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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 33: 1887
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

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

               Times and Seasons. The church year
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The Master Key--Opening the Gate of Heaven

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 2, 1887.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   23, 1886.

   "And You said, I will surely do you good." Genesis 32:12.

   THE possession of a God, or the non-possession of a God, makes the
   greatest possible difference between man and man. Esau is a princely
   being, but he is "a profane person." Jacob is a weak, fallible, frail
   creature, but he has a God. Have you not heard of "the mighty God of
   Jacob"? There are many wise, careful, prudent men of the world who have
   no God and, truly, these in the highest sense, like the young lions,
   lack and suffer hunger, for their highest nature is left to famish.
   Those who wait upon the Lord are often very simple and devoid of
   ability and policy, but they shall not lack any good thing--their
   highest nature is well supplied from heavenly sources. This is the
   great difference between the two races which people the world--I mean
   the sons of men who say in their hearts, "No God," and the sons of God,
   the twice-born, who have received new life and, therefore, with heart
   and flesh cry out for God, even the living God!

   The child of this world enquires, "Where shall I flee from His
   Presence?" The child of Light cries, "O God, You are my God; early will
   I seek You." There are thus two races of men who can never blend,
   either in this life or in that which is to come. Deep in their
   innermost nature lies a vital difference--they are of two distinct
   seeds. My dear Hearers, you can divide yourselves without difficulty by
   this rule--Have you a God, or have you none? If you have no God, what
   have you? If you have no God, what good have you to expect? What,
   indeed, can be good to you? If you have no God, how can you face the
   past, the present, or the future?

   But if you have God for your portion, your whole history is covered!
   The God of the past has blotted out your sin; the God of the present
   makes all things work for your good; the God of the future will never
   leave you nor forsake you! In God you are prepared for every emergency.
   O Man, if the God of Jacob is your God, you shall be safe at night,
   though you may sleep as unguarded as the Patriarch at Bethel. And you
   shall be secure by day, though you may be met by Esau with his 400 men!
   You are safe in banishment though Laban is churlish--and safe in the
   midst of foes, though Canaan-ites thirst for your blood--for the Lord
   has said, "Touch not My anointed and do My Prophets no harm." It
   matters not where you go if the God of Israel is with you and says to
   you, "Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will go down with you; and
   I will also surely bring you up again." He shall guard you from all
   evil--the Lord shall preserve your soul.

   Because Jacob had a God, therefore he went to Him in the hour of his
   trouble. He did not know how he should escape from his injured and
   angry brother, Esau. In fact, he believed that Esau had come on purpose
   to cut him up, root and branch, and so, after doing the best he could,
   Jacob looked to his best Friend and Helper, and cried unto his God! He
   who has a God will be sure to fly to Him in his distress. There is no
   use in having a God if you do not use Him. I am afraid that many
   professed Christians place their God afar off and never dream of going
   to Him for practical succor in the hour of danger. As well have no God,
   as have an unreal God who cannot be found in the midnight of our need!
   But what a blessing it is to be able to go to our God at all times and
   pour out our hearts before Him--for our God will be our Helper and that
   right early! He is our near and dear Friend in joy and in sorrow. Poor
   Jacob, in the calmer days of his life, had failed to walk with his God
   as his father, Abraham, had done. But now a storm has overtaken him and
   he flies to the Lord, his God, as a mariner puts into port to escape
   the tempest.

   Dear Friend, are you in trouble at this time and have you a God? Then
   go to Him in prayer at once and spread your case before Him. Have you a
   Rabshakeh's letter in the house? Go, like Hezekiah, and spread it
   before the Lord! Have you

   a dying child? Then cry to the Lord as David did! Are you in the deeps
   with Jonah? Then let your prayer arise from the very bottoms of the
   mountains! Have you any bitterness in the vessel of your heart? Then
   pour it out before Him.

   Make good use of your God and especially gain the fullest advantage
   from Him by pleading with Him in prayer. In troublous times, our best
   communion with God will be carried on by supplication. Tell Him your
   case--search out His promise and then plead it with holy boldness. This
   is the best, the surest, the speediest way of relief.

   What would some of us do if we had not a God to go to? Though we are
   not tried and troubled as some men are-- and God has set a hedge about
   us--yet there are times in our life when we should die of a broken
   heart if we could not tell our griefs to God! Like Job, we could curse
   the day of our birth and wish that we had never been born if we were
   utterly bereft of God. We would look forward to annihilation as a
   hopeful thing if we could not speak with God, our ever-gracious Friend.
   But when we can get away to Him and tell out the whole matter--and lay
   hold upon Him by the hand of faith and plead His promise--then the
   darkened cloud withdraws and we come out into the light, again, and
   sing, "This God is our God forever and ever! He will be our Guide even
   unto death."

   Beloved, we see that Jacob had a God and that he made use of Him in
   prayer, but the point I want to call your attention to, at this time,
   is that the stress, the force, the very sinew of Jacob's prayer
   consisted in his pleading the promise of God with God. When he came to
   real wrestling with the Lord, he cried, "You said." That is the way to
   lay hold upon the Covenant Angel--"You said." The art of wrestling lies
   much in a proper use of, "You said." Jacob, with all his mistakes, was
   a master of the art of prayer--we justly call him, "wrestling Jacob."
   He said, "I will not let You go." He gets grip for his hands out of
   this, "You said." With this he lays hold upon his unknown antagonist--a
   desperate hold which he will not relax, even though his sinew are made
   to shrink.

   "You said" is a good grip with which to hold an honest man and not less
   does it lay hold on our faithful God. This will have power over any
   honest person, for he that speaks truly will not run back from his
   promise. When we come to pleading terms with God, there is nothing that
   so helps us as to be able to quote the promise and plead, "You said."
   In handling my text, which was Jacob's prayer, I shall notice, first,
   that it ought to be our memorial, secondly, that it is God's bond and,
   thirdly, that, therefore, we may make it our plea.

   I. First, it ought to be OUR MEMORIAL. I mean, dear Friends, that we
   ought to remember, much more than we do, what God has said. If we had a
   silent God who, to this age had never revealed Himself by actual
   speech. If it were given out at this hour that now, for the first time,
   God was about to make a promise, how eagerly would all God-fearing men
   desire to hear it--and how carefully would they treasure it up! Why,
   every syllable would be more precious than a pearl! The very tone of
   the utterance would be mystic music full of meaning. You would charge
   your memory to embalm each word--no, to preserve each syllable in all
   its living force and beauty. Whatever else you forgot, you would lay up
   every letter of the newly-spoken promise in the archives of your soul.
   Ought we not to treat God's Word with equal reverence, though spoken
   ages ago, since it is a fact that He has spoken it?

   The Lord has often spoken from the foundations of the world by His
   Prophets--and in these last days by His Son-- and we are bound to
   jealously guard every single Word which He has thus given to us. He has
   preserved His own Words in the Scriptures--let us preserve them in our
   hearts. No subjects in the world can be so worthy of the consideration,
   the memory and the reverence of man as those upon which his Maker has
   deigned to give instruction. The choicest communications ever made to
   human minds are those which have come from the great Father. I ask you,
   therefore, Brothers and Sisters, if I say not rightly that God's
   Divine, "You have said" should be our memorial? We should lay up His
   Word in our hearts as men lay up gold and gems in their vaults--it
   should be as dear to us as life itself. My heart stands in awe of God's
   Word, but I am sorrowful because so many trifle with it. No good can
   come of irreverence towards Scripture--we ought to cherish it in our
   heart of hearts.

   We ought to do this, first, with regard to what God has said. You
   notice that Jacob puts it, "You said," and then he quotes the
   words--"Surely I will do you good." It is an essential part of the
   education of a Christian to learn the promises. I always admire that
   fact in the life of General Gordon, who, whatever mistakes he made, was
   a grand Believer--a very Abraham among us in these latter days--that he
   always carried with him that little book called Clark's "Precious
   Promises," which is an arrangement of the various promises of the Old
   and New Testaments under different heads. The General used to consult
   that collection of Divine promises and seek out that holy text which
   best suited his particular condition. Then he sought solitude and
   pleaded before the Lord that Inspired Word, believing that it was true
   and that

   the Lord would do as He had said. By faith he looked for an answer and
   acted upon it! He went down through the Sudan alone, as you know,
   daring all manner of dangers because he believed in God. The heroism of
   his life grew out of his confidence in the promises. If we would be
   heroes, here is the food with which to sustain a noble life!

   I would have all Christian people know God's promises. If you had in
   your house a number of checks which you believed to be good, I do not
   suppose that you would long be unaware of their nature and value. No
   merchant here would say, "I have a number of bills, drafts and checks
   at home somewhere--I have no doubt that they are all good and that they
   are my lawful property--but I do not know much about them. Their value
   is quite unknown to me." Such ignorance would argue insanity! Will you
   know your earthly wealth and never consider your heavenly riches? In
   the Bible there are "exceedingly great and precious promises"--shall it
   be said that some of God's children do not know what those promises
   contain? They have read them, perhaps, but they have never really
   searched into their meaning to see what God has promised. Of many good
   things provided for them, they are quite ignorant. And even in
   reference to their personal and present trouble they are not aware of
   what the Lord has promised to do for them in such a case! What a pity
   it would be for a trader to be short of money and to have a draft for a
   large amount, but not know where to find it! It would be a poor way of
   doing business, would it not?

   Is it not a shameful thing to be dealing with God in a like slovenly
   fashion? Brothers and Sisters, I would that we studied God's Word much
   more. We read all sorts of books, but many of them are unprofitable. As
   for a great part of current literature, one might as well open his
   mouth and eat the east wind, for there is nothing that can stay his
   soul therein. One single sentence from God is worth all the books of
   the Alexandrian library, or of the Bodleian! All that has been consumed
   of human literature and all that still exists, if put together, would
   not equal one book of the Bible! O my Hearer, get to know what the Lord
   has said and you will be on the way to wisdom! Within the compass of,
   "It is written," lies Infinite Truth! If you are well instructed in it,
   it shall be well with you.

   Moreover, Jacob also knew when God had spoken a promise, for he quotes
   twice the fact that God had spoken to him and said so-and-so. It is
   clear that he knew when the promise was spoken. I have often found
   peculiar comfort, not only in a promise, but in noticing the occasion
   for its being made. I have observed the condition of the man to whom
   God gave the promise and I have gathered much instruction from it.
   Sometimes the frame of a picture is almost as beautiful as the
   painting, itself, and so the occasion of the promise may be as
   instructive as the promise itself. The conditions under which the Lord
   uttered it may be so similar to our own, that they may cause the Word
   of the Lord to come with special comfort to our hearts. "Surely," you
   say, "God, who spoke thus to Jacob, or thus to Daniel, or thus to Paul,
   finding me in the same condition, speaks, also, thus to me, for the
   promises are not of private interpretation. They are not allotments
   hedged in for individuals, but they are a wide and open common which is
   the undisputed property of all Believers. They are not confined to
   those to whom they were first spoken, but they reach also to us who are
   fellow-heirs with them."

   Brethren, take pains to know what God has promised and to know when God
   has promised it. Note well both matter and date. These are flowers from
   which the bee of meditation will suck much sweetness.

   There is another matter which is important for us to know, namely, to
   whom God made the promise. Jacob knew to whom it was spoken. He tells
   us in a previous verse that God had spoken a certain promise to him.
   "Which said unto me, Return unto your country, and to your kindred, and
   I will deal well with you." A promise that was made to another man will
   be of no service to me until I can discover that I, being in the same
   condition as that other man, being of like character as that other man,
   and exercising like faith as that other man, stand before God in the
   same position as he did and, therefore, the Word addressed to him is
   spoken, also, to me! Brothers and Sisters, I entreat you continually to
   study God's Word to see whether the promise is made to your character
   and condition--and so is made to you as much as if your name were
   written upon it!

   Many and many a time has God brought a promise home to my own heart
   with such freshness that I have felt that the Bible was made on purpose
   for me. Yes, I have been sure that the promise was written for me, if
   for no other man that ever lived! When a man sees a garment left at his
   door which fits him exactly and is evidently cut to suit certain
   peculiarities of his form, he concludes that the garment was meant for
   him. Even so, in many a promise I see certain private marks which are
   the exact counterparts of the secrets of my soul--and these show that
   God meant me when thus and thus He spoke!

   Beloved, I say to you, one and all, study much the promises of God's
   Word! Have them at your fingertips. Remember what things God has said
   to men and when He has said them--and to what kind of men He has said
   them--and discover, by this means, how far He has said them to you! Let
   this, indeed, be the forefront of your knowledge. If you cannot read
   the stars, yet read the promises. If you cannot study the stone book of
   geology, yet know the Rock of Ages and the declarations engraved
   thereon. If you remain a stranger to the deep things of metaphysics and
   philosophy, yet at least know the household privileges of the family of
   God. Dear child, know what your Father has said! It will be very sad if
   you do not. Happy heir of Heaven, know what it is to which you are an
   heir according to the promises and the Covenant.

   Thus much upon the duty of making God's Word to live in your mind and
   memory.

   II. Secondly, "You said, I will surely do you good"--this is GOD'S
   BOND.

   Nothing holds a man like his word and nothing so fully fixes the course
   of action of the Lord our God as His own promise. We speak with the
   deepest reverence in reference to the great God, but it would not be
   reverence if we said less than this--that God has bound Himself to be
   true to His Word. He can do all things, but He cannot lie. If God had
   made no promise, He would have been free to act, or not to act--but by
   His promise He engages Himself to act in a certain way--and He will do
   so. From the necessity of His Nature, He will be faithful.

   What a mighty thing, then, is a promise, since it is a bond which holds
   God Himself! How does it do so?

   I answer, it holds Him, first, by His Truth. If a man says, "I will,"
   it is not in his power, without a breach of truth, to refuse to make
   good his word. If a promise is made by one man to another, it is
   considered to be a matter of honor to fulfill it. Unless a man is
   willing to tarnish his honor and disgrace his truthfulness, he will
   certainly do as he has solemnly promised to do. Alas! Many persons
   think lightly of truthfulness--they even dare to swear lightly. And
   what do we think of such people? To utter solemn promises and then to
   disown them is not the way to be esteemed and honored. It can never be
   so with God. None can impeach His veracity. None shall ever be able to
   do so. Has He said and shall He not do it? Has He given His Word and
   will He not make it good?

   Learn, then, when you are praying to God--whether you are saint or
   sinner--to take the promise and say, "O my God, You have bound Yourself
   to give me this blessing, for You have said that You will do so and I
   know You cannot lie! I am sure that You will do even as You have said,
   for You are a God of truth!" The promise is God's gracious bond, since
   His truthfulness cannot be put in question.

   But, next, he who enters into an engagement is bound to keep his word
   or he is considered to be vacillating and changeable--the Lord is,
   therefore, held by His Immutability. He is God and changes not. We hear
   persons say, "I have changed my mind," but God is of one mind and who
   can turn Him? Change is written upon all human things, but listen to
   the Eternal--"I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob
   are not consumed." Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, today and
   forever," and all the promises are yes and amen in Him. The great
   Father of Lights is "without variableness, or shadow of turning." When
   the Lord made His promise, He foresaw every possible contingency and He
   made His promise with a determination to stand to it. Ages make no
   difference to Him. His promise is as fresh and unfading as when first
   He caused it to delight the eyes of His chosen!

   This is fine pleading. You can fall upon your knees and cry, "Lord,
   here is Your promise; be graciously pleased to fulfill it! I know that
   You have not changed and that Your Word is not withdrawn. You have
   never run back from Your Word and You never will--therefore fulfill
   this Word unto Your servant, whereon you have caused me to hope." An
   unchanging God is the foundation of happiness to the Believer!

   But sometimes men make a promise and they are unable to fulfill it from
   lack of power. Many a time it has cost honest minds great grief to feel
   that, though they are willing enough to do what they have engaged to
   do, yet they have lost their ability to perform their word. This is a
   grave sorrow to a sincere mind. This can never happen to the Almighty
   God. He faints not, neither is weary. To Him there is no feebleness of
   decline, nor failure of decay. God All-Sufficient is still His name!
   His arm is not shortened so that He cannot reach us, neither is His
   hand palsied that He cannot help us. The strongest sinew in an arm of
   flesh will crack in course of time, but the Lord never fails. The
   weakness of God is stronger than man. The least of God is greater than
   the most of man. The Lord cannot possibly withdraw from His Word though
   inability for, "with God all things are possible." Therefore, go to Him
   in prayer and take His promise and say, "Lord, be pleased to help Your
   servant, for I know that You can deliver me and I trust in You as God
   All-Sufficient!"

   The Lord will never allow a slur to be cast upon His power, which is
   one part of His glorious name. He wills to make His power known and it
   is never according to His mind to leave that power in doubt.

   Once more, the Lord's wisdom also holds Him to His promise. Men make
   engagements thoughtlessly and before long they realize that it would be
   ruinous to keep them. It is foolish to keep a foolish promise. Yet,
   because wisdom is not in us, we make mistakes and find ourselves in
   serious difficulties. It may so happen that a person may feel compelled
   to say, "I promised to do that which, upon more careful consideration,
   I find it would be wicked and unjust for me to do. My promise was void
   from the beginning, for no man has a right to promise to do wrong."
   Whatever justification an erring man may find in his folly to excuse
   him from fulfilling his rash promise, nothing of the kind can occur
   with God! He never speaks without knowledge, for He sees the end from
   the beginning and He is infallibly good and wise. Therefore, I say unto
   you, again, what a hold we have upon God because of His Character! We
   can plead, "Lord, You did not make a mistake when You promised me this
   blessing! You knew all that would happen; all my sins and all my
   follies were foreseen by you! You did foreknow all. Therefore be
   pleased to keep Your Word unto Your servant, even as now I bring it
   before You and ask You to fulfill it!"

   I wish that I had power to make this matter plain so that every
   Believer who is in need and is about to pray, may see the arguments
   with which he may approach the Throne of the heavenly Grace.

   I should not, however, complete my statement if I did not add that to
   go to God through Jesus Christ is to use the best and most powerful of
   pleas. All the attributes of God are in His Son and, moreover, the Lord
   Jesus deserves great things at His Father's hands. He permits us to
   urge His merits and use His name as our authorization--what better
   leverage can we desire? Is not this an overwhelming argument? The great
   God will deny nothing to Jesus! For His sake, He will give us all
   things. When we bring His Son in the arms of our faith and lay Him
   before the Father, we may have whatever we need. Let us not be slow to
   use this august plea! Let not our Lord Jesus have to say to us, "Up to
   now you have asked nothing in My name."

   III. So then, last of all, this may be, and this ought to be, OUR PLEA
   in prayer, as it was Jacob's plea--even this-- "You said." We may urge
   the gracious promise of the Lord as pleading against our own
   unworthiness. Listen to Jacob's cry, "I am not worthy of the least of
   all the mercies, and of all the truth which You have showed unto Your
   servant, but You said, 'I will surely do you good.'" Is not that
   splendid pleading? Down in the dust he prostrates himself and then
   prays right up! In this fashion let my Hearer cry--"Lord, I am worthy
   of nothing but wrath and cannot hope to speed with You on the ground of
   works. But, Lord, You have said, You have said, YOU HAVE SAID!"

   This must win the suit. If a man has made me a promise, he cannot
   refuse to keep it on the ground that I am unworthy because it is his
   own character that is at stake, not mine! However unworthy I am, he
   most not prove himself to be unworthy by failing to keep his word. "If
   we believe not, yet He abides faithful--He cannot deny Himself."
   Everything hinges upon the Character of the Promiser. Do you not see
   this? When you are burdened with a deep sense of sin; when your heart
   is ready to break with an overwhelming consciousness of guilt; still
   know that "God abides faithful, He cannot deny Himself." When the
   surges of Divine Wrath beat upon you without a pause, confess your sin
   and cease not to plead with God. Acknowledge your wickedness and firmly
   lay hold on the promise and say, "You have said." Plead such a Word as
   that in Isaiah, "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord:
   though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though
   they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Say unto the Lord,
   "You have said, 'I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions
   for My own sake, and will not remember your sins."'

   Entreat the Lord to do as He has said. Under a crushing sense of your
   own unworthiness, still know that all this does not alter the fact that
   the Lord has spoken in unchanging mercy and will surely make it good. A
   God of Truth must keep His promise, however unworthy you may be to whom
   that promise is made! Is not this most effectual help to a poor soul in
   drawing near to God in prayer? If you are as evil as seven devils, God
   will not run back from what He has promised you! If you have waded up
   to your throat in sin's foulest infamy, yet if there is a promise made
   to you and you can plead it, God will stand to His Word! Whatever you
   may be, God is no liar, no hypocrite, no changeling! He never made a
   promise to the ear to break it to the experience. He is more willing to
   keep the promise than we are to have it kept. Come, poor Trembler, in
   all your sin and defilement, with this upon your tongue--"You said and,
   therefore, I pray You do as You have said! Your Word says, 'If we
   confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
   to cleanse us

   from all unrighteousness.' Lord, I confess and I pray You to forgive."
   O my Brothers and Sisters, such a plea, urged by a breaking heart, must
   readily prevail with the great Father who waits to be gracious!

   This is also good pleading as against our present danger. See how Jacob
   puts it with regard to his own peril. He says, "Deliver me, I pray You,
   from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him,
   lest he will come and smite me and the mother with the children. And
   You said, I will surely do you good." In these words he sets out his
   very natural fear from his brother's anger--the mother, the children,
   everybody would be murdered by fierce Esau--and to save himself from
   this threatened horror, Jacob lifts the shield of the promise and as
   good as says to the Lord his God, "If this calamity should happen, how
   can Your promise be kept? You said, 'Surely I will do you good' but,
   Lord, it is not good for Esau's sword to shed our blood! If You permit
   his anger to slay us, where is Your engagement to do good unto Your
   servant?" This reminds one of the plea of Moses, when he asked, "What
   will the Egyptians say?" If Israel were destroyed in the wilderness,
   what would Jehovah do for His great name? This is a prevalent argument.

   Brethren, what is your present trouble? One sighs out because he knows
   not where to look for food and raiment. But there is a Word of the Lord
   for that need--"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk
   uprightly." There is another, "He has said, I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you." And another, "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall
   be sure." Can you not go to the living God with these words of His upon
   your tongue and beg Him to be as good as His promise? Say in so many
   words, "Lord, I am afraid that if I am much longer without employment,
   I shall not have shoes for my feet, nor bread for my children and I
   shall be brought to a condition of utter penury--and yet You have said,
   'I will never leave you, nor forsake you'! Lord, I plead that promise!"
   See whether the Lord does not deliver you.

   Do you ask me, "Are you sure that God will keep His Word?" I answer,
   yes. I will be bound for Him at any time and in any place. Many
   children of God are in sore distress. I do not know how low He may let
   them go, but I do know that they shall never go lower than that
   Word--"Underneath are the everlasting arms." I cannot say with David,
   "I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous
   forsaken, nor his seed begging bread," for I have seen his seed begging
   bread and I expect to see it again. If the seed of the righteous
   misbehave themselves, they shall beg their bread as other people have
   to do. But I can say, "I have been young and I am now in middle life;
   yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken; no, not so much as once!"
   The Lord will not turn His back on His friends, nor suffer those who
   trust in Him to be forsaken.

   One cries, "I have been anxiously doing my best." Perhaps you have,
   dear Brother! Perhaps you have, dear Sister! I am very far from
   censuring you for doing your best. But sometimes, if you would let God
   do His best, it would pay you much better! You see Jacob did his best
   when he divided his company and prepared a present for his brother. But
   it did not amount to much. It was a very poor little best, was it not?
   It would have come to nothing if he had not spread the matter before
   the Lord in prayer. Indeed, when the Lord wrestled with him at Jabbok,
   that night's prayer, weeping and supplication did the work! Esau was
   won, after all, not by Jacob's little arrangements, but by the hand of
   the great Lord laid upon his heart! Jacob's schemes and plans do not
   figure in the whole narrative except as feeble measures which the Lord
   rendered superfluous. The cry, "You have said," did all the work!

   I beg to bear my witness, as far as my experience goes, that the
   shortest way out of trouble is pleading with God. Straightforward makes
   the best runner. You may go round about, and round about, and round
   about, and come at nothing--but go straight to God about the business
   and if He does not end it, then it is not to be ended, but is meant to
   go on and work out a higher good. In any case, "Cast your burden upon
   the Lord and He shall sustain you: he shall never suffer the righteous
   to be moved." Try that promise--it will cover you with armor of light.

   Once more, as to future blessedness, Jacob used this argument, "You
   said, I will surely do you good," as to all his future hopes, for he
   went on to say, "You said, I will make your seed as the sand of the
   sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude." Not as much as he should,
   but still, in a measure, Jacob lived in the future. He lived under the
   influence and expectation of the Covenant blessing. Now, Brothers and
   Sisters, what hope have you and I of getting to Heaven? None, except
   that the Lord has said, "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they
   shall never perish." I shall never perish, for Jesus says I never
   shall! He has also said, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be."
   Therefore I shall be in Glory with Him and that is enough for me! All
   our hope of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ and the reward which
   He will give His saints in the day of His manifestation--all our hopes
   of the crown of life that fades not away and of the Beatific
   Vision--all depend on, "You have said." We, according to His promise,
   look for a new Heaven and a new earth.

   Did you ever notice, in the Epistle to the Galatians, how the Apostle
   Paul makes this dependence upon the promise the distinguishing mark of
   the chosen seed? He declares that the child of the bond woman was born
   according to the flesh, but the child of the free woman was born
   according to the promise. Hagar's seed was according to the flesh, but
   the true seed, even Isaac, was by promise--and he says, "We, brethren,
   as Isaac was, are the children of promise." It is far better to be the
   child of the promise than to be the child of creature strength, or the
   child of legal hope--for the child of creature strength and legal hope
   will have to go packing into the wilderness with a bottle of water and
   a poor slave mother for his guardian. But the child that hugs the
   promise, the child that lives upon the promise, the child that waits
   for everything till he enters his inheritance, he abides always--and
   all his Father's goods belong to him! Are you in the line of the
   promise, dear Friend? If so, get into your chamber in your time of
   trouble and plead for greater mercy than you have ever enjoyed as of
   yet, because God has promised it to you--and He will do as He has said.

   I have done when I have just mentioned, in as brief a way as I can, two
   or three of the things which God has said and which I want some of you
   to plead.

   Is there one here who needs to find salvation tonight? I invite you to
   go home, enter your chamber, shut the door, get down your Bible and
   open on this passage, Isaiah 55:7--"Let the wicked forsake his ways,
   and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord,
   and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
   pardon."

   Now I imagine that I see you in your little room and if you do as I
   wish you to do, you will read the words carefully and thoughtfully, and
   then say, "Lord, I am one of these wicked ones! This night I desire to
   forsake my ways. I will have done with them. This night I desire,
   unrighteous as I am, to forsake my thoughts and return unto You. Now,
   You have said, 'I will have mercy upon him: I will abundantly pardon
   him.' Lord, have mercy upon me and abundantly pardon me, for You have
   said it!"

   When you have thus prayed, expect the Lord to keep the promise. When
   you look an honest man in the face and say, "You promised it," you
   expect him to be as good as his promise. Even so, expect that God in
   Christ Jesus will fulfill His Word. Do not doubt. Believe God and
   expect the pardon and the blessing.

   Next, O tried child of God, I want you to go home and open your Bible
   at Psalm 1:15. Put it down on a bit of paper, will you? Read, "Call
   upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you and you shall glorify
   Me." Put your finger on that text and then kneel down and say, "Lord,
   here I am calling upon You! It is a day of trouble. Deliver me, that I
   may glorify You." Believe that God means His promise and is not
   trifling with you. On the other hand, do not trifle with His Word, but
   make business of it and wait upon the Lord to have His promise made
   good! Some big-mouthed folk will promise anything, but they perform
   nothing. God is not after their order--I pray you, do not treat Him as
   if He were! He will hear the cry of the humble and He will remember for
   them His Covenant.

   Is there a poor soul here seeking salvation who cannot get at either of
   these promises? Then go home and look up John 3:18--"He that believes
   on Him is not condemned." Go and plead that, and say, "I believe on
   Jesus Christ and, therefore, I am not condemned. Lord, give me to feel
   the peace which comes of Your justifying Grace!"

   If that Scripture does not suit you, there is one more upon which I,
   myself, lived for months in the days of my self-despair. It is found in
   Romans 10:13--"Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
   saved." I remember getting hold of that passage and feeling that it was
   a door of hope to my soul! Let me quote it in full. "There is no
   difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is
   rich unto all that call upon Him: for whoever shall call upon the name
   of the Lord shall be saved." My heart said, "I call upon His name. I
   trust in Him. I pray to Him. If I perish, I will perish crying to Him
   and calling upon Him!" And on that promise I lived until I found the
   Lord! I pray that some of you may go home and plead in the same manner,
   "Lord, I call upon You; therefore fulfill Your Word and let salvation
   come unto my house!"

   Do you believe that God speaks the truth? If you do, you have living
   faith within you! Can you trust God to keep His promise? If you can,
   the work of Divine Grace has already begun in your soul! You are no
   dead sinner any longer. You are not under condemnation. "He that
   believes on Him has everlasting life." You have a measure of that
   everlasting life within you at this moment because you have a measure
   of faith in God! Oh, for power, now, to turn that faith to practical
   use by an earnest, pleading prayer! "Lord, do as You have said!" Such a
   prayer will soon bring peace and rest to your soul.

   God bless you, dear Friends! I feel much pleasure in addressing you at
   this time. If I have exceeded the time, you may well excuse it, for I
   am not always well enough to address you. Oh, how I have wearied to be
   in my pulpit! I would ask nothing more of God than to give me bread and
   water and permit me to occupy this pulpit on every occasion when I
   ought to be here! But I cannot, as yet, get that privilege at His
   hands, for it is not a matter of promise. If He had said I should
   always be in good health, I am sure Satan, himself, could not make me
   ill! Having, therefore, no specific promise, I am satisfied to accept
   the general assurance that all things work together for good to them
   that love God. From this assurance I know that I shall have such good
   health or ill-health as shall be good for me! What more can I desire
   than that the Lord's will should be done in my mortal body, whether by
   weakness or by strength?

   This, however, I will do--by God's help I will preach as earnestly as I
   can when I do preach--and I will speak as plainly, as pointedly and as
   earnestly as possible when I am allowed to open my mouth in His name.
   Oh, that God might give me every soul in this place at this hour! And
   He will do it if we go to Him in humble prayer, pleading what He has
   said! The Lord is able to bless the word which we preach to an
   incalculable extent. There is no limit to the good which He can work by
   this one sermon! Oh, my dear Hearer, your hope does not lie in what you
   can say, but in what the Lord has said! Think little of the word of
   man, but think everything of the Word of God! Believe it for yourself
   and see if it is not fulfilled. Cling to the promise, come what may!
   The promise will hold you as surely as you hold the promise! God will
   be true to His promise and true to you, for Jesus Christ's sake--be you
   true to Him. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Shaved and Shorn, But Not Beyond Hope

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 9, 1887.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 26, 1886.

   "However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was
   shaved." Judges 16:22.

   LET me introduce the text to you. Samson was set apart from his birth
   to be the champion of Israel--to break the power of the Philistines who
   lorded over God's people. Everything in his bringing up had reference
   to his peculiar calling as the hero of Israel, the hammer of Philistia.
   He was to be a Nazarite from his birth. Among other things which
   concerned the Nazarite, he never touched wine. No, nor grapes, nor
   husks of grapes, nor anything that came of the vine-- which goes to
   show that the greatest physical strength is attainable without the use
   of wine or strong drink. Whatever else overcame Samson, he was never
   overcome with drunkenness, and yet he greatly sinned, which goes to
   show that total abstinence is not, of itself, enough to form a
   character. A Nazarite, in addition to abstinence from wine, also
   abstained from wearing the common appearance of men. He was not to have
   his hair at any time shaved or cut away--so that when Samson was grown
   up to manhood, he was covered with a shaggy mass of hair. He must have
   looked like the lion that he was. Those locks of his were the token of
   his consecration to God, the outward marks of his being set apart to be
   the servant of the God of Israel. Can you not see him with the terrible
   glory of his hair upon him?

   Poor Samson was as weak morally as he was strong physically and he fell
   a prey, first to one evil woman and then to another. Perhaps the
   extraordinary strength of his physical frame placed him under stronger
   temptation than is common to man--at any rate, he was peculiarly
   constituted and seemed more like a wanton boy than a judge in Israel.
   Through this peculiar sin of his, the Philistines found opportunity to
   assail him. They tempted Delilah, whom he loved, to extract from him
   the secret of his great strength. He was so strong that he tore a lion
   as though it had been a kid. He was so strong that he carried way the
   gates of the city in which they had shut him up! He was so strong that
   he smote an army of Philistines, "hip and thigh, with a great
   slaughter." The mercenary woman, upon whom he foolishly doted,
   extracted from him, by degrees, the secret of his strength. And while
   he lay asleep upon her lap, the Philistine lords caused a barber to cut
   away the locks of his head. He awoke from his sleep shaved. Then he
   went out and thought to fight the Philistines as before--but to his
   surprise he found that his strength was gone. The locks of his
   dedication had been shorn--he was no longer the acknowledged servant of
   the Lord--and he was weak as other men. Then the Philistine lords took
   him captive, bored out his eyes--for such is the expression in the
   margin of our old Bibles--gouged out his eyes, bound him to the mill
   and made him work like a slave or an ass. In that pitiable plight our
   text finds him--but it comes with a key of deliverance to set free the
   captive!

   My text runs thus--it is in the 22nd verse of the 16th Chapter of
   Judges--"However, the hair of his head began to grow again after he was
   shaved."

   Poor Samson! I roughly sketched his story as with a crayon just now. I
   cannot stay to attempt a more accurate portrait. Poor Samson, the
   champion of Israel, now the scoff of his enemies! Poor Samson, the hero
   of so many fights, now at last conquered by his own foolishness! They
   have taken him; they have bound him; they have gouged out his eyes and
   there he stands--sightless--in the midst of his adversaries, who bind
   him to the mill and lash him as he grinds for them. To humiliate him,
   they put him to woman's work, made hard so as to be the work of beasts.
   See what sin will do! See how the man who had fought God's battles
   suffers great loss, great pain, great disfigurement, great dishonor and
   comes into a cruel and abhorred bondage through his sin! That shaved
   man made a slave is the picture of very many who once were

   the avowed servants of God and were valiant for the Truth of God. They
   have given up their secret, they have told the world that which none
   should know but themselves. They have lost the locks of their
   dedication and they are led captive by the devil at his will. They
   cannot see as they used to see. Darkness shuts out all joy. They do not
   work for God as they used to work, for they are slaving for men, for
   poor, passing, earthborn objects! They have come into an awful bondage
   and they have, at the same time, brought great dishonor and weakness
   upon the Church to which they belong. How the mighty are fallen!

   Children of God, whatever God may do for you, take heed that you always
   remember that you can never gain anything by sin! It is loss, utter
   loss in every sense, to yield ourselves servants to sin! Again I cry,
   How the mighty are fallen! How has the champion become a slave at the
   mill! In the midst of our Churches how often are those who were
   excellent and useful brought to nothing and made to be a derision! How
   often do our boldest warriors bring the Cross of Christ into contempt
   by their sin! The Lord keep us from thus falling! May we rather die
   than dishonor our Lord!

   I begin thus upon the mournful key because I want to speak of God's
   great goodness to backsliders--and of how He restores them. But I want
   to warn them, at the very outset, that sin does not pay--that whatever
   may come of it through God's mercy, yet it is an evil and a bitter
   thing to wander from the Lord! Though Samson's hair grew again and his
   strength came back--and he died gloriously fighting against the
   Philistines--yet he never recovered his eyes, or his liberty, or his
   living power in Israel! Short and effective was his last stroke against
   the adversary, but it cost him his life. He could not again rise to be
   the man he had been before. And though God did give him a great victory
   over the Philistine people, yet it was but as the flicker of an
   expiring candle--he was never again a lamp of hope to Israel. His
   usefulness was abated and even brought to an end through his folly.
   Whatever the Grace of God may do for us, it cannot make sin a right
   thing, or a safe thing, or a permissible thing! It is evil, only evil,
   and that continually. O children of God, be not enslaved by fleshly
   lusts! O Nazarites unto God, guard your locks lest they be cut away by
   sin while you are sleeping in the lap of pleasure! O servants of
   Jehovah, serve the Lord with heart and soul, by His Grace, even to the
   end--and keep yourselves unshorn by the world!

   With that as a preface we come again to the text--"However, the hair of
   his head began to grow again after he was shaved."

   First, let us see what this growing of the hair pictures; secondly,
   what it specifically symbolizes and thirdly, what it prophesies.

   I. First, WHAT THIS GROWING OF THE HAIR PICTURES. I think that this
   pictures the gradual restoration of certain among us who have
   backslidden from God. The hair was there upon Samson's head, though it
   had been cut short. Though the hair was shaved off, yet the adversary
   could not take the roots away. It was a living thing and it would grow
   again. So is it with those who are the people of God. The devil can
   shave them very closely and clip off their beauty, their strength and
   their consecration--but a living something is still there that will
   grow again! If there has been a real regenerating work of God--the Holy
   Spirit upon their hearts--it will show itself again. Though the fruit
   and holy outcome of this living principle may, for a while, be
   removed--sadly removed to their bitter loss and damage--yet I say the
   living roots of Divine Grace are still in the soul and, before long, we
   shall have to say, "However, the hair of his head began to grow again."
   Wells may, for a while, be stopped, but the living water will break out
   and come to the surface again. The tree may lose every leaf which once
   adorned it, but its substance is in it--and when the spring smiles
   again, it will, once more, begin to bud. Eternal life may sleep, may
   faint--but it cannot utterly die--otherwise, how were it eternal life?
   The hair, though closely shaved, will grow again.

   I will show you this hair in the process of growing. A man was once a
   member of a Christian Church, godly and gracious. Satan has shaved him
   of all that was distinctive and religious. He has gone into the world;
   he has been put away by his brethren. His conduct was too inconsistent
   to allow of a continuance of his profession. But there had really been
   a change of heart--there had been a radical work of Grace in his soul
   and, therefore, after a while, he begins to be very miserable and
   uneasy. It is impossible for him to be happy among the Philistines who
   have captured him. His comrades, who flattered themselves that they had
   really got him, this time, cannot make him out. He has fits of
   melancholy. Occasionally he falls into a deep despondency and he utters
   strange words which they do not like to hear, partly denunciations of
   himself--and partly prophecies of evil to those around him. He is
   evidently terribly uneasy in the ways of sin. Now he gets alone and
   sighs--

   "Where is the blessedness I Anew When first I sa w the Lord?"

   There is a something in his heart which troubles him both night and
   day. His soul is saying, "I will go and return to my first husband, for
   then was it better with me than now." However, his hair begins to grow
   again. It has been shaved very cleverly, but the roots have not been
   extracted and you can see that he will soon be a hairy man again. He
   cannot rest in his sin--no true-born child of God ever can. Giant
   Slay-Good may pick up a pilgrim on the road when he is faint and weary,
   but he can never pick the bones of a true Believer! He will come out of
   the den of the giant somehow or other. What a pity that he should ever
   go into it!

   Well, now notice that the man begins to drop in to hear a sermon. It is
   a long time since he was familiar with the house of prayer, but he
   finds himself here, tonight, after a long absence! He remembers when he
   used to be always here-- and he almost waters the door with his tears
   as he thinks of the happy days which he used to enjoy in the midst of
   God's people--when he welcomed the light of the Sabbath morning and the
   way was never too long for him to come up to the place of his love! In
   those days the Word of the Lord was sweet to him. He has not been for
   some time, but somehow he felt, today, that he must come again. How
   welcome he is! How glad I am to see him, though he looks so rough and
   grisly, and half-shaved!

   I have heard--I am not sure of it, but I think that it is very
   likely--that he has been reading his Bible again. That poor Book had
   been left to be covered with dust, but he has taken it down and he has
   looked at a Psalm that once used to charm his heart. And he has wept
   over the passage which once revealed Christ to him. He even groaned to
   think that he should have forgotten the voice of the Living God which
   used to speak to him through that holy Book. He read a sermon today,
   too. He has not often done that. He took a tract from someone in the
   street and he looked at it with eagerness! This, also, was a hopeful
   sign.

   A little while ago, when he first forsook his Lord, he could
   blaspheme--he could say hard things against Christ and His Word--but he
   does not do so now. It would be impossible for him, now, to ridicule
   religion! He is too tender for that. He has a strong desire to hear,
   again, the message of Free Grace and dying love. He longs to listen
   once more to the ringing of those silver bells that once were music to
   his ears! I think it must be true that the Lord is bringing him back.
   Surely my test is being fulfilled--"However, the hair of his head began
   to grow again." The devil could shave away those flowing locks which
   once adorned him, but he could not cut out the roots which are deeper
   than he can reach. Do you not think that our shorn Samson may yet be
   himself again? Surely his hair has begun to grow anew and tonight I
   trust that it will grow very quickly while he is in this house of
   prayer hearing the glad tidings of free forgiveness!

   I am most of all encouraged with the fact that he begins to feel in his
   soul an anguish and a bitterness--and an aching and a craving and a
   longing! I have great hopes of him, now that his old feelings are
   returning. I think I hear him say, "I cannot live like this." He sighs,
   "I have tried the way of transgressors and it is hard. I have tested
   the life of sinful pleasure and there is nothing in it. The cups of the
   world are all froth! The devil's bread is all bran. It chokes me. It
   poisons me. I cannot endure it any longer. Oh, that I could get back to
   God! Oh, that I could be truly converted, if I never was converted! If
   I am, indeed, a child of God, oh, that He would once more manifest His
   pardoning love to me and show me my sins are forgiven, for I cannot
   rest as I am!" O my dear Brother, I was so sorry when you went
   astray--your backsliding has caused me many a pang of heart--but I
   begin to rejoice now as I hear you talk in that way, for I think that
   the text is coming true--"However, the hair of his head began to grow
   again"!

   And now, stop till our uneasy friend gets home tonight. No, perhaps it
   will come to pass before he quits this assembly. He begins to pray,
   "God be merciful to me a sinner!" He does not say that aloud, for he
   would be afraid that somebody would hear him. He is almost amazed that
   he is not put out of the place of worship, considering what kind of
   sinner he has been. He has sneaked in tonight, but he is in and he
   trembles to find it is so--he scarcely dares to lift his eye upward. He
   hardly dares to hope! His desire is to get back to God and to be
   forgiven--and so, with trembling hope and quivering fear, he has begun
   to pray. You notice that Samson began to pray when his hair began to
   grow. And when they took him into that temple where they wanted him to
   make sport for them, he breathed an earnest prayer to God that he might
   be strengthened but that once to do service to his people and his God.
   How earnestly do I invite you that have gone away from God and His ways
   to pray tonight that the Lord will return to you in mercy, fill you to
   the full once more with His Holy Spirit and make the bones which he has
   broken rejoice! If you begin to pray, I shall begin to praise!

   When you plead with tears, I shall begin to bless the Lord with
   exultation! For you it is coming true--"However, the hair of his head
   began to grow again after he was shaved."

   And if that prayer should go still farther and you should say, "I will
   break off every connection that holds me to the paths of sin," this
   would be better, still! If you were to cry, "I know what drew me aside.
   I will have no more to do with the evil which destroyed me," it would
   be a hopeful sign, indeed! Oh, if tonight there shall be a severance of
   yourself from the swine and from all the husks that they eat because
   you are determined to go to your Father, it shall be well with you!
   From our Church fellowship we sometimes find one drawn aside by one
   motive and another by another--alas, the ways downward are as plenteous
   as the gates of death! How many are tempted with unholy loves! How many
   are seduced by the fatal cup! Ah, how many go aside through false
   doctrine, heresy and the delusions of the day! How many are foolishly
   tempted by their own prosperity! They grow rich and cannot afford to
   worship where they once did!

   On the other hand, how many are led aside by their poverty! They do not
   think that their clothes are good enough to come in--a piece of pride
   from which I pray that we may be delivered! Or, because they have come
   down in the world and cannot spend as once they did, they forsake their
   Brothers and Sisters--and their Lord. For different reasons men go
   aside from the Truth of God and holiness. But it is a happy
   circumstance when they cry, "If I have been led away from Christ by
   anything sinful, I will give it up. I will part with my eye, or my arm,
   or my foot so that I may enter into the Kingdom of God, for it were
   better for me to enter into life blind, or crippled, or maimed, than
   that keeping these dear things I should be cast into Hell fire." When
   the Lord of Grace leads men to this resolve, we see the text fulfilled
   again-- "However, the hair of his head began to grow again."

   When the backslider comes to that pass, you will soon see other signs.
   The man who went so far astray now seeks the Lord afresh and begins
   again to run in His ways. When a Nazarite lost his consecration, all
   the years of his consecration before did not count--he had to begin
   again. So some of you must begin again. Beginning again is sweet!
   Beginning again is safe! Even though I trust that I have not wandered
   from God, either in act or in heart, yet I often begin again. I delight
   to renew the love of my espousals and rehearse the vows of my youth
   before the Lord my God! If the devil says to me, "Your religion is a
   pretence; your experience is a mistake," I do not attempt to argue with
   him upon those lines, but I reply, "I will not cavil about the past,
   but I will begin again!" I am a sinner. I know that and the devil
   himself has not the impudence to tell me that I am not! Then, Jesus
   Christ died for sinners and, therefore, I return to the sinners' Savior
   and trust Him even as if I had never trusted Him before! This I find to
   be the direct road to peace. To breathe again one's native air is a
   prescription most helpful to those who would regain their health and
   strength! Can you not return again to the starting point, you that have
   wandered? If so, we shall all thank God for you and look upon you as a
   Samson whose hair begins to grow again after he has been shaved.

   If the matter goes on rightly, I know what will happen--the forlorn
   backslider will begin to entertain a feeble hope. "Oh," he says, "I
   trust that I may be restored! I shall be a miracle of Divine Grace if I
   am--and I think that I shall be." Further on he even cries, "I hope
   that I am restored and once more put among the children." He gets a bit
   of bread from the children's table and though he feels that he is not
   much better than a dog, yet he makes bold to enjoy it. "The dogs eat of
   the crumbs which fall from their master's table"--and this poor man is
   aware of that gracious fact and dares to take full advantage of it!
   Sometimes, while he is eating a crumb of promise, it tastes so sweet
   that he whispers to himself, "I do not think that I am a dog, after
   all. I think that I must be a child, for I have the taste that a child
   has. This is children's meat and I do so enjoy it that, perhaps, I am,
   after all, a child of God!"

   Ah, and let me tell you that sometimes, when it is sunshiny weather,
   this poor seeker feels greatly encouraged and cheered! Though he will
   go limping to Heaven by reason of his past sin, yet, on bright days, he
   half forgets his lameness! He has played the prodigal and almost
   doubted his sonship, but with his face towards the Father's house, he
   now cries, "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon me,
   that I should be called a child of God!" In his happiest times he feeds
   ready to burst out with rapture because he enjoys a sense of Divine
   Love. He even makes bold to declare-- "Yes, I am forgiven! Jesus smiles
   and still loves me!" When he is quite alone and nobody can hear it, he
   even ventures to speak of himself as, after all, one of those that the
   Father has loved with an everlasting love; that Christ has redeemed
   with precious blood; that the Spirit has renewed and that the Lord will
   never cast away. What a pleasure to see his faith thus coming back to
   him! "However, the hair of his head began to grow again."

   We shall have him back, again, and we shall see him and know him,
   again, to be the same Samson that once we knew in his first
   days--before he had played the fool and brought himself into bondage!
   Soon we shall say, "Come in, and welcome, dear Brother; for the Lord
   has recovered you from the disfigurement which your sin brought upon
   you! You are again a Nazarite and your head and beard are covered with
   the tokens of your dedication. Come and take your place among those who
   are consecrated to the Lord." How much I desire that it may be so with
   all who formerly turned away from the right path, but are now casting a
   longing glance towards it!

   I think that is the picture which our text paints for us.

   II. Now I am going to turn a little way round, still keeping the shorn
   champion well before us. In the second place, we have to see in our
   text WHAT IT SPECIFICALLY SYMBOLIZES, that is to say, this text is a
   distinct type of some one thing. You see that Samson's strength lay in
   his consecration. His hair was the token of his dedication to God. When
   he lost his locks, he did, as it were, lose his consecration--and when
   he lost his consecration, he lost his strength. On the other hand, the
   only way by which he could regain his strength was to reestablish his
   consecration--and of this the growing, again, of his hair was the type
   and token.

   Well, now, I know some Churches which performed a great work a 100
   years ago, or 50 years ago, or less. Their former days were heroic.
   Their palmy times were beautified with great prosperity. These Churches
   knew how to suffer and to serve; they were faithful to the Truth of God
   and earnest in holy labor--and the Lord made them to be exceedingly
   useful. But now they have grown respectable and useless. They do
   nothing outrageous now--the question is--Are they doing anything? Their
   minister is an extremely learned man and as polished as a
   looking-glass. Of course he never addresses himself to the vulgar,
   neither does he oppose the views of his cultured hearers. The church,
   itself, is highly respectable--no one ever questions its high
   respectability, or speaks of it without due deference to its prominent
   position. Yet it has ceased to be a power for good. It has no influence
   over the mass of sinners around it.

   Of course its usefulness is a secondary consideration, for it must not
   be forgotten that it has a superior ministry and a superior reputation!
   Its deacons are superior and so are most of the members! Besides, they
   have a celebrated choir and a most delightful organ! A great deal of
   money has been spent for that organ--and if that will not save souls
   and glorify God, what will? What are we to do with our respectability
   if we do not proclaim it by buying the most expensive organ in the
   market? But do not forget the choir. I think they wear surplices, but
   whether they do or not, the singing is fine, the building is of
   superior architecture, the pulpit is unique and the whole thing is done
   in a model manner! It is true that nobody is saved. There are no
   additions to the church--they have not used the baptistery for a long
   time--but they are wonderfully respectable! What more would you have?

   In the opinion of some persons, Samson looked much improved when his
   matted hair was gone. He was more presentable; more fit for good
   society. And so in the case of churches, the notion is that they are
   all the better for getting rid of their peculiarities. You who are in
   the secret know better and you will follow me while I sorrowfully seek
   a remedy for the unhappy weakness which has fallen upon many
   communities which once were strong in the Lord. How is this church, all
   shaved and shorn, this poor, enslaved and miserable concern, to be
   brought back to its old state? How is this Samson, that once was
   strong, to get its strength back? Why, only by letting its hair grow
   again! It must be consecrated to God again! This church must go back to
   the old Gospel--it must say once more, "God forbid that I should glory
   save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." It must again become
   desirous for the conversion of men. Prayer must again become the
   delight of the whole church and its trust must be in the Spirit of the
   Lord! The Glory of God must take possession of the church instead of
   its desire to be fashionable and respectable--and when its locks grow
   again, its strength will come back. When it is consecrated to God, it
   will resume its former force, bear its testimony as in better days and
   once again shake the world with its power!

   Now the same truth applies to every preacher. There are some preachers
   who are splendid men and yet they are practical failures. You see in
   them wide knowledge, eloquent language and yet nothing. They can speak
   so properly that a senate might sit with admiration at their feet--but
   when they have done, nobody is pricked in the heart, nobody is
   convinced of sin--nobody is led to behold the beauties of Christ. Yet
   in their youth these men were soul-winners and were looked upon as
   champions for Christ! O Samson, how are we to make you strong again?
   That preacher must begin again to serve God with all his heart! He must
   give up the idea of being a great man, or a learned man, or an eloquent
   man. He

   must give up the idea of charming the elite and bringing together the
   fashionable--he must give himself up to glorify God by the winning of
   souls!

   When his hair grows again in that respect, we shall see what Samson can
   do. He will yet lay hold on the pillars of the Philistine temple and
   bring them down about the heads of the lords. Give me a man perfectly
   consecrated and I do not care much what he is. He may be rough,
   unpolished and even illiterate--but if he is consecrated, the people
   will feel his power! He may be educated so that he may understand all
   knowledge and he may speak as eloquently as Cicero--but if he is a
   consecrated man, his power will be none the less, but perhaps all the
   greater, because of his education. But this one thing is
   essential--there must be consecration to God and downright earnestness
   in consequence, or else he will be a shaved Samson. May God give full
   consecration to each one of us who stand before the people to speak in
   His name, for in that consecration lies the power of the Holy Spirit to
   bless us! He cannot and will not bless unconsecrated men! If we do not
   live to God's Glory, God will not use us.

   The same is true of every Christian worker. I have seen this
   demonstrated over and over again in daily life. I have seen a Christian
   woman most useful in a class, bringing to the Savior many of the girls
   whom she has taught, but all of a sudden a change has come--there have
   been no conversions and for years the class has dwindled away and
   nothing has come of it. If enquiry were to be made, it would be found
   that the consecration of the teacher had declined. She no longer spoke
   with tearful eyes and earnest heart, seeking to love those girls to
   Christ. And because her consecration was gone, her strength was gone.
   It is just the same whether you preach in the street, or distribute
   tracts, or whatever you do--if you are wholly consecrated to God--you
   will be strong. I do not say that you will, by sincere devotion, alone,
   gain all the talents and all the mental forces you might desire, but,
   believe me, force does not lie in these--these are like sword and
   spear, but the strength with which they are to be wielded lies
   elsewhere. You do not absolutely require great abilities, but you must
   have perfect consecration. Be thankful if you have javelin and shield,
   but go on without them if you have not been armed with them, for, to a
   devoted man even a castaway bone will be sufficient weapon! Samson did
   not wait till he found a weapon worthy of his heroic hands--he used
   such instruments as he found on the spot. It is in consecration that
   your strength will lie. Let but the arrow be winged by a mighty pull of
   the bow and it will go straight forward in proportion to the force that
   has impelled it. Let but God fit you to His bow--and send you forward
   with Divine energy-- what more do you need? The impulse that comes from
   on high is your strength--and that impulse is found in your
   consecration to your Lord!

   Perhaps I am addressing some Christian person who is not altogether a
   worker, but partly a sufferer. He is only a private Christian, bearing
   up as he may under the trials of life. You have grown rather dull of
   late, dear Friend. You do not enjoy things as you once did. You have
   not the vivacity and the enjoyment which you once had in the things of
   God. See to it--has there not been a razor at work upon you somewhere?
   Oh, yes, I knew a Brother who, when he had a little money, rejoiced to
   have it because he gave abundantly to the cause of God! I believe that
   he is worth a hundred times as much as he was, then, and he gives a
   hundredth part of what he used to do when he was poorer! In proportion
   as his pocket has grown golden, his heart has grown bronzy. He has gone
   down in himself in proportion as he has gone up in his property--and
   now he does not enjoy things as he used to. He is a poor creature to
   what he once was! Even in his own esteem he is not the happy man he
   once was! How much I wish that this good man's hair would grow so that
   he would again be living for his Lord, whom I trust he still loves!

   I know Christian people who used to spend an hour a day in prayer. The
   hour has dwindled into five minutes. They used to be constant at
   week-night services. They very seldom gladden us with their presence,
   now, and they are not as happy as they once were. I can read this
   riddle. If a man were to reduce his meals to eating once a week, we
   could not guarantee his health. I would not guarantee that if a man
   never ate except on Sundays, he would grow strong. So I do not think
   that people who neglect the means of Grace and give up their
   consecration can expect to be lively, happy, or vigorous. When the
   razor gets to work and the hair of conscious and resolute devotion to
   God begins to fall on the floor, lock after lock, the strength is
   departing--and only as that hair begins to grow, again, and spiritual
   consecration returns, can these people expect to be useful, influential
   and strong in the Lord!

   I must say no more on this point, but it is most important, and I pray
   the Holy Spirit will stir up your pure minds concerning it.

   III. I will close with this further consideration. We are now to
   remember WHAT IT PROPHESIED when Samson's hair began to grow again. I
   wonder why these Philistines did not take care to keep his hair from
   growing to any length? If cutting his hair once had proved so
   effective, I wonder why they did not send in the barber every morning
   to make sure that not a hair grew upon his scalp or chin? But wicked
   men are not in all matters wise men. Indeed, they so conspicuously fail
   in one point or another that Scripture calls them fools! The devil
   himself is a fool after all. He thinks that he is wonderfully cunning,
   but there is always a place where he breaks down. These servants of
   Satan, these boastful Philistines said confidently, "We have done for
   him now, once and for all. We have put out his eyes and what can a
   blind man do?" They do not go on cutting off his hair because they
   fancy that, once lost, the good man's strength is lost forever. Perhaps
   they said, "Now we have lashed him to the mill--the stronger he gets,
   the more he can grind--therefore let his hair grow and so he will be
   the more useful to us."

   Great was the foolishness of their wisdom! They were fostering their
   own destruction. Satan, also, is very cunning in getting hold of
   backsliders, but he generally manages to let them slip by his
   over-confidence in their willfulness. Many a man have I seen come back
   to the dear Savior on account of the oppression which he has endured
   from his old master, the Prince of Darkness! If he had been treated
   well, he might never have returned to Christ--but it is not possible
   for the citizens of the far country to treat prodigals well--sooner or
   later they starve them and oppress them so that they run back home.

   When Samson's hair began to grow, what did it prophesy? Well, first, it
   prophesied hope for Samson. I will be bound to say that he put his
   hands to his head and felt that it was getting bristly. And then he put
   his hands to his beard and found it rough. Yes, yes, yes, it was coming
   and he thought within himself, "It will be all right soon. I shall not
   get my eyes back. They will not grow again. I am an awful loser by my
   sin, but I shall get my strength back again, for my hair is growing. I
   shall yet be able to strike a blow for my people and for my God." So
   round the mill he went, grinding away, grinding away, but every now and
   then putting his hands to his head and thinking, "My hair is growing!
   Oh, it is growing again! My strength is returning to me." The mill went
   round merrily to the tune of hope, for he felt that he would get his
   old strength back. When they loaded it and tightened it to make the
   work heavier, yet his hair was growing and so he found the burden
   lighter than it had been before--and his heart began to dance within
   him in prospect of being his former self again!

   Now, if any of you have signs of God's restoring Grace in your hearts
   and you are coming back to your God and Savior, be glad, be thankful!
   Do not hesitate to let your renewed devotion to God be seen by those
   around you. Come along, Brother, come along--your Brethren wait to
   receive you! Come along, my wandering Sister, come along--all the
   people of God will welcome you! If the Grace of God is moving you at
   all, be hopeful and quicken your steps and come to Jesus! Come to Him
   just now even as you came at first. Yes, and if you never did come
   before, come now and throw yourselves at the foot of the Cross and look
   up to those five precious wounds! Look and live for there is life in a
   look at the Crucified One! There is life at this moment even for the
   chief of sinners!

   What did this prophesy? Joy for Samson, but, also, hope for Israel. Oh,
   if any of the Israelites did get in to see him in prison, how they must
   have been cheered by the sight of his returning hair! Some ancient
   Israelite would say to his brother, "I have been to see poor Samson.
   You remember him. We had to put him out of the Church, you know. Sad
   case. I have been to see him." "How did he look?" "Well," he would say,
   "there was much to grieve me, but somewhat, also, to comfort me. He
   does not look as he did on the day when the Philistines shaved him. He
   looks quite hairy again." "Oh!" the other would say, "then he will get
   strong again--and when he is strong, he will use his mighty arms
   against the oppressors of his people. I know he will fight for his
   country again. When he gets strong again, he will lift that brawny arm
   of his that smote the Philistines and he will let them know that he is
   yet an Israelite. I know he will, for his heart will return to the love
   of God and His chosen. Philistia shall not always triumph over us.
   There is hope for us."

   So, my dear Brothers and Sisters, when we see in you some little signs
   of Grace and you are coming back, you do not know how cheerily we talk
   to one another! Why, at the Elders' Meeting, one of them said, "Our
   poor brother Jones was at the Tabernacle the other night. You remember
   him." "Yes, we do remember him, indeed." "Well he was listening to our
   pastor; I was so pleased to see him." Another Brother also said, "I am
   glad to tell you that Mrs. So-and-So, the sister that went so sadly
   astray, was outside the chapel--and when I pressed her to come in, she
   wept and said she wished she had never gone away. There is a good work
   going on there." We rejoice together and we say, "Thank God, they are
   com-

   ing back!" Oh, you do not know the joy that you backsliders will give
   to the hearts of God's people if you do but return! There is joy not
   only with the Great Shepherd, but with His friends and His neighbors
   when the lost sheep is restored to the fold. Do you not know that the
   Chief Shepherd calls His Brethren together and says, "Rejoice with Me,
   for I have found My sheep which was lost"?

   Lastly, what did it prophesy? Well, it prophesied mischief for the
   Philistines. They did not know it, but if they could have read the
   writing in Samson's heart, they would have understood that he meant to
   shave their nation quite as closely as they had shaved him! There was a
   storm brewing for Philistia. He that tore the lion as though it had
   been a kid was getting back his strength! He that seized the jawbone of
   an ass and said, "Heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an ass have I
   slain a thousand men," will soon be scattering death among the
   oppressors of his people! Woe to you, lords of Philistia! Woe to you,
   princes of Gaza!

   When a sinner who has gone astray is restored again, it means mischief
   to the kingdom of Satan. Oh, how he will serve his God! How he will try
   to bring back his fellow sinners! Having had much forgiven, this man
   will love much and will serve Jesus much! He will be one of your
   earnest Christian men, depend upon it! He will be much in prayer! He
   will be careful in his walk! He will be holy in his speech! He will
   contend earnestly for the Doctrines of Grace! He will be a leader among
   the host of God, even as he had been a ringleader in sin! He will
   invade the dark places and lead the chief of sinners captive to the
   Cross! Woe to you, Philistia, when Samson's hair grows again! Woe to
   the hosts of evil when the backslider is restored!

   There, I have put it all before you. I have tried to put the matter
   interestingly, but all the while my heart has been yearning over you
   that have gone aside. I am pining for the restoration of those who have
   turned like the dog to his vomit and the sow that was washed to her
   wallowing in the mire. I long for your restoration, or your true
   conversion. I want to see a different nature in you, that you may
   neither be dogs nor swine, but may become the real children of our God
   and Father! And then you will not return to your former ways. If you
   have defiled yourselves, may you at once be washed! If you have
   wandered, may you at once be restored to Jesus and His Church, to the
   praise and the glory of His Divine Grace wherein He has made us
   accepted in the Beloved! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Best Bread

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 16, 1887.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   28, 1886.

   "I am that bread of life." John 6:48.

   You will observe that our Lord here speaks concerning Himself. He
   speaks not merely of His Words, nor of His offices, nor of His work,
   but of Himself. "I am that bread of life." And herein He teaches us all
   to fix our eyes mainly upon His blessed Person and to think of Him
   first and foremost. He is the center and soul of all. There is a
   tendency about us all to get away from Jesus and to look rather to the
   streams than to the Fountainhead. Why are we more taken up with bits of
   glass that sparkle in the light than with the Sun, Himself? That Tree
   of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God-- we forget to eat of that
   and we wander to the borders of the garden to pluck the fruit of the
   forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I wish that our
   ministry--that mine, especially--might be tied and tethered to the
   Cross! I would have no other subject to set before you but Jesus, only.
   Moses and Elijah are well enough in their places, but when they
   disappear and Jesus is the better seen, we are gainers by their loss!
   If I might dig for copper, silver and gold, I should think it no
   deprivation to be obliged to find only gold. It is no loss to lose all
   but Jesus! You may wander from Dan to Beersheba and you may not sin,
   for it is all holy ground between the two places--but he is wisest who
   does not ramble even there, but keeps to Calvary--and is content to
   speak only of Jesus crucified.

   "God forbid," said one who was a great and a wise man--"God forbid that
   I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul would
   have considered it a terrible calamity if he had become fascinated, or
   even influenced by the speculations of the cultured men of His period!
   He felt that the atoning Sacrifice deserved all His admiration and He
   had none to spare for anything else.

   You know how he fell among certain wise people who were fond of
   philosophical disquisitions and to them he said, "I determined not to
   know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He did
   not endeavor to please his audience by agreeing with them, but the
   further they went in one direction, the further he went in the
   other--the more surely to counteract their error. Because they were so
   broad, he would narrow himself to the one theme of the Cross. In these
   times, when the world has run mad upon its idols of human thought, it
   may be wise to be more strict than ever and to stand steadfast in
   Paul's determination--"I determined not to know anything among you save
   Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

   It was Himself, my Brothers and Sisters, that our Lord set before His
   hearers as the Bread of Life! He did not mention anything of doctrine,
   or of precept, or of ordinance, but Himself. He says "I am that bread
   of life." Of Him, therefore, let us think.

   It is of the utmost importance to those of you who have spiritual life
   that you should feed upon the Lord Jesus. It is well to know everything
   that is revealed, for every Word of God is good and has its uses--and
   all Scripture is profit-able--but the daily household bread, the
   substantial meat on which we must be nourished if we would grow strong
   for God and holiness, is Christ Himself! "I am that bread of life." We
   do not get bread anywhere else save in Jesus our Lord. We may find
   certain minor things apart from Him--flavoring, ornaments and furniture
   of the table we may get from some other hands--but the bread, the real
   solid meat, the essence of the festival--is Christ Himself! So let us
   begin with Him in our discourse and continue with Him till we close our
   meditation.

   But now, when I have to preach upon a subject like this, I find it
   necessary to begin a little way from the text. "I am that bread of
   life." Bread, Brothers and Sisters--bread is for living men and women,
   but bread is of no use in the tomb. Bread--shall we bring it to a
   sepulcher? Shall we roll away the stone? Shall we draw out the bodies
   swathed in linen? Shall we set them upright in ghastly posture and
   shall we put bread upon the table before them? To what purpose would it
   be? It would be a ghastly mockery! If you leave the bread there and
   visit again that loathsome banqueting chamber in a year's time, the
   bread will remain untouched--for until there is life, there is no use
   for bread. And so, at the opening of my discourse, some of you might
   say, "Bread is intended for living persons. It is for men and women who
   are quickened. How can we feed upon Christ, for we are dead in
   trespasses and sins?" You speak most truly, but yet I have a marvel to
   relate which meets the case. Listen! That would be a strange kind of
   bread, would it not, which, being put into a dead man's mouth, would
   make him live? Yet such is the Bread that came down from Heaven,
   whereof if a man eats, he shall live forever!

   The Lord Jesus Christ is living Bread. Bread such as we get from the
   baker is, in itself, dead. And if you put it to dead lips, there are
   two dead things together and nothing can come of the contact. But our
   Lord Jesus Christ is living Bread and, when He touches the dead lips of
   an unregenerate sinner, life comes into them! He brings life even to
   those who are dead in sin. He says, "Young man, arise," and he sits up
   upon the bier. He takes a little girl by her hand and says, "Tabitha
   cumi"--Maid, arise--and she sits up in her bed! He calls to Lazarus,
   who by this time stinks, and He says, "Lazarus, come forth" and he
   comes forth, wearing his grave clothes! He has shuffled down from the
   niche in the cave and he has made his way out of the dampness of the
   cold sepulcher. Oh, what a wonderful Christ this is, who is not only
   Bread for the living, but life for the dead! Pray, you who can pray,
   that He would come here, just now, and be life to those who are in the
   darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, that they may live! When
   they live, then how gladsome will my text be to them, for life needs
   bread whereby it may be sustained!

   The first thing that we need, if we have life, is something for that
   life to feed upon. And here comes in the text--"I am that bread of
   life." Your newly-discovered necessities Jesus can meet! Your
   newly-begotten needs Jesus can supply! Your hunger and your thirst can
   all be met, not by 50 things, but by one thing, by Jesus Christ
   Himself, in whom there dwells in fullness all that the spiritual life
   can possibly require!

   I. With that to start with, I now make the first observation upon the
   text itself, which is this--JESUS CHRIST EXACTLY MEETS ALL THE NEEDS OF
   THE NEW LIFE. When a man is born again to God and gets a new life, he
   has new needs, new desires, new pains, new longings. He enters upon a
   novel condition, full of new needs and cravings--and the Lord Jesus
   Christ exactly meets the new case. As the key fits the wards of the
   lock, so does Christ fit the new heart and the right spirit. He knows
   how to touch the secrets of our soul and supply our most mysterious
   needs.

   According to the text, the Lord Jesus Christ is the ideal Bread--the
   ideal supply of man's soul-hunger. Grateful Israelites truthfully
   judged that there never was such bread in all the world as that which
   fell in the wilderness in the form of manna. It was very wonderful
   bread, was it not? Men did eat angels' food and found it good for them.
   They went out in the morning and they gathered manna--and they found it
   most marvelous food to sustain them. It was the ideal food for persons
   traveling through the great and terrible wilderness. There are
   different theories of what we ought to eat. One person tells us that if
   anybody suffers from rheumatism, he must eat so many pounds of meat in
   a day. Other doctors have vehemently said, "You must not touch meat. It
   will heat you if you do. You must keep to a strictly vegetable diet."

   I believe that these learned persons know one as much as the other
   about it and probably the whole of them put together know so little
   that a very small round nothing might encompass all their certain
   knowledge as to health and disease. But there is one thing we do know,
   that the bread which the Israelites ate in the wilderness, the manna,
   was the best sort of food. It was God's own invention and He who
   created man best knew what nutriment his life would require. It was not
   aerated bread, but it was celestial bread which had never been soured
   with earthly leaven, but had dropped immediately from the sky--the best
   food that men could eat if they would be healthy, active and able to
   endure a hard and toilsome life.

   Well now, what that manna was to their bodies--the ideal food of man,
   which had nothing injurious in it--that our Lord Jesus is to the soul!
   In Him is life for men and no disease or death. In the manna there was
   no adulteration, it was a perfectly pure food. Such food is the Lord
   Jesus Christ to the spiritual life. He is the Bread that came down from
   Heaven, He is the true Bread. If our souls live upon Christ and nothing
   else but Christ, He will breed no disease within

   the heart. He will not distort the judgement. He will not inflame the
   imagination. He will not excite the passions. He would be a perfect man
   who lived on nothing but this perfect Bread. Brothers and Sisters, if
   you aspire after holiness of the highest type and order, remember that
   a man is made by that which he feeds upon, and for the best manhood you
   need the best food. As certain silkworms have their silk colored by the
   leaves on which they feed, so if we were to feed on Christ and nothing
   else but Christ, we would become pure, holy, lowly, meek, gentle,
   humble--in a word, we would be perfect even as He is! What wonderful
   food this must be! O my Brethren, if you have ever tried the flesh and
   blood of Jesus as your souls' diet, you will know that I am not
   speaking vain words! There is no such sustenance for faith, love,
   patience, joy, as living daily upon Jesus, our Savior. You who have
   never tasted of this heavenly Bread had better listen to the Words of
   God, "O taste and see that the Lord is good!"

   The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the ideal bread, but He is, in
   Himself, a sufficient bread. That manna which the Israelites ate in the
   wilderness was all that they really needed. They began lusting and they
   cried after flesh, and they sighed for the leeks and the garlic, and
   the onions which had charmed their degenerate palates when they dwelt
   among the Egyptians. Wretched was their taste! They must have been of a
   coarse mold to grow weary of the food of angels and sigh for something
   more rank, more tasty, more heavy. Something injurious they wanted--yet
   had they but been wise and right they would have known that within the
   manna there was everything that was sufficient and suitable for
   them--for the God that made man made the manna and He knew exactly what
   man needed. Out of the ovens of Heaven He sent man bread, fresh and
   hot, each morning, that he might eat to the full and yet never be
   surfeited, nor filled with evil humors! They called the manna, "light
   bread," but what should the food be for those who were always on the
   march but light and easy to digest? Our Lord Jesus is simple in
   doctrine, but what else do we wish for, even we who are wayfaring men
   and all too apt to err?

   My Brothers and Sisters, if we do but get hold of Jesus Christ and feed
   on Him, He is sufficient for us--sufficient for gigantic labors,
   sufficient for anguish, for grief, for sorrow--sufficient for the
   weakest of the babes for He is the unadulterated milk--sufficient for
   the full-grown men among us, for He is the strong meat of the Kingdom
   of God. His flesh is meat, indeed! For your spiritual manhood there is
   bone, gristle, muscle, brain, everything that you need, in Christ. If
   you feed on Him, He will build you up, not in one direction only, but
   in all ways, for you are complete in Him-- thoroughly furnished unto
   all necessities. Christ Jesus meets all the needs of all His people
   with a Divine sufficiency.

