCINATING POWER OF
   SIN. When Divine Grace in the soul is only like a little spark and has
   not come to its brightness, yet the man discovers with alarm that he is
   held under the enchantment of evil. I do not know any other word which
   quite gives my idea except that one. Satan casts a spell over men. They
   come and hear the Gospel and they are impressed by it--they see the
   reasonableness of the endeavor to escape from sin. They perceive the
   beauty of holiness and see that the way of God's salvation is a very
   glorious one, namely, by faith in Jesus Christ, and they begin to
   yield.

   But yet they neither flee from their sins nor lay hold on the salvation
   of Christ--they remain as persons besotted who act contrary to reason.
   In some cases one sin, in some cases another, seems to fascinate men
   like the eyes of the fabled basilisk. As certain snakes paralyze their
   victims by fixing their eyes upon them, so do certain sins paralyze
   those who are under their influence so that none can awaken them to
   escape. Sin makes men mad! Against their reason, against their best
   interests, they follow after that which they know will destroy them!
   They are slaves, though they wear no fetters of iron! They are
   captives, though no walls enclose them. The magic arts of evil have
   taken them in a net and wrapped them about with invisible bonds from
   which they cannot escape!

   In many cases Satan exercises over men a kind of soporific power. He
   puts them to sleep. I do not know whether there is anything in
   mesmerism or not, but I know that there is a devilish sleep-creating
   charm which Satan casts over men. They are no sooner a little awakened,
   startled and persuaded to escape for their lives, than suddenly they
   fold their arms, again, and crave a little more sleep. They are nodding
   over a prospect which, a few hours ago, made their hair almost

   stand on end! They go back to do the deed which they dreaded and which
   they know to be evil and destructive. They forget the Savior whose
   charms began to influence them and renew their covenant with Satan from
   whom they had almost escaped.

   In the matters of the soul you have not merely to get men awake, but to
   keep them awake. Over the Arctic traveler there comes a tendency to
   sleep in the cold--a tendency which he cannot resist. He may be
   awakened by his friends and shaken out of his torpor but, by-and-by, he
   is anxious to sleep again. They march him on between two, perhaps, and
   try to keep him awake, but still he cries, "Let me sleep!" He begs to
   be allowed to lie down and slumber. Such is the power of Satan over
   some of you who are present here--you wish that we would let you be
   quiet and go on in your sins without worrying you with our warnings. I
   have shaken you, sometimes--at least I have tried to do so--but then,
   after all, you have gone to sleep and you are still asleep, nodding
   with Hell beneath you and with the wrath of God abiding on you!

   It seems as if you cannot be decided--you cannot be resolute--you
   cannot run away from sin but are held by mysterious bonds! You are
   held, worst of all, by a dreadful indifference which makes you slumber
   yourselves into Hell. Do you think one ungodly man, in his senses,
   would remain what he is and where he is while there is a hope of being
   renewed if it were not for some strange enchantment which is exercised
   upon him by sin? What art of wizard can equal the magic of sin? What
   other witchery can cast men into such insensibility? If I were to cry,
   "Fire! Fire!" in this place tonight, the most of you would rush to the
   first door or window, but yet when we tell you of what is infinitely
   worse--namely, of the wrath to come and the anger of Almighty God--you
   are in no great alarm, no, you sit at your ease and hear all about it.

   The story of your future destiny is heard and heard till men think no
   more of it than of an old wives' fable and still sleep on in their sin.
   I have known this witchery to enthrall men who have been somewhat
   awakened. By the month and by the year together they have been awakened
   and have been apparently very earnest. But, after all, sin has charmed
   them with its siren song and they have returned like the dog to its
   vomit, or the sow which was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Now, I
   am rejoiced to think that, if there is any life in you, if the Lord
   enables you to look to Jesus Christ, His Son, for salvation, He will
   subdue your iniquities.

   Man, He will help you to escape from the magician's wand! Sin shall no
   longer delude and ensnare you! He will so set eternal things before you
   by the power of the Divine Spirit that you will not dare to sleep any
   longer! He will so convince you of sin, of righteousness and of
   judgment to come that He will slay the enchanter, break his spell and
   free you from his black arts. May the Lord set every fascinated one
   free at this good hour. May He pronounce the Word of God which will
   unbind the enchanter's charm and we shall then have one fulfillment of
   the text, "He shall subdue our iniquities."

   II. A second form of the force of sin in most men is ITS DEPRESSING
   POWER. When men are really awake and no longer under the witchery of
   sin, then Satan, their flesh and the sin that dwells in them, conspire
   to make them think that there is no hope of salvation for them. The
   Evil One mutters, "It is no use your trying to be saved. You do not
   stand the smallest chance." Jeeringly the Tempter cries, "Look at your
   sins! Look at your sins!" Satan, who before did not want us to look at
   sin, becomes, all of a sudden, eager that we should take to
   self-examination and confession! He who is the Father of Lies sometimes
   finds truth answers his purpose so well that he uses it with terrible
   effect! But even then he uses it to support a lie.

   He suggests to the heart the thought, "If you had not sinned so much
   you might have been forgiven, but you have piled on the last ounce that
   has broken the back of Mercy--you will never be saved." Then comes the
   second suggestion, "You know you have tried already. You kept yourself
   pretty steady for a time, but it all broke down. There is not the
   slightest use in venturing, again, upon this hopeless business. Depend
   upon it, there is a Divine decree against you--you are one of the
   reprobate! There is no hope for you at all. Don't you see how false you
   are? You never make a resolve but you break it! You made an awful
   failure of it last time and you will again." Then there comes up,
   again, in the soul the depressing thought, "Perhaps it is not true,
   after all, that there is any mercy for sinners. It is very possible
   that there is no such power in the blood of Jesus as the preacher wants
   you to think."

   Once get a man upon the rails of doubt and you can draw him on as far
   as you please. It is interesting to see a man go on doubting in the
   style I once followed. I doubted everything till at last I doubted my
   own existence! Now I have at least a little bump of common sense and I
   laughed outright at myself when I got as far as that--and the
   ridiculousness of the situation brought me back again to believe. To
   run right on to a reductio ad absurdum and prove the absurdity of your
   own unbelief is a very useful method of bringing a doubting spirit to a
   measure of belief. Yes, I know that this is the way

   of sin. It depresses the man. "I want to, but cannot believe," he says.
   "I would have a hope, but I cannot believe that my name is among God's
   elect ones. I cannot think that the blood of the Atonement was shed for
   me" and so on.

   What is to be done when you feel this and wish to conquer it? What is
   to be done but to fly to a promise like this in the text, "He will
   subdue our iniquities"? Yes, this despondency of yours, the Lord Jesus
   will subdue! Believe that He is able to cut off Giant Despair's head
   and dismantle his castle and set his prisoners free! Some have almost
   gone to the knife and to the halter in their despair and yet the Lord
   Jesus Christ has restored them to joy. Many a despairing soul have we
   had to deal with and we have seen the Lord vanquish its misery and
   chase away its sorrow! Satan did his best to keep the soul from the joy
   which it might have had then and there--to keep it from the feast which
   was spread for it, from the blessing which God had prepared for it--but
   he could not prevail, for the hour of hope had struck.

   O, cast-down one, be comforted! The Lord will subdue your iniquities in
   this respect. If you will but look to Jesus Christ He will say to you,
   "Be of good comfort." He will tell you that your sins are forgiven and
   breathe hope into your soul. This is a second blessed way in which God
   subdues our iniquities--by casting out their depressing power. This He
   does by showing what a glorious Savior Christ is--how He is Divine and,
   therefore, equal to any emergency--how His Atonement is of a value that
   never can be limited. He shows how He is "able to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him."

   This He does by applying the precious promises to the soul, by His own
   Holy Spirit, who leads men to believe in God despite their despair,
   hoping against hope! And thus the snare is broken and their iniquities
   are subdued. O glorious victory of all-conquering Love, sin's iron yoke
   of dark despondency is broken and the captives lead their captivity
   captive.

   Hallelujah!

   III. But now, thirdly, the Lord has power to subdue sin in another form
   of its force, namely, ITS DOMINEERING POWER. What a domineering thing
   sin is over men. Any one sin will lord it frightfully over a man. I
   know a man in his senses--at any rate, he has never been in Bedlam--in
   business he is as sharp and smart a man as can be and yet he drinks
   himself into foolishness, into madness and even into delirium tremens!
   He has done this several times and acknowledges to the madness and
   wickedness of the deed--and yet he will repeat his insane and suicidal
   course! He has drunk away all his estate--from a man of property he has
   descended to become a very inefficient worker. He has drunk away all
   his wife earns, for he does not earn much, himself, now, and he is mean
   enough to let the poor woman kill herself to provide him with food.

   He drank a horse and cart a fortnight ago. He went out of the house
   upon a business errand for his wife, pulled up at a drink-shop, drank
   till his money was gone and so he sold the means by which his wife has
   kept him out of the workhouse! I dare say he is here--let this message
   pierce his heart--he knows that it is time. He never went home again
   till the last ear of that horse had been drunk. And yet he would not
   like anybody to say that he is a fool, though I beg leave to have my
   doubts. His sin domineers over him. Only let drink come to him and say,
   "Go and do a mad thing," and he does it at once! Expense, pain,
   disgrace, disease, poverty and an early death--all these are demanded
   by the drink demon and his victims cheerfully pay the tax!

   Why, now, if I were persuaded that it was the duty of any one of you to
   go and spend every penny that you have and starve your own children in
   order to support a child at the Orphanage, you would laugh at me, I
   dare say. I should be a very long while before I could persuade you to
   do such a thing as that. I am sure I should not wish you to do so, but
   even if it were right, I could not get you to do it. Yet things far
   more preposterous are done greedily at the bidding of drink. This devil
   of drunkenness comes to a man and he says, "Come along with me. Leave
   your fireside and your wife and little ones and associate with the
   lowest of the low. Come and spend everything you have upon stuff that
   will muddle your head, harden your heart and destroy your character.
   Sell your household furniture and drink till all your comrades call you
   a jolly good fellow. Pawn your children's shoes, so that the little
   ones cannot even go to Sunday school."

   The man goes along as meekly as a lamb. And he has done that scores of
   times. He knows what a fool he is and yet he will do it again if he
   gets a chance. Oh, the domineering power of sin! It is not the one sin
   of drunkenness, only, for there are other men who are domineered by
   their lusts. It is a delicate question to talk about, but I dare say
   there are some here who are slaves to the vilest of lusts and it
   becomes me to be plain with them and assure them that persons living in
   fornication or adultery cannot inherit the kingdom of God! Then there
   is anger which carries men away as with a flood--they cannot restrain
   themselves--the least thing sets them off boiling with passion. They
   say they cannot get the mastery in

   this respect and it is perfectly true--but there is a stronger power
   than ours which can be brought in, by which the victory can be won.

   Sin in some form or other has bound us hand and foot and made us
   slaves. Do you wish to be free? Do you wish to be delivered from the
   tyranny of sin? Then I do not advise you to do anything in your own
   strength in the hope that you can accomplish deliverance--but cry to
   Christ at once, whose precious blood can blot out the past and change
   you for the future. Give yourself up to Him and be made a new man in
   Christ Jesus. Oh, you did try to mend, you say. One of our kings used,
   by way of swearing, to say, "God mend me"! That was his regular
   expletive till somebody said that he had tried that oath long enough.
   He thought that God could more easily make a new one than mend him!
   That is just the truth about you. There is no mending you! You need to
   be made new creatures in Christ Jesus. It will be, by far, the easier
   work of the two, though in itself it will be impossible to you. The
   Lord can do it! He can make you such a new man, woman, that you will
   not know yourself the next time you meet yourself--you will be so
   entirely new that you will begin to fight against your former self as
   your worst enemy.

   Oh for an earnest cry at this good hour, "Lord, save me! I am sinking
   in the depths of my sin! Jesus, stretch out Your hand as You did to
   sinking Peter. Save me, or I perish!" Jesus will lift His royal hand
   and cause both winds and waves to lie still before Him, for it is
   written, "He will subdue our iniquities." The domineering power of sin
   is readily broken when Jesus enters the heart, but never till then. We
   refuse to obey our lusts when we bow our necks to the pure and holy
   Savior. What a change He works! Speak, you who best can tell, you who
   have felt it! Ah, Lord, we bless You that it is even so--"You will
   subdue our iniquities."

   IV. Now, fourthly (for I must be brief on each point), there is another
   power about sin, namely, ITS CLAMORING POWER. I do not know any word,
   just now, which so nearly expresses what I mean. Some of us know that
   we are forgiven and we know that the domineering power of sin is broken
   in us and our old sins have been long washed away by the blood of
   Christ so that God does not know anything about them. You say that is a
   strange expression. It is no stranger than the Scriptures warrant, for
   the Lord says of our sins that He will remember them no more
   forever--and I believe that He means what He says.

   But as for my transgressions, I remember them when God does not--and
   they come up before me and they howl at me. "Fou are saved?" asks one
   of my sins--"You?" "Remember what you did while yet a youth?" Sometimes
   thousand of them at once make an awful din and howl out, "Guilty!
   Guilty! Guilty and doomed to die!" Then one or two bigger sins than the
   rest take the lead, howling with a deep bass, "Condemnation!
   Condemnation! Condemnation!" I have tried to argue with these memories
   of sins. When the dogs have barked in that fashion I have tried to put
   them down. Conscience has come out with his big whip and he has whipped
   them till they howled more than ever. Conscience has said, "Why, even
   now that you are a Christian you are not what you ought to be. You
   still fall short of your own standard. You condemn yourself while you
   are preaching. You know you do." Then all the dogs have howled again,
   as if they were only now beginning their horrid music.

   You have never heard, perhaps, a whole kennel full of sins all howling
   at once, but it is a most awful noise at night. If you listen to the
   voice of these clamorous dogs, you will wish that you had never been
   born or could cease to exist. No voice that I know of, short of the one
   in the text, can make them lie still. But the Lord Jesus can subdue our
   iniquities and when He steps into the middle of these dogs they lie
   cowed at His feet! As He speaks with gracious words of pardon, the
   Hell-hounds vanish and, instead of their baying, you hear the sweet
   voice out of Heaven--"There is therefore now no condemnation to them
   that are in Christ Jesus."

   Did you ever experience this delightful change? It is something like
   the case of a newcomer at a court of law who one day went with a
   magistrate and sat on the bench. A prisoner was brought up and evidence
   was given and the counsel against the prisoner spoke. And this person
   said to his friend, the magistrate, "You may as well end it, the man is
   clearly guilty. Wind the case up and let's go to dinner." But the
   magistrate said, "You must listen and hear the advocate on the other
   side and the case will look very different." When he listened to the
   advocate on the other side, he began to whisper, "I have my doubts
   about that, now." As he listened further, he said, I am glad you did
   not condemn that man. What a mistake I made--he is as innocent as a
   new-born babe. That advocate has done his work wonderfully." The
   prisoner was acquitted.

   It is so with us. When our sins plead against us, we readily allow that
   we are hopelessly ruined. But, oh, when our blessed Advocate takes up
   His brief! When The Wonderful, The Counselor urges His plea and pleads
   that our sins were laid on Him--what a change comes over the face of
   things! The sin is admitted and then covered; lack of righteousness is
   acknowledged and then supplied; condemnation is recognized as just and
   then seen to be, with equal justice, put away forever! Picture yourself
   in court. There are the bills and they are put in evidence against you.
   "Do you owe those bills?" "Yes." "Have you anything to say why you
   should not be treated as a defaulting debtor?" "No." But when the man
   is able to reply, "Yes, the charges are all paid," that settles the
   matter! And so when the Believer can say, "Lord Jesus Christ, You have
   paid all my debts for me." And when Christ shows His wounds and says,
   "I have put them all away, for I bore them in My own body on the
   Cross"--oh, then the case is ended and the clamor of our iniquities is
   subdued and so the text is again true--"He will subdue our iniquities."

   V. But I shall have my time gone, otherwise I wanted to say that this
   text is true as to THE DEFILING POWER OF SIN. Do you know, Brothers and
   Sisters, that after we are quite forgiven and after the domineering
   power of sin has gone, yet the defiling power of sin is a great
   affliction to us? Our experience is embittered by the corruption of
   sins long ago dead which send forth a dreadful rottenness and make our
   thoughts a terror to us. Some of you were converted late in life and
   you have very much, I am sure, to trouble you in the influence of evil
   upon your memory. Perhaps this very night while I am speaking there has
   come up into your mind--though you cannot bear to think of it--some
   wretched scene in which you played a guilty part.

   Even the holiest words, when you are in prayer, will sometimes suggest
   to you a loose song that you used to sing and a casual expression which
   has no special meaning to others will awaken a thousand vile memories
   in you! This is what I mean by the defiling energy of sin--it is a
   great plague to many Believers, especially to those converted after
   years of gross sin. In addition to that, many of you may have
   experienced the defiling power of sin in another form--when Satan has
   suggested blasphemous thoughts and abominable ideas to you. You cannot
   bear them! You are ready to fly to the ends of the earth to escape the
   venom of these hornets, but still they buzz around you and will not be
   quiet. You could almost tear your heart out of your body if you could
   thereby expel these vile suggestions, but they will not go. They
   descend in perfect floods--they are mud showers, or worse than
   that--fire showers. And they fall upon your poor brain and there is no
   getting out of the diabolical tempest.

   Ah, I remember when words I never heard from human tongues rushed
   through my ears filling my heart with blasphemies which I never thought
   of--profane suggestions which made me tremble like a leaf as they
   poured through my poor brain! I could have died sooner than they should
   be there and yet they were rushing through my mind and bearing all
   before them. Many of God's people are tried in that way. What is to be
   done? If old memories and satanic suggestions come upon you to defile
   you, what is to be done but to fly to this text--"He will subdue our
   iniquities"? Let us plead this in prayer. Lord, conquer my memory and
   wash it from the filth which clings to it! Put away its pollution from
   me, Lord. Chain up the devil and rebuke his suggestions. Let Your poor
   child have space for breath and time to sing and opportunity to pray!
   Save me, I beseech You, from the infernal suggestions which now torment
   me!

   Some of you know nothing about this and I hope you will abide in happy
   ignorance of it. But those of you who do know it will perceive what I
   am talking about and you will triumph in this priceless promise, "He
   will subdue our iniquities." Look to Jesus Christ for power over
   infernal suggestions and over evil memories and He will give you that
   mas-tery--and it may be you shall never again be tried in that way as
   long as you live--for frequently the Lord gives such sudden and
   decisive deliverance that between that one battle and Heaven, the
   Christian pilgrim pursues his way and never meets Apollyon again!

   VI. We have now reached the sixth point. The Lord our God will subdue
   sin in ITS HAMPERING POWER. I am speaking, of course, to Christians in
   these latter points. There is a hampering power about sin. I will just
   hint at some instances of it. Many Believers might do a great deal of
   service for Christ and His Church, but they are hampered by shame. They
   are ashamed, afraid, alarmed where there is nothing to be troubled
   about. They indulge a foolish distrust of God. Their fear may once have
   been modesty, but it has grown rank till it is not, now, the kind of
   modesty which is wholesome. They might serve God, but they are ashamed
   to make the attempt--ought they not to be ashamed of such cowardice?

   Some, again, are hindered in their joy and their peace by unbelief.
   They are always doubting, inventing fears, planning suspicions,
   compiling complaints. This comes of evil and leads to no good. It is a
   dreadful thing to be hampered from doing good and hampered from
   glorifying God by an inveterate tendency to unbelief. Others are
   hampered by frivolity. Many of us have merry spirits, but some are all
   levity. They were cradled in a bubble and made to ride upon thistle
   down. It is a pity when a man has no solidity of character and runs to
   froth, for this sin dwarfs his manhood and dries up his vigor. Oh that
   the Lord would subdue this form of iniquity!

   Some I know, too, are very unstable--they are never the same thing two
   days together. They might have borne fruit if they had kept where they
   were, but they have been transplanted every week and so have never
   taken root. They have undertaken a dozen works, but they have done
   nothing. Unstable as water, they shall not excel. Some, again, are
   hampered by pride. There is no use in denying it--the natural tendency
   of many persons is to a silly pride. When they were children they could
   not have a new coat but they gloried in it--and since then they cannot
   have two pence more than their neighbors but they become almost
   unbearable!

   I know some who I hope are Christians, but they have a dreadful
   tendency to swell--they will grow before your very eyes if anyone will
   but favor the process. They have always looked upon the many--the
   multitude--as being far inferior to them because their grandfather's
   grandfather was either a knight, or a baronet, or a foreigner of
   unknown degree! They feel that they are superior sort of people. This
   is a great drawback to godly workers, especially when it makes them
   feel that they could not go among poor people. Those who do go visit
   the sick poor are often quite unable to reach their hearts because of
   their stiffness of manner.

   Some professors are slothful. They have a torpid liver and are always
   afraid of doing too much. They are a lethargic, Dutch-built,
   broad-wheeled wagon sort of Christians and all their movements are slow
   in the work of the Lord. They do not move at all by express. Indeed,
   they are distressed by zeal and disgusted by enthusiasm! May the Lord
   subdue these iniquities for us! Others are hampered by a quick temper.
   They cannot take things calmly--they snap and snarl and scarcely know
   why. They boil over so soon--they are very sorry for it, directly, but
   that does not cure the scalds. Some must be forever fighting, for peace
   is stagnation to their burning spirits.

   I have given a long list of these hampering sins. What is to be done
   with them? "Well," says one, "I do not think we can do anything,
   Sir--these are our besetting sins." Now, do not make any mistake about
   it, if there is any sin that gets the mastery over you, you will be
   lost! You are bound to conquer every sin--remember that. You may call
   it a besetting sin or not, but it must be either overcome by you or it
   will be your ruin. A man may plead that a certain fault is his
   besetting sin but I am not so sure of it. A sin that you willfully
   indulge--is that a besetting sin? Certainly not! If I had to cross
   Clapham Common tonight and three stout fellows beset me to take away
   whatever I had, I would do my little best in self-defense. That is what
   I call besetting a man!

   A besetting sin is a sin that sometimes surprises a man and then he
   ought to fight and drive the besetting sin away! If I were to walk over
   the common every night, arm-in-arm with a fellow who picked my pocket,
   I should not say that the man "beset" me. No, he and I are friends,
   evidently, and the robbery is only a little dodge of our own. If you go
   willfully into sin, or tolerate it, and say you cannot help it--well,
   you have to help it or you will be lost! One thing is certain-- either
   you must conquer sin or sin will conquer you--and to be conquered by
   sin is everlasting death!

   Well, what is to be done? Fall back upon this gracious promise--"He
   will subdue our iniquities." They have to be subdued! Jesus will do the
   deed and in His name we will overcome. If we are slothful, we will, in
   God's strength, do 10 times as much as we should have done had we been
   naturally of an active turn. If we are angry we will school ourselves
   till we become meek. Some of the most angry men that I have ever known
   have come to be the meekest of men. Remember Moses, how he slew the
   Egyptian in his heat, and yet the man, Moses, became very meek by the
   Grace of God! You must overcome your sin, my dear Hearer, be that sin
   what it may. Whatever else you forget of this evening's sermon I want
   to leave that in your heart--you must overcome sin!

   By the blood of the Lamb it is to be done. By the power of Divine Grace
   it must be accomplished. Up! Slay this Agag that you thought to spare!
   Hew him in pieces before the Lord, or else the Lord will hew you in
   pieces one of these days. God give you Grace to get the victory.

   VII. Now, the last and seventh point--God will deliver you from THE
   INDWELLING POWER OF SIN. Sin nestles in our nature. Its lair is in the
   jungle of our heart and if we are Believers in Jesus Christ we must
   hunt it out. The first

   thing the Lord does with this indwelling sin is to neutralize it. He
   puts in His indwelling Spirit to subdue it and overcome it. Next, He
   begins to drive it out. He said of the Canaanites, "By little and by
   little I will surely drive them out." Thanks be to God, He has driven
   out certain of our sins already! I know that I speak to some who are
   not tempted, now, to vices that once ruled them with a rod of iron. You
   have conquered the grosser shapes of sin.

   Brother, Sister, the day will come when there will not be one Canaanite
   left in the land--when, if you should search through and through there
   will be no tendency to sin, no wandering of heart, no error of
   judgment, no failure of righteousness, no inclination to transgression!
   You will be as perfect as your Covenant Head, Jesus Christ. Where will
   you be, then? Not here, I think! I notice that God always puts His
   jewels into fit settings and the proper setting for a perfect man is
   the perfect joy of Heaven! In a pure region the pure heart shall dwell!
   And you, Believer, shall go on towards that sacred height, till, one of
   these days, your Lord will say, "Dear Child, you have fought long
   enough with corruption and sin, come up here; the conflict is all over
   now." You will look back, when you get up to Heaven, and you will say
   to yourself, perhaps--if you can have any such regrets--"I wish I had
   conquered those sins earlier, fought against them more earnestly,
   watched against them more vigilantly. Oh, that I had honored and
   glorified my Lord more!"

   However, forgetting all about regrets, what a song we will raise when
   we find ourselves quite free from the power of sin! What a song! O, you
   bad-tempered Brother, when that anger is all gone and you will never be
   angry again, will you not sing? Ah you, Brother, a little inclined to
   laziness--when you find that you can serve God night and day, will you
   not sing? And some of us who are inclined to despondency--when our
   gloom is all gone and life becomes everlasting joy and sunshine, will
   we not sing? Yes, I was going to say--

   "Then, loudest of the crowd I'll sing, While Heaven's resounding
   mansions ring With shouts of Sovereign Grace." I did utter that
   resolution once in the pulpit and when I came down the stairs an aged
   woman said to me, "You made a mistake in your sermon tonight." "Dear
   soul," I said, "I dare say I made a dozen." "Ah," she said, "but you
   made one great one. You said that you owed more to God's Grace than
   anybody and, therefore, you would sing the loudest. But," she said,
   "you won't, for I shall."

   I find all my fellow Christians, both men and women, are resolved that
   they will sing the loudest to the praise of Divine Grace! This shall be
   Heaven's only contest! There shall be a grand contention among the
   birds of Paradise which shall sing most sweetly of Free Grace and dying
   love. What a Heaven there will be and what music there will be in
   Heaven when our iniquities are subdued! How will the Lord look down
   with joy upon us all when He shall see us all made like His
   Son--perfect, faultless, glorious! Then we will sing, "He has subdued
   our iniquities. Oh, come let us sing unto the Lord, for He has
   triumphed gloriously and all our iniquities has He cast into the sea."

   Anticipate that joy and begin to sing tonight--and let this be the
   matter of your song--"Thanks be unto God which gives us the victory
   through Jesus Christ our Lord." May that victory be yours and mine.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Taught That We May Teach

   (No. 1578)

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Man said to me, Son of man, behold with your eyes, and hear
   with your ears, and set your heart upon all that I shall show you; for
   to the intent that I might show them unto you are you brought here:
   declare all that you see to the house of Israel." Ezekiel 40:4.

   WE learn from this text something concerning Ezekiel himself. He was
   certainly one of the greatest of the Prophets. His visions remind us of
   those of John, both for their brightness, splendor and number--and yet
   this eminent Prophet was, nevertheless, styled, "son of man." He is
   continually called by that name. The title is used over and over again
   throughout the book of his prophecies--"son of man" to remind him that
   even the Seer, the Prophet, the Inspired, the man who was indulged with
   vision upon vision--was still only a man. The best of men are men at
   the best! Those eyes that are strengthened to behold the cherubim and
   to gaze upon the stupendous wheels of Providence are still only the
   eyes of a son of man!

   The title was used to teach him humility and also to remind him of the
   condescension of God towards him and to fill him with awe and wonder
   that he should be chosen from the rest of mankind, though no more than
   they, to see such wondrous sights withheld from other eyes. To us this
   wears a very promising aspect, for if God can reveal Himself to one
   "son of man," why not to another? And if God can speak, as He did
   speak, so wonderfully through Ezekiel, one son of man, why not through
   you? Why not through me? For we, too, are sons of men! We have no
   worthiness or fitness and neither does Ezekiel claim any. He is
   reminded of his descent--he is still one of the sons of men. Oh, be of
   good comfort, you who think that God can never use you--you who are
   poor in spirit and wish to serve Him--but deeply feel your own
   insignificance!

   Remember that God is able to do for you exceedingly abundantly above
   what you ask or even think! He can yet reveal His Son in you and
   Himself to you and by you, after such methods as you have never dreamed
   of! And, possibly, the painful experience through which you are
   passing, even now, may be preparing you to stand upon yet loftier
   mounts and to behold visions of God which in happier days you shall
   tell to the house of Israel and by which multitudes shall be blessed
   through you!

   This is our present subject--we will speak upon the manifestations with
   which God favors certain of His servants. Then, secondly, we will dwell
   upon their responsibility while they are enjoying such
   manifestations--they are bound to behold with their eyes and hear with
   their ears and set their heart upon all that God shall show them. And
   then, thirdly, we will speak upon the objective which God has in giving
   these manifestations to His more favored people. It is that they may
   declare all that they see, that the whole house of Israel may, as it
   were, see by these favored eyes and hear by these chosen ears and may
   set their hearts upon the Word of the Lord because another has first
   done so.

   I. First, I shall have a little to say upon THE MANIFESTATIONS WITH
   WHICH CERTAIN OF GOD'S SERVANTS ARE FAVORED. The Lord Jesus Christ
   draws near in a very special manner to some of His people. He did to
   Ezekiel, for I take it that the Man mentioned in the chapter, whose
   appearance was like the appearance of brass, is none other than our
   Divine Lord, who, though a Man, yet exceeds all men in the brightness
   of His wondrous Person. It was He, doubtless, who appeared to Ezekiel.
   Long before Christ came on earth to die, He appeared to His servants in
   different ways. He sojourned with Abraham as a Wayfarer, for such He
   found the Patriarch to be.

   He wrestled with Jacob at the brook Jabbok, for Jacob was wrestling
   with a sore trial. It was He that revealed Himself to Moses when the
   bush was burning and it was He that stood by Joshua's side as the Man
   having a drawn sword in His hand. In different ways and forms He proved
   that His delights were with the sons of men. Before the Word appeared
   in actual flesh and blood, He communed here and there with His chosen
   servants. He will show Himself to any of you who

   seek Him. He will unveil the beauties of His face to every eye that is
   ready to behold them. There is never a heart that loves Him but He will
   manifest His love to that heart.

   But, at the same time, He does favor some of His servants who live near
   to Him and who are called by Him to special service, with very
   remarkable manifestations of His Light and Glory. These revelations are
   not incessant. I suppose that no man is always alike. John was in
   Patmos I know not how long, but he was "in the Spirit on the Lord's
   Day" on one occasion and he specially notes it. I do not suppose that
   Daniel or Ezekiel saw visions every night, or beheld the glories of God
   every day. Humanity is scarcely capable of the incessant strain of a
   perpetual manifestation of God! These things are, as we shall see,
   "like angels' visits, few and far between." There is a fellowship that
   can always be kept up, but the flood tide of manifestation--a noonday
   revelation--will not last on continually.

   Ezekiel enjoyed a special manifestation and he tells us when it was,
   for men do not see God's face without remembering it. He knew the date
   and recorded it. "In the five and twentieth year of our captivity, in
   the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the
   fourteenth year after that they city was smitten." Days of heavenly
   fellowship are red letter days to be remembered so long as memory holds
   her seat. Yes, and it is noteworthy that the occasion of these
   manifestations was one of great distress. Five-and-twenty years of
   captivity must have been enough to wear down the spirits of God's
   servants. Hence, He whose feet are as fine brass as if they burned in a
   furnace, comes and manifests Himself to His people, burning like brass
   in a furnace, giving them their times of comfort after 25 years of
   captivity!

   He says, too, that it was 14 years after the city had been smitten,
   after it had been laid as a ruinous heap. Then God appeared. Oh,
   Beloved, when you have been long sorrowing, you may expect bright days!
   The coal-black darkness will brighten, after all! Nights do not last
   forever. Whenever you have much joy, be cautious--there is a sorrow on
   the road. But when you have much sadness, be hopeful--there is a joy on
   the way to you--you can be sure of that. Our blessed Lord reveals
   Himself to His people more in the valleys, in the shades, in the deeps
   than He does anywhere else. He has a way and an art of showing Himself
   to His children at midnight, making the darkness light by His Presence.
   Saints have seen Jesus more often on the bed of pain than in robust
   health.

   There were more manifestations of Christ in Scotland among the heather
   and the hills in the days of bloody Claver-house than there are now.
   There was more seen of Christ in France, I do believe, in the days of
   the Huguenots than ever is seen now. I fear that our Master has come to
   be almost a stranger in the land in these days, compared with what He
   was once, when His people wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
   destitute, afflicted, tormented--for then He was meeting them at every
   turn and corner. Let us hope that if days are gloomy, now, and we,
   ourselves, are in trouble, our Beloved will come and manifest Himself
   to us as He does not to the world!

   It appears, in this case, that the manifestation to Ezekiel was made
   when he was put into an elevated condition. He says, "In the vision of
   God He brought me into the land of Israel, and set me up upon a very
   high mountain." God has ways of lifting His people right up, away,
   away, away from mortal joy or sorrow, care or wish, into the spiritual
   realm. And then, when the mind has been lifted above its ordinary level
   and the faculties are brought up by some Divine process into a
   receptive state, He reveals Himself to us. These times come not always,
   but blessed are they to whom they come at all! When on the mountain
   alone with God, their spiritual nature asserts supremacy over the body
   till they scarcely know whether they are in the flesh or not--then the
   Lord reveals Himself to them.

   When He had elevated Ezekiel thus, it appears that He conducted him to
   certain places, for He says, "For to the intent that I might show them
   unto you are you brought here." God's children are brought in
   experience to unusual places, on purpose, that they may get clearer
   sights of the love and Grace and mercy of God in Christ than they could
   obtain elsewhere. I have sometimes been puzzled to know why I underwent
   certain states of mind. I have found out the reason,
   occasionally--perhaps as often I have not. I remember preaching to you
   one Sabbath from the text, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
   and if ever a minister preached from that text fearing that it was true
   of himself I did! I was under an awful darkness all the while and I
   could not tell why.

   But on the Monday evening there came to me one who, by his very
   appearance, I could see was not far from madness. His eyes were
   starting from his head. His face was full of terror--and when he was
   alone in the room with me, he said, "You have delivered me from
   self-destruction. I am a man that God has forsaken and no one has ever
   spoken to my soul or my experience till last Sunday night." By God's
   great Grace and infinite bounty we were able to pilot that Brother into
   smoother waters and I hope that he now lives to rejoice in God. I felt
   thankful to the last degree that I had been

   dragged through all my depression because I was able to help him.
   Sometimes our experience is for the good of others and sometimes it is
   for our own good. You cannot see the beauty of certain gems unless you
   place them on black velvet. When you have something black behind, then
   you see their luster.

   So there are promises of God in which you never will discover their
   very brightest meaning unless they are set against some dark
   soul-trouble. Much of faith's education may be called black-letter
   learning. Very black the letters are, too, and very ugly looking, and
   they must be peered over. You cannot see the stars in the daytime--you
   must wait till the sun has gone down. Many promises of God you cannot
   see till you are in the dark and when the soul is in gloom. It may be
   that the Lord allows it to get there that it may gaze upon the starry
   promises and value every ray of light that streams from them. So you
   see, dear Friends, God leads His people from one place to another of
   Christian experience, along hills and dales, ravines and
   precipices--all in order that their minds, being elevated, they may be
   prepared to see bright visions of Himself and know Him better, love Him
   better and serve Him better.

   However, it is not outward circumstances that can affect the Divine
   purpose--there must always be a movement of the Divine Spirit. In the
   third verse you read, "He brought me there." When you get home, look
   through the chapter and see how this is repeated. "And He brought me to
   the inner court and He brought me to the north gate and He brought me"
   to this and to that. We never learn a Truth of God inwardly until God
   brings us to it. We may hear a Truth; we ought to be careful that we do
   not hear anything but the Truth of God, but God must bring that Truth
   home. No Truth is known well until it is burnt into us as with a hot
   iron. Some doctrines we can never doubt. "Oh," said one to me, failing
   to convince me of some new theories, "no one could get a new idea into
   your head except with a surgical operation." That witness is true if
   the new idea is contrary to the old-fashioned Gospel!

   The things I preach are part and parcel of myself. I am sure that they
   are true. "Are you infallible?" you ask. Yes, when I declare what is in
   God's Word. When I declare God's Truth, I claim infallibility--not for
   myself, but for God's Word. "Let God be true and every man a liar." It
   will not do to be saying, "These are our views and opinions." Why, if
   the Doctrines of Grace are not true, I am a lost man! If they are not
   the very Truth of God, I have nothing to live for! I have no joy in
   life and I have no hope in death if they are not the Truth of God! May
   God bring you, dear Friends, into a Truth of God and I will defy the
   devil to bring you out of it! If God brings you to it. If He writes it
   as with His own finger upon your soul, you will know it with solemn
   certainty.

   People may say, "Where is your logic? And how does this consist with
   the progressive development of human thought?" and all that. I reply,
   "You can go and fiddle to what tune you please. As for me, these things
   are part and parcel of myself and I have made them my own." I have
   gripped them and they hold me fast. I have no choice about them. I do
   not choose to believe in Free Grace--I believe it because I cannot help
   it! When one was asked whether he held Calvin-istic doctrine, he
   answered, "No." "Oh," said the other, "I am glad to hear that." "Yes,"
   he said, "but Calvinistic doctrine holds me." There is a great
   difference between holding the Truth of God and the Truth of God
   holding you.

   You will not hold the Truth of God aright unless you can say of it,
   with all your heart, "The Lord brought me into it." "He brought me
   towards the south. He brought me into the inner court. He brought me
   forth into the outer court. He brought me to the Temple." He did it
   all. "All your children shall be taught of the Lord" and there is no
   teaching like it, for He that is taught of God is taught Infallibly!

   Thus I have spoken upon the manifestations with which God favors
   certain of His people.

   II. Now, secondly, let us notice THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THESE CHOSEN MEN
   WHILE THEY ARE THUS FAVORED. "The Man said to me, Son of man, behold
   with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart upon all
   that I shall show you." Did He not mean this--"Use all your senses, all
   your faculties, all your wits to understand Divine Truth"? When the
   Spirit of God favors you with Light, mind that you see and, when there
   is a sound of Grace, mind that you hear. Be not one of those forgetful
   hearers who behold their likenesses in a glass and then go their way
   and forget what manner of men they are.

   Oh, how much more we would understand of God's Word if we gave our mind
   to it! We tell our children to learn their lessons "by heart." If we
   put the full meaning into that expression, that is the way to learn the
   things of God! Learn them all over--take them into yourself by every
   faculty you possess! Strive, as God shall help you by His Spirit, to
   get at their innermost meaning by every power that is given you. First,
   He says, "See with your eyes." What are the eyes for but to see with?
   He means this--look, pry, search with your eyes. Do not let the Truth
   of God flit before you and then say,

   "Yes, I have seen it." No! Stop it! Hold it by meditation before the
   mind's eyes and see with your eyes. Look, look, look into it! Remember
   what is said of the angels--"Which things the angels desire to look
   into"--not, "to look at," but, "to look into."

   Looking to Christ will save you, but it is looking into Christ that
   gives joy, peace, holiness, Heaven! Look into the Gospel--let your eyes
   be intent and steadfastly fixed upon every Truth of God--especially at
   choice times when God favors you with the noontide Light of His face!
   Then be doubly intent upon His Word. And then He puts it, "Hear with
   your ears." Well, a man cannot use his ears for anything else, can he?
   Yes, but hear with your ears. Listen with all your might! You are to
   spy out the meaning with the mind's eyes but, besides that, try to
   catch the very tone in which the promise or precept has been uttered.
   Treasure up the exact words, for though cavilers call it folly to speak
   of verbal Inspiration, I believe that we must have verbal Inspiration
   or no Inspiration.

   If any man shall say to you, "The sense of what your father said is
   true, never mind his words--you would reply, "Yes, but I would like to
   know precisely what he said, word for word." I know that it is so in
   legal documents. It is not merely the sense that you look to, but every
   word must be correct. God's Word, as it came from Him, came in such
   perfection that even to the syllables in which the sense was clothed,
   there was Infallibility about it. When I get God's Word I would desire
   to hear it with my ears as well as see it with my eyes--to see its
   sense and then to love the expressions in which that sense is conveyed
   to me! He cares little for the sense of the words who is not jealous
   over the words which convey the sense!

   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, whenever God does, by His Word, open His
   heart to you, do not lose anything! Do not lose a sound--a syllable!
   The Lord demands something more. "Set your heart upon all that I shall
   show you." Oh, but that is the way to learn from God--by loving all
   that He says--feeling that whatever God says, it is the thing you need
   to know. It is well "when your whole heart comes to know" the Truth of
   God and, when it knows it, encompasses it about with warm affections so
   that it may be like a fly in amber, the Word in the midst of your
   heart--encased there, enshrined there--never to be taken away from you!
   Set your whole heart on the Word of God! Some people like to read so
   many chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from the practice,
   but I would rather lay my soul soaking in half a dozen verses all day
   than I would, as it were, rinse my hands in several chapters.

   Oh, to bathe in a text of Scripture and to let it be sucked up into
   your very soul till it saturates your heart! The man who has read many
   books is not always a learned man, but he is a strong man who has read
   three or four books over and over till he has mastered them. He knows
   something! He has a grasp of thoughts and expressions and these will
   build up his life. Set your heart upon God's Word! It is the only way
   to know it thoroughly--let your whole nature be plunged into it as
   cloth into dye. The Lord bids us do this towards all that He shall show
   us--"set your heart upon all that I shall show you!" We are to be
   impartial in our study of the Word of God and to be universal in its
   reception. Brothers and Sisters, do you pick over God's Bible? I pray
   you, give up the habit!

   I have known professors who would not read certain chapters. Never read
   another till you have read that passage which now displeases you! Learn
   to love it for if there is a quarrel between you and a Scripture, it is
   you that is wrong, not the Scripture! And if there is any part of the
   Word of God of which you can say, "I differ from that," the Word of God
   will never change--the party to change is yourself! Try to follow the
   Lord fully, even though it should cause the revision of cherished
   sentiments and even the alteration of your denominational connections.
   "Are we to be so particular in little things?" asks one. Yes, it is in
   little things that loyalty comes. A loving and obedient child obeys his
   father without saying, "This is a great thing and this is a little
   thing."

   "Whatever He says to you, do it." The habit of trifling with little
   duties grows, very soon, into a seared conscience about larger matters.
   "Oh, but we need not be so particular," says one. Indeed, we must be!
   "Why are you so precise?" said one to a Puritan. "Sir," he said, "I
   serve a very precise God." "The Lord your God is a jealous God"--mind
   that-- and He would have us to be a jealous people as to all His Word,
   whether of doctrine, or of precept, or of promise. Oh, for Grace to be
   willing and ready to see all that He would have us see and to hear all
   that He would have us hear--and to receive into our heart all that He
   would have us receive!

   Thus I have spoken upon the manifestations which God gives to some of
   His servants and the responsibility under which they are placed by
   them.

   III. But now, thirdly, what is the practical design of all this? WHAT
   IS GOD'S REASON FOR MANIFESTING HIMSELF TO HIS SERVANTS? The objective
   is this--"Declare all that you see to the house of Israel." First, see
   it yourself, hear it yourself, give your heart to it yourself and then
   declare it to the house of Israel. I have lately heard of a minister
   who said in the pulpit, "The doctrine of Atonement--I have heard a
   great deal about it, but I do not understand it." He is going to take a
   holiday that he may solve some of his doubts. If he does not solve his
   doubts, soon, I would recommend he extend that holiday for the term of
   his natural life!

   He who does not understand the doctrine of the Atonement should read
   "The Shorter Catechism" and pray God to enlighten him. That is a book
   written for the young and ignorant--and it might be useful to many
   ministers. God grant us Grace that we may know what we do know and not
   attempt to declare to others anything but that which we have seen and
   heard and taken into our own hearts. But that being done, we are to
   tell the Truth of God to others, especially to those whom it concerns.
   Ezekiel had seen the form and vision of a temple and a city--he was to
   speak of this to the house of Israel.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, you cannot tell who it may be to whom you
   are to speak, but this may be your guide-- speak about what you have
   seen and heard to those whom it concerns. Have you been in gloom of
   mind and have you been comforted? The first time you meet with a person
   in that condition, speak about the comfort. Have you felt a great
   struggle of soul and have you found rest? Speak of your conflict to a
   neighbor who is passing through the same struggle. Has God delivered
   you in the hour of sorrow? Tell that to the next sorrowing person you
   meet. There is such a thing as casting pearls before swine--that can
   easily be done by an imprudent talkativeness--but when you find people
   who are hungry, give them bread! When you find people that are thirsty,
   offer them water. When you find that they need a blessing from God,
   tell them of that which has been precious to your own soul.

   Yes, but still this is not your only duty. God has shown us His
   precious Word that we may tell it to the house of Israel. Now, the
   house of Israel were a stiff-necked people and when Ezekiel went to
   them, they cast him aside--they would not listen. Yet he was to go and
   teach the Word of God to them. We must not say, "I will not speak of
   Christ to such a one because he would reject it." Do it as a testimony
   against him, even if you know he will reject it. Go, my Brother, and
   sow your Seed and remember that in the parable the sower did not only
   cast a handful on that fair spot of ground that was all ready for it,
   but he sowed among thorns and thistles--he even cast seeds on the
   highway--from which the birds of the air soon removed it.

   "Give a portion to seven and also to eight." "In the morning sow your
   seed and in the evening withhold not your hand, for you know not which
   shall prosper, this or that, or whether it shall be alike good." Go and
   tell what God tells you. Remember what we read just now. "What I shall
   show you in secret, that reveal you in the light. What I have spoken to
   you in closets, that reveal you upon the housetops." "Are we all to be
   preachers, then?" Yes, all that have been taught of God are to teach.
   "Are we all to stand up in public?" asks one. I did not say that, but
   somewhere or other--perhaps in the pew where you now sit, or on the
   steps as you go out, or by the roadside, or in the shop tomorrow
   morning--you can all put in a word edgeways for Jesus Christ. Drop a
   sentence or two for the honor of His name!

   "I do not know what to say," says someone. Do not say it, then,
   Brother, Sister. I would recommend you not say anything if you do not
   know what to say. But if you have seen with your eyes and heard with
   your ears and received into your heart--then you know what to say! And
   the first thing that comes to hand will be the best thing to say, for
   God, who knows the condition of people's minds, knows how to fit you to
   their condition and make your experience as a Christian to tally with
   the experience of the man or woman who needs the aid of your light. Go,
   and the Lord be with you!

   If there are any here who have never seen the Lord, if they have any
   desire after Him, if they have any sense of sin, if they have any wish
   for the eternal Light, let them remember those gracious Words--"Him
   that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out," and that precious
   invitation, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and
   I will give you rest." May the Holy Spirit bring you to trust in Jesus
   at once and to the name of the Lord be the praise forever and ever.
   Amen. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Roads Cleared

   (No. 1579)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Cast you up, cast you up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block
   out of the way of My people." Isaiah 57:14.

   (Preached on an evening when the Tabernacle was left to strangers).

   WHAT is the way, the way of salvation, the way to Heaven? Jesus Christ
   says, "I am the way." He is the Son of God and He left the glories of
   Heaven and took upon Himself our nature and lived here. In due time He
   took upon Himself our sin and made Atonement for it and now He has gone
   up into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, from
   where He will shortly come to judge the quick and the dead. The way to
   be delivered from sin--the way to Heaven is simply to trust in Jesus
   Christ! God has set Him forth to be a Propitiation for sin and whoever
   believes in Jesus Christ has his sin put away at once, whatever he may
   have done. Before Christ went to Heaven, He said to His disciples, "Go
   you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall
   be damned."

   This is the way of salvation which we preach, unaltered and
   unalterable, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."
   In other words, trust Him and you are saved! This is the entrance into
   the way of salvation and this is the track of that way even to the
   end--trust in Christ. "Are not good works needed?" asks one. They
   always flow from faith in Christ. He that would be saved from sin,
   trusts Christ and his nature is changed--and so he hates the sin that
   once he loved and endeavors to honor the Christ who has saved Him. But
   in the matter of our Salvation, the ground and bottom of it is not our
   works, or tears, or prayers, but simple reliance upon the finished work
   of Jesus Christ. He is A and He is Z in the alphabet of Grace.

   He is the Beginning and He is the End. "He that believes in Him has
   everlasting life." "He that believes in Him is not condemned," and
   never shall be, for he has passed from death unto life. Such being the
   way, it is very simple. Straight as an arrow, is it not? And yet in
   this way there are stumbling blocks.

   I. First, LET US SHOW WHY THIS IS. The first reason is that the way of
   believing is such an uncommon way. Men do not understand the way of
   trusting. They need to see, to reason, to argue--but to trust in "God
   made flesh," dead, buried, risen, gone into Heaven--they do not like
   that. Man says, "I cannot trust." How very difficult it would be for a
   cow that has always lived by the day, the short life that can be fed on
   grass, if it had to live by reason as men do! It would be a new,
   strange way for the poor beast. And when man has to live by faith, he
   is as awkward as a cow would be at reasoning! He is out of his element.
   What? Am I to do nothing but trust the Savior and He will save me? Is
   that to be the top and bottom of it? It is so. "Then," says the man, "I
   cannot get at it--there are stumbling blocks in the road."

   Another reason is that men, when they are really seeking salvation, are
   often much troubled in mind. They are conscious that they have done
   wrong. Conscience pricks them. They feel that if God is just, He must
   punish them for their wrong doing. They are well aware that He knows
   the secrets of their hearts and this alarms and distresses them. And
   when they are told that if they believe in Jesus Christ all manner of
   sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven, they wonder, "How can it be?"
   If we put it very plainly and say, "However great your guilt, however
   black your sin, wash in the Fountain filled with blood and you shall be
   clean"--it seems plain enough--but they cannot see it. A sense of sin
   blinds them and they grope in the noonday, like blind men, for the
   wall, stumbling over this and that which has no existence except in
   their own fears. Conscience makes unbelievers of us all and stumbling
   blocks are created by our trembling condition. I do not know how it is
   to be otherwise.

   Besides this, men are often ignorant of the way of salvation. I am not
   speaking, now, as though I blamed them. I was brought up, myself, to
   attend the House of God regularly. I do not suppose that on any Lord's
   Day, except through ill-

   ness, I was ever absent. Yet when I began to seek the Lord, I did not
   know the way of salvation. I knew the letter of it, but not the real
   meaning--how can a man know it till the Spirit of God reveals it to
   him? The sun itself may shine, but a man will never see till his eyes
   are open. Until Christ comes, who is the Light of the world, men will
   roam in darkness. Why, in this London of ours, the bulk of people are
   still without the knowledge that salvation is entirely of Grace--that
   it is an act of Divine Mercy that saves a man--that a man is never
   saved by his zeal, or his prayers, or his tears, or anything that he
   does, but is saved entirely by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ!

   The Gospel is not believed or accepted in its real meaning and so men
   meet with stumbling blocks. Satan is always ready to prevent souls from
   finding peace in Christ. He will inject all sorts of thoughts into
   men's minds--infernal blasphemies--incredible thoughts he will make to
   pass through the minds of men who are seeking Christ. He does not
   meddle with some people--he knows they are his and will be his at
   last--but when a man once shakes himself up and flees for his life,
   then the Evil One raises all Hell about his ears and, by his efforts,
   many souls are made to stumble in a way which is smooth enough to the
   feet of faith.

   II. Thus have I shown why there are so many stumbling blocks. Now, by
   God's help, I am going to TRY TO LIFT SOME OF THEM OUT OF THE WAY. The
   text says, "Take up the stumbling block." Now for a dead lift at some
   of them. Here is one of them. One man says, "I would gladly believe in
   this Jesus Christ of whom you tell me, but if I were to come to God
   through Christ, would He receive me?" Yes, that He will. Here is a
   text--"Him that comes to Me I will in nowise cast out." In all the
   history of the human race there has never been found a man that came to
   Jesus Christ whom Christ rejected! If you will seek God in Christ with
   all your heart and He shuts the door of mercy in your face, you may
   turn round and say, "I am the first man that Christ refused to help and
   now His Word is broken, for He said, 'Him that comes to me I will in
   nowise cast out,' and He has cast me out."

   Oh, my Friends, some will not come because they are afraid of being
   rejected, but there is no sense in that fear! Christ cannot, will not
   reject a single soul that comes to Him, so, out of the way with that
   stumbling block! "But," says another, "I am a very peculiar person. I
   could very well believe that any man in the world who trusted Christ
   would be saved except myself. I cannot think that He would save me, for
   I am so odd." Ah, my Friend, I am odd, myself, and I had the same
   feeling that you have. I thought that I was a lot left out of the
   catalog. I always had the notion that my brother and my sisters could
   readily enough find mercy but I--I could not see how I could be
   forgiven! I knew more about myself than I should like to tell and I
   knew this about myself--that there was a peculiar guilt about me,
   besides many odd ways that I could not well shake off.

   Since then I have been the minister of a Church that numbers nearly
   6,000 souls and that for many years--and I have found out that nearly
   all of them are about as odd as I am! And so I have cast off the idea
   of my being so singular. If you knew other people, you would find that
   there are other strange people besides yourself. And if God saves so
   many strange people, why should He not save you? "I should be a
   wonder," says one, "if I were saved." Then He will save you, for He
   delights to do wonders! He will crowd Heaven with curiosities of mercy!
   Heaven will be a museum of prodigies of Sovereign Grace and if you are
   one of that kind, be encouraged! You are the very man that is certain
   to be received. Go boldly to the gate--it shall not be shut in your
   face. Look to Jesus and live!

   But I hear another say, "Sir, I have such a horrible sense of sin I
   cannot rest in my bed! I cannot think that I shall be saved." Wait a
   bit there, my Friend, wait a bit. Let me speak to this person over
   here. What is your trouble? "My trouble is, Sir, that I have no sense
   of sin. I know that I am a sinner and a great sinner, but I do not
   think that I shall be saved for I have no horrible thoughts." Will you
   change places with the other man? Will he change with you? I should not
   advise either of you to make any changes, for, in the first place,
   despairing thoughts are not necessary to salvation. And, in the second
   place, so long as you know yourself a sinner and are willing to confess
   it, such thoughts are untrue! Where is it written in Scripture that we
   are to despair in order to be saved? Is not the whole Gospel, "Believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved"?

   Where shall you find it recorded in God's Word that you are to be
   driven to remorse in order to find Christ? Repentance is quite another
   thing. To be sorry for sin, to hate sin, to wish to escape from
   it--this is a Gospel blessing! But remorse--that threatening to destroy
   yourself, those tortures of mind--this is not desirable and you may
   neither wish for it, if you have it not, nor yet despair because you
   have it, for salvation lies in Christ! Despairing one, look to the
   Cross and live! And you who do not despair, look to the same Cross and
   live, for there is salvation for every eye that looks to

   Jesus Crucified! I see another stumbling block. A trembler cries, "I am
   afraid to come and trust Christ because I do not know whether I am one
   of the elect." Well, I cannot tell you. I have never been to Heaven to
   search the roll. A young friend over yonder is starting in business. He
   opened his warehouse last Monday and he is in hopes that he may prosper
   in the world. My dear young Man, why did you open your shop? Why did
   you not sit down in idleness and moan, "I would open a shop, but I do
   not know whether I am predestinated to prosper." If you do not try, you
   will never prosper--that is quite certain.

   As to secret things we act upon the rule of common sense. When this
   service is over you will go home, will you not? But if you sit still
   and say, "I shall not go down the aisle because I do not know whether
   it is predestinated for me to get home," you will not get home and some
   will think that you are predestinated to be a fool! Any man who talks
   about predestination as if it could be an excuse for living in sin and
   refusing the Savior is acting like a fool! If you trust Jesus Christ I
   will tell you, then, that you are God's elect for a certainty, for
   whoever believes in Christ is called by the Spirit of God and none are
   called in that way but those whom God has chosen from before the
   foundations of the world!

   "Ah," says another person, "I think I have committed the unpardonable
   sin." Pray, Sir, will you tell me what it is because I have read a
   large number of books to make that discovery and I have come to the
   conclusion that nobody knows what it is. Yet, though I am not sure as
   to what the crime may be, I can tell you whether you have committed it
   or not within a little time. Do you desire to be saved? Do you long to
   be delivered from the power of sin? Then you have not committed the
   unpardonable sin because it is a sin unto death--and after a man
   commits it, he never has a living wish or desire after God from that
   moment on. His conscience is seared as with a hot iron and he learns to
   defy God, or to be utterly indifferent with regard to eternal things.

   But as long as there beats within your breast a desire after God. As
   long as you can heave a sigh of regret because of a wasted life. As
   long as one tear of penitence can dew your eyes, be not dismayed with
   the idea that you have committed the sin which is unto death, for you
   have done nothing of the kind! Let us lift that stumbling block out of
   the way altogether. "Oh, but," says another person, "my stumbling block
   is this--that the whole thing seems too good to be true-- that I, by
   simply believing in Jesus Christ, shall be saved." I confess that it
   does seem too good to be true, but it is not! It is good, infinitely
   good, that your sin should be effectually pardoned, in a moment, freely
   and without price--and good as it is, it is just like our God! God in
   Christ Jesus is clearly capable of marvelous deeds of Grace.

   Treat God like God and remember that His ways are as much above your
   ways and His thoughts as much above your thoughts as the Heavens are
   above the earth! All the sins of a whole life He can strike out, as a
   man cancels a debt in his account book. With one single mark of red ink
   He can write, "paid in full," at the bottom of the tremendous bill and
   it is all gone and gone forever! There is none like You, O God! There
   is none like You! As Creator, none can make the Heavens and earth like
   You! As Redeemer, none can fetch a soul up from the Pit as You have
   done and none can hurl sin into the depths of the sea as You did from
   the Cross! Only trust the Savior, then, and you shall see His great
   salvation!

   This stumbling block about its being too good need not remain a moment.
   I will not stay upon any more of these things, but will just say that
   there are some stumbling blocks that I cannot remove--they must always
   stand there, I am afraid. An objector says to me, "I would believe in
   Jesus. I have no fault to find with Him, but then, look at His
   followers, many of them are hypocrites." Yes, we do look at His
   professed followers and the tears are in our eyes, for the worst
   enemies He has are they of His own household! Judas kissed Him and sold
   Him. Many are like Judas. Look here, my Friend--what have you to do
   with that? Suppose Judas does betray Christ--is Christ any the worse
   for that?

   You are not asked to trust in Judas, you are asked to trust in Christ.
   "Oh," says one, "but they are all hypocrites." No, no, that will not
   do. A man takes a bad sovereign--takes half-a-dozen of them in the
   course of his lifetime. Does he say that all sovereigns are bad? If
   there were no good ones, the bad ones would never pass. The reason why
   it pays to make bad sovereigns is because good ones are so
   valuable--and that is why it pays certain people, as they think, to
   pass themselves off as Christians. If there were no real Christians,
   there would be no pretenders to that name! How, then, can you make the
   excuse that because there are some hypocrites you will refuse Christ?

   "Ah," says one, "but I know a little about revival meetings and
   conversions. Don't you know what a lot were converted and what became
   of them?" I know what you are thinking about, but I heard a friend tell
   a good story in reference to that matter. He said that, notwithstanding
   that we have to strike off a discount from our converts of those that
   are not genuine, yet the revivals are worth having, for there is a real
   gain in them. For, he said, the objection is something like

   that of an Irishman who had found a sovereign which was short in
   weight, so that he could only get 18 shillings for it. The next time he
   saw a sovereign lying on the ground, he would not pick it up, for, he
   said, he had lost two shillings by the other.

   Everybody laughs at him as acting ridiculously. So it is with objectors
   to revivals and special services. Suppose you do have to strike off the
   two shillings' worth--yet the 18 shillings are clear gain--and why
   should you be the bad two shillings, my Friend? Why should you? I dare
   say you know yourself better than I do and probably you may be the bad
   two shillings, but I did not say that you were and I do not wish that
   you may be! Why should you not be a real convert, a true gain to the
   Church of God? Because there are imposters in the world, is that a
   reason why I am not to come to Christ? I made you smile just now. It
   was that you might laugh to scorn this foolery which is so much talked
   of! Am I to refuse to eat bread because there are bad bakers? Will you
   never drink milk, again, because some milk has been adulterated? Will
   you never breathe the air you live in because some air is tainted? Oh,
   talk not so! That stumbling block ought not to need moving. If it is
   any hindrance to you, I cannot help it--there it must be.

   "But," says another, "here is my stumbling block--if I were to believe
   in Christ and become a Christian, I would have to alter my whole life."
   Just so. I do not dispute that assertion! There would have to be a
   turning of everything upside down! But then, He that sits upon the
   Throne of God says, "Behold, I make all things new." Perhaps, my
   Friend, you would have to give up your trade, for there are some trades
   that cannot be followed by a Christian man. And, if yours is such, it
   is better to give it up than lose your soul! Or you might have to give
   up the tricks and dodges of your trade. You must give them up, then. If
   anything you do would keep you out of Heaven, it is better that you
   should become poor than that you should prosper in business by doing
   wrong and ruining your soul. "What shall it profit a man if he gains
   the whole world and loses his own soul?"

   That is putting an extreme case, for nobody gains the whole world. It
   is only a few fourpences or shillings that men get by cheating. What
   profit can there be in that, if the soul is to be lost for it? "Oh,
   but," says one, "I should have to run the gauntlet in my family if I
   became a Christian." Run the gauntlet, my Friend! It is better to go to
   Heaven under all opposition than to go to Hell with the flatteries of
   God's enemies sounding in your ears! If you see a fish floating down
   the stream, you may know that it is a dead fish. Which way does a live
   fish go? Why, upstream! And that is the way a man must go to Heaven.
   "But I could not bear to be laughed at," says one. Poor Soul! I have
   had, upon the whole, about as fair a share of ridicule as anybody
   living, but I do not remember that one of my bones ever ached a minute
   about it! And I think that if I can bear my share, which is tolerably
   large, you ought to be able to bear yours without being quite overcome
   by it.

   Which is the better thing, do you think--to be sneered at for doing
   right or to be commended for doing wrong? Surely it is manly and
   honorable to say, "I will do the right and follow Christ, whoever may
   sneer." What does it matter? Dogs bark--let them bark--but in God's
   name, let us not give our souls away to find sops for them. "But my own
   parents and brothers and sisters would be against me!" Yes, Christ
   tells you that. He says, "He that loves son or daughter more than Me is
   not worthy of Me: a man's foes shall be they of his own household." You
   will conquer them by kindness and love--but I know there will be a
   wrench. In the higher classes, a Christian man gets the cold shoulder
   and among the lower orders, our working men who talk of liberty are the
   biggest tyrants alive! The moment a man becomes a Christian they point
   him out in the workshop. They jest and jeer at him from morning to
   night and then call themselves true-born Englishmen!

   They may swear as much as they like and use filthy talk till you can
   hardly go down a street without feeling sick at the language you
   hear--but if a fellow workman chooses to go to a place of worship and
   behave himself decently--then he is to be the butt of the workshop.
   This ought to come to an end and would if men were men! But, my dear
   Friend, I hope you are not to be cowed and kept down by opposition. If
   they laugh you into Hell, they cannot laugh you out again--remember
   that. And if to win a few poor smiles and escape a few silly sneers,
   you sell Christ, how will you answer for it when you have to stand
   before Him and He sits upon the Great White Throne at the last? Look at
   the martyrs-- how they died for Christ!

   Think of Bunyan when He is brought before the judge and the judge says,
   "You? A tinker? To go about preaching? Hold your tongue, Sir." "I
   cannot hold my tongue," said Bunyan. "Then I must send you back to
   prison unless you promise never to preach again." "If you put me in
   prison till the moss grows on my eyelids, I will preach, again, the
   first

   moment I get out, by the help of God." There is some grit in that man!
   Oh, that is the man that God loves--the man who against the whole world
   will do right and stand true to his Master! That stumbling block I
   would not move away if I could--it is good for us to meet with
   opposition. I think that even now I see the King upon His Throne at the
   Last Great Day--and as He sits there, surrounded by His courtiers and
   the blazing seraphim and mailed cherubim in all their brightness, He
   rises from His Throne and looks afar and cries--"Who comes there?

   "That is a man who suffered for Me! When I was despised and rejected of
   men, he was despised and rejected for My sake. Make way, angels! Make
   way, cherubim! Make way, seraphim! Stand back and let him come to Me!
   He was with Me in My shame and so he shall be with Me in My Glory! Come
   and sit here, at the right hand of God, with Me, for you dared to be
   despised for Me and now shall you be with Me in all the splendor of My
   reign." Oh, I think we can leap over this stumbling block and be glad
   to think that it is there, for it will bring honor and glory and
   immortality at the Last Great Day!

   The last stumbling block which I cannot move is this. A man will say,
   "But all this seems so new and strange to me. You want me to lead quite
   a new life. I do not comprehend it yet. I am to trust Christ whom I
   never saw?" Yes, that is where you are to begin. "And I am to see God
   whom I cannot see?" Yes, that is what you are to do. You are to live as
   in the daily consciousness of God's Presence and that you will do if
   you begin trusting Christ. "But I cannot see what effect my trusting
   Christ would have upon me." No, you cannot see it, but it will have a
   most wonderful effect upon you. You will not be the same man after you
   have trusted the Savior--the Spirit of God who gives you faith to trust
   Jesus will change your whole nature. You will be as though you had been
   born again!

   "I don't see it," says one. No, but you might see it in this way. Here
   is a man that has a servant and that servant believes his master to be
   everything that is bad. Consequently, he does all that he can to annoy
   him. The master tries to mend the servant. He has spoken to him and
   chided him, but he goes on worse and worse. Now, suppose that I could
   go into the house and say, "My dear Man, I beg you to believe in your
   master. He wishes you well. You have misunderstood him"? Suppose that I
   could induce the servant to believe in his master? Why, my Friends, he
   would be an altered man altogether! Don't you see that the moment he
   believed in his master, he would try to please him? If he said, "My
   master is a noble man. I love him." From that moment the whole tenor of
   his life towards his master would be changed! And thus the great power
   of believing the Lord Jesus! The moment you trust Him, you obey His
   commands, you imitate His example and you give yourself up to His
   service!

   Thus have I put before you, as best I can, the way of salvation. I
   thank you for coming on this special occasion. I may never see your
   faces again and, if I never do, this one thing is true--you have heard
   the way of salvation, even if you do not follow it. I shall be clear of
   the blood of every one of you in that great day of account when
   preacher and hearers will have to answer for how this Sunday night was
   spent. I have thought that if I could have been clearly told the way of
   salvation when I was anxious about my soul, I would have gained peace
   long before I did--and so I have resolved that I will never let the
   Sunday pass without preaching the way of salvation!

   And it is this that for 26 years and more has held the multitude of
   people listening to me. I tell nothing but the old, old story. Why do
   people come? Do we deal in spiceries and knickknacks? No, but in
   bread--and people always need bread! I have given you, tonight no
   fineries or niceties, but the plain word of salvation. Will you have
   it, or not? God grant you Grace to receive salvation! Believe in the
   Lord Jesus Christ and you are saved! And you may go on your way
   rejoicing in everlasting life! God grant it, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

An Indictment with Four Counts

   (No. 1580)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "She obeyed not His voice; she received not correction; she trusted not
   in the Lord; she drew not near to her God." Zephaniah 3:2.

   HERE ARE FOUR heavy counts of a terrible indictment against Jerusalem
   and the Jewish people. Is it not sad to reflect that Jerusalem was the
   city of the great king and yet fell from its high estate? It was the
   place of the great Temple--there the light of God shone forth while
   other nations were in darkness--there the solemn worship of God was
   celebrated while false gods were being adored elsewhere! And yet its
   sin provoked the Lord till He gave it up to the Destroyer. It is clear,
   therefore, that no degree of Light and no amount of privilege can keep
   a people alive and right before God. If the heart is not changed, if
   the Grace of God goes not with outward ordinances, those who are
   exalted to Heaven may yet be cast down to Hell.

   The putrefaction of the best produces the worst and when a city which
   has been favored as Jerusalem has, become a den of unclean beasts, then
   it is a den, indeed! Neither Nineveh, nor Babylon, nor Tyre, nor Sidon
   could equal in criminality this once chosen city of the great king. Let
   us not, therefore, as a nation, begin to exalt ourselves because of our
   privileges, for if we do not prove worthy of them, the candlestick will
   be taken out of its place and our darkness will be all the darker
   because of the Light of God we have lost. If we walk not before the
   Lord obediently, it may please Him to make this island as great a scene
   of destruction as the mounds of Babel or the rock of Tyre.

   We usually take Jerusalem to be the type of a church and it is one of
   the fullest types of the one true Church-- "Jerusalem which is above,
   the mother of us all." We may therefore regard the fate of Jerusalem as
   being a special warning to churches. In a Church is God's dwelling
   place--there is the Light of knowledge, there is the fire of
   sacrifice--out of it has God shined. But a Church may sadly decline.
   There is a church which is now worthy of the name of Antichrist-- she
   went further and further astray till she has made a man to be her head
   and called him infallible! She has set up many lords and gods, saints
   and saintesses and innumerable objects of worship--even bones and
   rotten rags! There is a church against whom this indictment might be
   laid today--"She obeyed not His voice"--she did not hear the Gospel!

   "She received not correction"--when Reformers came she sought their
   blood. "She trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God, but
   she went after others and set up other intercessors than Christ and
   rejected the true Head of the Church. Other churches may fall into the
   same sin unless they are guarded by spiritual power. Remember Laodicea
   and how she was spit out of the mouth of Christ because she was neither
   cold nor hot! Remember Sardis which had but a few names in it that were
   undefiled! Where are those cities and those churches, now? Let
   desolation answer. It might be said of them as of Gilgal, of which the
   Lord said, "Go you there to the place where My name was at the first,
   and see if there is one stone left of it upon another which has not
   been cast down."

   Oh that we as a Church and all our sister Churches may walk before the
   Lord with holy jealousy as to doctrinal correctness, practical holiness
   and inner spiritual life! But, if not, our end will be miserable
   failure! If the salt of Divine Grace is not in a Church it cannot be an
   acceptable sacrifice to God, nor can it long be kept from the
   corruption which is natural to all masses of flesh! What are one people
   more than another? And what is one community more than another? We are
   men by nature, prone to the same evil, and we shall fall into the same
   transgression unless the Lord that keeps Israel shall keep us--and
   therein is our confidence--that He does neither slumber nor sleep.

   This text is not only applicable to a nation and to a Church, but to
   individuals among God's own people, though, of course, only in a
   degree. Some of God's people follow Christ afar--their spiritual life
   is better seen in their fears than in their confidences! They are
   always trembling. Their hands are slack, their hearts are faint. We
   trust they are alive unto God, but that is all we can say. I fear it
   may be said of them, "She obeyed not His voice"--the gentle whisper of
   Divine

   Love falls upon a deaf ear. Oh, how often, Brothers and Sisters, has
   God spoken and we have not hearkened so as to obey His voice!

   I fear, too, that there are times when we have not "received
   correction"--when affliction has been lost upon us. We have risen from
   a sickbed worse than when we went to it! Our losses and crosses have
   provoked us to murmuring rather than to heart-searching. We have been
   bruised as in a mortar among wheat with a pestle and yet our folly has
   not departed from us. And this is a very provoking thing--when we
   despise the rod and the hand that uses it--and turn not at the smiting
   of the Lord. Yet it is so with some of God's people--they obey not His
   voice, they receive not correction and, therefore, it comes to pass
   that at times "they trust not in the Lord." They try to bear their
   trials themselves. They go to friends for advice and they inherit a
   curse, for it is written, "Cursed is he that trusts in man and makes
   flesh his arm."

   They get into a withered state like the heath in the desert. They see
   not when good comes because they trust in man. Must not some of us
   plead guilty here? To add to our faults, whenever we have backslidden
   we have "not drawn near to the Lord our God." The joy and the strength
   of the Christian life are found in living near to God, living like
   sheep close to the shepherd, never wandering, but lying down in green
   pastures to which He leads the way, Himself, better than the pasture,
   our joy and our delight! But, alas, it may be said of some, "You have
   restrained prayer before God." "Are the consolations of God small with
   you? Is there any secret thing with you?"

   Your transgressions and your iniquities have hidden your God from you!
   He walks contrary to you because you walk contrary to Him. This is too,
   too often the case with even those who trust in Jesus and have passed
   from death unto Life--and whenever it is the case, it means sorrow. He
   that is no child of God, but a hypocrite, may wander as far from the
   path of integrity as he chooses without having to suffer for it till
   the last day. But a child of God cannot sin without smarting for it. Is
   it not written, "You only have I known of all the families of the
   earth: therefore I will punish you for your iniquities"? Our Father
   whips His own children! The boys in the streets may do as they please,
   but our great Father is sure to chasten those He loves. "As many as I
   love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous, therefore, and repent."

   At this time I do not intend to use the words of our text in any of
   those ways, but to take it as it may refer to unconverted persons, for
   it very clearly, without the slightest strain, describes many who are
   living far away from God and I shall want you to give me your attention
   for a little time while I notice four great sins. When these are
   mentioned I shall try to dig into the text to bring out of it four
   hidden consolations--they are not apparent on the surface--but when
   faith applies the microscope and looks into the center of the text, it
   discovers four things by which the penitent sinner may be encouraged to
   come to Christ.

   I. First, here are FOUR MANIFEST SINS. I wonder whether the fact that
   my text is in the feminine is intended, in the Providence of God, that
   this sermon may be especially adapted to a woman? I cannot tell, but I
   should not wonder. I may have been moved to this text on purpose that
   some poor wandering sister may feel as if God specially directed it to
   her sex. It says she--"She obeyed not His voice." Whatever belongs to
   any of our race may be taken by all, since in Christ Jesus there is
   neither male nor female. However, I point out the fact and pray God
   that His Word may be directed as He wills by the Holy Spirit.

   The first sin is not hearkening to God's voice. Many have never
   hearkened to God's voice throughout a long life. They have heard
   it--they could not help that--but they have never given heed. They have
   never lent an attentive ear, saying, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant
   hears." He has spoken to many here present in warnings. He has said,
   "My daughter, if you do this, it will lead you to grief and sorrow. If
   you remain hard and careless, it cannot end well. Nothing can be right
   at the last which is not right now--wrong must bring woe with it."
   Sometimes this warning has come home into the heart but the person of
   whom I am speaking has stifled it and said, "No, but I will go after my
   own way and follow my own pleasure."

   That warning has come, perhaps, in the silence of the night or in the
   very midst of the sin. A something that checked, a pulling of the
   rein--but the sinner could not be held in, no, not with bit nor
   bridle--he has taken the bit between his teeth and dashed on in sin!
   Oh, remember, you that have neglected Divine warnings--you may have
   forgotten them, but God has not! When you who love your children have
   spoken to them and warned them, they may have gone their way and quite
   forgotten "what mother said," but mother remembered it. Her tears
   flowed and wrote the memorial of her rebukes upon her face. And God
   forgets not warnings He has tendered to the sons of men.

   I address some, however, who have not only received warning and
   rejected it, but they have received much teaching. You were in a Sunday
   school class while yet a girl. You knew the plan of salvation very
   early in life and you know it now, but still you have not obeyed the
   voice. There is Christ, but you have not touched His garment's hem.
   There is the Fountain filled with blood of which you have been
   accustomed to sing, but you have never washed in it. There is the Bread
   of Life, but you have never fed on it and, in consequence, you live not
   unto God. Oh, it is a sad thing when it can be said, "She obeyed not
   His voice."

   To some who are here present, God's voice has come by way of
   expostulation. There are many expostulations in the Word of God such as
   this--"Turn you, turn you; why will you die, oh house of Israel?" "Come
   now, and let us reason together: though your sins are as scarlet, they
   shall be as white as snow." "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for
   He has torn and He will heal us; He has smitten, and He will bind us
   up." "Say unto Him, take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, and
   love us freely." Some of you had many such expostulations addressed to
   your heart and conscience, but you have not obeyed His voice. And then
   at the back of this have come invitations, sweet invitations. In the
   Bible you have read them; in hymns you have sung them; from the pulpit
   you have heard them; from kind friends you have received them.

   Oh, how sweetly does Jesus bid the hungry and the thirsty come to Him;
   the heavy laden and such as are bowed down, to come and find rest in
   Him! You used to feel, at one time, as if you would yield to these
   invitations. But you did not and this sin lies at your door, a
   stumbling block in the way of your peace--"She obeyed not His voice."
   When men fail to do right, they usually commit the wrong which is the
   reverse of it. You have listened to other voices, the siren voice of
   temptation has enchanted you, the voice of flattery has puffed you up,
   the voice of Satan has beguiled you, the voice of the flesh has
   fascinated you, the voice of the world has wooed you and has held you
   captive.

   While we lay this indictment before you, some of you cannot help
   saying, "He means me. It is even so with me." The Lord give you
   repentance and open your ears, for is it not written, "Incline your ear
   and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live, and I will make an
   everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David"? Oh,
   Divine Spirit, let not men be deaf any longer, but touch them with Your
   finger that they may hear the voice of God and live!

   That is the first count of the indictment and the second one is like
   unto it and grows out of it--"she received not correction." When men
   refuse God's voice, they soon become more hardened and reject His
   correction like a horse which does not answer to the rein and,
   by-and-by, even kicks at the whip and will not be ruled at all. The
   Lord's correction comes to us, sometimes from His word, when He speaks
   in anger and reminds us that His wrath abides on the man that believes
   not in Christ. Oh, there are heavy tidings from the Lord for you that
   are impenitent! This Book is not a book to play with, it is full of the
   terrors of the Lord against such as go on in rebellion against Him!

   Perhaps you have been made to tremble as you have read your Bible and
   have seen how the Lord pronounces a solemn curse against the man that
   goes on in his iniquity. But the correction may also have come to you
   from your own conscience, quickened by the Word of God. You have come
   to be uneasy. You start in your sleep with dreams that alarm you. If
   you are as I once was, everything you look upon seems to have a mouth
   to accuse you! I remember when the Lord's corrections were very heavy
   upon me. I could not see a funeral but what I wondered when I, too,
   should be carried to the grave. I could not pass a churchyard without
   the reflection that I should soon be there and when I heard the passing
   bell, it seemed to tell me that I should soon be judged and condemned,
   for I had no hope of pardon. These are corrections of God and I pray
   you regard them.

   Possibly, however, you have endured affliction. You are not well. You
   have been made to look into eternity through death's door. Perhaps one
   or another of your friends has died. You now wear the garb of mourning.
   God has corrected you. You have had a loss which you thought you could
   scarcely survive, it was so severe. "Despise not you the chastening of
   the Lord," but hear His rod and listen to what He has to say to you in
   it. Remember, God may smite you worse than He has done, for these few
   aches and pains He can find something more sharp and smarting. If one
   child has gone, He can take another, even from your breast! If one
   relative has died, another may follow, for the great Archer has many
   arrows in His quiver and when one suffices not, He speedily wings
   another in its painful flight. I pray you beware and let it not be said
   of you, "She received not correction," or, "He received not
   correction," but may you be willing to listen while God is thus dealing
   with you.

   This leads to a third crime, in which lies the very essence of deadly
   sin--"She trusted not in the Lord." She would not come and trust in
   Christ for salvation! She would believe in her own righteousness. She
   would not trust in Christ to help her to overcome sin. She said she was
   quite able to purify herself. Oh, many a young man has started fair for
   Heaven to all appearances, but it has been in his own strength and,
   like Pliable, he has no sooner stumbled into the Slough of Despond than
   he has turned his back on the heavenly city and returned to the place
   from which he set out. Beware, I pray you, of having anything to do
   with a hope that is not based upon trust in God in Christ Jesus! Your
   religion is vanity and an insult to high Heaven unless it is based on
   the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Where there is no faith in Jesus, peace
   is presumption. He that dares to hope till he has believed in Christ,
   hopes in vain.

   But ah, there are some who are driven to do many apparently gracious
   things--but yet this one thing they will not do--they will not trust in
   the Lord. I have known this to be sadly the case with some in great
   affliction. She did not trust in the Lord--she was a widow, but she did
   not trust in the Lord! She had many little children. She knew not where
   to find them bread, but she did not trust in the Lord! She was sick and
   ill, herself, but she trusted not in the Lord. She was laid at death's
   door. She was in the infirmary, in the hospital--but she trusted not in
   the Lord. Her heart was very heavy and she said she wished she could
   die, but she trusted not in the Lord! Her friends did not help
   her--those who ought to have been kind were cruel. But she trusted not
   in the Lord! She was driven into a corner and yet she did not trust in
   the Lord.

   Yes, and this is a great sin, for surely God takes away our props and
   dependences on purpose that we may throw our whole weight on Him! But
   there are some who will have nothing to do with this trusting, neither
   for time nor for eternity, neither for body nor for soul. Woe unto any
   man, be he even a child of God, if he once gets off the pathway
   offaith, for when we walk by sight we shall see things which shall make
   us wish we were blind! Only when we trust shall we be able to say, "I
   am not confounded nor ashamed, nor shall I be, world without end." This
   is sad--"She trusted not in the

   Lord."

   The fourth crime was, "She drew not near to her God." There was no
   prayer. There was much talk about her trouble; much talk about what she
   would like to do--but there was no asking of God, no going into the
   chamber and spreading the case before Him and pleading His mercy. There
   was no thought of God! The mind did not get near to Him. The desires
   rambled round in a thousand devious paths, but did not come to God. Oh,
   it is hard to get some of you to think of God! I try and preach as best
   I can and try to find striking words to make you think of God, but, oh,
   how often do I fail! The choicest ways I use defeat themselves! May it
   not be so now! Let it not be said of you any longer that "she drew not
   near to her God." We ought to think of Him! We ought to seek Him! We
   ought to come to Him as little chicks when there is a hawk in the air
   and they hear the call of the mother hen--they are soon hidden away
   under her feathers!

   We ought to run in prayer, that it might be true of us, "He shall cover
   you with His feathers, and under His wings shall you trust: His truth
   shall be your shield and buckler." If you had a child that in its
   troubles ran out into the street and when its little heart was heavy
   went away to strangers and never told father or mother its sorrow, you
   would feel very hurt. This is God's quarrel with His rebellious people,
   that they will go to Satan, himself, before they will come to Him! No,
   think not that I run too far and use an extravagant expression, for
   Saul did this when God answered him not. He offered no penitent
   petitions, but resorted to a witch for help! Many would penetrate into
   the recesses of the unseen world and tamper with spiritual mysteries
   sooner than they will go to God. Silly women will believe a fortune
   teller, but will not trust the Savior. Is it so with any of you? Then
   let this word of accusation sink deep and confess your transgression
   unto the Lord!

   Putting the four sentences together--"She obeyed not His voice; she
   received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near
   to God"--what then? Why, "woe unto her!" Read the first verse of the
   chapter and there you have it. As I was coming here that word, "woe,"
   "woe," "woe," seemed to ring in my ears and I wondered where it came
   from. I will tell you. It is a word that goes to be made into a worse
   word. Let me pronounce it for you, "woe"--and that leads to something
   woe-erse--worse! And to the woe-erst the worst of all. It is bad,
   lamentable, destructive, ruinous, painful, wretched, miserable woe,
   worse, worst! I wish I could pronounce the word as my Master did when
   He said, "Woe unto you, Bethsaida; woe unto you, Chorazin; woe unto
   you, Capernaum." I should hardly like to say it as He did, for He had a
   Light to judge which I have not--"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
   hypocrites," and so on.

   But that, "woe," as He pronounced it must have sounded terribly,
   softly, sadly, sternly piercing to the heart! Ah, how will the angels
   sound it at the last? Hear it now, lest you hear it at the last! "One
   woe is past and, behold, another woe comes!" When the Judge of all the
   earth shall break the seals and pour out the vials and the ungodly sons
   of men shall see the star, Wormwood, and shall drink of the bitterness
   of the wrath of God--WOE--it means sorrow here! No rest! No
   satisfaction! Woe, woe, even at this day unto the man that trusts not
   in God! But what it means in the next world--to be driven from the face
   of Christ, to be followed with a "woe" which shall have eternal
   echoes--woe, woe, woe! I would gladly stop and cry with Mr. Whitfield,
   "The wrath to come! The wrath to come! "Escape from it while yet life
   lasts and Jesus pleads with you, for otherwise this shall fall like a
   thunderbolt from the hand of the angry Judge!"

   "Woe to her. She obeyed not His voice; she received not correction; she
   trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God." Then all this
   will turn to woe, the voice disregarded will ring again, "Son,
   remember! Son, remember! Woe, woe!" As for the correction which was
   disregarded, oh how light and gentle it will seem compared with the
   strokes that will then fall upon the rejecters of Christ! Every
   correction will then turn to woe! And the not trusting in the Savior,
   the unbelief--what woe that will bring! The not drawing near to
   God--what woe that will cost when we shall see ourselves afar off and
   between us and God a great gulf fixed so that none can come to us, no,
   not so much as to bring a drop of water to cool our tongue! And neither
   can any go from us, or escape from the place of woe.

   II. To help any who would escape from this woe, I shall spend a minute
   in noticing THE FOUR HIDDEN CONSOLATIONS WHICH LIE IN THIS TEXT. I do
   not intend to enlarge upon them because I want the previous part of
   this discourse to abide in your minds--but there are four hidden
   consolations. The first is, if I have not obeyed His voice yet, it is
   plain He does speak, He speaks to me. My Soul, my Soul, God is not
   dumb. Can you be deaf? Still does He invite you, still does He call
   you, still does His good Spirit strive with you! This voice of mine,
   tonight, I hope will be God's voice to some of you. Be encouraged! He
   has not given up on you, but still calls. When the sentence of death is
   pronounced there are no warnings given and since you are having another
   call, I would encourage you to hope.

   The next is, "She received not correction." Then all my troubles and
   afflictions are meant to bring me to Christ. They are all sent in love
   to my soul and I ought to look at them as such. My Friend, where are
   you? I do not know where you are, or to whom I am speaking, but I do
   pray you see that God, who seems to have dealt very harshly with you,
   is only driving you to mercy! His voice has been harsh and His hand has
   been heavy, but in love He corrects you! Oh listen to Him! Come to Him!
   A judge does not correct a criminal doomed to die. God does not correct
   a soul, with a view to its reclamation, if He has given it up
   altogether!

   Notice the next sentence. "She trusted not in the Lord." Is it a crime,
   then, that I did not trust in the Lord? Then I may trust Him and I
   will, for that which is a sin not to do, I must have a right to do--and
   if it is laid to my charge, "She trusts not in the Lord," oh, sweet
   mercy! Sweet mercy, I may trust! This is why the Scripture says, "He
   that believes not shall be damned," as if to assure you that you
   certainly may believe, because you will be damned if you do not! Come,
   then, and let even the black side of the text wear a smile for you and
   lead you to trust your God since He blames you for not doing so!

   Then there was the last crime. "She drew not near to God." What, then,
   does God make it a fault that I do not draw near to Him? Oh, I wish the
   Spirit of God would put it into your heart to say, "That shall not be
   my fault any longer--

   'I'll to the gracious King approach, Whose scepter pardon gives.
   Perhaps He may command my touch, And then the suppliant lives.'

   I thought I might not come, but now I see I am condemned for not
   coming, then I will come! I will delay no longer, I will come to Jesus,
   determined that if I perish I will perish at His feet!"

   Have hope, my Friend, for none did ever perish there! May God set His
   seal to this word of expostulation for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Silver Sockets--Redemption the Foundation!

   (No. 1581)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 30, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, When you take the sum of the
   children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a
   ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when you number them; that there be
   no plague among them, when you number them. This they shall give,
   everyone that passes among them that are numbered, half a shekel after
   the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs): an half
   shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. Everyone that passes among
   them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an
   offering unto the Lord. The rich shall not give more, and the poor
   shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto
   the Lord, to make an atonement for their souls. And you shall take the
   atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall appoint it for the
   service of the Tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a
   memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an
   atonement for their souls." Exodus 30:11-16.

   "A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the
   sanctuary, for that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and
   upward, for six hundred and three thousand and five hundred and fifty
   men. And of the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the
   sanctuary, and the sockets of the veil; an hundred sockets ofthe
   hundred talents, a talent for a socket."

   Exodus38:26-27.

   WILL you kindly open your Bibles to Exodus 30, for I must commence my
   discourse by expounding that passage. When the account was taken of the
   number of the children of Israel, the Lord commanded that every male
   over 20 years of age should pay half a shekel as Redemption money,
   confessing that he deserved to die, acknowledging that he was in debt
   to God and bringing the sum demanded as a type of a great Redemption
   which would, by-and-by, be paid for the souls of the sons of men. The
   truth was thus taught that God's people are a redeemed people--they are
   elsewhere called, "the redeemed of the Lord." If men reject the
   Redemption which He ordains, then they are not His people, for of all
   His chosen it may be said--"The Lord has redeemed Jacob and ransomed
   him from the hand of him that was stronger than

   he."

   Whenever we attempt to number the people of God, it is absolutely
   necessary that we count only those who at least profess to have brought
   the Redemption price in their hands and so have taken part in the
   Atonement of Christ Jesus. David, when he numbered the people, did not
   gather from them the Redemption money and, therefore, a plague broke
   out among them. He had failed in obedience to the Lord's ordinance and
   counted his subjects, not as redeemed people, but merely as so many
   heads. Let us always beware of estimating the number of Christians by
   the number of the population of the countries called Christian, for the
   only true Christians in the world are those who are redeemed from
   iniquity by the blood of the Lamb and have personally accepted the
   ransom which the Lord has provided--personally brought their Redemption
   money in their hands by taking Christ to be theirs and presenting Him,
   by an act of faith, to the great Father.

   God has upon earth as many people as believe in Jesus Christ and we
   dare not count any others to be His but those who can say, "In whom we
   have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." We must
   not count heads which know about Christ, but hands which have received
   the Redemption money and are presenting it to God. We must not

   count persons who are called Christians by courtesy, but souls that are
   Christly in very fact because they have accepted the atoning Sacrifice
   and live before God as "redeemed from among men." Observe that this
   Redemption, without which no man might rightly be numbered among the
   children of Israel, lest a plague should break out among them, must be
   personal and individual. There was not a lump sum to be paid for the
   nation, or 12 amounts for the 12 tribes--each man must bring his own
   half shekel for himself.

   So there is no Redemption that will be of any use to any of you unless
   it is personally accepted and brought before God by faith. You must,
   each one, be able to say for yourself concerning the Lord Jesus, "He
   loved me and gave Himself for me." The doctrine of general redemption,
   which teaches men to say, "Oh, yes, we are all sinners, you know.
   Christ died for us, for He died for us all," lays a very poor
   foundation for comfort. We need not so much a general as a personal
   redemption--a Redemption which actually redeems and redeems us as
   individuals! The great Sacrifice for the sin of man must become to us a
   personal Atonement, for only so can we realize its efficacy. You must,
   each one, bring Christ to the Father, taking Him into your hands by
   simple faith. No other price must be there and that price must be
   brought by every individual, or else there is no acceptable coming to
   God.

   It was absolutely essential that each one should bring the half shekel
   of Redemption money, for Redemption is the only way in which you and I
   can be accepted of God. If birth could have done it, they had the
   privilege beyond all doubt, for they had Abraham as their father! They
   were lineally descended from the three great Patriarchs and they might
   have said, "We are Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any
   man." No, but salvation is not of blood, nor of birth, nor of the will
   of the flesh--salvation is by Redemption--and even the true child of
   Abraham must bring his Redemption money. So must you, you child of
   godly parents, find salvation by the Redemption which is in Christ
   Jesus, or be lost forever!

   Do not believe the falsehood of certain modern divines that you
   children of godly parents do not need to be converted because you are
   born so nobly and brought up so tenderly by your parents! You are, by
   nature, heirs of wrath even as others. "You must be born again" and you
   must be personally redeemed as well as heathen children, or else you
   will perish, though the blood of ministers, martyrs and Apostles should
   be running in your veins! Redemption is the only ground of acceptance
   before God--not godly birth or pious education. There were many, no
   doubt, in the camp if Israel who were men of station and substance, but
   they must bring the ransom money or die amid their wealth! Others were
   wise-hearted and skillful in the arts, yet they must be redeemed or
   die. Rank could not save the princes, nor office spare the
   elders--every man of Israel must be redeemed and no man could pass the
   muster-roll without his half shekel, whatever he might say, or do, or
   be.

   God was their God because He had redeemed them out of the house of
   bondage and they were His people because He had "put a redemption
   between His people and the Egyptians." Well did David ask, "What one
   nation in the earth is like Your people, even like Israel, whom God
   went to redeem for a people to Himself?" Note well that every Israelite
   man must be, alike, redeemed and redeemed with the like--with the same
   Redemption. "The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give
   less than half a shekel." Every man requires Redemption, the one as
   well as the other. Kings on their thrones must be redeemed as well as
   prisoners in their dungeons. The philosopher must be redeemed as well
   as the peasant. The preacher as much as the profligate and the moralist
   as certainly as the prostitute or the thief. The Redemption money for
   every person must be the same, for all have sinned and are in the same
   condemnation!

   And it must be a Redemption that meets the Divine demand because, you
   see, the Lord not only says that they must each bring half a shekel, no
   more, no less, but it must be, "the shekel of the sanctuary"--not the
   shekel of commerce, which might be debased in quality or diminished by
   wear and tear, but the coin must be according to the standard shekel
   laid up in the Holy Place. To make sure of it, Moses defines exactly
   how much a shekel was worth and what its weight was--"A shekel is
   twenty gerahs." So you must bring to God the Redemption which He has
   appointed--the blood and righteousness of Christ--nothing more, nothing
   less! The ransom of Christ is perfection and from it there must be no
   varying. The price must satisfy the Divine demand and that to the
   fullest.

   Note that the price appointed did effectually redeem so far as the type
   could go. Some rejoice in a redemption which does not redeem, for the
   general redemption by which all men are supposed to be redeemed leaves
   multitudes in bondage and they go to Hell in spite of their kind of
   redemption! Therefore do we preach a particular and special Redemption
   of God's own chosen and believing people--these are effectually and
   really ransomed--and the precious price once paid for

   them has set them free! Neither shall any plague of vengeance smite
   them, for the Redemption money has procured them eternal deliverance!
   This type is full of instruction. The more it is studied, the richer
   will it appear. Every man that is numbered among the children of Israel
   and permitted to serve God by going out to war, or to take upon the
   duties of citizenship, must, as he is numbered, be redeemed.

   So must every one of us, if we are truly God's people and God's
   servants, find our right to be so in the fact of our Redemption by
   Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the joy and glory of each one of
   us--"You have redeemed me, O Lord God

   of Truth." th

   Now we turn to the second of our texts, and there we learn a very
   remarkable fact. In the 38th chapter, verse 25, we find that this mass
   of silver which was paid, whereby 603,050 men were redeemed, each one
   paying his half shekel, came to a great weight of silver. It must have
   weighed something over four tons and this was dedicated to the use of
   the Taber-nacle--the special application of the precious metal was to
   make sockets into which the boards which made the walls of the
   Tabernacle should be placed. The mass of silver made up 100 sockets and
   these held up the 50 boards of the holy place. They were in a
   wilderness, constantly moving and continually shifting the Tabernacle.
   Now, they might have dug out a foundation in the sand, or, on coming to
   a piece of rock where they could not dig, they might have cut out
   foundations with great toil. But the Lord appointed that they should
   carry the foundation of the Tabernacle with them!

   A talent of silver, weighing, I suppose, close upon 100 pounds, was
   either formed into the shape of a wedge, so as to be driven into the
   soil, or else made into a solid square plate to lie upon it. In the
   wedge or plate were made mortises into which the tenons of the boards
   could be readily fitted. These plates of silver fitted, the one into
   the other, tenon and mortise wise, and thus they made a compact
   parallelogram, strengthened at the corners with double plates and
   formed one foundation, moveable when taken to pieces, yet very secure
   as a whole. This foundation was made of the Redemption money. See the
   instructive emblem!

   The foundation of the worship of Israel was Redemption! The dwelling
   place of the Lord their God was founded on Atonement! All the boards of
   incorruptible wood and precious gold stood upon the Redemption price!
   The curtains of fine linen, the veil of matchless workmanship and the
   whole structure rested on nothing else but the solid mass of silver
   which had been paid as the Redemption money of the people! There was
   only one exception and that was at the door where was the entrance to
   the Holy Place. There the pillars were set upon sockets of brass,
   perhaps because as there was much going in out of the priests, it was
   not meet that they should tread upon the token of Redemption. The blood
   of the Paschal Lamb, when Israel came out of Egypt, was sprinkled on
   the lintel and the two side posts--and out of reverence to that blood
   it was not to be sprinkled on the threshold.

   Everything was done to show that Atonement is to be the precious
   foundation of all holy things and everything done to prevent a
   slighting or disregard of it. Woe unto that man of whom it shall ever
   be said, "He has trodden under foot the Son of God and has counted the
   blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing." I
   do not, for a moment, bring before you the type of the text as a proof
   of doctrine! I intend to use it simply as an illustration. It seems to
   me to be a very striking, full and suggestive emblem, setting forth
   most clearly certain precious Truths of God. I feel I am quite safe in
   using this illustration because it is one among a group of acknowledged
   types and could not have been given without a reason. I do not see why
   they could not have made the foundation sockets of iron, or why they
   could not have been content with tent pins and cords as in other cases
   of tent building. I see no reason, in the necessity of the case, why
   they must be sockets of silver--there must have been another reason.
   Why was that particular silver prescribed? Why must the Redemption
   money be used and nothing else? Truly there is teaching here if we will
   but see it!

   Moreover, this does not stand alone, for when the Tabernacle was
   succeeded by the Temple, Redemption was still conspicuous in the
   foundation. What was the foundation of the Temple? It was the rock of
   Mount Moriah. And what was the hill of Moriah but the place where, in
   many lights, Redemption and Atonement had been set forth? It was there
   that Abraham drew the knife to slay Isaac--a fair picture of the Father
   offering up His Son. It was there the ram was caught in the thicket and
   was killed instead of Isaac--fit emblem of the Substitute accepted
   instead of man! Later still, it was on Mount Moriah that the angel,
   when David attempted to number the people without Redemption money,
   stood with his sword drawn. There David offered sacrifices and burnt
   offerings. The offerings were accepted and the angel sheathed his
   sword--another picture of that power of Redemption by which mercy
   rejoices against judgment!

   And there the Lord uttered the memorable sentence. "It is enough, stay
   now your hand." This, "enough," is the crown of Redemption! Even as the
   Great Sacrifice, Himself, said, "It is finished," so does the Great
   Accepter of the Sacrifice say, "enough." What a place of Redemption was
   the hill of Zion! Now, if the Temple was built on a mountain which must
   have been especially selected because there the types of Redemption
   were most plentiful, I feel that without an apology I may boldly take
   this first fact that the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness
   was based and grounded upon Redemption money and use it for our
   instruction.

   With this much of preface we will now fall to and feed upon the
   spiritual meal which is set before us. O for Divine Grace to feast upon
   the heavenly Bread that we may grow thereby! Spirit of the living God,
   be pleased to help us in this matter.

   I. First, I want you to view this illustration as teaching us something
   about GOD IN RELATION TO MAN. The tent in the wilderness was typical of
   God's coming down to man to hold communion with him--the fiery cloudy
   pillar visible outside and the bright light of the Shekinah, visible to
   him who was called to enter once a year into the innermost sanctuary,
   shining over the Mercy Seat--these were the tokens of the special
   Presence of the Deity in the center of the camp of Israel. The Lord
   seems to teach us, in relation to His dealing with men, that He will
   meet man in the way of Grace only on the footing of Redemption. He
   treats man concerning love and Grace within His holy shrine, but the
   basis of that shrine must be the Atonement!

   Rest assured, dear Friends, that there is no meeting with God on our
   part except through Jesus Christ our Redeemer! I am of Luther's mind
   when he said, "I will have nothing to do with an absolute God." God out
   of Christ is a terror to us! Even in Christ, remember, He is a
   consuming fire, for even, "our God is a consuming fire." But what He
   must be out of Christ may none of us ever know--

   "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 removes my sins."

   You must not attempt to have audience with God, at first, upon the
   footing of election. It were presumptuous to attempt to come to the
   electing Father except through the atoning Son. "No man," says Christ,
   "comes to the Father but by Me." Never attempt to speak with God on the
   footing of your own sanctification, for very soon you will come to
   bringing your legal righteousness before Him and that will provoke Him.

   Always enter the Holy Place with the thought, "I know that my Redeemer
   lives." "Not without blood." Remember that! Into the Holy Place went
   the high priest once every year, "not without blood." There can be no
   coming of God to man on terms of peace except through the one great
   Sacrifice--that must be the foundation of it all. No, and not only
   God's coming to us, but God's abiding with us is upon the same
   foundation, for the Tabernacle was, so to speak, the House of God--the
   place where God especially dwelt among His people, as He said, "I will
   dwell in them, and walk in them." But He never dwelt among them in
   anything but in a tent that was set upon the silver of the Redemption
   money and you, dear Friend, if you have ever walked with God, can only
   maintain your fellowship by resting where you did at first--as a poor
   sinner redeemed by your Savior.

   They have asked me to rise, sometimes, to a higher platform and come to
   God as a sanctified person. Yes, but a rock, though it may be lower
   than the little wooden stage which some erect upon it, is safer to
   stand upon! And I believe that those who walk with God according to
   their attainments and imaginary perfections, have climbed up to a
   rotten stage which will fall under them before long. I know no mode of
   standing before God today but that which I had at first. I am still
   unworthy in myself, but accepted in the Beloved! Guilty in myself and
   lost and ruined--but still received, blessed and loved because of the
   Person and work of Christ. The Lord cannot dwell with you, my dear
   Friend--you will soon have broken fellowship and be in the dark if you
   attempt to walk with Him because you feel sanctified, or because you
   have been active in His service, or because you know much, or because
   you are an experienced Believer.

   No! No! No! The Lord will only abide with us in that Tabernacle whose
   every board is resting upon the silver foundation of Redemption by His
   own dear Son! There can, Beloved, be no sort of communion between God
   and us except through the Atonement. Do you need to pray? You cannot
   speak with God except through Jesus Christ! Do you wish to praise? You
   cannot bring the censer full of smoking incense except through Christ!
   It is only within that foundation of silver that you can speak to God,
   or hear Him speak comfortably with you. Would you hear a voice out of
   the excellent Glory? Do you pray that the great Father would speak with
   you as with His dear children? Expect it through Jesus Christ, for,
   "through Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Even unto
   the Father, though we are children, we have no access except through
   Jesus! The tabernacle of communion even to him that lives nearest to
   God must be built upon the Redemption price. Free Grace and dying love
   must be the golden bells which ring upon our garments when we go into
   the Holy Place to speak with the Most High!

   The Tabernacle was the place of holy service where the priests all day
   long offered sacrifices of one kind and another unto the Most High. And
   you and I serve God as priests, for He has made us a royal priesthood.
   But how and where can we exercise our priesthood? Everywhere as to this
   world. But before God, the foundation of the temple wherein we stand
   and the ground of the acceptance of our priesthood is Redemption! The
   priests offered their sacrifice not in groves of man's planting, or on
   high hills which were the natural strength of the land, but within the
   space marked out by the silver slabs of atonement money--and so must we
   worship and serve within Redemption lines. If we come to the idea of
   legal merit and suppose that there is a natural goodness in our
   prayers, or in our praises, in our observances of Christian ceremonies,
   or in almsgiving, or in zealous testimony, we make a great mistake and
   we shall never be accepted.

   We must bring our offerings unto that court which is fenced about by
   the Foundation most precious which God has laid of old, even the merit
   of His dear Son! We are accepted in the Beloved and in no other manner!
   We are shut in within the Foundation which Christ has laid of old, not
   with corruptible things as with silver and gold, but with His own most
   precious blood! Thus much, dear Brothers and Sisters, upon one view of
   this subject. May you learn much of God in His relation to man while
   you meditate thereon at your leisure and are taught of the Holy Spirit.

   II. I think we may, in the second place, apply this illustration TO
   CHRIST IN HIS DIVINE PERSON. The Tabernacle was the type of our Lord
   Jesus Christ, for God dwells among men in Christ. "He tabernacled among
   us and we beheld His Glory," says the Apostle. God dwells not in
   temples made with hands, that is to say, of this building, but the
   Temple of God is Christ Jesus, "in whom dwells all the fullness of the
   Godhead bodily." Our Lord is thus the Tabernacle which the Lord has
   pitched and not man--and our first and fundamental idea of Him must be
   in His character as Redeemer. Our Lord comes to us in other characters
   and in them all, He is right glorious, but unless we receive Him as
   Redeemer we have missed the essence of His Character, the foundation
   idea of Him.

   As the tent in the wilderness was founded upon the Redemption money, so
   our idea and conception of Christ must be first of all that, "He is the
   propitiation for our sins" and I say this, though it may seem
   unnecessary to say it, because Satan is very crafty and he leads many
   from the plain Truth of God by subtle means. I remember a Sister who
   had been a member of a certain denomination who was converted to God in
   this place, though she had been a professed Christian for years. She
   said to me "I have always believed only in Christ crucified--I
   worshipped Him as about to come in the Second Advent to reign with His
   people, but I never had a sense of guilt. Neither did I go to Him as
   putting away my sin and, therefore, I was not saved."

   When she began to see herself as a sinner, she found her need of a
   Redeemer. Atonement must enter into our first and chief idea of the
   Lord Jesus. "We preach Christ crucified"--we preach Him glorified and
   delight to do so--but still, the main point upon which the eye of a
   sinner must rest, if he would have peace with God, must be Christ
   crucified for sin. "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of
   our Lord Jesus Christ." Do, then, my dear Hearer, let the very
   foundation of your faith in Christ be your view of Him as ransoming you
   from the power of sin and Satan! Some say they admire Christ as an
   example and well they may! They can never find a better! But Jesus
   Christ will never be truly known and followed if He is viewed only as
   an example, for He is infinitely more than that! Neither can any man
   carry out the project of being like Christ unless he first knows Him as
   making atonement for sin and as giving power to overcome sin through
   His blood.

   Some writers have looked upon Christ from one point of view and some
   from another--and there is no book that is more likely to sell than a
   Life of Christ--but the most essential view of Him is to be had from
   the foot of the Cross. No

   complete life of Christ has been written yet. All the lives of Christ
   that have yet been written amount to about one drop of broth, while the
   four Evangelists are as a whole bullock. The pen of Inspiration has
   accomplished what all the quills in the world will never be able to do
   again and there is no need they should. However much we dwell upon the
   holiness of our Lord, we cannot complete His picture unless we describe
   Him as the sinner's ransom. He is white, but He is ruddy, too.
   Rutherford said, "O then, come and see if He is not a red man. In His
   suffering for us He was wet with His own blood. Is He not well worthy
   of your love?"

   When He comes forth in the vesture dipped in blood many shun Him--they
   cannot bear the atoning sacrifice--but He is never in our eyes so
   matchlessly lovely as when we see Him bearing our sins in His own body
   on the Cross and putting away transgression by making Himself the
   Substitute for His people! Let this, then, be your basic idea of
   Christ-- "He has redeemed us from the curse of the Law." Indeed, in
   reference to Christ, we must regard His Redemption as the basis of His
   triumphs and His Glory--"the sufferings of Christ and the glory that
   shall follow." We cannot understand any work that He has performed
   unless we understand His vicarious Sacrifice. Christ is a lock without
   a key; He is a labyrinth without a clue until you know Him as the
   Redeemer! You have spilt the letters on the floor and you cannot make
   out the Character of The Wonderful till first you have learned to spell
   the words--ATONEMENT BY BLOOD.

   This is the deepest joy of earth and the grandest song in Heaven. "For
   You were slain and have redeemed us unto God by Your blood." I beg you
   to observe, in connection with our text, that as the foundation of the
   Tabernacle was very valuable, so our Lord Jesus, as our Redeemer is
   exceedingly precious to us. His Redemption is made with His precious
   blood. The Redemption money was of pure and precious metal, a metal
   that does not lose weight in the fire. "The Redemption of the soul is
   precious." What a Redemption price has Christ given for us! Yes, what a
   Redemption price He is! Well did Peter say, "Unto you that believe, He
   is precious"--silver and gold are not to be mentioned in comparison
   with Him.

   To me it is very instructive that the Israelites should have been
   redeemed with silver in the form of half-shekels because there are many
   who say, "These old-fashioned divines believe in the mercantile idea of
   the Atonement." Exactly so! We always did and always shall use a
   metaphor which is so expressive as to be abhorred by the enemies of the
   Truth of God! The mercantile idea of the Atonement is the Biblical idea
   of the Atonement. These people were redeemed, not with lumps of
   uncoined silver, but with money used in commerce. Paul says "You are
   not your own: you are bought"-- listen--"with a price," to give us the
   mercantile idea beyond all question! "Bought with a price" is doubly
   mercantile. What do you say to this, you wise refiners who would refine
   the meaning out of the Word of the Lord? Such persons merely use this
   expression about the "mercantile idea" as a cheap piece of mockery
   because in their hearts they hate the Atonement altogether--and the
   idea of Substitution and expiation by vicarious Sacrifice is abhorrent
   to them.

   Therefore has the Lord made it so plain, so manifest, that they may
   stumble at this stumbling stone, "whereunto also," I think, as Peter
   says, "they were appointed." To us, at any rate, the Redemption price
   which is the foundation of all is exceedingly precious. But there is
   one other thing to remember in reference to Christ, namely, that we
   must each one view Him as our own, for out of all the grownup males
   that were in the camp of Israel, when they set up the Tabernacle, there
   was not one but had a share in its foundation. We read in Exodus 35:25
   and 26, "And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their
   hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of
   purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose
   heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair."

   The men could not spin, perhaps they did not understand that art, but
   every man had his half a shekel in the foundation. I want you to think
   of that. Each Believer has a share in Christ as his Redemption--no, I
   dare not say a share in Him, for He is all mine and He is all yours.
   Brothers and Sisters, have you, by faith, laid hold upon a whole Christ
   and said, "He has paid the price for me"? Then you have an interest in
   the very fundamental idea of Christ! Perhaps you are not learned enough
   to have enjoyed your portion in certain other aspects of our Lord, but
   if you are a Believer, however weak you are--though you are like the
   poor among the people of Israel--you have your half shekel in the
   foundation! I delight to think of that! I have my treasure in
   Christ--"my Beloved is mine."

   Can you say He is yours? I do not deny it. So He is, but, "He is mine."
   If you deny that fact we will quarrel at once, for I do assert that,
   "my Beloved is mine." Moreover, by His purchase, "I am His." "So am I,"
   you say. Quite right! I am glad you are, but I know that, "I am His."
   There is nothing like getting a firm, personal hold and grip of
   Christ--my

   half shekel is in the basis of the tabernacle--my Redemption money is
   in the divinely glorious building of Grace! My Redemption is in the
   death of Christ which is the Foundation of all!

   III. Time fails me and yet I have, now, a third thought to lay before
   you very briefly. The tabernacle was a type Of THE CHURCH OF GOD as the
   place of Divine indwelling. What and where is the Church of God? The
   true Church is founded upon Redemption. Every board of shittim wood was
   shaped and mortised into the sockets of silver made of the Redemption
   money and every man that is in the Church of God is united to Christ,
   rests upon Christ and cannot be separated from Him. If that is not true
   of you, my dear Hearer, you are not in the Church of God! You may be in
   the Church of England or of Rome--you may be in this church or some
   other--but unless you are joined to Christ and He is the sole
   Foundation upon which you rest, you are not in the Church of God.

   You may be in no visible church whatever, and yet, if you are resting
   upon Christ, you are a part of the true house of God on earth. Christ
   is a sure Foundation for the Church of God, for the Tabernacle was
   never blown down. It had no foundation but the talents of silver and
   yet it braved every desert storm. The wilderness is a place of rough
   winds--it is called a howling wilderness--but the sockets of silver
   held the boards upright and the holy tent defied the rages of the
   elements! To be united to Christ by faith is to be built on a sure
   Foundation! His Church will never be overthrown, let the devil send
   what hurricanes he may! And it was an invariable foundation, for the
   Tabernacle always had the same basis wherever it was placed. One day it
   was pitched on the sand; another on a good piece of arable ground; a
   third time on a grass plot and tomorrow on a bare rock--but it always
   had the same foundation. The bearers of the holy furniture never left
   the silver sockets behind. Those four tons of silver were carried in
   their wagons and put out first as the one and only foundation of the
   holy place!

   Now, the learned tell us that the 19th Century requires "advanced
   thought." I wish the 19th Century was over. I have heard it bragged
   about so much that I am sick of the 19th Century! We are told that this
   is too sensible a century to need or accept the same Gospel as the
   first, second and third centuries. Yet these were the centuries of
   martyrs; the centuries of heroes; the centuries that conquered all the
   gods of Greece and Rome; the centuries of holy glory--and all this
   because they were the centuries of the Gospel! But now we are so
   enlightened that our ears ache for something fresh--and under the
   influence of another gospel, which is not another--our beliefs are
   dwindling down from alps to anthills and we, ourselves, from giants to
   pigmies! You will soon need a microscope to see Christian faith in the
   land--it is getting to be so small and scarce!

   By God's Grace some of us abide by the Ark of the Covenant and mean to
   preach the same Gospel which the saints received at the first! We shall
   imitate those who, having had a silver foundation at the first, had a
   silver foundation for the Tabernacle, even till they came to the
   promised land! It is a foundation that we dare not change. It must be
   the same, world without end, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
   today, and forever!

   IV. Fourthly and lastly, I think this Tabernacle in the wilderness may
   be viewed as a type OF THE GOSPEL, for the Gospel is the Revelation of
   God to man. The tent in the wilderness was the Gospel according to
   Moses. Now, as that old Gospel in the wilderness was, such must ours
   be, and I want to say just two or three things very plainly and have
   done. Redemption, Atonement in the mercantile idea--must be the
   foundation of our theology--doctrinal, practical and experimental. As
   to doctrine, they say a fish stinks first at the head and men first go
   astray in their brains. When once there is anything wrong in your
   belief as to Redemption, you are wrong all through. I believe in the
   old rhyme--

   "What think you of Christ? is the test

   To try both your state and your scheme,

   You cannot be right in the rest

   Unless you think rightly of HIM." If you get wrong on the Atonement,
   you have turned a switch which will run the whole train of your
   thoughts upon the wrong line. You must know Christ as the Redeemer of
   His people and their Substitute, or your teaching will give an
   uncertain sound. As Redemption must be the foundation of doctrinal
   divinity, so it must of practical divinity. "You are not your own: you
   are bought with a price," must be the source of holiness and the reason
   for consecration. The man that does not feel himself to be specially
   "redeemed from among men," will see no reason for being different from
   other men! "Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it." He who
   sees no special giving of Christ for His Church will see no special
   reason why the Church should give herself to Christ!

   Certainly Redemption must be the foundation of experimental theology,
   for what is an experience worth that does not make us, every day, prize
   more and more the redeeming blood? Oh, my dear Friends, I never knew,
   though I had some idea of it, what a fool I was till of lately! I tell
   you that those dreadful pains which may even make you long for death
   will empty you right out and not only empty you, but make you judge
   yourself to be a hollow sham and cause you to loathe yourself--and then
   it is that you cling to Christ! Nothing but the atoning Sacrifice will
   satisfy me! I have read plenty of books on modern theology but none of
   them can heal so much as a pin's prick in the conscience! When a man
   gets sick in body and heavy in spirit, he needs the old-fashioned
   Puritan theology--the Gospel of Calvin, the Gospel of Augustine, the
   Gospel of Paul, the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Our
   theology as a matter of experience must be based upon Redemption!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, and not only our theology but our personal
   hope. The only Gospel that I have to preach is that which I rest upon
   myself--"Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree."
   "For the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we
   are healed." "He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the
   transgressors." Oh, dear Hearers, build on that and you will never
   fail! But if you do not take Christ's Redemption as the foundation of
   your hope--I do not care who you are--you may be very learned but you
   know nothing at all! The Lord grant you Grace to know that you know
   nothing and then you will know something! And when you have learned as
   much as that, may He teach you the Redemption of His Son and reveal
   Christ in you! This, Beloved, is, therefore, the burden of our service
   and the glory of our life.

   Those silver sockets were very precious, but very weighty. I dare say
   the men who had to move them sometimes thought so! Four tons and more
   of silver make up a great load. O blessed, blissful draft, to have to
   put the shoulder to the collar to draw the burden of the Lord--the
   glorious weight of Redemption! My Soul, blessed are you to be made a
   laboring ox for Christ, always to be bearing among this people the
   divinely precious load of the Foundation which Christ has laid for His
   people! You, young Brothers that preach, mind you, always carry your
   four tons of silver-- preach a full and rich Redemption, all of you!
   You who teach in the Sunday school, do not let the children have a
   place to live that has no foundation--the first wind will blow it over
   and where will they be--left naked under the ruins of that in which
   they had hoped!

   Lay Christ for a foundation. You cannot do better, for God Himself has
   said, "Behold, I lay in Sion a chief Cornerstone, elect, precious." Lay
   this silver foundation wherever you are! Yes, but though the ingots
   were heavy to carry, every Israelite felt proud to think that that
   Tabernacle had a foundation of silver. You Amalekites out there cannot
   see the silver footing of it all! You Moabites cannot perceive it! All
   you can see is the badger skins outside--the rough exterior of the
   tent. You say, "That tent is a poor place to be a temple--that Gospel
   is a very simple affair." No doubt it is to you, but you never saw the
   silver sockets! You never saw the golden boards! You never saw the
   glory of the inside of the place lit up by the seven-branched
   candlesticks and glorious with the Presence of God. Brethren,
   Redemption is our honor and delight--

   "In the Cross of Christ I glory Towering o'er the wrecks of time: All
   the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime."

   This the First and this the Last--the bleeding Lamb slain from before
   the foundation of the world and yet living and reigning when earth's
   foundations shall dissolve! That blessed Lamb of God is in the midst of
   the Throne of God and His people shall all be with Him, forever
   triumphant! He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the
   Foundation and the Headstone. O Savior of sinners, glory be to Your
   name! Amen and amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Fruit of the Spirit--Joy

   (No. 1582)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 6, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But the fruit of the Spirit is joy." Galatians 5:22.

   OBSERVE, "the fruit of the Spirit," for the product of the Spirit of
   God is one. As some fruits are easily divisible into several parts, so
   you perceive that the fruit of the Spirit, though it is but one, is
   threefold, no, it makes three times three--"love, joy, peace;
   longsuffering, gentleness, goodness; faith, meekness, temperance"--all
   one! Perhaps "love" is put first not only because it is a right royal
   virtue, nearest akin to the Divine perfection, but because it is a
   comprehensive Grace and contains all the others. All the commandments
   are fulfilled in one word and that word is "love." And all the fruits
   of the Spirit are contained in that one most sweet, most blessed, most
   heavenly, most God-like Grace of love. See that you abound in love to
   the great Father and all His family, for if you fail in the first
   point, how can you succeed in the second? Above all things, put on
   love, which is the bond of perfectness.

   As for joy, if it is not the first product of the Spirit of God, it is
   next to the first, and we may be sure that the order in which it is
   placed by the Inspired Apostle is meant to be instructive. The fruit of
   the Spirit is love, first, as comprehensive of the rest--then joy
   rising out of it. It is remarkable that joy should take so eminent a
   place! It attains unto the first three and is but one place lower than
   the first. Look at it in its high position and if you have missed it,
   or if you have depreciated it, revise your judgment and endeavor with
   all your heart to attain to it, for depend upon it--this fruit of the
   Spirit is of the utmost value!

   This morning, as I can only speak upon one theme, I leave love for
   another occasion and treat only of joy. May its Divine Author, the Holy
   Spirit, teach us how to speak of it to our profit and His Glory! It is
   quite true that the Spirit of God produces sorrow, for one of His first
   effects upon the soul is holy grief. He enlightens us as to our lost
   condition, convicting us of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And
   the first result upon our heart is astonishment and lamentation. Even
   when we look to Christ, by the work of the Spirit one of the first
   fruits is sorrow--"They shall look on Him whom they have pierced and
   they shall mourn for Him, and be in bitterness for Him as one that is
   in bitterness for his first-born."

   But this sorrow is not the ultimate objective of the Spirit's work--it
   is a means to an end. Even as the travail of the mother leads up to the
   joy of birth, so do the pangs of repentance lead up to the joy of
   pardon and acceptance. The sorrow is, to use a Scriptural figure, the
   blade, but the full corn in the ear is joy. Sorrow helps the fruit on,
   but the fruit, itself, is joy. The tears of godly grief for sin are all
   meant to sparkle into the diamonds of joy in pardoning love. This
   teaches us, then, that we are not to look upon bondage as being the
   objective of the work of the Spirit of God, or the design of the Lord
   in a work of Grace. Many are under bondage to the Law--they attempt to
   keep the commands of God--not out of love, but from slavish fear. They
   dread the lash of punishment and tremble like slaves. But to Believers
   it is said, "You are not under the Law, but under Grace" and, "You have
   not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received
   the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

   To be in bondage under the Law, to be afraid of being cast away by God
   and visited with destruction on account of sin after we have trusted in
   Jesus--this is not the work of the Spirit of God in Believers, but the
   black offspring of unbelief or ignorance of the Grace of God which is
   in Christ Jesus our Lord! Neither is a painful dread or a servile
   terror a fruit of the Spirit. Many worship the Lord Jesus, Himself, at
   a distance--they know not that Believers are "a people near unto Him."
   They are afraid of God and they never delight in Him. They attend to
   worship, not because they rejoice in it, but because they think it must
   be done. Their secret feeling is--"What a weariness it is," but
   necessity compels. They know nothing of a child's joy in sure and full
   forgiveness, spoken by the Father's own lips as He pressed them to His
   bosom.

   His kiss was never warm upon their cheek. The ring was never on their
   finger, nor the best robe upon their shoulders. The music and the
   dancing of the joyous family who are in harmony with the father's joy
   over the lost son have never charmed their ears. They are still under
   dread, which is the fruit of superstition rather than "the fruit of the
   Spirit." Many things they do and suffer and all in vain--if the Son did
   but make them free, they would be free, indeed! I know some whom I am
   very far from despising, but whom, on the contrary, I greatly value,
   whose religion, sincere as I know it is, is sadly tinged with gloomy
   colors. They are afraid of Assurance, for they dread presumption! They
   dare not speak of their own salvation with the certainty with which the
   Bible saints were known to speak of it--they always say, "I hope," and,
   "I trust."

   They would seem to be total abstainers from joy! They are suspicious of
   it lest it should be carnal excitement or visionary hope. They hang
   their heads like bulrushes and go mourning all their days as if the
   religion of Christ knew no higher festival than a funeral and all its
   robes were the garments of despair! Brothers and Sisters, despondency
   is not the fruit of the Spirit! Make no mistake, depression is
   frequently the fruit of indigestion, or of satanic temptation, or of
   unbelief, or of some harbored sin, but, "the fruit of the Spirit is
   joy." Constantly looking within your own self instead of looking alone
   to Christ is enough to breed misery in any heart.

   I have also known gloomy expressions to be the fruit of affectation,
   the fruit of the unwise imitation of some undoubtedly good person who
   was of a downcast spirit. Some of the best of men have had a melancholy
   turn, but they would have been better men if this had been overcome.
   Imitate their many virtues--but take the pot of ointment and pick out
   the dead flies. O my Brethren, look well to it that you bring forth the
   genuine, holy, sacred, delicious fruit of the Spirit which, in one of
   its forms, is "joy." Do not covet the counterfeit of earthly joy, but
   seek to the good Spirit to bear the true fruit in you.

   I. In speaking upon this joy I shall notice, first, the fact that IT IS
   BROUGHT FORTH. Brothers and Sisters, the Spirit of God is not barren!
   If He is in you, He must and will inevitably produce His own legitimate
   fruit--and "the fruit of the Spirit is joy." We know this to be a fact
   because we, ourselves, are witnesses of it. Joy is our portion and we
   are cheered and comforted in the Savior. "What?" you ask, "are we not
   depressed and sorrowful at times?" Yea, verily, and yet what Christian
   man or woman among us would make an exchange with the happiest of all
   worldlings? Your lot is somewhat hard, my Brother, and sometimes your
   spirit sinks within you. But do you not count yourself to be, even at
   your worst, happier than the worldling at his best? Come, would you not
   take your poverty, even with your mourning, rather than accept his
   wealth with all his hilarity and give up your hope in God?

   I am persuaded you would--you would not change your blest estate for a
   monarch's crown! Well, then, that which you would not change is a good
   thing and full of joy to your heart. Brothers and Sisters, we
   experience extraordinary joys at times. Some are of an equable
   temperament and they are almost to be envied, for a stream of gentle
   joy always glides through their spirit. Others of us are of a more
   excitable character and, consequently, we fall very flat at times. Yes,
   but then we have our high days and holidays and mounting times--and
   then we outsoar the wings of eagles! Heaven itself can hardly know more
   ecstatic joy than we have occasionally felt! We shall be vessels of
   greater capacity in Heaven, but even here we are, at times, full to the
   brim with joy--I mean the same joy which makes Heaven so glad.

   At times God is pleased to inundate the spirit with a flood of joy and
   we are witnesses that, "happy is the people whose God is the Lord." We
   do not dance before the Ark every day, but when we do, our joy is such
   as no worldling can understand--it is far above and out of his sight.
   Besides our own witness, the whole history of the Church goes to show
   that God's people are a joyful people. I am sure that if in reading the
   history of the first Christian centuries you are asked to point out the
   men to be envied for their joy, you would point to the Believers in
   Jesus. There is a room in Rome which is filled with the busts of the
   emperors. I have looked at their heads--they look like a collection of
   prizefighters and mur-derers--and I could scarcely discover on any
   countenance a trace of joy.

   Brutal passions and cruel thoughts deprived the lords of Rome of all
   chance ofjoy. There were honorable exceptions to their rule, but taking
   them all round you would look in vain for moral excellence among the
   Caesars. And lacking this thing of beauty, they missed that which is a
   joy. Turn, now, to the poor, hunted Christians and read the
   inscriptions left by them in the catacombs! They are so calm and
   peaceful that you say instinctively--a joyous people were known to
   gather here! Those who have been most eminent in service and in
   suffering for Christ's sake have been of a triumphant spirit, dauntless
   because supported by an inner joy! Their calm courage made them the
   wonder of the age. The true Chris-

   tian is a different type of manhood from the self-indulgent tyrant.
   There is almost as much advance from the coarseness of vice to holiness
   as there is from the chimpanzee to the man!

   I do not know how much Tiberius and Caligula and Nero used to sing.
   Happy men they certainly were not. I can hardly imagine them singing
   except at their drunken orgies and then in the same tone as tigers
   growl! But I do know that Paul and Silas sang praises unto God with
   their feet in the stocks and the prisoners heard them! And I know,
   also, that this was the mark of the Christians of the first age, that,
   when they assembled on the Lord's Day, it was not to groan but to sing
   praises to the name of one Christos, whom they worshipped as God. High
   joys were common, then, when the Bridegroom comforted His bride in the
   dens and caves of the earth. Those pioneers of our holy faith were
   destitute, afflicted, tormented--yet were they men of whom the world
   was not worthy--and men who counted it all joy to suffer persecution
   for Christ's sake.

   Now, if in the very worst times God's people have been a happy people,
   I am sure they are so now. I would appeal to the biographies of men of
   our own day and challenge any question as to the statement that their
   lives have been among the most desirable of human existences for they
   possessed a joy which cheered their sorrows, blessed their labors,
   sweetened their trials and sustained them in the hour of death. With
   some Christians, this fruit of the Spirit is perpetual, or almost so. I
   do not doubt that many walk with God as Enoch did throughout the whole
   day of their life, always peaceful and joyful in the Lord. I have met
   with some dear Brothers and Sisters of that kind, whose breath has been
   praise, whose life has been song! How I envy them and chide my own
   heart that I cannot always abide in their choice condition! It is to be
   accomplished and we will press forward till we are "always rejoicing."

   But with others, joy is not constant and yet it is frequent. David had
   his mourning times when tears were his meat, day and night, and yet God
   was his exceeding joy. How thankful we ought to be for the portrait of
   David's inner self which is presented to us in the Book of Psalms. With
   all his grief, what joys he had! David was, on the whole, a joyous man.
   His Book of Psalms has in it lyrics of delight--the most glad hymns
   that ever leaped from human tongues! David is, I believe, the type of a
   great majority of the people of God who, if not, "always rejoicing,"
   are yet often so. Please remember that the utmost fullness of joy can
   hardly be enjoyed always in this mortal life. I believe that the human
   frame is not, in this world, capable of perpetual ecstasy.

   Look at the sun, but look not too long lest you are blinded by
   excessive light. Taste of honey, but eat not much of it or it will no
   longer please the palate. Let your ears be charmed with the Hallelujah
   chorus, but do not dream that you could endure its harmonies all the
   hours of the day--before long you would cry out for eloquent pauses and
   sweet reliefs of silence! Too much, even, of delight will weary our
   feeble hearts and we shall need to come down from the mountain. Our
   bodies require a portion of sleep and that which is inevitable to the
   flesh has its likeness in the spirit--it must be quiet and still. I
   believe it is inevitable, also, more or less, that the loftiest joy
   should be balanced by a sinking of heart. I do not say that depression
   is certain to follow delight, but usually some kind of faintness comes
   over the finite spirit after it has been lifted up into communion with
   the Infinite.

   Do not, therefore, set too much store by your own feelings as evidences
   of Divine Grace. "The fruit of the Spirit is joy," but you may not, at
   this moment, be conscious ofjoy. Trees are not always bearing fruit and
   yet "their substance is in them when they lose their leaves." Some
   young people say, "Oh, we know we are saved because we are so happy."
   It is by no means a sure evidence, for joy may be carnal, unfounded,
   unspiritual. Certain Christians are afraid that they cannot be in a
   saved state because they are not joyous, but we are saved by faith and
   not by joy! I was struck with the remark of Ebenezer Erskine when he
   was dying and someone said to him, "I hope you have, now and then, a
   blink to bear up your spirit under affliction." He promptly replied, "I
   know more of words than of blinks," that is to say he had rather trust
   a promise of God than his own glimpses of Heaven! And so would I.

   The Word of God is a more sure testimony to the soul than all the
   raptures a man can feel! I would sooner walk in the dark and hold hard
   to a promise of my God than trust in the light of the brightest day
   that ever dawned!. Precious as the fruit is, do not put the fruit where
   the root should be. Please remember that joy is not the root of Grace
   in the soul-- it is the fruit and must not be put out of its proper
   position. "The fruit of the Spirit is joy" and it is brought forth in
   Believers, but not alike in all. But to all Believers there is a
   measure of joy.

   II. Secondly, THIS JOY IS OF A SINGULAR CHARACTER. It is singular for
   this reason, that it often ripens under the most remarkable
   circumstances. As I have already said, the highest joy of Christians
   has often been experienced in

   their times of greatest distress. Tried Believers have been happy when
   smarting under pain, or wasting away with disease. Sick beds have been
   thrones to many saints--they have almost feared to come out of the
   furnace because the Presence of the Lord in the midst of the fire has
   made it none other than the gate of Heaven to their souls! Saints in
   poverty have been made exceedingly rich and when they have eaten a dry
   crust they have found a flavor in it which they never discovered in the
   dainties of their abundance.

   Many children of God, even when driven away from the outward means of
   Grace, have, nevertheless, enjoyed such visits of God, such inlets of
   Divine Love, that they have wondered from where such joy could come! In
   the wilderness, waters leap forth as do streams in the desert.
   Believers are not dependent upon circumstances. Their joy comes not
   from what they have, but from what they are--not from where they are,
   but from Whose they are--not from what they enjoy, but from that which
   was suffered for them by their Lord. It is a singular joy, then,
   because it often buds, blossoms and ripens in winter time and when the
   fig tree does not blossom and there is no herd in the stall. God's
   Habakkuks rejoice in the God of their salvation!

   It is a singular joy, too, because it is quite consistent with
   spiritual conflict. He that is an heir of Heaven may cry, "O wretched
   man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And
   yet, before the sigh is over, he may sing, "I thank God, through Jesus
   Christ our Lord." Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing! Straggling, yet
   always victorious! Cast down, but not destroyed! Persecuted, but not
   forsaken! Troubled and yet, all the while triumphant! Such is the
   mingled experience of the saints. Oh, this is the wondrous Grace, this
   joy which can live side by side with conflict of the sorest sort. This
   joy is special because at times it is altogether beyond description.
   One who was of a sober disposition called it "joy unspeakable and full
   of glory." "Full of glory!"

   That is a wonderful expression! A drop of glory is sweet, but, oh, to
   taste a joy that is full of glory--is that possible here? Yes and some
   of us bear witness that it is so--we have felt joy that we dare not
   tell and could not tell if we dared-- men would turn and tear us apart,
   condemning us as utterly fanatical or out of our minds if we were to
   cast these pearls before them! But, oh, if they could guess what
   delicious drafts are held within the jeweled chalice of Divine
   Communion with our Master, they would be ready to wade through Hell,
   itself, to drink from them! Our joy is altogether unspeakable joy at
   times.

   One more singularity there is in it, for it is all the while solid,
   thoughtful, rational joy. The joy of the ungodly is like the crackling
   of thorns under a pot--noisy and flashy--but soon over. The ungodly man
   feels merry, but really, if you come to look into his mirth, there is
   nothing in it but flame without fuel, sparkle without solidity. But the
   Christian's joy is such that he has as much reason for it as if it were
   a deduction from mathematics. He has as just a right to be joyful as he
   has to eat his own bread! He is certain of his pardon, for God has told
   him that a Believer in Christ is not condemned! And he is sure of his
   acceptance, for he is justified by faith. He knows that he is secure,
   for Christ has given him eternal life and said that His sheep shall
   never perish! He is happy, not for causes at which he guesses, but by
   Infallible reasons plainly revealed in God's Word! This makes Him
   joyful in the Lord when others wonder that he is so, for he perceives
   arguments for happiness which are unknown to the thoughtless crowd.

   That word, "joyful," is a very sweet and clear one. "Happiness" is a
   very dainty word, but yet it is somewhat insecure because it begins
   with a "hap," and seems to depend on a chance which may happen to the
   soul. We say "happy-go-lucky," and that is very much the world's
   happiness--it is a kind of thing that may hap and may not hap--but
   there is no hap in the fruit of the Spirit which is joy! When we are
   joyful, or full of joy, and that of the best kind, we are favored,
   indeed! No man takes this joy from us and a stranger meddles not with
   it--it is a celestial fruit and earth cannot produce its like.

   III. Thirdly, I would now refresh your memories and by the help of the
   Spirit of God bring back former joys to you--THIS JOY IS EXPERIENCED BY
   THE CHRISTIAN UNDER VARIOUS FORMS. Sometimes he experiences it in
   hearing the Word of God--it is written concerning Samaria there was
   great joy in that city because Philip went down and preached the Gospel
   to them. Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound! However,
   joy of hearing lies in believing what you hear. We get joy and peace in
   believing. When you get a grip of the Word of God--when the glad
   tidings becomes a message to your own soul and the Spirit speaks it to
   your own heart, then you say, "Go on, man of God! Your sermon will not
   be too long today, for the Lord is laying it home to my soul."

   The reason why people grumble at long sermons is often because they do
   not feed on them. Very seldom the hungry man murmurs at having too big
   a meal. It is a delightful thing to hear the Word faithfully preached.
   Have you not sometimes exclaimed, "How beautiful upon the mountains are
   the feet of him that brings glad tidings"? That is one occasion of joy.
   But what joy there is, dear Friends, in the salvation of God when we
   heartily receive it! Oh, how we bless the God of our salvation and how
   we praise Him that He has saved us from our sins and from the wrath to
   come by giving us everlasting consolation and good hope through Grace,
   by the sacrifice of His dear Son!

   Frequently we revel in the privileges of the Covenant. The joy of my
   heart, when I think of the doctrine of Election, is quite
   inexpressible. That hymn which begins--

   "In songs of sublime adoration and praise,

   You pilgrims to Zion who press,

   Break forth and extol the great Ancient of Days

   His rich and distinguishing Grace," is often with me and makes my heart
   merry. Then the doctrine of Redemption, of which I tried to speak last
   Lord's Day [Silver Sockets--Redemption the Foundation, Volume 27,
   Sermon #1581] how joyous it is! What bliss to know that the Redeemer
   lives! "Unto you that believe He is precious" and a fullness of joy
   flows forth at every remembrance of Him. Then that doctrine of
   Justification is the marrow of joy! Oh, to think that we are just in
   the sight of God through Jesus

   Christ!

   All the Doctrines of Grace, especially that of Final Perseverance, are
   joyful Truths of God! I declare that if you take Final Perseverance
   from me, you have robbed the Bible of one of its crowning attractions!
   Jesus has not given us a transient salvation, but His salvation shall
   be forever! I will quote again those matchless words of His--"I give
   unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall
   any pluck them out of My hand." Honey flows here as in the woods of
   Jonathan! Put it to your mouth and your eyes shall be enlightened! The
   joy of God's people, when they can get half-an-hour alone and sit down
   and crack a dish of those nuts called the Doctrines of Grace, is such
   as philosophical worldlings might well desire! But the modern gospel
   has no such wines on the lees well-refined.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, our most grand joy is in God Himself! Paul
   says, "and not only so, but we joy in God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ." Oh, to think of the great Father! What a melting of spirit
   comes over the child of God if at midnight he looks up at the stars and
   considers the Heavens and cries, "What is man, that You are mindful of
   him?" To think that He is not only mindful of us, but that He has taken
   us to be His sons and daughters! To feel the Spirit within our heart
   crying, "Abba, Father! Abba, Father!" Oh, this is joy in the most
   profound sense! How sweet to think of Jesus Christ the Son, the
   glorious Incarnate God, the Surety, the Satisfaction, the
   Representative, the All in All of His people! We joy in God through our
   Lord Jesus Christ.

   Nor do we miss the joy of the Spirit when we know that He dwells in us.
   He sanctifies us, comforts us and guides us in the road to Heaven. Oh
   Brothers and Sisters, this is a sea of bliss, the infinite deeps of the
   eternal godhead! Leap from all your miseries into this sea of Glory!
   Plunge into the joy of your Lord! This being so, we have a joy in all
   God's ordinances--"with joy do we draw water out of the wells of
   salvation." What a joy prayer is--I hope you find it so. The Lord has
   said, "I will make them joyful in My house of prayer." And what a joy
   it is to get answers to our petitions, even as our Lord says, "Ask and
   you shall receive, that your joy may be full." Has not your joy been
   full till your eyes have been dim with tears and you have not hardly
   dared to tell how wondrously God has answered you? The Mercy Seat is
   lit up with joy.

   What a joyous ordinance is that of praise! We come up to the sanctuary
   and bring our offering to God and present Him our oblation, just as the
   Jew of old brought his bullock or his lamb--and we joyfully present our
   gift unto the Most High. Then we begin to sing His praises and our joy
   is the chief musician upon our stringed instruments. How our spirits
   rise as we adore the Lord! The amount of happiness felt in this
   Tabernacle when we have been singing unto the Lord, can never be
   measured! For my own part, I have seemed to stand just outside the wall
   of the New Jerusalem joining in the hymns which are sung within the
   gates of the Eternal City! One joy note has helped another and the
   volume of sound has affected every part of our being and stirred us up
   to vehemence of joy!

   And oh, what joy there is in coming to the Lord's Table! May we
   experience it tonight, as we have often done before. The Lord is known
   to us in the breaking of bread and that knowledge is blissful. But I
   have scarcely begun the list, for we have a great joy in the salvation
   of other people! Perhaps one of the choicest delights we know is when
   we partake in the

   joy of the good Shepherd over His lost sheep when He calls us together,
   for we, also, are His friends and His neighbors. And He bids us rejoice
   that He has found the sheep which was lost! Especially do we joy and
   rejoice if the poor wanderer has been brought back by our means. The
   jewels of an emperor are nothing compared with the riches we possess in
   winning a soul for Christ! "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."
   The joy of harvest is great, the joy of the man who comes again
   rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

   Do you know this joy, Brothers and Sisters? If you do not, awaken
   yourselves and may this sweet fruit of the Spirit yet be yours. Oh, the
   joy of seeing Christ exalted! John the Baptist said, "He must increase,
   but I must decrease." He called himself the Bridegroom's friend, and
   rejoiced greatly in the Bridegroom's joy. We can sympathize with him
   when we can bring about a marriage between Christ and any poor
   soul--and help to put the ring on the finger. The joy we feel is of the
   purest and loveliest order, for it is unselfish and refined. Let Jesus
   be exalted and we ask no more! If He reigns, we reign! If He is lifted
   up, our hearts are more than satisfied! Brethren, if we ever become
   perfect in heart, we shall joy in all the Divine will, whatever it may
   bring us.

   I am trying, if I can, to find a joy in rheumatism, but I cannot get up
   to it yet. I have found a joy when it is over--I can reach that
   length--and I can and do bless God for any good result that may come of
   it. But when the pain is on me, it is difficult to be joyous about it
   and so I conclude that my sanctification is incomplete and my
   conformity to the Divine will is sadly imperfect. Oh, the splendor of
   God's will! If a man were as he ought to be, God's will would charm him
   and he would not wish for the smallest change in it! Poverty, sickness,
   bereavement, death--all are to be rejoiced in when our will is merged
   in the will of God!

   What? Would you alter God's infinitely wise appointment? Would you wish
   to change the purpose of unerring Love? Then you are not wholly
   reconciled to God, for when the head gets quite right the heart climbs
   where Paul was when he said, "We glory in tribulations, also, knowing
   that tribulation works patience, and patience experience." It needs a
   Samson to kill the lion of affliction and you cannot get honey out of
   it until it is conquered. But we might all be Samsons if we would but
   lay hold on the strength of God by faith! Dear Brothers and Sisters,
   the list ofjoys which I am even now only commencing, contains the joy
   of an easy conscience, the joy of feeling you have done right before
   God, the joy of knowing that your objective, though misunderstood and
   misrepresented, was God's Glory! This is a jewel to wear on one's
   breast--a quiet conscience.

   Then there is the joy of communion with Christ, the joy of fellowship
   with His saints, the joy of drinking deep into Christ's spirit of
   self-sacrifice. There, too, is the joy of expecting His glorious Advent
   when He and His saints shall reign upon the earth and the joy of being
   with Him forever! The joy of Heaven, the joy of which we have been
   singing just now. These joys are countless, but I will pause here and
   leave you to make a fuller catalog when you are at home. May the Holy
   Spirit not only refresh your memories concerning old joys, but bring
   forth out of His treasury new delights that your joy may be full!

   IV. I must notice, in the fourth place, that THIS FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
   MAY BE CHECKED IN ITS GROWTH. Some of you may have muttered while I
   have been speaking of this joy, "I do not know much about it." Perhaps
   not, friend--shall I tell you why? Some people are too full of the joy
   of the world, the joy of getting on in business, the joy of a large
   family, the joy of health, the joy of wealth, the joy of human love, or
   the joy which comes of the pride of life. These joys may be your idols
   and you know the joy of the Lord will not stand side by side with an
   idolatrous delight in the things of this world! See to that. Dagon must
   fall if the Ark of the Lord is present--the world must lose its charms
   if you are to joy in Christ Jesus.

   Our joy is sadly diminished by our unbelief. If you will not believe,
   neither shall you be established. Ignorance will do the same to a very
   large extent. Many a Christian has a thousand reasons for joy which he
   knows nothing of. Study the Word and ask for the teaching of the Spirit
   of God that you may understand it and so shall you discover wells of
   delight! Joy is diminished, also, by walking at a distance from God. If
   you get away from the fire, you will grow cold--the warmest place is
   right in front of it and the warmest place for a believing heart is
   close to Christ in daily fellowship with Him. It may be that indulged
   in sin is spoiling our joy. "This little hand of mine," as Mr.
   Whitfield once said, "can cover up the sun as far as my eyes are
   concerned."

   You have only to lift a naughty, rebellions hand and you can shut out
   the light of God, Himself--any known sin will do it. Trifling with sin
   will prove a killjoy to the heart. I believe that many lose the joy of
   the Lord because they do not

   put it in the right place. See where it lives. Look at my text--"The
   fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace." There joy stands in the
   center--"love" is on one side and "peace" on the other! Find a man who
   never loved anybody and you have found a joyless man. This man's
   religion begins and ends with looking to his own safety. The only point
   he longs to know is--is he saved? He never knows joy, poor creature,
   how can he? As to peace, where is it? He has none because wherever he
   goes he growls, grumbles, snarls and barks at everybody. There is no
   peace where he is! He is always quarrelling and then he says, "I have
   little joy."

   He does not live in the right house for joy! Joy dwells at No. 2.
   "Love" is No. 1--"joy" is No. 2--"peace" is No. 3 and if you pull down
   either of the houses on the side, No. 2, in the middle, will tumble
   down! Joy is the center of a triplet and you must have it so or not at
   all--"Love, joy, peace." Thus I have shown how the growth of joy can be
   checked. I pray you do not allow such an evil thing to be worked in
   your heart.

   V. But, lastly, IT OUGHT TO BE CAREFULLY CULTIVATED. There is an
   obligation upon a Christian to be happy. Let me say it again--there is
   a responsibility laid upon a Christian to be cheerful! It is not merely
   an invitation, but it is a command--"Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
   you righteous." "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice."
   Gloomy Christians who do not resist despondency and strive against it,
   but who go about as if midnight had taken up its abode in their eyes
   and an everlasting frost had settled on their souls are not obeying the
   commands of God! The command to rejoice is as undoubted a precept of
   God as to love the Lord with all your heart. The vows of God are upon
   you, O Believer, and they bind you to be joyful!

   In this joyfulness you shall find many great advantages. First, it is a
   great advantage, in itself, to be happy. Who would not rejoice if he
   could? Who would not rejoice when God commands him? Rejoicing will
   nerve you for life's duties. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." A
   man who goes about Christ's work in an unwilling, miserable spirit will
   do it badly and feebly. He may do it earnestly, but there will be no
   life or energy about him. Hear how the sailors, when they pull the
   rope, will shout and sing and work all the better for their cheery
   notes! I do not believe our soldiers would march to battle with half
   their present courage if they tramped along in silence. Beat the drums!
   Let the trumpet sound forth its martial note! Every man is eager for
   the fray while soul-stirring music excites him. Let your heart make
   music unto God and you will fight valiantly for the Kingdom of your
   Lord.

   Holy joy will also be a great preventive. The man who feels the joy of
   the Lord will not covet worldly joy. He will not be tempted to make a
   God of his possessions or of his talents, or of anything else. He will
   say, "I have joy in God. These things I am very thankful for, but they
   are not my joy." He will not crave the aesthetic in worship, for his
   joy will be in God and His Truth--not in external forms. Some people's
   idea of joy in religion lies in fine singing, charming music, pretty
   dresses, splendid architecture, or showy eloquence. They need this
   because they do not know the secret joy of the Lord, for when that holy
   passion reigns within, you may sit inside four whitewashed walls and
   not hear a soul speak for a whole hour and a half and yet you may have
   as intense a joy as if you listened to the most earnest oratory or the
   sweetest song!--

   "Joy in God is suitable to our condition! Why should the children of a
   king Go mourning all their days?"

   What are we doing now, some of us? We have been hanging our harps on
   the willows--let us take them down--the willow limbs will bend! Thank
   God we did not break the harps, though we did hang them there. Let us
   get into our right position--children of the happy God should,
   themselves, be happy. Joy is certainly the best preparation for the
   future. We are going where, if we learn to groan ever so deeply, our
   education will be lost, for melancholy utterances are unknown up there!
   We are going where, if we learn to sing with sacred joy, our education
   will be useful, for the first thing we shall hear when we get into
   Heaven will undoubtedly be, "Hallelujah to God and the Lamb!" And if we
   have been joyful on earth we shall say, "Ah, I am at home here!"

   To enter Heaven with a joyful soul is only to rise from downstairs to
   the upper chamber where the music knows no discord. It is the same song
   in both places, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in
   His blood." Joy in the Lord will be very helpful to you as to
   usefulness. I am sure a Christian man's usefulness is abridged by
   dreariness of spirit. What nice Sunday school teachers some Christians
   I know of would make! "Come you children, hearken unto me, I will teach
   you the miseries of religion!" And the dear Brother begins by telling
   the children about the Slough of De-

   spond, Giant Despair and the Valley of the Shadow of Death! He wonders,
   when he gets home, that the dear children are not attracted to the ways
   of godliness! Are they likely to be? A member of a Church who has no
   joy of the Lord is little likely to encourage or influence others--they
   edge away from him.

   Even those who try to comfort him find it is to no purpose and so they
   give him a wide berth. You hear him stand up to address an assembly of
   Believers, to tell his experience, and after a very little of it you
   feel you have had enough. Those who drink wine will tell you that half
   a dozen drops of vinegar are more than they need in a glass of wine and
   those who carry the cruet about wherever they go are not choice
   company! I do not find fault with gloomy souls, but they might be more
   useful if they could live more in the sunlight! The joy of the Lord is
   the most injurious to Satan's empire of anything. I am of the same mind
   as Luther, who, when he heard any very bad news, used to say, "Come,
   let us sing a Psalm and spite the devil."

   There is nothing like it! Whenever anything happens that is rough and
   ugly and seems to injure the Kingdom of Christ, say to yourself, "Bless
   the Lord, glory be to His name." If the Lord has been dishonored by the
   falling away of a false professor, or the failure of the ministry in
   any place, let us give Him all the more honor, ourselves, and in some
   measure make up for all that has happened amiss. And, lastly, holy joy
   is very pleasing to God. God delights in the joy of His creatures. He
   made them to be happy! His first and original design in the creation of
   all beings is His own Glory in their happiness. When His people rejoice
   He rejoices.

   Some of you spent Christmas day in the bosom of your families. Possibly
   you have a large family--10 or 12 were at home on that day, with a
   grandchild or two. I will tell you what was your greatest joy on that
   day--it was to see the happiness of your children and to mark how they
   enjoyed what you had provided for them. They are only little children,
   some of them, creeping about on the floor, but they pleased you because
   they were so pleased themselves! The joy of a little child delights
   your heart to hear it, for it gives us joy to behold joy in those we
   love. Suppose your sons and daughters had all come marching in on
   Christmas day in a very gloomy state of mind--cold, loveless,
   joyless--suppose that they did not enjoy anything, but grumbled at you
   and at one another? You would be quite sad and wish the day to be soon
   over and never come again for the next seven years!

   Thus in a figure we see that our heavenly Father delights in the
   delight of His children and is glad to see them grateful and happy and
   acting as children should do towards such a Parent! Now, Brothers and
   Sisters, rise as one man and sing--

   "Then let our songs abound, And every tear be dry!

   We're marching thro' Immanuel's ground

   To fairer worlds on high.
     __________________________________________________________________

Choice Food for Pilgrims to Canaan

   (No. 1583)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said, My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
   Exodus 33:14.

   MAY the inexpressibly precious promises of our text be fulfilled to
   every one of you throughout the whole of your lives. What could heart
   desire, or mind conceive beyond the heaped-up blessedness of my text?
   God's Presence and God's rest--a ring of finest gold set with the
   choicest pearl! The benedictions are worthy of God, Himself, and such
   as only His boundless love could have uttered. Think them over and use
   them as food for your souls--with them you may well be content even if
   the preacher's lips should be shut up as a spring, a sealed fountain!
   You do not need any sermon--only let the Holy Spirit speak these words
   with power as coming directly from the great Father's lips to you and
   your inmost soul will be satisfied as with marrow and fatness!--

   "Enough, my gracious Lord,

   Let faith triumphant cry!

   My heart can on this promise live,

   Can on this promise die.

   'My Presence will go with you,

   And I will give you rest.'"

   It is instructive to remember that a very short time before this
   promise was given, the Israelites had greatly grieved their God by
   setting up an image of gold before which they prostrated themselves,
   saying, "These are your gods, O Israel." They had seen the greatness
   and Glory of God at the Red Sea and during their journey in the
   wilderness up to that time--and yet they were so foolish that they
   bowed in worship before the image of an ox which eats grass! We do not
   marvel that the living God was angry, but we are filled with
   astonishment that, after such wanton provocation, He should,
   nevertheless, turn away His wrath from them and say to them--for the
   promise was not to Moses only, but to them as a people--"My Presence
   will go with you, and I will give you rest."

   Will God, then, go with sinners? Will He go with those who have
   provoked Him so grossly, with those who have sinned against Light and
   knowledge in so shameful a manner? Will He put away the iniquity of
   great offenders and speak comfortably to them? Yes, He will, for He is
   slow to wrath and bears with our ill manners for many a day. Here are
   His own words--"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" (Isa. 48:9). O
   my Brothers and Sisters, what a consolation it is to us, while laboring
   under a sense of sin, that the Lord is able to put away sin so that we
   shall not die and He will come and walk with us and dwell in the midst
   of us, notwithstanding all our former wickedness!

   You know what a righteous God He is and how jealous He is, especially
   of those He loves. And yet, for all that, though He is a consuming
   fire, He is so gracious that, passing by transgression, iniquity and
   sin, He will still return unto His people and again speak comfortably
   to them. There is a secret, however, which must never be forgotten,
   namely, that Moses had made mightily prevalent intercession for the
   people, crying with many tears, "Oh, this people has sinned a great sin
   and has made them gods of gold! Yet now, if you will forgive their
   sin--and if not, blot me, I pray You, out of Your Book which You have
   written." He had gone up into the fiery mount, even up into the eternal
   Presence and there he had in will, though it was not accepted in deed,
   offered himself as a sacrifice for the nation in that memorable
   sentence, "If not, blot my name out of the Book which You have
   written."

   Though the Lord could not accept the substitution of Moses, yet He
   remembered a greater One--He remembered One that was then, to Him, as
   much present as if it had already taken place, for He sees the end from
   the beginning and the Sacrifice of Christ was always present in the
   mind of God, before whom His Son, Jesus, is "the Lamb slain from before
   the foundations of the world." If, then, we carefully search to the
   bottom of things we shall find that it was by virtue

   of the Mediator that this promise was given to Israel and God thus
   spoke to Moses and the people! Atonement had been made, intercession
   had been offered and, therefore, the Lord's Presence was guaranteed and
   rest was promised. This is the only ground upon which God can dwell
   with you and with me and give us rest--an Advocate, one of a
   thousand--has stood in the gap, presented His life for our life,
   obtained favor of the Lord and turned away indignation by the power of
   His intercession!

   God in Christ Jesus has come down to dwell with sinful men! And that
   Presence will never be removed from us, for He says, "I will not leave
   you comfortless; I will come unto you." He invites Himself into our
   company. He offers to sup with us. Do not our hearts cry, "Come, Lord,
   manifest Yourself to us, we pray You, and let the promise which has
   been read in our ears be now fulfilled in our hearts by the power of
   Your Spirit!"--"My Presence will go with you, and I will give you
   rest." It may be that I am addressing some who are about to leave this
   congregation for other assemblies at a distance and, if so, I hope I
   may be the bearer of seasonable comforts. I have spoken to some, just
   now, whose faces we may not, perhaps, see again, who are going far away
   to their great sorrow and to our intense regret.

   I saw the tear when they bade good-bye to us and to the house they have
   loved so well. Go in peace and God be with you, my Beloved! What more
   can I say? You are going to leave your native land--whether you shall
   ever return to it again is written in the decree of Providence--but is
   all unknown to you. Little need you care, for we are all exiles and are
   journeying towards the dear Fatherland where we shall be at home
   forever! Others, it may be, are now making a very important change in
   life--shifting their habitation, or looking out for another occupation
   altogether. Many of us here who are serving the Lord are going forward
   to fresh work, planning new service for the Lord. At such a time, this
   Word of God will be peculiarly precious to all in a changing state if
   the Holy Spirit will lay it home to their hearts--"My Presence will go
   with you, and I will give you rest."

   Come, then, you who bid farewell to old England's shores, you who move
   to a strange family, you who, in any sense remove your tents and
   advance toward the unknown land--come, I say, and listen to these
   gentle accents, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you
   rest." We will think of the subject in this way--First, what are the
   benefits of this Presence? Secondly, to be practical, what are the
   demands of this Presence if we come to enjoy it? And then, thirdly,
   what is the choice blessing which is appended to this Presence--"I will
   give you rest"?

   I. First, then, WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THE DIVINE PRESENCE WHICH IS
   HERE PROMISED? "My Presence will go with you." The first is manifest in
   the chapter. It is the acknowledgment of the people as being peculiarly
   the Lord's. Notice Moses puts it thus, "Wherein shall it be known here
   that I and Your people have found Grace in Your sight? Is it not in
   that You go with us? So shall we be separated, I and Your people, from
   all the people that are upon the face of the earth." This clearly shows
   that the Presence of God with His people is God's way of acknowledging
   them and saying to all mankind and to themselves, "These are My people
   and I am their God."

   Now, my dear fellow Believer, what clearer acknowledgment of you by God
   can you conceive of than that God should be present with you? I think
   you cannot ask a surer, better seal than this and if you have it not, I
   cannot see what can be a token of peace to you at all. Is God never
   with you? Are you never conscious of His Presence? Let me ask you to
   judge your case as if it were mine--can I be a sheep in His fold if the
   shepherd never comes to me? Can I be a child of the family if I have
   never had my heart warmed with my Father's love and have never heard my
   Father's voice speaking comfortably to me? The saints are married unto
   Christ, but that were a strange union in which there was no sort of
   converse or communion whatever!

   If I am unable to see my Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, because my soul is
   in darkness, I must walk by faith--I must not think the darkness light
   and try to be comfortable without Him! I must feel that until the
   daystar shines again and Christ's Presence returns, I must be unhappy
   and I must search the city and go about the streets, saying, "Have you
   seen Him whom my soul loves?" But if I have never at all enjoyed His
   Presence--if never once I could say, "He is near me. He is with
   me"--then how can it be possible that I am His? If I go forth to the
   business of the day and never recognize God. If I come home at night
   and have never seen God's hand with me. If I go to my bed and never,
   before I sleep, have a kind word from Him then, surely, I cannot be one
   of His! I lack the acknowledgment which the great Father must and will
   give to His own children!

   I do not see how a man can feel at all certain, no, how he can
   entertain the hope, even, that he belongs to the Lord, except as he
   enjoys His Presence. Every true child of God needs His Father's
   company. Every true wife desires the pres-

   ence of her spouse. Our Lord's Presence is life and light, health and
   wealth, strength and song to us! Our prayer is--If Your Presence go not
   with me, carry me not up, for I should go forth a sheep untended to
   stray where grievous wolves watch for their feeble victims! That is the
   first benefit of the Presence of God. It is the glory which lights up
   the soul of the Believer and marks it as the special property of
   Heaven!

   Secondly, it is by that Presence that we are preserved and protected.
   When Israel came out of Egypt, the Egyptians followed hard behind them.
   Pharaoh was fierce to slay them or to drive them back, but he could not
   touch them. They came not near one another all that night because the
   Lord descended and, like an impenetrable shield of darkness, turned
   Himself upon the enemy--while like a sun He turned the brightness of
   His Glory upon His people! The Presence of God enabled Israel to pass
   through the sea on dry foot and that same Presence brought down the
   floods upon their foes and swept them away! All through the wilderness
   they might have been fallen upon by the wandering tribes, especially of
   the Amalekites, but the camp of Israel was never stormed by an orderly
   army, nor even plundered by a marauding band!

   Never did an invader's foot plant itself within those streets of
   canvas! There were no bastions and fortifications, but the Presence of
   the Lord was a wall of fire round about His people. None could touch
   them so long as the Lord was there. It was true that Amalek fell upon
   them once upon their march and slew the hindermost of them, but this
   showed that those farthest off from God are in the greatest danger! But
   even these would not have been overthrown had not Israel sinned. Even
   their hindermost would have been secure if they had walked aright with
   God. Who can harm those whom Jehovah ordains to keep? Who shall fight
   against the Invincible and Omnipotent God? If enemies come out against
   His chosen, He will utterly destroy them! Who shall break through
   ramparts of fire to touch the sons of God? I think every child of God
   must acknowledge how safe he has been when he has enjoyed the Divine
   Presence.

   When you get out of that Presence, you are liable to temptations which,
   in the Divine Presence scarcely come to you, or, if they come, they are
   shaken off as trifles which have no power over you. When we dwell near
   God, the baser passions lie still--like the beasts in Noah's ark, they
   cause no uproar. But when God is gone, those baser passions rush to the
   front and the inferior appetites and propensities try to get the
   mastery over us and cause us all sorts of trouble. While we are in the
   Presence of God, we may safely stand in the midst of wicked men if
   Providence calls us there and we shall keep our tongue with a bridle
   and baffle all their cunning. Yes, our soul may be among lions, but no
   lion can touch us when God is with us in the den! We may go into the
   furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, but the glowing coals cannot leave, even,
   the smell of fire upon us while God is with us in the flames!

   We are always safe in the Presence of God in any place and in any work.
   But, if the Lord is withdrawn from us, then in His sanctuary we shall
   be tempted to transgress like Eli's sons--and in His Temple the devil
   will meet with us and ply his horrible temptations. In the most common
   transactions of life we shall blunder and transgress if we move without
   the Lord, for the Presence of God is the only protection of saints. Our
   sanctity depends upon communion with God! Like the moon, we are bright
   while the sun shines on us--all our glory is borrowed from our Lord.
   Oh, how blessed is the promise, then, if we view it in that light, for
   we all wish to be preserved from the defilement of the world and this
   is the one golden method of sanctity, "My Presence will go with you."

   There is a third privilege which the Presence of God brought to Israel
   and brings to us. It is that of direction and guidance. Their route lay
   through a wilderness without a trail and they could not have known
   which way to go except the fiery cloudy pillar, which was the index of
   the Presence of God, had gone before them. Their path was a very
   strange one as it was, winding in and out, backwards and forwards, but,
   "He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of
   habitation." Such is our pathway to the skies--a maze, a tangle, to
   ourselves--but all plain to the All-Wise! You and I know nothing of
   what is going to happen to us between here and Heaven. No, we cannot
   tell what will occur within the hour--but some amazing blessing may
   come!

   I have no doubt you, my Brothers and Sisters, have had in your own
   lifetime, days of surprises. You have been jogging along the ordinary
   road of life pretty comfortably. You never thought of what was going to
   happen, but you have come to a place where the road suddenly diverged
   and from that instant new scenes have opened up before you. You hardly
   knew whether you were to go to the right or to the left and you were at
   your wits end as you pulled up, for there was no signpost and no mark
   to guide you. At such times, if the Presence of God has been with you,
   you have not been left to ask the way--but that ancient promise has
   become true in your experience. "Your ears shall hear a voice behind
   you saying, This is the way: walk in it."

   You could not explain to other people why you took that particular
   road, but you can see that if you had taken any other your whole life
   would have been darkened! After a fashion you explain to yourself why
   you did this, rather than that. But if you had talked about it to your
   most intimate friend, it is just possible he would have replied, "Don't
   you think there may be a touch of fanaticism about your action? Is
   there not a little superstition in your reasoning?" So it might be
   thought, but there is a secret something between you and your God which
   is the key of the position and accounts for acts which otherwise were
   unaccountable! If God were not there it would have been
   superstition--but as God was really there and you are one with whom He
   has become so graciously familiar that He gives you the Urim and the
   Thummim and reveals to you His Light and His Truth to guide you--there
   was no superstition or fanaticism in it!

   the soft, sweet guidances of the royal Presence! They have made my life
   radiant! Like all His other gentlenesses, they have made me great! "He
   leads me," and yet again, "He leads me," is one of the most joyous
   notes of my song of love! Ah, if the Lord is not with us, it is
   extraordinary what muddles we make. I have sometimes had very, very
   difficult things to do and I have accomplished them with ease under the
   Lord's own eyes. But if I am without my Lord's Presence, I give very
   bad advice and I most judiciously do very stupid things and most
   prudently follow a course which everybody would say was prudent but
   which turns out to be imprudent!

   1 have noticed--and I often have to bless God for it--that when I have
   felt myself to be quite done over and nonplussed, I have simply asked
   guidance and something has occurred to me which I had never thought of
   before--or something which I had thought of and rejected, but which was
   the best, has occurred strongly to my mind again. Or somebody else has
   come in and taken the leadership and put me aside--and somehow or other
   God has been glorified and I have been happy when I have had His
   Presence! I am sure that every Believer will find it so in daily life.
   Therefore the first thing is not to have commonsense and to be wise, as
   some say, but to have a sense of God's Presence which is better than
   commonsense! And to trust in Him for guidance which is better than
   being shrewd!

   He will make the young men wise and prudent. He will give to babes
   knowledge and discretion if they are but willing to be led by His
   Divine instruction. You will find it so if you have His Presence with
   you. But if you have it not, you will do just as the Israelites did
   about the matter of the Gibeonites which seemed too simple to pray
   about. You will be taken in with those moldy crusts and those cracked
   shoes and those crafty rascals that say, "We come from a far country."
   And, without taking counsel with God, you will find yourself in
   fellowship with a brood of scheming Canaanites who will entangle you
   and do you no end of harm!

   You will say, "Oh, but they are such nice old people and it is amazing
   how religiously they talk and how nicely they persuade me to their
   side." Yes, when Satan would deceive, his traps are very simple ones,
   such as you would never think to be traps at all! When you are quite
   clear about a thing, pray about it! When you are in difficulty, do as
   you like. I believe in that fine piece of advice--"When it is a fine
   day in this country, carry an umbrella with you. When it is raining
   hard, do just as you like." I put it into another shape and beg you to
   remember it. "Why," you say, "the matter is as plain as the nose on my
   face." Then pray to God about it, for the nose on your face may bring
   you trouble! He that trusts to his own understanding may turn out to
   have very little understanding to trust to! Take plain matters to God.
   Get into the Presence of God and stay there and see all things in the
   Light of that Presence--that will be to you instinct, com-monsense,
   judgment, wisdom!

   We have thus seen that rich blessings are found in the Presence of
   God--Divine acknowledgment, Divine protection and Divine direction. But
   there was another thing that Israel had by virtue of the Presence of
   God and that was real worship in the wilderness! Their sacrifices could
   not have been presented if God had not been among them! There would not
   have been the Tabernacle with all its accessories if God had not been
   there. God would not have commanded them to build Him a house that He
   did not intend to inhabit and He would not have instituted ordinances
   which He did not mean to fill up by His Presence! If it is imaginable
   that there should be a Tabernacle with all its outward gear and
   sacrifices, even until rivers of the blood of fed beasts should be
   poured out, yet it would have been all an empty, hollow sham if God had
   not, Himself, been there!

   Brothers and Sisters, we cannot worship God in spirit and in truth if
   we feel Him to be absent! We must believe that He "is" and it is a part
   of the, "is," that He is everywhere present! We must believe that God
   is here, at this moment, or we are quite unable to pray to Him. To pray
   to a God who is many leagues away is like the worshipper of Baal who
   says, "Perhaps he is on a journey or he is hunting, or he sleeps and
   must be awakened." Elijah never thought that of Jehovah.

   When he stood by the altar and began to plead with the Lord God of
   Israel, it never entered into his head that He was sleeping and must be
   awakened, or that He was up among the stars and needed to be awakened
   by shouting! The Prophet knew that he spoke right into the eternal ear
   and talked right into the Divine heart, for he felt that God was there!
   No worship will do us good, or can be accepted by God except the Lord
   is present with us in it.

   When you live in the Presence of God, how delightful worship is! You
   can right jubilantly sing songs upon your stringed instruments when the
   Lord Jehovah hears your praise. The same is true of prayer. You can
   wrestle with the Angel and hold Him when you are sure He is there. But
   if He is not there, you cannot wrestle with Him, or even hold Him! You
   can go forth to preach right bravely when you go in the strength of the
   Lord God to make mention of His righteousness, even of that only. But
   if the Lord goes not with the minister what a vain-glorious place the
   pulpit is and what empty stuff our talk must be! How delightful to come
   to the Lord's Table if the King sits there and His spikenard gives
   forth a sweet perfume! But what is bread and what is wine--and what is
   the table--if the King, Himself, is not there? The Presence of Jesus
   consciously enjoyed is the sweetness of our worship and all goes awry
   where this is not found. Oh, that we may never attempt to do anything
   for God except with God, or think that we can worship at all unless the
   Spirit of God is in the worship prompting and quickening it!

   Once more, if God had withdrawn from Israel there would have been no
   communion with Him. God's Presence meant communion with God. The
   Israelites could speak with God through their priests when He was in
   the midst of them, but if He had departed, all fellowship would have
   closed. And is not that one of the greatest enjoyments of a child of
   God--that he can speak to his Father whenever he desires it? No child,
   I think, as a rule asks permission to speak to his father, but feels an
   unquestioned freedom on that point. I did go, some time ago, into a
   house where I sat with the head of the family and heard a humble knock
   at the door. It was his wife who asked if she might come in, but her
   lord and master spoke somewhat sharply and she went away. I heard,
   afterwards, one of the girls come to knock at the door to know whether
   she might come in and I wondered at it, because it is rather unusual,
   nowadays, for a man to be lord enough, but this gentlemen was lord too
   much by a long way!

   I thank God that I have never seen more than one instance in which a
   wife or a child was called upon humbly to knock at the door before she
   could come into the majestic presence of her husband or her father! I
   have always enjoyed the respect of my sons, but it has never occurred
   to them to ask permission to speak to me! Yet many professed Christians
   treat their heavenly Father in that way--they are afraid of Him and
   dare not tell Him all their hearts--but this is just the sweet
   privilege of a dear child, that he may turn his eyes to the great
   Father whenever he pleases and have a private audience with the King of
   kings at any hour of the day or night! Strangers may not do this!
   Strangers must get an introduction. Strangers must come with a great
   deal of ceremony if they want to see a king, but the little prince does
   not need any usher of the black rod to introduce him to his father.

   The Believer's relation to his Father is a key which opens every door.
   We are on familiar terms with the great God, as it is written, "I will
   dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God, and they shall
   be My people." In another place He puts it thus--"They shall be My sons
   and daughters." Oh sweet words--"My sons and daughters!" This is a
   privilege which is secured to us by the Presence of God! If any of you
   have lost the Presence of God, I have no doubt you have some kind of
   awe that makes you stand a long way off as Israel stood at a distance
   from the burning mount of Sinai. But if God is with you, then no notion
   of standing a long way off need come to you. "In Him we live, and move,
   and have our being." We eat and drink and sleep eternal life! Whatever
   we do, we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the power of His
   abiding Presence!

   The Presence of God comes to be as palpable to us as the air we
   breathe, perhaps more so. It is as certain to us as the life we live.
   We know Him to be with us and we are as much in the habit of speaking
   with Him as with our dearest friends! No, much more because we must be
   parted from the dearest friend, at times, but from our God we are never
   divided! Wherever we may be and in whatever frame of mind we may be, we
   can always speak with Him! "When I awake I am still with You." "I fall
   asleep and He is at my bedside. I wake up at any hour of the night and
   there He is." "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."
   He is always ready for fellowship with His people! May you have this
   ever-enjoyable, always encompassing Presence with you all the year
   round!

   May the Spirit of God put it to those whom I have mentioned, who are
   moving or shifting their place by taking a long journey, or who are
   about to take the last long journey--who feel that the sentence of
   death is written upon

   them--is not this Presence all that your spirits can possibly crave?
   Even death will give you no alarm if this sweet text is fully enjoyed
   by you--"My Presence will go with you." Certainly the hardships and
   dangers of emigration dwindle into insignificance before this
   promise--"My Presence will go with you among strangers. My Presence
   will go with you across the sea. My Presence will go with you to the
   bed of sickness. My Presence will go with you through the Valley of the
   Shadow of Death. My Presence will go with you, and I will give you
   rest." That is the first point.

   II. The second head shall not occupy much time, but I hope that it will
   be hammered out into a lifelong sermon preached by yourselves. WHAT ARE
   THE DEMANDS OF THIS PRESENCE? Supposing that the Divine Presence shall
   go with us, what then? Why, first it is necessary that we rely upon it.
   Beloved, if the Presence of God is with us, do not let us act as if it
   were not with us, or as if it were not worth much although it is with
   us! If God's Presence is with us, what have we to be afraid of? Where
   is the excuse for our spirit being cast down? If God's Presence is with
   us, why do we talk about difficulties? That word should not be in our
   dictionary, now that Omnipotence is at our right hand! If God's
   Presence is with us, why should we speak about fears? Whom shall we
   fear? "Your are the strength of my life. Of whom shall I

   be afraid?"

   Oh, let this Presence of God be real to you, if you are enjoying it! Do
   not talk about it and then speak as if you were all alone and go forth
   to your work, saying, "I am not strong enough." What? Even if the Lord
   is with you? Set your God at a right figure in all your calculations.
   That is to say, if you can find a figure that will represent Him. What
   is your strength? A unit? Well, if you like, you may make a cipher of
   it, for that is nearer the truth. But what is God's strength? Oh, you
   may carry it up to the nth, as we say in algebra. You may work it out
   to the utmost conceivable limit, but you will never get a figure that
   will come near expressing the power of the Presence of God! "I am with
   you"--"I," and the universe echoes to the voice, as the words, "I AM,"
   roll in thunder peals along the heavens!

   "I have formed the earth and laid its foundations and reared up the
   arches of the sky. I am with you, with My Omnipotence, Omniscience,
   All-Sufficiency." Well, if that is so, rely upon it! Stay yourself upon
   God and do not play the fool by being dismayed and cast down. "I am
   with you." Away with melancholy! Should a little child be always
   trembling and sobbing out, "Mother, I am alone and I am afraid"? Her
   mother says, "I am with you, dear child. I am with you." Will she not
   have done with her sobbing? So does the Lord say, "How can you fear?
   How can you fall? I am with you." If we have His Presence, let us treat
   it as a matter of fact and be filled with rest!

   In the next place, if we have His Presence, let us use it. Every now
   and then we meet with persons who have thousands of pounds and yet are
   half starved. We have heard of two great lords who were spending the
   evening together at a coffeehouse and the bill came to an odd sum and
   they quarreled about who should pay the odd farthing till one of the
   waiters said, "Look up here! Here are two lords worth 50,000 a year
   each and they are quarrelling about a farthing!" That was a strange
   sight, but have you not seen Christian people behaving quite as
   inconsistently? They have the revenues of the universe to spend and yet
   they starve themselves by the little enjoyment that they dare to take!
   Of heavenly food they live upon a crumb a day.

   They are just like the elder brother who said to his father, "These
   many years have I served you. I have neither transgressed your
   commandments at any time and yet you never gave me a kid that I might
   make merry with my friends." You remember his father's answer? He said,
   "Your are always with me and all that I have is yours. If you have not
   eaten all the goats, it is your own fault. You might have been as merry
   with your friends as you liked, for all that I have is yours." And so
   may the Lord often reproach His people. "I am with you, but you do not
   use Me. You do not exercise faith in Me as to the mountains which lie
   before you which would become plains if you left them to Me. You do not
   leave Me your sycamine trees for me to pluck them up by the roots. I
   can do all things and here you are using this poor feeble arm of yours
   with all its wasting, aching sinews--when there is an everlasting arm
   which would be made bare for your defense and which would shake Heaven
   and earth rather than fail to bring you deliverance." Why, Brothers and
   Sisters? Why are we so slow to believe? Oh, if you have the Presence of
   God, utilize it!

   And then, next, if you have the Presence of God, do not grieve Him. Do
   not lose it. In the presence of a king, men behave themselves. Have you
   never known, as a boy, when you have been up to some little trick,
   someone has said, "Hush, here is Father coming"? Why, you stopped your
   game at once! Oh, how reverently, how cautiously, how jealously, how
   holy ought we to behave ourselves who are in the Presence of God! It is
   amazing what God will do for us. He often surprises us with what He
   does. He seems to be inventive in the liberality of His Grace. He will
   make our path

   smooth though before it had been roughness itself! Often and often does
   He enrich our way as though we were like the lepers who followed the
   Assyrians when they threw away their silver and their gold!

   We are surprised to find what goodness His mercy has scattered for us.
   Do we not feel that we must walk tenderly towards One who deals with us
   so gently? Such mercy as His should make us fear and tremble because of
   the great goodness of God! It must be, I was going to say, a terrible
   thing to be a king's favorite but what a terribly blessed thing it is
   to be the favorite of God--to be lifted up so near to Him as to enjoy
   the light of His Countenance! We ought to look at all our words before
   we speak them when we are in His Presence and stop our thoughts before
   we think them, if such a thing could be, lest any of them should vex
   His Spirit and prove unbecoming in the Presence of His Majesty.

   And, oh, when you have the Presence of God, take care to glorify Him
   all that you possibly can! Does He deign to dwell in you? Then lay
   yourself out for His honor. Seek out those who have lost His company
   and go and cheer them. Find out all the daughters of sorrow, all the
   backsliders and wanderers, all the poor sinners that are on the wild
   mountains and seek to bring them where you are, yourself--into the
   Presence of the gracious Three in One! I think that if we do not work
   at any other season, we certainly should do so when we are abiding in
   the light of His Countenance. If my soul keeps no holiday at any other
   time, she shall certainly be dressed in her bravest and shine in her
   best when the King, Himself, visits me! It is a grand thing to go to
   work for God with the Glory of God about your brow, the love of God
   warming your heart, the strength of God making your spirit courageous
   and the wisdom of God directing you in the choice of words! Thus shall
   you work to purpose and a work shall be done which will redound to the
   eternal Glory!

   And thus you see that the Presence of God has its demands.

   III. My time has gone and, therefore, I must say only two or three
   words about that last word of promise. WHAT IS

   THE CHOICE BLESSING WHICH IS APPENDED TO THIS PRESENCE? "My Presence
   shall go with you, and I will

   give you rest." In this particular text we must confine the, "rest," to
   the end of the journey, for Israel was to have their rest in Canaan and
   so the promise was, "My Presence shall go with you through the
   wilderness, and I will give you rest in the land that flows with milk
   and honey." Beloved, it were no narrowing of the promise if we were to
   limit it to that sense, tonight. If God's Presence is with us here, we
   shall be in God's Presence hereafter--and there we shall have rest!

   Some of you good workpeople come in here on Thursday nights and cannot
   come in quite on time. Well, never mind, you can come late. I would
   sooner have you for 10 minutes than not at all. A piece of a loaf is
   better than starving. I know that to many of you the idea of rest must
   be very sweet. To those who work very, very hard, as some of you do,
   the thought of an everlasting rest is very pleasant. But perhaps some
   of you have never been converted. I want to put this thought into your
   mind--Will you rest? Will you rest at last? They will lay your bones in
   the cemetery and apparently you will rest, but will you rest? Oh, will
   you rest?

   Do you think you can rest if you die with unforgiven sin? Can you rest
   if you die unreconciled to God? Ah, no. "There is no peace," says my
   God, unto the wicked. "They are like the troubled sea which cannot
   rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Only imagine if that should
   be your portion forever and ever--never to rest, but to be like the
   troubled sea, foaming, raging and tossed about throughout eternity! God
   grant, dear Hearer, that such a fearful unrest may not be your portion!

   But oh, if you will trust in Jesus and value His Presence with you
   here, what sweet rest there will be above! I have heard some people
   speak about the rest of Heaven as though it were only a bribe to lazy
   people. They sneer at the idea of rest, but those people who do not
   desire rest are unacquainted with hard work! I am persuaded of that!
   Your lackadaisical ladies and gentlemen who never did a stroke of work
   in all their lives and could not if they tried, may despise Heaven as a
   rest, but to many of us, that Scripture is most pleasant, "There
   remains a rest for the people of God." The idea of service is,
   undoubtedly, very sweet--eternal service--very sweet to the strong,
   active young Christian.

   But I tell you that when you get older and when your heads often ache
   with anxious care and oftentimes you are worn down in the service of
   your Master, you will get more inclined to look upon Heaven as a place
   of rest. And you will thank God that the Holy Spirit was not quite so
   hard as these fine ladies and gentlemen, but did speak to us of Heaven
   as a place where the saints shall rest from their labors and their
   works shall follow them! We do not know where we shall go between now
   and Heaven, but we shall get Home, at last, and then we shall rest! We
   do not know how much more work we have to do. We cannot tell how often
   the burden will press our shoulders, but we shall rest one day. "I will
   give you

   rest."

   Ah, poor toiler, you shall rest. O poor aching eyes, you shall rest
   when you shall see the King in His beauty. O poor aching brain, you
   shall rest when you shall have nothing to do but to joy in God and
   praise Him day and night in His Temple! But I think that under the
   Gospel dispensation we may take this promise in a far wider sense. "My
   presence will go with you, and I will give you rest," even now, for,
   "we which have believed do enter into rest." While we are believing we
   obtain rest, we have not the rest of inactivity, but that of peace! The
   Israelites kept journeying on and yet the Lord was their dwelling
   place. We have not the rest of luxury--the Israelites had to tread the
   barren sand and live in tents. But ours is the rest which is consistent
   with daily service and with frequent trial.

   We rest in this way--we are perfectly at ease about everything. As to
   the future, what have we to do with that? We have not yet come to it!
   God arranges things to come. As for the present, we "cast our care upon
   Him, for He cares for us." As to our sins, they are gone--dead, buried,
   lost--never to be seen again! They cannot be found, for God Himself has
   cast them behind His back! As for the devil, he is a chained enemy. As
   for the world, Christ has said, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the
   world." As for the needs of the body, He has said, "Your bread shall be
   given you, and your water shall be sure."

   As for the needs of the soul, Christ is ours and all things are ours in
   Christ. As for our eternal safety, "Whom He did predestinate, them He
   also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He
   justified, them He also glorified." He will glorify us as certainly as
   He has justified us--

   "All that remains for me

   Is but to love and sing,

   And wait until the angels come

   To bear me to the King.'" "My Presence will go with you, and I will
   give you rest."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heroic In Christianity

   (No. 1584)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY-MORNING, FEBRUARY 20, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For if you love them which love you, what credit is that to you? For
   sinners also love those that lo ve them. And if you do good to them
   which do good to you, what credit is that to you? For sinners also do
   even the same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive,
   what credit is that to you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to
   receive as much again." Luke 6:32-34.

   BRETHREN in Christ, every Word which proceeds out of our Master's lips
   is precious to us. We make no distinction between His promises and His
   precepts, but prize every syllable above rubies. A doctrine from Him we
   value beyond the much fine gold and a command is equally high in our
   esteem. Whether His teaching is practical or doctrinal, whether it is
   intended to guide the feet or to encourage the heart, we are equally
   rejoiced at it--

   "All His words are music, though they make us weep; Infinitely tender,
   infinitely deep." All the discourses of Jesus are the Words of God to
   our soul, whether they convey to us instruction, warning, rebuke,
   invitation or consolation. As all His garments smell of myrrh, aloes
   and cassia, so are all His words most sweet to our taste. We have not
   so learned Christ as to be pickers and choosers when the fruits of His
   lips are before us. Yet I have known professors of that sort, who would
   gladly tear the Master's vesture that they might have only the softest
   part of it to be a pillow for their idle heads.

   "That," they say, "was a Gospel sermon, sweet food for our souls,"
   because it happened to tell of what Christ has done for us. But on the
   next occasion they cry out, "That was not a Gospel sermon! It was
   legal! It laid a burden upon our shoulders," because it dared to tell
   of what Christ has commanded us to do for Him. Those men, it seems to
   me, accept Christ for a servant rather than for a Master! They are glad
   that He shall do this or that for them--that He shall, in fact, gird
   Himself and wait at their table while they sit down to meat. But if
   they had learned better, they would have chosen Christ for a Master and
   would have been willing to gird themselves at His command and wait on
   their Lord, counting it their honor to be servants of so Divine a
   Prince!

   Feeling certain that you are not of that order of religious cavilers,
   but that you will accept anything that comes from Christ, I am glad to
   have a practical subject this morning. The Sermon on the Mount is as
   full of the Light of God to you as the Transfiguration on the Mount.
   You are as glad to hear what the Son of God has to say by way of
   precept as to hear what the Father had to say by way of recognition of
   His Son. As for this sermon in the plain, it was preceded by miracles,
   but it is as forcible to you as the signs and wonders could have made
   it had you seen them all! The sick touched His garment and were
   restored and those who were possessed of devils were healed--you
   rejoice at the miracles of Christ, but you see Him to be as mighty in
   word as in deed--and you adore Him for His gracious teachings which
   remain to us after His miracles have ceased.

   Here you have certain of the Words of Christ and may His Spirit bless
   them to your hearts. Brothers and Sisters, in the matters of which I
   shall have to speak this morning in the name of the Lord, taken, as I
   am quite certain, from His own Words, there will be some things strange
   and unusual which may possibly sound harshly in your ears. Be not
   astonished, for the Gospel is one of those thoughts of God which is not
   our thought--the whole system which Christ has ushered in is foreign to
   men, being as far above them as the heavens are above the earth! Our
   Lord's Kingdom is not of this world, otherwise His servants would do
   many things which now they forbear to do. The conduct of the subjects
   of that Kingdom must not be measured by the manners of others, for they
   are a people as peculiar as the Kingdom to which they belong.

   We have heard persons say, "I do not see it to be my duty to be so
   precise; it is not customary." What have you and I to do with custom?
   If things are right, but not in fashion, let us start the fashion! And
   when it is the fashion to do wrong, let us be desperately
   unfashionable! Our Master, evidently, from the verses before us, did
   not come into the world to teach us to conform to the ways of our
   fellow men! He would have us go far beyond the ordinary conduct of our
   fellows. He asked in His Sermon on the Mount, "What do you more than
   others?" He ordains a standard far above the common standard of mankind
   when He says, again and again, "What credit is that to you? For sinners
   also do even the same."

   "Oh," one may say at the close of my sermon, "the preacher demands more
   of us than can reasonably be expected from flesh and blood." Your
   charge is correct! But then, the preacher is not addressing himself to
   you as to flesh and blood, but as to those who are possessed of a far
   higher principle, namely, the indwelling Spirit of God! True Believers
   walk not after the flesh, nor do they mind the things of it, for they
   are clothed with the energy of the Spirit of God and by His power their
   lives are lifted above the common walks of men. If it is so that the
   Spirit of God dwells in you, you are of another nature than the men of
   this world--and it is to be expected that you should live after a
   nobler fashion.

   What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and
   godliness? We live under a spirit whose Law is perfection and,
   therefore, a little fault causes us much self-condemnation. We judge
   ourselves by a severer rule than we would apply to others, for our
   privileges and responsibilities are exceptionally great. I allow in
   other men what I would denounce in myself. I could approve in some men
   actions which, to me, also, would be lawful but would not be expedient
   upon the higher rule of glorifying God in all things! When I have heard
   of certain deeds of unconverted and unenlightened men, I have excused
   them, saying, "Poor souls, considering who they are and where they are,
   their conduct is not so heavily to be blamed." And yet if I had behaved
   one half as badly, there would have been rebellion and presumption in
   the deed!

   For favored children there is a different law from that which governs
   common subjects. That which is passed over in strangers is atrocious
   when it comes from a bosom friend. You are not under Law, but under
   Grace and, being under Grace, you feel the force of a constraint even
   holier and higher than mere Law could put upon you. If you are what you
   profess to be, my Brothers and Sisters, more is expected from you than
   from any other men beneath the sun and, therefore, I shall throw aside
   all hesitancy in setting before you a supreme standard and asking of
   you what we never can get from sinners, nor from men of the world. Know
   you not that your Lord has said, "Except your righteousness shall
   exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no
   case enter the Kingdom of Heaven"?

   If I were called to address an ordinary company of men and women upon
   feats of valor, I might speak with bated breath if I exhorted them to
   heroism in war. But if I had lived some thousands of years ago and had
   been called upon to talk to Spartan warriors all equipped for
   battle--men engraved and scored with the scars of conflict--I should
   set no bounds to my exhortations! I would bestir them as a lion arouses
   the young lions and urges them to the prey. I should tell them that
   their name and parentage should not be disgraced by the idea of defeat,
   but that they must expect victory and seize it as their right! No
   orator would have spoken to Spartans as to Baeotians--it was their very
   life and business to fight--and deeds of prowess were, therefore, to be
   expected of them.

   Is it not so with you, you followers of the Crucified? Your martyrs and
   confessors call upon you to lead a life beyond that of common men. I
   say all this because to certain of you a sort of apology may seem
   necessary for the strong things that may be said before you at this
   time. May God's Holy Spirit come upon you and make you strong enough
   for all the strong things, glorifying Himself in your weakness!

   I. Our first observation in plunging into our discourse is this. MUCH
   THAT IS NATURALLY GOOD MAY FALL FAR SHORT OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. Do
   not make the mistake of saying that moral excellence is not good. Some
   have broadly declared that there is no good thing in an unconverted
   man, but this is scarcely true. It will generally be so understood that
   its meaning will be false and this is a great pit--we must not utter
   falsehoods in order to honor God. There is a great deal of good--good
   under certain senses and aspects of the term, "good"--in many
   unconverted people. Many who are total strangers to the Grace of God
   exhibit sparkling forms of the human virtues in integrity, generosity,
   kindness, courage, self-sacrifice and patience.

   I could wish that some who call themselves Christians were, in certain
   respects, as good as others whom I know of who have never borne the
   Christian name! It is always right to speak the truth and truth obliges
   me to say as much as this. This ought to make professors very seriously
   in earnest to judge themselves lest they should mistake natural
   amiabil-

   ity and morality for the fruit of the Spirit of God. If the question is
   whether our character is the offspring of Nature or of Grace, it will
   be a sad thing if the verdict should turn out to be that it is the dead
   child of Nature finely dressed, but not the living child of Divine
   Grace!

   We may be decorated with gems which glitter and glow and yet they may
   be mere paste and none of them the work of God's Spirit. We may be
   adorned from head to foot with that which is lovely and of good repute,
   but, for all that, we may come short of what God requires of us because
   inwardly our heart is not in accordance with our outward array. The
   platter is clean, it could not be cleaner--but while the filth remains
   within--it cannot be acceptable with God. Observe the three things
   mentioned in the text against which there is no law, but of which much
   is to be spoken in commendation. These acts are good, but they do not
   come up to Christ's standard.

   The first is, "If you love them which love you." It is very proper and
   seemly that kindly feelings should awaken kindly feelings in return. To
   those who are friendly to us, we should also be friendly. We say, "Love
   begets love," and it is natural that it should do so. Yet I am sorry to
   say that though this is no more than a natural excellence, it is not,
   by any means, so common as to be universal. There are children who do
   not love parents who toiled and slaved for them in their
   childhood--they grow up to exhibit a strange hardness of heart to the
   authors of their existence. I know brothers who do not love the most
   affectionate and amiable of sisters and it is grievous to have to add
   that there are many husbands, brutal husbands, who do not love their
   wives who are sacrificing their lives out of love to them and their
   little ones.

   I blush to think of the many instances which I could quote, but there
   is no need--you know it is so! Thousands have never reached so high as
   this standard, "If you love them which love you." But even if we reach
   as high as that, it is by no means a great attainment, is it? Our Lord
   says that sinners also love those that love them. Divine Grace is not
   needed to make a man the loving husband of a tender wife! Divine Grace
   is not needed to make affectionate sons and daughters-- we see them all
   around us! I am sure it does not require Grace in the hearts of the
   bulk of you to make you feel kindly towards those who treat you in a
   friendly manner! "For sinners also love those that love them."

   You have all come as far as that and such feeling is good--the more of
   it the better! Yet it is not up to the mark of Christ's teaching if it
   stands alone! It is not that for which the Holy Spirit has begotten us
   again! It is not that for which Christ has shed His precious blood!
   Higher virtue exists than that which loves them that love you! And here
   it is--we are to love them that hate us and treat us despitefully! Can
   you love those who will not mention your name without grinding their
   teeth in envy, or sneering in scorn? Can you love those who have belied
   your character, who have done the best they can to ruin you and who
   will do the same again?

   Can you feel towards them an earnest desire for their present and
   eternal welfare? If you could do them good, would you delight to do it
   and repeat the deed until you had made them too happy to be malicious,
   too much indebted to continue at enmity? This would be glorious,
   indeed, especially if you could keep clear of all selfish motives in
   such a contest of love and would do it all, not because you want to
   seem a hero or to be something great, but simply because you delight to
   do good and feel it to be a pleasure to do that good where it is most
   needed, namely, where the spirit of enmity has the greatest power. This
   is high and I think I hear someone say, "I cannot attain it! I can love
   those who love me, but loving those that hate me is another matter! I
   shall have to look at the matter two or three times before I attempt
   it." I dare say you will, my Friend, and that is why it needs the work
   of God, Himself, to make us Christians! It needs Father, Son and Holy
   Spirit to work miracles of Divine Grace within as before we become
   Godlike. Godliness is Godlikeness and this is not easy to attain.

   The next thing, in the verses before us, is grateful return. "If you do
   good to them which do good to you, what credit is that to you?" It is a
   very right thing that if persons have served us, we should endeavor to
   repay the benefit. By common consent, "one good turn deserves another."
   I am sorry to say that though this is a very ordinary sort of virtue,
   it is not the most common thing in the world, for you may help others
   if you like, but I have heard that they do not always help you in
   return! I cannot speak from any painful experience, here, for all have
   been kind to me and I have had good measure, pressed down and running
   over, poured into my bosom. But I have met with men who have bitterly
   bewailed the ingratitude of those whom they had benefited. They claim
   to have helped others generously, but when their turn has come to need
   assistance they have not received it--I do not feel very sure about the
   aforesaid claim--but that is the way in which they talk.

   It is certainly a horrible thing that men should be ungrateful but yet,
   supposing that you, dear Hearer, are grateful and have lately taken
   special pains to do good to one who was good to you, what credit is
   that to you? You have done what you ought to have done and no more! You
   have paid an old debt as every honest man should do, but this does not
   prove you to be a Christian, for Christianity includes this and rises
   above it like the Alps above the surrounding plain! Followers of Jesus
   are called upon to do good to those who have done them harm. You know
   the old saying, "Evil for good is devil-like, evil for evil is
   beast-like, good for good is man-like, good for evil is God-like"? Rise
   to that God-like point! If a man has taken the bread out of your mouth,
   seize the first opportunity to help him to a livelihood. If he has
   bespattered you, be ready to forgive him, but say not a word against
   him! Watch for a time when, by great kindness, you may heap coals of
   fire on his head.

   "Hard teaching," says one. I know it is and harder doing, but it is
   blessed doing! It is sweet to render good for evil! There is a
   self-conquest about it which ennobles the soul more than the conquest
   of an empire! There is a getting near to Christ in such actions that
   has about it more of Heaven than all besides! That patient, persevering
   rendering of benefits for injuries, returning of favors for enmity
   gives us fellowship with Him who, when we were enemies, laid down His
   life for us! Oh, taste of this sweet Grace of forgiveness and see if it
   is not good! If you have before now never known Christian joy, you
   shall know it then! It is a high virtue. Nevertheless, to this we must
   come if we are to be the followers of Christ.

   Again, you note in the 34th verse that mention is made of helping
   others in a neighborly way with the expectation of their returning the
   friendly deed. "If you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what
   credit is that to you?" Temporary help is often rendered in the
   expectation that if ever we are in the same need, we shall only need to
   ask and receive the same aid. I lend you an axe and you will, one day,
   lend me a saw. You borrow my pail and you will lend me your flat
   iron--a neighborly sort of barter which goes on all around and ought to
   go on--but there is nothing very wonderful in it, for, after all, it is
   a sort of laying by in store--making your neighbor your banker for a
   while! I help you and you help me--a very proper thing to do and the
   more of such brotherly and neighborly co-operation, the better--but
   still, there is nothing so very virtuous in it.

   "What credit is that to you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to
   receive as much again." You as a Christian are to rise to something
   higher than this--namely, to be ready to help without the expectation
   of being helped again--ready to aid those who you are certain could not
   help you! You must be ready to help those who are too poor, even, to
   come to your rescue, yes, and ready to help those who would not help
   you if they could--who may even return your kindness with words of
   falsehood and acts of unkindness! Can you rise to this? For this is to
   be a Christian! This is to be like your heavenly Father who sends His
   rain upon the just and upon the unjust; who causes His sun to shine
   upon the fields of the churl as well as upon the gardens of the
   liberal! This is to be like your Master who gives and gives and gives
   and receives nothing in return!

   It is the Glory of God that He is too great, too full, too glorious to
   be dependent upon us! He is an ever-flowing Fountain, pouring forth
   incalculable torrents of infinite blessings upon the sons of men! After
   our measure we are to be the same--we are to aspire to the higher
   happiness of which our Lord said, "It is more blessed to give than to
   receive." Here is the dignity, the heavenliness of happiness--not to be
   receiving from others--but to be freely distributing to them. May God
   help us to imitate our God in doing good, hoping for nothing in return!
   Thus, Brothers and Sisters, I think I have shown you that there are
   certain good things in the world which, nevertheless, do not reach to
   the standard of Christian virtue. This holds good of all religions
   actions. You go to the House of God--so do the heathens go to the house
   of their god. You spend certain times in prayer--so do the Muslims.

   You are very devout--so are Parsees. You are known to be a religious
   man--so were a great many who have turned out to be rogues. You are a
   deacon, or other Church officer--yes, so were certain bank directors
   who were none the more honest for that. But you are a preacher, yes,
   and so was Judas who hanged himself and so went to his own place.
   Religious acts count for nothing unless there is a true heart at the
   back of them! These things ought we to have done, but if we leave heart
   work undone, nothing is done! Sinners also perform their religious acts
   and besides these, some of them exhibit many external virtues and yet
   they manifestly fail to approach the standard or Christian virtue. The
   road is the same and men may travel in it apparently in the same
   direction--and yet they may be journeying with totally different
   motives--the first may be on the King's business, the next may be a
   footpad and the third an escaped convict running from justice.

   The same thing may be done by a hundred different men and apparently
   done in the same way and yet only one of them may be doing it in God's
   way and doing it with the sincere motive of honoring and glorifying
   God--the 99, though studiously aiming to make the outward action
   correct, may, nevertheless, fail as to acceptance with God because
   their motive and spirit are altogether wrong. Oh, it shames me when I
   sit down and look over my life and enquire, "Is this a life a Christian
   ought to live?" Does not the same question arise in your minds? Do you
   not feel, in many points, that even unconverted men have excelled you?
   Do you not know some persons who are not Christians who are,
   nevertheless, more patient than you in the endurance of pain? Do you
   not know unbelievers who are generous to a high degree and show much of
   self-sacrifice in helping their poor neighbors? Do you not know men
   whose devotion to science is greater than your devotion to Christ?

   Are there not within your knowledge persons who have loved their
   country better than you have loved your Lord? Do not these thoughts
   provoke you to something better? They make me blush and cause my heart
   to weep! What manner of person ought I to be, when those who do not
   profess to know the mysteries of everlasting love rise to such courage
   in battle, such endurance in pushing over seas of ice? What ought I to
   become when my Lord calls me to be His disciple? Where are the fruits
   of my discipleship? What am I doing to bring Him honor? If even a text
   like this staggers me and I say it is a hard lesson, where, where must
   I be in the sight of God who sees all my failures?

   II. Secondly, dear Friends, I want you to notice that CHRISTIAN VIRTUE
   IS, IN MANY RESPECTS, EXTRAORDINARY AND MIGHT BE CALLED HEROIC. To
   illustrate this, I will confine myself to the Gospel according to Luke.
   In the passage that we have been reading we evidently have a form of
   virtue which is quite out of the ordinary range of men's thoughts. It
   concerns love. "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and
   pray for them which despitefully use you." In the point of love,
   kindness, consideration for men's needs and desire to do good, the
   Christian life is to rise above every other till it becomes sublime!
   Heathen moralists recommended kindness, but they did not suggest its
   being lavished upon enemies.

   I have been somewhat amused by the caution of Cicero. He says,
   "Kindness must not be shown to a youth, nor to an old man--not to the
   aged, because he is likely to die before he can have an occasion to
   repay you the benefit--and not to the young man, for he is sure to
   forget it." Those of as who are middle-aged may value the orator's
   generosity as we like, but we may reflect that he only recommends its
   exercise towards us because we are likely to be good debtors and pay
   back what we receive, perhaps, with interest! That gentle laugh which
   ripples over the congregation is the best refutation of such barefaced
   selfishness! Our Lord bids us seek no reward from men and He assures us
   that then a greater reward will come! We shall, by shunning it, secure
   it! We shall find a reward in being unrewarded!

   See how our Lord puts it--"When you make a dinner or a supper, call not
   your friends, nor your brethren, neither your kinsmen, nor your rich
   neighbors lest they, also, bid you again and a recompense be made you.
   But when you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame and the
   blind: and you shall be blessed; for they cannot recompense you: for
   you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Next, read
   Luke 9:54, 55 and you will see that the Christian is to rise above
   human passion in the matter of gentleness. James and John, when Christ
   was not received by the Samaritan villagers, said, "Will You that we
   command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?" But Jesus
   rebuked them and said, "You know not what manner of spirit you are of,
   for the Son of Man did not com to destroy men's lives, but to save
   them. And they went to another village."

   A Christian should be ready to give way. He should be quiet, peaceable,
   gentle. If, in trying to do good, he wishes to bless certain people and
   they refuse to hear him, let him not grow indignant and denounce the
   offenders, but let him change the scene and carry his message to those
   who, perhaps, are hungering for it! He may go round, again, very
   shortly to those who repulsed him and find them in a better mind. Be
   gentle, Brother--soft words are hard to answer. They refused you at
   first, try them again! At any rate, be not provoked, for then they will
   have conquered you. Christians ought to be the gentlest beings under
   Heaven--they are sent forth as lambs among wolves--and they are called
   to be harmless as doves. Such meekness will astonish and amaze their
   adversaries and crown the religion of Jesus with honor.

   In the elevation of his joy, the Christian is also to rise above all
   other men. He may rejoice as they do in the common bounties of
   Providence, but that joy is to hold very secondary rank. Even in his
   own success as a Christian worker he takes but measured satisfaction.
   Read Luke 10:20 and see what is the source of his truest
   delight--"Notwithstanding in this, rejoice not that the spirits are
   subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in
   Heaven." Is not

   a Believer a wonderful being, since even spiritual power and victory
   over the devil do not excite him, but he finds his joy in a fact which
   is quite out of himself and fixed by the unchangeable decree of God?

   The Christian is heroic, next, in his fearlessness. Turn to the 12th
   chapter, verse 4 and there find Christ saying to His disciples--"Be not
   afraid of them that kill the body and after that have no more that they
   can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear Him, which
   after He has killed, has power to cast into Hell." The genuine
   Christian stands not in fear of public opinion and dreads not the frown
   of those whom God frowns upon. The true Believer is to be willing to
   bear reproach, yes, and to bear much more than reproach, as saints of
   God have done time out of mind. So far from flinching from suffering,
   we are not even to give it a thought as to how we shall speak if we are
   brought before kings and rulers, for a part of the Christian's heroism
   is to lie in his calm self-possession.

   See how the Lord puts it in the 11th verse: "When they bring you unto
   the synagogues and unto magistrates and powers, take you no thought how
   or what thing you shall answer, or what you shall say: for the Holy
   Spirit shall teach you in the same hour what you ought to say." The
   same man who is so gentle that if men will not listen to him, he goes
   elsewhere, is so steadfast that he cannot be silenced! Bold as a lion
   he stands before his accusers and he is not troubled as to how he shall
   put his words together, for he relies upon the indwelling Spirit whom
   the world cannot receive because it sees Him not, neither knows Him!
   Relying upon that Spirit, he speaks when the time comes to speak and it
   is the right word, as his adversaries are compelled to confess! Or he
   is silent while it is time to be silent and even in that silence there
   is an awe which is felt by those round about him. After this fashion is
   he to play the man.

   See how far the true Believer is lifted up above the world, as you turn
   to Luke 12:22 where the Lord bids us cultivate a holy ease of heart as
   to all temporal things. The rich man finds his wealth in his bursting
   barns, but the Believer finds his treasure in the all-sufficiency of
   His God. The Savior says, "Take no thought for your life, what you
   shall eat; neither for the body, what you shall put on. The life is
   more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. For all these things
   do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knows that you
   have need of these things." See, Brothers and Sisters, the Spirit of
   God is to lift us up above all fretful cares--we are to feel that the
   Father will provide for us in this world and that Jesus will never
   leave us comfortless.

   Because He is our Shepherd and we cannot want, we are to dwell at ease
   and lie down in green pastures like a peaceful, restful flock.
   Covetousness is not to approach us, for a man's life consists not in
   the abundance of the things which he possesses. The desire to heap
   together a vast mass of wealth prevents the enjoyment of that which is
   already gained and this must not come near an heir of Heaven! As to
   temporal things, we are to be constantly calm, content, grateful and
   trustful, relying upon the bounty of our God. This freedom from anxiety
   constitutes a main part of the Christian character and is so uncommon
   as to lift its possessor far above men of the world.

   Another point in which Christian heroism is seen is in humility and in
   delight in service. Turn to the 14th chapter and see our Lord's
   directions to His disciples not to seek out the highest, but rather the
   lowest place, for, He says, "Whoever exalts himself shall be abased and
   he that humbles himself shall be exalted." Habitually a Christian man
   is to have a modest esteem of himself. He is never to be known as one
   who is forward, self-seeking, self-asserting. Men who are highly
   esteemed of themselves are seldom justified by the verdict of their
   fellow men. No, a Christian man is to be one who is ready to do
   anything for the good of others, however lowly the service. He will
   wash the saints' feet. He will be a door-keeper in the house of the
   Lord, if he may but serve his Brothers and Sisters and glorify his
   Master.

   "Where are these Christian people?" asks a hearer. "Where are these
   good and humble people? I cannot find them!" Are you not one of them,
   yourself? If you are not, make the confession and go before God and ask
   Him to set you right. And when you are of a lowly, loving spirit,
   yourself, you will find others of a like mind! I must admit that they
   are not easy to come by, but when you are meek and lowly you will find
   them on the principle that like draws to like and birds of a feather
   flock together. That is not the Christian spirit which turns even the
   kingdom of Heaven into an arena for ambition, but that man has the mind
   of Christ who becomes the servant of all for Christ's sake. That is not
   the Christian spirit which, under pretense of seeking liberty in the
   Church, craves after lordship and self-display. Those who are under
   this influence will have no rule in the Church of God except their own
   rule--they are too heady and high-minded to submit themselves to those
   who are over them in the Lord. The spirit of Christianity is lowly,
   yielding, easily to be entreated, seeking not itself. This is a chief
   point in the peculiarity of the peculiar people.

   Furthermore, there should be about the Christian a faith which there is
   not in an other. (See Luke 17:6). He should have an eye to see that
   which is invisible and an arm to lean on that which he cannot feel. He
   should act upon facts which others may accept as theories but would
   never dream of risking a shilling upon. Believers, you are to be the
   men and women who can say to mountains, "Become plains," and to
   sycamine trees, "Be you plucked up by the roots." You are to work
   miracles, not physical and material, but spiritual and mental which are
   no less, but even more marvelous than wonders of healing or
   resurrection!

   The next verse of this 17th chapter shows us that Christians are to be
   men of service. They are not to think that they came into the world to
   sit at a banquet, but they are to wait on their Master while He sits at
   the table. Too many appear to consider that the services of the
   sanctuary are intended merely to feed them--they never look upon the
   House of God as a barracks for soldiers, or a place where workmen come
   together to sharpen their tools--they only regard it as a sacred
   buttery, a spiritual larder, or a heavenly refectory where much is to
   be received and little or nothing returned. O Brothers and Sisters, we
   must get out of the cramping influence of the spirit which makes even
   religion a selfish provision for ourselves! We must scorn that skulking
   away from trouble and fatigue which creeps over men of growing years
   and increasing wealth!

   We are to SERVE, not to recline at our ease! What are we doing that we
   are so anxious to rest ourselves and benefit ourselves? The Lord Jesus
   Christ would not have us always be asking, "How can I be happy? How can
   I obtain spiritual enjoyment?" Servants are not supposed to spend their
   time in doing their own pleasure and seeking their own profit. A
   man-servant whose whole time was taken up with watching his own wealth
   would be of small value to his employer. Even so, we have something
   else to do beyond watching over our own inward feelings! To snatch a
   brand from the burning is better than to warm your own hands! To feed a
   hungry soul with the Bread of Heaven is a far higher deed than to eat
   the fat and drink the sweet yourself! There is more plunging your arm
   up to the elbow in the mire to find a jewel for Christ than in washing
   one's idle hands with the scented soap of respectable propriety.

   Oh, to get clean away from all ideas of self-seeking in religion! We
   are, first of all, saved by Grace like drowning mariners snatched from
   the deep--but afterwards we are taught to man the lifeboat, ourselves,
   for the rescue of others from destruction! Christianity finds me a
   soldier wounded in battle and it heals my wounds--but it does far more
   than that--it girds me with armor, it gives me a sword, it teaches me
   to fight and it makes a hero of me if I yield myself to its full power!
   God grant it may do this for every one of us!

   III. I will now close with the reflection that THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
   SUPPLIES DUE NOURISHMENT

   FOR THE MOST HEROIC LIFE. Bear with me while I show you this in a few
   sentences. First, the economy of Grace requires it. You and I must have
   been chosen to lead a life higher than that of ordinary men or else why
   all this noise and stir at all? We see Heaven and earth and Hell in
   motion. God vacates His Throne and becomes a Man. Immortality puts on
   flesh and blood and dies! The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in these
   bodies of clay while angels look on and wonder! Surely here is the
   groundwork and argument of something supremely good!

   Look at that angel, bright and sparkling like a flame of fire! What
   trouble did it cost the Creator to make him? A thought sufficed to do
   it. God willed it and there stood the helmed cherubim and sworded
   seraphim before Him in all their glittering ranks. What will that
   creature be which has been the subject of eternal purposes, which has
   cost the Father the heart-pang of giving up His only Son--cost the Son
   a bloody sweat--cost the Spirit the exercise of His Omnipotence? Such a
   creature you and I shall yet become. We are on the road to it! Great
   things ought to come of us if that is what we are and are growing to.
   May this thought nourish us to the highest life.

   Think again, Brethren, we are helped to holy heroism by the reward
   which it brings, for our blessed Master, though He bids us spurn the
   thought of reward on earth, yet tells us that there is a reward in the
   thing itself! Just follow my text in the 35th verse--"Love your
   enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your
   reward shall be great." What reward? Why, the reward of having done
   good! That is quite enough. If you go to your brother who has treated
   you so badly, and say, "Brother, we are going to be friends," and you
   manage to heal all wounds, you will not need any other reward! You will
   sleep sweetly at night and the music that awakes you in the morning
   will be sweet as the bells of Heaven.

   Suppose you have an enemy and persistently do him all the good you can?
   You will not wish to be paid for it--it is such a grand thing to have
   acted like a Christian that you will be blessed in the deed! I believe
   that martyrs at the stake,

   when they stood and burned for Christ, felt in every pang thousand
   times rewarded by possessing the Grace which enabled them to endure to
   the end! They felt, "We are doing the right thing. We are testifying to
   the Truth of our beloved Lord." And if they had possessed a thousand
   lives, they would cheerfully have laid all down for Jesus! Therefore,
   do not be so mercenary as to expect to be paid in dirty bronze and
   tarnished silver, but ask to find your recompense in the Spirit by
   which you are led to do good and in the smile of your heavenly Father!

   Then, remember this to fire your ambition--you shall be children of the
   Highest! Those who can rise into the heroic life shall be as God! The
   gentle, patient, peaceable, kind, loving, forgiving,
   affectionate--these shall be known to be the sons of God and is this
   nothing? Oh, if there is a grain of nobility in your natures, you will
   make this the highest ambition of your lives--to be like God! What is
   more than that? We are expected to be like God because we are His
   children! "You shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind
   unto the unthankful and to the evil." We expect to see something of the
   father in the child. If we are children of God, we ought to do what
   others never think of. If you are the children of God, remember what a
   Brother you have and what an example He has set for you. He disdained
   to live unto Himself, for He left the Throne of Glory to come down to
   Bethlehem's manger, to a carpenter's shop and to a servant's life!

   The other night I heard read at family prayer the story of our Lord at
   the supper table. Jesus, knowing that He came from God and went to God,
   took a towel and girded Himself and began to wash His disciples' feet.
   Ah, when I thought of Him whom all Heaven worships--our blessed,
   blessed Master--actually coming round with a basin to wash the
   disciples' feet, I felt my eyes fill with tears and I sympathized with
   Peter when he cried, "Do You wash my feet?" It seemed a stoop too great
   for our Lord and King thus to act a menial's part. Is there anything
   which can seem too mean for you and me after beholding such
   condescension?

   If that sight touches you not, let me remind you of a further scene--He
   went into Gethsemane and there He knelt and prayed for you and me until
   He was covered with a gory sweat and great drops of blood followed each
   other to the ground! Is there any pain that we would not face? Is there
   any reproach we could not bear after this, for His dear sake? Does not
   that awaken you? Will you, after this, be proud and claim honor from
   your brethren and grow angry if it is refused? Come with me once again,
   for He goes to the Cross and there He hangs. It is your Lord, remember!
   See, the iron pass through His hands--it is your Lord who is thus
   maimed! The nails tear through His feet--the feet of your Lord! He
   wears a diadem as monarch, but it is a coronet of thorns--it is your
   Lord who is thus crowned! He wears crimson, too, but it is His own
   blood--and He is your own Lord!

   He has not a rag, for they have stripped Him, yes, stripped and
   scourged your Lord! And they are hissing at Him, jesting at His prayers
   and scoffing at His cries--all this at your Lord! And what of you? The
   other day you were ashamed to acknowledge that you were His disciple.
   Are you not disgusted at such cowardice? You were silent the other day
   when sinners were blaspheming Him--you were stingy when His poor people
   needed help! You refused to give when His Church and His cause knocked
   at your door! You would not forgive a fellow Christian the other day
   and you parted company with one who had been your friend for years--and
   all for a hot word!

   And yet you call yourself a Christian? Yes, and I, too, am a Christian
   and have my own private cause for self-humiliation--and that is our
   Master bleeding there. How can we bear to look Him in the face? What
   sorry disciples we are! O blessed Master, let Your blood drop on us
   till You have blotted out these many faults of ours and made us like
   Yourself! Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Truthfulness

   (No. 1585)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "O Lord, are not Your eyes upon the truth?" Jeremiah 5:3.

   THE allusion is not to doctrinal Truth of God, or truth in the
   abstract, but to practical truth as it should exist in the hearts and
   lives of men. It might be read, "Lord, are not Your eyes upon
   truthfulness?" Or, "upon faithfulness?" The Lord bade them produce a
   single truthful man in all Jerusalem and Jeremiah answers that if truth
   were to be found, the Lord Himself best knew where it was, for His eyes
   were always upon it. In this chapter you must have noticed, when I was
   reading it, that we have a fearful description of the condition of
   things in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah. We have also a most
   melancholy set of pictures of untruthful men which are drawn to the
   life with a grimly graphic touch which strangely reminds me of the
   series of Hogarth's sketches known as, "the Rake's Progress." They hold
   the mirror up not only to the life, but to the heart of the men of the
   times.

   Jerusalem was rotten to the core--the nation was deceitful through and
   through. In the 27th verse we read, "As a cage is full of birds, so are
   their houses full of deceit." They had schemes without number, plots
   without end and tricks without limit moving about in their minds like
   birds herded together in a little cage. What worse could be said? When
   a heart is untruthful and crooked--when uprightness has gone from
   it--then is it prepared to be the seed plot of every evil thing. Any
   crime is possible to a liar! He who is rotten with falsehood will tear
   at the touch of temptation. A man of bold, outspoken vice is far more
   hopeful than a sly, cunning hypocrite! These untruthful people began
   with acting untruthfully towards their fellow men. God challenges them
   to run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and see whether they
   could find a man that executed judgment and sought the truth.

   He says that they were not even commonly honest towards those persons
   whose necessities generally plead for favor. "They judge not the cause,
   the cause of the fatherless and the right of the needy do they not
   judge." They were not upright in cases where they should have been
   charitable. They even cheated the widow and the orphan! When a man has
   once become a rogue, all will be fish that comes to his net and he will
   as soon rob the fatherless as anybody else. Greed destroys common
   humanity. Cheating of men is a very common form of deceit, both in the
   open puffery of trade and the more quiet deceptions of daily life.
   Traders frequently think it useless to tell the honest truth, even, to
   one another and so society becomes a network of craft and falsehood. It
   is a dreadful thing when men are not to be trusted; when their word is
   but wind; when without its being to their advantage they would as soon
   lie as not.

   God save us from that form of untruthfulness, since it leads on to
   something worse, for in the second verse it is said that these people
   were faithless even to their oaths! "They say, 'Jehovah lives,' but
   surely they swear falsely." They dared to take that most sacred of all
   names upon their lips and call God to witness to a lie! He who has gone
   as far as falsehood will not always stop at perjury. That which makes
   our blood ran cold to think of may yet be perpetrated by us if we take
   the first steps in deceit. This being so--that they could perjure
   themselves--it is little wonder that they were not faithful to their
   marriage vows. I need not read the strong expression in which the
   Prophet sets forth the fornication and adultery which abounded in his
   day--when they did not hesitate to bring grief into their houses and
   the utmost sorrow and misery to their wives by indulging their
   passions--for he that is traitorous to God will soon be treacherous to
   all domestic ties.

   What can we expect, even, when a man is irreligious but that he will
   soon be impure if he is not already? I have marked it often that when
   men who profess to be religious decline from the ways of God, it often
   happens that if you track them home--not to the home of their wife and
   children, but to their favorite haunts--you will discover a corruption
   of life of which the external observer little dreamed! Only Judgment
   Day will reveal how many hearths have been desolated, how many hearts
   have been broken by the cruel unfaithfulness of husbands who have
   crushed those whom they vowed to cherish! This is one of the meanest
   forms of falsehood--false to their marriage vows as well as to
   everything

   else! It is small wonder that they were false to the plain teachings of
   Providence, for it is written that "they have belied the Lord and said,
   It is not He."

   When God had been chastening, they said, "It is not God. It is bad
   luck: it is fate: time and chance happen unto all." They would not see
   the hand of God! Do you wonder that when men have corrupt and crooked
   hearts they should not be able to see God's plain and truthful
   proceedings or that when they do see them they deny them?" "There is no
   God," they say, "Or if there is a God, He does not meddle with the
   things of daily life." "It is cant and hypocrisy," they say, "to talk
   about our troubles coming from God! He does not interfere with human
   affairs. The laws of matter, the principles of na-ture--these govern
   all things. God has set the world going like a clock and left it to its
   own wheels and pendulum! Or, better still, He has wound it up like a
   watch and put it under His pillow and has gone to sleep. How does God
   know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?"

   These men were liars, I say, and all who talk in their fashion are
   liars, too. These wretches hesitated not to lie against the eternal
   Light of that thrice blessed Providence which shines in all the lives
   of men--yes, shines like the daylight to men who are commonly honest
   and are willing to see. It needs no great learning to perceive the
   Presence of God all around us. The greatest need is an upright, candid
   mind. This being so, these men cast off God, Himself--the first step is
   to put Him out of the field of action and the next is to have done with
   Him altogether--to substitute other gods. According to the 19th verse,
   these people had forsaken God and served strange gods. Superstition
   follows on the heels of unbelief, for bad men are frequently among the
   most ardent votaries of superstition.

   Cast off a pure God and you need a god of some sort and so every man
   manufactures a god for himself to his liking. The earthy mind of the
   heathen makes a god of mud. The man whose soul is bound up in his bags
   makes the golden calf his deity. The dreamy thinker evolves an airy
   nothing out of his own imagination. The free-thinker invents a god who
   has no justice and, consequently, takes no vengeance upon sin. Man
   looks for God and thinks he sees Him when he sees himself in a mirror!
   By nature every man is his own deity--he worships his own image. It is
   only the man that is pure in heart that can see God, for what the man
   is, that will his god be to him--but these men cast off God and set up
   superstitious beliefs of their own and, therefore, false gods were
   their choice.

   And, worst of all, if there can possibly be worse, when a man once
   gives himself up to a deceitful heart, he gets to be a destroyer of
   others. Notice the 26th verse. "They lay wait, as he that sets snares;
   they set a trap, they catch men." Not content with being lost,
   themselves, they became the servants of Satan to destroy others! Oh, it
   is a lamentable thing to think that there are persons whose lips drop
   moral plagues among youth whenever they speak--whose conduct and
   example are such that they might well be put in an everlasting
   quarantine and shut away like lepers, especially from youth, lest they
   should infect the rising race! I hope that I do not speak to anyone
   here who is a man-catcher--who sets traps to catch men, aiming to
   pervert, to corrupt, to mislead, to beguile. Such fiends in human form
   have surely reached the last stage of corruption when they not only
   sin, themselves, but are the creators of sin in others!

   Look well at this picture of the progress of the deceitful. They begin
   with being dishonest to their fellow men and at last it comes to
   this--that they become Satan's commissioned agents, trappers for the
   devil, fowlers who ensnare men as bird catchers take the winged fowl!
   This was the state of affairs in Jeremiah's time. We have not, I trust,
   quite such a condition of things among us today, as a plague
   universally prevalent, but we have much of the disease of deceit in all
   quarters, high and low, and to what a head it may come, time, alone,
   can tell! The appeal of Jeremiah was that of a holy man to God. He
   says, in effect, "O Lord, are not Your eyes such that You can detect
   what is truth and what is deceit? You spy out the truth. That which is
   brought to You as worship, You can tell whether it is sincere or not.
   You can see the pretender's face through his mask and read his heart
   through his outward profession. Your eyes spy out the facts which lie
   beneath the covering of appearances. You can discern between the
   righteous and the wicked."

   Yes, God is the detector of shams and counterfeits and by His
   infallible Judgment the precious shall be severed from the vile--"for
   the Lord is a God of judgment and by Him actions are weighed." "Are not
   Your eyes upon the truth?" That is, "Do You not discover truthfulness
   wherever it exists?" The Prophet had bid them go through the streets
   and search for an honest man, but he, in effect, cries, "Lord, You know
   where he is if there is one yet remaining." God has not to search with
   a lantern to find a truthful man, for, "the Lord knows them that are
   His." Lot in Sodom is like a lone bird on the mountains, but the Lord
   perceived him. The truthful ones are often hidden from mankind, but the
   eyes of

   God are steadfastly fixed upon them, as it is written, "The eyes of the
   Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open to their cry."

   The Lord can detect imposters, but He can also discover truthfulness
   and we may be sure He will do it. The Prophet also means that God
   approved of that which He discovered. "Are not Your eyes upon the
   truth?" You will not look upon hypocrisy--it is Your abhorrence and You
   will not turn Your eyes that way. Your eyes burn like fire to consume
   those that would impose upon You, but as for those that are sincere of
   heart, You love them and watch over them to do them good. They are
   never out of Your sight. They leave not Your Presence! They bask in
   Your smile. O Lord, are not Your eyes upon truthfulness, to approve of
   it, to help it, to defend it, to vindicate it even to the last?

   Let this which has gone before stand for a preface. And now let us come
   to the practical instructions which our text should yield us.

   I. I think that there are four lessons and the first is THE UTTER FOLLY
   OF ALL PRETENCE. Hypocrisy is useless altogether, for God sees through
   it. You may, by great cleverness, delude your fellow men for a while,
   though you will find it a poor and difficult business. But you can
   never deceive God. It is not that you may deceive the Lord for a little
   time and then afterwards be discovered. No, you cannot mislead Him even
   for an instant. He reads us as we read a book. He sees through us as we
   see through a sheet of clear glass. The instantaneous imagination which
   flits across the mind like a stray bird leaving no track nor trace, God
   observes and knows it altogether.

   To pretend to be other than we are before God is a hideous madness.
   Surely, Satan, himself, must laugh in his sleeve at those who come
   before God with words of piety on their lips when there is no devotion
   in their hearts--it is the comedy of a tragic blasphemy! It is utterly
   useless. It is a waste of time and energy. It were infinitely better
   that you were doing something else than dress and paint and put on
   ornaments to go before God who sees you in your spiritual death to be
   nothing but naked corruption. May God grant that we may never play the
   fool in this way, for playing the fool it is-- to hope to appear before
   Him otherwise than what we really are deep down in our hearts.

   Nor is it only useless, it is hilarious for any man to hope that he can
   stand better with God by speaking more softly than his heart would
   suggest, or by using words which his soul does not really enter into!
   It is, in reality, to be doing the reverse of what he thinks to do. You
   spoil your sacrifice if there is any tincture of the odious gall of
   hypocrisy about it. Oh, if the Pharisee did but know that when he made
   broad the borders of his garments, put on his phylactery and sounded a
   trumpet before him in the streets he was not pleasing God, but was
   actually provoking Him, surely he would have sense enough to mend his
   ways!

   Everything about you and me that is unreal, God hates, and hates it
   more in His own people than anywhere else! If in prayer we use
   expressions that really do not come from our hearts, or if in talking
   to our fellow men we stick feathers in our caps to be a little taller
   and finer than we really are, it is abhorrent in the sight of God! He
   would sooner have us come before Him in all the nakedness and shame of
   our first parents and stand there and confess our crimes than dress
   ourselves out in the fig leaves of formality and hypocrisy. Pretence is
   injurious to men as well as useless--it is not only an empty wind--but
   it is as the breath of pestilence.

   Moreover, pretense is deadening, for he that begins with tampering with
   truth will, as I have already shown you, go on from bad to worse. He
   may say at first, "Is your servant a dog, that he should do this
   thing?" And yet, like a dog, he will go into all manner of filthiness
   before he has done. Let a man once begin to tamper with his conscience,
   to play tricks with words and especially to trifle with the solemnities
   of religion--and there is no telling what he will be or do! Oh, I
   charge my tongue, as I charge yours, never to use a word which is not
   true when speaking with God or for God, for falsehood before the Judge
   of all the earth is blasphemy! When we think of Him in our secret souls
   we must be careful not to allow a false idea, for it is dreadful, even,
   to think an untruth before God.

   Falsehood in common life must not be tolerated for a moment. Once begin
   to sail by the wind of policy and trickery and you must tack and then
   tack again and again--and as surely as you are alive, you will yet have
   to tack again! But if you have the motive force of truth within you as
   a steamboat has its own engine, then you can go straight in the teeth
   of wind and tempest. The man of truth is the true man. He is the man to
   honor God in life and death. He is the man to fear nothing and win
   everything. He is the man whom the Lord accepts, who feels that if the
   heavens fall it is not for him to prop them with a lie if that could
   make them stand! He is the man who is resolved to be before God and
   before man just

   what he is, wearing his heart upon his sleeve and throwing back every
   shutter of his soul that the Divine Eye may inspect all! "Blessed is
   the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, in whose
   spirit there is no guile."

   This freedom from guile is a main ingredient of the blessedness. The
   conscience must be clear and honest or it will gather dust and
   defilement every day and the man will wax worse and worse. And there is
   this to be added--that falsehood and pretense before God are damnable!
   I cannot use a less forcible word than that. Pretence fatally condemns
   men if it is continued in. I have noticed in reference to conversions
   one noteworthy fact. I would not wish to assert as a general rule that
   which happens to be the result of my personal observation, but be the
   rule what it may, all the world over, this one thing is a statement of
   my own experience--I have constantly seen almost all sorts of people
   converted--great blasphemers, pleasure-seekers, thieves, drunkards,
   unchaste persons and hardened reprobates--but rarely have I seen a man
   converted who has been a thorough-paced liar.

   I might have been still more correct if I had said never to my
   knowledge have I seen a wily, crafty man of cunning become a disciple
   of Jesus! The heart which is crammed with craft and treachery seems as
   if it had passed out of the reach of Divine Grace. You remember that
   the ground which brought forth fruit when the sower went forth to sow
   is called "honest and good ground." There was nothing good in it
   spiritually, but it was honest, true, sincere and, so far, "good." Give
   me plain-spokenness and I have hope for a man. If a fellow can look you
   straight in the eyes, you can deal with him. An open-hearted sailor,
   honest as the noonday sun, puts on no imitation of religion, but is
   evidently a bad fellow, a very bad fellow and yet, when the Grace of
   God enables him to listen to the Gospel, how he sucks it in and with
   what heartiness he responds to it!

   How very different it is with that clever gentleman who always attends
   a place of worship and knows how to raise quibbles and to answer texts
   of Scripture--and to blunt the edge of any Truth of God that touches
   his conscience! You know him, do you not? He is a great sorrow to me.
   What a mischief-maker he is in all sorts of circles and what a fetcher
   and carrier of religious gossip! He slips in and out of Gospel services
   like a dog in a fair and nothing ever comes of his running about. He is
   not good enough to be good to himself! How can you get at him? He knows
   all you can tell him and yet knows nothing in truth. He is harder to
   handle than an eel, for he is all twists and turns. The man is shut up
   in armor! He is cased all over with his lying self-deceitfulness and
   the arrows of the Truth of God are blunted when they touch his harness.
   May none of you ever grow into the likes of him.

   I charge you, above all things, be true. If Baal is God, serve him, but
   say so and do it in broad daylight. If the devil is your master, do not
   disown him--but do not be one of those mean sneaks who will serve God
   on Sundays and the devil when it pays them better! Be not one who will
   profess to be a Christian to be respectable--and under the cover of
   that will indulge in the most disreputable vices. Such a man, though
   never out of the reach of the infinite Grace of God--I never meant to
   say that--is usually the kind of man that the election of God does not
   light upon and that the Grace of God seldom visits. Amidst a very large
   and wide observation I have noticed the fact which I have stated and,
   therefore, I bid all pretenders look to themselves lest their bands be
   made strong and their death-irons be riveted on their wrists before
   they know of it.

   I would say to young persons beginning life, whatever errors you fall
   into, whatever mistakes you make, yes, and into whatever transgressions
   you may wander, be true. Wear no cloak of hypocrisy! Profess not to be
   what you are not! Never dare to jeopardize your soul by a lie!
   Remember, no way to Hell is surer than the way of deceit, for it is
   written, "All liars shall have their portion in the lake that burns
   with fire and brimstone." He that loves and makes a lie shall be cast
   away from the Presence of God and from the Glory of His power. May the
   Holy Spirit of Truth bless this warning as to the folly of making
   pretences and forging falsehoods before God.

