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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 32: 1886
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Own Dear Shepherd

   (No. 1877)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 3, 1886,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 20, 1885.

   "I am the good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As
   the Father knows Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down My life
   for the sheep." John 10:14,15.

   As the passage stands in the Authorized Version, it reads like a number
   of short sentences with scarcely any apparent connection. Even in that
   form it is precious, for our Lord's pearls are priceless even when they
   are not threaded together. But when I tell you that in the Greek the
   word, "and," is repeated several times and that the translators have
   had to leave out one of these, "ands," to make sense of the passage on
   their line of translation, you will judge that they are none too
   accurate in this case. To use many, "ands," is after the manner of
   John, but there is usually a true and natural connection between his
   sentences. The, "and," with him is usually a real golden link and not a
   mere sound--we need a translation which makes it so. Observe, also,
   that in our version the word, "sheep," is put in italics, to show that
   it is not in the original. There is no need for this alteration if the
   passage is more closely rendered.

   Hear, then, the text in its natural form--"I am the good Shepherd and I
   know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me, and I
   know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep." This reading I
   have given you is that of the Revised Version. For that Revised Version
   I have but little care, as a general rule, holding it to be by no means
   an improvement upon our common Authorized Version. It is a useful thing
   to have it for private reference, but I trust it will never be regarded
   as the standard English translation of the New Testament. The Revised
   Version of the Old Testament is so excellent that I am half afraid it
   may carry the Revised New Testament upon its shoulders into general
   use. I sincerely hope that this may not be the case, for the result
   would be a decided loss. However, that is not my point.

   Returning to our subject, I believe that on this occasion, the Revised
   Version is true to the original. We will, therefore, follow it in this
   instance and we shall find that it makes most delightful and
   instructive sense. "I am the good Shepherd and I know My own, and My
   own know Me, even as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father; and I
   lay down My life for the sheep." He who speaks to us in these words is
   the Lord Jesus Christ! To our mind every word of Holy Scripture is
   precious. When God speaks to us by priest or Prophet, or in any way, we
   are glad to hear. Though when, in the Old Testament, we meet with a
   passage which begins with, "Thus says the Lord," we feel specially
   charmed to have the message directly from God's own mouth, yet we make
   no distinction between this Scripture and that. We accept it all as
   Inspired and we are not given to dispute about different degrees and
   varying modes of Inspiration and all that. The matter is plain enough
   if learned unbelievers did not mystify it--"all Scripture is given by
   Inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
   correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).

   Still, there is to our mind a peculiar sweetness about words which were
   actually spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself--these are as honey
   in the comb. You have before you, in this text, not that which comes to
   you by Prophet, priest, or king, but that which is spoken to you by One
   who is Prophet, Priest and King all in one, even your Lord Jesus
   Christ! He opens His mouth and speaks to you. You will open your ears
   and listen to Him if you are, indeed, His own.

   Observe here, also, that we have not only Christ for the Speaker, but
   we have Christ for the Subject. He speaks and speaks about Himself. It
   were not seemly for you, or for me, to extol ourselves, but there is
   nothing more comely in the world than for Christ to commend Himself. He
   is other than we are, something infinitely above us and is not under
   rules which apply to us fallible mortals. When He speaks forth His own
   Glory, we feel that His speech is not vain-glory--no, rather, when He
   praises Himself, we thank Him for so doing and admire the lowly
   condescension which permits Him to desire and accept honor from such
   poor hearts as ours! It were pride for us to seek honor of men--it is
   humility in Him to do so seeing He is so great an One that the esteem
   of beings so inferior as we are cannot be desired by Him for His own
   sake, but for ours! Of all our Lord's words, those are the sweetest in
   which He speaks about Himself. Even He cannot find another theme which
   can excel that of Himself.

   My Brothers and Sisters, who can speak of Jesus but Himself? He masters
   all our eloquence. His perfection exceeds our understanding! The light
   of His excellence is too bright for us, it blinds our eyes! Our Beloved
   must be His own mirror. None but Jesus can reveal Jesus! Only He can
   see Himself and know Himself, and understand Himself and, therefore,
   none but He can reveal Himself! We are most glad that in His tenderness
   to us He sets Himself forth by many choice metaphors and instructive
   emblems by which He would make us know some little of that love which
   passes knowledge. With His own hands, He fills a golden cup out of the
   river of His own infinity and hands it to us that we may drink and be
   refreshed. Take, then, these words as being doubly refreshing because
   they come directly from the Well-Beloved's own mouth and contain rich
   Revelations of His own all-glorious Self. I feel that I must read them
   again--"I am the good Shepherd and I know My own, and My own know Me,
   even as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father; and I lay down My
   life for the sheep."

   In this text there are three matters about which I shall speak. First,
   I see, here, complete character. "I am the good Shepherd." He is not a
   half shepherd, but a shepherd in the fullest possible sense. Secondly,
   I see complete knowledge, "and I know My own and My own know Me, even
   as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father." Thirdly, here is
   complete sacrifice. How preciously that sentence winds up the whole,
   "and I lay down My life for the sheep!" He goes the full length to
   which sacrifice can go! He lays down His soul in the place of His sheep
   so the words might not be incorrectly translated. He goes the full
   length of self-sacrifice for His own.

   I. First, then, here is COMPLETE CHARACTER. Whenever the Savior
   describes Himself by any emblem, that emblem is exalted and expanded
   and yet it is not able to bear all His meaning. The Lord Jesus fills
   out every type, figure, and character--and when the vessel is filled,
   there is an overflow. There is more in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, than
   you can pack away in a shepherd. He is the Good, the Great, the Chief
   Shepherd--but He is much more. Emblems to set Him forth may be
   multiplied as the drops of the morning, but the whole multitude will
   fail to reflect all His brightness! Creation is too small a frame in
   which to hang His likeness. Human thought is too contracted, human
   speech too feeble to set Him forth to the fullest. When all the emblems
   in earth and Heaven shall have described Him to their utmost, there
   will remain something not yet described. You may square the circle
   before you can set forth Christ in the language of mortal men! He is
   inconceivably above our conceptions, unutterably above our utterances!

   But notice that He here sets Himself forth as a Shepherd. Dwell on this
   for a moment! A shepherd is such a man as we employ in England to look
   after sheep for a few months, till they are large enough to be
   slaughtered. A shepherd after the Oriental sort, such as Abraham,
   Jacob, or David, is quite another person.

   The Eastern shepherd is generally the owner of the flock, or at least
   the son of their owner, and so their proprietor in prospect. The sheep
   are his own. English shepherds seldom, or never, own the sheep--they
   are employed to take care of them--and they have no other interest in
   them. Our native shepherds are a very excellent set of men as a
   rule--those I have known have been admirable specimens of intelligent
   working men--yet they are not at all like the Oriental shepherd, and
   cannot be, for he is usually the owner of the flock which he tends. He
   remembers how he came into possession of the flock and when and where
   each of the present sheep was born. He knows where he has led them and
   what trials he had in connection with them. And he remembers this with
   the emphasis that they are his own inheritance.

   His wealth consists in them. He very seldom has much of a house and he
   does not usually own much land. He takes his sheep over a good stretch
   of country which is open common for all his tribe--but his possessions
   lie in his flocks. Ask him, "How much are you worth?" He answers, "I
   own so many sheep." In the Latin tongue the word for money is akin to
   the word, "sheep," because to many of the first Romans, wool was their
   wealth and their fortunes lay in their flocks. The Lord Jesus is our
   Shepherd--we are His wealth! If you ask what is His heritage, He tells
   you of "the riches of the Glory of His inheritance in the saints." Ask
   Him what are His jewels and He replies, "They shall be Mine in that
   day." If you ask Him where His treasures are, He will tell you, "The
   Lord's portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." The
   Lord Jesus Christ has nothing that He values as He does His own people.
   For their sakes He gave up all that He had

   and died naked on the Cross. Not only can He say, "I gave Ethiopia and
   Seba for you," but He "loved His Church and gave Himself for it." He
   regards His Church as being His own body, "the fullness of Him that
   fills all in all."

   The shepherd, as he owns the flock, is also the caretaker. He always
   takes care of them. One of our Brothers now present is a fireman and,
   as he lives at the fire station, he is always on duty. I asked him
   whether he was not off duty during certain hours of every day and he
   said, "No, I am never off duty." He is on duty when he goes to bed, he
   is on duty while he is eating his breakfast, he is on duty if he walks
   down the street! And any time the bell may ring the alarm, he must be
   in his place and hasten to the fire. Our Lord Jesus Christ is never off
   duty. He has constant care of His people day and night. He has declared
   it--"For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace and for Jerusalem's sake
   I will not rest." He can truly say what Jacob did, "In the day the
   drought consumed Me, and the frost by night." He says of His flock what
   He says of His garden, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every
   moment lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day."

   I cannot tell you all the care a shepherd has over his flock because
   his anxieties are of such a various kind. Sheep have about as many
   complaints as men! You do not know much about them and I am not going
   to enter into details, for the all-sufficient reason that I do not know
   much about them, myself, but the shepherd knows, and the shepherd will
   tell you that he leads an anxious life. He seldom has all the flock
   well at one time. Some one or other is sure to be ailing and he spies
   it out and has eye and hand and heart ready for its succor and relief.
   There are many varieties of complaints and needs--and all these are
   laid upon the shepherd's heart. He is both possessor and caretaker of
   the flock.

   Then he has to be the provider, too, for there is not a woolly head
   among them that knows anything about the finding and selecting of
   pasturage. The season may be very dry, and where there once was grass,
   there may be nothing but a brown powder. It may be that herbage is only
   to be found by the side of the rippling brooks, here and there, but the
   sheep do not know anything about that--the shepherd must know
   everything for them. The shepherd is the sheep's providence. Both for
   time and for eternity, for body and for soul, our Lord Jesus supplies
   all our need out of His riches in Glory. He is the great Storehouse
   from which we derive everything! He has provided, He does provide and
   He will provide! And each one of us may sing, therefore, "The Lord is
   my Shepherd; I shall not want."

   But, dear Friends, we often dream that we are the shepherds, or that
   we, at any rate, have to find some of the pasture. I could not help
   saying, just now, to our friends at our little Prayer Meeting, "There
   is a passage in the Psalms which makes the Lord do for us what one
   would have thought we could have done for ourselves--'He makes me to
   lie down in green pastures.'" Surely, if a sheep can do nothing else,
   it can lie down! Yet to lie down is the very hardest thing for God's
   sheep to do! It is here that the full power of the rest-giving Christ
   has to come in to make our fretful, worrying, doubtful natures lie down
   and rest. Our Lord is able to give us perfect peace and He will do so
   if we will simply trust to His abounding care. It is the shepherd's
   business to be the provider-- let us remember this and be very happy.

   Moreover, he has to be the leader. He leads the sheep wherever they
   have to go. I have often been astonished at the shepherds in the South
   of France, which is so much like Palestine, to see where they will take
   their sheep. Once every week I saw the shepherd come down to Mentone
   and conduct all his flock to the beach. I could see nothing for them
   but big stones. Folk say that perhaps this is what makes the mutton so
   hard, but I have no doubt the poor creatures get a little taste of
   salt, or something which does them good. At any rate, they follow the
   shepherd and away he goes up the steep hillsides, taking long steps,
   till he reaches points where the grass is growing on the sides of the
   hills. He knows the way and the sheep have nothing to do but to follow
   him wherever he goes. Theirs is not to make the way; theirs is not to
   choose the path, but theirs is to keep close to his heels!

   Do you not see our blessed Shepherd leading your own pilgrimage? Cannot
   you see Him guiding your way? Do you not say, "Yes, He leads me, and it
   is my joy to follow"? Lead on, O blessed Lord! Lead on and we will
   follow the prints of Your feet!

   The shepherd in the East has also to be the defender of the flock, for
   wolves yet prowl in those regions. All sorts of wild beasts attack the
   flock and he must be to the front. Thus is it with our Shepherd. No
   wolf can attack us without finding our Lord in arms against him. No
   lion can roar upon the flock without awakening a greater than David.
   "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." He is a
   Shepherd, then, and He completely fills the character--much more
   completely than I can show you just now.

   Notice that the text puts an adjective upon the shepherd, decorating
   him with a chain of gold. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, "I am the
   good Shepherd." "The good Shepherd"--that is, He is not a thief that
   steals and only deals with

   the sheep as He bears them from the fold to the slaughter. He is not a
   hireling--He does not do merely what He is paid to do, or commanded to
   do, but He does everything "con amore"--with a willing heart. He throws
   His soul into it. There is a goodness, a tenderness, a willingness, a
   powerfulness, a force, an energy in all that Jesus does that makes Him
   the best possible Shepherd that can be. He is no hireling! Neither is
   He an idler! Even shepherds who have had their own flocks have
   neglected them, as there are farmers who do not well cultivate their
   own farms, but it is never so with Christ. He is the Good
   Shepherd--good up to the highest point of goodness, good in all that is
   tender--good in all that is kind, good in all the directions in which a
   shepherd can be needed. He is good at fight and good at rule. He is
   good in watchful oversight and good in prudent leadership. He is most
   eminently good in every way!

   And then notice He puts it, "I am the good Shepherd." That is the point
   I want to bring out. Of other shepherds we can say, he is a shepherd,
   but this is the Shepherd. All others in the world are shadows of the
   true Shepherd and Jesus is the Substance of them all. That which we see
   in the world with these eyes is, after all, not the substance, but the
   type, the shadow. That which we do not see with our eyes, that which
   only our faith perceives, is, after all, the real thing. I have seen
   shepherds, but they were only pictures to me. The Shepherd, the real,
   the true, the best, the most sure example of shepherding is the Christ,
   Himself--and you and I are the sheep. Those sheep we see on yonder
   mountainside are just types of ourselves--we are the true sheep and
   Jesus is the true Shepherd. If an angel were to fly over the earth to
   find out the real sheep and the real Shepherd, he would say, "The sheep
   of God's pasture are men and Jehovah is their Shepherd. He is the true,
   the real Shepherd of the true and real sheep." All the possibilities
   that lie in a shepherd are found in Christ. Every good thing that you
   can imagine to be, or that should be in a shepherd, you find in the
   Lord Jesus Christ.

   Now, I want you to notice that, according to the text, the Lord Jesus
   Christ greatly rejoices in this. He says, "I am the good Shepherd." He
   does not confess that fact as if He were ashamed of it, but He repeats
   it in this chapter so many times that it almost reads like the refrain
   of a song. "I am the good Shepherd"--He evidently rejoices in it. He
   rolls it under His tongue as a sweet morsel. Evidently it is to His
   heart's content. He does not say, "I am the Son of God, I am the Son of
   Man, I am the Redeemer"--but this He does say--and He congratulates
   Himself upon it, "I am the good Shepherd."

   This should encourage you and me to get a full hold of the word. If
   Jesus is so pleased to be my Shepherd, let me be equally pleased to be
   His sheep and let me avail myself of all the privileges that are
   wrapped up in His being my Shepherd and in my being His sheep! I see
   that it will not worry Him for me to be His sheep. I see that my needs
   will cause Him no perplexity. I see that He will not be going out of
   His way to attend to my weakness and trouble. He delights to dwell on
   the fact, "I am the good Shepherd." He invites me, as it were, to come
   and bring my needs and woes to Him, look up to Him and be fed by Him.
   Therefore I will do it! Does it not make you feel truly happy to hear
   your own Lord, Himself, say and say it to you out of this precious
   Book, "I am the good Shepherd"? Do you not reply, "Indeed You are a
   good Shepherd. You are a good Shepherd to me. My heart lays emphasis
   upon the word 'good' and says of You, 'there is none good but One, and
   You are that good One.' You are the good Shepherd of the sheep"?

   So much, then, concerning the complete character.

   II. May the Holy Spirit bless the word still more, while I speak in my
   broken way upon the next point--THE COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE.

   The knowledge of Christ towards His sheep and of the sheep towards Him
   is wonderfully complete. I must read the text again--"I know My own and
   My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father."

   First, then, consider Christ's knowledge of His own and the comparison
   by which He sets it forth--"As the Father knows Me." I cannot conceive
   a stronger comparison! Do you know how much the Father knows the Son,
   who is His Glory, His Darling, His alter Ego, His other Self--yes, one
   God with Him? Do you know how intimate the knowledge of the Father must
   be of His Son who is His own Wisdom, yes, who is His Himself? The
   Father and the Son are one Spirit! We cannot imagine how intimate that
   knowledge is and, yet so intimately, so perfectly, does the great
   Shepherd know His sheep!

   He knows their number. He will never lose one. He will count them all,
   again, on that day when the sheep shall pass, again, under the hand of
   Him that knows them, and then He will make full account of them. "Of
   all that You have given Me," He says, "I have lost none." He knows the
   number of those for whom He paid the ransom price.

   He knows their persons. He knows the age and character of each of His
   own. He assures us that the very hairs of our head are all numbered!
   Christ has not an unknown sheep. It is not possible that He should have
   overlooked or forgotten one of them. He has such an intimate knowledge
   of all who are redeemed with His most precious blood that He never
   mistakes one of them for another, nor misjudges one of them. He knows
   their constitutions--those that are weak and feeble, those that are
   nervous and frightened, those that are strong, those that have a
   tendency to presumption, those that are sleepy, those that are brave,
   those that are sick, sorry, worried, or wounded. He knows those that
   are hunted by the devil, those that are caught up between the jaws of
   the lion and shaken till the very life is almost driven out of them. He
   knows their feelings, fears and frights. He knows the secret ins and
   outs of each of us better than any one of us knows himself!

   He knows our trials--the particular trial under which you are now bowed
   down, my Sister. Our difficulties--that special difficulty which seems
   to block up your way, my Brother, at this very time. All the
   ingredients of our life are known to Him. "I know My own, as the Father
   knows Me." It is impossible to conceive a more complete knowledge than
   that which the Father has of His only-begotten Son! And it is equally
   impossible to conceive a more complete knowledge than that which Jesus
   Christ has of each of His chosen!

   He knows our sins. I often feel glad to think that He always knew our
   evil natures and what would come of them. When He chose us, He knew
   what we were and what we would be. He did not buy His sheep in the
   dark. He did not choose us without knowing all the devious ways of our
   past and future lives--

   "He saw us ruined in the Fall, Yet loved us notwithstanding all."
   Herein lies the splendor of His Grace. "Whom He did foreknow, He also
   did predestinate." His election implies foreknowledge of all our ill
   manners. They say of human love that it is blind, but Christ's love has
   many eyes and all its eyes are open--and yet He still loves us!

   I need not enlarge upon this. It ought, however, to be very full of
   comfort to you that you are so known of your Lord, especially as He
   knows you not merely with the cold, clear knowledge of the intellect,
   but with the knowledge of love and of affection. He knows you in His
   heart. You are peculiarly dear to Him. You are approved of Him. You are
   accepted of Him. He knows you by acquaintance with you, not by hearsay.
   He knows you by communion with you--He has been with you in sweet
   fellowship. He has read you as a man reads his book and remembers what
   he reads. He knows you by sympathy with you. He is a Man like
   yourself--

   "He knows what sore temptations mean, For He has felt the same." He
   knows your weaknesses. He knows the points wherein you suffer most,
   for--

   "In every pang that rends the heart The Man of Sorrows had a part."

   He gained this knowledge in the school of sympathetic suffering.
   "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He
   suffered." "He was in all points made like unto His brethren." And by
   being made like we are, He has come to know us and He knows us in a
   very practical and tender way. You have a watch and it will not run, or
   it runs very irregularly and so you give it to one who knows nothing
   about watches and he says, "I will clean it for you." He will do it
   more harm than good! But here is the very person who made the watch. He
   says, "I put every wheel into its place. I made the whole of it, from
   beginning to end." You think to yourself, "I feel the utmost confidence
   in trusting that man with my watch. He can surely make it right, for he
   made it." It often cheers my heart to think that since the Lord made
   me, He can make me right and keep me so to the end. My Maker is my
   Redeemer! He that first made me has made me, again, and will make me
   perfect to His own praise and Glory! That is the first part of this
   complete knowledge.

   The second part of the subject is our knowledge of the Lord and the
   fact by which it is illustrated. "And My own know Me, even as I know
   the Father." I think I hear some of you say, "I do not see so much in
   that. I can see a great deal more in Christ's knowing us." Beloved, I
   see a great deal in our knowing Christ! That He should know me is great
   condescension, but it must be easy for Him to know me. Being so Divine,
   with such piercing eyes as His, it is amazingly condescending, as I
   say, but it is not difficult for Him to know me. The marvel is that I
   should ever know Him! That such a stupid, blind, deaf, dead soul as
   mine should ever know Him and should know Him as He knows the Father,
   is 10,000 miracles in one! Oh, Sirs, this is a wonder so great that I
   do not think you and I yet understand it to the fullest, or else we
   would sit

   down in glad surprise and say--"This proves Him to be the Good
   Shepherd, indeed, not only that He knows His flock, but that He has
   taught them so well that they know Him!" With such a flock as Christ
   has, that He should be able to train His sheep so that they should be
   able to know Him--and to know Him as He knows the Father--is
   miraculous!

   O Beloved, if this is true of us, that we know our Shepherd, we may
   clap our hands for very joy! And yet I think it is true even now. At
   any rate, I know so much of my Lord that nothing gives me so much joy
   as to hear of Him. Brothers and Sisters, there is no boasting in this
   personal assertion of mine! It is only the minimum truth! You can say
   the same, can you not? If anybody were to preach to you the finest
   sermon that was ever delivered, would it charm you if there were no
   Christ in it? No! But you will come and hear me talk about Jesus Christ
   in words as simple as I can find--and you cry, one to another, "It was
   good to be there."--

   "You dear Redeemer, dying Lamb, We love to hear of Thee! No music's
   like Your charming name, Nor half so sweet can be."

   Now mark that this is the way in which Jesus knows the Father. Jesus
   delights in His Father and you delight in Jesus. I know you do, and
   here the comparison holds good.

   Moreover, does not the dear name of Jesus stir your very soul? What is
   it that makes you feel as if you wish to hasten away, that you might be
   doing holy service for the Lord? What makes your very heart awake and
   feel ready to leap out of your body? What but hearing of the glories of
   Jesus? Play on what string you please and my ear is deaf to it--but
   when you once begin to tell of Calvary and sing the song of free Grace
   and dying love, oh, then my soul opens all her ears, drinks in the
   music and then her blood begins to stir--and she is ready to shout for
   joy! Do you not even now sing--

   "Oh, for this love let rocks and hills Their lasting silence break And
   all harmonious human tongues The Sa vior's praises speak. Yes, we will
   praise You, dearest Lord, Our souls are all on flame, Hosanna round the
   spacious earth To Your adored name"?

   Yes, we know Jesus! We feel the power of our union with Him. We know
   Him, Brothers and Sisters, so that we are not to be deceived by false
   shepherds. There is a way, nowadays, of preaching Christ against
   Christ. It is a new device of the devil to set up Jesus against
   Jesus--His Kingdom against His Atonement--His precepts against His
   doctrines. The half Christ, in his example, is put up to frighten souls
   away from the whole Christ who saves the souls of men from guilt as
   well as from sin, from Hell as well as from folly. But they cannot
   deceive us in that way. No, Beloved, we know our Shepherd from all
   others! We know Him from a statue covered with clothes. We know the
   living Christ, for we have come into living contact with Him and we
   cannot be deceived any more than Jesus Christ, Himself, can be deceived
   about the Father. "My own know Me, even as I know the Father." We know
   Him by union with Him and by communion with Him. "We have seen the
   Lord." "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus
   Christ."

   We know Him by love--our soul cleaves to Him even as the heart of
   Christ cleaves to the Father. We know Him by trusting Him--"He is all
   my salvation and all my desire." I remember once feeling many questions
   as to whether I was a child of God or not. I went into a little chapel
   and I heard a good man preach. He was a simple working man. I heard him
   preach and I made my handkerchief damp with my tears as I heard him
   talk about Christ and the precious blood. When I was preaching the same
   things to others, I was wondering whether this Truth of God was mine,
   but while I was hearing, for myself, I knew it was mine, for my very
   soul lived upon it! I went to that good man and thanked him for the
   sermon. He asked me who I was. When I told him, he turned all manner of
   colors. "Why," he said, "Sir, that was your own sermon." I said, "Yes,
   I knew it was and it was good of the Lord to feed me with food that I
   had prepared for others." I perceived that I had a true taste for what
   I, myself, knew to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, yes, we do love
   our good Shepherd! We cannot help it!

   And we know Him, also, by a deep sympathy with Him, for what Christ
   desires to do, we also long to do. He loves to save souls and so do we!
   Would we not save all the people in a whole street if we could? Yes, in
   a whole city and in the

   whole world! Nothing makes us so glad as that Jesus Christ is a Savior.
   "There is news in the paper," says one. That news is often of small
   importance to our hearts. I happened to hear that a poor servant girl
   had heard me preach the Truth of God and found Christ--and I confess I
   feel more interest in that fact than in all the rise and fall of Whigs
   or Tories! What does it matter who is in Parliament, so long as souls
   are saved? That is the main thing. If the Kingdom of Christ grows, all
   the other kingdoms are of small account. That is the one Kingdom for
   which we live and for which we would gladly die! As there is a
   boundless sympathy between the Father and the Son, so is there between
   Jesus and ourselves.

   We know Christ as He knows the Father because we are one with Him. The
   union between Christ and His people is as real and as mysterious as the
   union between the Son and the Father.

   We have a beautiful picture before us. Can you realize it for a minute?
   The Lord Jesus here among us--picture Him! He is the Shepherd. Then,
   around Him are His own people and wherever He goes, they go! He leads
   them into green pastures and beside still waters. And there is this
   peculiarity about them--He knows them as He looks upon each of them--
   and they, each of them, know Him! There is a deeply intimate and mutual
   knowledge between them. As surely as He knows them, they know Him. The
   world knows neither the Shepherd nor the sheep, but they know each
   other. As surely, as truly and, as deeply as God the Father knows the
   Son, so does this Shepherd know His sheep! And as God the Son knows His
   Father, so do these sheep know their Shepherd! Thus in one band, united
   by mutual union, they travel through the world to Heaven. "I know My
   own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me, and I know the
   Father." Is not that a blessed picture? God help us to figure in it!

   III. The last subject is COMPLETE SACRIFICE. The complete sacrifice is
   thus described, "/ lay down My life for the sheep."

   These words are repeated in this chapter in different forms some four
   times. The Savior keeps on saying, "I lay down My life for the sheep."
   Read the 11th verse--"The good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep."
   The 15th verse--"I lay down My life for the sheep." The 17th verse--"I
   lay down My life that I may take it again." The 18th verse--"I have
   power to lay it down and I have power to take it again." It looks as if
   this was another refrain of our Lord's personal hymn. I call this
   passage His Pastoral Song. The good Shepherd, with His pipe, sings to
   Himself and to His flock, and this comes in at the end of each stanza,
   "I lay down My life for the sheep."

   Did it not mean, first, that He was always doing so? All His life He
   was, as it were, laying it down for them. He was divesting Himself of
   the garments of life until He came to be fully disrobed on the Cross.
   All the life He had; all the power He had, He was always laying it out
   for His sheep. It means that, to begin with.

   And then it means that the Sacrifice was actively performed. It was
   always in the doing as long as He lived, but He did it actively. He did
   not merely die for the sheep, but He laid down His life, which is
   another thing. Many a man has died for Christ--it was all that he could
   do. But we cannot lay down our lives, because they are due already as a
   debt of Nature to God and we are not permitted to die at our own wills.
   That were suicidal and improper. With the Lord Christ it was totally
   different. He was, as it were, actively passive. "I lay down My life
   for the sheep. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
   again. This commandment have I received of My Father."

   I like to think of our Good Shepherd not merely as dying for us, but as
   willingly dying--laying down His life while He had that life--using it
   for us and, when the time came, putting off that life on our behalf.
   This has now been actually done. When He spoke these words, it had not
   been done. At this time it has been done. "I lay down My life for the
   sheep" may now be read, "I have laid down My life for the sheep." For
   you, Beloved, He has given His hands to the nails and His feet to the
   cruel iron! For you He has borne the fever and the bloody sweat! For
   you He has cried "Eloi, Eloi, lame Sa-bachthani!" For you He has given
   up the ghost.

   And the beauty of it is that He is not ashamed to avow the objective of
   it. "I lay down My life for the sheep." Whatever Christ did for the
   world--and I am not one of those who would limit the bearings of the
   death of Christ upon the world--yet His peculiar Glory is, "I lay down
   My life for the sheep.

   Great Shepherd, do You mean to say that You have died for such as
   these? What? For these sheep? Died for them? What? Die for sheep,
   Shepherd? Surely You have other reasons for which to live beside sheep!
   Have You not other loves, other joys? We know that it would grieve You
   to see the sheep killed, torn by the wolf, or scattered. But You really
   have not gone so far in love for them that for the sake of those poor
   creatures You would lay down your life? "Ah, yes," He says, "I would, I
   have!" Carry your wondering thoughts to Christ Jesus. What? What? What?
   Son of God, infinitely

   great and inconceivably glorious Jehovah, would You lay Your life down
   for men and women? They are no more in comparison with You than so many
   ants and wasps, pitiful and obnoxious creatures! You could make ten
   thousand millions of them with a word, or crush them out of existence
   with one blow of Your hand! They are poor things, make the most you can
   of them. They have hard hearts and wandering wills--and the best of
   them are no better than they should be! Savior, did you die for such?
   He looks around and says, "Yes, I did. I did. I laid down My life for
   the sheep. I am not ashamed of them and I am not ashamed to say that I
   died for them."

   No, Beloved, He is not ashamed of His dying love! He has told it to His
   Brethren up yonder and made it known to all the servants in His
   Father's house--and this has become the song of that house--"Worthy is
   the Lamb that was slain!" Shall not we take it up and say, "For You
   were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood"? Whatever men may
   say about Particular Redemption, Christ is not ashamed of it! He
   glories that He laid down His life for the sheep. For the sheep, mark
   you! He says not for the world. There is a bearing of the death of
   Christ towards the world, but here He boasts and glories in the
   specialty of His Sacrifice. "I lay down My life for the
   sheep"--"instead of the sheep," it might be read.

   He glories in substitution for His people! He makes it His boast when
   He speaks of His chosen, that He suffered in their place--that He bore,
   that they might never bear the wrath of God on account of sin! What He
   glories in, we also glory in! "God forbid that I should glory save in
   the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto
   me and I unto the world!"

   O Beloved, what a blessed Christ we have who loves us so, who knows us
   so--whom we also know and love! May others be taught to know Him and to
   love Him! Yes, at this hour may they come and put their trust in Him,
   as the sheep trust to the shepherd! We ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A TRAITOR SUSPECTED AND CONVICTED

   (No. 1878)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JANUARY 10, 1886,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 16, 1885.

   "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Romans 8:7.

   MEN naturally mind the things of the flesh. This is as sad as if a
   seraph should rake upon a dunghill! It is not amazing that a brute
   beast cares for the flesh, for it is only flesh, but it is lamentable
   in the highest degree that man, in whom there is a principle infinitely
   superior to mere materialism, should, nevertheless, so generally give
   himself up to minding the things of the body--the things of time and
   earth.

   The world's catechism is, "What shall we eat? What shall we drink? With
   what shall we be clothed?" Men begin with these questions as soon as
   they leave their father's roof and they often die with them upon their
   lips. It is said of the peasants around Nice that they seem to have no
   thought of anything but how they can make a living and save a little
   money--and I am afraid they are, by no means, a unique people--in some
   form, or other, the world is in all men's hearts and thoughts. The dust
   of earth has blinded eyes that were meant for Heaven! You would think,
   from the talk of many a human being, that he, himself, was meant to
   walk about for a few years and then to occupy six feet of earth and
   never be heard of again. The creature's life seems in consistency with
   such a destiny and is, by no means, suggestive of a life to come, or an
   existence in a nobler sphere!

   Yet there is in us an immortal spirit--the very heathen were convinced
   of this! Man has an inborn consciousness that he is not to be
   extinguished by death. His strange longings, hopes and fears are, in a
   disjointed way, the proofs of this primeval knowledge which he can
   never quite forget. It was not necessary that Scripture should reveal
   the future existence of the soul. When you miss a clear statement of
   that Truth of God, you only miss that which is supposed to be already
   known! The existence of God and of an immortal soul in man is taken for
   granted in Scripture. A future state is plain upon the face of things.
   Every thoughtful man can see that there is a wide difference between
   the brute that grovels and man that aspires!

   Now, if this is so, one would have supposed that this immortal being
   would, in thought, have projected himself into the next state and that
   he would have been very much occupied with the consideration of where
   he should be and what he should be in the world to come. One would have
   suspected that he would have shaped the actions of the present with a
   view to the future and so have ceased to be earth-bound and hide-bound
   and would have risen into something superior to the life of the mere
   animal. Yet men, by nature, do not give dominion to their nobler part,
   but allow the brute in them to overrule the mind in them! They are
   earthly-minded and then, because they are earthly-minded, spiritual
   things are despised by them and the great God, who is the Spirit of all
   spirits, is most of all neglected and treated as if He were of small
   account. The minding of the flesh sours the soul against God so that he
   who minds the flesh is soon filled with enmity against God.

   Our Apostle declares this fact and declares it very positively. He does
   not say that the carnal mind is at enmity to God, but he gives us the
   solid noun--he says, "the carnal mind is enmity against God." It is
   enmity in essence-- altogether and always enmity against God! It is a
   solid block of aversion to God and animosity against Him. It is very
   strong language to use, but so he puts it under the guidance of
   Inspiration and, therefore, he does not mistake or exaggerate. The mind
   that looks after the flesh, the carnal mind, is a mass of downright
   undiluted enmity to the Most High God! Such a mind is opposed, not
   merely to the things of God, the Laws of God and the Truth of God, but
   to God Him-

   self! The mind which is under the dominion of the flesh cannot endure
   the Being of God--His Character is the object of its hate! No, such a
   mind is hate, itself, towards God!

   Of some men this need not be stated, for they declare it themselves.
   There are men, (God be merciful to them and change them!), who
   deliberately say that they do not believe in God and who use all kinds
   of opprobrious epithets towards our Lord and the Divine Truth which He
   has been pleased to reveal. These men's sins "go before them into
   judgment." They will need no witnesses against them at the bar of their
   Maker--they themselves have testified against themselves! Their mind is
   evidently, confessedly, intensely enmity against God.

   Many others would not care to confess their enmity so distinctly and
   yet their lives proclaim it. Their outward conduct shows that they are
   not only enemies of God and His Christ, but that their heart is a mass
   of enmity to Him--their speech betrays the fact that they are not
   reconciled to God. Some of these even make profession of being His
   friends and yet, of such, Paul said, "Many walk, of whom I have told
   you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of
   the Cross of Christ"--the enemies beyond all others, for they have
   entered into the Church by treachery and thus have attacked the Lord in
   His own house--where they can do most mischief. They blasphemously
   misuse their profession of faith to comfort them in their sins--and
   while they vow that they are God's servants, their lives show that they
   are the willing slaves of a very different master!

   I am not, at this time, intending to speak to these persons, of whom I
   will only say--The Lord have mercy upon any of us if that is our
   unhappy case! If we have dared to play the Judas, if we have ventured
   to enroll ourselves among the friends of Jesus and yet are giving Him a
   traitorous kiss, may infinite Grace yet convert us! Oh, that we may not
   turn out to be sons of perdition, but may we be delivered from
   hypocrisy and made honest in the sight of the Most High!

   But I am going to deal, at this time, with another class of persons who
   would say, each one for himself, "I am not a Christian, but I hope to
   be so, one of these days. I do not think that I am converted. I could
   not claim to be a believer in Christ savingly, or a lover of God so as
   to take my place among His people, but yet I do not think that I am an
   enemy to God." The accusation of our text is very distasteful to such
   persons. They think it too harsh a charge to bring against them. Yet,
   dear Hearer, you live not for the world to come, nor for spiritual
   things, nor for God. And, therefore, according to the teaching of the
   text, your mind, being carnal or fleshly, is enmity against God!

   I do not like to say any hard thing of you, because you are a very kind
   person. But I dare not say less than the Word of the Lord--and you
   would not respect me if I were wicked enough to flatter you! You are
   moral, excellent and amiable, but still, you are enmity against God in
   your heart, for the things of the flesh are uppermost in your mind. Are
   you angry that I tell you this? What would you have me do? You expect
   your physician to spy out your disease and your lawyer to discover any
   flaw there may be in the deeds of an estate you are purchasing--should
   not your minister tell you of the evils of your heart? If you want to
   hear soft falsehoods, go elsewhere--I will have none of your blood on
   my garments! If you are not born again from above, I am compelled to
   say, even of the best of you, that your fleshly mind is enmity against
   God!

   At this time my business shall be, first, to discover that enmity.
   Secondly, to deplore it. And then, thirdly, may God the Holy Spirit be
   pleased to deliver you from it and deliver you from it even while we
   are talking about it! O Eternal Spirit, renew us in the spirit of our
   mind and cause us to receive that spiritual mind which is the mark of
   the friend of

   God!

   I. First, then, I HAVE TO DISCOVER THIS ENMITY which is in your heart.
   I know what you are saying, "You cannot do so. I am indifferent, but I
   am not enmity and I will not be called so." I hear your denial, but the
   cap will fit you very well before I have done--and you will be obliged
   to wear it--I am sure you will. If you are not obliged to plead guilty,
   none will rejoice more than I if you can prove that you are reconciled
   to God by the death of His Son!

   The man who does not love God, nor serve Him, nor even profess to do
   so, has in his heart a settled enmity against God! Let me show it to
   you. Do not shut your eyes to clear evidence.

   First, the carnally-minded man is enmity against God as a servant. Take
   this description of yourselves and see if it does not lead to your
   conviction. You are all servants of God, for He has made you and not
   you, yourselves--and He who made you ought to have the use of you. You
   are under obligations to your Creator, your Preserver, your
   Re-deemer--and these obligations ought to be recognized, but you do not
   recognize them. On the contrary, you act in a way which leads me to
   charge you with enmity against God, your liege Lord and King. Judge if
   it is not so! Here is a ser-

   vant of yours and he will not serve you. Set that down to laziness, if
   you please, and the case will be bad enough. But you find him working
   very hard for somebody else! Then it cannot be laziness which makes him
   decline your service. Look at him--he is toiling for your enemy from
   morning to night! And though he is your servant, he altogether refuses
   to serve you. What can be his motive? Many of you are not serving God
   and yet you are not lazy. Your neglect of obedience to the Lord is not
   caused by love of ease. You are working very hard for something
   else--for yourselves, for your family, for approbation, for wealth or
   some other objective so that while you will not obey your God, whom you
   ought to honor, you are serving some other lord! Does not this create a
   natural suspicion that you are not on good terms with your Maker?

   But suppose, in the case of your servant, it should turn out that he
   actually does heavier work for another than he would have been expected
   to do for you? Suppose that he does harder and more degrading labor
   than you would have required of him and that he does it willingly, does
   it with all his might and yet he will not serve you? I think you would
   say, "This man must be filled with enmity to me. He works for another
   and will not work for me. He does far harder work for another than ever
   I have proposed that he would do for me." Do not forget that the
   slavery of sin is much harder and much more degrading than the service
   of God. The service of the world is much sterner, much more exacting,
   much more wearisome than the service of the Lord Jesus Christ! They
   that have served the world best will tell you that there is but little
   solace in the labor, while those who serve God best continually say
   that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. They that serve God with
   all their heart find an intense delight in His service and this is not
   true of the vassalage of sin. "His commandments are not grievous," but
   the ways of sin are full of travail and disappointment and anguish. If
   a man prefers to bear the weary burden of the world, the flesh and the
   devil--and will not take upon his shoulders the lighter load of
   Christ--what can be the reason of it but that he is at enmity with God?

   And suppose, moreover, that your servant, who is working for somebody
   else, should get very poor wages, while you are willing to pay him the
   largest wages that can be proposed--and yet he will take the harder
   work and the lesser wage--and will not come to you and take the easier
   work at higher wages? How could you account for this, except upon the
   supposition that the man hated you? Sirs, the case is thoroughly
   parallel with yours! "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
   eternal life." Let a man work as hard as ever he may for himself and
   for the world, all that can come of it is death! Why then, does he
   choose a bitter toil and a deadly wage? "What shall it profit a man if
   he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" Why does a man follow
   such a profitless business? You know what the world's poet makes Wolsey
   say, when he comes to die--

   "Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would
   not in my old age Have left me naked to my enemies." The service of God
   is a remunerative service--He gives wages in the work and an abundant
   reward, according to His Grace, when the work is done. If men refuse
   such service, what can their motive be? The wages of sin is
   death--eternal death! Infinite misery follows upon the course of this
   world if men choose such service--what can be their motive, what but
   downright hatred of God as a Master--and a resolve to have the devil,
   himself, for lord, and Hell for a wage, sooner than serve the living
   God? Why then, Sir, it must be so, if I take you on the footing of a
   servant, that, inasmuch as you will serve other things with all your
   might at the poorest wage--and will not serve God when the recompense
   of His reward is altogether boundless--then my reason forces me to the
   conclusion that your mind is enmity against God!

   Let me consider you under another figure. This time it shall be that of
   a subject towards a king. Suppose that we are living in times in which
   there is a king, a rightful monarch upon the throne, but there is also
   a pretender who has set up a claim for the crown and there is a war
   going on between the true monarch and the pretender? You are one of
   those who do not side with the pretender. At least you say you do not.
   You dwell among the subjects of the king and though you act somewhat
   strangely, yet you deny that you are the king's enemy. But, listen to
   me. There might be, in this city of London, certain persons who would
   not be willing to confess that they were on the pretender's side and
   yet their course of action might lead you to feel that they must be so
   and that they must be enemies of the king! Suppose that a certain man
   lives on your street and you meet with him in business, in trade and in
   common conversation from day to day and yet you never hear him mention
   the name of the king? Would not his silence be suspicious?

   If anybody else mentions the king's name, he edges off from it. He
   never utters a word that would enable you to feel that he is a loyal
   subject. He does not openly propose three cheers for the pretender in a
   public meeting, nor does he hang out the pretender's flag, but, on the
   other hand, you noticed that the last time they were crying, "Bravo,"
   for the king, he was as quiet as if he had been dumb. And you have also
   seen that whenever conversation has gone that way, he has been as mute
   as a fish! He has no opinion on politics. He says that he has enough to
   do to mind his own business. I am half afraid that the fellow is an
   enemy! Still waters run deep and I fancy that we shall find a deep
   traitor under the coat of this silent gentleman. I begin to think that
   he must be on the wrong side and it grows upon my mind that he must be
   an enemy to our lawful sovereign, for, month after month, while all the
   country has been ringing with the war-cry and the whole nation has been
   divided into two camps, this man has never said a good word for the
   king--has never so much as mentioned him! I feel morally certain that
   in his heart this close-mouthed being must be an enemy to the king. Are
   you not very much of my mind?

   Do you want me to explain the parable? Does it not fit your case, my
   Friend? All these years you have been hearing about God and His Christ,
   but you have not had a good word to say for either of them. When you
   are in company, you manifest a discreet silence. If there were a debate
   upon vital godliness, you would take no side. You have nothing to say
   for Jesus and His precious blood. You are neutral and silent. And why?
   You are such "a good easy man" that you are not willing to fight for
   truth and righteousness! I suspect you greatly. I am solemnly afraid
   that you are an enemy!

   Now, suppose that the king has achieved a great success. News has come
   that in a great battle the pretender has sustained a heavy defeat. The
   flags are hanging out along the streets and there is an illumination at
   night. There is no flag at your house. At night there are no candles in
   your window. You have nothing to say upon the important tidings.
   Friends, what are we to make of this man? He never says a word about
   our king or his doings--and he does not share in the joy when everybody
   is in the street at night hurrahing because of his Majesty's victory!
   He walks along as if he had no interest in it. I am afraid that if
   there were any spies about, they would report him for an enemy--and I
   do not think they could be much blamed if they did so!

   Dear Hearers, some of you feel no interest in the triumphs of Messiah's
   Kingdom and are under no concern about His Gospel. So many persons were
   converted under a revival, but it is nothing to you. Whole streets in
   this city are Godless and Christless, but what of that? You do not
   really care whether this nation or that shall begin to acknowledge the
   sway of Christ. You show no opposition to King Jesus, but still, you
   take no delight in the growth of His dominion, or the increase of His
   Glory. If true religion were banished out of the land, you would not
   lose a single night's rest! And if it covered the whole earth, it would
   excite in you no enthusiasm. Does it not look as if you might be very
   shrewdly suspected to have the carnal mind which is enmity against God?
   I might work out this subject further, but I only need to light the
   candle of your conscience and you will not have to look far to find a
   traitor.

   Further than that, they have been raising regiments in the city to help
   the king. There have been enthusiastic meetings of young men who have
   enlisted in his cause. They have shouldered their rifles and have been
   ready to shed their blood on the behalf of their lawful sovereign.
   There is news of an invasion--the enemy's ships are near the shore--the
   citizens have come together in crowds. This man was not at the meeting.
   He did not propose to be a soldier. He did not contribute a farthing to
   the expenses of the campaign. He did nothing whatever for his king.
   Putting all this with the rest, it seems to me that he must be an
   enemy! Why, surely, if we had enemies at London's gates, today--if we
   knew that they were about to sack this city and kill our wives and
   children--why even the peace men among us would forget our peacefulness
   and shoulder arms on behalf of our hearths and homes! If any man said,
   "Yes, they have been blowing up some of the houses and they are about
   to destroy our city, but it is no concern of mine. I am not going to
   bear a hand in the struggle, one way or the other," we would say, "Why,
   the fellow is not a true-born Englishman! He is an enemy! Depend upon
   it, he is a traitor!" In such a world as this, where sin is rife, if a
   man does not contend against evil, he is on the side of it! If a man
   does not serve Christ and endeavor to extend His Kingdom, however
   humble may be his power, surely it must be that his carnal mind is
   enmity against God! Jesus says, "He that is not with Me is against Me;
   and he that gathers not with Me scatters abroad."

   And suppose, further, that this man should find that the king had
   issued a certain proclamation and promulgated a code of laws, and that
   this man should say, "Read them? No, not I! I would not read such dry
   book-stuff as that!" But these laws affect your daily life, your
   business, your prosperity, your very life. "I do not care what they
   affect," he says,

   "they are very dry and dull reading. I do not care to hear them, much
   less to study them." The proclamation of the king is posted up publicly
   and the man turns his back upon it. A play-bill is pasted on the
   wall--he reads that and is very interested in it! Now, I should say
   that he must be an enemy, for he will not even read what is the will of
   his king and what is the law of his country! There must be in his heart
   some enmity against the law-giver who promulgated that law. My Hearer,
   your non-searching of the Scriptures, your weariness under Gospel
   preaching, your lack of care to understand the mind of God is prima
   facie evidence that there is some enmity in your heart against the Most
   High. When your King sends you a message of love and you are not
   willing to hear it, surely you have a prejudice against Him! When you
   do not even wish to know what He promises to those who are His friends,
   you must have made up your mind to be His foe!

   But, suppose further, as in some olden time, this king were to say to
   all his subjects, "You are surrounded by the enemy. The city is tightly
   shut up and famine threatens you. But I am going to feed you all out of
   the royal granaries. There will be so much of bread and so much of
   provender for all of you who choose to come and have it, a daily
   portion freely given to all who ask for it"? Suppose this man, though
   evidently very hungry and thirsty, never went to eat at the public
   table? He need not say anything against the king and his table, but
   suppose he persistently abstained from putting himself under any
   obligation to the royal provider and would sooner go and eat with dogs,
   or pluck meat out of the hog's dish than he would be nourished by the
   king's bounty? I should say that the fellow who starved himself in that
   fashion must have deep enmity in his heart against the king!

   Your case is just the same. You will not go to Christ Jesus that you
   may have eternal life. You do not go to the Creator of your spirits
   that you may find comfort and joy in Him. You are willing, rather, to
   perish than to apply to the Father of mercies. You look for pleasure
   and happiness anywhere rather than in God--yes, in places only
   comparable to the dog kennel, or the sty of the swine! Therefore you
   cannot persuade me out of my solemn anxiety that your heart is enmity
   against God! I am sure that, hungry as you are, you would go to His
   table to be fed; naked as you are, you would go to His wardrobe to be
   clothed if it were not that you have an enmity in your heart against
   the Lord--terribly and deadly even though unacknowledged by yourself.
   He that will sullenly perish rather than accept the Gift of God must
   entertain desperately evil thoughts of God!

   Suppose, once more, that you had offended this king and you had been
   tried for treason against him? And suppose you had been found guilty
   and he were to say to you, "Freely confess your treason and there is
   the pardon drawn out for you by which your life shall be spared and
   you, yourself, shall be taken into favor"? If you were to reply, "I
   will not have it!" Yes, and if you were not even to say as much as
   that, but only neglected to accept it and just sat carelessly in prison
   until the day of execution, I would say that you must have a most awful
   enmity in your heart against your sovereign! He that will not even
   accept pardon must be rancorous, indeed! My Hearer, your not accepting
   the free pardon of Christ; your not receiving the benefit of the act of
   amnesty and oblivion which the great God has passed, proves that your
   traitorous heart is dyed to the very core with the blackest enmity
   against the Majesty of Heaven! I am not talking about the villains of
   whom we have been reading, lately, in the newspapers, who would commit
   the foulest deeds of unmentionable crime, but I am talking about you
   good people who are not far from the Kingdom and yet are base enough to
   spurn your Savior's love and blood! If you have not accepted the favor
   of your King and the pardon provided by a bleeding Savior, there must,
   at bottom, be a cruel enmity in your heart against the King of Love! Is
   it not so? Do you not begin to suspect yourself of not being quite all
   you fondly hoped you were?

   So I will use yet another similitude and but one, that I may not weary
   you. This time it shall merely relate to the common conduct of one
   person to another. I might profess, of a certain person, that I had no
   enmity against him. But suppose that whenever I met him in the street,
   I would not look at him and, if he were on my side of the street, I
   somehow or other had a call from the other side of the way? And suppose
   that when I came into a room to meet friends, if I saw him there, I
   always backed out and went somewhere else? I would think that people
   would, before long, suspect that I had great enmity towards that
   person!

   There are people who act in that manner towards God. They find hearing
   sermons very dull work. Talking with Christian people about Divine
   things they cannot endure. Reading a religious book is slavery--they
   find themselves very soon reduced to a state of slumber by treatises
   upon true religion. They have no care about such things. They want to
   get out of God's way. Their heart has no delight in the thought of God.
   If there were information in tomorrow morning's paper that God was
   dead, would not some of you be very happy? You would say, "Then there
   will be no day ofjudgment

   and I may enjoy myself, for my greatest dread is gone!" To us who love
   the Lord it would be a calamity worse than 10,000 deaths if we could
   lose our God--but your condition of mind towards God is clear proof of
   enmity against Him!

   Again, suppose that a person has written you a letter and you have
   taken no notice of it? When did it come? It came last Monday morning.
   Have you read it? "Oh, no," you say, "I do not bother to read his
   letters!" You have had a good many, then? "Oh, yes, hundreds of them!"
   What have you done with them? "I have done nothing with them. I leave
   them alone and do not trouble to read them." Are these letters
   rational? "Yes, they are wise and kind." Yet you do not care to read
   them? Did you say that you are not the writer's enemy? Ah, my Friend, I
   suspect that there is not much affection in your heart to him. There
   must, indeed, be a good deal of animosity! When you did read one of his
   letters, what was it about? "Well, it was about wishing to be at peace
   with me and desiring to do me good. He spoke of my being in great
   danger and said that he would help me; and of my being poor, and
   offered to make me rich."

   Did he talk so and have you never read any more of his letters? What
   can ail you? Were these letters full of bitter upbraiding and fierce
   threats? Do you reply, "Oh, no, they were kind, good, affectionate and,
   I have no doubt, they were meant to benefit me, but I don't care about
   them! I think that other people ought to read them, but I have no mind
   to do so?" From this I feel sure that you hate the writer very
   heartily. Have I not described your conduct towards your Bible? That
   blessed Book is a love-letter from God, the great Father, and you do
   not read it nor care about it and, therefore, I am sure that there must
   be in your heart enmity against Him. I do not think that you can argue
   me out of that conviction. I would, therefore, be glad to convince you
   of your wrong state of mind until you become ashamed of it and turn to

   God!

   Is prayer neglected by you? Is it a burden? Have you no pleasure in it?
   Then how can you say that you are a friend of God? Do you utterly
   neglect all communion with God? Do you never speak with Him? How can
   you think that you love Him? If I had a son who lived in my house, ate
   at my table and was clothed by my kindness--and that boy were to say to
   people outside, "I never speak to my father. He speaks to me, but I
   never listen to him. I live in his house, but I treat him as if he were
   dead"--would not everybody rightly conclude that there was a deadly
   animosity in the heart of such a son towards his father? I cannot help
   thinking that if you live without speaking to God, or hearing Him speak
   to you, you have a carnal mind which is enmity against God!

   There I leave the matter, hoping that your conscience will awake and
   concern itself about this business. If these things should suggest a
   suspicion of your horrible and unnatural enmity against the good God
   and that should send you to your knees, I shall bless the Holy Spirit
   that it is so! Come, O great Convincer, and cause my unregenerate
   hearers to know their own true condition before the Lord! And then
   guide them to Jesus, the Savior!

   II. But now, secondly, and very briefly, LET US DEPLORE THIS ENMITY
   AGAINST GOD. Come, gracious Spirit, and melt our hearts to penitence!

   For, first, what an injustice it is! I cannot bear for anybody to speak
   ill and think ill of one who is good, kind and generous. I would
   interpose, if possible, to rectify that mistaken judgment. But for you
   not to think well of God! For you not to love the God of Love! For you
   not to be at peace with the sweet Lord Jesus! For you not to delight in
   Christ is a gross injustice to Him! Oh, do not continue in it! If you
   have any sense of rightness, may God make you feel shame that you
   should treat Him ill!

   Moreover, I venture to say that it is more than an injustice. What an
   infamy it is! If anyone in this country could point to a person and
   say, "There is a man who hates the Queen and who, wherever he goes,
   speaks against her," we would feel that he was no man of honor, no
   person of right feeling. Yet to slander a lady of blameless life is
   nothing compared with hating the perfect Lord! When I think of a man's
   not loving God, not loving Christ, I feel that it is an awful thing for
   him, an infamous thing for him. Come here, angels, if you will! If you
   can turn your eyes from the august sight of your crowned Lord, come and
   look in this direction! Here is a man whom God has made, who does not
   love his Maker! Here is a monster that is fed every day by God's bounty
   and never thanks Him! Here is an immortal being who hears of the death
   of Christ and is told that if he believes in Him, he shall live in
   happiness forever--and he will not believe in Him! He does not care for
   Christ, or for His love, His life, or His Heaven! Surely those blessed
   spirits turn away their faces! They stretch their wings for flight from
   such loathed company! They cry, "Let us not look on such a monster. He
   is not fit to live." There is an infamy about not loving Christ.

   In addition to all this I would say, what an injury is this to yourself
   It is a very great injury to any man not to be perfectly at peace with
   God. You are losing happiness. You are losing holiness, which is still
   more! You are losing the full development of your being. You are
   missing the destiny for which a God-created soul is intended. You are
   finding your way into darkness which will gather blackness upon
   blackness forever! Oh, Sirs, I cannot bear that this should be the
   case--that you should be at enmity with God! Oh, the mournful
   consequences of living and dying at enmity with God! You cannot succeed
   in this enmity. You have no power with which to contend against the
   Lord and to prosper. You need not wish that you could have such power.
   Why should you want to contend against love, mercy, truth, goodness and
   righteousness? Oh, that the Spirit of All Grace would lead you to
   loathe yourself! You have never committed adultery; you were never a
   thief; you were never a swearer! But do not compliment yourself upon
   being free from those crimes--it is sin enough not to love God! It is
   proof enough of a base heart not to have delighted in the Lord!

   When I take a friend to see a landscape that enchants me and he looks
   at it and mutters, "I see nothing in it," I feel sorry for him. When I
   cause him to hear the delightful strains of Handel's music and he
   murmurs, "There is a deal of noise and I can hear a big drum," I feel
   greatly sorry for him that he has no ear for music. So it is when I
   think of the glories of God and meet with men who do not appreciate
   them! I feel grieved for them. I would sooner be blind, deaf and
   dumb--and lose all feeling--than lose the sense of the beauty and
   perfection of God! The capacity to enjoy God and to understand His
   superlative excellence is the grandest faculty that a being can
   possess! And he that has it not is dead while he lives! He who does not
   love the ever-blessed Lord is a very Nabal, whose heart is like a stone
   within him. He is a fool writ large who knows not God. May the Lord
   manifest His Grace to those of you who are in such a condition and
   bring you to deplore it and escape from it!

   ' III. This brings me to a close. The third point was to be--LET US
   SEEK DELIVERANCE FROM THIS CONDITION OF ENMITY AGAINST GOD. How is it
   to be done?

   Truly, I do not believe it ever will be done in any man except by the
   Holy Spirit. This incapacity to see the beauty and loveliness of God is
   such an inveterate disease that none can remove it but the Holy Spirit.
   You must be washed, I know. You must be healed, I know. You must be
   clothed, I know. But I know another thing quite as clearly--"You must
   be born again." Do you say, "How can a man be born when he is old?"
   There is but one way--He that first made you must make you over again!
   The change in you must be radical and thorough--and you cannot work it
   of yourself. You are cast upon the Omnipotent Mercy of God and that
   Omnipotent Mercy will freely come to your rescue if you will accept it
   in the Lord Jesus Christ. The crucified Son of God, alone, can be your
   salvation from all this spiritual inability and aversion. It is the
   work of the Holy Spirit to lead you to accept Jesus and so to be
   delivered from your enmity.

   Next, the enemy of God needs to be delivered from the great guilt of
   not having loved God. How is that to be done? That can only be
   accomplished through the Infinite Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
   Great guilt has accrued to you from having lived so long without loving
   God. The first precept of the Law is, "You shall love the Lord your God
   with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
   And that you have not done. Now, the guilt of that unjust omission can
   only be put away through the bloody Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Son
   of God. By that one omission you have violated the whole Law of God and
   nothing but the blood of Jesus can make an amend to its honor. Thanks
   be to God, that precious Expiation can cleanse you! Trusting in that
   glorious Sacrifice, the guilt of your not loving God shall vanish!

   How can the enmity, itself, go? I have shown you that this must be
   removed by the heart being changed by the Holy Spirit, but the means of
   it will be this--your enmity will depart by a sense of God's love to
   you. I think that it is Aristotle who says that it is impossible for a
   person to believe that another loves him without feeling some kind of
   love in return. I concede that it is almost impossible, but I am not
   sure that it is quite so. However, this I do know--if you could but
   believe, at this moment, that God loves you. If, trusting in Christ,
   you could but know the infinite affection that is in the heart of the
   great Father towards you, His child, you would love God in return--you
   could not help it! Oh, could you understand the love that dropped from
   those five wounds, the love that forced your Savior to a bloody sweat,
   the love that cried, "It is finished," as He gave up the ghost--the
   love which, when He rose from the dead, still thought of you, and
   which, when it mounted to its Throne, still remembered you!

   If you could understand the love that pleads for the guilty, now, and
   intercedes for sinners, now--oh, could you but understand it--you would
   cry, "I cannot be at enmity with God any longer! I must love Him who
   has done so much for

   me." The love of Jesus has such a melting power that even a heart of
   Hell-hardened steel softens and flows away in streams of penitence
   beneath its influence!--

   "Law and terrors do but harden,

   All the while they work alone.

   But a sense of blood-bought pardon

   Soon dissolves a heart of stone." May you receive a sense of that love
   at once and you will then find that your enmity is gone, that you are
   spiritually-minded and that you love God!

   For that--to conclude with--is the main thing. While the man continues
   to mind the flesh, he cannot love God. While his first business is his
   body and the things of time and sense, he is and must be at enmity with
   God. But when the Lord Jesus Christ wins his heart. When the Spirit of
   God renews his mind. When he comes to love God--then he cares for
   spiritual things--then his treasure is in Heaven and his heart is there
   also! Then his hopes are in the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ when He
   shall come a second time--and then his life tends towards Heaven, honor
   and immortality. Thus the man is raised from being a worm of the earth
   to kinship with angels! He drops the serpentine slough and puts on the
   seraphic wings. He gets away from the mole life, burrowing under ground
   in the dark, and gains the eagle's eye and the eagle's pinion. He quits
   the gloom and night of earth and mounts aloft with his eyes upon the
   Sun of Glory, delighting in the holy and the heavenly!

   God bring you to that state by faith in Jesus Christ! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Plain Man's Sermon

   (No. 1879)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JANUARY 17, 1886,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "It must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it."
   Leviticus 22:21.

   THE Ceremonial Law, as ordained by the hand of Moses and Aaron, called
   the worshippers of God to great carefulness before Him. Before their
   minds that solemn Truth was always made visible, "I the Lord your God
   am a jealous God." Nothing might be done thoughtlessly. Due heed was
   the first requisite in a man who would draw near unto the Thrice-Holy
   God, whose perfections demand lowly and considerate reverence from all
   those who are round about Him. The spirit must be awake and on the
   stretch if it would please the great Father of Spirits. There were
   little points--I may truthfully call them minute--upon which everything
   would depend as to right worship and its acceptance with the Lord. No
   Israelite could come to the tabernacle door aright without thinking of
   what he had to do and thinking it over with an anxious fear lest he
   should, by omission or error, make his offering into a vain oblation.
   He must draw near unto the Lord with great carefulness, or else he
   might miss his aim, spend his money upon a sacrifice, cause labor to
   the priest and go home unaccepted. He might duly perform a large
   portion of a ceremony and yet no good might come to him through it
   because he had omitted a point of detail--for the Lord would be sought
   according to the due order--or He would not be found by the worshipper.
   Of every ceremony it might be said, "It must be perfect to be
   accepted." There was the rule and the rule must be followed with the
   most careful exactness. God must have the minds and thoughts of men, or
   He counts that they are no worshippers!

   This is no easy lesson to learn, dear Friends for I am afraid that in
   our usual worship we are not always as thoughtful as we ought to be.
   Mark well our singing. Do we join in it with the heartiness, the
   solemnity and the correctness which are due to Him who hears our Psalms
   and hymns? I may not judge, but I have my suspicions. Look at the way
   we pray. Is it not to be feared that at times we rush into God's
   Presence and utter the first words that come to hand? Are not liturgies
   repeated with minds half asleep? Are not extempore prayers uttered in
   the most formal manner? I refer both to public and private prayer.
   Moreover, look at the style in which some will even preach. With
   facility of language they will deliver themselves of their own
   thoughts, without seeking the anointing from on high and the power of
   the Spirit of God! I do not say that any of you ever go into your
   Sunday school classes without thought. I do not say that any of you
   ever take your tract district and go from door to door without seeking
   a blessing. I will not say that any of you ever come to the Communion
   Table without examining yourselves and discerning the Lord's body. But
   if I do not say it, I may think it and possibly that thought may be
   true!

   O, my Brothers and Sisters, let conscience sit in judgment and decide
   this matter! We need to think a great deal more about how we come
   before the Most High! And if we thought more and prayed more, we would
   become more certain of our inability to do anything as we ought to do
   it--and we Would be driven to a more entire dependence upon the Spirit
   of God in every act of worship! This in itself would be a great
   blessing.

   I do not know, however, that the Ceremonial Law did make men thoughtful
   since, for the most part, it failed of its designed effect through the
   hardness of men's hearts. Earnest heed was the design of it, but
   superstition and a spirit of bondage were the more usual results.
   Brethren, without a multitude of ceremonies which might become a yoke
   to us, let us, by other means, arrive at the same and even a better
   thoughtfulness of heart! Let love to God so influence us that, in the
   least and most ordinary matters, we shall behave ourselves as in the
   immediate Presence of the Lord and so shall strive with the utmost
   watchfulness of holy care to please the Lord our God.

   The Ceremonial Law also engendered in men who did think, a great
   respect for the holiness of God. They could not help seeing that God
   required everything in His service to be of the very best.

   The priest who stood for them before God must be, himself, in bodily
   presence, the perfection of manhood. When old age crept upon him, he
   must give place to one who showed no such sign of decay. His garments
   must be perfectly white and clean in his daily service. And when once a
   year there was a joy day, then for glory and beauty he shone in all the
   radiance that the purest gold and the most precious stones could put
   upon him!

   The victims that were offered must all be without blemish. You are
   constantly meeting with that demand and it was carried out with rigid
   care. You meet with a stringent instance in the text, "It must be
   perfect to be accepted."

   Under the law of Moses, the guilt of sin and the need of atonement were
   always most vividly brought before the mind of the worshipping
   Israelite. If you stepped within the Holy Place, everywhere you saw the
   marks of blood. Our very delicate-minded friends who raise the silly
   objection that they cannot bear the sound of the word, "blood"--what
   would they have done if they had gone into the Jewish tabernacle and
   had seen the floor, the curtain and every article stained like a
   shambles? How would they have endured to worship where the blood was
   poured in bowlfuls upon the floor and sprinkled on almost every holy
   thing? How would they have borne with the continual spattering of
   blood--all indicating that without shedding of blood there is no
   remission of sin?

   Truly, there can be no approach to a Thrice-Holy God without the
   remission of sin and that remission of sin must be obtained through the
   atoning blood! The Israelite, if he thought rightly, must have been
   deeply aware that he served a God who was terrible out of His holy
   places, a God who hated sin and would by no means spare the guilty, or
   pardon man without atonement! All the more would this be sealed home
   upon the mind of the Israelite by the knowledge that in every case the
   sacrifice must be unblemished. As he looked on the blood of the victim,
   he would remember the sacred rule, "It must be perfect to be accepted."
   He saw in the necessity for a perfect sacrifice, a declaration of the
   holiness of God. He must have felt that sin was not a trifle--not a
   thing to be committed, winked at and blotted out--but a thing for which
   there must be life given and blood shed before it could be removed. And
   that life and blood must be the life and blood of a perfect and
   unblemished offering!

   Under the Jewish Ceremonial Law, one of the most prominent thoughts,
   next to a great respect for the holiness of God, would be a deep regard
   for the Law of God. Everywhere that the Israelite went, he was
   surrounded by the Law of God. He must not do this and he must do
   that--the Law was continually before him. Now, Brothers and Sisters, it
   is a blessed thing to declare the Gospel, but I do not believe that any
   man can preach the Gospel who does not preach the Law. The book of
   Leviticus and all the other typical books are valuable as
   Gospel-teaching to us because there is always in them most clearly the
   Law of God. The Law is the needle and you cannot draw the silken thread
   of the Gospel through a man's heart unless you first send the needle of
   the Law through the center, to make way for it. If men do not
   understand the Law of God, they will not feel that they are sinners!
   And if they are not consciously sinners, they will never value the Sin
   Offering. If the Ten Commandments are never read in their hearing, they
   will not know why they are guilty. And how shall they make confession?
   If they are not assured that the Law is holy, just, good and that God
   has never demanded of any man more than He has a right to demand, how
   shall they feel the filthiness of sin, or see the need of flying to
   Christ for cleansing? There is no healing a man till the Law of God has
   wounded him! No making him alive till the Law has slain him!

   I do pray, dear Friends, that God, the Holy Spirit, may lay the Law of
   God, like an axe, at the root of all our self-righteousness, for
   nothing else will ever hew down that Upas tree. I pray that He may take
   the Law and use it as a mirror, that we may see ourselves in it and
   discover our spots, blots and all the foulness of our lives--for then
   we shall be driven to wash until we are clean in the sight of the Lord.
   The Law is our teacher to bring us to Christ and there is no coming to
   Christ unless the stern teacher shall lead us there with many a stripe
   and many a tear.

   In this text we have Law and Gospel, too. There is the Law which tells
   us that the sacrifice must be perfect to be accepted. And behind it
   there is the blessed hint that there is such an unblemished Sacrifice
   which is accepted which we may, by faith, bring to God without fear of
   being rejected. Oh, for Grace to learn both Law and Gospel at this
   time!

   This is the text for our present meditation, "It must be perfect to be
   accepted." I want to preach this Truth of God right home into every
   heart by the power of the Spirit of God! If I could be an orator, I
   would not be. The game of eloquence, with the souls of men for the
   counters and eternity for the table, is the most wicked sport in the
   world! I have

   often wished that there were no such things as rhetoric and oratory
   left among ministers--and that we were all forced to speak in the
   pulpit as plainly as children do in their simplicity. Oh, that all
   would proclaim the Gospel with plain words! I long that all may
   understand what I have to say. I would be more simple if I knew how.
   The way of salvation is far too important a matter to be the theme of
   oratorical displays. The Cross is far too sacred to be made a pole on
   which to hoist the flags of our fine language! I want to tell you just
   things that will make for your peace--things which will save your
   souls. At least I would declare Truths which, if they do not save you,
   will leave you without excuse in that dread day when He, whose
   ambassador I am, shall come to judge both you and me!

   I. First, then, THE RULE OF OUR TEXT, "IT MUST BE PERFECT TO BE
   ACCEPTED," MAY BE USED TO SHUT OUT ALL THOSE FAULTY OFFERINGS ON WHICH
   SO MANY PLACE THEIR CONFIDENCE.

   It most effectually judges and casts forth as vile, all
   self-righteousness, although this is the great deceit by which
   thousands are buoyed up with false hopes! Alas, this is the destroyer
   of myriads and, therefore, I must speak as with a voice of thunder and
   with words of lightning! Hearken unto me, you that hope to be accepted
   of God by your own doings! Look to what will be demanded of you if you
   are to be accepted on your own merits! "It must be perfect to be
   accepted; there shall be no defect in it." If you can come up to this
   rule, you shall be saved by your own righteousness! But if you cannot
   reach this mark. If you come short in any degree whatever, you will not
   be accepted! It is not said, "It must be partially good to be
   accepted." Or, "It must be hopefully good."

   No! "It must be perfect to be accepted." It is not written, "It must
   have no great and grievous blemish," but, "There shall be no defect in
   it." See you not the height of the standard, the absolute completeness
   of the model set before you? Let the plummet hang straight and see
   whether you can build according to it, or, whether, after all, your
   building is but as a bowing wall and as a tottering fence, altogether
   out of the perpendicular as tested by this uncompromising text--"It
   must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it."

   Why, look, Sirs, you that hope to be saved by your own doings, your
   nature, at the very first, is tainted! God's Word assures you that it
   is so! There is evil in your heart from the very beginning, so that you
   are not perfect and are not without defect! This sad fact spoils all at
   the very beginning. You are blemished and imperfect! Who can bring a
   clean thing out of an unclean? Not one! If the fountain is tainted,
   shall the streams be pure? Do you think it possible that you, who are a
   fallen man in your very parentage--in whom there is a bias towards
   evil--can possibly render perfect service unto God? Your hands are
   foul! How can your work be clean? How can it possibly be that you
   should produce sweet fruit when you, as a tree, are of sour stock and
   of bitter nature? O my Friend, it cannot be that darkness should
   produce light, nor death bring forth life! How can your thoughts, words
   and ways be perfect? And yet all must be perfect to be accepted.

   Look again for I feel sure that there must have been a blemish
   somewhere, as matter of fact. As yet you are not conscious of a
   blemish, or of a fault and, possibly there is some justification for
   this unconsciousness. Looking upon you, I feel inclined to love you, as
   Jesus loved that young man who could say of the Commandments, "All
   these have I kept from my youth up." But I must beg you to answer this
   question--Has there not been a blemish in your motives? What have you
   been doing all these good things for? "Why, that I might be saved!"
   Precisely so! Therefore, selfishness has been the motive which has
   ruled your life. Every self-righteous man is a selfish man! I am sure
   he is. At the bottom, that is the motive of the best life that is ever
   lived which is not actuated by faith in Jesus Christ. The Law is, "You
   shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
   soul, and with all your mind." But you have loved yourself, and lived
   for yourself--how, then, can you have kept the first precept of the
   Law? What has been done by you has been done either out of a servile
   fear of Hell, or else out of a proud and selfish hope that you would
   win Heaven by your own merits. These are not love, nor even akin to it!
   The absence of love is a flaw and a very serious one--it taints and
   spoils the whole of your life. "It must be perfect to be accepted" and,
   if the motive is imperfect, then the life is altogether imperfect.

   Moreover, it is not only your nature and your motive which are
   imperfect. My dear Friend, you certainly must have erred somewhere or
   other, in some act of your life. If you can say that you have served
   God and man without fault throughout all your days, you can say much
   more than I would venture to do! The Scripture also is dead against you
   when it says, "there is none righteous; no, not one." If you can say
   that in not one action of your life, select what you may, was there
   anything blameworthy, anything that fell short, anything that could be
   censured--you say very much more than the best of men have ever claimed
   for themselves! As for the poor faulty being who now addresses you, I
   dare

   not claim that the best deed I have ever done, or the most fervent
   prayer I have ever prayed could have been accepted in and of itself
   before God. I know that I have no perfection in my best things, much
   less in my worst.

   Tell me, my Friend, was there not something wrong in your spirit? Was
   there not a shortcoming in the humility with which you worshipped? Or
   in the zeal with which you served? Or in the faith with which you
   prayed? Was there not something of omission, even if nothing of
   commission? Could not the work have been better done? If so, it is
   clear that it was not perfect, for had it been perfect it could have
   been no better. Might you not have lived better than you have lived?
   Might you not have been more pure, more generous, more upright, more
   loving, more gentle, more firm, more heavenly-minded than you have
   been? Then this confession shows that, to some extent, you must have
   fallen short and, remember, "It must be perfect to be accepted; there
   shall be no defect in it."

   Ah, I am talking very smoothly now, for I am only touching the surface
   and dealing with guess-work. But I fear there are greater evils
   underneath, if all were known. I think if I could read all hearts,
   there is not one here, however self-righteous he may be, who would not
   have to confess distinct acts of sin. Still, I will keep to the smooth
   strain and believe that you are as good as you seem to be. Indeed, I
   have a high opinion of many of you! I know how some of you have lived.
   You were amiable girls and excellent young women and have grown up to
   be careful, loving wives and, therefore, you say, "I never did anybody
   any harm. Surely I may be accepted." Or, perhaps you are quiet young
   men, blessed with excellent parents and screened from temptation--and
   so you have never gone into open vice, but have gained a most
   respectable character. I wish that there were more like you! I am not
   condemning you--far from it--but I know that your tendency is to think
   that because of all this, you must, in yourselves, be accepted of God.

   Give me your hand and let me say to you, with tears--"It is not so, my
   Sister! It is not so, my Brother! It must be perfect to be accepted;
   there must be no defect in it." This is a deathblow to your
   self-confidence, for there was a time, some day or other in your life,
   in which you did wrong. What? Have you no hasty temper? Have no quick
   words escaped from you which you would wish to recall? What? Have you
   never murmured against God, or complained of His Providence? Have you
   never been slothful when you ought to have been diligent? Have you
   never been careless when you ought to have been prayerful? Have you
   always spoken the truth? Has a lie never fallen from your lips? Can you
   say that your heart has never desired evil--never imagined impurity?
   Remember, the thought of evil is sin! Even a wanton desire is a blemish
   in the life and an unchaste imagination is a stain upon the character
   in the sight of God, though not in the sight of man! "It must be
   perfect to be accepted."

   I verily used to think concerning myself that I was a quiet, good,
   hopeful lad, addicted much to reading, seldom in brawls and doing
   nobody any harm. Oh, it was the outside of the cup and the platter I
   had seen! And when I was led by Grace to look inside, I was astonished
   to see what filthiness was there! When I heard in my heart that
   sentence of the Law of God, "It must be perfect to be accepted," I gave
   up all hope of self-righteousness! And now I hate myself for having
   doted upon such a lie that I could be acceptable with God in myself!

   Have you never gone to live in an old house which looked like new? You
   had fresh paint, varnish and paper in superabundance--and you thought
   yourself dwelling in one of the sweetest of places--until, one day, it
   happened that a board was taken up and you saw under the floor. What a
   gathering of every foul thing! You could not have lived in that house
   at peace for a minute had you known what had been covered up!
   Rottenness had been hidden, decay had been doctored, death had been
   decorated! That is just like our humanity. We put on fresh paper,
   varnish and paint--and we look very respectable. But from below an
   abomination of the sewer gas of sin comes steaming up, enough to kill
   everything that is like goodness within us--while all manner of
   creeping lusts and venomous passions swarm in the secret corners of our
   nature! When lusts are quiet, they are still there. The best man in
   this place, who is not a believer in Christ, would go mad if he were to
   see himself as God sees him! No eyes could bear the horrible sight of
   the Hell within the human breast! Yes, I mean you good people--you very
   nice, amiable, lovable sort of people! You will have to be born again
   and you will have to give up all trust in yourselves, as much as even
   the worst of men must do! As surely as the chief of sinners are
   unaccepted, so surely are you--for a righteousness must be perfect to
   be accepted, there must be no defect in it--and that is not the case
   with your righteousness. You know it is not.

   "Well," says one, "this is very hard doctrine." I mean it to be so, for
   I love you too well to deceive you! When a door has to be shut to save
   a life, there is no use in half-shutting it! If a person may be killed
   by going through it, you had better board it up, or brick it up. I want
   to brick up the dangerous opening of self-confidence, for it leads to
   deception, dis-

   appointment and despair! The way to Heaven by works is only possible to
   a man who is absolutely perfect--and none of you are in that condition.
   Do not pretend to it, or you will be arrant liars! I put no fine face
   upon it--you are not perfect, no, not one of you, for, "all have sinned
   and come short of the Glory of God."

   Thus, then, our text shuts out all self-righteousness. It also shuts
   out all priestly performances. There is a notion among some people that
   the priest is to save them, alias the minister, for men easily, in
   these charitable days, make even Dissenting ministers into priests! I
   have heard people say, "Just as I employ a lawyer to attend to my
   temporal business and I do not bother my head any more about it, so I
   employ my priest or my clergyman to attend to my spiritual business and
   there is the end of it." This is evil talk and ruinous to the man who
   indulges in it! I will speak of this priestcraft very plainly.
   Remember, "It must be perfect to be accepted," therefore all that this
   gentleman does for you must be perfect. I do not know what it is that
   he does, I am sure. I never could make out what a priest of the Roman
   or Anglican order can be supposed to do in his highest function of the
   "mass." I have seen him walk this way and I have seen him walk that
   way--and I have seen him turn his back--and it has been decorated with
   crosses and other embellishments! And I have seen him turn his face and
   I have seen him bow--and I have seen him drink wine and water--and I
   have seen him munch wafers. I have seen him perform many genuflections
   and prostrations, but what the performance meant, I have not been able
   to gather! To me it seemed a meaningless display.

   I would not like to risk my soul on it, for, suppose that during that
   service he should think of something that he ought not to think upon?
   And suppose he should have no intention whatever of performing the
   "mass"--what, then, becomes of those who trust in him and it?
   Everything, you know, depends upon the intention of the priest. If a
   good intention is not there, according to the dictates of his own
   church, it is all good for nothing, so that your souls all hang upon
   the intention of a poor mortal in a certain dress! Perhaps he has not,
   after all, been rightly anointed and is not in the Apostolic
   succession? Perhaps there is no Apostolic succession! Perhaps the man,
   himself, is living in mortal sin! Ah, me, there are many dangers about
   your confidence! Are you going to hang your soul on that man's orders
   or disorders? Mine is too heavy to hang upon so slender a nail, driven
   into such rotten wood! If you have a soul big enough to think, you will
   feel, "No, no, there cannot be sufficient ground of dependence in the
   best pontiff that ever officiated at an altar. God requires of me,
   myself, that I bring to Him a perfect Sacrifice, and it is all a device
   of my folly that I should try and get a sponsor and lay this burden on
   him. It cannot be done. I have to stand before the judgement bar of God
   in my own person, to be tried for the sins that I have done in the
   body--and I must not deceive myself with the idea that another man's
   performance of ceremonies can clear me at the Judgement Seat of Christ.
   This man cannot bring a perfect sacrifice for me and--"it must be
   perfect to be accepted." O Sirs, do not be deluded by priestcraft and
   sacramentarianism, whether the priest is of the school of Rome or of
   Oxford--you must believe in the Lord Jesus for yourselves, or you will
   be lost forever!

   This text makes a clean sweep of all other kinds of human confidences.
   Some are deceived in this way--"Well," they say, "I do not trust in my
   works, but I am a religious person and I attend the sacrament. And I go
   to my place of worship pretty regularly. I feel that I must certainly
   be right. I have faith in Jesus Christ and in myself." In various ways
   men thus compose an image whose feet are part of iron and part of clay.
   With that kind of mingle-mangle, many are unconsciously contenting
   themselves. But hear this Word of God--"It must be perfect to be
   accepted; there shall be no defect in it." If we trust Christ and
   nothing else, that will be perfect! But if you are trusting Christ up
   to 15 ounces in the pound and yourself for the last ounce of the 16,
   you will be a lost man, for that last ounce is an ounce of imperfection
   and, therefore, you cannot be accepted of God!

   There are some others who say, "I have suffered a great deal and that
   will make amends." There is a current idea among men that all will go
   well with poor people and hard-working people because they have had
   their bad times here on earth. When a man has had a long illness and
   suffered a great deal in the hospital, his friends say, "Poor soul, he
   has gone where he is better off!" They feel sure of it because he has
   suffered so much! Ah, me, but, "It must be perfect to be accepted"--and
   what is there perfect in a human life, even if it is checkered with
   suffering, poverty and need? Ah, no! Poverty does not work perfection!
   Sickness does not make perfection! My text stands like a cherub, waving
   a fiery sword before the gates of Paradise, shutting out all fancies
   and notions, of which I will not now speak particularly, by this dread
   sentence--"It must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect
   in it."

   II. This brings me to note, with great delight of heart, that as this
   rule shuts out all other confidences, SO THIS RULE SHUTS US UP TO THE
   SACRIFICE OF JESUS CHRIST. O Beloved, if I had the tongues of men and
   of angels, I could never fitly tell you of Him who offered Himself
   without spot unto God, for He is absolutely perfect--there is no defect
   in Him!

   He is perfect in His Nature as God and Man. No stain defiled His birth,
   no pollution touched His body or His soul. The Prince of this world,
   himself, with keenest eyes, came and searched the Savior, but he found
   nothing in Him. "In all points tempted like as we are, yet without
   sin." There was not the possibility of sinning about the Savior--no
   tendency that way, no desire that way. Nothing that could be construed
   into evil ever came upon His Character. Our perfect Sacrifice is
   without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing!

   As He was perfect in His Nature, so was He in His motive. What brought
   Him from above but love to God and man? You can find no trace of
   ambition in Christ Jesus. In Him there is no thought of self. No
   sinister or sordid motive ever lingered in His breast, or even crossed
   His mind. He was purity and holiness in the highest degree. Even His
   enemies have nothing to allege against the purity of the motive of
   Jesus of Nazareth!

   As His Nature was perfect, so was His spirit. He was never sinfully
   angry, nor harsh, nor untrue, nor idle. The air of His soul was the
   atmosphere of Heaven rather than of earth. Look at His life of
   obedience and see how perfect that was. Which Commandment did He ever
   break? Which duty of relationship did He ever forget? He honored the
   Law of God and loved the souls of men. He gave the Character of God
   perfect reflection in His human life. You can see what God is as you
   see what Christ is. He is perfect, even as His Father who is in Heaven
   is perfect. There is no redundancy, or excess, or superfluity in His
   Character, even as there is no coming short in any point.

   Look at the perfection of His Sacrifice. He gave His body to be
   tortured and His mind to be crushed and broken, even unto the agony of
   death. He gave Himself for us, a perfect Sacrifice. All that the Law
   could ask was in Him. Stretch the measure to its utmost length and
   still Christ goes beyond, rather than falls short of the measure of the
   requirements of justice. He has given to His Father double for all our
   sins! He has given Him suffering for sin committed and yet a perfect
   obedience to the Law. The Lord God is well pleased with Him. He rests
   in the Son of His love and, for His sake He smiles upon multitudes of
   sinners who are represented in Him. My heart rejoices as I think of
   Gethsemane, Calvary and of Him who by one offering has perfectly
   sanctified all who put their trust in Him! "It is finished," He said,
   and finished it is forever! Our Lord has presented a perfect Sacrifice!
   "It must be perfect to be accepted"--and it is perfect. "There shall be
   no defect in it"--and there is no defect in it. Glory be to God Most
   High!

   Now, I want you just to let me stop preaching, as it were, while every
   man among you brings this Sacrifice to God. By faith take it to be
   yours. You may. Christ belongs to every Believer. If you trust Him, He
   is yours! Poor guilty Soul as you are, whether you have been a
   Christian 50 years or 10 years, or whether you are just now converted,
   if you believe, you may now come with Christ in your hands and say to
   the Father, "O my Lord, You have provided for me what Your Law
   requires--a perfect Sacrifice! There is no defect in it. Behold, I
   bring it to You as mine!" God is satisfied. What joy! God is satisfied!
   The Father is well pleased! He has raised Christ from the dead and set
   Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places in token of that
   satisfaction!

   Let us be satisfied, too! That which contents God may well content me.
   My Soul, when your eyes are full of tears on account of your sin and
   your heart is disquieted on account of your infirmities and
   imperfections, look right away from yourself "to the full Atonement
   made, to the utmost ransom paid." The offering of Jesus is perfect and
   accepted! The righteousness of your Lord Jesus is without blemish and
   you are, "accepted in the Beloved."

   That delightful passage in Exodus came flashing up to my mind just now,
   where the Israelite sprinkled the blood on the lintel and the two side
   posts. Then he shut the door. He was inside: he did not see the blood
   any more. The blood was outside upon the posts and he could not see
   it--but was he safe? Yes, because it is written, "When I see the blood,
   I will pass over you." It is God's sight of the blood of His dear Son
   that is the everlasting safeguard of all who are in Christ! Though it
   is most precious and sweet to me to look at that blood once shed for
   many for the remission of sins--and I do look at it--yet if ever there
   should come a dark night to me in which I cannot see it, still, God
   will see it, and I am safe! I am save because it is written, not, "when
   you see it," but, "when I see the blood I will pass over you." It is
   the perfection of the Sacrifice, not your perfection of sight, which is
   your safeguard! It is the absence of all blemish from the Sacrifice--
   not the absence of blemish from your faith--that makes you "accepted in
   the Beloved."

   Well, now, as is too often the case, I have run on so much upon the
   first points that I have not time enough for much more! But I was going
   to finish up by saying that I address myself, for a minute or two, to
   Christians, only. Listen, you that follow after righteousness, you that
   know the Lord! You are saved. You have not, therefore, to bring any
   sacrifice by way of a sin offering, but you have to bring sacrifices of
   thanksgiving. It is your reasonable service that you offer your bodies
   a living sacrifice unto God. If you do this, you cannot bring an
   absolutely perfect sacrifice, but you must labor to let it be perfect
   in what is often the Biblical sense of perfection.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, you must take care that what you bring is
   not blind, for the blind were not to be offered. You must serve God
   with a single eye to the Glory of God. If you attend a Prayer Meeting,
   or teach a class, or preach a sermon, you must not do it with a view to
   your own selves in any way, or it cannot be accepted! The sacrifice
   must see--it must be intelligent, reasonable service--having for its
   objective the Glory of God. It must in that sense be perfect to be
   accepted.

   And as it must not be blind, so it must not be broken. Whenever we
   serve God, we must do it with the whole of our being, for if we try to
   serve God with a bit of our nature and leave the rest unconsecrated, we
   shall not be accepted. Certain professors prefer one class of Christian
   duties and they neglect others--this must not be. Christ gave "Himself
   for you and you must give your whole self to Him. To be acceptable, the
   life must be entire--there must be complete consecration of every
   faculty. How is it with you? Have you brought to the Lord a divided
   sacrifice? If so, He claims the whole.

   Next, they were not to bring a maimed sacrifice, that is, one without
   its limbs. Some people give grudgingly, that is to say they come up to
   the collection box with a limp. Many serve Christ with a broken arm.
   The holy work is done, but it is painfully and slowly done. Among the
   heathen, I believe, they never offered, in sacrifice to the gods, a
   calf that had to be carried. The reason was that they considered that
   the sacrifice ought to be willing to be offered and so it must be able
   to walk up to the altar. Notice in the Old Testament, though there were
   many creatures both birds and beasts, that were offered to God, they
   never offered any fish on the holy altar. The reason probably is that a
   fish could not come there alive. Its life would be spent before it came
   to the altar and, therefore, it could not render a life unto God. Take
   care that you bring your bodies a living sacrifice.

   I notice that many men are all alive when they are in the shop. The way
   they talk, the way they call out to the men and the way they bustle
   everybody about are conclusive evidence that their life is abundant.
   But when they get into the Church of God, what a difference! There may
   be life, somewhere or other, but nobody knows where it is! You have to
   look for it with a microscope. You see no activity, no energy! Oh, that
   these people would remember, "It must be perfect to be accepted!" That
   is to say, there must be energy put into it, soul put into it, heart
   put into it or God will not accept it. We must not bring Him the mere
   chrysalis of a man, out of which the life has gone, but we must bring
   before Him our living, worshipping selves if we would be acceptable
   before Him.

   It is then added, "or having a scab." It does not look as though it
   would hurt the sacrifice much to have a scab, yet there must not be a
   scab, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Above all, avoid that big
   scab of pride. When we feel that we are doing a grand thing and are
   acting in a most satisfactory manner, we may know that we are not
   accepted! A sermon wept over is more acceptable with God than one
   gloried over. That which is given to God with a sigh because you cannot
   do more--and with the humble hope that he may accept it for Christ's
   sake, is infinitely superior to that which is bestowed with the proud
   consciousness that you deserve well of your fellow men, if not of your
   God.

   The sacrifice was not to be scabbed, or to have the scurvy. That is to
   say, it was to be without any sort of outward fault. I have heard men
   say, "It is true I did not do that thing well, but my heart was right."
   That may be, my dear Brother, but you must try and make the whole
   matter as good as it can be! What a deal of scabbed service our Lord
   gets! Men try to be benevolent to their fellow creatures with an
   irritable temper. Certain people try to serve God and write stinging
   letters to promote brotherly love--and dogmatic epistles in favor of
   large-mindedness! Too many render to the Lord hurried, thoughtless
   worship and many more give for offerings their smallest coins and such
   things as they will never miss! God has many a scurvy sheep brought
   before Him.

   Did you never bring any, my Brother? Did I never bring any? Ah, me! Ah,
   me! But still, let us mend our ways and, since the Lord Jesus offered
   Himself without spot, let us try to serve Him with our utmost care. The
   best of the best should be given to the Best of the best! We sometimes
   sing--

   "All that Iam, and all Ihave,

   Shall be forever Yours.'"

   Oh, that we practiced it as well as sang it! Would God that the best of
   our lives, the best hours of the morning, the best skill of our hands,
   the best thoughts of our minds, the very cream of our being were given
   to our God! But, alas, Christ's cause is sent round to the back door to
   get the broken meat and, "Mind you do not leave too much meat on the
   bone," is the kind of instruction that is given to her who hands it
   out! Christ Jesus is sent to the dung heap for the odds and ends!
   Cheese parings and candle ends are given to the Missionary Society.
   Perhaps the statement is too liberal--it would be well if they were!
   Three-pennies and four-pennies are gracious gifts from struggling
   tradesmen and poor work people, but they are hardly decent when sent in
   by folk who spend hundreds of pounds upon their own pleasure! To God's
   altar we ought to bring the best bullock from the stall and the best
   sheep from the fold!

   I leave you to yourselves to judge whether it is not so. If you are not
   over head and ears in debt to the mercy of God in Christ, then it is
   not so. But if you are debtors to Divine Mercy beyond all compute, you
   shall, each one, reckon up for himself--"How much owe you unto my
   Lord?" If it is a debt you can never calculate--then give the Lord,
   from this day forth--the fullness of your being! May God grant that you
   and your offerings may be accepted in Christ Jesus! Amen and amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Lesson and a Fortune for Christian Men of Business

   (No. 1880)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, JANUARY 24, 1886.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 12, 1885.

   "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with
   such things as you have: for He has said, I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you." Hebrews 13:5.

   THE Apostle warns us against a tendency very natural to our race. "Let
   your conversation be without covetousness." I am afraid that the
   precept is even more needed, now, than in the days of the Apostle. We
   are still more sharp and keen in competition and men in trade are even
   more anxious to accumulate money than they were in Apostolic times. It
   is not easy for a man to keep his heart clear of covetousness, or his
   hands clean from moral bribes. There is a singular stickiness about
   gold and silver. They have a great tendency to birdlime our souls and
   hold them fast, so that they cannot rise superior to their influence.
   The Revised Version reads our text, "Be you free from the love of
   money" and it puts in the margin, "Let your turn of mind be free from
   the love of money." May we all enjoy that freedom and may our turn of
   mind lead us to seek better things than the miser is able to hoard!

   There is a laudable pursuit of gain, without which business would not
   be properly carried on, but there is a line, scarcely as broad as a
   razor's edge, between diligence in business and greediness for gain. We
   can so easily pass from the one into the other that we may hardly be
   aware of it. When a man is increasing his investments, when he is
   extending his agencies, when he is enlarging his warehouse, when he is
   employing a larger number of persons than formerly, or even when he is
   bemoaning the depression of his trade and his heart is aching because
   he has only half as much business as before, covetousness may insinuate
   itself into his conversation. It is a snake which can enter at the
   smallest opening. It lurks in the grass where it is long, but it
   glides, also, where the pasture is bare. It may come in either in
   prosperity or in adversity and it is necessary to whisper in the ear of
   each Believer, whether going up or down in the world, "Let your
   conversation--your daily conduct--be without covetousness."

   Any Brother here--and it is to the Brothers, mainly, that the
   temptation comes, I think--any Brother here may have present need of
   such a warning as this. And if he does not need it just now, he may lay
   it by till he does, for it will keep. But let me not restrict the text
   or the sermon to the male side of the house. The Sisters may fall into
   a like temptation, in the saving, as their husbands in the getting. You
   godly matrons, you industrious Marthas, "Let your conversation be
   without covetousness."

   The Apostle here hints at what is the real cure for covetousness,
   namely, contentment. This is a rare drug in the market. The words of
   the Apostle make up a golden sentence--"Be content with such things as
   you have."

   It is supposed by most persons that they could be content if they were
   not exactly what they are and where they are. But the precept exhorts
   them to be content with their present circumstances. If they had a
   little more, they would be satis-fied--but that is not the contentment
   to which we are exhorted! It is written, "Be content with such things
   as you have." If God has multiplied your possessions, you ought the
   more readily to be content with such things as you have, though I am
   not sure you will be, for there is a saltiness in the water which comes
   out of wells dug by the Philistines, so that he who drinks from them
   shall thirst again. I once thought that a million would satisfy any
   mortal man, but I have been assured by one who has considerable
   experience in that direction, that he who has one million is unable to
   see any reason why he should not have two or ten!

   However, I may let that pass, for millions or thousands are not likely
   to tempt the most of us who are here assembled. If you have little
   possessions, yet still listen to the voice of Wisdom, which says, "Be
   content with such things as you

   have." You now have a measure of trouble by reason of the straitness of
   your means. You might have more trouble with the breadth of your means
   if you had all you would like to have! It may not be quite easy to
   travel when your garments are too short, but it is much harder to keep
   them from dragging in the mire when they are too long. Though a single
   staff is such a convenience that a traveler without one may sigh for
   it, yet a dozen canes would be a load which would make the burdened man
   prefer, rather, to have no staff at all than to have so many to carry.
   I believe that it is an advantage to have wealth when wealth is kept in
   its right place, but the difficulty is that the horse often runs away
   with the rider and he who has wealth too often loses his liberty and
   falls into sore bondage by becoming the slave of his own possessions!
   "Be content with such things as you have." After all, contentment
   drinks the cream of life. So far as earthly things are concerned, he is
   the happiest, no--he is the richest man who is content with such things
   as he has!

   The ripest apple in the garden grows on the tree of contentment. The
   garments which fit us best are the most fit for us and are the most
   comfortable to wear. He who is where he should be and where he would be
   has no cause to envy Solomon in all his glory. He that lives in the
   Valley of Humiliation among the fragrant flowers and the sweet-voiced
   birds-- and looks up to Heaven for his treasure and to God for his
   home--he is the happiest of mortal men! God teach us how to shun the
   vice of covetousness by cultivating the virtue of contentment! May the
   sweet flower choke the ill weed! "Let your conversation be without
   covetousness; and be content with such things as you have."

   I asked a question, some years ago, of a person whom I believed to be
   one of the most covetous individuals in my acquaintance, and I received
   from him a singular reply. I said, "How was it that St. Francis de
   Sales, who was an eminent confessor, to whom persons went in the Romish
   church to confess their sins, found that persons confessed to him, in
   private, all sorts of horrible sins, such as adultery, drunkenness and
   murder, but never had one person confessed the sin of covetousness?" I
   asked this friend whether he could tell me why it was and he gave me
   this answer which certainly did take me rather aback. He said, "I
   suppose it is because the sin is so extremely rare." Blind soul! I told
   him that, on the other hand, I feared the sin was so very common that
   people did not know when they were covetous and that the man who was
   most covetous of all was the last person to suspect himself of it! I
   feel persuaded that it is so. Covetousness breeds an insensibility in
   the heart, a mortification in the conscience, a blindness in the mind!
   It is as hard to convict a man of it as to make a deaf ear hear of its
   own deficiencies. You cannot make a horseleech see the impropriety of
   desiring to suck-- to all your expostulations it renders the one
   answer, "Give, give."

   Covetousness goes about in disguise. In the "Holy War," we read that
   when Diabolus sent traitors to lurk about the town of Mansoul, he sent
   among the rest a young fellow named Covetousness. But when he entered
   into the town of Man-soul, he took the name of Mr. Prudent Thrifty and
   he was engaged at once as a servant. I think it was in the house of Mr.
   Conscience, the Recorder. He seemed such a likely young man, this youth
   of the name of Prudent Thrifty. Now, mind you, Friends, when you are
   taking a servant, that you do not engage one with the name of Prudent
   Thrifty, for I have information that he comes of the family of the
   Greedies and that his true name is, "Covetousness," though it may be
   long before you find it out! His near relations are the Screws, the
   Skinflints, and the Grab-Alls, but he will not admit them, but always
   mentions his great-uncle, Squire Prudence and his mother's brother,
   Professor Economy, of the University of Accumulation. You will have
   need to carry your eyes in your head if you mean to practice the
   precept, "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content
   with such things as you have."

   I am exceedingly glad that the Apostle Paul had met with certain
   covetous Hebrews. This Epistle was written by a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
   to the Hebrews! And Hebrews, from Jacob, downwards, were never quite
   free from this sin. They are not so today. I am glad he met with some
   of them because, in giving an exhortation to them, he let drop one of
   the choicest pearls in all the treasury of God's Word--a pearl which
   Gentiles will prize as much as their brethren, the Jews. Here it
   is--"For He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you." This is
   the reason why we must not be covetous! There is no room to be
   covetous, no excuse for being covetous, for God has said, "I will never
   leave you, nor forsake you." We ought to be content! If we are not
   content, we are acting insanely, seeing the Lord has said, "I will
   never leave you, nor forsake you." If we have God's Presence, God's
   help, God's Covenant favor, God's gracious Providence, God's Covenant
   engagements for our good--what more can we need?

   I. The first observation I am going to make upon this most weighty text
   is this--THAT A WORD OF THE LORD IS OF GREAT WEIGHT TO A BELIEVER. Paul
   said, "Let your conversation be without covetousness." And there was
   weight in that. He added, "Be content with such things as you have."
   And there was weight in that, also, for there was

   Inspiration at the back of each sentence. But when he went on to say,
   "FOR HE HAS SAID," and to bring in the Person of God as distinctly
   speaking to each one of us, saying, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you," then he felt that he had brought the weightiest argument
   that he, himself, as an Inspired man, could think of! When Jehovah
   Himself speaks, there is no excuse for doubting, questioning, or,
   answering back! When God Himself deals with our souls, we are like wax
   under the seal--at least we desire to be so.

   I want you, my Hearer, to discern whose child you are by this. I
   observe, growing up everywhere, a trifling with the Word of God, a
   questioning of this and a questioning of that. I am not half so much
   concerned about the false doctrine that is being taught when the
   teacher of it thinks he gets it from the Bible, as I am when I find men
   treating the Bible as though it were just nothing at all, or, at least,
   an exceedingly small matter! If the Scripture stands in their way, our
   modern divines drive a tunnel through it as readily as men make a
   railroad through a hill! They toss the sacred Book on one side, as if
   it were quite a common document which might be treated with
   indifference, since the age has outgrown its Bible. Now, mark this--by
   this shall you know whether you are a child of God, or not--by the
   respect that you have to your Father's Word. If you have small respect
   for that Word, the evidences of a bastard are upon you!

   If you tremble at God's Word. If you stand in awe of it. If you can
   read the 119th Psalm through and can join with David in intense delight
   in the Law of God, you have the traits of a true-born child of God--and
   the Book is yours-- with all that it contains! But if not, you are one
   of the children of that Evil One who questioned the Word of the Lord in
   the beginning and continues to deny it to this day! If you pick and
   choose in the teachings of Inspiration. If you believe this and slight
   that, you make yourself a judge of that which is your Judge--and you
   have not the tokens of a child of God! See well to this, for there is
   more in this test than quibblers will allow. That which they lightly
   esteem is precious in the sight of the Lord! If you are a child of God,
   you may find it necessary to protest against what I say on my own
   authority, for what am I but a poor creature like yourself? If you are
   a child of God, you may have to stand out against even that which is a
   settled doctrine among renowned divines, for we know no human authority
   in the Church of God!

   But if you are a child of God, a single text will be enough for you. I
   set a solitary passage of God's Word against a Sanhedrim of
   philosophers! They may argue and dogmatize as they will, but one Word
   from the mouth of the Lord has more weight than all their counsels! If
   God's Light and God's Word are not in them, we need not pay any
   attention to them. Even the babe in Grace shall triumph, by the aid of
   God's Word, over the most learned and mighty of those who despise the
   Book! The day is coming when all this "modern thought" will pass away
   like the leaves in autumn. How soon shall the white frost of scientific
   infidelity pass from off the face of the Lord's green pastures! O
   Jerusalem, those who invade you shall be as the foam upon the waters!
   Where is the scribe? Where are the counters of the towers? God has made
   nothing of the great ones and made foolishness of the wisdom of this
   world! By this shall you know the children of God--one Word of God has
   weight and authority with them--but the seed of the serpent still say,
   "Yes, has God said?"