   And then, there is in Christ what there is in manna--a sweetness all
   its own. I cannot tell you exactly how the manna tasted. Some of them
   said that it tasted like wafers made with honey. The Jewish notion is
   that it tasted according to every man's own taste, so that if he
   preferred this flavor or that, the manna had that flavor to him, and
   thus it was to each one a personal and peculiar delicacy. This I
   know--that there is a sweetness about my Lord which is precisely that
   which delights me. I cannot communicate it to you, for you must, each
   one, taste for himself. I believe that our Lord has a flavor to me
   different from that which He could have to you because our
   circumstances and desires somewhat differ. Though there is in the great
   Church of God a sweet community of delight in the Lord, yet each
   Believer has his own special delight. All Israel could claim all Canaan
   and yet every Israelite had a little plot of land that was his own--and
   so all Believers can claim all Christ and yet each Believer has a
   special portion which is altogether his own. Oh, the sweetness that
   there is in the Bread that came down from Heaven!

   Do you not know it? I trust you do and, if so, you do not need me to
   say more. If you love Jesus, you wish for nothing new. Modern gospels
   are forthcoming on all sides. You have heard about them, I dare say,
   but the preachers of them cannot have the delight in preaching their
   new gospels that I have in preaching the old one. "Oh," I say to
   myself, "they may preach better than I can. They may be a world more
   clever. But they have not such a Subject to preach of as I have." When
   I get to preaching up Christ and His precious blood, eternal love and
   Covenant securities, there I beat them all! With such a theme I can
   compete with the most renowned of the world's orators! When I speak on
   these themes, my lips drop pearls and diamonds! Brothers and Sisters,
   when we declare unto you the Lord Jesus, we sail upon a sea of
   sweetness! The novelties of "modern thought" are a Dead Sea, but our
   Gospel is an ocean of Living Water! He that has Christ to preach has
   such a subject that angels might envy him and cry one, to the other,
   "Let us go down below and tell mankind of Jesus and His love."
   Brethren, to me the pulpit is a throne and when I am in full swing,
   with the Lord Jesus Christ as my Subject, I would not change places
   with the seraphim! It is a celestial joy to tell our fellow men of such
   a Savior as Jesus, for all sorts of joys are wrapped up in His
   thrice-blessed name! When Jesus said, "I am that bread of life," He

   meant, "I am that choice Bread, that satisfying Bread, that delicious
   Bread, the likes of which was never found elsewhere."

   Furthermore, it was bread suitable for the wilderness. When they were
   in the wilderness, it was much better for the tribes to eat what they
   called, "light bread," than for them to be filled with the meat that
   they had in Egypt, or even the old corn which they enjoyed when they
   came into Canaan. Manna was suitable food for the climate and for their
   condi-tion--and the Lord knew it. So the most suitable meat for us in
   this vale of tears is Christ Jesus. I believe that there is no meat
   like it in Heaven! And for this world, with its work and its weeping,
   with its toils and its troubles, its cares and its changes, its wars
   and its woes, its fears and its frets--there is nothing so suitable as
   the Lord Jesus--

   "Jesus, joy of loving hearts!

   You Fount of life!

   You Light of men!

   From the best bliss that earth imparts

   We turn, unfilled, to You again.

   We taste You, O living Bread,

   And long to feast upon You still!

   We drink of You, the Fountainhead,

   And thirst our souls from You to fill." Jesus is all the Bread that you
   need while you are on your way to Heaven and God!

   What I have to say on this point further is--Try it, dear Friends! I
   would be very practical on this point and say earnestly, taste and
   test. If you wish to know this Bread that came down from Heaven and how
   satisfying, how suitable, how sweet it is--try it.

   Let me hand you out a portion of it. The Lord Jesus, the everlasting
   Son of God, is also Man--man, like ourselves. "In all our affliction He
   was afflicted." He Himself bore our infirmities and He is, at this
   moment, "a Brother born for adversity." Is not this a loaf of
   nourishing bread for a soul to feed on? I am a man--tried, troubled,
   burdened--and so is my Redeemer! So is He who sits upon the Throne of
   God! I have to bow in prayer and agonize in supplication--so did He! I
   have to endure slander and rebuke--so did He--"He endured such
   contradiction of sinners against Himself." Brothers, Sisters, you
   cannot be in any plight wherein He has never been! You cannot suffer
   any want so severe, but He also suffered the same! Even if you have not
   a home, or a lodging, or a bed for the night--"The Son of Man had not
   where to lay His head." He is a partaker with us of the bitter cup of
   affliction. Now, is not this choice nourishment?--

   "Why should I complain of need or distress,

   Temptation or pain? He told me no less.

   The heirs of salvation, I know from His Word,

   Through much tribulation must follow their Lord.

   How bitter that cup no heart can conceive,

   Which He drank quite up, that sinners might live!

   His way was much rougher and darker than mine;

   Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?" The sympathy of
   Jesus, our Brother, is living Bread for sorrowing men.

   Now for another slice from the same loaf. He died. He bowed His head
   and gave up the ghost. It was for sin and sinners that He died. "He
   Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree." "The chastisement
   of our peace was upon Him." He has put away our sin by making full
   atonement to Divine Justice. Sin has ceased to be so far as those are
   concerned who believe in Him, for He was punished in our place and so
   ended our debt! God will not punish those for whom Christ was punished!
   He cannot exact the same debt twice, first of the Surety, and then of
   the sinner. That cannot be! Substitutionary Sacrifice is the finest of
   the wheat! A real Atonement is the most satisfactory food for the soul!
   I know it is so without a doubt.

   Poor Sinner, if you can eat this Bread, you will not be hungry any
   more! Feeding upon the glorious doctrine of the Vicarious Sacrifice of
   Christ you will find that His flesh is meat, indeed, and His blood is
   drink, indeed!

   I might continue thus to set forth my Lord as Bread for you in His
   Resurrection, in His glorious Ascension, in His session at the right
   hand of God, even the Father, where He makes intercession for
   transgressors and in the Glory of His Second Advent, but time would
   fail me. I might cut a slice from this loaf and speak to you upon our
   communion with

   Him, upon our acceptance in the Beloved, upon the Glory which He wears
   as our Representative, and wears for us, but I will not--it is enough
   for me to introduce the text and let Jesus say for Himself, "I am that
   bread of life." Certainly there never was such a fruitful and
   satisfying subject as this of Jesus, our Lord! Oh, that all ministers
   were convinced of this! Why leave this Bread of Heaven for the
   unsatisfying husks afforded by other topics?

   Very well. That is the first Truth of God we are to remember, namely,
   that Jesus Christ fully meets all the needs of the new life.

   II. But, secondly, IN ORDER THAT JESUS MAY MEET ALL OUR SOUL'S NEEDS WE
   MUST RECEIVE HIM. Bread cannot possibly sustain the body unless it is
   eaten. You know, dear Friends, you might be hungry tonight and hear
   about bread and then be doomed to wait till tomorrow evening without
   having any of it to eat--that would be a tantalizing business, would it
   not? I might then preach again and tell you about bread and you might
   go without all through Saturday--and come here on Sunday and hear two
   more sermons about bread and yet, all the while, have none of it to
   eat. It would be trying work. None would like it unless it were those
   people who are attempting to fast for 40 days and are likely to die in
   the process! What good would it do you to keep on hearing of the bread
   and never eat of it? I cannot see any result. Unless it tended to
   increase your hunger, I do not know what would come of the wisest
   discourse on bread if you did not eat. Suppose that you should go to a
   baker's window and stand there for an hour and stare at the bread? I do
   not think that the sight would fill you much. No, you must eat, or else
   there might be tons of bread within reach and yet you would die of
   famine! You might be buried in a grave or bread and it would be of no
   use to you. Even manna would not nourish you unless you ate it. You
   must receive food into yourself, or it is not food to you. The Savior
   Himself, if you do not receive Him by faith, will be no Savior to you.
   Mark that.

   Here is a Brother who never eats bread but instead of eating, he
   studies the theory of nutrition. He is ready to discuss with anyone the
   whole system of digestion and assimilation. He has a theory that bread
   should always be baked in a certain way and he feels bound to discuss
   and discuss and discuss till all is moldy! My dear Friend, you may
   discuss if you like, but I want to eat! And I think that if you intend
   to live and not to drop down dead in your discussion, you had better
   eat a bit yourself--and not put discussion into the place of eating.
   Some of you have been hearing the Gospel for years and you have never
   fed upon Christ! But you have a great liking for religious controversy.
   Why, perhaps, this very afternoon you have been discussing this, "ism,"
   and that, "ism." Why all this chopping of logic? Why do you not eat,
   Friend? Why do you not eat?

   What is the use of talking about bread when your fainting body pines
   for a substantial meal? You are at this time ready to fight anybody
   about the shape that the portions of bread ought to take when they are
   cut up for a feast. No, no, I am not going to accept your challenge! I
   am hungry and need food--and to me the form of it does not matter much.
   Bread is nothing to anybody till he eats it--and even our Lord Jesus is
   nothing to any man until he believes in Him-- until he receives Him,
   until he takes Him into himself! That is the one thing that is
   needed--and the Lord Jesus Christ silently hints as much when He says,
   "I am that bread of life." When He calls Himself, Bread, He does in
   effect say, "Partake of Me. Eat Me. Feed upon Me."

   Here comes in the enquiry--How do we receive Christ into us as we take
   bread into our bodies?

   First, by believing everything that is revealed about Him. The Father's
   witness and the Holy Spirit's witness and His own witness concerning
   Himself--we have all these in God's most holy Word! Take the Book and
   read it. Augustine, after years of tossing to and fro, found peace with
   God by hearing a little child say, "Take, and read." I suppose that the
   child was singing to itself and hardly knew what it was saying as it
   repeated to itself the two words--"Tolle, lege; tolle, lege; tolle,
   lege." "Take up and read." That voice struck the ear of the perplexed
   thinker as though it were the voice of God and he took the Scripture
   and read the Scripture--and no sooner had he read it than he found
   Christ! I would entreat each one of you to do this, in order that you
   may find rest for your soul. Believe what is revealed in Holy
   Scripture! You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have
   eternal life, and they are they which testify of Christ; but you will
   do well if you go to Christ, Himself, and find life. To believe in Him,
   think of Him! As the look of faith which saves is to Jesus, so is it
   from Jesus. By looking we learn to look. As we know of Him, we believe
   in Him. Believe what is spoken about Christ and so feed on Him.

   Then, next, trust Him for yourself. That is the point--the hinge of the
   whole business! He is a Savior. I believe that, but I go further and
   resolve--He shall be my Savior. May I say that? Yes, for I am permitted
   to do so, inasmuch as He

   says, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Scripture says
   that He is exalted on high to give repentance unto Israel and remission
   of sins. Therefore, I look to Him to give me repentance and remission
   of sins. I trust to Him in that respect and He is mine! He has said,
   "It is finished." The Atonement is finished and I believe that it is
   finished for me. A prominent point about the offering under the old Law
   was that the person who came with the sacrifice laid his hands on it
   and said, "This is mine." You must do the same with Jesus. Lay your
   hands on Him and say, "This is mine. This sacrificial death is for me."
   "Oh, but," says one, "suppose He is not mine? What if I were to take
   Him to myself without warrant?" Suppose such a thing for one moment,
   yet He would be yours! If I were hungry and I ate a bit of bread, and
   after I had eaten it somebody said, "It is not yours," I would reply,
   "Perhaps not, but how will you take it from me? It has nourished me and
   refreshed me. It is mine and none can deprive me of it."

   That is the point, you see! If you take Christ Jesus into yourself, the
   devil himself may say you had no right to Him, but he cannot take away
   that which you have eaten. Jesus Himself will not quarrel with you, nor
   blame you for taking Him, for He has said, "Him that comes to Me I will
   in no wise cast out." You may summon a poor man before the magistrate
   and say, "He is a thief, for he stole bread from my counter." You may
   put him in prison for the theft, though I hope you would not if hunger
   drove him to the act--but you cannot get your bread away from him if he
   has eaten it. So, if you come to Christ and take Him into yourself, He
   is yours and you shall live by Him! Jesus says, "He that eats Me, even
   he shall live by Me." Nor death, nor Hell, nor time, nor eternity can
   take Jesus away when once you have Him within you! "Who shall separate
   us from the love of Christ?" Swallow, then, the Divine Truth of God!
   Let it go down quickly, for fear anybody should come before it has
   fully entered into your soul. Once there, it is yours! They say that
   possession is nine points of the law and I should think in the case of
   eating that it is the whole 10 points, or any other number of points,
   for there is no getting repossession of that which a man has actually
   eaten! Get Christ, and Christ is yours--yours by a kind of possession
   which will never be disputed before the courts of Heaven!

   This, then, is to feed upon Christ--to believe that which is revealed
   about Him--and then to appropriate Him to yourself by personal faith.

   Furthermore, to feed upon Christ means to meditate much upon Him--to
   think much of Him. Brothers and Sisters, there are many sweet doctrines
   in the Bible which I delight to make my own by reading, marking,
   learning and inwardly digesting them. They are parts of the great
   circle of Truth which is revealed of God. But I find that I am never so
   comforted, strengthened and sustained as by deliberately considering
   Jesus Christ's precious death and atoning Sacrifice. His Sacrifice is
   the center of the circle, the focus of the light. There is a charm, a
   divine fascination, about His wounds.

   O sacred head, once wounded! O, dear eyes, so red with weeping! O
   cheeks, all stained with spit! I could forever gaze, admire and adore!
   There is no beauty in all the world like that which is seen in the
   countenance, "more marred than that of any man." This one vision is
   enough for all eyes for all time! There is no sustenance to the heart
   like the sustenance that comes of His flesh and His blood given up in
   anguish and in death to work out our redemption! Beloved, this is the
   Bread of Heaven. "Take, eat," He says, "this is My body which is broken
   for you." What food is this! What life ought that to be which is
   nourished by such Bread!

   But time flies so quickly that I cannot dwell upon these points as they
   deserve to be dwelt upon. Oh, live near the Cross! Build your house on
   Calvary! Frequent Gethsemane! Listen to the groans of your pleading
   Lord! Be much with a dying Christ. Be much with a risen Christ. Be much
   with a reigning Christ. Be much in anticipation of a coming Christ. For
   the more you are with Him, the more will your soul be filled with
   satisfaction and influenced to sanctification. He shall satisfy your
   soul as with marrow and with fatness--and your mouth shall praise Him
   with joyful lips--for He can say, and none other, "I am that bread of
   life." Receive Him, then, and you shall find it so!

   III. Now thirdly--and this shall be but a word or two--notice this
   solemn fact--NOT TO FEED UPON CHRIST

   IS THE SURE MARK OF DEATH. Terrible fact. The Lord Jesus Christ has
   said it--"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
   blood, you have no life in you." A great preacher, but he does not feed
   on Christ? He has no life in him! A forward professor, but he does not
   feed on Christ? He has no life in him! A very knowing theologian and a
   clever controversialist--but he does not feed upon the Incarnate God?
   There is no life in him! A daring speculator in modern thought but he
   does not care, he says, for the blood of Christ--he even sneers at the
   mention of it! He has no life in him! Hard words? Hard words! Hard
   words, if they are true, are better than soft words if they are false!

   But this is the sure test--"What do you think of Christ?" If He is not
   bread to your souls, you have no life in you! If anybody were to say to
   me, "I have a man at home who stands in my hall and has stood there for
   years, but he has never eaten a mouthful of bread all the time, nor
   cost me a penny for food," I should say to myself, "Oh, yes, that is a
   bronze man, I know, or a plaster cast of a man! He has no life in him,
   I am sure, for if he had life in him, he would have needed bread." If
   we could live without eating, it would be a cheap method of existence,
   but I have never discovered the secret and I do not mean to make
   experiments! If you are trying it and have succeeded in it so far that
   you can live without Christ, the Bread of Life, I fear your life is not
   that of God's people, for they all hunger and thirst, by His Grace,
   after Jesus, the Bread of Heaven! O my dear Hearer, once a professor,
   once a Church member, if you have given up Christ and you get on well
   without Him, you have no life in you! The dead can do without bread,
   but the living cannot! Jesus tells us, "I am that bread of life," and
   if you are doing without Him, you are doing without the Bread of
   Life--and the reason is that you are without life itself!

   IV. Next, and the fourth head shall be with equal brevity--THOSE WHO
   FEED UPON CHRIST ARE SUPREMELY BLESSED. They shall never hunger! They
   shall hunger after more of Jesus, but not after anything else besides
   Jesus. I was greatly pleased, some time ago, to hear a gentleman who
   had tried to preach another doctrine, say that a certain neighborhood
   which he spoke of was so impregnated with what was called, "the
   Gospel," that he could not succeed with his speculations. He said that
   if men once drank this Gospel doctrine it made them so bigoted in their
   love for it that the most clever person could not get them out of it. I
   thought to myself, "This witness is true." An enemy declared it and it
   was, therefore, all the more striking! The most subtle deceivers may
   try as long as they please, but when we have once fed upon Christ, they
   cannot get us away from Him! They tempt us to leave Him. They offer us
   all manner of novelties, but in vain--"Try our thought! Try our
   science! Try our purgatory! Try our larger hope!" But we hear the pails
   rattle and we hear the swine clamoring--and we are not anxious to taste
   the mixture, or unite in the festival! We are not so selfish as to
   steal this new slop from those whom it delights. Let those have it who
   can feed on it, but as for ourselves, we mean to feed on the Bread of
   Heaven! The Gospel is to us such satisfying bread that all the rest is
   chaff--

   Should all the forms that men devise Assault my soul with treacherous
   art, I'd call them vanity and lies, And bind the Gospel to my heart.
   Every true child of God is so far a bigot that he prefers the bread of
   His Father's house to the husks of the far country! He cannot give up
   the Gospel and he will not, for it satisfies his whole being. What more
   does he need? Why should he make a change?

   Moreover, he has in Christ food that he can never exhaust. He may feed
   and feed and yet he shall never find that he lacks for meat. I have
   many an old book in my library in which there have been bookworms and I
   have sometimes amused myself with tracing a worm. I do not know how he
   gets to the volume originally, but being there, he eats his way into
   it. He bores a hole in a direct line and sometimes I find that he dies
   before he gets half-way through the book. Now and then a worm has eaten
   his way right through from one wooden cover to another--yes, and also
   through the cover! This was a most successful bookworm! Few of us can
   eat our way quite so far. I am one of the bookworms that have not yet
   got halfway into my Bible, but I am eating my way as fast as I can!
   This one thing I have proven to myself beyond all question--I shall
   never, never exhaust this precious Book--much less shall I exhaust the
   wondrous Person of my Divinely-blessed Lord! He is that Bread which
   came down from Heaven! He is utterly inexhaustible!

   Brothers and Sisters, feeding upon Jesus we have an immortal
   blessedness--we shall never die! If we have fed on Christ, we shall
   fall asleep, but it will be in Jesus. Some whom we love have lately
   fallen asleep--they will awake with Him in the morning. But we shall
   never die. We shall only pass into a higher stage of life, for that
   food on which we feed shall be in us the pledge of an immortality equal
   to the immortality of the Christ who has become our Bread.

   V. I had much more to say to you, but the time has gone. All that I
   will say further is this. If any of you desire to have Christ, you may
   depend upon it that you may have Him because bread is meant to be
   eaten--JESUS IS PROVIDED TO BE RECEIVED. What is the use of bread if it
   is never eaten? If you go to the Orphanage, you will see a large batch
   of bread kept there upon the shelves. It must not be eaten the first
   day, you know--it would go too fast and would not be very wholesome for
   the youngsters. It must get rather staler by being kept a little while.
   Now suppose that I were to go down there and say to the baker, "Lock
   that door. I want to keep that bread. I am going away to Mentone and I
   shall

   take the key with me, that I may save that bread." Suppose I were to do
   so and come back in a couple of months' time? Should I say to myself,
   "I have saved that batch of bread"? I am afraid that it would turn out
   to be very bad economy! Let us go and look at the loaves which we have
   kept from use! Come away at once! The sight is not pleasant. Decay and
   corruption have fallen upon what we have hoarded. It would be a poor
   matter for the bread. Why, it is the very end of bread, the object of
   bread, the portion of bread, to be eaten! It is honored in being eaten!
   It would be degraded by being left to grow stale and moldy!

   Now the Lord Jesus Christ is never so famous a Christ as when sinners
   come and feed upon Him. This precious Bread must be eaten, or it has
   not answered its design. What say you to a doctor who has no patients?
   What say you to a Savior who never saves anybody? The honor of a
   physician lies in the persons that he heals and the honor of a Savior
   lies in the persons that He saves. Christ has become the Bread of
   Heaven on purpose for you to have Him, and for me to have Him! He came
   into the world to save sinners--and if He does not save sinners He has
   come for nothing! It is His business to save sinners. Now if a man sets
   up in business and never does any business, his undertaking is a
   failure. "Poor man!" you say, "he has made a great mistake."

   I know a Brother here who wanted to take a certain shop in a wide
   street, but his wiser friends said, "Do not take that shop for a
   baker's. It is not in a good eating locality. You must open a shop in
   one of the streets where there are plenty of poor people who will buy
   the bread every morning. Make it good and cheap and it will not stay
   long on the shelves." I noticed in the newspaper that a certain pub was
   "in a good drinking locality." I am sorry that there are such
   localities. But, assuredly, a good eating locality must be the very
   place for vending bread. I think that this Tabernacle stands in a good
   eating locality. Many are here, now, who are hungry after Christ and it
   is a blessed fact that they may have Him and feed upon Him without
   stint!

   And what is the price? The price? The difficulty with all other traders
   is to get you up to their price--but my difficulty is to get you down
   to mine--for the Bread of Heaven is without price. Even if you offer a
   farthing, I cannot take your bid. You may have all for nothing and have
   it at once--but not a penny can be accepted from you! The Gospel
   provides a full Christ for empty sinners--pardon on earth and bliss in
   Heaven--and all for nothing! Take it as a free gift and it is yours.
   What would you pay? What could you pay? Did Israel pay for the manna?
   It would have been an insult to God to imagine it! Go your way and
   bless the name of the Lord, for this is the Gospel--"He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved."
     __________________________________________________________________

Grace For Communion

   A SHORT ADDRESS TO A FEW FRIENDS AT MENTONE, AT THE BREAKING OF BREAD,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON, ON LORD'S-DAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 2, 1887.

   "Awake, O north wind, and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that
   the spices thereof may flow out. Let my Belo ved come into His garden
   and eat His pleasant fruits." Song of Solomon 4:16.

   THE soul of the Believer is the garden of the Lord. Within it are rare
   plants such as yield "spices" and "pleasant fruits." Once it was a
   wilderness, overgrown with thorns and briars, but now it is "a garden
   enclosed," an "orchard of pomegranates."

   At times within that garden everything is very still and quiet. Indeed,
   more still than could be wished. Flowers are in bloom, but they seem
   scentless, for there are no breezes to waft the perfume. Spices abound,
   but one may walk in the garden and not perceive them, for no gales bear
   their fragrance on their wings. I do not know that, in itself, this is
   an evil condition. It may be that "So He gives His beloved sleep." To
   those who are worn with labor, rest is sweet. Blessed are they who
   enjoy a Sabbath of the soul!

   The loved one in the text desired the company of her Lord and felt that
   an inactive condition was not altogether suitable for His coming. Her
   prayer is first about her garden, that it may be made ready for her
   Beloved, and then to the Bridegroom Himself, that He would come into
   His garden and eat its pleasant fruits. She pleads for the breath of
   Heaven, and for the Lord of Heaven.

   First, she cries for THE BREATH OF HEAVEN to break the dead calm which
   broods over her heart. She cannot unlock the caskets of spice, nor
   cause the sweet odors to flow forth--her own breath would not avail for
   such an end. She looks away from herself to an unseen and mysterious
   power. She breathes this earnest prayer, "Awake, O north wind; and
   come, you south; blow upon my garden!"

   In this prayer there is an evident sense of inward sleep. She does not
   mean that the north wind is asleep--it is her poetical way of
   confessing that she, herself, needs to be awakened. She has a sense of
   absent-mindedness, too, for she cries, "Come, you south." If the south
   wind would come, the forgetful perfumes would come to themselves and
   sweeten all the air. The fault, whatever it is, cannot lie in the
   winds--it lies in ourselves.

   Her appeal, as we have already said, is to that great Spirit who
   operates according to His own will, even as the wind blows where it
   wills. She does not try to "raise the wind"--that is an earthly
   expression relating to worldly matters-- but, alas, it might fitly be
   applied to many imitations of spirituality! Have we not heard of
   "getting up revivals"? Indeed, we can no more command the Holy Spirit
   than we can compel the wind to blow east or west! Our strength lies in
   prayer. The spouse prays, "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south!"
   She thus acknowledges her entire dependence upon the free Spirit.
   Although she veiled her faith in a Divine Worker under the imagery of
   her song, yet she spoke as to a person. We believe in the personality
   of the Holy Spirit, so that we ask Him to, "Awake" and, "Come." We
   believe that we may pray to Him and we are impelled to do so.

   Notice that the spouse does not mind what form the Divine visitation
   takes so long as she feels its power. "Awake, O north wind." Though the
   blast is cold and cutting, it may be that it will effectually fetch
   forth the perfume of the soul in the form of repentance and
   self-humiliation. Some precious Graces, like rare spices, naturally
   flow forth in the form of tears. And others are only seen in hours of
   sorrow, like gums which exude from wounded trees. The rough north wind
   has done much for some of us in the way of awakening our best Graces.
   Yet it may be that the Lord will send something more tender and
   cheering and, if so, we would cry, "Come, you south." Divine Love
   warming the heart has a wonderful power to develop the best part of a
   man's nature. Many of our precious things are brought forth by the sun
   of holy joy.

   Either movement of the Spirit will sufficiently bestir our inner life,
   but the spouse desires both. Although in nature you cannot have the
   north wind and the south blowing at the same time, yet in Grace you
   can. The Holy Spirit may be at one and the same time working grief and
   gladness, causing humiliation and delight. I have often been conscious
   of the two winds blowing at once so that while I have been ready to die
   to self, I have been made to live unto God. "Awake, O north wind; and
   come, you south!" When all the forms of spiritual energy are felt, no
   Grace will be dormant. No flower can stay asleep when both rough and
   gentle winds awaken it.

   The prayer is--"blow" and the result is--"flow." Lord, if You blow, my
   heart flows out to You! "Draw me, we will run after You." We know right
   well what it is to have Divine Grace in our souls and yet to feel no
   movement of it. We may have much faith in existence, yet none in
   exercise, for no occasion summons it into action. We may have much
   repentance, yet no conscious repenting. We may have much fire of love,
   yet no love flaming forth--and much patience in the heart, though at
   the moment we do not display it. Apart from the occurrences of
   Providence, which awakens our inward emotions one way and another, the
   only plan by which our Graces can be set in active exercise is by the
   Holy Spirit breathing upon us! He has the power to quicken, awake and
   bestir our faculties and Graces so that holy fruits within us become
   perceptible to ourselves and to others who have spiritual discernment.

   There are states of the atmosphere in which the fragrance of flowers is
   much more diffused than at other times. The rose owes much to the
   zephyr which wafts its perfume. How sweet is even a field of beans
   after a shower! We may have much spice of piety and yet yield small
   fragrance unless the living power of the Holy Spirit moves upon us. In
   a forest there may be many a partridge, or pheasants and yet we may not
   see so much as one of them until a passing foot tramples down the
   underbrush and causes the birds to rise upon the wing. The Lord can
   thus discover our Graces by many a messenger, but the more choice and
   spiritual virtues need an agent as mysterious and all-pervading as the
   wind--need, in fact, the Spirit of the Lord to awaken them!

   Holy Spirit, You can come to us when we cannot come to You! From any
   and every quarter You can reach us, taking us on our warm or cold side.
   Our heart, which is our garden, lies open at every point to You. The
   wall which encloses it does not shut You out. We wait for a visitation!
   We feel glad at the very thought of it! That gladness is the beginning
   of the stir--the spices are already flowing forth!

   The second half of the prayer expresses our central desire--we long for
   THE LORD OF HEAVEN to visit us. The bride does not seek that the spices
   of her garden may become perceptible for her own enjoyment, nor for the
   delectation of strangers, nor even for the pleasure of the daughters of
   Jerusalem, but for her Beloved's sake. He is to come into His garden
   and eat His pleasant fruits. We are a garden for His delight. Our
   highest wish is that Jesus may have joy in us! I fear that we often
   come to the table of communion with the idea of enjoying ourselves or,
   rather, of enjoying our Lord-- but we do not rise to the thought of
   giving Him joy.

   Possibly that might even seem presumptuous. Yet, He says, "My delights
   were with the sons of men." See how joyfully He cries in the next
   chapter, "I am come into My garden, My Sister, My Spouse: I have
   gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have eaten My honeycomb with My
   honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk." Our heavenly Bridegroom
   rests in His love. He rejoices over us with singing! Often He takes
   more delight in us than we do in Him. We have not even known that He
   was present, but have been praying Him to come--and all the while He
   has been near us!

   Note well the address of the spouse to her Beloved in the words before
   us. She calls Him hers--"My Beloved." When we are sure that He is ours,
   we desire Him to come to us as ours and to reveal Himself as ours.
   Those words, "My Beloved," are a prose poem--there is more music in
   them than in all the laureate's sonnets! However slumbering my Graces
   may be, Jesus is mine! It is as mine that He will make me live and
   cause me to pour forth my heart's fragrance!

   While He is hers, she acknowledges that she is wholly His and all that
   she has belongs to Him. In the first clause she says, "Awake, O north
   wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden." But now she prays,
   "Let my Beloved come into His garden." She had spoken just before of
   her fruits, but now they are His fruits. She was not wrong when she
   first spoke, but she is now more accurate. We are not our own. We do
   not bring forth fruit of ourselves. The Lord says, "From Me is your
   fruit found." The garden is of our Lord's purchasing, enclosing,
   planting and watering--and all its fruit belongs to Him. This is a
   powerful reason for His visiting us! Should not a man come into his own
   garden and eat his own fruits? Oh, that the Holy Spirit may put us into
   a fit condition to entertain our Lord!

   The prayer of the spouse is--"Let my Beloved come.''" Do we not say,
   "Amen, let Him come"? If He does not come in the glory of His Second
   Advent at this moment, as, perhaps, He may not, yet let Him come! If
   not to His Judgment Seat, yet let Him come into His garden. If He will
   not come to gather before Him all nations, yet let Him come to gather
   the fruit of His redemption in us! Let Him come into our little
   circle--let Him come into each heart. "Let my Beloved come." Stand
   back, you that would hinder Him! O my Beloved, let not my sinful,
   sluggish, wandering thoughts prevent You from coming! You did visit the
   disciples, "the doors being shut"--will you not come where every opened
   door bespeaks Your welcome? Where should You come but to Your garden?
   Surely my heart has great need of You. Many a plant within it needs
   Your care. Welcome, welcome, welcome! Heaven cannot welcome You more
   heartily, O my Beloved, than my heart shall now do! Heaven does not
   need You so much as I do! Heaven has the abiding Presence of the Lord
   God Omnipotent, but if You dwell not within my soul, it is empty and
   void, and waste! Come, then, to me, I beseech You, O my Beloved!

   The spouse further cries--"Let Him eat His pleasant fruits.'" I have
   often felt myself overcome with the bare idea that anything I have ever
   done should give my Lord pleasure. Can it be that any offering I ever
   gave Him should be thought worthy of His acceptance? Or that anything I
   ever felt or said should be a joy to Him? Can He perceive any perfume
   in my spices, or taste any flavor in my fruits? This is a joy worth
   worlds! It is one of the highest tokens of His condescension. It is
   wonderful that the King from the far country should come from the Glory
   Land, where all choice fruits are at their best, and enter this poor
   enclosure in the wilderness--and there eat such fruits as ours--and
   call them pleasant, too! O Lord Jesus, come into our hearts now! O Holy
   Spirit, blow upon our hearts at this moment! Let faith, love, hope,
   joy, patience and every Grace be now like violets which betray
   themselves by their perfume, or like roses which load the air with
   their fragrance!

   Though we are not content with ourselves, yet may our Lord be pleased
   with us! Do come to us, O Lord! That You are our Beloved is a greater
   wonder than that You should come to us. That you have made us Your
   garden is a greater favor than that You should eat our fruits. Fulfill
   to us that gracious promise, "I will sup with him and he with Me," for
   we do open to You. You said unto the woman of Samaria, "Give Me to
   drink," and will you not, now, accept a draught of love from us? She
   had no husband, but You are our Husband--will You not drink from the
   cup which we now hold out to You? Receive our love, our trust, our
   consecration! Delight Yourself in us, as we now delight ourselves in
   You. We are asking a great thing of You, but Your love warrants large
   requests. We will now come to Your table where You shall be our meat
   and drink--but allow our spices to be the perfume of the feast and let
   us each say, "While the King sits at His table, my spikenard sends
   forth the smell thereof." Fulfill this wish of our soul, Divine Lord
   and Master! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Salt For Sacrifice

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 23, 1887.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And every oblation of your meat offering shall you season with salt;
   neither shall you suffer the salt of the Covenant of your God to be
   lacking from your meat offering: with all your offerings you shall
   offer salt." Leviticus 2:13.

   IT is taken for granted that all true Israelites would bring many
   oblations and offerings of different kinds to God. And so they did who
   were truly devout and really grateful. I am sure that if the Lord has
   set our hearts on fire with His own love, we, also, shall be frequently
   saying, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward
   me?" It will be the habit of the Christian, as it was the habit of the
   devout Israelite, to be continually bringing oblations to his God.

   How is this to be done? That is the point. We have need, each of us, to
   say with Paul, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" And we may add
   another question, "How will You have me do it?" For will-worship is not
   acceptable with God. If we bring to God what He does not ask, it will
   not be received. We must only present to Him that which He requires of
   us and we must present it to Him in His own way, for He is a jealous
   God.

   I call your attention to the fact that, in this verse, the Lord three
   times expressly commands that with the meat offerings and all other
   offerings they were to offer salt. Does the great God that made Heaven
   and earth talk about salt? Does He condescend to such minute details of
   His service as to enact that the absence of a handful of salt shall
   render a sacrifice unacceptable--and the presence of it shall be
   absolutely necessary to its being received by Him? Then, my Brethren,
   nothing in the service of God is trifling! A pinch of salt may seem to
   us exceedingly unimportant, but before the Lord it may not be so. In
   the service of God, the alteration of an ordinance of Christ may seem
   to be a pure matter of indifference, and yet in that alteration there
   may be the taking away of the very vitals of the ordinance--and the
   total destruction of its meaning. It is yours and it is mine to keep to
   the letter of God's Word, as well as to the spirit of it, remembering
   that it is written, "Whoever shall break one of these least
   commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in
   the Kingdom of Heaven." It is not for the servant to say, "This order
   of my master is unimportant and the other is binding." The servant's
   duty is to act in all things exactly as he is bid. Since our Master is
   so holy and so wise, it is impossible for us to improve upon His
   commandments. Yes, God enters into detail with His servants and even
   makes orders about salt.

   If you will read the chapter through, you will note that other things
   were needed in connection with the sacrifices of the Israelites. Their
   sacrifices were, of course, imperfect. Even on the low ground which
   they occupied as symbols and emblems they were not complete, for you
   read, in the first place, that they needed frankincense when they
   offered their sacrifice to God. God did not smell sweet savor in the
   bullock, or the ram, or the lamb, unless sweet spices were added. What
   does that teach us but that the best performances of our hands must not
   appear before His Throne without the merit of Christ mingled with it?
   There must be that mixture of myrrh, aloes and cassia with which the
   garments of our Prince are perfumed to make our sacrifice to be a sweet
   savor to the Most High! Take care in your sacrifices that you bring the
   sacred frankincense.

   Another thing that was enjoined constantly was that they should bring
   oil--and oil is always the type of the blessed Spirit of God. What is
   the use of a sermon if there is no unction in it? What is unction but
   the Holy Spirit? What is prayer without the anointing that comes of the
   Holy Spirit? What is praise unless the Spirit of God is in it to give
   it life, that it may rise to Heaven? That which goes to God must first
   come from God. We need the oil--we cannot do without

   it. Pray for me that I may have this oil in the sacrifice of my
   ministry, as I pray for you that in all that you do for the Lord Jesus,
   your sacrifice may continually have the sacred oil with it.

   Then came a third requisite, namely, salt. If you read the preceding
   verses, you will see that the Lord forbids them to present any honey.
   "No meat offering, which you shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made
   with leaven: for you shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in an
   offering of the Lord made by fire. As for the oblation of the first
   fruits, you shall offer them unto the Lord: but they shall not be burnt
   on the altar for a sweet savor." Ripe fruits were full of honey, full
   of sweetness--and God does not ask for sweetness, He asks for salt. I
   shall notice that as we go on farther. Not honey, but salt, must be
   added to all the sacrifices which we present before the living God.

   What is the meaning of all this? We may not pronounce any meaning of
   the types with certainty unless we have Scripture to direct us, but
   still, using our best judgment, we do, first of all, see that the text
   explains itself. Observe, "neither shall you suffer the salt of the
   Covenant of your God to be lacking from your meat offering."

   I. It appears, then, that salt was THE SYMBOL OF THE COVENANT. When God
   made a Covenant with David, it

   is written, "The Lord gave the kingdom to David forever by a Covenant
   of salt"--by which was meant that it was an unchangeable, incorruptible
   Covenant which would endure as salt makes a thing to endure, so that it
   is not liable to putrefy or corrupt. "The salt of the Covenant"
   signifies that whenever you and I are bringing any offering to the
   Lord, we must take care that we remember the Covenant. Standing at the
   altar with our gift, serving God with our daily service, as I trust we
   are doing, let us continually offer the salt of the Covenant with all
   our sacrifices. Here is a man who is doing good works in order to be
   saved. You are under the wrong Covenant, my Friend, you are under the
   Covenant of Works and all that you will gain in that way is a curse,
   for, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are
   written in the Book of the Law, to do them." "Therefore," says the
   Apostle, "as many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse."
   Get away from that and get to that other Covenant which has salt in it,
   namely, the Covenant of Grace, the New Covenant of which Christ is the
   Head! We must not come to God without the salt of faith in Christ, or
   our offerings will be a sort of antichrist. A man who is trying to save
   himself is in opposition to the Savior. He that thinks of the merits of
   his own good works, despises the merit of the finished work of Christ!
   He is offering to God that which has no salt with it and it cannot be
   received.

   We need this salt of the Covenant in all that we do, in the first
   place, to preserve us from falling into legality. He that serves God
   for wages forgets the Word--"The gift of God is eternal life." It is
   not wage, but gift, by which you are to live. If you forget that you
   are under a Covenant of pure Grace, in which God gives to the unworthy
   and saves those who have no claim to any Covenant blessing, you will
   get on legal ground. And, once on legal ground, God cannot accept your
   sacrifice. With all your offerings you shall offer the salt of the
   Covenant of Grace, lest you are guilty of legality in your offering.

   The Covenant is to be remembered, also, that it may excite gratitude.
   Whenever I think of God entering into Covenant that He will not depart
   from me and that I shall never depart from Him, my love to Him
   overflows. Nothing constrains me to such activity and such zeal, in the
   cause of God, as a sense of Covenant love. Oh, the gratitude one feels
   for everything which comes to us by the Covenant of Grace! Remember the
   old Scottish wife who thanked God for the porridge and then thanked Him
   that she had a Covenant right to the porridge, since He had said,
   "Verily, you shall be fed"? Oh, it makes life very sweet to take
   everything from the hands of a Covenant God and to see in every mercy a
   new pledge of Covenant faithfulness! It makes life happy and it also
   inspires a Believer to do great things for his gracious God. Standing
   on Covenant ground we feel consecrated to the noblest ends!

   This tends to awaken our devotion to God. When we remember that God has
   entered into Covenant with us, then we do not do our work for Him in a
   cold, chilly, dead way--neither do we perform it after a nominal,
   formal sort--for we say, "I am one of God's covenanted ones." He has
   made an everlasting Covenant with me, ordered in all things and sure;
   therefore my very soul goes after Him and this which I am about to do,
   though it is only to sing a hymn, or to bow my knees in prayer, shall
   be done intensely, as by one who is in covenant with God, who is,
   therefore, bound to serve with all his heart and with all his soul, and
   with all his strength. Covenanted service should be the best of
   service. The covenanting saints of old stopped not at death, itself,
   for Him to whom they were bound!

   My time will not allow me to enlarge, but I pray the people of God will
   always keep the Covenant in view. That Covenant will claim the last
   accent of our tongues on earth. It shall employ the first notes of our
   celestial songs. Where

   are you if you are out of Covenant with God? You are under the curse of
   the Old Covenant if you are not under the blessing of the New! But if
   the Lord Jesus Christ has stood Surety on your behalf and made the
   Covenant sure to you, you will serve God with alacrity and delight--and
   He will accept your service as a sweet savor offering in Christ Jesus.
   That is the first meaning of the text.

   II. But, secondly, salt is THE TOKEN OF COMMUNION. In the East,
   especially, it is the token of fellowship. When an Oriental has once
   eaten a man's salt, he will do him no harm.

   Whenever you are attempting to serve God, take care that you do it in
   the spirit of fellowship with God. Take care that you suffer not this
   salt to be lacking from your meat-offering. Offer it in fellowship with
   God.

   And this is a very important point, though I cannot dwell upon it at
   any length. Beloved, we never serve God rightly, joyfully, happily, if
   we get out of fellowship with Him. "His servants shall serve Him and
   they shall see His face." There is no serving God acceptably unless you
   see His face. Once you feel your love to God dying out and the Presence
   of God withdrawn from you, you can live by faith, but you cannot work
   with comfort. You must feel a sweet friendship with God or else you
   will not so heartily give yourself to God's service as the saints of
   God ought to do. I want you to live always in the sense of God's
   nearness to you. Live always in the delightful conviction that God
   loves you. Never be satisfied to have a doubt about your being one with
   Christ, or that you are dear to the heart of God. You cannot sing, you
   cannot pray, you cannot teach a Sunday school class--you cannot preach
   in a fit and proper style if you lose this salt of communion! You may
   limp, but you cannot run in the ways of God if your fellowship is
   broken. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Have plenty of this
   salt of fellowship to heap upon every oblation.

   Then, feel fellowship with God as to all His purposes. Does God wish to
   save souls? So do I. Did Christ die to save souls? So would I live to
   save them. Can you say that? Does the Holy Spirit strive against sin?
   So would I strive against sin. Feel all this. Endeavor to run on
   parallel lines with God as far as the creature can keep pace with the
   Creator. And when you do--when all your aims and designs are the aims
   and designs of God--then, Brother, you will plow and you will sow--and
   you will reap with joy and gladness of heart! There must be this
   fellowship with God in His designs. This is the essential salt of
   sacrifice.

   I would have you especially have fellowship with God in Christ Jesus.
   Does God love Jesus? So do we. Does God desire the Glory of His Son? So
   do we. Does God determine that His Son shall put down all power,
   authority, rule and be King? We, too, wish Him to reign over us and
   over all mankind. "Your Kingdom come" is our prayer, even as it is
   God's will that the kingdoms of this world should become the Kingdoms
   of our Lord and of His Christ.

   Now, if you can always work in fellowship with God, what a grand thing
   it will be! For lack of this, many workers know not their position and
   never realize their strength. We are laborers together with God. If we
   are in our right state, we take a brick to lay it on the wall and a
   Divine hand has lifted that brick. We use the trowel and it is the
   great Master Builder that grasps the tool. We wield the sword and the
   Captain of the Lord's host is strengthening our arm and guiding our
   hand that we may do valiantly in the day of battle. What an honor to
   have the Lord working with us and by us!

   But oh, Beloved, do not get out of fellowship with God! If you have
   done so, before you do another stroke of work for Him go and get into
   fellowship with Him. If I were captain of the host and I saw that you
   were out of fellowship and yet you were marching to the battle, I would
   say, "Brother, go back." When we bring our sacrifice, we are to leave
   it till we are reconciled to our brother--and much more must we leave
   it till we have a sense of being reconciled to God. I cannot go on
   serving God if I do not know that I am His child. I cannot go on
   preaching to you if I have any doubt of my own salvation. At any rate,
   it would be very wretched work to preach of freedom while myself in
   chains! He preaches best who is at liberty and can, in his own person,
   tell the captives how Christ makes men free. When you know that you are
   in union with God--and when your heart feels a blessed friendship to
   Him--then it is, dear Friends, that your oblation will come up
   acceptably before Him and you can do your work as it ought to be done
   before Him.

   III. But I must get your minds to another point. Salt is the EMBLEM OF
   SINCERITY. "With all your offerings you shall offer salt." There must
   be an intense sincerity about all we do towards God.

   I bade you note that you were not allowed to present honey before the
   Lord. I really wish that some of our Brethren who are over-done with
   honey, would notice that. There is a kind of molasses godliness which I
   can never stomach. It is always, "Dear this," and, "Dear that," and,
   "Dear the other," and, "This dear man," and, "That dear woman." There
   is also a kind of honey-drop talk in which a person never speaks the
   plain truth. He speaks as familiarly as if he knew all

   about you and would lay down his life for you, though he has never set
   eyes on you before and would not give you a halfpenny to save your
   life! These people avoid rebuking sin, for that is "unkind." They avoid
   denouncing error. They say, "This dear Brother's views differ slightly
   from mine." A man says that black is white and I say that it is not so.
   But it is not kind to say, "It is not so." You should say, "Perhaps you
   are right, dear Brother, though I hardly think so." In this style some
   men think that our sacrifice is to be offered! If they hear a sermon
   that cuts at the roots of sin and deals honestly with error, they say,
   "That man is very narrow-minded."

   Well, I have been so accustomed to be called a bigot that I, by no
   means, deny the charge! I feel no horror because of the accusation. To
   tell a man that if he goes on in his sin, he will be lost forever and
   to preach to him the Hell which God denounces against the impenitent is
   no unkindness! It is the truest kindness to deal honestly with men. If
   the surgeon knows very well that a person has a disease about him that
   requires the knife and he only says, "It is a mere trifle: I dare say
   that with a little medicine and a pill or two we may cure you," a
   simpleton may say, "What a dear kind man!" But a wise man judges
   otherwise. He is not kind, for he is a liar! If, instead of that, he
   says "My dear Friend, I am very sorry, but I must tell you that this
   mischief must be taken out by the roots and, painful as the operation
   is, I beg you to summon courage to undergo it, for it must be done if
   your life is to be saved."

   That is a very unpleasant kind of person and a very narrow-minded and
   bigoted person--but he is the man for us! He uses salt and God accepts
   him--the other man uses honey and God will have nothing to do with him.
   When honey comes to the fire, it turns sour. All this pretended
   sweetness, when it comes to the test, turns sour--there is no real love
   in it. But the salt, which is sharp and when it gets into the wound
   makes it tingle, nevertheless does sound service.

   Whenever you come before God with your sacrifices, do not come with the
   pretence of a love you do not feel, nor with the beautiful nonsense of
   hypocrites, but come before the Lord in real, sober, earnest truth. If
   you are wrong and feel it, say so, and out with it! And if God has made
   you right through His Spirit, do not deny it, lest you deny the work of
   the Holy Spirit and so dishonor Him.

   What is meant is that in all our sacrifices we ought to bring our
   hearts with us. If we sing, let us sing heartily as unto the Lord--not
   with our voices only, but with our very souls! If we preach, let us
   preach with all our might--we have such precious Truth to handle that
   it ought not to be dealt with in a trifling manner. If we try to win a
   soul, let us throw our whole strength into the work. Though we would
   not scheme, like the Pharisees, to make a proselyte to our sect, yet
   let us compass sea and land to bring a man to Christ, for such we
   should do.

   And when we bring our heart and throw it intensely into the service of
   God, which is one form of the salt, let us take care that all we do is
   spiritually performed--not done with the external hand, or lips, or
   eyes, but done with the soul, with the innermost heart of our being!
   Otherwise it will be mere flesh and, without salt, it will be viewed as
   corrupt and rejected at God's altar.

   When you attempt to pray and rise from your knees feeling that you have
   not prayed, then do not leave the Mercy Seat, but pray till you pray!
   When you are singing a hymn and do not feel quite in tune for singing,
   sing yourself into tune! Do not leave an ordinance till you have tasted
   the salt of that ordinance. I admire that resolution of John Bradford
   the martyr. He said that he made a rule that he never ceased from a
   holy engagement till he had entered into the spirit of it. Too often we
   treat these things lightly. There is no soul in them and yet we are
   satisfied with them. We eat our unsavory devotions without salt--and
   the Lord rejects them. We have had a few minutes in prayer in the
   morning and, perhaps, just a few weary minutes at midnight. We have run
   through a chapter, or perhaps we have taught a class on the Sabbath
   afternoon and taught it perfunctorily without any life and yet we have
   been content. Or we have preached, but it has been a mere saying of
   words--there has been no life or vigor in it.

   Oh, do not so! Bring not to God your unsalted sacrifices, but let the
   salt of sincerity savor all. It is better to say, "I did not pray,"
   than it is to say, "I did pray," and yet only to have gone through a
   form. It is better to have to confess, "I did not sing," than to follow
   the tune when your heart is not in it. You had better leave off the
   external form than keep it up if your soul is not in it--lest you be
   found to mock the Most High God! Pile on the salt! Let it season the
   whole of your sacrifice through and through! Be sincere before the
   heart-searching God.

   IV. Lastly, salt is THE TYPE OF PURIFYING POWER and with all our
   sacrifices we have need to bring a great deal of this salt. The salt
   eats into the meat. It drives away corruption. It preserves it. We
   require a deal of this. Brothers and Sisters, if we come before God
   with holy things while we are living in sin, we need not deceive
   ourselves--we shall

   not be accepted! If there is any man of whom it can be said that he is
   a saint abroad and a devil at home, God will estimate him at what he is
   at home--and not at what he is abroad. He may lay the sacrifice upon
   the altar, but if it is brought there with foul hands and an unholy
   heart, God will have nothing to do with it! "Without holiness no man
   shall see the Lord" and, certainly, without holiness can no man serve
   the Lord. We have our imperfections, but known and willful sin, God's
   people will not indulge. From this God keeps them. As soon as they know
   a thing to be sin and their attention is called to it, that which they
   have committed in inadvertence causes them grief and sorrow of heart
   and they flee from it with all their souls.

   But do not be deceived! You may be a great man in the Church of God and
   hold office there--and even be a leader-- but if you lead an unholy
   life, neither you nor your sacrifice can ever be accepted by the Most
   High. God abhors that His priests should serve Him with unwashed hands
   and feet. "Be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." I
   constantly preach to you free, rich and Sovereign Grace without the
   slightest condition--and I preach the same at this time. But remember
   that the Grace of God brings sanctification with it and that the gift
   of God is deliverance from sin--and if we abide in sin and remain in
   it, we cannot be the children of God! We must, dear Friends, bring with
   all our oblations that salt in ourselves which shall purify our hearts
   from inward corruption and which shall have a power about it to purify
   others. Know you not that the saints are the salt of the earth? And if
   we are salt to others, we must have salt in ourselves. How can we
   conquer sin in others if sin is unconquered in ourselves? How can we
   give a light we have never seen? How can we have seed as sowers if we
   have never had bread as eaters?

   You know what the woman said concerning the well--"Father Jacob," she
   said, "gave us the well and drank thereof himself." You cannot give
   other people wells if you do not drink from this yourself! You cannot
   benefit a man by Grace if you are not first benefited by Grace
   yourself. Can anything come out of a man that is not in him? There must
   be a holy, sanctifying power about the child of God, making him to be
   as salt, or else he cannot act upon the putrid masses round him as the
   salt ought to do.

   With all your oblations, then, bring this salt. God give it to us! Let
   us cry to Him for it! I bless God for this Church that God has made you
   a power in the neighborhood--that God is making you a power all over
   this country! Those hundreds of ministers who came up this week, whom
   we have educated here and whom all of you have helped to edu-cate--are
   not these a purifying salt? Our Brothers and Sisters by thousands are
   scattered all over the world. Not a week passes without some of our
   number going far away and I always say, "Yes, go, dear Brethren. Salt
   should not remain in the box. It ought to be scattered all over the
   meat. Wherever you go, mind that you are salt, so that people do not
   say, 'Is this one of the Tabernacle people? He is a poor, lukewarm
   creature."' Do not have it so, but do, now that God blesses you so
   largely, take care that the salt is in you all.

   "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth" and
   I have no greater sorrow than this--that there are some among you who
   are no credit to your profession. There are some among you who do not
   live, even, as well as the world expects you to live. I mean not only
   poor ones, but rich ones among us are a dishonor to us. There are a few
   of all degrees among us who are not spiritually-minded but are worldly
   and carnal. They come to this place and sit among us with their faces
   turned towards Heaven while they, themselves, are going the way of the
   ungodly. They know what I mean while I speak it! God grant that they
   may bear the rebuke--and repent and turn to the Lord! They are looking
   one way and rowing another--trying to be the people of God, if they
   can, and yet, at the same time, acting as common sinners act!

   The Lord bless you, Beloved, by making you all holy! And if you will
   not be holy, may He take that great fan into His hand and blow the
   chaff away! If it cannot be that this shall be a pure heap lying upon
   His floor to His honor and Glory, then may He still continue that great
   purgation which is always going on in every Church where He is really
   present! Brothers and Sisters, we must be holy! We must be holy, or
   else cease to be what we are. God bring us to this--that with every
   oblation we may offer huge handfuls of salt! May we always be accepted
   in Christ, accepted with our sweet savor--holy, acceptable to God
   because His Spirit has made us holy and keeps us right before Him. The
   Lord bless you always! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ephesians 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--386, 623, 435.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON

   DEAR FRIENDS--The severe weather in England has induced the officers of
   the Church at the Tabernacle to persuade me to remain in this sheltered
   spot for another week. I was reluctant to do this, but, at length,
   feeling myself very weak, I judged it to be the best economy to take
   the further rest. The little meditation at the Lord's table, which is
   here given, will be followed by a similar one next week. And after that
   I hope to deliver the Word from my own pulpit. Again I beg my Readers'
   prayers that I may return strong for service, anointed for high
   enterprise. With kindest regards to the thousands of my Brothers and
   Sisters.

   Yours to serve.

   Mentone, January 16, 1887.
     __________________________________________________________________

Love Joying In Love

   A SHORT ADDRESS TO A FEW FRIENDS AT MENTONE,

   AT THE BREAKING OF BREAD,

   ON LORD'S-DAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 9, 1887, BY C. H. SPURGEON.

   "I am come into My garden, My Sister, My Spouse: I have gathered My
   myrrh with My spice; Ihave eaten Myhoneycomb with Myhoney; Ihave drunk
   My wine with My milk: eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O
   Beloved." Song of Solomon 5:1.

   No sooner does the spouse say, "Let my Beloved come into His garden,"
   than her Lord answers, "I am come into My garden." "Before they call, I
   will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." When we
   desire our Lord Jesus to come to us, He has already come, in a
   measure--our desire is the result of His coming! He meets us in all our
   desires, for He waits to be gracious. Our, "Come," is no sooner uttered
   than it is lost in His, "Behold, I come quickly!"

   When we perceive that the Bridegroom has come, we perceive, also, that
   He has done exactly what He was asked to do. How cheering to find that
   our mind is in harmony with His mind! Our heart says, "Let my Beloved
   come into His garden and eat His pleasant fruits." His heart replies,
   "I have gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have eaten My honeycomb with
   My honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk." "Delight yourself also in
   the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart." The Lord
   Jesus makes the desires of His saints to be the foreshadowing of His
   own actions--"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." His
   secret counsel is made known in the believing soul by desires inspired
   by the Holy Spirit.

   Note well that the Bridegroom kindly takes to Himself as His own all
   that is in the garden. His spouse spoke of, "His pleasant fruits," and
   He acknowledges the least and most homely of them to be His own. He
   repeats the possessive particle--"My." "My myrrh, My spice, My
   honeycomb, My honey, My wine, My milk." He disdains nothing which the
   garden of His bride produces. He is fond of the notion of
   joint-heirship, even as in another place He said, "My Father, and your
   Father, My God, and your God." Let us also value the personal
   possessive pronouns--the sweetness of the promises lies in them. These
   are our arms with which we embrace the promises.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, is it not charming to see
   our Lord appropriating us--all that we are, all that we have, all that
   grows within us--and all the varied forms of His Grace which are the
   outcome of His own work within our hearts? Within us, certain things
   are bitter, but wholesome--and He says, "My myrrh." Some things are
   sweet, though homely--and He says, "My honey." Some things are of a
   rarer sort and He says, "My spice"--while others are commonplace
   enough--and He says, "My milk." Our Lord takes no exception to any one
   of the true growths of the garden, whether it is myrrh or milk. And He
   asks for nothing more than the garden may be expected to yield. He is
   content without the butter of cows, or flesh of fed beasts--satisfying
   Himself with honey fresh from the hive.

   I note, with much delight, that matters which seem inconsistent with
   perfection are not refused by the heavenly Bridegroom. As the Lord did
   not refuse for an offering the leavened cakes of the first fruits, so
   in this instance He says, "I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey."
   The honey would be purer without the comb, but as it is incident
   thereto, He takes the one with the other. He graciously accepts not
   only our heart's desire, but the very mode in which our weakness works
   towards that desire! It is as if He delighted in the words of our
   prayers as well as in the essence of our prayers and prized the notes
   of our songs as well as the meaning of them. Yes, I believe our Lord
   puts our tears as well as our sorrows into His bottle and hears our
   groans as well as our desires! The honeycomb which contains the honey
   is precious to Him! After He had risen from the grave, He ate a piece
   of a honeycomb and I doubt not that He had a reason for choosing that

   food--sweet gathered from sweets, yet not without wax. Our Lord accepts
   our services without nicely noting and critically rejecting the
   infirmity which goes with them.

   I note, also, that He, Himself, gathers what He enjoys--"I have
   gathered My myrrh with My spice." Many a holy thing which we have not
   in detail offered to Him in set form, He knows to have been given in
   the gross and so He takes with His own hands what He knows we have, by
   a comprehensive covenant, made over to Him. How sweetly does He fill up
   our blanks and believe in our consecration, even when we do not repeat
   the form of it!

   Moreover, He makes mixtures out of our fruits, for He gathers myrrh
   with balsam and drinks wine with milk, thus taking the rarer with the
   more common. He knows how to make holy compounds out of the Graces of
   His people, thus increasing their excellence. He is the best judge of
   what is admirable and He is the best fashioner and mixer of
   character--He is using His skill upon us. Often by our mingled
   experiences He accomplishes an increase of virtue in us. Some Graces
   are the result of work and wisdom, as wine which must be trod from the
   grapes. Others are natural, like milk which flows from living fountains
   without art of man. But the Lord accepts them both and so combines them
   that they are pleasant to Him to a high degree. Simple faith and
   experimental prudence make up a sacred milk and wine--and the like may
   be seen in rapturous love and calm patience which blend most
   deliciously! The Lord loves us and makes the most of us. He is pleased
   with all that is the true produce of His Grace and finds no faults with
   it--on the contrary, He says, "I have eaten My honeycomb with My
   honey."

   Having made these observations upon the Lord's fulfilling the prayer of
   the spouse, I should like to deliver the following remarks upon the
   text--

   It is evident that the Lord Jesus is made happy by us. These poetical
   sentences must mean that He values the Graces and works of His people.
   He gathers their myrrh and spice because He values them! He eats and
   drinks the honey and the milk because they are pleasant to Him. It is a
   wonderful thought that the Lord Jesus Christ has joy in us! We cost Him
   anguish, even unto death, and now He finds a reward in us. This may
   seem a small thing to an unloving mind, but it may well ravish the
   heart which adores the Well-Beloved! Can it be true that we afford joy
   to the Son of God, the Prince Emmanuel? The King has been held in the
   galleries! He has been charmed by us! Our first repentance made Him
   call together His friends and His neighbors. The first gleam of faith
   He ever saw in us made His heart rejoice and all that He has seen in us
   ever since of His own image, worked by His Grace, has caused Him to see
   of the travail of His soul! Never has a farmer taken such pleasure in
   the growth of his choice plants as our Lord has taken in us! "The Lord
   takes pleasure in them that fear Him; in those that hope in His mercy."
   That is a thought to be rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel! Yes,
   the Lord's Church is His Hephzibah, for, He says, "My delight is in
   her."

   The second thought is that the Lord Jesus will not and cannot be happy
   by Himself--He will have us share with Him. Note how the words run--"I
   have eaten." "Eat, O friends!" "I have drunk." "Drink, yes, drink
   abundantly, O Beloved." His union with His people is so close that His
   joy is in them, that their joy may be full. He cannot be alone in His
   joy! That verse of our quaint hymn is always true--

   "And this I do find, we two are so joined, He'll not be in Glory and
   leave me behind." He will not be happy anywhere without us. He will not
   eat without our eating and He will not drink without our drinking. Does
   He not say this in other words in the Revelation--"If any man hears My
   voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him,
   and He with me"? The inter-communion is complete--the enjoyment is for
   both. To make our Lord Jesus happy, we must also be happy. How can the
   Bridegroom rejoice if His bride is sad? How can the Head be content if
   the members pine? At this table of fellowship, His chief concern is
   that we eat and drink. "Take, eat," He says. And again, "Drink you, all
   of it." I think I hear Him now say--"I have eaten and I have drunk. And
   although I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day
   that I drink it new in the Kingdom of God; yet eat you, O friends:
   drink, yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved!" Thus we have seen, first,
   that Christ is made happy by us and, secondly, that He insists upon our
   sharing His joy with Him.

   If we have already enjoyed happy fellowship with Him, the Lord Jesus
   calls upon us to be still more happy. Though we may say that we have
   eaten, He will again say, "Eat, O friends!" He presses you to renew,
   repeat and increase your participation with Him. It is true we have
   drunk out of the chalice of His love, but He again invites us, saying,
   "Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved!" Of other wines it would be
   bad to say, "Drink abundantly," but of this wine the Lord

   says, with an emphasis, "Drink abundantly, O Beloved!" Oh, for Grace to
   renew all former enjoyments with greater zest and deeper intensity! It
   has been sweet even to taste and sip--what must it be to eat and drink
   abundantly?

   Must it not mean that though we know the Lord Jesus, we should try to
   know more of Him, yes, to know all that can be known of that love which
   passes knowledge? Should we not labor to realize more of HIM, taking in
   the whole Truth of God concerning His Person and love by meditation,
   contemplation, understanding and reverent simplicity? Let nothing lie
   by--let us eat and drink all the stores of the banquet of love!

   As the mouth with which we eat is faith, does not the Savior seem to
   cry, "Believe on Me. Trust Me. Confide in Me abundantly"? Eat and drink
   with large appetite, by receiving into your heart's belief all that can
   be received. Oh, for Grace to appropriate a whole Christ and all the
   love, the Grace, the Glory that is laid up in Him!

   Does it not also mean have greater enjoyment of Divine things? Partake
   of them without stint. Do not restrict yourself as though you could go
   too far in feeding upon the Lord Jesus! Do not be afraid of being too
   happy in the Lord, or of being too sure of His salvation, or of having
   too much assurance, or too much devout emotion! Dread not the
   excitements which come from fellowship with Christ! Do not believe that
   the love of Jesus can be too powerfully felt in the soul. Permit the
   full sweep and current of holy joy in the Lord to carry you away--it
   will be safe to yield to it. "Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I
   say, Rejoice."

   Beloved, let us now take our fill of Christ. Since we believe, let us
   believe more unreservedly! If we enjoy, let us enjoy more thoroughly!
   If we have life, let us have it more abundantly. In this case we may
   eat and our soul shall live! We may drink and not only forget our
   misery, but drink again and enter into bliss! Our Lord beckons us from
   the shore to the sea. He calls us from the lower seat to come up
   higher. He would have us more glad, stronger, fuller, holier! He
   presses the provisions of His love upon us, like a host whose joy lies
   in seeing all his guests feasting. Do not hold back! Be not satisfied
   with little believing, scant enjoying and cool feeling--but let us
   enter fully into the joy of our Lord!

   True, we are unworthy, but He invites us! We shall be wise to yield to
   His loving pressure. We may not have such another feast, just yet, and
   possibly we may have to go for 40 days into the wilderness on the
   strength of this meal. Therefore let us keep the feast heartily! Our
   Lord, in His invitation, challenges our friendship and our love. He
   says--"Eat, O friends!" Prove yourselves friends by being free at His
   table. "Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O Beloved!" If this is His way of
   testing us, let us not be slow in accepting it. Let us show our love by
   joying in Him as He joys in us! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Might Have Been, or May Be

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 30, 1887.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And some of them said, Couldnot thisMan, which opened the eyes ofthe
   blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?" John
   11:37.

   "JESUS WEPT." It does not mean that He shed a tear or two, but that His
   tears flowed freely. Such is to be gathered from the original word. He
   wept copiously and continuously till He became the observed of all
   observers. He was deeply affected and His tears were the fit expression
   of His intense emotion. Love made Him weep--nothing else ever compelled
   Him to tears. I do not find that all the pains He endured, even when
   scourged or when fastened to the cruel Cross, fetched a single tear
   from Him--but for love's sake--"Jesus wept." At first I feel inclined
   to say, "Behold, how He wept!" And then I check myself and, borrowing
   my language from the bystanders, I cry, "Behold, how He loved him!" The
   Jews recognized, even with their unfriendly eyes, that His tears were
   drawn from Him by love alone! From this Rock of our salvation no rod
   but that of love could bring forth floods of tears!

   So when we have noticed the tears and the power of love which brought
   forth the tears, let us observe how, being such as we are, tears are
   towards us a fit expression of His love. When you look upon your
   children with love, your eyes flash joy. When they are in health and
   strength, your love expresses itself fitly in delight in them. But love
   in Christ towards us most fitly shows itself in tears. When He thinks
   of what we are and how we have become subject to death--and how sin has
   brought us under this bondage--since He loves us, He must weep. No, He
   must die, for even His tears cannot suffice to manifest His love! Jesus
   must pour out His soul, not only unto tears, but unto death, that all
   may see how deeply He loves us!

   I should like to begin my sermon with that thought deeply fixed upon
   our spirits, if we are, indeed, the people of God--that Jesus loves
   us--loves us unto tears! Inasmuch as He loved Lazarus when Lazarus was
   dead and in the tomb, let us herein behold how He loved us when we were
   dead in trespasses and sins. See how He loves us though, perhaps, our
   spirits may be dull and dead--and how He will love us even when we come
   to die. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."
   He loves us so that He will love us when we die, even as He loved
   Lazarus at the grave's mouth.

   Let us turn away from our preface, which we have found in the context,
   to look at the text itself. While there were some who thought only of
   the love of Christ when they beheld His tears, there were others
   standing by more full of reasoning, who argued, "Could not this Man,
   which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man
   should not have died?"

   Placing my text in various lights, I see, first, a vain argument.
   Secondly a vile argument. Thirdly, a fair argument and, fourthly, if
   read in connection with the verses which succeed it, a full and
   faithful argument.

   I. But, first, I see in the text A VAIN ARGUMENT. It is an argument
   about what might have been if such-and-such a thing had been. It is a
   very common thing to hear people thus talk--"If so-and-so, then so
   and-so." Such talk is always vain, because it leads to no practical
   result. What was the use of saying, "If Jesus had been here, then
   Lazarus would not have died," when Lazarus was already dead? The thing
   is done and cannot be undone--what is the use of asking about what once
   might have been but now cannot be? Yet have I seen strange sorrows
   wrung out of these suppositions! Perhaps the most bitter griefs that
   men know come not from facts, but from things which might have been, as
   they imagine. That is to say, they dig wells of supposition and drink
   the brackish waters of regret!

   The sisters of Lazarus did this. Each said, "Lord, if You had been
   here, my brother had not died." In a more unbelieving way the Jews did
   it and said, "Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of the blind,
   have caused that even this

   man should not have died?" Yes and so you say, "Now, if I had gone to
   so-and-so, this would not have happened. And then the other might have
   happened and a third thing probably would have occurred. And then how
   different it would have been from what it is now!" You blame yourself
   for steps which were not only innocent, but wise and right--and now
   that you see the consequences of them, you begin to imagine that they
   were not innocent, not wise and not right! And you fret to think that
   you took such steps.

   I have known some go a great deal further than vainly accusing
   themselves--they have even accused God. They say, "Why was moral evil
   admitted into the world? Why were men and women constituted as they
   are? Could not God, who is Omnipotent, have so arranged things that
   there should have been no sin and no sorrow?" What a fine mess we get
   into when once we begin arguing over those points and conjecturing what
   might have been under other circumstances! You see, dear Friends, these
   things will not be and cannot be and, therefore, what is the good of
   our worrying over what is not and cannot be? I will plow, but if there
   is no field, excuse me, I shall not plow the sea, or the mist! I will
   get to work on anything that is practical, but I will not break my
   heart over fancies!

   If it is to be done and it is right to do it, let us go at it at once.
   But if it cannot now be done, but is only a thing that might have been,
   let us leave it. You may go to the "might have beens," I have better
   work to do. This was David's method about his child, as it should be
   yours about all your sick ones and those that have already departed.
   David fasts, prays and cries to God as long as his child is alive, but
   when his child is dead, he washes his face and eats bread because, he
   says, "Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not
   return to me." It is done and cannot be un-done--what is the use of
   fretting over it now? Oh, that you would have Grace to leave this
   foolish chopping of logic with yourself and Providence--and use your
   reason for something better! Lazarus is dead--what is the use of saying
   that he might not have died if Jesus had interposed?

   I call this a vain argument, in the next place, because even though we
   raise the question about what might have been and we push it until we
   begin to think that it ought to have been, still, unbelief will never
   get an explanation of it from the Lord. In the chapter there is no
   explanation given to the Jews of why Jesus, being able to open the eyes
   of the blind man and able to keep this person from dying, yet did not
   keep him from dying. An explanation was given by the Lord to His
   disciples by His assurance that it was for the glory of God. That
   explanation you will get. You have received it already. If you are
   God's child and He has denied you what you think He might as well have
   given you. If He has permitted you to suffer under a calamity which you
   think He might have averted, He will give you no other explanation than
   this which He gives you now without any pressure at all, namely, that
   it is for His Glory!

   If it is for His Glory, is it not for your advantage? What can more
   advantage a servant than the glory of his master? What can more profit
   our loving hearts than to see God glorified? If you are not satisfied
   with that answer, do not expect any other. "Why have I been bereaved of
   my children?" "Why have I been ill so many years?" "Why did I fail when
   I hoped to reach wealth?" "Why did I break down in the examination when
   I might have obtained a degree?" It is an idle piece of business to
   demand the reasons of unavoidable trials! It is mere dreaming to guess
   what would have been if such another thing had been. "What you know not
   now, you shall know hereafter." Let that content you.

   Once again, I call this a vain argument because it cannot benefit you
   to pry into this thing which the Lord has hidden from you. You are
   fostering self-conceit in calling God's Providence to your bar. You are
   practically sitting upon a throne and making God to be the prisoner at
   your bar! You are weighing over again what He has already weighed in
   the scale of wisdom. This will never do! A child-like spirit is
   infinitely healthier as it is infinitely holier than the spirit of
   questioning. Brothers and Sisters, we should not even thirst to know
   all the things that are, for if it is the Glory of God to conceal a
   thing, let it be concealed--and as for the things that might have
   been--what have we to do with them?

   If we begin lifting up these curtains, we cannot tell what we may one
   day see. I have known persons intrude into this sphere until at last
   they have stumbled on a horror which they were never intended to see
   and which, indeed, they never would have seen if their own unhallowed
   imaginations had not created it for themselves! They were ambitious to
   alter Providence and change the times and seasons which God had
   ordained--and at last they fell into such a morbid condition that if
   they were not positively mad, they might have been happier if they had
   been--for there is a state of mind, bordering on insanity, which has
   still a guilt about it and is, therefore, worse than if responsibility
   had been destroyed.

   I shall beg you, therefore, Brethren, to forbear from prying into those
   secret things which belong only to God. Your profit lies in the
   direction of abstaining from such speculations. Do not talk about what
   might have been, or should have

   been, interfering with the good which God has given you by pining after
   what He has denied. Oh, could you know as He knows and then love as He
   loves, you would act as He acts! Believe in Him and sit still at His
   feet! Talk no more about what He could have done, or might have done,
   or what you fancy He should have done, lest evil come of it.