   II. Our second lesson is THE GREAT VALUE OF TRUTHFULNESS. "O Lord, are
   not Your eyes upon truthfulness?" The great value of it is this--that
   it, alone, is regarded by God in matters of religion--His eyes are upon
   that which is truthful about us and all the rest is not worthy of His
   notice. For instance, suppose I say, "I repent." The question is--Do I
   really and from my heart sorrow for sin? Is there a change in my mind
   with regard to sin so that what I once loved I now detest? Is it
   so?--for only that part of our repentance which is of the heart is
   accepted before God. Tears, sighs, groans--these are mere wind and
   water and go for nothing if the heart is not broken.

   The same holds good in reference to faith. A man may say, "I believe,"
   as thousands say their creed--"I believe in God the Father Almighty,
   maker of Heaven and earth," and so on. Ah, but do you trust in God with
   your whole heart?

   Are you truly and sincerely believing in God and God's Word and God's
   Son and God's Gospel? If not, all your professed faith is useless! True
   faith the Lord accepts and smiles upon, but it is a real thing and
   dwells deeper down than the lips and the throat. As to love to Christ,
   you know how very easy it is to sing sweet hymns about love to Jesus
   and yet how few are living so as to prove their attachment to the
   Redeemer. We say--

   "O love Divine, how sweet You are!

   When shall I find my willing heart

   All taken up by You?"

   But are we knit to Jesus? Is it heart-work? Does our very soul cleave
   to Jesus? Do we follow after Him as the thirsty hart after the water
   brook, resolved to find Him and to abide by Him, or to die in the
   attempt?

   Lip-love is little better than hate in the esteem of Christ. Simon, son
   of Jonas, do you love Christ in your very soul tonight? If you do not,
   all talk about love is but a mockery of His name! Simon, son of Jonas,
   have you real practical love to Jesus? Your can sing, Simon, but can
   you, will you feed your Master's sheep and so give evidence of your
   love? Simon, son of Jonas, you are very eager and fervent, but do you
   so intensely love Jesus as to care for His little ones and feed His
   lambs? This shall be the test of your love! This is coming to the
   point! The same Truth of God bears upon all the ordinances of religion.
   When we professed to worship God, how much praise was there in the
   song? As much as the heart made?

   There was no true praise of God in the noise of that set of pipes and
   pedals and keys and stops! I judge not those who find these noises
   helpful to devotion, but assuredly the sounds, themselves, are no part
   of Divine worship! God does not accept praise from inanimate machinery!
   What cares He about what noise the air makes when it passes through
   pipes and valves? Even our singing is no better--it is but the sound of
   air as it is passing through the throat. What is there in that? No, the
   Lord only regards heart-singing and the song of the soul is the amount
   and quantity of our song that was accepted of the Lord. As to prayer.
   "A large Prayer Meeting." Yes, but the largeness of the number of
   attendants is not always a gauge of the quantity and power of prayer!
   The quantity of heart in the prayer decides its quality. The same is it
   with Baptism and with the Lord's Supper. The test is, How far is this
   done as unto the Lord? How far does the soul enter into the meaning of
   the outward symbols and get at God in the use of them?

   A plunge in this baptistery is no better than a bath you may take in
   your own home! And the bread and wine on yonder table are no better
   than what you shall eat tomorrow at your own table unless your heart
   comes to the Baptism, rejoicing in being buried with Christ, and unless
   your heart comes to the Table that you may feast upon His flesh and
   drink His blood! Let this stand, therefore, as the great test and gauge
   of all religion! We have no lack of external religion in these days.
   There, fill a cauldron with it! Set the great pot upon the fire! It
   turns into steam--see how it flies away! And what is left? Ah, so
   little that you may search with a microscope to discover any solid
   residue! Those few grains at the bottom of the pot are, however, all
   that is real and all that will remain in the day of testing.

   Such is the stern fact, that God values the truthfulness and the
   sincerity of our actions, the heartiness and the depth of them. And He
   does not regard what we do unless the Truth of God appears in it in all
   its forms. This is equally true of all your private worship. That daily
   reading of the chapter is a very excellent thing, but do you read with
   your soul as well as with your eyes? That morning prayer and that
   evening prayer--those few minutes snatched in the middle of the
   day--these are good. I will not wish you to alter the regularity of
   your devotion, but still, it may all be clockwork, godliness with no
   life in it! Oh, for one single groan from the heart! It may have more
   prayer in it than an army of collects and liturgies, though there may
   be prayer there, too, if the heart uses them before the living God with
   sincerity.

   The value of truthfulness will be seen because even in its lowest
   development, God regards it. I think I might call that its lowest
   development which is spoken of in the first verse of the chapter, "Go
   and see if there are any that seek truthful-ness"--a man who feels that
   he is not all he wants to be, but yet he wishes to be truthful. The man
   who is here sought for is conscious of many faults. Yes, and he feels
   that sometimes he is not perfectly candid and transparent and,
   therefore, he hates himself and watches the deceitful tendencies of his
   heart and zealously seeks to be true. Oh, my dear Friend, if you really
   are on the right tack. If you are trying to be truthful. If you are
   laboring to be quite honest before God. If you can say, "I need genuine
   conversion and real faith in Christ. I cannot put up with shams and
   hollow professions," then God accepts even that seeking after truth
   which is in your soul! May He keep you to that search by His Divine
   Spirit till you come out into the clear, noonday light of the blessed
   Truth of God as it is in Jesus.

   It is evident that truth is regarded by God with acceptance and with
   pleasure wherever He sees it in the soul. My Friend, you cannot pray in
   public as you would dearly like to do, but the few words you utter are
   hot from your heart. You cannot pray long, even in private, but your
   groan is sincere. In secret you sigh, "Oh, that!" And, "Ah!" And,
   "Would that!" You mean those short prayers. There is no sham in such
   cries of the heart! Your very soul goes in them and God is pleased with
   them. I would sooner have a little diamond than a block of granite--and
   the Lord would sooner have the least morsel of truthfulness than the
   largest mass of pretentious, ostentatious religion! How far, dear
   Friend, are you anxious to be right with God? Will you confess that you
   have sinned and pray to have your sin blotted out by the Lord who sees
   it all?

   How far do you wish that God should know all about you? How far are you
   glad that there is a God? How far are you anxious to get into the very
   light of God through Jesus Christ? For, just so far as you truthfully
   wish to be like the true and living God, so far are you acceptable with
   the Most High! Oh, my dear Brother, Sister, you may have only one
   talent. You may be very poor and very obscure and, to the Church of
   God, you may be almost unknown. But if your soul goes up and down these
   streets crying to God to bless your fellow men. If you speak only what
   you feel and if you walk before the Lord with tenderness and brokenness
   of spirit, striving always to be true, He accepts and blesses you! If
   you are resting on Jesus Christ, alone, and on His precious blood,
   though your faith is feeble, it is true and God will bless you and save
   you--and you shall be His in the day when He makes up His jewels!

   III. Thirdly and very briefly, let us learn THE INFLUENCE OF TRUTHFUL
   MEN. The influence of really truthful men is too wonderful to be
   overlooked. First, it is so great with God that one of them can save a
   city from destruction! Jerusalem was full of every evil and God said,
   "Shall I not punish such a people as this?" And yet He also said, "If
   there is any that executes judgment and seeks truth, I will pardon it."
   He will save a city for the sake of one man! A parallel case is that in
   which the Lord was ready to pardon Sodom if but 10 righteous had been
   found there. No doubt many a state has been preserved by the godly
   remnant in it whom the majority would have exterminated had it been in
   their power! Hence the value of good men in bad localities.

   When you, my dear Friend, go into a hamlet or village where there is no
   religion, do not be so very sorry at your position, for God may have
   great ends to be served by you. You are a lump of salt and we do not
   want to keep the salt locked up by itself in the storeroom. Where
   should the salt be put? Why, where the corruption is likely to come--to
   preserve what is good--and to keep away that which is evil! I believe
   that every now and then the Lord puts His hands into the saltbox of the
   Tabernacle and takes away some that do not wish to go, but He says,
   "You mast go for the benefit of mankind. I have need of salt over there
   and over there." In the happy Church of which you are a member you
   would like always to remain, but you must go, or else be useless--which
   is your choice?

   When the Gospel chariot needs horses, will you forever stand in the
   stall? Are the oxen today as in the days of Job, to be plowing and the
   asses to be feeding beside them forever? Let us not complain of being
   used, or of being placed where we can be used! All light must not be
   stored up in the sun--scatter it over earth's poor lands that need it
   lest all the trees of the field die in perpetual night. Surely you
   would not have all waters in the sea--let them be exhaled and let them
   return in silvery drops upon the soil to fertilize it. It must be
   so--God blesses us to make us blessings! One good man can benefit a
   whole district. Ask of God that you may be so sincere, so truthful that
   He may bless those round about you for your sake.

   This influence is such that it never was attributed to any man on
   account of his riches. God never saved a city because there was a
   millionaire in it--it may be He has done the reverse! I never heard of
   any city being saved because there was a learned man in it, or an
   eloquent man in it, or because there was some great architect in it.
   No, no, no! The Lord is no respecter of persons and He sees not as man
   sees. Sincerity before God is approved--true reliance upon Christ the
   Lord is accepted--and for this He blesses us and others through us.
   And, mark you one other thing, dear Friend. If you are upright before
   God and you should happen to fall among people that despise you and
   reject you, it is a sad thing to have to say, but it is true and a
   proof of the great influence of truthful men--your word, when you speak
   for God, shall be like fire and those round about you shall be wood and
   it shall devour them!

   If you are not a savor of life to life to men, you will be a savor of
   death to death to them. And, mark this, if the Christian Church sends
   missionaries, as I trust it yet may be awakened to do in such numbers
   as it ought to send them--and if they are rejected--we are not to
   conclude that, therefore, they have had no influence whatever. But,
   solemn and dreadful

   as it is, it is a fact that the preaching of the Gospel shall be a
   testimony against the nations and this shall fulfill the eternal
   purpose of the Lord! This all proves how strong is the influence of a
   truthful man. He is never a "chip in the porridge-- there is a flavor
   in him.

   He that is sincerely right towards God is an efficient operating cause
   to which effects will be given. He cannot be a mere name or nullity--he
   must produce results by his influence. He has force and that force
   will, according to those he comes in contact with, turn to blessings or
   else involve dread responsibility on those who resist it! Go, I pray
   you, then, dear Friends, and live with God and then be not afraid to
   live with men. Whoever they may be, God will make you to have power
   over them and power with Himself on their behalf.

   IV. To close. Let me urge upon you, in the fourth place, the last
   lesson, namely--THE NECESSITY AND THE MEANS OF OUR BEING TRUE AND
   SINCERE BEFORE HIM WHOSE EYES BEHOLD TRUTHFULNESS. My first argument is
   this--these times require it. This is an age of tricks and policies.
   Oh, the puffs--the lying puffs--you meet with everywhere in books and
   innumerable broadsides. Everybody who goes abroad has need to carry a
   discount table with him to arrive at the truth of statements that are
   made. Be you, therefore, the more true! At the present moment there is
   going through this city of ours a lying influence of the worst kind on
   the behalf of Popery. I do not refer to the honest Catholic priest who
   comes bravely before us in his true colors, but I refer to those who
   would be Protestant ministers who are beguiling the people and leading
   them gradually away from the doctrines of the Reformation and the
   Gospel of Christ.

   The land swarms with Jesuitical churchmen who look towards Canterbury
   but row towards Rome! Everywhere in society you meet with this
   disguised influence! Are there not hospitals not far from here that are
   simply houses for proselytizing? Are there not sisterhoods which are
   more for the making of Romanists than they are for the healing of the
   sick? Why, we are surrounded with the givers of bribes of all kinds,
   whose one design is to buy the people from the Gospel! Is there a house
   but what these sisters and brothers will enter, if they possibly can,
   with gifts and so called charities, trying to buy the souls of the poor
   that they may plunge them into the darkness which surrounds themselves?
   The net is coming closer to us than ever and we cannot help feeling its
   meshes!

   The Truth of God is the way to cut the net! The Truth of God is a
   straight, honest, sharp-bladed sword and you have only to use it well
   and away go the meshes of deceit! They may compass sea and land and
   make their proselytes if they will, but we will preach the everlasting
   Gospel of the blessed God and we will pray that all who love it shall
   live it and be truthful and be straight, whoever may be dark and
   mysterious! I would scorn to make a convert to my persuasion by the
   concealment of anything that I believe, or by the putting it in a light
   that was not clear, or by bribery and scheming! If men cannot be saved
   by truth, they certainly cannot be saved by lies and tricks and
   policies. Let us be true, then, Brothers and Sisters, all of us, and we
   may not question the result.

   Meet the Prince of Darkness with the Light of God! He cannot stand
   against it. Our times require our sincerity. So does our God also
   require it. I have already spoken to this and I need not repeat the
   solemn strain. So do our souls require it. Our eternal welfare demands
   it. Oh, there must be no mistake about our being true before God, for
   when it comes to dying work, nothing will stand us, then, but
   sincerity! When he comes to the light of the judgment-bar, where will
   the hypocrite appear? Ah, Judas, come and kiss your Master, again!
   Betray Him again if you dare! See how the traitor flies! He cannot bear
   the Light of God, nor can men who are like he is! May you never have
   one drop of Judas' blood within your veins. God take it away if it is
   there.

   It is an awful thing to live untruthfully. It is a sort of minor Hell
   to go about and feel that you have not spoken the straight thing in
   every company. You spoke against a certain person very bitterly when he
   was not present to defend himself and now you have to meet him and to
   fake admiration of him in the presence of those who heard your former
   tirade! You are in an awkward position--a worm in a ring of fire could
   not wriggle more painfully! I thank God that I have learned, always, to
   say to a man what I think of him and I do not find that I make enemies
   by doing so. No, those to whom I have said the harshest things are some
   of my best friends this day! I am sure that there is no plain path, no
   easy path, like that of downright truthfulness towards our fellow men
   and there is no right path for eternity like that or downright honesty
   before the living God!

   May His Spirit work this excellence in us, for He is the great Author
   of truth in the inward parts. We are all crooked from birth. We go
   astray, speaking lies from our childhood! One of the first things that
   a child does is to speak what is

   not true and parents, sometimes, teach their children to be false by
   laughing at their little deceits. Yes, and they will tell their
   children what is not true as a kind of sportive childish recreation.
   But this will not do! We are all inclined to shuffle with God. It is
   hard work to bring us up to confession of sin at the first and to make
   us pull off our pretty, cheating righteousness. We like to wear a rag
   or two of our own as long as we can. That base money of our own
   merit--those counterfeit farthings of supposed excellence--we do not
   like giving them up.

   It is hard to get the last penny out of us and make us bankrupts in the
   court of Heaven and yet to this we must surely come. When we do wrong,
   do we not feel a tendency to think that it was not so very wrong in us?
   The same offense in anybody else is horrible and we go off to a
   neighbor to report what has been done--but in ourselves it is a venial
   error not worth a censure! We hold the scales of justice, as we think,
   with blind eyes, but we just wink a little beneath the handkerchief and
   spy out an excuse for ourselves. We must get away from all this false
   judging and yet we never shall unless the Holy Spirit--the Spirit of
   Truth and Light--shall create in us a new heart and a right spirit. He
   mast keep us true, too, or we shall go aside like a broken bone.

   This is the sum of the matter--we must come to God as poor, weak,
   helpless sinners! We must trust Christ to help us and look to the
   Divine Spirit to purge and cleanse us and make us truthful! And then
   all will be well. Let this, then, be our prayer--"Create in me a clean
   heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." The Lord grant His
   blessing to these words, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Holy Longings

   (No. 1586)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments at all times." Psalm
   119:20.

   ONE of the best tests of a man's character will be found in his deepest
   and heartiest longings. You cannot always judge a man by what he is
   doing at any one time, for he may be under constraints which compel him
   to act contrary to his true self, or he may be under an impulse from
   which he will soon be free. He may, for a while, back off from that
   which is evil and yet he may be radically bad. Or he may be constrained
   by force of temptation to that which is wrong, yet his real self may
   rejoice in righteousness. A man may not be pronounced to be good
   because, for the moment, what he is doing may be condemned as evil
   because, under certain constraints, he may be committing sin. A man's
   longings are more inward and more near to his real self than his
   outward acts--they are more natural, in that they are entirely free and
   beyond compulsion or restraint.

   As a man longs in his heart, so is he. I mean not every idle wish, as I
   now speak, but strong desires of the heart-- these are the true life of
   a man's nature. You shall know whether you, yourself, are evil by
   answering this question. To which have you the greatest desire? Do you
   continually long after selfish pleasures? Then you are evil beyond all
   question! Do you sigh to be and feel and do that which is good? Is this
   the great aim of your life? Then in the core of your being there is
   some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. So then, dear Hearers,
   your heart-longings may furnish you with helps for self-examination and
   I beg you to apply them, as things of the heart touch the root of the
   matter. Unbelievers are "a people that do err in their heart" and men
   truly find the Lord when they "seek Him with their whole heart"--so
   that the heart is all-important and its longings are among the surest
   marks of its condition.

   Moreover, heart-longings are prophecies of what a man will be. It is
   not always capacity, if we could ascertain it, which will certify us as
   to what a man will do, for many men of large abilities achieve nothing
   for lack of inclination-- their talents lie hidden in the earth and,
   albeit they might have succeeded marvelously well in certain
   pursuits--they do nothing at all remarkable because they have no
   tendencies in that direction. An individual may have the means to
   relieve the poor and yet never perform a charitable act from lack of
   generosity. Or he may have great mental powers and yet never produce a
   line of useful literature because he is eaten up with idleness. But
   other things being equal, the longings of a man are a pretty sure index
   of what he will be--they cannot create capacity, but they develop
   it--they lead to the use of means for its increase and they make the
   mind keen to seize opportunities.

   By some means or other a man usually becomes what he intensely longs to
   be, especially if those desires are formed in early youth while yet the
   world is all before him where to choose. Hence our proverb--"The child
   is father to the man." Even in little children tastes and pursuits have
   been prophetic--the young artist sketches his sister in the cradle--the
   youthful engineer is busy with his boyish inventions. If his longings
   deepen, strengthen and become vehement with the increase of his years,
   the young man's character is being molded from within and this is often
   a greater force than that of circumstances acting from without.

   Thus it is in spiritual things--we may form forecasts as to what we
   shall be from our burning and pressing desires. Desires are the buds
   out of which words and deeds will ultimately be developed. Spiritual
   desires are the shadows of coming blessings. What God intends to give
   us, He first sets us longing for. Therefore the wonderful efficacy of
   prayer, because prayer is the embodiment of a longing inspired of God
   because He intends to bestow the blessing! What are your longings,
   then, my Hearer? Do you long to be holy? The Lord will make you holy!
   Do you long to conquer sin? You shall overcome it by faith in Jesus!.
   Are you pining after fellowship with Christ? He will come and make His
   abode with you! Does your soul thirst, yes, even pant after God as the
   hart for the water brooks? Then you shall be filled with all His

   fullness, for all these longings are prophetic of that which is to be,
   even as the snowdrop and crocus and anemone foretell the approach of
   Spring.

   I say not that it is so with all human wishes, for "the sluggard
   desires and has nothing" and many a man has such evil cravings within
   his heart that it were contrary to the purity of God for Him to grant
   them. But where there are intense, heart-breaking yearnings of a holy
   order, depend upon it, they are tokens of good things to come! Where
   the Grace of God reigns in the soul, it makes a man become a stranger
   among his fellows and it breeds in him peculiar affections and novel
   desires. The verse which precedes my text runs thus--"I am a stranger
   in the earth"--he was a king surrounded by courtiers and friends and
   yet he was not at home, but like one banished from his native land. And
   being thus a stranger in the earth, he had a remarkable desire which
   worldlings could not understand and that singular craving he here
   ex-presses--"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments at all
   times."

   Worldly men care nothing for the Judgments of God. No, they care
   nothing for God, Himself! But when a man becomes new born, a citizen of
   Heaven, there grows up within his spirit a spiritual appetite of which
   he had felt nothing before--and he longs after God and His holy Word.
   See to it, Brothers and Sisters, whether your souls cry out for God,
   for the living God, for again I say, by your longings you may test
   yourselves--by your heart's desires you may forecast your future--and
   by your hungering and thirsting you may judge whether you are men of
   this world or citizens of the world to come. With such aids to
   self-judgment, no man ought to remain in doubt as to his spiritual
   condition and eternal prospects.

   In order that we may be helped to the right use of this text, we shall
   handle it thus--first, we shall notice the saint's absorbing
   object--"Your Judgments." Secondly, we shall reflect upon the saint's
   ardent longing--"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments." And,
   thirdly, we shall mention the saint's cheering reflections which he may
   readily draw from the fact that he does experience such inward
   heart-break. Of these we will speak as the Divine Spirit shall enable
   us, for without Him we know nothing.

   I. First, then, let us think OF THE SAINTS' ABSORBING OBJECTIVE. They
   long after God's Judgments. The word, "Judgments," is here used as
   synonymous with the, "Word of God." It does not mean those Judgments of
   God with which He smites sinners and executes the sentence of His Law,
   but it refers to the revealed will or declared Judgments of God. All
   through this long Psalm the writer is speaking of the Word of God, the
   Law of God, the testimonies, the precepts, the statutes of God--and
   here the word, "Judgments," is used in the same sense. Perhaps I shall
   give you the meaning pretty readily if I remind you that the
   Commandments and doctrines of the Word are God's Judgments about moral
   and spiritual things--His decisions as to what is right and what is
   wrong--and His solutions of the great problems of the universe.

   God's revealed plan of salvation is God's decision upon man's
   destiny--God's judgment of condemnation against human sin--and yet His
   judgment of justification on behalf of believing sinners whom He
   regards as righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible may be
   rightly regarded as the book of Divine Judgments, the recorded
   sentences of the High Court of Heaven, the Infallible decision of
   perfect holiness upon questions which concern our souls--

   "This is the Judge that ends the strife

   Where wit and reason fail

   Our guide through devious paths of life,

   Our shield when doubts assail." You may come to the Scriptures as men
   came to the throne of Solomon, where hard cases were at once met. But a
   greater than Solomon is here! Search God's Word and you will have
   before your eyes the ultimate judgment of unerring Truth, the last
   decree from the supreme Authority from which there is no appeal! The
   Bible contains the verdicts of the Judge of all the earth, the
   Judgments of God who cannot lie and cannot err.

   Thus God's Word is rightly called His "Judgments." It is a book not to
   be judged by us, but to be our judge--not a word of it may be altered
   or questioned--but to it we may constantly refer as to a court of
   appeal whose sentence is decisive. David in our text tells us how he
   desired the Lord's Judgments, or His Word by which we understand,
   first, that he greatly reverenced the Word of God. He was not among
   those who regard the Bible as only a very important portion of human
   literature, but as being no more Inspired than the works of Shakespeare
   or Bacon. Little as David had of the Scriptures, he had a solemn
   reverence for what he had and stood in awe of it. I have no objection
   to honest criticism of

   the keenest kind, but I am shocked at certain Divines who cut and carve
   the blessed Word of God as if it were some vile carcass given over to
   their butchery.

   When learned men handle the words of this Book, let them not forget
   whose Book it is and whose words they are that they are examining!
   There is a near approach to blasphemy against God Himself in
   irreverence to His Word. There is no book like this for authority and
   majesty--it is hedged about with solemn sanctions so that it has both a
   wall of fire round about it and a glory in its midst to make it
   distinct from all other writings. All other books might be heaped
   together in one pile and burned--as the Muslims burned the Alexandrian
   Library--with less loss to the world than would be occasioned by the
   total obliteration of a single page of the sacred volume! All other
   books are at the best but as gold leaf, whereof it takes acres to make
   an ounce of the precious metal. But this Book is solid gold! It
   contains ingots, masses, mines, yes, whole worlds of priceless
   treasure, nor could its contents be exchanged for pearls, rubies, or
   the "terrible crystal" itself.

   Even in the mental wealth of the wisest men there are no jewels like
   the Truths of Revelation. Oh, Sirs, the thoughts of men are vanity, the
   conceptions of men are low and groveling at their best--and He who has
   given us this Book has said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts; for as
   the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts higher than
   your thoughts." Let it be to you and to me a settled matter that the
   Word of the Lord shall be honored in our minds and enshrined in our
   hearts! Let others speak as they may, "our soul breaks with longing for
   the Lord's Judgments." We could sooner part with all that is sublime
   and beautiful, cheering or profitable in human literature than lose a
   single syllable from the mouth of God.

   But more--inasmuch as the Psalmist greatly reverenced God's Word, he
   intensely desired to know its contents. He had not much of it--probably
   only the five books of Moses--but the Pentateuch was enough to fill his
   whole soul with delight. Never depreciate, I pray you, the Old
   Testament! Remember that the great things that are said in the Psalms
   about the Word of God were not spoken concerning the New Testament,
   which was not then written--although they may most fitly be applied by
   us to the entire series of Inspired Books, yet they were originally
   spoken only concerning the first five of them--so that the first part
   of the Bible, according to the Holy Spirit's own testimony, is to be
   valued beyond all price.

   Indeed, the substance of the New Testament is in the books of Genesis,
   Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy--there shut up like Noah in
   the ark or hidden like Moses in his mother's house. The lovely form of
   queenly Truth is there, only her veil conceals her countenance. The
   clearer shining of the New Testament is not a different light, nor
   perhaps is it, in itself, brighter--it shines through a thinner medium
   and, therefore, more fully enlightens us. If I might venture to compare
   one part of God's Word with another, I have even thought that the first
   books are the deepest and that if we had but skill to find it out, we
   should discover within them a more condensed mass of Revelation than
   even in the New Testament! I will not defend the opinion, but usually
   the lower strata, though most hidden, are the most dense and certainly
   that which is most easy to be understood is not, therefore, of
   necessity the fullest of meaning, but the reverse.

   The various books of Scripture do not increase in real value, they only
   advance in their adaptation to us. The Light is the same, but the
   lantern is clearer and we see more. The treasure of the Gospel is
   contained in the mines of the Books of Moses and I do not wonder,
   therefore, that David, instinctively knowing it to be there, but not
   being able to reach it, felt a great longing after it. He was not so
   well able to get at the Truths of God as we are since he had not the
   life of Christ to explain the types, nor Apostolic explanations to open
   up the symbols of the Law and, therefore, he sighed inwardly and felt a
   killing heartbreak of desire to reach that which he knew was laid up in
   store for him. He saw the jewelry box, but could not find the key!

   If he had not been sure that the treasure was there, he would not have
   cried, "Open You my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your
   Law." But he was like a voyager on the verge of a discovery who,
   nevertheless, cannot quite reach it. He was like Columbus out at sea
   with the fruits of an unknown continent floating beneath his keel but
   the wind did not favor his reaching the shore. He was like a miner
   whose pick has struck upon a lump of metal and he is sure that gold is
   there, but he cannot get it away from the quartz in which it is
   embedded. The more certain he is that it is there and the harder it is
   to reach, the more insatiable does his desire become to possess the
   treasure! Hence I see the reasonableness of the Psalmist's vehement
   passion and I marvel not that he cried, "My soul breaks with longing
   for Your Judgments at all times."

   But I am sure that David did not merely want to know as a matter of
   intellectual pleasure, but wished to feed upon God's Word and what a
   very different thing that is, that feeding upon the Word of God, from
   the bare knowledge of it! You can teach a child many chapters out of
   the Bible and yet it may not have fed on a word of it. I have known
   persons to be so foolish as to set it as a punishment for a child to
   learn a portion of Scripture. I call this foolish and surely it is also
   wicked to make the Word of God into a punishment--as well turn the
   Temple into a prison! Undoubtedly many know the history, the doctrine
   and the letter of God's Word as well as others know their Homer or
   their Virgil and, so far, so good. But oh, to feed upon the Word of God
   is quite another thing!

   An oven full of bread is well enough, but for nourishment, a loaf on
   the table is better and a morsel in the mouth is better, still! And if
   the mouthfuls are well digested and taken up into the system they are,
   then, best of all! In like manner, Truths of God in a sermon are to be
   valued, but the Truths of God attentively heard comes nearer to
   practical benefit and Truth of God believed is better, still! And
   Truths of God absorbed into the spiritual system are best of all! Alas,
   I fear we are not so absorbent as we ought to be. I like to see men who
   can be spiritual sponges of God's Truth--suck it right up and take it
   into themselves! It would be well, however, that they would not be so
   far like sponges as to part with the Truth when the hands of the world
   attempt to wring it out of them!

   I say we are not receptive enough, Brothers and Sisters, and that
   because our hearts are not in tune with God. Do we not feel, at times,
   that certain doctrines of the Word are hardly to our mind? We do not
   quite agree with the Divine Judgments on this or that--we dare not
   question their rightness--but we rather wish they were different.
   Friends, this must not be so any longer! All that kind of feeling must
   be gone! We must agree with God in all that He has spoken and let our
   belief run side by side with the teaching of the Lord. It is high time
   that we were altogether agreed with God. "Do you not know that the
   saints shall judge the world?" "Know you not that we shall judge
   angels?" We shall sit, at the Last Great Day, as assessors with Christ
   in the great assize to judge the fallen spirits! Does it not become us
   to be of the same mind with our Lord? Should we not delight in His Word
   even now that we may the more heartily say, "Amen," to His verdict from
   the Great White Throne?

   Our judgment must be daily more and more conformed to the Judgments of
   God which are laid down in Scripture and there must, at any rate, be in
   our spirit a longing after holiness until we delight in the Law of the
   Lord and meditate therein both day and night. We shall grow to the
   likeness of that which we feed upon--heavenly food will make us
   heavenly-minded! The Word of God received into the heart changes us
   into its own nature and, by rejoicing in the decisions of the Lord, we
   learn to judge after His Judgment and to delight ourselves in that
   which pleases Him. This sense, I think, comes nearer to the explanation
   of David's intense longing. Doubtless, he longed to obey God's Word--he
   wished in everything to do the will of God without fault either of
   omission or of commission. He prays in another place, "Teach me Your
   Law perfectly."

   Do you, my Hearer, long after perfection in that same fashion? All that
   truly know God must have a mighty yearning to run in the way of the
   Lord's Commandments. He does not live before God who does not crave to
   live like God. There is no regeneration where there are no aspirations
   after holiness. The actual practice of obedience is necessary as a
   proof of the possession of true Grace, for the rule is invariable, "By
   their fruits you shall know them." No man knows the Word of God till he
   obeys it--"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."

   The Psalmist also longed to feel the power of God's Judgments in his
   own heart. You know something about this, my Friend, if the Spirit of
   God has had dealings with you. Have you not felt the Lord judging you
   in the chamber of your conscience? The Spirit comes by the Word of God
   and sets our iniquities before us, our secret sins in the light of His
   Countenance. You had forgotten the wrong, or at least you hardly
   remembered it as a sin--but suddenly you saw it all. As I have looked
   upon a landscape under a cloudy sky, a gleam of sunlight has suddenly
   fallen upon one portion of it and made it stand out brilliantly from
   the midst of the surrounding gloom--so has the Holy Spirit poured a
   clear light upon some one act or set of acts of my life and I have seen
   it as I never saw it before.

   That inner Light has judged us and led us to seek fresh cleansing--the
   Judgments of God have come into our souls and led us anew to cry for
   mercy. I have found it so, have you? The sins of our youth and our
   former transgressions have been judged of the Lord within us. I do not
   think that David fully recognized all the sins of his youth till he had
   become an old man and, alas, many who have sinned in ways in which he
   never erred have failed to know the evil of their transgressions till
   in their bones and in their flesh they have felt its terrible effects
   years afterwards! The Lord will judge His

   people and make sin bitter to them! Ought we to wish for this? I say,
   Yes! Every true man should feel a longing in his soul to have every sin
   within him exposed, condemned and executed. He should wish to hide
   nothing, but that it would be revealed and he be humbled by the sight.

   There are two judgments, one of which we must undergo--either judgment
   in the forum of the conscience, or else judgment before the Great White
   Throne at last. You must either condemn yourself or be condemned! A
   court of arraigns must be held in your heart and you must be tried,
   cast and condemned in your own soul or else you will not fully know the
   Judgments of the Lord, or truly seek pardon at His hands. God justifies
   the men who condemn themselves and none but these shall ever obtain the
   righteousness which is of God by faith. Therefore we may long for
   stripping judgments that we may obtain the robe of Righteousness! We
   may cry to be emptied that Grace may fill us! David desires that God's
   Word would come right into him and hold its court and judge and try
   him--and he came to feel this process to be so necessary and so
   salutary that his soul broke with the longing which he had to be dealt
   with by God after this fashion.

   This is wisdom and prudence when a man so desires sanctification that
   he is straitened till painful processes are being carried on by which
   his purity is to be produced. It is a wise child that will, for the
   sake of health, even long to take the appointed medicine! God's
   children are not far from being well when they have reached such a
   point of sacred judgment! This is the wish of all true Believers--to be
   perfectly conformed to the Word of God. Some of us can honestly say
   that we would not have a second wish for ourselves if our heavenly
   Father would grant us this one--that we might be perfect even as He is.
   We would leave all other matters with Him as to wealth or poverty,
   health or sickness, honor or shame, life or death if He would but give
   us complete conformity to His will. This is the objective of the
   craving, yearning and sighing of our souls. We hunger to be holy!

   Here I must correct myself as to our one desire, for surely, if the
   Lord would make us holy we should then desire that all other men would
   be the same! Oh that the world were converted to God! Oh that the Truth
   of God would go forth like the brightness of the morning! Would God
   that every error and superstition might be chased away like bats and
   owls before the rising of the sun! O God, Your servants long for this!
   We ask for nothing except these two things--first reign, O Lord, in the
   triple kingdom of our nature--and then reign over ALL nature! Let the
   whole earth be filled with Your Glory and our prayers are ended! I hope
   that in this sense our soul breaks for the longing which it has towards
   God's Judgments.

   II. And now, secondly, let us think of THE SAINT'S ARDENT LONGINGS.
   First, let me say of these longings that they constitute a living
   experience, for dead things have no aspirations or cravings. You shall
   visit the graveyard and exhume all the bodies you please, but you shall
   find neither desire nor craving! Longing lingers not within a lifeless
   corpse. Where the heart is breaking with desire, there is life. This
   may comfort some of you--you have not attained, as yet, to the holiness
   you desire, but you long for it--ah, then you are a living soul, the
   life of God is in you! You have not yet come to be conformed to the
   precept, but oh how you wish you were--that wish proves that a spark of
   the Divine Life is in your soul.

   The stronger that longing becomes, the stronger is the life from which
   it springs--a feeble life has feeble desires--a vigorous life has
   vehement desires, burning like coals of juniper! Are you earnestly
   longing this morning? Can you say that your heart pines for God as the
   watcher through the midnight sighs for the dawn, or as the traveler
   over burning sand longs for the shadow of a great rock? Oh, then,
   though I would not have you rest in longings--and indeed, I know you
   never can--yet they are a proof that you are spiritually alive!
   Heart-longings are far better tests than attendance at sacraments, for
   men who are dead in sin have dared to come both to Baptism and the
   Lord's Supper. Eager desires prove spiritual life much better than
   supposed attainments, for these supposed attainments may all be
   imaginary--but a heart breaking for the longing which it has to God's
   Word is no fancy--it is a fact too painful to be denied!

   Next, remember the expression used in our text represents a humble
   sense of imperfection. David had not yet come to be completely
   conformed to God's Words, nor yet to know them perfectly, or else he
   would not have said that he longed for them. So it is with us. We have
   not reached perfection, but do not let us, therefore, be discouraged,
   for the Apostle of the Gentiles said, "Not as though I had already
   attained, either were already perfect." And the man after God's own
   heart, even David, when he was at his best, and I think he was so when
   he was writing this blessed Psalm, says not so much that he had
   obtained anything as that he longed after it, not so much that he had
   yet grasped it, but sighed for it-- "my soul breaks for the longing
   that it has."

   I do not envy those who have no more longings, who have reached so
   divine a height that they can climb no higher. I heard of one who said
   his will was so perfectly resigned to the will of God that in fact he
   had no will and so he had given up prayer, having nothing to seek! This
   is stupid talk! When a man gets so full of life that he no longer
   breathes, I should say that he is dead! Prayer is the breath of the
   soul and he that can do without it is dead in sin. When a man thinks
   himself so good that he cannot be better, he is probably so bad that he
   could not be worse. That is the judgment which caution will pronounce
   upon him, for all good men long to be better--and better men desire to
   be best of all that they may dwell in Heaven! The more Grace the saints
   have, the more they desire--sacred greed is begotten by the possession
   of the love of God--"My soul breaks with longing for Your Judgments."

   Furthermore, the expression of the text indicates an advanced
   experience. Augustine dwells upon this idea, for he rightly says that
   at first there is an aversion in the heart to God's Word and desire
   after it is a matter of growth. After aversion is removed, there often
   comes an indifference in the heart--it is no longer opposed to
   godliness, but it does not care to possess it. Then, through Divine
   Grace, there springs up in the soul a sense of the beauty of God's Word
   and will and an admiration of holiness. This leads on to a measure of
   desire after the good thing and a degree of appetite for it. But it
   shows a considerable growth in Grace when we ardently long after it and
   a still larger growth when the soul breaks because of these longings!
   It is a blessed thing when the soul is so stretched with desire that it
   is ready to snap, or when, like a vessel full of fermenting liquor, the
   working within threatens to break up the vessel altogether.

   The text represents the agonizing of an earnest soul. Such a state of
   things shows a considerable advancement in the Divine Life, but when a
   Believer has those desires at all times, then is he not far from being
   a full-grown Christian. "Oh," you say, "He thinks so little of what he
   has that he is crushed under the burden of desire for more." Yes, and
   he is the very man who has most of spiritual wealth! Those desires are
   mysterious entries in the account book of his heart and rightly read
   they prove his wealth, for in the Divine Life, the more a man desires,
   the more he has already obtained! You may make tallies of your desires
   and as you reckon by those tallies, they shall tell you to a penny what
   your spiritual wealth is. The more full a man is of Grace, the more he
   hungers for Grace! Strange it is to say so, but the paradox is
   true--the more he drinks and the more he is satisfied and ceases to
   thirst in one sense, the more is he devoured with thirst after the
   living

   God!

   It is an advanced experience, then, and it is an experience which I
   cannot quite describe to you except by saying that it is a bitter sweet
   or, rather, a sweet bitter, if the adjective is to be stronger than the
   noun! There is a bitterness about being crushed with desire. It is
   inevitable that there should be, but the aroma of this bitter herb is
   inexpressibly sweet-- no perfume can excel it! After all, a bruised
   heart knows more peace and rest than a heart filled with the world's
   delights. How safe such a soul is. "Oh," said one, "I cannot go to
   Hell, it is impossible, because I love Jesus Christ and long after Him.
   It is not possible for Him to forbid me the privilege of loving Him and
   to love Him and long for Him is happiness!" Better to feel a heavenly
   hunger than a worldly fullness! Heartbreak for God is a sweeter thing
   than content in sinful pleasures! There is an inexpressible sweetness,
   a dawning of Heaven, in longing after God and yet, because you feel you
   have not yet attained what you desire, there is a bitter mixed with it.

   I think the only thing that honey needs to improve it is just a touch
   of bitter or acid in it. When you eat much honey it begins to taste bad
   because it is all sweet, but just a taste of lemon or a dash of quassia
   might strengthen the taste and enable it to take in a fresh freight of
   sweetness. It is surely so with true religious experience. Pangs of
   strong desire increase our overflowing pleasures and the longings and
   hungering make attaining and enjoying to be all the more delightful.
   May the Lord send us more of this lamb with bitter herbs, this mingled
   experience in which we are "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing!"

   Still, those longings after God's Word may become very wearing to a
   man's soul. The sense of our text in the Hebrew is that of attrition or
   wearing down. Keble reads it--

   "My soul is worn and wasted quite, Your Laws desiring day and night."
   They wear out the man when they become so fervent as those confessed in
   the text. I believe that some of the Lord's holy ones have been worn
   down to sickness and depression by the passion of their hearts after
   God--their souls have become like sharp swords which cut through their
   scabbards, for they have destroyed the body by intense inner desires.
   At times holy men draw so near to God and pine so greatly after His
   Glory that for half a word they would pass the frontier and

   enter into Heaven! They are so fully in accord with God that the shell
   which shuts in their soul is almost broken and the newborn spirit is
   ready for its fullest life and liberty. How blessed to shake off the
   last fragment of that which holds us back from the freedom of an
   immortal life in perfect agreement with God! Oh to attain to this!

   One saint cried, "Let me see the face of God," and another answered,
   "You cannot see God's face and live!" To which he replied, "Then let me
   see my God and die." So do we feel that our soul comes near to dying
   with her longings after her God. Little would we tremble, even if we
   knew that the joy of realization would be killing and would pass us
   over the border into Immanuel's land where we shall see the King in His
   beauty! But I must not linger though there is much to tempt me to speak
   on. Are you searching yourselves, Brothers and Sisters, to see whether
   you have such longings? If so, do you have them, "at all times"? We are
   not to long for God's Word and will by fits and starts--we are not to
   have desires awakened by novelty or by excitement. Nor are we to long
   for Divine things because for a while temporal things fail us and we
   are sick and sorry and weary of the world--and so, in disgust, turn to
   God.

   Brethren, I trust you long after God when all is bright in Providence
   and that you love His Word when all is pleasant in family affairs. It
   is well to desire the Lord's will when He is permitting you to have
   your own will as well as when He is thwarting you. God is to always be
   our delight. He is our defense in war, but He is also our joy in peace.
   Do not use Him as sailors use those harbors of refuge for which they
   are not bound, into which they only run into in time of storm, but if
   it is fair they stand far out to sea! The Lord's will is to be the path
   of our feet and the element of our life. This it is to be a true child
   of God--to always have a yearning soul towards God's Word--to be eager
   after His Commandments "at all times." May the Holy Spirit keep us ever
   hungering and thirsting after God and His Truth.

   III. And now I am going to close with a few cheering reflections. I
   think this morning some heart has been saying, "There are comforting
   thoughts for me in all this. I am a poor thing. I have not grown much.
   I have not done much. I wish I had, but I do have strong longings. I am
   very dissatisfied and I am almost ready to die with desire for Christ."
   My dear Soul, listen--let this encourage you! First, God is at work in
   your soul. Never did a longing after God's Word grow up in the soul of
   itself. Weeds come up of themselves, but the rarer kind of plants, I
   guarantee you, will never be found where there has been no sowing! And
   this flower, called Love-Lies-Bleeding--this plant of intense eagerness
   after God--never sprang up in the human breast of itself! God has
   placed it there!

   Friend, there was a time when you had no such longings. Ah, and if you
   were left to yourself, you would never have such longings again! You
   would decline till you became as content with the world as others are.
   You know you would! Come, then, Beloved, God is at work in your
   soul--let this comfort you. The great Potter has you upon the wheel--He
   has not cast you away as worthless--His work may pain you, but it is
   honorable and glorious. Your heart may swell with unutterable longings
   and it may be torn by throes of desire, but life thus proves its
   presence and reaches forth to something yet beyond. These pains of
   desire are the Lord's doings and they should be perceived with
   gratitude.

   The result of God's work is very precious. Come, though it is only a
   gracious desire, thank God for it. Though you can get no further than
   holy longing, be grateful for that longing. I would have you strive for
   the highest gifts, but I would not have you despise what God has
   already given you! I have known times when I thought myself in a very
   strange case and I judged ill of myself. Yet a month or two afterwards
   I have looked back upon that condition which I condemned and I have
   wished that I could return to it! Has it not been so with you? You have
   been racked with sighs, groans, cravings and other forms of unrest and
   you have said, "O God, deliver me from this sore travail!" But when,
   within a week, you have had to lament insensibility and lukewarmness,
   you have cried, "Lord, put me back into my state of desire! Lord, set
   me hungering and thirsting again, a fierce appetite is better than this
   deadness."

   Oh, you that are longing, be thankful that you are, for you have a rich
   promise to cheer you, since it is written, "He will fulfill the desire
   of them that fear Him." The more wretched and unhappy you are under a
   sense of sin, the more grateful you ought to be for tenderness of
   heart. And the more you are longing to lay on Christ and to become like
   Christ, the more you should thank God that He has worked this longing
   in you. How sweet is that Word of God, "Lord, You have heard the desire
   of the humble: You will prepare their heart, You will cause Your ear to
   hear." Listen, once again--not only is the desire precious, but it is
   leading on to something more precious! Hear that which is written--
   "The desire of the righteous shall be granted."

   What do you say to such words as these? "He will regard the prayer of
   the destitute and not despise their prayer." "When the poor and needy
   seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the
   Lord will hear them, I the

   God of Israel will not forsake them." Do you think that God prompts us
   to desire a thing which He does not mean to bestow upon us? Is that the
   way you treat your children? I know you will play with the little ones,
   sometimes, and hold a nut or a penny in your closed hand and bid them
   open your fingers for themselves. But you give them their treat before
   long. You would not hold a sweetmeat before a poor child and promise it
   to him and excite his desires for it and then refuse him a taste of
   it--that were a cruel pastime! God is not unkind--if He makes you
   hunger, for that hunger He has made ready the Bread of Heaven! If He
   makes you thirst--for that thirst He has already filled the river of
   the Water of Life! If the desire comes from God, the supply of that
   desire will as certainly come from God! Rest you sure of that and cry
   mightily to Him with strong faith in His goodness.

   Meanwhile, the desire, itself, is doing you good. It is driving you out
   of yourself. It is making you feel what a poor creature you are, for
   you can dig no well in your own nature and find no supplies within your
   own spirit. It is compelling you to look only to God. Do not need much
   compelling--come readily to your Lord! Be one of those vessels which
   can sail with a capful of wind! Come by faith to Jesus, even though you
   fear that your desires are by no means so vivid and intense as those of
   my text. Believe and you shall be established! Rest assured of this,
   that there is in God whatever your soul needs! In Christ Jesus dwells
   all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and in that Divine fullness
   there must of necessity be more than a creature can require! In Christ
   Jesus there is exactly what your soul is panting for.

   Yes, I mean you weakest ones of the flock! You feeblest of the saints!
   You who dare not put your names down among God's people at all! If
   there is a sacred longing in your spirit, there is that in Christ which
   is adapted to you in spite of your feebleness and unworthiness. God is
   ready to give you whatever you are ready to receive. Only come and
   trust Him for it and look to His dear Son, for in Jesus you have all
   things. Oh, this is the blessedness of this longing after God's
   Judgments, that it makes Christ precious! And, with that remark, I have
   done.

   We see all God's Word in Christ. We see all God's decisions against sin
   and for righteousness embodied in our Savior. We see that if we can get
   Christ we have then found the Wisdom of God and the power of God and,
   in fact, the All-Sufficiency of God! If we can become like Christ we
   shall be like God Himself. This, I say, makes Christ so precious and
   makes us long to more fully know Him and call Him ours! Come, you
   longing ones, come to my Lord Jesus even now! Come, you that are
   bursting with wishes and desires, come and trust the Savior and rest in
   Him now! And may this be the hour in which you shall find how true it
   is, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
   they shall be filled." May you yet sing the Virgin's song, "He has
   filled the hungry with good things. My soul does magnify the Lord."
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus At A Standstill

   (No. 1587)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 6, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Jesus stood still." Mark 10:49.

   A FRIEND enquired of me yesterday, "Will you preach on Sunday morning
   to saints or to sinners?" I could not, at the moment, answer him, but
   afterwards I thought to myself--If I preach concerning Jesus Christ,
   our Lord and Savior, I shall kill two birds with one stone and give
   both saints and sinners a profitable theme for thought. There is but
   one message of the Gospel and it has a voice to all. Saints know no
   sweeter music than the name of Jesus and sinners know no richer comfort
   than His Person and His work. We preach to all when we preach Him who
   is All in All. Christ comes as life to the dead and He is equally life
   to the living.

   I trust there will, at this time, be a word in season, both to those
   who fear God and to those who fear Him not, while I speak of the Savior
   from these three words, "Jesus stood still." Our Divine Lord has
   changed His position, but He is, Himself, the same as always and,
   therefore, every Truth of God which we learn concerning Him in the past
   becomes all the more valuable since it is still true of Him. Our Lord's
   name is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." What
   His Character was on earth such it is still--His pursuits on earth are
   still His pursuits. His main objective when He was here is His chief
   aim even in Glory. We have not to say, "This is what Jesus was," and
   then to mourn that He has changed, for He is without variableness. His
   transit from the Cross to the Throne has not affected His Nature so as
   to make Him other than He was when here below.

   If we delight in a trait of His Character as drawn in the Gospels, we
   may be sure that He possesses the same excellence now that He is at the
   right hand of the Father. His dealing with blind Bartimaeus 19
   centuries ago is a fair type of His conduct towards every poor blind
   sinner who at this hour comes to Him crying, "Son of David, have mercy
   on me." I hope we shall see the miracle of Jericho repeated in this
   house this very day! I am persuaded that it will be so, for even now,
   encouraged by the prayers already offered, Jesus waits to be gracious
   and today it shall be said that at the entreaties of His people, Jesus
   paused to work wonders of love--"Jesus stood still."

   I. First, let us answer this question--WHAT DOES THIS PAUSE MEAN IN THE
   SAVIOR'S PROGRESS. "Jesus stood still"? This was not His frequent
   posture, for He was always on the move--"He went about doing good." He
   might have done much among men if He had taken up His station and
   remained in one place so that the crowds could have come to Him to
   listen to His voice or to be healed by His power. But Jesus was not an
   immovable statue of benevolence! He was active and energetic--an
   itinerant Preacher who never wearied in His circuit. One does not often
   see Jesus standing still. His was the love which does not wait to be
   sought after by men, for it has come to seek as well as to save that
   which was lost. The zeal of the Lord's house consumed Him so that for
   Him there was no loitering or standing still. Yet in the case before
   us, the Great Worker ceased from His activity--"Jesus stood still."

   In the Gospel we read that our Lord was going up to Jerusalem with His
   face steadfastly set to accomplish His great work. His own words were,
   "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be delivered
   unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn
   Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles: and they shall
   mock Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall
   kill Him: and the third day He shall rise again." (Mark 10:33, 34). He
   bad a Baptism to be baptized with and be was straitened until it was
   accomplished and, therefore, with brave resolve He forced His way to
   the city.

   Every pause to Him would have been untimely unless there had been some
   weighty reason to stop. His great work pressed upon His soul and He
   longed to be fully engaged in it--as one who has a cup to drink and
   thirsts to set it to His lips. Yet, though His thoughts were thus
   urgently preoccupied and His whole heart engrossed, we find Him pausing
   in His steady progress to the desired end--"Jesus stood still." There
   was, doubtless, somewhat special about this recorded

   pause. What was it which fastened Him to the spot? It was not
   hesitancy--His resolve was too firm. It was not fear--the thought of
   drawing back never passed the Redeemer's mind! Onward, onward, was His
   fixed resolve. He stood still from no unworthy motive--all His
   movements and His pauses have a nobility about them and a fullness of
   meaning which no personal motive can account for.

   Our Lord was beginning, at the moment, that triumphal procession which
   continued till He reached the Temple amid the hosannas of the
   multitude! It is true He was advancing to the Cross, but before He
   reached His death, He was to be proclaimed as the King, meek and lowly,
   who came riding upon a colt, the foal of an ass. His triumphal march
   has begun and Jesus is in the midst of admiring listeners! Yet Jesus
   stands still. The whole procession stops. The 12 disciples and the
   company of the faithful are stopped and the crowd tarries in the
   roadway of Jericho. For what great reason did it happen that Jesus
   stood still?

   I could have wished that a master sculptor had been there and could,
   then, have caught a glimpse of the standing Jesus. I think I see Him
   suddenly still. He moves not an inch, but waits in listening attitude.
   His eyes are fixed in the direction from where had come a certain
   pleading cry. His ears are evidently open to hear the movement which
   follows His command to call the suppliant. The Savior's thoughts are
   pausing, too--He stands still mentally as well as physically--
   engrossed by one objective to which He will attend before He takes
   another step. Ceasing from His discourse, however much His hearers
   regret His silence, He gives all attention to the petitioner whose
   voice reached Him above the tramping and hubbub of the crowd.

   That cry came from a blind beggar--that was the man. Yes, the blind
   beggar of Jericho had stopped the Prophet of Nazareth! Proclaim his
   name--blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timmus--has stopped the Savior and
   holds Him spellbound! Jesus waits in perfect readiness to attend to the
   pleading one and grant him his desire. The cry of, "Son of David, have
   mercy upon me," has caught His ear and the music of the word, "mercy,"
   mesmerizes Him! As the Song has it, "The King is held in the
   galleries." Attentive and prepared to help with all His mighty power,
   Jesus waits. He tarries at a blind beggar's prayer, resolved to do his
   bidding! I have seen servants wait upon their masters, but here is the
   Lord of All waiting upon one lower than a servant--waiting upon a blind
   man whose trade was begging! "Jesus stood still"--He was all
   there--ready, willing, able, too, to do for the poor man whatever he
   needed.

   He asked him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" as if He stood at
   his beck and call and could not take a step onward until He had
   answered the prayer! "Jesus stood still." I have heard of Joshua who
   said, "Sun, stand still upon Gibeon; and you, Moon, in the valley of
   Ajalon," but I rank the blind beggar above Joshua, for he causes the
   Sun of Righteousness to stand still! Yes, He who created both sun and
   moon stood still and the Lord listened to the voice of a man! Jericho
   had produced, in ages long gone by, a prodigy of faith among her
   harlots and now she shows us a wonder of Grace among her beggars! How
   marvelous was the power which dwelt in that poor man's cry! Is such
   power to be found among men at this hour?

   Ah, that is the point. The Savior is the same today as ever and I
   believe, my Brothers and Sisters, that you and I have power at this
   time to make Him stand still if we act as Bartimaeus did! Many a poor
   sinner here, this morning, if God shall help him to cry after the style
   of the blind man, can command the Savior's full attention! He can
   command His power and get from Him the Grace which He is so willing and
   able to bestow! As for you who know and love Him, be well assured that
   no blind beggar can have such power with Him as you have who are His
   friends! I am sure that the voices of those who have laid their heads
   in His bosom must have great power over Him and if our Brethren will
   but use their influence with the Well-Beloved, they may ask what they
   will and it shall be done! Pleading saints can cause Him to stand still
   even now!

   I have feared and trembled for my country of late lest the Lord Jesus
   should depart from it and take away the candlestick out of its place.
   More than 200 years ago George Herbert said, when he looked upon the
   declining state of godliness in England--

   "Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Ready to pass to the American
   strand." He saw the Puritans flying away to the New England colonies
   and he trembled for the ark of God in his own land, but, thank God, the
   prayers of Herbert and the prayers of other saints have constrained the
   Lord Jesus to abide with us, though, "He made as though He would have
   gone further." Brethren, the Lord had thought, as it were, to cross the
   At-

   lantic and fix His dwelling among a people who should be gathered in a
   newly-discovered land. Thank God He has built a Church in America, but
   He has not left us without witness. Because of the tears of His saints,
   "Jesus stood still." We still hold Him and we will not let Him go--He
   abides among our Churches, still opening blind eyes, saving souls and
   making men whole! O you that love Him, take care that by your
   entreaties you still detain Him!

   At times our Lord, as Judge among the nations, arises to visit the sins
   of a people upon them. Patience makes room for Justice and Providence
   determines that guilty nations shall be scourged. At such times they
   are blessed, indeed, who can cause the King to stand still. This wicked
   country of ours has often escaped through the prayers of the saints. No
   man can read our history without perceiving that among guilty nations
   we hold a sorrowful place, for we have had more of the Light of God
   than any other people and have sinned against it full often! This
   erring nation of ours had been scourged to destruction if it had not
   been that the intercessions of God's people have caused the Judge of
   all the earth to stand still!

   Jesus now rules all nations as Lord of Providence and metes out justice
   and judgment among them, but a plea for mercy brings a decree of
   forbearance and sinful nations are permitted to stand within the bounds
   of Divine Grace. I doubt not that when the end of a reprobate has
   almost come and when a sinner's breath has almost left his body and the
   judgment has been about to be executed upon his guilty soul, that the
   prayers of earnest men and women have made the Merciful One linger a
   little longer and give a farther space in which repentance might spring
   up in the long-hardened heart--and the faith-glance might yet be given
   by the long-blinded eyes! What pauses Grace has made when faith has
   interceded!

   Whatever our Lord Jesus is doing, He is never so occupied as to
   disregard earnest prayer. He would, if necessary, put everything aside
   to listen to importunate and earnest pleading! To this day Jesus stands
   still to hear the cry of the destitute! If at this moment we could
   withdraw the curtains of Heaven, we would see our Savior waiting to be
   gracious, ready to hear our prayers, listening to every sigh, putting
   every tear into His bottle, answering every petition which comes up
   before Him from a sincere heart! Though He rules empires, He stands
   still to hear the wailing of distress! Though He inhabits the praises
   of Israel, He is moved by the sorrows of sinners! Though He hastens the
   day of His coming and is ready to begin His triumphal advent to the New
   Jerusalem, yet will He pause when the poor and needy present their case
   before

   Him!

   Thus have I tried to picture the Lord Jesus at a standstill. How I wish
   that some awakened one would now behold the Savior and exclaim, with
   Mr. Wesley--

   "Stopped by a sinner's prayer, You can no farther mo ve. You can no
   more forbear To manifest Your love. You waitnow to show Your Grace, And
   call me to seek Your face." II. We will now enter upon a practical
   enquiry--WHO AND WHAT WAS THIS WHICH STOPPED THE SAVIOR? What made Him
   stand still? Herod could not have done it, nor Pilate, nor chief
   priests, nor scribes, nor the foresight of the bloody sweat, nor a
   vision of the Cross. These would but have quickened His steps to enter
   upon the conflict and achieve Redemption. What made Him stand still?
   First, as I have already said, it was a blind beggar. I am afraid there
   are very few here, this morning, who are literally beggars, for
   nowadays we wear good clothes and are so very respectable that really
   poor people do not like to come and sit with us. That is a real pity.

   Yet I know that many poor persons are here today and I thank God that
   it is so. Those who are of poverty will, I hope, believe that they are
   welcome to the House of the Lord, who is no respecter of persons. We
   are right glad to see the poor among us, the more the merrier!
   Bartimaeus was a man of the very lowest order. He did not earn his own
   bread-- he could not--he sat publicly by the wayside and held out his
   hand for alms. Men give small honor to a blind beggar and are apt to
   pass him by without regard, but he to whom we owe all hope of Heaven
   stood still at the cry of such as he! After this, no one among you will
   dare to say, "I cannot be saved because I am so obscure, so poor, so
   homeless, so helpless." Tell me what you are at your very worst and I
   still have good tidings concerning my Lord's condescending favor to the
   likes of you!

   Did you lodge in the casual ward last night? Yet you are welcome to
   Christ! Have you come from the workhouse? Yet you are invited to the
   palace of Grace! Do you labor very hard for very little and can you
   barely pay your way? The Lord Jesus Christ wants no fee or reward from
   you--come empty-handed to His treasury! Jesus does not look at
   garments. What does Christ care about our coats? Tailors think of such
   matters, but Jesus does not! Christ sees the man, himself, not his
   clothes--He looks not at the man's possessions, but at his heart! In
   mercy He beholds not the excellence of the man, but his needs, his
   sorrows and his poverty. No man here shall ever be able to say, "It was
   of no use for me to think about religion--my circumstances are too
   low." "I was depressed," says one, "I should have thought about better
   things, but really, the grind of poverty was so dreadful that I could
   not rise from the dust." This is not true, for you are not poorer than
   the blind beggar of Jericho--and the sharp tooth of penury has not
   bitten you more severely than many of the Lord's suffering saints!
   Misery had eaten into the heart of this poor blind man and yet his cry
   made the Savior stand still!

   Now then, you that are the lowest, poorest, most afflicted, most
   despised in this house, I pray that you may be helped to appeal to
   Jesus for mercy and He will stand still to listen to you, even to you!
   But what was the art by which Barti-maeus stopped the Lord? That which
   stopped the Savior was a blind beggar's cry! The man did not sing a
   touching hymn to a melting tune--he only cried! Sometimes persons have
   such melodious voices that if they sing in the streets you linger to
   hear them and are in no hurry to go on with your errands. But this man
   did not sing! He had not even learned to intone his prayers as certain
   do in these odd times. I wonder whether the Lord ever listens to
   prayers when men turn them into sing-song and deliver them in an
   unnatural voice--intoning, as they call it? Why do men think it an
   improvement to say their prayers the wrong way upwards?

   This man cried. It was a cry, a ringing cry which increased in strength
   each time it was uttered! Thus it rose up into the ear, "Son of David,
   have mercy on me! Son of David, have mercy on me!" The voice came from
   a heart burdened with misery, breaking with desire, weary of long years
   of darkness, pining for the light and hopeful of obtaining it. "Son of
   David, have mercy on me!" Again the cry rose above all the hubbub of
   the throng. The prayer was a cry for mercy-- "Son of David, have
   mercy." If you ask our Lord for anything on the ground of merit, you
   will find Him deaf as a stone! If you think yourself a very good
   person, deserving favor at His hands, He will pass on and never regard
   you, for He has not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
   repentance!

   When your prayer is for mercy, you will touch the Savior's heart,
   directly, and mercy shall be yours. The proud man prays and he thinks
   his eloquent prayer must prevail, but the winds carry away his
   supplications. The humble man does no more than smite on his breast and
   say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner," and that cry for mercy wins
   the day! When the Messenger of Mercy was traveling through the world He
   asked Himself at what inn He should alight and spend the night. Lions
   and eagles were not to His mind and He passed by houses wearing such
   warlike names. So, too, He passed by places known by the sign of "The
   Waving Plume" and "The Conquering Hero," for He knew that there was no
   room for Him in those inns! He hastened by many a hostelry and tarried
   not, till at last He came to a little inn which bore the sign of "The
   Broken Heart." "Here," said mercy's Messenger, "I would gladly tarry,
   for I know by experience that I shall be welcome here." "A broken and a
   contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."

   Now, beloved Friends, if you plead for mercy because deeply conscious
   that nothing but the Grace of God can save you, even though you cannot
   put pretty words together or offer a long prayer, you shall prevail
   with God! You need not be an orator in order to be mighty in pleading
   with the Lord. Only appeal on the ground of Free Grace and dying love
   and Jesus will stand still and listen to you! There was another point
   about this cry which must not be forgotten--the name of Jesus was used
   as a plea. Is there anything in Heaven, or out of Heaven, more powerful
   than the name of Jesus? "Whatever you shall ask the Father in My name,
   He will give you." "Whatever you shall ask in My name, that will I do."
   Father and Son stand pledged to recognize and accept every draft upon
   the check of Heaven which is endorsed with the name of Jesus--a name
   that makes angels rejoice and devils tremble--there is none like it
   anywhere!

   The blind beggar of Jericho had learned to use the name of Jesus and he
   called Him, "Son of David--Prince, Messiah, the Sent One of God, the
   Savior of the world! Here is wisdom! O dear Hearer, if you know the
   name of Jesus, plead it! If you know what He is, what He came to do,
   what He has done, what He is doing--if you know anything about His
   Character, His Nature, His power, or His promise--plead it before Him
   in prayer! In humble faith say to Him, "Son of David, if You are,
   indeed, all this, be all this to me, I beseech You! If You are a
   Savior, save me! If You blot out sin, blot

   out mine! If You open the understanding, open mine, for Your great
   mercy's sake!" When we can thus reason together with the Lord, we shall
   have good speed in His Presence and again it shall be said, "Jesus
   stood still."

   I suppose the main thing which brought our gracious Master to a
   standstill was the fact that He had now an opportunity for doing good.
   Jesus has come to seek His lost sheep and when His eyes light upon one
   all torn and lame, He stops to deal tenderly with it. Our Lord was an
   itinerant Savior and wherever He found that He was needed, there He
   stayed. The objective of His mission is still the same--

   "He comes, from thickest films of vice,

   To clear the mental ray.

   And on the eyes of the blind

   To pour celestial day.

   He comes, the broken heart to bind,

   The bleeding soul to cure.

   And with the treasures of His Grace,

   To enrich the humble poor."

   Certain people in His day boasted that they could see--our Lord did not
   tarry to argue with them--they did not want Him and He, therefore,
   passed them by. But here is a blind man and was it not said of the
   Messiah that He should open the eyes of the blind? Here is the
   opportunity for Him and before that opportunity He stands still until
   His illuminating work shall be done!

   You good people who imagine that you will go to Heaven by your own
   works, my Lord does not wait on you. But you poor sinners who have no
   merits--you guilty ones who need His mercy--Jesus stops for you! You
   who have so much strength that you can believe when you like, can
   repent when you like, can be saved when you like, can be quite
   independent of the Holy Spirit and the Sovereign Grace of God--Jesus
   does not look at you. But oh, you that are blind and cannot see! You
   that wish you could see! You who groan because you have no
   strength--you are the men for my Master! Believe me, the Lord of Mercy
   looks not at merit, but at misery! The necessity of the case is its
   claim upon His tender heart. O sons of men, the Infinite Savior cares
   not for your fullness! His eyes of pity rests upon your emptiness!

   He turns indignantly from fancied claims of proud, self-righteous men,
   but He hastens to relieve those who confess their faults and seek His
   face. This is the work and office of Jesus--and He loves to exercise
   His high calling! Come to Him and put your case into His hands. Be this
   your prayer--

   "Since You stiil go about to do

   Your needy creatures good,

   On me, that I, Your praise may show,

   Be all Your wonders showed.

   If You, my God, are passing by,

   Oh let me find You near!

   Jesus, in mercy hear my cry,

   You, Son of David, hear!

   Behold me waiting, in the way,

   For You, the heavenly light!

   Command me to be brought, and say,

   'Sinner, receive your sight.'"

   Thus I have tried to show what was the power which riveted the Savior
   to the spot so that the Gospel says, "Jesus stood

   still."

   III. Under our third head we shall now enquire--WHAT WAS THERE SPECIAL
   ABOUT THIS BLIND MAN AND HIS PRAYER? An answer lies on the
   surface--there was this about it, first, that the man was full of need.
   He had two loads to carry. He was poor--that is bad enough, but he was
   also blind--that is worse. Here was a man with double need--without
   bread and without sight--and, therefore, his cries had a double
   loudness in the ears of the sinner's Friend. I cannot so look around
   these galleries and over this area as to spy out those in direst need,
   or I would look their way and say--

   "Come, you sinners, poor and wretched,"

   but I can make a few enquiries and may the Lord find out His own by
   them. Is there anyone here who has a double need, who is doubly guilty,
   doubly helpless--a man who feels that if Jesus does not save Him, he
   will be doubly damned? Do I speak to one whose need is doubly pressing
   so that his heart breaks for immediate relief?

   Ah, you doubly lost one, Jesus will stand still for you! You who are
   blind and poverty-stricken, too, shall have speedy audience! You that
   have nothing and can see no hope of ever having anything--you are the
   favored ones whose pleading voices Jesus never disregards! Cry mightily
   to Him at once! He waits at this moment. "Why," says one, "you are
   preaching up our poverty, our begging, our bankruptcy." Exactly so--

   "'Tis perfect po verty alone

   That sets the soul at large.

   While we can call one mite our own

   We get no full discharge.

   But let our debts be what they may,

   However great or small,

   As soon as we have naught to pay,

   Our Lord forgives us all!"

   But there was another specialty about this man besides his double need
   and that was his strong desire. When he sought for sight he meant it
   and there was no question about his sincerity and eagerness. His was no
   prayer which froze on the lips.

   His desire was, moreover, a very fitting and appropriate one. He sighed
   not for a luxury, but for a necessity. Our Lord said, in the 36th
   verse, to James and John, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And now,
   when He speaks to Bar-timaeus, He uses the same words--"What do you
   want Me to do for you?" James and John asked what was not fitting, or
   necessary, or proper. But this poor man had a desire which was, of all
   others, the most natural and suitable. What should a blind man seek but
   sight? Have you, dear Hearer, a longing for salvation? What else should
   a sinner long for? Do you desire forgiveness of sin? It is, of all
   things, most fitting that a guilty one should desire pardon! Do you
   wish for your spiritual eyes to be opened? Do you pray to be made
   whole? Do you pine to become holy? Oh, then, if your desires are real
   and fervent--their objectives are so suitable, so commendable that you
   may be sure of them being granted! Therefore, be of good cheer and at
   this moment hope in the Lord.

   Another thing that was special about the case was the man's earnest
   pleading, for his desire turned itself into prayer and that prayer took
   up arguments and urged them earnestly. His prayer was so full of life
   that it could not be repressed! Many tried to silence his cry, but it
   could not be hushed. Important persons said to the man, "Be quiet."
   Apostles charged him to hold his tongue, but he heeded no one. I am
   sure that if an Apostle were to say to some of you, "Do not pray," you
   would feel quite warranted in ceasing from praying--at least, it would
   serve as a good enough excuse for you! You would say, "I never plan to
   seek mercy again, for Peter told me not to do so."

   Oh, but if in your heart there is a work of Grace, 50 Peters could not
   stop your praying! Irrepressible prayer brings assured answers. If
   there is a prayer in your soul that James and John could not silence.
   If there is a cry in your soul that Andrew and Bartholomew and
   Nathanael and the whole 11 of them could not suffocate, the Lord Jesus
   will speedily hear you! Pray, my Brothers and Sisters, pray without
   ceasing though all the devils in Hell should charge you not to pray!
   Though all the saints in Heaven should vote your pleading, useless, yet
   still plead on and your suit shall speed with the Redeemer! He stops
   for you and even now it may be said of Him, "Jesus stood still." That,
   after all, which fastest bound the Savior was the man's faith, for He
   said to him, "Your faith has made you whole."

   What kind of faith was it? It was the best faith as to origin, for it
   was the faith of a blind man and, therefore, was not adulterated by the
   confidence which comes of sight. Faith comes not by seeing, or else it
   never could have come to this poor beggar--it comes by hearing--and he
   could hear. We have among us a certain sort of people who seem to
   imagine that faith comes by sight. Acting upon this, they work upon the
   eyes in many ways. If you step inside the walls of their churches you
   see an enormous cross. The altar is sumptuously adorned, mystical
   letters and characters are here and there in abundance. Open your eyes
   and get a blessing, if there is one! Look, here comes a man who, on his
   back and all around him carries means of grace for the eyes!

   He wears an embroidered cross and all over he is rigged out and ragged
   out, so as to instruct and save all who are willing to study symbolical
   vestures! He that has eyes to see, let him see! Watch what this
   successor of the Apostles is do-

   ing! Observe his genuflections, his facings about, his nodding of the
   head--all these minister grace to the beholders! Faith of the High
   Anglican kind would seem to come by sight, but the faith of God's
   elect--the faith which saves the soul--"comes by hearing, and hearing
   by the Word of God." Bartimaeus had seen nothing, but he had believed
   the report concerning the Messiah and had received the benediction,
   "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." If Jesus
   Christ raised the dead, this man did not see the miracle. If Jesus
   healed the leper, this man did not see the wonder. And if the lame man
   leaped like a hart, this man had neither seen his crutches nor his
   leaping--his faith was solely born of hearing and this is faith's best
   pedigree.

   Dear Friends, be attentive hearers of the Gospel! Thank God that you
   are privileged to be hearers. You need not sigh for ceremonies or
   architecture or processions. If you are a hearer of the Gospel, you
   have sufficient means of Divine Grace. By Eargate, King Jesus rides
   into the town of Mansoul! He says, "Incline your ears and come unto Me;
   hear, and your soul shall live." What? Though no dream, or vision, or
   rapturous experience as a sign for your eyes to see? Yes, believe in
   Jesus and you shall find in Him more than all signs and wonders!

   IV. Thus have we thought over the peculiar forces which made the Savior
   stand. May we now know how to use them.

   Does anyone enquire, What has this to do with me? This is my last
   point--"WHAT IS THERE SPECIAL FOR YOU,

   MY HEARER?" I think there may be much for you, for it contains much for
   me. I was a blind beggar, once. I was as blind as the heathens' gods,
   of which we read, "eyes have they, but they see not." And I was a
   beggar, too, so penniless as not to possess a pennyworth of merits to
   bless myself with. I thought I had some good works, once--quite a
   little cupboard full--but they bred worms and stunk and I had to sweep
   them all out and sweeten the place which they had defiled.

   I found myself worse than having nothing, for, like the Egyptians when
   the plague of frogs was removed, I had heaps of rubbish to get rid of.
   My former good works became, in my judgment, like forged bank notes or
   counterfeit money--I was afraid of being charged with the attempt to
   use them! Alas, my base good works, my proud good works, my deceitful
   good works pressed heavily on my conscience! By putting these into the
   place of Christ, I had made them worse than my sins! I was in a worse
   state than a man who owns nothing, for I was head over heels in debt
   and I knew it. Then it was that I heard of One who would deliver me and
   I cried to Him and He speedily delivered me. Oh, how I wish that many
   others would feel that they, too, need the Divine Savior! O that men
   knew that they are poor and blind and that Jesus can give them eyes and
   can supply all their needs!

   It is a very curious thing--a very curious thing to me--that so much
   uncertainty hangs over this narrative. I am not so sure as to speak
   positively, but I believe that this story which Mark tells us is not
   the whole of what happened, for Matthew is certain that there were two
   blind men. Hear what Matthew says about it. Surely it is the same
   incident, or one strangely similar. Matthew 20:29--"And as they
   departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. And behold, two
   blind men sitting by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus passed by,
   cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David."

   And the multitude rebuked them, that they should hold their peace. But
   they cried out the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of
   David." And Jesus stood still and called them and said, "What do you
   want Me to do for you?" They said unto Him, "Lord, that our eyes may be
   opened." There were two blind beggars, though Mark only feels it
   necessary to mention the principal one. If there were two, one of them
   is not known by name at all. We know the name of Bartimaeus and we know
   the name of his father, but we do not know the name of his companion.
   Mark might have left out the father's name, which is implied in the
   name of Bartimaeus, and he might have mentioned the other beggar, but
   he was not moved to do so, perhaps for the very reason that we should
   learn more out of his silence than out of the information.

   I venerate the silence of the Bible as much as its speech. I have been
   wondering if there is a man or woman here who will be saved this
   morning of whom we shall never hear, whose name will never be on our
   books and whose story will never cheer our hearts? It appears from what
   Matthew says that this No. 2, whoever he was, this anonymous body,
   prayed in the same words as Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus was a man of force
   and energy and he made the prayer as to its words, "Son of David, have
   mercy on me." The other man followed suit and adopted the methods of
   Bartimaeus. He was like the poor orator who had to speak after Burke
   and, very wisely said no more than, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke." Mark

   does not take much notice of him because he was the echo of Bartimaeus
   and probably a poor, feeble-minded, shiftless body whose only chance
   seemed to be in following the lead of a stronger mind.

   Here, then, is the mercy of it, that though we do not know the man's
   name, he had his eyes opened quite as surely as Bartimaeus! And though
   he could not make a prayer of his own, and only followed Bartimaeus, he
   had sight of his own and a word of comfort for himself from Jesus. Oh,
   poor dear Hearts, you way back in the background there; you that never
   will have the courage to join the Church because you are so timid; be
   of good courage for Jesus observes even you! Oh, you poor tremblers,
   who have not wit enough to put a dozen words together--at least you
   think so, for there is no telling what may be hidden away in you,
   somewhere--remember that it is the inward desire that Jesus hears and
   not the pleasing sentences of ready speakers!

   If you can only pray as somebody else prayed, I would have you borrow
   your prayers from the Bible, for Scriptural prayers are sure to be
   right. Take the prayer of the publican if you cannot make one of your
   own, and say, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." As soon as I saw that
   there were two beggars whose eyes were opened I thought, "After
   preaching I will look to meet with a convert whose name and family I
   shall know and with his tale of Grace I will solace myself. But oh,
   that my Lord would bless some whom I shall never know--some anonymous
   ones, some nobodies, some weak and shrinking souls! Are there any such
   here? Will not many such read the sermon? O that at their cry Jesus may
   stand still to bless them!

   I must mention a more curious thing, still. I am not certain, I am not
   clear, I am talking about things which must remain undecided, but it is
   very possible that there were three blind beggars healed. It may be
   that first of all, one man, Bartimaeus, applied to the Lord Jesus and
   had his eyes opened when Jesus was nearly out of Jericho. And then two
   others had their eyes opened when Jesus and the crowds were actually
   going out of the town. Many writers think that Matthew and Mark record
   two different incidents and it is very likely to be so. Probably the
   two blind men, having heard of the success of Bartimaeus, were
   encouraged to try for themselves and carefully imitated him, crying in
   the same language for the same gift! Thus there was a repetition of the
   incident on a doubled scale. I like that notion. I wonder whether No. 3
   is here, whose name we do not know and probably never shall know, but
   yet he is known to Jesus and his cry is heard? He has come here with
   poor No. 2, who is equally weak and trembling with himself--God bless
   them both!

   Those of us on whom the Savior has worked a good work would speak well
   of Him for the encouragement of the fearing ones. I bear my witness to
   the eye-opening power of the Gospel. "One thing I know, whereas I was
   blind; now I see," and no one opened my eyes but Jesus! I went to Him
   just as I was. I trusted Him and He saved me. May there not be two more
   blind men or women sitting somewhere about who will follow our example?
   Just do as we have done--pray and trust, cry and believe! Say, "Lord,
   Son of David, have mercy on me!" Remember He that has saved one can
   save two! He that has saved two can save three! No, it stops not at
   three--if there were 3,000 here who all cried for mercy, they should
   all have it--and as many millions more as could be found to follow in
   the same track!

   I see, this morning, before my mind's eye, Jesus standing before
   Jericho like a second Joshua. As you all know, the names, Jesus, and
   Joshua, are the same. Joshua crossed the Jordan and he stood with his
   sword drawn to capture Jericho and commence his march through Canaan,
   conquering and to conquer. Look, here is Jesus and He must make
   captives in Jericho before He advances further into the land! The city
   of palm trees must yield Him followers before the palms of victory are
   cast at His feet! He enters into Jericho, not to lay its walls flat to
   the ground, nor to slay its inhabitants, but to open eyes that have
   long been closed and bless poor creatures who have pined in poverty!
   This is the first fruit of His warfare--the commencement of a career
   which shall end at Jerusalem where He shall smite the Prince of
   Darkness and win the victory for all mankind!

   Even now I may say of Jesus Christ which was said of the son of
   Nun--"So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was told abroad
   throughout all the country." I wish the Lord Jesus Christ this morning
   would make this place as the gate of Jericho and begin, on this spot, a
   great revival of religion throughout the whole land by opening the eyes
   of some that are blind! Let the prayer go up from many a heart, "Lord,
   open my eyes," and He will do it! And let that request be followed by
   another, "Lord, save millions," and He will hear us! Let us pray boldly
   and believingly in the name of Jesus! Hear us, O Lord! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Believer's Death Day Better Than His Birthday

   (No. 1588)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 3, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death
   than the day of one's birth." Ecclesiastes 7:1.

   IN this part of the world, we can hardly understand how much the
   Easterns thought of perfumes. When Solomon speaks of "precious
   ointment," he speaks of a luxury highly appreciated by those who heard
   him. Orientals delighted to anoint themselves with fragrant oil and to
   pour upon their heads salves full of perfume. We do not--at any rate,
   not to the same lavish extent. But among the luxuries of eastern life
   was that of delighting the nostrils with sweet smells. The figure is
   easy to understand as it is here used to set forth the excellence of a
   good name. A man who is perfumed and who has put upon his head precious
   ointment is sweet and pleasant to himself. It gives him joy and so does
   a good name afford pleasure to its possessor. Besides that, the
   perfumed person was agreeable to other people--those who were round
   about him were refreshed by the fragrance--and so a noble character is
   agreeable to all who come near it.

   In some cases the use of a sacred ointment, or anointing oil, signified
   that the man was himself pleasant even to God--the priests went not
   into the Holy Place except they had been anointed with a certain
   appointed compound of sweet-smelling perfumes--and so precious ointment
   became the type of the anointing of the Spirit of God and of that
   acceptableness which comes to men through Jesus Christ who is a sweet
   savor unto the Lord God. And so you see that precious ointment, or
   sweet perfumed oil, was very precious to the Jew, first, because of the
   pleasure it gave to him and the healthy influence which he believed it
   exerted upon himself. Next, because it made him pleasurable to others
   and, next, because in its highest sacred sense it prepared him to come
   before God. You can see why, "precious ointment," was so much held in
   esteem.

   But Solomon says that a good name is better than that. I do not think
   he merely meant a good reputation--and yet it would be true if he
   referred only to an honorable character among his neighbors, for it is
   a good thing for a man to stand high in the esteem of his fellow men
   and he ought never to lose their respect except for one cause, namely,
   for the sake of standing in higher esteem before God. The faithful
   follower of Jesus must be content to part with name and fame if,
   through obedience to Christ, he is spoken of evilly--yes, in such a
   case he may rejoice and be exceedingly glad when they say all manner of
   evil against him falsely for Christ's' name's sake! Yet even then it is
   a sharp sorrow to have lost one's good name among men, though for
   Christ's sake it should be borne right cheerfully.

   Every good man would be glad if it were possible to have the good word
   of all his fellow men, for this is the groundwork of social peace and
   would be, in itself, good and pleasant were it not that sin destroys it
   and turns it into a "woe" when all men speak well of us. I believe that
   the text has a deeper meaning than this, for a man truly has a good
   name if he deserves to be held in high esteem, though he may, for
   Christ's sake, be in disrepute. His name is good, whatever men may say
   about it. His name is, indeed, all the better in the sight of God
   because he has been slandered and reproached for the sake of the Truth
   of God. His name shall shine out like the stars of Heaven when Christ
   comes--even the name of the man of whom the world was not worthy. It
   is, after all, a small matter to be judged of man's judgment--our
   record is on high. A good character may be understood here and,
   assuredly, that is better than the rarest luxury of kings.

   Consider it spiritually and, dear Brothers and Sisters, what is a good
   name? A good name is a name that is written in the Lamb's Book of Life
   and that is better than the sweetest of all ointments! Oh, that I may
   find my name recorded in some corner of the page among the sinners
   saved by Grace! The very thought of that has a savor in it which no
   earthly delicacy can rival! Oh, how blessed to be among the chosen of
   God, the redeemed of Christ Jesus, beloved of the Father from before
   the foundation of the world! "A good name." Why, that must be a name
   written upon the breastplate of the great High Priest! If you could
   have gone up to the high priest of old you would have read there,
   "Reuben," "Simeon,"

   "Levi," "Judah," "Dan," "Gad," "Naphtali" and the like--and they were
   all good names when once they were engraved there.

   But what a blessed place to have your name inscribed--not upon a jewel
   that shall hang on the breast of a man, but upon the very heart of
   Jesus Christ your Lord! If you could see your name written on the palms
   of His hands, you would say, "It is a good name that is written there.
   Blessed be the Lord that ever I had that name, insignificant as it is.
   Though it is a name that has been ridiculed. Though it is a name that
   has been bandied about and kicked like a football through the world,
   yet it is a blessed name, for it is written on the palms of Jesus'
   hands." It is so if we are the Lord's own people and are walking the
   walk of faith. Jesus says, "I have engraved you upon the palms of My
   hands." That is a good name which is recorded in the Lamb's Book of
   Life and engraved upon the breastplate of the Savior. Do you not think
   so?

   Connected with this, I may say that a name that is written among the
   living in Zion is a good name. Oh, there is nothing like it! Some men
   are very anxious to get their names upon the roll of this club or of
   that, or of some wonderful secret society--or to get their names into
   the peerage. It is thought to be a wonderful thing to be a nobleman,
   though it is better, far, to be a noble man. But the best list of names
   on earth seems to me to be the list of the people of God. I should
   count it a higher honor to be inscribed on the Church book of a humble
   company of baptized Believers meeting in a barn than to wear a name
   imported by the Conqueror and written in the roll of Battle Abbey! The
   pedigree of saintship confers honor such as angels recognize--all else
   they think little of. Are you one of God's believing people? Have you
   taken up your cross, resolved to follow Jesus?

   Do you, as a servant and as a soldier, bear His name as your Master and
   Captain? Then you have a good name and there is a sweetness about it
   better than the perfume of precious ointment. If, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, you go on, after having your names inscribed in the Church of
   God, to get a beloved name among God's people through Divine Grace, it
   will be better than precious ointment! It will be better than all the
   expensive luxuries which wealth could purchase to have a name esteemed
   for lowly piety or sacred courage! How sweet, for instance, to be like
   that woman who brought our Lord precious ointment. He paid her back
   with a good name, immortalizing her in the Gospels, for He said,
   "Wherever this Gospel is preached, there shall be also this, what this
   woman has done, be told for a memorial of her."

   A humble woman like Dorcas may make garments for the poor and this
   shall be better than precious ointment! A simple trader like Lydia may
   entertain the servants of God--constraining them to come into her
   house--and this shall be better than precious ointment! And a lowly man
   may so live as to adorn the Gospel of God his Savior--may so speak as
   to bring one and another to the Savior's feet--and this shall be better
   than a blaze of courtly honor! "A good name"--that is a name for
   humility, a name for love and affection, a name for generosity, a name
   for zeal, a name for warm-heartedness, a name for prayerfulness, a name
   among the people of God for being a wholehearted, sincere man--a name
   for being one who is ready to help you in time of trouble, a name like
   that of Barnabas, the Son of Consolation!

   A good name of this sort should be our ambition to win and to wear. A
   good name that shall arise out of our exhibiting a compound of many
   precious virtues shall be better than an ointment formed of the rarest
   spices, however pleasant it may be. You may be in the Church and yet
   you may not have a good name as a member of it. I mean as to your own
   personal character as a Christian, for some professors are in the pot
   of ointment, but I wish we could pick them out, for they are flies and
   they spoil everything! There are such in this Church--oh that they had
   gone elsewhere! If only they would have flown into a pot of the world's
   honey, or something of that kind! For them to get into the Church's
   ointment is a great pity. May God grant that you and I may never be
   dead flies in the pot of ointment.

   Some get a name in the Church for quarrelling and fault-finding. "Oh,"
   people say, "if anybody can pick a hole in the sermon, I know who it
   is." You need only have half-a-dozen words with this crab apple critic
   and you surely and speedily lose what enjoyment you have had during the
   service. Alas, that many Christian women have not a good name, for they
   are addicted to gossiping. A word to the wise on this matter will, I
   hope, be enough. I will not, at this time, dive deeply into any of your
   faults, whatever they may be, but will cover them all over with this
   truth--A good reputation, well earned among your Christian Brethren is
   better than precious ointment. It is of persons who have this good
   character and are known by the sweet savor of their lives, that the
   latter part of the text is spoken--"The day of death is better than the
   day of one's birth."

   You must have a good name--you must be written among the living in
   Zion, written on the heart of Christ, written in the Lamb's Book of
   Life, or else the text is not true of you and, alas, though the day of
   your birth was a bad day, the

   day of your death will be a thousand times worse--for when you die, my
   Hearer, remember what will happen to you unless you have that good
   name! You will be driven from the Presence of God and from the Glory of
   His power--and begin to feel the terrors of His vengeance! And then,
   when the Day of Judgment comes, God will prove that He is able to
   destroy both body and soul in Hell, for there must you dwell in
   everlasting punishment, prepared for the devil and His angels, so that
   the day of your death will be a day of darkness and not of light--and
   it will be better for you that you had never been born.

   But now, if you are one of God's people, trusting in Him, look forward
   to the day of your death as being better than the day of your birth! It
   is possible that you may never die, since the Lord Jesus may suddenly
   come a second time. But if this should not occur in our day, we shall,
   in due course, fulfill our service and fall asleep. At this hour,
   before yet the sand in the glass shall all run down, the long-expected
   Lord may suddenly appear in His Glory! Therefore let us stand ready, as
   men that wait for their Lord, with our loins girt and our lamps
   burning. But if He does not come for the next hundred years--and He may
   not, for our Lord has not committed to us a knowledge of the times and
   seasons--then we shall die. And in that case it is no small consolation
   that "the day of death is better than the day of one's birth."

   I. First, then, OUR DEATH DAY IS BETTER THAN OUR BIRTHDAY--and it is so
   for this, among other reasons--"Better is the end of a thing than the
   beginning thereof." When we are born we begin life, but what will that
   life be? Friends say, "Welcome, little stranger." Ah, but what kind of
   reception will the stranger get when he is no longer a newcomer? Very
   likely he is not long in the world before he begins to feel the poverty
   of his parents and, perhaps, the misery of an unholy home. A troop of
   infantile diseases are waiting around him and the little candle that is
   newly lit is in great danger of being blown out! Infancy is a very
   dangerous passage for a tiny boat unfitted to bear rough buffetings.

   Those first few years are full of rocks and quicksand and many scarcely
   begin life before they end it. He who is newly born and is ordained to
   endure through a long life is like a warrior who puts on his harness
   for battle--and is not he in a better case who takes it off because he
   has won the victory? Ask any soldier which he likes better--the first
   shot in the battle or the sound which means, "Cease firing, for the
   victory is won!"? The soldier does not deliberate a moment! There is no
   room for question! Since the day of a Believer's death is his time of
   triumph and of victory, it is better than the day of the first
   shot--the day of one's birth.

   When we were born we set out on our journey, but when we die, we end
   our weary march in the Father's house above. Surely it is better to
   have come to the end of the tiresome pilgrimage than to have commenced
   it. We wave the handkerchief and bid good-bye to those who start upon a
   long voyage and it is only right that they should be made as cheerful
   as they can be. But, surely, it is a better day when, at last, they
   reach their port, all danger over, and come to their desired haven. So,
   then, it is better to die than to begin to live, if we are, indeed, the
   Lord's people. Better is the day of death than our birthday because
   about the birthday there hangs uncertainty.

   I cannot tell you, good woman, what is to become of the little child
   who is pressed to your bosom this evening. God bless it and make it a
   comfort to you and an honor to His Church! But it is all matter of hope
   as yet. Children are certain cares, they say, and uncertain blessings.
   I hardly like the phrase. They are blessings anyway--but there is
   certainly this about them--we cannot tell what will become of them when
   they grow up and come under the influence of evil. You look upon a
   youth as he grows up and you feel, "I cannot quite see what you will
   be. You may be led astray by temptation, or by Divine Grace you may
   cleanse your way. You may be useful and honorable, or you may be
   dissolute and degraded."

   Everything is uncertain about the child on his birthday, but everything
   is certain about the saint on his death day. I heard, this morning, of
   a dear friend who had fallen asleep. When I wrote to his wife I said,
   "Concerning him we speak with certainty. You sorrow not as those that
   are without hope. A long life of walking with God proved that he was
   one of God's people and we know that for such there remains joy without
   temptation, without sorrow, without end, forever and ever." Oh, then,
   as much as certainty is better than uncertainty, the day of the saint's
   death is better than the day of his birth!

   So, too, in things which are certain, the saint's death day is
   preferable to the beginning of life, for we know that when the child is
   born he is born to sorrow. Whatever else is uncertain about him, we are
   quite sure that those little eyes will weep; that those little limbs
   will know weariness and pain and that his little heart will be
   distracted, sooner or later, by many griefs. We know this, for "man is
   born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." No man has ever been able to
   find a

   perfectly smooth road through this mortal life. Trials must and will
   befall and your little one who is born today is born to an inheritance
   of grief, like his father, like his mother, who prophesied it as it
   were by her own pangs.

   But look, now, at the saint when he dies. It is absolutely certain that
   he has done with sorrow, done with pain. We know that they shall die no
   more--"they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither
   shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; and God shall wipe away all
   tears from their eyes." Now, surely, the day in which we are certain
   that sorrow is over must be better than the day in which we are certain
   that sorrow is on the road! For this reason we set up the headstone of
   the grave above the tablet which records the birth. Yes, and this holds
   good about subsequent birthdays.

   It is thoughtfully and cheerfully wise to mark each birthday. It should
   be a holy day in every Christian's case--a day of grateful thanksgiving
   that we have come so far upon the road of life. It is a very blessed
   thing to sit down on the milestone and say, "Well, now, I have come 20
   miles or 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 miles of my journey. I shall never tread
   those miles over again. So many troubles are past--so many waves have
   risen that will never wash over me a second time! So many tossing to
   and fro I have endured and I shall never feel them any more." Every man
   should say at the end of a sickness, "Thank God that is gone. I shall
   not suffer a repetition of that same sickness. I shall not feel those
   pains over again. I shall not groan through those same weary nights for
   a second time." For every pang that shoots through your bones you
   should say, "That bone will not ache that pain over again, at any
   rate." Be joyful that you are so far on your journey!

   There remains that other portion of the journey--long leagues of
   pilgrimage may lie beyond. There are still battles to fight, mountains
   to climb, dark nights in which one sighs for light. There is still
   temptation; still sin. Yes, but when we get to the day of one's death,
   then the whole journey lies behind! It is all over then! On your coming
   to die there is nothing left to do but die. All else is done. The
   battle is fought and the victory is won forever! Oh, is not that better
   than even the best birthday that we have ever had--good as they have
   been--and cause for thanksgiving as each one certainly has been? I
   think, then, I need not dwell longer on this point. "The day of death
   is better than the day of one's birth."

   II. Now I will give the same thoughts in another form. The day of death
   is BETTER TO THE BELIEVER THAN ALL HIS HAPPY DAYS. What were his happy
   days? I shall take him as a man and I will pick out some days that are
   often thought to be happy. There is the day of a man's coming of age
   when he feels that he is a man--especially if he has an estate to come
   into. That is a day of great festivity. You have seen pictures of,
   "Coming of age in the olden times," when the joy of the young squire
   seemed to spread itself over all the tenants and all the farm
   laborers--everybody rejoiced!

   Ah, that is all very well, but when Believers die they do, in a far
   higher sense, come of age and enter upon their heavenly estates! Here,
   you know, in this life we are very much as children who are under
   governors and tutors and we differ little from servants. We still have
   to be chastened, kept under rule and denied much which is nevertheless
   ours. We have many good things kept from us because we are not yet able
   to appreciate them. "Now we know in part." It is only in a small
   measure that we come into possession, enjoying only the earnest of the
   inheritance. Yes, but--

   "Then shall I see, and hear, and know

   All I desired or wished below!

   And every power find sweet employ

   In that eternal world of joy."

   Then shall I pluck the grapes from those vines that I have read of as
   enriching the valleys of Eshcol! Then shall I lie down and drink full
   drafts of the river of God which is fall of water! Then shall I know
   even as I am known and see no more through a glass darkly, but face to
   face!

   Speak of heirs, of heirs coming into their estates! Why, our day of
   death shall be such a day as that! What a jubilee day it will be! If we
   were really in our senses, the thought of fearing death would be
   ridiculous! No young man is afraid of coming to be twenty-one. No! He
   says, "Fly away, fly away, days and nights. I shall be glad to get out
   of my nonage, out of my infancy and to come into my full manhood and
   into possession of everything." So might we say, "Fly away, years!
   Come, gray hairs! Fly away, years, and bring me into possession of
   things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard which God has prepared for
   them that love Him."

   Another very happy day with a man is the day of his marriage--who does
   not rejoice, then? What cold heart is there which does not beat with
   joy on that day? But on the day of death we shall enter more fully into
   the joy of our Lord and into that blessed marriage union which is
   established between Him and ourselves. Then we shall enter into the
   guest

   chamber where the supper is to be spread and we shall wait a while with
   joy, the Bridegroom being with us, till the word shall be given and the
   trumpet note shall ring out--and then we shall sit down at the marriage
   supper of the Lamb, not to look at His guests, but to be ourselves part
   and parcel of that blessed bride, the Lamb's wife, in whom Christ finds
   all His heart's content.

   Oh, yes, we may long for our departure because it is to the saint, a
   marriage day in which he shall be "with Christ," which is far better
   and, as the bride longs for the wedding, so may the heart that is full
   of faith long for the time when we shall be forever with the Lord!
   There are days with men in business that are happy days because they
   are days of gain. They get some sudden windfall. They prosper in
   business, or, perhaps, there are long months of prosperity in which all
   goes well with them and God is giving them the desires of their heart.
   But, oh, Beloved, there is no gain like the gain of our departure to
   the Father! The greatest of all gains is that which we shall know when
   we pass out of the world of trouble into the land of triumph. "To die
   is gain."

   As for prosperity, what worldly prosperity can be compared with the
   eternal years in which we shall dwell in infinite felicity above? To
   die is to enter upon days of peace, rest, joy, satisfaction and,
   therefore, the day of our death is better than our happiest days! There
   are days of honor, Brethren, when a man is promoted in office, or
   receives applause from his fellow men. But what a day of honor that
   will be for you and me if we are carried by angels into Abraham's
   bosom! Our honorable escort will manifest how highly the Lord thinks of
   us. Oh, the honors that will be heaped upon the saints when they shall
   be recognized in Glory as Brothers and Sisters of Christ, heirs of God,
   joint heirs with the Redeemer!

   Days of health are happy days, too. But what health can equal the
   perfect wholeness of a spirit in whom the good Physician has displayed
   His utmost skill? Days of recovery from sickness are happy days, but,
   oh, to be totally recovered--to go where the inhabitant shall no more
   say, "I am sick." When Jehovah Rophi shall restore our whole spirit to
   perfection, then will a new gladness take possession of us. We enjoy
   very happy days of social friendship when hearts warm with hallowed
   communion--when one can sit awhile with a friend or rest in the midst
   of one's family. Yes, but no day of social enjoyment will match the day
   of death! Some of us expect to meet troops of blessed ones that have
   gone Home long ago, whom we shall never forget. We have priceless
   friends over yonder and the bliss of reunion will be sweet.

   Some of you old people have more friends in Heaven than you have on
   earth! You may forget all sorrow as to those you will leave in the joy
   of meeting those with whom you will be united again! What family
   greetings there will be! Mother has gone; father has gone; uncles and
   aunts that were in the Lord and brothers and sisters, too, are all gone
   before--and all these are waiting for us and we shall soon be in full
   fellowship with them! Best of all, He has gone before whom our hearts
   love and who is more to us than brother, sister and mother! Oh, the
   bliss of meeting with our risen Lord! Oh, the joy of meeting in Him all
   that are truly our own kin! The saints will meet around the Throne of
   God, an unbroken family--not one of God's children will be absent!

   We shall have no brothers or sisters who will not be there. "Oh," you
   say, "I am afraid that we have some who are still unconverted and who
   will not be there." They will not be your brothers and sisters, then.
   Ties of merely natural kinship will come to an end--only spiritual
   relationship will last and survive. We shall have none to mourn over!
   Our kindred will all be in Glory. Those that were truly related to us
   in the bonds of everlasting life shall all be there. One might wish for
   it to come soon, for the joy of being forever with the people of God,
   sitting down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven!

   III. In the third place, going a step farther, the day of a Believer's
   death is BETTER THAN HIS HOLY DAYS ON EARTH. I think that the best holy
   day I ever spent, (yes, I think I must put it as high as that), was the
   day of my conversion. There was a novelty and freshness about that
   first day which made it like the day in which a man first sees the
   light after having been long blind. My conversion day--shall I ever
   forget it?--When my heart began to beat with spiritual life and the
   lungs of my soul began to heave with prayer! And the hands of my soul
   were stretched out to grasp my Lord and the eyes of my soul beheld His
   beauty! Yes--that was a very blessed sight--but what will it be to see
   Him face to face? What will the first five minutes in Heaven be?

   Surely those dawning moments will be forever remembered and spoken of
   by holy beings as they commune with one another concerning their
   delights! Oh, for a celestial visitor to tell us of his experience in
   the first five minutes in Heaven! No, I think he had better not because
   we might be frightened by him and he would talk a language that we
   could not understand! He would say things which it were not lawful for
   a man to utter! Brother from the Glory Land, you may go

   back--it were better that we did not hear your story of the better
   country. We will think of it and begin expecting it. It will certainly
   be better to see the Lord in death than when we first of all saw Him
   here below. Since then we have known many blessed days--our Sabbaths,
   for instance. We can never give up the Lord's Day.

   Precious and dear unto my soul are those sweet rests of love--days that
   God has hedged about to make them His own that they may be ours. A
   young man said to me yesterday, when he came to join the Church, "I
   often wish that all the week was made up of Sundays." I thought, "Yes,
   and so do I," only I could not always be preaching. I would want to
   come down and take a turn at hearing, although it is always precious to
   talk about God's Word. Oh, our blessed Sabbaths! Well, there is this
   about the day of one's death--we shall then enter upon an eternal
   Sabbath. We shall go--

   "Where congregations never break up, And Sabbaths have no end."

   And the Glory Sabbaths will be real Sabbaths, never disturbed or
   distracted. They will be blessed Sabbaths, shut out from sinners and
   from that filthy conversation which often vexes us even on the Sabbath.
   "There remains a rest for the people of God."--

   "To that our laboring souls aspire With ardent pangs of strong desire."

   Our communion days have been very holy days. It has been very sweet to
   sit at the Lord's Table and have fellowship with Jesus in the breaking
   of bread and the drinking of wine. But sweeter far will it be to
   commune with Him in the Paradise above--and that we shall do on the day
   of our death! I might go on mentioning all our holy days, one after
   another, but whichever you should select as the season of your highest
   joy on earth, I should say of the best of them, "Yes, but the day of
   one's death, as ushering us into a higher and holier state, is better
   than any of those days." Those days have been good, I am not going to
   depreciate them, but to bless the Lord for every one of them. When we
   say that a second thing is, "better," it is supposed that the first
   thing has some goodness about it. Yes, and our holy days on earth have
   been good--fit rehearsals of the jubilee beyond the river!

   When you and I enter Heaven, it will not be going from bad to good, but
   from good to better! The change will be remarkable, but it will not be
   so great a change as thoughtless persons would imagine. First, there
   will be no change of nature. The same nature which God gave us when we
   were regenerated--the spiritual nature--is that which will enjoy the
   heavenly state. We shall not carry with us our depraved nature--we do
   not want to do so, I am sure. Mr. Ready-to-Halt, in Bunyan's,
   "Pilgrim," performed His journey on crutches. But when he died he threw
   them away! He did not need to carry his crutches into the land of
   perfection--and we shall carry no sinful infirmities with us into
   Paradise, nor, indeed, any infirmities at all!

   As to Mr. Feeblemind, he gave orders that his feeble mind should be
   buried in a dunghill--he did not want to import a trembling heart into
   the skies! But all that is good about us, all that is really ourselves
   as we have been begotten again in Christ Jesus--all will go to Heaven,
   without loss of any portion. I shall be the same man there that I am
   here-- and I have not the slightest doubt that you will know me. At any
   rate, you will be bigger fools in Heaven than you are here if you do
   not! Did I hear someone reply, "We shall not know you in the
   disembodied state, for here we only recognize you by your outward
   appearance"? I answer, Many of you know me in another manner than after
   the flesh--you not only know me by my looks, but you know my spirit.

   If I could get out of my body and I could not use a voice, but yet
   could influence your spirits by my spirit, you would know my spirit!
   You know what spirit I am of. I will not try to describe myself, but
   you know me. I know you do! Nobody is exactly like me in some traits of
   character--each one stands alone. Nobody is exactly like you, dear
   Friend, so that there will be peculiar points by which to distinguish
   man from man. We shall certainly know each other. Yes, and we shall be
   the same persons--and when our bodies rise, they will be the same
   bodies. "Every seed its own body"-- changed and perfected, but still
   preserving its identity!

   On earth we have had good days because we have had a good nature given
   us by the Holy Spirit--and we shall possess the same nature above--only
   more fully grown and purged from all that hinders it. We shall follow
   the same employments above as we have followed here. "Oh dear," says
   one, "I hope not! I do not want to work hard, there, as I have had to
   do here." No, perhaps not, but I mean the employments of our spirits
   will be similar to what they have been while we have been in the world.
   What are the employments of our spirits here? Why, one of the sweetest
   of them is to sing the

   Lord's praises. We shall spend eternity in adoring the Most High. To
   draw near to God in communion--that is one of our most blessed
   employments. We shall do it there and take our fill of it.

   Nor is this all, for we shall serve God in Glory. I do not know what
   God will want us to do in Heaven, I have never been there to see. But I
   am sure that He will make use of us. Does He not say, "They shall see
   His face and His servants shall serve Him"? Oh, yes, He has something
   for me to do up there and for you, too. You active-spirited ones, you
   shall find an intense delight in continuing to do the same things as to
   spirit as you do here, namely adoring and magnifying and spreading
   abroad the saving name of Jesus in whatever place you may be. We shall
   certainly possess the same enjoyments of our richest enjoyments as
   saints are found in fellowship with Christ and with one another--and we
   shall have these above. We shall live upon Christ! We shall rejoice in
   God, there, as we do here!

   And there is one thing I like to think of--we shall have the same
   company. I was visiting a poor old woman who was near to death and she
   said to me, "One thing makes me feel quite safe about where I am going.
   I believe that I shall go to my own company and for the last 60 years I
   have never had any company but the Lord's people. And if a stranger has
   come in here and begun to talk about worldly things in a carnal way, I
   have wished him gone. I said to myself, 'The Lord won't take me away
   from my own people. Surely He will let me go where they go and if I go
   where those people go, that I love, I know that I shall be happy.'"

   So, dying Believer, you will not change company--only the company will
   be all improved and you will be improved as much as any of them! It
   will be the same company and this makes it look so much like going
   home. The day of our death has nothing so very strange and mysterious
   about it as to make us fear it. You and I ought to live like people,
   who, when they hear a knock at the door, do not go into fits at the
   startling sound. Some people are terribly alarmed at a knock or a ring
   because they have not paid their rent and they are afraid that somebody
   is after them for money. You and I have paid our debts, or rather, they
   have been all paid for us. The Lord Jesus Christ has set us free--and
   when death comes and knocks at our door--all that we shall have to do
   will be to answer the summons and go with God's messenger at once.

   Our friends will say, "He is gone." And if we have lived so that we
   have had a good name, that is better than precious ointment! They will
   know where we have gone and if they lament on that account they will be
   very foolish, for they ought rather to say, "Thank God that our friend
   has entered into his joy and rest!" There was a dear mother, a woman of
   great faith, who loved her daughter very much, but she loved her Lord
   more. And when her dear daughter was dying, she kissed her and said to
   her, "My dear girl, you will be in Heaven within a few hours and I
   congratulate you. The thought of your joy fills me with joy concerning
   you and I cannot weep. I congratulate you and wish I was going with
   you." Let us think of death after that holy manner.

   IV. I have not time to finish my sermon. At least, I have time to
   finish it, but not to continue it as long as I would like. I was going
   to say, in the fourth place, that the day of a saint's death is BETTER
   THAN THE WHOLE OF HIS DAYS PUT TOGETHER because his days here are days
   of dying. The moment we begin to live we commence to die--

   "Every beating pulse we count Lea ves but the number less."

   Death is the end of dying! On the day of the Believer's death, dying is
   forever done with! The saints who are with God shall never die again.
   Life is wrestling, struggling--but death is the end of conflict--it is
   rest victory. Life is full of sinning. Blessed be God, death is the end
   of that--no transgression or iniquity shall follow us into Heaven. Life
   is longing, sighing, crying, pining, desiring. Heaven is enjoying,
   possessing, delighting one's self in God. This life is failure,
   disappointment, regret. Such emotions are all over when the day of
   death comes, for Glory dawns upon us with its satisfaction and intense
   contentment!

   The day of our death will be the day of our cure! There are some
   diseases which, in all probability, some of us never quite get rid of
   till the last Physician comes and He will settle the matter. One gentle
   touch of His hand and we shall be cured forever! All infirmities, as
   well as sicknesses, will vanish in our last hours. Blind Sister, you
   will have your eyes. You that have lost your hearing shall listen to
   the songs of angels and enter into the most refined of their harmonies.
   You who must limp to your graves shall dance, by-and-by. You shall have
   no more infirmities. Death will also be the cure of old age. No doctor
   can help you about that--but this Doctor will end all. You shall renew
   your youth like the eagle's. You shall be girt about with power when
   your body rises from the grave and, till then, your soul shall enjoy
   all the fresh-

   ness and juvenility of youth! You shall be at your prime in Glory! Our
   death day will be the loss of all losses. Life is made up of losses,
   but death loses losses. Life is fall of crosses, but death is the cross
   that brings crosses to an end. Death is the last enemy and turns out to
   be the death of every enemy.

   Dear Friends, put all your days together--they shall not equal that
   last day which shall be to you the beginning of days of another sort!
   The day of our death is the beginning of our best days! Sometimes even
   that part of a dying day which is spent on earth is the best that the
   dying Believer has ever lived. I have seen Believers die and if
   anything can convince a man of the reality of religion, of the truth of
   the Scriptures and of the power of the Spirit, it is the death of
   saints! I have seen many persons who seemed to be as much dying of
   their joy as of their disease, they were so happy! Their eyes, their
   face, their whole bearing were those of persons in whom the utmost pain
   was forgotten in an excess of joy, while weakness was swallowed up in
   the delights of the Heaven which was dawning upon them.

   I believe that angels come and meet certain departing ones--that they
   come trooping outside the gate--and that dying ones frequently see that
   which is supernatural. I am not dreaming! I believe that they actually
   see what eyes have not seen and that there comes upon them a Light
   which is neither of the sun, nor of the moon. At any rate, they speak
   words of wondrous import! Dying children have spoken words which
   certainly they never learned, for none have ever heard the like before!
   And other departing ones have uttered words of rapture and ecstasy and
   almost delirium of bliss, for Christ has come to them and they have
   seen the King in His beauty even in the border land before they have
   crossed the river and entered into Canaan!

   "Is this what it is to die?" asked one. "Well, then," he said, "it is
   worth while to live even to enjoy the bliss of dying!" The holy calm of
   some and the transport of others prove that better is the day of death
   in their case than the day of birth, or all their days on earth! And
   then that later part of the day which is spent among the angels! They
   breakfast with Christ on earth, but they sup with Him in Heaven. Oh,
   that eventide of the day! Then to think that it shall be without
   end--forever happy, forever triumphant and forever more and more
   so--for, "from glory unto glory" makes us look for progress even there!

   We shall rise from seeing Christ to seeing Him yet more and to
   discovering more and more beauties in Him! We shall ascend from one
   perfection to another perfection--from fullness up to our capacity to
   an enlarged capacity and an equal fullness! From Glory unto Glory--from
   sunlight to Godlight--from Godlight to the light of God yet more
   received and enjoyed. There! I cannot go farther. Good night, "till the
   day breaks and the shadows flee away" and then you and I will know, in
   ten minutes, more than all the bench of bishops could tell us in a
   year! You will know more in half a second than I could tell you if I
   were to keep you here the whole night!

   Only mind you, do not miss the way, one of you! Mind you do not miss
   the way! Turn to the right, by the Cross, and go straight on. God lead
   you by His Holy Spirit! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Hasty Expression Penitently Retracted

   (No. 1589)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes: nevertheless
   You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto You." Psalm
   31:22.

   THAT is a bit of genuine experience, honestly told, in the most natural
   manner. How glad we ought to be that David never fell into the hands of
   an ordinary biographer, for such a piece of weakness as this text
   records would have been carefully repressed lest the good man's
   reputation should suffer. It was only a hasty expression and every
   friendly biographer would have felt that it ought to be taken as
   unspoken. Here, however, stands this piece of human weakness upon
   David's life and we are right glad of it--it is a comfort to us little
   folks to perceive the champions were men of like passions with
   ourselves! As a bee sucks honey out of nettles, so does faith find
   comfort even in the failings of David. But we must mind that we do not
   turn his errors into excuses, for that were to extract poison instead
   of wholesome juices.

   The experience of a good man, of a great man, of a tried man like
   David, is exceedingly instructive and impressive. The children of God
   delight in doctrinal preaching and in practical preaching--but I
   believe that nothing is so sweet to them as experimental preaching by
   which we are not only taught the Truth of God in the head and in the
   hand, but something is said of Truth in the heart! This it is which
   endears the Book of Psalms to the whole Church and makes the
   explanation of that volume so important. Nothing more sweetly cheers
   the straggler after better things than to hear of the life-struggles of
   godly men.

   Behold, then, a written confession, dictated by the penitent heart of
   David who withdraws the curtain from his own innermost life! I should
   not wonder if his experience should turn out to be very like your own
   for, as in water, face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man
   and this is the reason why the experience of one man is his best means
   of interpreting the feelings of another. Take heed, however, when you
   are reading the histories of the saints, that you use them with
   prudence, for it is not all the experience of a Christian that is
   Christian experience! A Believer may experience much which he does not
   experience as a Believer, but because his believing is failing him!
   Sometimes we are rather to regard the experience of good men as beacons
   to warn us from rocks than as lighthouses to show us where the harbor
   may

   be.

   Rheumatism is certainly a human disease, but I would, by no means
   recommend a person to seek after it in order to prove his manhood! We
   can well do without some things which were characteristic of certain
   eminent men, since they did not adorn or strengthen them, but rather
   disfigured and weakened them. In David's case, it is well to follow
   David--but it is better to follow David's son--for David, sometimes,
   went astray like a lost sheep--but David's son was that great Shepherd
   of the sheep whose every step it is safe for the flock to follow! Do
   not let us imitate David in his speaking in haste, or in his saying, "I
   am cut off from before Your eyes." But, at the same time, let us take
   care that we closely copy him in confessing conscious fault, as he does
   here, in crying to God in the hour of trouble as he tells us he
   did--and also in bearing witness to the exceeding goodness of God,
   notwithstanding our faults--as he here bears witness when he says,
   "Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
   You."

   For our edification we will consider the text thus--here is, first, an
   utterance of unbelief--"I am cut off from before Your eyes." Secondly,
   here is incidentally mentioned an effort of struggling faith--David
   says, "You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto You."
   And, thirdly, here is a testimony of gratitude, for David joyfully
   declares that notwithstanding his unbelief, the Lord heard and answered
   his cries. O for the touch of the Holy Spirit to make this outline into
   a living sermon! Here are the altar and the wood--O Holy Spirit, You be
   the fire!

   I. Let us begin by listening to AN UTTERANCE OF UNBELIEF--"I said in my
   haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes." Note here, first, that
   unbelief is generally talkative--"I said." It had been better for him
   not to have thought it, even, but when he did think thus wrongly, it
   was most unwise to speak the thought. I have heard it said, "If it is
   in the

   mind it may as well come out," but this is not true. If I had a
   rattlesnake in a box on this platform, I think you would, none of you,
   vote for the creature's being let loose! Poison in a vial is deadly,
   but it will hurt no one until the cork is drawn and then we cannot tell
   how far the mischief may go. Lions and tigers and vipers are best shut
   up--the wider range you give them, the more you empower them to do
   mischief. If you have an ill thought, repent of it, but do not repeat
   it--it may harm you--but it will not harm others if you let it die
   within doors.

   Do as David did in another case, when he had a very ugly thought. He
   said, "If I shall speak thus I shall offend against the generation of
   Your people," and he would not, therefore, put his thought into words
   lest he should offend the godly. If you have a harsh thought of God,
   utter it not in the presence of His own children. Would you grieve your
   Brethren? Utter it not in the presence of His enemies. Would you open
   their mouths to speak against Him? Where will you utter it? Speak it
   not upon earth, for it is His footstool. Say it not in prayer, for you
   are bowing at His Throne. Say it nowhere, for God will hear it if no
   one else should. Bury in silence that offspring of your soul of which
   it has good cause to be ashamed. Let it be cast over the wall as the
   untimely figs and consumed upon the rubbish heap of forgotten things.

   Alas, unbelief does not understand holding its tongue! We read that the
   children of Israel murmured in their tents. They could not be quiet at
   home. They complained of God in their families and very soon the
   murmuring in the tents became a murmuring throughout all the camp till
   they gathered together in crowds against God and His servant Moses!
   Yes, unbelief will prattle. I have known believing men slow of speech,
   but when a man has anything to complain of, he is fluent even to
   overflowing! He will go from one neighbor to another and lament the
   badness of trade; how the crops are failing; how ill he is; what a
   sickly family he has and a legion of other grief! The gazette of sorrow
   has long columns and is generally crowded with items! It is published
   every hour of the day and you can get a new edition at almost any
   house, for unbelief must publish its inventions. The strife of the many
   tongues of unbelief causes much mischief in the world. Its quiver is
   full and its arrows are death. It would have been wiser for David to
   have bit his tongue than to have said what he ought not to have said.
   However, this much is clear--unbelief is generally talkative.

   Our next observation shall be that the utterances of unbelief are
   generally hasty--"I said in my haste." There was no reason for saying
   such a thing at all and certainly not for being in a hurry to say it,
   for he said to God, "I am cut off from before Your eyes." Look at this
   statement! It is a very solemn thing to make such a declaration. See if
   it is founded on fact. Do you think it is true? Search a little more.
   Set your supposed condition in another light and see whether, after
   all, you may not have made a mistake. But no. Unbelief blunders it out,
   right or wrong--"I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your
   eyes." I suppose the reason for the hot haste was this--when a man's
   mind is much distracted and driven to and fro, he needs to come to some
   sort of conclusion and, though that conclusion may be totally false and
   may be as far from right as possible, still, his troubled thoughts
   require some sort of a conclusion.

   John Bunyan says of the pilgrim that he was much tumbled up and down in
   his thoughts. It is a forcible Saxon expression and most of you know
   what it means. You do not know whether you are on your head or your
   heels, as the old saying is--you are in a horrible confusion and
   countless difficulties surround you--and so it is that you blunder at a
   conclusion and say in your haste what should not be said. But why in
   such haste to write bitter things against yourself? Why in such haste
   to write your own condemnation? Why in such haste to misjudge your God?
   Stop a bit, Brothers and Sisters. Stop a bit! There is time enough for
   this when the worst has come to the worst. Wait awhile, for when the
   brain is heated, waiting will cool the brow and prepare a place for
   wisdom. Why are you so desperately eager to play the fool?

   Don't you know that the utterances of unbelief are hasty and hasty
   things are raw and sour and cannot display the maturity of prudence?
   What a man says in his haste he generally has to repent in his leisure.
   If it is a good thing, say it at once! But if it is a doubtful thing,
   stop! Then stop again. Then stop again and if the stopping should end
   in your not speaking, there will be a little more of golden silence in
   the world! I have heard say that one of the greatest points in good
   speaking is to know when to pause. I do not know about that, but I am
   sure that one of the wisest things in good living is to know when to
   pause, to stop, to question and to deliberate! To go blindly on as
   though it were neck or nothing with you is to make sure shipwreck some
   day or other. Do nothing till you are sure that it is right to do it
   and say nothing till you know that what you say is true.

   Hasty deeds and hasty words make up the most horrible parts of human
   history--the warnings of the past forbid all recklessness.
   Nevertheless, when once we grow despondent, this is our temptation and
   it will be well to bit and bridle both mind and tongue lest we fall
   into the evil. Frequently when a man speaks in haste, his expressions
   are the result of

   his temper. "We are quick-tempered," some will say. If you are
   quick-tempered, it is very likely that you are also quick tongued and
   this is a great pity. You speak in a moment what you cannot unsay in a
   century! Now, it is very evil when we are in a temper with God. Is that
   always the case? Oh yes. I fear that professing Christians are often
   out of temper with God. A good woman was wearing deep mourning years
   after the loss of him whom she mourned and a Quaker said to her,
   "Friend, I perceive you have not yet forgiven God."

   There he hit the nail on the head! Many have not yet forgiven God--they
   have taken umbrage against Him either because of bereavement, or loss
   of property, or sickness, or disappointment, or trial and they keep on
   sulking because they cannot have their own way. Surely they have never
   heard the question, "Should it be according to your mind? "Will you sit
   on the throne and judge your God? Will you--

   "Snatch from His hands the balance and the rod, Re-judge His judgment,
   be the God of God"? This is blasphemy! And yet too often such blasphemy
   enters into the human heart. Who is to be master? Are we to be lords
   over all? Who is to order Providence? In whose hands should be the
   issues of death? Is God to wait on us and ask our will and do our
   bidding? That is, indeed, the turning of things upside down and it
   cannot, must not be! It is because we get into wayward, foolish,
   rebellious tempers with God that we speak in our haste what we ought
   not even to think! Thus David penitently confesses, "I said in my
   haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes."

   Again, it is very clear from the text that the utterances of unbelief
   are frequently exaggerated. "I am cut off from before Your eyes." No,
   David. No, no! It is not so--you are cut off from the esteem of men
   through slander and you are cut off from the friendship of those who
   once professed to love you--whose minds have been soured by an evil
   report--but you are not cut off from God! It is true you are cut off
   from the public services of God's House and obliged to hide away in the
   rocks and caves of the earth. That is true, but you are not cut off
   from before God's eyes! You know you are not, so why do you say you
   are?

   Oh, but some people always talk big about everything! It is a great
   pity because it is so near to lying that I do not know whether it is
   not the same thing! There must be a very narrow line, fine as a razor's
   edge, between a lie and the unguarded expressions of exaggeration. Some
   people talk about their trials on a scale which allows a mile for every
   inch! Their afflictions are awful. They are dreadful. They are without
   parallel. There were never any like them and there never will be again!
   They endure the most extraordinary pains and the most amazing
   afflictions and they are altogether quite equal to Job and Jeremiah
   rolled into one. Never did any persons undergo sufferings comparable to
   theirs. You cannot sit down by their side to comfort them but they will
   tell you at once that you do not know anything about the great deeps
   where they are doing business! You are only knee-deep in the waters of
   trouble, while all God's waves and billows have gone over them.

   I meet with some who are almost impossibly afflicted--their
   tribulations exceed that which is common to man and that which is
   uncommon, too! But this may be accounted for by the large organ of
   imagination with which they are endowed. By using this imagination to
   paint their spectacles, they are soon able to see all manner of
   dreadful visions and they talk accordingly. That is the way of our
   unbelief--it will talk at random about trials and troubles. This is not
   pretty. God does not love His children to talk in that fashion. The
   lips that speak truth are His delight and if our unbelief will not
   speak truth, (and it very seldom does)--perhaps never does--then it is
   a great pity that it cannot hold its tongue. May I ask if any friend
   here has been exaggerating his trouble? Is there any sister here who is
   fretting out of all reason--making a great deal out of what may be
   much, but is not everything? Then stand rebuked at this hour! Your cup
   is not all gall. Your bread is not all turned to ashes. All your
   comforts have not fled--many a mercy is left you. Come, come, Friend,
   we are not quite cut off from before the Lord! Let us leave off
   exaggeration lest we be guilty of falsehood.

   Once more, the utterances of unbelief dishonor God. "I am cut off,"
   says David, "from before Your eyes." He does, as it were, blame the
   Lord! Before Your very eyes I have suffered this! You have so forsaken
   me and given me over to the enemy that I am cut off from before Your
   eyes. Why do You not deliver me? He spoke in his haste as if God, at
   the very least, had been forgetful, even if He had not been untender
   and unfaithful! "I am cut off from before Your eyes." It would greatly
   dishonor God if He did suffer one that could say, "In You, O Lord, have
   I put my trust," to be cut off from before His eyes. It would be
   contrary to His promise, for He has said that He will not suffer the
   righteous to perish. "The eyes of

   the Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open to their
   cry"--there never was a godly man cut off from God, yet, and there
   never will be till time shall be no more!

   All the attributes of God forbid the destruction of a soul that is
   resting on the Almighty arm! And yet the unbelieving heart declares
   that such a destruction has taken place in its own case. Oh, wondrous
   unbelief, to think the Lord to be so unrighteous as to forget our work
   of faith and labor of love--to forget His children, to cast away His
   own, His covenanted one--with whom He has entered into solemn league by
   oath, saying, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." He puts His
   promise very strongly in that passage, using many negatives in the
   original tongue. "I will not, not, not-- never, never leave you. I will
   not, not forsake you"--many times over negating the idea that He could
   possibly forsake one of His own.

   Brothers and Sisters, let us consider whether you and I may not have
   given utterance to words of unbelief. If we have, let us cut up those
   words tonight--let us call them back and drown them in our tears! Those
   cruel charges were, none of them, true! They were spoken in haste. They
   were the offspring of petulance and folly. Lord, have mercy upon Your
   servants and cast these grievous words of ours behind Your back! Let
   them be as though they were never spoken, for we never had any reason
   to speak so and what we have said, we do thoroughly repent of and pray
   that You would blot it out forever!

   II. So much, then, upon the first head--an utterance of unbelief. We
   are now ready to look within the sorrowing heart and mark the signs
   that Grace is still living there. We have not far to search, for,
   secondly, in the text there is mentioned AN EFFORT OF STRUGGLING FAITH.
   Though David said, "I am cut off from before Your eyes," yet he prayed
   and prayed directly to God. He says, "You heard the voice of my
   supplications when I cried unto You." O child of God, cry to a smiting
   God! Cry to God even when He seems to cast you off, for where else can
   you go? What remains for you but to cry to Him, even if He shuts His
   ears to your plea? What if He frowns upon you? Still cling to Him!
   Where else can you get a glimpse of hope?

   To whom, or where could you go if you should turn from God? What if His
   Providences seems harsh? What if He uses the rod upon you till your
   whole head is sick and your whole heart faint? What if He even appears
   to put His hand to His scabbard to draw out the sword to slay you? Even
   then there remains no resort for you so hopeful as believing prayer!
   Say with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Cling to
   Him still! Sink or swim, live or die, do not doubt your God--but pray!
   What did Jonah do when the weeds were wrapped about His head and He
   went down to the bottoms of the mountains? He still made supplication
   to the Lord God of salvation and trusted his spirit in the Divine
   hands. He tells us, "Out of the belly of Hell I cried."

   Wherever you may be drifted and however desperate your case, yet still
   pray--still pray! If you can do nothing else--if your hands are bound
   as to any form of effort, still pray. Never cease from crying, though
   you cannot rise a note above the most pitiful wailing. When Bunyan's
   pilgrim went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, he found that
   he had no weapon with which he could smite the fiends that surrounded
   him except the weapon of all-prayer. The adversaries were too
   impalpable for sword or spear, too mysterious for battle-axe or
   bow--but PRAYER could find them out and smite them to the heart!

   Believer, this is the most convenient and useful of all the weapons in
   our heavenly panoply. All-prayer will help you against man or devil! It
   will help you to bear up under trials that come from God and
   tribulations that mysteriously approach you from earth or Hell. As long
   as you live, you should pray, for while you can pray you cannot perish.
   You must, under no pressure, cease from prayer, my Brothers and
   Sisters. It is your last resort. "Men ought always to pray, and not to
   faint." Please notice that David prayed in downright earnest, for he
   says, "You heard the voice of my supplications," so that he offered
   many prayers--prayers with voices to them--and he describes them under
   the term, "I cried." His was a crying prayer! Those are the very best
   prayers.

   Our eyes, sometimes, light upon, "prayers to be said or sung"--we have
   no wish to depreciate such compositions for others, but they are of no
   possible use to us who delight to tell our desires to our heavenly
   Father in our own broken speech. That is the prayer which is neither
   said nor sung, but CRIED--it drops from the eyes in tears, it breaks
   forth from the lips in moans--and from the breast in groans that cannot
   be uttered! Those prayers of ours which we could not endure for any
   human ear to hear are among the best of prayers. A little child may
   begin to speak and call to its mother in words and, perhaps, Mother
   will not come to it. But let it give up words and try crying and you
   will see if Mother does

   not come! Let it cry again and again, and Mother's ears will be caught
   by the child's cry. There is no prayer to God like the crying of a
   childlike spirit.

   A cry is not a very pleasant sound. No--but it is a very prevalent
   sound! A cry is not even articulate. No--but it's expressive! Crying is
   the language of pain. It is the eloquence of grief. It is the utterance
   of intense longing. When you use crying prayer--when you must have the
   blessing and, therefore, cry for it--you shall have it! We do not
   always give our children what they cry for, but this is the rule of our
   heavenly Father, "The righteous cry and the Lord hears." Well did
   Isaiah say, "He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your
   cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you." The rule is invariable
   and many are the cases which go to prove it. We know who said, "This
   poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his
   troubles." Even in his despair, I say, David prayed--and that praying
   took the form of an earnest and passionate cry.

   Note well that God heard his prayer! We sometimes fancy that God will
   not hear us if any measure of unbelief is mixed with our prayers. If
   that were the case, I am afraid that the Lord would not often hear us,
   for there is a measure of unbelief even in our strongest faith! It is a
   great mercy that even when we are lamenting, "I am cut off from before
   Your eyes," yet, if at the same time we can pray, our petition is
   accepted of the Lord. The Scripture says, "According to your faith be
   it unto you." Suppose that text had run like this, "According to your
   unbelief be it unto you." Ah, me, where would you and I have been? Our
   unbelief would have involved us in the curse and condemnation which
   rest upon all who believe not in the Lord Jesus! Unbelief would sour
   and spoil all.

   God did not deal with David according to his unbelief, but He dealt
   with him according to his faith. We are a sorrowful mixture of natures
   and if we were reckoned with according to our evil side, who among us
   could stand? David's faith was small, but still it was true. It was an
   infant faith that could cry--a struggling faith that could plead. It
   was a patient faith that could wait and so it was an accepted faith
   which obtained favor of the Lord! It was a faith which, if it had not
   an arm to fight with, had a voice to cry with and, therefore, it
   prevailed with God. My Friend, you who are in trouble, whoever you may
   be, let me urge, persuade, entreat you not to listen to the voice of
   Satan who tempts you to cease from prayer! Do not say, "God will not
   hear me because I am in this wretched condition." Remember the words,
   "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord." Cry to Him wherever
   you may be, or whoever you may be!

   However desperate your plight, you shall survive it if you pray!
   However dire your danger, a way of escape shall be made for you if you
   cry unto the Lord! Cannons have been styled, "the last arguments of
   kings"--but I may better call PRAYERS the last arguments of needy
   sinners! Cling to the Mercy Seat when you can cling nowhere else! Cling
   to the Mercy Seat when Justice lifts her sword to slay you! Increase
   your earnestness in proportion as you are tempted to cease from prayer
   and may God the Holy Spirit, who is the God of Grace and of
   supplications, intensify your desires, help your infirmities and teach
   you how to pray and what to pray for as you ought.

   III. Our text next supplies us with A TESTIMONY OF GRATITUDE. The
   Psalmist says, "Nevertheless You heard

   the voice of my supplications." Notice that God acted in directly the
   opposite manner from that in which the Psalmist's unbelief acted, for,
   first, his unbelief spoke and said this and that, but God did not
   speak. He was a listener--"You heard." Not a word came from God--there
   had been too many words in the business already. When we begin to
   grumble with anybody it takes two to make a quarrel and if number two
   answers to our murmuring, we soon stir up a fierce quarrel.

   If God were as man is, if His thoughts were as our thoughts, He would
   say, "Murmur, do you, when I am dealing with you so kindly? Then you
   shall have cause for complaining. Is My little finger heavy? You shall
   feel My hand! Is My hand heavy? You shall know the weight of My loins."
   Well might God say to us, "What? Do you find fault while you are
   surrounded with so many blessings? Tell Me I have forsaken you? Say to
   Me that you are cut off from before My eyes when I am dealing
   graciously with you all day long? Do you dare talk to Me so? Then I
   will do as you have said. I will take you at your word and make your
   complaints true."

   But oh, the marvelous patience of God! He says nothing. There was the
   strength of Christ--as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens
   not His mouth in the midst of His accusers--and here is a part of the
   marvelous power of God--the Omnipotence which restrains Omnipotence so
   that He is not provoked, or, being provoked, speaks not in anger and
   deals not with His servants in wrath--otherwise we had long ago been
   consumed. Oh, how sweet to look back and think He did not answer me
   according to my folly, or walk stubbornly with me because I walked
   stubbornly with

   Him! His Word says, "With the froward You will show Yourself forward,"
   but He did not fulfill that threat to me, nor walk contrary to me
   though I walked contrary to Him! In gentleness and patience He regarded
   not my evil words and answered me not according to my folly! You see,
   then, the difference between the quiet of God and the clamor of our
   unbelief. David bears cheerful testimony to the fact that he was in
   error when He spoke so hastily and that God was exceedingly gracious in
   taking so little notice of His foolish complaint.

   The next contrast is seen in the fact that though David spoke in a
   hurry, there was no haste in God. "I said in my haste." Yes, but God
   did not reply in haste. Notice the glorious leisure of infinite love,
   for it is written, "You heard the voice of my supplications." God was
   quietly hearing while His petulant servant was fiercely complaining. We
   had a meeting of ministers a short time ago at which it was agreed that
   for five minutes each one should relate an experience with our
   congregations. One of the Brothers gave us this thought which I shall
   not soon forget. He said, "It is a great thing for a minister who
   visits his people to be a good listener. The afflicted value this
   faculty above gold. Perhaps the pastor calls upon a poor woman who is
   in great trouble and he sits down and she tells him her mournful tale.
   Bless her heart! He has heard that tale a dozen times before, but he
   sits quite still and takes it all in, listening most earnestly. He has
   not, perhaps, the power to help her at all, but she feels very thankful
   to him because he has heard her case and it has comforted her to tell
   it."

   It is a great thing to be willing to sit and listen and hear a story
   which, perhaps, is very badly told and is not at all pleasant to
   hear--which even creates sorrow in your own mind as you listen to it.
   Such hearing displays tender sympathy. Hence the Scriptures say of God,
   "O You that hears prayer." Mark, it is not "answers," but "hears."
   Those Brothers who need to be exceedingly correct tell us, "God is the
   hearer and answerer of prayer." Yes, that is very proper. But the
   Scripture is content to write, "O You that hears prayer." It is a
   wonderful thing that God should sit down, as it were, and listen to the
   prayers of His people and put up with their nonsense--their complaining
   and their crying. David does not cease to wonder that in his unhappy
   condition he had yet been regarded of the Lord--"You heard the voice of
   my supplication."

   How beautiful that is! "I spoke in haste." All the Lord did was He
   heard it all, took it all in, considered the case David's fevered brain
   meant and how far that out of it and, therefore, forgave the sad
   unbelief which spoke out so audaciously in words of repining. Oh, it is
   beautiful, that gentleness of God which led Him to give no answer to
   the hurried, passionate speech of David, but just to hear it and no
   more! Well did David say in another place, "Your gentleness has made me
   great." It is delightful to see how the Lord always notes the good and
   ignores the evil when dealing with His saints. In David's case He would
   not hear the foolish and false charges of his unbelief, but He heard
   the cries of his struggling faith! Remember the instance of Sarah? She
   doubted as to her bringing forth a child when she was old and asked,
   "How shall it be, my Lord being old, also?" The Holy Spirit says
   nothing in the New Testament about Sarah's unbelieving speech except
   that He commends that one good word in it and notes that she, "obeyed
   her husband, calling him, Lord." If the Lord can spy a beauty in His
   people, He fixes His eyes on it--and as for all their defilements, He
   washes them away, saying, "They shall not be remembered against them
   any more forever."

   Let us go a little farther in our contrast between David and his Lord.
   There was no exaggeration with God. Unbelief exaggerates--He diminishes
   the evil of His servants till it comes to nothing, putting it all away.
   He heard the feeble cry of faith in David's heart and did not allow the
   voice of his unbelief to drown it. He did not look upon His servant's
   fault till it hid His Grace--but He smiled upon the work of Grace,
   little as it was. And though, as we have said, unbelief dishonored God,
   yet God did not dishonor His servant's prayer for all that! No. He
   might have said to David's prayer, "Go your way, I will not hear you.
   Does the same fountain send forth sweet water and bitter? I heard David
   say, just now, 'I am cut off from before Your eyes.' Am I going to hear
   out of the same mouth, a charge against My faithfulness and a cry for
   help? If He thinks I have forsaken Him, let it be so."

   But not so our God! He will not dishonor prayer, even though prayer is
   very feeble and though there is an unbelief in it which is grievous in
   His sight. It never shall be said that faith and prayer came back from
   the Throne of God with blushing faces! He will maintain His memorial
   untouched and the motto of that memorial is--"The God that hears
   prayer." "You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
   You." We dare not make much out of our English version by way of
   dogmatic teaching and yet, somehow, I feel inclined to pull each little
   word of the text in pieces just for a minute. Look at it. "Nevertheless
   You heard the voice." "Never-the-less," as much as to say, Though I had
   spoken as I

   ought not to do, yet You did not lessen Your attention to me, but You
   did just as much hear my prayer as if I had never sinned with my
   tongue. Not one jot the less was Your pity or Your bounty--Your ears
   did not, in any measure, lose their readiness to hear my prayer, nor
   Your heart its willingness to feel for me. Not one particle the less
   for all my transgressing, "You heard the voice of my supplications."

   gracious God, never-the-less do you deal out Your mercies though it
   seems as if ever-the-more we sin! Nevertheless do You love though ever
   the more do we err. Oh grant that ever the more we may be grateful to
   You and never, oh never, may we again grieve You by our unbelief!

   The time has come for me to wind up with SUNDRY LESSONS IN A FEW WORDS.
   The first is, let us repent heartily of every harsh thought we have
   ever had of our God and Father. I am forced to look back upon some such
   sins of thought with much distress of mind. They have come from me in
   serious pain and depression of spirit and now I pray the Lord, in His
   great mercy, to look at them as though I had never thought them, for I
   do heartily abhor them and I loathe myself in His sight that I should
   ever have questioned His tender love and gracious care. If you have
   similarly transgressed, dear Friends, in your dark nights of trouble,
   come, now, and bow your heads and pray the Lord to forgive His servants
   concerning this thing, for He is so good, so gracious, that it is a
   wanton cruelty to think of Him as otherwise than overflowing with love.

   There is none like unto Him among the sons of men! The kindest of
   mortals have not His heart of compassion! There is none like unto You,
   Jehovah, even among the gods--no fabled deity, however painted in
   glowing colors can be compared to You! Let us take back our words if at
   any time we have said anything against Him and make the utmost amends
   by magnifying His holy name! In the next place, let us earnestly pray
   that if ever we shall be tempted again to harsh, mistrusting thoughts,
   we may be able to put a check upon our language and to keep our mouth
   as with a bridle. Oh that our tongue, which is given us to praise our
   God, may never be perverted into an instrument of complaint against our
   greatest Benefactor! O you vile tongue, how could you ever, in your
   hottest haste, let slip an angry word against the Lord? Better far to
   be dumb than to dishonor a name so dear!

   The next lesson is this--let us always continue to pray, come what may.
   Brothers and Sisters, never cease praying! What I have said before, I
   say again--continue in prayer. Call upon your God! Cry to Him! Cry to
   Him! While breath lasts and life gives power to feel a desire, never
   cease to supplicate the Lord. Last of all, let us always speak well of
   His mercy. If we have bitterly complained, let us, with equal vigor,
   declare His goodness! I wish that you who are given to grumble would
   make up your minds that the time past will suffice you to have grumbled
   and now you are going to growl backwards--to recall all your harsh
   speeches--and to praise God as much as you have formerly complained
   against Him. I should like farmers to break into a wonderful excitement
   of gratitude so that all the nation would ring with it and all men
   would confess--"Whenever you meet a farmer, you meet with a man who is
   always praising God for the weather." It will be a wonderful change if
   that should ever come to be the general remark!

   1 wish you tradesmen would suddenly put a new leaf into your books and
   become the most thankful set of men alive so that it would be
   universally said, "Whenever we meet a tradesman, we always find him
   praising God for His goodness to him in his business." For many years
   most traders have done the other thing and it is time they should pitch
   a new tune and sing another song! There have been "very bad
   times--dreadfully bad times," quite long enough! Are there no better
   times coming? Bad as times are, these grumblers live and live in
   comfort, too! Do they live on their losses? They cannot well do that
   and so we may suppose that they are living on the savings of former
   years--so it is clear that they must have had some wonderfully good
   times, once, when we did not hear much about them!

   They ought to praise God, now, for those wonderful seasons four, five,
   or six years ago when things were so marvel-ously good that they were
   able to lay up stores for the years of famine! It will be a blessed
   thing for us when all times are good because our minds are good and our
   hearts are content. May we grow like the shepherd who was asked, "Will
   there be good weather today?" And he answered that there would be good
   weather. "Don't you think it will rain?" "Very likely, or perhaps it
   will snow." "But you said that it would be good weather." "Yes," he
   answered, "if God sends it, it cannot be anything else but good." "But
   I mean, do you think there will be such weather as pleases you." "Yes,
   that there will," he said --

   "for whatever pleases God pleases me."

   May God give us a happy, childlike, rejoicing spirit! We have done
   enough murmuring to last a lifetime! Let us change the tune. Suppose
   that you were to say, "I will make up my mind that just as much as I
   have ever disbelieved, mistrusted, murmured, so much will I do in the
   way of trusting and praising the Lord"? But suppose you were actually
   to do as much--that would be a poor life of which you could merely say,
   "There was as much praise of God in that man's life as there was of
   murmuring." Shall we be content with such a summary? No, no, no! We
   must rise to something better than that! We must praise God a thousand
   times to every complaint! No--we must even get above that--we must have
   done with all complaining! God deliver us from it and lift us right out
   of unbelief--and when we do speak in our haste, again, may it only be
   to exclaim, "Bless the Lord, hallelujah!"

   If somebody sincerely remarks, "That was a bit of bold sincere remarks.
   That was a bit of enthusiasm," you may reply, "Oh yes, but as I am a
   hasty man and rather quick-tempered, that is the way in which I show my
   hastiness--I bless the Lord while my heart is hot and then keep on
   doing so till I have cooled down." Lift up a hallelujah when nobody is
   prepared for such a word of praise! Startle your friends by crying,
   "Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and all that is within me bless His holy
   name!" The Lord lift you all up to this and keep you there, for
   Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Barrier

   (No. 1590)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 27, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And there shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles, neither
   whatever works abomination, or makes a lie: but they which are written
   in the Lamb's Book of Life." Revelation 21:27.

   THE text refers to the glorified Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. That
   perfected company of the elect and sanctified is set forth in this
   wonderful chapter under the image of a city descending "from God out of
   Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Her workday dress
   all laid aside, the bride appears in garments of needlework and raiment
   of worked gold. The militant Church, the Church of the present day, is
   comparable to a tent and is well imaged by the Tabernacle in the
   wilderness--it is lit up within by the Glory of God's Presence and
   covered without by the fiery cloudy pillar of His eternal Providence!
   But to the eyes of men it is mean and inconsiderable, for verily it
   does not yet appear what it shall be. By-and-by this same Church which,
   today, is likened unto a structure of curtains readily removed from
   place to place, shall become a city--fixed, permanent, high-walled and
   compact--a "city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is
   God."

   The comforts and trials of the desert life shall be exchanged for the
   quiet and comfort of a city dwelling. There shall be nothing of the
   wilderness about the Church triumphant--it shall be a right royal
   abode, the metropolis of the universe, the palace of the great King!
   Everything that is lustrous, pure, precious, majestic shall be there.
   Rare and priceless things which are now the peculiar treasure of kings
   shall be the common possession of all the sanctified. The Church shall
   be no longer despised, but shall sit as a queen among the nations while
   at her feet they shall heap up all their glory and honor. In that
   Church there shall remain nothing for which men shall reproach her, but
   everything shall be manifested in her for which they shall do her
   honor. Her very streets to be trod on shall be of pure gold like unto
   transparent glass and her lowest course of stones shall be of jasper.

   Everything about the perfected Church shall be the best of the
   best--she shall be recognized as being the fairest among women, the
   bride, the Lamb's wife, the crown and flower of the universe! We read
   the sparkling figures of John's vision as emblems of moral and
   spiritual excellence, but we doubt not that beyond the spiritual riches
   of the Church, all materialism will also be at her disposal and the
   restored creation shall bring her choicest beauties to adorn the chosen
   bride of the Lamb. We have said that the glorified Church will be the
   crown of the new creation and it is into the new heavens and the new
   earth that she is represented as coming down from God. He that sits
   upon the Throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."

   The creation which is round about us at this hour waxes old and is
   ready to vanish away. Wise men tell us that there are evident
   preparations in the bowels of the earth for a burning up of the earth
   and of all the works of men that are upon it, for its center is an
   ocean of fire. God shall but speak and as once the waters leaped upon
   the world and utterly destroyed all things that were upon it, so shall
   He call to the waves of flame and they shall rise from their hidden
   furnaces to melt all things with their fervent heat. Nevertheless we,
   according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
   dwells righteousness! The former things shall have passed away and a
   new creation shall dwell beneath the new heavens, filling up the new
   earth--and the flower and perfection of the new creation shall be the
   Church of the Living god in her full bloom and perfection!

   Even now the regenerate are a kind of first fruits of God's creatures,
   the forerunners of the renewed universe. But then they shall be its
   center and glory! The new birth is the beginning of the new
   creation--we lead the way, even we who are the Church of the
   First-born--but the whole creation groans to follow us so as to be
   delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of
   the children of God! It is the glorified Church, I say, that is here
   spoken of and,

   therefore, the text may be said to refer to Heaven, for at the present
   moment the nucleus of the glorified Church is in Heaven and from Heaven
   every defiled thing must be shut out.

   Hence, too, it may refer to the kingdom of the millennial age, when the
   saints will reign with Christ upon the earth for a thousand years, when
   even upon this battlefield our conquering Leader shall be crowned with
   victory and where His blood was shed, His Throne shall be set up, for
   among the sons of men shall He triumph, even among those that spat in
   His face. The text may also be read as including the eternal world of
   future bliss, for of that glorious, endless, undefiled inheritance, the
   Church glorified will be the possessor--but out of her shall long
   before have been gathered all things that offend and them that do
   iniquity.

   From Heaven and from all heavenly joys and states, sin must be shut
   out. Into the perfected Church there shall never enter anything that
   defiles and from all its honors and rewards every polluted person is
   shut out by immutable decree. I should like you, for a minute or two,
   to think of that perfected Church as she is described in this chapter,
   for it is a description worthy of the most profound study. What glory
   will surround the risen saints in their capacity as the city of
   God--"having the glory of God"--says the 11th verse. What a glory of
   glories is this! Even now, my Brothers and Sisters, you that are in
   Christ possess the Grace of God, but you shall, by-and-by,
   conspicuously shine with the Glory of God! At present you share in the
   dishonor which falls to the lot of your Master and His cause among a
   wicked generation, but then you shall share in the Glory which is the
   reward of the travail of His soul. "Then shall the righteous shine
   forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

   How glorious will that Church be whose light shall be the Presence of
   God, Himself--light in which the nations of them that are saved shall
   rejoice! O my God, write my name among them! And to that end write me
   among Your persecuted saints below! Well may we be content to endure
   what little shame shall come upon the Church militant on earth if we
   may participate in the honor of the Church glorified above, for this is
   a glory which excels, "having the Glory of God." The city is described
   as exhibiting great massiveness, for the length and the breadth and the
   height of it are equal. It is a solid square, perfect and compact--

   "Your walls are made of precious stones, Your bulwarks diamond square."
   What a Church will the Church of God be in those happier days! Now she
   is as a rolling thing, removed as readily as a shepherd's tent--but
   then she shall stand firm as a cube which rests upon its base!

   We watch the Church of God, sometimes, with trepidation and alarm, for
   though we know that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her,
   yet her feebleness makes the timid tremble. But in her state after the
   Resurrection there shall remain no signs of feebleness, for that which
   was sown in weakness shall be raised in power! She shall be a city the
   like of which has never been beheld, whose foundation shall be deeper
   than the depths beneath and her towers shall reach above the clouds! No
   institution shall exist so long or flourish so abundantly as the Church
   of the Living god! When you think of the massiveness of the Church of
   God settled in her place by the Almighty, Himself, who has established
   her, remember at the same time her vastness, for a multitude that no
   man can number shall be comprehended among her inhabitants-- her census
   shall prove her citizens to be as the stars of Heaven for multitude!

   Her stones shall not lie cut about as a little heap, but from her vast
   foundation the living stones shall rise course upon course, 12
   foundations of jewels, till "the mountain of the Lord's House shall be
   exalted above the hills." I say again, write my name down among the
   dwellers in the great city! What higher honor can I crave than to have
   it said, "This man was born there"? To be numbered with princes; to be
   named with emperors--what of it? Your golden fleece, silken garter and
   gilded stars are all poor toys--true glory lies in being part and
   parcel of the Church--today despised and rejected by men, but which
   shall, before long, look forth fair as the sun and astonish the world
   with the brightness of her rising! Ambition's self needs ask no more
   than citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem.

   The perfection of the Church is set forth in her being foursquare, her
   value in the sight of God by her walls being composed of the rarest
   gems and her delights in the variety of the sparkling jewels which
   bedeck her. There is scarcely one precious stone omitted of those that
   were known to Orientals, while some are mentioned which are scarcely
   known to us at all. All manner of joys and treasures and pleasures and
   delights, every form and shade of excellence, virtue and bliss shall
   belong to the perfected ones when their number and character shall be
   complete and they shall be comparable to the

   city of God! The safety and quiet of the Church is set forth by her
   gates forever open. In times of war the city gates are fast closed, but
   for the New Jerusalem there will remain no fear of foe, no need to set
   a watch against an invader.

   Gog and Magog will be slain and Armageddon's battle fought and
   finished--unbroken rest shall be the portion of the glorified. Write my
   name among them, O my God, and permit me to enter into Your rest! Best
   of all, remark how holy the Church will be. She shall have no temple
   within her walls, for this simple reason, that she shall be all Temple.
   She shall have no spot reserved for sacred uses, because all shall be
   "holiness unto the Lord." The Divine Presence shall be in all and over
   all and this shall be the joy of her joy! "The Glory of God did lighten
   it, and the Lamb is the Light

   thereof."

   Brethren, the glory of the Church even here below is the Presence of
   God in her midst, but what will that Presence be when it shines forth
   in noonday brightness--when spirits strengthened for the vision shall
   endure with transport the full splendor of Jehovah's throne? Tongue
   cannot tell the glory, for thought cannot conceive it! Write my name
   among the blessed who shall see Jehovah's face! O living God, my soul
   thirsts after You! To dwell in Your Presence is the summit of the
   soul's delight! To be with You where You are and to behold Your Glory
   is the Heaven of Heaven! To what beyond this can thoughts aspire?

   I. It being declared that the glorified Church is to be all this and a
   great deal more, of which we cannot now speak particularly, we may well
   long to enter within her gates of pearl. But what says the text? I
   beseech you listen attentively to the solemn sound OF THE WORDS OF
   EXCLUSION--"There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles,
   neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie." Listen, I say, to
   these words of exclusion, though it sounds like a death-knell in my
   ears! Learn that it can be abundantly justified to the conscience of
   all thoughtful men! Learn that your own soul, if it is honest, must set
   its seal to the sentence of exclusion. This is no arbitrary decree, it
   is a solemn declaration to which all holy spirits give their willing
   assent and consent--an ordinance of which even the excluded,
   themselves, shall admit is just.

   For, first, it is not meet that so royal and Divine a corporation as
   the glorified Church of God should be ruined by defilement. God forbid
   that "her light, which is like unto a stone most precious, even like a
   jasper stone, clear as crystal," should ever be dimmed by the breath of
   sin! How beautiful was this fair world in the early morning of her
   creation, when the dew of her youth glistened upon her and the sunlight
   of God made her face to shine. Keep watch and ward, you shining ones,
   that this beauty be not marred! Let watchers and holy ones fly round
   the new-made world to drive far from her the apostate spirit and his
   fellows who kept not their first estate! Sad was the hour when, with
   dragon wings, the fallen spirit descended into Eden, advanced to mother
   Eve and whispered in her ear the fell temptation! Oh, you seraphs,
   would God your fiery swords had kept out the Arch-Deceiver, that this
   world might never have fallen, that we might have dwelt here amidst
   sunny glades by pure rivers rippling over sands of gold--a holy and
   happy race, making every hill and valley vocal with the praises of God!

   Now, O Earth, you are a field of blood, but you might have been a
   garden of delights! Now you are one vast cemetery where all the dust
   was once a part of the living fabric of mortal men--but you might have
   been as the firmament filled with stars, all shining to their Creator's
   praise! Alas that Eden should now remain only as a name--gone as a
   vision of the night! Inasmuch as we could heartily wish that evil had
   never entered into the primeval world, we earnestly deprecate the idea
   that it should ever defile the new! Shall those new heavens ever look
   down with amazement upon the flight of a rebellious spirit flying
   beneath their serene azure on an errand of destruction? Shall the
   jeweled walls of the thrice Holy City be leaped over by an enemy of the
   King who is there enthroned? Shall the serpent leave his horrid trail
   upon the heavenly Eden, twice made of the Lord? God forbid!

   The purity of a world twice made, the perfection of the Church of the
   regenerate, the majesty of the Presence of God all demand that every
   sinful thing should be excluded. All Heaven and heavenly things cry,
   "Write the decree and make it sure, there shall in nowise enter into it
   anything that defiles." Engrave it as in eternal brass and let
   Omnipotence go with the decree to execute it with the utmost rigor, for
   it would be horrible, indeed, if a second time evil should destroy the
   work of God! Into the Church of the First-born above, the breath of
   iniquity must not enter. It cannot be that the work which cost the
   Redeemer's blood should yet be defiled! The eternal purpose of the
   Father and the love of the Spirit forbid that the Lord's own perfected
   Church should be invaded by any unholy thing.

   Brothers and Sisters, there can be no entrance of evil into the Kingdom
   of God, for it is the very essence of the bliss of the glorified Church
   that evil should be excluded! Imagine, for a moment, that the decree of
   our text were reversed or suspended and that it were allowed that a few
   unregenerate men and women should enter into the glorified Church of
   God. Suppose, in addition, that those few should be of the gentler sort
   of sinners, not those who would profanely blaspheme the name of God,
   nor openly break the eternal Sabbath, but a few who are indifferent to
   God's Glory and cold and formal in His praise. How could Heaven bear
   with these? These, who are neither cold nor hot, are sickening both to
   Christ and to His people--and must they endure the nausea of their
   society? Why, as in a living body the existence of a dead piece of bone
   breeds fret, pain and disease, so would the presence of these few
   defiling ones cause, I know not what, of disquietude and sorrow. It
   must not be!

   Love to the saints demands that they be no more vexed by sin or
   sinners. Pity, mercy, yes, even the partiality of kindred love dares
   not ask that it may be! All Heaven is up in arms at the supposition!
   Holy spirits are alarmed at the idea that they should again be tempted
   by the presence of evil! Bar the gates of pearl and never open them
   again, you spirits, rather than that there should come upon that pure
   street of transparent gold a foot that will not walk in the ways of
   God's commandments or the halls of Zion be disgraced by a single spirit
   that shall refuse to love the holy and exalted name! Heaven were not
   Heaven if it were possible for evil of any sort to enter there.
   Therefore, stand firm, O dread decree, for it would be cruelty to
   saints and destruction to Heaven that there should in anywise enter
   into it anything that defiles.

   Furthermore, let me beg you to consider that there is an impossibility
   of any defiled, sinful, unrenewed person ever entering into the
   corporate body of the glorified Church of God--an impossibility within
   the persons themselves. Look, good Sirs, the reason why wicked men
   cannot be happy is not only because God will not let rebellion and
   peace dwell together, but because they will not let themselves be
   happy. The sea cannot rest because it is the sea and the sinner cannot
   be quiet because he is a sinner! How could you, O natural, unregenerate
   man, ever enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as you are? You are not
   capable of it! It is not possible! Holiness has in it no attractions
   for you since you love sin and the wages of it. You do not know God and
   cannot see Him, for this is the privilege of the pure in heart and of
   them alone. You live in a world where everything has been made by the
   great Lord and yet you do not perceive His hands, so great is your
   blindness! Shall blind men grope through the streets of the New
   Jerusalem?

   You are unacquainted with the simplest elements of spiritual things,
   for they can only be spiritually discerned and you have no spiritual
   faculty. You are blind and deaf! Yes, dead to God and heavenly
   things--you know you are! Well, then, of what use would it be that you
   should enter the spiritual realm, supposing it to be a place? For if
   you were admitted into the place called Heaven, you would not be a
   partaker of the state of Heaven and it is the state of mind and
   character which is, after all, the essence of the joy. To be in a
   heavenly place and not in a heavenly condition would be worse than
   Hell, if worse can be! What are songs to a sad heart? Such would Heaven
   be to an unrenewed mind. The element of Glory would destroy, rather
   than bless an unrenewed mind!

   It is as though you saw before you a blazing furnace in which happy
   creatures disported themselves among the flames, bathing themselves in
   the white heat, leaping in rapture amid the rising sparks, for they are
   children of the flame who drink in fire and find it life. Imagine
   yourself to be a poor fly such as you hear buzzing on the windowpane
   and you ask to enter into the glow of the furnace, thinking to be as
   merry as the fire-children. Keep back! Why tempt your doom? You will
   die soon enough--why ask to perish more quickly? No place would be so
   dreadful to a sinner as the place where God is most openly manifest!
   That holy element which is the habitat of the new-born soul would be
   the grave, the everlasting prison if an unholy soul could enter there.

   To the wicked, the day of the Lord is darkness and not light. And the
   Glory of the Lord is terror and not bliss. Oh, unconverted Hearer, they
   sing in Heaven--but in their songs your ears would find no delight.
   They worship God in Heaven--but as Divine worship is irksome to you,
   even if it is kept up for an hour or so below--what would it be to
   dwell forever and ever in the world to come in the midst of
   hallelujahs? O soul defiled with sin, you are incapable of Heaven! The
   Roman Emperor Caligula, in his madness, made his horse first consul of
   Rome--but his horse could not be a magistrate--it could not judge or
   govern, whatever the emperor might decree! Though he fed it upon gilded
   oats from an ivory manger, it was a horse and nothing more!

   Even so, if a man is unregenerate and unbelieving, we may do what we
   will with him, but he cannot rise to spiritual joys. And if we could
   even bid him come into Heaven, he would still remain what he
   was--incapable of the joy and bliss which God has prepared for them
   that love Him. So stands it a fact in the very essence and nature of
   things, that there shall in nowise enter into the realm of the
   spiritual, the Kingdom of the true, the land of the blessed, the home
   of the perfected, anything that defiles. It cannot come there from
   incapacity within itself. Let me add that our own hearts forbid that
   evil should so enter. As I mused on this text, I supposed myself to be
   defiled with sin, yet standing outside the pearl gates of Heaven.

   Then I said within myself, "If I might enter there defiled as I am,
   would I do so?" And my heart answered, "No, I would not if I could. How
   could I blot such brightness and spoil such happiness?" Suppose myself
   infected today with a deadly fever--an incurable typhus which would
   bring death to any that touched me? The blast is pitiless and the snow
   is falling--and I stand shivering at the door of one of your
   houses--longing for shelter. I see inside the room your little
   children, playing in full health! Shall I venture among them? I long to
   escape from the cold outside, but if I should enter your room I should
   bring fever to you and death to your innocent little ones and to
   yourselves--and thus turn your happiness into misery! I would turn away
   and brave the storm and sooner die than bring such desolation into a
   friend's home!

   And well might any honest spirit say at sight of the perfect family
   above, "No, if I might, I would not be admitted into a perfect Heaven
   while yet I might defile it and spread the contagion of moral evil."
   You know, Brothers and Sisters, how a few rags from the East have
   sometimes carried a plague into a city. And if you were standing at the
   dock when a plague-laden ship arrived, you would cry, "Burn those rags!
   Do anything with them, but keep them away from the people! Bring not
   the pest into a vast city where it may slay its thousands!" So do we
   cry, "Great God, forbid it that anything that defiles should enter into
   Your perfected Church! We cannot endure the thought." Draw your swords,
   you angels! Stand in your serried ranks, you seraphim, and smite every
   defiled one that would force a passage within the gates of pearl! It
   must be--"There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles."

   The fiat of God has gone forth and the fiery sword is set at the gate
   of the new Eden. Into the first Paradise there came the serpent--into
   the second never shall the subtle tempter enter! Into the first
   Paradise there came sin and God was driven from it as well as man--but
   into the second there shall never come anything that approximates sin
   or false-hood--the Lord God shall dwell there forever and His people
   shall dwell there with Him. Thus much, then, upon the words of
   exclusion.

   II. I desire, as I continue this meditation in the power of the Holy
   Spirit, not so much to preach as to think inwardly

   and ask you to think with me OF THOSE WORDS OF EXCLUSION WORKING WITHIN
   THE SOUL--within my

   soul, within yours. They sit in judgment upon me and they chasten me.
   It strikes home to my conscience and awakens me to self-examination.
   Its voice is solemn and strikes heavily upon the ears as we remember
   its wide sweep and comprehensive breadth--"There shall in nowise enter
   into it anything that defiles." No person who defiles, no fallen
   spirit, or sinful man can enter. And as no person, so no tendency,
   leaning, inclination, or will to sin can gain admission! No wish, no
   desire, no hunger towards that which is unclean shall ever be found in
   the perfect city of God! Nor even a thought of evil can be conceived
   there, much less a sinful act performed. Nothing shall ever be done
   within those gates of pearl contrary to the perfect Law, nor anything
   imagined in opposition to spotless holiness.

   Consider such purity and wonder at it! The term, "anything that
   defiles," includes even an idea, a memory, a thought of evil. Thoughts
   that flit through the mind as birds through the air that never roost or
   build a nest--even such shall never glance across the skies of the new
   creation! It is altogether perfect! And, mark well, that no untruth can
   enter--"neither whatever makes a lie." Nothing can enter Heaven which
   is not real! Nothing erroneous, mistaken, conceited, hollow,
   professional, pretentious, unsubstantial can be smuggled through the
   gates. Only the Truth of God can dwell with the God of Truth. These are
   sweeping and searching words--no evil, nothing that works to evil--no
   falsehood, nothing that works to falsehood can ever enter into the
   triumphant Church of God!

   O my Soul! My Soul, how does this bear upon you? Cuts it not to the
   very quick? For how are you to enter, defiled as you are and so
   diseased with falsehood of one sort or another? Well may we be awakened
   when we remember what defiled and defiling creatures we have been in
   the days of our unregeneracy. Brothers and Sisters, let us not shrink
   from the humbling contemplation! Come down from your high places and
   see the horrible pit in which you lie by nature. Think of

   your past lives, I pray you--of those days in which you found pleasure
   in walking after the flesh. I call on you to remember the sins of your
   youth and your former transgressions of thought, word, and deed! If
   they are shut out who defile and are defiled, where are you? Where are
   you? These sins of ours, though they were committed years ago, are,
   none the less, sinful today--they are as fresh to God as if we
   perpetrated them this very moment.

   Your hands are still bloody red, O sinful Man, though your crime was
   worked some 20 years ago! Your are still black, O Sinner, though it was
   50 years ago that your chief sin was committed, for time has no
   bleaching power upon a crimson sin. The guilt of an old offense is as
   fresh as though it were worked but yesterday. Our sins, in themselves,
   make us unclean and unfit for holy company and, alas, they are many!
   Our sins have left a second defilement on us by creating the tendency
   to do the same again. Is there one among us that has sinned who does
   not know that he is all the more likely to sin again? Since after once
   being drawn aside by sin, there are stronger urges in the same way--sin
   once committed becomes a fountain of defilement! The stream in which
   the fish has played will be sought by it again in its season and the
   swallow will return to its old nest--even so will the mind return to
   its folly. Yes, so it is. And if everything that defiles is shut out
   from the Holy City--my God, my God--am not I shut out, too?

   Do not think that only actual sin shuts men out of Heaven, for this
   text goes to the heart by reminding us that we have within us inbred
   sin which would defile us speedily even if we were now clean of
   positive transgression. The fountain from which actual sin comes is
   within every unrenewed bosom. How can you and I enter Heaven while
   there is unholy anger in us? The best of men are too apt to retain an
   unhallowed quickness of temper which, under certain circumstances,
   works wrath. There shall in nowise enter into Heaven a hasty temper, or
   a quick imperious spirit, or a malicious mind, for these defile. In
   certain persons there is no quickness of spirit, but there is a cold
   obstinacy, so that having once resolved, though the resolve is evil,
   they stand to it doggedly and cannot be moved. Like obstinate mules,
   they can scarcely be driven--blows cannot stir them from their purpose!
   Disobedient obstinacy cannot enter the Kingdom--my Hearers--are you
   under its dominion?

   And, oh, there is in all of us a lusting after evil of some sort or
   other! Only place us in certain conditions and the flesh longs after
   forbidden things and though we chide ourselves and check the longing,
   yet is there not within us a relish for the sweet stolen morsels of
   transgression? We could weep our eyes out when we discover what a
   palate for pleasurable sin our old nature still retains--yes, a longing
   for the very sin of which we most bitterly repent and from which we
   most eagerly long to be delivered! How can we hope to enter Heaven if
   there are these appetites in us? They are there and they defile! What
   can we do? There, too, is that vile thing called, "pride." Why, some of
   us cannot be trusted with a pennyworth of success and we are exalted
   above measure! Some of God's children cannot have ten minutes
   fellowship with Christ but they must put on their fine feathers and
   crow right lustily because they feel themselves to be nearing absolute
   perfection! Alas for the pride of our hearts and the pollution which
   comes of it! How can such vain creatures be admitted among the
   glorified?

   Nor is this all, for sloth preys on many and tempts them to shun God's
   service--and especially to shun the Cross of Christ. Sloth is a rust
   which has a sadly defiling power--we gather moth and mildew from
   inaction. Never is a man pure who is not zealous in the service of God.
   We rot in corruption if we lie still. How, then, shall we be admitted
   within the jeweled city? Ah, look within your heart, my Brother--look
   steadily beneath the fair film of the surface and mark the inward evil
   which it conceals. Judge not yourself when at your best, occupied with
   your prayers and praises and almsgivings, but look steadily into your
   soul at other times and you shall see a loathsome mass of evil life, a
   seething corruption moving within your heart--for evil remains, even in
   the regenerate--and this cannot enter Heaven. Thank God, it cannot!
   Even though the words of exclusion stagger me and send me back as with
   a stunning blow and makes me cry, "You shut me out, my God, by this,
   Your decree," yet I feel that if it is so--the decree is right, just
   and good. "There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles."
   Amen and amen!

   Now, I ask you whether these words of exclusion do not, in you who know
   its meaning, slay all hope of self-salvation? For, first, here are our
   past sins and they defile and make us defiling. How are we to get rid
   of them? How can we wash out these polluting blots? Tears? So much salt
   water thrown away if looked upon as a bath for sin! Good works
   performed? They are already due to God! How shall future discharge of
   debts repay the past? O my God, if I have ever known what sin means, I
   have also known that it is impossible that its defiling nature should
   ever be changed, or that the pollution should ever be removed by any
   efforts of my own!

   I spoke with one the other day who said that she was seeking salvation
   by good works. I knew that she had performed self-denying acts of
   charity and I asked her whether she felt nearer to the salvation at
   which she aimed. I knew that I spoke to a sincere, honest person and
   her reply did not surprise me. She answered sadly, "The more I do, the
   more I feel I ought to do and I am no nearer to the point I am aiming
   at." And so it is--the more a sincere heart does seek to serve God, the
   more it feels the shortcoming of its service--and the more a person
   seeks after purity by his own efforts, the further he judges himself to
   be from it! Our standard rises as we rise toward it! Our conscience
   becomes tender in proportion as we obey it and so, in the nature of
   things, rest of heart comes not in that manner.

   Ah, there remains not beneath Heaven anything that can wash out the
   defilement of past sin except only one cleansing flood! O sinful Man,
   plunge your hands into the Atlantic and they shall crimson every drop
   of its tremendous waters and yet the stain on your hands shall be as
   scarlet as before! No, no, no--it is certain that no man can enter
   Heaven by reason of his transgression and his sinfulness--unless
   Omnipotence shall cleanse him! But then look at the other part of the
   difficulty, that is, the making of your own heart pure and clean. How
   shall this be done? How shall the Ethiopian change his skin and the
   leopard his spots? Have you tried to master your temper? I hope you
   have. Have you managed it? Your tendencies this way or that--you have
   strived against them, I hope. But have you mastered them?

   I will tell you. You thought you had. You thought you had bound the
   enemy with strong ropes--you tied him and you fastened him down--you
   shut him up in an inner chamber and you said, "The Philistines are upon
   you, Samson." You felt that the champion was vanquished, now, but oh
   how grimly did he laugh at you as the old adversary arose within you
   and snapped the bonds and hurled you to the ground! You were defeated
   when you thought that you had won the victory! I cannot overcome
   myself, nor overcome my sin. I will never cease from the task, God
   helping me, but apart from the Divine Spirit, the task is as impossible
   as it is to make a world!

   III. It seems to me that we may most fitly come to the close of our
   sermon by thinking Of THE WORDS OF SALVATION which just meets the
   difficulty raised by the sentence--"There shall in nowise enter into it
   anything that defiles." But, first, my past sin, what of that? There
   are many who are even now within the Church of God above and we will
   ask, concerning them, "Who are these arrayed in white robes and from
   where did they come?" We receive the reply, "These are they that have
   washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." "In
   the blood of the Lamb!" I feel as if I could sing those words! What joy
   that there should be anything that can take all my sins away--all
   without excep-tion--and make me whiter than snow!

   If Christ is God. If it is true that He, within that Infant's body,
   contained the fullness of the Deity and, being thus God and Man, He did
   take away my sin and in His own body on the Cross did bear it and
   suffer its punishment for me, then I can understand how my
   transgression is forgiven and my sin is covered. Short of this, my
   conscience cannot rest. The misty atonements of modern divines cannot
   calm my conscience--they are not worth the time spent in listening to
   them! They are cobwebs of the fancy, altogether insufficient to sustain
   the strain, even, of the present conscience, much less of the
   conscience which shall be awakened by the judgment bar of God!

   But this Truth of God--Christ, instead of me! God, Himself, the
   offended One in the offender's place, bowing His august head to
   vengeance and laying His eternal majesty in the dishonor of a
   tomb--this is the fullness of consolation! O Lamb of God, my Sacrifice,
   I shall enter Heaven now! I shall pass the scrutiny of the infallible
   watchers! I shall not be afraid of the eyes of fire. I shall be without
   spot or wrinkle, or any such thing--"Washed in the blood of the Lamb!"
   This is our first great comfort, Brothers and Sisters--"He that
   believes in Him is not condemned." He that believes in Him is justified
   from all things from which he could not be justified by the Law of
   Moses. "There is therefore, now, no condemnation to them that are in
   Christ Jesus."

   But here is the point, there is still no entrance into the Holy City as
   long as there are any evil tendencies within us. This is the work, this
   is the difficulty and since these are to be overcome, how is the work
   to be done? Simple believing upon Christ brings you justification, but
   you need more than that--you need sanctification, the purging of your
   nature--for have we not seen that until our nature, itself, is
   cleansed, the enjoyment of Heaven is impossible? There can be no
   knowledge of God, no communion with God, no delight in God hereafter
   unless all sin is put away and our fallen nature is entirely changed.
   Can this be done?

   It can! Faith in Christ tells us of something else besides the blood.
   There is a Divine Person--let us bow our heads and worship Him--the
   Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father--and He, it is, who renews us
   in the spirit of our

   minds. When we believe in Jesus, the Spirit enters into the heart,
   creating within us a new life. That life struggles and contends against
   the old life, or rather, the old death and, as it struggles, it gathers
   strength and grows. It masters the evil and puts its foot upon the neck
   of the tendency to sin. Do you feel this Spirit within you? You must be
   under its power or perish! If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he
   is none of His. I would not have you imagine that in death everything
   is to be accomplished for us mysteriously in the last solemn
   article--we are to look for a work of Grace in life--a present work,
   molding our character among men.

   Oh, Sirs, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is not a sort of
   extreme unction reserved for deathbeds--it is a matter for the walks of
   life and the activities of today! I do not know how much is done in the
   saint during the last minute of his lingering here, but this I do
   know--in a true Believer the conquest of sin is a matter to be begun as
   soon as he is converted and to be carried on throughout life. If the
   Spirit of God dwells in us, we walk not after the flesh but after the
   spirit and we mortify the corruptions and lusts of the old man. There
   must be, now, a treading under foot of lust and pride and every evil
   thing, or these evils will tread us under foot forever in the future
   state where character never changes. There must be, now, a rejection of
   the lie--a casting out of the evil--or we shall be cast out, ourselves,
   forever! There must be, now, a cry, "O Lord, You desire truth in the
   inward parts: and in the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom.
   Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be
   whiter than snow."

   Beloved, it is to this we must come--to be washed in the water which
   flowed with the blood from Jesus' side, for there must be a purging of
   nature as well as a removal of actual transgression or else the
   inevitable decree, like a fiery sword, will keep the gate of Paradise
   against us--"There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles,
   neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie." O my Hearers,
   suppose we should never enter there? No, start not, for the supposition
   will soon be a fact with many of you unless you repent! Suppose we
   should be in the next world what some of us are now, defiled and
   untruthful--what remains?

   That is an awful text in the parable of the virgins--"And the door was
   shut." You read of those who said, "Lord, Lord, open to us," to whom He
   answered, "I know you not." You have read of them--will any of us be
   among them? Will any of us who has a lamp and is thought to be a virgin
   soul be among the shut out ones on whose ears shall fall the words, "I
   know you not from where you are"? You see you cannot be anywhere else
   but out unless you are in! And you must be shut out if you are defiled
   and defiling. Dear Heart, this is a question I beg you to look to at
   once! You do not know how short a time you have left to you in which
   you may look into it. Some who were here but a Sabbath or so ago are
   now gone from us. Eleven deaths were reported at one Church Meeting
   among our members!

   We are a dying people! We shall all be gone within a very short time. I
   charge you by the living God and as you are dying men and women--see to
   it that you are not shut out so as to hear the fatal cry--"Too late,
   too late, you cannot enter." There shall be no "Purgatory," in eternity
   and no possible way of entering in among the perfected, for it is
   written, "There shall in nowise enter into it anything that defiles."
   No crying, "Lord! Lord!" No striving to enter in! No tears, no, not
   even the pangs of Hell, itself, shall ever purge the soul so as to make
   it fit to join with the holy Church above should it pass into the
   future state uncleansed! Shut out! Shut out!

   O God, may that never be true of anyone among us, for Christ's dear
   name's sake, Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Honey From A Lion

   (No. 1591)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 3, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But the free gift is not like the offense For if through the offense
   of one, many are dead, much more the Grace of God, and the gift by
   Grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many."
   Romans 5:15.

   THIS text affords many openings for controversy. It can be made to
   bristle with difficulties. For instance--there might be a long
   discussion as to the manner in which the fall of Adam can justly be
   made to affect the condition of his posterity. When this is settled,
   there might arise a question as to the exact way in which Adam's fault
   is connected with ourselves--whether by imputation of its sin, or in
   some other form. And then there might be further dispute as to the
   limit of the evil resulting from our first parents' offense and the
   full meaning of the Fall, original sin, natural depravity and so forth.
   There would be another splendid opportunity for a great battle over the
   question of the extent of the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus
   Christ--whether it covers, as to persons, the whole area of the rain of
   the Fall or whether, in fact, full atonement has been made for all
   mankind or only for the elect.

   It would be easy in this way to set up a thorn-hedge and keep the sheep
   out of the pasture, or, to use another metaphor, to take up so much
   time in pelting each other with the stones as to leave the fruit
   untasted! I have, at this time, neither the inclination nor the mental
   strength either to suggest or to remove the difficulties which are so
   often the amusement of unpractical minds. I feel more inclined to chime
   in with that ancient father of the Church who declined controversy in a
   wise and explicit manner. He had been speaking concerning the things of
   God and found himself, at length, confounded by a certain clamorous
   disputant who shouted again and again, "Hear me! Hear me!" "No," said
   the father, "I will not hear you, nor shall you hear me, but we will
   both be quiet and hear what our Lord Jesus Christ has to say."

   And so we will not go, at this time, to listen to this side nor to
   that, but we will bow our ears to hear what the Scripture, itself, has
   to say apart from all the noise of sect and party. My objective shall
   be to find out in the text that which is practically of use to us; that
   which may save the unconverted; that which may comfort and build up
   those of us who are brought into a state of reconciliation with God,
   for I have of late been so often shut up in my sick chamber that when I
   do come forth, I must be more than ever eager for fruit to the Glory of
   God!

   We shall not, therefore, dive into the deeps with the hope of finding
   pearls, for these could not feed hungry men, but we will navigate the
   surface of the sea and hope that some favoring wind will bear us to the
   desired haven with a freight of corn which to supply the famishing. May
   the Holy Spirit bless the teaching of this hour to the creation and
   nourishment of saving faith.

   I. The first observation from the text is this--THE APPOINTED WAY OF
   OUR SALVATION IS BY THE FREE GIFT OF GOD. We were ruined by the Fall,
   but we are saved by a free gift. The text tells us that "the Grace of
   God, and the gift by Grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, has
   abounded unto many." "Where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound."
   "Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
   our Lord." Although this doctrine is well known and is taught in our
   synagogues every Sabbath, yet this grand essential Truth of God is
   often enough forgotten or ignored so that it is necessary to repeat it
   again and again.

   I could wish that every time the clock struck it said, "By Grace are
   you saved." I could wish that there were a trumpet voice ringing out at
   daybreak both on sea and land--over the whole round globe--the words,
   "By Grace are you saved." As Martin Luther said of a certain other
   Truth of God, so say I of this, "You so constantly forget it that I
   feel inclined to take the Bible and beat it over your heads that you
   may feel it and keep it in remembrance." Men do not naturally love the
   Doctrines of Grace and, therefore, they cast them out of their minds as
   much as possible. The larger portion of mankind do not believe that
   salvation is of Grace--another part of them profess to believe it but
   do not understand its

   meaning--and many who do understand it have never yielded to it or
   embraced it. Happy are they who belong to the remnant according to the
   election of Grace, for they know right well the joyful sound and they
   walk in the light of the glory of the Grace of God which is in Christ
   Jesus!

   Observe that salvation is a free gift, that is to say, it is bestowed
   upon men by God without regard to any merit, supposed or real. Grace
   has to do with the guilty. Mercy, in the very nature of things, is not
   a fit gift for the righteous and deserving, but for the undeserving and
   sinful! When God deals out to men His gracious salvation, they are
   regarded by Him as lost and condemned and He treats them as persons who
   have no claim upon Him whatever, to whom nothing but His free favor can
   bring deliverance. He saves them, not because He perceives that they
   have done anything that is good, or have hopeful traits of character,
   or form resolutions to aspire to something better--but simply because
   He is merciful and delights to exercise His Grace and manifest His free
   favor and infinite love.

   It is according to the Nature of God to pity the miserable and forgive
   the guilty, "for He is good and His mercy endures forever." God has a
   reason for saving men, but that reason does not lie in man's merit in
   any degree whatever. This is clear from the fact that He often begins
   His work of Grace upon those who can least of all be credited with
   goodness. It was said of our Lord, "This man receives sinners," and the
   saying was most emphatically true! Sovereign Grace selects such as
   Rahab the harlot, Manasseh the persecutor and Saul of Tarsus, the mad
   zealot against Christ--such as these have been seized upon by Grace and
   arrested in infinite love, that in them the Lord might manifest the
   power and plenitude of His mercy! Salvation is a work which is begun by
   the pure, unpurchased, free favor of God and in the same spirit it is
   carried on and perfected.

   Pure Grace, which lays the foundation, also brings forth the top stone.
   Salvation is also brought to men irrespective of any merit which God
   foresees will be in them. Foresight of the existence of Grace cannot be
   the cause of Grace! God Himself does not foresee that there will be any
   good thing in any man except what He foresees that He will put there!
   What is the reason, then, why He determines that He will put it there?
   That reason, so far as we are informed, is this, "He will have mercy on
   whom He will have mercy." The Lord determines to display His love and
   set on active work His attribute of Grace and, therefore, does He save
   men according to the good pleasure of His will. If there is salvation
   given to men upon the foresight of what they are yet to be, it is clear
   it is a matter of works and debt--not of Grace.

   But the Scripture is most decided that it is not of works, but of
   unmingled Grace, for, says the Apostle, "If by Grace, then is it no
   more of works: otherwise Grace is no more Grace. But if it is of works,
   then is it no more Grace: otherwise work is no more work." Our text
   clearly expresses that salvation is "the free gift" and that it comes
   to us by "the Grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is by one Man,
   Jesus Christ." I go a little further in trying to explain how salvation
   is a free gift, by saying that it is given without reference to
   conditions which imply any reward. But I hear one murmur, "God will not
   give Grace to men who do not repent." I answer, God gives men Grace to
   repent and no man ever repents till first Grace is given him by which
   he is led to repentance.

   "God will not give His Grace to those who do not believe," says one. I
   reply, God gives Grace to men by which they are moved to believe and it
   is through the Grace of God that they are brought into the faith of
   Jesus Christ. You may say, if you please, that repentance and faith are
   conditions of salvation and I will not quarrel with you. But please
   remember that they are not conditions in the sense of deserving
   anything from God! They may be conditions of receiving, but they are
   not conditions of purchasing, for salvation is without money and
   without price! We are expressly told that salvation "is of faith, that
   it might be by Grace"--for faith is not to be numbered with works of
   the Law, to which the idea of merit may be attached.

   Faith is as far as the poles asunder from claiming anything of God by
   way of debt. Faith comes as a poor, undeserving thing and simply trusts
   the free mercy of God. It never attempts to wear the crown, or grasp a
   particle of praise. The Believer never can be a boaster, for boasting
   is excluded by the law of faith. If a Christian should begin to boast,
   it would be because his believing is failing and his evil nature is
   coming to the front, for faith is, of all the Divine Graces, most
   self-denying! Her song is always, Non nobis Domine, "Not unto us, but
   unto Your name give praise." While, therefore, the Word of God assures
   us that unless we repent, we shall all likewise perish and that if we
   believe not in Jesus Christ we shall die in our sins, it would have us,
   at the same time, know that there is no merit in repenting or
   believing, but Grace reigns in God's acceptance of these Graces!

   We are not to regard the requirement of faith, repentance and
   confession of sin as at all militating against the fullness and
   freeness of Divine Grace, since, in the first place, both repentance,
   faith and true confession of sin are all gifts of Grace and, in the
   next place, they have no merit in themselves, being only such things as
   honest men should render when they know that they have erred and are
   promised forgiveness. To be sorry for my sin is no recompense for
   having sinned! And to believe God to be true is no work for which I may
   demand a reward! If, then, I am saved through faith, it is of the pure
   mercy of God and for that reason, alone, that pardon comes to me.
   Beloved, so far is God from giving salvation to men as a matter of
   reward and debt and, therefore, bestowing it only upon the good and
   excellent, that He is pleased to bestow that salvation over the head of
   sin and in the teeth of rebellion! As I said before, mercy and Grace
   are for the sinful, for none others need them, and God's Grace comes to
   us when we are far off by wicked works. "God commends His love toward
   us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

   Free Grace breaks forth like a mighty flood and sweeps in torrents over
   the hills of our transgressions, rising above the high alps of our
   presumptuous sins. Twenty cubits upward does this sea of Grace prevail
   till the tops of the mountains of iniquity are covered. The Lord passes
   by transgression, iniquity, sin and remembers not the iniquity of His
   people because He delights in mercy. Almsgiving needs a pauper and
   Grace needs a sinner! There is no opportunity for forgiveness where
   there is no offense. If men are meritorious, how can God be gracious to
   them? In such a case it will be enough for Him to be just. When good
   works can put in a valid claim, peace and Heaven can be obtained by the
   rules of debt. But since it is clear that eternal life is the gift of
   pure favor, you need not marvel when I say that Grace comes to men
   leaping over the mountains of their iniquities.

   Abounding mercy delights to blot out abounding sin and it will never
   lack for opportunity to do its pleasure. There is no lack of occasions
   for Grace in this poor fallen world--and of all the places where there
   is most room I know of one spot not far from here where there is a
   grand opportunity for infinite mercy and super abounding Grace to
   exercise their power. Here is the spot--it is this treacherous, guilty
   heart of mine! I think, my Brothers, you know of another spot that is
   very like it! And you, my Sisters, you, too, can say, "Wondrous mercy!
   Surely there is room for all its heights and depths to be shown in this
   sinful soul of mine." Yes, and it will be shown, too, if you can but
   look for it through Christ Jesus--for it is the delight of God's Grace
   to flow into unlikely places!

   Mercy is the Glory of God and He loves to bestow it on those who least
   deserve it. We are saved by Grace, free Grace, pure Grace! Oh, what a
   revelation of Grace and mercy will be seen when all the blood-washed
   race shall gather safely around the eternal Throne of God and sing
   their hallelujahs to Him that loved them and washed them from their
   sins in His own blood!

   Note one thing more concerning this plan of salvation--that all this
   Grace comes to us through the one Man, Jesus Christ. I sometimes hear
   people talking about a "one man ministry." I know what they mean, but I
   know, also, that I am saved by a one Man ministry, even by One who trod
   the winepress alone and of the people there was none with Him. I was
   lost by a one man ministry, when father Adam fell in Eden, but I was
   saved by a one Man ministry when the blessed Lord Jesus Christ bore my
   sins in His own body on the Cross. O matchless ministry of love, when
   the Lord from Heaven came into the world and took upon Himself our
   nature and became in all respects human! And being found in fashion as
   a Man, was obedient to death, even the death of the Cross! It is
   through the one Man, Christ Jesus, that all the Grace of God comes
   streaming down to all the chosen.

   Mercy flows to no man except through the one appointed channel, Jesus
   Christ, the Son of Man. Get away from Christ and you leave the highway
   of God's everlasting love--pass this door and you shall find no
   entrance into life! You must drink from this conduit, or you must
   thirst forever and ask in vain for a drop of water to cool your parched
   tongue! "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." All the
   infinite mercy of God and love of God and God, Himself, is Love--is
   concentrated in the Person of the well-beloved Son of the Highest and
   unto Him be Glory forever. Sing unto Him, you angels! Chant His
   praises, you redeemed! For by the one Man, Christ Jesus, the whole
   company of the elect have been delivered from the wrath to come, to the
   praise of the Glory of the Grace of God!

   Thus I have tried to set before you God's way of salvation.

   II. Starting aside, as it may seem, from the current of our thoughts,
   but only with the view of coming back to it with

   a forcible argument, we next note that IT IS CERTAIN THAT GREAT EVILS
   HAVE COME TO US BY THE FALL.

   Paul speaks in this text of ours of the "offense," which word may be
   read, the "Fall," which was caused by the stumbling

   of our father Adam. Our fall in Adam is a type of the salvation which
   is in Christ Jesus, but the type is not completely able to set forth
   all the work of Christ--hence the Apostle says, "But the free gift is
   not like the offense For if through the offense of one many are dead,
   much more the Grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is by one Man,
   Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many."

   It is certain, then, that we were heavy losers by the offense of the
   first father and head of our race. I am not going into details and
   particulars, but it is clear that we have lost the Garden of Eden and
   all its delights, privileges and immunities, its communion with God and
   its freedom from death. We have lost our first honor and health and we
   have become the subjects of pain and weakness, suffering and
   death--this is the effect of the Fall. A desert now howls where
   otherwise a garden would have smiled. Through the sin of Adam we have
   been born under conditions which are far from being desirable, heirs to
   a heritage of sorrow.

   Our griefs have been alleviated by the bounty of God, but still we are
   not born under such conditions as might have been ours had Adam
   remained in his integrity and kept his first estate. We came into the
   world with a bias towards evil. Those of us who have any knowledge of
   our own nature must confess that there is, in us, a strong tendency
   towards sin which is mixed up with our very being. This is not derived
   solely from faults of education, or from the imitation of others, but
   there is a bent within us in the wrong direction and this has been
   there from our birth. Alas, that it should be so, but so it is! In
   addition to having this tendency to sin, we are made liable to
   death--no, not only liable, but we are sure, in due time, to bow our
   heads beneath the fatal stroke.

   Only two of the human race have escaped death, but the rest have left
   their bodies here to mold back into mother earth and unless the Lord
   comes speedily, we expect that the same thing will happen to these
   bodies of ours. While we live, we know that the sweat of our brow must
   pay the price of our bread. We know that our children must be born with
   pangs and travail. We know that we, ourselves, must return to the dust
   from where we are taken, for dust we are and unto dust we must return.
   O Adam, you did a sad day's work for us when you listened to the voice
   of your wife and eat of the forbidden tree! The world has no more a
   Paradise anywhere, but everywhere it has the place of wailing and the
   field of the dead.

   Where can you go and not find traces of the first transgression in the
   sepulcher and its moldering bones? Every field is fattened with the
   dust of the departed--every wave of the sea is tainted with atoms of
   the dead. Scarcely blows a March wind down our streets but it sweeps
   aloft the dust either of Caesar or his slaves, of ancient Briton, or
   modern Saxon, for the globe is worm-eaten by death! Sin has scarred,
   marred and spoiled this creation by making it subject to vanity through
   its offense. Thus terrible evils have come to us by an act in which we
   had no hand--we were not in the Garden of Eden, we did not incite Adam
   to rebellion--and yet we have become sufferers through no deed of ours.
   Say what you will about it, the fact remains and cannot be escaped
   from.

   This sad truth leads me on to the one which is the essence of the text
   and constitutes my third observation.

   III. FROM THE FALL WE INFER THE MORE ABUNDANT CERTAINTY THAT SALVATION
   BY GRACE

   THROUGH CHRIST JESUS SHALL COME TO BELIEVERS. If all this mischief has
   happened to us through the fall of Adam why should not immense
   blessings flow to us by the work of Christ? Through Adam's
   transgression we lost Paradise, that is certain. But if anything can be
   more certain, we may, with greater positiveness, declare that the
   Second Adam will restore the ruin of the first! If through the offense
   of one man many are dead, much more the Grace of God and the gift by
   Grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, shall abound and has abounded
   unto many.

   Settle in your minds, then, that the fall of Adam has worked us great
   damage and then be as much assured that the life, death and
   Resurrection of Christ, in which we had no hand whatever, must do us
   great service! Believing in Christ Jesus, it becomes beyond all measure
   sure to us that we are blessed in Him, seeing that it is already
   certain that through the fall of Adam we have become subject to sorrow
   and death. For, first, this appears to be more delightful to the heart
   of God. It must be fully according to His gracious Nature that
   salvation should come to us through His Son. I can understand that God,
   having so arranged it that the human race should be regarded as one and
   should stand or fall before Him in one man, should carry out the
   arrangement to its righteous end and allow the consequences of sin to
   fall upon succeeding generations of men--but yet I know that He takes
   no pleasure in the death of any and finds no delight in afflicting
   mankind.

   When the first Adam transgressed, it was inevitable that the
   consequences of his transgression should descend to his posterity and
   yet I can imagine a perfectly holy mind questioning whether the
   arrangement would be carried out. I can conceive of angels saying to
   one another, "Will all men die through this entrance of sin into the
   world? Can it be that the innumerable sons of Adam will all suffer from
   his disobedience?" But I cannot imagine any question being raised about
   the other point, namely, the result of the work of our Lord Jesus. If
   God has so arranged it that in the Second Adam men rise and live, it
   seems to me most gloriously consistent with His gracious Nature and
   infinite Love that it should come to pass that all who believe in Jesus
   should be saved through Him.

   I cannot imagine angels hesitating and saying, "Christ has been born;
   Christ has lived; Christ has died; these men have had nothing to do
   with that--will God save them for the sake of His Son?" "Oh, no," they
   must have felt, as they saw the Babe born at Bethlehem, as they saw Him
   living His perfect life and dying His atoning death, "God will bless
   those who are in Christ! God will save Christ's people for Christ's
   sake." As for ourselves, we are sure that if the Lord executes
   judgment, which is His strange work, He will certainly carry out mercy,
   which is His delight! If He kept to the representative principle when
   it involved consequences which gave Him no pleasure, we may be
   abundantly assured that He will keep to it now that it will involve
   nothing but good to those concerned in it.

   Here, then, is the argument--"For if through the offense of one many
   are dead, much more the Grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is
   by one Man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many." This assurance
   becomes stronger, still, when we think that it seems more inevitable
   that men should be saved by the death of Christ than that men should be
   lost by the sin of Adam. It might seem possible that, after Adam had
   sinned, God might have said, "Notwithstanding this Covenant of Works, I
   will not lay this burden upon the children of Adam." But it is not
   possible that after the eternal Son of God has become Man and has bowed
   His head to death, God should say, "Yet after all I will not save men
   for Christ's sake."

   Stand and look at the Christ upon the Cross and mark those wounds of
   His and you will become absolutely certain that sin can be pardoned,
   no, must be pardoned to those who are in Christ Jesus! Those flowing
   drops of blood demand with a voice that cannot be denied that iniquity
   should be put away. If the voice of Abel crying from the ground was
   prevalent, how much more the blood of the Only-begotten Son of God,
   who, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot! It cannot
   be, O God, that You should despise or forget the Sacrifice on Calvary!
   Grace must flow to sinners through the bleeding Savior, seeing that
   death came to men through their transgressing progenitor.

   I do not know whether I shall get into the very soul of this argument
   as I desire, but to me it is very sweet to look at the difference as to
   the causes of the two effects. Look, now, at the occasion of our
   ruin--"the offense of one." The one man transgresses and you and I and
   all of us come under sin, sorrow and death. What are we told is the
   fountain of these streams of woe? The one action of our first parents.
   Far be it from me to say a word to depreciate the greatness of their
   crime, or to raise a question as to the justice of its consequences. I
   think no one can have a more decided opinion upon that point than I
   have, for the offense was very great and the principle which led to our
   participation in its results is a just one and, what is more, is
   fraught with the most blessed consequences to fallen men, since it has
   left them a door of hope of their rising by the same method which led
   to their fall.

   Yet the sin which destroyed us was the transgression of a finite being
   and cannot be compared, in power, with the Grace of the Infinite God!
   It was the sin of a moment and, therefore, cannot be compared for force
   and energy with the everlasting purpose of Divine Love. If, then, the
   comparatively feeble fountain of Adam's sin sends forth a flood which
   drowns the world in sorrow and death, what must be the boundless
   blessing poured forth from the Infinite source of Divine Grace? The
   Grace of God is like His Nature--Omnipotent and unlimited! God has not
   a measure of love, but He is Love--love to the uttermost dwells in Him!
   God is not only gracious to this degree or to that, but He is gracious
   beyond measure--we read of "the exceeding riches of His Grace." He is
   "the God of all Grace" and His mercy is great above the heavens.

   Our largest conceptions fall far short of the loving kindness and pity
   of God, for, "His merciful kindness is great towards us." As high as
   the heavens are above the earth, so are His thoughts above our thoughts
   in the direction of Grace! If, then, my Brothers and Sisters, the
   narrow fountain which yielded bitter and poisonous waters has sufficed
   to slay the myriads of the human race, how much more shall the river of
   God which is full of water, even the river of the Water of Life which
   proceeds out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb, supply life and
   bliss to every man that believes in Christ

   Jesus? Thus says Paul, "For if by one man's offense death reigned by
   one; much more they which receive abundance of Grace and of the gift of
   righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ."

   That is the argument of the text and to me it seems to be a very
   powerful one, sufficient to dash out the very life of unbelief and
   enable every penitent man to say, "I see what I have lost in Adam, but
   I also see how much I obtain through Christ Jesus, my Lord, when I
   humbly yield myself to Him." Furthermore, I would have you note the
   difference of the channels by which the evil and the good were
   severally communicated to us. In each case it was, "by one," but what a
   difference in the persons! We fell through Adam, a name not to be
   pronounced without reverence, seeing he is the chief Patriarch of the
   race and the children should honor the parent. Let us not think too
   little of the head of the human family!

   Yet what is the first Adam as compared with the second Adam? He is but
   of the earth, earthy, but the second Man is the Lord from Heaven! Adam
   was, at best, a mere man, but our Redeemer counts it not robbery to be
   equal with God. Surely, then, if Adam, with that puny hand of his could
   pull down the house of our humanity and hurl this ruin on our first
   estate, that greater Man, who is also the Son of God, can fully restore
   us and bring back to our race the golden age! If one man could ruin, by
   his fault, surely an infinitely greater Man in whom dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily can restore us by the abounding Grace of
   God! And look, my Brethren, what this man did. Adam commits one fault
   and spoils us--but Christ's works and achievements are not one, but
   many as the stars of Heaven!

   Look at that life of obedience--it is like a crown set with all manner
   of priceless jewels--all the virtues are in it and it is without flaw
   in any point. If one sinful action of our first Covenant head destroys,
   shall not a whole life of holiness, on the part of our second Covenant
   Representative be accepted for us? But what is more, Adam did but eat
   of the forbidden fruit, but our Lord Jesus died, pouring out His soul
   unto death, bearing the sin of His people upon Himself. Such a death
   must have more force in it than the sad deed of Adam! Shall it not save
   us? Is there any comparison between the one act of rebellion in the
   Garden and the matchless deed of superlative obedience upon the Cross
   of Calvary which crowned a life of service?

   Am I sure that the act of disobedience has done me damage? Then I am
   much more certain that the glorious act of self-sacrifice must be able
   to save me and I cast myself upon it without question or misgiving! The
   passion of God's Only-Begotten must have in it Infallible virtue for
   the remission of sin! Upon the perfect work of Jesus my soul hangs at
   this moment, without a suspicion of possible failure and without the
   addition of the shadow of a confidence anywhere else. The good which
   may be supposed to be in man--his best words and holiest actions--are
   all to me as the small dust of the balance as to any title to the favor
   of God. My sole claim for salvation lies in that one Man, the gift of
   God, who by His life and death has made atonement for my sins. And that
   one Man, Christ Jesus, is a sure foundation and a nail upon which we
   may hang all the weight of our eternal interests.

   I feel the more confidence in the certainty of salvation by Christ
   because of my firm persuasion of the dreadful efficacy of Adam's fall.
   Think awhile and it will seem strange, yet strangely true, that the
   hope of Paradise regained should be argued and justified by the fact of
   Paradise lost, that the absolute certainty that one man ruined us
   should give us an abounding guarantee that one glorious Man has in very
   deed effectually saved all those who, by faith, accept the efficacy of
   His work.

   Now, if you have grasped my thought and have drunk into the Truth of
   the text, you may derive a great deal of comfort from it and it may
   suggest to you many painful things which will from now on yield you
   pleasure. A babe is born into the world amid great anxiety because of
   its mother's pains, but while these go to prove how the consequences of
   the Fall are still with us, according to the Word of the Lord to Eve,
   "in sorrow shall you bring forth children," they also assure us that
   the Second Adam can abundantly bring us bliss through a second birth by
   which we are begotten again unto a lively hope! You go into the field
   and mark the thistle and tear your garments with a thorn--these prove
   the curse, but also preach the Gospel. Did not the Lord God say,
   "Cursed is the ground for your sake; thorns also and thistles shall it
   bring forth to you." Through no fault of ours, for we were not present
   when the first man offended, our fields reluctantly yield their
   harvests.

   Well, inasmuch as we have seen the thorns and the thistles produced by
   the ground because of one Adam, we may expect to see a blessing on the
   earth because of the Second and greater Adam! Therefore with unbounded
   confidence do I believe the promise--"You shall go out with joy and be
   led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break

   forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap
   their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and
   instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to
   the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut
   off."

   Do you wipe the sweat from your brow as you toil for your livelihood?
   Did not the Lord say, "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread"?
   Ought not your labor to be an argument by which your faith shall prove
   that in Christ Jesus there remains a rest for the people of God? In
   toiling unto weariness, you feel that Adam's fall is at work upon you.
   He has turned you into a tiller of the ground, or a keeper of sheep, or
   a worker in metals--but in any case he has made you wear a yoke. Then
   say to the Lord Jesus, "Blessed Second Adam, as I see and feel what the
   first man did, I am abundantly confident as to what You can accomplish.
   I will therefore rest in You with all my heart."

   When you observe a funeral passing slowly along the street, or enter
   the churchyard and notice hillock after hillock above the lowly beds of
   the departed, you see set forth before your eyes the result of the
   Fall. You ask, "Who slew all these? And at what gate did the Destroyer
   enter this world? Did the first Adam, through his disobedience, lift
   the latch for death?" It is surely so! Therefore I believe with even
   greater assurance that the Second Adam can give life to these dry
   bones, can awake all these sleepers and raise them in newness of life!
   If so weak a man as Adam, by one sin, has brought in Death to pile the
   carcasses of men, heaps upon heaps, and make the earth reek with
   corruption, much more shall the glorious Son of God, at His coming,
   call them again to life and immortality and renew them in the image of
   God!

   How blessed are those words--"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and
   become the first fruits of them that slept, for since by man came
   death, by Man came, also, the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam
   all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. The first man is of
   the earth, earthy: the second Man is the Lord from Heaven. As is the
   earthy, such are they, also, that are earthy: and as is the heavenly,
   such are they, also, that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image
   of the earthy, we shall also bear the Image of the heavenly."

   Is not this killing a lion and finding honey in its carcass? "Out of
   the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong comes forth
   sweetness," when from the fact of the Fall we derive a strong assurance
   of our restoration by Christ Jesus! Time fails me, otherwise I meant to
   have dwelt somewhat at length upon the last head which can now only be
   cursorily noticed.

   IV. It seems certain that if from the fall of Adam such great results
   flow, GREATER RESULTS MUST FLOW

   FROM THE GRACE OF GOD AND THE GIFT BY GRACE, WHICH IS BY ONE MAN, JESUS
   CHRIST. Brothers

   and Sisters, suppose that Adam had never sinned and we were, at this
   moment, unfallen beings, yet our standing would have remained in
   jeopardy, seeing that at any moment Adam might transgress and so pull
   us down. Thousands of years of obedience might not have ended the
   probation, seeing there is no such stipulation in the original
   Covenant! You and I, therefore, would be holding our happiness by a
   very precarious tenure--we could never glory in absolute security and
   eternal life as we now do in Christ Jesus!

   We have now lost everything in Adam and so the uncertain tenure has
   come to an end. Our lease of Eden and its joys has altogether expired,
   but we that have believed have obtained an inheritance which we hold by
   an indisputable and never-failing title which Satan, himself, cannot
   dispute--"All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is
   God's." The Lord Jesus Christ has finished the work by which His people
   are saved and that work has been certified by His Resurrection from the
   dead! There are now no "ifs" in the Covenant! There is not a "perhaps"
   in it from beginning to end! There are no chances of failure caused by
   unfinished conditions in it. He that believes and is baptized shall be

   saved. Do you say, "I believe he shall be saved if he_"?

   Do you dare to add an, "if," where God has placed none? Remember what
   will happen to you if you add anything to the book of God's testimony!
   No, it is written, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."
   "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." "There is therefore now
   no condemnation to them that trust in Christ Jesus." Thus we have
   obtained a surer standing than we could have had under the first Adam
   and our hymn is true to the letter when it sings--

   "He raised me from the deeps of sin,

   The gates of gaping Hell,

   And fixed my standing more secure

   Than 'twas before I fell."

   Our Lord has not only undone the mischief of the Fall, but He has given
   us more than we have lost! Even as the Psalmist says, "Then I restored
   that which I took not away." By the great transgression of Adam we lost
   our life in him,

   for so ran the threat--"In the day that you eat thereof, you shall
   surely die." But in Christ Jesus we live, again, with a higher and
   nobler life, for the new life being the direct work of the Spirit and
   being sustained by feeding upon the Person of the Lord Jesus, is higher
   than the life of innocence in the Garden of Eden.

   It is of a higher kind in many respects, of which we cannot now speak
   particularly, but this much we may say, "The first Adam was made a
   living soul, the Second Adam is a quickening Spirit." The Lord Jesus
   has also brought us into a nearer relationship to God than we could
   have possessed by any other means. We were God's creatures by creation,
   but now we are His sons by adoption! In a certain narrow sense we were
   the offspring of God, but now by the exaltation of the Man, Christ
   Jesus, the Representative of us all, we are brought into the nearest
   possible relationship to God. Jesus sits upon the Throne of God and
   manhood is thus lifted up next to Deity--the nearest akin to the
   Eternal is a Man, Christ Jesus, the Son of the Highest. We are members
   of His body, of His flesh and of His bones and, therefore, we share His
   honors and participate in His triumphs!

   In Christ Jesus, man is made to have dominion over all the works of
   God's hands and the redeemed are raised up together with Christ and
   made to sit in the heavenly places with Him, above all principalities
   and powers and all things that are, for these are the favorites of
   Heaven, the beloved of the great King! No creatures can equal perfected
   men--they rise superior, even, to the angels who have never sinned, for
   in perfected men the riches of the Glory of God's Grace is more fully
   seen than in pure, unfallen spirits! O Beloved, has not the Lord Jesus
   Christ done much for us and ought we not to expect that it should be
   so, for the Grace of God and the gift by Grace by the Man Christ Jesus
   are infinitely stronger forces than Adam's sin?

   There must be much more sap in the Man, the Branch, than in that poor
   plant, the one man who was made from the dust of the earth. Oh the
   bliss which opens up before us now! We have lost Paradise, but we shall
   possess that of which the earthly Garden was but a lowly type--we might
   have eaten of the luscious fruits of Eden, but now we eat of the Bread
   of Life which came down from Heaven! We might have heard the voice of
   the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day, but now,
   like Enoch, we may walk with God after a nobler and closer fashion! We
   are now capable of a joy which unfallen spirits could not have
   known--the bliss of pardoned sin, the Heaven of deep conscious
   obligation to eternal mercy! The bonds which bind redeemed ones to
   their God are the strongest which exist. What a joy it will be to love
   the Lord more than any other of His creatures and assuredly we shall do
   so!

   Do not think that this is an unwarrantable assertion, for I feel sure
   that it is the Truth of God. Do you not read in the Gospels of a woman
   who washed the Savior's feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs
   of her head and anointed them with ointment? Did not the Savior say
   that she loved much because she had been much forgiven? I take it that
   the same general principle will apply to all places--to eternity as
   well as to time--and, therefore, I believe that forgiven sinners will
   have a love to God and to His Christ such as cherubim and seraphim
   never felt! Gabriel cannot love Jesus as a forgiven man will do! Those
   who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
   Lamb will be nearer and dearer to Him and He will be nearer and dearer
   to them than all the ministering spirits before the Throne of God, for
   He took upon Him our Nature and not theirs!

   Glory be unto You, O Christ! As I look into the awful deeps of Adam's
   fall, I tremble, but when I lift up my eyes, again, to the eternal
   heights where You have raised me by Your passion and Your Resurrection,
   I feel strengthened by the former vision! I magnify the infinite Grace
   of God and believe in it unstaggeringly! Oh, that I had power to
   magnify it with fit words and proper speech, but these are not with me.
   Accept the feeling of the heart when the language of the lips confesses
   its failure. Accept it, Lord, through the Well-Beloved! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Common Salvation

   (No. 1592)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 10, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The common salvation." Jude 1:3.

   JUDE says, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the
   common salvation, it was necessary for me to write unto you." The
   Apostle did not write for writing's sake and in this he sets us an
   example--we are not to speak for speaking's sake, nor even to preach
   for preaching's sake. When we take upon ourselves to write concerning
   Divine things, it ought to be because it is necessary for us to write.
   And when we speak in the name of God, it should be because we have
   something to say which is necessary to be said. Unless a man feels an
   imperative necessity to speak, he will not speak as an ambassador of
   God.

   I think that Jude would not have given all diligence to write if he had
   not, first, felt that necessity was laid upon him to do so. Before you
   instruct others, endeavor to feel the obligation which rests upon you
   to impart the Light of God which you have received, for if you have
   been called of God unto this ministry, woe is unto you if you preach
   not the Gospel! The souls of others require the Truth of God which you
   have been commissioned to teach--but you, also, require to teach it to
   them, for, if you do not warn them, their blood may stain your skirts.
   "That the soul is without knowledge is not good." Neither is it good to
   any that he should withhold what he knows. That men should live and die
   in ignorance of Christ is terrible to conceive of, therefore when you
   speak or write, do it because it is necessary to be done and necessary
   that you should do it.

   You know how it behooved Christ to suffer and, even so, it behooves us
   to hold forth the Word of Life. The necessity in the present case was
   that he should write of the common salvation. If it was
   common--commonly understood and commonly received--why should he need
   to write about it? Surely a common subject has enough written upon it,
   already, and it affords no room for freshness and novelty which are so
   much desired by readers. Yet experience and observation prove that it
   is more necessary to preach the common Doctrines of the Gospel than any
   other Truths of God and that just those things which appear to be the
   most elementary and the most generally received are those upon which it
   is most important to lay stress again and again.

   If there are certain high doctrines, speculative theories and dogmas
   which are rather outgrowths of the Gospel than the Gospel, itself, let
   them be preached in due proportion. But if they are not preached, the
   risk and danger will not be extreme. As for the root facts, the
   fundamental Doctrines, the primary Truths of Scripture, we must, from
   day to day, insist upon them. We must never say of them, "Everybody
   knows them," for, alas, everybody forgets them! We must not cease from
   proclaiming them from fear of being charged with uttering mere
   platitudes--that which is revealed of the Holy Spirit must not be
   spoken of so reproachfully. Let men call the Doctrines of the Gospel
   platitudes if they will--we will only answer that on such platitudes
   our salvation rests!

   After all, on certain grand, wide, well-known Truths of universal
   acceptance, the Church of God is built--her basis is not a difficult
   philosophy, but a plain Revelation of God. Let us not strain after
   matters of ultra refinement, theories of cultured intellects, but let
   as obey the necessity which calls upon as to write and to speak of the
   common salvation. The Gospel message is full of world-wide truisms and
   well-known facts. What did Paul say?--"This is a faithful saying, and
   worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save sinners." If worthy of all acceptation, it is surely worthy of all
   proclamation! It is worthwhile for the whole Church to continually
   rehearse that Jesus came to save sinners, for common Truth as it is,
   there is a necessity that we should perpetually and diligently make it
   known.

   The common salvation should be commonly spoken of, but I fear it is
   uncommonly neglected in these days. The immediate necessity to write of
   the common salvation arose out of certain men who had crept into the
   Church unawares. Some of these attacked the Gospel on its practical
   side with Antinomian subtlety. They cried up the Grace of God, but

   said little of the holy living which it produces. They made light of
   sin under pretense of magnifying the Grace of God! They called careful
   watchfulness a legal spirit They derided humble self-examination and
   claimed, as children of God, they were, in no sense, bound by the
   precepts of the Moral Law. The Apostle calls it, "turning the Grace of
   our God into lasciviousness."

   Side by side with these, there crept in another gang of evil ones, "who
   denied the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." They robbed
   Christ of His Divine Glory and so denied His Atonement and Sovereignty
   as to dethrone Him from being either the Savior or the King of His
   Church. This was the essence of Arianism. They said that Jesus Christ
   was an admirable example, that He was one of a number of persons who
   have discovered important truths and that He is, therefore, to be
   greatly admired, but they asserted that still higher truth would yet be
   discovered as the race proceeded in its progress and so forth. These
   "men of thought" crept into the Church and stabbed at the heart of the
   common salvation.

   We used to have in our Churches a sad amount of the Antinomian
   leaven--we had among us men who preached the Doctrines of Grace without
   the Grace of the Doctrines and professors who forevermore spoke about
   "the truth," but seemed little careful about following "the Way" or
   exhibiting "the Life." I hope that this evil principle has pretty well
   departed from us, though I fear that in its removal it has dragged away
   precious Truths of God with it and now we are assailed by quite another
   school of thought.

   I see no choice in the two kinds of foes, they are equally bad--these
   last are denying this Truth and paring down the other, moving landmarks
   and overthrowing monuments, shaking every wall and kicking at every
   foundation. Having crept in among us unawares, defiant of common
   honesty, they preach against the Gospel from our own pulpits and wage
   war against our Zion from within her own gates! It is essential at this
   day that such as fear God and are His servants should again and again
   both write and preach concerning "the common salvation"--and over and
   over again rehearse the first lessons of Christ--the very alphabet of
   Grace.

   We must make the joyful sound of the common salvation to be more common
   than ever! I wish to ring it out this morning with all the power that I
   have and with all that God will grant me by His Holy Spirit! If these
   men assailed certain speculations of theology it would little matter.
   What is the chaff to the wheat, says the Lord? Let the chaff be
   removed, by all means. If they assailed certain peculiarities of
   method, either in work, or life, or teaching, it might be well for us
   to be taught something by their censures. If they attacked the
   specialties of a single person or sect and the particular view of the
   Truth of God held by a mere party it would not matter, for what are the
   fashions of men's minds? Who is Paul and who is Apollos?

   But it is at the very root of the tree that they lay their axe and,
   therefore, we must end all hesitation! We must take up our weapons and,
   for the sake of the common salvation earnestly contend for the faith
   which was once delivered unto the saints! Our subject, then, is "the
   common salvation." Oh to speak in the power of the Spirit!

   I. Our first observation at this time shall be that PRESENT SALVATION
   IS ENJOYED BY THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST, otherwise there could be among
   them no "common salvation." Those who are sanctified by God the Father
   and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, are saved. In the Church of
   God, salvation is the privilege of all Believers. It is not a matter of
   the future, alone, a blessing to be sought for on a dying bed and
   reached in Heaven. But it is a blessing for this world and this present
   time. Those greatly mistake the meaning of salvation who suppose it
   signifies nothing more than escaping from Hell when you die and
   entering into Heaven when the time has come.

   Salvation means being at once delivered from the power of sin and
   being, once and for all, washed from the guilt of sin. The very word
   used here--"the common salvation"--shows that Jude did not regard it as
   a hidden treasure put away from human reach throughout this mortal
   life. How could it have been common in such a case? He did not regard
   it as a distant attainment to be reached after 20, 30, or 40 years of
   holy living, but as a thing to be tasted, handled and received as soon
   as faith enters the soul--for how else could it be common? "Unto us who
   are saved," says the Apostle, "who has saved us, and called us with an
   holy calling," says the Scripture in another place. Salvation has come
   to our house--we have it--it is a common blessing in the household of
   faith. As salvation is not a future benefit only, so it is not a
   benefit reserved for a few of the more saintly people among Believers.

   It is supposed by some that you cannot know whether you are saved till
   you are in the grip of death, or that, if any do know it, it is only a
   few eminent teachers or especially holy persons who have lived a very
   religious life and, consequently, know that they are saved. It is to be
   confessed that the more holy and godly our life, the brighter our
   evidence of salva-

   tion becomes. But still, the blessing, itself, is common to all the
   children of God--and those whose faith is feeble and whose spiritual
   life is weak are still saved in the Lord. Beloved Hearer, you ought not
   to rest without knowing that you are saved! You may know it and if it
   is true, you ought to know it! I do not think that you have any right
   to sit quietly on that seat for 10 minutes without knowing that you are
   saved, for it is an awful thing to be in doubt as to whether you are
   under the bondage of sin--in doubt as to your being at peace with God.

   This is not a subject upon which uncertainty can be endured. You say,
   "'Tis a point I long to know." It is well that you long to know it--I
   beg you to long to know it so intensely that you must either know it or
   become unutterably wretched! Let every doubt on that point be like a
   sword in your bones. May God cause your heart either to rejoice with
   full assurance or else to be in agony as with death pangs till you are
   confident that you are built on the sure Foundation. The salvation
   which is in Christ Jesus is the common salvation of all who know the
   Gospel and live upon it. Among simple-minded Believers, salvation is
   the inheritance of every one of them and the knowledge that they are
   saved is an everyday possession. We who have joined in Church
   fellowship in this place can truly say, "We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
   have no confidence in the flesh." "Being justified by faith, we have
   peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We count it no
   presumption to say that we are saved, for the Word of God has told us
   so in those places where salvation is promised by faith in Christ
   Jesus!

   The presumption would lie in doubting the Word of God--but in simply
   believing what He says, there is far greater humility than in
   questioning it! Being, then, partakers of like precious faith, we share
   in salvation bought with precious blood, which, though it is costly
   beyond all price is, nevertheless, to all Believers the common
   salvation. This common salvation consists in many works of Grace for us
   and in us. In part it consists of deliverance from spiritual death. We
   were dead in trespasses and sins, but the Spirit of God has quickened
   us into a new and heavenly life and thus we have salvation from
   spiritual death. This belongs, today, to all Believers, for how can a
   man be a Believer and not have the inner life? Having that life, he is
   conscious that it is there. True, he may fall into a fainting fit and
   lie swooning, scarcely conscious of being alive--but such is not his
   usual condition. Healthy life is conscious life and rejoices in being,
   acting and growing. You who are strangers to the people of God may
   think I am fanatical, but, indeed, I am only speaking words of truth
   and soberness when I say that the conscious possession of a heavenly
   life is common among Believers and is, in fact, a large part of the
   common salvation.

   This common salvation consists in deliverance from that awful distance
   at which we once stood from God. We were far off from Him by wicked
   works and when the quickening began in us, we felt that distance and we
   mourned it, fearing, also, that it could never be removed. But now in
   Christ Jesus we are brought near and have become dwellers in the House
   of the Lord. Abba, Father, is the cry which the blessed God hears and
   accepts as it rises from our hearts. Once God was not in all our
   thoughts, but now our thoughts are sanctified and sweetened by a sense
   of His Presence--and we find our greatest joy in feeling that He is all
   around us and within us--that in Him we live and move and have our
   being! Blessed is the common salvation which has brought us near to God
   by the blood of Jesus and made us children and heirs of the Most High!

   We have also been saved from the gloom of heart which once hung over us
   because we were conscious of being under God's displeasure. We thought
   that we could never be forgiven, but we are forgiven. We concluded that
   our heavenly Father would never accept us, but we are accepted in the
   Beloved. We wrote ourselves down among the condemned, but now we are
   justified by faith which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The darkness has
   passed and the true light shines into the spirits of the faithful.
   Peace with God is a sweet part of the common salvation. Now we are
   delivered, also, from the love of sin. We cannot find pleasure in it as
   once we did. We sin, but it costs us dearly. When we do so, we lament
   it with our whole soul. It was our natural way to run the downward
   road, but now, when our feet tread that path, it is as wanderers who
   are out of their way.

   Once sin was our element, as the water is the living element of fish,
   but it is far otherwise, now, for sin is death to us. Transgression now
   breeds sorrow in our conscience and creates misery in the heart, for it
   is alien to the life of God which is in us. If we could have our
   desire, we would never offend again--we would have our souls clear as
   the firmament above us and never would an evil thought or a loose
   desire flit over the pure heavens of our sanctified minds. We would do
   God's will on earth as it is done in Heaven. I say, "we," for I speak
   for all Believers in the Lord Jesus. We are all rescued from the iron
   yoke of the love of evil and this is a most precious part of the common
   salvation!

   The Lord has also delivered us from that cowardly fear of man which
   brings a snare and holds men as slaves to evil customs. He has also
   brought us out of the dark dungeon of spiritual ignorance and renewed
   us in knowledge--thus has He broken the dominion of the former lusts of
   our ignorance and given us liberty to serve Him with godly fear. Pride,
   too, is laid in the dust and we are saved from that dreadful tyrant.
   The dominant power of selfishness is destroyed and we have learned to
   love. The woes of others afflict us; the joys of others rejoice us; our
   soul flows out beyond the narrow confines of our own ribs. Our heart is
   enlarged with love towards God and to all His creatures. Blessed
   salvation this! And it is common to all Believers.

   We have again and again heard it said that evangelical ministers preach
   salvation to sinful men and talk to them of a future life, whereas if
   we were practical, we should denounce the sinner and speak only of
   present reformation in this life. The charge is, I fear, more often
   made in malice than in ignorance. But if in ignorance I would reply--O
   fools and slow of heart, neither to listen nor to understand! Our
   constant theme is immediate salvation from sin and we are perpetually
   insisting upon it that this salvation is a present business, to be
   attended to at once for the purposes of today. It is false, utterly
   false, that we have so preached about the world to come as to have
   pushed out of sight the duties and temptations of this present life!
   No, we have regarded the life to come as commenced here below and have
   viewed Heaven, itself, as to a great extent, the fruit of a heavenly
   disposition which must be implanted in us while yet on earth.

   Ah, if men did not hate the Gospel, they would not so often repeat
   stale objections and groundless accusations. It is surely time that
   infidelity should invent something fresh in the way of objection, for
   this has long passed the stage of toleration and has become a worn-out
   impertinence. Salvation from sin, leading upward to perfection and
   Heaven, is called in the text, "the common salvation." It is, then, the
   salvation of all God's people--the salvation about which all true
   Christians are agreed, for, notwithstanding all you hear about our
   divisions into sects, the Church is really one! The denominations of
   the Christian Church are very much like the divisions of a plowed field
   by means of furrows which mark the surface, but the land remains, to
   all intents and purposes, one field.

   I speak not of mere professors, but truly spiritual people. Such are
   all one in Christ Jesus and their salvation is in all respects the
   same. If they have not all things common, at least they have one and
   the same salvation! All converted men and women believe in the same
   essential Truths of God, feel the working of the same Spirit within
   them and press forward to the same end, namely, perfecting holiness in
   the fear of the Lord. You shall take a high churchman who is a truly
   spiritual man--and there are such people--and you shall set him down
   side by side with the most rigid member of the Society of Friends and
   when they begin to talk of Jesus, of the work of the Holy Spirit in the
   soul and the desire of their hearts after God, you will hardly know
   which is which! The nearer we come to Him, who is the Salvation of God,
   the more plainly we see that among the children of God the basis of
   agreement is far wider than the ground of division.

   Andrew Fuller well and pithily said, "There are, I conceive, four
   things which essentially belong to the common salvation--its necessity,
   its vicarious medium, its freeness to the chief of sinners and its holy
   efficacy." We may differ on the "five points," but we are agreed upon
   these four points! Ask any true Christian if it is not so. You shall
   get together, if you like, a collection of the odds and ends of
   Christianity and certainly there are some odd Christian people about
   whose light comes from above, so they say--I think through a crack in
   the roof--but if they are really genuine and their hearts are right,
   you shall find that even in these wrong-headed folk there is an
   agreement upon their need of a Savior, their faith in His death, the
   freeness of His Grace and the change of heart which it produces. All
   Believers in Christ have a common delight in a common salvation.

   II. We go a step further and note, secondly, that THIS SALVATION IS, IN
   SOME RESPECTS, COMMON IN THE WIDEST POSSIBLE SENSE. It is common
   because it is to be preached to all nations, to all classes, to all
   characters, to all ages and to all conditions of men--in fact, it is to
   be preached to every creature under Heaven. It is the common salvation
   so far as this--that a proclamation of mercy through Jesus Christ is to
   be made to all mankind--for it is declared that if they believe in
   Christ Jesus they shall be saved. You need not be afraid of being too
   free and unreserved in your delivering of the Gospel.

   Let the great trumpet be blown and let every mortal ear attend! I am as
   firm an adherent to the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace as any man living,
   but never shall this tongue hesitate to declare the common salvation!
   Whenever I am called upon to address a congregation, I will always cry,
   "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters!" "Whoever will, let
   him take of the Water of Life freely." The invitation of the Gospel is
   so far-reaching that it may well be called "the

   common salvation." It is common in the widest sense because every man
   that believes in Christ Jesus will be saved--not the Jew only, but the
   Gentile, also--not the only poor man, but the rich man, also! Not only
   the black man, or the white man, but men of every color--not the
   ignorant or the learned, the rude or the refined, exclusively--but
   every soul of Adam born that believes in Christ Jesus shall be saved.

   "For 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 so to you, dear Hearer, whoever you may be, comes this common
   salvation. It is a command addressed to you and a promise made sure to
   you, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." It is
   common in this wide sense, that if any man is saved he will be saved by
   this common salvation! Men talk as if there were half-a-dozen different
   roads to Heaven and yet there is but one--they prattle as if there were
   seven or eight saviors at the least, or as if every man must be his own
   savior as we heard the other day of every man being his own lawyer!

   And yet there is but one name given among men whereby we must be saved!
   He who tries to be his own savior has a fool for his client. He will
   utterly fail to his eternal confusion--why did Jesus die to save us if
   we can save ourselves? All born of Adam who enter Eternal Life come in
   by the one door! Infants are saved through Christ and if any attain to
   Heaven from among the heathen, it must be by virtue of the salvation of
   Christ. He is the common Life for all that live, the common Bread for
   all who are fed by God, the common joy of all who have been blessed of
   the Lord. Thus in its publication, in its promise and in its efficacy,
   the salvation of Christ is the one and only Gospel of Life to men. As
   there is but one common air, one common sea, one common earth, so there
   is but one common salvation! O that we may be among those who prove its
   power in their own person by being saved in the Lord with an
   everlasting salvation!

   III. But I am persuaded that this is not what Jude meant, so I come, in
   the third place, to say that IT IS COMMON TO ALL BELIEVERS. Do you
   remember what this same Jude once said to the Savior? He asked Him,
   "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us and not unto
   the world?" He understands that matter, now, but he is not looking so
   much at the "not unto the world" as at the first fact in his question,
   "You will manifest Yourself unto us." He is evidently full of joy that
   the manifestation of the salvation of Jesus is common to all Believers.
   Upon that blessed fact let us dwell.

   Certain offices, gifts, attainments and enjoyments are given to some
   and not to others. "Are all Apostles? Are all Prophets? Are all
   teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing?
   Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?" It is not every Believer
   that possesses full assurance, or enjoys ecstasy, or is made largely
   useful to others. But all Believers have the common salvation! There
   they share and share alike and every one of them is saved in Christ
   Jesus and called. An Apostle may say to the newest of his converts, "I
   long to see you, that I may impart unto you spiritual gifts, to the end
   you may be established. That is, that I may be comforted together, with
   you, by the mutual faith of both you and me."

   For, first, it is a common salvation which all Believers possess, since
   it springs from the same Divine Grace. There are not some saved by
   Grace and others by works, many by pure Grace and more partly by
   works--but salvation is altogether of Grace in every case and that
   Grace is the same in all who possess it. All Believers are chosen by
   the same electing love, for the same reason, namely, to the Glory of
   the Father's Grace and, being so chosen, they are all ordained unto the
   same life, secured by the same Covenant and given into the hands of the
   same Surety. Eternal Love encompasses, enriches, comforts and preserves
   each individual Believer and guarantees to each the same inheritance in
   Christ Jesus.

   Brother, are you saved by Grace? So am I. Am I saved by Grace? Then my
   Sister, if you believe in Christ, you are saved as I am! It is a common
   salvation--common because we are all saved by the same Savior. We are
   not, some of us, looking to Jesus and others to Moses, or to ourselves!
   Neither are we, some of us, looking to the atoning death and others to
   the perfect life of Christ--but we are all saved by the same one work,
   life, death, Resurrection and intercession of Christ Jesus! When He
   made Atonement by blood,, it was for all His redeemed. When He rose, it
   was to justify all who are in Him! When He stands at the right hand of
   God to plead, He intercedes for all the saints! And when He comes, it
   will be that all His saints may be with Him where He is and may behold
   His Glory.

   Do not fall into the modern notion which divides up Christ and allots
   something to one class of Believers and another portion to others of
   the chosen. They tell us there are such-and-such promises for Israel
   and other promises for the Church. I have not so read the Word of God,
   for I am persuaded that all Believers are the Israel of God! God loves
   all His saints and the same blessedness shall be to them all! You may
   rejoice and be glad that God will not give special raptures

   and soaring up into the skies to a portion of His family and leave the
   rest in the cold! In all that is "salvation" we have a common heritage,
   for Christ belongs to us all and we are all members of His body,
   partakers of His life and sharers of His

   Glory.

   It is a common salvation because we are all saved through the same
   faith. We believe the same precious Truths of God and receive Christ in
   the same way. All the saved possess faith, though not all to the same
   degree. Would God we were all strong in faith! Still, faith is a
   childlike confidence in God in the greatest as much as in the least of
   God's people--and this is the essential requisite to salvation in every
   case. He that believes in Christ is not condemned, but He that believes
   not is condemned already! To all participation in Christian privilege
   we have only one right--"If you believe with all your heart you may."
   Faith makes a man a fellow commoner with the saints of God. It is a
   common salvation because faith and spiritual life are worked in us by
   the same Spirit. Faith does not come to one by the operation of free
   will and to another by Free Grace, but to every one by the same Spirit.

   You, then, my Brothers and Sisters, are plucked like a brand from the
   burning by the power of the Spirit of God and so, also, is your friend
   who rejoices with you. All are quickened by the same Spirit and kept
   alive by the same Quickener. The love of the Spirit should be joyfully
   acknowledged by us all without exception, for the Spirit has worked all
   our works in us. It is a common salvation as to its results, for all
   Believers are equally born again and they are all renewed by Him who
   says, "Behold I make all things new." Brought into the one family of
   God, they are all made children of God and joint heirs with Christ
   Jesus. They are all justified, accepted, preserved, guided, upheld and
   comforted. Their feet are set upon the same Rock, they are led in the
   same King's highway and a new song is prepared for every one of their
   mouths.

   The common salvation, like the common table of a household, satisfies
   all their mouths with good things and renews their youth like the
   eagle's. By-and-by they shall meet in the same Heaven. There will be no
   division before the Throne of God between the different tribes and
   denominations of Believers. One family, we dwell in Him even now, with
   all our petty strifes--but the great family relationship shall be more
   fully developed, by-and-by, when imperfections and errors shall be cast
   aside. The saints before the Throne will sing a common hymn to the
   common Savior as they gather in the common home, saved with a common
   salvation!

   Brethren, I am right glad of all this. I feel inclined to stop the
   sermon and ask you to join in singing Charles Wesley's verse--

   "Partners of a glorious hope, Lift your hearts and voices up Jointly
   let us rise and sing Christ our Prophet, Priest, and King." To me it is
   a joyous thing that God's best gifts should be the most common. It is
   so in nature--the sunshine, the dew, the air, the heavens--these cannot
   become the particular estate of a few. They are common blessings. When
   Richard the Second banished Bolingbroke, that nobleman is represented
   as saying--

   "This must my comfort be, That sun that warms you here, shall shine on
   me! And those His golden beams, to you here lent, Shall point on me and
   gild my banishment." There is no monopolizing the best gifts, for
   Heaven ordains them to be the right of all mankind and so the chief
   things of the Covenant of Grace are common to all Believers!

   One may have greater powers of speech than another, but God has spoken
   to the silent Brother the same promises. Gifts are to this man and to
   that--but the gift of salvation is to all who believe! The choicest
   saint may have far less of this world's riches than his brother, but
   the riches of God's Grace are all his own by equal title. We live on
   common ground, here, fed by our Father with the same Bread from Heaven.
   Thank God that in so many points the saints have fellowship, for all
   these should make them of one mind and of one heart towards each other.
   Some of God's children are not learned, but they shall all be taught of
   the Lord! All are not experienced in the deep things of God, but they
   are all entitled to the best things of God!