   See then the argument--"Let your conversation be without covetousness;
   and be content with such things as you have: for He has said." That "He
   has said" is the hammer which drives the nail home and clinches it with
   every true child

   of God!

   II. My second observation is this--THE WORD OF THE LORD MAY HAVE A
   THOUSAND FULFILMENTS. When man makes a promise and he keeps it, that
   promise is done with. You cannot expect a banker to pay a check a
   second time. The merchant who duly meets his bill, once, has met it
   once and for all, and the document is, from that time, of no value. But
   when God makes a promise He fulfils it, fulfils it and fulfils it,
   again, and again, and again, to the same man and to hundreds of other
   men! The Lord's promise once given is never recalled! He does as good
   as give forth each Inspired promise every moment anew--He is forever
   promising that which is once promised in His Word! He has made a
   promise for all time when He has once made it. So long as there shall
   be need of such a promise, God will never speak in secret, in a dark
   place of the earth and revoke what He has said--

   "Engraved as in eternal brass

   The mighty promise shines!

   Nor can the po wers of darkness erase

   Those everlasting lines"

   Now, I do not think this particular promise is recorded anywhere in the
   Old Testament in these exact words. There are great differences between
   the Hebrew and the Septuagint and, this particular Greek text, "He has
   said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you," is not to be found with
   exact accuracy in either. I suspect that this is, in fact, a household

   Word of the Lord our God, which, though you find the line of it in
   Scripture, need not to have been expressly recorded there, because,
   essentially, and from the very nature of things, it must be true of
   Jehovah our God. He who is the God of Grace and of Immutable Love, has
   virtually said, by His very Nature, to those that seek His face, "I
   will never leave you, nor forsake you." All that we know about God,
   says, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." All that we have ever
   experienced about God, all that our fathers have experienced, goes to
   show that Jehovah does not forsake His people, nor cast away those whom
   He did foreknow.

   Still, this promise is in the Word of God--if not in the letter of it,
   exactly--yet in the full meaning and spirit of it, which is more. For
   instance, we meet with this promise, probably, first of all, when Jacob
   fell asleep, after he had left his father's house, a lone man, to go
   off to a land which he had never seen. You will remember, in the 28th
   chapter of Genesis, how it was recorded that Jacob lay down in a
   certain place which would seem to have been a lonely, rugged den. And
   as he lay and slept, he dreamed a dream and beheld a wondrous ladder
   set upon the earth, the top of which reached to Heaven and, behold, the
   angels of God ascended and descended on it! Then it was that the Lord
   said to him, "I am with you and will keep you in all places where you
   go and will bring you, again, into this land, for I will not leave you
   until I have done that which I have spoken to you of."

   That is a blessed shape of the promise, is it not?--"I will not leave
   you until I have done that which I have spoken to you of." That
   assurance meant--"I will bless you and I will bless your future seed. I
   will give you all the blessedness which you are able to receive at My
   hands and I will not leave you till I have fulfilled with you the
   Covenant of which you are the heir." So the Lord, in effect, says to
   each Believer at this hour, "I will not leave you till I have done that
   which I have spoken to you of." All the processes of Grace shall be
   carried out in each humble, trustful soul! Our heavenly Father may be
   heard to say to each one of us by the Holy Spirit--"I have washed you
   from your sin in the precious blood of Christ. I will also deliver you
   from the stain, the power and the indwelling of sin. I will perfect
   you. I will lead every thought captive to My love. I have already made
   you to be a partaker of My Grace and you shall surely be a partaker of
   My Glory."

   Come, child of God, is not that a blessed promise as Jacob received it?
   "Alas," you say, "I do not know how to get a similar hold upon the
   promise." Ah, that is the point! But there is a Word of the Lord in
   that vision which I should greatly like you to notice. The Lord said to
   Jacob, "I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of
   Isaac: the land whereon you lie, to you will I give it, and to your
   seed." Brothers and Sisters, if you can lie down on a promise, the Lord
   has given it to you! There Jacob lies. He stretches himself out at full
   length and with all his weight, in all his weariness, he lies down and
   goes to sleep. And by that act he takes possession of the land where he
   lies! What a sweet and sure mode of inheriting promises, namely, by
   resting on them! Behold the promise and just say, "I believe this to be
   the sure and true Word of the Lord. I will gladly lie down on it." Let
   your faith be serenely confident and then the promise rested on is
   yours! If you can lie down upon a promise, it is yours. Oh, for faith,
   then, to stretch ourselves upon the blessed Word of our text at this
   moment! He has said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Let us
   each one say, O my God, I do believe this to be true and I hereby
   venture my body, soul and spirit upon this promise! For time and for
   eternity I trust my all with You!

   Furthermore, our text occurs in the Book of Deuteronomy. We find Moses
   delivering this same Word of God, or one even more nearly like it than
   the Genesis edition, to the whole house of Israel just before they were
   about to cross into the land of Canaan to take possession of their
   inheritance. In the 31st of Deuteronomy, at the 6th verse, Moses said
   to the people, "Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be
   afraid of them: for the Lord your God, He it is that does go with you;
   He will not fail you, nor forsake you." When God's people are beginning
   a long and fierce warfare and when their enemies seem like giants in
   their sight, let them sharpen their swords upon this assurance, "He has
   said, I will not fail you, nor forsake you." Go on, then, though you
   seem as grasshoppers in the sight of your foes and in your own sight!
   Though there is very much land to be possessed, yet plunge into the war
   without fear, for, "He has said, I will not fail you, nor forsake you."
   We are able to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil, since the
   Lord our God will be with us as our strength and our song, our sword
   and our shield!

   In this same chapter of Deuteronomy you get the same text given to
   Joshua, who was the leader of the host, as also in the first chapter of
   the Book of Joshua, at the fifth verse, where the Lord expressly tells
   him, "I will not fail you, nor forsake you." If you, my Brother, are
   called to be a leader among God's people, your heart, I know, will
   sometimes grow

   very heavy. In the midst of my own band of worthies I am often sore put
   to it and you will be the same. You may meet defeats where you hoped
   for victories and faint hearts where you looked for heroes. But the
   Lord, who calls you to play the part of a Joshua among His people, will
   be Jesus to you, if you are Joshua for Him! He will stand at your side
   as the Captain of the Lord's host and you shall surely win the victory.

   This is the same Word which was afterwards spoken to David in his gray
   old age when he was about to resign the scepter to his son, Solomon.
   Solomon had to build a great and exceedingly magnificent house for the
   Lord--and it was no small enterprise for so young a man. Therefore
   David, in the first Book of the Chronicles, at the 28th chapter, and
   the 20th verse, says to him, "Be strong and of good courage, and do it:
   fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord, even my God, will be with you;
   He will not fail you, nor forsake you, until you have finished all the
   work for the service of the house of the Lord." Beloved, God was with
   Solomon in his colossal enterprise! He did build the Temple. Whatever
   treasure was needed came in due time. Whatever art and skill were
   required--and the Temple needed skill of a very unusual order for that
   early age of the world--yet everything was forthcoming! Tyre and Sidon
   yielded themselves as the servants of the God of the Hebrews for the
   building of the Temple! To the astonishment of the age, the great
   Temple was built and became the Glory of all lands, for the Lord did
   not fail His servant!

   You see, then, we have found four cases in which this promise was
   fulfilled. It held good after it had been already carried out! Are you,
   my Brother, leaving your father's house as a young man? Are you about
   to enter upon a very perilous course of life that will be set thick
   with trials, like the life of Jacob with Laban? "Fear not, for God will
   not fail you, nor forsake you." On the other hand, are you as a child
   of God fighting with inward sin, because the Canaanite is still in the
   land? Is the inward spiritual battle very severe just now? Yet, "He has
   said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Or, are you responsible
   for others? Are you called to watch for souls and to lead others to the
   conflict? Be not cast down nor disquieted, as you will be very apt to
   be if you look to yourself, for this is an office involving sore
   travail! Find your strength in this Word of God--"He has said, I will
   never leave you, nor forsake you." Is it that God has put into your
   hands some great work to do for His name? Is your whole life to be as a
   temple, adorned with the riches of faith and the glories of hope and
   love? Fear not, you shall finish your design! You shall make a temple
   for God to dwell in. Go boldly on in the matter to which God has called
   you! Go to the quarries, or to the gold mines and do as God bids you,
   for, "He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   So you see the promise is, in many ways, fulfilled. I have seen a check
   for a million pounds. I have seen only one in my life. I handled it. It
   is now on the wall of a friend's house, framed and glazed, but it is
   worth nothing as money. I suppose the million pounds were paid--the
   check is so marked. It is of no use to anyone. If a thief were to get
   in and steal it, it would be of no use to him. But God's promises are
   always useful--you may receive them and still receive them--over and
   over again! They stand forever true and they are true this night to you
   and to me! If the world shall last 10,000 years, as I hope it may not,
   yet the promise will remain as a nail fastened in a sure place--"I will
   never leave you, nor forsake you."

   Thus have we had two observations. And I will now make a third with
   great brevity.

   III. The WORD OF THE LORD IS TO BE APPROPRIATED BY EACH CHILD OF GOD
   AND ACTED ON. "He

   has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   I like this singularity of the person. You see, Paul had been saying in
   general, "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content
   with such things as you have." And then he changes from the plural and
   writes, "for He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you."
   When the Lord speaks in this instance, His promise is in the singular.
   He speaks to us with that--I do not know what to call it unless I use a
   French word--sweet tu-toiage, which is the language of endearment, the
   chosen speech of love. When one man speaks to another and means him to
   know that his promise is assuredly and altogether for him and that he
   is most lovingly his friend, he cannot do better than use the singular
   and personal pronoun. "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   Take the "you," plural, out of all God's promises, and put the singular
   "you" in its place, for you are permitted to do so! We make fearful
   failures with God's promises through not appropriating them. I have
   heard of a Sunday school teacher who performed an experiment which I do
   not think I shall ever try with Sunday school children, for it might
   turn out exactly as it did in his case. He had been trying to
   illustrate what faith was and, as he could not get it into the minds of
   his children, he took his watch, and he said, "Now, I will give you
   this watch, John. Will you have it?" John fell think-

   ing what the teacher could mean and did not seize the treasure. He said
   to the next, "Henry, there is the watch. Will you have it?" The boy
   replied, "No, thank you, Sir," with a very proper modesty. He went by
   several boys, till, at last a youngster who was not so wise or
   thoughtful as the others, but rather more believing, said, "Thank you,
   Sir," and put the watch into his pocket! Then the other boys woke up to
   a startling fact--their companion had received a watch and they had
   not! One of the boys enquired of the teacher, "Is he to keep it?" "Of
   course he is," said the teacher, "I put the watch before you and said
   that I gave it to you, but none of you accepted it." "Oh," said the
   boy, "if I had known you meant it, I would have taken it." And all the
   boys were in a dreadful state of mind to think that they had lost the
   watch. Each one cried, "I did not think you meant it, but I thought."
   Each one said, "Please, teacher, I thought." Each one had his theory
   except the simple little boy who believed what he was told and got the
   watch!

   Now, I wish that I could always be such a simple child as literally to
   believe what the Lord says and live by that belief. The Apostle drives
   us to such practical faith when he says, "Let your conversation be
   without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for
   He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   You smiled just now. I do not think that there was any harm in your
   doing so, but I will tell you what we must not smile at, and that is, I
   believe that nine out of 10 of you do not believe that God has said to
   you, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." You think you do, but
   you do not! You also have got some most powerful reason why you dare
   not take the watch--I mean the promise. You are so wise that you feel
   that you cannot expect the Lord to interfere in any way for you. No,
   no, no--either you are not worthy of it (which is quite correct)--or
   else you do not like to take things quite so literally, or there is
   some other reason why you cannot literally accept the Divine assurance!
   There are, perhaps, one or two fools among us who have got a hold of
   God's Word and actually believe it to be a matter of fact. But I do not
   think that many are so simple. Those who do so are generally poor
   obscure persons, but I should greatly envy them if I were not one of
   their number. With all my heart I do believe, "He will never leave me,
   nor forsake me."

   When the service is over, I know who will go away with dancing feet and
   sparkling eyes, to sleep sweetly through the night and wake tomorrow
   morning fresh as the lark with a song on his tongue. It is that poor
   simpleton of a Christian who really believes his God and says, "Yes, He
   will never leave me, nor forsake me!" Though he has scarcely a shoe to
   his foot; though he has scarcely a copper in his pocket; and though he
   is brought very low and has to live from hand to mouth, yet if he has
   grasped the promise, he has such a wellspring of delight within him
   that his soul shall be satisfied in time of drought and in the days of
   famine he shall be filled to the fullest! Oh, to be full of that
   blessed folly which treats God as He ought to be treated and believes
   what He says and acts accordingly--and finds it to be true! If you have
   a sham god, a sham faith, sham troubles and sham experiences, why, you
   are, yourself, altogether a sham! But he that believes in a real God
   and has such a real faith in God as a child has in its mother shall
   find God's promises to be the verity of verities!

   IV. A further observation is this--EACH WORD OF GOD HAS ITS OWN
   USEFULNESS. This particular Word,

   that we have before us, is an illustration of this fact.

   This particular text is an extraordinarily useful one, for, first, if
   you notice, it covers all time. "I will never leave you, nor forsake
   you." Well, if God will never leave me, He will not leave me now. If He
   will never leave me, no time is excluded from the word, "never."
   However dark or however bright, it says, "never." Suppose I am going to
   live till I am 90 or a 100--what then? You will call me a poor old
   soul, but He has said, "I will never leave you." Suppose I should be
   very sick, indeed, and my reason should begin to fail? Even then, "He
   has said, I will never leave you." Might there not occur a few minutes
   in which the Lord may forget me? Certainly not, "for He has said, I
   will never leave you, nor forsake you." Is not this a blessed cover for
   the whole of life and all the exigencies of it? It matters not how long
   we live! We cannot outlive--"I will never leave you." You that are
   familiar with the Greek text know that there are five negatives here.
   We cannot manage five negatives in English, but the Greeks find them
   not too large a handful. Here the negatives have a fivefold force. It
   is as though it said, "I will not, not leave you; I will never, no
   never, forsake you." Perhaps a verse of one of our hymns hits it off as
   nearly as can be--

   "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,

   I will not, I will not desert to his foes.

   That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake,

   I'll never, no never, no never forsake."

   Our text covers all space, as well as all time. Suppose we emigrate.
   Suppose we are compelled to go to a backwoods settlement of America or
   Canada, or away to Australia or New Zealand? This promise will go with
   us all the way--"I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Suppose we
   have to take to sea and lead the risky life of a sailor? We will sail
   with this at the masthead--"I will never leave you." But suppose we
   should get into prison? Does not Jesus visit those who are prisoners
   for His name's sake? Has He not said, "I will never leave you?" Suppose
   we go up in the world and fall under great responsibilities? This goes
   up with us, "I will never leave you." Suppose, more likely, we go down
   in the world-- this goes down with us, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you."

   And then it covers all circumstances. "I will never leave you." I may
   get to be a very childish old body. "I will never leave you." But my
   dear children may all be dead and I may be quite a solitary person. "I
   will never leave you." But every friend may turn tail and desert me. "I
   will never leave you." But I may be in such a state that nobody will
   acknowledge me. "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."

   I find the first Greek word has something of this meaning, "I will
   never sit loose by you," or, "I will never relax." That is the root of
   the word. I will never let you slip. I will never let you go, as it
   were, from Me though holding you loosely.

   The other word has in it something of the idea of a person remaining in
   a spot and another person going away from him and so forsaking him. The
   Lord seems to say, "I will never leave you where I cannot be with you.
   I will never let you stand alone. I will always be with you."

   This is a blessed, blessed promise! You see it takes in all
   contingencies, however serious. It takes in all anticipations, however
   doleful. It takes in all suppositions, and it includes all actualities.
   "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Oh, dear! We sometimes sit
   down and imagine all manner of dreadful, dolorous things. I will not
   repeat what things I have said to myself, for I do not want you to know
   how foolish I sometimes am! But I have heard persons bemoaning
   themselves like this--"Perhaps I may lose my job. I may not get
   another. I may starve." What comes of, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you?" Another says, "I fear I shall live to be very old. I do
   not know how I shall be supported. I shall get into the workhouse and
   have to be buried by the parish! I cannot bear to think of it." Friend,
   do you not, after all, believe the Word, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you"?

   I will tell you this morsel of my own faults. Sometimes I have said, "I
   suffer so much. I become so ill. I shall be so long away from the
   Tabernacle. The congregation will be greatly injured. Perhaps I shall
   never be able to preach again." I have struggled to this pulpit when I
   could hardly stand. And when the service was over and I have been
   weary, the wicked whisper has come, "Yes, I shall soon be useless. I
   shall have to stay in my bed, or be wheeled about in a chair, and be a
   burden instead of a help." This has seemed a dreadful prospect, but, "I
   will never leave you, nor forsake you," has come in and I have shaken
   off my fears and, by His Grace, have rejoiced in the Lord my God!

   Suppose we were to lose our eyes? We would still see God and God would
   see us! Suppose we were to lose our hearing? We would still hear our
   Father's voice! Suppose we should gradually fail in every faculty? The
   Holy Spirit would still comfort us and be with us! Many children of God
   have been very happy in the most deplorable circumstances. And suppose
   we should die? Ah, well, that is the best thing that can be, for then
   we shall go Home to be with our heavenly Father forever!

   I cannot, under the influence of this grand text, find room for doubt
   or fear! I cannot stand here and be miserable tonight! I am not going
   to attempt such a thing, but I cannot be despondent with such a text as
   this, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." I defy the devil,
   himself, to mention circumstances under which I ought to be miserable
   if this text is true! Child of God, nothing ought to make you unhappy
   when you can realize this precious text!

   Some of you cannot bask in this sunshiny promise. It is not yours! The
   words are "I will never leave you." This implies that God must be with
   us--and if He is not with us, the promise is not ours. You cannot take
   home to yourself the promise, "I will never leave you," if you have
   nothing to do with God! "I will not forsake you"--does not this, also,
   take something for granted? If the Lord has never been with you; if He
   has never forgiven you; if you have never sought His face; if you have
   never accepted His mercy in Christ Jesus, why, then, the promise is not
   yours and you have cause for trembling rather than for rejoicing! God
   is against you! He fits His arrow to the string. He prepares His bolts
   against you! Tremble, and submit yourself to Him! Oh, that you would do
   so at once--and trust in Jesus and live!

   If the Lord is with you and if you are with Him, the promise stands
   forever, "I will never leave you." If you have trusted in Him--if you
   are trusting in Him--He has said, "I will never forsake you." Go away
   and rejoice, O child of God! You must have troubles. Where could we go
   to have no cares? Unless a man could leap over the edge of the
   universe, or fly from under this cloudy sky, how could he escape from
   care? It you were to dive to the bottom of the sea, this crooked
   serpent would bite you. If you could fly above the clouds, this eagle
   would pursue you. If you were to hide in the heart of the earth, the
   death damp would overpower you. But with all actual trouble, with all
   possible trouble, with all impossible trouble, if you bear this promise
   with you, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you," you may sing
   hallelujahs both in life and in death! And with such music you may wing
   your way to the world of bliss! Let us begin the music right now by
   singing right heartily--

   Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

   Praise Him all Creatures here below!

   Praise Him above, you heavenly host!

   Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"
     __________________________________________________________________

The Dying Thief in a New Light

   (No. 1881)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 31, 1886,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 23, 1885.

   "But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God,
   seeing you are in the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly; for we
   receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man has done nothing
   wrong. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into
   Your Kingdom." Luke 23:40-42.

   A GREAT many persons, whenever they hear of the conversion of the dying
   thief, remember that he was saved in the very article of death and they
   dwell upon that fact, and that, alone. He has always been quoted as a
   case of salvation at the 11th hour and so, indeed, he is. In his case
   it is proven that as long as a man can repent, he can obtain
   forgiveness. The Cross of Christ avails even for a man hanging on a
   gallows and drawing near to his last breath. He who is mighty to save
   was mighty, even during His own death, to pluck others from the grasp
   of the Destroyer, though they were in the act of expiring.

   But that is not everything which the story teaches us and it is always
   a pity to look exclusively upon one point--and thus to miss everything
   else--perhaps miss that which is more important! So often has this been
   the case that it has produced a sort of revulsion of feeling in certain
   minds, so that they have been driven in a wrong direction by their wish
   to protest against what they think to be a common error. I read the
   other day that this story of the dying thief ought not to be taken as
   an encouragement to death-bed repentance! Brothers, if the author
   meant--and I do not think he did--that this ought never to be so used
   as to lead people to postpone repentance to a dying bed, he spoke
   correctly. No Christian man could or would use it so injuriously--he
   must be hopelessly bad who would draw from God's long-suffering an
   argument for continuing in sin!

   I trust, however, that the narrative is not often so used, even by the
   worst of men, and I feel sure that it will not be so used by any of
   you. It cannot be properly turned to such a purpose--it might be used
   as an encouragement to thieving just as much as to the delay of
   repentance. I might say, "I may be a thief because this thief was
   saved," just as rationally as I might say, "I may put off repentance
   because this thief was saved when he was about to die." The fact is,
   there is nothing so good but men can pervert it into evil if they have
   evil hearts! The justice of God is made a motive for despair and His
   mercy an argument for sin! Wicked men will drown themselves in the
   rivers of the Truth of God as readily as in the pools of error! He that
   has a mind to destroy himself can choke his soul with the Bread of
   life, or dash himself in pieces against the Rock of Ages. There is no
   doctrine of the Grace of God so gracious that graceless men may not
   turn it into licentiousness.

   I venture, however, to say that if I stood by the bedside of a dying
   man, tonight, and I found him anxious about his soul, but fearful that
   Christ could not save him because repentance had been put off so late,
   I would certainly quote the dying thief to him--and I would do it with
   good conscience--and without hesitation. I would tell him that, though
   he was as near to dying as the thief upon the cross was, yet if he
   repented of his sin and turned his face believingly to Christ, he would
   find eternal life. I would do this with all my heart, rejoicing that I
   had such a story to tell one at the gates of eternity! I do not think
   that I would be censured by the Holy Spirit for thus using a narrative
   which He has, Himself, recorded--recorded with the foresight that it
   would be so used. I would feel, at any rate, in my own heart, a sweet
   conviction that I had treated the subject as I ought to have treated
   it--and as it was intended to be used for men in extremis whose hearts
   are turning towards the living God. Oh, yes, poor Soul, whatever your
   age, or whatever the period of life to which you have come, you may now
   find eternal life by faith in Christ!--

   " The dying thief rejoiced to see That Fountain in his day And there
   may you, though vile as he, Wash all your sins away."

   Many good people think that they ought to guard the Gospel, but it is
   never so safe as when it stands out in its own naked majesty! It needs
   no covering from us. When we protect it with provisos, guard it with
   exceptions and qualify it with observations, it is like David in Saul's
   armor--it is hampered and hindered and you may even hear it cry, "I
   cannot go with these." Let the Gospel alone and it will save! Qualify
   it and the salt has lost its savor. I will venture to put it thus to
   you. I have heard it said that few are ever converted in old age and
   this is thought to be a statement which will prove exceedingly
   awakening and impressive for the young. It certainly wears that
   appearance, but, on the other hand, it is a statement very discouraging
   to the old! I object to the frequent repetition of such statements, for
   I do not find their counterpart in the teaching of our Lord and His
   Apostles!

   Assuredly our Lord spoke of some who entered the vineyard at the 11th
   hour of the day. And among His miracles, He not only saved those who
   were dying, but even raised the dead! Nothing can be concluded from the
   Words of the Lord Jesus against the salvation of men at any hour or
   age! I tell you, that in the business of your acceptance with God,
   through faith in Christ Jesus, it does not matter what age you are! The
   same promise is to each of you, "Today, if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts." And whether you are in the earliest stage of
   life, or are within a few hours of eternity, if you fly for refuge,
   now, to the hope set before you in the Gospel, you shall be saved! The
   Gospel that I preach excludes none on the ground either of age or
   character!

   Whoever you may be, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
   saved," is the message we have to deliver to you! If we address to you
   the longer form of the Gospel, "He that believes and is baptized shall
   be saved," this is true of every living person, be his age whatever it
   may! I am not afraid that this story of the dying and repenting thief
   who went straight from the cross to the crown, will be used by you
   wrongly, but if you are wicked enough to use it so, I cannot help it.
   It will only fulfill that solemn Scripture which says that the Gospel
   is a savor of death unto death to some, even that very Gospel which is
   a savor of life unto life to others!

   But I do not think, dear Friends, that the only specialty about the
   thief is the lateness of his repentance. So far from being the only
   point of interest, it is not even the chief point! To some minds, at
   any rate, other points will be even more remarkable. I want to show you
   very briefly that there was a specialty in his case as to the means of
   his conversion. Secondly, a specialty in his faith. Thirdly, a
   specialty in the result of his faith while he was here below. And,
   fourthly, a specialty in the promise won by his faith--the promise
   fulfilled to him in Paradise.

   I. First, then, I think you ought to notice very carefully THE
   SINGULARITY AND SPECIALITY OF THE MEANS BY WHICH THE THIEF WAS
   CONVERTED.

   How do you think it was? Well, we do not know. We cannot tell. It seems
   to me that the man was an unconverted, impenitent thief when they
   nailed him to the cross because one of the Evangelists says, "The
   thieves, also, which were crucified with Him, cast the same in His
   teeth." I know that this may have been a general statement and that it
   is reconcilable with its having been done by one thief, only, according
   to the methods commonly used by critics, but I am not enamored of
   critics even when they are friendly. I have such respect for Revelation
   that I never, in my own mind, permit the idea of discrepancies and
   mistakes--and when the Evangelist says, "they," I believe he meant,
   "they," and that both these thieves did, at the beginning of their
   crucifixion, rail at the Christ with whom they were crucified. It would
   appear that by some means, or other, this thief must have been
   converted while he was on the cross. Assuredly nobody preached a sermon
   to him, no evangelistic address was delivered at the foot of his cross
   and no meeting was held for special prayer on his account. He does not
   even seem to have had an instruction, or an invitation, or an
   expostulation addressed to him-- and yet this man became a sincere and
   accepted Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ!

   Dwell upon this fact, if you please, and note its practical bearing
   upon the cases of many around us. There are many among my hearers who
   have been instructed from their childhood, who have been admonished,
   warned, entreated, invited and yet they have not come to Christ--while
   this man, without any of these advantages--nevertheless believed in the
   Lord Jesus Christ and found eternal life! O you that have lived under
   the sound of the Gospel from your childhood, the thief does not comfort
   you, but he accuses you! What are you doing to abide so long in
   unbelief? Will you never believe the testimony of Divine Love? What
   more shall I say to you? What more can anyone say to you?

   What do you think could have converted this poor thief? It strikes me
   that it may have been--it must have been-- the sight of our great Lord
   and Savior! There was, to begin with, our Savior's wonderful behavior
   on the road to the Cross. Perhaps the robber had mixed up with all
   sorts of society, but he had never seen a Man like this. Never had
   cross been carried by a Cross-Bearer of His look and fashion. The
   robber wondered who this meek and majestic Person could be. He heard
   the women weep and he wondered, in himself, whether anybody would ever
   weep for him. He thought that this must be some very singular Person
   that the people should stand about Him with tears in their eyes. When
   he heard that mysterious Sufferer say so solemnly, "Daughters of
   Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but for your children," he must have been
   struck with wonder! When he came to think, in his death-pangs, of the
   singular look of pity which Jesus cast on the women and of the
   self-forgetfulness which gleamed from His eyes, he was smitten with a
   strange relenting--it was as if an angel had crossed his path and
   opened his eyes to a new world--and to a new form of manhood, the likes
   of which he had never seen before.

   He and his companion were coarse, rough fellows. This was a delicately
   formed and fashioned Being, of superior order to himself, yes, and of
   superior order to any other of the sons of men! Who could He be? What
   must He be? Though he could see that He suffered and fainted as He went
   along, he marked that there was no word of complaining, no note of
   execration in return for the reviling cast upon Him. His eyes looked
   love on those who glared on Him with hate! Surely that march along the
   Via Dolorosa was the first part of the sermon which God preached to
   that bad man's heart. It was preached to many others who did not regard
   its teaching, but upon this man, by God's special Grace, it had a
   softening effect when he came to think over it and consider it. Was it
   not a likely and convincing means of Grace?

   When he saw the Savior surrounded by the Roman soldiers--saw the
   executioners bring forth the hammers and the nails and lay Him down
   upon His back and drive the nails into His hands and feet--this
   crucified criminal was startled and astonished as he heard Him say,
   "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." He, himself,
   had probably met his executioners with a curse, but he heard this Man
   breathe a prayer to the great Father! And, as a Jew, as he probably
   was, he understood what was meant by such a prayer. But it did astound
   him to hear Jesus pray for his murderers. That was a petition, the like
   of which he had never heard nor even dreamed of! From whose lips could
   it come but from the lips of a Divine Being? Such a loving, forgiving,
   God-like prayer proved Him to be the Messiah! Who else had ever prayed
   so? Certainly not David and the kings of Israel, who, on the contrary,
   in all honesty and heartiness imprecated the wrath of God upon their
   enemies! Elijah himself would not have prayed in that fashion, rather
   would he have called fire from Heaven on the centurion and his company.
   It was a new, strange sound to him. I do not suppose that he
   appreciated it to the fullest, but I can well believe that it deeply
   impressed him and made him feel that his Fellow-Sufferer was a Being
   about whom there was an exceedingly mystery of goodness.

   And when the Cross was lifted up, that thief hanging on his own cross
   looked around and I suppose he could see that inscription written in
   three languages--"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." If so, that
   writing was his little Bible, his New Testament--and he interpreted it
   by what he knew of the Old Testament. Putting this and that
   together--that strange Person, incarnate loveliness, all patience and
   all majesty, that strange prayer and now this singular inscription,
   surely he who knew the Old Testament, as I have no doubt he did, would
   say to himself, "Is this He? Is this truly the King of the Jews? This
   is He who worked miracles, raised the dead and said that He was the Son
   of God--is it all true and is He really our Messiah?" Then he would
   remember the words of the Prophet Isaiah, "He was despised and rejected
   of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. Surely, He has
   borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." "Why," he would say to
   himself, "I never understood that passage in the Prophet Isaiah before,
   but it must point to Him! The chastisement of our peace is upon Him.
   Can this be He who cried in the Psalms--'they pierced My hands and My
   feet'"?

   As he looked at Him again, he felt in his soul, "It must be He! Could
   there be another so like He?" He felt conviction creeping over his
   spirit. Then he looked again and he marked how all men down below
   rejected, despised and hissed at Him. They hooted Him and all this
   would make the case the more clear. "All they that see Me laugh Me to
   scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted
   on the Lord that He would deliver Him: let Him deliver Him, seeing He
   delighted in Him."

   Perhaps this dying thief read the Gospel out of the lips of Christ's
   enemies. They said--"He saved others." "Ah!" he thought, "did He save
   others? Why could He not save me?" What a grand bit of Gospel that was
   for the dying thief--

   "He saved others!" I think I could swim to Heaven on that plank--"He
   saved others" and, if He saved others, He can surely save me!

   Thus the very things that the enemies disdainfully threw at Christ
   would be Gospel to this poor dying man. When it has been my misery to
   read any of the wretched prints that are sent us out of scorn, in which
   our Lord is held up to ridicule, I have thought, "Why, perhaps those
   who read these loathsome blasphemies may, nevertheless, learn the
   Gospel from them!" You may pick a jewel from a dunghill and find its
   radiance undiminished! And you may gather the Gospel from a blasphemous
   mouth and it shall be, none the less, the Gospel of salvation! Perhaps
   this man learned the Gospel from those who jested at our dying Lord and
   so the servants of the devil were unconsciously made to be the servants
   of

   Christ!

   But, after all, surely that which won him most must have been to look
   at Jesus, again, as He was hanging upon the cruel tree. Possibly
   nothing about the physical Person of Christ would be attractive to him,
   for His visage was more marred than that of any man and His form more
   than the sons of men. But there must have been in that blessed face a
   singular charm. Was it not the very image of perfection? As I conceive
   the face of Christ, it was very different from anything that any
   painter has yet been able to place upon his canvas. It was all
   goodness, kindness and unselfishness--and yet it was a royal face! It
   was a face of superlative justice and unrivalled tenderness.
   Righteousness and uprightness sat upon His brow, but infinite pity and
   goodwill to men had also taken up their abode. It was a face that would
   have struck you at once as one by itself, never to be forgotten, never
   to be fully understood. It was all sorrow, yet all love! It was all
   meekness, yet all resolution! All wisdom, yet all simplicity! The face
   of a child, or an angel and yet peculiarly the face of a Man. Majesty
   and misery, suffering and sacredness were strangely combined in it. He
   was evidently the Lamb of God and the Son of Man.

   As the robber looked, he believed. Is it not amazing--the very sight of
   the Master won him? The sight of the Lord in agony, shame and death!
   Scarcely a word. Certainly no sermon, no attending worship on the
   Sabbath. No reading of gracious books; no appeal from mother, or
   teacher, or friend. The sight of Jesus won him! I put it down as a very
   singular thing, a thing for you and for me to remember and dwell upon
   with quite as much vividness as we do upon the lateness of this
   robber's conversion!

   Oh, that God in His mercy might convert everybody in this Tabernacle!
   Oh, that I could have a share in it by the preaching of His Word! But I
   will be equally happy if you get to Heaven anyway--yes, if the Lord
   should take you there without outward ministries, leading you to Jesus
   by some simple method such as He adopted with this thief! If you do but
   get there, He shall have the Glory for it, and His poor servant will be
   overjoyed! Oh, that you would now look to Jesus and live! Before your
   eyes He is set forth, evidently crucified among you. Look to Him and be
   saved, even at this hour!

   II. But now I want you to think with me a little upon THE SPECIALITY OF
   THIS MAN'S FAITH, for I think it was a very singular faith that this
   man exerted towards our Lord Jesus Christ.

   I greatly question whether the equal and the parallel of the dying
   thief's faith will be readily found outside the Scriptures, or even in
   the Scriptures!

   Observe that this man believed in Christ when he literally saw Him
   dying the death of a felon, under circumstances of the greatest
   personal shame! You have never realized what it was to be crucified.
   None of you could do that, for the sight has never been seen in our day
   in England. There is not a man or woman here who has ever realized in
   their own mind the actual death of Christ. It stands beyond us. This
   man saw it with his own eyes and for him to call Him, "Lord," who was
   hanging on a gallows, was no small triumph of faith! For him to ask
   Jesus to remember him when He came into His Kingdom, though he saw
   Jesus bleeding His life away and hounded to death, was a splendid act
   of reliance! For him to commit his everlasting destiny into the hands
   of One who was, to all appearance, unable, even, to preserve His own
   life, was a noble achievement of faith! I say that this dying thief
   leads the van in the matter of faith, for what he saw of the
   circumstances of the Savior was calculated to contradict rather than
   help his confidence! What he saw was to his hindrance rather than to
   his help, for he saw our Lord in the very extremity of agony and
   death--and yet he believed in Him as the King shortly to come into His
   Kingdom!

   Remember, too, that at that moment when the thief believed in Christ,
   all the disciples had forsaken Him and fled. John might be lingering at
   a little distance and holy women may have stood farther off, but no one
   was present to bravely champion the dying Christ. Judas had sold Him,
   Peter had denied Him and the rest had forsaken Him! And it was then

   that the dying thief called Him, "Lord," and said, "Remember me when
   You come into Your Kingdom." I call that splendid faith! Why, some of
   you do not believe even though you are surrounded with Christian
   friends--even though you are urged on by the testimony of those whom
   you regard with love! But this man, all alone, comes out and calls
   Jesus his Lord! No one else was confessing Christ at that moment--no
   revival was around him with enthusiastic crowds--he was all by himself
   as a confessor of his Lord. After our Lord was nailed to the tree, the
   first to bear witness for Him was this thief. The centurion bore
   witness afterwards, when our Lord expired, but this thief was a lone
   confessor, holding on to Christ when nobody would say, "Amen" to what
   he said. Even his fellow thief was mocking at the crucified Savior, so
   that this man shone as a lone star in the midnight darkness. O Sirs,
   dare you be Daniels? Dare you stand alone? Would you dare to stand out
   amidst a ribald crew and say, "Jesus is my King. I only ask Him to
   remember me when He comes into His Kingdom"? Would you be likely to
   proclaim such a faith when priests and scribes, princes and people were
   all mocking at the Christ and deriding Him? Brothers, the dying robber
   exhibited marvelous faith and I beg you to think of this the next time
   you speak of him.

   And it seems to me that another point adds splendor to that faith,
   namely, that he himself was in extreme torture. Remember, he was
   crucified. It was a crucified man trusting in a crucified Christ! Oh,
   when our frame is racked with torture; when the most tender nerves are
   pained; when our body is hung up to die by we know not what great
   length of torment--then to forget the present and live in the future is
   a grand achievement of faith! While dying, to turn one's eyes to
   Another dying at your side and trust your soul with Him is very
   marvelous faith! Blessed thief, because they put you down at the bottom
   as one of the least of saints, I think that I must bid you come up
   higher and take one of the uppermost seats among those who, by faith
   have glorified the Christ of God!

   Why, see, dear Friends, once more, the specialty of this man's faith
   was that he saw so much though his eyes had been opened for so short a
   time! He saw the future world! He was not a believer in annihilation,
   or in the possibility of a man's not being immortal! He evidently
   expected to be in another world and to be in existence when the dying
   Lord should come into His Kingdom! He believed all that and it is more
   than some do nowadays. He also believed that Jesus would have a
   Kingdom, a Kingdom after He was dead, a Kingdom though He was
   crucified! He believed that He was winning for Himself a Kingdom by
   those nailed hands and pierced feet! This was intelligent faith, was it
   not? He believed that Jesus would have a Kingdom in which others would
   share and, therefore, he aspired to have his portion in it. But yet he
   had fit views of himself and, therefore, he did not say, "Lord, let me
   sit at Your right hand," or, "Let me share in the dainties of Your
   palace." He only said, "Remember me. Think of me. Cast an eye my way.
   Think of Your poor dying comrade on the cross at Your right hand. Lord,
   remember me. Remember me." I see deep humility in the prayer and yet a
   sweet, joyous, confident exaltation of the Christ at the time when the
   Christ was in His deepest humiliation!

   Oh, dear Sirs, if any of you have thought of this dying thief only as
   one who put off repentance, I want you now to think of him as one that
   did greatly and grandly believe in Christ and oh, that you would do the
   same! Oh, that you would put a great confidence in my great Lord! Never
   did a poor sinner trust Christ too much. There was never a case of a
   guilty one who believed that Jesus could forgive him and, afterwards,
   found that He could not--who believed that Jesus could save him on the
   spot and then woke up to find that it was a delusion. No! Plunge into
   this river of confidence in Christ! The waters are waters to swim in,
   not to drown in! Never did a soul perish that glorified Christ by a
   living, loving faith in Him! Come, then, with all your sin, whatever it
   may be--with all your deep depression of spirit, with all your agony of
   conscience--come along with you and grasp my Lord and Master with both
   hands of your faith and He shall be yours and you shall be His--

   "Turn to Christ your longing eyes, View His bloody Sacrifice! See in
   Him your sins forgiven, Pardon, holiness and Heaven! Glorify the King
   of Kings, Take the peace the Gospel brings."

   I think that I have shown you something special in the means of the
   thief's conversion and in his faith in our dying Lord.

   III. But now, thirdly, as God shall help me, I wish to show you another
   specialty, namely, in THE RESULT OF HIS

   FAITH.

   I have heard people say, "Well, you see, the dying thief was converted,
   but then he was not baptized! He never went to communion and never
   joined the church!" He could not do either and that which God Himself
   renders impossible to us, He does not demand of us. He was nailed to a
   cross--how could he be baptized? But he did a great deal more than
   that, for if he could not carry out the outward signs, he most
   manifestly exhibited the things which they signified, which, in his
   condition, was better still!

   This dying thief, first of all, confessed the Lord Jesus Christ, and
   that is the very essence of Baptism. He confessed Christ. Did he not
   acknowledge Him to his fellow thief? It was as open a confession as he
   could make it. Did he not acknowledge Christ before all that were
   gathered around the Cross who were within hearing? It was as public a
   confession as he could possibly cause it to be! Yet certain cowardly
   fellows claim to be Christians though they have never confessed Christ
   to a single person--and then they quote this poor thief as an excuse!
   Are they nailed to a cross? Are they dying in agony? Oh, no, and yet
   they talk as if they could claim the exemption which these
   circumstances would give them. What a dishonest piece of business!

   The fact is that our Lord requires an open confession as well as a
   secret faith. And if you will not render it, there is no promise of
   salvation for you, but a threat of being denied at the last! The
   Apostle puts it, "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." It is stated in another place this way--"He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved"--that is Christ's way of
   making the confession of Him. If there is a true faith, there must be a
   declaration of it. If you are candles and God has lit you, "Let your
   light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
   your Father which is in Heaven." Soldiers of Christ must, like her
   Majesty's soldiers, wear their uniforms--and if they are ashamed of
   them--they ought to be drummed out of the regiment! They are not honest
   soldiers who refuse to march in rank with their comrades. The very
   least thing that the Lord Jesus Christ can expect of us is that we
   confess Him to the best of our power. If you are nailed up to a cross,
   I will not invite you to be baptized. If you are fastened up to a tree
   to die, I will not ask you to come into this pulpit and declare your
   faith, for you cannot. But you are required to do what you can do,
   namely, to make as distinct and open an avowal of the Lord Jesus Christ
   as may be suitable in your present condition.

   I believe that many Christian people get into a deal of trouble through
   not being honest in their convictions. For instance, if a man goes into
   a workshop, or a soldier into a barracks, and if he does not fly his
   flag from the first, it will be very difficult for him to run it up
   afterwards. But if he immediately and boldly lets them know, "I am a
   Christian and there are certain things that I cannot do to please you,
   and certain other things that I cannot help doing, though they
   displease you"--when that is clearly understood, after a while, the
   singularity of the thing will be gone and the man will be left alone.
   But if he is a little sneaky and thinks that he is going to please the
   world and please Christ, too, he is in for a rough time--let him depend
   upon it! His life will be that of a toad under a harrow, or a fox in a
   dog kennel if he tries the way of compromise. That will never do! Come
   out! Show your colors! Let it be known who you are and what you are--
   and although your course will not be smooth, it will certainly be not
   half as rough as if you tried to run with the hare and hunt with the
   hounds--a very difficult piece of business that!

   This man came out, then and there, and made as open an avowal of his
   faith in Christ as was possible.

   The next thing he did was to rebuke his fellow sinner. He spoke to him
   in answer to the ribaldry with which he had assailed our Lord. I do not
   know what the unconverted convict had been blasphemously saying, but
   his converted comrade spoke very honestly to him. "Do you not fear God,
   seeing you are in the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly; for we
   receive the due reward of our deeds: but this Man has done nothing
   wrong." It is more than ever necessary in these days that believers in
   Christ should not allow sin to go unrebuked and yet a great many of
   them do so. Do you not know that a person who is silent when a wrong
   thing is said or done may become a participator in the sin? If you do
   not rebuke sin--I mean, of course, on all fit occasions and in a proper
   spirit--your silence will give consent to the sin and you will be an
   aider and abettor in it. A man who saw a robbery and who did not cry,
   "Stop, thief!" would be thought to be in league with the thief. And the
   man who can hear swearing, or see impurity and never utter a word of
   protest may well question whether he is right, himself. Our "other
   men's sins" make up a great item in our personal guilt unless we rebuke
   them. This our Lord expects us to do. The dying thief did it and did it
   with all his heart--and in doing so far exceeded large numbers of those
   who hold their heads high in the Church!

   Next, the dying thief made a full confession of his guilt. He said to
   him who was hanged with him, "Do you not fear God, seeing you are in
   the same condemnation? And we, indeed, justly." Not many words, but
   what a world of meaning was in them--"we, indeed, justly." "You and I
   are dying for our crimes," he said, "and we deserve to die." When a man
   is willing to confess that he deserves the wrath of God--that he
   deserves the suffering which his sin has brought upon him--there is
   evidence of sincerity in him. In this man's case, his repentance
   glittered like a holy tear in the eye of his faith, so that his faith
   was jeweled with the drops of his penitence. As I have often told you,
   I suspect the faith which is not born as a twin with repentance, but
   there is no room for suspicion in the case of this penitent confessor.
   I pray God that you and I may have such a thorough work as this in our
   own hearts as the result of our faith.

   Then, see, this dying thief defends his Lord right manfully. He says,
   "We, indeed, justly, but this Man has done nothing wrong." Was not that
   beautifully said? He did not say, "This Man does not deserve to die,"
   but, "This Man has done nothing wrong." He means that He is perfectly
   innocent! He does not even say, "He has done nothing wicked," but he
   even asserts that He has not acted unwisely or indiscreetly--"This Man
   has done nothing wrong." This is a glorious testimony of a dying man to
   One who was numbered with the transgressors and was being put to death
   because His enemies falsely accused Him. Beloved, I only pray that you
   and I may bear as good a witness to our Lord as this thief did! He
   outruns us all. We need not think much of the coming of his conversion
   late in life--we may far rather consider how blessed was the testimony
   which he bore for his Lord when it was most needed! When all other
   voices were silent, one suffering penitent spoke out and said--"This
   Man has done nothing wrong."

   See, again, another mark of this man's faith. He prays and his prayer
   is directed to Jesus. "Lord, remember me when You come into Your
   Kingdom." True faith is always praying faith. "Behold, he prays," is
   one of the most sure tests of the new birth. Oh, Friends, may we abound
   in prayer, for thus we shall prove that our faith in Jesus Christ is
   what it ought to be! This converted robber opened his mouth wide in
   prayer. He prayed with great confidence as to the coming Kingdom and he
   sought that Kingdom first, even to the exclusion of all else. He might
   have asked for life, or for ease from pain, but he prefers the
   Kingdom--and this is a high mark of Grace.

   In addition to thus praying, you will see that he adores and worships
   Jesus, for he says, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your
   Kingdom." The petition is worded as if he felt, "Only let Christ think
   of me and it is enough. Let Him but remember me and the thought of His
   mind will be effectual for everything that I shall need in the world to
   come." This is to impute Godhead to Christ! If a man can cast his all
   upon the mere memory of a person, he must have a very high esteem of
   that person. If to be remembered by the Lord Jesus is all that this man
   asks, or desires, he pays to the Lord great honor. I think that there
   was about his prayer a worship equal to the eternal hallelujahs of
   cherubim and seraphim. There was in it a glorification of his Lord
   which is not excelled even by the endless symphonies of angelic spirits
   who surround the Throne of God! Thief, you have well done!

   Oh, that some penitent spirit here might be helped thus to believe,
   thus to confess, thus to defend his Master, thus to adore, thus to
   worship--and then the age of the convert would be a matter of the
   smallest imaginable consequence!

   IV. Now, the last remark is this--There was something very special
   about the dying thief as to OUR LORD'S

   WORDS TO HIM ABOUT THE WORLD TO COME. He said to him, "Today shall you
   be with Me in Paradise." He

   only asked the Lord to remember him, but he obtained this surprising
   answer, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise."

   In some respects I envy this dying thief, for this reason--that when
   the Lord pardoned me and pardoned the most of you who are present, He
   did not give us a place in Paradise that same day. We are not yet come
   to the rest which is promised to us. No, you are waiting here. Some of
   you have been waiting very long. It is 30 years with many of us. It is
   40 years, it is 50 years with many others since the Lord blotted out
   your sins, and yet you are not with Him in Paradise. There is a dear
   member of this Church who, I suppose, has known the Lord for 75 years
   and she is still with us, having long passed the 90th year of her age.
   The Lord did not admit her to Paradise on the day of her conversion. He
   did not take any of us from Nature to Grace and from Grace to Glory, in
   a day. We have had to wait a good while. There is something for us to
   do in the wilderness and so we are kept out of the heavenly garden.

   I remember that Mr. Baxter said that he was not in a hurry to be gone
   to Heaven and a friend called upon Dr. John Owen, who had been writing
   about the Glory of Christ, and asked him what he thought of going to
   Heaven. That great Divine replied, "I am longing to be there." "Why,"
   said the other, "I have just spoken to holy Mr. Baxter and he says

   that he would prefer to be here, since he thinks that he can be more
   useful on earth." "Oh," said Dr. Owen, "my Brother Baxter is always
   full of practical godliness, but for all that I cannot say that I am at
   all desirous to linger in this mortal state. I would rather be gone."
   Each of these men, seems to me, to have been the half of Paul. Paul was
   made up of the two, for he was desirous to depart, but he was willing
   to remain because it was necessary for the people. We would put both
   together and, like Paul, have a strong desire to depart and to be with
   Christ, and yet be willing to wait if we can do service to our Lord and
   to His Church. Still, I think he has the best of it who is converted
   and enters Heaven the same night! This robber breakfasted with the
   devil, but he dined with Christ on earth and supped with Him in
   Paradise! This was short work, but blessed work! What a host of
   troubles he escaped! What a world of temptation he missed! What an evil
   world he left! He was just born, like a lamb dropped in the field, and
   then he was lifted into the Shepherd's bosom straight away!

   I do not remember the Lord ever saying this to anybody else. I dare say
   it may have happened that souls have been converted and have gone Home
   at once, but I never heard of anybody that had such an assurance from
   Christ as this man had. "Verily, I say unto you"--such a personal
   assurance! "Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with Me in
   Paradise." Dying thief, you were favored above many, "to be with
   Christ, which is far better," and to be with Him so soon!

   Why is it that our Lord does not thus imparadise all of us at once? It
   is because there is something for us to do on earth. My Brothers and
   Sisters, are you doing it? Are you doing it? Some good people are still
   on earth, but why? But why? What is the use of them? I cannot make it
   out. If they are, indeed, the Lord's people, what are they here for?
   They get up in the morning and eat their breakfast and, in due course
   eat their dinner, their supper and go to bed and sleep. At a proper
   hour they get up the next morning and do the same as on the previous
   day. Is this living for Jesus? Is this life? It does not come to much.
   Can this be the life of God in man?

   Oh, Christian people, do justify your Lord in keeping you waiting here!
   How can you justify Him but by serving Him to the utmost of your power?
   The Lord help you to do so! Why, you owe as much to Him as the dying
   thief! I know I owe a great deal more. What a mercy it is to have been
   converted while you were yet a boy, to be brought to the Savior while
   you were yet a girl! What a debt of obligation young Christians owe to
   the Lord! And if this poor thief crammed a life full of testimony into
   a few minutes, ought not you and I, who are spared for years after
   conversion, to perform good service for our Lord?

   Come, let us wake up if we have been asleep! Let us begin to live if we
   have been half dead. May the Spirit of God yet make something of us, so
   that we may go as industrious servants from the labors of the vineyard
   to the pleasures of Paradise! To our once crucified Lord be Glory
   forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Retrospect--"The Lord Has Blessed"

   (No. 1882)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me until now." Joshua 17:14.

   THE PASTOR'S RETURN. THREE SPECIALLY- SELECTED SERMONS TO HIS CHURCH,
   CONGREGATION, READERS AND FRIENDS, CONSISTING OF

   A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT [No. 1883] AND AN EXHORTATION [No. 1884.]

   IT is not an easy task to divide land among different claimants. Joshua
   divided Canaan with strict impartiality. He was a man of God and he was
   also shrewdly wise, as you may gather from many of his speeches. But,
   for all that, he could not satisfy everybody. He who would please all
   attempts the impossiblel God Himself is quarreled with. If it is the
   design of Providence to please men, it is a melancholy failure. Do we
   not find men everywhere dissatisfied with their portions? This man
   would like his lot if it were not where it is and that man would be
   perfectly satisfied if he had a little more. One would be contented
   with what he has if he could always keep it, while another would be
   more pleased if life could be shortened. There is no pleasing men! We
   are like the sons of Joseph in the chapter before us, ready to complain
   of our inheritance. It should not be so. We who have pined in the
   wilderness of sin should rejoice that we have entered the land of
   promise and we ought to be glad to have a portion among the people of
   the Lord. Contentment should be natural to those who are born of the
   Spirit of God, yes, we ought to go beyond contentment and cry, "Blessed
   be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits."

   Brethren, the best advice that I can give to each man among you is that
   he should endeavor to make the best of the portion which God has given
   him, for, after all, Joshua had not arbitrarily appointed Ephraim and
   Manasseh their lots, but they had fallen to them by the decree of God.
   Their portions had long before been marked out by a higher hand than
   Joshua's. You and I ought to believe that--

   "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."

   Let us fall back upon predestination and accept the grand Truth of God
   that, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." An all-wise
   God disposes His people according to His sovereign will. Let us not
   seek to alter our destiny, but let us try to make the best of our
   circumstances. This is what Joshua exhorted Ephraim and Manasseh to do.
   "You have a hill country crowned with forests: hew them down. You have
   fat valleys occupied by Canaanites: drive out the present inhabitants."
   O Sirs, if we would but thoroughly enjoy what God has freely given us,
   we would be happy to the fullest and even anticipate the joys of
   Heaven! We have a deep river of delights in the Covenant of Grace, yet
   we are content to paddle about its shores. We are only up to our
   ankles, the most of us, whereas the waters are "waters to swim in." A
   great sun of everlasting love shines upon the globe of our life with
   tropical force, but we get away to the North Pole of doubt and
   fear--and then complain that the sun has such little heat--or that he
   is so long below the horizon. He who will not go to the fire ought not
   to complain that the room is cold! Did we heartily feed upon what the
   Lord has set on

   our table, accept the ring which He has prepared for our finger and
   wear the garments which He has provided for our comfort, we might, here
   on earth, make music and dancing before the Lord!

   I am going to speak upon my text thus--First, here is a confession,
   which I think many of us will be very happy to make--"Inasmuch as the
   Lord has blessed me until now." Secondly, here is an argument, which is
   stated after the manner of logic--"Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me
   until now, therefore," so and so.

   I. We look at our text, then, first of all, as A CONFESSION--"The Lord
   has blessed me until now."

   I will not at present speak to those of you upon whom the blessing of
   God has never rested. Remember, my dear Hearers, that every man is
   either under the curse or under the blessing. They that are of the
   works of the Law are under the curse. Those upon whom their sin is
   resting are under the curse, for a curse always attends upon sin.
   Though we read no denunciation service; though we do not speak to you
   from Ebal and Gerizim, with the blessing and the curse, yet rest
   assured that there is, before the living God, a separation of the
   precious from the vile, and each day there is a judgment which, in
   God's apprehension, puts some upon the right hand with the, "Come, you
   blessed," and others upon the left hand with the, "Depart, you cursed."
   This will be finally done in "that day of days for which all other days
   were made." At this hour, my Hearer, if you are not the blessed of the
   Lord, you are resting under the dark shadow of a curse from which I
   pray God you may at once escape! Faith in Him who was made a curse for
   us is the only way to the blessing.

   But I speak to as many as have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, of
   whom the Lord says, "Surely, blessing I will bless you."

   You can say at this time, "God has blessed me until now." He has
   blessed you with those blessings which are common to all the house of
   Israel. Ephraim and Manasseh had received a blessing when God blessed
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, seeing they were in the loins of Abraham. You
   and I, who are in Christ, are partakers of all Covenant blessings in
   Christ Jesus. "If children, then heirs," and if we are children of God,
   then we are heirs of all things. I like to think of the old Scottish
   woman who not only blessed God for the porridge as she ate it, but
   thanked God that she had a Covenant right to the porridge! Daily
   mercies belong to the Lord's household by Covenant right and that same
   Covenant right which will admit us into Heaven, above, also gives us
   bread and water here below. The trifles in the house and the jewels of
   the house belong equally to the children. We may partake of the common
   mercies of Providence and the extraordinary mercies of Grace without
   stint. None of the dainties of the royal house are locked up from the
   children. The Lord says to each Believer, "Son, you are always with Me
   and all that I have is yours." "You are Christ's and Christ is God's"
   and, therefore, "all things are yours."

   Can you not say--"The Lord has blessed me until now"? Has He ever
   denied you one of the blessings common to the covenanted family? Has He
   ever told you that you may not pray, or that you may not trust? Has He
   forbidden you to cast your burden on the Lord? Has He denied you
   fellowship with Himself and communion with His dear Son? Has He laid an
   embargo on any one of the promises? Has He shut you out from any one of
   the provisions of His love? I know that it is not so if you are His
   child! And you can heartily exclaim, "The Lord has blessed me until
   now." "Such honor have all the saints." By His gracious past of love,
   the Lord guarantees to His redeemed a future of equal blessedness, for
   His loving kindness never departs from those on whom it lights.

   But then, dear Friends, besides this, Ephraim and Manasseh had special
   blessings, the peculiar blessing of Joseph which did not belong to
   Judah, or Reuben, or Issachar. In the end of the Book of Genesis, you
   will see how Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph and you will observe
   with what prodigality of benediction he enriched them among his sons.
   "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose
   branches run over the wall." Moses also, before he died, seemed to glow
   with a Divine fervor when he came to the tribe of Joseph! He blessed
   him, in some respects, above his brothers. Now, I think that many of
   you may say, "Though I am least of all His saints, yet in some respects
   the Lord has especially blessed me until now." I believe that every
   flower in a garden which is tended by a wise gardener could speak of
   some particular care that the gardener takes of it. He does for the
   dahlia what he does not for the sunflower. Something is needed by the
   rose that is not required by the lily. And the geranium calls for an
   attention which is not given to the honeysuckle.

   Each flower wins from the gardener a special culture. The vine has a
   dressing all its own and the apple tree a pruning peculiar to itself.
   There is a blessing for the house of Manasseh and a blessing for the
   house of Ephraim. And so is there a special benediction for each child
   of God. All the names of the tribes were written on the breastplate,
   but there was a dif-

   ferent color in the jewel allotted to each tribe and I believe that
   there is a specialty of Grace about every child of God. There is not
   only an election from the world, but an election out of the elect!
   Twelve were taken from the disciples; three were taken out of the
   12--one greatly beloved was taken out of the three. Uniformity of love
   does not prevent diversity of operations. As a crystal is made up of
   many crystals, so is Grace composed of many Graces. In one ray of the
   light of Grace there are seven colors. Each saint may tell his
   companion something that he does not know and in Heaven it will be a
   part of the riches of Glory to hold commerce in those specialties which
   each one has for himself alone.

   I shall not be you, neither will you be me. Neither shall we two be
   like another two, or the four of us like any other four, though all of
   us shall be like our Lord when we shall see Him as He is! I want you
   each to feel at this hour--"The Lord has blessed me until now."
   Personally, I often sit down alone and say, "Why this to me?" I cannot
   but admire the special goodness of my Lord to me. Sister, have you
   never done the same? Have you not said to yourself, in deep humility,
   "Surely, I have been a woman highly favored?" Do you not, my Brother,
   often feel that the name given to Daniel might be given to you, "O man
   greatly beloved"? Perhaps you are greatly tried, but then, you have
   been graciously sustained! Perhaps you are free from troubles--then you
   are bound to bless the Lord for a smooth path. A peculiarity of love
   colors each gracious life. As God is truly everywhere, yet specially in
   certain places, so does He manifest His love to all His people and yet
   each one enjoys a specialty of Grace. "The Lord has blessed me until
   now."

   I think, besides this, that these two tribes which made up the house of
   Joseph also meant to say that, not only had God blessed them with the
   common blessings of Israel and the special blessing of their tribe, but
   also with actual blessings. As far as they had gone, they had driven
   out the Canaanites and taken possession of the country. They had not
   received all that was promised, but God had blessed them until now.
   Come, Brothers and Sisters, we have not driven out all the Canaanites
   yet, but we have driven out many of them! We are not what we hope to
   be, but we are not what we used to be! We cannot yet see everything
   clearly, but we are not blind as once we were! We have not overcome
   every sinful propensity, but no sin has dominion over us, for we are
   not under the Law, but under Grace! We do not know all that the Lord
   will yet teach us, but what we do know, we would not lose for 10,000
   worlds! We have not seen our Lord as He is, but we have seen Him--and
   the joy of that sight will never be taken from us. Therefore, before
   the Lord and His assembled people, we joyfully declare that "The Lord
   has blessed us until now."

   Let us expand this confession a little, and speak thus--

   First, all the blessings that we have received have come from God. Do
   not let us trace any blessing to ourselves, or to our fellow men, for
   though the minister of God may be as a conduit to bring us refreshing
   streams, yet all our fresh springs are in God and not in men. Say, "The
   Lord has blessed me until now." Trace up every stream to the fountain,
   every beam to the sun and say, "I will bless the Lord as long as I
   live, for He has blessed me. Every good gift which has come to me has
   come from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
   shadow of turning." Trite as the thought is, we have often to recall
   God's people to the confession--that all the blessings of the Covenant
   come from the God of the Covenant.

   The Lord has given each one of us a great multitude of blessings. He
   has blessed us in His promises. Oh, that we did but know how rich we
   are! He has blessed us in His Providence--in the brightness and in the
   darkness of it--in its calms and in its storms, in its harvests and in
   its famines. He has blessed us by His Grace. I shall not dwell upon
   these themes--I would need a century for my sermon if I did! But He has
   blessed you, Beloved, who are in Christ, with all heavenly blessings in
   Christ Jesus, according as He has chosen you in Him from before the
   foundation of the world! Never will you be able to reckon up, even in
   eternity, the total sum of the benedictions which God has bestowed upon
   you in promise, in Providence and in Grace! He has given you "all
   blessings" in Christ and that is the short way of putting it. He has
   given you more than you know of, more than you have asked for, more
   than you can estimate! He has given you not only many things, but all
   things, in Christ Jesus, and He has declared that, "No good thing will
   he withheld from them that walk uprightly." The Lord has, indeed,
   blessed us until now!

   And, mark you, there has been a continuity of this blessing. God has
   not blessed us, and then paused, but He has blessed us "until now." One
   silver thread of blessing extends from the cradle to the grave. "He has
   blessed us until now." When we have provoked Him; when we have
   backslidden from Him; when we have been making an ill use of His
   blessings, yet He has kept on blessing us with a wondrous perseverance
   of love. I believe in the perseverance of the saints because I believe
   in the perseverance of the love of God, or else I would not believe in
   it. The Lord Himself puts it so--"I

   am God, I change not; therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed."
   There is an unconquerable pertinacity in the love of God! His Grace
   cannot be baffled or thwarted, or turned aside--His goodness and His
   mercy follow us all the days of our lives.

   In addition to that continuity, there is a delightful consistency about
   the Lord's dealings. "The Lord has blessed us until now." No curse has
   intervened. He has blessed us and only blessed us. There has been no,
   "yes" and "no," with Him--no enriching us with spiritual blessings and
   then casting us away. He has frowned upon us, truly, but His love has
   been the same in the frown as in the smile. He has chastened us sorely,
   but He has never given us over unto death.

   And, what is more, when my text says, "The Lord has blessed me until
   now," there is a kind of prophecy in it, for, "until now," has a window
   forward as well us backward! You sometimes see a railway carriage or
   truck fastened on to what goes before--but there is also a great hook
   behind. What is that for? Why, to fasten something else behind, and so
   to lengthen the train. Any one mercy from God is linked on to all the
   mercy that went before it--but provision is also made for adding future
   blessings! All the years to come are guaranteed by the ages past! Did
   you ever notice how the Bible ends? It closes with that happiest of
   conclusions--marriage and happiness--the marriage of the Lamb is come
   and His bride has made herself ready. Infinite felicity closes the
   volume of revealed history! Earthquakes, falling stars and the pouring
   out of vials follow with terrible speed--but it all ends in everlasting
   bliss and eternal union! Even thus shall it be with us, for the Lord
   has blessed us until now.

   Until now--until now--He has blessed us and it implies that He will
   always bless us. Never will the silver stream of His love cease to
   flow! Never will the ocean of His Grace cease to wash the shores of our
   life. He is, He must be to His people the blessed and blessing God.
   "Surely blessing I will bless you," is a word of Jehovah that stands
   fast forever and ever! Thus far is our confession of gratitude.

   II. Now we come to THE ARGUMENT, which I wish to press home upon all my
   dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. The tribe of Joseph says,
   "Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me until now."

   What is the inference from that fact? The argument that the sons of
   Joseph wanted to draw was peculiarly Jewish--it was the inference of
   business. It was the plea that they should have more because they had
   so much. Because they had one lot, therefore they were to have two
   portions in the promised land. I want no man to infer that because God
   has blessed him in Providence, he is to expect to have still more
   riches and still more pleasure. Ah, no! Do not wish to have your
   portion in this life, lest you get it, for then you will be as the
   ungodly.

   Their argument, again, was one of grumbling. They said, "God has
   blessed us until now," as much as to say, "If we do not get two
   portions, we shall not say that God is still blessing us, but we will
   draw a line and say until now." God has many very naughty children.
   They fall into quarrels with their heavenly Father. "Ever since that
   dear child died," says one, "I never felt the same towards God." "Ever
   since my mother was taken away," cries another, "I have always felt
   that I could not trust God as I used to do." This is shocking talk!
   Have done with it! If you quarrel with God, He will say to you, "It is
   hard for you to kick against the pricks." There is no happiness but in
   complete submission. Yield and all will end well, but if you stand out
   against the Most High, it is not God's rod that makes you smart--it is
   a rod of your own making. End this warfare by saying, "It is the Lord:
   let Him do what seems good to Him." Do not say, "He blessed me up to a
   certain point and then He changed His mind." This is a most slanderous
   falsehood!

   Let us say, rather, "The Lord has blessed me until now and this is
   cause for holy wonder and amazement. Why should the Lord have blessed
   me?"--

   "Pause, my soul! Adore and wonder! Ask, 'Oh, why such love to me?'
   Grace has put me in the number Of the Savior's family! Hallelujah!

   Thanks, eternal thanks to Thee." We read in 2 Samuel 7:18, 19, "Then
   went king David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O
   Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me until now? And
   is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" Thus let each one of us be
   amazed at the great loving kindness of the Lord.

   Be full of holy gratitude. Do not say, "I will look on the bright
   side." Beloved, the Lord's ways to us are all bright! Do not say, "I
   will trust God where I cannot trace Him," but rather trace God
   everywhere! Get into the state of that

   poor man who was so greatly blessed to pious Tauler. He wished the man
   a good day. The man replied, "Sir, I never had a bad day." "Oh, but I
   wish you good weather." Said he, "Sir, it is always good weather. If it
   rains or if it shines, it is such weather as God pleases and what
   pleases God pleases me."

   Our sorrows lie mainly at the roots of our selfishness--and when our
   self-hood is dug up, our sorrow, to a great extent, is gone. Let us,
   then, utter this text tonight, "Inasmuch as the Lord has blessed me
   until now," with hearty gratitude for all His holy will. Summing up
   gains and losses, joys and griefs, let us say with Job, "The Lord gave
   and the Lord has taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord."

   Say also, with holy confidence, "The Lord has blessed me until now."
   Speak as you find. If any enquire, "What has God been to you?" answer,
   "He has blessed me until now." The devil whispers, "If you are the son
   of God," and he then insinuates, "God deals very harshly with you. See
   what you suffer. See how you are left in the dark!" Answer him, "Get
   you behind me, Satan, for surely goodness and mercy have followed me
   all the days of my life! And if God takes from me any earthly good,
   shall I receive good at the hand of the Lord and shall I not receive
   evil?" He who can stand to this stands on good ground! "In all this Job
   sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." But he who gets away from this,
   drifts I know not where! Come, let us, each one, bless the Lord and
   say, "If He should treat me harshly in the future, I will still praise
   Him for what He has done until now."

   I remember saying to myself, when I was in sorrow for sin, that if God
   would only forgive me my sin and give me rest from my despair, if I had
   to live in a dungeon on bread and water, all the rest of my life, I
   would do nothing else but sing to His praise." I am afraid that I have
   not fulfilled that promise, but I confess my wrong in not having done
   so. You, my Brothers and Sisters, I dare say, made much the same
   spiritual covenant with God and you have not stood to it. Let us unite
   our sincere confessions and say, each one, "The Lord has blessed me
   until now; therefore blessed be His name."

   Furthermore, if this be true, let us resolve to engage in enlarged
   enterprises. If the Lord has blessed us until now, why should He not
   bless us in something fresh? I need to say something to you as a
   Church, dear Friends, for the text is a Church text, and the, "me,"
   here comprehends all the tribe of Joseph. Let us joyfully say as a
   Church, "The Lord has blessed us until now." Strangers will excuse us
   if we have a little mutual joy in what the Lord has done for us during
   a considerable period of time. Those who have been with me from our
   earliest days, when we were a mere handful of people, may well rejoice
   that the Lord taught us to pray and to trust when we were so few and
   feeble. And then He visited us with favor and greatly multiplied us!
   And since then He has continued to bless us without pause or stint.
   These 33 years He has been with us, we have never been without
   conversions, never without fresh labor for Christ and fresh projects--
   and never a failure, never a schism, or a division of heart!

   I am amazed and humbled by the Lord's goodness. We have gone from
   strength to strength in the Lord's work. I have been feeble and, I fear
   I may be so still, but the Lord has not ceased to work by you who are
   with me. Well, what then? College, Orphanage, Colportage, Evangelists,
   Mission Halls--34 of them, Sunday schools, and so forth. What then?
   "Stop," says the devil. You would like us to stop, would you not, foul
   Fiend? But we shall do nothing of the kind! Wherever you are, O Fiend,
   in this city, it is our business and our desire to fight with you and
   drive you out! We cannot cease to be active, for the Lord has blessed
   us until now. "You will get to meddling with too much, and get too many
   irons in the fire." None of them in your fire, O Satan!

   Brothers and Sisters, we must have more fire, and more irons in it! I
   beseech you, do not slacken in any way, but press on! Let us do more.
   Have I an alabaster box anywhere? Is it lying by? Perhaps the smell may
   begin to ooze out. It is not safe in the drawer. It may get cracked and
   broken. Let me have the privilege of breaking it, myself, and pouring
   it on my Master's feet, that I may anoint them with the most precious
   thing I have! Can you not think of something you could do for Jesus,
   each one of you personally? Cannot the whole Church say to itself, "We
   must keep our institutions going at a greater rate for Christ's sake"?
   The world is very dark and needs more light; the poor are very hungry
   and need bread and the ignorant are very faint to know more.

   Did you say, "Now, do not project anything"? I do not know that I
   shall, but at the same time, I am not sure that I shall not! If the
   Lord has blessed us until now, let us go a little further. When certain
   Brethren raise a stone of Ebenezer, they sit down on it. That is not
   what the stone is meant for. I have a commission to put spikes on the
   top of those stones! You must not dream of sitting down upon--"Until
   now has the Lord helped us." The voice from the Throne of God says

   "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." Though the
   sea rolls before you, forward! Forward, in God's name! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prospect--"He Will Keep"

   (No. 1883)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come
   to You. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have
   given Me that they may be one, as We are. While I was with them in the
   world, I kept them in Your name: those whom You gave Me I have kept,
   and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture
   might be fulfilled." John 17:11,12.

   THE PASTOR'S RETURN. THREE SPECIALLY- SELECTED SERMONS TO HIS CHURCH,
   CONGREGATION, READERS AND FRIENDS, CONSISTING OF

   A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT [No. 1883] AND AN EXHORTATION [No. 1884.]

   WHAT a wonderful intercommunion and fellowship exists between the
   Father and the Son in the matter of redemption! It is the Father who
   gave the Son--it is the Son who gave Himself. It is the Father who gave
   us to the Son--it is the Son who has bought us with a price and has
   kept us by His hand. Here, in the text, the Father who gave, receives
   back from the Son, the Son praying to Him in these terms, "Holy Father,
   keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me." We cannot
   doubt the personality of the Father and of the Son, nor their essential
   unity. There are not three Gods, but one God. The Father and the Son,
   though two in one sense, are one in another. I delight to see the
   traces of the Trinity in every act of Grace. From the first
   transactions of Covenant love, even to the ingathering of the whole
   election of Grace and the introduction of the chosen into Glory, we
   hear the sound of that voice which of old said, "Let Us make man." The
   three Divine Persons work together in absolute union for the production
   of one grand result. "Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to
   the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
   world without end! Amen."

   Observe that our text is all about keeping. Three or four times over we
   have some tense or other of the word, "keep." "Holy Father, keep those
   whom You have given Me." "While I was with them in the world, I kept
   them." Greatly do we need keeping. You have been redeemed, but you must
   still be kept. You have been regenerated, but you must be kept. You are
   pure in heart and hands, but you must be kept. You are quickened with
   the Divine life, you have aspirations after the holiest things, your
   love to Christ is intense--but you must be kept. You have had a deep
   experience and you know the temptations of the enemy--but still, you
   must be kept. The sunlight of Heaven rests upon your honored brow. You
   are near the gates of Glory, but you must be kept. The same hand that
   bought you must keep you--and the same Father who has begotten you,
   again, unto a lively hope, must keep you to His eternal Kingdom and
   Glory. All Glory be unto Him who is able to keep us from falling! Let
   all those unite in the song who are kept by the power of God! Here lies
   our topic and we will not wander far from it.

   First, we will notice a choice pastorate which was enjoyed by some of
   God's people. Secondly, we shall observe that this choice pastorate,
   was, after all, but a temporary privilege. And, thirdly, we shall see
   that those who enjoyed it were

   brought, by-and-by, to the exact place where we must always be and,
   therefore, were made the objects of a blessed prayer, "Holy Father,
   keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me."

   I. First, here is A CHOICE PASTORATE. Our little children sing--

   "I think when I read that sweet story of old, When Jesus was here among
   men, How He called little children like lambs to his fold. I should
   like to have been with them!" And so forth. Might not you and I well
   wish that we had been numbered with the 12, or that we had been among
   the Marys? It was certainly a choice privilege to be one of the
   Apostles who were the intimates of Christ, the bodyguard of Jesus.
   These men saw Him in His privacy, understood His dark sayings and read
   His heart. That privilege cannot be ours. Let us think of them without
   envy and learn something from them.

   You notice what the Savior did for the 12 who were round about
   Him--"While I was with them in the world, I kept them." This care was
   continuous. It looks as if He did this above everything else. He kept
   them. He was a guard to His people. He made this the chief employment
   of His life. While He went about doing good and reclaiming the
   wandering, He never diverted His care from His people. Loving them as
   His own, He loved them to the end. In this chapter you have "the ruling
   passion strong in death." He has kept them in life and now He says, "I
   am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to
   You." And the one thought of His heart is, "What is to become of them?
   While I was with them, I kept them. What will they do, now, that I am
   taken from them? They will have nobody to resolve their doubts, nobody
   to abate their discords, no one to answer their adversaries, no one to
   cheer them into holy confidence. What will the poor babes do when their
   Nurse has gone? What will the half-instructed scholars do when their
   Teacher shall be taken up from among them?" He closes His life on earth
   by commending them to the keeping of His heavenly Father!

   Surely, Brothers and Sisters, this teaches us that this care is always
   needed. Sheep never outgrow the necessity for their being kept by the
   Shepherd. If the 11 always required keeping, I am sure that you and I
   do. We are not better than Thomas, or Peter, or John. We have among us
   many a Thomas who will not believe without a superfluity of evidence.
   We have many a Peter, rash and impetuous, and many a John who would
   call fire from Heaven upon the adversaries of the cause! We are full of
   flaws and failures, are we not? We shall crumble to the dust if the
   Lord does not keep us! Is there one man among us that can live unless
   the Eternal Life shall continue to flow into him? I am sure there is
   not!

   We are all so greatly dependent upon the continual keeping of our Lord,
   that I look with joy to a care always personal. I read with pleasure
   that the Lord, Himself, all the while that He was here, kept those whom
   the Father gave Him--those 11 priceless gems were always in His
   custody. I bless His name that they enjoyed a ministry so tenderly
   personal--"While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your
   name." He lays stress upon His personal care--"I kept them." The Good
   Shepherd kept the sheep, not by proxy, but by His own hands. There is
   no nourishment for the child like that which comes from its own
   mother's breast--and a child of God only thrives as he lives upon
   Christ, Himself. Those of us who are under-shepherds exercise a very
   poverty-stricken ministry compared with that of our Lord, but we should
   at least give the best we have. We should be willing, night and day
   with tears, to the utmost of our strength and even beyond it, to help
   the feeble and cheer the faint, if by any means we may preserve the
   flock of God committed to our imperfect charge. Do you not wish that
   you had Christ for your Pastor? You may well wish it! But it cannot be,
   for He has ascended. Truly, it was a choice privilege to the 11 that
   Christ could say of them, "while I was with them in the world, I kept
   them in Your name."

   What must have been the effect of the personality of Christ upon those
   eleven? There are some men whose influence upon others has, for lack of
   a better word, been called, "magical." History tells us of warriors who
   have been courageous and skillful in the marshalling of battalions--and
   these have inspired their soldiers with boundless loyalty, grappling
   them to themselves with hooks of steel. Certain heroes have been
   absolutely supreme over their fellow men--a willing homage has been
   rendered to them. The influence of the Christ upon those who actually
   lived with Him must have been superlative. Think of it! There were but
   11 of them, but He so molded them that the little handful of seed
   brought forth a harvest, the fruit of which did shake like Lebanon!
   They were nothing but peasants when they came under His hand, but when
   they left it, they were the fathers of a new age! They were the
   Patriarchs of 12 tribes of a new Israel! The Apostles, after they had
   been with Jesus, were men of a superior mold. Though they had little
   human learning, they were the best educated men on the earth! Each man
   of them was more than a prince, in having touched the skirts of Deity,
   in bearing

   upon his face the brightness of the eternal Godhead, in speaking with a
   word which, like the Word of God Himself, was utterly irresistible!
   They were men anointed above their fellows, men to the fullness of
   manhood, men beyond the utmost height to which the schools could have
   trained them. What a privilege to have had Jesus, Himself, for one's
   own private Tutor!

   Our Lord's care was most successful. Of the 11, not one was lost. I
   should not have marveled at all, apart from what we know of our Lord's
   gracious power, if the whole 11 had gone back. They were very fickle,
   at first, and extremely ignorant. And, at the same time, they were
   strongly tempted. Influences which made some go back and walk no more
   with Jesus would, naturally, have had the same power over them if Jesus
   had not kept them. Yet of those whom the Father gave Him, not one of
   them was lost! His marvelous pastorate was so successful that He could
   say, "Of those whom You have given Me I have lost none." Thomas, John,
   Peter, James--they are all kept. The training of the Master has
   qualified each one for his lofty office. Oh, that you and I may be
   helped by Divine Grace to keep with us all the souls God has given us,
   that we may, at last, say of all our Hearers, "Here am I and the
   children that You have given me!" Our Lord's was a wonderful pastorate,
   was it not?

   But, nevertheless, it was attended with an awful sorrow, for He says,
   "None of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the Scripture
   might be fulfilled." Our Savior never meant us to understand that Judas
   was one of those whom the Father gave Him. He never made a mistake
   about that. Very early he said, "I have chosen you 12 and one of you is
   a devil." He had spoken distinctly about the character and doom of
   Judas. Some have asked, "How could Jesus have all knowledge and yet
   permit a man like Judas to be one of the twelve?" Brethren, He did it
   advisedly, with wisdom aforethought, for He knew that often, in the
   ages to come, people would say, "Can this Christianity be true which
   has such false-hearted traitors in its midst, which has such sellers of
   the Master even among its leaders?" He allowed that objection to come
   up at the very first and suffered a covetous traitor to be one of the
   twelve.

   The Savior sometimes seemed to speak of Judas as if he were one of His,
   but then He was speaking popularly and according to the method of
   common conversation. He permits the Evangelist to call him, "one of the
   twelve," as if He would let us feel that men may go very far on the way
   to Heaven and have everything except the essential matter--and yet may
   perish. When Judas cast out devils and in Christ's name did many
   wonderful works, it would have been impossible for any but the
   Omniscient God to have seen any difference between him and any other of
   the twelve. In some respects Judas excelled others of the Apostles! He
   probably had not half the faults of Peter, nor half the doubts of
   Thomas. There were fine qualities within him, but they were all
   leavened by that supreme covetousness which mastered him and made him
   the son of perdition. He seemed very near to being all that he should
   be, yet the Master described him in this prayer, not as one that would
   be lost, but as one that was already lost. "None of them is lost but
   the son of perdition."

   He calls him "the son of perdition" and you may be sure that He did not
   give him that name without great sorrow. The Watcher over the sons of
   men could not lose even Judas without deep regrets. He sighs, "He that
   eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me." Among the bitter
   herbs of His Passover, none was more like to wormwood and gall than
   that word, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, one of you shall betray
   Me." As there is inexpressible sweetness in the doctrine of the Final
   Perseverance of the Saints, so there is an unutterable horror in other
   doctrines which guard it, such as that which our Lord lays down in the
   words, "if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
   It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden
   under foot of men." Final Perseverance is a rose of Heaven's own
   garden, but it is set with thorns--and those thorns are such cases as
   those of Judas and of others that drew back unto perdition.

   See, then, in this choice pastorate of our Master, the great need there
   is of keeping. Let us pray for Him to keep us to the end.

   II. Secondly, and very briefly, let us speak of A TEMPORARY PRIVILEGE.
   The eleven were not to have Christ with them always. He was to ascend
   unto His Throne and then they were to fall back on another mode of
   living, common to all saints.

   Now, why was Christ with them at all? It was because they were very
   weak. They needed fostering and nurturing. Look, Brothers and Sisters,
   you had great joys in your early days. You then enjoyed raptures and
   transports. It may be you have not had them lately, for you have
   traveled to Heaven at a steadier pace. My mother dandled me upon her
   knee when I was a babe, but she never thought of nursing me when I
   became a man. Certain spiritual joys are the privilege and

   the necessity of our religious babyhood, but we outgrow them. The Lord
   took the eleven when they were in their infancy and He was with them in
   the world and kept them. Why, then, did He go away? Why, for this
   reason, that they might grow to spiritual manhood! If He had always
   remained with them, working miracles and teaching them by His personal
   Presence, they would always have been mere children. It was expedient
   for them that He should go, for then the Holy Spirit came upon them and
   they rose into the full vigor of manhood! While Jesus was with them,
   they were little children, but in His absence they became men in
   Christ, quitting themselves valorously through faith in His name. Many
   joys of sense are allowed to trembling saints which are taken from them
   when they become strong in the Lord.

   You also, dear Friends, have enjoyed a profitable pastorate and you are
   now about to lose it. You have not been under Christ's personal
   teaching, that could not be--but you have been under the teaching of
   some man whom God has very greatly blessed in the ministry of His Word.
   Alas, you are now going far from the much-loved means of Grace! I pray
   God that you may now grow stronger. Now that the plant is put out into
   the cold, may it have strength and vigor enough to bear the frost! I
   see my gardener hardening off young plants and it may be the Lord is
   about to do the same with you. A boat in the builder's yard has been
   gradually fashioned to perfection and beautified with abundant care.
   But it must be launched! It must be washed by the rough sea. It must
   know the wear and tear of storms. Israel must not always fatten in
   Goshen--the tribes must be led into the wilderness and must be
   conducted over stony places--for thus the Lord brings His chosen to
   their promised rest.

   Please note that, choice as the privilege was of having Jesus, Himself,
   to be their Pastor, apart from the Grace of God this special gift had
   no power in it. The Lord Jesus Christ might preach, but He could not
   touch the heart of the son of perdition! He looked on Peter and Peter
   went out and wept bitterly, but the Lord might have looked till Dooms
   Day at Judas and there would have been no tears of penitence in Judas's
   eyes. Alas, Judas heard every sermon that Christ preached, saw all the
   mighty deeds that He did--even saw the bloody sweat upon His face in
   the Garden of Geth-semane--and kissed that face with traitorous lips!
   No ministry of itself can turn a heart of stone into flesh. "You must
   be born from above." Though the Son of God, Himself, is the Preacher,
   yet when the congregation goes out, 11 in whom there is the Grace of
   God are blessed--but the son of perdition remains just what he
   was--hardened even to the end.

   Let this be a warning to such as are not profited under the Word when
   faithfully preached. Beware lest you perish under the Gospel and so
   perish with a vengeance! If, however, a choice ministry is about to be
   removed from any of you, let this thought minister a measure of comfort
   to you, that, after all, the essential thing is not to be taken from
   you, for even in the absence of the best outward ministry, the Spirit
   of God can bless you! But without that Spirit of God, even the ministry
   of Christ, Himself, in the days of His flesh, could not have been
   effectual to you!

   III. So now I come, in the last place, to show you where the Master
   left His disciples, where we all are, where we may well be content to
   be! We are all the objects of A BLESSED PRAYER. "Holy Father, keep
   through Your own name those whom You have given Me that they may be
   one, as We are." Beneath this Divine petition we all find shelter!

   Notice how He begins--"Father." Oh, yes, it is the Father who keeps us!
   Children of God, who can be a better keeper for you than your Father?
   To whom can you cry with such certainty of being heard as to your
   Father in Heaven? Whose heart will so soon be moved? Whose ears will be
   so quick to hear? Whose feet will be so swift to save as your Father's?
   The Lord Jesus was tender to us when He selected that title of the
   great God and did not say, "Jehovah," or "Elo-him, keep Your people,"
   but, "Father, keep them."

   And then He puts it, "Holy Father," but why that? Why, just because the
   keeping means, keep us holy, and who can make us holy but the Holy God
   and who can keep us holy but He who is, Himself, holy? Who will have
   such an intense interest in our growing holiness as One whose name is
   the Holy Father? Beloved, I love well this title--it commends itself to
   my faith and breeds assurance in my soul! If the blessed hand of Jesus
   has put me into the bosom of the Holy Father that I may be kept, why,
   the keeping is sure and certain! The Holy One will never suffer us to
   be polluted or defiled!

   Carefully note that the prayer is still--"Keep them: keep them." What
   keeping do you and I require? I was thinking of the various forms of
   keeping that we, as a Church, might seek. We need keeping from discord.
   "Holy Father, keep them that they may be one." It is a very wonderful
   thing when a dozen people agree for a dozen weeks. We are such an odd
   lot of people--I did not mean you in particular, but I mean all members
   of Christian Churches--that it is really no wonder when we disagree.
   The wonder is that we have been so long and so heartily united! I
   praise and bless God for our years of spiritual harmony. Knowing that
   despite our imperfections, our tendencies to self-exaltation, the
   easiness of

   misunderstanding one another, the readiness with which we provoke and
   are provoked without cause, it is very amazing to me that we should
   have had no strifes or divisions. "Holy Father, keep us." Let us pray
   that prayer very often! We do not know how soon we may be all sixes and
   sevens. Let us pray God that we may not fall foul of one another
   through the entrance of some serpents of discord into our happy
   paradise.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, to be kept in unity is not enough--we need
   keeping from error. The world swarms with false doctrines like Egypt
   with frogs in the day of her plague! You cannot put your head outside
   the door without having a flight of heresies buzzing around you. As
   some cities on the Continent have been full of cholera, so has this
   city been full of "modern thought" and I will not attempt to decide
   which is the worse of the two! But it is a great mercy to be kept from
   the silly love of novelties and to be helped to adhere to the old
   faith, to cling to the old Cross. Happy is he who is determined to know
   nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified! "Holy Father, keep us." We
   have seen some go to the east and some to the west, some to the moon
   and some to the stars, some to perfection and some to licentiousness.
   Keep us, Holy Father! Keep us staunch in Your Truth even to the end!

   But it would not be enough for us to be kept united and firm in the
   Truth of God--we need, also, to be kept from sin. Saints must be kept,
   or they will soon be sinners. How have I seen the brightest men
   tarnished with the foulest lusts! How have I mourned as I have known
   those who preached holiness with wondrous power to practice unholiness
   in their private lives! You and I are so ready to be upset by a sudden
   squall of temptation, especially such as carries much sail and little
   ballast, that we have need to pray each one, for himself, and then for
   all his Brothers and Sisters, "Holy Father, keep us: keep us from all
   evil."

   Nor would that be enough, for there is such a thing as being kept
   perfectly moral, outwardly proper and decorous and yet our hearts may
   gradually subside into spiritual death. Have you never seen it? It was
   not putridity--it was not even ghastliness. The corpse was
   washed--washed with rosewater--and there were touches of paint on the
   cheeks and lips that almost veiled the work of death. Fitly draped and
   with a smile upon its countenance, it looked a welcome to you, yet it
   was a corpse! Could you have thought it? O Church of God, beware of
   accepting the semblance of life! In the battles between the Spaniards
   and the Moors, when the Cid, Rodrigo Diaz, had fallen in the fight, the
   Spaniards set his body upright upon his milk-white steed and went forth
   to battle with his corpse at their head! How often had his presence
   made victory secure to his comrades! Until the Moors discovered that
   the mighty arm was palsied by death, they fled before the sword of the
   great Cid! But when once they knew that the uplifted falchion was held
   in a dead hand, they recovered spirit.

   And so you can make a dead church sit upright in the saddle, wearing
   all its harness of war, and you can make it bear aloft the great sword
   of the Lord and, for a time, its death may be unsuspected. But once let
   the world find out the dreadful secret and its hour of defeat has come!
   A dead church, like a dead lion, is sport for children! A church devoid
   of spiritual life is the laughing stock of devils. God keep us that we
   never fall into the condition of spiritual decay! Pray from the bottom
   of your hearts, my Brothers and Sisters, in unison with the sweet
   prayer of our living, loving Lord, "Holy Father, keep through Your own
   name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are."

   Observe, further, that our Lord Jesus Christ asks that we may be kept
   through God's own name. It requires the very name of God to keep a
   Christian!

   By the word, "name," is sometimes meant the whole Character of God, the
   whole royal power and prerogative of God. Frequently, power is meant by
   the word, "name." There is no keeping one of us, much less the whole
   ship's company, except the sacred name of God shall exert all its power
   to keep off our foe. The Savior concludes with this plea, "Holy Father,
   keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me." I do not know
   whether it will strike you, but it strikes me as very touching. He
   seems to say, "Father, You did give these to Me. They are very precious
   to Me. They are My jewels. Now I am going away and, therefore, I must
   leave them. O My Father, keep for Me the sweet tokens of Your own love
   to Me! These are Your forget-me-nots and I have valued them, therefore
   I ask you, while I go up to yonder bloody tree and die and, when
   afterwards I come to You and enjoy My eternal rest, take care of these
   whom You have given Me."

   It is like a husband who has obtained his bride, but now finds that he
   must go away from her. He gives her back to her father who originally
   gave her to him and says, "Take care of her for my sake. As you love
   me, take care of her." We are talking about you, you believers in
   Christ! Listen, therefore, with diligence. "The Father Himself loves
   you." The

   Father gave you to Jesus because He loved Jesus. He wanted Jesus to
   have that which would give Him most delight and so He gave you to Him!
   And now that Jesus cannot be with you by His bodily Presence, He gives
   you over to the great Father, from whose loving hands He first received
   you, and He says, "Holy Father, keep them." Do you think the Father
   will answer the Son's request? I am sure that He will. I feel safe in
   those Almighty hands in which Jesus has placed me--

   "I know that safe with God remains,

   Protected by His power,

   All that to Jesus appertains,

   Till the decisive hour."

   Remember that double-handed safety of which Jesus speaks in John 10:28,
   29--"They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of
   My hand. My Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no
   man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand."

   Do you belong to Christ, dear Hearer? You are not alone in being owned
   by that royal Proprietor--many of us are the sheep of His flock and the
   children of His love. We are going to gather around our Lord's table.
   Will you go away, or will you come with us and say, "We belong to Him
   and we would share His banquet of love?" If you must go away this once,
   hasten to put yourself right, that you may obey your Lord in the
   future. End this forgetfulness of your dying Lord, I pray you! Give
   yourself to Jesus and that shall be the best evidence that the Father
   gave you to Jesus, for never did a heart give itself to Jesus except as
   the result of the eternal purpose of God and the work of the Spirit
   within. Beloved Hearer, yield yourself to the Well-Beloved, whose love
   shall henceforth be your joy, your safeguard, your perfection, your
   bliss! Yield yourself, now, without an hour's delay!

   Let the Lord's people now come and keep the feast with joy and
   gladness, singing praises unto the name of the Great Keeper of Israel
   who does neither slumber nor sleep!
     __________________________________________________________________

Exhortation--"Set Your Heart"

   (No. 1884)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God." 1
   Chronicles 22:19.

   THE PASTOR'S RETURN. THREE SPECIALLY- SELECTED SERMONS TO HIS CHURCH,
   CONGREGATION, READERS AND FRIENDS, CONSISTING OF

   A RETROSPECT, A PROSPECT [No. 1883] AND AN EXHORTATION [No. 1884.]

   THIS exhortation may be most fitly directed to those who are already
   saved. It was first given to the elders of Israel and we would gladly
   hope that they were already good men and true, but, secondly, the
   language might be very fitly addressed to the unconverted. There may be
   a little straining in this latter case, for we can hardly call the
   Lord, their God as yet, but still we shall venture to say to the
   unconverted who have come up with God's people, "Set your heart and
   your soul to seek the Lord your God."

   I. Let us take it, first, in ITS REFERENCE TO GOD'S OWN PEOPLE. You
   have already found the Lord. There is a sense in which you have not to
   seek Him, for you already know Him, but, in another sense, you are
   still to seek Him, for seeking the Lord is a description of the whole
   of the Believer's life. After he has found God as his salvation, he has
   to seek him as his Friend, as his Sanctifier, as his Example. Until
   they come to that glorious perfection which belongs to the better
   world, Christian men have something, still, to seek.

   Our first enquiry is, "What are they to seek?" Beloved Friends, I say
   to you, as David said to the princes of Israel, "Seek the Lord your
   God." Do it by endeavoring to obey Him in everything. Let it be our
   study to test everything that we do by God's Holy Word. Let us not
   willfully sin, either in commission or in omission. Let us be very
   particular to seek out the will of the Lord so as to fulfill not only
   commands which are plain, but those about which there is a question. In
   the service of God nothing is little and, loyalty to the great Royalty
   of God comes out in tenderness of conscience concerning little things.
   He that carelessly offends in trifles, shall fall by little and little.
   The greatest catastrophes in moral life come not usually all of a
   sudden, but by slow degrees. The dry rot enters into the timbers of the
   house of human character--and when it has silently worked its
   mischief--the house falls with a shock.

   It is not the wind of temptation that brings it down--that may be the
   apparent instrument--but the sly, secret rot that has all the while
   been going on, is the real destroyer. Therefore let us pledge ourselves
   unto God to live more and more watchfully, seeking the Lord with our
   heart and soul in everything--in private, in the family, in business
   and in the House of God. He that walks hastily without consideration
   will assuredly err, but he that takes counsel of God and watches to
   know what the will of the Master may be, shall walk uprightly and
   surely. O Christian, set your heart to this, that the Lord Jesus is
   your absolute Lord and Master and that, at every point, you will
   scrupulously endeavor to do His will, yielding a cheerful obedience as
   the fruit of the Spirit within your soul!

   Seek the Lord, also, as David wanted these princes to do, in the
   building up of His Temple. He says, "Set your heart and your soul to
   seek the Lord your God. Arise, therefore, and build the sanctuary of
   the Lord." Beloved, it ought to be the main business of the life of
   every Christian to build up the Church! It ought to be mine and I trust
   that it is. I know that this is the main business of many of my
   Brothers and Sisters here, since for its sake they forego many an hour
   of leisure and to it they give the best of their faculties. We are sent
   here on purpose to build the city of God which is His Church. The
   foundations have been laid in the fair vermilion of our Savior's
   precious blood. Stone upon stone, the walls have risen. It is ours to
   help with the construction, in quarry or in forest, with saw or with
   axe. If we cannot do great works, we must weave the hangings, or
   fashion the pins, or twist the cords. It should be the main objective
   of our life to seek the Lord by building up His Church. Oh, how I wish
   that all Christians thought so! Alas, many fancy that the work of the
   Church is to be left to a dozen or two of us--that the minister is to
   do his best with a few friends--but the bulk of the people are to be
   excused the glorious liberty of the service of the blessed God! Come,
   my Brothers and Sisters, one and all, seek the Lord with all your heart
   and soul in the building up of His Church! Let nothing be lacking to
   the Church of God in the Tabernacle which is as a city set upon a hill!

   Let all you do, whether it is of personal obedience or in connection
   with the Church, be done with a single eye to God's Glory. O Christian
   men and women, what have you to do with worldly honor? What have you to
   do with ease? The target towards which your life's arrow should speed
   is the Glory of Him who made you, who has redeemed you with His
   precious blood and has created you a second time that you may be for
   Him, and for Him alone! Know you not that the Lord's portion is His
   people? Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. How heartily we ought to
   respond to the Lord's choice of us by glorying that we are Christ's
   chosen servants and that now, the one thing for which we live is to
   reflect the Glory of His blessed name! To this are you called, O you
   elect and redeemed of the Most High! This is your high destiny! Answer
   to it on earth as you hope to fulfill it in Heaven! Seek the Lord! That
   is what is intended in the text--to render obedience and to labor for
   the building of His Temple and the honor of His name.

   Next, let us enquire, how are they to seek? Here is the text--"Set your
   heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God." Does not that intend a
   fixity of purpose? "Set your heart and your soul." There are plenty of
   flimsy creatures about--whose manhood has long ago evaporated--who are
   "everything by turns and nothing long." These fritter away life like
   fluttering butterflies of the garden. They stay not long enough in any
   place to gather sweetness even from the choicest flowers. The genuine
   man of God who is going to serve the Lord, puts his foot down and you
   might as well hope to pluck up the North Pole as to move him from his
   chosen sphere! He has looked ahead and he sees on what tack he ought to
   steer--and he will hold the tiller to that point--over mountain waves,
   or through the trough of the billows, he still will speed his way! He
   has looked to his chart, settled his course and he is not to be turned
   aside. You who are men must now serve your God with a determination
   that cannot be shaken. Resolve that you will glorify God by holding
   fast His Truths and by following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus,
   for the times are flippant and only the resolute can master them.

   You see that David says, "Set your heart." That is, have an intense
   affection towards God's service and Glory. A man never does a thing
   well if his heart is not in it. No painter has attained to excellence
   unless he has mixed his colors, not only with his brains, but with the
   life-blood of his heart! Success comes not to heartless efforts.
   Certainly it is so in the service of the living God. He will not accept
   a sacrifice which lacks the life-blood of a warm, affectionate intent.
   Brothers and Sisters, nobody is good by accident. No man ever became
   holy by chance. There must be a resolve, a desire, a panting, a pining
   after obedience to God or else we shall never have it! Set your heart,
   then, to seek the Lord your God.

   There are other parts of your nature besides your heart. Your soul has
   in it, among other things, an intellect. I would that all who serve God
   would serve Him with their intellect, for many seem to jog on in the
   service of God like old horses that have gone their round so often that
   they now crawl over the road in their sleep! Alas, the first big stone
   in the road throws them over! Let us resolve neither to leave our heads
   nor our hearts at home when we come into God's House. The whole man
   should be present and energetic when God is to be honored! We ought to
   plot and plan how to win a soul as earnestly as we contrive to make a
   profit in our trade. We ought as much to speculate and scheme to
   glorify God as we meditate how to advance our business. Our inventive
   genius should be more concerned to set jewels in the Redeemer's crown
   than to perfect the most beautiful work of art. Let our motto be--"All
   for Jesus"--for He has redeemed us altogether. Every thought of
   throbbing brain, every affection of beating heart, every movement of
   cunning hand--all should

   be for Him at its best--and kept well at work for His royal service.
   The yoke of Christ should be laid not merely on the shoulder, but on
   every part, power and passion of our entire manhood. So should it be.
   God grant it may be so!

   And then, if I am again asked the question, "How ought we to seek the
   Lord?" I answer--by the union and concentration of all our faculties.
   Our life should be comparable to sunlight--and holy zeal, like a
   magnifying glass--should focus upon a given spot and cause it to burn
   its way to success. He will never do much for God who attempts to serve
   a dozen masters. I have been called upon this week by several persons
   to give my aid in trifling matters of politics, finance and social
   arrangement. "Why," I said to the applicants, "there are hundreds of
   people who can attend to these matters quite as well as I can." "Yes,
   Sir, but we want your weight and influence." I replied, "My weight and
   influence belong to Another. I am very willing to help you in any good
   thing if I can do it without diverting my attention from the service of
   my Master, but my time is not my own. I have to preach the Gospel--you
   can get any blind fiddler to canvass for your candidate. I must attend
   to my Master's business and let the dead bury their dead."

   I would have you Christian people, while you attend to everything that
   is just, right, kind, proper and of good repute--everything that can
   benefit your fellow men, or help the cause of liberty and
   righteousness--yet, still keep your souls undivided and entire for the
   service of your God! Throw your life into your religion! Do not be like
   the man whose child at Sunday school was asked, "Is your father a
   religious man?" "Yes, Sir," she said, "Father has religion, but he has
   not done much at it lately." I am afraid there are many of that sort.
   They have not taken their coats off at it! They have not thrown their
   whole souls into it! Brothers and Sisters, if you follow Christ, follow
   Him fully! If you mean to be Christians, be Christians! If you are
   worldlings, give your hearts to the world, or you will make nothing of
   it--it would be a pity to halt between two objects so as to miss both!
   If Jehovah is God, serve Him with your heart, with the concentrated
   energy of your entire nature at its best! See, Christian people, to
   what you are called.

   But the text also tells us when we are to seek the Lord. It has a
   little word in it--a golden monosyllable it is! It is a word which
   comprehends the whole almanac, every day in the week, all the year
   round. "Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God."
   Now is the only time worth having because, indeed, it is the only time
   we ever have! While I speak, it is gone and another, "now," has come
   up. Take your moments on the wing and use them as they fly. Now, now,
   now! Let us give ourselves, heart and soul, to the service of the Lord
   our God NOW!

   When did David mean by his, "now"? I think he meant, first, when the
   people had an efficient leader. "I am dying," he said, "but there is
   Solomon, my son. He is a man of peace and God has said that he shall
   build His Temple; therefore arise and seek the Lord." It is a grand
   thing for any Church when God sends them one who can lead them, about
   whom they are united in judgment and with whom they can hopefully march
   to the conflict. Alas, I know several Churches that have been sadly
   troubled by the deaths of faithful ministers. I pray you, if you are
   members of a Church which has a God-sent minister still alive and at
   its head, set your heart and your soul now to serve God! While He
   spares His servant to lead you on to success, take care that you follow
   with holy enthusiasm. "Now" is the time for activity!