   II. Secondly, as I have spoken upon a vain argument, I will now speak
   of A VILE ARGUMENT, for I believe these Jews intended a piece of evil
   argument against the Christ of God. They put it thus--"This Man says
   that He opened the eyes of the blind and all the people think that He
   did, but if He did so, why did He not prevent His friend, whom He
   evidently loved, from dying? Either He has a lack of power which will
   prove that He did not open the eyes of the blind, after all, but that
   it was an imposture, or else, if He has such power and does not use it
   for His friend, He does not love Him and these tears are a mere
   pretence! He could have saved this man's life and now He stands here
   and weeps because he is

   dead."

   Thus the adversary would put the believer in our Lord upon the horns of
   a dilemma. We are not gored by either horn, for we know a way of
   escape. Still, you see the drift, and this is often the drift of
   Satan's arguments. Your brother, your mother, your child, your
   friend--these are dead. You sent to Jesus. You cried to God. You
   importuned for the precious life and yet they are dead. Well, then,
   there must have been a lack of power on the part of God to save life!
   Perhaps that conversion of yours, in which you have rejoiced and of
   which you have said, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now
   I see"--perhaps, after all, that was not a work of Divine power, but a
   delusion! For He that saved your soul could have saved the life of your
   beloved and, as He did not do so, has He any power at all? And have you
   ever been the subject of that power?

   You see the drift of the specious reasoning--is it not a vile argument?
   Let us unveil the falsehood of it. Suppose that Jesus is willing to
   open the eyes of the blind and does open them--is He, therefore, bound
   to raise this particular dead man? If He does not see fit to do so,
   does that prove that He has not the power? If He lets Lazarus die, is
   it proven, therefore, that He could not have saved His life? May there
   not be some other reason? Does Omnipotence always exert its power? Does
   it ever exert all its power? May there not be some great reason why
   Christ should open the eyes of the blind and yet should not step in to
   prevent the death of Lazarus? We can see that there may be many such
   reasons, but it is easy, when you wish to argue against Christ and the
   Gospel, to forget a good deal! You can shut your eyes where it is
   inconvenient to see and then you can rush on blindly like a mad bull!

   On the other hand, if they say, "If Christ can prevent Lazarus dying
   and He does not do so, there is a lack of love in Him!" Is it so? Is
   that a fair argument? It is not true, as a matter of fact--nor will it
   be thought to be true by our faith. It may be Infinite Love that
   wounds, that chastens, that afflicts. There is as much love in the
   Father when He wields the rod as when He gives the kiss--as much love
   in the Savior when He permits Lazarus to die as when He raises Lazarus
   from the grave! Yes, and it is possible that the less pleasing deed may
   be the more greatly charged with love! The greatest blessings come to
   us in the guise of sorrows. I should not wonder if the death of Lazarus
   was the passing of Lazarus into a higher state of spiritual life than
   he had ever enjoyed. I doubt not that he was a converted man before his
   death, but, certainly, that wonderful passing into the region of
   death-shade, (which I will not picture because the Bible does not
   picture it), and that coming back, again, must have given him such a
   vivid consciousness of the power of Christ that the spiritual life that
   was within him must have become more strong, more clear, more supreme
   than ever it had been before!

   I should have liked to meet that man after he had been raised from the
   dead by Him who said, "I am the resurrection and the life." I think he
   could have preached from that text very wonderfully! He would have
   understood it by an experience unknown to us. I should think that
   Lazarus rose into the higher life in the very highest degree--and so it
   was Christ's love to Lazarus that let Lazarus die! And it was
   altogether a lie that he died because Jesus had a lack of love towards
   him. It is Christ's love that has let some of you be ill and poor. It
   is Christ's love that has suffered you to be despised and down-trodden.
   It is Christ's love that has let you remain in affliction, because the
   Divine benefit that has come of it is more to your profit than the
   thing itself could ever be to your loss! So the vile argument may well
   be driven away, whatever shape it takes in our minds.

   There is no justification for our distrust as to what God has done for
   us in the way of Divine Grace--it has been real and no dream. And there
   is no justification for any doubt as to what God can do for us and will
   do for us in the future. He that has helped us so far will help us to
   the end. He that has done so much for us will withhold no good thing
   from us, but bestow all that is necessary for this life and
   godliness--and for the life to come and Glory!

   III. We shall now proceed very briefly to notice what is A VERY FAIR
   ARGUMENT. If you take the text and press the malice out of it, it is
   true. "Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have
   caused that even this man should not have died?" Yes, it is true. Jesus
   Christ, by what He has done, has proved His power to do anything. I
   need not enlarge upon the point, but I will put it before you. There is
   not a life which He cannot preserve! You may cry to Him about your sick
   ones. You are permitted to do so. Even if they are given over by the
   physician, I counsel you to go to Jesus about them, though it is far
   better to go to Jesus before you consult the physician. We often make a
   mistake about the use of medicines by using medicine first. We should
   first go to the Lord, that we may be guided as to what medicine shall
   be used, what means shall be employed--and trust in God to bless the
   means made use of for restoration. We may make idols out of physicians
   as much as the heathen make idols out of blocks of wood.

   Medicines are right enough in their place for healing, even as bread is
   right for nourishment, but as men live not by bread, only, so are they
   not healed by medicine, only. Before we eat bread, we ask God's
   blessing on that bread--let us seek a blessing on medicines whenever we
   use them. We are not healed by the physician, but by God who works
   according to His own will and pleasure! Let us, then, believe that the
   Christ, who has done this and that for other sick folk, can do the same
   for those whom we bring to Him--and let us leave their cases in His
   hands.

   But take the text spiritually. I want you to believe that Christ can
   preserve us spiritually from death. Are we forced by our employments
   into the society of the ungodly? Does Providence call some of you
   working men to toil side by side, or even at the same bench, with
   infidels? The Lord Jesus can cause that you shall not be injured by
   them. He can give you spiritual health and strength even when you seem
   to be under the most deadly influences. He that opened your eyes, when
   you were blind, can keep you alive, now that you can see! Trust in Him
   for your final perseverance with the same unquestioning faith with
   which you trusted in Him for the pardon of your sins. I say again, He
   that opened your eyes, when you were in darkness, can cause that you
   should not die even though the deadliest influences from the world, the
   flesh and the devil should be set in operation against you. Because He
   lives, you shall also live. Fly to Him in the time of your temptation!
   Cry to Him in the hour of your need and He will help you and deliver
   you! You shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord.

   Beloved, what a mercy it is that we can look back upon Christ's having
   opened the blind man's eyes and see the same thing in ourselves! Here
   is a blind man whose eyes Christ opened. It is yourself! He was able to
   give you sight and can you not transfer the argument to others? If the
   Lord Jesus Christ could give you sight, He can give others sight. If He
   opened your blind eyes, He can open the blind eyes of your children, of
   your unconverted father, your unsaved brothers, your unsaved sisters.
   Believe about your friends and cry to God about them! Take the text at
   once and read it so--"Could not this Man, who opened my blind eyes,
   open the blind eyes of those about whom my heart is heavy?" Remember
   that the man who was blind, whose eyes Christ opened, was born blind.
   Christ can deal with original sin and constitutional sin! Some seem to
   have inherited a nature more wild than common--their heart does not
   appear to be a heart of flesh, but a heart of stone--yet Jesus, who
   dealt with this strangely blind man--blind from his birth--can deal
   with those strange sinners, those sinners of a scarlet hue who develop
   in their lives more of desperate viciousness than you see in others!
   Christ can deal with the vilest of the vile! Take them to Him, believe
   on account of them--and be fully convinced that no case is beyond the
   power of the living Savior!

   For my part, I never can or will despair of the salvation of one of my
   fellow creatures, now that I am, myself, saved. I know that there were
   certain traits in my character and certain elements in my disposition
   which made my conversion to Christ more remarkable than that of the
   conversion of anybody else--and so I shall have hope concerning the
   most blasphemous, the most obstinate, the most unbelieving! This
   glorious Man who, in the days of His flesh, opened the eyes of one born
   blind--which thing had never been known before--can come and deal with
   the very chief of sinners! Yes, with sinners that are dead in sin--with
   sinners that lie rotting in their lusts! He can make them to be saints!
   This is a fair argument. I am sure it is.

   IV. But, now, lastly, they had never thought of THE FULL AND FAITHFUL
   ARGUMENT from the text. All they said was--"This Man, who has opened
   the eyes of one born blind, could have prevented Lazarus from dying."
   That was a fair argument, but it was not a full argument. It never
   occurred to them to go further and enquire, "Now that Lazarus is dead,
   cannot this Man raise him from the dead?" The first piece of argument
   did not go far enough to yield any comfort because it only dealt with
   what might have been and what could not be!

   I fear a great deal of our religion is of that kind. But what a mercy
   it would be if God would give some Christians six-penny-worth of
   commonsense! Oh, if some people could but believe what I am sure is
   true--that true religion is sanctified commonsense--that there is about
   the religion of Jesus Christ that which is just as practical as if our
   life were to be spent in keeping shop! True, it is spiritual and
   Divine, celestial and sublime, but it is as accurate as if we were to
   be nothing but mathematicians calculating and estimating through all
   our days! There is a mathematical truthfulness about our holy faith as
   well as a lofty, eagle-winged aspiration! So then, they should have
   argued thus--"Jesus Christ, who opened this blind man's eyes, has come
   to a corpse in its grave and He is able to make it live."

   Friend, is there laid upon your mind at this time some poor sinner who
   is dead in trespasses and sins? You cannot get at him. You do not know
   how to make him feel or think. There does not seem to be a vital spark
   anywhere about him and you know not how to deal with him. Believe that
   the Gospel is meant for such a case as this and that the living God, in
   Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, can meet with this clay-cold dead
   heart! "Oh, it is worse than that," you say, "it is worse than that!
   The person I am thinking of is put out of society and is too corrupt to
   be spoken with." Yes, I know what you mean. Perhaps you speak of a
   fallen woman. We are always more eager to bury the fallen women than
   the fallen men. A man, of whom we must say with Martha, "By this time
   he stinks," may still be tolerated in society. But if it happens to be
   a woman that sins, they cry, "Bury her out of sight! Roll the stone to
   the mouth of the tomb! We never speak to her, or mention her!" If you
   have an anxiety on your soul about a person who is thus shut out from
   society, I want you to believe that Jesus can bring out the buried and
   corrupt.

   "Oh," you say, "but it is not merely that the person I think of is
   buried away, but the case is really one which may not be described. He
   has been dead four days. He has gone so far that his crime is
   unmentionable." I know the case. Yet you may mention it before the
   Lord--in His Presence no harm will come of it. I do not read in the
   Gospel narrative of anybody being distressed by the odor when the
   sepulcher of Lazarus was opened. When Jesus said, "Take away the
   stone," He knew that He had Divine disinfectants ready at hand. He knew
   what He did. When you seek after gross sinners, prudent people say,
   "Well, if you go after such people as that, your own character will be
   injured before long." The Lord will prevent any harm coming from it,
   for He can speak to the most corrupt sinner and say, "Live," and he
   shall live and then the corruption is no more!

   Therefore let us drive out of our minds the notion that any sinner is
   too far gone for Christ to save him! I used to hear in my youth about a
   "day of Grace," and about persons having passed that day of Grace. But
   I do not believe it. As long as you are in this world I am bid to
   preach to you, for the Gospel message is to be proclaimed to every
   creature and I dare not draw vain distinctions about a "day of Grace."
   If you have a disease about you that will carry you off before the
   clock strikes 12 tonight, I still bid you believe in the Christ of God
   and live! If you are so bad in your own esteem that there never lived a
   worse man or a worse woman out of Hell, yet still believe in Jesus
   Christ! My Lord loves to save great sinners, even as He delighted to
   bring from the grave the long-dead Lazarus, that he might be received
   into the bosom of his family, to be the joy of the house and the glory
   of Christ!

   I have not gone too far. I am sure that I have not. No, I could not go
   too far. The shoreless, bottomless love of my great Lord--I wish I had
   the tongues of men and angels to tell of it! You have not sinned beyond
   His power to save you! He is a great Savior, a mighty Savior! And His
   precious blood can remove all your death and corruption! When I think
   of those whom He has saved, I argue, "Could not my Lord Jesus, who
   opened the eyes of the blind, make these dead sinners

   live?"

   I will tell you something else. If you yourself, tonight, are that dead
   sinner, I say to you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, "Thus
   says the Lord, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
   saved." "I cannot," says one, "I am dead." I know that you are, but if
   the Lord speaks to you, you will live--and He does speak to you by this
   voice of mine. I speak to you in His name! You careless sinner, in the
   name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, consider your ways! You dead sinner,
   in the name of Jesus, live! His Spirit has gone with the word which I
   have spoken! The thing is done in some who have heard me and will be
   done in others who will read these words. Glory be to the Father, and
   to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Work No Failure

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 30, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He has set judgment in the
   earth: and the isles shall wait for His Law." Isaiah 42:4.

   PREVIOUS verses at the close of the 41st Chapter indicate the utter
   failure of the hope of man from man. God Himself looked and behold,
   "there was no man; even among them, and there was no counselor that,
   when I asked of them could answer a word." How often it is so in human
   history--man fails to find leadership and help in man! Great men are
   raised up, now and then, and the tendency is to make idols of them and
   so to trust in an arm of flesh. These die and then their fellows look
   out in the Church and in the world for other men upon whom they may
   dote after the same manner. But it sometimes happens that they look in
   vain--none arise whom they can elect for leaders. Just now I think it
   is so in more departments than one. Look where you may, where will you
   see the man who is equal to the crisis? Somehow or other, in the
   Providence of God, every hour has, in due time, had its man, but if our
   hopes are fixed in men, we must feel at this time sorely pressed.

   In expounding the one verse which I have selected for a text, I shall
   need to open up the whole passage. Follow me, therefore, with opened
   Bibles and obey the first word of the Chapter, which is, Behold.

   We are commanded at all times to behold the Son of God. There is never
   a season in which He is not a fit subject for contemplation and
   expectation. "Behold the Lamb of God" is the standing rule from
   generation to generation, from the first of January to the last of
   December. But specially in cloudy and dark days ought we to behold Him.
   When after having looked and looked long, you see no man and no
   counselor, then this precept has an emphatic force about it, "Behold My
   Servant, whom I uphold; My elect, in whom My soul delights." When all
   other saviors fail, look to the Savior whom God has set up! The darker
   all things become, the more eagerly look for His appearing, whose
   coming is as a morning without clouds! When the lower lights are
   burning dim, behold the lamp above!

   Our great comfort is that the Lord Jesus Christ is always to be beheld.
   He always lives and always works for His people. We must view Him not
   merely as One who appeared upon the scene years ago, but as still
   living. He died in the heat of the battle, but He rose again to secure
   the victory! We do not found our hopes of a brighter future upon a dead
   Savior--our hopes for the future of the world and for the
   accomplishment of God's gracious purposes hang upon One who always
   lives and is, at this time, in the place of vantage, carrying on His
   great work and warfare at the right hand of God. My text says, "Behold
   My Servant"--and that matchless Servant of God is to be beheld--not
   with the eyes of sense--that were little worth--for men saw Him in that
   way and crucified Him! But He is to be beheld with the eyes of faith
   and this is a noble sight, for those who look to Him in that manner are
   lightened and their faces are not ashamed. At the commencement of my
   discourse, I beseech you, dear Brothers and Sisters, to look to Jesus
   Christ the ever-living Worker. If you have been troubled and fretted by
   peering into these gloomy times and perceiving nothing that can raise
   your spirits, I pray you look about you no longer, but look up! There
   He sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, the appointed Man,
   the glorious, chosen Deliverer. Behold Him and your fears and sorrows
   will fly away!

   The text declares concerning our Lord that "He shall not fail nor be
   discouraged." This leads us to consider what is the work which Jesus
   Christ has undertaken in which He will not fail nor be discouraged. Our
   text directs us in this matter, for it tells us that He has come to
   "set judgment in the earth" and that "the isles shall wait for His
   Law." The earth is to be delivered from misrule and sin--and men are to
   be submissive to His instruction and direction. There are some who
   doubt it, but I still believe in that verse which we sang just now--

   "Jesus shallreign wherever the sun Does his successive journeys run.
   His kingdom stretches from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and
   wane no more." Our Lord has come to save His elect and He will save
   every one of them! No soul for whom He stood as Surety and Substitute
   shall ever be cast away. The sheep shall pass again under the hand of
   Him that counts them and they shall all be there. "He shall not fail
   nor be discouraged," but He shall see of the travail of His soul and
   shall be satisfied.

   As for the Lord's Second Coming, we know not when it shall be. Shall
   the world grow darker and darker till He comes? It may be so. There are
   passages of Scripture and signs of the times which may be taken to
   indicate it. On the other hand, shall the age grow brighter and
   brighter till He appears to bring the perfect day? Through the
   preaching of the Gospel shall there yet be periods in which multitudes
   shall be converted and whole nations shall be saved? I do not
   know--there are texts that seem to look that way and many a brave
   worker hopes as much. There are some who can map out unfulfilled
   prophecy with great distinctness, but I confess my inability to do so.
   They get a shilling box of mathematical instruments. They stick down
   one leg of the compasses and describe a circle here and a circle
   there--and they draw two or three lines--and there it is! Can you not
   see it, as plain as a pikestaff? I am sick of diagrams! I have seen
   enough of them to make another volume of Euclid. My impression is that
   very little is to be learned from the major part of these
   interpretations or speculations. I do not think that anybody can map
   out the future so as to be absolutely sure of anything definite except
   certain great clearly-stated facts.

   It is certain that the Lord will come, that He will come in such an
   hour as the most of men look not for Him--and that His coming will be a
   surprise even to many of His own Church. He may come at this moment
   while yet I am speaking to you, but He may delay His coming, if it so
   pleases Him, through many a century. It may sound strange for me to say
   so, but if our Lord were not to come for ages, we should not be
   justified in saying, "My Lord delays His coming" nor would any prophecy
   of Scripture be broken. Furthermore, it seems to me pretty clear that
   truth and righteousness are to win the day upon the earth--the idols
   are to be abolished, war is to cease and the great Jehovah is to be
   called "the God of the whole earth." Either before or after His Second
   Advent--I am not going into that question this morning--this polluted
   earth is to be cleansed and this round planet of ours, which today is
   darkened by sin, shall yet shine out, like a new-born sun in all the
   pristine light which beamed from it when first it came from its Maker's
   hands! The Lord shall reign over all mankind and a period of peace,
   rest and holiness shall be the fruit of His blessed sway! The Lord
   Jesus will not rest till He has subdued all things unto Himself and put
   down all the spiritual wickednesses which now tyrannize over the world.

   I do not think it necessary for me to go further into detail as to all
   that our Lord is resolved to do. What I have to say is this--whatever
   He has undertaken, He will perform--whatever commission He has received
   He will fulfill. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged" till all His
   work is done. Brothers and Sisters, we get to doubting sometimes. We
   ask, Is it all right? Are matters moving on? Behold Him who is at the
   head of all affairs, the Director of the high politics of Heaven, the
   Great One upon whose shoulders rests the business of God in the
   salvation of men! Behold Him and be comforted! You and I may
   fail--shame on us if we do! We may be discouraged--it will be our sin
   if we are. But He shall not fail nor be discouraged till He shall have
   worked out every point of the promises of Grace and shall have
   accomplished every iota of the eternal purpose of love!

   I believe in the final perseverance of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe
   in the final perseverance of every saint as an individual. Furthermore,
   I believe in the final perseverance of the saints as a body--the Church
   of God shall live and continue her work till she has accomplished it!
   "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her." But far more Divine
   is the thought to me of the final perseverance of the Christ of God! If
   He were to lay down the task and say it is impossible, woe worth the
   day to us! If He were to turn His back upon His high enterprise and
   say, "I will save no more of these rebellious beings. I will attempt no
   more to shed the Light of God into the darkness which comprehends it
   not. I will give up the task in which men so madly oppose Me"--then
   were hope blotted out of the language of men! But while this text
   stands true, the door of hope is open! We need not fail or be
   discouraged, since He will not.

   This morning I shall speak to you in the hope that the Spirit of God
   may fire you with new courage for the holy war. First, let this Truth
   of God be considered and believed. And then, secondly, let this Truth
   of God be believed and enjoyed.

   I. First, then, LET THIS TRUTH OF GOD BE CONSIDERED AND BELIEVED.

   Will you now thoughtfully turn it over in your minds? It is certainly a
   very marvelous enterprise which our Lord Jesus Christ has undertaken.
   The salvation of a single soul involves a miracle. The salvation of
   myriads upon myriads of the human race--what shall I call it but a
   mountain of marvels? The removal of the darkness which has settled over
   mankind in tenfold night--what a Divine labor! The ending of the enmity
   which exists between man and God, the reconciling of man unto his
   Maker--what a design! The redeeming of this world from the bondage of
   corruption, the setting up of a Kingdom of truth and holiness--what an
   enterprise! Such wonders has Jesus undertaken and such wonders He will
   achieve! He died to lay the foundation of His all-conquering Kingdom
   and He still lives that this Kingdom may be established in its
   supremacy and all nations may flow to it. Beloved, I fail to conceive,
   much more to express, the vastness of the task which He has undertaken!
   Those of you who love your fellow men often mourn your powerlessness
   with a single individual. What hard work it is to deal with our own
   countrymen! How are we baffled by their poverty, their ignorance, their
   misery, their sin! You have only to battle with a single vice,
   drunkenness, for example, to feel what a monster is to be overcome!
   Only think for a moment of the social impurity of this city and you are
   sick at heart as you remember it. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ has come
   to cleanse this Augean stable and He will cleanse it. The stream of the
   River of Life shall run through the foulest parts of the earth till
   even those horrible regions which are comparable to the Dead Sea shall
   be reclaimed!

   The problem staggers us. The systems of evil are colossal. The hold of
   evil on the race is terrible. Man is inveterately a sinner. You cannot
   cure him of rebellion--he is desperately set on mischief. Even when the
   consequences of his sin wound and afflict him, he still returns to it.
   If you prove to him to a demonstration that a thing is right and
   profitable, he does not, therefore, love it. If you prove it to be
   injurious, he chooses it! By the use of an accursed logic, he puts
   darkness for light and light for darkness and thus stultifies his
   conscience and hardens his heart. If, perhaps, you convince his
   judgment, you have not won his affection, you have not carried his
   will, you have not subdued his mind. Nothing but Omnipotence itself can
   save a single soul! What must be that mighty power which shall cause
   nations to run unto the Lord! They that dwell in the wilderness are to
   bow before Him and His enemies are to lick the dust. What a conquest is
   this! How shall Ethiopia be made to stretch out her hands to Him? Look
   how black are the hearts of her inhabitants, as well as their faces!
   How shall China and India, beclouded by their false philosophies, be
   led to acknowledge the Truth of God? Look, Sirs, look at this great
   mountain and do not underestimate its mass--and then remember that
   before our Zerubbabel it must and shall become a plain! The stone
   mentioned by Daniel, cut out of the mountain without hands, smote the
   monstrous image and broke it and, in due time, filled the whole earth!
   In the night visions the same Prophet saw the Son of Man having
   dominion, glory and a Kingdom, that all people should serve Him. So
   must it be. But how great a thing it is!

   The task is rendered the more severe because our Lord Jesus, at this
   present time, works largely by a Church which is a poor and faulty
   instrument for the accomplishment of His purpose. I sometimes think
   there are more difficulties connected with the Church than with the
   world, for the Church is often worldly, faithless, lethargic and, I was
   about to add, inhuman. Might I not almost say as much, for she seems at
   times well near destitute of tender sympathy for the lost and
   perishing. The Church at one hour receives the light and reflects it
   like the full moon, so that you have hope of her enlightening men. But
   soon she wanes into a mere ring of light and becomes obscured. She
   declines from the Truth. She forgets the glorious Gospel entrusted to
   her and she seeks after the rotten philosophies of men. How many times
   since Pentecost has the Church started aside after the wisdom of men
   and, after a while, painfully returned to her first faith?

   At the present moment there is just that kind of wandering going on and
   this hinders the work of the Lord. If a man has to do a work, he says
   to himself, "Give me good tools, at any rate. If I have to strike a
   heavy blow, do not trouble me with a broken hammer. If I have to write,
   give me a pen that will not hinder my hand." But alas, the Church is
   too often false to her Master's purpose and traitorous to His Truth!
   Yet, Brothers and Sisters, the Lord will largely do His work and
   accomplish His good pleasure by such means as these! He will not fail
   nor be discouraged. If all Christians should become lukewarm till the
   whole Church became nauseous, as the Church of Laodicea, yet still the
   Lord Jesus will not fail nor be discouraged. The disciple may sleep,
   but the great Savior agonizes over men. Let this battalion and the
   other waver as it may, He who holds the banner in the very center of
   the fight will never be moved--He will hold the field against all
   comers, for the Altogether Lovely One is the Standard-Bearer among ten
   thousand! Though you mourn over the disciples, rejoice over their
   Master. They faint or fly, but, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged."

   To help you to believe this great Truth of God, I beg you to notice who
   He is that has undertaken all this. Kindly read at the commencement of
   the chapter--"Behold My Servant, whom I uphold, My elect, in whom My
   soul delights." I am sure that He who is thus spoken of will not fail
   nor be discouraged, for, first, He is God's own special Servant. God
   has many servants, but the Christ is, above all others, called of God,
   "My Servant." He is a Son far excelling all other sons and, in the same
   sense, He is a Servant far exceeding all other servants. He took upon
   Himself the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of sinful
   flesh. He is a Servant as none of us can ever hope to be in so high and
   wonderful a sense--He performs all the will of the Father! If He that
   was Lord of All became a servant, do you think He will not accomplish
   His service? If He that made the heavens and the earth laid aside His
   splendor and veiled Himself in our inferior clay, do you think He will
   fail in the purpose for which He did this? Can the Incarnation of God
   be a failure? Can the life of the Son of God among men end in defeat?
   Your heart gives immediate answer--God's own Servant will fulfill His
   service.

   Then the great God says of Him, "My Servant whom I uphold." If God
   upholds Him, how can He fail? Though God upholds all His people, yet
   beyond all others He is upholding His own chosen Son and Servant--how
   then, can He fail? Is it possible with the Divine Power perpetually
   streaming into Him and abiding in Him, that He should fail, or be
   discouraged? The text may be read, "Behold My Servant upon whom I
   lean," and the picture is of a great Oriental monarch who comes forth
   leaning upon a favorite lord whom he honors by placing him in that
   position, indicating thereby that he trusts his affairs with him and
   regards him as his right hand man, a very pillar of the State. Yes, we
   say it with reverence, God the Father leans on Jesus the Christ! He
   rests His honor and Glory with the Person of the Incarnate God--and now
   He comes before us as God in Christ Jesus, revealing His Glory through
   the Mediator, putting His own sovereign power into the keeping of His
   Son whom He has appointed heir of all things. Can that Glorified One
   fail? Has the Father trusted His Kingdom of Grace with One who will be
   overcome? How can He fail, whom the Father upholds, and upon whom the
   Father leans all the dignity and Glory of His moral government? "He
   shall not fail nor be discouraged."

   Then the Scripture adds this very significant word, "My elect in whom
   My soul delights." The chosen of God, the most choice One that God
   knows, shall He prove a failure? Not only does God delight in Him, but
   it is put still more strongly--"In whom My soul delights." Do you taste
   the marrow of the expression? It seems to me to be exceedingly full.
   The chief delight of God is in His Son, as Mediator. God said of the
   world, that it was very good, but we read not that His soul delighted
   in it! But, look, the very soul of the Godhead is moved and filled with
   delight because of the Savior commissioned to redeem! Blessed Father,
   we do not wonder that You are taken up with delight in Jesus, for even
   we, ourselves, when we get a sight of Him, are ravished with His
   charms. There is none like He! He is Your Only-Begotten, the Son of
   Your heart--well may You be well pleased with Him. How, then, is it
   possible that One whom the Lord loves so well, in whom His soul
   delights, should be put upon a work in which He can fail, or should be
   left in that work to be discouraged? It is impossible! The connection
   of Jesus of Nazareth with Jehovah, God of All, makes it absolutely
   certain that the Divine enterprise to which He has pledged Himself
   shall assuredly succeed. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged."

   Furthermore, our Lord is the abiding place of the Holy Spirit. The text
   says, "I have put My Spirit upon Him"--the Holy Spirit, to whom is
   Glory and honor forever! The Holy Spirit, very God of very God, dwells
   in Christ! Upon us He comes in measure. We sometimes receive a large
   portion of His power, but still we are not capable of receiving all the
   fullness of the Holy Spirit. But Christ has the residue of the Spirit
   abiding in Him. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon
   Him--and it still rests upon Him. My Brothers and Sisters, do you dream
   that He on whom the Holy Spirit always rests can fail or be
   discouraged? Do you believe that the Gospel system is to die out? Is it
   going to be throttled by philosophy? Strangled by modern thought? Or
   trampled down beneath the hoof of anarchy? No, while the Holy Spirit
   abides upon the great Servant of Jehovah, we cannot know a fear! The
   anointing on the Head will descend to the skirts of the garments and as
   He cannot fail nor be discouraged, neither shall we be dismayed. He who
   is acknowledged, honored, trusted, sustained, loved and anointed of God
   cannot but be successful! Jesus must persevere successfully to the end.

   Notice yet further, that the success of Jesus is guaranteed by the
   decree of God. It is written, "He shall bring forth judgment to the
   Gentiles." Oh, those blessed "shalls" and "wills"! Some people make
   little of them, but I make everything of them. Here my heart rests, for
   if God says "shall," then it shall certainly be! "The Lord said unto my
   Lord, Sit at

   My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool." Do you think
   He spoke in vain? Turn to the second Psalm and read, "I will declare
   the decree: the Lord has said unto Me, You are My Son; this day have I
   begotten You. Ask of Me, and I shall give You the heathen for Your
   inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession.
   You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them in pieces
   like a potter's vessel." Shall this solemn proclamation of Jehovah be
   mere waste paper? My Brothers and Sisters, the sun may forget to shine,
   the eyes of the world may be darkened. Yon mighty ocean may cease to
   ebb and flow and the heart of the earth may die. All nature may be
   driven on the rock of fate in general wreckage and confusion, but no
   Word of God shall fall to the ground, for that Word is essential life
   and power! If Jehovah has spoken, it is done! If He declares it, it
   shall be! Therefore the Christ must and shall succeed, for His work is
   the subject of a Divine Decree.

   Yet, Brethren, it may be that at times we fear that the Gospel is not
   prospering nor fulfilling the purpose for which God has sent it.
   Looking back on past history and looking out upon the present state of
   affairs, we are afraid that things are not going well. Possibly this
   may arise out of our Lord's way of working which is so different from
   what our minds would choose. It is written in the second verse, "He
   shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the
   street." You are in an awful hurry, are you not? But He is never in
   haste. You would make a great stir and noise, I know, but Jesus will
   not thus spread the Gospel. You would go out and fight all the enemies
   of truth and set clamor against clamor, cry against cry--but, "He shall
   not strive."

   You would shout, rage and rave--but He shall not cry. You would
   advertise to the ends of the earth, but He shall not cause His voice to
   be heard in the street. When Mohammed commenced his enterprise, he
   announced that Paradise was to be found beneath the shadow of swords
   and numbers of brave men rushed to the battle. They swept everything
   before them and stained continents with blood! They carried the name of
   Allah and Mohammed over Asia and Northern Africa--and seemed intent on
   conquering Europe--and yet the work done will not endure. The Prophet
   and his caliphs did, indeed, strive and cry, and cause their voices to
   be heard in the street--but Christ's system is the very reverse of
   that--His weapons are not carnal. Behold His battle-axe and weapons of
   war! Truth divinely strong with no human force at the back of it but
   that of holiness and love! A Gospel full of gentleness and mercy to
   men, proclaimed not by the silver trumpets of kings, but by the plain
   voices of lowly men!

   The Gospel seeks neither prestige nor patronage from the State, nor
   does it ask to be advocated by scholastic sophistry, or human
   eloquence. It does not even aim at becoming predominant by force of the
   learning or talent of its teachers. It has neither pomp to commend it,
   nor arms to enforce it. It finds its strength rather in feebleness than
   in power! The Kingdom comes by the Holy Spirit dropping like dew on
   human hearts and fertilizing them with a Divine life. Christ's Kingdom
   comes not with observation, but in the stillness of the soul. All that
   is really the work of God is worked in the silence of the heart by that
   wind which blows where it will. Sweetly the Holy Spirit constrains all
   things by His own power--and the day of His power is not with roar of
   tempest, but with the noiseless fall of the dew. You, ardent spirit
   that you are, are all in a hurry! You are going to push the Church
   before you and drag the world after you. Go and do it! But if the Lord
   works not after your fashion, be not greatly surprised, for it is
   written, "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be
   heard in the street."

   His purpose shall stand and He will do all His pleasure. He will do His
   work all the more surely because He sets about it quietly. I always
   delight in a man who can afford to go about his life-work without fuss,
   bluster, or loud announcement. See how a master-workman lays down his
   tools! He arranges his plan, sketches his ideal and then begins as he
   means to go on. He will do the thing in that way, depend upon it.
   Another fellow flings his tools about, rushes at the work without
   system, makes the dust fly, litters the place with chips, spoils the
   work and leaves it in disgust! Our Savior works not so. He calmly,
   deliberately, resolutely pursues His mighty plan and He will perform
   it. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged."

   Note well the spirit in which He works. He is gentleness itself and
   that always--"A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax
   shall He not quench." You cannot work in hot haste in this spirit.
   Gentleness makes good and sure speed, but it cannot endure rashness and
   heat. We know reformers who, if they had the power, would be like bulls
   in a china shop--they would do a great deal in a very short time. But
   the world's best Friend is not given to quench and bruise. Here is a
   bruised reed and it is of no use to anybody--you cannot even get music
   out of it, much less lean upon it--yet He does not break it. Here is a
   smoking flax, a wick with an offensive smell, containing very little
   heat and no

   light--yet He does not put it out. This oft quoted text is used, as you
   know, in the New Testament, in reference to the Pharisees--they thought
   themselves strong pillars, but the Lord knew that they were only
   bruised reeds. They thought themselves great lights, but He knew that
   they were only as smoking flax--and yet He did not go out of His way to
   snuff them out. Even to them, though often righteously indignant, He
   was yet gentle and only assailed them when they put themselves in His
   way and forced a verdict from Him. The Lord Jesus was too good and
   great to be irritated by Pharisees.

   Lions do not hunt for "rats and mice, and such small deer." Great
   principles are laid down which, in due time, destroy the evil which is
   not worth while to attack in detail. The smoking flaxes of error and
   the bruised reeds of pretence go in due season, but the gentle Lord is
   not in hot haste to put them out of the way. Hence we grow discouraged.
   But He will not fail nor be discouraged any the more because of His
   gentleness. No, let me tell you, Brothers and Sisters, it is the quiet
   man, the meek man, who is always hard to be turned aside from his
   purpose. When a man is passionate and easily excited, you have only to
   wait a while and he will cool down--perhaps chill down below zero.
   These fiery fellows will be easily managed by the devil, or somebody
   else after the flame is over. Give me a man who deliberately makes up
   his mind, calmly sets to work and patiently bears all rebuffs--and I
   know that what He sets himself to do will be done! He will work in
   God's way and will not put forth his hand to snatch a premature success
   at the expense of principle. He is quiet because he is sure, patient
   because he is strong, gentle because he is firm. The man who cannot be
   provoked is the man who cannot be turned aside. You cannot discourage
   him--he will go through with his work even to the end--you can be sure
   of that.

   As you look at our blessed Master, patient and immovable amidst all the
   battle and the strife, you may assure yourself that He will not fail
   nor be discouraged. I do not admire Napoleon except in the matter of
   his cool courage, but for that he was noteworthy. They always represent
   him in the midst of the battle with folded arms. His eagle eyes are on
   the conflict, but he is motionless as a statue. Every soldier in the
   imperial army felt that victory was sure, for the captain was so
   self-possessed. If he had been hurrying to and fro, rushing here, there
   and everywhere, and making a great fuss about everything, they would
   have inferred that defeat was impending. But see him yonder! All is
   well. He knows what he is doing. It is all right, for he does not
   strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard. He is calm, for he
   can see that all is well.

   There stands the Crucified this day, upon the vantage ground, at the
   right hand of God--and He surveys the battlefield in calm expectancy
   until His enemies are made His footstool. Tender towards the weakest of
   the weak and kind even to the unthankful and the evil, we may see in
   all this mercifulness the pledge of His success. "He shall not fail nor
   be discouraged, till He has set judgment in the earth: and the isles
   shall wait for His Law."

   Consideration of the statement leads us to believe it firmly.

   II. I want you to give me a few minutes while I say, LET THIS TRUTH BE
   BELIEVED AND ENJOYED. I want

   you to enjoy the fruit of this Truth of God and to be made glad by it.

   First, enjoy it by recollecting that Jesus has finished the work for
   His people--that first work wherein He brought in everlasting
   righteousness, bore the penalty of human guilt and laid the foundation
   whereupon should be built the Temple of God. Jesus has done all things
   well. He persevered in His life-labor till He could say, "It is
   finished." From the hour when, as a Child, He said, "Know you not that
   I must be about My Father's business?" All through the contradiction of
   sinners and the weakness, the poverty and the shame in which His life
   was spent, you never see about our Divine Master any indication of
   failing or of being discouraged. We sorrowfully cry, "I am almost ready
   to give up," but He never spoke in that fashion, nor even thought it!
   He had reckoned upon all the toil and the grief. He had foreseen it
   all-- He had taken it into His calculations and, therefore, He was not
   surprised and downcast. He determined to go, for our sakes, to death
   and the grave--and to bear the shame of our sin and the curse of our
   guilt--and even to be put by the Father into darkness on our account.
   He set His face like a flint and like a flint His face remained to the
   bitter end. He never turned aside. Let us bless Him this day for His
   persevering love. It is not a half-finished salvation that we behold on
   yonder bloody tree! It is not an incomplete redemption that we see in
   that rising again of Jesus from the dead! When we look up to Him in His
   Glory we know and feel that through all the agony and death He did not
   fail, was not discouraged and that He has set up a Kingdom which cannot
   be removed forever. There let us rest with peaceful confidence.

   The next reflection which I want you to enjoy is this--He will finish
   the work in His believing people. He will not fail nor be discouraged
   until He has completely saved you and me! If I had been my own savior,
   I would have given up the

   work long ago. We meet now and then with supposed perfect people, but
   the most of us dare not whisper the word, perfection. When I have
   overcome a whole body of sin and have risen to be somewhat like my
   Lord, it seems to me as if a new body of death were formed about me. I
   kill one dragon, and lo, his body yields a crop of monsters! My evil
   nature seems to have coats like an onion--and when I have taken off one
   of them--it only lays bare another quite as offensive. Will it not be
   so to the end of the chapter? You may be growing better--I hope you
   are--but I shall be all the more hopeful that you are so if you fear
   that you are growing worse! If you think less and less of yourselves,
   it is probably true that you are growing in Divine Grace. But if you
   think more and more of yourselves, it is highly probable that you are
   growing in pride! There is a great difference between being puffed up
   and being built up.

   I can clearly see that I shall fail and be discouraged if salvation
   rests with me. But here is my comfort--He will not fail nor be
   discouraged! If my Lord begins with me, He will never be beaten off
   from His purpose. What bad stuff is our humanity! What wretched raw
   material for sainthood! It must be hard, treading and pounding such
   gritty clay, and I wonder not that both the hands and the feet of the
   great Worker were sorely wounded since He had such clay to deal with.
   When He fashions us on the wheel and we begin to assume somewhat of the
   form which He intends for us, yet we crack and spoil when we come to
   the oven--and all His work upon us seems lost. He has to grind us down,
   again, to a powder--and begin with us again de novo and fashion us once
   more. It would have been an easier work to have created new beings
   altogether than to take us poor fallen ones and lift us up to become
   sons of God! The Almighty Lord had only to have said, "Let a Church
   be!" and a Church most fair and spotless would have leaped into being!
   But instead thereof, He works upon us sinful ones and undertakes to
   make us perfectly pure--and present us to Himself without spot, or
   wrinkle, or any such thing. What a marvel of Divine Grace!

   He will do it, Brother! He will do it, Sister! He has not grown weary
   of the work, neither is He discouraged by all our evil behavior. Before
   He began, He knew all about it. Had He not been a far-seeing Christ,
   able to foresee all our shortcomings and backsliding, He might have
   been surprised into weariness. But He says, "I knew that you are
   obstinate." And again, "I knew that you would deal very treacherously."
   He foreknew all our ingratitude, backsliding, unbelief and unworthiness
   and, therefore, He will not fail nor be discouraged till His work in us
   is done and we are fit for Heaven!

   Again, dear Friends, He will finish His work by His people. Whatever
   the work is that is to be done by the Church, He will not fail nor be
   discouraged until it is performed. I do not know whether any of you
   have noticed in my text a very singular thing. If you have the Revised
   Version, the margin will give you some rather singular information. The
   text might be read thus, "A bruised reed shall He not break, and the
   smoking flax shall He not quench: yet He shall not burn dimly nor be
   bruised." Though He deals with bruised reeds and smoking flaxes, yet
   He, Himself, is not crushed, nor does His light become a mere glimmer.
   To my mind, this is a deeply interesting use of words and should not be
   allowed to slip. Christianity just now, they say, is a mere smoke, the
   old-fashioned doctrine, especially, burns very dim. Do not believe
   it--the light of Jesus shall not darken or grow less! Those souls that
   can see His light will tell you that His face still shines like the
   sun. There is a Glory about Him that is undiminished and
   undiminishable. He does not glimmer and He is not crushed! He is no
   reed--His enemies will one day find that He carries a rod of iron! He
   is a pillar of the house of our God--He bears up all things, for He is
   strong and mighty and He cannot fail. I want you to eject at the back
   door every suggestion that enters your house as to the defeat of the
   Christ and the failure of the Gospel! It is not possible! It cannot be.
   You may smoke like the flax. You may be broken like the reed but He
   will never glimmer nor be a crushed reed, even to the end--therefore
   comfort one another with these words.

   And to conclude, I would not have treated the text properly if I did
   not say that it has in it great comfort to those of you who are, as
   yet, outside of the Church of God and are not numbered with His people.
   Will you kindly read the sixth and seventh verses? "He shall not fail
   nor be discouraged," till He has done--what?--the Divine will. And this
   is a part of it--"To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners
   from the prison and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."
   "Oh," say you, "I cannot see Christ!" He has come on purpose to make
   you see. Turn your sightless eyeballs this way. Breathe this prayer,
   "Son of David, have mercy on me." And if He says, "What will you that I
   should do unto you?" answer, "Lord, that I might receive my sight." In
   one single moment, yes, while the clock is ticking, Jesus Christ can
   take the scales from a blind man's eyes and let in such a flood of
   daylight that he shall see Heaven itself! Lord, do it this morning! O
   dear Hearts, will you not, each one, cry, "Lord, do it to me"? Are you
   saying that, my Friend? He will do it. He

   loves to hear a blind man's cry. Do you not remember in the New
   Testament how often He stood still when He heard a blind man's cry?
   Poor blind Soul, cry to Him now! He shall not fail nor be discouraged,
   He will come to you and save you!

   "Ah," says one, "but I am worse than that, I am shut up in prison."
   Kindly read the seventh verse again--"To bring out the prisoners from
   the prison." You are miserable, without hope, shut up in an iron cage.
   He has come who will not fail nor be discouraged! He has come on
   purpose to fetch you out of the cage. Ask Him to break the bars in
   sunder. I see Him lay His pierced hands to that iron bar. You have
   filed it a long while and it has broken the teeth of your file. You
   have tried to shake it in its place, but you could not stir it in the
   least. See what He does! He plucks bar after bar out of its place, as
   if they had been so many reeds--and you are free! Arise and take your
   liberty! The Son of God has made you free. If you have trusted Him, He
   has broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder--you
   are free--enjoy your liberty!

   "Oh, but," says one, "in my case it is blindness and slavery united."
   Listen, then. He has come to "bring them that sit in darkness out of
   the prison house." You cannot see the bars that shut you in, nor even
   mark the limits of your narrow cell--but He has come who will give eyes
   to you and light to those eyes--and liberty to your enlightened sight!
   Only trust Him! All things are possible to Him that believes when
   Christ is near--you know not, you who are now at the bottom of the
   sea--how high He can lift you in an instant! Out of the belly of Hell,
   if you will cry, He can lift you in a moment to the very heights of
   Heaven! I say no more of my Lord than He deserves to have said of Him.
   No, nor yet half as much! Try Him and see if He will fail. Try Him now,
   you in the worst and lowest of all circumstances--you devil-bound and
   devil-tortured spirit! Dare to believe that Jesus can do all things for
   you! Leave yourself with Him!

   Go your way, for as you have believed so shall it be unto you. To the
   name of Him that will not fail nor be discouraged be glory forever and
   ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Eternal Life Within Present Grasp

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 6, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Lay hold on eternal life." 1 Timothy 6:12.

   "Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time
   to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." 1 Timothy 6:19.

   "LAY hold on eternal life." Observe that this precept is preceded by
   another--"Fight the good fight of faith." Those who lay hold on eternal
   life will have to fight for it. The way of the spiritual life is no
   easy one--we shall have to contest every step of the way along which it
   leads us. "Contest the good contest of the faith" would be an accurate
   rendering of the passage and a contest it is against the world, the
   flesh and the devil! If we live unto God, we shall need to war a daily
   warfare and tread down the powers of death and Hell.

   We fight the good fight by firm faith in the Lord our God--"This is the
   victory that overcomes the world, even your faith." That fight is the
   fight of faith, fought for the faith and by the faith. The article
   should be inserted and then the words are--"Fight the good fight of the
   faith." "Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints."
   "Hold fast the form of sound words." It is worth fighting for, even if
   we come to resistance unto blood! He who dies for the faith has laid
   down his life in a worthy cause and he shall find it unto life eternal.
   We can only hope that we shall be able to live unto God by faith in Him
   and faith in the great Truths which He has revealed to be the object of
   our faith. When I say unto you, "Lay hold on eternal life," do not
   imagine that this is to be done in a dream, or accomplished without
   awakening your utmost energies, nor even then without that Divine
   assistance which only faith can receive.

   As my text follows the command to "fight the good fight of the faith,"
   it teaches us that the best way of contending for the faith is for
   ourselves, personally, to lay hold on eternal life. You cannot defend
   the faith by mere reasoning-- victory does not come through an array of
   arguments which have been, before, used by men of learning--you must,
   yourself, possess the inward life and exhibit the force and power of it
   in your daily conduct if you would be successful in the holy war. Men
   who forget the Divine Life soon cast away the Divine Truth. If the life
   is not in us, we may make what profession of orthodoxy we like, but we
   shall, in all probability, before long, turn aside like others, unto
   crooked ways. Well are the two commands joined together--"Fight the
   good fight of the faith, lay hold on eternal life." It reminds me of
   our Lord's words, "I am the way, the truth and the life."

   My Brothers and Sisters, there is a higher and a better life than that
   which is known to the most of men. There is an animal life which all
   possess; there is a mental life which lifts us up above the beasts, but
   there is another life as much above the mental life as the mental life
   is above the mere animal life! The bulk of men are not aware of this
   and when they are told of it, they do not believe the statement. Men
   whom they would believe upon any other subject--honest and true
   men--are, nevertheless, regarded as a sort of madmen when they begin to
   talk about a spiritual life. How should the carnal mind discern that
   which is spiritual? it can only be spiritually discerned. But there is
   such a life, as many of us assuredly know, and this is the eternal life
   which we are bid to lay hold upon. The life of Heaven is none other
   than the Divine Life which God's Grace imparts to Believers here
   below--only it is developed and brought to perfection. There is no jerk
   to the Believer in death--his line of life is unbroken. There is a
   change in his condition, for he drops this mortal body and those
   tendencies to sin which cling to it, but the same life is in him, in
   the body or out of it, unclothed or clothed. His life is the same day,
   only here it is the dawn, but in Glory it is full moon. His life is one
   and flows on like a river, widening and deepening until, at last, it
   swells into a sea of joyous, perfected life in Heaven!

   Dream not that any of you will ever obtain eternal life hereafter
   unless you receive it in this life. Unless you are partakers of it now,
   tremble for the consequences! Where death finds you, eternity will
   leave you. Thus I read the Word of God. Let others read as they may.
   The only laying hold on eternal life that can be practiced by us must
   be commenced now--it is now brought to light by Christ Jesus in the
   everlasting Gospel--beware how you put it from you. Grip it now; lay
   hold of it now and hold on to it at all hazards! Do my expressions
   sound strange? Let me remind you of that exhortation of Holy
   Scripture--"Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ
   shall give you light." Once obtained, we may rest assured that this
   life will not be wrenched from us in the pangs of departure from the
   body nor in the Day of Judgment, nor throughout eternity! "Lay hold on
   eternal life." I would dwell upon this precept, entreating the aid of
   the Holy Spirit that I may speak of this true life in a living and true
   manner.

   I. "Lay hold on eternal life," that is, BELIEVE IN IT. You cannot lay
   hold on it unless you know it to be a reality. We do not lay hold on
   shadows, or fictions, or fancies--there must be something substantial
   and tangible for us to lay hold upon. It is necessary, therefore, to
   begin by a realizing faith.

   That we may believe in this life, let me say that Holy Scripture
   constantly describes men unrenewed by Divine Grace as being dead--they
   are "dead in trespasses and sins." They "shall not see life, but the
   wrath of God abides on them." The natural life of fallen men, though it
   is cultivated to the highest degree so that they become sages and
   philosophers, is, nevertheless, nothing better than death as compared
   with the inner life which is called eternal. The life which you possess
   today, if you are ungodly men, will be taken from you. How suddenly
   none of us can guess! In this very house we have lately had a solemn
   reminder of our mortality. But if God gives to you the new life, if
   there is infused into you the Divine Life, it is eternal--a living and
   incorruptible seed which abides forever. It is the life of Christ in
   you--the sap of the undying vine flowing into the branches! Without
   this heavenly quickening you are dead while you live and as the
   tendency of death is to corruption, you will grow more and more sinful.
   Men who are dead in trespasses and sins, by-and-by proceed to a further
   stage--and frequently become so corrupt that society itself cries out,
   "Bury my dead out of my sight." Without the quickening Spirit you will
   remain in spiritual death forever.

   The Scripture represents Believers everywhere as possessing everlasting
   life. "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." Our death in sin
   has passed away when we have believed in Christ. That first look of the
   spiritual eyes is sure proof that we possess within us the life of God
   and, henceforth, we are so linked with Jesus that because He lives, we
   shall live, also. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then
   shall we also appear with Him in Glory."

   This life is produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit within the
   heart. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Except a man is born of water
   and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." It is by
   the new life worked of the Spirit that we enter the Kingdom. The
   infusion of the new life is the new birth and the entrance into the
   Kingdom. We are created anew in Christ Jesus, or, to use another
   expression, we are quickened and raised from among the dead! Beloved
   Hearers, do you know this change by personal experience? I know that
   many here present have passed from death unto life and I rejoice with
   them in Christ Jesus.

   What a difference this quickening has made to those who have received
   it! What a marvelous life it is! It brings with it new perceptions, new
   emotions, new desires. It has new senses--there are new eyes with which
   we see the invisible; new ears with which we hear the voice of God,
   before inaudible! Then we have a new touch with which we lay hold on
   Divine Truths of God. Then we have a new taste so that we "taste and
   see that the Lord is good." This new life ushers us into a new world
   and gives us new relationships and new privileges. The Lord Jesus, who
   makes all things new, sits upon the throne of the soul and is the
   center of new power and rule. Do you know this life? Some of us
   confidently bear witness of this life--but what does this avail to dead
   men? There is no change that can be comparable to that which is worked
   in men when they are quickened by the infusion of the Divine Life--it
   is as though the dead left their graves and much more than that!

   The new life is a life of reconciliation. The possessor of it is at
   peace with God. We are no longer enemies, but friends of God; no longer
   heirs of wrath, but children of the Most High. The spirit of adoption
   within us cries, "Abba, Father." We delight ourselves in God who
   becomes the spring of all our joys, the light of our delights. This
   delight in God draws us nearer and nearer to him in communion and
   fellowship--and this fellowship with God begets a new character in us
   like that of God. We are changed into the image of Him in whom we live
   and with whom we have communion! The new life has about it a
   spirituality, an elevation and a purity which are never found anywhere
   else. Under its power the man

   loves the things which are akin to the life of God and he enters into
   sympathy with God. The spiritual life has instinctive aspirations after
   holiness, even as the old natural life has desires after evil. It has
   new pains and new passions; new joys and griefs. A heavenly fire burns
   upon the altar of the renewed soul which will utterly consume all that
   is contrary to holiness. As our God is a consuming fire, so is the life
   of God within the soul of man--ultimately it will destroy, by the
   spirit of burning--all the accumulated mass of original and acquired
   sinfulness. Much of smoke may blind our eyes and make us weep during
   the process, but the end is beyond measure to be desired. Do we know
   this life? Does God live in us? Are our bodies temples of the Holy
   Spirit? If not, since the Lord lives, we can never see His face till we
   live. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living--and only those
   that live unto Him in Christ Jesus can be in communion with Him.

   I scarcely need to tell you that this life is one of high enjoyment.
   Truly it is a life of battle and of strife against the old death, but
   the life itself is as peaceable as it is pure. The spiritual life has
   in it all the elements of Heaven. There is a fullness of joy about it,
   inasmuch as it brings us into communion with the Ever-Blessed One. On
   high days and holy days some of us have said, as a dear Sister said to
   me last Thursday night, "I am happy as God, Himself, can make me." We
   can say, "God, my exceeding joy." The Lord's visits fill us with such
   calm content and overflowing peace that we rejoice with joy
   unspeakable. Those who know this happiness may truthfully be said to
   live--but those who know it not have missed "the life which is life,
   indeed."

   I want you all to get this idea into your heads--I mean all of you who
   have not learned this fact as yet--there is a life superior to that of
   common men! There is a life eternal, to be enjoyed here and now! I want
   this idea to become a practical force with you. Stephenson got the
   notion of a steam engine into his brain and the steam engine soon
   became an actual fact with him. Palissy, the potter, had his mind full
   of his art and for it he sacrificed everything till he gained his end.
   So may you, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, lay hold upon eternal
   life as being a blessed possibility--and may you be moved to seek it!
   There is an eternal life! There is a life of God in the soul of man!
   And I trust that you will, each one, resolve, "If it is to be had I
   will have it." Therefore direct your thoughts and desires this way.
   When the heart begins to value this life and to sigh after it, it is
   not far from the Kingdom of God! The quickening Spirit is moving upon
   the soul when it begins to be restless in its fallen estate and feels a
   hunger after higher things. Oh that the Lord, Himself, would convince
   you this morning that the life spiritual and eternal is no fancy of
   enthusiasts, but a literal fact, a matter worthy of your very best
   consideration! In this way you will begin to "lay hold on eternal
   life."

   II. But this is not enough--it is merely the doorstep of the subject.
   "Lay hold on eternal life"--that is to say, POSSESS IT! Get it into
   your soul--be alive! What am I saying? My Brothers and Sisters, this
   eternal life must come to you before you will come to it! The Holy
   Spirit must breathe upon you, or you will remain in your natural death.
   Behold, He sends me to cry, "You dry bones, live!" And therefore I dare
   to speak as I have done. Apart from a Divine commission, I dare not
   speak thus to you!

   How is eternal life grasped? Well, it is laid hold of by faith in Jesus
   Christ. It is a very simple thing to trust the Lord Jesus Christ and
   yet it is the only way of obtaining the eternal life. Jesus says, "He
   that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and
   whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
   By faith we have done with self and all the confidences that can ever
   grow out of self--and we rely upon the full Atonement made by the Lord
   Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a Propitiation. It is thus that we
   come to live! Faith and the new life go together and can never be
   divided! God grant that we may all lay hold on eternal life by laying
   hold of God in Christ Jesus!

   This life once laid hold upon is exercised in holy acts. From day to
   day we lay hold on eternal life by exercising ourselves unto godliness
   in deeds of holiness and loving kindness. Let your life be love, for
   love is life. Let your life be one of prayer and praise, for these are
   the breath of the new life. We still live the animal and mental life,
   but these must be the mere outer courts of our being--our innermost
   life must be spiritual and wholly consecrated to God. Henceforth let
   devotion be your breathing, faith your heartbeat, meditation your
   feeding, self-examination your washing and holiness your walking! Let
   your best life be most thought of and most exercised. Be not content to
   use your eyes, but practice your faith in God. Neither be satisfied to
   exercise your limbs in moving your body, but in the power of the new
   life mount up with wings as eagles, run without weariness, walk without
   fainting! Lay hold on the eternal life by exercising it continually and
   never allowing it to lie dormant.

   In laying hold upon it, remember that it is increased by growth.
   Zealously grasp more and more of it. Do not be afraid of having too
   much spiritual life! Lay hold on it, for Christ has come not only that
   we may have life, but that we

   may have it more abundantly. My Brothers and Sisters, we are, none of
   us, what we might be! Let us reach after something higher! "To him that
   has shall be given, and he shall have abundance." Let us not forget
   this encouraging Word of our Lord. You that have much life have the
   promise of more! We may covet earnestly this heavenly treasure. We are
   quickened, but perhaps our life is sickly--let us bask in the beams of
   the Sun of Righteousness, for He has healing beneath His wings. Let us
   lay hold of the fullest measures of eternal life and go from strength
   to strength.

   Remember that spiritual life is enjoyed in the fullest sense in close
   communion with God. "This is life eternal, to know You, the only true
   God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." "Acquaint yourself with God
   and be at peace." Do not think that those gates of Heaven cut us off
   from God, for they are never shut and we may enjoy daily fellowship
   with Him who reigns within1 In Heaven or on earth we are in the same
   Father's house--yes, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever! We
   are not in Heaven yet, but Heaven may be in us. Men do not yet say of
   us, "He is with God," but we know that God is with us. Let us endeavor
   to enjoy the eternal life now by abiding in the love of Christ. Then do
   we live, indeed, when He sups with us and we with Him. He, being raised
   from the dead, dies no more. And we, being raised with Him, live with
   Him, for Him and like He! This Christ-life in us comes to the front and
   pushes back the lower order of things. We cry no longer, "What shall we
   eat?" Or, "What shall we drink?" Or, "How shall we be clothed?" But we
   cry, "Lord, what would You have me to do?" Oh, to say with Paul, "I am
   crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives
   in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
   of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"!

   III. Thirdly, "Lay hold on eternal life." That is, WATCH OVER IT, guard
   it and protect it. Most men will preserve their lives at any cost.
   Unless they are drunk or mad, they will do anything for dear
   life--"Skin for skin, yes, all that a man has, will he give for his
   life." Let every Believer regard the life of God within him as being
   his most precious possession, more valuable by far than the natural
   life. It would be wise to lay down a thousand natural lives, if we had
   them, in order to preserve the spiritual life. It is infinitely better
   to suffer than to sin, to lose property than purity. God has given us
   this priceless jewel--let us guard it as the apple of our eye!

   The other day we read in the newspapers of two persons in America being
   found dead from "starvation and cold." And we also read that each of
   these persons was possessed of a considerable sum of money. We say,
   "What fools!" Men with sums of money about their persons, or hidden
   away in their rooms, and yet suffering the ills of need till they
   actually die of hunger--what madness is this! Are those more sane who
   injure and dwarf their spiritual life for the sake of intellectual
   pride, or carnal joy, or the esteem of men? Is not the spirit
   infinitely more precious than the body? Brethren, if we starve at all,
   let us starve our bodies and not our spirits! If anything must be
   stunted, let it be the baser nature! Let us not live eagerly for this
   world and languidly for the world to come. Having the Divine Life
   within us, let us not neglect to feed it and supply its needs.

   Here is a man that gives up attendance at religious services in the
   week because he hungers to increase his business-- he buys brass with
   gold! Another quits the place where he enjoys a Gospel ministry to go
   at a larger salary to a place where his soul will be famished--he
   barters fine flour for husks! Another goes into all sorts of evil
   company where he knows that his character is injured and his soul
   imperiled--and his excuse is that it pays! O Sirs, is it so, after all,
   that this eternal life which you profess to possess is of trifling
   value in your eyes? Then I declare before you that you do not possess
   it at all! How could you thus play the fool if the Lord had made you
   wise unto salvation? "Lay hold on eternal life," for this is the chief
   good, for the sake of which you may quit inferior things. "Seek you
   first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things
   shall be added unto you." First and foremost, guard beyond everything
   your life, your real life, wearing always "the armor of light," "the
   whole armor of God."

   Here is a sinking ship and none can escape but those who can swim. One
   man grasps a life belt and puts it about him. Sensible man! Another
   carefully secures his gold into a girdle and binds it about his waist.
   Madman! He is treating himself as cruel wretches treat a dog whom they
   sink into the water with a stone about him! This last individual is the
   portrait of professing Christians who will be rich and, thereby, drown
   themselves in perdition and destruction. See the ninth verse of the
   chapter before us. Hold first and foremost onto eternal life and guard
   it with all your power, as being yourself, your all!

   To that end the Apostle bade Timothy flee from those things which are
   detrimental to that life. "You, O man of God, flee these things." A man
   that is very careful of his life will not remain in a house where fever
   has been rife. He looks to

   the drains and all other sanitary arrangements--and if these are
   hopelessly bad, he quits the house. No measure of cheapness or
   convenience will make him risk his life. Have you heard of men in their
   senses who will hunt for dens of fever and cholera and wantonly enter
   them? On the contrary, visitors are scared from a city or district by
   the mere rumor of cholera or other infectious disease. You who profess
   to be men of God must flee these things which are injurious to purity,
   to truth, to godliness, to communion with God--for these are
   detrimental to your best life.

   Then the Apostle tells Timothy to seek after everything that would
   promote his eternal life. He says, "Follow after righteousness,
   godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness"--seek after that which will
   exercise and develop your highest life. Frequent those hills of
   holiness where the atmosphere is bracing for your new-born spirit. I
   notice how people who are sickly will leave their homes and journey far
   for health. Not only will they sojourn upon the sunny shores of the
   Mediterranean, but they will encounter the pitiless cold of the Alps in
   mid-winter at St. Maritz or Davoust in the hope of restoration. If
   physicians would only guarantee prolongation of life, men would
   emigrate to inhospitable Siberia or banish themselves to Greenland's
   icy mountains! Men will do anything for life. Shall we not be eager to
   do all that we can to foster our spiritual life? Christian people, do
   nothing that will damage your Heaven-born lives! Act in this according
   to the highest prudence.

   God help us to lay hold on eternal life and to that end above all
   things lay hold on Christ! We only live in Him--He is our life. To be
   divided from Christ is as surely death to us as it would be death to
   the body to be separated from the head. Make Jesus the Alpha and the
   Omega of your existence, for without Him you can do nothing, nor even
   live. "This is the true God and eternal life." To believe in Jesus is
   to live! To love Him much is to have life more abundantly. Cling to
   Jesus! Rest in the Lord, for He is our peace. Dwell on Calvary. Live
   between the First and Second Comings of the Lord. Lay hold on eternal
   life as a drowning man lays hold upon a spar and will not relax his
   grasp. It is not a vain thing for you, for it is your life. "He that
   has the Son, has life; and he that has not the Son of God, has not
   life." Let us, therefore, steadfastly abide in the Son of God and so
   know that we have eternal life.

   IV. But now, fourthly (and with the same brevity)--"Lay hold on eternal
   life," that is, FULFILL IT. Labor that the time of your sojourning here
   shall be occupied not with this poor, dying existence, but with the
   eternal life. Fulfill the higher and the eternal life in every position
   of society. The chapter opens with advice to servants who, then, were
   slaves. Their earthly life was wretched, indeed, but the Apostle bids
   them live, not for this present life, but for the eternal life.
   Inasmuch as they could glorify God by continuing to bear the yoke and
   would not glorify Him by rising in insurrection against their masters,
   he bade them remain in their position until better times might come. He
   would have them, by Divine Grace, fulfill the relationship in which
   they found themselves.

   Christianity is the deadly foe of slavery, but it took time to destroy
   it, and meanwhile, believing slaves were bid to glorify God in their
   station. And this is what the Gospel says to every one of us--Honor
   your station by glorifying God in it. When the famous Spartan warrior
   Brasidas complained that Sparta was so small a state, his mother
   replied to him, "My son, Sparta has fallen to your lot and it is your
   duty to adorn it." Christian man, adorn the doctrine of God, your
   Savior, in all things! Wherever you are found, endeavor in that place
   to live out eternal life. Be not so anxious to change your position as
   to use it for eternal purposes. Are you a preacher? Seek not popularity
   by pleasing the times, but seek honor by pleasing God! Are you a
   master? Seek not to use your position to please self, but to bless your
   day and generation. Are you a servant? Be not perpetually lamenting
   because of your hard work and scant wage, but let all men see what
   Grace can do.

   The eternal life should gild the lower life as the sun lights up the
   landscape. It is a sad pity when we let the lower life rise above us!
   Shall the horse ride the man? Shall the bullock drive the farmer? Let
   the position be bettered, if it may be, but if this cannot be improved,
   be you, yourself, improved--and a greater thing is done! Live not for
   time, but for eternity. What if I am a servant, yet I am the Lord's
   freeman--let me live as such! What if I am poor, yet I am rich towards
   God, so let me enjoy my portion! Lay hold on eternal life all the more
   eagerly if in this temporal life you have little to lay hold on.

   Fulfill this better life, also, by leaving alone those questions which
   would swallow up the hour. See how Paul destroys these
   devourers--"Questions and strifes of words, whereof comes envy, strife,
   railings, evil surmising, perverse disputes of men of corrupt minds and
   destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such
   withdraw yourself." He speaks in the end of the Epistle of "profane and
   vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called." We are
   over-

   done with these canker worms at this hour! Brothers and Sisters, you
   can go and interfere in all the controversies of the day if you like,
   but beware of the consequences! You can be a party politician if you
   like, or you can be a man of culture, loving speculation better than
   Revelation, if you think fit, but, if you take my advice, you will do
   nothing of the sort, but "lay hold on eternal life."

   I like that expression of Mr. Wesley's preachers, when they were asked
   to interfere in this or that political struggle, they replied, "Our
   work is to win souls and we give ourselves to it." Oh that churches
   would listen to this just now! They are going in for amusements and the
   church is vying with the theater! Oh that we would lay hold on eternal
   life and seek the salvation of men! Eternal life in our churches would
   soon cast out the rubbish which is now defiling them! Jesus in the
   churches would purify the temple of the puppets, as once He cleansed it
   of the traders. We need to receive anew this conviction that our one
   great business here below is to lay hold on eternal life, first making
   our own calling and election sure, and then seeking to bring others to
   Christ! Other questions compared with this are mere debates as to
   tweedledum and tweedledee! Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds
   of the earth until they break each other in their anger! But we strive
   only for the Kingdom of Heaven which lies not in trivial things. It is
   ours to lay hold upon eternal life! As for the rest, the will of the
   Lord be done!

   Further, the Apostle bids us do this so as to surmount the temptations
   of selfishness. He warns us that "they that will be rich fall into
   temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which
   drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the
   root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from
   the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." He whose
   life's object is to accumulate money is not a Christian! No man can
   serve two masters--and if Mammon is his master, Christ is not his
   Master. To prosper in business with the sincere desire of using
   everything for the honor and glory of God is laudable and proper. But
   to make this the end rather than the means is a horrible prostitution
   and debasement of our energies. To live for this world is to be dead to
   the world to come.

   The Apostle bids us "lay hold on eternal life" rather than on this
   life--to gain riches of Grace rather than riches of gold. Furthermore,
   he has a word for us if we become rich--for he supposes that such a
   thing may be and that it did happen in his own day. He says--"Charge
   them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor
   trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly
   all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good
   works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store
   for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they
   may lay hold on eternal life." As the alchemist was said to transmute
   brass and copper into gold, (though he did no such thing), so there is
   a real alchemy which can sublime gold and silver into everlasting
   treasure. These talents are not to be despised, but put out to interest
   for the Lord. They can be laid by where no rust does corrupt and where
   thieves do not break through and steal. They can be traded with in a
   heavenly market and turned to everlasting gains. We can use them for
   helping in the work of the Lord and by distribution to the poor and
   needy.

   I would that all men at this hour abounded in almsgiving, but specially
   those who are followers of the loving Jesus. Regard your transactions
   from the standpoint of eternity. Weigh what you do, not as it may be
   thought of by men of the world, but as it will be judged by yourself
   when you behold in the heavenly country the face of Him you love! I do
   not want you to have to say when you come to die, "I have had large
   possessions, but I have been a bad steward. I have had a competence and
   I have wasted my Master's goods. All I have done with my wealth was to
   furnish my house well, perhaps to buy expensive pictures and to allow
   myself luxuries which did me more harm than good." I hope, on the
   contrary, you will have to say, "I am saved by Grace, alone, and that
   Grace enabled me to consecrate my substance and put it to the best
   uses. I can render up my stewardship without fear. I did not live for
   the fleeting life which is now over, but for the life everlasting."

   Brothers and Sisters, some men spend so much upon themselves and so
   little for the Lord, that they seem to me to eat the apple and give
   Christ the parings! They hoard up the flour and give the Lord a little
   of the bran. Happy man who can carry out in life what he has dared to
   say in song--

   "All that I am and all I have,

   Shall be forever Yours!

   Whatever my duty bids me give,

   My cheerful hands resign.

   Yet if I might make some reserve,

   And duty did not call

   I love my God with zeal so great,

   That I should give Him all."

   The Apostle means, when he says, "lay hold on eternal life," get beyond
   today and tomorrow. Leap out of this month and this year. Live for the
   future; for eternity. Live not as insects that die in a day, but as men
   that live forever. This life is as a prick made on paper by a pin--it
   is too small a thing to compare with the everlasting future. The
   forever, whether of misery or bliss, dwarfs this life to nothing.

   Once more, let me say the Apostle urges us to fulfill the higher life
   by sundry arguments. He says, "whereunto you are also called."
   Sovereign Grace has called us to eternal life--we are elect according
   to the foreknowledge of God from among men, in order that we may live
   unto Him. We are bound to make eternal life our first and last
   consideration, for God has called us thereto. Be not false to the call.
   If you are a minister or deacon, you have an official call. Be not
   unmindful of it, but live up to your high calling. The Apostle adds,
   "and has professed a good profession before many witnesses." Many of
   you did this in your Baptism, when, as Believers, you were buried with
   Christ "by Baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from
   the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
   newness of life." In that sacred act you professed that the old nature
   was then and there to be regarded as buried and you would live for
   Christ and like Christ. Oh, be not false to your solemn vows, but lay
   hold on eternal life--not upon the miserable wretchedness of the
   passing hour! Then the Apostle sets before us the great example, "I
   charge you in the sight of God, who quickens all things and before
   Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
   that you keep this commandment." Christ sacrificed everything for us.
   He gave Himself for us! He laid hold on things eternal--as for anything
   here below, He let it slip by for our sakes. Eternity was always
   pressing upon the heart of Christ, for the joy that was set before Him,
   He endured the Cross, despising the shame. Therefore, if you are a
   Christian, professing to follow Christ, lay hold on eternal life and
   let this fill your grasp.

   V. Last of all, and I have done, EXPECT ETERNAL LIFE. By the two hands
   of faith and hope lay hold on eternal life as the great reward of the
   righteous. Look for the crown of life which fades not away. The time
   comes when this mortal life shall be utterly swallowed up in eternal
   life. Let me suggest to you, my beloved Brothers and Sisters, that we
   think much about the life to come. We shall soon be there in the
   endless home, let us send our thoughts there like couriers in advance.
   Let the harps of angels ring out their music to our listening ears! Let
   the songs of the redeemed awaken us to unite with them in the praises
   of our Lord! You will soon be there--anticipate the joy! Put on your
   white robes by faith and even if a little imagination should come to
   the aid of faith, it will do no harm. Your heads will soon wear the
   crown--the crown which you will delight to cast at Jesus' feet! Today
   you know the straits of poverty, but you are going where the streets
   are paved with transparent gold! You now know the aches and pains of
   this frail flesh, but you are going where perpetual youth and rigor
   shall cause all pain to flee away! You are passing quickly along the
   journey--think much of that journey's end. Remember the rest which
   remains, the perfection which is promised, the victory which is
   secured, the communion which is provided, the Glory which is dawning!
   "His servants shall serve Him and they shall see His face." Think much
   of your home--every good child will do so.