   There are some few points in which we are unlike, even as children of
   the same family differ in age and height, or in the color of their eyes
   or hair. But we are one in so many vital and conspicuous features that
   we should, with one voice

   and heart, praise our common Father. We may not all wear the same form
   of garment, but we all breathe the same Life. We may not eat from the
   same plate, but we all eat the same Bread. We may not all drink from a
   silver chalice, but the wine is from the one cluster. "Now there are
   diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of
   administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of
   operations, but it is the same God which works all in all."

   It is a great comfort to my heart that, among you who are bound to me
   by such loving ties, I can speak without hesitation of the common
   salvation, for you know it, feel it, love it, rejoice in it, even as I
   do this day!

   IV. That brings me to close by noticing that this fact of the common
   salvation was mentioned by Jude that he might use it as an argument. So
   then THIS FACT HAS MANY LESSONS IN IT. First, this common salvation
   forbids a monopolizing spirit. The old divines used to say that
   enclosures were contrary to Law. I am afraid that I may not say so,
   now, for almost everywhere the commons have been taken from the poor
   man and his goose. May there yet be an end to such enclosing. But
   enclosures in spiritual things are contrary to the Law of Christ. Who
   are we that we should cut off from fellowship with us those whose
   fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ?

   Yet we have those around us who make it a point of Christianity to be
   exclusive. Their exclusions are perpetual. Shut that door! Shut that
   door! Shut that door! That seems to be the one great command of their
   house and the second is like it--make more doors, one within the other
   and take care to bolt them all! Their sheep must keep within their fold
   without fail, for if they once get a bite of pasture outside the
   enclosure, their doom is sealed! In many forms this spirit has been
   among our denominations, but I do not believe in it. If the spirit of
   Christianity begets in us love to all mankind, much more, my Brothers
   and Sisters, are we to love those in whom there is the Life of God!

   Is it really so, that this man is to be un-Christianized because of a
   mistake and the other because of a misapprehension? Does God make your
   Brother a Christian and do you try to unmake him? Does God think so
   much of him as to forgive him, to give him power in prayer and
   enjoyment of His Presence and do you think so little of him that you
   will hardly acknowledge him to be a partaker in Christ at all? Does the
   Father smile on all His children and do we frown on half of them? If I
   could do it, the last thing I should attempt would be to wall in my own
   special company and say, "The temple of the Lord are we."

   I would not wish to set a fence round about the baptized and say,
   "These are the Church of Christ, even as many as have been immersed in
   water that they may be buried into His death." Beloved Brothers and
   Sisters, our Lord has a people that are on other points as right as
   right can be who on the point of Baptism are as wrong as wrong can be!
   But, for all that, they are His people and in other respects are sound
   in the faith and valiant for the Lord our God. Unto such our love goes
   forth and must go forth, in spite of their grievous error. Upon other
   matters there are distinctions among Believers, but yet there is a
   common salvation enjoyed by the Arminian as well as by the Calvinist,
   possessed by the Presbyterian as well as by the Episcopalian, prized by
   the Quaker as well as by the Baptist. Those who are in Christ are more
   near of kin than they know and their intense unity in deep essential
   Truths of God is a greater force than most of them imagine--only give
   it scope and it will work wonders. As for us, let us not be among the
   men of whom Jude says, "These are they that separate themselves,
   sensual, having not the Spirit."

   Next, this doctrine fosters the spirit of benediction. Jude begins his
   Epistle with, "Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied."
   Brothers and Sisters, fill your lungs with this healthy air! You are
   saved with a common salvation! Desire the profit, the growth, the
   happiness of all who partake of this one salvation! You are in one
   ship--seek the good of all who sail with you. You are enlisted in one
   army--pray the Captain of salvation to make every soldier strong in the
   Lord and in the power of His might. The common salvation should excite
   us to seek the prosperity of every part of Zion--we would seek the
   good, not of our Tabernacle, alone, but of every tabernacle or temple
   where Christians meet to worship the Most High.

   Next, this fact awakens in us a common spirit of contention for the one
   faith. For what says the Apostle? "It is necessary that I write unto
   you of the common salvation, and exhort you that you should earnestly
   contend for the faith once delivered to the saints." When the Gospel is
   assailed, we must all rise in its defense, for it is the common
   salvation which is involved in it. When they frightened this nation
   years ago with the rumor of an invasion by the French, the Russians, or
   somebody or other, what was the result? Everybody became warlike! Our
   young men joined rifle clubs and our elderly men polished up their old
   blunderbusses. Everybody hastened to arm himself to protect the common
   country from the coming foe--and had the enemy really arrived--even the
   women would have shouldered their brooms to sweep the in-

   truder over our white cliffs! Every man, woman, and child would have
   found some fork, or scythe, or spade, or axe to protect the common
   fatherland!

   Community of interest begets community of feeling. We are all
   Englishmen and we all sing, "Britons never will be slaves," so, in this
   case, when the Gospel of Jesus Christ is assailed, it does not matter
   by whom, I feel I may call upon all Christians to take action for the
   common salvation. Brothers, awaken to the fight, for more than our
   hearths and homes are now attacked. Do they deny the Deity of Christ?
   It is not only my religion that is assailed, it is yours as well! Do
   they turn the Grace of God into lasciviousness? It is not this branch
   of the Church that is now endangered. The entire Church is placed in
   jeopardy! This Gospel is not my heritage or yours, it is the common
   domain of all the faithful and I beseech you feel it to be so. In your
   own spheres and in your own ways hold the Truth of God, and hold it
   firmly.

   You who can neither preach nor write in defense of sound doctrine can
   at least give negative help by refusing to countenance error. Do not go
   to hear those who preach false doctrine. Do not encourage them in any
   way. Do not bid them God speed. Love all them that love the Lord Jesus
   Christ in sincerity, but if a word is spoken against the Lord or
   against the Gospel which He has revealed, turn your back upon the
   speaker! Be like the loving John, who, when he went to take a bath,
   found Cerinthus, the heretic, there, and departed at once with all
   speed. I want to see more backbone in all professors, more
   determination never to compromise their faith by pretending to believe
   that black is white and that white is a shade of black.

   Love--do I not preach it with all my heart and do I not bid you
   manifest it in your deeds? But with that love mingle a firm adherence
   to the Truth of God as it is in Jesus and a zealous resolve that it
   shall not lose its honor while you are capable of upholding it! Let the
   common salvation be protected by the earnest zeal of the entire body of
   the Church and by us, also. This fact, I think, puts everyone of us to
   the question--It is a common salvation, but have I a part in it? It
   belongs to all the people of God, but am I one of them? I should like
   you, this morning, when you get home, to write on a piece of paper, if
   you will, whether you are saved or not. It would be a timely searching.
   Here you are, on this 10th day of April--write down, "Saved, bless the
   Lord for it!" And if you are obliged to feel you could not write that
   down, go up into your chamber and cry mightily unto God till you can!

   Well, if you are able to write, "saved," then inasmuch as it is a
   common salvation, go and try to spread that salvation among others.
   "Others save," says Jude. I know, he says, "others save with fear," but
   still he says "others save." Try, as far as you can, to bring others to
   the Savior! A man's salvation that he never wishes to spread among
   others is a salvation that is not worth having. You are not saved from
   selfishness if you do not wish to see your children, relatives and
   neighbors, yes, and all the world brought to Jesus' feet. If it is a
   common salvation, go and make it common. And, lastly, this text calls
   for a common song of praise from all those who have the common
   salvation and I cannot suggest to you a better doxology than that with
   which Jude closes his Epistle--"Now unto Him that is able to keep you
   from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His
   glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and
   majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."
     __________________________________________________________________

Rejecters Of The Gospel Admonished

   (No. 1593)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 17, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To whom He said, This is the rest with which you may cause the weary
   to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear." Isaiah
   28:12.

   ASSUREDLY Isaiah was one of the most eloquent of preachers and yet he
   could not win the ears and hearts of those to whom he spoke, for it is
   written, "they would not hear." Beyond all question he was thoroughly
   evangelical, for, as Dr. Watts truly says, he spoke more of Jesus
   Christ than all the rest of the Prophets and yet the message of love
   was treated as though it were an idle tale. His doctrine was clear as
   daylight and yet men would not see it, so that he had to ask with
   sorrow, "Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the
   Lord revealed?" It was not the fault of the preacher that Israel
   rejected his warnings--all the fault lay with that disobedient and
   gainsaying nation.

   The people to whom he spoke so earnestly were drunken in a double
   sense. They were overcome with wine and so general was this vice that
   Isaiah says, "But they also have erred through wine and through strong
   drink are out of the way. The priest and the Prophet have erred through
   strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way
   through strong drink. They err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For
   all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place
   clean."

   What can be conceived of more potent to blunt the point of Gospel Truth
   than intoxication or excess? When a man is given to wine, how can the
   Spirit of God dwell in him? How is it likely that the Truth of God
   shall enter an ear which has been rendered deaf by this degrading vice?
   How is the Word of God likely to operate upon a conscience that has
   been drenched and drowned by strong drink? I charge you, if any of you
   are given to drunkenness, flee from this destroyer before your bonds
   are made strong and you are hopelessly fettered by the habit! It is
   small wonder that the preacher is defeated if his ardent zeal has to
   compete with ardent spirits! When Bacchus rolls the wine cask against
   the door, it is hard to force an entrance even though we demand it in
   the name of King Jesus. Men are in an evil state for hearing when the
   barrel and the bottle are their idols. It is not at all marvelous that
   the Gospel should be neglected by men who have put an enemy into their
   months to steal away their brains.

   The people to whom Isaiah spoke were also drunken in another sense,
   namely, intoxicated with pride. Their country was fruitful and its
   major city, Samaria, stood on the hilltop like a diadem of beauty
   crowning the land--and they delighted in the glorious beauty which is
   on the head of the fat valley. They, themselves, were brave and among
   them were many champions whose strength sufficed to turn the battle to
   the gate. Therefore they hoped to resist every invader and so their
   hearts were lifted up. Moreover, they said--"We are an intelligent
   people! We need no teaching, or if, indeed, we endure instruction, it
   must be of a high class! We are men of cultured intellect, instructed
   scribes and we do not need persons like Isaiah to weary us with their
   ding-dong of 'precept upon precept, line upon line,' as if we were mere
   children at school. Besides, we are good enough. Do we not worship our
   god under the form of the golden calves of Belial? Do we not respect
   the sacrifices and the holy days?"

   So spoke the more religious of them, while the rest gloried in their
   shame. Being intoxicated with pride, it was not likely that they would
   hear the message of the Prophet who bade them turn from their evil
   ways. Even so, he that is righteous in his own esteem is never likely
   to accept the righteousness of Christ. He who boasts that he can see,
   will never ask to have his eyes opened. He who claims that he was born
   free and was never in bondage unto any man is not likely to accept the
   liberty of Christ. Pride is the devil's dragnet in which he takes more
   fish than in any other except procrastination. The destruction of those
   who are proud is certain--for who can help the man that refuses to be
   helped--and where is the likelihood that there shall be either
   repentance for his sin or faith in Christ in the man who does not know
   that he has sinned and who believes that if he has done so, he can
   easily wipe away the stain?

   The two forms of drunkenness are equally destructive and I beg to call
   your attention to this fact. Whether body or soul is intoxicated,
   mischief will surely come of it. Many are pleased if I speak against
   drunkenness of the body and I feel bound to speak as earnestly as I
   possibly can, for it is a monster evil. But I beseech you who are sober
   and, perhaps, total abstainers, to dread the other intoxication--for if
   any one of us should be intoxicated with pride on account of our own
   sobriety--it will be ruinous to our souls! What if we are temperate and
   self-denying--there is nothing in this in which to glory--we ought to
   be greatly ashamed of ourselves if we were not so. Let us not get drunk
   with pride because we are not drunkards, for if we are so vain and
   foolish, we shall as certainly perish by pride as we should have done
   by drink.

   I am, indeed, rejoiced when a man gives up his cups, but I am far
   happier when, at the same time, he renounces his self-confidence, for,
   if not, he may still remain so besotted as to refuse the Gospel and
   perish by his own willful rejection of mercy. May the Holy Spirit
   deliver us all from such a sad condition! I confess I feel encouraged,
   this morning, by Isaiah's need of success. When he says, "They would
   not hear," I comfort myself concerning those who pay no heed to my
   exhortations--perhaps it is no more my fault than it was Isaiah's. At
   any rate, if Isaiah still went on speaking, even when he cried, "Who
   has believed our report?" much more may I, who am so much inferior to
   him, be willing to persevere in telling out my Master's message as long
   as my tongue will move!

   Perhaps God may grant repentance to the obstinate and ears may yet be
   unstopped and hearts may yet be softened! Therefore, let us try again
   and once more publish the glad tidings of peace. If the blessed Spirit
   is with us, we shall not give the Gospel call in vain, but men will fly
   to Jesus as doves to their windows! First, I wish to speak, this
   morning, upon the excellence of the Gospel. Secondly, upon the
   objections taken to it. And thirdly, upon the Divine counterattack of
   these objections.

   I. Let us consider THE EXCELLENCE OF THE GOSPEL as it is set forth in
   the passage before us. This Scripture does not allude to the Gospel,
   primarily, but to the message which Isaiah had to deliver which was, in
   part, the command of the Law and in part the promise of Grace. But the
   same rule holds good of all the Words of the Lord and, indeed, any
   excellence which was found in the Prophet's message is found yet more
   abundantly in the fuller testimony of the Gospel in Christ Jesus. Using
   the passage for ourselves and referring it to the Gospel ministry in
   this day, the excellence of that Gospel lies, first, in its
   objective--it is excellent in its design, for it is a revelation of
   rest.

   We, as Christ's ambassadors, are sent to proclaim to you that which
   shall give you ease, peace, quiet, rest. It is true we have to begin
   with certain Truths of God that disturb and distress, but our goal is
   to dig out the foundation into which may be laid the stones of
   restfulness. The message of the Gospel which fell from the mouth of its
   own Author is this--"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy
   laden, and I will give you rest." Over Bethlehem the angels sang,
   "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." The objective of the Gospel is
   not to make men anxious, but to calm their anxieties. It is not to fill
   them with endless controversy, but to lead them into all the Truths of
   God.

   The Gospel gives rest of conscience by the complete forgiveness of sin
   through the atoning blood of Christ. It gives rest of heart by
   supplying an Object for the affections worthy of their love and it
   gives rest of the intellect by teaching it certainties which can be
   accepted without question. Our message does not consist of things
   guessed at by wit, nor evolved out of man's inner consciousness by
   study, nor developed by argument through human reason--it treats of
   revealed certainties, absolutely and Infallibly true upon which the
   understanding may rest itself as thoroughly as a building rests upon a
   foundation of rock.

   The Word of the Lord comes to give believing men rest about the present
   by telling them that God orders all things for their good. And as for
   the future, it brightens all coming time and eternity with promises. It
   rolls away the stone from the door of the sepulcher, annihilates
   destruction and reveals resurrection, immortality and eternal life
   through Jesus Christ, the Savior! The man who will hear the Gospel
   message and receive it into his soul shall know the peace of God which
   passes all understanding--which shall keep his heart and mind by Jesus
   Christ. The believer of this Gospel shall not make haste by reason of
   fear. He shall not be ashamed nor confused world without end. It is
   true that after being a Believer he may, at times, be disturbed in
   mind, yet this shall not be the result of the Gospel, but of that in
   him which the Gospel promises to remove!

   He shall have rest in Christ, even "quietness and assurance forever."
   It is written, "for this Man shall be the peace." "Being justified by
   faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This
   message, which Isaiah had to deliver, saying, "This is the rest and
   this is the refreshing," is the glad tidings which we are taught to
   deliver in still clearer

   words, saying to you that in Christ Jesus, in the atoning Sacrifice, in
   the great plan of Grace through the Mediator there is rest for the
   weary, sweet rest for burdened souls, rest for you if you come and cast
   yourself at the feet of the blessed Savior! Our authorized message from
   the Lord God is a Revelation of rest. The Lord has promised to obedient
   minds that they shall dwell in quiet resting places.

   More than that, it is the cause of rest--"This is the rest with which
   you may cause the weary to rest." The Gospel of our salvation is not
   only a command to rest, but it brings the gift of rest within itself.
   Our Lord says, "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."
   Let the Gospel be admitted into the heart and it will create a profound
   calm, hushing all the tumult and strife of conscience, removing all
   apprehensions of Divine wrath, stilling all rebellion against the
   Supreme will and so working in the spirit, by the energy of the Holy
   Spirit, a deep and blessed peace. Oh that we may know and possess this
   peace of God!

   The Gospel, then, is a message which speaks of peace and also creates
   peace. He who sends it is "the Lord and Giver of peace" and His
   effectual power goes with the message where it is faithfully delivered
   and honestly accepted, creating peace within the secret chambers of the
   soul. This rest is especially meant for the weary. "This is the rest
   with which you may cause the weary to rest." If you have been trying to
   find peace for years and cannot find it, here is the goodly pearl you
   have been seeking! If you have been laboring and toiling to keep the
   Law and have failed, here is more than the righteousness that your
   conscience has been craving! In Jesus Crucified you will find all
   things, for "He is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness,
   sanctification and redemption!"

   Oh you that are weary with the round of worldly pleasure--satiated,
   nauseated with the vanities and delusions of the carnal mind--come here
   and find true joy! O you that are worn with ambition, fretted with
   disappointment, embittered by the faithlessness of those you trusted
   in, come and confide in Jesus and be at rest! Weary, weary, weary
   ones-- here is the rest, here is the refreshing! Jesus expressly puts
   it, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
   give you rest." If your backs are breaking; if your hearts are
   breaking; if your eyes are failing through weary watching and waiting,
   come to the Savior just as you are, for He will be your rest!
   Despondent and despairing, condemned and, in your own conscience, cast
   out to the gates of Hell--yet look to Jesus and rest shall be yours!
   You cannot be too far gone for the Mighty Redeemer! You cannot be too
   lost for the Savior to find; too black for His blood to cleanse; too
   dead for the Spirit to quicken!

   This is the rest with which He makes the weary to rest. Oh, it is a
   blessed, blessed message that God has sent to the sons of men! How is
   it that they refuse it? In addition to bringing us rest, the message of
   mercy points us to a refresh-ing--"This is the rest with which you may
   cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing." If the rested one
   should grow weary, again, the Good Shepherd will give him refreshing.
   If he wanders, the Lord will restore him. If he grows faint, He will
   revive him! Yes, He has begun His gracious work of renewing and He will
   continue it by renewing the heart from day to day, blending the will
   with His own and making the whole man more and more to rejoice in Him.

   I know there are some of God's people here who are faint and thirsty.
   You are specially invited, as well as those who never came before, for
   this is the rest for the weary! This also is the refreshing for the
   fainting and if the sinner may come and find peace in Christ, much more
   may you, who though you have wandered from Him like lost sheep, have
   not forgotten His Commandments. Come, you desponding ones, come back to
   Jesus, for this is the rest and this is the refreshing!

   Now note with peculiar joy that Isaiah did not come to these people to
   talk about rest in dubious terms and say, "There is no doubt a rest to
   be found somewhere in that goodness of God of which it is reasonable to
   conjecture." No! He puts his finger right down on the Truth of God and
   he says, "This is the rest, and this is the refreshing." Even so, we,
   at this day, when we come to you with a message from God, come with
   definite teaching! Laying our hand upon the slaughtered Lamb of God, we
   cry, "This is the rest and this is the refreshing." We speak of
   Substitution, of Christ's dying in the sinner's place! We speak of a
   vicarious Sacrifice, of Christ's being numbered with the transgressors
   and of our sin laid upon our Surety and borne by Him and put away from
   us by Him so as never to be mentioned against us any more forever! And
   we proclaim in the name of God that whoever believes in Christ Jesus
   has everlasting life--this is the rest and this is the refreshing!

   It was said of a certain preacher of the modern school that he taught
   that our Lord Jesus Christ did something or other which in some way or
   other was connected with the pardon of sin--this is the preaching of a
   great number of our

   intellectual divines! But we have not so learned Christ, neither is
   this the doctrine by which we have obtained rest to our souls. God has
   revealed fixed and positive Truths and it is ours to state them clearly
   and without hesitation. Our cry is, "This is a faithful saying and
   worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save sinners! This is the rest and this is the refreshing!" Isaiah had
   to preach to the people something definite, something positive and yet
   they would not hear.

   Perhaps if he had prophesied conjectures and dreams, they would have
   listened. Nor did he preach a rest of a selfish character. They say we
   teach men to get peace and rest for themselves and make themselves
   comfortable, whatever becomes of others. How these men lie in their
   throats--they know better and they forge these lies because their heart
   is false! Are we not always bidding men look out from themselves and
   love others even as Christ has loved them? Our words and acts for the
   good of others prove that we do not delight in selfishness! We abhor
   the idea that personal safety is the consummation of a religious man's
   desires, for we believe that the Life of Grace is the death of
   selfishness! This is one of the glories of the Gospel--"this is the
   rest with which you may cause the weary to rest."

   Get rest, yourself, and you will soon cause other weary minds to rest.
   As soon as you have learned the Divine secret, it will become in your
   hands a blessed charm with which you, too, by God's Grace, may become
   givers of rest! With this lamp you may enlighten all that are in the
   dark as God shall help you. That secret something which your own heart
   possesses shall enable you to communicate good cheer to many a weary
   heart and hope to many a desponding mind. "This is the rest with which
   you shall cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing." But
   this is true of the Gospel and of that only. If you get away from Jesus
   Christ and His Atonement and God's great plan of Grace, you can cause
   no rest to oth-ers--and there is none for you, either. This, then, is
   the excellency of the Gospel, that it propounds to men a blessed rest.

   The other excellency of the Gospel, of which I shall speak at this
   time, lies in its manner. First, I count it a great excellency of the
   Gospel that it comes with authority. Read the 9th verse. Even the
   quibblers acknowledged its authority, for they called the Prophet's
   message, "knowledge" and, "doctrine." The Gospel does not pretend to be
   a speculative scheme or a theory of philosophy which will suit the 19th
   Century but will be exploded in the Twentieth. No, we speak what we do
   know, not what we dream nor imagine, but what we know!

   If, my Brothers and Sisters, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a fact,
   I dare not ask you to believe it, but if it is a fact it is not my
   "opinion," not, "my views," as men are always saying--it is the great
   fact of time and of eternity which is and must be true forever! Christ
   stood in the place of men and has become God's Salvation for the sons
   of men--this is the witness of God! We do not make guesses, we utter
   knowledge! The Word of God, which is, in this place, translated,
   "doctrine," is, in the Hebrew, "message." And it is the same which is
   used in the passage, "Who has believed our report?" which should better
   run, "Who has believed our message?"

   The Gospel comes to men as a message from God and he that speaks it
   aright does not speak it as a thinker uttering his own thoughts--he
   utters what he has learned and acts as God's tongue--repeating what he
   finds in God's Word by the power of God's Spirit. The Gospel that I
   have thought out may not be half as good as one which you have thought
   out and your understanding and mine and all the rest of the produce of
   thinkers put together, may only be fit to make a fire and a smoke in
   the garden with the rest of the weeds. But if we receive and accept a
   message direct from God, then this is its main excellence! I pray you
   delight in the Gospel because it comes from God to us and tells us
   unmixed Truth with absolute certainty. If we believe it, we shall be
   saved and he that believes not well deserves the damnation which is
   pronounced against him. There is no hope nor help for it--this is the
   inevitable alternative--believe the Gospel and live, refuse it and be
   destroyed!

   Another excellence of the Gospel as to its manner was that it was
   delivered with great simplicity. Isaiah came with it, "Precept upon
   precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little." It is the
   glory of the Gospel that it is so plain. If it were so mysterious that
   nobody could understand it but doctors of divinity--I do not know how
   many there may be here this morning, I do not suppose above a dozen or
   so--what a sorry case the rest of us would be in! If it were so
   profound that we must take a degree at a university before we could
   comprehend it, what a miserable Gospel it would be for mocking the
   world! But it is divinely sublime in its simplicity and, therefore, the
   common people hear it gladly.

   As the verse seems to imply, it is fit for those who are weaned from
   the breast--those who are little more than babes may yet drink this
   unadulterated milk of the Word of God! Many a little child has
   comprehended the salvation of Jesus Christ sufficiently to rejoice in
   it and there are those in Heaven not much above two or three years of
   age, who, before

   they went there, bore good witness for Christ to those who loved them
   and marveled at their words. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
   has God ordained strength! Christianity has been called the religion of
   children and its Founder said that none could receive it except as a
   little child.

   I bless God for a simple Gospel, for it suits me and thousands of
   others whose minds cannot boast of greatness or genius. It equally
   suits men of intellect and it is only quarreled with by pretenders. The
   man who lacks breadth of mind and depth of thought is the man to
   quibble at the Wisdom of God. An affected creature who is little above
   an idiot will brush his hair backwards, put on his spectacles, wrinkle
   his brows and amend the Infallible Word of God, but a man who really
   has a spacious mind is usually childlike and, like Sir Isaac Newton, is
   glad to sit at Jesus' feet! Great minds love the simple Gospel of God,
   for they find rest in it from all the worry and the weariness of
   questions and doubts.

   It is an excellent thing that the Gospel is taught us by degrees. It is
   not forced home upon men's minds all at once, but it comes thus,
   "Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a
   little." God does not flash the everlasting daylight on weak eyes in
   one blaze of glory--but there is, at first, a dim dawn and the soft
   incoming of a tender light for tender eyes--and so by degrees we see.
   The Gospel is repeated--if we do not see it at once, it comes again to
   us--for it is "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and
   there a little."

   From morning to morning, from Sunday to Sunday, by Book after Book, by
   text after text, by spiritual impression after spiritual impression,
   the Divine gentleness makes us wise unto salvation. This is a grand
   excellence of the Gospel method. It is brought down to us and brought
   home to us in ways suitable to our capacity. It is told to us, as it
   were, with stammering lips (see verse 11), just as mothers teach their
   little children in a language all their own. I should not like to speak
   from the pulpit as mothers talk to their babies, yet they use the best
   language for the baby, the very words for a little child to understand.
   Even so, in much of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, we see
   how God condescends to lay aside His own speech and talk the language
   of men.

   I know not with what language the Father converses with His Son, but to
   us He speaks after our own fashion. "As the heavens are high above the
   earth, so are His thoughts above our thoughts," but He bows to us and
   tells us His mind in types and ordinances which are a sort of child
   language fitted for our capacity. In the Gospel of John, what child
   language, what depth! What love! If you, my Hearer, do not understand
   the Word of God, it is not because He does not put the words plainly,
   but because of the blindness of your hearts and the besotted condition
   of your spirit. Take heed that you are not drunk with the wine of
   pride, but be willing to learn, for God, Himself, has not darkened
   counsel by mysterious words, but He has put His mind before you as
   plainly as the sun in the heavens. "Precept upon precept, line upon
   line, here a little and there a little."

   II. Alas, my time is nearly gone and I need much more space in which to
   do justice to my subject. I have now, in the

   second place, to notice THE OBJECTIONS WHICH ARE TAKEN TO THE GOSPEL.
   First, let me say that they are

   most wanton. For men to object to the Gospel is a piece of wanton
   foolishness because they object to that which promises them rest! Above
   all the things in the world, this is what our troubled spirits
   need--rest is our heart's craving--and the Gospel comes and says, "I
   will give you rest." And do men reject that blessing? This is
   lamentable, indeed! What? Were you ill and did you insult the only
   physician that could cure you? Why were you so foolish?

   What? Were you in debt and did you actually refuse help from a generous
   friend who would have given you all you needed? "No," you say, "we are
   not so foolish." But oh, the intense folly, the desperate insanity of
   men that when the Gospel sets rest before them, they will not hear it,
   but turn upon their heels! There is no system of doctrine under Heaven
   that can give quiet to the conscience of men--quiet that is worth
   having--except the Gospel of Jesus Christ! And there are thousands of
   us who bear witness that we live in the daily enjoyment of peace
   through believing in Jesus and yet our honest report is not believed,
   no, they will not hear the Truth of God!

   Now, if God came demanding something of you, I could understand your
   refusing. I have heard of a poor woman who locked her door and when she
   heard a rap did not answer it, behaving as though she was not at home.
   Her minister saw her a day or two after he had called and he said, "I
   called to see you the other day. I wanted to give you help, for I knew
   that you were very poor. But no one answered to my knocking." "Oh," she
   said, "I am very sorry, but I thought it was the landlord calling for
   the rent." She shut out her benefactor through mistaking him for her
   creditor! The Lord is not calling in the Gospel for that which is due
   to Him, nor asking anything of you--He approaches you with perfect rest
   in His hands--the very thing you need and yet you shut the door of your
   heart against Him. O do not do so! Be wise and

   play not the fool any longer! May God help you to be wise for your own
   eternal good. Admit your God with all His heavenly gifts!

   Next, objections against the Gospel are willful, even as it is here
   said, "This is the refreshing, yet they would not hear." When men say
   that they cannot believe the Gospel, ask them whether they will
   patiently hear it in all its simplicity. No, they say, they do not want
   to hear it. The Gospel is so difficult to believe, so they say. Will
   they come and hear it preached in its fullness? Will they carefully
   read the Gospels for themselves? Oh, no, they cannot take the time!
   Just so. But a man who does not want to be convinced, must not blame
   anybody if he remains in error. He that will not hear what the Gospel
   has to say needs not wonder that objections swarm in his mind.

   The Gospel asks of men a fair hearing. The Lord says, "Incline your
   ears and come unto Me; hear and your soul shall live," for, "faith
   comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." How sad that they
   will not even hear God's message of love! It is a willful objection to
   the Gospel, then, when men refuse, even, to hear what the Gospel has to
   say, or if they hear it with the outward ear, but will not give hearty
   attention to its Truths. Such objections are wicked because they are
   rebellion against God and an insult to His Truths and mercy. If this
   Gospel is of God, I am bound to receive it-- I have no right to cavil
   at it, nor raise questions, philosophical or otherwise! It is mine to
   say, "Does God say this and that? Then it is true and I yield to it.
   Does the Lord thus set before me a way of salvation? I will run in it
   with delight."

   But these people raised objections that were the outgrowth of their
   pride. They objected to the simplicity of Isaiah's preaching. They
   said, "Who is he? You should not go to hear him--he talks to us as if
   we were children. Go hear the learned Rabbi over there who is refined
   and cultured. As for this man, he is not fit to teach any but those who
   are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts, for with him, it
   is, 'precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a
   little.' He is so very homely that his sermons may be OK for servant
   girls and old women and so on, but they are not to be endured by
   intellectual people. Besides, it is the same thing over and over again.
   You may go when you like, he is always on the same string."

   They say this very savagely, too, for as old Trapp says, "The duller
   the brains, the sharper the teeth with which to rend the preacher."
   Have you not heard folks say in these days concerning a true Gospel
   preacher that he is always preaching about Sovereign Grace or the blood
   of Christ, or crying out, "Believe, believe and you shall be saved"?
   They sneer and say, "It is the old ditty over and over again." I am not
   a Hebrew scholar, but those who are, tell us that the passage
   translated, "precept upon precept, line upon line," was uttered in
   ridicule and sounded like a ding dong rhyme with which they mocked
   Isaiah. You would smile if I read you the Hebrew according to the sound
   with which, in all probability, it was pronounced.

   They said, "This is the way Isaiah preaches--I Tzav latzav, tzav
   latzav; kav lakav, kav lakav: zeeir sham, zeeir sham." The words were
   intended to caricature the preacher, though they do not suggest the
   idea when translated-- "precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
   line upon line, line upon line"--but they do suggest it, readily
   enough, in the Hebrew. There are people now living who, when the Gospel
   is plainly and simply preached, exclaim, "We want progressive thought,
   we want_"--they do not quite know what they want. They are something
   like the congregation

   who, when a certain Bishop of London was preaching to them, were
   utterly inattentive. Whereupon the good man took up his Hebrew Bible
   and read them five or six verses in the Hebrew tongue--and at once they
   were all awake! Then he rebuked them by saying, "Verily, I perceive
   that when I preach you good doctrine you do not care about it, but when
   I read to you in a tongue which you do not comprehend, straightway you
   open your ears."

   An affectation of special refinement is supported by listening to talk
   which is incomprehensible. Too many wish for a map to Heaven so
   mysteriously drawn that they may be excused from following it.
   Multitudes delight in prayers in the Latin tongue and others prefer
   them in no tongue at all, but intoned through the nose! Music and
   millinery, processions and pomposities are preferred by thousands
   because they prefer sensuous enjoyment to spiritual instruction. We
   know those who prefer the Gospel shrouded in a mist--they love to see
   the wisdom of man shut out the wisdom of God! This was the style of
   objection current in Isaiah's day and it is still fashionable.

   Did I hear someone remark--"Why you, yourself, preach nothing but
   faith, Atonement, Free Grace, and so on. We want novelties and will go
   elsewhere for them!"? So you may if you like--I shall not change my
   tune while God preserves me!

   III. The third point will be a warning to those who have no relish for
   the Truth of God--let us consider THE DIVINE COUNTERATTACK OF THESE
   OBJECTORS. The Lord threatens them, first, with the loss of that which
   they

   despised. He has sent them a message of rest and they will not have it
   and, therefore, in the 20th verse, He warns them that they shall have
   no rest from now on: "For the bed is shorter than that a man can
   stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap
   himself in it." All those who willfully reject the Gospel and take up
   with philosophies and speculations will be rewarded with inward
   discontent. Ask them, "Have you found rest?" "Oh, no," they say, "we
   are further off than ever." "But you hoped that if you listened to this
   philosophical doctrine you would then be happy." They reply, "Oh, no,
   we are still seeking."

   Ask the preachers of that kind of doctrine whether they, themselves,
   have found an anchorage and, as a rule, they will answer, "No, no, we
   are in pursuit of truth; we are hunting it, but we have not reached it
   yet." They are never likely to reach it, for they are on the wrong
   track! The Gospel was made to rest conscience, soul, heart, will,
   memory, hope, fear--yes, the entire man--but when men laugh at the
   Truth of God, how can they be rested? Dear Friend, if you have not
   found rest, you have not yet grasped the simple Gospel and you have
   need to go back to the fundamental principle of faith in Jesus, for
   this is the rest and this is the refreshing.

   This is the condemnation of the unbeliever, that he shall never find a
   settlement, but like the wandering Jew shall roam forever. Leave the
   Cross and you have left the hinge of all things and neglected the one
   sure Cornerstone and fixed Foundation and, from now on you shall be as
   a rolling thing before the whirlwind. "There is no peace, says my God,
   to the wicked." "The wicked is like the troubled sea, when it cannot
   rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Furthermore the Lord
   threatens them that they shall be punished by a gradual hardening of
   heart. Read the 13th verse. They said that Isaiah's message was
   "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a
   little," and justice answers them, "Even so it shall be to you, a thing
   despised and ridiculed, so that you will go further away from it; you
   will fall backward and be broken, and snared and taken."

   See verse thirteen. A fall backward is the worst kind of fall! If a man
   falls forward, he may somewhat save himself and rise again. But if he
   falls backward, he falls with all his weight and is helpless. Those who
   stumble at Christ, the sure Foundation Stone, shall be broken! When
   opposers hope to retrieve their position, they find themselves snared
   by their habits, entangled in the net of the great fowler and taken by
   the Destroyer. This downward course is followed, full often, by those
   who begin caviling at a simple Gospel--they cavil more and more and
   become its open enemies to their eternal ruin! If men will not have the
   Gospel of rest as the Lord has appointed it, He will not alter it to
   their tastes, but permit it to exercise its inevitable influence upon
   opposers by its being a savor of death unto death.

   If they dislike it today, they shall dislike it more tomorrow. If they
   refuse to feel its energy today, they shall refuse yet more obstinately
   as time rolls on and its power shall not go forth to enlighten or
   impress or comfort their hearts. This is a terrible thing, but what is
   still worse, if worse it can be, is this to be followed by a growing
   inability to understand-- "For with stammering lips and another tongue
   will he speak to this people." Since they would not hear plain speech,
   God will make simplicity, itself, to seem like stammering to them. Men
   that cannot endure simple language shall, at last, become unable to
   understand it!

   You know, my Brothers and Sisters, how large a body of mankind are, at
   this day, unable to understand the Savior. The Savior said, "This is My
   body" and straightway they conclude that a piece of bread is
   transformed into the flesh of Christ! The Savior commands Believers to
   be baptized into His death and straightway they proclaim that the water
   of Baptism regenerates children! They will not understand what is clear
   as the sun. They take our Lord's illustrations literally and when He
   speaks literally they dream that He is using metaphors! If men will not
   understand, they shall not understand! A man may shut his eyes so long
   that he cannot open them. In India many devotees have held up their
   arms so long that they can never take them down, again. Beware lest an
   utter imbecility of heart come upon those of you who refuse the Gospel.

   If you charge God's Word with being childish, you shall grow childish
   yourselves, as many great philosophers of our day have done. If you say
   that it is simple and refuse it because of its plainness, you will
   become simpletons yourselves. If you say it is beneath you, it will
   turn out that you will be beneath it and it will grind you to powder!
   Lastly, this warning is given to those who object to the Gospel that
   whatever refuge they choose for themselves shall utterly fail them.
   Thus

   says the Lord--"Judgment will I also 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."

   Down come the great hailstones, dashing everything to shivers--the
   threats of God's Word breaking to pieces all the false and flattering
   hopes of the ungodly! Then comes the active wrath of God like an
   overwhelming flood to sweep away everything on which the sinner stood
   and he, in his obstinate unbelief, is carried away as with a flood into
   that utter destruction--that everlasting misery which God has declared
   shall be the lot of all those who refuse the living Jesus Christ!
   Beware, you despisers! Beware!

   I have earnestly tried, at this time, in simple language, to set before
   you the wickedness of refusing the Gospel of rest. May the Spirit of
   God grant that any here who have, up to now, neglected it may, at once,
   accept it! Try it, weary heart! Try it, despondent spirit! Try what
   faith in Jesus can do! Come and trust in Jesus and see if it does not
   bring peace to your soul. If Jesus fails you, let me know, for I will
   never preach again if He breaks His promises! He can never cast off or
   cast away a believing heart! Oh, if there is sweet peace, calm, joyful
   hope, gladness, strength and life to be had by childlike faith in God's
   testimony concerning His dear Son, I pray God that you may obtain it at
   once!

   If you feel an objection to the preacher who now addresses you, pray
   God that he may preach better. And if you have done so and he is still
   distasteful to you, go and hear somebody who will not be personally
   objectionable, for it would be a grief of heart to me to stand in the
   way of even one anxious heart! I fear that you stand in your own light.
   O Man, act like a man and hear the Gospel candidly. O Self! Will you
   destroy yourself? O Pride! Lower your crest. O Drunkenness! Quit your
   cups. O hardened Sinner! God help you to leave your sin! Come and trust
   Jesus this day. May God enable you to do so by His Holy Spirit, for
   Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Candle

   (No. 1594)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 24, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
   candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Let
   your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
   glorify your Father which is in Heaven." Matthew 5:15,16

   OUR Savior was speaking of the influence of His disciples upon their
   fellow men and He, first of all, mentioned that secret but powerful
   influence which He describes under the figure of salt--"You are the
   salt of the earth." No sooner is a man born unto God than he begins to
   influence men with an influence which is rather felt than seen. The
   very existence of a Believer operates upon unbelievers. He is like a
   handful of salt cast upon flesh--he has a savor in himself and this
   penetrate those who are in contact with him. The unobserved, almost
   unconscious influence, of a holy life is most effectual to serving
   society and the prevention of moral putrefaction. May there be salt in
   every one of us, for, "salt is good." Have salt in yourselves and then
   you will become a blessing to all around you.

   But there is about every true Christian a manifest and visible trait
   which he is bound to exercise and this our Lord sets forth under the
   figure of light--"You are the light of the world. A city that is on a
   hill cannot be hid." In any case the genuine Christian will manifest
   the silent and unseen salting influence upon those who come into
   immediate contact with him, but let him also labor to possesses the
   second, or illuminating influence, which covers a far larger area and
   deals more with real life--for salt is for dead flesh and light for
   living men. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your
   good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven."

   Saltiness and light are the power of a Christian! I do not believe that
   any man gives forth light if he has not, first, received salt and yet
   some have an abundance of salt who are none too liberal with their
   light. May God grant us Grace to balance the inward and the outward.
   May we have serving salt and the diffusive light! Our thoughts will now
   run on giving light and I pray that I may be helped to move the more
   and less active among us to exert their influence upon others to this
   extent--to crown the silent testimonies of their humble faith by an
   outspoken witness-bearing for their Lord and Savior.

   All who have salt will now be urged to show their light. The figure
   which our Savior uses is a homely one, borrowed from the eastern tent
   and house. He speaks of a candle, or, more accurately, of a lamp. We
   should read the passage-- "Neither do men light a lamp and put it under
   a bushel, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light unto all that are
   in the house." I shall use the figure both in its eastern and in its
   western dress and sometimes we will make a lamp of it and sometimes a
   candle. Perhaps we shall see all the better with both a lamp and a
   candle and, though we may confuse the metaphor, we shall not confuse
   anybody's mind upon the important Truth of God which it sets forth.

   Three things are in the text. The first is the lighting, the second is
   the placing and the third is the shining. The first two are both
   intended to produce the third. May He who alone can create light,
   illuminate our minds while we dwell on

   His Word.

   I. First let us consider THE LIGHTING. "Neither do men light a candle."
   What is this lighting up of the souls of men? They are without light by
   nature, "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the
   life of God through the ignorance that is in them." What, then, is this
   lighting? It is, first of all, a Divine work. God began His creating
   work of old by saying, "Let there be light" and there was light. And as
   in the old creation, so in the new--the first thing that God works in
   the heart of man is light--"the entrance of Your Word gives light."
   Well said David, "The Lord is my light and my salvation."

   The Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding so that the man perceives
   the desperateness of his own condition and his inability to win
   salvation by his own works. The Lord pours fight into the soul so that
   Christ is seen by faith and, at the sight of Him, the heart catches
   fire and light takes hold upon the inner man so that he not only sees
   light but has light. The light not only shines upon the heart but from
   the heart. "You were sometime darkness"--not only in the dark, but
   darkness! "But now you are light in the Lord"--not only have you light
   from the Lord, but you are light--your souls having caught the flame.

   The Holy Spirit, alone, can accomplish this work. No human being will
   ever have light within himself till God who spoke the fiat at Creation
   shall, by the same Word, create light in the soul. The Apostle Paul
   says of all the saints, "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." This lighting is a
   separating work. When this Light of God comes, it separates a man from
   those around him who are as darkness. It does not take him away from
   his surroundings. It does not shut him up in a monastery, but the
   separation is complete, for to set a division between a candle and the
   darkness all that is needed is to light it. The tiniest spark will, by
   its very existence, be distinguished from the darkness.

   There is no need to label light to prevent its being confused with
   darkness and there is no need for it to sound a trumpet before itself,
   saying, "Here I am." What fellowship has light with darkness? No sooner
   comes the light into a man's heart than he is separate from those who
   are round about him--he is called, by the Grace of God, to a vocation
   which at once sets a difference between the called ones and the rest of
   the sons of men. The darkness could not have created the light, for it
   does not even comprehend it, "The light shines in the darkness and the
   darkness comprehended it

   not."

   Those that are round about the Christian man cannot make him out, for
   his life is hid with Christ in God. At his conversion they perceive
   that a strange alteration has come over him and, as Dr. Watts says,
   they gaze and admire and hate the change, but they know no more about
   it than owls do of the sun! At first they set the change down to
   melancholy, until the man's experience flashes into delight and then
   they call it fanaticism or a kind of madness--a sort of twist of the
   mind. Oh, blessed twist! Would God that those who know it not could be
   twisted after the same fashion! It is the kindling of the candle, so
   that where all was darkness before, there may now be the heavenly Light
   of God!

   The darkness, though it does not understand or love the light, is,
   nevertheless, compelled to yield to it, for the battle between light
   and darkness is short and decisive. Up to the measure of the light is
   the measure of its conquest. Though only a few beams should irradiate
   the eastern sky, yet so far the arrows of the sun have pierced the
   heart of the night and as that light shall glow into high noon, all
   traces of darkness must fly before it. Beloved, if God has given light
   to us, He has put within us a principle that shall go forth conquering
   and to conquer! Let the darkness be as dense as that which plagued the
   Egyptians, yet must it yield to light.

   A conflict is to be expected, but a conquest is guaranteed. We must not
   dream that the darkness will put forth its black arms to embrace our
   light, nor may we imagine that it will come cowering at the foot of our
   candlestick and ask to make a league with us. Light cannot dwell side
   by side with the darkness, making a covenant, for it is written, "God
   divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and
   the darkness He called night"--thus giving to each its own
   distinguishing name--that none might confuse them. No man shall ever be
   able to mingle the two--they are and must be forever distinct. To the
   end of time there shall be two seeds--the heirs of light and the
   children of darkness-- and these two cannot be one.

   The light shall war with the darkness till the eternal light has fully
   risen and reached its zenith--and then the earth shall be filled with
   the light of the Glory of God! Till then, you children of light, see to
   it that you have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
   This lighting up of the candle takes place at regeneration and you
   perceive it in enlightenment, conviction, conversion. The question is,
   have you ever been lit, dear Friend? Have you ever received that Divine
   Light of God? Have you ever felt the touch of the heavenly torch of the
   Word of God by which the Light has come to you and now dwells within
   you, so that you have become a light and are shining to the Glory of
   God?

   Furthermore, this light giving is a personal work to every man who is
   the subject of it. The text says, "Let your light so shine before men."
   When a man lights a candle, the light does not belong to the candle, at
   first. But when once the candle has accepted the flame, the light
   becomes the candle's own light and the candle begins to shine by its
   own light. So, Beloved, the Grace of God, the Light from Heaven, must
   come to each one of us individually from the Divine hand

   and we must personally receive it. Light is not inherent in any one of
   us and, therefore, it must be bestowed. Its bestowal necessitates a
   personal acceptance.

   It is not bestowed upon us as part of a nation or family. In its
   enlightening operations, Divine Grace does not deal with men in the
   gross, but with each man by himself. Sin is personal and so must Grace
   be. We are individually in the darkness and must be individually
   kindled into light. One by one, each man must accept the Light of God,
   permitting it, as it were, to kindle upon him, so that the very wick of
   his being, that innermost life which goes through the very center of
   his nature shall embrace the flame and begin to burn with it! There
   must be an individual appropriation of the light so that to each one of
   you it becomes your own. "Let YOUR light so shine before men."

   Do not deceive yourselves with the notion of national Christianity or
   hereditary Christianity--the only true religion is personal godliness.
   We cannot light these candles by the pound at a time, nor heap up lamps
   in a pile and light them in a mass. We have, nowadays, wonderful lights
   which can be all lit in an instant by a single touch of
   electricity--but even then each one of the lights has to receive a
   flame for itself--which becomes all its own. There is no way by which
   individuality can be destroyed and men saved en masse. In each man the
   light is peculiar and distinct. The light that burns in one true
   minister of Christ is the same which shines forth from another and yet
   one star differs from another star in Glory--Peter is not John, Paul is
   not James, Whitefield is not Wesley.

   You shall examine the whole range of God's lamps and candlesticks and
   you shall not find two exactly alike. Many artists exhaust themselves
   and then repeat themselves, but God is inexhaustibly original--no two
   touches of His pencil are the same. Light is one and its glory is
   one--and yet there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the
   moon and another glory of the stars. There is a difference in the
   lights of various oils and gases and so there is in your light, my
   Brothers and Sisters, and my light. It is very possible that you would
   like to put my candle in order--you may do so if you can--but do not
   snuff me out!

   Your own light is, however, your main concern and you had better ask
   for special Grace that it may not fail. Your light is distinct from
   mine--as distinct as your life is from mine--though, in another sense,
   it is true that your spiritual light is one with all the light that
   ever shone in this world. There is in the lighting, a personal
   appropriation of the Divine flame and afterwards a personal and
   distinct sending forth of the sacred Light in the individual's own way.
   Look you well to this, lest you be mistaken and suppose yourselves to
   be lighted from Heaven when you are the mere will-o'-the-wisps of
   delusion.

   I like our translator's reading the word candle--"Neither do men light
   a candle," for nowadays a candle is the smallest of all lights. We
   almost despise a candle in these days of the electric light, yet small
   lights are useful and tiny lamps have their sphere. God has many small
   lights. In His great house He has candles as well as stars and He would
   not have even a small light wasted. Even the most twinkling ray of
   light is of God's kindling--think of that, you who cannot do more than
   talk to a child or give away a tract for love of His dear name. You are
   a little light, but if the Lord has given you even a spark of the
   sacred fire, He means that you should shine!

   In this world there are many lights, but none too many. We could not
   spare the sun and it would be a calamity if the smallest star were
   quenched. We cannot spare those modern inventions which so cheer us by
   turning our city's night into day, but I know we should miss even the
   glowworm from its dewy haunt in the quiet lane! We cannot afford to
   lose a ray of light in this misty, foggy, all-beclouded sky of ours.
   The Church and the world need all the light that has been provided and
   much more. I, therefore, would press upon all my Brothers and Sisters
   here who may happen to have but one talent, the necessity of their
   putting it out to interest! Your light, my Friend, may be but a
   farthing rushlight, but you must not hide it, for all lights are of God
   and are sent with a kind and gracious purpose by the great Father of
   Lights.

   Note further that lighting is a work which needs sustaining. While
   lighting is a process performed in a moment, it is also, as a matter of
   fact, prolonged, for the lamp needs to be trimmed and it would be
   worthless to light a lamp and leave it to itself. The lamp must have
   fresh oil, from time to time, since by shining it consumes its fuel. Do
   not, any of you, think, therefore, if you can fix upon a certain time
   and say, "I was converted then," that you may live as you like
   afterwards. God forbid! The saints prove their conversion by their
   perseverance--and that perseverance comes from a continual supply of
   Divine Grace to their souls. Judge, then, yourselves by this--not so
   much whether on a certain special occasion you were turned from
   darkness to light--but are you still, "light in the Lord"?

   Have you oil in your vessel with your lamp? Are you looking unto Jesus?
   It was well that you looked, but are you looking? That is the great
   thing! Remember, it is a present business, this looking. It is well
   that you came to Jesus, but that is merely the beginning--it is "to
   whom coming," coming continually as unto a living stone. Our lungs must
   have, as we all know, fresh supplies of air. It will avail me nothing
   that I breathed yesterday. I am dead unless I breathe today. We must
   have constant food--you ate yesterday--but could you, without hunger
   and weakness, go without food today? We continually need to be built up
   as to our bodies and it is just the same with our souls! And if we
   neglect this--if we fancy that something done 20 years ago is all that
   is needed--we shall make a great mistake. There must be the frequent
   trimming of the lamp, which is, in effect, a continuation of the
   lighting.

   Once again, let me say that this work of lighting is a work which, when
   it is done upon a man, consecrates him entirely to the service of
   giving light. A candle once lit, if it continues alight, will be all
   consumed in giving light. It is what it was made for, not to be laid by
   in a glass case and looked at, but to be burned away. Blessed is the
   man who can say, "My zeal has consumed me." You will say that in the
   case of the lamp--the lamp itself is not consumed. No, but it is
   consecrated to the one purpose of lighting the house and it contains
   the supply of oil by which the flame is fed. The whole of the lamp,
   whether it is of gold or silver or clay, or whatever it may be--is
   dedicated to the one purpose of giving light-- and if God ever comes
   and lights you, my dear Brothers and Sisters, you are, from now on,
   separated from all other purpose and appointed to the one calling.

   You may be a great many other things according to your human calling,
   but these must be subordinate. I wish that some men kept earthly things
   much more subordinate than they do. The first thing in a Christian is
   his Christianity. The chief business of one whom God has called is that
   he should live as the elect of God. Look at Christ Jesus--He was a
   carpenter, but I confess I seldom think of Him as such. It is as the
   Savior of men and, the Servant of God that He comes before my mind. And
   thus a Christian man ought to live so, if he is a carpenter, the
   Christian swallows up the carpenter! And if he is a businessman, or a
   man of letters, or an orator, he ought so to live that the most
   conspicuous fact about him is that he is a Christian!

   He is a lamp and his one business is to shine. You may use a candle for
   many purposes. I saw a man grease a saw with one the other day and
   another made his boots fit for walking in the snow in like manner. But
   still, these are not the objectives for which a candle is designed--it
   has missed the purpose of its existence if it does not give light. I
   suppose, on occasions, you might use a lamp for a weight, or for some
   other purposes, but it would not be, then, a fit instrument for any
   purpose except that of giving light. Everything is best when fulfilling
   its proper purpose. Have you ever seen a swan out of water? How
   ungainly is its walk! What an unwieldy bird it seems!

   But look at him on the water. What a fine model for a ship! What Grace!
   What beauty! So is it with the Christian! His beauty is best seen in
   its proper element. Give him any other aim and he is awkward and
   uncomely. When seeking to instruct and save his fellow man, he is where
   God would have him and then all the lines of creating wisdom and all
   the beauties of Divine Grace are manifested in him. Let us take care,
   then, about this lighting--that it is lighting from above, that it is a
   lighting such as makes the light our own and that it is a lighting
   which takes possession of us and consecrates us entirely--and is
   perpetually sustained by the visitation of the Spirit of God. So much
   on the first point.

   II. We will now, in the second place, consider THE PLACING. "No man
   lights a candle and puts it under a bushel." It is a great point, this
   placing of a man--it may hide his light or send it further afield. The
   chief matter is the lighting him and getting him to have light to give.
   But the next most important thing is where to put him when he is
   alight. For some men, when they first find Christ, are in the wrong
   place altogether. How can a lamp shine if it is dropped into a river?
   After the conversion of certain persons their removal becomes
   necessary. It is significant that when God called Abraham He did not
   let him stop in Ur of the Chaldees--the place for Abraham to shine was
   not even in Haran, but he must get in to the chosen country and wander
   as a shepherd prince--for only there and in that character could
   Abraham shine to the Glory of God.

   Most men will be wise to stay where they are and shine, but others must
   undergo a great change of position before they will be able to scatter
   their light to the extent which the Lord intends for them. That may
   account, my Friend, for your having more trouble since you were
   converted than you ever had before. You have been left to lie still
   till now, but you are needed and so you are fetched out from your
   hiding place. It did not matter where you were when you gave no
   light--you were just as well behind a box or in a closet as anywhere
   else! But now that you are lighted you must be put

   on a lamp stand and, therefore, you are undergoing processes of
   Providence that are somewhat painful to you. Our placing, whether it
   has necessitated removal or not, is largely done by the Providence of
   God--one man is placed here and another there--and it is well for us to
   look at our position from this point of view.

   God puts us where we can best serve His cause and bless our age. If you
   had your choice, perhaps, if you had to be a street lamp, you would
   like to be a lamp in Hyde Park to shine upon the nobles who pass that
   way. But the poor souls need lights far more down that blind alley;
   down that den of a court where wild Irish are quarrelling, or drunks
   murdering their wives. He that loves God, if he had his choice, might
   sooner choose to shine in the worse place than in the better. "Oh that
   I lived in the midst of a warm-hearted Church!" one says. If you are an
   earnest, thorough-going man or woman, I am glad that you are placed in
   that dreary village where the people are pretty nearly starved for
   spiritual life!

   "What?" cries one, "are you glad that I have to suffer so much?" No,
   not for that, but because if you are a strong man, you will not suffer,
   but you will make other people suffer--that is to say--make it hard for
   the minister, the deacons and the Church to remain in their wretched
   condition of lukewarmness! I hope you will be the means of awakening
   them and bringing them nearer to Christ. How often a place which
   appears undesirable will become desirable if we regard it in this
   light. Providence puts us where we can give the most light and if our
   lamp is set up in the midst of darkness, where else should it be?

   This Tabernacle reminds me of those frames on wheels, filled with
   lamps, which are used at our railway stations-- here we have scores of
   lamps all burning together--and when first one and then another is
   dropped through the roof into a carriage and whisked away along the
   line, though it is to Australia, or America, or India, I am sorry to
   lose you, but I am glad that you are going where you will do more good
   than you will do here. Why should you not be scattered abroad like the
   first Believers? Why should not the candles be carried where the
   darkness is? Why should we keep up an everlasting illumination upon
   this particular spot just to gladden our own eyes instead of lending
   light to all the world?

   It is ours to say to others, "Here is a candle, let it shine in your
   houses." Or, "Here is a lamp, set it up in your tents, that God may
   bless you." But though I have thus spoken of Providence, a good deal of
   our placing is in our own hands. There are ways of placing
   yourselves--for instance, that mentioned in the text, which may be as
   ruinous to our influence as if a candle were placed under a bushel! Or
   you can put yourself in a place of advantage, as when a lamp is set
   upon a lamp stand. First, note the word in the negative--"Neither do
   men place it under a bushel." A bushel is a good and useful article. In
   almost every eastern house there was a corn-measure, here called a
   bushel, though it did not generally measure much more than a peck.

   This measure was commonly in every house because they ground their own
   corn and so were generally dealing with the neighbors. That useful
   corn-measure, to me, represents the pursuits of ordinary life--the
   proper and natural avocations of the household. Many men and women hide
   the candle that God has lit under the bushel of business and domestic
   cares. But you ask, "Is not a housewife to be a housewife?" Certainly,
   but not so a housewife as to conceal her godliness! Is not the laboring
   man to work with his hands? Certainly, but not so to work for the bread
   that he perishes as to miss Eternal Life. Is not the man of business to
   give his best attention to his business? Of course he is, but he must
   see to it that he does not lose his soul, or injure the souls of
   others.

   Take care of your bushel--nobody asks you to burn it--but keep it in
   its place. Subordinate all worldly things to the Glory of God. Suffer
   not your possessions or your desires, your pleasures or your cares to
   act as a bushel hiding His Light. This happens with a great many. I
   must ask Conscience to be so kind as to preach for me for a minute or
   two. Will you look at home, dear Friends, and see where you place your
   business and your religion? Which is uppermost? Which is foremost? Is
   religion your business, or is business your religion? Does your candle
   shine on the bushel, or does the bushel hide the candle? I will not
   dwell upon the question because it will be well for you to answer it in
   quiet, each man for himself.

   I know how a minister can put his light under a bushel. He can be a
   mere official and perform services, being nothing more than a
   performer. The worst thing to do with the Gospel is to parsonificate
   it. As soon as we preach as mere officials, we have lost all power--we
   must speak as men to men! A brother minister said to me one day, "The
   moment I shut the pulpit door, I shut out my natural self." This will
   never do! A man must be all there when He is serving God and if ever he
   is himself, it must be in preaching. We can also cover the candle by
   using difficult words--words which are not difficult to educated
   people, but to the bulk of our hearers.

   We can also use technical creed words, such as we might use in the
   class room or in the discussion hall and these may conceal our meaning
   from the people. I know some Christians who put their light under a
   bushel by being excessively bashful and shamefaced. They are not so
   dreadfully retiring when five-pound notes are to be made, but if
   anything is to be said for Christ, then they blush and stammer! Oh that
   they could overcome this hindrance! Others put their light under a
   bushel by inconsistency--they do not act as Christians should act--and
   when people see their bad works they do not glorify God. God forbid
   that our darkness in the house should be more conspicuous than our
   light!

   Some, I fear, cover their light under the bushel of indifference--they
   do not seem to care how things go with the cause and Kingdom of Christ.
   They look well to the state of their flocks and herds, but for the
   House of the Lord they have small concern. I pray you, dear Friends, do
   not hide your light in any way! Lot not your lawful callings, your
   relationships, your sicknesses, your literary pursuits, or your
   personal sorrows become so exaggerated as to conceal the Divine Light
   within your soul.

   The text is, however, positive. Put yourself on a candlestick or on a
   lamp stand. What must that be? A candlestick is an appropriate
   exhibitor of the light and each man should make an appropriate
   confession of his faith. The best way is prescribed in God's Word. It
   is written, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Take
   care that when you have faith, you declare it in the ordained manner,
   for he that with his heart believes and with his mouth makes confession
   of Him shall be saved. O Lamp, do not say, "I will shine, but I will
   lie upon the floor and do it." No, your place is on the stand which is
   provided!

   Dear Christian Friend, join the Church that you may be placed where you
   will be in order with the arrangements of the Divine household. A lamp
   stand should also be something which makes the lamp sufficiently
   visible. If you do not come out and exhibit your light willingly and
   cheerfully, it is very likely the Master of the house will fetch you
   out. Providence will arrange that the light shall not be hidden. See
   what the Lord did for His Church years ago--He allowed her to be
   persecuted into publicity! What a lamp stand was found for Christianity
   in the martyrdoms of the Coliseum, in the public burnings by pagans and
   papists and in all the other modes by which Believers in Christ were
   forced into fame!

   When there was no printing press; when there were scanty opportunities
   of making the Gospel public compared with those of today, the Lord
   caused His witnesses to stand before rulers and kings and there
   publish, in the most public places the Word of His salvation.
   Persecution built the lighthouse and Divine Love set aloft the burning
   and shining Light of the sacred Truth of God! You may find that God
   will make such a candlestick for you. You shall be forced into
   testimony in your family by the opposition of those about you unless
   you take other and happier methods. We ought to be valiant for the
   Truth of God and speak of it with all prudence and without limit! I
   long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be
   the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions!

   I often hear it said, "Do not bring religion into politics." This is
   precisely where it ought to be brought and set there in the face of all
   men as on a candlestick! I would have the Cabinet and the Members of
   Parliament do the work of the nation as before the Lord and I would
   have the nation, either in making war or peace, consider the matter by
   the light of righteousness. We are to deal with other nations about
   this or that upon the principles of the New Testament. I thank God that
   I have lived to see the attempt made in one or two instances and I pray
   that the principle may become dominant and permanent! We have had
   enough of clever men without consciences--let us now see what honest,
   God-fearing men will do!

   But we are told that we must study, "British interests," as if it were
   not always to a nation's truest interest to do right! "But we must
   follow out our policy." I say, No! Let the policies which are founded
   on wrong be cast. like idols. to the moles and to the bats! Stand to
   that most admirable of policies--"As you would that men should do to
   you, do you also to them likewise." Whether we are kings, or queens, or
   prime ministers, or members of Parliament, or crossing sweepers, this
   is our rule if we are Christians! Yes, and bring religion into your
   business and let the Light of God shine in the factory and in the
   counting-house! Then we shall not have quite so much China clay in the
   calicoes with which to cheat the foreigner--nor shall we see cheap and
   nasty articles described as of best quality, nor any other of the
   dodges in trade that everybody seems to practice nowadays.

   You trades people and manufacturers are very much one like the other in
   this--there are tricks in all trades and one sees it everywhere. I
   believe everybody to be honest in all England, Scotland and Ireland
   until he is found out. But whether there are any so incorruptible that
   they will never be found wanting, this witness says not, for I am not a
   judge.

   Do not put your candle under a bushel, but let it shine, for it was
   intended that it should be seen. Religion ought to be as much seen at
   our own table as at the Lord's Table. Godliness should as much
   influence the House of Commons as the Assembly of Divines. God grant
   that the day may come when the mischievous division between secular and
   religious things shall no more be heard of, for in all things
   Christians are to glorify God, according to the precept, "Whether you
   eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the Glory of God."

   III. Our time has gone, but I must detain you a little while I speak
   upon the SHINING--"Let your light so shine before men." When a candle
   shines, it is because it cannot help it. Shining is the natural result
   of possessing light and I want you, dear Brothers and Sisters, to exert
   a holy influence upon others because the Grace of God is really in you.
   Some men made desperate attempts to appear good--they would be far more
   successful if they would seek to be good. Grace must be in a man as a
   living fountain and then rivers of Living Water will flow from him. The
   natural result of a renewed heart is a renewed life and the natural
   result of a renewed life is that men see it and glorify God.

   Shining, however, is not altogether a thing of necessity so as to
   forbid our attention to it, for the text demands care of us. "Let your
   light so shine." I must ask the printer to put the two letters--"s,
   o"--in very large capitals. "Let your light SO shine--let it SO shine
   that men may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in
   Heaven." You will not shine in the best manner though you may have
   Grace in your heart unless you abound in prayerful, watchful, earnest
   care. You must guard heart and lips and hands or your light will not so
   shine before men as could be desired. Your light will need trimming.
   Neglect it not.

   The shining which comes from the Christian is here described as, "good
   works." Good talk is very well, but it takes a great deal of talk to
   light a room! Good works are the splendor of the Light of God. What
   works are good works? I would answer--upright actions, honest dealings,
   sincere behavior. When a man is scrupulously true and sternly faithful,
   all right-minded persons admit that His works are good works. Good
   works are works of love, unselfish works, works done for the benefit of
   others and the Glory of God. Deeds of charity, kindness and brotherly
   love are good works. As also careful attendance to duty and all service
   honestly done, together with all courses which promote the moral and
   spiritual good of our fellow men.

   Works of devotion in which you prove that you love God and His Christ,
   that you love the Gospel, that you desire to spread the Kingdom of
   Christ--these may not be so highly valued by ordinary people--but are
   eminently good works. Let these good and true things abound in you and
   shine out from you! Do them not out of flamboyance, but still, without
   shame. Good works, like the shining of a candle, have good effects. A
   candle cheers the gloom. What a comfort it is when you have long been
   wandering in the dark, to spy out a twinkling candle in a cottage
   window! A candle directs and guides men and by its illumination it
   instructs them. In its light they see, discern, and discover. He who
   acts teaches. The man who lives Christianity preaches it. He is the
   true evangelist whose life brings Glory to God and goodwill to men.

   But note, it is said, "it gives light to all that are in the house," so
   that when we are lit from on High, we are first to shine at home. It is
   not only abroad that we should make our Christianity known, but chiefly
   at the fireside to those who are in the house. Some have a very little
   house--they live in a couple of rooms with a small family--let them
   take care that they have Grace enough to make a few thoroughly happy,
   which is not always the easiest thing in the world. Others have a large
   family--may they have Grace enough to influence the whole. A few have
   large workshops and employ many hands--and these ought to exercise a
   holy influence over all their employees.

   Some of us are preachers of the Gospel and have a large house in which
   to shine--we shall need more of the oil of Grace than others, that we
   may give light to the whole of our house--and that Grace is to be had.
   The whole world is a house in which the Church is the candle and,
   therefore, the members of the Church should so shine, each one in his
   place, that the whole world shall be filled with the knowledge of the
   Glory of God! The text says that the candle gives light to all that are
   in the house.

   Some professors give light only to a part of the house. I have known
   women very good to all but their husbands and these they nag from
   morning to night so that they give no light to them! I have known
   husbands so often out at meetings that they neglect home and thus their
   wives miss the Light of God. I have known employers who are utterly
   indifferent about their employees and mistresses who quite forget to
   seek the good of their maids. If our light is in good order, it will
   illuminate the parlor and the kitchen, the drawing room and the
   pantry--shining upon all that are in the house!

   Candles do not shed all their light either that way or this, but they
   shine in all directions. A Christian should be an "all-around man,"
   blessing all, both great and small, who come in contact with him. The
   objective of our shining is not that men may see how good we are, nor
   even see us at all--but that they may see God's Grace in us and God in
   us and cry, "What a Father these people must have!" Is not this the
   first time in the New Testament that God is called our Father? Is it
   not amazing that the first time it peeps out should be when men are
   seeing the good works of His children?

   The Fatherhood of God is best seen in the holiness of saints. When men
   see that the Light of God is good, they bless the Source of that Light
   and, seeing that it comes from the Father of Lights, they glorify His
   name! I have had to hasten over all this, but I pray God to make it,
   none the less, effectual for the stirring up of every Christian here to
   use all the Light he has. It is a dark world and it seems to get
   darker, for the emissaries of Satan are going about thirsting to quench
   every light. Look well to your lamps--look well to your lamps, you
   virgin souls! Trim well the flame and go forth even into the black
   night to meet the Bridegroom. Lift high your torches into the very face
   of darkness and make men see that God the Father is still in the midst
   of His people!

   The venerable Bede, when he was interpreting this text, said that
   Christ Jesus brought the light of Deity into the poor lantern of our
   humanity and then set it upon the candlestick of His Church that the
   whole house of the world might be lit thereby. So, indeed, it is! The
   reason why there is light in the Church is that those who are in the
   dark may see. Churches do not exist for themselves, but for the world
   at large. Have you thought of this, Brothers and Sisters? You are
   blessed that you may be a blessing! Take heed that you behave aright.
   You go to Christ's wedding feast and you are glad to hear that He turns
   water into wine and you are ready to bless Him that He has kept the
   best wine until now. But oh, servants of God, remember what is said,
   "Draw out now and bear."

   These are your orders. There is the God-made wine--"Draw out now and
   bear." Receive from Christ's fullness and distribute to others! Neglect
   not your duty as servitors at your Lord's great feast. Your Master has
   taken the bread and has blessed and broken it and then He has given it
   to you. Is that the end of the process? Do you stand there and munch
   your own personal morsel with a miserable self-satisfaction? No, if you
   are, indeed, disciples of Christ, you will remember that the next
   words, in another like incident, are, "and the disciples to the
   multitude, and they did eat." Break, then, your bread among the hungry
   that surround you! Take the whole loaf of Christ and rightly divide and
   distribute it-- and you shall have as much left as at the first--yes,
   more! You shall gather of the fragments many baskets full.

   Only see to it that you freely give what you have freely received, lest
   hoarded manna breeds corruption! Lest a canker come upon your hoarded
   gold and silver! And lest your very souls grow moldy even to reeking
   rottenness before God because you have not drawn out your souls unto
   the hungry, nor sought to teach those who are perishing for lack of
   knowledge!

   The Baptist Missionary Society will enable you to teach the heathen.
   Take a share in it. There, make the collection! Do your best!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death

   (No. 1595)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 12, 1880,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
   fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they
   comfort me." Psalm 23:4.

   Do you know I had laid this text by? I meant that this choice promise
   should be kept in store and stock till I came near the Jordan and I
   hoped that then, in my last hours, I might be privileged to enjoy its
   sweetness and sing with joyful lips--

   "Yea, though I walk through death's dark vale,

   Yet will I fear no ill;

   For You are with me, and Your rod

   And staff me comfort still."

   The other day I found that I needed to eat this heavenly loaf at once
   and I did so. Fathers tell their children, "You cannot have your cake
   and eat it, too," but this rule does not hold good of the consolations
   of God. You can enjoy a promise and still have it. Yes, and all the
   more because your faith has fed upon its fatness. I got honey out of
   this verse some days ago when a tempest howled around me, but its
   sweetness is still there. I shall enjoy it, I doubt not, as I come near
   death's gate, but I have had it already sealed to my own soul with
   richness and fullness of comfort by the blessed Spirit of our God.
   Would to God that every Believer who is burdened might find it as
   precious to his heart as I have found it to mine.

   This verse is, no doubt, very applicable to the experience of when he
   comes to die but, for certain, that is not its only intent. It has an
   inexpressibly delightful application to the dying, but it is for the
   living, too! And at this time if, through any peculiar trials, your
   heart is cast down within you and you are walking through the
   death-shade, I pray you to repeat the words of the text and may the
   Lord help you to feel that they are true--"Yea, though I walk through
   the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are
   with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." The words are not
   in the future tense and, therefore, are not reserved for a distant
   moment. Do not postpone to the future that which you so greatly need in
   the present.

   Though I walk, even at this hour, through the dark valley, You, O Lord,
   are with me! Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. David was not
   dying--the Psalm is fall of happy, peaceful life. He is lying down in
   green pastures and following his Lord by still waters. And if a cloud
   has descended upon him and he feels himself like one threatened with
   death, he nevertheless expects goodness and mercy to follow him through
   all his days. The song is not to lie upon the shelf till our last day,
   but is to be sung upon our stringed instruments all the days of our
   lives! Therefore let us sing it at this hallowed hour in the courts of
   the Lord's House and in the midst of them that love Him.

   I. I call your attention, first, to THE PASS AND ITS TERRORS--"the
   valley of the shadow of death." Get the idea of a narrow ravine,
   something like the Gorge of Gondo or some other stern pass upon the
   higher Alps where the rocks seem piled to Heaven and the sunlight is
   seen above as through a narrow rift. Troubles are sometimes heaped on
   one another, pile on pile, and the road is a dreary pass through which
   the pilgrim, on his journey to Heaven, has to wend his way. Set before
   your mind's eye a valley shut in with stupendous rocks that seem to
   meet overhead, a narrowing pass, dark as midnight itself. Through this
   valley, or rocky ravine, the heavenly footman has to follow the path
   appointed for him in the eternal purpose of the Infinite mind. Through
   such a dreary rift many a child of God is making his way at this
   moment--and to him I speak.

   Our first observation about it is that it is exceedingly gloomy. This
   is its chief characteristic. It is the valley of the shadow--the shadow
   of death. Death is terrible and the very shadow of it is cold and chill
   and freezes to the marrow. I have stood under rocks which have not
   merely cooled me, but have cast a horribly damp chill as though the
   embrace of

   death had been about me and its cold within me. One hastens to escape
   from such a deadly shade which has tended to strike you with fever. And
   such, it seems to me, is the shade cast by the wings of death when the
   man feels that he is under such trouble that he cannot live and would
   not even wish to do so if he could. The joy of life has been like the
   sun under an eclipse and in the chill, dark, damp shade of a terrible
   sorrow the man has cowered down and beneath the icy touch of doubt has
   shivered, has felt fevered and frightened and has been as one out of
   his mind.

   I speak to some young hearts here who, I hope, know nothing about this
   gloom. Do not wish to know it! Keep bright while you can. Sing while
   you may. Be larks and mount aloft and sing as you mount! But there are
   some of God's people who are not much in the lark line--they are a
   great deal more like owls. They sit alone and keep silent. Or if they
   do open their mouths, it is to give forth a discontented hoot.
   Companions of dragons and very suitable companions, too, such mournful
   ones need all the gentle sympathy we can afford them. Even those who
   are bright and cheerful do, many of them, occasionally pass through the
   dreary glen where everything is doleful and their spirits sink below
   zero.

   I know what wise Brethren say, "You should not give way to feelings of
   depression." Quite right--we should no more. But we do. And perhaps
   when your brain is as weary as ours, you will not bear yourselves more
   bravely than we do. "But desponding people are very much to be blamed."
   I know they are, but they are also very much to be pitied and, perhaps,
   if those who blame quite so furiously could once know what depression
   is, they would think it cruel to scatter blame where comfort is needed.
   There are experiences of the children of God which are full of
   spiritual darkness and I am almost persuaded that those of God's
   servants who have been most highly favored have, nevertheless, suffered
   more times of darkness than others.

   The Covenant is never known to Abraham so well as when a horror of
   great darkness comes over him and then he sees the shining lamp moving
   between the pieces of the sacrifice. A greater than Abraham was early
   led of the Spirit into the wilderness and yet, before He closed His
   life, He was sorrowful and very heavy in the Garden. In this heaviness,
   for which there is a necessity, Believers have a black foil which sets
   out the brightness of eternal love and faithfulness. Blessed be God for
   mountains of joy and valleys of peace and gardens of delight! But there
   is a Valley of Death-Shade and most of us have traversed its tremendous
   glooms.

   Moreover, there are parts of human life which are dangerous as well as
   gloomy. In journeying through the passes of the East, an escort is
   usually needed, for robbers lurk among the rocks and shoot down upon
   the traveler, or block up his way with sword and spear. The name of the
   Khyber Pass is still terrible in our memories and there are Khybers in
   most men's lives. There are points in human history that are specially
   dangerous. Oh, you that are beginners, I do not wish to frighten you! I
   do not want to tell you that the ways of wisdom are terrible, for they
   are not! No, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are
   peace." But, for all that, there are enemies on the road to Heaven and
   there are, "Cutthroat Lanes" where, when the enemy finds your spirits
   cast down, he pounces upon you unawares with temptation-- and before
   you know it you may be wounded and sorely grieved.

   There are spots in the Valley of Death-Shade where every bush conceals
   an adversary; where temptations spring out of the very ground like the
   fiery serpents from among the desert sand; where the soul is among
   lions, even among them that are set on the fire of Hell! If you have
   not yet come to that part of your pilgrimage, I am glad of it and I
   hope that you may be spared it, in answer to that needful prayer, "Lead
   us not into temptation." But if you are called to walk through this
   dangerous ravine, what will you do? Why, say this--"Yea, though I walk
   through that dangerous pass of which I have heard, I will fear no evil,
   for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

   Remember that a Christian man is never so much in danger from abundance
   of temptation as from the carnal security of his own heart. We are
   often most in jeopardy when we are not tempted--and the worst devil in
   the world may be no devil at all. "Deliver me," said a man of great
   experience, "from a sleeping devil, for if he roars at me, he keeps me
   awake. But when he leaves me alone, then my heart presumes that all is
   safe and I am betrayed." You young people, or old people, too, who are
   placed, in the course of Providence, in positions of great trial and
   temptation need not wish for an easier pathway, for it may be that you
   are safer now, being on your guard, than those who are not fiercely
   tried, but sit at ease and are in great peril from sloth and spiritual
   indifference. Better consume with fire than perish of dry rot!

   The cold mountains of trial are far safer than the sultry plains of
   pleasure. I am not, therefore, alarmed at manifest danger--neither
   would I have you greatly dismayed because there is a gloomy gorge
   between you and Heaven. One of the chief reasons of the gloom is the
   fact that this terrible pass is shrouded in mystery. You do not know
   what the sorrow is.

   The shadow--the shadow of death--what does it mean? You cannot discern
   the form which broods over you. You cannot grasp the foe. It is of no
   use drawing a sword against a shadow! Bunyan represents the pilgrim as
   putting up his sword when he came into the Valley of the Shadow of
   Death. He had fought Apollyon with it, but when he came into the
   midnight of that horrible valley, it was of no use to him. Everything
   was so veiled, magnified and blackened in the dark.

   Hob-goblin as he called them, hovered around--strange shapes and
   singular forms of doubts which he could not meet with reasoning or
   overcome with argument. A man can pluck up courage against a thing he
   knows, but an evil which he does not know unmans him! He does not know
   what the trial is and yet a strange, joy-killing feeling is upon him.
   He cannot see the extent of his loss in business, but he fears that his
   all will go--he does not know the end of his child's illness, but death
   appears to be threatening. All is suspense and surmise and the evil of
   evils is uncertainty.

   That which frightened Belshazzar when the handwriting was on the wall
   was, no doubt, that he could see the hand, but he could not see the arm
   and the body to which the hand belonged. It seemed so singular to see
   the mystic handwriting in letters of lightning and no more! So,
   sometimes, it seems to us as if we could not make out our
   condition--could not understand God's dealings with us. We have seemed
   to be at cross-purposes with Providence. We have come to a place where
   two seas meet and we cannot understand the current. Our temptation has
   been comparable to a cyclone and we do not know which way the hurricane
   is sweeping--we are in the power of a whirlwind, jerked to and fro.

   Such things happen to God's people now and then. And what are they to
   do when they get into these perplexities, these mysterious troubles
   that they cannot at all describe? They must do--and God help them to
   do--as this blessed man did, who in the peace and confidence of faith
   went on his way singing--Yea, though I walk through the valley shaded
   by the mysterious wings of death and though I know nothing of my way
   and cannot understand it, yet will I fear no evil, for You are with me.
   You know the way that I take. There are no mysteries with my God. You
   have the thread of this labyrinth and You will surely lead me through.
   Why, therefore, should I fear? Your rod and Your staff, they comfort
   me!

   Gloom, danger, mystery--these three all vanish when faith lights up her
   heavenly lamp, trimmed with the golden oil of the promise. Nor is this
   all. The idea of solitude is in the text. The path is lonely and the
   pilgrim sings, "Yea, though I walk"--as if he walked alone, no one
   sharing his shadowed pathway! Solitude is a very great trial to some
   spirits and some of us know a great deal of what it means, for we dwell
   alone, in a spiritual sense. But you will say, "Do you not mingle with
   crowds?" Yes, and there is no solitude like it. When your office and
   position set you as on a mountain all alone, you will know what I mean.
   For the sheep, there are many companions, but for the shepherd few.

   Those who watch for souls come into positions in which they are divided
   from all human help. Nobody knows your cares or can guess the burden of
   your soul. And those who try to sympathize with you fail in the
   generous attempt. Some of you, perhaps, are in a position in which you
   complain, "Nobody was ever tried as I am. I feel as if God had set me
   as a mark for His arrows." Or possibly you murmur, "There may be many
   more afflicted than I, but none in my peculiar way. I suffer a
   singularity of trial." Just so and that is an essential part of the
   bitterness of your cup--that you should lament that you are alone. But
   will you not say, with your Divine Master, "You shall leave me alone
   and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me"?

   Now is the time for faith. When you trust God and a friend, there is a
   question whether it is God you trust or the friend. But when the friend
   has left you and only God is near, no question remains. If you and I
   are walking together and a dog follows us, who knows which is the dog's
   master? But when you go off to the left and I turn to the right, all
   men will see which one of us owns the dog by seeing which he follows!
   If you can trust God alone, then you are really trusting Him! And if,
   when creature streams run dry, you can stoop down to the Creator's
   overflowing well and drink there, then you are a Believer and there is
   no mistake about it.

   It is profitable to be driven into loneliness that we may prove whether
   we are solely trusting in God or not. It is a bad thing to be standing
   with one foot on the sea and the other on the land. An angel stood in
   that fashion and it suits angels--but it is not a safe posture for such
   burdened beings as men and women! We must get both feet on the Rock of
   Ages, or the foot which stands upon the sea of changeful self will be
   our downfall. My Soul, wait only upon God! When Faith's only foundation
   is the power and faithfulness of the Lord, she learns to glory in the
   absence of all visible help and sings with joyful heart--"Yea, though I
   walk through death's dark valley, unattended by human companion, I will
   fear no evil, for my God is near!"

   Let me remark, further, that though this valley is thus gloomy,
   dangerous, mysterious and solitary, yet it is often traversed. Many
   more go by this road than some people dream. Among those who wear a
   cheerful countenance in public there are many who are well acquainted
   with this dreary valley--they have passed through it often--and may be
   in it now. When I wear the sackcloth of sorrow, I try to bind it about
   my loins under my outer garments and not where all shall see it, for
   has not the Master said, "You, when you fast, anoint your head and wash
   your face, that you appear not unto men to fast"? Why should we cast
   others down? There is enough sorrow in the world without our spreading
   the infection by publishing our troubles.

   Storybooks are sent me to review and when I perceive that they contain
   harrowing tales of poverty, I make short work of them. I see quite
   enough of sorrow in real life--I do not need fiction to fret my heart.
   If men and women must write works of fiction, they might as well write
   cheerfully and not break people's hearts over mere fabrications. If I
   must weep, let it be over an actual grief and not over a painted
   affliction. But so it is--some like to tell the story of their sorrows
   and care little what may be the influence upon others--they might have
   a little more consideration for their fellow man. If my own heart is
   bleeding, why should I wound others? Sometimes it is brave to be
   speechless, even as the singer puts it--

   "Bear and forbear, and silent be. Tell no man your misery."

   It is surely true that a great number of God's best servants have trod
   the deeps of the Valley of the Shadow and this ought to comfort some of
   you. The footsteps of the holy are in the Valley of Weeping. Saints
   have marched through the Via Dolorosa--do you not see their footprints?
   Above all others, mark one footstep! Do you not see it? Stoop down and
   fix your gaze upon it! Go on your knees and view it! If you watch it
   well, you will observe the print of a nail. As surely as this Word of
   God is true, your Lord has felt the chill of the death-shade. There is
   no gloom of spirit, apart from the sin of it, into which Jesus has not
   fallen! There is no trouble of soul, or turmoil of heart which is free
   from sin, which the Lord has not known. He says, "Reproach has broken
   My heart and I am full of heaviness."

   The footprint of the Lord of Life is set in the rock forever, even in
   the Valley of the Shadow of Death! Shall we not cheerfully advance to
   the Cross and death of Jerusalem when Jesus goes before us? I shall
   close my remarks upon this Via Mala of terrors by showing that dark and
   gloomy as it is, it is not an unhallowed pathway. No sin is necessarily
   connected with sorrow of heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said,
   "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death." There was no sin in
   Him and, consequently, none in His deep depression! We have never known
   a joy or a sorrow altogether untainted with evil, but in grief, itself,
   there is no necessary cause of sin. A man may be as happy as all the
   birds in the air and there may be no sin in his happiness. And a man
   may be exceedingly heavy and yet there may be no sin in the heaviness.
   I do not say that there is not sin in all our feelings, but still, the
   feelings in themselves need not be sinful.

   I would, therefore, try to cheer any Brothers and Sisters who are sad,
   for their sadness is not necessarily blameworthy. If their downcast
   spirit arises from unbelief, let them flog themselves and cry to God to
   be delivered from it. But if the soul is sighing, "Though He slay me,
   yet will I trust in Him," its being slain is not a fault. If the man
   cries, "My God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore will I
   remember You," his soul's being cast down within him is no sin. "If
   need be," says the Apostle, "you are in heaviness through manifold
   temptations." Not only, "If need be you are in the temptations," but,
   "you are in heaviness through them." There is a necessity for the
   heartbreak, for it is in the heaviness of the spirit that the essence
   of the trial is found.

   Does not Solomon say, "The blueness of a wound cleans away evil"? If
   the blow is not such as to leave its bruise, there has been no
   chastening that will do us good. Heaviness of spirit is not, therefore,
   on every occasion, a matter for which we need condemn ourselves though
   it will be well, always, to turn a severe side to one's self. However
   we may censure ourselves for heart sorrow, we must be careful not to
   condemn others--for the way of sorrow is not the way of sin, but a
   hallowed road sanctified by the praying of myriads of pilgrims now with
   God--pilgrims who, passing through the valley of Baca made it a well,
   the rain also filled the pools. Of such it is written, "they go from
   strength to strength; every one of them in Zion appears before God."

   Thus much upon the dark and dangerous Valley of the Shadow.

   II. Our second head, upon which we shall speak for a little while, is
   THE PILGRIM AND HIS PROGRESS. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of
   the shadow of death." The pilgrim, you observe, first, is calm in the
   prospect of his

   dreary passage. I do not think that it is one-half so hard to bear a
   trouble as it is to think of it beforehand. The poet well said that
   many of us--

   "Feel a thousand deaths in fearing one."

   The outriders of trouble are often of a fiercer countenance than the
   trouble itself. We suffer more in the dread of something than in the
   endurance of the stroke. Here we have a man of faith who is calm in
   expectancy of trouble--"I shall walk," says he, "through the Valley of
   the Shadow of Death. I expect to do so, but I will fear no evil."

   Have you, my Friend, a trouble evidently drawing near to you? Are there
   tokens of a storm all around you? Then look bravely at the future! Let
   not your heart fail you while waiting for the thunder and the
   hurricane. David said, "Though a host should encamp against me, my
   heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I
   be confident." Encamped enemies generally trouble us more than actually
   contending foes. When once the enemy raises the war cry and comes on,
   we are awakened to valor and meet him, foot to foot. But while he
   tarries and holds us in suspense, our heart is apt to eat into itself
   with perplexity.

   We can see that our deadly foe is in his camp, but we do not know
   whether he will attack us at the middle watch of the night, or at the
   dawn of the day. We do not know when his onslaught will be--this
   suspense distresses the soul and, therefore, the glory of a faith that
   can say--"Though I know that I shall soon suffer, yet in the prospect
   of it I am at rest. I fear no evil." Beloved, pray to be calm in the
   prospect of trial--it is half the battle! Is it not written of the
   Believer, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed,
   trusting in the Lord"? Furthermore, the pilgrim is steady in his
   progress. "Yea, though I walk through the valley," he says. He does not
   run in haste. He walks quietly along.

   We are generally in a hurry to get our trouble over, like those who
   say, "If medicine must be taken, let it be taken as soon as possible."
   There is a season for all things. Let us wait till the trouble comes
   from the hand of the Lord, for He will time it to the second. "There! I
   must know the worst of it," cries one. "I feel in such a horrible state
   of suspense that I must end it one way or another." But, my dear
   Friend, faith is not in such a frightful bustle--"He that believes
   shall not make haste." Faith is quick when it has to serve God, but it
   is patient when it has to wait for Him.

   There is no hurry about the Psalmist, "Yea, though, I walk" he
   says--quietly, calmly, steadily. The pace of the experienced man of God
   is a walk. Young people fly--"they shall mount up with wings as
   eagles." Growing men "run and are not weary." But when a man of God
   becomes a father in the Church and is endowed with abounding strength,
   he walks and does not faint. Walking is the regulation pace for veteran
   soldiers of Christ--all the rest is for the raw recruits! So David, in
   effect, declares--I shall walk through the Valley of the Shadow of
   Death as quietly as I walk my garden in the evening, or go down the
   street about my business. My affliction does not unfit me for duty. I
   am not flurried and worried about it. May God give you, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters, this calm faith. I pray that He may give it to
   me, for I greatly need it. I have often confessed my need of it and
   confessed it with shame and confusion of face, for I serve a blessed
   Master and I ought never to fear, nor allow pain of body to produce
   trembling of heart. O sacred Comforter, shed abroad in my heart the
   peace of God!

   The next point about the pilgrim's progress is that he is secure in his
   expectancy. "Yea, though I walk through the valley." There is a bright
   side to that word, "through." He expects to come out of the dreary pass
   to a brighter country! Just as the train of his life enters into the
   dark tunnel of tribulation, he says within himself, "I shall come out
   on the other side. It may be very dark and I may go through the very
   bowels of the earth, but I am bound to come out on the other side." So
   is it with every child of God. If his way to Heaven should lie over the
   bottom of the sea, hard by the roots of the mountains where the earth,
   with her bars, is about him, he will traverse the road in perfect
   safety. Jonah's road to Heaven lay that way and a special conveyance
   was started for him--"The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up

   Jonah."

   I do not suppose there was ever any other fish of the sort. Naturalists
   cannot find such a whale, they say, nor need they look for it, for the
   Scripture says, "The Lord prepared a fish." He knew how to make it to
   hold Jonah and the fish accommodated its passenger and brought him
   right to shore. Providence makes special preparation for every tried
   saint. If you are God's servant and are called to a very peculiar
   trial, some singular Providence, the like of which you have never read
   of, shall certainly happen to you to illustrate in your case the Divine
   goodness and faithfulness! Oh, if we had more faith! Oh, if we had more
   faith, life would be happy, trials would be light! Brethren, is it not
   an easy thing to walk through a shadow? If you get up in the morning
   and saunter down the field and the spiders have spun their cobwebs

   across the path in a thousand places, you brush them all away--and yet
   there is more strength in a cobweb than in a shadow!

   The Psalmist speaks without fear, for he regards his expected trials as
   walking through a shadow. Trials and troubles, if we have but faith,
   are mere shadows that cannot hinder us on our road to Heaven. Sometimes
   God so overrules afflictions that they even help us on to Glory!
   Therefore let us walk on and never be afraid. Let us be sure that if we
   walk in at one end of the hollow way of affliction, we shall walk out
   at the other. Who shall hinder us when God is with us? The main point
   about this pilgrim and his progress is that he is perfectly innocent of
   fear. He says, "I shall fear no evil." It is beautiful to see a child
   at perfect peace amid dangers which alarm all those who are with him. I
   have read of a little boy who was on board a vessel that was being
   buffeted by the tempest and everybody was distressed, knowing that the
   ship was in great peril.

   There was not a sailor on board, certainly not a passenger, who was not
   full of fear. This boy, however, was perfectly happy and was rather
   amused than alarmed by the tossing of the ship. They asked him why he
   was so happy at such a time. "Well," he said, "my father is the
   captain. He knows how to manage." He did not think it possible that the
   ship could go down while his father was in command! There was folly in
   such confidence, but there will be none in yours if you believe with an
   equally unqualified faith in your Father who can and will bring safely
   into port every vessel that is committed to His charge! Rest in God and
   be quiet from fear of evil! This pilgrim, while he is thus free from
   fear, is not at all fanatical or ignorant since he gives a good reason
   for his freedom from alarm. "I will fear no evil," says he, "for You
   are with me."

   Was there ever a better reason given under Heaven for being fearless
   than this--that God is with us? He is on our side! He is pledged to
   help us! He has never failed us. He must cease to be what He is before
   He can cast away one soul that trusts Him. Where, then, is there room
   for terror? The child is confident because his mother is with him--much
   more should we be serene in heart since the Omniscient, the Omnipotent,
   the Immutable God is on our side! "Whom shall I fear?" Whom shall we
   select to honor with our dread? Is there anybody that we need to fear?
   "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
   justifies. Who is he that condemns?" Christ has died and risen again
   and sits up yonder at the right hand of God as our Representative--who,
   then, can harm us? Let the heavens be dissolved and the earth be melted
   with fervent heat, but let not the Christian's heart be moved! Let him
   stand like the great mountains whose foundations are confirmed forever,
   for the Lord God will not forsake His people or break His Covenant. "I
   will fear no evil, for You are with me."

   There is something more, here, than freedom from fear and a substantial
   reason for it, for the true Believer rejoices in exalted companionship.
   "You are with me." You--You, You--the King of kings, before whom every
   seraph veils his face, abashed before the awful majesty of his Maker.
   "You are with me"--You before whom the greatest of the great sink into
   utter insignificance--YOU are with me! How brave that man ought to be
   who walks with the Lion of the tribe of Judah as his guard! What steady
   footsteps should that man take who treads upon a rock and knows it.
   "You are with

   me."

   Trembling Brother, you would feel perfectly safe if you had your eyes
   opened to see the companies of angels that surround you. You would
   rejoice in your security if you saw horses of fire and chariots of fire
   encompassing you. But such defenses are as nothing compared with those
   which are always around you! God is better than myriads of chariots!
   "The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels,"
   but the glory of it is that, "God is among them as in Sinai." God is
   with every one of His children! We dwell in Him and He dwells in us. "I
   in them and they in Me," says Christ. A vital, everlasting union exists
   between every believing soul and God--then what cause can there be for
   fear? "You are with me." Oh for Grace to be brave pilgrims and to make
   steady progress with heavenly company as our glory and defense!

   III. Now, I shall close with my third head, which is most evidently in
   the text--THE SOUL AND ITS SHEP-HERD--for David says, "Your rod and
   Your staff, they comfort me." You see the Psalm is all about a shepherd
   and a soul that feels itself to be like a sheep. The rod and staff, the
   tokens of shepherdry, are the comforts of the saints. What are the uses
   of the rod and staff? Consider, first, that the rod was used for
   numbering the sheep. "Then shall the sheep pass, again, under the hand
   of him that counts them." The shepherd holds his rod and the sheep are
   counted as they pass under it.

   It is a very blessed thing when the soul can say, "The Lord counts me
   one of His. I am in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but I am one of
   the Lord's own purchased flock. I am in great sadness, but I am
   numbered with His redeemed." The Good Shepherd keeps all His sheep and
   He will preserve them in the gloomy valley. "The Lord knows them that
   are His." And the Lord will show Himself strong on behalf of His own.
   He says, "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never
   perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." If He numbers me
   among His own, though I am the meanest of them and the feeblest in
   faith and lowest in Grace, yet He will protect me! Since I can say, My
   Beloved is mine, and I am His, I am sure of every good thing! We need
   no better comfort, for when His disciples rejoiced because the devils
   were subject unto them, their Master said, "Nevertheless, rejoice not
   in this, but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven."
   If with His rod, the Shepherd of Israel has pointed you out as His own,
   you may well be of good cheer, for the Lord will not lose one part of
   His portion, nor suffer the enemy to devour one of His flock.

   Next, the rod is used for rule. The shepherd's crook, which is now put
   into the hand of a bishop to show that he ought to be a shepherd, is
   the emblem of power and government. The shepherd is not only the
   keeper, but the lord of the sheep. Remember that your Savior is your
   Sovereign. You call Him Master and Lord and you say well. Do you feel
   the spirit of obedience? I trust I do, for I long to serve Him. I am
   not what I ought to be nor what I want to be, but my heart longs to
   obey His will. I accept His Law to be my Law and I wish always to be
   one of His most loyal subjects. I delight to think that the Lord
   reigns. It is a part of my song--"The Lord is king." My heart shouts
   it! I would proclaim it at the market of every town! Let Jesus Christ
   reign and reign forever and ever. The joy is that He does reign! His
   rod and staff are the emblems of the Shepherd-King and as we submit to
   His supreme sway, we find a comfort in His royal power and dignity.

   A third meaning, for the words are very full of doctrine--is this--the
   rod and staff are meant for guidance. It is with his rod that the
   shepherd leads his flock. It is most sweet, most comfortable to believe
   that the Lord is guiding us. "You shall guide me with Your counsel, and
   afterwards receive me to Glory." We are not half awake as the sheep of
   Christ, but if we were to watch our Lord, we should see Him gently
   leading His by a right way. When we are not willful, but wait upon Him,
   He leads us on in a way which we should not have chosen of our own
   accord--but it is the safe and right way. When we do not know which
   road to take, we are not left to make a foolish choice, but we hear a
   voice behind us saying, "This is the way, walk in it." It is a blessed
   thing, when we are in a troubled condition, to be quite confident that
   the Lord, Himself, brought us there, for then we are sure that the road
   must be right, since our Shepherd never misleads His flock. If we
   follow where Jesus leads, the Guide is responsible for the road.

   The next meaning of the rod and staff is that of urging onward. The
   sheep, sometimes, are lazy and will not stir. And then the shepherd
   pushes them on, a bit, with his rod and staff. Have you ever felt the
   Divine nudging? Perhaps in a sermon you have had a pretty sharp thrust.
   I know I have had to lay on the rod, at times, in the Master's name,
   upon certain fat sheep who are not quite as nimble as they ought to be.
   But their wool is so thick that I can scarcely make them feel! The
   Great Shepherd knows how to touch them. He can give such a push, when
   sheep are lingering behind, that all of a sudden you see them leap
   forward and you wonder how it is that they go to the front so eagerly!
   If I am troubled and I feel that it speeds me on in the right road--if
   it drives me to prayer, if it makes me honor God more--then the rod and
   staff comfort me.

   It is a happy thing to be afflicted towards Heaven! It is an evil thing
   to be comfortable in doing nothing--a horrible thing to be sinking into
   indifference and not to care whether you get out of it or not. But it
   is good to be tried and so made earnest for more Divine Grace. It
   comforts a wise man to perceive that the rod is working for his good.
   The rod and staff mean chastisement, for if a sheep goes astray, the
   shepherd pulls it back by the leg with his crook and makes it feel that
   it cannot wander without suffering for it. So does the Lord chasten us.
   Blessed be His name for chastening, though it is not joyous but
   grievous, "nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
   righteousness to them which are exercised thereby."

   Oh, how blessed are those words, "nevertheless, afterward!" It is a
   condescending thing for God to take enough notice of you to chasten
   you! A man does not whip other people's children and when God afflicts
   a Believer and his soul within him is broken down, let him say within
   himself, "Blessed be God for this tribulation! Whom He loves, He
   chastens and scourges every son whom He receives." Sweet is the pain
   that seals the Father's love! Blessed is the anguish caused by our
   Shepherd's hand! Oh, dreadful pleasure that would arise out of God's
   letting me alone, to never taste it! But blessed

   grief, blessed heartbreak which assures me that God has not forgotten
   me! O Lord, Your rod, when it chastens me, does comfort me!

   But, last of all, the rod and the staff are used by the shepherd to
   protect his flock. With these he contends against the beasts of the
   field that the lambs may not be torn apart. And, oh, how glorious is
   Christ when He comes forth with the weapons of His eternal power to
   fight the lion that would tear our soul! Think of Him in Heaven
   pleading for His people, pleading the merits of His blood, using His
   intercession as a staff with which He smites the wolf and chases away
   the lion and the bear so that not one of us may be destroyed! He must,
   He will protect His own elect! You may think that Christ bought His
   people with His blood and that He will lose them, but I do not believe
   it. When a thing has cost you dearly, you take great care of it--and if
   it cost you your life--you would not readily part with it.

   "Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has, will he give for his life."
   And when he has once given up his life, that which he has purchased
   with it is dearer to him than all the world. Christ would sooner lose
   His life than lose His people! He died once to save them and until He
   dies, again, they shall never perish! Has He not said it Himself,
   "Because I live you shall live, also"? Unless they live, He does not
   live! His life has entered into them and it can never leave them. "I
   give," says He, "unto My sheep eternal life." And what can, "eternal
   life," mean but a life which lasts forever? Oh, may God give to
   everyone here the faith which I have been talking about!

   Perhaps some of you have never trusted your souls with Christ. You know
   that faith is the way of salvation--why do you not follow it? Simply
   trust Him. Simply trust Him. Simply trust Him now! It is wonderful, the
   power of faith to change the heart! When you trust a man, you love him.
   You cannot be an enemy to a man in whom you trust. The effect of faith
   upon the affections is marvelous--it changes their whole nature and
   bent. God give you to know Christ, for they that know His name will put
   their trust in Him and when you know Him and trust Him, then shall you
   confess with us unto the Lord, "Blessed is the man that trusts in You."
   God bless you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

               Hearken and Look; or, Encouragement for Believers

   A Sermon

   (No. 1596)

   Delivered on Wednesday, April 27th, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At Exeter Hall.

   (The Annual Sermon on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society)

   Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I
   called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him For the Lord shall
   comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make
   her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord;
   joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of
   melody.''Isaiah 51:2-3.

   THE second verse contains my actual text. It is the argument by which
   faith is led to look for the blessings promised in the third verse.

   It is habitual with some persons to spy out the dark side of every
   question or fact: they fix their eyes upon the waste places,' and they
   study them till they know every ruin, and are familiar with the dragons
   and the owls. They sigh most dolorously that the former times were
   better than these, and that we have fallen upon most degenerate days.
   They speak of shooting Niagara,' and of all sorts of frightful things.
   I am afraid that a measure of this tendency to write bitter things
   dwells in almost all of us at this present season, for certain
   discouraging facts which cannot be ignored are pressing heavily upon
   men's spirits. The habit of looking continually towards the
   wildernesses is injurious because it greatly discourages; and anything
   that discourages an earnest worker is a serious leakage for his
   strength. Perhaps a worse result than honest discouragement comes of
   depressing views, for they often afford an apology for indifference and
   inaction. The smallest peg suffices to hang an excuse upon when we are
   anxious to escape from the stern service of faith. I pray thee have me
   excused,' is a request which was supported in the parable by the
   flimsiest of pretences, and discouragement makes one of the same sort.
   The sluggard's argument is on this wise,''I will not attempt the work,
   for it is far too heavy for my poor strength. I fear the times are ill
   adapted to any special effort; indeed, I am not quite certain that
   success will ever attend the general work.' It is therefore a dreadful
   thing when the Christian church begins to be discouraged, and means
   must be used to stay the evil. Such means we would use this day. Lo, we
   lift the standard of the divine promise. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my
   people,' sounds out like a silver trumpet in the front of the host. Be
   encouraged, O ye of the faint heart; there are no more difficulties now
   than there were of old. The cause is no more in jeopardy than it was a
   thousand years ago. The result, the end, the consummation of all things
   is absolutely certain: it is in his hand who cannot fail, therefore be
   of good courage, and in waiting upon the Lord renew your strength.

   Remember, ye that are cast down, that there are other voices besides
   those of the bittern and owl from the waste places.' My text has near
   to it twice, nay, three times, HEARKEN TO ME.' You have listened long
   enough to dreary suggestions from within, to gloomy prophecies from
   desponding friends, to the taunts of foes, and to the horrible
   whisperings of Satan: now hearken to him who promises to make the
   wilderness like Eden, and the desert like the garden of the Lord.

   O ye whose eyes are quick to discover evil, there are other sights in
   the world besides waste places and deserts, and hence my text hath near
   to it twice over the exhortation, LOOK'''Look unto the rock whence ye
   are hewn'; Look unto Abraham your father.' Why should your eyes for
   ever ache over desolations? Probably you have seen as much in the
   wilderness as you are ever likely to see there. It does not take long
   to discover all the treasures and comforts of the burning sand; you
   have probably discovered them all by now. As for the discomforts and
   wants of the desert, you are perhaps as well acquainted with them as
   you need to be. Gaze no longer at the thirsty land and the burning sky;
   turn your eye where the finger of the Lord points by his word. If we
   enquire what it is that the Lord would have us observe, he answers,
   Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you'; for there
   we may find comfort. O for the presence of the Holy Spirit, that the
   word may be full of the dew of heaven to refresh our souls.

   I. We shall first look towards Abraham that we may see in him THE
   ORIGINAL OF GOD'S ANCIENT PEOPLE, the foundation stone, as it were, of
   the dispensation by which God blessed the former ages. In Judah was God
   known, his name was great in Israel: let us look to the rock whence
   Israel and Judah were hewn.

   We observe, first, that the founder of God's first people was called
   out of a heathen family. Your fathers,' says Joshua, dwelt on the other
   side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and
   they served other gods.' Abraham, the founder of the great system in
   which God was pleased to reveal himself for so long a time, and to
   whose seed the oracles of God were committed, was a dweller in Ur of
   the Chaldees, the city of the moon-god. We cannot tell to what extent
   he was actually engrossed in the superstition of his fathers, but it is
   certain that the family was years afterwards tainted with idolatry; for
   in Jacob's day the teraph was still venerated, and Rachel stole her
   father's images. Abraham, therefore, was called out from the place of
   his birth, and from the household to which he belonged, that in a
   separated condition, as a worshipper of the one God, he might keep the
   truth alive in the world. Recollect, then, that the first man from whom
   sprang that wondrous nation which God hath not even yet cast away was
   originally himself an idolater, and had to be called out of his sinful
   state by effectual grace. Why, then, might not the Lord, if the cause
   of truth were this day reduced to its utmost extremity, again raise up
   a church out of one man? If an almost universal apostasy should hide
   the divine light, could he not kindle a torch among the heathen, and by
   its light illuminate the earth again? He could call out another
   Abraham, and bless him and increase him, and achieve the whole of his
   eternal purposes if all of us should sleep in the dust, and the visibly
   organised church of to-day should pass away as the snow of winter at
   the advent of spring. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is he not able
   of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham? As to anything like
   discouragement, it ought to vanish at the thought that not only out of
   your Sunday-schools, your colleges, and your pulpits can God raise up
   leaders for his church, but he can find them in the very centre of
   heathenism. Where Satan's seat is, even there can the Lord raise up
   advocates for his cause. The thick darkness of superstition shall not
   prevent the chosen one from seeing the light, neither shall the bondage
   of sin hold back the captive from finding freedom and proclaiming it to
   others.

   Ah,' you say, but men are not called now, as Abraham was, by miraculous
   calls from heaven.' I reply,'The statement may be true; but God's
   visible means of calling men are now so many that there can seldom be
   need of miracle. The Lord can by his Spirit make one of the millions of
   Bibles scattered over the world to be as powerful a means of call as
   though he had sent an angel from heaven; yea, a solitary leaf of a
   printed tract, if wafted by the wind, or carried by the wave, may be
   borne where God shall bless it to the calling forth of a champion
   ordained of old to do great exploits. Where ordinary means are so
   plentiful wisdom resorts not to signs and wonders. Miracles were of
   admirable use while they were necessary; but now that they are no
   longer required the prudence of God forbids an extravagant display of
   the supernatural. Now that the word of God is scattered thick as leaves
   in Valambrosa' everywhere by willing and ready hands, what need can
   there be of voices of the day or visions of the night? The same Spirit
   who called Abraham by a supernatural voice can call others by the word
   of truth. Instead of regarding it as a prodigy that a man should be
   unexpectedly called out from among the heathen I look for it, and shall
   not be surprised to hear that in the remoter provinces of China, or in
   the centre of Thibet, or in the recesses of Africa men have been raised
   up to found churches for our Lord Jesus. God can through the printed
   page or by hints and rumours passed from hand to hand convey enough
   instruction to call out more Abrahams and bless them, and increase his
   kingdom by them. Omnipotence hath servants everywhere.' Let us never
   dream that the God of Abraham is short of means for calling out chosen
   men to build up his church. Surely Christian people should never doubt
   the power of God to raise up lights in dark places when we remember
   that the greatest preacher of the gospel, namely, the apostle Paul, was
   drafted into the army of Christ from the ranks of his direst foes. The
   proud Pharisee, a fanatic of the fanatics, embittered against Christ,
   and persecuting his people, became the earnest advocate of Christ
   Jesus. Aforetime his breath was threatening and slaughter, yet on the
   road to Damascus he was conquered and transformed. As a lion roareth
   over his prey, so did Paul rejoice that the saints in Damascus were now
   in his power; but the Lord struck him down, and turned the lion to a
   lamb, and henceforth where sin abounded grace did much more abound.
   First in the ranks of Christian heroes stands the man who called
   himself the chief of sinners because he persecuted the church of God.
   My brethren, as Luther came from among the monks, so out of Rome, yea,
   from the Vatican itself, can God, if he wills, call another Luther. The
   darkness of the times cannot forbid it, for God is Light. The weakness
   of the church cannot hinder it, for all power belongeth unto God. There
   may not be among us to-day one whom God will so greatly honour as to
   make him a spiritual father of nations; but there may be such a one in
   the courts of Whitechapel or in the rookeries of St. Giles. The Christ,
   who was himself called the Galilean, despises no place or people. Our
   king is not particular as to the mine from which he digs his gold. The
   great seeker of precious souls full often finds his purest pearls in
   the deepest and the blackest waters. Take this, then, for
   encouragement, ye who tremble for the ark of God: he can build up a
   spiritual house for himself out of dark quarries, and find cedars for
   his temple in forests untraversed by the feet of missionaries.

   Ah,' say you, but Abraham was naturally a man of noble mould. Where do
   you find such a princely spirit as his?' I answer, Who made him? He
   that made him can make another like him. There is a grace of God which
   goes before what we are accustomed to call saving grace: I mean a grace
   of God which, in the creating of the nature, makes it a fit instrument
   for the grace which is after to be bestowed. By such sovereign favour
   one man is from his birth endowed with a superior mind and character,
   being adorned, even as a natural man, with much that is excellent in
   its own order. How often do you see among certain men of the world a
   generosity, honesty, open-heartedness, and nobility of disposition
   which are not grace, but which mark men out as fit to be leaders in all
   that is good when grace calls them into the divine service? The Lord
   can just as soon make a man after the type of Abraham as after any
   other type; and doubtless he has such in store even now, to whom his
   call will yet come. We may expect to see men of strong convictions
   converted into believers who stagger not at the promise through
   unbelief.' From among priests and pagans we may hope that the Lord will
   raise up pillars for his church. Is not this hope encouraged in your
   breasts as you Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare
   you'?

   Look again and observe that Abraham was but one man. Do not be startled
   at the sound which seems to have such terrors for certain brethren. I
   have heard the cant of those who object to a one-man ministry,' a
   ministry to which all the while they usually submit in their own
   meetings; but to my ear there is music, and not terror, in the term a
   one-man ministry.' I bless God that all my hope of salvation hangs upon
   the divine ministry of the One Man. Is not Christ, as the servant of
   God, the very pattern of all ministries which are of God? Working out
   the Father's eternal purpose by a life which was necessarily unique in
   many points, he trod the wine-press alone; in this, however, he causes
   many of his people to have fellowship with him, even as in the case of
   Paul, who says, At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men
   forsook me.' I am bold also to say that the Lord has as a rule wrought
   more nobly by one man than by bands and corporations of men. He in
   whose seed all nations are blessed was but one. I called him,' saith
   he, alone, and blessed him, and increased him.' Nor is this a solitary
   instance. When the earth was utterly corrupt God conserved the race by
   a solitary preacher of righteousness, who prepared an ark for the
   saving of his house. See how one Joseph saved whole nations from
   famine, and one Moses brought out a race from bondage. Who was there to
   keep Israel right when Moses fell on sleep but the one man Joshua? What
   were the prosperous times in the era of the Judges but days when one
   man was to the front as a leader? When all the rest hid away in dens
   and caves, some Barak or Gideon, or Jephthah, or Samson came boldly
   forward and delivered Israel. One man, standing like a figure at the
   head of many ciphers, soon headed victorious thousands, through faith
   in God. What was there but one man in the days of David? The
   Philistines had still triumphed over the land if the one lad had not
   brought back Goliath's head, and if the one man had not again and again
   smitten the uncircumcised in the name of the Lord. Beloved, if we
   should ever be reduced, as we shall not be, to one man, yet by one man
   will God preserve his church, and work out his great purposes. I hope
   we shall never go into our chamber, and shut to the door, and cry with
   Elias, I only am left, and they seek my life!' No, my brother, there
   are more faithful men in this world than you. The Lord has yet reserved
   to himself his thousands that have not bowed the knee to Baal. We are
   this day, not one man, but many, and we all desire to live for the
   glory of God, and for the spread of his gospel; but if our hosts were
   so diminished that we could be numbered by a little child upon his
   fingers, still there would be no excuse for dismay, for the God of
   Abraham still liveth, even he who created a people to his praise by one
   man, of whom he says, I called him alone, and blessed him, and
   increased him.'

   Think, my brethren, of the power for good or evil which may be
   enshrined in a single human life. What mischievous results may come of
   one man! One sinner destroyeth much good, and if there were but one
   person left who had knowledge of the ways of vice and the words of
   blasphemy that one man would suffice to infect the race with his
   abominations. If evil be so mighty, is not good with God in it quite as
   powerful? We may rightly measure quantities in reference to many
   things, but with others it is absurd. It would be ridiculous to measure
   the power of fire by the quantity which burns on pour hearth. Give us
   fit materials and a single match, and you shall see what fire can do.
   If ordinary fire, that may so readily be extinguished, is thus
   powerful, who shall venture to measure the power of the fire from
   heaven, which neither men nor devils can quench, the fire which fell at
   Pentecost, and burns among us still. Ye carry fire, ye servants of God;
   ye work with a heaven-sent force of boundless energy. Why, therefore,
   should you despair? If all the lights in the world were put out except
   a solitary lamp, there is enough fire in one wick to kindle all the
   lamps in the universe. What inch of ground remains for despair to stand
   upon?

   Furthermore, we are bound to notice that this one man was a lone man.
   He had not only to do the work of God, but he had nobody to help him. I
   called him alone.' True, he was attended by Lot'a poor miserable lot he
   was, costing his noble uncle more trouble than he ever brought him
   profit. How little did he maintain or adorn the righteousness which,
   nevertheless, had saved him; true type of many a feeble professor in
   these days. Abraham was not backed by any society when he crossed the
   Euphrates and afterwards traversed the desert to sojourn in Canaan as a
   pilgrim and a stranger. If ever man was fairly cut adrift and cast upon
   the Lord it was the great father of the faithful. He certainly found no
   patronage in his onward course save the all-sufficient patronage of the
   Lord his God. When he came near to kings it was a source of trouble to
   him; it led to contention, and once to war; or else he felt bound to
   refuse their offers of gifts, and say as he did to the king of Sodom, I
   will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and I will not take
   anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram
   rich. That same boastful sentence might be uttered by the State
   concerning some churches that I know of, but not concerning us: may God
   preserve us, my brethren, from every desire to come under obligations
   to earthly sovereignties, lest, becoming indebted to them, we should be
   bound to render suit and service at their bidding, such service being
   already due to another king, one Jesus.'

   Abraham had no prestige of parentage, rank, or title. If you had looked
   at the stately patriarch when he trod the plains of Mamre you would
   have seen about him a presence, a calm dignity, a truly regal manner;
   but that came to him solely through his faith in God and his communion
   with heaven. Abraham was distinguished from other men only by the grace
   of God. What grander difference can there be than that which is
   established by the existence of faith in the heart? Thus Abraham was in
   the fullest sense a lone man, unsupported by any of those outward
   distinctions which enable some men to do more than others.

   The fulfilment of his calling rested on his loneliness; for he must get
   away from his kindred, and wander up and down with his flocks, even as
   the church of God now does, dwelling in a strange land, and feeding her
   flock apart. When he was alone God blessed Abraham,''I called him
   alone, and blessed him, and increased him.' The blessing did not come
   to him in Charran while he still had some connection with the old
   stock; he was not yet become thoroughly nonconformist, but held in some
   small degree to the old house at home, and till the last link was
   snapped the blessing could not come. And now, my brother, if in the
   town or district where you live you seem to lose all your helpers; if
   they die one by one, and it seems as if nobody would be left to you; if
   even the prayer-meeting fails for want of earnest, pleading men, still
   persevere, for it is the lone man that God will bless. He setteth the
   solitary in families.' In your present forlorn condition you are
   learning sympathy with that lone man in Gethsemane, with that lone man
   upon the cross, who there vanquished all your foes. Remember that your
   enemies are thus beaten before you encounter them, and therefore you
   may readily overcome through the blood of the Lamb. Oh, be not afraid.
   Thus saith the Lord''I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased
   him.' Grasp that, ye that dwell remote from human sympathy. Oh that our
   missionaries abroad may feel the rich comfort of this fact; for they
   full often, like lone sentinels, keep watch with eyes that long to see
   a friend. They are separated from intercourse with brethren, they miss
   the friendships which tend to comfort and confirm, but it is God that
   calls them alone, and he will bless them and increase them. The purer
   churches of to-day, standing alone as they do, because they dare not
   make unholy alliances with any,'standing alone, I say, in simple trust
   in the living Lord'ought not to be afraid with any amazement, but
   attempt great things for God and expect great things from God.

   Once more, I cannot help asking your attention to the fact that Abraham
   was not only a man called from heathendom, one man, and a lone man; but
   he was a man who had to be stripped yet further. The blessing
   was''Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply
   thee,' but the manifest fulfilment of it was not by-and-by. As we have
   already seen, he must come away from his kindred and his father's
   house, and he must dwell in Palestine till the promised seed was born.
   But how long he waited for the expected heir! Twenty, yes, almost
   thirty years rolled away, and the man Abraham was ninety years old and
   nine. He is very old; and yet he is to be blessed with a son. He must
   number the full tale of a hundred years before Isaac can be born. This
   promised child was to be according to promise, and therefore it could
   not be born till nature was recognised as spent. As for Sarah'it was
   not possible that she should become a mother at her advanced age, and
   yet it must be so, for God had said it.

   The believing pair had waited on till in an evil hour Sarah suggested a
   desperate attempt to fulfil the promise, in which she still firmly
   believed. That artifice broke down; it was a part of the divine plan
   that it should do so. The covenant promise was not to the seed after
   the flesh. When that scheme had been set aside, the Lord in his own
   time fulfilled his word.

   Joy! joy! in the house of Abraham and Sarah. What a feast there was
   that Isaac was born, filling the house with laughter. But he must die!
   Get thee up,' said God, and take thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom
   thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering upon one of the
   mountains which I will tell thee of.' The grand old man will do it. He
   will get up early in the morning, and the father and the son will
   journey together silently; for the aged heart is too full to talk. He
   believes God, and is sure that even if he should actually slay his son
   at God's command the promise would somehow be kept. Abraham could not
   tell how, but it was no business of his to tell how; he was fully
   persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform. God had
   said to him In Isaac shall thy seed be called,' and he believed that
   God could raise Isaac from the dead, or in some other way achieve the
   promise. Thus he grasped the resurrection. He laid hold on a truth
   which was deeper than he knew of: by his faith he realised resurrection
   for Isaac though as yet the Lord Jesus had not shown the way by his own
   rising from the dead. What a stripping Abraham had endured! Who can
   describe what would have been the wretchedness of that aged parent if
   it had not been for his faith! Men intensely love the children of their
   old age. See how a grandchild is fondled by his grandsire, and thus
   must Isaac have been loved of Abraham and yet he must die by his
   father's own hand. Oh, most miserable among the miserable must he have
   been who stood there on Mount Moriah, called to such a duty, his heart
   breaking while his soul obeyed. Such, doubtless, would have been the
   case had not faith been his stay. Look, then, to Abraham your father,
   and say is he not the greatest of men, the grandest human
   representative of the great Father God himself, who in the fullness of
   time spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all?
   Likest to God among mortal men art thou Abraham, and therefore well
   mightest thou be his friend! In thy trial brought to such a stripping
   we may yet envy thee as we hear the Lord saying, Now know I that thou
   fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from
   me.' Now, if in all these trials Abraham was yet blessed, and God's
   purposes were accomplished in him, can we not believe that the same God
   can work by us also, despite our downcastings and humiliations? When we
   are utterly broken and crushed may not the Lord's strength be made
   perfect in our weakness? Let us not question the promise because of our
   personal deadness and inability, but believe God without wavering, for
   he hath said, My grace is sufficient for thee.'

   Now, brothers and sisters, here is the sum and substance of this first
   head of my discourse: in looking to the rock whence we are hewn, we
   have to see the Lord working the greatest results from apparently
   inadequate causes. This teaches us to cease from calculating means,
   possibilities, and probabilities, for we have to deal with God, with
   whom all things are possible. Almighty God can assuredly do whatever he
   says he will do. Who is to hinder him? Let the voice ring out over all
   the earth, and let it be heard in hell itself'who shall stay the arm of
   God when he wills to achieve a thing? He fears no opposition, and he
   needs no help. Of what did he make the world? With whom took he
   counsel? Who instructed him? And, if all the things that are have been
   spoken into existence by God alone, by his mere word, can he not yet
   build up his church, even if on her earthly side there should seem to
   be no material with which to raise her walls? Consider creation and
   remark what God hath wrought. See how all the millions of mankind have
   sprung from a single pair, because God blessed them in the beginning.
   But I must not multiply illustrations from nature or from history, for
   they rise spontaneously before your own minds. Refresh your faith by a
   reference to our own island history. If you would firmly believe in the
   conversion of the heathen remember what your fathers were when bloody
   rites were performed in the oak woods or amid the huge monoliths of
   Stonehenge. The Druidic system was as cruel and degrading as any that
   now curses a savage people; but the heralds of Jesus conquered. Where
   are the gods of the Druids now? Who reverences the golden sickle and
   the sacred oak? The thing is gone, as though it never had been. Why,
   then, should not other evil idolatries pass away? Look again at the
   triumph of Protestantism in this country. What was it at first? A thing
   utterly despised and hunted down. The stakes of Smithfield cannot be
   forgotten by those who dwell so near the spot. Yet, despite all, the
   gospel of God triumphed, and rood, and pyx, and image were broken in
   contempt. Let the days of the Puritans, the palmy days when God was
   known in England, tell how thoroughly Bible truth won the victory. Why
   not again? Why not everywhere? If you desire another illustration, look
   at our own body of Christians? History has hitherto been written by our
   enemies, who never would have kept a single fact about us upon the
   record if they could have helped it, and yet it leaks out every now and
   then that certain poor people called Anabaptists were brought up for
   condemnation. From the days of Henry II. to those of Elizabeth we hear
   of certain unhappy heretics who were hated of all men for the truth's
   sake which was in them. We read of poor men and women, with their
   garments cut short, turned out into the fields to perish in the cold,
   and anon of others who were burnt at Newington for the crime of
   Anabaptism. Long before your Protestants were known of, these horrible
   Anabaptists, as they were unjustly called, were protesting for the one
   Lord, one faith, and one baptism.' No sooner did the visible church
   begin to depart from the gospel than these men arose to keep fast by
   the good old way. The priests and monks wished for peace and slumber,
   but there was always a Baptist or a Lollard tickling men's ears with
   holy Scripture, and calling their attention to the errors of the times.
   They were a poor, persecuted tribe. The halter was thought to be too
   good for them. At times ill-written history would have us think that
   they died out, so well had the wolf done his work on the sheep. Yet
   here we are, blessed and multiplied; and Newington sees other scenes
   from Sabbath to Sabbath. As I think of your numbers and efforts, I can
   only say in wonder'What a growth! As I think of the multitudes of our
   brethren in America, I may well say, What hath God wrought? Our history
   forbids discouragement. Never cause more hopeless once; none more
   hopeful to-day! It matters little what may yet happen, the cause is
   safe. What if all our Baptist organisations expire! What if but one man
   should be left faithful to the old banner, our Captain would yet
   triumph gloriously, for he saveth not by many nor by few. Though all
   else faileth, the Lord shall reign for ever and ever. This is the
   lesson which, I pray, we may all of us learn, and then, by faith, go
   forth to act upon it.

   II. With great brevity, I shall dwell for a moment upon the second
   point, namely'THE MAIN CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS CHOSEN MAN. The text
   says, Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you,' and
   it must mean,'consider him and see what he was, that you may learn from
   him. You perceive at once that his grand characteristic was his faith.
   In this faith many other most brilliant qualities are comprehended, but
   his faith lay at the bottom of all. Here is his epitaph:''Abraham
   believed God.' That was a mainspring of all his acts, the glory of his
   life, Abraham believed God.' The men that God will work by, whatever
   else they have not, must have faith in God. Though it is to be desired
   that the believer should have every mental and moral qualification, yet
   it is astounding how, if there be real faith, a multitude of
   imperfections are swallowed up, and the man is still a power. I would
   mention Samson as an extreme case. He was the feeblest of men, and the
   least fitted to be a judge in Israel; but oh, what faith! And what
   wonders it achieved! A thousand men! He is like a child in his belief
   that God is with him. He never calculates at all; it is all the same to
   him whether there are a thousand or one. He flings himself upon the
   host, and has slain them before we can realise the deadly odds. A
   sword; no, he has no sword: an old jawbone of an ass is quite enough
   for an arm which God strengthens. See how he smites them, hip and
   thigh, till they lie in heaps before him. I do not suppose that it
   would have signified to Samson if there had been a million Philistines:
   with a thousand to one, a man is so thoroughly outnumbered that numbers
   cease to count. Here was an impossibility before him, and what could be
   worse. Brethren, when you do get off your feet, and must swim, you may
   as well have fifty fathoms of water beneath you as not, for you can but
   drown. In the case of faith, drowning is out of the question, and
   swimming is good in deep water, for there is no fear of striking
   against a rock. Faith glories in difficulties and infirmities, because
   the power of God doth rest upon her. If the work is barely possible to
   her strength faith hardly likes it; but she gets into her sphere when
   in trials far beyond human strength she laughs at impossibility, and
   cries, It shall be done.'

   Abraham's faith was such that it led him to obedience. He was called to
   go out, and he went, not knowing whither he went. His faith through
   grace led him to perseverance; for once in God's way he did not leave
   it, but still abode a sojourner with God. His faith led him to
   expectancy; he looked for the promised seed, and not only for an Isaac
   but for the Messiah. So clear was the vision of his expectancy that
   before his eyes Christ was set forth, visibly. Did not the Saviour, who
   knew all things, say, Abraham saw my day; he saw it, and was glad'?

   The like faith also dwelt in the breast of Sarah; and, as we are told
   in the text to look to Sarah as well as Abraham, let us not fail to do
   so. The faith of Sarah was not little when she left home with her
   husband; forsaking her kith and kin from love to God, and to him whom
   she called lord.' She acted as if she had said to the great patriarch,
   Where thou goest I will go; where thou dwellest I will dwell, for thy
   God is my God.' Nor did the trial of her faith end with the moving, she
   had to take up with tent-life and all its inconveniences. It is the
   woman that knows the discomfort of domestic life under such
   circumstances. We never hear that she complained for a moment, though
   the cold of winter and the heat of summer are neither of them warded
   off by a tent. How readily she entertained her husband's guests. Though
   they might drop in at most unseasonable hours, or call her to bake
   bread in the heat of the day, she was glad to welcome strangers, for
   like her husband she was given to hospitality. I saw you smile, dear
   friends, when I mentioned domestic matters; but to me it is the
   solemnity of faith that men and women can not only pray and sing, but
   can put up with household discomforts out of obedience to God. Certain
   people look upon faith as a fine, airy, sentimental thing with which to
   roam among the stars, anticipate millenniums, and enjoy yourself in
   lofty contemplation. I believe far more in a faith which, whether it
   eats or drinks, does all to the glory of God; faith which like Sarah
   dwells in the tent and works there; faith which is cheerful over a
   scanty meal and drives away the fear of want; faith which can come down
   in life from the mansion to the cottage, if providence so decrees. From
   Abraham's comfortable home at Ur to his gipsy wanderings in Palestine
   the change must have been great, but Abraham may not have felt it one
   half as much as Sarah, for men can rough it and live out of doors, but
   the housewife knows all about it, and great was her Faith that she
   never raised a question about the propriety of her husband's course of
   life: and though she laughed when she was told that she should bear a
   son, yet remember that in the eleventh of Hebrews it is
   written''Through faith also Sarah herself received strength.' She was
   the mother of Isaac, not in the power of the flesh, but through the
   energy of faith, therefore look at her as the text bids you.

   Christian men and Christian women, mark well this fact'that the
   characteristic of the person whom God will bless is that he believes
   and acts upon his belief. Without faith it is impossible to please God;
   but the man of faith is God's man. And why is this? I answer, because
   faith is the only faculty of our spirit which can grasp God's ideal.
   The greatest man, without faith, cannot tread in the divine footsteps.
   The ideas of God are as high above us as the heavens are above the
   earth: and therefore it is not by any fancied vastness of our feeble
   minds that we can ever rise into fellowship with God. Faith in the
   sight of God's thought whispers to herself''I cannot understand this
   great thing, nor need I wish to do so. What is my understanding?
   Perhaps I trust to it too much already. I am called to do what God bids
   me, without knowing why, and I am glad it is so, for now I can worship
   him by bowing before his sovereign will.' There is a capacity about
   faith for grasping divine promises and purposes, a width, a breadth, a
   height, a depth, which can hold the infinite truth as no other power
   can do. Love alone can rival it, for it embraces the infinite God
   himself. With the far-reaching plans and promises of God faith alone is
   fit to deal; carnal reason is altogether out of the lists.

   Faith, too, has a great power of reception, and therein lies much of
   her adaptation to the divine purpose. Self-confidence, courage,
   resolution, cool reasoning, whatever else they are good at, are bad at
   humbly receiving. Those vessels which are full already are of no use as
   receivers; but faith presents her emptiness to God, and opens her mouth
   that God may fill it. Mercy needs not a jewel, but a casket into which
   to put her gems, and faith is exactly what she wants.

   Then, again, faith always uses the strength that God gives her. Pride
   would vapour with it, and doubt would evaporate it; but faith is
   practical, and economically uses the talent entrusted to her. Faith has
   already spent all her own strength, and she so yearns to achieve her
   purposes that she uses all the power that God will lend her. Faith eats
   her manna and leaves not a morsel for worms to breed in.

   Faith, too, can wait the Lord's time and place. When faith is weak men
   are in a dreadful hurry, but strong faith does not judge the Lord to be
   slack concerning his promise. As God achieves his purpose with infinite
   leisure, he loves a faith that is patient and looks not for its reward
   this day or the next. He that believeth shall not make haste': that is
   to say, he shall not be ashamed or confounded by present trials so as
   to rush upon unbelieving actions. Faith leaves times and seasons with
   God to whom they belong.

   God loveth faith and blesseth it too, because it giveth him all the
   glory. The true believer will not allow a trace of self-glory to linger
   on his hands. Where is boasting then?' was a question once asked in the
   house of faith, and the searchers examined every nook and corner in
   every chamber to find it, but they found it not. Then they said to
   faith, Where is boasting?' She answered, I shut him out.' It is
   excluded,' shut out, and the door fastened in its face. You do not
   believe God if you boast of what you are doing: least of all do you
   believe if you pride yourself in your faith, for faith is not
   mistrustful of her God but of herself. Faith looks to God to keep her
   alive as well as to fulfil the promise that he has made to her. This
   then is the kind of faith which was characteristic of Abraham, and the
   question is, have we got it? Have we so much of it that God can largely
   bless us? The comfort is that, if we have it not, the author of faith
   can give it to us, and if we have it in scant measure he can increase
   our faith.

   Is not this a solid reason why you and I should take heart? You who do
   not believe that missions will succeed; you who readily become
   discouraged and discourage others; I beg you go home and seek more
   faith. We cannot go down to the battle with such soldiers as you; you
   do but encumber the host. The men that lapped are the only ones that
   Gideon will take to war. Send the fearful ones to the rear and let them
   take care of the baggage, so that when the battle is won they may have
   a share of the spoil, according to David's law. For actual service and
   warfare we must have men of faith. Cromwell found that when his men
   came dressed in all sorts of suits and colours they were apt to injure
   one another in the melee, and so he put them all in uniform. The
   uniform of the Prince Immanuel is faith: no man may call himself a
   soldier of the cross who hath it not. This is the victory which
   overcometh the world, even your faith. Brother ministers, let us take
   heed lest we be found qualified for our ministry in all respects except
   this one. You have learning, eloquence, industry, honesty, but do you
   so believe in God as to expect his word to act divinely on men's
   hearts. Do you preach believingly? Do you pray believingly? I leave the
   question with you.

   III. I have shown you, dear friends, that God effected his purpose, and
   raised up a chosen nation out of one man, whose chief characteristic
   was his faith: and now I want you to notice OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THAT
   ONE MAN. I dwelt upon that while reading the chapter (Romans 4.) There
   is a relation between us and Abraham even as Paul assures us in the
   epistle to the Galatians, Know ye therefore that they which are of
   faith, the same are the children of Abraham.' Something, surely, is
   expected of the children of such a man as Abraham. O, for shame, thou
   unbelieving one! Is Abraham thy father? Art thou one of the faithful
   seed? Great mountains are often succeeded by low valleys. Perhaps that
   is the case with you; but it should not be so. The natural seed were
   cut off because they had no faith, let not those who are grafted in,
   think to do without it. It is by faith that you are a son at all. You
   disprove your pedigree if you tolerate unbelief. Oh! let nobody find
   fault with Abraham through you, and surely they may do so if they find
   you staggering. That staggering is a shocking business: staggering at
   God's promises is terrible. Abraham staggered not at the promise
   through unbelief. May we never dishonour the right noble grace of
   faith, but so believe that all men may know Abraham's God to be our
   God. O for abounding spiritual life, for the God of Abraham is not the
   God of the dead but of the living; and we can only live unto God by
   faith.

   Brethren, because we are the seed of Abraham, the apostle declares that
   the blessing of Abraham has come upon us also. I pray that all the
   friends and labourers in our Missionary Society may grasp the blessing
   of Abraham. What is it? It is a covenant favour that belongs to all who
   are the servants of God by faith. Here is the substance of it: Surely
   blessing, I will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply thee.'
   That is the grand old covenant promise and it belongs to the church.
   Note that the blessing is attended with multiplying. Some friends are
   afraid of statistics which represent the increase of the churches; I am
   far more afraid of those statistics which will show that we do not
   increase as we could wish. The blessing of the church is the increase
   of the church. The two go together: Blessing, I will bless thee, and in
   multiplying, I will multiply thee.' How much are Christians to be
   multiplied in the world? At the present moment we do not seem to be
   increasing as fast as the population. I am afraid that the number of
   converted persons relatively to the population is scarcely as great as
   it was thirty years ago; we long to be multiplied at a very different
   rate from this'and we shall be if we have faith in our God. Hear ye the
   covenant word: Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be
   able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And in
   thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' These are
   lines from the covenant, which is sure to all the seed and can never be
   broken. We have been called and blessed, and it is of necessity that we
   increase also. We are bound to increase; we are destined to overrun the
   nations; the Hittites, the Hivites, the Amorites, of Popery,
   Mahometanism, and Idolatry are in the land, but their false systems are
   utterly to perish. Jesus at the head of his people shall drive them
   out'I mean not the men, but their evil beliefs. They may take notice to
   quit, for he is coming before whom all men must bow. O that ere he
   himself shall appear his spiritual presence in the midst of his church
   might suffice for victory, that all mankind might call him blessed. We
   are bound to increase, till the wilderness and the solitary place shall
   be glad for us, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.
   Upon the church in her vigour shall yet descend the blessings of the
   tribes of Joseph. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and
   his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the
   people together to the ends of the earth.' The success of truth is the
   battle of the Lord, and the increase of his church is according to his
   own promise, therefore in quietness we may possess our souls.

   IV. Last of all consider for a minute OUR POSITION BEFORE ABRAHAM'S
   GOD. Do not let anything that I have said about Abraham for a moment
   take your mind off from the Lord himself, because the pith of it all
   lies here,'I called him alone.' Look to Abraham, but only as to the
   rock from which the Lord quarried his people:' your main thought must
   be Jehovah himself. I, I called him alone, and blessed him.' I the Lord
   do all these things.' Look unto the everlasting God who doeth great
   wonders, and stay yourselves upon him.

   Let us joyfully recollect that the Lord our God has not changed, nay,
   not in one jot or tittle. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for
   ever.' There is so far a change in the revelation of him, that it is
   brighter now in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, than
   it could have been through seer and vision; but that should be a motive
   for increased faith. His arm is not shortened that he cannot save,
   neither is his ear heavy that he cannot hear.' This God of Abraham is
   still almighty, and still in the midst of the covenanted ones. If the
   ages that have passed over his awful brow could wrinkle it and his
   strength could decay, then might we also decline in our confidence; but
   it is not so. He fainteth not, neither is weary. Our behaviour towards
   him, therefore, should resemble that of Abraham; and especially,
   representing, as we do many of us, the churches of Jesus Christ as
   ministers or deacons, we must never dishonour the Lord by unbelief.
   Doubt everything but God. Let God be true and every man a liar. This
   the everlasting decree which none can change,'Christ must reign; he
   shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied; the kings
   of the earth must bow before him. Do not doubt it, for God hath sworn
   by his own life that all flesh shall see his glory. Here is the grand
   argument for strong faith.

   Notice next that the covenant of God has not changed. God hath not
   recalled his words, nor taken a pen and struck out his promises from
   the record. Read the covenant words, and write them upon the doorposts
   of your mission-house, In blessing I will bless thee, and in
   multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as
   the sand which is upon the sea shore; and in thy seed shall all the
   nations of the earth be blessed.' This is the covenant with the one
   spiritual seed of Abraham, that is the marrow of it, and it has never
   been revoked. As I have said before, we read it now in clearer light,
   and understand better the fullness of its provisions, but the covenant
   is not disannulled. Let us go to God with any one promise of it, and we
   can say to him, This is thy promise in Christ Jesus; and thou hast not
   spoken in secret in a dark place and withdrawn thy word and said to the
   seed of Jacob, Seek ye my face in vain.' Such pleading will prevail. He
   will never run back from his word. Has he said, and will he not do it?
   Therefore let us cry, Remember thy word unto thy servant upon which
   thou hast caused me to hope.'

   But there is this also to be added, that this work which we desire the
   Lord to do is in some respects even less than that which he has done
   with Abraham. What ask we? Not that he should begin with one man to
   build up a nation, or create a church? No, but that Zion being builded,
   he should comfort her, and cause her waste places to rejoice. The field
   is the world, and the seed is ready for the sowing. The gospel is in
   the hands of those who have the best means of spreading it. Everything
   is ready for its ultimate triumph. The train is laid; we only need the
   heavenly fire to touch it, and the deed is accomplished. O that the
   work of the Lord may be speedily done; that the Lord may carry on his
   work of righteousness and make a short work in the earth. I say that if
   God has done this greater thing, if he has excavated a nation from the
   quarry of Abraham, we may well expect the self-same God to keep his
   covenant, to multiply his church, and build her up after the similitude
   of a palace. The time to favour Zion, even the set time, has come.
   Beside that; we have been already visited by God as Abraham had not
   been when first he was called. Abraham had not known the Lord till he
   called him, but our Sion is familiar with God, for she is the city of
   the great king. He dwelleth in our midst by his Holy Spirit, and holy
   hymn and prayer rise every day from the multitudes that fear him. The
   Lord hath redeemed, and justified, and saved his people, and surely we
   may look to him to refresh and revive his heritage.

   What marvellous things hath God done on the face of the earth since
   Abraham's days!'the stupendous marvel of incarnation, the height and
   depth of which none of us can measure; the wondrous work of redemption,
   the highest, grandest, divinest achievement of the Deity'all this is
   done; what may we not expect after this? You know more of God than
   Abraham could know; I beseech you then, trust him, at least up to the
   level of the patriarch. How shall we forge an excuse if we do not? What
   can excuse us if we distrust so glorious a God.

   Brethren, it remains for me only to add this practical word. Let us
   throw ourselves more and more upon our God. If you have any work
   appointed you of the Lord, and it is within the compass of your
   strength, shame upon you if you do not perform it at once; but if it be
   beyond you, herein will God be glorified if you do it by his power. If
   there remaineth no might, wit, or wisdom in you, if you are deeply
   conscious of your weakness you are by this experience made the more fit
   to be used of the Lord, for when we are weak then are we strong. If you
   have confidence in God all things are possible to him that believeth.
   Oh, when will the church cast herself upon her God as men throw
   themselves into the stream when they mean to swim? They seek no longer
   for foothold, their foot leaves the spot whereon it rested, and they
   throw themselves trustfully upon the wave. The everlasting ocean of
   love and power is ready to upbear us: we shall swim gallantly to shore
   if we will but trust this blessed sea of love.

   Let us begin to believe God and then let us act in daily life as if we
   believed him. The just shall live by faith. Some people have a faith
   which is for show, a Sunday faith, faith that cannot bear the wear and
   tear of every day life; varnished and gilded, but with no pure metal in
   it. The faith of Abraham could lead strings of camels and flocks of
   sheep away from Haran to Canaan. His was the faith which could drive
   the tent-pin into a foreign soil, or roll up the canvas and seek
   another unknown halting place. The faith of Abraham is a faith that
   saith to wayfaring men, Turn in, and I will get you a little water and
   wash your feet.' It is a practical, active, living, week-day, everyday
   faith. I will speak very broadly and plainly, and say we need a
   bread-and-cheese faith, that is to say, a faith which believes that God
   who feeds the ravens will send us our daily bread; a faith which
   believes that the heavenly Father who clothes the lilies will much more
   clothe his children; the faith that can believe God about the things
   that are actually around it, and that does not live in the region of
   fiction. See how God blessed Abraham with flocks and herds, and
   everything temporal as well as spiritual, because he walked in
   reference to these things along the line of faith; gave Lot his choice
   of pasturage, refused the offer of the king of Sodom, and resolutely
   paid the children of Heth the full price for the cave and the field. If
   we walk by faith in business life God may not in every case bless us
   with abundance of temporal mercies, but assuredly we shall be blessed.
   He may send us adversity, and poverty, but in these things faith is
   more than conqueror, glorying in tribulations also.

   In the Lord's work of evangelising the world you must have a downright,
   practical faith; not a faith that will sing when the organ begins to
   play, and then be so busy fumbling the hymn paper as to forget the
   collection: not the faith of those who boast of Carey, and Marshman,
   and Knibb, but whose own names never appear in the subscription list
   for a single shilling: not a faith which sings'

   Fly abroad thou mighty Gospel.'

   but never lends a bit of down to make a feather for its wings.

   Let us hear the scripture, as it says, Hearken! If you have faith as a
   grain of mustard seed, Hearken!' for you may hear the Sabbath bells
   ringing in the everlasting peace, and angel songs welcoming the reign
   of grace over all nations. Let the ears of deaf unbelief be unstopped,
   for the whole earth echoes with the praises of the Lord. Say not that
   the day is distant. Hearken! Let faith be the listener, and she will
   hear across the ages which divide us from the gladsome period. Then
   shall you listen all day and all night long for many a year, but never
   hear the roll of drum or roar of cannon. Hearken! Ye shall hear from
   the islands of the sea, and from the once benighted continents, psalms
   and hymns, and holy songs, ascending unto the one Jehovah and to his
   Christ. Hearken! for ears were never gladdened with sweeter music.

   Then look! till you see the temples of false gods crumbling into dust.
   See how the shrines are tottering, and the idols breaking as though
   smitten with a rod of iron. Mohammed's crescent wanes, never to wax
   again; and she, of the Seven Hills, is hated of the kings, and they
   burn her with fire. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what
   desolations he hath made in the earth! Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
   dashed in pieces the enemy. They fall! They fall! They are as the
   slain. The day breaketh, and the shadows flee away. O ye watchers that
   look for the dawning, fall not asleep through sorrowful weariness. The
   morning cometh. It shall not tarry. Do you doubt it? Know ye not that
   the Lord reigneth? Is he not the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord
   mighty in battle. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all
   flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'
   If you doubt it, dissolve your Missionary Society, and do not pretend
   to do a work in which you have no faith; but if you believe in the
   triumph of God's work, and that you are called to it, behave worthily
   to so divine an enterprise. God do so to you as you deal with him in
   this matter. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Priest Ordained by the Oath of God

   (No. 1597)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And inasmuch as not without an oath He was made Priest, (for those
   priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by Him that
   said unto Him, The Lord swore and will not repent, You are a Priest
   forever after the order of Melchisedec), by so much more was Jesus made
   a surety of a better Testament." Hebrews 7:20-22.

   THOSE Of you who read Scripture carefully will have noticed that the
   word, "better," is one of the key words of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
   You are constantly meeting with it. In the opening chapter we read that
   our Lord Jesus Christ is "made so much better than the angels, as He
   has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they." Look a
   little further and you are taught that He is better than Moses,
   inasmuch as Moses was faithful as a servant in the Lord's house, but
   Christ, as a Son over His own house. Further on we find our blessed
   Lord described as better than Aaron, while His blood is mentioned as
   speaking better things than that of Abel. And He is declared, in our
   text, to be the Surety of a better Testament, of which it is said that
   it is established upon better promises.

   It would be a very delightful subject to work out the betterness of
   Christ, of His blood, of His Covenant and to show that however good
   other things may be, they must all yield in excellence to Him. It is
   implied in the use of the word, "better," that the ordinances of the
   ceremonial Law were good, in their place, but Jesus is better than the
   best of all visible things--the eternal Christ is better than the best
   of all the temporal arrangements which God has made for the good of
   man. How much better what heart shall conceive? "If the ministration of
   condemnation is glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness
   exceed in glory. For if that which is done away with was glorious, much
   more that which remains is glorious."

   It behooves us, my dear Brothers and Sisters, to have a firmer faith
   than Old Testament saints because we see more clearly our ground of
   trust. Those who lived in the comparative darkness of the previous
   dispensation were saved by faith and among them there were not a few
   eminent Believers--surely we, also, ought to excel in our confidence in
   God! Let the 11th chapter of Hebrews stand as a triumphal arch with the
   names of ancient Believers recorded--these all died in faith and they
   were no mean men--but inasmuch as we enjoy a brighter light and are
   living under a better economy, we are called upon to be their superiors
   in faith! Our faith should be clearer, calmer, stronger, more effectual
   in working-- we should do greater things than these, in the name of
   Jesus.

   Being endowed more richly with the Spirit of God, the modern Church
   should attempt grander works than Israel ever thought about and so
   there should be a shining more and more unto the perfect day. If better
   are the promises, better and yet better should we be under accumulating
   obligations. My objective at this time will not be so much to enter
   into details of doctrine concerning our Savior's priesthood as to utter
   practical Truths of God and press them on the heart. I shall not
   attempt to exhaust so wonderful a subject as the parallel between
   Melchisedec and Christ, but I shall try to strengthen the faith of
   Believers and also to leave unbelievers without excuse if they will
   still not believe in Jesus Christ, whom God has sent, confirming His
   mission by an oath.

   We need practical results, this morning, and no practical result will
   content us but this--that you believe on Jesus Christ whom God has
   sent! To this end were the Scriptures written, as says the Evangelist
   John, "These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the
   Christ, the Son of God and that, believing, you might have life through
   His name." The objective of the written Word of God is also the
   objective of the spoken Word of God--we would have you hear,

   believe and live! Vain are your reading and hearing unless they lead
   you to a sincere reception of the witness of God concerning His Son
   Jesus Christ!

   Oh that you may not, on this occasion, hear in vain! To our text,
   then--and may the Spirit of God graciously be with us in speaking upon
   it.

   I. Men should believe in Jesus Christ with their whole heart and rely
   upon Him with unstaggering confidence, first, because of OUR LORD'S
   SPECIAL ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD. The Lord Jesus Christ was
   ordained to the priesthood, according to the 110th Psalm, in a manner
   distinct from all others. His ordination was unique, for neither Aaron,
   nor his sons, nor any of the priests of the tribe of Levi were ever
   ordained by an oath. Ceremonies most important, imposing, instructive
   and impressive were performed--but there was no oath. God gave promises
   to the house of Levi, but He expressly stopped short of anything like
   an oath to them--not because His promise can be broken--but because
   that promise was conditional and must not be confirmed by an oath, as
   though it constituted a perpetual engagement.

   But our Savior is made a Priest by an oath and it is written, as if to
   make it exceedingly sure, "The Lord swore and will not repent." Not
   because God ever can or does repent, or run back from His oath in any
   case, but for the confirmation of our faith in the Immutability of His
   Word--for it is expressly added, "He will not repent." By an oath which
   stands fast forevermore, Christ is made a Priest forever after the
   order of Melchisedec. But why, my Brethren, an oath for Jesus and none
   for other priests? First, because of the greater dignity of Christ
   above all other priests that ever were, for He is the Son of the
   Highest, and they were not. They were men that had infirmity, but He is
   sinless. They lived and died and so were changed, but, "Your Throne, O
   God, is forever and ever." They were ordained to be types and emblems,
   serving for the time of Israel's infancy, but He came as the, "I AM,"
   the substance of the whole!

   They were mere men and nothing more, but Jesus counted it not robbery
   to be equal with God, though for our sakes He assumed our nature. It
   seemed becoming that God should settle Him in the priesthood by an
   oath, seeing He is above all and infinitely superior to all others that
   have ever exercised the priesthood! I tremble while I speak of the oath
   of God, for God's lifting His hand to Heaven and swearing by Himself
   because He can swear by no greater, is something so solemn that one
   scarcely dares to think of it! The Lord will not hold Him guiltless
   that takes His name in vain! The devout soul is full of awe at the bare
   thought of God in His most fatherly and ordinary acts, but how shall we
   think of the Lord girt with solemnity, resolute in purpose, stern in
   truth, as lifting His hand and taking an oath? Surely this is the
   innermost sanctuary of mystery, the Holy of Holies!

   This oath was for the honor of His dear Son as He assumed the sacred
   Priesthood on behalf of the sons of men. The glory of His Character,
   the dignity of His work, the certainty of its accomplishment and the
   supreme excellence of His motive in entering upon it all lift up the
   Priesthood of Christ out of the category of all human priesthoods and,
   therefore, the eternal Father marks it by a special mark of
   distinction--He makes an oath that His only-begotten Son is a Priest
   forever after the order of Melchisedec. Another reason is found in the
   eternal Character of His work. The priesthood of Aaron and his
   successors was intended to be temporary. God did not confirm the
   priests of old in their offices because He held in reserve the right to
   set them aside when He pleased--and He from the first intended that
   their functions should be abolished when the fullness of time should
   come for another and better Priest to take their place.

   They were candles for the darkness, but the sun was to rise and then
   they would not be needed. They were pictorial representations, but when
   the Substance was come, they would not be required. He allowed their
   priesthood to be one of imperfect men because He intended, by-and-by,
   to supersede it by a perfect and enduring Priesthood. Hence no oath of
   God attended the ordination of the sons of Aaron. But our Lord Jesus
   Christ's Priesthood and all the economy which He has ushered in was
   intended by God to be perpetual and, therefore, does He confirm it with
   an oath. No end of days will ever happen to our High Priest, nor shall
   the economy of Divine Grace be supplanted by another and clearer
   revelation. It shall be developed from strength to strength and we
   shall see greater things than these in the days of the personal reign
   and the millennial Glory, but no new economy of Grace shall overthrow
   the present.

   Think not, O you ungodly, if you reject Christ, that there will yet
   come a Savior better than He! For you there remains no other Sacrifice
   for sin. I have heard men talk of "a larger hope"--I believe it to be a
   larger lie than ordinary if it supposes more mercy than is revealed in
   Christ Jesus! There is no larger hope than that which Christ has
   revealed! If it had been so, He would have told us. Stars can be
   excelled by other stars, but what shall outshine the sun? One human

   Gospel can be eclipsed by another, but how can there be a more loving,
   tender, gracious Gospel than that which is embodied in our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ? "God so loved the world that He gave His
   only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
   have everlasting life"--is that message of Grace to be exceeded? Is
   greater love yet to be revealed?

   No! The Gospel is God's ultimatum! He will go no further--we have the
   last proclamation of mercy to men, the last Savior, the last foundation
   for hopes to be built upon, the last fountain in which sin can be
   washed away, the last door of hope by which men shall escape from the
   guilt and punishment of sin! I beseech you, avail yourselves of it, for
   God has confirmed it with an oath that it may stand forever! It is your
   one and only hope for eternity--lay hold upon it while you may. The
   oath of God sets forth the dignity of our Lord's Person and the
   eternity of His office--see that you despise not One who is thus great
   and abiding. By an oath, also, was our Lord set apart because of the
   reality of His Priesthood and the Substance that dwelt in His
   Sacrifice.

   As we have already said, the Levitical priesthood dealt only with the
   shadows of good things to come and not with the very substance of the
   things. So to speak, the sacrificial bull was not actually a sacrifice,
   but the representation of the Sacrifice that was to come. The morning
   and evening lambs did not take away sin, but only mirrored the great
   blood-shedding of the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the
   world! In very deed and truth, the men of the house of Aaron who
   attended at the visible altar were not actual priests before the real
   Altar of the Lord, but only shadows of the true. The real Altar is the
   Person of Christ! The real Sacrifice is the death of Christ and the
   real Priest is Christ Himself!

   The images of heavenly things were glorious, but the glory of the
   things, themselves, dwells in Christ and we behold that Glory full of
   Grace and truth. Fly, you shadows, since it is clear that is what you
   were meant to be, for God did not establish you as abiding things. You
   did but predict and foreshadow--you were not the blessings which you
   pictured. In Christ is the actual putting away of sin, the effectual
   Atonement, the real and efficacious Substitution for guilty men, the
   Redemption which actually redeems, the Sacrifice which reconciles! In
   Him dwells the Truth of the matter--He is not prediction but fact--not
   promise but fulfillment!

   Oh, never listen, for a moment, to those who would spiritualize Christ,
   Himself, and make out even His Person and work to be shadows! Certain
   teachers have risen who seem to look upon our Redeemer's life as a sort
   of allegory, an instructive parable, or a myth out of which eclectic
   minds like theirs may spell out mystic truth. It cannot be so! Christ
   Jesus is a fact--God was Man in human flesh--that mysterious Person,
   the Son of God, the Son of Mary, lived and loved and died and rose
   again! His Sacrifice, once offered, has forever put away sin and it has
   bestowed upon Him the power, by His intercession, to save unto the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him.

   If I had been sent, this day, to be the preacher of the shadows of the
   Law I would have done my best to obey my Master, but as I am
   commissioned to preach absolute certainties, I am full of delight and
   resolved to speak boldly. We preach not fictions, dreams, or parables,
   but literal facts! What a joy I feel--a joy as true and unfeigned as
   the glad tidings I deliver! For real guilt, here is actual Atonement
   and sure forgiveness! For access to God, here is an open way and a
   tender hand to guide you in it! Trifle not with that which is no
   trifle, lest when you come into real straits and the waters of death
   are actually around you, you shall find the lack of the only Friend who
   can effectually help you in your hour of need!

   Death and judgment are no fiction! Seek, therefore, in very deed, for
   the substantial Grace which can bear you through. God confirms the
   Priesthood of Christ by an oath because it is a real Priesthood! I pray
   you cast your soul upon it by true and real faith. But perhaps to us,
   the main reason of Christ's being installed in the priesthood by an
   oath of God is this--for the strengthening of our faith. Brethren, an
   oath for confirmation among men is the end of all strife. When an
   honest man has sworn to it, the testimony stands in evidence and may
   not be questioned. When God not only gives His promise and His word,
   but swears to His declaration--who shall dare to doubt? Shall blasphemy
   go the length of accusing Him of perjury? Shall profanity give Him the
   lie in the teeth of His oath?

   There was no need for God to swear if there had not been in us a
   fearful lack of faith, but, "by two immutable things in which it was
   impossible for God to lie," He has given us strong consolation by
   swearing by Himself that it shall be so. I do beseech you, since God's
   design is the confirmation of your faith, pray that your faith may be
   confirmed by it! No measure of faith in Christ can ever be too great.
   If we trust Him blindly, implicitly, immeasurably with every interest
   for

   time and for eternity, we cannot have ventured too far. He that is
   ordained with an oath may be rested on without fear-- He cannot
   fail--it is not possible, while God's own Truth is staked upon His
   mission and guarantees His success!

   Beloved, ought not this great Truth of God bring many tremblers to
   believe in Jesus Christ? The Christ we preach is not an enthusiastic
   amateur who has come among men with high purpose but without
   commission--with good intentions but without authority. No, God,
   Himself, has appointed Him to His office and settled Him in it in the
   most solemn manner, swearing, "Your are a Priest forever after the
   order of Melchisedec." Will you not trust Him with your soul since God
   entrusts Him with His honor? Will you not accept the Priest whom God
   Himself has ordained? Will you not accept the Sacrifice which He has
   presented, whose efficacy abides forever before God?

   I beseech you, men and brethren, as many of you as have not believed in
   Jesus Christ, look well to it that you do not reject a Gospel more
   certain than certainty itself! I know not how else to express the
   sureness of that to which God has set no less a seal than His own oath!
   Right joyfully do we see the whole Nature of the infinite God
   guaranteeing the office of our glorious High Priest, for, by swearing
   by Himself, the great Jehovah has made His very Being a hostage for the
   performance of the Covenant of which Jesus is the Surety and put
   forward His own Character for Truth as the pledge of Christ's eternal
   Priesthood! May no soul among us dare to refuse a Priest so surely
   ordained to His office and settled in it by Jehovah Himself!

   II. Secondly, we ought to believe on the Lord Jesus because OF THE
   SPECIAL CHARACTER OF HIS PRIESTHOOD. This is seen in the tenor of the
   Divine oath, which runs thus--"You are a Priest forever after the order
   of Mel-chisedec." Very briefly, let me mention some of the respects in
   which our Lord Jesus is a Priest after the order of Melchis-edec. These
   ought all to be reasons for our faith and I pray the Holy Spirit to use
   them for that purpose. First, our Lord is of the order of Melchisedec
   as surpassing and superseding all other priests. As surpassing--for
   Melchisedec comes before human view as priest of the Most High God,
   blessing Abraham, "and without doubt the less is blessed of the
   greater."

   Abraham, and Levi in his loins, pay Melchisedec homage! Now, whatever
   may be said about the priesthood of other men, there can be no doubt
   about the superior Priesthood of Melchisedec. Abraham acknowledged it
   at once, so that before there were any Aaronic priests, there was a
   greater Priest. Before the foundation of the world, when there was no
   word concerning a priest of the house of Levi, our Lord Jesus Christ
   was looked upon by God as Priest and Sacrifice for men. It is not said,
   "Your shall be a priest," but, "You are a Priest forever." The verb is
   left out, but the word, "are," in the present tense, is correctly
   enough supplied by the translators. "You are a Priest forever after the
   order of Melchisedec." He was a Priest before Aaron and his sons were
   born or thought of!

   Moreover, consider that the decree registered by the Psalmist in the
   110th Psalm was published by Revelation hundreds of years after the Law
   had been given, so that it was not an old decree invalidated by the Law
   of Moses, but a newly published decree abrogating, in due time, that
   which had gone before. Even while the Law was in its palmy days and the
   priest wore the Urim and the Thummim, there was a note struck in the
   Psalms of David which intimated the ending of it all because there was
   another Priest, not of the house of Aaron, who surpassed all of them,
   being made a Priest by oath, even while they were priests without an
   oath. Whatever priesthood there may have been of God's ordaining under
   the Old Testament, it was evidently all subordinate to the superior
   Melchisedec-Priesthood of Jesus Christ our Savior and was predestinated
   to give place to it.

   It was a Priesthood which united with itself the dignity of kingship.
   This Melchisedec, Priest of the Most High God, was king even as Jesus
   Christ is King of kings, as well as High Priest over the house of God.
   Jesus is, first, Melek Zadok, King of Righteousness, setting up a
   kingdom of righteousness and fulfilling all righteousness Himself. And
   then he is King of Salem, or of peace, bringing peace to those that
   believe in Him and follow after righteousness. Now, it is a main ground
   of trust in Jesus that He is King as well as Priest, with power in His
   arm as well as merit in His blood--with power to rule and govern and
   protect us--as well as with an efficacious Sacrifice to purge our sins.

   We ought to trust implicitly in One whose royal Omnipotence supports
   His sacred merit. Double faith should be bestowed on Him who exercises
   the double office of the King and the Priesthood. Our faith should also
   rest on the fact that our Lord was, like Melchisedec, "without father,
   without mother." We find no father or mother mentioned in the case of
   Melchisedec because he did not come to the Priesthood by natural
   descent as did the sons of Aaron and in this he is the great type of
   Jesus, who is not one of a line, but the only Priest of His order! As a
   Priest, He is "without beginning of

   days or end of years," neither taking the Priesthood from a
   predecessor, nor passing it on to a successor, nor laying it down
   because of old age.

   There was no beginning to our Lord's Priesthood, for the witness is,
   "You are a Priest forever," and there will be no end to it, for even in
   the glory He--

   "Looks like a Lamb that has been slain, And wears His Priesthood
   still." Our Lord has not left off being a Priest today, poor Sinner!
   Come to Him with your sins and seek reconciliation! He is able to hear
   your confession and grant you absolution--He will present your praise
   and offer your prayer, for He always lives and because of this He is
   able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.
   Melchisedec had no predecessor, no assessor and no successor--and so is
   it with our Lord. Of His order there was none before Him--He is the
   only Priest of His line. None stood side by side with Him, for He
   needed none. And none can be compared with Him--by His one Sacrifice He
   has perfected all who accept His Priesthood--what more is needed?

   None can follow our Lord in His office. How can there be any successor
   to Him since He has an endless life and in the power of that endless
   life always lives to make intercession for us? Listen, you that need a
   priest to reconcile you to God! Here is One ordained to that office
   from of old who performs His office even now and ceases not from it for
   a moment! He, at this moment, asks no help from you, nor from a priest
   of Rome or Canterbury, or any other place, but is able, Himself, alone,
   with His own precious blood and prevalent intercession, to save you to
   the uttermost! This great Priest of ours is Master of all, for as
   Melchisedec received homage from Abraham in the form of tithes, so does
   our blessed Lord receive the reverence of all who believe.

   The day comes when every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue shall
   confess that He is Lord to the Glory of God the Father! Therefore come
   and trust Him--trust the Lord of All! O you guilty ones who desire
   salvation, I beseech you repose upon Him, for He must reign and you
   must either kiss Him with the homage of your heart, or else He will
   break you as with a rod of iron in the day of His power! Perhaps one of
   the main points about Melchisedec is that he is represented as
   bestowing blessings. When he came to meet Abraham, the chief thing he
   did was to bless the Patriarch. The Apostle does not refer to the
   bringing forth of bread and wine by Melchisedec because he regarded it
   as a temporal blessing included in the greater spiritual one.

   Our Lord Jesus blesses all that trust Him--blesses them with the riches
   of Heaven and earth--with the eternal Word of God which sustains their
   souls and with supplies for this mortal life so that they live and
   praise Him. It is inevitable that blessing should flow forth wherever
   He comes. He never touches without healing. He never speaks without
   consoling. He never comes to dwell with a man without enriching. He
   never belongs to a man without sanctifying and perfecting him. Oh, what
   a blessed Priest He is! Who would refuse Him, since He is all blessing?
   "Virtue has gone out of Me," He said and virtue is going out of Him
   every day to the sons of men! "In Him shall the families of the earth
   be blessed."

   Once again, Christ is never to be changed or superseded. He is a Priest
   forever. As we read nothing of Melchisedec's having given up the
   priesthood, so depend upon it, Christ never will lay down His office
   while there remains a single man to be saved. "Once a priest always a
   priest" is true of the Lord Jesus Christ though true of nobody else!
   Once was He ordained and none can take Him from His Priesthood. When
   once the Father set Him upon the hill of Zion as King, the kings of the
   earth cannot dash Him from His Throne! O you who pine for certainty and
   seek everlasting life, come and rest your everlasting hopes on His
   everlasting Priesthood!

   That is my point all the way through. You have not to trust a mere man.
   You have not to rely upon one who will die, or leave his office to
   another who may not know you or care for you. You are to trust One who
   cannot change or die! If I were called upon to be the advocate of human
   priests this morning. If I were ordained to tell you to trust to the
   shavelings of Rome, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth for
   lack of arguments--for what can there be in them that we should trust
   them? O Sirs, the most brutish delusion in the world is to rely upon
   any priest of our own sinful race! I would as soon trust my salvation
   with the Norwood Gypsy as with a Cardinal Archbishop! Her imposture is
   not so daring as his!

   What can priests do for us? "They can give absolution" you say? The
   Lord absolve them from the blasphemy of such a pretense! There is ONE
   pardoning Priest! There is none other under Heaven! He has made all His
   people, in another sense, to be priests unto Himself, but as atoning
   priests, or as men that offer a propitiatory sacrifice, He has ordained

   none--and all who pretend to such power must answer for it before the
   bar of God! Think of Roman and Anglican priests as priests of Baal and
   have no fellowship with such deceivers! Pray God to open their eyes
   that they may, themselves, be delivered from the delusion!

   As for you and for me, let us keep to the one Melchisedec Priest and
   yield subjection to none other. In Jesus we are complete--to look
   elsewhere would be to dishonor His perfection!

   III. I beg you, next, to notice that our text speaks OF THE SUPERIORITY
   OF THE TESTAMENT UNDER

   WHICH OUR LORD OFFICIATES in which, also, we shall find abundant
   argument for believing in Jesus. It says, "By so much was Jesus made a
   Surety of a better Testament." Learned men have fought each other very
   earnestly over the word translated, "testament." Some say that it
   means, "testament." Others answer that in the Septuagint Greek it is
   used as the interpretation of the Hebrew word which signifies,
   "covenant." I feel quite sure that the combatants are both right. I am
   always glad when I can conscientiously take both sides in a battle and
   I do so in this instance, because it matters nothing which of the two
   conquers, though it would be a loss for either side to be defeated.

   The word means both testament and covenant. God's Covenant of Grace has
   had the conditional side of it so completely fulfilled that it has
   virtually become a "testament," or a deed of free gift in which the one
   party is a donor and the other has become simply a receiver. Though the
   economy of Grace is a covenant under one aspect, under another it is
   not a covenant, not requiring something from each of two parties--but
   it has become a testament or will as to its practical result. The old
   Covenant was on this wise--if the Israelite people kept to God as their
   God and if the priests obeyed His Law and offered sacrifices according
   to Divine rule, God would accept and bless them. Thus there was an,
   "if," in the Covenant. It was conditional and, therefore, liable to
   failure.

   The people said, "All that You have spoken we will do." Eagerly, with
   all hands up, they cried, "We will do it. We will do it all!" Within 40
   days they had broken the Law and the Covenant went to pieces. A man's
   covenant is sure to be broken if it promises holiness on the part of
   the sinful and perseverance on the part of the fickle-minded! Man
   cannot bear the burden of the necessary requirements of a covenant with
   God. Our great High Priest represents another and surer Covenant. There
   is no, "if," in the Covenant of Grace! It runs thus--"I will," and,
   "You shall." That is the tenor of it. "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 mind 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."

   Its essence lies in the supreme words, "I will." Therefore, because the
   conditions of the Covenant of Grace have been fulfilled, it is in no
   danger of abrogation and Christ Jesus has become the Surety of a better
   Testament. The first Covenant was typical and shadowy--it was but a
   school lesson for children. Just as we give to our boys models of
   churches or models of ships, so was the ceremonial Law a model of good
   things to come, but it did not contain the things themselves. Christ is
   no Surety of a mere model or pattern of things in the heavens, but of a
   Covenant which deals with the heavenly things themselves, with real
   blessings, with true gifts from God! The first Covenant was
   temporary--it was meant to be so. It was meant, in part, to teach the
   coming Covenant and, in part, to show the weakness of man and the
   necessity of Divine Grace, but it was never meant to stand.

   This Covenant of which Christ is the Surety stands forever and ever.
   The everlasting hills may bow and the heavens, themselves, be rolled up
   like a worn-out vesture, but God's Covenant shall stand forever and
   forever while Christ, its Surety lives. The old Covenant was a Covenant
   in which there were imperfections, as Paul says, "For if that first
   Covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for
   the second. For finding fault with them, He says, Behold, the days
   come, says the Lord, when I will make a new Covenant with the house of
   Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the Covenant that
   I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to
   lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in My
   Covenant, and I regarded them not, says the Lord."

   In the economy of Grace of which our Lord is the Surety, no fault can
   be found! And in it there is no fuel for decay to feed upon. There is
   nothing about it that is weak and unprofitable, for it is, "ordered in
   all things and sure." "He takes away the first," not that He may set up
   another which shall be removed in its turn, but, "that He may establish
   the sec-

   ond." In this second we have Covenant purposes unalterable from
   eternity; love infinite and changeless; promises sure and inviolable
   and pledges given that can never be withdrawn, for the Lord has sworn
   and will not repent.

   How earnestly do I pray that you may have a part in this Covenant! It
   includes all Believers within its lines. O that you would believe and
   so lay hold upon the Covenant once and for all. If you have already
   believed, I pray you to rejoice in this Covenant and bless the Lord
   Jesus who has made it sure for you by His blood.

   IV. Now, of such a Covenant or Testament has Jesus Christ become the
   Priest and Surety. And with that we shall

   close dwelling upon THE RELATIONSHIP IN WHICH HE STANDS TO THAT
   COVENANT. This is our fourth

   point. I am sure we did not expect, as we were reading this passage,
   that we should come upon the word, "surety." The Apostle was speaking
   of our Lord as a Priest and he puts it thus, "By so much"--that is, by
   reason of His being inducted into His office by an oath--"was Christ
   made a Surety of a better Testament." However there is the word,
   "surety," and doubtless there is excellent reason for the unexpected
   turn in the sense.

   Testaments do not need sureties, therefore the passage should be read,
   "Covenant." But why did he turn from the idea of priesthood to that of
   suretyship? How is our Lord Jesus a Surety? He is so, first, because we
   are absolutely certain that the Covenant of Grace will stand because
   the Redeemer has come into the world and has died for us. Brothers and
   Sisters, the gift of Christ is a pledge that the Covenant, of which He
   is the Substance, cannot be dissolved! Christ has been born into the
   world! God Himself has become Incarnate--that is done and can never be
   undone! How can the Lord draw back after going so far?

   More, Christ has died! He bears in His flesh, today, the scars of His
   Crucifixion--that, also, is done, and can never be undone. If God had
   ever meant that this Covenant should be temporary, He would never have
   given His Son to bleed and die as the Substance of that Covenant! It
   cannot be that so vast an expense should be laid out upon a transient
   business. Moreover, Jesus lives and as long as He lives, the Covenant
   must be regarded as a reality. It cannot possibly be that a work should
   be regarded as fiction when it has been worked out by such an One as He
   is! The ever-living Son of God did not die to perform a mere
   representation--the abiding essence of the matter is in His work and He
   lives to prove that it is so.

   The priests of the house of Aaron were poor sureties of the former
   Covenant, for they could not keep it themselves! But Christ has kept
   the Covenant of Grace. He has fulfilled all that was conditional in it
   and carried out all that was demanded on man's part. It was conditional
   that Christ should present a perfect Righteousness and a perfect
   Atonement-- He has effected this to the fullest and now there is no,
   "if," in it. The Covenant now reads as a legacy, or a will--the will of
   God--the New Testament of the Most High! Christ has made it so and the
   very fact that there is such a Person as Jesus Christ, the Son of Man,
   living, bleeding, dying, risen, reigning--is the proof that this
   Covenant stands secure though earth's old columns bow!

   But next, Christ is a Surety on God's part. I know that divines say
   that God does not need a surety, that He is to be trusted without it.
   This is true and He is to be relied upon without an oath, but even as
   He takes an oath for our sake, so He provides a Surety for our sake
   that we may believe with stronger confidence. Christ is the Bondsman of
   God on the Father's behalf, that the Covenant shall be fulfilled.
   "Look," says the Father, "have you ever doubted Me? Believe My Son.
   Have I not given Him to you? Is He not one with you in your nature? Has
   He not died for you? Surely, if I seem too great and, therefore, too
   terrible for the grip of your faith, you may lay hold on the
   Well-Beloved, your friend and kins-man--and you may see that I give Him
   to be for Me the pledge that I intend to keep the Covenant of Grace."

   Now, as long as there is a Christ, God's Covenant evidently stands
   fast, for all the promises are, "Yes and amen in Christ Jesus to the
   glory of God by us." And until it can be proven that Christ has ceased
   to be, no man that believes in Him is in any mortal danger. Has He not
   said it, "Because I live, you shall live, also"? The life of every
   believing man and woman is bound up with the very existence of Christ
   as the gift of God! And that existence is Divine as well as human-- and
   unless He can cease to be, He cannot cease to love, bless, keep His
   people and be for them all that a high priest and surety can be! He is
   God's pledge to us that every word of promise shall stand.

   But, then, He is mainly a Surety of the new Covenant on our behalf.
   Adam entered into a Covenant with God for us, but that Covenant went to
   pieces in a very short time. Then the Second Adam became our Covenant
   Head and Surety and represented us before God. "Lo, I come," says
   He--this is the brief of it--"to stand in their place, to roll away the
   reproach of Your Law, and so to save that which is lost." Now, the
   sinner is not saved in a way which casts a slight on Jus-

   tice, for Jesus has honored the Law and borne its penalty on the behalf
   of the men whom the Father gave Him. It was a wonderful act of Grace,
   on Christ's part, to become our Surety before the Throne of Justice,
   but He did it and smarted for it--and fulfilled all that it involved.

   Beloved, I would not like to have gone to Heaven over a broken Law--no
   right-minded man could be eternally happy and yet know that the Law of
   God had to be dishonored before he could be rescued from Hell. What
   would the universe say but that God was unrighteous, for He had saved
   the ungodly and tarnished the honor of His justice by allowing sin to
   go unpunished--thus proving that the Law was needless and the
   punishment superfluous. But now they cannot thus speak concerning any
   of us who are saved in Christ Jesus! The saved one's sins have been
   punished--every Believer has borne the punishment of his guilt in the
   Person of his great Substitute! The Law is satisfied--we owe it
   nothing, for we have obeyed it actively and passively in the Person of
   our Surety!

   Even the infinite holiness of God can demand nothing of any Believer
   but what the Lord beholds and accepts on the Believer's behalf in
   Christ Jesus our Representative. "Who shall lay anything to the charge
   of God's elect? God that justifies?" No, the very act of justifying
   proves that He cannot lay anything to our charge, for that would be to
   nullify His own act. "Who is he that condemns? Christ that died?" What?
   Condemn those for whom He has shed His atoning blood? Rather, Christ
   has risen again. Shall He condemn those whom He has justified by His
   Resurrection? If so, He rose in vain! "Who sits at the right hand of
   God, who also makes intercession for us." Shall He condemn those for
   whom He has taken possession of Heaven and for whom He offers perpetual
   intercession?

   Impossible! Impossible! Our Surety, then, has rendered to the Law all
   its demands. Sing, O Zion! Rejoice, O you people of God, for God has
   rendered unto you double for all your sins! In the Person of your
   Substitute all that the Law could demand has been exacted and you are
   free! O blessed Melchisedec, High Priest forever living, we rejoice in
   You as the Surety of the Covenant, itself, and also the Surety for both
   parties of that Covenant! We rejoice that You are the guarantee on both
   sides--Surety for God as you are God and Surety for man as you are
   Man--Surety of the Covenant as God-Man in one divinely blessed Person!

   It comes to this, that we must believe in Jesus Christ and take Him to
   be our Priest or be out of the Covenant of Grace. God will not deal
   with us without a Mediator and, "there is one Mediator between God and
   men, the Man Christ Jesus." Will you have Him? Will you have Him, or
   forever be excluded from the Covenant of Grace and, consequently,
   condemned under the Covenant of Works and cast away forever and ever?
   Will you, O unbelievers? Will you despise the oath of God? I spoke of
   it with trembling just now, feeling a solemn awe at the very mention of
   the oath of God. Will you give the lie to that oath? Will you say, "You
   have sworn to Christ that He shall be Priest, but He shall never be
   mine"? This would be the honest expression of what your heart feels if
   you refuse Jesus--will you venture to speak so? Will you reject
   Heaven's own appointed Savior and deny the witness of the Lord?

   See that you do not do this, for the Lord your God is a jealous God and
   if you touch His dignity, so far as to strike at His oath, what more
   atrocious crime can you commit? "He that believes not has made God a
   liar, because He has not believed on the Son of God." Will you refuse
   the ever-living Savior? Is there one here so foolish as to be trusting
   to another priest? Oh, can it be that you are so far gone as to look to
   a man instead of looking to the Son of God? Dear Friends, if Christ
   deigns to be Priest for us, we ought gladly to accept Him--there ought
   to be a rush at Him! We are bound to cry, "Great Priest, intercede for
   me! Let Your Sacrifice avail for me! Wash me in the cleansing blood."
   It ought to be a joy to all mankind to accept this Heaven-sent Priest
   and Surety! Will you refuse Him? Will you neglect His salvation?

   If you do so, remember you shut yourselves out from the better hope and
   the better Covenant and the better promises--you are barring the door
   of Heaven against yourselves! He who rejects the Savior commits eternal
   suicide! His blood shall be upon his own head. This shall be the Hell
   of his Hell, the very center of its fire, the worm that never dies,
   that he, himself, put from him everlasting life and counted himself
   unworthy of the kingdom and would not have Christ, whom with an oath,
   God had set up that whoever believes in Him might live! God bless these
   all-important Truths of God to every heart for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Substance Of True Religion

   (No. 1598)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 15, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But you should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the
   matter is found in me?" Job 19:28.

   You will always understand a passage of Scripture better if you
   carefully attend to its connection. The habit of picking out portions
   from the Bible and separating them from their context may be carried a
   great deal too far and in the process the reader may miss the mind of
   the Spirit and force upon the words a meaning of his own. If we were to
   treat men's books as we do God's Book we would, probably, be judged to
   be insane! It is, indeed, a wonderful Book to bear such mangling! Every
   sensible person will see that it must always be wise to study the
   context, for it is likely enough to cast a light upon the passage in
   hand.

   Job, in the verse before us, is answering Bildad the Shuhite. Now, this
   Bildad on two occasions had described Job as a hypocrite and accounted
   for his dire distress by the fact that, though hypocrites may flourish
   for a time, they will ultimately be destroyed. In the two bitter
   speeches which he made, he described the hypocrite under the figure of
   a tree which is torn up by the roots, or dim even down to the root. In
   his first address, in the 8th chapter and the 16th verse, he says of
   the hypocrite, "He is green before the sun and his branch shoots forth
   in his garden. His roots are wrapped about the heap and sees the place
   of stones. If he destroys him from his place, then it shall deny him,
   saying, I have not seen you." Even the very root of the hypocrite was
   to be pulled up, so that the garden in which he once flourished should
   not remember that he had ever been there!

   Being much pleased with his metaphor, Bildad, in the 18th chapter, uses
   it again. He says, in the 14th verse of the chapter, "His confidence
   shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the
   king of terrors. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall
   his branch be cut off." This, then, was his mode of attacking Job--he
   set forth, by the emblem of a tree, the state and fate of the
   false-hearted--they might flourish for a time, but they would wither at
   last, even down to the very root, dried up and blasted by the justice
   of God. The inference he meant to draw was this--"You, Job, are utterly
   dried up, for all your prosperity is gone and, therefore, you must be a
   hypocrite." The assault was very cruel, but the sufferer successfully
   parried it.

   "No," says Job, "I am no hypocrite. I will prove it by your own words,
   for the root of the matter is still in me and, therefore, I am no
   hypocrite. Though I admit that I have lost branches, leaves, fruit and
   flowers, yet I have not lost the root of the matter, for I hold the
   essential faith as firmly as ever and, therefore, by your own argument,
   I am no hypocrite. You should say, 'Why persecute we him, seeing the
   root of the matter is found in me?'" There is, then, dear Friends, a
   something in true religion which is its essential root. It has
   fundamental matters which cannot be dispensed with under any
   circumstances. Some things pertain to godliness, are useful as
   ornaments, pleasant and desirable, yet these may be absent and still
   there may be the truth of religion in the soul!

   But there is a something which cannot be absent in any case without its
   being certain that the man is not a true child of God. There is a
   something which is vital, without which there is no spiritual life. Of
   this essential thing we are going to speak, this morning, as we are
   enabled by the Holy Spirit. Job derived comfort from the fact that the
   root of the matter was in him, whatever his accusers might say, and I
   trust that others will be encouraged as they, too, shall find that the
   root of the matter is in them. It will be pleasant to my heart to cheer
   the fainting and equally so if I can lead my stronger Brethren to deal
   tenderly with such.

   I. Our first thought will be that THIS ROOT OF THE MATTER MAY BE
   CLEARLY DEFINED. We are not left in the dark as to what the essential
   point of true religion is--it can be laid down with absolute certainty.
   True, there has been considerable disputing over the phrase before us
   and questions have been raised as to what Job meant by, "the root

   of the matter," but I conceive that if we read the verse in its own
   connection, apart from any extraneous suggestion, there will be no
   doubt about its meaning. Commence at the 25th verse and read on as Job
   spoke--he tells us plainly what is "the root of the matter." Here it
   is--"I know that my Redeemer lives and He shall stand at the latter day
   upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet
   in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself and my eyes
   shall behold, and not another; though my reins are consumed within me."

   This knowledge of the Redeemer is evidently the root of the matter.
   Come, then, let us look more closely into this choice confession of
   faith! I shall not attempt to expound this golden utterance, but I
   shall glance at it with the one objective of showing what Job
   considered to be the essence of true religion. And, first, it is clear
   that "the root of the matter" is firm faith in the Redeemer! It is to
   be able to say from the inmost heart, "I know that my Redeemer lives."
   Not, "I think so," but, "I know"--for saving faith is certain and the
   true Believer is a positive. Faith abhors conjectures! It will not put
   its foot down upon fictions, but rests upon matters offact! Faith never
   deals in the fancy goods of opinion, theory, speculation or
   probability--she searches for the priceless pearl of certainty--she
   must know!

   Such was the faith of Job and he expresses it in firm, decided, clear
   language, saying--"I know that my Redeemer lives." This faith was an
   appropriating one, so that Job took to himself the Redeemer. "I know
   that my Redeemer lives," laying hold upon the lord to be unto him all
   that He was meant to be, namely, a Redeemer who would set him at
   liberty from his misery! He embraced the Redeemer as his own and
   believed that he would be raised by Him from the pit of corruption.
   Come, Brothers and Sisters, have we such a faith as this? Have we a
   faith which knows that there is a Savior able to redeem and sure to
   accomplish the work?

   And do we take Him for our own, saying--"my Redeemer"? This is the
   point--Do we accept Him in His ordained office and cast our soul
   entirely upon Him? Are we content to sink or swim with God's appointed
   Savior? If saved, it shall be by Him! And at the foot of the Cross are
   we content to lie and wait the issue? Whatever other redeemers there
   may be, is the Lord Jesus our Redeemer in whom we trust as able to save
   to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him? This is the "root of
   the matter"--a recognition of the redeeming Lord and a simple
   dependence upon Him for sure salvation! Look steadily at the passage
   and especially gaze into its original meaning and you will see that in
   this "root of the matter" there is a recognition of the blessed Christ
   of God in the peculiar relationship which He has taken up to man.

   It is, "I know that my goel, or kinsman, lives." You know what the next
   of kin was among the Jews--it was he who must redeem the inheritance if
   it had been alienated from the family. He was the guardian of those to
   whom he was next of kin. If there had been manslaughter committed, it
   was the goel, the near kinsman, who must take vengeance on behalf of
   the murdered man. The goel was the patron of the weak ones of the
   family and the defender of the whole clan. Boaz was the redeemer of
   Ruth's patrimony because he was her next of kin after one other had
   refused to fulfill the office. Beloved, this is a cardinal point of
   saving faith, that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is next of kin
   to us poor, guilty men!

   His name is Emmanuel, God With Us--not only God from before all worlds,
   but God with us in our nature! The Word was made flesh! Jesus was born
   at Bethlehem and there He was nursed at the breast of a woman. He lived
   among our race, bearing our infirmities and tempted in all points like
   as we are, though without sin. It is most sweet for faith to say He is
   nearest of kin to me--my Goel, my Redeemer; bone of my bone and flesh
   of my flesh--

   "In ties of blood with sinners one." He is the Head, the Second Adam of
   our race, a Brother born for adversity, yes, and more than a Brother!
   Because He has deigned to enter into the closest of all relationships
   with us by taking upon Himself our nature, the Lord Jesus has now
   become our Redeemer, bound to restore to those who are in Him the
   inheritance which was forfeited by the Fall. Glory be to His name! He
   has restored that which He took not away! He has redeemed from the hand
   of the enemy that which sin and Satan snatched from us by our first
   parents' fault!

   Nor is this all. The goel was bound, also, to avenge the quarrel of his
   client. Our Lord is now our Advocate with the Father, pleading our
   cause both by the words of His mouth and by the power of His arm. "You
   have pleaded the causes of my soul," O Jesus! You are my Defender, my
   Patron, my Shield and my exceeding great Reward! Brethren, this is the
   root of the matter, to believe in the Incarnate God, to accept His
   headship, to claim His kinship and to rely upon His Redemption! This is
   the root of the matter, to call Jesus ours, our Kinsman and Redeemer
   and then to leave everything in His hands--to commit to Him our cause,
   our hopes, our fears, our past, our present and our future--and now and

   throughout life to fix our entire confidence upon Him because it is His
   office and prerogative to be the Redeemer of all that are akin to Him.
   This is plain enough and there is no mist about it! Say, is the Son of
   God all this to you?

   Look at the text, farther, and you perceive that the root of the matter
   is to believe that this Kinsman, this Redeemer lives! We could never
   find comfort or salvation in one who had ceased to be! We have no
   lively hope unless we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was raised
   from the dead! Job knew that the Redeemer lived in that capacity before
   He died and we know that He always lives, though He once died and was
   buried. If it were possible for us to believe in the merit of Christ's
   death and to deny His Resurrection, our faith would have a fatal flaw
   in it. "He was delivered for our offenses, but He was raised, again,
   for our justification," and, therefore, we must believe in the
   Resurrection or we are not justified! It is because He always lives to
   make intercession for us that He is able to save to the uttermost them
   that come unto God by Him!

   In the Romish Church her images are the image of her faith. What Christ
   is that which we see portrayed in places of worship of the papal order?
   We see there, times without number, Jesus as a child in His mother's
   arms--feeble, dependent, insignificant--well setting forth how the
   worship of Christ is overshadowed by that of the Virgin and how His
   blood and righteousness are forgotten amid the imaginary glories of
   Mary! How else do you see the Savior in papal churches? Why, everywhere
   He is represented as dead, as nailed to a cross, or wrapped in
   winding-sheets. So far, so good, for we, also, believe in Christ who
   died, though we set not up His image or picture! But Jesus is not now
   dead, neither is He here among the tombs, for He has risen! It is
   testified of Jesus that He lives! But in the Church of Rome it is the
   priest that lives and sets and does all things, while the Christ of God
   is virtually excluded and made of no use apart from sacraments and
   ceremonies.

   Our Savior is still living and active in the midst of His people and
   this is one of the vital points of our holy faith. We address ourselves
   at once to the living Redeemer and His present power to save is the
   groundwork of our expectation of eternal life and resurrection! Oh, if
   it were not for this, we might all despair! We would be the ministers
   of a dead Christ and you would be Believers in a lifeless Savior! The
   Cross would be a powerless doctrine and the Gospel a lifeless
   mes-sage--and under it men would still lie dead in their trespasses and
   sins! Our Redeemer lives in fullness of power to bless us by His
   everlasting Priesthood! Say, then, dear Souls, do you believe in Jesus
   Christ, your Kinsman? Do you believe that He has redeemed both your
   persons and your inheritance? And do you believe that He lives, having
   gone up into Glory to prepare a place for you? This is the "root of the
   matter"--a living faith in a living Redeemer who, by His death, has
   ransomed His people!

   There was still more than this. Job believed in this next of kin of his
   who still lived, that He would surely save him, seeing he trusted in
   Him. He expected that He would right all things, however wrong they
   might be, and clear the character of His servant. Job felt that though
   his accusers might condemn him and his appeal to God might not win him
   a vindication so that he might go down to his grave under a cloud of
   reproach and lie there and rot with a dishonored memory, yet he would,
   be one day, cleared. Though the worms might devour his body till no rag
   or relic of him remained, yet his living Kinsman would never rest till
   He had cleared him and enabled Job to see God without fear!

   This is the grandeur of faith, to feel that whatever God may do with
   me, if I am in Christ and behave myself as His faithful servant, He
   will preserve me from all harm! My cause may seem so utterly dead that
   it is only fit for worms' meat, but the Christ of God will bring forth
   judgment unto victory! This is the work of faith, to cast my soul on
   Christ, my next of kin whose business it is to redeem me--and though I
   cannot see the way by which I am to be saved--yet to be sure that I
   shall be! If my hopes perish and my soul sinks down into the dust of
   death, yet to the uttermost, Christ can save me and He will--and I am
   sure of it!

   And when at last the death frost strikes cold at my heart and I can
   help myself no more and human helpers fail me, I will commit my spirit
   into the dear hands of Him who is nearest and dearest--and I shall
   feel, in that last fainting hour, that His presence is my stay. Yes,
   and I shall see my God, again, and even my poor failing body, full of
   aches and pains and weakness, after resting in the grave a little
   while, shall rise again in beauty and power! The grave is a refining
   pot where the bodies of the saints are purified and made fit to dwell
   with the pure and holy God forever! Faith has no question about the
   Resurrection--she has not a mere hope, but a firmly assured belief so
   that she cries--"I know that in my flesh, through Christ my Redeemer, I
   shall see my God without fear."

   Every man, in a certain sense, will see God, for every eye shall behold
   the King upon the Throne of Judgment. But that expectation could not be
   a ground of comfort and, therefore, more is here meant by seeing God.
   Job evidently expected to see God with acceptance and with delight! And
   this he felt quite sure about, though the corruption of his body looked
   like an effectual barrier to the realization of such a hope. All his
   friends may condemn him and treat him as an alien and a stranger, but
   he so trusts himself with his Redeemer that he is quite sure of
   justification before God and men! Those who have a Divine Advocate must
   be cleared on the Judgment Day.

   Now, Soul, answer this question--Do you commit yourself wholly and
   entirely to the Mediator, the Incarnate God, the Kinsman of humanity?
   Say, do you look only to your living Advocate in life, in death and in
   eternity? Is Christ your All in All, your only and solid hope? Oh,
   then, rest assured that "the root of the matter" is found in you! It is
   clear that the essence of true religion can be clearly defined--Job has
   defined it and there it is! Judge yourselves as to whether you possess
   it or not.

   II. Secondly, let us spend a few minutes in remarking that in our text
   THIS FUNDAMENTAL MATTER IS MOST

   INSTRUCTIVELY DESCRIBED by the words which I have so constantly
   repeated--"the root of the matter." What does this mean? First, does it
   not mean that which is essential? "The root of the matter." To a tree,
   a root is absolutely essential--it is a mere pole or piece of timber if
   there is no root. It can be a tree of a certain sort without branches
   and, at certain seasons, without leaves, but not without a root. Look
   at the trees in the winter. Their substance is in them when they lose
   their leaves. The foliage has all fallen, but the bare branches and
   trunk still make a tree because a root is there.

   You may call it a tree even though only the trunk remains rooted to the
   soil. But it is not a tree if you have taken the root away and set it
   up in the hedge--it is mere dead timber for the scaffold or the fire.
   So, if a man has faith in the Redeemer, though he may be destitute of a
   thousand other most necessary things, yet the essential point is
   settled--he that believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life! If he
   has faith, he has the substance of things hoped for and hope will turn
   to experience as he grows in Divine Grace. But if he has no faith in
   the Redeemer, he may make a towering profession; he may possess vast
   knowledge; he may speak with the tongues of men and of angels and he
   may outstrip all his companions in zeal, but he is not a plant of the
   Lord's right hand planting, for he has no root in himself and will,
   before long, wither away.

   The root, again, is not only that which is vital to the tree, it is
   from the root that the life-force proceeds by which the trunk and the
   branches are nourished and sustained. There is hope for a tree, after
   it is cut down, that it shall sprout again at the scent of water. As
   long as there is a root, there is more or less of vitality and power to
   grow and so faith in Christ is the vital point of religion--he that
   believes lives. If you do not know the living Redeemer, you do not know
   life. Without trust in the work of Jesus, a man may attempt to follow
   the moral teachings of Jesus, but he will miss salvation since no
   morals which do not begin with faith in God can be acceptable to the
   Most High. The practical teaching of our holy religion is admirable and
   we must obey it or be lost--and the root of holy living is faith in
   Christ--and it cannot be produced otherwise.

   I would not say a word against the right exercise of the emotions, or
   the education of the understanding, or the regulation of the
   passions--for all these are good as branches of the tree. But the root,
   the living part of godliness, is our union to Christ by faith, our
   laying hold upon the Incarnate Son of God as dying and rising, again,
   on our behalf. Again, it is called the, "root of the matter," because
   it comprehends all the rest, for everything is in the root. You walked
   your garden in the winter and many plants were entirely
   invisible--there was not the slightest token of their presence in the
   soil. Now they are above ground, they are flowering, they are
   proceeding to fruit. Where was the plant? It was all in the root. Leaf,
   branch, fruit, seed--all were there.

   Even so, all the elements of a perfect character lie hidden in faith in
   Christ. The holiness of Heaven is packed away in the faith of a
   penitent sinner. Look at the crocus bulb. It is a poor, mean,
   unpromising sort of thing and yet wrapped up within that brown package
   lies a golden cup which, in the early Spring, will be filled with
   sunshine! You cannot see that wondrous chalice within the bulb, but He
   who put it there knows where He has concealed His treasure! The showers
   and the sun shall unwrap the folds and that dainty cup shall come forth
   to be set upon God's great table of Nature as an intimation that the
   feast of summer is soon to come!

   The highest saintship on earth is hidden within the simplicity of a
   sinner's faith like a flower within a seed. Yes, the perfect character
   of those that are without fault before the Throne of God is all in
   embryo within that first look of faith

   which links the soul with the atoning merits of the great Redeemer! My
   Brothers and Sisters, a young Heaven sleeps within your childlike
   confidence in Christ! It will only need the culture of the Holy Spirit
   to develop your new life into the perfect image of Christ Jesus your
   Lord. Faith is the essence, the vitality, the sum of true godliness
   and, therefore, it is called, "the root of the matter."

   III. So I come, thirdly, to dwell upon a further remark--THIS ROOT OF
   THE MATTER MAY BE PERSONALLY DISCERNED AS BEING IN A MAN'S OWN
   POSSESSION. Job says to his teasing friends, "You should say, Why
   persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?" Notice
   the curious change of pronouns! "You should say, why persecute we him,
   seeing the root of the matter is found in him?" That is how the words
   would naturally run. But Job is so earnest to clear himself from
   Bildad's insinuation that he is a hypocrite that he will not speak of
   himself in the third person, but plainly declares, "The root of the
   matter is found in me."

   Job seems to say, "The vital part of the matter may or may not be in
   you, but I know it is in me. You may not believe me, but I know it is
   so and I tell you, to your faces, that no argument of yours can rob me
   of this confidence; for as I know that my Redeemer lives, I know that
   the root of the matter is found in me." Many Christian people are
   afraid to speak in that fashion. They say, "I humbly hope it is so and
   I trust it is so." That sounds pretty, but is it right? Is that the way
   in which men speak about their houses and lands? Do you possess a
   little freehold? Did I hear you answer, "I humbly hope that my house
   and garden are my own"?

   What? Then are your title-deeds so questionable that you do not know?
   Is this the way in which you speak of your wages at the end of the
   week? "I sometimes have a hope that these shillings are mine." Is that
   the way you talk about your wife? Is that the manner in which you speak
   of your own life? Are you afraid, even, to call your soul your own? No,
   no! We demand certainties in reference to things of value and so it
   ought to be with regard to Christ and eternity! We cannot put up with
   mere hopes and surmises in reference to them. Believers should aim at
   certainty about eternal things and learn to say, like Job, "I know that
   my Redeemer lives," and, "The root of the matter is found in me." Note
   well that sometimes this root needs to be searched for.

   Job says "the root of the matter is found in me," as if he had looked
   for it and made a discovery of what else had been hidden. Roots
   generally lie underground and out of sight and so may our faith in the
   Redeemer. His interest in the Redeemer may have been a question for
   self-examination with Job when first his griefs came thick and heavy.
   It may be a matter of search with us, too--

   "He that never doubted of his state, He may--perhaps he may, too late."
   I can understand a Christian doubting whether he is saved or not, but I
   cannot understand his being happy while he continues to doubt about it,
   nor happy at all till he is sure of it! Job had made his personal
   condition the subject of investigation. He had dug beneath the surface
   and had seen within his heart. You cannot always find roots in winter
   time unless you use a spade and turn over the soil--there are winter
   times with us when we cannot tell whether we have real faith in Christ
   or not till we examine whether we are in the faith.

   After searching, Job found the treasure and said, "the root of the
   matter is found in me." And note again, the root of the matter in Job
   was an inward thing. "The root of the matter is found in me." He did
   not say, "I wear the outward garb of a religious man." No, but, "the
   root of the matter is found in me." If you, my Hearers, are in the
   possession of the essence of true Christianity, it does not lie in your
   outward profession, your baptism, your Church membership, or your
   reception of the Lord's Supper! It lies within your heart and mind.
   Faith, which is the evidence of the inner life, is altogether spiritual
   and inward. Its abode is within the vitals of the spiritual being--in
   the very core of the renewed heart. True godliness is not separable
   from the godly man--it is woven into him just as a thread enters into
   the essence and substance of the fabric.

   When Grace is found in us and we really believe in our Redeemer, we
   ought to proclaim it, for Job says, "The root of the matter is found in
   me. I know that my Redeemer lives." Are there not some among you who
   have never said as much as that? Some of you who are Believers have
   never yet acknowledged our Lord! What did I call some of you the other
   day? I think I compared cowardly Believers to rats behind the wainscot
   that come out at night to eat a crumb or two and then run in again. The
   rat is a poor creature to be compared with--it is a domestic animal, I
   suppose, for it lives in the

   house--but it is not a beautiful object to be likened to and so I will
   not compare you to it, although there might be more untruthful
   comparisons.

   I pray you try and change before I am driven to the simile. Never be
   ashamed of Christ, but if you ever are, be more ashamed of yourselves!
   There ought to be an open declaration of our faith whenever it is
   necessary, for it is written, "Be you always ready to give a reason for
   the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." The fact of our having
   the root of the matter in us will be a great comfort to us. "Alas,"
   says Job, "my servant will not come when I call him. My wife is strange
   to me, my kinsfolk fail me--but I know that my Redeemer lives! Bildad
   and Zophar and others of them all condemn me, but my conscience acquits
   me, for I know that the root of the matter is in me."

   It is a blessed thing to be able to hear the harsh speeches of men as
   though we heard them not. What does it matter how others judge me if I
   know what I know and am sure in my own soul that I am right with God?
   What if men find fault with our eyes--does it matter, if we can say,
   "One thing I know, whereas I was once blind now I see"? Critics may
   find fault with our experience and they may call our earnest
   utterances, cant, but this will not affect the truth of our conversion
   or the acceptableness of our testimony for Jesus! If the little bird
   within our bosom sings sweetly, it is of small consequence if all the
   owls in the world hoot at us!

   There is more real comfort in the possession of simple faith than in
   the fond persuasion that you are in a high state of Divine Grace. When
   we proudly think, "Oh, I need not look at the root of the matter, for
   my flowers and fruits are more than sufficient evidence," we are
   getting dangerously elevated. That man is in a perilous plight who
   glories in himself, saying, "How useful I am! How gifted! How
   influential! How highly my brethren think of me!" All this will turn
   out to be unsubstantial comfort in the hour of trial. But the root of
   the matter yields the sweetest and surest consolation at all times. If
   your Redeemer lives, you shall have a candle lighted for you in the
   darkest night! This fact will also be your defense against opposers.
   Thus may you answer them in Job's fashion, "You ought not to condemn
   me, for, though I am not what I ought to be, or what I want to be, or
   what I shall be, yet still the root of the matter is found in me. Be
   kind to me, therefore."

   Carefully observe this, my dear young Friends. You have been lately
   converted and if you fall in with those who are very stern and
   censorious, you must not be surprised. Some venerable professors have
   not so much grown ripe as sour and they show their sourness by
   censuring their younger Brothers and Sisters. It does not occur to them
   to say, "Why do we persecute him, seeing the root of the matter is in
   him?" But you may defend yourself against their hard speeches by
   declaring that you believe in the Savior even as they do! Say to them,
   "I do not know as much about the Lord Jesus as you do, but I most
   heartily trust Him. He is as much my Redeemer as He is yours. Do not,
   therefore, drive me from your company, but deal gently with me, as with
   a lamb of the flock."

   I hope that you who are now young and timid will become strong in the
   Lord before long and be no longer in danger from severe judgments. And
   when that comes about I hope that you will, by experience, be very
   gentle with those who are weak in the faith. If our friends are sincere
   in their attachment to the Redeemer, let us treat them as our Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ. Thus much on our third point.

   IV. Now we come to the fourth subject of discourse, which is a
   practical lesson from the text for those Believers in Christ who have
   passed beyond the root stage into a further development. Notice, then,
   that THIS ROOT OF THE MATTER IS TO BE TENDERLY RESPECTED BY ALL WHO SEE
   IT. "You should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the
   matter is found in me?" What a rebuke this is to the persecutions which
   have been carried on by nominal Christians against each other, sect
   against sect! Romanists have fiercely persecuted Protestants and
   Protestants have persecuted one another. If they had but listened to
   their gracious Lord and Savior, they would have heard Him whisper, "You
   should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is
   found in Me?"

   How can those who trust in the same Savior rend and devour each other?
   In many of the islands of the South Seas our missionaries have been the
   means of converting the people to the faith. In one of these the shaven
   crowns of Rome began to put in their appearance with the view of
   turning away the people from the faith to the errors of Rome. Among
   their cunning instruments of conversion was a picture representing the
   tree of the Church. Certain twigs were represented as rotten--they were
   out off and were falling into the fire--these were such persons as
   Luther, Calvin and other famous teachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

   The Protestant missionaries, too, were dead twigs and were all to be
   removed from the tree. The natives were not quite sure about this and
   made more enquiries. Certain other branches were green and
   vigorous--these were the priests of the Catholic Church and the larger
   branches were bishops and cardinals of the same community. The natives
   were not quite clear about that and passed on to examine the trunk.
   This, of course, consisted of an array of popes, of whom the islanders
   had never heard. They passed on, hoping to come to something they knew
   and so they did, for at the bottom was the name of our Lord Jesus. The
   enquiring islanders said, "And what is this at the bottom, marked with
   the name of Jesus?" "That is the root," said the priest. "Well, then,"
   shouted the natives, "we have the root! The new teachers say we have
   the root and so we are all right--our missionaries have told us the
   truth."

   There was philosophy in that. Let us see to it that "we have the root."
   Friend, do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? If so, you have
   the root! I shall be very sorry if you belong to the Church of Rome,
   for she teaches much error. But if you rest only in Christ Jesus you
   will be saved. Do you believe in the once crucified but now living
   Christ? Well, my Brother, I am sorry you should be a high-churchman, or
   anything else which is not according to Scripture, but your faith has
   saved you! I pray you think the same of me, if I, too, am a Believer in
   the one Redeemer. If I believe and rest my soul on the one salvation
   which God has provided in Christ Jesus, have charity towards me, for
   this Rock will bear both you and me. This should end all religious
   persecutions.

   But next it ought to be the end of all ungenerous denunciations. If I
   know that a man is really believing in Jesus Christ, I may not treat
   him as an enemy. If I perceive that he holds a great many wrong
   notions, I am to be grieved at his mistakes and to labor for his
   instruction, but I ought not to feel hatred towards him. It is my duty,
   especially if I am a public instructor, to expose and refute his
   errors, but as for the man, himself, if he trusts in the atoning blood,
   I am not to treat him as a reprobate. Does he believe in only Jesus
   Christ? Does he hold to the vital, fundamental Truths of God? Then I am
   not to make him an offender for a word and twist his language into a
   meaning what he never intended by it. I am too near akin to every
   Believer in Jesus to take down bell, book and candle and excommunicate
   him for not being so well-instructed as he might be!

   If the Redeemer is next of kin to me and next of kin to him, why, then,
   we are near of kin to one another and it is unseemly for us to strive
   together being Brothers in Christ! For the faith and against all errors
   we are bound to contend, but anything like personal animosity must be
   far from us. O for more Christian love! If the root of the matter is in
   any man, do not let us persecute him, but encourage him. "Well, but I
   could not enter into any Christian work with him, nor enjoy fellowship
   with him, for he does not agree with me." Is it, indeed, so? The Lord
   have pity upon you! I should not wonder but what you are the worse man
   of the two--he may be wrong in head, but you are certainly wrong in
   heart.

   Very frequently it happens that the man who has most of the spirit of
   love is also the man who is nearest to the Truth of God and I generally
   assume that he who is the least sour is the most sound. The party who
   most needs to be questioned as to whether the root of the matter is in
   him is the Brother who has no love. He whose spirit is perfumed with
   love to others not only has the root, but something of the branch, too,
   for love is the fair outgrowth of faith. Death to error, death to sin,
   but salvation to the sinner and life to the Believer, notwithstanding
   all his mistakes! Let denunciations and exclusiveness be ended forever
   and let us admit our kinship with all who are in Christ!

   Further than this, the question is, "Why persecute we him?" We can do
   that by a cold mistrust. I have seen chill suspicion exercised by good
   solid substantial Christians who have had a chronic fear and trembling
   lest new converts should not be true converts. The young man seems to
   be very earnest. He is evidently much impressed. He forsakes his sin
   and there is a great change in him. He boldly declares his faith in
   Jesus Christ, but the jealous guardian of the purity of the Church
   objects, for the young man was converted in an irregular way--he did
   not go among the Presbyterians or Baptists, or Congregationalists, or
   Evangelical Church people and get saved in a respectable manner! No, he
   went out in the street and he heard a mere ranter, or a Salvation Army
   captain and, therefore, it is feared that it cannot be a genuine work
   of Grace!

   The cautious Brother does not say much, but he draws himself into
   himself and retires from the person whom he suspects, just as a snail
   draws in his horns and hides himself in his shell. The elder Brother is
   angry and will not go in and in that way he persecutes the returning
   prodigal! Why, some of these icy critics will cause the very marrow of
   a poor fellow's bones to freeze while he looks at him! Do not let us
   stand off in holy isolation from any who have the root of the matter in
   them! Why should we persecute such? Let us encourage them and give them
   information upon the points in

   which they are deficient. Some people appear to think that every
   convert ought to be born a fully developed man in Christ Jesus, even
   as, according to mythology, Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove a
   full length woman, fully armed, shield and spear and all!

   I do not see people born again in this fashion. I believe that some of
   God's men who are to be leaders are born with beards and very early
   exhibit a knowledge far beyond their years which sets them in the front
   from the first--but for the most part, God's children are little when
   they are born, even as ours are. When my sons first came to my house
   they were by no means the young men they are now. I should think it
   likely that the same may be said of your children! What wonder, then,
   that it is so in God's house! Little children cannot run alone and
   cannot even speak plainly. Besides, they make strange noises and by
   their cries they become a nuisance to those who have no sympathy with
   babies. And so it is with new-born Christians--they cannot run as we
   wish them to and they cannot spit out the Doctrines of Grace as we
   desire, or pray as we should like them to pray. Well, but they are
   little children. And they are alive! Let us not bury them, but let us
   nurse them!

   It is one of the duties of mature Christians to take these children and
   nurse them for God, for He will give us our wages. Dear Brothers and
   Sisters, I beg you to be on the lookout in this congregation for those
   who have just received the root of the matter--those that have just had
   the Seed of God dropped into their soul! It has hardly begun to sprout,
   but you can see it is there. They can just say--

   "We are poor sinners, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is our All
   in All." Do not frighten them, do not distress them, do not chill them
   like a sharp frost! Cheer and encourage them and say, "I, too, was once
   as you are--Yes, and I, too, often am as you are. Yes, and I, too,
   sometimes wish I were still as you are, for I would still be on my
   knees, keeping humbly dependent upon Christ. Come, if elder Brothers
   and Sisters will not receive you, I will and I will cheer you and
   encourage you for Jesus' sake."

   Well, try and do that this morning, if you can, before you leave the
   Tabernacle. There may be somebody sitting next to you who just needs a
   word. Try it. I know some will be quite frightened at your venturing to
   speak to them. Very well, frighten them a little, it will not hurt
   them! Try the power of courteous personal appeal. It may be if you
   frighten one or two you will be the means of blessing so many more that
   if those who are frightened do not forgive you, they will not break
   your heart. God Himself will not, because there will be nothing to
   forgive. He will commend you for what you have done and I pray you,
   therefore, do it for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Everyday Religion

   (No. 1599)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 22, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The life which I now lire in the flesh Hire by the faith of the Son of
   God." Galatians 2:20.

   I am not about to preach from this whole verse, for I have done that
   before--this single sentence will suffice me. I shall not attempt to
   enter into the fullness of the spiritual meaning of this very deep and
   fruitful passage. I am merely going to bring out one thought from it
   and to try to work that out, I trust, to practical ends. It has
   sometimes been objected, of the preaching of the Gospel, that we exhort
   men to live for another sphere and do not teach them to live well in
   the present life. Nothing can be more untrue than this! I venture to
   say that more practical moral teaching is given by ministers of the
   Gospel than by all the philosophers, lecturers and moralists put
   together! While we count ourselves to be ordained to speak of something
   higher than mere morals, we nevertheless, no, for that very reason, we
   inculcate the purest code of duty and lay down the most sound rules of
   conduct.

   It would be a great pity, dear Brothers and Sisters, if in the process
   of being qualified for the next life we became disqualified for this!
   But it is not so. It would be a very strange thing if, in order to be
   fit for the company of angels, we should grow unfit to associate with
   men! But it is not so. It would be a singular circumstance if those who
   speak of Heaven had nothing to say concerning the way there. But it is
   not so. The calumny is almost too stale to need a new denial. My
   Brethren, true religion has as much to do with this world as with the
   world to come--it is always urging us onward to the higher and better
   life! But it does so by processes and precepts which fit us worthily to
   spend our days while here below.

   Godliness prepares us for the life which follows the laying down of
   this mortal flesh. But as Paul tells us in the text, it molds the life
   which we now live in the flesh. Faith is a principle for present use.
   Look how it has triumphed in ordinary life according to the record of
   the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Godliness with
   contentment is great gain-- it has the promise of the life that now is
   as well as of that which is to come. The sphere of faith is earth and
   Heaven, time and eternity--the sweep of its circle takes in the whole
   of our being--spirit, soul and body. It comprehends the past and the
   future and it certainly does not omit the present.

   The faith of Christians has to do with the things that now are and it
   is concerning the life that we now live in the flesh that I shall now
   speak, trying, by the help of God's Spirit, to show the influence which
   faith has upon it. There are seven points in which faith in Him who
   loved us and gave Himself for us will have a distinct influence upon
   the life which we now live in the flesh.

   I. To begin--FAITH INCLINES A MAN TO AN INDUSTRIOUS LIFE. It suggests
   activity. I will venture to say of any lazy man that he has little or
   no faith in God, for faith always works--"works by love." I lay it down
   as a thesis which shall be proven by observation that a believing man
   becomes an active man, or else it is because he cannot act and,
   therefore, what would have been activity runs into the channel of
   patience and he endures with resignation the will of the Most High. He
   who does nothing believes nothing--that is to say, in reality and in
   truth. Faith is but an empty show if it produces no result upon the
   life. If a professor manifests no energy, no industry, no zeal, no
   perseverance, no endeavor to serve God--there is grave cause to
   question whether he is a Believer at all.

   It is a mark of faith that whenever it comes into the soul, even in its
   lowest degree, it suggests activity. Look at the prodigal and note his
   early desires. The life of Grace begins to gleam into his spirit and
   its first effect is the confession of sin. He cries, "Father, I have
   sinned against Heaven and before you and am no more worthy to be called
   your son." But what is the second effect? He desires to be doing
   something! "Make me as one of your hired servants." Having nothing to
   do had helped to make him the prodigal he was. He had wasted his
   substance in riotous idleness, seeking enjoyment without employment. He
   had plunged into the foulest vices because he was master of money but
   not master of himself.

   It was not an evil thing for him when he was sent into the fields to
   feed swine--the company which he met with at the swine trough was
   better than that which he had kept at his banquets! One of the signs of
   the return of his soul's sanity was his willingness to work, although
   it might be only as a menial servant in his father's house. In actual
   history, observe how Saul of Tarsus, even before he had found peaceful
   faith in Christ, cried, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" Faith
   awakens the soul to action! It is the first question of believing
   anxiety, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

   Hence faith is such a useful thing to men in the labor and travail of
   this mortal life because it puts them into motion and supplies them
   with a motive for work. Faith does not permit men to lie upon the bed
   of the sluggard--listless, frivolous, idle--but it makes life to appear
   real and earnest and so girds the loins for the race. Everyone should
   follow an honorable vocation. It was a rule of the first Church and it
   ought to be one of the present--"If any man will not work neither let
   him eat." It is good for us all to have something to do and plenty of
   it.

   When man was perfect, God placed him in a paradise, but not in a
   dormitory. He set him in the Garden to "dress it and to keep it." It
   would not have been a happy place for Adam if he had had nothing to do
   but to smell the roses and gaze at the flowers! Work was as essential
   to the perfect man as it is to us, though it was not of the kind which
   brings sweat to the face or weariness to the limbs. In the Garden of
   Grace, Faith is set to a happy service and never wishes to be otherwise
   than occupied for her Lord. The text says, "The life which I now live
   in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." Doesn't faith in
   the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him, suggest to the
   redeemed man that he should be industrious and active? Assuredly it
   does, for it sets the Divine Savior before him as an example and where
   was there ever One who worked as Jesus did?

   In His early youth He said, "Know you not that I must be about My
   Father's business?" He was no loitering heir of a gentleman, but the
   toiling Son of a carpenter! In later life it was His meat and His drink
   to do the will of Him that sent Him. He says, "My Father works hitherto
   and I work." His was stern labor and sore travail--the zeal of God's
   House did eat Him up and the intensity of love consumed Him. He worked
   on until He could say, "I have finished the work which You gave Me to
   do." Now, it is no small thing for a man to be excited by such an
   Example and to be made a partaker of such a spirit! True faith in Him
   who loved us and gave Himself for us also seeks direction of the Lord
   as to the sphere of its action and waits upon Him to be guided by Him
   in the choice of a calling.

   This part of our discourse may be useful to young persons who have not
   settled upon what they are to do in life. Faith is a great service to
   us here. Much depends upon the choice of our pursuits. Very grievous
   mistakes have been made here--as grievous mistakes as if a bird in the
   air should have undertaken the pursuits of a fish, or a laboring ox
   should have entered into competition with a race horse. Some people,
   ambitious beyond their line, are trying to do what they were never made
   for. This is a grievous evil. There should, therefore, be a seeking
   unto God for guidance and direction-- and faith leads us to such
   seeking.

   This prayer may be used in many senses--"Show me what You would have me
   to do." In the choice of a calling, faith helps a Christian to refuse
   that which is the most lucrative if it is attended with a questionable
   morality. If the Christian could have huge purses of that gold which is
   coined out of drunkenness, lust, or the ungodliness of men, he would
   scorn to put them among his stores! Trades which are injurious to men's
   minds and hearts are not lawful callings before God! Dishonest gain is
   awful loss. Gold gained by deceit or oppression shall burn into the
   soul of its owner as the fire of Hell. "Make money," said the worldling
   to his son. "Make it honestly if you can, but make money." Faith abhors
   this precept of Mammon and, having God's Providence for its
   inheritance, it scorns the devil's bribe!

   Choose no calling over which you cannot ask God's blessing, or you will
   be acting contrary to the law of faith. If you cannot conceive of the
   Lord Jesus wishing you success in a certain line of trade, do not touch
   it! If it is not possible to think of your Lord as smiling upon you in
   your daily calling, then your calling is not fit for a Christian to
   follow! Callings should be deliberately chosen with a view to our own
   suitableness for them. Faith watches the design of God and desires to
   act according to His intent. It had been ill for David to have lived in
   retirement, or for the Prophet Nathan to have aspired to the throne.
   The Law of the Kingdom is--"Every man in his own order," or, in other
   words, "Every man according to his ability."

   If the Lord has given us one talent, let us use it in its own market.
   Or if two, or five, let us trade with them where they can be most
   profitably employed so that we may be found faithful servants in the
   day of the Master's coming. We should, also, by faith, desire such a
   calling as Providence evidently has arranged and intended for us. Some
   persons have

   never had a free choice of what vocation they would follow, for from
   their birth, by position, surroundings and connections they are set in
   a certain line of things, like carriages on the tram lines--and they
   must follow on the appointed track or stand still. Faith expects to
   hear the voice behind it saying, "This is the way, walk in it."
   Trusting to our own judgment often means following our own whims, but
   Faith seeks direction from Infallible Wisdom and so she is led in a
   right way.

   God knows your capacity better than you do! Entreat Him to choose your
   inheritance for you. If the flowers were to revolt against the gardener
   and each one should select its own soil, most of them would die through
   their unsuitable position, but he who has studied their nature knows
   that this flower needs shade and damp and another needs sunlight and a
   light soil. And so he puts his plants where they are most likely to
   flourish. God does the same with us! He has made some to be kings,
   though few of those plants flourish. He has made many to be poor and
   the soil of poverty, though damp and cold, has produced many a glorious
   harvest for the great Reaper. The Lord has set some in places of
   peril--places from which they would gladly escape--but they are there
   preserved by His hands! He has planted many others in the quiet shade
   of obscurity and they blossom to the praise of the great Husbandman.

   So, then, you see, faith has much to do with the force and direction of
   our life in the flesh. It provides impetus by giving a man something to
   live for. It shows him the far-reaching influences of the thoughts and
   deeds of today and how they issue in eternal results. And faith also
   takes the helm and steers the vessel along a safe channel towards the
   haven of holy rest. Happy are they who, in the early days of their
   youth, believe in Him who loved them and gave Himself for them and so
   begin their life walk with Jesus! Blessed be God for converting some of
   us while we were yet boys and girls! O happy young people who begin
   life with the early dew of Grace upon them!

   No prince of eastern empires was ever so richly bejeweled! You will
   not, in later days, have to lament scores of years spent in error, or
   half a life wasted in sin, or a whole 70 years frittered away in
   idleness! O that you who are yet young, who have the world before you,
   may now be led by the Spirit to follow Christ who pleased not Himself
   but did the will of His Father! So shall the life that you live in the
   flesh be lived by the faith of the Son of God who loved you and gave
   Himself for you.

   II. Secondly, FAITH LEADS A MAN TO LOOK TO GOD FOR HELP IN HIS ORDINARY
   AVOCATION. Here,

   again, it has a great influence over him. A Believer may seek of God
   the qualifications for his particular calling. "What?" you ask, "May we
   pray about such things?" Yes. The laborer may appeal to God for
   strength. The artisan may ask God for skill. The student may seek God
   for help to quicken his intelligence. David was a great warrior and he
   attributed his valor to God who taught his hands to war and his fingers
   to fight. We read of Bezaleel and of the women that were wise-hearted,
   that God had taught them so that they made all manner of embroidery and
   metal work for the House of the Lord. In those days they used to reckon
   skill and invention to be the gifts of God--this wretched century has
   grown too wise to honor any god but its own idolized self!

   If you pray over your work, I am persuaded you will be helped in it. If
   for your calling you are as yet but slenderly qualified, you may every
   morning pray God to help you that you may be careful and observant as
   an apprentice or a beginner, for has He not promised that as your day
   your strength shall be? A mind which is trusting in the Lord is in the
   best condition for acquiring knowledge and getting understanding! As to
   your behavior in your work, there is room for faith and prayer. For, O
   Brethren, whether qualified or not for any particular offices of this
   life, our conduct is the most important matter! It is well to be
   clever, but it is essential to be pure! I would have you masters of
   your trades, but I am even more earnest that you should be honest,
   truthful and holy!

   About this we may confidently go to God and ask Him to lead us in a
   plain path and to hold up our goings that we slip not. He can and will
   help us to behave ourselves wisely. "Lead us not into temptation" is
   one sentence of our daily prayer and we may further ask that when we
   are in the temptation, we may be delivered from the evil. We need
   prudence and faith remembers that if any lack wisdom he may ask of God.
   Godliness teaches the young prudence, the babies knowledge and
   discretion. See how Joseph prospered in Egypt because the Lord was with
   him. He was placed in very difficult positions--on one occasion in a
   position of the most terrible danger--but he escaped by saying, "How
   can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"

   A sense of God's Presence preserved him then and at all other times. He
   was set over all the house of Potiphar because God was with him. And
   so, dear Friends, engaged in service or in business, you may go to your
   heavenly Father

   and ask Him to guide you with His counsel and you may rest assured that
   He will order all your ways, so that your daily calling shall not
   hinder your heavenly calling, nor your conduct belie your profession!
   Faith bids you seek help from God as to the success of your daily
   calling. Know you not what David says?--"Except the Lord build the
   house, they labor in vain that build it. It is vain for you to rise up
   early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so He gives His
   beloved sleep."

   It is a most pleasant thing to be able, by faith, to consult the holy
   Oracle about everything, whether it arises in trade, or in the family,
   or in the Church. We may say with Abraham's servant, "O Lord, I pray
   You send me good speed this day." You may expect success if you thus
   seek it! And perhaps some of you would have prospered more if you had
   more believingly sought the Lord. I say, "perhaps," because God does
   not always prosper even His own people in outward things, since it is
   sometimes better for their souls that they should be in adversity--and
   then the highest prosperity is a need of prosperity. Faith quiets the
   heart in this matter by enabling us to leave results in the hands of
   God.

   Faith acts, also, in reference to our surroundings. We are all very
   much influenced by those about us. God can raise us up friends who will
   be eminently helpful to us and we may pray to Him to do so. He can put
   us into a circle of society in which we shall find much assistance in
   this life's affairs and also in our progress towards Heaven. And
   concerning this, we know, "The steps of a good man are ordered of the
   Lord." Faith will keep you clear of evil company and constrain you to
   seek the society of the excellent of this earth and thus it will color
   your whole life. If there are no friends to help him, the Believer's
   dependence is so fixed upon God that he goes forward in cheerful
   confidence knowing that the Lord, alone, is sufficient for him. Yet, if
   he is encouraged and assisted by friends, he looks upon it as God's
   doing as much as when David was strengthened by those who came to him
   in the cave.

   Do you ask, "We see the connection of this with faith, but how with
   faith upon the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us?" I
   answer--Our Savior, as the Object of our faith is also the Object of
   our imitation and you know, Brothers and Sisters, how in all things He
   rested upon God. Whenever He undertook a great enterprise, you find Him
   spending a night in prayer. If anybody could have dispensed with prayer
   it was our Lord Jesus--if any man that ever lived could have found his
   own way without heavenly guidance, it was Christ, the Son of God. If,
   then, He was much in prayer and exercised faith in the great Father,
   much more should you and I bring everything before God! We should live
   in the flesh expecting that the Lord Jesus will be with us even to the
   end and that we shall be upheld and comforted by His sympathetic love
   and tenderness.

   Faith enables us to follow Jesus as the great Shepherd of the sheep and
   to expect to be led in a right way and daily upheld and sustained until
   the Redeemer shall come to receive us unto Himself.

   III. Thirdly, faith exercises a power over a man's life of a remarkable
   kind because IT LEADS HIM TO SERVE GOD IN HIS DAILY CALLING. Never is
   life more ennobled than when we do all things as unto God. This makes
   drudgery sublime and links the poorest menial with the brightest angel!
   Seraphs serve God in Heaven and you and I may serve Him in the pulpit
   or in the kitchen and be as accepted as they are! Brethren, Christian
   men are helped by faith to serve God in their calling by obedience to
   God's commands and by endeavoring to order everything according to the
   rules of love to God and love to men. In such a case integrity and
   uprightness preserve the man and his business becomes true worship.

   Though there is no straining after eccentric unworldliness and
   superstitious singularity, yet in doing that which is right and just,
   the common tradesman is separated unto the service of the Lord. Jesus
   says, "If any man serves Me, let him follow Me," as much as to say that
   obedience to the Divine Command is the true mode of showing love to
   Jesus. If you wish to do something great for God, be greatly careful to
   obey His commands, for, "to obey is better than sacrifice and to
   hearken than the fat of rams." Godly men exercise faith in God in their
   callings by trying to manifest a Christian spirit in all that they do.
   The spirit which actuates us may seem to be a small matter so long as
   we are outwardly right, but it is, in reality, the essence of the whole
   thing. Take away the flavor from the fruit, or the fragrance from the
   flower and what is left? Such is correct living without the savor of
   Grace.

   The same thing can be done in several ways--you can do a right thing in
   so wrong a way as to make it wrong. Even in giving to the poor, a fool
   will trample upon their feelings in the very act of his charity! I have
   known others who have been unable to give, who, nevertheless, have
   expressed their inability in so kindly a form that they have comforted
   the disappointed applicant. Oh, to act in your trade and your calling
   as Christ would have acted had He been in your place! Hang that
   question up in your houses, "What would Jesus do?" And then think of
   another, "How would Jesus do it?"

   for what He would do and how He would do it may always stand as the
   best guide to us. Thus faith puts a man upon serving God by leading him
   to exhibit the spirit of Christ in what he ordinarily does, showing all
   courtesy, gentleness, forbearance, charity and love.

   Furthermore, in all that we do, we should be aiming at God's Glory. We
   should do everything as unto God and not unto men. There would be no
   eye service if we left off being men-pleasers and began to please God.
   Neither would there be impatience under injustice, for if men do not
   accept our service when we have done it with all our hearts, we shall
   comfort ourselves with the reflection that our Master in Heaven knows
   how little we deserve the unrighteous censure. To live as kings and
   priests unto God is the cream of living! Then will you be the Lord's
   free men. Serve God in serving men and serve men by serving God--there
   is a way of working out those two sentences even to the fullest--and
   thus rendering life sublime. May God the Holy Spirit teach us to do
   this.

   If we really live to serve God we shall live intensely day by day,
   allowing no time to waste. Sophia Cook sought Mr. Wesley's counsel as
   to what she should do in life and he answered, "Live today"--a very
   short direction, but one that is full of wisdom. "Live today" and
   tomorrow you may do the same. Plans for the whole term of life many of
   you may not be able to construct, but mind that you work while it is
   called today. "Son, go work today in My vineyard " is the great
   Father's command. How would a man live if he felt that he was specially
   to live for God this day? Suppose that today there was a vow upon you,
   or some other bond, by which you felt that this whole day was solemnly
   consecrated to the Lord--how would you behave yourself? So ought you to
   behave this day and every day--for you belong wholly to Him who loved
   you and gave Himself for you!

   Let the love of Christ constrain us in this matter! Let us put on the
   yoke of Christ and feel at once that we are His blood-bought
   possessions and His servants forever because by faith He has become
   ours and we are His. We ought to live as Christ's men in every little,
   as well as in every great, matter--whether we eat or drink, or whatever
   we do, we should do all to the Glory of God, giving thanks unto God and
   the Father by Christ Jesus. Thus, you see, faith in Him who gave
   Himself for us leads us to spend our energies in His service and to do
   our ordinary work with an eye to His Glory--and so our life is colored
   and savored by our faith in the Son of God.

   IV. Fourthly, faith has a very beneficial influence upon the life that
   we live in the flesh, for IT RECONCILES A

   MAN TO THE DISCOMFORTS OF HIS CALLING. It is not every calling that is
   easy or lucrative, or honored among

   men. It is a happy circumstance when a man has espoused a business
   which is so congenial with his tastes that he would not change it for
   another if he could. But some find their trades irksome to them. This
   is an evil under the sun. Some employments are despised by the
   thoughtless and involve much self-denial and, therefore, those who
   follow them need much faith to enable them to live above the trials of
   their position. Faith teaches the humble worker to see Jesus in all His
   lowliness, condescending to take upon Himself the form of a Servant for
   our sakes.

   Faith reads, "Jesus, knowing that He came forth from God and went to
   God, took a towel and girded Himself, and washed His disciples' feet."
   That was one of the most menial of employments and if our Lord and
   Master did not disdain it, why should we be ashamed of the humblest
   form of service? From now on let no man trouble you, but rejoice
   because the poor man's Savior was a Servant even as you are and He,
   too, was "despised and rejected of men." Your faith ought to help you
   by awakening your gratitude for deliverance from a far worse drudgery.
   You did for Satan things of which you are now ashamed. Any work for the
   devil and for his black cause would be dishonorable--to rule an empire
   for Satan would disgrace us--to wear the crown put on our heads by
   sinning would be a horrible curse!

   But to wash feet for Christ is glorious service. There is no
   degradation in anything that is done for God. Faith in God sanctifies
   the man and his calling, too, and makes it pleasant for him to carry
   the Cross of Christ in his daily labor. There are some who hold their
   heads high, who, nevertheless, do things that are disgraceful to
   humanity, but surely you and I ought never to think anything a hardship
   which falls to our lot by the appointment of Divine Providence. Faith
   is a great teacher of humility, for it bids us think little of
   ourselves and rest only in God. And because it fosters humility, it
   renders a man's task pleasant when otherwise it would be irksome.

   Pride makes a man stiff in the back--there are some works which he
   cannot do though he would be happy enough in doing them if he had not
   such foolish ideas of his own importance! Hard work is no disgrace to
   any man--it is far more degrading to be leading the life of a
   fashionable do-nothing! When the Lord makes us feel that we are poor
   undeserving creatures, we do not mind taking the lowest room, or doing
   the meanest work, for we feel that as long as we are out of

   Hell and have a hope of Heaven, the meanest service is an honor to us.
   We are glad enough to be where God would have us be, seeing Christ has
   loved us and given Himself for us. Faith also removes discomforts by
   reminding us that they will not last long. Faith says of trial, "Bear
   it! The time is short. Soon the Savior comes and the poorest of His
   followers shall then reign with Him." Toil on, O weary one, for the
   morning light will put an end to your labor, which lasts only through
   the hours of darkness. The glory breaks! The night is wearing away and
   the dawn appears. Therefore patiently wait and quietly hope, for you
   shall see the salvation of God!