   He means, also, when God is with you. Read the 18th verse, "Is not the
   Lord your God with you?" When God is with you, get to work! What can
   you do if God is gone? And how soon you will drive Him away unless you
   work while you are in His company! God never came upon earth to live
   among sluggards and to have communion with drones. Two cannot walk
   together unless they are agreed and one thing they must assuredly be
   agreed on is the rate at which they mean to walk--they cannot walk
   together except at the same pace! Jesus Christ never travels slowly. It
   is quick marching with Him! Ho, you laggards, quicken your steps or He
   will leave you far behind! Serve the Lord with greater diligence, or
   you will lose delight in His ways. While God is with you, O gracious
   men, set your hearts and your souls to seek Him!

   Note, again, that David says, "Has He not given you rest on every
   side?" That is another set time when we ought to serve the Lord with
   all our might. When we have rest from care, then our care should be to
   please the Lord. You, my Brother, are released from all that affliction
   which wearied you a few weeks ago--therefore praise the Lord! Your
   enemies are quiet, your anxieties do not harass you as they used to
   do--therefore extol your God! Serve God with all your might when He
   deals out His favor to you. When there has been dull weather and no
   wind, how eagerly the mariner hails the first breath of air! If there
   is but a capful of wind, he labors to make headway with it. He uses
   every movement that would flutter a handkerchief! So it ought to be
   with God's people--they should turn the least favor to advantage--and
   much more the greater. When God gives us rest, joy and peace, let us
   make a Sabbath of it and consecrate the gladsome hours to His highest
   Glory.

   But, indeed, this "now," as I have said, is of general acceptation.
   Now, you young men in the prime of your vigor, set your heart and your
   soul to the service of God! We need more men for our Evangelists'
   Association. We are very short of preachers--preachers to go to rooms,
   mission halls and suburban villages to declare Christ to the people.
   Now, then, set your heart and soul to the service of God while you are
   young. Sunday schools around us are pining for lack of teachers. Young
   men and women, you are the people to undertake such service as this! Do
   not stand back. There is nothing like serving God in your youth. As
   soon as you are saved, yourselves, seek to rescue others! The Christian
   man who does not give God the morning of his days is not very likely to
   give Him much of the evening. He who does not rise with the lark is not
   likely to sing like he does!

   If I speak thus to the young, I would speak with equal force to the
   middle-aged. Now, my Brothers and Sisters, we have had some
   experience--we are no longer children--we know a little of the good way
   and some of that little was learned in a painful school. I have had my
   knuckles rapped very often to make me learn how to make simple
   up-strokes and down-strokes--and now I desire to fill my page with my
   Master's name. If we have learned anything, let us set our heart and
   our soul to serve the living God with all the wisdom and experience
   which Grace has given us.

   You, upon whose heads I see the snows of many a winter--you whose bare
   heads show how often the rough winds of age have swept over your
   brows--surely with so short a time to live it becomes you to set your
   heart and your soul to serve the Lord! If men knew how brief their time
   is, how much would they quicken their service if they really loved
   Christ as He ought to be loved! At this hour this is my one message to
   old and young, to myself and to you--let us be up and doing!

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, you who have been with me these many
   years and you who have lately come among us, let us begin again! Let us
   set our hearts and our souls with dogged determination to serve the
   Lord. If the work is difficult, a hard thing can always be cut with
   something harder. You can cut a diamond with a diamond. Oh, to have a
   divinely hardened resolution that will cut through anything for Christ!
   Comrades, we will win souls for Jesus, or we will break our hearts over
   it! God help us, for His name's sake!

   II. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I have done with you now. You can
   sit still and pray while I talk to the others. I have now to SPEAK TO
   THOSE WHO ARE UNCONVERTED, just whispering to you, dear Friends, that I
   should like to spread the big net and take many in it--and they will be
   taken if the Holy Spirit is here in answer to our prayers.

   To you who are unconverted, I would earnestly say set your hearts on
   true religion and be not content with the outward form of it. Observe
   that David had gathered these noblemen and gentlemen around his bed to
   urge them to build a Temple, but he was a spiritual man and he knew
   that Temple building was not everything, although he valued it highly.
   He knew that there was something better than outward service and so he
   said to these men, "Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord
   your God." By all manner of means attend the House of God, though you
   are not a Christian--but go with the desire that God will bless the
   Word and make you a Christian! While you diligently attend to the
   outward ordinances of God's House, I pray you do not trust in them, but
   seek the Lord your God, Himself.

   Baptism is the duty of every Believer, but it is not the duty of
   anybody except a Believer--I pray you do not put the sign in the place
   of the thing signified! Do not trust in Baptism! Why, if you were not
   only immersed, but immersed in a thousand seas, this would not help you
   to salvation! You must be born again! You must seek the Lord. There is
   no salvation in an outward ceremony! If any of you come to the Lord's
   Table, I pray you do not come with any view of getting Grace by coming,
   or finding salvation in the eating of a morsel of bread and the taking
   of a sip of wine. The elements upon the table cannot help you! The
   communion will be injurious to you if you are not a true Believer.
   Examine yourself whether you are in the faith and so eat of that
   bread--but do not dare to eat of it unless in your very heart you have
   first known the Lord and are feeding upon Him!

   I put this to every person who is not yet converted. Do not rest in
   hymn singing, Church going, Chapel going, bending your knees in private
   prayer, or in anything else that comes of yourself. Your salvation lies
   outside of yourself, in Christ Jesus. Fly away to Jesus! Tarry not in
   any outward signs or symbols. Build the Temple, by all means, but first
   of all set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord!

   Now observe that the end which we would persuade you to, by God's good
   Spirit, is that you seek the Lord Himself. Do not merely seek to know
   doctrine, or to learn precepts. Seek the Lord! There is such a Person
   as Jesus Christ the Lord. Seek Him. The keynote of the Gospel is from
   the lips of Jesus, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." Seek not

   your minister, your hymnal, your prayer book, or even your Bible--seek
   the Lord! Some think to find salvation in the Bible and fancy that
   Bible reading is the way of salvation, but it is not. "You search the
   Scriptures," says Christ, "for in them you think you have eternal life:
   and they are they which testify of Me. And you will not come to Me,
   that you might have life." If you put Bible reading in the place of
   coming to Christ by faith, you will miss the mark! You must come to a
   personal Savior in your own person by putting your trust in Him. Trust
   in Jesus, not in a doctrine, nor in a command, but in Him--and then you
   will be saved. You must trust in Him of the five wounds; in Him of the
   bloody sweat; in Him of the crown of thorns; in Him of the deadly
   Cross. Trust in Him at once! This, alone, is the way of salvation. "Set
   your heart and your soul to seek the Lord," for He says to you by my
   mouth, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
   am God, and beside Me there is none else."

   But now observe--for I want to force this home, as God shall help
   me--that you must seek Him at once with all your heart and soul. That
   is to say, I believe that when a man is awakened, the first thing he
   ought to do is to find assured salvation. I have heard of a man who
   went upstairs to seek the Lord, with the desperate resolve that he
   would do no business till he was right with God. He did not open his
   shop shutters, for he had resolved to find a Savior before he took
   another penny across the counter. I cannot judge that man to have been
   unwise in the reckoning of God and the holy angels, for the first
   necessity of life is a renewed heart! If I thought that I was struck
   with a serious disease, I would not wait until it grew incurable, but I
   would go to a physician and have the matter attended to before it went
   further. Wouldn't you?

   Act with the same speed as to your souls. Oh, men and women, there is
   but a step between you and Hell unless God's mercy shall interpose! How
   can you trifle! It is no trifling matter. A lost soul--what mourning
   can equal the sorrow of it? Hang the heavens in sackcloth! Darken the
   sun; extinguish the moon! Silence all mirth! Hush all music! Harps of
   Heaven, be still! You angels, cease your sonnets! The funeral of a lost
   soul is the most awful solemnity that can be conceived. Such a funeral
   may be needed for you within an hour! What did I say? There may not
   remain a minute! Your breath fails and you are lost. Oh, Sirs, I pray
   you, make short work of your rebellious delays! Put everything aside
   and seek the Lord with heart and soul!

   And does not that mean that if anything hinders your finding salvation,
   you must have done with it? Does certain company hinder your religious
   thought? Do not go into such society! Is an allowable pursuit
   detrimental to your finding Christ? Do not follow it! It might be death
   to you, though it is sport for others. You must have Christ--see that
   you do have Him. That prayer of our hymn--

   "Give me Christ, or else I die,"

   ought to be in your heart and on your lips. Put everything else away
   until you get an answer to that petition. Follow after everything that
   may help you to find Christ. When I was seeking Christ, I was in the
   House of God whenever the doors were opened. I heard a preacher who did
   not speak home to my heart and, therefore, I went to hear another. I
   did not care who the preacher was, or what he was, if I could but find
   Christ under him.

   Neither was I particular whether I stood or sat, or whether I had a
   soft cushion to sit on, or none at all! I wanted Christ and I declare
   that if I had been forced to sit on the gallery front, I would not have
   minded where I was so that I could have found the Savior! Any hayloft
   would have done for me, if I could have found forgiveness. Prayer
   Meetings, little gatherings of godly people--why I was sure to be at
   them if I knew of them--for I wanted to find the Savior. You will have
   the Savior when your whole heart and soul are after Him. Remember, the
   Lord will not save you while you are dreaming or dancing. He took Eve
   out of the side of Adam when Adam slumbered, but He will not take sin
   out of you when you are asleep. You must be awakened up in some way or
   other. You must be startled, if not with thunderbolts, yet with the
   sweet heart-searching love of Christ. You must be thoroughly awake and,
   when you are so, then, seeking the Lord in that fashion, you shall not
   be long before you find Him!

   Lastly, when are we to seek Him? The text says, "now." I forget what
   day of the month this is. It does not matter. You will never forget the
   day of the month in which you seek the Lord and find Him. Who among us
   ever forgot his natural birthday? Yet you are more likely to remember
   the day in which you begin to live unto God. A friend writes to me, and
   says, "Dear Sir, my birthday was on such a day and such another day."
   For the minute I thought, "Dear man! Has he been born twice?" Then I
   guessed his meaning. Is not the second birthday much the better of the
   two? Born to sorrow the first time--born to bliss the second time! Born
   in sin the first time--born in Christ the second time. Born in depraved

   nature at first--born in the image of Christ Jesus at last! Oh, how
   happy the men who have that better birthday! May it come to you at this
   good hour! There is never a better time in which to seek the Savior
   than just now. Stop not for anything. "I must get better," cries one.
   Must you? Is that what you do when you seek a surgeon? Do you say, "I
   must get a little better before I go"? You will never go at all if you
   wait to be better, for when you feel better, you will say, "I need not
   go now." Is not that the style? No time is like time present.

   There is an old saying that, "Half a loaf is better than no bread," but
   that saying is not true spiritually. A man who has half a loaf of his
   own never seeks the Bread which came down from Heaven. The man who has
   no bread at all is in a better case, for he is more likely to come to
   the banquet of Divine Grace. Come, you starving ones, and eat of the
   Bread of Heaven! Believe and live! Faith brings God to you and you to
   God! Therefore believe and seek--seek and believe!

   The Lord send all of you home with my text ringing in your ears, "Now
   set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Problem of the Age

   (No. 1885)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 7, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And His disciples answered Him, How can a man satisfy these men with
   bread here in the wilderness?'" Mark 8:4.

   I HAVE been, for a while, lying outside the crowd, unable either to
   feed the multitude or to bring the sick to the Master. Here and there I
   have helped one, as opportunity has occurred, but I have been called to
   rest rather than to serve. Yet all the while I have never ceased from
   constant thought about the perishing multitudes--this great city and
   its sad estate, this country, Ireland and continental nations are all
   under a cloud of deep depression. One can remove his body from the
   turmoil, but his heart is still in it. If ever there was a time when
   there was a call for the deep sympathy of all Christian people with the
   perishing multitudes, it is just now. If ever the Church should gird
   herself to do her Master's service, it is today. Never forget that the
   Church is the Spouse of Christ. She is His chosen Bride and she is,
   therefore, to unite with Him in His great enterprise among the sons of
   men. The work is salvation and that work is to be worked by means of
   Divine Truth, carried to men, externally, by human hands and,
   internally, through the Spirit of God. The Church will be false to her
   heavenly Bridegroom if she does not sympathize with the tenderness of
   His heart and enter into His gracious labor of love.

   The question before us is certainly unique if we remember that those
   who asked it had seen a former miracle of feeding the multitude. It
   would seem that those who had seen 5,000 fed would not ask concerning
   the feeding of 4,000. "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
   in the wilderness?" Inasmuch as on one memorable occasion they had seen
   the Master multiply loaves and fishes, they might have expected Him to
   do the same again. I grant you to the fullest that it was an
   inexcusable question. I will not offer the slightest apology for it,
   but yet it is a very natural question-- natural, I mean, to that fallen
   and depraved human nature which is our daily grief. He that knows what
   human nature is will be astonished at nothing evil that it produces! I
   do not mean human nature merely unrenewed by Grace, but I mean that
   carnal nature which remains even in the disciples of Christ. This is of
   such a character that it shamefully gives way to unbelief.

   You ask me to give an instance--I point to you! Have you not often seen
   the hand of God? And yet the next time you have needed Divine help, you
   have been in anxiety and doubt. Remember how Israel saw the Red Sea
   divided and yet the people feared that they would die of thirst? When
   the riven rock had relieved them, they were next, afraid of hunger! And
   after the heavens had rained them bread, they became alarmed at the
   size of the giants who dwelt in Canaan. All that God had done seemed to
   go for nothing with them--they relapsed into their old unbelief. Are
   you and I much better? Alas, we may here see ourselves as in a mirror!
   Those who have a smooth path often boast of a vast amount of faith, or
   what they think to be faith. But those who follow a wilderness way must
   often confess to their shame that after receiving great mercy they
   still find unbelief creeping in.

   This is shameful to the last degree and should cause us bitter sorrow
   and great fear lest we should provoke the Lord to anger! Before us must
   often rise the example of those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness
   because of their unbelief. All this makes us fear that had we been with
   our Lord in the desert, we would not have behaved better than Peter and
   James and John! We, too, might have forgotten the former miracle of the
   loaves and have anxiously enquired, "How can a man satisfy these men
   with bread here in the wilderness?"

   The question, although it is thus surprising and inexcusable, may,
   however, be used this morning for our profit. It may at least do this
   good--as we shall not be able to answer it on any human lines, it will
   show us our inability--and that is what our Lord would make most clear
   before His power is revealed. I should not wonder but what He drew
   those

   people into the desert on purpose that there might be no suspicion that
   when they were fed, they had not been supplied from fields or gardens,
   or by the charity of inhabitants. It was a barren spot, out of which
   nothing could be grown! The disciples had to feel this and recognize
   this and state this--and then the Lord had a clear platform for working
   His miracle. He wants to clear you out, Brothers and Sisters! He wants
   to make you see what a weak, poor, petty, miserable thing you are! And
   when He has brought you to that, then His own arm shall be revealed in
   the eyes of all the people--and all who behold it shall give Him the
   Glory due unto His name.

   Let us come, then, to our question with the hope that it may be
   sanctified to holy ends.

   "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?"
   First, this is a pressing problem--how to meet the needs of the
   multitude. Secondly, press as it may, it is one of tremendous
   difficulty. But thirdly, and cheeringly, it is capable of a very
   glorious answer. There is a Man who, from His infinite resources, can
   satisfy the countless myriads of our race even in this wilderness!

   I. First, then, IT IS A VERY PRESSING PROBLEM. What is to be done for
   the perishing multitude? What is to be done to satisfy men's souls? I
   confine the question to spiritual matters at this time, though I, by no
   means, slight the dreadful social and material questions which are also
   especially urgent at this hour.

   At this present moment myriads of souls are in present need. We
   sometimes think too exclusively of salvation as having reference to the
   world to come, but it has an urgent, all-important reference to this
   present state. A man who does not know Christ is a wretched man! A man
   who has never been renewed in heart, who lives in sin and loves it, is
   a pitiable being, a lost soul over whom angels might weep! If there
   were no Heaven to miss and no Hell to merit, sin is a curse upon this
   life. It is Hell to live without a Savior! If there were no poverty in
   London, it would be quite enough to break one's heart to think that
   there is sin in it reigning over the ungodly.

   That grievous side of London life which raises "the bitter cry," is
   not, after all, the worst side of it--it is, to a great extent, the
   outer disease which marks a secret cancer at the heart! If drunkenness
   brought no consequences, if vice involved no misery it would not be
   better, but far worse, for our race. It is a more horrible thing when
   wickedness wraps itself in scarlet and fine linen and when vice, by the
   help of an abominable protectorate, is enabled to escape Scot free. Sin
   rampant without check would be even worse than the present woe! It is
   an awful thing to think that masses of our fellow men have never turned
   to their Creator with obedient hope, have never confessed their sin
   against Him and have lived without thanking Him for His mercy, or
   trembling at His justice! Great Lord, You know better than we do what
   horror dwells in the ungodliness of men! Brothers and Sisters, the
   multitudes are without the Bread of Life! Shall we not distribute it
   among them at once?

   The multitudes are, also, in awful peril as to the future. When our
   Savior looked with compassion on the multitude, He not only noticed
   their present hunger, but He foresaw what would come of it. "If I send
   them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for
   many of them came from far." Their immediate hunger touched the Savior,
   but He did not forget its consequences--they would go back to their
   mountain dwellings and, in the attempt to climb their terraces, one
   would fall by the hillside from need of food, and another would drop in
   the sun from sheer exhaustion. Perhaps a mother carrying her babe at
   her bosom might find it dead for lack of nourishment, or the women,
   themselves, might faint and perish by the way. This our tender Lord
   could not bear to think of. Thus, when we look into the future of a
   soul, we start back aghast from the vision!

   In these times, my Brothers and Sisters, many attempts have been made
   to represent the condition of impenitent sinners in the world to come
   as less dreadful than the plain Scripture declares it to be. I cannot
   see what practical result can arise out of such teaching except it be
   the hardening of men's hearts and placing them more at ease than they
   are, now, in their indifference with regard to their fellow men. I know
   that at this hour a master argument with my heart in seeking to save my
   fellow men is the intolerable thought that if they die without a
   Savior, they enter upon a fixed state in which they will continue in
   sin and consequent misery without hope of change. I am anxious to save
   men from Hell, at once, because I see no other day of hope for them.

   Since these things are so--and I am assured they are--every man who has
   a spark of humanity and a grain of Grace is bound to cry mightily unto
   God concerning the vast multitude of men who are passing away from
   under the sound of the Gospel and rejecting it--who are living in the
   land of Gospel light and willfully closing their eyes to it and so are
   choosing endless darkness! If you are not awakened to action, O
   Christian, by the twofold belief that sin in this life is an

   intolerable evil and that, in the world to come, it involves endless
   woe, what will bestir you? If this does not awaken your compassion for
   men! If this does not bring you heart-break, are you not hard as
   stones, unfeeling as savage beasts?

   The case of the multitude is laid upon the Church of God. The Lord
   Jesus Christ took up all the hungry thousands and laid them at the feet
   of His disciples. These were His own words, as He commissioned them,
   "Give you them to eat." It was a great honor to them to be taken into
   co-partnership with their Lord--a high privilege to be workers together
   with Him in relieving this far-spread hunger. It was a great honor, but
   what a responsibility it involved! If one of them had quietly stolen
   into the background, whispering to himself, "this is a Quixotic
   notion." If another had hidden behind a rock and said, "I shall pray
   about it, but that is all I can do"--why what a disgrace it would have
   been to them! Instead of which, they were found true-hearted to their
   Master and, the burden being laid upon them, they took up that burden
   in a fashion--and their Lord enabled them to carry it with joy. They
   had the special happiness of handing out the bread to the vast host who
   gratefully received the gift. The 12 were very popular men that day, I
   guarantee you, and they were looked upon with great envy by all who
   surrounded them! Was it not a high privilege to distribute food among
   so many hungry men, women, and children? They must have been flushed
   with excitement and filled with delight! I know I would have been. To
   go among a crowd of eager, hungry people and to feed them to the full
   is a work an angel might covet! I am sure that many generous hearts
   here are already devising ways of feeling this delight. Are you not? I
   mean literally! Will you not help to relieve the present distress by
   gifts of food and clothing?

   Returning to the spiritual aspect of the matter--the Lord has called
   His Church in these days to this work--onerous and, indeed, impossible
   without Himself! But with Him, honorable, simple and easily
   accomplished. He calls His Church to the great task of feeding the
   multitudes of London, the multitudes of our empire, the multitudes
   throughout the whole world! And since He is present to multiply our
   loaves and fishes, the pressing problem may not be abandoned in
   despair.

   Brothers and Sisters, we cannot put aside this work! We that are
   Christians cannot escape from this service! The Master has laid it upon
   us and the only way to get out of it is by renouncing His leadership
   altogether! To attempt to be a Christian and not to live for your
   fellow men is hypocrisy! To suppose that you can be faithful to Christ
   and let these multitudes die without an effort is a damnable delusion!
   He is a traitor to his Master who does not enter heart and soul into
   the great life-work of that Master--and His life-work was--"that the
   world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). If you will say good-bye
   to Jesus, you may run away with your own loaf and your own little fish
   and eat them in secret selfishness. But if you mean to be with Christ,
   you must bring your loaf and your fish here and contribute it--you must
   bring yourself and be the personal dispenser of the multiplied bread
   and fish--and you must persevere in the distribution till the last man,
   the last woman, the last child shall be filled! Then Jesus shall have
   all the Glory of the feast, but to you will be the honor of having been
   a servitor at His royal table in the august banquet of His love.

   So you see where we are this very morning. We are called to work out a
   very pressing problem--"How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
   in the wilderness?" Let us not sleep, as do others, but let us awaken
   ourselves to work side by side with those dear and faithful Brothers
   and Sisters who are toiling manfully to hand out the Bread of Life to
   the millions of this city, the teeming myriads of this world!

   II. But now secondly, IT IS A PROBLEM OF TREMENDOUS DIFFICULTY. The
   difficulty of feeding the 4,000 was enormous, but the difficulty of
   saving the multitudes of the human race is as high above it as the
   Heaven is high above the earth! After all, this miracle only gave a
   single meal to a few thousand who soon grew hungry again--the work
   needed is to feed myriads so that they shall not hunger again, forever!
   Think of this!

   For first, what a thing it is to satisfy the needs of a single soul! I
   would like those who think the salvation of souls from sin to be easy
   to try to convert one person. Sunday school teacher, did you ever
   attempt to bring one girl to Christ, yourself? She shall be one of the
   sweetest children in the whole school, but if you have attempted her
   conversion without seeking Divine aid in prayer and without looking to
   the Spirit of God to influence that little heart for good, you have
   made a miserable failure of it! If you had to save a soul, where would
   you begin? The introduction of a holy thought into carnal minds is a
   miracle as great as to get a beam of light into a blind eye, or a
   breath of life into a dead body! How hard it is to deliver a man from
   brutish carelessness and make him think of his soul, eternity and God!
   As to renewing the stony heart, as to quickening the dead soul into
   life, who can do it? Here we enter into the region of miracles! Can you
   create a fly? When you have created the most minute creature, then talk
   about making a new heart and a right spirit!

   To "satisfy," says the text--"how shall a man satisfy these men?" To
   satisfy a soul is a work which only God can accomplish! Open your
   mouth, O man of ambition! We put the round world upon his tongue and
   when he has swallowed it, he cries, like Alexander, for another! He is
   no more satisfied with the whole world than with a pill of bread! As to
   the spiritual cravings of men, how can you satisfy them? Pardon for
   sin, a hope of eternal life, likeness to Christ--these are necessary to
   satisfy--how can we give them? The world has no such food in all its
   stores! The work is impossible at the outset, when only one claimant
   appears! How can a man satisfy the spiritual hunger of a single soul? I
   should like every Christian man to be laid low with this thought, that
   he may be driven entirely out of conceit of himself and may at once cry
   to the Strong for strength and use the simple weapon of the Gospel in
   the power of the Holy Spirit--and not in his own strength.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, what am I talking about? One soul! What of
   that? Think of the numbers who need heavenly bread! We have not only
   one soul, not only one million souls, but hard upon five millions of
   immortal beings in this single city! In this huge world what myriads
   have we? A thousand millions would not compass the countless army now
   encamping on the globe! Would we deliberately exempt one of these from
   hope? Would we desire one of these to be willfully left to perish? Must
   not all be fed, if possible? Shall not every man, woman and child, as
   far as our desire can go, partake of the feast? Well, then, where are
   we? We are altogether at sea! Why, we have not a notion of what a
   million is! It will take a very, very long time even to count to that
   number. Think of this City of London--why, you shall ride through it,
   or you shall traverse it on weary foot for a year--and at the end you
   shall only wonder more at its incalculable vastness! To supply this
   great metropolis with gracious influences is a labor worthy of a God!
   The Church of God is called to feed all these with the Bread of
   Heaven--and all those out yonder in the heathen world! O Feebleness!
   What can you do alone? Yet, O Feebleness, how gloriously God can use
   you for the accomplishment of His Divine purposes! There is the
   problem. Said I not truly that it is one of tremendous difficulty?

   What seems to have struck the disciples was the place they were in--it
   was a desert place. Perhaps you might see, here and there, a little
   bitter herbage which a goat would disdain to browse, but for the most
   part it was bare ground. Our Evangelist, in describing the first
   miracle, is quite graphic in describing the green grass, but in this
   case he says that they sat on "the ground"--the ground bare of green
   grass. There were no corn fields, nor fruit-bearing plants. There was
   literally nothing to turn to account. If the stones could have been
   turned into bread, the people might have been filled, but the ground,
   itself, yielded absolutely nothing. I may be supposed, perhaps, to
   croak when I say that the present period is as bare of all help to the
   Gospel as that ground was barren of help to the feast. The world has
   never known a period less helpful to the Gospel than the present! We
   read in the Revelation of a time when "the earth helped the woman," but
   it is not so now. I see no element favorable to the conversion of the
   world to Christ, but everything is in array against it.

   The people are not so attentive to the Gospel as once they were--the
   masses do not care even to enter the House of Prayer. In London they
   have, to a very large extent, ceased to care about the preaching of the
   Word. They are to be reached--blessed be God, they shall be
   reached--but the tendency of the times is not towards religion, but
   towards unbelief, materialism and sordid selfishness. A current, no, a
   torrent, of unbelief is roaring around the foundations of society and
   our pulpits are reeling beneath its force. Many Christian people are
   only half-believers now--they are almost smothered in the dense fog of
   doubt which is now around us. We have come into cloud-land and cannot
   see our way. Many are sinking in the slough and those of us who have
   our feet upon the Rock of Ages have our hands full with helping our
   slipping friends.

   Standing before God with a child-like faith and trusting in Him without
   question, it does not matter to us, personally, if the surrounding
   darkness should deepen into seven midnights black as Hell, for we walk
   by faith and not by sight. Though the earth were removed and the
   mountains cast into the midst of the sea, we would still hold to God
   and to His Christ in a death grip of unshaken confidence. But the mass
   of professors are not so. I constantly meet with Brethren who are
   reeling to and fro and staggering like a drunk and are at their wits'
   end! And, rejoicing that I have been given my sea-legs, I have to cheer
   them and assure them that we are not shipwrecked after all. The good
   ship is not going down! The everlasting Truth of God is as sure as
   ever! The day is not far distant when the Lord shall send us a great
   calm. It will, before long, come to pass that the infidel philosophies
   of the 19th Century will be exhibited to little children in our Sunday
   schools as an instance of the monstrous folly into which wise men were
   allowed to plunge when they refused the

   Word of the Lord! I am as sure of it as I am sure I live, that the
   present wisdom is foolery written large and that the doctrine which is
   now rejected as the effete theory of Puritans and Calvinists will yet
   conquer human thought and reign supreme! As surely as the sun which
   sets tonight shall rise tomorrow at the predestined hour, so shall the
   Truth of God shine forth over the whole earth! But this era is a desert
   place--in pulpits and out of pulpits, in social morals and in politics,
   it is a dreary wilderness. "How can a man satisfy these men with bread
   here in this wilderness?"

   The Lord has often suffered the multitude to be in straits that He
   might work gracious deliverances. Take a modern instance. One hundred
   and fifty years ago or so, there was a general religious lethargy in
   England and ungodliness was master of the situation. The devil, as he
   flew over England, thought that he had drugged the Church so that it
   would never wake again. How deceived he was! A student at Oxford, who
   had been a pot-boy down in Gloucester, found the Savior and began to
   preach Him. His first sermon was said to have driven 19 people mad
   because it awakened them to true life. Certain other scholars in Oxford
   met together and prayed--and were dismissed by the university for the
   horrible iniquity of holding a Prayer Meeting! Out of the same
   university came another mighty evangelist--John Wesley-- and he, with
   Whitefield, became the leader of the great Methodist revival! Its
   effects are with us to this day. The archenemy soon found that his
   hopes were blighted, for the Church awoke again! Poor miners were
   listening to the Gospel-- their tears were making gutters down their
   black cheeks, while seraphic men told them of pardoning love. Then
   respectable dissent awoke from its bed of sloth and the Church of
   England began to rub her eyes and wonder where she was. An evil time
   brightened into a happy era! Shall it not be so again? Have no fear
   about it! All things shall work together for good. The Lord brings the
   people into the wilderness on purpose that there it may be seen that it
   is not the earth, but Himself, that feeds the people!

   The sting of the question before us, however, I have not quite brought
   out--it was human feebleness. His disciples answered Him--"How can a
   man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?" How can a man
   do it? We are only men. If we were angels! Oh, if we were angels! Well,
   what of it? If we were angels I am sure we would be quite out of the
   business, for, "Unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world
   to come, whereof we speak?" The angels are not in the field. But how
   can a man or a woman do it? How shall a man feed this multitude? "Why,
   see," says one, "what I am! I am no great orator, I have not ten
   talents, I am a weak creature! How can I feed this multitude? What can
   I do?" This is the sting of it all to earnest hearts. "Ah," says one,
   "if I were So-and-So, what I would do!" You may thank God you are not
   anybody but yourself, for you are best as you are, though you are not
   much to speak of now. "But if I were somebody else, I could do
   something," which means this--that since God has chosen to make you
   what He has made you, you will not serve Him! But if He will make you
   somebody else--that is, if your will may be supreme, then, of course
   the house will be rightly ordered. You had better be what you are and a
   little better--and get to work and serve your Master and no longer talk
   about, "How shall a man do this or that?"

   The possibilities of a man are stupendous! God with a man, nothing is
   impossible to that man! Give us not the power of gold, or rank, or
   eloquence, or wisdom, but give us a man! Our Lord thought so when He
   went up to Heaven. He meant, as He entered the pearly gates, to scatter
   a Divine largess among His people down below--and He reached His hand
   into His Father's treasury and He took out of it--what? He took men!
   "And He gave some, Apostles and some, Prophets and some, Evangelists
   and some, pastors and teachers." These were His ascension gifts to the
   sons of men!

   Though we speak thus of what God can make of us, we are in and of
   ourselves poor creatures. We do meet with a perfect Brother, now and
   then, and I always feel inclined to break that bubble. The
   imperfections of the perfect are generally more glaring than those of
   ordinary Believers! Alas, we are all such poor, frail creatures, that
   we are driven away from all confidence in ourselves and we ask with
   emphasis the question, "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
   in the wilderness?"

   III. I am happy, therefore, to come to a blessed conclusion in the
   third head of our discourse, by saying that, laying the emphasis on its
   weakest word, "How can a man?"--THIS QUESTION IS CAPABLE OF A VERY
   GLORIOUS ANSWER.

   I might almost say, as John the Baptist did, "There stands One among
   you, whom you know not." Though He has stood a among us all these
   centuries, yet His people scarcely know Him. Who knows Him fully? "Oh,"
   says one, "I know Christ." Yes, in a sense, but yet He passes
   knowledge. "I believe in God," says one. Are you sure you do? I
   remember reading of a certain minister who spent many days in wrestling
   prayer because he was tempted to doubt whether there

   was a God. And when he came into the full conviction of it, he said to
   his people, "You will be surprised at what I say; but it is a far
   greater thing to believe in God than any of you know." And so it is a
   greater thing to believe in Jesus than most people dream! To believe in
   the notion of a god is one thing, but to believe God is quite another
   matter. One said to me when I was troubled, "Have you not a gracious
   God?" I answered, "Certainly I have." He replied, "What is the good of
   having Him, then, if you do not trust Him?" I was sorely struck by that
   reply and felt humbled in spirit. We do not fully know what Jesus is.
   He is far above our highest thought of Him. He stands among us and we
   know Him not.

   But what I want you to think of is, that this wonderful Man can feed
   this people with bread this day--and in this wilderness. I hope to make
   you believe it by the power of the Spirit of God. Therefore I ask you,
   first, to listen to what this Man says. I read to you just now this
   narrative as we find it in the 15th of Matthew. Turn again to the 32nd
   verse--"Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and said--"Stop a moment.
   Prepare your ears for music"? No, He said, "I have compassion on the
   multitude." Oh, the sweetness of that word! When you are troubled about
   the people, troubled about Ireland, troubled about London, troubled
   about Africa, troubled about China, troubled about India--hear the echo
   of this word--"I have compassion on the multitude." If Jesus spoke thus
   to His people while here, He equally says it now that He is exalted on
   high, for He has carried His tender human heart up to Heaven with Him!
   And out of the excellent Glory we may hear Him still saying, in answer
   to His people's prayers, "I have compassion on the multitude." There is
   our hope! That heart through which the spear was thrust and out of
   which there came blood and water, is the Fountain of hope to our race!
   "I have compassion on the multitude."

   Hear Him speak, again, and I think you will grant that there is much
   sweetness in the utterance. At the end of the 32nd verse we read, "I
   will not send them away fasting." We do not wish to judge Peter and
   James and John, but it seems to me that after hearing the Master say,
   "I will not send them away fasting," they hardly ought to have said,
   "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?"
   They ought quietly to have replied, "Good Lord, You have asked us a
   question which You must, Yourself, answer, for You have distinctly made
   the promise, 'I will not send them away fasting!'"

   Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ means, after all, to leave this
   world as it is? It is written that, "God sent not His Son into the
   world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be
   saved." Will He forego His purpose? The chronicle of time's history
   will not wind up with this horrible state of things. The loom of
   Providence will not leave its piece of cloth with its edge so fearfully
   unraveled--it shall be finished off in due order and yet be bordered
   with threads of gold! The Glory of God shall yet illuminate history
   from the beginning even to the end. All flesh shall see the salvation
   of God and all nations shall yet call the Redeemer blessed. "I will not
   send them away fasting." The people must, therefore, eat bread from the
   Lord's hands. Great Master, the task is far too much for us, alone! But
   if You have said, "I have compassion on the multitude, I will not send
   them away fasting," then we will feed them at Your command. Your humble
   servants are waiting to do Your bidding, whatever it may be, assured
   that You will be with them in it all.

   I beg you, also, to think for a moment of what the Lord did not say,
   because He was speaking about common bread; but of what we know to be
   true of Him concerning His spiritual supplies for men. The greatest
   spiritual need of man is the pardon of sin by an Atonement. Brothers
   and Sisters, if the question were now standing, "Where shall we find an
   Atonement?" it would indeed stagger us! Blessed be God, that question
   does not remain, for the Atonement has been presented, completed and
   fully accepted! Jesus has said, "It is finished," and the real
   difficulty is over. The Cross has rolled away the stone from the
   sepulcher and hope has arisen! The application of the Atonement may be
   difficult, but it must be a small labor compared with the making of the
   Atonement. The well has been dug--the drawing of the water is an easier
   task. If Jesus died, there must be life for men! If He has prayed,
   "Father, forgive them," there must be pardon for the guilty! If Jesus
   has risen into Glory, our race cannot perish in shame! We argue from
   the Cross a millennium of Glory! This Man can satisfy the people
   because of the rich merit of His blood!

   Next, remember that this glorious Man is now invested with Omnipotence.
   His own words are, "All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.
   Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them." Our Jesus is
   Omnipotent. It is He who, by the infinite wisdom of God, made the world
   and without Him was not anything made that was made. Is anything hard
   for the Creator? Is anything impossible, or even difficult to Him who
   rules all things by the power of His Word? Courage, Brothers and
   Sisters--the grand question is answered! Since there is a full
   Atonement and there is an exalted Savior with all power in His hands,
   what remains to dismay us?

   Listen once more. The Spirit of God has been given. Better than
   Christ's bodily Presence among us is the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
   It was expedient that Jesus should go away that the Holy Spirit might
   abide with us as a greater blessing for the Church! Is the Holy Spirit
   gone? Has the Holy Spirit left the Church of God? Is the Church
   appalled by her difficulties though the Spirit of God is poured out
   upon her? What is she thinking? Has she forgotten herself? Has she
   become insane? Brothers and Sisters, with Jesus Himself slain as an
   Atonement--Jesus exalted as a Prince and a Savior at the right hand of
   God and with the Divine Spirit abiding with us forever--what is there
   impossible to the Church of God?

   So I close by one more point, which is this--As I have made you hear
   our Lord's words and also led you to remember the infinite resources at
   His disposal, I now want you to anticipate His working. How does the
   Christ work among men? How will He proceed when He gets fairly to work
   among the masses? There are varieties of operations, but there is a
   continuity of law running through them all. The Divine line of action
   is much the same in all cases.

   The way of the Christ was, first of all, to find out what there was
   which He could use. The little provisions provided by His followers
   consisted of a few loaves and fishes. Is it not wonderful how the Lord
   sometimes finds out little matters which have been hidden away and
   makes much of them? Scotland was once under the sway of unbelief and
   formalism-- how was it to be delivered? Thomas Boston went into a
   shepherd's hut and found a book which had become extremely scarce. It
   was Fisher's, "Marrow of Modern Divinity." Boston rejoiced in the Light
   of the Gospel which flashed in upon his soul and he began to bear
   witness to it. A great controversy followed and, what was far better, a
   great awakening! The lovers of the marrow of the Gospel soon broke the
   bones of error! See what one book may do? Sweden, too, was greatly
   blessed by the discovery in a country house of an old copy of Luther on
   Galatians. See how one voice may wake a nation?

   Brothers and Sisters, who knows what may come out of seven loaves and a
   few small fishes? Yes, the enemies may do what they like--they may
   preach what they please--they may take away one pulpit after another
   from the orthodox. They may even bury us under the rubbish of evolution
   and false philosophy--but we shall rise again! These small clouds will
   soon blow over. There may not remain one single sound expounder of the
   Gospel, but as long as God lives, the Gospel will not die! Its power
   may slumber, but before long it shall awake out of sleep and cry like a
   mighty man who shouts by reason of wine! As long as we have one match
   left, we can yet set the world on fire! As long as one Bible remains,
   the empire of Satan is in danger! Only barley loaves and a few small
   fishes were in the possession of the Apostolic company, but Jesus found
   them and began to work with them!

   The next thing was a secret and mysterious multiplication. The bread
   began to grow in the disciples' hands as before it had grown in the
   ground. Peter had a loaf in his hand and he began to break off a
   corner. To his amazement, it was just as big as before! So he broke off
   the other end and gave that to another hungry person and lo, the loaf
   was still intact! He kept on breaking as fast as he could and the loaf
   continued increasing till everybody had received his full! Wonderful
   hands they were, were they not? No, they were not--they were only the
   rough hands of weather-beaten fishermen. Those other hands which first
   took and blessed, and broke, were doing the deed all the while! It is
   wonderful how God works by our hands and yet His own hands do it all.

   Apart from human agency, the Lord can impress the minds of men and
   women and so multiply His Truth. I heard of a woman in the Isle of
   Skye, when there was very little Gospel preaching, there, who all of a
   sudden felt God was not working in Skye. She journeyed till she reached
   the ferry and then she crossed to the mainland. She asked those she met
   where she could find God. At last she met with a good woman who said,
   "I will tell you where you will find Him." She took her into a place of
   worship where Jesus was plainly set forth. She heard the Gospel and
   went back to tell others about the Savior!

   The devil's work is never done--but it is undone, again, in five
   minutes when the Grace of God is at work. Even in our ashes live our
   little fires--a breath from Heaven shall kindle them into a flame! God
   is never at a loss for agents. He could turn the Pope into an
   Evangelist, a cardinal into a reformer, a priest into a preacher of the
   Gospel! The most superstitious, the most ignorant, the most infidel,
   the most blasphemous, the most degraded may yet be made the champions
   of His Truth. Therefore let no man's heart fail him--the bread shall be
   multiplied and the people shall be fed!

   It was done by everybody distributing his portion. Peter was dividing
   his loaf and many people were specially pleased to be fed by Peter. It
   was quite right that they should be. If Peter fed them, let them be
   satisfied with Peter. Yonder was John with the same bread, breaking it
   with less impetuosity and more graciousness of manner. And yonder was

   James working away very steadily and methodically. But what of the
   difference of distribution? The bread was the same. So long as the
   people were filled, what did it matter which hand passed them their
   bread and fish? Dear Friends, do not imagine that God will bless one
   preacher, only, or one denomination only! He does bless some preachers
   more than others, for He is Sovereign, but He will bless you all in
   your work, for He is God.

   I shall never forget one day, when my dear old grandfather was alive, I
   was to preach a sermon. There was a great crowd of people and I was
   late, for the train was delayed and, therefore, the venerable man
   commenced to preach in my place. He was far on in his sermon when I
   made my appearance at the door. Looking at me, he said, "You have all
   come to hear my dear grandson and, therefore, I will stop that you may
   hear him. He may preach the Gospel better than I can, but he cannot
   preach a better Gospel, can you, Charles?" My answer from the aisle
   was, "I cannot preach the Gospel better, but if I could, it would not
   be a better Gospel." So it is, Brothers--others may break the bread to
   more people, but they cannot break better bread than the Gospel which
   you teach, for that is bread from our Savior's own hands!

   Get to work, each one of you, with your bread-breaking, for this is
   Christ's way of feeding the multitude! Let each one who has, himself,
   eaten, divide his morsel with another. Today fill someone's ear with
   the good news of Jesus and His love. Endeavor this day, each one of you
   who are Christian people, to communicate to one man, woman, or child,
   something of the spiritual meat which has made your soul glad. This is
   my Master's way, will you not drop into it? You cannot propose a
   better! None can contrive a method more likely to be successful, more
   honorable to your Lord and more beneficial to yourself! Bring your
   barley loaf, bring your little fish and put your provision into the
   common store. Take it back again from the great Master's hands filled
   with that blessing which makes it fruitful and multiplies it--and then
   feed the multitude with it! So shall you go forth with joy and be led
   forth with peace. So be it. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Remembrance of His Covenant

   (No. 1886)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 14, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry:
   And He remembered, for their sake, His Covenant, and repented according
   to the multitude of His mercies." Psalm 106:44,45.

   THIS Psalm deserves to be read very carefully. It mentions many of the
   afflictions of God's ancient people, but it clearly sets forth that
   their afflictions were the distinct result of their rebellions and
   sins. It is not so with all the afflictions of God's people. It is
   written, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." And again, "Every
   branch in me that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth
   more fruit." Yet it is often so to this day that the servants of God
   smart because of disobedience. They are chastened for their sin, as it
   is written, "You only have I known of all the people of the earth,
   therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Sin in a child of God
   cannot go unchastened. The rod of chastisement is included in the
   Covenant and, if we are in the Covenant, the Lord will keep His
   promise. "If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments,
   then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity
   with stripes."

   The miseries of Israel of old were distinctly the result of their sins.
   They lived under a dispensation in which there was a visible reward for
   obedience and a prompt temporal punishment for disobedience. Therefore
   one might suppose that if the people fell into affliction willfully and
   through their own fault, the Lord might see fit to leave them in it.
   Did they not procure it unto themselves? Yet such is the abundant
   compassion of our God, that as soon as ever these people, smarting
   under the result of their sin, began to cry to Him, "He regarded their
   affliction when He heard their cry." He might have justly said, "Go to
   the gods that you have set up; tell your sorrows to the calves that you
   have made. Ask succor at the hands of the dead whom you have consulted,
   or of the cruel deities to whom you have sacrificed your sons and your
   daughters." But instead of thus meeting them in righteous wrath, He is
   tender and full of compassion for them!

   I will read you the words again, for they are inexpressibly
   sweet--"Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their
   cry." There is something very powerful about the cry of a child to its
   own parent and God, the most tender of all fathers, cannot bear to hear
   His children cry--

   "Such pity as a father has

   Unto his children dear,

   Like pity shows the Lord to such

   As worship Him in fear."

   If there are any here who are brought low and sorely distressed through
   their own wrong-doing, let them, nevertheless, cry unto the Lord.
   Though it is because of your transgressions and your iniquities that
   you are afflicted, yet you may cry unto the Lord in your trouble and He
   will save you out of your distresses. Turn unto the hand that wounds
   you and that hand will bind you up. Turn unto the Lord in repentance
   and He will turn unto you in loving kindness.

   What was the secret reason why God thus dealt with His people and heard
   their cry when they were in affliction through their sin? The secret
   reason was that, "for their sake He remembered His Covenant." If He
   looked upon His people in their sin and their sorrow, He could not see
   anything in them to justify why He should have pity upon them. What
   they endured they richly deserved and He knew that if He took away His
   rod from them, they would go and commit the same wickedness again. They
   were not to be driven by judgment nor drawn by mercies. Though they
   humbled themselves for one moment, they would soon be proud again! The
   Lord could see nothing hopeful about them, nothing in their future any
   more than in their past which should plead for mercy.

   Why should they be smitten any more? Or why should gentleness be
   further wasted on them? Was it not high time to say, "They are given to
   their idols, leave them alone, that We may see what their end will be"?
   One Divine reason prevented the infliction of justice--this, and this
   alone, sufficed--"for their sake He remembered His Covenant." If He
   could not see anything in the erring people, or hope for anything from
   them, He looked to another source for a motive and an argument for
   mercy--He looked to the Covenant which He had made of old with their
   father, Abraham, when He said, "Surely, blessing I will bless you, and
   in you and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."
   Because He had once permitted that promise to go out of His mouth, He
   would not withdraw it! And when He heard their cry, He regarded their
   affliction. Is it not a great wonder that God not only is willing to
   give mercy, should there be a manifest reason for it, but that He,
   Himself, finds and makes the reason? When there is no motive for Grace
   discoverable to our anxious eyes, there is a fountain of self-created
   mercy in the Lord's own heart--and this He causes to overflow and fill
   a channel of His own making! Though there is nothing in the creature,
   there is everything in the Covenant. If the Lord can find no plea in
   the character of the offender, He discovers an argument in Himself--He
   remembers His own Covenant and, for His own name's sake, He deals in
   mercy with the guilty!

   Now, observe that in the text it does not say, "He remembered their
   covenant." They stood at the foot of Sinai and said, "All these things
   which You have commanded, we will do!" They willingly, eagerly,
   hastily, loudly entered into a covenant with God, before whose terrible
   thunders they trembled. But that covenant they soon broke. Within a few
   days they had departed from the living God and fallen down before the
   image of an ox which eats grass! The Lord does not dwell upon the
   matter, since it would be to their destruction. He forgets their
   falseness and treachery and casts them behind His back. But what He
   does remember is His Covenant--"Nevertheless, for their sake, He
   remembered His Covenant." This proves that the Covenant referred to
   must have been one of pure Grace.

   Do you not see this? These people were in affliction through sin! If
   that Covenant had only been a Covenant of Works, in which they were to
   be rewarded for good and punished for evil, the more the Lord
   remembered that Covenant, the more He would have been bound to punish
   them for their offenses! But a Covenant which led Him to cease from
   punishing the guilty must have been one of only Grace! Is it not so? A
   Covenant was made long before that of Sinai, a Covenant of Grace which
   is called, in Scripture, "the everlasting Covenant." This was made
   known to man in that first promise which was given to him at the gates
   of Paradise and it was, afterwards, revealed more clearly in the Lord's
   Covenant with Noah and in His gracious promises to Abraham, Isaac, and
   Jacob.

   The Lord said to Abraham, "I will establish My Covenant between Me and
   you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting
   Covenant, to be a God unto you and to your seed after you." This same
   Covenant, after being made more fully known in promises to Moses and
   other saintly men, was stated anew in the Lord's dealings with His
   servant, David, whom He exalted as one chosen out of the people--"I
   have made a Covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto David, My
   servant, Your seed will I establish forever and build up your throne to
   all generations." Since then the Lord has given us promises, by His
   Prophets and Apostles, and specially in the Person and ministry of His
   only-begotten Son. All these various forms of manifestation relate to
   one and the same Everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure,
   which God had made with men in the person of His dear Son. It was that
   Covenant which God thought upon and, when He remembered it, He was able
   to deal with them upon terms of Grace, and even to change His hand and
   no longer crush them with afflictions, for He "repented according to
   the multitude of His mercies."

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, I want to show, this morning, how this
   remembrance of the Covenant on God's part is the great ground of hope
   to all of us who are in Covenant with God. Indeed, the Lord's
   mindfulness of His Covenant is the ground of hope to everyone of you,
   whether as yet you have embraced the Gospel promise or not! Inasmuch as
   God must, according to His Law, look upon you with anger on account of
   your sin, He has devised a way by which He can have regard unto the
   voice of your cry! Remembering His Covenant, He can pass by your
   transgressions and receive you as His returning children into the bosom
   of His love!

   I. The first head of our discourse will be this--THE COVENANT EXISTS.
   God cannot remember, to any practical purpose, that which does not
   exist. Had the Covenant been repealed or abrogated, it could not have
   availed for God to remember it, except to strike the people into a more
   complete and settled despair. In love He remembered the Covenant as an
   abiding thing, according to the Word of God, "My Covenant will I not
   break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips."

   Beloved, the Covenant is, in its own nature, everlasting. Dying David
   said, "Although my house is not so with God, yet has He made with me an
   everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure." The Covenant is
   everlasting in its beginning, for it was made, "or ever the earth was,"
   between the first Divine Person of the sacred Trinity and the Second,
   on the behalf of His chosen. It is everlasting, also, as to its
   duration, for all things are still governed under this Covenant, and
   shall be, world without end. "And I will establish My Covenant between
   Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an
   everlasting Covenant." "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." Sooner shall the Covenant with the
   earth concerning seedtime and harvest be broken, than this Covenant of
   Grace. By everything that is permanent in the universe and by
   everything that is permanent in the Godhead, we are made to know that
   the Covenant of Grace is a fixed and settled thing and abides today as
   it always has done, for there is no variableness nor turning with Him
   from whom every good gift comes down.

   The promises in Christ Jesus are Yes and Amen, to the Glory of God by
   us. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of the
   Law shall fail, much less shall the Covenant of Divine Grace be
   disannulled. Thus says the Lord-- "The mountains shall depart and the
   hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither
   shall the Covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy
   on you." God, in remembering His Covenant, falls back upon everlasting
   and immutable things!

   Well may the Covenant of Grace be everlasting, for it was made with
   deliberation and foresight. If two persons enter into a contract and
   one, afterwards, wishes to escape from it, he may plead that he made
   the agreement in great haste, or under compulsion, or through being
   misinformed and over-persuaded--on any of these grounds he may object
   to the fulfillment of the covenant and thus may attempt to justify his
   failure to keep his word. Now, on God's part, nothing of the kind can
   ever be urged, for He made the Covenant, Himself, on His own
   suggestion, according to the good pleasure of His will. It was a free
   Covenant, entered into through the love of His own heart, according to
   the wise counsel of His infinite mind. He made it knowing all that
   would happen in time or in eternity! When He made the promise that
   whoever believes in Christ Jesus shall have everlasting life, He knew
   that those who believed in Christ Jesus would, nevertheless, be
   fallible creatures and would commit mistakes and sins--He made the
   promise well knowing what Believers would be!

   When He chose Abraham to be His friend, He knew what failures there
   would be in Abraham and in his seed. He made His choice deliberately,
   knowing the end from the beginning and foreseeing all the provocations
   which He would endure for 40 years in the wilderness--and how they
   would anger Him when they came to their own land. His choice of His
   redeemed was made deliberately and the promises made to them were given
   forth in the full foresight of all our unbelief, lukewarmness,
   backsliding, selfishness and folly! The Lord is not deceived in the
   subjects of His Grace. Hear how He puts it in the 48th of Isaiah, verse
   four--"Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron
   sinew, and your brow brass." And again, verse eight--"I knew that you
   would deal very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the
   womb." Man's love is blind, but the Lord's love sees all things--

   "He saw me ruined in the Fall Yet loved me notwithstanding all." He
   knew as well in that day when He called me, by His Grace, what I should
   be as He knows today! Every fault and folly stood clear before His
   vision and yet, notwithstanding all, He determined to give faith and,
   through faith, to give eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!

   Dear Friends, every promise in the Bible is a part of the Covenant. The
   Covenant that now stands between the Believer and his God is on this
   wise, that you take Him to be your God and He takes you to be His
   people. He gives His promises to you and you rely upon them. He will
   bless you in this life and perfect you in the world to come. The tenor
   of the Covenant is not according to what you deserve, but according to
   the greatness of the Lord's love! In making this Covenant, it is clear
   that God knew from the beginning what He was doing. He made no mistake
   and said no more than He intended to fulfill. He deliberately said, "I
   will be their God, and they shall be My people." And in the day wherein
   we believed in Him, He guaranteed to us that we should never perish,
   neither should any pluck us out of His hand. This Covenant was made
   with such judicious deliberation and Infallible foresight, that there
   is no conceivable reason why it should be revoked. God is not a man
   that He should lie or repent.

   Moreover--and this is a point to which every child of God delights to
   turn his eyes--that covenant was sealed and ratified in the most solemn
   manner. When God made a Covenant with Abraham, there was a slaying of
   sacrifices and a dividing of their bodies and the Lord, under the image
   of a burning lamp, passed between the pieces--in this solemn
   sacrificial manner was the Covenant established. But when the Lord made
   a Covenant with us, the seal He gave was much more precious. He took
   from His bosom His only-begotten Son and He gave Him to be a Covenant
   to His people. He died to make the eternal Covenant sure. Paul speaks
   of "the blood of the everlasting covenant" and when we come to the
   communion table we hear our Lord say, "This cup is the new covenant in
   My blood." Jesus has gone into Heaven bearing with Him the blood of
   sprinkling! Can God deny His promise to His bleeding Son? Can He run
   back from the promise which He has made to the Only-Begotten in His
   death? "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for
   He shall bear their iniquities." Can these promises fail? Impossible!
   The very thought would be blasphemous! A Covenant which has been made
   in so solemn a manner, by the death of our great Surety and Sacrifice,
   can never be repealed, neglected, or changed!

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, we may rest fully sure that this Covenant
   will stand because the Divine Glory is wrapped up in it. Why did God
   promise to save men through faith in Christ Jesus? Why? That He might
   manifest to angels, principalities and powers, the splendor of His love
   and the riches of His Grace! He has selected for this reason the very
   worst of men, that in them He might show forth all long-suffering and
   display the magnificence of His pardoning love. He selected beings that
   were depraved and subject to grievous temptations that, by regenerating
   them by His Spirit and sustaining them by His Grace, He might display
   the greatness of His power! We are witnesses to time and to eternity of
   the Glory of the Lord! Are not these His own words--"This people have I
   formed for Myself: they shall show forth My praise"? The manifestation
   of the glorious love of God is the design of the Covenant--that where
   sin abounded, Grace might much more abound! He intends to show to all
   the ages His Truth, His faithfulness, His patience, His tenderness and
   His power. He designs to set Heaven and earth wondering until the whole
   universe breaks forth into the song-- "Who is a God like unto You, that
   pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His
   heritage? He retains not His anger forever because He delights in
   mercy."

   God is more glorified in the Covenant of Grace than in creation, or in
   Providence--in fact, creation and Providence are but the temporary
   scaffold of the great house which God is building, even the God who
   inhabits the praises of Israel! The Lord cannot break His Word, nor
   forego His designs, nor forget His promises. Do not even think it! The
   crown jewels of God are staked and pawned upon the carrying out of the
   Covenant of Grace!

   Furthermore, it is not possible for God to break a Covenant. When you
   and I stand and tremble before a Divine promise for fear it should not
   be fulfilled, we cast a slur upon the truth, faithfulness and
   Immutability of God. Has He ever changed? Has He ever been false? Has
   He ever lifted His hand and sworn by Himself, because He could swear by
   no greater and by two Immutable things wherein it was impossible for
   God to lie--has He given us strong consolation and yet has He failed
   us? Far from it! Brothers and Sisters, there has been nothing in the
   past to cast suspicion upon the veracity of Jehovah! Therefore, should
   we doubt Him or distrust His Covenant?

   My text gives us an instance of a great strain that was put upon the
   Covenant. These people whom God had chosen to be His heritage
   constantly provoked Him! I cannot imagine a greater extent of sin than
   that which is pictured in this 106th Psalm. The chosen seed were
   degraded below other nations--they had forsaken their own God to go
   after alien deities. Was it ever known in any other case that a nation
   changed her gods? Yet Israel departed from the one living and true God
   willfully and wantonly, times without number! And God, instead of
   breaking His Covenant because of their treachery, had pity upon them!
   When He found them in the throes of their grief as the result of their
   sin, He turned His eyes upon His Covenant and, because of that
   Covenant, He delivered them!

   From which I gather that the Covenant purpose of God to save His own
   people shall stand fast, come what may. "If we believe not, yet He
   abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." They that trust in the Lord,
   notwithstanding all the enormous weight of their sin, shall find Him
   faithful to His Word of pardon. He will keep His Word to sinners who
   put their trust in Him--and they shall be saved. Oh, glorious fact, the
   Covenant still exists!

   II. But, secondly, THIS COVENANT IS TOO OFTEN FORGOTTEN BY US. The
   children of Israel had quite forgotten the Covenant of their God.
   Elijah said, "They have forsaken Your Covenant." Starting aside like a
   deceitful bow

   which fails the archer in the day of battle, they had been false to
   their God and useless for those great purposes for which He had chosen
   and ordained them. Have we not failed in the same manner?

   Are not God's people at this day chargeable with forgetting the
   Covenant by their unspiritual carelessness? Have you thought of
   yourself, my Brothers and Sisters, as covenanted ones, as ones with
   whom God has entered into solemn compact, saying, "I am your shield and
   your exceedingly great reward: I am God Almighty: walk before Me, and
   be you perfect"? Have you realized your position as in covenant with
   God? When you have been staggered with its wonderful condescension and
   blessedness, as I have often been, have you not soon forgotten your
   great obligation and thought only of earthly things? Have you not
   doubted your God because you have forgotten His Covenant? When Heaven
   and earth were rejoicing, Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, and my
   Lord has forgotten me." Under such a slanderous charge, the Lord is
   gladly to speak with plaintive earnestness and ask, "Can a woman forget
   her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of
   her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold, I
   have engraved you upon the palms of My hands; your walls are
   continually before Me." Let it be realized by us and not passed over in
   a wicked carelessness, that as many as believe in Christ Jesus are in
   covenant with God and He has promised not to turn away from doing them
   good.

   This cannot be better described than as a marriage covenant, even as it
   is written in the Book of the Prophet Ho-sea--"And I will betroth you
   unto Me forever; yes, I will betroth you unto Me in righteousness, and
   in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even
   betroth you unto Me in faithfulness: and you shall know the Lord." O my
   Brother and Sister Believers, as the man puts the ring on the woman's
   finger and the words are said, and she is his, and he is hers, so has
   God, by giving you faith, put the ring on your finger once and for
   all--and you are His and He is yours-- and He says to you, today, "You
   shall not be for another; so will I also be for you." Our response
   should be--"Other lords have had dominion over us, but now we are the
   Lord's alone." Oh, you covenanted ones, angels look at you with wonder!
   They regard you as the favorites of Heaven and yet you forget this and
   live as if there were no Covenant between God and you.

   Sometimes, too--and in the case of Israel it was so--we get away from
   that Covenant by wanton sin, or by negligent omission of most
   delightful duties. I need not go into the story of Israel, again. You
   see in this Psalm how they transgressed. They took no notice of the
   Covenant they had made with God, but violated all His precepts. May I
   ask whether we have not been guilty of this same sin? May not each man
   bury his face in his hands as he confesses, "My God, You know how often
   I have acted as if I were not in covenant with You. I have lived as if
   I were my own master instead of yielding myself wholly to Your service.
   I have sometimes acted as a man of the world would have done, and not
   as one that belonged to Christ"? Be ashamed and be confounded for all
   this! And then wonder and admire that Covenant still stands and the
   Lord has not recalled his gracious promises. He says, "Nevertheless I
   will remember My Covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will
   establish unto you an everlasting Covenant." This ought to yield in our
   hearts a harvest of repentance. It should bind us to God with intense
   affection that should tend towards perpetual sanctification from this
   day and onward!

   These people had forgotten their God for another reason, namely, in the
   depth of their sorrow. A great sorrow stuns men and makes them forget
   the best sources of consolation. A little blow will cause great pain,
   but I have frequently heard, in reports of assaults, that far more
   serious blows have occasioned no pain, whatever, because they have
   destroyed consciousness. So do extreme distresses rob men of their wits
   and cause them to forget the means of relief. Under the chastening rod,
   the smart is remembered and the healing promise is forgotten! The
   people of Israel, when they were under the afflicting visitations of
   God, failed to remember His Covenant from the crushing effect of their
   sorrow and despair. Is it so with any of us? I may be addressing at
   this moment an ear which has grown dull through grief, a heart that is
   forgetful because of heaviness. Do not men even forget to eat bread in
   the hour of dire calamity? Ah, my Brother! Your affliction seems more
   present to you than even God, Himself! The black sorrow that lowers
   over you eclipses all the lamps of Heaven and earth!

   May I be my Master's messenger to you, to remind you that He is still
   in covenant with you and though He causes grief, yet will He have
   compassion? He has said, "All things work together for good to them
   that love God," and He will keep His Word. He has also said, "When you
   pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers,
   they shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire, you shall
   not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon

   you." Depend upon it, He will preserve you! "Cast your burden upon the
   Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never suffer the righteous to
   be moved." Remember, "He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
   children of men," but in love He corrects and chastens. Therefore,
   brush those tears away, anoint your head, wash your face and be of good
   courage, for the Lord will strengthen your heart--

   "What cheering words are these!

   Their sweetness who can tell?

   In time and to eternal days,

   'Tis with the righteous well."

   Oh that you could learn to sing in the dark like the nightingale and
   praise God out of the midst of the furnace like the three holy
   children! Oh that you may cry with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I
   trust in Him!" This is what you should do and it may help you to do it
   if you will remember the Covenant which God has not forgotten.

   O Soul, why do you forget the Covenant? Fall back upon it and sing with
   Habakkuk, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit
   be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields
   shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and
   there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I
   will joy in the God of my salvation!" According to the Covenant, God is
   to be everything to you. The Covenant does not stipulate that you shall
   not lose your friends, nor does it promise that you shall not lose your
   property, nor that you shall have no sick-ness--the Covenant is that
   God will be everything to you. Take care that you use Him as such.
   "These things have I spoken unto you," said our Lord, "that in Me you
   might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of
   good cheer; I have overcome the world." If you have received the
   tribulation, be not satisfied till you have enjoyed the peace in Jesus
   which is equally promised! Alas, God's people forget this Covenant! We
   have said enough upon this.

   III. Though we forget the Covenant, yet GOD REMEMBERS HIS
   COVENANT--"For their sake He remembered His Covenant." What does this
   word mean? Beloved, of course the Covenant is always on the mind of
   God, for the infinitely wise God cannot forget anything. But the text
   means that He stands to His Covenant--He remembers it so as to cause it
   to abide. Even though these people had so grievously provoked Him, He
   remembers His Covenant so as to find in it a reason for pardoning their
   sin and dealing with them in a way of mercy. He meets the flood of
   their sins with the flood of His faithfulness--"Nevertheless for their
   sake He remembered His Covenant." He remembers it practically, that is,
   He puts it into effect and, in this case, He did so by repenting
   "according to the multitude of His mercies." He had formerly smitten
   them, but now He puts the rod away. He made His people to be pitied of
   all them that carried them away captive. He came to their relief and
   succor. And this is just what God will do with you, my afflicted
   Friend, if you turn to Him with cries and tears and a humble, penitent
   faith! He will remember, for your sake, His Covenant by acting in a
   covenant way towards you, according to that word in the Book of
   Zechariah, "As for you, also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent
   forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water."

   Friend, God must remember His Covenant, for He can never forget what
   the making of that Covenant has cost Him. It cost Him nothing to make
   the heavens and the earth--He spoke and it was done. It costs him
   nothing to rule the nations--in the serenity of His Omnipotence, the
   Lord sits upon the floods--the Lord sits King forever. But to make the
   Covenant with man and to carry it out, cost Him His innermost Self! It
   cost Him His Only-Begotten--the eternal Son, the Well-Beloved, must die
   the death of the Cross--so that the Covenant may be established!
   Covenant-making was no trifle with God. I have heard people speak
   sneeringly of the Covenant. Indeed, no one of note preaches upon it,
   now, but yet it is the grandest of themes. It is a wondrous fact
   Godward, for it cost Him His dear Son's heart's blood. "It pleased the
   Father to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief," that this Covenant
   might be fulfilled and eternally settled!

   See how readily God turns to this Covenant. You can be sure that He
   delights in it, for no sooner do His children cry than He, at once,
   remembers for their sakes, His Covenant. It was only a cry forced from
   them by misery, but instead of upbraiding them for the past and
   shutting out their cry, He straightway remembered His Covenant! When a
   man is easily reminded of a thing, it shows that it is agreeable to him
   to think of it. We are sure that God's heart is much wrapped up in the
   Covenant of Grace since the feeble cries of His children remind Him of
   it.

   1 think, however, the reason why God remembers His Covenant most of all
   is because He remembers with whom He made it. A certain man had lived
   abroad for a while and there he found a friend with whom, for years, he
   enjoyed delightful fellowship. In due time he returned to England, to
   carry on a business, but he never forgot his friend. He had promised
   and entered into brotherly covenant, that he would help his friend's
   family and so, in due season, he received into his

   employment the young son of his old friend. And he was minded to
   instruct him and help him, and promote his interests. He had given his
   friend his right hand and said, "Trust your boy with me. I will see him
   through." The youth came to London and entered the service of his
   father's friend, with every prospect bright before him. But, alas, the
   boy proved unworthy. He fell into all sorts of vices and follies and
   grieved his friend--his father's friend. His employer said, "I shall be
   glad to get rid of this fellow for he is a burden to me. I cannot
   advance him for he is unworthy of my favor." Look how loath he is to
   deal severely with the boy, for his father's sake! He calls him into
   his private office and pleads and reasons with him. He says, "I have
   borne more with you than with anyone else in my establishment.
   Remember, it is for your father's sake. Had it not been for my promise
   to your father, I would have dismissed you long ago." One day he cries,
   "I really must dismiss him! He must go." But he thinks of the father
   and of their days of fond familiarity with each other and he cannot
   bear to deal harshly with the son of such a man and, therefore, he
   says, "I will try him again; I will still bear with him, for my
   promise's sake, which I made to his father."

   Now I am sure it was so with God and the seed of Abraham. These people
   had revolted and rebelled continually, but the Lord remembered Abraham,
   His friend. A memory rose before the Divine mind of the faithful man
   lifting the knife to slay his only son, Isaac, in obedience to the Most
   High. As the Lord saw that act of believing obedience, He seemed to
   say, "I will still have pity on his offspring--they are the most
   undeserving and provoking people that ever breathed, but I have entered
   into a Covenant with Abraham, My friend, and therefore I will have pity
   upon them." The fact is, with regard to the great God and you and me,
   that He would often say, "I must destroy them." But then He thinks of
   His dear Son upon the Cross. He hears ringing through the midnight of
   that great day of sorrow, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
   And the great heart of God is moved to pity us because of the death of
   His Son. There is merit enough in Jesus to remove all the demerit of
   our sins!

   The great God was not thinking of a dead man when He thought of
   Abraham. Our Savior tells us, "God is not the God of the dead, but of
   the living." Abraham is with God and God looked at Abraham, His living
   friend, and restrained His indignation when Abraham's children provoked
   Him. Jesus also lives! He has gone up on high; He sits at the right
   hand of God and when the Lord has looked at us and grown weary of our
   sins, He turns His eyes upon the perfections of His dear Son and He is
   well pleased, for His righteousness' sake, for He has magnified the Law
   and made it honorable. Thus the Lord turns back to the Covenant made
   with Jesus--He hears our cries and remembers, for our sake, His
   Covenant. Oh, the Grace of this! Because of Him with whom the Covenant
   of Grace is made, who is forever the Father's delight and the joy of
   His soul, the Father has compassion on us! Does it not make you pray,
   "Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Your Anointed"?
   Or, to quote our hymn, do we not say--

   "Him and then the sinner see, Look through Jesus' wounds on me?"

   The Person of the Lord Jesus is the Substance and Seal of the Covenant
   of Grace and God remembers it because He remembers Him!

   IV. I will finish with this last point, which I am sure you will feel
   to be of the utmost importance. If God remembers, for our sake, His
   Covenant, LET US REMEMBER IT. You that are the Lord's covenanted ones,
   think of the sacred promise and begin to enjoy it and live upon it
   practically. What is the Covenant? Here is one form of it--"I am God
   Almighty; walk before Me, and be you perfect." That is an early and
   condensed shape of it, that is to say, the Lord God Almighty gives
   Himself up to be our portion and we are to yield ourselves to Him, to
   walk before Him in perfect obedience. This also is the Covenant--"I
   will be their God, and they shall be My people." Come, Beloved, make
   God your God. This means--make God your everything! Say not, "I am
   poor." Not so, for God is yours and so all things are yours! Say not,
   "I am weak." Not so, God Almighty is yours--when you are weak, then you
   are strong. "But I have no wisdom." Is not the Lord Jesus made of God
   unto us wisdom, righteousness and sanctification? He that has God has
   everything!

   Will you belittle your God and limit the Holy One of Israel? Come, find
   your all in God! This is your part of the covenant, to accept God as
   being to you what He says He is. He has made Himself to be your All in
   All--accept Him as such. Did not David say, "He is all my salvation,
   and all my desire"? This is the portion and heritage of the children of
   God. "Cursed be the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm; but
   blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is."
   Cast yourself upon the Covenant and find rest in it. Sing in your heart
   of hearts--

   "He that has made my Heaven secure Will here all good provide, Since
   Christ is rich, can I be poor? What can Ineei beside?"

   "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in
   green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters." Oh, the blessed
   result of standing to the Covenant and letting God be our All in All!

   In this Covenant it is incumbent that we rest alone in our God. You
   have not taken God to be your God if you cannot be content with Him,
   alone. Abraham forsook everything for God. He went to a country he had
   never seen, followed a path that had never been mapped out and God said
   to him, "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield." He was in the midst of
   enemies who would have destroyed him but for the mysterious protection
   which surrounded him like a shield. The Lord's word had gone forth,
   "Touch not My anointed and do My Prophets no harm." Abraham had no
   shield but his God and yet no man in the world dwelt in greater safety!
   God said to him, "I am your shield and your exceedingly great
   reward"--and so He was! Abraham once lamented that he had no seed and
   that the steward of his house was his only heir. But the Lord who had
   promised him a seed yet said to him," I am your exceedingly great
   reward." Not the seed, but his God must be his joy and crown! And
   Abraham felt it was so and, therefore, stood ready to surrender that
   seed if the Lord commanded.

   That is what the Lord would have you do, Beloved. Look not to what is
   seen with the eyes. Listen not to what is heard with the ear. Live in
   the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High--in the place where
   faith takes the place of sense. Endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
   Penetrate into the substance which is unseen and pass by the shadow
   which is all that sense can discern. Live on the living God and then
   you know the secret of the Covenant! Your soul shall dwell at ease and
   your seed shall inherit the earth! Your soul shall be satisfied as with
   marrow and fatness and you shall praise the Lord with joyful lips!

   Remember, lastly, in order to look well to this Covenant, you must give
   yourselves wholly up to God. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness." Live only to glorify God! Have no other aim or
   objective but your God. Brother, if God gives you much, glorify Him
   with it by your generous consecration. If He take it away, glorify Him
   by your patience under loss. Wherever you are, be always aiming to love
   your God with all your heart and with all your soul--and your neighbor
   as yourself and, verily, it shall be well with you and blessed shall
   you be--for God will remember, for your sake, His Covenant!

   I wish that the unconverted here would desire to be a participant in
   this Covenant. If you do so, the very desire is the gift of Divine
   Grace! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have entered into
   Covenant with God! He that has faith in the Lord Jesus is a child of
   the Father of the faithful and, therefore, he is a participant in the
   Covenant which God made with Abraham and his spiritual seed! O Lord of
   these poor stony hearts, raise up children unto Abraham, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Pleading For Prayer

   (No. 1887)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 21, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now I beseech you, Brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for
   the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your
   prayers to God for me; that I may be delivered from those in Judea who
   do not believe, and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be
   accepted of the saints; that I may come unto you with joy by the will
   of God, and may, with you, be refreshed. Now the God of Peace be with
   you all. Amen." Romans 15:30-33.

   THE Apostle of the Gentiles held a very useful and glorious office, but
   he had by no means a smooth path in life. When we read the account of
   his sufferings, persecutions and labors, we wonder how a single
   individual could have gone through them all. He was a true hero. Though
   a Hebrew of the Hebrews, he stands in the very front of the whole
   Gentile Church as its founder and teacher under God. And we owe to him
   what we can never fully estimate. When we consider the struggles of his
   life, we do not wonder that the Apostle was, sometimes, in great sorrow
   of heart and heavily burdened in spirit. He was so at the time when he
   wrote this Epistle to the Christian friends at Rome. It was a great
   delight to him to have to go to Jerusalem--it was a place which was
   much reverenced and loved by him. It was a greater privilege for him to
   go and exchange salutations with his brother Apostles and it was the
   most joyous privilege of all to be the bearer of a contribution from
   the Gentiles to relieve the necessities of the saints at Jerusalem. He
   rejoiced much more in that gift to Jewish Believers than if it had been
   anything for himself.

   But he was well aware that there were those in Judea who hated him with
   deadly hatred and would seek his life. He had been the rising hope of
   the Jewish party and he had become a Christian--therefore the bigoted
   Jews regarded him as an apostate from the faith of their fathers. They
   had, moreover, a special venom against him, since he was more bold than
   any other Christian teacher in going among the Gentiles and shaking
   off, altogether, the bonds of the Ceremonial Law. He also came out more
   clearly than any other man upon the Doctrines of Grace and salvation by
   the Cross of Christ-- and this provoked the fiercest hostility. Paul
   had also the apprehension that he would not be well received even by
   the Brethren at Jerusalem. He knew what a strong conservative feeling
   there was among the circumcision for the maintenance of the old Jewish
   Law and how he was a marked man because he had shaken off entirely that
   yolk of bondage. Thus he had fears as to foes and doubts about friends.
   His case was peculiarly difficult.

   What did Paul do when his spirit was greatly oppressed? He wrote to his
   Brothers and Sisters to pray for him! He asked the good friends at Rome
   that they would lift up their hearts earnestly and unitedly to God,
   that he might be preserved from the double evil which threatened him.
   In the last chapter of this Epistle we have the names of a great many
   of those private individuals at Rome to whom the Apostle appealed. We
   do not know any of them, except it is the Priscilla and Aquila, of whom
   we have heard elsewhere. But this great man, this Inspired Apostle of
   God who was not a whit behind the very chief of Christ's servants,
   makes his appeal to these unknown and humble individuals, that they
   would strive together with him in their prayers. I delight in this! It
   shows the lowly spirit of the Apostle Paul and it reveals to us his
   high value for the prayers of obscure men and women. He feels that he
   needs what the prayers of these people can bring to him--he is sure
   that without those prayers, he will be in danger of failure, but that
   with them he will be strong for his great enterprise. He sees what
   prayer can do and he would awaken it into powerful action.

   Does it astonish you that a man so rich in Grace as Paul should be
   asking prayers of these unknown saints? It need not astonish you, for
   it is the rule with the truly great to think most highly of others. In
   proportion as a man grows in

   Grace, he feels his dependence upon God and, in a certain sense, his
   dependence upon God's people. He decreases in his own esteem and his
   Brothers and Sisters increase! A flourishing tradesman, a man who has a
   large business is the man who needs others--he prospers by setting
   others to labor on his behalf. The larger his trade, the more he is
   dependent upon those around him. The Apostle was, so to speak, a great
   master trader for the Lord Jesus. He did a great business for his Lord
   and he felt that he could not carry it on unless he had the
   co-operation of many helpers. He did not so much need what employers
   harshly call, "hands," to work for him, but he did need hearts to plead
   for him and he, therefore, sent all the way to Rome to seek such
   assistance!

   He wrote to those whom he had never seen and begged their prayers, as
   if he pleaded for his life. The great Apostle entreats Tryphena and
   Tryphosa, and Mary and Julia to pray for him. His great enterprise
   needs their supplications! In a great battle the general's name is
   mentioned, but what could he have done without the common soldiers?
   Wellington will always be associated with Waterloo, but, after all, it
   was a soldiers' battle! What could the commander have done if those in
   the ranks had failed him? The commander-in-chief might very well have
   touched his hat to the least subaltern or to the humblest private and
   have said, "I thank you, Comrade. Without you, we could not have
   conquered." The chief troubles of the great day of Waterloo arose from
   certain very doubtful allies who wavered in the hour of battle--those
   were the general's weakness--but his hope and strength lay in those
   regiments which were as an iron wall against the enemy. Even thus, the
   faithful are our joy and crown, but the unstable are our sorrow and
   weakness.

   Every ministering servant of the Lord Jesus Christ is in much the same
   condition as Paul. True, we are of a lower grade and our work is on a
   smaller scale, but our needs are just as great. We have not all the
   Grace which Paul possessed and, for that very reason, we make the more
   pathetic an appeal to you, our friends and fellow helpers, while we use
   the Apostle's language, and cry, "We beseech you, Brethren, for the
   Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you
   strive together with us in your prayers to God for us."

   I shall call your attention to this text with the longing in my own
   heart that I, myself, may more abundantly live in your prayers. I have
   to rejoice in the prayers of thousands of holy men and women who love
   me in the Lord. I am deeply grateful for the affectionate supplications
   of multitudes whom I have not seen in the flesh, to whom the printed
   sermons go week by week. I am a debtor, not only to the beloved people
   around me, but to a larger company all over the world. These are my
   comfort, my riches, my strength. To such I speak at this time. Beloved,
   I need your prayers more than ever! I am more and more conscious of
   their value--do not restrain them! Just now there is, to me, a special
   need of Grace on many accounts, and I hope that some of those who have
   long borne me up will give me a special portion of aid at this hour. I
   am not worthy to use the same language as the Apostle Paul, but I know
   no better, and my necessity is even greater than his--therefore I
   borrow his words, and say, "Brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake,
   and for the love of the Spirit, strive together with me in your prayers
   to God for me."

   In our text there are two things--prayer asked and a blessing
   given--"Now the God of Peace be with you all. Amen."

   I. First, here is PRAYER ASKED FOR.

   We will look at the Apostle's request for prayer in general and then,
   afterwards, we will look to the details which are mentioned in the 31st
   verse.

   First, here is a request to the people of God for prayer in general. He
   asks it for himself--"That you strive together with me in your prayers
   to God for me." He knew his own weakness. He knew the difficulty of the
   work to which he had been called. He knew that if he failed in his
   enterprise, it would be a sad failure, injurious through coming ages to
   the entire Church. He cried, "Agonize for me," because he felt that
   much depended upon him. It is like a man who is willing to lead the
   forlorn hope, but he says to his comrades, "You will support me." It is
   like one who is willing to go into a far country, bearing his life in
   his hands, but he plaintively exclaims, "You won't forget me, will you?
   Though you stay at home, will you think of me?" It reminds us of Carey,
   who says, when he goes to India, "I will go down into the pit, but
   Brother Fuller and the rest of you must hold the rope." Can we refuse
   the request? Would it not be treachery?

   It is not according to the heart of true yoke-fellows. It is not
   according to the instincts of our common humanity that we should desert
   any man whom we set in the front of the battle! If we choose a man to
   be our representative in the service of our God, we must not desert
   him! A man cannot be charged with egotism if he begs for personal
   support when he is engaged in labors for others and is not seeking
   success for himself but the success of the great cause! Under heavy
   respon-

   sibilities he does well to enlist the sympathies and prayers of those
   whom he is serving--and he has a right to have them! Beloved friends,
   if you are with me in the great battle for God and His Truth--and if
   you count me worthy to bear the brunt of this war, I beseech you, for
   Christ's sake, support me by your importunate wrestling at the Throne
   of Grace. Pray for all ministers and workers, but pray, also, for me! I
   am, of all men, the most miserable if you deny me this!

   Observe in what relationship he regards them when he puts the request.
   "Now," he says, "I beseech you, Brethren." "I beseech you." It is the
   strongest word of entreaty he can find. It is as if he said, "I go down
   on my knees to you and implore you. I ask it of you as the greatest
   favor you can do me. I ask it of you as the dearest token of your love,
   that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me." He
   does not call them companions, or fellow workers, or friends. He
   addresses them as Brothers and Sisters. "You are my Brethren," he says,
   "I feel a love to you, you Romans, converted to God. I have a longing
   in my heart to see you and though I have not so much as spoken with
   you, face to face, yet we are Brethren. The life that is in you beats
   also in my heart. We are born again of the same Father, we are
   quickened by the same Spirit, we are redeemed by the same
   Savior--therefore, spiritually--we are Brethren. Shall not Brethren
   pray for one another?"

   He seems to say, "If you are Brethren, show this token of your
   brotherhood. You cannot go up with me to Jerusalem and share my danger,
   but you can be with me in spirit--and, by your prayers, surround me
   with Divine protection. I do not ask you to come, you Romans, with your
   swords and shields, and make a bodyguard about me, but I do beg of you,
   my true Brothers and Sisters, if you are, indeed so, to agonize
   together with me in your prayers to God for me." If there remains in
   the Christian Church any brotherhood whatever, every leader of the
   host, every preacher of the Gospel, every pastor of a Church should
   receive the proof of that brotherhood in the shape of daily
   intercession! Every sent servant of God beseeches his Brethren that
   they strive together with him in prayer to God for him--and I am not a
   whit behind any of them in the urgency of my request to the many who
   have, until now, proved themselves my Brethren! I know your love has
   not grown cold to me. I have abundant evidence of that. O my Brothers
   and Sisters, act as Brothers and Sisters to me, now, and beseech the
   Lord to bless me!

   But observe what kind of prayer he asks for--"That you strive
   together"--that you "agonize"--that is the word. You have before you,
   in this expression, a reminder of that great agony in Gethsemane, and I
   should think the Apostle had that picture before his eyes. In the
   Garden, our Lord not only prayed as was His habit, but with strong
   crying and tears He made His appeal to God. "Being in an agony He
   prayed more earnestly." He wrestled till He "sweat, as it were, great
   drops of blood falling down to the ground," but none agonized together
   with Him! That was one of the deepest shades of the picture, that He
   must tread the winepress alone and, of the people there, must none be
   with Him. Yet did our Lord seem to ask for sympathy and help--

   "Backward and forward thrice He ran, As if He sought some help from
   man," but He found none even to watch with Him one hour, much less to
   agonize with Him! The Apostle felt that an agony alone, was too bitter
   for him and he, therefore, piteously cries, "I beseech you, Brethren,
   that you agonize with me in prayer to God for me."

   Now, as the disciples ought to have sympathized with the Savior and
   entered into His direful grief, but did not, even so it may happen to
   us. But, Brothers and Sisters, I trust that the unfaithfulness to the
   Master will not be repeated upon His servants. It remains to all that
   are true Brethren in Christ, that when they see a man in agony of heart
   for Christ's sake and for souls' sake, they should bow the knee side by
   side with him and be true Brethren to him. When his labors become
   intense; when his difficulties are multiplied; when his heart begins to
   sink and his strength is failing him--then the man must wrestle with
   his God--and then his Brethren must wrestle at his side! When the
   uplifted hands of Moses are known to bring a blessing, Aaron and Hur
   must hold them up when they are seen to grow weary! When Jacob is
   struggling at Jabbok and we see him there, we must turn in and help him
   to detain the Angel of the Covenant. If one man can hold Him fast by
   saying, "I will not let You go unless You bless me," surely a score of
   you can make a cordon round about Him and speedily win the blessing!

   What may not a hundred do? Let us try the power of agonizing prayer! Do
   we know, as yet, what it means? Let us rise as one man and cry, "O
   Angel, whose hands are full of benedictions, we will not let You go,
   except You give us Your own blessing--the blessing of Your Covenant!"
   If two of you are agreed as touching anything concerning the Kingdom,

   you shall be heard. But what if hundreds and thousands of the faithful
   are of one mind and one mouth in this matter? Will you not at once cry
   unto God, "Bless Your servants! Establish the work of our hands upon
   us! Yes, the work of our hands, establish it!"? You see, it is earnest
   prayer which Paul asks for, not the prayer which foams itself away in
   words, but prayer with force, with energy, with humble boldness, with
   intensity of desire, with awful earnestness--prayer which, like a deep,
   hidden torrent, cuts a channel even through a rock! His request was,
   "that you wrestle with me in your prayers to God for me." And this is
   our request this day.

   He does not, however, wish for a single moment to exclude himself from
   the prayer, for he says, "that you agonize with me." He is to be the
   first to agonize. This should be the position of every minister. We
   ought to be examples of wrestling prayer. How I wish that you could
   realize more fully the work allotted to the Apostles when they said
   that it was not reasonable that they should leave the Word of God to
   serve tables! There was a difference about the distribution of the alms
   among the widows and the 12 declared that they could not attend to such
   a matter, for, they said, "We will give ourselves continually to prayer
   and to the ministry of the Word." This would be Heaven to me! But
   notice that at least half, and the first half of their work lay in
   prayer! Oh, if that could be our portion! If we could but have full
   space for prayer and meditation and were set free from the petty
   secularities and differences incident to Church life! Oh that we could
   have more to do with Him from whose right hand the supreme blessing
   comes--that were a joy indeed! But even if the Apostle could thus,
   himself, agonize, he did not feel satisfied, for he beseeches others to
   wrestle with him in prayer to God. He sought communion in supplication!
   Even thus would I beseech you, Brothers and Sisters, to come with me
   into the inner chamber! Come with me into the Holy of Holies! Let us,
   together, approach the Mercy Seat! Lend me the help of all the
   spiritual force you have, that we may, together, agonize in prayer to
   God so that the blessing may descend upon the enterprises now in my
   hands! You see the sort of prayer which is needed, even the effectual
   fervent prayer of righteous men--and may the Holy Spirit brace up our
   spirits that we may be able to join in such agonizing in this time of
   need.

   This verse is one of the most intense I ever remember to have read,
   even in so intense a book as this Holy Scripture. Observe the fervency
   of the pleading--"Now I beseech you, Brethren, for the Lord Jesus
   Christ's sake." What an argument! That name is full of power with true
   hearts. You owe Him everything--you owe Him your souls! You owe Him
   every hope for the future, every comfort in the present and every happy
   memory of the past! Your life would have been worse than death apart
   from Him. His love to you constrains you because you thus judge that
   when one died for all, all died, and that you so died that from now on
   you should not live unto yourselves but unto Him. Now, he says, as you
   cannot repay the Lord Jesus Christ personally, repay it to His servant
   by your prayers! Join him in his agony in remembrance of that greater
   agony in which none could join, by which you were redeemed from death
   and Hell! If there is any love to Christ in a Christian's heart, he
   must pray that the Holy Spirit would bless the ministry of the Word!
   Surely your hearts must be turned to stone if you do not plead for a
   blessing upon that ministry by which you, yourselves, have been brought
   to Christ! If I have been a spiritual father to any of you, you will
   not fail to pray for me, will you? As you love that Savior whom I
   preach, I beseech you, for the sake of Jesus Christ, that you strive
   together with me in your prayers to God for me!

   But he adds to that, another argument--"for the love of the Spirit." If
   the Spirit of God has, indeed, loved you and proved it by quickening
   and sanctifying you, then pray for His ministers! If the Spirit of God
   has created a love in you which is stronger than mere natural
   affection--a love which does not arise out of any fleshly relationship,
   or any mere association, or any casual partiality, but a love which the
   Holy Spirit, Himself, creates and fosters in your heart--then pray for
   me! If there is such love in you, not natural and temporary, but
   spiritual and, therefore, everlasting, then pray for the Lord's
   servant! If there is in you a love which may exist, no, will exist in
   Heaven, itself--if there is such a love in you, then, says the Apostle,
   I beseech you, pray for me!

   Brothers and Sisters, I say the same. Unless our profession is a lie,
   we love each other and we must, therefore, show that love by our
   prayers for one another. Especially if any of you have been brought to
   the Lord Jesus Christ by the ministry of any man whom God favors with
   His help--then that man must live forever in your hearts and be
   remembered in your prayers! You cannot escape from the obligation of
   intercession for the man who brought you to Jesus! As long as you live
   and as long as he remains faithful, you must bear him on your heart in
   supplication. It must be so--the love of the Spirit has knit us to one
   another and none can put us asunder! Ours is no feigned unity, but
   deep, true and real! In Christ Jesus, my Brothers and Sisters, there
   has been begotten in our hearts an affection for one another which
   death,

   itself, shall not destroy! We will not be separated! Then, by the love
   of the Spirit, I beseech you that you agonize together with me in your
   prayers to God for me! Every word pleads with tears--there is not a
   wasted letter in the whole verse!

   Why do you think the Apostle, at that special time, asked these
   Brethren to pray for him so? Was it not because he believed in the
   Providence of God? He was going up to Jerusalem and the Jews would seek
   to slay him. They hunted him in every place and now he was going into
   the lion's den--but he believed that God, in Providence, could overrule
   all things, so that he should not suffer injury at the hands of
   blood-thirsty zealots, but should be delivered out of their malicious
   power. We, also, believe in God that works all things! Therefore, let
   us pray that all opposition to His Gospel may be overcome.

   He believed, also, in the influence that God can have upon men's
   hearts, especially upon the hearts of His own people. He was afraid
   that the Jewish Believers would be very cold to him and, therefore, he
   prays God that His Holy Spirit may warm their hearts and make them full
   of love, so that the offerings he took to them from the Grecian
   Churches might be accepted and might foster a sense of hearty
   fellowship in the hearts of the Hebrew saints towards their Gentile
   Brethren. Do you not, also, believe that the hearts of all men are in
   the hands of the Lord? Do you not believe in the supremacy of the will
   of God over the free will of man? Do you not rejoice that there is not
   only a Providence that shapes our ends, but a secret influence which
   molds men's hearts? Therefore it is that we urge you to plead with God
   that we, also, may have acceptance with His people. We desire to render
   them much service and to enjoy their loving regard. It is painful to us
   to differ with any--but joyous to be in communion with all parts of the
   Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   What is more than this, the Apostle believed in the power of the
   prayers of simple people so to move the mind of God that He would exert
   His hand in Providence and His influence over the hearts of men. Never
   let us imagine that the doctrine of the fixity of events, or the
   supremacy of law, as the philosophers call it, is at all contrary to
   the Truth of God that prayer is effectual for its own ends and
   purposes. In olden times a warrior was going forth to battle for his
   country and a certain preacher of the Word said to him, "My prayer is
   made continually for you that you may be victorious." The warrior, in
   his philosophic doubt, replied that he saw no use in the promised
   prayers, for if God had determined to give him victory, he would have
   it without prayer--and if fate had decreed that he should be defeated,
   prayers could not prevent it. To which the godly man very properly
   replied, "Then take off your helmet and your coat of mail and hang up
   your sword and buckler. Go not forth to battle at all with your
   men-at-arms, for, indeed, if the Lord is to conquer your enemies, He
   can do it without your weapons! And if He will not prosper you, it is
   in vain for you to mount your war horse."

   The argument, when carried out, answers itself--there is, in truth, no
   force in it! The net result of such reasoning would be absolute
   inaction! Common sense shows us how absurd it is! All means are to be
   used, notwithstanding the eternal purpose of God, for that purpose
   includes means and their uses. We declare that among the most potent
   means in all the world is prayer--and this must not be neglected! There
   are certain ascertained forces and among those forces, always to be
   reckoned with and relied upon, is the force of the cry of God's dear
   children to their great Father in Heaven! In other words, the power of
   prayer! In prayer we present the Sacrifice of God's own Son to God's
   own Self and prevail by its means. O Brothers and Sisters, we ask your
   prayers without doubt or question! We know and are persuaded that they
   will avail much! By your power in prayer, God's power will be set in
   motion and by that force all will be accomplished which shall be for
   His Glory and for our good!

   I hope you have been interested so far. May God grant you may have been
   influenced by these remarks and excited to incessant intercession!

   In our text there is, in the next place, a statement of the Apostle's
   desires in detail. When we pray, we should make a point of praying for
   something distinctly. There is a general kind of praying which fails
   from need of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all
   fire off their guns--possibly somebody would be killed--but the
   majority of the enemy would be missed. I believe that at the battle of
   Waterloo there were no arms of precision, they had only the old Brown
   Bess and, though the battle was won, it has been said that it took as
   much lead to kill a man as the weight of the man's body. This is a
   figure of the comparative failure of indistinct, generalizing prayer!
   If you pray just anyway, if it is with sincerity, a measure of blessing
   results from it, but it will take a great deal of such praying to
   accomplish much. But if you plead for certain mercies definitely and
   distinctly, with firm, unstaggering faith, you shall richly succeed!

   Our Apostle gives his friends three things to pray for. First, he would
   have them ask that he might be delivered from them that did not believe
   in Judea. He was delivered, not perhaps in the precise manner which he
   hoped for, but he was,

   to the letter, delivered from the unbelieving Jews. Certain zealots
   bound themselves with an oath that they would not eat till they had
   slain him, but they went a long while hungry, for the arm of the Roman
   Empire was stretched forth to protect Paul against his infuriated
   countrymen! Strange, it was, that Caesar's power must be as a shield
   around the feeble servant of the mighty God! From raging mobs and
   secret confederacies, Paul was saved, apparently, by Roman soldiers,
   but secretly by Roman saints! Against all oppositions from without let
   us pray.

   They were also to ask of the Lord that his service which he had for
   Jerusalem might be accepted of the saints. This also was granted--the
   Brethren did accept Paul's embassy. He met with little difficulty. The
   contribution was accepted with much gratitude and we do not hear,
   afterwards, of bickering between the Jewish and the Gentile Believers.
   Such was done in the Apostolic college at Jerusalem to create a
   heartier feeling towards the Gentile Brethren and the Kingdom of Christ
   was, from that day on, acknowledged to be over all races and kindreds
   of men! Paul accomplished very much and had comfort in his mission to
   the mother Church. Oh that we, also, could be of service to that
   community of Christians to which we belong! Brethren, pray that our
   word may be accepted by our own Brothers and Sisters, for some of these
   are wandering from the way of the Truth of God.

   They were to pray, next, that he might come unto them with joy by the
   will of God and might, with them, be refreshed. That was to be the
   third prayer. It is to be observed that this petition was also heard,
   but it was not answered as Paul might have expected or desired. He did
   come to them according to the will of God rather than by his own will.
   He may or may not have been on his way to Spain, as he purposed--he
   certainly was on his way to prison--as he had not purposed. His first
   prayer, that he might be delivered from them that believe not in Judea,
   was not answered in the way of his never being in danger from them, or
   coming into difficulties through them--but he was delivered out of
   their hands by becoming a prisoner to the Roman governor and being
   sent, under his guardianship, to Caesar, to whom he had appealed. By
   that means he traveled to Rome at the expense of the Imperial
   Government and, on landing at Puteoli, close to Naples, he found
   friends waiting for him! And, as soon as the Roman Brethren heard of
   his landing, they dispatched a company to meet him at Appii-Forum, a
   place on the road to Rome where they stopped to change horses and to
   take refreshments.

   There he saw his prayer beginning to be answered. Further on, at a
   place called the Three Taverns, more dear friends from Rome met him,
   "whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage." The Roman
   saints had long looked for the Apostle and at last he came--an
   ambassador in bonds, a prisoner who must go to the Praetorian guardroom
   and there await the emperor's will and pleasure! They had not expected
   to see him in such a case, but they were not ashamed of his chains.
   They made a considerable journey to meet him and he was filled with
   their company and refreshed by their fellowship as he had desired. Even
   his imprisonment may have been a rest for him--it could not have
   involved such wear and tear as his former labors and persecutions!

   We read the other day that Holloway Jail is a choice place for rest and
   enjoyment to a man with a clear conscience and, I dare say that Paul
   found his confinement at Rome to be rather a refreshment than otherwise
   after his years of weariness and buffetings! There he was shut away
   from his furious persecutors. Certainly no Jew could take his life
   there! He was not afraid of being stoned while in imperial custody and
   probably he was the most at ease because he had not to preach to such
   as the Corinthians and the Galatians, from whom he had asked no prayers
   but had received much grief. He asked the Ephesians and Philippians,
   the Colossians and the Romans to pray for him--but from the others he
   would have received little benefit, for they were very weak in the
   faith and troubled with sad disorders. He was, in his imprisonment,
   clear of those fickle and quarrelsome folk who had often pained him.
   His confinement under guard would not permit his preaching himself to
   death, or wearing himself out with watching--the soldier who kept him
   would make him reasonable and so, I have no doubt, by the will of God
   he received precisely what he had asked his friends to pray for-- "that
   I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be
   refreshed."

   It would not have been Paul's will to have come to Rome with chains on
   his wrists, binding him to a soldier, but he did so come, for this was
   the will of God and was the most sure way to his being refreshed. Paul
   refreshed the Romans and they refreshed him--and thus he had a happy
   sojourn in Rome. God was with him and he had the privilege of
   testifying of Christ before the Roman emperor and making Jesus to be
   known even in Caesar's household! Thus, Brothers and Sisters, the Lord
   heard the prayer of His servants. He will also hear our prayers--not in
   my way, not in your way--but in the way which Paul has indicated,
   namely, "by the will of God." Therefore pray for a blessing and leave
   the way of its

   coming to the good Lord who knows all things! Rest sure that it will
   come by the will of God and then it will be according to our will if we
   are in full accord with the Lord, as we ought to be.

   See the efficacy of prayer, then, in Paul's case. Though the desire did
   not seem to be accomplished, yet it was so. When the Lord does not
   appear to hear His people's prayers, He is hearing them none the less!
   Yes, rather He is answering them all the more fully and graciously!
   When the Lord replies by terrible things in righteousness rather than
   by sweet, smooth deeds of kindness, He is doubly blessing us. Do not
   vessels often sail more swiftly with a side wind than they would do
   with a directly fair wind? The sails are more under the action of a
   side wind than if it blew directly behind them. The Lord often gives
   His people side gales and these turn out to be the best they can have.
   Let us trust the Divine Wisdom and rest assured that the Lord will do
   better things for us than we can ask or even think!

   II. I have but little time left to notice THE BLESSING GIVEN, indeed,
   it occupies but one verse in the text, and that verse is the shortest
   of the four and, therefore, I may give it due consideration in a brief
   space. See how Paul, with all his anxiety to gain the prayers of his
   friends, cannot finish the chapter without uttering a benediction upon
   them. "Now the God of Peace." What a blessed name! In the Old Testament
   Scriptures He is the "Lord of Hosts." But that is never the style in
   the New Testament. The "Lord of Hosts" is God as He was revealed under
   the old dispensation in the majesty of His power, "the Lord is a man of
   war, the Lord is His name." But now that our Lord Jesus Christ has
   further unveiled the Father, we see Him as "the God of Peace." Is not
   this a greater, sweeter, and more cheering title? O God of Peace, we
   long for Your Presence with us all!

   What does Paul wish for them? "The God of Peace be with you." Not only
   "peace be with you," but, better far-- "The God of Peace"--and so the
   Source and Fountain of Peace! He wishes them not the drops, but the
   Fountain itself! Not the light, only, but the sun! He would have God
   Himself to be with us as "the God of Peace." He would have the Lord to
   fill us with an inward peace, so that we may never be disturbed in our
   minds. He would have the Lord shed abroad His own peace in our hearts,
   so that we may always feel at peace with God--no cloud coming between
   our souls and our heavenly Father--no ground of quarrel arising between
   us and the great King.

   When "the God of Peace" makes peace with us and so keeps our minds at
   peace within, He also creates peace with one another, so that we bear
   one anther's burdens and those who are strong are willing to bear the
   infirmities of the weak. "The God of Peace be with you."

   Our Apostle says, "the God of Peace be with you all"--not with some of
   you, with Priscilla and Aquila, but with Mary, Amplias, Apelles,
   Tryphena, Tryphosa and with "the beloved Persis which labored much in
   the Lord." And with "Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother." And
   "Philologus, and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the
   saints which are with them." The benediction is, "The God of Peace be
   with you all." Unless all are at peace, none can be perfectly quiet.
   One Brother who is quarrelsome can keep a whole Church in turmoil! One
   fellow knocking about the boat may stop the oarsmen, rend the sails and
   run the boat on a rock! I should not like one stray shot from a rifle
   to be traveling near my windows, for even if all the other shots which
   are in the armory should lie quiet, that one flying danger might be the
   end of me! Oh that the peace of God may be with all the saints in all
   the Churches! It is a blessed benediction. Such a benediction we
   pronounce with all our heart this morning--"Now the God of Peace be
   with you all. Amen."

   Do you not think that Paul implies that this will be the result of
   their prayer? If you will but strive together with me in your prayers,
   then the God of Peace will be with you. May we not view it as the
   reward of such prayer? You have prayed for the Lord's servant and now
   God will bless you with an abundance of peace. Or did he hint that this
   is a necessary condition and cause of true prayer? When they were all
   at peace among themselves, happy in their own minds and full of
   communion with God, then they would begin to pray for God's servants.
   Put it first or last, may this peace come to you and may there be
   hearty pleading prayer to God that His blessing may rest upon the
   Church and upon the testimony of His servants.