   When you think of it and your heart grows warm with the thought, then
   count it very near. Suppose you are to live a comparatively long life?
   Yet no human life is really long. Even to a young man, if he has to
   look forward to a gray old age, life is but a span. How brief it seems
   on looking back! When I remember the Brother who died in yonder pew
   last Sunday, I can but feel how near Heaven is to some among us. We
   have touched the celestial country! One Brother has just leaped on
   shore! The other day, all of a sudden, I saw the white cliffs of Dover.
   The swift ship had performed the passage so rapidly that the sea had
   been crossed before I had reckoned on reaching land. There were the
   cliffs. Just ahead, Brothers and Sisters, Heaven is just ahead! Run to
   the bows! Heaven ahoy! Do not forever continue gazing at the misty
   shores behind you. Look ahead! You are far nearer than you think, to
   the land of the immortal! We are within speaking distance of Heaven!
   The Lord hears our cry and we hear His promise--

   "How near to faith's far-seeing eye The golden gates appear!"

   In this way lay hold on eternal life by confident expectancy.

   Rehearse eternal life! Rehearse the service and joy of Heaven! They
   have rehearsals of fine pieces of music--let us have a rehearsal of
   Heaven's harmonies. The thing is practicable. We have often enjoyed
   rehearsals of temple music in this

   Tabernacle. In this pulpit I have been within half an inch of
   Heaven--and I hope you know the same nearness in the pews! Let us begin
   the music here and now. Glorified saints praise the Lamb--let us praise
   Him! They worship the great God with transports of joy--let us worship
   with them! They find their all in Jesus--where else have we anything?
   Let our Sabbaths be, each of them, a taste of the Sabbath that shall
   have no end! Thus "lay hold on eternal life."

   "Ah," says one, "I wish I were already in Heaven." Do not be in a
   hurry. The best expectancy is that which waits with patience. Our
   esteemed Brother, Mr. Lockhart, tells a story of one of his members, of
   the name of Carey--a royal name that! She was very sick and near to
   die, but she expressed a desire to live, at which he was somewhat
   astonished, for he knew her to be so well prepared to depart. She
   wished to stay here a while for a good and laudable reason. There was
   one thing which she could see here on earth--which she could not see in
   Heaven--and she wished to remain here to see it again and again. "What
   is that?" Mr. Lockhart asked. "It is the tear of repentance on the
   sinner's cheek. I want to see a great many more of those before I go
   Home." And so do I. O my unconverted Hearers, I would willingly stay
   out of Heaven to weep for you till you weep for sin! To see tears of
   repentance in all your eyes would be a Heaven to me!

   My Brothers and Sisters around me would be willing to wait, also, even
   until Jesus comes, if we could, by our waiting, help to give you
   repentance. Tears of repentance bedewing the cheeks of sinners are the
   diamonds of angels and the jewels of saints! Oh, that my beloved
   helpers may see many drops of the dew of repentance this morning when
   they come round among you! And may Jesus see them and speak peace to
   repenting hearts. Poor sinners! We would stay out of Heaven for such as
   you, even as Jesus came out of Heaven for such as you! Believe on the
   one appointed Savior and enter into eternal life--and we will dwell in
   Heaven together! The Lord grant it. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Who Is This?

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 13, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Behold, the Lord has proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say you to
   the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward
   is with Him and His work before Him. And they shall call them, The Holy
   People, The Redeemed of the Lord, and you shall be called, Sought Out,
   A City Not Forsaken. Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed
   garments from Bozrah? This One who is glorious in His apparel,
   traveling in the greatness of His strength? I who speak in
   righteousness, mighty to save." Isaiah 62:11,12; 63:1.

   ISRAEL was often in great trouble, frequently oppressed by neighboring
   nations. It would not have been so if they had been faithful to
   Jehovah. But as a chastisement for their idolatry, they were given over
   into the hands of adversaries. One nation, near akin to them, was very
   jealous of them. The Edomites, the seed of Esau, were always watching
   against Israel and whenever the nation fell on evil times and powerful
   kingdoms invaded them, Edom was always in alliance with the enemy,
   ready to profit by Israel's sorrows. Hence Edom was the typical
   adversary of Israel and is, in that manner, mentioned here with Bozrah,
   its capital city.

   The Lord God of Israel often interposed to rescue His people. I need
   not go over the history, but any one of these appearances for the
   overthrow of Israel's enemies may be represented in the language now
   before us in the commencement of the 63rd Chapter. God coming forth in
   the glory of His strength overthrows Israel's enemies and is seen in
   vision returning from their slaughter. I take the text as a
   representation of those marvelous victories which the Lord worked for
   His chosen people when He put forth His power on their behalf. The
   first verse represents the astonishment of the Prophet and of the
   people, as they beheld the Lord glorious in power, when He had
   vindicated the cause of His oppressed people and had crushed the power
   of their adversaries.

   As in God's immediate dealings with men we usually see the Son of God
   most manifest, this passage may fitly represent the glorious appearings
   of our Lord Jesus Christ whenever He has come forth to vindicate the
   cause of His people and to overthrow their enemies. This vision will be
   astoundingly fulfilled in the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   The 14th and 19th Chapters of the Book of Revelation give us parallel
   passages to this. What astonishment there will be among the sons of men
   when He shall appear in His vesture dipped in blood, smiting the
   nations with His iron rod--yes, dashing them in pieces as potters'
   vessels! In those last tremendous times, when the day of vengeance
   shall have arrived, then shall the winepress be trod outside the city,
   even the great winepress of the wrath of God. No tongue can fully tell
   the terrors of that day when our Lord shall say, "Ah, I will ease
   Myself of My adversaries." While He shall give victory to the cause of
   peace, purity, truth, righteousness--and shall save all those who
   believe in Him, He shall bruise Satan under His feet, and crush the
   powers of darkness. Then shall these words of the Prophet be more fully
   understood--"Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from
   Bozrah? This One who is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the
   greatness of His strength?"

   The commentators and expositors almost universally deny that this text
   may be used as referring to our Lord's passion. They tell us that to do
   so would be to wrest the Scripture from its obvious meaning and, at any
   rate, at the best, it would be a mere accommodation of the passage.
   Now, I take up the gage of battle and deny the assertion! The Church,
   by a holy instinct, has referred the passage to our Lord's First, as
   well as His Second Coming, and she has not been in error. The very
   first reference of this text is to the Lord's passion in its spiritual
   aspect as a battle against the enemies of our souls. I grant you that
   the text does not speak of our Lord as trampled upon and crushed in the
   winepress blood which stains His garments is not said to be His own
   blood, but that of His foes. Such a representation might have been
   expected had it been the Prophet's design to describe the sufferings of
   our Lord. He does not describe the sufferings, themselves, but he does
   most clearly depict their grand result. If we take a deeply spiritual
   sight of our Lord's passion, such as a Prophet would be likely to have
   before him in vision, we see upon His garments, as the result of His
   sufferings, not so much His own blood as the blood of the enemies whom
   in death He overthrew.

   The passage is poetical. The battle is a spiritual one. The conflict is
   with sin and with the powers of darkness. And the Conqueror returns
   from the fight having utterly destroyed His foes, of which His
   blood-dyed garments are the surest evidence. Our Lord's passion was the
   battle of all battles, upon which the whole campaign of His life
   turned--and had He not then and there vanquished all our adversaries
   and had He not at the Resurrection come back as One who had trampled
   down all His foes--then there had been no glorious appearing in the
   latter days! That first combat is the cause of the ultimate triumph! I
   look upon this 63rd Chapter of Isaiah as the prophetic statement of the
   event described by Paul in Colossians 2:15--"And having spoiled
   principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing
   over them in it." On the Resurrection morning it would have been
   poetically correct to have used the language of our text. Unseen
   spirits, viewing our Lord after a spiritual manner, might have
   exclaimed as they beheld the risen Savior--

   "Who is this that comes from Edom, All His raiment stained with blood?
   To the slave proclaiming freedom; Bringing and bestowing good? Glorious
   in the garb He wears, Glorious in the spoils He bears?"

   I mean so to use the passage, this morning, with a consciousness that I
   am not accommodating it, nor taking it from its natural sense at all,
   but rather placing it in the light of its first great fulfillment. I
   have not concealed from you its relation to the Second Advent, when the
   Lord Jesus shall appear in victory, "clothed with a vesture dipped in
   blood." But, at the same time, this is a picture of salvation rather
   than destruction, and its Hero appears as "mighty to save," in
   fulfillment of a Divine proclamation, "Behold, your salvation comes."
   The scene before us describes an interposition of the Messiah--the
   return of the Divinely appointed Champion from the defeat of His
   enemies. It is evidently a picture of salvation rather than of
   damnation, as the main feature in it is that He is mighty to save. The
   great and chief element of the whole thing is that the year of His
   redeemed is come and that the Warrior's own arm has brought salvation
   to His people! Therefore I cannot, for a moment, question that this
   text is applicable to the first coming of Christ. Then He did battle
   with the hosts of sin and death and Hell--and so vanquished them that
   in His Resurrection He returned with the keys of death and of Hell at
   His belt! Then was He seen as "mighty to save." Now lend me your hearts
   as well as your ears while I proceed to the great subject before
   us--and may the Holy Spirit grant us His gracious aid!

   I. First, in my text there is A PROCLAMATION--"Behold, the Lord has
   proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say you to the daughter of Zion,
   Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His
   work before Him. And they shall call them, The Holy People, The
   Redeemed of the Lord: and you shall be called, Sought Out, A City Not
   Forsaken." The commentators as a whole can see no connection between
   the 63rd Chapter and the preceding part of the Book of Isaiah, but
   surely that connection is plain enough to the common reader! In these
   verses the coming of the Savior is proclaimed and in the next chapter
   that coming is seen in vision--and the evangelical Prophet beholds the
   Savior so vividly that He is startled and enquires, "Who is this?"

   Let us consider this proclamation broadly, for we have no time to dwell
   upon its details. I desire to apply its spiritual lessons as I go on,
   aiming chiefly at the comfort of those who are in soul trouble. Are any
   of you oppressed with a sense of sin? Do you see sin to be an enemy too
   powerful for you to overcome? Are you unable to escape out of the hand
   of the enemy? Here is a proclamation! God the Ever-Gracious One,
   demands your attention while, as a King, He proclaims His word of mercy
   to the daughter of Zion--"Behold, your salvation comes!"

   This great announcement tells you that there is a salvation from
   outside. Within your heart there is nothing that can save you--all
   within you is carnal, sold under sin. Out of bondage only bondage can
   arise. The proclamation is, "Behold, your salvation comes!" It comes to
   you from a source beyond yourself. It does not arise from within you,
   for it could not do so. Salvation comes from God, Himself! What a
   blessing, that when there was no salvation in you, nor the possibility
   of its coming from within, it came from above! Salvation comes not from
   man's will, or merit, or efforts!

   "Salvation is of the Lord." "It is not of him that wills, nor of him
   that runs, but of God that shows mercy." O Soul, if the Lord God comes
   to save you, Edom and Bozrah, sin and Hell will soon be broken in
   pieces! The power of your sins and the tyranny of your sinful habits;
   the cords of your companionships; the bondage of Satan himself must
   speedily yield when salvation comes from the Eternal Throne and the
   Mighty One of Israel hastens to the rescue!

   It is a salvation which comes through a Person. "Your salvation
   comes--behold, His reward is with Him and His work before Him." The
   great salvation which we have to proclaim is salvation by Jesus Christ,
   the Son of God! Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the Cross, is also the
   Son of the Highest. God has set Him forth to be the Propitiation for
   sin, to be the Deliverer of mankind from the bondage of evil. Behold
   Him, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Behold Him,
   the Beloved of the Father! Power to save unto the uttermost is laid
   upon Him. He is a Savior and a great one. Remember this and do not look
   to rites and ceremonies, or to creeds and doctrines, but to the Person
   of Jesus, who is God and Man. Simeon said, when he beheld our Lord as a
   Babe, "My eyes have seen Your salvation"--truly we may say the same
   with emphasis when we see Him in His Resurrection!

   This salvation leads to holiness, for the text says of those who
   receive the Savior, "They shall call them, The Holy People." If, dear
   Friend, you are to be saved, you are also to be sanctified. Indeed,
   that sanctification is the essence of salvation! This will give you
   great joy, I know, for no man really desires salvation--rightly
   understanding what he desires, without meaning by it that he may be
   saved from the power of sin and may no longer be in servitude to his
   own lusts--or to the wicked customs of the world. Sinners, rejoice! The
   great Jehovah proclaims to you a salvation which shall so purify you
   that you shall be saved from your sins and shall be called, "The Holy
   People." Is not that the best news you have ever heard?

   Further, it is salvation by redemption, for it is written that they
   shall be called, "The Redeemed of the Lord." In the sacred Scriptures
   there is no salvation for men except by redemption. You have enslaved
   yourselves and your heritage is under bond and, therefore, you and it
   must be ransomed. Behold, your Redeemer pays your ransom! His own
   heart's blood, Messiah pours forth, that men who have been enslaved may
   be set free! Redemption by Substitution is the Gospel! Christ stands in
   your place, a sufferer because of your sins--you are set in Christ's
   place--rewarded because of His righteousness, accepted because of His
   acceptableness with God! This is a sure and satisfactory salvation--a
   salvation which satisfies the conscience of man as well as the justice
   of God. This salvation is to you without money and without price, but
   it cost the Redeemer nothing less than Himself! Behold in Him the
   ransom paid in full, so that He bids you go free! He says, "Fear not,
   for I have redeemed you." Tell it out among the heathen, tell it out
   among the fallen, that there is salvation, salvation by a great
   redemption, full and free! All that lost ones have to do is joyfully
   accept the purchased freedom and go forth in joy and peace!

   This salvation is complete. "You shall be called, Sought Out, A City
   Not Forsaken." See the beginning of it--"You shall be called, Sought
   Out"? See the end of it--you shall be called, "Not Forsaken"? You will
   not begin with God, but God will begin with you! You shall be sought
   out and then you will seek Him. He seeks you even now. You shall be
   known as one that was sought out, a sheep that wandered, a piece of
   money that fell into the dust, but, behold, you are sought out till the
   Savior says, "Rejoice with Me; for I have found My sheep which was
   lost." This is the gracious beginning of salvation!

   But suppose the Lord found you and then left you? You would perish. But
   it shall not be so, for the same Lord who calls you, "Sought Out," also
   calls you, "Not Forsaken." You shall never be forsaken of the Grace of
   God, nor of the God of Grace! Whatever you may be, notwithstanding your
   weakness and your waywardness, you shall be known in Heaven by these
   two names--first, that you were, "Sought Out," and next, that you were,
   "Not Forsaken." It makes my eyes sparkle with delight to think how
   fully those two names describe myself! I delight to sing--

   "Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He,
   to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood." Equally true
   is that other word, "Not Forsaken." Notwithstanding all my provocations
   and rebellions, I believe in Him who has said, "I will never leave you,
   nor forsake you." I shall not die but live because He is with me!

   This salvation which we have to proclaim to you, then, is one that
   comes to you who lie despairing at Hell's dark door. You shall be
   sought out according to the Sovereign Grace of God. Jesus comes to you
   when you are afraid to come

   to Him. You fear that if you were to commence the march to Heaven, you
   would faint by the way, but He who travels in the greatness of His
   strength comes that you may lean on Him. You that are smitten with
   faintness of heart because you know your own weakness and
   changeableness--you shall be helped and sustained to the end! He that
   begins the good work of Grace in the heart is no changeling--He will
   carry it on and carry it out to the praise of the Glory of His Grace.
   Oh, this is worth proclaiming! Oh, for a silver trumpet with which to
   blow a blast that might awaken all who slumber! There is salvation!
   Salvation by a glorious Person! Salvation unto holiness! Salvation by
   redemption--a salvation so perfect that those who receive it shall
   never be forsaken!

   dear Hearer, do you not wish to have this salvation? Do you not desire
   to obtain it at once? If you do, I beg you to follow me, now, while I
   direct you to Him who is the Salvation of His people! While we fix our
   eyes upon the glorious Person raised up and upheld by God, by whom this
   salvation is brought to the sons of men, I pray that you may believe in
   Him unto eternal life!

   II. To introduce this Person, I now come to consider THE QUESTION--"Who
   is this that comes from Edom?" The Prophet beholds in vision the
   Captain of salvation, returning from battle, arrayed like the warriors
   of whom we read, "the valiant men are in scarlet." He beholds the
   majestic march of this mighty Conqueror and he cries, "Who is this?"
   Now when a soul first hears the proclamation of God's salvation and
   then sees Jesus coming to him, he asks, "Who is this?" The question, in
   part, arises from anxiety, as if he asked, "Who is this that espouses
   my cause? Is He able to save? Has He really conquered my enemies?" The
   heart enquires, "You preach to me a Savior, but what sort of a Savior
   is He? Is He able? Is He willing? Is He tender? Is He strong?" What you
   are, dear Friend, is easily told, for you are lost and ru-ined--the
   great question you need to consider is--Who is He that comes to save
   you? And you may well, with anxiety, ask the question, because it
   concerns your own personal welfare--"Is He such a Savior as will be
   able to save me?"

   The question arose from anxiety, but it also indicates ignorance. We do
   not, any of us, know our Lord Jesus to the fullest. "Who is this?" is a
   question we may still put to the sacred Oracle. Paul, after He had
   known Christ 15 years, yet desired that He might know Him, for His love
   passes knowledge. If this passage refers to our Savior's Resurrection,
   it is a remarkable Truth that even His disciples did not know Him when
   He had arisen. Launcelot Andrewes, in a famous sermon on this text,
   enlarges on this point and I am content to borrow from him. Magdalene,
   of all the women in the world, ought to have known Him, but she
   supposed Him to be the gardener.

   The two disciples that walked with Him to Emmaus were with Him long
   enough to have spied Him out and yet in all that long walk they did not
   know Him! Are you amazed that they did not discern their Lord? Would it
   have been a marvel had they said, "Who is this? Behold Him traveling in
   the greatness of His strength and yet a few hours ago we saw Him dead,
   and helped to lay His lifeless body in Joseph's tomb! Who is this? We
   saw Him stripped! They took His garments from Him on the Cross and now
   He is 'glorious in His apparel.' Who is this? His enemies made nothing
   of Him. they spat in His face, they nailed Him to the tree, but, lo,
   His garments are dyed with the blood of His foes and He comes back more
   than conqueror! Who is this?" I do not wonder that when the Person of
   Christ first flashes on the sinner's eyes, he thinks to himself--He was
   once a Babe at Bethlehem, a weary Man before His foes, scourged, spat
   upon--is this the Savior? And does He come to me and proposes that I
   should put my trust in Him as having overthrown all my adversaries?
   "Who is this?"

   As the sinner looks, and looks again, he cries, "Who is this?" in
   delighted amazement. Is it, indeed, the Son of God? Does He intervene
   to save me? The God whom I offended, does He stoop to fight and rout my
   sins? He without whom was not anything made, Heaven's Darling and the
   delight of angels, can it be He? The soul is astonished and scarcely
   believes for joy. Yet, Beloved, it is even He. This same Jesus is both
   Lord and God! When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive and
   made an open show of His vanquished foes. He nailed the handwriting of
   ordinances that was against us to His Cross. He broke the head of the
   serpent and destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the
   devil. How could He be less than God? It is He and none other than
   He--God over all, blessed forever, who took upon Himself the form of a
   Servant and was made in the likeness of men and became obedient to
   death--even the death of the Cross! It is He whom God has highly
   exalted and given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name
   of Jesus every knee should bow! No wonder that the soul enquires, "Who
   is this?"

   1 think the question is asked, also, by way of adoration. Such a
   question is elsewhere so used. Here is an instance-- "Who is a God like
   unto You, that pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the
   remnant of His heritage?" So

   that, as the soul begins to see Jesus, its anxiety is removed by
   knowledge and is replaced by an astonishment which ripens into worship.
   Adoringly the spirit cries, "Who is this?" What a Savior I have! How
   could it have come about that He should die for me? What a Savior is He
   in His death! What a Savior in His rising again! What a Savior in His
   ascension up to Heaven! What a Savior in His enthronement! What a
   Savior in His glorious Advent when He shall come to gather together His
   own! Who is this? We are lost in wonder as we bow before the infinite
   Majesty of the Son of God and adore Him as God, our Savior, forever and
   ever.

   It appears from the question that the person asking it knows from where
   the Conqueror came, for it is written, "Who is this that comes from
   Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" Yes, our Redeemer has returned
   from death, as said the Psalmist, "You will not leave My soul in Hell,
   neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." He came again
   from the land of the enemy. He died and descended into the regions of
   the dead, but He loosed the bands of death, for He could not be held by
   them. He went forth to fight with all the adversaries of our souls,
   even with all the powers of darkness! It was a terrible battle. How
   thick and fast the shafts flew at the commencement of the fight! Our
   Hero soon knew the garments rolled in blood, for He became covered with
   a bloody sweat. He flinched not from the horrible conflict, although
   His body had become one bleeding wound. How sharp were the swords that
   wounded Him when His friends proved cowards and one of them betrayed
   Him!

   How terrible were the blades that sheathed themselves in His body and
   mind! They pierced His hands and His feet. They laid open His very
   heart. His head was bleeding with the thorns and His back with the
   knotted scourges, but He ceased not to grapple with the evil powers. He
   said, "This is your hour," and full well He found it so. He had in the
   midst of the fight to groan as well as sweat that cry forced from Him,
   "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" But quickly followed the
   victorious shout of, "It is finished," and then and there He hurled His
   tremendous adversary headlong, crushed his head and left him fallen, no
   more to rise!--

   "'Tis finished,' said His dying breath And shook the gates of Hell."

   As on this Resurrection Day we see our Lord come back to us, we
   perceive His garments sprinkled with the blood of all who fought
   against us. I beseech you to lay hold of this and trust my blessed
   Lord, for He has fought with all the enemies of our souls and He has
   returned from the enemy's country, leading captivity captive. We may
   look at Him this day right trustfully, for His fight is over and His
   enemies are crushed as grapes in the winepress. We not only trust our
   Lord, but we worship Him this day as King of Kings and Lord of Lords--

   "Bruised is the serpent's head,

   Hell is vanquished, death is dead,

   And to Christ gone up on high,

   Captive is captivity. Alleluia!"

   Next. notice that the Prophet in vision observes the color of the
   Conqueror's garments--"Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed
   garments from Bozrah?" Red is not Christ's color, therefore the
   question arises, "Why are You red in Your apparel?" Our Beloved's
   garments are whiter than any fuller can make them. The glory of His
   purity is such that we say to ourselves, "Red--why, that is the color
   of Edom, the adversary! Red, that is the color of the earth of our
   manhood! Red is the color of our scarlet sins." Why is He red? Brothers
   and Sisters, although the text treats of the blood of His adversaries,
   yet I would have you devoutly think of our Lord literally as shedding
   His own blood, for His victory was thus accomplished. The text sets
   forth the result of that blood-shedding in the overthrow of His enemies
   and ours--but we cannot separate the effect from the cause. As a matter
   of fact, when our Lord's own blood was shed, sin and death and Hell
   were trod down and destroyed as grapes in the winepress.

   When He was suffering, He was then smiting down His enemies. By the
   shedding of His own blood He was shedding the blood of His foes! The
   life of the powers of darkness was taken away by His death. When I see
   Jesus coming back, literally covered with His own blood, I discern Him
   spiritually as encrimsoned with the slaughter of evil and its abettors.
   Glory be to His name! I shall never cease to look upon my Lord in the
   red colors as in the prime of His beauty. The blood-red colors are the
   colors of victory! He never looks so lovely as when He appears as "a
   Lamb that has been slain." I remember how Rutherford seems to glow and
   burn when, in his prose poetry, he talks of "the bonnie red man." That
   crimson vest is His most royal garment! He has taken away all our
   transgressions and iniquities--and covered all our scarlet sins--and we
   see the blood of them in His blood.

   Glory be to the bleeding Christ, I say! If there is one hallelujah
   louder than any other, let it be unto Him who wears the vesture dipped
   in blood! His own blood is the token and proof that the blood of all
   His spiritual foes has been shed. Our warfare is accomplished and our
   sin is pardoned! Behold the colors of Atonement, for they are the
   ensigns of eternal victory--

   "Why that blood His raiment staining? 'Tis the blood of many slain; Of
   His foes there's none remaining, None the contest to maintain! Fallen
   they are no more to rise; All their glory prostrate lies."

   But yet the question comes from one who perceives that the Conqueror is
   royally arrayed. "This that is glorious in His apparel." O dear
   Hearers, the Jesus we have to preach to you is no mean Savior! He is
   clothed with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. He
   wears, today, a greater splendor than adorned the sons of Aaron--our
   great High Priest has put on all His jewels! He also wears the majesty
   of His kingship--"On His head are many crowns." He is, this day,
   arrayed in light and glory. His majesty is too bright for mortal eyes
   to gaze upon. When the beloved John beheld Him, he fell at His feet as
   dead. He is "glorious in His apparel."

   The question ends with "traveling in the greatness of His strength." He
   did not come back from slaughtering our enemies feeble and wounded, but
   He returned in majestic march, like a victor who would have all men
   know that his force is irresistible. The earth shook beneath our Lord's
   feet on the Resurrection morning, for "there was a great earthquake."
   The Roman guards became as dead men at His appearing! Beloved, the Lord
   Jesus Christ is no petty, puny Savior. He is traveling to meet poor
   sinners, but He is traveling in the greatness of His strength. "All
   power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth" He said. As He travels
   through the nations, it is as a strong man against whom none can stand,
   mighty to rescue every soul that puts its trust in Him.

   There is the question. I leave it with you, praying that every soul
   here that is oppressed by the powers of Hell may ask the question, "Who
   is this that comes from Edom?"

   III. Thirdly, let us consider THE ANSWER. Upon this I must be brief.

   No one can answer for Jesus--He must speak for Himself. Like the sun,
   He can only be seen by His own light. He is His own interpreter. Not
   even the angels could explain the Savior--they get no further than
   desiring to look into the things which are in Him. He Himself answers
   the question, "Who is this?" His personality comes out--"I, the Lord
   Jesus. It is none other than Myself who has come forth to overthrow the
   adversary." The speaker was too modest to ask the mighty Savior who He
   was, but that Savior was not too lofty to give Him the information
   which was desired. O poor Heart! Jesus will show Himself to you if you
   desire to know Him! He will come near to you when you dare not come
   near to Him. In His own light you will see Him--and if you are
   bewildered and befogged, but yet truly anxious--He will manifest
   Himself to you in His great love and say to you, "It is I; be not
   afraid."

   The answer which our Lord gives is twofold. He describes Himself first
   as a speaker--"I that speak in righteousness." Is He not the Word?
   Every Word that Christ speaks is true--He speaks not in falsehood, but
   in righteousness. The Gospel which He proclaims is a just and righteous
   one, meeting both the claims of God and the demands of conscience. O
   Soul, if you will listen to Jesus you shall hear that from Him which
   you could never hear from any other lips! "Never man spoke like this
   Man." He will speak of God's holiness and yet He will speak to your
   comfort. He will reveal God's justice and yet God's love to you. Oh,
   hear what the Christ has to say and believe every word of it without a
   quibble, for therein lies salvation! "Hear, and your soul shall live."

   Our Lord also describes Himself as a Savior--"I that speak in
   righteousness, mighty to save." Now, observe that the word, "mighty,"
   is joined with His saving and not with His destroying. Although He can
   crush His foes as easily as a man can crush with His feet the berries
   of the grape, the Prophet does not speak of Him as, "mighty to tread
   down His enemies." He will prove Himself thus mighty in that day of
   vengeance which is in His heart, but just now He reveals Himself in the
   year of His redeemed as, "mighty to save." Rejoice in this, O my
   Hearers! The Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior and He is grand in that
   capacity. Nothing is beyond His power in the line of salvation! He
   says, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." There is no
   manner of sin which He cannot forgive! There is no sort of hardness of
   heart which He can-

   not remove! There are no spiritual difficulties which He cannot
   surmount! "His reward is with Him and His work before Him." "He shall
   not fail, nor be discouraged."

   Oh that He stood here this morning instead of me! I do but prattle
   concerning Him and yet it is the best that I can do. If you use the
   eyes of faith, my Lord, who has overcome the foes of His redeemed,
   stands before you today! And if you ask who He is, He proclaims
   Himself, for He would have you know Him. To know Jesus is the first,
   the chief, the highest piece of human knowledge! He is your Teacher and
   this is your lesson. He answers the question of the prophetic catechism
   and when it is asked, "Who is this?" He replies, "I that speak in
   righteousness, mighty to save." Fall at His feet and love and adore Him
   this day--and then your Heaven shall begin below!

   Thus have we gone through the text in a very poor and hurried way, for
   I need just a few minutes to make practical use of the subject before I
   send you away.

   May the Holy Spirit now apply the Truth with power! Poor troubled one!
   Your sins are many and they grievously oppress you. You see no hope of
   escape from the justice of God, or from the power of evil within your
   nature. Listen to the proclamation, as I dwell upon it again. "Behold,
   your salvation comes." Jesus can save you, for He is "mighty to save"!

   He can save you for He has saved others like you. He has, these many
   years, kept His hands at this work. Your case will not perplex Him! He
   is at home at the business of saving sinners. The chief of sinners was
   saved long ago and if the chief, then you, although you may be the next
   greatest, can be saved! Jesus has never been put to a nonplus yet. He
   that conquered Edom and Bozrah; He that led captivity captive and
   vanquished all the hosts of Hell shall never be defeated! Do not tell
   me that His arm is shortened, that He cannot save. He can save you, you
   who now desire to be made holy. You with the hard heart, who desire to
   have it softened, He can do the mighty deed! He can raise the
   spiritually dead and even restore those who have become corrupt. He can
   do it, though nobody else can.

   He can overthrow all your enemies. Satan has you now in his grasp and
   you are not able to war with him. One evil passion or another binds
   you. You seem watched like Peter in prison and bound even as he was,
   but He who loosed Peter can release you. Jesus can say to the
   prisoners, "Go forth," and forth they shall go! There is no temptation,
   no sin, no infernal influence from which He cannot rescue His chosen.
   He is so mighty to save that He can deliver every soul that trusts in
   Him, however great its extremity. Leave your enemies to Jesus! They
   baffle you, but He can rout them. His garment is already dyed with
   their blood, therefore be not afraid!

   He can do this alone. If you trust Jesus and none but Jesus, you have
   an all-sufficient salvation. "I have trodden the winepress alone, and
   of the people there was none with Me." "I looked, and there was none to
   help; I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore My own arm
   brought salvation unto me." Poor Sinner! Hang on to Jesus and His one
   salvation! If you have no other sort of hope. If you can see no good
   thing in yourself. If your prayers die on your lips. If you cannot
   weep, if you cannot feel, if you have not even so much as a jot of
   anything that is commendable about you--still cling to Jesus--only to
   Jesus! The great battle of salvation He fought single-handed and He can
   save you single-handed. He is exalted to be a Prince and a Savior and
   He will not stain His princedom by failing in salvation! I fear I have
   never done more in my own salvation than hinder rather than help my
   Lord, and yet I know that though I believe not, He abides faithful. He
   will stand to His office even though I fail in my pledges! When He
   saves, He does truly save. He is master of the business! He put Himself
   apprentice to it when He was here below and set to work to heal all
   manner of sickness--and He never failed even then! But now that He has
   gone through death and Hell for us--and made Himself perfect through
   suffering--He is a master workman and He can save in the teeth of all
   opposition. Do but trust Him and you shall find it so!

   Let me add to this, dear troubled Friend, that He is able to save you
   now. Do you notice that verse, "The day of vengeance is in My heart and
   the year of My redeemed is come"? I leaped with joy at those words as I
   studied them. Yes, I thought, I will tell these sinners that the day of
   vengeance is in God's heart and I will warn them that if they do not
   turn to Him He will destroy them. Ah, but that vengeance is as yet in
   His heart, He lets it lie there in His long-suffering patience! But the
   year of His redeemed is come--it is present, it is now! It is not,
   "Today will I destroy you," but, "Today, if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts, as in the provocation." Today is the day of
   salvation--"the year of My redeemed is come"! We speak of our dates as,
   "Anno Domini," and so they are--these days are in the year of our Lord.

   We live in the years of our Redeemer, years of His redeemed, years of
   pardoning love! Oh, that you would come, now that your year is come!
   Jesus is able to save you at this hour!

   This morning in February. This cold and bitter morning when the east
   wind searches you to the very marrow--the Lord Jesus Christ can warm
   your hearts with a summer tide of love! It was such a morning as this
   when I first found my Lord--when the snowflakes fell so abundantly!
   Each one seemed to say that Jesus had made me whiter than snow. Even
   this cruel east wind will breathe comfort to you if you will look to my
   Lord dressed in His vesture dipped in blood. Behold the glorious
   apparel of His love and righteousness! He comes back from death and
   Hell triumphant, so that you may never come under their yoke! He
   proclaims life to you because your foes are dead. He washes your
   garments white because His are dyed with blood. You shall live forever
   because He died--and you shall triumph because He has won the battle on
   your behalf. You shall go forth conquering and to conquer because He
   conquers!

   Jesus has already done the work. There is nothing to be endured by Him
   in order to save you from your sins--the expiation is made, the
   redemption is paid, the righteousness is worked out. Of this salvation
   our Lord said, at the moment when He won the victory, "It is
   finished"--and it is finished forever! Without seam and woven from the
   top throughout was the garb the Savior's body wore--and now He presents
   a garment like it to every naked sinner who trusts Him. And He says,
   "Put it on." It is freely given though it was dearly worked. It cost
   our Lord His life to weave it, His blood to dye it--but to the sinner
   it is a free gift and, if he will but have it, he, also, shall be
   glorious in his apparel and Jesus will strengthen him till he, also,
   shall travel in the greatness of His strength. Oh that you would
   believe in Jesus Christ this morning!

   It is a sad wonder that men do not believe in Jesus. It is a mournful
   wonder that you who have been hearing the Gospel for so many years, do
   not believe in Him. What are you doing? Why, if somebody were to preach
   to you any other Gospel than what I have delivered, you would grow
   angry--you would not hear it! Why is it that you delight to hear the
   Gospel and yet will not accept it to your own salvation? Many of you
   have a great admiration of my Lord, after a fashion, and you love to
   hear me praise Him--but what is it to you? What can He be to you unless
   you trust Him? "Oh, but I don't feel my sins." Have I not told you many
   times that salvation does not lie in your feelings? "Oh, but I am
   not"-- Have I not told you over and over again that it is not what you
   are, but what Jesus is? Listen to me. Cease from self and come to Jesus
   just as you are!

   Let us finish by each one of us singing this verse from the heart and
   all of us together with our tongues--

   "A guilty, weak and helpless worm,

   On Christ's kind arms I fall:

   He is my strength and righteousness

   My Jesus and my All."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Hedge of Thorns and the Plain Way

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns: but the way of
   the righteous is made plain." Proverbs 15:19.

   You must have noticed how frequently godly people almost wear out their
   Bibles in certain places. The Psalms, the Gospel of John and parts of
   the Epistles are favorite portions and are thumbed in many an old
   Believer's Bible till the fact is very noticeable. There are certain
   sheep-tracks up the slopes of Scripture which are much more trodden
   than the rest of the holy fields. I suppose it has always been so and I
   will not quarrel with the instincts of the saints.

   I do, however, regret that any portion of Holy Writ should be
   neglected. There are Bible readers who keep clear of the historical
   parts of Scripture and also greatly avoid the Book of Proverbs--indeed,
   they almost wonder how Proverbs and Ecclesiastes came to be a part of
   the Word of God! Very singular it must seem to them that this Book of
   Proverbs should be placed so very near to Solomon's Song--that sacred
   Canticle which is the center and climax of inspired Scripture--a book
   which I do not hesitate to call "the holy of holies," the innermost
   sanctuary of Divine Love. Concerning that deeply mystical, mysterious
   and rapturous Canticle, it would be impossible to speak too highly. It
   is, indeed, the Song of Songs--a song, however, which none can sing but
   such as are made songsters by God, Himself, by partaking of the
   Inspiration, not of the fountain which gushed from Mount Parnassus, but
   of that fountain of every blessing which flows from the mount of
   Everlasting Love.

   It is certainly remarkable that, hard by such a deeply-spiritual Book,
   there should be placed the Book of Proverbs, which mainly consists of
   instructions for this life. Doubtless there is a meaning in that
   arrangement. The Lord would not have the highest spirituality divorced
   from common sense. God has made us body and soul and He would have us
   serve Him with both. There is a part of us that is material and there
   is a part that is spiritual--and both need guidance such as the Holy
   Spirit affords us in the inspired Book. The Lord Jesus Christ has
   redeemed us, not as to our soul, alone, nor our spirit, alone, but as
   to our body, also--and He would have us recognize this fact.

   While we are in the world we are not to regard ourselves as if we were
   pure spirits, having nothing to do with earth, but we are to look to
   our lower nature and our earthly surroundings and order all these in
   accordance with the will of the Lord. It is not enough that our hearts
   are cleansed--our bodies are to be washed with pure water. We are in
   the world and we must eat, drink, work and trade even as other men do.
   And all this must be as much brought under the rule of wisdom as our
   higher nature and its actions. The Christian's faith does not come to
   him merely to create holy raptures and heavenly emotions--it comes to
   help him in the business of every day.

   Grace is intended to sanctify all the relations of life. There is no
   necessity that a man who is wise unto salvation should, in other
   respects, be a fool! The reverse should be constantly seen--sanctity
   should beget sagacity and purity should be the mother of prudence. We
   are to make the common things of this world sacred to God so that the
   bells of the horses may be as truly, "Holiness unto the Lord" as was
   the miter of the consecrated priest who served at the altar.

   I pray my friends not to be so spiritual that they cannot do a good
   day's work, or give full measure, or sell honest wares! To my disgust I
   have known persons professing to have reached perfect purity who have
   done very dirty things. I have been suspicious of superfine
   spirituality since I knew one who took no interest in the affairs of
   this world and yet speculated till he lost thousands of other people's
   money! Do not get to be so heavenly-minded that you cannot put up with
   the little vexations of the family, for we have heard of people of whom
   it was said that the sooner they went to Heaven the better, for they
   were too disagreeable to live with below!

   As the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ is meant for this world as
   well as for worlds to come, the volume of Holy Scripture is fitly made
   to contain Proverbs as well as Psalms. I have been told, but I do not
   know how true it is, that

   Scotland owes very much of its practical shrewdness to the fact that
   the Book of Proverbs used to be printed in a small form and was one of
   the first books read by all the children at the public schools. I can
   only say that if it were so, it showed much wisdom on the part of those
   who made the arrangement and I have no doubt that if it were still so,
   it would be a clear gain to the rising generation. It is a right thing
   to have practical teaching in connection with sound doctrine--and
   common sense in conjunction with deep spirituality. Let the Gospels,
   Psalms, Prophets and Epistles be your bread--and let the Book of
   Proverbs be your salt. Neglect neither the one nor the other.

   I preach at this time from the word of Solomon which is now before us
   and I shall not withhold from you its everyday meaning. But I shall
   also exhibit its higher lights, for I believe that there is not a moral
   truth in the Book of Proverbs which does not also wear a spiritual
   aspect. I shall try to show you that our text, while it has its
   temporal bearings which we will not conceal, has, beyond these, its
   higher and spiritual teachings with which we will conclude.

   I. First, then, take THE TEXT IN ITS TEMPORAL BEARINGS. It runs
   thus--"The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns: but the way
   of the righteous is made plain."

   Note then, first of all, that a slothful man is the opposite of a
   righteous man. In the text they are set in opposition. "The way of the
   slothful man" is placed in contrast, not with the way of the diligent
   man, but with "the way of the righteous"--as if to show that the
   slothful man is the very opposite of being a righteous man. A sluggard
   is not a righteous man and he cannot be--he misses a main part of
   rightness. It is very seldom that a sluggard is honest. He owes at
   least more labor to the world than he pays. He is guilty of sins of
   omission, for he fails in obedience to one of the laws laid upon
   manhood since the Fall--"In the sweat of your face shall you eat
   bread." He aspires to eat his bread without earning it! He would, if he
   could, eat bread for nothing, or eat the bread for which others
   toil--and this verges upon coveting and stealing--and generally leads
   up to one or both of these sins.

   The sluggard evades the common law of society and equally does he
   offend against the rule which our Apostle promulgated in the
   Church--"If any would not work, neither should he eat." The sluggard is
   not righteous, for he does not render to God according to the strength
   lent to him, nor to man according to the work assigned him. A slothful
   man is a soldier who would let others fight the battle of life while he
   lies asleep under the baggage wagon--until rations are served! He is a
   farmer who only farms his own strength and would eat the grapes while
   others trim the vines. He would, if possible, be carried on his bed
   into the Kingdom of Heaven--he is much too great a lover of ease to go
   on pilgrimage over rough and weary ways. If the Kingdom of Heaven
   suffers violence from others, it will never suffer violence from him!
   He is too idle to be importunate, too slothful to be earnest.

   He cannot be a righteous man, for slothfulness leads to the neglect of
   duty in many ways and, very soon, leads to lying about those neglects
   of duty--and no liar can have a portion in Heaven. Idleness is
   selfishness and this is not consistent with the love of our neighbor,
   nor with any high degree of virtue. Every good thing withers in the
   drought of idleness. In fact, all kinds of vices are comprehended in
   the one vice of sloth and, if you tell me that a man is a sluggard, I
   have his whole character before me in the blackest of letters! His
   fallow fields are well adapted for evil seed and, no doubt, Satan will
   raise a fine crop of weeds in every corner of his life! What this world
   would have been if we had all been gentlemen, with nothing to do, I
   cannot tell. The millions that have to work are largely kept out of
   mischief by their toil and although crimes are abundant enough in our
   great city as it is, what would they have been if there had not been
   daily tasks to keep men from excessive indulgence in drink and other
   forms of evil?

   Without labor the ale-houses would have been crammed every one of the
   24 hours. Folly would have held unbroken carnival and licentiousness
   would have burst all bounds. Among the sanitary and salutary
   regulations of the moral universe there is none much better than
   this--that men must work. He who does not work is not a righteous man,
   for he is out of accord with that which makes for righteousness. In
   some form or other, with either brain or hands, either by working or
   enduring, we share the common labors of the race appointed them of
   Heaven. And if we are not doing so, we are not righteous. I call to
   your remembrance the remarkable words of the Savior, "You wicked and
   slothful servant." Those two adjectives are nearly related--"wicked and
   slothful." Might not our Lord have said "slothful," alone? He might,
   but He knew how much of wickedness goes with sloth and is inherent in
   it and, therefore, He branded it with the condemning word.

   Our second observation is this--if we avoid sloth we have not done
   enough, we must also be righteous. If it had been sufficient to shake
   off idleness and become industrious, the text would have run thus--"The
   way of the slothful is as a

   hedge of thorns: but the way of the diligent is made plain." Ah, dear
   Friends, a man may be very industrious, energetic and earnest, but if
   it is in a wrong cause, he might have been less mischievous had he been
   slothful! To be exhibiting industry by doing a great deal of mischief
   is not commendable. To be actively disseminating your opinions, if
   those opinions are false, is to be doing grievous harm. To rise up
   early and sit up late and to eat the bread of carefulness, merely for
   selfish ends, is not to secure a blessing. There is a diligence which
   is produced by greed, or ambition--and this is no better than the
   selfishness which is the cause of it! Many wear themselves to skin and
   bone to gather that which is not bread, to hoard up that which can
   never satisfy them. We are to become the servants of righteousness when
   we escape from the servitude of sloth. "Not slothful in business" is
   very well, but to complete the change we must be gracious in our
   diligence, being "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must do that
   which is right, kind and holy--and so we must live to the honor and
   glory of Him to whom we owe all things.

   Young men who are beginning life, it is well that you should be urged
   to be diligent. But it is better that you should be led to be
   righteous! Worldlings would have you industrious, but saints would have
   you righteous. You can be made righteous in state through faith in
   Jesus Christ--and righteous in character through the renewal of your
   heart by the Holy Spirit. Mind this.

   The text leads us to make a third observation which repeats its very
   words, namely, that a slothful man's way is like a hedge of thorns.
   Here we enlarge. The idler's way is not a desirable way. Unthinking
   persons suppose that the sluggard lives a happy life and travels an
   easy road. It is not so. Many believe in "the sweet doing of nothing,"
   but it is a sheer fiction. Surface appearances are not the
   truth--though it may seem that idleness is rest, it is not so. Though
   sloth promises ease, it cheats its votaries. Of all unrest there is
   none more wearisome than that of having nothing whatever to do. The
   severest toil is far more endurable than utter sloth. I have heard of
   retired business men going back to the counter from absolute weariness
   of idleness. It is far more desirable to be righteous than it is to be
   at ease. Labor of a holy sort has ten thousand times more joy in it
   than purposeless leisure!

   The way of the sluggard is also difficult. The idle man walks a hard
   road in his own apprehension--he has to break through thorns. Every
   molehill is a mountain to him; every straw is a stumbling block. There
   is a lion in the way--he will be slain in the streets. You look out and
   can only see the smallest possible dog, but he is sure that it is a
   roaring lion and he must stay at home and go to bed! He cannot plow by
   reason of the cold. The clods are frozen, he is sure. They are hard as
   iron and will break the plow! If you look out of doors, you will see
   the neighbors' teams going, but he has another excuse if you beat him
   out of the one he has given you! The difficulties that he sees are
   created in his own mind by his natural sluggishness--he has such a
   creative faculty that he has always 20 arguments against exerting
   himself once! The first thing such persons do in the morning, when they
   open their window, is to look out and see a difficulty. Whenever they
   are sent about a task, or on an errand, they straightway begin to
   consider the great labor that will be involved in it, the imminent risk
   that will surely come of it--and the great advantages of leaving it
   undone!

   To the slothful man, his way, when he gets so far as having a way at
   all, always appears to be as hard to pursue as a hedge of thorns and,
   mark you, if he continues slothful, it will actually become a hedge of
   thorns. Difficulties imagined are apt to arrive! Duty neglected today
   will have to be done some time or other and the arrears of neglected
   service are grim debts. The slothful is like the spendthrift who does
   not reckon what he spends, but contents himself with crying, "Put it
   down." The score increases and again he cries, "Put it down." He
   resolves to do better and then gives a bill, or renews a former bill
   and dreams that the debt is paid!

   But the debt remains, accumulates and follows the man's track. Old
   debts pursue a man. Like wolves which hunt the fleeing traveler across
   the snowy plains of Russia, neglects and obligations follow a man with
   swift and sure pursuit and there is no way of escape. It is the past
   which makes the present and the future so difficult. The sluggard's way
   appears to lie not only over a thorny brake, but over a compacted mass
   of thorns of set purpose planted for a hedge. Dear Friends, do not put
   off till tomorrow that which can be done today! Keep the road clear of
   arrears. Do the day's work in the day. I am persuaded that in your
   ordinary business work some of you Christian people need to be warned
   against shiftless delay. Believe me, there is a piety in keeping your
   work well in hand, in having the house right, the business in order,
   the daily task well done. True religion seeks to honor God in all the
   transactions of life and this cannot be done by idling, by postponement
   and by allowing work to run behind. No sluggard can be a saint; no
   sluggard can glorify God. Life grows

   hard and unenviable to men who try to make it easy. A man who neglects
   his duty, whether he is a carpenter, a bricklayer, a clerk, a minister,
   or an archbishop, will find his way increasingly difficulty until it
   becomes almost impassable.

   Before long, the sluggard's course becomes a very painful way, for a
   way of thorns tears a man's garments and wounds his flesh--you cannot
   be neglectful of the ordinary duties of life without, by-and-by,
   suffering for it. Loss of character, loss of position and actual need
   all come from idleness.

   Continue in that course and you will find your way become a hedge of
   thorns in a further sense, for it will be blocked up altogether. You
   will be unable to go on at all. You took it easy, once, but what will
   you do now? You neglected duty, you chose to put off the service of the
   day and, at last, your sins have found you out--nobody will have you
   and you are a burden to yourself! Now have you found a hedge of thorns
   in your way. This is clear enough and it has been seen by most of us in
   actual life in several cases.

   The other Truth of the text is equally clear--a righteous man's way
   becomes plain-- "The way of the righteous is made plain." When a man,
   by the Holy Spirit's gracious influence upon him, is made thoroughly
   truthful, thoroughly honest, so that he walks in his integrity, it is
   most pleasant to note how soon, by some means or other, his way opens
   up before him. We have seen good men in great straits and
   adversities--their own conscientiousness may appear to narrow their
   course and, of course, the depressions of business fall upon righteous
   men as much as upon the unrighteous. But in the long run you will see
   that if a man keeps straight and walks in strict integrity and faith,
   the Lord will make darkness light before him and crooked things
   straight. Ask the aged man of God, whose life has been full of Grace
   and truth, and he will tell you that though he was brought low, the
   Lord has helped him.

   He will interest you with his account of the struggles of his younger
   days and how, when he had his large family of little children about
   him, he was tempted to do a questionable act, but was enabled to hold
   fast his integrity and found, in his steadfastness, the way to success.
   Those stories, which some of us heard as boys at our father's fireside,
   or which our grandfathers told us before they were taken up to Heaven,
   are, to some of us, heirlooms treasured as tokens for good, and proofs
   of the faithfulness of God. We know that integrity and uprightness are
   the best preservatives. If we will not put forth our hand unto iniquity
   even during the worst pinch, we shall come forth as the light.

   But if in trouble you try to get out of it by indirect means, you will
   involve yourself in tenfold difficulty. It is far better to be poor
   than dishonest. Yes, it is better to die than to dishonor our
   profession. It is God's business to provide for us and He will do it.
   We are not to be too fast in providing for ourselves. We must not
   command the stones to be made bread by forestalling the Lord in that
   which is His own peculiar province. Remember our Lord's answer to the
   tempter, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that
   proceeds out of the mouth of God." We shall dwell in the land and,
   verily, we shall be fed, but how this is to be accomplished is the
   Lord's business rather than ours. "The way of the righteous is made
   plain." Only wait and watch--and you shall see the salvation of God.

   Thus I have set before you the moral or temporal meaning of the text,
   commending it earnestly to the consideration of all, especially of men
   of business, begging them to see to it that there is no neglect about
   any part of their calling, for a Christian's business ought to be the
   best done of any man's in the world.

   See to it, also, that there is no swerving from righteousness in
   anything that you do, for the safest and surest road is the way of
   truth, the path of righteousness. If you keep close to God and make Him
   your Guide even unto death, you will have no need to trouble yourself
   about your way--the Lord will make it plain.

   II. Now I come to THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF THE TEXT and may the Lord
   anoint our eyes by His Holy

   Spirit that we may see!

   Take the first side of the text, the spiritual sluggard--what is said
   of him? His way is "as a hedge of thorns." I gather from the opposition
   of the text that the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief
   because the opposite of his way is the way of the righteous. Now, the
   way of the righteous is the way offaith--"We walk by faith." Therefore
   the spiritual sluggard's way is the way of unbelief.

   I will describe him. He has a way, for he is not altogether dead to
   religious matters. He hears sermons and attends the House of God. He
   sometimes reads his Bible and he often has a correct notion of what the
   Gospel is. But he fails in faith--he has not faith enough in the truth
   of the things which he professes to believe, to ever be affected by
   them in his daily life, or in his truest feelings. If he did really
   believe these things to be true, his life would not be slothful. When a
   man believes that there is a Hell, he labors to escape from it. When a
   man verily believes that there is a Heaven, unless he

   is demented, he has an ambition to partake in its glories! When a man
   really and truly accepts the fact of his having sinned against a
   righteous God and believes in the evil of sin, he pines to be cleansed
   from sin. When he heartily believes in the power of the precious blood
   of Christ to make him clean, he seeks to be washed therein, that he may
   be pure before the sight of God. The spiritual sluggard does not
   believe after that practical fashion. He says, "It is true," but he
   acts as if it were false. He is too much a sluggard to become an
   infidel--he is too lethargic to argue against the Truth of God which
   condemns him--he nods assent. It is the nod of sleep.

   We might have more hope for him if he would begin to contradict. If he
   would think enough of the Truth of God to endeavor to justify his
   unbelief of it, we might hope that he had opened one of his eyes! But
   while he continues to cry "Yes! Oh, yes," and to do all that is proper,
   but nothing that is decided and earnest--we have small hope for him. He
   prays at times, but it is a dreamy devotion. He has not faith enough in
   prayer to continue in it till he is heard in Heaven. He listens to the
   preaching of the Gospel, but as a sluggard, he lets what is said go in
   one ear and out the other--he grasps nothing, feels nothing, retains
   nothing. He is often on the verge of some good and great thing, but it
   ends in smoke. He has resolved in real earnest to look to his eternal
   state and seek the Lord with all his might. But his resolves are frail
   as bubbles. If you were to tell him that in seven years' time he would
   be just as dull, stupid and sinful as he now is, he would angrily deny
   it--but such will be the case. He intends only to delay a little longer
   and then he is going to entertain the great question in the most
   serious manner. If I recollect rightly, he was in the same mind 20
   years ago and I fear he will continue in the same mind when death comes
   upon the scene and ends all his dreaming! I fear that of him it will be
   true, "in Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." He will not
   open his eyes till then.

   I must not forget that this sluggard did once make an effort. He gave
   up one of his vices--that is to say, he almost did so, but he soon
   returned to it. He was a drunk and he went the length of not drinking
   quite so much. Perhaps he even went so far as not drinking at all,
   which was a good thing for him, but then he made up for his self-denial
   in that direction by indulgence in another way. If you cannot sink a
   ship by a hole in one place, you can do so by boring a hole in another.
   While some go down to perdition by one sin, others destroy themselves
   by another. The sluggard spent all his strength in tinkering one
   breakage and he had no energy left to mend a second flaw. He was so
   much asleep that he murmured in his dream, "Well done! I am a splendid
   fellow."

   But when a friend shook him, he yawned and turned over--and went to
   sleep again. He was almost awakened, but he preferred to doze till a
   more convenient season. He heard a sermon the other day upon, "One
   thing you lack," and he cried, "That's me!" and slumbered again. He
   heard a discourse upon judgment to come and he at once admitted the
   absolute need of being prepared for death and judgment. But he did not
   prepare and, in all probability, he will die in his sins. The man has
   no resolution, no soul for action, no spirit for anything good. He is
   given up to slumber! He always pleads for a little more folding of the
   arms to sleep. He will, he will--he assures you that he will wake
   up--but he never does. Oh, that by the Grace of God this dreamer could
   be awakened! His way is the way of unbelief and he keeps to it with a
   deadly persistence which must end in destruction.

   Now, that way is full of thorns. It is a very hard way. I will show
   you, in a minute, that it is so. People who are in this state cannot
   quite give up religion and yet they have never really taken to it. Do
   you notice how hard everything is to them? To begin with, ministers
   always preach such dreadfully long sermons. The sermon is not long to
   you who feed upon the Word of God, but to those who sleep at the table
   it is intolerably tedious! The whole service is dreary to them, though
   to Believers it is bright and happy. And Sundays! To me the Sabbath is
   the pearl of the week, but to these sluggards in religion, it is a day
   of gloom. We hear them speak of "dreary English Sundays." They
   piteously describe the closed shops, theatres and museums--and enquire
   what a man is to do in so sad a case! To go to church? To hear of the
   best things? This is much too hard a task for sluggish minds. Poor dear
   souls!

   As for a Prayer Meeting, they never condescend to consider such a
   gathering--it is too dreary! Or if, perchance, they go, nobody ever
   prays to please them--their ideal of devotion is not reached! Ask them
   whether they read the Bible at home. They might do so if they were
   fogged to it, but the Bible does not interest them and it requires so
   much thought. They cannot muster mind enough for it. To us it is a Book
   which sparkles with the most Divine Truths of God--it is the Book of
   God! The Lord of books! There is no volume like it. But to these
   people, Bible reading is hard labor and worse. Prayer is also slavery.
   Repentance is impossible. The revival plan of "Believe and live,"
   without any repentance--they rather take to for a time--till they begin
   to understand more of what the evangelist means.

   They go into the Enquiry Room and get "converted" in five minutes--and
   have done with godliness for the rest of their lives! Possibly some
   time after they hear of a sanctification to be had in the same manner,
   they believe themselves to be perfect and feel that there is no more
   need for watchfulness or striving, for sin is dead and they are
   perfect! When they are told what repentance and faith really are and
   that these are for daily, life-long use--and that we must every day
   watch and strive against temptation, without and within, they disappear
   from among our hearers, for they do not wish to trouble themselves with
   so great an enterprise. If they could be carried to Heaven in a sedan
   chair, or trip there in their slippers, they would be glad of it. But
   to go on pilgrimage, up hill and down dale, is another matter. Their
   way is as full of difficulties as a thorn-hedge is full of prickles!

   Moreover, it is full of perplexities. Do you ever meet with these
   sluggards? I do. They sometimes come to see me and when they come, this
   is their style of talk. They say, "Well, Sir, I have heard about
   believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you tell me what it means?" I
   explain that it is a simple acceptance of God's testimony and trust in
   the Lord Jesus. Do you understand that? They say, "Yes." Then they
   raise a difficulty, which I explain. Do you quite comprehend that?
   "Yes, Sir, I see that, but"--and then follows a further doubt. This
   also is cleared up in time to make room for another. Again and again it
   is--"Yes, but then_." Thus I continue grinding wind by the hour
   together! Their minds are bottomless buckets and their memories are
   bags full of holes--it is very unprofitable work to endeavor to fill
   them. I seem to be trying to catch a fox. I stop up its hole, but it is
   out at another opening! This also I stop and 50 more and, to my
   surprise, I hear the shout, "Hark, away! My fox has gone across
   country."

   He is further off than ever. It was great folly on my part to imagine
   that I could bring him to earth, or dig him out of his burrow. These
   people are great at questions, the whole difficulty really lying in
   their unbelief--they are unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!
   When a man does not wish to believe, reasons for doubting gather about
   him in swarms, like flies. Besides, it is such a fashionable thing, you
   know, to doubt. You are aware that all the cultured folk display great
   facility in fashioning doubts, while those who believe God to be true
   and do not mistrust His Word are commonplace persons of a very low
   order of mind. You smile, but this is a very convincing argument to our
   sleepy friend. No great logic is needed to lull a sluggard to repose.
   It is the fashion to doubt and you may as well be dead and buried as
   out of fashion! These sluggish people will not take the trouble to sift
   evidence. They have no wish to be driven to turn from their sins and
   seek a Savior and be reconciled to God. This would take too much
   exertion and involve too many self-denials and heart-searching. They
   prefer a way full of perplexities to the new and living way! They
   choose a thorn-hedge rather than the King's Highway of righteousness!

   Nor is this all. In addition to perplexities, their way becomes full of
   miseries. The sermon which pleases the Believer and cheers his heart,
   saddens the sluggard. The prayer, which is to us a delight, is to them
   a cause of anxiety if they enter into it at all. The sight of bread is
   a great joy to a hungry man, but suppose he does not eat it and there
   it stands? Well, then, it becomes an instrument of torture fit for
   Tantalus to use! I should suppose that nothing could aggravate thirst
   much more than the mirage of the desert when the traveler sees a stream
   of bright, sparkling water rippling at his feet and yet not a drop is
   there. His fancy torments his thirst! So, for some of you to hear of
   the Feast of Love and to see the joy of the children of God must be
   horrible if you, yourselves, have neither part nor lot therein. That
   promise quoted by the preacher--how it must have grated on your ears if
   you knew its value and yet did not embrace it by faith!

   Painful is this predicament. You are sadly placed, for you enjoy
   neither good nor evil. If you were to go straight out into the world
   and plunge into the pleasures of it, you would, at least, know one side
   of life. But you dare not do that-- you have too much conscience, too
   much training in religious ways to run with the worldling in his
   wantonness--so that you neither know the pleasures of the world, nor
   the pleasures of Grace! You feel restraints from both sides, but you
   know not the liberties of either side. Between two stools you come to
   the ground. Neither Heaven nor Hell is on your side! Both saints and
   sinners are shy of you and so your way is as a thorn hedge. It is
   dreadful for a man to have enough conscience to know that he is lost,
   but not enough Grace to find salvation! To have enough religion to make
   him uncomfortable in sin, but not enough to make him happy in Christ! I
   know some who continue in sin and yet at night have terrible dreams and
   wake up in a cold sweat of fear. They dare not think of the course of
   conduct, which, nevertheless, they persevere in--they go onward to
   destruction and, by-and-by, they will take a leap in the dark because
   they are too idle to wake up. O mighty Grace, wake these sluggards, or
   else they will sleep themselves into eternal misery!

   "The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns." One of these
   days he will come to the end of his way and he will see that hedge of
   thorns blocking him out of Heaven--blocking him out from God! His sins,
   like a thick hedge, will stand in front of him as he is about to die
   and will shut him out from hope, while his despairing soul will cry,
   "Oh, that I could find mercy! Oh, that I could find deliverance!"
   Recollection of wasted opportunities, of a rejected Gospel and of
   despised Sabbaths will come up before him--and through that thorn hedge
   his naked soul will be unable to force its way into hope and peace! God
   grant that we may not be among the sluggards at the end of the way!

   We will now consider the other side of the text very briefly and notice
   that the righteous man's way shall be made plain. This is a cheering
   promise, especially to any of you who are walking in the dark at this
   time. "The way of the righteous is made plain." The Lord will see to
   this. The way of the righteous is the way of faith. They see Him who is
   invisible and they trust in God. They look for their pardon to the
   precious blood of Jesus Christ. In fact, they look to God in Christ
   Jesus for everything! Their way has impediments in it--crooked things
   are in it, mountains are in it, and deep gulfs--but see the beauty of
   the promise, "The way of the righteous is made plain." Difficulties
   shall be removed, the valleys shall be exalted and the mountains and
   hills shall be laid low. The crooked shall be made straight and the
   rough places plain. Child-like confidence in God shall march on as upon
   a raised causeway and always find a road for itself.

   Faith travels by an unseen track to honor and glory, neither shall
   anything turn her aside. Her way may not be plain at this moment, but
   it shall be made so. God is with those who trust in Him and what or
   whom shall we fear when God is with us? In due time the hand of the
   Lord shall be seen. To the moment the Divine Power will time its
   interposition. The Red Sea was not divided a single second before
   Israel passed through it. The Jordan only flowed apart when the feet of
   the Lord's priests actually came to the water's brim. Tomorrow's
   difficulties are real and tomorrow's Grace will be real. When tomorrow
   comes, sufficient unto the day shall be the Divine help thereof. When
   you come to the sepulcher, you shall find that the stone is rolled away
   from its mouth. In due time the way of the righteous shall be made
   plain and that is all the righteous should desire or expect.

   Sometimes the way of the righteous is mysterious and perplexing. I have
   known the best of men say, "I long to do right and, by God's Grace, I
   will not stoop to anything which is evil--but which of the two ways now
   before me is the right way? Each of them seems to be both hopeful and
   doubtful. Which way shall I turn?" This is a condition which causes
   great anxiety to one who is deeply earnest to be right. Oh, for an
   Oracle which could plainly indicate the path! Superstition and
   fanaticism shall not be gratified by either voice or dream, but yet the
   way of the righteous shall be made plain. Brothers and Sisters, when
   you do not know your way, ask your Guide. Stand still and pray. If you
   cannot find the way upon the chart, commit yourself to the Divine
   guidance by prayer. Down on your knees and cry to the Lord! Few go
   wrong when they pray over their movements and use the judgment which
   God has given them. The last is not to be omitted, for I have known
   persons pray about a matter which was perfectly clear to anyone with
   half a grain of sense. In order to escape from an evident but
   unpleasant duty, they have talked about praying over it. Where a plain
   command is given, an unmistakable finger points the way and hesitation
   is rebellion! Sluggards make prayer an excuse for doing nothing. On the
   other hand, willful people make up their mind and then pray--and this
   is sheer hypocrisy!

   God is insulted by prayers which only mean that the petitioner would be
   glad of Divine allowance to do wrong-- glad of an event which might be
   twisted into guidance in a doubtful direction! Such prayers God will
   never hear. But the way of the righteous shall be made plain. The path
   of faith shall end in peace. The way of holiness shall conduct to
   happiness. Your way may be so dark that you cannot see your hand before
   you, but God will, before long, make it bright as noonday. At this
   moment all the wise men in the world might not be able to predict your
   path, but the Lord will direct you. Only trust in the Lord and do
   good--and He will light your candle. Yes, He will cause His sun to
   shine upon you. There is a blessing in the very act of waiting upon
   God--and out of it comes this joy--that your way shall be made plain.

   I find one excellent translation runs thus--"The way of the righteous
   is a highway." The righteous do not follow the blind alleys and back
   streets of craft and policy--"The way of the righteous is a
   highway"--it is the open road where none may challenge the traveler. It
   is the King's Highway where the passenger has a right to be. It is a
   grand thing to feel that in your position in life you are where you
   have a right to be and that you came there by no trespass, or breaking
   of hedges--that you are doing what you have a right to do before the
   living God and none may criticize you. He that is in

   the King's Highway is under the King's protection and he that stops him
   by daylight shall come under the strong hand of the law. Our King has
   said, "No lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up
   thereon."

   He that is on the King's highway will come to a good end, for the King
   has completed that way so that it does not fall short, but leads to a
   city of habitations whose Builder and Maker is God. Oh, to be right
   with God! Yes, to be right with Him in our daily life and private walk!
   Let that be the case and our way shall be judged of by the Lord as His
   own royal highway and upon it the light of His love shall shine so that
   it shall become brighter and brighter unto the perfect day!

   O God of great mercy, keep us in Your fear and through Your Grace lead
   us, in imitation of Your dear Son, to abide in holiness! And to Your
   name be praise forever and ever! Amen,
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sermon for the Worst Man on Earth

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 20, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his
   eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to
   me a sinner." Luke 18:13.

   IT was the fault of the Pharisee that though he went up into the Temple
   to pray, he did not pray. There is no prayer in all that he said. It is
   one excellence of the publican that he went up to the Temple to pray
   and he did pray--there is nothing but prayer in all that he said. "God
   be merciful to me a sinner" is a pure, unadulterated prayer throughout!
   It was the fault of the Pharisee that when he went up to the Temple to
   pray, he forgot an essential part of prayer which is confession of
   sin--he spoke as if he had no sins to confess, but many virtues to
   parade. It was a chief excellence in the devotion of the publican that
   he did confess his sin, yes, that his utterance was full of confession
   of sin! From beginning to end it was an acknowledgment of his guilt and
   an appeal for Grace to the merciful God. The prayer of the publican is
   admirable for its fullness of meaning. An expositor calls it a holy
   telegram--and certainly it is so compact and so condensed, so free from
   superfluous words--that it is worthy to be called by that name. I do
   not see how he could have expressed his meaning more fully or more
   briefly. In the original Greek the words are even fewer than in the
   English. Oh, that men would learn to pray with less of language and
   more of meaning! What great things are packed away in this short
   petition! God, mercy, sin, the propitiation and forgiveness!

   He speaks of great matters--trifles are not thought of! He has nothing
   to do with fasting twice in the week, or the paying of tithes and such
   second-rate things. The matters he treats of are of a higher order. His
   trembling heart moves among sublimities which overcome him and he
   speaks in tones consistent therewith. He deals with the greatest things
   that ever can be--he pleads for his life, his soul! Where could he find
   themes more weighty, more vital to his eternal interests? He is not
   playing at prayer, but pleading in awful earnest. His supplication
   speeded well with God and he speedily won his suit with Heaven. Mercy
   granted to him full justification! The prayer so pleased the Lord Jesus
   Christ, who heard it, that He condescended to become a portrait painter
   and took a sketch of the petitioner. I say the prayer in itself was so
   pleasing to the gracious Savior that He tells us how it was
   offered--"Standing afar off, he would not lift up so much as his eyes
   unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast." Luke, who, according to
   tradition, was somewhat of an artist as well as a physician, takes
   great care to place this picture in the national portrait gallery of
   men saved by Sovereign Grace. Here we have the portrait of a man who
   called himself a sinner who may still be held up as a pattern to
   saints! I am glad to have the Divine sketch of this man, that I may see
   the bodily form of his devotion. I am more glad, still, to have his
   prayer, that we may look into the very soul of his pleading.

   My heart's desire this morning is that many here may seek mercy of the
   Lord as this publican did--and go down to their houses justified! I ask
   no man to use the same words. Let no man attach a superstitious value
   to them. Alas, this prayer has been used flippantly, foolishly and
   almost looked upon as a sort of charm! Some have said--"We may live as
   we like, for we have only to say, 'God be merciful to me,' when we are
   dying, and all will be well." This is a wicked misuse of Gospel Truth!
   Yes, it turns it into a lie! If you choose thus to pervert the Grace of
   the Gospel to your own destruction, your blood must be on your own
   heads! You may not have space given you in which to breathe out even
   this brief sentence, or, if you have, the words may not come from your
   heart and so you may die in your sins. I pray you, do not thus presume
   upon the forbearance of God! But, if with the publican's heart, we can
   take the publican's attitude. If with the publican's spirit we can use
   the publican's words, then there will follow a gracious acceptance and
   we shall go home

   justified. If such is the case, there will be grand times today, for
   angels will rejoice over sinners reconciled to God and made to know in
   their own souls the boundless mercy of the Lord!

   In preaching upon the text, I shall endeavor to bring out its innermost
   spirit. May we be taught of the Spirit so that we may learn four
   lessons from it!

   I. The first is this--THE FACT OF SINNERSHIP IS NO REASON FOR DESPAIR.
   You need, none of you, say, "I am guilty and, therefore, I may not
   approach God. I am so greatly guilty that it would be too daring a
   thing for me to ask for mercy." Dismiss such thoughts at once! My text
   and a thousand other arguments forbid despair.

   For, first, this man who was a sinner yet dared to approach the Lord.
   According to our version, he said, "God be merciful to me a sinner,"
   but a more accurate rendering is that which the Revised Version puts in
   the margin--"the sinner." He meant to say that he was emphatically the
   sinner. The Pharisee yonder was the saint of his age, but this publican
   who stood afar off from the holy place was the sinner. If there was not
   another sinner in the world, he was one--and in a world of sinners he
   was a prominent offender--the sinner of sinners! Emphatically he
   applies to himself the guilty name. He takes the chief place in
   condemnation and yet he cries, "God be merciful to me the sinner."

   Now if you know yourself to be a sinner, you may plead with God, but if
   you mourn that you are not only a sinner, but the sinner with the
   definite article--the sinner above all others--you may still hope in
   the mercy of the Lord. The worst, the most profane, the most horrible
   of sinners may venture, as this man did, to approach the God of mercy!
   I know that it looks like a daring action and, therefore, you must do
   it by faith. On any other footing but that of faith in the mercy of
   God, you who are a sinner may not dare to approach the Lord lest you be
   found guilty of presumption. But with your eyes on mercy, you may be
   bravely trustful. Believe in the great mercy of God and though your
   sins are abundant, you will find that the Lord will abundantly pardon!
   Though they blot your character, the Lord will blot them out! Though
   they are red like crimson, yet the precious blood of Jesus will make
   you whiter than snow!

   This story of the Pharisee and the publican is intended as an
   encouraging example to you. If this man who was the sinner found
   forgiveness, so shall you, also, if you seek it in the same way. One
   sinner has speeded so well--why should not you? Come and try for
   yourself and see if the Lord does not prove in your case that His mercy
   endures forever.

   Next, remember that you may not only find encouragement in looking at
   the sinner who sought his God, but in the God whom he sought. Sinner,
   there is great mercy in the heart of God. How often did that verse ring
   out as a chorus in the temple song--

   "For His mercy shall endure Ever faithful, ever sure!"

   Mercy is a specially glorious attribute of Jehovah, the living God. He
   is "the Lord God, merciful and gracious." He is "slow to anger and
   plenteous in mercy." Do you not see how this should cheer you? Sinners
   are necessary if mercy is to be indulged! How can the Lord display His
   mercy except to the guilty? Goodness is for creatures, but mercy is for
   sinners! Towards unfallen creatures there may be love, but there cannot
   be mercy. Angels are not fit recipients of mercy. They do not require
   it, for they have not transgressed. Mercy comes into exercise after Law
   has been broken, not till then. Among the attributes, it is the last
   which found scope for itself. So to speak, it is the Benjamin and the
   darling attribute of God--"He delights in mercy." Only to a sinner can
   God be merciful. Do you hear this, you sinner? Be sure that you catch
   at it! If there is boundless mercy in the heart of God and it can only
   exercise itself towards the guilty, then you are the man to have it,
   for you are a guilty one! Come, then, and let His mercy wrap you about
   like a garment this day and cover all your shame. Does not God's
   delight in mercy prove that sinnership is no reason for despair?