   Thus faith takes the thorns from our pillow and makes us learn in
   whatever state we are, to be content. Do you call this nothing? Has not
   Jesus done much for us when, by faith in Him, we have learned to endure
   the ills of life with sweet content?

   V. Fifthly, faith has this further influence upon ordinary life--IT
   CASTS ALL THE BURDEN OF IT UPON THE

   LORD. Faith is the great remover of yokes and it does this, in part, by
   making us submissive to God's will. When we have learned to submit, we
   cease to repine. Faith teaches us to so believe in God, Infallible
   Wisdom and perfect Love, that we consent unto the Lord's will and
   rejoice in it! Faith teaches us to look to the end of every present
   trial and to know that it works together for good--thus again
   reconciling us to the passing grief which it causes. Faith teaches us
   to depend upon the power of God to help us in a trial and through the
   trial and in this way we are no longer tripped up by afflictions, but
   rise above them as on eagles' wings.

   Brothers and Sisters, if any of you are anxious, worn out and worried,
   stop not in such a state of mind--it cannot do you any good--and it
   reflects no honor upon your great Father. Pray for more faith that you
   may have no back-breaking load to carry, but may transfer it to the
   great Burden-Bearer. Pray to your great Lord to so strengthen and ease
   your heart that your only care may be to please Him and that you may be
   released from all other care. By this means will you be greatly helped,
   for if the burden is lightened, it comes to much the same thing as if
   the strength were multiplied. Content with the Divine will is better
   than increase of riches, or removal of affliction, for with wealth no
   peace may come and out of prosperity no joy in the Lord may arise--but
   contentment is peace, itself!

   Whatever burden faith finds in her daily avocation she casts it upon
   God by prayer. We begin with God in the morning, seeking help to do our
   work and to do it well. At His hands we seek guidance and prosperity
   from hour to hour. We pray Him to prevent our doing any wrong to
   others, or suffering any wrong from them and we ask Him to keep our
   temper and to preserve our spirit while we are with worldly men. We beg
   that we may not be infected by the evil example of others and that our
   example may be such as may be safely followed. These are our great
   concerns in business--we tremble lest in anything we should dishonor
   God--and we trust in Him to keep us.

   A Believer goes to God with the matters of each day and looks for the
   morning dew to fall upon him. He looks up through the day expecting the
   Lord to be his constant shield and at night, before he goes to rest, he
   empties out the gathered troubles of the day and so falls to a happy
   sleep. Then does a man live sweetly when he lives by the day, trusting
   his Lord with everything and finding God to be always near. To all this
   the example of the Savior leads us and His love within our hearts draws
   us. "He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him," and "was heard
   in that He feared."

   VI. Sixthly, faith has a happy influence upon the present life, for IT
   MODERATES A MAN'S FEELINGS AS TO THE RESULT OF HIS WORK. Sometimes the
   result of our work is prosperity and here the Grace of God prevents a
   dependence on worldly things. There is a keen test of character in
   prosperity. Everybody longs for it, but it is not every man that can
   bear it when it comes. True faith forbids our setting great store by
   worldly goods and pleasures and enjoyments, for it teaches us that our
   treasure is in Heaven. If we begin to idolize the things that are seen,
   we shall soon degenerate and turn aside from God.

   How easily we may spoil a blessing! Two friends gathered each a
   rose--the one was continually smelling it, touching its leaves and
   handling it as if he could not hold it too fast--you do not wonder that
   it was soon withered. The other took his rose, enjoyed its perfume
   moderately, carried it in his hand for a while and then placed it on
   the table in water-- and hours after it was almost as fresh as when it
   was plucked from the bush! We may dote on our worldly gear until God
   becomes jealous of it and sends a blight upon it! And, on the other
   hand, we may, with holy moderateness, use these things as not abusing
   them and get from them the utmost good which they are capable of
   conveying to us.

   Many pursue wealth or fame as some eager boy hunts the painted
   butterfly! At last, after a long and weary run, he dashes it down with
   his cap and with the stroke he spoils its beauty. Many a man has
   reached the summit of a life-long

   ambition and found it to be mere vanity. In gaining all, he has lost
   all. Wealth has come, but the power to enjoy it has gone--life has been
   worn out in the pursuit and no strength is left with which to enjoy the
   gain. It shall not be so with the man who lives by faith, for his chief
   joys are above and his comfort lies within. To him, God is joy so rich
   that other joy is comparatively flavorless!

   But perhaps the result of all our work may be adversity. Some men row
   very hard and yet their boat makes no headway. When an opportunity
   presents itself, the tide of trade suddenly turns against them. When
   they have corn in the mill the wind does not blow. Perhaps they lose
   all but their character and then it is that Faith comes in to cheer
   them under the disaster. I am deeply grieved when I hear of persons
   committing suicide because they were in difficulties--it is a dreadful
   thing to rush before one's Creator unbidden! Faith sustains the heart
   and puts aside all thought of such desperate attempts to fly from
   present griefs by plunging into far more awful woes. We shall bear up
   and come through our trials triumphantly if we have faith in God.

   If our heavenly Father has appointed a bitter cup for us, shall we not
   drink it? If the fields which we have tilled yield no harvests and the
   beasts that we have foddered die in the stall, shall we not bow the
   head and say, "The Lord has done it"? Must it not be right if the Lord
   ordains it? Let us still bless Him! If not, it will be our unbelief
   which hinders. How many have been happy in poverty--happier than they
   were in wealth! How often have the saints rejoiced more during sickness
   than in their health! Payson declared that during illness he felt
   happier than he had ever been, far happier than he had ever expected to
   be. Though bereavement has come into the family and sickness unto the
   household, yet Faith has learned to sing in all weathers because her
   God is still the same!

   O Brothers and Sisters, faith is a precious preparative for anything
   and everything that comes! Mind that you have it always ready for
   action. Do not leave it at home in time of a storm, as the foolish
   seaman left his anchor. Faith is not a Grace to be shut up in a closet
   or fastened to a communion table, or boxed up in a pew! Faith is an
   everyday Grace which is to be our companion in the shop and in the
   market; in the parlor and in the kitchen; in the workroom and in the
   field! Yes, it may go into the workhouse with the poor as well as into
   the mansion with the rich! It may either cheer the dreary hours of the
   infirmary, or sanctify the sunny weeks of holiday.

   Faith is for every place in which a good man may lawfully be found.
   Should fate command you to the utmost verge of the green earth, to
   rivers unknown to song, yet shall a childlike faith in God find you a
   home in every clime, under every sky. Oh, to feel the power of it, as
   to all that comes of our labor, that the life which we live in the
   flesh may be lived by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave
   Himself for us!

   VII. Lastly, faith has this sweet influence upon our present life--IT
   ENABLES A MAN CHEERFULLY TO LEAVE HIS OCCUPATION WHEN THE TIME COMES. A
   Christian may have to quit a favorite vocation on account

   of circumstances over which he has no control. He may have to emigrate
   to a distant land, or altogether to change his mode of living, which
   may involve many a wrench to his feelings. It is not always easy to
   leave the old house and all its surroundings and to take a long
   journey. Nor is it pleasant to change one's settled habits and begin
   life anew. Yet true faith sets loose by worldly things and is ready to
   haul up the anchor and make sail at the Divine bidding. The Believer
   says, "Command my journey, and I go." I am but a tent-dweller and must
   expect to be on the move.

   Like Israel in the desert, we must follow the cloud and journey or rest
   as the cloud ordains, for here we have no continuing city but we seek
   one to come. Faith has the same gracious influence upon those who enjoy
   unbroken prosperity. It keeps them from taking root in the soil of
   earth and this is a miracle of Divine Grace. Sometimes our vocations
   have to be given up through weakness or old age. It is a hard pinch to
   many a busy man when he feels that he has no more strength for
   business, when he perceives that other and more vigorous minds must be
   allowed to step into the long occupied position. The workman cannot
   bear to feel that his hand has lost its cunning--it is a sharp
   experience.

   Faith is of essential service here. It helps a man to say, "My Master,
   I am one of the vessels of Your house. If You will use me I will be
   glad. But if You will put me on the shelf, I will be glad, too. It must
   be best for me to be as You would have me." If faith resigns herself to
   the supreme Wisdom and Love and goodness of Christ and says, "Do with
   me even as You will! Use me, or set me aside." Then retirement will be
   a release from care and no source of distress. The evening of advanced
   age may be spent as joyfully as the noontide of manhood if the mind is
   stayed on God. "They shall bring forth fruit in old age" is a promise
   full often realized by Believers, for all around me are venerable
   Brothers and Sisters who are more useful and more happy than ever,
   though the infirmities of years are growing upon them!

   And then comes, at last, the leaving of your vocation by death which
   will arrive in due time to us all. Then faith displays its utmost
   energy of blessing! Brethren, may we meet death as Moses did, who, when
   God bade him climb the mountain, for there he must die, uttered no word
   of sorrow, but like a child, obeyed his Father, went upstairs to bed,
   looked wistfully out at the window upon the promised land and then fell
   asleep! How sweet to look upon the goodly land and Lebanon--and then to
   be kissed to sleep by his Father's own mouth and to be buried, man
   knows not where! His work was done and his rest was come!

   Beautiful are the departing words of Samuel when, laying down his
   office, he can challenge all men to bear witness to his character!
   Happy man, to depart amid universal blessing! O that each one of us may
   be ready to render in his account before the Judgment Seat of
   Christ--let the last day come when it may! Our Master, by whose love we
   have been endowed with faith, has taught us how to die as well as how
   to live! He could say, "I have finished the work which You gave Me to
   do," and He would have us say it. Thrice happy is the man who, in
   laying down the shepherd's crook or the carpenter's plane--in putting
   aside the ledger or the class book never to open them again, can
   exclaim--"I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith; from now
   on there is laid up for me a crown of life which fades not."

   Good old Mede, the Puritan, when he was very old and leaning on his
   staff, was asked how he was and he answered, "Why, going Home as fast
   as I can! Just as every honest man ought to do when his day's work is
   done. And I bless God I have a good Home to go to." Dear aged saints so
   near Home, does not faith transform death from an enemy into a friend,
   as it brings Glory so near to you? You will soon be in the Father's
   House and leave me behind, and yet I cannot tell--I remember that the
   other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulcher, and
   so, perhaps, may I! You have the start of us in years, but I may be
   called Home before you, for there are last that shall be first.

   Let death come when it may--we shall not be afraid, for Jesus, who has
   loved us and given Himself for us, is the Resurrection and the Life.
   Living this life in the flesh by faith upon the Son of God, we are
   waiting for the usher of the black rod to bring a message from the King
   to summon us to meet Him in the upper House! Why should we be hesitant
   to go? What is there here that we should wait? What is there on this
   poor earth to detain a Heaven-born and Heaven-bound spirit? No, let as
   go, for He is gone in whom is our treasure, whose beauties have
   engrossed our love! He is not here-- why should we desire to linger? He
   has risen! Let us rise!

   Thus, from the beginning to the end of the life that we live in the
   flesh, faith upon the Son of God answers all things and all its paths
   drop fatness. O come, Lord Jesus! Come!
     __________________________________________________________________

                             A Greater Than Solomon

   A Sermon

   (No. 1600)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Evening, February 6th, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Behold a greater than Solomon is here''Luke 11:31.

   OUR FIRST thought is that no mere man would have said this concerning
   himself unless he had been altogether eaten up with vanity; for Solomon
   was among the Jews the very ideal of greatness and wisdom. It would be
   an instance of the utmost self-conceit if any mere man were to say of
   himself''A greater than Solomon is here.' Any person who was really
   greater and wiser than Solomon would be the last man to claim such
   preeminence. A wise man would never think of it; a prudent man would
   never say it. The Lord Jesus Christ, if we regard Him as a mere man,
   would have never uttered such an expression, for a more modest,
   self-forgetting man was never found in all our race. View it on the
   supposition that the Christ of Nazareth was a mere man, and I say that
   His whole conduct was totally different from the spirit which would
   have suggested an utterance like this''A greater Solomon is here.' For
   men to compare themselves with one another is not wise, and Christ was
   wise; it is not humble, and Christ was humble. He would not have thus
   spoken if there had not been cause and reason in His infinitely
   glorious nature. It was because the divinity within Him must speak out.
   For God to say that He is greater than all His creatures is no
   boasting; for what are they in His sight? All worlds are but sparks
   from the anvil of His omnipotence. Space, time, eternity, all these are
   as nothing before Him; and for Him to compare or even to contrast
   Himself with one of His own creatures is supreme condescension, let Him
   word the comparison how He may. It was the divine within our Lord which
   made Him say'and not even then with a view to exalt Himself, but with a
   view to point the moral that He was trying to bring before the
   people''A greater than Solomon is here.' He did as good as say, 'The
   queen of the south came from a distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
   but you refuse to hear me. She gave attention to a man, but you will
   not regard your God. You will not listen to me incarnate Deity who
   tells you words of infinite, infallible wisdom.' Our Lord Jesus is
   aiming at His hearers' good, and where the motive is so disinterested
   there remains no room for criticism. He tells them that He is greater
   than Solomon, to convince them of the greatness of their crime in
   refusing to listen to the messages of love with which His lips were
   loaded. Foreigners came from afar to Solomon; but 1, says He, have come
   to your door, and brought infinite wisdom into your very gates, and yet
   you refuse me. Therefore the queen of the south shall rise up in
   judgment against you, for, in rejecting me, you reject a greater than
   Solomon.

   The second thought that comes to one's mind is this: notice the
   self-consciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

   He knows who He is, and what He is, and He is not lowly in spirit
   because He is ignorant of His own greatness. He was meek and lowly in
   heart'Servus servorum,' as the Latins were wont to call Him, Servant of
   servants,' but all the while He knew that He was Rex regum, or King of
   kings. He takes a towel and He washes His disciples' feet; but all the
   while He knows that He is their Master and their Lord. He associates
   with publicans and harlots, and dwells with the common people; but all
   the while He knows that He is the only begotten of the Father. He sits
   as a child, in the temple hearing and asking questions of the rabbis;
   He stands among His disciples as though He were one of themselves,
   conversing with the ignorant and foolish of the day, seeking their
   good; but He knows that He is not one of them; He knows that He has
   nothing to learn from them: He knows that he is able to teach senates
   and to instruct kings and philosophers, for he is greater than Solomon.
   He wears a peasant's garb, and has not where to lay His head; but He
   knows that, whatever the lowliness of His condition, He is greater than
   Solomon; He lets us perceive that he knows it, that all may understand
   the love which brought Him down so low. It is grand humility on
   Christ's part that He condescends to be our servant, our Saviour, when
   He is so great that the greatest of men are as nothing before Him. He
   counted it not robbery to be equal with God': mark that; and yet He
   made himself of no reputation.' Some people do not know their own
   worth, and so, when they stoop to a lowly office it is no stoop to
   their minds, for they do not know their own abilities. They do not know
   to what they are equal; but Christ did know: He knew all about His own
   Deity, and His own wisdom and greatness as man. I admire, therefore,
   the clear understanding which sparkles in His deep humiliation, like a
   gem in a dark mine. He is not one who stoops down according to the old
   rhyme'

   As needs he must who cannot sit upright;

   but He is One who comes down wittingly from His throne of glory,
   marking each step and fully estimating the descent which He is making.
   The cost of our redemption was known to Him, and He endured the cross,
   despising the shame. Watts well sings'

   This was compassion like a God,

   That when the Saviour knew

   The price of pardon was his blood,

   His pity ne'er withdrew.

   Brethren, if our Saviour Himself said that He was greater than Solomon,
   you and I must fully believe it, enthusiastically own it, and prepare
   to proclaim it. If others will not own it, let us be the more prompt to
   confess it. If He Himself had to say, before they would own it, A
   greater than Solomon is here,' let it not be necessary that the
   encomium should be repeated, but let us all confess that He is indeed
   greater than Solomon. Let us go home with this resolve in our minds,
   that we will speak greater things of Christ than we have done, that we
   will try to love Him more and serve Him better, and make Him in our own
   estimation and in the world's greater than He has ever been. Oh for a
   glorious high throne to set Him on, and a crown of stars to place upon
   His head! Oh to bring nations to His feet! I know my words cannot honor
   Him according to His merits: I wish they could. I am quite sure to fail
   in my own judgment when telling out His excellence; indeed, I grow less
   and less satisfied with my thoughts and language concerning Him. He is
   too glorious for my feeble language to describe Him. If I could speak
   with the tongues of men and of angels, I could not speak worthily of
   Him. If I could borrow all the harmonies of heaven, and enlist every
   harp and song of the glorified, yet were not the music sweet enough for
   His praises. Our glorious Redeemer is ever blessed: let us bless Him.
   He is to be extolled above the highest heavens; let us sound forth His
   praises. Oh for a well-tuned harp! May the Spirit of God help both
   heart and lip to extol Him at this hour.

   First, then, we shall try to draw a parallel between Jesus and Solomon;
   and, secondly, we will break away front all comparisons, and show where
   there cannot be any parallel between Christ and Solomon at all.

   I. First, then, BETWEEN CHRIST AND SOLOMON there are some points of
   likeness.

   When the Saviour Himself gives us a comparison it is a clear proof that
   a likeness was originally intended by the Holy Spirit, and therefore we
   may say without hesitation that Solomon was meant to be a type of
   Christ. I am not going into detail, nor am I about to refine upon small
   matters; but I shall give you five points in which Solomon was
   conspicuously like to Christ, and in which our Lord was greater than
   Solomon. O for help in the great task before me.

   And, first, in wisdom. Whenever you talked about Solomon to a Jew his
   eyes began to flash with exultation; his blood leaped in his veins with
   national pride. Solomon'that name brought to mind the proudest time of
   David's dynasty, the age of gold. Solomon, the magnificent, why,
   surely, his name crowns Jewish history with glory, and the brightest
   beam of that glory is his wisdom. In the east, and I think I may say in
   the west, it still remains a proverb, To be as wise as Solomon.' No
   modern philosopher or learned monarch has ever divided the fame of the
   son of David, whose name abides as the synonym of wisdom. Of no man
   since could it be said as of him, And all the kings of the earth sought
   the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, that God had put in his
   heart.' He intermeddled with all knowledge, and was a master in all
   sciences. He was a naturalist: and he spoke of trees from the cedar
   trees that are in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of
   the wall: he spoke also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things,
   and of fishes.' He was an engineer and architect, for he wrote: I made
   me great works; I built me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me
   gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of
   fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that
   bringeth forth trees.' He was one who understood the science of
   government' politician of the highest order. He was everything, in
   fact. God gave him wisdom and largeness of heart, says the Scripture,
   like the sand of the sea: and Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of
   all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For
   he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezralite, and Heman, and
   Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations
   round about.' Yes; but our Saviour knows infinitely more than Solomon.
   I want you tonight to come to Him just as the Queen of Sheba came to
   Solomon, only for weightier reasons. You do not want to learn anything
   concerning architecture or navigation, agriculture or anatomy. You want
   to know only how you shall be built up a spiritual house, and how you
   shall cross those dangerous seas which lie between this land and the
   celestial city. Well, you may come to Jesus and He will teach you all
   that you need to know, for all wisdom is in Christ. Our divine Saviour
   knows things past and present and future: the secrets of God are with
   Him. He knows the inmost heart of God, for no one knoweth the Father
   save the Son and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him. To Him it is
   given to take the book of prophetic decree and loose the seven seals
   thereof. Come, then, to Christ Jesus if you want to know the mind of
   God, for it is written that He is made unto us wisdom.' Solomon might
   have wisdom, but he could not be wisdom to others; Christ Jesus is that
   to the full. In the multifarious knowledge which He possesses'the
   universal knowledge which is stored up in Him'there is enough for your
   guidance and instruction even to the end of life, however intricate and
   overshadowed your path may be.

   Solomon proved his wisdom in part by his remarkable inventions. We
   cannot tell what Solomon did not know. At any rate, no man knows at
   this present moment how those huge stones, which have lately been
   discovered, which were the basis of the ascent by which Solomon went up
   to the house of the Lord, were ever put into their places. Many of the
   stones of Solomon's masonry are so enormous that scarcely could any
   modern machinery move them; and without the slightest cement they are
   put together so exactly that the blade of a knife could not be inserted
   between them. It is marvelous how the thing was done. How such great
   stones were brought from their original bed in the quarry'how the whole
   building of the temple was executed'nobody knows. The castings in brass
   and silver are scarcely less remarkable. No doubt many inventions have
   passed away from the knowledge of modern times, inventions as
   remarkable as those of our own age. We are a set of savages that are
   beginning to learn something, but Solomon knew and invented things
   which we shall, perhaps, rediscover in 500 years time. By vehement
   exertion this boastful nineteenth century, wretched century as it is,
   will crawl towards the wisdom which Solomon possessed ages ago. Yet is
   Jesus greater than Solomon. As for inventions, Solomon is no inventor
   at all compared with Him who said, Deliver him from going down into the
   pit, for I have found a ransom.' O Saviour, didst thou find out the way
   of our salvation? Didst thou bring into the world and carry out and
   execute the way by which hell-gate should be closed, and heaven-gate,
   once barred, should be set wide open? Then, indeed, art thou wiser than
   Solomon. Thou art the deviser of salvation, the architect of the
   church, the author and finisher of our faith.

   Solomon has left us some very valuable booksthe Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
   and the matchless Song. But, oh, the words of Solomon fall far short of
   the words of Jesus Christ, for they are spirit and life.. The power of
   the word of Jesus is infinitely greater than all the deep sayings of
   the sage. Proverbial wisdom cannot match His sayings, nor can The
   Preacher' rival His sermons, and even the divine Song itself would
   remain without a meaning'an allegory never to be explained'if it were
   not that Christ Himself is the sum and substance of it. Solomon may
   sing of Christ, but Christ is the substance of the song. He is greater
   than Solomon in His teachings, for His wisdom is from above, and leads
   men up to heaven. Blessed are they that sit at His feet.

   Again, Solomon showed His wisdom in difficult judgments. You know how
   he settled the question between the two women concerning the child;
   many other puzzles Solomon solved, and many other knots Solomon was
   able to untie. He was a great ruler and governor'a man wise in
   politics, in social economy, and in commerce'wise in all human
   respects. But a greater than Solomon is present where Christ is. There
   is no difficulty which Christ cannot remove, no knot which He cannot
   untie, no question which He cannot answer. You may bring your hard
   questions to Him, and He will answer them; and if you have any
   difficulty on your heart tonight, do but resort to the Lord Jesus
   Christ in prayer, and search His word, and you shall hear a voice as
   from the sacred oracle, which shall lead you in the path of safety.

   My point at this time, especially as we are coming to the Communion
   table, is this: I want you that love the Lord Jesus Christ to believe
   in His infinite wisdom, and come to Him for direction. I fear that when
   you are in trouble, you half suppose that the great keeper of Israel
   must have made a mistake. You get into such an intricate path that you
   say, Surely, my Shepherd has not guided me aright.' Never think so.
   When you are poor and needy still say, This my poverty was ordained by
   a greater than Solomon.' What if you seem to be deprived of every
   comfort, and you are brought into a strange and solitary way, where you
   find no city to dwell in? Yet a guide is near, and that guide is not
   foolish; but a greater than Solomon is here. I think I look tonight
   into a great furnace. It is so fierce that I cannot bear to gaze into
   its terrible blaze. For fear my eyeballs should utterly fail me and
   lose the power of sight through the glare of that tremendous flame, I
   turn aside, for the fury of its flame overpowers me. But when I am
   strengthened to look again I see ingots of silver refining in the white
   heat, and I note that the heat is tempered to the last degree of
   nicety. I watch the process to the end, and I say, as I behold those
   ingots brought out all clear and pure, refined from all dross, and
   ready for the heavenly treasury, Behold, a greater than Solomon was in
   that furnace work.' So you will find it, O sufferer. Infinite wisdom is
   in your lot. Come, poor child, do not begin to interfere with your
   Saviour's better judgment, but let it order all things. Do not let your
   little Know' ever rise up against the great knowledge of your dear
   Redeemer. Think of this when you wade in deep waters and comfortably
   whisper to yourself''A greater than Solomon is here.'

   I have not time to enlarge, and therefore I would have you notice,
   next, that our Lord Jesus Christ is greater than Solomon in wealth.
   This was one of the things for which Solomon was noted. He had great
   treasures: he made gold to be as stones, and as for silver it was
   little accounted of,' so rich did he become. He had multitudes of
   servants. I think he had 60,000 hewers in the mountains hewing out
   stones and wood, so numerous were the workmen he employed. His court
   was magnificent to the last degree. When you read of the victuals that
   were prepared to feed the court, and of the stately way in which
   everything was arranged from the stables of the horses upwards to the
   ivory throne, you feel, like the queen of Sheba, utterly astonished,
   and say, The half was not told me.' But, oh, when you consider all the
   wealth of Solomon, what poor stuff it is compared with the riches that
   are treasured up in Christ Jesus. Beloved, He who died upon the cross,
   and was indebted to a friend for a grave; He who was stripped even to
   the last rag ere He died; He who possessed no wealth but that of sorrow
   and sympathy, yet had about Him the power to make many rich, and He has
   made multitudes rich'rich to all the intents of everlasting bliss; and
   therefore He must be rich Himself. Is He not rich who enriches
   millions? Why, our Lord Jesus Christ, even by a word, comforted those
   that were bowed down. When He stretched out His hand He healed the sick
   with a touch. There was a wealth about His every movement. He was a
   full man, full of all that man could desire to be full of; and now,
   seeing that He has died and risen again, there is in Him a wealth of
   pardoning love, a wealth of saving power, a wealth of intercessory
   might before the Father's throne, a wealth of all things by which He
   enriches the sons of men, and shall enrich them to all eternity.

   I want this truth to come home to you: I want you to recognize the
   riches of Christ, you that are His people; and, in addition, to
   remember the truth of our hymn'

   Since Christ is rich can I be poor?

   What can I want besides?

   I wish we could learn to reckon what we are by what Christ is. An old
   man said, I am very old; I have lost my only son; I am penniless; and,
   worst of all, I am blind. But,' added he, this does not matter, for
   Christ is not infirm; Christ is not aged; Christ has all riches; and
   Christ is not blind; and Christ is mine; and I have all things in Him.'
   Could you not get hold of that somehow, brothers and sisters? Will not
   the Holy Spirit teach you the art of appropriating the Lord Jesus and
   all that He is and has. If Christ be your representative, why, then you
   are rich in Him. Go to Him to be enriched. Suppose I were to meet a
   woman, and I knew her husband to be a very wealthy man, and that he
   loved her very much, and she were to say to me, I am dreadfully poor; I
   do not know where to get raiment and food.' Oh,' I should say, That
   woman is out of her mind.' If she has such a husband, surely she has
   only to go to him for all that she needs. And what if nothing is
   invested in her name, yet it is in his name, and they are one, and he
   will deny her nothing.' I should say, My good woman, you must not talk
   in that fashion, or I will tell your husband of you.' Well, I think
   that I shall have to say the same of you who are so very poor and cast
   down, and yet are married to Jesus Christ. I shall have to tell your
   Husband of you, that you bring such complaints against Him, for all
   things are yours, for ye are Christ's and Christ is God's; wherefore,
   lift up the hands that hang down, and confirm the feeble knees'; use
   the knees of prayer and the hand of faith, and your estate will well
   content you. Do not think, that you are married to Rehoboam, who will
   beat you with scorpions, for you are joined to a greater than Solomon.
   Do not fancy that your heavenly Bridegroom is a beggar. All the wealth
   of eternity and infinity is His; how can you say that you are poor
   while all that He has is yours?

   Now, thirdly, and very briefly indeed. There was one point about
   Solomon in which every Israelite rejoiced, namely that he was the
   prince of peace. His name signifies peace. His father, David, was a
   great warrior, but Solomon had not to carry on war. His power was such
   that no one dared to venture upon a conflict with so great and potent a
   monarch. Every man throughout Israel sat under his vine and figtree,
   and no man was afraid. No trumpet of invader was heard in the land.
   Those were halcyon days for Israel when Solomon reigned. Ah, but in
   that matter a greater than Solomon is here; for Solomon could not give
   his subjects peace of mind, he could not bestow upon them rest of
   heart, he could not ease them of their burden of guilt, or draw the
   arrow of conviction from their breast and heal its smart. But I preach
   to you tonight that blessed divine Man of Sorrows who has wrought out
   our redemption, and who is greater than Solomon in His peace-giving
   power. Oh, come and trust Him. Then shall your peace be as a river, and
   your righteousness like the waves of the sea.' Am I addressing one of
   God's people who is sorely troubled, tumbled up and down in his
   thoughts? Brother or sister, do not think that you must wait a week or
   two before you can recover your peace. You can become restful in a
   moment, for He is our peace''even He Himself, and He alone. And, oh, if
   you will but take Him at once, laying hold upon Him by the hand of
   faith as your Saviour, this Man shall be the peace even when the
   Assyrian shall come into the land. There is no peace like the peace
   which Jesus gives; it is like a river, deep, profound, renewed, ever
   flowing, overflowing, increasing and widening into an ocean of bliss.
   The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
   heart and mind, through Jesus Christ.' Oh, come to Him. Come to Him at
   this moment. Do not remain an hour away from your Noah, or rest, for
   with Him in the ark your weary wing shall be tired no longer. You shall
   be safe and restful the moment you return to Him. The fruit of the
   Spirit is joy. I want you to get that joy and to enter into this peace.
   Blessed combination, joy and peace! Peace, peace, there is music in the
   very word: get it from Him who is the Word, and whose voice can still a
   storm into a calm. A greater than Solomon is here to give you that
   peace; beat the sword of your inward warfare, into the plow-share of
   holy service; no longer sound an alarm, but blow up the trumpet of
   peace in this day of peace.

   A fourth thing for which Solomon was noted was his great works. Solomon
   built the temple; which was one of the seven wonders of the world in
   its time. A very marvelous building it must have been, but I will not
   stay to describe it, for time fails us. In addition to this he erected
   for himself palaces, constructed fortifications, and made aqueducts and
   great pools to bring streams from the mountains to the various towns.
   He also founded Palmyra and Baalbed'those cities of the desert'to
   facilitate his commerce with India, Arabia, and other remote regions.
   He was a marvelous man. Earth has not seen his like. And yet a greater
   than Solomon is here, for Christ has brought the living water from the
   throne of God right down to thirsty men, being Himself the eternal
   aqueduct through which the heavenly current streams. Christ has built
   fortresses and munitions of defense, behind which His children stand
   secure against the wrath of hell; and He has founded and is daily
   finishing a wondrous temple, His church, of which His people are the
   living stones, fashioned, polished, rendered beautiful'a temple which
   God Himself shall inhabit, for He dwelleth not in temples made with
   hands, that is to say, of this building'; but He dwells in a temple
   which He Himself doth pile, of which Christ is architect and builder,
   foundation, and chief corner-stone. But Jesus builds for eternity, an
   everlasting temple, and, when all visible things pass away, and the
   very ruins of Solomon's temple and Solomon's aqueduct are scarcely to
   be discerned, what a sight will be seen in that New Jerusalem! The
   twelve courses of its foundations are of precious stones, its walls
   bedight with diamonds rare, its streets are paved with gold, and its
   glory surpasses that of the sun. I am but talking figures, poor
   figures, too; for the glory of the city of God is spiritual, and where
   shall I find words with which to depict it? There, where the Lamb
   Himself is the light, and the Lord God Himself doth dwell'there the
   whole edifice, the entire New Jerusalem'shall be to the praise and the
   glory of His grace who gave Jesus Christ to be the builder of the house
   of His glory, of which I hope we shall form a part for ever and ever.

   Now, if Christ does such great works, I want you to come to Him, that
   He may work in you the work of God. That is the point. Come and trust
   Him at once. Trust Him to build you up. Come and trust Him to bring the
   living water to your lips. Come and trust Him to make you a temple of
   the living God. Come, dear child of God, if you have great works to do,
   come and ask for the power of Christ with which to perform them. Come,
   you that would leave some memorial to the honor of the divine name,
   come to Him to teach and strengthen you. He is the wise master-builder;
   come and be workers together with Christ. Baptize your weakness into
   His infinite strength, and you shall be strong in the Lord, and in the
   power of His mind. God help you to do so.

   Once more. I draw the parallel upon the fifth point, and I have done
   with it. Solomon was great as to dominion. The kingdom of the Jews was
   never anything like the size before or after that Solomon made it. It
   appears to have extended from the river of Egypt right across the
   wilderness far up to the Persian Gulf. We can scarcely tell how far
   Solomon's dominions reached; they are said to have been from sea to
   sea, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth.' By one mode
   or another he managed to bring various kings into subjection to him,
   and he was the greatest monarch that ever swayed the sceptre of Judah.
   It has all gone now. Poor, feeble Rehoboam dropped from his foolish
   hands the reins his father held. The kingdom was rent in pieces, the
   tributary princes found their liberty, and the palmy days of Israel
   were over. On the contrary, our Lord Jesus Christ at this moment has
   dominion over all things. God has set Him over all the works of His
   hands. Ay, tell it out among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. The
   feet that were nailed to the tree are set upon the necks of His
   enemies. The hands that bore the nails sway at this moment the sceptre
   of all words: Jesus is King of kings, and Lord of lords! Hallelujah!
   Let universal sovereignty be ascribed to the Son of man: to Him who was
   despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
   grief.' Tell it out, ye saints, for your own comfort. The Lord
   reigneth, let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of the isles be glad
   thereof Everything that happens in providence is under His sway still,
   and the time is coming when a moral and spiritual kingdom will be set
   up by Him which shall encompass the whole world. It does not look like
   it, does it? All these centuries have passed away, and little progress
   has been made. Ah, but He cometh; and when He cometh, or ere He cometh,
   He shall overturn, overturn, overturn, for His right it is, and God
   will give it Him. And, as surely as God lives, unto Him shall every man
   bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.' Do not be afraid about it. Do not
   measure difficulties, much less tremble at them. What is faith made for
   but to believe that which seems impossible? To expect universal
   dominion for Christ when everything goes well is but the expectation of
   reason; but to expect it when everything goes ill, is the triumph of
   Abrahamic confidence. Look upon the great mountain and say, Who art
   thou, great mountain? Before the true Zerubbabel thou shall become a
   plain.' In the blackest midnight, when the ebon darkness stands thick
   and hard as granite before you, believe that, at the mystic touch of
   Christ, the whole of it shall pass away, and at the brightness of His
   rising the eternal light shall dawn, never to be quenched. This is to
   act the part of a believer; and I ask you to act that part, and believe
   to the full in Christ the Omnipotent. What means this stinted faith in
   an almighty arm? What a fidget we are in and what a worry seizes us if
   a little delay arises! Everything has to be done in the next ten
   minutes, or we count our Lord to be slack. Is this the part of wisdom?
   The Eternal has infinite leisure, who are we that we should hasten Him?

   His purposes will ripen fast,

   Unfolding every hour.

   A day is long to us: but a thousand years to Him are but the twinkling
   of a star. Oh, rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him, for the
   time shall come when the God of Israel shall put to rout His
   adversaries, and the Christ of the cross shall be the Christ of the
   crown. We shall one day hear it said'The great Shepherd reigns; and His
   unsuffering kingdom now hath come, Then rocks and hills, and vales and
   islands of the sea shall all be vocal with the one song, Worthy is the
   Lamb that was slain to receive honor and glory and power and dominion
   and might forever and ever!'

   Thus have I tried to draw the parallel, but I pray you to see the Lord
   Jesus for yourself, and know whether I have spoken the truth about Him.
   You have heard the report; now, like the Queen of Sheba, go and see for
   yourself. Get to Christ, as to His dominion, come under His sway and
   own His sceptre. Go and trust your King; love your King; praise your
   King; delight in your King. How courtiers delight to be summoned to
   court! How glad they are to see the queen's face. How pleased they are
   if she gives them but a kindly word! Surely, their fortune is made, or
   at least their hopes arc raised and their spirits lifted up. Shall we
   not sun ourselves in the presence of the blessed and only Potentate?
   Let us come into the presence of our King tonight, or else let us sit
   here and weep. Let us come to His table to feed upon Himself. Let us
   live on His Word. Let us delight in His love; and we shall surely say,
   A greater than Solomon is here.'

   II. I shall not detain you longer than a minute or two while I remark
   that we must rise beyond all parallels, if we would reach the height of
   this great argument, for BETWEEN CHRIST AND SOLOMON THERE IS MUCH MORE
   CONTRAST THAN COMPARISON'much more difference than likeness.

   In His nature the Lord Jesus is greater than Solomon. Alas, poor
   Solomon! The strongest man that ever lived, namely, Samson, was the
   weakest of men; and the wisest man that ever lived, was, perhaps, the
   greatest, certainly the most conspicuous, fool. How different is our
   Lord! There is no infirmity in Christ, no folly in the incarnate God.
   The backsliding of Solomon finds no parallel in Jesus, in whom the
   prince of this world found nothing though he searched Him through and
   through.

   Our Lord is greater than Solomon because He is not mere man. He is man,
   perfect man, man to the utmost of manhood, sin excepted; but still He
   is more, and infinitely more, than man. In him dwelleth all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily.' He is God Himself, The Word was God.'
   God dwells in Him, and He Himself is God.

   As in nature He was infinitely superior to Solomon, and not to be
   compared with him for a moment, so was He in character. Look at Christ
   and Solomon for a minute as to real greatness of character, and you can
   hardly see Solomon with a microscope, while Christ rises grandly before
   you, growing every moment till He fills the whole horizon of your
   admiration. Principally let me note the point of self-sacrifice. Jesus
   lived entirely for other people; He had never a thought about Himself
   Solomon was, to a great extent, wise unto himself, rich unto himself,
   strong unto himself; and you see in those great palaces, and in all
   their arrangements, that he seeks his own pleasure, honor, and
   emolument; and, alas! that seeking of pleasure leads him into sin, that
   sin into a still greater one. Solomon, wonderful as he is, only compels
   you to admire him for his greatness, but you do not admire him for his
   goodness. You see nothing that makes you love him, you rather tremble
   before him than feel gladdened by him. Oh, but look at Christ. He does
   not have a thought for Himself. He lives for others. How grandly
   magnificent He is in disinterested love. He loved his church and gave
   himself it.' He pours out even His heart's blood for the good of men:
   and hence, dear friends, at this moment our blessed Lord is infinitely
   superior to Solomon in His influence. Solomon has little or no
   influence today. Even in his own time he never commanded the influence
   that Christ had in His deepest humiliation. I do not hear of any that
   were willing to die for Solomon; certainly nobody would do so now. But
   how perpetually is enthusiasm kindled in 10,000 breasts for Christ!
   They say that if again there were stakes in Smithfield we should not
   find men to burn at them for Christ. I tell you, it is not so. The Lord
   Jesus Christ has at this moment a remnant according to the election of
   His grace who would fling themselves into a pit of fire for Him, and
   joy to do it. Who can separate us''even us poor pygmies''from the love
   of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?' Oh,' says one, I do not
   think I could suffer martyrdom.' You are not yet called to do so, my
   brother, and God has not given You the strength to do it before the
   need arises; but you will have strength enough if ever it comes to your
   lot to die for Jesus. Did you never hear of the martyr who, the night
   before he was to be burnt, sat opposite the fire, and, taking his shoe
   off, he held his foot close to the flame till he began to feel the
   burning of it? He drew it back and said, I see God does not give me
   power to bear such suffering as I put upon myself, but I make none the
   less doubt,' said he, that I shall very well stand the stake tomorrow
   morning, and burn quick to the death for Christ without starting back.'
   And so he did, for he was noticed never to stir at all while the flames
   were consuming him. There is a great deal of difference between your
   strength today and what your strength would be if you were called to
   some tremendous work or suffering. My Lord and Master, let me tell you,
   wakes more enthusiasm in human breasts at this moment than any other
   name in the universe. Napoleon once said, I founded a kingdom upon
   force, and it will pass away'; but Christ founded a kingdom upon love,
   and it will last forever and ever.' And so it will. Blot out the name
   of Christ from the hearts of His people? Strike you sun from the
   firmament, and quench the stars; and when you have achieved that easy
   task, yet have you not begun to remove the glory of the indwelling
   Christ from the hearts of His people. Some of us delight to think that
   we bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Where?' says one. I
   answer, it is all over us. We have been buried into His name, and we
   belong to Him, in spirit, soul, and body. That watermark, which denotes
   that we are His, can never be taken out of us. We are dead with Him,
   wherein also we were buried with Him and are risen again with Him; and
   there is nothing at this moment that stirs our soul like the name of
   Jesus. Speak for yourselves. Is it not so? Have you never heard of one
   who lay dying, his mind wandering, and his wife said to him, My dear,
   do you not know me?' He shook his head; and they brought near his
   favorite child. Do you not know me?' He shook his head. One whispered,
   Do you know the lord Jesus Christ?' and he said, He is all my salvation
   and all my desire.' Oh, blessed name! Blessed name! Some years ago I
   was away from this place for a little rest, and I was thinking to
   myself, Now, I wonder whether I really respond to the power of the
   gospel as I should like to do? I will go and hear a sermon and see.' I
   would like to sit down with you, in the pews sometimes and hear
   somebody else preach'not everybody, mark you, for when I hear a good
   many I want to be doing it myself. I get tired of them if they do not
   glow and burn. But that morning I thought I would drop into a place of
   worship such as there might be in the little town. A poor, plain man, a
   countryman, began preaching about Jesus Christ. He praised my Master in
   very humble language, but he praised Him most sincerely. Oh, but the
   tears began to flow. I soon laid the dust all round me where I sat, and
   I thought, Bless the Lord! I do love Him.' It only wants somebody else
   to play the harp instead of me, and my soul is ready to dance to the
   heavenly tune. Only let the music be Christ's sweet, dear, precious
   name, and my heart leaps at the sound. Oh, my brethren, sound out the
   praises of Jesus Christ! Sound out that precious name! There is none
   like it under heaven to stir my heart. I hope you can all say the same.
   I know you can if you love Him; for all renewed hearts are enamored of
   the sweet Lord Jesus. A greater than Solomon is here.' Solomon has no
   power over your hearts, but Jesus has. His influence is infinitely
   greater; his power to bless is infinitely greater; and so let us
   magnify and adore Him with all our hearts.

   Oh, that all loved Him! Alas that so many do not! What strange
   monsters! Why, if you do not love Christ, what are you at? You hearts
   of stone, will you not break? If His dying love does not break them,
   what will? If you cannot see the beauties of Jesus, what can you see?
   You blind bats! O you that know not the music of His name, you are
   deaf. O you that do not rejoice in Him, you are dead. What are you at,
   that you are spared through the pleadings of His love, and yet do not
   love Him? God have mercy upon you, and bring you to delight yourselves
   in Christ, and trust him! As for us who do trust Him, we mean to love
   Him and delight in Him more and more, world without end. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'COLOSSIANS 1.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''390, 389, 416.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Judgment Seat Of God

   (No. 1601)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 29, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you set at nothing your
   brother? For we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. For
   it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me,
   and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall
   give account of himself to God." Romans 14:10-12.

   NO doubt there is an error in our version, for where in the 10th verse
   we read, "The Judgment Seat of Christ," it should be, "The Judgment
   Seat of God." I suppose the word, "Christ," slipped into certain
   manuscripts because Paul had been speaking of Christ and it was thought
   to be natural that he should continue to use the same name. Paul did
   not say "Christ," but, "God"--but by that word he meant the same
   Person. Paul knew that Christ is God and when he was speaking of Christ
   it was no deviation from the subject for him to speak concerning Him
   under the title of "God." It was necessary, here, for him to use the
   word, "God," though, because he was about to quote from the Old
   Testament Scriptures a passage which speaks concerning the Sovereignty
   of God which is to be acknowledged and confessed by all mankind.

   The passage runs, "We shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of God,
   for it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to
   Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us
   shall give account of himself to God." I beg you to notice how strongly
   this passage goes to prove the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ
   because the whole run of the passage is concerning Christ. "To this end
   Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of
   the dead and living." And then the Apostle immediately, without any
   break in the sense whatever, speaks of God, because He was speaking of
   the same Person and he quotes a passage which relates to God, Himself,
   and uses it as relating to Christ! It does, indeed, relate to our Lord
   Jesus Christ, for He is "very God of very God," and God shall judge the
   secrets of men by Jesus Christ.

   In another place Paul most distinctly declares that it is Christ who is
   to judge the world. Look at the 5th chapter of the Second Epistle to
   the Corinthians, at the 10th verse, "We labor, that, whether present or
   absent, we may be accepted of Him; for we must all appear before the
   Judgment Seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in
   his body according to that he has done, whether it is good or bad."
   Therefore, though the reading should be God, the sense is "Christ." It
   would have been a most important point with Paul to draw a distinction
   between Christ and God if there had been any doubt as to His Divinity.
   It would have been a most necessary thing to prevent us from idolizing
   a mere man.

   But here, so far from taking any pains to make such distinction between
   Christ Jesus and God, as would have been necessary if He were not God,
   Paul interchanges the two words. He speaks of them in the same breath,
   for they are one! "The Lord shall judge His people," and it is "the
   Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His
   appearing and His kingdom" (2 Tim. 4:1). "Behold, He comes with clouds;
   and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him" (Rev.
   1:7). This judgment by Christ is, by our Apostle, proved from an Old
   Testament prophecy which certainly refers to Jehovah, Himself. Read
   Isaiah 45:23 and learn from it that our Lord Jesus is Jehovah and let
   us joyfully adore Him as our Savior and God to whom be Glory forever
   and ever.

   The doctrine of eternal Judgment, upon which I shall speak this
   morning, is introduced to us for a certain reason. Paul saw among
   Christians a much too common habit of judging one another. I suppose if
   Paul were to come among us, now, he would not see any remarkable
   difference upon that point. Back then the bulk of the converts were
   Jews and, as such, they brought into the Christian Church their former
   religious habits--those men who had devoutly kept the Ceremonial Law
   felt as if they would violate their consciences if they did not
   continue to keep its more prominent precepts.

   And though they gave up certain of its observances which were evidently
   abolished by the Gospel, they kept up others, such as special days for
   religious fasts and feasts.

   Many true but weak Believers were very scrupulous about what they ate,
   thinking to keep up the legal distinction between clean meats and
   unclean. At the same time, the Church had in her midst men who said,
   and said correctly, "The coming of Christ has done away with the old
   dispensation; these holy days are all types and shadows whose substance
   is in Christ. Has not the Lord shown to Peter, who is the minister of
   the circumcision, that from now on nothing is common or unclean?" The
   men of strong faith blamed their weaker brethren for being
   superstitious and, by their superstition, bringing a yoke of bondage
   upon themselves. "No," replied the weaker sort, "we are not
   superstitious! We are conscientious, while you go much too far in your
   liberty and cause us to stumble."

   Thus while the strong looked down upon the weak, almost doubting
   whether they could have come into the liberty of Christ at all, the
   weak condemned the strong, almost charging them with turning their
   liberty into licentiousness! They were both wrong, for they were
   judging one another. Paul, who was, himself, most strongly opposed to
   the Judaiz-ing party and in every respect came out clear and straight
   upon the bold lines of Christian liberty, was, nevertheless, so
   actuated by the spirit of his Master that he was ready to be all things
   to all men--and seeing grave peril of dissension where all should be
   love--he rushed into the breach and he said, "Do not judge one another:
   what have you to do with judging? There is a judgment yet to come."

   He mentioned the future judgment on purpose, that by its powerful
   influence upon their minds they might be taken away from the frivolous
   amusement, for it does not come to much more--the frivolous amusement,
   the mischievous meddlesomeness of judging one another when already the
   Judge is at the door! Let us linger a minute over this practical point
   and see how Paul rebukes the spirit of judging one another. First, he
   says in effect that it is unnatural. "Why do you judge your Brother in
   Christ? Why do you set at nothing your Brother? He whom you judge or
   despise is your Brother! You have called the weak one superstitious,
   but he is your Brother! You have called the strong man licentious
   because he enjoys his liberty, but he is your Brother."

   If we must judge, certainly it should not be those who are linked to us
   by the ties of spiritual relationship. Are not all Believers one family
   in Christ? Wherever the root of the matter is to be found, there exists
   an overwhelming argument for undying unity. Why, then, will you take
   your Brother by the throat and drag him before your judgment seat and
   make him answer to you, Brother to Brother, and then condemn him? Shall
   a Brother in Christ condemn a Brother in Christ? When the outside world
   censures Christians, we understand it, for they hated our Master and
   they will hate us. But inside the charmed circle of Christian communion
   there should be esteem for one another, a defending of each other--we
   should be anxious to apologize for infirmity than to discover
   imperfection! Far be it from us to find flaws where they do not exist!

   Would to God it were so, that perfect love cast out all suspicion of
   one another and that we had confidence in each other because Christ,
   our Lord, will hold up our Brothers and Sisters even as He has held us
   up! This judging among Christians, then, is, first of all, unnatural!
   And, next, it is an anticipation of the Judgment Day. There is to come
   a day when men shall be judged--judged after a better fashion than you
   and I can judge. How dare we, then, travesty God's great assize by
   ourselves mounting the throne and pretending to rehearse the solemn
   transactions of that tremendous hour? Judgment will come soon
   enough--may the Lord have mercy upon us in that day! My Brother, why
   need you hurry it on by yourself ascending the throne? Cannot God do
   His own work? "Vengeance is Mine: I will repay," says the Lord.

   We need not spend our time in perpetually trying to discern between the
   tares and the wheat. The tares to which the Savior referred in that
   parable were so like the wheat that men could not tell which was which.
   And His command was, "Let both grow together until the harvest." At
   harvest time He will give the reapers directions for separating between
   the real wheat and that which was a mockery of it. As for us, the
   saints shall judge the world, but for the present the order is, "judge
   nothing before the time." We can separate between the outwardly vile
   and the outwardly pure by marks which God has given us--such as
   these--"By their fruits you shall know them" and, "If any man loves not
   the Lord Jesus let him be anathema." As guardians of the Church's
   honor, we are bound to use these rules.

   But between a Brother in Christ and another Brother in Christ differing
   on minor points, between Christian and Christian, each one obeying his
   conscience, we are not to exercise mutual condemnation. Come here,
   Brothers and Sis-

   ters! Here is work enough for you all in dragging the great net to
   shore! What are you doing there? Sitting down and trying to put the
   good into vessels and cast the bad away? That work may be left till
   later on--for now let us drag the net to shore! Haul away, Brethren,
   with all your might! By-and-by shall come the time for reckoning up the
   results of our fishing and separating between the seeming and the true!

   Moreover, we not only anticipate the Judgment, but we impudently
   intrude ourselves into the office and prerogative of Christ when we
   condemn the saints. "We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of
   Christ"--that is the true Throne of Judgment. How many times have I had
   to appear before the judgment seat of my fellow men! Sometimes one's
   motives are attacked. Another time one's actions, or mode of speech, or
   way of managing Church affairs. Well, it is a small matter for us to
   appear before man's judgment seat--we may very well refuse to put in an
   appearance at all, for man is not our master and we are not bound to
   answer to his summons.

   Why is it that so many brethren seem to think that they are masters and
   have a right to judge the Lord's servants? I know some Christians who
   not only form judgments and very severe judgments, too, upon all that
   are round them as to the facts that come under their notice, but they
   also, without any facts, whatever, conceive notions concerning persons
   whom they have never seen and are full of obstinate prejudices against
   them! Many twist words into meanings which they were never intended to
   mean by the person who used them and others, even without so much as
   the excuse of misunderstanding words, sit down and imagine evil against
   their brethren! They dream that they are slighted and then hard
   judgments follow. Once imagine that you are badly treated and then you
   will think that everything is done out of spite to you--and the next
   thing is to think spitefully of others.

   There are persons about who are liberally gifted in the line of gossip
   who, by their talk, would make you think that you were living in Sodom
   and Gomorrah, if not in Tophet! You are made to fear that everyone you
   have trusted is a vile deceiver; that every man who is zealous is
   mercenary; that every minister is preaching in public what he secretly
   disbelieves; that every generous subscriber only gives out of pride!
   You are told that, in fact, you are living in a place where the race of
   Judas Iscariot is to be seen, reproduced ten thousand times over! One
   goes to bed and cannot sleep after talking to these tale-bearers. The
   consolation is that there is no truth in their wonderful discoveries.
   These slanderous statements are a base burlesque of judgment and
   nothing more.

   Why are they thought so much of? After you and I have done our best to
   hold our mimic court and have summoned this man and that man before us,
   what is it, at its best, but child's play and at its worst a violent
   usurpation of the rights of Christ Jesus who, alone, reigns as Lawgiver
   in the midst of His Church today and who will sit as Judge on the
   clouds of Heaven, by-and-by, to judge the world in righteousness? The
   Apostle argues strongly against this evil spirit of censori-ousness in
   the Christian Church and to give a knock-down blow to it, he says, "It
   is all needless. You need not judge one another, for both your Brother
   and yourself will stand before the Judgment Seat of God. There is no
   need of your condemnation, for if any man is worthless, the Judge will
   condemn him--you may not interfere with the business of the great
   Supreme--He will manage the affairs of men far better than you can."

   Yet more, your judgment is unprofitable. You would spend your time much
   more profitably if you would remember that you, who can be so exact and
   severe in pointing out this fault here and the other fault there, will
   be, yourselves, examined by an unerring eye! Your own account books
   have to be sent in and to be examined item by item--therefore look well
   to your own matters. If you were watching your own heart, out of which
   are the issues of life. If you were watching your own tongue and
   bridling it and so mastering your whole body. If you were watching your
   own opportunities for usefulness. If you were observing your Master's
   eyes as a handmaiden looks to her mistress, you would be doing
   something that would pay you far better than censuring
   others--something much more to the glory of God, much more to the gain
   of the Church--much more to the comfort of your own soul. So the
   Apostle winds up by saying, according to the most forcible rendering of
   the original, "We must, each one of us, give an account of himself to
   God."

   Brothers and Sisters, I bring these Truths of God before you because
   they are meant for Brothers in Christ and not so much for the outside
   world. It is to those who have faith and are in the family of love,
   that the word of warning is given that we do not judge. And to us the
   argument is addressed that we shall, each one, give an account for
   himself to God. I do not know that you specially need a warning against
   unkind judgments, but I know that you may need it, even as other
   Churches have. I am very thankful that we have not been much disturbed
   with this great evil but, still, it does come up among all Christian
   people more or less.

   I read the other day in an interesting pamphlet about the Apocalypse, a
   note which furnishes me with an illustration. The writer endeavors to
   explain why the tribe of Dan is not mentioned in the Book of Revelation
   as having its chosen twelve thousand. All the other tribes are there,
   but Dan is missed and Manasseh is put in his place. The author says it
   is because Dan signifies "judgment," or, "one that judges." He
   says--"These judges of evil thoughts have been sad troublers in Israel
   in all ages, not fearing to judge their brother and set at nothing
   their brother, they have judged everything and everybody but
   themselves. All who have not pronounced their Shibboleth, nor seen eye
   to eye with them have been adjudged as heretics, not to be tolerated,
   but tabooed to the extent of their ability. In vain for them has it
   been written, 'Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who
   will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the
   counsels of the hearts.'

   "Like their great ancestor of this tribe, they deal in foxes and
   firebrands and too often set on fire their neighbors' standing corn, an
   act we have never been able to commend even in Samson. This
   predilection for foxes and firebrands has unhappily developed in the
   seed of Dan to this day. And so in the place of Dan, the Judge, we get
   Manasseh, one who forgets, one who, though cast off by his brethren,
   forgets and forgives their injuries and we account it a good exchange.
   And in the New Jerusalem home, where failure will be no more, Dan, 'a
   serpent in the way,' or, 'a lion's whelp,' would be as much out of work
   as out of place." If any of the Danites hear or read this, let them
   pray for Grace to change their habits and natures.

   I. Now I come to the doctrine, itself, the solemn doctrine of Judgment
   to Come. May God make it impressive to our hearts. Our thoughts are now
   directed to the future judgment and we notice concerning it, first,
   that THE JUDGMENT WILL BE UNIVERSAL. "For we shall all stand before the
   Judgment Seat of God. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord,
   every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God."
   There will come a judgment, then, for all classes of persons--for the
   strong Brother who with his knowledge of Christian liberty went as far
   as he should. Perhaps further than he ought to have gone. He judged
   himself to be right in the matter, but he must stand before the
   Judgment Seat of Christ about it.

   There will also be a judgment for the weak Brother. He who was so
   scrupulous and precise ought not to be censuring the other man who felt
   free in his conscience, for he will, himself, stand before the Judgment
   Seat of God. No elevation in piety will exclude us from that last
   solemn test and no weakness will serve as an excuse. The man of one and
   the man of 10 talents must, alike, be reckoned with. Weak Christians
   are exempted from many trials by the gentleness of God, but not from
   the ultimate trial, for we shall, each one of us, give an account of
   himself unto God-- the strong and the weak. The men who bore office in
   the Church will have to answer for it, even as says the Apostle Paul in
   Hebrews 13:17, "They watch for your souls, as they that must give an
   account."

   And again "It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful: he
   that judges me is the Lord." I could, on bended knees, ask your pity
   for myself, having to minister to so large a congregation and with so
   much larger a congregation outside to whom I weekly minister through
   the press. Ah me, who is sufficient for these things? Who shall be
   found faithful in such a position? I think all ministers might, with
   tears in their eyes, cry to you, "Brethren, pray for us." It will be
   the height of my ambition to be clear of the blood of all men. If, like
   George Fox, I can say in dying, "I am clear, I am clear," that were
   almost all the Heaven I could wish for! Oh to discharge one's ministry
   aright and to be able to render an account like that of Paul, who said,
   "I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith." This is my soul's

   longing.

   Yes, but not only will ministers, deacons, elders and persons who had
   high standing in the Church have to appear before the Judgment Seat of
   Christ, but so will the most obscure of the members of the Church and
   those secret ones who never dared to take up membership at all! You
   will not be able to hide away forever. The man with the one talent must
   be summoned before his Lord as certainly as the man with 10 and of each
   one a reckoning shall be taken. In our Lord's parables it is always the
   King's own servants that are called before him. "The lord of those
   servants comes and reckons with them." Our Master will say to each one
   of His servants, "Give an account of your stewardship." "God shall
   judge the righteous and the wicked." "For we shall all stand before the
   Judgment Seat of God."

   I have not time or space to enter into the differences of that judgment
   as it regards the righteous and the wicked, but I confine myself to the
   one fact that all mankind will be judged according to the Word of the
   Lord in the 2nd chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, at the 5th
   verse--"The day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of
   God; who

   will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient
   continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality,
   eternal life: but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the
   truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and
   anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and
   also of the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace, to every man that
   works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no,
   respect of persons with God."

   What a motley throng will gather at that assize of all nations and
   peoples and tongues! Persons of all ages, too. You boys and girls and
   you who have lived through a long life. Kings and princes will be there
   to give in their weighty account and senators and judges to answer to
   their Judge! And then the multitude of the poor and needy and those
   that live neglecting God and forgetful of their souls--they must all be
   there! It is a universal judgment. John says, "I saw the dead, small
   and great, stand before God." Both sheep and goats shall gather before
   the great dividing Shepherd--the wise and foolish virgins shall both
   hear the midnight cry. The house on the rock and the house on the sand
   shall, alike, be tested by the last tremendous storm!

   Tares and wheat, alike, shall ripen. Bad fish and good shall be sorted
   out from the net, while the multitudes out-side--the nations that knew
   not God--shall all, without exception, hear with trembling the summons
   to the dread tribunal! Saints and sinners, too, only on what a
   different footing, are all to be judged out of the books and out of the
   Book of Life. Thus says the Word of the Lord--"We must all appear
   before the Judgment Seat of Christ; that every one may receive the
   things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it was
   good or bad." To the saints the judgment of the things done shall be
   according to righteousness, for these things shall be taken in evidence
   that they were, indeed, reconciled to God. The Judge will say, "Come,
   you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
   before the foundations of the world."

   And then shall come the evidence--"For I was hungry and you gave Me
   meat; thirsty, and you gave Me drink," and so on. These fruits shall be
   the evidence that they were in Christ--the evidence of their being
   justified by faith. While on the other hand, the sour and bitter fruit
   of the ungodly shall be an evidence that they were not planted of the
   Lord--"I was hungry, and you gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and you
   gave Me no drink; sick and in prison, and you did not minister unto
   Me." We need have no fear of the Judgment to come when we know that we
   are in Christ, for who fears to enter a just court when he knows that
   by the highest authority he has already been cleared? How complete the
   Christian's safety! There will be no accuser! So bright will be the
   righteousness of a saint through faith that no accuser will appear!

   Hark, the herald gives forth the challenge! "Who shall lay anything to
   the charge of God's elect?" All through the court it rings! And God is
   there--the faithful and all-seeing God. Does He lay anything to their
   charge? Far from it. "It is God that justifies." Outside the court the
   voice demands, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"
   They hear it in Heaven and angels, who have watched the race of every
   Believer and seen how he has been running towards the goal, are silent
   as to any accusation. The challenge is heard in Hell where devils hate
   the godly, but they dare not forge a lie against them. Happy he who can
   say, "There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the
   righteous Judge shall give me at that day." Mark, He will give it as
   Judge and on that day!

   How can some say, among you, that there is no judgment for the saints?
   Who, then, need fear to enter the court when every accusation is
   silenced and a reward is expected? But still you say that the Believer
   has sinned. Yes, but that sin has been forgiven and he has a
   righteousness with which to answer the Law. I will show you before I
   have done how the Christian has been judged, condemned and tried--and
   in reference to him the essence of the Judgment is past already, so
   that there can be no condemnation!

   And, therefore, that second challenge, "Who is he that condemns?" The
   Judge is the only one who can condemn and we are sure that He will not,
   for, "it is Christ that died, yes rather, that has risen again, who
   also makes intercession for us." Tremble not, therefore, at the
   doctrine that we shall all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ,
   but pray that, as John puts it, "we may have boldness in the Day of
   Judgment," because as Jude says, the Lord Jesus "is able to present you
   faultless before the Presence of His glory with great joy." Not a
   single person shall escape the Judgment! There shall be no omission
   from the calendar! Every being of the race of Adam shall answer for
   himself! "The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the chief
   captains and the mighty men, and every slave, and every free man" must
   see the face of Him that sits upon the Throne of God!

   We shall have to put in an appearance as men do in court when the are
   subpoenaed to attend. The word of Jesus is, "Behold I come quickly, and
   My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall
   be." Ah, how unwilling will rebels come before that Throne! Pharaoh,
   you must see a greater than Moses! Herod, you must see the young Child
   upon His Throne! Judas, you hanged yourself to escape the judgment of
   your conscience, but by no means can you escape the judgment of your
   God! Though 4,000 years have elapsed since men died and their bodies
   may have melted away, yet when the trumpet rings out clear and shrill,
   their bodies shall live again and they must all come forth, each one to
   answer for himself at that grand assize before the Judge of all the
   earth who must do right with each of them!

   Let us, then, bow before the solemn Truth that God has appointed a day
   in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He
   has ordained.

   II. The second Truth of God, which we must make as prominent as ever we
   can, is that IT WILL BE A PERSONAL JUDGMENT for each one. This is the
   pith of what the Apostle is saying--"So then every one of us shall give
   account of himself to God." The judgment will not proceed in a rough,
   indiscriminate manner, as upon a race or tribe, but each man will have
   to stand alone and the account reckoned will not be of a family or a
   nation, but of each, individually, for himself. Note this carefully, O
   men--We shall have to give an account, each man for his own actions,
   for his own thoughts, for his own words, for his own intentions--no,
   not only of that, but of himself. We shall, each man, have to give
   account of the state of his own heart, of the condition of his mind
   before God, whether he repented, whether he believed, whether he loved
   God, whether he was zealous, whether he was truthful, whether he was
   faithful.

   If it only dealt with actions, words and thoughts, the account would be
   solemn enough. But we must each one give an account of himself--of what
   he was as well as what he did--of what was in his heart as well as of
   that which came out of it in his deeds. Oh, what a trial this will be!
   We shall then have to give an account of our judgments of others. We
   shall not have to answer for what they did, but for our daring to judge
   and condemn them! Did you ever think of this, you that judge others,
   that you are laying down the standard by which you will have to be
   judged yourselves? I generally find that those who are most severe
   towards others need and often expect great leniency towards
   themselves--but it will not be so at the last, for thus it is
   written--"With what judgment you judge you shall be judged."

   How easy it will be to judge the fault finding at the Judgment Day! The
   Judge will only have to say, "They have already condemned themselves.
   They have condemned their own faults as they saw them in others. They
   have used the sharpest judgments against less faults than their
   own--out of their own mouths let them take the sentence and depart."
   You will have to render no account for other people, but you will have
   to render an account of yourself and how you judged other people. The
   last account will be wholly personal, therefore see you to it. That
   account will, according to my text, have connected with it full
   submission.

   "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me." You may say,
   today, "I do not care about God." You will have to care about Him! As
   truly as God lives you will have to bow. You may say, "What matters it
   to me what Scripture says?" It will matter to you, as certainly as God
   lives, which is putting it on the most solemn certainty that can be!
   God has taken an oath about it and declares that you shall acknowledge
   His way. You had better bend at once, for you must either break or bow.
   God means to have His Sovereignty acknowledged by all mankind. Has He
   not made us? Do we not owe everything to Him? He will not have His
   crown rights denied forever! He is Lord of all and He swears by Himself
   that every knee shall bow and acknowledge it. You will have to come to
   it, my Friend.

   Next, you will have to confess, so the text says. By this I understand
   that you will have to acknowledge that God is your Lord and Master and
   had a right to your services; that you ought to have kept His Laws;
   that in sinning you have done unrighteously and acted as you ought not
   to have acted. That confession you will not be able to withhold. Oh how
   the wicked will bite their tongues when they have to acknowledge their
   folly and wrong doing! But it will have to come out of every man's
   mouth. When God pronounces sentence and the ungodly are sent down to
   Hell, they will give their own assent to His righteousness in
   condemning and punishing them! The verdict of the castaways in Hell is
   that they deserve it and this is, indeed, the Hell of Hell--that they
   cannot deny the justice of those pains which come upon them as the
   result of their disobedience! God will see to it that we shall justify
   Him either in life or in death by confessing that He is righteous.

   I appeal to you, my dear Hearers, whether you are ready with your
   account which you will have to render to God! Have you kept one at all?
   Sometimes when men appear before a court they plead that they have no
   books and it is always

   a bad sign. You know what the judge thinks of him. Can you dare to
   examine yourself and answer questions? Can you give an account of your
   stewardship? Have you kept it correctly, or have you credited yourself
   with large things where you ought to have debited yourself? Your fraud
   will be discovered, for the great Accountant will read it through and
   will detect an error in a single moment! Is your account kept correctly
   and are you ready to render it in at this moment?

   Christian Brothers and Sisters, you and I might hold back a little
   before we could say, "Yes," to that and yet I trust we could say it,
   for we know ourselves to be accepted with God. As for those who have
   scarcely thought of their God, their Maker, what will they do? What can
   they do, when each one of them must give an account before God and they
   have no account except that which will condemn them for having wasted
   their Master's goods, for having defrauded the eternal God of that
   which was justly His due and having spent upon their lusts that which
   ought to have been dedicated to

   their God?

   This judgment, then, will be personal. You cannot put your godly mother
   into the scale with yourself! You cannot associate your dear old father
   with yourself in Judgment. O children, you cannot be judged by your
   ancestry, but by your acts, for it is written--"The Son of Man shall
   come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall
   reward every man according to His works." Oh, see to it! God help you
   to do so!

   III. Thirdly, THIS JUDGMENT WILL BE DIVINE. "We shall stand before the
   Judgment Seat of God." The Judgment will be universal, personal,
   Divine--and because it is the Judgment Seat of God, it will be a
   judgment according to the Truth of God. God will make no mistakes. He
   will not impute any wrong to us undeservedly and He will not give us
   credit for right because we bore the appearance of it. He will search
   to the very core and essence of the matter. Are you ready to be tried
   as by fire? Trial by fire is but a scant figure of trial compared to
   the searching eyes of the Most High God! He will test us by the supreme
   standard ofperfect Justice.

   We judge by one another and if we are as liberal, or as prayerful, or
   as gracious as others, we consider that it is all right. But the
   balances of the Sanctuary are far more exact. It will not be you in one
   scale and I in another--and if I am as gracious as you, we shall both
   be accepted. Ah, no! There is another standard than that--the standard
   of the Truth of God and Grace in the heart and real love to God and
   conformity to the image of Christ! Judge whether you can stand that
   test. That judgment will be most searching. "The Lord ponders the
   hearts." He will not judge after the sight of the eyes, but search out
   our secrets. Then shall the foundations be tested! Then shall all that
   the man rested on and stayed himself upon be tried--whether it was the
   Rock of Ages or whether it was the mere sand of presumption.

   There will be no such trial day before or after as that day of the
   Assize of God, "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with
   every secret thing, whether it was good, or whether it was evil." That
   judgment will be impartial. You and I are always partial in weighing
   ourselves. We generally give the most lenient verdict except when we
   happen to be despondent in spirit and then we are morbidly sensitive.
   But God will judge us without partiality. Rich Friend, that diamond
   ring will answer no purpose on that day! My Ladies, those fine garments
   will make no impression in that court! My learned Friend, that handle
   to your name will be of no use! And you, fine Sir, with your
   knighthood, earldom, or dukedom will be none the better off, for
   coronets and even imperial crowns all go for nothing before the Throne
   of God, who is no respecter of persons!

   This judgment will be final. The sentence of the Supreme Court will
   settle all. Does He say, "Depart you cursed"? They can do no other.
   Does He say, "Come you blessed"? Oh, how blessed to enter into the
   eternal Home! May none of you ever hear Him say, "Depart," for He will
   never reverse the sentence! You will have to depart and keep on
   departing, going further, further and further away from Him who is Hope
   and Life and Joy! There is no hope held out that He shall ever say,
   "Come back again, you cursed." No, "Depart into everlasting fire in
   Hell." God save us from such an ultimatum as that! At the Last Judgment
   certain sins will prove to be of heavy weight. I will do no more than
   mention a few of them. There is one that is never treated leniently by
   any judge--it is contempt of court. God will speedily condemn those who
   have despised His authority!

   Are there any such here who have despised the Lord their God and set at
   nothing His counsel? They seldom or never think of God or His Law, or
   even regard His Day. They say, "Who is the Lord that we should obey His
   voice?" Beware, you despisers and wonder and perish, for the Lord our
   God is jealous of His great name and He hears the voices of them that
   scoff at Him! Rejection of mercy is also a high crime and misdemeanor.
   The Judge who shall sit upon the Throne has already presented mercy to
   all of you and the unconverted among you have refused it! Surely you
   deserve the deepest Hell

   who slight eternal love! If the Judge can say, "The prisoner at the bar
   has had the glad tidings of forgiveness presented to him, but has
   refused to listen to the gracious message, or, having listened and
   being almost persuaded, he, nevertheless, put it off to a more
   convenient time--and here he stands a trampler on the blood of
   Christ!"--If the Judge can say this, do you wonder if He says, "Depart,
   you Cursed"?

   This will be the fiercest heat of the eternal burnings! You refused
   mercy! You put away from you Eternal Life and counted yourselves
   unworthy of salvation! This sin will be a millstone about the soul
   forever. Then there is the crime of willful, deliberate sinning, with
   intent to do so. Have any of you been guilty of this fact and have you
   not fled to Christ? Did you choose sin, knowing it to be sin? Are you
   still choosing sin and living in it against the voice of conscience?
   Ah, believe me, sin repeated, sin continued in, will bring swift and
   sure destruction! These sins go beforehand to Judgment and there lodge
   solemn complaints against the guilty.

   I cannot close amid these clouds. Break forth, O sun! Turn to the
   passage from which Paul quoted, for there you shall hear a sweet Gospel
   Words which may fitly end my discourse. Paul's mind was at Isaiah
   45:23. He did not quote the words, literally, but he gave the sense.
   Here is the passage--"I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of
   My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every
   knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Now, what words do you think
   come before these? You shall look for yourselves. I will wait while you
   open your Bibles. Do you see the blessed lines? God declares that every
   man shall bow before Him and confess His authority. But what words of
   exhortation stand before that oath of His? I wish I could make it flash
   out, at this moment, in letters of light right round the
   building--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth:
   for I am God, and there is none else."

   That message of mercy stands side by side with the judgment prophecy!
   Come, then, dear Hearts, you that are guilty, come and bow before your
   God before He ascends the throne of Judgment! Come and do willingly
   what you will have to do, by-and-by, unwillingly. Come, now, and
   confess that He is Judge and ought to be honored! Confess that He is
   King and ought to be obeyed! Confess that you are His subject and are
   bound to serve Him! Confess that you have done wrong, grievous wrong,
   in having broken His Laws! Come and make out your own indictment! Come
   and be your own accuser! Come and condemn yourself! Come and bow your
   head when God's Law condemns you! Come and acknowledge that you deserve
   Divine Wrath and submit yourself to the Lord's Justice!

   Then give another look to your God and Savior and say, "My Lord, I know
   You are my Judge, but You are also my Redeemer--I accept the place of
   condemnation, but I see that You did stand there in my behalf--the Just
   for the unjust, my Substitute, bearing my sin and punishment. Blessed
   Lord, I accept You as my Substitute! I yield myself up to You! I stand
   now tried, condemned, punished, dead, raised again in You and,
   therefore, pardoned, acquitted, justified, beloved, accepted for Jesus'
   sake."

   Oh, is not this a blessed ending to a solemn sermon?--

   "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."

   God bless you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Farm Laborers

   (No. 1602)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 5, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then
   neither he who plants is anything, neither he who waters, but God that
   gives the increase. Now he whoplants andhe who waters are one: and
   every man shallreceive his own reward according to his own labor. For
   we are laborers together with God: you are God's husbandry." 1
   Corinthians 3:6-9.

   IN all ages since the Fall there has been a tendency in the human heart
   to forget God and get away from Him. Idolatry has been the sin of all
   nations, including God's favored people, the Jews, and including
   certain persons who call themselves Christians who still make idols out
   of crosses and images. This vicious principle of ignoring God and
   setting up something between our minds and our Creator crops up
   everywhere and in every department of thought. When men study the works
   of God in Nature, they often hang up a veil to hide the great Worker.
   Because God acts in a certain way they call His method of action a Law
   and straightway they speak of these Laws as if they were forces and
   powers in and of themselves and thus God is banished out of His own
   universe and His place is taken up in the scientific world by idols
   called, "natural laws."

   Take the region of Providence and here you find persons, instead of
   seeing the hand of God everywhere, looking to second causes. They are
   seeking causes of prosperity and becoming very despondent if they do
   not appear to exist; or viewing the agents of affliction and becoming
   angry against them, instead of bowing before the God who has used them
   for correction. It is easy to make idols out of second causes and to
   forget the God who is everywhere present, causing all things to work
   together for good. That this evil principle should intrude into the
   Church is very sad and yet it is with difficulty excluded.

   You may bar all your doors as fast as you please, but the idol-makers
   will come in with their shrines. In the instance of the Church at
   Corinth, Paul found the Brethren forgetting their God and Savior in
   their high esteem for certain preachers. Instead of all saying, "We are
   Christ's disciples," and uniting together to promote the common cause,
   they established parties and one said, "Paul, who founded this Church,
   is to be had in the greatest reverence and we are of Paul." Others
   replied, "But Apollos is more eloquent than the Apostle Paul and by him
   we have been edified till we have gone beyond Paul and, therefore, we
   are of Apollos." But a third party declared that they were of no sect
   whatever, for they were "Brethren" and were "of Christ."

   These last, I suspect, either ignored or denounced the other two
   parties and would not commune with them, in order to testify against
   their sectarianism and to promote unity. I only surmise this from the
   conduct of those "Brethren" who in our day take the Corinthians to be
   their model and cut off everybody else, being more exclusive than any
   other sect in Christendom! The Apostle warns the saints in Corinth
   against this--he brings the Lord before their minds and bids them
   remember that if Paul plants and Apollos waters, still, it is God that
   gives the increase. Since they think so highly of men, he will have it
   that "neither he who plants is anything nor he who waters anything" but
   God that gives the increase is everything.

   See to it, dear Friends, that you set the Lord always before you in
   this Church and in all your Churches! Know them that labor among you
   and esteem them highly in love for their work's sake, but do not make
   them your dependence. Remember that the ablest ministers, the most
   successful evangelists, the most profound teachers are, after all,
   nothing but laborers on God's farm--"laborers together with God." Let
   your mind be set upon the Master and not upon the servants! Do not say,
   "We are for this man because he plants," or, "we are for the other
   because he waters," or, "we"--a third party--"are for nobody at all."
   But let us join in ascribing all honor and praise unto God who works
   all our

   works in us, since every good gift and every perfect gift is from above
   and comes down from the Father of Lights, to whom be glory world
   without end!

   I shall begin at the end of my text because I find it to be the easiest
   way of mapping out my discourse. We shall first remark that the Church
   is God's farm--"You are God's husbandry." In the margin of the revised
   version we read, "You are God's tilled ground," and that is the very
   expression for me. "You are God's tilled ground," or farm. After we
   have spoken of the farm, we will next say a little upon the fact that
   He employs laborers on the farm. And when we have looked at the
   laborers--such poor fellows as they are--we will remember that God
   Himself is the great Worker-- "We are laborers together with God."

   I. We begin by considering that THE CHURCH IS GOD'S FARM. The Lord has
   made the Church of His sovereign choice to be His own by purchase,
   having paid an immense price for it. "The Lord's portion is His people;
   Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." Because the Lord's portion was
   under mortgage, therefore the Only-Begotten Son laid down His life as
   the purchase price and redeemed His people to be the Lord's portion
   forever and ever. Henceforth it is said to all Believers, "You are not
   your own; you are bought with a price." Every acre of God's farm cost
   the Savior bloody sweat-- yes, the blood of His heart! He loved us and
   gave Himself for us--that is the price He paid!

   What a ransom! The death of Jesus has sometimes almost seemed too high
   a price to pay for such poor land as we are, but the Lord, having set
   His eyes and heart upon His people, would not draw back, but completed
   the Redemption of the purchased possession! Therefore the Church is
   God's freehold and He has the title deeds of it, yes, of you and of me,
   for we belong only to Him and we are glad to acknowledge the fact--"I
   am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine." The Church is God's farm by
   choice and purchase.

   And now He has made it His by enclosure. It lay exposed, for a time, as
   part of an open common, bare and barren, covered with thorns and
   thistles and the haunt of every wild beast, for we were, "by nature the
   children of wrath, even as others." We were part of the dreary desert
   till Divine foreknowledge surveyed the waste and electing love marked
   out its portion with a full line of Grace and thus set us apart to be
   the Lord's own estate forever. In due time effectual Grace came forth
   with power and separated us from the rest of mankind, as fields are
   hedged and ditched to part them from the open heath.

   Has not the Lord declared that He has chosen His vineyard and fenced
   it? Has He not said, "I will be a wall of fire round about you and a
   Glory in the midst"?--

   "We are a garden walled around,

   Chosen and made peculiar ground.

   A little spot, enclosed by Grace

   Out of the world's wide wilderness." The Lord has also made this farm
   evidently His own by cultivation. What more could He have done for His
   farm? He has totally changed the nature of the soil--from being barren,
   He has made it a fruitful land! He has plowed it, dug it, fattened it,
   watered it and planted it with all manner of flowers and fruits. It has
   already brought forth to Him many a pleasant fruit and there are
   brighter times to come when angels shall shout the harvest home and
   Christ "shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied."

   This farm is kept what it is, as well as made what it is, by God's
   continual protection. Not only did He enclose it and work upon it by
   His miraculous power to make it His own farm, but He continually
   maintains possession of it. "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it
   every moment: lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day." If it
   were not for God's continual power, her hedges would soon be thrown
   down and wild beasts would devour her fields. Wicked hands are always
   trying to break down her walls and lay her waste, again, so that there
   should be no true Church in the world, but the Lord is jealous for His
   land and will not allow it to be destroyed. If God were to leave the
   Church, she would become a howling wilderness, but she shall not come
   to such an end.

   A Church would not long remain a Church if God did not preserve it unto
   Himself. What if God should say, "I will take away the hedge and it
   shall be eaten up; and break down the wall, and it shall be trod down:
   and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor tilled; but there
   shall come up briars and thorns: I will also command the clouds that
   they rain no rain upon it"? What a wilderness it would become! What
   does He say? "Go you now unto My place which was in Shi-loh, where I
   set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness
   of My people Israel." Go you to Jerusa-

   lem, where of old was the city of His Glory and the shrine of His
   dwelling--and what is left there today? Go you to Rome, where once Paul
   preached the Gospel with power--what is it, now, but the center of
   idolatry?

   The Lord may remove the candlestick and leave a place that was bright
   as day to become black as darkness itself! But God's farm remains a
   farm because He is always in it to prevent its returning to its former
   wildness. Omnipotent power is as necessary to keep the fields of the
   Church under cultivation as to reclaim them at the first. Inasmuch as
   the Church is God's own farm, He expects to receive a harvest from it.
   He comes to us looking for sheaves where He has sowed so plentifully.
   The world is a wasteland and He looks for nothing from it--but we are
   tilled land and, therefore, a harvest is due from us!

   Barrenness suits the moorland, but to a farm it would be a great
   discredit. Love looks for returns of love. Divine Grace given demands
   gracious fruit. Watered with the drops of the Savior's bloody sweat,
   shall we not bring forth a hundred-fold to His praise? Kept by the
   eternal Spirit of God, shall there not be produced in us fruits to His
   Glory? The Lord's husbandry upon us has shown a great expenditure of
   cost, labor and thought--ought there not to be a proportionate return?
   Ought not the Lord to have a harvest of obedience, a harvest of
   holiness, a harvest of usefulness, a harvest of praise? Shall it not be
   so?

   I think some churches forget that an increase is expected from every
   field of the Lord's farm, for they never have a harvest or even look
   for one. The people come together and take their seats on Sunday and
   listen to sermons--that is, when they do not go to sleep--the
   sacraments are celebrated, a little money is contributed, a few poor
   folk are relieved and affairs crawl along at a snail's pace. As to
   affecting the whole village, or endeavoring to bring the surrounding
   population to Christ, I do not think it has occurred to some churches
   to attempt it and when certain warmer spirits seek to bring sinners to
   Jesus, the older and more prudent folks fetch wet blankets and use them
   with very great effect so that every sign of enthusiasm is damped down.

   Brethren, such things ought not to be! I conceive that if there were no
   Christians in England but the members of our baptized Churches, these
   would suffice for God's great designs of mercy if they were once
   awakened to real labor. Alas, the loiterers are many, but the laborers
   are few. Look, my Brethren, at the number of Non-conforming Churches in
   this land and at the earnest ministers remaining in the
   Establishment--if these were more fully quickened into spiritual life,
   would there not be workmen enough on the home farm? If all churches
   felt that they did not exist for mere existence's sake, nor mere
   enjoyment's sake, would they not act differently?

   Farmers do not plow their lands or sow their fields for amusement--they
   mean business and plow and sow because they desire a harvest! If this
   fact could but enter into the heads of some professors, surely they
   would look at things in a different light! But of late it has seemed as
   if we thought that God's Church was not expected to produce anything,
   but existed for her own comfort and personal benefit. Brothers and
   Sisters, it must not be so! The great Husbandman must have some reward
   for His husbandry! Every field must yield its increase and the whole
   estate must bring forth to His praise! We join with the bride in the
   Song in saying, "My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: you, O
   Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof
   two hundred."

   But I come back to the place from which I started. This farm is, by
   choice, by purchase, by enclosure, by cultivation, by preservation
   entirely the Lord's. See, then, the injustice of allowing any of the
   laborers to call even a part of the estate his own! When a great man
   has a large farm of his own, what would he think if Hodge, the plowman,
   should say, "Look here, I plow this farm and, therefore, it is mine! I
   shall call this field, Hodge's Acres"? "And," says Hobbs, "I reaped
   that land last harvest and, therefore, it is mine and I shall call it
   Hobbs's Field." What if all the other laborers became Hodgeites and
   Hobbsites and so parceled out the farm among them? I think the landlord
   would soon eject the lot of them! The farm belongs to its owner and let
   it be called by his name. It is absurd to call it by the names of the
   bumpkins who labor upon it. Is that a disrespectful title to apply to
   laborers? Why, I meant it for anybody and everybody whose name is used
   as the head of a party in the Church!

   I meant Luther, Calvin, Wesley and other great men, for at their best,
   as compared with their Master, they are only farm laborers and we ought
   not to call parts of the farm by their names! Remember how Paul put it,
   "Who, then, is Paul and who is Apollos?" "Is Christ divided? Was Paul
   crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" The
   entire Church belongs to Him who has chosen it in His Sovereignty,
   bought it with His blood, fenced it by His Grace,

   cultivated it by His wisdom and preserved it by His power! There is
   still but one Church on the face of the earth and those who love the
   Lord should keep this Truth of God in mind.

   Paul is a laborer, Apollos is a laborer, Cephas is a laborer, but the
   farm is not Paul's, not so much as a foot of it, nor does a single
   parcel of land belong to Apollos, or the smallest allotment to
   Cephas--"You are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The fact is that in
   this case the laborers belong to the land and not the land to the
   laborers--"For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or
   Cephas." We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
   ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake!

   II. We now have to notice, as our second head, that THE GREAT
   HUSBANDMAN EMPLOYS LABORERS. By human agency God ordinarily works out
   His designs. He can, if He pleases, by His Holy Spirit, get directly at
   the hearts of men, but that is His business and not ours. We have to do
   with such words as these--"It pleased God by the foolishness of
   preaching to save them that believe." The Master's commission is not,
   "Sit still and see the Spirit of God convert the nations," but, "Go you
   into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." This is
   God's method in supplying the race with food.

   In answer to the prayer, "give us this day our daily bread," He might
   have bid the clouds drop manna, morning by morning, at each man's door,
   but He sees that it is for our good to work and so He uses the hands of
   the plowman and the sower for our supply. God might plow and sow His
   chosen farm, the Church, by miracle, or by angels, but it is a great
   instance of His condescension towards His Church that He blesses her
   through her own sons and daughters. He employs us for our own good, for
   we who are laborers in His fields receive much more good for ourselves
   than we bestow. Labor develops our spiritual muscle and keeps us in
   health. "Unto me," says Paul, "who am less than the least of all
   saints, is this Grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles
   the unsearchable riches of Christ."

   It is a Divine Grace, then. We find it to be a means of Grace to our
   souls to preach the Gospel. I have heard it said and I believe there is
   some truth in it, that those who have to preach are under the
   temptation of getting so familiar with sacred things that they cease to
   feel their power. If this is true, it is an awful proof of our total
   depravity, for the more familiar we are with holy things the more we
   ought to be affected by them. And this I know, it has been the greatest
   means of Grace to me to be bound by my office to study the Scriptures
   and wait upon God for help in expounding them.

   Some of you who do not grow in Grace by hearing other people might
   possibly get on better if you were, yourselves, to try and preach. At
   any rate, you might not be quite so faultfinding with other folks! When
   I hear a person say, "I cannot hear my minister," I suggest to him to
   buy a horn. "Oh," he says, "I do not mean that. I mean that I cannot
   enjoy his preaching." Then I say to him, "Preach yourself." "I cannot
   do that." Then do not find fault with those who are doing their best."
   Instead of blaming the plowman, just try a turn in the furrow,
   yourself! Why grumble at the weeds? Take a hoe and work at them like a
   man!

   Do you think the hedges untidy? Put on the leather gloves and help us
   trim them! Our great Master means that every laborer on His farm should
   receive some benefit from it, for He never muzzles the ox which treads
   out the corn. The laborer's daily bread comes out of the soil. Though
   he works not for himself, but for his Master, yet he still has his
   portion of food. In the Lord's granary there is seed for the sower, but
   there is also bread for the eater. However disinterestedly we may serve
   God in the husbandry of His Church, we are, ourselves, partakers of the
   fruit. It is a great condescension on God's part that He uses us at
   all, for we are poor tools, at the best, and more hindrance than help.

   The laborers employed by God are all occupied upon necessary work.
   Notice, "I have planted, Apollos watered." Who beat the big drum, or
   blew his own trumpet? Nobody! On God's farm none are kept for
   ornamental purposes. I have read some sermons which could only have
   been meant for show, for there was not a grain of Gospel in them. They
   were plows with the share left out, drills with no wheat in the box,
   clod-crushers made of butter! I do not believe that our God will ever
   pay wages to men who only walk about His grounds to show themselves.
   Fine orators who display their eloquence are more like Gypsies who
   stray on the farm to pick up chickens than honest laborers who work to
   bring forth a crop for their master.

   Why, many of the members of our Churches live as if their only business
   on the farm was to pluck blackberries or gather wild flowers! They are
   great at finding fault with other people's plowing and mowing, but not
   a hand's turn will they do themselves. Come on, my good fellows! Why do
   you stand all the day idle? The harvest is plenteous and the laborers
   are few. You who think yourselves more cultivated than ordinary people,
   if you are, indeed, Christians, must not

   strut about and despise those who are hard at work. If you do, I shall
   say, "That person has mistaken his master. He may probably be in the
   employ of some gentleman farmer who cares more for show than profit,
   but our great Lord is practi-cal--and on His estate His laborers attend
   to necessary labor."

   When you and I preach or teach it will be well if we say to ourselves,
   "What will be the use of what I am going to do? I am about to teach a
   difficult subject--will it do any good? I have chosen an abstruse point
   of theology--will it serve any purpose?" Brothers, a laborer may work
   very hard at a whim of his own and waste his labor, but this is folly!
   Some discourses do little more than show the difference between a
   tweedle-dum and a tweedle-dee--and what is the use of that? Suppose we
   sow the fields with sawdust, or sprinkle them with rosewater, what of
   that? Will God bless our moral essays and fine compositions and pretty
   passages?

   Brothers, we must aim at usefulness--we must, as laborers together with
   God, be occupied with something that is worth doing. "I," says one,
   "have planted." It is well, for planting must be done. "I," answers
   another, "have watered." That is also good and necessary. See to it
   that you can each bring in a solid report, but let no man be content
   with the mere child's play of oratory, or the getting up of
   entertainments and such like! On the Lord's farm there is a division of
   labor. Even Paul did not say, "I have planted and watered." No, Paul
   planted. And Apollos certainly could not say, "I have planted as well
   as watered." No, it was enough for him to attend to the watering. No
   one man has all gifts. How foolish, then, are they who say, "I enjoy
   So-and-So's ministry because he edifies the saints in doctrine, but
   when he was away the other Sunday I could not profit by the preacher
   because he was all for the conversion of sinners"?

   Yes, he was planting! You have been planted a good while and do not
   need planting again, but you ought to be thankful that others were made
   partakers of the benefit! One sows and another reaps and, therefore,
   instead of grumbling at the honest plowman because he did not bring a
   sickle with him, you ought to have prayed for him that he might have
   strength to plow deep and break up hard hearts. Let us do all that we
   can and try to do more, for the more work we can turn our hands to, the
   better. "You must not have too many irons in the fire," said somebody.
   But I say, "Put all your irons into the fire and if you have not fire
   enough, cry to God till you have! Set your whole soul on fire and keep
   all your irons hot." Yet you may find it wise to direct your strength
   into one line of things which you understand so that, by practice, you
   may come to be skillful in it. Each man should find out his own work
   and do it with all his might.

   Observe that, on God's farm, there is unity of purpose among the
   laborers. Read the text. "Now he that plants and he that waters are
   one." One Master has employed them and though He may send them out at
   different times and to different parts of the farm, yet they are all
   one in being used for one end--to work for one harvest. In England we
   do not understand what is meant by watering, because the farmer could
   not water all his farm--but in the East a farmer waters almost every
   inch of ground. He would have no crop if he did not use all means for
   irrigating the fields. If you have ever been in Italy, Egypt, or
   Palestine, you will have seen a complete system of wells, pumps,
   wheels, buckets, channels, little streamlets, pipes and so on, by which
   the water is carried all over the garden to every plant--otherwise in
   the extreme heat of the sun it would be dried up.

   Planting needs wisdom and watering needs quite as much--and the piecing
   of these two works together needs that the laborers should be of one
   mind. It is a bad thing when laborers are at cross purposes and work
   against each other. And this evil is worse in the Church than anywhere
   else. How can I plant with success if my helper will not water what I
   have planted? Or what is the use of my watering if nothing is planted?
   Farming is spoiled when foolish people undertake it and quarrel over
   it, for from sowing to reaping the work is one and all must be done to
   one end. O for unity! Let as pull together all our days, even as we
   have done in this Church to now.

   We are called upon to notice in our text that all the laborers put
   together are nothing. "Neither he who plants is anything, neither he
   who waters." The workmen are nothing at all without their master! All
   the laborers on a farm could not manage it if they had no one at their
   head and all the preachers and Christian workers in the world can do
   nothing unless God is with them! Remember that every laborer on God's
   farm has derived all his qualifications from God! No man knows how to
   plant or water souls unless God teaches him from day to day. All these
   holy gifts are the grants of free Grace. All the laborers work under
   God's direction and arrangement or they work in vain. They would not
   know when or how to do their work if their Master did not guide them by
   His Spirit, without whose help they cannot even think a good thought!

   All God's laborers must go to Him for their Seed or else they will
   scatter tares. All good Seed comes out of God's granary. If we preach,
   it must be the true Word of God or nothing can come of it. More than
   that, all the strength that is in the laborer's arms to sow the
   heavenly Seed must be given by his Master. We cannot preach unless God
   is with us. A sermon is vain talk and dreary word-spinning unless the
   Holy Spirit enlivens it. He mast give us both the preparation of the
   heart and the answer of the tongue, or we shall be as men who sow the
   wind. When the good Seed is sown, the whole success of it rests with
   God. If He withholds the dew and the rain, the Seed will never rise
   from the ground--and unless He shall shine upon it, the green ear will
   never ripen.

   The human heart will remain barren, even though Paul himself should
   preach, unless God the Holy Spirit shall work with Paul and bless the
   Word to those who hear it. Therefore, since the increase is of God
   alone, put the laborers into their place. Do not make too much of us,
   for when we have done, we are all unprofitable servants. Yet, though
   Inspiration calls the laborers nothing, it makes a great deal of them,
   for it says, "Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his
   own labor." They are nothing and yet they shall be rewarded as if they
   were something! God works our good works in us and then rewards us for
   them!

   Here we have mention of a personal service and a personal
   reward--"Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own
   labor." The reward is proportionate, not to the success, but to labor!
   Many discouraged workers may be comforted with that expression. You are
   not to be paid by results, but by endeavors. You may have a stiff bit
   of clay to plow, or a dreary plot of land to sow where stones, birds,
   thorns, travelers and a burning sun may all be leagued against the
   Seed-- but you are not accountable for these things--your reward shall
   be according to your labor! Some put a great deal of labor into a
   little field and make much out of it. Others use a great deal of labor
   throughout a long life and yet they see but small results, for it is
   written, "one sows and another reaps." But the reaping man will not get
   all the reward--the sowing man shall receive his portion of the joy.
   The laborers are nobodies, but they shall enter into the joy of their
   Lord!

   Unitedly, according to the text, the workers have been successful and
   that is a great part of their reward. "I have planted, Apollos watered,
   but God gave the increase." Frequently Brethren say in their prayers,
   "A Paul may plant, an Apollos may water, but it is all in vain unless
   God gives the increase." This is quite true, but another Truth of God
   is too much overlooked, namely, that when Paul plants and Apollos
   waters, God does give the increase! We do not labor in vain! There
   would be no increase without God, but then we are not without God! When
   such men as Paul and Apollos plant and water, there is sure to be an
   increase! They are the right kind of laborers. They work in a right
   spirit and God is certain to bless them.

   This is a great part of the laborers' wages. I am rich, I am increased
   in goods, I have need of nothing when I see souls converted--my heart
   leaps for joy, my spirit is glad and I am ready to sing, "My soul does
   magnify the Lord"--but if it were ever to come to this, that I stood
   here Sunday after Sunday and saw no conversions but the Church rather
   going down than increasing, I should take it as an intimation that I
   had better take my plow somewhere else and scatter the Seed on other
   soil. I would break my heart over non-success, or cry to God to break
   it, for he that works and gets no fruit is disheartened in his labor.

   What would you farmers do? You are half inclined to give up, now,
   because you have had two or three bad years. But what would you do if
   you never saw a harvest at all? Why, you would clear out and be off to
   the western prairies or to the bush of the southern continent to see if
   the soil somewhere else would repay your labor! Do the same, Brother
   ministers! If you have been at work in one spot for years and have not
   led souls to Jesus, pack up your traps and go somewhere else! Do not
   forever break your plow upon rocks. It is a big world and there is
   plenty of good ground somewhere--let us seek it! If they persecute you
   in one city, flee to another and let the Word of God be published all
   the more widely by your moving about!

   III. So much upon the laborers. Now for the main point again. GOD
   HIMSELF IS THE GREAT WORKER. He

   may use what laborers He pleases, but the increase comes only from Him.
   Brothers, you know it is so in natural things-- the most skillful
   farmer cannot make the wheat germinate, grow and ripen. He cannot even
   preserve a single field till harvest time, for the farmer's enemies are
   many and mighty. In farming there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the
   lip and when the farmer thinks he shall reap his crop, often there are
   blights and mildews lingering about to rob him of his gains.

   God must give the increase. If any man is dependent on God, it is the
   farmer and as he, we are, all of us, dependent upon God from year to
   year for the food by which we live. Even the king must live by the
   increase of the field.

   God gives the increase in the barn and the hayrack--and in the
   spiritual farm it is even more so, for what can man do in this
   business? If any of you think that it is an easy thing to win a soul, I
   would like you to try. Suppose that without Divine aid you should try
   to save a soul--you might as well attempt to make a world! Why, you
   cannot create a fly! How can you create a new heart and a right spirit?
   Regeneration is a great mystery--it is out of your reach. "The wind
   blows where it will and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell
   from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of
   the Spirit."

   What can you and I do in this matter? It is out of our pale and beyond
   our line. We can tell out the Truth of God, but to apply that Truth to
   the heart and conscience is quite another thing. I have stood here and
   preached Jesus Christ-- preached my whole heart out--and yet I know
   that I have never produced any saving effect upon a single unregenerate
   man unless the spirit of God has taken the Truth of God and opened the
   heart and placed the living Seed within it! Experience teaches us this.
   Equally is it the Lord's work to keep the Seed alive when it springs
   up. We think we have converts but it is not long before we are
   disappointed in them. Many are like blossoms on our fruit trees--they
   are fair to look upon, but they do not come to anything! And others are
   like the many little fruits which fall off long before they have come
   to any size--a cold night or a blight will come and away go our hopes
   of a crop--it is just so with hopeful converts.

   He who presides over a great Church and feels an agony for the souls of
   men will soon be convinced that if God does not work, there will be no
   work done. We shall see no conversion, no sanctification, no final
   perseverance, no glory brought to God, no satisfaction for the passion
   of the Savior unless He gives the increase! Well said our Lord,
   "Without Me you can do nothing." What is the effect of all this upon
   your minds? Briefly I would draw certain practical lessons out of this
   important Truth of God--the first is, if the whole farm of the Church
   belongs exclusively to the great Master Worker and the laborers are
   worth nothing without Him, let this promote unity among all whom He
   employs!

   If we are all under one Master, do not let us quarrel. It is a great
   pity when ministers harshly criticize one another and when Sunday
   school teachers do the same. It is a miserable business when we cannot
   bear to see good being done by those of a different denomination who
   work in ways of their own. If a new laborer comes on the farm and he
   wears a coat of a new cut and uses a hoe of a new shape, shall I become
   his enemy? If he does his work better than I do mine, shall I be
   jealous? Do you not remember reading in the Scriptures that upon one
   occasion the disciples could not cast out a devil? This ought to have
   made them humble, but to our surprise we read a few verses farther on
   that John and others saw one casting out devils in Christ's name and
   John said, "We forbade him, because he follows not with us."

   They could not cast out the devil, themselves, and they forbade those
   who could! A certain band of people are going about winning souls, but
   because they are not doing it in our fashion, we do not like it. It is
   true they use all sorts of strange devices and wild excitements--but
   they do save souls--and that is the main point. Yet there are gentlemen
   who never converted half a soul in their lives who cry, "This is
   fanaticism!" Go and do better before you find fault! Instead of
   caviling, let us encourage all on Christ's side. Wisdom is justified of
   her children. The laborers ought to be satisfied with the new plowman
   if his Master is. Brother, if the great Lord has employed you, it is no
   business of mine to question His right. I do not like the looks of you
   and cannot think how He can have such a fellow upon the farm, but as He
   has employed you, I have no right to judge you, for I dare say I look
   as odd in your eyes as you do in mine!

   Can I lend you a hand? Can I show you how to work better? Or can you
   tell me something so that I may do my work better? May not the Master
   employ whom He pleases? If a new hoe or a new rake comes out and you
   that have been doing work steadily for years open your eyes and say, "I
   shall not use that new-fangled thing"--are you wise? Do not use the new
   invention if you have not tried it and can work better in your own way,
   but let the other man use it who finds it a handier tool. If new
   methods of getting a hearing for the Gospel are invented by the
   ingenuity of earnestness, let the Brothers use them. And if we cannot
   imitate them, let us at least feel that we are still one, because, "One
   is our Master, even Christ."

   This Truth of God, however, ought to keep all the laborers very
   dependent. Are you going to preach, young man? "Yes, I am going to do a
   great deal of good." Are you? Have you forgotten that you are nothing?
   "Neither is he who plants anything." A great preacher is coming full of
   the Gospel to comfort the saints. If he is not coming in strict de-

   pendence upon God, he, too, is nothing. "Neither is he who waters
   anything." Power belongs to God! Man is vanity and his words are
   wind--to God alone belongs power and wisdom. If we keep our places in
   all lowliness, our Lord will use us. But when we exalt ourselves, He
   will leave us to our nothingness.

   Next, notice that this fact ennobles everybody who labors in God's
   husbandry. This passage makes my heart leap as I read it! My very soul
   is lifted up with joy when I mark these words, "For we are laborers
   together with God"! We are God's fellow workers--mere laborers on His
   farm--but laborers with Him! Does the Lord work with us? Yes. "The Lord
   works with them with signs following." "My Father works hitherto, and I
   work," is language for all the sons of God as well as for the great
   First-Born! God is with you, Brother! God is with you, Sister, when you
   are serving Him with all your heart. Speaking to your class concerning
   Jesus, it is God that speaks through you! Picking up that stranger on
   the way and telling him of salvation by faith, Christ is speaking with
   you even as He spoke with the woman at the

   well!

   Addressing the rough crowd in the open air, young man, if you are
   preaching of pardon through the atoning blood, it is the God of Peter
   who is testifying of His Son even as He did on the day of Pentecost! O
   Brother laborers, ours is a high honor, since the Father is with us and
   works by us! As Mr. Wesley said, "The best of all is, God is with us."
   The Lord of Hosts is with us and, therefore, we cannot fail! If we
   could, in working with God, be defeated, then God's own honor would be
   compromised and that cannot be!

   But, lastly, how this should drive us to our knees! Since we are
   nothing without God, let us cry mightily unto Him for help in this, our
   holy service! Let both sower and reaper pray together, or they will
   never rejoice together! As a Church, God has blessed us so richly that
   in generations to come it will be spoken of as a wonder that God should
   so greatly favor a congregation for so many years--but it has been
   wholly and only in answer to PRAYER. So far from supposing that our
   union and prosperity are in any measure due to me, I declare that the
   only cause of all the soul-winning that has been done in this place is
   to be found in the prayers of the saints! God in great mercy has given
   the spirit of prayer to you and to others who love me and, therefore, I
   am highly favored. I am terribly afraid lest this prayerfulness should
   be dampened--I am jealous lest you should begin to think the preacher
   is something and so should fail to pray for him!

   There is a thinner congregation when I am away and, therefore, I am
   afraid that you have some reliance upon me and do not expect a blessing
   if I am absent. Is it so? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made
   perfect in the flesh? Have you begun to be of Spurgeon? This will never
   do! Brothers and Sisters, this will never do! We must get rid of the
   tendency before it grows upon us! God can bless one man as well as
   another. I do not know that He always does so, but He can and, perhaps
   if you expected Him to do so, He would do so. If you came up to this
   house with the same prayerfulness for others as you apportion me, you
   would get the same blessing! I am weakest of the weak apart from God,
   therefore pray for me, but others are weak, too, and, therefore, pray
   for them, also.

   Do let us pray mightily for a blessing! Pray always! Pray in your
   bedchambers, at your family altars, at your work, in your leisure and
   also in this place! Come in larger numbers to pray for a blessing! We
   have many appointed Prayer Meetings--keep them all flourishing! The
   windows of Heaven are easily opened if our mouths and hearts are opened
   in prayer. If the blessing is withheld, it is because we do not cry for
   it and expect it! O, Brother laborers, come to the Mercy Seat and you
   shall see God's farm watered from on high and tilled with Divine
   skill--and the reapers shall soon return from the folds bringing their
   sheaves with them, though, perhaps, they went forth weeping to the
   sowing. To our Father, who is the Husbandman, be all Glory, forever and
   ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

What the Farm Laborers Can Do and What They Cannot Do

   (No. 1603)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 12, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed into
   the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should
   spring and grow up, he kno ws not how. For the earth brings forth fruit
   of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
   the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he puts in
   the sickle, because the harvest is come." Mark 4:26-29.

   LAST Lord's-Day morning our subject was the laborers upon God's farm
   and their great Master. And then we tried to show how far human agency
   was necessary in the work of the Gospel. We also saw how thoroughly all
   holy results depend upon God, for neither he that sows nor he that
   waters is anything, but God who gives the increase. We have much the
   same subject this morning, only it goes a little deeper and yet more
   fully shows how far the laborer can go and how far he cannot go--where
   man may enter with holy industry--and where no human work can possibly
   intrude. Our subject on this occasion will mainly be the measure and
   limit of human instrumentality in the Kingdom of Grace. If we shall be
   taught of the Spirit of God, we shall find this Scripture to be full of
   instruction upon the matter.

   It is remarkable that the parable before us is peculiar to Mark. No
   other Evangelist has recorded it, but we do not think any the less of
   it on that account. If it had been told to us four times, we should
   have been glad to hear the repetition and would have given it fourfold
   attention. As it is told us but once, we will give the more earnest
   heed to a voice which speaks once and for all. We are glad that the
   Holy Spirit led Mark to reserve this pearl out of the many excellent
   things which our Lord said which have been lost. John tells us that if
   a record of all the works which Jesus did could have been preserved,
   they would have made a library so large that scarcely the world,
   itself, could have contained all the books.

   Many of the things that Jesus said floated about, no doubt, for a time
   and were gradually forgotten. We have to be thankful to the Spirit of
   God for perpetuating this choice similitude by the hand of His servant
   Mark. Preserved in the amber of Inspiration, this choice instruction is
   of priceless value. Here is a lesson for sowers--for the laborers upon
   the farm of God. It is a parable for all who are concerned in the
   Kingdom of God. It will be of little value to those who are in the
   Kingdom of Darkness, for they are not bid to sow the good Seed. "Unto
   the wicked God says, what have you to do to declare My statutes?" But
   all who are loyal subjects to King Jesus--all who are commissioned to
   scatter Seed for the Royal Husbandman--will be glad to know how the
   Kingdom advances--glad to know how the harvest is preparing for Him
   whom they serve.

   Listen, then, you that sow beside all waters--you that with holy
   diligence seek to fill the garners of your God-- listen and may the
   Spirit of God speak into your ears as you are able to hear it!

   I. We shall, first, learn from our text WHAT WE CAN DO AND WHAT WE
   CANNOT DO. Let this stand as our first head. "So is the kingdom of God,
   as if a man should cast seed into the ground." This, the gracious
   worker can do. "And the seed should spring and grow up, he knows not
   how." This is what he cannot do--it belongs to a higher power. Man can
   neither make the Seed of God spring nor grow--he is out of the field in
   that respect and may go home--"to sleep, and rise night and day." Seed
   once sown is beyond human jurisdiction and is under Divine care.

   Yet before long the worker comes in again--"When the fruit is brought
   forth, immediately he puts in the sickle." We can reap in due season
   and it is both our duty and privilege to do so. You see, then, that
   there is a place for the worker at the beginning and although there is
   no room for him in the middle passage, yet another opportunity is given
   him farther on when that which he sowed has actually yielded fruit.
   Notice, then, that we can sow. Any man who has re-

   ceived the knowledge of the Grace of God in his heart can teach others.
   I include under the term, "man," all who know the Lord, be they male or
   female.

   We cannot all teach alike, for all have not the same gifts--to one is
   given one talent, and to another ten. Neither have we all the same
   opportunities, for one lives in obscurity and another has far-reaching
   influence. Yet there is not within the family of God an infant hand
   which may not drop its own tiny Seed into the ground! There is not a
   man among us who needs to stand idle in the marketplace, for work
   suitable to his strength is waiting for him. There is not a saved woman
   who is not left a holy task. Let her do it and win the approving word.
   "She has done what she could." Something of sacred service is within
   the reach of everyone's capacity, whether it be the mother in the
   family, the nurse-girl with the infant, the boy in the school, the
   workman at the bench, or the nurse at the bedside.

   Those with the smallest range of opportunities can, nevertheless, do
   something for Christ and His cause. The precious Seed of the Word of
   God is small as a grain of mustard seed and may be carried by the
   feeblest hand where it shall multiply a hundred-fold! We need never
   quarrel with God because we cannot do everything if He only permits us
   to do this one thing, for sowing the good Seed is a work which will
   need all our wit, our strength, our love, our care. Holy Seed sowing
   may well be adopted as our highest pursuit and is no inferior objective
   for the noblest life that can be led! You will need heavenly teaching
   that you may carefully select the Wheat and keep it free from the
   darnel of error. We must even winnow out of it our own thoughts and
   opinions, for these may not be according to the mind of God.

   Men are not saved by our word, but by God's Word. We are bound to see
   that we know the Gospel and teach the whole of it. To different men we
   must, with discretion, bring forward that part of the Word of God which
   will best bear upon their consciences--for much may depend upon the
   Word being in season and not a chance sentence thrown out at random. We
   shall have enough to do if we look well to the seed basket, lest,
   perhaps, we should sow tares as well as wheat, or should cast good Seed
   wantonly, where it can only feed evil birds. Having selected the Seed,
   we shall have plenty of work if we go forth and sow it broadcast
   everywhere, for every day brings its opportunity and every company
   furnishes its occasion.

   "In the morning sow your seed, in the evening withhold not your hand."
   "Sow beside all waters." Imitate the sower in the parable, who was not
   so penny-wise that he would only cast the seed where, according to his
   judgment, all was good soil, but who, feeling that he had other work
   for his judgment besides the selecting of the soil, threw the seed
   right and left as he went on his way, and denied not a handful even to
   thorny and rocky soils! You, dear fellow workers, will have enough to
   do if at all times and in all places, as prudence and zeal suggest, you
   spread abroad the living Word of the living Lord! Still, wise sowers
   discover favorable opportunities for sowing and gladly seize upon them.

   There are times when it would clearly be a waste to sow, for the soil
   could not receive it--it is not in a fit condition. After a shower, or
   before a shower, or at some such time as he that has studied husbandry
   knows, is the time to be up and doing. So while we are always to work
   for God, yet there are seasons when it were casting pearls before swine
   to talk of holy things. And there are other times when, if we were
   slothful, it would be a shameful waste of propitious seasons. Sluggards
   in the time for plowing and sowing are sluggards, indeed, for they not
   only waste the day, but throw away the year.

   If you watch for souls and use hours of happy vantage and moments of
   sacred softening, you will not complain of the scanty space allowed for
   agency. Even should you never be called to water, or to reap, your
   office is wide enough if you fulfill the work of the sower. For little
   though it seems to teach the simple Truth of the Gospel, yet it is
   essential. How shall men hear without a teacher? The farm never brings
   forth a harvest without sowing! Weeds will grow without our help, but
   not so wheat and barley! The human heart is so depraved that it will
   naturally bring forth evil in abundance and Satan is quite sure not to
   let it lie without a sowing of evil seed, but if ever a man's soul is
   to yield fruit unto God, the Seed of the Truth of God must be cast into
   it from without.

   Servants of God, the Seed of the Word of God is not like thistledown
   which is borne by every wind, nor like certain seeds blown by their own
   parachutes here, there and everywhere! No, but the Wheat of the Kingdom
   needs a human hand to sow it and without such agency it will not enter
   into men's hearts and neither can it bring forth fruit to the Glory of
   God. The preaching of the Gospel is the necessity of every age--God
   grant that our country may never be deprived of it! Even if the Lord
   should send us a famine of bread and a famine of water, may He never
   send us a famine of the Word of

   God! Faith comes by hearing and how can there be hearing a if there is
   no teaching? Scatter! Scatter, then, the Seed of the Kingdom, for this
   is essential to the harvest.

   The spreading of the Gospel is not a thing that you may do or may not
   do, according to your pleasure, but it is a duty urgently necessary--to
   be neglected at your peril! You can sow the Seed of God and the Seed
   must be sown. This Seed should be sown often, for the times are such
   that one sowing may not suffice. Sow again and again, for many are the
   foes of the Wheat and if you repeat not your sowing, you may never see
   a harvest. The Seed of God must be sown everywhere, too, for there are
   no choice corners of the world that you can afford to leave alone in
   the hope that they will be self-productive.

   You may not leave the rich and intelligent under the notion that surely
   the Gospel will be found among them, for it is not so--the pride of
   life leads them away from God. You may not leave the poor and
   illiterate and say, "Surely they will, of themselves, feel their need
   of Christ." Not so--they will sink from degradation to degradation
   unless you lift them up with the Gospel! No tribe of man or no peculiar
   constitution of the human mind may be neglected by us, but everywhere
   we must preach the Word of God, in season and out of season! I have
   heard that Captain Cook, the celebrated circumnavigator, was, in one
   respect, an admirable example to us. Wherever he landed--in whatever
   part of the earth it might be--he took with him a little packet of
   different English seeds and he was often observed to scatter them in
   suitable places.

   He would leave the boat and wander up from the shore. He said nothing
   to anybody, but quietly scattered English seeds wherever he went so
   that he belted the world with the flowers and herbs of his native land!
   Imitate him wherever you go! Sow spiritual seeds in every place that
   your foot shall tread! Some of you will, before long, be at the seaside
   or amidst the mountains of Switzerland, or in some other regions of the
   earth in the search of variety and beauty--carry the heavenly Seeds
   with you and be not satisfied unless in every place you let fall a
   grain or two that may bring forth fruit unto your God! This is what you
   can do--mind that you do it!

   Let us now think of what you cannot do. You cannot, after the Seed has
   left your hands, cause it to put forth life. I am sure you cannot make
   it grow, for you do not know how it grows. The text says, "And the seed
   should spring and grow up, he knows not how." That which is beyond the
   range of our knowledge is certainly beyond the reach of our power! Can
   you make a seed germinate? You may place it under circumstances of damp
   and heat which will cause it to swell and break forth with a shoot, but
   the germination, itself, is beyond you. How is it done? We know not.
   After the germ has been put forth, can you make it further grow and
   develop its life into leaf and stem? No, that, too, is out of your
   power.

   And when the green, grassy blade has been succeeded by the ear, can you
   ripen it? It will be ripened, but can you do it? You know you cannot!
   You can have no finger in the actual process, though you may promote
   the conditions under which it is produced. Life is a mystery; growth is
   a mystery; ripening is a mystery--and these three mysteries are as
   fountains sealed against all intrusion. How is it that there is within
   the ripe seed the preparations for another sowing and another growth?
   What is this vital principle, this secret reproducing energy? Do you
   know you anything about this?

   The philosopher may say that he can explain life and growth. And
   straightway he will, according to the ordinary process of philosophy,
   bamboozle you with terms which are less understandable than the
   ordinary talk of infants! And then he will say, "There is the whole
   matter! It is as clear as possible." He cloaks his ignorance with
   learned jargon and then calls it wisdom! To this day it still remains
   true of the growth of the most common seeds--"He knows not how." The
   scientific man may talk about chemical combinations and physical
   permutations and he may proceed to quote analogies from this and
   that--but still, the growth of the seed remains a secret--it springs,
   "He knows not how."

   Certainly this is true of the rise and progress of the Word of God in
   the heart. It enters the soul and roots itself you know not how.
   Naturally men hate the Word, but it enters and it changes the heart so
   that they come to love it, but we know not how. Their whole nature is
   renewed, so that instead of producing sin, it yields repentance, faith
   and love--but we know not how! How it is that the Spirit of God deals
   with the mind of man. How He creates the new heart and the right
   spirit. How we are begotten, again, unto a lively hope. How we are born
   of the Spirit, we cannot tell!

   The Holy Spirit enters into us. We hear not His voice, we see not His
   light, we feel not His touch--yet He works an effectual work upon us
   which we are not long in perceiving. We know that the work of the
   Spirit is a new creation, a resurrection, a quickening from the
   dead--but all these words are only covers to our utter ignorance of the
   mode of His

   work with which it is not in our power to meddle. We do not know how He
   performs His miracles of love and, not knowing how He works, we may be
   quite sure that we cannot take the work out of His hands! We cannot
   create, we cannot quicken, we cannot transform, we cannot regenerate,
   we cannot save!

   This work of God having proceeded in the growth of the Seed of God,
   what next? We can reap the ripe ears. After a season, God the Holy
   Spirit uses His servants again. As soon as the living Seed has
   produced, first of all, the blade of thought and afterwards the green
   ear of conviction--and then faith which is as the full corn in the
   ear--then the Christian worker comes in for farther service, for He can
   reap. "When the fruit is brought forth, immediately he puts in the
   sickle." This is not the reaping of the Last Great Day, for that does
   not come within the scope of the parable, which evidently relates to a
   human sower and reaper.

   The kind of reaping which the Savior, here, intends, is that which He
   referred to when He said to His disciples, "Lift up now your eyes, for
   behold the fields are white already to the harvest." After He had been
   sowing the Seed in the hearts of the Samaritans and it had sprung up so
   that they began to evince faith in Him, the Lord Jesus cried, "The
   fields are white unto the harvest." The Apostle says, "One sows, and
   another reaps." Our Lord said to the disciples, "I sent you to reap
   that whereon you bestowed no labor." Is there not a promise, "in due
   season you shall reap if you faint not"? Christian workers begin their
   harvest work by watching carefully to see when men show signs of faith
   in Christ! They are eager to see the blade and delight to mark the
   ripening ear.

   They often hope that men are Believers, but they long to be sure of
   it--and when they judge, at last, the fruit of faith is put forth, they
   begin to encourage, to congratulate and to comfort! They know that the
   young Believer needs to be housed in the barn of Christian fellowship
   so that he may be saved from a thousand perils. No wise farmer leaves
   the fruit of the field long exposed to the hail which might beat it
   out, or the mildew which might destroy it, or the birds which might
   spoil it. Evidently no believing man should be left outside of the
   garner of holy fellowship--he should be carried into the midst of the
   Church with all the joy which attends the bringing home of sheaves!

   The worker for Christ watches carefully and when he discerns that his
   time is come, he begins at once to fetch in the converts that they may
   be cared for by the brotherhood, separated from the world, screened
   from temptation and laid up for the Lord. He is diligent to do it at
   once, because the text says, "immediately he puts in the sickle." He
   does not wait for months in cold suspicion--he is not afraid that he
   shall encourage too soon when faith is really present. He comes with
   the Word of promise and the smile of brotherly love at once, and he
   says to the new Believer, "Have you confessed your faith? Is not the
   time come for an open confession? Has not Jesus bid the Believer to be
   baptized? If you love Him, keep His commandments."

   He does not rest till he has introduced the convert to the communion of
   the faithful. For our work, Beloved, is but half done when men are made
   disciples and baptized. We have, then, to encourage, to instruct, to
   strengthen, to console and succor in all times of difficulty and
   danger. What says the Savior? "Go you, therefore, and make disciples of
   all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the
   Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all
   things--whatever I commanded you." The reaper is the man who gathers in
   the converts and he fulfils an honorable and useful office. If I preach
   the Gospel today and some shall be converted, I shall be the sower--but
   if going home to the respective towns in which you live, you who have
   dropped in here as strangers shall be received into the Churches by
   your own pastors--they will be reaping what I have sown.

   I envy not my Brother minister his success in gathering in the
   converts, but I rejoice with him. The sower and the reaper may well
   rejoice together, for our work is one and we labor for one Lord!
   Observe, then, the sphere of agency. We can introduce the Truth of God
   to men, but that Truth, the Lord, Himself, must bless. The living and
   growing of the Word within the soul is the operation of God, alone.
   When the mystic work of growth is done, we are able to introduce the
   saved ones into the Church. To bring them into the fellowship of the
   faithful is our work and we must not fail to do it. For Christ to be
   formed in men, the hope of Glory, is not of our working--that remains
   with God--but when Jesus Christ is formed in them--to discern the image
   of the Savior and to say, "Come in, you blessed of the Lord, why do you
   stand outside?" is our duty and delight!

   To create the Divine life is God's, to cherish it is ours! To cause the
   hidden life to grow in secret is the work of the Lord. To see the
   rising up and perfecting of that life and to rejoice in it, is the work
   of the faithful, even as it is written,

   "when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he puts in the sickle,
   because the harvest is come." This, then, is our first lesson--we see
   what we CAN do and what we CANNOT do.

   II. Our second head is like the first and consists of WHAT WE CAN KNOW
   AND WHAT WE CANNOT KNOW. First, what we can know. We can know when we
   have sown the good Seed of the Word of God that it will grow, for God
   has promised that it shall do so. Not every grain in every place, for
   some will go to the birds and some to the worms and some to be scorched
   by the sun. But, as a general rule, God's Word shall not return unto
   Him void--it shall prosper in the thing whereto He has sent it. This we
   can know.

   And we can know that the Seed of God, when once it takes root, will
   continue to grow. We can know that it is not a dream or a picture that
   will disappear, but a thing of force and energy which will advance from
   a grassy blade to corn in the ear--and under God's blessing will
   develop to actual salvation and be as the "full corn in the ear." God
   helping and blessing it, our work of teaching will not only lead men to
   thought and conviction, but to conversion and eternal life! We also can
   know, because we are told so, that the reason for this is mainly
   because there is Life in the Word. In the Word of God itself there is
   Life, for it is written--"The Word of God is quick and powerful"--that
   is, "living and powerful." It is "the incorruptible seed which lives
   and abides forever."

   It is the nature of living seeds to grow and the reason why the Word of
   God grows in men's hearts is because it is the Living Word of the
   Living God and where the word of a king is, there is power! We know
   this, because the Scriptures teach us so. Is it not written, "Of His
   own will begat He us by the Word of Truth"? Moreover, the earth, which
   is here the type of the man, "brings forth fruit of herself." We must
   mind what we are doing in expounding this, for human hearts do not
   produce faith of themselves--they are as hard rock on which the Seed of
   God perishes. But it means this-- that as the earth, under the blessing
   of the dew and the rain is, by Gods secret working upon it, made to
   take up and embrace the Seed, so the heart of man is made ready to
   receive and enfold the Gospel of Jesus Christ within itself.

   There is a something congruous in the earth to the seed which is sown
   in it, so that the seed is adopted and nourished by the soil. Just so
   is it by the heart of man when God makes it honest ground. Man's
   awakened heart knows exactly what the Word of God supplies. Moved by a
   Divine influence, the soul embraces the Truth of God and is embraced by
   it so that the Truth of God lives in the heart and is quickened by it.
   The man's love accepts the love of God--man's faith worked in him by
   the Spirit of God believes the Truth of God; man's hope worked in Him
   by the Spirit of God lays hold upon the things revealed and so the
   heavenly Seed grows in the soil of the soul.

   The life comes not from you who preach the Word of God, but it is
   placed within the Word which you preach by the Holy Spirit. The life is
   not in your hands, but in the man himself who is led to take hold upon
   the Truth of God by the Spirit of God. Salvation comes not from the
   personal authority of the preacher, but through the personal
   conviction, personal faith, and personal love of the hearer. You, the
   sower, are thus taught by the parable that spiritual life and growth
   are of God and come by the Seed and the soil far more than by you. So
   far as the Truth of God is concerned, its intrinsic power is the same,
   whoever preaches it. It is not because such-and-such a preacher, whom
   God has blessed, preaches the Gospel that, therefore, it lives in men's
   hearts. Oh, no! It is because of the Truth of God, itself, and because
   of the hearts, themselves, which receive the Truth by the secret
   working of God's blessed Spirit! So much as this we may know and is it
   not enough for all practical purposes?

   Still, there is a something which we cannot know--a secret into which
   we cannot pry. I repeat what I have said be-fore--you cannot look into
   men's inward parts and see exactly how the Truth takes hold upon the
   heart, or the heart takes hold upon the Truth. Many have watched their
   own feelings till they have become blind with despondency and others
   have watched the feelings of the young till they have done them more
   harm than good by their rigorous supervision. In God's work there is
   more room for faith than for sight. The heavenly Seed grows secretly.
   You must bury it out of sight, or there will be no harvest. Even if you
   keep the seed above ground and it sprouts, you cannot discover how it
   grows! Even though you microscopically watched its swelling and
   bursting, you could not see the inward vital force which moves it.

   Behind the veil which conceals the secret working of God in the
   mysteries of natural life and growth, you cannot pry. And as for the
   Divine life in man, it must forever be hidden from all mortal eyes. The
   result of it you shall be able to see and something about the way of
   its development you shall be able to know--but the actual modus
   operandi, the secret and innermost mystery of the new birth--it shall
   not be given to you to perceive. Your know not the way of the Spirit.

   His work is worked in secret and you cannot tell from where He comes or
   where He goes. "Explain the new birth," says somebody. "My answer is,
   "Experience the new birth and you shall know what it is!" There are
   secrets into which we cannot enter, for their light is too bright for
   mortal eyes to endure.

   O Man, you cannot become Omniscient, for you are a creature and not the
   Creator. For you there must always be a region not only unknown but
   unknowable. So far shall your knowledge go, but no farther--and you may
   thank God it is so, for thus He leaves room for faith and gives cause
   for prayer. Cry mightily unto the Great Worker to do what you can not
   attempt to perform so that when you see the salvation of men, you may
   always give Him all the Glory!

   III. Thirdly, our text tells us WHAT WE MAY EXPECT IF WE WORK FOR GOD
   AND WHAT WE MAY NOT EXPECT. According to this parable we may expect to
   see fruit. The husbandman casts his seed into the ground and the seed
   springs and grows and he may expect a harvest. I wish I could say a
   word to stir up the expectations of Christian workers, for I fear that
   many work without faith. If you have a garden or a field and you sow
   seed in it, you would be very greatly surprised and grieved if it did
   not come up at all. But many Christian people seem quite content to
   work on and on and they never reckon upon results so much as to look
   expectantly for them.

   This is a pitiful kind of working--pulling up empty buckets by the
   years together. Surely I must either see a result for my labor and be
   glad, or else, failing to see it, I must be ready to break my heart if
   I am a true servant of the great Master. We ought to expect results! If
   we had expected more, we should have seen more, but a lack of
   expectation has been a great cause of failure in God's workers. But we
   may not expect to see all the Seed of God which we sow spring up the
   moment we sow it. Sometimes, glory be to God, we have but to deliver
   the Word and straightway men are con-verted--the reaper overtakes the
   sower, in such instances--but it is not always so.

   Some sowers have been diligent for years upon certain plots of ground
   and apparently all has been in vain, till at the last the harvest has
   come, a harvest which, speaking after the manner of men, had never been
   reaped if they had not persevered to the end! This world, as I believe,
   is to be converted to Christ--but not today, nor tomorrow--perhaps not
   for many an age. But the sowing of the centuries is not being lost, it
   is all working on towards the grand ultimatum. A crop of mushrooms may
   soon be produced, but a forest of oaks will not reward the planter till
   generations of his children have molded into the dust. It is ours to
   sow and to hope for quick reaping--but still we ought to remember, "the
   husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth and has long
   patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain," and so
   must we.

   We are to expect results, but not to be dispirited if we see them not
   today or on the morrow. We are also to expect to see the good Seed
   grow, but not always after our fashion. We are, nearly all of us, like
   children, for there are still not many fathers and, like children, we
   are apt to be impatient. Your little boy sowed mustard and cress
   yesterday in his little garden. This afternoon Master Johnny will be
   turning over the ground to see if the seed is growing! There is no
   probability that his mustard and cress will come to anything, for he
   will not leave it alone long enough for it to grow! So is it with hasty
   workers--they must see the result of the Gospel directly, or else they
   will leave off and distrust the blessed Word of God! Although the
   people may have taken the Word into their minds and may be considering
   it, certain preachers are in such a hurry that they will allow no time
   for thought, no space for counting the cost, no opportunity for men to
   consider their ways and turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart.

   All other seeds take time to grow but the Seed of the Word must grow
   before the speaker's eyes like magic, or he thinks nothing has been
   done! Such good Brothers are so eager to produce blades and ears, then
   and there, that they roast their Seed in the fire of fanaticism and it
   never lives at all! They make men think that they are converted and
   thus effectually hinder them from coming to a saving knowledge of the
   Truth of God! I am solemnly convinced that some men are prevented from
   being saved by being told that they are already saved and by being
   puffed up with a notion of perfection when they are not even broken in
   heart! Perhaps if such people had been taught to look for something
   deeper, they might not have been satisfied with receiving the Seed of
   God on stony ground. But now they are content with that which comes of
   Seed sown on unbroken rocks--they exhibit a rapid development--and an
   equally rapid decline and fall.

   Let us believingly expect to see the Seed of God grow, but let us look
   to see it advance after the manner of the Preacher--firstly, secondly,
   thirdly--first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.
   You are in a hurry, my Brother, but it were better to exhibit the
   patience of principle than the heat of passion. Let all men be in a
   hurry to be saved, but let those who are preaching the Truth of God be
   content to see men convicted of sin, delivered from self-

   confidence, enlightened as to the Grace of God and thus led by sure
   steps to faith. Some of the best of Christians do not know the exact
   point at which they were converted--it was a gradual process, from
   green blade to ripe ear and they cannot tell exactly when the actual
   fruit of faith was formed in them.

   Some of the most thoughtful minds are not jerked, all of a sudden into
   religion, but are brought gradually into the Light of God even as the
   noon of day draws on by degrees. With many there is at first nothing
   but a little blade. You cannot tell whether it is grass and grass only.
   Their feeling looks like a natural emotion caused by the fear of Hell
   and this might lead to nothing effectual. Then follows a little belief,
   so formed as to be like the wheat-ear of faith and yet it may only be a
   notion. It takes time, with such persons, before they show the full
   corn of assured faith in Jesus. Growth is often, if not generally,
   gradual and shall we wish to alter God's method of working? We may
   expect the Seed to grow, but every soil is not equally sharp and speedy
   and we must not demand of God that He shall work uniformly after the
   same rate of speed.

   We may expect, also, to see the Seed of God ripen. Our work will lead
   up, by God's Grace, to real faith in those He has worked upon by His
   Word and Spirit, but we must not expect to see it perfect at the first.
   How many mistakes have been made here! Here is a young person under
   impression and some good sound Brother talks with that young person and
   asks profound questions. He shakes his experienced head and knits his
   furrowed brows. He goes into the corn field to see how the crops are
   prospering and though it is early in the year, he laments that he
   cannot see one ear of corn! Indeed, he perceives nothing but grass. "I
   cannot see a trace of corn," he says. No, Brother, of course you
   cannot, for you will not be satisfied with the blade as an evidence of
   life, but must insist upon seeing everything at full growth at once!

   If you had looked for the blade you would have found it and it would
   have encouraged you. For my own part, I am glad, even, to perceive a
   faint desire, a feeble longing, a degree of uneasiness, or a measure of
   weariness of sin, or a craving after mercy. Will it not be wise for
   you, also, to allow things to begin at the beginning and to be
   satisfied with their being small at first? See the blade of desire and
   then watch for more! Soon you shall see a little more than desire, for
   there shall be conviction and resolve--and after that a feeble faith,
   small as a mustard seed, but bound to grow! Do not despise the day of
   small things! Do not examine the new-born babe about Calvinism in its
   different shades to see whether he is sound after your idea of
   soundness!

   Ten to one he is a long way off sound and you will only worry the dear
   heart by introducing difficult questions. Speak to him about his being
   a sinner, and Christ a Savior and you will, in this way, water him, so
   that his Grace in the ear will become the full corn. It may be that
   there is not much that looks like wheat about him, yet, but by-and-by
   you will say, "Wheat! Ah, that it is, if I know wheat! This man is a
   true ear of corn and gladly will I place him among my Master's
   sheaves." If you crush the blades, where will the ears come from? If
   you cut off the green ears, where will the ripe ones be? Expect Grace
   in your converts, but do not look to see Heaven in them just yet. It is
   enough if you see Heaven begun--do not look to see it complete in those
   here below! Expect, then, Brothers--for you may expect it--to see a
   harvest, but do not expect to find every Seed springing up.

   "There," says one, "that is a discouraging word." It may be so, but it
   is a true word. There is an old worldly proverb which says, "Blessed
   are those who expect nothing, for they shall never be disappointed." I
   do not believe in that proverb, but I believe in a moderate form of
   it--"Blessed are those who do not expect what is unreasonable, for they
   will not get it." If you young people who begin to work for God expect
   that every word you speak will be useful to all who hear them, it will
   not happen and you will grow discouraged. Therefore I would raise your
   expectation as high as truth permits and no higher. I would have you
   climb to the top of the ladder, but if I encourage you to go any
   higher, you will soon be going down the other side under the notion
   that you are ascending! I never like to see a man expecting what he
   will not obtain.

   Now, I know that some of our Seed will fall among thorns and some in
   stony places and I do not despair when it happens to be so. I do not
   expect, when I preach the Gospel, that everybody who hears it will
   receive it because I know it will be a savor of life unto life to some
   and of death unto death to others. I pull the net in, hauling away with
   all my might--but I know that when it comes to shore it will contain
   some strange things that are not fish which will have to be thrown
   away. And I am heartily glad that there will also be in it a cheering
   number of good fish! The results of our ministry in these days will be
   mixed, even as they were when Paul preached and some believed and some
   believed not. We must be prepared for that and yet I bid you let your
   expectations be very large, for you may have 60 or a hundred-fold of

   fruit from the Seed if God is with you. And that will abundantly repay
   you, even if the crows and the worms should eat their share of the
   grain!

   IV. The last head is this--WHAT SLEEP WORKERS MAY TAKE AND WHAT THEY
   MAY NOT TAKE, for it is said of this sowing man that he sleeps and
   rises night and day and the seed springs and grows up he knows not how.
   They say a farmer's trade is a good one because it is going on while he
   is in bed and asleep. And surely ours is a good trade, too, when we
   serve our Master by sowing good Seed, for it is growing even while we
   are asleep! But how may a good workman for Christ lawfully go to sleep?
   I answer, first, he may sleep the sleep of restfulness born of
   confidence. You are afraid the kingdom of Christ will not come, are
   you? Who asked you to tremble for the Ark of the Lord? Afraid for the
   Infinite Jehovah that His purposes will fail?

   Shame on you! Your anxiety dishonors your God! You degrade Him by a
   suspicion of His failing. Shall Omnipotence be defeated? You had better
   sleep than wake to play the part of Uzzah. Rest patiently, God's will
   will be done and His Kingdom will come and His chosen will be saved and
   Christ shall see of the travail of His soul! Take the sweet sleep which
   God gives to His beloved, the sleep of perfect confidence such as Jesus
   slept in the back part of the boat when it was tossed with tempest. The
   cause of God never was in jeopardy and never will be! The Seed sown is
   insured by Omnipotence and must produce its harvest. In patience
   possess your soul and wait till the harvest comes, for the pleasure of
   the Lord must prosper in the hands of Jesus.

   Also take that sleep which leads to a happy waking of joyful
   expectancy. Get up in the morning and feel that the Lord is ruling all
   things for the accomplishment of His own purpose. Look for it! If you
   do not sleep, you certainly will not wake up in the morning refreshed
   and ready for more work! If it were possible for you to sit up all
   night and eat the bread of carefulness, you would be unfit to attend to
   the service which your Master appoints for the morning! Therefore take
   your rest and be at peace and work with calm dignity, for the matter is
   safe in the Lord's hands. Take your rest because you have consciously
   resigned the work into God's hands. After you have spoken the Word,
   resort to God in prayer and commit it into God's hands--and then do not
   fret about it. It cannot be in better keeping--leave it there.

   But do not sleep the sleep of unwatchfulness. The farmer sows his seed,
   but he does not, therefore, forget it! He has to mend his fences to
   keep the cattle out. It may be he has to drive away birds, to remove
   weeds, or to prevent floods. While he is not sitting down to watch the
   growth, he has plenty else to do. He never sleeps the sleep of
   indifference or even of inaction, for each season has its demand upon
   him. He has sown one field, but he has another to sow. He has sown, but
   he has, also, by God's Grace, to reap. And when reaping is done, he has
   something else to do. He is never done, for in one part or other of the
   farm, he is needed! His sleep is but an interlude that gives him
   strength to continue in his occupations.

   Consider that the parable teaches us that we have not to intrude into
   the domain of God, but with regard to the secret working of the Truth
   of God upon man's mind we are to take our rest and go on our way,
   serving our day and generation according to the will of God. I want
   you, dear Brothers and Sisters, to come to that point this morning.
   "Lord, this is Your work. Lord, You can do Your own work. Lord, do Your
   own work--we entreat and beseech You to do it. Lord, help us to do our
   work, both at the beginning of the chapter and at the end of the
   chapter, confident that You will not fail in the middle of the chapter,
   but that You will do Your work. Help us to exercise faith in You and to
   go about our labor in the confidence that You are with us and we are
   workers together with You."

   Up, Brothers and Sisters, to the mountain, to the brow of Carmel, this
   afternoon! Get up there and pray that God will send a shower of
   heavenly rain by His Spirit. Up, Elijah! Put your head between your
   knees and cry till you are certain that the cloud, though it is little
   at first, as a man's hand, will cover all the earth and water the land
   with blessing! Up and pray that God would sweep away all the doubts
   which, like locusts, devour the Church today. Pray that He will keep
   away all love of sin and all rejection of Christ, that at this hour,
   even at this hour, God may glorify Himself by the feeble hands of His
   sower while he scatters the Seed of God!

   I beg your prayers, my dear and faithful Friends, this afternoon and
   this evening, that the Words of the Lord may be divinely victorious! I
   stand back that God may work and then come forward that God may work
   through me--and to Him be praise forever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Heart Disease Curable

   (No. 1604)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 19, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Isaiah 61:1.

   THIS text receives great luster from the fact that it was one of the
   passages which the Savior read when He entered into the synagogue at
   Nazareth and preached on the Sabbath. It is as fresh as ever and we may
   still say of it, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."
   It is no small privilege that we poor under-shepherds should be
   permitted to take the same text as "that great Shepherd of the sheep."
   Our care must be to point to Him in it. I intended to have preached
   from these words in Luke 4:18, but when I looked at the Revised Version
   and found that the words were not there at all I was somewhat startled.
   I began to ask whether the emission was a correct one or not and,
   without making pretense to scholarship, I feel convinced that the
   revisers are acting honestly in leaving it out.

   It was not in the original manuscript of Luke, but probably some pious
   person added it with the intention of making the quotation more
   complete. Whatever the intention may have been and however natural the
   added words may appear, it is a pity that the unknown Brother ventured
   to improve that which was perfect from the beginning. After resolving
   in my mind the fact, which I accept, that the passage was not written
   by Luke in his record, I have, I think, discovered the reason. When our
   Savior unrolled the Book of Isaiah, He read from it, but we are not
   certain that He read any one passage through. According to the Jewish
   Law it was allowed in the Prophets for the reader in the synagogue to
   skip, as we call it, to make selections and read here a passage and
   there a passage, as he aimed at bringing out his subject. As the words
   are given in our Authorized Version you will notice that the portion of
   Scripture is not exactly like the prophetic words in Isaiah 61 and that
   one sentence, at least, must have been taken from another part of the
   prophetic Book.

   The Savior did read from Isaiah 61, but He also quoted other portions
   of Isaiah, probably taking a verse here and a verse there and blending
   them in one, just as sometimes, when I wish to give you a connected
   narrative, I read on in a chapter, say to verse eight, and then miss a
   piece to verse 16 and again run on to verse 24 and miss a few verses
   again. The Savior gave a resume of texts which stood near each other
   upon the roll and Luke records those upon which our Lord dwelt in His
   sermon. "But," you say, "why, then, if it is so, did He omit the words
   which describe Him as sent to bind up the brokenhearted?" It may
   possibly have been His intention to leave out all allusion to healing.
   They were all looking for Him to work miracles of healing that day and,
   therefore, He either omitted the sentence for the moment or else He did
   not dwell upon it, for I take it that Luke is not giving us exactly the
   Scripture, but the sense of it, and those points in the Scripture upon
   which the Savior enlarged.

   He probably gives us notes of those sentences which were both read and
   expounded and the Lord may have purposely refused to expound even if He
   read the sentence before us--"He has sent Me to bind up the
   brokenhearted." I say they were looking to Him to work miracles of
   healing and He did not mean to gratify them. We are told that, "He
   could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." He did
   not intend to exhibit Himself as a mere wonderworker and, therefore,
   but lightly touched upon the sentence about healing till further on,
   when He saw, as He read their hearts, that they noticed the omission
   and He, therefore, said to them, "You will surely say, Physician, heal
   Yourself--which, being paraphrased, may run thus--"You either did not
   read that passage, or else you lightly treated it and yet a part of the
   Messiah's business is to heal the sick."

   He perceived that by His own silence He had called their attention to
   the Scripture and that they were ready to quote it against Him by the
   challenge, "Physician, heal Yourself. Do for Your own family and city
   what You are said to have done at Capernaum." Our Lord paid no
   attention to claims based upon His dwelling in the place, for He knows
   no claim but that of mercy. He intended to exercise His Sovereignty
   and, therefore, He reminded them that healing was not sent to the
   lepers that were in Israel, but was sent only to Naaman who had nothing
   to do with Israel, but was one of that Syrian

   nation which opposed and oppressed Israel! Possibly He gave them
   nothing about healing that day because He knew that they were not
   brokenhearted.

   He who reads men's hearts knew that they were captives to their
   unbelief, blinded by prejudice and fettered by sin and, therefore, He
   said, "He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and
   recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
   bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." But the most
   tender part of the Gospel being inapplicable to their case, He would
   not mention it in their hearing at that time. He would not cast it like
   a pearl before swine, but reserved it until they should lament their
   sin and adopt another mood. This, it strikes me, is the reason why the
   passage is not mentioned in the original Gospel of Luke and, if so, the
   omission is most instructive. Take heed lest you, also, should miss the
   sweetest Word of the Gospel through being in an unfit state to receive
   it!

   Concerning the fact of difference between the Revised and the
   Authorized Versions, I would say that no Baptist should ever fear any
   honest attempt to produce the correct text and an accurate
   interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. For many years Baptists
   have insisted upon it that we ought to have the Word of God translated
   in the best possible manner, whether it would confirm certain religious
   opinions and practices, or work against them. All we want is the exact
   mind of the Spirit as far as we can get it. Beyond all other Christians
   we are concerned in this, seeing we have no other sacred Book. We have
   no Prayer Book or binding creed, or authoritative minutes of
   conferences. We have nothing but the Bible and we would have that as
   pure as ever we can get it.

   By the best and most honest scholarship that can be found, we desire
   that the common version may be purged of every blunder of transcribers,
   addition of human ignorance or human knowledge so that the Word of God
   may come to us as it came from His own hand. I confess that it looks a
   grievous thing to part with words which we thought were part and parcel
   of Luke, but as they are not in the oldest copies and must be given up,
   we will make capital out of their omission by seeing in that fact the
   wisdom of the great Preacher who did not speak upon cheering Truths of
   God when they were not needed and might have overlaid His seasonable
   rebuke. Although we have not the sentence in Luke, we do have it in
   Isaiah, and that is quite enough for me.

   Indeed, if it were not in Isaiah, it is yet in other parts of the Word
   of God. Its meaning pervades the Bible--it is the very genius and
   spirit of the Old and New Testaments that the Messiah is sent to heal
   the brokenhearted. The Gospel comes that the miseries of men may be
   relieved, that the despair of the troubled may be cheered and that joy
   may glitter on all sides like the dew of the morning when the sun
   rises. I pray that the commission of Jesus Christ may be fulfilled this
   day to all the brokenhearted ones to whom the word of this message
   shall come. I hope there are none here who claim a right to healing,
   for, if so, the Lord will not listen to them. He will do as He wills
   with His own, for it is written, "He will have mercy on whom He will
   have mercy."

   The men of Nazareth claimed it in the synagogue that day because He had
   lived among them and so Jesus did not speak of healing them. Jesus
   gives freely, but if any man demands anything of Him as his due, He is
   jealous for His crown rights and will pay no regard to such insulting
   demands! His healing work is not of debt, but of Grace! It is not
   granted to presumptuous demands, but frankly bestowed as a free gift.
   Now turn to the text. "He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted."
   Here are three matters for consideration--heart wounds, heavenly
   healing and an honored Healer.

   I. First, let us think upon HEART WOUNDS. Many in this world live with
   broken hearts. Bad is a broken limb of any kind--bruised and wounded
   flesh is hard enough to bear--but when the fracture is in the heart, it
   is a sad business. Of all cases of distress, these are the most
   pitiable and yet they are very frequently despised. When a man's spirit
   is cowed and his heart is crushed and he is despairing and utterly
   wretched, others get away from him, for he is dreary company. As the
   herd leaves the wounded stag to bleed and die alone, so do men
   instinctively avoid the society of those who are habitually gloomy.
   Their own desire after happiness leads men to escape from the
   miserable.

   Be joyful and you shall attract; be sorrowful and you will scatter. Job
   truly says, "He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp
   despised in the thought of him that is at ease." The careless, the
   giddy, the superficial look with horror upon those whose thoughtfulness
   rebukes them, while the prosperous and happy view them with reluctance
   because they remind them of sorrows which otherwise they might forget.
   God has smitten some men and their hearts are sorely broken beneath His
   rod and, therefore, their fellows hide their faces from them and
   despise them. Many blame them and say they ought to shake off their
   gloom and make an effort to be brave. I know not all they say, but
   certain it is that among the despised and rejected of men we find a
   company who carry with them heartbreaks day and night.

   What wonder, then, that they are frequently avoided--common humanity
   calls us to help those who are injured in limb and if there is an
   accident in the street, a crowd will soon be gathered and human
   kindness will exhibit itself. But if there is breakage of the heart,
   sympathy is soon exhausted and love, itself, grows weary of her
   hopeless efforts to console! Those who are taught of God will help the
   brokenhearted, but human sympathy is soon worn out because it is
   conscious of its inability to succor. You can set a limb and the bones
   will grow--but what can we do in the resetting of a fractured heart?

   So, not liking to attempt the impossible, not caring to be continually
   baffled, it seems to be natural, even to good men, to be little anxious
   for the company of the desolate. Thus these unhappy ones are doomed to
   sigh out, "Lover and friend have You put far from me and my
   acquaintance into darkness." I am afraid the story of Job is more often
   repeated than we think. When men come to comfort the forlorn, they
   often become embittered by their conscious failure and begin to upbraid
   till the poor tortured creature cries out in agony, "Miserable
   comforters are you all!" Therefore is the case of the brokenhearted a
   very hard one because they are often despised and avoided.

   Happy is it for them that the Lord Jesus was sent to heal the
   brokenhearted! Apart from this, it is exceedingly painful to have a
   broken heart. The heart is the center of sensation and, therefore, its
   being broken involves the acutest of pangs. Sorrow bangs over the
   spirit in clouds which cannot be dispelled. Not only is their cup
   filled with sadness, but they sit by wells of sorrow. They have long
   forgotten the palm trees of Elim and they are filled with the bitter
   waters of Marah. They rest not day nor night--how can they? No pain of
   the flesh can equal heaviness of heart! Give me all the aches and pains
   which my body can endure, but spare me heartache! Break me alive on the
   wheel, but let me not live to be brokenhearted unless it is from the
   grand cause of penitence.

   "A wounded spirit who can bear?" When the arrows penetrate the soul,
   then the lifeblood becomes as liquid fire and the man is a mass of
   misery. Besides, it weakens us, for when the heart is wounded the
   source of strength is impaired. A man who has a strong heart can do
   anything! However weak, feeble, crippled, or diseased he may be in
   body, yet if he keeps up his spirits, he can laugh at all his pains.
   But if the heart is crushed, what can he do? What can he hope? What can
   he endure? When fear is in the heart, the grasshopper becomes a burden,
   they that look out of the windows are darkened and the keepers of the
   house tremble. Far worse than the infirmities of old age are the
   miseries of a broken heart!

   Ordinarily a broken heart is utterly incurable. How many times have I
   had to learn this lesson to my own deep humiliation. It has been my
   happy, happy lot to speak to brokenhearted ones and see them gradually
   rise to be of good cheer when my Lord has spoken through me. But apart
   from His Presence, I have argued, pleaded, explained and
   per-suaded--and all in vain! I have been almost dragged down into the
   wretchedness from which I hoped to rescue my fellow man, for the
   sympathy I have felt for the desponding has well-near made me
   despondent, myself!

   What a variety of advice physicians give and what is the good of it
   all? "Take a journey," they say, "into foreign lands. See new cities,
   or amuse yourself among the Alps." Yes, but if the man carries with him
   a heart weary of life, he is apt enough to bring it back with him--and
   what good has he gained? "Attend the baths. Resort to the best
   physicians. Use electricity. Try strong exercise." This is all very
   well, for the body may need strengthening or purifying or awakening or
   resting, but if the secret of the disease is a broken heart and the
   hammer of God has smitten it--all the physicians in the world can be of
   no service--it shall end as with her of old who spent all her
   livelihood upon physicians and was no better, but rather grew worse.

   There is a cure for this grievous malady of which we shall speak full
   soon, but there is none in Gilead, or in the whole of Nature's fields.
   Earthly pleasures and precepts are physicians of no value. Their
   ointments and their liniments, their outward oils and inward medicines
   are all of no use to reach the core of our being and restore the heart.
   Magicians may charm ever so wisely, but they cannot charm the hemlock
   from the furrows of the soul. When the heart is broken, who can rivet
   the shattered fragment? If there had been a remedy anywhere else, the
   Lord Jesus would not have left Heaven to heal! But inasmuch as He came
   on this errand, depend upon it--nobody else could have performed it.

   This heartbreak in the end will be fatal if it is not healed. We are
   frequently reading of men who suddenly fall dead and the death
   certificate states that they died of disease of the heart. That is a
   way which physicians have of saying that they do not know what ailed
   the deceased. The heart is very much like Africa, a region unexplored.
   Mentally and spiritually it is so and when the heart is broken, true
   life is well-near gone. Existence ceases to be desirable when the
   spirits fail. Such morbid minds say with Job, "My soul chooses
   strangling rather than life." God grant that none may be so wicked

   and foolish as to end their own lives and thus leap into the fire to
   escape the heat. Doubtless many have gone down to the grave, melted
   away in tears, dissolved in woe. Unhappy those who live refusing to be
   comforted and die rejecting the one good and great Physician who could
   heal them! May none of you be of that unhappy company.

   It is a sad story, this tale of the brokenhearted one, but in many a
   house it is well known. I invite you, Beloved, if you do not know the
   disease, to pray that you never may! And if you have any friends
   afflicted with it, be very tender and gentle with them. I remember the
   impression made upon my young heart, as a child, when I was taken to a
   house where there was a sad lady, always dressed in black, who said
   that she had committed the unpardonable sin. I remember the horror that
   I felt as I sat in the room with her and wanted, from very fear, to get
   away, thinking she must be a dreadfully wicked woman. Yet she may have
   been one of the most gracious of Christians and it is probable that she
   came out into the Light of God, again, before she departed this life.

   These crushed ones are often the best of people. The fairest of our
   lilies are often broken at the stalk. Our ripest fruit is visited by
   the worm. Thank God they shall yet have beauty for ashes and the oil of
   joy for mourning! Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

   II. We will now, for a little while, speak upon the HEAVENLY HEALING.
   The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to bind up the
   brokenhearted and surely it means all the brokenhearted. I do not think
   we have any right to restrict texts of Scripture, as we very often do,
   to square them to our theological systems. In this case you will hear
   the passage interpreted to mean the spiritually brokenhearted and then
   people look within to see whether their pains are spiritual and thus
   they are kept from going to Christ. I do not mind revised versions,
   provided they really get at the original, but I do not mean to let you
   revise the version by putting in such qualifying words as you may think
   fit.

   What a host of revised versions we have! Everybody has one of his own.
   Certain texts which will not fit into our system must be planed and cut
   down. Have you ever seen the hard work that some Brethren have to shape
   a Scripture to their mind? One text is not Calvinistic, it looks rather
   Arminian--of course it cannot be so and, therefore, they twist and tug
   to get it right. As for our Arminian Brethren, it is wonderful to see
   how they hammer away at the 9th Chapter of Romans--steam-hammers and
   screw-jacks are nothing to their appliances for getting rid of Election
   from that chapter! We have all been guilty of racking Scripture, more
   or less, and it will be well to have done with the evil, forever! We
   had far better be inconsistent with ourselves than with the Inspired
   Word of God.

   I have been called an Arminian Calvinist or a Calvinistic Arminian and
   I am quite content so long as I can keep close to my Bible. I desire to
   preach what I find in this Book whether I find it in anybody else's
   book or not. And as I do not find "spiritual brokenhearted" in my text,
   I shall take the liberty of giving a wide range to this
   brokenheartedness. Many are brokenhearted from a sense of guilt. This
   is the best form of brokenheartedness in the world! When the hammer of
   God's Law comes down with its 10 strokes and every Commandment pounds
   the heart to powder, it is well. When a man once hears the Law of God
   proclaimed from burning Sinai with a voice of thunder, he ceases to
   trifle and is sorely afraid. He learns that God is angry with the
   wicked every day-- "if he turns not He will whet His sword, He has bent
   His bow and made it ready"

   His heart fails him as he hears this terrible declaration. Then is a
   man in bitterness as one that mourns for his only son, even for his
   first-born. Oh, that I should ever have lived to make my God my enemy;
   that ever I should have been so base, so ungrateful to my best Friend!
   Oh, cursed heart, to have loved its idols and have hated the Most High!
   Some of us knew, in the days of our conviction, what it was to hate the
   light of day and to dread the darkness of night--to long for our bed
   that we might sleep--and yet to toss there restlessly upon a pillow
   harder than Jacob's stone. O sin! Sin! Sin! If its weight is once felt.
   If the terrors of God once break loose upon an awakened conscience, the
   misery reaches to agony and the agony nears to death!

   But, Beloved, our Lord Jesus has come to heal the anguish of the
   conscience by declaring that there is forgiveness with God, that He may
   be feared and He can be just and yet the Justifier of sinners who
   believe. Thus is it written, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleans
   us from all sin." "He that believes in Him is not condemned." Whenever
   the Lord Jesus is believingly received, the heartbreak of remorse is
   ended and the sinner rests at the foot of the Cross. When the Holy
   Spirit applies the blood of Atonement, the blood of the heart's wound
   ceases to flow. The griefs of Jesus end our grief--His death is the
   death of our despair! Substitution is the charming word which opens the
   gate of hope!

   This form of heartbreak, if it is present here this morning, is my
   Lord's own specialty. In dealing with this He is altogether at home,
   for He delights in mercy! I have seen Him apply the liniments to the
   wounds with tender, downy-fingered hands, swathing the limb with hands
   so soft and yet so strong, that the gash has closed, never to open
   again! So speedy and so sure is His surgery that the broken heart has
   begun to sing as soon as He has touched it! Do it again, great Master!
   Do it at this very hour! Say, poor Sinner, "Lord, do it to me." He can
   heal when all others have failed. He can heal you now!--

   "When wounded sore, the stricken soul Lies bleeding and unbound, One
   only hand, a pierced hand, Can salve the sinner's wound."

   Another brokenness of heart is felt by those who regard themselves as
   outcasts. Few of you have ever felt that dreadful weight upon the soul.
   It is as a dreadful millstone about the neck. The woman whose sin may
   not be in God's sight more gross than that of others is yet regarded by
   society as utterly fallen and defiled--a thing to be flung from hand to
   hand and cast on the dunghill as a faded flower! Words cannot describe
   the shudder which passes over the mind of one betrayed and deceived
   when she perceives that she is, from now on, numbered with castaways. A
   like thing happens to the man who has been guilty of embezzlement, or
   some other form of dishonesty. He is found out, prosecuted by his
   employer, set before the court and sent to prison to be, from then on,
   a branded criminal.

   Ah me, how dreadful must be the waking up on the first morning in a
   prison cell! He who was once courted will, from now on, be shunned--he
   is a broken man without a character--marked by all as an outcast. Ah,
   poor man, poor woman, Jesus receives sinners such as you! Some of us
   have known what it is to feel as if we were shut out from hope and from
   the mercy of God. We thought that He would not hear our cries. It was
   of no use for us to pray, so our fears told us--God could not have
   mercy upon such gross transgressors--He must leave us to ourselves and
   to our sins. We thought that He had set us up to be the targets of His
   arrows and to stand, like Pharaoh, the monuments of His wrath against
   the proud! Yet were our fears all false, for our Lord Jesus, who came
   to bind up the brokenhearted, has bound up all our wounds and we are
   happy in Him.

   Fallen ones, He will restore you and give you rest! It is the glory of
   the Christian Church that it receives into its brotherhood the fallen
   and the outcasts as soon as they repent. The world offers no room for
   repentance, but in the Church, all are penitents! When Jesus forms the
   center of a Church, there will be a ring of sinners attracted. Do we
   not read, "Then drew near unto Him, all the publicans and sinners for
   to hear Him"? Never did He drive them back, but He welcomed them--"This
   Man receives sinners and eats with them." Listen poor crushed one!
   However low you may have fallen, come to Jesus, for He will not cast
   you out! Come to His true servants, for it will be their joy to restore
   you. When the gates of respectability are shut, the gates of mercy and
   Christian love are still open! Return, O wanderer! A welcome awaits
   you! Jesus will make you whiter than snow. Though you may well believe
   that He asks Himself concerning you, "How shall I put you among the
   children?" yet He will do it, for He lifts the beggar from the
   dunghill--

   "That Christ will receive Him no sinner need fear, The poorer the
   wretch, the welcomer here! Though you may be outcast and banished afar,
   Your welcome is certain, come just as you are."

   Another brokenness of heart is that of utter helplessness in which a
   man feels that he is too feeble to fight the battle of life. He is not
   only given up by others, but he has given up on himself. He floats like
   a deserted vessel, derelict, waterlogged, abandoned. Sin has beset him.
   He has given way to temptations and now Satan binds him fast. Perhaps
   he has backslidden from the profession of religion and brought great
   dishonor upon the name of Christ and now he cries, "My last end will be
   worse than the first! I have crucified the Lord afresh and shall die in
   my sins! I neglected the means of Grace, I became slack in prayer, I
   turned my face away from God and now He has left me and I cannot get
   back again."

   Alas, for men who are bound with such fetters, the iron enters into
   their souls! There are some here who once ran well--what hindered them
   that they should not obey the Truth of God? They have gradually slipped
   back, back, back, till now it is a question with them whether they ever
   knew the Grace of God in truth at all. They are grieved to have it so
   and long to be restored--but despair holds them. My gracious Lord Jesus
   Christ comes to you, backsliders, who are

   filled with your own ways, who labor and are heavy laden with the fear
   that you are cast away forever, and He says, "Return, you backsliding
   children."

   He will help you to return. He will draw you and you shall run to Him.
   The love of Jesus has not changed! He loves even to the end. He will
   not cast away a soul that looks to Him. O taste and see that the Lord
   is good! Return to Him this morning. He will receive you graciously and
   love you freely--and you shall render to Him, again, the calves of your
   lips as once you used to do, for Jesus heals the broken in heart and
   binds up their wounds! Many are broken in heart because they are
   afflicted so heavily. When sickness first comes to our door and we are
   new to it, it is a very unwelcome guest. New pains are sharp, fresh
   griefs appear intolerable, for as yet the bullock is unaccustomed to
   the yoke. By-and-by we bear our woes more patiently, but at first, the
   man afflicted with a disease which he knows will bring him to his grave
   is sadly cast down.

   The man who sees business ebbing away and foresees bankruptcy and
   perhaps destitution, is crushed. Brother, if you receive Jesus Christ
   into your heart, He will ease you by teaching you a sweet submission to
   the Divine will. He will tell you that "all things work together for
   good to them that love God." He will explain to you the doctrine of
   Providence. He will make you to consider the end of the Lord, for He is
   very pitiful even in His sharpest dispensations and He will supply you
   with such strength of Grace that you will be able to endure pain or
   poverty. Thus will He support you till your heart shall become strong
   and you shall bravely face the afflictions and conflicts of life.

   Some are brokenhearted through bereavement. One laments, "I have lost
   my wife." Another bemoans herself, "I have lost my husband." Or a third
   cries, "My mother is gone." Or a fourth, with motherly tenderness,
   mourns the dearest child that ever nestled in a woman's bosom. "Alas,"
   cries each one, "I can never survive the stroke!" We have all endured
   sorrow, but bereavements are a sharp sword. Friends can do little to
   fill up the great gap which death has made. Ah, it is, indeed, an
   aching void which is left in an affectionate heart when the dear object
   of love is torn away. The best of people in this respect suffer most.
   Herein is comfort from Jesus! The blessed doctrine of the Resurrection
   cheers the darkness of the sepulcher!

   Jesus says, "Your brother shall rise again." The blessed thought of the
   eternal felicity of those that we gladly would have detained below is a
   sweet recompense for their loss. We remember our Lord's prayer--"I will
   that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, that
   they may behold My Glory." Sometimes, in prospect of losing our beloved
   ones, we pull very hard earthward and cry, "Father, I will that they be
   with me where I am." Did you ever feel a pull the other way and start,
   and look to see who pulls Heavenward? You watch and see that it is
   Jesus praying, "Father, I will that they be with Me where I am."
   Whenever Christ and you come to cross purposes I know you will yield,
   for you will gladly acknowledge that the dear ones are more Christ's
   than yours! Let them go. Jesus, we can part with all for You! It is no
   parting, when we know that our beloved is with You! Thus does Jesus,
   who Himself wept for Lazarus, heal broken hearts whose joy is buried
   with those they loved so well.

   There are many other forms of this disease. I have known hearts to be
   thoroughly broken by desertion. One whom you loved and trusted proves
   false and the early love of a true heart is broken like a potter's
   vessel. What desolation fills many a soul that once was happy as the
   birds--for treachery wastes like the scourge of war! When a choice
   friend betrays you, or a professed Brother in Christian work, who ought
   to have held up your hands, weakens and opposes you, it is a blow upon
   the heart as when a bone is broken by the hammer. Yet there is
   consolation, for He who had His Judas and bitterly cried, "He that eats
   bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me," knows how to bind up
   such a broken heart, for He becomes a Friend that sticks closer than a
   brother and He makes us feel, in the sweet tenderness and faithfulness
   of His Divine companionship, that we are not alone, for the Lord is
   with us.

   He is better unto us than 10 friends! So long as He smiles, sunshine is
   on our way! Ahithophel may join our enemies and Judas may sell us for
   silver, but we are secure, for He will make the wrath of man to praise
   Him and neutralize its gall by the sweetness of His company. I am
   certain that there is no form of broken heart present but what there is
   medicine for it in the Word of God and in Jesus who is the Word of God.
   The leaves of this tree are for the healing of nations. Christ Jesus
   brings a cure-all for those who are otherwise incurable. In His
   dispensary there are remedies compounded by Divine art which will touch
   the heart and act upon it like a charm till it shall throb with
   pleasure as much as it now palpitates with anguish.

   This is no quackery. His is a scientific system of surgery which has
   borne the test of ages and has been proven by the experience of
   countless sufferers to be Infallible. Here we stand, ourselves, living
   witnesses of His skill! He has bound us up and we are now saved from
   heartache and made to praise Him with our whole heart!

   III. Our third theme is THE HONORED PHYSICIAN and this is the central
   point of the text. Jesus says, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
   because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
   He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Observe, first, that this
   honored Physician gives personal attention to the brokenhearted. He
   says, "He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted." Daniel said, "My
   God has sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths," but as for you
   brokenhearted ones, you receive personal attention from your Lord! The
   Lord has sent Jesus Christ Himself because the task needs a Divine
   hand.

   The Lord's servants, without their Lord, can do no more than the staff
   of Elisha did when Gehazi laid upon the dead child and there was
   neither voice nor hearing. The great Prophet Himself is coming and
   wonders will be seen among us! He is here at this moment in His own
   proper Person and He will not fail in any case that is brought to Him.
   Many a great physician has so much practice that he is compelled to
   take a partner or an assistant, but my Lord is able to do all His work
   and none can interfere in it. Jesus Himself, personally, with His own
   pierced hands, continues to bind up the brokenhearted! Does not this
   fact tend to already comfort you? If Jesus undertakes to lift you up,
   it will be done! He is the consolation of Israel, appointed to comfort
   all that mourn.

   Come, old Simeon, take Him up in your arms and forget the infirmities
   of age! Come, widowed Anna, and give thanks to God for Him who is the
   Husband of the lonely heart! He will, Himself, wipe all tears from the
   eyes of His people and He will do it now! O you who in your youth are
   bearing the yoke of grief and declare that your life is blighted, say
   so no more--for Jesus comes to help you, even He, Himself! Remember the
   record, "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord"--the same
   sight shall gladden you!

   This Physician is fully qualified. He is called Christos, or Christ,
   which signifies Anointed--"The Lord has anointed Me." I am sure that
   Jesus can cure broken hearts because God has given Him the Spirit, even
   the Comforter, to rest upon Him without measure that His words may drop
   with the oil of comfort. O, trust Him now! He has all the fitness for
   His work that God can give Him. He is complete and we are complete in
   Him. A broken heart needs oil to be poured into its wounds and,
   "Christ," is an oily name--He is christened a Savior, anointed a
   Healer! The good Samaritan poured in oil and wine, but here is heavenly
   oil in the hands of One who is, Himself, the health of our countenance

   As if this were not enough, notice that our Lord is commissioned. "He
   has sent Me," He says. First, "anointed Me," then, "sent Me." Our Lord
   said to the blind man, "Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, which is,
   being interpreted, sent." How I wish that you who are brokenhearted
   would go and wash in this pool and find comfort in the blessed fact
   that the Anointed is sent of God to you! The Great Father thought so
   much of you that He sent a special Messenger to heal you! Yes, sent the
   best one there was in Heaven to be a Missionary to you! No other was
   fit to be second to Him, but God emptied Heaven of its superlative
   Glory and sent His own Son down below that He might bind up broken
   hearts--I cannot imagine a failure of this Messiah--the Sent One.

   This is the Shiloh for whose salvation Jacob waited, looking for Him
   who should be sent. This is the Apostle, or Sent One of our profession,
   sent on purpose that He might comfort all the heirs of sorrow. Jesus is
   carrying on a mission, a mission for the desolate! He is a Missionary
   to the forlorn, commissioned to commiserate, appointed to relieve.
   Observe, then, His qualifications and His commission. He bears a
   diploma of the highest value! He is the Royal Physician-- Surgeon in
   Ordinary to all bleeding hearts! O that you would put your mournful
   cases into His hands!

   Remember, also, what He is in Person and Character and I think you will
   at once say, "I will submit my broken heart to Him that He may heal
   me." For Jesus, your Physician, is one who knows heartbreak by having
   felt it. He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death." I
   will tell you one of the most terrible tormentors in the world,
   excelling even an Inquisitor--it is an unfeeling comforter. Save me
   from a man who comes to console me wearing a face of marble and a heart
   of stone! His words put grit into your wounds, or what if I say--salt?
   Job knew this dreadful affliction.

   Look, then, at the reverse of the picture--the surest Comforter is one
   who is touched with a feeling of our infirmity, seeing He was tempted
   in all points like as we are. "No," says the broken heart, "Christ
   never knew my pain." Ah, but He did. What is it? That you have been
   slandered? Jesus cries, "Reproach has broken My heart!" Is it that you
   are forsaken by friends? Is it not written, "Then all the disciples
   forsook Him and fled"? Is it that you are forsaken by God? Did

   not Jesus cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me"? Is it that
   your cup is bitter? Did He not pray three times that the cup might pass
   from Him and still the cup was not removed? He leads you through no
   darker rooms than He went through before--and in all He is so tenderly
   sympathetic with you that He is the best Physician you can desire.

   Besides, how gentle He is, as a mother with her child! He is meek and
   lowly in heart, considerate, tender--there was never one like He! He
   has soft fingers for sore places, sweet liniment for sharp cuts and
   precious balm for bleeding wounds. The oil with which He was anointed
   has both perfume and soothing about it. It is so sweet that those who
   are far away may perceive it and it is so rare a salve that it works
   its way and touches wounds which nothing else could reach. Jesus has
   great skill in bringing light into the dreary recesses of darkened
   minds. Oh that you knew my Master! If you had seen Him as my broken
   heart saw Him on my first spiritual birthday, when I heard the word
   that says, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth"--I say, if you had seen Him as I then saw Him you would have
   rushed to His feet for healing!

   I was at the ends of the earth! I thought I was ready to slip over the
   edge, altogether, and sink into the abyss! But in obedience to His
   command, I looked. It was the dim look of a half-blinded eye. I looked
   through my tears, but hardly hoped to see Him. Still I looked. I turned
   my eyes that way and I resolved that if I were lost it should be lying
   at Jesus' feet. I believed He was able to save me and I left myself
   with Him--and He has done great things for me, to which I cheerfully
   bear witness! He keeps on blessing me and He will complete His work
   before long. I know whom I have believed and I rest in Him! O dear
   hearts that are breaking, I wish you would do as I did! I would to God
   the same Grace would lead you, at once, to fall at my Lord's feet!
   Swoon away into Christ's arms! Do not try to get stronger--be weaker,
   if weaker you can be! Be nothing and let Him be your All! Die into His
   life!

   Come, brokenhearted ones, do not try to bind yourselves up--you will
   only wound yourselves the more! Do not look for comfort into the black
   and horrible abyss of your own nature, but look to Him whom God has
   sent! Get right away from what you are to what He is. Have you a legion
   of devils in you? He is the devils' Master and can turn them all out at
   once! Does Satan, himself, seem to hold you in his grip? He who of old
   has fought the fiend and vanquished him will lead your captivity
   captive and take the prey from the mighty! If you must despair, despair
   yourself into Christ--I mean by that self-despair which is the next of
   kin to humble faith in Jesus--drop into His hands. Faint upon Christ's
   bosom and lie there in happy helplessness.

   May the Lord disable you for anything else and lead you to believe in
   His Anointed! God has sent you Jesus! Will you not admit Him? He is
   able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. Come,
   then, at once, and believe in Him whom God has sent!
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus Knew What He Would Do

   (No. 1605)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 23, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "This He said to test him: for He Himself knew what He would do." John
   6:6.

   OBSERVE, dear Friends, how careful the Holy Spirit is that we should
   not make a mistake about our Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that men are
   liable to think too little of the ever-blessed Son of God and that
   some, who call themselves Christians, nevertheless deny Christ's Deity
   and are always ready to forge an argument against the true and real
   Deity of the Savior out of anything which appears to limit His power or
   knowledge. Here is an instance of the care of the Spirit to prevent our
   falling into an erroneous conclusion. Our Lord consults with Philip,
   asking this poor disciple, "Where shall we buy bread, that these may
   eat?" Some might, therefore, have inferred that Jesus did not know what
   to do and felt embarrassed. From this they would argue that Jesus
   cannot be Almighty God, for, surely, embarrassment is inconsistent with
   Omnipotence! Why should Jesus consult with Philip, if He knows all
   things?

   Now, the Holy Spirit would have us beware of falling into low thoughts
   of our great Redeemer and Lord--and especially of ever being so
   mistaken as to think that He is not God. Therefore He plainly tells us,
   "this He said to test Philip, for He Himself knew what He would do."
   Jesus was not asking information or taking counsel with Philip because
   He felt any doubt about His line of procedure or needed help from His
   disciple. He did not want Philip to multiply bread, but He desired to
   multiply Philip's faith. Take heed, therefore, dear Friends, that you
   never think little of the Savior, or impute any of His acts to motives
   that would lessen His Glory.

   Learn here, too, that we, being very apt to make mistakes concerning
   Christ, need daily that the Spirit of God should interpret Christ to
   us. Jesus simply asks the question of Philip, "Where shall we buy
   bread?" and we are at once in danger of drawing a wrong inference and,
   therefore, the Holy Spirit tells us more about Christ that we may
   escape from that danger. By giving us more insight into our Lord's
   motives, He prevents our misjudging His actions. We must have the
   Spirit of God with us, or we shall not know Christ, Himself. The only
   way to see the sun is by its own light--and the only way to see Jesus
   is by His own Spirit. Did He not, Himself, say, "He shall receive of
   Mine and shall show it unto you"?

   No man can call Jesus, "Lord," but by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit must
   come to each man, personally, and reveal the Son of God to him and in
   him. Therefore, do not let us take up the Bible and imagine that we
   shall, at once, understand it as we do another book, but let us breathe
   the prayer that the Great Author of its letter would, Himself, give us
   Grace to enter into its spirit so as to know its meaning and feel its
   power. Even with the Infallible Word before you, you will miss your way
   and fall into grievous error unless you are taught of God. The mercy is
   that it is written, "All your children shall be taught of the Lord."
   and again, "We have an unction from the Holy One and know all things."
   There is no knowing anything except by that unction and by that Divine
   teaching. What dependent creatures we are, since we make mistakes even
   about Jesus Christ, Himself, unless the Spirit of God is pleased to
   instruct us concerning Him! Lead us always, O Light of God!

   Another thing we learn from the text before we plunge into it is that
   our Divine Lord always has a reason for everything that He does. Even
   the reason of His asking a question may be found out or, if we cannot
   discover it, we may still be quite sure that there is a worthy reason.
   That reason, in Philip's case, certainly was not because of any need of
   wisdom in Himself, but there was a reason--"This He said to test him."
   Now, if there is a reason for all that Jesus asks, much more is there a
   reason for all that He does. We cannot tell the reason of Divine
   Election--why this man is chosen or that--but there is a reason, since
   God never acts unreasonably, though His reasons are not always revealed
   and might not be understood by us if they were.

   Sovereignty is absolute, but it is never absurd. There is always a
   justifiable cause for all that God does in the Kingdom of Grace, though
   that cause is not the merit of the person whom He favors, for there is
   no merit. In the matter of your present trial and trouble, dear Friend,
   you have been trying to figure out the design of the Almighty, but
   without success. Don't you know that His ways are past finding out? In
   all probability this side of eternity, you may never discover God's
   purpose in your present trial, but that He has a purpose is certain and
   that purpose is a wise and kind one. It is such as you, yourself, would
   delight in if you were capable of understanding it. If you could have a
   mind like that of God, you would act as God does even in this matter
   which troubles you!

   At present your thoughts are far below those of God and, therefore, you
   err when you try to measure His ways. If you have a quarrel with your
   heavenly Father about a bereavement or a sickness--end it at once with
   humble shame. There, child, if it ever comes to a question as to which
   is right--a poor, ignorant, inexperienced youth, or a great, good, wise
   Father--there cannot be a moment's deliberation! The Father's will must
   be better for the child than its own will. Be in subjection to the
   Father of Spirits and live. Believe in your Lord and be quiet--Jesus
   knows what He is doing and why He is doing it. For the loss of your
   health there is a reason. For those pains of your body, for that
   depression of spirit, for that lack of success in business, even for
   the permission of the cruel tongue of slander to inflict its wounds
   upon you there is a reason! And possibly that reason may lie in the
   words of our text, "This He did to test him."

   You must be tested. God does not give faith, or love, or hope, or any
   Grace without meaning to prove it. If a man builds a railway bridge, it
   is that engines may go over it, that so its carrying power may be
   tested. If a man makes a road, it is that there may be traffic over it,
   every rod of it will be proven by wheels and hoofs. If he only makes a
   needle, it must be tested by the work it can do. When the pillars that
   now support these galleries were cast, they were made with the object
   of supporting a great weight and these 20 years they have bravely
   endured the pressure--it would have been an idle thing to have set them
   up and placed no weight upon them!

   So when God made you, my Brother, to be strong in the Lord, He meant to
   test every ounce of your strength, for that which God makes has a
   purpose and He will test it to see that it is equal to its design. I do
   not think that a single grain of faith will be kept out of the
   fire--all the golden ore must go into the crucible to be tested. You
   have heard of the Birmingham proving houses for the barrels of guns?
   Now, the great Maker of Believers tests all whom He makes in His
   factory of Grace with heavy charges of affliction--and only those that
   can bear the test shall receive His mark. When no other explanation of
   a Providence can be found, you may always fall back upon the belief
   that this He said and this He did to test you.

   Let us at once come to the text, which seems to me to have much comfort
   in it. May the Holy Spirit lead us into it. First, here is a question
   for Philip--"Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"--a question
   with a purpose. But, secondly, there is no question with the Master,
   for He, Himself, knows what He will do. And, thirdly, if we enter into
   the spirit of the Master, there will be an end of questions with us,
   for we shall be perfectly satisfied that He knows what He is going to
   do.

   I. First, then, HERE IS A QUESTION FOR PHILIP, as there have been many
   questions for us. Jesus put this question to Philip with the motive of
   testing him in several points. He would thus try his faith. As one has
   well said, "He wanted not food of Philip, but faith." The Master
   enquires, "Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" What will
   Philip say? If Philip has strong faith, he will answer, "Great Master,
   there is no need to buy bread. You are greater than Moses and under
   Moses the people were fed with manna in the wilderness. You have but to
   speak the word and bread shall be rained around the host and they shall
   be filled." If Philip had possessed great faith, he might have replied,
   "You are greater than Elisha and he took a few loaves and ears of corn
   and fed the sons of the Prophets. O wonder-working Lord, You can do the
   same!"

   If Philip had displayed still greater faith, he might have said, "Lord,
   I do not know where bread is to be bought, but it is written, 'Man
   shall not live by bread alone.' Your can refresh these people without
   visible bread. You can satisfy their hunger and fill them to the
   fullest and yet they need not eat a single mouthful, for it is written,
   'By every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live.'
   Speak the word and they will be at once refreshed." This question,
   therefore, was put to test Philip's faith. It did test it and proved it
   to be very little, for he began calculating his pennyworths--One, two,
   three, four." No, I will not count 200, but that is what Philip did. He
   began counting pennies instead of looking to Omnipotence!

   Did you ever do the same, dear Friend, when you have been tested? Did
   you get reckoning up and counting coppers instead of looking to the
   eternal God and trusting in Him? I fear that few of us can plead
   exemption from this failure, since even Moses once fell into
   unbelieving calculations. "And Moses said, The people among whom I am
   are six hundred thousand footmen; and You have said, I will give them
   flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds
   be slain for them, to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be
   gathered together for them to suffice them?" Remember God's answer to
   His anxious servant? "And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord's hand
   waxed short? You shall see now whether My Word shall come to pass unto
   you or not."

   Even so shall we see the faithfulness of God! But if we are
   unbelieving, we may have to see it in a way which will painfully bring
   home to us our sin in having distrusted our Lord! The question was
   meant, no doubt, also, to test Philip's love and he could endure that
   test better than he could stand the other, for he loved Jesus even
   though he was slow of heart to believe. In many true hearts there is
   more quiet love than active faith. I am sorry that there should be
   little faith, but thankful that there should be more love. The Savior
   seemed to say, "Philip, I want these people fed. Will you come to My
   help in it? Where shall we buy bread? I am going to associate you with
   Me, Philip. Come, now, how shall we do the

   work?"

   Philip loves his Master and, therefore, he is quite ready to consider
   the matter and to give at least the benefit of his arithmetic. He says,
   "Lord, two hundred pennyworth is not sufficient." His Master did not
   ask him what would not be sufficient, but what would be! But Philip
   begins calculating the negative question, which question, I am afraid
   that you and I have, also, often calculated. Even to give each one in
   the crowd a little could not be done under two hundred pence--is it not
   clear that our resources are inadequate? That is always a depressing
   and unpractical question to go into. Poor Philip counts up what would
   not be sufficient for all and leaves the All-Sufficient Lord out of the
   reckoning! Still, even in that calculation he showed his love for his
   Master.

   If he had not been full of love and esteem for Jesus, he would have
   said, "My Lord, it is idle to go into that. We are a poor company. We
   have a trifle of money given us every now and then and I do not quite
   know what is left. Perhaps Judas does. But I am persuaded that there is
   not enough in the bag to feed these multitudes, even if there were
   bakers' shops in the neighborhood at which we could buy loaves." But
   Philip did not answer thus. No. He had too much reverence and too much
   love for Jesus for that--he failed in his faith--but he did not fail in
   his love. It will be well for us to love our Lord so much that we never
   speak of His gracious plans as being visionary, nor judge them to be
   impossible. Jesus never proposes Quixotic schemes and we must never
   allow the idea to cross our minds--even the conquest of the world to
   truth and righteousness is not to be looked upon as a dream, but to be
   practically considered!

   The question also tried Phillip's sympathy. Jesus, by this query, moved
   Philip's heart to care about the people. The other disciples said,
   "Send the multitude away that they may go into the villages and buy
   themselves food." Jesus, perhaps, noticing a little more tenderness in
   Philip than in the others, said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread?"
   It was putting great honor upon Philip to associate him with Himself,
   but perhaps He saw in him a sympathetic soul and Christ loves to work
   with sympathetic agents. One thing I notice--God seldom uses a man
   greatly who has a hard heart, or a cold heart. Only warmth within
   ourselves can create warmth in others. A man must love people, or he
   cannot save them. A minister must have an intense desire that his
   congregation should be saved and must get into sympathy with Jesus upon
   that subject or else Jesus will not make use of him.

   So our Lord sought to stir up Philip's sympathy. "Come, Philip. What
   shall you and I do? Where shall we buy bread to give them to eat?" I do
   not think Philip failed altogether there. He had not such sympathy with
   his Master as he ought to have had, but he had a measure of it. I trust
   that our God has given to us, also, some communion with His dear Son in
   His love to the souls of men and so this question comes to test us. Let
   us not be lacking in either faith, or love, or sympathy. God grant that
   we may abound in all these through the effectual working of His Holy
   Spirit--then shall we be fitted to be workers together with Him.

   But why was that question put to Philip? Why is a special question put
   to some of you, or a peculiar trial sent to one of you? It was sent to
   test him, it is said. But why test Philip? Well, I think the Savior
   spoke to Philip because Philip was of Bethsaida. They were near
   Bethsaida and so Jesus said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread?"
   Every man should think most of the place where he lives. I want Jesus
   to say to some of you, "What shall we do for London?"--because many of
   you are Londoners--possibly born within the sound of Bow Bells, or
   within the postal district. You belong to the four

   millions of this great province--no, this great nation of a city and it
   is a solemn responsibility to be a citizen of the greatest city in the
   world!

   If the Lord does lay London on anybody's hearts, He would naturally lay
   it upon the hearts of those who live in it, just as He said to Philip,
   "Where shall we buy bread?" If He associates anybody with Himself in
   the evangelization of a village or town, it will naturally be a person
   either born there, or living there. I know that the old proverb
   declares that the cobbler's wife goes barefoot and sometimes a man will
   care for people thousands of miles away and not look to his own house
   or to his own neighborhood. But it should not be so, for it is to
   Philip, the man from Bethsaida, that the message comes about the people
   when they are near Bethsaida--"Where shall we buy bread?" It is said to
   test him! And to you, Brother Londoner, questions about this great city
   are sent to test you.

   It is also probable that it was Philip's department to attend to the
   providing for the little company of 12 and their Leader. Judas was the
   treasurer and, unless we are much mistaken, Philip was the butler. It
   was Philip's business to see that they had bread and his part to make
   some little provision when the band of disciples went into desert
   places. Even so, there are Brothers and Sisters here present whose
   official business it is to care for the souls of men. Among these are
   ministers, missionaries, Sunday school teachers, deacons, elders,
   district visitors, Bible-women and the like. If the Lord does not say
   to others, "What shall we do for London?" He says it to us! The
   question is sent to test us to see whether we are fit for our office,
   or whether we have taken upon ourselves a position for which we are not
   qualified because we have no heart for it.

   Christ asks us, especially, but I think He also asks all those whom He
   has made priests and kings unto God, "Where shall we buy bread? How
   shall we feed this great city?" The question comes to test us because
   it is upon us that this burden ought to be laid. And perhaps it came to
   Philip because he was not quite so forward in the school of Divine
   Grace as some were. Philip did not make a very wise remark when he
   said, "Show us the Father, and it suffices us," for our Lord answered,
   "Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known Me,
   Philip?" He was evidently slow in learning. I do not think that Philip
   was the most stupid of the 12, but I am sure that he was not the most
   intelligent. James and John and Peter were the first three--Andrew and
   Thomas followed close behind--and probably Philip was close after them.
   Perhaps Philip was number six. I do not know, but certainly the Savior
   selected him as not the lowest in the class, yet not the highest, and
   He said to him, "Where shall we buy bread?"

   Those people in the middle position very much need testing for their
   own satisfaction. The lowest kind of Christians are so feeble that they
   can hardly bear testing. Poor souls, they need encouraging rather than
   testing and, therefore, the greatest problems are not often pressed
   upon them. On the other hand, the highest kind of Christians do not so
   much need testing, for they make their calling and election sure. The
   middle sort most need testing and they make up, I am afraid, the great
   bulk of the rank and file of the army of God. There are many who may be
   described as half-instructed, half-enlightened--and to these the Lord
   puts the question--"Where shall we buy bread?" This He says that He may
   test them.

   Note well that the question which the Savior put to Philip to test him
   answered its purpose. It did test him. How it tested him I have shown
   you already. It answered its purpose because it revealed his inability.
   "Where shall we buy broad?" Philip gives up. He has made a calculation
   of what would not suffice, even, to give every man a little refreshment
   and that is all his contribution to the work--he has not even a loaf or
   a fish which he can produce to make a start with. Philip is beaten.
   What is more, his faith, being tested, is beaten, too. "Oh, good
   Master," he seems to say, "the people cannot be fed by us. We cannot
   buy bread--we--not even You and I. You are the Lord and You can do
   great things, but my faith is not strong enough to believe that we
   could buy bread enough for all these thousands of people." So the
   question answered its purpose. It tested Philip's faith and his faith
   was proven to be very weak, very wavering, very short-handed.

   Is it a good thing to find that out? Yes, Brothers and Sisters, it is
   good to know our spiritual poverty. Many of us have a heap of faith, we
   think--but if the Lord were to test it, He would not need to put it in
   the fire to melt it--He has only to put it on the fire and the most of
   it would evaporate! Under ordinary trial much faith disappears like
   morning dew when the sun looks upon it. What a deal of faith a man has
   when he is healthy! Just turn on the screws and let him suffer--see how
   much of that faith will vanish! How many men have faith if they have an
   excellent income regularly paid! But when they have to ask, "Where will
   the next meal come from?" have they faith? Alas, they grow anxious and
   cum-

   bered! It is a wholesome thing to be made to see what weaklings we are,
   for when we find much of our faith to be unreal, it drives us to seek
   for more true faith and we cry, "Lord, increase our faith!"

   Philip was drawn into his Master and it is a grand thing to be driven
   right out of ourselves into our Lord so as to feel, "Lord, I cannot do
   it. But I long to see how You will perform Your purpose. I cannot even
   believe in You as I ought to believe, unless You give me faith so that
   even for more faith I must come to You! Quite empty-handed I must come
   and borrow everything." Then it is that we become full and strong! You
   will see Philip breaking the bread, directly, and feeding the
   multitudes just because Christ has emptied Philip's hands! Until He has
   emptied our hands He cannot fill them, lest it should be supposed that
   we shared in the supplying. "This He said to test him," to make him see
   his own weakness, for then he would be filled with the Master's
   strength!

   This question did good, for it was meant not only to test Philip, but
   to test the other disciples, and so they came together and they had a
   little talk upon the subject, At any rate, here is a committee of two,
   Philip and Andrew. Philip says, "Two hundred pennyworth is not
   sufficient," and Andrew says, "Well no, it is not. But there is a lad
   here with five barley loaves and two small fishes." I like this
   brotherly consultation of willing minds--and to see how they differ in
   their ideas. Philip is willing to begin if he has a grand start. He
   must see at least 200 pennyworth of bread in hand and then he is ready
   to entertain the idea. Andrew, on the other hand, is willing to
   commence with a small capital--a few loaves and fishes will enable him
   to start, but he remarks, "What are they among so many?"

   When saints converse together, they help each other and, perhaps, what
   one does not discover another may. Philip was counting the impossible
   pence and could not see the possible loaves. But Andrew could see what
   Philip overlooked. He spied out the lad with that basket packed full of
   loaves and fishes. It was not much--Andrew had not faith enough to see
   food for the thousands in that little basket--but still, he saw what he
   saw and he told the Master of it. Thus they made a commencement by
   mutual consultation. Perhaps if we were to consult we might make a
   start, too. When a question eats into men's hearts like this--"What
   shall we do for London?" When it leads Christian people to come
   together and talk about it and when one sighs out, "Why, it will take
   many thousands to build chapels, find Ministers and maintain
   Missionaries," there is something hopeful in the calculation!

   All right, Philip, I am glad you have had your say and shown the
   difficulty of the task. And then I like Andrew to get up and say, "It
   is a very difficult task, but still, we must do what we can do, and as
   we have these five loaves and two small fishes we must at least put
   these before the Lord and leave it with Him as to what is to be done."
   All this is better than shirking the question altogether and leaving
   the crowd to starve. Philip had his faculties exercised. Christ tried
   his arithmetic! He tried his eyesight! He tried his mind and spirit!
   And this prepared him to go and serve at the Master's banquet which
   followed. A man never does a thing well till he has thought about it.
   And if Philip had not thought about how to feed the multitudes, he
   would not have been a fit man to be employed in it.

   It prepared him, also, to adore his Master after the feast, for Philip
   would say, when the meal was over, "The Master asked me how it was to
   be done, but I could not tell Him and now, though I have had a share in
   doing it, He must and shall have all the Glory. He multiplied the
   fishes and increased the loaves. My poor faith can take no Glory to
   itself. He did it. He did it all!" Perhaps some question comes to you,
   my Brother, about the Lord's work--"How can it be done? How can England
   be evangelized? How can the masses be reached? How can the world be
   made to hear the Gospel?" Whatever the question is which is put to you,
   it is a question sent on purpose to do you good and benefit your soul
   and to lead you to magnify the Lord all the more when the miracle of
   Grace is done!

   II. Now I come to the second part of the subject and that is that THERE
   WAS NO QUESTION WITH JESUS. The question was with Philip, but Christ
   had no question. "This He said to test him: for He Himself knew what He
   would do." Let us take these words and pull them to pieces a minute.
   "He knew." He always knows. "Ah," says one, "I am sure I do not know
   what I shall do." No, dear Friend, and yet you have been taking advice,
   have you not? That is a splendid way of confusing yourself! I hear you
   cry in bewilderment, "I do not know! I have been to everybody and I do
   not know what I shall do!" That is a chronic state with us when we
   puzzle our own poor brains--but Jesus knew what He would do. This is
   sweet comfort--Jesus knows.

   He always knows all about it. He knew how many people there were. He
   knew how much bread it would take. He knew how many fish He would need
   and how He meant to feed the crowd and send them all away refreshed. He
   knew all before it happened. Tried Brother, Jesus knows all about your
   case and how He is going to bring you through. Do not

   think that you can inform Him as to anything. "Your heavenly Father
   knows what you have need of before you ask Him." Prayer is not meant
   for the Lord's information. The question is not put to you that you may
   instruct Him, but that He may instruct you! He made the heavens and the
   earth without you. With whom took He counsel? Who instructed Him? And
   He will bring you through this present trial of yours without needing
   to add your poor wisdom to His infinite knowledge!

   He knows. Jesus knew what He would do. He meant to do something. He was
   quite ready to do it and He knew what He was going to do. We embarrass
   ourselves by saving, "Something must be done, but I do not know who is
   to do it." The Savior knew that something must be done and He knew that
   He was going to do it Himself. He was not in a hurry, He never is--"He
   never is before His time, He never is too late." Our blessed Master has
   glorious leisure because He is always punctual. Late people are in a
   hurry, but He, being never late, never hurries. He does everything
   calmly and serenely because He foresees what He will do. Jesus knows,
   dear Friend, concerning you, not only what you will do, but what He
   will do! That is the point and He means to do some great thing for you
   and to help you.

   He means, also, to bring this city and this nation to His feet. He
   means that every knee shall bow to Him and that the whole earth shall
   be filled with His Glory. He knows what He means to do. He knew,
   moreover, how He meant to do it. He knew precisely the way and method
   which He intended to use. He perceived long before Andrew told Him that
   there was a lad somewhere in the crowd with five barley cakes. When the
   lad set out that morning, I cannot make out what made him bring five
   barley loaves and fishes into that crowd except the Master had
   whispered in his heart, "Young lad, take with you a good lunch. Put
   those barley cakes into the basket and do not forget the fishes. You do
   not know how long you may be away from home."

   Nature bade him provide for contingencies, but then Nature is God's
   voice when He chooses to make it so. He was a hungry, growing lad with
   a fine appetite and he meant to be well provided for, but had he ever
   thought in his mind that these strangely providential cakes would
   multiply so as to feed that mass of people? Where is the man that is to
   be the universal provider? Where is the chief of the commissariat? It
   is that youth and that is the whole of his storehouse! He is carrying a
   magazine of food on his back--in that basket. The Savior knew that. And
   He knows exactly, dear Friend, where your help is to come from in your
   hour of trouble. You do not know, but He does. He knows where the
   ministers are to come that will stir up this city of London and He
   knows in what style and manner they shall come and how they shall get
   at the masses.

   When everybody else is defeated and nonplussed, He is fully prepared.
   He knew that those loaves and fishes would be fetched out, in due time,
   to be the basis of a banquet. He knew that He would bless them, break
   them, multiply them and give them to the disciples--and the disciples
   to the multitude. Everything was arranged in His mind and as much fixed
   as the rising of the sun. Once more, He did it as one who knew what He
   was going to do. How does a man act when he knows what he is going to
   do? Well, he generally proceeds in the most natural way! He knows that
   he is going to do it, so he just goes and does it. Can you conceive
   that a miracle was ever performed in a more natural style?

   If this had been a Roman Catholic miracle, they would have thrown the
   loaves up in the air and they would have come down mysteriously
   transformed and multiplied a million times! All popish miracles, if you
   observe, have a great deal of the theatrical and glitter about them.
   They are totally distinct from the miracles of Christ. He does this
   miracle in the most natural way in the world, because it is virtually
   the same miracle which Christ works every year. We take a certain
   quantity of wheat and put it into the ground and, in the long run, the
   end of it is that it is multiplied into loaves of bread. Certain fishes
   are in the sea and they increase into great shoals. The sown wheat
   passes through the same operation in the ground in the same hands--in
   God's hands--and it comes out loaves of bread!

   And that is precisely what came of our Lord's action! He took a little
   into His own blessed hands and broke it and it kept on multiplying in
   His hands, and in the hands of His disciples, till they were all
   filled! He knew what He was going to do and so He did it naturally and
   did it orderly. It is not so when a man does not know what he is to
   provide for. We have a large meeting and there is provision made for
   tea--and three times as many come as you have provided for. What a
   hurry! What a scurry! What a running to and fro! Jesus never conducts
   His matters in that way. He knew what He was going to do and,
   therefore, He bade the men sit down on the grass--and they sat down
   like so many children. Mark tells us that they sat down in rows by
   fifties and by hundreds--they were arranged as if each one had been
   specially set before his plate and found his name engraved upon it!

   Moreover, there was much grass in the place so that the hall was
   carpeted in a way that no firm in London could have done! The feast was
   conducted as orderly as if there had been notice given seven days
   beforehand and a contractor had supplied the provisions. Nothing could
   have been done in a better way and all because Jesus knew what He would
   do! Moreover, He did it very joyfully. He took bread and blessed it. He
   went about it with great pleasure. I should have liked to have seen His
   face as He looked on these poor famishing people being fed. Like a good
   host, He cheered them with His smile while He blessed them with the
   food! And then He did it so plentifully, for He knew what He would do.
   He did not come half-provided, or stint them so that every man should
   have "a little."

   No, He knew what He would do and He measured their appetites exactly, a
   difficult thing when you have a number of hungry people to feed. He
   provided all that they needed and afterwards there was provision left
   for the head waiters, so that each one should have a basketful for
   himself--for they took up of the fragments, 12 basketfuls, one for each
   of the head waiters. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the matter of bringing
   in His own elect, is going about it, I am quite certain, knowing what
   He is going to do. And when you and I see the end of the great festival
   of mercy we shall say, "Blessed be the Lord! We were in a great worry.
   We were in sore trouble, but our Lord has done it easily and
   thoroughly. There has been no muddle, no crowding, no passing over of
   anybody! Blessed be His name! He has not done it by chance or through
   fortunate circumstances, but He knew what He would do and He has
   planned it all through from the beginning to the end in such a way that
   principalities and powers in Heaven shall sing forever of the Grace and
   love and wisdom and power and prudence wherein He has abounded towards
   His people."

   Oh, but if we could see the end as well as the beginning we would
   begin, even now, to exalt the name of Jesus our Savior who foreknows
   all His work and never deviates from His plan!

   III. I conclude by saying that because there is no question with
   Christ, though He puts questions to US, THERE

   OUGHT TO BE NO QUESTION OF A DOUBTFUL CHARACTER ANY LONGER TO US. Let
   me mention three

   questions and I have done. The first question that troubles a great
   many people is, "How shall I bear my present burden? How shall I endure
   this suffering? How shall I make a living?" That question is sent to
   you to test you, but remember that there is no question, with Christ,
   as to how you will get through, for, "as your day so shall your
   strength be," and He will keep His saints even to the end. Therefore
   let there be no question with you, for Jesus Himself knows what He will

   do!

   You came here, tonight, very distressed and you said, "I wish I might
   get a word to tell me what I should do." You will not get half a word
   as to what you shall do, but you shall hear a word of a different sort.
   Jesus knows what HE will do and what He will do is infinitely better
   than anything you can do. Your strength, my Friend, is to sit still.
   Roll your burden upon the Lord! Do the little you can do and leave the
   rest with your heavenly Father. This is the answer from the Urim and
   the Thummim. For you--Jesus knows what He will do! There is that other
   question, which I have already asked--"What is to be done with this
   great city?"

   I had the great privilege of being able to preach, yesterday afternoon,
   [Wednesday evening, June 22, 1881] in one of our eastern suburbs.
   Setting out from my own house early in the morning, I went on riding,
   riding, upon one railway and another till I think I must have been
   journeying for fully two hours and a half before I had passed from one
   end of London to another! What a city of magnificent distances! It
   seems as if there was not a green tree which the builders will not cut
   down, nor a grassy meadow which they will not turn into ugly streets.
   "Replenish the earth," indeed! It is replenished. The dead earth is
   buried away beneath the abodes of living men!

   As for creatures of our race, what myriads there are of them! And,
   then, as you go along with a Christian friend, he says, "There is a
   chapel needed here." Or, "There is a little chapel here, but not one
   person in 50 goes to a place of worship." Then you arrive at another
   suburban place and your guide will say, "Here are people anxious for
   the Gospel, but there is nobody to take it to them." I went along
   yesterday sorely burdened and questioning in my heart, "What shall we
   do?" I kept thinking, "You had better not ask yourself that question,
   for you cannot do much towards answering it and it will only worry
   you." And yet it came back to me, "How shall we buy bread for this
   multitude?"

   My Lord and Master would say, "YOU." In my heart I wanted Him to leave
   me out, but He would not. He never would have said, "How shall I buy
   bread?" because He knows that. But He put it to me and I felt that I
   was a hindrance for making it a question at all, for He only makes it a
   question to me for my sake. O that we had men and money to send out
   ministers and to build places for them to preach in! We have preachers
   ready in the College, but I have no means for

   building places of worship! Surely many of you must have been burdened
   with the hugeness of this city! But, dear, dear, this is like one drop
   of rain in a great shower compared with the whole world that lies in
   the Wicked One. How is this world to be enlightened?

   It is no question with Jesus and, therefore, it should never be an
   unbelieving question with us. "Can these dry bones live?" Let us
   answer, "Lord, You know." There will we leave it. He is able to do
   exceedingly abundantly above what we ask, or even think--and we may
   depend upon it that if He has sworn by Himself that every knee shall
   bow and every tongue confess to Him, it shall be so and He shall have
   the Glory! One other question should be mentioned. It is this. Has the
   Lord put into the heart of any unconverted person the question--"What
   must I do to be saved?" And is that question perplexing any of you? I
   am glad it is so, but I hope you will turn to the right place for an
   answer. I hope you are enquiring--"Lord, what would You have me do?"

   Do you know why that question is put to you? It is to test you and to
   humble you. It is meant to make you feel the impossibility of salvation
   by your own works so that you may submit yourself to the righteousness
   of God and be saved by faith in Christ Jesus! Remember that there is no
   question with Christ about how you are to be saved. In fact, that
   question was settled--when shall I say? Settled when He died? No,
   settled long before that--it was decided in the Everlasting Covenant
   before the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round! God had
   then regarded His son as the Lamb of God, slain before the foundation
   of the world and to this day the word still stands--"Behold the Lamb of
   God, which takes away the sin of the world."

   Look unto Him and be saved! There is no question about the possibility
   of your salvation, or about Christ's ability to save you. The question
   in your heart, "What must I do to be saved?" is put there to test you,
   but Jesus Himself knows what He will do. What a blessed word is that!
   He knows how He will pardon, comfort, regenerate, instruct and lead
   you! He knows how He will keep you to the end by His unchanging Grace!
   He knows how He will preserve you and sanctify you and use you and
   glorify His own name by you! He knows how He will take you up to Heaven
   and set you upon His Throne and make all the angels wonder and adore,
   as they see what He will do! God bless what He will do. God bless you
   for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Ziklag--or David Encouraging Himself In God

   (No. 1606)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 26, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him
   because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons
   and for his daughters. But Da vid encouraged himself in the Lord his
   God."

   "And David enquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this
   troop? Shall I overtake them? And He answered him, Pursue, for you
   shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all."

   1 Samuel 30:6,8.

   WE ought to be deeply grateful to God for the Inspired history of the
   life of His servant, David. It was a great life, a vigorous life, a
   life spent in many positions and conditions. I almost rejoice that it
   was not a faultless life, for its failings and errors are instructive.
   It is the life of a man after God's own heart but still, the life of
   one who went astray, like a lost sheep and was recovered by the great
   Shepherd's Divine Grace. By this fact he comes all the nearer to us
   poor, faulty men and women. I would venture to apply to David the
   description which has been applied to the world's own poet--

   "A man so various, that He seemed to be

   Not one, but all mankind's epitome." Each one may find something like
   himself in the long, eventful and checkered life of the son of Jesse.
   Among other things we learn this, that where there is faith there is
   sure to be trial, for David, though he trusted God so heartily, had
   good need of all the faith he possessed.

   In his early days he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains by
   Saul and was constantly in jeopardy of his life. He had so choice a
   treasure of faith about him that Satan was forever trying to plunder
   him of it. Still, the worst trials that David suffered arose not out of
   his faith, but out of his lack of it. That which he did to avoid
   trouble brought him into deeper distress than ordinary Providences ever
   caused him. He left the country where he was so ill at ease, which was,
   nevertheless, Your land, O Emmanuel, and he went away into the land of
   the Philistines, there expecting to escape from further turmoil. In so
   doing he transgressed and fresh trials came upon him--trials of a worse
   kind than those which had happened to him from the hand of Saul!

   Brothers and Sisters, the poet said--

   "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where
   sorrow is unknown," and he spoke the truth, for, "in the world you
   shall have tribulation." If you have faith, it must be tried and should
   that faith fail, you must be tried still more! There is no discharge
   from this war--difficulties must be faced. This is the day of battle
   and you must fight if you would reign. You are like men thrown into the
   sea--you must swim or drown! It is useless to expect ease where your
   Lord had none! If you adopt the paltry shifts suggested by unbelief,
   not even, then, shall you avoid affliction! The probabilities are that
   you will be taken among the thorns and scourged with the briars of the
   wilderness. However rough the king's highway may be, the by-paths are
   far worse! Therefore keep the way of the commandment and bravely face
   its trials.

   Another lesson is this--though we shall be tried, yet faith in God is
   an available resource at all times. Faith is a shield which you may use
   for warding off every kind of arrow, yes, even the fiery darts of the
   great enemy, for this shield cannot be penetrated even by javelins of
   fire. You cannot be cast into a condition in which faith shall not help
   you! There is a promise of God suitable for every state and God has
   wisdom and skill and love and faithfulness to deliver you out of every
   possible jeopardy! Therefore you have only to confide in God and
   deliverance is sure to come. Mainly note this,

   that even when your trouble has been brought upon you by your own
   fault, faith is still available. When your affliction is evidently a
   chastisement for grievous transgression, still trust in the Lord.

   The Lord Jesus prayed for erring Peter that his faith might not fail
   him. His hope of recovery lay there, yet faith under a sense of guilt
   is one of those noble kinds of faith at which some are staggered. To my
   mind the faith of a saint is comparatively easy. It is the faith of a
   sinner that is difficult. When you know that you have walked uprightly
   before God and have not stained your garments, then you can trust Him
   without difficulty. But, oh, when you have stepped aside and when, at
   last, the heavenly Father makes you smart under His rod--to cast
   yourself upon Him, then, is faith, indeed! Do not fail to exercise it,
   for this is the faith which saves.

   What faith is that which, first of all, brings men into possession of a
   good hope but the faith of a sinner? Often in life, when our sinnership
   becomes more manifest to us than usual, we shall be driven to that
   first sort of faith in which, being unworthy, we trust entirely in
   pardoning Grace. It would be always wise to live by this same faith! If
   any of you at this time are in great distress and are conscious that
   you richly deserve all your troubles because of your folly, still trust
   in the mercy of the Lord! Do not doubt the Lord your Savior, for He
   invites His backsliding children to return to Him! Though you have
   fallen by your iniquity, yet take with you words and return unto the
   Lord. May the Holy Spirit give you renewed trust in the Lord who
   forgives iniquity, transgression, sin and retains not His anger forever
   because He delights in mercy!

   Let this stand as our preface and the whole of the sermon will tend to
   illustrate it. We notice first--David's distress--"David was greatly
   distressed." Secondly, David's encouragement--"David encouraged himself
   in the Lord his God." Thirdly, David's enquiry--"And David enquired of
   the Lord." And then, fourthly, David's answer of peace--the Lord said,
   "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover
   all."

   I. First, then, let us look at DAVID'S DISTRESS--"David was greatly
   distressed." His city was burnt, his wives were gone, the sons and
   daughters of his comrades were all captive and little Ziklag, where
   they had made a home, smoked before them in blackened ruins. The men of
   war, wounded in heart, mutinied against their leader and were ready to
   stone him. David's fortunes were at their lowest ebb. To understand his
   position we must go a little farther back in his history. David was
   greatly distressed for he had been acting without consulting his God.
   It was his general habit to wait upon the Lord for direction, for even
   as a shepherd lad it was his joy to sing, "He leads me." But for once
   David had gone without leading and had chosen a bad road.

   Worn out by the persecution of Saul, in an evil moment his heart failed
   him and he said, "I shall surely fall one day by the hands of Saul."
   This was a dangerous mood. Always be afraid of being afraid! Failing
   faith means failing strength. Do not regard despondency as merely a
   loss of joy--view it as draining away your spiritual life. Struggle
   against it, for it often happens that when faith ebbs, sin comes to the
   flood. He who does not comfortably trust God will soon seek after
   comfort somewhere else and David did so. Without asking Divine
   direction, he fled to the court of the Philistine chieftain, Achish,
   hoping to be quiet there. See what came of it! When he stood among the
   ashes of Ziklag he began to understand what an evil and bitter thing it
   is to lean to our own understanding, to forget God who guides us and to
   become a law unto ourselves.

   Perhaps some of you are in distress in the same way--you have chosen
   your own path and now you are caught in the tangled bushes which tear
   your flesh. You have carved for yourselves and you have cut your own
   fingers. You have obtained your heart's desire and while the meat is
   yet in your mouth, a curse has come with it. You say you, "did it for
   the best." Yes, but it has turned out to be for the worst! David never
   made a heavier rod for himself than when he thought to avoid all
   further discomfort by leaving his true place. Worse than this, if worse
   can be, David had also followed policy instead of truth. The Oriental
   mind was and probably still is, given to lying. Easterns do not think
   it wrong to tell an untruth--many do it habitually.

   Just as an upright merchant in this country would not be suspected of a
   falsehood, so you would not in the olden time have suspected the
   average Oriental of ever speaking the truth if he could help it because
   he felt that everybody else would deceive him and so he must practice
   great cunning. The golden rule in David's day was, "Do others, for
   others will certainly do you." David, in his early days, was not
   without the taint of his times. He became the commander of the
   bodyguard of Achish, king of Gath, and he lived in the royal city. As
   he found himself rather awkwardly situated in that

   idolatrous town, he said to the king, "If I have now found favor in
   your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I
   may dwell there, for why should your servant dwell in the royal city
   with you?"

   Achish appears to have been almost a convert to the worship of Jehovah
   and certainly shines brilliantly in the narrative before us. At David's
   request, he gave him the town of Ziklag. David and his men warred with
   the various tribes of Canaanites who dwelt in the south of Palestine
   and took from them great spoil. But he greatly erred in making Achish
   believe that he was fighting against Judah. We read, "And Achish
   believed David, saying, he has made his people, Israel, to utterly
   abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant forever." This was the
   result of David's acted and uttered lies and lest the falsehood should
   be found out, David spared none of those whom he conquered, saying,
   "Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David."

   So beginning with policy, he went on to falsehood and from one
   falsehood he was driven to another. And so his course became far other
   than that which a man of God should have pursued. How different was
   such false conduct from the usual character of the man who said, "He
   that works deceit shall not dwell within my house. He that tells lies
   shall not tarry in my sight." See the fruit of his falsehood! Ziklag is
   burned with fire. His wives are captives and his men speak of stoning
   him! If you and I ever get away from living by straightforward truth,
   we shall wander into a maze from which it will be hard to extricate
   ourselves! We would each feel that we can die but we cannot lie--we can
   starve but we cannot cheat--we can be ground into the dust but we
   cannot do an unrighteous thing. If it is so, we may count upon the help
   of God and may go bravely on under every difficulty.

   David had left the highway of righteousness and was stumbling among the
   dark mountains of craft and deceit. He was plotting and scheming like
   the worst of worldlings and he must be made to see his error and taught
   to abhor the way of lying. Therefore, in one moment, the Lord launches
   at him bereavement, plunder, mutiny, danger of life--that he might be
   driven to his God and made to hate the way of cunning. What wonder that
   David was greatly distressed? Yet was his distress the more severe on
   another account, for David had sided with the enemies of the Lord's
   people! He had gone to the Philistines and their prince had said to
   him, "I will make you keeper of my head, forever." Think of David
   protecting the head of a Philistine!

   When Achish gathered the Philistine army to battle with Israel, we read
   with shame, "And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds,
   and by thousands: but David and his men passed on in the rear with
   Achish." How dreadfully troubled David must have felt in this false
   position! Think of David, who was ordained to be king of Israel,
   marching his armed band to fight his own countrymen. How gracious was
   the Lord in bringing him out of that perilous position! The Philistine
   princes suspected him, as well they might, and said to Achish, "Why are
   these Hebrews here?" They were jealous of the high office to which
   David had been promoted and fearful of his turning against them during
   the

   fight.

   "And the princes of the Philistines were angry with Achish; and the
   princes of the Philistines said unto him, Make this fellow return, that
   he may go, again, to his place which you have appointed him, and let
   him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an
   adversary to us: for with what should he reconcile himself unto his
   master? Should it not be with the heads of these men? Is not this
   David, of whom they sang, one to another in dances, saying, Saul slew
   his thousands, and David his ten thousands?" Though the Philistine
   king, like the true man that he was, smoothed it down, he was forced to
   send David away. What a relief David must have felt! Well might he pen
   the words of the 124th Psalm, "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the
   snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken and we are escaped."

   What a horror would have been upon him if he had actually gone with the
   Philistines to the battle in which Saul and Jonathan were slain! It
   would have been a stain upon David all his life. The Lord delivered
   him, but He made David feel His rod at the same time, for no sooner had
   David reached Ziklag than he saw that the hand of the Lord was gone out
   against him--desolation smoked around him and we do not marvel that
   David was greatly distressed! Picture the position of David, in the
   center of his army. He has been driven away by the Philistine lords
   with words of contempt. His men have been sneered at--"Why are these
   Hebrews here? Is not this David?"

   When David walked with God, he was like a prince and no man dared to
   sneer at him, but now he has been flouted by the uncircumcised
   Philistines and has been glad to sneak back to his little city, ashamed
   of himself! It is terrible when a man of God falls into such a position
   that he gives the enemy opportunity to blaspheme God and to despise His
   servant. It is terrible when even worldlings tout the inconsistency of
   the professed follower of Jesus. "Why are these Hebrews

   here?" is the sarcastic question of the world. "Why is a professing
   Christian acting as we do? Look, He is trying to cultivate our
   acquaintance and pass for one of us and yet he calls himself a servant
   of God!" They begin to point, as they did at Peter--"You, also, were
   with Jesus of Nazareth, for your speech betrays you."

   "What are you doing here, Elijah?" is the voice which comes from God's
   mouth and the lips of his adversaries repeat it. When the child of God
   feels that he is in that predicament and in great trouble, too, it is
   not strange that he is greatly distressed. At the back of this came
   bereavement. His wives were gone. He was a man of a large,
   affectionate, tender heart--what grief it must have been to him! Nor
   was he a solitary mourner, but all those brave fellows who were joined
   with him were bereaved, too. Listen to the common chorus of grief as
   they weep until they have no more power to weep! It must have been a
   dreadful day for their leader to feel his own personal sorrow merged
   and drowned in the flood of grief which swept over his companions.

   As for his worldly possessions, he was now as poor as he possibly could
   be, for all that he had was taken away and his habitation was burnt
   with fire--and the rovers were gone, he knew not where. Worst of all,
   he was now forsaken by his followers. Those who had been with him in
   his worst fortunes now upbraided him with their calamity. Why did he
   leave the city to go off to help these enemies of the Lord, the
   uncircumcised Philistines? He should have known better and they grew
   indignant until, at last, one said, "Let us stone him!" To which others
   answered, "Let us do it at once." They were evidently in a great rage.
   David stands there faint with weeping, a friendless, forsaken man--with
   his very life in danger from furious mutineers!

   Do you wonder that it is written, "And David was greatly distressed"?
   He is surrounded with sorrow, but he has no need to gather ashes as the
   emblems of his woe, for ashes are everywhere about him! The whole place
   is smoking! He mourns greatly for his wives and his soldiers mourn for
   their children, for they are as if they were slain with the sword. It
   is a case of deep distress--with this added sting--David had brought it
   upon himself! There is the picture before you. Now let us see a fairer
   scene as we observe what David did under the circumstances. When he was
   at his worst, by God's Grace, he was seen at his best!

   II. Secondly, let us consider DAVID'S ENCOURAGEMENT--"And David
   encouraged himself." That is well, David! He did not, at first, attempt
   to encourage anybody else--he encouraged himself. Some of the best
   talks in the world are those which a man has with himself. He who
   speaks to everybody except himself is a great fool! I think I hear
   David say, "Why are you cast down, O my Soul, and why are you
   disquieted within me? Hope you in God, for I will yet praise Him."
   David encouraged himself. But he encouraged himself, "in the Lord his
   God," namely, in Jehovah. That is the surest way of encouraging
   yourself!

   David might have drawn, if he had pleased, a measure of encouragement
   from those valiant men who joined him just about this particular time,
   for it happened, according to 1 Chronicles 12:19-20, that many united
   with his army at that hour. Let us read the passage. "And there fell
   some of Manasseh to David, when he came with the Philistines against
   Saul to battle, but they helped them not: for the lords of the
   Philistines upon advisement sent him away, saying, He will fall to his
   master Saul to the jeopardy of our heads. As he went to Ziklag, there
   fell to him of Manasseh, Adnah, and Jozabad, and Jediael, and Michael,
   and Jozabad, and Elihu, and Zilthai, captains of the thousands that
   were of Manasseh. And they helped David against the army of the rovers:
   for they were all mighty men of valor, and were captains in the host.
   For at that time day by day there came to David to help him until it
   was a great host, like the host of God."

   These new comers had not lost their wives and children, for they had
   not been in Ziklag, but David did not look round to them and beg them
   to stand by him and put down the mutiny. No, he had, by this time,
   become sick of men and weary of trusting to himself! God was beginning
   to cure His servant by a bitter dose of distress and the evidence of
   the cure was that he did not encourage himself by his new friends, or
   by the hope of others coming, but he encouraged himself in the Lord,
   his God! Do you not feel a wind from the hills? The air blows strong
   and fresh from the everlasting mountains now that the man of God is
   looking to God, alone! Before, David was down there in the valleys with
   his policy and his craft--in the stagnant atmosphere of self-trust and
   worldliness--but now he stands in Ziklag, a friendless man, but free
   and true.

   How grand he is amid the ruins! He rises to his full height while his
   fortunes fall! He reminds you of his youthful days when he said, "The
   Lord that delivered me out of the paws of the lion and out of the paws
   of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hands of this Philistine."
   He is no longer in bondage to craft, but he is a man, again, strong in
   the strength of

   God, for he casts himself away from all earthly trusts and encourages
   himself in the Lord! He did not sit down in sullen despair, nor did he
   think, as Saul did, of resorting to wrong means for help. No, he went,
   sinner as he was, confessing all his wrong doings, straight away to his
   God and asked for the priest to come that he might speak with him in
   the name of the Most High.

   Brothers and Sisters, if you are in trouble, and your trouble is mixed
   with sin. If you have afflicted yourselves by your backsliding and
   perversities, nevertheless I pray you look nowhere else for help but to
   the God whom you have offended! When He lifts His arm, as it were, to
   execute vengeance, lay hold upon it and He will spare you. Does He not,
   Himself, say, "Let Him lay hold on My strength"? I remember old Master
   Quarles has a strange picture of one trying to strike another with a
   flail and how does the other escape? Why, he runs in and keeps close!
   And so he is not struck. It is the very thing to do! Close in with God!
   Cling to Him by faith! Hold fast to Him in hope! Say, "Though He slay
   me, yet will I trust in Him." Resolve, "I will not let You go." Guilty
   as you are, it is good for you to draw near to God!

   Let us try to conceive of the way in which David would encourage
   himself in the Lord, his God. Standing amidst those ruins, he would
   say, "Yet the Lord does love me and I love Him. Though I have wandered,
   yet my heart cannot rest without Him. Though I have had but little
   fellowship with Him of late, yet He has not forgotten to be gracious,
   nor has He, in anger, shut up His heart of compassion." He would look
   back upon those happy days when he kept sheep and sang Psalms unto the
   Lord his God amid the pastures of the wilderness. He would remember
   those peaceful hours of happiest communion and long to have them again.

   His own Psalms would tend to comfort him as he saw how his heart had
   once been glad. He would say to himself, "My experience of Divine Love
   is not a dream, I know it is not a myth or a delusion. I have known the
   Lord and I have had near and dear communion with Him. And I know that
   He changes not and, therefore, He will help me. His mercy endures
   forever. He will put away my transgression." Thus he encouraged himself
   in the Lord his God. Then he went further and argued, "Has not the Lord
   chosen me? Has He not ordained me to be king in Israel? Did He not send
   His Prophet, Samuel, who poured oil upon my head and said, 'This is
   he'? Surely the Lord will not change His appointment, or suffer His
   Word to fail! I have been separated from my kinsfolk, hunted by Saul,
   driven from rock to cave and from cave to wilderness and I have known
   no rest--and all because I was ordained to be king in Saul's
   place--surely the Lord will carry out His purpose and will set me on
   the throne. He has not chosen, ordained and anointed me in mockery."

   Brethren, do you need an interpretation of this parable? Can you not
   see its application to yourselves? Are you not saying, "The Lord called
   me, by His Grace. He brought me out from my love of the world and made
   me a priest and a king unto Himself--and can He leave me? Is not the
   oil of His Spirit still upon me? Can He cast me off? He separated me to
   Himself and gave me to know that my destiny was not like that of the
   ungodly world, but that He had ordained me and chosen me to be His
   servant forever--will He leave me to perish? Shall His enemy rejoice
   over me?" Thus may you encourage yourself in God.

   Then David would go over all the past deliverances which he had
   experienced. I see the picture which passed like a panorama before
   David's eyes. He saw himself when he slew the lion and the bear. Did
   God deliver him then and will He not deliver Him now? He pictured
   himself going out to meet the giant Goliath, with nothing but a sling
   and a stone-- and coming back with the monster's head in his hand--and
   he argued, "Will He not rescue me now?" He saw himself in the courts of
   Saul when the mad king sought to pin him to the wall with a javelin and
   he barely escaped. He saw himself let down by the kindness of Michal
   from the window, when her father sought to slay him in his bed. He saw
   himself in the cave of Engedi and upon the tracks of the wild goats,
   pursued by his remorseless adversary, but always strangely guarded from
   his cruel hands. David cheers himself, as one had done before him, with
   the inference, "If the Lord had meant to destroy me, He would not have
   showed me such things as these."

   Come, now, dear children of God, take down your diaries and refer to
   the days when the Lord helped you again and again! How many times has
   He blessed you? You could not count them, for God has been so gracious
   and tender that He has aided you 10,000 times already! Has He changed
   in love, in faithfulness, in power? God forbid that we should indulge
   such a wicked thought! He is still the same and so let us encourage
   ourselves in Him. "Alas," you say," I have done wrong." I know you
   have, but HE has not! If your confidence were in yourself, that wrong
   of yours might crush your hope. But since your confidence is in God and
   He has not changed, why should you fear? "Oh, but I am so sinful." Yes,
   I know you are and so you were when He first looked upon you in love!
   If His love had sought to come to you by the way of

   merit, it never would have reached you. But it comes to you by way of
   free, rich, Sovereign Grace and, therefore, it will come to you
   forever!

   Do you not feel refreshed, this morning, as you think of what the Lord
   has done? And do you not feel that after doing so much it would be
   wrong, now, to distrust Him? Will you not even, now, encourage yourself
   in your God? Perhaps David, at that moment, perceived that this
   crushing blow was sent in infinite tenderness to clean him right out of
   the condition into which he had fallen. The Lord seems to say to David,
   "All that you have ever got of Achish is this village of Ziklag. I have
   caused it to be burnt up so that you have nothing left to be a tie
   between you and Philistia. The princes said, 'I send this fellow away,'
   and they have sent you away. And now the town that Achish gave you is
   utterly de-stroyed--there is no link left between you and the
   Philistines--and you have come back to your natural standing."

   The hardest blow that our God ever strikes, if it puts us right and
   separates us from self and sin and carnal policy, is a blow of love! If
   it ends our life of selfishness and brings us back into the life of
   trust, it is a blessed blow! When God blesses His people most, it is by
   terrible things in righteousness. He smote David to heal him. He
   fetched him out from the snare of the Philistine fowler and delivered
   him from the noisome pestilence of heathen association by a way that
   brought the tears into his eyes till he had no more power to weep. Now
   the servant of the Lord begins to see the wonderful hand of God and he
   shall yet say, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I
   kept Your Word." I, the preacher of this hour, beg to bear my little
   witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my
   best days! And when God has seemed most cruel to me, He has, then, been
   most kind!

   If there is anything in this world for which I would bless Him more
   than for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that
   in these things the richest, most tender love has been manifested
   towards me. I pray you, dear Friends, if you are, at this time, very
   low and greatly distressed, encourage yourselves in the abundant
   faithfulness of the God who hides Himself! Our Father's wagons rumble
   most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the
   bullion of His Grace! Love letters from Heaven are often sent in
   black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with
   mercy! We may not ask for trouble, but if we were wise we would look
   upon it as the shadow of an unusually great blessing! Dread the
   calm--it is often treacherous--and beneath its wings the pestilence is
   lurking. Fear not the storm--it brings healing in its wings and when
   Jesus is with you in the vessel--the tempest only hastens the ship to
   its desired haven.

   Blessed be the Lord, whose way is in the whirlwind and who makes the
   clouds to be the dust of His feet. May some such thoughts as these help
   you to encourage yourself in God as David did.

   III. And now, thirdly, we have DAVID ENQUIRING OF GOD. "And David
   enquired of the Lord, saying, 'Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I
   overtake them?'" Note well that as soon as David had come to be right
   with God, he longed to know the Lord's mind as to his next action. You
   and I would have said, "Let us hasten after these marauders! Let us not
   stop an instant--we can pray as we march, or at some other time. Haste!
   Haste! For the lives of our wives and children are at stake."

   It was a time for hurry if ever there was, but, as the good proverb
   says, "Prayer and provender binder no man's journey," David wisely
   stops. "Bring here the ephod," he cries. And he waits till the oracle
   answers his enquiries. He will not march till the Lord shall give the
   word of command. This is well. It is a sweet frame of mind to be in to
   be brought to feel that you must wait the Lord's bidding, that your
   strength is to sit still till God bids you go forward. Oh that we could
   always keep up this submission of heart! Oh that we never leaned to our
   own understanding, but trusted solely in God! Observe that David takes
   it for granted that his God is going to help him. He only wants to know
   how it is to be done. "Shall I pursue? Shall I overtake?"

   When you, my Brother, are enquiring of the Lord, do not approach Him as
   if He would not help you, or could hardly be expected to aid you. You
   would not like your children to ask a favor of you as if they were
   afraid of their lives to speak to you! I am sure you would not like a
   dear child, whatever wrong he had been doing, to feel a suspicion of
   your love and doubt your willingness to help--for whatever he has done,
   he is still your child. David has encouraged himself in his God and he
   is sure that God is ready to save him--all that he wants to know is how
   he is, himself, to act in the business. It is to be remarked, however,
   that David does not expect that God is going to help him without his
   doing his part and doing it to the best of his ability.

   David enquires, "Shall I pursue? Shall I overtake? "He means to be up
   and doing. Sad as he is, and faint as he is, he is ready for action.
   Many who get into trouble seem to expect an angel to come and lift them
   up by the hair of their heads. But angels have other matters in hand.
   The Lord generally helps us by enabling us to help ourselves and it is
   a way which does us doubly good. It was more for David's benefit that
   he should, himself, smite the Amalekites than that God should hurl
   hailstones out of Heaven upon them and destroy them. David will have
   their spoil for the wages of battle and be rewarded for the forced
   march and the fight. Brother, you will have to work and labor to
   extricate yourself from debt and difficulty and so the Lord will hear
   your prayer. The rule is to trust in God to smite the Amalekites and
   then to march after them as if it all depended upon yourself.

   There is a God-reliance which awakens all our self-reliance and yokes
   it to the chariot of Providence, making the man ready for action
   because God is with him. It is instructive to notice that although
   David was, thus, ready for action, trusting in God, he greatly
   distrusted his own wisdom, for he asked, "Shall I pursue them?" That
   man is wise who counts his own wisdom to be folly. And he who lays his
   judgment down at Jesus' feet is a man of sound judgment! He who tarries
   till the Divine Wisdom shall guide him--he shall be expert and prudent
   in all things. David also distrusted his own strength, though quite
   ready to use what he had, for he said, "Shall I overtake?" Can my men
   march fast enough to overtake these robbers? And what a blessed state
   of heart that is when we have no strength of our own, but seek God!

   It is good to be insufficient and to find God all-sufficient! I pause
   here a minute and pray God always to keep you and me in just the
   condition into which He brought His servant David. I do not care so
   much about David's overtaking the robbers and all that--the glory was
   to have overtaken his God and to be waiting at His feet! He could not
   be brought to this without his city being burnt; without his being
   bereaved; robbed and ready to die at the hands of his own warriors! But
   it was worth all the cost to be brought to rest on the bare arm of God
   and to wait in childlike dependence at the great Father's door!

   Let the proud lift up their heads, but let me rest mine on Jesus'
   bosom! Let the mighty raise their shields on high! As for me, the Lord
   is my shield and my defense and He alone! When I am weak, then I am
   strong. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The
   old song of Hannah is still true--"He has showed strength with His arm.
   He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has
   put down the mighty from their mats and exalted them of low degree."

   IV. We close our sermon with the fourth note, which is a note of
   jubilation and praise unto God who helped His servant--DAVID'S ANSWER
   OF PEACE. The Lord heard his supplication! David says, "In my distress
   I cried unto the Lord and He heard me." But mark this, he was not
   delivered without further trial. David marched with his 600 men on foot
   after the foe with all speed--and the man became so worn and weary that
   one-third of them could not ford the brook Besor which, though usually
   dry, was probably, at that time, flowing with a strong stream. Many a
   leader would have given up the chase with one out of three of his troop
   in the hospital, but David pursued with his reduced force!

   When God means to bless us, He often takes away a part of the little
   strength we thought we had. We did not think our strength equal to the
   task and the Lord takes away a portion, even, of the little power we
   had! Our God does not fill, until He has emptied. Two hundred men must
   be torn away from David's side before God could give him victory, for
   He meant to have David's whole force to be exactly equal to the 400
   Amalekites who fled, that he might make the victory the more memorable
   and renowned. Expect then, O troubled one, that you will be delivered,
   but know that your sorrow may yet deepen that you may have all the
   greater joy, by-and-by.