   Now we draw to a close, Brethren. Prayer is sought most earnestly by me
   at this moment. I speak, I think, in the name of all those who have to
   stand prominent as preachers of the Gospel of Christ. We beseech you,
   our beloved Friends and fellow laborers, that you wrestle together with
   us with God on our behalf that our testimony may be with power and with
   success, for the times are very difficult. The very air is full of
   unbelief! The solid earth seems well near to tremble with
   unrest--social and political--a deep and terrible unrest that fills us
   with dark forebodings of the future. The hope

   of the world lies, under God, in the Church of Jesus Christ. Therefore
   we beseech you, Brothers and Sisters, if in other days and softer times
   you did, in a measure, hold back prayer, do so no longer, but wrestle
   for us with God! What is coming no man knows. We wish not to play the
   Cassandra, prophesying evil things continually, but who is there,
   though he is a Prophet bright-eyed as Isaiah, who can give you a good
   forecast? Are not all the signs of the times big with terror? Therefore
   to your tents, O Israel, and in your tents cry to God that a blessing
   may come upon this nation and the world!

   Men are perishing all around us! Whatever may have been the state of
   the world in Paul's day--and it was, no doubt, horrible to the last
   degree--it is not much better now! The population of the world has so
   largely increased since those days that all her problems have become
   more difficult. We are much more aware of the miseries of vast
   populations than people could have been in Apostolic times. Paul knew
   but little of the world except that portion of it which bordered on the
   Mediterranean Sea--the whole world, then, seemed to lie in a
   nutshell--but now our discoverers and geographers, our steamboats and
   telegraphs have brought a greater world close to our doors. We share
   with the sorrows of India! We groan in the darkness of Africa! The
   cries of China are at our doors and Egypt's griefs are our own! If a
   population anywhere is starving or suffering oppression, our newspapers
   declare the evil to all readers and general feeling is awakened! Our
   sympathies for humanity are called forth much more than in former times
   and, so far, this is good, but then it heaps heavier burdens upon the
   thoughtful and increases the terrible responsibility of those who are
   able to lend a helping hand! Increase of knowledge demands increase of
   prayer! "The world for Jesus" is our motto, but how can the world be
   for Jesus if the Church of Jesus does not wrestle in her prayers?

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, remember that the Truth of God, alone, if
   not enforced by the Spirit of God, will not sink into the hearts of
   men. They say, "Truth is mighty and will prevail." But this is only
   half the case. If you put the Truth of God upon a shelf and let the
   dust lie on her record, of what use will it be to men? Truth
   unknown--how can it enlighten? Truth not felt--how can it renew? There
   must, therefore, be the preacher to call attention to the Truth--but
   how shall they preach except they are sent? And how shall they be sent
   aright except in the power of the Holy Spirit? And how can we expect
   the Holy Spirit if we do not ask for His working? Therefore, we pray
   you, wrestle together with us in your prayers, that the Holy Spirit may
   go forth with the Truth of God and by the Truth of God!

   This will be to your profit. No man hears his pastor preach without
   deriving some benefit from him, if he has earnestly prayed for him. The
   best hearers who get the most out of a man are those who love him best
   and pray most for him. God can make us dry wells to you if you offer no
   prayers for us! He can make us clouds that are full of rain if you have
   pleaded with God on our behalf!

   But the master argument with which we close is that which Paul
   mentions--"For Christ's sake." Oh, for God's sake, for His name and
   Glory's sake, if you would honor the Father, if you would let Jesus see
   of the travail of His soul, wrestle together with us in your prayers
   for the Divine working! It is so, Brothers and Sisters, you know it is
   so that we are wholly dependent upon the Spirit of God! If it is so,
   that without God's blessing we can do nothing, and that God's blessing
   is given if we inquire of God for it, then I need not press you
   further--you will pray for me and for other preachers of the Word of
   God! If your hearts are right, you will, each one, resolve to offer
   special, continuous and fervent prayer in private and in your families
   and in our holy convocations--and these shall deepen into an agony
   before God-- and then a blessing shall be given us which we shall
   scarcely have room enough to receive! Lord, teach us to pray!
     __________________________________________________________________

                            The Blood of Sprinkling

   A Sermon

   (No. 1888)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, February 28th, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [1]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
   sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye
   refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him
   that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away
   from him that speaketh from heaven."--Hebrews 12:24, 25.

   WE ARE JOYFULLY REMINDED by the apostle that we are not come to Mount
   Sinai and its overwhelming manifestations. After Israel had kept the
   feast of the Passover, God was pleased to give his people a sort of
   Pentecost, and more fully to manifest himself and his law to them at
   Sinai. They were in the wilderness, with the solemn peaks of a desolate
   mountain as their center; and from the top thereof, in the midst of
   fire, and blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and with the sound of a
   trumpet, God spake with them. "The earth shook, the heavens also
   dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the
   presence of God, the God of Israel." We are not come to the dread and
   terror of the old covenant, of which our apostle saith in another
   place, "The covenant from the Mount Sinai gendereth unto bondage"
   (Galatians 4:24.) Upon the believer's spirit there rests not the
   slavish fear, the abject terror, the fainting alarm, which swayed the
   tribes of Israel; for the manifestation of God which he beholds, though
   not less majestic, is far more full of hope and joy. Over us there
   rests not the impenetrable cloud of apprehension; we are not buried in
   a present darkness of despair; we are not tossed about with a tempest
   of horror; and, therefore, we do not exceedingly fear and quake. How
   thankful we should be for this! Israel was privileged even in receiving
   a fiery law from the right hand of Jehovah; but we are far more
   favored, since we receive "the glorious gospel of the blessed God."

   Our apostle next tells us what we are come to. I suppose he speaks of
   all the saints after the death and resurrection of our Lord and the
   descent of the Holy Ghost. He refers to the whole church, in the midst
   of which the Holy Spirit now dwells. We are come to a more joyous sight
   than Sinai, and the mountain burning with fire. The Hebrew worshipper,
   apart from his sacrifices, lived continually beneath the shadow of the
   darkness of a broken law; he was startled often by the tremendous note
   of the trumpet, which threatened judgment for that broken law; and thus
   he lived ever in a condition of bondage. To what else could the law
   bring him? To convince of sin and to condemn the sinner is its utmost
   power. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ lives in quite another
   atmosphere. He has not come to a barren crag, but to an inhabited city,
   Jerusalem above, the metropolis of God. He has quitted the wilderness
   for the land which floweth with milk and honey, and the material mount
   which might be touched for the spiritual and heavenly Jerusalem. He has
   entered into fellowship with an innumerable company of angels, who are
   to him, not cherubim with flaming swords to keep men back from the tree
   of life, but ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of
   salvation. He is come to the joyous assembly of all pure intelligences
   who have met, not in trembling, but in joyous liberty, to keep the
   feast with their great Lord and King. He thinks of all who love God
   throughout all worlds, and he feels that he is one of them; for he has
   come to "the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are
   written in heaven." Moreover, he has come "to God the Judge of all,"
   the umpire and rewarder of all the chosen citizens who are enrolled by
   his command, the ruler and judge of all their enemies. God is not to
   them a dreadful person who speaks from a distance; but he is their
   Father and their Friend, in whom they delight themselves, in whose
   presence there is fullness of joy for them. Brethren, our fellowship is
   with the Father, our God. To him we have come through our Lord Jesus
   Christ. Moreover, in the power of the Spirit of God we realize the
   oneness of the church both in heaven and earth, and the spirits of just
   men made perfect are in union with us. No gulf divides the militant
   from the triumphant; we are one army of the living God. We sometimes
   speak of the holy dead; but there are none such: they live unto God;
   they are perfected as to their spirits even now, and they are waiting
   for the moment when their bodies also shall be raised from the tomb to
   be again inhabited by their immortal souls. We no longer shudder at the
   sepulcher, but sing of resurrection. Our condition of heart, from day
   to day, is that of men who are in fellowship with God, fellowship with
   angels, fellowship with perfect spirits.

   We have also come to Jesus, our Savior, who is all and in all. In him
   we live; we are joined unto him in one spirit; he is the Bridegroom of
   our souls, the delight of our hearts. We are come to him as the
   Mediator of the new covenant. What a blessed thing it is to know that
   covenant of which he is the Mediator! Some in these days despise the
   covenant; but saints delight in it. To them the everlasting covenant,
   "ordered in all things, and sure," is all their salvation and all their
   desire. We are covenanted ones through our Lord Jesus. God has pledged
   himself to bless us. By two immutable things wherein it is impossible
   for him to lie, he has given us strong consolation, and good hope
   through grace, even to all of us who have fled for refuge to the Lord
   Jesus. We are happy to live under the covenant of grace, the covenant
   of promise, the covenant symbolized by Jerusalem above, which is free,
   and the mother of us all.

   Then comes the last thing of all, mentioned last, as I shall have to
   show you, for a purpose. We have come "to the blood of sprinkling." On
   that first day at Sinai no blood of sprinkling was presented, but
   afterwards it was used by divine order to ratify the national covenant
   which the tribes made with Jehovah at the foot of the hill. Of that
   covenant the Lord says, "which my covenant they brake, although I was
   an husband unto them." He never brake his covenant, but they brake it;
   for they failed to keep that condition of obedience without which a
   covenant founded upon works falls to the ground. We have come to the
   blood of sprinkling which has fallen upon a covenant which never shall
   be broken; for the Lord hath made it to endure though rocks and hills
   remove. This is called by the Holy Ghost "a better covenant, which was
   established upon better promises." We are come to the covenant of
   grace, to Jesus the Mediator of it, and to his blood, which is the seal
   of it. Of this last we are going to speak at this time--"The blood of
   sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel."

   I shall need this morning to occupy all the time with what I regard as
   only the first head of my discourse. What is it? "The blood of
   sprinkling." It will be our duty afterwards to consider where we
   are--"we are come unto this blood;" and, thirdly, to remember what
   then? "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh."

   I. FIRST, WHAT IS IT? What is this "blood of sprinkling?" In a few
   words, "the blood of sprinkling" represents the pains, the sufferings,
   the humiliation, and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which he
   endured on the behalf of guilty man. When we speak of the blood, we
   wish not to be understood as referring solely or mainly to the literal
   material blood which flowed from the wounds of Jesus. We believe in the
   literal fact of his shedding his blood; but when we speak of his cross
   and blood we mean those sufferings and that death of our Lord Jesus
   Christ by which he magnified the law of God; we mean what Isaiah
   intended when he said, "He shall make his soul an offering for sin;" we
   mean all the griefs which Jesus vicariously endured on our behalf at
   Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha, and specially his yielding up
   his life upon the tree of scorn and doom. "The chastisement of our
   peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." "Without
   shedding of blood there is no remission;" and the shedding of blood
   intended is the death of Jesus, the Son of God.

   Remember that his sufferings and death were not apparent only, but true
   and real; and that they involved an incalculable degree of pain and
   anguish. To redeem our souls cost our Lord an exceeding sorrowfulness
   "even unto death;" it cost him the bloody sweat, the heart broken with
   reproach, and specially the agony of being forsaken of his Father, till
   he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Our Mediator
   endured death under the worst possible aspects, bereft of those
   supports which are in all other cases of godly men afforded by the
   goodness and faithfulness of God. His was not merely a natural death,
   but a death aggravated by supernatural circumstance, which infinitely
   intensified its woe. This is what we mean by the blood of Christ, his
   sufferings, and his death.

   These were voluntarily undertaken by himself out of pure love to us,
   and in order that we might thereby be justly saved from deserved
   punishment. There was no natural reason on his own account why he
   should suffer, bleed, and die. Far from it,--"He only hath
   immortality." But out of supreme love to us, that man might be forgiven
   without the violation of divine rectitude, the Son of God assumed human
   flesh, and became in very deed a man, in order that he might be able to
   offer in man's place a full vindication to the righteous and
   unchangeable law of God. Being God, he thus showed forth the wondrous
   love of God to man by being willing to suffer personally rather than
   the redeemed should die as the just result of their sin. The matchless
   majesty of his divine person lent supreme efficacy to his sufferings.
   It was a man that died, but he was also God, and the death of incarnate
   God reflects more glory upon law than the deaths of myriads of
   condemned creatures could have done. See the yearning of the great God
   for perfect righteousness: he had sooner die than stain his justice
   even to indulge his mercy. Jesus the Lord, out of love to the Father
   and to men, undertook willingly and cheerfully for our sakes to magnify
   the law, and bring in perfect righteousness. This work was so carried
   out to the utmost, that not a jot of the suffering was mitigated, nor a
   particle of the obedience foregone: "he became obedient unto death,
   even the death of the cross." Now he hath finished transgression, made
   an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness: for he has
   offered such an expiation that God is just, and the justifier of him
   that believeth. God is at once the righteous Judge, and the infinitely
   loving Father, through what Jesus hath suffered.

   Brethren, though I have said that there was no reason why the Son of
   God should bleed and die on his own account, yet towards us there was a
   reason. Our Lord from of old in the eternal covenant was constituted
   the head and representative of all who were in him; and so, when the
   time came, he took the place, bore the sin, and suffered the penalty of
   those whom the Father gave him from before the foundations of the
   world. He is as much the representative man as the first Adam was the
   representative man; and as in Adam the sin was committed which ruined
   us, so in the second Adam the atonement was made which saves us. "As in
   Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." There was no
   other person so fit to undertake the enterprise of our redemption as
   this second man, who is the Lord from heaven. He properly, but yet most
   generously and spontaneously, came and shed his precious blood, in the
   room and place and stead of sinners, to bring the guilty near to God.

   But the text does not merely speak of the blood shed, which I have
   explained to you, but of "the blood of sprinkling." This is the
   atonement applied for divine purposes, and specially applied to our own
   hearts and consciences by faith. For the explanation of this sprinkling
   we must look to the types of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament
   the blood of sprinkling meant a great many things; in fact, I cannot
   just now tell you all that it signified. We meet with it in the Book of
   Exodus, at the time when the Lord smote all the first-born of Egypt.
   Then the blood of sprinkling meant preservation. The basin filled with
   blood was taken, and a bunch of hyssop was dipped into it, and the
   lintel and the two side-posts of every house tenanted by Israelites
   were smeared with the blood; and when God saw the blood upon the house
   of the Israelite, he bade the destroyer pass that family by, and leave
   their first-born unharmed. The sprinkled blood meant preservation: it
   was Israel's passover and safeguard.

   The sprinkled blood very frequently signified the confirmation of a
   covenant. So it is used in Exodus 24., which I read to you just now.
   The blood was sprinkled upon the book of the covenant, and also upon
   the people, to show that the covenant was, as far as it could be,
   confirmed by the people who promised, "All that the Lord hath said will
   we do." The blood of bulls and of goats in that case was but a type of
   the sacrificial blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The lesson which we
   learn from Exodus 24:is that the blood of sprinkling means the blood of
   ratification or confirmation of the covenant, which God has been
   pleased to make with men in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since
   Jesus died, the promises are Yea and Amen to all believers, and must
   assuredly be fulfilled. The covenant of grace had but one condition,
   and that condition Jesus has fulfilled by his death, so that it has now
   become a covenant of pure and unconditional promise to all the seed.

   In many cases the sprinkling of the blood meant purification. If a
   person had been defiled, he could not come into the sanctuary of God
   without being sprinkled with blood. There were the ashes of a red
   heifer laid up, and these were mixed with blood and water; and by their
   being sprinkled on the unclean, his ceremonial defilement was removed.
   There were matters incident to domestic life, and accidents of outdoor
   life, which engendered impurity, and this impurity was put away by the
   sprinkling of blood. This sprinkling was used in the case of recovery
   from infectious disease, such as leprosy; before such persons could
   mingle in the solemn assemblies, they were sprinkled with the blood,
   and thus were made ceremonially pure. In a higher sense this is the
   work of the blood of Christ. It preserves us, it ratifies the covenant,
   and wherever it is applied it makes us pure; for "the blood of Jesus
   Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." We have our hearts sprinkled
   from an evil conscience; for we have come unto the obedience and
   sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

   The sprinkling of the blood meant, also, sanctification. Before a man
   entered upon the priesthood the blood was put upon his right ear, and
   on the great toe of his right foot, and on the thumb of his right hand,
   signifying that all his powers were thus consecrated to God. The
   ordination ceremony included the sprinkling of blood upon the altar
   round about. Even thus hath the Lord Jesus redeemed us unto God by his
   death, and the sprinkling of his blood hath made us kings and priests
   unto God for ever. He is made of God unto us sanctification, and all
   else that is needed for the divine service.

   One other signification of the blood of the sacrifice was acceptation
   and access. When the high priest went into the most holy place once a
   year, it was not without blood, which he sprinkled upon the ark of the
   covenant, and upon the mercy-seat, which was on the top thereof. All
   approaches to God were made by blood. There was no hope of a man
   drawing near to God, even in symbol, apart from the sprinkling of the
   blood. And now to-day our only way to God is by the precious sacrifice
   of Christ; the only hope for the success of our prayers, the acceptance
   of our praises, or the reception of our holy works, is through the
   ever-abiding merit of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   The Holy Ghost bids us enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;
   there is no other way.

   There were other uses besides these, but it may suffice to put down the
   sprinkling of the blood as having these effects, namely, that of
   preservation, satisfaction, purification, sanctification, and access to
   God. This was all typified in the blood of bulls and of goats, but
   actually fulfilled in the great sacrifice of Christ.

   With this as an explanation, I desire to come still closer to the text,
   and view it with great care; for to my mind it is singularly full of
   teaching. May the Holy Spirit lead us into the truth which lies herein
   like treasure hid in a field!

   First. The blood of sprinkling is the center of the divine
   manifestation under the gospel. Observe its innermost place in the
   passage before us. You are privileged by almighty grace to come first
   to Mount Zion, to climb its steeps, to stand upon its holy summit, and
   to enter the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. In those
   golden streets, surrounding the hallowed shrine, you behold an
   innumerable company of angels. What a vision of glory! But you must not
   rest here; for the great general assembly, the festal gathering, the
   solemn convocation of the enrolled in heaven, is being held, and all
   are there in glad attire, surrounding their God and Lord. Press onward
   to the throne itself, where sits the Judge of all, surrounded by those
   holy spirits who have washed their robes, and, therefore, stand before
   the throne of God in perfection.

   Have you not come a long way? Are you not admitted into the very center
   of the whole revelation? Not yet. A step further lands you where stands
   your Savior, the Mediator, with the new covenant. Now is your joy
   complete; but you have a further object to behold. What is in that
   innermost shrine? What is that which is hidden away in the holy of
   holies? What is that which is the most precious and costly thing of
   all, the last, the ultimatum, God's grandest revelation? The precious
   blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot--the
   blood of sprinkling. This comes last; it is the innermost truth of the
   dispensation of grace under which we live. Brethren, when we climb to
   heaven itself, and pass the gate of pearl, and wend our way through the
   innumerable hosts of angels, and come even to the throne of God, and
   see the spirits of the just made perfect, and hear their holy hymn, we
   shall not have gone beyond the influence of the blood of sprinkling;
   nay, we shall see it there more truly present than in any other place
   beside. "What!" say you, "the blood of Jesus in heaven?" Yes. The
   earthly sanctuary, we are told, was purified with the blood of bulls
   and of goats, "but the heavenly things themselves with better
   sacrifices than these."(Hebrews 9:23) When Jesus entered once for all
   into the holy place, he entered by his own blood, having obtained
   eternal redemption for us: so saith the apostle in the ninth chapter of
   this epistle. Let those who talk lightly of the precious blood correct
   their view ere they be guilty of blasphemy; for the revelation of God
   knows no lower deep, this is the heart and center of all. The
   manifestation of Jesus under the gospel is not only the revelation of
   the Mediator, but especially of his sacrifice. The appearance of God
   the Judge of all, the vision of hosts of angels and perfect spirits, do
   but lead up to that sacrifice which is the source and focus of all true
   fellowship between God and his creatures. This is the character which
   Jesus wears in the innermost shrine where he reveals himself most
   clearly to those who are nearest to him. He looks like a lamb that has
   been slain. There is no sight of him which is more full, more glorious,
   more complete, than the vision of him as the great sacrifice for sin.
   The atonement of Jesus is the concentration of the divine glory; all
   other revelations of God are completed and intensified here. You have
   not come to the central sun of the great spiritual system of grace till
   you have come to the blood of sprinkling--to those sufferings of
   Messiah which are not for himself, but are intended to bear upon
   others, even as drops when they are sprinkled exert their influence
   where they fall. Unless you have learned to rejoice in that blood which
   taketh away sin, you have not yet caught the key-note of the gospel
   dispensation. The blood of Christ is the life of the gospel. Apart from
   atonement you may know the skin, the rind, the husk of the gospel; but
   its inner kernel you have not discovered.

   I next ask you to look at the text and observe that this sprinkling of
   the blood, as mentioned by the Holy Ghost in this passage, is
   absolutely identical with Jesus himself. Read it. "To Jesus the
   mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that
   speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him
   that speaketh." He saith it is the blood that speaketh; and then he
   proceeds to say, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." This is a
   very unexpected turn, which can only be explained upon the supposition
   that Jesus and the blood are identical in the writer's view. By what we
   may call a singularity in grammar, in putting him for it, the Spirit of
   God intentionally sets forth the striking truth, that the sacrifice is
   identical with the Savior. "We are come to the Savior, the mediator of
   the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh; see
   that ye refuse not him." Beloved friends, there is no Jesus if there is
   no blood of sprinkling; there is no Savior if there is no sacrifice. I
   put this strongly, because the attempt is being made nowadays to set
   forth Jesus apart from his cross and atonement. He is held up as a
   great ethical teacher, a self-sacrificing spirit, who is to lead the
   way in a grand moral reformation, and by his influence to set up a
   kingdom of moral influence in the world. It is even hinted that this
   kingdom has never had prominence enough given to it because it has been
   overshadowed by his cross. But where is Jesus apart from his sacrifice?
   He is not there if you have left out the blood of sprinkling, which is
   the blood of sacrifice. Without the atonement, no man is a Christian,
   and Christ is not Jesus. If you have torn away the sacrificial blood,
   you have drawn the heart out of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and robbed
   it of its life. If you have trampled on the blood of sprinkling, and
   counted it a common thing, instead of putting it above you upon the
   lintel of the door, and all around you upon the two side-posts, you
   have fearfully transgressed. As for me, God forbid that I should glory
   save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, since to me that cross is
   identical with Jesus himself. I know no Jesus but he who died the just
   for the unjust. You can separate Jesus and the blood materially; for by
   the spear-thrust, and all his other wounds, the blood was drawn away
   from the body of our Lord; but spiritually this "blood of sprinkling"
   and the Jesus by whom we live, are inseparable. In fact, they are one
   and indivisible, the self-same thing, and you cannot truly know Jesus,
   or preach Jesus, unless you preach him as slain for sin; you cannot
   trust Jesus except you trust him as making peace by the blood of his
   cross. If you have done with the blood of sprinkling, you have done
   with Jesus altogether; he will never part with his mediatorial glory as
   our sacrifice, neither can we come to him if we ignore that character.
   Is it not clear in the text that Jesus and the blood of sprinkling are
   one? What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Note this
   right carefully.

   Thirdly, observe that this "blood of sprinkling" is put in close
   contact with "the new covenant." I do not wonder that those who are lax
   in their views of the atonement have nothing honorable to say
   concerning the covenants, old or new. The doctrine of the covenants is
   the marrow of divinity; but these vain-glorious spirits affect to
   despise it. This is natural, since they speak slightingly of the
   atonement. What covenant is there without blood? If it be not ratified,
   if there be no sacrifice to make it sure, then is it no covenant in the
   sight of God or of enlightened men. But, O beloved, ye who know your
   Lord, and follow on to know him yet better, to you the covenant of
   promise is a heritage of joy, and his atonement is most precious as the
   confirmation of it. To us the sacrificial death of our Lord is not a
   doctrine, but the doctrine, not an outgrowth of Christian teaching, but
   the essence and marrow of it. To us Jesus in his atonement is Alpha and
   Omega, in him the covenant begins and ends. You see how it was
   confirmed by blood. If it be a man's covenant, if it be confirmed, it
   standeth; but this is God's covenant, confirmed with promises, oaths
   and blood, and it stands fast for ever and ever. Every believer is as
   much interested in that covenant as was Abraham the father of
   believers; for the covenant was made with Abraham and his spiritual
   seed; and in Christ it is confirmed to all that seed for ever by his
   most precious blood. That, also, is evident enough in the text: fail
   not to consider it well.

   But, fourthly, I want you to notice that according to the text the
   blood is the voice of the new dispensation. Observe that on Sinai there
   was "the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they
   that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any
   more." You look, therefore, under the new dispensation, for a voice,
   and you do not come to any till you reach the last object in the list,
   and there see "the blood of sprinkling that speaketh." Here, then, is
   the voice of the gospel; it is not the sound of a trumpet, nor the
   voice of words spoken in terrible majesty; but the blood speaks, and
   assuredly there is no sound more piercing, more potent, more
   prevailing. God heard the voice of Abel's blood and visited Cain with
   condign punishment for killing his brother; and the precious blood of
   Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cries in the ears of God with a voice
   which is ever heard. How can it be imagined that the Lord God should be
   deaf to the cry of his Son's sacrifice? Lo, these many ages the blood
   has cried--"Forgive them! Forgive them! Accept them! Deliver them from
   going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom!"

   The blood of sprinkling has a voice of instruction to us even as it has
   a voice of intercession with God. It cries to us, "See the evil of sin!
   See how God loveth righteousness! See how he loveth men! See how
   impossible it is for you to escape from the punishment of sin except by
   this great sacrifice in which the love and the justice of God equally
   appear! See how Jehovah spared not his own Son, but freely delivered
   him up for us all."

   What a voice there is in the atonement!--a voice which pleads for
   holiness and love, for justice and grace, for truth and mercy. "See
   that ye refuse not him that speaketh."

   Do you not hear it? If you take away the blood of sprinkling from the
   gospel, you have silenced it. It has no voice if this be gone. "Oh,"
   they say, "the gospel has lost its power!" What wonder when they have
   made it a dumb gospel! How can it have power when they take away that
   which is its life and speech? Unless the preacher is evermore preaching
   this blood, and sprinkling it by the doctrine of faith, his teaching
   has no voice either to rouse the careless or to cheer the anxious. If
   ever there should come a wretched day when all our pulpits shall be
   full of modern thought, and the old doctrine of a substitutionary
   sacrifice shall be exploded, then will there remain no word of comfort
   for the guilty or hope for the despairing. Hushed will be for ever
   those silver notes which now console the living, and cheer the dying; a
   dumb spirit will possess this sullen world, and no voice of joy will
   break the blank silence of despair. The gospel speaks through the
   propitiation for sin, and if that be denied, it speaketh no more. Those
   who preach not the atonement exhibit a dumb and dummy gospel; a mouth
   it hath, but speaketh not; they that make it are like unto their idol.

   Let me draw you nearer still to the text. Observe, that this voice is
   identical with the voice of the Lord Jesus; for it is put so. "The
   blood of sprinkling that speaketh. See that ye refuse not him that
   speaketh." Whatever the doctrine of the sacrifice of Jesus may be, it
   is the main teaching of Jesus himself. It is well to notice that the
   voice which spoke from Sinai was also the voice of Christ. It was Jesus
   who delivered that law the penalty of which he was himself to endure.
   He that read it out amidst the tempest was Jesus. Notice the
   declaration--"Whose voice then shook the earth." Whenever you hear the
   gospel, the voice of the precious blood is the voice of Jesus himself,
   the voice of him that shook the earth at Sinai. This same voice shall
   by-and-by shake, not the earth only, but also heaven. What a voice
   there is in the blood of sprinkling, since indeed it is the voice of
   the eternal Son of God, who both makes and destroys! Would you have me
   silence the doctrine of the blood of sprinkling? Would any one of you
   attempt so horrible a deed? Shall we be censured if we continually
   proclaim the heaven-sent message of the blood of Jesus? Shall we speak
   with bated breath because some affected person shudders at the sound of
   the word "blood?" or some "cultured" individual rebels at the
   old-fashioned thought of sacrifice? Nay, verily, we will sooner have
   our tongue cut out than cease to speak of the precious blood of Jesus
   Christ. For me there is nothing worth thinking of or preaching about
   but this grand truth, which is the beginning and the end of the whole
   Christian system, namely, that God gave his Son to die that sinners
   might live. This is not the voice of the blood only, but the voice of
   our Lord Jesus Christ himself. So saith the text, and who can
   contradict it?

   Further, my brethren, from the text I learn another truth, namely, that
   this blood is always speaking. The text saith not "the blood of
   sprinkling that spoke," but "that speaketh." It is always speaking, it
   always remaineth a plea with God and a testimony to men. It never will
   be silenced, either one way or the other. In the intercession of our
   risen and ascended Lord his sacrifice ever speaketh to the Most High.
   By the teaching of the Holy Ghost the atonement will always speak in
   edification to believers yet upon the earth. It is the blood that
   speaketh, according to our text, this is the only speech which this
   dispensation yields us. Shall that speech ever be still? Shall we
   decline to hear it? Shall we refuse to echo it? God forbid. By day, by
   night, the great sacrifice continues to cry to the sons of men, "Turn
   ye from your sins, for they cost your Savior dear. The times of your
   ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to
   repent, since he is able to forgive and yet be just. Your offended God
   has himself provided a sacrifice; come and be sprinkled with its blood,
   and be reconciled once for all." The voice of this blood speaks
   wherever there is a guilty conscience, wherever there is an anxious
   heart, wherever there is a seeking sinner, wherever there is a
   believing mind. It speaketh with sweet, familiar, tender, inviting
   voice. There is no music like it to the sinner's ear: it charms away
   his fears. It shall never cease its speaking so long as there is a
   sinner yet out of Christ; nay, so long as there is one on earth who
   still needs its cleansing power because of fresh backslidings. Oh, hear
   ye its voice! Incline your ear and receive its blessed accents: it
   says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though
   your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be
   red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

   This part of my discourse will not be complete unless I bid you notice
   that we are expressly told that this precious blood speaks "better
   things than that of Abel." I do not think that the whole meaning of the
   passage is exhausted if we say that Abel's blood cries for vengeance,
   and that Christ's blood speaks for pardon. Dr. Watts puts it:--

   "Blood has a voice to pierce the skies:

   'Revenge!' the blood of Abel cries;

   But the dear stream when Christ was slain

   Speaks peace as loud from ev'ry vein."

   That is quite true; but I conceive that it is not all the sense, and
   perhaps not even the sense here intended. Revenge is scarcely a good
   thing; yet Abel's blood spake good things, or we should hardly read
   that Christ's blood speaks "better things." What does the blood of Abel
   speak? The blood of Abel speaks to a complete and believing obedience
   to God. It shows us a man who believes God, and, notwithstanding the
   enmity of his brother, brings to God the appointed sacrifice of faith,
   strictly following up, even to the bitter end, his holy obedience to
   the Most High. That is what the blood of Abel says to me; and the blood
   of Jesus says the same thing most emphatically. The death of Jesus
   Christ was the crown and close of a perfect life, it was a fit
   completion of a course of holiness. In obedience to the Great Father,
   Jesus even laid down his life. But if this be all the blood of Jesus
   speaks, as some say that it is, then it does not speak better things
   than the blood of Abel; for it only says the same things in a louder
   voice. The martyrdom of any saint has a voice for obedience to God as
   truly as the martyrdom of Jesus; but the death of our Lord says far
   more, infinitely more, than this: it not only witnesses to complete
   obedience, but it provides the way by which the disobedient may be
   forgiven and helped to obedience and holiness. The cross has a greater,
   deeper, gladder gospel for fallen men than that of a perfect example
   which they are unable to follow.

   The blood of Abel said this, too--that he was not ashamed of his faith,
   but witnessed a good confession concerning his God, even to the death;
   he put his life in his hand, and was not ashamed to stand at the altar
   of God, and avow his faith by obediently offering the ordained
   sacrifice. Now, I grant you that the blood of Jesus also declares that
   he was a faithful and true witness, who willingly sealed his witness
   with his blood. He proved by shedding his blood that he could not be
   turned aside from truth and righteousness, even though death stood in
   his way; but if that is all that the blood of sprinkling speaketh, it
   saith no better things than the blood of Abel. "Be faithful unto
   death," is the voice of Abel as well as of Jesus. Jesus must have said
   more than this by his blood-shedding.

   The blood of Abel said good things; that is implied in the fact that
   the blood of Jesus Christ says better things; and no doubt the blood of
   Abel rises to the dignity of teaching self-sacrifice. Here was a man, a
   keeper of sheep, who by his mode of life laid out his life for the good
   of those committed to his charge; and at the last, in obedience to God,
   he yielded himself up to die by a brother's hand. It was the first
   draught of a picture of self-sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus Christ also made
   a complete self-sacrifice. All his life long he gave himself to men. He
   lived never for himself. The glory of God and the good of men were
   united in one passion which filled his whole soul. He could say, "The
   zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." His death was the completion of
   his perfect self-sacrifice. But if that were all, the blood of Jesus
   saith no better thing than Abel's death saith, though it may say it
   more emphatically.

   Our Lord's blood saith "better things than that of Abel;" and what doth
   it say? It saith, "There is redemption through his blood, the
   forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." "He his own
   self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to
   sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes we were healed."
   "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be
   made the righteousness of God in him." The voice of the blood is this,
   "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and
   their iniquities will I remember no more." "The blood of Jesus Christ
   his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Now, my brethren, these are better
   things than Abel's blood could say, and they are what the blood of
   Jesus speaks to every one upon whom it is sprinkled by faith. It must
   be applied to each one of us by faith, or it says nothing to us. But
   when it falls on each believing individual, it saith to him words of
   blessing which pacify his conscience and delight his soul.

   The apostle says that "Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling." Is it
   so? Has that blood of sprinkling ever been applied to you? Do you feel
   it? Are you preserved? Are you cleansed? Are you brought nigh to God?
   Are you sanctified unto God's service by the atoning sacrifice? If so,
   then go you out, and in firm confidence that never can be shaken, make
   your glory in the blood of sprinkling. Tell every sinner whom you meet
   that if the Lord Jesus wash him he shall be whiter than snow. Preach
   the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God and then sing of it. Recollect
   that wondrous threefold song in the fifth chapter of the Revelation,
   where, first of all, the elders and living creatures round about the
   throne, sing a new song, saying, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us
   to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and
   nation." Then ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
   thousands of angels take up the strain and cry, "Worthy is the Lamb
   that was slain." Nor is this all; for the apostle tells us, "Every
   creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and
   such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying,
   Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth
   upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." See you not that
   they all extol the Lord Jesus in his sacrificial character as the Lamb
   slain? I have scant patience with those who dare to put this great
   truth into the background, and even sneer at it or misrepresent it of
   set purpose. Sirs, if you would be saved you must have the blood of
   Jesus sprinkled upon you. He that believeth not in Christ Jesus, in
   Jesus the atoning sacrifice, must perish. The eternal God must repulse
   with infinite disgust the man who refuses the loving sacrifice of
   Jesus. Inasmuch as he counted himself unworthy of this wondrous
   sacrifice, this marvellous expiation there remaineth no other sacrifice
   for sin, and nothing for him but that eternal blackness and darkness
   and thunder which were foreshadowed at Sinai. Those who refuse the
   atonement which wisdom devised, which love provided, and which justice
   has accepted, have signed their own death-warrant, and none can wonder
   that they perish. The Lord lead us to glory in Christ crucified. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Exodus 20:1-21; 24:1-8.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--236, 279, 291.

   * For this line of thought I am much indebted to a chapter in an
   admirable book, entitled "Every-day Life," by C. H. Waller, M. A. Shaw
   and Co.
     __________________________________________________________________

                    The Blood of Sprinkling (Second Sermon.)

   A Sermon

   (No. 1889)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Evening, February 28th, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [2]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Ye are come . . .. to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to
   the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
   See that ye refuse not him that speaketh."--Hebrews 12:24, 25.

   IN THE FORMER part of this sermon the text grew upon me so largely that
   it was quite impossible to express all its meaning. In as condensed a
   manner as possible I explained what was meant by "the blood of
   sprinkling," and I also enlarged upon the high position which this
   precious blood occupies in the gospel dispensation; but I was obliged
   to leave for this second occasion two practical questions which the
   text is sure to raise if it be carefully thought upon.

   The doctrinal portion of our meditation was greatly blest to our
   hearts, for God the Holy Ghost refreshed us thereby: may he now fulfill
   his sacred office with equal power, by revealing the things of Christ
   to us in a way which shall cause self-examination, and arouse us to
   give more earnest heed than ever to the voice of him that speaketh from
   heaven. No theme can excel in value and excellence that of the precious
   blood of Jesus. Unless the Holy Spirit shall prepare our hearts, even
   with such a topic as this before us, we shall be nothing profited; but
   if he will show these choice truths unto us, we shall be comforted,
   quickened, edified, and sanctified by them.

   It is a considerable disadvantage to some of you that you have not
   heard the former part of the sermon; but I hope you will read it at
   your leisure, and then, if you read this in connection with it, the
   whole subject will be before you. Not that I can set it all out in
   words: I only mean that it will be before you as the ocean is before us
   when we sit on the beach, or as the heavens are before us when we gaze
   upon Arcturus with his sons. Finite language fails to convey the
   infinite; and if ever there was a text which deserved to be called
   infinite, it is that which is now before us.

   Having touched, as with a swallow's wing, the surface of our great
   theme under the first division of the sermon, I have now to speak with
   you upon the second, which is this: Where are we with reference to this
   blood of sprinkling? The text says, "Ye are come." We are not come to
   Mount Sinai, but we are come to Mount Zion; to angels and their God; to
   saints and their Mediator, and to the blood of sprinkling. This having
   had its share of our thoughts, we are to conclude with the question,
   What then? If we have come to this blood of sprinkling, what then? The
   answer is, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." Let us give to
   the wondrous truths revealed to us by the sacrifice of Jesus the most
   earnest heed, that our souls may hear and live. May the Holy Spirit
   enable us to hear the heavenly voice at this hour! "Faith cometh by
   hearing; may it come at this time by our reverently hearing the voice
   of the blood of sprinkling!

   II. My business under the second head of my discourse is to answer the
   question, WHERE ARE WE? I have to explain what is meant by the
   expression which is found in the twenty-second verse of the chapter "Ye
   are come." Link the twenty-second verse with this twenty-fourth, and
   read, "Ye are come to the blood of sprinkling."

   Well, first, ye are come to the hearing of the gospel of the atoning
   sacrifice. The Israelites left Egypt, and, having passed the Red Sea,
   they entered the desert, and at length came to the mount of God, even
   to Sinai, that terrible mountain. In the valley around that throne of
   God they were gathered together in their thousands. What a sight that
   vast multitude must have been! Probably two millions or more were
   encamped before the mount. Then, "The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up
   from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran; and he came with
   ten thousands of his saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for
   them." Israel crouched in the valley below, subdued by the terrible
   majesty of the scene, and overawed by the trumpet voice which pealed
   forth from the midst of the thick darkness. The Lord spake with them,
   but their uncircumcised ears could not bear his glorious voice, and
   they entreated that Moses might act as mediator, and speak in God's
   stead.

   You and I have not come to such a terrible sight at this hour. No
   quivering mountain smokes before you, no terrible lightnings appall
   you, no thunders distress you.

   "Not to the terrors of the Lord,

   The tempest, fire, and smoke;

   Not to the thunder of that word

   Which God on Sinai spoke:

   "But we are come to Sion's hill

   The city of our God,

   Where milder words declare his will,

   And spread his love abroad."

   Among the great things which you are called upon to consider under the
   gospel is "the blood of sprinkling." Count yourselves happy that you
   are privileged to hear of the divinely appointed way of reconciliation
   with God. You are come to hear, not of your sin and its doom, not of
   the last judgment and the swift destruction of the enemies of God; but
   of love to the guilty, pity for the miserable, mercy for the wicked,
   compassion for those who are out of the way. You are come to hear of
   God's great expedient of wisdom, by which he, by the same act and deed,
   condemns sin, and lets the sinner live; honors his law, and yet passes
   by transgression, iniquity, and sin. You are come to hear, not of the
   shedding of your own blood, but of the shedding of his blood who, in
   his infinite compassion, deigned to take the place of guilty men--to
   suffer, that they might not suffer, and die, that they might not die.
   Blessed are your ears, that they hear of the perfect sacrifice! Happy
   are your spirits, since they are found where free grace and boundless
   love have set forth a great propitiation for sin! Divinely favored are
   you to live where you are told of pardon freely given to all who will
   believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, as the Lamb of God which taketh
   away the sin of the world. You hear at this hour not law, but gospel;
   not the sentence of judgment, but the proclamation of grace. "See that
   ye refuse not him that speaketh." It is no small thing for the kingdom
   of God to have come so nigh unto you. Awake to a sense of your
   privilege: you do not sit in heathen midnight, nor in Popish gloom, nor
   in Jewish mist; but day has dawned on you: do not refuse the light.

   In a better sense, going a little further, we have not only come to the
   blood of sprinkling by hearing about it, but we have come to it because
   the great God now deals with us upon methods which are founded and
   grounded upon the atoning sacrifice of Christ. If God were to deal with
   us upon the terms laid down at Sinai, he need not be long in finding
   the "two or three witnesses" to prove that we have broken his law. We
   should be ourselves compelled to plead guilty; no witnesses would be
   required. Truly, he hath not dealt with us after our sins. We are so
   faulty that we can draw no comfort from the prospect of judgment by
   law; we appeal to mercy alone; for on any other ground our case is
   hopeless. "This do, and thou shalt live" is a covenant which brings us
   no ray of comfort; for its only word to us is that thunderbolt--"The
   soul that sinneth, it shall die."

   By the works of the law none can be justified, for by that law we are
   all condemned. Read the Ten Commandments, and pause at each one, and
   confess that you have broken it either in thought, or word, or deed.
   Remember that by a glance we may commit adultery, by a thought we may
   be guilty of murder, by a desire we may steal. Sin is any want of
   conformity to perfect holiness, and that want of conformity is justly
   chargeable upon every one of us. Yet the Lord does not, under the
   gospel dispensation, deal with us according to law. He does not now sit
   on the throne of judgment, but he looks down upon us from the throne of
   grace. Not the iron rod, but the silver scepter, is held over us. The
   long-suffering of God rules the age, and Jesus the Mediator is the
   gracious Lord-lieutenant of the dispensation. Instead of destroying
   offending man from off the face of the earth, the Lord comes near to us
   in loving condescension, and pleads with us by his Spirit, saying, "You
   have sinned, but my Son has died. In him I am prepared to deal with you
   in a way of pure mercy and unmingled grace."

   O sinner, the fact that you are alive proves that God is not dealing
   with you according to strict justice, but in patient forbearance; every
   moment you live is another instance of omnipotent long-suffering. It is
   the sacrifice of Christ which arrests the axe of justice, which else
   must execute you. The barren tree is spared because the great Dresser
   of the vineyard, who bled on Calvary, intercedes and cries, "Let it
   alone this year also." O my hearer, it is through the shedding of the
   blood and the mediatorial reign of the Lord Jesus that you are at this
   moment on praying ground and pleading terms with God! Apart from the
   blood of atonement you would now be past hope, shut up for ever in the
   place of doom. But see how the great Father bears with you! He stands
   prepared to hear your prayer, to accept your confession of sin, to
   honor your faith, and to save you from your sin through the sacrifice
   of his dear Son.

   Through our Lord Jesus sovereign grace and infinite love find a free
   way to the most undeserving of the race. Through the divine sacrifice
   the Lord saith, "Come now and let us reason together: though your sins
   be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;" "Believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Thus the rebel is treated as a
   child, and the criminal as a beloved one. Because of yonder death on
   Calvary's cruel tree, God can invite guilty men to come to him, and he
   can receive them to the bosom of his love. O my dear hearers, do
   remember this! I am not sent to scold you, but to woo you, not sent to
   thunder at you, but to let the soft cleansing drops from the heart of
   Jesus fall upon you. I beg you not to turn away, as men may well do
   when the tidings are heavy; but hearken diligently, for the message is
   full of joy. You are now in the house of prayer, addressed by one of
   the Lord's ambassadors, and the tidings are of peace through a
   propitiation which God himself has provided and accepted. We cry not to
   you, "Prepare for vengeance;" but we proclaim, "a God ready to pardon."
   We do not threaten that he will no more have mercy upon you; but we
   tell you that he waiteth to be gracious. If I had to say, "You have
   provoked him past bearing, and he now means to destroy you," what a
   miserable man should I be! How could I bring such evil tidings to my
   fellow-creatures? Then would it have been woe to me that my mother bare
   me for so hard a fate. Thank God, it is not so. By virtue of the blood
   of sprinkling the language of boundless love is heard among our
   apostate race, and we are entreated to acquaint ourselves with God, and
   be at peace.

   No, my hearer, the day of grace is not over: you are not come to Sinai.
   No, you are not yet condemned past all hope; for you are still within
   reach of Jesus the Mediator. There is forgiveness. The fountain which
   was opened of old for sin and for uncleanness is open still. If you
   have sinned like David, if you will but accept the sprinkling of the
   blood of Jesus, I am able to speak to you as Nathan did to the guilty
   king, and say, "The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die." At
   any rate, God is dealing with you now on gospel terms; he sits on Zion,
   not on Sinai; he pronounces invitations of grace, and does not utter
   the stern sentence of justice.

   Further, there is a far more effectual way of coming to the blood of
   sprinkling than this--when by faith that blood is sprinkled upon our
   souls. This is absolutely needed: the blood shed must become to each
   one of us the blood sprinkled. "How can I know," says one, "that the
   blood of Christ is upon me?" Dost thou trust thyself with Christ? Dost
   thou believe that he made an atonement on the cross; and wilt thou
   venture thy eternal destiny upon that fact, trusting in what Jesus did,
   and in that alone? If thou dost thus trust, thou shalt not trust in
   vain. Dost thou apply thy heart to the precious blood of Jesus? Then
   that precious blood is applied to thy heart. If thine heart bleeds for
   sin, bring it to the bleeding heart of Jesus, and it shall be healed. I
   showed, in the early part of this discourse, that the blood sprinkled
   on the lintel and the two side-posts of the door preserved the
   Israelites on the night of the Passover: it shall also preserve you.
   The blood sprinkled upon the defiled made them ceremonially clean: it
   shall cleanse you. Have I not often quoted those blessed words: "The
   blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin?" That blood
   put upon the sons of Aaron dedicated them to God; and if it be applied
   to you, it shall consecrate you to God, and you shall become the
   accepted servant of the Most High. Oh, what a blessed thing to know
   assuredly that we have come to the blood of sprinkling by a true and
   humble faith! Canst thou say that thou dost alone rely on Jesus for
   salvation? Canst thou call heaven and earth to witness that thou hast
   no other confidence? Then remember the word of the Lord: "He that
   believeth in him hath everlasting life. He that believeth in him is not
   condemned." "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with
   God." Are not these words full of strong assurance? Indeed, we have not
   come to Mount Sinai, the place of trembling; but to Zion, the place
   which is beautiful for situation, the joy of the earth; the vision of
   peace, the home of infinite blessedness. Conscience no longer thunders
   at you for your sins, for your sins are gone. The expiation has covered
   them: the sprinkling of the blood has put them all away. Your
   iniquities are cast into the depths of the sea; God has cast them
   behind his back. The handwriting of ordinances that was against you
   Christ has taken away, nailing it to his cross, as a record in which
   there is no more condemning force. The debt is paid, the bill is
   receipted. Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? O
   beloved! it is a most blessed thing to come to the blood of sprinkling.

   "The terrors of law and of God

   With me can have nothing to do;

   My Savior's obedience and blood

   Hide all my transgressions from view."

   The act of faith, whereby we accept and trust in the Lord Jesus as our
   Mediator and Sacrifice, is the true and effectual coming to the blood
   of sprinkling. May none of us forget thus to come! He is the Lamb of
   God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and those who come to him
   shall be led into full salvation. Have you thus come? If you have not,
   why do you delay? He saith, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise
   cast out." Come to him, for he is calling you; come to him, even as you
   now are, and he will receive you without fail.

   Further, to come to this blood of sprinkling means thankfully to enjoy
   all that comes to us through the blood of sprinkling. I have intruded
   upon this somewhat already. Brothers and sisters, if you have come to
   the blood of sprinkling, believe in the full pardon which God has given
   you, and in your consequent peace with God. It is a blessed word in the
   Creed, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins." Do you believe in the
   forgiveness of sins? I have seen some of the children of God who have
   believed in Jesus, but it has been with a faith which did not realize
   the full blessing promised to it; for they were as troubled about their
   sins as if they had never been forgiven. Now, a man who receives a free
   pardon from the Queen, and goes his way out of prison, rejoices in that
   pardon as a reality, and therefore walks abroad without fear. You must
   believe in the pardon of God as a reality, and act accordingly. If he
   has absolved you for Jesus' sake, then you are absolved. Why tremble
   like a guilty wretch waiting for the verdict? Why talk about fearing
   divine wrath? If you are pardoned, the deed of grace is done, and can
   never be undone; for the gifts and calling of God are without
   repentance on his part. His remission of sin is a clear gaol delivery,
   a sure plea, a full quittance.

   "Oh! how sweet to view the flowing

   Of our Lord's atoning blood,

   With divine assurance knowing

   He has made my peace with God!"

   I want every child of God in his inmost soul to come to the blood of
   sprinkling by full assurance of his justification, and then to go on to
   enjoy constant access to the mercy-seat, and communion with the Lord
   God. We may now with holy boldness speak with God in prayer, for the
   mercy-seat is sprinkled with the blood. O pardoned one, be not backward
   to enjoy thy liberty of fellowship! Thou art clean through the blood,
   and therefore thou mayest enter into the closest communion with the
   divine Father; thou art consecrated by the blood, and therefore thou
   mayest abound in the service of thy God. Treat thy God as a child
   should treat a father, and be not so awed by his majesty as to be cast
   down and distressed because of past sin, seeing it is pardoned. Take
   the good that God provides thee; enjoy the peace the blood has bought
   thee; enter into the liberty that thy ransom price has ensured thee. Do
   not stand in feelings, and fears, and dreams; but come unto this blood
   of sprinkling, and rest there, and be filled with joy and peace through
   believing. With such a ransom found for thee, dream not of going down
   into the pit, but ascend with gladness into the hill of the Lord, and
   stand in his holy place.

   I think, once more, that this coming to the blood of sprinkling means
   also that we feel the full effect of it in our lives. The man who knows
   that Jesus shed his blood for him, and has had that blood applied to
   his conscience, becomes a sin-hating man, consecrated to him who has
   cleansed him. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus
   judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died
   for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
   themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." I
   believe that there is no fruitful source of virtue like faith in the
   precious blood of Jesus. I hope your conduct will always support me in
   this assertion. Those who are debtors for salvation to their dying Lord
   should be the most holy of men. You people who think that you will get
   to heaven by some other way than by "the blood of sprinkling" have no
   sure bonds to hold you to holiness. You trust partly to your own works,
   and partly to what Jesus has done. Well, you do not owe him much, and
   therefore you will not love him much, and therefore you will not feel
   bound to live strict, holy, gracious lives. But the man who knows that
   his many sins are all washed away through the blood of Jesus, and that
   thus he is saved, he is the man who will serve the Lord with all his
   heart. He who has received a finished righteousness and complete
   salvation is under boundless obligations of gratitude, and the force of
   these obligations will urge him to a consecrated life. Over him the
   supreme power of gratitude will exert its sacred influence, and he will
   be not only carefully obedient, but ardently zealous in the service of
   his Redeemer. We know it is so, and we mean to prove it by our daily
   conduct. Brethren, I would have you exhibit more and more the influence
   of the precious blood in sanctifying your lives. Are there not
   Christians who hold the doctrine of the atoning blood, and yet are no
   better than others? Alas! it is so. But it is one thing to hold a
   doctrine, and another thing for that doctrine to take hold upon your
   heart and influence your life. Oh, if we believed practically what we
   believe professionally, what manner of persons should we be in all holy
   conversation and godliness! Hear me, my brother, and answer the appeals
   I make to thee as in the presence of the Lord. Blood-bought; canst thou
   live for thyself? Blood-washed; canst thou defile thy garments? Marked
   with the King's own name, in the King's own blood; how canst thou yield
   thyself to other rulers? God grant that we may come unto the blood of
   sprinkling till it shall purify our nature, and fill us with an
   all-consuming enthusiasm for him whose heart was pierced for us!

   I ask you, then, to put the question closely home, "Have I come unto
   this blood of sprinkling? If not, why should I not come at once?" I
   read the other day an imaginary story, which describes the need of
   looking well to this great business. Receive it as a parable:--A little
   daughter of the house of Israel, had heard the commandment concerning
   the Passover night, and as she lay ill in her bed she cried, "Father,
   have you sprinkled the blood upon the lintel and the two side-posts?"
   Her father answered, "Not yet, my child. It shall be done." The
   daughter was distressed, and filled with fear. After waiting a little
   while she again cried, "Father, father, have you sprinkled the blood
   upon the door?" He answered carelessly, "Child, I have told Simeon to
   sprinkle it, and I have no doubt it is done." "But, father," cried she,
   "it is near midnight, and the destroying angel will soon be abroad; are
   you sure that the blood is over the door? Jehovah our God hath said
   that we must sprinkle the blood upon the lintel and the two side-posts,
   or else the destroyer will not pass over us. Father, are you sure it is
   done?" The father passed over her enquiry: he had been eating of the
   lamb with his friends, and thought that this was sufficient; he did not
   care to give too much prominence to the ghastly idea of blood. He was
   of a liberal mind, and would not believe that a merciful God would
   smite his household for so small an omission.

   Then his daughter arose from her bed, made strong by the God of Israel.
   Nothing would content her until she had been outside into the street,
   and seen for herself whether the saving mark was over the door of her
   father's house. It was almost midnight, but by the light of the moon
   she looked, and no blood-mark was there! How great was her distress!
   "Father," she cried, "make haste and bring the basin." There it stood,
   filled with blood; for the Paschal Lamb had been slain. The father, at
   her entreaty, dashed the hyssop into it, struck the lintel and the two
   side-posts and shut the door, and as he did so, the midnight hour
   arrived. They were saved so as by fire. The daughter's obedient care
   and reverence of the Lord had warded off the sword of the destroyer. Oh
   that the holy anxiety of some one now present would work the like
   blessing for other households! Ask, dear child, ask the question,
   "Father, have you come to the blood of sprinkling? Is the blood of the
   Lamb above your head, between you and God? Is it on both sides of you,
   when you come in and go out?" O soul, be thus anxious about thyself,
   and rest not till thou hast by faith been purged with hyssop, and
   cleansed by the blood of the one sacrifice for sin.

   III. The last part of our subject is this: WHAT THEN? According to our
   text, the blood of Jesus is the voice of the new dispensation. It is
   the blood which speaks, and it speaks better things than the blood of
   Abel. What then is our duty? How doth the apostle express our
   obligation? "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh."

   I would have a quarter of an hour's very quiet talk with you, without
   excitement or quibbling debate. Lend me your ears, for I speak in all
   love for your souls. I want, dear friends, that this great truth of
   atonement which I so often preach may have a fair hearing, and not be
   left to lie among the number of forgotten things.

   Do not refuse the voice of Jesus by cold indifference. God was made
   flesh, and dwelt among men, and in due time he took upon himself our
   sin, and suffered for it in his own body on the tree, that sin might be
   put away by the sacrifice of himself. By his death upon the cross our
   Lord made atonement for the sin of man, and those who believe in him
   are delivered from evil and its consequences. The main point is that
   Jesus died for us, the just for the unjust. His atoning blood has a
   voice: "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." The text says: See
   to it; look to it; make sure of it; be careful about it. Do not miss
   the salvation of your Lord through neglect; for he who dies by
   neglecting the healing medicine will as surely perish as he who stabs
   himself. Be in earnest to accept the Savior: I beseech you so to do,
   for I am afraid that many refuse him that speaketh, because they never
   think of him, or of his sacrifice. It seems to me that if I were a
   young man I would give this matter very early notice. However deeply I
   might be engaged in business, I should feel that my first concern ought
   to be to set myself right with God. Other matters would be sure to drop
   into order if I could be right with the Lord of all. If I heard it said
   that salvation came by the blood of Christ, I think I should pull
   myself together and resolve to understand this singular statement. I
   would not let it go by me, but would endeavor to reach the bottom of
   it, and practically understand it. I would meditate much upon teaching
   so wonderful as this--that the Son of God in man's stead honored the
   justice of God by death, and so put away sin.

   When I was a youth I had a great longing to begin life on right
   principles: I longed to find deliverance from sin. I would wake up with
   the sun in summer time to read my Bible, and such books as Bunyan's
   "Grace Abounding," Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," Alleine's
   "Alarm," and Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of. Religion in the Soul."
   In these books I tried to spell out the way of salvation; but the chief
   thing I longed to know was, "How can man be just with God? How can God
   be just with man, and yet put away his sin?" Do you not think that
   these questions are of high importance? I beg that they may not have
   the cold shoulder from you. Give this question due space. I know that a
   great many things demand your attention nowadays; but I claim for this,
   which is the innermost revelation of God that it should have an early
   and earnest hearing. God incarnate in Christ Jesus bleeding and dying
   for human sin is a marvel of love too great to be passed over without
   thought. I pray you, therefore, "refuse not him that speaketh." Do not
   say, "I pray thee, have me excused." I do not suppose that you will
   become an infidel or act as a blasphemer towards this grand truth. I
   will not accuse you of denying the fact of the atonement; but my great
   fear is lest you should be indifferent to it. If it be so, that God
   himself has come to earth to bleed and die to save guilty man, it is
   the greatest, gladdest news that ever came to our poor erring race, and
   every member of that race should receive it with hopeful attention.

   When you resolve to study the doctrine, do not approach it with
   prejudice through misapprehension. Those that hate the gospel of Christ
   are very busy in caricaturing the doctrine of the atonement. They
   assert that we preach that God was not merciful by nature, but must
   needs be appeased by the blood of his own Son. They charge us with
   saying that Jesus by his death made God loving. We distinctly teach the
   very opposite of that statement. What we do say is this, that God is
   infinitely loving--that, in fact, God is love; but that love does not
   cause him to be unjust or unholy; for that in the long run would not be
   love. God is the Judge of all the earth, and he must do right. The
   Lord, as the great moral governor, if he makes a law, and threatens a
   penalty, must execute that penalty, or else his law will lose its
   authority. If the penalty threatened be not executed, there is a tacit
   acknowledgment that it was threatened in error. Could you believe in a
   fallible God? The Lord has made a law which is perfect, and just, and
   good. Would you rather be without law? What reasonable person desires
   anarchy? He has backed up that law with a threatening. What is the use
   of a law if to break it involves no evil consequences? A government
   that never punishes offenders is no government at all. God, therefore,
   as moral ruler, must be just, and must display his indignation against
   wrong and evil of every kind. It is written on the conscience of men
   that sin must be punished. Would you have it go unpunished? If you are
   a just man, you would not. To meet the case, therefore, the Lord Jesus
   Christ, by himself bearing the penalty of death, has honored the divine
   law. He has shown to all intelligences that God will not wink at sin,
   that even his infinite mercy must not come in the way of his justice.
   This is the doctrine: do not listen to those who twist and pervert it.
   It is the love of God which has provided the great atonement by which,
   in a judgment better than ours, the law finds a glorious vindication,
   and the foundation of moral government is strengthened. Do consider
   this matter, and judge it fairly, with candid minds. We do assure you
   from God's Word that apart from the atonement of our Lord Jesus you can
   never be saved either from the guilt or power of evil. You will find no
   peace for your conscience that is worth having, no thorough and deep
   peace, except by believing in this atoning sacrifice; neither will you
   meet with a motive strong enough to rescue you from the bonds of
   iniquity. Therefore "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." Hear,
   and your soul shall live. Cavil, and you will die in your sins.

   Do not refuse the voice of the Lord Jesus by rejecting the principle of
   expiation. If God is content with this principle, it is not for us to
   raise objection. The Lord God is infinitely more concerned to fix
   matters on a right foundation than ever we can be, and if he feels that
   the sacrifice of Jesus meets the case at all points, why should we be
   dissatisfied with it? If there were a flaw in the proceedings his holy
   eyes would see it. He would not have delivered up his own Son to die
   unless that death would perfectly fulfill the design intended by it. A
   mistake so expensive he would never have perpetrated. Who are you to
   raise the question? If God is satisfied, surely you should be? To
   refuse the atonement because we are too wise to accept so simple a
   method of mercy is the utmost height of folly. What! will ye refuse him
   that speaketh because the present phase of human madness dares to
   dispute the divine way of human redemption? I pray you, do not so.

   Once more. Do not refuse this voice of mercy by preferring your own way
   of salvation. You have, no doubt, a way of salvation in your own mind,
   for few men have given up all hope. Perhaps your chosen hope is that
   you will be saved by doing your best. Alas! no man does his best; and
   the best acts of a rebel must be unaccepted of his king. So long as he
   is a rebel his acts are those of a rebel, and of no esteem with his
   prince. Perhaps your hope lies in saying so many prayers, and going to
   church, or attending chapel; or you are so unwise as to trust to a
   minister or priest. Now, we beseech you, hear the witness of God which
   he has given us in this book, and learn that other foundation can no
   man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ the righteous.
   There is one salvation, and there can be no other; all other hopes are
   lying vanities, and arrogant insults to Jesus. God hath set forth
   Christ to be a propitiation for sin. There is no other propitiation, or
   atonement, or way of acceptance; and if you reject this way, you must
   die in your sins.

   I cannot help it if you do not like this teaching, although I shall be
   grieved if you refuse it. I can only tell you the truth, and leave it
   with your own hearts. Do not wilfully refuse it. When I meet you face
   to face in that last day, to which we all must come, I shall not be
   clear of your blood unless I tell you what is assuredly the truth--that
   in the precious blood of Christ is the only cleansing from sin, and the
   only acceptance with God. By believing in Jesus, as slain for you, you
   shall be saved; but do what you may, pray as you may, fast as you may,
   give alms as you may, you shall not enter heaven by any other road. The
   way to glory is by the way of the cross. "Without shedding of blood
   there is no remission." Look to him whom you have pierced, and mourn
   for your sins. Look not to any other, for no other is needed, no other
   is provided, no other can be accepted. Jesus is the sole messenger of
   the covenant of life and peace. "See that ye refuse not him that
   speaketh."

   "See that ye refuse not." Then there is a choice about it. If you had
   never heard the gospel, you could not have refused it; but now that you
   have heard the message, it lies within your power, and it is an awfully
   dangerous power, to refuse him that speaketh. Oh, can you, will you,
   dare you refuse my bleeding Savior--refuse the Lord of love? I see him
   now. The thorn-crown is about his brow. He is hanging on his cross
   expiring in unutterable pangs! Can you refuse him while he presents
   such a spectacle of sacrifice? His eyes are red with weeping; have you
   no tears for such sorrow? His cheeks are all distained with the brutal
   soldiers' spittle: have you no love and homage for him? His hands are
   fastened to the wood--his feet the same: and there he hangs to suffer
   in the sinner's stead. Will you not yield yourselves to him? I could
   joyfully bow before that cross-foot to kiss his dear feet distained
   with blood. What a charm he has for me! And you--do you refuse him?

   He is no mere man. It is God himself who hangs upon the cross. His body
   is that of a man, but it is in union with the Godhead. He who died at
   Calvary is God over all, and this makes his death so effectual. He whom
   you have offended, in order to be justly able to pardon you, hangs
   there and dies for you: and do you turn your back on him? O sirs, if
   you be wise you will come, as I said I fain would come, and kiss those
   bleeding feet, and look up and say, "My Lord, I am reconciled to
   thee--how could I be otherwise? My enmity is dead. How can I be an
   enemy to him that died for me? In shame, and scorn, and misery, Jesus
   dies that I may live. O Lord Jesus, thou hast wrought in me, not
   reconciliation merely, but full submission and hearty love. I joy to
   sink myself in thee, and to be thine for ever." See that ye refuse not
   my Lord. May the sweet Spirit who loves the cross, and, like a dove,
   hovers round it now, descend upon you all who hear my message! May the
   Holy Ghost apply the blood of sprinkling to you; and may you feel that,
   instead of refusing him that speaketh, you rejoice in his name!

   When the text says, "See that ye refuse not," it tacitly and pleadingly
   says, "See that ye accept him." Dear hearers, I trust you will receive
   my Lord into your hearts. When we read of refusing, or receiving, we
   perceive an action of the will. Jesus must be willingly received: he
   will not force himself upon any man. Whosoever accepts Jesus is himself
   accepted of Jesus. Never was there a heart willing to receive him to
   whom Jesus denied himself. Never! But you must be willing and obedient.
   Grace works this in you; but in you this must be. Till the heart
   entertains Jesus gladly nothing is done. All that is short of a willing
   hearing of Jesus, and a willing acceptance of his great atonement, is
   short of eternal life. Say, wilt thou have this Savior, or dost thou
   decline his love? Wilt thou give him a cold refusal? Oh, do not so;
   but, on the contrary, throw open the doors of thy heart, and entreat
   thy Lord and Savior to come in.

   I do not wonder that the Israelites asked that they might no longer
   hear the voice of thunder from the top of Sinai; it was too terrible
   for human ear; but you have no such excuse if you refuse him that
   speaketh; for Jesus speaks in notes more sweet than music, more tender
   than a mother's sonnet to her babe. Let me remind you, that he was wont
   to say, "come unto me, all ye 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 ye shall find rest unto your souls." He
   declared that all manner of sin and of blasphemy should be forgiven
   unto men. He stood and cried, on the last day of the feast, "If any man
   thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." I am telling you no fables;
   for Christ, who was born at Bethlehem and died on Calvary, by his own
   blood which he shed for many, assures you that there is forgiveness for
   every man of you who, confessing his sin, will come and put his trust
   in him.

   "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh;" for though you hear only my
   poor feeble voice pleading with you, with an honest, loving heart at
   the back of it, yet God the Holy Ghost is speaking, and Jesus Christ
   himself is speaking to you. Refuse me if you please, but do not refuse
   my Lord. The blood of Jesus says, "I was poured out for the guilty. I
   was shed to manifest divine love. I am sprinkled to cleanse from sin."
   Each drop as it falls creates peace of heart. Stand where that blood is
   falling. Let it sprinkle you.

   Thus the blood speaks. Will you not answer, "Lord, we come to thee, for
   thou hast drawn us. Thy wounds have wounded our hearts. Thy death has
   killed our enmity. Sprinkle us unto thyself. Bedew us with thy blood.
   Let us be accepted in the Beloved?" Amen. So may God hear us!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Hebrews 10.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--302, 294, 580, 288.

   See "The Blood of Sprinkling," No. 1,888.
     __________________________________________________________________

               Our Lord's Prayer for His People's Sanctification

   A Sermon

   (No. 1890)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 7th, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [3]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."--John 17:17.

   OUR LORD JESUS prayed much for his people while he was here on earth.
   He made Peter the special subject of his intercession when he knew that
   he was in extraordinary danger. The midnight wrestlings of the Son of
   man were for his people. In the sacred record, however, much more space
   is taken up by our Lord's intercessions as he nears the end of his
   labors. After the closing supper, his public preaching work being
   ended, and nothing remaining to be done but to die, he gave himself
   wholly unto prayer. He was not again to instruct the multitude, nor to
   heal the sick, and in the interval which remained, before he should lay
   down his life, he girded himself for special intercession. He poured
   out his soul in life before he poured it out unto death.

   In this wonderful prayer, our Lord, as our great High Priest, appears
   to enter upon that perpetual office of intercession which he is now
   exercising at the right hand of the Father. Our Lord ever seemed, in
   the eagerness of his love, to be anticipating his work. Before he was
   set apart for his life-work, by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him,
   he must needs be about his Father's business; before he finally
   suffered at the hands of cruel men, he had a baptism to be baptized
   with, and he was straitened till it was accomplished; before he
   actually died, he was covered with a bloody sweat, and was exceeding
   sorrowful even unto death; and in this case, before he in person
   entered within the veil, he made intercession for us. He never tarries
   when the good of his people calls for him. His love hath wings as well
   as feet: it is true of him evermore, "He rode upon a cherub, and did
   fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind." O beloved, what a
   friend we have in Jesus! so willing, so speedy to do for us all that we
   need. Oh that we could imitate him in this, and be quick of
   understanding to perceive our line of service, and eager of heart to
   enter upon it.

   This chapter, which ought to be universally known as the Lord's Prayer,
   may be called the holy of holies of the word of God. Here we are
   admitted to that secret place where the Son of God speaks with the
   Father in closest fellowship of love. Here we look into the heart of
   Jesus, as he sets out in order his desires and requests before his
   Father on our behalf. Here inspiration lifts her veil, and we behold
   truth face to face. Our text lies somewhere near the middle of the
   prayer; it is the heart of it. Our Lord's desire for the sanctification
   of his people pervades the whole prayer; but it is gathered up,
   declared, and intensified in the one sentence that I have read to you:
   "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." How invaluable
   must the blessing of sanctification be when our Lord, in the highest
   reach of his intercession, cries: "Sanctify them!" In sight of his
   passion, on the night before his death, our Savior lifts his eyes to
   the great Father, and cries in his most plaintive tones, "Father,
   sanctify them." The place whereon we stand is holy ground, and the
   subject whereof we speak demands our solemn thought. Come, Holy Spirit,
   and teach us the full meaning of this prayer for holiness!

   First, I call your attention to what it is the Savior asks--"sanctify
   them;" and then, for whom he asks it--it is for those whom his Father
   had given him. Thirdly, we shall note of whom he asks it: he asks this
   sanctification of God the Father himself, for he alone it is who can
   sanctify his people. Lastly, we will enquire how is this blessing to be
   wrought?--"Sanctify them through thy truth;" and our Lord adds an
   explanatory sentence, which was a confession of his own faith towards
   the word of the Lord, and an instruction to our faith in the same
   matter. "Thy word is truth."

   I. At the beginning, then, consider WHAT HE ASKED. What is this
   inestimable blessing which our Savior so earnestly requests at the
   Father's hand? He first prays, "Holy Father, keep them;" and again,
   "Keep them from the evil;" but this negative blessing of preservation
   from evil is not enough: he seeks for them positive holiness, and
   therefore he cries, "sanctify them." The word is one of considerable
   range of meaning: I am not able to follow it through all its shades,
   but one or two must suffice.

   It means, first, dedicate them to thy service; for such must be the
   meaning of the word further down, when we read, "For their sakes I
   sanctify myself." In the Lord's case it cannot mean purification from
   sin, because our Savior was undefiled; his nature was unblemished by
   sin, and his actions were unspotted. No eye of man, nor glance of
   fiend, could discover fault in him, and the search of God only resulted
   in the declaration that in him God was well pleased. Our Lord's
   sanctification was his consecration to the fulfillment of the Divine
   purpose, his absorption in the will of the Father. "Lo, I come to do
   thy will, O God." In this sense our interceding Lord asks that all his
   people may by the Father be ordained and consecrated unto holy service.
   The prayer means, "Father, consecrate them to thine own self; let them
   be temples for thine indwelling, instruments for thy use." Under Jewish
   law the tribe of Levi was chosen out of the twelve, and ordained to the
   service of the Lord, instead of the firstborn, of whom the Lord had
   said, "All the firstborn of the children of Israel are mine: on the day
   that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for
   myself." (Numbers 8:17.) Out of the tribe of Levi one family was taken
   and dedicated to the priesthood. Aaron and his sons are said to have
   been sanctified. (Leviticus 8:30.) A certain tent was sanctified to the
   service of God, and hence it became a sanctuary; and the vessels that
   were therein, whether they were greater, like the altar, and the holy
   table, and the ark of the covenant, or whether they were of less
   degree, like the bowls and the snuff-dishes of the candlestick, were
   all dedicated or sanctified. (Numbers 7:1.) None of these things could
   be used for any other purpose than the service of Jehovah. In his
   courts there was a holy fire, a holy bread, and a holy oil. The holy
   anointing oil, for instance, was reserved for sacred uses. "Upon man's
   flesh it shall not be poured;" and again, "Whosoever shall make like
   unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people."
   These sanctified things were reserved for holy purposes, and any other
   use of them was strictly forbidden. Bullocks and lambs and sheep and
   turtle-doves, and so forth, were given by devout offerers, brought to
   the holy place, and dedicated unto God; henceforth they belonged to
   God, and must be presented at his altar. This is one part of the
   meaning of our Lord's prayer. He would have each of us consecrated unto
   the Lord, designated and ordained for divine purposes. We are not the
   world's, else might we be ambitious; we are not Satan's, else might we
   be covetous; we are not our own, else might we be selfish. We are
   bought with a price, and hence we are his by whom the price is paid. We
   belong to Jesus, and he presents us to his Father, and begs him to
   accept us and sanctify us to his own purposes. Do we not most heartily
   concur in this dedication? Do we not cry, "Father, sanctify us to thy
   service?" I am sure we do if we have realized our redeemed condition.

   Beloved brethren, if the sprinkling of the blood, of which we spake
   last Sabbath-day, has really taken effect upon us, we belong, from this
   time forth, unto him that died for us, and rose again. We regard
   ourselves as God's men, the liveried servants of the great King--that
   livery the robe of righteousness. We were as sheep going astray, but we
   have now returned unto the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls; and
   henceforth we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. If any
   should ask, "To whom belongest thou?" we answer, "I belong to Christ."
   If any enquire, "What is thine occupation?" we reply with Jonah, "I
   fear God." We are not now at our own disposal, neither can we hire
   ourselves out to inferior objects, mercenary aims, or selfish
   ambitions; for we are engaged by solemn contract to the service of our
   God. We have lifted up our hand unto the Lord, and we cannot draw back.
   Neither do we wish to withdraw from the delightful compact and
   covenant; we desire to keep it even unto the end. We seek no liberty to
   sin, nor license for self; rather do we cry, "Bind the sacrifice with
   cords, even unto the horns of the altar. Sanctify us, O Lord. Let us
   know, and let all the world know, that we are thine, because we belong
   to Christ."

   In addition to this, those who belonged to God, and were dedicated to
   his service, were set apart and separated from others. There was a
   special service for the setting-apart of priests; certain rites were
   performed at the sanctifying of dedicated places and vessels. You
   remember with what solemn service the Tabernacle was set up, and with
   what pomp of devotion the Temple itself was set apart for the divine
   service. The Sabbath-day, which the Lord hath sanctified, is set apart
   from the rest of time. To man it is a dies non, because it is the
   Lord's-day. The Lord would have those who are dedicated to him to be
   separated from the rest of mankind. For this purpose he brought Abraham
   from Ur of the Chaldees, and Israel out of Egypt. "The people shall
   dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." The Lord
   saith of his chosen, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall
   shew forth my praise." Before long this secret purpose is followed by
   the open call: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate; touch not
   the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my
   sons and daughters." The church of Christ is to be a chaste virgin,
   wholly set apart for the Lord Christ: his own words concerning his
   people are these, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the
   world."

   By the election of grace from before the foundation of the world this
   distinction commences, and the names are written in heaven. Thereupon
   follows a redemption peculiar and special, as it is written; "These
   were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the
   Lamb." This redemption is followed by effectual calling wherein men are
   made to come forth from the old world into the kingdom of Christ. This
   is attended with regeneration, in which they receive a new life, and so
   become as much distinguished from their fellow-men as the living are
   from the dead. This separating work is further carried on in what is
   commonly known as sanctification, whereby the man of God is removed
   farther and farther from all fellowship with the unfruitful works of
   darkness, and is changed from glory unto glory, into an ever-growing
   likeness of his Lord, who was "holy, harmless, undefiled separate from
   sinners."

   Those who are sanctified in this sense have ceased to be unequally
   yoked together with unbelievers; they have ceased to run with the
   multitude to do evil; they are not conformed to this present evil
   world; they are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. The more
   assuredly this is true of them the better. There are some, in these
   apostate days, who think that the church cannot do better than to come
   down to the world to learn her ways, follow her maxims, and acquire her
   "culture." In fact, the notion is that the world is to be conquered by
   our conforming to it. This is as contrary to Scripture as the light is
   to the darkness. The more distinct the line between him that feareth
   God and him that feareth him not, the better all round. It will be a
   black day when the sun itself is turned into darkness. When the salt
   has lost its savor, and no longer opposes putrefaction, the world will
   rot with a vengeance. That text is still true, "Ye are of God, little
   children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one." The seed of the
   woman knows no terms with the serpent brood but continual war. Our Lord
   saith that in this matter he came not to send peace on the earth, but a
   sword. "Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
   the world, therefore the world hateth you." If the church seeks to
   cultivate the friendship of the world, she has this message from the
   Holy Ghost by the pen of the apostle James: "Ye adulterers and
   adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity
   with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the
   enemy of God." He charges all who would please the world with the black
   and filthy crime of spiritual adultery. The heart which ought to be
   given to Christ and purity must not wander forth wantonly to woo the
   defiled and polluted things of this present evil world. Separation from
   the world is Christ's prayer for us.

   Put these two things together, dedication to God and separation unto
   him, and you are nearing the meaning of the prayer. But, mark you, it
   is not all separation that is meant; for, as I told you in the reading
   there are some who "separate themselves," and yet are sensual, not
   having the Spirit. Separation for separation's sake savours rather of
   Babel than of Jerusalem. It is one thing to separate from the world,
   and another thing to be separate from the church. Where we believe that
   there is living faith in Jesus, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost,
   we are not called to division, but to unity. For actual and manifest
   sin we must separate ourselves from offender--; but we err if we carry
   on this separation where it is not authorized by the word of God. The
   Corinthians and Galatians were far from being perfect in life, and they
   had made many mistakes in doctrine, yea, even upon vital points; but
   inasmuch as they were truly in Christ, Paul did not command any to come
   out of those churches, and to be separate therefrom; but he exhorted
   them to prove each man his own work, and he labored to bring them all
   back to the one and only gospel, and to a clearer knowledge of it. We
   are to be faithful to truth; but we are not to be of a contentious
   spirit, separating ourselves from those who are living members of the
   one and indivisible body of Christ. To promote the unity of the church,
   by creating new divisions, is not wise. Cultivate at once the love of
   the truth and the love of the brethren. The body of Christ will not be
   perfected by being rent. Truth should be the companion of love. If we
   heartily love even those who are in some measure in error, but who
   possess the life of God in their souls, we shall be the more likely to
   set them right. Separation from the world is a solemn duty, indeed it
   is the hard point, the crux and burden of our religion. It is not easy
   to be filled with love to men and yet for God's sake, and even for
   their own sake, to be separated from them. The Lord teach us this.

   At the same time, this word "sanctification" means what is commonly
   understood by it, namely, the making of the people of God holy.
   "Sanctify them," that is, work in them a pure and holy character.
   "Lord, make thy people holy," should be our daily prayer. I want you to
   notice that this word here used in the Greek is not that which is
   rendered "Purify;" but it has another shade of meaning. Had it meant
   "purify," it would hardly have been used in reference to our Lord as it
   is in the next verse.

   It has a higher meaning than that. O brethren, if you are called
   Christians, there must be no room for doubt as to the fact that you are
   purged from the common sins and ordinary transgressions of mankind,
   else are you manifestly liars unto God, and deceivers of your own
   souls. They that are not moral, they that are not honest, they that are
   not kind, they that are not truthful, are far from the kingdom. How can
   these be the children of God who are not even decent children of men?
   Thus we judge, and rightly judge, that the life of God cannot be in
   that man's soul who abides wilfully in any known sin, and takes
   pleasure therein. No; purification is not all. We will take it for
   granted that you who profess to be Christians have escaped from the
   foul pollution of lust and falsehood; if you have not done so, humble
   yourselves before God, and be ashamed; for you need the very beginnings
   of grace. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh." But
   sanctification is something more than mere morality and respectability;
   it is not only deliverance from the common sins of men, but also from
   the hardness, deadness, and carnality of nature: it is deliverance from
   that which is of the flesh at its very best, and admittance into that
   which is spiritual and divine. That which is carnal cometh not into
   communion with the spiritual kingdom or Christ: we need that the
   spiritual nature should rise above that which is merely natural. This
   is our prayer--Lord, spiritualize us; elevate us; make us to dwell in
   communion with God; make us to know him whom flesh and blood cannot
   reveal or discern. May the Spirit of the living God have full
   sovereignty over us and perfect in us the will of the Lord, for this is
   to be sanctified.

   Sanctification is a higher word than purification; for it includes that
   word and vastly more: it is not sufficient to be negatively clean; we
   need to be adorned with all the virtues. If ye be merely moral, how
   does your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees? If ye
   pay your lawful debts, give alms to the poor, and observe the rites of
   your religion, what do ye more than others whom ye yourselves reckon to
   be in error?

   Children of God should exhibit the love of God, they should be filled
   with zeal for his glory, they should live generous, unselfish lives,
   they should walk with God, and commune with the Most High. Ours should
   be a purpose and an aim far higher than the best of the unregenerate
   can understand. We ought to reach unto a life and a kingdom of which
   the mass of mankind know nothing, and care less. Now, I am afraid that
   this spiritual sense of the prayer is one that is often forgotten. Oh
   that God's Holy Spirit might make us to know it by experimentally
   feeling it in ourselves! May "Holiness to the Lord" be written across
   the brow of our consecrated humanity!

   Beloved, this prayer of our Lord is most necessary, for without
   sanctification how can we be saved, since it is written, "Without
   holiness no man shall see the Lord?" How can we be saved from sin if
   sin has still dominion over us? If we are not living holy, godly,
   spiritual lives, how can we say that we are redeemed from the power of
   evil?

   Without sanctification we shall be unfit for service. Our Lord Jesus
   contemplated the sending of each one of us into the world even as the
   Father sent him into the world; but how can he give a mission to
   unsanctified men and women? Must not the vessels of the Lord be clean?

   Without sanctification we cannot enjoy the innermost sweets of our holy
   faith. The unsanctified are full of doubts and fears; and what wonder?
   The unsanctified often say of the outward exercise of religion, "What a
   weariness it is!" and no wonder, for they know not the internal joys of
   it, having never learned to delight themselves in God. If they walk not
   in the light of the Lord's countenance, how can they know the heaven
   below which comes of true godliness? Oh, it is a prayer that needs to
   be prayed for me, for you, for this church, and for the whole church of
   God! "Father, sanctify them through thy truth."

   II. Now I want you to notice, in the second place, FOR WHOM THIS PRAYER
   WAS OFFERED. It was not offered for the world outside. It would not be
   a suitable prayer for those who are dead in sin. Our Lord referred to
   the company of men and women who were already saved, of whom he said
   that they had kept God's Word: "Thine they were, and thou gavest them
   me." They were therefore sanctified already in the sense of being
   consecrated and set apart for holy purposes; and they were also
   sanctified in a measure already in the sense of being made holy in
   character; for the immediate disciples of our Lord, with all their
   errors and deficiencies, were holy men. It was for the apostles that
   Jesus thus prayed; so that we may be sure that the most eminent saints
   need still to have this prayer offered for them: "Sanctify them through
   thy truth." Though, my sisters, you may be Deborahs, worthy to be
   called mothers in Israel, yet you need to be made more holy. Though, my
   brethren, you may be true fathers in God, of whom the Scripture saith
   truly that we have "not many," yet you still need that Jesus should
   pray for you: "Sanctify them through thy truth."

   These chosen ones were sanctified, but only to a degree. Justification
   is perfect the moment it is received, but sanctification is a matter of
   growth. He that is justified, is justified once for all by the perfect
   work of Jesus, but he that is sanctified by Christ Jesus must grow up
   in all things into him who is the Head. To make us holy is a life work,
   and for it we should seek the divine operation every hour; for "he that
   hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God." We would rise to the
   utmost pitch of holy living, and never content ourselves with present
   attainments. Those who are most pure and honorable have yet their
   shortcomings and errors to mourn over. When the Lord turns the light
   strong upon us, we soon see the spots upon our raiment; it is indeed
   when we walk in the light as God is in the light that we see most our
   need of the cleansing blood of Jesus. If we have done well, to God be
   the glory of it; but we might have done better. If we have loved much,
   to God's grace be the praise; but we ought to have loved more. If we
   have believed, and believed steadfastly, we ought to have believed to a
   far higher degree in our Almighty Friend. We are still below our
   capacities; there is a something yet beyond us. O ye sanctified ones,
   it is for you that Jesus prays that the Father may still sanctify you.

   I want you to notice more particularly that these believers for whom
   our Lord prayed were to be the preachers and teachers of their own and
   succeeding generations. These were the handful of seed-corn out of
   which would grow the church of the future, whose harvest would gladden
   all lands. To prepare them to be sent out as Christ's missionaries they
   must be sanctified. How shall a holy God send out unholy messengers? An
   unsanctified minister is an unsent minister. An unholy missionary is a
   pest to the tribe he visits; an unholy teacher in a school is an injury
   rather than a blessing to the class he conducts. Only in proportion as
   you are sanctified unto God can you hope for the power of the Holy
   Spirit to rest on you, and to work with you, so as to bring others to
   the Savior's feet. How much may each of us have been hampered and
   hindered by want of holiness! God will not use unclean instruments;
   nay, he will not even have his holy vessels borne by unclean hands. "To
   the wicked, God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?" A
   whole host may be defeated because of one Achan in the camp; and this
   is our constant fear. Holiness is an essential qualificatian to a man's
   fitness for being used of the Lord God for the extension of his
   kingdom; hence our Lord's prayer for his apostles and other workers:
   "Holy Father, sanctify them."

   Furthermore, our Lord Jesus Christ was about to pray "that they all
   might be one;" and for this desirable result holiness is needed. Why
   are we not one? Sin is the great dividing element. The perfectly holy
   would be perfectly united. The more saintly men are, the more they love
   their Lord and one another; and thus they come into closer union with
   each other. Our errors and our sins are roots of bitterness which
   spring up and trouble us, and many are defiled. Our infirmities of
   judgment are aggravated by our imperfections of character, and our
   walking at a distance from our God; and these breed coldness and
   lukewarmness, out of which grow disunion and division, sects and
   heresies. If we were all abiding in Christ to the full, we should abide
   in union with each other and with God, and our Lord's great prayer for
   the unity of his church would be fulfilled.

   Moreover, our Lord finished his most comprehensive prayer by a petition
   that we might all be with him--with him where he is, that we may behold
   his glory. Full sanctification is essential to this. Shall the
   unsanctified dwell with Christ in heaven? Shall unholy eyes behold his
   glory? It cannot be. How can we participate in the splendor and
   triumphs of the exalted head if we are not members of his body? and how
   can a holy head have impure and dishonest members? No, brethren, we
   must be holy, for Christ is holy. Uprightness of walk and cleanness of
   heart are absolutely requisite for the purposes of Christian life,
   whether here or hereafter. Those who live in sin are the servants of
   sin; only those who are renewed by the Holy Ghost unto truth, and
   holiness, and love, can hope to be partakers of holy joys and heavenly
   bliss.

   III. I am compelled by shortness of time to be brief upon each point;
   but I must dwell for a little upon the third subject of consideration,
   which is this--TO WHOM THIS PRAYER IS DIRECTED. "Sanctify them through
   thy truth." No one can sanctify a soul but Almighty God, the great
   Father of spirits. He who made us must also make us holy, or we shall
   never attain that character. Our dear Savior calls the great God "Holy
   Father" in this prayer, and it is the part of the holy God to create
   holiness; while a holy Father can only be the Father of holy children,
   for like begets like. To you that believe in Jesus he gives power to
   become the sons of God, and a part of that power lies in becoming holy
   according to the manner and character of our Father who is in heaven.
   As we are holy, so do we bear the image of that Lord from heaven who,
   as the second man, is the firstborn to whom the many brethren are
   conformed. The holy Father in heaven will own those as his children
   upon earth who are holy. The very nature of God should encourage us in
   our prayers for holiness; for he will not be slow to work in us to will
   and to do according to his perfect will.

   Beloved, this sanctification is a work of God from its earliest stage.
   We go astray of ourselves, but we never return to the great Shepherd
   apart from his divine drawings. Regeneration, in which sanctification
   begins, is wholly the work of the Spirit of God. Our first discovery of
   wrong, and our first pang of penitence, are the work of divine grace.
   Every thought of holiness, and every desire after purity, must come
   from the Lord alone, for we are by nature wedded to iniquity. So also
   the ultimate conquest of sin in us, and the making us perfectly like to
   our Lord, must be entirely the work of the Lord God, who makes all
   things new, since we have no power to carry on so great a work of
   ourselves. This is a creation; can we create? This is a resurrection;
   can we raise the dead? Our degenerate nature can rot into a still direr
   putrefaction, but it can never return to purity or sweeten itself into
   perfection; this is of God and God alone. Sanctification is as much the
   work of God as the making of the heavens and the earth. Who is
   sufficient for these things? We go not even a step in sanctification in
   our own strength; whatever we think we advance of ourselves is but a
   fictitious progress which will lead to bitter disappointment. Real
   sanctification is entirely from first to last the work of the Spirit of
   the blessed God, whom the Father hath sent forth that he might sanctify
   his chosen ones. See, then, what a great thing sanctification is, and
   how necessary it is that our Lord should pray unto his Father,
   "Sanctify them through thy truth."

   The truth alone will not sanctify a man. We may maintain an orthodox
   creed, and it is highly important that we should do so, but if it does
   not touch our heart and influence our character, what is the value of
   our orthodoxy? It is not the doctrine which of itself sanctifies, but
   the Father sanctifies by means of the doctrine. The truth is the
   element in which we are made to live in order to holiness. Falsehood
   leads to sin, truth leads to holiness; but there is a lying spirit, and
   there is also the Spirit of truth, and by these the error and the truth
   are used as means to an end. Truth must be applied with spiritual power
   to the mind, the conscience, and the heart, or else a man may receive
   the truth, and yet hold it in unrighteousness. I believe this to be the
   crowning work of God in man, that his people should be perfectly
   delivered from evil. He elected them that they might be a peculiar
   people, zealous for good works; he ransomed them that he might redeem
   them from all iniquity, and purify them unto himself; he effectually
   calls them to a high and holy vocation, even to virtue and true
   holiness.

   Every work of the Spirit of God upon the new nature aims at the
   purification, the consecration, the perfecting of those whom God in
   love has taken to be his own. Yea, more; all the events of Providence
   around us work towards that one end: for this our joys and our sorrows,
   for this our pains of body and griefs of heart, for this our losses and
   our crosses--all these are sacred medicines by which we are cured of
   the disease of nature, and prepared for the enjoyment of perfect
   spiritual health. All that befalls us on our road to heaven is meant to
   fit us for our journey's end. Our way through the wilderness is meant
   to try us, and to prove us, that our evils may be discovered, repented
   of, and overcome, and that thus we may be without fault before the
   throne at the last. We are being educated for the skies, meetened for
   the assembly of the perfect. It doth not yet appear what we shall be;
   but we are struggling up towards it; and we know that when Jesus shall
   appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We are
   rising: by hard wrestling, and long watching, and patient waiting, we
   are rising into holiness. These tribulations thresh our wheat and get
   the chaff away, these afflictions consume our dross and tin to make the
   gold more pure. All things work together for good to them that love
   God; and the net result of them all will be the presenting of the
   chosen unto God, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

   Thus I have reminded you that the prayer for sanctification is offered
   to the divine Father, and this leads us to look out of ourselves and
   wholly, to our God. Do not set about the work of sanctification
   yourselves, as if you could perform it alone. Do not imagine that
   holiness will necessarily follow because you listen to an earnest
   preacher, or unite in sacred worship. My brethren, God himself must
   work within you; the Holy Ghost must inhabit you; and this can only
   come to you by faith in the Lord Jesus. Believe in him for your
   sanctification, even as you have believed for your pardon and
   justification. He alone can bestow sanctification upon you; for this is
   the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

   IV. This is a great subject, and I have but short time; so I have, in
   the last place, to notice with much brevity HOW SANCTIFICATION IS TO BE
   WROUGHT IN BELIEVERS, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is
   truth. "Beloved, observe how God has joined holiness and truth
   together. There has been a tendency of late to divide truth of doctrine
   from truth of precept. Men say that Christianity is a life and not a
   creed: this is a part truth, and very near akin to a lie. Christianity
   is a life which grows out of truth. Jesus Christ is the way and the
   truth as well as the life, and he is not properly received except he is
   accepted in that threefold character.

   No holy life will be produced in us by the belief of falsehood.
   Sanctification in visible character comes out of edification in the
   inner faith of the heart, or otherwise it is a mere shell. Good works
   are the fruit of true faith, and true faith is a sincere belief of the
   truth. Every truth leads towards holiness; every error of doctrine,
   directly or indirectly, leads to sin. A twist of the understanding will
   inevitably bring a contortion of the life sooner or later. The straight
   line of truth drawn on the heart will produce a direct course of
   gracious walking in the life. Do not imagine that you can live on
   spiritual carrion and yet be in fine moral health, or that you can
   drink down poisonous error and yet lift up a face without spot before
   God. Even God himself only sanctifies us by the truth. Only that
   teaching will sanctify you which is taken from God's word, that
   teaching which is not true, nor the truth of God, cannot sanctify you.
   Error may puff you up, it may even make you think that you are
   sanctified; but there is a very serious difference between boasting of
   sanctification and being sanctified, and a very grave difference
   between setting up to be superior to others and being really accepted
   before God. Believe me, God works sanctification in us by the truth,
   and by nothing else.

   But what is the truth? There is the point. Is the truth that which I
   imagine to be revealed to me by some private communication? Am I to
   fancy that I enjoy some special revelation, and am I to order my life
   by voices, dreams, and impressions? Brethren, fall not into this common
   delusion. God's word to us is in Holy Scripture. All the truth that
   sanctifies men is in God's Word. Do not listen to those who cry, "Lo
   here!" and "Lo there!" I am plucked by the sleeve almost every day by
   crazy persons and pretenders who have revelations. One man tells me
   that God has sent a message to me by him; and I reply, "No, sir, the
   Lord knows where I dwell, and he is so near to me that he would not
   need to send to me by you." Another man announces in God's name a dogma
   which, on the face of it, is a lie against the Holy Ghost. He says the
   Spirit of God told him so-and-so; but we know that the Holy Ghost never
   contradicts himself. If your imaginary revelation is not according to
   this Word, it has no weight with us; and if it is according to this
   Word, it is no new thing. Brethren, this Bible is enough if the Lord
   does but use it, and quicken it by his Spirit in our hearts. Truth is
   neither your opinion, nor mine; your message, nor mine. Jesus says,
   "Thy word is truth." That which sanctifies men is not only truth, but
   it is the particular truth which is revealed in God's Word--"Thy word
   is truth." What a blessing it is that all the truth that is necessary
   to sanctify us is revealed in the Word of God, so that we have not to
   expend our energies upon discovering truth, but may, to our far greater
   profit, use revealed truth for its divine ends and purposes! There will
   be no more revelations; no more are needed. The canon is fixed and
   complete, and he that adds to it shall have added to him the plagues
   that are written in this Book. What need of more when here is enough
   for every practical purpose? "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word
   is truth."

   This being so, the truth which it is needful for us to receive is
   evidently fixed. You cannot change Holy Scripture. You may arrive more
   and more accurately at the original text; but for all practical
   purposes the text we have is correct enough, and our old Authorized
   Version is a sound one. Scripture itself cannot be broken; we cannot
   take from it nor add to it. The Lord has never re-written nor revised
   his Word, nor will he ever do so. Our teachings are full of errors, but
   the Spirit mistaketh not. We have the "Retractations": of Augustine,
   but there are no retractations with prophets and apostles. The faith
   has been delivered once for all to the saints, and it standeth fast for
   ever. "Thy word is truth." The Scripture alone is absolute truth,
   essential truth, decisive truth, authoritative truth, undiluted truth,
   eternal, everlasting truth. Truth given us in the word of God is that
   which is to sanctify all believers to the end of time: God will use it
   to that end.

   Learn, then, my brothers, how earnestly you ought to search the
   Scriptures! See, my sisters, how studiously you should read this Book
   of God! If this is the truth, and the truth with which God sanctifies
   us, let us learn it, hold it, and stand fast in it. To him that gave us
   the Book let us pledge ourselves never to depart from his testimonies.
   To us, at any rate, God's word is truth. "But they argue differently in
   the schools!" Let them argue. "But oratory with its flowery speech
   speaketh otherwise!" Let it speak: words are but air and tongues but
   clay. O God, "thy word is truth." "But philosophers have contradicted
   it!" Let them contradict it. Who are they? God's word is truth: we will
   go no farther while the world stands. But then let us be equally firm
   in our conviction that we do not know the truth aright unless it makes
   us holy. We do not hold truth in a true way unless it leads us to a
   true life. If you use the back of a knife it will not cut: truth hath
   its handle and its blade; see that you use it properly. You can make
   pure water kill a man; you must use every good thing aright or it will
   not be good. The truth, when fully used, will daily destroy sin,
   nourish grace, suggest noble desires, and urge to holy acts. O sirs, I
   do pray that we may by our lives adorn the doctrine of God our Savior
   in all things. Some do not so. I say this to our shame and to my own
   hourly sorrow.

   The one point of failure to be most deeply regretted would be a failure
   in the holiness of our church members. If you yourselves act as others
   do, what witness do you bear? If your families are not graciously
   ordered; if your business is not conducted upon principles of the
   strictest integrity; if your speech is questionable as to purity or
   truthfulness; if your lives are open to serious rebuke--how can God
   accept you or send a blessing on the Church to which you belong? It is
   all falsehood and deceit to talk about your being the people of God
   when even men of the world shame you. Your faith in the Lord Jesus must
   operate upon your lives to make you faithful and true, it must check
   you here, and excite you there; it must keep you back from this, and
   drive you on to that; it must constantly operate upon thought and
   speech and act, or else you know nothing of its saving power. How can I
   speak more distinctly and emphatically? Do not come to me with your
   experiences, and your convictions, and your professions, unless you
   sanctify the name of God in your lives. O brethren, we had better quit
   our professions if we do not live up to them. In the name of him who
   breathed this prayer just before his face was encrimsoned with the
   bloody sweat, let us cry mightily unto the Father, "Sanctify us through
   thy truth, thy Word is truth." As a people, we have stuck unto the Word
   of the Lord, but are we practically obeying it? We have determined as a
   congregation to keep the old ways; and I, for one, as the minister, am
   solemnly bound to the old faith. Oh that we might commend it by our
   holiness! Nothing is truth to me but this one Book, this infallibly
   inspired writing of the Spirit of God. It is incumbent upon us to show
   the hallowed influence of this Book. The vows of God are on us, that by
   our godly lives we should show forth his praises who has brought us out
   of darkness into his marvellous light. This Bible is our treasure. We
   prize each leaf of it. Let us bind it in the best fashion, in the best
   morocco of a clear, intelligent faith; then let us put a golden clasp
   upon it, and gild its edges by a life of love, and truth, and purity,
   and zeal. Thus shall we commend the volume to those who have never
   looked within its pages. Brethren, the sacred roll, with its seven
   seals, must not be held in hands defiled and polluted; but with clean
   hands and pure heart we must hold it forth and publish it among men.
   God help us so to do for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 17.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--107 (Song I.), 649, 645.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The Sermon of the Seasons

   A Sermon

   (No. 1891)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 14th, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [4]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,
   and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."--Genesis
   8:22.

   OUR SAVIOR CONSTANTLY TAUGHT the people by parables, and I think he
   would have his ministers do the same. The condition of things just now,
   both as to weather and business, furnishes a very plain and instructive
   parable which it would not be wise to pass over. Every morning when we
   wake we hope for a change of wind, a glimpse of the sun, and the end of
   the frost; but still we moan with the poet--

   "Oh, the long and dreary Winter!

   Oh, the cold and cruel Winter!"

   We say to ourselves, Will spring-time never come? In addition to this,
   trade and commerce continue in a state of stagnation; crowds are out of
   employment, and where business is carried on, it yields little profit.
   Our watchmen are asked if they discern any signs of returning day, and
   they answer, "No." Thus we bow our heads in a common affliction, and
   ask each man comfort of his fellow; for as yet we see not our signs,
   neither does the eastern sky grow grey with the hopeful light of the
   long-expected morning. Having faith in God we faint not, but believe
   that a lesson of love for us is written by his hand in these black
   characters. Let us spell it out with childlike confidence.

   Our text takes us back to the time when the waters of the flood had
   just assuaged, and God opened the door of the ark and bade Noah and his
   family come forth into a new world. For a time there had been a
   confusion: the seasons were mixed up, the perpetual downpour of the
   rain had almost turned day into night, and whether it was summer or
   winter could scarcely be told. The frame of nature seemed to be out of
   joint, her order suspended. And now the Lord, in making a promise to
   Noah that he would never destroy the earth again with a flood, also
   declares that while the earth remaineth there shall be no more of the
   confusion of the seasons and mingling of day and night which had
   brought such destruction upon all living things. As there should be no
   more a general deluge, so should there be no more a serious
   disarrangement of the course of the seasons and the temperature
   appropriate thereto. Seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and
   summer and winter, and day and night, are to succeed each other in
   their perpetually unchanging change, so long as the present reign of
   forbearance shall last. Till comes the close of time, the rolling year,
   made up of alternate day and night, shall pass through cold and heat in
   due order. We are grateful to God for thus settling in his mind that so
   it shall be. We are at ease because we know that he will not lift his
   hand again to destroy every living thing with a flood of water. He will
   deal with men in longsuffering, and tender mercy, and forbearance. He
   will not use the stern weapons of destruction, but will try the tender
   ministrations of patience and grace, that men may be led to repentance.
   There will come an end to this dispensation; but while the reign of
   forbearance lasts, nature shall keep her appointed marches, and we need
   not fear a disorderly rush or a destructive chaos. "Four seasons fill
   the measure of the year." In their mysterious round they come and go,
   and all combined display a moving harmony of wise design most
   glorifying to our God. Fear not in the day of tempest, for the rain
   shall not deluge the earth. The Lord setteth his bow in the cloud as
   the ensign of his covenant with mankind. Fear not in the black
   midnight: God will rekindle the lamp of day, and chase away the
   darkness.