   Moreover, the conception of salvation implies hope for sinners. That
   salvation which we preach to you every day is glad tidings for the
   guilty. Salvation by Grace implies that men are guilty. Salvation means
   not the reward of the righteous, but the cleansing of the unrighteous.
   Salvation is meant for the lost, the ruined, the undone! And the
   blessings which it brings of pardoning mercy and cleansing Grace must
   be intended for the guilty and polluted. "The whole need not a
   physician." The physician has his eyes upon the sick. Alms are for the
   poor, bread is for the hungry, pardon is for the guilty. O you that are
   guilty, you are the men that Mercy seeks after! You were in God's eyes
   when He sent His Son into the world to save sinners! From the very
   first inception of redemption to the completion of it, the eyes of the
   great God were set on the guilty--not on the deserving! The very name
   of Jesus tells us that He shall save His people from their sins.

   Let me further say that inasmuch as that salvation of God is a great
   one, it must have been intended to meet great sins. O Sirs, would
   Christ have shed the blood of His heart for some trifling, venial sins
   which your tears could wash away? Do you think God would have given His
   dear Son to die as a mere superfluity? If sin had been a small matter,
   a little sacrifice would have sufficed. Do you think that the Divine
   Atonement was made only for small offenses? Did Jesus die for little
   sins and leave the great ones unatoned for? No, the Lord God measured
   the greatness of our sin and found it high as Heaven, deep as Hell and
   broad as the infinite and, therefore, He gave so great a Savior. He
   gave His only-begotten Son, an infinite Sacrifice, an immeasurable
   Atonement. With such throes and pangs of death as never can be fully
   described, the Lord Jesus poured out His soul in unknown sufferings
   that He might provide a great salvation for the greatest of sinners.
   See Jesus on the Cross and learn that all manner of sin and of
   blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men! The fact of salvation and of a
   great salvation, ought to drive away the very notion of despair from
   every heart that hears of it! Salvation, that is for me, for I am lost!
   A great salvation, that is for me, for I am the greatest of sinners!
   Oh, hear my word this day! It is God's Word of love and it rings out
   like a silver bell! O my beloved Hearers, I weep over you and yet I
   feel like singing all the time, for I am sent to proclaim salvation
   from the Lord for the very worst of you!

   The Gospel is especially, definitely and distinctly addressed to
   sinners. Listen to it--"This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of
   whom I am chief." "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
   repentance." "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was
   lost." The Gospel is like a letter directed in a clear and legible
   hand--and if you will read its direction, you will find that it runs
   thus--"TO THE SINNER." O Sinners, the word of this salvation is sent to
   you! If you are a sinner, you are the very man for whom the Gospel is
   intended and I do not mean, by this, a merely complimentary nominal
   sinner, but an out-and-out rebel, a transgressor against God and man! O
   Sinner, seize upon the Gospel with joyful eagerness and cry unto God
   for mercy at once!--

   "'Twas for sinners that He suffered

   Agonies unspeakable!

   Can you doubt you are a sinner?

   If you can--then hope, farewell.

   But, believing what is written--

   'All are guilty'-- 'dead in sin'

   Looking to the Crucified One,

   Hope shall rise your soul within." If you will think of it again, there
   must be hope for sinners, for the great commands of the Gospel are most
   suitable to sinners. Hear, for instance, this Word of God--"Repent you
   therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out" (Acts
   3:19). Who can repent but the guilty? Who can be converted but those
   who are on the wrong track and, therefore, need to be turned? The
   following text is evidently addressed to those who are good for
   nothing--"Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his
   thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon
   him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." The very word,
   "repent," indicates that it is addressed to those who have sinned--let
   it beckon you to mercy!

   Then you are bid to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, salvation by
   faith must be for guilty men, for the way of life for the innocent is
   by perseverance in good works. The Law says, "This do, and live." The
   Gospel talks of salvation by believing because it is the only way
   possible for those who have broken the Law and are condemned by it.
   Salvation is of faith that it might be by Grace. Believe and live!
   Believe and live! Believe and live! This is the jubilee note of the
   trumpet of Free Grace. Oh, that you would know the joyful sound and
   thus be blessed! Oh, that you that are sinful would hear the call as
   addressed to you in particular! You are up to your necks in the mire of
   sin, but a mighty hand is stretched out to deliver you. "Repent and
   believe the Gospel!"

   If you need any other argument--and I hope you do not--I would put it
   thus--great sinners have been saved. All sorts of sinners are being
   saved today. What wonders some of us have seen! What wonders have been
   worked in this Tabernacle! A man was heard at a Prayer Meeting pleading
   in louder tones than usual. He was a sailor and his voice was pitched
   to the tune of the roaring billows. A lady whispered to her friend, "Is
   that Captain F?" "Yes" said the other, "why do you ask?" "Because,"
   said she, "the last time I heard that voice, its swearing made my blood
   run cold! The man's oaths were terrible beyond measure. Can it be the
   same man?" Someone observed, "Go and ask him." The lady

   timidly said, "Are you the same Captain F_that I heard swearing in the
   street, outside my house?" "Well," he

   said, "I am the same person, and yet, thank God, I am not the same!" O
   Brothers and Sisters, such were some of us, but we are washed, we are
   sanctified! Wonders of Divine Grace belong to God!

   I was reading the other day a story of an old shepherd who had never
   attended a place of worship, but when he had grown gray and was near to
   die, he was drawn by curiosity into the Methodist chapel, and all was
   new to him. Hardhearted old fellow as he was, he was noticed to shed
   tears during the sermon. He had obtained a glimpse of hope. He saw that
   there was mercy even for him! He laid hold on eternal life at once! The
   surprise was great when he was seen at the chapel and greater still
   when, on the Monday night, he was seen at the Prayer Meeting--yes, and
   heard at the Prayer Meeting, for he fell down on his knees and praised
   God that he had found mercy! Do you wonder that the Methodists shouted,
   "Bless the Lord"? Wherever Christ is preached, the most wicked of men
   and women are made to sit at the Savior's feet, "clothed, and in their
   right minds." My Hearer, why should it not be so with you? At any rate,
   we have full proof of the fact that sinnership is no reason for
   despair.

   II. I must now advance to my second observation--A SENSE OF SINNERSHIP
   CONFERS NO RIGHT TO

   MERCY. You will wonder why I mention this self-evident truth, but I
   must mention it because of a common error which does great mischief.
   This man was very sensible of his sin insomuch that he called himself,
   THE SINNER, but he did not urge his sense of sin as any reason why he
   should find mercy. There is an ingenuity in the heart of man, nothing
   less than devilish, by which he will, if he can, turn the Gospel,
   itself, into a yoke of bondage. If we preach to sinners that they may
   come to Christ in all their anguish and misery, one cries--"I do not
   feel myself to be a sinner as I ought to feel it! I have not felt those
   convictions of which you speak and, therefore, I cannot come to Jesus!"
   This is a horrible twist of our meaning! We never meant to insinuate
   that convictions and doubts and despondencies conferred upon men a
   claim to mercy, or were necessary preparations for Grace. I want you,
   therefore, to learn that a sense of sin gives no man a right to Divine
   Grace.

   If a deep sense of sin entitled men to mercy, it would be a turning of
   this parable upside down. Do you dream that this publican was, after
   all, a Pharisee differently dressed? Do you imagine that he really
   meant to plead, "God be merciful to me because I am humble and lowly"?
   Did he say in his heart, "Lord, have mercy upon me because I am not a
   Pharisee and am deeply despondent on account of my evil ways"? This
   would prove that he was, in his heart of hearts, a Pharisee! If you
   make a righteousness out of your feelings, you are just as much out of
   the true way as if you made a righteousness out of your works. Whether
   it is work or feeling, anything which is relied upon as a claim for
   Grace is an antichrist! You are no more to be saved because of your
   conscious miseries than because of your conscious merits! There is no
   virtue either in the one or in the other. If you make a Savior of
   convictions, you will be lost as surely as if you made a Savior out of
   ceremonies! The publican trusted in Divine Mercy and not in his own
   convictions. And you must do the same.

   To imagine that an awful sense of sin constituted a claim upon mercy
   would be like giving a premium to great sin. Certain seekers think, "I
   have never been a drunk, or a swearer, or unchaste, but I almost wish I
   had been, that I might feel myself to be the chief of sinners and so
   might come to Jesus." Do not wish anything so atrocious! There is no
   good in sin in any shape or fashion! Thank God if you have been kept
   from the grosser forms of vice. Do not imagine that repentance is
   easier when sin is grosser--the reverse is true. Do believe that there
   is no advantage in having been a horrible offender. You have sins
   enough--to be worse would not be better. If good works do not help you,
   certainly bad works do not! You that have been moral and excellent
   should cry for mercy and not be so silly as to dream that greater sins
   would help you to readier repentance! Come as you are and if your heart
   is hard, confess it as one of your greatest sins. A deeper sense of sin
   would not entitle you to the mercy of God--you can have no title to
   mercy but that which mercy gives you. Could your tears flow
   forever--could your grief know no respite--you would have no claim upon
   the Sovereign Grace of God, who will have mercy on whom He will have
   mercy.

   Then, dear Friends, remember, if we begin to preach to sinners that
   they must have a certain sense of sin and a certain measure of
   conviction, such teaching would turn the sinner away from God in Christ
   to himself. The man begins at once to say, "Have I a broken heart? Do I
   feel the burden of sin?" This is only another form of looking to self.
   Man must not look to himself to find reasons for God's Grace. The
   remedy does not lie in the seat of the disease--it lies in the
   Physician's hands. A sense of sin is not a claim, but a gift of that
   blessed Savior who is exalted on high to give repentance and remission
   of sins. Beware of any teaching which makes you look to yourself for
   help! You must, rather, cling to that doc-

   trine which makes you look only to Christ! Whether you know it or not,
   you are a lost, ruined sinner, only fit to be cast into the flames of
   Hell forever. Confess this, but do not ask to be driven mad by a sense
   of it. Come to Jesus just as you are and do not wait for a preparation
   made out of your own miseries. Look to Jesus and to Him alone.

   If we fall into the notion that a certain sense of sin has a claim upon
   God, we shall be putting salvation upon other grounds than that of
   faith--and that would be false ground. Now, the ground of salvation
   is--"God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that
   whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." A
   simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the way of salvation! But to
   say, "I shall be saved because I am horribly convicted of sin and
   driven to desperation," is not to speak like the Gospel, but to rave
   out of the pride of an unbelieving heart. The Gospel is that you
   believe in Christ Jesus; that you get right out of yourself and depend
   alone on Him! Do you say, "I feel so guilty"? You are certainly guilty,
   whether you feel it or not! And you are far more guilty than you have
   any idea of. Come to Christ because you are guilty, not because you
   have been prepared to come by looking at your guilt! Trust nothing of
   your own, not even your sense of need. A man may have a sense of
   disease a long time before he will get healing out of it. The
   looking-glass of conviction reveals the spots on our face, but it
   cannot wash them away. You cannot fill your hands by putting them into
   your empty pocket and feeling how empty it is! It would be far wiser to
   hold them out and receive the gold which your friend so freely gives
   you. "God be merciful to me a sinner" is the right way to put it, but
   not, "God be merciful to me because I sufficiently feel my sinnership,
   and most fittingly bewail it."

   III. My third observation is this--THE KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR SINNERSHIP
   GUIDES MEN TO RIGHT ACTION. When a man has learned of the Holy Spirit
   that he is a sinner, then by a kind of instinct of the new life, he
   does the right thing in the right way. This publican had not often been
   to the Temple and had not learned the orthodox way of behaving. It is
   easy to learn how we all do it nowadays in our temples--take off your
   hat, hold it in front of your face and read the maker's name and
   address! Then sit down and, at the proper moment, bend forward and
   cover your eyes and, furthermore, stand up when the rest of the
   congregation does. People get to do this just as if they were wound up
   by machinery--yet they do not pray when they are supposed to be
   praying, nor bow before the Lord when worship is being offered.

   This publican is out of rank! He does not follow the rubric. He has
   gestures of his own. First, instead of coming forward, he stands afar
   off. He does not dare to come where that most respectable person, the
   Pharisee, is displaying himself, for he does not feel worthy. He leaves
   space between himself and God, an opening for a Mediator, room for an
   Advocate, place for an Intercessor to interpose between himself and the
   Throne of the Most High! Wise man, thus, to stand afar off! For by this
   means he could safely draw near in the Person of Jesus. Furthermore, he
   would not lift so much as his eyes to Heaven. It seems natural to lift
   up your hands in prayer, but he would not even lift his eyes. The
   uplifting of the eyes is very proper, is it not? But it was still more
   proper for "the sinner" not to lift his eyes. His downcast eyes meant
   much.

   Our Lord does not say that he could not lift up his eyes, but he would
   not. He could look up, for he did in spirit look up as he cried, "God
   be merciful to me." But he would not because it seemed indecorous for
   eyes like his to peer into the Heaven where dwells the holy God.
   Meanwhile, the penitent publican kept smiting upon his breast. The
   original does not say that he smote upon his breast once, but he smote
   and smote again! It was a continuous act. He seemed to say--"Oh, this
   wicked heart!" He would smite it. Again and again he expressed his
   intense grief by this Oriental gesture, for he did not know how else to
   set forth his sorrow. His heart had sinned and he smote it! His eyes
   had led him astray and he made them look down to the earth. And as he,
   himself, had sinned by living far off from God, he banished himself far
   from the manifest Presence.

   Every gesture and posture is significant and yet all came
   spontaneously. He had no book of directions how to behave himself in
   the House of God, but his sincerity guided him. If you want to know how
   to behave yourselves as penitents, be penitents. The best rubrics of
   worship are those which are written on broken hearts. I have heard of a
   minister who was said to cry in the wrong place in his sermons--and it
   was found afterwards that he had written in the margin of his
   manuscript, "Weep here." His audience could not see the reason for his
   artificial moisture. It must have had a ludicrous effect. In religion
   everything artificial is ridiculous, or worse! But Grace in the heart
   is the best "master of the ceremonies." He who prays aright with his
   heart will not much err with foot, hand, or head. If you would know how
   to ap-

   proach God, confess yourself a sinner and so take your true place
   before the God of Truth--throw yourself on Divine Mercy and thus place
   God in His true position as your Judge and Lord.

   Observe that this man, even under the weight of conscious sin, was led
   aright, for he went straight away to God. A sense of sin without faith
   drives us from God, but a sense of sin with faith draws us immediately
   to God. He came to God alone. He felt that it would be of no avail to
   confess his fault to a mortal, or to look for absolution from a man. He
   did not resort to the priest of the Temple, but to the God of the
   Temple! He did not ask to speak to the good and learned man, the
   Pharisee, who stood on the same floor with him. His Enquiry Room was
   the secret of his own soul and he enquired of the Lord. He ran straight
   away to God, who alone was able to help. And when he opened his mouth,
   it was, "God be merciful to me a sinner." That is what you have to do,
   my dear Hearer, if you would be saved--you must go distinctly and
   immediately to God in Christ Jesus. Forget all things else and say,
   with the returning prodigal, "I will arise and go to my Father." None
   but God can help us out of our low estate! No mercy but the mercy of
   God can serve our turn and none can give us that mercy but the God of
   Mercy! Let every broken-down sinner come to his God, against whom he
   has offended.

   The publican did not look round on his fellow worshippers--he was too
   much absorbed in his own grief of heart. Especially is it noteworthy
   that he had no remarks to make upon the Pharisee. He did not denounce
   the pride, or the hypocrisy, or the hard-heartedness of the professor
   who so offensively looked down upon him. He did not return contempt for
   contempt, as we are all too apt to do. No, he dealt with the Lord alone
   in the deep sincerity of his own heart--and it was well. My Hearer,
   when will you do the same? When will you cease to censure others and
   reserve your severity for yourself, your critical observations for your
   own conduct?

   When he came to God, it was with a full confession of sin--"God be
   merciful to me a sinner." His very eyes and hands joined with his lips
   in acknowledging his iniquities. His prayer was wet with the dews of
   repentance. He poured out his heart before God in the most free and
   artless manner--his prayer came from the same fountain as that of the
   prodigal when he said, "Father, I have sinned," and that of David when
   he cried, "Against You, You only have I sinned, and done this evil in
   Your sight." That is the best praying which comes from the lowliest
   heart.

   Then he appealed to mercy only. This was wise. See how rightly he was
   guided. What had he to do with justice, since it could only condemn and
   destroy him? Like a naked sword, it threatens to sheathe itself in my
   heart--how can I appeal to justice? Neither power nor wisdom, nor any
   other quality of the great God could be resorted to--only Mercy
   stretched out her wing. The prayer, "God be merciful," is the only
   prayer that you who have been greatly guilty can pray. If all your
   lives you have spurned your Savior, all you can now do is to cast
   yourselves upon the mercy of God.

   The original Greek permits us to see that this man had an eye to the
   Propitiation. I do not say that he fully understood the doctrine of
   Atonement, but still, his prayer was, "God be propitiated to me, the
   sinner." He had seen the morning and the evening lamb and he had heard
   of the sin-offering. And though he might not have known all about
   atonement, expiation and substitution, yet as far as he did know, his
   eyes were turned that way. "O God, be propitiated, accept a sacrifice
   and pardon me!" If you know your sin, you will be wise to plead the
   Propitiation which God has set forth for human sin. May the Spirit of
   God constrain you to trust in Jesus now! The new year is already
   gliding away-- its second month is slipping from under us--how many
   months are to go before you, a guilty sinner, will come and ask mercy
   of God, the infinitely-gracious One? Great God, let this day be the day
   of Your power!

   IV. I now close with my last head, which is this--THE BELIEVING
   CONFESSION OF SINNERSHIP IS THE

   WAY OF PEACE. "God be merciful to me a sinner," was the prayer, but
   what was the answer? Listen to this--"This man went down to his house
   justified rather than the other"!

   In a few sentences let me sketch this man's progress. He came to God
   only as a sinner, nakedly as a sinner. Observe, he did not say, "God be
   merciful to me a penitent sinner." He was a penitent sinner but he did
   not plead his penitence. And if you are ever so penitent and convicted
   of sin, do not mention it as an argument lest you be accused of
   self-righteousness. Come as you are, as a sinner and as nothing else!
   Exhibit your wounds. Bring your spiritual poverty before God and not
   your supposed wealth. If you have a single penny of your own, get rid
   of it. Perfect poverty, alone, will discharge you from your bankruptcy.
   If you have a moldy crust in the cupboard of self-righteousness, no
   bread from Heaven will be yours. You must be nothing and nobody if God
   is to be your All in All! This man does not cry, "God be merciful to me
   the

   penitent," but, "be merciful to me the sinner." He does not even say,
   "God be merciful to me the reformed sinner." I have no doubt he did
   reform and give up his evil ways, but he does not plead that
   reformation.

   Reformation will not take away your sinnership, therefore do not speak
   as if it could do so. What you are to be will make no atonement for
   what you have been! Come, therefore, simply as a sinner, not as a
   changed and improved sinner. Do not come because you are washed, but to
   be washed! The publican does not say, "God be merciful to me a praying
   sinner." He was praying, but he does not mention it as a plea, for he
   thought very little of his own prayers. Do not plead your prayers--you
   might as well plead your sins! God knows that your prayers have sin in
   them. Why, Man, your very tears of repentance need washing! When your
   supplications are most sincere, what are they but the wailings of a
   condemned creature who cannot give a single reason why he should not be
   executed? Feel and acknowledge that you deserve condemnation--and come
   to God as a sinner. Off with your paltry finery, I mean your "filthy
   rags!" Do not trick yourself out in the weeds of your own repentance,
   much less in the fig leaves of your own resolutions--but come to God in
   Christ Jesus in all the nakedness of your sin--and everlasting mercy
   will cover both you and your sins.

   Next, notice that this man did nothing but appeal to mercy. He said,
   "God be merciful to me." He did not attempt to excuse himself and say,
   "Lord, I could not help it. Lord, I was not worse than other publicans.
   Lord, I was a public servant and only did what every other tax
   collector did." No, no! He is too honest to forge excuses. He is a
   sinner and he admits it. If the Lord should condemn him out of his own
   mouth and send him to Hell, he cannot help it--his sin is too evident
   to be denied. He lays his head on the block and humbly pleads, "God be
   merciful to me a sinner." Neither does this publican offer any promises
   of future amendment as a setoff. He does not say, "Lord, be merciful
   for the past, and I will be better in the future." Nothing of the sort!
   "Be merciful to me the sinner" is his one and only request.

   So would I have you cry, "O God, be merciful to me! Although I am even
   now condemned and deserved to be hopelessly damned by Your justice, yet
   have mercy upon me, have mercy on me now." That is the way to pray and
   if you pray in that way God will hear you. He does not offer to pay
   anything. He does not propose any form of self-paid ransom. He does not
   present to God his tears, his abstinence, his self-denial, his
   generosity to the Church, his liberality to the poor, or anything
   else--he simply begs the Lord to be propitiated and to be merciful to
   him because of the great Sacrifice. Oh, that all of you would at once
   pray in this fashion!

   Now, I want to cheer your hearts by noticing that this man, through
   this prayer and through this confession of sin, experienced a
   remarkable degree of acceptance. He had come up to the Temple
   condemned--"he went down to his house justified." A complete change, a
   sudden change, a happy change was worked upon him! Heavy heart and
   downcast eyes were exchanged for glad heart and hopeful outlook. He
   came trembling into that Temple--he left it rejoicing! I am sure his
   wife noticed the difference. What had come over him? The children began
   to observe it, also. Poor father used to sit alone and heave many a
   sigh, but all of a sudden he is so happy! He even sings Psalms of David
   out of the latter end of the book! The change was very marked. Before
   dinner he says, "Children, we must give God thanks before we eat this
   meal." They gather round and wonder at dear father's happy face as he
   blesses the God of Israel!

   He says to his friends, "Brethren, I am comforted. God has had mercy
   upon me. I went to the Temple guilty, but I have returned justified. My
   sins are all forgiven me. God has accepted a Propitiation on my
   behalf!" What good would come of such a happy testimony! This was a
   very sudden change, was it not? It was worked in a moment. The process
   of spiritual quickening is not a matter of hours, but of a single
   second of time. The processes which lead up to it and spring out of it
   are long, but the actual reception of life must be instantaneous. Not
   in every case would you be able to put your finger upon that second of
   time, but the passage from death unto life must be instantaneous. There
   must be a moment in which the man is dead and another moment in which
   he is alive. I grant you, life would be very feeble at first--still,
   there must be a time in which it was not there at all! And again, there
   must have been an instant in which it begins. There can be no middle
   condition between dead and alive. Yet a man may not know when the
   change took place.

   If you were going to the Cape you might cross the equator at dead of
   night and know nothing about it, but still you would cross it. Some
   poor landsmen have thought that they would see a blue line right across
   the waves. But it is not perceptible, although it is truly there--the
   equator is quite as real as if we could see a golden belt around the
   globe. Dear Friends, I want you to cross the line this morning! Oh,
   that you might go out of this house saying, "Glory, glory, hallelujah!
   God has had mercy upon me!" Though you feel this morning that you would
   not give two-pence for your life, yet

   if you come to God through Jesus Christ, you shall go away blessing God
   not only that you are alive, but that you shall live forever, happy in
   His love!

   Once more, this man went away with a witness such as I pray we all may
   have. "He was justified." "But," you add, "how do I know he was
   justified?" Listen to these words. Our blessed Lord says, "I tell you
   that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other."
   "I tell you." Jesus, our Lord, can tell! Into our ear He tells it. He
   tells it to God and the holy angels and He tells it to the man,
   himself! The man who has cried from his heart, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner" is a justified man! When he stood and confessed his sin and
   cast himself wholly upon the Divine Mercy, that man was unburdened so
   that he went down to his house justified! We are all going down to our
   houses. Oh, that we might go down justified! You are going home. I want
   you to go home to God, who is the true home of the soul. "He went down
   to his house justified," and why should not you do the same?

   Perhaps, my Hearer, you have never been to the Tabernacle before.
   Possibly, my Friend, you are one of those gentlemen who spend Sunday
   mornings in their shirtsleeves at home reading the weekly paper. You
   have come here this morning quite by accident. Blessed be God! I hope
   you will go home "justified!" The Lord grant it! Perhaps you always
   come here and have occupied a seat ever since the Tabernacle was
   built--and yet you have never found mercy. Oh, that you might find
   mercy this morning! Let us seek this blessing. Come with me to Jesus. I
   will lead the way! I pray you say with me this morning--"God be
   merciful to me the sinner." Rest on the great Propitiation--trust in
   Jesus Christ's atoning blood! Cast yourself upon the Savior's love and
   you shall go down to your house justified!

   Is it a poor cottage? Is it less than that--a back room up three
   flights of stairs? Are you very, very poor and have you been out of
   work for a long time? Never mind. God knows all. Seek His face. It will
   be a happy Sunday for you, if you, this day, begin a new life by faith
   in Jesus! You shall have joy, peace and happiness if you seek and find
   mercy from the great Father. I think I see you trudging home, having
   left your load behind you, but compassed about with songs of praise
   unto our God. So be it! Amen and Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Earthquake But Not Heartquake

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
   Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the
   mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar
   and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling." Psalm
   46:1-3.

   THIS Psalm is a song for all Israel--for all who are truly the chosen
   of God, called to be His own people--should exhibit a fearless courage.
   The peace of God which passes all understanding should keep the hearts
   and minds of all who rest in God. If, indeed, the Lord is our refuge
   and strength, we are entitled to seek after a spirit which shall bear
   us above the dreads of common men. It is not every man that can sing
   this Psalm--he must belong to the believing company, he must have God
   to be his God--and he must, like Israel, have learned the art of
   prevailing prayer, or else he cannot sing the song of peace amid
   commotion and calamity. No man can truly sing this Psalm but those who
   are redeemed from the earth.

   While this is a Psalm for all Israel, it is specially marked as
   committed to the charge of the sons of Korah. Korah, Dathan and Abiram
   perished because of their presumption--they went down alive into the
   pit--and the earth closed upon them. They and all that appertained unto
   them were swallowed up. But we are astonished to read,
   "Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not." I attribute their
   singular escape to the Sovereign Grace of God who spared them when
   their kinsmen were destroyed. They were made singers in the courts of
   the Lord and surely they would sing with peculiar emphasis these words,
   "Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed." They saw the
   earth open her mouth and swallow up the offenders of their household
   while they were preserved by Sovereign Grace. Surely the tears must
   have stood in their eyes when they sang this verse and thought of the
   opening gulf at their feet. The circumstance under which a man is saved
   will influence the rest of his life. To be saved of God from between
   the teeth ofjudgment is a rescue so special and vivid that the subject
   of it learns to sing aloud unto the preserving Lord! Delivered from so
   great a death, Believers learn to trust that the Lord will yet deliver
   them. When conversion is especially remarkable, the music of gratitude
   is pitched in a high key and the converts reach notes which are
   impossible to others. It is for sons of Korah to sing, "Therefore we
   will not fear."

   It is significant, also, that this Psalm was to be sung "upon Alamoth,"
   which, in all probability, means that it was to be set to music
   suitable for virgin voices. The hallelujah at the Red Sea was chiefly
   in the hands of Miriam and the maidens of Israel--she took her timbrel
   and the daughters of Israel followed after her, singing unto the Lord.
   This is a Psalm of the same sort. You virgin souls, arise and sing unto
   God, your refuge and strength! Awake, you hearts that follow the Lord
   fully in the fervor of your first love, and lift your voices to the
   Lord! Come, you that have been kept pure and unde-filed in your words
   and ways, you whose hearts are chaste to the love of Jesus Christ--you
   are called upon above all others to sing, "God is our refuge and
   strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear,
   though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
   the midst of the sea."

   It was because Luther's heart was chaste towards God and his whole mind
   virgin towards Divine Truth that he delighted to sing this Psalm. In
   the days of the most furious opposition he was known to say to
   Melancthon, "Come, let us sing the 46th Psalm and let the devil do his
   worst." So, too, when Luther was dead, Melancthon heard a girl singing
   this Psalm and he said to her, "Sing on, dear daughter, mine, you know
   not what comfort you bring to my heart." We read of the armies of
   Gustavus Adolphus singing this Psalm before their victory at Leipsic.
   So, you see, the young, the simple, the guileless may sing that which
   nerves warriors for the battle--

   "God is our refuge and our strength, In straits a present aid;

   Therefore, although the earth remove, We will not be afraid.'

   This morning, as I shall be enabled, I shall say a little, first, upon
   the confidence of the saints-- "God is our refuge and strength, a very
   present help in trouble." Then I will speak upon the courage which
   grows out of it--"Therefore we will not fear." We shall close with a
   brief survey of the conflicts to which that courage will be sure to be
   exposed--"Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
   carried into the midst of the sea; though its waters roar and be
   troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling."

   I. First, then, let us carefully consider THE CONFIDENCE OF THE SAINTS.

   God's people have a sure confidence. Other men build as best they may,
   but true Believers rest upon the Rock of Ages. Their confidence is
   altogether beyond themselves. In this song there is nothing about their
   own virtue, valor, or wisdom. The heathen moralist boasted that if the
   globe, itself, should break, his integrity would make him stand
   fearless amid the wreck. But the Believer has a humbler, though a truer
   reliance. Though the earth is removed, he is undismayed. And this does
   not arise from his own personal self-sufficiency, but from God, who is
   his refuge and strength. He is fearless, not because of his original
   stoutness of heart and natural firmness of will, but because he has a
   God to shelter and uphold him. If he does not fear calamity, it is
   because he fears God and God, alone.

   Our Psalm begins with God, and with God it ends--"The God of Jacob is
   our refuge." We may be as timid by nature as the conies, but God is our
   refuge. We are as weak by nature as bruised reeds, but God is our
   strength. We never know what strength is till our own weakness drives
   us to trust Omnipotence. We never understand how safe our refuge is
   till all other refuges fail us. When the earth is removed and the
   waters of the sea roar and are troubled, being driven both from land
   and sea, we hide ourselves in God. You who are strong in yourselves
   imagine strength where only weakness can be found--you seek the living
   among the dead and substantial confidences amid the "vanity of
   vanities." If we look to ourselves for courage, we shall fail in the
   hour of trial. When the earth is removed, the mightiest men are the
   first to shudder! The greatest boasters become the worst cowards. For
   confidence and peace we must say unto the Lord, "All my fresh springs
   are in You."

   This confidence is gained by an appropriating faith. Peace comes to me
   not only by what God is, but by what God is to me. "God is our refuge
   and strength." "This God is our God." You never enjoy the goodness and
   greatness of God if you view them in an abstract manner. You must grasp
   them as your own. It seems a daring act for a man to appropriate God,
   but the Lord invites us to do it! He says, "Let him take hold of My
   strength."

   Why hesitate to make the appropriation? Look at the men of the
   world--they would appropriate the whole earth if they could--continents
   are not too wide! It is no fault of theirs if they do not hedge in the
   stars and monopolize the sun. And shall not the Christian appropriate
   those heavenly things of which he is made the heir--an heir of God, a
   joint-heir with Christ Jesus? Let us join with the Prophet Jeremiah in
   his comfortable soliloquy--"The Lord is my portion, says my soul;
   therefore will I hope in Him." As with Thomas, we behold the print of
   the nails! Let us say with him, unto our blessed Redeemer--"My Lord and
   my God." The deep peace which is our right and privilege will not be
   ours unless, with assured faith, we take the Lord to be ours in all the
   fullness of His love. Come, let us now say--"God is our refuge and
   strength."

   This confidence will be greatly sustained by a clear knowledge of God.
   "Acquaint yourself with God, and be at peace: thereby good shall come
   unto you." If we were greater students of God, how much happier we
   would be! Pope said, "The proper study of mankind is man." It is a
   deplorably barren subject! Say, rather, "The proper study of mankind is
   God." When men of God make God their study, then they discover in Him
   those things which make Him a refuge for their hours of danger; a
   strength for days of labor and a help for emergencies of every kind. We
   ought to be able to say more of God today than we could a few years
   ago. Our general notion should now branch out into instructive
   particulars. We ought to now see the varied blessings which come to us
   from God and to speak of Him under a threefold description as "our
   refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

   We notice under the Old Testament dispensation that certain sacrifices,
   like the doves and pigeons which were brought by poor Israelites, were
   simply cut in two and were laid on the altar. But other offerings which
   were brought by richer Israelites were more carefully divided. Take the
   offering of the rich to represent, as a type, the ideas of those who

   are well taught in knowledge and have a greater experience of the
   things of God and then you see how matters of detail were mentioned.
   When bullocks were presented we read of the fat, the head, the legs and
   the inwards--so here we read of refuge, strength and help. The more we
   know the Lord, the more shall we perceive that He is full of blessings
   to us. "They that know Your name will put their trust in You." You
   shall be saved by the little knowledge which trusts God--but your peace
   shall be far fuller and deeper if you know the deep things of God and
   understand His secrets, for then you shall not be afraid of evil
   tidings since your heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.

   If you are, as yet, a timid Believer, seek to grow in the knowledge of
   God, for thus shall you learn to say, "Therefore we will not fear,
   though the earth be removed." Half our fears are the result of
   ignorance. Truth as yet unknown would greatly encourage us if we did
   but perceive it. If we knew more of God we would be bold as lions.
   Therefore I exhort all true Believers here to dwell much in the
   Presence of God and ask to be instructed in the Nature, the Character,
   the attributes of God--yes, the purpose, the promise and the Providence
   of the Covenant God of Israel. To know Him is eternal life! Solid peace
   which no calamity can destroy must come from God--from God appropriated
   and from God grow-ingly known.

   All this will be certified to us by our experience. This Psalm is best
   sung by men and women who know what they are singing because they have
   felt the preserving and delivering Grace of God. I shall put it to you
   this morning, you that know the Lord, can you not say by experience,
   "God is our refuge"? You have fled to Him--have you not found a shelter
   in Him? There have been times of trial so severe that you could not
   endure its force, but were compelled to flee from it. You fled to
   God--was His door closed against you? Did He bid you go elsewhere? Did
   He upbraid you for your presumption? And when you have hidden yourself
   in God, let me ask you, has He not afforded you a very blessed retreat?
   When you have entered into your chamber, shut your door and hidden
   yourself with God, have you not been at perfect peace? Yes, you have
   been as safe and as happy as Noah when the Lord shut him in!

   Look at the little chicks yonder, under the hen! See how they bury
   their little heads in the feathers of her warm bosom! Hear their little
   chirps of perfect happiness as they nestle beneath the mother's wings!
   "He shall cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you
   trust--His truth shall be your shield and buckler." Have you not found
   it so? My happiest hours have not been in the days of my mirth, but in
   the nights of my sorrow! When all waters are bitter, the cup of Divine
   Consolation is all the sweeter. For brightness, give me not the
   sunlight, but that superior Glory with which the Lord lights up the
   darkness of affliction! It is not necessary for happiness that a man
   should be prosperous in business, or applauded by mankind--it is only
   necessary that the Lord should smile on him! It is not essential to
   happiness that he should be in good health, or even that he should be
   naturally of cheerful spirit--God gives us the truest health in
   sickness and the most tender joy amid depression. Brothers and Sisters,
   "God is our refuge." It is many a day since first we went to Him and we
   have been many times since, but He has never failed us once. I appeal
   to the aged and the experienced here--and I know that the older they
   are and the more tried they have been, the more steadfast will they
   bear their witness that "God is a refuge for us."

   We can also say that God has been our strength. When we have not been
   afflicted, but have had arduous labor to perform for God, we have been
   made to feel and mourn our weakness--and then the Lord has made us to
   glory in infirmity because His power has rested on us. What multiform
   shapes that strength has taken! Many of you have had strength for the
   daily battle of business life, others for domestic life. Under fierce
   temptations you remain unconquered; under stern duties you remain
   unwearied; you have had strength for exhausting service or crushing
   suffering. Had you been left to your own wit and wisdom, they alone
   could never have sufficed you--strength of mind has been given from
   above. See the widow, left penniless, who has brought up a family of
   children! Can she tell how she did it? See the girl placed amid coarse
   and brutal men of licentious character--she remains pure--but can she
   tell you how? God is our strength in ways unknown to ourselves. Our
   trials are all different. No two of us have proved the Lord in exactly
   the same way, but yet our testimony is uniform--the Lord has been
   all-sufficient, His strength is perfect! Thus far we find that promise
   good, "Your shoes shall be iron and brass, and as your days, so shall
   your strength be."

   We have also proved another thing, namely, that God is "a very present
   help in trouble." We have had helpers after the flesh who have not been
   present when we needed them--perhaps they have studiously kept out of
   the way--at any rate, just at the pinch when we have said, "Oh, that
   so-and-so were here," our friend has been at the end of the earth. But
   it has never been so with God. Has He not said, "Before they call I
   will answer them and while they are yet speaking I will

   hear"? Just there where the burden pressed, God has been immediately
   present to lighten the load! He is not only present, but very present.
   More present than our nearest friend when most present. God's Presence
   permeates us. He is not only by our side, but He is within us, in the
   heart of our thoughts, at the springs of our life. Beloved, you have
   sometimes complained that God was absent from you. Because of your sin
   He has hidden His face from you. But let me ask you, did you ever find
   the Lord absent in your hour of trial? In the burning furnace, if ever
   anywhere, you shall see "one like unto the Son of God." He has said,
   "When you pass through the waters I will be with you." Wherever else He
   may supposed to be absent, He will be sure to be present in trouble.

   Now, this is matter of experience and because we have experienced it,
   therefore we will not fear though the earth be removed. Having already
   tried and tested God, we are not going to doubt Him, now! We feel
   something of the mind of Sir Francis Drake, who, after he had sailed
   round the world, was buffeted with a storm in the Thames. "What?" he
   asked, "have we sailed round the world safely and shall we be drowned
   in a ditch?" So do we say at this day! Helped so long and helped so
   often! God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,
   why should we fear? How dare we fear?

   Once more, dear Friends, in order to realize the fearlessness of which
   this text so sweetly sings, we must not only have a past experience at
   our back, but an immediate enjoyment of the Divine help. If you can
   truly sing in your soul, "God is my refuge and my strength," then it
   will be impossible for you to be afraid. A sense of the nearness and
   graciousness of God will be an antidote to fear. I know that it is so
   in alarms and distresses which come under my observation. I have often
   stood at the bedsides of dear Brothers and Sisters, members of this
   Church, when they have come to die, and I have, without exception,
   always found them perfectly restful and free from fear. It is a sorrow
   to see friends full of pain and to know that they are dying, but the
   various interviews that I have had with the departing have left no
   impression of gloom on my mind, but the very reverse!

   I came this week out of a quiet bedchamber where I saw a Sunday school
   teacher passing away. It was a little sanctuary. Everything so quiet,
   peaceful, happy. Death cast no shadow over the sweet face. Heaven
   lighted the features. It seemed more like a marriage day than a death
   day. Why are these dying beds so happy? Because these people have any
   goodness of their own? Far from it! Without exception they disown it.
   Because they are strong and self-contained? No! I might speak of young
   and old Believers, greatly emaciated by long sickness, and yet as
   greatly strong in faith. What brings this peace? Truly, the Lord was
   there! His realized Presence makes death a small matter. Do we not
   sing--

   "Oh, if my Lord would come and meet, My soul should stretch her wings
   in haste, Fly fearless through death's iron gate, Nor feel the terrors
   as she passed"? The Presence of God with the soul of a Believer
   swallows up death in victory! Anything else that is terrible in time or
   in eternity loses its terror in the Presence of the mighty God of
   Jacob. Thus have I shown you where the confidence of the Christian
   really lies.

   II. I come, secondly, to notice THE COURAGE WHICH GROWS OUT OF IT.

   This courage is very full and complete. "Therefore we will not fear."
   It does not say, "Therefore we will not run away," but, "therefore we
   will not fear." It does not even say, "Therefore we will not faint and
   swoon in dread," but, "Therefore we will not fear." The Presence of God
   does so stay the soul and quiet the heart, that fear, which has
   torment, is driven away. Nature fears, it could not be otherwise. But
   through Grace, the Heaven-born spirit triumphs over nature and its
   fear. God does not take away from us those natural fears which lead us
   to seek the preservation of life, but He masters them by a serene
   security of heart produced by His Presence. We are perplexed, but not
   in despair. We see the position to be full of danger and yet we know
   that we are in no danger, the Lord being near. "Therefore we will not
   fear." It is a most delightful thing when the heart is placid because
   we believe in God and in His Christ. This peace is the peace of God
   which passes all understanding--no pretence of peace--but a Divine
   reality which the world can neither create nor destroy!

   Then, further, this courage is logically justifiable. It is not the
   courage of nature, which may be a mere brute virtue, such as dogs and
   bulls possess. Neither does it grow out of lack of feeling. The courage
   of the Christian is not the hardness of the stoic. The stoic boasts
   that he does not feel. The Christian does feel--feels as keenly as
   anybody and much more than most. And yet, for all that, the conscious
   love of God lifts him above fear! The Believer's fearlessness is

   founded upon argument and so the Psalmist words it, "Therefore we will
   not fear." Because God is present as the refuge of His people, it is
   unreasonable for them to fear.

   Observe, then, dear Friends, that whatever happens to the man who has
   God to be his God, he need not fear because none of these things will
   affect the ground of his confidence. No calamity will change God's love
   to us. Suppose we should witness an earthquake, a tempest, a famine,
   pestilence, a war--none of these would separate us from the love of God
   which is in Christ Jesus our Lord! These temporal calamities do not
   touch the vital matter--such things have no influence upon the
   unchangeable love of God except to make it more clear!

   Suppose, again, that the most awful things were to occur. Would they
   not occur according to God's decree? We believe in a God who has
   arranged all things according to the counsel of His will. Do you
   believe that anything is left to chance? Is any event outside the
   circle of the Divine Predestination? No, my Brothers and Sisters--with
   God there are no contingencies! The mighty Charioteer of Providence has
   gathered up all the reins of all the horses and He guides them all
   according to His infallible wisdom! There is a foreknowledge and
   predestination which concerns all things--from the motion of a grain of
   dust on the threshing floor to that of the flaming comet which blazes
   across the sky. Nothing can happen but what God ordains and, therefore,
   why should we fear?

   Again, nothing happens without the Divine Power being in it. The Lord
   says, "Behold, I have created the smith that blows the coals in the
   fire. I have created the waster to destroy." The most violent and
   wicked men could not move a finger if strength were not lent them by
   the Lord. As for the catastrophes of Nature, is not the Lord distinctly
   in them? Who shakes the earth? Is it not God that looks on it and it
   trembles? When the mountains vomit fire, is it not because He touches
   the hills and they smoke? Our Father works all things--therefore should
   His children be afraid?

   Furthermore, do not you and I believe that God overrules
   everything--that even that which naturally might be called evil is
   turned to good account? The Lord's goodness extracts the viper's tooth
   and supplies an antidote to the poison. It was evil, but God transmuted
   it into good by the alchemy of His Divine wisdom. Who is he that can
   harm you? "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and
   every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall
   condemn."

   Furthermore, we know that nothing that can happen, however tremendous
   it may be, can shake the Kingdom of God. Our chief possession lies in
   that Kingdom and if that is secure, all is safe. The gates of Hell
   shall not prevail against that Kingdom and, therefore, whatever is
   imperiled, our highest, best and most vital interests are safe beyond
   the shadow of harm. Suppose an accident should take away our lives? I
   smile as I think that the worst thing that could happen would be the
   best thing that could happen! If we should die, we should but the
   sooner be "forever with the Lord." If in the quiver of God's Providence
   there should lie an arrow which shall bring us death today, it would
   also bring us Glory! So, if the very worst that can befall us is the
   best that can come, why should we fear? I think this is good reasoning,
   is it not? If you are, indeed, a Believer, and if God is your refuge
   and your strength, there is a logical reason why you should not yield
   to alarm.

   Now, this fearlessness is exceedingly profitable. If a man is able to
   contain himself and possess his soul in patience through the Presence
   of God, he will not do that which is foolish. Men, when they are
   frightened, are in hot haste and hurry themselves into folly. As if
   they were turned to children, men in their alarm will act without
   reason! In fact, terror is a kind of madness. Many absurd actions have
   been performed under the influence of panic. In times of danger the man
   who is calm is the most ready to use the proper means of escape.
   Presence of mind is invaluable and the best way to secure presence of
   mind is to believe in the Presence of God! In cases of sickness, the
   patient who does not fret is the most likely to be cured. We have had
   among us, just now, instances of dear friends in this Church who have
   been called to undergo most serious operations. And it has been a
   wonderful help to them that they have known no dread, but have been
   passive in the Lord's hands.

   Our Lord Jesus was always sweetly serene and this was one element of
   the wisdom of His behavior. In the struggle of life, a cheerful
   fearlessness is a grand assistance. Here is a man on the Exchange and
   things are going heavily against him. Prices are falling and all that
   he can do appears to make bad worse. If that man gives way to fear, he
   may plunge into utter ruin. But if he can step aside a minute or two
   and breathe a prayer to God, he will pull himself together, and when he
   comes back he will coolly survey the situation and act with discretion.
   Lose your head and you lose the battle! Lose your heart and you have
   lost all. To him who knows no fear there is no fear, provided that his
   forgetfulness of fear arises

   out of his memory of God! For the prudent government of life as well as
   for its enjoyment, the overcoming of fear is a great help.

   Fearlessness also assists in keeping us from doing wrong. The man who
   can trust God with consequences will not do wrong in order to escape
   from losses. The man who yields to the fear of man is apt to conceal
   his convictions and if he does not deny the faith, he is apt to attempt
   a compromise--and that is the most dangerous operation which a
   Christian man can enter! If faith in God lifts us up above the fear of
   losses and sufferings, we shall say to every form of temptation, "Get
   you behind me, Satan."

   One thing more I desire to say about this fearlessness, namely, that it
   brings great glory to God. If you are enabled to rise above fear in
   times of alarm, then those who see you will say, "This is a man of God,
   and this is God's work upon his soul." I knew a youth, [Brother
   Spurgeon is speaking of himself] near 40 years ago, who was staying
   with relations when a thunderstorm of unusual violence came on at
   nightfall. A stack was struck by lightning and set on fire within sight
   of the door. The grown-up people in the house, both men and women, were
   utterly overcome with fright. The strong men seemed even more afraid
   than the women. All the inmates of the house sat huddled together. Only
   this youth was quietly happy. There was a little child upstairs in bed
   and the mother was anxious about it, but even her love could not give
   her courage enough to pass the staircase windows to bring that child
   down.

   The babe cried, and this youth, whom I knew right well, who was then
   but newly converted, went upstairs alone, took the child and, without
   hurry or alarm, brought it down to its mother. He needed no candle, for
   the lightning was so continuous that he could see his way right well.
   He felt that the Lord was wonderfully near that night and so no fear
   was possible to his heart. He sat down and read a Psalm aloud to his
   trembling relatives who looked on the lad with loving wonder. That
   night he was master of the situation and those in the house believed
   that there was something in the religion which he had so lately
   professed. I believe that if all of us can, by God's Grace, get such a
   sense of God's nearness to us in times of danger and trouble, that we
   will remain calm and we shall bring much honor to the cause of God and
   the name of Jesus. Holy confidence sings Psalms by its spirit and acts.
   It is well to sing in the language of David, "God is our refuge and
   strength." But it is better, still, so to act that all can see that we
   do not fear though the earth is removed!

   III. Time has fled and I must ask your patience while I now dwell for a
   little while upon the third point, THE CONFLICTS TO WHICH THIS
   FEARLESSNESS WILL BE EXPOSED. If you become fearless through the
   Presence of God, that courage will be tested.

   It will be tried in ways novel and unusual. "Though the earth be
   removed." This is a terrible novelty. Those who have been in
   earthquakes tell me that the feeling is most singular. It does not seem
   like a common shake, but as if everything had given way at once. You do
   not know what to do--the very foundations of everything have slipped
   from under you. Suppose that the Lord is about to try us in new and
   unheard of ways? Yet, having the Lord to be our refuge, strength and
   present help, we will not fear. New trials will bring new Graces and
   prove the value of old promises.

   Certain trials are very mysterious and threatening. It would be a great
   mystery if we were to see "the mountains carried into the midst of the
   sea." There they have stood for ages and should they take a leap, we
   should be at our wits' end to account for their motion! If some giant
   force plucked them up by their roots and hurled them into the center of
   the ocean, we would be amazed. But some afflictions are of that
   order--you cannot understand them. The sting of sorrow often lies in
   the unseen. What we cannot comprehend astounds and appalls us. Yet, my
   Brethren, we need not fear if God is with us, though the mountains were
   hurled into the midst of the sea! The Lord could put them back into
   their places again. If all the devils in Hell had a hand in your
   trouble, you need not, therefore, be alarmed, for one God is greater
   than millions of demons! If all the legions of the pit rushed forth in
   hosts innumerable as flying locusts, all armed to the teeth and eager
   for your blood, yet the Lord of Hosts being with you, you would march
   through them as a man goes through a field of grass! One lion does not
   fear a flock of sheep and one man who trusts in God is master of armies
   of adversaries. Therefore, we will not fear, "though hills amid the
   seas be cast." Our God is mightier than all mysterious forces whatever.

   Some trials also seem to be utterly ungovernable--"Though its waters
   roar and be troubled." You cannot do anything with the sea when it
   rages. It hurls itself aloft in great masses! It yawns in fathomless
   abysses! It rushes, it whirls, it sinks. As for its noise, it drowns
   your thoughts. The water is here, there, everywhere when the deep once
   begins to break loose! And certain troubles seem to be of like
   nature--they rush upon you all of a sudden, they multiply like swelling

   waves, they drive furiously, they carry all before them--and yet, even
   then, we need not fear! If God is with us, He is mightier than the
   noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea! There is
   no reason to fear noise and none, even, to fear the sea, for, "the Lord
   sits upon the flood; yes, the Lord sits King forever." Let the sea roar
   and let its waters be troubled--our faith shall never yield to fear.

   Sometimes we get afraid through sympathy with the fear of others.
   Observe, "Though the mountains shake with its swelling," as though when
   the sea had taken to roaring and trembling, the mountains followed it
   in sympathy! So, when we see the strongest people giving way and panic
   seizing upon them, we are apt to yield. But if God is with us and we
   can hold firm to the Truth that He is our refuge and our strength, we
   shall not fear.

   "Well," says one, "what is the practical run of all this?" Why, just
   this. There may come to you and to me great and unexpected trouble--and
   it will then be well to rise out of the reach of fear. War may soon
   burst upon us. The political atmosphere is charged with war and we may
   be surrounded by it before the year grows old. We have enjoyed, as a
   nation, so much of rest within our own island that we have grown
   somewhat secure--but even if war were at our gates--those who have made
   the Most High their refuge need not fear.

   Something worse than war is threatening. Anarchy seeks to make havoc in
   the streets. There are plenty of signs and tokens that a breakup of
   social order is desired by not a few. Fierce spirits are eager to
   repeat among us the horrors of the French Revolution. To break down,
   divide, destroy, disintegrate is the policy of many. The earthquake of
   society is more to be dreaded than the quaking of the globe and we are
   within measurable distance of such a catastrophe. Shall we lie down and
   die? No, verily, we will not fear, though the earth is removed. If God
   is our confidence we need not be afraid, though the heathen rage and
   the people imagine a vain thing. The unloosing of the bond of society
   is a thing to be dreaded more than an incursion of wild beasts, but the
   Lord reigns and, therefore, right will prevail.

   Perhaps some of you feel this sad depression of trade weighing upon
   your spirits. "I do not know what is coming of it," says one. "I do not
   think I shall long be able to provide for my family." Yes, but if God
   is your refuge and strength, I beseech you, do not lose heart. "Trust
   in the Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily
   you shall be fed." This depression is to you what the earthquake has
   been to the Riviera--but yet you must not be buried in despair. Hope
   on, hope always.

   "Ah," says one, "but I fear the return of persecution. Popery is making
   rapid strides and may come into power again." I am not quite so much
   alarmed about that as some are, but even if it were so, we must not
   show the white feather. Do not be afraid! He that helps His people is
   stronger than their adversaries. He can deliver from the jaws of the
   lion and He will deliver without fail.

   As for myself, I am often sadly tossed about because of the heresies
   and false doctrines of this present age. It grieves me to the heart to
   see the lack of spirituality among ministers and of holiness among
   professing Christians. It cuts me to the quick to see the utter rubbish
   and poison which is preached instead of Christianity. At times it looks
   as if all things were going wrong! The men to whom one looked as
   pillars, forsake the faith, and the staunchest give way for the sake of
   peace. We are apt to cry, "What will become of us?" But if God is our
   refuge and strength, we need not be afraid, even amid general apostasy!
   While God lives, Truth is in the ascendant. I remember years ago
   meeting with that blessed servant of God, the late Earl of Shaftesbury.
   He was at Mentone with a dying daughter and he happened, that day, to
   be very much downcast, as, indeed, I have frequently seen him and as, I
   am sorry to confess, he has also frequently seen me.

   That day he was particularly cast down about the general state of
   society. He thought that the powers of darkness in this country were
   having it all their own way and that, before long, the worst elements
   of society would gain power and trample out all virtue. Looking up into
   his face, I said to him, "And is God dead? Do you believe that while
   God lives the devil will conquer Him?" He smiled and we walked along by
   the Mediterranean communing together in a far more hopeful tone. The
   Lord lives and blessed be my Rock! As long as the Lord lives, our hope
   also lives! Gospel Truth will yet prevail! We shall live to see the old
   faith to the front again! The Church, like Noah's dove, will come back
   to her rest and bring something with her which shall prophesy eternal
   peace.

   Now, my beloved Friend, think about yourself a minute and all the
   trials which may yet beset you. If you are to be afflicted with
   incurable sickness and gradually to pine away amid multiplied pains,
   yet you need not fear! If you are to be an invalid from this time forth
   to the end of your days, yet be not greatly depressed in spirit, for
   the Lord's Presence will sustain you. If heart and flesh both fail, God
   will be the strength of your heart and your portion forever! By-and-by
   you

   and I will have to die unless the Lord should suddenly come. What then?
   Then will the earth be removed, so far as we are concerned! And then,
   as far as our experience goes, our mountain will be carried into the
   midst of the sea! But since God is our refuge and strength we ought not
   to dread the day.

   Look into the Book of Revelation and you will see that tremendous
   events are foretold. All things shall be shaken; all the glories of
   earth shall melt away. Confusion, like the first chaos, shall cover all
   things; the earth shall rock and reel and the stars shall fall from
   Heaven. But even then we will not fear, since God will be our very
   present help. Some people dine on horrors. They are not content unless
   a future is set before them spiced with dread. I confess that I am not
   of their mind. The Lord Jesus has made an end of horrors for me.
   Whether we live or die, we shall be "forever with the Lord." And to be
   where He is, is to be far away from fear! There will come a day when
   the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise--but we fear not
   resurrection! There shall be a day of days for which all other days
   were made, with its Great White Throne, pomp of angels and judgment of
   the quick and the dead, but, Beloved, though that day shall burn as an
   oven, we will not fear because we are secure in Christ Jesus! Therefore
   let us stand at the window and look out at the storm--and see the wreck
   of matter and the crash of worlds without a trace of fear!

   I thought, as I read my text, what an awful case the ungodly must be
   in, for the very things which men most dread, namely, the falling of
   mountains and the gaping open of the earth, will become the desire of
   terrified sinners at the last! How great must be that horror which will
   altogether eclipse the horror which sends myriads flying in panic from
   their homes! When sinners shall see the face of Christ in His Glory,
   they will beg the mountains to fall upon them and the rocks to cover
   them, to hide them from the dreadful vision! The face of Love is
   terrible to those who have rejected it! Oh Sinners, what will be your
   anguish when you shall seek death and not find it?! What will be your
   dismay when even a tottering mountain, reeling with earthquake, shall
   be regarded as a friend?! Oh, that you would escape from the wrath to
   come! Oh, that you would, by faith, take Jesus to be your refuge and
   your strength!--

   "You sinners, seek His Grace, Whose wrath you cannot bear; Fly to the
   shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Pleading of the Last Messenger

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 6, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last
   unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those vinedressers
   said among themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill him and the
   inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast
   him out of the vineyard. What shall, therefore, the lord of the
   vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers, and will give
   the vineyard unto others." Mark 12:6-9.

   BROTHERS AND SISTERS, you know the story of God's dealing with Israel
   and Israel's dealing with God. The Lord chose their fathers, Abraham,
   Isaac and Jacob. He made them a race separated unto Himself; He brought
   them out of Egypt from under the iron yoke; He led them through the Red
   Sea; He fed them for 40 years in the wilderness. He led them about and
   tutored them, even as a man teaches His son. In due time He brought
   them into the land which flows with milk and honey and He put them
   under a dispensation eminently gentle and full of tenderness where, as
   a nation, they might enjoy unbroken prosperity, "sitting every man
   under his vine and under his fig tree, none making them afraid." All
   that He required of them was that He should be their God and that they
   should put no idols in His place, but should obey His statutes.

   Alas, from the first, they copied the nations among whom they
   dwelt--they set up the gods of Egypt when they were in the wilderness
   and, in Canaan, they went astray after the polluted deities of the
   nations. They worshipped defiled gods with obscene rites--they even
   passed their children through the fire to Moloch--and did horrible
   things which angered the Most High. In His long-suffering, He sent them
   Prophets one after another--Prophets who received unworthy treatment at
   their hands whenever they rebuked their sins. The Prophets were
   derided, persecuted and even slain with the sword. God, in great
   patience, sent them more of His messengers, some of them grandly
   eloquent, like Isaiah and Ezekiel; others of them full of tears, like
   Jeremiah, or clothed with dignity, like Daniel. They warned the people
   and ceased not to plead with them, whether they would hear or whether
   they would forbear. Cruel treatment awaited many of the servants of the
   Lord--they were stoned, they were sawn asunder.

   Israel rejected the servants that came from the great Householder
   asking for the rent of His vineyard. They repudiated the claims of God
   and cast off allegiance to Him with contempt and disdain until, at
   last, the nation was led into captivity and, in the end, only lingered
   on the chosen soil as a mere remnant. Judah wept upon the
   dunghill--whereas before she was adorned with bridal ornaments and sat
   upon the throne! The adversary ruled in the halls of David, for the
   days of Herod, the Idumaean tyrant, had come. The Roman yoke was heavy
   upon the people--their sins had brought them low. God, in His infinite
   compassion, gave them one more opportunity. He had one Son, His
   well-beloved Son, and He sent Him to His Israel. With lips that dropped
   mercy and with eyes that overflowed with tenderness, He came. "Oh, that
   you had known," He said, "even you, in this your day"! He wept over the
   city which would not be saved. But His warning and His weeping were
   lost upon the blinded people. Those who had rejected the Prophets also
   rejected the Lord! The fate of the servants was repeated in "the Heir."
   "Let us kill Him," they said, and they put Him to the death of the
   Cross.

   You know the story--it is full of infinite mercy on God's part and of
   immeasurable guilt on the part of man. God seemed to out-do Himself in
   His long-suffering and man seemed to out-do himself in his wanton
   defiance of the Most High! Sin culminated in the murder of the Son of
   God--it reached its utmost height of horror when the cry was heard,
   "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Yes, they crucified the Lord of Glory!

   What has this to do with us? I am not going to preach this morning
   merely to rehearse a piece of ancient history which has no bearing on
   today. I do not so regard the death of our Lord. My anxiety is to reach
   the consciences of living men and, if possible, to win to the Blessed
   Heir of all things, who has risen from the dead, some of those who have
   had a share in His death. I would bring to the Great Householder the
   fruits of the vineyard which He, Himself, has planted, and I would move
   many hearts to relent towards Him at the remembrance of the wicked
   injuries which have been done to His servants and to His Son. May the
   Spirit of God silently move over this audience at this time, as I try
   to use this passage, not in its strictest application, but with such an
   application as I am sure the Spirit of God will approve! May He bless
   the Savior's Word to present uses, that we may this day repent!

   The fact is that unless changed by Divine Grace, we have all refused to
   pay to our great God the service which is due Him. He has put us here
   and given us this life, like a vineyard, for us to cultivate, but many
   have cultivated that vineyard entirely for themselves--themselves or
   their families and friends--and not for their God, their Maker. "God is
   not in all their thoughts." Now, the Lord has sent to such, many
   messengers. We have had no Prophets in these days living among us, but
   we have the Word of God and the record of the testimonies of His
   Inspired Messengers and these virtually speak to us. We have Moses and
   the Prophets--they are speaking to us even now. Besides that, we have
   been surrounded by men of God and encompassed by holy women who have
   appealed to us on God's behalf. They have been urged to speak by the
   love of their hearts and they have tried to bring us to repent of past
   rebellion and to yield ourselves at once to God. Many are the voices
   around us and within us which persuade to render unto the great
   Householder His due--but in many cases none of these have been
   successful.

   Last of all, God has sent to each one of us His Son, that He, in His
   own Person, may lovingly repeat with greater emphasis the requirements
   of the Lord of Love. The Incarnate Wisdom now cries to us, "My son,
   give Me your heart." Jesus warns us, "Except you repent, you shall all
   likewise perish." He sets before us the way of reconciliation and bids
   us believe in Him and live. With many a charming parable He would draw
   the far-off prodigal home to the bosom of forgiving love. The very
   coming of the Son of God in human form, as Emmanuel, God With Us, is
   Love's great plea for reconciliation! Who can resist so powerful an
   argument? It is in the Person of Jesus Christ that God makes His last
   and strongest appeal to the human conscience. By the Christ of God, He
   virtually says this morning, "Turn you, turn you: why will you die, O
   house of Israel?" And I would to God that the answer might be from many
   a heart, "Come, let us return unto the Lord; for He has torn, and He
   will heal us." Cause it to be so, O great Spirit!

   Three things I shall speak of this morning. The first will be the
   amazing mission--"Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he
   sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son."
   Secondly, the astounding crime-- "they took him, and killed him, and
   cast him out of the vineyard." And, therefore, thirdly, the appropriate
   punishment, of which the text says, "What shall therefore the lord of
   the vineyard do?" What vengeance can be sufficient for so base a

   deed?

   I. First, then, let us dwell for a few moments upon the amazing
   mission--"Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him
   also."

   Please remember concerning the Son of God, sent to us to reconcile us
   to the Father, that He came after many rejections of Divine Love. As to
   Israel, He followed the Prophets, so to us He comes after many others.
   There are none among us, I should think, who have been left without
   admonitions and expostulations from God. He began early with some of
   us, calling us, like Samuel, when as yet we were children. He repeated
   those calls to us all through the days of our youth. It was never cheap
   to some of us to sin--we never went astray but what there was a
   something within which plucked us by the sleeve and warned us of our
   wrong-doing. We have been called to God by most earnest entreaties of
   faithful men and affectionate women. Discourses have been addressed to
   us which might have moved hearts of stone, but yet, though stirred for
   the moment, we remain obstinate enemies to God, dishonest to His
   claims, careful of this world and forgetful of the world to come.

   After all these refusals, if the Lord had closed the casket of mercy
   and had opened the vials of vengeance and had poured them out upon us,
   who could have blamed Him? Instead of which, He still, in His
   long-suffering pity, speaks to us by His Son! Jesus Christ, by whom He
   made the worlds, condescends to be the Messenger of the Covenant of
   Grace. He gently reminds us of our offenses against the great Father,
   of our willfulness in not returning to Him and of the tremendous peril
   which we incur by remaining in opposition to the great God. The very
   existence of our Savior gives us warning

   of our sin, of our ruin and of the only way of escape. If it is so,
   that we have rejected God's claims so often, will not the time past
   suffice us to have played this dreadful game? Have we not had enough of
   trifling with our souls? O Lord, how long shall men act the part of
   fools and risk their immortal souls? Oh, will they not, at last, yield
   to wisdom? Jesus Himself, by the preaching of the Gospel, pleads with
   us--are we determined to persevere in our evil ways? Do we not feel
   some tender relenting? Does not a "still small voice" urge us to arise
   and go to our Father? After many provocations, will we not, at last,
   yield to the God of Grace?

   Remember, that Jesus Christ, when He comes to us today, as the
   Messenger of the Father, comes for no personal ends. When the
   messengers were sent by the householder, it was to claim the
   householder's rent. When the heir came, it was for the same purpose. So
   it is in the human emblem, but in the Divine, this becomes less
   conspicuous. When Jesus pleads with us, although He urges us to render
   unto God our love and our obedience, yet God does not stand in need of
   these as the householder stood in need of his rents. What is it to the
   infinite Jehovah whether you serve Him or not? If you rebel against
   God, will He be less glorious? If you will not obey the Lord, what
   difference can it make to His boundless happiness? Will His crown shine
   the less brightly, or His Heaven be less resplendent because you choose
   to be a rebel against Him? What if the straw strives with the fire,
   will the fire be quenched by it? If a gnat should contend with yonder
   blast furnace, you know what the end would be! It is for your own sake
   that God would have you yield to Him--how can it be for His own? If He
   were hungry He would not tell you, for the cattle on a thousand hills
   are His! He can crush whole worlds to dust, "with His word or with His
   nod"--do you think He has anything to gain from you? You alone will be
   the gainer or the loser and, therefore, when Jesus prays you to repent,
   believe in the disinterestedness of His heart! Believe that it can be
   nothing but the most tender regard for your well-being which makes Him
   warn you. Hear how Jehovah puts it--"As I live, says the Lord God, I
   have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn
   from his way and live." A messenger after many rejections--a messenger
   who comes solely out of love to us ought to have our respectful
   attention.

   Let us see for a minute who this Messenger is. He is one greatly
   beloved of His Father and in Himself He is of surpassing excellence.
   The Lord Jesus Christ is so inconceivably glorious that I tremble at
   any attempt to describe His Glory. Assuredly, He is very God of very
   God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and yet He deigned to take
   upon Himself a human form! He was born an Infant into our weakness and
   He lived as a carpenter to share our toil. When He quits the bench and
   the saw, it is to follow still more laborious ways as a Teacher and
   Healer of the people. He was the lowly and suffering Teacher of the
   blessed will of the Father. He took upon Himself the form of a Servant
   and yet in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily! He is the
   Prince of the kings of the earth and yet He took a towel and washed His
   disciples' feet!

   Such is He who pleads with you! So majestic and so compassionate, so
   great and yet so good--will you refuse Him? If I plead with you, I am
   but as you are--flesh of your flesh. But if Jesus speaks to you, I
   beseech you by the Glory of His Godhead, as well as by the tenderness
   of His Manhood, do not refuse Him! Because of His Godhead you must not
   dare to harden your hearts. He is God's Well-Beloved and if you are
   wise, He will be yours. Do not turn your back on Him whom all the
   angels worship! Beware, lest you reject One whom God loves so well, for
   He will take it as an insult to Himself--He that despises the Anointed
   of God has blasphemed God Himself! You put your finger into the very
   eye of God when you slight His Son! In grieving the Christ you vex the
   very heart of God--therefore do not do it. I beseech you, then, by the
   love which God bears to His Son, to listen to this matchless Messenger
   of mercy who would persuade you to repent.

   I have already said that He is so glorious that I cannot describe Him.
   I will, therefore, only say that His graciousness is as conspicuous as
   His Glory. There was never such a one as He! None of us loves men as
   Christ loves them and if the loves of all the tender-hearted in the
   world could be run together, they would make but a drop compared with
   the ocean of the compassion of Jesus! Of old His delights were with the
   sons of men and though He might have been happy enough among the
   angels, yet He left their company that He might take up this inferior
   race. Yes, He espoused our Nature and became bone of our bone and flesh
   of our flesh for love of that chosen company whom He calls His bride.
   He hid not His face from shame and spitting, nor His body from the
   shedding of blood, nor His soul from deadly agony, but He loved the
   Church and gave Himself for it.

   It is this lover of souls that becomes God's Advocate with us and
   pleads with us that we would cease from our rebellion. Do not refuse
   Him! If He were stern and unloving I could imagine that all the
   obstinacy of your nature might be awakened, but His love, which passes
   the love of women, deserves another treatment. If you reject Him, He
   answers you with tears. If you wound Him, He bleeds out cleansing. if
   you kill Him, He dies to redeem. If you bury Him, He rises again to
   bring us resurrection. Jesus is Love made manifest--

   "Heart of stone, relent, relent;

   Break, by Jesus' Cross subdued!

   See His body, mangled, rent,

   Covered with a gore of blood!

   Sinful soul, what have you done?

   Crucified God's only Son!"

   Furthermore, His manner is most winning. When I have been pleading for
   men with God and I have ceased my pleading, I have feared that
   something in my tone or in my manner would cause my pleading to fail. I
   am not, perhaps, so tender as I should be, nor is there sufficient
   pathos in my tones. If I could do better, I would go to any school to
   learn. God has put me often to the school of suffering to instruct me
   in this respect and yet I do confess my failings with deep regret. But
   when Jesus, my Lord, pleads with you, this charge cannot be laid
   against Him! His pleading is perfect. When Jonah preaches, his tones
   are harsh and his spirit forbidding--but that can never be said of
   Jesus. When Jeremiah weeps, there is an undertone of bitter complaint
   within the sweet sorrow of his love, but it is never so with Jesus.
   "Never men spoke like this Man." If ever His words thunder--as they
   often do--even in that thunder there is heard the voice of love! When
   He flashes with the lightning of judgment against Scribes and
   Pharisees, yet soft drops of mercy follow every flame of fire. He is
   stern because He is tender--His utterances of terror are born of a love
   which dares not conceal the Truth of God, even though it breaks its
   heart in the telling of it. God is Love, and Christ is God's love
   Incarnate among men. Therefore, my Hearer, if you see anything about me
   of which you disapprove, censure me if you will, but be all the more
   attentive to my Lord, about whom there is nothing but what is wooing
   and melting. God has sent to you His own Well-Beloved Son--I implore
   you, do not refuse Him! My heart trembles at the bare suspicion that
   even one of you should reject the pleading of one so jealous for your
   eternal welfare!

   Yet again, when God sends His Son to plead with men, remember He does
   not urge us to anything which will be for our loss and
   detriment--obedience to Him is happiness for ourselves. He does not
   urge us to follow a life of misery, nor to begin a course which will
   end in our destruction. Far from it! The ways in which He would have us
   run are ways of pleasantness. And all the paths in which He would lead
   us are paths of peace. Even repentance is charming sorrow, far more
   sweet than the joy of sin. They that repent and turn to God through
   Jesus Christ find such joy, such happiness, that earth becomes to them
   the vestibule of Heaven! The joy-bells ring within the Father's house
   when a soul returns to its home! The great Father leads the joy and all
   the household rejoice with Him! To persuade you to be holy is to induce
   you to be happy! To urge you to seek God is to urge you to seek your
   own best welfare! To urge you to lay down the weapons of rebellion and
   be reconciled to the Most High is to set before you the wisest, safest
   and best course that you can follow. Therefore, hear Him! The Lord God
   out of Heaven cries to you--"This is My beloved Son; hear Him!" Well
   may you hear Him, when every word that He speaks intends your
   salvation!

   Remember, once more, that if you do not hear the well-beloved Son of
   God, you have refused your last hope. He is God's ultimatum. Nothing
   remains when Christ is refused. No one else can be sent. Heaven,
   itself, contains no further messenger. If Christ is rejected, hope is
   rejected! Neither would you be converted though one rose from the dead,
   for Jesus has risen from the dead and you have refused Him. I should
   like every person here that is unconverted to remember that there is no
   other Gospel and no more Sacrifice for sin. I have heard talk of "a
   larger hope" than the Gospel sets before us--it is a fable, with
   nothing in Scripture to warrant it! Rejecting Christ, you have rejected
   all--you have shut against yourself the one door of hope! Christ, who
   knows better than all pretenders, declares that, "He that believes not
   shall be damned." There remains nothing but damnation for those who
   believe not in Jesus! "There is no other name under Heaven given among
   men, whereby we must be saved." This is clear, for Heaven's grandest
   effort has been made! What more can God do? O heavens and earth, I
   appeal to you, what more can Jehovah do? If He gives His Son to die and
   that great Sacrifice is rejected, what remains? Infinite Wisdom has
   done its best and Infinite Love has surpassed itself--a fearful looking
   for of judgment is all that despisers may expect.

   Thus, this amazing mission is set forth before you and I pray you, as
   you love yourselves, do not refuse Him that speaks, for if they escaped
   not who refused Him that spoke on earth, how shall they escape who
   despise Him that speaks from Heaven?