   Leaving the 200 men behind, David dashes ahead and, by forced march,
   overtakes the enemy. He finds them feasting and smites them hip and
   thigh! He destroys them and takes the spoil, but in such a way that
   manifestly it was the gift of God. He speaks of the spoil as, "That
   which the Lord has given us, who has preserved us and delivered the
   company that came against us into our hands." God will help His
   servants who trust Him, but He will have all the honor of the victory!
   He will deliver them in such a way that they shall lift their Psalms
   and hymns unto God, alone, and this shall be the strain--"Sing unto the
   Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. We were unworthy, we were faint,
   we were distressed, but God has made us more than conquerors through
   His great love."

   David's victory was perfect. We are told over and over again that David
   recovered all. "Nothing was lost"--not a piece of money nor a garment,
   not an ox nor a sheep, much less a child, or one of womankind--"David
   recovered all." How well the Lord works when He once lays His hands to
   it. "He will perfect that which concerns me." Salvation is of

   the Lord and it is an everlastingly complete salvation! Trust you in
   the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting
   strength. He will work and work perfectly till He shall say, "It is
   finished." The battle is the Lord's and His saints shall be more than
   conquerors!

   Not only did God give David complete rescue, but He awarded him great
   spoil. "And they said, This is David's spoil." David became rich and
   able to send presents to his friends--but he was also the better man,
   the holier man, the stronger man, the more fit to wear that crown which
   was so soon to adorn his brow. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, the deeper
   your trouble, the louder will be your song if you can but trust in God
   and walk in fellowship with Jesus! Little skiffs that keep near the
   land carry but small cargoes and their masters see little but the
   shore. But they that go down to the sea in ships that do business in
   great waters--these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the
   deep! It is something to be out on the wide ocean in a terrific storm,
   when the ship is tossed to and fro like a ball--when the heavens are
   mixed up with the ocean and all is uproar! Then great thunder contends
   with the roaring of the sea and the lightning flames are quenched by
   the boiling of the mighty waves!

   When you reach the shore again, you know a gladness which the landsman
   cannot feel and you have a tale to tell to your children and your
   children's children, of what you have seen in the deep such as lubberly
   landsmen scarcely can understand! As for those who dwell at ease, what
   do they see? You who have been in the battle can sing of victory and,
   pointing to your experience, can exclaim, "This is David's spoil!"
   Trust in the Lord your God! Believe, also, in His Son Jesus! Get rid of
   sham faith and really believe! Get rid of a professional faith and
   trust in the Lord at all times about everything! "What, trust Him about
   pounds, shillings and pence?" Assuredly! I dread the faith that cannot
   trust God about bread and garments--it is a lying faith!

   Depend upon it, that is not the solid, practical faith of Abraham who
   trusted God about his tents and his cattle-- and about a wife for his
   son. That faith which made David trust God about the sons and daughters
   and the spoil--that is the sort of faith for you and for me! If God
   cannot be trusted about loaves and fishes, how shall He be trusted
   about the things of eternity and the glories which are yet to be
   revealed? Stay yourself on God with an everyday faith! Faith in God is
   the exercise of sanctified common sense! Somebody called me,
   "superstitious," for trusting God as to His answering prayer, but I
   reply that he is superstitious who does not trust the living God! He
   who believes in the power of the greatest of all forces and trusts in
   the surest of all truths is but acting rationally!

   The purest reason approves reliance upon God! The end shall declare the
   wisdom of believing God! At the last, when we, with all Believers,
   shall lift up the great hallelujah unto the Lord God of Israel who
   reigns over all things for His people, it shall be known by all that
   faith is honorable and unbelief contemptible! God bless you, Brothers
   and Sisters, and if any of you have never trusted God at all, nor
   rested in His dear Son, may you be brought to do so at once! May you
   see your self-righteousness burned like Ziklag and all your carnal
   hopes carried away captive! And may you then encourage yourselves in
   Christ, for He will recover all for you and give you spoil,
   besides--and there shall be joy and rejoicing!

   The Lord be with you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Swiftly Running Word

   (No. 1607)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 3, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "His Word runs very swiftly." Psalms 147:15.

   A WORD is the expression of the mind. What a man has thought may live
   and die within himself, but when he wishes his thought to live in the
   outer world, he embodies it in a word and thus his thought is made
   known. Thought without expression is as an arm uplifted, working
   nothing, though it is the mainspring of action. But according to the
   ability of the man, his thought is carried out into fact if he is able
   to speak a powerful word of command. Hence, as the garment of thought
   and the accomplishment of wish, a word is a very important thing. A
   word is the manifestation of a man. Dry-den says--

   "Speech is the light, the morning of the mind. It spreads the beauteous
   images abroad, Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul."

   "Speak," said the old philosopher, "that I may see you." More of a man
   is seen in his words than in anything else belonging to him. You may
   look into his face and be mistaken. You may visit his house and not
   discover him. You may scan his business and misunderstand him. But if
   you hear his daily conversation, you shall soon know him! The heart
   babbles out its secrets when the tongue is in motion. As the full
   bucket betrays the water of the well, so is a man discerned by his
   speech. Thus a word takes a most prominent place in reference to all
   intelligent beings and this is peculiarly the case with the Lord our
   God. God's Word is the manifestation of His secret thought. By it He
   reveals His decrees. By it He manifests His Nature. By it He carries
   out His purpose.

   "He spoke and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast." If you wish
   to know God, you must know His Word. If you wish to perceive His power,
   you must see how He works by His Word. If you wish to know His purpose
   before it is actually brought to pass, you can only discover it by His
   Word. When you watch the events of Providence you are only observing
   what the Word of God is accomplishing as He sends it forth into the
   world. As He said to His servant, Ezekiel, so it is--"I am the Lord: I
   will speak and the Word that I shall speak shall come to pass."

   According to our text, "He sends forth His commandment upon earth: His
   Word runs very swiftly." The Word, as it comes from God, takes several
   forms. At first it came forth as a fiat--"Let it be"--and it was. When
   there were no angels to hear Him. When matter did not exist to obey
   Him. When there was nothing but Himself, the Self-Existent One, Jehovah
   spoke and the things which are, began to be! Since then, He has spoken
   to His creatures by the word of command, which should always be obeyed
   even as David said, "I will delight myself in Your statutes: I will not
   forget Your Word." The Word of the Lord comes forth in the form of a
   precept from His Temple or a statute from His Throne and we ought most
   reverently to treasure up every syllable that God speaks to us in that
   form, for we are His servants.

   He also speaks by way of teaching. He instructs us by revealing Himself
   through His Word. All true doctrine is the Word of God and is to be
   devoutly believed. Our prayer should be, "Give me understanding
   according to Your Word." His Word is also spoken in the form of
   promises rich and free and gracious, the Word on which His children
   live. In this form it is sweeter than honey or the honeycomb. It
   flashes forth, also, like lightning flames in threats, when God dooms
   the ungodly or warns them of what shall follow unless they repent.

   Terrible, indeed, is the Word by which Justice takes vengeance upon the
   wicked! But chief of all and above all is THE WORD of whom John
   speaks--"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
   the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God." This is He
   of whom we read in Revelation, "He was clothed with a vesture dipped in
   blood and His name is called the Word of God." That Word is the
   Incarnation of God, wherein God has been pleased to manifest Himself
   more fully than by all other words or works, for in His Son we see the
   brightness of the Fa-

   ther's Glory more than in all else besides, according to His own
   testimony--"He that has seen Me has seen the Father." The name of God
   is written in plain letters in the Person of Jesus, so that even
   ignorant men may spell it out when their eyes are opened by the Holy
   Spirit.

   The Person, life, death, Resurrection and Glory of our Lord Jesus
   Christ are the Word which speaks out the heart of God and in His
   ministry, our Lord set forth the mind of God most fully, even as He
   said of His disciples, "I have given them Your Word." To all these
   forms of God's Word our text may be appropriately applied, for in each
   case, "His Word runs very swiftly." I shall, first, ask you, by the
   help of God's Holy Spirit, to learn the lesson of the text. Secondly,
   let us look to the particular instances which illustrate the truth of
   the text. And then, thirdly, as the Lord shall help us, let us see what
   teaching we may individually gather from it for our own cases.

   I. First, LET US LEARN THE LESSON OF THE TEXT--"His Word runs very
   swiftly." We understand from this sentence, first, that the Word of
   God, which operated of old, is still operating. "By the Word of God the
   heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the
   water." But God did not create the world and then leave it, otherwise
   it had crumbled back into the nothingness from which it came--"the
   heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word, kept in store."
   Creation is not like a watch which God has made and wound up to go by
   itself, but every movement of every wheel of the machinery of Nature is
   dependent upon the constant outgoing of power through the Word of
   God--for of Him and through Him are all things--and "by Him all things
   consist."

   Our wise men are continually talking of the laws of Nature and we know
   that there are such laws, or, in other words, it is a fact that God
   usually acts in such-and-such a way. But to suppose that there is any
   power in the mere laws of Nature is absolutely absurd! You may make
   laws in your household that things are to be done in such-and-such a
   way, but unless somebody carries them out, laws are nothing.
   Locomotives obey certain laws of motion, but without steam to drive
   them the laws of motion will allow them to rust in the engine house!
   There is a law of gravity, but the force of gravity comes not from the
   law, but from God. There is a law of growth, but the power by which
   plants and animals grow is an energy which flows from God.

   It may be a fact that force operates in such-and-such a manner, as a
   stream runs in a certain channel, but, as the channel is not the
   stream, so the rule of Nature is not the power of Nature. Man lives and
   all Nature exists by the Word of God, for, "none can keep alive his own
   soul." It is of our Lord that we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
   "upholding all things by the Word of His power." The Word of power with
   which God made the world is still pulsing through space. When we saw
   the comet the other evening flaming through the sky, we saw as much of
   the hand of God as did the angels when, for the first time, they beheld
   the morning star heralding the dawn! The light of the stars which you
   and I have seen so many hundreds of times is as much the result of
   Divine power as if, for the first time, those lamps of Heaven were hung
   out in the midnight sky.

   The planets move in their mighty orbits with a force which is new every
   moment. The Lord of Hosts orders their marching. The fixed stars abide
   in their places because the hand which placed them in their sphere
   preserves them in it! Order is the result of the Lord's might
   constantly put forth, otherwise would all things run into a carnival of
   chaos and dissolve into destruction. As the bubble on the breaker
   bursts and is gone forever, so would the universe be dissolved at once
   and lost in nothingness were You not there, O God! His Word still
   operates and runs swiftly, even as of old. The heavens and the earth
   would be dissolved were it not that His Word upholds the pillars
   thereof. Well might they sing of old, "Your, even You, are Lord alone;
   You have made Heaven, the Heaven of heavens, with all their host, the
   earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is
   therein, and You preserve them all; and the host of Heaven worship

   You."

   Let us go a step further. The Word of God which operated at the first
   is still operating with the same degree of force. The text says, "His
   Word runs very swiftly," that is to say, it keeps its ancient pace. It
   has not begun to slacken its speed and we know what that was, for, "He
   rode upon a cherub and did fly, yes He did fly upon the wings of the
   wind." There might be a gradual slackening and decline in the forces of
   Nature if they had been created by God and then set to drift by
   themselves. But as God is, still, everywhere present, working in the
   heavens and in the earth and in the seas, in all deep places and as in
   everything--all power continually proceeds from the hand of God--and
   there is no failure in anything.

   Creation may, if God so pleases, wax old as does a garment, but the
   hand which created it is as full of power as ever. The sun's light and
   all else that is necessary for man will continue, according to the
   Divine appointment, and will never

   be exhausted while the Lord supplies them. If any natural force fails,
   it simply means that the Divine power is being withdrawn from that
   particular form of work. But the Word of power is the same. If science
   could prove that any force is waning, we should only believe that God
   is permitting certain created energies to slacken because He means to
   bring them to their end, having answered His design by them.

   Men are always ready to object to the doctrine of the Divine
   working--"All things continue as they were," they say one day. And then
   another day they say, "All things are declining." Neither declaration
   is precisely true. There are great changes in the operations of God,
   but there is no change in the hand that operates! And still, today, as
   of old, God speaks and it is done! He commands and it stands fast. This
   world shall abide as long as God pleases--but when the time shall come,
   He that once spoke to the deeps and they deluged the world--will call
   to flames of fire and the earth shall be wrapped in them and the works
   of men that are therein shall be burned up. No palsy has seized upon
   the eternal arm-- the closing scene of the world's story will be as
   grand as that with which the chapter of Creation opened!

   "He faints not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His
   understanding." Yet it is worthy of notice that the Word of God spoken
   of in the text operates in a silent manner. We are told that He sends
   out His Word and melts the ice, the frost, the snow. Did you hear that
   Word of God? You have seen stern Winter yield to the breath of Spring
   and you believe that the genial change was effected by God's Word--but
   did you hear a whisper? No, and none heard it, for the Word of God in
   Nature is the going forth of His silent will. "No speech, no language;
   their voice is not heard; yet their line has gone out through all the
   earth." Still it is called His Word and I want you to notice that fact
   because you are apt to think that God in the kingdom of His Grace is
   dependent upon men's lips and tongues and words.

   I tell you that the Word of God which returns not to Him void is not
   the word from my tongue, but the Word from His own mind. God can, if He
   will, speak deep into the human heart without so much as a whisper from
   the preacher! His Word can enter men's souls though not a single sound
   is heard! We have known instances of persons who, when far away from
   the means of Grace, have, nevertheless, been reached by the still small
   voice of the Word of God in their spirits, which Word of God, "runs
   very swiftly." If God uses tongues and voices, as He generally does,
   let Him have all the Glory that He is pleased to link His potent Word
   to such a feeble agency. But the secret Word of power which runs
   swiftly is entirely independent of sounds and noises, of tongues and
   ears!

   This is a fact that should comfort us all and it should make some of
   you who have been silent try to speak, since God's blessing does not
   rest on oratory and talent and the like. Have you not marked in this
   house--I speak without egotism--how, for more than 20 years the people
   have come together at every service, crowding these aisles and God has
   saved multitudes of souls? Critics say, "This man is not an orator!"
   And they speak the truth. I have never cultivated the arts of
   eloquence, or exhibited the elegancies of language. I speak what I know
   of God's Word and bear my honest witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ
   in such words as come to hand. The almighty Word of God reaches and
   renews the heart and the more it is allowed to work in an unencumbered
   manner, in its own natural simplicity, the more victorious it will be!
   The Word, of itself, "runs very swiftly" and carnal wisdom does but
   hamper it!

   Oh to let it lay aside every weight! I could wish that men would take
   oratory by the ears and hang it up like a felon, for it has been the
   plague and curse of the Church of God that men try to speak finely and
   prettily, garnishing their sentences with poetic flowers and polishing
   them with needless elaboration! Preach the Gospel, Sir, for that is
   your business! We are not place-hunters, who must please if they would
   win, but soul-hunters, who seek not to amuse men, but to save them!
   Proclaim God's Word in such words as your heart suggests. Pluck up by
   the roots the flowers that grow in God's fields and go not to the
   conservatory of learning and art to gather your fine prose! God will
   bless His own Word, for it is His Word which runs very swiftly!

   Yet, note again, according to the text, God's Word is most effectual.
   This is the meaning of the phrase, "it runs very swiftly." None can
   deny this is the meaning of the phrase, "it runs very swiftly." None
   can resist it, for God is in it. It is God's will and when God wills
   it, what matters if all creation wills the contrary? "There are many
   devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that
   shall stand." The will of God would bear all opposers away as with a
   flood and sweep them like sear leaves before the tempest. There is
   little wonder that His Word runs very swiftly, for if God wills it, how
   can it be hindered? As it cannot be prevented altogether, so it cannot
   even be impeded if it is the very

   Word of God.

   There is a Word of God which may be hindered--His Gospel, as
   proclaimed--it may be resisted and cast aside. But the veritable Word
   of God, the inward Word, the secret will of the Highest is not
   resisted--it sweetly conquers the human will without violating its free
   agency and leads men captive in chains which they do not wish to
   break--it holds them spell-bound by a force which they delight in! And
   they yield, charmed by the music of the love of God! It is glorious to
   think that God is still operating in the realm of Grace as well as of
   Nature by a power which is Omnipotent and this power runs very swiftly.
   There is no such thing as time with God, to whom one day is as a
   thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He may take centuries
   to accomplish His purposes, but if He wills it, all can be done in an
   instant! He may lengthen out the drama of Providence, even to thousands
   of years, but this is not for lack of power, for when He pleases, "He
   will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness: because a short
   work will the Lord make upon the

   earth."

   God's Word is never slow or lame. Neither can it be said of Him as of
   the hosts of Pharaoh, that His chariot wheels were taken off so that He
   drove them heavily. The counsel of the Lord stands forever! "The Lord
   of Hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come
   to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand." Over your heads, O
   mortal men, let the voice of this dread thunder roll--The Lord God
   Omnipotent reigns! Think not because you boast of your free agency that
   this can deprive Him of His almightiness-- He still does as He wills
   among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of this lower
   earth. Who can stay His hand or say unto Him, "What are You doing?"
   Where the word of a king is, there is power, but what is the power of
   the word of the King of Kings? It "runs very swiftly."

   II. Thus I have tried to set forth the general Truth of God, now LET US
   NOTICE THE PARTICULAR INSTANCES OF IT. First, God's "Word runs very
   swiftly" in the matter of Creation. What says the first chapter of
   Genesis about the making or fitting up of this world? It tells us that
   in its present condition this world was arranged in six days and on the
   seventh day the Lord rested from His work. Was ever such a word as
   this? Was ever so vast a deed accomplished in such a space of time?

   It is possible that the creation of the world had taken place long
   before, for "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,"
   but even for that first creation He needed no space of time, for His
   Word could create the universe with a flash. The Lord may have allowed
   ages upon ages to roll by before He ultimately came forth to perform
   the last upholstering of it for mankind--yet all was done when He
   spoke. God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." He said,
   "Let there be a firmament," and it was so. He spoke into being fish,
   fowl and beast and it was so--"In six days the Lord made Heaven and
   earth, the sea, and all that in them is"--for His Word runs very
   swiftly."

   We still see, in the works of Nature, the changes which God works. The
   wind may blow ever so fiercely from the north, but when the Lord
   commands, it whirls about towards the south and the calm may be
   profound. But almost in an instant the hurricane sweeps and tosses up
   the mighty waves of the sea. The vast changes which God works in Nature
   are, to us, gradual in their results, else we should be unprepared for
   them and catastrophe would follow catastrophe. But still, as far as God
   is concerned, He acts instantaneously when He wills and as He
   wills--and His will in Creation is achieved the moment that it comes to
   be an expressed Word!

   Look further into the field of Providence and see how the Word of God
   has been operating there and has run very swiftly. Consider His
   providential judgments. God warned men that He would destroy them for
   their sin. He gave them space for repentance and sent His servant,
   Noah, to be a preacher of righteousness. He made the ark to be a
   visible sermon to them. But when, at last, His patience was ended, it
   did not take Him long to pull up the sluices from below and to open the
   bottles of Heaven from above. How speedily did He cover the tops of the
   mountains with the destroying waves! Peter tells us that by the Word of
   God, the world which then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

   Look further on to the cities of the plain. When they were ripe for
   destruction, Lot saw the sun rise on Sodom and all was quiet and still
   as on this Sabbath morning, but in an instant the Lord rained fire and
   brimstone upon Sodom and destroyed it. When the Lord came to blows with
   Pharaoh, king of Egypt, how thick and fast the strokes came till the
   proud tyrant's will was broken and he let the people go! Yes, "His Word
   runs very swiftly." Whether it is to turn the river into blood, or
   cover the land with darkness, or destroy it with hailstones, or to slay
   all the first-born of Egypt, "His Word runs very swiftly."

   With a Word He slew the hosts of Sennacherib and stretched rider and
   horse in the deep sleep of death. His judgments are amazing! Look at
   Jerusalem--enquire for the ruins of her Temple--see how swiftly God
   fulfilled His decree of

   overthrow. Journey to Tyre, or Moab, or Edom. Get away to Babylon and
   Nineveh. Go and search and see where mighty empires once rioted in
   luxury. He told His Prophets that it would be so and lo, it has come to
   pass, for "His Word runs very swiftly." Come, behold the works of the
   Lord! What desolation He has made in the earth. He breaks the bow and
   cuts the spear in sunder! He burns the chariot in the fire, "for His
   Word runs very swiftly."

   So also has His Word run very swiftly when it has been sent in peace.
   When God has meant to bless men, how swiftly His angels have taken wing
   to bring the gift from Heaven! Think of Israel shut up by the Red Sea
   with mountains on either hand. Oh how speedily the Lord descended from
   on high when He came to the rescue of His people!--

   "On cherub and on cherubim

   Full royally He rode,

   And on the wings of mighty winds

   Came flying all abroad."

   He divided the Red Sea and led Israel through it like a flock of sheep
   in the wilderness, swiftly coming, by His Word, to make a way for them
   through the heart of the sea. So all through Scripture you will observe
   that in the afflictions of God's people they have cried to Him and He
   has sent His Word and healed them! Glory be to the name of our Covenant
   God! In all His works, whether of judgment or of mercy, He tarries not
   for man, but executes His purpose even as He pleases.

   For a moment let us reverently think OF THE ESSENTIAL WORD, to whom I
   referred, just now, whose name is to be always mentioned with deep
   devotion. How swiftly He ran upon His Father's business. As our poet
   puts it--

   "Down from the shining seats above, With joyful haste He fled."

   The life of Jesus upon earth reached little beyond 30 years and yet His
   work was finished before He left this earth for Glory. The Redemption
   of mankind, the bringing in of everlasting righteousness, the finishing
   of transgression, the fulfilling of the Law--all was done in a short
   season! No, you must shorten that, because the major part of His life
   was spent in obscurity, doing, doubtless, much, but not doing that part
   of His lifework which is perceptible to us. In some three years or so
   His Father's public business was all accomplished!

   With what diligence He worked! As to the actual Atonement, although I
   conceive it embraced the whole of His life, yet the central part of it
   lay in His passion and death. In the comet which has lately surprised
   us, much of the brilliance lies in its streaming tail, but the starry
   portion, or nucleus, is supposed to be the solid part of it. Even so,
   the reconciling work of Jesus shines from the manger to the garden and
   yet the more apparent parts of it are crowded into the few hours
   between Gethsemane and the Cross. In that space was Satan bruised,
   Death slain, Hell vanquished, sin wiped out forever, the saints
   redeemed, God glorified and the earth purchased out of bondage! In a
   few hours of agony and shame and death our Lord effected all. "His Word
   runs very swiftly."

   What a running that was when our Lord came forth as a Bridegroom out of
   His chamber and rejoiced as a strong man to run His race! He ran so
   swiftly for the joy that was set before Him, that He sweat, but not
   such sweat as yours and mine--it was a sweat of blood--such was the
   agony with which He ran to achieve the work which His Father had set
   before Him! He was no laggard. Does He not reprove your tardy footsteps
   and mine that, in so short a space, so grand, so infinite, so eternal a
   work should have been achieved? "Truly He ran very swiftly." But now,
   to leave that point, this is true of the Word of God in matters of
   Grace--"His Word runs very swiftly." I shall be sure to have your deep
   attention if you know the extreme importance of the Truth of God I am
   about to proclaim, namely, that the Word of God, when it comes to work
   effectually upon the hearts of men, is able to accomplish its end very
   swiftly, indeed.

   I conceive that conviction of sin is, in many cases, if not in all,
   commenced in an instant! The unregenerated mind of man is like a flint
   and you do not break a flint by degrees--by one blow it is shivered.
   Here is the mind of man like a dark dungeon. God throws back the
   shutters and in streams the daylight at once. Conviction is like a
   wound--the mighty Spirit draws the great bow--away flies the arrow and
   in an instant it has pierced the heart! Through coats of mail of
   prejudice, that barbed shaft has gone and slain sin in the heart of man
   and that in a second of time! "His Word runs very

   swiftly."

   I know that God works thus in regeneration. Regeneration is not a work
   of years--from the necessity of the case the essential part of it is
   worked in an instant. There must be a moment in which a man is dead and
   another moment in which he is made alive! There can be no interval in
   which he is neither dead nor alive. Quickening must be an instantaneous
   operation. There must either be some life, however feeble, or else the
   man is dead--and the line between life and death must be narrow as a
   razor's edge. Though you and I cannot see any sharp line between the
   line, yet there is such a line. A man is either dead or alive. The
   quickening of a soul into spiritual life remains a proof that God's
   Word "runs very swiftly."

   So, also, with regard to justification. When a man believes in Jesus
   Christ, he is justified at once. I can show you that this must be so. A
   man may be guilty or not guilty, but he cannot be anywhere between the
   two. He may, according to the legal language of Scotland, be in a
   condition in which the charge is, "not proven but before God, who needs
   no proof, a man must either stand condemned or pardoned, and there
   cannot be an instant between the two." In one moment God says to the
   guilty, "I forgive you." Pardon is an instantaneous gift. You can be
   forgiven all your sins in half the tick of a clock and pass from death
   to life more swiftly than I can utter the words!

   How wonderful it is to see the change which the Grace of God makes in
   the human heart in conversion! A man is not turned round and converted
   all at once, but the commencement of that turn comes at some particular
   moment and just at that moment it often happens that his most cherished
   idols come tumbling down! The idolatry of his soul is effectually
   rebuked. He cannot understand it, but the thing he once loved he begins
   to hate, while the things he hated, all of a sudden he loves and there
   is achieved in him a marvelous change! An objector declared, the other
   day, that we make out that a character is produced in men in a few
   hours. That a life-building is run up during a single service. I am not
   about to deny the charge! The statement is not quite correct, but it
   will suffice!

   We have all heard of the minister who visited a dying woman and was the
   means of bringing her to a joyful faith in Christ. But before he had
   left the house she was dead--he was known to say that he found her in a
   state of Nature, saw her in a state of Grace and left her in a state of
   Glory--and all within an hour! And so we do not make much of the power
   of God to accomplish wonders in a brief space of time! The new birth is
   a miracle worked by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. It is
   impossible under any other view of things. If this miracle could be
   taken away from Christianity, what would remain?

   Conversion and regeneration remain as the standing phenomena by which
   Christianity is continually proven to be Divine. The Word of God all of
   a sudden transforms the very nature of men and they enter into an
   altogether new state of life out of which there comes a character which
   glorifies God! The essence of that character is created in an instant!
   The Seed of God out of which it will all come is implanted at once.
   "His Word runs very swiftly" Adoption is also one of these rapid gifts.
   A man is made a child of God in an instant, for he may not be a child
   of God and he may be a child of God, but he cannot be half way between.
   There must be an instant in which adoption is bestowed and that instant
   I quote to illustrate the text--

   "His Word runs very swiftly."

   Note again, dear Brothers and Sisters, that this is not only true of
   salvation at first, but it is true of the work of Grace in the heart
   all along. Do you feel dull and heavy this morning? God can revive you
   in a moment! "Before I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of
   Amminadib." Have you backslidden like Laodicea? Have you fallen into
   lukewarmness? "Ah, it will take months," you say, "for me to get back."
   It need not, for here is Christ's Word to Laodicea, "Behold, I stand at
   the door and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I
   will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Open the
   door and let Christ come in and all will be healed! "His Word runs very
   swiftly."

   Are you desponding, are you despairing? He can take away your ashes and
   put upon your head the coronet of beauty in an instant! What said the
   spouse in the Canticles? "The voice of my Beloved! Behold, He comes
   leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." It need not take
   a long time for you to be refreshed and restored--Jesus can come with
   the riches of His Grace and straightway make you to rejoice in Him! Did
   not Jesus work immediate cures on the palsied and the lame? Is He not
   equally mighty to bless? Our Churches frequently require backsliders to
   wait a long time before they can be received. If a Brother wanders, the
   Churches generally deliver him for years to Satan and then, perhaps,
   try to get him back.

   But it should not be so! John looked after Peter directly after Peter
   had been cursing and swearing and denying his Lord. And Jesus, Himself,
   said, "Go, tell My disciples and Peter," within three days after Peter
   had fallen. My Lord's forgiving love runs very swiftly! My Lord's
   restoring Grace is swifter than an eagle's wings! As it is with
   individuals, so it is with Churches. A whole Church can be revived on a
   sudden--no, not only a whole Church, but a group of Churches!

   No, not only that, but, if God wills it, all the Churches in
   Christendom may be refreshed with showers of blessing within another
   week. "His Word runs very swiftly."

   Remember how it was at the first. Within a short time after Pentecost
   all nations had heard the Word of God, so that Paul could say, "Have
   they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into the earth, and their
   words unto the ends of the world." Like the coming of the morning, the
   Word of the Lord shone forth under the whole Heaven right speedily! It
   will be so again, but we must first be prepared for it. The vessels
   must be purged before the Master can use them in His great work. If God
   were to use most Christians and most Christian ministers in their
   present condition as instruments with which to accomplish His work, we
   might pass through centuries of centuries before it would be finished!
   But He can change all this and make His servants to be like angels and
   His ministers like flames of fire!

   Many move along in Christ's work at a snail's pace, but if the Lord
   were to visit the aforesaid trudging fathers and make them leap like a
   hart with intense desire and bravery of faith--and then send His own
   Word by them--what is there to hinder a great revival? Suppose all the
   Church should wake up tomorrow with desires for days of prayer? What is
   there to prevent God's hearing the united cry of His people? What is
   there to hinder Him from raising up hundreds of ministers to preach
   with tongues of fire? What is there to prevent missionaries going forth
   to the utmost ends of the earth? Who can stay His hand when once He
   makes bare His arm and comes forth to the fight?

   Let us have greater belief in God! We scarcely believe in Him now! We
   are always measuring the balance to the credit of the missionary
   societies and counting up the agents. I believe in our excellent
   societies, but I believe in God over the head of them all. I believe in
   agencies, modes, systems, methods, but I believe much more in God, who
   can do far more abundantly than we either ask or think! May the Lord
   take us out into the deep and then we shall let down our nets for a
   catch and take a great multitude of fish! Alas, now we paddle about
   near shore and catch a few shrimp and boast of our wonderful success.

   III. We shall close by noting WHAT IS THE TEACHING THAT YOU AND I MAY
   GET OUT OF THIS SUBJECT? One lesson is this. The seeking sinner can be
   saved now. If he seeks salvation at once, he can have it at once. Is
   there a movement in any mind after God? Do you say, "I will arise and
   go unto my Father"? Have you got as far as that? How long will it take
   you to get to your Father? Well, I cannot tell you--it is a long
   way--but let me whisper in your ear that there is another calculation.
   How long will it take your Father to come to you? The parable proceeds
   to say, "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran."

   I cannot guess how fast the old gentleman in the parable could run, for
   hearts are often stronger than legs, but I know that He to whom the
   parable points when He runs, is not to be overtaken! If God runs, my
   Brothers and Sisters, what a pace must be meant! Sinner, if you are
   rising to go to Him, He runs to meet you! "His Word runs very
   swiftly."--

   "Oh, how swift Divine compassion

   Runs to meet the mourning soul!

   And by words of consolation

   Makes the wounded spirit whole!" We read in the 107th Psalm of those
   who drew near to the gates of death and in their extremity, at the last
   gasp, they cried unto the Lord. Immediately, we read, "He sent His Word
   and healed them." The cure was as speedy as it was complete! Why, the
   Lord can outstrip time! Is it not written, "Before they call, I will
   answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear"? This beats the
   telegraph! You get an answer before you send the message, or while you
   are writing the message, here comes the reply!

   O poor Soul, be comforted! You may have immediate pardon, immediate
   adoption, immediate justification! Mercy comes in a moment to you and
   you may go your way saying, "I have it! I have it! Why have I been
   looking so long for it, when the Word of God is near me, on my lips and
   in my heart?" God grant you Grace to receive, at this moment, the Word
   which saves the soul. Another lesson, and that has reference to our
   work for the souls of others. If God's Word runs very swiftly, then it
   can even overtake those who run away from it! Not only can the Lord
   come quickly to those who seek Him, but He can overtake those who
   hasten away from Him! I can see the sheep running away. At what a rate
   they rush! Sheep never run so fast after the shepherd as away from
   him--they are nimble enough when once they get through a gap. Away they
   go!

   They are over the hill and out of sight in no time. Will the shepherd
   catch them? That blessed Word who is their Shepherd, can He overtake
   the wanderers? Yes, "His Word runs very swiftly--"He can overtake the
   runaways. If a sheep

   has reached the brink of a precipice, the Great Shepherd runs so
   swiftly that He can save it even now. I say this to you workers that
   you may be encouraged to go to sick beds; that you may be encouraged to
   speak to aged men and women; that you may not think anybody is too far
   gone for Christ. If it were certain that without conversion a person
   would be in Hell in five minutes, it would still be both your duty and
   your privilege to preach the Gospel to him and to do it believing that
   in the space offive minutes the Grace of God could save Him!

   "Dangerous doctrine," says an objector, "people will be tempted to put
   off conversion." Alas, if they did not forge an excuse out of this
   Truth of God, they would manufacture it out of another, for when men
   mean to do wrong, any perversion will serve their turn! I cannot deny a
   Truth because wicked men pervert it; that would be ridiculous! A rope
   is a good thing--would you have us destroy all the ropes in the world
   because a few madmen hang themselves with them? We will proclaim it to
   the ends of the earth that the Lord can save at the 11th hour! It is
   not too late for any of you, however aged you may be. What if you are
   to die tomorrow? I leave an impression that some here are not far from
   their end, yet, "His Word runs very swiftly," and even now He can save
   you!

   The dying thief forbids the idea that any praying penitent shall apply
   to Christ and find it too late. Postpone not salvation--but if you have
   delayed for years, make haste at once and may God's infinite mercy come
   to you at the same hour. I close with this further remark. If you and
   I, dear Friends, are not numbered among the unconverted, but are really
   saved this morning and yet we are very heavy of heart, there is comfort
   here. The Lord can, at once, give us joy and peace. "I have a great
   trouble," you say, "and if I do not get help by tomorrow night, I do
   not know what will become of me." Well, God can deliver you by tomorrow
   night--"His Word runs very swiftly."

   "Oh, but I have a dread upon my heart and if I do not soon get rid of
   it, I shall be driven to despair." He can console you at once, for the
   Comforter is already given. "I should like to come to the communion
   table," says one. "I have not been there for a long time, for I do not
   feel fit and I do not think I can be prepared for the solemn service in
   the short space of one afternoon." Oh yes, you may, for, "His Word runs
   very swiftly." If Jesus washes your feet, you shall be clean every whit
   and clean at once! He can bear you up to the heights of fellowship and
   bring you into very close union with Himself in a moment of time. Limit
   not the Almighty as to speed--limit Him not in any way--with God all
   things are possible!

   He can cause your dry rod to bud and blossom and bear fruit in an hour.
   Commit yourself to Him and pray Him to make you perfect in every good
   work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His
   sight and He can do it--and to Him shall be the praise forever and
   ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Double "Come"

   (No. 1608)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 10, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say,
   Come." Revelation 22:17.

   WE have open before us the last page of the Word of God. The Spirit of
   God will not dictate a single fresh line of Truth. We have come to the
   last chapter and very soon we shall reach the Amen! We are also,
   according to Divine Revelation, approaching the last page of human
   history. So short a time will elapse before the present economy shall
   conclude that the angel says, "Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of
   this Book: for the time is at hand." How shall the Book finish? If we
   have come almost to its last verse, how shall it conclude? If we could
   have been asked by the great Spirit of God, "How shall it close?" what
   would have been our reply? We must certainly have left it entirely to
   His infinite wisdom, but what suggestions might we have made?

   Shall it finish with a promise? It is well that it should and there is
   the cheering word for the righteous, "Blessed are they that do His
   commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may
   enter in through the gates into the city." But if we close with comfort
   for saints, what about the multitude outside? What about the tens of
   thousands who are perishing? Does not our love to sinners suggest that
   there should be a word to them? Shall it, then, be a word of threat,
   stern and vigorous, to awaken their consciences and convince them of
   sin? Here it is--"Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers,
   and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and makes a lie."

   Yet one does not like to finish with a sentence of exclusion. The Old
   Testament closes with the word, "curse." Let not the New Testament
   conclude in the same fashion. What, then, shall it be? Shall the last
   sentences be full of tender invitation and earnest entreaty to the
   sinner, bidding him come to Christ and live? Yes, let it be so! But
   shall we forget the Lord, Himself, while we are thinking of the sinner?
   He has told us that He will come--should not the very last word of
   Scripture have a reference to Him and to His glorious advent? Should
   not the Spirit, at the last, as well as at the first, bear witness to
   Jesus? Shall not the last word that shall linger in the reader's ears
   speak of the approaching Glory of the Lord? Yes, let it be so!

   But it would be best of all if we could have a word that would combine
   the four--a promise to the righteous, a threat to the wicked, an
   invitation to the poor and needy and a welcome to the coming One! Who
   could devise such a verse? The Holy Spirit is equal to the emergency!
   He can dictate such a verse--He has dictated it! Here it is in the
   words of our text--"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him
   that hears say, Come." That, "Come," is a promise to the righteous,
   for, "at the coming of the Lord they shall have their portion and their
   glory, for His reward is with Him." That, "Come," is a word of thunder
   to the wicked, for when He comes He shall break them as with a rod of
   iron! He shall dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel!

   That, "Come," is a word of invitation to the sinner--"Let him that is
   thirsty come. And whoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely."
   And yet it is a welcome to our Well-Beloved, for when the Spirit and
   the bride say, "Come," they invite the coming One, the Messiah whose
   Second Advent our heart desires, to whom we cry, "Even so, come
   quickly, Lord Jesus!" I rejoice to find my text, set in the closing
   chapter of Scripture, closing Scripture in such a way as Wisdom, alone,
   could have dictated--comprehending all the things which are desirable
   in the finis of Holy Writ! Oh for Grace to gather from this remarkable
   portion the instruction which it contains! "Come," is the word of the
   Spirit and the bride--and our text urges us to let it be our word, too,
   if we have ever heard it. "Let him that hears say, Come."

   In trying to open up this passage we shall notice, first, that here is
   a two-fold ministry--we are bid to say, "Come," but it is in a double
   sense--we say to Jesus, "Come," and we say to the sinner, "Come."
   Secondly, we shall notice how this two-fold ministry is secured--"The
   Spirit and the bride say, Come." This is actually and perpetually done
   according to the ordinance of God. Then, thirdly, we shall see how this
   two-fold ministry is to be increased--let him that hears add

   a new voice to that which is already speaking and let him say, "Come!"
   In conclusion, you who are hearing ones shall have this two-fold
   ministry urged upon you. May the Spirit of the Lord bless our discourse
   to him that hears!

   I. First, then, let us consider THE TWO-FOLD MINISTRY. There is, in the
   text, a cry for the coming of the Lord. If you read the verse in
   connection with that which goes before it, you will be persuaded that
   the cry of the Spirit and the bride is addressed to the Lord Jesus
   concerning His Second Advent. As the echo of the Savior's previous
   words, "Behold,

   1 come quickly," the Spirit and the bride say, Come. This cry is
   continually going up from the Spirit and from the Church of God and the
   more gracious the season, the more intense the prayer. Because we have
   the first fruits of the Spirit we groan within ourselves for the
   glorious manifestation of our Lord. Just as the 12 tribes, serving God
   day and night, looked for the first coming, so ought all the tribes of
   our Israel, day and night, without ceasing, to wait for the Lord from
   Heaven. We are looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing
   of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. "Even so, come, Lord
   Jesus" is the desire of every instructed saint.

   I shall not go into any details about when He will come. I will not
   espouse the cause of the pre-millennial or the post-millennial
   advent--it will suffice me, just now, to observe that the Redeemer's
   coming is the desire of the entire Church and, "unto them that look for
   Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." The
   ministry of prayer for the coming of the Lord ought to grow more and
   more fervent as the years roll on--even as the watchers look for the
   morning the more eagerly as the night wears away. Certainly the time
   draws nearer and the event can hardly be far removed. Therefore let the
   prayer be general and eager till our Lord hears it--

   "Hark how Your saints unite their cries, And pray and wait the general
   doom! Come, You, the soul of all our joys! You, the Desire of Nations,
   come!" Let everyone that hears the prophecy of our Lord's assured
   coming join in the prayer, "Your Kingdom come."

   But there is a second ministry of the Church which is the cry for the
   coming of sinners to Christ. In this respect, "the Spirit and the bride
   say, Come." It is a very sad calamity when any Church ceases from its
   mission work. It is clearly out of fellowship with the Spirit of God
   and has ceased to work with Him. The cry of, "Come," should never cease
   at any time or in any place. It should be addressed to all men as we
   have opportunity. The world should ring with, "Come to Jesus! Come to
   Jesus! Come and welcome, Sinner, come!" For this purpose the Spirit of
   God dwells among men and for this purpose there is a Church left on
   earth! If it were not for this, the Holy Spirit might depart and Jesus
   Christ might bear His saints away to dwell with Him above.

   The Spirit abides here and the Church abides here that together they
   may continually cry, "Let him that is thirsty come; and whoever will,
   let him take of the Water of Life freely." This, then, is the double
   ministry and I want you to notice that the first call is not opposed to
   the second. The fact that Christ is coming ought never to make us any
   the less diligent in pressing sinners to come to Christ! I deeply
   regret when I see persons so taken up with prophecy that they forget
   evangelism. Trumpets and vials must not displace the Gospel and its
   invitations. By all means, pray fervently for the Advent and search the
   roll and see what the Spirit says concerning it--but still, look on the
   world that lies in the Wicked One and let its sorrows command your
   tears--let its sins excite your zeal. Go out into the world and cry,
   "Come," and the Spirit of God will cry with you and by your cry many
   shall be brought to Christ that they may live! A desire for the
   personal coming of the Lord is by no means antagonistic to the resolve
   to labor on in His absence in the hope of subduing the world to His
   gracious reign.

   Again, take heed that the second call never obscures the first. Albeit
   we are to seek sinners with all our might and to compel them to come in
   to the marriage supper, yet we must not forget whose marriage it is,
   nor cease to pray for the majestic appearing of our Lord, the Prince of
   Life. Despise not prophesying. Be taken up with evangelical work--let
   it fill your heart, your hands and all your mouth--but, at the same
   time, watch for that sudden appearing which, to many, will be as
   unwelcome as a thief in the night! Let the two comes leap at the same
   moment from your heart, for they are linked together. Christ will not
   come until He has gathered unto Himself an elect company! Therefore
   when you and I go forth and say to sinners, "Come," and God blesses us
   to the bringing in of them, we are doing the best we can to hasten the
   advent of the Son of Man.

   Jesus will not descend till He has borne long with the ungodly. Until,
   indeed, His Word shall have been preached throughout all nations for a
   testimony against them and then shall the end be. Brethren, the two
   Truths of God work

   together as a matter of fact and we are not to dissociate them. Look
   for the Lord's coming and then work towards that coming by bidding
   sinners come to Christ and live! To my mind the doctrine of the coming
   of Christ ought to inflame the zeal of every Believer who seeks the
   conversion of his fellow men. How can he be a Believer if he does not
   seek this end? The Lord comes quickly--O Sinner, come quickly to the
   Lord, or it may be too late for you to come! We who call you may soon
   be silenced by His Advent and mercy may have no more to say to you.

   "The oxen and the fatlings are killed, all things are ready, come to
   the supper before the wrath of the King shall be awakened by your
   delays." We beseech you come at once, for the day ofjudgment will soon
   be ushered in. I am sure that everybody who is eager to save souls will
   soon be driven to desire the Advent. If we vehemently cry, "Come," to
   the ungodly and see their rejection of the Gospel, we shall, at times,
   become so cast down that we shall cry, "Come, Lord, and end this dreary
   age. Men reject and despise You and Your servants are distressed! It is
   time for You to interpose, for they make void Your Laws." Go into a
   heathen land and see their images and preach to them concerning the
   true God! And when they reject your testimony you will be driven to
   cry, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

   Stand in a Popish country and see them altogether given to their idols
   and worshipping crosses and relics--and you will soon cry, "Come, Lord
   Jesus. Let Antichrist be hurled like a millstone into the flood, never
   to rise again!" The vehemence of your desire for the destruction of
   evil and the setting up of the kingdom of Christ will drive you to that
   grand hope of the Church and make you cry out for its fulfillment!
   There is no need to say more about this two-fold ministry. Only let its
   two parts be evenly balanced. Let there be prayer to our Lord--"Come
   quickly!" and an equal measure of entreaty to sinners--"Come to
   Christ!" Blend the two in wise proportion and set both on fire. Tell of
   Christ's coming for judgment and then invite men to come to Christ for
   mercy. Warn them that He is on the way, but tell them that He waits to
   be gracious and that while He lingers they have space for repentance!

   You will thus both drive and draw, both convince and comfort--and your
   testimony will have two hands with which to bear men to their Savior!

   II. And now, secondly, let us note that THIS TWO-FOLD MINISTRY IS
   SECURED. According to our text, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."
   They always say it and always will say it till Jesus comes! The Spirit
   says it. What a cry must this be which comes up from the Spirit of God,
   Himself! Given at Pentecost, He has never returned nor left the Church,
   but He dwells in chosen hearts, as in a temple, even to this day. With
   groans that cannot be uttered He makes intercession for us and this is
   one of His intercessions, "Come, Lord Jesus." We are sure that Christ
   will come, if for no other reason than from this fact--the Spirit
   cries, "Come"--for the Spirit cannot plead in vain.

   This ministry of the Spirit is, in part, carried on by the Word of God.
   This Book tells us that Christ will come and gives a thousand pleas for
   the Lord's coming and for the sinner's coming to Him. This is done by
   the Spirit, also, in His operations upon the human heart--He bears
   witness of judgment to come and He persuades men to come to Jesus. He
   is always moving men to pray that Christ may come and moving men to
   come to Christ! He dwells with us and shall be in us--and in both the
   senses of the Word, the Spirit of God is evermore crying, "Come!" This
   also is certainly fulfilled by the Church wherever she is a true
   Church. Note that here she is called, "the bride." A bride is one that
   has been chosen from among others and set apart by love to be specially
   dear to him who chose her.

   So is the Church chosen by God's eternal election and by the love of
   Christ to be Christ's Beloved forever. A bride is one that, being
   chosen, is espoused. The Covenant is an espousal of the Church to
   Christ and every conversion--every regeneration of each person making
   up the Church--is, so to speak, a renewal of the espousal of the chosen
   to the Bridegroom. A bride, however, is more than espoused--she is
   expectant of the marriage. It is not long before the wedding day will
   come to one who is called, "the bride," and even so it is with the
   Church. She is, today, beloved of Christ, chosen of Christ, espoused of
   Christ--and the time comes when the marriage shall be
   consummated--"Blessed are they that shall sit down at the marriage
   supper of the Lamb."

   Joy, joy, joy awaits the elect Church Of Christ. Before long shall
   Heaven and earth be filled with the splendor of the nuptials of the
   King of Kings when He shall take to Himself His great power and reign
   and take to Himself His bride who shall then be called the Lamb's wife!
   Even today the Church is the bride of Christ, reserved unto Him, alone.
   She has no Head but Christ. She acknowledges no rule and sovereignty
   but that of Christ. This Church, which deserves to be called, "the
   bride," is always fulfilling the double ministry which lies in the cry
   of, "Come." Her prayers rise to Heaven incessantly for her Bridegroom's
   appearing--

   "Come, Lord, and tarry not! Bring the long-looked-for day! Oh, why
   these years of waiting here, These ages of delay?"

   And then she turns round to an ungodly world and she cries, "Ho,
   everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money,
   let him come!"

   So, you see, the Church speaks up to her Lord that she may bring Him
   down and she speaks down to the world that she may bring sinners up to
   Christ! Thus our God secures the ceaseless double ministry, for while
   the Spirit is upon the earth and the Church is yet among men, the two,
   together, will continually say, "Come." Many things make it certain
   that the Spirit of God and the bride of Christ will always maintain
   their two-fold ministry. For, first, the sin of man grieves the Holy
   Spirit and moves Him to say, "Come, Lord," while He says to sinners,
   "Turn you, turn you and come to Jesus." The Church, also, is vexed with
   abounding sin. She is sorrowful to be compelled to dwell in the tents
   of Kedar and the wickedness of men makes her cry aloud, "Come, Lord
   Jesus," while in pity to guilty man she cries, "Come and be cleansed
   from your iniquities."

   Thus sin provokes the double cry which will yet secure its overthrow.
   The character of the two pleaders guarantees this perpetual ministry,
   for the Spirit of God is such a lover of holiness that He cannot but
   cry, "Come, Lord, and end the reign of sin!" He cannot but cry to men,
   "Flee away from your sins and come to Jesus!" The true bride of Christ
   has, also, such a delight in purity that from force of holiness she
   must always cry, "Come, Savior, and end the reign of evil," and she
   must cry to men, "Come to Jesus, that you may live by His salvation!"
   Brethren, the love which the Spirit bears both to Christ and to men and
   the love which the Church bears both to Christ and men are combined in
   one force and lead to the one cry! Because of this common love, the
   Spirit and the bride must unitedly say, "Come," in the two-fold sense.

   There is also the desire for Christ's Glory which is in the heart of
   the Spirit of God. He delights to glorify Christ! It is His office to
   do so and, therefore, He never will stay from the double work of
   crying, "Come, Lord," and, "Come, sinner!" The true Church also desires
   Christ's Glory. What a throne she would make for Him! What a crown
   would she put upon His head! Therefore does she cry, "Come, Lord, and
   reign!" And then she exhorts sinners to come and submit at His feet.
   There is also the longing for Christ's Presence which the Spirit of God
   has and which the bride has. Should not the bride long for the coming
   of the bridegroom? There are secret bonds of unity that bind both the
   Spirit and the bride to the great Bridegroom and while there are these
   bonds, we cannot wonder that they unitedly cry, "Come! Come!"

   There is, moreover, before the Spirit's eyes and before the eyes of the
   Church, the future victory--the day when all things shall be under the
   feet of Christ and He shall reign forever and ever! The Spirit works to
   this same end. All His operations of conviction, of regeneration, of
   comforting, tend towards the glorious triumph of the right and the true
   in the Person of Jesus! The Church laughs for joy of heart as she
   thinks of the splendor of the latter days and, like the spirits before
   the Throne of God, in the prospect of the conquest of the world by her
   glorious Husband! This prospect leads both the Spirit and the bride to
   say to Christ with groans, "Come"--and to say to sinners with accents
   of entreaty, "Come unto Him, that He may give you rest."

   I think I have sufficiently shown the character of this two-fold
   ministry and how our God has provided for its continuance.

   III. I need your practical attention and your prayers while we speak
   upon the way in which THIS TWO-FOLD MINISTRY IS INCREASED. "Let him
   that hears say, Come." The hearing man is to say, "Come," but the
   unconverted man is not bid to do so. I want you to notice the
   gradations. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come"--that is actually
   done. The man that "hears" is bid to say, "Come"--this should be done.
   But the man who is thirsting is not told to say, "Come." No, he cannot
   say, "Come," till he has first come for himself! The exhortation, then,
   to say, "Come," is only addressed to those who drink of the Water of
   Life. You that are not saved cannot invite others. How can you? You do
   not know the way! You do not know the blessing to be found in that way!

   A more pitiable being than a man who tries to preach before he is
   converted, I can hardly imagine, and it is lamentable that there are in
   England hundreds of men ordained to the Christian ministry who,
   themselves, do not know what it is to be born again! They are preaching
   mysteries in which they have no fellowship! This is unhappy work and
   unlawful work. "Unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to
   declare My statutes?" Yet all of you who have really heard the

   Gospel with open ears and received the Truth of God, by faith, into
   your souls are called upon to cry, "Come!" Every man that has really
   heard and learned the Word of God is to go forth and bid others come to
   Christ!

   See, Brothers and Sisters, how this perpetuates the cry. I have cried,
   "Come," but my voice will be hushed in the grave before long. Younger
   men who have heard through my voice, will cry, "Come," when I am
   silent, and those that hear them shall cry, "Come," when that
   generation shall have passed away. As in the old Greek games the
   athletes ran with torches and one handed the light to another and thus
   it passed along the line, so is it with us. Each man runs his race, but
   he passes the torch on to another, that the Light of God may never go
   out from generation to generation. "Let him that hears say, Come."

   Let the fathers teach the children and the children their children. And
   while the sun and the moon endure, let the voice that cries, "Come," to
   Christ, go up to Heaven and let the voice that cries, "Come" to
   sinners, be heard in the chief places of concourse! This precept
   secures the swelling of the volume of the cry, for if every man that
   hears the Gospel is to cry, "Come," then there will be more voices and
   yet more! What a feeble few they were who stood up at Pentecost and by
   the mouth of Peter began to say, "Come!" When each man went out to
   preach, though they spoke in all kinds of voices, they were but a few
   that said, "Come," but before the sun went down there were 3,000
   baptized into Christ--every one ready to say, "Come." Before centuries
   had passed, all Europe had heard the voice of those who said, "Come."

   The Lord gave the Word--great was the company of them that published
   it. If at this time we could only awaken all that hear the Gospel to
   say, "Come," what a chorus it would be! All the world would hear it! If
   all who go down to the sea in ships knew the Lord and would say,
   "Come"--yes, if every Christian traveler would take care to proclaim
   the Gospel wherever he went--what holy voices would be heard in nations
   that as yet are ignorant of Christ! The volume swells, the sound rolls
   like thunder along the heavens when all that hear it say, "Come." And
   how the force of it is strengthened! When one man says, "Come," and
   tells out the Gospel tale, men may doubt it. Another steps in and says,
   "Come," and in the mouth of two witnesses the whole shall be
   established. If another and another shall say, "Come." If each one
   shall bear witness to the sweetness and the love of Christ, many will
   be driven to Christ by the power of such repeated testimonies!

   There is a young man whose sister has been saved. He laughs at her. His
   mother is converted. He smiles at her. His father is converted. He
   begins to think. His brother is converted--one after another all in the
   house are renewed. They all beseech him; they pray for him; they tell
   him the way of salvation and at last he must yield. When so many
   surround him, the testimony is so strengthened that the Spirit of God
   blesses it to his conversion! Consider, moreover, that not only does
   the testimony gain in strength, but the adaptation of it is remarkable!
   I may preach as long as I live and I shall never do good to certain of
   you. It may be that I am not the man that God is likely to bless to
   certain peculiar persons. But if all that hear me would say, Come, some
   man among you would fit them, or some woman, at least, would reach
   their case. If all would say, Come, though the sinner is like
   leviathan, some weak place in his scales would be found out and the
   sword of the Gospel would come at him!

   The adaptation of the testimony is half the battle. Thus, dear Friends,
   you see that there are great reasons why everyone that hears should
   say, "Come." Then would the Word of God travel into strange places. The
   waiter at the inn and the sergeant at the barracks would become a
   blessing. The warden of the jail would bear the Gospel to his
   prisoners. The nurse in the hospital would speak of Jesus to the sick.
   Places that never will be reached by the most earnest city missionaries
   or ministers will be open to the Church if everyone that hears will
   say, "Come!" Down in the heart of the earth the miners sing and praise
   God when their fellow miner tells of Christ! In the palace, Christ is
   made known when the humble porter at the gate talks of Jesus! Every
   place would be accessible to the Gospel if all who heard it would say,
   "Come." We should then be as irresistible as the locusts when they go
   forth in swarms.

   I have seen those creatures invade a land! They climb up the walls and
   down them! They march across the roads and pass over the rivers and
   none can stand against them! If once the Church of Christ were full of
   the Spirit of God and all that heard the Gospel would say, "Come," we
   should be perfectly irresistible! The Spirit of God being with us,
   nation after nation would yield! Popery would be swept away and errors
   would vanish! But because we forget this command, therefore the Church
   languishes, the darkness thickens and the gloom threatens to deepen
   into everlasting night. In all this I fall back upon the Divine
   guarantee in the first part of the text, "The Spirit and the bride say,
   Come"--but, oh, that God would move His entire Church to fulfill her
   mission and cause every one of her members to say, "Come!"

   IV. I may not linger longer over this, for I must advance to the fourth
   part which is the most practical. This is my

   point--THIS TWO-FOLD MINISTRY IS URGED UPON ALL WHO HAVE HEARD THE WORD
   OF GOD. I will

   leave the point of saying, "Come, Lord Jesus," till the close of the
   sermon and, as it is not easy to ride upon two horses at once, I will
   keep to that part of our ministry which consists in bidding the
   thirsting ones come to Jesus. First, dear Brother, dear Sister, you who
   have with the ear of your inner nature heard the Word of God, you are
   called to cry to others, "Come to Christ." You are called to this work
   by an obligation--the fact that you have received a very gracious
   privilege.

   Somebody else brought the Gospel to you, for faith comes by hearing and
   you heard the report and, therefore, you live. Are you not under a
   moral obligation to carry the Gospel to others that they, also, may
   hear it and be saved? Remember how many lived and died to bring you the
   Gospel! Had it not been for men who burned at the stake, there might
   have been no Gospel preaching in England! Had it not been for those
   near and dear to you who loved you, prayed for you and wrestled for
   your salvation, you might have been in the midst of Gospel Light and
   yet never have seen a ray of it! Are you not a debtor, from now on, to
   all around you? Ought you not to repay your debt by laboring for others
   as others labored for you?

   Remember, dear Hearers, though it is no privilege to listen to my
   voice, yet it is a great privilege to hear the Gospel! Prophets and
   kings desired it, but they heard it not. The clear manifestation of the
   Glory of God in the Person of Christ was known to none in olden time as
   it is to you. The very least in the kingdom of Heaven enjoys privileges
   greater than any of those who lived under the legal dispensation. Are
   you not grateful for this? Will you deny to the next generation the
   Light of God which your fathers preserved for you? Above all, remember
   that your ears have been opened by an act of Sovereign Grace. You might
   have been left as thousands are, to hear and not to hear--to listen to
   a voice, but not to perceive its meaning.

   But the Eternal Spirit, in the sovereignty of His Grace, has visited
   you and given you a new life! And with it, all the privileges of the
   children of God. Can you be indifferent to this? Will you not feel that
   now the precious Seed of God must be scattered by your hands in the
   broad furrows of the world, out of gratitude to another hand that first
   gave the Seed to you and made it take root in the garden of your heart?
   Here, then, is your obligation. Now, listen to your commission--"Let
   him that hears say, Come." A Believer preaching in the street was
   accosted by a gentleman who had been ordained to the ministry. Hands
   which belonged to arms decorated with lawn sleeves had been laid upon
   this gentleman's consecrated head and he was, thereby, made into an
   authorized minister. A wonderful thing this!

   How is it that those of us who were never the subjects of this solemn
   imposition manage to win souls for Christ? However, this man preaching
   the Gospel in the street was stopped and asked by this successor of the
   Apostles what right he had to preach. And he was not slow to give an
   answer. The preacher quoted this text--"Let him that hears say, Come."
   "I have heard the Gospel in my own soul," he said, "and that is my
   permission to go and preach it. And I shall not be stopped by you." You
   who preach the Gospel in the streets are often called lay preachers,
   but, indeed, you are as much God's clergy as any others! The Apostle
   Peter distinctly calls the whole Church, or, if you please, the mere
   laity, God's heritage or, in the Greek, God's clerks in that memorable
   verse addressed to ministers which warns them against being "lords over
   God's clergy."

   All of you who believe in Jesus are God's clergy and are authorized to
   speak the Word of God in some form or other. Yes, the women have their
   places. Even though they are forbidden to preach in the public
   assembly, there are times when they may address their own sex and
   others, much to the Glory of God. Let them speak without fear, as often
   as God gives them opportunity, in their own modest, affectionate way.
   Let them tell of Jesus and His love. Somehow or other you are all to
   say, "Come," whether you are men or women, ignorant or learned! And
   here is your permit for doing it--"Let him that hears say, Come."

   But this verse is more than a permission, it is a commission! It means
   that the hearing man ought to speak and this he should do personally.
   The text does not say, "Let them that hear say, Come," for what is
   everybody's business is nobody's business. No, it says, "Let him that
   hears say, Come"--that is to say--each man who knows the Gospel in his
   heart is bound to say, "Come." When is he bound to say it? Why, now, at
   once! Let him that hears say, "Come," upon the first opportunity that
   presents itself! And when is he to stop saying it? Never at all! Let
   him that hears still say, "Come." Let him begin to say it as soon as he
   has heard it! Let him keep on saying it as long as He lives!--

   "His only righteousness I show, His saving truth proclaim.

   'Tis all my business here below

   To cry, 'Behold the Lamb!' Happy, if with my latest breath I may but
   gasp His name. Preach Him to all, and cry in death,

   Behold, behold the Lamb!'"

   This is your commission. Mind that you attend to it. O you commissioned
   officers of Christ, see that you sound aloud your Master's Word!

   Next, dear Brethren, attend to this ministry, not only because you are
   under obligation to do it and commissioned to do it, but because you
   are qualified to do it. "How?" you ask. Why, your qualification is
   this--that you have heard! A man can tell what he has heard. It has
   been thought by some that the qualification for preaching the Gospel is
   great power of thought. Press your fingers upon your brow and fetch the
   doctrine out! Think on as hard as you can till you have brewed a new
   Gospel! Produce a new Gospel every six weeks! Yes, but that is not so,
   otherwise preachers would be few, indeed! If you need a servant to
   answer the door for you who is never to come in and tell you who calls,
   but who is to answer the door according to her own sense and wit, you
   will have to pick a long while before you find such a person!

   But if all you need is one who will tell you what is said and then go
   and say to the person at the door what you tell her, you can find such
   a maid pretty soon. This last is the true idea of a preacher--he is to
   say what God says to him and he must not go any further. If it is so
   said in the Word of God let him repeat it. This makes preaching a
   humbler work than some think it is and a more Divine power by far! We
   do not believe in the cry, "Every man his own savior." No, we speak of
   the good old way which is the only way! Yes, Brothers and Sisters, you
   are qualified to say, "Come," to others because you have heard a voice
   saying, "Come," in your own soul!

   The text says not, "Let him that has heard," but, "him that
   hears"--that is to say, let the man who is still hearing the voice of
   God speak. Hear and then tell what you hear! I have seen pictures of a
   pope which represent him with a dove sitting upon his
   shoulder--insinuating that he receives Divine intimations. I am afraid
   that the bird is a raven in the case of these so-called heads of the
   church--but in the case of humble Believers, the Spirit is present
   revealing Christ to the heart and that which is revealed is to be
   spoken by us. There is your qualification! You have proven the Truth of
   God in your own soul and so can speak experimentally! You have found
   Christ! You have drunk the Living Water and you can say, "Come."

   I needed a drink of water, one day, in a thirsty place in Italy. And by
   the coachman's help I asked at a house for water. The owner of the
   house was busy and did not come to show me where the water could be
   found, but he sent a girl with me. She was very little, but she was
   quite big enough, for she led the way to a well and I was soon
   refreshed. She had not to make a well, but only to point it out and,
   therefore, her youth was no disadvantage. We have not to invent
   salvation, but to tell of it and, therefore, you who are but babes in
   Grace can perform the work! You have heard the voice of Jesus say,
   "Stoop down and drink, and live"--go forth and echo that voice till
   thousands quench their thirst! Your message is a very simple one--"Let
   him that hears say"_--a long and difficult sentence in Latin?

   No! Is he to repeat a very complicated piece of Miltonic blank verse?
   No! "Let him that hears say, Come." "I can say that," says somebody.
   Mind you do, Brother. Just go and tell people that Jesus died. Tell
   them that, "whoever believes in Him is not condemned." Do not be too
   long over it, it is only one word, you know--"Let him that hears say,
   Come." Be very earnest about it. There are many ways of saying it--mind
   you say it in the best possible manner. And then, as the message is
   very short, repeat it often--

   "Tell me the story often, For I forget it soon."

   Tell it over and over again, since it is all in one word, "Come." Mind
   you do not add anything else to it. Do not tell them to bring a price!
   Do not tell them to prepare themselves and to do this or that--just
   say, "Come, come, come away from yourselves! Come away from your sins!
   Come away from your righteousness! Come to Jesus! Come to Jesus,
   Sinner, come!"

   It is a very short message. And so I conclude by saying, take care to
   remember that yours is a two-fold ministry and so when you have said,
   "Come," to the sinner, mind you back it all up with prayer! Go home and
   say, "Lord, come to these poor sinners by Your Grace. Lord, come, I
   pray You, come, that this poor work of mine may be ended, because a
   greater work shall be accomplished by Your coming." Let your heart cry
   to your Lord, "Come!" for then you will not be engrossed with the
   world. No man will be anxious for Christ to come while he has
   everything he wants here below and is quite satisfied with it. The
   miser and the sensualist do not want the Lord to come--they are so
   glued to this world that they dread anything that might change their
   relation to it. You must let loose of the world or you cannot sincerely
   say to Jesus, "Come," and that is the very spirit of an earnest worker.
   You must say, "Come," because you are ready to welcome

   Christ!

   That is the way in which to preach the Gospel. I have no right to
   preach a sermon which I should be ashamed for Christ to hear. You and I
   ought to live so that if our Lord were to come we should not be afraid,
   but should just go on doing what we have in hand. We ought to live so
   that if it were a part of the program that Christ would come at 12
   o'clock, we should finish life beautifully at that very hour and look
   at the great Judge and rejoice to appear before Him! This is the spirit
   in which to go on saying, "Come," to sinners! Hear the wheels of your
   Master's chariot behind you? Then you will not be dull in preaching the
   Gospel! Feel that men will soon have to stand before the Judgment Seat
   of Christ--then you will not be cold in your delivery!

   Expect that very soon you, too, must give your account before the Great
   White Throne and even think you see it-- and see yourself and your
   hearers standing before it--then will you preach as though you never
   might preach again! You will preach as a dying man to dying men and so
   the, "Come," of prayer will help you when you deliver the, "Come," of
   invitation and you will be enabled to make full proof of your ministry!
   I must add how pleased I was when I was seeing applicants who wished to
   join the Church, to see that God is blessing many of you in the
   conversion of souls. One or two of the number were converted under my
   ministry out of some 15 or 16, but the most of them were under your
   ministries--one and another of my beloved members had brought others to
   Jesus!

   I noticed four little rooms in and about Bermondsey to each of which
   God had been pleased to give conversions through Prayer Meetings, or
   the preaching of certain younger Brothers. I am right glad of that and
   I wish we had hundreds of such room and cottage meetings. This big city
   of London will never be evangelized by our great assemblies. If all the
   chapels were filled, which they are not, and if all the Churches were
   filled, which they certainly are not, then a large proportion of the
   people could not get in. But, alas, they do not come to worship--they
   will not come! I do not think they understand some of my fellow
   ministers, for they talk too grandly--some ministers have not learned
   to talk Eng-lish--they speak a kind of French-Latin English.

   It is not the Saxon English which the people know and as they do not
   understand what is preached, they do not care to come. The way to get
   at the masses is to reach them by twos and threes--I am sure of it! Get
   them into your houses, talk about Jesus Christ in your parlors, in your
   kitchens, in your bed-chambers, in the corners of the streets,
   anywhere! I am so glad that very many of you do so--go on and prosper!
   It will not matter whether I live or die if you all become ministers.
   Would God that all the Lord's servants were Prophets. May every one of
   you live to win souls. "Let him that hears say, Come." God help you to
   do it, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Faith--What Is It? How Can It Be Obtained?

   (No. 1609)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 17, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "By Grace are you saved through faith." Ephesians 2:8.

   I MEAN to dwell mainly upon that expression, "Through faith." I call
   attention, however, first of all, to the foun-tainhead of our
   salvation, which is the Grace of God. "By Grace are you saved." Because
   God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified
   and saved. It is not because of anything in them, or that ever can be
   in them, that they are saved, but because of the boundless love,
   goodness, pity, compassion, mercy and Grace of God. Tarry a moment,
   then, at the wellhead. Behold the pure river of Water of Life as it
   proceeds out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb. What an abyss is the
   Grace of God! Who can fathom it? Like all the rest of the Divine
   attributes, it is infinite! God is full of love, for "God is love." God
   is full of goodness--the very name, "God," is but short for, "good."

   Unbounded goodness and love enter into the very essence of the Godhead.
   It is because, "His mercy endures forever," that men are not destroyed.
   It is because, "His compassions fail not," that sinners are brought to
   Himself and forgiven. Right well remember this, for otherwise you may
   fall into error by fixing your minds so much upon the faith which is
   the channel of salvation as to forget the Grace which is the fountain
   and source of faith itself! Faith is the work of God's Grace in us. No
   man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit. "No man
   comes unto Me," says Christ, "except the Father which has sent Me draw
   him." So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of Divine
   drawing!

   Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation and faith,
   important as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which
   Grace employs. We are saved "through faith," but it is "by Grace."
   Sound forth those words as with the archangel's trumpet--"By Grace are
   you saved!" Faith occupies the position of a channel or conduit. Grace
   is the fountain and the stream--faith is the aqueduct along which the
   flood of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons of men. It is a
   great pity when the aqueduct is broken. It is a sad sight to see,
   around Rome, the many noble aqueducts which no longer convey water into
   the city because the arches are broken and the marvelous structures are
   in ruins.

   The aqueduct must be kept in tact to convey the current and, even so,
   faith must be true and sound, leading right up to God and coming right
   down to ourselves, that it may become a serviceable channel of mercy to
   our souls. Still, I again remind you that faith is the channel or
   aqueduct and not the fountainhead. We must not look so much to faith as
   to exalt it above the Divine source of all blessings which lie in the
   Grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of it as
   if it were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found
   in "looking unto Jesus," not in looking to our own faith. By faith all
   things become possible to us, yet the power is not in the faith, but in
   the God upon whom faith relies.

   Grace is the locomotive and faith is the chain by which the carriage of
   the soul is attached to the great motive power. The righteousness of
   faith is not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of
   Jesus Christ which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the
   soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith--it comes
   to us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment faith
   touches--and virtue comes out of Him into the soul. However, it is a
   very important thing that we look well to the channel and, therefore,
   at this time we will consider it, as God, the Holy Spirit, shall enable
   us. Faith. What is it? Faith. Why is it selected as the channel of
   blessing? Faith. How can it be obtained and increased?

   I. FAITH, WHAT IS IT? What is this faith concerning which it is said,
   "By Grace are you saved through faith"? There are many descriptions of
   faith, but almost all the definitions I have met with have made me
   understand it less than I did before I saw them! The Negro said, when
   he read the chapter, that he would confound it, and it is very likely
   that he did so, though he meant to expound it. So, Brethren, we may
   explain faith till nobody understands it. I hope I shall not

   be guilty of that fault. Faith is the simplest of all things and,
   perhaps, because of its simplicity it is the more difficult to explain.

   What is faith? It is made up of three things--knowledge, belief and
   trust. Knowledge comes first. Romanist divines hold that a man can
   believe what he does not know. Perhaps a Romanist can, but I cannot.
   "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" I need to
   be informed of a fact before I can possibly believe it. I believe this,
   I believe that--but I cannot say that I believe a great many things of
   which I have never heard. "Faith comes by hearing." We must first hear
   in order that we may know what is to be believed. "They that know Your
   name will put their trust in You" (Psa. 9:10). A measure of knowledge
   is essential to faith and, therefore, the importance of getting
   knowledge. "Incline your ear, and come unto Me; hear, and your soul
   shall live"--such was the word of the ancient Prophet, and it is still
   the Word of the Gospel!

   Search the Scriptures and learn what the Holy Spirit teaches concerning
   Christ and His salvation. Seek to know God--"that God is and is the
   Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." May He give you "the spirit
   of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." Know the Gospel! Know what the
   Good News is, how it talks of free forgiveness, of change of heart, of
   adoption into the family of God and of countless other blessings. Know
   God, know His Gospel and know, especially, Christ Jesus the Son of God,
   the Savior of men, united to us by His human Nature and united to God,
   seeing He is Divine and thus able to act as Mediator between God and
   man, able to lay His hands upon both and to be the connecting link
   between the sinner and the Judge of all the earth!

   Endeavor to know more and more of Christ. After Paul had been converted
   more than 20 years, he tells the Philippi-ans that he desired to know
   Christ and, depend upon it, the more we know of Jesus, the more we
   shall wish to know of Him, so that our faith in Him may increase.
   Endeavor, especially, to know the doctrine of the Sacrifice of Christ,
   for that is the center of the target at which faith aims! That is the
   point upon which saving faith mainly fixes itself, that, "God was in
   Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
   trespasses unto them." Know that He was made a curse for us, as it is
   written, "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree." Drink deep into the
   doctrine of the substitutionary work of Christ, for therein lies the
   sweetest possible comfort to the guilty sons of men since the Lord,
   "made Him to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of
   God in Him." Faith begins with knowledge, therefore the value of being
   taught in Divine Truth, for to know Christ is eternal life.

   Then the mind goes on to believe that these things are true. The soul
   believes that God is and that He hears the cries of sincere hearts;
   that the Gospel is from God; that justification by faith is the grand
   Truth that God has revealed in these last days by His Spirit more
   clearly than before. Then the heart believes that Jesus is, verily and
   in truth, our God and Savior, the Redeemer of men, the Prophet, Priest
   and King unto His people. Dear Hearers, I pray that you may at once
   come to the understanding of this. Get firmly to believe that "the
   blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleans us from all sin," that
   His Sacrifice is complete and fully accepted of God on man's behalf so
   that He that believes on Jesus is not condemned.

   So far you have made an advance towards faith and one more ingredient
   is needed to complete it, which is trust. Commit yourself to the
   merciful God; rest your hope on the gracious Gospel; trust your soul on
   the dying and living Savior; wash away your sins in the atoning blood;
   accept His perfect righteousness and all is well! Trust is the
   lifeblood of faith--there is no saving faith without it! The Puritans
   were accustomed to explain faith by the word, "recumbency." You know
   what it means. You see me leaning upon this rail, leaning with all my
   weight upon it--even thus, lean upon Christ! It would be a better
   illustration, still, if I were to stretch myself at full length and
   rest my whole person upon a rock, lying flat upon it. Fall flat upon
   Christ! Cast yourself upon Him, rest in Him, commit yourself to Him!
   That done, you have exercised saving faith.

   Faith is not a blind thing, for faith begins with knowledge. It is not
   a speculative thing, for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It
   is not an unpractical, dreamy thing, for faith trusts and stakes its
   destiny upon the truth of Revelation. Faith ventures its all upon the
   Truth of God. It is not a pleasant word to use, but the poet employed
   it, and it suggests my meaning--

   "Venture on Him, venture wholly. Let no other trust intrude."

   That is one way of describing what faith is--I wonder whether I have
   "confounded" it already. Let me try again. Faith is believing that
   Christ is what He is said to be, that He will do what He has promised
   to do and expecting this of Him. The Scriptures speak of Jesus Christ
   as being God, God in human flesh--as being perfect in His Character; as
   being made a Sin Offering on our behalf--as bearing sin in His own body
   on the tree. The Scripture speaks of Him as having finished
   transgression, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting
   righteousness.

   The Scriptures further tell us that He "rose again," that He "ever
   lives to make intercession for us," that He has gone up into Glory and
   has taken possession of Heaven on the behalf of His people and that He
   will shortly come again "to judge the world in righteousness and His
   people with equity." We are most firmly to believe that it is even so,
   for this is the testimony of God the Father when He said, "This is My
   beloved Son; hear Him." This also is testified by God the Holy Spirit,
   for the Spirit has borne witness to Christ, both by the Word and many
   miracles and by His working in the hearts of men. We are to believe
   this testimony to be true. Faith also believes that Christ will do what
   He has promised-- that if He has promised to cast out none that come to
   Him, it is certain that He will not cast us out if we come to Him.

   Faith believes that if Jesus said, "The water that I shall give him
   shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life," it
   must be true, and if we get this Living Water from Christ, it will
   abide in us and will well up within us in streams of holy life.
   Whatever Christ has promised to do, He will do, and we must believe
   this so as to look for pardon, justification, preservation and eternal
   glory from His hands according as He has promised.

   Then comes the next necessary step. Jesus is what He is said to be.
   Jesus will do what He says He will do. Therefore we must, each one,
   trust Him, saying, "He will be to me what He says He is and He will do
   to me what He has promised to do. I leave myself in the hands of Him
   who is appointed to save, that He may save me. I rest upon His promise
   that He will do even as He has said." This is a saving faith and he
   that has it, has everlasting life! Whatever his dangers and
   difficulties; whatever his darkness and depression; whatever his
   infirmities and sins, he that believes thus on Christ Jesus is not
   condemned and shall never come into condemnation. May that explanation
   be of some service. I trust it may be used by the Spirit of God.

   But now I think, as it is a very hot and heavy morning, that I had
   better give you a number of illustrations, lest anybody should be
   inclined to go to sleep. If anybody should be drowsy, will his neighbor
   just nudge him a little, for it may be well, while we are here, to be
   awake--especially with such a subject on hand as this! The
   illustrations will be such as have been commonly used and perhaps I may
   be able to give one or two of my own. Faith exists in various degrees,
   according to the amount of knowledge, or other cause. Sometimes faith
   is little more than a simple clinging to Christ--a sense of dependence
   and a willingness to depend.

   When you are down at the seaside, as we might, all of us, wish to be,
   you will see the limpet sticking to the rocks. You walk with a soft
   tread up to the rock with your walking stick and strike the limpet with
   a rapid blow and off he comes! Try the next limpet in that way. You
   have given him warning--he heard the blow with which you struck his
   neighbor and he clings with all his might. You will never get him off,
   not you! Strike and strike again, but you may as soon break the rock.
   Our little friend, the limpet, does not know much, but he clings. He
   cannot tell us much about what he is clinging to--he is not acquainted
   with the geological formation of the rock--but he clings! He has found
   something to cling to--that is his little bit of knowledge--and he uses
   it by clinging to the rock of his salvation! It is the limpet's life to
   cling!

   Thousands of God's people have no more faith than this. They know
   enough to cling to Jesus with all their heart and soul--and this
   suffices. Jesus Christ is, to them, a Savior strong and mighty and like
   a rock, immovable and immutable! They cleave to Him for dear life and
   this clinging saves them! God gives to His people the propensity to
   cling. Look at the sweet pea which grows in your garden. Perhaps it has
   fallen down upon the gravel walk. Lift it up against the laurel or the
   trellis, or put a stick near it and it catches hold directly, because
   there are little hooks ready prepared with which it grasps anything
   which comes in its way--it was meant to grow upwards--and so it is
   provided with tendrils. Every child of God has his tendrils about
   him--thoughts, desires and hopes with which he hooks on to Christ and
   the promise.

   Though this is a very simple sort of faith, it is a very complete and
   effectual form of it and, in fact, it is the heart of all faith and
   that to which we are often driven when we are in deep trouble, or when
   our mind is somewhat befuddled by our being sickly or depressed in
   spirit. We can cling when we can do nothing else and that is the very
   soul of faith! O poor Heart, if you do not yet know as much about the
   Gospel as we wish you to know, cling to what you do know! If as yet

   you are only like a lamb that wades a little into the River of Life,
   and not like leviathan who stirs the mighty deep to the bottom, yet
   drink, for it is drinking--not diving--that will save you! Cling, then!
   Cling to Jesus, for that is faith.

   Another form of faith is when a man depends upon another from a
   knowledge of the superiority of that other and follows him. I do not
   think the limpet knows much about the rock, but in this next phase of
   faith there is more knowledge. A blind man trusts himself with his
   guide because he knows that his friend can see and, trusting him, he
   walks where his guide conducts him. If the poor man is born blind, he
   does not know what sight is, but he knows that there is such a thing as
   sight and that it is possessed by his friend and, therefore, he freely
   puts his hand into the hand of the seeing one and follows his
   leadership. This is as good an image of faith as we can have--we know
   that Jesus has about Him merit, power and blessing which we do not
   possess and, therefore, we gladly trust ourselves to Him and He never
   betrays our confidence.

   Every boy that goes to school has to exert faith while learning. His
   schoolmaster teaches him geography and instructs him as to the form of
   the earth and the existence of certain great cities and empires. The
   boy does not, himself, know that these things are true except that he
   believes his teacher and the books put into his hands. That is what you
   will have to do with Christ if you are to be saved--you must know just
   because He tells you and believe because He assures you it is so--and
   trust yourself with Him because He promises you that salvation will be
   the result. Almost all that you and I know has come to us by faith. A
   scientific discovery has been made and we are sure of it. On what
   ground do we believe it? On the authority of certain well-known men of
   learning whose reputations are established! We have never made or seen
   their experiments, but we believe their witness.

   Just so you are to do with regard to Christ. Because He teaches you
   certain Truths of God you are to be His disciple, believe His Words and
   trust yourself with Him. He is infinitely superior to you and presents
   Himself to your confidence as your Master and Lord. If you will receive
   Him and His Words, you shall be saved. Another and a higher form of
   faith is that faith which grows out of love. Why does a boy trust his
   father? You and I know a little more about his father than he does and
   we do not rely upon him quite so implicitly. But the reason why the
   child trusts his father is because he loves him. Blessed and happy are
   they who have a sweet faith in Jesus intertwined with deep affection
   for Him! They are charmed with His Character and delighted with His
   mission. They are carried away by the loving kindness that He has
   manifested and now they cannot help trusting Him because they so much
   admire, revere and love Him.

   It is hard to make you doubt a person whom you love. If you are, at
   last, driven to it, then comes the awful passion of jealousy which is
   strong as death and cruel as the grave--but till such a crushing of the
   heart shall come, love is all trust and confidence. The way of loving
   trust in the Savior may thus be illustrated. A lady is the wife of the
   most eminent physician of the day. She is seized with a dangerous
   illness and is struck down by its power. Yet she is wonderfully calm
   and quiet, for her husband has made this disease his special study and
   has healed thousands similarly afflicted. She is not in the least
   troubled, for she feels perfectly safe in the hands of one so dear to
   her, in whom skill and love are blended in their highest forms. Her
   faith is reasonable and natural--her husband from every point of view
   deserves it of her.

   This is the kind of faith which the happiest of Believers exercise
   towards Christ! There is no physician like He! None can save as He can!
   We love Him and He loves us and, therefore, we put ourselves into His
   hands, accept whatever He prescribes and do whatever He bids. We feel
   that nothing can be wrongly ordered while He is the director of our
   affairs, for He loves us too much to let us perish, or suffer a single
   needless pang! Faith also realizes the Presence of the living God and
   Savior and thus it breeds in the soul a beautiful calm and quiet like
   that which was seen in a little child in the time of tempest. Her
   mother was alarmed, but the sweet girl was pleased. She clapped her
   hands with delight. Standing at the window when the flashes came most
   vividly, she cried in childish accents, "Look, mamma! How beautiful!
   How beautiful!"

   Her mother said, "My dear, come away, the lightning is terrible!" But
   she begged to be allowed to look out and see the lovely light which God
   was making all over the sky, for she was sure God would not do His
   little child any harm. "But listen to the terrible thunder," said her
   mother. "Did you not say, Mamma, that God was speaking in the thunder?"
   "Yes," said her trembling parent. "O," said the darling, "how nice it
   is to hear Him! He talks very loud, but I think it is because He wants
   the deaf people to hear Him. Is it not so, Mamma?" Thus she went
   talking on, as merry as a bird, was she, for God was real to her and
   she trusted Him! To her, the lightning was God's beautiful light and
   the thun-

   der was God's wonderful voice, and she was happy. I dare say her mother
   knew a good deal about the laws of Nature and the energy of
   electricity--and little was the comfort which her knowledge brought
   her!

   The child's knowledge was less showy, but it was far more certain and
   precious. We are so conceited, nowadays, that we are too proud to be
   comforted by self-evident Truths of God and prefer to make ourselves
   wretched with questionable theories. Hood sang a deep spiritual truth
   when he merrily said--

   "I remember, I remember,

   The fir trees dark and high.

   I used to think their slender tops

   Were close against the sky.

   It was a childish ignorance,

   But now 'tis little joy

   To know I'm further off from Hea ven

   Than when I was a boy."

   For my own part I would rather be a child, again, than grow perversely
   wise. Faith is to be a child towards Christ-- believing in Him as a
   real and present Person--at this very moment near us and ready to bless
   us. This may seem to be a childish fancy, but it is such childishness
   we must all come to if we would be happy in the Lord. "Except you be
   converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the
   Kingdom of Heaven." Faith takes Christ at His word, as a child believes
   his father, and trusts Him in all simplicity with past, present and
   future. God give us such faith!

   A firm form of faith arises out of assured knowledge. This comes of
   growth in Grace and is the faith which believes Christ because it knows
   Him. It trusts Him because it has proven Him to be Infallibly faithful.
   This faith asks not for signs and tokens, but bravely believes! Look at
   the faith of the master mariner--I have often been amazed at it! He
   looses his cable; he steams away from the shore. For days, weeks, or
   even months he never sees sail or shore, yet on he goes, day and night,
   without fear, till one morning he finds himself just opposite the
   desired haven towards which he has been steering! How has he found his
   way over the trackless deep? He has trusted in his compass, his
   nautical almanac, his glass and the heavenly bodies! And obeying their
   guidance, without sighting shore, he has steered so accurately that he
   has not to change a point to get into port. It is a wonderful thing,
   that sailing without sight!

   Spiritually it is a blessed thing to leave the shores of sight and say,
   "Good-bye to inward feelings, cheering providences, signs, tokens and
   so forth! I believe in God and I steer for Heaven straight away."
   "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed"--to them
   shall be administered an abundant entrance, at the last, and a safe
   voyage on the way. This is the faith which makes it easy to commit our
   soul and all its eternal interests into the Savior's keeping. One man
   goes to the bank and puts his money into it with a measure of
   confidence, but another has looked into the bank's accounts and has
   been behind the scenes and made sure of its having a large reserve of
   well-invested capital--he puts in his money with the utmost assurance!
   He knows and is established in his faith and so he cheerfully commits
   his all to the bank.

   Even so, we who know Christ are glad to place our whole being in His
   hands, knowing that He is able to keep us even unto the end. God give
   us more and more an assured confidence in Jesus until it comes to be an
   unwavering faith, so that we never doubt, but unquestioningly believe!
   Look at the farmer--he labors with his plow in the wintry months, when
   there is not a leaf on the tree nor a bird that sings to cheer him and
   after he has plowed, he takes the precious corn from the granary, of
   which, perhaps, he has very little, and he buries it in the furrows,
   assured that it will come up again! Because he has seen a harvest 50
   times, already, he looks for another and in faith he scatters the
   precious grain. To all appearances, the most absurd thing that ever was
   done by mortal man is to throw away good corn, burying it in the
   ground!

   If you had never seen or heard of its results, it would seem the way of
   waste and not the work of farming, yet the farmer has no doubts--he
   longs to be allowed to cast away his seed--in faith he even covets fair
   weather that he may bury his corn! And if you tell him that he is doing
   an absurd thing, he smiles at your ignorance and tells you that thus
   harvests come. This is a fair picture of the faith which grows of
   experience--it helps us to act in a manner contrary to appearances--it
   leads us to commit our all to the keeping of Christ, burying our hopes
   and our very lives with Him in joyful confidence that if we are dead
   with Him, we shall also live with Him. Jesus Christ who rose from the
   dead will raise us up through His death unto newness of life and give
   us a harvest of joy and peace!

   Give up everything into the hands of Christ and you shall have it back
   with an abundant increase. May we get so strong a faith that, as we
   have no doubt of the rising and setting of the sun, we may never doubt
   the Savior's working for us in every hour of need! We have already
   trusted in our Lord and have never been confounded, therefore let us go
   on to rely upon Him more and more implicitly--for never shall our faith
   in Him surpass the bounds of His deserving. Have faith in God and then
   hear Jesus say, "You believe in God, believe also in Me."

   II. Thus far I have done my best to answer what faith is. We shall now
   enquire WHY FAITH IS SELECTED AS THE CHANNEL OF SALVATION "By Grace are
   you saved through faith." It becomes us to be modest in answering such
   a question, for God's ways are not always to be understood. But, as far
   as we can tell, faith has been selected as the channel of Grace because
   there is a natural adaptation in faith to be used as the receiver.
   Suppose that I am about to give a poor man an alms. I put it into his
   hand--why? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his ear, or
   to lay it upon his foot, the hand seems made on purpose to receive.

   So faith in the mental body is created on purpose to be a receiver--it
   is the hand of the man and there is a fitness in bestowing Grace by its
   means. Let me put this very plainly. Faith which receives Christ is as
   simple an act as when your child receives an apple from you because you
   hold it out and promise to give it the apple if it comes for it. The
   belief and the receiving relate only to an apple, but they make up
   precisely the same act as the faith which deals with eternal salvation!
   What the child's hand is to the apple, that is your faith to the
   perfect salvation of Christ. The child's hand does not make the apple,
   nor alter the apple--it only receives it. And faith is chosen, by God,
   to be the receiver of salvation because it does not pretend to make
   salvation, nor to help in it, but it receives it.

   Faith, again, is no doubt selected because it gives all the credit to
   God. It is of faith that it might be by Grace and it is of Grace that
   there may be no boasting, for God cannot endure pride. Paul says, "Not
   of works, lest any man should boast." The hand which receives charity
   does not say, "I am to be thanked for accepting the gift"--that would
   be absurd! When the hand conveys bread to the mouth, it does not say to
   the body, "Thank me, for I fed you." It is a very simple thing that the
   hand does, though a very necessary thing--but it never arrogates glory
   to itself for what it does. So God has selected faith to receive the
   unspeakable gift of His Grace because it cannot take to itself any
   credit, but must adore the gracious God who is the Giver of all good.

   Next, God selects faith as the channel of salvation because it is a
   sure method, linking man with God. When man confides in God, there is a
   point of union between them and that union guarantees blessing. Faith
   saves us because it makes us cling to God and so brings us into union
   with Him. I have used the following illustration before, but I must
   repeat it because I cannot think of a better. I am told that years ago,
   above the Falls of Niagara, a boat was upset and two men were being
   carried down the current. Persons on the shore managed to float a rope
   out to them, which rope was seized by them both. One of them held fast
   to it and was safely drawn to the bank, but the other, seeing a great
   log come floating by, unwisely let go of the rope and clung to the log,
   for it was the bigger thing of the two and apparently better to cling
   to.

   Alas, the log, with the man on it, went right over the vast abyss
   because there was no union between the log and the shore. The size of
   the log was no benefit to him who grasped it--it needed a connection
   with the shore to produce safety. So when a man trusts to his works, or
   to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he will not be saved
   because there is no connection between him and Christ. But faith,
   though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hands of the
   great God on the shore! Infinite power pulls in the connecting line and
   thus draws the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith
   because it unites us to God! Faith is chosen, again, because it touches
   the springs of action. I wonder whether I shall be wrong if I say that
   we never do anything except through faith of some sort? If I walk
   across this platform it is because I believe my legs will carry me.

   A man eats because he believes in the necessity of food. Columbus
   discovered America because he believed that there was another continent
   beyond the ocean--many another grand deed has also been born of faith,
   for faith works wonders. Common things are done on the same
   principle--faith in its natural form is an all-prevailing force. God
   gives salvation to our faith because He has thus touched the secret
   spring of all our emotions and actions. He has, so to speak, taken
   possession of the battery and now He can send the sacred current to
   every part of our nature. When we believe in Christ--and the heart has
   come into the possession of God--then are we saved from sin and are
   moved towards repentance, holiness, zeal, prayer, consecration and
   every other gracious thing!

   Faith, again, has the power of working by love. It touches the secret
   spring of the affections and draws the heart towards God. Faith is an
   act of the understanding, but it also proceeds from the heart. With the
   heart, man believes unto righteousness and, therefore, God gives
   salvation to faith because it resides next door to the affections and
   is near akin to love. And love, you know, is that which purifies the
   soul. Love to God is obedience! Love is holiness! To love God and to
   love man is to be conformed to the image of Christ--and this is
   salvation!

   Moreover, faith creates peace and joy. He that has it rests, is
   tranquil, is glad and joyous--and this is a preparation for Heaven. God
   gives all the heavenly gifts to faith because faith works in us the
   very life and spirit which are to be eternally manifested in the upper
   and better world. I have hastened over these points that I might not
   weary you on a day when, however willing the spirit may be, the flesh
   is weak.

   III. We close with the third point--HOW CAN WE OBTAIN AND INCREASE OUR
   FAITH? This is a very earnest question to many. They say they want to
   believe but cannot. A great deal of nonsense is talked upon this
   subject. Let us be practical in our dealing with it. "What am I to do
   in order to believe?" The shortest way is to believe and if the Holy
   Spirit has made you honest and candid, you will believe as soon as the
   Truth of God is set before you. Anyway, the Gospel command is
   clear--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." But
   still, if you have a difficulty, take it before God in prayer. Tell the
   great Father exactly what it is that puzzles you and beg Him, by His
   Holy Spirit, to solve the question. If I cannot believe a statement in
   a book, I am glad to enquire of the author what he meant, and if he is
   an honest man, his explanation will satisfy me. Much more will the
   Divine explanation satisfy the heart of the true seeker! The Lord is
   willing to make Himself known! Go to Him and see if it is not so!

   Furthermore, if faith seems difficult, it is possible that God the Holy
   Spirit will enable you to believe if you hear very frequently and
   earnestly that which you are commanded to believe. We believe many
   things because we have heard them so often. Do you not find it so in
   common life, that if you hear a thing 50 times a day, at last you come
   to believe it? Some men have come to believe that which is false by
   this process, but I should not wonder but what God often blesses this
   method in working faith concerning that which is true, for it is
   written, "Faith comes by hearing." If I earnestly and attentively hear
   the Gospel, it may be that one of these days I shall find myself
   believing that which I hear, through the blessed operation of the
   Spirit upon my mind.

   If that, however, should seem poor advice, I would add, next, consider
   the testimony of others. The Samaritans believed because of what the
   woman told them concerning Jesus. Many of our beliefs arise out of the
   testimony of others. I believe that there is such a country as Japan--I
   never saw it and yet I believe that there is such a place because
   others have been there. I believe I shall die--I have never died, but a
   great many have done so whom I once knew--and I have a conviction that
   I shall also die. The testimony of many convinces me of this fact.
   Listen, then, to those who tell you how they were saved, how they were
   pardoned, how they have been changed in character--if you will but
   listen you will find that somebody just like yourself has been saved.

   If you have been a thief, you will find that a thief rejoiced to wash
   away his sins in the fountain of Christ's blood! You that have been
   unchaste in life, you will find that men who have fallen that way have
   been cleansed and changed! If you are in despair, you have only to get
   among God's people and inquire a little, and some who have been equally
   in despair with yourself will tell you how He saved them! As you listen
   to one after another of those who have tried the Word of God and proved
   it, the Divine Spirit will lead you to believe. Have you not heard of
   the African who was told by the missionary that water sometimes became
   so hard that a man could walk on it? He declared that he believed a
   great many things the missionary had told him but he would never
   believe that.

   When the African came to England it came to pass that one frosty day he
   saw the river frozen, but he would not venture on it. He knew that it
   was a river and he was certain that he would be drowned if he ventured
   upon it. He could not be induced to walk the ice till his friend went
   upon it. Then he was persuaded and trusted himself where others had
   ventured. So, perhaps, while you see others believe and notice their
   joy and peace, you will, yourself, be gently led to believe. It is one
   of God's ways of helping us to faith. A still better plan is this--note
   the Authority upon which you are commanded to believe and this will
   greatly help you. The authority is not mine, or you might well reject
   it. It is not even the pope's, or you might even reject that. But you
   are commanded to believe upon the authority of God Himself! He bids you
   believe in Jesus Christ and you must not refuse to obey your Maker!

   The foreman of a certain works in the north had often heard the Gospel,
   but he was troubled with the fear that he might not come to Christ. His
   good employer, one day, sent a card round to the works--"Come to my
   house immediately after work." The foreman appeared at his employer's
   door and the man came out and said somewhat roughly, "What do you want,
   John, troubling me at this hour? Work is done, what right have you
   here?" "Sir," he said, "I had a card from you saying that I was to come
   after work." "Do you mean to say that merely because you had a card
   from me you are to come up to my house and call me out after business
   hours?" "Well, Sir," replied the foreman, "I do not understand you, but
   it seems to me that since you sent for me, I had a right to come."

   "Come in, John," said his employer, "I have another message that I want
   to read to you." And he sat down and read these words--"Come unto Me,
   all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Do
   you think after such a message from Christ that you can be wrong in
   going to Him?" The poor man saw it all at once and believed because he
   saw that he had good warrant and authority for believing! So have you,
   poor Soul! You have good authority for coming to Christ, for the Lord,
   Himself, bids you trust Him! If that does not settle you, think over
   what it is that you have to believe--that the Lord Jesus Christ
   suffered in the place of men and is able to save all who trust Him.
   Why, this is the most blessed fact that ever men were told to believe!
   It is the most suitable, the most comforting, the most Divine Truth of
   God that was ever set before men!

   I advise you to think much upon it and search out the Grace and love
   which it contains. Study the four Evangelists. Study Paul's Epistles
   and then see if the message is not such a credible one that you are
   forced to believe it! If that does not do, then think upon the Person
   of Jesus Christ--think of who He is and what He did--and where He is
   now and what He is now. Think often and deeply. When He, even such an
   one as He, bids you trust Him, surely your heart will be persuaded! How
   can you doubt Him? If none of these things avail, then there is
   something altogether wrong about you, and my last word is, submit
   yourself to God! May the Spirit of God take away your enmity and make
   you yield! You are a rebel, a proud rebel, and that is why you do not
   believe your God. Give up your rebellion! Throw down your weapons!
   Yield at discretion and surrender to your King!

   I believe that never did a soul throw up its hands in self-despair and
   cry, "Lord, I yield," but what faith became easy to it before long. It
   is because you still have a quarrel with God and intend to have your
   own will and your own way that you cannot believe. "How can you
   believe," said Christ, "that have honor one of another?" Proud self
   creates unbelief. Submit, O man! Yield to your God and then shall you
   sweetly believe in your Savior. God bless you, for Christ's sake, and
   bring you, at this very moment, to believe in the Lord Jesus. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Miniature Portrait Of Joseph

   (No. 1610)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 24, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Lord was with Joseph." Genesis 39:2.

   SCRIPTURE frequently sums up a man's life in a single sentence. Here is
   the biography of Joseph sketched by Inspiration--"God was with him," so
   Stephen testified in his famous speech recorded in Acts 7:9. Here is
   the life story of Abraham--"Abraham believed God." Of Moses, we read,
   "The man Moses was very meek." Take a New Testament life, such as that
   of John the Baptist, and you have it in a line--"John did no miracles,
   but all things that he spoke concerning Jesus were true." The mere name
   of John--"that disciple whom Jesus loved"--would serve for an epitaph
   of him. It pictures both the man and his history. Holy Scripture excels
   in this kind of full-length miniature paintings! Michelangelo is said
   to have drawn a portrait with a single stroke of his crayon and so the
   Spirit of God sketches a man's life in a single sentence--"The Lord was
   with Joseph."

   Observe, however, that the portraits of Scripture give us not only the
   outer, but the inner life of the man. Man looks at the outward
   appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart and so the Scriptural
   descriptions of men are not of their visible life, alone, but of their
   spiritual life. Here we have Joseph as God saw him, the real Joseph.
   Externally it did not always appear that God was with him, for Joseph
   did not always seem to be a prosperous man. But when you come to look
   into the inmost soul of this servant of God, you see his true
   likeness--he lived in communion with the Most High and God blessed
   him--"The Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man."

   Dear Friends, how would you like to have your inner biography sketched?
   How would your soul appear, if set out in detail before all the world
   as to its desires, affections and thoughts? Many lives have looked well
   on paper, but beneath their surface the biographer never dared to dive,
   or, perhaps, could not have dived had he been anxious to do so! It is
   often thought wise, in writing a man's life, to suppress certain
   matters. This may be prudent if the design is to guard a reputation,
   but it is scarcely truthful. The Spirit of God does not suppress the
   faults, even, of those whom we most admire, but writes them fully, like
   the Spirit of Truth, as He is. The man who, above others, was "a man
   after God's own heart," was yet, in some points, exceedingly faulty and
   he committed one foul deed which will remain, through all time, a
   blemish upon his character.

   There was in David so firm and undeviating an attachment to the Lord
   God and so sincere a desire to do right--and so deep a repentance when
   he had erred--that the Lord still regarded him as after His own heart
   although He smote him heavily for his transgressions. David was a truly
   sincere man in spite of the faults into which he fell and it is the
   heart of David which is sketched. So here, the Spirit is not looking so
   much at Joseph as a favorite child, or an Egyptian prime minister, as
   at the innermost and truest Joseph and, therefore, He thus describes
   him, "the Lord was with Joseph." This striking likeness of Joseph
   strongly reminds us of our Master and Lord, that greater Joseph, who is
   Lord over all the world for the sake of Israel.

   Peter, in his sermon to the household of Cornelius, said of our Lord
   that He, "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of
   the devil; for God was with Him." Exactly what had been said of Joseph!
   It is wonderful that the same words should describe both Jesus and
   Joseph, the perfect Savior and the imperfect Patriarch! When you and I
   are perfected in Divine Grace, we shall wear the image of Christ and
   that which will describe Christ will also describe us! Those who live
   with Jesus will be transformed by His fellowship till they become like
   He. To my mind, it is very beautiful to see the resemblance between the
   First-Born and the rest of the family; between the great typical Man,
   the Second Adam and all those men who are quickened into His life and
   are one with Him.

   This having the Lord with us is the inheritance of all the saints, for
   what is the Apostolic benediction in the Epistles but a desire that the
   Triune God may be with us? To the Church in Rome, Paul says, "Now the
   God of peace be with you

   all." To the Church in Corinth, he writes, "The Grace of the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be
   with you all. Amen." To the Thessalonians, he says, "The Lord be with
   you all." Did not our glorious Lord say, "Lo, I am with you always,
   even unto the end of the world"? How better could I salute you this
   morning than in the words of Boaz to the reapers, "The Lord be with
   you"? What kinder answer could you give me than, "The Lord bless you"?

   High up upon the mountains which form the back wall of Mentone I
   happened, one day, to meet a Quaker in the usual costume. He was a
   warm-hearted lover of all who love Jesus. He saluted me and we found
   great unity of spirit. On parting, I said, "Friend, the Lord be with
   you." And he answered, "And with your spirit," adding, "It is the first
   bit of the liturgy that I have ever used." Truly, the more often we can
   use it with our hearts, the better, for none can object to it! Thus do
   I say to all of you this day, "The Lord be with you!" And I know that
   you are responding, "And with your spirit." May you find that your
   desire is granted, by the Holy Spirit's being with my spirit that I may
   speak words which shall refresh your hearts!

   Now let us think of Joseph and see what we can learn from him. "The
   Lord was with Joseph." Let us consider, first, the fact. Secondly, the
   evidence of that fact. And thirdly, the result of that fact.

   I. First, we will run over Joseph's life and note THE FACT--"The Lord
   was with Joseph." God was gracious to Joseph as a child. His father
   loved him because he was the son of his old age and also because of the
   gracious qualities which he saw in him. Before he was 17 years of age,
   God had spoken with him in dreams and visions of the night, of which we
   read that, "His brothers envied him; but his father observed the
   saying." Dear young people, it may not be that God will appear to you
   in dreams, but He has other ways of speaking to His young Samuels. You
   remember He said, "Samuel, Samuel," and the beloved child answered,
   "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." May you answer in the same
   manner to the call of God by His Word.

   It was the happy privilege of some of us before we had left boyhood and
   girlhood to have received gracious communications from God--He led us
   to repentance, He led us to faith in Christ and He revealed His love in
   our hearts before we had left the schoolroom and the playground! They
   begin well who begin early with Christ! He will be with us to the end
   if we are with Him at the beginning! If Joseph had not been a godly
   boy, he might never have been a gracious man. Divine Grace made him to
   differ from his brothers in youth and he remained their superior all
   his days. If we are gracious while we are yet children, we may be sure
   that the Lord will be gracious to us even should we live to old age and
   see our children's children.

   Early piety is likely to be eminent piety. Happy are those who have
   Christ with them in the morning, for they shall walk with Him all day
   and sweetly rest with Him at eventide. "The Lord was with Joseph" when
   Joseph was at home and He did not desert him when he was sent away from
   his dear father and his beloved home and was sold for a slave. Bitter
   is the lot of a slave in any country and it was worst of all in those
   early days. We are told by Stephen that the Patriarchs, moved with
   envy, sold Joseph into Egypt--but the Lord was with him--even when
   Joseph was being sold the Lord was with him. It must have been a very
   dreadful journey for him across the desert, urged onward by those rough
   Ishmaelites, probably traveling in a gang, as slaves do to this day in
   the center of Africa. May God put an end to the abominable system!

   This delicate child of an indulgent father, who had been clothed with a
   princely garment of many colors, must now wear the garb of a slave and
   march in the hot sun across the burning sand. But never was captive
   more submissive under cruel treatment. He endured as seeing Him who is
   invisible! His heart was sustained by a deep confidence in the God of
   his father, Jacob, for, "Jehovah was with him." I think I see him in
   the slave market exposed for sale. We have heard with what trembling
   anxiety the slave peers into the faces of those who are about to buy.
   Will he get a good master? Will one purchase him who will treat him
   like a man, or one who will use him worse than a brute? "The Lord was
   with Joseph" as he stood there to be sold and he fell into good hands!

   When he was taken away to his master's house and the various duties of
   his service were allotted to him, the Lord was with Joseph. The house
   of the Egyptian had never been so pure, so honest, so honored before.
   Beneath Joseph's charge it was secretly the temple of his devotions and
   manifestly the abode of comfort and confidence. That Hebrew slave had a
   glory of character about him which all perceived and, especially his
   master, for we read--"His master saw that the Lord was with him and
   that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hands. And Joseph
   found grace in his sight,

   and he served him--and his master made him overseer over his house and
   all that he had, he put into Joseph's hands. And it came to pass from
   the time that he had made him overseer in his house and over all that
   he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake;
   and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and
   in the

   field."

   Joseph's diligence, integrity and gentleness won over his master, as
   well they might. O that all of you who are Christian servants would
   imitate Joseph in this and so behave yourselves that all around you may
   see that the Lord is with you! Then came a crisis in his history, the
   time of testing. We see Joseph tried by a temptation in which, alas, so
   many perish! He was attacked in a point at which youth is peculiarly
   vulnerable. His comely person made him the object of unholy
   solicitations from one upon whose goodwill his comfort greatly
   depended. And had it not been that the Lord was with him, he would have
   fallen. The mass of mankind would scarcely have blamed him had he
   sinned--they would have cast the crime upon the tempter and excused the
   frailty of youth. I say not so! God forbid I should, for in acts of
   uncleanness, neither of the transgressors may be excused! But God was
   with Joseph and he did not slide when set in slippery places.

   Thus Joseph escaped that deep pit into which the abhorred of the Lord
   fall. He was rescued from the snare of the strange woman, of whom
   Solomon has said, "She has cast down many wounded; yes, many strong men
   have been slain by her. Her house is the way to Hell, going down to the
   chambers of death." Slavery, itself, was a small calamity compared with
   that which would have happened to young Joseph had he been enslaved by
   wicked passions. Happily, the Lord was with him and enabled him to
   overcome the tempter with the question, "How can I do this great
   wickedness and sin against God?" He fled. That flight was the truest
   display of courage! It is the only way of victory in sins of the flesh.
   The Apostle says, "Flee youthful lusts which war against the soul."

   When Telemachus was in the isle of Calypso, his mentor cried, "Fly,
   Telemachus, fly! There remains no hope of a victory but by flight."
   Wisely Joseph left his garment and fled, for God was with him. The
   scene shifts again and he who had been, first, a favored child at home
   and then a slave--and then a tempted one--now becomes a prisoner. The
   prisons of Egypt were, doubtless, as horrible as all such places were
   in the olden times and here is Joseph in the noisome dungeon! He
   evidently felt his imprisonment very much, for we are told in the
   Psalms that "the iron entered into his soul." He felt it a cruel thing
   to be under such a slander and to suffer for his innocence. A young man
   so pure, so chaste, must have felt it to be sharper than a whip of
   scorpions to be accused as he was. Yet as he sat down in the gloom of
   his cell, the Lord was with him.

   The degradation of a prison had not deprived him of his Divine
   Companion. Blessed be the name of the Lord, He does not forsake His
   people when they are in disgrace! No, He is more pleasant with them
   when they are falsely accused than at any other time and He cheers them
   in their low estate. God was with Joseph and very soon the kindly
   manners, the gentleness, the activity, the truthfulness, the industry
   of Joseph had won over the keeper of the prison so that Joseph rose,
   again, to the top and was the overseer of the prison! Like a cork,
   which you may push down, but it is sure to come up again, so was
   Joseph! He must swim--he could not drown--the Lord was with Him! The
   Lord's Presence made him a king and a priest wherever he went and men
   tacitly acknowledged his influence. In the little kingdom of the prison
   Joseph reigned, for, "God was with him."

   He will rise higher than that, however, when opportunity arises for a
   display of prophetic power. Two of those under his charge appeared to
   be despondent one morning and, with his usual gentleness, Joseph asked,
   "Why do you look so sad today?" He was always kindly and sympathetic
   and so they told him their dreams and he interpreted them as the events
   actually fell out. But why did he interpret dreams? It was because God
   was with him! Joseph tells them, then and there, that "interpretations
   belong unto God." It was not that he had knowledge of an occult art, or
   was clever at guessing, but the Spirit of God rested upon him and so he
   understood the secrets veiled beneath the dreams. This led to further
   steps, for after having been tried from 17 to 30--after having served
   13 years' apprenticeship to sorrow--he came to stand before Pharaoh and
   God is with him there, too!

   You can see that he is inwardly held up, for the Hebrew youth stands
   boldly forth and talks of God in an idolatrous court! Pharaoh believed
   in multitudes of gods--he worshipped the crocodile, the ibis, the
   bull--and all manner of things, even down to leeks and onions, so that
   one said of the Egyptians, "Happy people, whose gods grow in their own
   gardens!" But Joseph was not ashamed to speak of his God as the only
   living and true God. He said, "What God is about to do He showed unto
   Pharaoh." Calmly, and in a dignified manner, he unravels the dream and
   explains it all to Phar-

   aoh, disclaiming, however, all credit for wisdom. He says, "It is not
   in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." God was with him,
   indeed!

   Joseph was made ruler over all Egypt and God was with him. Well did the
   king say, "Can we find such a man as this is in whom the Spirit of God
   is?" His policy in storing up corn in the plenteous years succeeded
   admirably, for God was evidently working by him to preserve the human
   race from extinction by famine. Joseph's whole system, if looked at as
   executed in the interest of Pharaoh, his master, was beyond measure
   sensible and successful. He was not the servant of the
   Egyptians--Pharaoh had promoted him--and he enriched Pharaoh and, at
   the same time, saved a nation from hunger. God was with him in bringing
   down his father and the family into Egypt and locating them in Goshen.
   And God was with Joseph till he came to die, when he, "took an oath of
   the children of Israel, saying God will surely visit you, and you shall
   carry up my bones from here."

   The Lord was with him and kept him faithful to the Covenant and the
   covenanted race, even to the close of a long life of110 years! He died
   faithful to the cause of the God of his fathers, for he would not be
   numbered with Egypt, with all its learning and all its wealth. He chose
   to be accounted an Israelite and to share with the chosen race whatever
   their fortunes might be. He, like the rest of the Patriarchs, died in
   faith, looking for the promised inheritance and, for its sake,
   renouncing the riches and glories of the world, for the Lord was with
   him!

   II. We shall next review THE EVIDENCE OF THE FACT that God was with
   him. What is the evidence that the

   Lord was with Joseph? The first evidence of it is this--he was always
   under the influence of the Divine Presence and lived in the enjoyment
   of it. I shall not need to quote the instances--not all of them, at any
   rate, for everywhere, whenever Joseph's heart speaks--he lets you know
   that he is conscious that God is with him. Take him, especially, under
   temptation. Oh, what a mercy it was for him, that he was a God-fearing
   man! "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against PotipharT No.
   Yet he would have sinned against Potiphar, who had been a kindly master
   to him. Does he say, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin
   against this woman"? for it would have been a sin against her.

   No! Just as David said, "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done
   this evil in Your sight," making the main point and consideration to be
   sin against God, so did Joseph, as he fled from the seducer, argue
   thus--"How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Oh, if
   you and I always felt that God were near, looking steadily upon us, we
   should not dare to sin! The presence of a superior often checks a man
   from doing what else he might have ventured on. And the Presence of
   God, if it were realized, would be a perpetual barrier against
   temptation and would keep us steadfast in holiness!

   When Joseph, at any time afterwards, spoke of God--when God helped him
   not only to stand against temptation but to do any service--you will
   notice how he always ascribes it to God. He will not interpret
   Pharaoh's dream without first telling him, "It is not in me: God has
   showed Pharaoh what He is about to do." He was as conscious of the
   Presence of God when he stood before the great monarch as when he
   refused that sinful woman! It was the same in his domestic life. Let me
   read out of his family register. "And unto Joseph were born two sons
   before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of
   Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of
   the first-born Manas-seh: For God, said he, has made me forget all my
   toil, and all my father's house. And the name of the second called he
   Ephraim: For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my
   affliction."

   When his aged father said to him, "Who are these?" Joseph replied very
   beautifully, "They are my sons, whom God has given me in this place." I
   am afraid that we do not habitually talk in this fashion, but Joseph
   did. Without the slightest affectation, he spoke out of his heart,
   under a sense of the Divine Presence and working. How like he is, in
   this, to our Divine Lord! I cannot help speaking of it. If there is any
   good thing more marked about our Lord Jesus than another it is His
   sense of the Divine Presence. You see it when He is a child--"Know you
   not that I must be about My Father's business?" You hear it in the
   words, "I am not alone, because the Father is with Me." And again, "I
   know that You hear Me always." You perceive it forcibly in the last
   moment of His earthly life, when the sharpest pang that tortures Him is
   that which makes Him cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?"
   The Presence of God was everything to Christ as it was to Joseph.

   Now, if you and I set the Lord always before us--if our soul dwells in
   God--depend upon it, God is with us! There is no mistake about it. If
   you are under the influence of that text, "You, God, see me," you may
   be sure that His Presence will go with you and He will give you rest.
   No man ever perceived God to be present and, therefore, walked before
   Him

   in holiness, and afterwards discovered that he had been under a
   delusion. Grace in the life proves that the God of Grace is with us!
   The next evidence is this--God was certainly with Joseph because he was
   pure in heart. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
   No other can do so. God will not manifest Himself to those whose hearts
   are unclean. He that has clean hands and a pure heart, he shall dwell
   on high. Our Lord Jesus said, "If a man loves Me, he will keep My
   words: and My Father will love Him, and we will come unto Him, and make
   our abode with Him."

   When the heart is shocked at sin and enamored of holiness, then it can
   enter into communion with God, but not till then. "Can two walk
   together unless they are agreed?" When I hear some professors admit
   that they have little communion with God, can I wonder at it? How can
   God have fellowship with us unless we walk obediently in His ways? What
   fellowship has light with darkness, or what concord has Christ with
   Belial? The intense purity of Joseph was proof that the thrice holy God
   was always with him! He will keep the feet of His saints. When they are
   tempted, He will deliver them from evil, for His Presence sheds an
   atmosphere of holiness around the heart in which He dwells.

   The next evidence in Joseph's case was the diligence with which he
   exercised himself wherever he was. God was with Joseph and, therefore,
   the man of God hardly cared as to the outward circumstances of his
   position, but began at once to work that which is good. He was in the
   pit--yes, but the Lord was with him and the pit was not horrible to
   him. He pleaded with his brothers and although they would not hear, he
   did his duty in warning them of their crime. He was carried captive of
   the Ishmaelites, but in the caravan he was safe, for God was with him.
   When he came to be a slave in Po-tiphar's house, the Lord was with him
   and he was a prosperous man! The change of scene was not a change of
   his dearest Company! He did not strike an attitude and make a display
   of his grand intentions, but he went to work where he was and performed
   ordinary duties with great heartiness--for the Lord was with him!

   Many would have said, "I have been unrighteously sold for a slave. I
   ought not to be here and I am not bound to perform any duties for
   Potiphar. Rightfully I am a free man, as free as Potiphar, and I shall
   not work for him for nothing." No, the Lord was with him and,
   therefore, Joseph applied himself to that which lay next to hand and
   went to work with a will. No doubt he performed menial service in the
   house, at first, and then, by degrees, he rose to be the manager of the
   establishment. The truly godly man is ready for anything--he does not
   sigh for place, but accepts the state in which he is found--and does
   good in it, for the Lord's sake. The Lord was with Joseph, none the
   less, when he was cast into the prison. Joseph knew God was with him in
   prison and, therefore, he did not sit down sullenly in his sorrow, but
   he bestirred himself to make the best of his afflicted condition.

   Since the Lord was with him there, he was comforted. It would be
   infinitely better to be in prison with God than on the throne of
   Pharaoh without God! He did not mourn and moan and spend his time in
   writing petitions to Potiphar, or making appeals to Potiphar. He set
   himself to be of service to his fellow prisoners and the wardens and
   very soon he was at the front, again, for, "The Lord was with him."
   When he came to be exalted and Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt,
   notice what he did! He did not strut about, or take his case to court.
   He did not stop to enjoy his honors in peace and leave others to do the
   business, but he set to his work, personally and at once! Read Genesis
   41:45--"And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt."

   Then read the next verse--"And Joseph went out from the presence of
   Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt." No sooner did he
   get the office than he gave himself to the execution of it, personally
   inspecting the whole country! Many are so worn out by their toils in
   getting a position that they have no strength left for performing their
   duties. When they get a new position, their first consideration is how
   they shall spend the profits from it. Place-hunters seldom try to make
   themselves fit for the position, but crave the position whether they
   are fit for it or not! Many, when they get an office, are exceedingly
   skillful in showing how not to do it--they get into the office and pass
   on everything to the next clerk and he to the next, so that nothing is
   done! Procrastination is the very hinge of business and punctuality the
   thief of time. They do as little as they can for the money, upon the
   theory that if you are too energetic your labors will be too cheap.

   Joseph, however, was not of that sort, for no sooner was he made
   commissioner-general of Egypt, than he was up to his eyes in the task
   of building storehouses and gathering up grain to fill them. By his
   wonderful economic policy, he supplied the people in the time of famine
   and in the process, the power of Pharaoh was greatly strengthened. The
   Lord was with him--therefore he did not think of the honor to which he
   had been promoted, but of the responsibility which had been laid upon
   him--and he gave himself wholly to his great work. That is what you and
   I must do if we are to give prac-

   tical proof that God is with us! But notice again, God was with Joseph
   and that made him tender and sympathetic. Some men who are prompt
   enough in business are rough, coarse, hard--but not Joseph! His
   tenderness distinguishes him. He is full of loving consideration.

   When he had prisoners in his charge, he did not treat them roughly, but
   with much consideration. He watched their countenances, enquired into
   their troubles and was willing to do all in his power for them. This
   was one secret of his success in life--he was everybody's friend. He
   who is willing to be the servant of all, the same shall be the chief of
   all. God was with Joseph and taught him compassion, for God, Himself,
   is very pitiful and full of sympathy for the suffering. Perhaps you
   will object to this, that Joseph seemed, for a while, to afflict and
   tantalize his brothers. By no means! He was seeking their good. The
   love he bore to them was wise and prudent. God, who is far more loving
   than Joseph, frequently afflicts us to bring us to repentance and to
   heal us of many evils. Joseph wished to bring his brothers into a right
   state of heart and he succeeded in it, though the process was more
   painful to him than to them!

   At last he could not restrain himself, but burst into weeping before
   them all, for there was a big loving heart under the Egyptian garb of
   Joseph! He loved with all his soul and so will every man who has God
   with him, for "God is Love." If you do not love, God is not with you.
   If you go through the world selfish and morose, bitter, suspicious,
   bigoted, hard--the devil is with you! God is not for where God is He
   expands the spirit! He causes us to love all mankind with the love of
   benevolence and He makes us take a sweet complacency in the chosen
   brotherhood of Israel, so that we especially delight to do good to all
   those who are of the household of faith. This was a mark that God was
   with Joseph.

   Another mark of God's Presence with Joseph was his great wisdom. He did
   everything as it ought to be done. You can scarcely alter anything in
   Joseph's life to improve it and I think if I admire his wisdom in one
   thing more than another it is in his wonderful silence. It is easy to
   talk, comparatively easy to talk well, but to be quiet is the
   difficulty! He never said a word, that I can learn, about Potiphar's
   wife. It seemed necessary to his own defense, but he would not accuse
   the woman. He let judgment go by default and left her to her own
   conscience and her husband's cooler consideration. This showed great
   power. It is hard for a man to compress his lips, saying nothing, when
   his character is at stake. So eloquent was Joseph in his silence that
   there is not a word of complaint throughout the whole record of his
   life.

   We cannot say that of all the Bible saints, for many of them complained
   bitterly! Indeed, we have whole books of lamentations! We do not
   condemn those who did complain, but we greatly admire those, who like
   sheep before the shearers, were dumb. The iron entered into his soul,
   but he does not tell us so--we look to the Psalms for that information.
   He bore in calm resignation all the great Father's will. When his
   brothers stood before him--the cruel men who sold him--he did not
   upbraid them. In fact, he comforted them, saying, "Now therefore be not
   grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did
   send me before you to preserve life." Making sweet excuse for them, he
   said, "And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the
   earth, and to save yourselves by a great deliverance. So now it was not
   you that sent me here, but God."

   How different from the spirit of those people who pry about, seeking to
   discover faults, and when an imperfection is marked, they cry, "Look!
   Did you see that? I told you so! These good men are no better than they
   should be." Yes, it may be true that there are spots in the sun, but
   there are greater spots in your eyes or you would see more of the Light
   of God! Those who see faults so readily have plenty of their own. Like
   the man who stole the goods and ran away, they try to turn the scent by
   calling, "Thief, thief," after others! May God make us blind to the
   faults of His people sooner than allow us to have a lynx eye for their
   flaws and an inventive faculty to ascribe ill motives to them! I wish
   we were as wisely silent as Joseph was. We may often repent of speech,
   but I think very seldom of silence. You may complain and be justified
   in the complaint, but you will have far more glory if you do not
   complain!

   For what was there, after all, for Joseph to complain of, since the
   Lord was with him? He was in prison--that is something to complain of.
   Yes, but if the Lord was with him, the prison was no longer dreary! I
   would gladly go to prison any day if the Lord would be with me! Who
   would not? But Joseph was away from his beloved father and the trotting
   of those little feet that he loved so much to hear--the feet of little
   brother Benjamin. I am sure Joseph always missed his mother's only
   other son, his only full brother. It was a great grief to him to be
   away from home, but still, he was quiet, calm and happy. God is with
   him, if Benjamin is not! If father Jacob is away, God is present! And
   thus he finds no cause for bitter lament, but much reason for accepting
   his lot and doing his best in each condition.

   "God was with him" and this is the last evidence I give of it--that he
   was kept faithful to the Covenant, faithful to Israel and to Israel's
   God right through. Pharaoh gave him, in marriage, the daughter of a
   priest. And the priests were the highest class throughout Egypt--so
   Joseph was thus promoted to nobility by marriage, as well as to be at
   the head of all the nobility by office. They cried before him, "Bow the
   knee," and everyone honored him throughout all the land of Egypt. Yet
   he would not be an Egyptian--he was an Israelite, still, and his good
   old father, when he came down into Egypt, found him one of the family
   in heart and soul! His father's blessing was greatly prized by Joseph
   and he obtained it for himself and for his sons.

   I notice with much pain that many professors who prosper in this world
   have not God with them, for they turn into Egyptians--they do not, now,
   care for the simple worship of God's people--they sigh for something
   more showy and more respectable! They need society and so they seek out
   a fashionable church and swallow their principles! They lay it all upon
   their children, for who can expect young ladies and gentlemen to attend
   an ordinary Meeting House where such low people go? For the sake of the
   young people, they are bound to mix with society, and so they leave
   their principles, their people and their God! They become Egyptians!
   Indeed, some of them would become devil-worshippers to gain rank and
   status!

   Off they go to Egypt, shoals of them! I have seen it and shall see it
   again. If some of you get rich, I dare say you will do the same--it
   seems to be the way of men--as soon as a professor prospers in the
   world, he is ashamed of the Truth of God he once loved. Such apostates
   will find it heavy work to die! Verily, I say unto you, instead of
   their being ashamed of us, we have good reason to be ashamed of them,
   for it is to their disgrace that they cannot be content to associate
   with God's chosen because they happen to be poor and, perhaps,
   illiterate! Joseph stuck to his people and to their God-- though he
   must live in Egypt, he will not be an Egyptian! He will not even leave
   his dead body to lie in an Egyptian pyramid! The Egyptians built a very
   costly tomb for Joseph--it stands to this day, but his body is not
   there. "I charge you," he said, "take my bones with you, for I do not
   belong to Egypt. My place is in the land of promise." "He gave
   commandment concerning his bones."

   Let others do as they will, as for me, my lot is cast with those who
   follow the Lord fully. Yes, my Lord, where you dwell, I will dwell.
   Your people shall be my people, and your God my God, and may my
   children be your children to the last generation. If the Lord is with
   you, that is what you will say, but if He is not with you and you
   prosper in the world, and increase in riches, you will turn your back
   on Christ and His people--and we shall have to say, as Paul did, "Demas
   has forsaken me, having loved this present world."

   III. Thirdly, let us observe THE RESULT OF GOD'S BEING WITH JOSEPH. The
   result was that, "He was a prosperous man." But notice that although
   the Lord was with Joseph, it did not screen him from hatred, "The Lord
   was with him, but his brothers hated him. "Yes, and if the Lord loves a
   man, the world will spite him. We know that we are God's children
   because the adversaries of God are our adversaries! Furthermore, "The
   Lord was with Joseph," but it did not screen him from temptation of the
   worst kind--it did not prevent his master's wife casting her wicked
   eyes upon him. The best of men may be tempted to the worst of crimes.

   The Presence of God did not screen him from slander--the base woman
   accused him of outrageous wickedness and God permitted Potiphar to
   believe her. You and I would have said, "If the Lord is with us, how
   can this evil happen to us?" Ah, but the Lord was with him and yet he
   was a slandered man! No, the Divine Presence did not screen him from
   pain, either. He sat in prison wearing fetters till the iron entered
   into his soul and yet, "The Lord was with him." That Presence did not
   save him from disappointment. He said to the butler, "Think of me when
   it is well with you." But the butler forgot him altogether! Everything
   may seem to go against you and yet, God may be with you. The Lord does
   not promise you that you shall have what looks like prosperity, but you
   shall have what is real prosperity in the best sense.

   Now, what did God's being with Joseph do for him? First, it saved him
   from gross sin. He flees, he shuts his ears-- he flees and
   conquers--for God is with him! O young Friend, if God is with you in
   the hour of temptation, you will need no better, no grander result than
   to remain perfectly pure with garments unspotted by the flesh! God was
   with him and the next result was it enabled him to act grandly.
   Wherever he is, he does the right thing and does it splendidly. If he
   is a slave, his master finds that he never had such a servant! If he is
   in prison, those dungeons were never charmed by the presence of such a
   ministering angel! If he is exalted to be with Pharaoh, Pharaoh never
   had such a Chancellor of the finances of Egypt--never were Egyptian
   finance so prosperous!

   In such a manner did God help Joseph that he was enabled to fulfill a
   glorious destiny, for if Noah was the world's second father, what shall
   we say of Joseph, but that he was its foster nurse? The human race had
   died of famine if Joseph's foresight had not laid by, in store, the
   produce of the seven plenteous years, for there was a famine over all
   lands! The wisdom of Joseph nourished all mankind! It was no mean
   position for the young Hebrew to occupy--to be manager of the
   commissariat of the whole known world! If God is with us, we shall
   fulfill a noble destiny, too. It may not be so widely known, so visible
   to human eye, but life is always ennobled by the Presence of God! Also
   it gave Joseph a very happy life, for taking the life of Joseph, all
   through, it is an enviable one. Nobody would think of putting him down
   among the miserable. If we had to make a selection of unhappy men, we
   certainly should not think of Joseph! No, it was a great life and a
   happy life--and such will yours be if God is with you.

   And, to finish, God gave Joseph and his family a double portion in
   Israel, which never happened to any other of the 12 sons of Jacob.
   Jacob said, "And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were
   born unto you in the land of Egypt before I came unto you into Egypt
   are mine; as Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine," thus making each of
   them into a tribe. Ephraim and Manasseh each stood at the head of a
   tribe as if they had been actually sons of Jacob! Levi is taken out of
   the 12 and provision is made for the Levites as servants of God. And
   then Ephraim and Manasseh are put in, so that Joseph's house figures
   twice among the twelve! There are two Josephs in Israel but only one
   Judah! Joseph has a double portion of the kingdom!

   Those who begin early with God, stand fast to the end and hold to God
   both in trouble and prosperity, shall see their children brought to the
   Lord--and in their children they shall possess the double--yes, the
   Lord shall render unto them double for all they may lose in honor for
   His name's sake. It may be they shall live to see the hand of the Lord
   upon their children and their children's children! And to them shall be
   fulfilled the Word of God, "In you shall Israel bless, saying, God make
   you as Ephraim and as Manasseh." Let us seek after a double part with
   God's people by keeping heartily with them. Who is willing to suffer
   with them that he may reign with them? Who is willing to cast the
   riches of Egypt behind his back that he may have a double portion in
   the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey?

   I think I hear some of you say, "Here I am, Sir. I shall be glad enough
   to share with God's people, be it what it may." Carry Christ's Cross
   and you shall wear Christ's crown! Go with Him through the mire and
   through the slough and you shall be with Him in the palaces of Glory!
   You shall share a double portion with Him in the day of His appearing.
   This can only be because the Lord is with you--that must be the
   beginning and end of it! "The Lord was with Joseph"--O Lord, be with
   us! O You, whose name is Emmanuel, God With Us, be with us from now on
   and forever! Amen and Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Word of the Cross

   (No. 1611)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 31, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but
   unto us which are sa ved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18.

   NOTE well that in the 17th verse Paul had renounced the "wisdom of
   words." He says that he was sent to "preach the Gospel, not with wisdom
   of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of no effect." It is
   very clear, therefore, that there is an excellence, elegance and
   eloquence of language which would deprive the Gospel of its due effect.
   I have never yet heard that the Cross of Christ was made of no effect
   by great plainness of speech, nor even by ruggedness of language--but
   it is the, "wisdom of words," which is said to have this destroying
   power. Oh, dreadful wisdom of words! God grant that we may be delivered
   from making attempts at it, for we ought earnestly to shun anything and
   everything which can be so mischievous in its influence as to make the
   Cross of Christ of no effect. The "wisdom of words" works evil at times
   by veiling the Truths of God which ought to be set forth in the
   clearest possible manner.

   The doctrine of Atonement by blood, which is the essence of the
   preaching of the Cross, is objectionable to many minds and, therefore,
   certain preachers take care not to state it too plainly. Prudently, as
   they call it--craftily, as the Apostle Paul would call it--they tone
   down the objectionable features of the great Sacrifice, hoping by
   pretty phrases to somewhat remove the "offense of the Cross." Proud
   minds object to Substitution, which is the very edge of the doctrine
   and, therefore, theories are adopted which leave out the idea of laying
   sin upon the Savior and making Him to be a curse for us. Self-sacrifice
   is set forth as possessing a high, heroic influence by which we are
   stimulated to self-salvation, but the Lord's suffering as the Just for
   the unjust is not mentioned! The Cross, in such a case, is not at all
   the Cross by which self-condemned sinners can be comforted and the
   hardened can be subdued, but quite another matter.

   Those who thus veil an unwelcome Truth of God imagine that they make
   disciples, whereas they are only paying homage to unbelief and
   comforting men in their rejection of the Divine Propitiation for sin!
   Whatever the preacher may mean in his heart, he will be guilty of the
   blood of souls if he does not clearly proclaim a real Sacrifice for
   sin. Too often the "wisdom of words" explains the Gospel away. It is
   possible to refine a doctrine till the very soul of it is gone. You may
   draw such nice distinctions that the true meaning is filtered away.
   Certain divines tell us that they must adapt the Truth of God to the
   advance of the age, which means that they must murder it and fling its
   dead body to the dogs! It is asserted that the advanced philosophy of
   the 19th Century requires a progressive theology to keep abreast of
   it--which simply means that a popular lie shall take the place of an
   offensive Truth of God.

   Under pretense of winning the cultured intellects of the age, "the
   wisdom of words," has gradually landed us in a denial of those first
   principles for which the martyrs died! Apologies for the Gospel, in
   which the essence of it is conceded to the unbeliever, are worse than
   infidelity. I hate that defense of the Gospel which razes it to the
   ground to preserve it from destruction. The "wisdom of words," however,
   is more frequently used with the intent of adorning the Gospel and
   making it to appear somewhat more beautiful than it would be in its
   natural form. They would paint the rose and enamel the lily, add
   whiteness to snow and brightness to the sun! With their wretched
   candles they would help us to see the stars! O superfluity of evil!

   The Cross of Christ is sublimely simple--to adorn it is to dishonor it.
   There is no statement under Heaven more musical than this--"God was in
   Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
   trespasses unto them." All the bells that you could ring to make it
   more harmonious would only add a jingle jangle to its heavenly melody
   which is, in itself, so sweet that it charms the harpers before the
   Throne of God! The doctrine that God descended upon the earth in human
   nature--and in that nature bore our sins, carried our sorrows and made
   expiation for our transgressions by the death on the Cross--is, in
   itself, matchless poetry, the perfection of all that is ennobling in
   thought and creed! Yet

   the attempt is made to decorate the Gospel as though it needed
   something to commend it to the understanding and the heart.

   The result is that men's minds are attracted away from the Gospel,
   either to the preacher or to some utterly indifferent point. Hearers
   carry home charming morsels of poetry, but they forget the precious
   blood! They remember the elaborate metaphors so daintily worked out,
   but they forget the five wounds and fail to look unto the Lord Jesus
   and be saved! The Truth of God is buried under flowers! Brothers, let
   us cut out of our sermons everything that takes men's minds away from
   the Cross! One look at Jesus is better than the most attentive gazing
   at our gems of speech! One of the old masters found that certain vases
   which he had depicted upon the sacramental table attracted more notice
   than the face of the Lord, whom he had painted sitting at the head of
   the feast and, therefore, he struck them out at once. Let us, my
   Brothers, do the same whenever anything of ours withdraws the mind away
   from Jesus. Christ must always be in the foreground and our sermons
   must point to Him, or they will do more harm than good. We must preach
   Christ Crucified and set Him forth like the sun in the heavens, as the
   only Light of men!

   Some seem to imagine that the Gospel does not contain within itself
   sufficient force for its own spreading and, therefore, they dream that
   if it is to have power among men it must either be through the logical
   way in which it is put--in which case all glory is to logic, or though
   the handsome manner in which it is stated--in which case all glory is
   to rhetoric. The notion is current that we should seek the aid of
   prestige, or talent, or novelty, or excitement, for the Gospel, itself,
   the doctrine of the Cross, is, in itself, impotent in its hands and
   lame upon its feet. It must be sustained by outside power and carried,
   as by a nurse, wherever it would go. Reason, elocution, art, music, or
   some other force must introduce and support it, or it will make no
   advance--so some injuriously dream.

   That is not Paul's notion! He speaks of the Cross of Christ as being
   itself the power of God and he says that it is to be preached, "not
   with wisdom of words," lest the power should be attributed to the
   aforesaid wisdom of words and the Cross of Christ should be proven to
   have, in itself, no independent power, or, in other words, to be of no
   effect! Paul would not thus degrade the Cross for a moment and,
   therefore, though qualified to dispute with schoolmen and philosophers,
   he disdained to dazzle with arguments and sophistries. And, though he
   could speak with masterly energy--let his Epistles bear witness to
   that--yet he used great plainness of speech, that the force of his
   teaching might lie in the Doctrine, itself, and not in his language,
   style, or delivery.

   He was jealous of the honor of the Cross and would not spread it by any
   force but its own, even as he says in the 4th and 5th verses of the
   second chapter of this Epistle--"My speech and my preaching was not
   with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
   and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
   but in the power of God." Having cleared our way of the wisdom of
   words, we now come to the word of wisdom. Paul preached the Cross and
   our first head shall be the word of the Cross. Many give the Cross a
   bad word and so our second head shall be the word of its despisers
   concerning it--they called it foolishness. And then, thirdly, we will
   think upon the word applied to the Cross by those who believe it--it is
   to them "the power of God." O that the Holy Spirit may use it as the
   power of God to all of us this day!

   I. First, then, we speak upon "THE WORD OF THE CROSS." Borrow the term
   from the Revised Version, which runs thus--"The word of the Cross is to
   them that are perishing foolishness, but unto us who are being saved it
   is the power of God." This is, to my mind, an accurate translation. The
   original is not, "the preaching of the Cross," but "the word of the
   Cross." This rendering gives us a heading for our first division and,
   at the same time, brings before us exactly what the Gospel is--it is
   "the word of the Cross." From which I gather, first, that the Cross has
   one uniform teaching, or word. We are always to preach the word of the
   Cross and the Cross has not many words, but one. There are not two
   gospels any more than there are two gods--there are not two atonements
   any more than there are two saviors.

   There is one Gospel as there is one God, and there is one Atonement as
   there is one Savior. Other gospels are not tolerated among earnest
   Christians. What did the Apostle say? "If we or an angel from Heaven
   preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto
   you, let him be candidly heard and quietly fraternized with"? Nothing
   of the sort! I will quote the Scripture. Paul says, "Let him be
   accursed." He has no more tolerance than that for him, for Paul loved
   the souls of men and to tolerate spiritual poison is to aid and abet
   the murder of souls! There is no Gospel under Heaven, but the one
   Gospel of Jesus Christ!

   But what about other voices and other words? They are not voices from
   Heaven, nor words from God, for He has not, in one place, spoken one
   thing, and in another place, another! Neither is it according to the
   Spirit of the Gospel that there should be one form of Gospel for the
   first six centuries and then another form of it for the 19th Century.
   Is it not written, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and
   forever"? If the Atonement were in progress. If the great Sacrifice
   were not complete, then I could understand that there should be
   progress in the preaching of it. But, inasmuch as, "It is finished,"
   was pronounced by Christ upon the Cross and then He bowed His head and
   gave up the ghost--there can be no further development in the fact or
   in the doctrine!

   Inasmuch as the Word of the Lord which describes that Atonement is so
   complete that he that adds to it shall have the plagues that are
   written in this Book added unto him, I gather that there is no such
   thing as a progressive word of the Cross, but that the Gospel is the
   same Gospel today as it was when Paul, in the beginning, proclaimed it!
   The word of the Cross, since it is the express Word of God, endures
   forever! Generations of men come and go like yearly growths of the
   grass of the field, but the Word of the Lord abides evermore the same
   in all places, the same to all nationalities, the same to all
   temperaments and constitutions of the mind!

   "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid." From that
   word I gather, next, that the doctrine of the Atonement is one word in
   contradistinction from many other words which are constantly being
   uttered. We preach Christ Crucified and His voice from the Cross is,
   "Look unto Me and be you saved." But another voice cries aloud, "Do
   this and you shall live." We know it--it is the voice of the Old
   Covenant which the Lord Jesus has removed, taking away the first
   Covenant that He may establish the second. The doctrine of salvation by
   works, salvation by feelings, salvation by outward religiousness is not
   the word of the Cross which speaks in quite another fashion! The call
   to salvation by works is a strange voice within the fold of the
   Church--and the sheep of Christ do not follow it, for they know not the
   voice of strangers.

   The word of the Gospel speaks on this wise, "The Word is near you, even
   in your mouth and in your heart." That is, the word of faith which we
   preach--that 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." "Believe and live" is the word of the Cross! Much less
   do we regard the word of ceremonialism and priestcraft which still
   lingers among us. We had thought it was a dull echo of the dead past,
   but, alas, it is a powerful voice and is constantly lifting itself up.
   Priestcraft is crying, "Confess to me and you shall have forgiveness!
   Perform this ceremony and undergo this other rite and you shall receive
   a sacred benediction through men ordained of Heaven!"

   We do not know this voice, for it is the voice of falsehood! He that
   believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life! We are complete in Him
   and we know nothing of any priest except that one High Priest, who, by
   His one Sacrifice, has perfected, forever, them that are set apart!
   Voices here and there are heard like mutterings from among the
   tombs--these are the maunderings of superstition, saying, "Lo, here,"
   and, "Lo, there," and one man has this revealed to him and another
   that. But to none of these have we any regard, for God has spoken and
   our preaching, from now on is nothing but "the word of the Cross,"
   which is none other than the word of the crucified Son of God who loved
   us and gave Himself for us!

   Brothers, let us hear this word of the Cross, for, in effect, my text
   says, "Let the Cross speak for itself." That is to be our preaching! We
   bid reasoning and speculation hold their tongues that the Cross,
   itself, may speak! We let the Cross speak its own word. First, it cries
   aloud God must be just. The dreadful voice of Justice, in its certainty
   and severity, rings through the world in the sighs and cries and
   death-groans of the Son of the Highest! Jesus has taken man's sin upon
   Himself and He must die for it, for wherever sin is, God must destroy
   it! The Judge of all the earth must do right and it is right that sin
   should involve suffering! Supreme Justice must visit iniquity with
   death and, therefore, Jesus on the Cross, though in Himself perfectly
   innocent and unspeakably lovely, must die the death--deserted by His
   Father because the iniquity of us all has been placed upon Him.

   The Cross cries unto the sons of men, "Oh, do not this abominable thing
   which God hates, for He will, by no means, spare the guilty." God must
   make bare His arm and bathe His sword in Heaven to destroy sin wherever
   it is found, for He smites it even when it is imputed to His only Son!
   The Cross thunders more terribly than Sinai, itself, against human sin!
   How it breaks men's hearts to hear its voice! How it divides men from
   their sins, even as the voice of the Lord breaks the

   cedars of Lebanon and shatters the rock in pieces! If God smites the
   Perfect One who bears our sin, how will He smite the guilty one who
   rejects His love?

   Let the Cross speak again and what does it say with even a louder
   voice? God loves men and delights in mercy! Though He loves
   righteousness and hates wickedness, yet He loves the sons of men so
   much so that He gives His Only-Begotten to die that sinners may live!
   What more could God have done to prove His love to mankind? "God
   commends His love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
   for us." The love within that glorious deed needs no telling, it tells
   itself! God had but one Son, one with Himself by mystic union and He
   sent Him here below to take our nature, that, being found in fashion as
   a man, He might die on our behalf--made sin for us that we might be
   made the righteousness of God in Him! "God so loved the world, that He
   gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not
   perish, but have everlasting life." The word of the Cross is, "God is
   Love." He wills not the death of the sinner, but that he turn unto Him
   and live!

   What does the Cross say next? Mark, we are not speaking of the
   crucifix. The crucifix represents Christ on the Cross, but He is not on
   the Cross any longer, He has finished His sacrificial work and has
   ascended to His Glory. If He were still on the Cross, He could not save
   us! We now preach the Cross as that on which He died, but who now lives
   and reigns full of ability to save! Let the bare Cross speak and it
   declares that the one Sacrifice is accepted and the Atonement is
   complete! Sin is put away, the work of reconciliation is accomplished
   and Jesus has gone up on high unto His Father's Throne to plead for the
   guilty. Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more! Death has no
   more dominion over Him! He is risen for our justification and we are
   accepted in Him--

   "No more the bloody spear, The Cross and nails no more, For Hell itself
   shakes at His name, And all the heavens adore."

   Let the Cross speak and it tells of ransom paid and atonement accepted.
   The Law is magnified, justice is satisfied, mercy is no longer bound by
   the unsatisfied demands of judgment. "God was in Christ, reconciling
   the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and
   has committed unto us the word of reconciliation," which also is the
   word of the Cross. When we let the Cross speak still further we hear it
   say--"Come and welcome! Guilty sons of men, come and welcome to the
   feast of mercy, for God has both vindicated His Law and displayed His
   love. And now, for the chief of sinners, there is free and full
   forgiveness to be had for nothing, for the Cross gives priceless
   blessings without price!" "Whoever will, let him take the Water of Life
   freely."

   Free pardon, free justification, perfect cleansing, complete
   salvation--these are gifts of Grace bestowed upon the unworthy as soon
   as they believe in Christ Jesus and trust themselves with Him. This is
   the word of the Cross! What more can we desire to hear? We may be
   forgiven in a way which shall not violate the claims of justice! God is
   just and yet the Justifier of him that believes! He is merciful and
   just to forgive us our sins. Oh that I knew how to be quite still and
   let the Cross, itself, speak out with its matchless tones of mercy and
   majesty, love and blood, death and life, punishment and pardon,
   suffering and glory! It speaks in thunder and in tenderness! If we will
   but listen to what it has to say, it is a word by which the inmost
   heart of God is revealed.

   Now I speak yet further the word of the Cross, for in the name of Him
   that did hang upon the Cross I call for faith in His Atonement. The
   death of Christ was no ordinary matter. The dignity of His Nature made
   it the event of the ages! He who died on the Cross was very God of very
   God, as well as Man, and His Sacrifice is not to be neglected or
   rejected with impunity. Such a Divine marvel demands our most careful
   thought and joyful confidence. To do spite to the blood of the Son of
   God is to sin with a vengeance! God demands faith in His Son and
   especially in His Son dying for our sakes! We ought to believe every
   word that God has spoken, but above all, the word of the Cross. Shall
   we doubt the good faith and love of God when He gives His Son a hostage
   for His Word and offers up the Only-Begotten as the token of His Grace?

   Oh, men, whatever you trifle with, disregard not the Son of God!
   Whatever presumption you commit, yet trample not upon the Cross of
   Jesus! This is the highest thought of God! The center of all His
   counsels, the topmost summit of the mighty Alp of Divine loving
   kindness! Do not think little of it or turn away from it! I beseech
   you, no, I command you, in the name of Him that lives and was dead,
   look to the dying Savior and live! If you do not, you shall answer for
   it in that day when He shall come upon the clouds of Heaven to avenge
   Him of His adversaries!

   Thus have I set before you the word of the Cross. May the Holy Spirit
   bless the message.

   II. We have the unpleasant task, in the second place, of listening to
   THE WORD OF ITS DESPISERS. They call the Doctrine of the Atonement,
   "foolishness." Numbers of men call the Doctrine of Salvation by the
   blood of Christ, "foolishness." It is most assuredly the wisdom of God
   and the power of God, but they stick at the first assertion and will
   not acknowledge the wisdom of the wondrous plan. It is, therefore, no
   wonder that they never feel its power! No, it is foolishness to them--a
   thing beneath their contempt. And why foolishness? "Because," they say,
   "see how the common people take it up. Everybody can understand it. You
   believe that Jesus is a Substitute for you and you sing with the
   poorest of the poor--

   'I do believe, I will believe That Jesus died for me; And on the Cross
   He shed His blood From sin to set me free.

   "There," they say, "that's a pretty ditty for educated men. Why, the
   very children sing it and are able to believe it and talk of it. Psha,
   it is sheer foolishness! We don't want anything so vulgar and
   commonplace. Don't you know that we take in a high-class review and
   read the best thought of the times? You don't suppose we are going to
   believe just as common plowboys and servant girls do?" Ah me! How
   mighty wise some people think themselves! Is every truth which can be
   understood by simple minds to be thrown aside as foolishness? Is
   nothing worth knowing except the fancy thinking of the select portion
   of humanity? Are the well-known facts of Nature foolishness because
   they are open to all? Is it quite certain that all the wisdom in the
   world dwells with the superfine gentlemen who sneer at everything and
   take in a review?

   These superficial readers of superior literature are they the umpires
   of truth? I wish that their culture had taught them modesty! Those who
   glorify themselves and sneer at others are usually not wise, but
   otherwise! And those who call other people fools may be looking in the
   glass and not out of the window. He who is truly wise has some respect
   for others and the most profound respect for the Word of God. But why
   is it that you count the Gospel of the Cross to be foolishness? It is
   this--because this religion of ours, this Doctrine of the Cross--is not
   the offspring of reason, but the gift of Revelation. All the thinkers
   of the ages continued to think, but they never invented a plan of
   salvation in which Divine Justice and mercy would be equally
   conspicuous. The Cross was not in all their thoughts. How could it be?

   As a thought, it originated with the infinite mind and could have
   originated nowhere else! The Doctrine of the Cross is not a
   speculation, but a Divine Revelation--and for this reason the learned
   ones cannot endure it. It is God telling men something which they could
   not otherwise have known! And this does not suit the profound thinkers
   who cannot bear to be told anything, but must excogitate everything,
   evolving it from their inner consciousness, or from the depths of their
   vast minds. Now, inasmuch as nothing can come out of a man that is not
   in him, and as the supreme love of God never was in such an unlovely
   thing as an unregenerate man, it happens that the Doctrine of Atonement
   never originated with man but was taught to him by God at the gates of
   Eden.

   The plan which blends vengeance and love was never invented by human
   imagination. Since man has such an aversion to the great Atonement, he
   could not have been the author of the idea and he was not the author of
   it--God alone reveals it in language that babes may understand and,
   therefore, carnal pride calls it, "foolishness." Besides, the carnal
   man thinks it foolishness because it makes him out to be a fool--and
   you may take my word for it that anything which proves either you or me
   to be a fool will, at once, strike us as being very foolish! Our
   conscience is dull and, therefore, we retaliate upon those who tell us
   unpleasant truth. "What? Am I nobody, after all? I, bound in the best
   black cloth, and wearing a white cravat? So religious and so
   respectable, so thoughtful, so studious, so profound--am I to be a
   nobody?

   "Do you dare to say to me, 'Unless you are converted and become as
   little children, you shall in nowise enter the kingdom'! My dear Sir,
   you cannot know what you are talking about! Why, I am a professor, a
   philosopher, a doctor of divinity and, therefore, you cannot really
   mean that I am to receive truth as a little child! Such talk is
   foolishness!" Of course they say so! We always reckoned that they would
   say so! I have rejoiced when I have read the skeptical papers and have
   seen how they sneer at the old-fashioned Gospel! The Bible said that
   carnal men could not receive spiritual things-- how true is that
   statement! It is written, "There shall come in the last days scoffers."
   Here they are, hastening to prove, by their conduct, the things which
   they deny!

   One is grieved that any should scoff and yet, in a measure, we are
   rejoiced to find such confirmation of the Truth of God from the lips of
   her enemies. As long as the world lasts, ungodly men will despise a
   Revelation which they are unable to understand. It is beyond their
   sphere and, therefore, its preachers seem to be babblers and its
   Doctrines to be foolishness. But, in every deed it may well seem
   foolishness to them, for it treats on subjects for which they have no
   care. If I were able to explain to a general audience how to make
   unlimited profit upon the Stock Exchange, or in some other market, all
   the world would listen with profound attention! And if I make my point
   clearly, I would be pronounced a really clever preacher, a man well
   worth hearing.

   But when the sermon is only about the Word of God, eternity, the soul
   and the blood of Jesus--most people turn on their heels--they are not
   sure that they have souls and they refuse to argue upon the supposition
   of a future existence which is an old wife's fable to them. As for
   eternity, their philosophy has no room for it, and they do not concern
   themselves about it. One said in argument, the other day, "I believe I
   shall die like a dog." I could give him no better reply on the spur of
   the moment than to say, "If I had known that you were a dog I would
   have brought you a bone." As I had the notion that he would live
   forever, I came to talk to him upon subjects suitable to an immortal
   being. But as I found out that he was going to die like a dog, what
   could I do for him but provide such cheer as the creature could enjoy?

   These men call the Gospel foolishness because they look after the main
   chance and care more for the body than for the soul. One of their wise
   men said, "Why do you preach so much about the world to come? Why not
   preach about the world which now is? Teach these people how to
   ventilate their sewers--that is a much more necessary matter than their
   believing on Jesus Christ." Well, sanitary matters are important and if
   any of you feel that you have nothing to live for but ventilating
   sewers, I wish you would live at a great rate and get it done as
   quickly as you can! Meanwhile, as we are convinced of the need of other
   things besides drainage and, as many of us expect, soon, to take our
   happy flight to a place where there are no sewers to ventilate, we
   shall look into those things which concern our future life seeing they
   also fit us for the life which now is!

   They call the word of the Cross foolishness because they regard all the
   Truths of God with which it deals as insignificant trifles. "Soul?"
   They say, "What does it matter whether we have a soul or not? Sin--what
   is it but the blunder of a poor creature who knows no better?" Of all
   things, the eternal God is the greatest trifle to unbelieving men. It
   is merely a name to swear by, that is all. They admit that there may be
   a great master force in Nature, or an energy co-extensive with the
   existence of matter and, therefore, they allow Theism or Pantheism, but
   they will not endure a personal God whom they are bound to obey! And
   besides, Pantheism is only a mask for Atheism. These men will have no
   personal God who loves them and whom they love. God is a nonentity to
   them and, therefore, when we speak of God as real, and sin as real, and
   Heaven as real--and God knows they are the only real things--then
   straightway they mutter, "Foolishness." As for us, we deplore their
   folly and pray God to teach them better. Having entered by a new birth
   into the realm of spiritual things, we know the reality and power of
   the word of the Cross.

   Now, Brothers, I say of these gentlemen who pronounce the Gospel
   foolishness that you need not take much notice of them because they are
   not capable witnesses. They are not qualified to form a judgment upon
   the subject. I do not depreciate their abilities in other respects, but
   it is certain that a blind man is no judge of colors, a deaf man is no
   judge of sound and a man who has never been quickened into spiritual
   life can have no judgment as to spiritual things! How can he? I, for
   instance, have felt the power of the Gospel, and I assert that I have
   done so. Another man declares that I am not speaking the truth. Why
   not? Because he has not, himself, felt that power! Is that sound
   reasoning?

   Have you not heard of the Irishman who, when five men swore that they
   saw him commit a theft, made answer that he could produce 50 people who
   did not see him do it? Would there have been any force in that negative
   evidence? And what if all the world except two men should say, "We do
   not feel the power of the Cross"--would that be any evidence against
   the fact asserted by the two? I think not! Two honest men who witness
   to a fact are to be believed, even though 20,000 persons are unable to
   bear such witness! The unspiritual are incapable witnesses--they put
   themselves out of court, for at the outset they assert that they are
   not cognizant of those things concerning which we bear testimony! Their
   assertion is that they never were the subjects of spiritual influences
   and we quite believe what they say--but we do not believe them when
   they go further and assert that, therefore, what we have seen, tasted
   and handled is all a delusion! Concerning that matter they are not
   capable witnesses.

   And I beg you to notice that those who call the Gospel of the Cross
   folly are, themselves, if rightly looked at, proofs of their own folly
   and of the sad results of unbelief. The Christians in Paul's days felt
   that the Gospel had emancipated them from the bondage of idolatry and
   vice--and when they heard others that were captives under these
   delusions telling them that the emancipating force was
   foolishness--they looked at them and smiled at the absurdity of the
   statement. They noticed that such men were, themselves, perishing! What
   a calamity it is for a man to be perishing! A house is unoccupied, its
   floor is untrod, its hearth knows no genial glow. It suffers from
   neglect, it is perishing. Men who are not living to God are missing the
   end of their being and, like deserted houses, are falling into
   ruin--they are perishing!

   While unoccupied by good, such minds are surrounded by powers of evil.
   Yonder is a tree. I have seen many such-- around its trunk the ivy has
   twisted itself, grasping it like a huge python and crushing it in its
   folds. The tree is perishing! Its very life is being sucked out by the
   parasite that grasps it. Multitudes of men have about them lusts and
   sins--and errors that are eating out their life--they are perishing!
   Their souls and characters are as timber devoured by dry rot! It
   remains in the fabric of the house, but it is perishing. Ungodly men
   are devoured by their own pride, eaten up by self-confidence.
   Unbelieving men are comparable to a ship that is drifting to
   destruction--its cable has snapped--it is near-ing the rocks, it will
   be broken to pieces, it is perishing!

   Those that believe not in Jesus are drifting towards a sure eternity of
   misery! They are daily perishing and yet, while they perish, they
   condemn the means of rescue! Fancy drowning mariners mocking at the
   lifeboat! Imagine a diseased man ridiculing the only remedy! That which
   we have tried and proved, they call "foolishness." We have only to
   answer them, "You are, yourselves, as you remain captives to your sins,
   the victims of foolishness. You are, yourselves, as you waste your
   lives and as you drift to destruction, proofs that the foolishness is
   not in the Cross, but in you that reject it."

   The preaching of the Cross is, to them that perish, foolishness, but to
   nobody else! O that their hearts were changed by the power of the Word
   of God--then would they see all wisdom in the word of the Cross!

   III. We come, in the third place, to notice THE WORD OF THOSE WHO
   BELIEVE. What do they say of the Cross? They call it power, the power
   of God! The more we study the Gospel, the more we are surprised at the
   singular display of wisdom which it contains, but we will not say much
   upon that point, for we are not qualified to be judges of wisdom. But
   we do say this--the word of the Cross is power! It has been the power
   of God to us! It has worked upon us as nothing else has ever done! Its
   work upon many of us has been so remarkable that even onlookers must
   have been surprised at it. The phenomenon of conversion is a fact. Men
   and women are totally changed and the whole manner of their life is
   altered.

   It is of no use to deny the fact, for instances of it come before us
   every day! Unbelievers become devout, the immoral become pure, the
   dishonest become upright, the blasphemous become gracious, the unchaste
   become holy! Evil ways are all of a sudden deserted and penitents
   struggle towards virtue. We see persons in all ranks of society
   undergoing a radical transformation--self-satisfied people are humbled
   by the discovery of their unworthiness--and others, who were steeped in
   immorality, renounce their vicious pleasures and seek happiness in the
   service of God. How do you account for this? We who are the subjects of
   such a change account for it in this way--it is worked by the Doctrine
   of the Cross-- and the power which accomplishes the change is the power
   of God! No force less than Divine could have effected so great a
   change. The word of the Cross has delivered us from the love of sin--no
   sin is now our master--we have broken every fetter of evil habit.

   We fall into sin, but we mourn over it and hate the sin--and hate
   ourselves for committing it! We have been delivered from the bondage of
   corruption and made free to serve the Lord. We have also been delivered
   from the dread which once bowed us down--a horrible dread which held us
   in bondage--and made us tremble before our Father and our Friend. We
   thought harshly of God and fled from Him, but from this we are now
   delivered, for now we love Him and delight in Him! And the nearer we
   can approach Him, the happier we are. We have been delivered, also,
   from the power of Satan. That evil prince has great power over men and
   once we were led captive at his will. Even now he attacks us, but we
   overcome him through the blood of the Lamb.

   We are also daily delivered from self and from the world and from all
   things that would enthrall us. We are being saved--yes, we are saved.
   Every day a saving force is operating upon us to set us free from the
   thralldom of corruption. This we feel and know! We are bound for the
   Kingdom of God and nothing can keep us back! We are bound for purity,
   for ultimate perfection--we feel eternal life within us, urging us
   upward and onward, beyond ourselves and our surroundings! We sit here
   like eagles, chained to the rock by the feebleness of our bodies, but
   the aspiration within us tells us

   that we are born to soar among pure and glorified spirits. We feel that
   Heaven is born within us--born by the word of the Cross through the
   Spirit.

   We could tell the histories of some here present, or, better still,
   they could tell them themselves--histories of changes sudden but
   complete, marvelous but enduring--changes from darkness to light, from
   death to life! How gladly could we detain you with details of our being
   held up when our temptations have been almost overwhelming--and kept
   pressing forward in Christ's service when we had been altogether
   without strength had not the word of the Cross poured new energy into
   us! We have been ready to die in despair until we have looked to the
   Cross and then the clouds have yielded to clear shining! A sight of the
   bleeding Savior and a touch of His hand have made us men, again, and we
   have lifted up our heads as from among the dead! Under the power of the
   Cross we still advance from strength to strength! There is power in the
   word of the Cross to make a man grow into something nobler than he ever
   dreamed of. We shall not know what we shall be till we shall see our
   Lord and Savior as He is!

   Why, Brothers and Sisters, the power with which God created the world
   was no greater than the power with which He made us new men in Christ
   Jesus! The power with which He sustains the world is not greater than
   the power by which He sustains His people under trial and temptation!
   And even the raising of the dead at the end of the world will be no
   greater display of Divine power than the raising of dead souls out of
   their spiritual graves! These wonders of power are being performed in
   our own experience every day of the week, entirely through the Cross. I
   appeal to you who are truly converted--were you converted through the
   wisdom of man? I appeal to you that are kept from sinning--are you led
   towards holiness by the power of elocution, of rhetoric, or of logic?

   I appeal to you who are despairing--are you ever revived by musical
   words and rhythmical sentences? Or do you owe all to Jesus Crucified?
   What is your life, my Brothers, but the Cross? Where comes the bread of
   your soul but from the Cross? What is your joy but the Cross? What is
   your delight, what is your Heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified
   for you, who always lives to make intercession for you? Cling to the
   Cross, then! Put both arms around it! Hold to the Crucified and never
   let Him go! Come afresh to the Cross at this moment and rest there, now
   and forever! Then, with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and
   preach the Cross! Tell the story of the bleeding Lamb! Repeat the
   wondrous tale and nothing else!

   Never mind how you do it, only proclaim that Jesus died for sinners.
   The Cross held up by a babe's hand is just as powerful as if a giant
   held it up! The power lies in the word, itself, or rather in the Holy
   Spirit who works by it and with it. Brothers, believe in the power of
   the Cross for the conversion of those around you! Do not say of any man
   that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is Omnipotent! Do not say
   of any district that it is too sunken, or of any class of men that they
   are too far gone--the word of the Cross reclaims the lost! Believe it
   to be the power of God and you shall find it so. Believe in Christ
   Crucified and preach boldly in His name and you shall see great things
   and gladsome things. Do not doubt the ultimate triumph of Christianity!
   Do not let a mistrust flit across your soul. The Cross must conquer!

   It must blossom with a crown--a crown commensurate with the Person of
   the Crucified and the bitterness of His agony. His reward shall
   parallel His sorrows. Trust in God and lift your banner high--and with
   Psalms and songs advance to battle, for the Lord of Hosts is with
   us--the Son of the Highest leads our van! Onward with blast of silver
   trumpet and shout of those that seize the spoil! Let no man's heart
   fail him! Christ has died! Atonement is complete! God is satisfied!
   Peace is proclaimed! Heaven glitters with proofs of mercy already
   bestowed upon ten thousands times ten thousands! Hell is trembling!
   Heaven adoring, earth waiting! Advance, you saints, to certain victory!
   You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb!
     __________________________________________________________________

                                  The Minstrel

   A Sermon

   (No. 1612)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, August 7th, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   The text is a somewhat singular one, but I hope it will suggest a
   profitable idea.

   But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel
   played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.''2 Kings 3:15.

   ELISHA needed that the Holy Spirit should come upon him to inspire him
   with prophetic utterances. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by
   the Holy Ghost.' We need that the hand of the Lord should be laid upon
   us, for we can never open our mouths in wisdom except we are under the
   divine touch. Now, the Spirit of God works according to his own will.
   The wind bloweth where it listeth,' and the Spirit of God operates as
   he chooseth. Elisha could not prophesy just when he liked; he must wait
   until the Spirit of God came upon him, and the Spirit of God could come
   or not even as he pleased. Elisha had noticed that the Spirit of God
   acted upon him most freely when his mind was restful and subdued. He
   found himself best prepared for the heavenly voice when the noise
   within his soul was hushed, and every disturbing emotion was quieted.
   Having ascertained this fact by observation he acted upon it. He could
   not create the wind of the Spirit, but he could set his sail to receive
   it, and he did so.

   At the particular time alluded to in the text Elisha had been greatly
   irritated by the sight of Jehoram, the king of Israel, the son of Ahab
   and Jezebel. In the true spirit of his old master, Elijah, the prophet
   let Jehoram know what he thought of him; and having delivered his soul,
   he very naturally felt agitated and distressed, and unfit to be the
   mouthpiece for the Spirit of God. He knew that the hand of the Lord
   would not rest upon him while he was in that state, and therefore he
   said, Bring me a minstrel.' The original Hebrew conveys the idea of a
   man accustomed to play upon the harp. Listening to the dulcet tones
   which were produced by a skilful harper, who very likely sang one of
   David's psalms to the music, the prophet waited awhile, and then the
   hand of the Lord came upon him. Under the influence of minstrelsy his
   mind grew quiet, his agitation subsided, his thoughts were collected,
   and the Spirit of God spake through him. It was a most commendable
   thing for him to use the means which he had found at other times
   helpful, though still his sole reliance was upon the hand of the Lord.
   It would seem from a passage in the First Book of Samuel that Elisha
   was not the only prophet who had found music helpful, for we read, Thou
   shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a
   psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they
   shall prophesy.' Elisha, like his predecessors, only used a natural
   means for putting himself into readiness for receiving supernatural
   help.

   Let us see if we can bring forth the practical lesson which this
   incident may teach us.

   I. First: here is a lesson to those who wish to serve God, and to speak
   in his name. LET US STRIVE TO BE IN A FIT STATE FOR THE LORD'S WORK. If
   we know of anything that will put our mind into such a condition that
   the Spirit of God is likely to work upon us and speak through us, let
   us make use of it. Elisha cried, Bring me a minstrel'; let us also
   say''bring me that which will be helpful to me.' The harper could be of
   no service to Elisha for bringing him inspiration; but by putting him
   into a calm, equable state of mind he prepared him for the heavenly
   communication, and removed from his soul that which would have hindered
   the divine working.

   It is very evident that we, too, like the prophet, have our hindrances.
   We are at times unfit for the Master's use. Our minds are disarranged,
   the machinery is out of order, the sail is furled, the pipe is blocked
   up, the whole soul is out of gear. The hindrance in Elisha's case came
   from his surroundings. He was in a camp; a camp where three nations
   mixed their discordant voices; a noisy, ill-disciplined camp, and a
   camp ready to perish for thirst. There was no water, and the
   men-at-arms were perishing; the confusion and clamour must have been
   great. Prophetic thought could scarcely command itself amid the uproar,
   the discontent, the threatening from thousands of thirsty men. Three
   kings had waited on the prophet; but this would not have disconcerted
   him had not one of them been Jehoram, the son of Ahab, and Jezebel.
   What memories were awakened in the mind of Elijah's servant by the
   sight of the man in whom the proud dame of Sidon and her base-minded
   consort lived again. Naboth's vine-yard must have come to his mind, and
   the stern threat of Elijah''The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of
   Jezreel.' For there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to
   work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred
   up.'

   Elisha acted rightly, and bravely. When he saw Jehoram coming, to him
   for help, he challenged him thus''What have I to do with thee? Get thee
   to the Prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother.' When
   the king, humbly and with bated breath confessed that he saw the hand
   of Jehovah in bringing the three kings together, the prophet scarcely
   moderated his tone, but exclaimed, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before
   whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of
   Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see
   thee.' It was fit that he should be in that temper; the occasion
   demanded it. Still it was not a fit preface to the inward whisper of
   the Spirit of God, and the prophet did not feel ready for his work: the
   circumstances were not soothing or elevating, and so he said, Bring me
   a minstrel.' Do you not occasionally find yourself in an unhappy
   position? You have to preach, or to teach a class in school, or to
   carry an edifying word to a sick person; but everything distracts you.
   What with noise, or domestic trouble, or sinful neighbors, or the
   railing words of some wicked man, you cannot get into a fit frame of
   mind. You have had a duty to do which has caused you much pain and
   disquietude, and you cannot get over it, for everything conspires to
   worry you. Little things grieve great minds. The very sight of some
   individuals will throw a preacher off the rails. I know that the height
   of the pulpit, the thinness of the audience, the sleepiness of a
   hearer, or the heaviness of the atmosphere, may put the preacher's
   heart out of tune, and incapacitate him for the blessing. Yes, we have
   our hindrances even as Elisha had.

   Elisha's hindrances lay mainly in his inward feelings: he could not
   feel the hand of the Lord upon him until the inner warfare had been
   pacified. He burned with-indignation at the sight of the son of
   Jezebel, and flashed words of flame into his face, and, as I have
   already said, he was justified in so doing; but still the excitement
   marred the holy peace in which he usually lived, and he did not feel in
   a right condition to speak in the name of the Lord. Anger, even if it
   be of the purest kind, is a great disturber of the heart; it ruffles
   all our garments, and makes us unfit to minister before the Lord. I
   know of nothing that is more likely to put a man out of order for the
   communications of the Spirit of God than indignation. Even though we
   may be able to say, I do well to be angry,' yet it is a very trying
   emotion. The unruffled lake reflects the skies, but if it be tossed
   with tempest even the purest water becomes a broken mirror; even thus
   in the quiet of the soul the thoughts of God's Spirit are reflected,
   while in the rush of indignation they are broken and confused.

   Doubtless, also, the prophet's spirits were depressed. He saw before
   him the king of Edom, an idolater; the king of Israel, a votary of the
   calves of Jeroboam; and Jehoshaphat, the man of God, in confederacy
   with them. This last must have pained him as much as anything. What
   hope was there for the cause of truth and holiness when even a godly
   prince was in alliance with Jezebel's son? This burdened the heart of
   the man of God. Everything was wrong, and going worse and worse. The
   warnings of Elijah and his own teachings seemed to go for nothing; the
   honour of God was forgotten, and the cause of evil triumphed.

   Moreover, the servant of God must have been the subject of a fierce
   internal conflict between two sets of thoughts. Indignation and pity
   strove within his heart. His justice and his piety made him feel that
   he could have nothing to do with two idolatrous kings; but pity and
   humanity made him wish to deliver the army from perishing by thirst.
   Like a patriot, he sympathised with his people; but, like a prophet, he
   was jealous for his God. The men of Judah and Israel, whatever they
   might be in character, were the Lord's people by covenant; he could not
   let them die: yet they had broken that covenant, and how could he help
   them? The prophet was perplexed, and his heart grew heavy. How can we
   do the Lord's work when we are cast down in spirit? The joy of the Lord
   is our strength, and when we lose it our hands are feeble. When the
   heart is torn with inner conflict how can we speak words of comfort to
   those who are weary? We have need to escape from this inward strife
   before we can become sons of consolation to others. While rent with
   conflicting feeling, there was no rest in the prophet's spirit; and the
   hand of the Lord did not come upon him. Most wisely he did not attempt
   to speak in the name of the Lord, but sought for a means by which his
   excitement could be allayed. In the face of many hindrances we shall be
   wise if we imitate him. When we feel ourselves cumbered with much
   serving we shall act discreetly if we pause in it, and take Mary's
   place, for awhile, at least, and sit at Jesus' feet; or, if the service
   must be done at once, it will be well to use the readiest means for
   preparing the mind for doing it. It may be that some simple natural
   means will be helpful, and if so, we must not be so ultra-spiritual as
   to disdain to cry, Bring me a minstrel.' It is often pride which makes
   us decline the use of natural means. David went against Goliath in the
   name of the Lord, but he took his sling and his stone with him; even
   our Lord, who could open men's eyes with a word, did not refuse to use
   clay, or to send his patient to the pool of Siloam to wash. If you and
   I are out of order we must do our best to get right. If I go to do the
   Lord's work with a vexed or distracted mind, I shall do it badly.
   Perhaps I shall do more harm than good. I shall spill the cup of
   consolation if I am all in a tremble myself. God's servants should
   serve their Master well: the best we can render falls short of his
   deservings; but it would be a pity to do less than our very best.
   Occasionally we are quite out of form, cannot think, or feel, or speak
   aright; we have to confess that we are all in confusion, and, what is
   worse, we dare not even expect God come and help us till we are in a
   less excited condition. I know what I mean better than I can tell you.
   Some of our brethren are always even and calm, but others of us go
   dangerously up and sadly down, and are at times unfit either to receive
   the heavenly word or to convey it to others. At such times let us
   remember our text. The prophet said Bring me a minstrel. And it came to
   pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon
   him.'

   But what are our helps when we are pressed with hindrances? Is there
   anything which in our case may be as useful as a harp? Bring me a
   minstrel,' said the prophet, for his mind was easily moved by that
   charming art. Music and song soothed and calmed, and cheered him.

   Through every pulse the music stole,

   And held high converse with his soul.'

   On the wings of melody his mind rose above the noisy camp, and floated
   far away from the loathed presence of Jehoram; the melting mystic
   strain laid all his passions asleep, and his soul was left in silence
   to hear the voice of the Lord. Well did Luther say, Music is the art of
   the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul; it
   is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given
   us.'

   Among our own helps singing holds a chief place; as saith the apostle,
   Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
   and making melody in Your heart to the Lord.' Note how he connects it
   with peace in his epistle to the Colossians: Let the peace of God rule
   in your hearts . . . . teaching and admonishing one another in psalms
   and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the
   Lord.' I cannot sing,' says one. You need not sing as sweetly as Asaph
   and Heman, and other sweet birds of paradise whose names we read in
   Scripture; but we should all sing better if we sang more. Those with
   cracked voices would be kind if they would not sing quite so loudly in
   the congregation, for they grievously disturb other people; but they
   might get alone and have good times with themselves, where nobody could
   complain of their strong voices and lusty tones. It is good to sing
   praises unto the Lord, and a part of its goodness lies in the comfort
   which it brings. It is not without significance, that after supper,
   before our Lord went to his great sacrifice, he sang a hymn. Did not
   even he find refreshment in that holy exercise? My mind dwells sweetly
   on a season which I have often mentioned to you when a new lie had been
   forged against me, a lie of peculiar bitterness, and it vexed me. I was
   never particularly pleased at being slandered, though I have had my
   fair share of it. Well, I went alone awhile, and sung over to myself in
   my own poor way,'

   If on my face, for thy dear name,

   Shame and reproaches be,

   I'll hail reproach, and welcome shame,

   If thou remember me.'

   By that means the sting was removed, and I felt merry again. Bring me a
   minstrel:' the restoring means may be a little thing, but if you do not
   look to the linchpin of a cartwheel the wheel may come off, and down
   will go the cart, and what is the poor horse to do then? If you can get
   your mind right again by such a simple thing as singing, pray do not
   neglect it.

   Suppose, however, that singing has no such power over you; let me
   recommend to you the quiet reading of a chapter of God's word. Go
   upstairs and open the Book, and think upon a few verses. If you are
   much perplexed, read that blessed chapter which begins, Let not your
   heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.' Those verses
   act like a charm upon many minds: many and many a time a storm has
   subsided into a calm by the reading of those words. Some such passage
   read quietly will often operate as the harper acted upon Elisha. If
   time be pressing, see what is the text for the day in the almanac; or
   choose out some one precious promise which in other days was sweet to
   you. It is wonderful the effect of a single verse of Scripture when the
   Spirit of God applies it to the soul. There is music to a miser in the
   jingling of his money bag: but what music can equal this''All things
   work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
   called according to his purpose'? If you are in poverty, what melody
   lies in this: Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in
   the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.' What power would come upon the
   soul to calm and quiet it, and make it ready for the hand of God, if we
   would grasp a single line of Scripture and suck the honey out of it
   till our soul is filled with sweetness.

   You will find it equal to bringing a minstrel, and perhaps even more
   efficient, if you will get alone to pray. That horrible Rabshakeh's
   letter'you read it, and then you wished you had never seen it. You put
   it behind the glass, but you fetch it out again, and read it again, and
   cry, What a trial is this! who can bear it?' There is a kind of
   basilisk power in an abominable letter, so that you feel compelled to
   read it again and again. Can you not break the spell? What is the
   wisest course? Go upstairs, open it wide, spread it before the Lord,
   and say, O Lord, thou hast seen letters like this before; for thy
   servant Hezekiah showed thee one.' I would say of every sorrow, Pray
   over it.' An old divine, after he had heard a young minister preach a
   poor discourse, said to him, Sir, I beg you to try and pray that sermon
   over.' He replied that he could not pray it over. Now, a sermon that
   cannot be prayed over ought never to be preached at all, and a trouble
   that you cannot pray over is a trouble which you ought not to have. It
   must be a grief of your own making; it cannot be a trial of God's
   sending. Tell the Lord your affliction, and the bitterness of it will
   be past, and you will go back to your daily service calm and quiet,
   fitted for the hand of the Lord to be laid upon you. Men will wonder
   whence your joy has come, and what makes your face to shine. The secret
   is that you have waited upon the Lord, and renewed your strength.

   It may be you will find fittest help in Christian association. I
   commend this to those believers who are seldom fit for God to use
   because they are morose and fault-finding. You ought to say, Bring me a
   minstrel:''find me some praying sister whom I may talk with, or find me
   some genial brother who rejoices in the Lord, and let me converse with
   such.'It may be that the Master will join you and make a third, and
   then shall your heart be glad. Much misery is caused by Christians
   attempting to go to heaven alone. You remember how Mr. Bunyan describes
   Christian as journeying alone at first; he soon picked up with Hopeful,
   and then he was more cheery. As for Christiana and Mercy, and the
   family, they scarcely could have gone on pilgrimage at all if it had
   not been for Mr. Greatheart: but when they all went in company, with
   Mr. Greatheart to lead the band, they could sing all the way to the
   gates of the Celestial City. You, my friend, who are hindered in the
   service of Christ, might often be put right, so that God could use you,
   if you would become a companion of all them that fear God, and of them
   that keep his precepts. Holy converse acts as a minstrel to the spirit.

   What is the duty that arises out of this? It is this: if you get into a
   bad state, don't stick there. Ah,' says one, it is very close weather,
   and I feel depressed, so that the Spirit of God does not work upon my
   mind.' Then cry at once, Bring me a minstrel.' Do not say I cannot help
   being stupid.' You need not be: at least, not more so than you are by
   nature. You may get out of your dullness by making an effort, and you
   ought to make it. Did I not hear you say Everybody has gone away for a
   holiday, and I cannot leave my work. Trade is dull, and so am I'? But
   you need not be dull. Why should you always be heavy? You say, I do not
   feel fit to go to my class,' or, I do not feel fit to preach.' Should
   you, therefore, cease from the work of the Lord? By no means. Rouse
   yourself. Think of the way in which God has aforetime helped you, and
   use the same means again. While you are helping yourselves God will
   help you, and the hand of the Lord will come upon you.

   Do not give way to feelings which unhinge you. Fight against them and
   cry with David, Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' Still, do not rush
   into God's service in an unfit condition. Resort to such means as are
   within reach for calming the lower faculties, and the Spirit of God
   will move upon your higher powers. Act rationally. Use your best
   judgement and most prudent endeavours, or we shall suspect that you
   have no particular wish to do the Lord's work, or fancy that anything
   is good enough for your God. Say to yourself, Being in an unsuitable
   condition, I cannot expect God to use me. I must therefore get right.
   Here is my harp, but every string is out of tune. I cannot expect the
   Holy Spirit to play upon it until it is put in order. What can I do to
   help myself in this matter, for that I will do, and thus prove the
   sincerity of my prayer when I ask God the Holy Spirit to help me.'

   This, then, is the first lesson, and I am sure there is real practical
   teaching in it, though some superior persons may despise it.

   II. My second word is to those who have not yet found the Lord. WE
   SHOULD USE EVERY MEANS TO OBTAIN THE TOUCH OF THE DIVINE HAND. There
   are some here present who do not yet know whether they are believers in
   Christ or not: and I am sure I cannot tell them. I hope they are
   believers, for they are sincerely desirous of eternal salvation, but
   sometimes I am afraid they are not, for they do no appear to understand
   the meaning of the finished work of Christ. What are those, who are
   earnestly seeking the Lord, to do? There is but one answer, Believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Faith is the one and
   only course commanded. But some one replies, Alas, I cannot get at
   that.' But, my friend, you must get at it, or perish. Without faith it
   is impossible to please God.

   Still, to help you, let me urge you to do this which lies near at hand
   if you cannot feel that the Spirit of God will bless you as you are,
   call for some minstrel, who may aid you in your search after the
   blessing. If there be any subordinate means which may be helpful, use
   it with a view to the higher and better thing. I would first say'If you
   feel that you have not the faith which you ought to have, use what
   faith you have. It is wonderful what an immense amount of possibility
   lie in a mustard seed of faith. It is a very small, tiny thing; but sow
   it and it will grow. You have not enough faith to believe that Christ
   will save you, but you have enough to feel sure that Christ can save
   you. That is something: hold to it and follow it out to its fair
   conclusions. If a man has not money enough to pay for a week's
   provisions, let him not starve; but let him spend what he has, hoping
   that more will come. Have you a small dust of faith? use that, and it
   will multiply.

   If you want to feel the hand of the Lord, I would next say, Go and hear
   a sound, earnest, lively preacher. I am advising you to do as I acted
   myself. I was muddled, and could not exercise faith, and so resolved to
   obey that other precept, Hear, and your soul shall live.'

   If you long for faith, listen to the preacher who preaches the gospel
   most simply and most forcibly. Perhaps you say, I have been listening
   to a very clever minister, a very intellectual minister, and his word
   has never been blessed to my soul.' Then shift your place, and say.
   Bring me a minstrel;' for then it may be that the hand of the Lord may
   be upon you. It is better to go a hundred miles to hear a faithful
   minister than to listen to a man from whom you get no good because he
   happens to preach near you. Men go many miles to a skilful physician,
   or a healing fountain. When we are in earnest to find Christ we shall
   have the sense to go where he is most honoured and most spoken of.

   But suppose I have attended such a ministry, and have found no good;
   what shall I do?' Why, the Scripture says, Believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ and thou shalt be saved.' Still, if you cannot get at this for
   the moment, attend earnest meetings where souls have been converted,
   and many have been brought to Jesus' feet. Trust not to preachers or
   meetings; but, still, go where the rain is falling, and there may be a
   drop for you. If a ministry is blessing others, resort to it, praying,
   O Lord, bless me.' Our immediate need is the hand of the Lord, and we
   may be made ready to receive it by hearing the gospel; therefore let us
   diligently incline our ear to the heavenly word.

   Let me also advise you to read gracious books. Ask Christian people
   what writings were blessed to their conversion, and carefully study the
   same. There is no book for saving souls like the Bible. Say, Bring me a
   minstrel,' and read the Scriptures again and again. The Lord Jesus
   feedeth among the lilies: get among the beds of lilies, and you will
   find him there. Oh, how many have found Christ when they have been
   searching the Scriptures to see whether those things were so.'

   I would also strongly recommend you to get a good deal alone. You poor
   souls, who cannot find Christ, and do not seem to understand what it is
   to believe in him, should think much, and meditate much, upon Jesus and
   his cross. David said, I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto
   thy testimonies.' If you want a minstrel, think of your sin, your sin
   against your God, till it breaks your heart; then think of Christ, his
   nature, his work, his love, his deeds of mercy: think of the Holy
   Spirit, and his power to renew, regenerate, comfort, sanctify: think
   over those precious truths of the word of God, which are set there on
   purpose to be beacons to light souls to Christ, and while you are
   thinking of these it shall be to you as when the minstrel played, and
   the hand of the Lord came upon his prophet. Get much alone; but still
   recollect there is no hope for you if you trust in being alone, or
   trust in reading the Scriptures, or trust in hearing, or trust in
   anything but Christ. What you want is the hand of Jesus laid upon you:
   one touch from him, and you will be made whole. If you can but touch
   the hem of his garment, virtue shall come out of him to you. I am
   merely mentioning these things because sometimes they lead up to the
   one thing, and when a man is in earnest to obtain the one thing
   needful, he will be willing to attend to anything by which he will be
   likely to attain it, and to attend to any secondary means which God has
   blessed in the case of others. He will be willing to be taught by a
   child, if peradventure God will bless him in that manner. He will say,
   Bring me a minstrel;' Bring me a good book;' Bring me a godly
   minister;' Bring me a Christian man accustomed to speak to troubled
   hearts;' Bring me an aged Christian whose testimony shall confirm my
   spirit, and be the means of working faith in me: for I must get to God;
   I must get salvation. Tell me, tell me, where Christ is to be obtained,
   and I will find him if I ransack the globe to discover him.' I do not
   believe any person who has desires to find Christ will seek in vain. I
   am certain that when people hunger and thirst after Christ they shall
   be filled, and when they say, We will do anything by which we may be
   led to Jesus,' they are not far from the kingdom of heaven, and the
   Holy Spirit is at work in them.

   III. Thirdly, WE SHOULD MORE ABUNDANTLY USE HOLY MINSTRELSY. Saints and
   sinners, too, would find it greatly to their benefit if they said,
   Bring me a minstrel.' This is the world's cry whenever it is merry, and
   filled with wine. The art of music has been prostituted to the service
   of Satan. Charles Wesley well said,'

   Listed into the cause of sin,

   Why should a good be evil?

   Music, alas! too long has been

   Press'd to obey the devil.

   Drunken, or lewd, or light, the lay

   Flow'd to the soul's undoing;

   Widen'd, and strew'd with flowers the way

   Down to eternal ruin.'

   It is for us to use singing in the service of God, and to make a
   conquest of it for our Redeemer. Worldlings want the minstrel to excite
   them; we want him to calm our hearts and still our spirits. That is his
   use to us, and we shall do well to employ the harper to that end.

   Let us give instances: I will suppose that this morning you were
   thinking about coming up to the assembly of God's people, and you felt
   hardly up to the mark. It would have been wise to do as I did this
   morning. I read at family prayer the eighty-fourth Psalm, How amiable
   are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even
   fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out
   for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the
   swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine
   altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.'

   What a sweet piece of Sabbath minstrelsy it is! How often have we been
   quieted and prepared for sanctuary worship by Psalm 84:'

   How did my heart rejoice to hear

   My friends devoutly say,

   In Zion let us all appear

   And keep thy holy day!''

   When the house is full of trouble, and your heart is bowed down, is it
   not well to say''Bring me a minstrel, and let him sing to me the
   twenty-seventh Psalm. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall
   I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
   When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up
   my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against
   me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this
   will I be confident.'' You need not confine the harper to that one
   strain; for David has written many psalms for burdened hearts. It is
   wonderful what provision God has made of sacred minstrels to play us up
   out of the depths into the heights if we will but make a right use of
   them.

   I will suppose you are in a state of alarm; it may be there is a
   thunderstorm, or possibly a disease is stalking through the land. Did
   you ever sing in such times that forty-sixth Psalm: God is our refuge
   and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we
   fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried
   into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be
   troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
   There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,
   the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst
   of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right
   early.' Such music is like the breath of heaven. How comforting are the
   words of the ninety-first Psalm when diseases are abroad, or when the
   thunder rolls through the sky: He that dwelleth in the secret place of
   the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say
   of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I
   trust.' I remember being in a family one night when I was but a lad,
   when everybody in the house, strong men though some of them were,
   trembled and were afraid. A child was upstairs and must be brought
   down, but no one dared pass by the window on the staircase. Well do I
   remember fetching the child, awed but not alarmed, and then I sat down
   and read aloud the ninety-first Psalm, and saw how it quieted both men
   and women. Ah, my brethren, David as a musician is one of a thousand;
   we need no other minstrel. The word of God hushes the tempest of the
   soul, and refreshes the heart with a celestial dew. Bring me a
   minstrel,' but let him sing us one of the songs of Zion.

   Do you ever get depressed in spirit, beloved friends? I fear you do;
   and are you ever troubled because you seem to have more affliction than
   anybody else? Have you watched the wicked and seen them prosperously
   sailing while you have been tossed to and fro on a raging sea of
   troubles? Do you want to get peace to your mind by the power of the
   Holy Spirit? Then say, Bring me a minstrel' and let him sing that
   thirty-seventh Psalm, Fret not thyself because of evildoers.' Or if you
   would have a change from the thirty-seventh, turn the figures round,
   and let him sing the seventy-third, and the notes will run thus: Truly
   God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for
   me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.' You will
   not be long before you will rise to the note''Whom have I in heaven but
   thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh
   and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my
   portion for ever.'

   Happily, you are not always depressed: there are times of great joy
   with you, and then you long to have communion with God. If you wish to
   have fellowship with Jesus, you will find it helpful to say, Bring me a
   minstrel;' and when he asks, What shall I sing?' say to him, Sing the
   Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.' Then shall you find utterance for
   your heart in some such canticles as these: Tell me, O thou whom my
   soul lovest, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at
   noon; for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of
   thy companions?' Possibly your tongue will take up notes like these: As
   the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the
   sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was
   sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his
   banner over me was love.' My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth
   among the lilies. Until the daybreak, and the shadows flee away, turn,
   my beloved and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of
   division.' The whole book is full of utterances which may seem strange
   to worldly minds, but which exactly suit those who know the
   Well-beloved. Read that third verse of the eighth chapter of the Song.
   Did you ever sing it? His left hand should be under my head, and his
   right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
   that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.' Many waters
   cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would
   give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be
   contemned.'

   When we come to die we will breathe our last breath to music. Then will
   we say, Bring me a harper,' and like Jacob and Moses we will sing ere
   we depart. Our song is ready. It is the twenty-third Psalm: The Lord is
   my shepherd; I shall not want. Yea, though I walk through the valley of
   the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod
   and thy staff they comfort me.'

   This is the kind of minstrel for me. Say you not so, my brethren? When
   you are in trouble or distress, will you not remember your son in the
   night? If such be the strain, I am of the same mind as Martin Luther,
   whose words I have copied out to read to you. His language is always
   strong. Luther speaks thunderbolts. One of the finest and noblest gifts
   of God is music. This is very hateful to the devil, and with it we may
   drive off temptations and evil thoughts. After theology I give the next
   place and highest honour to music. It has often aroused and moved me so
   that I have won a desire to preach. We ought not to ordain young men to
   the office of preacher if they have not trained themselves and
   practised singing in the schools.' That is pretty strong. I fear many
   would not have been preachers if they must first have been singers.
   Still, there is a power about song; and to sing the praises of God in
   psalms such as those I have read to you is most consoling.

   Suppose you have done with the minstrelsy which I have now mentioned,
   there is next the music of gospel doctrine. I confess to you that, when
   depressed in spirit, I love a little of thorough Calvinistic doctrine.
   I turn to Coles on Divine Sovereignty, and relish his plain speaking
   upon sovereign grace. The doctrine of election is noble music:
   predestination is a glorious hallelujah. Grace abounding, love
   victorious, truth unchanging, faithfulness invincible: these are
   melodies such as my ear delights in. The truth of God is fit music for
   angels. The harps of the redeemed never resound with more noble music
   than the doctrines of grace. Every truth has its melody, every doctrine
   is a psalm unto God. When my heart is faint, Bring me a minstrel,' and
   let him sing of free grace and dying love.

   If these do not charm you, fetch a minstrel from experience. Think how
   God has dealt with you in times of sorrow and darkness long gone by,
   and then you will sing, His mercy endureth for ever.' That one hundred
   and third Psalm might last a man from now till he entered heaven, he
   need not change the strain,''Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is
   within me, bless his holy name.' He may keep on chanting it until his
   song melts into the hymn of the angels, and he adds another voice to
   the chorus of the redeemed above.

   If you want music, there is yet a sweeter store. Go fetch a minstrel
   from Calvary. Commend me for sweetness to the music of the cross. At
   Calvary I hear one piece of music set to the minor key which bred more
   joy beneath the skies than all else. Hear it: My God, my God, why hast
   thou forsaken me?' Jesus deserted is the comfort of deserted souls:
   Jesus crying, Why hast thou forsaken me?' is the joy of the spirit that
   has lost the light of God's countenance. That grave and solemn note can
   lift despair into delight.

   But if you want another hymn of the cross to be sung with the
   accompaniment of the high-sounding cymbals, or with trumpet and sound
   of cornet, let me commend you to this other song of the cross, IT IS
   FINISHED.' All music lies there. Condensed into those three words you
   have the harmonies of eternity, the melodies of the infinite. Angels
   themselves when on their loftiest key did never sing a canticle so
   sweet. Consummatum est' is the consummation of song. It is finished;'
   sin is blotted out, reconciliation is complete, everlasting
   righteousness is brought in, and believing souls are saved. Hallelujah!
   Hallelujah! Till the day break, and the shadows flee away,' Bring me a
   minstrel,' and let us sing unto him that loved us, and washed us from
   our sins in his own blood, to him be glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Psalm 136; 2 Kings 3:1-15.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''136 (Song II.), 166, 229.
     __________________________________________________________________

Shut In Or Shut Out

   (No. 1613)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 14, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Lord shut him in." Genesis 7:16.

   NOAH was a very different man from the rest of those who lived in his
   time, for the Grace of God had set a division between him and them.
   They forgot God and Noah feared Him. They lived for things seen and
   temporal and he lived in sight of the invisible. When he was building
   the ark, he was in a miserable minority, as men count heads. And, even
   after 120 years of ministry, when his ark was built and his family
   entered it, they were eight against many millions--an insignificant
   few, as men would say--a pitiful sect among mankind. Who could imagine
   that the eight would be right and all the millions wrong? Where God is,
   there is the majority!

   But very clearly there was a very marked distinction between Noah and
   his household and all the rest of mankind. Yet, great as that
   distinction was, throughout 120 years there was no impassable gulf
   between the two parties. Although Noah could not, would not go to them,
   yet they that would, might pass to him. If they would hear, believe and
   obey, they, too, might be among the company whom God had blessed and
   whom He would surely preserve from destruction. When the 120 years were
   over and God's Spirit would no longer strive with men, there stood the
   great ark with its vast door wide open and Noah still continued to
   preach and to declare that all who would pass within that open portal
   into the ark of safety should be preserved from the coming destruction.

   Outside that door death would reign universally, but all would be peace
   within. When the last seven days of Grace had come to a close, the Lord
   began His work of justice by separating Noah. "The Lord shut him in."
   Then there was a more marked difference between Noah and the rest of
   mankind. He that opens and no man shuts. He that shuts and no man
   opens--even He had interposed an impassable barrier between Noah and
   those that believed not. Mercy's gate was shut! The time of
   long-suffering had come to a close. Brothers and Sisters, the Church of
   God stands, at the present moment, in the world very much in the same
   condition as Noah and his family! The door of the ark is still wide
   open and it is our business to persuade, constrain and compel men, with
   all our might, to come in!

   Not without success have our entreaties been, for many have entered the
   ark of salvation which is found in the Person of our Divine Lord Jesus.
   These make up with us the chosen family of God who shall be safe when
   the world is deluged with the last devouring fire. But the time
   comes--it comes to each man in death and it will come to the whole
   company of the ungodly in the day when the Lord Jesus shall descend
   from Heaven with a shout--that the door shall be shut and it shall be
   said, "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they
   which would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us,
   that would come from there."

   Character will become unchangeable! He that is unjust will be unjust,
   still, and he that is filthy will be filthy, still. My heart trembles
   as I think of this matter! There is a joy in being shut in with the
   saints, but a great grief in knowing that many will be shut out. I
   shall labor so to set forth this Truth of God that, perhaps before the
   door closes, a goodly company may cry, "We will come with you, for we
   perceive that the Lord is with you." Surely in the floods of great
   waters they shall not come near unto the Lord--but until those water
   floods break forth they may come--and they shall find a glad welcome!
   For it is written, "Him that comes to Me I will in nowise cast out."

   Our meditation will be arranged under two heads which may readily be
   remembered--shut in and shut out. They stand in very distinct contrast
   and admit of no third condition.

   I. First, let us think of Truths of God which range themselves under
   the head of SHUT IN. This is a blessed text. Oh that the Spirit of God
   may help me to preach from it and you to enjoy it! Observe, then, that
   Noah was shut in--shut in the ark. Noah's condition as to an evil world
   was now one of permanent separation. He was severed from the world and
   his separation was beyond recall. There is a time in the human
   character when it has some good thing in it towards the

   Lord God of Israel and yet that good thing may be lost. But there is
   another and happier time when the truly converted have stepped over the
   boundary and shall never go back to corruption. They are dead and their
   life is hid with Christ in God--hidden beyond further damage or death.
   They are, from then on, kept by the power of God unto salvation--
   crucified unto the world and the world unto them.

   There was a time when, speaking after the manner of men, Noah might
   have given up his testimony and sided with the ungodly mass. But that
   possibility is all over, for the door is shut--the Lord has shut him
   in. There was no wish in Noah's heart to come out and he could not come
   out. The deed was done and could not be undone--the bolt was turned and
   could not be withdrawn. Noah was shut in by a hand which is not given
   to undo its own work! I believe that this blend of character and
   condition has happened to all Believers who can truly say that they are
   dead unto the world. Dying unto the world is the way of our salvation!
   By this process we pass into newness of life. I dare say when that door
   was shut, the men of the world said, "Look at old Noah! He has gone
   into his coffin. He is as good as dead and buried."

   Yes, that was exactly what they were meant to see and to say! Peter
   says, "The like figure whereunto also baptism does now save us." He
   does not say that baptism saves us, but that it is a "like figure" of
   the way of salvation. The ark and immersion set forth the same Truth of
   God. The man is "buried in baptism," to signify that he is dead to the
   world, wherein, also, he rises, again, to show his fellowship with
   Christ in resurrection and the fact that he has risen to newness of
   life. Baptism is a picture of the way of salvation, just as Noah's ark
   was. Entrance into the ark and submergence beneath a 40 days' deluge of
   rain was a fit type of death and burial--and the rising of the ark
   above the waters fitly sets forth resurrection to a new life.

   Noah underwent burial to all the old things that he might come out into
   a new world and, even so, we die in Christ that we may live with Him.
   This is the doctrine, but the experience is grand! Beloved, it is a
   great mercy when a man can feel in his own soul that God has fixed,
   forever, his condition towards the ungodly. We have come out, my
   Brethren, from among men just as Abraham did when he left his
   fatherland and went into the land of which he knew nothing but that God
   had said that He would give it to him and to his seed. It is written
   concerning Abraham and the other Patriarchs that, "doubtless if they
   had been mindful of the place from where they came out, they had
   opportunity to return," but they did not return--it entered not into
   their minds and hearts to do so. They had as fully left Padanaram
   behind them as if they had been dead and buried to it and their life
   showed, each one of them, to be a pilgrim and a sojourner with God.

   Even so with Believers! The Lord has called us out and set us apart
   unto Himself. Therefore a door is shut behind us and we cannot go back.
   We are like Bunyan's Pilgrim--we must go forward, for we have no armor
   for our backs. There is no inducement to go back if we fairly consider
   the matter. The City of Destruction which we have left is to be burnt
   with fire--shall we go back to that? The enemies we have fought and
   encountered are left behind--shall we seek them to fight again, or to
   become their friends? Sin is bitter to us, it has already broken our
   teeth as with gravel--shall we go back to it? What inducement have we
   to return to the house of bondage? No, by God's Grace, "Forward," is
   our motto till we come to "the city which has foundations, whose
   Builder and Maker is God."

   Brethren, I am always glad when I can feel, concerning any of you, that
   you have finally done with the world and may be numbered with the
   irreconcilables, for, alas, I fear there are too many who have so
   questionably come out of Sodom that their hearts are still there and
   they are apt to cast lingering looks towards the accursed city. Ah me!
   What if any of you should become pillars of salt! "Remember Lot's
   wife!" But when, like Noah, you are divided from the world's pursuits
   by God's own act, then is it well with you! Noah was shut in and could
   not follow after the festivities and world-liness of men. They were
   eating and drinking--marrying and given in marriage--but to Noah the
   dance and the viol, the feast and the revel called in vain! He could
   not now hoard up wealth, nor seek for fame among the sons of men. He
   was utterly exiled and excluded from all those things which charmed the
   minds of his contemporaries. He was out of the fashion, yes, out of the
   world!

   He was shut out, too, from all their possessions. Even from his own
   farm he was now expatriated. Blessed is that man who, whatever he has,
   has it as though he had it not--he sets no store by earthly things and
   does not lock up his soul in his iron safe. He is shut out from the
   things which rust and corrupt, so that they are not his god, nor his
   treasure. Noah was divided from the evil generation among which he
   dwelt by an act of God--here was his safety! Adam was put in Paradise
   by God, but he was never shut in by God and, therefore, very soon he
   left his first estate and wandered among

   thorns and thistles. But Noah was both put in the ark and shut in the
   ark--and, therefore, he never left his shelter until the Lord bade him
   come forth to possess the new world.

   Blessed are the men of whom the Lord Jesus can say, "They are not of
   the world." Such have passed by death into life and are members of a
   new race who shall go forth with joy and be led forth with peace, for
   they shall inherit the earth! Blessed is that man who has crossed the
   Rubicon, deciding to be on the Lord's side whatever others may do.
   Blessed is the man who has burnt his boats behind him, having landed in
   a country from which he will never retreat. I would gladly be one who
   can cease to be, but cannot cease to be a Christian! I would gladly be
   on who can die, but cannot deny his Lord! I would gladly be one who
   will, if necessary, go with Him to prison and to death--and cannot do
   otherwise--for the love of Christ constrains me. Then is the will most
   truly free when it is under the sweet dominion of infinite love! This
   is true liberty--to be led about in triumph in every place, bound with
   the silken cords of gratitude--a captive to the power of Grace! O happy
   man who can truly say that from now on he is "shut in" because he is
   born again and, thus, entirely changed!

   In the olden times a newly converted man who became an eminent saint
   was met in the street by a woman who had, at other times, tempted him
   to sin. He took no notice of her and at last she cried out, "Do you not
   know me? It is I." "Ah," said the new man, "but it is not I." No, he
   was not the man who could take pleasure in uncleanness. He could no
   longer sin, for he was born of God! Our inner life shuts us in to
   holiness and the wounds of Jesus seal the door. The goodness of God
   interposes a barrier between us and evil, for we say with Joseph, "How
   can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" "How can we, that
   are dead to sin, live any longer in sin? Therefore our prayer is that
   of Toplady--

   "Oh nail me to the sacred wood,

   There tie me with Your Spirit's chain!

   There seal me with Your fastening blood,

   Nor ever let me loose again!

   There let me bow my suppliant knee,

   And own no other Lord but Thee!" We must now remark, secondly, that
   Noah was not only shut in, but he was shut in by God. There was the
   excellence of it--"The Lord shut him in." No man can shut in as the
   Lord can! I cannot shut professors into the ways of godliness as I
   would wish. Alas, with all my preaching, many wander and try to be
   members of the Church and citizens of the world, too! We have among us
   avowed lovers of Christ who act too much like "lovers of pleasure." I
   have preached no liberty to sin, as some do, but I have declared that,
   "strait is the gate and narrow is the way," but yet these men make
   excursions into the broad road. I would still hammer at the door of the
   ark, in hope of shutting it closed and keeping it so, but it is little
   that I can do. If Noah had shut himself in, he might have come out
   again. And if any of the world outside had shut him in, he would
   probably have burst open the door.

   But "the Lord shut him in" and, therefore, sure work was made of it. Oh
   to be enclosed by Almighty Grace! The Lord has shut His people in unto
   Himself by His choice of them in Christ Jesus, by His redemption of
   them from among men and by His sanctifying them to be a peculiar people
   unto Himself. Yes, the Lord has done it--"The Lord shut him in." Take
   notice that this was very close shutting, so as to keep out the water.
   I fancy that if you saw a huge vessel lying upon the dry land where the
   floods would come to float it, you would be very anxious about that
   great opening in its side. It was evidently a huge doorway, for a pair
   of elephants had passed through it, so that it was a gaping leak which
   would take in enough water in an hour to sink the ark to the bottom!

   How could the great door be closed? All the timbers are waterproofed
   and the ship is well caulked and pitched within and without, but all
   will go for nothing unless we can secure the big door. Merely to shut
   the door will be of no use. When the rain begins to fall in torrents
   from above and the waters leap up from below, and the ship commences to
   rise, she will take in any quantity of water at the points where the
   door fits into the wood. Shipwrights will be needed and the caulkers
   and the men with the pitch must come. No shipwright could manage to
   shut so huge a door close enough for safety unless you give him time
   and call in the help of other workers. Therefore "the Lord shut him in"
   because nobody else could safely be trusted to shut such a door,
   against which a forty days' tempest was to beat most furiously!

   What a mercy it is that when we get into Christ by faith and are shut
   in from the world with Him, that we are perfectly safe because the Lord
   Himself has shut us in! We are not only brought to Christ Jesus by
   Divine power, but we are

   preserved in Christ Jesus unto eternal life by the same Divine might.
   Beloved, there is no doubt about the salvation of those who are in
   Christ, for none can separate us from the love of God which is in
   Christ Jesus our Lord. Never has a soul perished trusting in Jesus and
   never shall a soul so perish, for though salvation is so difficult that
   the righteous scarcely are saved, yet when the Lord Jehovah puts His
   hand to the work, it is done well and done forever! In Noah's case the
   huge chasm that would have let in the water-floods was perfectly closed
   up. Even so, all the yawning leaks and openings of our fall and sin are
   closed by the Grace of God and, in Christ Jesus, we are secure--the
   Lord has shut us in!

   That door was also shut very fast to prevent the entrance of enemies
   from the outside. For who can tell? I should fancy that when the waters
   began to rise, when they were up to the ankles, or knee deep, those who
   had, before, ridiculed the Patriarch's barge would assemble around that
   door and clamorously demand to be admitted, resolved, if refused, to
   force their way in. But it would have been in vain. God had shut the
   door and no violence could force it open--by push of crowd or leverage
   of strength. Even so it is with us--we are protected against every
   onslaught of the enemies of our soul. Come life, come death, things
   present or things to come--God has appointed salvation! Come
   temptations of every sort, come craft or assault of devils--none can
   force the doorway and come at us for our destruction.

   "At evening let them return; and let them make a noise like a dog, and
   go round about the city. But I will sing of Your power; yes, I will
   sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning: for You have been my defense
   and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto You, O my Strength, will I
   sing." This Divine shutting in of Noah was very necessary, for I
   suppose that no one else could have moved the gigantic door upon its
   enormous hinges. It was probably too massive to have been stirred by
   Noah or his united family. It must have been a moment of wonder and awe
   when that stupendous door began silently to move of its own accord, as
   though an invisible hand was carefully closing it so that not a crevice
   should be made through which water could penetrate!

   The ark was soon as complete as if it had never exhibited an opening
   from stem to stern. You and I need shutting into Christ by a Divine
   hand or it never will be done securely. When a soul is brought to
   Christ it is by Divine Grace, but the whole is not done then--the grand
   difficulty is to keep us in Christ, for without continued Grace we
   shall still perish in spite of all the arrangements of redeeming love.
   How many have ventured to sea in the galleys of their own resolve and
   have perished there! How many have hoped to shut themselves in with
   Christ by the mere force of personal determination, but the leakage of
   their own depraved heart has drowned them! But, oh, when God has
   brought us into union with Jesus, He shuts us in and we are saved in
   the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

   The great door of Covenant faithfulness is shut behind the Believer and
   he is surrounded by the power and Grace of God, even as Noah was housed
   within the strong timbers of the ark. There is no crack nor cranny
   through which the floods of wrath can penetrate--Omnipotent Love has
   shut us in! And the Lord did this not only necessarily, but graciously.
   I call your attention to the change of the names in the text, a very
   significant change indeed--"They that went in, went in male and female
   of all flesh: as God had commanded him: and the Lord"--that is,
   Jehovah--"shut him in." Elohim, as the Creator and Preserver, takes
   care of living things to preserve them, but the Lord, even Jehovah, the
   covenanting God, interposes in great mercy to protect His chosen
   servant!

   It was Jehovah who entered into solemn league and Covenant with His
   servant, Noah, that He would preserve him in the ark and float him into
   the new world in it. And as Jehovah, the Covenanting One, He shut Noah
   in. There is no security like that which is given us by the Covenant of
   Grace. The hand which was lifted to swear our safety has also been
   outstretched to effect it! The everlasting Covenant, ordered in all
   things and sure, guarantees salvation to all who are represented by the
   great Head and Surety of that Covenant, even our Lord Jesus. Love and
   power cooperate with faithfulness and truth to keep the chosen from all
   danger. Dwell much upon the Covenant and note the immutable pledges by
   which it is secured and the immortal principles upon which it is
   founded! Try to suck out the delicious sweetness which is to be found
   in the hive of the Covenant, for if you are an advanced child of God,
   no form of the Truth of God can be more nourishing or refreshing to
   your mind.

   The doctrines which spring out of the Covenant are peculiarly
   comforting to believing minds. The promises of God are yes and amen in
   Christ Jesus and can never fail nor change, since the Covenant stands
   fast forever and ever. Its tenure is free and Sovereign Grace and it
   cannot be disannulled. Here is a line of it, "I will put My fear in
   their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me." With such a promise
   does Jehovah shut us in with Christ Jesus in matchless kindness and
   unspeakable love. Notice, once again, that this deed was very
   instructive to Noah. It must have been so. Noah had ceased to

   live according to the mere senses of the body and had come to perceive
   his absolute dependence upon God, but he was made, by the opened door,
   to see that dependence most clearly. By Divine orders he had built an
   ark on dry land and when it was built, Noah might have said, "Now I
   feel safe." But he could not say so, for there was a gaping hole in the
   side of the ark--a vast aperture which he could not close up.

   It was an occasion of mercy to mankind and Noah was probably glad to
   see it open that he might still preach righteousness and warn men to
   escape, saying, "The door is open! Come, you great sinners! Enter, you
   sons of Anak. Come and be saved!"--

   "Come to the ark, before yet the flood Your lingering steps oppose!
   Come, for the door which open stood Is now about to close!"

   Yet when he had done his sermon and went home, perhaps he said to his
   wife, "Beloved, how can this ark save us? That door, if ever the floods
   come, will be a dreadful danger to us. We cannot shut it! What is to be
   done? We must leave it with God. We are still dependent upon a Divine
   interposition and Jehovah will stretch out His hand and shut the door
   effectually so that we shall float above the deluge."

   In this condition of daily dependence, the Lord would have His people
   abide, conscious to the very last that in Him, only, do they live!
   "Without Me you can do nothing." We are entirely dependent upon our
   faithful, loving God for everything! If I were to get up to Heaven's
   wall and gaze in through the pearly gates, I know that if God did not
   give me Grace to take the last step, I would die upon the threshold of
   the Celestial City! We rest upon God at the first for hope and pardon
   and the same is the case to the end. "My Soul, wait only upon God, for
   my expectation is from Him." You will never be able to throw your cap
   up and say, "I have done with further prayer and watchfulness, for I
   need no longer depend on God." Never will you cease to look unto the
   Lord for your salvation till you shall be safely housed in Heaven--

   "Far from a world of grief and sin, With God eternally shut in."

   Then joyfully will you confess that salvation is of the Lord and
   glorify your great God and Savior. Thus the text tells us that Noah was
   shut in and that he was shut in by God.

   But now let us remember that he was shut in with God, for in the first
   verse of the chapter we read, "The Lord said unto Noah, Come you and
   all your house into the ark." This clearly shows that the Lord was
   already in the ark. O what a joy it is to know that when a soul is
   buried to the world it lives with Christ! "For if we have been planted
   together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
   of His resurrection." God is in Christ Jesus and we are in Christ
   Je-sus--and thus we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son
   Jesus! The Tabernacle of God among men is the Person of Christ! And
   when we are joined unto the Lord and become members of His body, we are
   alive unto God and have fellowship with Him!

   It is a blissful privilege to be hidden away in the Person of Christ,
   for, "in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are
   complete in Him." You are in Him, that is true, joined unto the Lord in
   one spirit. Oh the fellowship the saved have with God! How cheering!
   How near! How elevating! How strengthening! God has left all the world
   to its own destruction, but in the ark, Christ Jesus, there is joy,
   peace and fellowship--for God is there and all His redeemed family are
   shut in with Him! Happy man, to be enclosed in the secret place of the
   Tabernacle of the Most High! He shall abide under the shadow of the
   Almighty.

   Next, notice that Noah's happiness was all the greater because he was
   shut in the ark with all his family. This is a great joy, to have all
   your household brought unto the faith of Christ. Some among us have one
   or two of their family still without Christ and strangers to His
   salvation. This is a great grief. I will not enlarge upon a subject so
   painful, but I know instances in which godly women have all their
   children with them in Christ, but the husband is still a stranger to
   the Covenant of promise. There is a Brother among us who joys to dwell
   in Christ, but his father and mother are still without God and without
   Christ! How often have we heard that dear Brother's prayer for his
   relatives! Perhaps his parents are here and, if so, I would tell them
   how much their son's prayers affect me. He cries as for his very life
   that God would save his father! Some among us never pray in the Prayer
   Meeting without strong crying and tears for their kinsmen according to
   the flesh--they cannot get through a prayer without mentioning their
   children, or their brothers, or

   others of their house--I hope they never will! I hope God will lay
   their kindred on their heart as a heavy burden till they are all saved
   in answer to prayer!

   Noah would have been an unhappy man that day if his wife had been
   outside the ark, or if Shem or Ham had been outside, or if Japhet's
   wife, or any other had been left to perish. How joyful are they who can
   say that all theirs are God's. You are very pleased, some of you, to
   see your sons and daughters respectably settled in life. Thank God for
   His gracious Providence, but, mark you, if they were all poor and you
   saw them all saved--that would be the highest cause for gratitude!
   Better to see them regenerate than rich! Better married to Christ than
   to a fortune! Give your God no rest till it is so and if there is one
   who seems quite outside of spiritual things, pray for him as Abraham
   prayed for Ishmael, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!" It is
   better you should pray hard for them while they live, than that you
   should mourn bitterly over them when dead, as David did when he
   lamented aloud, "O Absalom, my son! Would God I had died for you! O
   Absalom, my son, my son!" May the Lord, when He blesses us as He did
   Jacob, extend that blessing to all our tribes and cause all that are
   born unto us to be born again unto Himself.

   Noah and his household were shut in, dear Friends, to be perfectly
   preserved, and then to come forth into a new world. The rains
   descended, the springs poured forth their fountains, the waters rose
   and the huge vessel began to leave the ground and to walk the waters
   like a thing of life. I think the little company might well have sung a
   hymn, but if they did, it is probable that the hymn was brought to a
   pause as they heard the cries of drowning men and women outside. I
   cannot attempt to picture the scene--they must have come clustering in
   great multitudes round the ark when they saw that in very deed the
   flood was descending and rising! As the fast-closed ark began to move,
   the inmates must have heard a chorus of cries, groans and shrieks of
   men and women as they perished in the insatiable waters!

   Down poured the incessant showers, beating on the roof with perpetual
   thunder. The bidden eight were in solitude, shut in from the
   all-enveloping sheet of rain. The waters continued to gather and still
   the ark rose. Though they could scarcely tell where they were amid the
   watery solitude, they knew that they were safe. When they looked out
   and saw no living thing, not even the top of a mountain, and they were
   floating on a sea that knew no shore, how strange must have been their
   sensations! But the Lord had shut Noah in, so he was perfectly safe.
   Noah knew that the Lord High Admiral of the seas was at the helm to
   steer the lonely ship aright. Then came a strong wind to evaporate the
   waters and how the ark must have sped before the gale, none knew where!
   It was tossed about, doubtless, for it is the nature of winds to raise
   waves--and where there was no shore to give the slightest shelter, the
   vessel must have felt all their force. Yet the favored family was
   safe--

   "Without deep calls unto deep, But all is peace within."

   The waters subsided and, by-and-by, the ark came to a strange
   sensation, for its keel was touching the earth--it was coming to its
   rest. God remembered Noah and brought the ark to rest on the mountains
   of Ararat. But will the ark ground safely? Perhaps she will break her
   back on a rock, or slide down the side of a hill, or over the brink of
   a precipice! No, no. He who was her Architect will be her Preserver!
   God has found an anchorage for the stars and He can surely berth a
   ship! He found the ark a safe resting place and brought out all her
   passengers safe and sound. He is berthing many a vessel, now, in the
   everlasting harbors, and He has such skill in navigation that no vessel
   which belongs to Him shall ever come to an ill end! So far, Noah fared
   well and felt solid ground beneath him once again. Now the waters
   quickly disappear, but what a mass of mud--shall the rescued family run
   the risk of fever and pollution? They shall not be let out till the
   land is dry--when the earth has been fertilized by its own destruction
   and is ready to receive the seed from the sower's hand--and the grass
   has begun to grow for the cattle!

   Then shall they come out into a new world. How fair the face of Nature
   so newly washed! How like a bride decked for her marriage day! God sets
   open wide the door and out they come--camels, elephants, sheep,
   lions--Noah and all his family rejoicing to range at liberty! A
   sacrifice is offered and God smells a savor of rest. So shall it be
   with us--shut in with Christ away from this world to which we are not
   conformed--we shall ride in safety as exiled beings out of this old
   world into another! A day comes when the new Heaven and the new earth
   shall be seen and then the meek shall inherit the earth and shall
   delight themselves in the abundance of peace! Then shall our sacrifice
   of praise be accepted of the

   Lord!

   Blessed are they who enter into the ark of Jesus Christ and so die to
   the old life that they may live in newness of life, rejoicing in Him
   who sits upon the Throne of God and says, "Behold, I make all things
   new!" This is your lot and mine forever and ever!

   II. I have purposely reserved only a very few minutes for the second
   and much more painful point of my discourse, which comes out of the
   words, SHUT OUT. To have the door shut is well enough for Noah and
   those who are with him, but as for all the rest, that big door, when it
   closed on its hinges, shut them all out! Shut them all out to perish
   with a swift and sure destruction! Who were they? I wonder if any of
   the sort are here! Well, they were a people that had been preached
   to--Noah was a "preacher of righteousness"--and fulfilled his office
   perseveringly. The men of his generation were not left to perish
   without the Light of God--they had been warned, they had been
   instructed, they had been entreated.

   They were such as you are who have been habitual hearers of the Word of
   God, but hearers only. Of course, you have, none of you, heard the
   Gospel for 120 years from one man, but many of you have heard it quite
   long enough to have incurred great guilt in having rejected it so
   often. They were a people who had been prayed for. You will ask me how
   I come to know that. I answer that Ezekiel speaks of three men notable
   as intercessors, Noah, Daniel and Job--and I feel sure he would not
   have mentioned Noah in that company if he had not been a man of great
   prayer. I believe that Noah prayed much for his generation and yet they
   were not saved. I am sure, dear Hearers, that some of you are daily the
   object of earnest supplication.

   On Monday nights I have had notes about some of you, and hundreds, and
   even thousands of us have joined together in praying for you! Beside
   that, you know the dear ones at home are earnestly interceding for you
   and some who are now in Heaven pleaded hard for you before they
   departed. Yet you will be shut out as sure as you are alive unless you
   flee to Christ and enter into His salvation very soon. They were a
   people who had, many of them, been associated with Noah in his work. It
   is hardly likely that Noah built the ark with his own hands all
   alone--he must have hired fellers of trees and carpenters, caulkers and
   shipwrights of various kinds. None of these were saved. It is a sad
   thing that those who helped to build the ark were shut out of it!

   Remember, however, that they shut themselves out! They chose their own
   destruction. Do I speak to any who have subscribed to build the house
   in which they worship? Who contribute their share to the expenses of
   the Church and to the help of the poor and to the education of the
   young--and yet have no part in Christ? I do not understand those of you
   who are zealous in promoting religion and yet have no share in the
   great salvation! Why will you resolve to be shut out? As sure as ever
   you sit on that seat, you will be shut out of Heaven and shut out of
   Christ forever unless you arise and go unto your Father confessing your
   sins and seeking His mercy! May God awaken you to flee from the wrath
   to come!

   These people in Noah's time had seen great wonders. Half the world must
   have gathered to see the camels and elephants, eagles and peacocks,
   snails and worms--all come running, or flying, or creeping to the ark!
   Such a sight never could have been seen before! There they come in
   pairs--four wild beasts, two and two--and clean beasts by sevens!
   Voluntarily entering the ark! What a sight it must have been! Many saw
   it and confessed that God's hand was in it and yet they did not enter
   the ark, themselves. Oh, my Hearers, some of you have been here in
   times of revival! You have seen drunks saved! You have seen the most
   unlikely ones converted and yet you have not turned unto the Lord! Be
   you sure of this--you will be shut out of hope forever! May God grant
   it may never be so! But unless you repent, it will be the case.

   Let me read you a passage from the Gospel of Luke. And as I read it,
   think of it and tremble--"When once the master of the house is risen up
   and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the
   door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us! He shall answer and say unto
   you, I know you not from where you are--then shall you begin to say, We
   have eaten and drunk in Your Presence, and You have taught in our
   streets. But He shall say, I tell you, I know you not from where you
   are! Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity. There shall be
   weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham, and Isaac,
   and Jacob, and all the Prophets in the Kingdom of God, and you
   yourselves thrust out." Thrust out--pushed out, not permitted to enter
   the great door interposing between you and all hope of mercy!

   Next, notice what they did. What they did was this--they were a people
   who took all their delight in worldly things. We are told in the New
   Testament that they "ate and they drank, they married and were given in
   marriage, till the day that Noah entered into the ark." They were
   altogether taken up with this world--like some of you who have no

   regard for the world to come--but live as if this life would be
   everything. Prayer, praise and looking into eternal things are all a
   weariness to you--you look after the shop and the farm and the
   house--and forget God. I do not blame you for diligence in business any
   more than I blame these people for eating and drinking and marrying!
   But to make this the main thing in life is to despise God and Heaven
   and eternity! O my Hearer, remember your God! Remember your Savior!
   Remember your soul! Remember death! Heaven! Hell! How little do you
   think of these thing! Be not like these ungodly ones who gave their
   hearts to worldly things!

   And then they did not believe. That was the point. Whatever Noah might
   say they replied, "Poor old man, you have entered on a second
   childhood. Perhaps when we are 500 years old, we shall talk nonsense,
   too." When the Patriarch came to be 600 years old, they said, "That
   greybeard is always telling us these stories," and they jested at the
   old man's fable. Alas, some of you do not believe the Gospel and,
   therefore, do not seek its salvation! But it is true and you will
   acknowledge it to be so when you get breast deep in the fire-flood, as
   you will be before long! Oh that you would believe and escape from the
   wrath to come!

   They despised the long-suffering of God! They said, "Here has Noah been
   telling us these 120 years that a flood is coming and where is it?"
   Among ourselves it is a common proverb, "Christmas is coming," but in
   Noah's days there must have been more sting in the proverb, "The deluge
   is coming." They would not believe that such a thing could ever be.
   Some say, "I have gone on very well. I have had no religion and yet I
   have always prospered. I have seen godly people getting poor, but I
   have always added field to field and house to house. I do not need
   religion. I am comfortable enough without it." If we say we pity them,
   they reply, "We do not want your pity." Just so! But the tables will be
   turned before long and then you will demand our pity, though it will
   avail you nothing, for the door will be shut!

   Once let God shut the door and there will be an eternal separation
   between the ungodly and all hope and happiness. What came of it, then?
   The door of hope was shut and the multitude perished without hope! When
   I was thinking this over I fancied that I could preach about it, but I
   cannot. When I realize the fact that any one of my dear hearers could
   be shut out of Heaven I cannot bear it! I need to find a secret place
   to weep. If an angel should say to me, this morning, "All your hearers
   shall be saved but one and you must pick out the one who shall be shut
   out of Heaven," I should run my eyes anxiously up and down these lines
   of pews--and I should take up many an hour and at last cry--"No, I
   cannot take the responsibility of marking out the doomed man!"

   I would keep you here, I think, till I died, before I could make the
   horrible death-choice. I would say, "Lord, save everyone." And as for
   the marked man, I would cry, "Spare him! Do spare him!" Oh, my Hearers,
   will you do for yourselves what I could not dare to do for you? Will
   any man choose for himself to be lost? Will he count himself unworthy
   of eternal life and take it from himself? Then I must shake off the
   dust of my feet against him! I will have none of the responsibility! If
   you will be damned, you must do it yourselves! I will not be a partaker
   in the crime. Your blood be on your own heads! Go down to the Pit if
   you will deliberately choose to do so, but know this, that Christ was
   preached to you and you would not have Him! You were invited to come to
   Him, but turned your backs upon Him! You chose for yourselves your own
   eternal destruction! God grant you may repent of such a choice, for
   Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Dressing In The Morning

   (No. 1614)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 21, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And that, kno wing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of
   sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. The
   nightis far spent, the day is athand: let us therefore cast off the
   works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk
   honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in
   chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put you on
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill
   the lusts thereof." Romans 13:11-14.

   THIS passage is a piece of holy teaching set forth under the parable of
   rising in the morning and preparing for the work of the day. May the
   Holy Spirit help me to place it before you in a clear light. It is a
   great mistake in a man's life when he does not know the times in which
   he lives and how to act in them--and when he does not know the time as
   to the day of his own life, so as to apply his heart unto wisdom. The
   Apostle speaks of his Roman brethren as "knowing the time." What, then,
   is the time of day with the Christian? It is no longer the dead of the
   night with us, but, "the night is far spent, the day is at hand." A
   little while ago the dense darkness of ignorance was about us, but the
   Gospel has made us light in the Lord. We were asleep in the gloom of
   sin--like a thick cloud it enveloped all our powers--but God has
   brought us out of darkness into His marvelous Light.

   Some of us were plunged in despair, a night without a moon, without a
   star. We were without hope and feared that our future would be the
   "blackness of darkness forever." That hopeless gloom is over and we
   have the Light of God and joy in Christ Jesus. The daystar is shining
   upon us, the Light of God that lightens the Gentiles cheers our path
   and we look for a perfect day though it is not, as yet, full day with
   us. Cloudless brightness is still a thing of desire and expectation.
   The sun has risen, but it is not noon as yet. For that we look when we
   shall see the Well-Beloved in His kingdom and wake up in His likeness.
   "The day is at hand," says the Apostle, and that is a word of good
   cheer!

   What, then, is "the time" which Paul would have us know? It is the
   early morning, it is the dawning of the eternal day. The sun has
   scattered the thick darkness of Nature's night. We are enjoying his
   first golden beams--the time of the singing of birds has come--the time
   of the dew of Grace and of the fresh breath of the Spirit. It is not
   full day yet but, still, the night has gone and the perfect day of our
   salvation, when body and soul, too, shall be delivered from every taint
   and trace of the work of Satan, is "nearer than when we believed." The
   light and heat of day are strengthening. The darkness and chill of
   night are vanishing. We are getting further off from the power of
   ignorance, sin and despair. We are getting more and more under the
   influence of knowledge, holiness and hope!

   The Apostle would have us know for sure that the true Light of God now
   shines, even that which will grow brighter and brighter unto the
   perfect day! Joy be to our souls, the Sun of Righteousness has risen
   upon us with healing beneath His wings! Of what value is the knowledge
   of the time of day? It lies here. Certain duties arise out of the hour.
   "Man goes forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening." From
   morning to evening and from evening to morning, again, there is a round
   of duty to be fulfilled and each work is pleasing if attended to in its
   own season. When the shadows of evening fall, the time has come for
   going home, where domestic joys await us at the hearth. It would not be
   right for the laboring man to go home in the morning, nor seemly for
   him to be going out at night.

   Each duty has its own time of day and, therefore, the Apostle would
   have us know the hour and be assured that it is high time to awake out
   of sleep. He urges us to the duties which attend the hour of rising,
   the hour to which we have now come. As my Master helps me, I shall
   endeavor, first of all, to give the morning call. And then, secondly,
   to preach the morning Gospel.

   I. First, LISTEN TO THE MORNING CALL. I have shown you that the hour of
   the day is that in which men should rise and begin their daily service.
   And its first seasonable duty is to awake--"It is high time to awake
   out of sleep." When day begins sleep should end. The bugle sounds in
   the camp, "Awake! Awake!" But are not all Christians awake? Yes, from
   the sleep of death, but not from other kinds of sleep. Many need rough
   shaking and loud calling before they will be thoroughly awakened.
   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, I speak to you upon whom the Light of God
   has arisen and who are now delivered from the power of darkness, for
   you will not deny that it is high time for you to shake off the bands
   of slumber.

   You should rise from the sleep of inaction. Do not let your religion
   consist in receiving all and doing nothing! Work while it is called
   today and, as you wish to be faithful servants of your gracious Lord,
   be up at once. It is time for you to stir yourselves and see what can
   be done with the golden hours for the glory of your Redeemer's name! Go
   forth and see what herbs are to be planted, what weeds are to be rooted
   up, what part of the garden needs watering and which of the vines need
   pruning. Your Master's vineyard needs constant labor, for He, Himself,
   keeps it with unceasing care. Up, then, gird up your loins and yield
   your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God!

   Leave, also, all lethargy behind you. At night a man may yawn and
   stretch himself as he likes, but when the morning comes, good Sir, have
   done with yawning and display energy! Look about you and be brisk, for
   the day will be none too long. Does not the song of the birds and the
   glitter of the dew bid you shake off your slumber and have done with
   list-lessness? Oh, I hate to see some professing Christian people go
   about the Lord's work in such a languid way, as if it did not matter
   how their Lord was served. Ah me! If God were obeyed with half the
   activity with which the devil is served, we should soon see a change in
   Church life! Men are wide awake when they are serving themselves!
   Jingle a guinea seven miles off and they will hear it! But if service
   is to be done for Christ, you must put the clarion to your mouth and
   blow a blast as loud as the judgment summons, before you can wake men
   up to hearty enthusiasm! It is high time that we woke out of
   half-heartedness!

   Moreover, it is time to have done with dreaming. That is proper for the
   night, but not for the morning. An ungodly man's pursuits are mere
   dreams. He hunts after shadows; he feeds upon ashes; his weightiest
   business is a mere vision, a thing of nothing! You who are not of the
   night must not dote on the world's shadows, but look for heavenly
   substance. Live for eternal realities. Set about business that is real
   in God's sight, such business as you will think worthy of your heart
   when you come to die and when you stand before the Judgment Seat of
   God! Have done with daydreams as well as night dreams and come to stern
   matters of eternal fact. Trifle no longer! The time past may suffice
   you for that. Be earnest! Be all awake, put forth all your powers,
   awaken all your faculties. "It is high time to awake out of sleep."

   When awake, what is the next duty? Is it not to cast off your night
   clothes? Our text says, "Let us therefore cast off the works of
   darkness." The man who is just awakened and finds that it is morning
   light, must, first of all, take off the garments which covered him
   during the night. He quits his bed and, in so doing, shakes off his bed
   clothes and leaves them. Your friends do not come downstairs wrapped in
   the sheets which wrapped them at night--we should suppose they were
   seeking their graves if they did! The covers of night are not our
   covers by day. There must be a casting off in the morning before there
   can be a putting on--there is a measure of undressing before we
   commence to dress.