   It is very singular that when the Lord thus ushers in the reign of
   forbearance he gives as his reason the following statement:--"I will
   not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination
   of man's heart is evil from his youth." This is very singular, because
   this seems to have been the powerful reason why the Lord had already
   destroyed the guilty race from off the face of the earth. In the fifth
   and sixth verses of the sixth chapter we read: "God saw that the
   wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
   the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented
   the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
   heart." Here we have almost the same words. Can the reason for judgment
   become the argument for mercy? Assuredly it can. God who changeth not
   absolutely, yet changeth his hand in his dealing with men. He had left
   them to themselves and permitted them to live through centuries; but
   the longer they lived, the more wicked they grew, until sin reached to
   a horrible degree of infamy. Man becomes a bad enough sinner when he
   lives to be seventy; but what he became at seven hundred or more it is
   somewhat difficult to guess. We wonder not that there were giants in
   those days--giants in crime as well as in stature. The Lord saw that
   however long man lived he only grew a greater adept in sin, for the
   imagination of his heart remained evil, and even grew to an intolerable
   height of iniquity; and therefore he said that he would destroy the
   race and begin anew. But when the Lord looked down upon those whom he
   had spared, who were to be the parents of a new race, he saw that in
   them also there was the same fountain of evil, and that their hearts
   also yielded evil desires and devices continually. Then he resolved to
   shorten the life of man, so that no individuals might ever arrive at so
   horrible a ripeness and cleverness of iniquity; but at the same time he
   said: "I will bear with them. I have dealt sternly with them, but they
   do not change; the few whom I have snatched from a watery grave are
   still inclined to sin. This dreadful expedient has not washed away the
   rebellious tendencies of the human heart. Therefore I will deal
   leniently and gently with them, manifesting a long forbearance, that
   man may have space for repentance. I will no more destroy every living
   thing, because destruction itself does not avail to banish sin." Thus
   it seems by no means difficult to see how that which to divine holiness
   was a reason for judgment may be used by divine pity as a reason for
   mercy.

   But what, think you, could have made the reasoning assume this new
   form? I attribute it to one thing never to be forgotten. Read the verse
   which precedes our text: "And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and
   took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and offered burnt
   offerings on the altar; and the Lord smelled a sweet savor." The
   sacrifice is the turning-point. Without a sacrifice sin clamours for
   vengeance, and God sends a destroying food; but the sacrifice presented
   by Noah was typical of the coming sacrifice of God's only begotten Son,
   and of the effectual atonement therein provided for human sin. The very
   shadow of the one great propitiation changed the state of the world.
   Now the Lord pleads with himself for grace as once he argued for doom.
   He speaketh of course after the manner of men; it is only to our
   apprehension that these things are so, for Jehovah changeth not, and he
   is always love and wisdom. For the sake of the sacrifice God resolves
   to bear with man, as with one who is incurably unwise, or desperately
   sick. He determines to look upon the evil tendency of man's imagination
   rather as an inveterate disease than as an unbearable provocation. He
   deals very patiently with the race, and no more sweeps it away in his
   wrath. See what the Lord will do when a sacrifice is provided! Methinks
   I hear him say of the earth, "Deliver it from flood, and bid the
   seasons keep their round of beneficence; for I have found a ransom."

   I. Thus I introduce to you the text, and I would have you notice, dear
   friends, that in that text there is first of all a hint, A SOLEMN HINT,
   OF WARNING. It begins thus: "While the earth remaineth." I hear a sound
   in the bowels of the text like subterranean thunder. The voice of the
   text is a voice of mercy, but there is an undertone of "terrible things
   in righteousness." "While the earth remaineth" implies that the earth
   will not always remain. There is an end appointed of the Most High, and
   it will surely come: then the seasons will melt into the endless age,
   and time shall be promoted into eternity. The earth hath remained now
   century after century; alas! it has but little changed towards God. The
   whole world still lieth in the wicked one; darkness covers the earth,
   and gross darkness the nations. Jehovah hath a people, "a remnant
   according to the election of grace," and for their sakes the earth
   remaineth yet a little while; but its end draweth nearer every hour.
   "God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in
   righteousness by the man Christ Jesus." An hour is set when mercy shall
   no longer hold back the axe from the barren tree, and forbearance shall
   no more restrain the angel with the sharp sickle from reaping the
   vintage of the earth. Love now journeys to and fro among the sons of
   men, with the voice of trembling pathos, pleading with them to be
   reconciled to God; but her mission will come to an end, the day of
   grace will be over, and the reign of judgment will come. Let us not
   reckon too much upon this world's enduring even for a little while; let
   us not set our love upon anything that is upon it; for here we have no
   continuing, city. "The things which are seen are temporal;" the world
   therefore shall pass away, and all the works that are therein shall be
   burned up: even "The elements shall melt with fervent heat." There is a
   day coming when floods of fire shall be let loose: they shall fall from
   above, and burst upward from below, and all material things shall be
   melted in one common conflagration. Poor world! thou, too, art surely
   doomed! God is gracious to thee, but thou art as a wreck drifting upon
   the rocks, or as a tree waiting for the axe. Believers in the testimony
   of God can joyfully say, "We, according to his promise, look for new
   heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness:" therefore we
   are not dismayed.

   I would have you notice again, dear friends, that the time when the
   earth shall no longer remain is not mentioned. The warning is left
   indefinite as to time, though definite enough as to fact. The
   expression, "While the earth remains," is proof enough that it will
   remain only for a season; but it is dumb as the tongue of death as to
   the date when that season shall close. "The whole creation groaneth and
   travaileth in pain together until now;" but when the hour of her
   deliverance shall come the best instructed cannot tell. Do not attempt
   to prophesy, and especially do not venture upon dates. "It is not for
   you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his
   own power." "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of
   heaven, but my Father only." The uncertainty of the end of all things
   is intended to keep us continually on the watch. We are to remain upon
   the tiptoe of expectation, and never to dream that we can reckon upon a
   certain length of time before the great and terrible day of the Lord.
   If you knew when Christ would come you might be tempted to spend the
   interval in neglect and wantonness; but as it is written, "In such an
   hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh," it is the Lord's intent
   that you should stand with your loins girt and your lamps trimmed,
   waiting for the midnight cry, "Behold he cometh."

   Let me further remark that the day when the remaining of the earth
   shall cease cannot be very far off; for according to the Hebrew, which
   you have in the margin of your Bibles, the text runs thus: "As yet all
   the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease." The
   "while" of the earth's remaining is counted by days; not even months or
   years are mentioned, much less centuries. The earth seems grey with age
   to us, but in the language of inspiration the present stage of its
   history is reckoned by days. There will one day come a last day, and
   let us not reckon that the time is distant, for Peter saith, "The end
   of all things is at hand;" and he adds, "Be ye therefore sober, and
   watch unto prayer." "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as
   some men count slackness." One day is with the Lord as a thousand
   years, and a thousand years as one day. If geologists speak correctly
   concerning the history of the world, it has lasted many myriads of
   years already, and passed through many periods before it came to that
   which is described in the first chapter of Genesis. The era of man is
   that which God describes to us by the inspired penman; and we are led
   to believe that this era will be a very short one. From the day when
   God fitted up this earth for the abode of man to the time when he shall
   consume it with fervent heat, there will be comparatively a very short
   space of time. God lives by millions of years; therefore, a few
   thousand years to him are but as a watch in the night. Let it be thus
   far understood by us that this dispensation is not to be a protracted
   one, and that the duration of the world in its present state is to be
   exceedingly brief as compared with preceding and succeeding ages. The
   life of this present evil world is but a span; it also is of few days
   and full of trouble. But I must also add that the era of sin and grace
   is crowded with marvellous manifestations of the glory of God in
   infinite love and mercy.

   II. Thus, then, there is a hint of warning in our text; but secondly,
   there is A SENTENCE OF PROMISE, rich and full of meaning: "While the
   earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and
   summer, and day and night shall not cease." It is a promise concerning
   temporal things, but yet it breathes a spiritual air, and hath about it
   the smell of a field that the Lord hath blessed.

   This promise has been kept. It is long since it was written, it is
   longer still since it was resolved upon in the mind of God; but it has
   never failed. There have been times when cold has threatened to bind
   the whole year in the chains of frost; but genial warmth has pushed it
   aside. Seedtime and harvest have been threatened, but they have come;
   the harvest may not have been abundant, but yet there has been a
   harvest sufficient to sustain the race. Days have been dark, and hardly
   discernible from night, like the gloom of Egypt's plague; but still,
   taking things as a whole, day and night have divided time between them.
   The ordinances of heaven have continued with us as with our fathers. No
   student of nature can doubt that to this hour, despite occasional
   extremes of heat and cold, the seasons are unchanged; and
   notwithstanding occasional absence of sunshine, and diminution of
   light, day and night have followed the diurnal revolution of the earth.
   Since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were. One
   great interruption occurred at the deluge, but the Lord has kept his
   promise to prevent any other.

   So long-continued is the fulfillment of this promise, that even this
   race of unbelievers has come to believe in it. We look for the seasons
   as a matter of course. I do not suppose that any one in this audience
   doubts the coming of spring. The boughs are bare, the buds are not
   eager for their bursting, the crocus and the daffodil are afraid to
   show themselves; but yet the birds believe in the coming spring, for I
   hear them in sweet chorus every morning singing their songs of
   expectancy. Men and brethren, you are expectant also. Long observation
   has begotten in you an unwavering faith. When the sun goes down at
   night, not even a little child fears that God has blown out the sun,
   and that the great candle will never be lighted again. No, we look for
   the morning. When winter has chilled us a while, we look for the spring
   and the summer; and when summer has browned our faces, we expect the
   falling of the leaf and the descent of the snow. I want you to ask
   yourselves--Why do we not believe God's other promises? Why have we not
   as solid a conviction of the truth of other statements which our God
   has made as we have upon this point? Is it that we have experience in
   this case? O brethren, we have had experience concerning other matters
   also. If we were to deal with the weather with the same short-sighted
   doubt which governs us in our thoughts of divine providence, we might
   be doubtful about summer and winter. We might say, "It really does not
   look very likely that spring will come. Look at our meadows, and mark
   how the cold has literally burned the grass; see how our hardy
   evergreens are many of them dead, and others sadly cut to pieces; see
   what mischief the cold has wrought. Will there ever be leaf and flower
   again? Is it possible that I shall ever wipe the sweat from my smoking
   brow on some blazing noontide? Can these frozen brooks leap into
   liberty? To-day we crowd around the fire, hardly keeping ourselves
   alive from the bitter cold: shall we yet bask in the hay-field, or fan
   ourselves amid the golden sheaves?" Had we less experience, it would
   seem highly improbable. Yet we enjoy a full assurance as to the
   revolution of the seasons and the succession of day and night: do we
   not? Why this assurance of one promise, and why such frequent distrust
   of others equally true?

   When God's promises appear to be difficult of fulfillment, wherefore do
   we doubt them? They are fulfilled in due season: which of them has ever
   failed? They come to pass without difficulty: why should we suspect
   them? When deliverance looks as though it could not come, it is none
   the less sure; for the Lord has promised it. The absence of visible
   means need not enter into the account: he who is Almighty God has
   infinite resources.

   So, too, dear friends, we have to recollect, that if the Lord himself
   does not send spring and summer we cannot create either of them. Here
   we are out of the field. When the sun goes down, if the Lord did not
   cause it to rise again, we could not open the doors of the morning. I
   love to get into the field of nature on a large scale, for there one is
   quit of man, and the Lord alone is seen working all things according to
   his will. The heavens and their ordinances know no presence and power
   but God alone. As far as we are concerned, we cannot lift a finger to
   change the seasons. What could all our Parliament--King, Lords, and
   Commons--do with all their Acts towards bringing on spring-tide or
   hastening summer and harvest? Nothing at all. These matters are out of
   man's power; and yet they are none the less sure. So, my brethren, when
   you get into such a condition that you can by no means help yourself,
   you are not, therefore, to doubt that God can achieve his purpose and
   fulfill his promise without your help. When hath he asked your aid?
   Good men have gone very wrong when they have thought of aiding in the
   fulfillment of promises and prophecies. See how Rebecca erred in trying
   to get the promised blessing for Jacob. We had better leave the Lord's
   decrees in the Lord's hands. When any case comes to its worst, and you
   can do nothing whatever in it, you may safely stand still and see the
   salvation of God. At this hour you feel sure that springtime and summer
   will come, though you cannot move the sun an inch beyond his
   predestinated course; be as much at ease about the other promises of
   God as you are concerning the cycle of the year.

   Remember, also, that every coming of summer--yes, and every rising of
   the sun--is a great wonder. Only our familiarity leads us to think of
   these things without marvelling. A real miracle is every break of day
   and every set of sun. A world of wonders bursts forth in every
   spring-tide; each blade of grass and ear of corn is a display of divine
   omnipotence. We are surrounded with works of almighty power and
   goodness from morn till eve and through the watches of the night; from
   the first day of the year until its close the Lord is about us. Unseen
   by us, his hand propels the silent spheres which no force within human
   calculation could move in their orbits; that same power sustains and
   animates and perfects all things. God is in all, and in all wonderful.
   If God continues thus to work the pleasing changes of the year as he
   promised to do, why do you doubt him concerning other things, O ye of
   little faith? Will he not keep his word to his children if he keeps it
   to the earth? Will he not fulfill his every promise to his own elect if
   he is true to sun and stars? Seedtime and harvest, summer and winter,
   have come according to his word without our aid, and, wonderful as
   these changes are, they have never failed; and will the Lord forget in
   other things? Will he forswear his covenant and deny his promise to his
   Only Begotten? God forbid.

   Brethren, we have come not only to believe this promise as to the
   seasons and to make quite sure about it, but we practically act upon
   our faith. The farmers have sown their autumn wheat, and many of them
   are longing for an opportunity to sow their spring wheat; but what is
   sowing but a burial of good store? Why do husbandmen hide their grain
   in the earth? Because they feel sure that seedtime will in due time be
   followed by harvest. They put their grain into the ground hoping to
   receive it again multiplied a hundredfold. Why do we not act in an
   equally practical style in reference to the rest of God's promises?
   True faith makes the promises of God to be of full effect by viewing
   them as true and putting them to the test. When faith asks of God, it
   believes that it has the petition which it has asked of him. Many
   prepare their thinner garments in prospect of warm weather, or at the
   close of summer provide household flannels for the winter, because they
   reckon upon the season; why do we not also prepare ourselves to receive
   the Lord's blessing in the time appointed? Why do we not reckon upon
   every word of Scripture being fulfilled? We ought to take the promises
   into our matter-of-fact estimate, and act accordingly.

   Let me go further:--If a man did not act upon the declaration of God in
   our text he would be counted foolish. Suppose a man said, "I do not
   feel sure that there will come a harvest, and therefore I shall not
   sow;" his neighbors would look upon his uncultivated fields, and reckon
   him out of his mind. If another should say, "I shall lay by no stores
   for the winter, because I believe that we have arrived at perpetual
   summer, wherein there will always be corn in the sheaf and fruit on the
   trees," we should regard him as fit for a lunatic-asylum. Equally mad
   are they who treat other promises of God as if they were idle words, no
   more worthy of notice than the prophecies of a charlatan. The masses of
   our fellow-men never search the Word of God to find a promise suitable
   to their cases, and even if such a promise were laid before them, they
   would only regard it as a matter of imagination or meaningless jargon.
   What shall I say of those who thus trifle with eternal verities, but
   that madness has carried away the heart of man? What God has promised
   ought to be a clear indication to us of the future, and a hint as to
   how we should act. Let us act in faith upon the divine promise. If the
   Lord says, "Seek ye my face," take care that you do seek his face. If
   he says, "Ask, and it shall be given you," be sure to ask and expect to
   receive. If the Lord promises pardon to those who believe on his Son,
   let us believe on his Son, and receive mercy. He keeps his covenant
   with day and night; let us, therefore, believe that he will keep
   covenant with us, and do even as he hath said. Oh that this lesson,
   simple as it is, may be learnt by every believer, and by every
   unbeliever too!

   Let me close this point by noticing that, whether men believe this or
   not it will stand true. A man says there will be no winter, and
   provides no garments; he will shiver in the northern blast all the same
   when December covers the earth with snow. An unbeliever declares that
   there will be no summer, and therefore he will not sow nor prepare a
   barn. Will his foolish scepticism prevent the coming of harvest?
   Miserable farmer that he is! He will secure a harvest of thorns and
   thistles to reward his own practical unbelief, but a harvest will come
   to the rest of the land, to his confusion. The year will go on whoever
   plays the fool; so, too, will the sun arise, whoever prophesies an
   endless night. God's purpose and God's promise will stand fast though
   the hills be removed. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you shall be
   saved, but if you believe not, you must perish: in either case, the law
   will not alter for you. God's great laws in the spiritual world hold
   good with a certainty as great as those which govern the natural world.
   We cannot suspend the force of gravitation; and if we could, we should
   not even then be able to change the veracity of the Most High, who must
   be true so long as he is God. Hath he said and shall he not do it? Ay,
   that he shall. Though we believe not, he abideth faithful; he cannot
   deny himself; therefore, ye sons of men, be wise, and take heed to the
   word of the Lord. As in the summer ye prepare yourselves for winter;
   and as at spring-tide ye sow your seed that ye may gather your harvest
   in the Summer, and thus ye obey the voice of God in nature, I pray you
   also have respect to that voice as it speaks in the pages of his Book,
   and shape your conduct by that which the Lord has revealed.

   III. There is also in the text, I think, A SUGGESTION OF ANALOGIES.
   Reading these words, not as a philosophical prediction, but as a part
   of the Word of God, I see in them a moral, spiritual, and mystical
   meaning. Holy Scripture is intended not to teach us natural but
   spiritual things: I conclude, therefore, that there is an analogy here
   well worthy of being worked out. May the good Spirit guide us therein!

   While the earth remaineth there will be changes in the spiritual world.
   Read the text laying a stress upon the words of change, and see how it
   rises and falls like the waves of the sea: "While the earth remaineth,
   seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
   and night shall not cease." No one of these states continues; it comes
   and goes. The seasons are a perpetual procession, an endless chain, an
   ever-moving wheel. Cold flies before heat, and anon summer is chased
   away by winter. Nothing is stable. Such is this life: such are the
   feelings of spiritual life with most men: such is the history of the
   church of God. We sorrow and we rejoice: we struggle and we triumph: we
   labor and we rest. We are not long upon Tabor, neither are we always in
   the valley of Baca. Let us not be amazed, as though some strange thing
   happened to us, if our day darkens into night, or our summer chills
   into winter. From joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, from success to
   defeat, from defeat to success, we pass very rapidly. It is so: it will
   be so while the earth remaineth, and we remain partakers of the earth.

   Yet, there will be an order in it all. Cold and heat, and summer and
   winter, and day and night, do not come in a giddy dance or tumultuous
   hurry-burly; but they make up the fair and beautiful year. Chance has
   no part in these affairs. God compelleth winds and storms, and sun and
   sea, to keep the order of his house, and none rebelleth against his
   commandment. So in the spiritual kingdom, in the life of the believer,
   and in the history of the church of God, all things are made to work
   for good, and the spiritual is being educated into the heavenly. In our
   seasons there is an order visible to God, even when we walk in darkness
   and see no light. We have our winters, in which the sap is prepared in
   secret to produce the clusters of summer; we have our colds, in which
   we lose the superfluities bred of our heat. Expect the changes, and
   believe that they come by rule.

   Great rules will stand while the earth abideth, in the spiritual as
   well as in the natural world. For instance, there will be seedtime and
   harvest, effort and result, labor and success. There will be to you,
   dear brother, a time in which you will chiefly have to receive; it is
   your seedtime, and God is sowing you by instruction and sanctification,
   in order that in due time you may yield him a harvest to his glory.
   Sometimes we lie passive, like the ploughed fields, and then our divine
   Sower casts into us the living seed; but soon other days arrive, when
   we are active, and yield unto God the results of his grace experienced
   in former days. It ought to be so. To you, beloved workers in the
   Mission-hall, or the Sunday-school, there will be a time of sowing; not
   much may be accomplished, though a great deal of effort may be put
   forth. To me in preaching there are times for sowing, and nothing else
   but sowing; few seem to be the green blades which spring up around me.
   Perhaps a year may intervene before the worker shall see any reward for
   his toil: "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the
   earth." The missionary upon his district, the Bible-woman on her round,
   may see no manifest effect produced by daily teaching: but harvest and
   seedtime are tied together in a sure knot. "He that goeth forth and
   weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with
   rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Brethren, believe that, and
   be of good cheer. "Your labor is not in vain in the Lord." While the
   earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest will take each one its turn.

   So, too, while the earth remaineth there will be the interchanges of
   cold and heat. Where there is life there must be change; only in death
   is there monotony. There will be times in your experience when you will
   feel the awful withering of that convincing Spirit who dries up the
   glory of the flesh. "Who can stand before his cold?" Anon there will be
   a melting season of contrition and repentance, and then the Holy Spirit
   will have warmed your heart into hope and faith and love and joy and
   delight in God. Cold and heat come to the church. I have noticed
   oftentimes her bitter cold, and I have cried to God about it. But the
   heat has come; we have felt the glow of revival; enthusiasm has been
   kindled, zeal has abounded. I wish we could always keep at one glorious
   summer heat, walking in the light as God is in the light. It ought to
   be so with us. Some of us labor to be always zealous and full of fire;
   but should times come when we or others are not in the fullness of the
   blessing, we will not despair; but we will the rather cry mightily unto
   the Lord to send his Word and cause the waters of his grace to flow,
   and make our winter to be over and gone, while flowers appear on the
   earth and the time of the singing of birds comes on.

   So, too, have I seen in our mortal life summer and winter, prosperity
   and adversity. Do not expect, dear brother, while you are in this
   world, always to dwell among the lilies and roses of prosperity. Summer
   will come, and you will be wise to make hay while the sun shines by
   using all opportunities for usefulness; but look for winter. I do not
   know into what trade you can enter to be secure against losses, nor
   what profession you could follow in which you would escape
   disappointments. I know no corner of the earth without its night, no
   land without its stones, no sea without its storms. As to spiritual and
   mental experience, it seemeth to me within myself that while the earth
   remaineth I shall have my ebbs and flows, my risings and my sinkings.
   Do not therefore begin to kick and quarrel with the dispensations of
   God's providence. When it is summer-time say, "The Lord gave, and
   blessed be his name." When it is winter say, "The Lord hath taken away,
   and blessed be his name." Keep to the same music, even though you
   sometimes have to pitch an octave lower. Still praise and magnify the
   Lord whether you be sowing or reaping. Let him do what seemeth him
   good, but to you let it always seem good to praise.

   Beloved, labor will be followed by rest; for while the earth remaineth
   there will be day and night. In the day man goeth forth to his labor;
   at night he lieth down. Let him bless God for both. There cometh a
   night wherein no man can work: to us this is not dreaded, but expected.
   I do not know for which I thank God most, for day or for night. Our
   young people praise God for day, with its activities; but we who are
   older are more inclined to bless the Lord for night, with its repose.
   The grey beard, the man of many years and sad experiences, looks
   forward to that night wherein the wicked cease from troubling and the
   weary are at rest. If we regard death as night, we look forward to an
   endless day, which will follow on, when the sun shall go no more down
   for ever. Jesus our Lord is the Sun of that glorious country to which
   we wend our way. While the earth remaineth, there will continually be a
   variety of benedictions, a change-ringing upon the silver bells of
   mercy. When thou art on high, my brother, remember thou must descend;
   and when thou art cast down, expect a cheerful lifting up. When it is
   broad day, let us travel swiftly, for night comes on; but when it is
   dark, let us watch hopefully, for the morning cometh. As sojourners in
   a changeful country, let us spend the days of our pilgrimage in a holy
   fear, which shall preserve us from love of the world. I need not
   further work out the analogies of the text; many more will rise before
   the meditative mind.

   IV. Last of all, I want you to regard my text as A TOKEN FOR THE
   ASSURANCE OF OUR FAITH. "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and
   harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night
   shall not cease." And they do not. In this fact we are bidden to see
   the seal and token of the covenant. Look at the passage we read this
   morning in the thirty-third chapter of Jeremiah. Here is the security
   of the King in whom we rejoice. "If ye can break my covenant of the
   day, and my covenant of the night, then shall David not have a son to
   reign upon his throne." God hath promised never to change the royal
   line; but while the earth remaineth, and day and night are seen, the
   Son of David shall reign King of kings and Lord of lords. Until all
   enemies are under his feet he must reign. So, then, as I wrap my
   garment about me, feeling the cold of winter, I will say to myself,
   "God hath, by sending cold, confirmed his covenant with Jesus our Lord
   and King." Every morning light saluteth my eyes, and declareth that
   "his name shall be continued as long as the sun;" and when the shades
   of evening fall, and the stars look forth from their houses, I hear a
   sound of "abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." His
   dominion is an everlasting dominion, and of his kingdom there is no
   end. The Lord Jesus is King in Zion, and head over all things to his
   church while the earth remaineth.

   The abiding of the ordinances of heaven is equally a token of the
   continuance of the priesthood. Under the type of the tribe of Levi the
   priesthood is vested in the person of our Lord. He is our Melchizedek,
   who is priest as well as king, and of his priesthood there is no end.
   While winter chills and summer burns, while day calls to labor and
   night to rest, our great High-priest abides in his office, still able
   to cleanse us, to make intercession for us, and to present our
   offerings unto God. His one sacrifice is perpetually a sweet savor unto
   God, and shall be till moons shall wax and wane no more. As I tread the
   soil which seems frozen into iron, and as I shiver in the bitter
   north-east wind, I say to myself, "The priesthood of our Lord abides;
   for cold has not ceased to visit us, and heat will come in its
   appointed months." As I go to my bed, or as I rise from it, day and
   night are to me a pledge that the Lord Jesus is a priest for ever
   according to the law of an endless life.

   A third thing was also assured by the same token. The Lord said that as
   long as his covenant with day and night remained he would not put away
   the seed of Abraham. Since a son of David must rule them, they must
   exist to be ruled. There will for ever be a chosen people--a people for
   whom Jesus lives as king and priest. The Lord hath not cast away the
   people whom he did foreknow, nor will he do so, come what may. While
   seedtime and harvest, cold and heat abide, the Lord will maintain a
   church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. What a mercy
   is this! Alas! men whom I hoped were faithful have turned aside from
   the truth; ministers who were regarded as pillars have fallen, and
   persons esteemed to be saints turned out to be hypocrites: yet "there
   is a remnant according to the election of grace." The Lord hath a
   reserve of men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Therefore, let us
   be of good courage, and never tremble for the ark of the Lord.

   To end all, let our prayer be that the Lord would abide with us, and
   then the heat shall not smite us, nor the cold molest us. The presence
   of God makes fair weather. Let us sing with quaint John Ryland--

   "Rise then, Sun of righteousness,

   Me with thy sweet beamings bless;

   Winter then may stay or flee,

   Lord, 'tis all alike to me."

   Oh, you that know not our God, I feel heartily sorry for you! To you
   all seasons must be blank, for God is not in them. Oh that you knew
   Jesus. The world is a bleak house, a chill and empty corridor without
   God; and men are orphans, and life is hopeless, and death is starless
   night, if Jesus is not known and loved. He who trusts his soul with
   Jesus has found the key of the great secret, the clue of the maze.
   Henceforth he shall see, in all that smiles or rages around him in our
   changeful weather, pledges of the love of the Father, tokens of the
   grace of the Son, and witnesses of the work of the Holy Ghost. To the
   one God be glory for ever! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 147; Genesis 8:20-22;
   Jeremiah 33:17-26.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--181, 211, 212.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Why They Leave Us

   A Sermon

   (No. 1892)

   Suggested by the death of CHARLES STANFORD, D.D.,

   Minister of Denmark Place Chapel, Camberwell,

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 21st, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [5]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me
   where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me:
   for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."--John 17:24.

   THE PRAYER OF THE SAVIOR rises as it proceeds. He asked for his people
   that they might be preserved from the world, then that they might be
   sanctified, and then that they might be made manifestly one; and now he
   reaches his crowning point--that they may be with him where he is, and
   behold his glory. It is well when in prayer the spirit takes to itself
   wings. The prayer that swings to and fro like a door upon its hinges
   may admit to fellowship; but that prayer is more after the divine
   pattern which, like a ladder, rises round by round, until it loses
   itself in heaven.

   This last step of our Lord's prayer is not only above all the rest, but
   it is a longer step than any of the others. He here ascends, not from
   one blessing which may be enjoyed on earth, to another of higher
   degree; but he mounts right away from all that is of this present state
   into that which is reserved for the eternal future. He quits the
   highest peaks of grace, and at a single stride his prayer sets its foot
   in glory: "that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I
   am."

   There is this to be noticed also concerning this divine prayer, that
   not only does it rise as to its subject, but it even ascends as to the
   place which the Intercessor appears to occupy. Has it not been so with
   yourselves in prayer at times, that you have hardly known where you
   were? You might have cried with Paul, "Whether in the body or out of
   the body, I cannot tell." Do not these words of our Lord Jesus remind
   you of this? Was he not carried away by the fervor of his devotion?
   Where was he when he uttered the words of our text? If I follow the
   language I might conclude that our Lord was already in heaven. He says,
   "rather, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me
   where I am; that they may behold my glory." Does he not mean that they
   should be in heaven with him? Of course he does; yet he was not in
   heaven; he was still in the midst of his apostles, in the body upon
   earth; and he had yet Gethsemane and Golgotha before him ere he could
   enter his glory. He had prayed himself into such an exaltation of
   feeling that his prayer was in heaven, and he himself was there in
   spirit. What a hint this gives to us! How readily may we quit the field
   of battle and the place of agony, and rise into such fellowship with
   God, that we may think and speak, and act, as if we were already in
   possession of our eternal joy! By the ardor of prayer and the
   confidence of faith we may be caught up into Paradise, and there utter
   words which are beyond the latitude of earth, and are dated "from the
   Delectable Mountains."

   Nor is this all; for still the prayer rises, not only as to its matter
   and place, but in a very singular way it also takes to itself a higher
   style. Before, our Lord had asked and pleaded; but now he uses a firmer
   word: he says, "Father, I will." I would not force that word so as to
   make it bear an imperious or commanding meaning, for the Savior
   speaketh not so to the Father: but still it has a more elevated tone
   about it than asking. Our Lord here useth the royal manner rather than
   the tone of his humiliation. He speaketh like unto the Son of God; he
   addresses the great Father as one who counteth it not robbery to be
   equal with him, but exercises the prerogative of his Eternal Sonship.
   He saith, "I will." This is a tone which belongs not to us except in a
   very modified degree, but it teaches us a lesson. It is well in prayer,
   when the Holy Spirit helpeth us, not only to groan out of the dust as
   suppliant sinners, but to seek unto our Father in the spirit of
   adoption with the confidence of children, and then with the promise of
   God in our hand we may with consecrated bravery lay hold upon the
   covenant angel, and cry, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless
   me." Importunity is a humble approach to this divine "I will." The will
   consecrated, educated, and sanctified, may and must reveal itself in
   our more spiritual petitions, just as, with equal correctness, it hides
   away when the pleading is for temporal things, and whispers, "Not as I
   will, but as thou wilt." The Lord pours upon his pleading servants at
   times a kind of inspiration by which they rise into power in prayer,
   and have their will of the Lord. Is it not written, "Delight thyself in
   the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart?" We come
   at last to feel that the desires of our heart are inspired of his
   Spirit, and then that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.

   There ought to be much for our edification in a text like this, which
   in subject, place, and style rises to such an elevation. It is the apex
   of this wonderful pyramid of prayer; the last round of the ladder of
   light. O Spirit of the Lord, instruct us while we behold it!

   I have taken this text because it has taken hold on me. Our beloved
   brother, Charles Stanford, has just been taken from us. I seem to be
   standing as one of a company of disciples, and my brethren are melting
   away. My brethren, my comrades, my delights, are leaving me for the
   better land. We have enjoyed holy and happy fellowship in days of
   peace, and we have stood shoulder to shoulder in the battle of the
   Lord; but we are melting away. One has gone; another has gone; before
   we look round another will have departed. We see them for a moment, and
   they vanish from our gaze. It is true they do not rise into the air
   like the Divine Master from Olivet; yet do they rise, I am persuaded of
   that: only the poor body descends, and that descent is for a very
   little while. They rise, to be for ever with the Lord. The grief is to
   us who are left behind. What a gap is left where stood Hugh Stowell
   Brown! Who is to fill it? What a gap is left where stood Charles
   Stanford! Who is to fill it? Who among us will go next? We stand like
   men amazed. Some of us stood next in the rank with those who have been
   taken. Why this constant thinning of our ranks while the warfare is so
   stern? Why this removal of the very best when we so much need the
   noblest examples? I am bowed down, and could best express myself in a
   flood of tears as I survey the line of graves so newly digged; but I
   restrain myself from so carnal a mode of regarding the matter, and look
   upon it in a clearer light. The Master is gathering the ripest of his
   fruit, and well doth he deserve them. His own dear hand is putting his
   apples of gold into his baskets of silver; and as we see that it is the
   Lord, we are bewildered no longer. His word, as it comes before us in
   the text, calms and quiets our spirits. It dries our tears, and calls
   us to rejoicing as we hear our heavenly Bridegroom praying, "Father, I
   will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am."
   We understand why the dearest and best are going. We see in whose hand
   is held the magnet which attracts them to the skies. One by one they
   must depart from this lowland country, to dwell above, in the palace of
   the King, for Jesus is drawing them to himself. Our dear babes go home
   because "he gathereth the lambs with his arm and carrieth them in his
   bosom;" and our ripe saints go home because the Beloved is come into
   his garden to gather lilies. These words of our Lord Jesus explain the
   continual home-going; they are the answer to the riddle which we call
   death. I am going to talk of how our honored brethren are not, because
   God taketh them; and I shall be happy if my words shall prepare us to
   exercise a holy readiness to see the grand request of our Redeemer
   fulfilled, even though it cost us many a sorrowful parting.

   I. Let us begin as our text begins, and thus the first thought about
   the continual gathering to the house above will be THE HOME-WORD--the
   rallying word: "Father." Observe, our Lord had said, "Holy Father," and
   toward the close of the prayer he said, "O righteous Father;" but in
   commencing this particular petition he uses the word "Father" by itself
   alone: this relationship is in itself so dear that it agrees best with
   the loftiest petition. I like to think of that name "Father," as used
   in this connection. Is it not the center of living unity? If there is
   to be a family gathering and reunion, where should it be but in the
   father's house? Who is at the head of the table but the father? All the
   interests of the children unite in the parent, and he feels for them
   all.

   From the great Father the Lord Jesus himself came forth. We do not
   understand the doctrine of the eternal filiation--we adore the mystery
   into which we may not pry. But we know that as our Lord Jesus is
   God-and-man Mediator, he came forth from the Father; and unto the
   Father's will he submitted himself in so doing. As for us, we come
   distinctly of that Father, it is he that made us, and not we ourselves;
   and, better and brighter fact still, of his own will begat he us by the
   word of truth. We were born a second time from heaven, and from our
   Heavenly Father our spiritual life is derived.

   The whole of this sermon through, I want to show you that it is right
   that we should part with our brethren and joyfully permit of their
   going home; and surely I may at once ask you--What can be more right
   than that children should go home to their father? From him they came,
   to him they owe their life; should they not always tend towards him,
   and should not this be the goal of their being, that they should at
   last dwell in his presence? To go away from the Father and to live
   apart from him is the sorrow of our fallen nature as it plays the
   prodigal; but the coming back to the Father is restoration to life, to
   peace, to happiness. Yes, all our hopeful steps are towards the Father.
   We are saved when by believing in the name of Jesus we receive power to
   become the sons of God. Our sanctification lies in the bosom of our
   adoption. Because Jesus comes from the Father and leads us back to the
   Father, therefore is there a heaven for us. Wherefore, whenever we
   think of heaven let us chiefly think of the Father; for it is in our
   Father's house that there are many mansions, and it is to the Father
   that our Lord has gone, that he may prepare a place for us.

   "FATHER!" why, it is a bell that rings us home. He who hath the spirit
   of adoption feels that the Father draws him home, and he would fain run
   after him. How intensely did Jesus turn to the Father! He cannot speak
   of the glory wherein he is to be without coupling his Father with it.
   Brethren, it is in the Father that we live and move and have our being.
   Is there any spiritual life in the world which does not continually
   proceed from the life of the great Father? Is it not by the continual
   outcoming of the Holy Ghost from the Father that we remain spiritual
   men? And as from him we live, so for him we live, if we live aright. We
   wish so to act as to glorify God in everything. Even our salvation
   should not be an ultimate end with any one of us; we should desire to
   glorify God by our salvation. We look upon the doctrines that we
   preach, and the precepts which we obey, as means to the glory of God,
   even the Father.

   This is the consummation which the First-born looks for, and to which
   all of us who are like him are aspiring also, namely, that God may be
   all in all: that the great Father may be had in honor, and may be
   worshipped in every place. Since, then, we are from him, and of him,
   and to him, and for him, this word "Father" calls us to gather at his
   feet. Shall any one of us lament the process? No; we dare not complain
   that our choicest brethren are taken up to gladden the great Father's
   house. Our brother is gone; but we ask, "Where is he gone?" and when
   the answer comes, "He is gone to the Father," all notion of complaint
   is over. To whom else should he go? When the great First-born went away
   from us, he told his sorrowing followers that he was going to their
   Father and his Father; and that answer was enough. So, when our friend,
   or our child, or our wife, or our brother is gone, it is enough that he
   is with the Father. To call them back does not occur to us; but rather
   we each one desire to follow after them.

   "Father, I long, I faint to see

   The place of thine abode;

   I'd leave thine earthly courts and flee

   Up to thy seat, my God."

   A child may be happy at school, but he longs for the holidays. Is it
   merely to escape his lessons? Ah, no! Ask him, and he will tell you, "I
   want to go home to see my father." The same is equally true, and
   possibly more so, if we include the feminine form of parentage. What a
   home-cry is that of "mother!" The sight of that dear face has been
   longed and hungered for by many a child when far away. Mother or
   father, which you will; they are blended in the great Fatherhood of
   God. Let it but be said that any one has gone to his father, and no
   further question is asked as to the right of his going thither. To the
   father belongs the first possession of the child; should he not have
   his own child at home? The Savior wipes our tears away with a
   handkerchief which is marked in the corner with this word--"Father."

   II. Secondly, I want your thoughts upon THE HOME IMPETUS. The force
   which draws us home lies in the word, "I will." Jesus Christ, our most
   true God, veiled in human form, bows his knee and prays, and throws his
   divine energy into the prayer for the bringing home of his redeemed.
   This one irresistible, everlastingly almighty prayer carries everything
   before it. "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be
   with me where I am," is the centripetal energy which is drawing all the
   family of God towards its one home.

   How shall the chosen get home to the Father? Chariots are provided.
   Here are the chariots of fire and horses of fire in this prayer. "I
   will," saith Jesus, "that they be with me;" and with him they must be.
   There are difficulties in the way--long nights and darkness lie
   between, and hills of guilt, and forests of trouble, and bands of
   fierce temptations; yet the pilgrims shall surely reach their journey's
   end, for the Lord's "I will" shall be a wall of fire round about them.
   In this petition I see both sword and shield for the church militant.
   Here I see the eagles' wings on which they shall be upborne till they
   enter within the golden gates. Jesus saith, "I will;" and who is he
   that shall hinder the home-coming of the chosen? As well hope to arrest
   the marches of the stars of heaven.

   Examine the energy of this "I will" for a moment, and you will see,
   first, that it hath the force of an intercessory prayer. It is a gem
   from that wonderful breastplate of jewels which our great High-priest
   wore upon his breast when he offered his fullest intercession. I cannot
   imagine our Lord's interceding in vain. If he asks that we may be with
   him where he is, he must assuredly have his request. It is written,
   that "he was heard in that he feared." When with strong crying and
   tears he poured out his soul unto death, his Father granted the
   requests of his heart. I do not wonder it should be so; how could the
   best Beloved fail of that which he sought in intercession from his
   Father God! Mark, then, that the force of irresistible intercession is
   drawing every blood-bought soul into the place where Jesus is. You
   cannot hold your dying babe; for Jesus asks for it to be with him. Will
   you come into competition with your Lord? Surely you will not. You
   cannot hold your aged father, nor detain your beloved mother, beyond
   the time appointed; for the intercession of Christ has such a force
   about it that they must ascend even as sparks must seek the sun.

   More than intercession is found in the expression "I will." It suggests
   the idea of a testamentary bequest and appointment. The Lord Jesus is
   making his last will and testament, and he writes, "Father, I will that
   they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me." No man who makes his
   will likes to have it frustrated. Our Savior's testament will assuredly
   be carried out in every jot and tittle; and, if for no other reason,
   yet certainly for this cause, that though he died, and thus made his
   will valid, yet he lives again to be his own executor, and to carry out
   his will. When I read in our Lord's testament the words, "Father, I
   will that they be with me," I ask, "Who is to hold them back?" They
   must in due time be with him, for the will of the ever blessed Savior
   must be carried out: there can be no standing against a force of that
   kind.

   Nor is this all: the words read to me, not only like intercession and
   testamentary decree, but there is a strong expression of desire,
   resolve, and purpose. Jesus desires it, and saith, "I will." It is a
   deliberate desire--a forcible, distinct, resolute, determined purpose.
   The will of God is supreme law. It needeth not that he should speak; he
   doth but will or purpose, and the thing is done. Now read my text: "I
   will that they be with me;" the Son of God wills it. How are the saints
   to be hindered from what the Lord wills? They must rise from their beds
   of dust and silent clay;--they must rise to be with Jesus where he is,
   for Jesus wills it. By your anxious care you may seek to detain them;
   you may sit about their bed and nurse them both night and day, but they
   must quit these dark abodes when Jesus gives the signal. You may clutch
   them with affectionate eagerness, and even cry in despair, "They shall
   not go, we cannot bear to part with them;" but go they must when Jesus
   calls. Take back your naughty hands, which would detain them, for
   naughty they are if you would rob your Savior. Would you cross his
   will? Would you set at naught his testament? You could not if you
   would; you would not if you could. Rather be inclined to go with them
   than think to resist the heavenly attraction which upraises them. If
   Jesus saith, "I will," then it is yours to say, "Not as I will, but as
   thou wilt. They were never so much mine as they are thine. I never had
   so much right to them as thou hast who hast bought them. They never so
   truly could be at home with me as they will be at home with thee in
   thine own bosom; so my will dissolves itself into thy will, and I say
   with steadfast resignation, 'Let them go.'"

   Brothers and sisters, you perceive the forces which are bearing away
   our beloved ones. I see tender hands reaching after us this morning;
   they are invisible to sense, but palpable to faith. Cords of love are
   being cast about the chosen, and they are being drawn out secretly from
   their fellows. Would you break those bands asunder, and cast those
   cords from us? I beseech you, think not so; but let that pierced hand
   which bought the beloved ones seek out its own purchase and bring them
   home. Should not Jesus have his own? Do we not bow our knee and pray
   for Jesus, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"

   III. But now I want to conduct you farther into the text. We have had
   the home-word and the home-bringing impetus, and now let us carefully
   note THE HOME CHARACTER. "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast
   given me, be with me where I am." The description is--"They also, whom
   thou hast given me." The Greek is somewhat difficult to translate. The
   translators of the Revised Version were, no doubt, excellent Greek
   scholars, and if they had known a little more English, they might have
   come a little nearer to a perfect translation, but they do not always
   appear to think the common English reader to be worthy of their
   consideration. This is their translation in the present
   instance:--"Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, where I
   am they also may be with me." This, to speak plainly, sounds very like
   nonsense. It is the translation which a boy would present to his tutor
   at school, but it is of small use to the general reader. It is literal,
   no doubt; but literalisms are often another proof that the letter
   killeth. Translators into the English tongue might have contrived to
   have given us words with a meaning in them. I merely quote the version
   to show you that there is here a something in the singular as well as
   persons in the plural. "Father, I will concerning that which thou hast
   given me, that they may be with me where I am." Our Lord looked upon
   those whom the Father gave him as one--one body, one church, one bride:
   he willed that as a whole the church should be with him where he is.
   Then he looked again and saw each of the many individuals of whom the
   one church is composed, and he prayed that each, that all of these,
   might be with him and behold his glory. Jesus never so prays for the
   whole church as to forget a single member; neither does he so pray for
   the members individually as to overlook the corporate capacity of the
   whole. Sweet thought! Jesus wills to have the whole of what he bought
   with his precious blood with him in heaven; he will not lose any part.
   He did not die for a part of a church, nor will he be satisfied unless
   the entire flock which he has purchased shall be gathered around him.

   But while the Lord looks at those whom his Father gave him as one body,
   he looks upon you and me, and each believer here, as a part of that
   great unity, and his prayer is that all of us may be with him. I
   believe that he prays as much for the least as for the greatest, as
   much for Benjamin as for Judah, as much for the despondent as for those
   who are fully assured. The prayer is one of great breadth and
   comprehensiveness, but yet it is not the prayer which those who believe
   in Universalism would put into his mouth. He does not pray that those
   who die unbelievers may be with him where he is, neither does he will
   that souls in hell should one day come out of it and be with him in
   glory. There is no trace of that doctrine in holy writ: those who teach
   such fables draw their inspiration from some other source. The new
   purgatory, in which so many have come to believe, is unknown to Holy
   Scripture. No, our Lord's prayer is distinctly for those whom the
   Father gave him--for every one of these, but for no others. His "I
   will" concerns them only.

   I feel right glad that there is no sort of personal character mentioned
   here, but only--"Those whom thou hast given me." It seems as if the
   Lord in his last moments was not so much looking at the fruit of grace
   as at grace itself; he did not so much note either the perfections or
   the imperfections of his people, but only the fact that they were his
   by the eternal gift of the Father. They belonged to the Father--"thine
   they were." The Father gave them to Jesus--"thou gavest them me." The
   Father gave them as a love token and a means of his Son's
   glorification--"Thine they were and thou gavest them me;" and now our
   Lord pleads that because they were the Father's gift to him he should
   have them with him. Does anybody raise a cavil as to Christ's right to
   have those with him who were his Father's, whom his Father gave him,
   and whom he himself actually took into his own possession? No, they
   ought to be with him, since they are his in so divine a manner. If I
   possess a love-token that some dear one has given me I may rightly
   desire to have it with me. Nobody can have such a right to your
   wedding-ring, good sister, as you have yourself, and are not Christ's
   saints, as it were, a signet upon his finger, a token which his Father
   gave him of his good pleasure in him? Should they not be with Jesus
   where he is, since they are his crown jewels and his glory? We in our
   creature love lift up our hands, and cry, "My Lord, my Master, let me
   have this dear one with me a little longer. I need the companionship of
   one so sweet, or life will be misery to me." But if Jesus looks us in
   the face, and says, "Is thy right better than mine?" we draw back at
   once. He has a greater part in his saints than we can have. O Jesus,
   thy Father gave them to thee of old; they are his reward for the
   travail of thy soul; and far be it from us to deny thee. Though blinded
   by our tears, we can yet see the rights of Jesus, and we loyally admit
   them. We cry concerning our best beloved, "The Lord hath taken away,
   and blessed be the name of the Lord." Does not the text sweetly comfort
   us in the talking away of one and another, since it shows how they
   belong to Christ?

   IV. And now, advancing another step, Christ reveals to us something
   concerning THE HOME COMPANIONSHIP in the glory land. Those who are
   taken away, where are they gone? The text saith, "I will that they also
   whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my
   glory."

   By this language we are impressed with the nearness of the saints to
   Christ in glory--"that they may be with me." Think for a moment: when
   our Lord used these words, and John took them down, the disciples were
   with him. They had left the supper-table where they had feasted
   together. The Master had said, "Arise, let us go hence;" and it was in
   the very midst of them that the Lord Jesus offered this choice prayer.
   Learn, then, that in heaven the saints will be nearer to Christ than
   the apostles were when they sat at the table with him, or heard him
   pray. That was a nearness which might consist only in place, and their
   minds might still be, as they often were, far away from him: but up in
   heaven we shall be one with him in sympathy, in spirit, in conscious
   fellowship. We shall be with Jesus in the closest, clearest, and most
   complete sense. No fellowship on earth can reach to the plenitude of
   the communion which we shall enjoy above. "With him"--"for ever with
   the Lord"--this is heaven. Who would wish to detain from such
   companionship those whom we love?

   Yet do not drop the thought of place, lest you refine away the essence
   of the prayer. Let us see the spiritual clearly, but let us not, on
   that account, make the sense less real, less matter of fact. To the
   prayer that his saints may be with him our Lord added the words, "May
   be with me where I am." Our bodies will rise from the dust, and they
   must occupy a place: that place will be where Jesus is. Even spirits
   must be somewhere, and that somewhere with us is to be where Jesus is.
   We are to be, not metaphorically and fancifully, but really, truly,
   literally with Jesus. We shall enjoy an intense nearness to him in that
   blessed place which the Father has prepared for him, and which he is
   preparing for us. There is a place where Jesus is revealed in all the
   splendor of his majesty, amid angels and glorified spirits; and those
   whom our Lord's will has taken away from us have not gone into
   banishment in a mysterious land, neither are they shut up in a house of
   detention till there is a general jail delivery, but they are with
   Christ in Paradise. They serve him, and they see his face. Who would be
   so cruel as to keep a saint from such a fair country? I would desire
   all good for my children, my relatives, my friends; and what good is
   better than to be where Jesus is? Are you not glad to hear of the
   promotion of those you love? Will you quarrel with God because some of
   your dearest ones are promoted to the skies? The thought of their
   amazing bliss greatly moderates our natural grief. We weep for
   ourselves, but as we remember their companionship with the Altogether
   Lovely One a smile blends with our tears.

   Notice the occupation of those who are with Jesus: "That they may
   behold my glory." I do not wonder that Jesus wants his dear ones to be
   with him for this purpose, since love always pines for a partner in its
   joys. When I have been abroad, and have been specially charmed with
   glorious scenery, I have a hundred times felt myself saying, almost
   involuntarily, "How I wish that my dear wife could be here! I should
   enjoy this a hundred times as much if she could but see it!" It is an
   instinct of affection to seek fellowship in joy. The Lord Jesus is
   truly human, and he feels this unselfish desire of every loving human
   heart, and therefore says, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou
   hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory."
   Our Lord graciously permits his disciples to have fellowship with him
   in his sufferings, and hence he is all the more desirous that they
   should participate in his glory. He knows that nothing will be a
   greater joy to them than to see him exalted; therefore he would give
   them this highest form of delight. Was not Joseph delighted when he
   said to his brethren, "Ye shall tell my father of all my glory in
   Egypt;" and still more so when he could actually show his father how
   great was his power, how exalted was his rank. It is joy to Jesus to
   let us behold his joy, and it will be glory to us to behold his glory.
   Should not the redeemed ascend to such blessed delights? Would you
   hinder them?

   How unselfish it is on our Lord's part to think himself not fully
   glorified till we behold his glory! How unselfish he will make us also,
   since it will be our glory to see his glory! He does not say that he is
   going to take us home, that we may be in glory, but that we may behold
   his glory. His glory is better to us than any personal glory: all
   things are more ours by being his. Glory apart from him were no glory.
   Beloved, even as our Lord seems to lose himself in his people, his
   people hide themselves away in him. It is his glory to glorify them; it
   is their glory to glorify him; and it will be the glory of glories for
   them to be glorified together. Who would not go to this heaven? Who
   would keep a brother out of it an hour?

   Observe the fellowship which exists in the glory land. Read the verse:
   "That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me." What a
   blending of persons! Where did our Lord's glory come from? "Thou gavest
   it me," says Jesus. Hence it is the Father's glory passed over to the
   Son. Yet Jesus calls it "my glory," for it is truly his own. The saints
   are to behold this, and it will be their glory to see it. Here we have
   the Father, and the Elder Brother, and the many brethren, and a
   wonderful communism of interests and possessions. It is ever so in a
   loving family. There we draw no hard and fast lines of meum and tuum.
   "All thine are mine, and mine are thine." We ask not whose is this? or
   whose is that? when we are at home. If you were to go into a stranger's
   house, you would not think of taking this or that; but as your father's
   own son you make yourself at home, and no one enquires, "What doest
   thou?" Bridegroom and bride do not quarrel about property whether it be
   his or hers. Laws have been made lately to settle different estates for
   those who are one: this is well enough when love is gone, but true
   conjugal love laughs at all that can make separate that which God hath
   joined together. The wife says, "That is mine." "No" saith the
   caviller, "it is your husband's." Her answer is, "and therefore it is
   mine." In that blessed union into which divine love has admitted us
   Christ is ours, and we are Christ's; his Father is our Father, we are
   one with him, he is one with the Father: and hence all things are ours,
   and the Father himself loveth us. All this will not only be true in
   heaven, but it will there be realized and acted on. So when the Lord
   brings his people home, we shall be one with him, and he one with the
   Father, and we also in him one with the Father, so that we shall then
   find boundless glory in beholding the glory of our Lord and God. My
   text has baffled me. I am beaten back by its blaze of light. Forgive
   me. I had a thought, but I cannot express it. The fire of my text burns
   with such fervent heat that it threatens to consume me if I draw nearer
   to it. Easily could I step into heaven--so I feel at this moment.

   V. I must end by speaking of THE HOME ATMOSPHERE. None of us can wish
   our departed friends back from their thrones. Since they have gone to
   be where Jesus is, and to enter so fully into the most blissful
   fellowship with him and the Father, we would not have them return even
   for an instant to this poor country. We only wish that our turn for
   migration may come soon. We would not be too long divided from our
   fellows. If some of the birds have gone to the sunny land, let us plume
   our wings to follow them. There will be only a little interval between
   our parting and our everlasting meeting. Look at the many who died
   before we came into the world. Some of them have been in heaven
   together now for thousands of years. To them it must seem that they
   were only divided by a moment's interval; their continents of
   fellowship have made the channel of death seem but a streak of sea.
   Soon we shall take the same view of things.

   Breathe the home atmosphere. Jesus tells us that the atmosphere of his
   home is love: "Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."
   Brethren, can you follow me in a great flight? Can you stretch broader
   wings than the condor ever knew, and fly back into the unbeginning
   eternity? There was a day before all days, when there was no day but
   the Ancient of Days. There was a time before all time, when God only
   was: the uncreated, the only-existent One. The Divine Three, Father,
   Son, and Spirit, lived in blessed consort with each other, delighting
   in each other. Oh the intensity of the divine love of the Father to the
   Son! There was no world, no sun, no moon, no stars, no universe, but
   God alone; and the whole of God's omnipotence flowed forth in a stream
   of love to the Son, while the Son's whole being remained eternally one
   with the Father by a mysterious essential union. How came all this
   which we now see and hear? Why this creation? this fall of Adam? this
   redemption? this church? this heaven? How came it all about? It needed
   not to have been, but the Father's love made him resolve to show forth
   the glory of his Son. The mysterious volume which has been gradually
   unfolded before us has only this one design--the Father would make
   known his love to the Son, and make the Son's glories to appear before
   the eyes of those whom the Father gave him. This Fall and this
   Redemption, and the story as a whole, so far as the divine purpose is
   concerned, are the fruit of the Father's love to the Son, and his
   delight in glorifying the Son. Those myriads, those white-robed
   myriads, harping to music infinitely deep, what mean they all? They are
   the Father's delight in the Son. That he might be glorified for ever,
   he permitted that he should bear a human body, and should suffer,
   bleed, and die, so that there might come out of him, as a harvest
   cometh from a dying and buried corn of wheat, all the countless hosts
   of elect souls, ordained for ever to a felicity exceeding bounds. These
   are the bride of the Lamb, the body of Christ, the fullness of him that
   filleth all in all. Their destiny is so high that no language can fully
   describe it. God only knows the love of God, and all that it has
   prepared for those who are the objects of it.

   Love wraps up the whole in its cloth of gold. Love is both the source
   and the channel, and the end of the divine acting. Because the Father
   loved the Son he gave us to him, and ordained that we should be with
   him. His love to us is love to the Son. "Not for your sakes do I this,
   O House of Israel; be ashamed and be confounded." Because of the
   boundless, ineffable, infinite love of the great Father toward his Son,
   therefore hath he ordained this whole system of salvation and
   redemption, that Jesus in the church of his redeemed might
   everlastingly be glorified. Let our saintly ones go home, beloved, if
   that is the design of their going. Since all comes of divine love, and
   all sets forth divine love, let them go to him who loves them--let
   divine love fulfill its purpose of bringing many sons unto glory. Since
   the Father once made our Lord perfect by his sufferings, let him now be
   made perfectly glorious by the coming up of his redeemed from the
   purifying bath of his atonement I see them rise like sheep from the
   washing, all of them gathering with delight at the feet of that great
   Shepherd of the sheep.

   Beloved, I am lost in the subject now. I breathe that heavenly air.
   Love surrounds all, and conquers grief. I will not cause the
   temperature to fall by uttering any other words but this--Hold your
   friends lovingly, but be ready to yield them to Jesus. Detain them not
   from him to whom they belong. When they are sick, fast and pray; but
   when they are departed, do much as David did, who washed his face, and
   ate, and drank. You cannot bring them back again; you will go to them,
   they cannot return to you. Comfort yourselves with the double thought
   of their joy in Christ and Christ's joy in them; add the triple thought
   of the Father's joy in Christ and in them. Let us watch the Master's
   call. Let us not dread the question--who next, and who next? Let none
   of us start back as though we hoped to linger longer than others. Let
   us even desire to see our names in the celestial conscription. Let us
   be willing to be dealt with just as our Lord pleases. Let no doubt
   intervene; let no gloom encompass us. Dying is but going home; indeed,
   there is no dying for the saints. Charles Stanford is gone! Thus was
   his death told to me--"He drew up his feet and smiled." Thus will you
   and I depart. He had borne his testimony in the light, even when blind.
   He had cheered us all, though he was the greatest sufferer of us all;
   and now the film has gone from the eyes, and the anguish is gone from
   the heart, and he is with Jesus. He smiled. What a sight was that which
   caused that smile! I have seen many faces of dear departed ones lit up
   with splendor. Of many I could feel sure that they had seen a vision of
   angels. Traces of a reflected glory hung about their countenances. O
   brethren, we shall soon know more of heaven than all the divines can
   tell us. Let us go home now to our own dwellings; but let us pledge
   ourselves that we will meet again. But where shall we appoint the
   trysting place? It would be idle to appoint any spot of earth, for this
   assembly will never come together again in this world. We will meet
   with Jesus, where he is, where we shall behold his glory. Some of you
   cannot do this. Turn from your evil ways. Turn to the right, where
   stands that cross, and keep straight on, and you will come to Jesus in
   glory. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Revelation 21:22-27; 22.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--855, 865, 873.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          Jesus Angry with Hard Hearts

   A Sermon

   (No. 1893)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 28th, 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [6]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved
   for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth
   thine hand."--Mark 3:5.

   MY TEXT WILL REALLY CONSIST of these words: "He looked round about on
   them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." It is
   the divine Lord, the pitiful Jesus, the meek and lowly in heart, who is
   here described as being angry. Where else do we meet with such a
   statement while he was here among men? A poor man was present in the
   synagogue who had a withered hand: it was his right hand, and he who
   has to earn his daily bread can guess what it must be to have that
   useful member dried up or paralyzed. In the same synagogue was the
   Savior, ready to restore to that hand all its wonted force and cunning.
   Happy conjunction! The company that had gathered in the synagogue,
   professedly to worship God, would they not have special cause to do so
   when they saw a miracle of divine goodness? I can imagine them
   whispering one to another, "We shall see our poor neighbor restored
   to-day; for the Son of God has come among us with power to heal, and he
   will make this a very glorious Sabbath by his work of gracious power."

   But I must not let imagination mislead me: they did nothing of the
   kind. Instead of this, they sat watching the Lord Jesus, not to be
   delighted by an act of his power, but to find somewhat of which they
   might accuse him. When all came to all, the utmost that they would be
   able to allege would be that he had healed a withered hand on the
   Sabbath. Overlooking the commendation due for the miracle of healing,
   they laid the emphasis upon its being done on the Sabbath; and held up
   their hands with horror that such a secular action should be performed
   on such a sacred day. Now, the Savior puts very plainly before them the
   question, "Is it right to do good on the Sabbath-day?" He put it in a
   form which only allowed of one reply. The question could, no doubt,
   have been easily answered by these Scribes and Pharisees, but then it
   would have condemned themselves, and therefore they were all as mute as
   mice. Scribes most skilled in splitting hairs, and Pharisees who could
   measure the border of a garment to the eighth of an inch, declined to
   answer one of the simplest questions in morals. Mark describes the
   Savior as looking round upon them all with anger and grief, as well he
   might.

   You know how minute Mark is in his record: his observation is
   microscopic, and his description is graphic to the last degree. By the
   help of Mark's clear words you can easily picture the Savior looking
   round upon them. He stands up boldly, as one who had nothing to
   conceal; as one who was about to do that which would need no defense.
   He challenged observation, though he knew that his opposition to
   ecclesiastical authority would involve his own death, and hasten the
   hour of the cross. He did not defy them, but he did make them feel
   their insignificance as he stood looking round upon them all. Can you
   conceive the power of that look? The look of a man who is much given to
   anger has little force in it: it is the blaze of a wisp of straw,
   fierce and futile. In many cases we almost smile at the impotent age
   which looks out from angry eyes; but a gentle spirit, like the
   Savior's, commands reverence if once moved to indignation. His meek and
   lowly heart could only have been stirred with anger by some
   overwhelming cause. We are sure that he did well to be angry.

   Even when moved to an indignant look, his anger ended there; he only
   looked, but spake no word of upbraiding. And the look itself had in it
   more of pity than of contempt; or, as one puts it, "more of compassion
   than of passion." Our Lord's look upon that assembly of opponents
   deserves our earnest regard. He paused long enough in that survey to
   gaze upon each person, and to let him know what was intended by the
   glance. Nobody escaped the searching light which that expressive eye
   flashed upon each malicious watcher. They saw that to him their base
   conduct was loathsome; he understood them, and was deeply moved by
   their obstinacy.

   Note well that Jesus did not speak a word, and yet he said more without
   words than another man could have said with them. They were not worthy
   of a word; neither would more words have had the slightest effect upon
   them. He saved his words for the poor man with the withered hand; but
   for these people a look was the best reply: they looked on him, and now
   he looked on them. This helps me to understand that passage in the
   Revelation, where the ungodly are represented as crying to the rocks to
   cover them, and the hills to hide them from the face of him that sat
   upon the throne. The Judge has not spoken so much as a single word; not
   yet has he opened the books; not yet has he pronounced the sentence,
   "Depart, ye cursed;" but they are altogether terrified by the look of
   that august countenance. Concentrated love dwells in the face of Jesus,
   the Judge; but in that dread day, they will see it set on fire with
   wrath. The wrath of a lion is great, but it is nothing compared with
   that of the Lamb. I wish I had skill to describe our Lord's look; but I
   must ask the aid of your understandings and your imaginations to make
   it vivid to your minds.

   When Mark has told us of that look, he proceeds to mention the mingled
   feelings which were revealed by it. In that look there were two
   things--there were anger and grief--indignation and inward sorrow. "He
   looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness
   of their hearts." He was angry that they should willingly blind their
   eyes to a truth so plain, an argument so convincing. He had put to them
   a question to which there could only be one answer, and they would not
   give it; he had thrown light on their eyes, and they would not see it;
   he had utterly destroyed their chosen pretext for opposition, and yet
   they would persist in opposing him. Evidently it is possible to be
   angry and to be right. Hard to many is the precept "Be ye angry, and
   sin not;" and this fact renders the Savior's character all the more
   admirable, since he so easily accomplished what is so difficult to us.
   He could be angry with the sin, and yet never cease to compassionate
   the sinner. His was not anger which desired evil to its object; no
   touch of malevolence was in it; it was simply love on fire, love
   burning with indignation against that which is unlovely.

   Mingled with this anger there was grief. He was heart broken because
   their hearts were so hard. As Manton puts it, "He was softened because
   of their hardness." His was not the pitiless flame of wrath which burns
   in a dry eye; he had tears as well as anger. His thunder-storm brought
   a shower of pity with it. The Greek word is hard to translate. There is
   what an eminent critic calls a sort of togetheredness in the word; he
   grieved with them. He felt that the hardness of their hearts would one
   day bring upon them an awful misery; and foreseeing that coming grief,
   he grieved with them by anticipation. He was grieved at their hardness
   because it would injure themselves; their blind enmity vexed him
   because it was securing their own destruction. He was angry because
   they were wilfully rejecting the light which would have illuminated
   them with heavenly brightness, the life which could have quickened them
   into fullness of joy. They were thus determinedly and resolutely
   destroying their own souls out of hatred to him, and he was angry more
   for their sakes than his own.

   There is something very admirable in our Savior even when we see him in
   an unusual condition. Even when he grows angry with men, he is angry
   with them because they will not let him bless them, because they will
   persevere in opposing him for reasons which they cannot themselves
   support, and dare not even own. If I had been one of the disciples who
   were with him in the synagogue, I think I should have burned with
   indignation to see them all sitting there, refusing to forego their
   hate, and yet unable to say a word in defense of it. I doubt not, the
   loving spirit of John grew warm. What a horrible thing that any
   creature in the shape of a man should act so unworthily to the blessed
   Son of God, as to blame him for doing good! What a disgrace to our
   race, for men to be so inhuman as to wish to see their fellow-man
   remain withered, and to dare to blame the gentle Physician who was
   about to make him perfectly whole! Man is indeed at enmity with God
   when he finds an argument for hate in a deed of love.

   Our first question is, What was the cause of this anger and this grief?
   Then let us enquire, Does anything of this sort rest in us? Do we cause
   our Lord anger and grief? And, thirdly, let us ask, what should be our
   feeling, when we see that something about us may cause, or does cause
   him, anger and grief? Oh that the Holy Spirit may bless this sermon to
   all who hear me this day!

   I. WHAT CAUSED THIS ANGER AND GRIEF? It was their hardness of heart. To
   use other words, it was the callousness of their conscience their want
   of feeling. Their hearts had, as it were, grown horny, and had lost
   their proper softness. The hand may furnish us with an illustration.
   Some persons have very delicate hands: the blind who read raised type
   with their fingers develop special sensitiveness, and this
   sensitiveness is of great value. But when men are put to pick oakum, or
   break stones, or do other rough work, their hands become hard and
   callous: even so is it with the heart, which ought to be exceedingly
   tender; through continuance in sin it becomes callous and unfeeling.
   Use is second nature: the traveller's foot gets hardened to the way,
   his face becomes hardened to the cold, his whole constitution is
   hardened by his mode of life. Persons have taken deadly drugs by little
   and little till they have been hardened against their results: we read
   in history that Mithridates had used poison till at last he was unable
   to kill himself thereby, so hardened had he become. But hardening is of
   the worst kind when it takes place in the heart. The heart ought to be
   all tenderness; and when it is not, the life must be coarse and evil.
   Yet multitudes are morally smitten with ossification of the heart. Do
   we not know some men in whom the heart is simply a huge muscle? If they
   have any hearts they are made of leather, for they have no pity for
   anybody, no fellow-feeling even for their relatives. God save us from a
   hard heart: it leads to something worse than death! A heart of flesh
   may be gone out of a man, and instead thereof he may have a heart of
   stone: Scripture even calls it "an adamant stone"--unfeeling,
   unyielding, impenetrable, obstinate. Those enemies of our Lord who sat
   in the synagogue that Sabbath-day were incorrigible: they were
   desperately set on hating him, and they strengthened themselves in the
   resolve that they would not be convinced, and would not cease to oppose
   him, let him say or do whatever he might. Our Lord Jesus became angry,
   grieved, and sorrowful with them.

   What was their exact fault?

   First, they would not see, though the case was clear. He had set the
   truth so plainly before them that they were obliged to strain their
   understandings to avoid being convinced: they had to draw down the
   blinds of the soul, and put up the shutters of the mind, to be able not
   to see. There are none so blind as those that will not see, and these
   were of that blindest order; they were blind people that had eyes and
   boasted that they could see, and therefore their sin was utterly
   without excuse. Ah, me! I fear that we have many around us still, who
   know, but do not act on their knowledge; who do not wish to be
   convinced and converted, but harden themselves against known duty and
   plain right.

   What was more, what these people were forced to see they would not
   acknowledge. They sullenly held their tongues when they were bound to
   speak. Does it not happen to many persons that the gospel forces itself
   upon their belief? They feel that they could not conjure up an argument
   against the divine truth which is set before them: the word comes with
   such demonstration that it smites them with sledge-hammer force; but
   they do not intend to admit its power, and so they brace themselves up
   to bear the blow without yielding. They shut their months against the
   water of life which is held up to them in the golden cup of the gospel.
   No child could shut his teeth more desperately against medicine than
   they against the gospel. Any man may take a horse to the water, but ten
   thousand cannot make him drink, and this is proved in many a hearer of
   the word. There sat these Scribes and Pharisees: it is a wonder that
   the stones did not cry out against them, they were so doggedly
   determined not to admit that which they could not deny. Are there none
   of that breed among us still?

   More than that, while they would not see what was so plain, they were
   diligently seeking to spy out flaws and faults where there were none,
   namely, in the Lord Jesus. So there are many who profess that they
   cannot understand the gospel, but they have understanding enough to
   cavil at it, and cast slurs upon it. They have a cruelly keen eye for
   non-existent errors in Scripture: they find this mistake in
   Deuteronomy, and the other in Genesis. What great wisdom, to be
   diligent in making discoveries against one's own eternal interests! The
   gospel of the Lord Jesus is man's only hope of salvation: what a pity
   to count it the height of cleverness to destroy our only hope! Alas for
   captious sceptics! They are sharp-sighted as eagles against themselves,
   but they are blind as bats to those things which make for their peace.
   These Scribes and Pharisees tried to discover the undiscoverable,
   namely, some fault in Jesus, and yet they could not or would not see
   the wickedness of their own opposition to him.

   They dared to sit in judgment upon the Lord, who proved himself by his
   miracles to be divine, and yet all the while they professed great
   reverence for God and for his law. Though they were fighting against
   God, they made the pretense of being very zealous for him, and
   especially for his holy day. This is an old trick of the enemy, to
   fight true religion with false religion, to battle with godliness in
   the name of orthodoxy. This is a hollow sham, and we do not wonder that
   our ever sincere and truthful Lord felt indignant at it. You will know
   yourselves whether you ever do this. I fear that many do. By their zeal
   for the externals of religion they try to justify their opposition to
   the vital possession of it.

   Brethren, I pray that none of us may be hypocrites, for the Lord Jesus
   cannot endure such. He cares not for whitewashed sepulchres, but
   proclaims woe unto all false professors. Here let me give you a
   parable:--In our fine old churches and cathedrals you see monuments
   raised to the dead. These are rich in costly marble and fine statuary,
   with here and there a touch of gold, and a Latin inscription flattering
   the dead. What a goodly show! Yet what does it all mean? Why, that
   corpses are underneath. Take down those marble slabs, remove a little
   earth, and you come to corruption and moving loathsomeness. Graves are
   fitter for cemeteries than for the place which is consecrated to the
   living God. I do not mean by this any censure upon the tombs, which are
   well enough; I only use them as a parable. What shall I say of those
   men and women of whom they are the type and emblem? They are dead while
   they live, and have a form of godliness but deny the power of it; they
   present a fair outside, but secretly practice all manner of
   abominations. What have these to do in the church of God? What a horror
   to know that there are such in the assemblies of the saints! O my
   hearers, dread the hardness which would permit you to be hypocrites!
   Shun above all things that deadness of soul which makes a false
   profession possible, for this is very grievous to the Lord.

   A hard heart is insensible, impenetrable, inflexible. You can no more
   affect it than if you should strike your hand against a stone wall.
   Satan has fortified it, and made its possessor to be steadfast,
   unmovable always abounding in the works of sin. The enmity of such a
   heart leads it to resist all that is good; its hardness returns the
   efforts of love in the form of opposition. Our Savior saw before him
   persons who would oppose him whatever he did, and would not change
   their minds however they might be made to see their error. Let this
   suffice to explain the scene before us of our Lord grieved and angry.

   II. I must now come closer home, while I enquire, IS THERE ANYTHING OF
   THIS SORT AMONG US? Oh, for help in the work of self-examination!

   Remember, we may grieve the Savior because of the hardness of our
   hearts, and yet be very respectable people. We may go to the synagogue,
   as these did; we may be Bible-readers, as the Scribes were; we may
   practice all the outward forms of religion, as the Pharisees did; and
   yet the Lord Jesus may be grieved with us because of the hardness of
   our heart.

   We may anger the Lord, and yet be strictly non-committal. I dare say
   there are some here who are not Christians, and yet they never say a
   word against Christianity. They are strictly neutral. They judge that
   the less they think or say about this great matter the better. Jesus
   was angry that men should be silent when honesty and candour demanded
   speech of them. You must not think you are going to escape by saying,
   "I am not a professor." There can be no third party in this case. In
   the eternal world there is no provision made for neutrals. Those who
   are not with Jesus are against him, and they that gather not with him
   are scattering abroad. You are either wheat or tares, and there is
   nothing between the two. O sirs, you grieve him though you do not
   openly oppose him! Some of you are especially guilty, for you ought to
   be amongst the foremost of his friends. Shame on you to treat the Lord
   so ill!

   You may be very tender towards other people; in fact, you may have,
   like the old Jewish king, great tenderness towards everybody but the
   Lord. Did not Zedekiah say, "The king is not he that can do anything
   against you?" I know many who are so fond of pleasing others that they
   cannot be Christians. They have not the moral courage to oppose any one
   for the truth's sake. O sirs, this may well make Jesus look upon you
   with anger and grief; that you should be so self denying, so kind, and
   so considerate to others, and yet act so cruelly to him and to
   yourselves. To yourselves, it is a cruel kindness, to save yourselves
   from speaking out. Your fear is driving you to spiritual suicide. To
   save a little present trouble you are heaping up wrath and judgment.

   Alas, this hardness of heart may be in us, though we have occasional
   meltings! I think that man has a very hard heart who is at times deeply
   moved, but violently represses his emotions. He hurries home to his
   chamber greatly distressed, but in a short time he rallies, and shakes
   off his fears. He goes to a funeral, and trembles on the brink of the
   grave, but joins his merry companions, and is at his sins again. He
   likes to hear a stirring sermon, but he is careful not to go beyond his
   depth while hearing it. He is on the watch against his own welfare, and
   is careful to keep out of the way of a blessing. By a desperate resolve
   he holds out against the pressure of the grace of God, as it comes to
   him in exhortations and entreaties. He is often rebuked, but he hardens
   his neck; he is occasionally on the verge of yielding, but he recovers
   his evil firmness, and holds on his way with a perseverance worthy of a
   better cause. How often have we hoped better things for some of you!
   How often have you blighted those hopes! You must be very hard in heart
   to hold out so long. It shows a strong constitution when a man has
   frequently been near to death, and yet has recovered; and it shows an
   awful vitality of evil when you have been driven to the verge of
   repentance, and then have deliberately turned back to the way of evil,
   sinning against conscience and conviction.

   Yes, and we may have this hardness of heart, and yet keep quite clear
   of gross sins. I have wondered at some men, how they have guarded
   themselves in certain directions, and yet have been lax in other
   matters. While they have gone to excess in sins against God, they have
   been scrupulous in avoiding wrong towards man. Their sins have not been
   stones, but sand: I hope they do not forget that "sand is heavy," and
   that a vessel can as easily be wrecked upon a quicksand as upon a rock.
   Your outwardly moral man is often a hardened rebel against God. His
   pride of character helps to harden him against the gospel of grace. He
   condemns others who are really no worse than himself. There is an
   abominable kind of prudence which keeps some men out of certain sins:
   they are too mean to be prodigal, too fond of ease to plunge into risky
   sins. Many a man is carried off his feet by a sudden flood of
   temptation, and sins grievously, and yet at heart he may be by no means
   so hardened as the cool, calculating transgressor. Woe unto the man who
   has learned to sin deliberately, and to measure out iniquity as if it
   were a lawful merchandize, to be weighed by the ounce and the pound!
   Why, sir, on account of the evident strength of your mind better things
   are expected of you. You cannot plead violence of passion, or
   feebleness of judgment. For you there will be reserved the deeper hell,
   though you escape present condemnation.

   This hardness of heart may not overcome you to the full at present, and
   yet you may have grave cause to dread it. Hardness of heart creeps over
   men by insensible degrees. The hardest hearted man in the world was not
   so once; the flesh of his heart was petrified little by little. He that
   can now curse and blaspheme once wept for his boyish faults at his
   mother's knee, and would have shuddered at the bare idea of falling
   asleep without a prayer. There are those about us who would give worlds
   to be free from the bondage of habit, so as to feel as once they did.
   Their soul is as parched as the Sahara, it has forgotten the dew of
   tears; their heart is hot as an oven with evil passions, and no soft
   breath of holy penitence ever visits it. Oh that they could weep! Oh
   that they could feel! Repentance is hid from their eyes. There remains
   nothing sensitive about them, except it be the base imitation of it
   which comes over them when they are in a maudlin state through strong
   drink. What calamity can be greater? What can be said of sin that is
   more terrible than that it hardens and deadens? Well did the apostle
   say, "Exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of
   you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

   I cannot forbear saying that among the hardened there are some who may
   be said especially to provoke the Lord. Among these we must mention
   those who, from their birth and education, received an unusually keen
   moral sense, but have blunted it by repeated crimes. Those sin doubly
   who have had double light, and special tenderness of nature. Judge, O
   ye sons of the godly, whether there are not many such among you! Esau
   was all the more a "profane person" because he was a son of Isaac, knew
   something about the covenant heritage, and had certain fine touches of
   nature which ought to have made him a better man.

   This is also true of those who have been indulged by Providence. God
   has dealt with them with wonderful favor; they have continued long in
   good health; they have been prosperous in business; their children have
   grown up around them; they have all that heart can wish; and yet God
   receives from them no gratitude; indeed, they hardly give a thought to
   him. Ingratitude is sure to bring a curse upon the man who is guilty of
   it. Alas, the ungrateful are numerous everywhere! Some who are well
   known to me should have remembered the Lord, for he has granted them a
   smooth path, a full wallet, and sunshine to travel in. If there were an
   honest heart in you, your hearts would cleave to the Lord in deep and
   hearty love. Silken cords of love are stronger with true men than
   fetters of iron are to thieves.

   Let me not forget the obligations of others who have been often
   chastened, for this side of the question has its force also. Certain
   persons have endured many trials, they have often suffered pain of
   body, and have been brought at times to the verge of the grave; they
   have lost the beloved of their eyes with a stroke; they have followed
   their children to the grave: sorrows have been multiplied to them. Yet,
   after all, they are hard of heart. The fire of affliction has not
   softened their iron nature. Why should they be stricken any more? They
   will revolt more and more. The Lord himself cries, "O Ephraim, what
   shall I do unto thee?" Long-suffering fails: mercy is weary. There are
   no more rods to use upon you, as the bullock kicks out against the
   goad, so do you resist the chastening of the Lord God. The Savior looks
   upon all such with that grieving anger of which the text speaks.

   Alas! I dare not omit those towards whom the Savior must feel this
   anger very especially, because they have been the subjects of tender,
   earnest, faithful ministry. I will not say much of my own personal
   ministry, which has been spent for years upon many of you; but
   assuredly if it has not affected you, it is not for want of strong
   desire and intense longing to be of service to your souls. God is my
   witness that I have kept back nothing of his truth. I have never
   flattered you, neither have I occupied this pulpit to make it a
   platform for self-display. I have not shunned to declare unto you the
   whole counsel of God. But, apart from this, certain of you have had the
   tender ministries of a holy mother who is now with God, of a wise
   father who lives still to pray for you, of affectionate teachers who
   instructed you aright, and loving friends who sought your good. Father,
   your child has wooed you. Young man, your newly-converted wife has
   agonized for you, and is agonizing even now. Very select have been the
   agencies used upon you. Choice and musical the voices which have
   endeavored to charm you. If these do not reach you, neither would you
   be converted though one rose from the dead. If Jesus himself were here
   again among men, how could even he reach you? If all the means he has
   already used have failed with you, I know not what is to be done with
   you. The Savior himself will, I fear, leave you; with a look of grief
   and anger he will turn from you because of the hardness of your heart.
   Stay, Lord Jesus, stay a little longer! Peradventure they will be won
   next time. Bid not thy Spirit take his everlasting flight. Do not swear
   in thy wrath that they shall not enter into thy rest, but be patient
   with them yet a little longer, for thy mercy's sake.

   III. We must now close. Oh that my poor pleadings may not have been
   lost upon you! In many things which I have spoken there has been a loud
   voice to many of you; now hear me while I raise the question, WHAT
   SHOULD BE OUR FEELING IN REFERENCE TO THIS SUBJECT?

   First, let us renounce for ever the habit of cavilling. These Scribes
   and Pharisees were great word-spinners, critics, fault-finders. They
   found fault with the Savior for healing on the Sabbath-day. He had not
   broken God's law of the Sabbath, he had only exposed their error upon
   that point. If the Sabbath had not furnished an opportunity for
   objection, they would soon have found another; for they meant to
   object: one way or another, they resolved to contradict. Multitudes of
   persons in this present day are most effectually hardening their hearts
   by the habit of cavilling. While others are struck by the beauty of the
   gospel which they hear, these people only remember a mispronunciation
   made by the preacher. Having commenced in this line they begin to sit
   in judgment on the gospel preached, and before long the Scriptures
   themselves are subjected to their alteration and correction. Reverence
   is gone, and self-sufficience reigns supreme. They criticize God's
   word. Any fool can do that, but only a fool will do it. They give
   themselves the airs of literary men; they are not like common-place
   hearers: they require something more intellectual. They look down with
   contempt upon people who enjoy the gospel, and are proving the power of
   it in their lives. They themselves are persons of remarkable mind; men
   of light and leading, and it gives them distinction to act the part of
   sceptics. They show their great learning by turning up their noses at
   the plain teachings of the Bible. It seems to be the great feature of a
   cultured man nowadays to wear a sneer upon his face when he meets with
   believers in inspiration. An idiot can attain in five minutes to a high
   degree of contempt of others; do not exhibit such folly. Pride of this
   sort ruins those who indulge it. To be unbelieving in order to show
   one's superiority is an unsatisfactory business. Let us never imitate
   that evil spirit, who in the garden of Eden proved himself to be the
   patron and exemplar of all sceptics. Remember how he raised the
   question, "Yea, hath God said?" Forget not how he went further, and,
   like a sage philosopher, hinted that there was a larger hope: "Ye shall
   not surely die," said he. Then he advanced to lay down a daring radical
   philosophy, and whispered, "God doth know that in the day ye eat
   thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods." This
   old serpent has left his trail on many minds at the present day, and
   you can see it in the slimy questions and poisonous suggestions of the
   age. Get away from cavilling: it is of all labors the least
   remunerative.

   Next, let us feel an intense desire to submit ourselves unto the Lord
   Jesus. If he be in the synagogue, let us ask him to heal us, and to do
   it in his own way. Let us become his disciples, and follow him
   whithersoever he goeth. Yield yourselves unto God. Be as melted wax to
   the seal. Be as the water of the lake, which is moved with every breath
   of the wind. All he wills is our salvation. Lord Jesus, let thy will be
   done!

   Let us be careful to keep away from all hardening influences, whether
   of books, or men, or habits, or pleasures. If there be any company
   which deadens us as to spiritual things, which hinders our prayers,
   shakes our faith, or damps our zeal, let us get out of it, and keep out
   of it. If any amusement lessens our hatred of sin, let us never go near
   it; if any book clouds our view of Jesus, let us never read it. We grow
   hard soon enough through the needful contact with the world which
   arises out of work-day life and business pursuits; let us not increase
   these evils. Shun the idler's talk, the scorner's seat, and the way of
   the ungodly. Shun false doctrine, worldliness, and strife. Keep clear
   of frivolity and trifling. Be in earnest, and be pure; live near to
   God, and remove far off from the throne of iniquity.

   Lastly, use all softening influences. Ask to have your heart daily
   rendered sensitive by the indwelling of the quickening Spirit. Go often
   to hear the word: it is like a fire, and like a hammer breaking the
   rock in pieces. Dwell at the foot of the cross it is there that
   tenderness is born into human hearts. Jesus makes all hearts soft, and
   then stamps his image on them. Entreat the Holy Ghost to give you a
   very vivid sense of sin, and a very intense dread of it. Pray often
   according to the tenor of Charles Wesley's hymn, in which he cries--

   "Quick as the apple of an eye,

   O God, my conscience make!

   Awake my soul when sin is nigh,

   And keep it still awake.

   "Oh, may the least omission pain

   My well-instructed soul

   And drive me to the blood again,

   Which makes the wounded whole!"

   If such be the condition of our heart our Lord will not be angry with
   us. He will look round upon us with joy, and take a delight in us.

   So far I have kept to the text, bearing all the while the burden of the
   Lord. If it be not heavy hearing to you, it is certainly painful
   preaching to me. That same love which made the loving Jesus grieved has
   driven me to speak after this fashion. Not that I love men as much as
   he did; but a spark from his fire has kindled in my soul, and is
   burning there according to the measure of grace given. But now, my dear
   hearers, let me indulge myself with a word of gospel. Surely there are
   some among you who desire to lose your hardness. You are crying to
   yourselves--

   "Heart of stone, relent! relent!

   Melt by Jesus' love subdued!"

   To you there is abundant cause of hope. He who made the heart can melt
   it. Job said, "God maketh my heart soft." It is the peculiar office of
   the Holy Spirit to renew our nature; indeed, he makes us to be born
   again, working on the behalf of our Lord Jesus, whose royal word is,
   "Behold I make all things new." The Holy Ghost can work in us
   conviction of sin, the new birth, faith in the Lord Jesus, deep
   contrition, and holy tenderness. Do you desire that it should be so?
   Will you join me in a silent prayer that his melting operations may at
   this moment be felt in your soul?

   To you is the word of this salvation sent. The Lord God has undertaken
   to glorify himself in redeeming his people from all iniquity. He has
   entered into covenant with his chosen, and all who believe in his Son
   Jesus are comprehended in that number. The covenant speaketh on this
   wise: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put
   within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
   I will give you an heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26.) See how this
   promise exactly meets your case! That kind of heart which you so
   greatly need shall be given you, though indeed it is a miracle of
   miracles to do it. A new arm or leg would be a wonder; but what shall
   be said of a new heart? The spirit which you also so greatly require is
   to be bestowed, your whole tone, temper, and tendency shall be altered
   in an extraordinary manner. The Lord can drive out the evil spirit, and
   then he can renew your spirit, and fill your being with his own Holy
   Spirit. As for that nature which refuses to feel or yield, or break or
   bend, the Lord is able to take this altogether away. What an operation
   to perform, and yet leave the patient alive! "I will take away the
   stony heart out of your flesh." None but he that made the heart could
   execute such delicate surgery as this. Do you think that it can never
   be done in your case? Remember that the Lord never speaks beyond his
   line; there is no boasting with him. His arm has not waxed short; he is
   still able to save unto the uttermost. When the old stony heart is
   gone, the Lord can fill up the empty space with the most gentle and
   sensitive affections, even as he says, "I will give you an heart of
   flesh." By this means we shall be made to stand in awe of God's word;
   we shall tremble before him; we shall also feel a childlike gratitude,
   a filial love, and a holy obedience. Instead of needing to be smitten
   with a hammer we shall feel the slightest touch of the divine finger,
   and shall answer to the faintest call of the divine voice. What a
   change!

   Now this is matter of promise. See how the verse glitters with "I
   will," and "I will." The Lord, who is able to perform his word, has
   spoken in this fashion, and he will not run back from his promise. But
   please read the thirty-seventh verse of this thirty-sixth chapter of
   Ezekiel, and mark it well. "Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for
   this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." Will
   you not enquire? Will you not ask the Lord to do this for you? If so,
   your prayer has begun to be answered. Your desire is a token that the
   stone is softening, and flesh is taking its place. O Lord, grant that
   it may be so! Believe in the Lord Jesus that he is able to do this unto
   you, and it shall be according to your faith.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Mark 2:23-28; Hebrews 3:7-19.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--257, 579, 598.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Two Appearings and the Discipline of Grace

   (No. 1894)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 4, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For the Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,
   teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
   soberly, righteously and godly in this present world; looking for that
   blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our
   Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us
   from alliniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
   good works." Titus 2:11-14.

   UPON reading this text, one sees at a glance that Paul believed in a
   Divine Savior. He did not preach a Savior who was a mere man. He
   believed the Lord Jesus Christ to be truly Man, but he also believed
   Him to be God over all and he, therefore, uses the striking words, "the
   glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." There
   is no appearing of God the Father--there is no such expression in
   Scripture! The appearing is the appearing of that second Person of the
   blessed Trinity in unity who has already once appeared and who will
   appear a second time without a sin offering unto salvation in the
   latter days. Paul believed in Jesus as "the great God and our Savior."
   It was his high delight to extol the Lord who once was crucified in
   weakness. He calls Him, here, "the great God," thus specially dwelling
   upon His power, dominion and Glory. And this is the more remarkable
   because he immediately goes on to say, "who gave Himself for us, that
   He might redeem us from all iniquity." He that gave Himself. He that
   surrendered life, itself, upon the accursed tree. He that was stripped
   of all honor and Glory and entered into the utmost depths of
   humiliation was, assuredly, the great God notwithstanding all! O
   Brothers, if you take away the Deity of Christ, what in the Gospel is
   left that is worth preaching? None but the great God is equal to the
   work of being our Savior!

   We learn, also, at first sight, that Paul believed in a great
   redemption. "Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all
   iniquity." That word, "redemption," sounds in my ears like a silver
   bell! We are ransomed, purchased back from slavery and this at an
   immeasurable price--not merely by the obedience of Christ, nor the
   suffering of Christ, nor even the death of Christ, but by Christ's
   giving Himself for us. All that there is in the great God and Savior
   was paid down that He might "redeem us from all iniquity." The splendor
   of the Gospel lies in the redeeming Sacrifice of the Son of God and we
   shall never fail to put this to the front in our preaching! It is the
   gem of all the Gospel gems! As the moon is among the stars, so is this
   great doctrine among all the lesser lights which God has kindled to
   make glad the night of fallen man! Paul never hesitates--he has a
   Divine Savior and a Divine redemption--and he preaches these with
   unwavering confidence. Oh that all preachers were like Paul!

   It is also clear that Paul looked upon the appearing of the Savior as a
   Redeemer from all iniquity as a display of the Grace of God. He says,
   "The Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." In
   the Person of Christ, the Grace of God is revealed, as when the sun
   rises and makes glad all lands. It is not a private vision of God to a
   favored Prophet on the lone mountain's brow, but it is an open
   declaration of the Grace of God to every creature under Heaven--a
   display of the Grace of God to all eyes that are open to behold it!
   When the Lord Jesus Christ came to Bethlehem and when He closed a
   perfect life by death upon Calvary, He manifested the Grace of God more
   gloriously than has been done by creation or Providence. This is the
   clearest Revelation of the everlasting mercy of the living God! In the
   Redeemer we behold the unveiling of the Father's face. What if I say
   the laying bare of the Divine heart? To repeat the figure of the text,
   this is the dayspring from on high which has visited us. This is the
   Sun which has risen with healing in His wings. The Grace of God has
   conspicuously shone forth and made itself visible to men of every rank
   in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. This was not given us because
   of anything deserved on our part--it is a manifestation of free,

   rich, undeserved Grace and of that Grace in its fullness! The Grace of
   God has been made manifest to the entire universe in the appearing of
   Jesus Christ our Lord!

   The grand objective of the manifestation of Divine Grace in Christ
   Jesus is to deliver men from the dominion of evil. The world in Paul's
   day was sunk in immorality, debauchery, ungodliness, bloodshed and
   cruelty of every kind. I have not time, this morning, to give you,
   even, an outline of the Roman world when Paul wrote this letter to
   Titus. We are bad enough, now, but the outward manners and customs of
   that period were simply horrible! The spread of the Gospel has worked a
   change for the better. In the Apostle's days the favorite spectacles
   for holiday entertainment were the slaughter of men--and such was the
   general depravity, that vices which we hardly dare to mention were
   defended and gloried in. In the midnight of the world's history, our
   Lord appeared to put away sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
   manifestation of the Divine Grace to men, came into the world to put an
   end to the unutterable tyranny of evil. His work and teaching are meant
   to lift up mankind at large, but also to redeem His people from all
   iniquity and to sanctify them to Himself as His peculiar heritage.

   Paul looks upon recovery from sin as being a wonderful proof of Divine
   Grace. He does not talk about a kind of Grace that would leave men in
   sin and yet save them from its punishment. No, his salvation is
   salvation from sin. He does not talk about a Free Grace which winks at
   iniquity and makes nothing of transgression, but of a greater Grace by
   far-- a Grace which denounces the iniquity and condemns the
   transgression--and then delivers the victim of it from the habit which
   has brought him into bondage. He declares that the Grace of God has
   shone upon the world, in the work of Jesus, in order that the darkness
   of its sin and ignorance may disappear and the brightness of holiness,
   righteousness and peace may rule the day. God send us to see these
   blessed results in every part of the world! God make us to see them in
   ourselves! May we feel that the Grace of God has appeared to us
   individually! Our Apostle would have Titus know that this Grace was
   intended for all ranks of men--for the Cretans who were "always liars,
   evil beasts, lazy gluttons"--and even for the most despised bond slaves
   who, under the Roman empire were treated worse than dogs. To each one
   of us, whether rich or poor, prominent or obscure, the Gospel has come
   and its design is that we may be delivered, by it, from all ungodliness
   and worldly lusts.

   This being the run of the text, I ask you to come closer to it, while I
   try to show how the Apostle stimulates us to holiness and urges us to
   overcome all evil. Firstly he describes our position. Secondly, he
   describes our instruction. And, thirdly, he mentions our
   encouragements. May the good Spirit bless our meditations at this hour!

   I. First of all, the Apostle in this text describes OUR POSITION. The
   people of God stand between two appearances. In the 11th verse he tells
   us, "The Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men."
   And then he says, in the 13th verse, "Looking for that blessed hope,
   and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus
   Christ." We live in an age which is an interval between two appearings
   of the Lord from Heaven. Believers in Jesus are shut off from the old
   economy by the first coming of our Lord. The times of man's ignorance
   God, winked at, but now He commands all men, everywhere, to repent. We
   are divided from the past by a wall of light upon whose forefront we
   read the words, Bethlehem, Gethsemane and Calvary. We date from the
   birth of the Virgin's Son--we begin with Anno Domini. All the rest of
   time is before Christ and is marked off from the Christian era.
   Bethlehem's manger is our beginning. The chief landmark in all time to
   us is the wondrous life of Him who is the Light of the world! We look
   to the appearing of the Grace of God in the form of the lowly One of
   Nazareth, for our trust is there. We confide in Him who was made flesh
   and dwelt among us, so that men beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the
   Only Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth. The dense
   darkness of the heathen ages begins to be broken when we reach the
   first appearing--and the dawn of a glorious day begins!

   Brothers and Sisters, we look forward to a second appearing! Our
   outlook for the close of this present era is another appearing--an
   appearing of Glory rather than of Grace. After our Master rose from the
   brow of Olivet, His disciples remained for a while in mute
   astonishment. But soon an angelic messenger reminded them of prophecy
   and promise by saying, "You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up
   into Heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven,
   shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven." We
   believe that our Lord, in the fullness of time, will descend from
   Heaven with a shout, with the trumpet of the archangel and the voice of
   God--

   "The Lord shall come! The earth shall quake! The mountains to their
   center shake

   And, withering from the vault of night,

   The stars shall pale their feeble light." This is the terminus of the
   present age. We look from Anno Domini, in which He came the first time,
   to that greater Anno Domini, or year of our Lord, in which He shall
   come a second time, in all the splendor of His power, to reign in
   righteousness and break the evil powers as with a rod of iron!

   See, then, where we are--we are compassed about, behind and
   before--with the appearings of our Lord. Behind us is our trust. Before
   us is our hope. Behind us is the Son of God in humiliation. Before us
   is the great God, our Savior, in His Glory. To use an ecclesiastical
   term, we stand between two Epiphanies--the first is the manifestation
   of the Son of God in human flesh in dishonor and weakness. The second
   is the manifestation of the same Son of God in all His power and Glory!
   In what a position, then, do the saints stand! They have an era all to
   themselves which begins and ends with the Lord's appearing!

   Our position is further described in the text, if you look at it, as
   being in this present world, or age. We are living in the age which
   lies between the two blazing beacons of the Divine appearings and we
   are called to hasten from one to the other. The sacramental host of
   God's elect is marching on from the one appearing to the other with
   hasty feet. We have everything to hope for in the last appearing, as we
   have everything to trust to in the first appearing--and we have now to
   wait with patient hope throughout that weary interval which intervenes!
   Paul calls it, "this present world." This marks its fleeting nature. It
   is present, but it is scarcely future, for the Lord may come so soon
   and thus end it all. It is present, now, but it will not be present
   long. It is but a little time and He who will come shall come and will
   not tarry. Now it is this "present world." Oh, how present it is! How
   sadly it surrounds us!

   Yet, by faith, we count these present things to be unsubstantial as a
   dream and we look to the things which are not seen and not present, as
   being real and eternal! We pass through this world as men on
   pilgrimage. We traverse an enemy's country. Going from one
   manifestation to another, we are as birds migrating on the wing from
   one region to another-- there is no rest for us by the way. We are to
   keep ourselves as loose as we can from this country through which we
   make our pilgrimage, for we are strangers and foreigners and here we
   have no continuing city. We hurry through this Vanity Fair--before us
   lies the Celestial City and the coming of the Lord who is the King
   thereof! As voyagers cross the Atlantic and so pass from shore to
   shore, so do we speed over the waves of this ever-changing world to the
   Glory Land of the bright appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

   Already I have given to you, in this description of our position, the
   very best argument for a holy life. If it is so, my Brothers and
   Sisters, that you are not of the world, even as Jesus is not of the
   world. If this is so, that before you blazes the supernatural splendor
   of the Second Advent and behind you burns the everlasting light of the
   Redeemer's first appearing, what manner of people ought you to be? If,
   indeed, you are but journeying through this present world, suffer not
   your hearts to be defiled with its sins! Learn not the manner of speech
   of these aliens through whose country you are passing! Is it not
   written, "The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among
   the nations"? "Come you out from among them and be you separate, touch
   not the unclean thing," for the Lord has said, "I will be a Father unto
   you and you shall be My sons and daughters."

   They that lived before the coming of Christ had responsibilities, but
   not such as those which rest upon you who have seen the face of God in
   Jesus Christ and who expect to see that face again! You live in light
   which renders their brightest knowledge a comparative darkness! Walk as
   children of Light. You stand between two mornings between which there
   is no evening. The Glory of the Lord has risen upon you, once, in the
   Incarnation and Atonement of your Lord--that Light is shining more and
   more--and soon there will come the perfect day which shall be ushered
   in by the Second Advent. The sun shall no more go down, but it shall
   unveil itself and shed an indescribable splendor upon all hearts that
   look for it!

   "Put on, therefore, the armor of light." What a grand expression!
   Helmet of light, breastplate of light, shoes of light--everything of
   light! What a knight must he be who is clad, not in steel, but in
   light! Light which shall flash confusion on his foes! There ought to be
   a holy light about you, O Believer in Jesus, for there is the appearing
   of Grace behind you and the appearing of Glory before you! Two
   manifestations of God shine upon you. Like a wall of fire, the Lord's
   appearings are round about you--there ought to be a special Glory of
   holiness in the midst. "Let your light so

   shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
   Father which is in Heaven." That is the position of the righteous
   according to my text--and it furnishes a loud call to holiness.

   II. Secondly, I have to call your attention to THE INSTRUCTION which is
   given to us by the Grace of God which has appeared unto all men. Our
   translation runs thus--"The Grace of God has appeared to all men,
   teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
   soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." A better
   translation would be, "The Grace of God that brings salvation has
   appeared to all men, disciplining us in order that we may deny
   ungodliness and worldly lusts." Those of you who know a little Greek
   will note that the word which, in our version, is rendered, "teaching,"
   is a scholastic term and has to do with the education of children--not
   merely the teaching, but the training and bringing of them up. The
   Grace of God has come to be a schoolmaster to us, to teach us, to train
   us, to prepare us for a more developed state. Christ has manifested in
   His own Person that wonderful Grace of God which is to deal with us as
   with sons, to educate us unto holiness and so to the full possession of
   our heavenly heritage. We are the many sons who are to be brought to
   Glory by the discipline of Grace.

   So then, first of all, Grace has a discipline. We generally think of
   law when we talk about schoolmasters and discipline, but Grace, itself,
   has a discipline and a wonderful training power, too. The manifestation
   of Grace is preparing us for the manifestation of Glory. What the Law
   could not do, Grace is doing. The free favor of God instills new
   principles, suggests new thoughts and, by inspiring us with gratitude,
   creates in us love to God and hatred of that which is opposed to God.
   Happy are they who go to the school of the Grace of God! This Grace of
   God entering into us shows us what was evil even more clearly than the
   Commandments do. We receive a vital, testing principle within whereby
   we discern between good and evil. The Grace of God provides us with
   instruction, but also with chastisement, as it is written, "As many as
   I love I rebuke and chasten." As soon as we come under the conscious
   enjoyment of the Free Grace of God, we find it to be a holy rule, a
   fatherly government, a heavenly training. We find not self-indulgence,
   much less licentiousness, but, on the contrary, the Grace of God both
   restrains and constrains us--it makes us free to holiness and delivers
   us from the law of sin and death by "the law of the spirit of life in
   Christ Jesus."

   Grace has its discipline and Grace has its chosen disciples, for you
   cannot help noticing that while the 11th verse says that, "the Grace of
   God that brings salvation has appeared to all men," yet it is clear
   that this Grace of God has not exercised its holy discipline upon all
   men and, therefore, the text changes its, "all men," into, "us."
   Usually in Scripture, when you get a generality, you soon find a
   particularity near it. The text has it, "teaching us that denying
   ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and
   godly, in this present world." Thus you see that Grace has its own
   disciples. Are you a disciple of the Grace of God? Did you ever come
   and submit yourself to it? Have you learned to spell that word,
   "faith"? Have you childlike trust in Jesus? Have you learned to wash in
   the laver of Atonement? Have you learned those holy exercises which are
   taught by the Grace of God? Can you say that your salvation is of
   Grace? Do you know the meaning of that text, "By Grace are you saved
   through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God"? If
   so, then you are His disciples and the Grace of God which has appeared
   so conspicuously has come to discipline you!