   II. I beg your attention while I look, in the second place, to THE
   ASTOUNDING CRIME. It was nothing less than an astounding crime, that
   when this householder sent his well-beloved son, the vinedressers said
   one, to another, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the
   inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and cast him out of the
   vineyard." "No," says one, "we never killed the Son of God." I will not
   charge you with having done so literally--that were to make myself
   chargeable with exaggeration. But a man may do virtually what he cannot
   do actually. If a murder is committed and I approve of it. If my own
   principles lead up to it; if I feel no indignation against it, but
   express myself very coolly about it. If there is reason to believe that
   if I had been there, I would have done the same, then I may be, in the
   sight of God, a partaker in the crime. There are many among us who are
   guilty of the body and blood of Christ. The hymn we just now sung does
   not bring a groundless charge--

   "Yes, your sins have done the deed,

   Driven the nails that fixed Him there,

   Crowned with thorns His sacred head,

   Plunged into His side the spear,

   Made His soul a sacrifice,

   While for sinful man He dies!"

   Now, I say this, that all those who persistently deny the Deity of
   Christ--virtually kill Him--for the Son of God is not alive if His
   Godhead is not in existence. It is essential to the idea of Christ, the
   Heir of all things, that He is God--and to deny His Godhead is to stab
   at His heart.

   All those who deny His Atonement also slay Him, for the blood of
   Sacrifice is the life of the Christ of God. The very essence of His
   Christhood, the soul of His Character as Jesus, lies in His having been
   appointed to be a Propitiation for sin. No Cross, no Christ. No
   Atonement, no Cross. Deny the great Expiation for sin and to the full
   extent of your power you have annihilated the Christ! As far as you can
   do it, you have destroyed the Savior.

   "Well, we have not done that," cry some of you. "We have been no
   opposer of the Deity or Sacrifice of Jesus." But let me remind you that
   if you do not judge Him to be worthy of your most careful thoughts--if
   you are indifferent to His claims and refuse to obey His Gospel--you
   have virtually put Him away. To you it is the same as if there were no
   Christ--

   "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Is it nothing to you that
   Jesus should die?" You have virtually answered, "It is nothing." You
   have set Christ down as nothing compared with the business of daily
   life and thus you have virtually slain Him! You have put Him out of
   existence so far as you are concerned. In the little world of your mind
   there is no living Savior--He is dead and buried to you--and the claims
   of God which He pleads you will not think about! You have been occupied
   all the week with trivial amusements, or unimportant discussions, but
   you have not deigned to think of Him whose advent into the world is so
   great a wonder that if you never thought of anything else, you might be
   justified in a life of devout meditation. He who deserves all your
   thoughts gets none of them! You have nothing to do with Christ, His
   Cross, His people, or His cause and, therefore--I say it with no
   harshness, but with much grief--you are killers of Christ and are
   guilty of His blood! I charge you with murdering your Savior! I press
   the accusation home and trust that it will strike you with horror!

   I have still closer work with some of you who are most assuredly
   guilty. You were once members of the Church. You came to the communion
   table where we gather who remember His precious body and blood. You
   used to glory in His name, but you have gone back--you have denied the
   faith, you have ceased to be followers of the Lamb. Now, these are no
   words of mine, but Inspired Words--You have "crucified the Son of God
   afresh, and put Him to an open shame." You are, beyond all question,
   among those who have cast the Heir out of the vineyard and slain Him,
   deliberately turning your backs upon His sacred cause. The Lord have
   mercy on you! You have had no mercy on Christ, or on yourselves.

   I must press this home upon a great many more who have heard of Christ,
   believe Him to be God and assent to all the Truths of God about Him but
   who yet have never yielded themselves to His authority. O Sirs, what
   have you done? You have preferred the world to Christ! You have chosen
   Barabbas and condemned the Savior! You have said to the claims of

   Jesus, "Wait." For whom has your Lord had to wait? What? For a harlot?
   For a bribe of gold? For your giddy pleasure? When a great question is
   postponed to let another take precedence over it, we do not object if
   that other is of pre-eminent importance, but can you say that anything
   has a greater claim on you than the Son of God? Is there anything that
   has a greater right to your thoughts, to your consideration, to your
   love, than the great salvation which Jesus Christ has worked out? If
   you have pushed the Lord Jesus Christ out of the first place, He will
   occupy no other and, therefore, you have virtually un-Christed Him and
   you are guilty of His blood! You must either be justified by Him or you
   must be condemned by Him! There is no third course to take--you must
   either believe in Him or disbelieve Him. Now, to refuse to believe Him
   is to make Him a liar--and to call Him a liar is virtually to slay the
   Lord of Truth. His blood must be on you by faith to cleanse you, or
   else it will lie on you to condemn you, as it did the Jews of old!

   What was the reason why these dressers of the vineyard dared, thus, to
   treat the heir? The reason is one which presses upon those here present
   who have rejected Christ! They did it, first, because they had enjoyed
   a long immunity from punishment. They had not been at once punished for
   their defiance of their lord. They had rejected his messengers without
   provoking him to war; they had gone on to stone and slay others of his
   servants and the householder had not come upon them to overthrow them.
   The first time they mocked at the messenger they were somewhat afraid.
   They feared lest soon the sword of the prince whom they had defied
   would threaten their gates. But as there was no invasion, they grew
   bold. The next messenger they slew and washed their hands, in
   presumption, saying, "Nothing will come of it." They grew, at last, to
   be very hardened. I know not what they said, but I conceive that
   certain of them propagated the theory that their lord took no notice of
   what they did, or that he was too loving to punish them severely.
   "See!" they said, "he only sends fresh messengers if we kill the old
   ones! And even if we kill his son, he will bear it. Let us not imagine
   that he will take vengeance. He is love, and even should we murder his
   son, he will lay up in store for us a larger hope. At any rate," they
   seemed to say, "we will run all risks. We will test his graciousness.
   We will kill his son and so challenge him to do his worst."

   Ungrateful men abuse God's long-suffering today as they did of old.
   They say, "Well, I have refused the Gospel a long time. I have put
   aside many appeals, but I am not dead, nor struck with blindness, nor
   smitten down with a stroke. I can go on at least a little longer in
   safety. I may refuse Christ yet again, for God is merciful." "Certain
   teachers," you say, "tell us that God is so good that if we even kill
   His Son He will take no account of it. We will kill His Son and so we
   will reject the Atonement and trample on the precious blood--and yet we
   doubt not all will come right in the long run and the evil of our crime
   will prove to be only temporary." You do not put your thoughts into
   those words, but you are saying as much by your actions! You dare not
   say it and yet it lurks in your hearts and works itself out in your
   deeds! You are going to run the dreadful risk of trifling with the Son
   of God! To you this seems a little thing, but horror takes hold of me
   at the thought of it!

   O Sirs, I will be no partner in your crime! I will not cease to warn
   you that it must be, of all risks, the most tremendous! Gracious as He
   is--and God has proven His Grace by sending His Son--yet God is not
   effeminate nor unjust! If you refuse the mercy which He so freely
   proffers you, He will deal with you in His justice! He is the Judge of
   all the earth and He must do right. Remember how He puts it--"My sword
   shall be bathed in Heaven." "If I whet My glittering sword, and My hand
   takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies" (Deut
   32:41). For as truly as He is love, so truly is He holiness! He is
   wondrous in His power to forgive, but He is also terrible out of His
   holy places. "If the sinner turn not, He will whet His sword; He has
   bent His bow and made it ready." "Beware, you that forget God, lest He
   tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you."

   The great reason, however, why these vinedressers determined to kill
   the heir was this--they said, "Then the inheritance shall be ours."
   This is what the heart of man vainly desires. It says, "Let us be rid
   of this troublesome talk of religion and then we can live for ourselves
   and study our own pleasure without remorse of conscience. Are we not
   our own? Who shall be lord over us? If we are rid of this Jesus, we
   shall not have this claim being always made upon us, that we are God's
   creatures and that we ought to live to Him. We do not intend to serve
   God. We will pay no rent to this Householder. We will be our own
   proprietors. God shall have nothing from us. Who is the Lord, that we
   should obey His voice? If we can get rid of this Christ business, we
   can live as we wish and do as we please--and no one will call us to
   account. If we can persuade ourselves that religion is not true, we
   shall then care nothing for checks and warnings, but we

   shall take our full swing and enjoy ourselves without stint! A short
   life and a merry one will suit us. We might enjoy ourselves if this
   matter of God, Christ and eternity could be disposed of."

   Yes, young man, this is what your prototype thought when he said to his
   father, "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me." Then he
   gathered all together and went into a far country and spent his
   "substance in riotous living." This is what you hanker after. But your
   folly is exceedingly great. I grieve as I look into your young face and
   read the idle dream of your heart. You little know what a tyrant he
   serves who lives as he likes. May God grant that I may never live as my
   sinful lusts would make me live! I had rather be a machine and be
   compelled to do always what is right than have free will and with that
   free will give myself up to do that which is wrong! But there is no
   need to be made into a machine-- the Grace of God can make you as free
   in holiness as in sin! Grace can make you more free in the service of
   God than in the service of yourself!

   Self lies at the bottom of all rejection of Christ--"Let us kill him,
   and the inheritance shall be ours." Ah, my Hearer! It will not be yours
   and if it were yours for a little while--and you could do just as you
   pleased with it, yet remember that the inheritance which is so gained
   will soon pass away--and you yourself will soon have to stand before
   the Judgment Seat of Christ to give an account of the deeds done in the
   body, whether they are good, or whether they are bad! And what will you
   do who have slain your Savior? What will you do in that day, who have
   lived and died unsaved?

   III. I must close with that third head which is so dreadful to me--THE
   APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT. I do not

   suppose that the thought of this subject will be half so dreadful to
   anybody here who is unconverted as it is to me. I tremble as I meditate
   upon the wrath to come. How glad I would be if I had not to preach from
   such a theme! But I must preach from it, or be a traitor to God and an
   enemy to you. If you perish, your blood will be required at my hands if
   I do not warn you of the punishment of sin. This is how the Savior put
   it--"When the lord therefore of the vineyard comes, what will he do
   unto those vinedressers?" He leaves our conscience to award the
   penalty. He leaves our imagination to prescribe a doom sufficient for a
   crime so base, so daring, so cruel! They have killed the only son of
   their lord--what will he do unto those men?

   Here I must interject a terrible passage which burdens me to deliver.
   At this present moment I am afraid that this parable is being written
   out, again, in the history of the Church of God. God has put into His
   vineyard, or allowed to come into His vineyard, a number of religious
   teachers who are not rendering to Him the honor due. Those religious
   teachers to whom I refer are not teaching the Gospel as it is delivered
   in Holy Scripture, but they are adapting it to the age and to the
   scientific knowledge of the period. They are described in the book of
   the Prophet Jeremiah--"Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Listen not unto the
   words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they
   speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the
   Lord. They say still unto them that despise Me, The Lord has said, You
   shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walks after the
   imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you."

   The thoughts of their own minds are given instead of the Revelation of
   God! Thus they set up another gospel which is not another and there are
   some that trouble you. My fear is that the Lord will not much longer
   bear with these vinedressers. He will not long bear these "prophets of
   the deceit of their own hearts." He will bring an everlasting reproach
   upon them and cut them off in His anger. He will destroy those wicked
   men and He will give His vineyard to other husbandmen who will deal
   more faithfully with the souls of men. I feel in my own soul that it
   must be so. I dare not live as a preacher of my own inventions! I dare
   not die as a preacher of my own thoughts, or of the thoughts of other
   men. I must tell my Master's message or be accursed! The spirit of the
   age is the spirit of proud self-sufficiency. Be it ours to sit at
   Jesus' feet. My Lord will one day say to me, "I gave you a message, did
   you deliver it? I bade you speak in My name, did you speak My Words or
   your own? I gave you a Revelation, did you deliver that Revelation as
   best you could? Or did you invent a new thing out of your own brain?"

   I know how I shall answer. I fear that a terrible doom awaits those who
   go after the fashionable falsehoods of the day. Be they clergymen or
   dissenting ministers, an unutterably horrible damnation from the right
   hand of God awaits those who prostitute the office of the ministry for
   the delivery of human philosophies instead of teaching the Gospel of
   the blessed God! Brothers, beware that none of us sin against the Holy
   Spirit by setting up our dreams in rivalry with His certainties! Pray
   for those who do so, lest God deal with them speedily in vengeance. The
   Lord have mercy upon all false

   prophets and bring them humbly and tremblingly to His feet, lest they
   ensnare the people yet more, to the overthrow of this nation and the
   taking away of the candlestick out of its place!

   I return to you whom I have already addressed. You have crucified the
   Son of God by refusing to believe in Him. What shall the Lord do to you
   when He comes? The sentence cannot be too severe, for the crime is
   horrible beyond measure! It must be the highest form of punishment
   known to the Law of God. They slew the servants and they slew the
   heir--no temporary punishment can meet the case. Those who plead for a
   light doom for such a crime must, in their own hearts, be rebels. Those
   who are always making light of Hell are probably doing it in the hope
   of making it easy for themselves. He is the devil's advocate who would
   judge the punishment of the impenitent to be a light one! God's true
   servants say, "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade
   men." Our Lord leaves our own consciences to depict the overwhelming
   misery of those miserable men who carry their rebellion to its full
   length.

   In the chapter which we read (Matthew 21), our Lord gives us a terrible
   Word. Comparing Himself to the stone which should be the foundation,
   but which the builders reject, He says, "On whomever it shall fall, it
   will grind him to powder." Sinner, if you reject the Savior, you will
   have to feel His full weight! Boundless in power, infinite in majesty,
   the whole weight of Him will fall on you. Will you think that over?
   Since He breaks the nations in pieces with a rod of iron, judge for
   yourself His power! Since from His Presence Heaven and earth flee away,
   judge for yourself His power! And whatever that power may be, you will
   have to feel the full force of it! This foundation stone falling upon
   you shall grind you to powder!

   I will not dwell further upon this TERRIBLE thought, but I will repeat
   it in set and solemn form--the full weight of the Incarnate God, in the
   day of His wrath, you will have to bear! It is put in another way in
   that expression--"The wrath of the Lamb." Is not that a marvelous
   combination, "The wrath of the Lamb"? Love when it turns to jealousy is
   the fiercest of all passions--and when the love of Christ in infinite
   justice shall be turned into holy indignation against
   unrighteousness--then it will be something terrible to think of and to
   bear it will be the second death! Are you prepared to bear the awful
   weight of a Savior's anger? No, you are not! Come, then, to Jesus.
   "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, while His
   wrath is kindled but a little."

   O my Hearers, my dear Hearers, do not refuse the Lord Jesus who now
   pleads with you! I am not worthy to be His ambassador. I am not fit for
   the office, but yet I would plead with you as a loving brother! Will
   you lose your souls? Will you reject Christ? O Sirs, will you refuse
   the Son of God? Men and women, can you be so mad as to live and die
   without the Savior? Are you so far gone as this? Turn, I beseech you,
   turn this day! Lord, turn them, for your dear Son's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Holy Spirit--the Need of the Age

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 13, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "O you that are named the House of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord
   straitened? are these His doings? Do not My words do good to him that
   walks uprightly?" Micah 2:7.

   BROTHERS AND SISTERS, what a stern rebuke to the people of Israel is
   contained in the title with which the Prophet addressed them--"O you
   that are named the House of Jacob"! It is as much as to say to
   them--"You wear the name, but you do not bear the character of Jacob."
   It is the Old Testament version of the New Testament saying, "You have
   a name to live and are dead." They gloried that they were the seed of
   Israel! They vaunted the peculiar privileges which came to them as the
   descendants of God's honored and chosen servant Jacob! But they did not
   act in the same way as Jacob would have acted--they were devoid of
   Jacob's faith in Jehovah, they knew nothing of Jacob's power of
   prayer--and nothing of his reliance upon the Covenant.

   The words of Micah imply that the descendants of Jacob in his day were
   proud of the name, "House of Jacob," but that they were not worthy of
   it. Nothing is more mischievous than to cling to a name when the thing
   for which it stands has disappeared. May we never come to such a stage
   of declension that even the Spirit of God will be compelled, in
   speaking to us, to say, "O you that are called the Church of God!" To
   be named Christians, but not to be Christians, is to be deceivers or
   deceived! The name brings with it great responsibility and if it is a
   name, only, it brings with it terrible condemnation! It is a crime
   against the Truth of God if we dare to take the name of His people when
   we are not His people. It is a robbery of honor from those to whom it
   is due. It is a practical lie against the Holy Spirit! It is a
   defamation of the character of the bride of Christ to take the name of
   Christian when the Spirit of Christ is not among us! This is to honor
   Christ with our lips and disgrace Him by our lives!

   What is this but to repeat the crime of Judas and betray the Son of Man
   with a kiss? Brothers and Sisters, I say again, may we never come to
   this! Truths, not names, facts, not professions, are to be the first
   consideration! Better to be true to God and bear the names of reproach
   which the adversary is so apt to coin, than to be false to our Lord and
   yet to be decorated with the names of saints and regarded as the most
   orthodox of Believers. Whether named, "the House of Jacob," or not, let
   us be wrestlers like Jacob and like he, may we come off as prevailing
   princes--the true Israel of God!

   When the Lord found His chosen people to be in such a state that they
   had rather the name than the character of His people, He spoke to them
   by the Spirit of the Lord. Was not this because their restoration must
   come from that direction? Was not their evil spirit to be removed by
   the Lord's good Spirit? "O you that are named the House of Jacob, is
   the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" I believe, Brothers and Sisters,
   that whenever the Church of God declines, one of the most effectual
   ways of reviving her is to preach much Truth concerning the Holy
   Spirit. After all, He is the very breath of the Church. Where the
   Spirit of God is, there is power! If the Spirit is withdrawn, then the
   vitality of godliness begins to decline and the energy thereof is near
   to dying out. If we, ourselves, feel that we are backsliding, let us
   turn to the Spirit of God, crying, "Quicken me in Your way."

   If we sorrowfully perceive that any Church is growing lukewarm, be it
   our prayer that the Holy Spirit may work graciously for its revival.
   Let us direct the attention of our fellow Christians under declension
   to the Spirit of God. They are not straitened in Him, but in
   themselves! Let them turn to Him for enlargement. It is He alone who
   can quicken us and strengthen the things which remain which are ready
   to die. I admire the wisdom of God here, that when speaking by the
   Prophet, He rebukes the backsliding of the people and He immediately
   directs their minds to the Holy Spirit who can

   bring them back from their wanderings and cause them to walk worthy of
   the vocation wherewith they were called. Let us learn from this Divine
   Wisdom and, in lowly reverence and earnest faith, let us look to the
   Spirit of the Lord.

   In speaking to Israel upon the Spirit of God, the Prophet Micah uses
   the remarkable language in our text, upon which I would now speak to
   you. "O you that are named the House of Jacob, is the Spirit of the
   Lord straitened? Are these His doings? Do not My words do good to him
   that walks uprightly?" May the Holy Spirit help me to speak and you to
   hear!

   I. And, first, I think we may consider these words to have been spoken
   TO DENOUNCE THOSE WHO WOULD CONTROL THE SPIRIT OF GOD. "Is the Spirit
   of the Lord straitened?" Can you hold Him a captive and make Him speak
   at your dictation?

   On turning to the connection you will find that there were certain
   Prophets sent of God to Israel who were unpopular. The message which
   they brought was not acceptable--the people could not endure it and so
   we read in the sixth verse--"Prophesy you not, say they to them that
   prophesy: they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take
   shame." The words of these Prophets came so home to their consciences
   and made them so ashamed of themselves, that they said, "Do not
   prophesy! We wish not to hear you." To these Micah replies, "Is the
   Spirit of the Lord to be straitened by you?"

   There were some in those days who would altogether have silenced the
   Spirit. They would banish all spiritual teaching from the earth, that
   the voice of human wisdom might be not contradicted. But can they
   silence the Spirit of God? Has He not continually spoken according to
   His own will and will He not continue to do so? Is He not the free
   Spirit who, like the wind, blows where He wishes? If the adversaries
   could have slain with the sword all the messengers of God, would He not
   have found others? And if these, also, had been killed, could He not,
   out of stones, have raised up heralds of His Truth? While the
   Scriptures remain, the Holy Spirit will never be without a voice to the
   sons of men! And while He remains, those Scriptures will not be left
   without honest hearts and tongues to expound and enforce them! Is it
   possible for men anywhere to silence the Spirit of God? They may be
   guilty of the crime because they desire to commit it and attempt to do
   so, but yet, its accomplishment is beyond their reach. They may "quench
   the Spirit" in this and that man, but not in those in whom He
   effectually works. The Almighty Spirit may be resisted, but He will not
   be defeated! As well might men attempt to stop the shining of the sun,
   or seal up the winds, or still the pulsing of the tides, as effectually
   to straiten the Spirit of the Lord--

   "When God makes bare His arm,

   Who can His work withstand?" Jehovah speaks and it is done--who shall
   resist His Word? When His Spirit attends that Word, shall it fall to
   the ground? "My Word," says He, "shall not return unto Me void"--and
   all the sinners on earth and all the devils in Hell cannot alter that
   grand decree! Every now and then there seems to be a lull in the
   history of holy work, a silence from God, as if He were wearying of men
   and would speak no longer to them. But before long, in some unexpected
   quarter, the voice of the Lord is heard once more--some earnest soul
   breaks the awful silence of spiritual death and again the adversary is
   defeated! Outbursts of the great Spirit of Life, and Light, and Truth
   comes at the Divine will--when men least look for it or desire it! When
   Jesus has been crucified, even then the Holy Spirit descends, and the
   victories of the Cross begin. No, my Brethren, the Spirit of the Lord
   is not silenced--the voice of the Lord is heard above the tumults of
   the people!

   The apostate Israelites also tried to straiten the Spirit of God by
   only allowing certain persons to speak in His name. They would have a
   choice of their Prophets--and a bad choice, too. See in the 11th
   verse--"If a man should walk in a false spirit and speak a lie, saying,
   I will prophesy unto you of wine and of strong drink, even he shall be
   the prophet of this people." They had a liking for preachers who would
   indulge their lusts, pander to their passions and swell their pride
   with windy flatteries! This age also inclines greatly to those who have
   cast off the restraints of God's Revelation and utter the flattering
   inventions of their own boasted "thought." Your liberal spirits, your
   large-hearted men, your despisers of the old and hunters after the
   new--these are the idols of many! As for those who would urge upon men
   separation from the world and holiness to the Lord, they are Puritans
   and out of date! In Micah's days, Israel would only hear false
   prophets--the rest they would not listen to. "What?" asks Micah, "is
   the Spirit of the Lord then to be shut up to speak to you by such men
   as you would choose? Is He not to speak by whomever He pleases?"

   It is the tendency of churches in all ages to fetter the free Spirit.
   Now they are afraid that we shall have too many preachers and they
   would restrain their number by a sort of trades-union! In certain
   churches none must speak in God's name unless they have gone through a
   certain humanly-prescribed preparation and have been ordained after a
   regulation manner--the Spirit of God may speak by the ordained, but He
   must not speak by others! In my inmost soul I treasure the liberty of
   prophesying. Not the right of every man to speak in the name of the
   Spirit, but the right of the Spirit to speak by whomever He pleases! He
   will rest on some rather than on others and God forbid that we should
   straiten His Sovereignty! Lord, send by whomever You will send! Choose
   whom You will to the sacred office of ministers of God! Among the poor
   and illiterate the Spirit of God has had voices as clear and bold as
   among the educated and refined--and He will have them still, for He is
   not straitened--and it is the way of Him to use instruments which pour
   contempt upon all the vain-glory of men! He anoints His own to bear
   witness for His Truth by life and lips--these the professing church may
   criticize and even reject, saying, "The Lord has not spoken by these,"
   but the Word of the Lord will stand, notwithstanding the judgment of
   men! God's true ministers shall be acknowledged of Him--wisdom is
   justified of her children. The Lord's Spirit will not be straitened or
   shut up by all the rules, modes and methods which even good men may
   devise. The wind blows where it wishes and the power of the Spirit
   waits not for man, neither tarries for the sons of men!

   Further, this people tried to straiten the Spirit of God by changing
   His testimony. They did not wish the Prophets to speak upon subjects
   which caused shame to them. They bade them prophesy smooth things. Tell
   us that we may sin with safety! Tell us that the punishment of sin is
   not so overwhelming as we have feared! Stand up and be advocates for
   the devil by flattering us with "a larger hope!" Hint to us that, after
   all, man is a poor, inoffensive creature who does wrong because he
   cannot help it and that God will wink at his sins! And if He does
   punish us for a while, He will soon set it all right! That was the
   style of teaching which Israel desired and, no doubt, they found
   prophets to speak in that manner, for the demand soon creates the
   supply! But Micah boldly asks, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?"
   Do you think that He will have His utterances toned down and His
   Revelation shaped to suit your tastes?

   Brothers and Sisters, let me ask you, do you imagine that the Gospel is
   a nose of wax which can be shaped to suit the face of each succeeding
   age? Is the Revelation, once given by the Spirit of God, to be
   interpreted according to the fashion of the period? Is "advanced
   thought" to be the cord with which the Spirit of the Lord is to be
   straitened? Is the old Truth of God that saved men hundreds of years
   ago to be banished because something fresh has been hatched in the
   nests of the wise? Do you think that the witness of the Holy Spirit can
   be shaped and molded at our will? Is the Divine Spirit to be the pupil
   rather than the Teacher of the ages? "Is the Spirit of the Lord
   straitened?" My very soul boils within me when I think of the impudent
   arrogance of certain willful spirits from whom all reverence for
   Revelation has departed! They would teach Jehovah wisdom! They
   criticize His Word and amend His Truth. Certain Scriptural doctrines
   are, indeed, discarded as dogmas of the medieval period! Others are
   denounced as gloomy because they cannot be called untrue. Paul is
   questioned and quibbled out of court and the Lord Jesus is first
   praised and then explained away. We are told that the teaching of God's
   ministers must be conformed to the spirit of the age. We shall have
   nothing to do with such treason to the Truth of God! "Is the Spirit of
   the Lord straitened?" Shall His ministers speak as if He were? Verily,
   that same treasure of Truth which the Lord has committed unto us we
   will keep inviolate so long as we live, God helping us. We are not so
   unmindful of the words of the Apostle, "Hold fast the form of sound
   words," as to change a syllable of what we believe to be the Word of
   the Lord!

   Certain of these backsliding Israelites went so far as to oppose the
   testimony of God. Note in the eighth verse--"Even of late My people
   have risen up as an enemy." It is sad when God's own people become the
   enemies of God's own Spirit, yet those who professed to be of the House
   of Jacob, instead of listening to the voice of the living God, began to
   sit in judgment upon His Word and even to contradict the same! The
   worst foes of the Truth of God are not infidels, but false professors!
   These men called themselves God's people and yet fought against His
   Spirit. "What then," asks Micah, "is the Spirit of the Lord
   straitened?" Will the Spirit of God fail? Will His operations on the
   hearts of men come to nothing? Will the Truth of God be put to shame
   and have no influence over human minds? Shall the Gospel be driven out
   of the world? Will there be none to believe it? None to proclaim it?
   None to live for it? None to die for it? We ask, with scorn, "Is the
   Spirit of the Lord straitened?"

   Brothers and Sisters, my confidence in the success of the old faith is
   not lessened because so many forsake it! "For all flesh is as grass,
   and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers and
   the flower thereof falls away: but

   the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word which, by
   the Gospel, is preached to you." If all the confessors of the faith
   could be martyred--even from their ashes, like a heavenly phoenix--the
   Truth of God would rise again! The Spirit of the Lord lives and,
   therefore, the Truth of God must also live. Is not all Truth of God
   immortal? How much more that which is the shrine of God! The Spirit's
   witness concerning the sin of man, the Grace of God, the mission of
   Jesus, the power of His blood, the glory of His Resurrection, reign and
   advent--this witness, I say, cannot cease or fail! It is to be greatly
   lamented that so many have turned aside unto vanities and are now the
   enemies of the Cross, but fear not, for the victory is in sure hands! O
   you that would control the Spirit of God, remember who He is and bite
   your lips in despair! What can you do against Him? Go bit the tempest
   and bridle the north wind--and then dream that the Spirit of the Lord
   is to be straitened by you! He will speak when He pleases, by whom He
   pleases and as He pleases--and His Word shall be with power! None can
   stay His hand, nor say unto Him, "What are You doing?" Thus much upon
   the first use of our text.

   II. The second use of it is this, TO SILENCE THOSE WHO WOULD CENSURE
   THE SPIRIT. Some even dare to bring accusations against the Holy Spirit
   of God! Read the text again--"O you that are named the House of Jacob,
   is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?" If
   anything is amiss, is He to be blamed for it?

   The low estate of the Church--is that to be laid at God's door? It is
   true that the Church is not so full of life and energy and power and
   spirituality and holiness as she was in her first days and, therefore,
   some insinuate that the Gospel is an antique and an effete thing--in
   other words, that the Spirit of God is not so mighty as in past ages.
   To which the answer is, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are
   these His doings?" If we are lukewarm, is that the fault of the Spirit
   of Fire? If we are feeble in our testimony, is that the fault of the
   Spirit of Power? If we are weak in prayer, is that the fault of the
   Spirit who helps our infirmities? Are these His doings? Instead of
   blaming the Holy Spirit, would it not be better for us to smite upon
   our breasts and chasten our hearts? What if the Church is not "fair as
   the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners," as
   once she was? Is not this because the Gospel has not been fully and
   faithfully preached and because those who believe it have not lived up
   to it with the earnestness and holiness which they ought to have
   exhibited? Is not that the reason? In any case, are these His doings?
   Can you lay the blame of defection and backsliding, of lack of
   strength, of lack of faith--at the door of the Holy Spirit? God forbid!
   We cannot blame the Holy One of Israel!

   Then it is said, "Look at the condition of the world. After the Gospel
   has been in it nearly 2,000 years, see how small a part of it is
   enlightened, how many cling to their idols, how much of vice, error,
   poverty and misery are to be found in the world!" We know all these sad
   facts, but are these His doings? Tell me, when has the Holy Spirit
   created darkness or sin? Where has He been the Author of vice or
   oppression? From where come wars and strife? Come they from Him? Come
   they not from our own lusts? What if the world is still an Augean
   stable, greatly needing cleansing--has the Spirit of God in any degree
   or sense rendered it so? Where the Gospel has been fully preached, have
   not the Words of the Lord done good to them that walk uprightly? Have
   not cannibals, even during the last few years, been reclaimed and
   civilized? Has not the slave trade and other evils been ended by the
   power of Christian influence? How, then, can the Spirit of Christ, the
   spirit of the Gospel, be blamed?

   Will you attribute the darkness to the sun? Will you charge the
   filthiness of swine to the account of the crystal stream? Will you
   blame the pest upon the fresh breeze from the sea? It were quite as
   just and quite as sensible. No, we admit the darkness and the sin and
   the misery of men. Oh, that our head were waters and our eyes a
   fountain of tears that we might weep day and night concerning these
   things! But these are not the work of the Spirit of God! These come of
   the spirit from beneath. He that is from above would heal them. He is
   not straitened. These are not His doings. Where His Gospel has been
   preached and men have believed it and lived according to it, they have
   been enlightened, sanctified and blessed. Life and love, light and
   liberty and all other good things come of the Spirit of the Lord--

   "Blessings abound wherever He reigns; The prisoner leaps to lose his
   chains, The weary find eternal rest, And all the sons of need are
   blessed."

   But some have said, "Yes, but then see how few the conversions are
   nowadays! We have many places of worship badly attended. We have others
   where there are scarcely any conversions from the beginning of the year
   to the end of it." This is all granted and granted with great regret,
   but, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?"
   Cannot we

   find some other reason far more near the truth? O Sirs, if there are no
   conversions, we cannot fall back upon the Spirit of God and blame Him!
   Has Christ been preached? Has faith been exercised? The preacher must
   take his share of blame; the Church with which he is connected must
   also inquire whether there has been that measure of prayer for a
   blessing on the Word that there ought to have been. Christians must
   begin to look into their own hearts to find the reason for defeat. If
   the work of God is hindered in our midst, may there not be some secret
   sin with us which hinders the operation of the Spirit of God? May He
   not be compelled, by the very holiness of His Character, to refuse to
   work with an unholy or an unbelieving people? Have you never read, "He
   did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief"? May not
   unbelief be turning a fruitful land into barrenness? The Spirit Himself
   is not straitened in His power--but our sin has made Him hide Himself
   from us! The lack of conversions is not His doing--we have not gone
   forth in His strength. We shake off with detestation the least trace of
   a thought that should lay any blame to the Spirit of the Most High.
   Unto us be shame and confusion of face as at this day!

   But it is also said that there is a lack of power largely manifested by
   individual saints. Where are now the men who can go up to the top of
   Carmel and cover the heavens with clouds? Where are the apostolic men
   who convert nations? Where are the heroes and martyr spirits of the
   better days? Have we not fallen upon an age of little men who little
   dare and little do? It may be so, but this is no fault of the great
   Spirit! Our degeneracy is not His doing. We have destroyed ourselves
   and only in Him is our help found! Instead of crying today, "Awake,
   awake, O arm of the Lord," we ought to listen to the cry from Heaven
   which says, "Awake, awake, O Zion! Shake yourself from the dust, and
   put on your beautiful garments." Many of us might have done great
   exploits if we had but given our hearts to it. The weakest of us might
   have rivaled David and the strongest among us might have been as angels
   of God! We are straitened in ourselves--we have not reached out to the
   possibilities of strength which lie within our grasp. Let us not
   wickedly insinuate a charge against the good Spirit of our God, but let
   us in truthful humility blame ourselves.

   If we have not lived in the Light of God, can we marvel that we are in
   great part, dark? If we have not fed upon the Bread of Heaven, can we
   wonder that we are faint? Let us return unto the Lord! Let us seek
   again to be baptized into the Holy Spirit and into fire--and we shall
   yet again behold the wonderful works of the Lord! He sets before us an
   open door, but if we enter not, we are, ourselves, to blame. He gives
   liberally and upbraids not, but if we are still impoverished, we have
   not because we ask not, or because we ask amiss! Thus much, then, have
   I spoken, using the text to silence those who would censure the Spirit
   of God.

   III. In the third place, our subject enters a more pleasing phase while
   I use it TO ENCOURAGE THOSE WHO

   TRUST IN THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD. My Brothers and Sisters, let us this
   morning with joy remember that the

   Spirit of the Lord is not straitened!

   Let this meet our trouble about our own straitness. What narrow and
   shallow vessels we are! How soon we are empty! We wake up on Sunday
   morning and wonder where we shall find strength for the day. Do you not
   sigh, "Alas, I cannot take my Sunday school class today with any hope
   of teaching with power! I am so dreadfully dull and heavy. I feel
   stupid and devoid of thought and feeling"? In such a case, say to
   yourself, "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" He will help you. You
   purpose to speak to someone about his soul and you fear that the right
   words will not come? You forget that He has promised to give you what
   you shall speak. "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" Cannot He
   prepare your heart and tongue?

   As a minister of Christ I have constantly to feel my own straitness.
   Perhaps more than any other man I am faced by my own inefficiency and
   inability to address such an audience so often and to print all that is
   spoken. Who is sufficient for these things? I do not feel half as
   capable of addressing you now as I did 20 years ago. I sink as to
   conscious personal power, though I have a firmer faith than ever in the
   all-sufficiency of God. No, the Spirit of the Lord is not straitened!
   That promise is still our delight--"My Grace is sufficient for you." It
   is a joy to become weak that we may say with the Apostle, "When I am
   weak then am I strong." Behold, the strength of the Lord is gloriously
   revealed--revealed to perfection in our weakness! Come, you feeble
   workers, you fainting laborers, come and rejoice in the unstraitened
   Spirit! Come, you that seem to plow the rock and till the sand, come
   and lay hold of this fact that the Spirit of the Lord is Omnipotent! No
   rock will remain unbroken when He wields the hammer! No metal will be
   unmelted when He is the fire! Still will our Lord put His Spirit within
   us and gird us with His power, according to His promise, "As your days,
   so shall your strength be."

   This also meets another matter, namely, the lack of honored leaders. We
   cry at this time, "Where are the eminent teachers of years gone by?"
   The Lord has made a man more precious than the gold of Ophir. Good and
   great men were the pillars of the Church in former times, but where are
   they now? Renowned ministers have died and where are their successors?
   It is not an infrequent thing with the older Brothers and Sisters, for
   them to say, one to the other, "Do you see the young men springing up
   who will equal those whom we have lost?" I am not among those who
   despair for the good old cause, but certainly I would be glad to see
   the Elishas who are to succeed the Elijahs who have gone up! Oh, for
   another Calvin or Luther! Oh, for a Knox or a Latimer, a Whitefield or
   a Wesley! Our fathers told us of Romaine and Newton, Toplady and
   Rowland Hill--where are the like of these? When we have said, "where?"
   echo has answered, "where?" But herein is our hope--the Spirit of the
   Lord is not straitened! He can raise up standard-bearers for His hosts!
   He can give to His Church stars in her firmament as bright as any that
   ever gladdened our fathers' eyes! He that walks among the golden
   candlesticks can so trim the lamps that those which are dim shall burn
   with sevenfold splendor! He who found a Moses to face Pharaoh and
   Elijah to face Jezebel, can find a man to confront the adversaries
   today! To equip an army of apostolic men would be a small matter to the
   Creator of Heaven and earth! Let us have no fear about this. He that
   ascended on high, leading captivity captive, gave such large gifts unto
   men that unto the end of the dispensation they will not be exhausted!
   Still does He give evangelists, pastors and teachers according as the
   need of the Church may be. Let us cast away all fear as to a break in
   the succession of witnesses, for the Word of the Lord endures forever
   and it shall never lack a man to declare it!

   Brethren, the great Truth of God now before us may prevent our being
   dismayed by the peculiar character of the age in which we live. It is
   full of a terrible unrest. The earthquake in the Riviera is only
   typical of a far greater disturbance which is going on everywhere. The
   foundations of society are quivering. The cornerstones are starting. No
   man can foretell what the close of this century may see. The age is
   growing more and more irreverent, unbelieving, indifferent. The men of
   this generation are even more greedy of gain, more in haste after their
   ambitions than those that preceded them. They are fickle, exacting,
   hungering after excitement and sensation. Here comes in the Truth of
   God--"The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened." Was not the Gospel
   intended for every age and for every condition of human society? Will
   it not meet the case of London and Ireland as well as the case of the
   old Roman empire in the midst of which it first began its course? It is
   even so, O Lord! Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted in You and
   You did deliver them! And we with joyful confidence fall back upon the
   same delivering power, saying in our hearts, "The Spirit of the Lord is
   not straitened, He will bear us through!"

   But, then, sometimes we are troubled because of the hardness of men's
   hearts. You that work for the Lord know most about this. If anybody
   thinks that he can change a heart by his own power, let him try with
   anyone he pleases and he will soon be at a nonplus. Old Adam is too
   strong for young Melancthon--our trembling arm cannot roll away the
   stone of natural depravity! Well, what then? The Spirit of the Lord is
   not straitened! Did I hear you cry, "Alas, I have tried to reclaim a
   drunk and he has gone back to his degradation"? Yes, he has beaten you,
   but is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Do you cry, "But he signed
   the pledge and yet he broke it"? Very likely your bonds are broken, but
   is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Cannot He renew the heart and
   cast out the love of sin? When the Spirit of God works with your
   persuasions, your convert will keep his pledge.

   "Alas!" cries another, "I hoped I had rescued a fallen woman, but she
   has returned to her iniquity." No unusual thing is this with those who
   exercise themselves in that form of service. But is the Spirit of the
   Lord straitened? Cannot He save the woman that was a sinner? Cannot He
   create a surpassing love to Jesus in her forgiven spirit? We are
   baffled, but the Spirit is not! "But it is my own boy," cries a mother.
   "Alas, I brought him up tenderly from his youth, but he has gone
   astray. I cannot persuade him to hear the Word of God--I cannot do
   anything with him!" Dear mother, register that confession of inability
   and then, by faith, write at the bottom of it, "But the Spirit of the
   Lord is not straitened." Have faith in God and never let your discovery
   of your own weakness shake your firm conviction that with God all
   things are possible! It seems to me to be a fountain of comfort, a
   storehouse of strength. Do not limit the Holy One of Israel, nor
   conceive of the Holy Spirit as bound and checked by the difficulties
   which crop up in fallen human nature! No case which you bring to Him
   with affectionate tears and with an earnest faith in Jesus shall ever
   be dismissed as incurable. Despair of no man since the Lord of Hosts is
   with us!

   "Ah well," says one, "but I am oppressed with the great problem which
   lies before the Church. London is to be rescued, the world is to be
   enlightened. Think of India, China and the vast multitudes of Africa.
   Is the Gospel to be preached to all these? Are the kingdoms of this
   world to become the Kingdoms of our Lord? How can these things be! Why,
   Sirs, when I think of London, alone, a world of poverty and misery, I
   see the sheer impossibility of delivering this world from the power of
   darkness." Do you prefer a theory which holds out no hope of a
   converted world? I do not wonder! Judge after the sight of the eyes and
   the hearing of the ears and the thing is quite beyond all hope. But is
   the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Surely the good Lord means to
   convince the Church of her own powerlessness, that she may cast herself
   upon the Divine might! Looking around she can see no help for her in
   her great enterprise--let her look up and watch for His coming who will
   bring her deliverance! Amid apparent helplessness the Church is rich in
   secret succors. If the Spirit of God shall anoint our eyes, we shall
   see the mountain full of horses of fire and chariots of fire round
   about the servants of the Lord. Behold, the stars in their courses
   fight against our adversaries! The earth shall yet help the woman and
   the abundance of the seas shall yield their strength unto God. When the
   time comes for the Lord to make bare His arm, we shall see greater
   things than these--and then we shall wrap our faces in a veil of
   blushing confusion to think that we ever doubted the Most High! Behold,
   the Son of Man comes! Shall He find faith among us? Shall He find it
   anywhere on the earth? The Lord help us to feel in our darkest hour
   that His arm is not shortened!

   IV. I must close by remarking that this text may be used TO DIRECT
   THOSE WHO ARE SEEKING AFTER BETTER THINGS. I hope that in this audience
   there are many who are desiring to be at peace with God through Jesus
   Christ. You are already convinced of sin, but you are, by that
   conviction, driven to despondency and almost to despair. Now notice
   this--whatever Grace you need in order to salvation, the Holy Spirit
   can work it in you. You need a more tender sense of sin. Is the Spirit
   of the Lord straitened? Can He not give it to you? You need to be able
   to perceive the way of salvation--can He not instruct you? You need to
   be able to take the first step to Christ--you need, in fact, to trust
   Him wholly and alone and so find peace in Him. Is the Spirit of the
   Lord straitened? Can He not give you faith? Do you cry, "I would
   believe, but I cannot tell how"? The Spirit will help you to believe!
   He can shed such light into your mind that faith in Christ shall become
   an easy and a simple thing with you. The Spirit of God is not
   straitened! He can bring you out of darkness into His marvelous light!
   If you are quite driven from all reliance on your own natural power,
   then cry unto Him, "Lord, help me!" The Holy Spirit has come on purpose
   to work all our works in us. It is His office to take of the things of
   Christ and to show them to us. Yield yourself to His gracious
   direction! Be willing and obedient--and He will lead you into all
   Truth!

   Notice again--although you are under deep depression of spirit and you
   feel shut up so that you cannot come forth--yet the Spirit of the Lord
   is not straitened. He is not weighed down nor discouraged. His name is
   The Comforter and He can comfort to purpose. Though you are, today,
   ready to lay violent hands upon yourself by reason of the trouble of
   your restless thoughts, yet is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Look
   to the strong for strength, even to your God. Does not the Lord cry to
   you, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth; for I
   am God, and there is none else"? Your strength as well as your
   salvation lies in Him! When we were yet without strength, in due time
   Christ died for the ungodly. Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord
   Jehovah there is everlasting strength. Trust, implicitly trust, for the
   Spirit of God is not straitened! Your despondency and unbelief are not
   His doings, they are your own. He has not driven you into this misery.
   He invites you to come forth from it and trust the Son of God--and rest
   in the finished righteousness of Christ--and you shall come at once
   into light and peace!

   May I invite you to remember how many persons have already found joy,
   peace and salvation by believing the teaching of the Spirit of God? In
   the text the question is asked, "Do not My Words do good to him that
   walks uprightly?" Many of us can bear testimony today that the Word of
   the Lord is not word only, but power! It has done good to us. The
   Gospel has not only been much to us, it has been everything to us.
   Personally, I do not believe and preach the Gospel because I have made
   a choice and have preferred it to any other theory of religion out of
   many others which might have been accepted. No. There is no other Truth
   to me! I believe it because I am a saved man by the power of it! The
   Truths of God revealed by the Spirit has new-created me! I am born
   again by this living and incorruptible Seed. My only hope of holiness
   in this life and of happiness in the life to come is found in the life
   and death, the Person and merit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
   God!

   Give up the Gospel? I may when it gives me up, but not while it grasps
   my very soul! I am not perplexed with doubt, because the Truth of God
   which I believe has worked a miracle in me. By its means I have
   received and still retain a new life to which I was once a stranger. I
   am like the good man and his wife who had kept a lighthouse for years.
   A visitor who came to see the lighthouse, looking out from the window
   over the waste of waters, asked the good woman, "Are you not afraid of
   a night when the storm is out and the big waves dash right over the
   lantern? Do you not fear that the lighthouse and all that is in it will
   be carried away?" The woman remarked that the idea never occurred to
   her. She had lived there so long that she felt as safe on the lone rock
   as ever she did when she lived on the mainland. As for her husband,
   when asked if he did not feel anxious when the wind blew a hurricane,
   he answered, "Yes, I feel anxious to keep the lamps well trimmed and
   the light burning, lest any vessel should be wrecked." As to anxiety
   about the safety of the lighthouse, or his own personal security in it,
   he had outlived all that.

   Even so it is with me! "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
   that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that
   day." From henceforth let no man trouble me with doubts and
   questionings! I bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and
   power and I will have none of your artful reasoning. The Gospel to me
   is TRUTH--I am content to perish if it is not true. I risk my soul's
   eternal fate upon the truth of the Gospel and I know no risk in it. My
   one concern is to keep the lamps burning, that I may thereby enlighten
   others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp so that I
   may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am
   well content. Now, troubled Seeker, if it is so, that your minister and
   many others in whom you confide have found perfect peace and rest in
   the Gospel, why should not you? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?
   Do not His Words do good to them that walk uprightly? Will not you also
   try their saving virtue?

   In conclusion, just a hint to you. The Words of God do good to those
   who walk uprightly. If they do no good to you, may it not be that you
   are walking crookedly? Have you given up all secret sin? How can you
   hope to get peace with God if you live according to your own lusts?
   Give up the hopeless hope! You must come right out from the love of sin
   if you would be delivered from the guilt of sin. You cannot have your
   sin and go to Heaven--you must either give up sin or give up hope.
   "Repent" is a constant exhortation of the Word of God. Quit the sin
   which you confess. Flee the evil which crucified your Lord! Sin
   forsaken is, through the blood of Jesus, turned into sin forgiven! If
   you cannot find freedom in the Lord, the straitness is not with the
   Spirit of God, but your sin lies at the door blocking up the gangway of
   Grace. Is the Spirit of God straitened? No, His Words "do good to them
   that walk uprightly." And if you, in sincerity of heart, will quit your
   sin and believe in Christ, you, also, shall find peace, hope and rest.
   Try it and see if it is not so. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Testimony To Free and Sovereign Grace

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON A THURSDAY EVENING.

   "But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." Psalm 37:39.

   SALVATION is a blessing peculiar to the righteous. The ungodly do not,
   as a rule, believe that they have any need of salvation and, therefore,
   they do not desire it, or seek after it. The righteous know that they
   are born in a fallen state; they acknowledge that they have destroyed
   themselves by personal sin; and they are conscious of a thousand
   dangers which surround them. Hence they need salvation, seek it and
   find it. It is to them that salvation has come to make them righteous,
   for until they are saved, they are unrighteous, even as others. But now
   that salvation has come to their house, they bring forth the fruits of
   righteousness to the glory of God their Savior.

   This may be used as a description of the Believer's life--he lives a
   life of salvation. He is saved in Christ, who is his life, in whom he
   has forgiveness of sins and every other Covenant blessing. He is always
   being delivered, or saved and, from the moment in which he begins as a
   Believer till that last moment on earth when he shall be about to
   depart out of the world unto the Father, his whole life is encompassed
   within the Divine circle of salvation. God is working salvation for
   him, salvation in him and salvation by him--and is giving him to
   receive the fullness of salvation which he shall forever enjoy in the
   world to come--

   "Salvation is forever near

   The souls that fear and trust the Lord.

   And Grace, descending from on high,

   Fresh hopes of Glory shall afford." Beloved Friends, we rejoice in that
   right royal word, "salvation!" We would let its echo fly over the whole
   world. To us it is a word of great meaning. It does not signify
   salvation from the punishment of sin, alone, though it comprehends that
   blessing and we are glad that it does so, but it means complete and
   immediate salvation from the love of sin, conscious salvation from the
   power of sin, growing salvation from the propensity to sin and ultimate
   salvation from all tendency to sin! When we have gained full salvation,
   we shall never, never again sin, but shall find ourselves before the
   Throne of God as pure as that throne, made perfect by the work of the
   Holy Spirit, who will have sanctified us wholly-- spirit, soul and
   body! Men of the world think, when we talk of salvation, that we mean
   escaping from Hell. This is all they would fear and so it strikes them
   as the great matter--but we are not of their mind. Being delivered from
   the pains and penalties of evil is certainly a great blessing, but it
   is by no means the greatest! It follows in the train of a grander
   blessing, even as the blaze of the comet follows the central light. The
   righteous dread sin more than Hell and, to them, wrong is more terrible
   than any punishment which awaits it. The joy of salvation to us is that
   we are delivered from this present evil world, delivered from the lusts
   of the flesh, delivered from the old death of natural corruption,
   delivered from the power of Satan and from the dominion of evil! Our
   salvation will not be full till we are totally and finally delivered
   from every trace of sin and are "without fault before the Throne of
   God." Sanctification completed is our salvation perfected--purity
   without spot will be our Paradise Regained!

   "The salvation of the righteous" in the broadest sense of the word "is
   of the Lord" and the more breadth of meaning we give to it, the more
   completely we shall see that it must be Divine. At the same time, our
   life is made up of a series of salvations and each of these is of the
   Lord. We are constantly being saved--saved from this and that form of
   danger and evil. As each daily trouble threatens to engulf us, we are
   saved from it. As each temptation, like a dragon, threatens to swallow
   us up, we are saved from it. Our God is the God of salvations and unto
   Him belongs the issues from death. We

   escape from deaths often, yes, and from the very belly of Hell--and
   still we live to sing, as Jonah sang when he was in the depths of the
   sea, "Salvation is of the Lord!"

   I have said that this glorious salvation, which is of the Lord, is the
   peculiar heritage of Believers. They alone know their need of it and
   they alone participate in it. Look at the ungodly man who is pictured
   in this Psalm. He does not want salvation. He flourishes like the green
   bay tree--he spreads his branches to overshadow everybody else. Such
   men need no salvation. "Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have
   more than heart could wish." They want no salvation--their lands are
   abundant, their house is full of treasure and they leave the rest of
   their substance to their babes. They put no trust in the name of the
   Lord. "They call their lands after their own names." They want no
   God--they have no sighs after Him. They never cry, "As the hart pants
   after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God!" They have
   no trials in their lives and "there are no bands in their death: but
   their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither
   are they plagued like other men." The rod of God's children does not
   fall upon them--"Whom the Lord loves, He chastens"--but often those
   whom He loves not, He leaves to indulge in such pleasure as they can
   find. He gives His swine good measure of husks, for He would not be
   unkind even to them! And there they lie and feed without fear-- knowing
   nothing of another world, nor caring for it--

   "Fools never raise their thoughts so high--

   Like brutes they live, like brutes they die!

   Like grass they flourish, till Your breath

   Blasts them into everlasting death."

   See the distinction between the righteous man who fears God and he that
   fears Him not! Were it not for this word, "salvation," their ease and
   prosperity might make us envy the ungodly, but this turns the scale.
   Because "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord," we would take
   the worst portion that ever was meted out to them in preference to the
   best that was ever given to the ungodly! Taking all for all, God's
   worst is better than the devil's best and the portion of God's saints
   at the lowest ebb is better than the portion of the wicked, even when
   their joys are at the flood!

   I am going to speak at this time upon our text as a statement by
   itself. It is complete and self-contained. It is a diamond of the first
   water. Its words are few, but its sense is precious. "The salvation of
   the righteous is of the Lord."

   I. Our first head is this--THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF SOUND DOCTRINE. 'The
   salvation of the righteous is of the Lord.''" There are several young
   men here who go forth to preach the Gospel. I hope that they will speak
   with clear knowledge and attractive speech, but this is far from being
   the main object of my desire--I want them to really preach the Gospel,
   the whole Gospel and nothing but the Gospel! I reckon preaching to be
   Gospel preaching and sound preaching, in proportion as it is consistent
   with this statement--"The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."
   It is not every preacher who proclaims this Truth of God in bold terms
   and in plain English. More or less, I hope that all who preach Christ
   Crucified would subscribe to this. But some are a little afraid of it
   in all its breadth and length. They must bring in man a little. They
   must have him something, or some thing. They are always afraid lest
   Grace should be misunderstood and should be turned into licentiousness
   and, truly, I share in their fear, though I would not use their way of
   preventing the evil which I dread.

   I have known some of these timorous ones try to say, "Free Grace," but
   they have had a little impediment in their speech and the words have
   come out, "free will." They have meant that it should be all of Grace,
   but by some means or other there has been so much hesitancy and such a
   deal of fencing, that one could hardly tell Grace from works! There
   will be no hesitancy on my part when I say that "the salvation of the
   righteous is of the Lord"--neither will you find me guarding the
   statement as if I thought it a lump of spiritual dynamite which might
   do infinite damage!

   "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord" in the planning. Long
   before we were in existence, God had planned the way of salvation.
   Before the Fall He had ordained the Covenant by which the fallen should
   be restored and that plan shows, in every line of it, that consummate
   wisdom and infinite love which can be found nowhere but in the Lord. He
   took counsel with no one and no one instructed Him--He alone fixed the
   eternal settlements of unchanging love!

   "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord" as to the persons who
   are included in it, for God has chosen from the beginning, His people
   and, "whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed
   unto the image of His Son." There is a choice, somewhere, and I am
   persuaded we have not chosen Him, but He has chosen us. Did not the
   Lord Jesus say as much? He is first and foremost in salvation and
   though we gladly run when He calls, yet His call comes first

   and His choice comes before the call! The salvation of the righteous
   was determined in the council chambers of eternity before the stars
   began to shine. It is of God and only of God!

   And as it is of the Lord in the planning, so it is of the Lord in the
   providing. It was He who gave His Son from His bosom and truly our Lord
   Jesus Christ is the full purchase -price of our salvation. We do not
   add a penny to it. The mortgage upon lost humanity was paid off by
   Christ to the last farthing, without any contribution on our part to
   eke out the matchless price.

   The Spirit of God, who is another great item in the provision of
   salvation, is of the Lord. God has given us the Spirit. The Holy Spirit
   comes, not according to our mind or will, but according to the gift and
   purpose of the Lord. Nothing is lacking for the salvation of men. God
   has provided all. He has not left the garment almost long enough, just
   needing that we should add a fringe. Nor has He provided a feast almost
   sufficient for us if we bring at least another loaf. Nor has He built a
   house of mercy, almost completed, but leaving us to add a few more
   tiles to the roof. No, the work is finished and, from top to bottom,
   salvation is of the Lord! All Covenant provisions are already in the
   Lord Jesus in full and the salvation of the righteous is entirely of
   the Lord in the providing!

   So, dear Friends, it is of the Lord in the applying. The first
   application of the blessings of the Covenant to us is of God. Of course
   that first application is in regeneration, when the soul first begins
   to live. The first sense of need of mercy springs not from nature, but
   is a work of Grace. The first desire we have to be right--the first
   prayer we breathe towards God--all this is the movement of eternal
   Grace upon our souls which otherwise would have lain as dead as the
   corpses in their graves! The Lord first deals with us before we have
   any inclination whatever to deal with Him. We do not see this Truth of
   God at first. Possibly we discover it months after our conversion, when
   we come to sit down and look over our experience. Then we cry, "Yes!
   Had You not sought me, I had never sought You! Had You not drawn me, I
   had never run to You! Had You never looked on me in love, I had never
   looked to You in faith! It is Your Free Grace which began with me. I
   acknowledge that the Alpha of my salvation is of the Lord." The
   knowledge of this Truth of God usually comes to us as we advance in
   knowledge--the full understanding of it is a fruit of the Spirit and
   belongs to our riper years rather than to our spiritual infancy.

   As salvation is of the Lord at the commencement, so it is as to the
   continuing of it. Rest assured, Beloved, there is no true growth in
   Grace except that which is of the Lord. No, there is no sustaining the
   position to which you have reached except by the Lord--

   "Andevery virtue wepossess, And every victory won, And every thought of
   holiness Are His and His alone."

   He has worked all our works in us and if we have produced any fruit to
   the honor of His name, from Him has our fruit come, for our Lord truly
   said, "Without me You can do nothing." We must give Him all the glory,
   for certainly He has given us all the Grace and as it has been, so will
   it be. Between here and Heaven there will be nothing of our own in the
   matter. We shall work out our own salvation with fear and trembling
   because He first works it in us to will and to do of His own good
   pleasure. There is no working out our salvation unless the Lord works
   it in! We bring to the surface of our life what He works in the deep
   foundation of our inward nature, but both within and without the
   spiritual life is all of Grace. When we put our foot upon the threshold
   of Glory and pass through the gate of pearl to the golden pavement of
   the heavenly city, the last step will be as much taken through the
   Grace of God as was the first step when we turned unto our great Father
   in our rags and misery! Left by the Grace of God for a single moment,
   we would perish. We are dependent as much upon Grace for spiritual life
   as we are upon the air we breathe for this natural life. Take the
   atmosphere from us--put us under an exhausted receiver--and we die.
   Take Your Grace from us, O our God, and we perish at once! What else
   could happen to us?

   Brothers, we must always believe this and preach it, for it is the sum
   of all true doctrine. If you do not make salvation to be wholly of the
   Lord, depend upon it, you will have to clip salvation down and make it
   a small matter. I have always desired to preach a great salvation and I
   do not think that any other is worth preaching. If salvation is of man,
   then you do not wonder that man falls from Grace. Of course he does!
   What man begins, man also soon ends in his own way with a failure! When
   God saves, He saves eternally. Someone said to me the other day, "I do
   not quite know about that doctrine of Final Perseverance, whether it is
   true or not." So I said to him, "What kind of life does Jesus Christ
   give His sheep?"

   He answered very correctly--"He has said, 'I give unto My sheep eternal
   life.'" Very well, does not that settle it? If He has given them
   eternal life, they have eternal life.

   "But," he said, "might they not die?" I answered, "Is it not clear that
   those who die have not eternal life? If they had eternal life, how
   could they die? Does eternal life mean six months' life?" "No." "Does
   it only mean 600 years' life?" "No. It must mean nothing less than life
   which has no end." Death is out of the question. I must live if I am
   one of those of whom the Great Shepherd says, "I give unto My sheep
   eternal life." But what is next? If you cannot quite see the Truth of
   God from that one expression, what follows? Will the sheep of Christ
   ever perish? Here is His answer. "They shall never perish." Does not
   that secure them? What language could better describe their security?
   But another question is raised--"May it not mean that, if they get away
   from the Lord Jesus, they shall perish?" Then comes the next sentence--
   "Neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." Does not that answer it?
   "Oh, but perhaps the Savior might fail!" We think not! But listen
   again--"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."

   There are four great reasons why Believers are and must be saved!
   Neither can anything shake the force of any one of them. If words mean
   anything, those who are in Christ are safe! The Lord God Almighty has
   given them eternal life, they shall never perish, neither shall any
   pluck them out of Christ's hand and over that first hand of Jesus is
   the Father's hand to make assurance doubly sure!

   Salvation, then, is of the Lord. This is a doctrine to be believed. If
   you do not believe it, you are sure to minimize and make small
   salvation and especially are you likely to deprive it of its certainty
   and immutability. It is a pity that you should attempt this, for thus
   you rob Christ of His power, God of His glory and the saints of their
   comfort! That is the awkward point about a salvation which is of
   man--it is worth nothing when you get it. We need an eternal salvation.
   We need a salvation which does really save. We need something which is
   not made up of, "ifs and ans," and, "buts," and, "perhapses," and,
   "maybe," and, "if you do this," and, "if you do that." We need sure,
   immutable, abiding, unchanging salvation--and this is exactly what we
   get and what we are not ashamed to preach, while we thunder out this
   Truth of God, "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord!"--

   "'Allof Grace'--from base to summit, Grace on every course and stone.
   Grace in planning, rearing, crowning, Sovereign Grace, and Grace
   alone!"

   II. Secondly, this is not only the essence of sound doctrine, but THIS
   IS A NECESSARY FACT. "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."
   Assuredly it must be so, or else they will never be saved. Look for a
   moment, you that love the Lord, to your own inward conflicts. Beloved,
   we are not all alike, tossed to and fro with the uprising of inbred
   sin, but there are times with most of God's saints when they are hard
   put to it to withstand a certain raging temptation--they have to
   struggle hard to keep it down. And when they have mastered that evil,
   another form of sin comes on the sly and attempts to stab them in the
   back. You were giving all your attention to one insidious foe and at
   that terrible moment you were set upon by another! And you had to turn
   round and bend all your strength in the name of God to resist this
   second adversary. Nor was this all, a third evil bent its bow against
   you and a fourth prepared a net for your feet! Thus you were beset
   behind and before--and had it not been that the Lord was on your side,
   you would have been quickly swallowed up! Some of us know the truth of
   this in our experience if the rest of you do not.

   Salvation must be of the Lord with me, I know, or else my inward lusts,
   my proud spirit, my rebellious will and my natural despondency will
   surely ruin me! Do you not feel it to be so with you? If God does not
   save you, you are a lost man. You must feel that. I know that those who
   have no conflicts sing another song and praise themselves. Your
   carpet-knights who wear the regimentals of Christianity, but know
   nothing of battle with inbred sin, may talk about salvation by self,
   but he that is hard put to it to wrestle against all wrong-doing will
   tell another tale! He who grieves if he even utters a rash word, or
   allows an impure thought to cross his mind feels that if God does not
   save him, saved he never can be! And he sees it to be a necessary fact
   that the salvation of the righteous must be of the Lord.

   When you have looked within a sufficient time to convince you, just
   look at your outward temptations. Ah, we little know what many of our
   Brothers and Sisters have to endure in the form of temptation in their
   own houses from their own friends. Many have a very hard fight of it. I
   know some now present who will, I believe, persevere and hold on to the
   end, but almost every day they endure a martyrdom. Cruel words are
   spoken and unkind actions are done against them.

   And a bitter spirit is shown towards them because they are the people
   of God. Salvation must be of the Lord to these poor persecuted ones, or
   they will faint under their oppressions! Outside in the world, what
   temptations abound! You cannot engage in any business without finding
   that it has its peculiar sins. Many things are done in the trade--many
   matters established by custom--which the scrupulously upright child of
   God cannot tolerate. He has to set his face against the general habit
   and, therefore, he has a battle. Need I go into particulars? Why,
   Brothers and Sisters, we are surrounded with snares! They are on the
   table--you may readily sin there. They are in your secret chamber--you
   are tempted there. They are in the counting-house and on the study
   table. You cannot sit down to read a book without being in danger. You
   cannot go among the crowd without risk. Depend upon it, if any man is
   saved in the midst of this wicked and ungodly generation in which the
   very air smells of corruption and the common talk is polluting--his
   salvation will be evidently of the Lord! If any Believer remains
   steadfast in this day of philosophic doubt, verily, I say unto you, his
   salvation must be of the Lord. He cannot go through this Vanity Fair.
   He cannot pass through this horrible slough, this Stygian bog of modern
   society and be pure in heart, lips and life unless God shall grant him
   His salvation!

   Besides that, our salvation will certainly be of the Lord, because the
   world hates us. It cannot help it. If you are a genuine Christian, the
   world will not love you. There may be natural traits of kindness and
   goodness about you which even the outside world may respect, but in
   proportion as you are definitely and thoroughly a Christian, you will
   have the dogs at you. Worldlings will see a little flaw in your
   character and they will report it and magnify it. Some of us cannot do
   anything but we are misrepresented so that we have become unmindful of
   what people say about us, so long as we know in our own conscience that
   we are clear. The act which we have done with the most transparent
   sincerity has been the very one which they have set upon as though it
   were a piece of trickery! Blessed be God, the world is crucified to us
   and we are crucified unto the world! But if we are to escape its
   venom--especially those who stand in the front of the battle--if we are
   to hold on to the end with a stainless character, then we shall have to
   say and sing, "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."

   We know, dear Friends, that it must be so. It is a necessary fact, even
   if we only look at the contrary view. What professions some make and
   how long they keep them up! We have said of such-and-such a man, "If he
   is not a child of God, who is?" We have even wished that our soul were
   in his soul's place when we have heard him pray and marked the
   impressive devotion of his demeanor. And yet we have lived to see the
   very person we admired rolling in filth, character gone and hope gone!
   This happens in the Church sadly too often. Whenever we see it, we may
   truly feel that "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." If
   ever you see a Christian man, professedly so, suddenly disappear and
   melt away, you will say to yourself, "Ah, had it not been for Divine
   Grace, it would have happened just the same to me and my fellow
   professors, too." We should have gone out, like the snuff of a candle,
   if God had not preserved us and kept us alight. The older we grow in
   the Divine Life and the more earnestly we seek to exhibit the character
   of a Christian, the more we shall feel that if we had to go to this
   warfare at our own expense, it would be better for us that we had never
   been born! The life of many modern professors might be lived without
   supernatural help, but the life of a genuine Christian is a perpetual
   miracle which could be worked by none but the Lord God! True Christian
   life is produced by God, Himself, working mightily, even as when He
   made the world, or raised His only-begotten Son from the dead! I say
   that this is a necessary fact, for there can be no salvation but that
   which is of the Lord.

   III. In the third place, our text being true, that "the salvation of
   the righteous is of the Lord," THIS IS A SWEET CONSOLATION, for if my
   salvation is of the Lord, then I shall be saved! If it had been of
   anybody else, I would be lost. Ah, Gabriel, if my salvation had to be
   accomplished by you and all your fellow angels, I would despair! Ah, my
   Brothers and Sisters, if all of you put together were sent into this
   world to try and help poor me to Heaven, you would never get me there!
   I would wear you all out! When it is written, "Salvation is of the
   Lord," I am comforted, for I am sure that the Lord will do it. He can,
   for He is Omnipotent. He will, for He has promised to do it--and He is
   true and unchangeable! He will go through with what He has begun. If
   man began, he might leave off before he had finished for lack of stores
   to go on with it, or because he had made a mistake and changed his
   fickle mind. But when God begins, as surely as ever He opens the war,
   He will push on till He has won the victory. As surely as He lays the
   first stone, He will not withdraw His right hand till He has brought
   forth the top stone, with shouts of, "Grace, Grace unto it!" "The
   salvation of the righteous is of the Lord"--therefore it will be
   accomplished. Not all the temptations of life, nor all the terrors of
   death, nor

   all the furies of Hell shall prevent any soul upon whom God has begun
   His work of Grace from reaching eternal salvation! What a blessing is
   this and what a comfort it is!--

   "Things future, nor things that are now, Not all things below nor
   above, Can make Him His purpose forego, Or sever my soul from His
   love."

   This grand fact comforts us partly by leading us to believe in prayer.
   If the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord, then, whenever we get
   into any great trouble, we go to Him and cry, "O Lord, my salvation is
   of You! I have come to You for it." When strong temptation seems to
   catch us, like birds in a net, and we cannot break loose, then we cry,
   "O God, salvation is of You alone! Help me. You can. I look to You for
   it!" When our soul lies dead, as it sometimes does, like this heavy
   weather--when there is little sun to brighten us, or air to enliven
   us--we feel inactive and cannot stir. Oh, then it is most blessed in
   prayer to feel "all my fresh springs are in You, my Lord! You can
   quicken me! You can give me vigor, force of character and energy to do
   Your work, or suffer Your will!" In drawing near to God, we are coming
   to the right place--we are only asking God to do what He undertakes to
   do, since, "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."

   This, in addition to increasing our hope in prayer, urges us at all
   times to look out of ourselves to God. "The salvation of the righteous
   is of the Lord." Then I must not be always searching within my own
   heart to find some good thing within me. I must not be turning over
   evidences and living upon past experiences, but I must remember that
   salvation, even of the righteous, is of the Lord. I have often thrown
   all my evidences overboard--every one of them. I have felt that I would
   not give a farthing for the whole lot put together and I have gone to
   Christ Jesus just as I went at first, singing my old ditty--

   "I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my All in
   All."

   We are encouraged to do this by the fact that salvation is of the Lord.
   Go again to the Cross and read your pardon there. Suppose the devil
   tells you, or suppose it even to be true, that all your experience is a
   fiction, all your past profession a lie, all your faith presumption,
   all your enjoyments delirium, all that you have known and felt a
   daydream? Well, then, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners
   and He can save you! O my Lord, I can boast nothing whatever of myself,
   but I come and cast myself on You! You have said, "He that comes to Me
   I will in no wise cast out"! Frequent beginnings are the very safest
   things. In fact, we should, in a sense, be always beginning, for the
   spiritual life begins with coming to Jesus and the continuance of that
   spiritual life is described thus--"To whom coming as unto a living
   stone." To whom coming, always coming--always trusting, always looking
   out of self, always looking to Christ!

   When evidences are bright, you know where you are, but at such a time
   you could tell that without them. It is easy to tell the time of day by
   a sundial, but then the sun must be shining. And when I am at home and
   can see the sun, I know whereabouts the sun is at 12 o'clock and,
   therefore, I do not need the sundial to tell me the time. Evidences are
   exceedingly good things when you do not need them, but they are of very
   little use when you do. Evidences are clear when Christ is present, but
   when Christ is present you do not need their help! But when Christ is
   not present, evidences fail to comfort you. It is better to live by a
   daily faith upon Christ than to live upon evidences. They most readily
   turn moldy and then they are most unwholesome food. Live upon Christ
   who is the daily manna and you will live well!

   You will be driven to such a life by the force of this blessed Truth of
   God, that the salvation of the righteous, just as much as the salvation
   of the wicked, is of the Lord! A sinner cannot be saved by himself and
   neither can a righteous man. A sinner must look to the Lord for
   salvation and so must a righteous man. We are on the same footing
   here--the rich saint as well as the poor sinner. Christ must be
   everything to one as well as to the other--and what a blessed thing it
   is that He is everything to us! Let us hourly make Him so.

   IV. Fourthly, and very briefly, THIS DOCTRINE IS A REASON FOR HUMILITY.
   "The salvation of the righteous

   is of the Lord'" Are you saved, my dear Brother or Sister? And do you
   know it? Then all idea of pride must vanish, for it is clear that you
   did not save yourself. That regeneration, of which you are a partaker,
   is the free gift of God to an undeserving one--a work of Grace upon one
   who could not have worked it upon himself. Pride is excluded! Has the
   Lord granted you such a salvation that you have remained fast in your
   integrity all these years? Do not be proud of it, for your salvation
   from any gross outward sin has been of the Lord! It is none of your
   doing. Above all, do not begin to censure

   others! And when you see a poor Brother down--yes, when you see a child
   of God who has erred and grossly sinned, do not begin censuring him in
   bitterness and giving him over to despair. If you had been in his case,
   you might have done worse.

   Do I speak harshly? Any man who says, "If I had been in that Brother's
   place I would have done better," is a fool! He does not know himself.
   The probabilities are that he would have done worse. Ah, Sir Pharisee!
   You--yes, oh yes, you are a wonder! Marvelous is your purity!
   Splendidly you act! What a paragon you are! If you were to see yourself
   in God's light, you would see that You are a mass of corruption,
   smelling of pride! That is what you are. The man who begins to exult
   over his fallen brother is the likeliest man to fall, himself. He who
   points at a tear in his Brother's garment is in rags himself. If we
   have stood fast amid temptation, we may bless God that we have done so,
   but we must not find fault with others as though there was some good
   thing in ourselves. The salvation of the most righteous man that ever
   lived is of the Lord! If his sun has not been eclipsed--if his moon has
   not been turned into darkness--if his stars have not fallen like
   withered leaves from the tree, it is all owing to the Grace of God and
   the Grace of God alone! It is necessary to say this to keep us from
   being lifted up with foolish boasting.