   Simple and homely as the figure is, it conveys a lesson which I pray
   you to remember. Sins and follies are to be cast off when we put on the
   garments of the Light of God. I have known a man profess to be
   converted, but he has merely put religion over his old character. He
   has been a passionate man with bad companions and all he has done is to
   carry his bad temper into a Church meeting. He has been accustomed to
   drink more wine than is good for him and all the change is that he
   drinks it in respectable company or in secret. He has taken up the
   saint without casting off the sinner! The rags of his lust are rotting
   under the raiment of his profession!

   This will never do! Christ has not come to save you in your sins but
   from your sins! Anger and drunkenness, and such like, must be gotten
   rid of! Christ never came that you might christen your anger by the
   name of warmth and your drunkenness with the name of liberty! I have
   heard of persons living unclean lives who have heard that faith in
   Jesus Christ would save them who have misunderstood this doctrine so
   grievously that they have thought of believing in Christ and continuing
   in their evil ways! That attempt will be their ruin. Rahab the harlot
   was saved by faith, but she was saved from being a harlot any longer.
   The rags of sin must come off if we put on the robe of Christ. There
   must be a taking away of the love of sin! There must be a renouncing of
   the practices and habits of sin, or else a man cannot be a Christian!

   It will be an idle attempt to try and wear religion as a sort of
   celestial overall over the top of old sins. The King's daughter is all
   glorious within, or she would never have received her clothing of
   worked gold. The vision of Zechariah teaches us the way of the
   Lord--when he saw Joshua clothed with filthy garments, the Lord did not
   put upon him a goodly vesture over these--but He first said, "Take away
   the filthy garments from him." And then He added, "Behold, I have
   caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with
   change of raiment." You must be cleansed in the blood of Jesus before
   you can be clothed in the white linen which is the righteousness of the
   saints! See to it that, being awakened out of your sleep, you cast off
   all the garments of the night!

   What were they? We find a list of them in the third chapter of the
   Epistle to the Colossians. "But now you also put off all these: anger,
   wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." Were
   we fond of the joys of the ungodly? Take them off! Did we speak things
   which are untrue? Cast them off! Could we sing a loose, lascivious
   song? Cast it off! Were we angry, morose, malicious? Put it off! Were
   we greedy, grasping, covetous? Cast it off! Alas, many professors are
   as greedy of gain as they ever were, but they wear religion over the
   top of their miserly rags and want you to call the churl generous,
   though he is as stingy as he can be! Whatever it is that is unworthy of
   the light of day, let us cast it off.

   The Apostle says, "cast off." Let the habits of "your sinful nature be
   from now on regarded as castoffs--cast them right away and say, "I have
   done with them! There will not be another night for me and, therefore,
   I shall not need them. Bury them, burn them--they are my castoffs." Let
   us only remember our evil habits to weep over them! Let us only speak
   of them to warn others and to glorify the Grace of God! As to ever
   bringing out our ill habit and trying to put them on, occasionally, God
   forbid it should be so!

   So far we have described our getting up--first, we awake and then we
   cast off the garments of darkness. Now we must put on our morning
   dress. The Believer should at once look to his toilet and array himself
   for the day--"Let us put on the armor of light." "What?" says one,
   "armor? Why, I thought my danger was over! The darkness has departed
   and I am no longer afraid of thieves and robbers, for the daylight has
   come. Why, then, should I put on armor?" Is it not instructive that no
   sooner do we awake than we have to put on "the whole armor of God"?
   Does it not warn us that a day of battle is coming? Brothers and
   Sisters, you may as well expect a conflict, for it is sure to come, and
   it will be wise to put on your harness for the fight!

   Dress according to what you will meet with during the day. You are not
   at Home yet--the land of peace is yet beyond you. Young converts think
   that they have got to Heaven, or very near it, but it is not so. You
   will get there one day, but the time is not yet. You are in an enemy's
   country--put on the armor of the Light of God! Perhaps before you get
   down to breakfast, an arrow will be shot at you by the great enemy. Or
   you may come downstairs after your morning prayers feeling as safe as
   if you were among the angels--and yet you will not get through the
   first meal in the day without an assault from the archenemy, or an
   outburst of your own corruptions, or an attack from the world! Your
   foes may be found in your own household and they may wound you at your
   own table!

   Before you leave your bed-chamber you had better put on girdle, helmet,
   breastplate, shield--you had better take the complete panoply! A
   Christian is never safe unless he is protected from head to foot by
   Divine Grace, for in such a world as this you know not behind what bush
   the assassin may be lurking, or from what corner the fatal bolt may
   fly. Go forth as a mailed knight to the war, for the battle rages on
   all sides and you need the armor of righteousness on the right hand and
   on the left. The saint must be a man of war from his youth. He must
   pray that his hands may be taught to war and his fingers to fight.

   The Greek word, however, may be understood to signify not only armor,
   but such garments as are fitted and suitable for the day's work. These
   should be put on at once and our soul should be dressed for service.
   Pray God to clothe you in such style that you may be ready for whatever
   comes. You are not a gentleman on the parade, but a workman in his
   workday clothes. Some people are too fine to do real service for the
   Lord. When the Duke of Wellington asked one of our soldiers how he
   would like to be dressed if he had to fight the battle of Waterloo
   again, he answered that he should like to be in his shirt sleeves. How
   I wish that Christians would get into their shirt sleeves, as if they
   meant to work for Jesus! I like to see the carpenter with his apron on
   bending down to his work and not sitting on the bench swinging his legs
   all day.

   Alas, that some Christians should be usually seen in this latter
   posture! O Brothers and Sisters, it is morning with you and I beseech
   you by the mercies of God, array yourselves to do your Lord's bidding!
   What said God to Jeremiah? "Gird up your loins and arise." Brace your
   soul to action--there is work for you to do today which angels might
   well envy you! Go forth like a man ready for work. The Lord would have
   us live with our loins girt about, our lamps trimmed and our lights
   burning because we have come to an hour when idleness and inaction are
   out of place--earnest, watchful diligence is required of us! Let us put
   on the garments of the Light of God and let us work while it is day,
   for our Father works and Jesus works.

   Now you are dressed, what next? It remains that we walk forth and
   behave as in the Light of God. The directions are explicit--"Let us
   walk honestly, as in the day," which means let our demeanor be such as
   becomes daylight. How should a child of light conduct himself? The word
   translated, "honestly," may mean, "decently"--with decorum and dignity.
   In the middle of the night, if you have to go about the house, you are
   not particular as to how you are dressed--there is no person to see
   you--and so you will slip from one room to another in casual dress. But
   when you rise in the morning and come down to your day's work, you
   choose to be somewhat neat. You do not go out to your business
   slip-shod and half-dressed, but you array yourself according to your
   station in an appropriate manner.

   Let it be so with you spiritually--holiness is the highest decency, the
   most becoming apparel. You live in the daylight, Brothers and Sisters,
   therefore walk as one who is "compassed about with so great a cloud of
   witnesses." Yet more--walk as one who has the eyes of God upon him,
   which is infinitely more. "You God see me." King of kings, should I
   rush into Your court in casual dress? Should I ask you to walk with me
   while I am all undressed, or wearing filthy rags which I ought long ago
   to have cast away? The soul's appearance should be a matter of great
   care. "Be you clean," says God. He will not walk with us unless we keep
   our garments unspotted from the world--He would have us observe that
   dignity of spirit and conduct which are becoming in the Temple of God.

   Sleep in what garments you may, but when you walk abroad in the day,
   take heed, O princes of the blood royal of Heaven, that your raiment is
   according to your rank! "Walk honestly," says our translation, because
   that is the right thing for daylight. The thief breaks through and
   steals beneath the cover of darkness, but a child of the Light of God
   must be upright and just. I earnestly beg all professing Christians to
   be honest in heart and then they will be honest in word and deed. You
   ask me, "Do you mean that we should pay our debts?" Of course! I mean
   all that, but I mean far more--be honest when you speak to others and
   of others. Do not say of any man behind his back that which you would
   not utter to his face. Do not carry a mask about with you--it is a
   horrible instrument of torture to an honest man. Say what you mean, and
   mean what you say.

   Many act upon quite another principle, practicing reserve and policy,
   if not duplicity. They bring themselves into a great deal of trouble by
   being cunning and, "playing their cards well," as they say. What has a
   Christian to do with such a deceitful piece of gaming? Walk honestly!
   Let all your actions be such as will bear the Light of God! A man that
   stands under a powerful electric light bearing right down on him would
   feel uncomfortable with everybody looking at him. At any rate, he would
   be careful what he did. Behold, the Light of eternity is shining full
   upon your soul! God Himself sees you! You stand in the blaze of the
   eternal day. O Christian, act with transparent honesty! Have nothing to
   conceal-- come to the Light of God that your deeds may be made manifest
   that they are worked in God. Be clothed with the Light of God and walk
   in the Light as God is in the Light.

   Our position in the light of the morning demands of us one more point
   of behavior--we must renounce the deeds of darkness. If we have been
   truly awakened and have put on the garments of the Light of God, it
   behooves us to have done with the things that belong to the night. I
   will not dwell upon them at any great length, but I may not pass them
   over, since the Apostle thought it necessary to mention three pairs of
   evils with which we must have done. He mentions them because even in
   Christian assemblies it is necessary to denounce these things. People
   exclaim against the preacher if he speaks plainly about the vices of
   the times. "Really, it is shocking," says one, "I do not like to hear
   such indelicate things referred to."

   No, no, ladies and gentlemen who do such things cannot bear to hear of
   them by way of rebuke! I have noticed that none are more fantastically
   nice than the morally nasty; none are so ready to find fault when a
   spade is called a spade as those whose morals most need digging. They
   will commit the vice themselves, but they cannot bear to hear it
   men-tioned--it shocks their marvelously delicate minds! The Apostle
   Paul felt none of the noxious daintiness which touches

   sin with a delicate hand--he speaks out plainly and he says that all
   Christian people, first, must have done with sensuality, which he
   describes as "rioting and drunkenness." If a drinking bout is held, it
   is usually at night. Banquets generally begin in the evening--if they
   become scenes of gluttony and drunkenness they advance far into the
   night. But the sun rebukes such orgies and men usually give heed to the
   warning--"they that are drunk are drunk in the night." Christian men
   have done with night and ought to have done with all excess in meat and
   drink. Alas, there are some who spend more over a single dinner for a
   few than would keep families of poor people a month! Gluttony is seldom
   mentioned as a possible fault, and yet I fear it is far from being an
   obsolete vice among professed followers of Jesus!

   "Drunkenness." Well, I need not say how shameful it is in any man, but
   he that professes to be a Christian man, how temperate, how abstinent
   should he be, for intoxication is a soul-destroying sin and no drunk
   can enter the Kingdom of God! These are night vices--let the children
   of night have them if they will--as for us, we desire to be filled with
   the Spirit and fed upon the Bread of Heaven, for we are the children of
   the day! We have nobler feasts than the banquets of revelers and more
   choice wines than the vintage of Sodom can yield! Take heed, Brothers
   and Sisters, of these works of darkness!

   Then Paul denounces impurity by saying, "not in chambering and
   wantonness." It is an awful thing when a man calls himself by the name
   of Christian and yet can be foul in language, unchaste in conversation,
   lascivious in spirit, wicked in life. If any man indulges in
   fornication and adultery and yet calls himself a Christian, he will
   surely come under the curse of God! We speak of such persons weeping,
   for they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ. Oh that you who are
   young might be kept from anything like looseness or effeminacy! Avoid
   glances, words and thoughts which tend that way. Do not go near the
   borders of that sin, for men and women sin not grossly all at
   once--they slide by degrees--as the vessel slides from the stocks into
   the sea at the time of its launching. It moves very little at first,
   but, by-and-by it gathers impetus and glides rapidly into the deep. God
   keep you from sins of the flesh, for they are a deep ditch and the
   abhorred of the Lord fall into them! They are base deeds of the
   night--does not Nature, itself, teach us so? Vice walks abroad beneath
   the moon--it is by night that our streets are defiled! O you who have
   reached the morning light, abhor these things and hate even the garment
   spotted by the flesh!

   The next night deed is passion--passion taking the two shapes of
   "strife and envying." Brawls are for the night. Fierce assaults disturb
   us in our sleep, but they are not usual in the day. So Christian men,
   being of the day, are not to strive. It is a great pity when strife
   comes into a family, when brother is divided from brother and father
   from son and when relatives cannot speak well of one another. These
   bitter things are for the night--you have reached the daylight and must
   have done with them! Envy is a thing of darkness and shame--that
   "green-eyed monster" comes out in the dark and finds fault with those
   who are better than itself. Sinners do not like good men because their
   excellence rebukes them and, therefore, they endeavor to mar their
   reputation. This evil is not of the day! Leave it, scorn it, dread it,
   abhor it! God deliver you from it! Away, then, from all deeds of
   darkness, and seek only that which may be set in the face of the sun
   and cause no man to blush.

   II. Now, I have preached so long upon things required of you that you
   are beginning to say, "Ah me, how much there is for us to do! How shall
   we ever accomplish it? We have to wake, to cast off our night garments,
   to dress in suitable attire, to behave ourselves as children of the
   Light of God and to avoid the deeds of darkness. Alas, what shall we
   do?" Now listen, you anxious ones--here is something sweet and blessed
   for you--you shall be inclined and helped to obey in all things!
   Therefore listen diligently and hear, that your souls may live! I
   preach to you THE MORNING GOSPEL. Here it is--"Put you on the Lord
   Jesus Christ."

   This verse has been rendered very famous in Church history, since that
   chief among the fathers, the mighty teacher, Augustine, found the Light
   of God through reading this verse. He had been leading an ungodly and,
   more or less, dissipated life, when he began, in a measure, to think
   upon his condition, and he thought he heard a voice saying to him,
   "Tolle, lege. Tolle, lege!" "Take up and read." So, taking up the New
   Testament which lay near, he began to read it and, as God would have
   it, he opened upon this very place, and he read--"Let us walk honestly,
   as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and
   wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put you on the Lord Jesus
   Christ."

   Here are his words, which I will read to you--"I would read no further,
   for I needed not; for when I had read to the end of this sentence, all
   the darkness of doubtfulness vanished away, as if some clear light of
   security were poured into my heart. It was as if it had been said, 'O
   man, acknowledge your misery, you are naked; cover your filthiness: put
   upon you

   Jesus Christ!' And forthwith I felt a fire within me. My heart was
   lightened, the scales fell from my eyes--I was able to see!" How
   earnestly do I desire that these words may strike some of you in the
   same powerful manner! Does anyone here desire to take off his old
   garments of sin and to dress in robes of holiness? And does he mourn
   over an empty wardrobe? Look, here is a robe for him--"Put you on the
   Lord Jesus Christ."

   Did I hear one cry, "You told us to put on armor, but we have neither
   shield nor breastplate! How can we put on the armor of light?" Here is
   the panoply--"Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ." Does a man cry, "I am
   afraid to go into the world undressed and I dare not put on the old
   garments of darkness! What can I do?" Here it is! Here is the death of
   sin and the life of holiness--"Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ." Oh,
   blessed, charming words! I wish I had the power to fully set forth its
   meaning before you. For, first, in the Lord Jesus Christ there is
   covering for your nakedness! The garment covers the man--he is hidden
   and his garments are seen. Come, then, poor Sinner, and take by faith
   the Lord Jesus Christ to be a covering for your soul! You are naked,
   but He will be your robe of righteousness!

   There is in the Lord Jesus a complete and suitable apparel for your
   soul, by which every blemish and defilement shall be put out of sight
   according to the word, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
   and whose sin is covered." In Christ Jesus there is merit to cover our
   demerit, purity to cover our impurity, obedience to cover our
   disobedience, beauty to cover our deformity, perfection to cover our
   imperfection, acceptance to cover our provocation! We are comely with
   the comeliness which the Lord Jesus puts upon us. He is seen and we are
   hidden, or only seen in Him so as to be accepted in the Beloved! We
   have nothing to do but to enter into Christ by faith, for, virtually,
   that is what a man has to do with his garments--he gets into them and
   so he who puts on Christ is in Christ! Christ is over him and round
   about him.

   Did a poor naked, shivering soul ever hear more pleasant words than
   these--"Put on Christ"? You may do so, for the Lord commands it. Was
   there ever a sweeter message? You, poor Soul, just awakened out of
   sleep and startled into saying, "What must I do to be saved?" Here is
   Jesus set before you! He is perfect in righteousness, matchless in
   holiness, unrivalled in beauty and you may put Him on and stand clothed
   in that righteousness and beauty! I hear you say, "I see Him, but how
   is He to be mine?" He is yours by God's free gift--put Him on! You have
   not to improve upon Him, or add to Him, or embellish Him, but to take
   Him as you take your coat and put Him on! There He is--He is a robe
   that delights to be worn! Myriads of souls have tried this garment and
   it has been exactly suitable to everyone out of all who have put it on!
   This is all you have to do--put it on--and that the Holy Spirit will
   help you to do!

   You have not to make the garment, to decorate the garment, or in any
   way to add to it or to alter it, but only to put it on! Nakedness,
   poverty, or guilt need not prevent a man's putting on a robe which is
   provided for him. Put it on! Put it on! This is a most vivid picture of
   what Faith does. She puts Christ about her and He covers all. Faith
   does not say, "I must clothe myself and then put on Christ." No, no!
   Its cry is, "Because I am naked I cover myself with Christ!" The soul
   says, "I have nothing of my own that God can look upon with
   complacency, but I will put on Christ, for I know in Him God is well
   pleased." The sufferings of Jesus will be set to my account, His merits
   shall avail for me and His righteousness shall be my righteousness! Oh
   it is a blessed, blessed word!

   Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and sing, "He has clothed me with the
   garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of
   righteousness." "But," says one, "I need more than just to be covered.
   I must have a garment provided for my necessity, suitable for my
   everyday work." My text points you to a full supply--"Put you on the
   Lord Jesus Christ"--as the most suitable dress for a saint at work, as
   well as for a sinner desiring justification before God! As we have
   already said, a first necessity is to awake, and truly none can lie and
   dream after they have once beheld His glorious robe--they are eager to
   obtain it!

   Our next necessity is to cast off the old garments of the night and
   nothing helps us more than to put on Christ. Only look at this robe of
   righteousness as yours and you will loathe the filthy rags of sin at
   once! When a man perceives the perfection of the righteousness of
   Christ which is freely given to him by God, he abhors his sin, he loves
   his God and pines to be like He in holiness. There is no breeder of
   repentance like simple faith in Jesus Christ! Unbelieving philosophers
   tell us that if we preach salvation by faith in Christ alone, people
   will take license to sin--but in this they err from lack of
   observation. Now speak your own experience, Christian man--did you ever
   feel yourself moved to sin by the assurance of being justified by
   Christ's righteousness? Never was there such a case in this world!

   A man may hear about it and turn it into an excuse for sin, but he
   cannot, in his heart, believe it and do so. I know that when I most
   clearly see that I am saved by Christ alone, it is then that I most of
   all long to be holy. I never follow after personal righteousness so
   eagerly as when I know that my righteousness comes wholly from the
   Lord! The most grand motive power for the death of sin is the death of
   Christ and nothing makes us so eager to die unto sin as Christ's death
   for sin! Off goes the filthy raiment at the sight of the glorious,
   spotless righteousness which is freely presented to every needy sinner
   in Christ Jesus.

   Yes, and it is not only repentance that is thus worked by Christ, but
   all the power to be holy, to be gracious, to be forgiving, to be
   heroic, to be enthusiastic in the service of God--all comes through
   Christ when we are in Him. If you desire to be holy in life, the short
   path to it is to have done with your own righteousness and put on
   Christ! If the man who has been a drunk resolves to be sober, let him
   put on Christ and in Jesus he will deny himself. If the man who has
   been unchaste would gladly be pure in life and heart, let him put on
   the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill
   the lusts thereof. There is such a matchless power about a simple faith
   in Christ, when it puts on Christ to be our righteousness, that it
   leads the Believer to such a walk as is decorous, dignified, honorable,
   holy. The man is moved to walk worthy of the noble garment in which he
   is arrayed and his whole life rises out of the common level into the
   excellence of Grace!

   I would call attention to this garment very specially in a few words.
   The text says, "Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ." What made him use
   the three names there? Because he meant to point out the three senses
   in which we clothe ourselves from head to foot with Christ. "Put you on
   the Lord"--become His servant, wear His livery, let Him be your Rabbi,
   your Master, your King, your Lord. Put you on "Jesus," the
   Savior--acknowledge yourself as a saved one, saved by Him whose name is
   called Jesus--"for He shall save His people from their sins." Put you
   on "Christ"--that is the Anointed--take an anointing from God the Holy
   Spirit through Jesus Christ to whom He is given without measure. As
   Christ is anointed to be Prophet, Priest and King, put Him on in all
   these three offices and rejoice to do so. "Put you on the Lord Jesus
   Christ."

   Do not put on Jesus only as your Savior, put Him on as your Commander!
   Do not only put Him on as your Master and Savior, but as your Christ,
   anointed for you! Take a whole Christ to yourself that you may be
   wholly in Him and so may be spiritual, gracious, holy. Therefore may
   those around you see nothing of you, but much of your Lord. May your
   outward character be so Christlike that men may see Christ displayed
   upon you as a new garment is displayed by the act of wearing it. May
   the spirit of Glory and of Christ rest upon you! May you be clothed
   with power! Our Lord said to His disciples "Tarry at Jerusalem until
   you are endued with power from on high"--the word signifies, "clothed."
   If we are clothed with Christ, we shall be clothed with power from on
   high even as He has said, "the works that I do shall you do, also."
   Therefore put you on the Lord Jesus Christ.

   "Yes," but I hear another say, "I need not only raiment to cover my
   nakedness and supply my necessity, but I need apparel for my dignity.
   You told us that we were to walk abroad in a worthy and honorable
   manner." Ah, and so you will, if you put on Christ! Oh what a bright
   creature, in the sight of God, is the man who has put on Christ! God
   Himself asks no purer or more acceptable array. You never saw a
   seraph--bright like a flame of fire is each holy messenger of God--but
   if you could see a soul that is arrayed in Christ's righteousness, you
   would think a seraph a dull, dim thing compared with it! A seraph wears
   nothing but created brightness, but a child of God clothed in Christ
   wears uncreated splendor! The perfection of God is upon the soul that
   has put on Christ! Yes, and while God thus sees us in Christ and is
   well pleased with us, our fellows are obliged to admire us, too. If you
   put on Christ, so that you become like Christ, your walk and
   conversation will be bright and lustrous before the eyes of those about
   you. They, perhaps, will not like it-- they may even hate you for
   it--but they will not be able to do otherwise than acknowledge your
   excellence. He who lives in Christ lives a charming life, which, by its
   loveliness, commands the homage of onlookers. "Put you on the Lord
   Jesus

   Christ."

   Oh, you that deck yourselves out with jewelry and ornaments, how much
   more lovely and dignified you would become if in all your carriage and
   conversation, by sacred gentleness and love, by holy zeal and
   unswerving decision for truth, you put an Christ! "Yes," says another,
   "but you have forgotten part of your sermon. You said that now we were
   awake we were to put on armor." I have not forgotten, for Christ is
   armor for our defense--therefore put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is
   a coat of mail for you. The man that does as Christ would do, thinks as
   Christ would think and lives

   as Christ would live makes Christ to be all in all to him and,
   therefore, armors himself with Christ. Thus he is made impervious to
   the shafts of the enemy and amid the darts of temptation or the arrows
   of slander he may abide unharmed! The Lord is our defense and the Holy
   One of Israel is our King.

   "Yes," says one, "but you told us that the day, when it was once up,
   would never again darken into night, but brighten into a perfect day."
   It is even so and here is raiment provided for our expectancy. We may
   expect to meet with years of mingled conflict, service and suffering.
   "Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ" and you will be prepared for all
   weathers, fair or foul, and for all conditions and requirements. This
   garment will never wax old--it will last you all through the desert
   and, what is more, it is suitable for Canaan and you shall keep it on
   forever and ever! We need a garment that we can wear in all the events
   which will happen in the awful future, the endless future. It is on
   this account that I press home the words of my text--"Put you on the
   Lord Jesus Christ."

   Our Lord is a fit robe for life and death, for time and for eternity. I
   expect to battle till I die--here is my armor, the integrity and
   uprightness which I learn of Christ will preserve me. I expect in death
   to rise out of this lower life into a higher one and when I reach that
   higher life, that Glory life, I shall require a garment and I shall
   find it in my Lord. I cannot have a better garment than the Lord,
   Himself, and there is a wedding coming on! Every Believer expects to be
   married to his Lord. Then, dear Friend, you must certainly have a
   wedding garment! How can you go in unto the marriage feast not having
   on a wedding garment? And here you have it--"Put you on the Lord Jesus
   Christ." When the King comes in to see His guests and He sees Jesus
   Christ covering them all, He will be well-pleased. He will see His dear
   Son reflected in them all and from them all--and His delight shall be
   in them, even as it is in His Son. If you put on the Lord Jesus Christ
   you will be fit for the inspection of the King; fit for all the
   royalties and pomps of the eternal marriage; fit to stand in the
   coronation of Christ, Himself, as one of the many brethren of the
   crowned First-Born!

   Now I have done, but how I wish that some souls would be moved as
   Augustine was and, at once, put on Christ before they leave the place!
   I wish that some of you that came in here this morning with nothing on
   but your old ragged righteousness would at once pull it off and throw
   it under your feet! Here is Jesus Christ, Himself, waiting to become
   your righteousness! Will you not have Him? His is a perfect
   righteousness, for He magnified the Law and made it honorable! He made
   a perfect robe and then He dyed it in His own blood, that you might
   wear it as the imperial purple of the kingdom which He gives you.

   "What is to be done with it?" Put it on! Did I hear you say, "I would
   like to take it home to think about it"? What? And do nothing? I pray
   you put it on at once! Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. "But I do not know
   that it will fit me." Put it on and try! "Oh, but I am not fit to wear
   anything so good." I know you aren't. Put it on and you will see how
   wonderful you will look when Jesus covers you! The fitness lies in the
   garment--not in you! Do you cry, "I am anything but what I ought to
   be"? Put it on and let Christ be seen! "Ah, but still, am I to be saved
   in a minute?" Put on Christ at once and see, for it is written, "He
   that believes in Him has everlasting life." Put it on, poor Soul--that
   is all--put it on!

   "But I have nothing that I can bring." Do not bring anything--just put
   on Christ! There He is! Do not refuse Him! I beseech you, do not refuse
   Him, for he who will not put on Christ, when Christ is freely set
   before him, must not be amazed if, at the last, he stands shivering
   amidst the glare of the last lightning in front of the awful Judgment
   Seat, with the eyes of men and angels, and the eyes of the great Judge
   fixed upon Him!

   Ah, then he tries to hide himself and cannot. And he shrieks to rocks
   and mountains, "Hide me, hide me from the face of Him that sits on the
   Throne!" He will have no one but himself to blame when it comes to
   that, if he will not put on Christ. May the Lord Jesus now be made unto
   you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Singing in the Ways of the Lord

   (No. 1615)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 11, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory
   of the Lord." Psalm 138:5.

   ACCORDING to the context, this is spoken of kings. "All the kings of
   the earth shall praise You, O Lord, when they hear the words of Your
   mouth. Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord." It will be a
   novel spectacle to see kings singing in the ways of the Lord! As a
   rule, they have not much troubled themselves with singing, but they
   have often troubled those who love the ways of God and opposed them,
   both by their laws and by their example. There will yet be another
   order of things in the earth! These days will be shortened for the
   elect's sake and the time shall come when kings shall fall down before
   the King of kings and all people shall call Jesus blessed! Oh that the
   time may speedily arrive when a choir of kings shall, with loud voices,
   magnify the name of the Lord!

   Well, dear Brothers and Sisters, that time has not come yet and,
   therefore, let us sing all the more. If the kings have not begun to
   sing, let us sing! And well we may. We have full permission to do it,
   for the next verse encourages us-- "Though the Lord is high, yet has He
   respect unto the lowly." He will be just as pleased with the song of
   the peasant as with that of the prince--with the Psalm of the workman
   as with that of the monarch! We, too, may come, though obscure and
   unknown, and we may bring our two mites which make a farthing--and if
   they are all the praise our soul can give--the Lord will count that we
   have not given less than kings themselves!

   Let us make up for royal silence. If others cannot praise God and speak
   well of His name, yet let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has
   redeemed out of the hands of the enemy! If we do not speak, surely the
   stones of the street will cry out against us! Therefore I shall take
   the text and use it in reference to ourselves, believing that for us
   this promise stands fast, "They shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for
   great is the glory of the Lord."

   I. We shall discuss the text under four observations, the first of
   which is the text itself--"THEY SHALL SING IN THE WAYS OF THE LORD."
   That is to say, first, gracious persons take pleasure in the things of
   religion. A man's religion is worth nothing if it is not his chief
   delight. That which we do before God as task work is ill done and is
   not acceptable. God will not have slaves to grace His Throne! Nor would
   He be served by us in the spirit of bondage. It is His delight to be
   served by sons and daughters and to be waited upon by those who do His
   commandments with delight. If your pleasure is not in the ways of the
   Lord, then, surely, you cannot know much about those ways. You must be
   a stranger to them and you must be walking in paths which may look like
   the ways of God, but are not really so.

   I do not say that those who know the Lord are always happy, but I say
   that they are always "the seed that the Lord God has blessed." I may
   not say that we are always pleasurable in heart in the ways of wisdom,
   but I will say of the ways of wisdom, themselves, that they are
   pleasantness and that all its paths are peace. Yes, Brothers and
   Sisters, we do not groan out our religion! We do not go to our places
   of worship as slaves went to the calaboose to be flogged! I do see some
   each Sunday who look dreadfully solemn and they walk to their places of
   worship as if they were going to the gallows and never expected to come
   back alive--but that is not the spirit in which I would have you go up
   to the House of God! Go with lightly tripping feet, saying--

   "I have been there and still will go 'Tis like a little Heaven below."

   I would not be kept away, or bought out of the House of God by all that
   could be offered me. I believe that Sunday should be spent in
   recreation! You are dreadfully shocked and well you may be--but what do
   I mean by, "recreation"? It means creating us over anew! Oh, that
   everybody who talks about spending Sunday in recreation would know the
   meaning of the word, "recreation," and would come to be re-created,
   regenerated, renewed, refreshed, invigorated, strengthened, revived and
   made to rejoice in God! The Lord's Day is the highest hill of the week!
   On that day we stand on tiptoe

   on Pisgah and look to "the rest which remains for the people of God!"
   It is the type of that everlasting Sabbath which remains for the people
   of God.

   Now, as it is with Sabbath-keeping and going up to the House of
   God--that there we sing in God's ways, so it is with all God's
   ways--they are all full of delight to His people! Those who heartily
   enter into them are happy people. "Blessed are the people in whose
   heart are Your ways." Their heart shall be full of joy and overflowing
   with delight. Hence it follows, next, that they do not go out of God's
   ways to get their songs. They shall sing in the ways. Alas! I have
   heard of some who go here and there, as they say, "to get a little
   pleasure." What? What? Do I understand you? You find no pleasure in the
   ways of God? Then, Friend, you are a hypocrite! That is plain
   English--for he that is really in God's ways finds his pleasure there.
   That is his chief delight and he can sing, as our hymn puts it--

   "I need not go abroad for joys, I have a feast at home! My sighs are
   turned into songs, My heart has ceased to roam."

   Do you call that man a loving husband who says, "Well, you know, you
   must go away from home sometimes just to have a little pleasure. You
   cannot always be in the company of your wife and children. You must go
   from home to get a little pleasure." That is a bad fellow! I am very
   sorry for his wife and children. A bad lot. I am sure he is. And he who
   talks about being married to Christ and joined to His Church--and then
   says that he goes elsewhere to find his pleasure--is a traitor! I shake
   my head about him! I am afraid that I may have to break my heart over
   him one of these days. When you see professors seeking pleasure in sin
   and worldliness, there is something rotten at the core! True men of God
   shall sing in the ways of the Lord and find something to sing of while
   they are in those ways.

   It means, too, that they sing as they are actively engaged in the ways
   of the Lord. That is to say, while they are engaged in the service of
   God their hearts are joyous and glad. They do not stop the work to go
   and sing, but they sing as they work! Sailors, when they pull a rope,
   make a cheery sound. As they heave the anchor they sing after their
   fashion. Soldiers march to battle with sounds of trumpet and the beat
   of drums, listening to music while they march. So Christians go on
   their pilgrimage and keep step to the sound of joyous Psalms and hymns.
   They sing in the ways of the Lord. But sometimes the ways of the Lord
   call for difficult service. Gracious men may have to visit sick and
   desponding persons. Surely, if they are of any use to the sick, their
   hearts will sing even while they are sympathizing with them.

   They have to talk with those who are anxious and to lead them to the
   Savior. And I believe there is no way of doing it so well as by showing
   them the peace which Jesus gives. Perhaps Believers are called to plow
   fields that seem barren. Yes, but they must still do it! They must be
   singing as they break the clods; singing as they plow and singing as
   they sow the Seed of God! That is the best way to do it. They shall
   sing in the ways of the Lord when those ways call for prayer. Song and
   prayer are like butter and honey, a royal mixture.

   I have heard that of old, in America, the principal day of the year was
   a day of fasting until some good Divine said that since God had brought
   the Puritans from England and landed them in a wilderness, but fed them
   till the wilderness became a garden. And since He had multiplied their
   numbers till they had become a great nation, He thought it was time
   that they kept a day of thanksgiving and so they have done ever since!
   A day of prayer should be a day of thanksgiving, too. Saints sing in
   the ways of earnest prayer. It never dampens the ardor of intercession
   to give thanks unto the Most High. Whatever you are doing for the Lord,
   whether it is distributing tracts or teaching the young, mix holy joy
   with it!

   1 may say of thanksgiving to God what was said of salt in the
   Bible--"Salt, without prescribing how much." Set no limit to it! Nobody
   ever sings the high praises of God too often or too heartily! "They
   shall sing in the ways." And when the ways get very tough and become
   the paths of sufferings--and the pains are frequent and incessant--then
   still sing!

   No music that goes up to the Throne of God is sweeter in Jehovah's ears
   than the song of suffering saints. They shall praise Him upon their
   beds and sing His high praises in the fire! To go right through the
   Valley of the Shadow of Death and sing all the way. To climb Hill
   Difficulty and to sing up its crags--to pass by Giant Grim and even by
   the Castle of Giant Despair and through the Enchanted Ground and still
   keep singing--and to come to the river's brink and descend into it
   still singing is lovely in a Christian! May the statutes of the Lord be
   our songs in the house of our pilgrimage till we mount to sing above!

   Once more, under this first head, I think, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   that the children of God sing in the ways of God because they are in a
   cage for singing--in a right state of mind for singing. When we are in
   the ways of the Lord, dear

   Friends, we are strong--"They go from strength to strength." When we
   walk as God would have us walk, we are made strong in the Lord and in
   the power of His might. Limping pilgrims cannot sing, but those whose
   weakness casts itself upon the strength of God can. Do you know how
   strong you are? I will be bound to say you are better acquainted with
   the other question--how weak are you? But do you know how strong you
   are when God is with you? Why, you are irresistible! The belt of faith
   girds a man with strength that is only equaled by Omnipotence!

   If the Lord is with you, what can stand against you? If God strengthens
   you, you shall run without weariness; you shall walk without fainting
   and sometimes you shall even mount as upon the wings of eagles! Well
   may that pilgrim sing who is made strong by the mighty God of Jacob.
   You have safety, also, for in the ways of the Lord all His servants are
   protected from danger. On the king's highway "no lion shall be there,
   neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon." You shall be "kept by
   the power of God through faith unto salvation" in the ways of the Lord.
   Well may that traveler sing who is perfectly safe! He holds his tongue
   if there are thieves about and robbers likely to pounce upon him. But
   when he feels that he is under the guardian care of the Lord of the
   Ways who has given His angels charge over him to keep him--yes, when he
   feels that the Lord, Himself, is round about him like a wall of
   fire--he must sing in the ways! Strength and safety are ours and,
   therefore, let us sing!

   Saints also sing in the ways of God because they have guidance. He that
   does not know whether he is in the right way or not may well be silent,
   but he that is sure about his road--yes, sure about it even to his
   journey's end--may well sing in the ways! We have One with us who will
   lead us into all the Truths of God--we have the Comforter with us who
   will direct our ways even to the end--how can we keep from singing?
   Pilgrims bound to Zion's city who have such a Conductor as the
   Infallible Spirit of God ought to sing! It would be treason on their
   part if they did not! Strength, safety, guidance--surely these should
   make us glad.

   And then, besides that, we have provision all along the road. The
   pilgrim who does not know where he will lodge at night feels a little
   anxious. But if he knows where there is an inn, or where he has a
   friend, he goes along right cheerily. I know nothing about my way to
   Heaven from this spot to Heaven's gate--but this I do know--there are
   places of refreshment provided for God's weary pilgrims every day and
   every night until we enter into the great mansion of God above. "He
   makes me to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still
   waters." Perhaps we shall halt at Elim, where there are wells and palm
   trees. But if we do not come to Elim, we shall rest somewhere else.
   There is sure to be a place of shelter for the saints in every night of
   their travel. Therefore do we sing in the ways of the Lord, for our
   pasture is on all high places. It is a way of abundant provision and we
   may well sing, for the Lord continually fills our hearts with
   gratitude.

   As we journey on in the ways of the Lord, fresh streams of comfort come
   to us from one earthly source and another, but chiefly from the great
   Source of everlasting consolation, even from Christ Jesus, Himself. I
   can speak well of the ways of the Lord and earnestly stir up all my
   fellow pilgrims to sing in them, for they have been good ways to me.
   Let us march on and sing on! Let us proceed with a step and a song, a
   step and a song! Let our halting places be charmed with sacred Psalmody
   and may the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, abide with us and keep us
   singing the praises of God! That is the first observation--"they shall
   sing in the ways."

   II. But I find that Dr. Gill gives another reading of the text, "THEY
   SHALL SING OF THE WAYS OF THE LORD," that is true doctrine and an
   admissible translation and so we will dwell upon it. "They shall sing
   of the ways of the Lord." Not only are God's ways the place of their
   song but the subject of their song. How shall we sing of the ways of
   the Lord? We will arrange them under two heads. We will sing of God's
   ways to us and we will sing of our ways which lead us to God. We will
   sing of God's ways to us, but where shall we begin? Shall we begin
   where God began with us? With that eternal council chamber--with that
   Divine Predestination--with that secret decree of salvation by which He
   separated His people from the mass of the world and made them to be His
   before the earth was?

   Here is a grand beginning! We will sing of the eternal ways of God in
   His purpose and decrees before time began! But then we shall have to
   sing of God's actual ways when the time for the fulfillment of the
   purpose came--of the Covenant and all its provisions--of the Incarnate
   God descending to the manger. We shall have to sing of that same
   Incarnate God opening His heart to pour out the purchase price of our
   redemption! Oh, the ways of the Lord with us through Christ Jesus and
   through the Spirit who was given because Jesus ascended to His Father
   and to your Father! What a subject!

   Then we will sing of the ways of God in the application of Redemption
   to us, His people--how He convinced us of sin and led us to the
   Savior--and how, since then, He has led us by a right way, helped us,
   comforted us, chastened us, directed us, opened all His rich treasures
   to us, communed with us, told us the very secret of His soul, wiped our
   tears away, removed our fears, charmed our hearts! This is a long, long
   story, and each Believer sees a new phase of it in his own experience.
   Surely, the mere hints I have given are enough to show that we may well
   sing of the ways of the Lord! And you never need be ashamed to sing of
   those ways. David says, "Then will I teach transgressors Your ways."
   God's ways are such gracious ways, such wise ways, such holy ways, such
   ways of wisdom and of lovingkindness, that in any company we may talk
   about them and in every place we may sing of them! We will sing of the
   ways of the Lord with us.

   But then the next thing, and the main thing in this particular passage,
   is to sing of our ways to God. What is there to sing of with respect to
   those ways of God by which we come to Him? I think that there is
   everything in them to sing about! For one, I am so glad that I am in
   the ways of the Lord when I remember where I once was. As a dear
   Brother said in prayer before this service began, what a mercy to be
   plucked like a brand from the burning! The saddest saint is, after all,
   happier than the most glad sinner! The best house in the City of
   Destruction, where everything is to be burnt with fire, is not equal to
   the poorest shanty on the road to Heaven, where, if the pilgrim fares
   hard, he is on the way to Glory! When we think of where we used to
   be--of the city from where we came. When we think of Egypt and the iron
   furnace, the bondage and the slavery from which God has brought us out
   with a high hand and an outstretched arm--why, we ought to sing in the
   ways of the Lord!

   But, then, it is not only where we came from, but it is where we are
   going that should make us sing in the ways of the Lord. When Philip
   Henry, the father of Matthew Henry, was a preacher of the Gospel and a
   young man, he set his affection upon a young lady who was an heiress.
   Her father said, "Mr. Henry is, no doubt, a good man, and a scholar and
   a gentleman, but he is a poor man. And I would have you remember that
   we hardly know where he came from." "Oh! Father," said the young lady,
   "but I know where he is going and he is going where I should like to go
   with him. Do not let that stand in the way." And it did not!

   That is the point about all God's people. We know where we are going
   and we can sing in the ways of God because we know where the road ends.
   Unconverted men and women, every step you take, you are a step nearer
   Hell. It is a very solemn thought, but I want you to remember it. Every
   hour that you unconverted people live, you are an hour nearer to the
   pit that burns with the wrath of God! Oh, I pray you, think of that!
   But the man who is a Believer is on a road which brings him, every
   step, nearer Heaven! I do not know a sweeter hymn than that which we
   sometimes sing--

   "And nightly pitch our moving tent A day's march nearer Home."

   And what a Home it is! Oh, if our way Home lay through 7,000 Hells, yet
   the end would be worth it! If we had to pass through deaths as many as
   the hairs of our head, yet five minutes with Christ would make up for
   all our pain! I am sure that it is so! Let us, therefore, press forward
   singing, because we are getting nearer to the place where song shall be
   our element forever.

   They shall sing of the ways of the Lord because they know where they
   come from and where they are going. But about the ways themselves.
   Well, we sing of them because it is a good road. The road to Heaven is
   a splendid road and it has had some fine travelers on it. The way the
   holy Prophets went. The road that leads from banishment. The King's
   highway of holiness. I'll go, for all His paths are peace. The glory of
   that way is that the Prince Emmanuel trod it! With sorrowful steps He
   traversed that way and He has left the prints of His pierced feet all
   along it--it is for us to feel that it must be a good way--since holy
   men and their glorious leader have walked it. It is a way in which many
   who are very dear to us have gone--some of whom have reached the end of
   it now. Some of us can track the footprints of a grandfather, a
   grandmother, uncles and aunts. We rejoice to be going to Heaven with
   father, mother, friends, relatives and dear ones whom we cherish. The
   way is good enough for them--I am sure it is good enough for us!

   Lately our modern divines have pretended to improve the road. They have
   taken up the stones and laid down a rotten wood pavement which is very
   slippery for pilgrims! But we will have none of their nonsense. The
   road that was good enough for Whitefield and Wesley is quite good
   enough for me! And the road that suited John Bunyan and the Puritans is
   quite to my mind. These modern ways are a modern nuisance and I would
   like to see them deserted forever. We can do better with the good old
   way than with any of these refinements--

   "We are going forth with our staff in hand,

   Thro' a desert wild in a stranger land.

   But our faith is bright and our hope is strong,

   And the Good Old Way is our pilgrim song,

   'Tis the Good Old Way, that our fathers trod,

   'Tis the Way of Life, and it leads to God.

   'Tis the only path to the realms of day,

   We are going home in the Good Old Way." We love to sing of the way
   because there is good company in it. No company in the world is equal
   to that of those who are going on pilgrimage to Heaven. If I meet with
   any who are not going there, I can enjoy their talent and their
   interesting conversation, but their talk is poor, after all. We say
   when the conversation is over, "That was a fine gentleman and he made
   merry company, but it did us no good. Better far to get with half a
   dozen godly old women at a cottage meeting than waste time with him."

   Let us meet with those who talk about Jesus Christ and experimental
   godliness, however ungrammatical their language may be, sooner than sit
   with the greatest of worldlings whose conversation lacks a savor of
   Christ! Go you in the ways with a song, because there is such good
   company to sing with. And there is such good accommodation on the road.
   I have told you of that, before. "He makes me to lie down in green
   pastures: He leads me beside the still waters." God in Providence makes
   all things work together for good. Our heavenly Father bids the angels
   keep watch and ward about His children. God gives us the provender of
   His promise and supplies our souls so that no good thing is kept from
   us. Well may we sing, then, in the ways of the Lord.

   We sing because we have such fine prospects on the road. Down in the
   Valley of Humiliation--why, no scenery is lovelier! Upon the hilltops
   of Amana, Tabor and Pisgah, when the Beloved is with us, what views of
   Himself and of His coming and of His Kingdom and of the Glory to be
   revealed open up before us! The way seems short with all these pleasant
   views before our mind's eyes and we burst forth into singing in the
   ways of the Lord! But the best of it is that we have daylight to travel
   by, for we are not the children of darkness. We walk in the Light of
   God to the Kingdom of Light. Even when we say that it is dark with us,
   we do not mean that it is so dark as it is with the sinner when it is
   bright with him, for our darkest darkness is brighter than the sinner's
   brightest brightness!

   As I have often said, I would sooner be God's dog than the devil's
   darling. Better to lie like God's Lazarus, full of sores, with no
   surgeons but the dogs, than go and sit up there clothed in scarlet with
   pampered Dives! Oh, yes, we are a joyful people and we travel by
   daylight to Heaven--the Light of God we have from Christ, and the Light
   of God we have within will melt into the eternal light! Come, Brothers
   and Sisters, let us sing of the ways of the Lord! When we have a mind
   for a tune, let us sing about God's goodness to us in His ways--

   "The men of Grace ha ve found

   Glory begun below!

   Celestial fruits on earthly ground

   From faith and hope may grow.

   Then let our songs abound!

   And every tear be dry;

   We're marching through

   Emmanuel's ground

   To fairer worlds on high."

   III. The third observation is that THOSE WHO SING IN THE WAYS OF GOD
   ALSO SING OF THE LORD OF THE WAY. "They shall sing the ways of the
   Lord." And then some read it, "That great is the glory of the Lord."
   That is the subject of their song. When they sing about the Lord of the
   Way, this Psalm supplies us with the points of their song. Kindly open
   it and keep your eyes upon it. "I will praise You with my whole heart.
   Before the gods will I sing praise unto You." What for? "I will worship
   toward Your holy temple and praise Your name." What for, David? "For
   Your lov-ingkindness." God is kind, but He is more than that. It is
   lovingkindness. A man breaks a leg and the surgeon sets the bone. That
   is kindness. But suppose the man's mother could set the bone? Oh, how
   she would do it with lovingkindness! When the surgeon's own son is
   under his hand and the surgeon is dealing with a broken bone, it is not
   only kindness, but lovingkindness--the sweetest of the sweet--the
   kindest of the kind!

   Now, that is how God has dealt with us. Oh, how tenderly! "Your
   gentleness has made me great." He has abounded toward us in all wisdom
   and prudence. Was there ever a God so good to anybody as God has been
   to us? I reckon myself to be the darling child of His Providence and I
   think I hear many of you say, "And so are we!" Some of you, perhaps,
   have had more whipping than others--not so much because you deserved it
   but because, "Whom the Lord loves He chastens." Often the master is
   hardest with that boy in the school who is getting on best because
   chiding will make him grow. He will find no fault with a dull, stupid
   boy--he never can make much of him--but the very one who does the best
   is he whom he drives on the most vigorously, for he means to make a
   senior wrangler of him.

   So, perhaps, you, dear Friends, are having more pruning than anybody
   else because you are a branch that will grow with pruning and will
   bring forth better grapes. There is more love in the chastening that
   you get than in the gentler way in which God deals with others. Come,
   let us bless His name! He is a loving God! Let us sing in His ways and
   chant the tune of His lovingkindness. And what next? "For Your
   lovingkindness and for Your truth." Ah, that is a blessed thing--a
   faithful God, a true God, a God that cannot lie--a God that cannot fail
   His people, a God that never breaks His promise or forgets it. Oh,
   come, let us sing unto His name while we are in His ways! Let us tell
   the world that men of high degree are vanity and men of low degree are
   a lie, but our God is true!

   Let us tell the world that riches make to themselves wings and fly
   away; that honor and fame are but so much wasted breath and empty air!
   But let us tell them that God is--and that in Him there is substantial
   good and faithfulness that never fails! Here is a sweet song for you to
   sing concerning the Lord of the Way while you are in the way! David
   goes on to say, "In the day when I cried, You answered me and
   strengthened me with strength in my soul." Answered prayers make a fine
   set of hymns! Old prayers make new songs! When God hears prayers, we
   should let Him hear them again! When He has heard them as prayers, then
   let Him hear them as praises! We are often faulty here. I am afraid
   that we go to God with our errands when we are in need, for we have a
   cupboard love for Him. We are like many a dog to his master-- he loves
   his master for the bones he gives him.

   I do not say that we ever rise above that--we love the Lord because He
   has heard our prayers and our supplications, but let us sometimes go to
   the Lord wholly to praise Him. Say, "Lord, this time I will not ask
   anything of You except a grateful heart. And if You give me that, then
   I will praise You and praise You, and praise You because my soul is
   wholly taken up with adoring gratitude for what I have received." Oh,
   dear Friends, file your prayers when God does not hear them, and when
   He does hear them, put them in another file! Keep a silver file for
   prayers that are unanswered, but a golden file for prayers that are
   answered so that you may render unto Him according to the benefit you
   have received! Psalms penned at the Mercy Seat when petitions are
   granted are sweet sonnets for the children of God.

   The next subject for song is God's condescension. Read the sixth verse
   and let your heart sing it--"Though the Lord is on high, yet has He
   respect unto the lowly." Oh, do sing this! I remember when I was but a
   youth and began to preach the Gospel and won souls to Christ--they
   called me "the boy preacher"--oh how I used to bless the Lord that He
   would save souls by a boy! Obscure and unknown, but yet the Lord
   thought of me and used me! I cannot help praising Him on my own account
   because of that. Very likely some of you are in the same condition. You
   may be poor; you may have little talent; you may be quite unknown, but
   though the Lord is on high, yet has He respect unto the lowly! He hears
   the praises of the unknown! Wonderful is the power of "the great
   unknown."

   I am persuaded that the strength of the Church lies in its unknown
   members and possibly the soul of the music that goes up from earth to
   Heaven lies in the unknown singers unnamed among men, who,
   nevertheless, praise God day and night. Oh, bless Him that He thinks of
   you! O you maidens, whom He looks upon as He did on her of old who
   said, "My soul does magnify the Lord, for He has remembered the low
   estate of His handmaiden," praise His name! And O, you matrons,
   remember Hannah, whose sweet song in the Old Testament was to the same
   effect as Mary's in the New Testament! She, too, praised Him who looked
   upon the weak and the feeble, but caused the bows of the mighty ones to
   be broken. Condescending love is a charming theme.

   Have you got through that list of songs, dear Friends? Then I have
   another subject for you. Just read on and begin to sing of God's
   delivering mercy! "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will
   revive me." Someone says, "Why, that is a song about something that is
   to be done." That is so. We ought to have quite a collection of songs
   for the future--

   "And a new song is in my mouth, To long-loved music set!

   Glory to You for all the Grace I have not tasted yet."

   Did you ever praises God for tomorrow's dinner? "We have not had it
   yet." No, but you will have it. Thank God for it tonight! Martin Tupper
   recommends young men, long before they are married, to pray for the
   wives that they will have, and there is good sense in his advice. Don't
   you think that it is right for us to pray ahead a bit? Yes? Well, if it
   is right to pray ahead, let us praise God ahead for the mercies that we
   are to have!

   When I lay very sick, I used to praise God at the thought of getting
   better. I could not help it. I was so glad when I thought of standing
   in the pulpit again! I am sure I praised God for this night's sermon
   six months ago. Come, Brothers and Sisters, let us bless the Lord for
   the favors which the Lord has laid up for them that fear Him! When you
   do not seem to have anything to sing about, today, sing about what is
   going to be tomorrow! And if there seems to be nothing on earth to sing
   about, sing about the everlasting future! Soon you shall never be
   tempted to say, "What shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and with
   what shall I be clothed?" You shall have no cares to fret you, nor sins
   to repent of, for you shall be perfect before the Throne of God, clean
   escaped from all the dangers and the trials of the way! Come, let us
   sing for what will be! "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will
   revive me."

   In the last verse there is something to sing about which certain of our
   friends are afraid of--"The Lord will perfect that which concerns me."
   Sing of final preservation! Some good people are not sure of that. They
   say, "Saints fall from Grace. God begins a good work in them, but He
   leaves them and they do not get to Heaven." Brother, if you cannot
   reach the note of final salvation, put your fingers as high on the harp
   strings as they will go! But I am happy to say that mine can touch this
   lofty note, for if there is a doctrine that I am certain of, it is the
   doctrine of the Final Perseverance of the Saints! I will undertake to
   say that if the Bible does not teach that, it does not teach anything!

   Words have ceased to have a meaning if the Bible does not teach the
   eternal life of true Believers! At least to my soul it is so. Hear
   these words--"I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never
   perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." "He that drinks
   of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but it shall be
   in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Why, there
   are 50 reasons why he that has the Grace of God truly in him and is
   really born unto God shall not fall away! But one said to me some time
   ago, "Yonder man has fallen from Grace and has been regenerated three
   times." "Oh," I said to him, "You need a new word
   then--re-re-regenerated."

   I have heard of the new birth, but I never heard of a newer birth! I
   have heard of being born again, but I never heard of being born again
   and again and again! I discover no trace of it in the Word of God, but
   I do see distinct tokens that it is impossible. It is written--"If
   these shall fall away, it is impossible to renew them again unto
   repentance, seeing that they have crucified the Son of God afresh and
   put Him to an open shame." There is a life which God puts into the soul
   and that life is eternal! If it could die--if that were possible--the
   man would be hopelessly dead. "If the salt has lost its savor, with
   what shall it be salted? It is from now on good for nothing, but to be
   trodden under foot of men." "We believe better things of you, and
   things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak." "Faithful is He
   that has called you, who also will do it." "He will perfect that which
   concerns me" and, therefore, I will sing this song to my stringed
   instruments as long as I live--

   "My soul from the palms of His hands

   Eternity cannot erase.

   Impressed on His heart it remains

   In marks of indelible Grace.

   Yes, I to the end shall endure,

   As sure as the earnest is given!

   More happy, but not more secure,

   Than glorified spirits in Hea ven." Now there is something to sing
   about!

   IV. And now I close with the fourth observation, which is this--THEY
   SHALL SING TO THE LORD OF THE WAY, AS WELL AS OF THE LORD OF THE WAY.
   "They shall sing in the ways, for great is the glory of the Lord." Oh,
   Brothers and Sisters, let us take care that all our songs are to the
   honor and praise of God, for if we ever sing to our own praise it will
   be idolatry! I fear much public worship is thus marred. We heard of a
   man in Boston, in America, praying such a grand prayer that the
   newspapers said, the next day, that it was, "the finest prayer that had
   ever been offered

   to a Boston audience." I am afraid that a good deal of praying is of
   that sort and I am sure much singing is no better. Why, we hear of
   churches where four people are hired to do the praise of God and all
   the people sit still and listen to them! And that is according to the
   New Testament, is it? It must be a very "revised version," surely!

   I find nothing of that sort in the Book I have been accustomed to use.
   Let all the people of God praise Him! Singing should be congregational,
   but it should never be performed for the credit of the congregation.
   "Such very remarkable singing! The place is quite renowned for its
   musical performances." This is a poor achievement! Our singing should
   be such that God hears it with pleasure--singing in which there is not
   so much art as heart--not so much of musical sound as of spiritual
   emotion. They shall sing to the glory of God!

   And mark this, dear Brothers and Sisters, if you and I sing with the
   Spirit and the understanding, we shall increase the manifested Glory of
   God by bringing others to sing in His ways. Sinners pass by God's ways,
   sometimes, and as they go by, though they cannot see, for they are
   blind, they can hear something, and they say to one another, "Who are
   those people that tramp along the road?" They are pilgrims to Heaven.
   And the sinners say, "Let us stop and listen a bit." They listen and
   they hear the pilgrims groaning along, and moaning along, and one says
   to another, "Let us go the other way. Let us escape from such miserable
   company."

   But another time a number stand listening by the side of the hedge and
   they ask, "Are these pilgrims going along? Why, they are singing! Are
   they Methodists? Are they Presbyterians? Are they that strait-laced
   kind of people?" "Yes." Well, but they are singing and they sing very
   heartily, too! They seem to be uncommonly merry. Is that their general
   way? "Oh, yes," says one, "and they have good reason to be happy. I was
   with one of them and he was telling me what the Lord had done for
   him--and I thought that if the Lord had done as much for me I should be
   happy, too." "And do you know any of these people? Are they troubled as
   we are?" "Oh, yes, they have their troubles, but they take their cares
   to their heavenly Father and find rest." "Then," says one, "I would
   like to go to their meetings and learn their secret"-- and so they come
   and find the Savior!

   Legions of flies are caught by this honey! Many are brought to God by
   the sweet lives of His people. If we can always rejoice in the Lord, we
   shall bring many to God who otherwise would have turned on their heels
   and said, "We will have nothing to do with these dull dreamers. We are
   too young to lose all our joy in life." Tell the young people that the
   most joyous life is the life that is nearest to God--that the most
   merry life is the life of the man who has found all for this world, and
   all for the world to come, in God and in His Christ! God help you, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, to sing all day long and may you even have "songs
   in the night," to the glory of Him whose name is--"the happy God."
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Saved In Hope

   (No. 1616)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 28, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope: for what
   a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we see
   not, then do we with patience wait for it." Romans 8:24,25.

   ACCORDING to our version "we are saved by hope," but that is scarcely
   in accordance with other parts of Holy Scripture. Everywhere in the
   Word of God we are told that we are saved by faith. See the first verse
   of the fifth chapter-- "Therefore being justified by faith." Faith is
   the saving Grace--not hope--unless only as hope is, under some aspects,
   tantamount to faith. Faith is the saving Grace and the original should
   be rendered thus. One wonders that it is not so in the Revised
   Version--"We were saved in hope." It would prevent misapprehension if
   the passage were so rendered, for as that eminent critic, Bengel, well
   says, "the words do not describe the means, but the manner of
   salvation: we are so saved that there may even yet remain something for
   which we may hope, both of salvation and glory."

   Believers receive the salvation of their souls as the end of their
   faith and it is offaith that it might be of Grace. They are saved by
   faith and in hope. At this present moment Believers are saved and, in a
   certain sense, completely saved. They are entirely saved from the guilt
   of sin. The Lord Jesus took their sin and bore it in His body on the
   tree. He offered an acceptable Atonement, by which the iniquity of all
   His people is once and forever put away. By faith we are at once saved
   from the defilement of evil and have free access to God our Father. By
   faith we are saved from the reigning power of sin in our members. As
   says the Scripture, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
   not under the Law, but under

   Grace."

   The crown is removed from the head of sin and the arm of its strength
   is broken in the heart of every Christian by the power of faith. Sin
   strives to get the mastery, but it cannot win the day, for he that is
   born of God does not commit sin with delight, or as his daily habit,
   but he keeps himself so that the Evil One touches him not. As to the
   penalty of sin, that has been borne by our great Substitute and by
   faith we have accepted His sacrifice. "He that believes in Him is not
   condemned." We rejoice, therefore, at this moment, in salvation already
   obtained and enjoyed by faith which is in Christ Jesus. Yet we are
   conscious that there is something more than this to be had. There is
   salvation in a larger sense, which as yet we see not, for at the
   present moment we find ourselves in this tabernacle, groaning because
   we are burdened.

   All around us the creation is evidently in travail--there are signs of
   birth-pangs in a certain unrest, upheaval and anguish of the creation.
   Things are not as God originally made them. Thorns are in earth's
   furrows; a blight has fallen on her flowers; a mildew on her grain. The
   heavens weep and saturate our harvests; earth moves and shakes our
   cities. Frequent calamities and disasters are portents of a great
   future which shall be born of this travailing present. Nowhere on earth
   can a perfect paradise be found. Our best things are expectant of
   something better. The whole creation groans and travails in pain with
   us. Even we that have received the first fruits of the Spirit and so
   are blessed and saved, nevertheless, groan within ourselves, waiting
   for a further something, a Glory not seen as yet.

   We have not yet attained, but are pressing on. Our first soul-thirst as
   sinners has been quenched, but there are within us still greater
   desires by which we hunger and thirst after righteousness with longings
   insatiable. Before we ate of the Bread of Heaven we hungered for mere
   husks--but now our newborn nature has brought us a new appetite which
   the whole world could not satisfy! What is the cause of this hungering?
   We are under no difficulty whatever in answering the question. Our
   grief, longings and unsatisfied desires are principally gathered up in
   two things. First, we long to be totally free from sin in every form.
   The evil which is in the world is our burden--we are vexed with the
   evil conversation of the ungodly and are grieved by their temptations
   and persecutions.

   The fact that the world lies in the Wicked One and that men reject
   Christ and perish in unbelief is a source of much affliction to our
   hearts. We have said with David, "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech,
   that I dwell in the tents of Ke-

   dar!" We wish for a lodge in a wilderness far off from the haunts of
   men, that we might in peace commune with God and hear no more of
   blasphemy, murmuring, lewdness and crime. This is not our rest, for it
   is polluted, and so far we look for a great deliverance when we shall
   be taken out of this world to dwell in perfect company. Yet even the
   presence of the ungodly were a small matter if we could be completely
   delivered from sin within ourselves. That is among the things not seen
   as yet.

   If a man were free from all tendency to sin, he would no longer be
   liable to temptation, or under necessity to watch against it. That
   which cannot possibly be burned or blackened has no need to dread the
   fire. We feel that we must shun temptation because we are conscious
   that there is material within us which may soon take fire. "The Prince
   of this world comes," said our Lord, "and has nothing in Me." But when
   he comes to us he finds not only something, but much congenial to his
   purpose. Our heart all too readily echoes to the voice of Satan! When
   he sows the tares, the furrows of the old nature soon produce a
   harvest. Evil does remain, even in the regenerate, and it infects all
   the powers of the mind. Oh that we could get rid of the memory of sin!
   What a torment it is to us to remember snatches of loose songs and
   words of ill savor.

   Oh, that we were rid of the imagination of sin! Do we mourn enough over
   sins of thought and fancy? A man may sin, and sin horribly, in thought
   and yet may not have sinned in act. Many a man has committed
   fornication, adultery, theft and even murder in his imagination by
   finding pleasure in the thought thereof and yet he may never have
   fallen into any of the overt acts. Oh that our imagination and all our
   inward parts were purged of the corrupt matter which is in them and
   which ferments towards foulness! There is in us that which makes us cry
   out from day to day, "O wretched man that I am; who shall deliver me?"

   If any man here says, "I feel no such emotions," I pray God that he may
   soon do so! Those know very little of true spiritual perfection who are
   content with themselves. A perfect child grows and so does a perfect
   child of God. The nearer we come to perfect cleanness of heart, the
   more shall we mourn over the tiniest spot of sin--and the more shall we
   see that to be sin which once we excused. He who is most like Christ is
   most conscious of imperfection and most weary that the least iniquity
   should hang about him. When a man says, "I have reached the goal," I
   fear he has not begun to run. As for me, I endure many growing pains
   and feel far less pleased with myself than I used to be. I have a firm
   hope of something better, but were it not for hope, I should account
   myself truly unhappy to be so conscious of need and so racked with
   desires. This is one great source of our groaning. We are saved, but we
   are not completely delivered from tendencies to sin, neither have we
   reached the fullness of holiness. "There is yet very much land to be
   possessed."

   Another cause of this winter of our discontent is our body. Paul calls
   it a "vile body" and so, indeed, it is when compared with what it shall
   be when fashioned in the image of Christ Jesus. It is not vile in
   itself, viewed as the creature of God, for it is fearfully and
   wonderfully made. There is something very noble about the body of a
   man, made to walk erect and to look upward and gaze toward Heaven. A
   body so marvelously prepared to be the tenement of the mind and to obey
   the soul's behests is not to be despised. A body which can be the
   Temple of the Holy Spirit is no mean structure, therefore let us not
   despise it! It is a thing for which to be eternally grateful, that we
   have been made men if we have been also made new men in Christ Jesus.

   The body came under the power of death through the Fall and it remains
   so. And, remaining so, its lot is to die, sooner or later, unless the
   Lord should suddenly appear--and even then it must be changed--for
   flesh and blood, as they are, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And
   so, poor Body, you are not well matched with the newborn soul since you
   have not been born again. You are a somewhat dull and dreary dwelling
   for a Heaven-born spirit! What with aches and pains, weariness and
   infirmity, your need of sleep and food and clothing, your liability to
   cold, heat, accident, decay-- as well as to excessive labor and
   exhausting toil--you are a sorry servant of the sanctified soul! You
   drag down and hamper a spirit which otherwise might soar aloft!

   How often does poor health repress the noble flame of high resolve and
   holy aspiration! How often do pain and weakness freeze the genial
   current of the soul! When shall we be emancipated from the shackles of
   this natural body and put on the wedding dress of the spiritual body?
   What with the sin dwelling in our breast and this vesture of mortal
   clay, we are glad that now is our salvation nearer than when we
   believed--and we long to enter into the full enjoyment of it! Here my
   text gives us good cheer. From the sources of our present groaning
   there is a full deliverance, a salvation so wide

   that it covers the whole area of our needs, yes, of our desires! A
   salvation awaits us whose sweep is eternity and immensity. All our
   capacious powers can wish are compassed within it and of this the text
   says, "We are saved in hope."

   That most grand, most wide salvation we have seized by hope. Glory be
   to God for this! This, then, is the subject of our present
   meditation--the hope which embraces the salvation for which we long.

   I. Let us begin by recapitulating under the first head, THE OBJECT OF
   THIS HOPE. I have already gone over the principal points. Our hope,
   first of all, embraces our own absolute perfection. We have set our
   faces towards holiness and, by God's Grace, we will never rest till we
   attain it. Every sin that is in us is doomed, not only to be conquered,
   but to be slain. The Grace of God does not help us to conceal our
   infirmities, but to destroy them. We deal with sin as Joshua did with
   the five kings when they went into the cave at Makkedah. While he was
   busy in the battle, he said, "Roll great stones upon the mouth of the
   cave."

   Our sins, for a while, are shut up by restraining Grace, as in a cave,
   and great stones are rolled at the cave's mouth, for they would escape,
   if they could, and once more snatch at the reins. But in the power of
   the Holy Spirit, we mean to deal with them more effectually by-and-by.
   "Bring out those five kings unto me," said Joshua, and he smote them,
   and slew them, and hanged them." By God's Grace we will never be
   satisfied till all our natural inclinations to sin shall be utterly
   destroyed, loathed and abhorred. We expect a day when there will not
   remain in us a taint of past sin, or an inclination for future sin! We
   shall still be possessed of will and freedom of choice, but we shall
   choose only good. Saints in Heaven are not passive beings, driven along
   the path of obedience by a power which they cannot resist, but as
   intelligent agents they freely elect to be holiness unto the Lord.

   We shall enjoy forever the glorious liberty of the children of God
   which lies in the constant voluntary choice of that which should be
   chosen and a consequent unbroken happiness. Ignorance also shall be
   gone, for we shall all be taught of the Lord and we shall know, even as
   we are known. Perfect in service and clean delivered from all self-will
   and carnal desire, we shall be near our God and like He is. As Watts
   has it--

   "Sin, my worst enemy before, Shall vex my eyes and ears no more! My
   inward foes shall all be slain, Nor Satan break my peace again." What a
   Heaven this will be! I think if I could be sure of getting free from
   every liability to sin, I would not have a choice as to where I should
   live, whether on earth or in Heaven, at the bottom of the sea with
   Jonah, or in the low dungeon with Jeremiah. Purity is peace--holiness
   is happiness! He who is holy as God is holy will, in consequence, be
   happy as God is happy! This is one main object of our hope.

   The other object of our desire is the redemption of the body. Let us
   read the verses in which Paul teaches us that Truth of God--"And if
   Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is
   life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up
   Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the
   dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in
   you." When we die we shall leave our body behind us for a while--we
   shall not, therefore, as to our entire manhood, be perfect in Heaven
   till the Resurrection--we shall be morally perfect, but as a complete
   man is made up of body as well as soul, we shall not be physically
   perfect while one part of our person shall remain in the tomb.

   When the Resurrection trumpet shall sound, this body will rise, but it
   will rise redeemed! And as our soul regenerated is very different from
   our soul under the bondage of sin, so the body, when it is risen, will
   be widely different from the body as it now is. The infirmities caused
   by sickness and age will be unknown among the glorified, for they are
   as the angels of God. None shall enter into Glory halt or maimed, or
   decrepit or malformed. You will have no blind eyes there, my Sister! No
   deaf ears there, my Brother! There shall be no quivering of paralysis
   or wasting of consumption. There we shall possess everlasting youth!
   The body which is sown in weakness shall be raised in power and shall
   at once fly upon the errands of its Lord!

   Paul says, "It is sown a natural (or soulish) body," fit for the soul.
   "It is raised a spiritual body," fit for the spirit, the highest nature
   of man! I suppose we shall inhabit such a body as cherubs wear when
   they fly upon the wings of the wind, or such as may be fit for a seraph
   when, like a flame of fire, he flashes at Jehovah's bidding. Whatever
   it is, poor frame of mine, you shall be very much changed from what you
   are now! You are the shriveled bulb which shall be put into the
   earth--but you shall arise a glorious flower--a golden cup to hold the
   sunlight of Jehovah's face! The greatness

   of your glory you know not as yet, except that you shall be fashioned
   like the glorious body of the Lord Jesus! This is the second object of
   our hope--a glorified body to consort with our purified spirit.

   Viewed in another light, the object of our hope is this--that we shall
   enter upon our inheritance. Paul says, "If children, then heirs; heirs
   of God; joint heirs with Christ." Whether we have little or much in
   this life, our estate is nothing when compared with that which we have,
   in the future, secured to us against the day when we shall come of age!
   The fullness of God is the heritage of the saints--all that can make a
   man blessed, noble and complete is laid up in store for us. Measure, if
   you can, the inheritance of the Christ, who is heir of all things! What
   must be the portion of the well-beloved Son of the Highest? Whatever
   that may be, it is ours, for we are joint heirs with Christ! We shall
   be with Him and behold His Glory! We shall wear His image; we shall sit
   upon His Throne.

   I cannot tell you more, for my words are poverty-stricken. I wish we
   all meditated upon what the Scripture reveals upon this subject till we
   knew all that can be known. Our hope looks for many things, yes for all
   things. Rivers of pleasure, of pleasures forevermore, are flowing for
   us at God's right hand! Paul speaks of, "the glory which shall be
   revealed in us," and tells us in another place that it is, "a far more
   exceeding and eternal weight of glory." What a word is that-- Glory!
   Glory is to be ours! Even ours, poor sinners as we are! Grace is sweet,
   but what must glory be? And it is to be revealed in us, and about us,
   and over us, and through us to all eternity! Paul also speaks of, "the
   glorious liberty of the children of God." O charming word, liberty!

   We love it even as we hear it rung from the silver bugles of those who
   fight with tyrants. But what will it be when the trumpets of Heaven
   shall proclaim eternal jubilee to every spiritual bond slave! Liberty?
   The liberty of the children of God! Liberty to enter into the holiest,
   to dwell in God's Presence and behold His face forever and ever! The
   Apostle speaks, also, of, "the manifestation of the sons of God." Here
   we are hidden away in Christ as gems in a case, but by-and-by we are to
   be revealed as jewels in a crown! As Christ had His time of
   manifestation to the Gentiles after He had, for a while, been hidden,
   so we who are now unknown are to have a manifestation before men and
   angels! "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom
   of their Father."

   What our manifestation shall be, O my Brothers and Sisters, I cannot
   tell you. Eye has not seen it, nor ear heard it, neither has it entered
   into the heart of man. And though God has revealed it unto us by His
   Spirit, yet how small a part of that revelation have our spirits been
   able to receive! I suppose that only he who has seen the home of the
   perfect can tell us what it is like and I conceive that even he could
   not do so, for language could not set it forth. When Paul was in
   Paradise he heard words, but he does not tell us what they were, for he
   says they were not lawful for a man to utter--they were too Divine for
   mortal tongue! Not yet, not yet, but by-and-by the object of our hopes
   shall be clear to us.

   Do not think the less of it because we say, by-and-by, for the interval
   of time is a trifling matter. It will soon be gone. What are a few
   months or years? What if a few hundred years should intervene before
   the Resurrection? They will soon have swept by us like the wing of a
   bird and then! Oh, then! The invisible shall be seen! The unutterable
   shall be heard! The eternal shall be ours forever and ever! This is our
   hope!

   II. Let us now muse upon THE NATURE OF THIS HOPE. We are saved in hope.
   What kind of hope is it in which we are saved? First, our hope consists
   of three things--belief, desire, expectancy. Our hope of being clean
   delivered from sin as to our soul and rescued from all infirmity as to
   our body arises out of a solemn assurance that it shall be so. The
   revelation of Him who has brought life and immortality to light bears
   witness to us that we, also, shall obtain glory and immortality. We
   shall be raised in the image of Christ and shall partake in His Glory!
   This is our belief because Christ is risen and glorified and we are one
   with Him. This, also, we desire, O how ardently! We so desire it that
   we, at times, wish to die that we may enter into it!

   At all times, but especially when we get a glimpse of Christ, our soul
   pines to be with Him. This desire is accompanied with a confident
   expectation. We as much expect to see the Glory of Christ, and to share
   it, as we expect to see tomorrow morning! No--perhaps we shall not see
   tomorrow's sun--but we shall certainly see the King in His beauty in
   the land that is very far off! We believe it, we desire it and we
   expect it! That is the nature of our hope. It is not an indefinite,
   hazy, groundless wish that things may turn out all right, such as those
   have who say, "I hope it will go well with me," though they live
   carelessly and seek not after God. But it is a hope made up of right
   knowledge, firm belief, spiritual desire and warranted expectancy.

   This hope is grounded upon the Word of God. God has promised us this
   and, therefore, we believe it, desire it and expect it. He has said,
   "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved," and the widest sense
   that we can give to that word, "saved," must be God's sense of it since
   His thoughts are always above our thoughts. We expect God to do as He
   has said to the fullest extent of His promise, for He will never run
   back from His Word, nor fail in His engagement. We have committed our
   souls to the keeping of the Savior who has declared that He will save
   His people from their sins. We are trusting in our Redeemer and our
   belief is that our Redeemer lives! And that when He shall stand, in the
   last day upon the earth, though after our skin, worms destroy this
   body, yet in our flesh we shall see God!

   Many and precious are the Words of God to the same effect and we lay
   hold upon them, being certain that what He has promised He is able,
   also, to perform. We will die, never doubting that we will rise again,
   even as we have already committed to the dust many of our beloved ones
   in sure and certain hope of their resurrection to eternal life. As the
   farmer drops his grain into the ground and does not doubt to see it
   rise again, so do we bury the bodies of the saints and so shall we
   resign our own bodies in the certain expectation that they shall as
   surely live again as they have lived at all! This is a hope worth
   having, for it is grounded on the Word of God, the faithfulness of God
   and His power to carry out His own promise and, therefore, it is a hope
   most sure and steadfast which makes no man ashamed who has it.

   This hope is worked in us by the Spirit of God. We should never have
   known this hope if the Holy Spirit had not kindled it in our bosoms.
   Ungodly men have no such hope and never will have. It is only when men
   are renewed that this hope enters into them, the Holy Spirit dwelling
   in them. And herein do I exult with unspeakable joy, for if my hope of
   perfection and immortality has been worked in me by God, then it must
   be fulfilled, for the Lord never could inspire a hope which should put
   His people to shame! The true God never gave men a false hope. That
   cannot be! The God of hope who has taught you, my Brothers and Sisters,
   to expect salvation from sin and all its effects, will do unto you
   according to the expectation which He has, Himself, excited! Therefore
   be very confident and patiently wait the joyful day of the Lord's
   appearing.

   This hope operates in us in a holy manner, as every gracious and holy
   thing that comes from God must do. It purifies us. As John says, "He
   that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as God is pure." We
   are so certain of this inheritance that we prepare for it by putting
   off all things contrary to it and putting on all things which suit it.
   We endeavor to live as in the prospect of Glory! How often has it
   occurred to me and I doubt not to you, my Brothers and Sisters, to say
   of such-and-such a thing, "How will this look in the Day of Judgment?"
   And we have done this act of generosity or that act of consecration,
   not because we cared a whit what men would think of it, but because we
   looked at it in the light of the coming Glory. To us the most grand
   stimulus is that there is laid up for us a crown of life that fades not
   away.

   This blessed hope makes us feel that it is a shame for us to sin, a
   shame that princes of the blood imperial of the skies should dabble in
   the mire like children of the gutter! We would gladly live as those who
   are destined to dwell in the blaze of the ineffable Light of God. We
   cannot walk in darkness, for we are to dwell in a splendor before which
   the sun grows pale--in the very Godhead, itself, are we to baptize
   ourselves in fellowship! Shall we, therefore, be the slaves of Satan,
   or the serfs of sin? God forbid! This blessed hope draws us towards God
   and lifts us out of the pit of sin!

   III. Having described the object and the nature of this blessed hope, I
   come more closely to the text to observe THE

   ANTICIPATORY POWER OF THIS HOPE, for the Apostle says in our text, "We
   were saved in hope"--that is to say

   we got the greater salvation, about which we are now speaking, when we
   were taught to know this hope. We obtained the first part of salvation,
   the forgiveness of sin and justification of our persons, by faith. And
   we have fellowship with God and access into countless blessings by
   faith--some of us are as conscious of this as that we eat and drink.
   But, beside all this, we have, in hope, the fuller range of
   salvation--total deliverance of the soul from sin and complete
   redemption of the body from pain and death. We have this salvation in
   hope and we rejoice in hope of the Glory of God.

   How is this? Why, first, Hope saw it all secured by the promise of
   Grace. As soon as ever we believed in Christ our faith secured
   forgiveness and we cried, "I am not yet free from tendencies to sin,
   but inasmuch as I have believed in Christ unto salvation I shall surely
   be perfected, for Christ could not have come to give me a partial and
   imperfect salvation-- He will perfect that which concerns me." Thus
   Hope saw within the promise of salvation much that as yet was not
   actually experienced. Knowing that the whole of the promise is of equal
   certainty, Hope expected the future mercy as surely as Faith enjoyed
   the present blessing!

   Moreover, Hope saw the full harvest in the first fruits. When sin was
   subdued by Grace, Hope expected to see it utterly exterminated. When
   the Holy Spirit came to dwell in the body, Hope concluded that the body
   would be delivered as surely as the soul. The moment that Faith
   introduced Hope into the heart she sang, "I have the complete salvation
   not in actual enjoyment, but in sure future in Christ Jesus." Hope
   waved the first sheaf and so took possession of the harvest. Ask any
   farmer who holds up a little handful of ripe wheat ears whether he has
   ripe wheat and he tells you that it is even so. "But you have not
   reaped it yet." "No, not yet, but it is mine and in due season I shall
   reap it--these full ears are a full assurance of the existence of the
   wheat and of the fact that it is ripening."

   So when God gave to you and me love to Jesus and deliverance from the
   dominion of evil, these first fruits betokened a perfect salvation yet
   to be revealed in us. Our first joy was the tuning of our harps for
   everlasting song. Our first peace was the morning light of a
   never-ending day. When first we saw Christ and worshipped Him, our
   adoration was the first bowing before the Throne of God and of the
   Lamb. So that in hope we were saved--it brought us the principle of
   perfection, the pledge of immortality, the commencement of
   glorification.

   Moreover, Hope is so sure about this coming favor that she reckons it
   as obtained already. You get advice from a merchant with whom you have
   traded beyond the seas. He says, "I have procured the goods you have
   ordered and will send them by the next vessel which will probably
   arrive at such a time." Another trader calls in and asks you whether
   you wish to buy such goods and you reply, "No, I have them." Have you
   spoken the truth? Certainly, for though you have them not in your
   warehouse, they are invoiced to you--you know they are on the way and
   you are so accustomed to trust your foreign correspondent that you
   regard the goods as yours. The deed is done that makes them yours. So
   it is with Heaven, with perfection, with immortality--the deed is done
   which makes these the heritage of saints.

   I have advice from One whom I cannot doubt, even my Lord, that He has
   gone to Heaven to prepare a place for me and that He will come again
   and receive me to Himself! So sure is Hope of this fact, that she
   reckons it and makes comparisons and draws practical conclusions. A
   good old proverb tells us, "Never count your chickens before they are
   hatched," but here is a case in which you may count as accurately while
   the bird is in the egg as when it is fledged, for the Apostle says, "I
   reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
   compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

   He is so sure of it that he keeps a debtor and creditor account about
   it! He puts down the sufferings of this present time in his
   expenditures and the glory which shall be revealed among his
   assets--and he declares that the one is so vast and the other so
   utterly insignificant as not to be worth notice! No, he is not only so
   sure as to count upon it, but to groan after it! We that are in this
   body groan for the full adoption! Our groans do not arise from doubt,
   but from eagerness--we are urged, by our confident expectancy, to
   vehemence of desire! It is idle to cry for that which you will never
   have. The child is foolish which cries for the moon. But to groan for
   what I am sure to have is proper and fit--and shows the strength of my
   faith.

   The Apostle is so sure of it that he even triumphs in it. He says that
   we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us--that is to say,
   although we are not yet perfect and although our body is not delivered
   from pain, yet we are so sure of perfection and complete deliverance
   that we joyfully endure all things, triumphing over every difficulty!
   Friend, you will not be poor many weeks longer--you shall dwell where
   the streets are paved with gold! Your head will not ache many months
   longer, for it shall be surrounded with a coronet of glory and of
   bliss! Never mind shame--they will not be able to laugh at you
   long--you shall be at the right hand of God, even the Father! And the
   Glory of Christ shall clothe you, world without end! Oh, it is an
   infinite blessing to have such a hope and to be so sure of it as to
   anticipate its joys before they actually come to us! "We are saved in
   hope."

   IV. Let us for a moment observe THE PROPER SPHERE OF HOPE. The sphere
   of hope is "things not seen." Hope that is seen is not hope, for what a
   man sees, why does he yet hope for it? Therefore, Brothers and Sisters,
   a Christian's real possession is not what he sees. Suppose God prospers
   him in this world and he has riches? Let him be grateful, but let him
   confess that these are not his treasure. One hour with the Lord Jesus
   Christ will bring more satisfaction to the Believer than the largest
   measure of wealth!

   Although he may have been prospered in this world, the saint will
   ridicule the idea of making the world his portion. A thousand worlds
   with all the joy which they could yield are as nothing compared with
   our appointed inheritance! Our

   hope does not deal with trifles--it leaves the mice of the barn to the
   owls and soars on eagle wings where nobler joys await her--

   "Beyond, beyond this lower sky, Up where eternal ages roll; Where solid
   pleasures never die, And fruits immortal feast the soul." But it is
   clear that we do not, at present, enjoy these glorious things for which
   we hope. The worldling cries, "Where is your hope?" And we confess that
   we do not see the objects of our hope. For instance, we could not claim
   to be already perfect and neither do we expect to be so while we are in
   this body. But we believe that we shall be perfected in the image of
   Christ at the time appointed of the Father.

   By no means is our body free from infirmity at this moment--aches and
   pains and weariness remind us that the body is under death because of
   sin. Yet our firm conviction is that we shall bear the image of the
   heavenly even as we now bear the image of the earthly. These are
   subjects of hope and, therefore, outside of present experience. Let us
   not be cast down because it is so. We must have something reserved for
   hope to feed on. We cannot have all of Heaven and yet remain on earth.
   Dearly Beloved, if you feel tormented by indwelling sin and your
   holiness seems battered and blotted, yet be fully persuaded that He who
   has promised is able to perform! Away, then, with judging by what you
   do, or see, or feel, or are! Rise into the sphere of the things which
   shall be. Can you do that?

   When there is no joy in the present, there is an infinite joy in the
   future. Do not say, "Oh, but it is a long way off." It is not so! Many
   among you are 60, 70, or even 80 years of age--your time for the sight
   of Christ in your disembodied state cannot be far away, for the thread
   of life is snapping. Some of us are in middle age, but as we have
   already reached the average of life, we are bound to reckon that our
   lease is far advanced--and as so many are snatched away in their prime,
   we may at any moment be caught up to the land for which we hope! We
   ought not to fret about what we shall do 10 years from now, for it is
   very likely that we shall, by that time, have entered into the promised
   rest and shall be serving the Lord day and night in His Temple and
   beholding His face with unspeakable joy!

   Even suppose that any of us should be doomed to exile from Heaven for
   another 50 years, the time of our sojourn will soon fly away. Let us
   labor to our utmost for the Glory of God while we are here, for the
   moments flash away. Do you not remember this time last year when
   autumn's ripeness was all around? It seems but the other day! You boys
   and girls think it a long year, but the old folks are of another
   opinion. We have no long years, now that we are growing gray! For me,
   time travels so fast that its axles are hot with speed! Fear
   cries--"Oh, for a little breathing space!" But Hope answers--"No, let
   the years fly! We shall be Home the sooner!" There is but a step
   between us and Heaven--do not let us worry ourselves about things
   below. We are like people in an express train who see a disagreeable
   sight in the fields, but it is gone before they have time to think of
   it!

   If there should be some discomfort in the carriage. If they have been
   put into a third-class compartment when they had a first-class ticket,
   they do not trouble if it is a short journey. "See," says one, "we have
   just passed the last station and shall be in the terminal directly, so
   never mind." Let us project ourselves into the future. We shall not
   need much dynamite of imagination to send us upward--we can leap that
   little distance by hope and seat ourselves among the thrones above!
   Resolve, my Brothers and Sisters, that, at least for today you will not
   tarry in this cloudy, earth-bound time, but will mount unto the bright,
   cloudless eternity! O to leave these turbid streams and bathe in the
   river of Hope, whose crystal floods flow from the pure fountain of
   Divine joy!

   V. Our time has fled and we must close by merely glancing at THE EFFECT
   OF THIS HOPE which is thus described--"Then do we with patience wait
   for it." We wait and must wait, but not as criminals for execution! Our
   tarrying is rather that of the bride for the wedding. We wait with
   patience, constancy, desire and submission. The joy is sure to come--we
   have no doubt about it--therefore we do not complain and murmur, as
   though God had missed His appointment and put us to needless delay. No,
   the time which God has settled is the best and we are content with it.
   We would neither desire to tarry here nor to depart at any time but the
   Lord's.

   Dear Rowland Hill is said to have searched out an aged friend who was
   dying, that he might send a message up to Heaven to John Berridge and
   other beloved Johns who had gone before him. He playfully added a word
   of hope that the Master had not forgotten old Rowland and would let him
   come home in due time. Yet he never dreamed that he could be passed
   over. Among the last expressions of the famous John Donne was this--"I
   were miserable if I might not die." This

   would be a horrible world, indeed, if we were doomed to live in it
   forever! I saw a gentleman sometime ago who told me that he would never
   die, but should, at certain intervals, cast off the effects of age and
   start on a new term of life. He kindly came to tell me how I might
   enjoy the same favor, but as I am not ambitious of earthly immortality,
   such an offer did not tempt me.

   He told me I could renew my youth and become young, again, for the
   space of hundreds of years, but I refused his offer and declined the
   gift at any price. I have no desire for anything of the sort! My most
   comfortable prospect about this life is that it will melt away into
   eternal life! It seems to me that the most joyous thing about the most
   joyous life is that it leads upward to another and a better state. I am
   not unhappy or discontented, but since I have a good hope of perfection
   for my soul and body and a sure prospect of face-to-face fellowship
   with God, how can I speak well of anything which divides me from my
   joy? Yes, it will come, surely come--therefore let us patiently wait
   for it.

   When Satan would buffet us; when temptation would overcome us; when
   affliction would wear us down; when doubts would torment us, let us
   bear the temporary trial with constancy, for we shall soon be out of
   range of gunshot. The consummation shall come and must come--and when
   it comes we shall remember no more our travail for joy that our Heaven
   is born to us and we to it!

   Now, then, you that do not believe in God, tell us what your hope is.
   Publish it in the world and let all men estimate it. What is your hope?
   To live long? Yes, and what then? To bring up a family? Yes, and what
   then? To see them comfortably settled in life? Yes, and what then? To
   be a grandfather to a numerous progeny? Yes, and what then? To reach
   extreme old age in peaceful retirement? Yes, and what then? The curtain
   falls! Let me lift it. The cemetery. The Throne of God. Sentence on
   your soul! The trumpet of Resurrection. Final doom. Body and soul in
   Hell forever! You have no better prospect! Pray look out of the window
   and see what is to be seen. The Lord have mercy upon you and give you a
   better hope!

   As for you believers in Christ, I charge you, begin to sing, today, the
   sonnets of the hereafter! Charm your pilgrim life with the minstrelsy
   of hope!
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 Love's Labours

   A Sermon

   (No. 1617)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, September 4th, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
   endureth all things.''1 Corinthians 13:7.

   THE grace of charity, or love, of which so much is most admirably
   spoken in this chapter, is absolutely essential to true godliness. So
   essential is it that, if we have everything beside, but have not
   charity, it profiteth us nothing. The absence of charity is absolutely
   fatal to vital godliness; so saith the Holy Ghost in this chapter.
   When, then, you read the apostle's high encomiums of charity, do not
   say, This is a fancy virtue to which certain special saints have
   attained, and we are bound to admire them for it, but we need not
   imitate them.' Far from it. This charity is the common, everyday livery
   of the people of God. It is not the prerogative of a few; it must be
   the possession of all. Do not, therefore, however lofty the model may
   be, look up to it as though you could not reach it: you must reach it.
   It is put before you not only as a thing greatly desirable, but as
   absolutely needful; for if you excelled in every spiritual gift, yet if
   you had not this all the rest would profit you nothing whatever. One
   would think that such excellent gifts might benefit us a little, but
   no, the apostle sums them all up, and saith of the whole, it profiteth
   me nothing.' I pray that this may be understood of us at the very
   beginning, lest we should manage to slip away from the truth taught us
   by the Holy Ghost in this place, and should excuse ourselves from being
   loving by the notion that we are so inconsiderable that such high
   virtue cannot be required of us, or so feeble that we cannot be
   expected to attain to it. You must attain it, or you cannot enter into
   eternal life, for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none
   of his, and the Spirit of Christ is sure to beget the charity of our
   text, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
   things, endureth all things.'

   What does this teach us at the outset, but that a salvation which leads
   to this must be of God, and must be wrought in us by his power? Such a
   comely grace can never grow out of our fallen nature. Shall such a
   clean thing as this be brought out of an unclean? This glorious
   salvation unto pure love must be grasped by faith, and wrought in us by
   the operation of the Spirit of God. If we consider salvation to be a
   little thing, we bring it, as it were, within the sphere of human
   possibility, but if we set it forth in its true proportions as
   involving the possession of a pure, loving, elevated state of heart,
   then we perceive that it is a divine wonder. When we estimate the
   renewed nature aright we cry, This is the finger of God,' and right
   gladly do we then subscribe to Jonah's creed, Salvation is of the
   Lord.' If charity be in any man and abound, God must have the glory of
   it; for assuredly it was never attained by mere natural effort, but
   must have been bestowed by that same hand which made the heavens. So
   then, brethren, I shall hope when I conclude to leave upon your minds
   the impression of your need of the grace of God for the attainment of
   love. I would not discourage you, but I would have you feel how great a
   labour lies before you, and how impossible it will be unless you are
   girt with a strength beyond your own. This shall be your solace that if
   it cannot be the outcome of your own effort, yet the fruit of the
   Spirit is love,' and the Spirit is ready and willing to bear fruit in
   us also.

   Notice then, first, the multitude of love's difficulties; it has to
   bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all
   things: secondly, observe the triumph of love's labour; it does all
   these four things, it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
   all things, endureth all things': and then, thirdly, this will bring us
   back to the point we have started from, the sources of love's energy,
   and how it is she is able thus to win her fourfold victory over
   countless difficulties.

   I. Consider well THE MULTITUDE OF LOVE'S DIFFICULTIES. When the grace
   of God comes into a man he is born at once to love. He that loveth is
   born of God, and he that is born of God loveth. He loveth him that
   begat, even God, and he loveth him that is begotten of him, even all
   the saved ones. He commences to obey the great command to love his
   neighbour as himself. His motto is no longer that of an earthly
   kingdom, Dieu et mon droitGod and my right; but he bears another word
   on his escutcheon, Dieu et mon fr're'God and my brother.

   No sooner is love born than she finds herself at war. Everything is
   against her, for the world is full of envy, hate, and ill-will. I would
   warn the most loving-hearted that they have entered upon a war for
   peace, a strife for love: they are born to hate hatred, and to contend
   against contention. As the lily among thorns, so is love among the sons
   of men. As the hind among the dogs, so is charity among the selfish
   multitude.

   Evidently the difficulties of love are many, for the apostle speaks of
   them as all things,' and as if this were not enough he repeats the
   words, and sets forth the opposing armies as four times all things.' I
   do not know whether you can calculate this mighty host. All things'
   would seem to comprehend as much as can be, but here in the text you
   have this amount multiplied by four. For, my brother, you will have to
   contend with all that is within yourself. Nothing in your original
   nature will help you. God has put within you a new life, but the old
   life seeks to smother it. You will find it a severe struggle to master
   yourself, and if you succeed therein you will be a conqueror indeed.
   Besides that you will have to contend with all things' in the persons
   whom you are called upon to love. You must have fervent charity towards
   the saints, but you will find very much about the best of them which
   will try your patience; for, like yourself, they are imperfect, and
   they will not always turn their best side towards you, but sometimes
   sadly exhibit their infirmities. Be prepared, therefore, to contend
   with all things' in them. As for the ungodly whom you are to love to
   Christ, you will find everything in them that will oppose the drawings
   of your love, for they, like yourself, by nature are born in sin, and
   they are rooted in their iniquities. When you have mastered that kind
   of all things' you will have to contend with all things' in the world,
   for the world lieth in the wicked one, and all its forces run towards
   self, and contention, and hate. Every man's hand is against his fellow,
   and few there be who honour the gentle laws of love; they know not that
   divine charity which seeketh not her own.' The seed of the serpent is
   at enmity with all that is kind, and tender, and self-sacrificing, for
   these are the marks of the woman's seed. Marvel not, my brethren, if
   the world hate you. And then remember that all things' in hell are
   against you. What a seething mass of rebellious life, all venomous with
   hate, is seen in the regions of darkness. The prince of the power of
   the air leads the van, and the host of fallen spirits eagerly follow
   him, like bloodhounds behind their leader. All these evil spirits will
   endeavour to create dissension, and enmity, and malice, and oppression
   among men, and the soldier of love must wrestle against all these. See,
   O my brother, what a battle is yours! Speak of crusades against the
   Paynim, what a crusade is this against hate and evil. Yet we shrink not
   from the fray.

   Happily, though love has many difficulties, it overcomes them all, and
   overcomes them four times. There is such vitality in evil that it leaps
   up from the field whereon it seemed to be slain, and rages with all its
   former fury. First, we overcome evil by patience, which beareth all
   things.' Let the injury be inflicted, we will forgive it, and not be
   provoked: even seventy times seven will we bear in silence. If this
   suffice not, by God's grace we will overcome by faith: we trust in
   Jesus Christ, we rely upon our principles, we look for divine succour,
   and so we believe all things.' We overcome a third time by hope: we
   rest in expectation that gentleness will win, and that long-suffering
   will wear out malice, for we look for the ultimate victory of
   everything that is true and gracious, and so we hope all things.' We
   finish the battle by perseverance: we abide faithful to our resolve to
   love, we will not be irritated into unkindness, we will not be
   perverted from generous, all-forgiving affection, and so we win the
   battle by steadfast non-resistance. We have set our helm towards the
   port of love, and towards it we will steer, come what may. Baffled
   often, love endureth all things.'

   Yes, brethren, and love conquers on all four sides. Love does, as it
   were, make a hollow square, and she sets the face of her warriors
   towards all quarters of the compass. Does God seem himself to smite
   love with afflictions? She beareth all things.' Do her fellow
   Christians misrepresent her, and treat her ill? She believes everything
   that is good about them, and nothing that is injurious. Do the wicked
   rise against her? When she tries to convert them, do they return evil
   for good? She turns her hopefulness to the front in that direction, and
   hopes that yet the Spirit of God will bring them to a better mind. And
   does it happen that all her spiritual foes attack her with temptations
   and desperate insinuations? She lifteth up the banner of patience
   against them, and by the power of God's grace she putteth the infernal
   enemy to the rout, for she endureth all things.' What a brave mode of
   battle is this! Is not love a man-of-war? Is it not invincible? Hear
   love's heroic cry as she shouts her defiance'

   Come one, come all, this rock shall fly,

   From its firm base as soon as I.'

   If once taught in the school of Christ to turn love to every point of
   the compass, and so to meet every assault against our heart, we have
   learned the secret of victory.

   It seems to me that I might read my text as if it said that love
   conquers in all stages of her life. She begins in conversion, and
   straightway those that mark her birth are angry, and the powers of evil
   are at once aroused to seek her destruction. Then she beareth all
   things.' Let them mock, love never renders railing for railing: Isaac
   is not to be provoked by Ishmael's jeers.

   She gathers strength and begins to tell out to others what she knows of
   her Lord and his salvation. She believeth all things,' and so she
   confesses her faith, and her fellow Christians are confirmed by her
   witness. It is her time of energy, and so she tries to woo and win
   others, by teaching them the things which she believes.

   She advances a little farther; and, though often disappointed by the
   unbelief of men and the coldness of her fellow Christians, she
   nevertheless hopes all things,' and pushes on in the expectation of
   winning more of them. Her dove's eyes see in the dark, and she advances
   to victory through ever-growing conflict.

   Ay, and when infirmities thicken upon her, and old age comes, and she
   can do little else but sit still, and bear and believe and hope, she
   still perseveres, and accepts even the stroke of death itself without
   complaining, for love endureth all things.'

   I do not think I need say more upon the difficulties of love. I am sure
   that every experienced person knows that these difficulties are
   supreme, and that we require superlative grace if we are to master
   them. Love does not ask to have an easy life of it: self-love makes
   that her aim. Love denies herself, sacrifices herself, that she may win
   victories for God, and bring blessings on her fellow-men. Hers is no
   easy pathway, and hers shall be no tinsel crown.

   II. Secondly, let us survey THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE'S LABOUR. Her labours
   are fourfold.

   First, in bearing all things. The word here rendered bear' might as
   correctly have been translated cover.' You that have the Revised
   Version will find in the margin, Love covereth all things.' Covereth'
   is the meaning of the word in ordinary Greek, but Paul generally uses
   the word in the sense of bear.' Our translators, therefore, had to
   choose between the usual meaning and the Pauline usage, and they
   selected Paul's meaning, and put it down in the first place as
   beareth,' giving us in the margin the other sense of covereth.' The two
   ideas may be blended, if we understand it to mean that love bears all
   things in silence, concealing injuries as much as possible even from
   herself.

   Let us just think of this word covers' in reference to the brethren.
   True love refuses to see faults, unless it be that she may kindly help
   in their removal. Love has no wish to see faults. Noah's younger son
   discovered and declared the shame of his father, but his other sons
   took a garment and went backward and covered the nakedness of their
   father: after this fashion does love deal with the sins of her
   brethren. She painfully fears that there may be something wrong, but
   she is loath to be convinced of it: she ignores it as long as she can,
   and wishes that she could deny it altogether. Love covers; that is, it
   never proclaims the errors of good men. There are busybodies abroad who
   never spy out a fault in a brother but they must needs hurry off to
   their next neighbour with the savoury news, and then they run up and
   down the street as though they had been elected common criers. It is by
   no means honourable to men or women to set up to be common informers.
   Yet I know some who are not half so eager to publish the gospel as to
   publish slander. Love stands in the presence of a fault, with a finger
   on her lip. If anyone is to smite a child of God, let it not be a
   brother. Even if a professor be a hypocrite, love prefers that he
   should fall by any hand rather than her own. Love covers all injuries
   by being silent about them, and acting as if they had never been. She
   sitteth alone, and keepeth silence. To speak and publish her wrong is
   too painful for her, for she fears to offend against the Lord's people.
   She would rather suffer than murmur, and so, like a sheep before her
   shearers, she is dumb under injury.

   I would, brothers and sisters, that we could all imitate the pearl
   oyster. A hurtful particle intrudes itself into its shell, and this
   vexes and grieves it. It cannot eject the evil, and what does it do but
   cover it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by
   which it turns the intruder into a pearl. Oh, that we could do so with
   the provocations we receive from our fellow Christians, so that pearls
   of patience, gentleness, long-suffering, and forgiveness might be bred
   within us by that which else had harmed us. I would desire to keep
   ready for my fellow Christians, a bath of silver, in which I could
   electroplate all their mistakes into occasions for love. As the
   dripping well covers with its own deposit all that is placed within its
   drip, so would love cover all within its range with love, thus turning
   even curses into blessings. Oh that we had such love that it would
   cover all, and conceal all, so far as it is right and just that it
   should be covered and concealed.

   As to bearing all, taking the words as they stand in our version, I
   wish to apply the text mainly to our trials in seeking the conversion
   of the unconverted. Those who love the souls of men must be prepared to
   cover much when they deal with them, and to bear much from them in
   silence. When I begin to seek the conversion of anyone, I must try as
   much as ever I can to ignore any repulsiveness that there may be in his
   character. I know that he is a sinner, else I should not seek his
   salvation; but if he happens to be one who has fallen very low in the
   esteem of others, I must not treat him as such, but cover his worst
   points. You cannot possibly bring the Samaritan woman who has had five
   husbands into a right state of mind by wondering that he spake with the
   woman.' Thus the disciples acted, but not so their Master, for he sat
   on the well and talked with her, and made himself her willing companion
   that he might be her gracious Saviour; he ignored her sin so far as to
   converse with her for her good.

   You will not long have begun this holy work before you will discover in
   the heart you seek to win much ignorance of the gospel. Bear with it,
   and bring forward the text which sheds light on that darkness, and
   teach the truth which will remove that error. Ere long you will have to
   contend with hardness of heart, for when a man knows the truth he is
   not always willing to receive it. Bear it, and be not vexed. Did you
   not expect the heart to be hard? Do not you know what business you are
   upon? You are sent to turn men from darkness to light and from the
   power of Satan unto God. Be not astonished if these things should not
   prove to be child's play. In addition to this perhaps you will have
   ridicule poured upon you; your attempts to convert will be converted
   into jests. Bear it; bear all things! Remember how the multitude thrust
   out the tongue at your Lord and Master when he was dying, and be not
   you so proud as to think yourself too good to be laughed at. Still
   speak concerning Christ, and whatever happens, bear all things. I will
   not attempt to make a catalogue of your provocations, you shall make
   one yourself after you have tried to convert men to Christ; but all
   that you can possibly meet with is included in my text, for it says,
   beareth all things.' If you should meet with some extraordinary sinner
   who opens his mouth with cruel speeches such as you have never heard
   before, and if by attempting to do him good you only excite him to
   ribaldry and blasphemy, do not be astonished; have at him again, for
   charity beareth all things,' whatever they may be. Push on and say,
   Yes, all this proves to me how much you want saving. You are my man; if
   I get you to Christ there will be all the greater glory to God.' O
   blessed charity, which can thus cover all things and bear all things
   for Christ's sake.

   Do you want an example of it? Would you see the very mirror and
   perfection of the charity that beareth all things? Behold your divine
   Lord. Oh, what he has covered! It is a tempting topic, but I will not
   dwell on it. How his glorious righteousness, his wondrous splendour of
   love, has covered all our faults and all their consequences, treating
   us as if he saw no sin in Jacob, neither perversity in Israel. Think
   what he bore when he came unto his own and his own received him not!
   What a covering was that when he said, Father, forgive them, for they
   know not what they do.' What a pitying sight of the fearful misery of
   man our Lord Jesus had when holy tears bedewed those sacred eyes! What
   a generous blindness to their infamous cruelty he manifested when he
   prayed for his bloodthirsty enemies. O beloved, you will never be
   tempted, and taunted, and tried as he was; yet in your own shorter
   measure may you possess that love which can silently bear all things
   for the elect's sake and for Christ's sake, that the multitude of the
   redeemed may be accomplished, and that Christ through you may see of
   the travail of his soul.

   Now let us look at the second of love's great labours. You have heard
   of the labours of Hercules, but the fabulous hero is far outdone by the
   veritable achievements of love. Love works miracles which only grace
   can enable her to perform. Here is the second of them'love believeth
   all things.' In reference, first, to our fellow Christians, love always
   believes the best of them. I wish we had more of this faith abroad in
   all the churches, for a horrid blight falls upon some communities
   through suspicion and mistrust. Though everything may be pure and
   right, yet certain weak minds are suddenly fevered with anxiety through
   the notion that all is wrong and rotten. This unholy mis-trust is in
   the air, a blight upon all peace: it is a sort of fusty mildew of the
   soul by which all sweet perfume of confidence is killed. The best man
   is suspected of being a designing knave, though he is honest as the
   day, and the smallest fault or error is frightfully exaggerated, till
   we seem to dwell among criminals and to be all villains together. If I
   did not believe in my brethren I would not profess to be one of them. I
   believe that with all their faults they are the best people in the
   world, and that, although the church of God is not perfect, yet she is
   the bride of One who is. I have the utmost respect for her, for her
   Lord's sake. The Roman matron said Where my husband is Caias I am
   Caia'; where Christ is King, she who stands at his right hand is the
   queen in gold of Ophir.' God forbid that I should rail at her of whom
   her Lord says, Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been
   honourable, and I have loved thee.' True love believes good of others
   as long as ever it can, and when it is forced to fear that wrong has
   been done, love will not readily yield to evidence, but she gives the
   accused brother the benefit of many a doubt. When the thing is too
   clear, love says, Yes, but the friend must have been under very strong
   temptation, and if I had been there I dare say I should have done
   worse;' or else love hopes that the erring one may have offended from a
   good though mistaken motive; she believes that the good man must have
   been mistaken, or he would not have acted so. Love, as far as she can,
   believes in her fellows. I know some persons who habitually believe
   everything that is bad, but they are not the children of love. Only
   tell them that their minister or their brother has killed his wife, and
   they would believe it immediately, and send out for a policeman: but if
   you tell them anything good of their neighbour, they are in no such
   hurry to believe you. Did you ever hear of gossips tittle-tattling
   approval of their neighbours? I wish the chatterers would take a turn
   at exaggerating other people's virtues, and go from house to house
   trumping up pretty stories of their acquaintances. I do not recommend
   lying even in kindness, but that side of it would be such a novelty
   that I could almost bear with its evils for a change. Love, though it
   will not speak an untruth in praise of another, yet has a quick eye to
   see the best qualities of others, and it is habitually a little blind
   to their failings. Her blind eye is to the fault, and her bright is for
   the excellence. Somewhere or other I met with an old legend'I do not
   suppose it to be literally true, but its spirit is correct. It is said
   that, once upon a time, in the streets of Jerusalem, there lay a dead
   dog, and everyone kicked at it and reviled it. One spoke of its currish
   breed, another of its lean and ugly form, and so forth; but one passed
   by who paused a moment over the dead dog, and said, What white teeth it
   has.' Men said, as he went on his way, That is Jesus of Nazareth.'
   Surely it is ever our Lord's way to see good points wherever he can.
   Brethren, think as well as you can even of a dead dog. If you should
   ever be led into disappointments and sorrows by thinking too well of
   your fellow-men, you need not greatly blame yourself. I met, in Anthony
   Farrindon's Sermons, a line which struck me. He says the old proverb
   has it, Humanum est errare,' to err is human, but, saith he, when we
   err by thinking too kindly of others we may say, Christianum est
   errare,' it is Christian to err in such a fashion. I would not have you
   credulous, but I would have you trustful, for suspicion is a cruel
   evil. Few fall into the blessed error of valuing their fellow
   Christians at too high a rate.

   In reference to the unconverted this is a very important matter. Love
   believeth all things' in their case. She does not believe that the
   unconverted are converted, for, if so, she would not seek their
   conversion. She believes that they are lost and ruined by the Fall, but
   she believes that God can save them. Love believes that the precious
   blood of Christ can redeem the bondslaves of sin and Satan, and break
   their iron chains; she believes that the power of the Holy Spirit can
   change a heart of granite into a heart of flesh. Love, therefore,
   believing this, believes also that God can save this sinner by herself,
   and she therefore begins to speak to him, expecting that the word she
   speaks will be God's instrument of salvation. When she finds herself
   sitting next to a sinner, she believes that there was a necessity for
   her to be there, even as Christ must needs go through Samaria. She
   saith to herself, Now will I tell to this poor soul what Christ hath
   done, for I believe that even out of my poor lips eternal life may
   flow, and in such a babe as I am God may perfect praise to his own
   glory.' She does not refrain from preaching Christ through fear of
   failure, but she believes in the great possibilities which lie in the
   gospel and in the Spirit of God, and so she deals earnestly with the
   man next her. She believes in her own principles, she believes in the
   grace of God, she believes in the power of the Spirit of God, she
   believes in the force of truth, she believes in the existence of
   conscience, and so she is moved to set about her saving work. She
   believeth all things.

   Brethren, do you want a model of this? Then I beseech you look to your
   divine Master once again. See him in the morning when the sheep are
   counted, missing one of them, and so full of faith is he that he can
   find the lost one, that he leaves the ninety and nine, and cheerfully
   enters the pathless wilderness. See how he bounds over the mountains!
   How he descends the ravines! He is seeking his sheep until he finds it,
   for he is fully assured that he shall find it. He shall not fail nor be
   discouraged, for his faith is great in the salvation of men, and he
   goes forth to it believing that sinners shall be saved. I delight in
   the deep, calm faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had no faith in man's
   goodness, for he knew what was in man'; but he had great faith in what
   could be done in men and what could be wrought for them, and for the
   joy that was set before him in this he endured the cross, despising the
   shame. He had faith that grand things would come of his salvation'men
   would be purified, error would be driven out, false-hood would be
   slain, and love would reign supreme.

   Here is the second grand victory of love, she believeth all things.'
   Herein let us exercise ourselves till we are skilled in it.

   Love's third great labour is in hoping all things.' Love never
   despairs. She believes in good things yet to come in her fellow-men,
   even if she cannot believe in any present good in them. Hope all things
   about your brethren. Suppose a friend is a member of the church, and
   you cannot see any clear signs of grace in him, hope all things about
   him. Many true believers are weak in faith, and the operations of grace
   are dim in them; and some are placed in positions where the grace they
   have is much hindered and hampered: let us take these things into
   consideration. It is hard to tell how little grace may yet suffice for
   salvation: it is not ours to judge. Hope all things, and if you should
   be forced to see sad signs in them, which make you fear that they have
   no grace, yet, remember that some of the brightest believers have had
   their faults, and grave ones too. Remember yourself, lest you also be
   tempted. If you cannot hope that these persons are saved at all, hope
   that they will be, and do all that you can to promote so blessed an
   end.

   Hope all things. If thy brother has been very angry with thee without a
   cause, hope that thou wilt win him; and set about the task. If thou
   hast tried and failed, hope to succeed next time, and try again. Hope
   that though thou hast failed seven times, and he still speaks bitterly,
   yet in his heart he is really ashamed, or at least that he will be so
   very soon. Never despair of your fellow Christians.

   As to the unconverted, you will never do anything with them unless you
   hope great things about them. When the good Samaritan found the poor
   man half dead, if he had not hoped about him he would never have poured
   in the oil and the wine, but would have left him there to die.
   Cultivate great hopefulness about sinners. Always hope of them that
   they will be saved yet: though no good signs are apparent in them. If
   you have done your best for them, and have been disappointed and
   defeated, still hope for them. Sometimes you will find cause for hope
   in the fact that they begin to attend a place of worship. Grasp at
   that, and say, Who can tell? God may bless them.' Or if they have long
   been hearers, and no good has come of it, still hope that the minister
   will one day have a shot at them, and the arrow shall pierce through
   the joints of the harness. When you last spoke to them there seemed a
   little tenderness: be thankful for it, and have hope. If there has been
   a little amendment in their life, be hopeful about them. Even if you
   can see nothing at all hopeful in them, yet hope that there may be
   something which you cannot see, and perhaps an effect has been produced
   which they are endeavouring to conceal. Hope because you are moved to
   pray for them. Get other people to pray for them, for as long as they
   have some one to pray for them their case is not given over. If you get
   others to pray, there will be another string to your bow. If they are
   very ill, and you cannot get at them, or they are on their dying beds,
   still have hope about them, and try to send them a message in some form
   or other. Pray the Lord to visit and save them; and always keep up your
   hope about them. Till they are dead let not your hope be dead.

   Would you see a model of this? Ah, look at our blessed Lord, and all
   his hopefulness for US: how, despairing of none, he went after those
   whom others would have given up. If you ask a proof, remember how he
   went after you. Will you despair of anybody since Christ did not
   despair of you? Wonders of grace belong to God, and all those wonders
   have been displayed in many among us. If you and I had been there when
   they brought the adulterous woman taken in the very act, I am afraid
   that we should have said, This is too bad; put her away, she cannot be
   borne with.' But oh, the hopefulness of the blessed Master when even to
   her he said, Woman, where are thine accusers? Neither do I condemn
   thee. Go, and sin no more.' What wonderful patience, and gentleness,
   and hopefulness our Lord displayed in all his converse with the twelve!
   It was a noble hopefulness in Christ which led him to trust Peter as he
   did: after he had denied his Master with oaths, our Lord trusted him to
   feed his sheep and lambs, and set him in the forefront of apostolic
   service. He has also had compassion on some of us, putting us into the
   ministry, and putting us in trust with the gospel, for he knew what
   love would do for us, and he was certain he could yet make something of
   us to his own glory.

   The last victory of love is in enduring all things, by which I
   understand a patient perseverance in loving. This is perhaps the
   hardest work of all, for many people can be affectionate and patient
   for a time, but the task is to hold on year after year. I have known
   some men earnestly check their temper under provocation, and bear a
   great many slights, but at last they have said, There is an end to
   everything: I am not going to put up with it any longer. I cannot stand
   it.' Blessed be God, the love that Christ gives us endureth all things.
   As his love endured to the end, so does the love which the Spirit works
   in us endure to the end.

   In reference first to our fellow Christians, love holds out under all
   rebuffs. You mean that I shall not love you, my good man, but I shall
   love you. You give me the rough side of your tongue, and make me see
   that you are not a very lovable person, but I can love you
   notwithstanding all. What? Will you do me a further unkindness? I will
   oppose you by doing you a greater kindness than before. You said a vile
   thing about me; I will not hear it, but if it be possible I will say a
   kind thing of you. I will cover you up with hot coals till I melt you;
   I will war against you with flames of love till your anger is consumed.
   I will master you by being kinder to you than you have been unkind to
   me. What hosts of misrepresentations and unkindnesses there are; but if
   you go on to be a true Christian you must endure all these. If you have
   to deal with people who will put up with nothing from you, take care to
   be doubly patient with them. What credit is there in bearing with those
   who bear with you? If your brethren are angry without a cause, be sorry
   for them, but do not let them conquer you by driving you into a bad
   temper. Stand fast in love; endure not some things, but all things, for
   Christ's sake; so shall you prove yourself to be a Christian indeed.

   As to your dealing with the unconverted, if ever you go into the field
   after souls, be sure to carry your gun with you, and that gun is love.
   You gentlemen who go out shooting partridges and other birds at this
   time of the year, no doubt find it a pleasant pastime; but for real
   excitement, joy, and pleasure, commend me to soul-winning. What did our
   Lord say, I will make you fishers of men.' If you go out fishing for
   souls you will have to endure all things, for it will come to pass that
   some whom you have been seeking for a long time will grow worse instead
   of better. Endure this among the all things. Those whom you seek to
   bless may seem to be altogether unteachable, they may shut their ears
   and refuse to hear you; never mind, endure all things. They may grow
   sour and sullen, and revile you in their anger, but be not put about by
   them, let them struggle till they are wearied, and meanwhile do you
   quietly wait, saying to yourself, I must save them.' A warder who has
   to take care of insane persons will frequently be attacked by them, and
   have to suffer hard blows; but what does he do? Strike the patient and
   make a fight of it? No, he holds him down and pins him fast; but not in
   anger, for he pities him too much to be angry with him. Does a nurse
   with a delirious patient take any notice of his cross words, and
   grumbling, and outcries? Not she. She says, I must try to save this
   man's life,' and so with great kindness she endureth all things.' If
   you were a fireman, and found a person in an upper room, and the house
   was on fire, would you not struggle with him rather than let him remain
   in the room and burn. You would say, I will save you in spite of
   yourself.' Perhaps the foolish body would call you names, and say, Let
   me alone, why should you intrude into my chamber?' But you would say,
   Never mind my intrusion; I will apologize afterwards for my rudeness,
   but you must be out of the fire first.' I pray God give you this
   blessed unmannerliness, this sweet casting of all things to the wind,
   if by any means you may save some.

   If you desire to see the mirror and the paragon of persevering
   endurance, look you there! I wish you could see it. I wish these eyes
   could see the sight as I have sometimes seen it. Behold the cross! See
   the patient Sufferer and that ribald multitude: they thrust out the
   tongue, they sneer, they jest, they blaspheme; and there he hangs,
   triumphant in his patience, conquering the world, and death and hell by
   enduring all things.' O love, thou didst never sit on a throne so
   imperial as the cross, when there, in the person of the Son of God,
   thou didst all things endure. Oh that we might copy in some humble
   measure that perfect pattern which is here set before us. If you would
   be saviours, if you would bless your generation, let no unkindness
   daunt you; let no considerations of your own character, or honour, or
   peace of mind keep you back, but of you may it be said, even as of your
   Lord, He saved others, himself he could not save.'

   Have not I shown you four grand battles far excelling all the
   Waterloos, and Trafalgars, and Almas, and Inkermans on record? Heroes
   are they that fight and win them, and the Lord God of love shall crown
   them.

   III. I close by noting THE SOURCES OF LOVE'S ENERGY. The time is gone,
   as I thought it would be, but it has brought us round in a circle to
   where we started from. The Holy Ghost alone can teach men how to love,
   and give them power to do so. Love's art is learned at no other school
   but at the feet of Jesus, where the Spirit of love doth rest on those
   who learn of him. Beloved, the Spirit of God puts love into us, and
   helps us to maintain it, thus'first, love wins these victories, for it
   is her nature. The nature of love is self-sacrifice. Love is the
   reverse of seeking her own. Love is intense; love is burning; therefore
   she burneth her way to victory. Love! Look at it in the mother. Is it
   any hardship to her to lose rest and peace and comfort for her child?
   If it costs her pain, she makes it pleasure by the ardour of her
   affection. It is the nature of love to court difficulties, and to
   rejoice in suffering for the beloved object. If you have fervent love
   to the souls of men, you will know how true this is.

   Next to this, love has four sweet companions. There are with her
   tenderness that beareth all things,' faith that believeth all things,'
   hope that hopeth all things,' and patience which endureth all things,'
   and he that hath tenderness, and faith, and hope, and patience hath a
   brave quaternion of graces to guard him, and he need not be afraid.
   Best of all, love sucks her life from the wounds of Christ. Love can
   bear, believe, hope, and endure because Christ has borne, believed, and
   hoped, and endured for her. I have heard of one that had a twist: they
   say that he saw something that others never saw, and heard a voice that
   others never heard, and he became such a strange man that others
   wondered at him. Oh, that I had more and more of that most solemn twist
   which comes through feeling a pierced hand laid on my shoulder, and
   hearing in my ear a sorrowful voice, that selfsame voice which cried,
   My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' I would see that vision and
   hear that voice, and then'what then? Why, I must love; I must love; I
   must love. That would be the soul's strange bias and sweet twist. Love
   makes us love; love bought us, sought us, and brought us to the
   Saviour's feet, and it shall henceforth constrain us to deeds which
   else would be impossible. You have heard of men sometimes in a mad fit
   doing things that ordinary flesh and blood could never have performed.
   Oh to be distracted from selfishness by the love of Christ, and
   maddened into self-oblivion by a supreme passion for the Crucified. I
   know not how otherwise to put my thoughts into words so that they may
   hint at my burning meaning. May the Lord of love look into your very
   eyes with those eyes which once were red with weeping over human sin:
   may he touch your hands with those hands that were nailed to the cross,
   and impress the blessed nailmarks upon your feet, and then may he
   pierce your heart till it pour forth a life for love, and flow out in
   streams of kind desires, and generous deeds, and holy sacrifices for
   God and for his people. God grant it, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'1 Corinthians 13.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''797, 264, 439.
     __________________________________________________________________

Holiness, The Law of God's House

   (No. 1618)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole
   limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law
   of the house." Ezekiel 43:12.

   I SHALL not enter into the immediate meaning of Ezekiel's vision. I
   believe that the house of which Ezekiel speaks is typical of the Church
   of the Living God. In it I see not so much the visible Church as that
   spiritual, mystical Church of Jesus Christ which is the one place of
   His abode. It is found in a state of Grace on earth and in full Glory
   in Heaven. Below it is the holy Church militant--above it is the holy
   Church triumphant. The Church is the only thing upon earth which can
   properly be called the House of God, for He dwells not in temples made
   with hands, that is to say of this building. The finest architecture
   could never constitute a proper shrine for Deity. Look to yon blue
   heavens, gaze upon the spangled vault of night and view the
   ever-flashing, wide and open sea and tell me if any handiwork of man
   can rival the temple of Nature!

   Peer into boundless space and see what a temple is already
   built--within what walls would you hope to house the infinite Jehovah?
   He has deigned, however, to choose Zion and to desire it for His
   habitation. The saints are built together as a spiritual house, a
   habitation of God through the Spirit. He resides among His people
   according to His promise, "I will dwell in them and walk in them."
   Hence the Church is the home of the Great Father, where He dwells in
   the midst of His family and takes His rest. Has He not said, "This is
   My rest forever: here will I dwell, for I have desired it"? As a man in
   his own house takes his case and finds delight, so does God take
   pleasure in them that fear Him--"His foundation is in the holy
   mountains. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings
   of Jacob." The Church is God's house, for there He makes Himself known
   and manifests Himself as He does not unto the outside world. "In Judah
   is God known, His name is great in Israel." His people know Him, for
   they are all taught of the Lord. None of them has need to say to his
   neighbor, "know the Lord," for they all know Him as their Father, from
   the least even to the greatest.

   What sweet familiarities are enjoyed in the Church! What holy
   intimacies between the great Father and His children! How tenderly does
   He reveal Himself so that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear
   Him! His saints are a people near unto Him--they have access to Him at
   all times, for they dwell in His house and are His own dearly beloved
   children. What more glorious thing can be said of the Church than
   this--"God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved"? Of what but
   the Church, the true house of the Lord, could we read such words as
   these--"The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty. He will save,
   He will rejoice over you with joy. He will rest in His love, He will
   joy over you with singing"?

   The Church is God's house and, therefore, He provides for it even as a
   man cares for his own house spends his strength for it, exercises his
   wisdom on its behalf and is always thoughtful over it. God lays Himself
   out for His people. For this His Son has both died and risen again. For
   this the Lord arranges the purposes of Heaven. For this He works among
   the children of men. The Lord's portion is His people, Jacob is the lot
   of His inheritance--to His chosen He has special regard! He will see to
   it that His spiritual house is not allowed to decay, or to be short of
   anything which makes for its comfort, security and honor. The Lord
   links His own name with the Church as a man does with his house. It is
   the house of the Lord and He is the Lord of the house. Beloved, it is
   the greatest honor that can happen to any man to be a member of the
   household of God! There are great houses in the world of long descent
   and of imperial rank, but what are they compared with the household of
   God? The one family in Heaven and earth named by the name of Jesus has
   far more true glory about it than all the families of princes! I had
   rather be the lowest saint than the greatest emperor! Such honor have
   all the saints!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, if you and I have had the privilege to be
   admitted into God's house and to be made a part of His family, it is
   exceedingly necessary that we should know the law of the house. This is
   desirable at our entrance and equally necessary as long as we remain in
   the house of the Lord. Paul wrote to Timothy with this design, "that
   you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God,
   which is the Church of the Living God." To this end Eze-kiel was sent
   of God to those who desired the favor of God. He was to show them the
   form of the house and the goings out and the comings in, and all the
   ordinances and all the forms and laws thereof. And he was to write it
   in their sight, that they might keep the whole form, all the
   ordinances--and do them.

   God's house is not lawless. It is the abode of liberty, but not of
   license. They that dwell in God's house are in His immediate Presence
   and our God is a consuming fire! He had better be holy who dwells with
   the thrice holy God! The Lord will be sanctified in them that come near
   Him and if any enter the house to misbehave themselves, they will find
   that judgment begins at the House of God. How terrible are those
   words--"If any man defiles the Temple of God, him will God destroy."
   Come we, then, with great attention to look at our text which will
   inform us as to the law of the house! O that the Spirit may cause us to
   understand and then lead us to obey!

   Let us first try to expound the law of the house. Secondly, let us
   examine ourselves as to whether we have observed this law of the house.
   Thirdly, let us see the bearings of this law and, fourthly, let us take
   orders for having this law of the house obeyed.

   I. First, LET US EXPOUND THE LAW OF THE HOUSE. Note the text carefully.
   It begins and ends with the same words--"This is the law of the house;
   upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall
   be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house." These words make a
   frame for the statute, or a sort of hand on each side pointing to it.
   "This is the law of the house." Why are the words mentioned twice? Is
   it because we are such wayward scholars that we need to be told
   everything twice, at the least? Is it because we are so blind and dull
   that unless we have a thing repeated we are not likely to notice it, or
   noticing it, are sure to forget it? Or was this posted up because of
   the peculiar law as to going in and out of the Temple?

   We read in the 46th chapter, at the 9th verse, "But when the people of
   the land shall come before the Lord in the solemn feasts, he that
   enters in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the
   way of the south gate; and he that enters by the way of the south gate
   shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the
   way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against
   it." When the worshipper entered, he saw over the portal, "This is the
   law of the house"--and when he went out, if he looked back at the gate
   of his departure, he would see there, too, "This is the law of the
   house."

   Or is it because this is the law of the house at the beginning of life
   and this is the law of the house at the end of it? Is it because this
   is the law of the house for the young convert and this is the law of
   the house for the most venerable saint? At any rate, the alpha and
   omega of Christian conduct is contained in the law of the house. You
   can go no higher than obedience to that Light of God! Indeed, you may
   say of it, "It is high, I cannot attain unto it." Go as far as you may,
   this still remains, to the most advanced among us the law of the house,
   for the Lord's Commandments are exceedingly broad. And what is this law
   of the house? Why, that everything about it is holy! All things in the
   Church must be pure, clean, right, gracious, commendable, God-like.

   Everything that has to do with the Church of God must be holy! Here are
   the words, "Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit round about
   shall be most holy." Observe that all must be holy. No, observe again,
   it must be most holy. In the old Temple there was only one little
   chamber in the center that was most holy--this was called the Holy of
   Holies, or the Holiness of Holiness. But now, in the Church of God,
   every chamber, hall and court is to be most holy. As was the veiled
   shrine into which none entered except the High Priest and he but once a
   year and then not without blood--as was that august apartment in which
   God shone forth from between the cherubim! Such for holiness is the
   entire Church to be in every member and every service.

   Observe that this law of the house is not only intense, reaching to the
   superlative degree of holiness, but it is most sweeping and
   encompassing, for we read, "Upon the top of the mountain the whole
   limit thereof round about shall be most holy." The outer courts, the
   courts of the Gentiles, the walls, the promenades outside the walls,
   the slopes of the hill--every part that had to do with the mountain
   upon which the Temple stood--was to be most holy! From which I gather
   that in the Church of God it is not merely her ministers that are to be
   most holy, but her common members--not

   her sacraments, only, but her ordinary meals. Not her Sabbaths only,
   but her workdays. Not her worship only, but her daily labor. All that
   which surrounds our consecrated life is to be consecrated!

   The secular matters which touch our religion are to be made
   religious--whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we are to do all
   in the name of the Lord Jesus. Not only are the bells on the high
   priest's garments to be "holiness unto the Lord," but the bells of the
   horses are to be the same. The pots and bowls of our kitchens are to be
   as truly sacred as the golden vessels with which the priests served the
   altar of the Most High! Holiness should be far reaching and cover the
   whole ground of a Christian's life. He should be sanctified, "spirit,
   soul and body," and in all things he should bear evidence of having
   been set apart unto the Lord. Paul prayed that the very God of Peace
   would sanctify us wholly. Amen! So let it be!

   We notice, once again, that this holiness was to be conspicuous. The
   Church is not, as a house, sequestered in a valley, or hidden away in a
   woods--it is as the Temple which was set upon the top of a mountain
   where it could be seen from afar. The whole of that mountain was holy.
   Conspicuous holiness ought to be the mark of the Church of God. We
   should be a peculiar people, distinguished as a race dwelling alone
   that cannot be numbered among the nations. We ought to be noted, not
   for talent, not for wealth, not for loud professions, but for holiness.
   Somehow or other true holiness is sure to be spied out and remarked
   upon. Like the violet, it tries to hide itself, but it is betrayed by
   its perfume. Like the star, it twinkles with modesty, but it is
   discovered by its light.

   Grace cannot be put under a bushel. It would gladly be sheltered from
   its enemies by its obscurity, but the Holy City always stands on a hill
   and it cannot be hidden! Would God that whenever people speak of the
   Church to which we belong they may acknowledge its holiness! Would God
   that whenever they speak of you or me, they may have no evil thing to
   say of us unless they lie. The world does not know how to name the
   thing which it both admires and hates, but it soon perceives its
   existence and acknowledges its power--the thing I mean is holiness,
   which is at once the glory and the strength of the people of God!

   What is holiness? I know what it is and yet I cannot define it in a few
   words. I will bring out its meaning by degrees, but I shall not do
   better than the poor Irish lad who had been converted to the faith.
   When he was asked by the missionary, "Patrick, what is holiness?"
   "Sir," said he, "it is having a clean inside." Just so! Morality is a
   clean outside, but holiness is being clean within! Morality is a dead
   body washed and laid in clean white linen--holiness is the living form
   in perfect purity. To be just to man is morality, to be hallowed unto
   God is holiness! The Church of God must not be reputedly good, but
   really pure. She must not have a name for virtue, but her heart must be
   right before God--she must have a clean inside!

   Our lives must be such that observers may peep within doors and may see
   nothing for which to blame us. Our moral cleanliness must not be like
   that of a bad housewife who sweeps the dirt under the mats and puts
   away rags and rottenness in the corner cupboards. We must be so clear
   of the accursed thing that even if they dig in the earth they will not
   find an Achan's treasure hidden there! God desires truth in the inward
   parts and in the hidden part He would make us to know wisdom. We might
   instructively divide holiness into four things and the first would be
   its negative side--separation from the world. There may be morality,
   but there can be no holiness in a worldling! The man who is as other
   men are, having experienced no change of nature and knowing no change
   of life, is not yet acquainted with Scriptural holiness.

   The word to every true saint is, "Come you out from among them. Be you
   separate: touch not the unclean thing." If we are conformed to the
   world, we cannot be holy! Jesus said of all His saints, "They are not
   of the world, even as I am not of the world." We are redeemed from
   among men that we may be like our Redeemer--"holy, harmless, undefiled,
   separate from sinners." We are not to be separate as to place, avoiding
   men with monkish fanaticism, for nobody mixed more with sinners than
   did our Lord! "This Man receives sinners and eats with them" is the old
   reproach, but yet our Lord was not one of them, as everybody could see!
   Nothing could be more clear than the difference between the lost sheep
   and the Shepherd who came among them seeking out His own. Every action,
   every word, every movement betokened that He was another man from the
   sinners whom He sought to bless. So must it be with us. As the lily
   among thorns, so must we be among the mass of men.

   My fellow professors, are you different from those among whom you
   dwell? Are you as different from them as a Jew is from a Gentile? Now,
   a Jew may do what he likes--he may live in the same style as an
   Englishman, a Pole, or a German, and he may in garb, in business, in
   speech be like the people among whom he dwells, but the image of father
   Jacob is

   upon him and he cannot disguise the fact that he is an Israelite. If he
   is converted to Christianity, he still does not lose his
   nationality--you can still perceive that he is of the seed of Abraham.
   So ought it to be with the real Christian! Wherever he is and whatever
   he does, men ought to spy out that he is of the sect which is
   everywhere spoken against--and not an ordinary man. The title, "the
   Peculiar People," belongs to all the followers of Jesus. They are
   strangers and sojourners, aliens and foreigners in this world, for they
   have come out at the Divine call to be separated unto the Lord forever.

   There is no holiness without separateness from the world. Holiness,
   next, consists very largely in consecration. The holy things of the
   sanctuary were holy because they were dedicated to God. No one drank
   out of the sacred vessels except God's servants, the priests. No
   victims were killed by the sacrificial knife, or laid upon the altar
   except such as were consecrated to Jehovah, for the altar was holy and
   the fire thereon was holy. So must it be with us if we are to be
   holy--we must belong to Jehovah--we must be consecrated to Him and be
   used for His own purposes. Not nominally, only, but really and as a
   matter of fact we must live for God and labor for God. That is our
   reason for existence and if we answer not to this end, we have no
   excuse for living--we are blots upon the face of Nature, waste places
   and barren trees which cumber the ground. Only so far as we are
   bringing glory to God are we answering the end and design of our
   creation!

   We are the Lord's priests and if we do not serve Him, we are base
   pretenders! As Christians, we are not our own, but bought with a price
   and if we live as if we were our own, we defraud our Redeemer. Will a
   man rob God? Will he rob Jesus of the purchase of His blood? Can we
   consent that the world, the flesh, the devil should use the vessels
   which are dedicated to God? Shall such sacrilege be tolerated? No! Let
   us feel that we are the Lord's and that His vows are upon us, binding
   us to lay ourselves out for Him, alone! This is an essential ingredient
   of holiness--the cleanest bowl in the sanctuary was not holy because it
   was clean--it became holy when, in addition to being cleansed, it was
   also hallowed unto the Lord! This is more than morality, decency,
   honesty, virtue!

   You tell me of your generosity, your goodness and your pious
   intentions--what of these? Are you consecrated? If you are not
   consecrated to God, you know nothing of holiness! This is the law of
   the house, that the Church is consecrated to Christ and that every man
   that comes into her midst must be the same. We must live for God and
   for His glorious kingdom or we are not holy! Oh to make a dedication of
   ourselves to God without reserve and then to stand to it forever--that
   is the way of holiness!

   But this does not complete the idea of holiness unless you add to it
   conformity to the will and Character of God. If we are God's servants,
   we must follow God's commands--we must be ready to do as our Master
   bids us because He is the Lord and must be obeyed. We must make the
   Lord Jesus our example and, as Ezekiel says, "we must measure the
   pattern." It must be our meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent
   us! Our rule is not our judgment, much less our fancy, but the Word of
   God is our statute book. We are to obey God that we may grow like God.
   The question to be asked is, "What would the Lord have me do?" Or,
   "What would Christ, Himself, have done under the circumstances?" Not,
   "What is my wish," but, "What is God's Law about this!" Not, "What will
   please me," but, "What will please Him?" Having been begotten again by
   God into the image of Christ and so having become His true children, we
   are to grow up into Him in all things who is the Head, being imitators
   of God as dear children, for so, and so only, shall we be

   holy!

   Understand, then, that with regard to the whole range of the Church,
   however wide her action, conformity to the Character of God is the law
   of the house. Likeness to Christ must be seen in every single member
   and in every act of every member in the whole body and in all its
   corporate acts. This is the law of the house. I must add, however, to
   make up the idea of holiness, that there must be a close communion
   between the soul and God, for if a man could be--which is not
   possible--conformed to the likeness of God and consecrated to God, yet
   if he never had any communication with God, the idea of holiness would
   not be complete. The Temple becomes holy because God dwells in it. He
   came into the Most Holy Place in a most especial manner and this
   accounted for its being the Holy of Holies. Even so, special communion
   with the Lord creates special holiness. God's Presence demands and
   creates holiness.

   And so , Brothers and Sisters, if we would be holy we must dwell in God
   and God must dwell in us. We cannot be holy at a distance from God. How
   is it with you? How is it with this Church? Is God with us in all our
   services? Is He recognized in all our efforts? Does He reign in all our
   hearts? Does Jesus abide with us, for this is according to the law of
   the house that God should be everywhere recognized--that we should, in
   all things, conform to His will--in all things be

   consecrated to His purposes and, for His sake, in all things be
   separated from the rest of mankind. This is the law of the house.

   II. Now, secondly, I need your help while I say, LET US EXAMINE
   OURSELVES BY THIS LAW. Let each man question himself as to whether he
   has carefully observed the law of the house. Brothers and Sisters, the
   Church of God is holy. It is founded by a holy God upon holy principles
   and for holy purposes. She has been redeemed by a holy Savior, with a
   holy Sacrifice and dedicated to holy service. Her great glory is the
   Holy Spirit, whose influences and operations are, all, holy. Her
   Law-Book is the holy Bible, her armory is the holy Covenant, her
   comfort is holy prayer. Her convocations are holy assemblies--her
   citizens are holy men and holy women--she exists for holy ends and
   follows after holy examples.

   Dear Hearer, are you, then, as part of her "holiness to the Lord"? Ask
   yourself questions founded on what I have already said. Do I so live as
   to be separated? Is there in my business a difference between me and
   those with whom I trade? Are my thoughts different? Does the current of
   my desire run in a different direction? Am I at home with the ungodly,
   or does their sin vex me? Am I one of them, or am I as a speckled bird
   among them? Search, Brothers and Sisters, search and see whether you
   are holy in that sense or not!

   Next, let each one ask "Am I consecrated? Am I living to God with my
   body, with my soul, with my spirit? Am I using my substance, my
   talents, my time, my voice, my thoughts for God's Glory? What am I
   living for? Am I making a pretense to live to God and am I, after all,
   really living to self? Am I like Ananias and Sapphira, pretending to
   give all and yet keeping back a part of the price?" The preacher would
   search his own heart and he begs you all to search yours. Next, ask the
   question, "Am I living in conformity to the mind of the holy God? Am I
   living as Christ would have lived in my place? Do I, as a master, as a
   servant, as a husband, as a wife, or as a child, act as God, Himself,
   would have me act so that He could say to me, 'Well done, good and
   faithful servant'?"

   He is a jealous God--am, I obeying Him with care? If I am not walking
   in obedience to God, I am behaving disorderly. I am breaking the law of
   the house and that house, the House of the living God. Ought we not to
   take heed lest we insult the King in His own palace and perish from the
   way when His wrath is kindled but a little? Then, again, do I live in
   communion with God? I cannot be holy and yet have a wall of division
   between me and God. Is there a great gulf of separation between me and
   the Lord? Then I am a stranger to holiness! I must have fellowship with
   Him or else I am living in a manner which is sinful, dangerous,
   grievous, injurious. Brother, Sister, let me ask you these pressing
   questions--Do you walk with God? Do you abide in fellowship with Jesus?

   I know there are some who would rather not give an answer to those
   questions. I have met with Believers who have said, "If you asked me
   whether I was a drunk or dishonest, I should say, 'No,' at once. If you
   asked me whether I have been upright and moral, I could say, 'Yes,'
   most certainly. But when you ask, 'Are you walking in communion with
   the Lord? Are you enjoying habitual fellowship with God?' I am not
   prepared to give you an answer, for I am weak upon this point." Are
   there not some professors among you who do not see the face of God by
   the month, together, and seldom enjoy the Presence of God at all? Their
   nearness to God is a thing of rare occasions and not of everyday
   consciousness. At a meeting, when religious excitement stirs them, they
   are a little warmed up, but their general temperature suits the North
   Pole rather than the Equator.

   But, oh, dear Friends, this will not do! We want you to always dwell
   near God--to wake up in the morning with His light saluting the eyes of
   your soul and to be with Him while you are engaged in domestic concerns
   or out in the busy world! We want you, often, to have a secret word
   with the Well-Beloved during the day and to go to bed at night feeling
   how sweet it is to fall asleep upon the Savior's bosom! Brothers and
   Sisters, how sweet to say, "When I awake I am still with You." Jealous
   hearts count it a sorrow when even their dreams disorder their minds
   and prevent their thinking of the Lord in their first conscious moment!
   I would to God we were so encompassed with Divine love, so completely
   sanctified, so thoroughly holy, that we never lost, for an instant, a
   sense of the immediate Presence of the Most High!

   I leave that work of self-examination with yourselves in the quiet
   hours of this afternoon. Do, not neglect it, for, as servants of the
   Lord, it is incumbent upon you to remember that holiness becomes His
   house and it will be ill for us to be walking contrary to His mind.
   "Measure the pattern"--and measure yourselves by the law of the house.

   III. Now, thirdly, WHAT ARE THE BEARINGS OF THIS LAW OF THE HOUSE?
   Those bearings of the Law to which I now refer are these--If the Church
   of God shall be most holy, it will have, as the result of it, the
   greatest possible

   degree of the smile and favor of God. A holy Church has God in the
   midst of her! The consequence of God's Presence is a holy liveliness in
   all her members, for where God comes near to man, lethargy and death
   soon fly away. Where the sacred Presence abides, sickness of soul
   disappears! Jehovah-Rophi heals His people among whom He dwells and the
   inhabitant shall no more say, "I am sick."

   This, again, causes joy--and the bones which were broken rejoice! Where
   there is holiness God comes and there is sure to be love, for love is
   of the very essence of holiness. The fruit of the Spirit is love both
   to God and man. That love begets union of heart, brotherly kindness,
   sympathy and affection--and these bring peace and happiness. Among the
   truly holy there are no divisions, no heresies, no separation into
   parties, but all are one in Christ. From where do wars and fights come?
   Not from holiness, but from unconquered lusts! When we shall be perfect
   as our heavenly Father is perfect, we shall love as He loves.

   This, of course, leads to success in all the Church's efforts and a
   consequent increase. Her prayers are intense and they bring down a
   blessing, for they are holy and acceptable unto God by Jesus Christ.
   Her labors are abundant and they secure an abundant harvest, for God
   will not forget her labor of love. The holy Church, with God in the
   midst of her, is the place of brotherly unity and, consequently, wet
   with the dew of Hermon--and there God commands the blessing, even life
   forevermore! Saints in such a state keep high holiday all the year
   round, having foretastes of Heaven. Their trials are sanctified and
   their mercies are multiplied and thus faith grows exceedingly and hope
   is confirmed. To their assemblies angels come trooping down and up from
   them, by the way of the ladder which Jacob saw, they ascend to God.

   happy people! Thrice happy in their Holy God! A holy Church, my
   Brothers and Sisters--may we see it! A Church most holy in all her
   solemn services shall be "fair as the sun, clear as the moon and
   terrible as an army with banners." The nations among whom she dwells
   shall hear of her fame--they shall come from afar and ask to see her
   Prince--and they shall be astonished at His Glory! The sons of the
   aliens shall come bending to her feet. Her converts shall be like
   flocks of doves--she shall, herself, wonder from where they came! There
   shall be no lethargy, no defeat, no disappointment, no doubt of eternal
   Truths of God and no suspicious of infinite love. In the power of the
   Holy Spirit she shall be bravely confident, gloriously self-sacrificing
   and so shall she go from victory to victory. Mount but this white horse
   of holiness, O you armies of the Lord, and Christ shall lead the way
   and all of you--clothed in fine white linen shall follow Him and go
   forth conquering and to conquer!

   On the other hand, imagine a Church without holiness. What will come of
   it? Without holiness no man shall see the Lord and if the Church cannot
   ever see her Lord, what is her condition? Go to Zion and see what
   happens to God's house when once defiled! Mark how the holy and
   beautiful house was desolate and burnt with fire! Remember how God
   loathed Zion and bade her enemies cast her down, stone from stone, and
   sow with salt the very site on which she stood! Was there ever
   destruction like that which fell upon Jerusalem? Let us accept, among
   our brotherhood, unholy men and women-- and let us tolerate and indulge
   them--and we shall soon see the anger of the Lord wax hot!

   Let us, ourselves, give way to laxity of principle and practice. Let us
   lose our consecration and our communion, and what will soon be the
   effect? Probably, first, will come heartburning, envy and strife. Next,
   divisions, schisms, false doctrines, rivalries, contentions. Or
   possibly the evil may take the form of lethargy, inactivity,
   worldliness, lack of love to Christ and souls. By-and-by there will be
   diminished gatherings at the meetings for prayer, a cessation of all
   earnest pleading and consecrated living. Then a falling-off of
   congregations. Then a lack of power in the ministry--a defect in the
   doctrine, perhaps--or else in the earnestness of the speaker. And all
   the while no conversions and no visits from the

   Lord!

   Shall it be, in years to come, that men will pass by the Tabernacle,
   and ask, "What is that huge house?" And the reply will be, "It was
   built by an earnest, godly company in former years, but they are dead
   and things are changed. What is it now? There is a fine organ and a
   polished preacher, but the multitudes have departed and the few who
   still keep together are of the cold, respectable order, who have no
   life or zeal." Then will this house be a proverb, a byword and a
   hissing throughout the whole earth! How often I am jealous about this
   with a burning jealousy! My heart breaks when I hear of some of you
   that you live unholy lives! There are some, I fear, among you who so
   walk as to dishonor the Cross of Christ.

   1 mean not such as we can lay our finger on and say, "This man is a
   drunk, or unchaste, or dishonest," else, as you well know, you would
   not long be spared--no, not a moment longer than was necessary for the
   proof of your wrong and

   of your impenitence in it! But I mean such as cannot be thus dealt with
   became their sins are not open--the tares that grow up in the
   wheat--the actions not yet discovered because we cannot cast the lot so
   as to light upon this man or that, and say, "It is he." I tremble lest
   there should be among us some utterly unknown to us and undiscoverable
   by the most vigilant eye, whose sin, nevertheless, like a leprosy,
   should eat into the house and make it unfit for the habitation of God!
   Oh, that we may never be so fallen that God, Himself, shall say, "Let
   them alone."

   It was an awful moment when, in the holy place at Jerusalem, there was
   heard the moving of wings and a voice which said, "Let us go hence."
   Then the Glory of God will have departed. Woe, woe, woe! Let the
   curtain drop with a shower of tears upon it! God grant it never may be
   so!

   IV. So now, lastly, dear Brothers and Sisters, LET US TAKE ORDER TO
   SECURE OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW

   OF THE HOUSE. I believe that Jesus is always working in His own way for
   the purity of every true Church. "His fan is in His hand"--see it
   moving continually--"and He will thoroughly purge His floor." God's
   melting fire is not in the world where the dross contains no gold, but,
   "His fire is in Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem." "The lord will
   judge His people." The Lord tries professors and their professions!

   I believe that there is a judgment going on over Church members that
   some are little aware of. Paul speaks of a Church in his day in this
   manner. He notes their inconsistencies and adds, "For this cause some
   are sickly among you, and many sleep." A special jurisdiction is over
   the palace of a king! A special rule pertains to a house which does not
   apply to people out of doors. Church members are under peculiar
   discipline, as it is written, "You only have I known of all the nations
   of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Our
   Lord Jesus often makes the ministry to be as a great winnowing fan.
   Somebody is offended and leaves. What a mercy! You could not have
   forced him to depart, but he leaves of his own accord--and so the house
   is cleansed.

   The breath of the Spirit blows away much chaff. When our Lord preached
   His usual doctrine, the chaff kept with the wheat, but when He came to
   speak of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, the baser sort were
   offended and, "walked no more with Him." Did He grieve over that
   separation between the precious and the vile? I think not! He meant it
   should be so. A certain Truth of God put in a certain way, with a
   personally pointed application--perhaps not intended by the preacher as
   to that particular individual--is, nevertheless, intended by God for
   that case and the cutting word removes the rotten branch. Thus the
   purging work proceeds from day to day. We may expect our Master to come
   among us, every now and then, with a scourge of small cords to smite
   right and left to purge the temple of God lest it should become a den
   of thieves. He is a jealous God and He will not suffer defilement among
   His own people!

   Have you never seen great Christian communities at a certain phase of
   their existence come into troubled waters and break up like wrecks?
   There must have been a secret reason--probably the one claimed at the
   time was by no means the true one. Lack of holiness led to lack of love
   and unloving spirits soon found a pretext for dispute. Those who should
   have met this with love and quenched it by gentle wisdom acted in a
   harsh spirit, being themselves deficient in Grace-- and so flint met
   steel and sparks abounded! Then came fire. Then came general
   conflagration. The open mischief was an effect, rather than a
   cause--and it may be hoped was even part of the cure.

   True, many a table of the moneychangers was upset and many a dove was
   seen to fly away in fright--but the scourge did not fail to make a
   clearance. How much better would it have been had there been no need
   for such a purging! If churches are not holy, they cannot be
   prosperous, for God afflicts those who break the law of His house. Now,
   cannot we give earnest heed that this law is regarded among us? "Yes,"
   you say, "take care that you who are pastors, elders and deacons are
   watchful and faithful. Guard well the door of the Church and see to it
   that you do not admit the ungodly-- be vigilant, also, in discipline,
   so that when any are manifestly unholy they are put away."

   Brothers and Sisters, this is our desire and labor but, after all, what
   can we do? With all our diligence, what can a small band of officers
   accomplish in a great Church which is numbered by the thousands?
   Brothers and Sisters, this must be taken up by all ofyou. Let every man
   bear his own burden. I would have every man sweep in the front of his
   own door. I pray that each person who belongs to this Church may be
   jealous for its purity and watch, both over himself and his brethren,
   lest any form of sin should be a root of bitterness to trouble us and,
   thereby, many should be defiled. Let us set to this work at once! Here
   is the first exercise for us--let us repent of past failures in
   holiness. We shall never overcome sin till we are conscious of it and
   ashamed of it. That is why the Lord said to the Prophet, "You, son of
   man, show the

   house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their
   iniquities; and let them measure the pattern. And if they are ashamed
   of all that they have done, show them the form of the house and the
   fashion thereof."

   The first step towards purity is penitence. Let us bow our heads and
   lament before the Lord the sins of our holy things, our personal
   trespasses, our transgressions against love, our offenses against the
   law of the house! He that is least ashamed will probably be the person
   who has most cause to blush! And he who will be most humbled will be
   the man who has least transgressed. In any case we have sinned as a
   Church and come short of the Glory of God--and an honest confession is
   due from us. Having acknowledged our error, let us next make the law of
   God's house our earnest study that we may avoid offenses in the future.
   You will hardly keep the law if you do not know it.

   Search the sacred Word of God day and night. Let the inspired page be
   your standard. Never mind what your minister tells you--observe what
   the Spirit of God tells you. Get to your Bibles, search them, and there
   see how you ought to behave in the house of God. Be much upon your
   knees asking the Lord to teach you His mind and will, and specially
   beseech Him to write His Law upon your hearts, for you will never keep
   it in your life till it is written there. When you have studied the law
   of the house, then next be intensely real in your endeavor to observe
   it. How much of the religion of the present day is a sham! Men talk of
   being holy--do they know what they mean? We speak of consecration and
   yet live as if we were mere worldlings hunting for wealth, or fame, or
   pleasure!

   Some sing of giving all to God and yet their contributions are
   miserably small. Some say they are living wholly for God, but if they
   had lived wholly for themselves it would not have made any particular
   difference in what they have done! Oh, let us be real! Do not let us
   preach what we do not believe, nor profess to be believers in a creed
   which is not true to our own souls. Get a grip of eternal things! Hold
   them--feel their solemn weight and live under their influence! That
   which is unreal is unholy! The bloated Pharisee is unholy. The empty
   formalist is unholy. But the sincere penitent, the truly honest Seeker
   after holiness is already holy in some degree! Your eyes, O Lord, are
   upon truth! Then let us cry for a sincere and growing faith in God
   concerning this matter of holiness. Let us believe in Jesus, that by
   His Holy Spirit He can make us holy. Do not let us believe that any sin
   is inevitable--rather let us feet bound to overcome it. Let us not
   trust in our own struggling and striving, but let us as much trust
   Christ to work sanctification in us as to work justification for us.
   Let faith deal with the water as well as with the blood, for they both
   flowed from the same fountain in the Savior's riven side!

   And then, lastly, let us pray to be set on fire with an intense zeal
   for God. I do not believe that there is such a thing as cold holiness
   in the world. As soon as a bullock was dedicated to God and brought to
   the altar, it had to be burned with fire--and so must every consecrated
   life. You and I are never the Lord's while we are cold-hearted. We must
   be on fire if we are to be sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus
   Christ. Get rid of zeal from the Church and you have removed one of the
   most purifying elements, for God intends to purge Jerusalem by the
   spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. Oh, to be baptized
   into the Holy Spirit and into fire! May refining fire go through and
   through our souls till all that defiles shall be utterly consumed and
   we shall be as ingots of pure gold, wholly the Lord's!

   Thus have we rehearsed in your ears the law of the house. May the Holy
   Spirit enable you to keep it unto the end.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Pentecostal Wind and Fire

   (No. 1619)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a rushing mighty
   wind, and it filed all the house where they were sitting. And there
   appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each
   of them. And they were all filed with the Holy Spirit, and began to
   speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Acts
   2:2-4.

   FROM the descent of the Holy Spirit at the beginning we may learn
   something concerning His operations at the present time. Remember at
   the outset that whatever the Holy Spirit was at the first, He is that
   now, for as God, He remains forever the same--whatever He did then He
   is able to do still, for His power is by no means diminished. As says
   the Prophet Micah, "O you that are named the house of Jacob, is the
   Spirit of the Lord straitened?" We would greatly grieve the Holy Spirit
   if we supposed that His might was less, today, than in the beginning.
   Although we may not expect and need not desire the miracles which came
   with the gift of the Holy Spirit, so far as they were physical, yet we
   may both desire and expect that which was intended and symbolized by
   them--and we may reckon to see the same spiritual wonders performed
   among us at this day.

   Pentecost, according to the belief of the Jews, was the time of the
   giving of the Law, and if when the Law was given there was a marvelous
   display of power on Sinai, it was to be expected that when the Gospel
   was given, whose ministration is far more glorious, there should be
   some special unveiling of the Divine Presence. If at the commencement
   of the Gospel we behold the Holy Spirit working great signs and
   wonders, may we not expect a continuance--no, if anything, an increased
   display of His power as the ages roll on? The Law vanished away, but
   the Gospel will never vanish. It shines more and more to the perfect
   millennial day and, therefore, I reckon that with the sole exception of
   physical miracles, whatever was worked by the Holy Spirit at the first,
   we may look to be worked continually while the dispensation lasts.

   It ought not to be forgotten that Pentecost was the feast of first
   fruits--it was the time when the first ears of ripe corn were offered
   unto God. If, then, at the commencement of the Gospel harvest we see so
   plainly the power of the Holy Spirit, may we not most properly expect
   infinitely more as the harvest advances and, most of all, when the most
   numerous sheaves shall be gathered? May we not conclude that if the
   Pentecost was thus marvelous, the actual harvest will be still more
   wonderful? This morning my objective is not to talk of the descent of
   the Holy Spirit as a piece of history, but to view it as a fact bearing
   upon us at this hour, even upon us who are called in these latter days
   to bear our testimony for the Truth of God.

   The Father has sent us the Comforter that He may dwell in us till the
   coming of the Lord. The Holy Spirit has never returned, for He came in
   accordance with the Savior's prayer to abide with us forever. The gift
   of the Comforter was not temporary and the display of His power was not
   to be once seen and no more. The Holy Spirit is here and we ought to
   expect His Divine working among us. If He does not so work, we should
   search ourselves to see what it is that hinders Him and whether there
   may not be something in ourselves which vexes Him so that He restrains
   His sacred energy and does not work among us as He did before.

   May God grant that the meditation of this morning will increase our
   faith in the Holy Spirit and inflame our desires towards Him so that we
   may look to see Him fulfilling His mission among men as at the
   beginning.

   I. First, I shall call your attention to THE INSTRUCTIVE SYMBOLS of the
   Holy Spirit which were made prominent at Pentecost. They were two.
   There was a sound as of a rushing mighty wind and there were cloven
   tongues, as it were, of fire. Take the symbols separately. The first is
   wind--an emblem of Deity and, therefore, a proper symbol of the Holy
   Spirit. Often, under the Old Testament, God revealed Himself under the
   emblem of breath or wind. Indeed, as most

   of you know, the Hebrew word for "wind" and "spirit" is the same, So,
   with the Greek word, when Christ talked to Nicodemus, it is not very
   easy for translators to tell us when He said, "spirit," and when He
   said, "wind." Indeed, some most correctly render the original all the
   way through by the word, "wind," while others, with much reason, have
   also used the word, "spirit," in their translation.

   The original word signified either the one or the other, or both. Wind
   is, of all material things, one of the most spiritual in appearance. It
   is invisible, ethereal, mysterious and, therefore, men have fixed upon
   it as being nearest akin to spirit. In Ezekiel's famous vision, when he
   saw the valley full of dry bones, we all know that the Spirit of God
   was intended by that vivifying wind which came when the Prophet
   prophesied and blew upon the withered relics till they were quickened
   into life. "The Lord has His way in the whirlwind," thus He displays
   Himself when He works. "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind,"
   thus He reveals Himself when He teaches His servants.

   Observe that this wind, on the day of Pentecost, was accompanied with a
   sound--a sound as of a mighty rushing wind, for, albeit the Spirit of
   God can work in silence, yet in saving operations He frequently uses
   sound. I would be the last to depreciate meetings in which there is
   nothing but holy silence, for I could wish that we had more reverence
   for silence and it is in stillness that the inner life is nourished.
   Yet the Holy Spirit does not work for the advancement of the kingdom of
   God by silence, alone, for faith comes by hearing. There is a sound as
   of a mighty rushing wind when the Word of God is sounded forth
   throughout whole nations by the publishing of the Gospel. If the Lord
   had not given men ears or tongues, silent worship would have been not
   only appropriate, but necessary--but inasmuch as we have ears, the Lord
   must have intended us to hear something--and as we have tongues, He
   must have meant us to speak.

   Some of us would be glad to be quiet, but where the Gospel has free
   course there is sure to be a measure of noise and stir. The sound came
   on this occasion, no doubt, to call the attention of the assembly to
   what was about to occur--to awaken them and to fill them with awe!
   There is something indescribably solemn about the rush of a rising
   tempest. It bows the soul before the sublime mystery of Divine power.
   What more fitting as an attendant upon Divine working than the deeply
   solemn rush of a mighty wind? With this awe-inspiring sound as of a
   mighty wind, there was clear indication of its coming from Heaven.
   Ordinary winds blow from this or that quarter of the skies, but this
   descended from Heaven itself--it was distinctly like a down-draft from
   above.

   This sets forth the fact that the true Spirit, the Spirit of God,
   neither comes from this place nor that--neither can His power be
   controlled or directed by human authority--His working is always from
   above, from God Himself! The work of the Holy Spirit is, so to speak,
   the breath of God, and His power is always, in a special sense, the
   immediate power of God. Coming downward, therefore, this mysterious
   wind passed into the chamber where the disciples were assembled and
   filled the room. An ordinary rushing mighty wind would have been felt
   outside the room and would probably have destroyed the house or injured
   the inhabitants if it had been aimed at any one building--but this
   heavenly gust filled, but did not destroy the room--it blessed, but did
   not overthrow the waiting company!

   The meaning of the symbol is that as breath, air, wind is the very life
   of man, so is the Spirit of God the life of the spiritual man! By Him
   are we quickened at the first. By Him are we kept alive afterwards. By
   Him is the inner life nurtured, increased and perfected. The breath of
   the nostrils of the man of God is the Spirit of God. This holy breath
   was not only intended to quicken them but to invigorate them! What a
   blessing would a breeze be, just now, to us who sit in this heavy
   atmosphere! How gladly would we hail a gust from the breezy down, or a
   gale from the open sea! If the winds of earth are so refreshing, what
   must a wind from Heaven be?

   That rushing mighty wind soon cleared away all earth--it engendered
   damps and vapors--it awakened the disciples and left them braced up for
   the further work of the Lord. They took in great drafts of heavenly
   life! They felt animated, awakened and bestirred. A sacred enthusiasm
   came upon them because they were filled with the Holy Spirit! And, girt
   with that strength, they rose into a nobler form of life than they had
   known before. No doubt this wind was intended to show the irresistible
   power of the Holy Spirit, for simple as the air is, and mobile and
   apparently feeble, yet set it in motion and you feel that a thing of
   life is among you! Make that motion more rapid and who knows the power
   of the restless giant who has been awakened!

   Look, it becomes a storm, a tempest, a hurricane, a tornado, a cyclone!
   Nothing can be more potent than the wind when it is thoroughly roused
   and so, though the Spirit of God is despised among men so much so that
   they do not even believe in His existence, yet let Him work with the
   fullness of His power and you will see what He can do! He comes softly,

   breathing like a gentle zephyr which fans the flowers, but does not
   dislodge the insect of most transparent wings, and our hearts are
   comforted. He comes like a stirring breeze and we are quickened to a
   livelier diligence--our sails are hoisted and we fly before the gale!
   He comes with yet greater strength and we prostrate ourselves in the
   dust as we hear the thunder of His power bringing down, with a crash,
   false confidences and refuges of lies! How the firm reliances of carnal
   men, which seemed to stand like rocks, are utterly cast down! How men's
   hopes, which appeared to be rooted like oaks, are torn up by the roots
   before the breath of the convincing Spirit! What can stand against Him?
   Oh, that we did but see in these latter days something of that mighty
   rushing wind which breaks the cedars of Lebanon and sweeps before it
   all things that would resist its power!

   The second Pentecostal symbol was fire. Fire, again, is a frequent
   symbol of Deity. Abraham saw a burning lamp and Moses beheld a burning
   bush. When Solomon had built his holy and beautiful house, its
   consecration lay in the fire of God descending upon the sacrifice to
   mark that the Lord was there, for when the Lord had dwelt before in the
   Tabernacle, which was superseded by the Temple, He revealed Himself in
   a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. "Our God is a
   consuming fire." Hence the symbol of fire is a fit emblem of God the
   Holy Spirit. Let us adore and worship Him! Tongues of flame sitting on
   each man's head symbolized a personal visitation to the mind and heart
   of each one of the chosen company.

   The fires came not to consume them, for no one was injured by the
   flaming tongue--to men whom the Lord has prepared for His approach,
   there is no danger in His visitations. They see God and their lives are
   preserved. They feel His fires and are not consumed. This is the
   privilege of only those who have been prepared and purified for such
   fellowship with God. The intention of the symbol was to show them that
   the Holy Spirit would illuminate them as fire gives light. "He shall
   lead you into all truth." From then on they were not to be untrained
   children, but to be teachers in Israel, instructors of the nations whom
   they were to disciple unto Christ--and, therefore, the Spirit of the
   Light of God was upon them!

   But fire does more than give light--it inflames--and the flames which
   sat upon each showed them that they were to be ablaze with love,
   intense with zeal, burning with self-sacrifice and that they were to go
   forth among men to speak not with the chill tongue of deliberate logic,
   but with burning tongues of passionate pleading, persuading and
   entreating men to come to Christ that they might live! The fire
   signified Inspiration. God was about to make them speak under a Divine
   influence, to speak as the Spirit of God should give them utterance.
   Oh, blessed symbol! Would God that all of us experienced its meaning to
   the fullest and that the tongue of fire sat upon every servant of the
   Lord! May a fire burn steadily within to destroy our sin--a holy
   sacrificial flame to make us whole burnt offerings unto God--a
   never-dying flame of zeal for God and devotion to the Cross!

   Note that the emblem was not only fire, but a tongue of fire, for God
   meant to have a speaking Church. Not a Church that would fight with the
   sword--with that weapon we have nothing to do--but a Church that should
   have a sword proceeding out of its mouth, whose one weapon should be
   the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I think, from what I
   know of some preachers, that when they had their Pentecost, the
   influence put upon them was in the form of tongues of flowers. But the
   Apostolic Pentecost knew not flowers, but flames! What fine preaching
   we have nowadays! What new thoughts and poetical turns! This is not the
   style of the Holy Spirit!

   Soft and gentle is the flow of smooth speech which tells of the dignity
   of man, the grandeur of the century, the toning down of all punishment
   for sin and the probable restoration of all lost spirits, including the
   arch-fiend, himself. This is the Satanic ministry, subtle as the
   serpent, bland as his seducing words to Eve. The Holy Spirit calls us
   not to this mode of speech! Fire, intensity, zeal, passion as much as
   you will--but as for aiming at effect by polished phrases and brilliant
   periods--these are fitter for those who would deceive men than for
   those who would tell them the message of the Most High! The style of
   the Holy Spirit is one which conveys the Truth of God to the mind in
   the most forcible manner--it is plain, but flaming, simple but
   consuming! The Holy Spirit has never written a cold period throughout
   the whole Bible and never did He speak by a man a lifeless Word--He
   always gives and blesses the tongue of fire.

   These, then, are the two symbols, and I should like you to carefully
   observe how the Holy Spirit teaches us by them. When He came from the
   Father to His Son, Jesus, it was as a dove. Let peace rest on that dear
   Sufferer's soul through all His days of labor and through the passion
   which would close them. His anointing is that of peace--He needed no
   tongue of flame, for He was already all on fire with love. When the
   Holy Spirit was bestowed, by the Son of God, upon His disci-

   ples it was as breath--"He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy
   Spirit." To have life more abundantly is a chief necessity of servants
   of the Lord Jesus and, therefore, the Holy Spirit visits us.

   Now that we have the Holy Spirit from Christ as our inner life and
   quickening, He also comes upon us with the intent to use us in blessing
   others--and this is the manner of His visitation--He comes as the wind
   which wafts the words we speak, and as fire which burns a way for the
   Truths of God we utter. Our words are now full of life and flame! They
   are borne by the breath of the Spirit and they fall like sparks and set
   the souls of men blazing with desire after God. If the Holy Spirit
   shall rest upon me or upon you, or upon any of us, to qualify us for
   service, it shall be after this fashion--not merely of life for
   ourselves, but of fiery energy in dealing with others! Come on us even
   now, O rushing mighty wind, and tongue of fire, for the world has great
   need! It lies stagnant in the malaria of sin and needs a healing wind!
   It is shrouded in dreadful night and needs the flaming torch of the
   Truth of God! There is neither health nor light for it but from You, O
   blessed Spirit! Come, then, upon it through Your people!

   Now put these two symbols together, only mind what you are doing. Wind
   and fire together! I have kept them separate in my discourse up to now
   and you have seen power in each one--what are they together? Rushing
   mighty wind, alone--how terrible! Who shall stand against it? See how
   the gallant ships dash together and the monarchs of the forest bow
   their heads. And fire alone! Who shall stand against it when it devours
   its prey? But set wind and fire to work in hearty union! Remember the
   old city of London? When first the flames began, it was utterly
   impossible to quench them because the wind fanned the flame and the
   buildings gave way before the torrent! Set the prairie on fire. If a
   rain shower falls and the air is still, the grass may, perhaps, cease
   to burn--but let the wind encourage the flame and see how the de-vourer
   sweeps along while the tall grass is licked up by tongues of fire!

   We have lately read of forests on fire. What a sight! Hear how the
   mighty trees are crashing in the flame! What can stand against it! The
   fire sets the mountains on a blaze. What a smoke blackens the skies--it
   grows dark at noon! As hill after hill offers up its sacrifice, the
   timid imagine that the great Day of the Lord has come. If we could see
   a spiritual conflagration of equal grandeur it were a consummation
   devoutly to be wished! O God, send us Your Holy Spirit in this
   fashion--give us both the breath of spiritual life and the fire of
   unconquerable zeal--till nation after nation shall yield to the sway of
   Jesus!

   O You who are our God, answer us by fire, we pray You! Answer us both
   by wind and fire and then shall we see You to be God, indeed. The
   kingdom comes not and the work is flagging. O that You would send the
   wind and the fire! You will do this when we are all of one accord--all
   believing, all expecting, all prepared by prayer. Lord, bring us to
   this waiting state!

   II. Secondly, my Brothers and Sisters, follow me while I call your
   attention to THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS of this descent of the Holy Spirit,
   for these symbols were not sent in vain. There were two immediate
   effects--the first was filling and the second was the gift of
   utterance. I call special attention to the first, namely, filling--"It
   filled all the house where they were sitting." But it did not merely
   fill the house, but the men--"They were all filled with the Holy
   Spirit." When they stood up to speak, even the ribald mockers in the
   crowd noticed this, for they said, "These men are full," and though
   they added, "with new wine," yet they evidently detected a singular
   fullness about them.

   We are poor, empty things by nature, and useless while we remain so--we
   need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Some people seem to believe in
   the Spirit of God giving utterance, only, and they look upon
   instruction in Divine things as of secondary importance. Dear, dear me!
   What trouble comes when we act upon that theory! How the empty vessels
   clatter, rattle and sound! Men in such case utter a wonderful amount of
   nothing and even when that nothing is set on fire it does not come to
   much. I dread a revival of that sort, where the first thing and the
   last thing is everlasting talk. Those who set up for teachers ought to
   be, themselves, taught of the Lord--how can they communicate that which
   they have not received? Where the Spirit of God is truly at work, He
   first fills and then gives utterance--that is His way. Oh that you and
   I were at this moment filled with the Holy Spirit!

   "Full!" Then they were not cold, dead and empty of life as we sometimes
   are. "Full." Then there was no room for anything else in any one of
   them! They were too completely occupied by the heavenly power to have
   room for the desires of the flesh! Fear was banished; every minor
   motive was expelled! The Spirit of God, as it flooded their very
   beings, drove out of them everything that was extraneous. They had many
   faults and many infirmities, before, but that day, when they

   were filled with the Spirit of God, faults and infirmities were no more
   perceptible! They became different men from what they had ever been
   before--men full of God are the reverse of men full of self!

   The difference between an empty man and a full man is something very
   wonderful. Let a thirsty person have an empty vessel handed to him.
   There may be much noise in the handing, but what a mockery it is as it
   touches his lips. But fill it with refreshing water and, perhaps, there
   may be all the more silence in the passing of it, for a full cup needs
   careful handling, but oh, what a blessing when it reaches the man's
   lips! Out of a full vessel he may drink his full. Out of a full Church
   the world shall receive salvation, but never out of an empty one! The
   first thing we need, as a Church, is to be filled with the Holy Spirit!
   The gift of utterance will then come as a matter of course.

   They ask me, "May the sisters speak anywhere? If not in the assembly,
   may they not speak in smaller meetings?" I answer, yes, if they are
   full of the Holy Spirit. Shall this Brother or that be allowed to
   speak? Certainly, if he is filled, he may flow. May a layman preach? I
   know nothing about laymen except that I am no cleric, myself--let all
   speak who are full of the Holy Spirit! "Spring up, O well." If it is a
   fountain of living water, who would restrain it? Who could restrain it?
   Let him overflow who is full, but mind he does not set up to pour out
   when there is nothing in him--for if he counts it his official duty to
   go pouring out, pouring out, pouring out at unreasonable length and yet
   nothing comes of it--I am sure he acts not by the Holy Spirit, but
   according to his own vanity.

   The next Pentecostal symbol was utterance. As soon as the Spirit of God
   filled them, they began to speak at once. It seems to me that they
   began to speak before the people had come together. They could not help
   it--the inner forces demanded expression and they must speak! So when
   the Spirit of God really comes upon a man, he does not wait till he has
   gathered an audience of the size which he desires, but he seizes the
   next opportunity! He speaks to one person. He speaks to two. He speaks
   to three--to anybody--he must speak, for he is full and must have vent!
   When the Spirit of God fills a man, he speaks so as to be understood.
   The crowd spoke different languages and these Spirit-taught men spoke
   to them in the language of the country in which they were born. This is
   one of the signs of the Spirit's utterance.

   If my friend over yonder talks in a Latinized style to a company of
   fruit sellers, I will guarantee you the Holy Spirit has nothing to do
   with him! If a learned Brother fires over the heads of his congregation
   with a grand oration, he may trace his elocution, if he likes, to
   Cicero and Demosthenes--but do not let him ascribe it to the Holy
   Spirit--for that is not after His manner! The Spirit of God speaks so
   that His words may be understood--and if there is any obscurity, it
   lies in the language used by the Lord, Himself.

   The crowd not only understood, but they felt. There were lancets in
   this Pentecostal preaching and the hearers "were pricked in the heart."
   The Truth of God wounded men and the slain of the Lord were many, for
   the wounds were in the most vital part. They could not understand
   it--they had heard speakers before, but this was quite a different
   thing. The men spoke fire flakes and one hearer cried to his fellow,
   "What is this?" The preachers were speaking flame and the fire dropped
   into the hearts of men till they were amazed and confused! Those are
   the two effects of the Holy Spirit--a fullness of the Spirit in the
   ministry and the Church--and next, a fire ministry and a Church on
   fire, speaking so as to be felt and understood by those around!

   Causes produce effects like themselves and this wind and fire ministry
   soon did its work. We read that this "was noised abroad." Of course it
   was, because there had been a noise as of a rushing mighty wind. Next
   to that we read that all the people came together and were confounded.
   There was naturally a stir, for a great wind from Heaven was rushing!
   All were amazed and astonished and, while some enquired believingly,
   others began to mock. Of course they did--there was a fire burning and
   fire is a dividing thing--and this fire began to separate between the
   precious and the vile as it always will when it comes into operation.

   We may expect, at the beginning of a true revival, to observe a
   movement among the people--a noise and a stir. These things are not
   done in a corner. Cities will know of the Presence of God and crowds
   will be attracted by the event. This was the immediate effect of the
   Pentecostal marvel and I shall now ask you to follow me to my third
   point, which is this--

   III. The Holy Spirit being thus at work, what was THE MOST PROMINENT
   SUBJECT which these full men began

   to preach about with words of fire? Suppose that the Holy Spirit should
   work mightily in the Church--what would our ministers preach about? We
   should have a revival, should we not, of the old discussions about
   predestination and free agency? I do not think so! These are happily
   ended, for they tend towards bitterness and, for the most part, the
   dispu-

   tants are not equal to their task. We should hear a great deal about
   the pre-millennial and the post-millennial advent, should we not? I do
   not think so! I never saw much of the Spirit of God in discussions or
   dreams upon times and seasons which are not clearly revealed. Should we
   not hear learned essays upon advanced theology? No, Sir--when the devil
   inspires the Church, we have modern theology--but when the Spirit of
   God is among us, that rubbish is shot out with loathing!

   What did these men preach about? Their hearers said, "We hear them
   speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." Their subject was
   the wonderful works of God! Oh, that this might be, to my dying day, my
   sole and only topic--"The wonderful works of God." For, first, they
   spoke of Redemption, that wonderful work of God! Peter's sermon was a
   specimen of how they spoke of it. He told the people that Jesus was the
   Son of God--that they had crucified and slain Him--but that He had come
   to redeem men and that there was salvation through His precious blood.
   He preached Redemption! Oh, how this land will echo again and again
   with, "Redemption, Redemption, Redemption, Redemption by the precious
   blood!" when the Holy Spirit is with us! This is fit fuel for the
   tongue of flame--this is something worthy to be blown by the Divine
   wind.

   "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
   their trespasses unto them." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleans
   us from all sin." This is one of the wonderful works of God of which we
   can never make too frequently mention. They certainly spoke of the next
   wonderful work of God, namely, Regeneration. There was no concealing of
   the work of the Holy Spirit in that primitive ministry! It was brought
   to the front. Peter said, "You shall receive the Holy Spirit." The
   preachers of Pentecost told of the Spirit's work by the Spirit's
   power--conversion, repentance, renewal, faith, holiness and such things
   were freely spoken of and ascribed to their real Author, the Divine
   Spirit. If the Spirit of God shall give us, once again, a full and
   fiery ministry, we shall hear it clearly proclaimed, "You must be born
   again," and we shall see a people forthcoming which are born, not of
   blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God and by the
   energy which comes from Heaven! A Holy Spirit ministry cannot be silent
   about the Holy Spirit and His sacred operations upon the heart!

   And very plainly they spoke on a third wonderful work of God, namely,
   remission of sins. This was the point that Peter pushed home to
   them--that on repentance they should receive remission of sins. What a
   blessed message is this-- pardon for crimes of deepest dye--a pardon
   bought with Jesus' blood! Free pardon, full pardon, irreversible pardon
   given to the vilest of the vile when they ground their weapons of
   rebellion and bow at the feet that once were nailed to the Cross! If we
   would prove ourselves to be under Divine influence, we must keep to the
   Divine message of fatherly forgiveness to returning prodigals. What
   happier word can we deliver?

   These are the doctrines which the Holy Spirit will revive in the midst
   of the land when He works mightily-- Redemption, Regeneration,
   Remission. If you would have the Spirit of God resting on your labors,
   dear Brothers and Sisters, keep these three things always to the front
   and make all men hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of

   God!

   IV. I shall close by noticing, in the fourth place, what were the
   GLORIOUS RESULTS of all this. Have patience with me if you find the
   details somewhat long. The result of the Spirit coming as wind and
   fire, filling and giving utterance, was, first, in the hearers' deep
   feeling. There was never in the world, perhaps, such a feeling excited
   by the language of mortal man as that which was awakened in the crowds
   in Jerusalem on that day! You might have seen a group here, and a group
   there, all listening to the same story of the wondrous works of God and
   all stirred and affected, for the heavenly wind and fire went with the
   preaching and they could not help feeling its power.

   We are told that they were pricked in the heart. They had painful
   emotions. They felt wounds which killed their enmity. The Word of God
   struck at the center of their being--it pierced the vital point. Alas,
   people come into our places of worship nowadays to hear the preacher
   and their friends ask them on their return, "How did you like him?" Was
   that your errand, to see how you liked him? What practical benefit is
   there in such a mode of using the servants of God? Are we sent among
   you to give opportunities for criticism? Yet the mass of men seem to
   think that we are nothing better than fiddlers or actors who come upon
   the stage to help you while away an hour!

   O my Hearers, if we are true to our God and true to you, ours is a more
   solemn business than most men dream! The objective of all true
   preaching is the heart--we aim at divorcing the heart from sin and
   wedding it to Christ! Our ministry has failed and has not the Divine
   seal set upon it unless it makes men tremble, makes them sad and then
   soon brings

   them to Christ and causes them to rejoice! Sermons are to be heard by
   the thousands and yet how little comes of them all because the heart is
   not aimed at, or else the archers miss the mark! Alas, our hearers do
   not present their hearts as our target, but leave them at home and
   bring us only their ears, or their heads! Here we need Divine aid. Pray
   mightily that the Spirit of God may rest upon all who speak in God's
   name, for then they will create deep feeling in their hearers!

   Then followed an earnest enquiry. "They were pricked in their heart and
   they said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, 'Men and brethren,
   what shall we do?'" Emotion is, of itself, but a poor result unless it
   leads to practical action. To make men feel is well enough, but it must
   be a feeling which impels them to immediate movement, or at least to
   earnest enquiry as to what they should do. O Spirit of God, if You will
   rest on me, even me, men shall not hear and go their way and forget
   what they have heard! They will arise and seek the Father and taste His
   love! If You would rest on all the brotherhood that publish Your Word,
   men would not merely weep while they hear and be affected while the
   discourse lasts, but they would go their way to ask, "What must we do
   to be saved?"

   This is what we need! We do not require new preachers, but we need a
   new anointing of the Spirit. We do not require novel forms of service,
   but we need the fire Spirit, the wind Spirit to work by us till
   everywhere men cry, "What must we do to be saved?" Then came a grand
   reception of the Word. We are told that they gladly received the Word
   of God and they received it in two senses--first, Peter bade them
   repent and they did. They were pricked to the heart from compunction on
   account of what they had done to Jesus--and they sorrowed after a godly
   sort and quit their sins. They also believed in Him whom they had slain
   and accepted Him as their Savior, then and there, without hesitancy.
   They trusted in Him whom God had set forth to be a Propitiation and
   thus they fully received the Word of God. Repentance and faith make up
   a complete reception of Christ and they had both of these. Why should
   we not see this Divine result today? We shall see it in proportion to
   our faith.

   But what next? Why, they were baptized directly! Having repented and
   believed, the next step was to make confession of their faith--and they
   did not postpone that act for a single day--why should they? Willing
   hands were there! The whole company of the faithful were all glad to
   engage in the holy service and that same day they were baptized in the
   name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! If the Holy
   Spirit were fully with us, we should never have to complain that many
   Believers never confess their faith, for they would be eager to confess
   the Savior's name in His own appointed way! Delay to be baptized comes
   too often of fear of persecution, indecision, love of ease, pride, or
   disobedi-ence--but all these vanish when the heavenly wind and fire are
   doing their sacred work! Sinful diffidence soon disappears! Sinful
   shame of Jesus is no more seen! Hesitancy and delay are banished
   forever when the Holy Spirit works with power!

   Furthermore, there was not merely this immediate confession, but, as a
   result of the Spirit of God, there was great steadfastness. "They
   continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine." We have had plenty of
   revivals of the human sort and their results have been sadly
   disappointing. Under excitement, nominal converts have been
   multiplied--but where are they after a little testing? I am sadly
   compelled to admit that, so far as I can observe, there has been much
   sown and very little reaped that was worth reaping, from much of that
   which has been called "revival." Our hopes were flattering as a dream,
   but the apparent result has vanished like a vision of the night! But
   where the Spirit of God is really at work the converts stand--they are
   well-rooted and grounded and, therefore, they are not carried about by
   every wind of doctrine! They continue steadfast in the Apostolic Truths
   of God!

   We see next that there was abundant worship of God, for they were
   steadfast not only in the doctrine, but in breaking of bread, in prayer
   and in fellowship. There was no difficulty in getting a Prayer Meeting
   then! There was no difficulty in maintaining daily communion and holy
   fellowship, then, for the Spirit of God was among them and the
   ordinances were precious in their eyes. "Oh," say some, "if we could
   get this minister or that evangelist, we should do well." Brothers and
   Sisters, if you had the Holy Spirit you would have everything else
   growing out of His Presence, for all good things are summed up in Him!

   Next to this there came striking generosity. Funds were not hard to
   raise--liberality overflowed its banks, for Believers poured all that
   they had into the common fund. Then was it, indeed, seen to be true
   that the silver and the gold are the Lord's! When the Spirit of God
   operates powerfully, there is little need to issue telling appeals for
   widows and orphans, or to go down on your knees and plead for
   missionary fields which cannot be occupied for need of money. At this
   moment our village Churches can scarcely support their pastors at a
   starvation rate--but I believe that if the Spirit

   of God will visit all the Churches, means will be forthcoming to keep
   all going right vigorously! If this does not happen, I tremble for our
   Nonconformist Churches, for the means of their existence will be
   absent--both as to spiritual and temporal supplies they will utterly
   fail.

   There will be no lack of money when there is no lack of Grace. When the
   Spirit of God comes, those who have substance yield it to their Lord!
   And those who have but little grow rich by giving of that little! And
   those who are already rich become happy by consecrating what they have!
   There is no need to rattle the box when the rushing mighty wind is
   heard and the fire is dissolving all hearts in love! Then came
   continual gladness. "They did eat their meat with gladness." They were
   not merely glad at Prayer Meetings and sermons, but glad at breakfast
   and at supper! Whatever they had to eat, they were for singing over it.
   Jerusalem was the happiest city that ever was when the Spirit of God
   was there! The disciples were singing from morning to night and I have
   no doubt the outsiders asked, "What is it all about?"

   The Temple was never so frequented as then--there was never such
   singing before--the very streets of Jerusalem and the Hill of Zion rang
   with the songs of the once despised Galileans! They were fall of
   gladness and that gladness showed itself in praising God. I have no
   doubt they broke out, now and then, in the services with shouts of,
   "Glory! Hallelujah!" I should not wonder but what all propriety was
   scattered to the winds. They were so glad, so exhilarated--that they
   were ready to leap for joy! Of course we never say, "Amen," or,
   "Glory!" now. We have grown to be so frozenly proper that we never
   interrupt a service in any way, because, to tell the truth, we are not
   so particularly glad, we are not so specially full of praise that we
   want to do anything of the sort! Alas, we have lost very much of the
   Spirit of God and much of the joy and gladness which attend His
   Presence--and so we have settled into a decorous apathy! We gather the
   links of propriety instead of the palm branches of praise.

   May God send us a season of glorious disorder! Oh for a sweep of wind
   that will set the seas in motion and make our ironclad Brethren now
   lying so quietly at anchor to roll from stem to stern! As for us, who
   are as the little ships, we will fly before the gale if it will but
   speed us to our desired haven! Oh for fire to fall again--fire which
   shall affect the most stolid! This is a sure remedy for indifference.
   When a flake of fire falls into a man's bosom, he knows it. And when
   the Word of God comes home to a man's soul, he knows it, too. Oh that
   such fire might first sit upon the disciples and then fall on all
   around!

   And, to close, there was then a daily increase of the Church--"The Lord
   added to the Church daily such as should be saved." Conversion was
   going on perpetually! Additions to the Church were not events which
   happened once a year, but they were everyday matters, "so mightily grew
   the Word of God and prevailed." O Spirit of God, You are ready to work
   with us, today, even as You did then! Delay not, we beseech You, but
   work at once! Break down every barrier that hinders the incomings of
   Your might! Overturn, overturn, O sacred wind! Consume all obstacles, O
   heavenly fire, and give us now both hearts of flame and tongues of fire
   to preach Your reconciling Word for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Is It Nothing To You?

   (No. 1620)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see if there is
   any sorrowlike unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, with which the
   Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger." Lamentations
   1:12.

   On a night when the Tabernacle was thrown open to all comers, the
   ordinary hearers vacating their seats for the occasion.

   SYMPATHY with suffering ones is never content to act her part alone.
   The man who is sorrowful for another is sure to invite others to join
   him in his sympathy. It seems to him so sad a thing that he would have
   all men weep over it with himself. It is so great a grief that he would
   hang the heavens with blackness and drape the world in sackcloth. Hence
   Jeremiah, when he saw the sorrows of Jerusalem, complained of all who
   dared to pass her by without a lamentation. He beheld that ancient and
   glorious city besieged by her adversaries, invaded by their fierce
   armies and given over to plunder, to murder, to fire and desolation. He
   beheld the streets running with the blood of her sons and daughters,
   her houses broken down and her glorious Temple defiled and laid in
   ashes.

   Do you wonder that he wept and called upon others to weep with him? He
   pictured Jerusalem as sitting by the wayside, like a maiden who has
   been sorely wounded and is in bitter grief, crying out in her
   loveliness and anguish, "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?
   Behold and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow." In all the
   annals of history there never was sorrow equal to the fate of
   Jerusalem! Many cities have been destroyed, but none have fallen amid
   such a tempest of terrors. Some have been devoured with famine, wasted
   with pestilence, or broken down by war--but as for you, O
   Jerusalem--all these evils met upon you as when the vultures hasten
   from afar and meet upon the slain. Beautiful for situation, yet
   terrible for desolation! Joy of the whole earth and yet the queen of
   sorrow! How utterly were you spoiled! Had grape-gatherers gathered the
   grapes, they would have left, here and there, a cluster, but, O
   Jerusalem, you are thoroughly stripped--no fruit remains in you--your
   desolation is complete! How terrible was your lot and how grievous was
   your fault! Well did the Prophet, in the foresight of your tremendous
   doom, cry to all the nations, "Behold and see if there is any sorrow
   like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me?"

   But, Friends, the fact of sympathy's eager love of companionship is
   true in other instances. I, too, share the sympathetic avarice of
   Jeremiah's pity. Do you ask what grief I have and for whose woes I am a
   mourner? I point you to the Cross and to the Man of Sorrows there. All
   faithful servants of Christ who love their Master would have their
   hearers mourn for Him, even as the Prophet foretold--"They shall look
   on Him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for Him." When they think
   of Calvary and of their wounded, bleeding Lord, they cannot help
   imitating Jeremiah and picturing their Lord as crying from the Cross,
   "Behold and see if there is any sorrow like unto My sorrow." Therefore
   in all ages of the Church this has been a favorite text--not as
   directly meaning what we shall say upon it, but as suggesting an
   adaptation and asking to be used in our case as Jeremiah used it in his
   own.

   We apply to Jesus and His sufferings, tonight, the words which the
   Prophet wrote in reference to Judea and her national sorrow. We hear
   the Son of God saying in His death pangs to all this vast assembly, "Is
   it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see if there is any
   sorrow like unto My sorrow." And this is my first head tonight--the
   sufferings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are unparalleled. When we
   have dwelt enough upon this, we will proceed to note, secondly, that
   they have a deep interest to many. And we will conclude, thirdly, by
   enquiring whether they have not some interest for you?

   O that God the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to bear witness to the
   Lord Jesus, would now bear His testimony in all your hearts for His
   mercy's sake.

   ' I. First, then, THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON OF GOD UPON THE CROSS WERE
   ALTOGETHER UNPARALLELED. I tell no idle tale tonight! I draw no picture
   of romance, but the sorrows which we now relate are matters of fact!
   Out of the excellent Glory let the Lord confirm it tonight, if it is
   His truth, by the witness of His Spirit. Jesus, the eternal Son of God,
   came down in boundless pity among the sons of men and took upon Himself
   our human nature! Quitting the infinite honors of the skies, He came to
   the lowliness of the manger and the labor of the carpenter's shop--and
   here He lived, suffering as a real man, all the sorrows and infirmities
   of our mortality.

   In our nature He lived some 30 years or more, enduring much of poverty
   and labor. And at the end, thereof, He died, not amid the applause of
   all mankind, as He deserved, but nailed to the Cross--like a felon or a
   slave, a spectacle of scorn and infamy--the despised and rejected of
   men! The sufferings of this Divine One were unparalleled, first,
   because of the dignity of His Person which gave such point to the
   insult which He endured. Kings have died. Philosophers have died.
   Philanthropists have died, but never such a One as this, for He that
   bled on Calvary was King, Priest and Prophet--a right royal Man, and
   more--the Son of the Highest! God that made the heavens and earth was
   in personal union with that Man who died upon the Cross of Calvary.

   What a stoop it must have been for Him--from the brightness of the
   Father's Glory to be made the image of shame! A dethroned monarch is
   always the object of compassion and a once famous general, sitting at
   the city gate and begging for a penny from every traveler that passes
   by has been, in all ages, spoken of as a person to be deeply pitied.
   But what shall I say of Him who stood as the center of angelic hosts,
   the prince of the kings of the earth? Aside He flung His most Divine
   array! He girded Himself with garments of this flesh and blood and then
   became a Man among men and for men--only to be despised of men. Being
   here among His own, His own received Him not! Instead of receiving Him,
   they dragged Him to the judgment hall.

   They scourged Him. They took Him into the common hall of the soldiers
   and they spat in His face! They blindfolded Him, they buffeted Him.
   They mocked at all His holy offices. They put an old soldier's cloak
   about Him and then brought Him out and cried, "Behold the Man!" They
   nailed Him to the Cross and then stood there and said, "If He is the
   Christ, let Him come down." They made fun of His prayers and when He
   said, "Eloi, Eloi," they said, "He calls for Elijah." They spared Him
   nothing that shame could invent--and all this was poured on One whose
   feet honored the ground they trod upon, the glances of whose eyes were
   angels' Law, the words of whose mouth were the music of God's ears. "He
   was despised and rejected of men," even He who was and is the King of
   kings, the Lord of lords! Behold and see if there is any sorrow like
   unto His sorrow which was done unto Him!

   There was also this strange point about our Redeemer's suffering,
   namely, the perfect innocence of His Character. Many a man has died
   innocent of that which was laid to his charge, but no man has been
   perfectly innocent of every kind of fault. In this Man there was never
   taint of evil. He was born without tendency to sin, for the natural
   corruption of our nature was not in Him. And He lived never doing wrong
   to man, or woman, or child and never, by omission or by commission,
   violating the Divine will of the Most High. He was absolutely perfect,
   so that He could say when Satan came to assail Him, "The Prince of this
   world comes and has nothing in Me."

   Now, herein is a sorrow never to be forgotten--that He must bleed and
   die and, moreover--that He must so suffer as to be connected with sin.
   It is anguish and agony for even the breath of evil to blow upon
   innocence. He was never guilty and never could have been so in any
   sense--and yet sin was laid to His charge for our sakes--and He died
   accused of treason and of blasphemy! In Him was no sin and yet the sins
   of men were laid upon Him! Here, bring them here, the sins of ages!
   Heap them on His back--the sins of men that lived before He was on
   earth, the crimes of multitudes who transgressed in His own day and the
   sins of all the ages since--your sins and mine! They are all brought
   together and massed together--the total sum--how dreadful!

   Hear the Word of God, "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." The Innocent, therefore, not only suffers, but
   suffers in strange connection with sin--and this must have caused an
   awful shrinking to our Lord's most holy soul. You and I are
   comparatively hardened to sin and, therefore, it does not so alarm us
   as it did the perfect soul of Christ who had no spot or trace of evil
   upon Him. There was one tried for murder years ago and some thought it
   an argument for his innocence that he stood in the

   dock calm and composed. But others said, "Not so! Innocent men are the
   very persons who shudder most at having such a crime laid to their
   charge and he who could bear the charge without emotion is most
   probably the man who has committed the crime."

   Truth lies in that observation. For the innocent Christ to be made sin
   for us--for the wrath of God to roll over Him instead of us--must have
   caused within His spirit a depth of anguish which the most tender heart
   cannot fathom! Behold and see if there was ever sorrow like unto His
   sorrow! Was there ever dignity that suffered such indignity, or
   innocence that came into contact with such a mass of sin and suffered
   for it all? But this is not all, nor half of it! There was another
   wonder about the sufferings of Christ, namely, that in His case there
   was such a conjunction of griefs. Have you ever noticed that when you
   have one trouble, as a rule some other one is absent? Of course, if the
   north wind blows, the south does not, also, blow and if we have the
   troubles of summer, we do not also endure the evils of winter at the
   same time. One grief often strangles another in its arms.

   We read in Acts of a place where two seas met. Rough navigation there,
   my Brethren, where two seas meet, for one sea is often more than enough
   for a sailor! Sometimes you and I have grief on grief and sorrow upon
   sorrow--and things go hard, then. As to the Savior, it seemed as if
   every form of grief was let loose against Him on that dark, that
   dreadful night! All the winds of woe escaped from their cave at that
   dread hour! He was heavy within Himself, deserted by His friends who
   ought to have defended Him, betrayed by His bosom companion, slandered
   by false witnesses, hunted down by false-hearted men! He had no one to
   speak for Him and He was unable, for a certain reason, to speak for
   Himself. Griefs of body were added to His sadness of soul. Was there a
   part of His blessed form that escaped from suffering? I know of none.
   His whole corporeal frame was the center and seat of pain--a furnace of
   fever, the melting crucible of death. From the thorn-crowned head to
   the bleeding feet, all, all were wounds and bruises for our sake!

   But the bodily sufferings were only the body of His sufferings--there
   was an agony of heart, mind and soul. O Brothers and Sisters, if, when
   you have sickness, you can keep your spirits up, it does not matter!
   And, perhaps, when the spirits sink, you are happy if you have no pain
   at the same time. But to have body and soul at once in the fire, this
   is, indeed, torture! This is to do business in great waters where all
   the waves and billows go over the mariner. Hell from beneath was
   stirred against our Lord--Satan bade his legions aim all their arrows
   against His heart! Heaven veiled its sun and left the Sufferer in a
   chill darkness. God hid His face which made Jesus cry, "Why have You
   forsaken Me?" Earth's inhabitants seemed leagued to cast Him out.

   There is not, to my knowledge, a mitigating circumstance in the woes of
   Christ. It is bitter, bitter, bitter! And if there is a mixture, it is
   wormwood mingled with gall. It was all bitter, all tempestuous, all
   terrible! No drop of water, for in His thirst they gave Him vinegar to
   drink. No ray of light--the sun is set. No stable ground of
   comfort--the very rocks rend. Heaven and earth stand arrayed against
   Him! Well does He cry, "Behold and see if there is any sorrow like unto
   My sorrow which is done unto Me." Oh that these lips had language and
   could speak aright upon such a theme as this!

   But I ask you to notice, next, that there is in our Savior's sorrow
   this singular point which is not found anywhere else, namely, that all
   His sorrow was voluntarily undertaken and voluntarily continued in.
   When a man feels that it must be, he girds himself to bear the will of
   destiny. But concerning Christ, He was under no compulsion from any
   force which He could not, Himself, control. He dies but He says, "No
   man takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." He is betrayed
   into the hands of wicked men, but He says that He could presently pray
   to His Father and He would send Him 12 legions of angels! He has not a
   word to say to Pilate, but He had ten thousand words which He might
   have spoken if He would, only that He could not, then, have effected
   the Divine purpose or worked out our salvation. This perfect freedom
   involved Him in a double labor--He not only had to suffer, but to will
   to suffer even to the end!

   He had, therefore, to put a Divine restraint upon Himself and to bear
   on when His human nature might have suggested that He should bear no
   more. It did suggest it, so far as it could do so, without a faulty
   shrinking. "If it is possible," He said, "let this cup pass from Me."
   But His holy soul came to the rescue of His resolution, for He added,
   "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." It is not in our power
   to thus yield ourselves to sorrow. If we gave up ourselves once to the
   hands of pain or death it would be but one act and we should then be
   out of our own power. But our Lord always had Himself in His own hands
   and, therefore, He made a continuous offering of Himself by a distinct
   act of His will until He expired.

   Brothers and Sisters, remember that if you were to die for your
   country, you would only, then, pay the debt of nature a little sooner
   than it would otherwise be due--the debt would, in any case, have had
   to be paid in due time. If tonight I died for you, I should but
   anticipate that hour which may be near enough, now, when I must surely
   die. Jesus needed not to die. There was no necessity, as far as His
   Nature was concerned, that He should ever slumber in a grave! Oh, but
   this is a death altogether unexampled--voluntarily undertaken and
   voluntarily borne for the good of others! Love led His perfect will in
   sweet captivity so that He could not do otherwise but die and, with the
   exception of His own unrivalled love, not another cord held Him, or
   could have held Him for a moment! Let us give Him our deepest love in
   return for so special a sacrifice!

   And this makes it more singular, still--that those for whom He died
   thus voluntarily were His enemies! Oh, tell it, tell it all the world
   over, that Jesus laid down His life for those who hated Him, for those
   who loved the wages of unrighteousness! Tell it in Hell, tell it on
   earth, tell it in Heaven! And let the three worlds overflow with wonder
   at this miracle of love! Let the whole universe hear it--Jesus died for
   His enemies! His last breath said, "Father, forgive them, for they know
   not what they do." He died for those who did not love Him, but thirsted
   for His blood! He died for those who could not see His beauties--who
   never will see His beauties unless He work a miracle upon them. He died
   for you and for me! But oh, how shamefully have the best rewarded Him
   with chill barren love! How shamefully are some here present rewarding
   Him at this very moment by living in entire neglect of Him--living as
   if they had nothing to do with the death of Christ at all!

   Scarcely for a righteous man will one die--perhaps for a benevolent man
   one would even dare to die. But "God commends His love toward us, in
   that, while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for the
   ungodly." Hear that, O you deaf ears, hear that! O you blind eyes,
   behold the splendor of this love! O you hard hearts, feel the magic of
   this deed! Christ died for the ungodly, for the guilty, for the
   profane, for the drunk, for the unchaste, for the worst of men--He died
   that He might purify them, lift them out of their degradation, make new
   men of them--and prove what heavenly love can do! Men were utterly
   depraved and wedded to their sin--as mad about sin as the lunatic is
   mad in his delirium, as eaten up with it as a leper with leprosy--and
   yet for such Christ died! He gave Himself, not for our virtues, but for
   our sins! He came to seek and save, not the good, but those that were
   lost. For such did He die and, therefore, His death is altogether
   unparalleled.

   Once more, to crown this edifice of wonder--there was this about
   Christ's sorrow which was never in any other sorrow under Heaven,
   namely, that it was expiatory. Christ was dying and suffering in the
   place of others--and by that dying and suffering He was putting away
   the sin of others! This is the substance of the Revelation of God, that
   Jesus Christ has appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of Himself
   and there is virtue in His blood to cleanse from all sin. I hear
   certain philosophical divines denying this Atonement, but I beseech you
   give no heed to them--they would rob you of your only hope of Heaven!
   Mark this--there is nothing left of Christianity when Atonement is
   gone. "The blood is the life thereof," and if you remove its life, the
   Gospel will die.

   What do you see where this atoning Sacrifice is left out of the
   preaching? Why, very soon, empty places of worship, for the people soon
   find that there is nothing there for them and they will not go where
   they are mocked with husks! To deny the great Doctrine of Atonement by
   the blood of Jesus Christ is to hamstring the Gospel and to cut the
   throat of Christianity! Look at this house tonight, this spectacle,
   this gathered throng! Into what corner could another hearer be thrust?
   One would think, from the vehement eagerness to enter, that we gave
   some gorgeous entertainment! Come here any night in all the year, or
   any morning, if you like, and it is still the same.

   Well, why do the people come? To see a man in fine raiment? We wear no
   millinery! To listen to sweet strains of music and the swell of organs?
   We have none of it! What do they come for? To hear an orator? Far from
   it! I have never aimed at oratory, or desired to exhibit it! I have
   preached Christ out of my very soul and lifted Him up as the Savior of
   men and, therefore, the people throng the house and they always will
   while Christ is fully preached in language which they can understand!
   Men need a Savior as hungry men need bread and as thirsty souls need
   drink! And they know where that is preached which they require!

   Go, tell the men that preach their new doctrine that they cannot stir a
   tiny village with their fine theories after they have preached them
   once or twice! And yet for 27 years together we can hold a multitude
   with no magic but the name of Christ--with no mystery but the Cross,
   the blood, and the one word--"Believe in Christ and live." Therefore I
   preach

   the old, old Gospel yet again, harping forever on that one Divine
   string which has yet more music in it than all the flutes, harps,
   sackbuts, psalteries and dulcimers of modern thought! If you would have
   sin forgiven, forgiveness is to be found in Jesus, and only there!
   "Behold and see if there is any sorrow like unto His sorrow," for no
   other sorrow can wipe away sin--not even the pangs of Hell can effect
   expiation--but the sorrow of Christ can put your sins away! Oh, seek a
   share in the boundless merit of the Crucified! Turn not away, but seek
   your Savior's face at once!

   II. Thus have I spoken upon the first head and pretty well exhausted my
   time--therefore only a minute or two upon

   the second--THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS HAVE HAD A DEEP INTEREST IN THEM
   FOR MANY. Oh that I

   could set Him forth before you! There He is! Look upon Him! He is
   before my eyes. I see those languid eyes closing in death, I see that
   glorious head bowing upon His bosom. I see and I adore! I note with
   grief the gashes made by the nails in His dear hands and feet from
   which flows the ruddy stream which scatters roses among the lilies of
   His pure and spotless flesh! I look into His heart and see it
   breaking--the soldier has opened a door through which your soul may
   gaze! My Savior's death is to me all things--I could live and die
   contemplating it.

   It stirs my blood, it opens the fountains of my eyes and makes my
   inmost heart dissolve. Is it not a thing of power to others, also? Did
   I hear one ask, "What good has this sorrow ever brought to anyone? Has
   anybody derived benefit from it?" Let me tell you! Multitudes have
   found, in the sufferings of Christ, the cure for their despair. Read
   the biographies of converted men and you shall find cases upon cases
   where they had been ready to commit suicide--but the sight of a
   crucified Savior encouraged them to hope and gave them rest. No, you
   need not read books--speak to any godly man of your acquaintance and he
   will tell you that the wounds of Jesus were and are the fountains of
   his hope! Many of you could speak for yourselves and say that nothing
   could have brought you back from despair on account of sin but a sight
   of Christ.

   I cannot speak without remembering my own case and how bitter were my
   griefs, how dark my days, how hideous my nights till I saw One hanging
   on a tree and my state was changed from continual sorrow into perpetual
   joy! Can I hear Him dishonored and not be moved? Do you think that
   those of us who owe all the light we have to Jesus crucified can ever
   think lightly of Him? I pray we never may become so mean, so base! We
   have a deep and abiding interest in Jesus, for He turned our darkness
   into day! In others, the sorrows of the Cross have worked a complete
   transformation of their lives. The Apostle Paul, on the way to
   Damascus, was going to hunt Christians to death--but the voice of One
   who said, "I am Jesus whom you persecute" changed his mind so
   completely that he became the greatest of all preachers of Christ!

   You have, most of you, I dare say, heard of the life of Colonel
   Gardiner, a dissipated officer who indulged, as too many soldiers do,
   in wantonness. One night he had made an appointment of the most vicious
   kind and reached the place an hour too soon. Waiting there, alone, he
   thought that he saw upon the wall, the Savior on the Cross and he
   thought that he heard Him say to him, "I did all this for you. What
   have you ever done for Me?" He fled the house and you know what an
   earnest soldier of Christ, from that moment, he became! Such miracles
   have been worked in every age and will be worked to the end of time!
   Nor are they so rare that you need search far for them. One and another
   will tell you, if you will listen--some here can tell you for
   themselves--that the sight of Christ has changed them altogether in a
   manner as astounding as a miracle!

   It has been with them as marvelous a change as if Niagara, leaping down
   her profound abyss, were suddenly spoken to by the voice which made
   that mighty flood and her waters began to leap upward, ascending the
   steep fall which they have rushed for ages! The transformation of the
   lives of men by the sight of the Cross of Christ is as great a marvel
   as though rivers should seek their source, or midnight brighten into
   day! It is matchless, superb--there is nothing like it-- and they that
   have once felt its transforming power laugh at infidelity. "What?" they
   say, "no truth in the Cross? Let the man that has been a leper, the man
   that has been lame or blind suddenly receive a cure and then tell him
   that there is nothing in it. 'Pshaw!' he would say, 'there is nothing
   in you, or you would not make the remark!'" And he goes his way and
   that is all the answer that he deigns. Matters of actual experience may
   be contradicted, but they cannot be disproved! Men may say what they
   will, but we are still of the same opinion when once the Cross has
   worked its marvels upon our souls.

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, think what power the Cross has had on other
   men's minds to gird them to heroic deeds. I shall never forget when I
   shook the hand of Livingstone. I count it one of the great honors of my
   life to have known him and even men of the world will join in doing
   homage to his name. It was the love of Christ that made him tread
   pathless

   Africa and die among the heathen! He was not the first by many a
   thousand who counted it all joy to succumb to climate and to perish
   among strangers for the Cross of Christ! Moffat still lives and what a
   life! There was a John Williams, of whom you older men can remember,
   who laid down his life at Erromanga for Christ's sake. These are but
   the later ranks of a mighty host that counted life not dear to them for
   Jesus' sake!

   Look at the first centuries--how men marched to the rack to be
   tortured, to the stake to be burned, to the amphitheatre to be devoured
   of beasts for Christ's sake! The lifting up of the little finger of
   Christ was enough to move hosts of men and women to court death and
   defy the flames! The Roman empire, with all its legions and cruelties,
   could not stand against the insignificant, unlettered, humble, but
   earnest and intense followers of Jesus! The sufferings of Christ made
   them strong to suffer! Later ages tell the same story. Our own land has
   seen the heroes of the Cross enduring unto the end. Over there at yon
   Smithfield, why, there were men and women there who early in the
   morning, while yet the sun was scarcely up, were summoned forth to
   stand at fiery stakes and burn--and they were seen to clap their hands,
   when every finger was a candle--and cry, "None but Christ! None but
   Christ!"

   And the crowd that stood around them, who were they? There were cruel
   men and brutal priests, but there were also men, women and children, of
   whom it is written, in the humble Church records of the day, that they
   went there to see their pastor burn to learn the way! Oh, that is grand
   to learn the way to die when their turn came--for the idea of ever
   yielding up to the papacy, or of giving up Christ because they must die
   for Him or else deny Him never entered into their heads! Even boys and
   girls learned at their mother's knee so much of Jesus' sufferings that
   they became invincible! Yes, and we should be so, again, if it ever
   came to the same pass, for the old name and the old love still linger
   in the hearts of Christians today with all their faults and
   infirmities! And, if it came to battle and to push of pike again, we
   are as ready, by the good hand and Grace of God, as were our Puritan
   forefathers--our Protestant ancestors--ready to seal the faith with our
   blood! This is what the Cross of Christ can do! It can make men suffer
   for His name sake.

   Ah, but you may not be called to that, you say, "What is the use of the
   Cross of Christ to us in everyday life?" Why, it is of this use--that
   men who love the suffering Savior become patient in their everyday
   sufferings! They say to themselves--

   "His way was much rougher And darker than mine. Did Christ, my Lord,
   suffer, And shall I repine?"

   They learn to hate sin by seeing the agonies by which Redemption was
   obtained. They learn to be upright by seeing with what a price they are
   bought. They learn to be self-denying at the feet of the Crucified.
   This is the good of the Cross to them and this is the way they learn
   both to live and to die!

   This black cloth which casts its somber hue around my platform is the
   memorial of one dear soul, my Sister, who learned to love the Savior
   while she was yet young and, in her early days, joined with this
   Church. And in her death, when it was a pang to draw each breath, she
   found her joy, her victory, in resting in the Divine Savior! She was a
   soldier's daughter and was not ashamed to join with the despised people
   of God! And in her long pains and agonizing death she found sustaining
   power in the doctrine of the Cross and found victory in death.

   Hold, then, Your Cross before my failing eyes, O Jesus! Let me see You
   when I can see nothing else! At the sight of You I will leap the stream
   of death! I will defy death, as Samson defied the lion. I will find
   honey in the vanquished monster if You are there. It is not death to
   die if the death of Christ is but the life of the soul! This is what
   multitudes of men and women have had to do with Christ. They have not
   passed Him by, but bowed at His feet and found life, light, joy,
   perfection, Heaven!

   III. And I close with this last appeal--what, dear Hearers--WHAT HAVE
   YOU TO DO WITH HIM? "Is it nothing to you, all you that past by? Behold
   and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow." Now, I do not
   suppose that Jesus Christ means much to some that are here present, I
   mean people that are getting on in the world. Everything is going very
   easily with you. You are rising like a balloon! You are filled and
   inflated with prosperity! You are getting as much money as you can
   count. You are going on very well without a Savior. You have your
   portion in this life. I should not wonder if you turn on your heel and
   despise Him and say that you do not need a Savior. "We will meet
   another day, young Sir, when all that wine is sour and that gold is
   corroded and those pleasures, like the dew of the morning, shall have
   disappeared beneath the burning sun of care."

   But for a while, I doubt not, Jesus Christ will be nothing to you. It
   is dreary talk and a weariness to hear about Him. But is there one here
   heavy of heart? Are there not many here conscious of fault? Are you
   wrong? Would you be right? Are you guilty? Would you be forgiven? Ah,
   then, the Cross for you! Jesus is for you! Turn aside and look at Him!
   Look till your eyes are full of tears. Look till you brush those tears
   away and say, "I see it all. Jesus has suffered in my place. I am
   forgiven! My Father has adopted me. I am His child. I am glad." Oh,
   guilty ones, there is something in Christ for you, for He died, the
   Just for the unjust, to bring us to God!

   Perhaps there is another here who is not so much laboring under a sense
   of fault as under a sense of aimlessness in life. Do you feel, "Well,
   somehow, I have no purpose in life. I keep on like a blind horse round
   a mill, but I do not go anywhere and, what is more, I do not know what
   I am toiling for." To bring up my children? Well, perhaps that is done.
   They are all settled in life and, you say, "I do not know what more is
   to be done. I do not seem to have any objective worth striving after."
   My Master's sorrows may enlist you. The Red-Cross Knight, when he bore
   the cross upon his arm as he fought with the Saracen, (though he was
   under a grave delusion, for Christ would not have us fight with deadly
   weapons), yet felt strong because he thought that the name of Christ
   was named upon him.

   But if you become a true knight of the red Cross by living for the
   glory of Christ, you will rise to a noble enthusiasm and find an aim in
   life of which you will never tire! The love of the Crucified shall be a
   wellspring of vigor to your own heart. It shall make you brave against
   all odds and shall bring you great reward and sure victory. Oh, if I
   had not an objective in life, today, I would wish to give myself to
   Christ and then begin to tell to others His dear name that I might win
   their hearts to the love of my sweet Lord! For, as it is, I know of no
   man I would change with, so long as I have but opportunities of
   spreading abroad the fame and name of Jesus Christ, my suffering Lord
   and royal Master!

   Perhaps you are anxious to benefit others. Oh, if you are, you need to
   be doing something real and effective. The world is going to the bad.
   There is a great deal of mischief abroad. You say, "I want to do good."
   Friend, turn aside, look at Christ's sufferings and see whether you
   have not, there, the fulcrum for your lever! To move rocks and
   mountains, here, is an unrivalled force--not steam power or dynamite,
   but something stronger--but an ounce of the Doctrine of the Cross would
   blast all the walls of error and burst the dungeons of misery, if
   rightly applied! Come to Christ and see if you have not there, by the
   power of the Holy Spirit, an irresistible agent of good to all mankind.

   "Oh," says one, "I do not believe in Him." What do you believe in? For
   whatever you believe in, try to use it for the good of your fellow men.
   I would like to see you sending city missionaries from street to street
   to preach what you believe in. Come, be reasonable and do something
   more than find fault! Some are so fond of pulling down. Would they try
   a little building up? Come, then! You say that we Christians are doing
   no good. Just try your own hand at it! Go to the dying! Go to the sick!
   Take them bottles of your philosophy and comfort them with the elixir
   of scientific doubt. Go ahead! If somebody says that the current system
   of medicine is faulty, we reply--Very well, Sir. Have you found the
   right medicine? "Yes." Then distribute it, train physicians and build
   hospitals! Get to work at it. Why not?

   Now, you that do not believe in God or Christ, send your own
   missionaries abroad. Enlighten the heathen by telling them that there
   is no God, no sin, no Hell, no Heaven, no soul, no anything! Go into
   the center of Africa and win them from their bloody superstitions by
   the doctrines of science. Go ahead! If you have a gospel, do not hide
   it! What? You have no zeal in that direction. But why not? There is no
   particular use in it, is there? Not worth spending your money on.
   Miserable comforters! Wretched physicians that cannot heal!

   But now, if you want to know whether there is power in the Cross, ask a
   city missionary to let you go with him for a day. Pitch on the right
   man and go and see for yourself. He will show you what the Doctrine of
   the Cross can do in comforting, in sobering, in cheering, in elevating.
   "I do not believe it," says one. No one said you did. I will, however,
   venture to observe that, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." A
   good old English proverb, my dear Sir! Here is a ship filling with
   water and you do not believe in pumps. Very well. I am going on
   pumping! You are anxious to discuss. Discuss away, but meanwhile I
   pump! Let every Christian man here make practical use of the Cross of
   Christ and keep on at it! And if men will not even take the trouble to
   enquire what are its results--their disbelief is irrational and
   inexcus-able--and they must answer the consequences. Our skirts are
   clear of their blood.

   Dear Friend, what if it should turn out that you have such a connection
   with the Cross that Christ redeemed you there--that Christ put your
   sins away there? What if He so bought you there that He means to have
   you? What if you are so His that He means to save you? What if, when He
   died there, He bought eternal life for you and insured for you a place

   in Heaven at the right hand of God to reign there with Himself? "Oh, if
   I thought that," says one, "I would come to Him." Come to Him, then,
   and it is true, for, "whoever believes in Him has everlasting life!"
   Let me say that word over again. "He that believes in Him has
   everlasting life." If he only believed a minute ago--if he only
   believed a second ago--He has not only life but everlasting life! That
   life, therefore, is a thing that can never die. You have Heaven as well
   as all the blessings of earth if you believe in Jesus!

   But if you say, "I will have nothing to do with Jesus," I would like
   you to say so to yourself in a deliberate manner. If Christ is not
   worth having, say that you will not have Him and say it most
   distinctly. I feel hopeful when a man will come to a decision one way
   or the other. The sort of people for whom I tremble are those who say,
   "I hope it will be all right somehow." O, Sirs, do not hesitate another
   hour, but answer me as in God's name I question you--will you have
   Christ, tonight, or will you not? Say, "Yes," or, "No." I would ask you
   to write down your decision when you get home. Is Christ's yours or
   not? Sit down and say deliberately, "Yes, my Lord, in the merits of
   Your death I put my trust." Or else write it if you mean it--"He is not
   mine at all."

   We have known some get comfort out of this act of decision. There was a
   poor girl who had long been a Christian, but she was very sad at heart
   through sickness. And when her minister came to see her, he said to
   her, "Well, Susan, how is your hope?" She said, "Sir, I am afraid I am
   not a Christian. I do not love the Lord Jesus Christ." He said, "Why, I
   always thought you did. You acted as if you did." "No," she said, "I am
   afraid I have deceived myself and that I do not love Him." The minister
   wisely walked to the window and wrote on a piece of paper, "I do not
   love the Lord Jesus Christ," and he said, "Susan, here is a pencil.
   Just put your name to that." "No, Sir," she said, "I could not sign
   that." "Why not?" "I would be torn to pieces before I would sign it,
   Sir." "But why not sign it if it is true?" "Ah, Sir," she said, "I hope
   it is not true. I think I do love Him."

   Get to know where you are, Friend. If Baal is God, serve him! If God is
   God, serve Him! If Christ is a Savior, have Him--if He is not a Savior,
   do not pretend to serve Him! Decide one way or the other. God help you
   to decide, tonight, as you will decide when the heavens are on fire,
   when sun and moon have vanished from their spheres, when the solid
   earth shall rock and reel and over all shall be heard the trumpet note,
   "Come to judgment! Come to judgment! Come to judgment!" There sits the
   Judge, the Crucified, whose sorrows surpassed all sorrows, but whose
   Glory, then, shall surpass all glory as He shall divide the saints on
   the right from the graceless on the left--and from His mouth shall come
   the final sentence which shall settle the doom of Believers and
   unbelievers.

   God bless you, dear Friends, every one of you. Henceforth and forever
   may you be the Lord's. Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Ark of the Covenant

   (No. 1621)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 25, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in
   the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark
   of the co venant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither
   shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that
   be done any more." Jeremiah 3:16.

   THIS text speaks concerning the material ark. I should like to append
   to that another which speaks of the ark spiritually and tells us where
   its antitype is to be found--

   "And the temple of God was opened in Hea ven and there was seen in His
   temple the ark of His testament (or covenant) "Revelation 1119.

   When inward piety is low, the externals of religion are frequently
   cried up. Those who know nothing of God are the very people to exclaim
   concerning themselves and their brethren, "The temple of the Lord, the
   temple of the Lord are these." The Pharisees, who were furthest from
   God, were the most bitter advocates of ritualism and formalism--they
   would not even have a man healed on the Sabbath, or allow the hungry to
   rub a few ears of corn out of the husks! It is not always so, but yet
   too often, "The nearer the Church the further from God." The more
   grown, the less Grace. The more phylactery, the less sanctity. The more
   of ecclesiasticism, the less of true godliness.

   On the other hand, whenever the Spirit of God is largely poured out,
   although the ordinances of God are carefully attended to, yet, as
   external things, they are sure to be put into their proper place and
   that proper place is a secondary one. The spiritual is put foremost and
   the ritualistic is placed hindmost when Grace is largely given. It was
   so with David in the 51st Psalm. When he had made a hearty confession
   of his sin and cried to God for mercy, he uttered those memorable
   words, "You desire not sacrifice; else would I give it: You delight not
   in burnt offerings." He puts aside the symbol because he has a clear
   view of the substance! That is exactly the case with the people
   mentioned in my text--they had been sadly sinful, but God, in His
   mercy, promised to turn to them, to bless them and bring them back into
   their own land again.

   He says--"And I will give you pastors according to My heart, which
   shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to
   pass, when they are multiplied and increased in the land, in those
   days, says the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the Covenant of
   the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember
   it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more."
   The visible golden ark, which was so much their glory, would be quite
   forgotten because of the gracious visitation of God! That shall be our
   subject this morning.

   First, I shall invite your attention to the symbol reverenced.
   Secondly, we shall see that reverence obliterated and, thirdly, we
   shall dwell upon that reverence transferred, for though we no longer
   revere the ancient ark of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold, we do
   honor to that forever enduring ark of which we read in our second
   text--"The temple of God was opened in Heaven and there was seen in His
   temple the ark of His covenant."

   I. First, then, let us think upon THE SYMBOL REVERENCED. The ark of the
   covenant was a small coffer not exceeding four and a-half feet in
   length by about two feet, eight inches in breadth. It was made of an
   enduring kind of wood and was covered with pure gold both inside and
   out. Upon the upper part of it was a golden crown into which fitted a
   solid slab of gold which formed the lid of the ark. That golden lid was
   called the propitiatory or Mercy Seat--in the Hebrew, Kapporeth, or a
   place of covering. Upon the two ends of this Mercy Seat and part and
   parcel of the same solid metal, were two cherubs, with outstretched
   wings.

   The Lord said of them, "And the cherubim shall stretch forth their
   wings on high, covering the Mercy Seat with their wings, and their
   faces shall look one to another; toward the Mercy Seat shall the faces
   of the cherubim be." Between those wings, when God was favorable to His
   people, the bright light, called the Shekinah, was known to shine
   forth. And when, once in the year, the High Priest went into the
   innermost place, bearing with him a cloud of incense and sprinkling the
   blood, he saw the Glory of that Light of God. This ark was the object
   of great reverence and very fitly so, because it symbolized God's
   Presence, the Presence of Jehovah, the living God, in the midst of His
   people. They saw no similitude, for what likeness can there be of Him
   that fills all in all?

   They knew that God's excellent Glory shone above the Mercy Seat and
   they thought of the ark in connection with the Lord, as David did, when
   he said, "You and the ark of Your strength." It was, therefore, a thing
   greatly to be reverenced, for God was there. To no other people had God
   given such a token of His Presence. He walked in the midst of no other
   camp--but of Israel He had said, "My Spirit shall go with you." It was
   the first article of the tabernacle concerning which Moses received
   instructions, for, indeed, it was the first in honor. Read the 25th
   chapter of Exodus and see how speedily the Lord, who gave the Law,
   provided a chest for its honorable preservation! Although Solomon made
   most of the furniture of the Holy Place anew, he retained the same ark
   which was too much esteemed to be changed.

   When it was carried abroad in the marches of the Israelites it always
   went in front, and it was distinguished from all the other furniture by
   being covered externally with blue, as if to signify its heavenly
   character. Lifted high on men's shoulders, upon golden staves, the blue
   colored wrapping of the ark was seen in the van of the Lord's host
   occupying the place of honor. We do not wonder, therefore, that it was
   much spoken of and esteemed by the tribes of Israel. That Presence of
   God meant blessing, for God was with His people in love to them. The
   Lord abides not with His enemies, but with His chosen. So long as He
   gave the token of His Presence, it was a sign that He had not cast them
   off as hopeless. He still heard their prayers and granted them His
   favors, for He still remained in residence among them while His Mercy
   Seat was in the Holy Place.

   When the ark went into the house of Obed-Edom for a time, the Lord
   blessed the house of Obed-Edom for the sake of the ark of the Lord.
   Therefore David was encouraged to bring up the ark into his own city
   and he did so with gladness which he expressed by dancing before the
   Lord with all his might. Well, then, might the people speak of it,
   think of it, visit it and magnify it because it brought blessings to
   them! The ark was held in reverence by the Israelites because it was
   their leader. When the time came to march through the wilderness, the
   ark went in the forefront. Often did Moses cry, "Rise up, Lord, and let
   Your enemies be scattered," and on they went across the pathless desert
   rightly led by this ark of the covenant.

   When they came to the brink of Jordan, as soon as the feet of the
   priests that bore the ark touched the waters, the river was parted and
   they went through dry shod! It was so trusted in that they bore the
   ark, on one occasion, into the battlefield when God was not with them
   and the golden coffer was carried into captivity to vindicate its own
   honor among the Philistines by smiting its captors with sore diseases
   and breaking in pieces Dagon, their God! A wonderful ark it was when
   God was with it! It was such a symbol of power that we wonder not that
   when David brought it up to Mount Zion all the people shouted--and with
   sound of trumpet celebrated its triumphal march. It was also so much a
   symbol of holiness that Solomon removed Pharaoh's daughter out of the
   city of David, for he said, "My wife shall not dwell in the house of
   David, king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark
   of the Lord has come."

   In Solomon's day the ark was finally installed in the Temple and the
   king placed over it two greater cherubim, ten cubits high, with
   outspread wings. These were made of olive wood overlaid with gold and
   probably covered the entire structure of the coffer and the smaller
   cherubim which were component parts of it. Then they drew out the
   staves of the ark, signifying that there the ark was to stay--but they
   left the ends of the staves visible to show that God might yet depart
   from them if they sinned against Him. In the Temple the ark rested
   until the time of the captivity and from that time it was no more heard
   of and possibly never appeared again in the Temple that was built by
   Zerubbabel or in that which was enlarged and beautified by Herod. The
   ark was to the Israelites, after their wanderings were over, the fixed
   center of their nationality, even as while they were in the wilderness
   it had always been placed in the center of the camp. In the desert it
   had been the central kernel of the whole army. Outside the ark was the
   tabernacle or Holy Place and, outside of that, in various rows and
   orders, were the tents of the tribes--but the core of it all was this
   honored ark.

   Today we have a center to which we rally--a fixed center which faith
   perceives in Heaven where the true Ark of the Covenant has gone up.
   Marvel not that the men of Judah paid great reverence to this ark,
   when, in so many ways it was a token of good to them. What they did to
   this ark is mentioned in the text. First, they recognized it as the ark
   of the Covenant of the Lord. They were known to say, "The ark of the
   Covenant of the Lord." They spoke much of it and prided themselves upon
   the possession of it. No, they not only spoke of it, but they loved it,
   for we read, "Neither shall it come to mind," or as the margin has it,
   "Neither shall it come upon the heart." The ark of the Covenant was
   upon the hearts of God's people--they had a deep affection for it. When
   it was carried away, captive, we read of a godly woman who was seized
   with sudden travail at the news, while the aged Eli fell backward with
   horror at the tidings. It was very dear to the people of God and if it
   was taken away, they reckoned that the Glory was departed from them.

   Hence, in the next place, they remembered it, as the text plainly
   informs us. If they were captives they prayed in the direction in which
   the ark was situated. Wherever they wandered, they thought of God and
   of the coffer which represented His Presence. Next, they visited it. On
   certain holy days they came from Dan and from Beersheba, even from the
   utmost ends of their land, in joyful companies, singing from stage to
   stage and making joyful holiday as they went up to the place where God
   did dwell between the cherubim! When they came back they rejoiced
   because they had worshipped before the ark of the Covenant, even before
   the Presence of the Most High God.

   Visiting it, they were accustomed, also, to speak highly of it, for in
   the margin of your Bibles you will find, "Neither shall they magnify it
   any more." They used to tell one another what the ark had done--the
   Glory that shone forth from it, the acceptance of the offering whose
   blood was sprinkled upon it on the Day of Atonement--and the testimony
   which was heard from between the cherubic wings. They would tell how
   the ark divided the Jordan, how it laid the walls of Jericho level with
   the ground, how it slew the prying men of Bethshemesh. And they would
   tell of Uzzah who laid presumptuous hands upon it and how the Glory of
   the Lord came upon it and filled the Temple so that the priests could
   not stand to minister. Of their God and the ark of His strength they
   would not cease to sing, for the ark of the Covenant was honored in
   Israel.

   II. Secondly, I would have you observe THAT REVERENCE DISAPPEARED. They
   were to say, no more, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord." Yet that
   fact was to be a blessing. Observe that the words are not spoken as a
   threat, but as a gracious promise. Now, this cannot merely mean that
   they would be without the ark, for they would certainly understand that
   to be a sign of Divine anger. Neither would the mere absence of the ark
   fulfill the Prophet's words, for if the ark were gone, they would still
   remember it and their hearts would hunger after it. If they could not
   visit it, yet it would come to their minds and they would speak of it.
   It was, somehow, to be a gift to them that they should speak no more of
   the ark of the covenant, for the text was delivered in the form of a
   promise.

   The fact is, they were to have done with the symbol because the
   Substance would come. They were no more to speak of the ark itself,
   because they would have that which the ark was intended to foreshadow.
   Bear with me with great patience this morning while I try to interest
   you in the points in which our blessed Lord Jesus Christ is the Ark of
   the Covenant now in the Temple of God for us. Our Lord Jesus, by His
   coming, has put out of His people's thoughts the material ark of the
   covenant because its meaning is fulfilled in Him! And this, first, in
   the sense of preservation. The ark was intended to be a sacred treasury
   in which God laid up the two tablets of stone upon which the Law was
   written, that they might be kept there as priceless things, not to be
   commonly handled or even seen, but shut up there as the most precious
   gifts of Heaven.

   We know not where the tablets are, now, and we know not what has become
   of the golden chest. But where is the Law now? Once it lay broken at
   your feet and mine, even as the tablets were shattered at the feet of
   Moses. When Moses took the tablets of the Law into his hands, he soon
   grew angry with the sinful people and he broke them to pieces at the
   foot of the mountain. But where is the Law now? In Christ, for, "He is
   the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believes." "How I
   love Your Law," says David. David knew where the Law was and where it
   could become an object of love in the hands of the Mediator. The Law
   apart from Christ is a terror to our guilty souls because it is a Law
   broken and, therefore, condemning!

   But the Law in Christ Jesus, honored and fulfilled by Him, is a
   delightful sight to true worshippers. In Him the Law is more honored
   than by any merely human obedience and it smiles upon us as if we had
   perfectly obeyed it. The Law fulfilled is our confidence as much as the
   Law violated was our dread. We think nothing of the ark, now, and we
   think noth-

   ing of the tablets of stone--but we do think everything of Christ
   Jesus, "who is made of God unto us righteousness for He has completely
   kept the Law," for He said, "Your Law is within My heart." It was not
   within His heart, alone, but within all His life! His whole thoughts,
   words and acts went to make up a golden chest in which the precious
   treasure of the perfect Law of God should be contained. O come, let us
   magnify His blessed name!