   As the disciples of Grace, endeavor to adorn its doctrine. According to
   the previous verses, even a slave might do this. He might be an
   ornament to the Grace of God. Let Grace have such an effect upon your
   life and character that all may exclaim, "Look what Grace can do! Look
   how the Grace of God produces holiness in Believers!" All along I wish
   to be driving at the point which the Apostle is aiming at--that we are
   to be holy--holy because Grace exercises a purifying discipline and
   because we are the disciples of that Grace.

   The discipline of Grace, according to the Apostle, has three
   results--denying, living, looking. You see the three words before you.
   The first is, "denying." When a young man comes to our College, he
   usually has much to unlearn. If his education has been neglected, a
   sort of instinctive ignorance covers his mind with briars and brambles.
   If he has gone to some faulty school where the teaching is flimsy, his
   tutor has, first of all, to fetch out of him what he has been badly
   taught. The most difficult part of the training of young men is not to
   put the right thing into them, but to get the wrong thing out of them!
   A man proposes to teach a language in six months and in the end, a
   great thing is done if one of his pupils is able to forget all his
   nonsense in six years! When the Holy Spirit comes into the heart, He
   finds that we know so much, already, of what it were well to leave
   unknown--we are self-conceited, we are puffed up. We have learned
   lessons of

   worldly wisdom and carnal policy--and these we need to unlearn and
   deny. The Holy Spirit works this denying in us by the discipline of
   Grace.

   What have we to deny? First, we have to deny ungodliness. That is a
   lesson which many of you have great need to learn. Listen to working
   men. "Oh," they say, "we have to work hard. We cannot think about God
   or religion." This is ungodliness! The Grace of God teaches us to deny
   this--we come to loathe such atheism. Others are prospering in the
   world and they cry, "If you had as much business to look after as I
   have, you would have no time to think about your soul or another world.
   Trying to battle with the competition of the times leaves me no
   opportunity for prayer or Bible reading! I have enough to do with my
   day-book and ledger." This also is ungodliness! The Grace of God leads
   us to deny this--we abhor such forgetfulness of God! A great work of
   the Holy Spirit is to make a man godly, to make him think of God, to
   make him feel that this present life is not all, but that there is a
   judgment to come wherein he must give an account before God. God cannot
   be forgotten with impunity. If we treat Him as if He were nothing and
   leave Him out of our calculations for life, we shall make a fatal
   mistake. O my Hearer, there is a God and, as surely as you live, you
   are accountable to Him! When the Spirit of God comes with the Grace of
   the Gospel, He removes our inveterate ungodliness and causes us to deny
   it with joyful earnestness.

   We next deny "worldly lusts," that is, the lusts of the present world
   or age which I described to you, just now, as coming in between the two
   appearings. This present age is as full of evil lusts as that in which
   Paul wrote concerning the Cretins. The lust of the eyes, the lust of
   the flesh and the pride of life are yet with us. Wherever the Grace of
   God comes effectually, it makes the loose liver deny the desires of the
   flesh. It causes the man who lusted after gold to conquer his
   greediness. It brings the proud man away from his ambitions. It trains
   the idler to diligence and it sobers the wanton mind which cared only
   for the frivolities of life. Not only do we leave these lusts, but we
   deny them. We have an abhorrence of those things wherein we formerly
   placed our delight. Our cry is, "What have I to do any more with
   idols?" To the worldling, we say, "These things may belong to you, but
   as for us, we cannot own them. Sin shall no more have dominion over us.
   We are not of the world and, therefore, its ways and fashions are none
   of ours." The period in which we live shall have no paramount influence
   over us, for our truest life is with Christ in eternity and our
   conversation is in Heaven. The Grace of God has made us deny the
   prevailing philosophies, glories, maxims and fashions of this present
   world. In the best sense we are nonconformists. We desire to be
   crucified to the world and the world to us. This was a great thing for
   Grace to do among the degraded sensualists of Paul's day--and it is not
   a less glorious achievement in these times.

   But then, Brothers and Sisters, you cannot be complete with a merely
   negative religion--you must have something positive. And so the next
   word is living--that "we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in
   this present world." Observe, Brethren, that the Holy Spirit expects us
   to live in this present world and, therefore, we are not to exclude
   ourselves from it. This age is the battlefield in which the soldier of
   Christ is to fight. Society is the place in which Christianity is to
   exhibit the Graces of Christ. If it were possible for these good
   Sisters to retire into a large house and live secluded from the world,
   they would be shirking their duty rather than fulfilling it! If all the
   good men and true were to form a select colony and do nothing else but
   pray and hear sermons, they would simply be refusing to serve God in
   His own appointed way. No, you have to live soberly, godly, righteously
   in this world, such as it is, at present! It is of no use for you to
   scheme to escape from it! You are bound to breast this torrent and
   buffet all its waves. If the Grace of God is in you, that Grace is
   meant to be displayed--not in a select and secluded retreat--but in
   this present world. You are to shine in the darkness like a light.

   This life is described in a three-fold way. You are, first, to live
   "soberly"--that is, for yourself. "Soberly" in all your eating and your
   drinking and in the indulgence of all bodily appetites--that goes
   without saying. Drunks and gluttons, fornicators and adulterers cannot
   inherit the Kingdom of God! You are to live soberly in all your
   thinking, all your speaking, all your acting. There is to be sobriety
   in all your worldly pursuits. You are to have yourself well in hand.
   You are to be self-restrained. I know some Brothers who are not often
   sober. I do not accuse them of being drunk with wine, but they are
   mentally intoxicated--they have no reason, no moderation, no judgment.
   They are all spur and no rein. Right or wrong, they must have that
   which they have set their hearts upon. They never look round to take
   the full bearing of a matter. They never estimate calmly--but with
   closed eyes they rush on like bulls. Alas for these unsober people!
   They are not to be depended on--they are everything by turns and
   nothing long. The man who is disciplined by the

   Grace of God becomes thoughtful, considerate, self-contained and he is
   no longer tossed about by passion, or swayed by prejudice. There is
   only one insobriety into which I pray we may fall and, truth to say,
   that is the truest sobriety. Of this the Scripture says, "Be not drunk
   with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." When the
   Spirit of God takes full possession of us, then we are borne along by
   His sacred energy and are filled with a Divine enthusiasm which needs
   no restraint. Under all other influences we must guard ourselves
   against yielding too completely, that thus we may live "soberly."

   As to his fellow men, the Believer lives "righteously." I cannot
   understand that Christian who can do a dirty thing in business. Craft,
   cunning, over-reaching, misrepresentation and deceit are no instruments
   for the hand of godly men! I am told that my principles are too angelic
   for business life--that a man cannot be a match for his fellow men in
   trade if he is too Puritan. Others are up to tricks and he will be
   ruined if he cannot trick them in return! O my dear Hearers, do not
   talk in this way! If you mean to go the way of the devil, say so--and
   accept the consequences. But if you profess to be servants of God, deny
   all partnership with unrighteousness! Dishonesty and falsehood are the
   opposites of godliness! A Christian man may be poor, but he must live
   righteously--he may lack sharpness, but he must not lack integrity! A
   Christian profession without uprightness is a lie! Grace must
   discipline us to righteous living.

   Towards God we are told in the text that we are to be godly. Every man
   who has the Grace of God in him, indeed, and of a truth, will think
   much of God and will seek first the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness. God will enter into all his calculations. God's Presence
   will be his joy; God's strength will be his confidence; God's
   Providence will be his inheritance; God's Glory will be the chief end
   of his being; God's Law the guide of his conversation! Now, if the
   Grace of God, which has appeared so plainly to all men, has really come
   with its sacred discipline upon us, it is teaching us to live in this
   three-fold manner.

   Once more, there is looking, as well as living. One work of the Grace
   of God is to cause us to be "looking for that blessed hope of the
   glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." What
   is that "blessed hope"? Why, first, that when He comes we shall rise
   from the dead, if we have fallen asleep, and that if we are alive and
   remain, we shall be changed at His appearing! Our hope is that we shall
   be approved of Him and shall hear Him say, "Well done, good and
   faithful servant." This hope is not of debt, but of Grace! Though our
   Lord will give us a reward, it will not be according to the Law of
   Works. We expect to be like Jesus when we shall see Him as He is. When
   Jesus shines forth as the sun, "then shall the righteous shine forth as
   the sun in the Kingdom of our Father." Our gain by godliness cannot be
   counted down into the palm of our hand. It lies in the glorious future
   and yet, to faith, it is so near that at this moment I almost hear the
   chariot of the Coming One! The Lord comes and in the coming of the Lord
   lies the great hope of the Believer--his great stimulus to overcome
   evil--his incentive to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord! Oh to
   be found blameless in the day of the manifestation of our Lord! God
   grant us this! Do you not see, Brothers and Sisters, how the discipline
   of the Doctrine of Grace runs towards the separating of us from sin and
   the making us to live unto God?

   III. Lastly, and briefly, the text sets forth certain of OUR
   ENCOURAGEMENTS. I will only briefly hint at them.

   In this great battle for right, truth and holiness, what could we do,
   my Brothers and Sisters, if we were left alone? But our first
   encouragement is that Grace has come to our rescue, for in the day when
   the Lord Jesus Christ appeared among men, He brought for us the Grace
   of God to help us to overcome all iniquity. He that struggles, now,
   against inbred sin has the Holy Spirit within him to help him. He that
   goes forth to fight against evil in other men by preaching the Gospel
   has that same Holy Spirit going with the Truth of God to make it like a
   fire and like a hammer. I would ground my weapons and retreat from a
   fight so hopeless were it not that the Lord of Hosts is with us, the
   God of Jacob is our refuge! The Grace of God that brings salvation from
   sin has flashed forth conspicuously like the lightning which is seen
   from one part of the Heaven to the other--and our victory over darkness
   is insured. However hard the conflict with evil, it is not desperate.
   We may hope on and hope always!

   A certain warrior was found in prayer and when his king sneered, he
   answered that he was pleading with his majesty's august ally. I
   question whether God is the ally of anybody when he goes forth with gun
   and sword, but in using those weapons which are "not carnal, but mighty
   through God to the pulling down of strongholds," we may truly reckon
   upon our august Ally! Speak the Truth of God, man, for God speaks with
   you! Work for God, woman, for God works in you to will and to do of His
   own good pleasure! The appearance of the Grace of God in the Person of
   Christ is

   encouragement enough to those who are under the most difficult
   circumstances and have to contend for righteousness against the
   deadliest odds. Grace has appeared--therefore let us be of good
   courage!

   A second encouragement is that another appearing is coming. He who
   bowed His head in weakness and died in the moment of victory, is coming
   in all the Glory of His endless life! Do not question it, the world is
   not going to darken into an eternal night--the morning comes as well as
   the night and though sin and corruption abound, and the love of many
   waxes cold--these are but the tokens of His near advent who said that
   it would be so before His appearing! The right with the might and the
   might with the right shall be! As surely as God lives, it shall be so.
   We are not fighting a losing battle. The Lord must triumph. Oh, if His
   suffering life and cruel death had been the only appearing, we might
   have feared. But it is not--it is but the first--and the prefatory part
   of His manifestation. He comes! He comes! None can hinder His coming!
   Every moment brings Him nearer! Nothing can delay His Glory! When the
   hour shall strike, He shall appear in the majesty of God to put an end
   to the dominion of sin and bring in endless peace! Satan shall shortly
   be bruised under our feet--therefore comfort one another with these
   words and then prepare for further battle! Sharpen your swords and be
   ready for close fighting! Trust in God and keep your powder dry! This
   must always be our war cry, "He must reign." We are looking for the
   appearing of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ!

   Another encouragement is that we are serving a glorious Master. The
   Christ whom we follow is not a dead Prophet like Mohamed. Truly, we
   preach Christ Crucified, but we also believe in Christ risen from the
   dead, in Christ gone up on high, in Christ soon to come a second time!
   He lives and He lives as the great God and our Savior. If, indeed, you
   are soldiers of such a Captain, throw fear to the winds! Can you be
   cowards when the Lord of Hosts leads you? Dare you tremble when at your
   head is The Wonderful, The Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting
   Father, The Prince of Peace? The trumpet is already at the lip of the
   archangel--who will not play the man? The great drum which makes the
   universe to throb, summons you to action--

   "Stand up, stand up for Jesus,

   You soldiers of the Cross!

   Lift high His royal banner,

   It must not suffer loss."

   His Cross is the old Cross, still, and none can overthrow it.
   Hallelujah, hallelujah to the name of Jesus!

   Then come the tender thoughts with which I finish, the memories of what
   the Lord has done for us to make us holy-- "Who gave Himself for us."
   Special redemption, redemption with a wondrous price--"who gave Himself
   for us." Put away that trumpet and that drum! Take down the harp and
   gently touch its sweetest strings! Tell how the Lord Jesus loved us and
   gave Himself for us. O Sirs, if nothing else can touch our hearts, this
   must--"You are not your own, you are bought with a price."

   And He gave Himself for us with these two objectives--first,
   redemption, that He might redeem us from all iniquity. That He might
   break the bonds of sin asunder and cast the cords of depravity far from
   us. He died--forget not that-- died that your sins might die! He died
   that every lust might be dragged into captivity at His chariot wheels.
   He gave Himself for you that you might give yourselves for Him!

   Again, He died that He might purify us--purify us unto Himself. How
   clean we must be if we are to be clean unto Him. The Holy Jesus will
   only commune with those whom He has purified after the manner of His
   own Nature--purified unto Himself. He has purified us to be wholly His.
   No human hand may use the golden cup, no human incense may burn in the
   consecrated censer. We are purified unto Himself, as the Hebrew would
   put it, to be His segullah--His peculiar possession. The translation,
   "peculiar people," is unfortunate, because, "peculiar," has come to
   mean odd, strange, singular. The passage really means that Believers
   are Christ's own people, His choice and select portion. Saints are
   Christ's crown jewels, His box of diamonds--His very, very, very own!
   He carries His people as lambs in His bosom. He engraves their names on
   His heart.

   They are the inheritance to which He is the heir and He values them
   more than all the universe! He would lose everything sooner than lose
   one of them! He desires that you who are being disciplined by His Grace
   should know that you are altogether His. You are Christ's men. You are
   each one to feel, "I do not belong to the world. I do not belong to
   myself. I belong only to Christ. I am set aside by Him, for Himself,
   only, and His I will be." The silver and the gold are His and the
   cattle upon a thousand hills are His--but He makes small account of
   them--"the Lord's portion is His people."

   The Apostle finishes up by saying that we are to be a people "zealous
   of good works." Would to God that all Christian men and women were
   disciplined by Divine Grace till they became zealous for good works! In
   holiness, zeal is sobriety. We are not only to approve of good works
   and speak for good works, but we are to be red-hot for them! We are to
   be on fire for everything that is right and true. We may not be content
   to be quiet and inoffensive, but we are to be zealous of good works. Oh
   that my Lord's Grace would set us on fire in this way! There is plenty
   offuel in the Church--what is needed is fire! A great many very
   respectable people are, in their sleepy way, doing as little as they
   can for any good cause. This will never do. We must wake up! Oh the
   quantity of ambulance work that Christ's soldiers have to do! One half
   of Christ's army has to carry the other half. Oh that our Brothers and
   Sisters could get off the sick-list!

   Oh that all of us were ardent, fervent, vigorous, zealous! Come, Holy
   Spirit, and quicken us! We may not go about to get this by our own
   efforts and energies, but God will work it by His Grace. Grace given us
   in Christ is the fountainhead of all holy impulse. O heavenly Grace,
   come like a flood at this time and bear us right away! Oh that those of
   you who have never felt the Grace of God may be enabled to believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ as to His first appearing! Then, trusting in His
   death upon the Cross, you will learn to look for His second coming upon
   the Throne of God and you will rejoice in it! Unto His great name be
   Glory forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Love Abounding, Love Complaining, Love Abiding

   (No. 1895)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 11, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But now thus says the Lord that created you, O Jacob, and He that
   formed you O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I ha ve called
   you by your name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I
   will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you:
   when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall
   the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of
   Israel, your Savior: I ga ve Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba
   for you. Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honorable,
   and I have loved you: therefore will I give men for you, and people for
   your life." Isaiah 43:1-4

   "Butyou have not called upon Me, O Jacob, butyou have been weary of Me,
   O Israel. You have not brought Me the small cattle of your burnt
   offerings; neither have you honored Me with your sacrifices. I have not
   caused you to serve with an offering, nor wearied you with incense. You
   have bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled Me
   with the fat of your sacrifices: butyou have made Me to serve with your
   sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities."

   Verses22-24.

   "Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, for you are My servant: I have
   formed you, you are My servant: O Israel, you shall not be forgotten of
   Me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as
   a cloud, your sins: return unto Me, for Ihave redeemed you. Sing, O you
   heavens; for the Lord has done it: shout, you lower parts of the earth:
   break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in
   it: for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and glorified Himself in Israel."
   Isaiah 44:21-23.

   WHEN two Christians met together who were sitting under a very lean and
   starving ministry, one of them comforted his fellow concerning the
   miserable discourse by saying, "Never mind, my Friend, there is not
   much in the sermon, but the text is a feast by itself." So, this
   morning, if my words should seem to be very poor and powerless, what
   fullness there is in these three texts! Here you have a dainty meal of
   three courses. You ought to be well nourished this morning, for I have
   set before you, in these passages of Scripture, quite as much as the
   largest capacity will be able to mark, learn and inwardly digest. Here
   is good pasture for the flock, wherein they may not only feed, but lie
   down! Did you say, "Too much text?" Possibly you might, on other
   occasions, reproach me with having too little of God's Word and too
   much of my own, but there can be no fault the other way--the more of
   the Word of the Lord the better! What is man's word compared with God's
   Word? It is as chaff to the wheat, at worst, and as mere gold-leaf to
   solid bullion at best! Indeed, my word is of no value at all, except as
   it is made up of the essence of the Divine Word. Far better than our
   best exposition is the Word itself--this is the pure light of the
   sun--ours is but a poor candle! Of the Scripture itself we cannot have
   too much. If you derive no other profit from this assembling of
   yourselves together but to have your earnest attention directed to this
   precious part of Holy Writ, if the Spirit of God is with you, your
   meditations will make this a profitable hour!

   Notice concerning these three texts that they are very much alike in
   this respect--they are each addressed to God's people under the names
   of Jacob and Israel. The first text begins, "The Lord that created you,
   O Jacob, and He that formed you, O Israel." And the second is like it,
   "You have not called upon Me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of Me, O
   Israel." And so is the third, "Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for
   you are My servant." The Lord mentions both

   the natural and the spiritual names of His servants--and this He does
   out of love to them. As tender parents will lovingly repeat all their
   children's names, sometimes calling them by one and sometimes by
   another. As different memories arise in their minds, so the Lord
   remembers Jacob, the name of His chosen given him at birth, by which he
   was known as "the supplanter." And then He repeats that higher name of
   Israel, the prevailing prince, which he won in a great spiritual
   struggle when he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and would not let
   Him go. To make sure that the people should know to whom He spoke, the
   Lord calls them both Jacob and Israel. We are so apt to set the promise
   aside for someone else, that it is well to have the full address placed
   at the head of these heavenly telegrams.

   These texts are also like each other, again, from their being, each
   one, overflowing with love. Their manner and their matter differ, but
   their spirit is one. I do not know where the Lord's love is best
   seen--when He declares it and tells of what He has done and is doing
   for His people--or when He laments over their lack of love in return,
   or when He promises to blot out their past sin and invites them to
   return to Him and enjoy His restoring Grace. I trust that I may be
   helped so to handle these words that a sweet fragrance of love shall
   fill this house, as when choice ointment is poured forth. May you
   believe and feel the love of God to you. And then may there arise out
   of your own hearts the perfume of another love, born of the first, and
   like unto it--the love of your renewed hearts towards your God. This
   love is a spark of the eternal flame of God's love for you--may it
   never be quenched!

   I have to set before you Divine Love in three postures. The first text
   represents love abounding; the second text, love lamenting; and the
   third text represents love abiding--remaining constant to its
   objective, notwithstanding all the provocations which have grieved it.

   I. First, we have in our first text, from the first to the fourth
   verses, LOVE ABOUNDING. Come, you that love the Lord, and dwell upon
   His love! Concentrate your thoughts upon this wonderful theme, to which
   I trust you are no strangers, for you live in that love and it is the
   joy of your hearts. Oh for the melting power of the Holy Spirit to make
   us feel it now!

   Love abounding, I said, and I said well, for you will notice, first,
   the time when that love is declared. The first verse begins, "But now,
   thus says the Lord." And when was that? It was the very time when He
   was angry with the nation by reason of their great sins! "Therefore He
   has poured upon him the fury of His anger, and the strength of battle;
   and it has set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned
   him, yet he laid it not to heart." It was a time, then, of special sin
   and of amazing hardness of heart. "It burned him, yet he laid it not to
   heart." When a man begins to burn, he generally feels and cries out. He
   must be far gone in deadly apathy when he is touched with fire and yet
   lays it not to heart. Yet so the text describes the nation.

   Notwithstanding this, however, though His people had so provoked Him,
   and though they were so unfeeling under His chastisement, yet the Lord
   interposes in tones of Grace with a word of infinite compassion. "But
   now, thus says the Lord." It was a time of love with God, though a time
   of carelessness with His people. You expect God's mercy words and love
   words to come to you after your repentance and obedience and so,
   indeed, they do, for the Lord has choice rewards of Grace for those who
   walk with Him in holy fellowship. Yet He restrains not His mercy to our
   good times, but He gives us glimpses of its sunlight in the midst of
   the storm. He sends clear shining after rain. Though He may smite us
   again and again to drive us from our iniquities, yet even then His
   gracious heart overflows with love and He lets fall a word of pity for
   His mourners.

   Notice, next, that the Lord shows His abounding love in these verses by
   the sweetness of His consolations. "But now thus says the Lord that
   created you, O Jacob, and He that formed you, O Israel, Fear not."
   "Fear not" is a little word measured by space and letters, but it is an
   abyss of consolation if we remember who it is that says it and what a
   wide sweep the comfort takes! Fear has torment and the Lord would cast
   it out. Fear keeps us away from Him and so He would chase it quite
   away. "Fear not," He says. As much as to say--I smite you, but fear not
   that I will destroy you. I chasten you for your sin, but fear not that
   I will disown you, for you are Mine. My countenance is dark with anger
   against your iniquities, but still fear not, for my wrath against your
   sin is but a form of My love to you--

   "In love I correct you, your gold to refine, To make you at length in
   My likeness to shine." You that are the people of God may at this hour
   be smarting, crying and sighing. But, oh the love of God to you! He
   hears your cries and His compassions are moved towards you. Nothing
   touches Him like the groans of His children! Per-

   haps you have brought this evil upon yourself by your own fault and you
   know it--but the Lord is ready to put away your sin and make the bones
   which He has broken to rejoice!

   The consolations of God are small with you because there is some secret
   wickedness with you, but, having revealed to you this wrong and having
   subdued your heart by His Spirit, He now speaks to you as to one whom
   his mother comforts, and He says, "Fear not." Be not broken down with
   slavish fear. Do not imagine that the Lord has changed towards you. Do
   not dream that His promises will fail, or that His mercy is clean gone
   forever, so that He will be favorable no more. He knows your sin and He
   has visited you for it, but still, "Fear not, for even this is a token
   that He has not given you up to perish in your sins." He has redeemed
   you and, therefore, He will purify you to Himself. He will never cast
   you away. Is it not considerate love on the Lord's part that He would
   not even have His children endure a fear? He not only removes our
   dangers, but He soothes our fears! He bends over us and cries, "Let not
   your hearts be troubled." He sends the Holy Spirit to be the Comforter
   and chase all our fears away. There is a wonderful intensity of
   affection in this passage spoken, as it is, by the great God to His
   people while they are under the rod which they so richly deserve.

   Again, notice that the fullness of God's love is to be seen in the way
   in which He dwells with evident satisfaction upon His past dealings
   with His people. When we love some favored one, we like to think of all
   our love passages in years gone by--and the Lord so loves His people,
   that even when they are under His chastening hand--He still delights to
   remember His former loving kindnesses. We may forget the wonders of His
   Grace, but He does not! He says, "I remember you, the love of your
   espousals, when you went after Me in the wilderness." If He remembers
   our poor love, you may be sure that He does not forget His own! In His
   heart He stores up the memory of all His works of Grace towards His
   chosen. See how He puts it--"Thus says the Lord that created you, O
   Jacob, and He that formed you, O Israel." He regards His people as the
   work of His own hands. He puts it twice over--He claims not only to
   have created the materials of the nation, but to have formed them into
   a people. The great Potter created our clay and then fashioned it with
   infinite skill! Both as to body and soul, we are fearfully and
   wonderfully made by the Lord our God.

   The Lord thinks upon you as His dear people and remembers how He
   created you--and how He new-created you-- how, by His infinite Grace,
   He made you new creatures in Christ Jesus and how He has gone on, by
   His Spirit, to fashion you and mold you to His will, so that you are
   becoming more and more like His dear Son. The Lord mentions this to
   show His exceeding love. He has respect unto the work of His own hands.
   He that has made you with so much care will not break you! He will not
   abhor that which His infinite compassion has fashioned. In His great
   love, He dwells upon His relationship to us as our Maker and says, "I
   created you, I formed you." This is as true of our second creation as
   of the first. The Lord flashed into our soul the first ray of
   repentance! He created in us the first look of faith! He worked in us
   the first dew of love and because of this Grace-work He turns in love
   to us and remembers us still!

   Then the Lord passes on to speak of His redemption of His people,
   saying, "I have redeemed you." Oh, the fullness of Divine Love which
   led the Lord to redeem His people and then to speak of that deed with
   pleasure! He brought them out of Egypt, redeemed by the blood of the
   Paschal Lamb and, in our case, He has brought us out of sin and death
   by the blood of the Only Begotten. The Lord does not regret that He
   paid such a price for such poor worthless things, but He glories in it.
   "I have redeemed you." Our Lord Jesus remembers the agony we cost Him.
   He cannot leave those to perish in their sins, whom He has ransomed
   with His own life! O poor backslider! The broad arrow of the King is on
   you--He cannot let His enemy rob Him of His purchase! Shall the prey be
   taken from the mighty? Shall Jesus fail to see of the travail of His
   soul? Picture in your mind, this morning, the Christ of God looking at
   the print of the nails in His hands and feet, viewing those marks with
   satisfaction and then, with equal satisfaction, looking upon us who are
   His ransomed ones, a heritage purchased unto Himself. He cannot be
   weary of us, for He dwells upon what He has done for our redemption! He
   chose us for His love and then loved us for His choice! He redeemed us
   because He loved us and now He loves us because He redeemed us!

   Moreover, he adds, "I have called you by your name." He did so to that
   nation, but we will dwell, rather, at this time, upon His having
   personally called us to Himself. Oh the love which shines in our
   effectual calling! It must burn on forever! There was a day and we can
   never forget it, when the Gospel of God came to us with a pointed and
   personal power such as we never felt before. Like as Mary Magdalene did
   not know the Savior until He said unto her, "Mary," so we did not know
   the Lord until He called us by our name! Surely, no love-call with
   which our mother awakened us in the morning from the happy sleep of
   childhood was ever more distinct than the call of God's Grace to us
   when He spoke to us

   and said, "Seek you My face." Blessed was the day when our heart
   replied, "Your face, Lord, will I seek." The Lord appeared of old unto
   us. He knew our name, for He called us by it, and He knew how to reach
   our hearts by convicting us of secret sin--He sent His servants to
   describe our character and to say to us, as Nathan to David, "You are
   the man." We could not mistake the personal appeal which fastened cords
   of love about us and drew us till we ran to Him who called us! As the
   Lord of old said to little Samuel, "Samuel, Samuel," and he answered,
   "Here am I," so has God said to some of us, as clearly as if we had
   heard it with our ears, "Come to Me," and we have come to Him! He is
   pleased to remember that He has called us by our name and this shows
   that He does not repent of having called us.

   Observe, also, how He dwells upon His possession of His people. "You
   are Mine," He says. The Lord God was not ashamed to acknowledge His
   Israel and, now, Jesus is not ashamed to call us Brethren! The Father
   is not ashamed to call us children and the Spirit of God is not ashamed
   to call our bodies His temples! "I have called you by your name; you
   are Mine." Have you forgotten that you are the Lord's? Yet does He not
   forget that you are His! You may be false to your covenant and steal
   away from God, but He has set His mark upon you and you can never
   obliterate it! He claims you, still, notwithstanding all your wandering
   and your forgetfulness--and He joyfully asserts His property in you. "I
   have called you by your name; you are Mine." He defies all comers to
   take from Him those whom He did foreknow by name and whom He,
   therefore, called! Behold the fixity of Divine Love and the warmth of
   heart which causes the Lord to dwell upon His past loving kindnesses!
   Does not this bring tears to your eyes?

   If you desire to see the overflowing of God's love in another form,
   notice in the next verse how He declares what He means to do. He says,
   "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the
   rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire,
   you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." His
   love casts its eye upon your future! The Lord does not promise you that
   you shall never go through the waters, nor pass through the fires. He
   loves you too well to make your way to Heaven free from adversity and
   tribulation, for these things work your lasting good. You will have to
   go through fire and through water on your way to Glory. But He does
   promise you this--that the deepest waters shall not overflow you and
   the fiercest torrents shall not drown you, for this one all-sufficient
   reason--that He will be with you. When you come to the fires, however
   terrible their flames, they shall not consume you. No, they shall not
   even kindle upon you. Like the three holy children in the furnace, not
   even the smell of fire shall pass upon you because His Presence shall
   preserve you to the end.

   Oh the love of God, that in the foresight of every grief and every
   sorrow that can ever befall His children, He pledges Himself never to
   forsake them! He pledges His word that He will be at their side in
   every trying hour and this word He pledges to them even though He has
   felt bound to chasten them. He says, "Fear not, I am with you; be not
   dismayed, I am your God." He has said, "I will never leave you nor
   forsake you," come life, come death, come temptation, come poverty,
   come sickness, come assault of Satan, come whatever may from Heaven, or
   earth, or Hell, the Lord has promised that He will bear you through and
   preserve you to His Kingdom and Glory. Oh the Perseverance, the
   Omnipresence, the Omnipotence of Divine Love! Who is he that shall
   measure the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God?
   Nothing can separate us from it and nothing can harm us while we abide
   under its shadow! O cold hearts, do you not feel the warmth of this
   marvelous love?

   Still this is not all. The overflowing of Divine Love is seen in the
   Lord's avowing Himself, still, to be His people's God--"I am Jehovah
   your God," He says, "the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." God gives
   Himself to you, Beloved. What a gift! He endows us not merely with
   Heaven and earth, things present, and things to come--nor even with the
   half of His Kingdom--but He gives us Himself! He says, "I will be their
   God." He bids us call Him, "Our Father." All that God is, He gives to
   His chosen and lays Himself out for their salvation. "I am Jehovah your
   God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Oh, how He must love us and
   with what boundless affection must He regard us, when He counts Himself
   to be none too great a portion to bestow on us!

   Though one would think He might have come to a close here, the Lord
   adds His valuation of His people. This was so high that He says, "I
   gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you." To save Israel,
   He plagued Egypt! Fast and heavy were His blows, until He smote all the
   first-born of Egypt, the chief of all her strength! Pharaoh and his
   firstborn were nobodies as compared with Jacob's seed! Further on in
   history, after Isaiah's day, the Lord moved Cyrus to set Israel free
   from Babylon, and then gave to the son of Cyrus a rich return for
   liberating the Jews, for He made him conqueror of Egypt and of Ethiopia
   and of Seba. God will give more than the whole world to save His
   Church, seeing He

   gave His only begotten Son! He seems to say to each one of you, "I give
   everything for you: I value you so much, that all things else shall be
   as nothing to Me so long as I can bless and save you." It has certainly
   been so with some of us--all Providence has lent itself to promote our
   welfare--the angels of God have been our servants and the Spirit of God
   has been our Guide and Teacher. We cannot avoid seeing how great events
   have been made subordinate to the good of persons so insignificant--how
   the Lord has even bowed the heavens that He might come down to our
   rescue!

   Then the Lord adds another note of great love. He says that He has
   thought so much of His people that He regarded them as
   honorable--"Since you were precious in My sight, you have been
   honorable, and I have loved you." He publishes His love, not only by
   His deeds, but by express words. I cannot pronounce these words as
   God's Prophet must have spoken them, much less as God, Himself, would
   speak them. What a wealth of Grace is here! They were poor Israelites
   and they had been very guilty--and so they had dishonored
   themselves--but the Lord says, "Since you were precious in My sight,
   you have been honorable." What an honor the Lord puts upon those who
   believe in Jesus! "Unto you that believe, He is honor." I have known
   those that have fallen into great sin and have been made dishonorable,
   thereby, but when Grace has renewed them, they have been pure and holy
   and honorable, made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the
   saints in light! Blood-washed sinners are Heaven's right-honorables!
   Men and women renewed by God's Grace are the courtiers of Heaven, the
   peers of the Divine Kingdom! What love is that which has made us heirs
   of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ!

   Such is the Lord's love, that even in the time when they were not
   acting as they should, but grieving Him, He stands to His love of them
   and sets the same value on them as before--"Since you were precious in
   My sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you: therefore will
   I give men for you, and people for your life." As if He said, "What I
   have done I will do again. My love is unalterable. I will give the same
   price for you as of old, if it is necessary." Remember how it is said
   of the Lord Jesus, "having loved His own which were in the world, He
   loved them to the end"? Notwithstanding all their ill-manners He was
   still their Savior! And it is so with Jehovah, the Covenant God of
   Israel--having loved us until now with love so wonderful, He holds to
   it despite everything which might have turned away His heart. He
   declares, "You have been honorable, and I have loved you; therefore
   will I give men for you, and people for your life."

   Thus, in a very sorry way, I have skimmed the surface of this great sea
   of love. I beg you, now, to follow me while we listen to Divine Love as
   it speaks in quite another tone.

   II. Our second text is in the minor key, it is LOVE LAMENTING--"But you
   have not called upon Me, O Israel" (v. 22). Observe the contrast, for
   it runs all through and may be seen in every sentence--I have called
   you by your name; but you have not called upon Me, O Israel. I have
   called you Mine; but you have been weary of Me. I have redeemed you
   with a matchless price; but you have bought Me no sweet cane with
   money. You can work out the contrast yourself and you will find it most
   remarkable. I cannot tarry to go into detail.

   Israel rendered little worship to God. She gave the Lord little prayer
   and little praise. Come, Brothers and Sisters, I will bring no
   accusations against you, but I will make confession of sin for myself.
   When we think of God's delight in us and His love to us, is it not
   shameful that we should have been so seldom engaged in devotion towards
   Him? Oh, how slack we have often been in private prayer! How hurried,
   how superficial! How little of praise have we brought. Now and then a
   hymn, but this only when we were in the public congregation! How little
   of secret praise and reverent adoration have we rendered! The Lord has
   done great things for us and heaped honor upon us, but how seldom has
   His name been joyously upon our tongue! How little have we spoken of
   Him or to Him! It takes a world of trouble to drive some of God's
   children to their Father--they live without Him and are tolerably
   comfortable! And even when darkness lowers, they are slow to run to
   Him. Alas, they hasten to some human friend instead of returning at
   once to Him who has dealt so bountifully with them! I am not going to
   dwell upon this because tender hearts will only need a hint. It we
   grieve those whom we greatly love, they have only to drop half a word
   and we see their drift at once and endeavor to amend. If we have no
   love in our hearts, what is the use of a lengthened accusation? It will
   only embitter and harden. Brothers and Sisters, may not the Lord of
   Infinite Mercy justly say to some of us, "But you have not called upon
   Me, O Jacob"?

   Notice, next, that there has been little fellowship, for the Lord goes
   on to say, "You have been weary of Me, O Israel." The Lord has
   delighted in us, for He joyously recounts His dealings towards us,
   saying, "I have created you and formed you. I have redeemed you and
   called you, and made you Mine." If He had been weary of us, we need not
   have wondered--but we ought to blush and be silent for shame because we
   have wearied of Him! Brothers and Sisters, are we

   tired of our God? If not, how is it that we do not walk with Him from
   day to day? Really spiritual worship is not much cared for in these
   days, even by professing Christians! Many will go to a place of worship
   if they can be entertained with fine music, or grand oratory. But if
   communion with God is the only attraction, they are not drawn thereby.
   They can spend many an evening where all sorts of levity and nonsense
   waste the hour, but when do they spend an evening with their God? If
   some of you had ever done such a thing, it would be marked down in your
   diaries as a wonder! Can any of you say, "I did once spend a night with
   God?" Is it not, then, true, "You have been weary of Me"? Alas, some of
   my hearers have never spoken with God in all their lives! They are not
   on speaking terms with Him--they do not know Him! Small wonder is it
   that you do not believe in Him--he only truly believes in God who has
   come to know Him. He that lives with God and walks with God, has no
   questions or doubts about His existence--he has risen long ago above
   that wretched state of mind. God grant that any of you who are weary at
   the very mention of eternal things may be delivered from your
   earth-bondage and made to rejoice in the Lord!

   We are moved by this passage to confess how little of spirituality has
   been found in the worship which we have rendered. "You have not honored
   Me with the sacrifices." When we have come to worship in public and in
   private, we have not honored the Lord by being intense in it. The heart
   has been cold, the mind has been wandering. Often we have the posture
   of devotion without devotion; the words of praise without the praise;
   the language of prayer without supplication; attendance at the Lord's
   Supper without communion. Ah me! How hosannas languish on our tongues!
   How nearly our devotion dies! Let us repent and pray for better things.

   Again, the Lord mentions that His people have brought Him little
   sacrifice. "You have not brought Me the small cattle of your burnt
   offerings; you have bought Me no sweet cane with money: neither have
   you filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices." Everything we have, God
   has given us--and He has given to us far beyond our deserts or even our
   expectations! What small returns we have made! In the religion of
   Christ there is no taxation. Everything is of love. It spoils our gifts
   if we give because we must--it is the voluntariness of what we do for
   Christ that is the excellence of it. Under the old Law there was a
   certain tithe to pay, but the devout who loved their God were not
   content with this-- they, of their own accord, bought sweet cane with
   honey and gave it for the making of incense to be used upon the altar
   of the Lord. Saints of those times denied themselves luxuries that they
   might have the high joy of contributing to the worship of the Lord whom
   they loved. Some saints do this, now, and find great delight in it,
   even as Mary delighted to pour the very precious ointment from her
   alabaster box upon the head of the Well-Beloved. Alas, how little have
   some done in this direction! I will not dwell upon it, for, as I have
   already said, a hint is all that is needed by a loving heart. Yet is it
   not sadly true that many offer to the Lord only that which costs them
   nothing? If it comes to making sacrifices for the Truth's sake, they
   will have nothing to do with it.

   Once more, it is said that we have been very slack in our consideration
   of our God. The Lord says, "I have not caused you to serve with an
   offering, nor wearied you with incense; but you have made Me to serve
   with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities." The Lord is
   thoughtful of us, but we are not thoughtful towards Him. He considers
   our feelings, but we treat Him with heartless brutishness. God has made
   us honorable, but we have not made Him honorable. He has treated us as
   dear friends, but we have made a servant of Him--made Him to serve with
   our sins. Many treat the Lord as if it was most fit that He should be
   forgotten. They profess to believe in Him and yet live atheistical
   lives, unmindful of His Presence, not regarding His Law. Doubtless many
   come into His courts unwashed and defiled, having forgotten to seek
   cleansing through the Atonement of His dear Son. They dare to stand
   before a holy God in their willful unholiness! Beloved, is it not so?
   Have not even those who are His people too often spoiled their praises,
   their prayers and their secret devotions by a lack of preparedness of
   heart and cleansing of spirit? Let this question go round and he that
   has the most renewed mind will be the most likely to accuse himself.

   I must not fail to remind you that I commenced by declaring that in
   each of the three voices of the Lord the tone was always that of love.
   If the Lord did not love us very much, He would not care so much about
   our love towards Him. Only true love knows how to burn with jealousy.
   How greatly God must love me, since I see that He desires to have my
   whole heart! What condescending tenderness that the Lord of Glory
   should complain, "You have bought Me no sweet cane with money!" It is
   the plaint of love! Remember, the Lord does not need our sweet canes
   nor our money. "The silver and the gold are His, and the cattle upon a
   thousand hills." He says to His enemy, "If I were hungry I would not
   tell you." He needs nothing at our hands. But when He chides us for
   withholding our love-tokens, it is because He values our love and

   is grieved when it grows cold. Yonder father does not need anything of
   his child and yet, when his birthday comes round, and there are
   whispers all over the house and little contributions that something may
   be given to dear Father, he is greatly pleased! He is more charmed with
   the little ones' trifling gifts than with the gold he wins on the
   Exchange! It is sweet to live in the thoughts of those we love. You
   that are blessed with happy domestic life, you know that in these
   matters you do not look for bare duty, but the free suggestions of love
   bear the palm. It is because the Lord loves us so much that He bemoans
   our lack of grateful affection and sadly mourns--"You have not called
   upon Me, O Jacob; you have been weary of Me, O Israel."

   What has the Lord done that we should treat Him so? O Brothers and
   Sisters, let us mend our ways! Surely we have treated everybody better
   than our God. In Him we live and move and have our being and yet, by
   the way we act, one would think we had never heard of Him! He has loved
   us with an everlasting love and dealt with us in amazing mercy-- and
   yet we are ungrateful and cold. Well may we smite upon the breasts
   which harbor such stony hearts and pray that the Holy Spirit may
   inspire us with ardor of love to Him who loved us and gave Himself for
   us! God bless these words to you, dear Brethren, by His Grace!

   III. I have now to finish with my third text, which I felt bound to
   take, lest I should conclude with mourning and lamentation. Our third
   text exhibits LOVE ABIDING.

   Notice, in the 21st verse of the 44th chapter, how the Lord still calls
   His people by the same name. "Remember these, O Jacob and Israel."
   Still are the names of His elect like music in the ears of God. One
   would have feared that He would have dropped the, "Israel," that
   honorable name which came of prevailing prayer, since they had not
   called upon Him. Why call him a prevailing prince, who had grown weary
   of his God? We would not have marveled if the Lord had only called them
   by their natural and carnal name of Jacob. But no, He harps upon the
   double title--He loves to think of His Beloved as what they were and
   what His Grace made them. O heir of Heaven, God still loves you! God
   still earnestly remembers you! Jehovah Jesus wears upon His
   breast-plate the names of His people and He has not torn one of the
   gems from its setting, neither has He erased a single name of Reuben,
   Simeon, Gad, or Levi from its jewel! Your name is still upon the palms
   of His hands! If nothing has touched you before, this ought to awaken
   your conscience and melt your heart! O, child of God, your God
   remembers you! He still calls you by name and acknowledges you as His!

   Notice in the text how the Lord claims His servants. "You are My
   servant: I have formed you; you are My servant." He has not discharged
   us, though He has had cause enough for doing so. How often have I
   prayed, "Dismiss me not from Your service, Lord," when I have seen the
   faultiness of my obedience! I dwell with supreme pleasure upon that
   sweet assurance, "You are My servant; you are My servant." He has not
   turned us out of doors, nor given us our wages and said, "Be packing, I
   shall never make My money's worth of you." I am sure He will never part
   with us, now, for if He meant to do so, He would have done it long ago!
   When we grow old and gray-headed, He will not send us off, as so many
   firms have lately done with old servants who had given them their youth
   and their manhood. No, the Lord will not cast off His people! Even to
   gray hairs He is the same. This should bind us to Him. This should
   quicken our pace in His service. This should make us eager and earnest
   to show forth His praise.

   Then notice how the Lord assures us in the next line, "O Israel, you
   shall not be forgotten of Me." God cannot forget His chosen! You that
   have Bibles with margins will find that it is also written there, "O
   Israel, forget not Me." The Lord longs to be remembered by us. Did not
   our loving Lord institute the sacred Supper to prevent our forgetting
   Him! Oh hear Him at that table of fellowship tenderly saying, "Do not
   forget Me!" Let us each one cry, "We will remember You!" Can you, O
   heir of immortality, forget Him who died for you? Can you forget Him
   that gives you eternal life? You who come forth from God's own love,
   begotten unto a lively hope by the Father's Grace, you can not forget
   Him by whom you live. Let us think of our Lord's memory of us and of
   His desire that we should remember Him--and then let our love flame
   forth.

   Notice with delight the triumph of love, how He still pardons. "I have
   blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud,
   your sins." I have seen the clouds come hurrying up, driven by the
   wind. They were black as night in the distance and, for a while, they
   spread darkness around us. Soon, however, drops of rain have fallen,
   for an April shower has come and the clouds, where were they? Not a
   vestige remained! The clouds were blotted out, the sky was blue and all
   things glittered in the sunlight as if hung with pearls! Thus our God
   beholds our sins gathering like clouds. He cannot endure them--He
   sweeps them away--no trace is left! "As far as the east is from the
   west, so far has He removed

   our transgressions from us." Child of God, your Lord forgives you! If
   you are ashamed and confounded for all your shortcomings, He has put
   them all away. Therefore return unto your God! Return to your first
   love! Return to all your former joy and rise to a still higher joy!

   See how our text closes with the Lord's own precept to be glad. "Sing,
   O you heavens; for the Lord has done it: shout, you lower parts of the
   earth: break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every
   tree in it: for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and glorified Himself in
   Israel." Out of all dejection, arise! Out of all sorrow, soar aloft!
   There is more cause for gladness than for sorrow! What you have done
   should cause distress of heart, but what the Lord has done is cause for
   rapture! Heaven and earth help you to praise! The mountains join in
   your music! The trees of the forest sing out in harmony with your
   delight! Infinite love has drowned your sins! Almighty Grace restores
   your wanderings! Eternal mercy establishes your goings! Oh for a
   well-tuned harp! Oh to be taught some flaming sonnet of pure spirits
   who are before the Throne of God!

   Wait a while and be not weary. Love the Lord, here, and so prepare for
   beholding Him above. Live after the manner which the whole theme
   suggests. What manner of persons ought we to be who are so supremely
   loved! To the glorious name of Jehovah, the God of Love, be Glory
   forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Three Hours of Darkness

   (No. 1896)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 18, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the
   ninth hour." Matthew 27:45.

   FROM nine till noon the usual degree of light was present, so that
   there was time enough for our Lord's adversaries to behold and insult
   His sufferings. There could be no mistake about the fact that He was
   really nailed to the Cross, for He was crucified in broad daylight. We
   are fully assured that it was Jesus of Nazareth, for both friends and
   foes were eyewitnesses of His agonies--for three long hours the Jews
   sat down and watched Him on the Cross, making jests of His miseries. I
   feel thankful for those three hours of light, for otherwise the enemies
   of our faith would have questioned whether, in very deed, the blessed
   body of our Master was nailed to the tree and would have started false
   rumors as many as the bats and owls which haunt the darkness! Where
   would have been the witnesses of this solemn scene if the sun had been
   hidden from morn till night? As three hours of light gave opportunity
   for inspection and witness-bearing, we see the wisdom which did not
   allow it to close too soon.

   Never forget that this miracle of the closing of the eye of day at high
   noon was performed by our Lord in His weakness. He had walked the sea,
   raised the dead and healed the sick in the days of His strength, but
   now He has come to His lowest--the fever is on Him--He is faint and
   thirsty. He hangs on the borders of dissolution. Yet He has power to
   darken the sun at noon! He is still very God of very God--

   "Behold, a purple torrent runs

   Down from His hands and head!

   The crimson tide puts out the sun!

   His groans awake the dead!"

   If He can do this in His weakness, what is He not able to do in His
   strength? Fail not to remember that this power was displayed in a
   sphere in which He did not usually put forth His might. The sphere of
   Christ is that of goodness and benevolence and, consequently, of light.
   When He enters the sphere of making darkness and of working judgement,
   He engages in what He calls His strange work. Wonders of terror are His
   left-handed deeds. It is but now and then that He causes the sun to go
   down at noon and darkens the earth in the clear day (Amos 8:9). If our
   Lord can make darkness at will as He dies, what Glory may we not expect
   now that He lives to be the Light of the city of God forever? The Lamb
   is the Light and what a Light! The heavens bear the impress of His
   dying power and lose their brightness! Shall not the new heavens and
   the new earth attest the power of the risen Lord? The thick darkness
   around the dying Christ is the robe of the Omnipotent--He lives again!
   All power is in His hands and all that power He will put forth to bless
   His chosen!

   What a call must that mid-day midnight have been to the careless sons
   of men! They knew not that the Son of God was among them nor that He
   was working out human redemption. The grandest hour in all history
   seemed likely to pass by unheeded, when, suddenly, night hastened from
   her chambers and usurped the day! Everyone asked his companion, "What
   does this darkness mean?" Business stood still. The plow stayed in
   mid-furrow and the axe paused uplifted. It was the middle of the day,
   when men are busiest, but they made a general pause. Not only on
   Calvary, but on every hill and in every valley, the gloom settled down.
   There was a halt in the caravan of life! None could move unless they
   groped their way like the blind. The master of the house called for a
   light at noon and his servant tremblingly obeyed the unusual summons.
   Other lights were twinkling and Jerusalem was as a city by night, only
   men were not in their beds! How startled were mankind!

   Around the great deathbed an appropriate quiet was secured. I doubt not
   that a shuddering awe came over the masses of the people and the
   thoughtful foresaw terrible things. Those who had stood about the Cross
   and had dared to insult the majesty of Jesus, were paralyzed with fear.
   They ceased their ribaldry and, with it, their cruel exultation. They
   were cowed though not convinced, even the basest of them. While the
   better sort "smote their breasts and returned," as many as could do so,
   no doubt, stumbled to their chambers and endeavored to hide themselves
   for fear of awful judgments which they feared were near. I do not
   wonder that there should be traditions of strange things that were said
   during the hush of that darkness. Those whispers of the past may or may
   not be true--they have been the subject of learned controversy, but the
   labor of the dispute was energy ill spent. Yet we could not have
   wondered if one did say, as he is reported to have done, "God is
   suffering, or the world is perishing." Nor should I drive from my
   beliefs the poetic legend that an Egyptian pilot passing down the river
   heard among the reed banks a voice out of the rustling rushes,
   whispering, "The great Pan is dead." Truly, the God of Nature was
   expiring and things less tender than the reeds by the river might well
   tremble at the sound!

   We are told that this darkness was over all the land. And Luke puts it,
   "over all the earth." That portion of our globe which was then veiled
   in natural night was not affected--but to all men awake and at their
   employment, it was the advertisement of a great and solemn event. It
   was strange beyond all experience and all men marveled--for when the
   light should have been brightest--all things were obscured for the
   space of three hours!

   There must be great teaching in this darkness, for when we come so near
   the Cross, which is the center of history, every event is full of
   meaning. Light will come out of this darkness! I love to feel the
   solemnity of the three hours of death-shade and to sit down in it and
   meditate with no companion but the august Sufferer, around whom that
   darkness lowered. I am going to speak of it in four ways, as the Holy
   Spirit may help me. First, let us bow our spirits in the presence of a
   miracle which amazes us. Secondly, let us regard this darkness as a
   veil which conceals. Thirdly, as a symbol which instructs. And,
   fourthly, as a display of sympathy which forewarns us by the prophecies
   which it implies.

   I. First, let us view this darkness as A MIRACLE WHICH AMAZES US.

   It may seem a trite observation that this darkness was altogether out
   of the natural course of things. Since the world began, was it ever
   heard that at high noon there should be darkness over all the land? It
   was altogether out of the order of Nature. Some deny miracles and, if
   they also deny God, I will not, at this time, deal with them. But it is
   very strange that anyone who believes in God should doubt the
   possibility of miracles. It seems to me that, granted the Being of a
   God, miracles are to be expected as an occasional declaration of His
   independent and active will. He may make certain rules for His actions
   and it may be His wisdom to keep them, but surely He must reserve to
   Himself the liberty to depart from His own laws, or else He has, in a
   measure, laid aside His personal Godhead, deified law and set it up
   above Himself! It would not increase our idea of the Glory of His
   Godhead if we could be assured that He had made Himself subject to rule
   and tied His own hands from ever acting except in a certain manner!
   From the self-existence and freedom of will which enters into our very
   conception of God, we are led to expect that sometimes He should not
   keep to the methods which He follows as His general rule. This has led
   to the universal conviction that miracles are a proof of Godhead.

   The general works of Creation and Providence are, to my mind, the best
   proofs, but the common heart of our race, for some reason or other,
   looks to miracles as surer evidence--thus proving that miracles are
   expected of God. Although the Lord makes it His order that there shall
   be day and night, He, in this case, with abundant reason, interposes
   three hours of night in the center of a day! Behold the reason. The
   unusual in lower Nature is made to consort with the unusual in the
   dealings of Nature's Lord. Certainly this miracle was most congruous
   with that greater miracle which was happening in the death of Christ.
   Was not the Lord, Himself, departing from all common ways? Was He not
   doing that which had never been done from the beginning and would never
   be done again? That man should die is so common a thing as to be deemed
   inevitable? We are not startled at the sound of a funeral knell--we
   have become familiar with the grave. As the companions of our youth die
   at our side, we are not seized with amazement, for death is everywhere
   about us and within us. But that the Son of God should die, this is
   beyond all expectation and not only above Nature, but contrary to it!
   He who is equal with God deigns to hang upon the Cross and die! I know
   of nothing that seems more out of rule and beyond expectation than
   this. The sun darkening at noon is a fit accompaniment of the death of
   Jesus. Is it not so?

   Further, this miracle was not only out of the order of Nature, but it
   was one which would have been pronounced impossible. It is not possible
   that there should be an eclipse of the sun at the time of the full
   moon. The moon, at the time

   when she is in her full, is not in a position in which she could
   possibly cast her shadow upon the earth. The Passover was at the time
   of the full moon and, therefore, it was not possible that the sun
   should then undergo an eclipse. This darkening of the sun was not
   strictly an astronomical eclipse--the darkness was doubtless produced
   in some other way--yet to those who were present, it did seem to be a
   total eclipse of the sun--a thing impossible. Ah, Brothers and Sisters,
   when we come to deal with man and the Fall, and sin, and God, and
   Christ, and the Atonement, we are at home with impossibilities! We have
   now reached a region where prodigies, marvels and surprises are the
   order of the day--sublimities become commonplace when we come within
   the circle of Eternal Love! Yes, more--we have now left the solid land
   of the possible and have put out to sea--where we see the works of the
   Lord and His wonders in the deep. When we think of impossibilities in
   other spheres, we start back. But the way of the Cross is ablaze with
   the Divine and we soon perceive that "with God, all things are
   possible."

   See, then, in the death of Jesus, the possibility of the impossible!
   Behold, here, how the Son of God can die! We sometimes pause when we
   meet with an expression in a hymn which implies that God can suffer or
   die. We think that the poet has used too great a license, yet it
   behooves us to refrain from hypercriticism since, in Holy Writ, there
   are words like it. We even read (Acts 20:28) of "the Church of God
   which He has purchased with His own blood"--the blood of God! Ah well!
   I am not careful to defend the language of the Holy Spirit, but in its
   presence I take liberty to justify the words which we sang just now--

   "Well might the sun in darkness hide, And shut his glories in, When
   God, the mighty Maker, died For man, the creature's sin."

   I will not venture to explain the death of the Incarnate God. I am
   content to believe it and to rest my hope upon it.

   How should the Holy One have sin laid upon Him? That, also, I do not
   know. A wise man has told us, as if it were an axiom, that the
   imputation or the non-imputation of sin is an impossibility. Be it
   so--we have become familiar with such things since we have beheld the
   Cross. Things which men call absurdities have become foundational
   Truths of God to us! The Doctrine of the Cross is, to them that perish,
   foolishness. We know that in our Lord was no sin and yet He bore our
   sins in His own body on the Cross. We do not know how the innocent Son
   of God could be permitted to suffer for sins that were not His own. It
   amazes us that Justice should permit one so perfectly Holy to be
   forsaken of His God and to cry out, "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?" But
   it was so and it was so by the decree of the highest Justice--and we
   rejoice in it! As it was so, that the sun was eclipsed when it was
   impossible that it should be eclipsed, so has Jesus performed, on our
   behalf, in the agonies of His death, things which, in the ordinary
   judgment of men, must be set down as utterly impossible! Our faith is
   at home in wonderland where the Lord's thoughts are seen to be as high
   above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth!

   Concerning this miracle, I have also further to remark that this
   darkening of the sun surpassed all ordinary and natural eclipses. It
   lasted longer than an ordinary eclipse and it came in a different
   manner. According to Luke, the darkness all over the land came first
   and the sun was darkened afterwards--the darkness did not begin with
   the sun, but mastered the sun! It was unique and supernatural. Now,
   among all grief, no grief is comparable to the grief of Jesus--of all
   woes, none can parallel the woes of our great Substitute! As strongest
   light casts deepest shade, so has the surprising love of Jesus cost Him
   a death such as falls not to the common lot of men. Others die, but
   this Man is "obedient unto death." Others drink the fatal draught, yet
   reckon not of its wormwood and gall--but my Master "tasted death." "He
   poured out His soul unto death." Every part of His Being was darkened
   with that extraordinary death-shade--and the natural darkness outside
   of Him did but shroud a special death which was entirely by itself.

   And now, when I come to think of it, this darkness appears to have been
   most natural and fitting. If we had to write out the story of our
   Lord's death, we could not omit the darkness without neglecting a most
   important item. The darkness seems a part of the natural furniture of
   that great transaction. Read the story through and you are not at all
   startled with the darkness. After once familiarizing your mind with the
   thought that this is the Son of God and that He stretches His hands to
   the cruel death of the Cross, you do not wonder at the rending of the
   veil of the Temple! You are not astonished at the earthquake or at the
   rising of certain of the dead. These are proper attendants of our
   Lord's passion--and so is the darkness. It drops into its place, it
   seems as if it could not have been otherwise--

   "That Sacrifice!--the death of Him--

   The high and ever Holy One!

   Well may the conscious Hea ven grow dim,

   And blacken the beholding sun."

   For a moment think again. Has it not appeared as if the death which
   that darkness shrouded was also a natural part of the great whole? We
   have grown, at last, to feel as if the death of the Christ of God were
   an integral part of human history. You cannot take it out of man's
   chronicles, can you? Introduce the Fall and see Paradise Lost--and you
   cannot make the poem complete till you have introduced that greater Man
   who did redeem us--and by His death gave us our Paradise Regained. It
   is a singular characteristic of all true miracles, that though your
   wonder never ceases, they never appear to he unnatural--they are
   marvelous, but never monstrous! The miracles of Christ dovetail into
   the general run of human history. We cannot see how the Lord could be
   on earth and Lazarus not be raised from the dead when the grief of
   Martha and Mary had told its tale. We cannot see how the disciples
   could have been tempest-tossed on the Lake of Galilee and the Christ
   not walk on the water to deliver them! Wonders of power are expected
   parts of the narrative where Jesus is! Everything fits into its place
   with surrounding facts.

   A Romish miracle is always monstrous and devoid of harmony with all
   beside it. What if St. Winifred's head did come up from the well and
   speak from the coping to the astonished peasant who was about to draw
   water? I do not care whether it did or did not--it does not alter
   history a bit, nor even color it--it is tagged on to the record and is
   no part of it! But the miracles of Jesus, this of the darkness among
   them, are essential to human history and especially is this so in the
   case of His death and this great darkness which shrouded it! All things
   in human story converge to the Cross which seems not to be an
   afterthought nor an expedient, but the fit and foreordained channel
   through which Love should run to guilty men!

   I cannot say more from lack of voice, though I had many more things to
   say. Sit down and let the thick darkness cover you till you cannot even
   see the Cross and only know that out of reach of mortal eyes your Lord
   worked out the redemption of His people. He worked in silence, a
   miracle of patience and of love by which the Light of God has come to
   those who sit in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death.

   II. Secondly, I desire you to regard this darkness as A VEIL WHICH
   CONCEALS. The Christ is hanging on yonder tree. I see the dreadful
   Cross. I can see the thieves on either side. I look around and I
   sorrowfully mark that motley group of citizens from Jerusalem--along
   with scribes, priests and strangers from different countries--mingled
   with Roman soldiers. They turn their eyes on Him and, for the most
   part, gaze with cruel scorn upon the Holy One who is in the center. In
   truth it is an awful sight. Mark those dogs of the common sort and
   those bulls of Bashan of more notable rank who all unite to dishonor
   the Meek and Lowly One. I must confess I never read the story of the
   Master's death, knowing what I do of the pain of crucifixion, without
   deep anguish--crucifixion was a death worthy to have been invented by
   devils! The pain which it involved was immeasurable! I will not torture
   you by describing it. I know dear hearts that cannot read of it without
   tears and without lying awake for nights afterwards.

   But there was more than anguish upon Calvary--ridicule and contempt
   embittered all. Those jests, those cruel gibes, those mockeries, those
   thrusting out of the tongues--what shall we say of these? At times I
   have felt some little sympathy with the French Prince who cried, "If I
   had been there with my guards, I would soon have swept those wretches
   away!" It was too terrible a sight--the pain of the Victim was grievous
   enough--but the abominable wickedness of the mockers, who could bear
   it? Let us thank God that in the middle of the crime there came down a
   darkness which rendered it impossible for them to go further with it!
   Jesus must die. For His pains there must be no alleviation and from
   death there must be for Him no deliverance--but the scoffers must be
   silenced. Most effectually their mouths were closed by the dense
   darkness which shut them in.

   What I see in that veil is, first of all, that it was a concealment for
   those guilty enemies. Did you ever think of that? It is as if God,
   Himself, said, "I cannot bear it. I will not see this infamy! Descend,
   O veil!" Down fell the heavy shades--

   "I asked the heavens, 'What foe to God has done This unexampled deed?'
   The heavens exclaim, 'Twas man! And we, in horror, snatched the sun
   From such a spectacle of guilt and shame.'"

   Thank God, the Cross is a hiding place. It furnishes for guilty men a
   shelter from the all-seeing eyes, so that justice need not see and
   strike. When God lifts up His Son and makes Him visible, He hides the
   sin of men. He says that "the times of their ignorance He winks at."
   Even the greatness of their sin He casts behind His back, so that He
   need not see it, but may indulge His long-suffering and permit His pity
   to endure their provocations. It must have grieved the heart of the
   Eternal God to see such wanton cruelty of men towards Him who went
   about doing good and healing all manner of diseases. It was horrible to
   see the teachers of the people rejecting Him with scorn--the seed of
   Israel, who ought to have accepted Him as their Messiah--casting Him
   out as a thing despised and abhorred! I therefore feel gratitude to God
   for bidding that darkness cover all the land and end that shameful
   scene! I would say to any guilty ones here--Thank God that the Lord
   Jesus has made it possible for your sins to be hidden more completely
   than by thick darkness! Thank God that in Christ He does not see you
   with that stern eye of Justice which would involve your destruction!
   Had not Jesus interposed, whose death you have despised, you had worked
   out in your own death the result of your own sin long ago! But for your
   Lord's sake you are allowed to live as if God did not see you. This
   long-suffering is meant to bring you to repentance. Will you not come?

   But, further, that darkness was a sacred concealment for the blessed
   Person of our Divine Lord. So to speak, the angels found for their King
   a pavilion of thick clouds in which His Majesty might be sheltered in
   its hour of misery. It was too much for wicked eyes to gaze so rudely
   on that Immaculate Person! Had not His enemies stripped Him naked and
   cast lots for His garments? Therefore it was meet that the holy Manhood
   should, at length, find suitable concealment. It was not fit that
   brutal eyes should see the lines made upon that blessed form by the
   engraving tool of sorrow. It was not meet that revelers should see the
   contortions of that sacred frame, indwelt with Deity, while He was
   being broken beneath the iron rod of Divine Wrath on our behalf! It was
   meet that God should cover Him so that none should see all He did and
   all He bore when He was made sin for us. I devoutly bless God for thus
   hiding my Lord away--thus was He screened from eyes which were not fit
   to see the sun much less to look upon the Sun of Righteousness! This
   darkness also warns us, even we who are most reverent.

   This darkness tells us all that the Passion is a great mystery into
   which we cannot pry. I try to explain it as substitution and I feel
   that where the language of Scripture is explicit, I may and must be
   explicit, too. But yet I feel that the idea of substitution does not
   cover the whole of the matter and that no human conception can
   completely grasp the whole of the dread mystery. It was worked in
   darkness because the full, far-reaching meaning and result cannot be
   beheld of finite mind. Tell me the death of the Lord Jesus was a grand
   example of self-sacrifice--I can see that and much more. Tell me it was
   a wondrous obedience to the will of God--I can see that and much more.
   Tell me it was the bearing of what ought to have been borne by myriads
   of sinners of the human race, as the chastisement of their sin--I can
   see that and found my best hope upon it. But do not tell me that this
   is all that is in the Cross! No, great as this would be, there is much
   more in our Redeemer's death. God only knows the love of God--Christ
   only knows all that He accomplished when He bowed His head and gave up
   the ghost. There are common mysteries of Nature into which it were
   irreverence to pry, but this is a Divine mystery before which we take
   our shoes off, for the place called Calvary is holy ground! God veiled
   the Cross in darkness--and in darkness much of its deeper meaning
   lies--not because God would not reveal it, but because we have not
   capacity enough to discern it all! God was manifest in the flesh and in
   that human flesh He put away sin by His own Sacrifice--this we all
   know. But "without controversy great is the mystery of godliness."

   Once again, this veil of darkness also pictures to me the way in which
   the powers of darkness will always endeavor to conceal the Cross of
   Christ. We fight with darkness when we try to preach the Cross. "This
   is your hour and the power of darkness," said Christ, and I doubt not
   that the infernal hosts made, in that hour, a fierce assault upon the
   spirit of our Lord. Thus much we also know, that if the Prince of
   Darkness is anywhere in force, it is sure to be where Christ is lifted
   up! To becloud the Cross is the grand objective of the enemy of souls!
   Did you ever notice it? These fellows who hate the Gospel will let
   every other doctrine pass muster--but if the Atonement is preached and
   the Truths of God which grow out of it, straightaway they are awakened!
   Nothing provokes the devil like the Cross. Modern theology has for its
   main goal the obscuration of the Doctrine of the Atonement. These
   modern cuttlefish make the water of life black with their ink! They
   make out sin to be a trifle and the punishment of it to be a temporary
   business--and thus they degrade the remedy by underrating the disease.
   We are not ignorant of their devices. Expect, my Brothers, that the
   clouds of darkness will gather as to a center around the Cross, that
   they may hide it from the sinner's view. But expect this, also, that
   there

   darkness shall meet its end. Light springs out of that darkness--the
   eternal Light of the undying Son of God, who, having risen from the
   dead, lives forever to scatter the darkness of evil!

   III. Now we pass on to speak of this darkness as A SYMBOL WHICH
   INSTRUCTS. The veil falls down and conceals, but at the same time, as
   an emblem, it reveals. It seems to say, "Attempt not to search within,
   but learn from the veil, itself--it has cherub work upon it." This
   darkness teaches us what Jesus suffered. It aids us to guess at the
   griefs which we may not actually see.

   The darkness is the symbol of the wrath of God which fell on those who
   slew His only begotten Son. God was angry and His frown removed the
   light of day. Well might He be angry, when sin was murdering His only
   Son--when the Jewish farmers were saying, "This is the heir; come, let
   us kill Him, and let us seize o His inheritance." This is God's wrath
   towards all mankind, for practically all men concurred in the death of
   Jesus. That wrath has brought men into darkness-- they are ignorant,
   blinded, bewildered. They have come to love darkness better than light
   because their deeds are evil. In that darkness they do not repent, but
   go on to reject the Christ of God. Into this darkness God cannot look
   upon them in complacency, but He views them as children of darkness and
   heirs of wrath, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!

   The symbol also tells us what our Lord Jesus Christ endured. The
   darkness outside of Him was the figure of the darkness that was within
   Him. In Gethsemane a thick darkness fell upon our Lord's spirit. He was
   "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." His joy was communion with
   God--that joy was gone and He was in the dark. His day was the light of
   His Father's face--that face was hidden and a terrible night gathered
   around Him. Brothers, I should sin against that veil if I were to
   pretend that I could tell you what the sorrow was which oppressed the
   Savior's soul--only so far can I speak as it has been given me to have
   fellowship with Him in His sufferings. Have you ever felt a deep and
   overwhelming horror of sin--your own sin and the sins of others? Have
   you ever seen sin in the light of God's love? Has it ever darkly
   hovered over your sensitive conscience? Has an unknown sense of wrath
   crept over you like midnight gloom and has it been about you, around
   you, above you, and within you? Have you felt shut up in your
   feebleness and yet shut out from God? Have you looked around and found
   no help, no comfort, even, in God--no hope, no peace? In all this you
   have sipped a little of that salt sea into which our Lord was cast. If,
   like Abraham, you have felt a horror of great darkness creep over you,
   then you have had a taste of what your Divine Lord suffered when it
   pleased the Father to bruise Him and to put Him to grief.

   This it was that made Him sweat great drops of blood falling to the
   ground--and this it was which, on the Cross, made Him utter that
   appalling cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" It was not
   the crown of thorns, or the scourge, or the Cross which made Him
   cry--it was the darkness, the awful darkness of desertion which
   oppressed His mind and made Him feel like one distraught. All that
   could comfort Him was withdrawn and all that could distress Him was
   piled upon Him. "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a
   wounded spirit who can bear?" Our Savior's spirit was wounded and He
   cried, "My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of My heart."
   He was bereft of all natural and spiritual comfort and His distress was
   utter and entire. The darkness of Calvary did not, like an ordinary
   night, reveal the stars, but it darkened every lamp of Heaven. His
   strong crying and tears denoted the deep sorrow of His soul. He bore
   all it was possible for His capacious mind to bear, though enlarged and
   invigorated by union with the Godhead! He bore the equivalent of
   Hell--no, not that, only--but He bore that which stood instead of
   10,000 Hells, so far as the vindication of the Law is concerned! Our
   Lord rendered, in His death agony, a homage to Justice far greater than
   if a world had been doomed to destruction! When I have said that, what
   more can I say? Well may I tell you that this unutterable darkness,
   this hiding of the Divine Face, expresses more of the woes of Jesus
   than words can ever tell.

   Again, I think I see in that darkness, also, what it was that Jesus was
   battling, for we must never forget that the Cross was a battlefield to
   Him, wherein He triumphed gloriously. He was fighting, then, with
   darkness--with the powers of darkness of which Satan is the head--with
   the darkness of human ignorance, depravity and falsehood. The battle
   thus apparent at Golgotha has been raging ever since. Then was the
   conflict at its height, for the chiefs of the two great armies met in
   personal conflict. The present battle in which you and I take our
   little share is as nothing compared with that wherein all the powers of
   darkness in their dense battalions hurled themselves against the
   Almighty Son of God! He bore their onset, endured the tremendous shock
   of their assault and, in the end, with shout of victory, He led
   captivity captive! He, by His power and Godhead, turned midnight into
   day, again, and brought back to this world a reign of light which,

   blessed be God, shall never come to a close! Come to battle again, you
   hosts of darkness, if you dare! The Cross has defeated you--the Cross
   shall defeat you! Hallelujah! The Cross is the ensign of victory--its
   light is the death of darkness! The Cross is the lighthouse which
   guides poor weather-beaten humanity into the harbor of peace--this is
   the lamp which shines over the door of the great Father's house to lead
   His prodigals home.

   Let us not be afraid of all the darkness which besets us on our way
   Home, since Jesus is the light which conquers it

   all!

   The darkness never came to an end till the Lord Jesus broke the
   silence. All had been still and the darkness had grown terrible. At
   last He spoke and His voice uttered a Psalm. It was the 22nd Psalm. "My
   God," He said, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Each repeated,
   "Eloi," flashed morning upon the scene! By the time He had uttered the
   cry, "Why have you forsaken Me?" men had begun to see, again, and some
   even ventured to misinterpret His words--more in terror than in
   ignorance. They said, "He calls Elijah!" They may have meant to mock,
   but I think not. At any rate, there was no heart in what they said, nor
   in the reply of their companions. Yet the light had come by which they
   could see to dip the sponge in vinegar. Brothers and Sisters, no light
   will ever come to dark hearts unless Jesus shall speak and the light
   will not be clear until we hear the voice of His sorrows on our behalf
   as He cries, "Why have you forsaken Me?" His voice of grief must be the
   end of our grief! His cry out of the darkness must cheer away our gloom
   and bring the heavenly morning to our minds!

   You see how much there is in my text. It is a joy to speak on such a
   theme when one is in good health and full of vigor--then are we as
   Naphtali, a hind let loose--then we give goodly words! But this day I
   am in pain as to my body and my mind seems frozen. Nevertheless, the
   Lord can bless my feeble words and make you see that in this darkness
   there is a deep and wide meaning which none of us should neglect. If
   God shall help your meditations, this darkness will be light about you.

   IV. I come to my fourth point and my closing words will deal with THE
   SYMPATHY WHICH PROPHESIES. Do

   you see the sympathy of Nature with her Lord--the sympathy of the sun
   in the heavens with the Sun of Righteousness? It was not possible for
   Him by whom all things were made to be in darkness and for Nature to
   remain in the light.

   The first sympathetic fact I see is this--all lights are dim when
   Christ shines not. All is dark when He does not shine. In the Church,
   if Jesus is not there, what is there? The sun, itself, could not yield
   us light if Jesus were withdrawn. The seven golden lamps are ready to
   go out unless He walks among them and trims them with the holy oil.
   Brothers, you soon grow heavy, your spirits faint and your hands are
   weary if the Christ is not with you! If Jesus Christ is not fully
   preached. If He is not with us by His Spirit, then everything is in
   darkness. Obscure the Cross and you have obscured all spiritual
   teachings! You cannot say, "We will be clear in every other point and
   clear upon every other doctrine, but we will shun the Atonement since
   so many quibble with it. No, Sirs! If that candle is put under a
   bushel, the whole house is dark! All theology sympathizes with the
   Cross and is colored and tinctured by it! Your pious service, your
   books, your public worship must all be in sympathy with the Cross, one
   way or another. If the Cross is in the dark, so will all your work be--

   "What do you think of Christ?is the test To try both your work and your
   scheme; You cannot be right in the rest Unless you think rightly of
   Him."

   Conjure up your doubts; fabricate your philosophies and compose your
   theories--there will be no Light of God in them if the Cross is left
   out. Vain are the sparks of your own making--you shall lie down in
   sorrow! All our work and travail shall end in vanity unless the work
   and travail of Christ is our first and only hope! If you are dark upon
   that point, which alone is Light, how great is your darkness!

   Next, see the dependence of all creation upon Christ, as evidenced by
   its darkness when He withdraws. It was not meet that He who made all
   worlds should die and yet all worlds should go on just as they had
   done. If He suffers eclipse, they must suffer eclipse, too. If the Sun
   of Righteousness is made to set in blood, the natural sun must keep
   touch with Him. I believe, my Friends, that there is a much more
   wonderful sympathy between Christ and the world of Nature than any of
   us have ever dreamed. The whole creation groans and travails in pain
   together until now because Christ, in the Church, is in His travail
   pangs. Christ in His mystical body is in travail and so the whole
   creation must wait for the manifestation of the Son of God.

   We are waiting for the coming of the Lord from Heaven and there is no
   hill or dale--there is no mountain or sea but what is in perfect
   harmony with the waiting Church! Wonder not that there should be
   earthquakes in many places, blazing volcanoes, terrible tempests, and
   sore spreading of deadly disease! Marvel not when you hear of dire
   portents and things that make one's heart to quail, for such things
   must be till the end shall come! Until the Great Shepherd shall make
   His crook into a scepter and shall begin His unsuffering reign, this
   poor earth must bleed at every vein! There must be darkness till these
   days of delay are ended. You that expect placid history till Christ
   shall come expect you know not what! You that think that generous
   politics shall create order and contentment and that the extension of
   free-trade shall breathe universal peace over the nations, look for the
   living among the dead! Till the Lord shall come, the word has gone out,
   "Overturn, overturn, overturn," and overturned all things must be--not
   only in other kingdoms, but in this also, till Jesus comes! All that
   can be shaken shall be shaken and only His immovable Throne and Truth
   shall abide. Now is the time of the Lord's battle with darkness and we
   may not hope, as yet, for unbroken light.

   Dear Friends, the sin which darkened Christ and made Him die in the
   dark, darkens the whole world. The sin that darkened Christ and made
   Him hang upon the Cross in the dark is darkening you who do not believe
   in Him--and you will live in the dark and die in the dark unless you
   get to Him, only, who is the Light of the World and can give light to
   you. There is no light for any man except in Christ! And until you
   believe in Him, thick darkness shall blind you and you shall stumble in
   it and perish! That is the lesson I would have you learn.

   Another practical lesson is this--if we are in the dark at this time;
   if our spirits are sunk in gloom, let us not despair, for the Lord
   Christ, Himself, was there. If I have fallen into misery on account of
   sin, let me not give up all hope, for the Father's Well-Beloved passed
   through denser darkness than mine. O believing Soul, if you are in the
   dark, you are near the King's cellars and there are wines on the lees
   well refined lying there! You have gotten into the pavilion of the Lord
   and now may you speak with Him! You will not find Christ in the gaudy
   tents of pride, nor in the foul haunts of wickedness! You will not find
   Him where the viol and the dance and the flowing bowl inflame the lusts
   of men! But in the house of mourning you will meet the Man of Sorrows!
   He is not where Herodias dances, nor where Bernice displays her charms.
   He is where the woman of a sorrowful spirit moves her lips in prayer.
   He is never absent where penitence sits in darkness and bewails her
   faults--

   "Yes, Lord, in hours of gloom, When shadows fill my room When pain
   breathes forth its groans, And grief its sighs and moans, Then You are
   near."

   If you are under a cloud, feel for your Lord, if haply you may find
   Him. Stand still in your black sorrow and say, "O Lord, the preacher
   tells me that Your Cross once stood in such darkness as this--O Jesus
   hear me!" He will respond to you--the Lord will look out of the pillar
   of cloud and shed a light upon you. "I know their sorrows," He says. He
   is no stranger to heart-break. Christ also once suffered for sin. Trust
   Him and He will cause His light to shine upon you! Lean upon Him and He
   will bring you up out of the gloomy wilderness into the land of rest.
   God help you to do so!

   Last Monday I was cheered beyond all I can tell you by a letter from a
   Brother who had been restored to life, light, and liberty by the
   discourse of last Sabbath morning [Sermon No. 1895, Volume 32--Love
   Abounding, Love Complaining, Love Abiding]. I know no greater joy than
   to be useful to your souls. For this reason I have tried to preach,
   this morning, though I am physically quite unfit for it. Oh, I do pray
   I may hear more news from saved ones! Oh that some spirit that has
   wandered out into the dark moorland may spy the candle in my window and
   find its way home! If you have found my Lord, I charge you, never let
   Him go, but cleave to Him till the day breaks and the shadows flee
   away! God help you so to do for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Holding Fast Our Profession

   (No. 1897)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Let us holdfast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He
   is faithful who promised)." Hebrews 10:23.

   THE Apostle is drawing certain inferences from the Covenant of Grace
   upon which he has been enlarging. He shows that God has made a Covenant
   with His people by which they are effectually preserved. "This is the
   covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I
   will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and
   their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." He shows that
   by this Covenant the fear of returning to our old sin is removed and
   the guilt of our sin is forever put away. He bids us, therefore, be
   bold in our approaches to God. As pardoned men, upon whom there is no
   sin, he bids us exercise the freedom of near access to God, who has
   accepted us in Christ. Then he tells us that since we are put in such a
   blessed position--a position which is altogether unique--it becomes us
   to hold fast to what we have received. Since the glorious Gospel has
   done so much for us, let us never quit it. Since it has brought us into
   a condition which angels might envy, let us never think of leaving it.
   Let us not dream of giving up that Divine principle which has worked us
   such blessedness, but, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith
   without wavering."

   I pray God the Holy Spirit to bless these words as we shall think them
   over. May He make this evening's meditation a means of establishment to
   us that, while we hold fast the profession of our faith, the blessed
   Truths of that faith may also hold us fast as an anchor holds a ship!
   Never was there a time in which this was more necessary. That
   exhortation, "Let us hold fast," might well be written on the cover of
   every Christian's Bible. We live in such a changing age that we need
   all to be exhorted to be rooted and grounded, confirmed and established
   in the Truth of God. I shall call your attention, first, to this
   point--what we have. We have faith and, according to the second
   rendering, which is adopted by the revisers, we have hope. Then,
   secondly, what we have done. We have made a profession of that faith--a
   confession of that hope. Then, thirdly, what we are now to do--to hold
   fast that profession of faith and hope. And if you ask me, in the
   fourth place, why we are to do if!

   I shall, in closing, give you this reason--because "He is faithful who
   promised." If God is faithful, let us be faithful, too. Since until now
   He has proven Himself most true, let us pray that we may also be true.

   I. First, then, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us think of WHAT WE
   ALREADY HAVE by the Grace of God.

   If we read the text according to our present authorized translation, we
   have faith. We have made a public avowal of our faith. We can lay our
   hands upon our hearts and say, "Lord, You know all things. You know
   that we have faith in Jesus Christ Your Son." Yes, we have obtained
   what the Apostle calls "like precious faith"--it is a rare jewel and he
   is rich that possesses it.

   If we have not this faith in possession, let us pause, here, and ask
   for it and let us confess to God the great sin of unbelief in not
   believing in such a one as the Son of God who cannot lie--whose life is
   so transparently true that to doubt Him is a superfluity of
   naughtiness--an awful insult to the majesty of His faithfulness. Yet it
   would not be true for us to say--some of us--that we do not believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ, for we do. We have no other confidence. Where
   could we find any other! He is the rock of our salvation! We could not
   invent another trust, however hard we were put to it, or however much
   we wished to do so. If Jesus were to say, "Will you, also, go away?" we
   would be compelled to answer, "Lord, to whom should we go? You have the
   words of eternal life." If the question is whether we have perfect
   holiness, we must answer it in the negative, to our great sorrow. If
   the question is whether we are highly advanced in Divine Grace, we
   would not dare say that we are. It would be immodest if we put forth
   such a pretension! But if the enquiry is, "Do you believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ?" then without hesitation we reply, "Lord, we trust You
   with undivided faith."

   Trembling though it is, our faith is true. And though it does not
   always work in us all the fruit we would desire, yet it does operate in
   a very blessed way upon our walk and conversation. We believe that
   Jesus is the Christ and our trust for eternal life is in Him alone!

   It is not a matter of question with you, dear Friend, is it, as to
   whether you know Jesus to be the Son of God, very God of very God? It
   is past all question with you that Jesus bore your sins in His own body
   on the tree. You have no doubt about His wondrous death and His
   marvelous Resurrection from among the dead. You believe that He has
   offered a Sacrifice, once, which once offered has ended the sin of His
   people and that He has gone into His Glory and is now sitting at the
   right hand of God, expecting till His foes are made His footstool. You
   have no more doubt about that than you have about your own existence!
   You also believe that He will shortly come to be our Judge--that He
   will gather the nations before Him and that He will reign King of Kings
   and Lord of Lords. Your faith, then, in the Lord Jesus Christ is not a
   matter of "if," and, "but"--you stake your salvation on it! I can truly
   say that if what I preach is not true, I am a lost man. I have invested
   all that I have in Christ. If this boat sinks, I drown, for I cannot
   swim and I know no other lifeboat. Christ is All in All to me--without
   Him I can do nothing, I have nothing, I am nothing! Jesus, in the
   matter of salvation, is everything from beginning to end for me! And
   you can say the same, I know.

   You have faith, nor does your faith confine itself to the belief in the
   Person and work of Christ and to a simple trusting of yourself to Him,
   but you believe all that is revealed in relation to Jesus. All the
   stars which make up the southern cross shine with clear brilliance for
   you. Every Truth of God which is revealed in Holy Scripture is embraced
   by your faith and held tenaciously. To you I know, Beloved, it is only
   sufficient to prove that it is so written in the Bible and you believe
   it. A Truth may sometimes amaze you because of its greatness, but that
   does not stagger your faith, for your faith deals with mysteries and is
   familiar with sublimities which it never dreams of comprehending! Yes,
   we openly acknowledge that we believe in God the Father, Son and Holy
   Spirit, the Triune God! And we believe in the election of Grace. We
   believe in the eternal purposes of God and in the working out of all
   those purposes to the praise of the Glory of His Grace. If God tells us
   anything, we accept it as sure, unquestionable, infallible Truth. If He
   veils anything, we desire to leave it veiled, for the limit of
   Revelation is the limit of our faith.

   We may imagine this or imagine that, but we think nothing of our
   imaginations! Our faith deals with what God says, not with what learned
   men think. What the Spirit of God has written in this inspired Book is
   the Truth of God to us and we allow no human teaching to rank side by
   side with it. Well, then, we have faith--faith that believes, faith
   that learns, faith that reclines, faith that trusts herself entirely in
   the love of God--faith that can say, "Father into Your hands I commit
   my spirit." We have it, and we know that we have it! If any of you here
   do not know it, do not rest until you do know it. Unbelief calls God a
   liar--do not live a moment in such a horrible God-provoking sin! Not to
   trust Christ is to abide under the wrath of God. "He that believes not
   the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." May we
   never remain in such a state as that, but come to a knowledge of the
   Truth and to a sound faith in that Truth--for this is the faith of
   God's elect.

   But another reading--and a very good reading, too--runs thus, "The
   confession of our hope." Oh yes, Beloved, if we have faith we have
   hope. We will take both renderings, for they are both correct in fact,
   if not in the letter. We have a blessed hope, a hope most "sure and
   steadfast, which enters into that which is within the veil." If I begin
   to describe our hope, I must begin with what, I think, is always the
   topmost stone of it--the hope of the Second Advent of our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ--for we believe that when He shall appear, we shall
   also appear with Him in Glory. We know that He has gone up into Heaven.
   His Apostles saw Him as He ascended from Olivet--and we believe the
   words which the angels declared soon after His departure to remind us
   of His coming again--"This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as
   you have seen Him go into Heaven." We expect Him to descend in Person
   and we hope, ourselves, to behold Him in that day. We expect Him to
   stand in the latter day upon the earth and, in our own flesh risen from
   the dead, we expect to behold our Savior and our God! This is the
   glorious hope of the Church! This is how she expects to be victorious
   over the world--the Lord shall come and end her conflict in complete
   triumph! As His First Coming has laid the foundations of His empire, so
   His Second Coming shall bring forth the cornerstone thereof with shouts
   of, "Grace, Grace, unto it."

   Wrapped up in that hope, we have personal hopes of our own, which hopes
   are, first, that our spirits, when we depart the body, shall be with
   Christ. We have been with Him, here, and we believe we shall be with
   Him there. Though in some sense while we are present in the body, we
   are absent from the Lord, yet in another sense He is with us even now.
   We

   expect, before long, to be absent from the body and, in a fuller sense,
   present with the Lord. Such is our joyful hope and expectation--Glory,
   millennium, Heaven, eternity--all lie within the circle of our hope.
   Ours is not the larger, but the largest hope.

   We expect that after a while the trumpet shall sound and our bodies
   shall be raised from beds of dust and silent clay--and that thus we
   shall be perfected in our manhood as spirit, soul and body. The day of
   our Lord's appearing will be the day of the redemption of the body from
   the dust with which it mingles. We expect, then, as perfect in Christ
   Jesus, made in the image of Him who is the Firstborn among many
   brethren, to live forever and ever in eternal blessedness, enjoying the
   life of God at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore. We
   have a joyful, glorious, blessed hope which purifies, comforts,
   strengthens and sustains us--and this hope is in us now!

   As the pastor of this Church, I can joyfully say of the most of those
   who are here present, that you have a good hope through Grace. That
   hope gilds the darkness of the present--it is your candle through the
   long and weary night. You are not always to be sickly, poor and
   suffering. This hope sheds its light upon the future and reveals
   glories brighter than imagination could invent! At times when you
   realize that hope, you almost feel the crown of life settling down upon
   your brow and removing your throbbing pain once and for all. In the
   power of that hope you put on the sandals of the Light of God and the
   garments of immortality--and take your place among the celestial
   throng! Many a time, by faith, you walk along those streets which are
   paved with pure gold, like transparent glass, and as you tread the
   shining way you converse with the shining ones who dwell in the New
   Jerusalem! Hope already hears with her quick ears the songs of the
   redeemed and her eye beholds the Lord whom you love enthroned in the
   highest! Oh, how near does hope bring our Well-Beloved, whom, having
   not seen, we love! In whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing we
   rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory!

   We have faith and we have hope--and we know that we have them. Are we
   not enriched with the Grace of God? Where faith and hope are found,
   love cannot be far off, for the three Divine sisters are seldom
   separated. Let us love the Lord who has given us the first two.

   II. Secondly, we have gone a step further than the silent possession of
   faith and hope. We have made A PROFESSION OF OUR FAITH AND A CONFESSION
   OF OUR HOPE. I am not going to say much about this, but to remind

   you of certain joyously solemn facts.

   You remember the time, dear Brothers and Sisters, when you first made a
   profession of your faith. It may do many of us good to go back to those
   early days. We are getting on in years, some of us, but we do not wish
   to feel old--at least we want to keep as much of the freshness and joy
   of youth as we well can! Cheerfulness is most becoming in
   Christians--we have a life within us of later birth than that which our
   mothers gave us--we will, therefore, measure our age from our second
   rather than our first birth. I like to see the old man grow young when
   he talks of Christ! Let him on that point become enthusiastic, even as
   in his boyhood. When he speaks of the loving kindness of the Lord to
   him, he should show the mellowness of years and the energy of youth in
   happy combination. Perhaps some of you remember the place, the spot of
   ground, where Jesus met with you. If you do not, at least you remember
   when you first whispered to your own heart with trembling hope, "I
   think I know the Lord." You were almost startled at the echo of your
   own words! You were afraid that you had been presumptuous! There was
   great tenderness of conscience upon you, then, and you would not have
   professed what was not true for all the world. You said within
   yourself, "I half said that I was a Believer, but I do not think I dare
   say it again."

   Yet, within a short time, it oozed out again, when you were in company
   and felt forced to defend your Savior. It was true of you in a blessed
   sense, "Your speech betrays you. You, also, were with Jesus of
   Nazareth." At last it grew so warm round about you that you thought you
   might as well come out for Jesus and derive help from the confession.
   The adversaries were ferreting you out and you thought you had better
   come out and say, boldly, once and for all, "It is even so!" The true
   Pilgrim never wishes to enter the House Beautiful if he has not a right
   to be there. He is afraid that he may be guilty of intrusion and he,
   therefore, hopes the porter at the gate will only admit him when he
   feels quite sure that he is a Pilgrim such as the Lord of the Way would
   permit to enter His House.

   It was a day of great trembling, but of great joy, when first we avowed
   our faith in Jesus! What we said we meant. We salted our words with our
   tears, but oh, we felt it such an honor to be numbered with the people
   of God! If we had

   been promised a seat on the floor, or had been allowed only to hear the
   Gospel in the coldest corner of the building, we should then have been
   fully content! We sang and meant it--

   "Might I enjoy the meanest place

   Within Your House, O God of Grace,

   Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,

   Should tempt my feet to lea ve Your door." We need soft cushions now.
   We cannot stand to hear a sermon now, nor yet travel very far,
   especially in damp weather. It is very strange that we should have
   become so delicate, but it is so. How many miles we could walk when
   first we knew the Lord! The miles have grown much longer lately, or
   else our love has grown much shorter! Those were blessed days--
   changeful, showery, with little more that the dusk of dawn about
   them--but still there was a morning freshness about them upon which we
   look back with supreme delight and somewhat of regret. Then was it a
   time of love, a season of buds and flowers and songbirds and
   overflowing life and hope!

   Thus early in my discourse I would most earnestly say to you--Hold fast
   the profession of your faith. By the memories of the day when you made
   that profession, be firm in it to the end. If you were not false, then;
   if you were not deceivers then; hold fast the confession of your hope
   without wavering, for, "He is faithful who promised." To me it is a
   solemn memory that I professed my faith openly in Baptism. Vividly do I
   recall the scene. It was the third of May and the weather was cold
   because of a keen wind. I see the broad river, the crowds which lined
   the banks and the company upon the ferryboat. The Word of the Lord was
   preached by a man of God who is now gone Home. And when he had so done,
   he went down into the water and we followed him and he baptized us. I
   remember how, after being the slave of timidity, I rose from the liquid
   grave quickened into holy courage by that one act of decision,
   consecrated therefore forth to bear a lifelong testimony!

   It was by burial with Christ in Baptism that I confessed my faith in
   His death, burial and Resurrection. By an avowed death to the world, I
   professed my desire from that day on to live with Jesus, for Jesus and
   like Jesus. Oh that I had been more faithful to that profession! But
   there it was and I am not ashamed of it, nor wishful to run back from
   it. Ah no, I bear in my body that watermark, that fulfillment of the
   Holy Scriptures, which says, "Having your hearts sprinkled from an evil
   conscience, and your bodies washed with pure water."--

   "High Heaven that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily
   hear, Till in life's latest time I bow, And bless, in death, a bond so
   dear."

   Let us remember, also, the many times in which we have repeated that
   profession of faith, that confession of hope, for instead of retracting
   it, we have gone on to repeat it. We have been marked anew with the
   King's name. If you ask how you have renewed your vows, I reply--"You
   have done it many a time at the table of communion. You have sat there
   and feasted with your Lord and you have not been ashamed of being
   there, I am sure. No, you have often feared that it was too good to be
   true that such a one as you should be eating bread with the children
   when not long ago you begged for the crumbs which fell from their
   table! You have sat at the banquet of bread and wine and, in so doing,
   you have borne witness to the death of Christ until He comes. Thus you
   have in frequent feasts of love confessed your joyful hope!"

   And beside that, in many a Prayer Meeting you have been present and, by
   your very presence, have expressed your belief that it is not a vain
   thing to wait upon God. You have also joined in the prayer and this is
   no mean profession of faith. In many a service, when Christ has been
   preached, you have been there, not merely to assist by your presence,
   but because you have agreed with it all. Your heart has, at times, so
   burned within you, that you have thought it proper to say, "Amen!" You
   longed to cry, "Hallelujah!" And it was almost a pity you did not do
   so, for the outburst would have done no hurt to anybody. Perhaps,
   sometimes, you have done it and you have startled yourself and many
   others! By such an exclamation you have renewed your profession of your
   faith.

   You have repeated your profession in the shop, in the market, in the
   place of business, among your friends, in your family and to the
   partner of your life. Those around you know you to be professedly an
   heir of Heaven, a child of God! It is well that they should. Why should
   not the children of Light be as well known as the children of darkness?
   Why should you conceal yourselves?

   As for me and such of us as stand prominently out to preach the Word of
   God, how many times have we made a profession? I hope our preaching has
   not been done "professionally," but certainly we can neither preach,
   nor lead the devotions of a congregation without professing our faith
   and declaring our hope!

   I again break in upon the latter part of my discourse by saying--after
   all these times in which we have worn our Master's livery, shall we
   desert Him? After those many occasions in which we have borne His mark
   upon our foreheads, can we think of becoming apostates? Christ has been
   confessed by us in the most solemn forms over and over again--shall we
   be doubly forsworn? Shall we become sevenfold traitors? No, by His rich
   and Sovereign Grace, I would say to you, believing that the Holy Spirit
   will help you to keep the command, "Hold fast the profession of your
   faith without wavering; for He is faithful who promised."

   We have considered how we began this profession and we have also seen
   how often we have made it since. Let us think for a minute what it has
   cost us. Has it been worthwhile to be on the Lord's side? Religion has
   cost many of its disciples somewhat dear but it has cost nothing
   compared with its worth! What bashfulness it cost you to make the first
   confession of your faith! What a struggle it then appeared! You were
   weeks, some of you, before you dared to come and see such an awful
   person as the minister, to speak of your conversion to him. It had
   taken you weeks even to tell it to your wife or your husband! The dear
   soul, for once, seemed to grow into a very dragon when you needed to
   tell him that you had found the Lord. I have known parents terribly
   afraid to let their children know of their conversion. They were never
   half so afraid of sinning as they became afraid of being charged with
   repenting! You surmounted that difficulty, did you not? You cried to
   God about it and you obtained courage--and now you wonder how you could
   have been so foolishly timid. Do not, in the future, fall back into the
   same fears.

   But perhaps some of you lost the friendship of many by becoming
   disciples of the Lord Jesus. I know one who became a member of this
   Church--she had moved in high and fashionable circles, but she said to
   me, "they have left me--every one of them." I said, "I am very
   thankful, for it will save you the trouble of quitting them. They will
   do you no good if they profess to be your friends. And they will do you
   less harm by giving you the cold shoulder." It is about the best thing
   that happens to a Christian when worldlings cut his acquaintance. "Come
   you out from among them," is to many a severe command. But all
   difficulty is removed when the world turns out from us and casts out
   our name as evil! Still, it has cost many a tear, and many a sigh for
   the first Believer in certain families to take up his cross and come
   right out and follow Christ. "Canting hypocrite!" "Sniveling
   pretender!" Such titles and worse are quickly thrown at us! It is but
   natural that the world we leave should give us a parting kick.

   We, of course, are everything that is bad as soon as we forsake the
   ways of the world to follow Christ. It is the old fashion--after this
   manner they dealt with our fathers. I do not suppose that any two men,
   after a while, counts it at all a hardship, or mourns as though some
   strange thing had happened to him! Did they not swim through seas of
   blood in the old times? Did they not fight with beasts at Ephesus and
   reach to Heaven by the way of the stake? We suffer so little compared
   with the persecutions of our forerunners that it is hardly worth a
   thought! But yet, to some very tender hearts, it is a costly business
   to make a profession of faith. And I say to them--Have you suffered
   these many things in vain? Will you now go back? Will you turn, again,
   to the beggarly elements of the world, after having confronted
   persecution and borne the enmity of men? No, by the Grace of God you
   will "hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering!"

   "But what good does our profession do?" asks one. I do not know that we
   need ask that question, or answer it, either. If a course of action is
   commanded of God, it is ours to obey whether we can see any use in it
   or not. It is put continually in the Word of God, "He that with his
   heart believes, and with his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be
   saved," or in other words, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." Faith in the Truth of God and an open profession of that faith
   are constantly put together in the Scriptures! There must be the
   confession of Christ outwardly, as well as the believing in Christ
   inwardly. The Lord Jesus, Himself, has said, "Except a man shall take
   up his cross and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple." It is not the
   Lord's will that we should go in the dark to Heaven along some private
   road of our own! We are to come out and follow Him in this evil
   generation, or else He will be ashamed of us when He comes in the Glory
   of His Father.

   If the question is asked again, "What is the good of an open
   profession?" I would say, Much every way. It is, in itself, a grand
   thing for his manliness for a man to boldly say, "I am a Christian." It
   is good for a soldier of the Cross to draw the sword and throw away the
   scabbard by being openly known to be a Christian. The world then ceases
   to urge its

   coarser temptations. The enemies know where you are and do not raise
   that question again. Your profession becomes a confirmation of your
   purpose to lead a better life. You say, "I have lifted up my hand unto
   the Lord and how can I go back? How can I do this great wickedness and
   sin against God? The vows of the Lord are upon me!" All this is a
   protection to you in the hour of trial. To show your colors may not
   appear to be a great thing, but to many it is half the battle.

   Besides, the open confession of our faith has a good influence upon
   others. How could there be a Christian Church at all if every Christian
   concealed his faith in his own bosom? Without the Christian Church as
   an organization, how would all the good work that has to be done in the
   reclaiming of sinners be attended to? Where would be our public
   proclamation of the Gospel? Where our missions and ministers? If you
   love your Lord and have faith and hope in Him, do not delay to come
   forward and acknowledge His name and cause. Say boldly, "Where are His
   people? I will join with them! Do they meet with any reproach for
   obedience to Him? I will share that reproach! Have they any work for
   Christ on hand? I will take my share of that work! Yours am I, Son of
   David, and all that I have, and I give myself to You to be Yours
   forever and ever."

   It will be to your lasting honor and enduring joy to be found wearing
   the livery of the Prince of Peace, marching in the ranks of the saints,
   contending earnestly for the Truth of God and advancing the Kingdom of
   your God! Thus have I spoken upon the profession of our faith and hope.

   III. The third point is, WHAT ARE WE NOW TO DO? I have entrenched upon
   it, already, and I have done so intentionally. The answer is--we are
   called upon to holdfast the profession of our faith.

   Of course this includes the holding fast of your faith. The things
   which you have believed, continue to believe. There may be an
   advance--there ought to be an advance--in politics because the basis to
   begin with was wrong. And, as you advance, you only approximate a
   little more nearly to that which is perfectly just, honest and
   righteous. It is a far cry from feudalism to a righteous commonwealth!
   But there can be no advance in true religion! If it is true at first,
   the same things are still true and must be true forever and ever. We
   feel that there can be no progress in the foundational Truths of
   Christianity when we remember such a text as this, "Jesus Christ, the
   same yesterday, today, forever." Revelation comes from the mind of God,
   like Minerva is fabled to have sprung from the brain of Jove, full
   grown, full armed. Nothing may be taken from it! Nothing may be added
   to it!

   I, for one, am perfectly satisfied with an Apostolic faith. It anyone
   can go beyond the Apostles, let him go--I shall not attempt to do so. I
   am satisfied to believe what Paul believed. Oh that I were worthy to
   unloose the laces of his shoes! Though Paul is not my Lord and Master,
   yet I reverence the Holy Spirit as He speaks through Paul's Epistles. I
   am perfectly satisfied with what Jesus revealed by His own teaching and
   the teaching of His Apostles--and going beyond that seems to me to
   imply that the Revelation is imperfect. But imperfect it is not! It is
   plain, clear and finished, and they that add to it, or take from it,
   will incur the plagues with which the Book is closed and guarded. God
   shall take away from such their names out of the Book of Life and out
   of the Holy City. Hold fast to the old Truth of God!

   The ships in yonder port are swinging with the tide just now. Please
   God they will swing back to the same place when the tide turns. They
   have done so before. There came a day when our dissenting Churches
   almost all went round to Socinianism and then their chapels were empty
   and their day of power was gone. Earnest men rose up and preached the
   old Gospel, again, and there was a grand revival! Now they are going
   off again, turning every man to his own error, except that the Lord has
   a faithful company that hold fast the faith and will not let it go--and
   these will yet live to see a great revulsion of feeling! If they do
   not, that is a small matter to them--to be faithful to their God is
   their first and their last business!