   So, dear Friends, we shall have to sing to a grave, sweet melody as
   long as we are here, whenever we touch a matter that concerns
   ourselves. When we get to Heaven, we shall see, then, much more than we
   do tonight that salvation is of the Lord. Mr. Bunyan represents his
   Pilgrim as going through the Valley of the Shadow of Death--and even
   while he was in the darkness and horror of that defile place, he knew
   that he needed the Lord to help him. He felt that he had a terrible
   walk of it that night, when there was a bog on this side and a quagmire
   on that--and hobgoblins and all sorts of horrid creatures all
   around--he knew that he needed Divine aid. He held on his way, with his
   sword in his hand and, grasping the weapon of All-Prayer, till at last
   he left that horrible place. And then he knew better than before how
   great was his necessity. He looked back when the morning rose and till
   then he had not fully known what a place he had been travers-ing--and
   how great was the power which upheld him in his night march! When we
   get to Heaven and look back upon our life below, we shall then see the
   wonders of delivering Grace which at this time we do not fully
   appreciate--

   "When I stand before the Throne Dressed in beauty not my own. When I
   see You as You are, Love You with unsinningheart. Then, Lord, shall I
   fully know-- But not till then--how much I owe."

   I believe that in the day of our full deliverance we shall lift up,
   every one of us, such a song of praise as we are not capable of here.
   We shall sing with all our powers of heart and tongue at the sight of
   what we have been delivered from. Even then this will be the sum and
   substance of the song--"Salvation is of the Lord!" He has worked it all
   and brought us safely through. The hymn of Miriam and of all the
   children of Israel at the Red Sea, when they had passed through it and
   all the Egyptians were drowned, was a very exultant song. But what will
   ours be when the gates of Hell shall have been overthrown, all our
   enemies destroyed and we shall find ourselves before the Eternal
   Throne, saved forever? Shall we not exclaim, "Sing unto the Lord, for
   He has triumphed gloriously"?

   Shall we not, each one, tell out his own experience and bid our fellow
   Believers sing yet more and more rapturously unto the God of salvation?
   Will not some of you take up that note which Miriam dwelt upon when she
   could not see a single Egyptian? Pharaoh's chariots and horses were all
   sunk in the sea! His chosen captains were also drowned in the Red Sea
   and so she struck her timbrel and with all the maidens she danced right
   joyously as she sang, "The depths have covered them. There is not one,
   not one, not one of them left." Thus will we sing in Heaven. "There is
   not one, not one of them left! Not one of all the sins, all the trials,
   all the temptations and all the vexations of life--the Lord has removed
   them all! There is not one of them left! Salvation is of the Lord."

   V. I close with one more remark and it is this--this text GIVES US A
   COMFORTABLE GROUND OF HOPE.

   "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." Then I believe He will
   save me. I trust myself with Him and thus I become righteous by faith
   and, therefore, He will save me from my trouble and care. Brother, draw
   the same conclusion. Sister, draw the same conclusion. You are in a
   terrible condition just now. Everything has been going wrong. You do
   not know what to do. But "the salvation of the righteous is of the
   Lord." He will bring you through. You are in good hands. The Great
   Pilot knows the navigation of the river of life better than you do. You
   cannot see a channel for your boat--there

   are snags everywhere, or quicksand, or rocks, or shallows. He knows all
   about them. Rest. Trust. Wait. Commit your way unto the Lord. There is
   personal comfort in the fact that our salvation is of the Lord.

   And there is comfort, next, with regard to all our tried Brothers and
   Sisters. It is my lot--my happy or unhappy lot--to be continually
   consulted by Brothers and Sisters in great trouble. They think I can
   help them, though I cannot. I hardly know what to say to them. I can
   only take their burden with my own unto the Lord. I often feel great
   pain in sympathizing with trials which I cannot remove, but then it is
   cheering to know that the Lord can help where we cannot, for "the
   salvation of the righteous is of the Lord." He can help the helpless,
   the forlorn, the impoverished, the dying. He will bring His people
   safely through floods and fires. Their straits are very great and their
   burdens very heavy, but the Lord will put underneath them the
   everlasting arms. Pray for them; sympathize with them; help them as far
   as you can and then, when you cast yourself on your Lord, cast them,
   also!

   Next, this ought to give us hope about seekers. I see some Brothers and
   Sisters before me whose lives are spent in trying to encourage poor
   erring souls to return unto the Lord. Sometimes you are balked and
   defeated. Well, "the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord."
   Surely, if the salvation of the righteous is to come from the Lord,
   much more must the salvation of poor seekers! Have hope about the
   vilest and worst of men. If there are any such here, tonight, let them
   have hope, for if the Lord bids the righteous, in whom there is a
   measure of His Grace, to look to Him for salvation, assuredly He bids
   you to do the same, for you have nothing of your own. If those who are
   righteous before God yet find their salvation in Him, alone, where are
   you to look? You must look to the Lord, also! Look to Jesus on the
   Cross and find salvation in Him, for the Lord Jesus redeemed with His
   precious blood all who trust in Him.

   O my dear Hearer, come and cast yourself upon Him! "In due time Christ
   died for the ungodly." So runs the Word of God. Look to that wondrous
   death of the Son of God which redeems such as you are and, in your
   case, too, it shall be found that your salvation is of the Lord! May
   God bless you and cause you to rejoice in His salvation!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Breaker and the Flock

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 20, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the
   remnant of Israel, I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as
   the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by
   reason of the multitude of men. The Breaker is come up before them:
   they ha ve broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone
   out by it: and their King shall pass before them, and the Lord at the
   head of them." Micah 2:12,13.

   YOU will remember, dear Friends, from our reading last Sabbath morning,
   [Sermon #1952, The Holy Spirit--The need of the Age] in the second
   chapter of the Book of Micah, that the Prophet was delivering reproofs
   and rebukes against a sinful people, a people who tried to straiten the
   Spirit and silence the voice of prophecy and refused to listen to the
   messengers of God. He threatened them with deserved punishment from the
   Most High. To our surprise, in the very midst of the threat, he
   delivers a prediction brimming with mercy! Not only is not the Spirit
   of the Lord straitened, but even the people of the Lord are not to be
   straitened, for One has come forth who will be to them both Liberator
   and Leader. Judgment is God's strange work and He rejoices, even in the
   midst of threats, to turn aside and utter gracious words to obedient
   souls! Surely the brightest and most silvery drops of love that have
   ever distilled upon men have fallen in close connection with storms of
   Divine Justice. The acceptable year of the Lord is hard by the day of
   vengeance of our God. The blackness of the tempest of His wrath acts as
   a foil to set forth more brightly the Glory of His Grace. In this case
   the thunderbolts stay their course in mid-volley--when the Prophet is
   hurling destruction upon sin and sinners, he pauses to interpose a
   passage of promise most rich and gracious--a passage which I wish to
   open up to you at this time, as the Spirit of God shall enable me.

   Certain willful persons were proudly confident that no enemy could
   reach them behind the walls of their cities, though the Lord declared
   that He would make Samaria a heap and would strip Jerusalem. They
   coveted fields and took them by violence and went on with their
   oppressions as if there had been no Judge of all the earth. The Lord
   warned them again and again--and assured them that they must not expect
   to be preserved from chastisement because they were the Lord's people.
   They boasted that God would protect them, yes, they leaned upon the
   Lord and said. "Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us." He
   told them that Zion would be plowed as a field and Jerusalem would
   become heaps. They were by no means to escape the rod! Rather might
   they look for Grace after they had been severely chastened. They would
   be carried away into captivity, but yet there would come a day in which
   they would be gathered out of the places wherein they had been
   scattered and brought back to their own land. The Prophet cried to the
   daughter of Zion, "You shall go even to Babylon; there shall you be
   delivered; there the Lord shall redeem you from the hands of your
   enemies."

   Truly, the Lord forgets not to devise means to bring, again, His
   banished ones. The words of Micah in the passage before us agree with
   many others which fell from the lips of Prophets, for it is the way of
   the Lord to restore His chosen in the day of their repentance. Did He
   not say, by His servant Amos, "Lo, I will command, and I will sift the
   house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve;
   yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth"? He will preserve
   the chosen race even in their scattering and then, in His own appointed
   time, He will seek them out according to His own Words--"He that
   scattered Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd does his
   flock." These gathered ones were to be led back to their land under the
   guidance of a great Shepherd whose business it would be to break down
   all obstacles and clear the road for them, so that they might safely
   reach their resting place.

   I have no doubt that the first fulfillment of this prophecy was given
   when Cyrus conquered Babylon and gave permission for Israel to return
   to their own land. Cyrus may be regarded as "the Breaker," for the
   Prophet Isaiah wrote concerning him, "Thus says the Lord to His
   anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations
   before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the
   two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before
   you, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the
   gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron." Then the
   willing-hearted of Israel gathered together to rebuild the House of the
   Lord, and to this center, multitudes hastened, the Lord being with them
   and sending them prosperity. It was of these favored ones that we find
   a striking fulfillment of our text as to the noise made by the
   concourse of men. Ezra tells us that, "the people shouted with a loud
   shout, and the noise was heard afar off." Then was this promise, in a
   measure, fulfilled.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, the promises of the Lord are perennial
   springs forever overflowing with new fulfillments. In the latter days,
   the God of Israel, in abundant Grace, will remember His Covenant with
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and will gather together His ancient nation
   who are, at this time, a people scattered and peeled. These shall be
   converted to the Christ of God and then shall be accomplished the Word
   of the Prophet--"I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a
   prince among them." The Son of David, whom their fathers slew, not
   knowing what they did, shall be made known to them as the promised Seed
   and then they shall look on Him whom they have pierced and they shall
   mourn for Him. May this day soon come! Then shall the veil be taken
   away from their hearts and the cloud shall no longer hang over Israel's
   head, but the Lord shall restore them and they shall rejoice in Him.
   The day comes when the Breaker shall go up before them and the King at
   the head of them--and they shall be brought again unto the inheritance
   of their fathers.

   Even this will not exhaust the prophecy. I regard this passage as
   setting forth a vision of spiritual things in which Micah dimly saw the
   gathering together and the heavenward march of the true Israel, namely,
   the elect of God, whom He has given to His Son, Jesus, and whom the
   Lord Jesus has undertaken to save. "He is a Jew, which is one inwardly;
   and circumcision is that of the heart" (Rom 2:29). As Paul, by the
   Spirit of God, interprets the whole story of the Covenant made with
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it is clear that we, Brothers and Sisters,
   the children of the promise, are the true seed, even those who are born
   by Divine power and, as Believers, are the spiritual family of
   believing Abraham. If we have the faith of Abraham, we are the children
   of Abraham--and with us is the Covenant made--for the seed of Abraham
   is not reckoned according to descent by the flesh, otherwise would the
   Covenant blessing have fallen to Ishmael and not to Isaac, to Esau and
   not to Jacob!

   The Covenant is to a spiritual seed, born according to Divine promise
   through Divine power. The line in which the Lord has determined that
   the Covenant blessing should run was ordered by Divine Sovereignty,
   "that the purpose of God according to election might stand." The Lord
   purposed that they which are born after the Spirit should be the true
   heirs and not those that are born after the flesh. We, therefore,
   believe that to us, even to us who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no
   confidence in the flesh, appertain the promises and the Covenant! It
   shall come to pass that all the elect of God shall yet be gathered
   together from the places where they have wandered in their sin and, for
   them, a clear way shall be opened up to the land of their inheritance.
   The Breaker, who is also their King and God, shall lead them through
   all opposition and bring them without fail to their quiet resting
   place. Even as at the first, all Israel was brought out of Egypt and
   safely led with a high hand and an outstretched arm through sea and
   desert, so shall the Lord Jesus lead the whole host of His redeemed to
   the place of His Glory. Has not the Lord God declared it--"The redeemed
   of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion; and
   everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness
   and joy; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away"?

   An august spectacle is set before us in our text! May our eyes be
   anointed of the Holy Spirit that we may behold its glories, so that our
   hearts shall leap for joy!

   First, in the text I see the flock gathered--"I will surely assemble, O
   Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will
   put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of
   their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of
   men." Secondly, we behold the champion Shepherd clearing the way of the
   flock--"The Breaker is come up before them." He, with the arm of His
   strength, breaks all opposers and breaks up for them a way from their
   captivity. Thirdly, behold the flock advancing, with their great
   Shepherd at their head--"They have broken

   up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their
   King shall pass before them, and the Lord at the head of them." Jehovah
   leads the van and the hosts of His redeemed march triumphantly after
   Him!

   I. To begin then, Brothers and Sisters--here is THE FLOCK GATHERED--"I
   will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you."

   Who knows where God's chosen are? Babylon was far off from Jerusalem,
   but our places of wandering are farther off from God than that. "All we
   like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way."
   In the cloudy and dark day we have wandered to the uttermost ends of
   the earth. The Lord's chosen ones lie wide of one another and they are
   far off from God, Himself. What a mercy it is that in the text we have
   a promise that they shall be Divinely gathered! "I will surely
   assemble, O Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of
   Israel." Who else could gather them but the Lord? What power less than
   Divine could fetch such wanderers from their haunts and hidings? One is
   aloft yonder on the hillside in his pride and self-conceit. Another is
   down below in the despondency of his disappointment. One wanders in the
   pastures of worldliness, sporting himself in the plenty, thereof, and
   hard to be brought back for that reason. Another is entangled in the
   briars of poverty, half-starved and ready to die and hopeless of ever
   seeing the face of God with

   joy.

   They are everywhere, my Brethren--these lost sheep! They seem to have
   chosen, as if deliberately, the most dangerous places! They stumble on
   the dark mountains; they are caught in the tangled thickets; they have
   fallen into pits. O Sin, what have you done? Rather, what have you not
   done? For men seem to have gone to the utmost extreme of rebellion
   against God and to have done evil with both hands! Therefore does God,
   Himself, come to the rescue! He, Himself, shall assemble Jacob and
   gather the remnant of Israel! Driving with the terrors of His Law,
   drawing with the sweetness of His Gospel, He shall surely bring them
   in! By one instrumentality or by another and, in some cases,
   apparently, without instrumentality at all, He will bring them from all
   points of the compass to the place where He will meet with them--

   "There is a period known to God

   When all His sheep, redeemed by blood,

   Shall leave the hateful ways of sin,

   Turn to the fold and enter in."

   This is the result of the Divine working and of that alone! Our hope
   for the salvation of God's elect lies in the fact that it is God,
   Himself, who undertakes to gather them! Remember His Word by the
   Prophet Ezekiel--"For thus says the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will
   both search My sheep and seek them out."

   Following the text closely, we notice that this gathering is to be
   performed surely. I dwell with great pleasure upon that word, "surely,"
   because it is spoken twice, "I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of
   you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel." There are no, "ifs,"
   where there is a God! There are no, "perhapses," where Divine
   predestination rules the day! Let Jehovah speak and it is done. Let Him
   command and it shall stand firm. Inasmuch as He says, "surely," twice,
   it reminds me of Joseph's word to the Egyptian king--"And for that the
   dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is
   established by God." God will not change His purpose, nor turn from His
   promise, nor forget His Covenant--He will surely gather together His
   chosen people wherever they may be!

   O you that are buffeted by opposition and driven to sore distress in
   your holy service, be not dismayed, for the purpose of the Lord shall
   stand! You may fail, but the eternal God will not! Your work may be
   washed away like the work of little children in the sand of the
   seashore, but that which God does, endures forever! God shakes the
   earth out of its place, but who can move Him? When God says, surely,
   who shall cast doubt in the way? The Lord will, without fail, call out
   His redeemed from among men. As a worker and a soul-winner I grasp at
   these words, "I will surely gather the remnant of Israel," and I feel
   that I shall not labor in vain, nor spend my strength for nothing. When
   the end comes and the whole business of salvation shall be complete, it
   shall be seen that the Lord has achieved His purpose. Jesus says, "All
   that the Father gives Me shall come to Me," and it shall surely be so.
   Therefore let us be of good courage and seek out the lost ones in full
   confidence that they must and shall be found.

   This leads us to notice that they shall be gathered completely. "I will
   surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you." Not some of the chosen, but all
   of them shall be brought out from the world which lies in the Wicked
   One. Not some of the redeemed, but each one of them shall be made to
   walk at liberty under the leadership of their Shepherd-King. The Lord
   will leave none of His sheep in their wanderings and surrender none to
   the lion or the bear. Dear Friend, sighing and crying afar off and
   thinking that God will never gather you, have faith in Him! Helpless as
   you are, trust Him to do His

   work as a Savior! It is written, "I will surely gather, O Jacob, all of
   you," and you may not think that you have wandered beyond the reach of
   the infinite arms. Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? You must not
   dream that you have sinned yourself beyond the power of Grace, for His
   mercy endures forever! Only look unto Christ and let your soul stay
   itself on Him and God will not overlook you in the day when He gathers
   His own! Though you are least in Israel and most unworthy of His
   regard, yet He has expressly said, "I will seek that which was lost and
   bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was
   broken, and will strengthen that which was sick." He will not forget
   you, you weakest of all the flock! You are necessary to the
   completeness of the company. If you are not there, how shall the Lord
   keep His Word, "I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you"?

   Further, our text declares that the people shall be gathered unitedly.
   There shall be a wonderful union among them--"I will put them together
   as the sheep of Bozrah." Oh that the Lord would, in these days, more
   fully and evidently carry out this promise in the happy unity of His
   visible Church! Sinners hate each other while they wander in their
   different ways, but when the Lord brings them together, by His Grace,
   then love is born in their hearts! What enmities are cast out by the
   power of Divine Grace! When lusts are conquered, wars and strife cease.
   God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace. It is Grace which
   causes that Ephraim shall not envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim. I
   notice that sinners, when they are under conviction of sin, are not apt
   to quarrel with one another--and saints--when they behold the Savior
   and rejoice in pardoning love, come together in holy love!

   In that visible community which stands for the Church of God--I mean
   the combined external organization of Christendom--there are many
   divisions and fierce heart-burnings. But in the real Church of God,
   that spiritual body which the Holy Spirit inhabits, these evils are
   buried. The truly spiritual are really one in heart. You may meet with
   a man from whom you differ in many respects, but if the life of God is
   in him and in yourself, also, you will feel a kinship with him of the
   nearest kind. Often have I read books which have awakened in my soul a
   sense of true brotherhood with their authors, although I have known
   them to be of a Church opposed to many of my own views. If they praise
   my Divine Lord. If they speak of the inner life and touch upon
   communion with God. And if they do this with that unction and living
   power which are the tokens of the Holy Spirit, then my heart cleaves to
   them, be they who they may! Is it not so with you?

   When the Lord brings people to Himself, He brings them to one another.
   Though depraved nature divides and pride and self set men apart, yet
   the Lord overcomes these dividing elements by His renewing Grace--and
   His Divine Word is accomplished--"I will put them together!" When the
   Lord puts us together, no man can put us asunder. What is needed in the
   much-divided visible Church of God is that we should all come under the
   Divine hand more fully--that we should all feel the touch of the Divine
   Life and yield ourselves more completely to the teaching of the Divine
   Truth. Schemes of union are of small value--it is the spirit of union
   which is needed. Our Lord Jesus prayed, "that they all may be one; that
   the world may believe that You have sent Me," and His prayer cannot
   fall to the ground! The Church is one in Christ and none can tear the
   seamless vesture. Yet, more openly as the days pass on, the Lord will
   gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad
   (John 11:52).

   This gathering together will be done happily--they are to be gathered
   "as the flock in the midst of their fold." God's gathering of His
   chosen is not to a place of barrenness and misery, but to a place of
   security and quietude, even to His appointed fold! The Lord Jesus
   Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, makes us to lie down in green
   pastures. He leads us beside the still waters. He folds His flock and
   makes it to lie down in peace. He says, "Fear not, little flock; for it
   is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." He gives us
   all things richly to enjoy. O you that are wandering afar from God,
   there can be no rest for you until the Lord gathers you to the fold of
   which Jesus is the center and the Shepherd. When you come to Jesus, you
   shall find rest unto your souls, but not till then. "The peace of God
   that passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds by
   Christ Jesus," but by Christ Jesus only! Christians are not a miserable
   company of restless spirits. They are not a pack of dogs howling at one
   another and smarting under the keeper's lash--but they are a flock
   feeding in happy communion while Jesus in their midst finds for them a
   place where they may rest at noon! He so loves His own and so reveals
   Himself to His own that they are a happy people, highly favored and
   greatly honored. God has blessed them and they shall be blessed, let
   the world say what it will concerning them.

   One more note must be made on this head--they shall be gathered
   numerously--"They shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of
   men." The Lord's camp is very great. If you have taken into your head
   the idea that the Lord

   has chosen for Himself a very small company and, that in the end, there
   will be only a few saved, dismiss the notion! The redeemed are a number
   that no man can number! A man can count to a very great extent and if
   the chosen are beyond the numbering of men, they are a multitude,
   indeed! The Prophet represents them as making a great noise by reason
   of their multitude. He alludes to "the busy hum of men," the buzz of
   the crowd as when the bees are swarming. As in a city there is an
   indescribable sound by reason of the multitude who are making traffic
   in it, so shall there be a noise in the Church of a great concourse of
   men. Conceive of the noise heard at Bozrah, in the sheep country of
   Edom, when all the flocks of the country were gathered together to be
   numbered for the purposes of tribute. Listen to the indescribable noise
   of the bleating myriads! What a suggestion of the voices of the
   innumerable hosts of the redeemed when they shall finally be brought
   together and shall all, in fullest joy, lift up their voices!

   If all the gathered company were to pray together, what a sound of
   supplication would go up by reason of the multitude of men! But when
   they all sing--what a sound shall that be! Do you wonder that John
   said, "I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as
   the voice of a great thunder"? It makes my eyes water to think of the
   incomparable armies of the redeemed gathered together in one place.
   Well might the Prophet turn poet when he began to picture that
   countless flock and speak of the "great noise by reason of the
   multitude of men"! I believe we shall not, any one of us, restrain our
   voices in that day when we shall meet together with our Lord at our
   head. I saw one stand up at the opening of this service to look around
   the Tabernacle, to see the multitude--and well he might--for it is a
   thing to do one's eyes good to behold this vast assembly! But what
   shall be our joy when we shall stand up in the midst of the great
   company of the redeemed? We shall look far and wide and see no end of
   the great gathering! When they begin to sing, how will our spirits bear
   the swell of that majestic Psalmody? I know I shall find my best voice
   that day, when in the midst of the congregation of the faithful I shall
   sing praise unto the Lord my God! The "great noise by reason of the
   multitude of men" sets forth the enthusiasm of the praise and the
   immense number of the perfected ones who shall pour out their hearts
   before the Throne of God! Thus have I set before you, in a feeble way,
   the gathering of the flock.

   II. Follow me while, next, I speak of THE CHAMPION SHEPHERD clearing
   the way. "The Breaker is come up before them." In the 10th verse the
   Lord says to His people, "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest:
   because it is polluted." But we say to ourselves--How are they to
   depart from the place where they now are and press forward to the
   pastures on the hilltops of Heaven? They are as sheep. How can they
   find their way? How can they face their foes? How can they break down
   barriers? A flock is not fitted to tramp over pathless deserts infested
   by ferocious wolves. How shall the Church attain to the abodes of the
   perfected? Long leagues of distance must be traversed. Hills of guilt
   must be crossed and nights of blackest darkness must be experienced!
   Ah, Lord God! How can You expect that this, Your Church, which is like
   a flock of sheep, should find its way unto Yourself through all
   difficulties and adversaries? The answer to our fears is before
   us--"The Breaker is come up before them." That great Shepherd of the
   sheep, whose name is "The Through-Breaker," or, "The Breaker-Up," makes
   a way for His people, yes, creates it by force of arms!

   Between us and Heaven once lay the tremendous Alps of sin. Not one of
   all the flock of God could climb those hills! All must perish who
   attempt to cross those awful barriers. The way to Heaven was
   effectually blocked by these Heaven-defying mountains, for no passes
   existed--even the eagle's eyes could not discover a way. One sin might
   keep a man out of Heaven, but the multitudes of our iniquities, the
   blackness, the aggravation, the repetition of our offenses made the
   case hopeless to all human power or wisdom! I see those awful hills and
   wonder how the flock of God can hope to reach eternal bliss with those
   in the way. Behold He comes, "The Breaker," before whom the mountains
   sink! "He, Himself, bore our sins in His own body on the tree; and by
   that bearing He put them all away." He took upon Himself the whole load
   of His people's iniquities! He endured the entire weight of the
   crushing burden! And by His atoning death He cast their iniquities into
   the depths of the sea! The pass of the Atonement is our clear way to
   Glory. In the sepulcher of Jesus all our sins are buried. To as many as
   believe in Jesus Christ no sin remains--

   "This Breaker once made sin to be, Broke from the curse His people
   free. He broke the power of death and Hell, And cleared the road for
   Israel."

   "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
   shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah,
   and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve."
   The glorious Breaker, with His pierced hands, nailed feet and opened
   side, has worked a miracle of miracles by putting away sin through the
   Sacrifice of

   Himself! Jesus says, "I am the way"--and the way He is--the way which
   neither past nor present sin can effectually close. But, my Brothers
   and Sisters, if our sins were all forgiven us, there are other
   difficulties in the way, for we are without strength and the depravity
   of our nature is not readily overcome. Think of the hardness of our
   hearts, the waywardness of our wills, the blindness of our judgments,
   the readiness of our minds to yield to temptation! How can we force our
   way through such obstacles? Why, if the Lord would forgive me all my
   sin and give me Heaven on condition that I should find my way to it,
   mine would still be a hopeless case! Even the regenerate find that they
   have a hard struggle with the flesh--how can we win our way in the
   teeth of our fallen nature?

   Beloved, the Breaker has gone up before us! The Lord Jesus Christ
   assumed our Nature and was "tempted in all points like we are." He
   overcame the adversary at every point of the conflict, that through His
   victory we might be more than conquerors! He sends forth the Holy
   Spirit to renew us in the spirit of our minds. He takes the stony heart
   out of our flesh. He rules the will, He governs the affections, He
   enlightens the understanding, He sanctifies the soul! And thus, though
   weak in ourselves, we are made strong in Him--so strong that we shall
   not perish in the wilderness, but shall pursue our pilgrimage till we
   cross the Jordan and stand in our lot at the end of the days! Because
   the Breaker has gone up before us, we shall break through the ramparts
   of sinfulness and cut our way to holiness and perfection!

   Yet even though this is so, that sin is forgiven and our corrupt nature
   overcome--there is still another difficulty-- the Prince of Darkness
   has set himself to obstruct the way! He defies us to advance--he stands
   across the road and swears that he will spill our souls. By no means
   let us be afraid, for the Breaker is gone up before us and the enemy
   knows the force of His strong right hand. In the wilderness and in the
   garden, our Lord vanquished this great adversary and therein gave us
   full assurance that He will shortly bruise Satan under our feet! We
   need not fear all the devils in Hell--if, by faith, we have courage to
   resist them, they will flee from us. We shall reach the haven of our
   rest, the Heaven of our bliss. Our glorious Breaker, with the mace of
   the Cross, has broken the head of leviathan and made an open show of
   His adversaries. Thus was it spoken of our Lord at the gates of Eden
   concerning the old serpent--"You shall bruise his heel." And now, by
   His ascension to Heaven, He has done the deed, leading captivity
   captive--

   "Gone up as God's co-equal Son, With all His blood-stained garments on,
   While seraphs sing His deathless fame, And chant the Breaker's glorious
   name."

   This brings us face to face with the last enemy. Death blocks the way
   to eternal life. Be of good courage, the Breaker has also gone up
   before you in this matter! Jesus died--the Ever-Blessed bowed His head
   and yielded up the ghost. Listen yet again--He has risen from the dead!
   He slept, a while, in the cold prison of the tomb, but He could not be
   held with the bands of death and, therefore, in due time He arose! He
   arose in newness of life that all His own might also rise in Him. Come,
   be not afraid to die, for you will travel a well-beaten track! Be not
   afraid to go down into the heart of the earth, for there your Emmanuel
   has slept! Nor will He suffer you to go by this dark road alone. "He
   has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you." He will go down
   into this Egypt with you and He will surely bring you up again! The
   Breaker goes up before you.

   But can I hope I shall ever enter the gates of Heaven? Those gates of
   pearl whose mild, pure radiance chides my perturbed and guilty
   heart--can I hope to pass their portal? Can I hope to stand where all
   is absolutely perfect? I shrink in the presence of such matchless
   purity! But, Brothers and Sisters, the Breaker has gone up before us!
   He has opened the kingdom of Heaven to all Believers! It will be safe
   for us to enter where He has gone--yes, we must enter--for where He is,
   there, also, shall His servants be! He will welcome each one of us
   with, "Come in, you blessed of the Lord; why do you stand outside?"
   Down those streets of pure gold like unto transparent glass we shall
   walk without fear! And up to that blazing Throne of purest light we
   shall pass without dismay, for Jesus has gone in before us. Behold
   Him!--

   "He is at the Father's side, The Man of Love, the Crucified." The way
   into the Holiest is now made manifest. The Breaker has torn the veil
   from the top to the bottom and given us free access to Heaven, itself!

   But I must pause. Certainly my matter is not exhausted--time alone
   restrains.

   III. Lastly, I have to show you for a minute or two THE FLOCK
   ADVANCING, their royal Breaker leading the way. As the Lord Jesus, in
   His death, Resurrection and Ascension, has gone up before us, so by His
   Grace we are led to

   follow Him from Grace to Glory. "They go from strength to strength." He
   says to them, "Follow Me"--they know His voice--and as His sheep, they
   follow Him.

   Along the way which the great Champion clears, we find the whole of the
   flock proceeding. "The Breaker is come up before them," therefore they
   keep to His footprints. "They have broken up and have passed through
   the gate and are gone out by it." Behold, my Brethren, the vision of
   visions--the whole company of God's elect following their triumphant
   Leader! Do you see yonder the pillar of fire and cloud leading the way
   through the desert? Do you see the host of Israel in glorious order
   marching to their predestined inheritance? Such is the Church of God as
   it is seen by spiritual eyes! All down the centuries, in every land,
   they are marching along that appointed road which Jesus, the Breaker,
   has cleared for them. You and I, I hope, are in that goodly
   company--sometimes our following is lame and halting, but yet we are
   not turned out of the way. To whom else could we go if we were to leave
   our chosen Leader? Faint we may be, but pursuing we will be! Oh, that
   we could keep closer to the Breaker! Oh, that He would break our hearts
   with His love! Oh, that all our evil habits might be broken by His
   Grace. We would follow our King where ever He goes! Yes, we are in that
   company, I trust, and God grant we may never stray from it! No other
   road is prepared by a great Breaker as this road is prepared. This is
   the King's Highway and we will keep to it all our days.

   Observe that in the text the people of God are described as imitating
   their King, for it is written, "they have broken up." He is the Breaker
   and are they breakers, too? Yes, they also have broken up. Christ is
   the great warrior for His people, but not without conflict will any one
   of them be crowned. It is so arranged in the wisdom of God that
   everything is so done for us as not to drive us into inaction, but to
   draw us into holy diligence. Christ's warfare is repeated in His saints
   in their measure. The crown is of Grace, but we must strive for it!
   Christ has conquered sin, but we have to overcome through faith in Him.
   He has subdued the adversary, but we, also, shall have to wrestle with
   spiritual wickedness. "They have broken up." Herein is condescending
   love. Christ might have saved us and there might have been nothing for
   us to do but display His Grace, but He intends to conform us to
   Himself, in conflict and in crown, in breaking up, and in going forth
   and in entering in. He makes us know the fellowship of His sufferings!
   Come, Brothers and Sisters, let us ask God to fulfill in us the words
   of the text, "They have broken up." Let us be resolved to break down
   all sin. Let us be determined to overcome through the blood of the
   Lamb. This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith! If
   we have it, let us use it to good purpose this day.

   Notice that as these people were led on by the Breaker--they persevered
   in following Him. "They have broken up; they have passed through the
   grate and are gone out by it." They did a little at a time. They
   advanced step by step. They stopped at nothing, but went onward and
   upward. So do saints go from Grace to Grace, from faith to greater
   faith. Note the sentence--"they have broken up, they have passed
   through the gate and have gone out by it"--this looks as if they did it
   slowly but surely, gradually but grandly! So, when the Grace of God
   enters into the heart and we, the sheep of God, are made to follow Him,
   we are attentive to detail and notice each part of our obedience. You
   cannot, in Grace, any more than in anything else, do a great deal at
   once and do it effectually. I find that advance in Grace, if it is
   suppositious, can be rapid. But if it is real, it requires patience.
   Our Lord gives us line upon line, precept upon precept--here a little
   and there a little. Let us be sure, even if we are slow.

   But now I would have you dwell upon the fact that they are marching
   under royal leadership--"Their King shall pass before them." Christ is
   always at the head of His own Church. Why? Because He loves it so that
   He cannot be away from it! He is at the head of His own flock because
   He has purchased it with His own blood! He will not send an angel to
   lead His chosen, but He, Himself, will watch over the objects of His
   everlasting love. He knows the necessities of His Church to be such as
   He, and He only, can meet. Therefore, as the King, He always remains at
   their head. Brothers and Sisters, let us always reverence, honor and
   obey Him! Our active, present King must be loyally and earnestly
   served. As Breaker, He did us service. As King we must render Him
   service! Remember how the Psalmist put it to the chosen bride--"He is
   your Lord, worship Him." As a Church, we know no other Head! As the
   people of His pasture, we know no other Leader. Let us follow Him
   boldly and gladly!

   Let us give Him praise this day, yes, let us worship and adore Him, for
   He is Jehovah! He who is at our head is Lord! In Him dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily. Is it not written, "The Lord shall go
   before you"? Let us rejoice because the Lord is our King and He will
   save us! Do you ever fear that the cause of truth and righteousness
   will fail? Shake this dust off! Banish such a thought! If Jehovah leads
   the van, who shall stand against Him? If Jesus Christ, once

   the Man of Sorrows, but now the King of Kings, is to the fore, He will
   reckon with our adversaries and make short work of their boasts!
   Therefore, follow quietly and unquestioningly as sheep follow the
   shepherd, and your way shall be prosperous. The Lord of Hosts is with
   us, the God of Jacob is our refuge--therefore comfort one another with
   these words.

   I cannot express the joy I feel in the belief that I am one of the
   company which is following the Breaker's lead! But my sorrow is that
   some of you are not of His flock. Oh, that you may belong to those of
   whom He says, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: they,
   also, I must bring." Oh, that He may bring you in speedily! Do you feel
   a desire towards Christ this morning? Have you any longings to be
   reconciled to God by Him? Then you may freely come with the confident
   assurance that he who comes to Him, He will in no wise cast out! He
   invites you to His Cross, yes, to Himself! Obey the gentle impulse
   which is now stirring your bosom. Jesus has come on purpose to seek and
   to save the lost--you are lost--therefore pray that He may save you.

   Should the enemy of all good tell you that if you should believe, yet
   you would never hold out to the end, remind him that the Breaker has
   gone up before His people and their King at the head of them and,
   therefore, you are not afraid of meeting anything upon the road which
   can beat you back from hope and Heaven! Join the army which marches
   under our victorious Joshua--and through sin, and Hell, and death the
   Breaker will clear your way! To Him be praise forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus Declining the Legions

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 27, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall
   presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how, then,
   shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Matthew
   26:53, 54.

   IT is the garden of Gethsemane. Here stands our Lord and yonder is the
   betrayer. He is foremost of the multitude. You know his face, the face
   of that son of perdition, even Judas Iscariot. He comes forward,
   leaving the men with the staves, the swords, the torches and lanterns.
   He proceeds to kiss his Master--it is the token by which the officers
   are to know their victim. You perceive at once that the disciples are
   excited. One of them cries, "Lord, shall we smite with the sword?"
   Their love to their Master has overcome their prudence! There are but
   11 of them--a small band to fight against the mob sent by the
   authorities to arrest their Master--but love makes no reckoning of
   odds. Before an answer can be given, Peter has struck the first blow
   and the servant of the High Priest has narrowly escaped having his head
   split in two! As it is, his ear is cut off.

   One is not altogether surprised at Peter's act, for, in addition to his
   headlong zeal, he had most likely misunderstood the saying of his Lord
   at supper--"He that has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy
   one." There was not time for our Lord to explain, but they were so
   accustomed to his concrete style of speech that they should not have
   misunderstood Him, but they did so. He had simply told them that the
   days of peace, in which they could go in and out among the people and
   be joyfully received by them, had now come to an end, for, as He,
   Himself, who had once been in favor with all the people, would now be
   "reckoned among the transgressors," (see Luke 22:35-38), so would they
   be counted among the offscouring of all things. Now they could no
   longer reckon on the hospitality of a friendly people, but must carry
   their own purse and scrip. And instead of feeling safe wherever they
   went, they must understand that they were in an enemy's country and
   must travel through the world like men armed for self-defense.

   They were now to use their own substance and not to hope for cheerful
   entertainment among a grateful people. And they would need to be on
   their guard against those who, in killing them, would think that they
   were doing God a service. They took His language literally and,
   therefore, replied, "Lord, behold, here are two swords." I think He
   must have smiled sadly at their blunder as He answered, "It is enough."
   He could never have thought of their fighting that He might not be
   delivered unto the Jews, since for that purpose two swords were simply
   ridiculous! They had missed His meaning, which was simply to warn them
   of the changed circumstances of His cause--but they caught at the words
   which He had used and exhibited their two swords.

   Possibly, as some have supposed, these were two long sacrificial knives
   with which they had killed the Paschal lamb, but, indeed, the wearing
   of weapons is much more general in the East than with us. Our Lord's
   disciples were largely Galileans and as the Galileans were more of a
   fighting sort than other Jews, the wearing of swords was probably very
   general among them. Nevertheless, two of the Apostles had swords--not
   that they were fighting men--but probably because it was the fashion of
   their country and they had thought it necessary to wear them when
   passing through a dangerous district. At any rate, Peter had a sword
   and instantly used it. He smites the first man he could reach! I wonder
   he had not struck Judas--one might have excused him if he had--but it
   is a servant of the High Priest who bears the blow and loses his ear.

   Then the Savior comes forward in all His gentleness, as self-possessed
   as when He was at supper, as calm as if He had not already passed
   through an agony. Quietly He says, "Suffer it to be so now." He touches
   the ear and heals it--and in the lull which followed, when even the men
   that came to seize Him were spell-bound by this wondrous miracle of

   mercy--He propounds the great Truth of God that they that take the
   sword shall perish with the sword! And He bids Peter put away his
   weapon. Then He utters these memorable words--"Do you think that I
   cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than
   twelve legions of angels? But how, then, shall the Scriptures be
   fulfilled, that thus it must be?" And He also said what John alone
   appears to have heard--"The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I
   not drink it?" (John 18:11).

   The wound of Malchus served a gracious purpose, for it enabled our Lord
   to work a new miracle, the likes of which He had never worked before,
   namely, the restoration of a member maimed or cut off by violence. The
   blunder of the Apostles was also overruled to answer a very instructive
   purpose. You wonder that the Lord should, even in appearance, encourage
   His disciples to have swords and then forbid them to use them. Follow
   me in a thought which is clear to my own mind. For a man to abstain
   from using force when he has none to use is no great virtue--it reminds
   one of the lines of Cowper's ballad--

   "Stooping down, as needs he must Who cannot sit upright."

   But for a man to have force ready to his hand and then to abstain from
   using it is a case of self-restraint and possibly of self-sacrifice of
   a far nobler kind! Our Savior had His sword at His side that night,
   though He did not use it. "What?" you ask, "how can that be true?" Our
   Lord says, "Can I not now pray to My Father, and He will give Me twelve
   legions of angels?" Our Lord had thus the means of
   self-defense--something far more powerful than a sword hung at His
   belt-- but He refused to employ the power within His reach.

   His servants could not bear this test. They had no self-restraint--the
   hand of Peter is on his sword at once. The failure of the servants in
   this matter seems to me to illustrate the grand self-possession of
   their Master. "Alas," He seems to say, "you cannot be trusted even with
   swords, much less could you be entrusted with greater forces. If you
   had the angelic bands at your command, down they would come streaming
   from the sky to execute works of vengeance and so mar My great
   life-work of love." Brothers and Sisters, we are better without swords
   and other forms of force than with them, for we have not yet learned,
   like our Lord, to control ourselves! Admire the glorious self-restraint
   of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, armed not with a sword but with the
   embattled hosts of "helmed cherubim and sworded seraphim," yet refused
   even by a prayer to bring them down to His relief! Peter's passionate
   use of the sword illustrates the happy self-control of His Lord and
   this is the use of the incident.

   Let us now proceed to learn from the Words of the Lord Jesus which we
   have selected as our text.

   I. First, Brothers and Sisters, I would have you notice from the text
   OUR LORD'S GRAND RESOURCE. "Do you think that I cannot now pray to My
   Father?" Our Lord is surrounded by His adversaries and there are none
   about Him powerful enough to defend Him from their malice--what can He
   do? He says, "I can pray to My Father." This is our Lord's continual
   resource in the time of danger! Yes, even in that time of which He
   said, "This is your hour and the power of darkness." He can even now
   pray to His Father.

   First, Jesus had no possessions on earth, but He had a Father. I
   rejoice in His saying, "Do you think that I cannot now pray to My
   Father?" He is a betrayed Man. He is given up into the hands of those
   who thirst for His blood, but He has an Almighty and Divine Father. If
   our Lord had merely meant to say that God could deliver Him, He might
   have said, "Do you think not that I can pray to Jehovah?" Or, "to God?"
   But He uses the sweet expression, "My Father," both here and in that
   text in John, where He says, "The cup which My Father has given Me,
   shall I not drink it?" O Brothers and Sisters, remember that we have a
   Father in Heaven! When all is gone and spent, we can say, "Our Father."

   Relatives are dead, but our Father lives! Supposed friends have left
   us, even as the swallows quit in our wintry weather, but we are not
   alone, for the Father is with us! Cling to that blessed text, "I will
   not leave you orphans; I will come unto you." In every moment of
   distress, anxiety, perplexity, we have a Father in whose wisdom, truth
   and power we can rely! Your dear children do not trouble themselves
   much, do they--if they have a need, they go to father. If they are
   puzzled, they ask father. If they are ill-treated, they appeal to
   father. If but a thorn is in their finger, they run to mother for
   relief. Be it little or great, the child's sorrow is the parent's care!
   This makes a child's life easy--it would make ours easy if we would but
   act as children towards God. Let us imitate the Elder Brother and when
   we, too, are in our Geth-semane, let us, as He did, continue to cry,
   "My Father, My Father." This is a better defense than shield or sword!

   Our Lord's resource was to approach His Father with prevailing prayer.
   "Can I not, now, pray to My Father?" Our Lord Jesus could use that
   marvelous weapon of All-Prayer which is shield, sword, spear, helmet
   and breast-plate, all in one. When you can do nothing else, you can
   pray. If you can do many things besides, it will still be your wisdom
   to say, "Let us pray!" But I think I hear you object that our Lord had
   been praying and yet His griefs were not removed. He had prayed Himself
   into a bloody sweat with prayer and yet He was left unprotected, to
   fall into His enemies' hands. This is true and yet it is not all the
   truth, for He had been strengthened--and power for deliverance was at
   His disposal. He had only to press His suit to be rescued at once! The
   Greek word here is not the same word which would set forth ordinary
   prayer--the Revised Version puts it, "Do you think that I cannot
   beseech My Father?" We make a great mistake if we throw all prayer into
   one category and think that every form of true prayer is alike. We may
   pray and plead and even do this with extreme earnestness--and yet we
   may not use that mode of beseeching which would surely bring the
   blessing.

   Up to now our Lord had prayed and prayed intensely, too, but there was
   yet a higher form of prayer to which He might have mounted if it had
   been proper to do so. He could have besought so that the Father must
   have answered, but He would not. O Brothers and Sisters, you have
   prayed a great deal, perhaps, about your trouble, but there is a
   reserve force of beseeching in you yet--by the aid of the Spirit of God
   you may pray after a higher and more prevailing rate! This is a far
   better weapon than a sword. I was speaking to a Brother, yesterday,
   about a prayer which my Lord had remarkably answered in my own case and
   I could not help saying to him, "But I cannot always pray in that
   fashion. Not only can I not so pray, but I would not dare to do so even
   if I could."

   Moved by the Spirit of God, we sometimes pray with a power of faith
   which can never fail at the Mercy Seat--but without such an impulse we
   must not push our own wills to the front. There are many occasions upon
   which, if one had all the faith which could move mountains, he would
   most wisely show it by saying nothing beyond, "Nevertheless not as I
   will, but as You will." Had our Lord chosen to do so, He still had in
   reserve a prayer power which would have effectually saved Him from His
   enemies. He did not think it right to use it-- but He could have done
   so had He pleased.

   Notice that our Lord, felt that He could even, then, pray. Matters had
   not gone too far for prayer. When can they do so? The word, "now,"
   practically occurs twice in our version, for we get it first as, "now,"
   and then as, "presently." It occurs only once in the original, but as
   its exact position in the verse cannot easily be decided. Our
   translators, with a singular wisdom, have placed it in both the former
   and the latter part of the sentence. Our Savior certainly meant--"I
   have come, now, to extremities. The people are far away whose favor
   formerly protected Me from the Pharisees and I am about to be seized by
   armed men. But even now I can pray to My Father." Prayer is an always
   open door. There is no predicament in which we cannot pray. If we
   follow the Lamb where ever He goes, we can now pray effectually unto
   our Father, even as He could have done.

   Do I hear you say, "The fatal hour is near"? You may now pray. "But the
   danger is imminent!" You may now pray. If, like Jonah, you are now at
   the bottom of the mountains and the weeds are wrapped about your head,
   you may even now pray! Prayer is a weapon that is usable in every
   position in the hour of conflict. The Greeks had long spears and these
   were of grand service to the troops so long as the rank was not broken.
   The Romans used a short sword and that was a far more effectual weapon
   at close quarters. Prayer is both the long spear and the short sword.
   Yes, Brothers and Sisters, you may even pray between the jaws of the
   lion! We glory in our blessed Master, that He knew in fullness of faith
   that if He would bring forth His full power of prayer, He could set all
   Heaven on the wing. As soon as His beseeching prayer had reached the
   Father's ear, immediately, like flames of fire, angels would flash
   death upon His adversaries!

   Our Lord's resort was not to the carnal weapon, but to the mighty
   engine of supplication. Behold, my Brethren, where our grand resort
   must always be. Look not to the arm of flesh, but to the Lord our God!
   Church of God, look not piteously to the State, but fly to the Mercy
   Seat! Church of God, look not to the ministry, but resort to the Throne
   of Grace! Church of God, depend not upon learned or moneyed men, but
   beseech God in supplicating faith! Prayer is the tower of David built
   for an armory. Prayer is our battle-axe and weapons of war. We say to
   our antagonist--"Do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father." Let
   this suffice to display our Savior's grand resource in the night of His
   direst distress.

   II. Secondly, let me invite your attention to OUR LORD'S UNDIMINISHED
   POWER IN HEAVEN at the time

   when He seemed to have no power on earth. He says, when about to be
   bound and taken away to Caiaphas, "I can presently call down 12 legions
   of angels from the skies." He had influence in Heaven with the Father,
   the great Lord of an-

   gels. He could have of the Father all that the Father possessed! Heaven
   would be emptied, if necessary, to satisfy the wish of the Beloved Son.
   The Man Christ Jesus who is about to be hung upon the Cross has such
   power with the Father that He has but to ask and to have. The Father
   would answer Him at once--"He shall presently send Me 12 legions of
   angels." There would be no delay, no hesitation. The Father was ready
   to help Him, waiting to deliver Him. All Heaven was concerned about
   Him. All the angelic bands were waiting on the wing and Jesus had but
   to express the desire and instantly the garden of Gethsemane would have
   been as populous with shining ones as the New Jerusalem itself!

   Our Lord speaks of angels that His Father would give Him, or send Him.
   We may interpret it that the Father would at once put at His disposal
   the glorious inhabitants of Heaven. Think of seraphs at the disposal of
   the Man of Sorrows! He is despised and rejected of men and yet angels
   that excel in strength are at His beck and call! Swift of wing, quick
   of hand and wise of thought, they are charmed to be the messengers of
   the Son of Man, the servitors of Jesus. Think of this, Beloved, when
   you bow before the thorn-crowned head and when you gaze upon the nailed
   hands and feet! Remember that angels and principalities and powers--and
   all the ranks of pure spirits by whatever name they are named--were all
   at the beck and call of Jesus when He was newly risen from His agony
   and was about to be led away bound to the High Priest! He is our Lord
   and God--even at His lowest and weakest!

   Jesus speaks of "twelve legions." I suppose He mentions the number, 12,
   as a legion for each one of the eleven disciples and for Himself. They
   were only twelve and yet the innumerable hosts of Heaven would make
   forced marches for their rescue. A legion in the Roman army was 6,000
   men at the very lowest. Twelve times 6,000 angels would come in answer
   to a wish from Jesus! No, He says, "more" than 12 legions! There can be
   no limit to the available resources of the Christ of God. Thousands of
   thousands would fill the air if Jesus willed it! The band that Judas
   led would be an insignificant squad to be swallowed up at once if the
   Savior would but summon His allies. Behold, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   the glory of our betrayed and arrested Lord! If He was such, then, what
   is He, now, when all power is given Him of His Father? Bear in your
   minds the clear idea that Jesus in His humiliation, was, nevertheless,
   Lord of all things--and especially of the unseen world and of the
   armies which people it. The more clearly you perceive this, the more
   will you admire the all-conquering, all-abjuring love which took Him to
   the death of the Cross.

   Tarry here just a minute to remember that the angels are also,
   according to your measure and degree, at your call. You have but to
   pray to God and angels shall bear you up in their hands lest you dash
   your foot against a stone. We do not think enough of these heavenly
   beings, yet they are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to
   those that are heirs of salvation! Like Elijah's servant, if your eyes
   were opened you would see the mountain full of horses of fire and
   chariots of fire round about the servants of God. Let us learn from our
   Master to reckon upon invisible forces! Let us not trust in that which
   is seen of the eyes and heard of the ears, but let us have respect to
   spiritual agencies which evade the senses, but are known to faith.
   Angels play a far greater part in the affairs of Providence than we
   know. God can raise us up friends on earth, but if He does not do so,
   He can find us abler friends in Heaven! There is no need to pluck out
   the sword with which to cut off men's ears--infinitely better agencies
   will work for us! Have faith in God and all things shall work for your
   good. The angels of God think it an honor and a delight to protect the
   least of His children.

   III. But I cannot linger, although I feel a great temptation to do so.
   My text is full of teaching, but a main point is the third one--OUR
   LORD'S PERFECT WILLINGNESS IN SUFFERING. I hope I have already brought
   that before you. Our Lord would be betrayed into the hands of
   sinners--and He would go with them willingly. He had not shunned the
   garden though Judas knew the place. No part of our Lord's sufferings
   came upon Him by the necessity of His Nature. Neither as God nor as
   sinless Man was He bound to suffer. There was no necessity that Christ
   should endure any of the inflictions laid upon Him, except the
   necessity of His fulfilling the Scriptures and performing the work of
   mercy which He came to do. He must die because He became the great
   Sacrifice for sin. But apart from that, no necessity of death was on
   Him. They scourged Him, but they could not have lifted the whip if He
   had not permitted it. He thirsted on the cruel tree, but all the
   springs of water in the world He makes and fills and, therefore, He
   needed not to have thirsted if He had not chosen to submit thereto!
   When He died, He did not die through the failure of His natural
   strength--He died because He had surrendered Himself to death as our
   great Propitiation. Even in His expiring moment, our Lord cried with a
   loud voice, to show that His life was still in Him. He "gave up the
   ghost," freely parting with a life which He might have retained. He
   voluntarily surrendered His spirit to God. It was not snatched from Him
   by a force superior to His own will--He willingly bore our sins and
   willingly died as our Substitute. Let us love and bless the willing
   Sufferer!

   Indeed, our Lord was not merely submissive to the Divine will, but, if
   I may use words in a paradoxical manner, I would say that He was
   actively submissive. A single prayer would have brought our Lord
   deliverance from His enemies-- but He exercised force upon Himself and
   held in His natural impulse to beseech the Father. He held in abeyance
   that noblest of spiritual gifts, that choicest of all forms of
   power--the power of prayer. One would have thought that a good man
   might always exercise prayer to the fullest of his ability, and yet
   Jesus laid His hand upon His prayer power as if it had been a sword and
   put it back into its sheath. "He saved others, Himself He could not
   save." He prayed for others, but, in this instance, for Himself He
   would not pray as He might have done. He would do nothing, even though
   it were to pray a prayer which even in the slightest degree would
   oppose the will of the Father! He was so perfectly submissive, yes, so
   eager to accomplish our salvation, that He would not pray to avoid the
   cruelty of His enemies and the bitterness of death! He sees it is the
   Father's will and, therefore, He will not have a wish in opposition to
   it. "The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?"
   Remember that He needed not to commit any wrong thing to prevent His
   being taken and slain--a good thing, namely, a prayer, would do it! But
   He will not pray--He has undertaken the work of Redemption and He must
   and will go through with it! He has such a desire for your salvation
   and for mine, such a thirst to honor and glorify His Father in the work
   which He had engaged to do, that He will not even prevent His
   sufferings by a prayer!

   Wonderful is that question, "How, then, shall the Scriptures be
   fulfilled?" It is as much as to say, "Who else can drink this cup? Who
   else can tread the winepress of Almighty wrath? No, I must do it. I
   cannot lay this load upon any other shoulders." Therefore, for the joy
   that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame. He
   was willing, yes, willing from beginning to end, to be our suffering
   Savior! He was willing to be born at Bethlehem, to work at Nazareth, to
   be mocked at Jerusalem and, at last, to die at Calvary! At any one
   point He could have drawn back. No constraint was upon Him but that of
   a love stronger than death.

   I want you, dear Hearers, to draw the inference that Jesus is willing
   to save. A willing Sufferer must be a willing Savior. If He willingly
   died, He must, with equal willingness, be ready to give to us the fruit
   of His death! If any of you would have Jesus, you may surely have Him
   at once! He freely delivered Himself up for us all. If He was so
   willing to become a Sacrifice, how willing must He be that the glorious
   result of His sacrifice should be shared in by you and by all who come
   to God by Him! If there is unwillingness anywhere, you are unwilling.
   He rejoices to be gracious. I wish the charm of this Truth of God would
   affect your heart as it does mine. I love Him greatly because I see
   that at any moment He might have drawn back from redeeming me--and yet
   He would not. A single prayer would have set Him free, but He would not
   pray it, for He loved us so!--

   "This was compassion like a God That when the Savior knew The price of
   pardon was His blood, His pity never withdrew."

   Do not grieve Him by thinking that He is unwilling to forgive, that He
   is unwilling to receive a sinner such as you! Has He not said, "He that
   comes to Me I will in no wise cast out"? You will delight Him if you
   come to Him, whoever you may be. If you will but draw near to Him by
   simple trust, He will see in you the purchase of His agony--and all the
   merit of His death shall flow out freely to you. Come and welcome,
   Sinner, come!

   IV. Now I must lead you, with great brevity, to notice OUR LORD'S GREAT
   RESPECT FOR HOLY SCRIPTURE. He can have 12 legions of angels, but,
   "how, then, shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"

   Notice, that our Lord believed in the Divinity of Scripture. He says,
   "How, then, shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?" But if the Scriptures
   are only the writings of men, there is no necessity that they should be
   fulfilled! If they are merely the fallible utterances of good men, I
   see no particular necessity that they should be fulfilled. Our Lord
   Jesus Christ insisted upon it that the Scriptures must be
   fulfilled--and the reason was that they are not the word of man, but
   the Word of God! The Scriptures were evidently the Word of God to our
   Lord Jesus Christ. He never trifles with them, nor differs from them,
   nor predicts that they will vanish. It is He that says, "Think not that
   I have come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I have not come to
   destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and
   earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
   Law till all is fulfilled."

   He believed in the Divine origin of the Scriptures and also in their
   infallibility. "How, then, shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus
   it must be?" He does not hint that the Scriptures might be a little
   mistaken. He does not argue, "I will

   bring the 12 legions of angels down to deliver Myself and it is no
   matter to Me that then the Scriptures will be made void." Oh, no! The
   Scriptures must be true and they must be fulfilled and, therefore, He
   must be betrayed into the hands of men! He settles it as a matter of
   necessity that Scripture must infallibly be verified, even to its jots
   and tittles.

   See, Brothers and Sisters, the priceless worth of Scripture in the
   estimation of our Lord. In effect He says, "I will die rather than any
   Scripture shall be unfulfilled. I will go to the Cross rather than any
   one Word of God should not be carried out." The Prophet Zechariah has
   written, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man that
   is My Fellow, says the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep
   shall be scattered abroad." The fulfillment of that prophecy fell due
   that night and the Son of God was prepared to be smitten as the
   Shepherd of the sheep, rather than the Word of the Father should fall
   to the ground. Skin for skin, yes--all that a man has will he give for
   his life--and Jesus would give His life for the Scriptures! Brethren,
   it were worth while for the whole Church to die rather than any Truth
   of Scripture should be given up! Let all our thousands be consumed upon
   the altar as one great holocaust sooner than the Scriptures should be
   dishonored The Word of the Lord must live and prevail whether we die or
   not. Our Lord teaches us to prize it beyond liberty or life.

   The force of our Lord's language goes further. Let me repeat the words
   and then enlarge upon them. "How, then, shall the Scriptures be
   fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Holy Scripture is the transcript of
   the secret decree of God. We do not believe in fate--a blind, hard
   thing. We believe in predestination--the settled purpose of a wise and
   loving Father. The Book of Fate is cruel reading, but the book of
   Divine Fore-ordination is full of charming sentences and those lines
   out of it which are written in the Scriptures we joyfully choose to
   have fulfilled. It is the will of our Father who is in Heaven which
   settles the things which must be and, because of this, we cheerfully
   yield ourselves up to predestination. Once being assured that God has
   appointed it, we have no struggles, no, we will not even breathe a wish
   to have the matter otherwise! Let the will of the Father be the supreme
   Law. It ought to be so.

   We find a depth of comfort in saying, "It is the Lord, let Him do what
   seems good to Him." Now, the prophecies of Scripture were to the Lord
   Christ the Revelation of the predestination of God so that it must
   be--and He cheerfully, joyfully, even without a prayer against it,
   gives Himself up at once to that which must be because God has
   appointed it. If any of you do not believe in the predestination of
   God, you will, probably, in some hour of depression, ascribe your
   sorrows to a cruel fate. The human mind, somehow or other, is driven,
   at last, to this decision, that some things are beyond the control of
   man and of his will and that these are fixed by necessity. How much
   better to see that God has fixed them! There is the wheel revolving
   surely and unalterably--would it not comfort you to believe that it is
   full of eyes and that it is moving according to the settled purpose of
   the Lord? That man who says, "It is my Father's will" is the happy man!
   Predestination is as sure and as certain as fate, but there is at the
   back of it a living and loving Personality, ordering all things. To
   this we cheerfully yield ourselves.

   Beloved, let us value Scripture as much as Christ did! I was going to
   say, let us value it even more, for if our Lord valued unfulfilled
   Scripture--which was but a shell till He became its kernel--how much
   more should we value it, to whom the Scriptures are fulfilled, in a
   large degree, because the Christ has suffered and has done even as it
   was written of Him by the Prophets of God!

   Time flies so quickly that I must pass on. You perceive that I have a
   pregnant text--it is full of living instruction to those who desire to
   learn. God help us to receive with joy all its holy teaching!

   V. But I must come to the last point. We will consider OUR LORD'S
   LESSONS TO EACH ONE OF US in this text. The first lesson is
   this--Desire no other forces for God's work than God, Himself, ordains
   to use. Do not desire that the Government should come to your rescue to
   support your Church. Do not desire that the charms of eloquence should
   be given to ministers, that they may, therefore, command listening ears
   and so maintain the faith by the wisdom of words. Do not ask that
   learning and rank and prestige may come upon the side of Christianity
   and so religion may become respectable and influential. Means that God
   has not chosen to use should not be looked upon by us with covetous
   eyes. Has He not said, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,
   says the Lord of Hosts"? Jesus has all those squadrons of angels at His
   disposal--do you wish that He would use them? What a glorious vision is
   before us as we see their serried ranks and mark their glittering
   splendor! But Jesus bids them stand still and see the salvation of God
   worked out without their interposition!

   He has not put the new world in subjection to them. They must not
   meddle with the redemption of men. The conflict for truth is to be a
   spiritual battle between man and the serpent--nothing but spiritual
   force is to be employed--and that not by angels, but by men! Man must
   overcome sin by spiritual means only. Put up the sword, Peter! Jesus
   does not need its keen edge. Keep your swords in your sheaths, you
   seraphim! Jesus does not need even your blades of celestial temper. His
   weakness has done more than human or angelic strength! His suffering
   and death have done the deed which all the hierarchy of angels could
   never have accomplished! The Truth of God is to win the fight. The
   Spirit is to subdue the powers of evil. Brothers and Sisters, do not
   ask anybody else to interfere. Let us have this fight out on the ground
   which God has chosen. Let us know that God is Omnipotent in the realm
   of mind and that by His truth and Spirit He will overcome! He holds
   back all forces other than those of argument, persuasion and
   enlightenment by His Spirit--do not let us even wish to put our hands
   to any force other than what He ordains to use.

   And, next, take care that when other forces are within reach, you do
   not use them for the promotion of the heavenly Kingdom. When you are in
   argument for the Truth of God, do not grow angry, for this would be to
   fight the Lord's battles with the devil's weapons. Do not wish to
   oppress a person whose views are erroneous or even blasphemous. The use
   of bribes for the propagation of opinions is evil and the refusal of
   charities to those who differ from us in sentiment is detestable! Let
   no threat escape your lips, nor bribe pollute your hands. It is not
   thus that the battles of the Truths of God are to be fought! If you
   ever feel inclined to shut a man's mouth by wishing him banishment, or
   sickness, or any sort of ill, be grieved with yourself that so
   unchristly a thought should have entered your head! Desire only good
   for the most perverse of men. Fighting for Christ would be wounding Him
   sorely. The French king heard of the cruelties perpetrated upon our
   Lord and he exclaimed, "Oh, if I had been there with a troop of my
   guards, I would have cut the villains in pieces!"

   Yes, but Jesus did not need the King of France nor his guards--He came
   not to destroy men's lives, but to save them! The Lord Jesus desires
   you, my Brothers and Sisters, to fight for Him by your faith, by your
   holy life, by your confidence in the Truth of God, by your reliance
   upon the Spirit of God! Whenever your hands begin to itch for the
   sword, then may you hear Him say, "Put up your sword into its sheath."
   He will conquer by love and by love, alone! If at this present moment I
   could take this Church and endow it with all the wealth of the
   Establishment and gather into its midst all the wisdom and talent and
   eloquence which now adorns society. And if I could do this by one
   single prayer, I would long hesitate to offer the petition. These might
   prove idols and provoke the living God to jealousy! Infinitely better
   for us to be poor and weak and devoid of that which is highly esteemed
   among men! And then to be baptized into the Holy Spirit, rather than to
   become strong and be left of our God. We shall war this warfare with no
   unsanctified weapons, with no instrument other than God appoints!
   Speaking the Truth in the power of the Spirit of God, we are not afraid
   of the result. Surely this is what Christ means--"I could pray to My
   Father and receive at once a bodyguard of angels, but I will do nothing
   of the kind, for by other means than these must My Kingdom come."

   And the next lesson is--Never attempt to escape suffering at the
   expense of the Truth of God--"How, then, shall the Scriptures be
   fulfilled?" Christ says, "I can escape being taken, bound and made a
   felon of--but then how are the Scriptures to be fulfilled?" Would you
   like to be, throughout life, screened from all affliction? I think I
   hear a great many say, "I would." Would you? Would you be always free
   from sickness, poverty, care, bereavement, slander, persecution? How,
   then, could that Word of God be true, "I have chosen you in the furnace
   of affliction"! What would that text mean, "What son is he whom the
   Father chastens not"? Jesus said, "Except a man take up his cross and
   follow Me, he cannot be My disciple." Are you to be an exception to the
   rule? Oh, do not kick against suffering, for in so doing you may be
   fighting against God! When Peter drew his sword, he was unconsciously
   fighting to prevent our redemption! When we struggle against
   tribulation or persecution, we may be warring against untold benefit.
   Do you desire to ride through the world like princes? Do not desire
   such a dangerous fate, for how, then, could the Scriptures be
   fulfilled, that the disciple is not above his Lord? Bow your spirit
   before the majesty of Scripture and patiently endure all things for the
   elect's sake.

   Again, never tremble when force is on the wrong side. You see they are
   coming--Pharisees and priests and the posse comitatus sent by the
   authorities to arrest the Savior--but He is not afraid. Why should He
   be? He could command 12 legions of angels to beat off the foe! The man
   who knows he has a reserve behind him may walk into an ambush without
   fear. The multitude think that there stands before them a mere Man--a
   feeble Man, strangely red as with bloody sweat. Ah, they know neither
   Him nor His Father! Let Him give a whistle and from behind the olives
   of the grove--and from

   the walls of the garden and from every stone of the Mount of Olives
   would spring up warriors mightier than those of Caesar--valiant ones,
   before whom armies would be consumed! One of these angels of God slew
   of Sennacherib's army, 185,000 men in a single night! Another smote all
   the first-born of Egypt! Think, then, what more than 12 legions of them
   could accomplish!

   Brothers and Sisters, all these holy, heavenly beings are on our side!
   "Oh, but there are so many against us!" Yes I know there are, but more
   are they that are for us! All the myriads of Heaven are our allies. See
   you not the legions waiting for the summons? Who wants to give the word
   of command till our great Commander-in-Chief decides that the hour is
   come? Let us patiently wait till He shall descend from Heaven with a
   shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God! Then
   will the reserves pour forth from Heaven's gate and all the holy angels
   shall swell the pomp of the great appearing! Till that moment, wait! In
   your patience possess your souls! The Lord Jesus waited. His angels
   waited. His Father waited. They are all still waiting! Heaven's
   long-suffering still runs like a silver thread through the centuries.
   Jesus will come with His angels in all the Glory of the Father, but
   dream not that He must come tomorrow or else be charged with being
   slack concerning His promise. Desire that He may come in your lifetime
   and look for Him, but if He tarries, be not dismayed.

   If He tarries for another century do not be weary. If another thousand
   years should intervene between us and the bright millennial day, yet
   stand fast, each man, in his place, fearing nothing, but setting up
   your banners in the name of the Lord. "The Lord of Hosts is with us,
   the God of Jacob is our refuge." We have no lack of strength, it is
   only that God wills that it be not put forth and that our weakness for
   the present should be the instrument of His most majestic conquests.
   Lord, we are content to trust in You and wait patiently for You, but
   leave us not, we beseech You. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

On the Cross After Death

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 3, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Jews therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the
   bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath (for that
   Sabbath day was a high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be
   broken, and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and
   broke the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with
   Him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already they
   did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a
   spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen
   has testified, and his record is true; and he knows that he is telling
   the truth, so that you may believe. For these things were done that the
   Scripture should be fulfilled, 'Not one of His bones of Him shall be
   broken.' And again another Scripture says, 'They shall look on Him whom
   they pierced.'" John 19:31-37.

   CRIMINALS who were crucified by the Romans were allowed to rot upon the
   cross. That cruel nation can hardly be so severely condemned as our own
   people who, up to a late period, allowed the bodies of those condemned
   to die to hang in chains upon gallows in conspicuous places. The
   horrible practice is now abandoned, but it was retained to a time
   almost, if not quite, within living memory. I wonder whether any aged
   person here remembers such a horrible spectacle. Among the Romans it
   was usual, for there are classical allusions to this horror showing the
   bodies of persons crucified were usually left to be devoured by
   ravenous birds. Probably out of deference to the customs of the Jews,
   the authorities in Palestine would, sooner or later, allow of the
   interment of the crucified, but they would by no means hasten it, since
   they would not feel such a disgust at the sight as an Israelite would.

   The Mosaic Law, which you will find in the Book of Deuteronomy, runs as
   follows--"If you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all
   night upon the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day" (21:22,
   23). This alone would lead the Jews to desire the burial of the
   executed, but there was a further reason. Lest the land should be
   defiled upon the holy Sabbath of the Passover, the chief priests were
   importunate that the bodies of the crucified should be buried and,
   therefore, that their deaths should be hastened by the breaking of
   their legs. Their consciences were not wounded by the murder of Jesus,
   but they were greatly moved by the fear of ceremonial pollution!
   Religious scruples may live in a dead conscience. Alas, this is not the
   only proof of that fact--we could find many in our own day!

   The Jews hurried to Pilate and sought, as a blessing, the merciless act
   of having the legs of the crucified dashed to pieces with an iron bar.
   That act was sometimes performed upon the condemned as an additional
   punishment--but in this instance it was meant to be a finishing
   stroke--hastening death by the terrible pain which it would cause and
   the shock to the system which it would occasion. Ferocious hate of our
   Lord made His enemies forgetful of everything like humanity--doubtless
   the more of pain and shame which they could cause to Him, the better
   would they be pleased. Not, however, out of cruelty, but out of regard
   to the ceremonials of their religion, they, "besought Pilate that their
   legs might be broken and that they might be taken away." I have already
   told you that this breaking of the bones of the crucified was a Roman
   custom. We have evidence of this, since there is a Latin word,
   crucifragium, to express this barbarous act. Pilate had no hesitation
   in granting the desire of the Jews--what would he care about the dead
   body since he had already delivered up the living Man?

   Soldiers go at once to perform the hideous operation and they commence
   with the two malefactors. It is a striking fact that the penitent
   thief, although he was to be in Paradise with his Lord that day, was
   not, therefore, delivered from the excruciating agony occasioned by the
   breaking of his legs. We are saved from eternal misery, not from
   temporary pain!

   Our Savior, by our salvation, gives no pledge to us that we shall be
   screened from suffering in this life. It is true, as the Proverb has
   it, "All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous
   and to the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean." Accidents and
   diseases afflict the godly as well as the ungodly. Penitent or
   impenitent, we share the common lot of men and are born to troubles as
   the sparks fly upward. You must not expect, because you are pardoned,
   even if you have the assurance of it from Christ's own lips, that,
   therefore, you shall escape tribulation! No, but from His gracious
   mouth you have the forewarning assurance that trial shall befall you,
   for Jesus said, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me you
   might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation." Suffering
   is not averted, but it is turned into a blessing! The penitent thief
   entered Paradise that very day, but it was not without suffering. Say,
   rather, that the terrible stroke was the actual means of the prompt
   fulfillment of his Lord's promise to him! By that blow, he died that
   day, otherwise he might have lingered long. How much we may, any of us,
   receive by the way of suffering it were hard to guess--perhaps the
   promise that we shall be with our Lord in Paradise will be fulfilled
   that way.

   At this point it seemed more than probable that our blessed Lord must
   undergo the breaking of His bones, but "He was dead already." It had
   pleased Him, in the infinite willingness with which He went to His
   Sacrifice, to yield up His life and His spirit had, therefore,
   departed. Yet one might have feared that the coarse soldiers would have
   performed their orders to the letter. Look, they do not! Had they
   conceived a dread of One around whom such prodigies had gathered? Were
   they, like their centurion, impressed with awe of this remarkable
   Person? At any rate, perceiving that He was dead already, they did not
   use their hammer. Happy are we to see them cease from such loathsome
   brutality. But we may not be too glad, for another outrage will take
   its place! To make sure that He was dead, one of the four soldiers
   pierced His side with a spear, probably thrusting His lance quite
   through the heart. Here we see how our gracious God ordained, in His
   Providence, that there should be sure evidence that Jesus was dead and
   that, therefore, the Sacrifice was slain.

   Paul declares this to be the Gospel, that the Lord Jesus died according
   to the Scriptures. Strange to say, there have been heretics who have
   ventured to assert that Jesus did not actually die. They stand refuted
   by this spear-thrust. If our Lord did not die, then no Sacrifice has
   been presented, the Resurrection is not a fact and there is no
   foundation of hope for men! Our Lord assuredly died and was buried--the
   Roman soldiers were keen judges in such matters and they saw that, "he
   was dead already" and, moreover, their spears were not used in vain
   when they meant to make death a certainty.