   Next, the ark signified propitiation, for over the top of the sacred
   box which held the two tablets of the Law was the slab of gold called
   the Mercy Seat which covered all. We will not talk of that golden
   covering, now, but we will speak of Jesus, our blessed Lord, who covers
   all! When God looks down upon His Law, He does not see it nakedly--He
   beholds it in the Person of His Son. He sees it, there, perfectly
   preserved without taint or flaw of any kind, and He rejoices therein.
   You and I magnify the Lord, that instead of having a naked Law to look
   at, which would flash devouring flames upon us, we see the Law in
   Christ covered with mercy, fulfilled by love on our behalf!

   We often speak of the Mercy Seat, but do we, as often as we should,
   remember that Jesus Christ, Himself, is that Mercy Seat? There is no
   Mercy Seat to which we can draw near in prayer except the Lord Jesus
   Christ, Himself, who is the Propitiation for our sins and through whom
   our supplications are accepted! "Ah," said the Jew, "we have a Mercy
   Seat that covers all." "Ah," say we, "but we have One who does not do
   that typically and in outward pattern, alone, but He is the real
   covering upon which we lay our prayers and thanksgivings and find
   ourselves accepted." We come not to God on the footing of the Law, but
   the interposing Propitiation! He covers all and comes between--and upon
   that Mercy Seat we offer our petitions and praises! That is a second
   blessed reason why we will say no more, "The ark of the covenant of the
   Lord," neither shall it come to mind, for Jesus is the Propitiatory for
   us.

   The next word is a very blessed one and that is covenant. The ark was
   called "the ark of the covenant." It represented a Covenant of Works,
   as it was a part of a visible sanctuary and, ah, how soon was that
   covenant broken! There is no wonder that in the breaking of that
   covenant, the golden pot of manna was lost and that Aaron's rod that
   budded was no more seen, for we are told in the Chronicles that when
   they opened the ark, in the days of Solomon, there was nothing found in
   it "save the two tablets which Moses put therein at Horeb, when the
   Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of
   Egypt."

   Paul tells us that they were there originally and so it is probable
   that they were taken away by the Philistines. Ah, how soon we should
   lose the sweet things of God if we were under the Covenant of
   Works--and how soon we should miss the gentle sovereignty of His
   shepherd rod! I thank and bless God that in Christ Jesus we have a
   Covenant of Grace which can never fail and never can be broken! In Him
   we have all that our souls desire--pot of manna and rod of
   Aaron--covenant provision and covenant rule we find in Him. Dear
   Hearer, have you ever seen Christ as your Covenant? It is not every
   Believer that has seen Him in that light. When we first come to Christ,
   we look to Him as our Savior and we are lightened--and a very blessed
   look it is!

   It may not be till years after that we come to understand that God has
   entered into Covenant with us in Christ; that He will bless us,
   sanctify us and keep us to the end. But, mark you, while a knowledge of
   Christ as a Savior gives you the Bread of Life, yet the "wines on the
   lees well refined" and the "fat things full of marrow" are unknown to
   you till you can spell that word, "covenant." Oh, how I wish some of
   the people of God understood it and realized that there is established
   between God and us, in the Person of Christ Jesus, a Covenant ordered
   in all things and sure! May the Holy Spirit teach you this! God has
   pledged His honor for the salvation of His people and He has sealed the
   Covenant with the precious blood of Jesus and, therefore, He will not
   turn away from it, but will keep it for His Son's sake! Oh, blessed
   Jesus, we need no ark of the covenant, for You are the Covenant,
   itself, to us, and in You we rejoice!

   Fourthly--because this ark was the ark of the covenant of God, it was
   from it that He was accustomed to reveal Himself--and so it is called
   the "ark of testimony." Jehovah often spoke from the Mercy Seat to His
   waiting people. His priests and Prophets heard a voice coming forth
   from the thick darkness of the secret chamber wherein God dwelt--a
   voice from off the Mercy Seat giving them promises of succor in their
   times of need. It was a great thing to possess what they called, "the
   oracle." No other people had a true oracle except these chosen ones of
   God, but now that its voice is silent, we need not regret it, for we
   have another Oracle. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners
   spoke in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets, has, in these last
   days, spoken unto us by His Son."

   His Son is the Testimony of the Father's mind. "He that has seen Me,"
   He says, "has seen the Father." In all the world of Nature; in all the
   realm of Providence; in all the books of Revelation, God is seen, but
   nowhere as He is seen in

   the Person of Jesus Christ--Jesus, the Word, is the most plain
   Revelation of God! His Sacrifice is the heart of God written out in
   readable characters. Jesus Christ is "the Testimony!" Come, then,
   Beloved, let us rejoice in the faithful and true Witness. Some will say
   that they know God by study. Others declare that they have found God by
   reflection. And some dream that they perceive Him by imagination. But
   all their knowledge put together cannot equal the blessed testimony of
   God which He has given us concerning Himself in the manifestation of
   His Incarnate, holy, obedient, suffering, dying, risen Son! We say no
   more, "the ark of the testimony," but we rejoice that God was made
   flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His Glory and saw the Father in
   the Son.

   We have only reached the middle of the subject now--this ark also
   signified enthronement--for the top of the ark was, so to speak, the
   Throne of God. It was "the throne of the heavenly Grace." There God
   reigned and dwelt, that is, typically. It was a throne to which
   petitioners came with their pleas to obtain favors at the hand of the
   great King. Where, now, is the visible Throne of God? Ah, Sirs, His
   holy place has been broken down and He dwells not in temples made with
   hands, that is to say of this building. There is now no visible Throne
   of God upon the face of the earth. Whereunto shall you liken the Throne
   of the Most High? We have heard of thrones of mighty kings adorned with
   gold, ivory, pearls and gems till they have shone like rainbows--but
   what would these trifles be to the God of the whole earth?

   If you would see the Throne of God, behold the Person of the Christ,
   for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily! The Lord
   reigns from the tree, from the Cross--here is the kingdom of God set up
   in the Person of Christ Jesus among the sons of men! Oh what a blessing
   to have such a Throne to come to--to Jesus, Himself, who is the Throne
   of the invisible God! We talk no longer of the ark and of its gold. Of
   its crown and of its golden lid. Of the winged cherubs, for the Lord
   Jesus is infinitely better than these! Oh, our beloved Lord and Master,
   You chase away these shadows from our minds, for the very Throne of God
   is You!

   Out of this grows the next idea, that as it was the place of God's
   enthronement, so it was the door of man's approach. Men never came
   nearer to God on earth, typically, than when they stood in the Holy
   Place close by the ark. Israel was nearest to God, symbolically, on
   that day when the atonement had been made and accepted--and her priest
   stood before the ark--awe-stricken in the Presence of God. You and I
   need not speak of the ark of the covenant, for we have a blessed way of
   approach. We do not come to Christ only once in the year, but every day
   in the year and every hour of the day! He who came but once in the year
   came tremblingly. The Jews had a tradition that they put a cord about
   the foot of the High Priest so that if he should die before the ark,
   they might draw out his corpse--such was their servile fear of God!

   That tradition shows what was the trembling nature of that entrance
   within the veil--how different from the Apostle's words, "Let us come
   boldly unto the Throne of the heavenly Grace." We are not afraid of
   being stricken with death there--we are full of reverence--but we have
   not received the spirit of bondage, again, to fear. There is no
   approaching God except in Christ, but in Christ our approach to God may
   be as near as possible. Come nearer, nearer still--it is your fault
   that you do not come near enough! There is nothing to tremble at,
   here--come right up to God and speak with Him as a man speaks with his
   friend.

   I would leave others to worship as they find they can, but to me,
   though the prayers of our national Church are very beautiful--they are
   so very cold! What a long way off is God in the Liturgy! What word is
   there in it of childlike delight in God? Therefore certain Brothers and
   Sisters who have been accustomed to that style of praying chide us for
   our boldness and familiarity in prayer. They think we are presumptuous
   in drawing so near to God! Brothers and Sisters, we do not marvel at
   your judgment, nor complain of it! We would not condemn you for your
   distant prayers, but we cannot yield to your censure of our bolder
   approach, for we have in our bosoms a sense of acceptance and a spirit
   of adoption which will not let us speak with God otherwise than as His
   favored children!

   We come boldly because we come through Jesus! Who is afraid of Jesus?
   Who shudders when drawing near to Him? And if He is the Mercy Seat to
   which we come--and the place where the Father meets us--we feel that He
   permits the holy familiarity, the humble freedom which is suggested to
   our hearts by the spirit of adoption! I must go a step further--the ark
   was the place of gracious power. On the top of the Mercy Seat stood
   cherubic figures and, notwithstanding all that learned men may have
   said, I do not think that any idea is nearer the mark than that these
   cherubim were types of angelic power--and of all the powers of
   Providence which God is pleased to use in the behalf of His people.

   Notice how frequently the Word associates angels with our Lord. For
   instance, when Jacob saw the ladder which reached to Heaven and God at
   the top of it, there were angels ascending and descending upon it.
   Cherubim were on all

   the curtains of the Most Holy Place which enclosed the ark and the
   ministry of angels is interwoven into the great covenant plan of
   salvation. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to
   minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Consider, then,
   that the angels on the Mercy Seat typify the power of God by which He
   will defend His people. Right well did He defend them, for who could
   harm them when He was in the midst of them?

   Yet we will not speak of the ark. Neither will we remember it. Neither
   will we visit it, for we see in Christ Jesus that all the power of God
   is on our side! He is, "God With Us," and if God is with us, who can be
   against us? Every angel is the servant of our Covenant Head and so the
   guardian of every member of Christ. As He might have summoned 12
   legions of angels by one uplifted glance to Heaven, so will He fill the
   mountain with horses of fire and chariots of fire whenever His people
   need such succor! The stars in their courses fight for the Savior and
   for the saved ones--nothing shall, by any means, harm them! In Heaven
   and earth and Hell, the warrant of the great King stands in full force,
   "Touch not My anointed, and do My Prophets no harm." And this
   protection comes to us because we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

   An eighth explanation, however, I must close with, so far as this
   second head is concerned. The ark was much reverenced by the Jews
   because it was the center of their nationality. Around the ark in the
   wilderness gathered all the tribes. The pillar of fire and cloud above
   the ark of the Covenant was God's flaming standard marking the pavilion
   where the Lord of Hosts abode. After they were settled in Canaan, it
   was the center of the nation. There the tribes go up, the tribes of the
   Lord, unto the testimony of our God. Today we have no such sacred ark
   or chest. We have no palladium or central standard. There is a church
   which has a man they call, "infallible," who is her center--and there
   are others who, in their cravings after uniformity in the churches
   would, I have no doubt, soon create a second hierarchy and bring forth
   by prodigious birth a second pope--but it is not so among us! God will
   not have it so! He will have no human center and our very divisions are
   overruled to prevent such a thing.

   But there is one Center to which all God's people gather! There is one
   name above every name, "of whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is
   named." Find me a dozen spiritual men and, to describe their different
   modes of thought, one of them may be called a Baptist, another an
   Episcopalian, a third a Presbyterian, a fourth a Methodist and so
   forth. Let them sit together and begin to talk of the things of God--of
   the Covenant of Grace; the work of the Spirit in the soul; the
   preciousness of the blood of Jesus--and you will see that they are one!
   Though they talk with various brogues, their language is one. Even as
   men from Somersetshire, or Essex, or Yorkshire all differ and yet all
   are Englishmen--so are Christians of various denominations one in the
   common language of the Cross of Christ.

   They say that Christians ought to be one and so we ought. But I go
   further and assert that all who are in Christ are already one! When our
   Lord prayed, "That they all may be one," was He unheard? Was His prayer
   unavailing? I believe it was answered and that to this day there is a
   vital union among all the people of God in every place. And though they
   sometimes try to conceal that unity, yet the love of Christ wills out
   and will fuse them into one. Put two mere theologians together and they
   will fight like Kilkenny cats! But bring two spiritual men together at
   the Cross and they will lie down like two lambs--they cannot help
   it--they must love each other in Christ.

   There is, there must be, an essential unity among those who are
   quickened by the Spirit! And I rejoice and glory that the name, the
   Person and the work of Jesus are, at this hour, the center of
   Christendom! Talk not of the ark, neither visit it, neither let it come
   to mind, for the King, Himself, is in the midst of us, "the standard
   bearer among ten thousand."

   III. Thirdly, let us see THIS REVERENCE TRANSFERRED. Let us render to
   Jesus the honor which aforetime was offered to the ark. First, let us
   say that Jesus is our Covenant. We are told, "They shall say no more,
   The ark of the covenant of the Lord." People must talk, it is natural
   to them, they must say something--what else are their tongues for? Let
   us, then, say concerning Christ that He is the Ark of the Covenant of
   the Lord. Come, let us each one say it for himself-- "Lord Jesus, I am
   in covenant with God through You. Jesus, You are my Propitiation--by
   You I approach unto the Father." Recognize this Truth of God for
   yourself, my Brothers and Sisters, and it will be a grand day for you.

   When you have said it to yourself, say it to those about you. Say it to
   strangers, but especially say it to your own Brothers and Sisters.
   "They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another," and what better
   subject could they have than to say one to another, "Brother, what
   fellowship we have with God in Christ! What a covenant there is between
   us and Him! Oh how sweetly does Christ cover our sins! How blessedly
   does He fulfill the Law! How sweetly does He bring us into fellowship
   with angels and how does He enable God to shine forth upon us!" Say
   this, say it often, nobody will

   rebuke you--it is a subject upon which you may be as fluent as you
   please. When you have said all you know, say it over again! And when
   you have said it again, say it a third time! This is a kind of note of
   which the human ear, when once it is cleansed, never grows weary!

   The text takes you a step farther, for it says of the original ark,
   "neither shall it come to mind," or, (I give the margin), "neither
   shall it come upon your heart." Brethren, let Christ come upon your
   heart and dwell there! Beloved, let us not have Christ in the head, but
   Christ in the heart! Know all you can about Him, but love Him on
   account of everything you know, for everything we learn about Christ
   ought to be another argument for affection to Him. How I loved Him when
   I only knew myself a sinner and Christ a Savior! But oh, I love Him
   more as I begin to see my greater need and His greater fullness--as I
   see my greater sinfulness and His greater graciousness! Oh for a great
   Christ! Oh to see Him grow upon us! Oh to get more knowledge and then
   to have our hearts enlarged that we may love Him more and more!

   Carry Christ in your heart, even as the Israelite bore the ark in his
   affections. Oh love the Lord, all you His saints! You can love other
   things too much, but not your Lord! Embrace Him! Cry in the language of
   the Song, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." Outsiders do
   not understand the Song--they say it is a mere love ditty. They never
   will understand it till the Lord Jesus is laid on their hearts. But
   when He is once there--their Joy, their All--they will need just such
   golden speech as Solomon's Song! And every word of it will be dear to
   their souls. Let us, then, love our Lord with all our hearts.

   And, next, if we should ever grow dull or cold at any time, let us take
   the third step in the text and let us remember the Lord--

   "What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still."

   If I have not this enjoyment now, I will remember it and struggle till
   I find my Lord again. O my Lord, I will remember You. If I forget You,
   let my heart forget to beat--

   "Gethsemane, can I forget?

   Or there Your conflict see,

   Your agony and bloody sweat,

   And not remember Thee!

   When to the Cross I turn m eyes,

   And rest on Calvary,

   Lamb of God! My Sacrifice!

   1 must remember Thee. Remember You and all Your pains, And all Your
   love to me.

   Yes, while a breath, a pulse remains, Will I remember Thee."

   O memory, leave no other name than that of Jesus recorded upon your
   tablets! Let us sometimes set apart a little space for the exercise of
   our memory. It is good for children at school to have their memories
   trained. Should not we sometimes, especially we who speak so much, get
   alone and sanctify our memory by going over all the blessings of the
   Covenant which come to us by Christ--all the glory of His Person and
   all the wonders of His work? Oh, yes, we must remember it!

   The next thing is, let us visit Him. We cannot set out on journeys,
   now, to go to Jerusalem on foot--little bands of us together--yet let
   us visit Jesus. Let us continually come to the Mercy Seat alone. Who
   that knows the worth of prayer but wishes to be often there? Next, let
   us come up by twos and threes. You that live at home and seldom get
   out, could you not, every now and then during the day, say to your
   maid, if she is a Christian, or to your sister who lives with you,
   "Come, let us have a five minutes' visit to the Ark of the Covenant.
   Let us go to the Lord and speak with Him-- maybe He will speak with us.
   Perhaps we have not been agreeing as we should--let us go and hear what
   God the Lord will speak, for He may speak peace to us in more senses
   than one. Perhaps we have had a trouble today and we do not see our
   way--let us go up to the Ark of the Covenant and hear what the Oracle
   will tell us. Perhaps the Lord will say, 'This is the way, walk you in
   it' and we shall know what to do."

   Frequently, in twos and threes, visit Christ your Ark and take care,
   also, to join the great caravans of Church prayer. One starts in this
   place every Sunday at seven o'clock in the morning and another at the
   hour of ten. Join those bands of pilgrims! A still larger company goes
   up to the Oracle on Monday nights at seven o'clock. Some twelve or
   fifteen hundred of us are usually to be found in happy fellowship going
   up to the Mercy Seat on Mondays. A very blessed little company meet on
   Thursday nights, before I begin my sermon, and they say, "Come and let
   us go and enquire of the Lord and ask His blessing upon His servant."
   Besides these, there are meetings for prayer in this place at so many
   hours that I cannot now mention them all.

   If you live where they are giving up on Prayer Meetings, carry home a
   live coal and drop it into your minister's bosom. "Ah," you say, "he
   might not like it." That is very likely, but he certainly needs setting
   on fire if he lets the Prayer Meeting go out! Churches without Prayer
   Meetings? Pull them down, their day is over! Stop the preacher's mouth
   if he does not pray and let His Church be scattered to the winds, for
   the Church that forgets to assemble for prayer has "Ichabod" written on
   its walls! No prayer, no power! The Ark of the Covenant is gone when
   the people no longer come together to cry unto the Lord in their
   companies. Let us constantly visit the ark, then, together! Let us go
   up to the Holy Place that we may speak with the Most High!

   The last thing is, "Neither shall that be done any more," but the
   margin has it, "Neither shall that be magnified any more." Transfer
   your reverence, then, and as you cannot magnify the literal Mercy Seat,
   come and magnify Christ, who is the real Mercy Seat. Oh, that I knew
   how to speak words worthy to lie under the soles of my Master's feet!
   Oh, that I could speak a sentence that was fit to be laid in the road
   like the palm branches with which the disciples strewed His way, not
   worthy to be touched by His feet, but by the feet of the beast that He
   rode upon! I am not worthy to unloose His shoe lace! He is so glorious
   that archangels fall on their faces to adore Him! Heaven is splendid,
   but the splendor of Heaven is the Presence of my Lord and Master! His
   Throne is a glorious high throne, but it owes its Glory and its height
   to Him that sits upon it! Hallelujah unto You, O Christ! Hallelujah
   forever and ever, for You were slain and have redeemed us unto God by
   Your blood! If the Jew was ever permitted to look upon the golden chest
   of the ark, he saw but little compared with what I see in You, You Man,
   You God!

   The wood that could not rot, covered over with precious gold, was a
   poor representation of His perfect Manhood and glorious Godhead. The
   ark was crowned, but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels
   and crowned King Of kings and Lord of lords! Again my heart cries
   hallelujah! The Jew could but see a slab of gold that was called the
   Throne of God, but we see the spotless, perfect life and infinitely
   precious Atonement of Christ which are better than the much fine gold.
   I see God, not as a light for the eyes, but as shining upon the soul in
   Jesus, my Lord. Oh, the Glory, the Glory of that Light of God! I am
   reconciled! I am a child of God! I am brought near! Jehovah speaks to
   me! I speak to Him! Hallelujah! All praise to Him through whom such
   fellowship is rendered possible so that a man can see God and live!
   Glory, glory be unto Him who is now in the Temple above! The veil is
   torn and faith can see Jesus, to whom we come this day. God bless you
   this day. God bless you, Beloved! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Mongrel Religion

   A Sermon

   (No. 1622)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, October 2nd, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   So these nations feared the Lord and served their graven images, both
   their children, and their children's children: as did their fathers, so
   do they unto this day.''2 Kings 17:41.

   SO DO THEY unto this day,' said the writer of the Book of Kings, who
   has long since passed away unto his fathers. Were he alive now he might
   say concerning the spiritual descendants of these Samaritans, So do
   they unto this day.' This base union of fearing God and serving other
   gods is by no means obsolete. Alas, it is too common everywhere, and to
   be met with where you might least expect it. From generation to
   generation there have been Mongrel Religionists, who have tried to
   please both God and the devil, and have been on both sides, or on
   either side, as their interest led them. Some of these wretched
   blenders are always hovering around every congregation, and my hope is
   that I may convince the consciences of some here present that they
   themselves are guilty, and that of them it might be said, as of these
   Assyrian immigrants, They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'
   My sermon will by no means be an essay upon an extinct race, but it may
   be placed among the present-day papers,' for so do they unto this day.'
   He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, and to whomsoever the word
   shall apply let its rebuke be taken home, and through the teaching of
   the Holy Spirit may it produce decisive results.

   I. I shall first call your attention to THE NATURE OF THIS Mongrel
   Religion. It had its good and bad points, for it wore a double face.
   These people were not infidels. Far from it: they feared the Lord.'
   They did not deny the existence, or the power, or the rights of the
   great God of Israel, whose name is Jehovah. They had not the pride of
   Pharaoh who said, Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?' They
   were not like those whom David calls fools,' who said in their hearts,
   There is no God.' They had faith, though only enough to produce fear.
   They knew that there was a God; they feared his wrath, and they tried
   to appease it. So far they were hopeful persons, and under the
   influence of a feeling which has often led up to better things. It was
   better to dread God than to despise him; better slavishly to fear than
   stupidly to forget. We would not have men so foolish as to doubt the
   existence of God, nor so profane as to defy him. There was something
   commendable about men of whom it could be said that they feared
   Jehovah, even though that fear was a selfish and servile one, and was
   by no means so efficacious upon them as it ought to have been, for it
   did not cause them to put away their idols.

   Another good point about these mixed religionists was that they were
   willing to be taught. As soon as they found that they were not acting
   rightly towards the God of the land, they sent a petition to their
   supreme ruler, the king of Assyria, setting forth their spiritual
   destitution. Church and State were fused in those days, and therefore
   they applied to their king that he would help them in their religious
   distress, and he acted to the best of his light; for he sent them one
   or the priests of the old religion of the land. This man was a
   Bethelite, one who worshipped God under the symbol of an ox, which the
   Scripture calls a calf. He was a very slight improvement upon a
   heathen; but we must be glad even of small progress. They were quite
   willing to be taught the manner of the God of the land, and so they
   installed this priest at Bethel, and gathered about him to know what
   they should do. We have people around us unto this day who are glad to
   hear the gospel, and sit with pleasure under our ministry, and if the
   word be faith fully preached they commend the preacher and give a
   gratified attention to the things that proceed out of his mouth; and
   yet they are living in known sin. Albeit they do not practically turn
   from sin and renounce the service of Satan, yet are they willing to bow
   with the righteous, to sing their psalms and assent to their prayers,
   and to accept their confession of faith. They are a teachable sort of
   people, so far as mere hearing goes but there they stop.

   Though these strangers feared Jehovah, and were willing to learn the
   way of his worship, yet they stuck to their old gods. Ah,' said the
   Babylonian, I listen respectfully to what you have to say of this God,
   of the land; but Succoth-benoth for me; when I go home I shall offer
   sacrifice to him.' The men of Cuthah said, Verily this is good doctrine
   concerning the God of Israel; but the god of our fathers was Nergal,
   and to him will we cleave'; and the Sepharvites, though they wished to
   hear of the pure and holy Jehovah, and therefore learned from his law
   the command, Thou shalt not kill,' yet still they passed their children
   through the fire to Moloch, and did not cease from that most cruel of
   all religious rites. Thus you see that this mingle-mangle religion left
   the people practically where they were: whatever their fear might be,
   their customs and practices remained the same. Have you never met with
   persons of the same mongrel kind? If you have never done so, your class
   of acquaintances must be superior to mine At this moment I shall not
   speak at random, but aim at individual cases; for I know of persons who
   come to this place of worship with great regularity, and yet they serve
   their sins, and obey their own vicious passions. They take delight in
   the services of this house, and yet they are much at home with the god
   of this world. Some worship a deity quite as horrible as Moloch, whose
   name in the olden time was Bacchus'the god or the wine-cup and the
   beer-barrel. They pay their eager devotions at his shrine, and yet they
   would be numbered with the people of God. They were drunk last night,
   and yet they are here this morning: possibly they will keep sober
   to-day; but they will not let many days pass before they will once more
   stagger before their abominable idol. In all places of worship there
   are people of this kind. Do not look round to see if there is a person
   present dressed like a working man, for I have not the poor in my eye
   at this time. Alas, this vice is to be met with in one rank as well as
   another, and the person I mean looks quite respectable, and wears
   broadcloth. Many worshippers of Bacchus do not drink so as to be found
   drunk and incapable in the street. O no; they go upstairs to their beds
   in their own houses, so that their condition is not observed; but still
   they must know that they are verging upon intoxication, if not actually
   gone. Woe unto such, who, while they pretend to be worshippers of
   Jehovah, are also worshippers of the beastly god of drunkenness. Is
   that too harsh a word? I beg the beasts' pardon for thus slandering
   them. Alas, there are others who adore the goddess Venus, the queen of
   lust and uncleanness. I say no more. It is a shame even to speak of
   things which are done of them in secret. Too often the god is Mammon,
   who is as degraded a deity as any of them. Such turn religion into a
   means of gain, and would sell Jesus himself for silver. The sin of
   Judas is one of which we may say, So do they unto this day.' Judas is
   an apostle, he listens to the Master's words, he preaches at the
   Master's command, and be works miracles in the Master's Dame; he also
   keeps the bag and manages the finance for Christ's little company, and
   he does it so carefully and economically that what he filches for
   himself is not missed, and he remains in good repute. Judas professes
   to serve Jesus, but all the while be is really serving himself, for
   secretly he abstracts from the treasury somewhat for his own pocket. He
   had the bag and kept that which was put therein.' There are such still
   in the churches of God: they do not actually steal, but they follow
   Jesus for what they can make or get out of him and his disciples. The
   symbols of their worship are the loaf and the fish. Now, this is as
   degrading a form of worship as the adoration of graven images. Gain is
   the god of many in all congregations: they seek Jesus, not because they
   care for his words, but because they eat of the loaves. They fear the
   Lord, but they serve other gods.

   Are there not to be found in the world men whose very calling is
   contrary to the spirit of true godliness? I did know, and may I never
   know again such an one, a man apparently most devout and gracious, who
   was a deacon of a church, and passed round the communion cup; and yet
   over the worst drinking dens in the town where he lived, where the
   lowest harlots congregated, you would see the man's name, for he was
   the brewer to whom the houses belonged'houses which had been purposely
   adapted at his expense for purposes of vice and drunkenness. He took
   the profits of a filthy traffic, and then served at the Lord's table. I
   would judge no man, but some cases speak for themselves. God save the
   man that can pander to the devil, and then bow down, before the Most
   High. Persons are to be found, without a lantern and candle, who earn
   their money by ministering at the altars of Belial, and then offer a
   part of it to the Lord of hosts. Can they come from the place of
   revelling to the chamber of communion? Will they bring the wages of sin
   to the altar of God? He who makes money over the devil's back is a
   hypocrite if he lays his cankered coin at the apostles' feet. Thy money
   perish with thee.' How some men can rest in their impious pretensions
   it is not for me to guess; but methinks if their consciences were
   quickened, it would strike them as being a horrible thing in the land
   that they should be fearing the Lord, and serving other gods. I knew
   one who was always at the place of worship, prayer-meetings, and all,
   and yet he had forsaken the wife of his youth, and was the companion of
   gamblers, and drunkards, and the unclean. I know another of a much
   milder type: be is a regular hearer, but he has no sense of true
   religion. He is a steady, hard-working man, but he lives to hoard
   money, and neither the poor nor the church of God ever get a penny from
   him: bowels of compassion he has none. He is a stranger to private
   prayer, and his Bible is never read; but he never misses a sermon. He
   never lifts his thoughts above the bench at which he works, or the shop
   in which he serves, his whole conversation is of the world, and the
   gain thereof, and yet he has occupied a seat in the meeting-house from
   his youth up, and has never thought of leaving it except at
   quarter-days, when he is half a mind to give it up and save the few
   shillings which it costs him. Oh, sad, sad, sad! I can understand the
   man who honestly says, I am living for the world and have no time for
   religion.' I can understand the man who cries, I love the world and
   mean to have my fill of it.' I can understand the man who says, I shall
   not pretend to pray or sing psalms, for I do not care about God or his
   ways'; but how can I comprehend those who are faithful to the outward
   part of religion, and profess to receive the truth, and yet have no
   heart for the love of Jesus, no care for the service of God? Oh,
   unhappy men, to come so near salvation in appearance, and to be so far
   off in reality! How can I explain their conduct? Truly, I must leave
   them among the mysteries of the moral world; for they fear the Lord and
   serve their graven images unto this day.' So far have we spoken upon
   the nature of this patched-up religion, this linsey-woolsey piety. May
   we have none of it.

   II. Let us now consider THE MANNER OF ITS GROWTH. However came such a
   monstrous compound into this world?

   Here is the history of it. These people came to live where the people
   of God had lived. The Israelites were most unworthy worshippers of
   Jehovah; but, still, they were known to others as his people, and their
   land was Jehovah's land. If the Sepharvites had stopped at Sepharvaim
   they would never have thought of fearing Jehovah; if the men of Babylon
   had continued to live in Babylon they would have been perfectly
   satisfied with Bel, or Succoth-benoth, or whatever the name of their
   precious god might be: but when they were fetched out from their old
   haunts, and brought into Canaan, they came under a different influence,
   and a new order of things. God would not allow them to go the whole
   length of idolatry in his land: though he had cast out his people, yet
   still it was his land, and he would make these heathens know it, and
   show some little decency in their new abode. Now, it sometimes happens
   to utter worldlings that they are dropped into the midst of Christian
   people, and they naturally feel that they must not be different from
   everybody about them. A kind of fashion is set by the professors among
   whom they dwell, and they fall into it. If they do not become gracious
   people themselves they try to look a little like them. Everybody in the
   village attends a place of worship, and the new comers do the same,
   though they have no heart to it. They have not the courage of their
   want of conviction, so they just drift with the current, and as it
   happens to run in a religious direction they are as religious as the
   rest. Or it may be they have a godly mother, and their father is a
   believer, and so they adopt the traditions of the family. They would
   like to be free to forsake the ways of piety, but they cannot be quite
   so unkind to those whom they love, and so they yield to the influences
   which surround them, and become in a measure fearers of God, out of
   respect to their neighbors or their families. This is a poor reason for
   being religious.

   Something else happened to these Assyrian immigrants which had a
   stronger influence still. At first they did not fear God, but the Lord
   sent lions among them. Matthew Henry says, God can serve his own
   purposes by which he pleaseth, little or big, lice or lions.' By the
   smaller means he plagued the Egyptians, and by the greater these
   invaders of his land. There is no creature so small or so great but God
   can employ it in his service and defeat his enemies thereby. When these
   lions had torn one and another, then the people trembled at the name of
   the God of the land, and desired to know the manner in which he would
   be worshipped. Affliction is a wild beast by which God teaches men who
   act like beasts. This is the growth of mongrelists. First, they are
   among godly people, and they must, therefore, go a little that way; and
   next, they are afflicted, and they must now go further still. The man
   has been ill, he has seen the brink of the grave; he has promised and
   vowed to attend to good things, in the hope that God would relent and
   permit him to live. Besides that, the man's extravagance has brought
   him into difficulties and straits; he cannot go so far or so fast as he
   formerly did, and hence he inclines to more staid and sober ways. He
   dares not follow his bent, for he finds vice too expensive, too
   disreputable, too dangerous. Many a man is driven by fear where he
   could not be drawn by love. He does not love the Lamb, but he does fear
   the lions. The rough voices of pain, poverty, shame, and death work a
   kind of law'work upon certain consciences which are insensible to
   spiritual arguments. They are forced, like the devils, to believe and
   tremble. Apprehension does not in their case lead to conversion, but it
   compels an outward respect for divine things. They argue that if the
   ills they feel do not reform them they may expect worse. If God begins
   with lions, what will come next? Therefore, they outwardly humble
   themselves, and yield homage to the God they dread.

   But notice, that the root of this religion is fear. There is no love on
   the right side; that affection is in the opposite scale. Their hearts
   go after their idols, but to Jehovah they yield nothing but dread. How
   many there are whose religion consists in a fear of hell, a dread of
   the consequences of their sin. If there were no hell they would drink
   up sin as the ox, standing knee-deep in the stream, sucks in the water.
   If sin were not followed with inconvenient consequences, they would
   live in it as their element, as fishes swim in the sea. They are only
   kept under by the hangman's whip or the jailer's keys. They dread God,
   and this is but a gentler form of hating him. Ah, this is a poor
   religion, a religion of bondage and terror. Thank God, dear friends, if
   you have been delivered from it; but it is sure to be the
   characteristic of a fusion of fearing God and serving other gods.

   One reason why they dropped into this self-contradictory religion was
   that they had a trimming teacher. The king of Assyria sent them a
   priest: he could not have sent them a prophet, but that was what they
   really wanted. He sent them a Bethelite, not a genuine servant of
   Jehovah, but one who worshipped God by means of symbols; and this the
   Lord had expressly forbidden. If this priest did not break the first
   commandment by setting up other gods, yet he broke the second by making
   an image to represent the true God. What saith the Lord? Thou shalt not
   make unto thee 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: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve
   them.' This priest taught them the calf worship, but he winked at their
   false deities. When he saw them each one bowing before his own idol, he
   called it a natural mistake, and by no means spake indignantly to them.
   If one of them worshipped Succoth-benoth, so long as he also brought an
   offering to Jehovah, he was not so uncharitable as to condemn him. He
   cried, Peace, peace,' for he was a large-hearted man, and belonged to
   the Broad Church who believe in the good intentions of all men, and
   manufacture excuses for all the religions of the age. I know of no
   surer way of a people's perishing than by being led by one who does not
   speak out straight, and honestly denounce evil. If the minister halts
   between two opinions, do you wonder that the congregation is undecided?
   If the preacher trims and twists to please all parties, can you expect
   his people to be honest? If I wink at your inconsistencies will you not
   soon be hardened in them? Like priest, like people. A cowardly preacher
   suits hardened sinners. Those who are afraid to rebuke sin, or to probe
   the conscience, will have much to answer for. May God save you from
   being led into the ditch by a blind guide.

   And yet is not a mingle-mangle of Christ and Belial the common religion
   of the day? Is not worldly piety, or pious worldliness, the current
   religion of England? They live among godly people, and God chastens
   them, and they therefore fear him, but not enough to give their hearts
   to him. They seek out a trimming teacher who is not too precise and
   plain-spoken, and they settle down comfortably to a mongrel faith, half
   truth, half error, and a mongrel worship half dead form, and half
   orthodoxy. God have mercy upon men, and bring them out from the world;
   for he will not have a compound of world and grace. Come ye out from
   among them,' saith he, be ye separate: touch not the unclean thing.' If
   God be God, serve him: if Baal be God, serve him.' There can be no
   alliance between the two. Jehovah and Baal can never be friends. Ye
   cannot serve God and Mammon.' No man can serve two masters.' All
   attempts at compromise or comprehensiveness in matters of truth and
   purity are founded on falsehood, and falsehood is all that can come of
   them. May God save us from such hateful doublemindedness.

   Thus have I described the nature and the growth of this cross-bred
   religion.

   III. Thirdly, let us estimate THE VALUE OF THIS RELIGION. What is it
   worth? First, it must evidently be feeble on both sides, because the
   man who serves Succoth-benoth cannot do it thoroughly if all the while
   be fears Jehovah; and he who fears Jehovah cannot be sincere it be is
   worshipping Moloch. The one sucks out the life of the other. Either one
   or the other alone might breed an intense worshipper; but when there
   are two deities, it is written, Their heart is divided, now shall they
   be found wanting.' A man of the world who is out and out in his conduct
   can make the best of his worldliness: what joy there is in it he gets,
   what profit there is to be made out of it be obtains; but if he tries
   to mix godliness with it he is pouring water on the fire, and hindering
   himself. On the other hand, if a man goes in for godliness, he will
   assuredly make something of it, by the blessing of God: if there be any
   joy, if there be any holiness, if there be any power, the man who is
   thorough-going wins it; but suppose he is pulled back by his love of
   sin, then he may possess enough religion to make him miserable, and
   enough of sin to prevent his salvation; but the two are opposed, and
   between them he finds no rest. The man is lame on both feet, impotent
   in both directions. He is like the salt which has lost its savor,
   neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill, but to be trodden
   under foot of men.

   At first I should think that the mixture of the true with the false at
   Samaria looked like an improvement. I should not wonder but what the
   priests of Judah were rather glad to bear that the lions had come among
   the strangers, and that the people wanted to know something about
   Jehovah. It had a look in the right direction, and consequently the
   Scripture says that they feared God; but yet this fear of God was so
   hollow that, if you turn to the thirty-fourth verse, you will read,
   They fear not the Lord.' Sometimes a verbal contradiction most
   accurately states the truth. They feared the Lord only in a certain
   sense; but, inasmuch as they also served other gods, it came to this
   when summed up, that they did not fear God at all. The man who is
   religious and also immoral, to put it in short, is irreligious. He who
   makes a great fuss about godliness and yet acts in an ungodly way, when
   all comes to all, is an ungodly man. The value of this mixture is less
   than nothing. It is sin with a little varnish upon it. It is enmity to
   God with a brilliant colouring of formality: it is standing out against
   the Most High, and yet with a Judas kiss pretending to pay him homage.

   These Samaritans in after years became the bitterest foes of God's
   people. Read the Book of Nehemiah, and you will see that the most
   bitter opponents of that godly man were those mongrels. Their fear of
   God was such that they wanted to join with the Jews in building the
   Temple, and when they found that the Jews would not have them, they
   became their fiercest foes. No people do so much hurt as those who are
   like Jack-o'-both-sides. The mixed multitude that came out of Egypt
   with the Israelites, fell a-lusting. The mischief does not begin with
   the people of God, but with those who are with them, but not of them.
   The tares which you cannot root out grow with the wheat, and draw away
   from it that which should have nourished it. As the clinging ivy will
   eat out the life of a tree around which it climbs, so will these
   impostors devour the church if they be left to their own devices. This
   patchwork religion is of more value to the devil than to anyone else;
   it is his favourite livery, and I pray you hate it, for it is a garment
   spotted by the flesh. I believe, dear friends, that those people who
   have a dread of God, which makes them appear religious, and who yet all
   the while live in their sins, are most in danger of any people in the
   world; for there is no getting at them to save them. You preach to
   sinners, and they say, He does not mean us, for we are saints.' You
   bring the thunders of the law to bear on the congregation, and they,
   being inside the church, are not afraid of the tempest. They hide
   behind their false profession. There is more likelihood of the
   salvation of a downright outsider than of these pretenders. They hold
   with the bare and run with the hounds, they fear the Lord and serve
   other gods, and they will perish in their folly. Their ruin will be all
   the more terrible because they sin in the light. They have so much
   conscience that they know what is right and what is wrong, and they
   deliberately choose to abide with the evil, even though at the same
   time they do despite to their better selves. Surely they will be
   banished to the deepest hell who seemed inclined to go towards heaven,
   but who, nevertheless, presumptuously wrenched off bolts and bars to
   force their way to destruction. O you religious worldlings, for you
   there is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

   How provoking this adulterated religion must be to God! It is even
   provoking to God's minister to be pestered with men whose hypocrisies
   weaken the force of his testimony. Here is a man who is known to be one
   of my hearers, and yet at the same time he drinks, and speaks lewdly,
   and acts wickedly. What have I to do with him? His tongue is never
   still, and he tells everybody that he is a friend of mine, and my great
   admirer, and then men lay his conduct at my door, and wonder what my
   doctrine must be. I could almost say, Sir, be my enemy, for this will
   harm me less than your friendship.' If this grieves his ministers, how
   provoking must it be to God himself: these people are seen to worship
   him, and when strangers come into the assembly they spy out these
   hypocrites, and straightway charge the holy Jesus with all their
   faults. See,' say they, there is old So-and-so. He is a great man among
   them, and yet I saw him come out of the gin-palace more than three
   sheets in the wind.' Thus the holy God is dishonored by these unholy
   hypocrites. True religion suffers for their falsehood. One may fancy
   the Lord Jesus saying, Come now, if you must needs serve the devil, do
   it; but do not loiter around my gates and boast of being my servants.'
   The holy God must often feel his indignation burn against unholy men
   and women who intrude into his courts and dare to pass themselves off
   under his name. I put this very plainly. Some of you do not know how
   necessary it is to speak plainly in these days. If any of you perish
   through hypocrisy it shall not be because I did not speak boldly about
   it. May God the Holy Spirit of his great mercy apply the words where
   they need to be applied, that those who are fearing God and serving
   other gods may grieve over their inconsistency, and repent and turn in
   very deed and truth to the Most High.

   IV. I pass briefly to another important point, which is this,'THE
   CONTINUANCE OF THIS EVIL: for the text says, As did their fathers, so
   do they, unto this day.' I believe in the final perseverance of the
   saints: I am almost obliged to believe in the final perseverance of
   hypocrites; for, really, when a man once screws himself up to play the
   double, and both to fear God and serve other gods, he is very apt to
   stick there. It takes a great deal of effort to bring yourself to that
   degree of wickedness; you must use a great deal of damping of
   conscience and quenching of the Spirit before you can reach that
   shameless point, and having once gained that position you are apt to
   keep it all your life long. So do they unto this day.'

   Look, friends. It seems unlikely that a man would willingly continue in
   such a ridiculous position even for an hour. I call it ridiculous, for
   it is unreasonable and outrageous to be serving God and Satan at the
   same time. It is inconsistent and self-contradictory, and yet, though
   it be so, it is a sad fact that it is a deep pit and the abhorred of
   the Lord fall therein, seldom to be lifted out of it. Often by the
   grace of God we see the confirmed sinner plucked like a brand from the
   burning; but, oh, how seldom do we see the hollow-hearted Pharisee
   brought out of his delusions. On the anvil of a false profession Satan
   hammers out the most hardened of hard hearts.

   One reason why it can be said of most men''so do they unto this day,'
   is because it yields them a sort of comfort; at any rate it keeps off
   the lions. Why,' say they, it must be the right thing to do, for now we
   are quiet.' While they lived in sin without a pretense of religion,
   when the minister preached the word powerfully, they went home
   trembling; now they do not care what he preaches about: the lions roar
   no longer, not so much as a cub shows itself. Though they do drink a
   little, though they do use strong language now and then, though they
   are really unconverted, yet since they have taken a pew at the church,
   or the chapel, they feel wonderfully easy in their minds. This peace
   they think to be worth a Jew's eye. It is so soothing and pacifying to
   the conscience to feel that you mix up with the best of the saints, and
   are highly esteemed by them. So they wrap it up, and go down to hell
   with a lie in their right hand.

   The worst of it is that not only men themselves do this, but their
   children and their children's children do the same: As their fathers
   did, so do they unto this day.' In an out-and-out godly family it is a
   great joy to see the children springing up to fear God; but these
   double people, these borderers, see no such desirable succession.
   Frequently there is an open decline from apparent religion: the sons do
   not care to go where the old man went at all; nor need we wonder, since
   it did him so little good. He made all unhappy at home, and none are
   eager to imitate him. In other cases, where there was kindness at home,
   the children are apt to try the same plan as their fathers, and mingle
   a little religion with a great deal of worldliness. They are just as
   keen and sharp as their worldly sire, and they see on which side their
   bread is buttered, and therefore they keep up the reputation of
   religion. A little gilt and paint go a long way, and so they lay it on.
   They fly the flag of Christ, at any rate, even though the vessel does
   not belong to his dominion, and is not bound for the port of glory. As
   vessels sometimes run a blockade under a false flag, so do they reap
   many advantages from sailing under Christian colors. This detestable
   iniquity will not die out: it multiplies itself, scattering its own
   seed on all sides, and so from generation to generation it lives on;
   whole nations fear the Lord and serve other gods.

   The greatest curse, perhaps, that ever visited the world came upon it
   in this way. Certain vain-glorious preachers desired to convert the
   world at a stroke, and to make converts without the work of the Spirit.
   They saw the people worshipping their gods, and they thought that if
   they could call these by the names of saints and martyrs the people
   would not mind the change, and so they would be converted. The idea was
   to Christianize heathenism. They virtually said to idolaters, Now, good
   people, you may keep on with your worship, and yet you can be
   Christians at the same time. This image of the Queen of heaven at your
   door need not be moved. Light the lamp still; only call the image our
   Lady,' and the Blessed Virgin.' Here is another image; don't pull it
   down, but change its name from Jupiter to Peter.' Thus with a mere
   change of names they perpetuated idolatry: they set up their altars in
   the groves, and upon every high hill, and the people were converted
   without knowing it'converted to a baser heathenism than their own. They
   wanted priests, and, lo, there they were, robed like those who served
   at the altars of Jove. The people saw the same altars and sniffed the
   same incense, kept the same holy days and observed the same carnivals
   as aforetime, and called everything by Christian names. Hence came what
   is now called the Roman Catholic religion, which is simply fearing God
   and serving other gods. Every village has its own peculiar saint, and
   often its own particular black or white image of the Virgin, with
   miracles and wonders to sanctify the shrine. This evil wrought so
   universally that Christianity seemed in danger of extinction from the
   prevalence of idolatry, and it would have utterly expired had it not
   been of God, and had he not therefore once more put forth his hand and
   raised up reformers, who cried out, There is but one God, and one
   Mediator between God and man.' Brave voices called the church back to
   her allegiance and to the parity of her faith. As for any of you who
   are trying to link good and evil, truth and falsehood together, beware
   of the monstrous birth which will come of such an alliance: it will
   bring on you a curse from the Most High.

   V. I shall now close by saying a few words byway of CURE OF THIS
   DREADFUL EVIL OF MONGRELISM; this fearing the Lord, and serving other
   gods. Suppose men were thus fall of duplicity in politics, what would
   be thought of them? If a war should rage between two nations, what
   would be thought of the man who professed to serve the Queen, and all
   the while was playing his cards to win favor with the Queen's enemies.
   What would he be? A liberal-minded person? A gentleman of broad
   sympathies? Perhaps so. But also he would be a traitor, and when he was
   found out he would be shot. He who in any way tries to serve God and
   his enemies, is a traitor to God: that is what it comes to. In ordinary
   politics, if there be two parties, and a man comes forward and says, I
   am on your side,' and all the while he is doing his best to help the
   opposition, everybody says that he is a mean fellow. And what meanness
   it is to say, I am for Christ,' and yet practically to be for his
   enemies; to cry up holiness, and yet to live in sin; to preach up faith
   in Christ, and yet to trust in your own merits. This wretched shuffling
   indicates a meanness of soul from which may God in infinite mercy
   deliver us. Suppose a man in business said, Oh, yes, I will be an
   honest man, but I will at the same time practice a trick or two; I will
   be as straight as a line, but yet I will be crooked too.' Why, he would
   very soon be known by only one name, and that name a dishonorable one.
   A merchant cannot be honest and dishonest, a woman cannot be both
   chaste and unchaste, pure and impure, at the same time; and a man
   cannot be truly with God and yet with the world; the amalgamation is
   impossible. Everybody sees through such sham godliness.

   Ah, my dear friends, suppose that God were to treat us after the like
   double fashion; suppose he smiled to-day and cursed to-morrow suppose
   be said, You fear me, and so I will give you comfort to-day but
   inasmuch as you worship other gods, when it comes to the last I will
   send you to your own gods; you shall go down to hell.' You want one
   course of conduct from God, mercy, tenderness, gentleness, forgiveness;
   but if you play fast and loose with him, what is this but mocking him?
   Shall a man mock God? O thou great Father of our spirits, if we poor
   prodigals return to thee, shall we come driving all the swine in front
   of us, and bringing all the harlots and citizens of the far country at
   our heels, and introduce ourselves to thee by saying, Father, we have
   sinned, and have come home to be forgiven and to go on sinning'? It
   were infernal,'I can say no less. Yet some attempt it. Shall any of us
   come to the blessed Christ upon the cross, and look up to his dear
   wounds, and say to him, Redeemer, we come to thee; thou shalt be our
   Savior, thou shalt deliver us from the wrath to come; but, behold, when
   we have washed our robes we will defile them again in the filth of the
   world. Wash us, and we will go back, like the sow, to wallow in the
   mire. Forgive us, and we will use the immunity which thy mercy grants
   us, as a further incentive to rebellion'? I can imagine such language
   as that being used by Satan; but methinks few of you have descended so
   low as to talk thus. Yet is not that exactly what the man says who
   professes to be a Christian, and yet wilfully lives in sin?

   Lastly, what shall I say of the Holy Spirit? If he does not dwell in
   our hearts we are lost; there is no hope for us unless he rules within
   us. And shall we dare to say

   Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

   With all thy quickening powers,'

   meanwhile I will live in filthiness and selfishness. Come, Holy Spirit,
   come and dwell with me, and I will hate my brother, I will boil with
   angry temper, and will be black with malice, so as to make my home
   miserable. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, come dwell within my soul,
   and I will carry thee to the theater, and the ball-room, and the house
   of evil name.

   I hate to utter such language even for the sake of exposing it; but
   what must God think of men who do not say so, but who act so; who, like
   Balaam, live in sin and yet cry, Let me die the death of the righteous,
   and let my last end be like his.' I dare not preach from that very
   popular text, for it is the mean, selfish wish of a man who even at the
   last would save his own skin. The old sneak! He wanted to live and
   serve the devil, and then cry off at the last. Surely he might have
   said, I have been a prophet of Satan, and have sold my soul to him; let
   me die as I have lived.' I would wish to live in such a way as I would
   wish to die. If I would not like to die as I am, then I ought not to
   live as I am. If I am in a condition in which I dare not meet my God,
   may God in mercy fetch me out of the condition at once. Let me be
   right, and let there be no mistake about it; but do not let me try to
   be both right and wrong, washed and filthy, white and black, a child of
   God and a child of Satan. God has separated heaven and hell by a gulf
   that never can be passed, and he has divided the two characters which
   shall people those two places by an equally wide gulf. This division
   can be passed by his grace, but none can inhabit the intermediate
   space. None can hang between spiritual death and spiritual life, so as
   to be partly in one and partly in the other. Decide, then, decide. Be
   one thing or the other. How long halt ye between two opinions?' Again I
   say with Elias, upon Carmel, If the Lord be God, follow him: but if
   Baal, then follow him.' But do not mix the worship of the two, for thus
   you will provoke God, and cause his anger to burn like fire against
   you. May God bless this word, for his name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'2 Kings 17:24-41; Psalm 62.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''63, 655, 809.
     __________________________________________________________________

Wholehearted Religion

   (No. 1623)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 9, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear Me
   forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them."
   Jeremiah 32:39.

   THOSE of you who were present last Lord's-Day morning will remember my
   sermon upon "Mongrel Religion," [Sermon #1622] in which I dealt with
   those who feared the Lord and served other gods. Their heart was
   divided and, therefore, they were found faulty. They had, as the Hebrew
   puts it, a heart and a heart--a heart that went this way and a heart
   that went the other way. And so, as a matter of fact, they became, as
   the Prophet says, as "a silly dove that has no heart." The discourse of
   this morning is intended to exhibit wholehearted religion which is the
   opposite of the sad mixture which we have so lately denounced. We wish
   to look upon persons of Caleb's stamp, who followed the Lord fully-- in
   whom, by the Grace of God, the divided heart has become united--so that
   with their whole heart they serve the Lord their God.

   Our text is an extract from Jeremiah's copy of the Covenant of Grace.
   The Lord promises to Israel, "They shall be My people, and I will be
   their God." And in the 40th verse He says, "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." This, then, is the Covenant of Grace which God has
   made with His people and it is highly suggestive that the first
   blessing of it relates to the heart, for God, when He begins with men,
   does not begin with the outward way, but with the inward spirit. He
   puts it, "I will give them one heart and one way"--the way is
   second--the heart comes first. Understand, then, that in all true
   godliness we must begin with heart-work.

   It is no use hoping to polish the outside until, by degrees, you
   enlighten the interior. No, but the light must first be placed within
   and then, as it shines through, spots on the exterior will be
   discovered and will all the more readily be cleansed away. God works
   not to the center, but in the center, and then from the center into the
   outer life. In reference to the heart, one of the earliest works of
   Divine Grace is to unite it in one. Strange to say, but I would be
   equally truthful if I said that one of the first works of Grace is to
   break the heart--but so paradoxical is man that when his heart is
   unbroken, it is divided--and when his heart is broken, then, for the
   first time, it is united, for a broken heart, in every fragment of it,
   mourns over sin and cries out for mercy.

   Every shattered particle of a contrite spirit is united in one desire
   to be reconciled to God. There is no union of the heart with itself
   till it is broken for sin and from sin. Early in the morning of Grace,
   the man comes to himself and is restored to the unity of his manhood.
   The effect of this inner reunion is very salutary. We read of the
   prodigal, that, "when he came to himself," he said, "I will arise and
   go to my father." The heart is united in itself when it is united to
   the Lord! Even as the Lord has said by the mouth of the Prophet, "I
   will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall
   be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me
   with their whole heart."

   It is of this unitedness of heart that I shall speak first. And then I
   shall go on to those other Covenant blessings which come after it,
   according to the text. These are placed after it, in order to show its
   great value, since it is the first step to exceedingly precious
   blessings. First, then, we will consider unitedness of heart--"I will
   give them one heart." Secondly, the blessing which immediately arises
   out of it, consistency of walk--"I will give them one way." From these
   two come the third blessing, "steadfastness of principle--"that they
   may fear Me forever." And consequent upon all this comes personal
   blessings, "for the good of them." And attendant upon that favor,
   relative benediction--"and for the good of their children after them."
   Our program is very extensive--may the Spirit of God help us to fill it
   up.

   I. We begin, then, at the beginning, with UNITEDNESS OF THE HEART. Our
   first statement under this head shall be that it is naturally divided.
   Sin is confusion and at its entrance it created a Babel, or a
   confusion, within the heart of

   man. Until man sinned, his nature was one and undivided, but the Fall
   broke him and destroyed his unity. Within him, now, there are many
   voices, many imaginations and many devices. Within him there is strife
   and contention, wars and fights, which come of his lusts, which
   struggle with each other and with his understanding. Observe the
   contest which is constantly visible between his conscience and his
   affections. His affections choose that which is evil, while his
   conscience approves that which is right. The desires go after that
   which appears to be pleasant, but the judgment warns the mind of its
   folly and, therefore, a controversy between the two powers of the soul.

   The lusts crave for that which the intellect condemns; the passions
   demand that which the reason would deny; the will persists in that
   which the judgment would forego! The ship of our manhood will not obey
   the helm; there is a mutiny on board and those powers which should be
   underlings, strive for the mastery. Man is dragged to and fro by
   contending forces; conscience draws this way and the affections drag in
   the opposite direction. Our propensities and faculties are, by nature,
   like the crowd in the Ephesian theater of whom we read, "Some,
   therefore, cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was
   confused."

   We sin not without some measure of compunction and we do not quit our
   sin, thoroughly, even when we yield to conscience, for the heart still
   hankers after that which the conscience disallows. To many a man it is
   given to admire things that are excellent and still to delight in
   things which are abominable! His conscience bids him rise to a pure and
   noble life, but his baser passions hold him down to that which is
   earthly and sensual. Frequently, too, there is a very great division
   between a man's inward knowledge and his outward conduct. Men are often
   wise in the head and foolish in the hand--they know the right and do
   the wrong! The Law of God is read in their hearing and written upon
   their memories and yet it is forgotten in their lives. They are men of
   great discernment in theory and yet in their actions they put bitter
   for sweet and sweet for bitter; darkness for light and light for
   darkness!

   They sin against the Light of God--"They love darkness rather than
   light, because their deeds are evil." Often and often the man is as
   right as Justice, herself, in his opinions, and clear as the day in his
   information--and yet he gropes as the blind and stumbles at noonday as
   in the night! His knowledge goes one way and his will another. He knows
   the consequences of sin and, therefore, fears! He perceives the
   pleasureableness or profit of sin and, therefore, presumes! He is sure
   that he will never be so base as to fall into a certain fault, but,
   by-and-by, he rushes into it and defends himself for so doing, till he
   changes his fickle mind--and then he denounces that which just now he
   allowed! How can he be right with God when he is not even right with
   himself?

   All through the carnal man, if you look at him, there is confusion and
   mischief! We would call that creature a monster which had its head
   towards the earth and its feet towards Heaven--and yet the carnal man
   lives in that position! He ought to tread the world beneath his feet,
   but he places it above--while the Heaven to which he should aspire, he
   daily spurns! He lets his animal passions, which should be treated as
   the dogs of his flock, become his lords and masters. He reverses the
   order of Nature and bids the beast within him to have dominion over the
   spirit. Appetites, which in their way are good if they are kept in with
   bit and bridle, are permitted to become evil because they have
   unlimited indulgence and are allowed to be the tyrants of the soul! The
   Ishmael of the flesh mocks the Isaac of the conscience and is
   unreproved! Solomon said, "I have seen servants upon horses and princes
   walking as servants upon the earth." And the same may be seen in the
   little world within where appetites rule and grander capacities are
   placed in servitude.

   Man is a puzzle and none can put him together but He that made him at
   the first. He is a self-contradiction, a house divided against itself,
   a mystery of iniquity, a maze of folly, a mass of perversity, obstinacy
   and contention! Sin has made the heart to be so inwardly divided as to
   be like the troubled sea which cannot rest, or like a cage of unclean
   birds--every one fighting its fellow--or like a den of wild beasts
   which cease not to rend each other. When man cast off the yoke of the
   One God, he fell under bondage to many gods and many lords who struggle
   for supremacy and make the one kingdom into many rival principalities.

   Since sin became natural to man, it became natural that man's heart
   should be divided. But it must be united--that is the point and,
   therefore, the Covenant promise, "I will give them one heart." For,
   dear Friends, in the matters of godliness, if our heart is not whole
   and entire in following after God, we cannot meet with acceptance. God
   never did and never will receive the homage of a divided heart!
   Alexander, when Darius proposed that the two great monarchs should
   divide the world, replied that there was only room for one sun in the
   heavens. What his ambition affirmed, God declares from the necessity of
   the case. Since one God fills all things, there is no room for another!
   It is not possible for a heart to

   be given up to falsehood and yet to be under the power of truth! It is
   idle to attempt to serve two such masters as holiness and iniquity.

   God cannot smile upon an unhallowed compromise and allow men to bow in
   the house of Rimmon and yet worship in His holy Temple. God will have
   all or nothing--He will have us only, wholly, altogether and always His
   or else He will have nothing to do with us! False gods can bear a
   divided empire, but the true God cannot have it. You may assemble a
   parliament of idols, but Jehovah says, "I am God alone." It was once
   proposed to the Roman senate to set up the image of Christ in the
   Pantheon among the gods, but when they were informed that He would not
   agree that any worship should be mingled with His own, the senate
   straightway refused Him a shrine. In this they acted in a manner
   consistent with itself--but those are altogether inexcusable who swear
   by the Lord and swear by Malcham!

   We provoke the Lord to jealousy when we offer Him a corner in our souls
   and allow our vain thoughts to lodge within us. Errors can lie down
   like sheep in a field, but no error can lie side by side with the
   lordly lion of the Truth of God! There is no god but God. Jehovah, He
   is God! There is one Mediator between God and man--the Man Christ
   Jesus. Whatever a man sets up in his heart as the object of his
   affections in opposition to God is a vain, a vile, a vicious thing--and
   that man cannot be accepted of the Lord! Would you, then, serve God, O
   man? Him only must you serve. Would you bring unto Him an offering? You
   must first give Him your heart--your undivided heart. He cries, "My
   son, give Me your heart," and He says not, "Give Me a share of it."

   He will not call that house His Temple where other things are
   worshipped as well as Himself. Abhorrence, not acceptance, shall fall
   to the lot of that man who is half-hearted with God! And is not this as
   it should be? Does not the love of Jesus deserve our wholehearted love
   in return? His love, which made Him become Man, deserves man's entire
   homage! His love which led Him to the Cross deserves that we be
   crucified to the world for His sake! His love to death demands that we
   be dead to sin for His sake! His love which now rules all Heaven for
   our sakes deserves our soul, our life, our all. He gave Himself for
   us--His whole self--and we must give our whole hearts to Him.

   In the chapter before us the Lord says, "Yes, I will rejoice over them
   to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My
   whole heart and with My whole soul." Shall we give half a heart to our
   wholehearted God? Shall we be double-minded when He is so intense in
   blessing us? Shall we love the world and hope to have the love of the
   Father in us at the same time? God will not have it and we do not wish
   it. The heart must be united! We have seen that it must be united for
   acceptance. We now note that it must be united for sincerity--a divided
   heart is a false heart. Where there is no unity of heart there is no
   truth in the spirit. Tell me that you love the world and I will tell
   you that the love of the world is enmity to God! Declare that you will
   serve Belial ever so little and I know that your service to Christ is
   but Judas' service--mercenary, temporary, traitorous! Sincerity does
   not open the front door to Christ and the back gate to the devil.

   Our heart must be united, next, for intensity of life. True religion
   needs the soul to be always at a fervent heat. "The kingdom of Heaven,"
   says our Lord, "suffers violence and the violent take it by force."
   None climb the hill whereon the New Jerusalem is built except such as
   go on hands and knees and, laying aside every weight, give themselves
   wholly to the divine ascent. The pilgrim who hopes to reach the better
   land and makes a pleasure trip of it is under a mistake--it is hard
   traveling and requires ardor and perseverance. It is so in every good
   word and work. A lazy prayer requests a denial and shall have it.
   Half-hearted praise is an insult to God and everything in religion that
   is not done with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our
   strength--is a sin--however much it may look like a virtue! When we are
   most intense, we do not come up to the zeal which these important
   things deserve--how can we, then, imagine that we can please God with
   less than our best?

   Know you not that our Lord has said, "Because you are lukewarm, I will
   spue you out of My mouth"? No stronger expression of disgust can
   possibly be used and this disgust is not for the bold and hardened
   rebel, but for the moderate disciple who served God without fail, but
   without zeal! God loves a whole heart, but half a heart is His
   abhorrence. Only those who run with all their might will win the race
   and, as the man of divided heart is lame in both his feet, he can have
   no hope of the prize. Lord, make my heart one that I may give it all to
   You and spend and be spent in Your one service, since You, only, are
   the One in whom my soul delights!

   The heart must be united to be consecrated. Will God be served with
   broken cups and cracked flagons? And shall His altars be polluted with
   torn and mangled sacrifices? All the things in Heaven and earth which
   the Lord acknowledges as

   consecrated things are dedicated to Him and to Him alone. Can you
   imagine that within the Holy Place there would be an altar, part of
   which was used for sacrifices offered to Jehovah--and another portion
   for victims presented to Molech? The idea cannot be endured! The Lord
   said of old to Ezekiel, "Son of man, the place of My throne, and the
   place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the
   children of Israel forever, and My holy name, shall the house of Israel
   no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, in their setting of
   their threshold by my thresholds, and their posts by My posts." God
   will not account that to be consecrated to Himself which is used by
   another. Brethren, we must be wholly consecrated unto the Lord, or we
   cannot be consecrated to Him at all! We are unconsecrated, we are
   polluted, we are as things accursed if we are divided in heart!

   Once more, we must have our heart united or else none of the blessings
   which are to follow in Covenant order can possibly reach us. For, look,
   "I will give them one heart." And then it follows, "one way"--no man
   will have a consistent, uniform way while he has a divided heart! Read
   next, "That they shall fear Me forever." But no man will fear God
   forever unless fear has taken possession of his whole heart! The
   convert may profess to follow the Lord for a while, but he will soon
   turn aside. He who does not begin with his whole heart will soon tire
   of the race. "Forever" is a long day and requires our whole soul to
   hold on and to hold out!

   The Lord also promises that this shall be "for the good of them, and of
   their children after them." But those who give God a part of their
   heart neither win a blessing for themselves nor for their
   posterity--they are not among the seed that God has blessed, neither
   can they be. Oh men and women, if your hearts run here and there and
   your aims and desires are scattered like a flock of sheep--running
   abroad according to their own willfulness--the Good Shepherd will not
   feed you! When He comes to visit you, He will gather all your desires
   and aspirations into one fold--and then He will lead you into green
   pastures and make you to lie down therein. As under the old Law men
   might not sow with mingled seed, nor wear garments of linen and woolen
   mixed, so neither can those of divided way and heart come into the
   favor of God.

   So I leave the first head when I have noticed that, according to the
   text, God will give His chosen this unified heart--"I will give them
   one heart." Ah, we shall never obtain this blessing other than as a
   free gift of God's Grace! Teachers may put holy thoughts into our
   heads, but they cannot alter our hearts. We may unite our thoughts in
   some system of divinity, but we can never unite our desires upon the
   Divinity, Himself, except we experience a work of Grace upon our souls.
   The one Lord must make our heart one! He who once made the heart, must
   make it anew to make it one. "There is one body and one Spirit, even as
   you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
   baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,
   and in you all." But none of these seven ones would ever be ours unless
   it were added, "But unto every one of us is given Grace according to
   the measure of the gift of Christ," and only that Grace can make our
   heart one!

   This the Lord does, in part, by enlightenment through the light of His
   Holy Spirit. He shows us the worthlessness and deceptiveness of
   everything that would attract our hearts away from Jesus and from our
   God. And when we see the evil of the rival, we give our heart entirely
   to Him whom we worship. The Lord works this, also, by a still more
   thorough process, for He weans us from all idolatrous loves. He makes
   our carnal delights to become bitter to us, so that we turn aside from
   them with disgust, even as the Egyptians loathed to drink of the waters
   of the river which they formerly idolized, for the Lord had turned it
   into blood. He puts gall upon the breasts of the world and then we look
   elsewhere for comfort. It takes much to make us cry with David, "My
   soul is even as a weaned child."

   Disease and death are summoned to shoot their fatal arrows at our
   dearest ones before we will give God the whole of our hearts. It is
   hard to love the creature much and yet not too much--it is a great
   thing to love our beloved ones in Christ and in subordination to
   Christ. Many a mother has had to lose child after child because she had
   stirred the jealousy of the best Beloved by dividing her heart between
   Him and her little ones. Many a man in business has fallen from wealth
   and prosperity because God saw that His heart went astray after His
   possessions. Doubtless many have had eloquence, talent and gifts of
   various kinds--and they doted upon these things until it has been
   necessary to remove them to unite their hearts upon God and so they
   have been laid aside by sickness, or the mind has lost its vigor, or
   the voice has failed and the gift has become a plague, rather than a
   comfort--and thus their heart has lost its idol and has turned unto the
   Lord.

   If Christ is married to us, He will have use chaste unto Himself. What
   would we think of a man who is engaged to a woman and is found spending
   his love upon another as well? We say he is false and treacherous, and
   we utterly despise him. He ought to give his heart to her whom he has
   espoused and to love her with constancy, or he cannot be esteemed a
   pure-minded man. Even so, in our dealings with the Lord Jesus, we must
   be watchful lest a single desire or affection should prove false to
   Him. Such a glorious Object of affection must fill the whole horizon of
   the soul, even as the sun fills all the heavens with his light and the
   stars are quite forgotten. All the rivers run into the sea and so must
   all our love run to Jesus. Oh Brothers and Sisters, shut the gates of
   your hearts lest any steal away by night from the Lord! The heart must
   be whole and wholly His.

   Remember that you may have a great gash in your head and yet you may
   live. But if but a pin's point should divide your heart, you will die.
   Ask for Divine Grace to say with the Psalmist, "O God, my heart is
   fixed." Then, indeed, will you sing and give praise. This is not only
   important, it is essential! See, my Hearers, whether you have received
   this choice blessing of the Covenant of Grace, each one for
   himself--this holy, uniting work of the Spirit of God.

   II. If we have this, we may now advance to the second blessing of the
   Covenant here mentioned, which is CONSISTENCY OF WALK--"I Will give
   them one way." When the heart is united, the man lives for a single
   objective and that alone. Running in one direction, striving for one
   purpose, he keeps to the one way which leads to Heaven. As Christ is
   our one life, so is He our one way. Without this unity, there can be no
   truth in a man's life. If he spins by day, and unravels at night, he is
   acting out a falsehood. If he runs to the right while men look at him,
   but trudges back, again, to the old post, as soon as men's eyes are
   taken from him, his life is double-talk--which is but a fine word for a
   lie!

   It is a dreadful thing for a man's word to be a lie, but for a man's
   whole life to be a lie is still more horrible. We may have much more of
   the liar about us than we dream. Let us see to it and pray God, that,
   like Nathanael, we may have no guile in us. We may patch up our life
   with bits of religion and remnants of profession till it becomes like
   the beggar's coat, of which no man knows the original--such a garment
   may be fit for a beggar--but shall we wear it? The seamless garment of
   the Truth of God, woven from the top throughout, adorns a Christian,
   but motley raiment proves a man a fool. Unless we follow the Lord with
   one heart and one way, we shall be found to be liars, after all, and if
   all liars have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and
   brimstone, which is the Second Death, what will be his lot whose life
   was false to itself and false to God? Inconsistency of behavior shows
   that the Truth of God is little set by in the heart.

   We must, dear Friends, have one walk, or else our life will make no
   progress. He who travels in two opposite directions will find himself
   not moving forward. How is it that some professors are at much the same
   place as they occupied 20 years ago? Years have made them more gray,
   but not more gracious! At night they fastened up their boat in a little
   creek of the river and when the tide ran out, they waited and waited
   until, close to the end of its running--and then they went down a
   little way with the tide but very soon the stream ceased to turn--and
   so they drifted back with the flood and hitched up near the same muddy
   shore as before! Like a pendulum, they travel far, but get no farther!
   Growth, progress, advancement--none of these can they know, for they
   are double-minded--and so run to and fro in the earth and wear
   themselves out with vanity.

   Multitudes of people are doing this! They make such progress one Sunday
   that they resolve, from now on, to live unto God. They begin at a steam
   engine rate! They plow the sea of life in their eagerness--they are
   like a vessel which has had new boilers put into her! But by tomorrow
   where are they? They have burst their boilers, or they have allowed the
   fires to go out--and from now on they are without spiritual life or
   motion and lie like logs upon the stream. This will not do! We must
   have one way of uniform vitality. I do not say that we can always make
   apparent progress at the same rate, for powerful under-currents affect
   our life and a man may be doing much who is successfully over adverse
   influences.

   When a fierce wind is blowing, a captain at the will may be driven on
   shore if he does not steam right into the teeth of the hurricane. If he
   does this, is he not making the surest real progress if he manages to
   stay where he is and avoid the fatal danger? I say, then, that if we do
   not seem to advance, we may, nevertheless, in the judgment of God, be
   making true progress if we resist the mighty impulses which would
   otherwise hurry us on to destruction. But if we have two ways and steer
   this way and that way and every way by turns--with the view of pleasing
   men and making things easy all round--we cannot speed towards the
   desired haven. We must choose and keep to one way or we cannot attain
   to usefulness.

   What influence has a double-minded man? If a man speaks for God, today,
   and so lives, tomorrow, that he virtually speaks for the devil, what
   power has he over those around him? How can he lead who has no way of
   his own? If your actions play fast and loose with truth. If your life
   is a checkerboard of black and white. If you are everything by turns
   and nothing long, what force, for good, can you possibly exert?
   Consistency and unity of life are necessary to usefulness! And I am
   sure it is necessary for anything like assurance. The best of Believers
   may, through holy anxiety, question their own state, but the man who
   has two ways may well sing--

   "'Tis a point I long to know,

   Oft it causes anxious thought,

   Do Ilove the Lord or no?

   Am I His or am I not?"

   O you who are inconsistent in life, I must be bold to tell you that
   many of your friends are even more in doubt about you than you are
   about yourself! 'Tis a point we also long to know, for we cannot tell
   whether you love the Lord or no, whether you are His or not! Sometimes
   we see happy signs about you and our charity hopes all things. But when
   we see you falling, again, into evil ways, we are distressed and even
   our charity weeps over you! How can we be assured of your change of
   heart when we see so little change of life? What a pity to lead such a
   life that it puzzles those who love you best to form any judgment as to
   your condition! If you were to die as you are, we should not know which
   way you would go, for your present path is dubious and intricate.

   Would you go to Heaven or Hell? Common judgment would depend upon
   whether you died in one of your good fits or in one of your bad ones!
   Is this a pleasant way of putting it? O you who blow hot and cold, you
   are strange beings! You seem, to the common observer, to be too good
   for Hell and not good enough for Heaven! You cannot be divided at the
   last and, therefore, you may rest assured that the powers of evil will
   seize you as their own! No person can come to any true personal
   assurance while his life is of a double character. But if I know that I
   have one heart and that my heart belongs to my Lord--and that I have
   one way, a way of obedience to Him--then may I be assured that I am
   His!

   If I cannot make such progress as I would, yet if I follow my Lord and
   keep my face steadfastly set towards Jerusalem, then I know where I am,
   what I am and where I am going! Holiness of life proves our faith and
   faith ensures our salvation--and salvation begets joy, peace, and
   confidence! "Hereby we know that we know Him if we keep His
   commandments." A plain way will make our condition plain. This unity of
   way is a Covenant blessing--it comes not of man, neither by man, but
   God gives it to His own elect as one of the choice favors of His
   Grace--"I will give them one heart and one way."

   III. Briefly we notice, in the third place, the next Covenant blessing,
   STEADFASTNESS OF PRINCIPLE--"That they may fear Me forever." Get the
   heart and the way right and then the spiritual force of the fear of God
   will abide in us in all days to come. Notice the basis of true
   religion--it is the fear of God--it is not said that they shall join a
   Church, make a profession and speak holy words forever. No, it is that,
   "They may fear Me forever." Oh Brothers and Sisters, our religion must
   have the Lord in the very heart of it! We must be in constant contact
   with God and possess in our souls the true fear of God, for as this is
   the beginning of wisdom, so is it the only security of perseverance!

   When God has given us a true spiritual fear of Him, it will abide all
   tests. Outward religion depends upon the excitement which created it.
   But the fear of the Lord lives on when all around it is frostbitten.
   What happens to many converts? The revivalists have gone and they have
   gone, too. But if God has given us one heart to love and obey Him and
   His fear is in us, we do not depend upon the mental thermometer! Like
   salamanders, we can live in the fire--and like seals, we can live in
   Arctic ice. We are not dependent upon special services and warm-hearted
   exhortations, for we have a springing well within us! We live upon the
   Master and not upon the servants-- the Spirit of God does not leave us
   because certain good men have gone elsewhere. No, God has given us to
   fear Him forever.

   Persecution comes, Christians are ridiculed in the workshop, they are
   pointed out in the street and an opprobrious name is hooted at them!
   Now we shall know who are God's elect and who are not! Persecution acts
   as a winnowing fan and those who are light as chaff are driven away by
   its blast. But those who are true corn remain and are purified.
   Careless of man's esteem, the truly God-fearing man with one heart
   holds on his one way and fears the Lord forever! Then, perhaps, comes a
   more serious test, the trial of prosperity. A man grows rich. He rises
   into another class of society. If he is not a real Christian, he will
   forsake the Lord. But if he is a true-born heir of the Kingdom of God,
   he will fear the

   Lord forever and consecrate his substance to Him. A heart wholly given
   to God will stand the wear and tear of life in all conditions, whether
   in honor or in contempt.

   Poverty is a severe test to many and I have known numbers of professors
   forsake the House of God because, as they say, their clothes were not
   fit to come in. That is a poor excuse! I fear their hearts were not fit
   to come in! The fear of God would make the godly man swallow his pride
   and follow Christ in rags--he will bear a famine of bread and a famine
   of water--but he cannot endure a famine of the Word of God! His soul
   must be fed and so he must and will be found where the Lord's Table is
   spread with the Bread of Heaven. When God stripped Job of all his
   riches, it was then that his integrity was seen and proven.

   With some of you old age is creeping on, but I rejoice to know that
   your Grace is not decaying! You are becoming deaf; eyesight is failing
   you and your limbs are trembling--but you can still hear the voice of
   the Lord and behold the beauties of His Word and run in the ways of His
   statutes! If God has given the young man one heart and one way, he will
   fear God forever and will not forsake the Lord when infirmities
   multiply upon him. He will bring forth fruit in old age, to show that
   the Lord is upright! If our soul is wholly Christ's, we can never go
   back to perdition--"Who shall separate us from the love of God?"

   The Lord has cast such cords of love about us that He holds us fast! We
   can lose father and mother, yes, and our own lives, also, but we cannot
   forsake the Lord whose blood has bought us from the lowest Hell! We are
   bound for the Kingdom--who shall keep us out of it? We have been shot
   like arrows from the bow of God and we must speed onward till we rest
   in the target of eternal bliss! Oh what a mercy it is to have within us
   a fear of God which is not to last for a period of years, but forever!

   ' IV. Very hurriedly I mention the next thing, which is PERSONAL
   BLESSEDNESS, "for the good of them." Where God gives us one heart, one
   way and steadfast principle, it must be for our good in the highest
   sense. Tell me who are the happiest Christians. They will be found to
   be wholehearted Christians! When heart and life are divided, happiness
   leaks through the crack. We must be steady in the pursuit of
   righteousness if we would abide in the enjoyment of peace. Brothers and
   Sisters, if you want to know the sweetness of religion, you must know
   the depth of it! The foam upon the top of the sacred cup is often
   bitter, but at the bottom lies the essence of sweetness. I will not
   say, drink deep or drink not at all, but I will say this, that those
   who are content with superficial godliness have no idea of the delights
   which dwell in the deep places of communion with God.

   Plunge into the River of Life! Let body, soul and spirit be immersed
   into its floods and you shall swim in unspeakable joy! Lose sight of
   the shores of worldliness and you shall see God's wonders in the deeps!
   In intense devotion to the Lord you will find the rare jewel,
   satisfaction. "O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, and full with the
   blessing of the Lord!" Sweet content never dwells with
   half-heartedness. This shall be for your good every way--for your
   guidance in business, for your direction in devotion, for the good of
   your mind here--for the good of your spirit hereafter. To be endowed by
   Grace with one heart and one way is to be rendered fit to live and fit
   to die! I am sure if you read the biographies of men, if they are
   fairly written, you will find that the good, the true, the great, the
   noble were single-minded.

   Those who have the clearest sight of God are the pure in heart and the
   undivided in heart--and those who enjoy a Heaven below are those whose
   hearts and lives are engrossed with heavenly things. The blessed life
   is that of fervent love and thorough consecration. Do these things
   abound among you, Brethren? I believe that in this assembly there are
   more wholehearted Christian men and women than I am likely to meet with
   in any other gathering. And yet, for all that, I cannot help fearing
   that even here there are professing Christians who never knew what it
   was to give their hearts perfectly to God's work, or to the love of
   Jesus!

   When these people come to the hour of trouble, they are dispirited and
   rebellious. Would it be so if they were perfectly resigned to God's
   will? These people are often short of spiritual comforts. Would they be
   short of them if they had made a clean and clear surrender to their
   God? I believe they would not. Men who will not eat are starved and
   weak-- and many a disease finds soil within them through the weakness
   of their constitution. But those who feed on Christ, the Bread of
   Heaven, are nourished and strong--and are preserved from a thousand
   ills by that very fact. O God the Holy Spirit, I cannot talk to
   Christ's servants as I wish to do, but You can move them, now, to
   aspire after a complete giving up of themselves to You, for this shall
   be for their good!

   V. The last is a RELATIVE BLESSING--"And for their children after
   them." Wholehearted Christians are usually blessed with a posterity of
   a like kind. Consecrated men and women live to see their children
   following in their steps. When sons and daughters forsake the ways of
   godliness, do you wonder, when you spy out the home life of their
   parents? If religion is a sham, do you expect frank young men to
   respect it? If the father was hollow-hearted in his profession, will
   not the children despise it? The genuine, thoroughbred Christian is
   often hated, but he is never the object of contempt. Men may ridicule
   him and say that he is a fool, but they cannot help admitting that he
   is happy! And the wiser sort among them wish that they were such fools,
   themselves!

   Be thorough and true, and your family will respect your faith. The
   almost inevitable consequence of respect in a child towards his parent
   is a desire to imitate him. It is not always so, but as a rule it is
   so. If the parents live unto God in a thorough-hearted way, their sons
   and daughters aspire to the same thing. They see the beauty of religion
   at home around the fireside and their conscience, being quickened, lead
   them to pray to God that they may have the same piety, so that when
   they, themselves, commence a household, they may enjoy the same
   happiness. Certainly if any of you are the children of eminently godly
   parents and are living in sin, your parents' lives condemn you!

   Are they in Heaven? Dare you go to their grave and sit upon the grassy
   hillock and think of how you are living? It will force tears to your
   eyes to contrast yourself with them! You may well tremble to think that
   you neglect your mother's Savior, that you forget your father's God! It
   will go hard with those who leap into Hell-fire over a father's prayers
   and a mother's entreaties--yet some seem desperately resolved on such
   suicide! I hope these are comparatively few and that it is still true,
   "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will
   not depart from it." Temporal and spiritual blessings come upon
   households where the heads of the family are completely consecrated to
   God. Try it! Try it! I will be bound that you will find it profitable!
   If at the Last Great Day you shall find that consecration to Christ is
   an error, I will be willing to bear the blame myself! I am not afraid
   that anyone among you will ever censure me for having excited you into
   a too fervent zeal, or a too devoted life!

   Brothers and Sisters, I am afraid of those of you who go ankle deep
   into religion and never venture further--I am afraid lest you should,
   by-and-by, return to the shore! But as for you who plunge into the
   center of the stream and find waters to swim in, I have no fears! You
   shall be borne onward by a current ever increasing in strength till in
   the ocean of eternal love you lose yourselves in Heaven above! I can
   wish you no greater blessing than that the Holy Spirit may make you
   wholehearted, consistent, persistent, ardent, established and
   persevering in the things of God! On you and on your household my heart
   pronounces this benediction--the Lord give you one heart and one way
   that you may fear Him forever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Welcome! Welcome!

   (No. 1624)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 16, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the people, when they knew it, followed Him: and He received them,
   and spoke unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had
   need of healing." Luke 9:11.

   MY subject has been suggested to me by the rendering of this passage
   given in the Revised Version, where we read-- "But the multitudes
   perceiving it, followed Him; and He welcomed them." The difference
   lies, you see, between the words, "He received them," and, "He welcomed
   them." The new version is an instructive improvement, of which we will,
   at once, make evangelical use. The multitude perceived that Jesus was
   departing and began to value His Presence, all the more, because they
   feared the loss of it. They could not tell where He might go, nor for
   how long, and they could not afford to part with Him--therefore no
   sooner did they see the boat leave with Him, than, watching the
   direction in which it was steered, they hastened along the shore to
   overtake Him at His landing.

   They were not content to walk, but they ran afoot, and as they darted
   through the first village, the people enquired the reason of this
   rush--they were informed that the great Prophet was crossing the sea to
   the other shore! They joined in the pursuit and the running company was
   increased. When they reached the next town, there was quite a stir, as
   the citizens heard the crowd tramping through the gate and along the
   streets. And, again, the enquiry was heard, "What means this eager,
   anxious throng?" Again the crowd increased and on they went, hurrying
   as fast as they could go, till they actually reached the shore before
   the vessel which carried Jesus!

   As for the Master, though He had taken a ship, on purpose, to be quiet
   and alone, He exhibited no signs of anger at their intrusion. He did
   not rebuke them as though they were rude and troublesome, but we are
   told that, "He welcomed them." Had He been like ourselves, He would
   have regarded them as most unwelcome. But in the graciousness of His
   heart, He did not think them so, but honestly and heartily welcomed
   them. Now, if our Lord welcomed people at that inconvenient time, we
   might safely infer that He will welcome them at all times! But we are
   not left to draw inferences, for we find all through His life that He
   always received sinners and never rejected anyone!

   Our Lord kept open house as long as He was here. It might always have
   been said of Him, "This man receives and welcomes sinners." His motto
   was, "Whoever will, let him come." If any desired to come nearer than
   being mere hearers, and would join the band of disciples, He was always
   ready to receive them! If many did not enter into the closest intimacy
   of His heart, it was because they were, themselves, unable to come--not
   because He shut them out. Publicans and sinners drew near unto Him--the
   very look of Him was an invitation, His finger beckoned, His eyes
   persuaded, His outstretched arms entreated--His whole self attracted
   all men unto Him!

   At the door of His love there lay no growling dog of morose suspicion.
   Neither had He placed there the porter of stern rebuke. The door was
   set wide open and over the portal were written the words, "COME AND
   WELCOME." That is the subject of this morning's discourse--my earnest
   desire being that some who have been afraid to approach Him may be
   induced to come at once by learning how freely He welcomes all comers!
   First, we shall dwell upon the fact that Jesus welcomes all who come to
   Him. Secondly, we shall use it as an encouragement to all seeking souls
   and, thirdly, we shall employ it as a lesson, teaching those of us who
   are His disciples how to treat those who desire to see Jesus.

   I. First, may the Holy Spirit help us while we dwell upon THE FACT that
   Jesus welcomed those who sought Him. We observe, first, that our Lord
   received all comers at all times. The time mentioned in our text was
   the most inconvenient possible. He was seeking rest for His disciples
   who had gone through the various towns and villages preaching and
   working miracles. They were a good deal elated at their success and it
   was necessary that they should have a little quiet retirement to think
   matters over and to come down into a calm state of mind.

   Moreover, they were weary, for they were so thronged by the people that
   they had not time, even, for necessary refreshment and rest and,
   therefore, it was an absolute requisite, lest these few men, who were,
   in fact, the hope of the Church and of the world, should die of
   exhaustion! The Master put them into a ship that they might sail away
   and find retirement in a desert place. Rest was absolutely necessary to
   the overwrought workers. A great sorrow was on them, also, for John had
   been beheaded and it was meet that they should solace their grief by a
   short retirement. At this time, too, our blessed Lord desired
   obscurity, for Herod was enquiring for Him and even when that
   delightful king was in his best mood, he was not one whose near
   acquaintance anyone would wish to cultivate.

   He might, perhaps, have listened to Jesus as he listened to John. But
   he would have sought Jesus' life as soon as He had gratified his
   curiosity, or another Herodias would have goaded him on to murder the
   faithful Preacher who would have made the palace too hot for the
   wanton! Our Lord's time was not yet come, either to be exhibited in a
   royal court, or to be slain as a royal Victim and, therefore, He sought
   a desert place for a little while. It was most inconvenient, therefore,
   to be followed by so great a crowd. Were the workers to have no rest?
   Could there be no retirement afforded, especially at a time when it was
   so necessary?

   Is it not wonderful that under such circumstances our blessed Lord
   should welcome the insatiable throng? I think, too, that the Master
   desired, just then, to hold a conference with His Apostles as to the
   work they had done and the future which was opening up before them.
   Perhaps He willed to set apart a season for special prayer with them.
   Before any great effort, we always read that He retired to pray and so,
   depend upon it, after any great enterprise He would, again, seek
   private prayer. It would naturally occur to Him to rake in the good
   seed which the 12 had so successfully scattered!

   But peace and rest He must not have, for the multitudes are on the
   beach before He can set foot on it. The Apostolic conference was broken
   in upon and turned into a great camp-meeting! The Master and His
   disciples are not allowed to get alone, even, to hold high and solemn
   discourse upon the affairs of His Kingdom. But here come the crowds,
   pell-mell, crushing one upon another and the Master and His little band
   find themselves the center of a great mass of people! Rest, or quiet,
   or holy discourse are out of the question--preaching, healing and
   feeding must fill up every moment till the day is far spent.

   Our Lord welcomed the throng with a gracious air! Full of tenderness,
   He smiled upon them as a captain smiles upon his soldiers at the
   muster. He did not lose His patience with them, nor chide them for
   their ill manners--but just as if He had asked them to come and had
   sent forth His heralds to summon them--He stood ready to receive them!
   It is wonderful that He did not say, "Go your way for this time--when I
   have a more convenient season I will send for you." I have heard those
   words, somewhere, but they were not used by our Lord! They were used by
   one at the door of whose conscience the gracious Lord had been
   knocking. If there are any put-offs, they are not on Christ's side, but
   on ours. Oh sad, that men should ask for delay when Jesus, even at the
   most inconvenient season, is ready to welcome them!

   Let me put the Truth of God before some of you here who, as yet, are
   unsaved. Come to Jesus when you will--it shall always be at the right
   time. Times consecrated to other purposes shall yet afford you welcome.
   The saints of God gather at the Communion Table and the spreading of
   that table is not intended to be a means of Grace to the unconverted!
   On the contrary, it is fenced and guarded and reserved for Believers
   only--and none have any right there but those who are in Christ. The
   object of the Lord's Supper is not conversion, but edification--it is
   intended that as many as are alive unto God should be fed there, that
   those emblems should remind them of the body and blood of Jesus Christ,
   which are the food of their spiritual life. Yet if any of you should be
   looking on--yes, and even if you should have intruded there without a
   right to come--yet if you seek the Savior, He will not be so occupied
   with the fellowship of saints as to refuse a sinner! His heart will not
   be so taken up with the near, dear and choice love of His own favored
   ones as to shut His ears to the cry of the humble and contrite! If you
   seek Him, even when you are intruding, He will be found of you!

   Perhaps, also, I address some who have outlived revivals. You remember
   precious seasons when the power of God was present to heal men and many
   were, to your knowledge, healed. You sat side by side with some who
   sought and found salvation in Christ--you did not seek and you did not
   find--or if, perhaps, you exhibited some emotion, yet your search after
   Christ was very faint and dilatory and, consequently, you did not meet
   with Him to the joy and peace of your spirit. Now that the revival is
   over, and the flood-tide of Grace seems to have ebbed out, you have
   come, like the dying year, to a time when the harvest is past and the
   summer is ended and you are not saved! Around you blow the fallen
   leaves and you, yourself, fade as a leaf, but you are not saved.

   Opportunities of blessing have been plentiful with you, but you are not
   saved. You are now at the close of the day and your sun is going down,
   but you are not saved! Even yet there is hope, for our Lord's welcome
   is a long and lasting one! If you are drawn by invisible cords to seek
   the Savior, yield to those gentle drawings, for Jesus receives men even
   down to the shutting of the gate! It may be late, but it is not too
   late! You may go to Christ at midnight as well as at mid-day and He
   will never answer that the door is now shut, so that He cannot rise and
   welcome you. Even though the special means of Grace may have ended and
   the men whom God has blessed have gone elsewhere, yet still come and
   welcome, to Jesus Christ, for there never was an hour discovered in
   which Jesus would refuse a sinner that longed for Him!

   Have you never read that text, "All that the Father gives Me shall come
   to Me, and him that comes to Me I will in nowise cast out"? There is no
   reserve as to the dead hours of night, or the raw hours of the morning!
   If a soul will but come to Christ, the Lord will never say no to him!
   It may be, dear Friend, that you think the present would be a very
   improper time to come to Christ because you have so lately been
   plunging into a fearful sin. You say, "Would you have me go
   black-handed to Christ, black-hearted to Christ?" Yes, I would have you
   fly to Him at once, even as the manslayer darted off to the City of
   Refuge with the blood of the slain still warm upon his hands! Do you
   put it to me as a question suggested by a sort of moral decency--"Must
   I not let an interval pass over me in which I may, in a measure, wash
   out the recollection of my present sin?"

   No! I tell you, no! I rather dread, than desire, such a false washing
   as the mere lapse of time can give. Time cannot alter wrong, or make
   sin less heinous--and if it pacifies the conscience, it is an evil
   peace, a false peace, a peace to be abhorred. Come to Jesus while yet
   the wounds of your conscience are bleeding! Come while they are at
   their worst--neither washed, bound, nor mollified with ointment! When
   you are foul is the fittest time for washing! And when you are
   altogether undone and conscious of it, then is the season to hasten
   away to the great Savior! When Saul of Tarsus was about to hunt the
   saints of God, he saw Damascus lying in the plain below and he,
   himself, was ready, like a fierce tiger, to spring upon it!

   But then and there Jesus appeared to Him. Might he not have said in
   answer to the voice from Heaven, "My Lord, let me go back to Jerusalem
   and endure a quarantine! Let me hide away for months and then come to
   You"? No! Then and there he was converted, though struck down in the
   act of persecution! Nothing could seem to be more inconvenient than for
   Christ to receive him then and there, with the writs upon him for the
   arrest of the saints! Yet the Lord welcomed the persecutor and He will
   welcome others in the same case! My Hearer, I will not try to describe
   your sin of last night, nor will I make a guess at what you propose to
   do in sin before tomorrow's sun has risen. But I will beseech you, as
   you are, to arise and seek the Savior!

   Poor prodigal Brother, quit the husks and the swine trough--quit them
   now and without so much as tarrying to wash your hands, go home to your
   Father who will wash you and make you white as snow! Stop for nothing!
   Delay is your greatest danger! This very moment is the fittest for
   repentance and faith! Come now, for the Lord waits to be gracious. I do
   not find that when the prodigal reached his father's house, he came
   there at an unseemly hour. I never knew whether it was the middle of
   the night, the early morning, or the middle of the day, for the parable
   does not give us a hint. At any rate, it was at such an hour that the
   fatted calf was waiting to be killed, a ring and the best robe were
   ready to be brought forth and all in the house were ready to keep
   holiday over him that was lost and found! Sinner, fly away, fly away to
   Jesus, be the hour whatever it may! Our gracious Lord cannot repel you,
   for even those were welcomed who came at the most inconvenient hour
   which can be imagined--and since then He has refused none.

   The same Truth will now be set in another light by a second remark. Our
   Lord received all sorts of comers. They were a motley throng and I fear
   that few, if any of them, were actuated by any high or exalted motive.
   No doubt some came to hear and others came to see--but many came for
   what they could get. They followed after Jesus because they were sick
   and He could heal them. "Ah me!" I have heard it said by awakened ones,
   "I am afraid, if I came to Christ, I should come from a selfish
   motive." Dismiss that fear--which at bottom is self-righteous! What
   should a beggar come to your house for but to seek alms? To gain
   something is the only motive with which a poor sinner can come to
   Christ! Our fear of Hell, or dread of sin, or hope of pardon must drive
   or draw us to Christ--in any case, our motive must be to receive, at
   His hands.

   I confess that I, at first, came to Christ only and solely for what I
   could get out of Him. It was an Apostle who said, "We love Him because
   He first loved us." I have heard of a love of Jesus which is purely
   disinterested and I believe it is

   possible and that it may grow up in later Christian life. But at the
   first we must come to Jesus with an eye to what we shall obtain at His
   hands. We must come because we cannot do without Him! There is no other
   way of coming. "It is a low motive," says one. So it may be, but it is
   a powerful motive for all that! At any rate, Christ exhorts us to come
   unto Him for rest and for salvation--and I do not remember a single
   exhortation to this ideal, disinterested love! The Lord Jesus welcomed
   the multitudes though they came from low motives and so will He welcome
   us if we do but come to Him.

   If what we come for is something for ourselves--if we come to Him that
   sin may be forgiven and that we may be made the children of God--our
   motives will not be disgusting to Christ and He will welcome us. Among
   those who came to Christ there must have been all sorts of people, but
   the bulk of them had hurried to Him hastily and unprepared. They came
   afoot, it is said, running. They had not had time to prepare themselves
   with any kind of decent apparel. As they ran scampering through the
   villages, each one gathered others at his heels. They came
   helter-skelter, a most promiscuous throng. They were not dressed for
   solemn worship, but there they were--and the Savior welcomed them!

   I wonder how long a man would need to spend in preparing himself for
   coming to Christ? When he had done it all, what would it be worth?
   Preparation for coming to Christ is simply this--If you are empty, you
   are prepared to be filled! If you are sick, you are prepared to be
   healed! If you are sinful, you are prepared to be forgiven. But all
   other preparation is quite out of the question. We must not supersede
   the Gospel by the Law and we would be doing so if we told the sinner to
   make himself fit for mercy. O weary, heavy laden souls, you may come
   just as you are! Hot from the fleshpots of Egypt! Grimy from Pharaoh's
   iron furnace, you may come and sit down and eat the Paschal Lamb and
   though every rag about you is defiled, yet just as you are, you may
   come to the fountain filled by Jesus Christ, Himself, and wash and be
   clean!

   They were a most unprepared lot of people but Jesus welcomed them. Most
   of them might have been objected to, for various reasons, by our Lord
   if He had chosen to do so--the most of them on account of their
   poverty. They had not even a crust among them. They had come away in
   such a hurry that they had not brought a day's food with them and if
   they came to Christ, they must be fed by Him within a few hours, or
   else drop from sheer starvation. They were a ragged regiment, a hungry
   herd--what some fine folks call a mob, the riffraff--but Jesus welcomed
   them--and never said a syllable about their bare backs and empty
   pockets. How squeamish some of His servants are--but their Master had
   no such proud ways about Him!

   I heard one say the other day that he could not attend a place of
   worship because he had not clothes that were fit to come in. I wonder
   what sort of garments the Lord Jesus would object to in a coming
   sinner! I am afraid if He were to see some of you, He would hardly
   think that you are dressed fit for public worship, for you are too
   smart by half--but I do not believe that He ever rejected a man or
   woman because of their patched or unfashionable garments. What did He
   care for court dress, full dress and all that nonsense? Our Lord was no
   flatterer of wealthy lords and handsome ladies! No robe or mantle ever
   charmed His eyes!

   I never read in Scripture that Jesus said, "Come not between the wind
   and my nobility, you unwashed crowds." Never did He turn any away
   because they were beneath Him in condition and too poor for His notice.
   Nothing of the sort! It was the jewel of His ministry that "the poor
   had the Gospel preached to them." He delighted to see the needy gather
   about Him to be taught and comforted! So, then, none of you can plead
   poverty. If you have not a penny to bless yourselves with, Christ will
   bless you without money and without price! Many of the multitude might
   have been rejected on account of disease, for into the crowd the lepers
   came in spite of disagreeable neighbors everywhere. They certainly had
   no right to mingle with healthy people, but they did so, for they had
   hopes of being healed.

   Men and women were there who labored under defiling disorders, for
   which, according to the Jewish Law, they ought to have been shut up in
   a separate house. Yet when the crowd came to Christ, these poor souls
   came in among the rest and there is no instance of the Lord's ever
   sorting them out and saying to anyone, "I cannot receive you, for you
   are a leper." What a melancholy sight the Master must have seen when He
   went out into the streets and they laid there the sick in their beds!
   He always walked in the midst of a great hospital--among the most
   horrible diseases--yet never once did He turn any case away! O poor
   Souls, sick Souls, come to Jesus at once, for my blessed Master will
   welcome you all, whoever you may be!

   Neither did our Lord ever reject one person on account of youth. His
   disciples thought that such a preacher as He was ought never to be
   listened to except by persons of intellect, or at least of ripe years
   who could appreciate what He

   would say. And when the mothers brought their children, the disciples
   were much displeased with them. But our Master welcomed the young,
   saying, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them
   not; for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Dear boys and girls, Jesus
   will not put you by to wait till you are older, but He will welcome you
   just as you are! Ah, how sweetly Jesus is doing this, to my knowledge,
   with many little folks! I heard last week of a poor boy who lived near
   my house.

   A meeting is held by some of our friends in a cottage and this boy
   came, one night, and said, "Please, Sir, may I come in?" The good man
   of the house answered, "You may if you will wash your face and hands."
   "That I will do, Sir," he said, and he soon returned and took his seat.
   He was an attentive hearer and a devout worshipper. Though only 12
   years old, he loved the Prayer Meeting and was always there. One
   evening he said to the leader of the meeting, "Please, Sir, may I
   pray?" and this poor child then poured out his heart before God with
   such sweetness that he impressed all who listened to him. One night, as
   he went out of the room, he shook hands with the good man of the house
   and said, "Goodbye, Sir, perhaps we may not meet again till we meet in
   Heaven."

   His words seem prophetic, now, for before the next meeting a brewer's
   cart passed over him and his sweet young spirit ascended to Jesus whom
   he loved so well. What a joy to know that this poor child is now
   beholding the face of our Father who is in Heaven! I am right glad to
   say that we are continually receiving boys and girls into the Church.
   Child-piety is no rarity among us! We find it no cause of difficulty,
   but a wellspring of delight! Dear children, do not be afraid to come
   because you are so little, for Jesus has told the big people that
   unless they receive Him as little children they shall in nowise enter
   into the Kingdom of Heaven! He also said, "They that seek Me early
   shall find Me." Come to Him at once!

   There were some in the throng, too, whom Jesus might have rejected
   because they were too old. Here they come! They can scarcely see their
   way! They limp, they use crutches, they are deaf and their limbs are
   very feeble. Surely, when these poor old souls come to Jesus, He might
   say to them, "What am I to do with you worn-out old creatures? Go and
   spend the rest of your days where you spent the first part of them! How
   dare you think of coming to Me when you are bald-headed, feeble, lame
   and blind! How can you be soldiers of the Cross?" Glory be to His name,
   our great Captain enlists old men, makes friends with old women and
   delights to magnify the greatness of His Grace in the salvation of the
   most infirm! Father William, though it is the 11th hour with you, our
   Lord still calls you into His vineyard! Come, and fear not.

   "Well," you say, "I can understand His receiving both young and old,
   but surely sin must have led Him to refuse a comer." It was not so.
   Those who came to Christ were often very sinful, but He received
   sinners. Did you ever notice that the last person He spoke to before He
   died was the thief on the cross--and the first person He spoke to, when
   He rose, again, was Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven
   devils? My Lord delights to draw near to the guiltiest of the guilty,
   to blot out their iniquities and to receive them into His heart of
   love! So, I come back to what I said before--our Lord receives all
   sorts of comers!

   Once more--our Lord receives all with a hearty welcome. He did not
   merely allow the people to come near, tolerating their presence, but,
   "He welcomed them"! When He saw that they were like sheep without a
   shepherd, His heart was stirred within Him and He at once laid Himself
   out to do them good. The sight of their need awakened His
   compas-sion--the deep fountains of His infinite love were broken up at
   once and flooded His whole Nature, so that--"He was moved with
   compassion." He proved that He welcomed them by the deeds that He
   worked for them. He taught them concerning the Kingdom of God. He
   healed those that had need of healing and He fed the whole five
   thousand! There was not one single exception to this rule--He welcomed
   every one of them--taught, healed, fed and smiled on all!

   He did not single out one, and say, "You, Sir, may go your way, I will
   have nothing to do with you." But each one felt that he was welcome. It
   is just so now. My blessed Master is glad to receive sinners! His heart
   yearns over men! He longs for their salvation! He rejoices when they
   come to Him! He proves His willingness to receive them by the bounty of
   His Grace towards them! He multiplies His benedictions towards those
   that trust Him! He heaps on His favors! He does all that they need and
   grants them exceedingly more than all that they ask or even think--and
   this without a single exception on any ground, or for any reason
   whatever! "He that comes to Me," He says, "I will in nowise cast out."
   This is the blessed fact.

   II. Now I come to use this as AN ENCOURAGEMENT. If Jesus Christ, when
   He was here on earth, welcomed all that came at all hours, then He will
   welcome you, my Friend, if you come to Him, now, for the circumstances
   are the same. You are the same sort of person as those whom Jesus used
   to welcome. They were good-for-nothing nobodies! They were persons that
   were full of need and could not possibly bring a price with which to
   purchase His favor. Are you not just like they? Are you a very special
   sinner? I am sure I could find another special sinner like you whom
   Jesus has received. I will not go into detail, but I will venture to
   ask you--Are you a thief?--

   "The dying thief rejoiced to see In Christ salvation full and free."
   Have you been unchaste? David was an adulterer and was pardoned and
   Jesus forgave a woman that was a sinner, who, therefore, loved Him
   much. The untruthful, the unclean, the ungodly are the sort of people
   that Jesus came to seek and save!

   And then it is the same Savior. Jesus Christ is the same gracious
   Pardoner as He was in the days of His flesh. "Why," you say, "He is in
   Heaven!" Yes, but I never knew anybody lose anything by going to
   Heaven! It is all the other way! Jesus has not lost His tenderness nor
   His compassion, nor His delight in blessing the sons of men. He is the
   same Savior in Glory that He was in His humiliation. I invite you to
   come, dear Friend, though you are suffering from the same unfit-ness as
   these people were! Come just as you are and come with the same
   expectation as they did--for they expected Him to work wonders for
   them--and He did. Jesus is in the same mind as when He would not
   condemn the guilty woman and when He prayed for His murderers! He is
   still bent upon the one errand of saving men--He still welcomes
   sinners. Since, then, you are under the same conditions, come, and
   expect the same result from your coming. The welcome that you will
   receive from Christ, my dear Friend, will be as hearty as that which
   they received!

   When is it that a man does not make all comers welcome? It may be a
   person calls for whom he has no liking and he does not invite him to a
   meal because he does not want him. He would sooner have his room than
   his company. But that is not true of our Lord, for He loves His enemies
   and seeks His foes! He has abundant love to guilty men and hears their
   cry for mercy. So glad is our Lord to see the marriage feast of His
   love furnished with guests that He sends out His servants to fetch in
   highwaymen and vagrants!

   Sometimes people are not welcome because they come when you have not
   enough to feed them. The good housewife murmurs, "I wish they had come
   some other day." It is never so with our Master. He has abundant
   provisions and there is room, yes, and there is food. There is enough
   in Christ Jesus for all that ever will come to Him for salvation! All
   that the Father gives Him shall come and there is not one that shall
   come whom He will send away because there is not due provision made for
   him. That reason cannot possibly exist when Jesus, Himself, in all His
   fullness, is the Covenant provision! Sometimes a host may not welcome
   an applicant because it would be dangerous to his reputation to
   entertain him. We would, none of us, be eager to entertain a thief or a
   burglar or a murderer hiding from justice--nor would vagabonds and
   tramps be our chosen guests--for it would lower our esteem among men.

   As for our Lord Jesus, His reputation was gone long ago--"He made
   Himself of no reputation"--that He might welcome the disreputable to
   His house and heart! They sneeringly spread it about the streets, "This
   Man receives sinners and eats with them." Yes, His reputation was gone
   among the Pharisees, but He has a new reputation, now, and His great
   Glory is that He cleanses the chief of sinners and makes them heirs of
   God! O my trembling Hearer, you need not be afraid! Sometimes a man who
   has been hospitable has been known to grow weary of it, for he says,
   "These people come and eat and drink--and then abuse me." Jesus has
   never been hardened by this! His house is open and His table is still
   furnished.

   He foreknew our ill manners and He has not been surprised by the
   conduct of any of His guests! He knew they were unworthy. He did not
   entertain one of them because they deserved it--He did it all because
   He is infinitely gracious and delights to do good to the unthankful and
   to the evil. This is why He keeps His house open, still--that those who
   are ready to perish may come--that the worthless and undeserving may
   come and participate in the bounties of His Grace! Jesus Christ will
   make you welcome, though society will not acknowledge you! Is there any
   man here that doubts it? My Friend, come and try the Lord! There is not
   a man on earth that dares to say, "I went to Christ and He cast me
   away." You may inspect Hell, itself, and never find one who can
   truthfully say, "I believed in Jesus and He would not save me."

   Come, Friend, if He rejects you, you will be the first of His
   castaways! We will have you up in the Tabernacle and exhibit you as the
   man that Jesus Christ would not save--and then I will shut up shop and
   hold my tongue forever! I will never dare to preach the Gospel, again,
   if one comer to Jesus is rejected by Him. It never has happened and
   never shall! Come and welcome! Jesus welcomed the crowd and He will
   welcome you--and He will prove that you are welcome by doing for you
   what He did for them! He will teach you, teach you concerning the
   Kingdom of God, teach you repentance, teach you faith! He will teach
   you so effectually that you shall truly learn and your heart, beneath
   His teaching, shall be changed and sanctified--and you shall become a
   new creature!

   More than that, He will heal you. Whatever the disease of your soul may
   be, only come to my Master and He will banish every plague of doubt, or
   palsy of fear, or leprosy of sin, or fever of lust!. There is no balm
   in Gilead, but Jesus Christ is the never-failing Physician and He can
   make you whole at once! Nor is this all, for He will feed you with the
   Bread of Heaven--with better than angels' meat will He sustain you and
   satisfy your heart and mind with all that you can desire! Thus I have
   labored to encourage you. O that the Spirit of God may give effect to
   my words!

   III. Thirdly, we use our text as A LESSON. Dear Friends, if Jesus
   Christ welcomes all that come to Him, let all of us who are His
   followers imitate His example and give a warm welcome to those who seek
   the Lord! Whatever their motive is, whenever we see people coming to
   the worship of God, and especially when we see them a little impressed,
   let us welcome them heartily! It is a grievous sin when strangers come
   in and find themselves stared at as if they were wild beasts-- nobody
   offers them a seat--they may stand till they drop, but nobody cares an
   atom about them! And they may come again and go in and out for a month,
   together, and never a word is spoken to them. I pray you, do not so!
   But, on the contrary, personally look out for individuals and try to
   win them for Jesus.

   There has been a great wind lately and it has shaken down much fruit.
   But windfall fruit is seldom good for much. Billy Bray used to say,
   "The best fruit is handpicked," and I believe the best converts in the
   world are those for whom loving hearts wait and pray and plead!
   Sometimes, after a great sermon, or when there has been a mighty
   shaking under a revival, many come down who are only windfalls and of
   very small account. But those whom you win one by one, by caring about
   them, minding their estate and watching their growth--these are the
   best of fruit and well worth storing!

   Jesus welcomed men. His looks said, "I am glad to see you." He seemed
   to say to the people who flocked after Him into His retirement, "I did
   not invite you at this time, for I desired to be alone. But as you are
   so earnest and eager after Me, I am prepared to do what you desire. You
   are welcome to all that I can do for you." In winning souls, use an
   abundance of smiles. Have you not seen, in one of our magazines, an
   account of seven people saved by a smile? It is a pretty story. A
   clergyman passes by a window on his way to Church. A baby was being
   dandled there and he smiled at the baby, and the baby at him. Another
   time he passed--the baby was there, again, and once more he smiled.
   Soon baby was taken to the window at the hour when he usually passed.

   They did not know who the gentleman was, but one day two of the older
   children followed to see where he went on a Sunday. They followed him
   to Church and as he preached in a winning way, they told their father
   and mother, who felt interest enough in their baby's friend to wish to
   go. Thus, in a short time, a godless family that had previously
   neglected the worship of God, was brought to the Savior because the
   minister smiled at the baby! I never heard of anybody getting to Heaven
   through frowning at a baby, or at anyone else! Certain wonderfully good
   persons go through the world as if they were commissioned to impress
   everybody with the awful solemnity of religion--they resemble a
   winter's night without a moon! Nobody seems attracted, nor even
   impressed by them except in the direction of dislike. Mind, then, this
   rule--when you go gathering fruit, go with a smile. Men are brought to
   Jesus by cheerfulness far quicker than by gloom.

   I saw a life buoy the other day covered with luminous paint. How bright
   it seemed, how suitable to be cast upon the dark sea to help a drowning
   man! An ordinary life buoy he would never see, but this was so bright
   and luminous that a man must see it. Give me a soul-winner bright with
   holy joy, for he will be seen by the sorrowing soul and his help will
   be accepted. Cover your lives with the luminous paint of cheerfulness,
   compounded by joy and peace through believing! By God's Grace, smile
   Christ into mourners' hearts! It can be done if the Holy Spirit will
   only give you a lesson! Jesus welcomed them--let us warmly welcome all
   comers.

   Do not seem to say to them, "You want to be saved, do you?" "Yes." "You
   had better mind what you are about. You know there are a great many
   hypocrites. I am not sure of your sincerity. Do you really want to be
   saved?" If the seeker cries, "O Sir, what must I do to be saved?" do
   not answer with icy words--"Do not get too excited. Be calm and

   let me lay the Gospel before you in a clear, didactic manner, for fear
   you should be deceived. I hope it is all right with you and that these
   desires are not mere natural excitement, but are the fruit of the
   Spirit. Still, it is my duty to be faithful and put you to the test."

   Why, my dear Friend, if you had been in a right state of heart, you
   would have led that man into the Kingdom of Heaven before you had got
   half through those cautious remarks! Give Him a loving, hearty
   welcome--not a cold, suspicious searching! Say, "Do you want to be
   saved?" "Yes." "Then come and welcome! Believe in the Lord Jesus and He
   is yours! You want Jesus Christ, do you?" "Yes." "Come along--He waits
   to be gracious! He is here present and all you have to do is to trust
   in Him." I put this in a very simple way, but there is very much in it.
   Jesus, the Master, welcomed sinners! Let all His servants wear the
   livery of love and set every door wide open for sinners to enter.

   "But perhaps there is very little good in these who say they are
   seeking?" The remark is, no doubt, correct! Perhaps there is no good at
   all in them! What then? Let us welcome them all the same! Did not our
   Lord receive you when there was no good in you? Should not you, also,
   receive such and set the Gospel before them, that God the Holy Spirit
   may bless them? "But some are so poor that if they are received into
   the Church they will be of no service to it--they will be more
   dependent upon its charity than helpful to its funds." Yes, but these
   are the sort of people that our Lord used to welcome and why should not
   we? It will be an evil day for any Church when it despises any class of
   men! There will come a curse upon a Church that looks to men's garments
   and purses--and values them according to the guinea stamp. This will
   never do!

   Is he a man? Then he has an immortal soul about him! Does he seek the
   Savior? Christ bids us encourage him! Is he a sinner? Christ can
   cleanse him! Is he troubled about his sin? Jesus can give him rest! Let
   us help him, however loathsome his past life may have been and however
   little he may be able to do in return. If anyone here wishes to find
   mercy and cannot find it, I would, during the last minute of my
   discourse, try to welcome him. Friend, you say, "How can I be saved!"
   Have you ever heard the Gospel, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
   you shall be saved'? "Yes," you say, "but I do not think I believe
   aright." Listen. Here is a verse for you. Get out your New Testament.
   Look at John 5:24. Turn it down. Turn it down and read it when you get
   home! I beg all of you who have not found the Savior to mark that
   passage--read it carefully and keep on reading it over and over again
   for an hour!

   Read it over 10,000 times, if necessary, for I want you to find
   salvation through it. I know this text will save any man living, God
   blessing it to him. Here it is--"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he
   that hears My Word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting
   life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death
   unto life." What a grand verse! Is there anything in it about believing
   aright? Not a syllable! Only let a man truly believe and he, "has," (it
   is not said, "shall have")--he has now, "everlasting life."

   Mark that--not a life that will die out in a quarter of a year if he
   does not mind. No, but, "has everlasting life, and shall not come into
   condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Suck at that text,
   poor Soul--salvation lies in it! Believe in Jesus and you are saved!
   May God help you to believe it, by His blessed Spirit, and you shall
   live unto Him from now on and forever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Without Christ--Nothing

   (No. 1625)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 23, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5.

   THIS is not the language of a man of ordinary mold. No saint, no
   Prophet, no Apostle would ever have addressed a company of faithful men
   and have said to them, "Without me you can do nothing." Had Jesus
   Christ been, as some say, a good man and nothing more, such language as
   this would have been unseemly and inconsistent. Among the virtues of a
   perfect man we must certainly reckon modesty, but this from a mere man
   would have been shamelessly immodest! It is impossible to conceive that
   Jesus of Nazareth, had He not been more than man, could ever have
   uttered the sentence, "Without Me you can do nothing." My Brothers and
   Sisters, I hear, in this sentence, the voice of that Divine Person
   without whom was not anything made that was made! The majesty of the
   words reveals the Godhead of Him that uttered them. The "I Am" comes
   out in the personal word, "Me," and the claim of all power unveils the
   Omnipotent!

   These words mean Godhead or nothing! The spirit in which we listen to
   this language is that of adoration. Let us bow our heads in solemn
   worship and so unite with the multitude before the Throne of God who
   ascribe power and dominion and might to Him that sits upon the Throne
   and to the Lamb. In this adoring state of mind we shall be the better
   prepared to enter into the innermost soul of the text. I am not going
   to preach upon the moral inability of the unregen-erate, although in
   that doctrine I most firmly believe--for that Truth of God did not come
   in our Lord's way when He uttered these words--and neither did He
   allude to it.

   It is quite true that unregenerate men, being without Christ, can do no
   spiritual action whatever, and can do nothing which is acceptable in
   the sight of God. But our Lord was not speaking to unregenerate men at
   all, nor speaking about them. He was surrounded by His Apostles, the 11
   out of whom Judas had been weeded, and it is to them as branches of the
   true Vine that He says, "Without Me you can do nothing." The statement
   refers to such as are in the Vine and even to such as have been pruned
   and have, for a while, been found abiding in the stem which is
   Christ--even in such there is an utter incapacity for holy produce if
   separated from Christ!

   We are not called upon, just now, to speak upon all forms of doing, as
   beyond us, but of that form of it which is intended in the text. There
   are certain forms of doing in which men excel who know little or
   nothing of Christ. But the text must be viewed in its own context and
   the Truth of God is clear. Believers are here described under the
   figure of branches in the vine--and the doing alluded to must,
   therefore, be the bearing of fruit! I might render it, "Apart from Me
   you can produce nothing, make nothing, create nothing, bring forth
   nothing." The reference, therefore, is to that doing which may be set
   forth by the fruit of the vine's branch and, therefore, to those good
   works and Divine Graces of the Spirit which are expected from men who
   are spiritually united to Christ. It is of these that He says, "Without
   Me you can do nothing."

   Our text is only another form of the fourth verse--"As the branch
   cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can
   you, except you abide in Me." I am therefore going to address myself to
   you who profess to know and love the Lord and are anxious to glorify
   His name. And I have to remind you that union to Christ is essential,
   for only as you are one with Him and continue to be so, can you bring
   forth the fruits which prove you to be truly His.

   I. Reading, again, this solemn sentence, "Without Me you can do
   nothing," it first of all excites in me AN ASPIRATION OF HOPE. There is
   something to be done--our religion is to have a grand practical
   outcome! I have been thinking of Christ as the Vine, and of the myriads
   of branches in Him, and my heart has hoped for great things. From such
   a root, what a vintage must come! Being branches in Him, what fruit we
   must produce! There can be nothing scanty or poverty-stricken in the
   fruit of a Vine so full of sap! Fruit of the best quality, fruit in the
   utmost abundance, fruit unrivalled must be borne by such a Vine. That
   word, "do," has music in it! Yes, Brethren, Jesus went about doing good
   and,

   being in Him, we shall do good! Everything about Him is efficient,
   practical--in a word, fruit bearing--and being joined to Him, much will
   yet be done by us.

   We have been saved by the almighty Grace of God apart from all doings
   of our own and now that we are saved, we long to do something in
   return! We feel a high ambition to be of some use and service to our
   great Lord and Master. The text, even though there is a negative in it,
   yet raises in our soul the hope that before we go from here and are no
   more, we may even here on earth do something for Christ! Beloved, there
   is the ambition and hope before us of doing something in the way of
   glorifying God by bringing forth the fruits of holiness, peace and
   love. We would adorn the Doctrine of God, our Savior, in all things. By
   pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by love unfeigned, by every
   good and holy work we would show forth the praises of our God!

   Apart from the Lord Jesus we know we cannot be holy--but joined unto
   Him we overcome the world, the flesh and the devil--and we walk with
   garments unspotted from the world! The fruit of the Spirit is love,
   joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
   temperance and all manner of holy conversation. For none of these
   things are we equal of ourselves, and yet by faith we say with Paul, "I
   can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." We may be
   adorned with plentiful clusters. We may cause the Savior to have joy in
   us that our joy may be full! Great possibilities are before us! We
   aspire not only to produce fruit in ourselves, but to bear much fruit
   in the conversion of others, even as Paul desired concerning the
   Romans, that he might have fruit among them.

   In this matter we can do nothing whatever, alone, but being united unto
   Christ we bring forth increase unto the Lord. Our Lord Jesus said, "The
   works that I do shall you do also, and greater works than these shall
   you do, because I go unto the Father." Brothers and Sisters, a hope
   springs up in our bosom that we may, each one of us, bring many souls
   to Jesus! Not because we have any power in ourselves, but because we
   are united to Jesus, we joyfully hope to bring forth fruit in the way
   of leading others to the knowledge of the Gospel! My soul takes fire of
   hope and I say to myself, if it is so, all these branches and all
   alive--how much fruit of further blessing will ripen for this poor
   world? Men shall be blessed in us because we are blessed in Christ!

   What must be the influence of ten thousand godly examples? What must be
   the influence upon our country of thousands of Christian men and women
   practically advancing love, peace, justice, virtue, holiness? And if
   each one is seeking to bring others to Christ, what numerous
   conversions there must be and how large must the Church of God be
   increased? Do you not know that if there were only 10,000 real
   Christians in the world, yet if each one of these brought one other to
   Christ every year it would not need 20 years to accomplish the
   conversion of the entire population of the globe? This is a simple sum
   in arithmetic which any schoolboy can work out. Certainly it is a small
   thing that each one should bring another to the Lord! And surely, if we
   are one with Him, we may hope to see it done!

   So I sit down and dream right comfortably, according to the promise,
   "Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams."
   See these thousands of branches proceeding from such a stem as Christ
   Jesus--and with such sap as the Holy Spirit flowing through them, why,
   surely, this vine must soon clothe the mountains with its verdure and
   there shall not remain a single barren rock unadorned with the blessed
   foliage! Then shall the mountains drop sweet wine and all the hills
   shall melt! Not because of any natural fertility in the branches, but
   because of their glorious root, stem and sap, each one shall bear full
   clusters and each fruitful branch shall run over the wall!

   Beloved Friends in Christ, have you not strong desires to see some such
   consummation? Do you not long to take a share in the high enterprise of
   winning the world to Christ? Oh, you that are young and full of
   spirits, do you not long to press to the front of this great crusade?
   Our souls pine to see the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as
   the waters cover the sea! It is glad tidings to us that, joined unto
   Christ, we can do something in this great business--something upon
   which the Lord will smile--something which shall redound to the glory
   of His name! We are not condemned to inaction. We are not denied the
   joy of service, the superior blessedness of giving and of doing. The
   Lord has chosen us and ordained us to go and bring forth fruit, fruit
   that shall remain! This is the aspiration which rises in our soul--may
   the Lord grant that we may see it take actual form in our lives!

   II. But now, in the second place, there passes through my heart a
   shudder--A SHUDDER OF FEAR. Albeit I glow and burn with strong desire
   and rise upon the wing of a mighty ambition to do something great for
   Christ, yet I read the text and a sudden trembling takes hold upon me.
   "Without Me"--it is possible, then, that I may be without Christ and so
   may be utterly incapacitated for all good! Come, Friends, I want you to
   feel, even though it casts a cold chill over you,

   that you may possibly be, "without Christ." I would have you feel it in
   the very marrow of your bones--yes, in the center of your hearts.

   You profess to be in Christ, but are you? The large majority of those
   to whom I speak this morning are visible members of the visible Church
   of Christ. But what if you should not be so in Him as to bring forth
   fruit? Evidently there are branches which, in a certain sense are in
   the vine, and yet bring forth no fruit! It is written, "Every branch in
   Me that bears not fruit He takes away." Yes, you are a member, perhaps
   an elder, perhaps a deacon, possibly a minister--and so you are in the
   Vine--but are you bringing forth the fruits of holiness? Are you
   consecrated? Are you endeavoring to bring others to Jesus Christ?

   Or is your profession a thing apart from a holy life and devoid of all
   influence upon others? Does it give you a name among the people of God
   and nothing more? Say, is it a mere natural association with the
   Church, or is it a living, Supernatural union with Christ? Let the
   thought go through you and prostrate you before Him who looks down from
   Heaven upon you! He lifts His pierced hands and cries, "Without Me you
   can do nothing." My Friend, if you are without Christ, what is the use
   of carrying on that Bible class, for you can do nothing? What is the
   use of my coming to this pulpit if I am without Christ? What is the use
   of your going down into the Sunday school this afternoon if, after all,
   you are without Christ?

   Unless we have the Lord Jesus, ourselves, we cannot take Him to others!
   Unless within us we have the Living Water springing up unto eternal
   life, we cannot overflow so that out of our midst shall flow rivers of
   Living Water! I will put the thought another way--What if you should be
   in Christ, but not so in Him as to abide in Him? It appears from our
   Lord's words that some branches in Him are cast forth and are withered.
   "If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch and is
   withered." Some who are called by His name and reckoned among His
   disciples--whose names are heard whenever the roll of the Church is
   read--yet do not continue in Him. My Hearer, what if it should happen
   that you are only in Christ on Sunday, but in the world all the rest of
   the week?

   What if you are only in Christ at the Communion Table, or at the Prayer
   Meeting, or at certain periods of devotion? What if you are off and on
   with Christ? What if you play fast and loose with the Lord? What if you
   are an outside saint and an inside devil? Ah me, what will come of such
   conduct as this? And yet, some persist in attempting to hold an
   intermittent communion with Christ--in Christ today because it is the
   Sabbath--out of Christ tomorrow because it is the market and obedience
   to Christ might be inconvenient when they buy and sell. This will not
   do! We must be so in Christ as to be always in Him, or else we are not
   living branches of the living Vine and we cannot produce fruit.

   If there were such a thing as a vine branch that was only occasionally
   joined to the stem, would you expect it to yield a cluster to the
   farmer? So neither can you, if you are off and on with Christ. You can
   do nothing if there is not constant union. One year when I was
   traveling towards my usual winter resting place, I stopped at
   Marseilles, and there was overtaken by great pain. In my room in the
   hotel I found it cold and so I asked for a fire. I was sitting in a
   very desponding mood, when suddenly the tears came to my eyes, as if
   struck with a great sorrow. I shall never forget the thoughts which
   stirred my heart! The porter came in to light the fire. He had in his
   hand a bundle of twigs.

   I called to him to let me look at it. He was about to push it into the
   stove as fuel with which to kindle the fire. As I took the bundle into
   my hand, I found it was made of vine branches--branches that had been
   cut off, now that the pruning time was come. Ah me, I thought, will
   this be my portion? Here I am, away from home, unable to bear fruit, as
   I love to do. Shall I end with this as my portion? Shall I be gathered
   for the fire? Those vine shoots were parts of a good vine, no
   doubt--branches that once looked fair and green--but now they were fuel
   for the flame. They had been cut off and cast off as useless things!
   And then men gathered them and tied them in bundles and they were
   ignobly thrust into the fire.

   What a picture! There goes a bundle of ministers into the fire! There
   is a bundle of elders! There's another bundle of deacons! Next a bundle
   of Church members, a bundle of Sunday school teachers! "Men gather them
   and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." Dear brothers and
   Sisters, shall this be the lot of any of us who have named the name of
   Christ? Well did I say a shudder may go through us as we listen to
   those words, "without Me." Our end without Christ will be terrible,
   indeed! First, no fruit; then no life; and, at last, no place among the
   saints, no existence in the Church of God! Without Christ we do
   nothing, we are nothing, we are worse than nothing! This is now the
   condition of the heathen

   and it was our own condition once--God forbid that we should find it to
   be our condition now--"without Christ, having no hope!" Here is grave
   cause for heart-searching and I leave the matter with you to that end.

   III. Having come so far in our second head, under the third I behold A
   VISION OF TOTAL FAILURE. "Without

   Me," says the text, "you can do nothing"--you can produce nothing. The
   visible Church of Christ has tried this experiment a great many times,
   already, and always with the same result. Separated from Christ, His
   Church can do nothing which she was formed to do. She is sent into the
   world upon a high enterprise, with noble aims before her and grand
   forces at her disposal--but if she should cease from communion with
   Christ--she would become wholly incapable!

   Now what are the outward signs of any community being apart from
   Christ? Answer--first, it may be seen in a ministry without Christ in
   its doctrine. This we have seen, ourselves. Woe is the day that it is
   so! History tells us that not only in the Romish Church and the
   Anglican Church, but among the Nonconformist Churches, Christ has been,
   at times, forgotten! Not only among Unitarians, but among
   Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists--all round, Jesus has been
   dishonored. Attempts have been made to do something without Christ as
   the truth to be preached. Ah me, what folly it is! They preach up
   intellectualism and hope that this will be the great power of God, but
   it is not.

   "Surely," they say, "novelties of thought and refinements of speech
   will attract and win converts! If the preachers aspire to be leaders of
   thought--will they not command the multitude and charm the intelligent?
   Add music and architecture and what is to hinder success?" Many a young
   minister has given up his whole mind to this--to try and be exceedingly
   refined and intellectual--and what has he done with these showy means?
   The sum total is expressed in the text--"Nothing." "Without Me you can
   do nothing." What emptiness this folly has created--when the pulpit is
   without Christ, the pews are soon without people!

   I knew a chapel where an eminent divine was to be heard for years. A
   converted Jew, coming to London to visit a friend, set out on Sunday
   morning to find a place of Christian worship and he chanced to enter
   the chapel of this eminent divine. When he came back he said that he
   feared he had made a mistake--he had turned into a building which he
   hoped was a Christian place of assembly, but as he had not heard the
   name of Jesus all the morning, he thought, perhaps, he had fallen in
   with some other religionists. I fear that many modern sermons might
   just as fairly have been delivered in a Muslim mosque as in a Christian
   Church! We have too many preachers of whom we might complain, "they
   have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him."

   Christianity without Christ is a strange thing, indeed. And what comes
   of it where it is held up to the people? Why, by-and-by there are not
   enough people to support the ministry! Empty benches are plentiful and
   the thing gets pretty nearly wound up. Blessed be God for it! I am
   heartily glad that without Christ these pretended ministers cannot
   prosper! Leave Christ out of the preaching and you shall do nothing.
   Only advertise it all over London, Mr. Baker, that you are making bread
   without flour--put it in every paper, "Bread without flour"--and you
   may soon shut up your shop, for your customers will hurry off to other
   bakers!

   Somehow there is a strange prejudice in people's minds in favor of
   bread made with flour and there is also an unaccountable prejudice in
   the human mind which makes men think that if there is a Gospel, it must
   have Christ in it. A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle and
   end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution! However grand
   the language, it will be merely much ado about nothing if Christ is not
   there. Yes, and I mean by Christ not merely His example and the ethical
   precepts of His teaching, but His atoning blood, His wondrous
   satisfaction made for human sin and the grand doctrine of, "believe and
   live." If, "Life for a look at the Crucified One" is obscured, all is
   dark! If justification by faith is not set in the very forefront in the
   full blaze of light, nothing can be accomplished! Without Christ in the
   doctrine you shall do nothing!

   Further, without acknowledging always the absolute supremacy of Christ,
   we shall do nothing. Jesus is much complimented, nowadays, but He is
   not submitted to as absolute Lord! I hear many pretty things about
   Christ from men who reject His Gospel. "Lives of Christ" we have in any
   quantity! Oh for one which would set Him forth in His Glory as God, as
   Head of the Church and Lord of All! I should greatly like to see a,
   "Life of Christ," written by one who know Him by communion with Him and
   by reverently sitting at His feet! Most of the pretty things about
   Jesus which I read nowadays seem to have been written by persons who
   have seen Him through a telescope at a great distance and know Him,
   "according to Matthew," but not according to personal fellowship! Oh,
   for a "Life of Christ," by Samuel Rutherford or George Herbert, or by
   some other sweet spirit to whom the Ever-Blessed One is such a familiar
   Friend!

   Certain modern praises of Jesus are written upon the theory that, on
   the whole, the Savior has given us a religion that is tolerably suited
   to the enlightenment of the 19th Century and may be allowed to last a
   little longer. Jesus is commended by these critics and somewhat admired
   as preferable to most teachers--but He is, by no means, to be blindly
   followed. It is fortunate for Jesus that He commends Himself to the
   "best thought" and ripest culture of the period, for, if He had not
   done so, these wise gentlemen would have exposed Him as being behind
   the times! Of course they have, every now and then, to rectify certain
   of His dogmas, especially such as Justification by Faith, or Atonement,
   or the Doctrine of Election!

   These are old-fashioned things which belong to an older and less
   enlightened period and, therefore, they adapt them by tearing out their
   real meaning. The Doctrines of Grace, according to the infallible
   critics of the period, are out of date--nobody believes them and they
   settle off old-fashioned Believers as non-existent! Christ is rectified
   and squared-- and His garment without seam is taken off and He is
   dressed out in proper style--as by a West-End clothier. Then He is
   introduced to us as a remarkable teacher and we are advised to accept
   Him as far as He goes. For the present the wise ones tolerate Jesus,
   but there is no telling what is to come--the progress of this age is so
   astonishing that it is just possible we shall, before long, leave
   Christ and Christianity behind!

   Now, what will come of this foolish wisdom? Nothing but delusions,
   mischief, infidelity, anarchy and all manner of imaginable and
   unimaginable ills. The fact is, if you do not acknowledge Christ to be
   All, you have virtually left Him out and are without Him! We must
   preach the Gospel because Christ has revealed it. "Thus says the Lord,"
   is to be our logic. We must preach the Gospel as ambassadors delivering
   their message--that is to say, in the King's name--by an authority not
   their own. We preach our doctrines, not because we consider that they
   are convenient and profitable, but because Christ has commanded us to
   proclaim them. We believe the Doctrines of Grace, not because the
   enlightenment of the age sets its wonderful imprimatur upon them, but
   because they are true and are the voice of God!

   Age or no age has nothing to do with us. The world hates Christ and
   must hate Him--if it would boldly denounce Christ, it would be to us a
   more hopeful sign than its deceitful Judas kiss. We keep simply to
   this--the Lord has said it and we care not who approves or disapproves.
   Jesus is God and Head of the Church--and we must do what He bids us and
   say what He tells us--if we fail in this, nothing of good will come of
   it. If the Church gets back to her loyalty, she shall see what her Lord
   will do, but without Christ as absolute Lord, Infallible Teacher and
   honored King, all must be failure even to the end.

   Go a little further--you may have sound doctrine and yet do nothing
   unless you have Christ in your spirit. I have known all the Doctrines
   of Grace to be unmistakably preached and yet there have been no
   conversions--for this reason--that they were not expected and scarcely
   desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their
   sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few who by dint of great
   perseverance found out the holes and corners in which they prophesied.
   These brethren spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly
   gather in if He thought fit to do so--but they did not care much
   whether He did so or not. As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept
   over Jerusalem; as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord
   did when He stretched out His hands all the day long; as to lamenting
   with Jeremiah over a perishing people--they had no sympathy with such
   emotions and feared that they savored of Arminianism.

   Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell and lived as
   if their own salvation was the only design of their existence. If
   anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightway they said he
   was indiscreet, or conceited. When a Church falls into this condition
   it is, as to its spirit, "without Christ." What comes of it? Some of
   you know by your own observation what comes of it. The comfortable
   corporation exists and grows for a little while, but it comes to
   nothing in the long run. And so it must--there can be no fruit-bearing
   where there is not the Spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of
   Christ. Unless the Spirit of the Lord rests upon you, causing you to
   agonize for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, you can do nothing!

   But above all things we must have Christ with us in the power of His
   actual Presence. Do we always think of this-- "Without Me you can do
   nothing"? We are going out this afternoon to teach the young--shall we
   be quite sure to take Christ with us? Or on the road shall we suddenly
   stop and say, "I am without my Master and I must not dare go another
   step"? The abiding consciousness of the love of Christ in our soul is
   the essential element of our strength. We can no more convert a sinner
   without Christ than we could light up new stars in the sky! Power to
   change the human will--power to

   enlighten the intellect as to the things of God and to influence the
   mind as to repentance and faith--must come entirely from the Most High.

   Do we feel that? Or do we put our thoughts together for an address and
   say, "Now, that is a strong point, and that will produce effect." And
   do we rest there? If so, we can do nothing at all! The power lies with
   the Master, not with the servant! The might is in the hand, not in the
   weapon! We must have Christ in these pews and in these aisles--and in
   this pulpit--and Christ down in our Sunday school! And we must have
   Christ at the street corner when we stand there to talk of Him! And we
   must feel that He is with us even to the end of the world, or we shall
   do nothing! We have, then, before us a vision of total failure if we
   attempt, in any way, to do without Christ. He says, "Without Me you can
   do nothing." It is in the doing that the failure is most conspicuous.

   You may talk a good deal without Him. You may hold congresses,
   conferences and conventions. But doing is another matter! Without Jesus
   you can talk any quantity, but without Him you can do nothing. The most
   eloquent discourse without Him will be all a bottle of smoke. You shall
   lay your plans, arrange your machinery and start your schemes, but
   without the Lord you will do nothing! Immeasurable cloudland of
   proposals and not a spot of solid doing large enough for a dove's foot
   to rest on--such shall be the end of all! You may have all the money
   that generosity can lavish, all the learning that your universities can
   supply and all the oratory that the most gifted can lay at your feet,
   but, "without Me," says Christ, "you can do nothing." Fuss, flare,
   fireworks and failure--that is the end of it! "Without Me you can do
   nothing."

   Let me repeat those words again, "Do nothing." "Do nothing" and the
   world dying around us! Africa in darkness, China perishing! India sunk
   in superstition and a Church which can do nothing! No bread to be
   handed out to the hungry and the multitude fainting and dying! The rock
   to be smitten and the Water of Life to leap out for the thirsty, but
   not a drop forthcoming because Jesus is not there! Ministers,
   evangelists, churches, salvation armies, the world dies for need of you
   and yet, "you can do nothing" if your Lord is away! The age shall
   advance in discovery and men of science shall do their little best, but
   you shall do "nothing" without Christ--absolutely nothing! You shall
   not proceed a single inch upon your toilsome way, though you row till
   the oars snap with the strain! You shall be drifted back by winds and
   currents unless you take Jesus into the ship.

   Remember that all the while the great Husbandman is watching you, for
   His eye is on every vine branch. He sees that you are producing no
   grapes and He is coming round with that sharp knife of His, cutting
   here and there! What must become of you who produce nothing? It makes
   one's very soul curdle within him to think that we should live to do
   nothing! Yet I fear that thousands of Christians get no further than
   this! They are not immoral, dishonest, or profane--but they do nothing!
   They think of what they would like to do and they plan and they
   propose--but they do nothing. There are plenty buds, but not a single
   grape is produced and all because they do not get into that vital,
   overflowing, effectual communion with Christ which would fill them with
   life and constrain them to bring forth fruit unto the Glory of God!
   There is a vision, then, of the failure all along the line if we try to
   do without Christ.

   IV. But now, fourthly, I hear A VOICE OF WISDOM, a still small voice
   which speaks out of the text and says to us who are in Christ, let us
   acknowledge this. Down on your knees, bow your mouths in the dust and
   say, "Lord, it is true! Without you we can do nothing, nothing whatever
   that is good and acceptable in the sight of God! We have not ability of
   ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our ability is of God."
   Now, do not speak thus, as if you paid a compliment which orthodoxy
   requires you to make--but from the deeps of your soul, smitten with an
   absolute self-despair, acknowledge the truth unto God. "To will is
   present with me, but how to perform that which I would, I find not.
   Lord, I am a good-for-nothing do-nothing! I am a fruitless, barren,
   dry, rotten branch without You, and this I feel in my inmost soul. Be
   not far from me, but quicken me by Your Presence."

   Next, let us pray. If without Christ we can do nothing. Let us cry to
   Him that we may never be without Him! Let us, with strong crying and
   tears, entreat His abiding Presence. He comes to those who seek
   Him--let us never cease seeking! In conscious fellowship with Him, let
   us plead that the fellowship should always be unbroken. Let us pray
   that we may be so knit and joined to Jesus that we may be one spirit
   with Him, never to be separated from Him again. Master and Lord, let
   the life floods of Your Grace never cease to flow into us, for we know
   that we must be thus supplied or we can produce nothing! Brothers and
   Sisters, let us have much more prayer than has been usual among us.
   Prayer is appointed to convey

   the blessings God ordains to give--let us constantly use the appointed
   means and may the result be always increasing from day to day.

   Next, let us personally cleave to Jesus. Let us not attempt a life of
   separation, for that were to seek the living among the dead! Do not let
   us depart from Him for a single minute! Would you like to be caught at
   any one second of your life in a condition in which you could do
   nothing? I must confess I should not like to be in that state,
   incapable of defense against my enemies, or of service for my Lord. If
   an awakened one should come before you under distress of mind and you
   should feel quite incapable of doing any good for him--what a sad
   perplexity! Or if you did not feel incapable and yet should really be
   so--and what if you should, therefore, talk on in a religious way but
   know no power in it? Would it not be a sad thing? May you never be in
   such a state that you would be a do-nothing, with opportunities
   afforded and yet without strength to utilize them! If you are divided
   from Christ you are divided from the possibility of doing good; cling
   therefore, to the Savior with your whole might and let nothing take you
   away from Him--no, not for an hour!

   Heartily submit yourselves, also, dear Friends, to the Lord's headship
   and leadership, and ask to do everything in His style and way. He will
   not be with you unless you accept Him as your Master. There must be no
   quarrel about supremacy--you must yield yourself up absolutely to Him,
   to be, to do, or to suffer according to His will. When it is wholly so,
   He will be with you and you shall do everything that is required of
   you. Wonderful things will the Lord perform through you when once He is
   your All in All! Will we not have it so?

   Once more--joyfully believe in Him. Though without Him you can do
   nothing, yet with Him all things are possible! Omnipotence is in that
   man who has Christ in him! Weakness, itself, you may be, but you shall
   learn to glory in that weakness because the power of Christ rests upon
   you if your union and communion with Christ are continually kept up! Oh
   for a grand confidence in Christ! We have not believed in Him, yet, up
   to the measure of the hem of His garment, for even that faith made the
   sick woman whole! Oh to believe up to the measure of His infinite
   Deity! Oh for the splendor of the faith which measures itself by the
   Christ in whom it trusts! May God bring us there! Then shall we bring
   forth much fruit to the Glory of His name.

   V. And now, lastly. While I was listening to my text, as a child puts a
   shell to its ear and listens till it hears the deep sea rolling in its
   windings, I heard within my text A SONG OF CONTENTMENT. "Without Me you
   can do nothing."

   My heart said, "Lord, what is there that I want to do without You?
   There is no pain in this thought to me. If I can do without You, I am
   sorry to possess so dangerous a power. I am happy to be deprived of all
   strength except that which comes from You. It charms, it exhilarates
   and delights my soul to think that You are my All. Your have made me
   penniless as to all wealth of my own that I might dip my hand into Your
   treasury! You have taken all power away from every sinew and muscle of
   mine that I may rest on Your bosom." "Without Me you can do nothing."

   Be it so. Brothers and Sisters, are you not all agreed? Do you wish to
   have it altered, any of you that love His dear name? I am sure you do
   not, for suppose, dear Friends, we could do something without Christ?
   Then He would not have the Glory of it. Who wishes that? There would be
   little crowns for our poor little heads, for we should have done
   something without Him. But now there is one great crown for that dear
   head which once was pierced with thorns--for all His saints put
   together cannot do anything without Him! The goodly fellowship of the
   Apostles; the noble army of martyrs and the triumphant host of the
   redeemed by blood, all put together, can do nothing without Jesus! Let
   Him be crowned with majesty who works in us both to will and to do of
   His own good pleasure! For our own sakes, for our Lord's sake, we are
   glad that it is so!

   All things are more ours by being His! And if our fruit is His, rather
   than our own, it is none the less, but all the more ours! Is not this
   rare music for a holy ear? I feel so glad that without Christ we can do
   nothing because I fear that if the Church could do something without
   Christ she would try to live without Him! If she could teach the school
   and bring the children to salvation without Christ, I am afraid Christ
   would never go into a Sunday school again. If we could preach
   successfully without Jesus, I suspect that the Lord Jesus Christ would
   seldom stand on high among the people again. If our Christian
   literature could bless men without Christ, I am afraid we should set
   the printing press going and never think about the Crucified One in the
   matter. If there could be work done by the Church without Jesus, there
   would be rooms into which He would never be invited--and these would
   soon become a sort of Blue Beard's chambers full of horror. A something
   that we could do without Christ? Why the mass of the Church would get
   to working that machin-

   ery tremendously and all the rest would be neglected--and so it is a
   blessed thing for the whole Church that she must have Christ
   everywhere! "Without Me you can do nothing."

   As I listened to the song within these words I began to laugh--I wonder
   if you will laugh, too? It was to myself I laughed, like Abraham of
   old. I thought of those who are going to destroy the orthodox doctrine
   from off the face of the earth. How they boast of the decline and death
   of old-fashioned evangelism! I have read once or twice that I am the
   last of the Puritans, the race is all dying out! To this I object--I am
   willing to be esteemed last in merit--but not last as ending the race!
   There are many others who are steadfast in the faith! They say our old
   theology is decaying and that nobody believes it. It is all a lie! But
   wise men say so and, therefore, we are bound to consider ourselves
   obsolete and extinct. We are, in their esteem, as much out of date as
   antediluvians would be could they walk down our streets. Yes, they are
   going to quench our coal and blot us out from Israel.

   Newspapers and reviews and the general intelligence of the age all join
   to dance upon our graves! Put on your nightcaps, you good people of the
   evangelical order, and go home to bed and sleep the sleep of the
   righteous, for the end of you is come! Thus say the Philistines, but
   the armies of the Lord think not. The adversaries exult exceedingly,
   but Christ is not with them. They know very little about Him. They do
   not work in His Spirit, nor cry Him up, nor extol the Gospel of His
   precious blood--and so I believe that when they have done--their little
   best will come to nothing. "Without Me you can do nothing." If this is
   true of Apostles, much more of opposers! If His friends can do nothing
   without Him, I am sure His foes can do nothing against Him! If they who
   follow His steps and lie in His bosom can do nothing without Him, I am
   sure His adversaries cannot--and so I laughed at their laughter and
   smiled at their confusion.

   I laughed, too, because I remembered a story of a New England service
   when the pastor, one afternoon, was preaching in His own solemn way,
   and the good people were listening or sleeping, as their minds
   inclined. It was a substantial edifice where they assembled, fit to
   outlive an earthquake. All went on peacefully in the Meeting House that
   afternoon till suddenly a lunatic jumped up, denounced the minister and
   declared that he would at once pull down the Meeting House about their
   ears! Taking hold of one of the pillars of the gallery, this newly
   announced Samson repeated his threat!

   Everybody rose. The women were ready to faint. The men began to rush to
   the doors and there was danger that the people would be trampled on as
   they rushed down the aisles! There was about to be a great tumult. No
   one could see the end of it, when suddenly one cool Brother sitting
   near the pulpit produced calm by a single sentence. "Let him try!" was
   the stern sarcasm which hushed the tempest!

   Even so, today the enemy is about to disprove the Gospel and crush out
   the Doctrines of Grace! Are you distressed, alarmed, astounded? So far
   from that, my reply to the adversary's boast that he will pull down the
   pillars of our Zion is only this --LET HIM TRY! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Principal Wheat

   (No. 1626)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 25, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The principal wheat." Isaiah 28:25.

   THE whole passage runs on this wise--"Give you ear, and hear my voice;
   hearken, and hear my speech. Does the plowman plow all day to sow? Does
   he open and break the clods of his ground? When he has made plain the
   face thereof, does he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the
   cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and
   the spelt in its place? For his God does instruct him to discretion,
   and does teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing
   instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but
   the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
   Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor
   break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
   This also comes forth from the Lord of Hosts, which is wonderful in
   counsel, and excellent in working."

   The Prophet, inspired of God, shows that the farmer is wise and
   skillful in the management of his farm, in plowing, sowing, threshing
   and in all the processes of farming. He asserts that this skill has
   been taught him of his God. I suppose that this is set before us, not
   as poetry, but as fact. The wisdom of earth is a reflection of the
   light of Heaven. Have you not read--"And the Lord spoke unto Moses,
   saying, See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of
   Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the Spirit of
   God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all
   manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in
   silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in
   carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship"?

   God is the great teacher of agriculture as well as of handicrafts. If
   there had not been some information concerning farming conveyed to our
   first parent when he left the Garden of Eden, he would not have known
   how to till the soil and produce a harvest--and before he had
   discovered it, by experience, he would have died of starvation and the
   race would have ended with him. The 26th verse says, "His God does
   instruct him to discretion, and does teach him." Yes, God has taught
   men the rudiments of farming and I conclude, therefore, that if God
   gives men instruction so that they are able to cultivate the land and
   produce a harvest of many different kinds of seed, He will much more
   instruct us if we wait upon Him as to the tillage of our lives so that
   we may not sow to the flesh and reap corruption, but may learn how to
   sow to the Spirit, and may, of the Spirit, reap life everlasting!

   We are, all of us, farmers. Some of us may be wicked farmers who slay
   the heir; or slothful farmers who suffer hemlock and darnel to come up
   where there should be wheat and barley; or fickle farmers who, having
   put our hand to the plow, have looked back. But we all have fields to
   till and work to do for the great Landlord to whom all things belong.
   If any of us wish to be true farmers and sow and reap as to be found
   accepted of our great Lord--and to produce a harvest unto His
   Glory--then we had better go to Him for instruction and ask Him to
   teach us knowledge and guide us in the way of wisdom. Breathe that
   prayer to God, now, and may He hear it on behalf of every one of us by
   sending us His Holy Spirit!

   I. There is one point which the Prophet mentions as a matter of wisdom
   on the part of the farmer. It is this--that HE KNOWS WHAT IS THE
   PRINCIPLE SEED TO CULTIVATE and makes it his principal objective. My
   text is, "Does not the farmer cast in the principal wheat?" He does not
   set to work at haphazard without thought and go to the granary and take
   out wheat, cummin, barley and rye and fling these about right and left!
   No, he estimates the value of each grain and arranges them in his mind
   according to their proportionate values. He does not think that cummin,
   dill and caraway, which he merely grows to give a flavor to his dish on
   the table, is at all of such importance as the wheat. And, though rye
   and barley have their values, yet he does not reckon that even these
   are equal to the corn which he calls "the principal wheat."

   He is a man of discretion. He arranges things and he places the most
   important thing in the front rank and spends upon it the most care.
   Herein I would have you learn of the farmer. Keep things distinct in
   your minds--not mixed and muddled by careless thoughtlessness. Do not
   live a huddled life, without care and discretion, running all things
   into one, but sort them out and divide and distinguish between the
   precious and the vile. See what this is worth and what the other is
   worth--and set your matters in rank and order, making some of them
   principal, and others inferior. I suggest to you young people,
   especially, that, in starting life, you say to yourselves, "What shall
   we seek?" For he that seeks, finds. "What shall we sow?" "For whatever
   a man sows that shall he also reap."

   The little things of this life are to be attended to--as a man may sow
   cummin and fitches, there are some inferior things that ought not to be
   left undone--as a man should sow rye and barley in their appointed
   place. Still, there is some principal thing--some master thing--some
   chief thing for which we ought to live--and what shall that be? What
   ought to be the principal crop that we shall endeavor to cultivate in
   our hearts and lives? Have you turned that over? Have you really put
   the problem before you? Or have you gone at it hit or miss, as if it
   did not matter? Remember, the eye is a most important part of the body.
   How shall a man direct his steps if he cannot see? And the motive is
   the eye. What have you an eye to? What are you living for?

   What is the principal aim with you? Is it going to be that of the old
   gentleman satirized in Horace who said to his son--"Get money: get it
   honestly, if you can; but, by all means, get money"? Is money-getting
   to be the principal wheat with you? Or will you choose a life of
   pleasure--"a short life and a merry one"--as so many fools have said,
   to their great sorrow? Is it in dissipation that your life is to be
   spent? Are thistles to be your principal crop? Because there is a
   pleasure in looking at a Scot thistle, do you intend to grow acres of
   pleasurable vices? And will you make your bed upon them when you come
   to die? Oh, look and see what is worthy of being the principal
   objective in life! And, when you have found that out, then pray God, of
   His Holy Spirit, to help you to choose that one thing and to give all
   your powers and faculties to the cultivation of it!

   The farmer, who finds that wheat ought to be his principal crop, makes
   it so, and lays himself out with that end in view. He looks around and
   says, "What is the best thing for me to produce?" And when he has found
   it out, he calls it his principal thing. Dear Friends, do, I pray you,
   remember that true godliness is the principal thing! Therefore get it
   and prize it above all things! Now, mark that this farmer was wise
   because he counted that to be principal which was most necessary. His
   family could do without cummin, which was but a flavoring. Even the
   fitches are thought to have been a plant which yielded a grain used in
   giving a taste to bread, but they were not a valuable crop. The family
   could do without cummin and fitches.

   Perhaps the mistress might complain, or the cook might grumble, but
   that did not matter as much as it would if the children cried for
   bread! They certainly could not do without wheat, for bread is the
   staff of life. It is bread that strengthens man's heart and, therefore,
   the Eastern farmer must grow bread if he does not grow anything else.
   That which is most necessary he makes to be the principal thing. Is not
   this commonsense? If we were wisely to sit down and estimate, should we
   not say, "To be forgiven my sin; to be right with God; to be holy; to
   be fit to live eternally in Heaven is the greatest, the most necessary
   thing for me and, therefore, I will make it the principal objective of
   my pursuit"? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever is the most
   necessary thing for a creature--for a creature cannot be satisfied
   unless he is answering the end for which he was created.

   And it is the end of every intelligent creature, first, that he may
   glorify God and, next, that he may enjoy God. What a bliss it must be
   to enjoy God, Himself, forever and ever! Other things may be desirable,
   but this thing is necessary. A certain competence, a measure of esteem
   among men, a degree of health--all these are the flavoring of life--but
   to be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation--this is life
   itself! This is the bread by which our soul's best life is to be
   sustained! Oh, that we were all wise enough to feel that to be one with
   Christ is the one thing necessary--that to be at peace with God is the
   principal thing--that to be brought into harmony with the Most High is
   the true music of life! The moralities and courtesies of life, like the
   minor seeds, may take their place in due order upon our farm, but the
   fear of the Lord is the principal wheat and we must cultivate it with
   our whole heart!

   This farmer was wise because he made that to be the principal thing
   which was the most fit to be so. Of course, barley is very useful as
   food. Nations have lived on barley bread and lived healthily, too. And
   rye has been the nutriment of whole nations--neither have men starved
   when restricted to oats and other grains. Still, for all in all, give
   me good

   wheat flour! I know our Scot friends like oat-cake, better, but I
   hardly think that we shall all come to their mind while wheat flour is
   at a reasonable price! We still like a piece of wheat bread and look
   upon it as being the best staff of life. The oat is rather a knotty
   staff, but wheat is a fair good walking cane with which a man may go
   through life right merrily. Only give men enough bread and why should
   they complain? Though I suppose they would, for even when the
   Israelites had manna in the wilderness, they complained and that was
   angels' food--they called it light bread.

   Brothers and Sisters, the Eastern farmer knew that wheat was the most
   fitting food for man and so he did not put the inferior grain, which
   might act as a substitute, into the prominent place. He planted the
   most fitting thing, namely, the wheat, in the most prominent position.
   He did not speak of "the principal barley," or "the principal rye,"
   much less "the principal cummin," or "the principal fitches," but "the
   principal wheat." And what is there, Brethren, that is so fit for the
   heart, the mind, the soul of man as to know God and His Christ? Other
   mental foods, such as the fruits of knowledge and the dainties of
   science, excellent though they may be, are inferior nutriment and
   unsuitable to build up the entire structure of our manhood!

   If I can get my God, my Savior, I find my Heaven and my all. My soul
   sits down to a crumb of Truth concerning the Father, the Son and the
   Holy Spirit--and finds the greatest satisfaction in living upon it! The
   more we can know God, enjoy God and become like God--and the more
   Christ is our daily Bread--the more do we perceive the fitness of all
   this to the new-born soul. O Beloved, make that your principal thing
   which is the fittest theme for an immortal mind--

   "Religion is the chief concern

   Of mortals here below.

   May I, its great importance learn,

   Its sovereign virtue know!

   More needful this than glittering wealth,

   Or anything the world bestows.

   Not reputation, food, or health,

   Can give us such repose."

   Moreover, this farmer was wise because he made the principal thing that
   which was the most profitable. Under certain circumstances, in our own
   country, wheat is not the most profitable thing which a man can grow.
   But, ordinarily, wheat is the best crop that the earth yields for
   general consumption and, therefore, the text speaks of "the principal
   wheat."

   Our grandfathers used to rely upon the wheat stack to pay the rent.
   They looked to their corn as the arm of their strength and though it is
   not so, now, yet it was always so of old and, perhaps, it may yet be so
   again. Anyway, the figure is just as good with regard to true
   religion--to fear the Lord is the most profitable thing. I am told that
   rich men at the present time find it hard to get hold of anything which
   yields five per cent. Oh, but this blessed fear of the Lord is an
   extraordinarily profitable kind of business, for it brings in far more
   than a hundred per cent or a thousand per cent! In this business, a man
   begins without any capital! In fact, he begins head over ears in debt
   and yet he makes a fortune such as misers never dream of!

   You will say it is a strange way of starting in business--but the
   believing sinner does so. When he comes to God, he is penniless and as
   much in debt as he can be. The Lord discharges his heavy arrears of sin
   and then the Believer rises in riches by sinking more deeply into debt
   of another kind--not of sin, but of gratitude! He owes his great Lord
   more and more, till he is quite unable, even, to imagine the depth of
   his obligation! Neither does this grieve him--he comes to love the
   poverty which enables him to avail himself of the heavenly treasury. He
   even aspires to be more and more deeply in debt to the sovereign Grace
   of God! His ambition is to increase his obligations which even now
   overwhelm him. He grows richer as he feels himself poorer and he is
   stronger as he knows more of his personal infirmity.

   It is a wonderful business, this, in which bankrupts make fortunes, in
   which beggars rise to sit among princes!--

   "'Tis perfect po verty alone

   That sets the soul at large;

   While we can call one mite our own, We have no full discharge.

   But let our debts be what they may,

   However great or small,

   As soon as we have naught to pay,

   Our Lord forgives us all."

   Being freely discharged of our sins, we are, by overflowing Grace,
   greatly enriched, so that we number among our possessions Heaven
   itself, Christ Himself, God Himself! All things are ours! Oh, what a
   blessed trade it is to enter upon! There never was such a transaction
   as this, for when an empty sinner trades with a full Savior, he is,
   himself, filled with all the fullness of God! Assuredly this
   soul-enriching communion with Christ ought to be first upon our
   thoughts!

   Then let godliness be the principal wheat, for there is nothing so
   profitable! Godliness is profitable for the life that now is and for
   that which is to come. Godliness is a blessing to a man's body--it
   keeps him from drunkenness and vice. It is a blessing to his soul--it
   makes it sweet and pure. It is a blessing to him in every way. If I had
   to die like a dog, I would like to live like a Christian. If there were
   no hereafter, yet still, for comfort and for joy, give me the life of
   one that lives like Christ, or strives to do so! There is a practical
   everyday truth in the verse--

   "'Tis religion that can give

   Sweetest pleasures while we live.

   'Tis religion must supply

   Solid comfort when we die."

   Only that religion must not be of the common sort--it must not be a
   vain profession--it must have for its root a hearty faith in Jesus
   Christ. See you to it. Religion must be either everything or nothing,
   either first or nowhere. Make it the principal thing and it will fill
   your soul with treasure. Thus, you see, the farmer was right in having
   a principal crop and in selecting the right seed to be his principal
   care.

   I do not suppose that he ever entered into any dispute upon the matter.
   He felt sure that wheat must be his principal produce and he gave his
   thoughts to it~ I cannot bear to hear people disputing as to whether it
   is worth while to give their heart to Christ. The people who question
   the value of faith have never tried it. Whenever you observe some
   conceited creature writing an essay against true religion and putting
   it into one of our precious "reviews," do not be carried away by
   hearing people say that it is mightily clever. If you read it, say to
   yourselves, "Certainly, this is a clever thing, for here is a blind man
   writing upon the harmony of colors! Look what learned observations he
   makes upon scarlet and blue, which, he says, are precisely the same and
   only some narrow-minded folks insist upon their being different."

   You may regard the wise remarks of an unregenerate philosopher as a
   very fine essay by a deaf man upon music. Can a horse write about
   angels? He does not know anything about the subject, nor does the
   unrenewed man understand the regenerate man! He has not the powers and
   faculties that would enable him to know, for the carnal man knows not
   the things that are of God--they are spiritually discerned and as he
   has not the Spirit, he cannot discern them. Until he is born again, he
   has no spiritual knowledge or judgment. "That which is born of the
   flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "You
   must be born again." We are willing to take the evidence of scientific
   men upon the science that they have mastered, but we care nothing for
   their opinion upon a matter which is quite out of their range.

   Who shall tell me that there is no sweetness in honey? I do not accept
   the verdict of one who asserts it to be as tasteless as the white of an
   egg, but I wonder at the palate which can so deceive a man! Has a man
   lost the power of taste? What is his judgment worth? I put a piece of
   honeycomb into my mouth and my experience of sweetness is a complete
   deliverance from all infidelity in that direction. When a man tells me
   that there is no sweetness in godliness, I smile for myself and drop a
   tear for him--and tasting yet, more and more, the deliciousness of
   godliness--I smile again to think that he should talk so fast about a
   thing of which he knows nothing! Oh, yes, we have made up our minds
   long ago--we are not going to argue about it any more--godliness is the
   principal wheat to us!

   We know it by experience. We have tasted and handled the good Word of
   Life. As the Eastern farmer was quite sure that the wheat was the
   principal thing, so are we quite sure of it and, from now on, God
   helping us, we shall sow the principal wheat and leave others to sow
   tares or darnel if they will! Thus have I said enough upon our first
   observation-- the farmer is a lesson to us because he knows what is the
   principal thing.

   II. Secondly, he is a lesson to us because HE GIVES THIS PRINCIPAL
   THING THE PRINCIPAL PLACE. I find that the Hebrew is rendered by some
   eminent scholars, "He puts the wheat into the principal place." That
   little handful of cummin, for the wife to flavor the cakes with, he
   grows in a corner. And the various herbs he plants in their proper
   borders. The barley he puts in its place and the rye in its acre. But
   if there is a good bit of rich soil--the best he has--he says to his
   men, "That is for the wheat." The principal place is for the principal
   crop. He gives his choicest fields to that which is to be the main
   means of his living.

   Now, here is a lesson for you and for me. Let us give to true godliness
   our principal powers and abilities. Let us give to the things of God
   our best, our ripest, our most careful, our most intense thought. I
   pray you, do not take religion at second hand from what I tell you, or
   somebody else tells you, but think it over and give it your principal
   thoughts. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Word of God! The
   thoughtful Christian is the growing Christian. Remember, the service of
   God deserves our very best consideration and endeavor. We are poor
   things at our best, but we ought to give the Lord nothing short of our
   principal powers. God would not have us serve Him heedlessly, but He
   would have us use all the brain and intellect and mind that we have in
   studying and practicing the things of God.

   "Acquaint, now, yourself with God, and be at peace." "Meditate upon
   these things. Give yourself wholly to them." If ever your mind is more
   clear and active at one time than at another, then sow the principal
   wheat of godly contemplation and gracious devotion. If you feel more
   fresh and more inclined to think at one time of the day than at
   another, let your whole mind at once go forth towards the best things.
   Be sure, also, to yield to this subject your most earnest love. The
   best field in the little estate of manhood is not so much the intellect
   as the affections--sow the principal wheat there. Oh, to have true
   religion in the heart! To love what we know--intensely to love it! To
   hold it fast as with the grip of life and death--never to let it go!

   The Lord says, "My son, give Me your heart," and He will not be content
   with anything less than your heart! When your zeal is most burning and
   your love is most fervent, let the warmth and the fervency all go
   towards the Lord your God and to the service of Him who has redeemed
   you with His precious blood! Let the principal wheat have the principal
   part of your nature. Towards God and His Christ, also turn your
   strongest, heartiest and most fervent desires. When you enlarge your
   desire, desire Christ! When you become ambitious, let your ambition be
   all for God! Let your hunger and your thirst be after righteousness!
   Let your aspirations and your longings be all towards holiness and the
   things that shall make you like Christ. Give to this principal wheat
   your principal desires.

   Then let the Lord also have, always, the attentive respect of your
   life. Let the principal wheat be sown in every action of life. I think
   if we are truly Christians, we must, of necessity, be as much
   Christians outside the Church as in it. We shall try to make our eating
   and our drinking, and everything we do, tend to the Glory of God. Draw
   no line between the secular and the religious part of your conduct, but
   let the secular be made religious by a devout desire to glorify God in
   the one as much as in the other! Let us worship God in the most common
   duties of life, even as they do who stand before His Throne and serve
   Him day and night. Pray daily, "Your will be done in earth as it is
   done in Heaven." Let us sow the principal wheat in all the fields of
   our life. May we each one feel, "For me to live is Christ." I cannot
   live without Christ, I would not live forgetting Christ, I could not
   live for anything but Christ. Let your whole nature yield to Jesus and
   to none else.

   We should give to this principal wheat our most earnest labors. I mean
   for the spread of the Gospel. A man ought to consecrate himself to the
   utmost in the matter of holy work for Jesus. I dread to see a
   professing man zealous in politics, and lukewarm in devotion--all on
   fire in the parish vestry--but chill as winter when he comes to a
   Prayer Meeting! Some fly like eagles when they are serving the world,
   but they have a broken wing when they come into the worship of God!
   This should not be! If anything could awaken us up and make the lion
   within us roar in his strength, it should be when we confront the foes
   of Jesus, or fight for His cause! Our Lord's service is the principal
   wheat--let us labor most in connection with it. Lay all your talents
   under tribute to King Jesus. No, lay out your whole body, soul and
   spirit for God who is your All in All. Spend and be spent, that this
   highest, noblest objective of your life may be achieved--if you spend
   all and win Christ you will be a glorious gainer!

   This should also take possession of us so as to lead us to our greatest
   sacrifices. The love of Christ ought to be so strong as to swallow up
   self and make sacrifice our daily joy. For Christ's name's sake we
   should be willing to endure poverty, reproach, slander, exile,
   death--and count them all joy! Nothing should be precious to a
   Christian in comparison with Christ, who is preciousness to them that
   believe. I will put it to you whether it is so with you or not. Is the
   love of Jesus the principal wheat with you? Are you giving your
   religion the chief place or not? I am afraid that some people treat
   religion as certain gentlemen treat a part of their estate. They have a
   farm away from their dwelling which they call an off-hand farm--they
   put a bailiff into it and only give an eye to it now and then. Some
   people hold their religion as an off-hand farm--their minister is the
   bailiff--who has to see to it for them.

   I am sure such spiritual farming never pays. They have religion?
   Certainly. Yes. Oh, certainly--yes. But I am afraid they are like the
   man of whom the child spoke at the Sunday school. "Is your father a
   Christian?" asked the teacher. "Yes," said the child, "but he has not
   worked much at it lately." I could point out several of this sort who
   are sowing their wheat very sparingly and choosing the most barren
   patch to sow it in! They profess to be Christians, but religion is a
   tenth-rate article on their farm. Some have a large acreage for the
   world and a poor little plot for Christ. They are great growers of
   worldly pleasure and self-indulgence--and they sow a little religion by
   the roadside for appearance sake. They spend more time at billiards
   than at prayers!

   This will not do! God will not thus be mocked! If we despise Him and
   His Truth, we shall be lightly esteemed. O come, let us give our
   principal time, talent, thought, effort to that which is the chief
   concern of immortal spirits! May God help us to do so. May we imitate
   the farmer who gives the principal wheat the principal place on his
   farm.

   III. Let us learn a third lesson. THE FARMER SELECTS THE PRINCIPAL
   WHEAT OR THE BEST SEED WHEN HE IS SOWING HIS FIELDS. That is another
   meaning of the text, namely, when a farmer is setting aside wheat for
   sowing, he does not choose the tail corn and all the worst of his
   produce. If he is a sensible man, he likes to sow the best grains that
   he can get. Many farmers search the country round for a good sample of
   wheat for sowing, for they do not expect to get a good harvest out of a
   bad sowing. The farmer is taught of God to put into the ground the
   principal wheat--the selected kernels.

   If I am going to sow to the Lord and to be a Christian, I should sow
   the purest form of our holy religion. And I should try to do this,
   first, by believing the weightiest doctrines. I would like to believe,
   not this "ism," nor that, but the unadulterated Truth of God which
   Jesus taught! If I want to produce in my soul a holy character, it will
   come by the Spirit of God out of true doctrine. Falsehood always breeds
   sin--the Truth of God begets and fosters holiness. You and I,
   therefore, ought to pick over all our seed carefully, judge and decide
   between the Truth of God and error, and not let our soul receive
   anything but what is according to the Word of the Lord. We ought to
   choose the most important Truths, for I have known people attach the
   chief importance to the smallest things--and this is an error in
   judgment.

   I know a denomination which has differences among itself such as no
   ordinary person could understand, but the members make no end of
   warfare over them! They even exclude one another for not being
   exclusive enough--and if by vehement effort they all reach one point of
   exclusiveness--they spy out another hopeful reason for quarreling and
   commence to exclude again! Some microscopic point of doctrine or ritual
   suffices for the creation of party upon party! They are like
   mercury--pour it on a table and watch how it divides into tiny
   globules! It splits and splits again. They, no doubt, are persons of
   great precision and discernment, but it were well if their tithing of
   mint and anise led them to attend to the weightier matters of brotherly
   love and Christian unity! They fight over the fitches and leave the
   wheat to the crows. I am not at all of their mind. Those who will, may
   dispute over vials and trumpets--I shall mainly preach the doctrine of
   the precious blood and the glorious Truths of God of Substitution and
   Atonement! These doctrines are the principal wheat and, therefore,
   these shall fall into our furrows.

   Next to that, we ought to sow the noblest examples. Many men are
   dwarfed because they choose a bad model to start with. They imitate
   dear old Mr. So-and-So till they grow wonderfully like he is, only the
   best of him is left out! One minister happens to be of a gloomy turn of
   mind and he preaches the deep experience of the children of God--and in
   consequence a band of good people think it to be their duty to be
   melancholy. How unwise! We should never copy any! To be like Peter, we
   need not be rash! If you copy any good man, there is a point at which
   you ought to stop short. Yet, if I must have a human model, I would
   like to have one of the bravest of the saints of God. But, oh, how much
   better to imitate that perfect pattern which you have in Christ Jesus!
   Thus when you are sowing the wheat of holy living, sow the best seed
   you can, by having Christ Jesus, Himself, as the example by which you
   shape your life.

   We shall sow the best wheat by seeing that we have the purest spirit.
   But, alas, how soon do spirits become soiled by self, or pride, or
   despondency, or sloth, or some other earthly taint! But what a grand
   thing it is to try and live to God in the spirit of Christ Jesus. May
   we be humble, lowly, bold, self-sacrificing, pure, chaste and
   holy--this can only be produced by the Holy Spirit. And then there is
   one more mode of sowing selected seed. We should endeavor to live in
   the closest communion with God. One dear Brother prayed in our little
   meeting before the present service that we might have as much Grace as
   we were capable of receiving and that God would work in us all that He
   willed to work in us and bring us into such a state that we might not
   hinder Him in any good thing which He willed to do by us.

   This is to be our desire--we should rise to the highest form of
   spiritual life! If you sow the principal wheat, get the best sort of
   wheat. There is religion and there is religion. There is a spirit and a
   spirit--and there is a system of divinity and another system of
   divinity. The best is always good enough for me! I exhort you not to
   rest content with anything short of the best that can be had. O young
   men, if you mean to follow Christianity, go in for it thoroughly! If
   you mean to serve the devil, serve him. He is a pretty master! Remember
   his wages! But if you wish to serve Christ, do not go sneaking through
   the world as if you were ashamed of your Lord! If you are Christ's,
   show yourself! If you are worthy of so great a Captain, put on your
   uniform! Rally to His banner, gather to His trumpet call and then stand
   up, stand up for Jesus! If there is any manhood in you, this great
   cause calls for it all! Exhibit it and may the Spirit of God help you
   to do so.

   IV. Fourthly, THE FARMER ATTENDS TO THE PRINCIPAL CROP WITH THE
   PRINCIPAL CARE. This Hebrew language always astonishes me, for it
   conveys such a mint of meaning! Sometimes when I study a verse, I find
   that the critics say that it means this, that and the other, until I
   have thought, "This language is miraculous, so full, so deep: very
   different from our poor English tongue." It teaches us many Truths of
   God in a few words and, like a diamond, it has a hundred facets, each
   flashing forth a distinct ray of light. This plenitude of meaning leads
   us to reflect upon a far more weighty matter. It is wonderful how much
   God can put into a word. Why, He put Himself into one! The name of our
   Divine Lord is, "The Word of God."

   Some critics insist that the proper translation of our text is that the
   farmer plants his wheat in rows. I do not know whether our farmers
   often plant wheat. They sow the seed in due order, but I do not hear
   much of planting it. It is said that the large crops in Palestine in
   old time were due to the fact that they planted the wheat, absolutely
   putting it in, root by root, so that there might be no more wheat in a
   row than there ought to be. And they set it in lines so that it was not
   checked or suffocated by its being too thick in one place and neither
   was there any fear of its being too thin in another. The wheat was
   planted and then streams of water were turned by the foot to each
   particular plant of wheat. No wonder, therefore, that the land brought
   forth abundantly!

   We give our principal care to the principal thing. Our godliness should
   be carried out with earnest thought--our service for God should be
   performed with great care. Brothers and Sisters, are we careful enough
   as to our religious walk? Have you ever searched to the bottom of your
   profession? Have you ever enquired into the reason of your belonging to
   your present denomination? Why do you happen to be members of a certain
   Church? Your mother was? Well, there is some good in that reason, but
   not enough to justify you in the sight of God! Why do you happen to
   profess, as you do, such-and-such a form of Christianity? Did you ever
   look into it? I pray you judge your standing! If any Christian minister
   is afraid to urge you to this duty, I should stand in doubt of him. I
   am not at all afraid!

   I wish you to examine all that I teach you. I beg you to do it, for I
   would not like to be responsible for another man's creed. Like the
   Bereans, search and see whether these things are according to Scripture
   or not. One of the greatest blessings that can come upon the Church
   would be a searching spirit which would refer everything to the Holy
   Scriptures. If they speak not according to this Word of God, it is
   because there is no Light of God in them! Therefore try the spirits by
   this infallible test! In all things render service to God as carefully
   as the Eastern farmer planted his wheat. You serve a precise God,
   therefore be precise in His service. He is a jealous God, therefore be
   jealous of the least taint of error or mistake in anything that you do
   for Him.

   Take care, also, that you nourish every part of your religion with
   prayer, even as the farmer watered each plant. Pray for Grace from on
   high that your soul may never be parched and dried up. Perform to your
   faith, to your hope, to your love and to all the Graces that are in
   your soul every necessary service which the farmer renders to his
   wheat. Watch, weed, guard and water every gracious principle--give your
   Divine Graces your principal care, for they are to yield your principal
   harvest.

   V. With one more lesson I close. Do this, because FROM YOUR PRINCIPAL
   CARE YOU MAY EXPECT YOUR PRINCIPAL CROP. If religion is the principal
   thing, you may look to religion for your principal reward. The harvest
   will come to you in various ways. For instance, you will make the
   greatest success in life if you wholly live to the Glory of God.
   Success or failure must much depend upon the suitableness of the
   endeavor. I shall never be able to conduct a choir, but I may succeed
   in preaching, for that is my proper work. Now you, Christian man, if
   you try to live to the world you

   will not succeed, for you are not fitted for it. Grace has spoiled you
   for sin. If you live to God with all your heart, you will succeed in
   it, for God has made you for a holy sphere on purpose.

   As He made the fish for the water and the birds for the air, so He has
   made the Believer for holiness and for the service of God! And you will
   be out of your element--you will be a fish out of water, or a bird in
   the stream--if you leave the service of God. The Eastern farmer's
   prosperity hinges on his wheat and yours upon devotion to God! It is to
   your faith and love that you must look for your joy. Is there any bliss
   like the bliss of knowing that you are in Christ and are the beloved of
   the Lord? It is to your religion that you must look for comfort on a
   sick and dying bed--and you may be there very soon. "Yes, and the
   sooner the better," you may say, if you have grown this principal wheat
   and have sown to the Spirit that you may reap life everlasting!

   In the world to come what a crop, what a harvest will come of serving
   the Lord! What will come out of all else? Nothing but vanity of vanity!
   A man has made millions and he is dead. What is he the better for his
   gold? A warrior becomes an emperor--his fame rings throughout all the
   earth! He dies. What has he of all his honors? What will any of you
   have at the last if you live to the world? To live to the world is like
   playing with boys in the street for halfpence, or entertaining yourself
   as children do with bits of platter and oyster shells. Only a life
   devoted unto God yields real and substantial results--all else is
   waste.

   Let us think so and gird up our loins to serve the Lord! May the Divine
   Spirit help us to sow the principal wheat and live in joyful
   expectation of reaping a joyous harvest in due season, according to the
   promise, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." That which was the
   cause of our principal anxiety, here, shall be the source of our
   endless felicity hereafter!
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Baptism--A Burial

   A Sermon

   (No. 1627)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, October 30th, 1881, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Know ye 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.''Romans 6:3-4.

   I SHALL not enter into controversy over this text, although over it
   some have raised the question of infant baptism or believers' baptism,
   immersion or sprinkling. If any person can give a consistent and
   instructive interpretation of the text, otherwise than by assuming
   believers' immersion to be Christian baptism, I should like to see them
   do it. I myself am quite incapable of performing such a feat, or even
   of imagining how it can be done. I am content to take the view that
   baptism signifies the burial of believers in water in the name of the
   Lord, and I shall so interpret the text. If any think not so, it may at
   least interest them to know what we understand to be the meaning of the
   baptismal rite, and I trust that they may think none the less of the
   spiritual sense because they differ as to the external sign. After all,
   the visible emblem is not the most prominent matter in the text. May
   God the Holy Spirit help us to reach its inner teaching.

   I do not understand Paul to say that if improper persons, such as
   unbelievers, and hypocrites, and deceivers, are baptized they are
   baptized into our Lord's death. He says so many of us,' putting himself
   with the rest of the children of God. He intends such as are entitled
   to baptism, and come to it with their hearts in a right state. Of them
   he says, Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
   Christ were baptized into his death?' He does not even intend to say
   that those who were rightly baptized have all of them entered into the
   fullness of its spiritual meaning; for if they had, there would have
   been no need of the question, Know ye not?' It would seem that some had
   been baptized who did not clearly know the meaning of their own
   baptism. They had faith, and a glimmer of knowledge sufficient to make
   them right recipients of baptism, but they were not well instructed in
   the teaching of baptism; perhaps they saw in it only a washing, but had
   never discerned the burial. I will go further, and say that I question
   if any of us yet know the fullness of the meaning of either of the
   ordinances which Christ has instituted. As yet we are, with regard to
   spiritual things, like children playing on the beach while the ocean
   rolls before us. At best we wade up to our ankles like our little ones
   on the sea shore. A few among us are learning to swim; but then we only
   swim where the bottom is almost within reach. Who among us has yet come
   to lose sight of shore and to swim in the Atlantic of divine love,
   where fathomless truth rolls underneath, and the infinite is all
   around? Oh, may God daily teach us more and more of what we already
   know in part, and may the truth which we have as yet but dimly
   perceived come to us in a brighter and clearer manner, till we see all
   things in clear sunlight. This can only be as our own character becomes
   more clear and pure; for we see according to what we are; and as is the
   eye such is that which it sees. The pure in heart alone can see a pure
   and holy God. We shall be like Jesus when we shall see him as he is,
   and certainly we shall never see him as he is till we are like him. In
   heavenly things we see as much as we have within ourselves. He who has
   eaten Christ's flesh and blood spiritually is the man who can see this
   in the sacred Supper, and he who has been baptized into Christ sees
   Christ in baptism. To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have
   abundantly.

   Baptism sets forth the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and
   our participation therein. Its teaching is twofold. First, think of our
   representative union with Christ, so that when he died and was buried
   it was on our behalf, and we were thus buried with him. This will give
   you the teaching of baptism so far as it sets forth a creed. We declare
   in baptism that we believe in the death of Jesus, and desire to partake
   in all the merit of it. But there is a second equally important matter
   and that is our realized union with Christ which is set forth in
   baptism, not so much as a doctrine of our creed as a matter of our
   experience. There is a manner of dying, of being buried, of rising, and
   of living in Christ which must be displayed in each one of us if we are
   indeed members of the body of Christ.

   I. First, then, I want you to think of OUR REPRESENTATIVE UNION WITH
   CHRIST as it is set forth in baptism as a truth to be believed. Our
   Lord Jesus is the substitute for his people, and when he died it was on
   their behalf and in their stead. The great doctrine of our
   justification lies in this, that Christ took our sins, stood in our
   place, and as our surety suffered, and bled, and died, thus presenting
   on our behalf a sacrifice for sin. We are to regard him, not as a
   private person, but as our representative. We are buried with him in
   baptism unto death to show that we accept him as being for us dead and
   buried.

   Baptism as a burial with Christ signifies, first, acceptance of the
   death and burial of Christ as being for us. Let us do that at this very
   moment with all our hearts. What other hope have we? When our divine
   Lord came down from the heights of glory and took upon himself our
   manhood, he became one with you and with me; and being found in fashion
   as a man, it pleased the Father to lay sin upon him, even your sins and
   mine. Do you not accept that truth, and agree that the Lord Jesus
   should be the bearer of your guilt, and stand for you in the sight of
   God? Amen! Amen!' say all of you. He went up to the tree loaded with
   all this guilt, and there he suffered in our room and stead as we ought
   to have suffered. It pleased the Father, instead of bruising us, to
   bruise him. He put him to grief, making his soul an offering for sin.
   Do we not gladly accept Jesus as our substitute? O beloved, whether you
   have been baptized in water or not, I put this question to you, Do you
   accept the Lord Jesus as your surety and substitute?' For if you do
   not, you shall bear your own guilt and carry your own sorrow, and stand
   in your own place beneath the glance of the angry justice of God. Many
   of us at this moment are saying in our inmost hearts'

   My soul looks back to see

   The burdens thou didst bear,

   When hanging on the cursed tree,

   And hopes her guilt was there.'

   Now, by being buried with Christ in baptism, we set our seal to the
   fact that the death of Christ was on our behalf, and that we were in
   him, and died in him, and, in token of our belief, we consent to the
   watery grave, and yield ourselves to be buried according to his
   command. This is a matter of fundamental faith'Christ dead and buried
   for us; in other words, substitution, suretyship, vicarious sacrifice.
   His death is the hinge of our confidence: we are not baptized into his
   example, or his life, but into his death. We hereby confess that all
   our salvation lies in the death of Jesus, which death we accept as
   having been incurred on our account.

   But this is not all; because if I am to be buried, it should not be so
   much because I accept the substitutionary death of another for me as
   because I am dead myself. Baptism is an acknowledgment of our own death
   in Christ. Why should a living man be buried? Why should he even be
   buried because another died on his behalf? My burial with Christ means
   not only that he died for me, but that I died in him, so that my death
   with him needs a burial with him. Jesus died for us because he is one
   with us. The Lord Jesus Christ did not take his people's sins by an
   arbitrary choice of God; but it was most natural and fit and proper
   that he should take his people's sins, since they are his people, and
   he is their federal head. It behooved Christ to suffer for this
   reason'that he was the covenant representative of his people. He is the
   Head of the body, the Church; and if the members sinned, it was meet
   that the Head, though the Head had not sinned, should bear the
   consequence of the acts of the body. As there is a natural relationship
   between Adam and those that are in Adam, so is there between the second
   Adam and those that are in him. I accept what the first Adam did as my
   sin. Some of you may quarrel with it, and with the whole covenant
   dispensation, if you please; but as God has pleased to set it up, and I
   feel the effect of it, I see no use in my controverting it. As I accept
   the sin of father Adam, and feel that I sinned in him, even so with
   intense delight I accept the death and atoning sacrifice of my second
   Adam , and rejoice that in him I have died and risen again. I lived, I
   died, I kept the law, I satisfied justice in my covenant Head. Let me
   be buried in baptism that I may show to all around that I believe I was
   one with my Lord in his death and burial for sin.

   Look at this, O child of God, and do not be afraid of it. These are
   Grand truths, but they are sure and comforting. You are getting among
   Atlantic billows now, but be not afraid. Realize the sanctifying effect
   of this truth. Suppose that a man had been condemned to die on account
   of a great crime; suppose, further, that he has actually died for that
   crime, and now, by some wonderful work of God, after having died he has
   been made to live again. He comes among men again as alive from the
   dead, and what ought to be the state of his mind with regard to his
   offence? Will he commit that crime again? A crime for which he has
   died? I say emphatically, God forbid. Rather should he say, I have
   tasted the bitterness of this sin, and I am miraculously lifted up out
   of the death which it brought upon me, and made to live again: now will
   I hate the thing that slew me, and abhor it with all my soul.' He who
   has received the wages of sin should learn to avoid it for the future.
   But you reply, We never did die so; we were never made to suffer the
   due reward of our sins.' Granted. But that which Christ did for you
   comes to the same thing, and the Lord looks upon it as the same thing.
   You are so one with Jesus, that you must regard his death as your
   death, his sufferings as the chastisement of your peace. You have died
   in the death of Jesus, and now by strange, mysterious grace you are
   brought up again from the pit of corruption unto newness of life. Can
   you, will you, go into sin again? You have seen what God thinks of sin:
   you perceive that he utterly loathes it; for when it was laid on his
   dear Son, he did not spare him, but put him to grief and smote him to
   death. Can you, after that, turn back to the accursed thing which God
   hates? Surely, the effect of the great grief of the Saviour upon your
   spirit must be sanctifying. How shall we who are dead to sin live any
   longer therein? How shall we that have passed under its curse, and
   endured its awful penalty, tolerate its power? Shall we go back to this
   murderous, villainous, virulent, abominable evil? It cannot be. Grace
   forbids.

   This doctrine is not the conclusion of the whole matter. The text
   describes us as buried with a view to rising. Therefore we are buried
   with him by baptism unto death,''for what object?''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.' Be buried in Christ! What for? That
   you may be dead for ever? No, but that now getting where Christ is, you
   may go where Christ goes. Behold him, then: he goes, first, into the
   sepulchre, but next out of the sepulchre; for when the third morning
   came he rose. If you are one with Christ at all, you must be one with
   him all through; you must be one with him in his death, and one with
   him in his burial, then you shall come to be one with him in his
   resurrection. Am I a dead man now? No, blessed be his name, it is
   written, Because I live ye shall live also.' True, I am dead in one
   sense, For ye are dead'; but yet not dead in another, For your life is
   hid with Christ in God'; and how is he absolutely dead who has a hidden
   life? No; since I am one with Christ I am what Christ is: as he is a
   living Christ, I am a living spirit. What a glorious thing it is to
   have arisen from the dead, because Christ has given us life. Our old
   legal life has been taken from us by the sentence of the law, and the
   law views us as dead; but now we have received a new life, a life out
   of death, resurrection-life in Christ Jesus. The life of the Christian
   is the life of Christ. Ours is not the life of the first creation, but
   of the new creation from among the dead. Now we live in newness of
   life, quickened unto holiness, and righteousness, and joy by the Spirit
   of God. The life of the flesh is a hindrance to us; our energy is in
   his Spirit. In the highest and best sense our life is spiritual and
   heavenly. This also is doctrine which is to be held most firmly.

   I want you to see the force of this; for I am aiming at practical
   results this morning. If God has given to you and to me an entirely new
   life in Christ, how can that new life spend itself after the fashion of
   the old life? Shall the spiritual live as the carnal? How can you that
   were the servants of sin, but have been made free by precious blood, go
   back to your old slavery? When you were in the old Adam life, you lived
   in sin, and loved it; but now you have been dead and buried, and have
   come forth into newness of life: can it be that you can go back to the
   beggarly elements from which the Lord has brought you out? If you live
   in sin, you will be false to your profession, for you profess to be
   alive unto God? If you walk in lust, you will tread under foot the
   blessed doctrines of the Word of God, for these lead to holiness and
   purity. You would make Christianity to be a by-word and a proverb, if,
   after all, you who were quickened from your spiritual death should
   exhibit a conduct no better than the life of ordinary men, and little
   superior to what your former life used to be. As many of you as have
   been baptized have said to the world,'We are dead to the world, and we
   have come forth into a new life. Our fleshly desires are henceforth to
   be viewed as dead, for now we live after a fresh order of things. The
   Holy Spirit has wrought in us a new nature, and though we are in the
   world, we are not of it, but are new-made men, created anew in Christ
   Jesus.' This is the doctrine which we avow to all mankind, that Christ
   died and rose again, and that his people died and rose again in him.
   Out of the doctrine grows death unto sin and life unto God, and we wish
   by every action and every movement of our lives to teach it to all who
   see us.

   So far the doctrine: is it not a precious one indeed? Oh, if you be
   indeed one with Christ, shall the world find you polluting yourselves?
   Shall the members of a generous, gracious Head be covetous and
   grasping? Shall the members of a glorious, pure, and perfect Head be
   defiled with the lusts of the flesh and the follies of a vain life? If
   believers are indeed so identified with Christ that they are his
   fullness, should they not be holiness itself? If we live by virtue of
   our union with his body, how can we live as other Gentiles do? How is
   it that so many professors exhibit a mere worldly life, living for
   business and for pleasure, but not for God, in God, or with God? They
   sprinkle a little religion on a worldly life, and so hope to
   Christianize it. But it will not do. I am bound to live as Christ would
   have lived under my circumstances; in my private chamber or in my
   public pulpit, I am bound to be what Christ would have been in like
   case. I am bound to prove to men that union to Christ is no fiction, or
   fanatical sentiment: but that we are swayed by the same principles and
   actuated by the same motives.

   Baptism is thus an embodied creed, and you may read it in these words:
   Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through
   the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.'

   II. But , secondly, A REALIZED UNION WITH CHRIST is also set forth in
   baptism, and this is rather a matter of experience than of doctrine.

   1. First, there is, as a matter of actual experience in the true
   believer, death. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into
   Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?' It must be contrary to all
   law to bury those who are yet alive. Until they are dead, men can have
   no right to be buried. Very well, then, the Christian is dead,'dead,
   first, to the dominion of sin. Whenever sin called him aforetime he
   answered, Here am I, for thou didst call me.' Sin ruled his members,
   and if sin said, Do this,' he did it, like the soldiers obedient to
   their centurion; for sin ruled over all the parts of his nature, and
   exercised over him a supreme tyranny. Grace has changed all this. When
   we are converted we become dead to the dominion of sin. If sin calls us
   now, we refuse to come, for we are dead. If sin commands us we will not
   obey, for we are dead to its authority. Sin comes to us now'oh, that it
   did not,'and it finds in us the old corruption which is crucified, but
   not yet dead; but it has no dominion over our true life. Blessed be
   God, sin cannot reign over us, though it may assail us and work us
   harm. Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law,
   but under grace.' We sin, but not with allowance. With what grief we
   look back upon our transgressions! How earnestly do we endeavour to
   avoid them! Sin tries to maintain its usurped power over us; but we do
   not acknowledge it as our sovereign. Evil enters us now as an
   interloper and a stranger, and works sad havoc, but it does not abide
   in us upon the throne; it is an alien, and despised, and no more
   honoured and delighted in. We are dead to the reigning power of sin.

   The believer, if spiritually buried with Christ, is dead to the desire
   of any such power. What!' say you, do not godly men have sinful
   desires?' Alas, they do. The old nature that is in them lusteth towards
   sin; but the true man, the real ego, desires to be purged of every
   speck or trace of evil. The law in the members would fain urge to sin,
   but the life in the heart constrains to holiness. I can honestly say,
   for my own self, that the deepest desire of my soul is to live a
   perfect life. If I could have my own best desire, I would never sin
   again; and though, alas, I do consent to sin so that I become
   responsible when I transgress, yet my innermost self loathes iniquity.
   Sin is my bondage, not my pleasure; my misery, not my delight; at the
   thought of it I cry out, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver
   me?' In our heart of hearts our spirit cleaves steadfastly to that
   which is good, and true, and heavenly, so that the real man delights in
   the law of God, and follows hard after goodness. The main current and
   true bent of our soul's wish and will is not towards sin, and the
   apostle taught us no mere fancy when he said, For he that is dead is
   freed from sin.'

   Moreover, in the next place we are dead as to the pursuits and aims of
   the sinning and ungodly life. Brethren, are any of you that profess to
   be God's servants living for yourselves? Then you are not God's
   servants; for he that is really born again lives unto God: the object
   of his life is the glory of God and the good of his fellow-men. This is
   the prize that is set before the quickened man, and towards this he
   runs. I do not run that way,' says one. Very well, then you will not
   come to the desired end. If you are running after the pleasures of the
   world or the riches of it, you may win the prize you run for, but you
   cannot win the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.' I hope that
   many of us can honestly say that we are now dead to every object in
   life, except the glory of God in Christ Jesus. We are in the world, and
   have to live as other men do, carrying on our ordinary business; but
   all this is subordinate, and held in as with bit and bridle; our aims
   are above yon changeful moon. The flight of our soul, like that of an
   eagle, is above these clouds: though that bird of the sun alights upon
   the rock, or even descends to the plain, yet its joy is to dwell above,
   out soaring the lightning, rising over the black head of the tempest,
   and looking down upon all earthly things. Henceforth our grace-given
   life speeds onward and upward; we are not of the world, and the world's
   engagements are not those upon which we spend our noblest powers.

   Again, we are dead in this sense, that we are dead to the guidance of
   sin. The lust of the flesh drives a man this way and that way. He
   steers his course by the question, What is most pleasant? What will
   give me most present gratification?' The way of the ungodly is mapped
   out by the hand of selfish desire: but you that are true Christians
   have another guide, you are led by the Spirit in a right way. You ask,
   What is good and what is acceptable in the sight of the Most High?'
   Your daily prayer is, Lord, show me what thou wouldest have me to do?'
   You are alive to the teachings of the Spirit, who will lead you into
   all truth; but you are deaf, yea, dead to the dogmas of carnal wisdom,
   the oppositions of philosophy, the errors of proud human wisdom. Blind
   guides who fall with their victims into the ditch are shunned by you,
   for you have chosen the way of the Lord. What a blessed state of heart
   this is! I trust, my brethren, that we have fully realized it! We know
   the Shepherd's voice, and a stranger we will not follow. One is our
   teacher, and we submit our understandings to his infallible
   instruction.

   Our text must have had a very forcible meaning among the Romans in
   Paul's time, for they were sunk in all manner of odious vices. Take an
   average Roman of that period, and you would have found in him a man
   accustomed to spend a large part of his time in the amphitheater,
   hardened by the brutal sight of bloody shows, in which gladiators slew
   each other to amuse a holiday crowd. Taught in such a school, the Roman
   was cruel to the last degree, and withal ferocious in the indulgence of
   his passions. A depraved man was not regarded as being at all degraded;
   not only nobles and emperors were monsters of vice, but the public
   teachers were impure. When those who were regarded as moral were
   corrupt, you may imagine what the immoral were. Enjoy yourself; follow
   after the pleasures of the flesh,' was the rule of the age.
   Christianity was the introduction of a new element. See here a Roman
   converted by the grace of God! What a change is in him! His neighbours
   say, You were not at the amphitheater this morning. How could you miss
   the sight of the hundred Germans who tore out each other's bowels?'
   No,' he says, I was not there; I could not bear to be there. I am
   totally dead to it. If you were to force me to be there, I must shut my
   eyes, for I could not look on murder committed in sport!' The Christian
   did not resort to places of licentiousness; he was as good as dead to
   such filthiness. The fashions and customs of the age were such that
   Christians could not consent to them, and so they became dead to
   society. It was not merely that Christians did not go into open sin,
   but they spoke of it with horror, and their lives rebuked it. Things
   which the multitude counted a joy, and talked of exultingly, gave no
   comfort to the follower of Jesus, for he was dead to such evils. This
   is our solemn avowal when we come forward to be baptized. We say by
   acts which are louder than words that we are dead to those things in
   which sinners take delight, and we wish to be so accounted.

   2. The next thought in baptism is burial. Death comes first, and burial
   follows. Now, what is burial, brethren? Burial is, first of all, the
   seal of death; it is the certificate of decease. Is such a man dead?'
   say you. Another answers, Why, dear sir, he was buried a year ago.'
   There have been instances of persons being buried alive, and I am
   afraid that the thing happens with sad frequency in baptism, but it is
   unnatural, and by no means the rule. I fear that many have been buried
   alive in baptism, and have therefore risen and walked out of the grave
   just as they were. But if burial is true, it is a certificate of death.
   If I am able to say in very truth, I was buried with Christ thirty
   years ago,' I must surely be dead. Certainly the world thought so, for
   not long after my burial with Jesus I began to preach his name, and by
   that time the world thought me very far gone, and said, He stinketh.'
   They began to say all manner of evil against the preacher; but the more
   I stank in their nostrils the better I liked it, for the surer I was
   that I was really dead to the world. It is good for a Christian to be
   offensive to wicked men. See how our Master stank in the esteem of the
   godless when they cried, Away with him, away with him!' Though no
   corruption could come near his blessed body, yet his perfect character
   was not savoured by that perverse generation. There must, then, be in
   us death to the world, and some of the effects of death, or our baptism
   is void. As burial is the certificate of death, so is burial with
   Christ the seal of our mortification to the world.

   But burial is, next, the displaying of death. While the man is indoors
   the passers-by do not know that he is dead; but when the funeral takes
   place, and he is carried through the streets, everybody knows that he
   is dead. This is what baptism ought to be. The believer's death to sin
   is at first a secret, but by an open confession he bids all men know
   that he is dead with Christ. Baptism is the funeral rite by which death
   to sin is openly set forth before all men.

   Next, burial is the separateness of death. The dead man no longer
   remains in the house, but is placed apart as one who ceases to be
   numbered with the living. A corpse is not welcome company. Even the
   most beloved object after a while cannot be tolerated when death has
   done his work upon it. Even Abraham, who had been so long united with
   his beloved Sarah, is heard to say, Bury my dead out of my sight.' Such
   is the believer when his death to the world is fully known: he is poor
   company for worldlings, and they shun him as a damper upon their
   revelry. The true saint is put into the separated class with Christ,
   according to his word, If they have persecuted me, they will also
   persecute you.' The saint is put away in the same grave as his Lord;
   for as he was, so are we also in this world. He is shut up by the world
   in the one cemetery of the faithful, if I may so call it, where all
   that are in Christ are dead to the world together, with this epitaph
   for them all, And ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
   God.'

   And the grave is the place'I do not know where to get a word'of the
   settledness of death; for when a man is dead and buried you never
   expect to see him come home again: so far as this world is concerned,
   death and burial are irrevocable. They tell me that spirits walk the
   earth, and we have all read in the newspaper The Truth about Ghosts,'
   but I have my doubts on the subject. In spiritual things, however, I am
   afraid that some are not so buried with Christ but what they walk a
   great deal among the tombs. I am grieved at heart that it should be so.
   The man in Christ cannot walk as a ghost, because he is alive somewhere
   else; he has received a new being, and therefore he cannot mutter and
   peep among the dead hypocrites around him. See what our chapter saith
   about our Lord: Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death
   hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin
   once: but in that he liveth , he liveth unto God.' If we have been once
   raised from dead works we shall never go back to them again. I may sin,
   but sin can never have dominion over me; I may be a transgressor and
   wander much from my God, but never can I go back to the old death
   again. When my Lord's grace got hold of me, and buried me, he wrought
   in my soul the conviction that henceforth and for ever I was to the
   world a dead man. I am right glad that I made no compromise, but came
   right out. I have drawn the sword, and thrown away the scabbard. Tell
   the world they need not try to fetch us back, for we are spoiled for
   them as much as if we were dead. All they could have would be our
   carcasses. Tell the world not to tempt us any longer, for our hearts
   are changed. Sin may charm the old man who hangs there upon the cross,
   and he may turn his leering eye that way, but he cannot follow up his
   glance, for he cannot get down from the cross: the Lord has taken care
   to use the mallet well, and he has fastened his hands and feet right
   firmly, so that the crucified flesh must still remain in the place of
   doom and death. Yet the true, the genuine life within us cannot die,
   for it is born of God; neither can it abide in the tombs, for its call
   is to purity and joy and liberty; and to that call it yields itself.

   3. We have come as far as death and burial; but baptism, according to
   the text, represents also resurrection: 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.' Now, notice that the man who is dead in
   Christ, and buried in Christ, is also raised in Christ, and this is a
   special work upon him. All the dead are not raised, but our Lord
   himself is the firstfruits of them that slept.' He is the
   first-begotten from among the dead. Resurrection was a special work
   upon the body of Christ by which he was raised up, and that work, begun
   upon the Head, will continue till all the members partake of it, for'

   Though our inbred sins require

   Our flesh to see the dust;

   Yet as the Lord our Saviour rose,

   So all his followers must.'

   As to our soul and spirit, the resurrection has begun upon us. It has
   not come to our bodies yet, but it will be given to them at the
   appointed day. For the present a special work has been wrought upon us
   by which we have been raised up from among the dead. Brethren, if you
   had been dead and buried, and had been lying one night, say, in Woking
   Cemetery, and if a divine voice had called you right up from the grave
   when the silent stars were shining on the open heath'if, I say, you had
   risen right out from the green mound of turf, what a lonely being you
   would have been in the vast cemetery amid the stilly night! How you
   would sit down on the grave and wait for morning! That is very much
   your condition with regard to the present evil world. You were once
   like the rest of the sinners around you, dead in sin, and sleeping in
   the grave of evil custom. The Lord by his power has called you out of
   your grave, and now you are alive in the midst of death. There can be
   no fellowship here for you; for what communion have the living with the
   dead? The man out there in the cemetery just quickened would find none
   among all the dead around him with whom he could converse, and you can
   find no companions in this world. There lies a skull, but it sees not
   from the eyeholes; neither is there speech in its grim mouth. I see a
   mass of bones lying in yon corner: the living one looks at them, but
   they cannot hear or speak. Imagine yourself there. All that you would
   say to the bones would be to ask, Can these dry bones live?' You would
   be a foreigner in that home of corruption, and you would haste to get
   away. That is your condition in the world: God has raised you up from
   among the dead, from out of the company among whom you had your former
   conversation. Now, I pray you, do not go and scratch into the earth, to
   tear up the graves to find a friend there. Who would rend open a coffin
   and cry, Come, you must drink with me! You must go to the theatre with
   me'? No, we dread the idea of association with the dead, and I tremble
   when I see a professor trying to have communion with worldly men. Come
   ye out from among them; be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing.'
   You know what would happen to you if you were thus raised, and were
   forced to sit close to a dead body newly taken from the grave. You
   would cry, I cannot bear it; I cannot endure it'; you would get to the
   wind side of the horrid corpse. So with a man that is really alive unto
   God: deeds of injustice, oppression, or unchastity he cannot endure;
   for life loaths corruption.

   Notice that, as we are raised up by a special work from among the dead,
   that rising is by divine power. Christ is brought again from the dead
   by the glory of the Father.' What means that? Why did it not say, by
   the power of the Father'? Ah, beloved, glory is a grander word; for all
   the attributes of God are displayed in all their solemn pomp in the
   raising of Christ from the dead. There was the Lord's faithfulness; for
   had he not declared that his soul should not rest in hell, neither
   should His Holy One see corruption? Was not the love of the Father seen
   there? I am sure it was a delight to the heart of God to bring back
   life to the body of his dear Son. And so, when you and I are raised out
   of our death in sin, it is not merely God's power, it is not merely
   God's wisdom that is seen, it is the glory of the Father.' Oh, to think
   that every child of God that has been quickened has been quickened by
   the glory of the Father. It has taken not alone the Holy Spirit, and
   the work of Jesus, and the work of the Father, but the very glory of
   the Father.' If the tiniest spark of spiritual life has to be created
   by the glory of the Father,' what will be the glory of that life when
   it comes into its full perfection, and we shall be like Christ, and see
   him as he is! O beloved, value highly the new life which God has given
   you. Think of it as making you richer than if you had a sea of pearls,
   greater than if you were descended from the loftiest of princes. There
   is in you that which it required all the attributes of God to create.
   He could make a world by power alone, but you must be raised from the
   dead by the glory of the Father.'

   Notice next, that this life is entirely new. We are to walk in newness
   of life.' The life of a Christian is an entirely different thing from
   the life of other men, entirely different from his own life before his
   conversion, and when people try to counterfeit it, they cannot
   accomplish the task. A person writes you a letter and wants to make you
   think he is a believer, but within about half-a-dozen sentences there
   occurs a line which betrays the imposter. The hypocrite has very neatly
   copied our expressions, but not quite. There is a freemasonry among us,
   and the outside world watch us a bit, and by-and-by they pick up
   certain of our signs; but there is a private sign which they can never
   imitate, and therefore at a certain point they break down. A godless
   man may pray as much as a Christian, read as much of the Bible as a
   Christian, and even go beyond us in externals; but there is a secret
   which he knows not and cannot counterfeit. The life divine is so
   totally new that the unconverted have no copy to work by. In every
   Christian it is as new as if he were the very first Christian. Even
   though in every one it is the image and superscription of Christ, yet
   there is a milled edge or a something about the real silver that these
   counterfeits cannot get a hold of. It is a new, a novel, a fresh, a
   divine thing.

   And, lastly, this life is an active thing. I have often wished that
   Paul had not been so fast when I have been reading him. His style
   travels in seven-leagued boots. He does not write like an ordinary man.
   I beg to tell him that if he had written this text according to proper
   order, it should run, Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
   glory of the Father, even so we also should be raised from the dead.'
   But see; Paul has got over ever so much ground while we are talking: he
   has reached to walking.' The walking includes the living, of which it
   is the sign, and Paul thinks so fast when the Spirit of God is upon him
   that he has passed beyond the cause to the effect. No sooner do we get
   the new life than we become active: we do not sit down and say, I have
   received a new life: how grateful I ought to be. I will quietly enjoy
   myself.' Oh dear, no. We have something to do directly we are alive,
   and we begin walking, and so the Lord keeps us all our lives in his
   work; he does not allow us to sit down contented with the mere fact
   that we live, nor does he allow us to spend all our time in examining
   whether we are alive or no; but he gives us one battle to fight, and
   then another; he gives us his house to build, his farm to till, his
   children to nurse, and his sheep to feed. At times we have fierce
   struggles with our own spirit, and fears lest sin and Satan should
   prevail, till our life is scarce discerned by itself, but it is always
   discerned by its acts. The life that is given to those who were dead
   with Christ is an energetic, forceful life, that is evermore busy for
   Christ, and would, if it could, move heaven and earth and subdue all
   things unto him who is its Head.

   This life Paul tells us is an unending one. Once get it, and it will
   never go from you. Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more.'

   Next, it is a life which is not under the law or under sin. Christ came
   under the law when he was here, and he had our sin laid on him, and
   therefore died; but after he rose again there was no sin laid on him.
   In his resurrection both the sinner and the Surety are free. What had
   Christ to do after his rising? To bear any more sin? No, but just to
   live unto God. That is where you and I are. We have no sin to carry
   now; it was all laid on Christ. What have we to do? Every time we have
   the headache, or feel ill, are we to cry out, This is a punishment for
   my sin'? Nothing of the kind. Our punishment is all done with, for we
   have borne the capital sentence, and are dead: our new life must be
   unto God.

   All that remains for me

   Is but to love and sing,

   And wait until the angels come

   To bear me to the King.'

   I have now to serve him and delight myself in him, and use the power
   which he gives me of calling others from the dead, saying, Awake, thou
   that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
   light.' I am not going back to the grave of spiritual death nor to my
   grave-clothes of sin; but by divine grace I will still believe in
   Jesus, and go from strength to strength, not under law, not fearing
   hell, nor hoping to merit heaven, but as a new creature, loving because
   loved, living for Christ because Christ lives in me, rejoicing in
   glorious hope of that which is yet to be revealed by virtue of my
   oneness in Christ.

   Poor sinner, you do not know anything about this death and burial, and
   you never will till you have power to become sons of God, and that he
   gives to as many as believe on his name. Believe on his name, and it is
   all yours. Amen and Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Romans 6.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''775, 762, 646.
     __________________________________________________________________

Till We Meet Again

   (No. 1628)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." Revelation
   22:21.

   THE first saints could never be long without speaking of their Lord and
   Savior. He filled their hearts and, therefore, they must necessarily
   speak of Him. How ingeniously they bring Him in! When they commence an
   Epistle, the salutation will be sure to bear His name. When they are in
   the midst of a letter, they lay down their pen and offer a prayer. And
   when they begin, again, it is with a benediction in which His name is
   prominent, or with a doxology ascribing glory unto Him, with the Father
   and with the Holy Spirit. John's Book of Revelation is full of Christ.
   Its opening verse rings out the precious name and the closing line,
   which is now before us, repeats the heavenly music! Is not the Lord
   Jesus the sum and substance, the Glory of every vision seen in Patmos?
   May I not say of the Apocalypse, as John said of the New Jerusalem,
   "the Lamb is the light thereof?

   Until He looses the seals and opens the roll, the book of John's
   prophecy is so folded up that no man shall understand it. John could
   not finish his book without mentioning that name which was dearest of
   all names to him. As he puts aside his pen to write no more, he
   concludes with an invocation of blessing upon all the saints in every
   place--and this is the form of it--"The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
   be with you all." Paul is thought to have claimed the use of this
   benediction as his particular token--"in every epistle so I write." I
   am not sure that it is so, for I suspect that the Apostle referred to
   his own large handwriting and to the signature which he put to his
   letters. But still, according to many interpreters, Paul used this
   particular blessing as his private mark--the seal of the authenticity
   of a letter.

   See the end of the Epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians--"The
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Certainly Paul used
   the words often, but, perhaps, when Paul had been taken up, John deemed
   it right to adopt Paul's motto and with it to set, as it were, his
   stamp and seal upon the last book of Revelation. It was a benediction
   which could not be engrossed by any one Apostle, nor, indeed, by all
   the Apostles put together! Paul made it his own, but John had equal
   right to use it. And it is now all the dearer to us because both these
   mighties employed it.

   Brothers and Sisters, the benediction before us is not only Paul's word
   and John's word--and the Bible's last word--but it is now the chosen
   word of all the ministers of Jesus Christ! Is not this the benediction
   with which we dismiss the faithful--"The Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be
   with you all"? So shall it remain until the Lord shall come a second
   time! It is an expression suitable to the most gracious heart, a prayer
   with which the Believer may vent his best wishes and express his most
   devout desires. Over you all at this time, in my own most humble but
   sincere manner, I would pronounce the benediction, "The Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."

   If the Spirit shall help me, I would at this time say, first, let us
   consider this benediction. And then, secondly, let us consider its
   peculiar position, for something can be learned from it.

   I. First, then, let us CONSIDER THIS BENEDICTION. It divides itself
   into three parts, under these heads--What? How? And, to whom?

   1. What? What is this which John desires when he says--"The Grace of
   our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all"? The word is "Charis." I do not
   think any better translation could be given than, "Grace"--it is
   usually translated Grace throughout the New Testament. Those who
   understand the Greek language thoroughly tell us that it has for its
   root, "joy." There is joy at the bottom of Charis, or Grace. It also
   signifies favor, kindliness and especially love. And I might, without
   violating the meaning of the Spirit, read the words thus--"The love of
   our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." But inasmuch as love to
   unworthy creatures such as we are can only display itself in free
   favor--that is, Grace--and we know that the term used is an accurate
   expression, we will let it stand as it is, only putting in a drop or
   two of the sweet honey of the love which lies within it.

   John desires that we may have the free favor of Jesus Christ, the love
   of Jesus Christ, the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ
   Himself is generally mentioned in our benedictions as having Grace and
   the Father as having love-- and our usual benediction begins with the
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. Is that the proper
   order? Should we not rather say, the Father, the Son and the Holy
   Spirit? Brothers and Sisters, the order observed in the benediction is
   that of our experience--the order in which we learn--the order in which
   we receive. We first receive the Grace and free favor which are in
   Christ Jesus--and then, from these we learn the love of the Father--for
   no man comes unto the Father but by Jesus Christ.

   The order is correct to our experience and, in an instructive
   benediction, the Holy Spirit intends this for our learning. The
   Father's love is, as it were, the secret, mysterious germ of
   everything. That same love in Jesus Christ is Grace. His is love in its
   active form, love descending to earth, love wearing human nature, love
   paying the great ransom price, love ascending, love sitting and
   waiting, love pleading, love soon to come with power and Glory! The
   eternal love which, as it were, did lie in the bosom of the Father,
   rises up and comes into activity and is then called the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ. This Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is, therefore,
   the Grace of a Divine Person.

   We wish you, Brethren, as we wish for ourselves, the Grace of God,
   Himself--rich, boundless, unfathomable, immutable, Divine--not
   temporary Grace, such as some speak of, which keeps not its own but
   suffers even the sheep of its own pasture to go astray and perish. No,
   we wish you the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it is written,
   "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the
   end." That Grace most potent of which it is said, "None shall pluck
   them out of My hand!" We wish this Grace to be with you--the Grace
   which loved you before the earth was made--"I have loved you with an
   everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you."
   That is the Grace which will be with you when this poor world shall
   have melted back into the nothingness from which it sprang-- infinite,
   everlasting, unchanging Grace--we wish you may have that!

   May its Divine height, depth, length and breadth be enjoyed by you! May
   you know the loving Grace of Christ which passes knowledge! May you
   grasp the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is no small
   treasure--this Grace of a Divine Person. Yet our Lord Jesus is also
   human, as truly human as He is Divine and, believing in Him, you have
   the Grace of Jesus Christ, the Man, to be with you all. May you feel
   His tenderness, His brotherliness, His Grace. He is your kinsman and He
   graciously favors His own kinsfolk. The Man is next of kin to us and as
   Ruth enjoyed all the love of Boaz, so may you possess all the heart of
   Jesus! May He redeem your inheritance for you and take you to Himself
   to be His own, in blessed union with Himself forever. May the Grace of
   the Man of Nazareth, the Grace of the Son of Mary be with you, as well
   as the Grace of "God over all, blessed forever," to whom be praise!

   The Grace of that wondrous Person who is God and Man in one Person and
   whom we call Lord, is now solemnly invoked upon you. Read the text
   again and pause a while in the middle to enjoy, "The Grace of our
   Lord." Whatever familiarity we have with Him, we call Him Master and
   Lord, and He says, "You do well, for so I am." Let us never forget
   that! The Grace that comes from His majesty, the Grace that comes from
   His headship, the Grace that comes from His divinely human supremacy
   over His Church, which is His body--this is the Grace which we desire
   for you all! Read the next word, "the Grace of our Lord Jesus"--may
   that be with you--that is to say, the Grace of our Savior, for that is
   the meaning of the word, Jesus. All His saving Grace, all that which
   redeems from guilt, from sin, from trouble--all that which saves us
   with an everlasting salvation--may that be yours to the fullest!

   Then comes the other word, "the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
   you." May He, as the Anointed One, visit you. May the Grace of His
   anointing be with you! May the holy anointing which was poured upon the
   Head come down upon you, as the sacred nard dropped from Aaron's beard
   and perfumed all his robes! May you have that anointing from the Holy
   One which shall make you know all things. I am tempted to linger over
   each one of these words, but I may not, for time would forbid. Yet must
   we tarry on that word, "our." "May the Grace of our Lord." Catch at
   that sweet word! It may not, perhaps, be genuine in this case, for it
   is not in the Sinaitic manuscript, but whether it is so in this
   particular instance or not, it is in the Word of God and stands forever
   true. Jesus is our Lord--our Lord Jesus Christ--both yours and ours.
   May the fullness of His Grace be with you and with us.

   2. Our next division is How? "May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
   with you all." What doe this mean? Our first answer is the wish that
   the Grace of our Lord may rest upon you as a matter offact--that He may
   love you truly and intensely! That He may love you, not only as He
   loves the world, but as He loved His own which were in the world. May
   you have His Redemption, not as a general thing, but according to that
   Word of God, "He has redeemed us from among

   men out of every kindred." May you have the special, peculiar love
   which Christ has to those whom His Father gave Him, whose names are on
   His breastplate and for whom He has paid an effectual ransom price that
   they, thereby, might be delivered--may such Grace be with you! As a
   matter of fact, may it rest upon you as the chosen, adopted, called and
   sanctified!

   Next, may you believe that Grace; may you trust that Grace; may it be
   with you because your faith has closed in with it and you are relying
   upon it! You believe that Jesus loves you. You believe in His Grace and
   trust yourself to Him, committing your spirit to the keeping of those
   hands which were pierced and fastened to the Cross for you. May His
   Grace be with you in that sense, so that you realize it! Still further,
   may His Grace be with you as the object of faith, so that your belief
   comes to be full assurance, till you know the love which Christ has
   towards you and no more doubt it than you doubt the love of the dearest
   friend you have on earth. May His love be a present fact and not a
   thing to be questioned. May it be a treasure in which you glory in the
   secret places of your soul, saying, "He loved me and gave Himself for
   me." May His Grace be with you in the sense that you are confidently
   assured of it.

   And may His Grace be with you, next, as to the favors which flow out of
   it. May you enjoy all the blessings which the Grace of Christ can
   yield--the Grace of a peaceful conscience, the Grace of a cleansed
   walk, the Grace of access to God, the Grace of fervent love, the Grace
   of holy expectancy, the Grace of self-denial, the Grace of perfect
   consecration--and the Grace of final perseverance. May the fountain and
   wellhead be with you, so that the sparkling streams may flow at your
   feet. And may Grace be with us, next, so as to produce constant
   communion between us and Christ, His favor flowing into our heart and
   our hearts returning their gratitude. O, to carry on blessed commerce
   with Christ, exchanging weakness for strength, sin for righteousness
   and trust for care! O to give love for love and heart for heart, till
   my best Love loves me and my best love is all His own!

   O, to come to this pass, that our Well-Beloved is with us, and we enjoy
   sweet mutual communion--this is to have the love, or Grace, of Jesus
   with us! May our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Grace, be with us and may He
   work for us all that He can work. May the Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ be with you, Brothers and Sisters, when you desire to pray--then
   may the great High Priest intercede for you! May the Grace of our Lord
   Jesus Christ be with you so that when you are downcast He may say, "Let
   not your heart be troubled." May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
   with you to check you when you are likely to stray aside; to guide you
   when you know not your way; to inspirit you when you are ready to be
   cast down; to confirm you when you have almost slipped.

   May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you when heart and flesh
   are failing you; when the last hour has come and you are about to
   appear before God! God grant you to know, always, all that Christ can
   do in you and for you, and with you and by you. What better benediction
   could John, himself, utter?

   3. But, now, the third part of our discourse comes under the head of
   "to whom." "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Surely
   if we were to take this in the widest possible sense and say--may it be
   with you all--it could not be wrong to wish that all should have the
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ with them. Yet I know some sound
   Brethren are very jealous of anything that looks like a wide
   expression--an expression which would wish good to all. For my own
   part, I do not understand the nature of the orthodoxy which would limit
   benevolent desires. I should like to be more and more heterodox in the
   direction of desiring good to all that come in my way. Would to God
   that the best that could happen to all men did happen to them!

   I would, without the slightest hypocrisy, breathe this desire over all
   mankind, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Still,
   there is no doubt that the context in which it stands and also certain
   versions of it, do confine this benediction to the saints and,
   practically, it must always be confined to them, for the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ is only known and enjoyed by those who have given
   their hearts to Jesus and are living by Him, in Him and to Him. Let us
   wish the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to all the saints, at any rate.
   Some of the saints will hardly acknowledge us, but may the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ be with them!

   They would not let us preach in their pulpits, but may Grace be with
   them. They would not partake of the communion with us, but may Grace be
   with them! They call us sectarians and schismatics, but may "the Grace
   of our Lord Jesus Christ be with them all. Amen!" May it be with every
   one of them, whoever they may be! If they are in Jesus Christ, may the
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with them! If, every now and then,
   you come across a book written by one who is a long way off from
   understanding all the Truth of God--yet He knows Jesus Christ--as you
   read the sweet words that come from his pen concerning the Master, you
   feel your heart knit to him. Your soul feels that it is a pity that the
   writer

   was a High Churchman, but if he loves the Lord Jesus Christ, we forget
   his errors and are delighted with the life of Jesus which we see in
   him!

   If a man knows Christ, he knows the most important of matters and is
   possessed of a secret quite as precious as any in our own keeping--for
   what do we know more than Christ--and what hope have we but in Christ?
   If you love Christ, give me your hand, my Friend, notwithstanding your
   blunders! If Christ is all your trust and all your confidence, I am
   sorry for your eyes that you cannot see a great deal more. I am sorry
   for your head that you cannot think more straight--but your heart is in
   the right place resting on Jesus, reposing on Him--and who am I that I
   should judge you? There is a life in Christ which a thousand errors
   cannot kill! There is a life which is the same in all that have it,
   however diverse they may happen to be upon opinion or outward ceremony.
   There is a life eternal and that life is Christ Jesus! And to all that
   have that life we, with intensity of heart, say, "The Grace of our Lord
   Jesus Christ be with you all."

   I notice Paul says this in one of his Epistles to a Church that
   misbehaved itself dreadfully. It was one of the churches that would not
   have any minister--a Church where they all spoke as they pleased--to
   whom Paul said, "God is not the author of confusion." They were so
   depraved a Church that they allowed an incestuous person to be present
   at the communion, but still, after the Apostle had rebuked them, he
   said, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Even so
   must we say to those who err ignorantly, as the Corinthians did! If we
   differ from Brethren. If we have to rebuke them. If sometimes they also
   rebuke us and show temper over it, yet may this be the finale of it
   all, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all."

   Should we not wish the highest degree of Grace to all who are in the
   body of Christ? Let us not utter this benediction merely because we
   ought to say it, but because we delight to say it! Let us not only wish
   well to the saints because we are bound to wish them well, but because
   our hearts cannot do otherwise.

   II. So now, not to detain you much longer, I ask your earnest attention
   for a few minutes to THE POSITION OF THIS BENEDICTION. First, I draw
   what I have to say from the fact that it is the last word of Scripture.
   I regard it, therefore, as being the Apostle's last and highest wish.
   We are glad to find that while the Old Testament finishes with a
   curse--"Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse"--the New
   Testament concludes with a blessing, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ be with you all," as if to show that the very life and spirit of
   a Christian should be blessing. And this should be, to us, our last and
   highest wish for men--that they may receive and retain the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus

   Christ!

   I wish this blessing to you all, my dear Brothers and Sisters. Whatever
   you may miss, may the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be always with
   you. In whatever points you, or any of us may fail, may we never come
   short of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! What if the preacher
   should preach to others and himself be a castaway? Pray that it be not
   so! What if a deacon or elder should lead the flock of Christ and yet
   the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ should not be with him? He would
   become another Judas or Demas! That would be dreadful. What if you
   should teach the little ones in the school and yet not learn,
   yourselves? It would be a sad thing to have come to the Lord's Supper
   and yet never to have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood--to be
   immersed in water, but never to have known the Baptism of the Holy
   Spirit--nor to have been baptized into Christ with the spiritual
   Baptism!

   What a thing it will be, if, after all our professions, all our labors
   and all our teachings, the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ should not be
   with us! I pray, Brothers and Sisters, whatever other prayer may not be
   granted, that this may be, concerning every member of this Church and
   every member of every Church of Jesus Christ, that at any rate the
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with us! We cannot do with less
   than this and we do not need more than this. If we have Grace from
   Jesus, we shall have Glory with Jesus, but without it we are without
   hope! Standing at the end of the Book of Revelation as this does, I
   next regard its position as indicating what we shall need till the end
   comes--that is, from now till the descent of our Lord in His Second
   Advent. This is the one thing we require, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ be with you all."

   May it be with us daily, hourly! May it be with us, instructing us as
   to our behavior in each generation! May it be with us cleansing us from
   all sin; enabling us to walk in the Light of God as He is in the light!
   May it be with us, strengthening us to carry our daily burdens and to
   bear our witness for His name under the varying circumstances of the
   ages. May it be with us counseling us when the trials of life distract
   us! May it be with us transfiguring us from glory to glory till we
   shall bear the image of Jesus Christ! May it be with us
   all-sufficiently! Has He not said, "My Grace is suffi-

   cient for you"? May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all
   in every way in which you shall require it till He comes! He can
   furnish you with the whole armor of God. He can equip you with all the
   necessities of the pilgrim life.

   For our labor as Gospel fishermen He supplies all the nets that we
   shall require. For our work in His vineyard He gives us every tool. May
   the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us and we shall be swift of
   foot as a young roe and sure of foot as the hart on the mountainside
   that slips not, however slippery the crags may be. Only let Christ be
   with us and we are complete in Him--perfect in Christ Jesus! All the
   equipment that men shall need between earth and Heaven to fight against
   Hell, to trample on the world and to enter into eternal perfection is
   found in Christ! May His Grace be with you all. Amen.

   Placed as this blessing is, at the end of the book, there is but this
   one more thought--this is what we shall wish for when the end comes. We
   shall come to the end of life, as we come to the end of our Bibles. And
   oh, aged Friend, may your failing eyes be cheered with the sight of the
   Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ on the last page of life, as you will
   find it on the last page of your well-thumbed Bible! Perhaps some of
   you may come to the last page of life before you get Divine Grace--I
   pray that there you may find it. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
   with you! Or, suppose we should not die--suppose the Lord should
   suddenly come in His Glory? Oh, then may we have Grace to meet Him!

   I am so glad that a benediction closes the Apocalypse, for, as you
   stand in the book of Revelation, you hear the thunders roll, peal after
   peal! You see the vials poured forth, darkening the air, and sun and
   moon turned into blackness and blood! Earth reels beneath your feet and
   stars fall like fig leaves from the trees! You are full of confusion
   and dismay until you hear this holy whisper, "The Grace of our Lord
   Jesus Christ be with you." Let every star of the firmament fall where
   it will--the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with us! Rock and reel,
   you mountains! Be dissolved, O Earth, and pass away! If the Grace of
   our Lord Jesus Christ is with us, we fear not the end!

   We can serenely look upon the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.
   Let the last august tribunal sit and men summoned to stand before it to
   receive their final doom--we shall, without trembling, advance before
   that Great White Throne and stand there, if the Grace of our Lord Jesus
   Christ is with us--

   "Bold shall I stand in that great day, For who anything to my charge
   shall lay? While through His blood absolved I am From sin's tremendous
   curse and shame." Oh, happy are they, shrouded, sheltered and hidden in
   Christ their Savior, to whom His Grace shall be like the white robes of
   Mount Tabor's transfiguration, for they shall be accepted in the
   Beloved, glorified in the Glory of their Master! These are they to whom
   the text shall be fulfilled--"The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
   with you all."

   Finally, Brothers and Sisters, farewell, and as you go out I would like
   just to take my place at the doorway, to offer my hand of friendship
   and say to each one, "Farewell for a little while. This is my best wish
   for you--The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Will you
   start back and say, "Sir, I know nothing of this Grace"? Then would I
   ask you to stay a moment while I breathe the prayer, "The Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Maybe there is only a tear of penitence
   in your eye, no light of faith is there as yet. May the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus Christ be with you, poor broken-hearted Penitent! Maybe you
   do not know Jesus, yet, and you are only seeking Him. His Grace be with
   you now--may He manifest Himself to you!

   And you, Backslider, do you feel as if you cannot receive a blessing?
   The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be especially with you, to raise you
   up and set you on your feet again, as He did fallen Peter! I would
   like, if I could, to say to the stranger within our gates, tonight, who
   does not often attend the House of God--it is our heart's desire for
   you that you may know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in truth! To
   the boys and girls here, the pastor says, "God bless you." Little Mary,
   or Jane, or John, or Willie, or whatever your name may be, "The Grace
   of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you," for He says, "Suffer the little
   children to come unto Me, and forbid them not."

   As for you, gray-headed Friends, you who will soon be Home, I wish you
   this parting blessing, "The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
   you." Till I see you again, "God bless you." Till the day breaks and
   the shadows flee away, may the Lord Jesus never be absent from you.
   Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Two Good Things

   (No. 1629)

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your
   statutes." Psalm 119:71.

   "It is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord
   God, that I may declare all Your works." Psalm 73:28.

   THERE is an old proverb which says, "When a man is 40 he is either a
   fool or a physician," that is to say, he either does not know anything
   or else be begins to know what is good for him! Some of us who are
   beyond that age think that we know, in some measure, what is good for
   us. We are not inclined to be very positive as to what is good for
   other people, but there are one or two things in reference to ourselves
   of which we say very dogmatically, "They are good for me." We have
   undergone such a sufficient investigation, experiment and personal
   trial that we are not in any fear of being contradicted, or, if we
   should be, we put our foot down and defy the contradiction!

   The two things in my two texts I am certain about and I believe there
   are many here who share my positiveness. The first is that whatever it
   may be for other people, "it is good for me to have been afflicted."
   And the second is that whatever it may be to other people, "it is good
   for me to draw near to God." We assert this, not because we have been
   told so, but because of personal proof!! And we assert it now, not as
   young beginners who are buckling on their harness and who think
   themselves certain, but as those who have gone some distance in the
   pilgrimage of life and know by actual test and matter of fact that it
   is so.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, during our lives we have met with many
   things which we know were not good for us. Some things have been
   manifestly bad. Sin is always poisonous, whatever form it takes. Error
   is always injurious, however insidious may be its shape and however
   poetic may be the terms in which it is expressed. We pray God that we
   may have nothing to do with sin or with error, for these things cannot
   be good--they must be evil. We have also met with certain things which,
   at the time, appeared to us to be good and, under some aspects, might
   have been so. But we are not sure, at the present moment, whether they
   were good or not. We have enjoyed soft hours of ease which, perhaps,
   weakened us, or sunshiny times of high delight which, in a measure,
   turned our brain.

   There have been allotted to us times of learning in which we made great
   acquisitions of knowledge, but "knowledge puffs up" and we fear we were
   puffed up. There have been calms with us when the seabirds sat upon the
   waters and the seas were glassy as a lake, for the winds were hushed.
   But the calm was treacherous and it bred ill savor and unhealthiness
   within our spirit. I am not sure, my Friend, though you thought it a
   fine day when you grew rich--I am not sure that it was a good thing for
   you to be wealthy--for you have not been half as spiritually-minded or
   half as happy as you used to be. Yes, you did enter into a much larger
   sphere, and you thought it a noble thing. You almost rang the bells
   about it. Are you quite sure that it was good for you? Are you as good
   a man in the great sphere as you were in the little one?