   Hold, next to your hope. Hope in Christ and in His coming and in the
   victory of the Truth of God. If the storms lower, believe that there is
   fair weather ahead. And if the night darkens into a seven-fold
   blackness, believe that the morning comes despite the darkening glooms!
   Have faith and trust in Him that lives, and was dead, and is alive
   forever-more! Let your hope begin to hear the hallelujahs which
   proclaim the reign of the Lord God Omnipotent, for reign He must, and
   the victory shall be unto Him and to His Truth. Hold fast your faith.
   Hold fast your hope.

   But that is not the text. It is holdfast your profession of faith, your
   confession of hope--that is to say, stand to what you have done by way
   of open declaration of these things. Constantly keep up your
   confession. You made it once. Renew it. Often and often say--

   "I'm not ashamed to acknowledge my Lord,

   Nor to defend His cause; Maintain the honor of His Word, The Glory of
   His Cross."

   You are Christians, not for a time, but for eternity1 Your new birth is
   not into a dying existence, but into life everlasting! You are born
   again of a living and incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever!
   Therefore, quit yourselves like men and be strong. Stand fast, "Be
   steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."
   Continue your confession and never conceal it.

   There are times when you will be inclined to put your flag away into
   the canvas case and hide your coat of arms in the cellar. Then you may
   fitly judge that the devil is getting an advantage over you and that it
   is time that you ceased to be beguiled by his sorceries. Tear up the
   wrappings, throw the bag away and nail your flag aloft where every eye
   can see it! Whenever you feel inclined to be ashamed of Christ, do not
   deliberate, but say, "This is wrong. There is coming over me something
   that I must not endure. If I were in a right state of mind I should
   never feel like this." Never yield to shameful cowardice--scorn such
   detestable meanness! Away with it, man! Away with it! If you might have
   gone on peaceably and said nothing about your religion, yet whenever
   you feel at all afraid to do it, then say, "I must do it. I cannot
   allow my principles to remain in question. I will, in some way, make a
   demonstration of the faith that is in me, lest I prove a coward and a
   castaway after all."

   Perhaps you may have to go into a certain company where you do not want
   to have it known that you are a Christian. It is imperative that you
   break through that snare and put the case beyond debate. If I were you,
   I would make my profession known in that very company because the idea
   that you must not be known to be a Christian will be very dangerous to
   you. I cannot exactly tell in what way it may endanger you, but it will
   surely do so and, therefore, whenever the thought of concealment crops
   up, down with it and come out clear and straight for Jesus! Only when
   you are out-and-out for Jesus can you be in a right condition. Anything
   short of this is full of evil! Since Satan tempts you to hide your
   faith, feel that he seeks your harm and, therefore, come out all the
   more decidedly.

   Beloved Friends, may God help us never to do anything contrary to the
   confession of our faith. I have heard of such a thing as a Christian
   man making a confession of his faith by paying sixpence in the pound in
   the Bankruptcy Court. They say that he is making a good thing out of
   his failure. He is making his own damnation sure if he is robbing his
   creditors and yet professing to be a Christian! Here is a man making a
   confession of his faith. He is a very good Christian man in his own
   esteem, but he also knows a good glass of wine and is most fluent when
   he is getting far into the bottle. Have drunks any hope of eternal
   life? Look at yonder professor--he is going across to the public house
   to stand at the counter and drink with those who blaspheme! That is his
   way of confessing his faith, I suppose. It is not mine!

   Have I not seen Christian women become noisily angry and say harsh
   things to their servants? That is showing your Christianity, is it? I
   do not want to be sarcastic, but I don't want you to tempt me to be so.
   If you love the Lord, live as if you loved Him! Let us all try to do so
   and let us watch that we never undo with our hands what we say with our
   tongues. I heard in Lancashire of some people who preached with their
   feet. It is the best way of preaching in the world. By your walk and
   conversation you will preach twice as well as by your talk! Your tongue
   is too soft a thing to influence dull minds, you must influence such by
   your lives.

   When we come to die we will gather up our feet in the bed and bear
   another and more solemn testimony to the Lord our God. We will set up
   one Ebenezer more on Jordan's brink and bear one more witness for Him
   who loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood. I recollect what
   Whitefield said of himself. Someone said, "Dear Mr. Whitefield, I
   should like to be present with you when you come to die. What a
   testimony you will bear in your parting moments." "No," said that
   eminent servant of God, "I do not think I shall bear any testimony in
   death because I have borne so many testimonies in my life that my Lord
   will not want any from me when I die." So it came to pass. He stood at
   the top of the stairs the night before he died and preached his last
   sermon and then turned in and went to Heaven! Perhaps that is how some
   of us will write the finis to our lifework. At any rate, let us bear
   our testimonies while we can. Let us speak up for our Master while we
   may and, by-and-by, we shall see Him whom our soul loves and rejoice in
   Him forever!

   IV. I may not detain you many more moments and, therefore, let me
   answer the question WHY ARE WE TO DO THIS? We are to hold fast the
   profession of our faith without wavering, because He is faithful who
   has promised.

   Have you found Him faithful? Has the Lord failed you? Has the Lord been
   untrue in His promises to you? If He has, then do not hold fast your
   profession! If, after all, it has been a mistake and a delusion, then
   give it up! But if He is faithful who has promised--if He has kept His
   word to you, helped you in your trouble, sustained your heart under
   burdens, comforted you in the dark hour of trial--if till this moment
   you have proven the power of prayer, the wisdom of Providence and the
   truth of the Sacred Word--then deal with my Lord as He has dealt with
   you! Be not faithless to the Crucified. Oh, be not Judas to Him who is
   Jesus to you! He gave His heart for you and even after death it poured
   out blood and water for you--give your whole heart to Him! If it is so
   that these Truths of God are firmly established and that God keeps His
   Covenant, then let us come at once to the feet of the blessed Lord and
   say, "Lord, we do not regret that we entered Your service. On the
   contrary, we are ready to begin again." If we had our lives to live,
   over again, we that began to be Christians as lads would begin earlier!
   We that have served the Lord desire no better Master and no better
   service, but we would wish Him to find, in each one of us, a better
   servant. Lord, we have been happy with You. When we have been unhappy,
   it has been our own fault, not Yours. We would return to You and say,
   "Permit us to serve You still. We would be Your servants forever."

   I have heard of a husband and wife who felt their love for each other
   to be so strong that they almost wished to go through the wedding
   ceremony again, to show how content they were to bear the easy yoke of
   married love. Many of us could say the same. We would also be joined
   anew to our Lord! Let us take afresh His yoke upon us. Let us put our
   shoulder down to the Cross, again, and commence again to serve the Lord
   Jesus with the love of our espousals and the freshness of our earliest
   days. May the Lord bless us to that end!

   While we are doing this, hope that others who never did love Him before
   will now say, "We will come with you and begin a new life from this
   good hour." It will be a happy, happy circumstance if this should be
   the case. God grant it may be so with many, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Mouth and Heart

   (No. 1898)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, APRIL 25, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "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." Romans 10:9.

   PAUL'S great work was saving souls. Whatever else he might be doing, he
   never forgot, "by all means to save some." Whatever else he aimed at in
   his Epistles, he always took care to write that men might, by his
   teaching, be led to the Lord Jesus. He sought to speak so that troubled
   consciences might come to peace through Jesus Christ his Lord, whom he
   loved so well. This is one of the reasons why he so often gives us
   weighty condensations of the Gospel, packing the Truths of God together
   very closely. He knew that these are very useful and so he prepared
   them for his Brothers and Sisters, as one provides portable meats or
   condensed milk for travelers. When the reader finds a compact sentence
   of this sort, he has met with a little Bible, a miniature Body of
   Divinity. Behold the whole story of redeeming love told out in a line
   or two, easy to be understood, likely to be remembered, calculated to
   impress! He who composes short and striking summaries of Gospel Truth
   may be working as effectively for the salvation of men as another who
   delivers earnest, pleading discourses. In this chapter Paul several
   times puts the Gospel in a remarkably plain, simple and brief manner.
   He is the master of condensation and our text is a specimen of his
   power! He here gives the plan of salvation in a line or so--"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."

   I wish to preach in the same spirit in which Paul wrote, aiming from my
   first word to my last at the conversion of any of you who have not yet
   known the Lord. I pray that we may all mean business at this time and
   may get at it in downright earnest. May you be determined to come to
   the point and no longer hesitate! How glad I should be if any would say
   to themselves, "I will run in the way, if I can but see it. I will lay
   hold of that which is put before me, if I may but grasp it. I will
   hesitate and trifle no longer, but I will deal solemnly with solemn
   matters, so that this day I may find peace with God!"

   I am not going to enter into any profound exposition of the deep things
   of God, but I shall keep to those simple matters through which
   salvation comes to plain men and women. Oh that the Spirit of God may
   bless my words to the immediate conversion of my hearers!

   I. I shall need you to notice in our text, first, that the Gospel, as
   Paul here sets it forth, is a Gospel of faith. And THIS GOSPEL OF FAITH
   IS EVIDENTLY INTENDED FOR LOST MEN. Observe, he says, "If you shall
   believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead you shall
   be saved." When Moses wrote the Law, he spoke upon obedience to the
   command as securing life, for, he says, "This do, and you shall live."
   It was presupposed by the Law that those to whom the Law came already
   possessed life and the fulfilling of the Law did but preserve them in
   the life which they already possessed. We read in the fifth verse of
   this chapter, "For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the
   Law, that the man which does those things shall live by them." You see,
   the Law continues life to those who have already life enough to do good
   works. The Gospel comes to us under quite another aspect--it does not
   regard us as having life, but as needing that life. The Gospel comes to
   us not as to servants who need to be told how they are to continue to
   live, but as to dead sinners who need to be made to live and then to be
   kept alive and preserved in happy and holy being! The Gospel says not
   only that we shall live by it, but that we shall be saved by it, which
   promise goes much lower and further. When it is said that we shall "be
   saved," it implies that we have fallen into a lost, ruined and undone
   condition--and out of this the Gospel is to rescue us.

   It is well to start fairly in preaching the Gospel, by declaring
   plainly to whom this Gospel is sent. It is sent to you that need it--it
   is sent, therefore, to you who are lost, because if you are not lost,
   you do not need saving. If you have not fallen, you do not need
   restoring. If you have not sinned you do not need forgiving. If you are
   not far off from the Lord, you do not require to be brought near by the
   blood of Christ. The Gospel of salvation is sent to those who are under
   the curse of the Law and condemned to pay its penalties. What a joyous
   note this is! Hear it, you broken-hearted, and be encouraged! To you we
   proclaim the free gift of God!

   Some fancy that we are to preach to you a milder kind of Law, a more
   easy way of works, an amended dispensation. But, on the contrary, we
   preach to you not demands but gifts, not Law but love. Our Gospel is,
   in very deed, good news! We have come to tell men not what they are to
   do for God, but what God has done for them! We speak not of what men
   are to bring to Jesus, but of what Jesus has brought to them and has
   freely and graciously put forward for their acceptance! Listen, then,
   you who need saving--this Book is for you--the Christ whom this Book
   reveals is for you! The Spirit of God who bears witness to Christ is
   for you! Ah, you guilty, you self-condemned, you utterly disheartened,
   it is to such as you that the risen Savior is preached today!

   Jesus comes to bring salvation. What a great word that is! The text
   says the Believer shall "be saved"--saved is a little word for letters,
   but it is a great word for meaning! What is it to be saved? It means to
   be saved from the punishment of all your sins, saved from going down
   into the Pit, saved from the blackness of darkness forever, saved from
   the everlasting wrath of the Most High, saved from the second death
   whose terror is the Hell of Hell. Whoever confesses the Lord Jesus and
   believes that God has raised Him from the dead, shall be saved from the
   penal consequences of his guilt.

   Better still, you shall be saved from sin itself. The criminality and
   guilt of it shall be removed--from its stain you shall be washed whiter
   than snow. The sin itself, that black cloud, as well as the tempest
   with which it is charged, shall be removed, even as it is written, "I
   have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a
   cloud, your sins." We preach not only deliverance from the punishment,
   but deliverance from the crime, itself--deliverance from the charge and
   accusation which otherwise would lie against the transgressor. The sin
   shall be blotted out in the case of the Believer and he shall be
   forgiven and justified--justified from all things from which the Law
   could never clear him. Righteousness shall be imputed to him, even the
   righteousness of the Lord Jesus, who is the end of the Law for
   righteousness to everyone that believes. If you confess with the mouth
   and believe with the heart, the Lord Jesus shall be made of God unto
   you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption! The
   confessing Believer shall be delivered from the guilt of his sin and he
   shall stand accepted before the Judgement Seat of God!

   What is still more, you shall not only be delivered from the punishment
   of sin and the guilt of sin, but from the power of sin. Oh, to be saved
   from sinning! This is our chief desire. It the guilt of sin could
   possibly be put away and we could still be left as much the slaves of
   sin as before, very little would have been done for us. It would be a
   doubtful blessing. If the children of Israel in Egypt had been screened
   from serving with rigor, had been fed to the fullest and made content
   in their slavery, would it have been a real blessing to them? Would it
   not have riveted the chains of their bondage? The Lord did not send
   them relief in the form of bread, meat and garments, with which to be
   comfortable in Egypt, but He brought them out of Egypt with a high hand
   and an outstretched arm. To be made happy in sin would be dangerous to
   us and unworthy of God!

   The Lord Jesus Christ has come to save His people from their sins, to
   break the chains of evil habit, to subdue sinful influences which now
   dominate us and to put within us a new heart and a right spirit. He, by
   the infusion of a new life, makes us sigh and pant after holiness! He
   answers to that sighing and works in us to will and to do of His good
   pleasure. He subdues our iniquities and makes the power of evil in us
   to wax weaker and weaker while Grace grows stronger and stronger. At
   last He will present us faultless before His Presence with exceedingly
   great joy. We preach emancipation for the slaves of sin! You that are
   worried and wearied with temptation shall be saved from yielding to it!
   You that cry out by reason of indwelling sin shall receive salvation
   from the power of evil! The living and holy seed within you cannot sin
   because it is born of God and its growing force shall, at last, hold
   your every thought in captivity to Christ!

   It is a blessed salvation--an all-round salvation for the past, for the
   present and for the future. This is what we are sent to testify! We
   could not have a more full or a more Divine message! We could not have
   a grander blessing to present to the sons of men than that of being
   saved! In the grand completeness of it, it comprehends Heaven itself
   and all its bliss. "You shall be saved" reaches from the gates of Hell
   to God's own Throne and lifts the sinner up from between the jaws of

   death to the white-robed orchestra of the New Jerusalem! Though now an
   heir of wrath even as others, the believing sinner shall be made like
   unto the First-Born, even to the Lord Jesus Christ who is bringing many
   sons unto Glory.

   I begin, then, with the proclamation of salvation for the lost. Hear
   it, you unworthy ones! Hear it, you who cannot say a good word on your
   own account! Hear it and catch at this hope. If God the Spirit will
   bless the Word, according to His gracious habit, you mourning and heavy
   laden ones will joyfully cry, "There is a message for us in this text!"
   Then you will lean forward lest you should lose a word of the discourse
   and your minds will lean forward as well as your bodies. Your hearts
   will lie open like plowed land ready for the seed, ready for the
   showers. You will be responsive to the voice of mercy, even as the echo
   to the horn. By repentance and faith you will answer to the call of
   Divine Love!

   II. I now advance to my second point, which is this--SAVING FAITH
   CONCERNS ITSELF ONLY ABOUT JESUS, HIMSELF. I will read to you the
   connection of my text. "But the righteousness which is of faith speaks
   on this wise, Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven?
   (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, Who shall descend into
   the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what
   says it? 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."

   True faith, the faith which saves, concerns itself wholly about the
   glorious Person and gracious work of Him whom God raised from the dead!
   Within the compass of Bethlehem, Gethsemane and the right hand of the
   Father lies the sphere of the sinner's faith. Faith is where Jesus is
   and she asks no wider range. Unbelief is speculative, but faith deals
   with facts. Unbelief says, "Who shall ascend into Heaven? Who shall
   descend into the abyss?" Unbelief is always starting questions--she is
   so dissatisfied with the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ that she demands
   another Savior, or no Savior, or 50 Saviors! She does not know what she
   wants! Her cry is, "Who will show us any good? Who in the heavens, who
   in the depths, who anywhere?"

   Unbelief has a very attentive ear to every new notion. This man has a
   novel doctrine, another has just ferreted out a fresh idea and unbelief
   goes helter-skelter this way and that. She hears voices crying, "Lo
   here, and lo there!" and, like a silly bird, she is lured and snared!
   She flies away to the hills, or plunges into the abyss to find the
   promised good. At one time she is aloft in delusion, at another she is
   beneath in despair--pessimism, or optimism, or some other "ism" will
   charm her--but she will not keep to the Truth of God.

   Faith is of another mind--she takes her stand where Christ is and she
   says, "If salvation is anywhere it is in Him. Is it not written, 'Look
   unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and
   there is none else'?" She bows before Jesus at Bethlehem and sees hope
   in His Incarnation. She traverses the fields of Judea with Jesus and
   sees hope in the holy, tender-hearted Lover of souls. She goes with Him
   to Gethsemane and views Him covered with the bloody sweat and begins to
   read her pardon there. She sees Him die upon the accursed tree and she
   says, "My life is here. If ever I am saved, I must be saved here." She
   sees Jesus in the tomb. She watches and beholds Him rise again--and as
   He rises, she claps her hands with delight, for she sees hope and
   immortality in Him! She looks up yonder to the Throne of the Most
   High--she sees Jesus interceding for transgressors that the Lord God
   may dwell among them! She understands that He is carrying on a noble
   enterprise which will soon be brought forth to victory and she glories
   in her Lord--her All--

   "All our immortal hopes are laid In You, our Surety and our Head! Your
   Cross, Your Cradle and Your Throne, Are big with glories yet unknown."

   Faith's resolve is to look only to Jesus, her God, for she is persuaded
   that beside Him there is none else. You are saved, my dear Friend, when
   you come to that point! When Jesus is all your salvation and all your
   desire, the work of Grace has begun in you. Jesus is your Boaz and you
   have come to the right conclusion about Him when you are resolved never
   to glean in any other field! You will be satisfied, now that you have
   determined to drink waters only from His fountain and to be satisfied
   only from His table.

   The faith which saves is not dreamy. Do you not notice how unbelief,
   here, dreams of skies and seas, and all immeasurable things? "Who shall
   ascend into Heaven?" What a picture! Imagination is at work--she
   beholds her mighty merits scaling the everlasting ramparts--she dotes
   upon her dream! If she hears a discourse, she only cares for the
   oratory of it. "What a sermon that man preached! How full of poetry!"
   She must have something high and lofty--nothing common will suit her.
   At another time, when she is heavy, her dream is of a wretched diver
   into the deep seas of anguish plunging

   down into the abyss to find the pearl of peace. Imagination raises in
   the soul despondency, despair, frenzy and madness-- and many foolish
   ones hope to find a ransom in these. Faith has done with these Arabian
   nights, for she has done with Sinai. She dreams no more, for perfectly
   healthy men have done away with dreams! With open eyes, faith reads
   facts. She dwells on what Jesus did and suffered. She reflects that He
   died, He rose again and is gone into Glory. Facts, not fiction, are her
   solace. She accepts matters of history, not figments of imagination.
   Something actually done, something really accomplished, faith requires
   and accepts. The weight of sin is not to be borne by theories--the
   enormous load of human guilt is not to be sustained by speculations.
   Only actual transactions can meet our dire necessity! And these we find
   in Jesus Christ, the Revelation of God.

   I know that I am talking to some of you who are as full of fancies as
   an egg is full of meat and I wish I could get you out of them. All
   sorts of whims and notions please your idle brains. You have followed
   after them as a dog follows a false scent, but you have come upon
   nothing yet--and you never will come upon anything till you accept
   those sure, well-witnessed facts which make up the life of the Lord
   Jesus--especially His Resurrection, which is the best assured fact in
   human history! We this day, in the name of God Most High, the Spirit of
   God being with us, proclaim salvation by a risen Savior and we beseech
   you to believe the Truth of what we say, that you may thereby live!

   Unbelief really puts a sad slur upon Christ. She talks about going up
   to Heaven, but supposes it is needed that somebody should ascend to
   Heaven--that would imply that Jesus had never come down from there to
   reveal the Father! She talks of descending into the abyss, as if Christ
   had never come up from the dead! The fact is, all that can be done has
   been done! Why do you need to do what is already done? All that can be
   felt has been felt--why do you need to feel it? "It is finished," said
   Christ--why do you strive to do it over again? Look how that fable of
   the church of Rome concerning her unbloody sacrifice of the "mass"
   insults the one great sacrifice of Calvary and sets it on one side!
   And, even so, all those works, feelings, preparations and so forth
   which you would add to the finished work of Christ really push Christ
   out!

   You need to feel--are not His feelings enough? You need to work--are
   not His works enough? Trust in self is a disloyal attempt upon the
   crown rights of the Redeemer! All those doings, willings and feelings
   are a setting up of self salvation. It is all a mistake! Oh that you
   would give up those mistakes and hear that your soul may live,
   believing what you hear and accepting it in your very soul! I will not,
   however, stay longer to describe this faith by contrast, but we will
   penetrate a stage further into the center of the text.

   III. The third point of our discourse is that SAVING FAITH HAS A
   CONFESSION TO MAKE--"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." Observe here, that this confession is put
   first. I suppose it is because Paul was quoting from the 30th Chapter
   of the Book of Deuteronomy and he had, of course, to place the words as
   Moses arranged them in the passage quoted. Yet there must be other
   reasons. Possibly the confession of the Lord Jesus unto salvation is
   put first because it is most likely to be forgotten. We have plenty of
   preaching of, "Believe and live," and I do not condemn it. But still,
   strictly speaking, it is incomplete. When our Lord bade His servants go
   forth and preach, He said--"He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved."

   Now Baptism is the confession of our faith. Constantly in Scripture the
   faith to which salvation is promised is a faith which makes a
   confession of itself. It is never a dumb faith--it is a faith that
   speaks, a faith which acknowledges its existence--yes, a faith which
   acknowledges the Lord in the teeth of adversaries! We must confess
   Christ before men, or we may not believe that we have the faith of
   God's elect. The Apostle mentions it first, here, because it is so
   often put into the background and this is a great cause of stumbling.
   He mentions it first, also, because it is first as far as our fellow
   creatures are concerned. How can I know what you believe in your heart?
   I must first hear what you confess with your mouth! An inquirer comes
   to me to join the Church, or to be acknowledged as a Christian. I
   cannot begin with his heart--I have no means of reading his thoughts. I
   say to him, "Speak, that I may see you." If he confesses with his mouth
   the Lord Jesus Christ, he has done what, in the order of practical
   religion, must lead the way towards friend and foe.

   Let me add that, in a certain sense, confession with the mouth is
   actually first in the man. Many persons never receive in their hearts
   the comfort of Christ's Resurrection because they have never, with
   their mouth, confessed the Lord Jesus as their Savior and Master. The
   Lord will not give to you the warmth of faith which cheers the heart
   unless you are willing to yield to Him the obedience of faith by taking
   up your cross and coming out and confessing Him! Their are numbers of
   Christians--Christians, I mean, in the judgment of charity--who never
   enter into the joy of their Lord because

   they have never obeyed His rule, nor acknowledged His name before men.
   The Spirit of God, as a Comforter, has not borne His witness with their
   spirit, that they are the children of God, because they have never
   borne their witness to the Lord Jesus. The comfort of believing with
   the heart is hindered by the absence of confession with the mouth!

   Will you listen to this, some of you who cry, "We desire to be saved?"
   I dare not preach to you a backstairs Gospel for cowards--a secret
   green-lane of salvation which winds about through the woods so that you
   can travel it without being seen! No--at my Lord's bidding, I preach to
   you an open King's Highway which the fearful and the unbelieving refuse
   to go! And yet there is only this one way to the Kingdom! We must not
   attempt to be moonlighters. Let us follow Jesus in broad daylight.
   Jesus says, "He that confesses Me before men, him will I confess before
   My Father which is in Heaven; but he that denies Me"--which, in that
   connection, means he that does not confess Him--"he that denies Me
   before men, him will I deny before My Father which is in Heaven." Hear,
   I pray you, the text--"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."

   Notice what it is that is to be confessed--"The Lord Jesus." By which I
   gather that it is essential to salvation that a man confess the Deity
   of Christ. I would not be uncharitable to anybody, but I never can, as
   a believer in the Word of God, expect to see a man saved who denies the
   Godhead of his Savior! He puts himself out of court. He rejects that
   part of the Redeemer's Character which is essential to His being a
   Savior! If any man would be saved, he must believe that Jesus Christ is
   both Lord and God.

   Again, you must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, that is, Ruler and
   Master. You must cheerfully become His disciple, follower, and servant.
   You must confess--"He is my Master, He is my Lord, I intend to be a
   soldier under Him. He shall be to me Leader and Commander. God has made
   Him such and I accept Him as such."

   We are to confess the Lord Jesus, too. That means the Savior, who has
   come to save His people from their sins. If you would be saved by Him,
   you must acknowledge Him as the Messiah, sent of God, to lead His
   people out of their ruin into eternal salvation. The Lord commands you
   to confess Him in that Character and promises to such a believing
   confessor that he shall be saved! Without such open confession there is
   no promise.

   Note how very definite is the confession. Somebody says, "Well, I will
   believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I will try and act up to my
   faith." Do so, by all means! But this will not fulfill the demand of
   the text. It is true, your life is a confession and the more pure it
   is, the more excellent it is as a profession. Still, the doing of one
   duty does not exempt us from another! The confession required by the
   text is expressly said to be "withyour mouth." I dare not alter the
   Scripture. Do not blame me--I did not write the words! There they
   are--"If you shall with your mouth confess the Lord Jesus." You are
   vocally to acknowledge Jesus. You are definitely and distinctly to say
   with your tongue, your mouth, your lips that He is your Lord and
   Savior. It is not to be an inference drawn in silence from your life,
   but a declared statement of the mouth. What other meaning can my text
   have but that? If the Apostle meant that we were to obey the Lord Jesus
   Christ and might render no other confession, he would have said so. Why
   did he say, "with your mouth," if he did not require a spoken
   confession? The mode of confession to which the promise of salvation is
   given is clearly set forth in these words, "you shall confess with your
   mouth."

   Why is this? asks one. Well, first, because I believe that confession
   with the mouth is a sort of breaking away from the world. When a men
   says with his mouth, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," it is as
   good as saying to the world, "I have done with you." Those round about
   will conclude that the man has broken loose from his old habits and has
   come right away from the unbelieving world. When the man with the
   withered arm was in the synagogue, our Lord did not take him into the
   corner and heal him, but He said, "Stand forth." He stood right out in
   the middle of the congregation and when he stood forth, then the Lord
   said, "Stretch forth your hand"--and he did so. Dear Seeker, you must
   stand out! You must come away from your old companions and sinful
   connections and say, "I am for Christ. He is my Savior and I am His
   follower." He requires this confession of you that you may thus be cut
   loose from the world which lies in the Wicked

   One.

   This confession is also a way of forming a visible union with the Lord
   Jesus. When a man, with his mouth, confesses Christ, he does, as it
   were, take sides with Jesus and His cause on the earth--and this is a
   very important thing. Besides, this confession is of much use to the
   outside world as a witness reproving their ungodliness and inviting
   them to a better mind. The confessions of the saved are often the means
   of saving others. We are not fully saved till we earnestly wish to save
   others. If any man says, "If I can get to Heaven all by myself I shall
   be satisfied," he has not taken the first step to

   Heaven--assuredly he has not a germ of Heaven within him! The first
   thing that must be slain within us, if we are to dwell with God, is our
   selfishness! Even our concern for our own salvation must yet be
   overridden by a concern for the spread of the Redeemer's Kingdom and a
   desire for the salvation of others. No man is truly sanctified till it
   is so. Therefore you must confess your Lord with your mouth, to prove
   your sacrifice of self.

   Ah, my Friends! This is a hard saying to some of you. You have good
   points about you, but you do not let your light shine before men as
   your Lord commands you. Your candle is under a bushel--it cannot burn
   well in so confined a space! It is apt to make smoke and blackness.
   Bring it out at once! If it is God's own fire and you put it under a
   bed to hide it, it will soon set the bed on a blaze! Mischief comes of
   suppressed Truth. It can never be right to hide away the Light of God.
   Come out, you cowards! Come out, you tremblers! My Master bids me act
   as enlisting sergeant--I set up the banner and invite you to rally to
   it! If you love Christ, confess Him! If you would have the salvation of
   Christ, take up the Cross of Christ and follow Him wherever He goes.
   Have I gone an inch beyond my text? I am sure I have not.

   IV. Time would fail me if I were to dwell longer on this point,
   important as it is. Let us now notice, in the fourth place, that FAITH
   HAS A GREAT COMFORT TO ENJOY. She has truth of which she must speak
   with her mouth, but she has also facts which she ponders in her heart.
   The text says, "With your heart believe that God has raised Him from
   the dead." This does not only mean that you believe the fact that the
   Lord Jesus has been raised from the dead--I suppose everybody here
   believes in our Lord's Resurrection--but we must so believe it that it
   warms and comforts our heart.

   Why, my dear Brothers and Sisters, is salvation promised here
   especially to a belief with the heart that God has raised Christ from
   the dead? Is not our faith to be fixed upon the death of Christ rather
   than upon the Resurrection of Christ? I answer, it is probably here
   stated because in the Resurrection of our Lord all the rest of His
   history is implied and included. If He was raised from the dead, then
   He must have died. If He died, then He must have been a Man and have
   been born into the world. In mentioning that God raised our Lord from
   the dead, the Apostle has really mentioned all the great redeeming work
   of Jesus, since all the other items are involved in it.

   Moreover, the raising from the dead is not only inclusive of the rest,
   but confirmatory of the whole. By raising Him from the dead, the Father
   gave confirmation of the mission of His Son. He set His seal upon His
   Person as Divine, upon His office as commissioned of God to be the
   Messiah, upon His life as well-pleasing and upon His death as being
   accepted of God for full atonement. Therefore the Most High raised Him
   from the dead that He might be declared to be the Son of God with power
   and that, in and through Him, Believers might be justified. We would
   not have had firm ground for our faith in Jesus if the seal of
   Resurrection had not been set to His work. But now, when we believe in
   the seal, we believe, also, in that which is sealed. His Resurrection
   is the seal of all that our Lord is and does--and believing in this
   with our heart, we believe in that which brings salvation!

   Moreover, the Resurrection of Christ from the dead is one of the chief
   of those Truths of God which are to be believed in the heart, because
   it is the source of the heart's best comfort. "Look," says the
   Believer, "I am, by nature, a poor lost sinner, but I shall not be
   destroyed forever, for Jesus my Savior and Surety has been raised from
   the dead! My salvation lies in Him. I am delivered from the dead in
   Him. I see my justification in His Resurrection. Because Jesus lives, I
   have an unfailing Friend to whom I fly. Because God raised Him from the
   dead and so bore witness that He accepted Him, therefore I know that I
   am accepted in Him. If I lay hold upon that righteousness which God has
   accepted, I am accepted in it."

   O dear Friends, when a sinner knows that his salvation does not lie in
   himself at all, but wholly in Christ, then he discovers the great
   secret! The point is to see Jesus dying for our sins and to see
   ourselves dead in Him. To see Jesus risen from the grave and ourselves
   risen in Him. To see Jesus accepted of God and ourselves, therefore,
   accepted in Him. The Lord Jesus is the object of our trust--not
   ourselves. We are in Him and as He is, so are we. We shall rise to
   Glory because He rose to Glory and we shall dwell in Heaven because He
   dwells in Heaven! Union to Christ is the foundation of hope. Oh, to
   live in Christ!

   The difficulty is to wrench you away from yourselves--this needs a
   miracle of Grace. I know where you are--you are saying, "I do not feel;
   I cannot do," etc. Sirs, this is not the point! The ground of salvation
   is in Jesus and not in the sinner! To see salvation, we must mark what
   Christ accomplished and especially we must mark in our heart that the
   Lord Jesus was raised from the dead--and there we shall be comforted
   because the Resurrection of the Savior is the assurance

   of the completion of His atoning work. He who would have sure hope must
   fix his faith upon Jesus living, Jesus crucified, Jesus risen, Jesus
   ascended, Jesus soon to come! If we believe and trust in these facts,
   we shall be saved--so says the text. Put the two things together--you
   confess Jesus to be Lord and Christ and you, also, with all your heart,
   trust in Jesus as risen from the dead--well, then, you shall be saved!

   How this ought to cheer those of you who are near despair! How it
   should encourage those who lie at death's door! You groan out, "I never
   can be saved." Why not? If Christ died and rose again, what then? If
   this is the ground of salvation and you believe it to be the fact, hold
   on to it and never let it go! Never let your heart doubt the
   well-witnessed fact that God has raised Jesus from the dead! Plead the
   promise of our text in life and, in the dying hour! Cry, "O Lord, You
   have said that if with my mouth I confess the Lord Jesus, and with my
   heart believe that You have raised Him from the dead, I shall be saved.
   Lord, I make the confession and my heart also believes! I beseech You,
   therefore, to do as You have said and save me." This plea can never
   fail!

   V. So now I finish with the truth that FAITH HAS A SURE PROMISE TO REST
   UPON. "If you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the
   dead, you shall be saved."

   "YOU"--Who is that? This is yourself! It is the man who, with his
   mouth, confesses and with his heart believes. Dear Friend, it means
   you! John, Thomas, Sarah, Jane, where are you? Did I hear you cry, "I
   have no merits of my own! I have no good feelings! I have nothing of my
   own that I can rejoice in! I feel myself to be utterly lost!"? Listen!
   "If you shall, with your mouth, confess the Lord Jesus and shall
   believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall
   be saved." The singular pronoun, "you," sets its mark upon you! Put
   your ear to this telephone--a voice speaks to you. God out of Heaven is
   speaking straight down the telephone into your ear--"you shall be
   saved."

   "But I am almost damned." If you confess and believe, "you shall be
   saved." "Alas! I must give up in despair." Yet the promise is to the
   contrary. "But I am the blackest sinner out of Hell." Still the promise
   is to you--"Ifyou 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." I cannot come down from my pulpit and run round to all
   the pews, but, oh, I wish I could look each one of you in the face and
   press your hand and say, "Dear Friend, the text says, 'you.'" Brother,
   Sister, it speaks to you! Youth, child, or gray-headed old man--whoever
   you may be--the text says that if you believe, "you shall be saved."

   Observe the total absence of, "ifs," and, "buts." It is not "you may be
   saved," but, "you shall be saved." When God the Holy Spirit says,
   "shall," there is solidity in it! But you say, "I am afraid." Afraid of
   what? Dare you question the truthfulness of God? When God says,
   "shall," what can you be afraid of? If I were to say, "shall," you
   would receive it as a proof of my fixed intent, but you would know that
   there is only my poor puny arm to carry it out. But when God says,
   "shall," Omnipotence is engaged! He that made Heaven and earth and
   shakes them with His nod--He who creates and destroys--HE says,
   "shall," and who can stand against His will? Devils in Hell go howling
   back to their dens when they hear even the whisper of a, "shall," from
   God!

   There is a sort of passiveness about the expression, "be saved." The
   text does not speak about what you are going to do, but about something
   that is to be done to you--"You shall be saved." "I cannot save
   myself--who said you could? Who asked you to? You can, with your mouth,
   confess the Lord Jesus--do that straight away. You can believe in your
   heart that God has raised Him from the dead. If you are the man I am
   looking for, you are doing so now. You say, "Oh yes, I believe it with
   all my heart; my hope lies in Jesus." Then you shall be saved! The
   power that is needed to deliver you from your sinfulness, the Grace
   that is needed to wash you from your guilt, the blood that is needed to
   cleanse you form your filthiness is all ready--and out of Glory the
   Lord Jesus declares, "you shall be saved."

   There never was, and there never will be a man who, with his mouth
   confessed the Lord Jesus and with his heart believed that God raised
   Him from the dead, who was not saved. Among all the multitudes that
   sink to Hell, there is no confessing Believer and no believing
   confessor! I dare not part the confession and the faith, for God has
   joined them together. The mouth and the heart are equally necessary to
   a living body and a living soul. Open confession and secret
   belief--these together make up the casting of yourself upon the Lord
   Jesus! The full surrender to the Savior--that is the great saving act.
   Do you cast yourself, sink or swim, on what Jesus has done? Then you
   shall be saved, otherwise I am a liar and, what is far worse, this Holy
   Book is a liar, too! And the Spirit of God has borne false witness.
   This can never be! I have no hope, this morning, but what is compassed
   in this verse. With my mouth I do again confess the Lord Jesus, for I

   believe Him to be very God of very God, my Master, my All. Moreover, in
   my heart I do verily and assuredly believe that God raised Him from the
   dead and I am glad of it! It comforts and joys me--

   "He lives, the great Redeemer lives!

   What joy the blessed assurance gives!" I shall be saved, I know I
   shall! I dare not doubt it because God's Word plainly says so!

   I have the same confidence concerning the poorest old woman in this
   house as I have about myself. If she confesses and believes, she is
   saved as I am. The most wicked ruffians and most wanton harlots, if
   they will do as the text directs, shall also be saved. This Gospel is
   not denied to the vilest of the vile. O my Friend, it is not denied to
   you! This is the ship which has carried thousands to Heaven. We who go
   on board shall get to Heaven by it. If it could go down, we should all
   sink together, but as it floats safely, we will all sail together to
   the Fair Havens. There is no second vessel on this line and there is no
   other line! This one chartered boat of salvation by a confessing faith
   now lies at the wharf. Come on board! Come on board at once! God help
   you to come on board at this very moment, for Jesus Christ's sake!
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Zealous, But Wrong

   (No. 1899)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israelis that they
   might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God,
   but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
   righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
   have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Romans
   10:1,2,3.

   WE ought to have an intense longing for the salvation of all sorts of
   men and especially for those, if there are any, that treat us badly. We
   should never wish them ill, not for a moment, but in proportion to
   their malice should be our intense desire for their good. Israel had
   persecuted Paul everywhere with the most bitter imaginable hate. When
   he addressed them in their synagogues, they rushed upon him in their
   fury. When he left them alone and preached quietly to the Gentiles,
   they made a mob, dragged him before the magistrates, charged him with
   causing a tumult and either stoned him or beat him with rods. He was
   "an Israelite, indeed," but his people regarded him as a turncoat,
   indeed, because he had become a Christian! Mad as they were against all
   Christians, they had a special spite and fury against the apostate
   Pharisee. Paul's only reply to all their infuriated malice is this
   gentle assertion--"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
   Israel is that they might be saved."

   Brethren, let us pray for men that they may be saved! Simple as the
   statement is, I feel sure that we shall see more conversions when more
   people pray for conversions. If, as we went about the streets, we made
   a rule that whenever we heard a man swear, we would pray that he might
   be saved, might we not hope to see a great many more saved? If,
   whenever we saw a case of special sin, or read of it in the newspaper,
   we were to make it a habit always to offer our heart's desire and
   prayer for such offenders that they might be saved, I cannot tell what
   countless blessings would come from God's right hand.

   I would bring before you one peculiar class of persons whose conversion
   some of us should very earnestly pray for. They are the kind of people
   who are here described by the Apostle--Israelites--religious people,
   intensely religious in their way, although that way is not the way of
   the Truth of God. They have a zeal for God, but not according to
   knowledge. They are righteous people--self-righteous people--people
   that have done no ill, but, on the contrary, have labored to do a great
   deal of good. They are running and running well, but they are not
   running on the right road. They are laboring and laboring hard, but
   they are not laboring in the right style. And so they will miss their
   reward. Many of these people are around us and very admirable people
   they are in many ways, but their condition causes us the utmost
   anxiety. There are a few such persons in this present congregation--and
   though they are not so numerous among us as in many other quarters, yet
   they have a peculiar place in our affectionate regard. We esteem them
   so highly that we would be shocked and grieved that one single person
   of their character should perish. I say most solemnly, "My heart's
   desire and prayer for such is that they might be saved; for I bear them
   record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge."

   Bear with me at this time while I talk about these people. If you do
   not belong to this order of minds yourselves, I am glad of it. Pray for
   them if you, yourselves, are saved. If you know any such, keep on
   mentioning them to God in prayer, while I am preaching. Use the next
   half-hour as a time of quiet pleading with God about individuals of
   whom you will be reminded while I am talking. Say, "Lord, bless her,"
   or, "Lord, bless him." If you are not one of those at whom I shall be
   specially aiming, then help me with your prayers that this sermon may
   be clothed with power by the Holy Spirit!

   I. And first, why ARE WE SPECIALLY CONCERNED FOR THESE PEOPLE? The
   answer is, "Because they are so zealous." They have a zeal of God. I
   feel right glad to meet with a zealous man, nowadays, for zeal for God
   has become a rare quality in our land. You see plenty of zeal where
   politics are concerned. Fashion, art, society and literature--each one
   evokes zeal of a certain kind, but we are not overdone with those who
   are zealous in the matter of religion! We seem to be pretty nearly gone
   to sleep as to essentials of creed and worship. Who is zealous? Who
   burns with holy ardor? Who is consumed with sacred enthusiasm? If
   anybody comes to be a little zealous above others, he is straightway
   condemned. The man of fervent spirit is laughed at as "a hot
   Gospeller." He is called a fanatic and great efforts are made to put
   him down. I fear that both the wise and the foolish virgins are going
   to sleep at this present time. There is a dullness in the religious
   world, as if we had passed into a dull, thick, autumn fog. We need a
   great and general revival.

   Meanwhile, when we do meet with people who are zealous, we take an
   interest in them. Zealous at Church, zealous in their ceremonies,
   zealous in their belief of what they believe--however mistaken their
   zeal may be, there is something interesting about it. We like to
   associate with people who have hearts--not dry leather bottles out of
   which all the juice has gone--but those who have heart, soul, life,
   fire and go. I love to meet with those who believe in something and who
   work under the pressure of their belief--and give their strength to the
   carrying out of what they believe to be the will of God. It does seem a
   very great pity that any zeal should be wasted and that anyone full of
   zeal should yet miss his way. We fear that there are some who will do
   so. If you want to go to York, you may ride very fast, due south, but
   you will not get to York with all your speed! Unless you turn your rein
   towards the north, you may ride a thousand horses to death and never
   see the gates of the old city! It is of no use to be zealous if you are
   zealous in a wrong cause. But when we meet with any who are such, I say
   that they become peculiarly the object of a Christian's prayers. Pray
   for the zealous with all your hearts, for it is such a pity that one of
   them should go astray.

   Again, they should be especially the subject of our prayers because
   they may go so very wrong and may do much mischief to others. Those who
   have no life nor energy may easily ruin themselves, but they are not
   likely to harm others. Whereas a mistaken zealot is like a madman with
   a firebrand in his hand! Persons who are zealous and are under a
   mistake may do a great deal of mischief! What did those Scribes and
   Pharisees in Christ's day do? They were very zealous and, under the
   pressure of their zeal, they crucified the Lord of Glory! What did Saul
   do in his time? He was very zealous and, under the influence of his
   zeal, he dragged men and women to prison and compelled them to
   blaspheme. And when they were put to death he gave his voice against
   them. I do not doubt that many who burned the martyrs were quite as
   sincere in their faith as those whom they burned. In fact it must have
   taken an awful amount of sincerity in the case of some to have been
   able to believe that the cruelties which they practiced were really
   pleasing to God. We cannot doubt that they had such sincerity.

   Did not our Lord, Himself, say, "Yes, the time comes, that whoever
   kills you will think that he does God service"? Documents, written by
   men who stained their hands with the blood of Protestants prove that
   some of them had a right heart towards God. In their mistaken zeal for
   God, truth and church unity, they believed that they were crushing out
   a very deadly error and that the persons whom they sent to prison and
   to death were criminals that ought to be exterminated because they were
   destroyers of the souls of men.

   Take heed that none of you fall into a persecuting spirit through your
   zeal for the Gospel! A good woman may be intensely zealous and for that
   reason she may say, "I will not have a servant in my house who does not
   go to my place of worship." I have known landlords, wonderfully zealous
   for the faith, who have, therefore, turned every Dissenter out of their
   cottages and have refused to let one of their farms to a Nonconformist.
   I do not wonder at their conduct--if they are zealous and, at the same
   time, blind, they will naturally take to exterminating the children of
   God! Of course, in their zeal they feel as if they must root out error
   and schism. They will not have Nonconformity near them and so they get
   to work and, in their zeal, they hack right and left. They say strong
   things and bitter things--and then proceed to do cruel things--very
   cruel things--verily believing that, in all that they do, they are
   doing God a service, not thinking that they are violating the crown
   rights of God who alone is Lord of the consciences of men!

   They would not oppose the will of God if they knew it and yet they are
   doing so. They would not willingly grieve the hearts of those whom God
   loves and yet they do so when they are browbeating the humble cottager
   for his faith. They look upon the poor people who differ a little from
   them as being atrociously wrong and they consider it to be their duty
   to set their faces against them and so, under the influence of the zeal
   that moves them, which, in itself, is a good thing,

   they are led to do that which is sinful and unjust! Hence the Apostle,
   after he had felt the weight of the stones from the hands of the Jews,
   prayed that they might be saved, for if they were not saved, their zeal
   for God would continue to make murderers of them!

   Another reason why we long to see the zealous converted is
   this--because they would be so useful. The man that is desperately
   earnest in a wrong way, if you can but show him his error and teach him
   what is right, will be just as earnest in the right way! Oh, what
   splendid Christians some would make who are now such devotees of
   superstition! Despite their superstition, I look upon many High
   Churchmen with admiration. Up in the morning early, or at night late,
   ready to practice all kinds of mortifications--to give their very
   bodies to be burned and all their substance in alms, ready to offer
   prayers without number and to be obedient to rites without end--what
   more could external religion demand of mortal men? Oh, if we could get
   these to sit at Jesus' feet and leave the phylacteries and the
   broad-bordered garments-- and worship God in spirit--and have no
   confidence in the flesh--what grand people they would make!

   See what Paul himself was, when, counting all he had valued so dear to
   be but dung, he left it and began to preach salvation by Grace alone.
   While he flew over the world like a lightning flash and preached the
   Gospel as with a peal of thunder, he loved, he lived, he died for the
   Nazarene whom once, in his zeal, he had counted to be an impostor!
   Brethren, pray with all your might for zealous but mistaken persons who
   have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

   Once more, we are bound to make these people the subject of specially
   earnest prayer because it is so difficult to convert them. It requires
   the power of God to convert anybody, really, but there seems to be a
   double manifestation of power in the conversion of a downright bigot
   when his bigotry is associated with dense ignorance and gross error.
   "Oh," he says, "I do that which is right. I am strict in my religion.
   My righteousness will save me." You cannot get him out of that. It is
   easier to get a sinner out of his sin than a self-righteous man out of
   his self-righteousness! Conceit of our own righteousness sticks to us
   as the skin to the flesh. Sooner may the leopard lose his spots than
   the proud man his self-righteousness. Oh, that righteousness of ours!
   We are so fond of it. Our pride hugs it. We do so like to think that we
   are good, that we are upright, that we are true, that we are right in
   the sight of God by nature!

   And though we are beaten out of it with many stripes, yet our tendency
   is always to return to it. Self-righteousness is bound up in the heart
   of a man as folly in the heart of a child. Though you crush a fool into
   a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet his self-righteous folly will
   not depart from him! He will still stick to it because, after all, he
   is a good fellow and deserves to be saved. We must, therefore, in a
   very special manner pray for such, seeing that self-righteousness is a
   deep ditch and it is hard to draw him out who has once fallen into it.
   Prejudice, of all other opponents, is one of the worst to overcome. The
   door is locked. You may knock as long as you like, but the man will not
   open it. He cannot! It is locked and he has thrown away the key! You
   may tell him, "You are wrong, good Friend," but he is so comfortably
   assured that he is right, that all your telling will only make him more
   angry at you for attempting to disturb his peace. O God! who but You
   can draw a man out of this miry clay of self-righteousness? Therefore
   do we cry to You, of Your great Grace, to do it!

   For these and many other reasons those who have a zeal for God, but not
   according to knowledge, must have a chief place in our importunate
   prayers.

   II. And secondly, WHAT IS IT THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE, ACCORDING TO OUR
   TEXT? These people will not like the text, nor yet like me for honestly
   explaining it. According to our text, it is very clear that these good
   people are ignorant. "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness,
   go about to establish their own righteousness." Ah, you may be brought
   up under the shadow of a church. You may sit all your life in a meeting
   house. You may hear the Gospel till you know every term and phrase by
   heart and yet you may be ignorant of the righteousness of God! This is
   not a very complimentary statement, but as it is made upon Inspiration,
   it behooves us to give earnest heed to it.

   Listen! There are many who are quite ignorant as to the natural
   righteousness of God's Character. They do not know how intensely He
   hates sin, how His anger burns against injustice and untruth. They have
   never conceived an idea of how pure He is, how infinitely holy. They
   have never been in sympathy with the angel's adoration so as to know
   what is meant by the celestial chant, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
   Sabaoth." "You think," says God, "that I am altogether such a one as
   yourself--that if you are pleased with your righteousness, I must be
   pleased with it, too. And if your poor pride and stupefied conscience
   is satisfied, therefore your God must be satisfied, also." Those who
   are satisfied with their own holiness are ignorant of God's attribute
   of righteousness!

   Again, they are ignorant of the righteousness of the Law of God.
   Indeed, there is awful ignorance about that. You may hear the Ten
   Commandments read every Sabbath and I think that it is a good thing to
   have them read and a good thing to have them posted up where they can
   be read, but you will not know anything about them by merely reading
   them. There is a depth of meaning in those Commandments, of which
   self-righteous persons are ignorant. For instance, when they read, "You
   shall not commit adultery," does it strike most men's minds that even a
   lascivious look breaks that Commandment? Do they reflect that not only
   acts of fornication and uncleanness, but indecent words, thoughts and
   looks are forbidden by that Command? A man reads, "You shall not kill,"
   and he thinks to himself, "I never committed a murder. I can shake
   hands with that Commandment and sing a merry song under the gallows."
   But Christ says, "He that is angry with his brother, without a cause,
   is a murderer"--and ill-will is murder at bottom. Murder is but hate
   ripened into deed and, therefore, the least degree of hate is a
   violation of the Commandment, "You shall not kill."

   Who among us has ever measured the full compass of the great Law of
   God? Let me stretch out the line before you for a moment. "You shall
   love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
   with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as
   yourself." Who among us has ever done that? The man who says, "I have
   kept the Law" is simply ignorant of the righteousness which the Law of
   God sets before us as the Divine requirement! Could we behold the Law
   in all its full-orbed majesty, we would as soon expect to hold the sun
   in the hollow of our right hand as to fulfill the Law in all its length
   and breadth!

   Further than this, dear Friends, a man that is self-righteous and hopes
   to get to Heaven by his works and his religion, is ignorant of God's
   righteous requirements with regard to his own heart. God requires not
   only that you should do that which is right, but that you should think
   that which is right, that you should love that which is right, yes, and
   that you should be that which is right! He desires His Truth in the
   inward parts and in the hidden part He would have us to know wisdom. If
   I could entirely govern my tongue, yet I might be guilty before God,
   even with that tongue, for there is such a thing as idle silence as
   well as idle speech! If it were possible to keep the hands right in all
   things, yet the heart might, all the while, be willing and anxious to
   move the hands wrong and, after all, it is the way of the heart which
   is the true gauge of the man's life. Unless you are clean through and
   through in your very inwards, in the core and center of your being, you
   have not reached to the righteous requirements of God. What do you say
   to this? Are not many grossly ignorant of this?

   And then, again, all persons who are self-righteous must surely be
   ignorant of God's righteousness in another sense, namely, they are
   ignorant that God has prepared a better righteousness for us. The Lord
   God has prepared for man a perfect and Divine righteousness, by which
   He justifies the ungodly! He has sent His own Son into the world, pure
   in heart and pure in life, to work out that righteousness! That Son of
   His has kept the Law in every point and, what is more, He has honored
   the Law by His death, whereby He vindicated its tarnished honor and
   gave Glory to the Law-Giver! God now says, "Sinner, I can make you
   righteous through Christ--righteous by imputation. I will impute to you
   what Jesus did for you. I will accept you on account of what He is and
   of what He did. He shall be your righteousness! He shall be made of God
   unto you, your righteousness."

   Now surely, if you say, "No, but I will have a righteousness of my
   own," why, Man, you must be ignorant of God's righteousness! Would God
   have taken the trouble to make another righteousness if you could have
   made one of your own? Is not Calvary, with all its griefs, a
   superfluity of naughtiness if men could be saved without it! The death
   of Christ upon the tree was an extravagance--a needless
   extravagance--if men can be saved without it! And if any man can be
   saved without Christ--saved by his own works and saved by the principle
   of the Law--then for him Christ died in vain! There was no need, in the
   first place, that Christ should have died for such a man--and to such a
   man Christ has died for nothing. If you are righteous, you have nothing
   to do with Christ, for He is a Savior of sinners. If you have a
   righteousness of your own, you are a rival to Christ! You are holding
   up your two-penny garment of rags and saying, "This is as good as the
   Divine robe of Christ's righteousness."

   Man, you are stitching together your poor fig leaves and you are
   saying, "This is garment enough for me. I need not to wear the livery
   of God, the garment of Christ." But those leaves will wither before the
   sun goes down and leave you, to your shame, naked! You are in
   opposition to Christ, you are an Antichrist--and your sin in setting up
   such a righteousness is, perhaps, greater than if you had lived in open
   sin! You are, at any rate, casting as much dishonor upon Christ and
   doing as much displeasure to God by this vain-glorious attempt to set
   up your own righteousness, as if you had gone

   about, like Pharaoh, to ask, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His
   voice?" It is only another form of the same pride! In the Egyptian king
   it takes one shape and in you it takes another. Therefore, beware!

   Brothers and Sisters, are you praying for these zealous but ignorant
   and vain-glorious people? Go on with your prayers. Now, in silence,
   cry, "Lord, of Your great mercy, be pleased to deliver them from their
   headstrong zeal! Give them light, that they may quit their ignorance
   and be no longer enemies to the Cross and Grace of our Lord Jesus

   Christ!"

   III. That brings me to my third point which is this--I have shown you
   why they should be prayed for. I have shown you that they are ignorant.
   Now I am going to show you WHAT THEY DO. According to the text they are
   going about to establish their own righteousness. I do not know whether
   I can give you the idea which this language suggests to my mind, but it
   is this--here is a kind of stuffed image, or, if you like, a statue,
   and they have set it up and they want it to stand. But it is so badly
   constructed that it tumbles down. So they set it up again and over it
   goes! In other words, they use all manner of plots and schemes to set
   up their righteousness upon its legs, but it repeatedly topples over.

   Another figure which may illustrate the expression is this. They have
   bad foundations for a house--and bad materials, bad mortar and they,
   themselves, are by no means good workmen. They have built up quite a
   height of wall to make a shelter for themselves, but it tumbles down.
   Never mind--they are very industrious--and so they set to work to put
   it up again. They are perseveringly determined, somehow or other, to
   build up a righteousness of their own. That is the meaning of this
   text. They go about to set up, to establish, to make it stand--their
   own righteousness--and it is such a crazy thing that it falls down of
   its own weight! And whenever it tumbles down, they set it up again.

   They go about to do it, that is, they invent all sorts of ways. They go
   to the ends of the earth to find another bit of stone that will just
   wedge in and help to settle the cornerstone. All their industry is
   spent in trying to set up this thing which is not worth a button when
   it is set up! Alas, that folly should be so desperately entrenched in
   the heart of man, that he will spend his whole life in a persevering
   attempt to insult his Maker by preparing a righteousness of his own,
   when his Maker has already worked out and brought in a righteousness
   perfect in every respect!

   While I am preaching about this, I am thinking of myself and smiling
   and yet mourning to think how, in the days of my ignorance, I, myself,
   tried this ridiculous pastime. The pictures which I shall paint will be
   drawn from my own personal experience. At first the man says, "I shall
   be saved, for I have kept the Law of God. What do I yet lack?" Now a
   very small hole will let enough light into the man's heart to force him
   to see that this pretence will not answer. No one of us has kept the
   Law of God! What says the Scripture? "They are all going out of the
   way. They are together become unprofitable; there is none that does
   good, no not one." You have only to read the Law over by the light of
   conscience and you must say to yourself, "I see that I cannot be saved
   by the perfect keeping of the Law, since I have already broken that
   Law."

   When driven from this foolish hope, the man readily sets up another. If
   he cannot work, then a man tries to feel-- and I know I tried to feel.
   Or else he cries, "I must join a bit of religion to my pure morals. I
   do not quite understand how the combination is to be made, but we have
   to maintain a reputation for righteousness and we must do it by hook or
   by crook. It is true that I have not kept the Law. Well, then, I will
   pray every morning and pray every night very regu-larly--and take a
   good long time over it, too--when I do not go to sleep, or when I do
   not wake up too late! And I will read so much of the Bible every
   day--surely that is a grand thing! And if I can get through the Bible
   in a certain time, that will score one, will it not? Then I shall
   regularly attend a place of worship and then, I think--well, I must be
   baptized, perhaps, or at any rate, confirmed, or I must go to the
   sacrament! And when I have done all this, do you not think it will come
   pretty square?"

   If a man's conscience is awake, it will not come square! Or, to go back
   to the old figure, the image will not stand upright--it will tumble
   over! After appearing to stand firm for a while, our poor wretched
   righteousness grows top-heavy, again, and over it goes. The man says,
   "No, I do not feel righteous after all! There is something wrong."

   Conscience begins to call out, "It will not do." Perhaps, the man is
   taken ill. He thinks that he is going to die and he says, "Alas, I
   could not die with so poor a hope as this! This boat would never carry
   me across the river Jordan. I can see that it leaks very terribly.
   There are a hundred points in which my hope utterly fails me. What
   shall I do?" Well, then, he must keep his wretched presence afloat,
   someway, and so he cries, "At length I must go in for something really
   good. I will give a lot of money away!"

   If he is a rich man, he says, "I will endow an almshouse. You see I
   need not give the money till I die. That will do very well. I had
   better keep it while I am alive and then leave it when I cannot keep
   it. Won't it be a splendid thing? And if I put a painted window in a
   church, surely that will go a long way! Or I will give a lump sum to a
   hospital." To build a bridge, or mend the common roads used to be the
   way in which a man who wanted to bid high for Heaven made his offers in
   olden times. Or else the monks and friars promised to sing him into
   Glory for the small consideration of 10,000 a year. And so men go into
   that line and seek salvation by purchase. And they hear about saints
   who fast. Well, then, they say, "Oh, I shall fast!" Then they say, "I
   have not prayed long enough. I must pray twice as long."

   According to the church to which he belongs, the zealous person becomes
   a determined partisan of his sect. Remember how Mr. Bunyan said that
   when he was a godless man, he could have kissed the earth on which the
   clergy walked and he thought that every nail in the church door was
   sacred? Among Dissenters, the man who is trying to save himself usually
   thinks that every practice of the little community with which he is
   united is infallibly correct. He has no real love to Christ and has no
   trust in Christ's righteousness, but how he will work at his favorite
   self-salvation! And you will have to work at it, Sirs, if you are going
   to Heaven by your works! To work your fingers to the bones is nothing!
   You might as well try to climb to the stars on a treadmill as to get to
   Heaven by your good works and, certainly, you might more easily sail
   from Liverpool to America on a sere leaf than ever get to Heaven by
   works and doings of your own! There is more needed than will ever come
   of yourself. You need a Savior! You must be born again from above. You
   need a salvation that shall be a gift of infinite charity, a blessing
   of the boundless mercy of the eternal God--NOTHING else will save you!

   But, oh, men will go about to set up their own righteousness--and I
   will tell you what some of them will do tonight! "Ah!" they will say,
   "quite right, Mr. Spurgeon. Quite right! I cannot bear that
   work-mongering and self-justification, but I hope that I shall be saved
   because I feel so deeply my sinnership and I groan so heavily under a
   sense of guilt!" You trust to that, do you? It is only another form of
   trusting to your own works! I must rout you out of your feelings, as
   well as out of your works. You may just as well trust in the one thing
   that comes of you, as in the other thing that comes of you. Your
   salvation lies absolutely outside of yourself, in the Person of the
   Lord Jesus Christ and not in what you do, but in what He is. If you add
   to that foundation one stick or stone of your own--thought, feeling, or
   work of your own--by way of trusting in it you have spoiled the
   salvation of Christ! It shall never be "Christ and Company." Therefore
   be sure that if Jesus is to save you, you must let Him do it and you
   must stand out of the way.

   "What? Am I not to work?" Oh, yes! Work as hard as you like, if He has
   saved you! But as to the salvation, itself, that is with Him. "But we
   are to work out our own salvation." Certainly you are, after He has
   worked it in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure! But you
   cannot work out of yourself what is not in yourself--and you cannot put
   it into yourself--the Lord Jesus must put it there for you and then you
   must, with diligence, work it out in your life and conversation. The
   inner and spiritual work is all His doing, from first to last.

   I know that you do not like this doctrine, Sir. You are sitting very
   uneasily and looking towards the door. I thought I saw you seize your
   cane just now. Have patience a few minutes longer. Suppose that you
   were to get to Heaven in your way, what would happen? I am afraid that
   sacred place would become more than a little mixed up. Whenever I get
   to Heaven, I will sing to the praise of the Glory of His Grace to whom
   I shall owe it all! When you get there, you cannot sing with me. You
   must have a new tune. You will throw up your cap and say, "I have
   managed it, after all!" This will lead to a very speedy contest and
   quarrel. You will glorify yourself and, depend upon it, sinners saved
   by Grace will glorify Christ! Our jealousy for His Glory will not allow
   us to tolerate you in the realms of the blessed! Our Lord is not going
   to have any discord in Heaven--we shall all sing His praises there, or
   never sing at all! There will be no divided praise and the strain shall
   be set to the tune of Salvation all of Grace. "Salvation to our God
   that sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever."

   IV. Lastly, dear people of God, are you praying about these zealous,
   mistaken people all this while? Let me entreat you to renew your
   supplications. Shall we stop a minute while you do? Remember that you,
   also, were once in the dark and that you foolishly hoped to be saved in
   the same proud and selfish manner which has such charms for them. Pray
   about them that the Lord will fetch them out of their
   self-righteousness--"O Lord, in Your infinite mercy, bring to Yourself
   and to Your dear Son, those earnest persons who have a zeal for You,
   but not according to knowledge! O You, who do great marvels, enlighten
   the darkness of those who are prejudiced against the day!"

   The fourth thing is, WHAT THEY WILL NOT DO. "Going about to establish
   their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the
   righteousness of God."

   "They have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."
   Why, there are some that have not submitted even to hear it! Possibly,
   I address, tonight, one who never came here before and has always said,
   "No, I would not think of going to such a place." You are only one of a
   numerous band of people of that character. Our law does not judge any
   man before it hears him, but these people both judge and condemn the
   Gospel without giving it an hour's attention! If you speak to them
   about it, they are wrapped up in an idea of their own righteous
   perfectness and they really cannot endure to hear themselves talked to
   as if they were common sinners. Are they not good enough of themselves?
   What can you tell them better than they already know? They do not want
   to hear the Gospel! I think that I would recommend they, at any rate,
   hear what it is, because the next time they speak against it, they will
   speak with more knowledge. It is always a pity not to know even that
   which we most despise!

   Even contempt should have a rational foundation. It will not hurt you,
   Friend, to know. And yet there is such prejudice in the mind of some
   that they refuse to acquaint themselves with the Truths which God has
   revealed. "Sinners saved by Grace?" they say, "Salvation by faith? It
   is all very well for the commonalty, but it does not do for ladies and
   gentlemen like us. We were always so good." Very well, then. If that is
   really the case, you know there is a Heaven for the commonalty and, it
   is highly probable that you ladies and gentlemen are too good to go
   there! Where will you go? There is but one way to Heaven and that way
   is closed against the proud. And if you choose to be so proud, you will
   close it against yourself and we cannot help you.

   But we will pray--pray God that your prejudice may yield and that,
   tonight, and at other times, those who have a zeal for God, but not
   according to knowledge, may, at least be willing to hear what the
   Gospel is. How many have been brought to Christ in the old times by
   reading Martin Luther upon the Galatians? That is a book in a rough
   enough style. What sledge-hammer words Martin uses! Only the other day
   I met a man who came to me like one of the old Puritans and he said to
   me that he had traversed the line of the two covenants. He began to
   converse with me in that antique, majestic style which comes of Puritan
   theology. I thought--Bless the man! He has risen from the dead! He is
   one of Oliver Cromwell's gray Ironsides! He will be able to tell me of
   Naseby and Marston Moor!

   So I said to him, "Covenant and Law, where did you pick that up,
   Friend?" "Not at any church or chapel," he said. "There are none round
   about where I live who know anything at all about it. They are all in
   the dark together--dumb dogs that cannot bark." "How did you stumble on
   the true light?" I asked. The man replied, "In the good Providence of
   God I met with Master Martin Luther on the Galatians. I bought it for
   six-pence out of a box in front of a bookseller's shop." Oh, it was a
   good find for that man! Six-penny worth of salvation according to the
   judgment of men, but infinite riches according to the judgment of God!
   He had, indeed, found a jewel when he learned the truth of Salvation by
   Grace through faith! I recommend persons, whether they will read Martin
   Luther or any other author, to be especially careful to read the
   Epistle to the Galatians, itself. Paul hammers, there, against all hope
   of salvation by the Law and puts salvation on the basis of Grace, and
   Grace alone, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Still there are
   many who will not incline their ears and come to Christ--they will not
   even hear that their souls may live! Do not they deserve to die who are
   too proud to hearken to the Way of Life?

   And then there are others who, when they hear it, will not admit that
   they need it. "What, Sir? Must I go down on my knees? Must I confess
   that I am a sinner, a real sinner? Must I come before God as if I had
   been a criminal? Must I stand in the dock and plead guilty?" Yes, you
   must, or else you will never be saved. "They that are whole have no
   need of a physician, but they that are sick." Off with that helmet of
   obstinacy! Down with the plumes of pride! You must come to God on your
   bended knees, with a rope about your neck--as one who is only fit to
   die and be cast into Hell--for He will never save you on any other
   terms! He must extend to you the scepter of His absolutely Sovereign
   Grace and save you as an undeserving, ill-deserving, Hell-deserving
   sinner--or else you can never be saved at all! What do you say to this?
   Do you reply, "I will never submit to such a humiliation"? God will
   never alter His terms to please you. Some will not submit to accept
   salvation. It is freely offered, without money and without price, but
   men would like to pay for it at least with something and they turn upon
   their heels. They will not have it as a free gift!

   Again, there are others who will not submit to the spirit of it--to the
   influence of it, for you must know that the spirit of Free Grace is
   this--if God saves me for nothing, then I belong to Him forever and
   ever. If He forgives me every

   sin simply because I believe in Jesus, then I will hate every sin and
   flee from it. If He grants me forgiveness on no ground but that of His
   own absolute mercy and good pleasure--as He has put it, "I will have
   mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I
   will have compassion"--then I will love Him with all my heart, soul and
   strength till time shall be no more. Now, for the love I bear Him, I
   will lead a holy life. I will serve Him with every power of my being.
   The virtue I aimed at before, in my own strength, I will now ask for
   from His Holy Spirit. The goodness that I thought I had, but never had,
   I will seek to have as a gift of His Grace worked in me and I, because
   of His great goodness to me, will live to Him and will not, from this
   day on, serve myself or serve sin, but will serve Him who has bought me
   with His precious blood!

   Many will not submit to that, yet they can never be saved from sin
   unless they yield themselves as the blood-bought servants of Christ.
   Christ comes to save His people from their sins and from their sins He
   will save them! They shall no longer be in bondage to the powers of
   evil. The Lord Jesus accomplishes this salvation by freely forgiving
   them and then moving their hearts to such a love of Him that they
   become in love with everything that is pure and holy--and are filled
   with hatred of everything that is unjust, wrong and wicked--and their
   life becomes totally changed! What the principle of Law talked about
   doing, but never did, the principle of Grace actually does! It puts a
   new mainspring into the man and when the works within are right, then
   the hands outside soon move according to right rules.

   I most earnestly pray that many of you may submit to the righteousness
   of Christ. Yield yourselves up! Trust in Christ! Believe in Him who
   died for sinners! Take Him to be your Savior right now! Do not go to
   sleep till this is done, lest you wake up in the bottomless Pit!

   With my whole soul I offer the prayer of my text this night. And you,
   also, dear Friends, keep on praying! I ask all of you Christian people
   to insert a special petition into all your prayers and to keep it
   there--"O Lord, save by Your Grace those who have a zeal for You which
   is not according to knowledge! Grant that they may not go about to
   establish their own righteousness, but may submit themselves unto the
   righteousness of God!" Amen and Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Rejoice Evermore

   (No. 1900)

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MAY 23, 1886,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Rejoice evermore." 1 Thessalonians 5:16.

   THIS is a sunny precept. When we read it, we feel that the time of the
   singing of birds has come. That joy should be made a duty is a sure
   token of the blessedness of the New Covenant. Because Jesus has
   suffered, we are encouraged, commanded and enabled to rejoice. Only the
   Man of Sorrows and His chosen Apostles can teach for a precept such a
   word as this--"Rejoice evermore" Happy people who can be thus exhorted!
   We ought to rejoice that there is a command to rejoice! Glory be unto
   the God of happiness who bids His children be happy. While musing on
   this text, I seem carried in spirit to the green woods and their
   bowers. As in a dell, all blue with flowers, where the sun smiles down
   upon me through the half-born oak leaves, I sit down and hear the
   blessed birds of the air piping out their love-notes--their music says
   only this--"Rejoice evermore." All that I see, and hear, and feel
   surrounds me with garlands of delight, while the fairest of all the
   shepherds of Sharon sings to me this delicious pastoral--"Rejoice
   evermore" The very words have breathed spring into my soul and set my
   heart blossoming! Thus am I also made to be as a daffodil which long
   has hidden away among the clods, but now, at last, ventures to lift up
   her yellow lily and ring out her golden bell. Who can be sad, or
   silent, when the voice of the Beloved says, "Rejoice evermore"!

   Our Apostle speaks of rejoicing as a personal, present, permanent duty
   to be always carried out by the people of God. The Lord has not left it
   to our own option whether we will sorrow or rejoice, but He has pinned
   us down to it by positive injunction--"Rejoice evermore." He will have
   this cloth of gold spread over the whole field of life. He has laid
   down as first and last, beginning, middle and end--"Rejoice evermore."
   Some things are to be done at one time, some at another, but rejoicing
   is for all times, forever and forevermore, which, I suppose, is more
   than ever, if more can be! Fill life's sea with joy up to the high
   water mark. Spare not, stint not, when rejoicing is the order of the
   day. Run out to your fall tether, sweep your largest circle when you
   use the golden compasses of joy!

   Some things being once done are done with and you need not further
   meddle with them; but you have never done with rejoicing. "Rejoice
   evermore."

   Our text is set in the midst of many precepts. Notice how from the 14th
   verse, the Apostle packs together a number of duties of Christian
   ministers and Church members--one towards another. "We exhort you,
   Brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support
   the weak, be patient toward all men." All these things are to be done
   in turn, according as occasion requires, but, "rejoice evermore." You
   have plenty to do, but this thing you have always to do. You shall
   never be able to fold your hands for lack of some holy task or other,
   but be not worried--be not fretted by what you have to do--on the
   contrary, take up the sacred duties with alacrity, welcoming each one
   of them and entering upon them with delight! Rejoice in each one,
   because you "rejoice evermore." You will have to warn the unruly and
   their rebellious tempers will, perhaps, irritate you. Or, if in
   patience you possess your soul, yet you may grow sad at having so
   melancholy a duty to perform, but be not troubled, even by the grief of
   injured love. Warn the unruly, but "rejoice evermore."

   Do not pause in the blessed service of rejoicing when you are called
   upon to comfort the feeble-minded. There is a danger that the
   feeble-minded may rob you of your comfort, but let it not be so. In
   attempting to lift them out of the waters you may, perhaps, be almost
   drowned, yourself--your deliverance will lie in the sweet words,
   "Rejoice evermore." You will lose your power both to warn the unruly
   and to comfort the feeble-minded if you lose your joy. The joy of the
   Lord will be your strength in all these matters. Therefore, "rejoice
   evermore." Close at your hand will lie the weak who

   need supporting and you may be half saying to yourselves, "We wish that
   all God's people were strong, that we might unitedly spend all our
   strength against the foe instead of having to use it at home for
   supporting our own weak soldiers." But be not dejected on that
   account--while you are supporting the weak, still, "rejoice evermore."
   Your rejoicing will be a great support to the faint--your ceasing to
   rejoice will be a terrible confirmation of their sorrow! Lend the
   feeble a hand, but do not stop your own singing! Does not a mother
   carry her baby and sing at the same time?

   As you turn about, you find all men gathering to hinder you, to grieve
   you, to slander you, or to make use of you for their base purposes. But
   be not grieved. Put up with your poor fellow creatures since the Lord
   puts up with you, but do not leave off rejoicing! As you are patient
   towards all men, let your patience have a flavor of joy in it. However
   great the provocations that you endure, still, "rejoice evermore." As
   it is written, "With all your sacrifices you shall offer salt," so let
   it be your settled purpose with every other duty to offer rejoicing. I
   am sure, Brothers, that we make a very great mistake if we get like
   Martha--cumbered with much serving--for that cumbering prevents our
   serving our Master well. He loves to see those who serve in His house
   of a cheerful countenance. He wants not slaves to Grace His Throne. He
   would have His children wait upon Him with a light in their faces which
   is the reflection of His own! He would have His joy fulfilled in them,
   that their joy may be full. It is His royal pleasure that His service
   should be delight, His worship, Heaven, His Presence, Glory! Let your
   hearts be sanctified, but let not your hearts be troubled. Amidst a
   thousand duties give not way to a single anxiety! While you are
   desirous to honor God in everything, yet be not overburdened, even,
   with the cares of His cause and service, lest you put forth the hand of
   Uzzah to stay the Ark of the Lord. The Lord forbade His priests to wear
   garments that caused sweat and He will not have any of us fret and
   worry about His cause so as to lose our rest in Himself. Wrestle for a
   blessing, but still "rejoice evermore."

   The command to rejoice is set in the midst of duties--it is put there
   to teach us how to perform them all.

   Also notice that our text comes just after a flavoring of trouble and
   bitterness. Read verse 15--"See that none render evil for evil unto any
   man." Children of God are apt to have evil rendered to them. They may
   have slanderous reports spread about them. They may be accused of
   things they never dreamed of. They may be cut to the heart by the
   ingratitude of those who ought to have been their friends, but still
   they are bid, "rejoice evermore." Even rejoice in the persecution and
   in the slander! "Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and
   persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,
   for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward
   in Heaven: for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you."
   So says our Lord. "Rejoice," He says, "and be exceedingly glad."

   There is an expression in the Greek that never has been rendered into
   English, and never will be--agalliasthe. Old Trapp half puns upon the
   agalliasthe as he says, "dance a galliard." I do not know what a
   "galliard" was, but I suppose that it was some very joyous kind of
   dance. Certainly we know of no better way of translating our Lord's
   word than by--exult, or leap for joy. Even when your good name shall be
   tarnished by the malice of the wicked, then you are to leap for joy!
   When are you to be wretched? Surely despondency is excluded. If slander
   is to make us dance, when are we to fret? Suppose some other kind of
   trial should come upon you? You are still to rejoice in the Lord
   always. The dearest friend is dead--"rejoice evermore." The sweet babe
   is sickening, the darling of your household will be taken away--
   "rejoice evermore." Trade is ebbing out, prosperity is disappearing
   from you--you may even be brought to poverty-- but, "rejoice evermore."
   Your health is affected, your lungs are weak, your heart does not beat
   with regularity, very soon you may be sick unto death, but, "rejoice
   evermore." Shortly you must put off this tabernacle altogether! Tokens
   warn you that you must soon close your eyes in death, but, "rejoice
   evermore." There is no limit to the exhortation! It is always in
   season! Through fire and through water, through life and through death,
   "rejoice evermore."

   Now and then a commentator says that the command of our text must mean
   that we are to be in the habit of rejoicing, for there must necessarily
   be intervals in which we do not rejoice. It is to be "constant but
   intermittent." so one good man says. I do not know how that can be,
   though I know what he means. He means that it ought to be the general
   tenor of our life that we rejoice, yet he evidently feels that there
   must be black clouds, now and then, to vary the abiding sunshine. He
   warns us that there will be broken bits of road where as yet the steam
   roller has not forced in the granite. But that will not do as an
   interpretation of the text, for the Apostle expressly says, "Rejoice
   evermore"--that is, rejoice straight on and never leave off rejoicing!
   Whatever happens, rejoice! Come what may, rejoice! If the worst darkens
   to the worst--if the night lowers into a sevenfold midnight, yet,
   "rejoice evermore!" This carillon of celestial bells is to keep on
   ringing through the night as well as through the day. "Rejoice,
   rejoice, you saints of God at every time, in every place,

   and under every circumstance. Joy, joy, forever! Rejoice evermore. In
   the midst of a thousand duties, amid the surges of 10,000 trials, still
   rejoice." There is to be about the Christian a constancy ofjoy.

   I am bound to mention that among the curiosities of the Churches I have
   known many deeply spiritual Christian people who have been afraid to
   rejoice. Much genuine religion has been "sickened over with the pale
   cast of thought!" Some take such a view of religion that it is, to
   them, a sacred duty to be gloomy! They believe in the holiness of
   discontent, the sanctity of repining--and they recoil from grateful joy
   as if it were the devil in the form of an angel of light! One of the
   commandments of the saints of misery is, "Draw down the blinds on
   Sunday." Another is, "Never smile during a sermon--it is wicked." A
   third precept is, "Never rest yourself and be sure that you never let
   anybody else rest for an instant. Why should anybody be allowed a
   moment's quiet in a world so full of sin? Go through the world and
   impress people with the idea that it is an awful thing to live."

   I have known some very good people spoiled for practical
   usefulness--and spoiled as to being like the Lord Jesus Christ by their
   deeply laid conviction that it was wicked to be glad. Well do I
   remember an earnest Christian woman who saw me when I was first
   converted, full of the joy of the Lord and joyfully assured of my
   salvation in Christ Jesus. She seemed distressed at the sight of so
   much joy! She shook her head. She looked at me with that
   heavenly-minded pity which these good people usually lay by in store.
   It seemed to her a dreadful thing that so young a Christian should dare
   to know whom he had believed! If you had been a Christian a hundred
   years you might, perhaps, begin to think it possible that you were
   saved--but to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ straight away like a
   little child--and at once to rejoice in His salvation seemed to this
   dear old Christian woman to be an act of such shocking temerity that
   she could only shake her dear head and prognosticate all sorts of
   horrible things!

   Since then I have found a great many like she and when I have seen them
   shake their heads they have not shaken me half so much as she shook my
   heart on that first occasion! I know them, now, and I know that there
   is, after all, nothing in that shake of the head. The fact is that they
   ought to shake their heads about themselves for getting into so sad a
   state while this text stands on the sacred page, "Rejoice evermore." It
   cannot be a wise and prudent thing to neglect this plain precept of the
   Word of God! It cannot be an unsafe thing to do what we are commanded
   to do! It cannot be a wrong thing for a Believer to abide in that state
   of mind which is recommended by the Holy Spirit in words so plain and
   so unguarded, "Rejoice evermore."

   Oh, dear Friends, you may rejoice! God has laid no embargo upon
   rejoicing! He puts no restriction upon happiness. Do believe it that
   you are permitted to be happy! Do believe that there is no ordinance of
   God commanding you to be miserable. Turn this Book over and see if
   there is any precept that the Lord has given you in which He has said,
   "Groan in the Lord always, and again I say, groan." You may groan if
   you like. You have Christian liberty for that, but, at the same time,
   do believe that you have larger liberty to rejoice, for so it is put
   before you! He bids you rejoice and yet, again, He says "rejoice." Some
   of God's sheep dare not go into the Lord's own pasture. It is dark and
   thick with rich and luscious food--and into that field their Shepherd
   has already led them. Yet they dream that there is a gate and that gate
   is shut--and across it is written this word--"Presumption." They are
   afraid to feed where God has made the best grass to grow for them
   because they are afraid of being presumptuous! The fear is groundless,
   but painfully common.

   Oh that I could deliver the true Believer from this evil influence! If
   you are Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, everything that there is in
   Christ is yours! If you are resting in Jesus Christ, though you have
   only lately begun to trust in Him, the whole Covenant of Grace with all
   its infinite supplies belongs to you and you have the right to partake
   of that which Grace has provided! Jesus invites you to eat and drink
   abundantly. Beloved in the Lord, the only sin that you can commit at
   the banquet of love will be to deny yourselves! The feast is spread by
   royal hands--and royal bounty bids you come! Hold not back through
   shame or fear! Come and saturate your souls with goodness. "Eat you
   that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness," for so
   God permits you to do.

   But I go a step farther and that is, that it is a sin not to rejoice. I
   will not say it harshly--I should like to say it as softly and tenderly
   as it could be put--but it must be said and I must not take away from
   the force of it by my tenderness. If it is a command, "Rejoice
   evermore," then it is a breach of the command not to rejoice evermore!
   And what is a breach of a command? What is a neglect to obey a precept?
   Is it not a sin--a sin of shortcoming, though not of transgression?
   Beloved, why do your faces wear those gloomy colors? Why do you
   distrust? Why do you mourn? Why are you continually suspicious of the
   faithfulness of God? Why are you not rejoicing when there is God's Word
   for it, first permitting,

   and then commanding you? Come, you unhappy and dolorous professors,
   question yourselves rather than others! O you forlorn one, cease to
   judge those whose eyes flash with exultation!

   Next time that you meet with a rejoicing Christian, do not begin to
   chide him, but quietly chide yourself because you do not rejoice. As
   for you who are swift of foot, I hope that you will not say an unkind
   word of poor Mephibosheth who is lame in both his feet, for he is dear
   to David and he shall sit at David's table. But, on the other hand,
   Mephibosheth, in his lameness, must not grow bitter and censorious and
   find fault with Asahel who is fleet of foot as a young roe, or
   otherwise it may seem almost too ridiculous! No, no, Heavy-Heart, chide
   not the glad. Glad-Heart, deal not roughly with the sorrowful! Bear one
   another's burdens and share one another's joys! If there is any
   chiding, let it be the chiding of Little-Faith, sorrowfully bemoaning
   his own weakness of Grace. Oh that God would help us to be faithful to
   our own experiences--then we shall not criticize others, but judge
   ourselves. All this by way of introduction.

   And now, just for a minute or two, I desire to speak upon THE QUALITY
   OF THIS REJOICING which is commanded in our text. May the Holy Spirit
   enable me to set before you the select taste and special quality of a
   Believer's lifelong joy! "Rejoice evermore."

   Brothers and Sisters, this is not carnal rejoicing. If it were, it
   would be impossible to always keep it up. There is a joy of harvest,
   but where shall we find it in winter? There is a joy of wealth, but
   where is this joy when riches take to themselves wings and fly away?
   There is a joy of health, but that is not always with us, for the evil
   days come and the years of weakness and sorrow. There is a joy in
   having your children round about you. Sweet are domestic joys, but
   these do not last forever. At the house of the happiest, knocks the
   hand of death! No, if your joys spring from earthly fountains, those
   fountains may be dried up and then your joys are gone. If the
   foundation of a man's joy is anywhere on earth, it will be shaken, for
   there is a day coming when the whole earth shall shake and even now it
   is far from being a stable thing.

   Build not on the floods and what are outward circumstances but as waves
   of the changeful sea! No, Beloved, it cannot be carnal joy which is
   commanded here, since carnal joy in the nature of things cannot be
   forevermore. I know not that carnal joy is commanded anywhere. Men are
   permitted to rejoice in the things of this life, but that is the most
   that we can say. They are forbidden to rejoice too much in these
   things, for they are as honey, of which a man may soon eat till he is
   sickened. The joy which God commands is a joy in which it is impossible
   to go too far. It is a heavenly joy, based upon things which will last
   forever, or else we could not be bid to "rejoice evermore."

   Again, as this joy is not carnal, so I feel quite sure that it is not
   presumptuous. Some persons ought not to rejoice. Did not the Prophet
   Hosea say, "Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people, for you
   have departed from your God"? There are some persons who rejoice and it
   would be well if a faithful hand were to dash the cup from their lips!
   They have never fled to Christ for refuge--they have never been born
   again--they have never submitted themselves to the righteousness of God
   and yet they are at ease in Zion. Ah, wretched ease! Many are ignorant
   of their ruin, strangers to the remedy of Grace, strangers to the blood
   that bought redemption--and yet they rejoice in their own
   righteousness. They have a joy that has been accumulated through years
   of false profession, hypocritical formality and vain pretence. Such as
   these are not told to "rejoice evermore."

   There must be sound reasons for rejoicing, now, or there can be no
   reason for rejoicing always. If your joy will not bear looking at, have
   done with it! If, when you run with the footmen of common
   self-examinations in time of health, they weary you, what will you do
   when you contend with the black horsemen of dark thought in the hour of
   death? The joy that will abide forever is the joy to be sought after!
   But joy which a man cannot justify never ought to be thought of as
   enduring "evermore." Is your hope fixed on what Jesus did for sinners
   on the Cross? Are you really a partaker of the life that is in Him?
   Have you been begotten again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of
   Jesus Christ from the dead? If so, it is safe for you to rejoice at
   once and it will be equally safe for you to "rejoice evermore!" Is it
   not clear that the rejoicing commanded in our text is not a
   presumptuous joy, or a carnal joy?

   Again, dear Friends, I feel bound to add that it must not be a
   fanatical joy. Certain religious people are of a restless, excitable
   turn and never feel good till they are half out of their minds. You
   would not wonder if their hair should stand bolt upright, like the
   quills of the fretful porcupine. They are in such a state of mind that
   they cry, "hallelujah," at anything or nothing, for they feel ready to
   cry, or shout, or jump, or dance. I do not condemn their delirium, but
   I am anxious to know what goes with it? Come here, Friend. Let us have
   a talk. What do you know? What? Is it possible that I

   offend you the moment I seek a reason for the hope that is in you? Is
   it so that you do not know anything of the Doctrines of Grace? You were
   never taught anything? The object of the institution which enlisted you
   is not to teach you, but only to excite you! It pours boiling water
   into you, but it does not feed you with milk. That is a miserable
   business!

   We like excitement of a proper kind and we covet earnestly a high and
   holy joy, but if our rejoicing does not come out of a clear
   understanding of the things of God and if there is no Truth of God at
   the bottom of it, what does it profit us? Those who rejoice without
   knowing why can be driven to despair without knowing why--and such
   persons are likely to be found in a lunatic asylum before long. The
   religion of Jesus Christ acts upon truthful, reasonable, logical
   principles--it is sanctified common sense. A Christian man should only
   exhibit a joy which he can justify and of which he can say, "There is
   reason for it." I pray you, take care that you have joy which you may
   expect to endure forever because there is a good solid reason at the
   back of it. The excitement of animal enthusiasm will die out like the
   crackling of thorns under a pot--we desire to have a flame burning on
   the hearth of our souls which is fed with the fuel of Eternal Truth and
   will, therefore, burn on forevermore.

   I go a little farther, and I say that I believe that this joy which is
   commanded here, "Rejoice evermore," is not even that high and Divine
   exhilaration which Christians feel upon special occasions. We could
   tell of rapturous ecstasies and sublime joys which, if they are not
   Heaven, itself, are so near akin to it that we would not change them
   for the place that Gabriel fills when nearest to his Master's Throne!
   Oh, there are times when God's Elijah, having brought down the fire
   from Heaven, girds up his loins and runs before Ahab's chariot with a
   Divine enthusiasm which onlookers cannot understand! There are moments
   on the top of the mountain when Peter is no fool for saying, "Let us
   build three tabernacles." It is so good to be there that we would
   willingly stay on that mountain and never come down again to the
   bustle, turmoil and sin of a guilty world!

   Now, you are not commanded in the text to be always in such a high,
   exalted, rapturous state of mind as that. "Rejoice evermore," but you
   cannot always rejoice at that rate! I have said that you cannot and I
   mean it literally. There is a physical impossibility in it! The strain
   upon the mind would be much too great. We could not live in such a
   condition of excitement and tension. Sometimes we can swim in the deep
   waters, but who can always swim? We can take to ourselves the wings of
   eagles and soar beyond the stars--but we are not condors and cannot
   always fly--we are more like the sparrows which find a house near the
   altar of God. When we cannot mount as on wings, we think it quite
   sufficient if we can run without weariness and walk without fainting.
   The ordinary joy of the Christian is that which is commanded here--it
   is not the joy of Jubilee but of every year. It is not the joy of
   harvest but of all the months. "Rejoice evermore." No, Miriam, no, not
   always the timbrel! Not every day, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has
   triumphed gloriously." There is other work for you. No, Moses, not
   every day, "Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy."
   No, you have other work to do among these rebels, quite as honoring to
   your God and quite as useful as writing Israel's triumphal hymn!

   No, James and John and Peter, not always on the top of Tabor. Sometimes
   in the house of death with your Master where the young girl is raised.
   And sometimes in Gethsemane to keep watch, if you can, while He sweats
   great drops of blood. You are to "rejoice evermore," but you are not
   always to be clashing the high-sounding cymbals--sometimes the softer
   psaltery must satisfy your hand. All days are not holidays. There was a
   day when Job lost his cattle and his children and yet blessed the name
   of the Lord. All days are not wedding days. There was a day wherein
   Jacob cried, "All these things are against me!" All days are not as the
   days of Heaven upon earth. And until the day breaks and the shadows
   flee away, we shall have to bear about a joy that is rather a lamp in
   the night than a sun in the day--a joy that gladdens us when we are
   cast down, rather than lifts us up to ecstasy.

   I hope that you catch my thought, though I am afraid that I do but
   dimly put it. This shows you what kind of joy could not always be with
   us. The joy that can always be with us is a part of ourselves--a power
   of the new nature which God works in us by His own Spirit. It consists
   in the great cheerfulness of the new-born disposition--a full
   conviction that whatever God does is right--a sweet agreement with the
   Providence of God--let it ordain what it will, an intense delight in
   God, Himself, and in the Person of His dear Son. And, consequently, a
   quietness, a calm, a stillness of soul, "the peace of God which passes
   all understanding." This holy rejoicing is a drop of the essence of
   Heaven! You have heard of "songs without words"--such is the joy of the
   Lord in the soul--a sort of silent song forever sung within the

   spirit. It is a quiet making of music with every pulse of the heart, a
   living Psalmody before God with every heaving of the lungs.

   I hope that you know what it means, or that if you do not, you may soon
   learn. This is a joy that has no wear and tear about it. You can keep,
   from year to year, the even tenor of this way, for this is the pace for
   which men's minds were made. "Rejoice evermore." You can live to be as
   old as Methuselah in this frame, for this rejoicing will never tear you
   to pieces. It will conserve you and act as the salt of your physical,
   mental, and spiritual man.

   Thus much upon the quality of this joy.

   Suffer a few words upon THE OBJECT OF THE REJOICING, in order to help
   you, dear Friends, to indulge it. "Rejoice evermore." How can we keep
   this feast? What are the objects of such a joy as this?

   God helping us, we can always rejoice in God. What a God we have! "God,
   my exceeding joy," said the Psalmist. "Delight yourself, also, in the
   Lord." Every attribute of God, every characteristic of God is an
   inexhaustible gold mine of precious joy to every man who is reconciled
   to God. Delight yourself in God the Father, His electing love, His
   unchanging Grace, His illimitable power, His transcending Glory, in
   your being His child and in that Providence with which He orders all
   things for you! Delight yourself in your Father God! Delight yourself,
   also, in the Son, who is, "God with us." God with us before the earth
   was, in the Covenant Council when He became our Surety and our
   Representative. God with us when His delights were with the sons of
   men. Delight in Him as Man suffering, sympathizing with you. Delight in
   Him as God putting forth infinite wisdom and power for you. I would
   need a month in which to give a bare outline of the various points of
   our Lord's Divine and human Character which furnish us with objects of
   joy! Do but think of Him. Do but for a moment consider His love and if
   you are at all right in heart, it must bring unspeakable pleasure to
   you--

   "Jesus, the very thought of You With sweetness fills my breast."

   Then think of the Holy Spirit and rejoice in Him as dwelling in you,
   quickening you, comforting you, illuminating you, and abiding with you
   forever. Think of the Triune God and be blessed.

   Then muse upon the Covenant of Grace. Think of redemption by blood.
   Think of Divine Sovereignty and all that has come of it in the form of
   Grace to men. Think of your effectual calling, your justification, your
   acceptance in the Beloved. Think of your final perseverance. Think of
   your union with the glorious Person of the Well-Beloved and of all the
   life and all the Glory that is wrapped up in that surpassing truth.
   "Rejoice evermore." With such a God, you have always a source of joy!

   I believe, dear Friends, that if we are right-minded, every doctrine of
   the Gospel will make us glad, every promise of the Gospel will make us
   glad, every precept of the Gospel will make us glad. It you were to go
   over a list of all the privileges that belong to the people of God, you
   might pause over each one and say, "I could rejoice always in this if I
   had nothing else." If ever you fail to rejoice, permit me to exhort you
   to awaken each one of the Graces of the Spirit to its most active
   exercise. Begin with the first of them--faith. Believe, and as you
   believe this and that out of the 10,000 blessings which God has
   promised, joy will spring up in your soul! Have you exercised faith?
   Then lead out the sister Grace of hope. Begin hoping for the
   resurrection, hoping for the Second Coming, hoping for the glory which
   is then to be revealed. What sources of joy are these!

   When you have indulged hope, then go on to love and let this fairest of
   the heavenly sisters point you to the way of joy. Go on to love God
   more and more and to love His people and to love poor sinners. And, as
   you love, you will not fail to rejoice, for joy is born of love! Love
   has on her left hand sorrow for the griefs of those she loves, but at
   her right hand a holy joy in the very fact of loving her fellows, for
   he that loves does a joyful thing. If you cannot get joy either out of
   hope, or faith, or love, then go on to patience. I believe that one of
   the sweetest joys under Heaven comes out of the severest suffering when
   patience is brought into play. "Sweet," says Toplady, "to lie passive
   in Your hands and know no will but Yours." And it is so sweet, so
   inexpressibly sweet, that to my experience the joy that comes of
   perfect patience is, under certain aspects, the most Divine of all the
   joys that Christians know this side of Heaven. The abyss of agony has a
   pearl in it which is not to be found upon the mountain of delight. Put
   patience to her perfect work and she will bring you the power to
   rejoice evermore.

   I will suppose that you have gone through all this and that you still
   say, "I cannot rejoice as I would." Then arise, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, and gird yourself for holy exercise. Begin with prayer. Prayer
   will make the darkening cloud disappear and then you will rejoice. If
   supplication is over and you are not rejoicing, then sing a Psalm.
   "Bring here the minstrel." Often does holy music set the Prophet going.
   Let us sing a song unto the Lord and if we have no joy in our hearts,
   already, we shall not have sung very many verses before rejoicing will
   drop on us like the dew which soaks the dry and dusky tents of the
   Arabians. If neither prayer nor praise will do it, then read the Word.
   Sit still and meditate on what the Lord has spoken. Go up to the
   Communion Table--gather with the people of God in sweet mutual
   converse. Or go out and preach, my Brothers, to sinners! Go to the
   Sunday school class, and tell the dear children about Christ. In
   Christian labor you will joy in the Lord as you would not have rejoiced
   in Him if you had been at home idle.

   At any rate, when you do not rejoice, say to yourself, "Come, Heart,
   this will not do. Why are you cast down, O my Soul?" I have heard of a
   mother that whenever her children began to cry and grow fretty, she
   said, "They must have medicine." She was sure that they were not well.
   Whenever you begin to fret and worry, say to yourself, "I must take
   heavenly medicine, for I am not right. The leaves of the Scriptures are
   for my healing--I will use them for my soul's good. If my heart were
   right, I would rejoice in the Lord, and as I am not rejoicing I must
   resort to the great Physician."

   Brothers and Sisters, we must rejoice. Why should we not rejoice, since
   all things are ours? Heaven is ours in the future and earth is ours in
   the present. With the past and all its sins blotted out, the future and
   all its needs provided for by the bounty of an unchanging God, why
   should we be sad? If we are not glad, the stars may rebuke us as they
   twinkle amid the darkness--the sun may rebuke us for refusing to shine
   in the light of God. Come, Brothers and Sisters, let us obey the Word
   that says, "Rejoice evermore."

   Lastly, somebody will say, "But why should we rejoice?" What are THE
   REASONS FOR THIS REJOICING? We ought not to need arguments to persuade
   us to be happy! The worldling says that, "he counts it one of the
   wisest things to drive dull care away." The child of God may count it
   the wisest thing to cast his care upon his God. You do not need an
   argument for rejoicing, but if you did, it is found in the command of
   your Lord, who says to you, "Rejoice evermore."

   Rejoicing wards off temptation. The Christian may be tempted, but
   little impression is made upon him by the pleasurable bait if he is
   happy in the Lord. There is a passage in Paul--I forget, just now,
   where it is--where he speaks of putting on the armor of light. It is
   fine poetry as well as solid fact that we wear the armor of light. And
   part of the meaning is that we are so surrounded with seraphic joy that
   nothing can tempt us. The joy which we wear is far superior to any
   which the Evil One can offer us and so his temptation has lost its
   power. What can the devil offer the joyous Christian? Why, if he were
   to say to him, "I will give you all the kingdoms of the world and the
   glory thereof, if you will fall down and worship me," the Believer
   would reply to him, "Fiend, I have more than that! I have perfect
   contentment! I have absolute delight in God. My soul swims in a deep
   sea of bliss as I think of God." The devil will speedily quit such a
   man as that, for the joy of the Lord is an armor through which he
   cannot send the dagger of his temptation!

   This joy of the Lord will shut out worldly mirth from the heart. The
   rejoicing Christian is not the kind of man that needs to spend his
   evenings in a theater. "Pooh!" he says, "what can I do there?" You say
   to the man who has once eaten bread, "I will take you to such a grand
   feast. I will show you a company of swine all feeding upon husks. Look
   upon them, see how they enjoy themselves! You shall have as much as you
   like and be as happy as they are." He says, "But you do not know me!
   You do not understand me. I have none of the qualities that link me
   with swine! I cannot enjoy the things which they enjoy." He that is
   once happy in God pours contempt upon the most sublime happiness that a
   worldling can know! It is altogether out of his line. He does not know
   their mirth, even as they do not know his rejoicing. I suppose that the
   fish of the sea have joys suitable to their natures. I do not envy
   them--I am not inclined to dive into their element. It is so with the
   children of God--they are not inclined to go after worldly things when
   they are happy in the Lord.

   But your miserable professors who simply go to a place of worship
   because they ought to go, and who are very good because they dare not
   be anything else, they have no joy in the Lord! They go to the devil
   for their joy--they openly confess that sometimes they must have a bit
   of pleasure and, therefore, they go to questionable amusements. No
   wonder that they are found in Satan's courts, looking up to him for
   delights, since they find no rejoicing in the ways of the Lord!

   He that rejoices in the Lord always will be a great encouragement to
   his fellow Christians. He comes into the room-- you like the very look
   of his face. It is a half-holiday to look at him and as soon as he
   speaks, he drops a sweet word of

   encouragement for the weak and afflicted. We have some Brothers and
   Sisters round about us whose faces always refresh me before preaching!
   Their words are cheering and strengthening. Those who rejoice in the
   Lord evermore cannot help perfuming the room where they are with the
   aroma of their joy. Others catch the blessed contagion of their
   contentment and become happy, too.

   This is the kind of thing that attracts sinners. They used, in the old
   times, to catch pigeons and send them out with sweet salves on their
   wings--other pigeons followed them into the dovecote for the sake of
   their perfume and so were captured. I would that everyone of us had the
   heavenly anointing on our wings, the Divine perfumes of peace, joy and
   rest! For then others would be fascinated to Jesus, allured to Heaven.
   God grant that it may be so, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Mysterious Meat

   (No. 1901)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 23, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, Master, eat. But He
   said to them, I have meat to eat that you know not of. Therefore the
   disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?
   Jesus said to them, My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to
   finish His work Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then
   comes harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look at
   the fields, for they are already ripe for harvest! And he who reaps
   receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who
   sows andhe who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the sayingis
   true, One sows, and another reaps. I sent you to reap that for which
   you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into
   their labors." John 4:31-38.

   THE disciples had gone away into the city to buy meat and for this they
   cannot be censured. It was necessary that food should be provided and
   it naturally fell to their lot to perform that duty. Do not say that
   they were carnal or un-spiritual because of this, for the most
   spiritual people must eat to live. When they came back from making
   their purchases, they found their Master sitting by the well, as they
   had left Him. They naturally expected that He would be as ready to
   partake of the provision as they were to offer it to Him, but He made
   no movement in that direction. His mind was evidently far away from the
   idea of food. He was absorbed in something else and, therefore, His
   disciples sought to call Him back to a sense of His need. I do not
   suppose that they had, themselves, eaten. It was hardly like them to do
   so while their Lord was not with them. They, therefore, wished to eat
   and they were all the more struck with the fact that He had no care for
   refreshment. Knowing how weary He had been when they left Him--so weary
   that He bade them go alone into the city--they were perplexed at His
   indifference to food and, perhaps, judged that He was over-fatigued
   and, therefore, they urged Him to eat. Importunately, one after another
   said, "Good Master, it is long since You have eaten; the way has been
   weary, the day is hot, You seem very faint. We pray You, eat a little
   that You may be revived. The woman to whom You spoke has gone. Your
   good work, for a while, is over, let us eat together."