   Do you live as near to God, now, with that great business to handle, as
   you did when your hat covered your whole estate and you went to bed at
   night with no fear of robbers, for you had nothing to lose? Much that
   seems good is only good in the seeming. As for the two things before us
   in our texts, we have no question about them! We know that it is good
   for us that we have been afflicted. We know that it is good for us that
   we should draw near to God. We will talk about these undoubted jewels
   and may God grant that our talk may be profitable.

   I. Turning to the 119th Psalm, at the 71st verse, we will talk of that
   good thing first--AFFLICTION HAS BEEN GOOD FOR US. "It is good for me
   that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your statutes." I repeat
   what I said just now--every man must speak for himself--we are not sure
   that affliction is good for everybody. Some persons have been soured by
   affliction. They fell into trouble and they rebelled against God. And
   so the trouble did not work in them any

   permanent good; it rather developed their combative tendencies and they
   have ever since remained with their hands against other men--compelling
   others to lift their hands against them.

   I have known individuals in a family who seemed to have a spite against
   everyone they saw simply because they were disappointed in early life,
   or had made a venture and sustained a loss. They grew sour, they keep
   sour and they grow more sour every day till one wonders what strength
   of vinegar will yet flow through their veins! It is not good for some
   people to have been afflicted at all and yet it is not the fault of the
   affliction--it is the fault of the persons afflicted. It might have
   produced in them a splendid character if all had been right to begin
   with! But, inasmuch as all was wrong, that very process which should
   have ripened them into sweetness has hastened them to rottenness. That
   same thing which, in gracious souls, has brought forth everything that
   is pure and lovely, has, in others, produced everything that is
   malicious and envious. I hope, however, that I may say of many here
   present, or that they can say of themselves, "It is good for me that I
   have been afflicted."

   The enquiry is--How has it been good? First, it has been good in
   connection with many other good things. It has acted as a counteractive
   with reference to the great blessings which God has bestowed upon us in
   other ways. We are so constituted that we cannot bear very much
   prosperity. Some men might have been rich, but God knew they could not
   bear it and so He has never suffered them to be tempted above what they
   are able to bear. Others might have been famous, but they would have
   been ruined by pride and so the Lord, in tender mercy, has withheld
   from them an opportunity of distinguishing themselves, denying them
   this apparent advantage for their real good. Where God favors any man
   with prosperity He will send a corresponding amount of affliction to go
   with it and deprive it of its injurious tendencies.

   I have seen men walking upon the high places of the earth till their
   brain turned and they fell--and there was woe in the Church of God. I
   have seen others whom God has placed on a lofty pinnacle but, at the
   same time, He has almost crushed them between the upper and the nether
   millstone of sharp spiritual trouble, or domestic suffering, or
   physical pain. Many have asked, "Why is this?" and the reason has been
   that their suffering was an offset to their success. God's servant
   would have slipped with his feet if it had not been for the secret
   chastening that he endured. I put it to some of you whom God has
   greatly favored. You have looked upon your prosperity as a gift, but
   you have wondered why you should be tried at the same time--it was
   because you could not have borne the favor if you had not received the
   chastening! You were glad of the sail and glad of the wind that filled
   it, but you could not understand why the ballast was put into your
   hold--you thought it hindered your progress.

   My Friend, you would have been blown out of the water if it had not
   been for the ballast which kept you where you ought to be. I, for my
   part, owe more, I think, to the anvil and to the hammer, to the fire
   and to the file, than to anything else. I bless the Lord for the
   correctives of His Providence by which, if He has blessed me on the one
   hand with sweets, He has blessed me on the other hand with bitters. To
   me He has measured out a double blessing--the lamb and the bitter herbs
   to eat with it, seldom the one without the other. Thus, "It is good for
   me to have been afflicted"--good as a corrective for other goods!

   It is good, dear Friends, to have been afflicted as a cure for evils
   existent within our nature. David says, "Before I was afflicted I went
   astray; but now I have kept Your Word." That is the case with many of
   God's servants. They were prone to one peculiar temptation and though
   they may not have seen it, the chastening hand of God was aimed at that
   special weakness of their character. We sometimes talk about phrenology
   and the bumps on one's head. You may make a great many mistakes over
   that matter, but God knows your tendencies and faculties. He knows the
   characteristics of His children accurately--far more accurately than
   any science can ever tell them--and He deals with extraordinary wisdom
   and prudence towards each one of His family.

   I suppose that when the biographies of the saints are all read by the
   light of eternity, we, even we, shall be able to see why the painful
   career of certain Christians could not have been other than it was if
   they were to get to Heaven at the last. We shall see why that unusual
   trial was sent and sent when they seemed least able to bear it. We
   shall discover that God interposed the screen of trial against the
   unseen fiery dart which only His eternal eyes saw--and laid the weight
   just where Satan was about to put the hand to overthrow--that very
   weight adding power to stand to the man who, in the lightness of his
   heart, had otherwise been tripped up. It is all well, Brothers and
   Sisters! It is all well!

   The surgery which is cutting so deep--the knife which is cutting to the
   very quick--is only reaching to the point where the mischief lies. That
   mischief must come out, root and branch. There is a cancer of evil
   tendency within us and

   not a rootlet of it must be left, for, if the least fiber of it is
   suffered to remain through tenderness, it will be an unkind tenderness,
   for the cancer will grow again and fill the heart with its malevolence.
   Therefore does the Lord, out of love, cut deep--sharp and cruel are His
   wounds. Most cruel do they seem when they are in greatest tenderness of
   Divine Grace.

   We do not yet know all the mischief that is in us. I could undertake,
   in five minutes, to make any perfect man prove to himself that he was
   not perfect. Only let me set certain persons upon him, to tease him,
   and we shall soon see his irritation. Let the devil loose on a man who
   is hard by the threshold of Heaven and you will soon find that
   corruption dwells even in the hearts of the regenerate! The Lord would
   have us aware of this and, therefore, He often sends trial to reveal
   the hidden evil. We are often like a glass of water which has been
   standing still for hours and looks very clear and bright--but there is
   a sediment--and a little stir soon discovers it and clouds the crystal!

   That sediment is the old nature. Trial comes and awakens into activity
   that which had been lying still and we say, "Dear me, I had no idea
   that such evil was in my heart." Of course you hadn't! You who live so
   comfortably at home among Christian friends do not know how sinful you
   are! You hear of people out in the world doing this and that and you
   say, "What naughty folks they are." They are no worse than you would be
   if you were put into the same position-- only you are at ease and they
   are sorely tempted. Dogs sleep when no one enters the house, but a
   knock at the door will set them barking. The Lord does not wish us to
   boast of sham holiness and, therefore, He sends us trials that we may
   see the mischief which lurks in our hearts--and that we may be driven
   to the Holy Spirit for power to conquer our sin and to the cleansing
   blood of Jesus Christ for the real taking away of guilt.

   He who has struggled with his inward sins must know that he has been
   helped both to discover and to overcome many of them by his
   afflictions. And so in this sense it is good that he has been
   afflicted. "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod
   of correction shall drive it far from him." If this is so, we may not
   only bear the rod, but even kiss it! Affliction is also useful to God's
   people as an actual producer of good things in them. Some virtues
   cannot be produced in us--at least I do not see how they can be, apart
   from affliction. One of them is patience. If a man has no trial, how is
   he to be patient? We all think ourselves patient when we have nothing
   to bear. We can all stand on the mountain tops before we have tried
   those dizzy heights! We are all brave when the war is over, though
   things look rather different when bullets whistle about our ears!

   When we are thrown into the sea, our swimming abilities are not quite
   so extraordinary as we thought they were. We have great notions of what
   we can do, but trial is the test. Patience, I think, can scarcely be
   said to be in a man unless he has endured tribulation, "for tribulation
   works patience." A veteran warrior is the child of battles and a
   patient Christian is the offspring of adversity! There is a very sweet
   Grace called sympathy, which is seldom found in persons who have had no
   trouble. We are told that our dear Lord and Master, Himself, learned
   sympathy by being tempted in all points like as we are. He had to feel
   our infirmities, or else He could not have been touched with a fellow
   feeling towards us. It is surely so with us. I have stayed, sometimes,
   with an admirable Brother who never had, he told me, an ache or a pain
   since he was born that he remembered.

   He is a man of 50 and in splendid health. Well, he tries to sympathize
   with people and he does it to the utmost of his power, but it makes you
   smile. It is like an elephant picking up a pill! It is a wonderful feat
   for him to do. He does not understand it. You know, yourself, how hard
   it is to get sympathy out of those who have never endured a trial
   similar to your own. Someone goes to see a widow and talks to her about
   her grief. And she says to herself all the time, "What does he know
   about it? He has never lost the partner of his life." A bachelor speaks
   to a dear soul who has just buried her little child. Unless he is a
   very wise man, he is apt to say something about children which will
   irritate, rather than console the bereaved mother. You may try your
   best, but you have not much of the faculty of sympathy unless you have
   been in the trial. It is by passing through the fire that we know how
   to deal with people who are in the furnace!

   So we may thank God that we have been afflicted, if we are ministers,
   or if we are teachers of others. We have sometimes to suffer, not for
   our own sake, but for the sake of others, that we may be enabled to
   speak a word in season to him that is weary and say to such, "I know
   your road. I have been that way before. I know the darkness and
   weariness of the way." Pilgrims who are enduring the ills of the
   wilderness take heart when they see a fellow traveler to whom all these
   are common things.

   Again, it is good for me to have been afflicted because affliction is a
   wonderful quickener. We are very apt to go to sleep, but affliction
   often wakes us up. A coachman driving a pair of horses was noticed by
   one who sat upon the box seat

   to give a cut of the whip to the off horse. The animal was going on
   quite regularly and properly and it seemed a needless cruelty to whip
   it. Another journey and he was observed to do just the same at just
   that place and the question was put, "I always notice that you give
   that horse a cut of the whip just here--why is it?" "Well, Sir, he has
   a nasty habit of shying just at this spot," said the driver, and I take
   his attention off by making him think of the whip for a moment." There
   is something in that, Brothers and Sisters! Every now and then you and
   I are apt to stray--but an affliction takes our attention away from the
   temptation.

   There is also another danger in a life of ease--we are far too apt to
   go to sleep. Like horses, we are apt to get into the way of going on at
   a regular trot till we move mechanically and pursue our way half
   asleep. I do not know whether we are all awake even now! Many ministers
   preach asleep. I am sure they do! Many deacons do all the Church
   business asleep and numbers of people come to the Prayer Meetings and
   pray in their sleep! I do not mean physical sleep, but I mean spiritual
   sleep, which is quite as serious a matter. The whole of some men's
   religion is a kind of sleep-walking! There is not that vigor in it;
   there is not that heart in it; there is not that earnestness in it that
   there ought to be. They need to be waked up by something startling.

   Our trials and afflictions are intended to do this. They come like a
   clap of thunder and startle us till we ask, "Where am I? What am I
   doing?" And we begin to question ourselves, "Am I really what I profess
   to be?" Death stares us in the face. We are put into the balance and
   weighed and tried. We try our hopes and professions and are less likely
   to be self-deceived. Realities become realities and fancies become
   fancies when sharp trials befall us. The things of this world become
   dreams to us when keen affliction comes. And so it is of special
   benefit to us because, under the Spirit of God, it is awakening and
   arousing.

   Again, according to our text, it is good for us to have been afflicted
   by way of instruction. "It is good for me to have been afflicted; that
   I might learn Your statutes." Trial is our school where God teaches us
   on the blackboard. This school house has no windows to let in the
   cheerful light. It is very dark and so we cannot look out and get
   distracted by external objectives--but God's Grace shines like a candle
   within and by that Light we see what we had never seen before! I stand
   on the level of my fellow men in the daylight and I cannot see the
   stars--the glare of day hides them--but if I am made to go down the
   deep well of affliction--I look up, and there are the stars visible
   above my head! I see what others cannot see!

   I get the Bible and its promises seem written as men sometimes write
   with the juice of lemon, in invisible characters. I hold the book
   before the fire of affliction and the writing comes out clearly--and I
   see in the Bible what I never would have seen if it had not been for
   fiery trials! The Word of promise must be precious, for God gave it!
   But I get into trial, myself, and there I test it--and of its
   preciousness I become personally assured. We learn, I hope, something
   in the bright fields of joy, but I am more and more persuaded that we
   do not learn a 10th as much, there, as we do in the Valley of
   Death-Shade!

   There the world loses its charms and we are obliged to look to God.
   There illusions and delusions pass away and we are compelled to rest on
   the eternal Rock. There we learn the Truth of God in such a way that we
   never forget or doubt it. I would to God that some young preachers were
   plagued all the day long and chastened every morning that they might
   become sound in the faith! I could wish that some of God's people were
   plunged into a sea of tribulation that they might get rid of the modern
   nonsense which delights them, now, and come back to the old,
   substantial doctrines of the Puritans which are the only things worth
   having when we come to suffer or to die!

   Yes, it is good for me to have been afflicted! Is it not good for you
   too, dear Friends, in the way of holy education, teaching you God's
   Word and the value and the preciousness of it?

   II. I cannot, however, speak any longer upon the virtues of affliction,
   for I need two or three minutes to dwell upon the Truth of God that,
   DRAWING NEAR TO GOD HAS BEEN GOOD FOR US. Turn to the 73rd Psalm at the
   last verse--"It is good for me to draw near to God." Here, again, we
   speak with great certainty. Come, Brothers and Sisters, is it not good
   for you to draw near to God? But what does this drawing near to God
   mean? First, to feel that God is near us--to be conscious of His
   Presence. It means to feel, next, that we are perfectly reconciled to
   Him by the death of His Son and that we are permitted to speak with Him
   as a man speaks with his friend and, in speaking to Him, to praise Him
   for what we have received and to ask Him for what we need.

   We draw near Him when we tell Him what we feel and assure Him of our
   belief in His great love. You know what it is to draw near to a friend
   and to have heart-to-heart talks with him. Then you and the beloved one
   are quite alone and have no secrets. You tell all your secrets and you
   learn all that your beloved has to tell. This is drawing near to God--
   when the secret of your heart is with God and the secret of the Lord is
   with you--when He speaks to you by the Word and you speak to Him by
   prayer! When you confess sin and He grants forgiveness! When you spread
   your needs before Him and He assures you of abundant supplies.

   Now, is not this good? Is it not pleasant? Is it not enriching? Does it
   not raise the soul up above the world? Is it not a very good and
   profitable thing, so that we may say of it, emphatically, "It is good
   for me to draw near to God"? One good thing that comes out of it is
   mentioned in the text. Observe--"I have put my trust in the Lord God."
   The nearer you get to God, the more you will be able to trust Him. An
   unknown God is an untrusted God. "They that know Your name will put
   their trust in You." Those who have had the most dealings with God
   believe most in Him. You that begin with Him try to trust Him--but
   those who have dealt with Him for long feel that they do trust Him and
   cannot help it. What is faith in God, Brothers and Sisters, but
   commonsense? Though, like commonsense, it is the most unusual and most
   uncommon thing in all the world!

   To trust in one who must be true is a commonsense proceeding. And to
   trust my God who cannot lie is the dictate of true reason! To make Him,
   who is the greatest fact and the greatest factor, to be, in my life,
   both the greatest factor and the greatest fact and to act as believing
   Him to be real--this is prudence. I pray you, draw near to God, so that
   faith may become to you the mainspring of your life, the new
   commonsense of your instructed spiritual nature! I rejoice in a faith
   that will go with me into everything. Sunday-keeping faith,
   meeting-going faith! If it ends there, it is a pretty piece of
   confectionery--but faith about my pain, my poverty, my despondency, my
   old age--that is faith! I want to see a more hardy, practical, workable
   faith abroad in the land.

   Look at Abraham's faith. I know it was spiritual and so do you--but
   what had it to do with? It had to do with the birth of a child; with
   seeking a city; with cattle; with land and the events of everyday life!
   That is the sort of faith you and I need--Monday faith, Tuesday faith,
   Wednesday faith--faith that will go into the kitchen; faith that will
   live in the workshop with you that are book folders, when the other
   girls laugh at you--faith that will be with you men that are in the
   workshop where others use foul language! We need faith that can cheer a
   sailor in a storm; faith that can help a dying man in the hospital;
   household faith; everyday faith! This is only to be had by drawing near
   to God. Get right close to Him in deed and in truth--the very life of
   you living upon the life of God--and then faith will enter into your
   daily life. You will put your trust in God as your constant Helper if
   you constantly draw near to Him.

   I desire to bear my witness in the last words of this Psalm--"I have
   put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works." My
   first text, as far as it relates to a preacher, shows how he is taught
   it in private. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I
   might learn Your statutes." My second text, so far as it relates to the
   preacher, shows how he is helped to preach in public--"It is good for
   me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may
   declare all Your works." To be able to speak of God's works to others
   is no small gift--and you gain it by trusting in God, yourself, finding
   His promises true, and then bearing witness to others.

   Draw near to God and have communion with Him--and then come down from
   the mountain and speak with the people, believing what you say--and
   expecting God to bless it to those who hear it! That is the way to
   preach and I pray that every one of us who opens his month for God may
   do it in this fashion. It is not merely what is in the Bible that we
   have to set before the people, but what we, ourselves, have tasted and
   felt of the good Word of Truth experimentally, declaring Jesus Christ
   in the power of His resurrection as we know it in our own hearts. We
   cannot do this except by intimate personal fellowship with God.

   You, dear Friends, who are engaged in teaching, cannot learn the Truth
   of God without some measure of affliction. And you cannot tell it out
   in the right spirit without a large measure of drawing near unto God.
   Then you can say, "This poor man cried and the Lord heard him." You can
   say, "One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see." You can say,
   "I sought the Lord and He helped me." There is a convincing power about
   such personal testimony. Then it is not only Christ's word that God
   blesses, but it is your word, too. "Oh," you say, "dare you say that?"
   Yes, Jesus Himself said, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
   also that shall believe on Me through their word."

   They themselves took the word from Christ, just as they took the bread
   out of Christ's hands when He fed the multitude. It was Christ's word
   just as it was Christ's bread, till they got it! But as when they had
   once received the bread it became Peter's bread, and John's bread, and
   James' bread and they handed it out and the people fed thereon--so did
   the word become, "their word," when they personally accepted it and
   afterwards passed it to others! It was all Christ's and yet it was
   theirs! And you must get the bread in your own hands. You must taste it
   yourself. You must break it yourself, or else you will not be likely to
   be blessed with living power among the sons of men.

   Now, let us join in thanking God, if He has afflicted us, and if He has
   drawn us near to Himself. And let us go forth, not to ask for
   afflictions--that would be unwise--but to accept them hopefully when
   they come! Let us draw near to God, tonight, and let us not go to our
   beds till we have seen the face of the Well-Beloved. This shall be my
   vesper song--

   "Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood,

   I lay me down to rest,

   As in the embraces of my God,

   Or on my Sa vior's breast."
     __________________________________________________________________

Four Choice Sentences

   (No. 1630)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 3, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Behold I am with you." Genesis 28:15.

   "I will be with you." Genesis 31:3.

   "The God of my father has been with me." Genesis 31:5.

   "Behold, I die: but God shall be with you." Genesis 48:21.

   My discourse, this evening, will scarcely be a sermon--it will be an
   expository, rather, of the life and experience of Jacob upon one point.
   In order to bring it out I shall need four texts, but lest you should
   let any one of them slip, I will give them to you one at a time.

   I. First, turn to the 28th chapter of Genesis, at the 15th verse, and
   read OF PRESENT BLESSING. The Lord said to His servant Jacob, "Behold,
   I am with you." Jacob was the inheritor of a great blessing from his
   fathers, for this sentence was spoken in connection with the following
   words, "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of
   Isaac." It is an inexpressible privilege, dear Friends, to be able to
   look back to father and grandfather and, perhaps, still farther, and to
   say, "We come of a house which has served the Lord as far back as
   history can inform us." Descended from Christians, we have a greater
   honor than being descended from princes! There is no heraldry like the
   heraldry of the saints.

   Jacob might be very thankful that, as God had blessed Abraham and had
   blessed Isaac, so He blessed him in the same way, speaking to him in
   the same terms as He had spoken to them, for He had expressly said to
   each of them, "I am with you." Are any of you the children of godly
   parents and has the Lord called you by His Grace? Then bless His name
   and take heed that you do nothing to dishonor an estate so honorable!
   Try and maintain, as long as you live, the good repute which in
   infinite love God has put upon your household. Are you, however, a
   child of godly parents and not yet converted? I would warn you against
   putting the slightest reliance upon your birth, for, remember, if Isaac
   was the child of Abraham, so also was Ishmael--but no blessing came to
   Ishmael of a spiritual kind.

   It is in vain to be born of blood, or of the will of the flesh. We must
   be born again from above. God is sovereign, He is not bound to dispense
   His favors from father to son. And when He does so, we are to admire
   His Grace. Do not imagine that there is such a thing as hereditary
   piety--it must be worked in each individual by the same Spirit. Still,
   it is one of the highest privileges that God has ever been pleased to
   grant to me that I can rejoice in a father and a grandfather who
   trained me in the fear of God! And I congratulate every young person
   who has such a pedigree. God bless you. Be not satisfied unless you,
   yourself, obtain such mercy as God gave to your ancestors and hear the
   Lord saying, "I am with you."

   This mercy was brought home to Jacob at a time when he greatly needed
   it. He had just left his father's house and he felt himself alone. He
   was coming into special trial and then it was that he received a fuller
   understanding of the privilege which God had in store for him. Let me
   read the words to you--"I am with you." I have tried to think them out,
   that I might speak concerning them to you, but they are too full. I
   defy anybody to measure their height and depth, their length and
   breadth! That God should give to Jacob bread to eat and raiment to put
   on was much--but that is nothing compared with, "I am with you." That
   God should send His angel with Jacob to protect Him would have been
   much--but it is nothing compared with, "I am with you."

   This includes countless blessings, but it is, in itself, a great deal
   more than all the blessings we can conceive of! There are many fruits
   that come of it, but the tree that yields them is better than the
   fruit! "I am with you." Will God, in the very deed, dwell with men upon
   earth? Will God walk with a man and speak with him? "Lord, what is man,
   that You are mindful of him? And the son of man, that You visit him?"
   And yet He says, "I am with you." You are in Your courts above and You
   make Heaven, Heaven by Your Presence, and yet You say, "I am with you."
   What more could You say to a seraph than this--"I am with you"?

   Why, when God is with a man there is a familiarity of condescension
   that is altogether unspeakable! It insures an infinite love. "I am with
   you." God will not dwell with those He hates. He puts away the wicked
   of the earth like dross. He says to them, "Depart, I never knew you."
   But to each one of His people He says, "I know you by your name; you
   are Mine. And, more than that, I am with you." As a man delights to be
   with a friend, so are the delights of Christ with the sons of men whom
   He has chosen and redeemed with blood! "I am with you"--it means
   practical help. Whatever we undertake, God is with us in the
   undertaking. Whatever we endure, God is with us in the enduring!
   Wherever we wander, God is with us in our wandering!

   "If God is for us, who can be against us?" If God is with us, can we
   ever be exiled or banished? If God is with us, what can we not do? If
   God is with us, what can we not endure? Well said the Apostle, as if
   answering that question, "I can do all things through Christ which
   strengthens me." "I am with you." Come, Brother or Sister, if you would
   get the fullness of this privilege, believe that God is near you,
   now--as near to you as he that sits at your side! No, nearer, for He is
   so with you as to be in you. And do you know that His whole Godhead is
   with you? "I am with you," as if there were not another--the whole
   Godhead is with you! Your have not to cry aloud like Baal's priests, or
   cut yourself with knives that you may attract His eye, for He says, "I
   am with you." He hears your sighs. He puts your tears into His bottle.
   "I am with you."

   And you have not only His Presence, but His sympathy! He means, "I am
   feeling with you, suffering with you. If there is a load, I bear it
   with you. If there is work to do, I will work with you." You are
   workers, together, with God. Beloved, said I not rightly that I can
   never open up all this to you? Roll it under your tongue as a sweet
   morsel and if it goes down into your inward parts it shall not be
   bitter, but still sweeter! "I am with you." Oh, the richness of this
   special blessing! How precious it must have seemed as it came to Jacob
   in that den of a place, where he lay with the hedges for his curtains,
   the heavens for his canopy, the earth for his bed, stones for his
   pillow and God for his companion! "I am with you."

   Tomorrow, when you shall open your eyes, you will look back to the west
   and say, "I have left my father's house and my mother, Rebecca, behind
   me." And the tears will be in your eyes and you will look to the east
   and say, "I am going to the house of my mother's kindred and I know
   them not, except that I have heard concerning Uncle Laban that he is
   hard and grasping. And I know not how he will receive me." But is not
   that a precious thing to start upon a journey with--"I am with you"--I,
   the Ever-Blessed? Though your mother is not with you, "I am with you."
   Is there any young friend here who is leaving home? Are you going away
   for the first time and do you feel sad? Or are you about to emigrate to
   a distant country and your heart feels heavy? Do not go at all till you
   can get a hold of this--"I am with you."

   Say unto the Lord, "If Your Spirit goes not with me, carry me not up
   from here." Wait till He gives the answer, "My Spirit shall go with you
   and I will give you rest." This ought to be the blessing of your
   opening life, "I am with you." Is God with you tonight? Can God be with
   you? Souls come to service, after having quarreled with their wives and
   families. God is not with them. People who are following evil trades
   and living evil lives, rejecting the Gospel--God cannot be with them.
   "Can two walk together except they are agreed?" If you are a Believer
   in Christ and the Spirit of God has produced in you the true fruits of
   the Spirit, then you may say, "He is with me," but not else.

   Now turn to the 31st chapter of Genesis, at the third verse, and read
   these words, "I will be with you." We will call this FUTURE BLESSING.
   It is almost unnecessary to take this second text, for if it is
   written, "I am with you," you may depend upon it that He will be with
   us, for God does not forsake His people! Some people believe in a God
   who loves today and hates tomorrow; who pardons sin and yet,
   afterwards, condemns. Such a God is not my God! My God is
   unchangeable--

   "Whom once He loves He ne ver leaves, But loves them to the end."

   "I am God; I change not: Therefore you sons of Jacob Are not consumed."

   Poor Jacob had been living with Laban and had passed through many
   messes and troubles. It was time that he should receive the word of
   blessing over again. We read that, "Jacob beheld the countenance of
   Laban and, behold, it was not toward him as before." He had begun to
   take root in the worldling's portion and was willing to stay away from
   the promised land and build up a family among his worldly connections.
   But the Lord practically said to him, "This is not your rest." Laban's
   sons begin to growl as they see how their brother-in-law's flocks have
   increased and, therefore, the time has come for Jacob to go. Jacob does
   not like it. He never did like moving. Family connections, a host of
   children and a mighty crowd of cattle made a removal a great
   undertaking.

   Then the Lord said to him, "I will be with you." As much as to say, "I
   will be more with you in Canaan than I ever have been in this place,
   which is not the land of promise. I will give you My special Presence
   if you will get away into the place of the separated life and walk with
   Me as your father Isaac did." It was very sweet, many years ago, to
   some of us to hear the Lord say, "I am with you," and to know that it
   was true, for, "truly, our fellowship was with the Father and with His
   Son, Jesus Christ." But it may, at this hour, be very opportune if the
   Lord should renew His promise to us by saying, "I will be with you."

   You are commencing a new form of life. You are entering on new trials.
   You are undertaking new duties. And now comes in the new promise, "I
   will be with you." If those upon whom you had a right to rely have
   turned against you. If those who were really indebted to you have
   become envious of you--"yet, nevertheless," says God--"I will be with
   you." Jacob's journey was to be a very venturous one. He knew that
   Laban would not like it and, probably, would pursue him. But God says,
   "Go, and I will be with you." He knew, also, that his brother Esau
   would be pretty sure to take vengeance upon him for the sorry trick he
   had played on him and that touched his conscience.

   Jacob feared and trembled, but God said, "I will be with you." The most
   plain road in the world is wrong if God does not bid us take it! And
   the roughest and most unpromising way will turn out to be safe and
   right if God commands our journey. Jonah thought it was all right to go
   to Tarshish, but God was not with him, and he came back by a route
   which he never expected to follow. If you go your own road, I wish you
   may be fortunate enough to meet with as good a return conveyance as
   Jonah did, for you will certainly have to come back! But if the road is
   ever so rough, if it is God's road, you shall run over it like a young
   roe!

   God will make your feet like hinds' feet and you shall tread upon your
   high places. "Your shoes shall be iron and brass; and as your days, so
   shall your strength be." Only mind that you follow a road in which God
   can be with you, for there are some ways in which God will never be
   found. He cannot walk in the ways of sin, or worldliness, or
   self-seeking--if we choose these, we must go alone. See, then, the
   promised mercy, and rejoice in it! Go forward, dear child of God, if
   the pillar of cloud is moving, without the slightest hesitancy, and let
   this be your joy and comfort-- "Certainly, I will be with you. In all
   places wherever you go, I will be with you."

   III. I need to go a step farther and come, in the third place, to
   EXPERIENCED BLESSINGS. Let us look at Jacob's experience. Did Jacob
   find God to be with him? He had a long life and a tried one. He was a
   man that knew a great deal and men that know a great deal are doubly
   likely to meet with great trouble. Cunning, wise, crafty, prudent,
   self-reliant people frequently flounder out of one slough into another.
   Above all things, I should dread being partners with a man that is
   overly wise, for such men either make fools of themselves, or else they
   have to sleep with one eye open. Jacob's cunning was a liability to him
   in the long run.

   Abraham was simple as a child. He believed God and never stooped to
   trickery and, therefore, his life was a noble one. Jacob was a very
   wise person, the kind of gentleman to have made a financier, or the
   manager of a company. He was a rare man of business. In fact, he was
   the father of the Jews and that is saying a great deal. Yet because of
   his sharpness, he was often robbed. And through his cunning he was
   overreached. And he did not, after all, so much enjoy life and was
   neither so rich nor so happy as his simple-minded grandfather, Abraham.
   We will, however, hear what Jacob has to say about these two gracious
   words of God, "I am with you," and, "I will be with you."

   Turn to the 31st chapter, again, and read the fifth verse. Up to as far
   as the time that he was about to leave Laban, he says, "The God of my
   father has been with me." I have read that testimony with great joy! I
   thought of Jacob thus--

   Well, you certainly were not eminent for Grace while with Laban. You
   were plotting and scheming--you against Laban and Laban against
   you--and yet your witness is, "The God of my father has been with me."
   This is all the more encouraging coming from you! Jacob seems to say of
   his God--It was He that gave me my wife and my children. It was He that
   prospered me in the teeth of those who tried to rob me. The God of my
   father has been with me, notwithstanding all my shortcomings." I trust
   that some of you can bear the same witness. Though you have not been
   all that you could wish in the Christian life, yet you can say, "The
   God of my father has been with me."

   Now, we will look at him a little further on, in the 35th chapter and
   the third verse. There we shall find him saying-- "Let us arise, and go
   up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me
   in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." As
   I have already said, he left Laban's house and it was a very
   venturesome journey, but God was with him! Jacob tells us that it was
   so. Poor Jacob was full of fear when he heard that Esau was coming to
   meet him. You can see that by the way in which he divided his flocks
   and his herds--and set apart so large a present for Esau.

   But God does not leave His people because of their fears. I am so
   thankful for that! If He were to cast us off because of our unbelief,
   is there one of us who would not have been cast off long ago? There was
   Peter walking on the waters with a brave faith--was not Christ with
   him? Yes, or else he could not have stood on the wave at all. By-and-by
   his faith failed him and down went Peter! But did Christ give him up
   and say, "You shall die! According to your unbelief shall it be unto
   you"? No, there is not such a word as that in the Bible. But it is
   written, "According to your faith shall it be unto you." Jesus
   stretched out His hand and grasped sinking Peter, saying, "O you of
   little faith, why did you doubt?"

   So, though you may grieve the Lord by doubting and fearing, and though
   you ought to be ashamed of yourself for so doing, still, He will not
   forsake you! If there is faith in your heart, though it is but little,
   you shall have to say, in spite of your doubts and fears, "The Lord was
   with me in the days of my distress and was with me in the ways which I
   went." There was a night of wrestling with Jacob. His faith enabled him
   to draw near to God in mighty prayer and his fear made him the more
   desperate and importunate. He said, "I will not let You go except you
   bless me." Though he had to be importunate, yet it was not because God
   was against him, but because God was with him, for he that can exercise
   importunate prayer proves that God is with him strengthening him thus
   to supplicate. His wrestling ended in his victory!

   On that day, too, I have no doubt, Jacob was very much cast down
   because he remembered his sin. He knew he had treated Esau badly and
   robbed him of the blessing. But, for all that, he came with a repentant
   heart to submit himself before his brother and to do what he could to
   please him. Because of this, God was with him. Oh, in that day, dear
   child of God, when you remember your faults and your heart is heavy, do
   not think that the Lord has left you! It is one token that He is with
   you--that He makes you confess your sin--and humble yourself before
   Him. Still believe in Him; still hear His Word and you shall have to
   say, "He was with me in the ways which I went."

   At the close of his life, we find Jacob more fully than ever confessing
   that the Presence of God had been with him. I read you the passage
   where he wished that the God that had been with him might be with his
   grandsons in the same way--the 48th chapter, at the 15th and 16th
   verses--"He blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers
   Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto
   this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."
   There is his last testimony to the faithfulness of God. He had lost
   Rachel--oh, how it stung his heart--but he says, "God redeemed me from
   all evil."

   There had come a great famine in the land, but he says that God had fed
   him all his life long. He had lost Joseph and that had been a great
   sorrow. But now, in looking back, he sees that even then God was
   redeeming him from all evil! He said once, "Joseph is not, and Simeon
   is not, and you will take Benjamin away; all these things are against
   me." But now he eats his words and says, "The Lord has redeemed me from
   all evil." He now believes that God had been always with him, had fed
   him always, redeemed him always and blessed him always. Now, mark you,
   if you trust in God, this shall be your verdict at the close of life.

   When you come to die, you shall look back upon a life which has not
   been without its trials and its difficulties, but you shall bless God
   for it all--and if there is any one thing in life for which you will
   have to praise God more than for another, it will probably be that very
   event which seems darkest to you! Did God ever do a better thing for
   Jacob than when He took Joseph away and sent him to Egypt to preserve
   the whole family? It was the severest trial of the poor old

   man's life and yet the brightest blessing, after all! Can you not
   believe it? Inside that hard-shelled nut there is the sweetest kernel
   that you have tasted! Rest assured of that.

   Your Father's rumbling wagons have awakened you out of sleep and you
   are frightened by them, but they are loaded with ingots of gold! You
   have never been so rich as you will be after your great trouble shall
   have passed away!

   IV. It is time for me to conclude and I do so by bringing before you,
   in the fourth place, one more word of blessing. We have had present
   blessing. We have had future blessing. We have had experienced blessing
   three times over. And now we go to TRANSMITTED BLESSING, for we find
   Jacob transmitting the blessing to his son and to his grandsons. Read
   in the 48th chapter, at the 21st verse--

   "Behold I die: but God shall be with you." I commenced by noticing the
   blessing which passed on from Abraham to Isaac. And now we see that
   Jacob hands it on to Joseph, to Manasseh and to Ephraim--"I die: but
   God shall be with you."

   Some of you, perhaps, are thinking, "We are getting near the end of
   life. We have children, but they are not all converted, yet, and those
   that are, it may be, are dependent upon us--what will become of them?"
   Do you think God will leave your children? Can't you trust them with
   Him? What did your father do with his son? One after another the former
   generations have passed away and the Lord has been faithful to their
   successors! Do you think He will not be faithful to those who come
   next? You have brought up your children in His fear. You have rested
   upon His name and, therefore, you may say to them, "I die: but God
   shall be with you."

   The time will come when we who are ministers shall be taken away from
   our beloved work on earth and we cannot help thinking about the dear
   friends who hang upon our lips and depend upon our ministry. It is well
   for us to look a little forward and say, "I die: but God shall be with
   you." My venerated predecessor, Dr. Rippon, many a time prayed for his
   successor. I am sure he did not know who his successor was to be, for I
   was born about the time when he was dying! But, doubtless, I inherited
   that good man's prayers. I am sure I did. "I die," the old man might
   have said, "but God shall be with you."

   The Church at New Park Street thought it an awful thing for the old
   gentleman to die. But he would have been of no service to us if he had
   remained here forever. And so it will be, by-and-by, that people will
   say, "What will the Tabernacle people do if they lose their minister?"
   It will probably be the greatest of blessings when it happens! Many
   good men have clung to their places longer than they should have
   done--and have pulled down much that they had built up. It is well when
   the Lord says to such, "Friend, come up higher." We may look forward,
   each one, to leaving our class, or to leaving the Church over which we
   watch, or to leaving the great work over which we preside and we may
   say, "I die: but God shall be with you." God is not limited to one
   minister or 50 ministers! When we are gone, God will be with you!

   They used to say of our dear friend, George Muller, "What will become
   of the Orphanage when Mr. Muller is laid aside?" When I was speaking to
   him, he said to me, "That was a question which I felt George Muffler
   had nothing to do with. God will use George Muller as long as He likes.
   And when He chooses to put him aside, He will use somebody else." And
   now, mark, George Muller is not at Bristol! I believe he is, at this
   present moment, preaching in America. He has been all over Europe
   preaching and the Orphanage has had very little of his personal
   presence--and yet it has gone on without George Muller so far!

   Such a fact tends to answer man's idle questions. Blessed be the
   everlasting God--if Abraham dies, there is Isaac! And if Isaac dies,
   there is Jacob! And if Jacob dies, there is Joseph! And if Joseph dies,
   Ephraim and Manasseh survive! The Lord shall never lack a champion to
   bear His standard high among the sons of men! Only let us pray God to
   raise up more faithful ministers. That ought to be our prayer day and
   night. We have plenty of a sort, but, oh, for more that will weigh out
   16 ounces to the pound of Gospel in such a way that people will receive
   it! We have too much of fine language; too much of florid eloquence and
   too little full and plain Gospel preaching! But God will keep up the
   Apostolic succession, never fear for that!

   When Stephen is dying, Paul is not far off. When Elijah is taken up, he
   leaves his mantle behind him. "I die: but God shall be with you." Take
   comfort, dear Friends, and may His Spirit be with you, through Jesus
   Christ, His dear Son, whose name is Christ, His dear Son, whose name is
   "Emmanuel"--God With Us. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Main Matter

   (No. 1631)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 6, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples,
   which are not written in this book: but these are written that you
   might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that,
   believing, you might have life through His name." John 20:30,31.

   THE public life of our most blessed Lord Jesus Christ was brief. Few
   suppose it to have exceeded three and a half years but yet, what a full
   life it was! It had in it not only enough to compose the four Gospels,
   each one of which is sufficient to lead men to saving faith, but so
   much remained over and above that, the Apostle John makes this
   remarkable statement--"And there are also many other things which Jesus
   did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that
   even the world itself could not contain the books that should be
   written." Our Lord's life was as ample as His own festivals--it feeds
   thousands--and with the fragments that remain many baskets might be
   filled!

   A man may complete a great and fruitful life in two or three years,
   while another may have existed as long as an antediluvian and yet his
   life may be poor and powerless. Not only did the Lord Jesus speak and
   do great things as to number, but there was a world ofpower in each
   word and work. He did not display a multitude of feeblenesses, but each
   individual outcome of His life was grand enough to have been a marvel
   if considered by itself! As was the Doer, in whom "dwelt all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily," such were the deeds--they, also, were
   full of Grace and the Truths of

   God!

   There was a fullness of Divine wisdom, Grace and power about each act
   of Jesus. Hence the Apostle, here, speaks of the Lord's acts as
   signs--"many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His
   disciples." There was a mass of instruction in all our Lord's
   movements. Nothing about Him was trivial. He preached by His entire
   life, preached a marvelous array of Truths and preached them with
   living freshness! Never is He twice the same, though always the same.
   When we find Him repeating His discourses, as we sometimes do, if the
   Sermon on the Mount sounds like the Sermon on the Plain, yet a
   different drift, aim and tone create a singular variety. Each separate
   act of the Lord is a sign of something beyond itself and the whole of
   the acts put together display an ocean of doctrine without bottom or
   shore.

   What a Christ was this! Oh that His Spirit may dwell in us, that our
   lives, also, may be rich and full! Rich to the Glory of God, and full
   to the blessing of our fellow men. Yet, dear Friends, though the whole
   of Christ's life has not been written, we perceive in our text that
   what has been recorded is the most useful part of it and that it was
   preserved for our benefit. The Inspired record was written with a
   purpose--the facts were wisely culled and collected out of the entire
   mass on account of their bearing upon the desired objective and enough
   has been preserved to effect a design which, above all others, is most
   important to us. "These are written that you might believe that Jesus
   is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you might have life
   through His name."

   May our reverence to the Inspired Gospels lead us to give earnest heed
   to their design and objective, for it would be profane to baffle their
   purpose by refusing their testimony. First, this morning, let me speak
   a little with you upon the design of all Scripture, which is faith.
   Secondly, upon the great Object of true faith, which is Jesus the
   Christ, the Son of God. And then, thirdly, let as further commune
   together upon the true life of the soul which is linked and wrapped up
   with the name of Jesus Christ, in whom we are led to believe by the
   testimony of the things written concerning Him.

   I. First, then, dear Friends, THE OBJECTIVE OF ALL SCRIPTURE IS TO
   PRODUCE FAITH. There is no text in the whole Book which was intended to
   create doubt. Doubt is a seed self-sown, or sown by the devil--and it
   usually springs up with more than sufficient abundance without our
   care. The practice of reading skeptical works is a very dangerous
   one--we have enough tendency to sickness in our own constitutions
   without going to fever hospitals to test the

   atmosphere. Holy Scripture is no mother or nurse of doubt--it is the
   creator of a holy confidence by revealing a sure line of fact and
   truth.

   It has been thought by many expositors that John here refers only to
   the things which Jesus did after His Resurrection--"Many other signs
   truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples." But I think there
   are abundant reasons, with which I need not trouble you just now, to
   show that John must have referred to the whole of our Savior's life and
   to all the acts of it--and that the book which he speaks of is his own
   book, the Gospel which contains his own life of Christ. John includes
   the whole story of Jesus of Nazareth in the reference of the text. I
   venture to go much farther and to say that the statement that John made
   here, though it must refer to his own Gospel, is equally true of the
   entire Scriptures.

   We may begin at Genesis and go on to the Book of Revelation and say of
   all the holy histories, "These are written that you might believe that
   Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Though this Bible is a wonderful
   library of many books, yet there is such a unity about it that the mass
   of the people regard it as one book and they are not in error when they
   do so. This one Book has but one design and every portion of it works
   to that one end. Of the whole canon of Inspiration we may say, as we
   read every detail, "These are written that you might believe that Jesus
   is the Christ, the Son of God."

   Observe, then, no part of Holy Scripture was written with any wish to
   magnify the writer of it. Many human books are evidently intended to
   let you see how profound the thoughts of their authors are, or how
   striking is their style. Self-consciousness is often apparent and the
   man is seen as well as the fruit of his mind. If some authors can, at
   any time, introduce themselves, they do not hesitate to do so, even
   though they have to go out of their way to do it! But you shall never
   detect the least degree of this in any of the writers of sacred
   Scripture. True, they did not set that foolish fashion of certain
   "brethren" in modern times who call attention to their own modesty by
   placing their initials on their title-pages instead of their names.

   We have no Prophet of the Lord named D. N. J., or M. C. H.! And those
   who bear such initials in these days are by no means veiled writers,
   but are as well-known as if their names were written out in full. The
   Inspired authors freely write David, Job, Isaiah, John, Matthew--and
   why shouldn't they? Having given their names, how very little of
   themselves will you ever find in their books? They lose themselves in
   their theme and hide themselves behind their Master. A most striking
   instance of this is found in John's Gospel. John was a man above all
   others fitted to write the life of Christ. Did he not know more of
   Jesus by observation, by intimate fellowship and by hearty sympathy
   with Him than any other of the Evangelists?

   And yet he has left out many interesting facts which the others have
   recorded--others, mark you--who did not actually see the facts as he
   did. Speaking after the manner of men, this silence is very wonderful.
   Can you guess how much this abstinence cost the Apostle? The other
   three Evangelists received much at second hand, though, truly, by the
   Spirit of God. But John literally and personally saw these things! He
   beheld them with his own eyes and yet he gives us fewer incidents in
   the life of Christ than the other Evangelists. What self-forgetfulness
   was this! He is silent because his speech would not serve the end he
   aimed at. And the most striking point is this--he omits, as if of set
   purpose, those places of the history in which he would have shone.

   He and James and Peter were frequently selected by the Master to be
   with Him when others were excluded. But of these occasions John says
   nothing. At the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, it is said of
   the disciples, as well as of the relatives and the multitude, that the
   Lord put them all out and only suffered the three to be with Him. This
   was a singular honor, but John does not say a word about the raising of
   the daughter of Jairus! What self-oblivion! I should not have omitted
   it if I had been writing, nor would you. If we had been writing apart
   from the inspiration of the Spirit, we should have treasured up those
   special incidents of favor and we should not have thought ourselves
   egotistical, either, but should have considered ourselves as specially
   called to record a miracle which was witnessed by so very few!

   The Spirit of God, in moving John to write, took such full possession
   of him that he wrote only that which worked towards the one great
   objective. No matter how interesting the event, he leaves it unrecorded
   if he judges it to be aside from his design. Notice, next, that only
   three were with our Lord at His Transfiguration--and John was one of
   them. John does not mention that august event except it is that He
   says, "We beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the
   Father, full of Grace and truth," in which there may be a reference to
   it, but it is by no means clear! At any rate, he does not narrate the
   circumstance, but leaves it to other pens.

   This is a moral miracle! What uninspired man could have left out such a
   vision from his page? Even more striking is the fact that the Master,
   when He took with Him the 11 to the garden, left the major part of them
   at the gate, but He led the three further into the garden and bade them
   wait at about a stone's-cast distance, where some of them heard His
   prayers and observed His bloody sweat. John, who was one of them, says
   nothing about it! Had he forgotten it? That were impossible! Did He
   doubt it? Certainly not! But the omission shows you that these
   incidents were not written with the view of honoring John, but that the
   reader may be led to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God!
   He leaves out that which would have brought John into the front, in
   order that he may fill up the whole foreground of his canvas with the
   portrait of his Lord. Everything is subordinated to the one grand
   end--"that you should believe that Jesus is

   the Christ."

   What a lesson is all this to us who write or speak for God! Let us
   labor for this one thing, that we may lead men to believe that Jesus is
   the Christ, the Son of God! If any sort of preaching would exalt
   ourselves, let us choose another, lest we hide the Cross of Christ! If
   we can occupy the space with something more forcible, let us omit the
   choicest piece of oratory. Let us prune the vine of our speech that all
   its sap may go to fruit and let that fruit be the bringing of men to
   believe that Jesus is the Christ!

   Further, notice that Holy Scripture was not written with the mere view
   of imparting knowledge to men by presenting them with a complete
   biography of Jesus Christ. The one objective of Scripture is that you
   may believe on Jesus Christ. It was not the aim of the Evangelists to
   present us with a complete life of Jesus Christ. Observe the difference
   between such a writer as John and an ordinary biographer. Usually when
   you see a biography advertised, it will be your wisdom to save your
   money, for scarcely ever is there a biography written that is fully
   worth the money asked for it. I can point you to biographies stuffed
   full of letters which might just as well have been burned--and common
   places which might as well have been forgotten. The good man never did
   anything in his life except that he married a wife and took a holiday
   and traveled through Switzerland and went to Venice and Rome!

   Every scrap that he wrote home about, the most common incident of
   travel, is secured and inserted as if it were a priceless gem. It is
   just the same that every Tom and John and Mary would have said, and yet
   it is paraded as something heavenly! The book must be swelled out and
   so the biographer gives us every bit of sense or nonsense that he can
   find. There must have been great searching of drawers, great writing to
   first cousins, uncles and aunts, to know if they have an old letter
   anywhere of the dear deceased! All manner of small talk is inserted
   because, to speak the truth, our lives are mostly so little that if we
   do not blow them up with wind there will not be enough to make a volume
   for the book-market!

   How different is the biography of Jesus of Nazareth! The signs and
   wonders which He did are not written to make a book--they are not even
   written that you may be informed of all that Jesus did--these are
   written with an end, an aim, an objective--"That you might believe that
   Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Matthew, when he writes of "Jesus
   Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham," leaves out everything
   that does not bring out Christ in connection with the Kingdom of God.
   He paints Messiah, the Prince, and he will not be taken off from his
   work. Luke brings forth Jesus as the Man and you see how wondrously he
   keeps to that one line of things. But when you get to John, and he is
   about to bring forth the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, he omits numbers
   of details that show our Lord in other lights and other aspects.

   Here Jesus is not so much the King in His Kingdom--He leaves that to
   Matthew--he sticks to his own point which is indicated by his opening
   sentences--"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
   and the Word was God." He desires to set forth our Lord's glorious
   Messiahship, personal Sonship and Deity! And he adheres to that and to
   that, alone. The Evangelists do not attempt, merely, to increase our
   knowledge, but they aim to win our understandings and to conquer our
   hearts for Christ! Notice yet again, dear Friends, that the Gospels and
   the other Books of Scripture were not written for the gratification of
   the most godly and pious curiosity.

   Truly, I would have liked to have acted to our Lord as Boswell did to
   his friend, Dr. Johnson! I would have thought it an honor to have noted
   down every choice word He dropped and every act He did. I would have
   recorded the very color of His hair and you should have known whether
   His eyes were blue or hazel! I would have left on record every incident
   about the very fabric of that hem of His garment which the woman
   touched. Would not any of you have done so? Do you

   not love Him so much and prize Him so greatly, that you would have
   thought the smallest trifle about Him to be a gem of knowledge? Our
   love ennobles everything that has to do with our adorable Lord!

   But the writers, Inspired by the Holy Spirit, were not led astray by
   this feeling. They knew their Object and gave their whole strength to
   Him! The Holy Spirit did not send His servants to gather up interesting
   details and preserve curious facts. None of them wrote to gratify your
   curiosity, even about the things which concern your Lord and Master.
   You shall be told that which shall lead you to believe Him to be the
   Son of God and you shall be told no more, for had all been written, you
   might have spent all your time in trying to know Christ after the
   flesh! But now He has preserved only that which, by His blessing, shall
   teach you to know Him after the spirit. It is not to gratify curiosity
   but to beget faith within the soul that the memoirs of our Lord are
   written by the Evangelists.

   Again, the Scriptures are not even written with the view of setting
   before us a complete example. I want you to notice that. It is true
   that the Gospels set before us a perfect Character and we are bound to
   imitate it. It is true that when we read the life of Christ we may
   learn how to live and how to die--but that was not the first and chief
   design of the writers--they wrote that we might believe that Jesus is
   the Christ, the Son of God and that, by believing, we might have life
   through His name! Good works are best promoted, not as the first, but
   as the second cause. They come as the result of faith and he that would
   promote that which is pure and honest and holy, had best promote faith
   in Jesus Christ, the Savior!

   The Scripture does not go in for flowers, first, nor even for fruit,
   but it plants roots and, therefore, it aims at implanting faith in
   Jesus Christ, for when we have believed in Him, the faith that works by
   love will be sure to produce a sacred imitation of His most beloved and
   perfect Character! Yes, let the truth stand as I have put it, "these
   are written," first and last, with no other end and objective but this,
   "That you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Open
   his Gospel and see how John, all through it, keeps to his design. It
   would be worth while to spend the whole morning and a half dozen other
   mornings, in showing you that John never takes his eyes from this one
   point. You will soon perceive that his Book contains a series of
   testimonies borne by persons led to faith in Jesus as the Christ.

   John, in the first chapter, teaches the Truth of God which he was about
   to prove--read the 17th and 18th verses, "The Law was given by Moses,
   but Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Here you see that Jesus is
   the Christ. "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
   which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." There is
   "the only-begotten Son," and the two verses show us that Jesus is the
   Christ, the Son of God. John had been convinced of this at our Lord's
   Baptism by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him and, therefore, he
   bore this witness at the commencement.

   Almost immediately after follows the conversion of Andrew--and what
   does Andrew witness? He says to his brother, Simon, "We have found the
   Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ." Close on the heels
   of that comes Nathanael's testimony. He says, "Rabbi, You are the Son
   of God; You are the King of Israel." Directly after follows the
   changing of the water into wine at the marriage of Cana in Galilee--one
   of the seven miracles which John mentions-- and he never mentions any
   more than those seven. And of this, the first of the seven, he says,
   "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and
   manifested forth His Glory; and His disciples believed on Him." The
   miracle was intended to produce faith and did produce it! At the end of
   each record of a miracle, John tells us that some believed in Him and
   generally that they came to believe that He was the Christ, the Son of
   God.

   That memorable third chapter concerning Nicodemus shows us how that
   enquiring master of Israel came to believe in Him and how the Lord was
   revealed to Nicodemus as both the Sent One and the Son, "For God so
   loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
   believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God
   sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the
   world through Him might be saved." In the fourth chapter you get to the
   well at Sychar, where the Lord manifests Himself to a poor fallen
   woman--and she is convinced and hastens to tell her friends--and they,
   by-and-by, know that this is, indeed, the Christ, the Savior of the
   world!

   In the case of the raising up of the nobleman's son in the same
   chapter, you are reminded by John that the father was led to faith in
   Jesus and the natural inference is that you ought to be led to display
   a like confidence. In the fifth chapter the healing of the impotent man
   at the pool is narrated in order to introduce the statement, "But I
   have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father
   has given Me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me,

   that the Father has sent Me." When 5,000 had been fed, we read, "Those
   men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, "This is of a
   truth that Prophet that should come into the world."

   In the 69th verse of the sixth chapter you find Simon Peter saying, "We
   believe and are sure that You are that Christ, the Son of the living
   God," and so in the seventh chapter, "others said this is the Christ,"
   being convinced by that which He had spoken. To the man born blind,
   Jesus said, "Do you believe on the Son of God?" and the man's practical
   answer was an avowal of faith and an immediate act of worship. But I am
   afraid you would soon grow weary if I were to dwell upon every incident
   which would prove my point. The whole Book is made up of modes of
   reasoning by which men have been led to believe in Jesus!

   It might have been written for the sake of the Unitarians of our own
   time. It contains repeated declarations that Jesus is the Christ, the
   Son of God, and a series of testimonies of persons brought to see this
   by the signs that Jesus worked among them. Study John's Gospel with
   that view and you will see how the Lord brings one to believe on Him by
   a call which came with Divine authority. A second by unveiling the
   secrets of her life. Another by answering his prayers. Another by
   enlightening his mind. Of the whole of His disciples, our Lord gives
   the secret reason of their discipleship in His matchless prayer, "For I
   have given unto them the words which You gave Me; and they have
   received them, and have known surely that I came out from You, and they
   have believed that You did send Me."

   Throughout the whole Book, the strain is the same, for it begins with
   Andrew's confession, "We have found the Messiah," and ends with Thomas,
   to whom Jesus said, "Reach here your finger, and behold My hands."
   Thomas cries in ecstasy, "My Lord and my God!" And this is almost the
   top stone of the confessions and achievements of faith, but not quite,
   for here is the crown of all, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you
   have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
   believed." You Bible readers who have never believed in Jesus as the
   Christ, have read in vain! You have read to your own condemnation, but
   not to your salvation!

   Oh, you that are afraid that you may not be allowed to believe in
   Jesus, dismiss that foolish fear, for this holy Book is written on
   purpose that you may believe and, therefore, it is clear that you have
   full liberty to do so! Every time John dipped his pen into the ink he
   breathed the prayer, "Lord, bring men to believe in Jesus by that which
   I have written." And he closed his Gospel by declaring the innermost
   longing of his living soul, "These are written that you might believe
   that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." My dear Hearer, your
   immediate conversion to faith in the Lord Jesus is the objective of
   this Book. God grant it may be fulfilled in you!

   II. We turn, in the second place, to a subject which is a step
   further--THE GREAT OBJECT OF TRUE FAITH IS

   CHRIST JESUS. The text does not say, "These are written that you might
   believe the Nicene Creed," for good as that creed is, it was not, then,
   composed, and is not the chief object of faith. It does not say, "These
   are written that you might believe the Athanasian creed." A very good
   creed, but rather savage, and also not then devised. No, no--"These are
   written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
   God, and that believing, you might have life through His name." That is
   to say, the faith which brings life to the soul is faith in the Person,
   offices, Nature, and work of Je-sus--and though you may be in the dark
   about a thousand things and may make mistakes about 10,000 more--yet if
   you believe in the Messiah, the Son of God, you have eternal life!

   First, I am to believe in Jesus that He is the Christ, that He is the
   promised Messiah, anointed of God to deliver the human race. I must
   believe that this is He whom God promised at the Garden of Eden when He
   said, "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." This is
   the Sent One who is come to seek and to save that which is lost--in Him
   we are to believe, for it is written--"Whoever believes that Jesus is
   the Christ is born of God." Next we are to believe that He is the Son
   of God--not in the sense in which men are sons of God, but in that
   higher sense in which He is the only-begotten Son of God, One with the
   Father, eternally and indissolubly One. "The Word was with God," but
   more than that, "the Word was God."

   Now, this is to be believed if we would live unto God. "Whoever shall
   confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God."
   "Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is
   the Son of God?" A Jesus who is not Divine could give us no power to
   overcome the world! But in His Godhead we find our strength. Put the
   two together, that He, the Divine One, became Man, and was sent into
   the world to redeem us--and we have the right idea of Immanuel, God
   With Us! Will this belief save us? Assuredly it will, but listen while
   I explain. First, believe this to be a matter offact. Having believed
   it to be a matter of fact, go on to look into the record concerning Him
   till you are

   undoubtedly sure of it--for these are written that you might believe
   with the fullest confidence that Jesus is God and Savior.

   When you are sure of the fact, the next thing is to accept it for
   yourself--agree that Jesus shall be your Anointed, through whom you
   will get the anointing which comes upon Him as the Head and descends to
   you as the skirts of His garment. At the same time, unfeignedly consent
   that He shall be your God and cry with Thomas, "My Lord and my God!"
   You are getting on, now, to complete faith--go one step further. Yield
   yourself up to the grand Truth of God which you have received, for that
   is saving faith--the submission of yourself to the Truth of God. Acting
   upon the conviction of its truth, I must say--since Jesus is now my
   Savior, He shall save me! Since He is the Christ anointed for me, I
   will trust Him and share His anointing! Since Christ is the Son of God,
   I will rest in Him, that I, also, may become in Him a child of God.

   That is the point. "He that has the Son has life: and he that has not
   the Son of God has not life." Accept Jesus as He is set forth, for to
   "as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
   God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of
   blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
   God." The faith which receives Christ as He is revealed as the Messiah
   and as the Son of God, is the faith which has eternal life--and the
   Scriptures are written that you way have this faith! I want you to
   notice one more thing and that is, we are to receive Jesus of Nazareth
   as being the Christ and the Son of God on the ground of the written
   Word of God.

   See--"These are written that you might believe." From this it is clear
   that the ground of acceptable faith is the written Word of God and it
   is vain to look for any other. "Oh," says one brother, "I could
   believe, but I do not feel as I ought." What have your feelings to do
   with the truth of the statement that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of
   God? I read in the newspaper such-and-such a statement about affairs in
   Europe. I may have sufficient cause for doubting the news, but it
   certainly would not be a good reason if I were to say, "I do not
   believe the telegram because I do not feel that it is true." How can
   our feelings affect matters offact? They are either true or not,
   altogether apart from the condition of the hearer.

   Now, here is a testimony concerning Jesus borne by John and three other
   Evangelists. If these things are true, then they are true whether your
   heart dances for joy or sinks in despair. Whatever becomes of our
   changeable feelings, facts are stubborn things and alter not!
   Experience cannot make a thing true and frames of mind and feelings
   cannot make a thing to be a lie which is, in itself, true! Over the
   head, then, of all the storms, turmoils and changes of my poor, weak,
   silly nature, there rises a Rock that is higher than I, higher than all
   things! A Rock which cannot be moved, let the storm rage as long as it
   will--Christ Jesus, the anointed Son of God died in the place of all
   who trust in Him! I trust in Him and I am saved!

   If He is, indeed, commissioned of God to save Believers. And if He is,
   Himself, God, pledged to save Believers, then I, as a Believer, am as
   safe as the Throne of God, or the presence-angels which surround it!
   Whatever I feel or do not feel, I am a saved man since I heartily
   believe that which the Book was written to teach me, namely, God's
   Gospel to men, embodied in Jesus Christ, who, being the Son of God, is
   anointed of the Lord to save His people!

   III. So I come to the third point, which is this, that THE TRUE LIFE OF
   A SOUL LIES IN CHRIST JESUS AND

   COMES TO THAT SOUL THROUGH FAITH IN HIM. I understand by the life of a
   soul only one thing, and yet for the sake of clearing it we must divide
   it a little. First, when a man has been found guilty of death, if by
   any means that sentence is removed from him, he may be said to obtain
   life, life in its judicial form. Suppose that a person who is condemned
   to die is by some just and lawful means acquitted? In that fact he
   finds life. That is the first form of life that every man has who
   believes that Jesus is, indeed, the Christ. He is acquitted, pardoned,
   justified and, therefore, he lives.

   Through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, he is made just in the sight
   of God and, being covered with perfect righteousness, he lives and must
   live forever. He is absolved, for he has believed in Christ Jesus, and
   by that act, he has accepted the righteousness of God and escaped from
   death. The guilt has been removed and, therefore, the penalty cannot be
   inflicted. This judicial life is attended with an imparted life. God
   the Holy Spirit is with Believers, breathing into them a new, holy,
   heavenly life. They are dead to the world and buried with Christ, but
   they live unto God, never more to be slain by sin.

   The life of Christ is infused into them by the Spirit of the living
   God, even as the Lord Jesus has testified, "Verily, verily, I say unto
   you, he that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has
   everlasting life, and shall not come

   into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Observe that
   this life grows. It continues to gather strength and as it increases,
   it is spoken of, by John, as life, "more abundantly." That life never
   dies! It is impossible that it should ever be destroyed! It is a living
   and incorruptible Seed which abides forever. The life of saints on
   earth is, in fact, the same life as that of saints in Heaven. There is
   no change in the substance of the new life when we enter Glory--only
   that it grows and develops and reaches perfection in Heaven. The
   Believer's life on earth is Christ--his life in Heaven is the same.

   As far as our spiritual nature is concerned, we have undergone the
   Resurrection and are raised from the dead--and the life that we live
   here is the Resurrection life--yet the Resurrection has not passed
   already, for as to the body it must be changed, and if it dies and is
   buried it shall be raised again at the sounding of the last trumpet. We
   are waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body from
   the power of death, waiting in the full assurance of hope. The soul
   even now lives in newness of life, for we are quickened by the Spirit
   of God! The new life enters the soul in and through believing and is
   the same life which we shall exercise forever at the right hand of God,
   even as Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes
   on Me has everlasting life."

   I need to enlarge a little upon the fact that this life comes with
   believing because I need it to be noticed that it really comes with
   believing apart from any other necessary circumstances. One person
   complains to me, "Sir, I cannot tell exactly when I was converted and
   this causes me great anxiety." Dear Friend, this is a needless fear.
   Turn your enquiries in another direction--Are you alive unto God by
   faith? Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? Are you
   resting and trusting in Him? "Yes," you say, "with all my heart." Well,
   never mind about when you were converted. The fact is before you and
   its date is a small matter. If a person were to say to you, "You are
   not alive," how would you prove that you are alive? A good plan would
   be gently to step on his toe, or do something to make him feel that you
   possess life. I do not think it could be necessary for you to find your
   birth certificate because if you held it in your hand and said, "This
   document is conclusive," it would not be half so convincing a proof of
   life as some distinct act of life!

   If I thought that I knew the very moment in which I was born again I
   might be mistaken. Indeed, little reliance can be placed upon our
   judgment or our memories. I would sooner believe, today, than be quite
   sure that I began to believe 30 years ago! Perhaps very few of you know
   the exact minute at which the sun rose this morning--and yet you do not
   doubt that it has risen, for at this present moment your are enjoying
   its light! Some mornings you can tell the instant of the sun's rising,
   but frequently it is so cloudy that the sun is up before you know it! A
   man would be an absolute lunatic who should say, "I do not believe that
   it is daylight, for I do not know when the sun rose." Date is a very
   small and unimportant matter compared with certainty and fact!

   Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Then you are alive unto God and life is
   the evidence of birth. "Well," says another, "but I hardly know how I
   was converted." That, again, is another minor matter. Some of us can
   trace the way in which the Lord led us to Himself and we are very
   grateful to the instrument by whom we were brought to a knowledge of
   the Truth of God. But our text does not state that the Bible was
   written that you and I might trace our faith in Christ to John, or to
   anyone else. No, it was written that we might believe in Jesus Christ
   as the result of testimony--and I care not one farthing by what
   testifying agent you were brought to do it--so long as you do but
   believe because of the witness of the Word of God.

   I am sure whatever the outward means of your faith, the Spirit of God
   must have worked it, for there is no living faith apart from His sacred
   working upon the mind. If you sincerely believe, the mode in which you
   gained your faith need not be enquired into. "Well," says one, "but I
   want to know that I am alive unto God by my feelings. I feel often so
   sad and full of pain." Listen, is not pain as good a proof of life as
   pleasure? If anybody said to me, "I know I am alive because I feel so
   well," I should reply, "And I sometimes know that I am alive because I
   feel so ill." Rheumatic pain is as rare a proof of life as a thrill of
   delight--and so, anxiety about your estate and hatred of sin and grief
   over your imperfection are just as sure signs of spiritual life as the
   highest joy or the liveliest energy! Do not worry yourself, therefore,
   about that. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
   and are resting in Him, it is well with you.

   "But," says one, "I change so much. I feel sometimes as if I must be a
   Christian, but at other times I feel as if it were out of the question
   that I could be saved." Yes, and do you not change a great deal as to
   your bodily life, too? I do, I know. Why, this heavy, damp, thick
   atmosphere half poisons me! Lift me up a few thousand feet on a
   mountain side, with a good stiff breeze blowing, and I feel quite
   another man! Are these changes reasons for questioning my being alive?
   No, no! Quite the reverse. The reason why I feel these changes is
   because I am alive, for I reckon that if I were a broomstick or

   a brick wall the atmosphere would not matter much! If you have no
   spiritual life, you will know few changes, but because you are alive
   these variations must and will occur to you.

   I make you smile. I wish I could smile away some of those fears which
   hang like a nightmare over certain of the best of you. "But I have such
   conflicts within," cries one. Ah, dear Friend, there are no conflicts
   in dead men! There would be no warfare between faith and unbelief if
   you were not on the Lord's side! If our whole being remained in its
   natural death, there would be no inward fighting, but inasmuch as there
   are two minds within you, depend upon it--one of those minds is the
   mind of God! This inward conflict should not cause you to doubt, but
   rather lead you to cling the more tenaciously to your conviction that
   Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of men!

   Faith in Jesus begets life and this life will flourish or decay very
   much in proportion to our faith. Believe firmly and your life shall be
   vigorous. Believe tremblingly and your life will be faint. Yet all
   depends upon "the name." Is not that a blessed word, "that believing,
   you might have life through His name." The name means the whole
   Character of Christ-- all His offices and relationships, all the work
   He has done and is doing--we "have life through His name." We have no
   life anywhere else but in that name! Jesus Christ said to Lazarus,
   "Lazarus, come forth," and why did he come forth? Why, because at the
   back of the word which called him, there was the name of Christ who
   quickens the dead!

   Why were demoniacs cured? Was it not because unclean spirits knew the
   name of Jesus and trembled at it? The devil and death, sin and
   despair--they all yield to that name! When some began to exorcise in
   another name, the devil leaped upon them and cried, "Jesus I know, and
   Paul I know, but who are you?" That name has power in Heaven, has power
   on earth, has power in Hell, has power everywhere! And if we trust in
   that name and live to the Glory of that name, we have life through that
   name!

   I come back to my beginning and there I close--the one thing, the main
   thing, the only thing is that we hold on to Jesus Christ through thick
   and thin, through foul and fair, up hill and down dale, in the night
   and in the day, in life and in death, in time and in eternity--that we
   steadfastly believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who died upon the Cross, is
   the Messiah of God, yes, the Son of God, sent to cleanse away iniquity
   and bring in perfect righteousness! Whether we see Him on His Cross or
   on His Throne, all our hope, all our trust must be fixed in Him and so
   we shall live when time shall be no more!

   Verily, I say unto you, those who thus trust Him shall never perish,
   neither shall any pluck them out of His hands, for He has said it, "I
   give unto My sheep eternal life." Stay there, O true Believers, and let
   none entice you from your steadfastness! If any of you have never
   exerted this faith, may the Lord bring you to Jesus at once! This
   sacred Book was written on purpose to make you believe! The Spirit is
   given to lead you to believe! The objective of every preaching of the
   Gospel is that you may believe! Therefore come and welcome! And at this
   hour believe on the one saving name and live thereby. God grant it for
   His name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Nazarene and the Sect of the Nazarenes

   (No. 1632)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 9, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be
   fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophets, He shall be called a
   Nazarene." Matthew 2:23.

   WE find the Jews speaking of Paul, and they say, "We have found this
   man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews
   throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the
   Nazarenes"--Acts 24:5. Thus it appears that our Lord and Master is
   called a Nazarene and His disciples are styled "the sect of the
   Nazarenes," while Christian doctrine was called, by the Jews, the
   heresy of the Nazarenes. Our Savior, though actually born at Bethlehem,
   was commonly known as Jesus of Nazareth, because Nazareth was the place
   where He was brought up. There He remained with His reputed father in
   the carpenter's shop until the time of His showing unto the people.

   This Nazareth was a place very much despised. It was a small country
   town and the people were rough and rustic. They were some three days
   distance from Jerusalem, where I suppose the Jews thought that
   everything that was learned and polite could be found, as we are apt to
   think of our own city, or of Oxford, Cambridge and other seats of
   learning. The people of Nazareth were the boors of Galilee, the clowns
   of the country. More than that, you will generally find in every
   nation--I was about to say in every county of our own country--some
   town made the butt of ridicule. I do not know that "silly Suffolk," is
   any sillier than any other part of the world, but I do know that I,
   myself, happen to have been born in the next parish to the town of
   Coggeshall, in Essex, concerning which all sorts of jokes are made--so
   that when any stupid thing is done they call it "a Coggeshall job."

   I merely mention this because it is an illustration of what used to be
   said concerning Nazareth. It was a primitive place. It was situated in
   Galilee, which was thought to be quite boorish enough, and Nazareth was
   the most rustic of all. The name signifies, in rough words, "sprouts,"
   and the Jews, who were great at puns upon names, threw it as a jest at
   the people who came from that town. We Anglicize it in a more refined
   way by the word, "branch," for, "Netzar," or, "Nazareth," signifies a
   branch. You will begin to understand why the Savior is said to be
   called by the Prophet, a Netzar, or a Nazarene, and you will guess that
   Matthew refers to the passage in Isaiah, in the 11th chapter at the
   first verse, where it is said that a rod shall come out of the stem of
   Jesse, and "a Netzar, a Nazarene, a Branch shall grow out of his
   roots."

   There is another passage in Jeremiah where we read of the man, the
   Branch--the Netzar--the Nazarene. And again in Isaiah, "And His name
   shall be called a Branch," or Nazarene. Those are the passages, I
   think, to which Matthew referred when he said, "That it might be
   fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophets, He shall be called a
   Netzar, a Branch, a Nazarene." The Hebrews made a great deal out of
   names--a great deal more than you and I generally do with names of
   places in England--and they had reason for so doing, for there was
   generally a meaning in the names of places. Perhaps Nazareth was
   called, "Branch" because trees flourished there and not much else. Or
   because they thought that the people were rather verdant and they,
   therefore, called them, "sprouts" and, "greens," making the same use of
   language as the vulgar do at this day when they wish to express
   contempt.

   That may have been the origin of the term, "Nazareth." Certain it is
   that the place was the subject of the jests of the Jews of our Lord's
   time, for even Nathanael, in whom was no guile--one who spoke in a
   simple-hearted, honest way and had no prejudices, but wished well to
   everybody, said--"Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" As if
   he felt that Prophets and saints were by no means likely to spring from
   a town so low down in the scale of progress and education. How could He
   of whom Moses spoke be found way down there among the country folk of
   Nazareth? As Nazarene was a term of contempt in the olden times, so it
   has continued to be. The apostate emperor, Julian, was known always to
   call our Lord, the Galilean. And when he died, in his agony of death,
   he cried, "O Galilean, You have vanquished me!" He was obliged to
   confess our Lord's supremacy, though he still showed his contempt by
   calling Him the Galilean.

   The Jews, to this day, when they feel wroth against our Christ, are
   known to call Him the Nazarene. Nazarene is not at all the same word as
   Nazarite. It is a different word in the Hebrew and you must not confuse
   the two. Never suppose that when you say, "He shall be called a
   Nazarene," that it signifies that He was called a Nazarite. Nazarite,
   among the Jews, would have been a title of honor, but Nazarene is
   simply a name of contempt. A late traveler tells us that he had a
   Muslim guide through Palestine and whenever they came to a village that
   was very dirty, poor and inhabited by professed Christians, he always
   said, "These are not Muslims, they are Netza," or, "Nazarenes,"
   throwing all the spite he possibly could into the word, as if he could
   not have uttered a more contemptuous term.

   To this day, then, our Lord has the name of the Nazarene affixed to Him
   by those who reject Him. And to this day Christians are called, among
   Muslims, Nazarenes. Our Lord Jesus Christ was never ashamed of this
   name. In fact, He called Himself, "Jesus of Nazareth," after He had
   risen from the dead. He told Paul, when He smote him to the earth, "I
   am Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute." His disciples were not
   ashamed to call Him by that name, for as they walked to Emmaus and He
   joined them, and asked them what they were speaking of, they said they
   were talking of Jesus of Nazareth.

   This is a name at which devils tremble, for they besought Him, even
   Jesus of Nazareth, that they should not be sent into the deep when He
   cast them out! It was the name which, in contempt, was nailed above His
   head upon the Cross-- "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Oh,
   but it is a glorious name, as I shall have to show before I have done!
   But still, this is the meaning of it--the meaning of Matthew when he
   says that the Prophets declared that He should be called a Nazarene. He
   meant that the Prophets have described the Messiah as one that would be
   despised and rejected of men! They spoke of Him as a great Prince and
   Conqueror when they described His second coming, but they set forth His
   first coming when they spoke of Him as a root out of a dry ground
   without form or comeliness, who, when He should be seen, would have no
   beauty that men should desire Him. The Prophets said that He would be
   called by a despicable title and it was so, for His countrymen called
   Him a Nazarene.

   I want you to notice our Divine Redeemer's condescension, before I
   plunge further into this matter. It was a marvel that Jesus should live
   on this world at all! He who inhabits all things, whom space is not
   wide enough to contain, dwells on this poor, dusky planet! If He must
   dwell in this world, why is He born in Judea? For though I am grieved
   it should be so, yet the Jews are a people greatly despised--shame on
   Christians when they ever join in such despising! But still, if Jesus
   must be a Man in this world, why is He not born in Rome, in the capital
   of the nations? Why must it be in a little miserable country like
   Judea? And if He shall be born in Judea, why must He live in
   Galilee--that Boeotia of Israel-- that most despicable part of Judea?

   If He must live in Galilee, why not at Capernaum? Why does He choose
   Nazareth? Why must He go to the lowest of the low--that most despised
   place of a despised country? And if He must come to Nazareth--follow
   Him a step lower-- why must He be a carpenter's son? Why, if He lives
   there, can He not be the son of the minister of the synagogue, or some
   respectable scribe? No--He must be reputed to be a poor man's son. And
   then if He must be a carpenter's son, why can He not so constrain men's
   hearts that they shall receive Him? For the deepest depth of all is
   that even as a carpenter's son His fellow citizens will not endure
   Him--they take Him to the brow of the hill to cast Him down headlong
   from the cliff whereon the city stood! Was there ever such
   condescension as that of the Savior? If, in the lowest depth, there is
   a lower depth, He plunges into it for our sakes!

   He emptied Himself. Our old version says, "He made Himself of no
   reputation," but the new one is, in this case much better--"He emptied
   Himself." Nothing was left Him of honor or respect. He gave up all.
   "Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor"--poor to the
   last degree, poor in reputation! He was born a Man, a Jew, a Galilean,
   a Naza-rene. You have gone down as far as language can descend and I
   invite you, now, to think of the way in which Jesus, the Nazarene, is
   still despised. That shall be our first head. When we have thought upon
   that, we will say a little upon His disciples--the sect of the
   Nazarenes must expect to be despised till brighter days shall dawn.
   When we have talked about that we shall have to say, in conclusion,
   that there is nothing despicable either in the Master or in the
   servants, though they are called Nazarenes by a contemptuous world.

   I. First, then, OUR MASTER, THE NAZARENE, WAS DESPISED AND IS DESPISED
   EVEN TO THIS DAY. He was despised, first, because in His Person, His
   parentage, His state, His apparel, His language, His habits there was
   nothing of grandeur, nothing of parade, nothing but what was simple,
   gentle, lowly. He did ride, once, but it was on a

   colt, the foal of an ass. It was said, "Behold your King comes," but
   His coming was meek and lowly. He might have been a king--He was very
   near being taken by force to be pushed up into a throne--but He
   withdrew Himself, for He did not strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice
   to be heard in the streets. He was no popularity-hunter, or flatterer
   of the great.

   He was no man of confusion and strife, who sought to push Himself
   forward and tread down others. Those that opposed Him were weak like
   bruised reeds, but He would not break them though He could have done
   it. They offended Him with their weak arguments, for they were like a
   smoking flax to Him, but He would not quench them. He left them for
   another day when He shall bring forth judgment unto victory. I suppose,
   if we had seen the Savior, we should not have thought Him "altogether
   lovely," for His heavenly beauty was not of the kind that strikes the
   natural eye. Hence the impossibility of any painter ever being able to
   paint Him, for though He must have been superlatively lovely, it must
   have been a beauty with which nobody would be charmed unless their eyes
   were opened to perceive the beauty of holiness.

   His was the loveliness of virtue, the charm ofpurity and not that
   sensuous beauty which excites desire and kindles the passions of
   mankind. He was loveliness itself, but only to those who know what
   loveliness is. About His dress there was nothing remarkable. He wore
   the ordinary smock-frock of the country, a garment without seam, woven
   from the top throughout--a very serviceable, useful piece of workday
   apparel--but possessing nothing in it of official dignity, or princely
   richness to distinguish Him from an ordinary person. As for the place
   where He lived, it was no bishop's palace, nor even an ordinary manse,
   for He had not where to lay His head.

   He sought no dignity and no honor. As for His companionships, they were
   of the lowest, for it is said of Him, "This Man receives sinners and
   eats with them." "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners
   for to hear Him." The off casts of society delighted in His discourses
   and they gathered round Him to receive blessings at His hand. He lifted
   them up from the dunghill, renewed them and set them among princes. He
   was the last person in the world to be hampered by pride. There was
   nothing of the kind about Him! He was the personification of love. He
   condescended, but He did not seem to condescend, for graciousness was
   natural to Him. He did it so really that one almost forgot the
   condescension in the altogether naturalness of the way in which He
   sympathized with all grief and helped all who came for succor. And,
   therefore, the proud despised Him.

   Those who looked for dress and garb, as so many do in our day--those
   who looked for a show of learning, quotations from great writers,
   continual perplexities to human minds--could not see much in Jesus.
   Those who needed a display of power, a leader bold and brave to drive
   out the Romans and play Judas Maccabaeus for the people, turned away
   and said, "He is nothing but an ordinary Nazarene." His followers, too,
   were another cause of the contempt poured upon Him, for His chosen
   friends were, to those who knew them, nothing but common fishermen.
   Indeed, that is all they were! Unlearned and ignorant men they are said
   to have been, though they baffled the pretended wisdom of the age in
   which they lived. How could He have selected such followers? There were
   scribes and there were Pharisees--there were Rabbis and Rabboni--He
   might surely have called some of those to follow Him!

   But, you see, the Savior was not a preacher that at all attracted the
   elite of society. Those highly cultured minds, as a rule, went to hear
   Rabbi Simeon, the Pharisee, who expounded points of no earthly
   importance. But Jesus was one of whom it is written, "The common people
   heard Him gladly." And so the wise ones ran Him down as "a Nazarene."
   "Look," they said, "look and see who they are that He has chosen to be
   His chief helpers! See how the lower orders flock around Him. They are
   no judges--what notion have they of profound learning and research?
   They like a man who is ignorant, for He is like themselves. They have
   no taste, they have no education and so they gather to one of
   themselves." "Ah!" said one of these wiseacres, "I am ashamed of
   Him--quite ashamed. Indeed, I shall speak to Him, for He ought not to
   be so lost to all sense of propriety."

   And so he goes to the Master and says, "Do You hear the boys crying,
   'Hosanna!' in the Temple? Do You hear what these say?" He thought that
   the Lord would be ashamed of having such admirers as mere street boys.
   But the Savior answered, "Have you never read"--as if He were going to
   question this great man's reading--"Have you never read, Out of the
   mouth of babes and sucklings He has perfected praise"? He was not
   ashamed, even, of chits of children that strewed the pathway for Him,
   nor ashamed of the sick and sinful people that gathered around Him, nor
   ashamed of the poor fishermen that were the lieutenants of His
   salvation army! But rather did He rejoice therein and say, "Father, I
   thank You that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
   have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
   in Your sight."

   But the higher classes, the refined and the cultivated, said, "Tush! He
   is nothing but a Nazarene!" Well, then, when they came to listen to His
   doctrine, they were not a bit more pleased, nor did they hold Him any
   higher in esteem. What do you think He taught them? Among other things
   it is reported that He said, "Except a man is born again he cannot see
   the kingdom of God"--and, would you believe it, He said this not to one
   of the lower order at all, but to a learned gentleman who was a ruler
   in Israel? Why, it has come to a pretty pass, this, to tell educated
   people, refined, aesthetic people, that they must be born again or else
   they cannot see the kingdom of God--to insist upon regeneration as a
   thing as necessary to a philosopher as to a prostitute--as necessary to
   a senator as to a jailbird! As necessary to the purest as to the most
   defiled. Oh no, we cannot bear such leveling doctrine! It is shocking!
   So they turned their backs on Him and called Him a Nazarene! When a man
   tells you unpalatable truth, it is very easy and natural to call him
   bad names. If you cannot answer him anyway else, you can always answer
   him by reviling him.

   And, then, what do you think He said besides that? On one occasion He
   had the audacity to say--and I am sure the Pharisees thought it was
   audacity, indeed--"Except you eat My flesh, and drink My blood, there
   is no life in you." What could the Man mean--that they, even they, the
   sons of Abraham who were born free--the priests who had partaken of the
   sacrifices, must actually eat Him? Did they think that they would
   accept His teaching as food for their souls? I wonder if they went as
   far as that in understanding Him? But if they did, they liked it no
   better. They were indignant that He should say that the only food for
   their souls must be Himself--that unless He became their life and the
   nourishment of that life--unless He became part and parcel of their
   very being, they could not be saved! Even those who did think a little
   of Him, said that after this they must give Him up. They could not
   stand that and so they walked no more with Him.

   He went even further. Why, He actually dared to tell the scribes and
   Pharisees who had fasted so many times in the week and never ate bread
   without washing their hands, and tithed the mint and the cummin, that
   there was nothing in all this! He said--"You blind guides, you
   hypocrites, you strain at a gnat and you swallow a camel!" He went on
   to tell them that all their outside religion was a lie and a falsehood
   unless the inner part of the soul were cleansed. He said that it was
   not that which a man ate or drank, but that which came out of the man
   that really defiled him. People said, "Did you ever hear such talk as
   that? Why, He is putting us all down, we that are the best people
   around! If we are not good-- we that are the leaders of society, the
   pink of perfection--who can be?"

   "We swallow a widow's house sometimes, but we always do that behind the
   door. It is true that we are not as clean inside as we should be, but
   then we always make clean the outside of the cup and platter. Nobody
   can say but what we do and He has been talking against us--and at the
   same time He is inviting the fallen to Himself and saying--'Come unto
   Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
   Well, well," they said, "we cannot bear it! He is nothing but a
   Nazarene!" And so they turned their backs upon Him. Dear Friends, today
   Jesus Christ is as much despised as ever by those ungodly and
   vain-glorious men who understand what His Gospel is! How frequently you
   will find, in the public newspapers, and in the magazines of those who
   think themselves the cultivated class, remarks against the doctrine of
   justification by faith.

   You and I are simpletons enough to believe that we are justified by
   faith in Christ Jesus, because God has told us so, and we sing--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring Simply to the Cross I cling"

   and they tell us that this is inconsistent with public morality! That
   the masses ought to be told that unless they behave themselves they
   cannot possibly go to Heaven, and so on--which thing they have been
   told times without number--and they have grown worse, the more they
   have been told it! When we talk about Free Grace which pardons the
   vilest through faith in Christ, men are changed and made moral and
   holy! But our unbelieving critics choose to ignore all that and go and
   talk against what is the very essence of the Gospel of Christ, as
   though it were a poor, miserable thing, only fit for a set of fanatics
   to preach! "Only believe and you shall be saved?" they say, "that is
   their absurd doctrine!" In other words, they repeat the old abuse and
   call us Nazarenes.

   But if you want to see the ungodly world foam at its mouth--oh, if you
   want to see rage get at its worst--and wish to see pretended learned
   men upon their mettle, preach the doctrine of Atonement by blood! Tell
   them that remission of sin is by Substitution--that Christ stood in the
   sinner's place and took the sinner's sin--and that without shedding of
   blood there is no remission of sin. See how they writhe and rage! They
   cannot bear this horrible doctrine of Atonement

   by Sacrifice and yet, most learned Sirs, it is upon that horrible
   Atonement that our hope depends! It is upon that horrible doctrine that
   we hang our destiny for time and for eternity! And we are not ashamed
   to bring it out with all plainness of speech, for the precious blood of
   Christ, God's dear Son, and that alone, cleans us from all sin!

   "Ah, well," they say, "that is just the old story which your Puritan
   fathers used to tell. That is the old Methodist doctrine. That is your
   Presbyterianism and, as James the First said, Presbyterianism is no
   religion for a gentleman." These learned men admire the broad-Church
   school where everything is taken to be true except the Truth of God!
   Still, Jesus is, to the mass of mankind, the despised Nazarene! I will
   not dwell longer upon it, however, because you that know the Lord need
   not be told that He is, to this day, despised and rejected of men. Call
   yourself a Christian and forget what Christianity is--and you will have
   easy times of it. Instead of preaching the simple Gospel of Christ, get
   fine music and fix up fine shows. Turn the place of worship into a
   conservatory, or a theater, and there will be no persecution for you!

   Of course not, that is not Jesus Christ! But preach Jesus Christ and
   see if all the dogs will not howl at you, directly. You shall have ill
   names and wicked stories and all sorts ofjests poured upon you! Go
   through the world as a respectable professor of religion and never let
   fall a single distinctive Truth of God from your lips. Never perform
   one single distinctive action of Christianity--but just do as others do
   and live as others do--and I will guarantee you, you shall be in a
   whole skin from the first of January to the end of December!

   But be a Christian and live your Christianity and speak it out--and see
   how long it will be before they of your own house are at war with you!
   If we are true to the Master, we shall find that we have not enlisted
   in a service which is all fine feathers and music--stern fighting is to
   be done! There is war to be borne and hardness to be endured by every
   good soldier of the Cross, for Jesus is still called the Nazarene!

   II. But now, secondly, our other text informs us that CHRIST'S
   FOLLOWERS HAVE BEEN KNOWN AS THE SECT OF THE NAZARENES--that is to say,
   they must expect to bear a measure of the indignities poured upon their
   Leader. Dear young Friends, I need to press some matters home upon you
   who have lately joined the Church and also upon you who love the Lord
   but have never yet confessed it. If you follow Christ fully, you will
   be sure to be called by some ill name or other. For, first, they will
   say how singular you are. "My inheritance," says God, "is unto Me as a
   speckled bird. The birds round about her are against her."

   If you become a true Christian, you will soon be a marked man. They
   will say, "How odd he is!" "How singular she is!" They will think that
   we try to make ourselves remarkable, when, in fact, we are only
   conscientious and are endeavoring to obey what we think to be the Word
   of God. Oftentimes that is the form of contempt--practical Christians
   are set down as intentionally eccentric and willfully odd. Mothers have
   brought that charge against daughters who have been faithful to Christ
   because they would not go into gaiety, or indulge in vain apparel. And
   many a working man has said it to his fellow man by way of accusation,
   "You must be different from everybody else." This difference, which God
   has made a necessity, men treat as a mere whim of our own. If we do not
   come out from among them and be separate, we cannot expect to be housed
   beneath the wings of the Eternal! But if we do, we may reckon upon
   being regarded by those around us as strange, unfriendly creatures.

   Then, again, they will say to the genuine Christian, "Why, you are so
   old-fashioned! Look at you! You believe the same old things that they
   used to believe in Oliver Cromwell's day--those old Puritan doctrines!
   Do you not know that the world has made a great progress since those
   times and we have entered upon the 19th Century--a wonderful
   century--there never was century like it! There was only one Solomon,
   centuries ago, but we are all Solomons now! The very least of us! While
   the greater ones far excel a thousand Solomons rolled into one! The
   19th Century! And here are you, you still stick to an old book that was
   written half of it ages ago, and the other half is at least 1,800 years
   old! Will you never move with the times? Will you get as far as Moses,
   Jesus and John and stick there?"

   Yes, exactly there! We go not an inch beyond Jesus Christ, the same
   yesterday, today, and forever! We try to hold fast the faith that was
   once delivered to the saints. In ordinances we hold to the olden
   Baptism and the ancient Supper! In doctrine we abide by the Truths of
   God which Paul taught among the Gentiles, for we feel that we cannot
   improve upon them! We would wish to exhibit the same spirit as Jesus
   Christ our Lord, for we know we shall never improve upon His
   perfections! Therefore they say, "You are so old-fashioned!" And we
   answer that for this we give no apology. When that form of criticism
   does not take effect, they laugh at our faith. They say, "You
   simple-minded people have great capacity

   for believing! Look at us, we are far too sensible to believe anything.
   We do not feel sure about anything. What we think we know today we are
   not certain of. We are so receptive that we may learn the reverse
   tomorrow!

   "We get our faith out of our own moral consciousness and compel, even,
   the Scriptures to plead at the bar of our inward conceptions. We do not
   need to have things revealed to us and to have a Bible and bind
   ourselves down to a Book of Revelation. We are our own teachers, judges
   and infallible guides--and the very idea of absolutely certain truth is
   abhorred by us! As to this Spirit of God that you trust in, it is sheer
   enthusiasm! There is nothing in it and we wonder that you should be so
   credulous! Instead of that, you ought to be rational and believe in
   Huxley and Tyndall. Do not be credulous and believe in God, but be
   rational and believe in Bradlaugh, Voltaire and Tom Paine!"

   This is another sting for the Nazarenes, but happily it has small power
   to vex us, since our reverence for the authorities of modern wisdom is
   not sufficient to make us fear their scoffs. Time was when Christianity
   was opposed by men of real ability, masters in learning--but in the
   present age its antagonists are men of much smaller caliber whose lack
   of argument is scantily concealed by the outrageous absurdities which
   they invent! Instead of attempting to overwhelm us by the weight of
   their learning, they endeavor to surprise us with unexpected hypotheses
   which we are more inclined to ridicule than to refute! And then, with
   mock sobriety, they assert that our bewilderment is defeat. The spears
   of the phalanx of reason are seen no more, but the shafts of folly
   stand thick upon our shields. In this, also, we shall conquer through
   the blood of the Lamb! Meanwhile we leave sneers of contempt to those
   who are such masters of them. It is for Nazarenes to receive, but not
   to return arrogance.

   Another arrow of contempt is the assertion that Christian people have
   not their liberty. "Look at you, you dare not go to the theater! You
   dare not drink! Why," says one man, "I like a jolly drink sometimes and
   if I were a Christian, I could not enjoy that great privilege." No,
   Friend, you certainly would lose that booze of yours. As far as we are
   concerned, we have no ambition in that direction. Some of us know a
   little of what the amusements of the ungodly are and we are astonished
   that you should be able to find content in them, for they do not suit
   our taste at all! We never envy hogs their wash. Let them have their
   trough well-filled as often as they please! We have no taste in that
   direction. But you need not say that we have no liberty because we do
   not feed out of the swine trough, for such liberty we never desired!

   We have liberty to serve God and do good--and this is the freedom which
   we covet. We have liberty to do as we like, for we like to do what God
   would have us do--and we pray that our likes may, every day, be more
   and more conformed to the liking of God. There is not much, after all,
   in the taunt, "You God-fearing people are cowardly! You dare not enjoy
   yourselves." We live daily so as to give this taunt the lie, for we are
   a happy people, a free people, even we who are of the sect of the
   Nazarenes!

   Again, some turn round upon true Christians for their not being very
   choice in their company. If we associated only with the rich and great,
   whose society, as far as I know of it, is about the poorest thing out,
   we should then be acting properly. Keep to "society," and society will
   smile upon you. But if you attend meetings where you call a coal miner
   your Brother in Christ, where the washerwoman is your Sister, where so
   long as people love Christ you count them the best of company, then you
   are low and vulgar, a Philistine, or a Nazarene! If you are willing to
   be a true Brother to a black man, or to one who is an outcast in
   condition--who was actually seen with a broom, sweeping a
   crossing--then, of course, you cannot expect to be recognized by
   anybody who is anybody! Listen to the world's ridicule of true
   Christian Churches where there is real brotherly love and true
   fraternity! They cannot endure it!

   Well, they may do without it, then, but this shall be my glory--that
   God has made of one blood all nations of men that dwell upon the face
   of the earth and that where there is a touch of Grace in any man--his
   dress and his rank are nothing to me! Real Believers in Jesus are truly
   our Brothers and Sisters in Christ, however poor or however illiterate
   they may be. This is the very genius of Christianity! To the poor, the
   Gospel is preached! As soon as men enter into the Church of Christ, all
   outward distinctions are forgotten and they are one in the gracious
   family of God their Father! This, however, is the subject of contempt
   even among those who profess and call themselves Christians! Many of
   your fine ladies and gentlemen would not acknowledge Jesus, Himself, if
   He were now upon earth! And as for His disciples, I am sure they would
   get the cold shoulder on all sides! I, for one, never expect to see
   saints fashionable, nor holiness popular--let us be content to be low
   and vulgar in men's esteem for the Lord's sake!

   And then, if God's servants will preach the Truth of God outright, or
   if not being preachers they will hold it and dare to live it, I
   guarantee you they will soon meet with some contemptuous title or
   other. Pare down the Gospel; cut

   away its angles; draw out the lion's teeth and then, at once, you shall
   be friends with the world! But hold the Doctrines of Grace; bring forth
   the Atonement; speak out plainly; have your convictions and state
   them--and soon the hounds will be after you full cry! Say that the
   Bible and the Bible, alone, is the religion of true Christians, and
   that we are not bound by prayer-books, synods, conferences, or anything
   of the kind--but only by the Word of God, and you shall see what you
   shall see, for here and there and everywhere all sorts of people will
   be against you!

   Live a godly, gracious life and you will not escape persecution! You
   may be happily circumstanced so as to live among earnest Christians and
   so escape persecution--but take the average Christian man in this city
   and he will have a hard time of it if he is faithful! He will be
   pointed at by some opprobrious name or other, something like Paul was
   when they said he was a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

   III. Now, listen to me as I close. THERE IS, AFTER ALL, NOTHING
   DESPICABLE IN EITHER CHRIST OR HIS PEOPLE. I feel half ashamed to say
   such a thing, or that it should ever be necessary to be said that there
   is nothing to despise in Jesus! What is there to be ashamed of in Him?
   He is the Son of the Highest! He is "God over all, blessed forever" and
   if He stooped--and stoop He did--and became lower than the lowest by
   His sufferings or death, even the death of the Cross, He did it out of
   such glorious disinterestedness of kindness to fallen men that He is
   thereby revealed as the most grand of all characters! His is the most
   sublime of all lives! Angels have never ceased to wonder and adore!
   Even the enemies of Christ have often been struck dumb as they have
   seen the splendor of the love that moved Him to stoop so low.

   And what if He has revealed a plain Gospel? Would you have the
   illiterate left out in the cold? What if He preached the Gospel to
   sinners? Who needed the Gospel but sinners? What if He did not flatter
   the pride of those who thought themselves good? Is it not true that
   "the whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick"? For my
   part, I bless my Master that He has given us a commonplace Gospel. It
   is sublime beyond sublimity! But it is plain so that a little child may
   understand it. A man with slender wit may find his way to Heaven guided
   by the Light of the Holy Spirit and this is one of the most grand
   proofs of the profound wisdom of God! Glory be to Jesus Christ that He
   did not come here to tantalize the multitude by a Gospel only suitable
   to the elite! That He did not come here to proclaim doctrines that
   could only be learned in the universities and could never be understood
   except by such men as Isaac Newton or Robert Boyle!

   I bless the name of Jesus that He came to give a Gospel to the poor and
   needy, to the simple and the childlike! And while I do it, I feel that
   I hear Him saying again, "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and of
   earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
   have revealed them unto babes." The practical point is this--there is
   nothing to be ashamed of in being a Christian! I am afraid that there
   are some Christians that we have need to be ashamed of and that we,
   ourselves, do many unworthy things. Christians ought to be reflections
   of Christ, but I fear they often cast reflections upon Christ. Oh you
   that despise Christ, when you find out our faults and speak against us
   for them, you treat us justly and we cannot complain!

   But why lay our crimes at our Savior's door? If you find us false to
   our profession. If we are not like our Master. If we are not true to
   Him, you may well ridicule us and we cannot answer you. We must be
   beaten as with whips of scorpions when we are untrue to our Leader--but
   why blame Him? The fact is that the ungodly revile those who are true
   to the Lord Jesus. Well, when they do, there is nothing in that to be
   ashamed of. What if I believe the Truth of God? Shall I be ashamed of
   it? What if I fear God? Shall I be ashamed of it? Let those be ashamed
   who do not fear Him. What if I believe in prayer? What if I receive
   answers to prayer? Shall I blush about that? Let those blush scarlet
   who never pray, or have no God to hear their prayers! Shall I be
   ashamed because I try to do what is right and have a conscience before
   God--and cannot enjoy loose pleasures--or listen to lascivious song?
   Shall I be ashamed of chastity and truth?

   Why, then, let angels be ashamed of purity! Let the stars be ashamed of
   light! Let the sun be ashamed of day! There is nothing to be ashamed of
   in things honorable and of good repute. Why is it that some of you--you
   who are, I trust, Christians--never come out and acknowledge your
   religion? What will your Master say to you in the day of His appearing?
   What honor can you expect to share with Him if you will not share His
   shame? If any man wants to spit on Christ, let him do me the honor to
   spit on me! If any man will rail on Christ, let him do me the pleasure
   to rail on me, for if I may stand between him and my Master, I shall be
   promoted by the deed!

   Napoleon's Mamaluke flung himself in the way of the bullet to save the
   emperor's life. Shall not Christ be served after that fashion? Shall we
   not be willing to be Nazarenes for the Nazarene? Shall we not glory to
   be despised and rejected

   of men for His sake, if by any means we may bring honor to Him? I trust
   it shall be so and yet some of you have not even been baptized into His
   name, though you know that it is His command! You have never joined
   with His people in Church fellowship and yet wish to share their joys!
   You let them fight the battle alone! You think, I suppose, to slink
   into Heaven by the back door and not to be found among the soldiers of
   Christ till the crowns are distributed? Ah, Sirs, you miss a great
   honor in not standing shoulder to shoulder with the rank and file of
   Christ's chosen! Angels would leave Heaven, if they could, to come and
   fight for Christ!

   They would be glad to leave their rest to bear the hardness which a
   follower of Christ must endure for His dear Captain's sake. Jesus is
   coming! He is on His way! He may come tonight! He may come before
   another Sabbath's bells shall ring--and oh, if I have never confessed
   Him, if I have been ashamed of Him--how shall I face Him? Hear this,
   you cowards! What will you say when He appears? Be wise and confess Him
   tonight! Come you out from among the ungodly! Be you separate! Confess
   your Lord and Master!

   "He that with His heart believes, and with His mouth makes confession
   of Him, shall be saved." "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved. He that believes not shall be damned." God save us from being
   ashamed of the Nazarene! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sarah and Her Daughters

   (No. 1633)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 28, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you." Isaiah
   51:2.

   "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you
   are, as long as you do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." 1
   Peter3:6.

   I DESIRE to thank God for having had the privilege of preaching in
   Exeter Hall, yesterday, to a large congregation from the whole of the
   second verse of the 51st of Isaiah--"Look unto Abraham your father, and
   unto Sarah that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and
   increased him." [See No. 1596, HEARKEN AND LOOK--OR, ENCOURAGEMENT FOR
   BELIEVERS preached on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society on the
   morning of April 27,1881.] On that occasion I confined my remarks to
   Abraham and tried to make prominent the facts that God called him while
   he was a heathen man, one man and a lone man--and yet He blessed him
   and made him the founder of His people, multiplying his seed as the
   stars and as the sand of the seashore. I devoutly beseech the Lord to
   accept my testimony to His power and to increase the faith of the many
   of His servants to whom I spoke on that occasion. His Holy Spirit gave
   me the word--may He cause His saints to feed upon it!

   Now, I never like to do an injustice to anybody and I feel that I did
   not, in that sermon, speak sufficiently about Sarah, though I did not
   quite forget her. Let us make up for our omissions. If we had Abraham
   at Exeter Hall yesterday morning, we will have Sarah at the Tabernacle,
   tonight, and maybe we shall learn a lesson from her holy character as
   well as from that of her husband. And the two lessons combined may go
   to the perfecting of each other. May our great Teacher, the Holy
   Spirit, now instruct us! To begin with, let us note what a happy
   circumstance it is when a godly, gracious man has an equally godly and
   gracious wife.

   It is ill when there is a difference, a radical difference, between
   husband and wife--when one fears God and the other has no regard for
   Him. What a pain it is to a Christian woman to be yoked with an
   unbelieving husband! In a case which I remember, the husband lived all
   his life indifferent to Divine things, while the wife was an earnest
   Christian woman and saw all her children grow up in the ways of the
   Lord. The father lived unregenerate and died without giving any
   testimony of a change of heart. When our Sister speaks of him, it is
   with fearful anguish. She does not know what to say, but leaves the
   matter in the hands of God, often sighing, "O that by a word or a look
   I could have been enabled to indulge a hope that my poor husband looked
   to Jesus at the last."

   The same must be the case of a husband who has an ungodly wife. However
   much God may bless him in all other respects, there seems to be a great
   miss there--as if a part of the sun were eclipsed--that a part of life
   which should be all light is left in thick darkness. Oh, let those of
   us who have the happiness of being joined together in the Lord thank
   and bless God every time we remember each other! Let us pray God, that
   having such a privilege--that our prayers are not hindered by
   irreligious partners--we may never hinder our prayers ourselves! God
   grant that we may give unto His name great glory because of His choice
   favor to us in this respect.

   Abraham had cause to praise God for Sarah and Sarah was grateful for
   Abraham. I have not the slightest doubt that Sarah's character owed its
   excellence very much to Abraham. I should not wonder, however, if we
   discover, when all things are revealed, that Abraham owed as much to
   Sarah! They probably learned from each other. Sometimes the weaker
   comforted the stronger and often the stronger sustained the weaker. I
   should not wonder if a mutual interchange of their several Graces
   tended to make them both rich in the things of God. Perhaps Abraham had
   not been all that Abraham was if Sarah had not been all that Sarah was.

   Our first text bids us, "Look to Sarah," and we do look on her and we
   thank God if we, like Abraham, are favored with holy consorts, whose
   amiable tempers and characters tend to make us better servants of God.
   We notice, next, as we look to Sarah, that God does not forget the
   lesser lights. Abraham shines like a star of the first magnitude and we
   do not, at first sight, observe that other star with light so bright
   and pure, shining with milder radiance but with kindred luster, close
   at his side. The light of Mamre, which is known under the name of
   Abraham, resolves itself into a double star when we apply the telescope
   of reflection and observation. To the common eye, Abraham is the sole
   character and ordinary people overlook his faithful spouse, but God
   does not!

   Our God never omits the good who are obscure. You may depend upon it
   that there is no such difference in the love of God towards different
   persons as should make Him fix His eyes only upon those that are strong
   and omit those who are weak. Our eyes spy out the great things, but
   God's eyes are such that nothing is great with Him and nothing is
   little. He is infinite and, therefore, nothing bears any comparison to
   Him. You remember how it is written that He who counts the stars and
   calls them by name also binds up the broken in heart, and heals all
   their wounds. He who treasures the names of His Apostles, notes, also,
   the women that followed in their train. He who marks the brave
   confessors and the bold preachers of the Gospel also remembers those
   helpers who labor quietly in the Gospel in places of retirement into
   which the hawk's eyes of history seldom pries.

   Let, therefore, those here present who count themselves to be of the
   tribe of Benjamin, to be little in Israel, never be discouraged on that
   account--for the Lord is too great to despise the little ones! You are
   not forgotten of God, O you who are overlooked by men! The Lord's eyes
   are upon innumerable the creeping things in the great sea as well as
   upon leviathan--He will observe you. If He sends the deluging showers
   that make strong the cedars, which are full of sap and adorn the brow
   of Lebanon, so does He send to each tiny blade of grass its own drop of
   dew. God forgets not the less in His care for the greater! Sarah was in
   life covered with the shield of the Almighty as well as Abraham, her
   husband--in death she rested in the same tomb--in Heaven she has the
   same joy! In the Book of the Lord she has the same record!

   Next, notice that it would be well for us to imitate God in this--in
   not forgetting the lesser lights. I do not know that great men are
   often good examples. I am sorry when, because men have been clever and
   successful, they are held up to imitation, though their motives and
   morals have been questionable. I would sooner men were stupid and
   honest than clever and tricky! It is better to act rightly and fail
   altogether than succeed by falsehood and cunning. I would sooner bid my
   son imitate an honest man who has no talent and whose life is
   unsuccessful, than point him to the most clever and greatest that ever
   lived--whose life has become a brilliant success--but whose principles
   are condemnable.

   Learn not from the great but from the good! Be not dazzled by success,
   but follow the safer light of truth and right! But so it is that men
   mainly observe that only which is written in big letters. But you know
   the choicest part of God's books are printed in small characters. They
   who would only know the rudiments may spell out the words in large type
   which are for babes, but those who want to be fully instructed must sit
   down and read the small print of God, given us in lives of saints whom
   most men neglect! Some of the choicest virtues are not so much seen in
   the great as in the quiet, obscure life. Many a Christian woman
   manifests a glory of character that is to be found in no public man. I
   am sure that many a flower that is "born to blush unseen" and, as we
   think, to "waste its fragrance on the desert air," is fairer than the
   beauties which reign in the conservatory and are the admiration of all!

   God has ways of producing very choice things on a small scale. As rare
   pearls and precious stones are never great masses of rock, but always
   lie within a narrow compass, so full often the fairest and richest
   virtues are to be found in the humblest individuals. A man may be too
   great to be good, but he cannot be too little to be gracious. Do not,
   therefore, always be studying Abraham, the greater character. Does not
   the text say, "Look unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah that bore
   you"? You have not learned the full lesson of patriarchal life until
   you have been in the tent with Sarah, as well as among the flocks with
   her husband.

   Furthermore, another reflection arises, namely, that faith reveals
   itself in various ways. Faith makes one person this and another that.
   Faith in Noah makes him a shipbuilder and the second of the world's
   great fathers. Faith in Abraham makes him a pilgrim and a stranger.
   Faith in Moses makes him plague Egypt and feed a nation for 40 years in
   the wilderness. Faith in David makes him kill a giant, save a kingdom
   and ascend a throne. Faith in Samson makes him slay a thousand
   Philistines and in Rahab it makes her save two Israelites. Faith has
   many ways of working and it works according to

   the condition and position of the person in whom it dwells. Sarah does
   not become Abraham, nor does Abraham become Sarah.

   Faith in Isaac does not make him the same royal man as Abraham--he is
   always tame and gentle rather than great and noble--he comes in like a
   valley between the two great hills of Abraham and Jacob. Isaac is Isaac
   and Isaac has such virtue as becomes him whom the Lord loved. And
   Jacob, too, is Jacob and not his father. He is active, energetic and
   far-seeing. God does not, by His Grace, lift us out of our place. A man
   is made gentle, but he is not made a fool. A woman is made brave, but
   Divine Grace never made her masterful and domineering. Grace does not
   make the child so self-willed that he disobeys his father--it is
   something else that does that. Grace does not take away from the father
   his authority to command the child. It leaves us where we were, in a
   certain sense, as to our position, and the fruit it bears is congruous
   to that position.

   Thus Sarah is beautified with the virtues that adorn a woman, while
   Abraham is adorned with all the excellences which are becoming in a
   godly man. According as the virtue is required, so is it produced. If
   the circumstances require courage, God makes His servant heroic. If the
   circumstances require great modesty and prudence, modesty and prudence
   are given. Faith is a wonderful magician's wand! It works marvels, it
   achieves impossibilities, it grasps the incomprehensible. Faith can be
   used anywhere--in the highest Heaven touching the ear of God and
   winning our desire of Him--and in the lowest places of the earth among
   the poor and fallen, cheering and upraising them. Faith will quench the
   violence of fire, turn the edge of the sword, snatch the prey from the
   enemy and turn the alien to flight.

   There is nothing which it cannot do. It is a principle available for
   all times, to be used on all occasions, suitable to be used by all men
   for all holy ends. Those who have been taught the sacred art of
   believing God are the truly learned--no degree of the foremost
   university can equal in value that which comes with much boldness in
   the faith. We shall see, tonight, that if Abraham walks before God and
   is perfect--if he smites the kings that have carried Lot captive, if he
   does such deeds of prowess as become a man--the same faith makes Sarah
   walk before God in her perfectness and she performs the actions which
   become her womanhood. And she, too, is written among the worthies of
   faith who magnified the Lord!

   We are led by our second text to look at the fruit of faith in Sarah.
   There were two fruits of faith in Sarah--she did well and she was not
   afraid with any amazement. We will begin with the first. It is said of
   her that SHE DID WELL, "whose daughters you are as long as you do
   well." She did well as a wife. She was all her husband could desire
   and, when, at the age of 127 years, she at last fell asleep, it is said
   that Abraham not only mourned for her, but the old man wept for her
   most true and genuine tears of sorrow. He wept for the loss of one who
   had been the life of his house. As a wife she did well. All the duties
   that were incumbent upon her as the queen of that traveling company
   were performed admirably and we find no fault mentioned concerning her
   in that respect.

   She did well as a hostess. It was her duty, as her husband was given to
   hospitality, to be willing to entertain his guests. And the one
   instance recorded is, no doubt, the representation of her common mode
   of procedure. Though she was truly a princess, yet she kneaded the
   dough and prepared the bread for her husband's guests. They came
   suddenly, but she had no complaint to make. She was, indeed, always
   ready to lay herself out to perform that which was one of the highest
   duties of a God-fearing household in those primitive times. She did
   well, also, as a mother. We are sure she did, because we find that her
   son Isaac was so excellent a man--and you may say what you will, but in
   the hands of God the mother forms the boy's character!

   Perhaps the father unconsciously influences the girls, but the mother
   has evidently most influence over the sons. Any of us can bear witness
   that it is so in our own case. There are exceptions, of course, but for
   the most part, the mother is the queen of the son and he looks up to
   her with infinite respect if she is at all such as can be respected.
   Sarah, by faith, did her work with Isaac, well, for from the very
   first, in his yielding to his father when he was to be offered up as a
   sacrifice, we see in him evidence of a holy obedience and faith in God
   which were seldom equaled--and were never surpassed. Besides that, it
   is written that God said of Abraham, "I know Abraham, that he will
   command his children and his household after him."

   There is one trait in Abraham's character that, wherever he went, he
   set up an altar unto the Lord. His rule was a tent and an altar. Dear
   Friends, do you always make these two things go together--a tent and an
   altar? Where you dwell, is there sure to be family worship there? I am
   afraid that many families neglect it and often it is so because husband
   and wife are not agreed about it. And I feel sure that there would not
   have been that invariable setting up of the worship

   of God by Abraham in his tent unless Sarah had been as godly as
   himself. She did well, also, as a Believer, and that is no mean point.
   As a Believer, when Abraham was called to separate himself from his
   kindred, Sarah went with him. She would adopt the separated life, too,
   and the same caravan which traveled across the desert with Abraham for
   its master had Sarah for its mistress.

   She continued with him, believing in God with perseverance. Though they
   had no city to dwell in, she continued the roaming life with her
   husband, looking for "a city which has foundations, whose Builder and
   Maker is God." She believed God's promise with all her heart, for
   though she laughed, once, because when the promise neared its
   realization it overwhelmed her--it was but a slip for the moment, for
   it is written by the Apostle in the 11th of Hebrews--"Through faith,
   also, Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was
   delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him
   faithful who had promised." It was not by nature, but by faith, that
   Isaac was born, the child of another sort of laughter than that of
   doubt--the child according to the promise of God. She was a believing
   woman, then, and she lived a believing life and so she did well.

   She did well to her parents, well to her husband, well to her
   household, well to her guests, well before her God. Oh, that all
   professing Christian people had a faith that showed itself in doing
   well! But never let it be forgotten that though we preach faith, faith,
   faith, as the great means of salvation, yet we never say that you are
   saved unless there is a change worked in you and good works are
   produced in you, for "faith without works is dead, being alone." Faith
   saves, but it is the faith which causes men to do well. And if there is
   a faith (and there is such a faith) which leaves a man just what he was
   and permits him to indulge in sin, it is the faith of devils!

   Perhaps not so good as that, for, "the devils believe and tremble,"
   whereas these hypocrites profess to believe and yet dare to defy God!
   They seem to have no fear of Him whatever! Sarah had this testimony
   from the Lord, that she did well. And you are her daughters, all of you
   who believe, if you do well. Be no discredit to your queenly mother.
   Take care that you honor your spiritual parentage and maintain the high
   prestige of the elect family.

   The point that I am to dwell upon just now is this--that she proved her
   faith by a second evidence--SHE WAS "NOT AFRAID WITH ANY AMAZEMENT."
   The text says, "whose daughters you are, as long as you do well, and
   are not afraid with any amazement." She was calm and quiet and was not
   put in fear by any terror. There were several occasions in which she
   might have been much disquieted and put about. The first was in the
   breaking up of her house life. You see, her husband, Abraham, gets a
   call to go from Ur of the Chaldees. Well, it is a considerable journey
   and they move to Haran. There are some women--unbelieving women--who
   would not have understood that.

   Why does he want to go away from the land in which he lives and from
   all our kindred, away to Haran? That would have been her question had
   she not been a partaker in her husband's faith. An unbelieving woman
   would have said, "A call from God? Nonsense! Fanaticism! I do not
   believe it!" And when she saw that her husband would go, she would have
   been afraid with great amazement. When Abraham went to Haran with his
   father Terah, and Terah died in Haran, and then God called him to go
   further, they had to cross the Euphrates and get right away into a land
   which he knew nothing of, and this must have been a still sterner
   trial.

   When they packed up their goods on the camels and on the asses and
   started with their train of servants and sheep and cattle, she might
   very naturally have said, if she had been an unbelieving woman, "Where
   are you going?" "I do not know," says Abraham. "Why are you going? What
   are you going to get?" "I do not know," says Abraham, "God has bid me
   go, but where I am going, I do not know. And what I am going for, I
   cannot exactly say, except that God has said, 'Get you out from your
   country and your kindred, and I will bless you and multiply you, and
   give you a land wherein you shall dwell.'" We do not read that Sarah
   ever asked these questions, or was ever troubled at all about them. The
   things were put on the camels' backs and away she journeyed, for God
   had called her husband to go and she resolved to go with him. Through
   floods or flames, it mattered not to her--she felt safe with her
   husband's God and calmly journeyed on. She was not afraid with any
   amazement.

   Then, though we do not hear much about her, we know that all those
   years she had to live in a tent. You know the man is out abroad
   attending to his business and he does not know much about the
   discomforts of home, not even in such homes as ours. But if you were
   called to give up your houses and go and live in tents, well, the
   master might not mind it, but the mistress would! It is a very trying
   life for a housewife. Sarah traveled from day to day and what with the
   constant moving of the tent, as the cattle had to be taken to fresh
   pastures, it must have been a life of terrible discomfort. Yet

   Sarah never said a word about it. Up tomorrow morning; every tent-pin
   up; and all the canvas rolled away, for you must move to another
   station. The sun scorches like an oven, but you must ride across the
   plain, or if the night is cold with frost and heavy dews, still, canvas
   is your only wall and roof.

   Remember, they were dwelling in tents as pilgrims and strangers, not
   for one day, or two, nor for a few days in a year, but for scores of
   years at a stretch! It was bravely done by this good woman that she was
   not afraid with any amazement. Besides, they did not live in a country
   where they were all alone, or surrounded by friends, for the tribes
   around them were all of other religions and of other tastes and
   ways--and they would have slain Abraham and killed the whole company if
   it had not been for a sort of fear that fell upon them--by which
   Jehovah seemed to say to them, "Touch not My anointed and do My
   Prophets no harm." The Patriarch and his wife dwelt in the midst of
   enemies and yet they were not afraid! But if she had not been a
   believing woman, she must have often been afraid with great amazement!

   And then there was a special time when the old man, Abraham, put on his
   harness and went to war. He hears that Chedorlaomer has come down with
   tributary kings and swept away the cities of the plain and taken
   captive his nephew, Lot. Abraham says, "I will go and deliver him." And
   she might have said, "My husband, you are an old man. Those gray locks
   should not be touched with the stains of warfare." She said nothing of
   the sort, but doubtless cheered him on and smiled as he invited some of
   his neighbors that dwelt near to go with him. She is under no distress
   that her husband is gone and all the herdsmen and servants round about
   the tents all gone, so that she is left alone with her women servants.
   No, she sits at home as a queen and fears no robbers, calmly confident
   in her God!

   Abraham has gone to battle and she fears not for him. And she needs
   not, for he smites the kings and they are given like driven stubble to
   his bow. And he comes back laden with spoil. God was pleased with
   Sarah's quiet faith, because in troublous times she was not afraid with
   any amazement. Then there came, a little while after, that great trial
   of faith which must have touched Sarah, though its full force fell on
   her husband. She observed the sadden disappearance of her husband and
   his servant. "Where is your master? He does not come into breakfast."
   The servants say, "He was up a great while before day and he has gone
   with the servant, and with the ass, and with Isaac."

   He had not told her, for Abraham had struggled enough with himself to
   take Isaac away to the mountain and offer him! He could not bear to
   repeat the struggle in Sarah. He was gone without telling Sarah of his
   movements. This was a new state of things for her. He did not return
   all day. "Where has your master gone? I never knew him go away, before,
   without informing me. And where is Isaac?" Oh, that Isaac! How she
   feared for her jewel, her delight, the child of promise, the wonder of
   her old age! He did not come home that night, nor Abraham either. Nor
   the next day, nor the next. Three days passed and I can hardly picture
   the anxiety that would have fallen upon any one of you if you had been
   Sarah, unless you had enjoyed Sarah's faith--for by faith in this
   trying case she was not afraid with any amazement.

   I dare say it took three days for Abraham to come back, so that it was
   nearly a week, and no Abraham and no Isaac. One would have thought she
   would have wandered about, crying, "Where is my husband, and where is
   my son?" But not so. She calmly waited and said within herself, "If he
   has gone, he has gone upon some necessary errand, and he will be under
   God's protection. And God, who promised to bless him and to bless his
   seed will not suffer any evil to harm him. So she rested quietly, when
   others would have been in dire dismay. She was not afraid with any
   amazement. We hear so little said about Sarah that I am obliged, thus,
   to picture what I feel she must have been, because human nature is so
   like itself and the effect of events upon us is very like the effect
   which would have been produced upon the mind of Sarah.

   Now, this is a point in which Christian women and, for that matter,
   Christian men, also, should seek to imitate Sarah. We should not let
   our hearts be troubled, but rest in the Lord and wait patiently for
   Him. What is this virtue? It is a calm, quiet trusting in God. It is
   freedom from fear, such as is described in another place in these
   words--"He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed,
   trusting in the Lord." Or, as we read in David's words, the other
   night, "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
   will fear no evil: for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they
   comfort me." It is composure of mind, freedom from anxiety, the absence
   of fretfulness and clean deliverance from alarm, so that, whatever
   happens, trepidation does not seize upon the spirit, but the heart
   keeps on at its own quiet pace, delighting itself in a faithful God.

   This is the virtue which is worth a king's ransom and Sarah had it!
   "Whose daughters you are if you are not afraid with any amazement."
   When is this virtue to be exercised by us? Well, it should be exercised
   at all times. If we are not self-composed when we are happy we are not
   likely to be calm when we are sad. I notice that if I am at all pleased
   with the

   praise of a friend, I become in that degree open to be grieved by the
   censure of a foe. By so much as you are elated by prosperity, by so
   much are you likely to be depressed when adversity comes. But if you
   are calm, quiet, happy--no, more than that--when everything goes well,
   then you will be calm, quiet, happy--not less than that--when
   everything goes ill. To keep up an equable frame of mind is a thing to
   aim at, even as the gardener desires an even temperature for his choice
   flowers.

   You ask, Who are to exercise this virtue? We are all to do so! But the
   text is specially directed to the sisterhood. I suppose women are
   exhorted to it because some of them are rather excitable, a little
   hysterical and apt to be fearfully depressed and utterly carried away.
   I am not saying that this fault is general or common among women,
   neither am I blaming them, but only stating the fact that some are thus
   afflicted and it is a happy, happy thing if they can master it so that
   they are not afraid with any amazement. But this virtue especially
   serves in time of trouble when a very serious trial threatens us. Then
   the Christian is not to say, "What shall I do? I shall never endure it.
   I cannot live through it. Surely God has forgotten me. This trouble
   will crash me. I shall die of a broken heart." No. No. No! Do not talk
   so! My dear Friend, do not talk so.

   If you are God's child do not even think so. Try in patience to lift up
   your head and remember Sarah, "whose daughters you are if you are not
   afraid with any amazement." And so must it be in times of personal
   sickness. How many are the pains and sufferings that fall to the lot of
   the sisterhood! But if you have faith, you will not be afraid with any
   amazement. I saw one, the other day, who was about to suffer from the
   surgeon's knife. It was a serious operation, about which all stood in
   doubt. but I was happy to see her as composed in the prospect of it as
   though it bad been a pleasure rather than a pain. Thus calmly resigned
   should a Christian be! I went to see, yesterday, an aged Sister--a
   member of this Church, close upon fourscore years of age. She is dying
   with dropsy and, being unable to lie down in bed, is obliged to always
   sit up--a posture which allows little or no rest.

   When I entered her room she welcomed me most heartily, which, perhaps
   was not amazing, for she is greatly attached to her minister. The
   wonder lay in the fact that she expressed herself as being full of
   happiness, full of delight, full of expectancy of being with Christ! I
   went to comfort her but she comforted me! What could I say? She talked
   of the goodness of God with an eye as full of pleasure as if she had
   been a maiden speaking to her young companion of her marriage day! Our
   Sister used to sit just there, in yonder pew. I seem to see her sitting
   there now, but she will soon sit among the bright ones in Heaven! I was
   charmed to see one with such evident marks of long-continued pain upon
   her face, but with such sweet serenity there, too! Yes, with more than
   serenity--with unspeakable joy in the Lord--such, as I fear, some in
   health and strength have not yet learned! A Christian woman should not
   be afraid with any amazement either in adversity or in sickness, but
   her holy patience should prove her to be a true daughter of Sarah and
   Abraham.

   Christian women in Peter's day were subject to persecution as much as
   their husbands. They were shut up in prison, scourged, tortured,
   burned, or slain with the sword. One holy woman in the early days of
   the Church was tossed upon the horns of bulls. Another was made to sit
   in a red-hot iron chair. Thus were they tortured, not accepting
   deliverance. In the early days of martyrdom the women played the man as
   well as the men! They defied the tyrant to do his worst upon their
   mortal bodies, for their conquering spirits laughed at every torment!
   If persecuting times should come again, or if they are here, already,
   in some measure, O daughters of Sarah, do well and be not afraid with
   any amazement! And so, if you should be called to some stern duty; if
   you should be bound to do what you feel you cannot do, remember that
   anybody can do what he can do. It is the believing man who does what he
   cannot do. We achieve impossibilities by the power of the Almighty God.
   Be not afraid, then, of any duty, but believe that you will be able to
   do it, for Grace will be sufficient for you.

   At the last, in the prospect of death, my dear Friends, may you not be
   afraid with any amazement! Oftentimes a deathbed is vantage ground for
   a Christian. Where others show their fear and, sometimes their terror,
   there should the Believer show his peacefulness and his happy
   expectancy, not afraid with any amazement, whatever the form of death
   may be! Now, what is the excellence of this virtue? I shall answer that
   question by saying it is due to God that we should not be afraid with
   any amazement. Such a God as we have ought to be trusted. Under the
   shadow of such a wing, fear becomes a sin! If God were other than He
   is, we might be afraid. But while He is such a God, it is due to Him
   that fear is banished. Peacefulness is true worship. Quiet under
   alarming conditions is devotion. He worships best who is most calm in
   evil times.

   Moreover, the excellence of this virtue is that it is most impressive
   to men. I do not think anything is more likely to impress the ungodly
   than the quiet peace of mind of a Christian in danger or near death. If
   we can be happy, then, our friends will ask, "What makes them so calm?"
   Nor is the usefulness confined to others. It is most useful to
   ourselves, for he who can be calm in time of trouble will be most
   likely to make his way through it. When you once become afraid, you
   cannot judge wisely as to your best course. You generally do wrong when
   you are frightened out of your confidence in God. When the heart begins
   palpitating, then the whole system is out of order for the battle of
   life. Be calm and wait for your opportunity. Napoleon's victories were,
   to a large extent, due to the serenity of that masterly warrior and,
   depend upon it, it is so with you Christian people--you will win if you
   can wait. Do not be in a hurry. Consider what you should do.

   Do not be so alarmed as to make haste. Be patient; be quiet; wait God's
   time and so wait your own time. Wait upon God to open your mouth. Ask
   Him to guide your hand and to do everything for you. Calmness of mind
   is the mother of prudence and discretion. It gives the firm foothold
   which is necessary for the warrior when he is about to deal a
   victorious blow. Those who cannot be amazed by fear shall live to be
   amazed with mercy! "How," asks one, "can we obtain it?" That is the
   question! Remember, it is an outgrowth of faith and you will have it in
   proportion as you have faith! Have faith in God and you will not be
   afraid with any amazement.

   Very early in my preaching days I had faith in God in times of
   thunderstorms. When I have walked out to preach, it has happened that I
   have been wet through and through with the storm and yet I have felt no
   annoyance from the thunder and lightning. On one occasion I turned in,
   by reason of the extreme severity of the rain, to a little cottage and
   I found a woman there with a child who seemed somewhat relieved when
   she had admitted me, but previously she had been crying bitterly with
   sheer alarm and terror. "Why," she said, "this is a little round lodge
   house and the lightning comes in at every window. There is no place
   into which I can get to hide it from my eyes."

   I explained to her that I liked to see the lightning, for it showed me
   that an explosion was all over and, since I had lived to see the flash,
   it was clear it could now do me no harm. I told her that to hear the
   thunder was a splendid thing, it was only God saying, "It is all over."
   If you live to see the lightning flash, there is nothing to be afraid
   of--you would have been dead and never have seen it if it had been sent
   to kill you! I tried to console her on religious grounds and I remember
   well praying with her and making her happy as a bird! It was my being
   so calm and quiet and praying with her that cheered her up and, by
   God's Grace, when I went on my way I left her in peace. You may depend
   upon it, my dear Friends, that unless our own souls have peace we
   cannot communicate it to others.

   In this way we must believe in God about everything. It so happened
   that about that matter--the thunder and light-ning--I did believe in
   God up to the very last degree and, therefore, I could not be alarmed
   on that score. So if you believe in God upon any other subject,
   whatever it is, you will have perfect peace with God about it. If you
   can believe God when you are in a storm at sea, that He holds the water
   in the hollow of His hand, you will be at peace about the tempest. It
   is the thing that troubles you that you must believe about--and when
   Faith makes an application of her hand to the particular trial--then
   will peace of mind come to you.

   This holy calm comes, also, from walking with God. No spot is so serene
   as the secret place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Commune with
   God and you will forget fear. Keep up daily fellowship with Christ in
   prayer, in praise, in service, in searching the Word, in submitting
   your heart to the work of the eternal Spirit--and as you walk with God,
   you will find yourself calm. You know how our poet puts it--

   "Oh for a closer walk with God, A calm and heavenly frame."

   These go together. If you would feed upon certain Truths of God which
   will produce this calm of mind, remember, first, that God is full of
   love and, therefore, nothing that God sends can harm His child. Take
   everything from the Lord as a token of love, even though it is a stroke
   of His rod, or a cut of His knife. Everything from that dear hand must
   mean love, for He has said, "I have engraved you upon the palms of My
   hands." When you accept every affliction as a love token, then will
   your fear be ended.

   Next, remember the faithfulness of God to His promises and the fact
   that there is a promise for your particular position. The Lord is, at
   this moment, under promise to you, and that promise is registered in
   His Book. Search it out and then grasp it, and say, "He must keep it!
   He cannot break His Word." He has said, "In six troubles I will be with
   you."

   Have you got to number six? He has said, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you," and how can He run back from His Word? If He does not
   leave you nor forsake you, what can you fear? Whatever is
   coming--poverty, sickness, shame, slander--if all the devils in Hell
   are loosed and they are all coming up against us at once, yet, if the
   Lord is with us, we will smite them hip and thigh and send them back to
   the infernal deep as quickly as the swine of old ran down a steep place
   into the sea and were drowned in the waters!

   "Oh," says the devil, "I can overcome you." We say nothing to him but
   this--"You know your Master! You know your Master. Lie down, Sir! You
   know your Master and that Master is our Covenant Head, our Husband and
   our Lord." Neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil shall be able to
   overcome us since we have the promise of a faithful God to protect us!
   Many of you here tonight have gray hair, or bald heads. I have always
   such a large proportion of aged people in my congregation that I can
   say to you what I might not say to the young folk. We, dear Friends,
   ought not to be afraid, for trials are no novelties with us! We have
   smelt powder and been grimed with the dust of the conflict times out of
   mind! We ought not to be troubled--we have been to sea before.

   And has not the Lord helped us? Tell it for His honor! He has been a
   very present help. He has borne us through such things that to doubt
   Him would be an impudent slander upon His Character! As for myself--and
   I suppose the language I now use would come from the lips of many
   here--my way has been strewn with wonders of Divine mercy! Trials have
   abounded and I am glad that they have--they have been opportunities for
   the display of Divine Grace. Labors have been attempted of which some
   said, "these are visionary schemes." But God has always been better
   than our faith! We have never been confounded and I think we ought, by
   this time, to have ]earned that trusting in God is the most reasonable
   thing that we ever do!

   There are speculations in business, risks, even, in the most solid
   trading. But there is no speculation in believing God, no risk in
   trusting in Him! He that hangs the world upon nothing and yet keeps it
   in its place, can bring His people to have nothing and yet to possess
   all things! He that makes yon arch of Heaven stand secure without a
   buttress or a prop--a mighty arch such as no human engineer could ever
   contrive--He can make us stand without helpers, without friends,
   without riches, without strength and stand, too, when all other things
   except that which God supports shall have come down in the final crash!
   "Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting
   strength."

   I pray for you who are most timid, that from this day you may be true
   daughters of Sarah and not be afraid with any amazement. God bless you
   with this gracious help and you will praise His name. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Bride and Her Ornaments--the Sin of Forgetting God

   (No. 1634A)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 4, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people
   have forgotten Me days without number." Jeremiah 2:32.

   IT is a clear proof of the great love of God to His people that He will
   not lose their love without earnest expostulation. When you do not care
   at all for a person, he may love you or hate you, it is all the same to
   you. But when you have great love for him, then you earnestly desire to
   possess his heart in return. This, then, is clear proof that God
   greatly loves His people, since, whenever their hearts wander from Him,
   He is greatly grieved. And He rebukes them and earnestly pleads with
   them, setting the coldness of their hearts in a true light and striving
   to bring them back to warm affection towards Himself. Not only are
   God's rebukes proofs of His love, but when He goes farther and deals
   out blows as well as words, there is love in every stroke of His hand.
   Most truly does He say, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten," since
   rebukes and chastening are proofs that He will not lose our hearts
   without a struggle for them.

   Do not look, therefore, upon a sermon that rebukes as something to be
   avoided. Far from it! Hear it and accept it as a token of love from God
   to your souls. That man is very foolish who will not hear the warning
   of a friend. Few prize a friend's rebukes and yet a wise man knows that
   there is no greater token of the affection of a friend than when he
   will undertake the unpleasant duty of pointing out our faults. Many
   parents are like Eli--they cannot endure the task of chastening their
   children--and so, when their sons grow up to be their plague, they must
   not wonder, for they have procured this evil to themselves by their
   unworthy love of ease.

   Our heavenly Father is never an Eli! He will not "spare the rod and
   spoil the child." He loves us too well to suffer us to go on in our
   iniquity. He will not stay His hand and leave us to perish. He will
   scourge rather than abandon. He will chide rather than lose. Today He
   speaks in tones of severity that He may not be compelled to utter,
   tomorrow, words of doom. Accept, then, at this time, dear Friend,
   whatever shall come to you out of this text. If it should be bitter in
   your mouth, yet receive it thankfully from God as good medicine to your
   spirit, and so may His Spirit cause it to be.

   Coming to the text, in which God proves His love to His people because
   He will not let their love readily go away from Himself, notice, first,
   a grievous sin. "My people have forgotten Me." Secondly, a chiding
   question about that sin. "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride
   her attire?" And then, thirdly, let us observe the call to repentance
   which lies within the text, like perfume in a flower. If we have
   forgotten God, let us grieve over such forgetfulness and turn to Him at
   once with full purpose of heart--even unto God our exceeding joy!

   First, then, here is A VERY GRIEVOUS SIN. "My people have forgotten Me
   days without number." Observe whom they had forgotten--it will help us
   to see the sin of it. The Lord says, "My people have forgotten Me." It
   would not have mattered half as much if they had forgotten their
   dearest friends--if the husband had forgotten his wife, or the mother
   her child--but here are favored men and women who have forgotten their
   God, their Father, their life, their All! "My people have forgotten Me,
   their God. Other nations, having set up their false gods, did not
   forget them, but, with blind pertinacity of devotion, they bowed before
   them. But My people have forgotten their God, the only God, the living
   and true God. My people have forgotten Me--the good God, whom it is
   pleasure to remember."

   "You are good and do good," said the Psalmist, and it is true. Yet too
   often we forget the Source of all goodness. If we could forget the
   evil, it were well, but to forget the only and essential Good is sad,
   indeed. "My people have forgotten Me," whom they were bound in duty to
   remember. God is our Creator--shall we not remember Him that made us?
   God is our Preserver. Shall we not remember Him in whom "we live, and
   move, and have our being"? God is our Father-- shall children forget
   the Father at whose table they feed and from whose lips they are
   comforted! God is our All in All

   and shall we yet forget Him? Surely, it were better to lose memory than
   for memory to lose its hold upon God! My people have forgotten Me! God,
   the good, the best, who has a chief right to be remembered!

   Brethren, there is great evil in our hearts, or it would be so
   difficult to forget God as to be impossible. A friend has gone away
   from us and we do not see him, but he has left so many tokens of his
   goodness that we are reminded of him every day. Is it not so with God?
   Has He not left us innumerable tokens of His affection for us? Ought we
   to forget when so many forget-me-nots are round about us? But,
   supposing that friend has not gone away at all, but is living with us
   in the house and enters, even, into our chamber--what shall we say if
   we forget one who is constantly with us? No man is so present with his
   friend as God is with His people! He is in us and round about us! Never
   can we depart from Him, for we are not only in Him, but He is in us and
   He sees all our ways.

   Oh, strange sin that we should forget One who is everywhere present and
   manifests that Presence in deeds of love! O forgetful creature, what do
   you think of your Lord? What? Do you owe the breath in your nostrils to
   God and yet can you forget? Is the bread upon your table put there by
   the hand of a God whom you do not remember? Are the very clothes upon
   your back the gift of His Divine charity and do you forget Him? You
   would be in the grave--no, you would be in Hell--but for His mercy--and
   yet is He not in all your thoughts? Oh, this wicked forgetfulness of
   ours! Let us forget all else besides, but let it not be charged to us
   that we have forgotten our God! Yet it is so written, "My people have
   forgotten Me."

   Who were they that forgot God? That casts a second light upon this sin.
   "My people have forgotten Me. Not strangers, not heathen, not those who
   have only heard of Me but have never known Me, but My people." It
   signifies, "My chosen, My elect, a people whom I have taken out from
   the midst of the earth that they may be a people unto Me forever. My
   people have forgotten Me." Chosen of God and yet forget electing love?
   "My people." It is a redeemed people who have become the Lord's because
   they are not their own, but are bought with a price. He has redeemed
   them unto Himself forever--redeemed them from among men by the
   matchless price of His only-begotten Son's life! And shall it be that
   those on whom there is the eternal blood--mark--who are set apart by
   sacrifice to be God's own, that they shall forget Him?

   Oh, sad ingratitude! "My people." That is to say, a people not only
   chosen and redeemed, but brought to know Him, brought into fellowship
   with Him, brought into relationship with Him, brought absolutely into
   union with Him--they have forgotten Him. You that sat at Jesus' feet
   and drank in His loving words! You that sat at His table and to whom He
   was made known in the breaking of bread! You that have laid your head
   upon the bosom of the Lord--can it, shall it be said of you, "My people
   have forgotten Me"? Oh, but this is sad! "He that eats bread with Me
   has forgotten Me. He that said He would die for My sake has forgotten
   Me. He that sang just now--

   'Have You a lamb in all Your flock

   I would disdain to feed?

   Have You a foe before whose face

   I fear Your cause to plead?'"

   "He has forgotten Me!" Alas, my Brothers and Sisters, that you and I
   should have been upon the mount with Jesus. That we should have been in
   the garden with Him. That we should have danced for very joy of heart
   in His Presence and should have felt ourselves next door to the gates
   of Heaven when He has laid bare His heart to us--and yet it should ever
   be said of us that we have forgotten Him! This will be sad, indeed, if
   ever it comes to this! And yet this is the crime that is laid at the
   door of His own people. "My people have forgotten Me."

   Observe sadly the space in which they had forgotten--in the case of
   Israel, it is added, "days without number." Ah me! I hope it has not
   come to that with any of us here present! And yet it may. It may. I may
   be touching a chord, now, which shall awaken the saddest memories.
   "Days without number." How long is it, Friend, since you were in the
   habit of walking with God? How long is it since you have seen the face
   of the Well-Beloved? I ventured to put that question once to a
   professor and, shaking his head, he replied, "Don't ask me that. If you
   will ask me whether I have been a drunk; whether I have been dishonest
   in business; whether I have done any positive action by which I have
   degraded the Christian name, I can answer you without fear. But if you
   ask, How long since I have had fellowship with Christ, I cannot--I dare
   not--answer you."

   Yet I venture to press the question and I hope the answer will not be,
   "I have forgotten Him days without number." I hope you will not sing,
   as Cowper did--

   "What peaceful hours I then enjoy'd!

   How sweet their memory still! But now I find an aching void The world
   can never fill."

   On the contrary, may it be yours and mine to be kept from forgetting
   God at all! And if there ever should be a moment in which we wander,
   may it be a small moment, much lamented and never repeated! May our
   soul soon come back as the needle of the compass returns to its pole.
   Turn it awhile with your finger and you may move it east, west,
   south--but take your finger away and back it comes to its pole--so may
   it be with us! May we be like the birds of the air which at eventide
   seek their nests. As the stone may be thrown aloft by force, but
   naturally returns to the earth, so may we, if tossed about by Satan,
   fall back upon our firm resting place in Jesus! May our forgetfulness
   be for a small moment, but in life and death may we remember our
   Well-Beloved.

   You see, the sin lies in this, that we should forget God, that we
   should do it and do it, "days without number." How is God forgotten?
   What are the manifestations of this offense? Some professors evidently
   forget God by their worldliness. When they were in a humbler condition
   of society they were known to find great enjoyment at Prayer
   Meetings--the assembling of the saints together was very joyful to
   them. The reading and hearing of the Word of God were gracious
   refreshments to them, but they are now too rich to care for this light
   bread! They have prospered so much that if they prosper much more it
   will be a thousand times worse than adversity, as in the case of the
   celebrated captain who, when his soldiers said they had won a victory,
   said, "One more such victory as this and we shall be defeated forever."

   Such rising men, like the Israelites, have been filled with the quails,
   but while the meat is yet in their mouths the wrath of God has come
   upon them. They have been fattened with the treasures of the world, but
   their souls have been starved to very skeletons, for they have not fed
   upon the things of God! Some that were high professors now seem to have
   no religion whatever--they mix with worldly people--and seem quite
   happy with them. I have seen the hand of God go out against such
   followers of Demas. They prospered and, as they prospered, they became
   less and less attentive to Divine things. They turned aside from the
   Truth of God and their children have grown up to be utter
   worldlings--some of their sons to be debauched and depraved--till the
   name that stood high in the Church of God is struck out of the roll of
   Israel and their family is rather numbered among the sons of Belial
   than among the saints of the Most High!

   Such have forgotten God, "days without number." O my beloved comrades
   in the army of Christ, may you all be preserved from such a curse! Some
   have forgotten God by self-seeking. They live unto themselves. It is
   clear that though once they seemed to have a zeal for God, now their
   zeal is entirely to push their own way, to make their own fortunes to
   plant out their children--anything and everything except the Glory of
   God and the love of souls. And yet they profess to be God's people even
   now! True is the lament, "My people have forgotten Me." It is well to
   forget self to glorify God-- but to make self our god is a thing
   accursed in the highest degree. Some, too, show that they forget God by
   the failure of their trust. They are in trouble and they are very
   anxious. Why? Because they have forgotten God, though He has promised
   to help them.

   They are wondering what is to become of them, looking all about them
   with the greatest amount of carking care that even a worldling might
   feel. And if you say to them, "God will provide, God is your Helper,"
   they have forgotten God, they have left Him out of their calculations.
   They are fretting and worrying. They are troubled and cast down because
   they have forgotten God. You can do this in your daily concerns until
   you may act as if God, Himself, were dead! It is sad, indeed, when a
   Christian acts upon atheistic principles and despairs as if he had no
   God to succor him! Some people, when things run a little cross to them;
   some working men when they are out of work; some men when they cannot
   see God's work prospering just as they would have it, leave out of
   their calculations the one great Worker, the one great Force--and soon
   get troubled, cast down and go crawling about the world full of
   distrust.

   Ah me, what evils come to men when they have forgotten God! Alas, there
   are some who add to this a forgetfulness of God through neglect of
   private devotion. Prayers are slurred over. Drawing near to God becomes
   a form and a pretense. The Word is read, but it is not read with the
   view of finding God in the sacred Volume and having fellowship with Him
   through His Word. Oh, it is sad when it can be said that God's people
   are forgetting Him in the closet! "It was such a busy day," says one,
   "I could not find time to pray." Remember how Martin Luther acted--he
   said that He must have three hours prayer one day because it was such a
   busy day that He should not have strength to get through it if he did
   not have extra time for devotion!

   It is foolish to say, "I have more to do and so I will take less time
   in getting strength to do it." As well might the mower say, "It is a
   bigger field to mow and so I will take less trouble in sharpening my
   scythe." It is, depend upon it, a dead waste of time to be short in
   drawing near to God! The Lord might well complain--"My people have
   forgotten Me. They have not waited upon Me in wrestling prayer. They
   have not cried to Me during the day. They have not lifted up their
   hearts to Me in the moment of trouble. They have not consulted Me in
   difficulty. They have not rejoiced in Me in the time of their joy. They
   have forgotten Me."

   And you and I can do it in a very high sense by a breach of communion,
   by getting out of fellowship with God, by walking contrary to Him so
   that He walks contrary to us. It is very bad walking and very bad
   living when God and ourselves are at cross-purposes. It is a very sweet
   thing, when you are conscious of having done wrong, to go back to your
   heavenly Father at once and admit it and get right again. How willing
   He is to receive us! How glad He is to blot out the past and let
   bygones be bygones and to let us start anew with Him! He delights to
   forgive! Sometimes we let the stones accumulate till there is quite a
   heap and they are made into a wall which blocks our way. If every stone
   had been flung away, one by one, how much easier it would have been!

   There would not be clouds of dust if we kept our ways well watered with
   daily repentance. There would not be a separation between God and our
   soul in great things if we would not allow it in little things. But, I
   fear too often it may be said of this high point of rapturous
   fellowship with God, "My people have forgotten Me days without number."
   I scarcely need, I think, to talk longer about this sin, except to
   notice that if we ever do forget God, it leads to all sorts of
   mischief. We lose our joy and our comfort--and then we lose our
   strength and our watchfulness. And then we backslide by little and
   little and then, probably, we fall into one sin and then into another,
   if not into a third, more grievous still!

   David had never sinned with Bathsheba if he had not forgotten his God.
   By degrees we get hardened about our state and soon it comes to
   this--that we have lost the Presence of God--and do not care whether we
   have it or not. Oh, this is a sad, sad state of heart! God save us from
   it! May it never be said of us, "My people have forgotten Me days
   without number."

   II. And now, dear Friends, I call your attention to THE CHIDING
   QUESTION which is the very marrow of the text--"Can a maid forget her
   ornaments, or a bride her attire?" And I suppose that question is put,
   first, because there are many trivial things which occupy minds so that
   they cannot forget them. How sad it is that the most grand things, the
   best things, should not equally engross our thoughts! Now, I will not
   say a word about you Western women that are here--of course, you do not
   care about ornaments or dress--at least, you should not! But Eastern
   women were very fond of ornaments and it was a question which every
   Oriental could understand, "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride
   her attire?"

   Of course such forgetfulness was impossible. The young woman's mind was
   full of her jewels! Isaiah gives you a long list that seems to have
   been cut out of the fashion-book of the day--a long list of various
   things that ladies used to wear in those days--and these they never
   forgot. Their minds doted upon them and when the marriage day came
   round, that was the main thought--how they should be dressed, how they
   should glitter before all onlookers! Forget her ornaments? The question
   is absurd! The maid's mind was taken up with them. A bride forget her
   attire? It could not be! And yet I venture to say that these things are
   trifles--that the costliest jewels in the world are nothing but mere
   stones--that the richest dress that ever was made is excelled by birds
   and flies--and that the flowers of the field far surpass anything that
   can be manufactured by the needle.

   When the attire is all fitted and the ornaments are all in their
   places, the whole matter is a trifle. We should have had no need of
   either ornament or attire if it had not been for sin. Strange that the
   insignia of our fall should become the ground of our boasting! Yet so
   it is. But here is the point--do, then, these Eastern women value their
   jewels and their dress so much that they cannot forget them? Are their
   heads filled with these things so that they never slip out of their
   memories? And do the people of God forget their God? I do not know a
   stronger way of putting it. Can these trifles secure their places so
   surely and shall the most supreme good so readily escape our thoughts?
   Shame on us!

   Every time we see one who, in dressing, has evidently paid the
   daintiest attention to every pin, we ought to stand rebuked! When we
   see a woman curling, plaiting or bedecking her hair, or putting on
   jewels, let us think to ourselves, "Does she pay so much attention to
   such a thing as that and do I think so little of my God? Have I so much
   desire to be dressed in the rich things that the Divine Bridegroom has
   provided for me that I take little notice of the treasures of His

   Grace?" That is the first word of rebuke. It is a very powerful one to
   those who think it over. Shall trifles be remembered and God be
   forgotten?

   The next is this--if a bride did forget her attire, or a maid did
   forget her ornaments, it would be very unreasonable behavior. The thing
   was so unreasonable that it was quite unknown! Suppose we found an
   Eastern woman having no regard whatever, on her marriage day, to her
   attire? She would be thought to be mad! They would say, "This is so
   contrary to all women's ways in this part of the country that she must
   have lost her reason." It is unreasonable that a bride should forget
   her ornaments and her attire--but how infinitely more unreasonable it
   is that you and I should forget God! He is our diadem of Glory--He is
   our beauty of holiness! In Christ we are arrayed in raiment of
   needlework and our garments are of worked gold! Can we, shall we forget
   Him?

   There may be a reason for forgetting to eat bread. There may be a
   reason for forgetting to put on one's garments. Such neglects have been
   reasonable in times of fire, or danger to life, but there never can be
   a reason for forgetting God! A child of God is in the most unreasonable
   condition in which a human being can be when he is living a single day
   without remembering his God, his life, his Heaven, his All-in-All!
   Next, it would have been a most unseasonable thing for a maid to forget
   her attire at her wedding. If she forgot her dress on other days, it
   might be well enough, but, when the marriage drew near, for the bride
   to forget her attire would be thought a most unseasonable neglect.
   Forget it tomorrow, if you will, but not when your marriage has come!

   You may have forgotten it many days ago, but do not forget it, now,
   that the happy day has arrived. A bride who forgets her attire would be
   something like the foolish virgins who forgot to take oil in their
   vessels with their lamps. And, certainly, it is a most unseasonable
   thing for me and you to forget our God while we are here! Let the
   soldier, when the arrow is flying from every bush, forget his armor,
   but let us not forget our God! Let the hungry man, when famine rages
   through the land, forget his supply of bread, but let us not forget the
   Food of our souls, which is our Lord Jesus

   Christ!

   Now, when dangers assail you, temptations surround you, corruptions
   rage within you and Satan molests you, forget not, now, your God. And I
   will guarantee you, if you do not forget God on earth, you never will
   in Heaven, for there we shall be all taken up with Him and never, for a
   moment, shall our thoughts wander from our God, our Heaven, our
   All-in-All. However, now, at any rate, it would be unseasonable in the
   highest degree to forget your God. Notice the conduct of the maid or
   the conduct of the bride with regard to her ornaments. What does the
   maid do? Her conduct is the reverse of forgetfulness as to dress and
   ornaments. She labors hard to obtain her ornaments and to gain her
   attire.

   Many women in the East give up every coin that they have and turn all
   into silver. They do not care about storing up coins--they prefer the
   precious metal in the form of rings for their ankles, arms, necks,
   noses and ears. It is their life's work to provide themselves with
   ornaments for the marriage day. While they do this, let us do
   better--let us store up the thoughts of Christ, the Words of Christ and
   the things of Christ--and let us labor, let us wear ourselves out--to
   get more and more of Christ that we may be adorned with Him and made
   comely in His comeliness!

   When the Eastern woman has, with great difficulty, obtained her
   ornaments and her attire, she then thinks a great deal of them. She
   preserves them with much care. She will, if possible, prevent a thief
   from taking away a ring or gem. She locks them up carefully. Oh, that
   we did store up every bit we get of our Lord's love and put it by to
   keep it, never losing any pearl that we find, or any ring that we
   fashion by experience! I say that the Eastern woman thinks about her
   bridal attire. Why, we hear of them dreaming about it--dreaming about
   the next bracelet they will buy, the next jewel they will hang about
   their necks! Would to God we were as much taken up with the
   preciousness of Christ! I sometimes dream of Christ and when I do, I am
   glad, for this is proof that my thoughts have been with Him when I was
   awake, or they would not have been with Him when I was asleep. Oh, to
   have our whole soul occupied with thoughts of Christ and Divine things!

   How joyfully the Eastern woman puts on her jewels, puts on her attire.
   She has these things to wear. I am ashamed of those Christians who are
   ashamed of Christ. They have jewels--I hope they have--but they are
   very wary of ever showing them. Perhaps they get some Christian friend
   into a corner and they say, "I have a jewel that I mean to wear, but
   not yet. I am afraid it should not be seen as yet, but I will show it
   if you will not tell anybody else." If anybody comes round after a
   sermon and gently enquires, "Have you any of the precious things of
   Christ?" these timid ones blush and half deny their own joy! Some
   people--yes, some of Christ's well-beloved ones--whisper, "I hardly
   know." Is this after the right

   manner? The Eastern woman puts everything upon her on her marriage--and
   Eastern ladies at a banquet are all ablaze with diamonds and
   jewels--gold and silver.

   I wish you Christian people would publicly put on your priceless jewels
   and never be ashamed of them! Do you know anything about Christ? Tell
   it! Tell it and you will soon know more! Do you know anything about
   Christ? Live it! Live it and you will soon have more! Put on your
   jewels! I do not see, while the Bridegroom is about, why you should put
   on your everyday rags. I have seen young folks smarten themselves up
   when their beloved has come to see them and, oh, since our Beloved is
   always coming to see us, we ought to keep ourselves in good trim, well
   decked in the Graces of His Spirit! "Shall a maid forget her ornaments,
   or a bride her attire?"

   In the Presence of Christ let us glory in Him! Let us delight ourselves
   in Him! Let us tell the world we never can have enough of Jesus, our
   Lord! And when they ask, "What is your Beloved more than any other
   beloved?" let us show how He has enriched us and blessed us with His
   love and Grace--and let this be our happy answer to an unbelieving
   generation!

   III. Now I close with a few words of CALL TO REPENTANCE if we have, in
   any measure or degree, forgotten our God. I am sure, first, that our
   God does not deserve to be treated so. "You use no other friend so
   ill." Such love, such love, such wondrous love, infinite, unending,
   everlasting love to you! And can you forget? Can you forget? So
   undeserving and yet so favored! Can you forget your Friend? Loved by
   God as He loves His own Son! Can you forget? Have you forgotten? Will
   not the time past suffice for that? A half a minute's forgetfulness of
   God is half a minute too long! Let it not come to be "days without
   number." But, if the number is ever so small, let us weep to think we
   should have forgotten Him at all! Let our sorrows flow at the
   recollection that He has never forgotten us--no, never for a
   moment--and yet we have forgotten Him. Our names have been on Jesus'
   breastplate and on His shoulders days without number--shall His name be
   always out of our minds? "I have engraved you on the palms of My
   hands," He says.

   Let us engrave His name upon the tablets of our hearts! Think for a
   minute, if He had forgotten you--forgotten you in your merriest moment,
   yes, in your holiest moment--what would have been your portion? If God
   had suspended the outflow of His Grace and left you to yourselves, what
   had been your fate? Oh, my God, my God, if You had once forgotten me,
   where had I been? But He never has forgotten us! He is not forgetting
   us at this moment. He says to each one, however wandering, "I do
   earnestly remember you." He will never forget us. The dying thief said,
   "Lord, remember me," and Jesus did remember him!

   He cries, "I remember you, the love of your betrothal." Lord, do you
   remember me? Then would I smite my heart to think I ever should have
   forgotten You! Oh, how can we forget when God is our diadem of Glory?
   It is our highest privilege that He is ours and we are His. God is our
   beauty, the honor and excellence of all His saints. It is this that
   makes us illustrious in the eyes of cherubim and seraphim--that God is
   ours and we are His! God is our joy, our only joy, our overflowing joy!
   He that knows God has Heaven within His spirit even now. Come, let us
   not forget again, but let us bind the glorious name of our Lord about
   our heart. May the sweet Spirit do it now, for Jesus Christ's sweet
   love's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Loved and Loving

   (No. 1634B)

   AMONG THE GOLDEN APPLE TREES,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "My Beloved is mine, and I am His: He feeds among the lilies." Song of
   Solomon 2:16.

   "MY BELOVED"--this is a sweet name which our love takes liberty to
   apply to the Lord Jesus. His inexpressible beauty has won our affection
   and we cannot help loving Him whatever may come of it--whether He is
   ours or not and whether He smiles upon us or frowns--we love Him and
   cannot do otherwise. We are carried away by the torrent of His goodness
   and have no longer the control of our affections. As long as we live,
   we must and will love the Altogether Lovely One. Yes, He is and must be
   to me, "My Beloved."

   BUT suppose--suppose for a moment that we loved and had no right to
   love? Many a heart that has cried, "My Beloved," has been wounded even
   unto death because it could not come at its choice, but was doomed
   never to exclaim, "My Beloved is mine." The beloved was longed for but
   could not be grasped. This is often so in earthly love, since such love
   may be unlawful, or unwise, and in every case it is the source of
   grievous misery. Thank God, this is not the case with the soul enamored
   of Christ Jesus, for He freely presents Himself in the Gospel as the
   Object of our confidence and love! Though He is infinitely above us,
   yet He delights to be one with all His loving ones--and of His own will
   He gives Himself to us.

   A polluted sinner may love the perfect Savior, for there is no word in
   Scripture to forbid. Yes, if a sinner would be wedded to the Lord of
   Glory, there is none to forbid it. Suppose that our possession of Jesus
   were a matter of doubt, as, alas, it is with far too many? That would
   be a door of sorrow, indeed. Life would be unhappy if it were soured by
   a question as to whether our Well-Beloved is ours or not. To an
   awakened and instructed mind it is anguish to be dubious of our hold of
   Christ--about this we must be sure, or be unhappy. All else may be in
   jeopardy, but, O most blessed Lord, never allow our possession of
   Yourself to be in dispute! It would be a poor thing to say, "My beloved
   may be mine," or even, "He was mine," or, "perhaps He is mine." We
   cannot bear any verb but one in the indicative mood, present tense--
   "My beloved is mine."

   Suppose yet, once again, that though we loved, and rightly loved, and
   actually possessed the beloved object, yet our affection was not
   returned. Ah, misery! To love and not be loved! Blessed be God, we can
   not only sing, "My Beloved is mine," but also, "I am His!" He values
   me, He delights in me, He loves me! It is very wonderful that Jesus
   should think us worth the having but since He does, we find a matchless
   solace in the fact! Which is the greater miracle--that He should be
   mine, or that I should be His? Certainly, the second is the surer
   ground of safety, for I cannot keep my treasures, since I am feebleness
   itself! But Jesus is able to preserve His own and none can pluck them
   out of His hands.

   The truth that Jesus calls me His is enough to make a man dance and
   sing all the way between here and Heaven! Realize the fact that we are
   dear to the heart of our Incarnate God and amid the sands of this
   wilderness a fountain of overflowing joy is open before us!

   THE TEXT IS FREE FROM ALL SUPPOSITION--it is the language of
   indisputable possession, the exclamation of a confidence which has made
   its assurance doubly sure! There are two positive verbs in the present
   tense and not the smell of a doubt has passed upon them. Here is a
   brave positiveness which fears no controversy, "my Beloved is mine and
   I am His." Doubt it who may, no, if you must doubt it, ask Him! There
   He is, for, "He feeds among the lilies." The spouse sees Him of whom
   she speaks. He may be a mere myth to others but He is a substantial,
   lovable, lovely and actually beloved Person to her!

   He stands before her and she perceives His Character so clearly that
   she has a comparison ready for Him and likens Him to a gazelle feeding
   on the tender grass among the lilies. This is a very delightful state
   of heart. Some of us know what it is to enjoy it from year to year.
   Christ is ours and we know it. Jesus is present and, by faith, we see
   Him. Our marriage union with husband or wife cannot be more clear, more
   sure, more matter of fact than our oneness with Christ and

   our enjoyment of that oneness! Joy! Joy! JOY! He whom we love is ours!
   We can also see the other side of the golden shield, for He whom we
   prize beyond all the world also prizes us and we are His! Nothing in
   the universe deserves, for an instant, to be compared in value with
   this inestimable blessing!

   We would not change with the cherubim--their chief places in the choirs
   of Heaven are poor as compared with the glory which excels--the glory
   of knowing that I am my best Beloved's and He is mine! A place in
   Christ's heart is more sweet, more honorable, more dear to us than a
   throne among the angels! Not even the delights of Paradise can produce
   a rival to this ecstatic joy--"My Beloved is mine, and I am His."

   YET THE TEXT HAS A NOTE OF CAUTION. The condition of fully assured love
   is as tender as it is delightful. The spouse, in the seventh verse, had
   charged her companions by all things of gentleness, delicacy and
   timidity--"by the roes and by the hinds of the field"--to refrain from
   offending her Beloved while He deigned to abide with her. She had also
   compared Him to a roe or a young hart, rather hiding than revealing
   Himself, and here she likens Him to the same roe, quietly pasturing in
   the gardens, so gently moving that He does not break or even bruise a
   lily, but softly insinuates Himself among their delicate beauties as
   one of the same dainty mold.

   This hints, in poetic imagery, at the solemn and sacred Truth of God
   that the dearest fellowship with Jesus can never be known by the rough
   and the coarse, the hard and the restless, but remains the priceless
   heritage of the lowly and meek. And these can only retain it by a
   studious care which cherishes love and guards it from even the least
   intrusion. A gazelle among the lilies would start at the bark of a fox
   and be gone at the voice of a stranger. And, therefore, soft whispers
   of inward love must say, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes," and
   nimble hands with noiseless fingers must draw up the lattice that
   kindly eyes may look forth at the windows and may be seen of Him who
   delights in love.

   The evident intent of the language is to set forth the delicacy of the
   highest form of holy fellowship. The Lord our God is a jealous God and
   that jealousy is most seen where most His love is displayed. The least
   sin, willfully indulged in, will grieve the Holy Spirit. Slights,
   forgetfulnesses and neglects will cause Him to turn away. If we would
   remain positively and joyously assured that the Beloved is ours and
   that we are His, we must use the utmost circumspection and holy
   vigilance. No man gains full assurance by accident, or retains it by
   chance. As the gentle hind wanders in lovely spots where the pure white
   lilies grow and as he shuns the places profaned by strife and foul with
   rank weeds and nettles, so does the Lord Jesus come to holy minds
   perfumed with devotion and consecrated to the Lord--and there, in
   sacred quiet--He finds solace and abides with His saints.

   May the Lord preserve us from pride, from self-seeking, from carnality
   and wrath, for these things will chase away our delights even as dogs
   drive off the hind of the morning! Both our inward and outward walk
   must be eagerly watched lest anything should vex the Bridegroom. A
   word, a glance, a thought may break the spell and end the happy rest of
   the heart--and it may be a long while before the blessing is regained.
   We have, some of us, learned by bitter experience that it is difficult
   to establish a settled peace and easy enough to destroy it. The costly
   vase, the product of a thousand laborious processes, may be broken in a
   moment! And so the supreme delight of communion with the Lord Jesus,
   the flower of 10,000 eminent delights, may be shattered by a few
   moments' negligence.

   Hence the one lesson of our little sermon is--I charge you, O you
   daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that
   you stir not up, nor awake my Love, till He please"--

   "For I am jealous of my heart Lest it should once from Him depart. Then
   should I lose my best delight Should my Beloved take to flight."

   Mentone, December 10, 1881. BELOVED FRIENDS--In a few days I hope to
   turn my face homeward, much refreshed by laying aside the harness for a
   season. I beseech you continue your prayers for me--prayer which I
   value beyond all earthly treasures. If these sermons profit you, ask
   that I may have Grace to continue them. Entering upon a 27th volume, I
   entreat your help to increase their circulation, that they may have a
   wider range of influence. Yours heartily, C. H. SPURGEON.
     __________________________________________________________________

Only Trust Him! Only Trust Him!

   (No. 1635)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 26, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And as He entered into a certain village, there met Him ten men that
   were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices and
   said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when He sa w them, He said
   unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass,
   that, as they went, they were cleansed." Luke 17:12-14.

   SEVERAL interesting topics might fairly be found in these verses. We
   see here the abounding fruit of sin, for here were 10 lepers in a group
   and the abundance of Divine power to meet it, for they were all
   cleansed. So, also, we see how Christ must come first and ceremonies
   second--first the work of Grace--and then the outward showing of it.
   The Lord's tenderness toward outcasts, His attention to prayers from a
   distance and His regard for the ceremonial Law so long as it was in
   force, might, each one, yield an instructive meditation. I have,
   however, only one thought which I wish to bring under your notice and
   to press upon you, perhaps, almost to repetition and monotony. That
   thought I would engrave as with an iron pen upon the hearts and minds
   of all here present who desire to find eternal salvation. May the Holy
   Spirit imprint it upon every living soul!

   These 10 lepers were required by the Savior to perform an act of faith
   in Him before they had the slightest evidence in themselves that He had
   worked a good work upon them. Before they began to feel their foul
   blood cleansed--before the horrible dryness of leprosy had yielded to
   healthy perspiration--they were to go towards the house in which the
   priest lived to be examined by him and to be pronounced clean. They
   were to exhibit faith in Christ Jesus' power to heal them by going to
   exhibit themselves as healed, though as yet they were in the same
   condition as before! They were to start to the place where they should
   be examined by the priest, believing that Jesus had healed them, or
   would heal them, though, as yet, they had no internal evidence,
   whatever, that their flesh would become as that of a little child!

   This is the point I wish to dwell upon--that the Lord Jesus Christ bids
   sinners believe in Him and trust their souls to Him, though they may
   not yet discern in themselves any work of His Grace! Just as these men
   were lepers and nothing but lepers, so you may be sinners and nothing
   but sinners--and yet you are bid to exhibit faith in Jesus Christ while
   you are just what you are! As these men were to start straight away to
   the priest with all their leprosy white upon them and to go there as if
   they felt they were already healed, so are you, with all your
   sinnership upon you and your sense of condemnation heavy on your soul,
   to believe in Jesus Christ just as you are and you shall find
   everlasting life on the spot!

   This is my point and it is of the first importance. Sinners, as
   sinners, are to believe in Jesus for everlasting life! The voice to
   each one of them is, "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead,
   and Christ shall give you life." Now, first, I shall notice what signs
   are commonly looked for by unconverted men as reasons for believing in
   Christ, which, indeed, are no reasons at all! Then, secondly, I shall
   try to show what is the real ground and reason for faith in Christ.
   And, thirdly, what will be the issue of a faith in Christ similar to
   that of the lepers.

   I. First, then, I say that we are to believe in Jesus Christ--to trust
   Him to heal us of the great disease of sin--though as yet we may have
   about us no sign or token that He has worked any good work upon us. We
   are not to look for signs and evidences within ourselves before we
   venture our souls upon Jesus. The supposition is a soul-destroying
   error and I will try to expose it by showing WHAT ARE THE SIGNS THAT
   ARE COMMONLY LOOKED FOR BY MEN. One of the most frequent is a
   consciousness of great sin and a horrible dread of Divine wrath leading
   to despair. Strange to say, we constantly meet with persons who say, "I
   could believe in Jesus Christ if I felt more burdened by a sense of
   sin. I could trust Him if I were driven more entirely to despondency
   and to despair. But I am not depressed enough! I am not brokenhearted
   enough! I am sure I am not brought low enough and, therefore, I cannot
   trust Christ."

   Strange notion, that if the night were darker we should see better!
   Strange idea, that if we were nearer death we should have better hope
   of life! Now, my Friend, you are speaking and acting in distinct
   disobedience to Christ, for He would have you trust Himself, not on the
   ground of your feeling much or little, or on the ground of your feeling
   anything at all, but simply because you are sick and He has come to
   heal you and is abundantly able to work your cure. If you say, "Lord, I
   cannot trust You unless I feel this or that," then you, in effect, say,
   "I can trust my own feelings, but I cannot trust God's appointed
   Savior." What is this but to make a god out of your feelings and a
   savior out of your inward griefs?

   Is your own heart to save you by its dark insinuations against Divine
   love? Is unbelief, after all, to bring you salvation because you refuse
   to believe your God? And despair, wicked despair, which gives the lie
   to God--is that to be trusted in and not the Savior whom God has sent
   into the world to save sinners? Is there, then, a new Gospel, and does
   it run, "He that denies the power of Jesus and despairs of His love
   shall be saved"? You know that Jesus justifies the ungodly and cleanses
   the wicked from their sin through His precious blood--and though you
   know this to be true, you say--"I cannot trust the Crucified. I cannot
   rely upon His full Atonement unless I feet my guilt to be unpardonable
   and disbelieve my God."

   I pray that you may never feel as you foolishly think you ought to
   feel, for feelings of despair dishonor the Lord and vex His Spirit--and
   certainly cannot be good for you. It comes to this--you are making a
   god of your despair and a Christ out of your horrors--and so you are
   setting up an antichrist in the place where Christ, alone, should be!
   Come, young Friend, though you have not been terrified and alarmed and
   heart-broken to the extent of some, will you trust Christ with your
   soul and ask no questions? I pray you, trust Jesus once and for all--

   "Cast your guilty soul on Him! Find Him mighty to redeem! At His feet
   your burden lay Look your doubts and cares a way. Now by faith the Son
   embrace, Plead His promise, trust His Grace." That is the point. Can
   you trust Jesus? for that is what He bids you do. How strange it seems
   that anyone should raise a question about trusting HIM! How insane and
   insulting to be willing to trust our feelings and not trust the Savior!

   These 10 lepers felt no change whatever worked upon them when Jesus
   bade them go off to be examined by the priest, yet away they went, and
   as they went they were made whole! Trust Jesus Christ just as you are,
   without those feelings which you have supposed to be necessary as a
   sort of preparation! Trust Him at once and follow Him--and He will make
   you whole before you have taken many steps in the path of faith and
   obedience! O Lord God, lead all my hearers and readers to trust Your
   Son at once!

   Many other persons think that they must, before they can trust Christ,
   experience quite a blaze of joy. "Oh," says one, "I heard a Christian
   say that when he found the Savior he was so happy that he did not know
   how to contain himself and he sang, like a whole band of music in one--

   'Happy day, happy day, When Jesus washed my sins away.' Oh that I could
   be as full of joy as these 'happy day' people!" Just so. But what
   mischief will you make out of that? Are you going to find evil in our
   delights? Will you feed your unbelief on the joy of the Lord? What
   strange perversity! "Why," you say, "must I not be happy before I can
   believe in Christ?" What? What? Must you have the joy before you
   exercise the faith? How unreasonable! Because we tell you that
   such-and-such a root produces a sweet fruit, will you say that you must
   have the fruit before you will accept the root? Surely that is bad
   reasoning!

   We who have experienced this joy came to Christ in order to obtain it
   and did not wait until we found it, or else we should have waited until
   now! We came to Jesus just as we were--some of us were very wretched,
   but we came just as we then were and trusted Christ and were made
   whole. Then followed joy and peace, but if we had waited till we felt
   joy and peace before we came, we should have been standing out against
   the Gospel plan which is that men are to trust the Savior before they
   feel the slightest benefit from Him. O Sinner, is not this commonsense?
   Must we not take medicine before we are cured by it? Must we not eat
   bread before it removes our hunger? Must we not open our eyes before we
   see? Before the Lord Jesus has either comforted you or healed you,
   consciously, you are to come and do just what He bids you and trust

   in Him to save you. Neither the gloom of horror nor the blaze of
   delight is to be looked for before faith! Faith is to precede all and
   that faith is a simple, humble reliance upon Christ.

   We have known others who have expected to have a text impressed upon
   their minds. A kind of superstition has grown up that a special
   Scripture must, somehow or other, hover over the mind and continue
   there, so that you cannot get rid of it--and then you may hope that you
   are saved! In old families there are superstitions about white birds
   coming to a window before a death and I regard with much the same
   distrust the more common superstition that if a text continues upon
   your mind day after day you may safely conclude that it is an assurance
   of your salvation. I hope I have never taught you to draw any such a
   conclusion! Far be it from me to assist you into a confidence which has
   so questionable a foundation!

   The Spirit of God often applies Scripture with power to the soul, but
   this fact is never set forth as the rock for us to build upon. Will you
   find anything in the Bible to support the supposition that the vivid
   recollection of a text is a seal of conversion? It has often happened
   that some Word of God does greatly comfort the soul, but why should you
   demand the same? Have you any right to say, "I will not believe God's
   Word unless He impresses it upon me"? Is it a lie, then? "No, it is
   true," you say. Remember, if it is not true, an impression upon your
   mind would not make it true--and if it is true, why do you not believe
   it? If it is true, accept it! If there is any force about a promise,
   pray God to make you feel its force and power! You ought to feel its
   force and power, but if you do not, sin lies at your door.

   As a reader of the Scriptures you must not fall into the idea that you
   are to wait till some Scripture burns its way into your soul. You must
   read attentively and believe what the Lord God says to you.
   Furthermore, I would have you remember it is not reading the Scripture
   that saves you--it is believing in Christ. What did Christ, Himself,
   say? He said to the Bible readers of His day, "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." Good as the searching of
   Scripture is, it is nothing without coming to Christ! You will only
   read your own condemnation in the Bible if you remain out of Christ.
   Even the Bible, itself, may be made into a stumbling block if you
   substitute Bible-reading for closing in with Christ and putting your
   trust in Him. Your immediate business is to trust Jesus and no measure
   of reading will compensate for neglect of faith.

   What if no special text of Scripture were ever laid home to your heart
   at all, yet here it stands, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you
   shall be saved." That is your business, my dear Hearer, if you are to
   get peace at once! And I earnestly hope that some of you are going to
   get it before this sermon is over. I have asked your souls of my God
   and I have got them for a prey tonight. They shall be David's spoil and
   you shall be led in chains of Grace to Jesus! Who among you will put
   His trust in Jesus? For, if you do so, you shall surely find eternal
   salvation the moment you believe in His dear name!

   There is another way in which some men try to get off believing in
   Christ and that is, they expect an actual conversion to be manifest in
   them before they will trust the Savior. Now, understand that Christ has
   worked salvation in no man who is unconverted. There must be a perfect
   turning round of us--a complete conversion from sin to holiness. That
   is salvation--not a preparation for salvation. Conversion is the
   manifestation of Christ's healing power. But you are not to have this
   before you trust Him--you are to trust Him for this very thing. When a
   man with a disease goes to an eminent physician, does he say, "Doctor,
   I will trust you with my case when I have reached a certain stage"?
   "No," says the physician, "if you have reached that state you will be
   in a fair way of healing and you won't need me." Your wisest plan is to
   go to your physician just as you are--and if you can be sure that he is
   an infallible healer, just put yourself into his hands as if you knew
   nothing and he knew everything--and as if you would not have a will or
   way in it, but would leave yourself entirely with him.

   That is the thing to do with the Lord Jesus, the Infallible Physician
   of the souls of men! Why, you poor wretched sinner, you say, "I am not
   a saint. I cannot be saved." Who said you were a saint? It is Christ's
   work to make you into a saint! "Oh, but I do not repent as I should."
   It is Christ's work to make you repent as you should and to Him you
   must come for repentance! "Oh, but my heart won't break." It is Christ
   who is to break your heart--not you who are to break it and then come
   to Him when it is broken. Come to Jesus just as you are, with your
   hard, stony, senseless heart--and trust that and everything else to His
   saving power! "I do not seem to even have a strong desire," says one.
   Christ Himself gives every spiritual desire by His Holy Spirit. He is a
   Savior that begins the alphabet of mercy at A. He does not ask you to
   get as far as B, C, D and then promise to meet you--He begins at the
   beginning.

   The good Samaritan, when he found the man beaten by the thieves, went
   to where he was. That is what Jesus does. He does not say, "Now, then,
   you wounded man, get up and come to Me, and I will pour the oil and
   wine into you." No, but He goes where the wounded one lies in utter
   helplessness, stoops over him, removes his rags, cleanses his wounds,
   pours in the oil and wine and lifts him up and bears him to the house
   of mercy. Poor soul! My Master is not a half Savior, but a whole one!
   And if you are lying at the gates of death, hard by the doors of Hell,
   He is as able to save you as if you were sitting on the doorstep of
   Heaven! Just where you are and as you are, trust Christ to save you and
   you shall be saved! Do not look for conversion first, but expect it as
   the result of faith.

   We have known some who have had a very curious idea which I can hardly
   put into words, namely, that if they were to be saved they would
   experience some very singular sensation. They could believe in Christ
   if they felt in a mysterious fashion! It is rather difficult to
   understand people, but when I have been talking to some enquirers I
   have thought that they expected even a physical sensation--a sensation
   within their bodies. I remember one saying to me, "Sir, I was quite
   sure I was saved, for I felt so light." Poor simpleton, what does it
   matter whether you felt light or heavy? What has that to do with it?
   Perhaps you were light-headed, or half out of your mind with absurd
   excitement. Beware of such nonsense! To feel light may be interpreted
   into being weighed in the balances and found wanting--it is a sensation
   which may frighten as much as console.

   "Oh," says one, "but I felt so singular." Yes, and many who are now in
   Bedlam could say the same. What does it matter what you felt? It is not
   feeling that will save you! Believing on Jesus will bring you the
   blessings of Grace, but strange feelings may be produced by what you
   have eaten, or by the weather, or by hysteria, or a hundred other
   things! Do you not know that when politics are being discussed, or when
   some other subject is under dispute, an earnest orator will often stir
   men with excitement till their flesh creeps? But what of that?
   Excitement does not save anybody! Many are melted to tears by a novel
   or a play, but of what benefit is that? You may be moved with religious
   excitement and half the emotion may be purely physical--there may be
   nothing of the Grace of God in it.

   The wiser way is to sit down calmly and say, "Here is God's way of
   salvation--salvation through His crucified Son, Jesus Christ. And He
   has promised that if I trust His Son, He will save me from sinning,
   make a new man of me and heal me of my spiritual diseases. I will trust
   Him, for I am sure that the witness of God is true." By that simple and
   deliberate act of faith you are saved! The power to believe your God is
   the evidence that the cure has begun and begun well! If you have,
   indeed, trusted Him, Jesus has undertaken your case and He will save
   you! The very fact that you can and do believe has, within it, the
   essential force by which you will be delivered from the alienation of
   your mind. He that believes God is no longer an enemy to Him. Those
   whom we trust, we soon learn to love. This, you see, demands no
   singular sensation or excitement--this is plain and clear enough.

   "But must we not be born again?" asks one. Yes, truly, and he that
   believes in Christ is born again. Though as yet he knows it not, the
   first mark of life is within his soul, for the first sure token of
   spiritual life is trusting Jesus Christ, alone. The best evidence is
   not trusting marks, signs, evidences, inward feelings, impressions and
   so on--but just getting out of that and trusting Jesus! There lies the
   essence of the saving change--the getting from self to the Lord God in
   Christ Jesus!

   A certain mariner has a fine anchor, one of the best constructed
   anchors ever used in the navy. He has it on board his ship and yet it
   is not a pennyworth of use to him! While he has it on board his ship,
   it does not answer the purpose of an anchor! His vessel drifts with the
   anchor on board. He drags it out upon the deck and looks at it. What an
   anchor! Would not that hold in the day of storm? He admires his anchor
   as if it were a mass of gold! The winds howl and the waves roar, but he
   feels safe with his anchor on board. Fool! This anchor is of no use to
   you while you can see it. A ship's anchorage cannot be in the ship,
   itself!

   "Suppose I hang the anchor from the side of the vessel." It is of no
   use there! What must you do with it? Fling it overboard! Let it down
   into the deep, even to the bottom. It is gone! You cannot see where it
   is. All right! That will do. Now, Soul, fling your anchor of trust
   overboard! Do not let it hang to your feelings, or to your impressions,
   or to anything that is in you, but let it go overboard, deep into the
   waters of infinite love--and let it get a grip on Jesus! Outside of
   you, your hope must be, for as long as your confidence is within you,
   or has any dependence upon yourself, it is like an anchor on board
   which can only increase the weight of the ship, but certainly cannot
   help it in the day of storm. There is the Truth of God. God grant you
   Grace to accept it.

   II. And now, secondly, and as briefly as I can, I want to bring forward
   WHAT THE REASON IS FOR OUR BELIEVING IN JESUS CHRIST. What reason have
   I, as a sinner, for trusting myself with Jesus Christ? No reason
   whatever within ourself need be looked for. The warrant for our
   believing Christ lies in this--first, there is God's witness concerning
   His Son, Jesus Christ. God, the Everlasting Father, has set forth
   Christ "to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but
   also for the sin of the whole world." God the Father says to men, "I am
   able to forgive you justly through the death and righteousness of My
   Son. Trust Me and I will save you."

   What do you need more than that? He that believes not has made God a
   liar because he has not believed His witness concerning His Son. Why,
   surely, if God declares a thing, you do not need further evidence! "Let
   God be true and every man a liar." What can be firmer than the voice of
   God, who cannot lie? Beloved Hearers, I feel as if I really ought not
   to bring any other evidence before you. It looks so like insulting the
   Lord by trying to defend Him, as if His perfect Truth needed my
   testimony to support it! Angels never doubt God. Those bright and
   glorious beings never suspect their Maker. Worms of the dust! Worms of
   the dust, how can you doubt the God that made you? Oh, let it not be
   so! And when His testimony is that He is a God ready to pardon the
   guilty, waiting to forgive all those that trust His Son, why should we
   doubt such a gracious declaration? My Soul, I charge you, trust your
   Savior and raise no further question, but let the matter be assured and
   established within you!

   The next warrant for our believing is Jesus Christ, Himself. He bears
   witness on earth as well as the Father and His witness is true.
   Consider who this Christ is whom we are bid to trust. Look at His
   Person. He is God, "very God of very God." Can we doubt Him? He is
   perfect Man and He has taken perfect manhood upon Himself for our
   sakes. Can we doubt Him? He has lived a perfect life. When did He ever
   lie? Who can charge Him with falsehood? He has died, "the Just for the
   unjust, to bring us to God." And God has accepted the Sacrifice of His
   dear Son. What surer proof of His truthfulness can He give us than His
   death for us? O trembler, why will you refuse your confidence to One so
   worthy of it? Can you doubt Calvary? Will you despise the Cross?

   Will you say, "I need some other reason for trusting Christ besides His
   own Person and His finished work"? I feel almost ashamed to be pleading
   for such a thing as this! Tell me when my Lord was ever false. O sons
   of men, tell me when once He refused to receive a sinner that came to
   Him! You know that He is risen from the dead and that He has gone into
   Heaven and sits, now, at the right hand of God and will shortly come.
   And do you dare treat Him as a mere pretender? Can you not trust Him?
   Can you dare distrust Him? Do you need signs and wonders over and above
   those which are in Himself? If one should rise from the dead you would
   not believe, if you do not believe Jesus, for you have more than Moses
   and the Prophets when you have Christ, Himself, risen from the dead!
   Will you not trust Him?

   I would like to get you by the hand, my Brothers and Sisters, and put
   it personally to you--Do you mean it, that you suspect my Savior and
   cannot trust your soul with Him? Do you mean it? No, with tears I
   entreat you, do not treat Him so badly, but cast your soul on Him at
   this instant and believe Him just as you are and He will save you! He
   will not run back from His word, but He will wash out your guilt in His
   own blood if you will consent to be cleansed. Still, to put this in
   another shape, you want to know why you are to believe--your warrant
   for believing lies in the fact that God commands you to believe! "He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not
   shall be damned." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
   saved."

   And this commandment we have received from our Master--that we preach
   this Gospel unto every creature under Heaven--and we preach it in His
   name, commanding you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that
   you believe in Him! This Divine command is reason enough for you. If
   God commands you to do it, you need not ask, "May I do it?" Nobody
   needs permission to keep the Light of God--the command includes a
   permit! When the Law of the Gospel comes from God, Himself, dear
   Hearer, what is there to do but to obey it and believe at once? The
   door is open, enter! The feast is spread, eat! The fountain is filled,
   wash!

   Moreover, there is the promise made to you and to every creature,
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "He that
   believes in Him is not condemned." Do you hear that? "He that believes
   in Him has everlasting life." He has eternal life, he has it now! These
   are promises rich and free for you. What more do you want? Oh, I know
   not what more I can say--when Jesus commands you, when Jesus invites
   you--how can you stand back? O blessed Spirit, make this plain to men
   and lead them to believe!

   I will only add this one more thing--I dare say these poor lepers
   believed in Jesus because they had heard of other lepers whom He had
   cleansed. Now, here stands one before you, a representative of many
   more in this place, who, if this were a fit time, would stand up and
   say the same. I came to Jesus full of sin, guilty and lost, with a hard
   heart and a heavy spirit--and I looked to Him, trusting Him, alone, to
   save me--and He has saved me! He has changed my nature. He has blotted
   out my sin and He has made me love Him and love all that is good and
   true and generous, for His sake. It is not I, even I, that am left,
   alone, to tell you, but, as I have said, there are thousands in this
   Tabernacle, at this very hour, upon whom the same miracle of Divine
   mercy has been worked! Therefore trust my Lord Jesus and you shall feel
   the same miracle worked upon you!

   Where are you, Friend, you who need so much persuading for your own
   good? If I have money to give away, I do not find that I have to
   persuade anybody to have it! Jingle a guinea and what ears men have!
   How soon they will rush where the coin gives forth its golden notes!
   Give bread away in a cold winter, or even a little soup--how the poor
   will crowd to get it! But when it is, "Trust Jesus and your sin shall
   be forgiven you, and your nature shall be changed, and you shall be
   saved from sinning, and you shall be made pure and holy," oh, my
   Master, what are they thinking that they need calling so often? Men not
   only require calling, they need compelling to come in--

   "Dear Savior, draw reluctant hearts!

   To You let sinners fly

   And take the bliss Your love imparts

   And drink, and never die!"

   III. I must now close with the third point which shall not occupy many
   minutes. It is this, WHAT IS THE ISSUE OF

   THIS KIND OF FAITH THAT I HAVE BEEN PREACHING? This doctrine of, "only
   trust Jesus"--what does it lead

   to? This trusting in Jesus without marks, signs, evidences,
   tokens--what is the result and outcome of it? The first thing that I
   have to say about it is this--that the very existence of such a faith
   as that in the soul is evidence that there is already a saving change!
   "Oh," you say, "I do not see that. How can it prove that I am a new man
   because I trust myself with Christ?" Consider a little--it will be an
   evidence of a saving change already worked, for it will show that you
   have come to be obedient to Jesus--and obedient upon a matter which
   your proud will has long struggled against.

   Every man, by nature, kicks against simply trusting in Christ. And
   when, at last, he yields to the Divine method of mercy, it is a virtual
   surrender of his own will, the ending of rebellion, the establishment
   of peace. Faith is obedience! Faith is the evidence that the warfare
   has been ended by unconditional surrender! They said to Jesus in olden
   times, "What shall we do that we may work the works of God?" And He
   answered, "This is the work of God--the most godlike work that you can
   do--that you believe on Jesus Christ whom He has sent." It is even
   so--in one sense faith is not a work at all--and in another sense it is
   the most grand of all works! Here is where God and you are at
   issue--this is the central point of the quarrel! You want to be saved
   by something in yourself, but God says that He will save you if you
   trust in Christ!

   Now, if you trust Christ just as you are, it will be an evidence that
   you have been made obedient to God and so obedient that a complete,
   deep-seated, radical renewal of your nature has evidently taken place.
   It will be an evidence, also, that you are humble, for it is pride that
   makes men need to do something, or to be something in their own
   salvation. Or to be saved in some wonderful way that they may tell
   other people how wonderfully they were saved. When you are willing to
   be saved like a poor, good-for-nothing sinner that you are, then you
   are already saved from pride! I will not compliment you--you are a
   good-for-nothing wretch of a sinner and if you will trust Jesus, as a
   man must do who truly bears that character--it will prove that you are
   humble and this will be good evidence that a change has passed over
   your spirit!

   Again, faith in Jesus will be the best evidence that you are reconciled
   to God, for the worst evidence of your enmity to God is that you do not
   like God's way of salvation. You so much dislike God that you will not
   have Heaven on God's terms! You, the sinner, are so much at war with
   God that you will go to Hell rather than be saved in God's way! That is
   what it comes to. And when you give that up and say, "Lord, as long as
   I can be made whole--as long as I can be made to love You--I am willing
   to be saved," there will be evidence of a great change in you. When you
   cry, "Lord, I will be saved in Your way and I will, therefore, trust
   Christ as you have bid me," then God and you are reconciled upon a
   point of the chief importance! There is no battle between you, now, for
   you are of one mind about trusting Christ. God has trusted His honor in
   Christ's hands and you are trusting your soul in His hands, so that God
   and you are now agreed to

   honor Jesus. The moment you have trusted Christ, that simple thing
   becomes, in itself, a distinct admission and indisputable proof that a
   great change has been worked in your relation to God and in your
   feelings in reference to Him.

   Now, mark you, before long, sooner or later, you will become
   delightfully conscious of the fact that you are saved. Many a man is
   saved and, for a time, he questions the truth of the gracious work. But
   in due time the blessing is made clear to him. When a man trusts Jesus
   as these 10 lepers did and acts upon His trust, good always comes of
   it. See the 10 men! They are going towards the priest though they have
   not yet felt that they are healed! They are acting upon Christ's
   authority and He will not make fools of them, for they that trust in
   Him shall not be ashamed nor confounded! They must start on their walk
   before they feel the healing, but as they are going they shall feel it!
   And you, too, trusting Christ without any sense of any good thing,
   shall not be long before you shall feel His blessed power upon your
   heart.

   I wish to speak my own experience simply to help those who are coming
   to Jesus. While I was coming to Christ, I did not know that I was
   coming. And when I looked to Christ, I scarcely knew whether it was the
   right sort of look or not. But when I felt, at last, that Jesus had
   healed me, then I knew what I had done. Many a blessing God has given
   me as to which I have not found out that I had it till some time after
   my reception of it! I have read the feelings of certain good men and I
   have said, "I wish I felt like they" and some time after, when I looked
   back, I perceived that I was actually moving in their orbit and passing
   through the same experience!

   Many a man wishes he was humble and he is humble because he does not
   think he is humble! Many a person sighs, "I wish I had a tender heart,"
   but I am sure that his heart is tender because he mourns its hardness!
   He longs to be deeply sensitive before the Lord and it is clear that he
   has a tenderness which he does not, himself, recognize. His ideal of
   tenderness is very high and properly so--and, therefore, he dreads
   falling short of it. O my dear Friend, if you trust Jesus in the dark,
   you shall one day enter into the light! And if you never should enjoy
   comfort, you would still be safe--if all the way between this place and
   Heaven you should never have a consciousness of being saved--yet if you
   have trusted Christ, you must and shall be saved, for He cannot
   possibly allow faith in Him to be exercised in vain!

   Before long, if you trust Jesus, you shall know His love. Trust Him as
   you sink and you shall swim. Trust Him as you feel yourself dying and
   you shall live. If you trust Him before you feel any work of Grace upon
   you, you shall soon discover that there was a work upon you, though you
   discerned it not. If you trust the Lord, you are already the subject of
   a Divine power, for nothing short of Omnipotent Grace could have led
   you to believe and live! The state and act of faith are simplicity
   itself, but to bring us into that simplicity, God, Himself, must new
   create us. To put all in one, if you are ready to come to Christ and
   trust Him without any miracles, signs, or evidences, but will simply
   trust Him, alone, you have within you a power which will carry you
   through life and preserve you in holiness even to the end.

   This morning I spoke about David's encouraging himself in God. [No.
   1606. "Ziklag--Or David Encouraging Himself in God."] When Ziklag was
   burnt, his wives taken captive and his men talked of stoning him, David
   fell back on God alone. This is a high attainment and yet it is one
   which has its parallel in the very dawn of faith in the sinner. It is a
   grand start in life for you, a poor sinner, to begin by trusting
   Christ, alone, saying, "I, without anything good in me whatever,
   without anything that I can lay hold of as a hope for me, do cast
   myself, whether I sink or swim, upon Christ Jesus the Savior of
   sinners. And I if I perish, I perish."

   This is a glorious beginning! To many a saintly life, such a faith in
   the Lord, alone, has been a crowning act, and yet you, poor Sinner, may
   exercise this same faith while yet you are a babe in Christ! You will
   often have to trust in this fashion in future life and, therefore, it
   is well to begin as you will have to keep on. You will be brought in
   business, in the family and in the various trials of life, into such a
   condition that you will have to exercise a faith just of the same sort
   as that which you begin with. I would, therefore, have you learn the
   lesson while you are young. You will have to say, "Though I am
   weakness, itself, and poverty, itself, and do not see how I may be
   provided for, yet as the ravens and the sparrows are fed, so shall I
   be. And therefore I cast my nakedness upon God for clothing, my hunger
   upon God for food and my very life I cast upon Him that He may preserve
   it to me between the jaws of death."

   This is grand faith and you must begin there, for if you do not, you
   have not begun to build on the Rock. Your first course must be the live
   Rock, or else all will be insecure. To begin well is half the
   battle--mind that you get a foundation which can never be moved--for
   life has many trials, and woe to the man whose foundation fails him.
   This is grand faith to die with as well as to live with. The curtains
   are drawn and the light of the sun is shut out. The voices of friends
   begin

   to fail, the ears are dull and the eye-strings break. My Soul, you are
   now about to launch into the unseen world! What will you do now? What,
   indeed, but faint into the arms of your Father and your God!

   Oh, my dear Hearer, if you have learned to trust, at the very first
   because of what Jesus is, and not because of what you are, then you
   will know how to die! Standing there, in the prospect of the great
   account--or rather, lying there, upon the bed in prospect of the Lord's
   coming--fears will come, doubts will come and terrors will come if you
   are looking within, or looking back upon your past life and trying to
   find a reliance. But if you can say, "My Savior, into Your hands I
   commit my spirit: my naked soul I put into Your pierced hands, again,"
   then may you breathe your last in peace, knowing whom you have believed
   and being persuaded that He is able to keep that which you have
   committed to Him until that day! When John Hyatt lay a-dying, one of
   his friends said, "Mr. Hyatt, can you now trust your soul with Jesus?"
   "Man," he said, "trust Him with one soul? That is nothing! I could
   trust Him with a million souls if I had them! I know that He is able to
   save all who trust Him."

   I want you to begin, then, as these poor lepers did--by just taking
   Christ at His word--and going your way in the strength of that word
   before you feel any hopeful change within. In this fashion, when you
   come to die, you may look out for Glory and expect it, though the
   brilliance has not yet transfigured you! You may look out for the
   eternal crown; look out for the harp; look out for the face of the
   Well-Beloved and the bliss unspeakable--and expect them even though the
   clouds gather around you! Before you pass the gates of pearl, or cross
   the chilly sea, you may enjoy the sight of the Beatific Vision by an
   unstaggering faith!

   Hope that is seen is not hope, but glorious is the faith which sees Him
   who is invisible and grasps the substance of the things not seen as
   yet! By this power I even now anticipate the joys of the upper skies.
   Try, Beloved, to do the same. O for more faith! It will be grand to
   know all Heaven, though you have not seen it and felt it, because you
   knew and trusted the Lord of Heaven! Up to now you have found the
   promise true--now trust the Lord for Glory as once you trusted Him for
   Grace--and you shall find, before long, that His richest promises are
   sure! God save you, every one of you, Beloved, and may He do so at this
   very, this very hour, for His dear Son's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Chastened Happiness

   (No. 1636)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER. 25, 1881,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the
   prosperity that I procure unto it." Jeremiah 33:9.

   GOD'S ancient people sadly provoked Him with their idolatries from age
   to age. He was longsuffering to them to the last degree, but at length
   He grew weary of them and, according to His own words, "He abhorred His
   own inheritance." He caused them to be carried away into captivity and
   their land became a desert, or the heritage of strangers. Israel became
   a scattered people on the brink of national extinction, for their
   iniquities had hidden the face of the Lord from them. Yet the Lord,
   even Jehovah, had entered into a Covenant concerning them with Abraham,
   His friend, which Covenant He had afterwards renewed with His servant
   David.

   This latter Covenant the Lord is said, by the Prophet Jeremiah, to
   remember even when Jerusalem is desolate. We read in the 20th verse and
   onward these words--"Thus says the Lord: If you can break My Covenant
   of the day, and My Covenant of the night, and that there should not be
   day and night in their season; then may also My Covenant be broken with
   David, My servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his
   throne." Even in Israel's worst days, when her representative man was
   the weeping Prophet Jeremiah, and when her sorrows were greater than
   even he could express, yet the Lord revealed His love and promised that
   blessed days should dawn for the seed of Abraham!

   These days have not yet come, but they shall surely arrive, for God has
   not cast away His people whom He did foreknow. There is yet a history
   for Israel--her sun is clouded, but it has not set. As surely as stands
   the Covenant with day and night, so surely shall the chosen people
   return from their captivity and possess the land which the Lord has
   given them. In those days the Lord will build them as at the first and
   cleanse them from all their iniquities. Then they shall not be proud or
   arrogant, for His goodness shall startle and astound them and they
   shall be amazed, even, unto trembling when they see what great things
   Jehovah has done for them! The memory of their great national offenses
   and especially of their long rejection of the Messiah shall cause them
   to wear their high dignity without pride--they shall be subdued by love
   to a child-like fear of again offending--they shall tremble as they see
   the Lord God of their fathers glorifying all His Grace in them. Thus
   much for the strict context of the text.

   At this time we shall loosen the verse from its stall and bring it
   forth to our own pastures. Its primary significance is not only its
   teaching, for the words of the Lord are full of eyes and look in many
   ways. We may use this promise in reference to all the Lord's people,
   for the promise is sure to all the seed. That which is true of the Jew,
   one way, is true of all the chosen seed in the same sense or in
   another. No privilege of the Covenant is absolutely private, either to
   Jew or Gentile, but in its highest form, if not in its lowest, it is
   the common property of all the heirs of salvation. We are joint heirs
   with Christ Jesus and as He inherits all blessing, so, also, do we.
   Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, has well said, "If you are
   Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the
   promise."

   Let me, then, read the text, again, and let us appropriate it to
   ourselves--"They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for
   all the prosperity that I procure unto it." Such honor and blessing
   have all the saints! Our text suggests, at the outset, the remark that
   all the good things which make up prosperity are to be traced unto the
   Lord. Woe unto us if we receive good and perfect gifts and yet forget
   the Father of Lights from whom they come! These benefits are not from
   beneath, but from above--let them not be passed by in ungrateful
   silence--but let us send, upward, humble and warm acknowledgments. He
   who forgets mercy deserves that mercy should forget him. God grant we
   may never be such practical atheists as to receive daily bounties from
   God and not return a daily song.

   As each gleaming wave of the sea reflects the light of the sun, so let
   each ripple of our life flash with gratitude for the benediction of
   Heaven. All good comes from the Altogether Good, who is of good the
   essence, the Creator and the Giver. Especially is this true of all
   spiritual blessings--of such goodness as comes not so much from
   benevolence to creatures as from mercy to sinners. As a being, I am
   grateful that my Creator is kind to me. But as a sinner, if my Judge
   smiles upon me, I admire His exceeding Grace! His justice had left me
   unblessed to perish through my sin if His mercy had not found a way to
   spare and to cleanse. You who know not only your insignificance, but
   also your unworthiness, are held under special bonds to lift up your
   hearts in fervent gratitude to the Lord.

   I remark, next, that temporal mercies are always best when they come in
   their proper order. I have no doubt our text includes both temporal and
   spiritual good, but certainly the temporals are arranged in the second
   rank, for the eighth verse runs--"I will cleanse them from all their
   iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all
   their

   iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have
   transgressed against Me." And after this we have mention of goodness
   and prosperity. After pardon, peace and plenty are golden
   blessings--without which they might prove a curse. To an unforgiven
   sinner the richest enjoyments of this life are as the food which
   fattens the bullock for the slaughter. But when sin is pardoned, common
   mercies become tokens of a Father's love and ripen beneath the sun of
   Divine Love into an inexpressible sweetness!

   The children of God bless God for bread and water because God has made
   these things matters of promise and they come as Covenant provisions.
   Cheered by Grace, the child of poverty finds contentment in that which
   otherwise might seem but prison fare. Much or little must depend upon
   the way in which you look upon it and what to the Believer is enough,
   might be to the worldling a mere pittance because Grace has not trained
   his mind to rejoice in the will of the Lord. Blessed be God if He has
   given us first, the fruits of the sun of Grace, and then the fruits put
   forth by the moon of Providence! The main thing is to be able to sing,
   "Bless the Lord who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your
   diseases," and after that it is most pleasant to add, "who satisfies
   your mouth with good things."

   What shall I say of the happiness of those persons who have spiritual
   and temporal blessings united, to whom God has given both the upper and
   the nether springs, so that they possess all things necessary for this
   life in fair proportion and then, far above all, enjoy the blessings of
   the life to come? Such are first blessed in their spirits and then
   blessed in their basket and in their store! In their case, double
   favsot r calls for double praise, double service, double delight in
   God! Let them take for their example the Psalmist in the 71st Psalm,
   who found himself increased in greatness, comforted on every side and
   then exclaimed, "I will also praise You with the psaltery, even Your
   truth, O my God unto You will I sing with the harp, O You Holy One of
   Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto You; and my
   soul, which You have redeemed."

   And yet, and yet, and yet--if we are very happy, today, and though that
   happiness is lawful and proper because it arises both out of spiritual
   and temporal things in due order--yet in all human happiness there
   lurks a danger! There is a wealth which has a sorrow necessarily
   connected with it. And I think that even when God makes rich and adds
   no sorrow therewith, yet He makes provision against an ill which
   otherwise would surely come. Let me remind you of that memorable
   passage, "There the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad
   rivers and streams." The Lord is all that to His believing people. But
   then, broad rivers and streams have a danger appertaining to them, for
   these are waterways by which the pirates of the sea approach a city and
   plunder it--and hence for Zion's protection it is added, "Wherein shall
   go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby."

   Thus the Lord gives the benefit without the danger naturally attendant
   upon it! He gives peace, but prevents carnal security. And He gives
   happiness but prevents the pride and presumption which are too apt to
   grow out of it. The text speaks of goodness and prosperity procured for
   us and then tells us that all danger which might arise out of it is
   averted by a gracious work upon the heart. The Lord sends a chastened
   joy--"They shall fear and tremble." Instead of unduly exulting in their
   possessions and becoming high-minded and vain-glorious, the Lord's
   people are kept lowly and self-distrustful, O Glory to God! The Lord's
   Word is, and thus their happiness brings Glory fulfilled, "It shall be
   to Me a name of joy, a praise and an honor before all the nations of
   the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them."

   This, then, is our subject--the sanctifying and mellowing of our joy.
   We shall try to see the Lord's loving wisdom in this matter, that we
   may the more wisely love Him and the more intelligently estimate His
   prudent conduct towards us. We shall first notice this toning down of
   our joy. And then, in the second place, we shall observe the feelings
   by which this chastened effect is produced. And thirdly we shall look
   to the measure in which most of us can enter into this experience of a
   joy, toned and tinted by fear and trembling.

   I. Let us think a little about THE TONING DOWN OF OUR GREAT JOYS. As I
   have said, we need Grace in enjoying both temporal and spiritual
   prosperity and, therefore, I shall speak upon them both. Even when we
   are filled with holy delight it is hard to carry a full cup with a
   steady hand. When most lifted up with spiritual joy, we are not beyond
   gunshot of the enemy. We need the armor of God on the right hand as
   well as on the left. Even when we serve the Lord, it must be with fear
   and in His glorious Presence we must rejoice with trembling. In the cup
   of salvation there are drops of bitterness and so must it be--for
   unmixed delight in this world would be dangerous.

   Unbroken prosperity in worldly things has proved perilous to many
   Christians. It is no theory, but a matter of sad fact, that many men,
   as they rise as to one world, sink as to another. I am even afraid that
   long-continued health of body is not always for the health of a man's
   soul and that to be without care and trouble is not the best way to
   soul-prosperity. When the sea is smooth, the ship makes poor sailing.
   Men are bird-limed by their rest and ease and have small care to fly
   Heavenward. We are apt to lose our God among our goods! Is it not so?
   If the world's roses had no thorns, should we not think it Paradise and
   forego all desires for the gardens above?

   If Israel in Egypt had dwelt luxuriously, would a cry for deliverance
   have ever gone up to Heaven? And had Pharaoh been content to ease their
   burdens, would they ever have marched for Canaan? Alas, we are apt to
   chill in our desires for Heaven when we get to the warm side of the
   hedge and hear the smooth side of the world's tongue. When the flowers
   of

   earth charm us, we cast our eyes downward and forget the stars of
   Heaven--at least the danger lies that way. Wise men dare not ask for
   unmingled prosperity, for they are not sure they can bear it! When
   first we travel to the south and escape this land of fog, we delight
   without measure in the sunshine and are anxious to bask in it
   throughout the whole day. Do you wonder?

   Yet, before long, experience suggests a sunshade, for the stranger
   finds that his head cannot endure the full rays of the sun! In the same
   way, many a man has suffered a sunstroke in his mind, heart and
   character, by making money too fast and prospering too much. There is a
   danger of another kind in a spiritual experience which is all smooth
   and pleasant. You all remember the fate of Moab who had been at ease
   from his youth and had become settled upon his lees--may it never be
   ours. Yet I have seen professors lose their balance while filled with
   delight. I am not one of those who would speak evil of excitement in
   religion--men get excited about politics--why should they not be
   excited about eternal things? Still, there is a kind of delirious
   religion abroad which I would have men avoid. Its joys are not calm and
   quiet, but fanatical and noisy. Be sober! Do not give up the reins of
   your judgment and permit your feelings to run away with you.

   Some Christians have been so uniformly joyous that they have grown
   elated and self-conceited, even as Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. A few
   have even supposed themselves to be absolutely perfect while in the
   flesh--a mere supposition, disproved by their own need of modesty! We
   have seen brethren carry their heads so high that they could hardly
   understand a poor Believer who was wrestling against sin and in the
   strength of God overcoming his corruptions--they have become censorious
   and have condemned their brethren as if they had been appointed to be
   judges in Israel to set up whom they would, and put down whom they
   chose. Repose of mind, caused as much by sound bodily health as by
   spiritual joy, has made men think uncharitably of sick and sorrowful
   saints who have been very dear to Jesus, though very doubtful to
   themselves. Alas, a succession of excitements has, in some cases, bred
   self-sufficiency. And this has made men light-headed and they have been
   carried away by different heresies.

   Ecclesiastical history will tell you that some who have boasted of
   their high spiritual delights have gone far in vain imaginings and have
   ended in the worst forms of immorality. It is an extraordinary fact
   that super-spirituality has often been found to dwell next door to
   sensuality--and men have turned the wine of holy love into the vinegar
   of lust. I need not go to ancient chronicles to prove this--a word to
   the wise suffices. Even spiritual joy needs a dash of salt, if not of
   wormwood, to be mingled with it. Holy delight needs to be coupled with
   sacred grief. Repentance must go with faith, patience with hope,
   humility with full assurance and conscious self-emptiness with a sense
   of the all-sufficiency of Christ.

   I would remind you, next, that unmixed joy would be fallacious because
   there is no such thing here below. If a man should become perfectly
   content with the things of this world, it would be the result of a
   false view of things. This is an error against which we should pray,
   for this world cannot fill the soul--and if a man thinks he has filled
   his soul with it--he is under a gross delusion! The best thing of earth
   is but a bubble, tinted with rainbow hues and unsubstantial as a dream!
   Every earthly joy has within it, the seeds of its own destruction! Oh
   Man, if you did but know yourself, much more your God, you would be
   assured that visible things can never satisfy the desires of a
   spiritual being!

   As to spiritual joy, I say that in no man's experience can it be long
   without admixture and yet be true. Never, at any moment, can a
   Christian be in such a position that he has not some cause, either for
   dissatisfaction with himself, or fear of the tempter, or anxiety to be
   faithful in service. Our streams of joy blend with currents of fear.
   Blessed be God, my sin is forgiven me--this joy calls up its balancing
   thought--Oh that the Spirit of God may help me not to sin again! Again
   I sing--Blessed be God, I have gotten the victory over an evil habit.
   But my song is followed by the prayer--Lord, enable me to conquer all
   evils, even those which as yet I know not. Thus joy and fear hang like
   the two scales of a balance--I mean not the fear which love casts out,
   but the filial fear which love fosters.

   If God has preserved His servant in the day of battle, he has no room
   to boast, for here comes another enemy. Temptations come wave after
   wave and, having breasted one, we prepare for another. We cannot yet
   shout the victory, for, lo, the foes advance, squadron upon squadron!
   Their routed battalions are succeeded by new armies and it behooves us
   to quit ourselves like men. We dwell where, in our God, we have the
   utmost reason for delight, but where, in all things, we perceive the
   most weighty arguments for solemnity. Rejoice always, but cease not to
   fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the prosperity that the
   Lord has procured for you.

   Once more, unmixed delight on earth would be unnatural. We are not in
   Heaven, yet, and perfect bliss lives not beneath these cloudy skies,
   nor within the pale sway of the moon. While we are in this body we
   groan, though we have the first fruits of the Spirit, for we are in a
   creation which together groans and travails in pain until now. Our
   years must have their winters while the world revolves. When the Dutch
   had the trade of the East in their hands, they were accustomed to sell
   "birds of paradise" to the untraveled people of these realms. These
   specimen birds had no feet, for they had craftily removed them. The
   merchants declared that the species lived on the wing and never
   alighted. There was so much of truth in the fable, that had they been
   really and veritably, "birds of paradise," they would not have found a
   place for

   their feet upon this globe! Truly, birds of paradise do come and go,
   and flit from Heaven to earth, but we see them not, neither can we
   build cages to detain them!

   While you are here, expect reminders of the fact that this is not your
   rest. If you could attain to perfect joy on earth you might be
   justified in saying, "I have no longing for Heaven. I am perfectly
   clear of sin, care and trouble--I may as well stay where I am. What
   need to go further if I can fare no better?" Let no man dream that
   things will ever come to this with him. Ah, yon lovely flowers of
   spring this year, you have looked forth too soon! It is strangely mild
   weather for December, but Spring has not yet arrived. Possibly it is so
   with some of my hearers--because the Lord is smiling upon you it is
   very mild weather with your souls--and you dream that the winter of
   trouble is ended and that your Heaven has begun. Be not deceived! You
   are not yet--

   "Where everlasting spring abides With never-withering flowers." Perhaps
   a touch of frost may do you good by preventing your getting into an
   unnatural and unsound condition!

   Thus much, then, upon the first point, the toning down of our joys
   which is wisely managed by our Father's wisdom and prudence.

   II. Secondly, we are to see how this toning down is done and observe
   THE FEELINGS BY WHICH THIS SOBERING EFFECT IS PRODUCED--"They shall
   fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I
   procure unto it." Why fear and tremble? Is not this, in part, a holy
   awe of God's Presence? Remember that text, "Work out your own salvation
   with fear and trembling, for it is God which works in you both to will
   and to do of His good pleasure." The argument for fear and trembling is
   the work of God in the soul! Because God is working in you, there must
   be no trifling. If the eternal Deity deigns to make a workshop of my
   nature, I, too, must work, but it must be with fear and trembling. So,
   then, the blessed Presence of God is the Believer's joy, and the very
   fact that He has worked it in him is a cause for the fear and trembling
   which comes over the spirit of the joyous Believer. That, I think, is
   the first meaning of our text.

   God has been very good to me, unspeakably good to me, and I have
   plainly seen the traces of His fatherly hand in my life. Yes, I have so
   seen them that I have cried out with adoring amazement in many a
   Bethel, "How dreadful is this place! It is none other than the House of
   God and the very gate of Heaven." So has it been with you, dear
   Friends. When God has come very near to you in a blaze of mercy. When
   He has done things that you looked not for when your mouth has been
   filled with laughter and your tongue with singing because of His
   goodness, have you not, at the same time, felt overcome by the excess
   of His favor? Have you not been able to sympathize with Peter when, at
   the sight of his boat full of fish, he cried, "Depart from me, for I am
   a sinful man, O Lord"? Have you not felt a solemn trembling like Manoah
   when he feared that he must die because he had seen an angel of the
   Lord?

   I know it has been so with you! A little mercy would have made you
   sing, but a great mercy has made you sit in silence before the Lord, or
   fall on your knees in adoration! A common Providence would have charmed
   you, but an extraordinary Providence has overwhelmed you. You have lain
   in the dust at Jesus' feet, feeling yourself to be but dust and
   ashes--and yet every particle of dust has been full of wondering love
   to God. This is one way in which God keeps His people right in the days
   of their joy--where a shallow drink might have intoxicated--He gives so
   deep a draught that the danger is past and holy wonder takes the place
   of unholy pride!

   But next to that, there rises up in the mind of every favored Christian
   a deep repentance for past sin. He asks himself this question, "How
   could I have lived as I have done when God has entertained such love
   towards me?" When I discovered the election of God's Grace and when I
   saw at what a price I had been redeemed by our Lord Jesus, I was
   ashamed of all my evil ways. When I read my name inscribed on the palms
   of Jesus' hands; when I understood that I was united to Him by a union
   that never could be broken, I said to myself, "What a thousand fools I
   have been to have lived forgetful of my highest glory, unmindful of my
   dearest Friend!" To have lived year after year in open enmity against
   my Lord seemed like a grim and ghastly dream--almost too horrible to be
   true!

   Have you not felt the same? Have you not felt ashamed and confounded at
   the memory of your former life? Have you not felt as if you could never
   open your mouth any more because of all your unkindness to your
   heavenly Friend? Such penitent reflections keep the Lord's people
   right, by creating a fear and trembling in the presence of His
   overflowing goodness. Let me ask you another question. Has not your
   deepest sense of unworthiness come upon you when you have been
   conscious of superlative mercy? When the Lord has scourged and
   chastened you, you have seen your sins, in your sorrows, and have been
   ashamed, but, by the memory of His great goodness, you have been far
   more corrected and humbled.

   When our secret sins are set in the light of God's countenance, it is a
   light, indeed! Oh, the shame my soul has known when the Lord has
   caressed me, when He has kissed me with the kisses of His mouth! Then I
   have said, "Ah, Lord, why this to me? What am I that you deal thus
   lovingly with me?" It was when Jehovah came and showed Himself to Job,
   not in chastening, not with fire of God, or whirlwind, nor with sore
   boils and blains, but as His own dear Covenant God--it

   was then that Job said--"Now my eyes see You, therefore I abhor myself
   in dust and ashes." Love makes the crimson of sin more red than ever!
   Blood-bought pardon makes sin look black as sackcloth of hair! I tell
   you, Sirs, it is not the flames of Hell, but the glories of Heaven that
   most of all fill us with trembling before the Lord!

   Nothing touches the heart like undeserved and unexpected love. Love's
   glance flashes to the very core of the heart and makes the offender,
   like Peter, go forth and weep bitterly. Do we not each cry, "Would God
   I could never sin again! Oh, that I could perfectly serve my God
   without a slip, even to my last day, because of His great love for me"?
   We tremble and are afraid because of the unutterable Grace which has
   met our utter unworthiness and rivaled it, until Grace has gotten unto
   itself the victory! Have you never noticed how the Lord brings His
   people to their bearings and keeps them steady, under a sense of great
   love, by suggesting to their hearts the question, "How can I live as
   becomes one who has been favored like this?"

   Did you ever feel that the glory of the palace of love made you afraid
   to dwell in it? When you have put on your best apparel, those garments
   which are whiter than any fuller on earth could make them--the
   matchless righteousness of God--have you not felt fearful of defiling
   your robes? Did you ever see yourselves adorned as a bride for her
   husband in all the gifts and Graces of the Holy Spirit and have you not
   said to yourselves "What manner of people ought we to be?" You have
   scarcely known which way to turn, or how to move! You feared to walk
   lest you should defile those silver sandals and those feet so newly
   washed! You did not know what to touch for fear you should stain those
   hands which Christ had jeweled with His love and made white as ivory
   with His effectual cleansing! Have you not felt as if you dared not
   speak till you had prayed, "Lord, open You my lips"?

   You have been afraid to look for fear your eyes should glance on evil
   and, therefore, you have prayed, "Turn my eyes away from beholding
   vanity." There has been such a fear, such a caution, such a holy
   jealousy upon you that instead of being lifted up by favor, you have
   been humbled by it! Grace never makes a man vain. When a soul is
   adorned with glory and beauty and made to shine like the star of the
   morning, it acknowledges its borrowed comeliness and brightness--and is
   mildly radiant with reflected rays. When raised up by the special favor
   of our God into communion with Himself, we are afraid of trespassing
   against the decorum of almighty love, fearful of violating the
   propriety of Sovereign Grace!

   The Lord our God is a jealous God and He will be had in reverence by
   those who are around Him. This fact has made us feel like those
   Apostles who were filled with fear as well as with great joy. To know
   how to behave ourselves in the House of God has been our anxiety! We
   have felt like a poor countryman, bred and born in the wilds, who finds
   himself in a court and feels strange in such a place. Thus have we been
   clothed with humility as we have worn the garments of praise. Exalted
   to be kings and priests, our kingdom and priesthood have called forth
   our careful thought and vainglory has thus been banished.

   And have you never felt a fear lest God's goodness should be abused by
   you? I have been smitten to the very heart as with a secret blow in
   moments of delight when I have thought, "And suppose, after all, I
   should not serve God faithfully in my favored position and should not
   be approved of Him at the last? What if I should seem to be an Apostle
   and prove to be a Judas? What if I should speak of Christ and yet be
   nothing better than a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal?" That
   heart-piercing fear will wound pride if anything will! Have you never
   been thus put to the question by your conscience? Have not other
   questions arisen of a similar character? You have seen your children
   around you and you have been happy with them, but have you not thought,
   "What if I should not train them aright and they should grow up to be a
   sorrow to me and a dishonor to the Church of God?"

   When prospered in business, have you never said to yourself, "What if I
   should become a worshipper of the golden calf? What if covetousness
   should eat out the heart of my devotion? What if, when my Master calls
   me to account for my talents, He should cast me away for having hid
   them in a napkin?" Have you never been tried by such thoughts? If you
   have never thus examined yourself, you had better do so at once! He who
   has never questioned his own condition had better make an immediate
   enquiry. He who has never felt great searching of heart needs to be
   searched with candles. It is idle to take things for granted, for all
   of us must be tried by fire and even "the righteous scarcely are
   saved." No man's Hell shall be more terrible than that of the
   self-confident one who felt so sure of Heaven that he would not take
   the ordinary precaution to ask whether his title deeds were genuine or
   not.

   One more thought may also occur to the most joyous Believer. He will
   say, "What if after rejoicing in all this blessedness I should lose
   it?" "What," cries one, "do you not believe in the final perseverance
   of the saints?" Assuredly I do, but are we saints? There's the
   question! Moreover, many a Believer who has not lost his soul has,
   nevertheless, lost his present joy and prosperity, and why may not we?
   The good man has shone as a star of the first magnitude, but suddenly
   he has dwindled into darkness. He has been unwatchful and in
   consequence, by the dozen years together, he has had to go softly in
   the bitterness of his soul.

   We have known fathers in Israel who have stepped aside and though they
   have, by deep repentance, found their way to Heaven, they have gone
   sorrowing there. Look at David's history! Who was happier all the early
   part of his life? Note that one sin with Bathsheba and ask who was more
   tried and troubled than David throughout the rest of his pilgrimage?

   The doctrine of Final Perseverance was never intended for the comfort
   of any who are afraid of self-examination, or who are not watchful--for
   it is by no means at variance with the other doctrine that many who are
   sure of Heaven in their own minds will never enter there because Jesus
   never knew them! Great joy may be only a meteor, great excitement may
   be a mirage of the desert, great confidence may be a will-o'-the-wisp
   luring to destruction! The highest seats in the synagogue do not secure
   for their occupants a place among the shining ones above.

   Many rejoicing professors will yet discover that their spot was not the
   spot of God's people and their song was not the new song which God puts
   into the mouth. And what if that should be your case and mine? So, when
   I stand upon my high mountain, let me pray, "Lord, hold You me up." Let
   him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall, for he is the man
   who is most in danger. He who is most full of holy delight is still to
   watch, for did not Jesus say, "What I say unto all, watch"? God grant
   that we may be helped to watch against the arrow which flies by day as
   much as against the pestilence which walks in darkness!

   Thus you see how the Lord, by working upon our innermost feelings,
   sobers us in the hour of joy, even as the text has it--"They shall fear
   and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I
   procure unto it."

   III. By way of practical application, let us now consider THE MEASURE
   IN WHICH YOU AND I CAN ENTER INTO THIS EXPERIENCE. I thought to myself,
   if I begin to make individual applications I shall have before me a
   never-ending task because every man has had a distinct experience of
   this Truth of God if he has safely stood upon the high places of joy.
   We have, hundreds of us, perceived the benefits of the dark lines and
   shades of life's picture, and we see how fit and proper it is that
   trembling should mingle with transport. As the fruit of experience I
   have learned to look for a hurricane soon after an unusually delightful
   calm. When the wind blows hard and the tempest lowers, I hope that
   before long there will be a lull--but when the seabirds sit on the
   waves and the sail hangs idly, I wonder when a gale will come.

   To my mind there is no temptation so bad as not being tempted at all.
   The worst devil in the world is when you cannot see the devil at all
   because the villain has hidden himself away within the heart and is
   preparing to give you a fatal stab--

   "More the treacherous calm I dread Than tempests thundering overhead."

   This general statement may suffice and as I cannot make an application
   to each one, personally, I think I will apply the truth to this Church
   as a whole. When this building was not yet ready for opening, we held a
   meeting in it and I remember among the speakers there was one who is
   now with God, Mr. Jonathan George, of Walworth. He made use of this
   text in a little speech that he made--he said, "It would be well for us
   all to remember when God blesses us with any measure of prosperity,
   that prosperity is very hard to bear. How is that? Cannot Christianity
   or the Grace of God bear it? No, it is because of the extreme carnality
   and pride of our hearts. Here is a portion of Scripture we should all
   remember--'They shall fear and tremble for all the prosperity that I
   send.'

   "It is a blessing when God has succeeded our poor efforts and poured
   out a blessing upon us, if we are jealous of our own hearts and fear
   and tremble! Oh God, how rich, how beneficent You are! Let us not lose
   Your full blessing by our own pride, by pointing to some second cause
   and saying, 'It was I. It was ourselves. It was our ministers.'" Verily
   I say unto you, the words of the man of God have been fulfilled! How I
   have feared and trembled because the Lord's mercy to us has been so
   extraordinary! As a Church we have enjoyed so many years of growth,
   prosperity, unity and happiness, that one is apt to fear that it cannot
   last much longer! Certainly it cannot be perpetuated except by fresh
   power from the Lord who is wonderful in working.

   One begins to think, "Must not something happen to spoil our concord?
   Will power always continue with the preached Word? Will not the candle
   burn low in the socket? Such holy jealousy, if faith is also active,
   will help to keep us right. Evils may be prevented by the foresight of
   them. Through Grace, by our fear of falling, we may be helped to stand.
   Brothers and Sisters, we are just now in a critical time of our life as
   a Church. Whatever of novelty there was about our movements has long
   since vanished--and those who came among us from curiosity know us no
   more. Your pastor's ministry cannot be expected to be as fresh and
   vigorous as it used to be, for upon his head the gray hairs far
   outnumber the darker ones--and perhaps gray hairs are stealing over his
   preaching, too! If natural vigor fails, now is the time to see whether
   the power which has sustained us is of God or not! We know what the
   answer to the text will be--out of weakness we shall be made strong!

   Besides, my Brethren, certain invaluable helpers who were with us in
   the beginning--and rare men they were--are going Home. One by one our
   leaders are being called away--will more be found? Will they be of
   equal worth and weight? I know they will, yet these are solemn
   questions. We are in the middle of the river, now, and in the middle
   the river is deepest and hardest to ford. Now we need that underneath
   us there should be the everlasting arms! I am weaker than ever. You,
   also, are weaker than ever--but the eternal God faints not! We have the
   same old Gospel and you will not grow tired of it, though it is
   preached by the same old Spurgeon. The Holy Spirit will abide with us
   and that will

   make up for the weakness of our spirit! You who have been earnest at
   prayer will not, I hope, lose your zeal, for the Mercy Seat is still
   accessible. To persevere is the difficulty.

   It would be easy to burn at a stake for five minutes, but to be
   surrounded with smoldering firewood of green wood and to burn by slow
   degrees would be torture, indeed! Yet such is the patience of saints.
   Keeping up your burning zeal, your personal holiness, your evangelizing
   efforts and all your spiritual works after 27 years is no mean test of
   your faith! He that endures to the end, the same shall be saved. Yes,
   Brothers and Sisters, these are the thoughts that come into my mind and
   prevent my saying we have done well and may rest on our oars. Far from
   anything like exaltation or self-congratulation, I feel more than ever
   inclined to lie low at the feet of my Master and kiss the very dust He
   stands upon! I feel more disqualified, more unsuitable, more unable for
   my Lord's work than ever--and yet I am glad in the Lord and find joy in
   His name! Since there is an everlasting arm that never can be
   palsied--since there is a brow that knows no wrinkle and a Divine mind
   that is never perplexed--we go forward in hope and cast ourselves upon
   our eternal Helper once again!

   You have heard of the ancient giant, Antaeus, who could not be overcome
   because as often as Hercules threw him to the ground, he touched his
   mother, Earth, and rose renewed. Such is your lot and mine, often to be
   cast down, and as often to rise by that casting down! "When I am weak
   then am I strong." Let us glory in infirmity because the power of
   Christ does rest upon us! Let us be content to decrease, that Christ
   may increase--to be nothing that Jesus may be All-in-All! If we fear
   and tremble for all the goodness that God has procured for us, it is
   not a fear that He will change, or a trembling lest He should be
   defeated. The fear and trembling are for ourselves--not for Him! I have
   no fear and trembling about the Gospel! I have preached it many years
   in this place and its attractive perfume is undiminished.

   I read the other day of a grain of musk which had been kept for 10
   years in a room where the air was perpetually changed--it scented that
   chamber from year to year--and yet when it was weighed by the most
   delicate scales--no diminution of its bulk was apparent! So the Gospel
   continues to be as ointment poured forth, savoring the thousands that
   come here year by year--and yet it is as full of fragrance and
   freshness as ever--and so shall it be even if, for a thousand ages, it
   should be our theme!

   Come we, then, with comfort back to the unalterable Gospel, to the
   undying Spirit, to the unchanging God--here is room for joy unspeakable
   and full of Glory! Up with your banners, then! Forward to new
   victories! In the name of the God of Jacob let us be steadfast,
   unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Genesis

   [1]7:16   [2]28:15   [3]31:3   [4]31:5   [5]39:2   [6]41:45   [7]48:21

   Exodus

   [8]30   [9]30:11-16   [10]33:14   [11]35:25

   1 Samuel

   [12]30:6   [13]30:8

   2 Kings

   [14]3:1-15   [15]3:15   [16]17:41

   1 Chronicles

   [17]12:19-20

   Job

   [18]19:28

   Psalms

   [19]9:10   [20]23:4   [21]31:22   [22]62   [23]73:28   [24]84
   [25]119:20   [26]119:71   [27]138:5   [28]147:15

   Ecclesiastes

   [29]7:1

   Isaiah

   [30]28:12   [31]28:25   [32]45:23   [33]45:23   [34]48:9   [35]51:2
   [36]51:2-3   [37]57:14   [38]61   [39]61   [40]61:1

   Jeremiah

   [41]2:32   [42]3:16   [43]5:3   [44]32:39   [45]33:9

   Lamentations

   [46]1:12

   Ezekiel

   [47]40:4   [48]43:12

   Micah

   [49]7:19

   Zephaniah

   [50]3:2

   Malachi

   [51]3:3

   Matthew

   [52]2:23   [53]5:15   [54]5:16   [55]20:29

   Mark

   [56]4:26-29   [57]10:33   [58]10:34   [59]10:49

   Luke

   [60]4:18   [61]6:32-34   [62]9:11   [63]9:54   [64]9:55   [65]10:20
   [66]11:31   [67]12:22   [68]17:6   [69]17:12-14

   John

   [70]5:24   [71]6:6   [72]15:5   [73]20:30   [74]20:31

   Acts

   [75]2:2-4   [76]7:9

   Romans

   [77]4   [78]5:15   [79]6:3-4   [80]8:24   [81]8:25   [82]13:11-14
   [83]14:10-12

   1 Corinthians

   [84]1:18   [85]3:6-9   [86]13:7

   Galatians

   [87]2:20   [88]5:22

   Ephesians

   [89]2:8

   2 Timothy

   [90]4:1

   Hebrews

   [91]7:20-22   [92]13:17

   Jude

   [93]1:1

   Revelation

   [94]1:7   [95]21:27   [96]22:3   [97]22:17   [98]22:21   [99]1119
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [100]7:16   [101]28:15   [102]39:2

   Exodus

   [103]30:11-16   [104]33:14

   1 Samuel

   [105]30:6   [106]30:8

   2 Kings

   [107]3:15   [108]17:41

   Job

   [109]19:28

   Psalms

   [110]23:4   [111]31:22   [112]119:20   [113]119:71   [114]138:5
   [115]147:15

   Ecclesiastes

   [116]7:1

   Song of Solomon

   [117]2:16

   Isaiah

   [118]28:12   [119]28:25   [120]51:2   [121]51:2-3   [122]57:14
   [123]61:1

   Jeremiah

   [124]2:32   [125]3:16   [126]5:3   [127]32:39   [128]33:9

   Lamentations

   [129]1:12

   Ezekiel

   [130]40:4   [131]43:12

   Micah

   [132]7:19

   Zephaniah

   [133]3:2

   Malachi

   [134]3:3

   Matthew

   [135]2:23   [136]5:15-16

   Mark

   [137]4:26-29   [138]10:49

   Luke

   [139]6:32-34   [140]9:11   [141]11:31   [142]17:12-14

   John

   [143]6:6   [144]15:5   [145]20:30-31

   Acts

   [146]2:2-4

   Romans

   [147]5:15   [148]6:3-4   [149]8:24-25   [150]13:11-14   [151]14:10-12

   1 Corinthians

   [152]1:18   [153]3:6-9   [154]13:7

   Galatians

   [155]2:20   [156]5:22

   Ephesians

   [157]2:8

   Hebrews

   [158]7:20-22

   Jude

   [159]1:3

   Revelation

   [160]21:27   [161]22:3   [162]22:17   [163]22:21
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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