   Again I confess that I do not agree with those who blame these
   disciples. If it is true that there is nothing very elevated in
   providing food, there is certainly nothing unworthy in the act. I
   admire their care for their Master. I praise them for so lovingly
   pressing upon Him the supply of His necessities. It is right for the
   spiritual man to forget his hunger, but it is equally right for his
   true friends to remind him that he ought to eat for his health's sake.
   It is commendable for the worker to forget his weakness and press
   forward in holy service, but it is proper for the humane and thoughtful
   to interpose with a word of caution and to remind the ardent spirit
   that his frame is but dust. I think the disciples did well to say,
   "Master, eat." What is more, I will hold them up to your imitation!
   Jesus has gone from you, now, in actual Person, but His mystical body
   is still with you and, if you meet with any part of His body in need,
   make it your earnest care. Still pray to Him, saying, "Master, eat." If
   you know any of His people in poverty, ask them to partake of your
   abundance, lest your Lord should say to you at the last, "I was hungry
   and you gave Me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink." Our
   Lord's spirituality is not of that visionary sort which despises the
   feeding of hungry bodies! Look after His poor and needy ones. How can
   you be truly spiritual if you do not? "Pure religion and undefiled
   before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows
   in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
   There is much in the commonplace attentions of charity--Jesus commands
   our consideration of the weaknesses and needs of others--therefore, I
   say again, I commend the disciples that they urged Him saying, "Master,
   eat."

   Having done this justice to the 12, let us do higher honor to the
   Divine One about whom they gathered. His mind was, at that time,
   absorbed in spiritual matters and, being so, He wished to lead them
   into that higher field wherein He was so much at home and, therefore,
   He transfigured their common words by giving them a higher meaning.
   "You pray Me to eat," He said, but, "I have meat to eat that you know
   not of." They did not comprehend what He meant. As the Samaritan woman
   did not understand Him, when He spoke of water, neither did His
   disciples when He spoke of meat. But you see, the Lord endeavored to
   use the lower expression as a ladder to something higher and more
   spiritual. This was the Master's way from the beginning to the
   end--always to be making similitudes of things seen to set forth the
   things unseen--always to take the thing which men had grasped and use
   it as the means of helping them to lay hold on some great Truth of God
   which, as yet, was out of their reach. Inasmuch as refreshments were
   spoken of and His disciples saw the need of those refreshments, the
   Master turns that thought into a deeper channel and tells them of other
   refreshments which He, Himself, enjoyed and wished them to share with
   Him. In effect our Lord's reply to the request, "Master, eat," is
   this--"I have eaten, in the best sense, and I wish you, also, to eat
   with Me." He would have them enter into that service which had yielded
   so intense a satisfaction to Himself--He would have them know His joy
   in it!

   This morning the run of my subject will be just this--first, there are
   refreshments for our hearts which are but little known--"I have meat to
   eat that you know not of." Secondly, these refreshments satisfied our
   Lord--so satisfied Him that He forgot to eat! And thirdly, and a very
   practical thirdly, I hope it will be, let us seek these refreshments at
   once, that we, too, may forget our earthly needs in a heavenly
   enthusiasm. O blessed Spirit of all Grace, give us secret, sacred food
   this morning while meditating upon this theme!

   I. First, THERE ARE REFRESHMENTS WHICH ARE LITTLE KNOWN. Generally men
   know enough about refreshments of the body. Those questions--What shall
   we eat, and what shall we drink?--have been long and carefully studied.
   It seems obvious to all men that if we are to be restored and lifted
   above fatigue or weakness, it must be by corporeal food. Yet there is,
   in the Word of God, an intimation of another principle. As we read,
   "Man shall not live by bread, alone, but by every Word that proceeds
   out of the mouth of God shall man live." The Lord has been pleased to
   make it generally necessary that the body should be sustained with
   food, but that is only because the body is to be destroyed, for it is
   written, "Meats for the body, and the body for meats, but God shall
   destroy both it and them." That new body, which will never be
   destroyed, will probably need no meats. If God so willed it, this frame
   might be sustained without visible food. There is no absolute necessity
   that the order of Nature or of Providence should be just as it is. Even
   now we know that there are many ways by which waste can be suspended
   and the need of food greatly lessened. And there are conditions under
   which life has been sustained upon an almost incredibly small portion
   of food. If God willed it, He could secretly infuse strength into the
   system, keeping the lamp of life burning by means of a subtle,
   invisible oil. We are not so absolutely dependent upon the bread we eat
   as, at first sight, seems--food is but the vehicle of sustenance--God
   could sustain us without it.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ found for Himself a
   sustenance other than that of food--a food superior to the ordinary
   meat of men. But these refreshments were not known to His disciples.
   The common throng of mankind have no idea of spiritual food, but the
   disciples were not of the common throng--they were chosen out of the
   world and they had been with their Lord for some little time! And yet
   they had not grasped the idea of a man being fed and strengthened by an
   influence upon his spiritual nature which could raise him above the
   dragging down of his bodily needs. They could not yet enter into their
   Lord's secret--He had a meat to eat which even they knew not of.

   The reason for His knowing what they knew not was, in part, the fact
   that this nourishment was enjoyed upon a higher plane than these
   servants of Christ had yet reached. They were spiritual men in some
   degree, but they were not highly spiritual--they were mere babes in
   Grace, though men in physical development. They had not yet reached to
   the height of letting their spirits rule the rest of their nature, nor
   had they yet learned the proper occupation of their spirits. They could
   not yet enjoy spiritual meat to the fullest because they were so little
   spiritual. Our Savior was full of the Holy Spirit and, in His inmost
   Nature, He was deeply and intensely spiritual. He lived in constant
   communion with invisible things and, therefore, it was that He
   perceived that "meat to eat" which they knew not of. Oh, that we may
   not miss the delicacies of Heaven from lack of a purified taste! It is
   a sad ignorance which comes of lack of spirituality. The Lord lift us
   out of it!

   Further, these refreshments were unknown to the Apostles, as yet,
   because they implied a greater sinking of self than they as yet knew.
   "My meat," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him that sent Me." How
   condescendingly does our Lord sink Himself in this expression! He does
   not even say, "My meat is to do My Father's will." He takes a lower
   position than that of sonship and dwells chiefly upon His mission, its
   service and the absorption in the will of God which it involved. He
   finds His refreshment in being the commissioned officer of God and in
   carrying out that commission. In being a Servant obeying the will and
   doing the work of Another, He feels Himself so much at home that it
   revives Him to think of it! Others have been refreshed by gaining honor
   for themselves--our Lord is refreshed by laying that honor aside! The
   carnal mind finds its meat and drink in self-will, but Christ, in doing
   the will of God! Doing his own work and carrying out his own purpose is
   the meat and drink of the natural man--the very opposite was the joy of
   our Lord Jesus!

   Is it so with you, my Hearer, that you will have your own way and be
   your own lord and master? You feed upon wind! You seek after emptiness
   and, in the end, your hunger shall devour you! But oh, Believer, have
   you ever tried your Lord's plan? Have you taken your Lord's yoke upon
   you and learned of Him? Thus it is that you shall find rest unto your
   soul! Not in self, but in self-surrender, is there fullness for the
   heart! You are no longer to live unto yourself, for you are not your
   own, but you are the servant of Him who has bought you with a
   price--you will find peace in taking up your proper place. Your
   lifework is, from this day on, not to be one of your own selecting, but
   the work which your great Lord and Master has chosen for you. Servants
   lay their wills aside and do what they are bid. When a man gets fully
   into this condition, I bear witness that he will be refreshed by it! If
   I felt that my calling were of my own choosing and that my message were
   of my own inventing, I should have no rest--the responsibility would
   crush me! But now that I feel that I am doing the will of Him who sent
   me and know that I am committed wholly to the work of the Lord, I pluck
   up courage and put my shoulder to the wheel without misgiving!

   In the name of Him who has sent me to do this work, I find a fountain
   of fresh strength! But, Brothers, we must get low down. We must come
   right away from the idea of being original and inventing something and
   carrying out a novel purpose of our own--we must act only upon
   commission--we must say only our Lord's Words and do only His work! And
   then we shall eat of that same loaf on which Jesus fed when He had food
   to eat which even the 12 knew not of. When we get to know that we are
   sent of the Most High, there is nourishment in that very fact! We need
   to feel that as the Father has sent Christ into the work, even so has
   Christ sent us into the world--and if we do not so feel, we shall miss
   a choice form of spiritual meat.

   Further, our Lord not only lived on a higher plane and felt a greater
   sinking of Self, but He was in fuller harmony with God than His
   disciples. He says. "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me and
   to finish His work." God's will was His will, not only passively, but
   actively, so that He wished to do it. God's work was His work
   completely, so that He wished to finish it. He longed to go all the
   length of God's eternal purpose and carry it out as far as that purpose
   concerned Himself. Now, when a man feels, "My one desire is that I may
   do God's will. I have no other will but His will. My own will has
   fallen into God's will as a brook falls into a river"--then he is at
   peace! It is a blessed thing to rejoice in being crossed in our own
   purpose in order that the purpose of the Lord may be more completely
   fulfilled. When a man wants to do God's work and to get through with
   it, whatever it may cost, he is sure to feel strength in his heart. He
   who will glorify God, whatever it may cost him, is a happy man! He that
   serves God in body, soul and spirit to the utmost of his power, finds
   new power given to him hour by hour, for God opens to him fresh
   springs!

   Perhaps you do not see this truth, but if you have ever experienced
   what it is to lay your whole soul on the altar and feel that for Christ
   you live and for Christ you would die, why then you will know, by
   experience, that I speak the truth! If your heart's desires were as
   ravenous as that of the young lions when they howl for their prey, they
   would be abundantly satisfied by your soul's being tamed into complete
   submission to the will of God! When your will is God's will, you will
   have your will! When your will rings out in harmony with the will of
   God, there must be sweet music all around your steps! Our chief sorrows
   spring from the roots of our selfishness. Hang up self before the face
   of the sun, as Joshua hung up the Canaanite kings, and your soul will
   no longer be consumed with the hunger and thirst of discontent. When
   you are tuned to perfect harmony with God, you begin your Heaven upon
   earth, even though your lot is cast in the hut of poverty, or on the
   bed of sickness. I know by experience that the way to renew your
   strength for suffering or for service is to become more and more at one
   with the will and the purpose of the Most High. As God's Glory becomes
   the one objective of life, we find in Him our All in All!

   Once more--our dear Savior was sustained by these secret refreshments
   because He understood the art of seeing much in little. Our Master had
   been feasting. He had partaken of a more than royal banquet. How? He
   had been made a blessing to a woman--an ill-famed, very sinful woman.
   He had led her up to the point at which she could perceive that He was
   the Messiah--this was, to Him, a festival! Some would have thought it a
   trifle, but, as a wise man sees a forest in an acorn, so did Jesus see
   grand results in this little incident. Many a man would say, "I could
   easily forget hunger and a thousand other inconveniences if called to
   preach to a vast congregation like that which assembles in the
   Tabernacle. It ought to inspirit a man to see so many faces." But note
   well that it inspirited your Master to see only one face and that the
   common face of a villager of mournful character who had come forth from
   Sychar with her water pot upon her head. It was not an oration that He
   delivered--He had not even preached a sermon which would command
   admiration as a masterpiece of eloquence--His whole soul was absorbed
   in what He had done! It was only a talk such as a city missionary would
   have at any door, or such as would naturally fall from a Bible-woman in
   her calls from room to room. Yet our Divine Exemplar saw so much in one
   soul and so much valued one opportunity of enlightening it, that He
   felt a sacred satisfaction in His simple conversation! He saw in the
   woman the seed-corn of a harvest and, therefore, drew a large
   refreshment from her conversion.

   We do not usually measure things rightly. I am persuaded that our
   weights and scales are out of order. We think we are doing a great deal
   when we get into a big controversy, or write an article that is read
   all over the nation, or create a sensation which startles thousands.
   But, indeed, it is not so! The Lord is not in the wind, nor in the
   tempest--we must go on with the still small voice of loving instruction
   and persuasion. You must go on talking with your little children in
   your classes; you must go on speaking to the few sick persons you are
   able to visit; you must try and preach Jesus Christ in little rooms, or
   to dozens and scores in the street corner or on the village green. It
   is the old-fashioned, quiet personal work which is effective! If we get
   to think that everything must be big to be good, we shall get into a
   sorry state of mind. In the little bit of work thoroughly done, God is
   glorified much more than in the great scheme that is superficial. That
   word, superficial, gives a true description of very much Christian work
   nowadays. A huge piece of moral architecture is carried out by
   jerry-builders to whom appearance is everything and reality is nothing!
   It tumbles down before long and then its authors begin, again, in the
   same wretched manner, with the same flourish of trumpets and bragging
   of what is going to be done!

   It is worthwhile to spend a year upon the conversion of a single woman,
   yes, worthwhile to spend a lifetime on the conversion of a single
   child, if it is soundly done. And there might more come of the true
   conversion of that woman or child than of all your noise and shouting
   over a hundred supposed conversions, forced by excitement like
   mushrooms in a hotbed! We need real work, not noisy work--work done in
   the center of the soul of man, such as Jesus did upon the well! This
   sort of work will bring refreshment to our spirit, but any other will
   end in bitter disappointment. I am sure if we are content to do little
   things in the power of the great God, we shall find our meat in it.
   Someone here gets up and says, "I see, I see! I always thought that
   ministers and other workers who are always before the public would have
   most joy, but now I see that there is a reward for the obscure and
   hidden worker." The Lord Jesus Christ was satisfied to sit by a well
   and talk to one--be you satisfied, from this day on, to keep on with
   your mother's meeting, or your tract district, or your Bible class, or
   your family of little ones. Plod away, for infinite possibilities lie
   concealed within the least work done for Jesus in the power of the Holy
   Spirit by a sincere heart! Perfume which may fill the halls of princes
   lies asleep within a tiny rosebud--despise no little service--but be
   grateful for permission to render it.

   Thus the Master found satisfying meat--meat little known, even by His
   disciples and, therefore, He said, "I have meat to eat that you know
   not of."

   II. Advance with me, dear Friends, to our second theme--THESE SECRET
   REFRESHMENTS SATISFIED OUR LORD. I bring this forward to remind you
   that where He found refreshment, we, also, should find it. Why did it
   satisfy our Lord to be doing the will of Him that sent Him and to be
   finishing His work?

   Well, first, because He had so long hungered to be at it. For thousands
   of years the Christ had longed to be here among men. He said, "My
   delights were with the sons of men." Before He actually appeared in
   human flesh and blood, our Lord made many appearances in different
   forms because He was eager to be at His work. And when He was born,
   while He was yet a Boy, He said, "Know you not that I must be about My
   Father's business?" This was the spirit of Him all His life. "I have a
   baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened until it is
   accomplished!" He longed to be at

   work saving men. He hungered to perform His chosen deeds of mercy. Read
   in the second chapter of John at the 17th verse. He went into the
   Temple and He purged it and, then we read, "His disciples remembered
   that it was written of Him, the zeal of Your house has eaten Me up."
   That was before He had told them that it was His meat to do the will of
   Him that sent Him. Our Lord was so full of such zeal to be serving God
   and blessing men that when He did get at it, He was so joyful that
   everything else fell into the background as if it were not worth a
   thought! If you and I felt our Lord's anxiety to be serving God and
   winning souls, we should find refreshment in the service, itself, even
   as He did.

   When our Lord did get at His work, He gave Himself wholly up to it--He
   went in for soul-winning, heart and soul. There was a wonderful
   concentration of purpose about our Savior. His face was always
   steadfastly set to His work. He was instant and constant in it--He was
   all there and always there. Time was--and I hope the time has gone
   forever-- when there were professed ministers of Jesus Christ whose
   hearts were in the hunting field. Do you wonder that their ministry was
   a scandal? Others have been naturalists, first, and divines afterwards!
   Do you wonder that their ministry proved to be a failure? Time was and
   time is, I am sorry to say, when many professed ministers of Christ
   have their hearts more set upon criticizing the Gospel than preaching
   it! They are more at home in scattering doubts than in promoting faith!
   They preach what they are not sure of and what they have no interest
   in. It is not their meat to do the Lord's will, for He never sent them!
   They get their meat by preaching, but it is not their meat to preach.
   Surely it must be misery to them to have to tell out an old tale which,
   in their souls, they despise. Wretches that they are! I cannot call
   them better than that. It seems an awful thing, to me, that a man
   should profess to be a servant of Christ and not put his heart into the
   Redeemer's service. You may go and sell your calicoes and your teas and
   your sugars, if you like, half-heartedly--it will not spoil your
   calicoes or your teas! But if you preach the Gospel half-heartedly,
   that is another matter! You will spoil every bit of what you preach.
   What good can come of half-hearted preaching?

   And you, good Friends, who teach in the school or do any work for
   Jesus, remember you spoil with that touch of yours all the work you do
   if your hand is numbed with a cold indifference. If your soul is not in
   what you do, you had better leave it undone--you will do mischief
   rather than service unless your heart is in it! When Jesus talks with
   that woman, He is, every bit of Him, there. He avails Himself of every
   opportunity and catches up every chance. He converses like a master of
   the art of teaching because teaching is the master passion of His soul!
   Now, Brothers, when we get to work like that, we, too, shall be
   refreshed by it. If you do what you do not like to do, it will be
   weariness to you. But if your work is the joy of your heart, you will
   find in the doing of it that you have meat to eat that idlers know
   nothing of!

   Our Lord found great joy in the work itself. I believe it was an
   intense delight to Him to be telling about that Living Water to a
   thirsty soul. It was a high pleasure to Him to be liberating a spirit
   which had so long been shut up in prison--to be creating new thoughts
   in a mind which had long groveled in the mire of sin. How pleased He
   was to hear the woman say to Him, "Why, then, have You that Living
   Water?" What a host of thoughts it stirred up in His own soul! The
   woman had given Him to drink, though she had not let her water pot down
   into the well. It was such glad, such happy work to Him to be doing
   good that it was its own reward!

   I think the Lord forgot to eat bread that day partly because of the
   enthusiasm which filled Him in the pursuit of that soul. The chamois
   hunter quits his couch long before the sun is up and climbs the
   mountains. He watches from the first gray light for the creature which
   is the object of his pursuit. Ask him how it is when he returns late in
   the evening that he has had nothing to eat all day long. He answers, "I
   never thought of it. I saw a chamois on a distant crag and I hastened
   after it. I leaped the ravines, I climbed the steep faces of the rocks,
   I sprang down again. I was almost on my prey, but it was gone. I crept
   up within range again, holding my breath lest my scent should alarm the
   watchful chamois. I thought of nothing but my sport and I never knew
   what hunger meant until my bullet found its mark in the heart of my
   prey and I had drawn out my hunting knife. It was not until I began to
   lift the game to my shoulder that I thought that I had neither eaten
   nor drunk that day."

   You understand what this enthusiasm means and how it refreshes the
   hunter. Some of you have been salmon fishing in the Scot rivers. You
   have fished on and on until you have hooked a huge fish and, by the
   time you have landed him, on taking out your watch, you discover that
   it is long past your dinner hour and you are surprised that you had not
   noticed that you were almost faint! Your excitement kept you
   going--only when it was over did you begin to hunger. Thus the Master
   was so taken up with soul-saving that He had meat to eat that others
   knew not of. I hope we sometimes get into this state of entire
   absorption under the influence of a burning desire to bring sinners
   away from sin to their Savior and

   lead them to put their trust in Him who is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him. I see the riddle all solved.
   They said, "Master, eat," but I see that He had meat to eat that they
   knew not of, for the enthusiasm of soul-winning was strong upon Him!

   Moreover, the Master had not only felt the enthusiasm of pursuit but He
   was moved greatly by the sympathy of pity. The man that hunts the
   chamois has no sympathy with his prey. The man who would take his
   salmon has no pity for the creature. But he that labors to bless souls
   is full of tenderness. Many noble women love nursing the sick. Their
   hearts are at home at the bedside of the suffering. They do not sleep
   at night while pain needs relief and cold sweat needs to be wiped away.
   Their tender pity gives them a more than ordinary power of endurance.
   They watch and wait hour after hour. Exhaustion comes, at last, to them
   and then they begin to enquire of themselves, "How was it I held out so
   long?" Generous sympathy conquered fatigue! How mothers can and do
   endure with sick children! They feel that they cannot sleep while the
   dear one tosses to and fro in fever, or moans in pain. They have lost
   all care for eating while they guard the brittle thread which threatens
   so soon to snap. Real sympathy seems as if it swallowed up everything
   else, as Aaron's rod swallowed up all the other rods! Sometimes you
   have seen suffering which you could not help and you have come away
   forgetful of all else but the dreadful scene. You loathed the sight of
   food. You were sick at heart. The sorrow had become your own! You
   started in your sleep weeks afterwards for the person wounded in the
   accident had come before you. Thus was our Savior carried away with
   pity for lost souls--He knew the danger of that Samaritan city--and
   that thought caused Him to forget to eat.

   More than that--it was not only sympathy--He felt great joy in present
   success. He delighted to see that He had led a soul into life and
   light. He had the bliss of seeing a sinful woman believe in the Messiah
   and of knowing that her heart and life would thus be purified. I do not
   know anything that can make a man forget his pain and weariness like
   grasping the hand of a sinner saved. "Oh," says the saved one, "God
   Almighty bless you! You have brought me to Jesus." This nerves us to
   new effort! I speak, here, from experience, for yesterday evening, when
   I was thinking of this subject, I was myself somewhat dull through pain
   and weakness and, as God would have it, I took up the Report of the
   Baptist Missionary Society which will be issued to you on the 1st of
   June. And as I glanced over it, I saw my own name. It seems that our
   missionary in San Domingo has had a discouraging year, but it was
   lighted up with one most pleasing incident. A man had come down from
   the interior of Haiti to ask for Baptism. Finding him to be a most
   intelligent Christian, well instructed in the Gospel, the missionary
   asked how he came to know anything about it. In reply he told him that
   he had fallen in with a sermon translated into the French language
   which was preached by Mr. Spurgeon.

   Oh Friends, I was dull no longer! I had meat to eat! Had an angel stood
   in the study, I could not have felt more delighted with his visit than
   I did when I read of a sinner saved! Here was a sermon translated into
   French, which was carried far away to Haiti, I do not know how, and
   there was read by a Romanist who found salvation by it! God bless him!
   You cannot faint after such a success, can you? As for myself, despite
   my sickness I resolve to go on again, preach with all my might and
   print more sermons! And send them out to the ends of the earth!
   Brethren, never say die! Never dream of giving up! Let God's blessing
   on your work refresh you!

   To complete the list, the blessed Master had something else which made
   Him forget hunger--it was that He saw the prospect of better things.
   Enquirers were coming out of the city--that one female missionary had
   gone back and told her story and the men were coming to hear what Jesus
   had to say! Our Lord, also, with prescient eyes, beheld the day when
   Philip the Evangelist would go down to Samaria and when many Samaritans
   would be brought to the knowledge of the Truth of God. O Friends, let
   us open our eyes and find refreshment in what God is about to do! Let
   us have bright views of the future! The Gospel which has saved 20 can
   save twenty thousand! The same kind of preaching which has blessed this
   one congregation can bless all congregations! We have only to exercise
   more faith in it and proclaim it with greater confidence--and make it
   more our lifework to proclaim it--and the world shall yet come to
   Jesus' feet and the old, old Gospel now despised shall yet again be had
   in honor! Let us be of good cheer. If we do but serve God as Jesus
   served Him, we shall have meat to eat that will fully satisfy us as it
   did our Lord!

   III. Thirdly, LET US AT ONCE SEEK THIS REFRESHMENT. That is our
   practical business. If there is meat to eat that we know not of, let us
   try to know of it at once. I am speaking, of course, only to you who
   are converted and are thus saved by faith in Jesus Christ. You who are
   not yet Believers cannot eat of this secret meat, for you are not alive
   unto God--you need to be quickened by the Spirit of our God--you must
   be born again before you can eat the Bread of

   Heaven. May the Lord lead you to saving faith in Jesus Christ at once!
   But I speak to you that know the Lord, you who labor for Him and need
   to be refreshed this day. Look you to the right place for nourishment.
   Are we weary? Then let us seek refreshment by following out the
   directions of our Lord in the text before us.

   First, let us remember that we are sent of God. Do not forget that. Say
   with your Lord, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." Each
   redeemed one is sent forth by his Redeemer. I do not know what the Lord
   has sent you to do. I hope you know that, each man for himself, but
   when you know what work you are called to do, do not be held back by
   anyone! Wait for no man's consent, patronage, or help. Strengthen your
   soul upon the persuasion that God has sent you and then go forward. If
   God has sent you, who can stand against you? A Queen's messenger
   insists that we clear the road for him. An officer who bears the
   Queen's authority is authorized to lay all persons under orders to help
   him. He who rides on royal business has precedence over all others. Get
   to feel, Christian Friend, that Jesus has sent you and herein will lie
   food for your courage! Know that you have a mission and go for it--and
   let it be unsafe for anyone to stand in your way! Let opposers know
   that somebody will have to clear out, for if God sent you, in that
   sending there is a force and an energy which nothing can safely resist!
   Do not make a noise. Forbear all blustering, but quietly set yourself
   to work. If God has sent you, you will be like the greater Sent One, of
   whom we read, "He shall not strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice to be
   heard in the streets," but at the same time, "He shall not fail, nor be
   discouraged."

   Next, if we desire to be refreshed, let us find joy at once in God's
   work and will. You have been trying to find joy and refreshment in your
   own work and your own will--and you have failed. Come, then, and sail
   in another direction. But upon this I have already spoken. If all the
   work you and I have to do can be made to be God's work. If we will do
   all things for His Glory, whether it be mending of shoes, or making
   garments, or preaching sermons, or plowing of fields, then shall we be
   happy in God and our souls shall be fed upon the finest of the wheat!
   No drudgery remains when the lowliest labor is seen to be part of a
   priestly service. When the meanest work glows with the Glory of a
   Divine call, there is refreshment in it! I am sure I am directing you
   in the right way to find sweet morsels for your heart when I urge you
   to have joy in God's work rather than in your own.

   Next, let us get to work. The Master says to His Apostles, "Do you not
   say, There are yet four months and then comes harvest"? This was a
   common saying among the lazy. The time for work was never come--they
   always found reason for delay--the harvest was always four months off.
   Many are going to do a lot of work one of these days. Just now they
   take things easy, but in four months they will let you see how they can
   labor! We have too many Christian people around us who find no joyful
   satisfaction in Divine things because they do not, at once, spend
   themselves for Christ. One enquires, What is the best way to do good?
   Our answer is, do it! I cannot give you any better recommendation. The
   best way to serve Christ is to serve Him! A man who was hungry, when he
   was asked what was the best way to dine, said, "Give me a knife and
   fork. Give me a chance and I will soon show you." When asked how you
   can serve God, reply by seizing the first opportunity and doing it! For
   our joy and comfort, be it remembered that opportunities are many and
   present. "Do you not say, There are yet four months and then comes
   harvest? Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already
   ripe for harvest!"

   Further, if we want to have joy and refreshment in our own Christian
   life, let us leap into our place at once. These disciples were not to
   be sowers, but reapers. Many others are not to be reapers, but sowers.
   You must get to work in the place into which the Lord puts you--there
   must be no picking of positions--you must jump into the saddle and be
   off! It may be that you say, "I should like to begin an altogether new
   work," but if the Lord appoints you to go on with the work that someone
   else has carried on for years, do not hesitate. Perhaps you say, "I
   would like to labor where the first rough work is done," but if your
   Lord directs you to commence on the uncleared forest, do not raise an
   objection. It may be you wish to carry up the last load of bricks to
   put on the chimney, but if the house has not reached that condition
   yet, be quite as willing to dig out the cellar. We must be willing to
   hook on anywhere. Be leader or shaft-horse! Be first or last. Be sower
   or reaper, as the Lord ordains! Dear Friends, you will never get
   refreshment in Christ's service if you bring a dainty self-will into
   the field and set it to make a selection, for this is contrary to the
   true spirit of service. Have no choice and then you will find
   satisfaction.

   If we are to get refreshment for our souls we may also anticipate the
   wages. There is to be a time when workers together with Christ are to
   receive wages. The text says, "He that reaps, receives wages." In our
   own country agricultural laborers have been paid so little that we
   could hardly call it receiving wages. But when harvest time comes, then
   the

   reaper is paid and truly receives wages. The hardest-fisted churl must
   pay for reaping, must he not? Even the most grudging miser must pay his
   reapers. There must be special money for mower and reaper. Let us work
   on, for our Master speaks to us of wages and He always pays liberally.
   Your reward is not what you get at present--it lies in the glorious
   future! When the Lord Jesus comes, He will reward all His stewards and
   servants. No Truth of God is more plain in the four Gospels than this
   fact, that when Jesus returns to this earth, He will distribute
   recompense in proportion to work done. Herein is meat for us to eat
   which may well sustain us under the burden and heat of the day.

   Then comes the end. If any of you wish to be refreshed, remember the
   end. What is the end of sowing and the end of reaping? Is it not the
   completed harvest? See you not the last wagon loaded with grain? See
   the children on the top there! Listen how the servants shout their joy
   as they bring in the precious fruits of the earth! And there is a
   supper at night. The master has been killing his fatlings and he
   invites all his laborers to supper. How they feast with him! Sow on!
   Work on! Reap on, for there will come a day when Heaven and earth shall
   be moved with joyous acclamations because the Lord's purpose is
   accomplished and His work is finished! Then shall we sit down at the
   supper of the Lamb and rejoice together, as many of us as have had a
   hand in the blessed work and service in which our Master laid down His
   life! Therefore gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober and hope to
   the end. Be encouraged and refreshed this morning. Feed upon the
   eternal dainties which are provided for you by your Lord and be glad in
   His name!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Happy Duty of Daily Praise

   (No. 1902)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORDS-DAY MORNING, MAY 30, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever
   and ever. Every day will I bless You; and I will praise Your name
   forever and ever." Psalm 114:1,2.

   IF I were to put to you the question, "Do you pray?" the answer would
   be very quickly given by every Christian person, "Of course I do."
   Suppose I then added, "And do you pray every day?" the prompt reply
   would be, "Yes, many times in the day. I could not live without
   prayer." This is no more than I expect and I will not ask the question.
   But let me change the enquiry and ask, "Do you bless God every day? Is
   praise as certain and constant a practice with you as prayer?" I am not
   sure that the answer would be quite so certain, so general, or so
   prompt. You would have to stop a little while before you gave the reply
   and, I fear in some cases, when the reply did come, it would be, "I am
   afraid I have been negligent in praise." Well, then, dear Friend, have
   you not been wrong? Should we omit praise any more than we omit prayer?
   And should not praise come daily and as many times in the day as prayer
   does? It strikes me that to fail in praise is as unjustifiable as to
   fail in prayer! I shall leave it with your own heart and conscience,
   when you have asked and answered the question, to see to it in the
   future that far more of the sweet frankincense of praise is mingled
   with your daily oblation of devotion.

   Praise is certainly not at all so common in family prayer as other
   forms of worship. We cannot, all of us, praise God in the family by
   joining in song, because we are not all able to raise a tune, but it
   would be well if we could. I agree with Matthew Henry when he says,
   "They that pray in the family do well; they that pray and read the
   Scriptures do better; but they that pray, read and sing do best of
   all." There is a completeness in that kind of family worship which is
   much to be desired.

   Whether in the family or not, yet personally and privately, let us
   endeavor to be filled with God's praise and with His honor all the day.
   Be this our resolve--"I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will
   bless Your name forever and ever. Every day will I bless You; and I
   will praise Your name forever and ever."

   Brethren, praise cannot be a second-class business, for it is evidently
   due to God and that in a very high degree. A sense ofjustice ought to
   make us praise the Lord. It is the least we can do and, in some senses,
   it is the most that we can do in return for the multiplied benefits
   which He bestows upon us. What? No harvest of praise for Him who has
   sent the sunshine of His love and the rain of His Grace upon us? What?
   No revenue of praise for Him who is our gracious Lord and King! He does
   not exact from us any servile labor, but simply says, "Whoever offers
   praise glorifies Me."

   Praise is good, pleasant and delightful. Let us rank it among those
   debts which we would not wish to forget, but are eager to pay at once.
   Praise is an act which is pre-eminently characteristic of the true
   child of God. The man who does but pretend to piety will fast twice in
   the week and stand in the temple and offer something like prayer. But
   to praise God with all the heart, this is the mark of true adoption!
   This is the sign and token of a heart received by Divine Grace! We lack
   one of the most sure evidences of pure love to God if we live without
   presenting praise to His ever-blessed name.

   Praising God is singularly beneficial to ourselves. If we had more of
   it, we should be greatly blessed. What could lift us so much above the
   trials of life; what could help us to bear the burden and heat of the
   day so well as songs of praise unto the Most High? The soldier marches
   without weariness when the band is playing uplifting strains; the
   sailor, as he pulls the rope or lifts the anchor, utters a cheery cry
   to aid his toil--let us try the animating power of hymns of praise!
   Nothing would oil the wheels of the chariot of life so well as more of
   the praising of God. Praise would end murmuring and nurse contentment.
   If our mouths were filled with the praises of God, there would be no
   room for grumbling. Praise

   would throw a halo of glory around the head of toil and thought! In its
   sunlight, the most common duties of life would be transfigured!
   Sanctified by prayer and praise, each duty would be raised into a
   hallowed worship akin to that of Heaven! It would make us more happy,
   more holy and more heavenly, if we would say, "I will extol You, my
   God, O

   King."

   Besides, Brothers and Sisters, unless we praise God here, are we
   preparing for our eternal Home? There, all is praise! How can we hope
   to enter there if we are strangers to that exercise? This life is a
   preparatory school and in it we are preparing for the high engagements
   of the perfected. Are you not eager to rehearse the everlasting
   hallelujahs?--

   "I would begin the music here,

   And so my soul should rise.

   Oh, for some heavenly notes to bear

   My passions to the skies!"

   Learn the essential elements of heavenly praise by the practice of
   joyful thanksgiving, adoring reverence and wondering love, so that,
   when you step into Heaven, you may take your place among the singers
   and say, "I have been practicing these songs for years. I have praised
   God while I was in a world of sin and suffering and when I was weighed
   down by a feeble body. And now that I am set free from earth and sin
   and the bondage of the flesh, I take up the same strain to sing more
   sweetly to the same Lord and God!"

   I wish I knew how to speak so as to stir up every child of God to
   praise. As for you that are not His children--oh, that you were! You
   must be born again! You cannot praise God aright till you are. "Unto
   the wicked, God says, What have you to do to declare My statutes, or
   that you should take My Covenant in your mouth?" You can offer Him no
   real praise while your hearts are at enmity to Him. Be you reconciled
   to God by the death of His Son and then you will praise Him! Let no one
   that has tasted that the Lord is gracious; let no one that has ever
   been delivered from sin by the Atonement of Christ ever fail to pay
   unto the Lord his daily tribute of thanksgiving! To help us in this
   joyful duty of praise we will turn to our text and keep to it. May the
   Holy Spirit instruct us by it!

   I. In our text we have, first of all, THE RESOLVE OF PERSONAL
   LOYALTY--"I will extol You, my God, O King." David personally comes
   before his God and King and utters this deliberate resolution that he
   will praise the Divine Majesty forever.

   Note here, first, that he pays homage to God as his King. There is no
   praising God aright if we do not see Him upon the Throne, reigning with
   unquestioned sway. Disobedient subjects cannot praise their sovereign.
   You must take up the Lord's yoke--it is easy and His burden is light.
   You must come and touch His silver scepter and receive His mercy--and
   acknowledge Him to be your rightful Monarch, Lawgiver and Ruler. Where
   Jesus comes, He comes to reign--where God is truly known, He is always
   known as supreme. Over the united kingdom of our body, soul and spirit
   the Lord must reign with undisputed authority. What a joy it is to have
   such a King! "O King," says David, and it seems to have been a sweet
   morsel in his mouth. He was, himself, a king after the earthly fashion,
   but to him, God, alone, was King. Our King is no tyrant, no maker of
   cruel laws. He demands no crushing tribute or forced service! His ways
   are ways of pleasantness and all His paths are peace. His Laws are just
   and good and in the keeping of them there is great reward. Let others
   exult that they are their own masters--our joy is that God is our King!
   Let others yield to this or that passion, or desire--as for us, we find
   our freedom in complete subjection to our heavenly King! Let us, then,
   praise God by loyally accepting Him as our King. Let us repeat with
   exultation the hymn we just now sang--

   "Crown Him, crown Him, King of kings, and Lord of lords." Let us not be
   satisfied that He should reign over us, alone, but let us long that the
   whole earth should be filled with His Glory. Be this our daily
   prayer--"Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, in earth as it is in
   Heaven." Let this be our constant ascription of praise--"For Yours is
   the Kingdom, and the power, and the Glory, forever. Amen."

   Note that the Psalmist, also, in this first sentence, praises the Lord
   by a present personal appropriation of God to himself by faith--"I will
   extol You, my God." That word, "my," is a drop of honey. No, it is like
   Jonathan's woods, full of honey--it seems to drip from every bough and
   he that comes into it stands knee-deep in sweetness! "My God" is as
   high a note as an angel can reach! What is another man's god to me? He
   must be my God or I shall not extol Him! Say, dear Heart, have you ever
   taken God to be your God? Can you say with David in another place,
   "This God is our God forever and ever. He shall be our guide, even unto
   death"? Blessed was Thomas when he bowed down and put his finger into
   the

   print of his Master's wounds and cried, "My Lord and my God!" That
   double-handed grip of appropriation marked the death of his painful
   unbelief! Can you say, "Jehovah is my God?" To us there are Father, Son
   and Holy Spirit, but these are one God, and this one God is our own
   God! Let others worship whom they will, this God our soul adores and
   loves-- yes, claims to be her personal possession! O Beloved, if you
   can say, "My God," you will be bound to exalt Him! If He has given
   Himself to you so that you can say, "My Beloved is mine," you will give
   yourself to Him and you will add, "And I am His." Those two sentences,
   like two silken covers of a book, shut in, within them, the full score
   of the music of Heaven!

   Observe that David is firmly resolved to praise God. My text has four,
   "I wills," in it. Frequently it is foolish for us poor mortals to say,
   "I will," because our will is so feeble and fickle. But when we resolve
   upon the praise of God, we may say, "I will," and, "I will," and, "I
   will," and, "I will," till we make a solid square of determinations!
   Let me tell you, you will have need to say, "I will," a great many
   times, for many obstacles will hinder your resolve. There will come
   depression of spirit and then you must say, "I will extol You, my God,
   O King." Poverty, sickness, losses and crosses may assail you--and then
   you must say, "I will praise Your name forever and ever." The devil
   will come and tell you that you have no interest in Christ, but you
   must say, "Every day will I bless You." Death will come and, perhaps,
   you will be under the fear of it--then it will be incumbent upon you to
   cry, "And I will praise Your name forever and ever!"--

   "Sing, though sense and carnal reason

   Gladly would stop the joyful song!

   Sing and count it highest treason

   For a saint to hold his tongue."

   A bold man took this motto--"While I live, I'll crow." But our motto
   is, "While I live, I'll praise." An old motto was, "Dum spiro spero,"
   but the saint improves upon it, and cries, "Dum expiro spero." Not only
   while I live, I will hope, but when I die, I will hope! And he even
   gets beyond all that, and determines--"Whether I live or die I will
   praise my God!" "O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed; I will
   sing and give praise."

   While David is thus resolute, I want you to notice that the resolution
   is strictly personal. He says, "/ will extol You." Whatever others do,
   my own mind is made up. David was very glad when others praised God. He
   delighted to join with the great congregation that kept Holy Day, but
   still, he was attentive to his own heart and his own praise. There is
   no selfishness in looking well to your own personal state and condition
   before the Lord. He cannot be called a selfish citizen who is very
   careful to render his own personal suit and service to his king. A
   company of persons praising God would be nothing unless each individual
   was sincere and earnest in the worship. The praise of the great
   congregation is precious in proportion as each individual, with all his
   heart, is saying, "I will extol You, my God, O King." Come, my Soul, I
   will not sit silent because so many others are singing! However many
   songsters there may be, they cannot sing for me--they cannot pay my
   private debt of praise--therefore awake, my Heart, and extol your God
   and King! What if others refuse to sing? What if a shameful silence is
   observed in reference to the praises of God? Then, my Heart, I must
   bestir you all the more to a double diligence that you may, with even
   greater zeal, extol your God and King! I will sing a solo if I cannot
   find a choir in which I may take my part! Anyway, my God, I will extol
   You. At this hour men go off to other lords and they set up this and
   that new-made god, but as for me, my ear is bored to Jehovah's
   doorpost. I will not go out from His service forever. Bind the
   sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar.
   Whatever happens, I will extol You, my God, O King!

   Now Brothers and Sisters, have you been losing your own personality in
   the multitude? As members of a large Church, have you thought, "Things
   will go on very well without me"? Correct that mistake! Each individual
   trust has its own note to bring to God. Let Him not have to say to you,
   "Fou have bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled
   Me with the fat of your sacrifices." Let us not be slow in His praise,
   since He has been so swift in His Grace.

   Once more upon this head--while David is thus loyally resolving to
   praise God, you will observe that he is doing it all the time. The
   resolution to praise can only come from the man who is already praising
   God. When he says, "I will extol You," he is already extolling! We go
   from praise to praise. The heart resolves and so plants the seed. And
   then the life is affected and the harvest springs up and ripens. O
   Brothers and Sisters, do not let us say, "I will extol You tomorrow,"
   or, "I will hope to praise You when I grow old, or when I have less
   business on hand." No, no! You are this day in debt! This day
   acknowledge your obligation. We cannot praise God too soon. Our very
   first breath is a gift from God and it

   should be spent to the Creator's praise! The early morning hour should
   he dedicated to praise--do not the birds set us the example? In this
   matter he gives twice who gives quickly. Let your praise follow quickly
   upon the benefit you receive, lest even during the delay you be found
   guilty of ingratitude! As soon as a mercy touches our coasts, we should
   welcome it with acclamation. Let us copy the little chick, which, as it
   drinks, lifts up its head, as if to give thanks. Our thanksgiving
   should echo the voice of Divine loving kindness. Before the Lord our
   King, let us continually rejoice as we bless Him and speak well of His
   name.

   Thus I have set before you the resolve of a loyal spirit. Are you loyal
   to your God and King? Then I charge you to glorify His name. Lift up
   your hearts in His praise and in all manner of ways make His name
   great. Praise Him with your lips. Praise Him with your lives. Praise
   Him with your substance. Praise Him with every faculty and capacity. Be
   inventive in methods of praise--"sing unto the Lord a new song." Bring
   forth the long-stored and costly alabaster box! Break it and pour the
   sweet nard upon your Redeemer's head and feet. With penitents and
   martyrs extol Him! With Prophets and Apostles extol Him! With saints
   and angels extol Him! Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

   II. And now I must conduct you to the second clause of the text which
   is equally full and instructive. We have in the second part of it THE
   CONCLUSION OF AN INTELLIGENT APPRECIATION--"And I will bless Your name
   forever and ever." Blind praise is not fit for the all-seeing God. God
   forbade of old the bringing of blind sacrifices to His altar. Our
   praise ought to have a brain as well as a tongue. We ought to know who
   the God is whom we praise--therefore David says, "I will bless Your
   name," by which he means--Your Character, Your deeds, Your revealed
   attributes.

   First, observe that he presents the worship of inward admiration--he
   knows and, therefore, he blesses the Divine name. What is this act of
   blessing? Sometimes, "bless," would appear to be used interchangeably
   with, "praise," yet there is a difference, for it is written, "All your
   works shall praise You, O Lord; and Your saints shall bless You." You
   can praise a man and yet you may never bless him. A great artist, for
   instance--you may praise him, but he may be so ungenerous to you and
   others that it may never occur to you to bless him. Blessing has
   something in it of love and delight. It is a nearer, dearer, heartier
   thing than praise. "I will bless Your name," that is to say--"I will
   take an intense delight in Your name--I will lovingly rejoice in it."

   The very thought is that God is a source of happiness to our hearts and
   the more we muse upon His Character, the more joyous we become. The
   Lord's name is Love. He is merciful and gracious, tender and pitiful.
   Moreover, He is a just God and righteous, faithful, true and holy. He
   is a mighty God and wise and unchanging. He is a prayer-hearing God and
   He always keeps His promise. We would not have Him other than He is. We
   have a sweet contentment in God as He is revealed in Holy Scripture. It
   is not everybody that can say this, for a great many professors
   nowadays desire a god of their own making and shaping. If they find
   anything in Scripture concerning God which grates upon their tender
   susceptibilities, they cannot stand it! The God that casts the wicked
   from His Presence forever--they cannot believe in Him-- they therefore
   make unto themselves a false deity who is indifferent to sin! All that
   is revealed concerning God is, to me, abundantly satisfactory. If I do
   not comprehend its full meaning, I bow before its mystery. If I hear
   anything of my God which does not yield me delight, I feel that in it I
   must be out of order with Him, either through sin or ignorance, and I
   say, "What I know not, teach me, O God." I doubt not that perfectly
   holy and completely instructed beings are fully content with everything
   that God does and are ready to praise Him for all. Do not our souls
   even now bless the Lord our God who chose us, redeemed us and called us
   by His Grace? Whether we view Him as Maker, Provider, Savior, King, or
   Father, we find in Him an unfathomable sea of joy! He is God, our
   exceeding joy. Therefore we sit down in holy quiet and feel our soul
   saying, "Bless the Lord! Bless the Lord!" He is what we would have Him
   to be. He is better than we could have supposed or imagined! He is the
   crown of delight, the climax of goodness, the sum of all perfection! As
   often as we see the light, or feel the sun, we would bless the name of
   the Lord!

   I think when David said, "I will bless Your name," he meant that he
   wished well to the Lord. To bless a person means to do that person
   good. By blessing us, what untold benefits the Lord bestows! We cannot
   bless God in such a sense as that in which He blesses us, but we would
   if we could. If we cannot give anything to God, we can desire that He
   may be known, loved and obeyed by all our fellow men. We can wish well
   to His Kingdom and cause in the world. We can bless Him by blessing His
   people, by working for the fulfillment of His purposes, by obeying His
   precepts and by taking delight in His ordinances. We can bless Him by
   submission to His chastening hand and by gratitude for His daily
   benefits. Sometimes we say with the Psalmist, "O my Soul, you have said
   unto the Lord, You are my Lord: my goodness extends

   not to You; but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the
   excellent, in whom is all my delight." Oh, that I could wash Jesus
   Christ's feet! Is there a Believer here, man or woman, but would aspire
   to that office? It is not denied you--you can wash His feet by caring
   for His poor people and relieving their needs. You cannot feast your
   Redeemer--He is not hungry--but some of His people are! Feed them! He
   is not thirsty, but some of His disciples are. Give them a cup of cold
   water in the Master's name and He will accept it as given to Himself.
   Do you not feel, today, you that love Him, as if you wanted to do
   something for Him? Arise and do it! And so bless Him. It is one of the
   instincts of a true Christian to wish to do something for his God and
   King who has done everything for him. He loved me and gave Himself for
   me--should I not give myself for Him? Oh, for perfect consecration! Oh,
   to bless God by laying our all upon His altar and spending our lives in
   His service!

   It seems, then, dear Friends, that David studied the Character and
   works of God and thus praised Him. Knowledge should lead our song. The
   more we know of God, the more acceptably shall we bless Him through
   Jesus Christ. I exhort you, therefore, to acquaint yourselves with God!
   Study His Holy Book. As in a mirror you may here see the Glory of the
   Lord reflected, especially in the Person of the Lord Jesus who is, in
   truth, the Word, the very name of the Lord! It would be a pity that we
   should spoil our praises by ignorance--they that know the name of the
   Lord will trust Him and will praise Him.

   It appears from this text that David discovered nothing, after a long
   study of God, which would be an exception to this rule. He does not
   say, "I will bless Your name in all but one thing. I have seen some
   point of terror in what You have revealed of Yourself and, in that
   thing I cannot bless You." No, without any exception he reverently
   adores and joyfully blesses God! All his heart is contented with all of
   God that is revealed. Is it so with us, Beloved? I earnestly hope it
   is.

   I beg you to notice how intense he grows over this--"I will bless Your
   name forever and ever." You have heard the quaint saying of, "forever
   and a day"? Here you have an advance upon it--it is, "forever," and
   then another, "forever." He says, "I will bless your name forever." Is
   not that long enough? No, he adds, "and ever." Are there two forevers,
   two eternities? Brothers and Sisters, if there were 50 eternities, we
   would spend them all in blessing the name of the Lord our God! "I will
   bless Your name forever and ever." It would be absurd to explain this
   hyperbolical expression. It runs parallel with the words of Addison,
   when he says--

   "Through all eternity to You

   My song of joy I'll raise!

   But oh, eternity's too short

   To utter all Your praise!"

   Somebody quibbled at that verse the other day. He said, "Eternity
   cannot be too short." Ah, my dear Friend, you are not a poet, I can
   see. But if you could get just a spark of poetry into your soul,
   literalism would vanish! Truly, in poetry and in praise, the letter
   kills! Language is a poor vehicle of expression when the soul is on
   fire. Words are good enough things for our cool judgement, but when
   thoughts are full of praise, they break the back of words! How often
   have I stood here and felt that if I could throw my tongue away and let
   my heart speak without these syllables and arbitrary sounds, then I
   might express myself! David speaks as if he scorned to be limited by
   language. He must leap over even time and possibility to get room for
   his heart! "I will bless Your name forever and ever." How I enjoy these
   enthusiastic expressions! It shows that when David blessed the Lord, he
   did it heartily. While he was musing, the fire burned. He felt like
   dancing before the ark. He was in much the same frame of mind as Dr.
   Watts when he sang--

   "From You, my God, my joys shall rise

   And run eternal rounds,

   Beyond the limits of the skies,

   And all created bounds."

   III. But time will fail me unless I pass on at once to the third
   sentence of our text, which is, THE PLEDGE OF DAILY REMEMBRANCE. Upon
   this I would dwell with very great earnestness. If you forget my
   discourse, I would like you to remember this part of the text. "Every
   day will I bless You." I will not do it now and have done with it. I
   will not take a week of the year in which to praise You and then leave
   the other 51 weeks silent, but, "every day will I bless You." All the
   year round will I extol my God. Why should it be so?

   The greatness of the gifts we have already received demands it. We can
   never fully express our gratitude for saving Grace and, therefore, we
   must keep on at it. A few years ago we were lost and dead, but we were
   found and made alive

   again. We must praise God every day for this. We were black as night
   with sin, but now we are washed whiter than snow--when can we leave off
   praising our Lord for this? He loved me and gave Himself for me--when
   can the day come that I shall cease to praise Him for this? Gethsemane
   and the bloody sweat; Calvary and the precious blood--when shall we
   ever have done with praising our dear Lord for all He suffered when He
   bought us with His own heart's blood? No, if it were only the first
   mercies, the mercy of election, the mercy of redemption, the mercy of
   effectual calling, the mercy of adoption--we would have had enough to
   begin with to make us sing unto the Lord every day of our lives! The
   Light of God which has risen upon us warms all our days with
   gladness--it shall also light them up with praise!

   Today it becomes us to sing of the mercy of yesterday. The waves of
   love as well as of time have washed us up upon the shore of today and
   the beach is strewn with love! Here I find myself on a Sunday morning,
   exulting because another six days work is done and strength has been
   given for it! Some of us have experienced a world of loving kindness
   between one Sabbath and another. If we had never had anything else from
   God but what we have received during the last week, we have
   overwhelming reason for extolling Him today! If there is any day in
   which we would leave off praising God, it must not be the Lord's Day,
   for--

   "This is the day the Lord has made, He calls the hours His own. Let Hea
   ven rejoice, let earth be glad, And praise surround the Throne." Oh,
   let us magnify the Lord on the day of which it can be said--

   "Today He rose and left the dead And Satan's empire fell!

   Today the saints His triumphs spread, And all His wonders tell."

   When we reach tomorrow, shall we not praise God for the blessing of the
   Sabbath? Surely you cannot have forgotten the Lord so soon as Monday!
   Before you go out into the world, wash your face in the clear crystal
   of praise. Bury each yesterday in the fine linen and spices of
   thankfulness.

   Each day has its mercy and should render its praise. When Monday is
   over, you will have something to praise God for on Tuesday. He that
   watches for God's hand will never be long without seeing it. If you
   will only spy out God's mercies with half an eye, you will see them
   every day of the year. Fresh are the dews of each morning and equally
   fresh are its blessings. "Fresh trouble," says one. Praise God for the
   trouble, for it is a richer form of blessing! "Fresh care," says one.
   Cast all your care on Him who cares for you and that act will, in
   itself, bless you. "Fresh labor," says another. Yes, but fresh
   strength, too.

   There is never a night but what there comes a day after it--never an
   affliction without its consolation. Every day you must utter the memory
   of His great goodness.

   If we cannot praise God on any one day for what we have had that day,
   let us praise Him for tomorrow. "It is better on before." Let us learn
   that quaint verse--

   "And a new song is in my mouth, To long-lived music set-- Glory to You
   for all the Grace I have not tasted yet."

   Let us forestall our future and draw upon the promises. What if today I
   am down? Tomorrow I shall be up! What if today I cast ashes on my head?
   Tomorrow the Lord shall crown me with loving kindness! What if today my
   pains trouble me, they will soon be gone! It will be all the same a
   hundred years from now, at any rate, and so let me praise God for what
   is within measurable distance. In a few years I shall be with the
   angels and be with my Lord, Himself. Blessed be His name! Begin to
   enjoy your Heaven now! What says the Apostle? "For our citizenship is
   in Heaven"--not is to be, but is! We belong to Heaven, now, our names
   are enrolled among its citizens and the privileges of the New Jerusalem
   belong to us at this present moment. Christ is ours and God is ours!--

   "This world is ours and worlds to come!

   Earth is our lodge and Hea ven our home." Therefore let us rejoice and
   be exceedingly glad and praise the name of God this very day.

   "Every day," he says, "will I bless You." There is a seasonableness
   about the praising of God every day. Praise is in season every month.
   You awoke, the sunlight streamed into the windows and touched your
   eyelids. And you said, "Bless God. Here is a charming summer's day."
   Birds were singing and flowers were pouring out their perfume. You
   could not help praising God. But another day it was dark at the time of
   your rising. You struck a match and lit your candle. A thick fog hung
   like a blanket over all. If you were a wise man, you said, "Come, I
   shall not get through the day if I do not make up my mind to praise
   God. This is the kind of weather in which I must bless God or else go
   down in despair." So you woke yourself up and began to adore the Lord.
   One morning you awoke after a refreshing night's rest and you praised
   God for it. But on another occasion you had tossed about through a
   sleepless night and then you thanked God that the weary night was over.
   You smile, dear Friends, but there is always some reason for praising
   God. Certain fruits and meats are in season at special times, but the
   praise of God is always in season. It is good to praise the Lord in the
   daytime--how charming is the lark's song as it carols up to Heaven's
   gate! It is good to bless God at night--how delicious are the liquid
   notes of the nightingale as it thrills the night with its music! I do,
   therefore, say to you right heartily, "Come, let us together praise the
   Lord, in all sorts of weather and in all sorts of places."

   Sometimes I have said to myself, "During this last week I have been so
   full of pain that I am afraid I have forgotten to praise God as much as
   I should have done and, therefore, I will have a double draught of it
   now. I will get alone and have a special time of thankful thought. I
   would make up some of my old arrears and magnify the Lord above
   measure. I do not like feeling that there can ever be a day in which I
   have not praised Him. That day would surely be a blank in my life.
   Surely the sweetest praise that ever ascends to God is that which is
   poured forth by saints from beds of languishing. Praise in sad times is
   praise, indeed! When your dog loves you because it is dinnertime, you
   are not sure of him, but when somebody else tempts him with a bone and
   he will not leave you, though just now you struck him, then you feel
   that he is truly attached to you! We may learn from dogs that true
   affection is not dependent upon what it is just now receiving.

   Let us not have a cupboard love for God because of His kind Providence,
   but let us love Him and praise Him for what He is and what He has done.
   Let us follow hard after Him when He seems to forsake us--and praise
   Him when He deals harshly with us--for this is true praise. For my
   part, though I am not long without affliction, I have no faults to find
   with my Lord, but I desire to praise Him and praise Him--and only to
   praise Him! Oh, that I knew how to do it worthily! Here is my
   resolve--"I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name
   forever and ever. Every day will I bless You."

   IV. The last sentence of the text sets forth THE HOPE OF ETERNAL
   ADORATION. David here exclaims, "And I will praise Your name forever
   and ever."

   I am quite sure when David said that, he believed that God was
   unchangeable, for if God can change, how can I be sure that He will
   always be worthy of my praise? David knew that what God had been, He
   was and what He was, then, He would always be. He had not heard the
   sentence, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever,"
   nor yet that other, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of
   Jacob are not consumed," but he knew the Truth of God contained in both
   these texts and, therefore, he said, "I will praise Your name forever
   and ever." As long as God Is, He will be worthy to be praised!

   Another point is also clear--David believed in the immortality of the
   soul. He says, "I will praise Your name forever and ever." That Truth
   was very dimly revealed in the Old Testament, but David knew it right
   well. He did not expect to sleep in oblivion, but to go on praising
   and, therefore, he said, "I will praise Your name forever and ever." No
   cold hand fell upon him and no killing voice said to him "You shall die
   and never praise the Lord again." Oh, no! He looked to live forever and
   ever--and praise forever and ever! Brothers and Sisters, such is our
   hope and we will never give it up. We feel eternal life within our
   souls! We challenge the cold hand of death to quench the immortal flame
   of our love, or to silence the ceaseless song of our praise! The dead
   cannot praise God and God is not the God of the dead, but of the
   living! Among the living we are numbered, through the Grace of God, and
   we know that we shall live because Jesus lives. When death shall come,
   it shall bring no destruction to us!

   Though it shall change the conditions of our existence, it shall not
   change the object of our existence! Our tongue may be silenced for a
   little while, but our spirit, unaffected by the disease of the body,
   shall go on praising God in its own fashion and then, by-and-by, in the
   resurrection, even this poor tongue shall be revived--and body, soul
   and spirit shall together praise the God of Resurrection and eternal
   Glory. "I will praise Your name forever and ever." We shall never

   grow weary of this hallowed exercise forever and ever. It will always
   be new, fresh, delightful! In Heaven they never require any change
   beyond those blessed variations of song, those new melodies which make
   up the everlasting harmony. On and on, forever telling the tale which
   never will be fully told, the saints will praise the name of the Lord
   forever and ever!

   Of course, dear Friends, David's resolve was that, as long as he was
   here below, he would never cease to praise God, and this is ours, also.
   Brethren, we may have to leave off some cherished engagements, but this
   we will never cease from. At a certain period of life a man may have to
   leave off preaching to a large congregation. Good old John Newton
   declared that he would never leave off preaching while he had breath in
   his body--and I admire his holy perseverance--but it was a pity that he
   did not leave off preaching at St. Mary Woolnoth, for he often wearied
   the people and forgot the thread of his discourse. He might have done
   better in another place. Ah, well, we may leave off preaching, but we
   shall never leave off praising! The day will come when you, my dear
   Friend, cannot go to Sunday school--I hope you will go as long as you
   can toddle there--but it may be you will not be able to interest the
   children--your memory will begin to fail. Bt even then you can go on
   praising the Lord! And you will.

   I have known old people almost forget their own names and forget their
   own children, but I have known them still remember their Lord and
   Master! I have heard of one who lay dying and his friends tried to make
   him remember certain things, but he shook his head. At last one said,
   "Do you remember the Lord Jesus?" Then the mind came into full play,
   the eyes brightened and the old man eloquently praised his Savior! Our
   last gasp shall be given to the praise of the Lord!

   When once we have passed through the iron gate and forded the dividing
   river, then we will begin to praise God in a manner more satisfactory
   than we can reach at present. After a nobler sort we will sing and
   adore. What soaring we will attempt upon the eagle wings of love! What
   plunges we will take into the crystal stream of praise! I think, for a
   while, when we first behold the Throne of God, we shall do no more than
   cast our crowns at the feet of Him that loved us and then bow down
   under a weight of speechless praise. We shall be overwhelmed with
   wonder and thankfulness! When we rise to our feet, again, we will join
   in the strain of our Brothers and Sisters redeemed by blood and only
   drop out of the song when again we feel overpowered with joyful
   adoration and are constrained, again, in holy silence to shrink to
   nothing before the infinite, unchanging God of Love.

   Oh, to be there! To be there soon! We may be much nearer than we think.
   I cannot tell what I shall do, but I know this, I want no other Heaven
   than to praise God perfectly and eternally! Is it not so with you? A
   heart full of praise is Heaven in the bud! Perfect praise is Heaven
   full-blown. Let us close this discourse by asking Grace from God that,
   if we have been deficient in praise, we may now mend our ways and put
   on the garments of holy adoration. This day and onward, may our
   watchword be, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"
     __________________________________________________________________

Who Found It Out?

   (No. 1903)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 6, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate and they
   said to one another, Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say,
   We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we
   shall die there. And if we sithere, we die also. Now therefore, come,
   let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we
   shall live, and if they kill us, we shall only die. And they rose at
   twilight, to go to the camp of the Syrians: and when they had come to
   the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise, no one was there.
   For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of
   chariots, and a noise of horses even the noise of a great host: and
   they said to one another, Look the king of Israel has hired against us
   the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon
   us. Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their
   tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and
   fled for their lives." 2 Kings 7:3-7.

   THE story of four leprous men inserted in the Book of the Kings of
   Israel--is it not amazing? No, it is not amazing for the Bible. If you
   were to take out of the Scriptures all the stories that have to do with
   poor afflicted men and women, what a very small book the Bible would
   become, especially if together with the stories, you removed all the
   Psalms of the sorrowful, all the promises for the distressed and all
   the passages which belong to the children of grief! This Book, indeed,
   for the most part is made up of the annals of the poor and despised!
   Think for a minute what space is occupied with the life of the man who
   was separated from his brothers, sold for a slave and put in prison in
   Egypt! What a large part of the Bible is occupied by the writings of
   one who was a babe exposed on the Nile and afterwards kept a flock for
   40 years in the wilderness! We could not part with the account of the
   man who lost all his property and children in one day--and sat among
   the ashes, covered with sore boils. We could not spare the story of the
   two widows who came together empty-handed from the land of Moab, one of
   whom went to glean in the fields of Boaz. Nor the history of that woman
   of a sorrowful spirit and her little boy, around whom the hope of
   Israel gathered in the dark days of Eli's feeble rule.

   Page after page of Holy Writ is enriched with the experience of that
   youth who was taken from tending the flock to become the champion of
   his country and was afterwards hunted like a partridge upon the
   mountain by the envious king. We could not give up the history of the
   Prophet of sorrow, nor of the fugitive who was cast into the sea, nor
   even the minor incidents of the widow of Sarepta and her barrel of
   meal--and the Prophet's widow whose creditor was about to seize her
   children for her husband's debts. Nor do lepers fall behind. We have
   two stories of lepers close together-- Naaman the Syrian and the four
   in our text at Samaria's gate. They were wisely put forth from Israel,
   but they were not put forth from Israel's God!

   It is clear enough that the poor and the needy are not only observed by
   our great King, but the pen of the Holy Spirit has been much occupied
   in recording their affairs. You that are poor and needy, you that are
   sick and sorrowful, you whose lives are spent in mourning, listen to
   this discourse and may the Lord comfort your hearts! On a future day,
   when the great books of history which, as yet, are only known to the
   recording angel, shall be read of all men, your story will appear and
   maybe it will be as memorable as that of Hannah or Joseph--and God will
   get as much Glory out of what He has done for you as from any of the
   deeds of His love recorded in the Inspired pages. Remember that the New
   Testament runs in the same strain. Under the economy of Grace, our Lord
   Jesus Christ is seen living among fishermen and peasants--and calling
   the poor to be His disciples! "God has chosen the weak things of the
   world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the
   world, and things which are despised, has God chosen; yes, and things
   which are not, to bring to nothing things that are." It is worthwhile
   to be among the poor, the despised and the sad, to have your record on
   high and to magnify the condescension of the Lord! It is in the hope
   that some disconsolate ones may be cheered that I speak at this time.
   Oh, that some leprous ones may go forth today and make a grand
   discovery! I desire to preach, praying in the Holy Spirit that the Holy
   Spirit may bless the word and move many to rise out of their despair
   and say, "Why are we sitting here until we die?"

   I. First, I call your attention to A GREAT WORK OF GOD WHICH WAS
   ENTIRELY UNKNOWN. The city of Samaria had been shut up for some time by
   the Syrian army. Famine had fallen upon the people and driven them to
   horrible straits. One can hardly bear to read of mothers devouring
   their own babies through stress of hunger. God sent His servant Elisha
   to tell them that the next day there should be a superabundance of food
   in the gates of Samaria, but the message was received with open
   ridicule. No sooner was the promise given than the Lord began to carry
   it out. It is the way with Him, to be true to His Word. However great
   the promise, it is as sure as it is great! And so, before the sun went
   down, the Lord had caused Israel's enemies to flee and had opened
   magazines of food for hungry Samaria. Without human aid Jehovah had
   accomplished His promise and much more!

   The siege was raised from around Samaria. Armed men had stood in their
   places and kept the way so that none could go in or out--but they were
   all gone--not one of them is left! The troopers had fled on foot and
   left their steeds tethered in rows! Captains and common soldiers had,
   alike, taken to their heels in hot haste, flying helter-skelter, like
   frightened sheep. No host threatened the city--it sat on its hill in
   the twilight, lonely and free. Yet in the city of Samaria they thought
   themselves cooped up and set their warders on the wall because of fear
   in the night. Everybody who went to bed that night felt that he was
   still in that horrible den where grim death seemed actually present in
   the skeleton forms of the hunger-bitten. They were as free as the harts
   of the wilderness had they known it, but their ignorance held them in
   vile durance.

   The Lord had also defeated all their enemies. They had run for their
   lives! They had fled because of a noise in their ears as of horses and
   of chariots. He that could first get across the Jordan and place that
   stream between him and his supposed pursuers was the happiest man.
   Without aid from Hittite or Ethiopian, the God of Israel had driven the
   whole host of Syria like chaff before the wind! Israel had not, now,
   this side of the Jordan, a single foe to attack her! And yet she knew
   not that the Lord's right hand and His holy arm had gotten Him the
   victory. They set guards to protect them from a foe which was no longer
   present and the sentinels paced up and down the walls and spoke to each
   other in the hoarse voice of starving men, guarding the walls against
   an imaginary foe! O Samaria, had you known the gift of God, your silent
   streets would have rung with shouts of joy! Your children, instead of
   cowering down in hunger upon wretched pallets, would have kindled
   torches and lit up the night as they hastened to feast upon the plenty
   which their enemies had bequeathed them! God works and man perceives it
   not--therefore is man unhappy and God is not praised as He should be.

   God had provided plenty for them. The wretched Samaritans drew the
   hunger-belt more closely about them and each man hoped that he might
   sleep for many an hour and forget his bitter pangs. Yet within a
   stone's throw there was more fine flour and barley than they could
   possibly consume! They were starving in the midst of plenty! They were
   pining when they might have been feasting! They believed not God and
   looked not for relief.

   Was not that a strange thing? A city besieged, and not besieged? A city
   girt with enemies, as they thought, and yet not an enemy left? A city
   starving and yet near to a feast? See, dear Friends, what unbelief can
   do? They had been promised plenty right speedily by God's own Prophet,
   but they did not believe the promise, nor look for its fulfillment. Had
   they been upon the watch, they might have seen the unusual movement in
   the Syrian camp and noticed the absolute stillness which succeeded it.

   I know a sad parallel to this. The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the
   world and has put away the sin of His people and yet many of them are
   complaining that their sin can never be put away! The Lord Jesus Christ
   has routed all the enemies of His people and yet they are afraid of
   innumerable evils! None is left to harm them, but they do not remember
   that the Lord reigns! They are afraid of this and afraid of that--and
   yet in one tremendous battle the Champion of the Cross has routed all
   their foes! They are no longer shut up as prisoners. The Lord has
   brought them liberty, but they are not aware of it by reason of their
   unbelief! The Word of God has revealed all this very plainly and the
   ministers of Christ proclaim it from day to day--but through unbelief
   they are still sorrowful, desponding and despairing--in bondage and

   woe. They will not believe and, therefore, they cannot he happy. How
   sad is this unbelief which renders even the Truth of God, itself,
   untrue to us and darkens our sun at midday! Our unbelief is our worst
   enemy!

   It is said that drowning men catch at straws--would you not have
   thought that famishing men might have caught at the word of Elisha? I
   grant you the promise did seem too great to be true--that lord who
   scoffed at it was not the only one who judged it to be impossible of
   fulfillment--and yet when men are brought so very low, they are apt to
   catch at any hope. How hardened was the unbelief which refused
   Jehovah's Word! Out of the whole population of Samaria, there was not
   one who had such faith in Elisha's promise as to drop over the wall
   from a window and go out to see whether the Lord was fulfilling His
   Word! It was solemnly promised; it was grievously needed and yet not a
   soul believed it! Another dreary night is closing in, Samaria is in her
   pangs and yet, did she know it, her citizens might dance for joy! I do
   not know whether I have given you any idea of the scene which rises so
   vividly before me, but it seems to me to be a very amazing sight--a
   multitude in the last stage of starvation, perishing with hunger,
   absolutely dropping dead as they tried to pace the streets--and yet
   food within sight and reach! They believed themselves to be prisoners,
   yet no birds could be more free! They regarded themselves as surrounded
   by deadly enemies, yet never was the land more clear of invaders!

   Even thus are we constantly seeing the Lord's elect and redeemed ones
   counting themselves rejected and fearing that they shall perish! I see
   those for whom Christ has shed His blood still refusing to rest in His
   finished work and rejoice in His glorious victory! Still do I see those
   for whom there is laid up a crown of life that fades not away and who
   are inheritors of all Covenant blessings, wringing their hands in the
   destitution of unbelief and pining away in wretched fear where there
   should be no fear! Their soul refuses to be comforted and yet all
   comfort is theirs. Alas, the case is common!

   II. When you have realized the picture of the city abiding in sorrow
   though its deliverance had already come, I want, in the second place,
   to remark upon a VERY SINGULAR BAND OF DISCOVERERS. A choice group of
   four at last found out what the Lord had done, proved it for themselves
   and made it known to their fellow townsmen. Is it not remarkable that
   these discoverers were lepers? These were the first to discover that
   Jehovah had gotten the victory, scattered the armies of Syria and
   brought help to His people. These poor diseased beings were compelled
   to live in shanties outside the city gate and to keep themselves apart
   from all others. Fed from day to day with food passed over the wall, so
   long as there was any to pass over, they rotted away in horrible
   loathsomeness. What a wretched sight! I will not ask you to step into
   their hut. There are four living skeletons and what flesh remains on
   them is foul with the hideous marks of leprosy. Their bodies are
   corrupting in life! They move about, poor sick things as they are, more
   than half dead. They have had no food sent to them of late and they
   must not go for relief. No man cares for them. The best thing that
   could possibly happen to them would be to die and yet are a clinging to
   life. They were outcasts, off casts. Israel had thrust them outside her
   gates. Their own friends and families were obliged to be separated from
   them.

   These were the discoverers of what God had done! It is a wonderful
   thing that those who are most conscious of sin, most despised of men
   and least likely to be favored, are often those upon whom Jehovah has
   fixed the eyes of His electing love. The chariot of His Grace passes by
   the towers of haughty kings, but it stops at the hovel of poverty--even
   at the prison of despair! The Lord looks on the chief of sinners and
   says, "Here will I display My Grace. Here shall the wonders of My love
   be seen." Lepers are not the only ones whom men cast out, nor are they
   the only persons whom God full often stoops to bless. Some who feel
   loathsome, vile and self-abhorred may be before me now, dreaming that
   it is impossible for God to bless them--yet these are the characters
   whom He delights to save! Ah, Grace--you are known to dwell in most
   unlikely places! You would have supposed that, surely, the king would
   have gone forth to see, or that yonder great lord who had ridiculed the
   Prophet might have relented and gone forth to observe!

   But no, there are last that shall be first and the Lord, in His
   Providence and Grace, chose lepers to be the discoverers of His
   marvelous miracle! Even thus the keenest observers of Grace are those
   who have the deepest sense of sin. I always like to address myself to
   the most hopeless grade of experience--to those who are most desponding
   and despairing--for these are the people who will welcome Free Grace,
   since they feel their need of it. Talk of charity to the rich and they
   will spurn you. Talk of it to the destitute and they will welcome you!
   Speak of Free Grace and dying love to self-righteous persons and they
   are deaf to you. But those who are guilty and know it, welcome the
   promise of free pardon! I have to tell this morning of pure, rich,
   free, undeserved favor which God displays to the guiltiest of the
   guilty! Those who are, in their own esteem, at the lowest ebb are
   always the first to understand the wonders of Grace!

   These men could not hope for a welcome from the Syrians. Poor objects
   that they were, they would be hated as Israelites and also abhorred as
   lepers--yet they went--and in that camp they found all that they needed
   and much more than they expected. Am I not speaking to some who are
   saying, "For me, to go to Christ would be all in vain. I can suppose
   His blessing my brother, or my friend, but He never will receive one so
   altogether unworthy as I am"? That was my imagination once. I believed
   in the salvation of everybody except myself. It seemed to me as if a
   special plague and a peculiar curse had lighted upon my nature and
   withered my heart. It was not so, as I soon proved when once I went to
   Jesus. But how could I expect to be accepted? I, who had sinned against
   light and knowledge, and spurned the Grace of God when it came to me so
   lovingly? I speak to those of you who feel that you have no right to
   mercy--you are the very men who may come boldly for it, since it is not
   of right, but altogether of favor! You that have no claim to the mercy
   of God are the very people to come to Him through Jesus Christ, for
   where there is the least of anything that is good and meritorious,
   there, there is the most room for generous gifts and gracious pardons!
   Remember, the Lord Jesus did not come to sell salvation--He asks
   neither money nor price--but He came Himself as the Gift of God and His
   own free gift is eternal life! Joseph Hart says rightly--

   "Who rightly would his alms dispose Must give them to the poor."

   Are you poor? Then the Lord has an alms for you! If you feel that you
   are the last person that deserves to be received, you shall be received
   at once--the deeper your sense of your unworthiness, the better! Even
   if you lament that you have not a proper sense of need, this only
   proves your deeper poverty and shows that you are without claim of any
   kind. You are neither able to plead Law nor Gospel in your favor and
   must cast yourself on Sovereign Grace. Do so and live! O poor Soul! I
   wish I could take you by the hand and go with you, again, to my dear
   Lord as I went to Him at first. I went to Him in the most despairing
   fashion. You have heard the story of the English king who was angry
   with the citizens of Calais and declared that he would hang six of
   them. They came to him with ropes about their necks, submitting to
   their doom. That is the way in which I came to Jesus. I accepted my
   punishment, pleaded guilty and begged for pardon! Put your rope on your
   neck! Confess that you deserve to die and come to Jesus! Put no honeyed
   words into your mouth! Turn out that nonsense of self-righteousness
   from your heart and cry, "Save me, Lord, or I perish!" If thus you
   plead you shall never perish. You are the kind of man for whom Christ
   died--the sort of man whom He never did spurn and never will spurn
   while the world stands!

   Another thing to be noticed about these discoverers of the Lord's work
   is that they were a people who dared not have joined themselves to
   God's people. They were not allowed inside the city walls--their
   wretched hospital was outside the gate. They were recognized in some
   sort of way as belonging to the congregation of Israel, for their place
   was near the city gates, but still, Israel would have none of
   them--they must not enter one of her houses to take a meal. Some of you
   have been attending the Tabernacle for years, I know, but you dare not
   join the Church. You would not venture to Baptism, or to the Lord's
   Supper because you feel so unworthy. You hang on to us, after a
   sort--you would not like to quite give up all connection with the
   people of God--but yet you would not dare to say that you belong to
   them! In your secret hearts, your bitter cry is that of the leper,
   "Unclean, unclean, unclean!" Before God you cast ashes on your head and
   cover your lips and sometimes wish that you had never been born. But
   still you cannot leave the gate of the Lord's people, nor cease
   altogether from their company.

   These poor creatures Israel would not acknowledge and yet they were the
   first to find out what the Lord had done for His people! How often does
   it happen that those who are rejected of men are accepted of God! Did I
   hear one ask-- "Do you really mean it?" I do mean it! I mean that some
   of you who deem that you are destined to be lost and yet cannot give up
   hearing the Gospel, are sure to find out the Gospel! I hear you say,
   "The Gospel is not for me and yet I must hear it. I can never give up
   my Bible though I only read my own condemnation in its pages." You are
   the sort of people to whom the Word of Salvation is sent--and you are
   the most likely persons to discover what a Christ there is, what a
   salvation there is, what a deliverance there is in the Grace of God!
   You are the men that shall yet tell to the king's household the
   victories of eternal love and assure those dull, cold Israelites inside
   the walls that, after all, there is bread enough and to spare--and
   treasure to be had if they will but come out and have it!

   To describe these discoverers yet more fully, they were men who, at
   last, were driven to give themselves up. They said, "We will fall unto
   the Syrians and if they kill us, we shall only die." Blessed is that
   man who has given himself up,

   not to the Syrians, but to the Lord! As long as we can do something, we
   keep on doing that something to our ruin. But when it is all over with
   us and we can do no more, then man's extremity is God's opportunity.
   The man who struggles as he sinks is hard to be rescued, but when the
   drowning man has gone down twice and is just going down for the third
   time--then is the opportunity for the strong swimmer to come in and
   grasp him firmly--and swim with him to shore. You that are going down a
   third time, you lost ones, listen to this, "The Son of Man is come to
   save that which was lost." "Jesus Christ came into the world to save
   sinners; of whom I am chief." O you self-righteous people, how can you
   talk about being saved? What saving do you need? You are as full of
   good works as you can be and your pride shines on your brows--how can
   you be saved? They that shall be saved by Jesus are those that are, in
   themselves, lost, ruined and undone. Until you know your ruin and
   confess your sin, it is not likely you will ever accept a Savior! While
   you feel that you can save yourselves, you will attempt it! But when
   you can do no more, then you will fall into the arms of your Savior and
   a blessed fall that will be!

   These discoverers I would liken to Columbus, four times repeated, for
   they found out a new world for Samaria! These four lepers went to the
   Syrian camp and saw for themselves! Lepers as they were--they came,
   they saw, they conquered! I think I can see them in the dim twilight,
   stealing along until they come to the first tent, expecting to be
   challenged by a picket and wondering that they are not. They hear no
   sound of human voice. The horses and mules were heard to stamp and draw
   their chains up and down, but their riders were gone and no noise of
   human foot was heard. "There are no men about," cries one of them, "nor
   signs of men. Let us go into this tent." They step in. A supper was
   ready. He who had spread that table will never taste it again. The
   hungry men needed no persuasion, but immediately began to carve for
   themselves. They took possession of the spoils of war left on the
   field. After they had feasted, they said, "To whom does this gold and
   silver belong? The prey belongs to us, for our enemies have left the
   treasure behind them." They took as many of the valuables as they could
   carry, then went into another tent--still no living soul was seen.
   Where lately a host had rioted, not a soldier remained! There was no
   sound of revelry that night, nor tramp of guard, nor talk around the
   fire. The lepers tasted more of the forsaken dainties, drained other
   goblets and took more gold and silver. "There is more than we shall
   know what to do with," they said. So they dug a hole and banked their
   gains after the Oriental fashion. Who can conceive the delirious joy of
   those four lepers in the midst of such abundance?

   Do you see what these men did? First, they went and saw for
   themselves--and then they took possession for themselves. The whole
   four of them did not own one penny, before, and now they are rich
   beyond a miser's dream! They have enjoyed the feast and they are filled
   to the full. They are fully qualified to go and tell the starving city
   of their discovery because they are clear that they have made no
   mistake. They have satisfied their own hunger, gratified their own
   desire and tasted and handled for themselves--and so they can speak as
   men who know and are sure.

   Dear Friends, he knows the Grace of God best, who, in all his leprosy
   and defilement, in all his hunger, faintness and weariness has come to
   Christ and fed on the Bread of Heaven and drank the Water of Life--and
   taken the blessings of the Covenant--and made himself rich with hidden
   treasure! Such a man will speak convincingly because he will bear a
   personal witness. This man has no doubts upon the vital points, for
   Christ is his life--he does not argue, but testifies! He is not a
   special pleader, but a witness! The leper, fed and enriched, stands
   outside the city gate and calls to the porter and wakes him up at the
   dead of night, for he has news worth telling. The experienced Believer
   speaks with the accent of conviction and in it imitates his Master who
   spoke with authority! "Why," says the porter, "I used to speak to you
   over the city wall! Are you the leper to whom I said that there was no
   more food for you? I have thrown you nothing for a week and thought you
   were dead--are you the man?"

   He answers, "I am! I do not need your wretched rations now! I am filled
   and where I have fed there is enough for you all. Come out and feast
   yourselves." "I do not know you," says the porter. All four join in
   saying, "No, you would not know us, we are new men since we have been
   to the camp. Believe the story and tell it to all in the city, for it
   is true! There is enough and to spare if they will but come out and
   have it." The Lord made a good choice when he selected these lepers to
   be discoverers of His great work. He does wisely when He takes those
   who are saddest and fills their mouths with laughter and their tongues
   with singing, for these will command attention! These poor wretches
   could not have made up so amazing a story, nor feigned such
   joy--sorrowing castaways could not have invented the story of Free
   Grace! It must be true! Oh, that men would believe it!

   How much I wish that through my poor words some gleam of hope would
   fall upon weary and heavy-laden souls to whom this sermon come. You
   say, "Where are they?" I do not know. I know that such persons do come
   under my ministry in extraordinary numbers. I shall know that they are
   here before next Sunday, for I shall hear from some of them--"I thank
   God I was there on Sunday morning. It just suited me--I was diseased
   with sin, my soul was starving and dying-- but I went to Jesus as I was
   and I discovered what I never dreamed could be true! He has done for me
   exceeding abundantly, above all that I asked or even thought."

   III. We have come this far by the Lord's help. I now wish to spend a
   minute or two in noticing HOW THEY CAME TO MAKE THIS DISCOVERY. These
   four lepers, how did they come to find out the flight of Syria? First,
   I suppose, they made the discovery rather than anybody else because the
   famine was sorest with them. You see they were lepers outside the gate.
   In good times they received a daily portion from the town, but you may
   be pretty sure that the townsmen did not deny themselves on their
   account! If anybody has to go short, it will probably be those who are
   dependent upon charity. Nobody in the East is excessively eager to feed
   lepers in times of famine. Probably the Samaritans thought and even
   said, "They are best dead--they are no good to anybody. They are
   suffering and they cannot earn anything, let them die." Besides, when
   the supplies within the city were exhausted, you could hardly blame the
   citizens if they sent nothing to the lepers, for those who were,
   themselves, without food had nothing to give.

   Yet the people within the walls could do something or other to palliate
   their hunger--they could even resort to horrible cannibalism--but these
   four lepers were cut off from such desperate resources. They had nobody
   to kill and eat and they must, therefore, die. Then it was that they
   woke up. Truly, necessity is the mother of invention and the mother of
   that blessed invention which finds the Lord Jesus Christ and His
   finished salvation is the awful necessity of a perishing soul! Let but
   some men feel the burden of sin and they will never rest till they come
   to Jesus. John Bunyan says that he once thought harshly of Christ, but
   at last he came to such a pitch of misery that he felt he must come to
   Jesus, anyway, and he says that he verily believed that if the Lord
   Jesus had stood before him with a drawn sword in His hand, he would
   have rushed upon the point of His sword rather than stay away from Him.

   I understand that right well. I would to God that some of you were
   reduced to so great a necessity that you were driven to the only One
   who can help you. Oh, that you were utterly bankrupt! Not a kind wish,
   you say? Yes, it is. Our complete emptiness constrains us to seek the
   Divine fullness. Look at the prodigal son--so long as he had anything
   left he did not go home to his Father--but when he had spent all his
   substance and had become so hungry that he envied the very hogs he fed,
   then he said, "I will arise, and go to my Father." Spiritual necessity
   is that which nerves the soul with courage to cast itself upon
   Sovereign Grace in Jesus Christ!

   These lepers were driven to go to make the discovery because they felt
   that they could not be any worse than they were. They said, "If we sit
   here, we shall die; and if the Syrians kill us, we shall only die."
   That feeling has often driven souls to Christ--

   "I can but perish if I go. I am resolved to try

   For if I stay away,

   I know I must forever die."

   They could but die and they were sure to die if they sat where they
   were. Poor Soul, are you within reach of my voice? Is your case
   desperate? Well, then, try faith! You cannot be any worse and you may
   be better. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If He should reject you,
   you cannot be any worse, but then, He cannot reject you, for He says,
   "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." I would pray for
   mercy if I were you! Suppose you are not heard--you cannot be the worse
   for praying. I would cast myself on Jesus if I were you! You could not
   be the worse for doing so. Every day I say to myself--

   "Though my eye of faith is dim,

   I'll hold on Jesus, sink or swim." I cannot be blamed for trusting to
   One who has saved so many! O my Hearer, there is no risk in the matter!
   You must be infinitely better for coming to the appointed Savior! Come
   and try Him! Come at this moment!

   Again, these people saw that there was no reason why they should not
   go, for they said, one to the other--"Why are we sitting here until we
   die?" They could not find a justification for inaction. They could not
   say, "We sit here because the king commands us to stay where we are."
   You cannot say, my dear Hearer, that you remain ungodly and unbelieving

   because the Lord bids you do so. Far from it! He bids you forsake your
   way and your thoughts and turn unto Him and live! He promises that He
   will receive you and, therefore, He cries, "Turn you, turn you, why
   will you die?" The lepers could not say that they sat there because
   they were chained, or locked in, and so were compelled to starve in
   their hut. They could move to the Syrian camp and this was their one
   liberty. You, also, are not compelled to be as you are. Is there any
   reason why you should not pray? Is there any barrier to your trusting
   the Lord except in your own heart? You are not compelled to remain
   ungodly, thoughtless, prayerless, faithless. You are not compelled to
   be lost! There is no compulsion put upon you to force you away from
   Jesus and eternal life! Oh, that you would pluck up heart and say, "Why
   should we sit here until we die?" I hope there is no deadly despair
   upon you yet--certainly there should not be. These men did not feel
   that it was certain that they would die if they went to the Syrian
   camp. They had a little hope and on that hope they acted like sensible
   men.

   You remember how the people of Nineveh humbled themselves before God
   with nothing to encourage them but, "Who can tell?" Jonah said, "Forty
   days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And they could get no more
   comfort than the question, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent
   and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?" Oh, poor
   troubled Heart, who can tell? There may be mercy for you and not a
   little mercy, either. The full, rich, eternal mercy of the Lord may be
   enjoyed by you before the sun goes down! That head of yours will yet
   wear the starry crown! About your naked loins there shall yet be girt
   the fair linen of Christ's righteousness! Do not believe the devil if
   he says you must die. You need not die! Have confidence and venture,
   now, to Christ and you shall find relief. I speak what I know and know
   what I speak!

   These lepers went to the camp of the Syrians because they were shut up
   to that one course--"If we say, we will enter into the city, then the
   famine is in the city and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we
   die also." Only one road was open. I am always glad when I am in that
   condition. If many courses are open to me, I may make a mistake. But
   when I see only one road, I know which way to go. It is a blessed thing
   to be shut up to faith in Christ--to be compelled to look to Grace,
   alone. I spoke to a friend this week who is sorely sick and I said,
   "You are resting in Christ, my Brother." He replied, "I have nothing
   else to rest in." I said, "Your hope is in the atoning Sacrifice of
   Christ," and he answered, "What other hope could I have?" While we have
   50 ways of salvation, we shall be lost. But when we see that "other
   foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ
   the Righteous," then we shall build upon it and be safe!

   These lepers were not the men to theorize. They were in such a plight
   that they must come to prompt action. Many ladies and gentlemen treat
   religion as a science and, therefore, they never know its real powers.
   Many professors and learned doctors speculate upon theology as if it
   were part of a liberal education, but by no means a practical matter.
   People who have no sin to wash away and no great spiritual trouble to
   bear, play at religion--but those who are ready to perish look on
   matters in another light! We are not chemists analyzing the Bread of
   Life--we are fainting men and women who feed on it with eagerness! Our
   resolve is--

   "I'll go to Jesus, though my sin

   Has, like a mountain, rose.

   I know His courts, I'll enter in,

   Whatever may oppose.

   Perhaps He wiil admit my plea,

   Perhaps will hear my prayer.

   But if I perish, I will pray

   And perish only there."

   These lepers discovered what the Lord had done because they did not
   give themselves up to dreams and guesses, but came to downright matters
   of fact. May God drive every unconverted sinner into a corner and so
   compel him to yield to Divine Grace! May He bring you to act in
   earnest! May He drive you by the extreme necessities of your case to
   seek and to find, to search and to discover!

   IV. I ask your patience for a minute while I say, in the fourth
   place--MAY NOT SOME SAD HEARTS IMITATE THOSE LEPERS and make the same
   discovery? "I am afraid to believe in Christ," says one, "for my sins,
   my many sins, prevent me." Look at the lepers and see how much better
   the Lord was to them than their fears. It is twilight and they steal
   into the camp, trembling. One cries, "Softly there, Simeon! Your heavy
   tread will bring the guard upon us." Eleazar gently whispers to the
   other, "Make no noise! If they sleep, let us not awaken them." They
   might tread as heavily

   as they pleased and talk as loudly as they wished, for there was no man
   there! Do you know it? If you believe in the Lord Jesus, your sins,
   which are many, are all forgiven--there is no sin left to accuse you!
   You are afraid they will ruin you? They have ceased to be! The depths
   have covered them! There is not one of them left! "The blood of Jesus
   Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Your sins were numbered on
   the scapegoat's head of old. Jesus bore your sins in His own body on
   the Cross. If you come to Christ, confessing and believing, no sin
   shall destroy you, for it is blotted out!

   Perhaps these men feared when they were going into the tent--"A Syrian
   will meet us at the tent door and cry, 'Back, what business have you
   here? Lepers, be gone! Back to your dens and die.'" They entered into
   tent after tent-- nobody forbade them--they had the entry of every
   pavilion! They were also possessors of all they saw. When I came to
   Christ, I could not believe that I might take the promises, but I did,
   and nobody said to me, no! I have gone on appropriating promises ever
   since--exceedingly great and precious promises--and nobody has said to
   me, no. I find I can make myself most free in Christ's house and, the
   more free I am, the better He is pleased! His rule is--ask what you
   will and it shall be done unto you! The Lord gives us full liberty to
   come into his secret place, even to His Throne of Grace! Oh, that some
   poor heart would come at this moment! Instead of being repulsed, you
   shall find a hearty welcome, even into the most holy places!

   Perhaps the leper felt some little question when he saw a golden cup,
   or a silver flagon, or a well-fashioned cruet. What have lepers to do
   with golden cups? But he overcame his scruples. No law could hinder his
   sharing the leavings of a runaway enemy! Nobody was there to stop him
   and the valuables were set before him--and, therefore, he took what was
   provided for him. The lepers grew more and more bold till they carried
   off as much of the booty as they were able to hide away. I take up my
   parable and, without scruple, invite you to deal thus with salvation!
   When I came to Jesus, I hardly dared to appropriate a promise--it
   looked like stealing! I did not, could not believe that I had a right
   to any of the good things provided for the Lord's people! But I took
   Gospel leave and enjoyed them. I find it written, "No good thing will
   be withheld from them that walk uprightly" and, therefore, I feel that
   nothing is withheld from me. I venture to take what Grace has put in my
   way!

   I take possession of everything that I can find in Christ! I have never
   yet found either conscience, or the Word of God, or the Lord, Himself,
   upbraid me for appropriating the precious things laid up in the
   Covenant for Believers! Therefore I grow bolder and yet more bold! One
   of these days I, who am the least of all saints, expect to stand among
   the bright ones near the Throne of God and sing, "Hallelujah to God and
   the Lamb." I do not think that I shall be ashamed to stand there. I am
   ashamed of myself for 10,000 reasons, but I shall not be ashamed at the
   Lord's coming--

   "Bold shall I stand in that great day." You poor lepers, you poor lost
   and ruined ones, come to my Lord Jesus! Believe it, the whole land is
   before you--the land that flows with milk and honey is for you! This
   world is yours and worlds to come. Christ is yours! Yes, God, Himself
   is yours! Everything is to be had for nothing. Heaven and all its joys
   are to be had for believing! God make you the discoverers, this day, of
   His wondrous Grace and to Him shall be praise forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Personal Pentecost and the Glorious Hope

   (No. 1904)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 13, 1886,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And hope makes us not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad
   in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." Romans 5:5.

   PENTECOST is repeated in the heart of every Believer. Let me give you a
   little bit of historical analogy to illustrate the text. The Lord's
   disciples were made to sorrow at His Cross. Sore was the tribulation
   which came upon them as they thought upon His death and His burial in
   Joseph's sepulcher. But after a little patience and experience, their
   hope revived, for their Lord rose from the dead and they beheld Him
   ascending into Heaven. Their hopes were bright concerning their Lord
   who had gone into Glory and had left them a promise to come again and
   to make them takers of His victory. After that hope had been begotten
   in them, they were, in due time, made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
   whose Divine influence was shed abroad upon them so that they were
   filled with His power. Then were they made bold. They were not ashamed
   of their hope, but proclaimed it by the preaching of Peter and the rest
   of them. The Holy Spirit had visited them and, therefore, they
   fearlessly proclaimed to the world the Lord Jesus, their hope of Glory.

   Truly, history repeats itself. The history of our Lord is the
   foreshadowing of the experience of all His people! That which happens
   to the First-Born befalls, in measure, to all the Brethren. We have
   before us in our text an admirable example. First comes our
   tribulation, our agony, our cross-bearing. Out of our patience and
   experience there arises, in due season, a blessed hope--we are
   quickened by our Lord's resurrection life and come forth from our
   sorrow! He raises us up from the grave of our woe. Then comes the
   Divine visitation of the Holy Spirit and we enjoy our Pentecost--"The
   love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is
   given unto us." I trust we know what this means and are now enjoying
   it. Consequent upon that visitation, our hope becomes clear and
   assured--and we are led to make a full outspoken testimony concerning
   our hope and that blessed One who is the Substance of it. I hope that
   many of us have already proved that we are not ashamed and that others
   of you will yet do so. Our God has visited us in mercy and endowed us
   with the Holy Spirit who is His choice gift to His children. The Holy
   Spirit dwelling in us has caused us to know and feel the love of God
   and now we cannot but speak and tell others of what the Lord has made
   known to us! Thus, on a small scale, have we rehearsed a portion of
   early Church history in our own personal story. You shall find that not
   only in this case, but in all cases, the life of the Believer is in
   miniature the life of Christ! He who originally said, "Let Us make man
   in Our image," still, in the new creation, follows the model of Christ
   in the new-making of chosen men!

   Now let me give you a little passage of experimental mystery. You have
   it here spread before you in a little map of the inner
   life--"Tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and
   experience, hope: and hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God
   is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto
   us." This passage can only be fully understood by those people of God
   who have had it written in capital letters on their own hearts.
   "Tribulation works patience," says the Apostle. Naturally it is not so.
   Tribulation works impatience and impatience misses the fruit of
   experience and sours into hopelessness! Ask many who have buried a dear
   child, or have lost their wealth, or have suffered pain of body and
   they will tell you that the natural result of affliction is to produce
   irritation against Providence, rebellion against God, questioning,
   unbelief, petulance and all sorts of evils!

   But what a wonderful alteration takes place when the heart is renewed
   by the Holy Spirit! Then, but not till then, tribulation works
   patience! He that is never troubled cannot exercise patience. Angels
   cannot personally exhibit patience since they are not capable of
   suffering. It is necessary to the possession and exercise of patience
   that we should be tried-- and a great degree of patience can only come
   by a great degree of trial. You have heard of the patience of Job--did
   he

   learn it among his flocks, or with his camels, or with his children
   when they were feasting? No, verily, he learned it when he sat among
   the ashes and scraped himself with a potsherd--and his heart was heavy
   because of the death of his children. Patience is a pearl which is only
   found in the deep seas of affliction and only Divine Grace can find it
   there, bring it to the surface and adorn the neck of faith with it!

   It comes to pass that this patience works in us experience, that is, to
   say, the more we endure, the more we test the faithfulness of God, the
   more we prove His love and the more we perceive His wisdom. He that has
   never endured may believe in the sustaining power of Grace, but he has
   never had experience of it. You must put to sea to know the skill of
   the Divine Pilot and you must be buffeted with tempest before you can
   know His power over winds and waves. How can we see Jesus in His full
   power unless there is a storm for Him to turn into a calm? Our patience
   works in us an experimental acquaintance with the truth, the
   faithfulness, the love and the power of our God. We bow in patience and
   then we rise in happy experience of heavenly support! What better
   wealth can a man have than to be rich in experience? Experience
   teaches. This is the real High School for God's children. I scarcely
   think we learn anything thoroughly without the rod of affliction.
   Certainly we know best that which has been a matter of personal
   experience. We need that Truth of God should be burned into us with the
   hot iron of affliction before we know it effectively--after that, no
   man may trouble us, for our heart bears the brand of the Lord Jesus!
   Thus patience works experience.

   It is rather amazing that it should then be said, "and experience works
   hope"--not amazing in the sense of being questionable, for there is no
   hope so bright as that of the man who knows, by experience, the
   faithfulness and love of God. But does it not seem singular that this
   heavy tribulation, this grievous affliction, this painful chastisement
   should, nevertheless, bring forth for us this bright particular light,
   this morning star of hope, this herald of the everlasting day of Glory?
   Brothers and Sisters, how wonderfully does Divine alchemy fetch fine
   gold out of metal which we thought to be worthless! The Lord, in His
   Grace, spreads a couch for His own upon the threshing floor of
   tribulation and there, like Boaz, we take our rest! He sets to music
   the roar of the floods of trouble. Out of the foam of the sea of sorrow
   He causes to arise the bright spirit of "hope that makes not ashamed."

   This passage from which we have taken our text is a choice extract from
   the inner life of a spiritual man! It is a fragment of the Believer's
   riddle--let him read it that has understanding.

   Before I plunge into my subject, let me point out to you that this text
   is none other than the House of God and the gate of Heaven. Behold a
   Temple for the worship of the Divine Trinity in my text. Read the fifth
   and sixth verses together--"The love of God (the Father) is shed abroad
   in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. For when we
   were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."
   Behold the blessed Three in One! It needs the Trinity to make a
   Christian! It needs the Trinity to cheer a Christian! It needs the
   Trinity to complete a Christian! It needs the Trinity to create in a
   Christian the hope of Glory! I always like these passages which bring
   us so near to the Trinity. Let us pause a while and adore--"Glory be
   unto the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in
   the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end! Amen." It
   is most sweet to be called upon to offer special worship unto the one
   God in the Trinity of His Divine Persons and to feel your heart readily
   inclined thereto, as we do at this hour. By faith we bow with the hosts
   of the redeemed before the all-glorious Throne of God and worship Him
   that lives forever. How heartily may we do this when we think of the
   unity of the Sacred Three in our salvation! We have Divine Love
   bestowed by the Father, made manifest in the death of the Son and shed
   abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Oh, to feel, at this moment,
   communion with the Triune God! Let us bow before the sacred majesty of
   Jehovah and then, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, let us enter the
   Temple of our text!

   The text runs thus: "Hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is
   shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us."
   The Apostle had worked up the subject till he came to the hope of
   Glory. When he had reached that height, he could not help saying
   something concerning it. Turning away from his main subject, as is
   often his custom, he makes a diversion and gives us a few glowing
   sentences upon the Believer's hope.

   Our first head will be the confidence of our hope--the hope makes not
   ashamed. Secondly, the reason of this confidence, which I hope we are
   enjoying, today, for we are so confident about our hope that we shall
   never be disappointed in it because the love of God is shed abroad in
   our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. Thirdly, we shall
   have a word or two to say upon the result of this confidence of hope,
   since, for this cause we bear testimony to the world and declare that
   we are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

   I. First then, consider THE CONFIDENCE OF OUR HOPE. We are not ashamed
   of our hope. Some persons have no hope, or only one of which they might
   justly be ashamed. Ask many who deny the Scriptures, what is their hope
   for the future. "I shall die like a dog," says one. "When I am dead
   that's the end of me." If I had such a wretched hope as that, I
   certainly would not go about the world proclaiming it! I would not
   think of gathering a large congregation like this and saying to you,
   "Brothers and Sisters, rejoice with me, for we are all to die like cats
   and dogs." It would never strike me as being a matter to be gloried in.
   The Agnostic knows nothing and, therefore, I suppose he hopes nothing.
   Here, also, I do not see much to stir enthusiasm. If I had no more hope
   than that, I would be ashamed.

   The Romanist's best hope when he dies is that he may come right in the
   end, but that, in the meantime, he will have to undergo the purging
   fires of "purgatory." I do not know much about that place, for I cannot
   find mention of it in Holy Scripture--but those who know it well,
   because they invented it, and keep its keys--describe it as a dreary
   region to which even great bishops and cardinals must go! I have
   seen,personally seen, invitations to the faithful to pray for the
   repose of the soul of a late eminent cardinal--and if such is the lot
   of the princes of the church of Rome, where must ordinary people go?
   There is no great excellence in this hope. I do not think I should call
   you all together in order to say to you, "Rejoice with me, for when we
   die we shall all go to 'purgatory.'" You would fail to see the special
   ground of rejoicing. I do not think I would say much about it and when
   anybody questioned me about it, I would endeavor to evade the point and
   declare that it was a deep mystery which had better be left to the
   clergy!

   But we are not ashamed of our hope, we Christian people who believe
   that those Believers who are absent from the body are present with the
   Lord! We look for a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker
   is God! We are not ashamed to hope for Glory, immortality and eternal
   life!

   We are not ashamed of the object of our hope. We do not believe in
   gross carnal delights as making up our Heaven. We do not believe in a
   Muslim paradise of sensual delights, or we might very well be ashamed
   of our hope! Whatever imagery we may use, we intend, thereby, pure,
   holy, spiritual and refined happiness such as the False Prophet would
   not have regarded as a sufficient bait for his followers. Our hope is
   this--that our Lord will come a second time and all His holy angels
   with Him. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
   kingdom of their Father! We believe that if we fall asleep before that
   time, we shall sleep in Jesus and shall be blessed with Him. "Today
   shall you be with Me in Paradise," is not for the thief, only, but for
   all of us who have trusted our souls with the crucified Savior. At His
   coming we expect a glorious resurrection. When He shall descend from
   Heaven with a shout, with the trumpet of the archangel and the voice of
   God, then shall our souls be restored to our bodies and our complete
   manhood shall live with Christ! We bel