   When the side of Christ was pierced, there flowed from it blood and
   water--upon which a great deal has been said by those who think it
   proper to dilate upon such tender themes. It was supposed by some that
   by death the blood was divided, the clots parting from the water in
   which they float and that in a perfectly natural way. But it is not
   true that blood would flow from a dead body if it were pierced. Only
   under certain very special conditions would blood gush forth. The
   flowing of this blood from the side of our Lord cannot be considered as
   a common occurrence--it was a fact entirely by itself! We cannot argue
   from any known fact in this case, for we are here in a new region.
   Granted, that blood would not flow from an ordinary dead body, yet
   remember that our Lord's body was unique, since it saw no corruption.
   Whatever change might come over a body liable to decay, we may not
   ascribe any such change to His frame and, therefore, there is no
   arguing from facts about common bodies so as to conclude from them
   anything concerning our blessed Lord's body. Whether, in His case,
   blood and water flowed naturally from His holy and incorruptible body,
   or whether it was a miracle, it was evidently a most notable and
   remarkable thing and John, as an eyewitness, was evidently astonished
   at it--so astonished at it that he recorded a solemn affirmation in
   order that we might not doubt his testimony. He was certain of what he
   saw and he took care to report it with a special note in order that we
   might believe--as if he felt that if this fact was truly believed,
   there was a certain convincing power which would induce many to believe
   on our Lord Jesus as the appointed Savior! I could enter into many
   details, but I prefer to cast a veil over this tender mystery. It is
   scarcely reverent to be discoursing anatomy when the body of our
   adorable Lord is before us. Let us close our eyes in worship rather
   than open them with irreverent curiosity.

   The great task before me this morning is to draw truth out of this well
   of wonders. I shall ask you to look at the events before us in three
   lights--first, let us see, here, the fulfillment of Scripture.
   Secondly, the identification of our Lord as the Messiah. And thirdly,
   the instruction which He intends.

   I. I ask you to notice THE FULFILLMENT OF SCRIPTURE. Two things are
   predicted--not a bone of Him must be broken and He must be pierced.
   These were the Scriptures which now remained to be accomplished. Last
   Lord's-Day

   morning we were, all of us, delighted as we saw the fulfillment of
   Scripture [#1955--Jesus Declining the Legions] in the capture of our
   Lord and His refusal to deliver Himself from His enemies. The theme of
   the fulfillment of Scripture is worth pursuing yet further in an age
   when Holy Scripture is treated with so much slight and is spoken of as
   having no Inspiration in it, or, at least, no Divine Authority by which
   its Infallibility is secured. You and I favor no such error! On the
   contrary, we conceive it to be to the last degree, mischievous. "If the
   foundations are removed, what can the righteous do?" We are pleased to
   notice how the Lord Jesus Christ and those who wrote concerning Him
   treated the Holy Scriptures with an intensely reverent regard. The
   prophecies that went before of Christ must be fulfilled--and holy souls
   found great delight in dwelling upon the fact that they were so!

   I want you to notice, concerning this case, that it was amazingly
   complicated. It was negative and positive--the Savior's bones must not
   be broken and, He must be pierced. In the type of the Passover lamb, it
   was expressly enacted that not a bone of it should be broken--therefore
   not a bone of Jesus must be broken. At the same time, according to
   Zecha-riah 12:10, the Lord must be pierced. He must not only be pierced
   with the nails and so fulfill the prophecy, "They pierced My hands and
   My feet," but He must be conspicuously pierced so that He can be
   emphatically regarded as a Pierced One. How were these prophecies and a
   multitude more, to be accomplished? Only God, Himself, could have
   brought to pass the fulfillment of prophecies which were of all kinds
   and appeared to be confusing--and even in contradiction to each other!

   It would be an impossible task for the human intellect to construct so
   many prophecies, types, foreshadowing and then to imagine a person in
   whom they should all be embodied! But what would be impossible to men
   has been literally carried out in the case of our Lord! There are
   prophecies about Him and about everything connected with Him--from His
   hair to His garments, from His birth to His tomb--and yet they have all
   been carried out to the letter! That which lies immediately before us
   was a complicated case, for if reverence to the Savior would spare His
   bones, would it not also spare His flesh? If a coarse brutality pierced
   His side, why did it not break His legs? How can men be kept from one
   act of violence--and that an act authorized by the authority--and yet
   perpetrate another violence which had not been suggested to them? But,
   let the case be as complicated as it were possible for it to have been,
   Infinite Wisdom knew how to work it out in all points--and He did so!
   The Christ is the exact substance of the foreshadowing of the Messianic
   prophecies!

   Next, we may say of the fulfillment of these two prophecies, that it
   was especially improbable. It did not seem at all likely that when the
   order was given to break the legs of the crucified, Roman soldiers
   would abstain from the deed. How could the body of Christ be preserved
   after such an order had been issued? Those four soldiers are evidently
   determined to carry out the governor's orders. They have commenced
   their dreadful task and they have broken the legs of two of the
   executed three. The crosses were arranged so that Jesus was hanging in
   the midst--He is the second of the three. We naturally suppose that
   they would proceed in order from the first cross to the second. But
   they seem to pass by the second cross and proceed from the first to the
   third! What was the reason of this singular procedure? The supposition
   is, and I think a very likely one, that the center cross stood somewhat
   back and that thus the two thieves formed a sort of first rank. Jesus
   would thus be all the more emphatically, "in the midst."

   If He was placed a little back, it would certainly have been easier for
   the penitent thief to have read the inscription over His head and to
   have looked to our Lord and held a conversation with Him. Had they been
   placed exactly in a line, this might not have been so natural. But the
   suggested position seems to suit the circumstances. If it were so, I
   can understand how the soldiers would be taking the crosses in order
   when they performed their horrible office upon the two malefactors and
   came last to Jesus, who was in the midst. In any case, such was the
   order which they followed. The marvel is that they did not, in due
   course, proceed to deal the horrible blow in the case of our Lord!
   Roman soldiers are apt to fulfill their commissions very
   literally--they are not often moved with much desire to avoid
   barbarities. Can you see them intent upon their errand? Will they not
   even now mangle that sacred body? Commend me for roughness to the
   ordinary Roman soldier--he was so used to deeds of slaughter, so
   accustomed to an empire which had been established with blood and iron,
   that the idea of pity never crossed his soul, except to be mocked as a
   womanly feeling unworthy of a brave man! Yet behold and wonder! The
   order is given to break their legs--two out of the three have
   suffered--and yet no soldier may crush a bone of that sacred body! They
   see that He is dead already and they do not break His legs.

   As yet you have only seen one of the prophecies fulfilled. He must be
   pierced as well. And what was that which came into that Roman soldier's
   mind when, in a hasty moment, he resolved to make sure that the
   apparent death of Jesus was a real one? Why did he open that sacred
   side with his lance? He knew nothing of the prophecy. He had no dreams
   of Eve being taken from the side of the man and the Church from the
   side of Jesus. He had never heard that ancient notion of the side of
   Jesus being like the door of the ark, through which an entrance to
   safety is opened. Why, then, does he fulfill the prediction of the
   Prophet? There was no accident or chance here! Where are there such
   things? The hand of the Lord is here and we desire to praise and bless
   that Omniscient and Omnipotent Providence which thus fulfilled the Word
   of Revelation! God has respect unto His own Word and while He takes
   care that no bone of His Son shall be broken, He also secures that no
   text of Holy Scripture shall be broken! That our Lord's bones should
   remain unbroken and yet that He should be pierced seemed a very
   unlikely thing, but it was carried out! When next you meet with an
   unlikely promise, believe it firmly. When next you see things working
   contrary to the Truth of God, believe God and believe nothing else! Let
   God be true and every man a liar! Though men and devils should give God
   the lie, hold on to what God has spoken, for Heaven and earth shall
   pass away, but not one jot or tittle of His Word shall fall to the
   ground!

   Note again, dear Friends, concerning this fulfillment of Scripture,
   that it was altogether indispensable. If they had broken Christ's
   bones, then that Word of John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God,"
   had seemed to have a slur cast upon it. Men would have objected, "But
   the bones of the Lamb of God were not broken." It was especially
   commanded twice over, not only in the first ordaining of the Passover
   in Egypt, but in the allowance of a second to those who were defiled at
   the time of the first Passover. In Numbers, as well as in Exodus, we
   read that not a bone of the lamb must be broken. How, then, if our
   Lord's bones had been broken, could we have said, "Christ our Passover
   is sacrificed for us," when there would have been this fatal flaw?
   Jesus must remain intact upon the Cross and He must also be pierced,
   otherwise that famous passage in Zechariah, which is here alluded to,
   "They shall look on Me whom they have pierced," could not have been
   true of Him. Both prophecies must be carried out and they were so in a
   conspicuous manner!

   But why need I say that this fulfillment was indispensable? Beloved,
   the keeping of every Word of God is indispensable. It is indispensable
   to the Truth of God that He should always be true, for if one Word of
   His can fall to the ground, then all may fall--and His veracity is
   gone. If it can be demonstrated that one prophecy was a mistake, then
   all the rest may be mistakes. If one part of the Scripture is untrue,
   all may be untrue and we have no sure ground to go on. Faith loves not
   slippery places! Faith seeks the sure Word of Prophecy and sets her
   foot firmly upon certainties. Unless all the Word of God is sure and
   pure, "as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,"
   then we have nothing to go upon and are virtually left without a
   Revelation from God!

   If I am to take the Bible and say, "Some of this is true and some of it
   is questionable," I am no better off than if I had no Bible! A man who
   is at sea with a chart which is only accurate in certain places is not
   much better off than if he had no chart at all. I see not how it can
   ever be safe to be "converted and become as little children" if there
   is no Infallible Teacher for us to follow. Beloved, it is indispensable
   to the honor of God and to our confidence in His Word, that every line
   of Holy Scripture should be true! It was evidently indispensable in the
   case now before us and this is only one instance of a rule which is
   without exception.

   But now let me remind you that although the problem was complicated and
   its working out was improbable, yet it was fulfilled in the most
   natural manner. Nothing can be less constrained than the action of the
   soldiers. They have broken the legs of two, but the other is dead and
   so they do not break His legs. Yet, to make sure that they will be safe
   in omitting the blow, they pierce His side. There was no compulsion put
   upon them--they did this of their own proper thought. No angel came
   from Heaven to stand with his broad wings in front of the Cross, so as
   to protect the Savior! No awful protection of mystery was hung over the
   sacred body of the Lord so that intruders might be driven back with
   fear! No, the quaternion of soldiers did whatever they wished to do.
   They acted of their own free will and yet, at the same time, they
   fulfilled the eternal counsel of God! Shall we never be able to drive
   into men's minds the Truth of God that predestination and free agency
   are both facts?

   Men sin as freely as birds fly in the air and they are altogether
   responsible for their sin--and yet everything is ordained and foreseen
   of God! The fore-ordination of God in no degree interferes with the
   responsibility of man! I have often been asked by persons to reconcile
   the two Truths of God. My only reply is--They need no reconciliation,
   for they never fell out. Why should I try to reconcile two friends?
   Prove to me that the two Truths do not agree. In that request I

   have set you a task as difficult as that which you propose to me! These
   two facts are parallel lines--I cannot make them unite--but you cannot
   make them cross each other. Permit me, also, to add that I have long
   ago given up the idea of making all my beliefs into a system. I
   believe, but I cannot explain. I fall before the majesty of Revelation
   and adore the Infinite Lord. I do not understand all that God reveals,
   but I believe it! How can I expect to understand all the mysteries of
   Revelation, when even the arithmetic of Scripture surpasses My
   comprehension, since I am taught that in the Godhead the Three are One,
   while in the undivided One I see most manifestly Three?

   Need I measure the sea? Is it not enough that I am borne up by its
   waves? I thank God for waters deep enough for my faith to swim in!
   Understanding would compel me to keep to the shallows, but faith takes
   me to the main ocean. I think it more to my soul's benefit to believe
   than to understand, for faith brings me nearer to God than reason ever
   did! The faith which is limited by our narrow faculties is a faith
   unworthy of a child of God, for as a child of God he should begin to
   deal with infinite sublimities, like those in which his great Father is
   at home. These are only to be grasped by faith. To return to my
   subject--albeit the matter must be as Scripture foreshadowed, yet no
   constraint nor inducement was put forth. But, as free agents, the
   soldiers performed the very things which were written in the Prophets
   concerning Christ.

   Dear Friends, suffer one more observation upon this fulfillment of
   Scripture--it was marvelously complete. Observe that in these
   transactions a seal was set upon that part of Scripture which has been
   most exposed to skeptical derision, for the seal was set, first of all,
   upon the types. Irreverent readers of Scripture have refused to accept
   the types. They say, "How do you know that the Passover was a type of
   Christ?" In other cases, more serious persons object to detailed
   interpretations and decline to see a meaning in the smaller
   particulars. Such persons would not attach spiritual importance to the
   law, "Not a bone of it shall be broken," but would dismiss it as a
   petty regulation of an obsolete religious rite.

   But observe, Beloved, the Holy Spirit does nothing of the kind, for He
   fixes upon a minor particular of the type and declares that this must
   be fulfilled. Moreover, the Providence of God intervenes so that it
   shall be carried out. Therefore, be not scared away from the study of
   the types by the ridicule of the worldly-wise. There is a general
   timidity coming over the minds of many about Holy Scripture--a timidity
   to which, thank God, I am an utter stranger! It would be a happy
   circumstance if the childlike reverence of the early fathers could be
   restored to the Church and the present irreverent criticism could be
   repented of and cast away. We may delight ourselves in the types as in
   a very Paradise of Revelation! Here we see our best Beloved's beauties
   mirrored in 10,000 delightful ways. There is a world of holy teaching
   in the books of the Old Testament and in their types and symbols! To
   give up this patrimony of the saints and to accept criticism instead of
   it would be like selling one's birthright for a mess of pottage! I see
   in our Lord's unbroken bones a setting of the seal of God upon the
   types of Scripture!

   Let us go further. I see, next, the seal of God set upon unfulfilled
   prophecy, for the passage in Zechariah is not yet completely fulfilled.
   It runs thus--"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced." Jehovah
   is the speaker and He speaks of "the house of David and the inhabitants
   of Jerusalem." They are to look on Jehovah whom they have pierced and
   to mourn for Him. Although this prophecy is not yet fulfilled on the
   largest scale, yet it is so far certified, for Jesus is pierced--the
   rest of it, therefore, stands good--and Israel shall one day mourn
   because of her insulted King. The prophecy was fulfilled in part when
   Peter stood up and preached to the eleven, when a great company of the
   priests believed and when multitudes of the seed of Abraham became
   preachers of Christ Crucified. Still it awaits a larger fulfillment and
   we may rest quite sure that the day shall come when all Israel shall be
   saved. As the piercing of their Lord is true, so shall the piercing of
   their hearts be true and they shall mourn and inwardly bleed with
   bitter sorrow for Him whom they despised and abhorred. The point to
   mark here is that a seal is set in this case to a prophecy which yet
   awaits its largest fulfillment and, therefore, we may regard this as a
   pattern--and may lay stress upon prophecy, rejoice in it and receive it
   without doubt, come what may.

   I have said this much upon the fulfillment of the Word concerning our
   Lord. Let us learn, therefore, a lesson of reverence and confidence in
   reference to Holy Scripture.

   II. But now, secondly, and briefly, THE IDENTIFICATION OF OUR LORD AS
   THE MESSIAH was greatly

   strengthened by that which befell His body after death. It was
   necessary that He should conclusively be proven to be the Christ spoken
   of in the Old Testament. Certain marks and tokens are given and those
   marks and tokens must be found in Him--they were so found.

   The first mark was this--God's Lamb must have a measure of
   preservation. If Christ is what He professes to be, He is the Lamb of
   God. Now, God's lamb could only be dealt with in God's way. There is
   the lamb. Kill it, sprinkle its blood, roast it with fire, but break
   not its bones. It is God's lamb and not yours, therefore thus far shall
   you come, but no further. Not a bone of it shall be broken. Roast it,
   divide it among yourselves and eat it--but break no bone of it. The
   Lord claims it as His own and this is His reserve. So, in effect, the
   Lord says concerning the Lord Jesus--"There is My Son. Bind Him,
   scourge Him, spit on Him, crucify Him, but He is the Lamb of My
   Passover and you must not break a bone of Him." The Lord's right to Him
   is declared by the reservation which is made concerning His bones. Do
   you not see, here, how He is identified as being, "the Lamb of God,
   which takes away the sin of the world"? It is a mark of identity upon
   which faith fixes her eyes--and she studies that mark until she sees
   much more in it than we can, this morning, speak about, for we have
   other things to dwell upon.

   The next mark of identity must be that Jehovah our Lord should be
   pierced by Israel. So Zechariah said and so must it be fulfilled. Not
   merely must His hands and feet be nailed, but most conspicuously must
   He, Himself, be pierced. "They shall look upon Me whom they have
   pierced, and they shall mourn for Him." Pierced He must be! His wounds
   are the marks and tokens of His being the real Christ. When they shall
   see the sign of the Son of Man in the last days, then shall all the
   tribes of the earth mourn--and is not that sign His appearing as a Lamb
   that has been slain? The wound in His side was a sure mark of His
   identity to His own disciples, for He said to Thomas, "Reach here your
   hand and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing."
   It shall be the convincing token to all Israel--"They shall look upon
   Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one that
   mourns for his only son." To us, the opened way to His heart is in His
   flesh, the token that this is the Incarnate God of Love, whose heart
   can be reached by all who seek His Grace.

   But I have not finished this identification, for observe, that when
   that side was pierced, "and immediately blood and water came out." You
   that have your Bibles will have opened them already at Zechariah
   12--will you kindly read on till you come to the first verse of the
   13th Chapter, which ought not to have been divided from the 12th
   chapter? What do you find there? "In that day there shall be a fountain
   opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for
   sin and for uncleanness." They pierced Him and in that day they began
   to mourn for Him! But more, in that day there was a fountain opened!
   And what was that fountain but this gush of water and of blood from the
   split side of our redeeming Lord? The prophecies follow quickly, one
   upon another--they relate to the same Person, to the same day--and we
   are pleased to see that the facts also follow quickly upon one another,
   for when the soldier with the spear pierced the side of Jesus,
   "immediately blood and water came out." Jehovah was pierced and men
   repented--and beheld the cleansing fountain within a brief space! The
   men who saw the sacred fountain opened rejoiced to see in it the
   attestation of the finished Sacrifice and the token of its cleansing
   effect.

   The identification is more complete if we add one more remark. Take all
   the types of the Old Testament together and you will gather this, that
   the purification of sin was typically set forth by blood and water.
   Blood was always conspicuous. You have no remission of sin without it.
   But water was also exceedingly prominent. The priests, before
   sacrificing, must wash--and the victim, itself, must be washed with
   water. Impure things must be washed with running water. Behold how our
   Lord Jesus came by water and by blood--not by water, only, but by water
   and blood. John, who saw the marvelous stream, never forgot the sight,
   for though he wrote his Epistles, I suppose, far on in life, the
   recollection of that wondrous scene was fresh with him. Though I
   suppose he did not write his Gospel until he was a very old man, yet
   when he came to this passage it impressed him as much as ever and he
   uttered affirmations which he was not at all accustomed to use! "He who
   has seen has testified, and his record is true: and he knows that he is
   telling the truth" In solemn form he thus, after a manner, gave his
   affidavit before God's people that he did really behold this
   extraordinary sight!

   In Jesus we see One who has come to atone and to sanctify. He is that
   High Priest who cleanses the leprosy of sin by blood and water! This is
   one part of the sure identification of the great Purifier of God's
   people, that He came both by water and by blood--and poured out both
   from His pierced side. I leave these identifications to you. They are
   striking to my own mind, but they are only part of the wonderful system
   of marks and tokens by which it is seen that God attests the Man Christ
   Jesus as being in very deed the true Messiah!

   III. I must close by noticing, thirdly, THE INSTRUCTION INTENDED FOR US
   in all these things.

   The first instruction intended for us must be only hinted at, like all
   the rest. See what Christ is to us. He is the Paschal Lamb, not a bone
   of which was broken. You believe it. Come, then, and act upon your
   belief by feeding upon Christ! Keep the feast in your own souls this
   day. That sprinkled blood of His has brought you safety--the Destroying
   Angel cannot touch you or your house! The Lamb, Himself, has become
   your food. Feed on Him! Remove your spiritual hunger by receiving Jesus
   into your heart. This is the food of which, if a man eats, he shall
   live forever! Be filled with all the fullness of God as you now receive
   the Lord Jesus as God and Man. "You are complete in Him." You are
   "perfect in Jesus Christ." Can you say of Him--"He is all my salvation
   and all my desire"? "Christ is all and in all." Do not merely learn
   this lesson as a doctrine, but enjoy it as a personal experience. Jesus
   our Passover is slain, let Him be eaten! Let us feast on Him and then
   be ready to journey through the wilderness in the strength of this
   Divine food, until we come to the promised rest.

   What next do we learn from this lesson but this? See man's treatment of
   Christ. They have spit on Him; they have cried, "Crucify Him, crucify
   Him." They have nailed Him to the Cross. They have mocked His agonies
   and He is dead-- but man's malice is not yet glutted. The last act of
   man to Christ must be to pierce Him through! That cruel wound was the
   concentration of man's ill-treatment of Jesus. His experience at the
   hands of our race is summed up in the fact that they pierced Him to the
   heart. That is what men have done to Christ--they have so despised and
   rejected Him that He dies, pierced to the heart! Oh, the depravity of
   our nature! Some doubt whether it is total depravity. It deserves a
   worse adjective than that! There is no word in the human language which
   can express the venom of the enmity of man to his God and Savior--he
   would wound Him mortally if He could. Do not expect that men will love
   either Christ or you, if you are like He? Do not expect that Jesus will
   find room for Himself in the inn, much less that He will be set on the
   throne by guilty, unrenewed men. Oh, no! Even when He is dead, they
   must insult His corpse with a spear thrust. One soldier did it, but he
   expressed the sentiment of the age. This is what the world of sinners
   did for Him who came into the world to save it!

   Now, learn, in the next place, what Jesus did for men. Beloved, that
   was a sweet expression in our hymn just now--

   "Even after death His heart For us its tribute poured."

   In His life He had bled for us--drop by drop the bloody sweat had
   fallen to the ground. Then the cruel scourges drew purple streams from
   Him. And as a little store of life-blood was left near His heart, He
   poured it all out before He went His way. It is a materialistic
   expression, but there is something more in it than mere sentiment--that
   there remains among the substance of this globe a sacred relic of the
   Lord Jesus in the form of that blood and water. As no atom of matter
   ever perishes, that matter remains on earth even now. His body has gone
   into Glory, but the blood and water are left behind.

   I see much more in this fact than I will now attempt to tell. O world,
   the Christ has marked you with His blood and He means to have you!
   Blood and water from the heart of God's own Son have fallen down upon
   this dark and defiled planet--and thus Jesus has sealed it as His own
   and, as such, it must be transformed into a new Heaven and a new earth
   wherein dwells righteousness! Our dear Lord, when He had given us all
   He had, and even resigned His life on our behalf, then parted with a
   priceless stream from the fountain of His heart--"and immediately blood
   and water came out." Oh, the kindness of the heart of Christ, that did
   not only, for a blow, return a kiss, but for a spear thrust returned
   streams of life and healing!

   But I must hurry on. I can also see in this passage the safety of the
   saints. It is marvelous how full of eyes the things of Jesus are, for
   His unbroken bones look backward to the Paschal lamb, but they also
   look forward throughout all the history of the Church to that day when
   He shall gather all His saints in one body and none shall be missing.
   Not a bone of His mystical body shall be broken! There is a text in the
   Psalms which says of the righteous man--and all righteous men are
   conformed unto the image of Christ--"He keeps all His bones: not one of
   them is broken." I rejoice in the safety of Christ's elect! He shall
   not permit a bone of His redeemed body to be broken--

   "For all the chosen seed

   Shall meet around the Throne,

   Shall bless the conduct of His Grace,

   And make His glories known."

   A perfect Christ there shall be in the day of His appearing, when all
   the members of His body shall be joined to their glorious Head, who
   shall be crowned forever! Not one living member of Christ shall be
   absent--"Not a bone of Him shall be broken." There shall be no lame,
   maimed Christ, no half-worked redemption! The purpose for which He came
   to accomplish shall be perfectly achieved to the glory of His name!

   I have not quite done, for I must add another lesson. We see here the
   salvation of sinners. Jesus Christ's side is pierced to give to sinners
   the double cure of sin--the taking away of its guilt and power and,
   better than this--sinners are to have their hearts broken by a sight of
   the Crucified. By this means they are also to obtain faith. "They shall
   look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him."
   Beloved, our Lord Jesus came not only to save sinners, but to seek
   them! His death not only saves those who have faith, but it creates
   faith in those who have it not! The Cross produces the faith and
   repentance which it demands. If you cannot come to Christ with faith
   and repentance, come to Christ for faith and repentance, for He can
   give them to you! He is pierced on purpose that you may be pricked to
   the heart. His blood, which freely flows, is shed for many for the
   remission of sins. What you have to do is just look and, as you look,
   those blessed feelings which are the marks of conversion and
   regeneration shall be worked in you by a sight of Him!

   Oh, blessed lesson! Put it into practice this morning! Oh, that in this
   great house many may now have done with self and look to the crucified
   Savior and find eternal life in Him! For this is the main end of John's
   writing this record. And this is the chief design of our preaching upon
   it--we long that you may believe! Come, you guilty! Come and trust the
   Son of God who died for you! Come, you foul and polluted! Come and wash
   in this sacred stream poured out for you! There is life in a look at
   the Crucified One! There is life at this moment for every one of you
   who will look to Him! God grant you may look and live, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lord's Own View of His Church and People

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A garden enclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a
   fountain sealed." Song of Solomon 4:12.

   WE understand this sacred love song to be a Canticle of Communion
   between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. He is the Bridegroom and
   she the bride. Solomon furnishes the figure, as some think, and his
   Solyma is with him, but the type is dimly seen, it is the antitype
   which shines forth as the sun to the view of all spiritual minds.

   At the very outset of the present discourse it is necessary, for the
   sake of the less instructed, to say what the Church is. A Church is a
   congregation of faithful men--that is to say, of men who are Believers
   in the Lord Jesus, men in whom the Holy Spirit has created faith in
   Christ--and the new nature of which faith is the sure index. The one
   Church of Jesus Christ is made up of all Believers throughout all time.
   Just as any one Church is made up of faithful men, so is the one Church
   of Christ made up of all faithful churches in all lands--and of all
   faithful men in all ages.

   The Church was viewed as one in the purpose of God before the world
   was. The Eternal Father chose to Himself a people and gave them over to
   His SON, that they might be His portion forever and ever. This is the
   Church of which we read--"Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for
   it." This is "the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own
   blood." This is the Church with which the marriage supper shall be
   celebrated when the Well-Beloved shall come to take His own unto
   Himself forever. While we, at this time, speak of the Church as a
   whole, it will be quite correct for each individual Believer to take
   home to himself any truth, whether doctrinal, experimental, or
   practical, which we treat of as the heritage of the Church. Each saint
   may say, "This belongs to me." That which belongs to the redeemed
   family belongs to each member of that family. That which is true of
   light is true of each beam. That which is true of water is true of each
   drop and that which is true of the Church as a whole is true of each
   member of that mystical body.

   The love of the Lord Jesus is to His Church as a body--and it is the
   same to each Believer as a member of that body. That which is true of
   the whole number is true of the units which make it up. He who invites
   a company to a feast virtually invites each person of the company.
   Jesus loves each one of His people with that same love with which He
   loves the whole of His people, insomuch that if you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, are Christ's beloved and if you were the only persons that
   were ever born into the world--and all His love were yours--He would
   not, then, love you one atom more than He loves you now! The love of
   Jesus is dispersed, but not divided! It flows to all with the same
   force with which it flows to one. To redeem a single soul, our Ransom
   had to lay down His life and He loves each one with such a love that He
   did lay down His life for each one, as much as if there had not been
   another to redeem. We shall not be presumptuous if we enjoy all the
   love of Jesus of which we are capable, enjoying and appropriating the
   words of love to ourselves as if they were meant for us, alone. The
   invitation of the Bridegroom in this Song gives a permit to the largest
   faith and to the most daring enjoyment. "Eat, O friends; yes, drink
   abundantly, O beloved."

   I shall call your attention to four things, with as much brevity and
   earnestness as possible. Come, gracious Spirit, and lead us into the
   sweetness of them!

   I. The first is, THE NEARNESS OF KIN OF THE CHURCH TO CHRIST AND CHRIST
   TO THE CHURCH. He calls her in the text, "My Sister, My Spouse." As if
   He could not express His near and dear relationship to her by any one
   term, He employs the two. "My Sister"--that is, one by birth, partaker
   of the same nature. "My Spouse"--that is, one in love, joined by sacred
   ties of affection that never can be snapped. "My Sister" by birth. "My
   Spouse" by choice. "My Sister" in communion. "My Spouse" in absolute
   union with Myself. I want you who love the Savior to get a full hold of
   this thought of near and dear kinship under this head. Oh, how near
   akin Christ is to all His people!

   But first, try to realize the Person of Christ. I am not going to speak
   to you at this time of a doctrine, or a mere historical fact that has
   vanished into the dim past. No, we speak of a real Person. Jesus Christ
   is. As Man and as God in the perfection of His Nature, He still exists!
   He dwells at the right hand of God at this moment and though He cannot
   be here in His corporeal Person, yet He is everywhere by His spiritual
   Presence, which is still more real. Do not spirit Him away! Believe
   that He truly is and that He truly is here--as much here and as really
   here as He was at Jerusalem when He sat at the head of the table and
   entertained the 12 at the last supper. Jesus is a real Man, a real
   Christ--remember that.

   Then let this further Truth of God be equally realized, that He has so
   taken upon Himself our human nature that He may correctly call His
   Church His Sister. He has become so truly Man in His Incarnation, that
   He is not ashamed to call us Brothers and Sisters. He calls us so
   because we are so! No, He is not a deified man any more than He is a
   humanized God. He is perfectly God, but He is also perfectly Man--and
   Man such as we are, touched with the feeling, not only of our
   attainments, but of our infirmities. Not only trusting in all points as
   we do, but tempted in all points like as we are, though without sin. He
   was, when He was here, evidently Man and eminently Man--and He now so
   remembers all that He passed through while here below that He remains
   in perfect sympathy with us at this very moment! Change of place has
   made no change of heart in Him. He, in His Glory, is the same Jesus as
   in His humiliation!

   No man is so fully a man as Jesus Christ. If you speak of any other
   man, something or other narrows his manhood. You think of Milton as a
   poet and an Englishman, rather than as a man. You think of Cromwell
   rather as a warrior, than as a man. Either his office, his work, his
   nationality, or his peculiar character strikes you in many a man rather
   than his manhood. But Jesus is the Man, the model Man--in all His deeds
   and words. Man to the fullness of manhood in its purest and truest
   state. The second Adam is, par excellence, Man!

   We may not think of Him as one among a vast number who may be distantly
   akin to us, as all men are akin to one another by descent, but the Lord
   comes near to each individual. He takes each one of His believing
   people by the hand and says, "My Brother, My Sister." In our text He
   salutes the whole Church as "My Sister." He says this with tender
   emphasis. The love between brothers, if those brothers are what they
   should be, is very strong and peculiarly disinterested and admirable. A
   brother is born for adversity. A true brother is one upon whom you can
   rely in time of need. One heart in two bodies is the realization of
   true brotherhood. Such is, emphatically, the relationship of the
   Redeeming Lord to each Believer! He is your Brother. "The man is next
   of kin to us." You may have the joy of saying, "I know that my near
   Kinsman lives and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.
   And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh
   shall I see God." Happy man who, without presumption, can feel the ties
   of kinship with the Son of Man and can sing with the poet of the
   sanctuary--

   "Jesus, our Kinsman and our God, Arrayed in majesty and blood. You are
   our life; our souls in Thee Possess a full felicity."

   As we have already observed, the first term, "Sister," implies kinship
   of nature, but the second term, "My Spouse," indicates another
   kinship--dearer, and, in some respects, nearer--a kinship undertaken of
   choice, but, once undertaken, irrevocable and everlasting! This kinship
   amounts to unity insomuch that the spouse loses her name, loses her
   identity and, to a high degree, is merged in the greater personality to
   which she is united. Such is our union to Christ if, indeed, we are
   His, that nothing can so well set it forth as marriage union. He loves
   us so much that He has taken us up into Himself by the absorption of
   love! We may henceforth forego our name, for, "this is the name by
   which she shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness." Wonderful that
   the very name which belongs to our Lord Jesus--and one of the most
   majestic of His names--should yet be used as the name of His Church!
   The Lord Jesus Christ's name is now named upon her and she is permitted
   to make use of His name whenever she draws near to the Throne of the
   heavenly Grace in prayer. "In His name"--this is to be her great plea
   whenever she intercedes with Heaven! She speaks in the name which is
   above every name, the name at which angels bow!

   The Bridegroom calls His Church, "My Sister, My Spouse." Now come,
   renewed heart, you that have learned to trust your Savior, see how
   near, how dear you are to Him! If He says, "My Sister, My Spouse,"
   answer to Him, "My Brother, my Husband." If He is not strange to you,
   oh, be not cold to Him! Think not of Him as of some great one to whom
   you may not approach. Have you in your memory that great text, "It
   shall be at that day, says the Lord, that you shall call me Ishi (my
   Husband), and shall call me no more Baali, (my Lord). For I will take
   away the names of Baalim

   out of her mouth and they shall no more be remembered by their name."
   We now feel no dreadful lordship. Though He is Master and Lord, yet it
   is such a loving lordship which He exercises towards us that we rejoice
   in it! We hear a voice full of music, saying, "He is your Lord. Worship
   Him." But His commandments are not grievous! His yoke is easy and His
   burden is light!

   When we bow before Him, it is not because we fear with servile
   trembling, but because we rejoice and love! We rejoice in His rule and
   reign. Perfect love has cast out fear. We live in such joyful
   fellowship with Him as a sister has with a brother, or a wife with a
   husband! Be not backward towards your own Betrothed. Be not stiff and
   cold. Set not a boundary around the mountain, for it is not
   Sinai--there are no boundaries to the hill of Zion! Hang not up a
   curtain, for He has rent the veil! Think not of Him as though He were
   far divided from you--He is exceedingly near you and has taken you up
   unto Himself, to be one with Him forever--

   "Lost in astonishment I see

   Jesus, Your boundless love to me!

   With angels I, Your Grace adore

   And long to lo ve and praise You more.

   Since You will take me for Your bride,

   Oh, keep me, Savior, near Your side!

   I would gladly give You all my heart,

   Nor ever from my Lord depart." I do not know how to preach upon this
   subject. Who can? Is it a subject for exposition in a mixed assembly?
   If it were, who could compass it? I beg you, O Believers, to sit in
   your pews and let holy thought occupy you--let this choice subject
   saturate your willing minds! If you are true Believers, if you have
   been born again, if you are really looking to Christ, alone, for
   salvation, He has brought you into a condition of the utmost
   conceivable nearness with Himself. He has participated in your nature
   and He has made you a partaker of His Nature and, in so many words He
   says, "I will betroth you unto Me forever. Yes, I will betroth you unto
   Me in righteousness, in judgement, in lovingkindness and in mercies. I
   will even betroth you unto Me in faithfulness: and you shall know the
   Lord."

   Can you grasp it? It will make your heart dance for joy if you can!
   Never did a more joyful thought illuminate a human mind. One with
   Jesus! By eternal union, one with Jesus! Is not this heavenly? There
   can be no divorce between Christ and His Church, for thus it is
   written, "The Lord, the God of Israel, says that He hates putting
   away." He will have nothing to do with putting away! Having espoused
   us, He declares the thing done. "I am married unto you, says the Lord."
   He has taken our nature and made us "partakers of the Divine Nature."
   And after He has done that, who shall separate us from the love of God
   which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Neither height, nor depth, nor
   angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
   to come shall ever be able to effect a breakup of this most complete,
   perfect, mystical union between Christ and His people!

   Again I pray the Holy Spirit to make every Believer feel this and then
   we shall go home from this house glad in spirit! My heart will be as a
   wedding feast and the joy-bells of my soul will ring out the words--

   "White and ruddy is my Beloved

   All His heavenly beauties shine!

   Nature can't produce an object,

   So glorious, so Divine!

   He has wholly

   Won my soul to realms abo ve.

   Such as find You, find such sweetness

   Deep, mysterious and unknown--

   Far above all worldly pleasures,

   If they were to meet in one!

   My Beloved,

   O'er the mountains hasten away."

   II. To a second thought I would call your attention. See in the text
   THE SECURITY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

   IN CONSEQUENCE OF BEING WHAT THEY ARE. "A garden enclosed is My Sister,
   My Spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." We are not only like a
   garden, but an enclosed garden. If the garden were not enclosed, the
   wild boar

   out of the woods would destroy the vines and uproot the flowers! But
   infinite mercy has made the Church of God an enclosure into which no
   invader may dare enter. "For I, says the Lord, will be unto her a wall
   of fire round about, and will be the Glory in the midst of her." Is she
   a spring? Are her secret thoughts, loves and desires like cool streams
   of water? Then the Bridegroom calls her, "a spring shut up." Otherwise,
   every beast that passed by might foul her waters and every stranger
   might quaff her streams. She is a spring shut up, a fountain sealed,
   like some choice cool spring in Solomon's private garden around the
   house of the forest of Lebanon--a fountain which he reserved for his
   own drinking, by placing the royal seal upon it and locking it up by
   secret means, known only to himself. Legend has it that there were
   fountains which none knew of but Solomon--and he had so shut them up
   that with his ring he touched a secret spring, a door opened--and
   living waters leaped out to fill his jeweled cup. No one but Solomon
   knew the secret charm by which he set flowing the pent-up stream of
   which no lips drank but his own! Now, God's people are as much shut up,
   preserved and kept from danger by the care of Christ, as the springs in
   Solomon's garden were reserved expressly for himself.

   Beloved, this is a cheering thought for all Believers, that the Lord
   has set apart him that is godly for Himself! He has taken measures to
   preserve all His chosen from all those who would defile and destroy
   them. He walled them round about with His Divine decree of old, saying,
   "This people have I chosen for Myself." He then issued His command that
   none should injure them, saying, "Touch not My anointed and do My
   Prophets no harm." He sets a hedge about them in Providence so that
   nothing shall by any means harm them. He has shut them up from the
   enemy and sealed them up for perpetual preservation. The wandering
   Bedouins in the East plunder the open fields, but a king's garden,
   enclosed and protected, is safe from their ravages.

   So are the saints enclosed from all invading powers. Especially has the
   Lord walled them about with Grace! While angels keep watch and ward
   around this sacred garden to drive off the powers of darkness, the
   invincible Grace of God is always like a wall about the plants of the
   Lord's right hand planting so that neither sin nor the world shall be
   able to uproot them! You are a garden, and a garden is a tender thing,
   soon destroyed. But the Lord, who planted you, has seen to your
   protection and provision! A garden in the East is a very needy place.
   One day's burning sun might suffice to wither all its verdure, but the
   Lord has declared of His Church, "The sun shall not smite you by day,
   nor the moon by night." "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every
   moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." A garden is a
   dependent thing, requiring perpetual care from the gardener and that
   care the Church of God shall have, for it is written, "He cares for
   you." Jesus says, "My Father is the Gardener"--and surely that is
   enough!

   In a garden, weeds spring up and, alas, in the Church and in our
   hearts, the weeds of sin are plentiful. But there is One who will take
   care to pluck up evil growth and cut away all rank shoots, that none of
   the precious plants may be choked or overgrown. In all ways every
   single plant, however feeble, shall be tended with all-sufficient
   skill!

   It is very precious to see how the Lord lays Himself out to preserve
   His own Beloved. We are too dear to Him to let us perish. Yet, O tender
   plant, you are often afraid! Did you say, the other day, that He had
   left you? How can this be? Do you know at what a price He bought you?
   Leave you? Will the husband forget his beloved spouse? And will the
   Husband of your soul forget you? Let not the thought tarry with you for
   a moment, for it is dishonoring to your Lord's love! "Can a woman
   forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the
   son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you." You
   are as safe as Jesus, for on His heart He bears your name! You are as
   safe as He is, for on the arm of His strength He wears your name, as
   the High Priest wore the names of the tribes upon his shoulder, as well
   as upon his breastplate. "I give unto My sheep," Jesus says, "eternal
   life. And they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out
   of My hand."

   I want you to enjoy a sense of this security. I will not preach upon it
   much, but I will ask you to believe it and to rejoice in it. Are you
   really in Christ? If so, who is to pluck you from His hands? Are you
   really trusting Him? How can He fail you? Have you been begotten,
   again, into the Divine family? How can that new life be quenched? Do
   not let anything drive from your mind a sense of your security in
   Christ! I hear somebody say that this might lead men to carnal
   security. Far from it--the security of the Spirit is a death-blow to
   the security of the flesh! I tell you, Sirs, that it is most necessary
   that you should not believe in Jesus Christ half way, as some do who
   trust the Lord to put away the sin of the past, but cannot trust for
   the future! I believe in Him to put away all my sins that ever shall
   be, as well as all the sins that have been.

   To believe in Him only to obliterate the years of former sin is but a
   limping half-way faith! Believe in Him for all the years that shall be.
   What does He say? "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a
   well of water springing up into

   everlasting life." Do you believe in Him to give you life for a little
   time, so that you venture to take a quarter's ticket of membership? I
   am glad that you believe even so much, but why limit His power? Believe
   in the Lord Jesus for the whole of life, yes, for eternity! "According
   to your faith be it unto you." Do you believe in Him to give you a sip
   of the Living Water to stay your thirst for a while? Believe in Him a
   great deal more than that and accept Him as quenching your thirst
   forever! For, "you are complete in Him." "He that believes in Him has
   everlasting life."

   I look upon this sense of security in a Christian as being the
   mainspring of unselfish virtue. What is that perpetual anxiety to save
   yourself? What is that daily hungering and perpetual thirsting? It is
   only a spiritualized selfishness. Only when a man is really saved does
   he forget self. When I know that I am saved, I am able to glorify God!
   The thought of saving myself by anything that I shall do, or be, or
   feel--I hurl to the winds, for I am already saved as a Believer in
   Christ! Now is there scope for virtue. Now is there an opportunity to
   love God and to love one's fellow men from a pure, unselfish motive! A
   man is drowning, the ship is going down from under him--he is not a
   likely man to be looking after the interests of those about him. Once
   let him grasp an oar in the lifeboat and he is the man to be the savior
   of others. I want you to be out of the wreck and in the lifeboat, that
   you may be a hearty worker for the salvation of the perishing! I want
   you to get out of that, "if," "perhaps," "perchance," "maybe," into
   certainty and full assurance--for then your undivided zeal will go for
   the Glory of God!

   "We know that we have passed from death unto life," says the Apostle,
   speaking in the name of the saints in his day. And when you once know
   this, then you will rejoice to proclaim life to those around you. When
   you are assured that you are not only a garden, but an enclosed garden,
   not only a spring, but a spring shut up and a fountain sealed against
   all adversaries--then you will give all your strength to Him who has
   thus secured you! A happy and holy security in Christ will put spirit
   into you and cause you to do exploits. For the love you bear His name,
   you will be ready to live to this sole end--to magnify and glorify the
   Lord Jesus, whose you are, and whom you serve!

   I leave the thought, but I pray the Holy Spirit to breathe over His
   people a delicious sense of perfect security in Christ Jesus.

   III. Thirdly, THE MOST STRIKING IDEA OF THE TEXT IS THAT OF
   SEPARATION--"A garden enclosed is My Sister, My Spouse; a spring shut
   up, a fountain sealed." A garden is a plot of ground separated from the
   common waste for a special purpose and such is the Church. The Church
   is a separate and distinct thing from the world. I suppose there is
   such a thing as "the Christian world," but I do not know what it is, or
   where it can be found. It must be a singular mixture. I know what is
   meant by a worldly Christian and I suppose the Christian world must be
   an aggregate of worldly Christians. But the Church of Christ is not of
   the world! "You are not of the world," says Christ, "even as I am not
   of the world." Great attempts have been made of late to make the Church
   receive the world and wherever it has succeeded it has come to this
   result--the world has swallowed up the Church. It must be so. The
   greater is sure to swamp the lesser. They say, "Do not let us draw any
   hard and fast lines. A great many good people attend our services who
   may not be quite decided, but still, their opinion should be consulted
   and their vote should be taken upon the choice of a minister. And, of
   course, there should be entertainments and amusements in which they can
   assist."

   The theory seems to be that it is well to have a broad gangway from the
   Church to the world--if this is carried out, the result will be that
   the nominal Church will use that gangway to go over to the world, but
   it will not be used in the other direction! It is thought by some that
   it would, perhaps, be better to have no distinct Church at all! If the
   world will not come up to the Church, let the Church go down to the
   world--that seems to be the theory. Let the Israelites dwell with the
   Canaanites and become one happy family! Such a blending does not appear
   to have been anticipated by our Lord in the chapter which was read just
   now--I mean the 15th Chapter of John. Read verses 18 and nineteen--"If
   the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If
   you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you
   are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
   the world hates you."

   Did Jesus ever say--"Try to make an alliance with the world and, in all
   things, be conformed to its ways"? Nothing could have been further from
   our Lord's mind! Oh, that we could see more of holy separation--more
   dissent from ungodliness, more nonconformity to the world! This is "the
   dissidence of Dissent" that I care for--far more than I do for party
   names and the political strife which is engendered by them.

   Let us, however, take heed that our separateness from the world is of
   the same kind as our Lord's. We are not to adopt a peculiar dress, or a
   singular mode of speech, or shut ourselves out from society. He did not
   do so! He was a man

   of the people, mixing with them for their good. He was seen at a
   wedding feast, aiding the festivities. He even ate bread in a
   Pharisee's house, among captious enemies! He neither wore phylacteries,
   nor enlarged the borders of His garments, nor sought a secluded cell,
   nor exhibited any eccentricity of manner. He was separate from sinners
   only because He was holy and harmless--and they were not. He dwelt
   among us, for He was of us. No man was more a man than He and yet He
   was not of the world, neither could you count Him among them. He was
   neither Pharisee, nor Sadducee, nor Scribe. But, at the same time, none
   could justly confuse Him with publicans and sinners. Those who reviled
   Him for consorting with these last, did, by that very reviling, admit
   that He was a very different person from those with whom they went. We
   want all members of the Church of Christ to be, manifestly and
   obviously, distinct persons, as much as if they were of a separate
   race, even when they are seen mingling with the people around them!

   We are not to cut ourselves off from our neighbors by pretense and
   contempt. God forbid! Our avoiding of pretension, our naturalness,
   simplicity, sincerity and amiability of character should constitute a
   distinction. Through Christians being what they seem to be, they should
   become remarkable in an age of pretenders! Their care for the welfare
   of others, their anxiety to do good, their forgiveness of injuries,
   their gentleness of manner--all these should distinguish them far more
   than they could be distinguished by a particular mode of dress or by
   any outward signs. I long to see Christian people become more distinct
   from the world than ever because I am persuaded that until they are,
   the Church will never become such a power for blessing men as her Lord
   intended her to be.

   It is for the world's good that there should be no alliance between the
   Church and the world by way of compromise, even to a shade! See what
   came to pass when the Church and the world became one in Noah's
   day--when "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were
   fair," and were joined with them. Then came the deluge. Another deluge,
   more desolating, even, than the former, will come if ever the Church
   forgets her high calling and enters into confederacy with the world.

   The Church is to be a garden, walled, taken out of the common and made
   a separate and select plot of ground. She is to be a spring shut up and
   a fountain sealed, no longer open to the fowl of the air and the beasts
   of the field. Saints are to be separate from the rest of men, even as
   Abraham was when he said to the sons of Seth, "I am a stranger and a
   sojourner with you."

   Come now, My dear Friends, are you of this sort? Are you foreigners in
   a country not your own? You are not Christians, remember, if you are
   not so! "Come out from among them and be you separate, says the Lord,
   and touch not the unclean thing." That is the Lord's own word to you.
   Did not He, Himself, suffer outside the gate that you might go forth
   unto Him outside the camp? Are you at one with the rest of mankind?
   Could anybody live with you and never see that any alteration had taken
   place in you? Would they think that you were just the same as any other
   man? Then, by your fruits you shall be known. If there is no difference
   of life between you and the world, the text does not address you as the
   "Sister" and the "Spouse" of Christ! Those who are such are enclosed
   from the world and shut up for Christ. "I wish I were more so," cries
   one. So do I, my Friend, and may you and I practically prove the
   sincerity of that desire by a growing separateness from the world!

   IV. Lastly, I think THE TEXT BEARS EVEN MORE FORCIBLY ANOTHER IDEA,
   NAMELY, THAT OF RESERVATION. The Church of God is "a garden enclosed."
   What for? Why, that nobody may come into that garden to eat the fruit,
   but the Lord, Himself. It is "a spring shut up," that no one may drink
   of the stream but the Lord Jesus. I beg you to consider this for a few
   minutes and then practically to remember it all your lives. A Church
   exists only for the Lord Jesus to accomplish His ends and purposes
   among the sons of men! Never may this be forgotten. May the Spirit of
   God daily sanctify us unto the Lord to be a peculiar people! I am
   persuaded that if any Church desires to be much honored of the Lord in
   these days, both as to internal happiness and external usefulness, it
   will find that the nearest way to its desire is to be wholly
   consecrated to the Lord.

   The Church is not formed to be a social club to produce society for
   itself! It is not to be a political association to be a power in
   politics! Nor is it to be a religious confederacy promoting its own
   opinions! It is a body created of the Lord to answer His own ends and
   purposes--and it exists for nothing else! The heavenly Bridegroom says
   to His Church, "Forget, also, your own people and your father's house;
   so shall the King greatly desire your beauty: for He is your Lord; and
   worship you Him." Churches which fail in their high vocation shall be
   cast forth as salt that has lost its savor! If we do not live for the
   Lord, we are dead while we live. If we do not bring glory to His name,
   we cannot justify our existence. If

   we are not as a garden enclosed for Jesus, we are mere bits of waste
   land. If we are not fountains sealed for Jesus, we are mere brooks in
   the valley and shall soon run dry!

   "But," cries one, "are we not to seek the good of our fellow men?"
   Assuredly we are to do so for Christ's sake! "Are we not to seek to
   help on sanitary, educational, purifying processes and the like?" Yes,
   so far as all can be done for His sake. We are to be the Lord's
   servants for the blessing of the world and we may do anything which He
   would have done. In such a garden as the text speaks of, every plant
   bears flowers for its Owner, every tree yields fruit for Him. I pray
   God that this Church, whether it carries on its Orphan Houses, or its
   College, or its Colportage, or whatever else it does, may do it all for
   Christ! Keep this thought to the front as a Church and people. You are
   not to bear fruit for the markets, but fruit for the Master's table!
   You are not to do good that you may have honor as an industrious and
   energetic community, but that glory may be given to Jesus, to whom you
   belong! "All for Jesus" is to be our motto!

   No one among us may dare to live unto himself, even in the refined way
   in which many are doing it--who even try to win souls that they may
   have the credit of being zealous and successful. We may so far
   degenerate as even to attempt to glorify Christ that we may have the
   credit of glorifying Him. It will not do. We must be truly, thoroughly,
   really living for Jesus! We must be an enclosed garden, reserved, shut
   up for Him. O Brothers and Sisters, your life is to be a stream that
   flows for the refreshment of Him who poured out His life for you! You
   are to let Him drink of the deep fountains of your heart, but no one
   else may rival Jesus there. You are a spring shut up, a fountain sealed
   for Jesus, for Jesus only and that altogether and always! Should self
   come forward, or personal advantage, you are to bid them be gone. They
   must have no admission here! This garden is strictly private.
   Trespassers beware!

   Should the world, the flesh, or the devil leap over the wall and stoop
   down to drink of the crystal fountain of your being, you are to chase
   them away lest their leprous lips should defile this spring and prevent
   the King from drinking there again. Our whole being is to be a fountain
   sealed for Jesus Christ alone! All for Jesus--body for Jesus, mind for
   Jesus, spirit for Jesus, eyes for Jesus, mouth for Jesus, hands for
   Jesus, feet for Jesus, ALL for Jesus! The wall must wholly enclose the
   garden, for a gap anywhere will admit an intruder everywhere. If one
   part of our being is left under the dominion of sin, it will show its
   power everywhere. The spring must be sealed at the very source, that
   every drop may be for Jesus throughout the whole of its course. Our
   first thoughts, desires and wishes must be His--and then all our words
   and deeds. We must be "wholly reserved for Christ that died,
   surrendered to the Crucified."

   Brothers and Sisters, do we belong to Jesus? Does He know the walks of
   our garden and the secret springs of our nature? Here is an evidence by
   which you may judge whether Jesus fully possesses you. Is there
   anything, my Brothers and Sisters, that ever stirs you like the name of
   Jesus? I remember, some years ago, when I was very weary, faint and
   heart-sore. I was vexed with the question as to whether all was right
   between my Lord and my heart. I went into an obscure country Meeting
   House where a Brother who preached did me a great service. There was
   not much in the preaching, itself, but it was all about Jesus Christ
   and I found myself, within a few minutes, weeping freely. The Gospel
   had found out the secret fountains of my being and set them flowing!
   The name of Jesus acted on me like a charm. Yes, I thought, my Lord
   knows how to get at my heart as nobody else does!

   Depend upon it, He must have been there before! I was quite sure that
   my Lord had the key that could open the sealed fountain of my being,
   for I was stirred to the innermost depth of my soul. Then I knew that
   He was no stranger to me! There is a secret drawer inside my soul that
   nobody can ever open except Jesus. He made that drawer and knows the
   secret spring which shuts and opens it. My Lord and my Lord, only, can
   play upon the strings of my heart as a minstrel on his harp and,
   therefore, I know that I belong to Him!

   Beloved, I am sure that many of you can thus assure yourselves of your
   interest in Christ. He holds the clue of the maze of your soul and can
   enter the sacred chamber of your spirit. Can He not? Do you ever feel
   so happy as when He is near? Why, you love the very place where His
   honor dwells! It happens at times that you are sick and sorry--and
   begin to doubt your interest in Christ. But if anybody begins extolling
   the Savior, you are ready to cry out with delight! Oh how I love to
   hear Him praised! It sets My heart dancing. I cry with Herbert, "Oh,
   for a well-tuned harp!" for I want to make music, too! When Jesus is
   set forth in all His glories and beauties, you can hardly contain
   yourself--you want to be singing His high praises. No wonder that the
   Methodist cries, "Bless the Lord!" You, who are very proper and quiet,
   half wish that you had courage enough to shout, "Hallelujah!" You may
   freely do so if you like!

   Well now, if the Lord Jesus Christ holds the reins of your soul at that
   rate, I feel persuaded that you are His. If His name awakens the echoes
   of your whole being as nothing else does, then it must be because there
   are certain secrets between you and Him which no one else can know. My
   heart is often like the captive king who sat pining in a lonely tower
   with nothing to relieve his sadness as he remembered his native land,
   his vacant palace, and the malice of the enemy who kept him in exile.
   Nothing awakened him from his dreamy melancholy. Many were the voices
   within and without the castle, but they were nothing to him. The
   serenade of troubadours only mocked his misery. But one day a tender
   voice thrilled him. He listened to the verse of a song. It was even as
   life from the dead! None knew the next verse but himself. See what
   effect that sonnet has had on the monarch! His eyes, how they sparkled!
   His whole frame, how it is reanimated! He sang in response. With what
   rapture he pours forth the song! He is a fine singer, surely! We did
   not know that the King had such a voice. How charmed he is as a third
   stanza is sung by the minstrel below! And why? Because it is Blon-del,
   his friend, who has, at last, found him and thus salutes him. They
   knew, but nobody else in the world knew that song!

   Even thus, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. My Lord
   knows what it is that can move me and my heart melts when He speaks! My
   heart has a song which it sings to her Beloved and He has a song for
   me. I feel that I must be His, for nobody stirs my soul as He does.

   Dear Friends, if you know that this is so, be happy in His love! See to
   it that you live wholly to Him and for Him. As you have a good hope
   that He is altogether yours, be altogether His! Honor Him in your
   families and honor Him in the outside world! Serve the Lord wherever
   you are, whether you are most found in the kitchen, the parlor, the
   workshop, the street, or the field! Make it your delight that you are
   reserved unto Him. Acknowledge that the vows of the Lord are upon you.
   You are His Sister and His Spouse--give Him love in both forms--find in
   Him, Brother and Bridegroom. You are His enclosed garden, His spring
   shut up, His fountain sealed--then yield your all to Him, both of fruit
   and flow, of work of hand and warmth of heart! Be yours the honor, the
   bliss of being altogether your Lord's.
     __________________________________________________________________

The First Appearance of the Risen Lord to the Eleven

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 10, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And as they thus spoke, Jesus, Himself, stood in the midst of them and
   said unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and
   frightened, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And He said unto
   them, Why are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
   Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I, Myself: handle Me and see,
   for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have. And when He had
   thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet. But while they
   still did not believe for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, Have
   you any food here? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and
   some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence. And He said
   unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet
   with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the
   Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me."
   Luke 24:36-44.

   THIS, beloved Friends, is one of the most memorable of our Lord's many
   visits to His disciples after He had risen from the dead. Each one of
   these appearances had its own peculiarity. I cannot, at this time, give
   you even an outline of the special colorings which distinguished each
   of the many manifestations of our risen Lord. The instance now before
   us may be considered to be the fullest and most deliberate of all the
   manifestations, abounding beyond every other in "infallible proofs."
   Remember that it occurred on the same day in which our Lord had risen
   from the dead and it was the close of a long day of gracious
   appearings. It was the summing up of a series of interviews, all of
   which were proofs of the Lord's Resurrection. There was the empty tomb
   and the grave clothes left there--the place where the Lord lay was
   accessible to all who chose to inspect it--for the great stone which
   had been sealed and guarded was rolled away. This, in itself, was most
   impressive evidence. Moreover, the holy women had been there and had
   seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive. Magdalene had
   enjoyed a special interview. Peter and John had been into the empty
   tomb and had seen for themselves. The report was current that "the Lord
   was risen, indeed, and had appeared unto Simon." It was a special thing
   that He should appear unto Simon for the disciples painfully knew how
   Simon had denied his Master and His appearance unto Simon seemed to
   have struck them as peculiarly characteristic--it was so like the
   manner of our Lord.

   They met together in their bewilderment--the 11 of them gathered, as I
   suppose, for a social meal, for Mark tells as that the Lord appeared
   unto them "as they sat at meat." It must have been very late in the
   day, but they were loath to part and so kept together till midnight.
   While they were sitting at meat, two Brothers came in who, even after
   the sun had set, had hastened back from Emmaus. These newcomers related
   how One who seemed a stranger had joined Himself to them as they were
   walking from Jerusalem, had talked with them in such a way that their
   hearts had been made to burn and had made Himself known unto them in
   the breaking of bread at the journey's end. They declared that it was
   the Lord who had thus appeared to them and, though they had intended to
   spend the night at Emmaus, they had hurried back to tell the marvelous
   news to the eleven! Hence the witnesses accumulated with great
   rapidity--it became more and more clear that Jesus had really risen
   from the dead! But as yet the doubters were not convinced, for Mark
   says, "After that He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they
   walked and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the
   residue: neither believed they them."

   Everything was working up to one point--the most unbelieving of them
   were being driven into a corner! They must doubt the truthfulness of
   Magdalene and the other saintly women. They must question the veracity
   of Simon. They must

   reject the two newly-arrived Brothers and charge them with telling idle
   tales--or else they must believe that Jesus was still alive, though
   they had seen Him die upon the Cross! At that moment the chief
   confirmation of all presented itself-- "for Jesus, Himself, stood in
   the midst of them." The doors were shut, but, despite every obstacle,
   their Lord was present in the center of the assembly! In the Presence
   of One whose loving smile warmed their hearts, their unbelief was
   destined to thaw and disappear! Jesus revealed Himself in all the
   warmth of His vitality and love--and made them understand that it was
   none other than Himself and that the Scriptures had told them it should
   be so. They were slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets had
   spoken concerning Him, but He brought them to it by His familiar
   communion with them. Oh, that in a like way He would put an end to all
   our doubts and fears!

   Brothers and Sisters, though you and I were not at that interview, yet
   we may derive much profit from it while we look at it in detail,
   anxiously desiring that we may in spirit see, look upon and handle the
   Word of Life manifested in the flesh! Oh, to learn all that Jesus would
   teach us as we now, in spirit, take our places at that midnight meeting
   of the chosen ones!

   In this wonderful manifestation of our Lord to His Apostles, I notice
   three things worthy of our careful observation this morning. This
   incident teaches us the certainty of the Resurrection of our Lord.
   Secondly, it shows us a little of the Character of our risen Master.
   And, thirdly, it gives us certain hints as to the nature of our own
   resurrection, when it shall be granted us. Oh, that we may be counted
   worthy to attain to the resurrection from among the dead!

   I. First, then, let us see here THE CERTAINTY OF OUR LORD'S
   RESURRECTION. We have often asserted and we affirm it yet again, that
   no fact in history is better attested than the Resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead! The common mass of facts accepted by all men as
   historical are not one-tenth as certainly assured to us as this fact
   is! It must not be denied by any who are willing to pay the slightest
   respect to the testimony of their fellow men, that Jesus, who died upon
   the Cross and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, did
   literally rise again from the dead!

   Observe, that when this Person appeared in the room, the first token
   that it was Jesus was His speech--they were to have the evidence of
   hearing--He used the same speech. No sooner did He appear than He
   spoke. He was never dumb and it was natural that the great Teacher and
   Friend should at once salute His followers, from whom He had been so
   painfully parted. His first words must have called to their minds those
   cheering notes with which He had closed His last address. They must
   have recognized that charming voice. I suppose its tone and rhythm to
   have been rich with a music most sweet and heavenly. A perfect voice
   would naturally be given to a perfect Man. The very sound of it would,
   through their ears, have charmed conviction into their minds with a
   glow of joy had they not been frozen up in unbelief. "Never man spoke
   like this Man."

   They might have known Him by His speech, alone. There were tones of
   voice as well as forms of language which were peculiar to Jesus of
   Nazareth. What our Lord said was just like He--it was all of a piece
   with His former discourse. Among the last sounds which lingered in
   their ears was that word, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto
   you: not as the world gives, give I unto you"--and now it must surely
   be the same Person who introduces Himself with the cheering salutation,
   "Peace be unto you." About the Lord there were the air and style of one
   who had peace, Himself, and loved to communicate it to others. The tone
   in which He spoke peace tended to create it! He was a peacemaker and a
   peace giver--and by this sign they were driven to discern their Leader.

   Do you not think that they were almost persuaded to believe that it was
   Jesus when He proceeded to chide them in a manner more tender than any
   other chiding could have been? How gentle the words when He said, "Why
   are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" Our Lord's
   chidings were comforts in disguise! His upbraiding was consolation in
   an unusual shape. Did not His upbraiding on this occasion bring to
   their minds His question upon the sea of Galilee when He said to them,
   "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Did they not also
   remember when He came to them walking on the water and they were afraid
   that He was a spirit and cried out for fear--and He said to them, "It
   is I. Be not afraid"? Surely they remembered enough of these things to
   have made sure that it was their Lord had not their spirits been sunken
   in sorrow! Our Lord had never been unwisely silent as to their faults.
   He had never passed over their errors with that false and indulgent
   affection which gratifies its own ease by tolerating sin. No, He had
   pointed out their faults with the fidelity of true love. And now that
   He thus admonished them, they ought to have perceived that it was none
   other than He. Alas, unbelief is slow to die!

   When Jesus came at last to talk to them about Moses, the Prophets and
   the Psalms, He was upon a favorite topic. Then the 11 might have nudged
   each other and whispered, "It is the Lord!" Jesus had, in His latter
   hours, been continually pointing out the Scriptures which were being
   fulfilled in Himself and, at this interview, He repeated His former
   teaching. This is assuredly none other than He who always spoke His
   Father's mind and will--and constantly did honor to the Holy Spirit by
   whom the sacred Books were inspired! Thus in His tones and topics our
   Lord gave clear indications that it was He who had suddenly appeared in
   that little assembly.

   I want you to notice that this evidence was all the better because
   they, themselves, evidently remained the same men as they had been.
   "They were terrified and frightened, and supposed that they had seen a
   spirit." And thus they did exactly what they had done long before when
   He came to them walking on the waters! In the interval between His
   death and His appearing, no change had come over them! Nothing had
   happened to them to elevate them, as yet, out of their littleness of
   mind. The Holy Spirit was not yet given and, therefore, all that they
   had heard at the Last Supper and seen in Gethsemane and at the Cross
   had not yet exercised its full influence upon them. They were still
   childish and unbelieving! The same men, then, are looking at the same
   Person and they are in their ordinary condition--this argues strongly
   for the correctness of their identification of their well-beloved Lord.
   They are not carried away by enthusiasm, nor wafted aloft by
   fanaticism--they are not even, as yet, borne up by the Holy Spirit into
   an unusual state of mind--they are as slow of heart and as fearful as
   ever they were. If they are convinced that Jesus has risen from the
   dead, depend upon it, it must be so! If they go forth to tell the
   tidings of His Resurrection and to yield up their lives for it, you may
   be sure that their witness is true, for they are not the sort of men to
   be deceived!

   In our day there has been a buzz about certain miracles of faith, but
   the statements usually come from persons whose impartiality is
   questionable--credulous persons who saw what they evidently wished to
   see. I know several good people who would not willfully deceive who,
   nevertheless, upon some points are exceedingly unreliable because their
   enthusiasm is prepared to be imposed upon. Any hawker of wonders would
   expect them to be buyers--they have a taste for the marvelous! As
   witnesses, the evidence of such people has no value in it as compared
   with that of these 11 men who evidently were the reverse of credulous
   or excitable. In the Apostles' case, the facts were tested to the
   utmost and the truth was not admitted till it was forced upon them! I
   am not excusing the unbelief of the disciples, but I claim that their
   witness has all the more weight in it because it was the result of such
   cool investigation. These Apostles were, in a special manner, to be
   witnesses of the Resurrection and it makes assurance doubly sure to us
   when we see them arrive at their conclusion with such deliberate steps.
   These were men like ourselves, only perhaps a little less likely to be
   deceived--they needed to be convinced by overwhelming witness and they
   were so! And afterwards they always declared boldly that their
   crucified Lord had, indeed, risen from the dead!

   Thus far in the narrative they had received the evidence of their ears
   and that is by no means weak evidence. But now they are to have the
   evidence of sight, for the Savior said to them, "Behold My hands and My
   feet, that it is I, Myself." "And when He had thus spoken, He showed
   them His hands and His feet." John says, "His side," also, which he
   especially noted because he had seen the piercing of that side and the
   blood and water flow out. They were to see and identify that blessed
   body which had suffered death! The nail prints were visible, both in
   His hands which were open before them, and also in His feet which their
   condescending Lord deigned to expose to their deliberate gaze. There
   was the mark of the gash in His side--and this the Lord Jesus
   graciously bared to them, as afterwards He did more fully to Thomas,
   when He said, "Reach here your hand and thrust it into My side." These
   were the marks of the Lord Jesus by which His identity could be
   verified.

   Beyond this, there was the general contour of His Countenance and the
   fashion of the whole Man by which they could discern Him. His body,
   though it was now, in a sense, glorified, was so far veiled as to its
   new condition that it retained its former likeness. They must have
   perceived that the Lord was no longer subject to the pains and
   infirmities of our ordinary mortality--otherwise His wounds had not
   been healed so soon--but there remained sure marks by which they knew
   that it was Jesus and no other. He looked like a lamb that had been
   slain--the signs of the Son of Man were in His hands and feet and side.
   Their sight of the Lord was not a hasty glimpse, but a steady
   inspection, for John, in his first Epistle writes, "Which we have seen
   and looked upon." This implies a lengthened looking and such the Lord
   Jesus invited His friends to take. They could not have been mistaken
   when they were afforded such a view of those marks by which His
   identity was established. The same Christ that died, had risen from the
   dead! The same Jesus that had hung

   upon the Cross, now stood in the midst of those who knew Him best! It
   was the same body and they identified it-- although a great change had
   doubtless come over it since it was taken down from the tree.

   Furthermore, that they might be quite sure, the Lord invited them to
   receive the evidence of touch or feeling. He called them to a form of
   examination from which, I doubt not, many of them shrank. He said,
   "Handle Me. Handle Me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as
   you see I have." Writers have remarked upon the use of the word,
   "bones," instead of, "blood," in this case. But I do not think that any
   inference can be safely drawn from there. It would have been barely
   possible for the disciples to have discovered, by handling, that the
   Lord had blood, but they could, by handling, perceive that He had bones
   and, therefore, the expression is natural enough, without our imputing
   to it a meaning which it may never have been intended to convey! The
   Savior had a reason, no doubt, other than some have imagined, for the
   use of the terms, "a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have."
   The Savior had not assumed a phantom body--there were bones in it as
   well as flesh--it was, to the fullest, as substantial as ever. He had
   not put on an appearance, as angels do when they visit the sons of men.
   No, His body was solid substance which could be handled. "Handle Me and
   see that it is I." He bade them see that it was flesh and bone, such as
   no spirit has. There were the substantial elements of a human frame in
   that body of Christ which stood in the midst of the eleven. Jesus
   cried, "Handle Me and see."

   Thus our Lord was establishing to the Apostles, not only His identity,
   but also His substantial corporeal existence-- He would make them see
   that He was a Man of flesh and bones--not a ghost, airy and
   unsubstantial. This should correct a certain form of teaching upon the
   Resurrection which is all too common. I was present some years ago at
   the funeral of a man of God for whom I had much respect. In the chapel
   a certain excellent Doctor of Divinity gave us an address, before the
   interment, in which he informed us as to the condition of his departed
   friend. He said that he was not in the coffin--indeed, there was
   nothing of him there. This I was sorry to hear, for if so, I was
   ignorantly mourning over a body which had no relation to my friend. The
   preacher went on to describe the way in which the man of God had
   ascended to Heaven at the moment of death--his spirit fashioning for
   itself a body as it passed through the air!

   I believed in my friend's being in Heaven, but not in his being there
   in a body. I knew that my friend's body was in the coffin and I
   believed that it would be laid in the tomb--and I expected that it
   would rise again from the grave at the coming of the Lord. I did not
   believe that my friend would weave for himself a filmy frame, making a
   second body, nor do I believe it now, though I heard it so affirmed. I
   believe in the resurrection of the dead! I look to see the very body
   which was buried, raised again! It is true that as the seed develops
   into the flower, so the buried body is merely the germ out of which
   will come the spiritual body--but, still, it will not be a second body,
   but the same body, as to identity. I shall enter into no dispute about
   the atoms of the body, nor deny that the particles of our flesh, in the
   process of their decay, may be taken up by plants and absorbed into the
   bodies of animals and all that! I do not care one jot about identity of
   atoms! There may not be a solitary ounce of the same matter, but yet
   identity can be preserved--and it must be preserved if I read my Bible
   right!

   My body today is the same as that which I inhabited 20 years ago and
   yet all its particles are different! Even so, the body put into the
   grave and the body that rises from it are not two bodies, but one body.
   The saints are not, at the coming of their Lord, to remain disembodied
   spirits, nor to wear freshly created bodies, but their entire manhood
   is to be restored and to enjoy endless bliss! Well said the Patriarch
   of old, "in my flesh shall I see God." "He which raised up the Lord
   Jesus shall raise up us, also, by Jesus." I cannot see how the doctrine
   of Christ goes beyond the doctrine of Plato and others if it is not a
   doctrine which respects this body! The immortality of the soul was
   accepted and known as a Truth of God before the faith of Christ was
   preached, for it is dimly discoverable by the light of nature. But the
   resurrection of the body is a Revelation peculiar to the Christian
   dispensation--at which the wise men of the world very naturally
   mocked--but which it ill becomes Christian men to spirit away!

   The body which is buried shall rise again! It is true it is sown a
   natural body and shall be raised a spiritual body, but it will be truly
   a body and the same it which was sown shall be raised! It is true it is
   sown in weakness and raised in power, but the same it is thus raised.
   It is true that it is sown in weakness to be raised in power and sown a
   corruptible body, to be raised in incorruption, but in each case it is
   the same body, though so gloriously changed.

   It will be of a material substance, also, for our Savior's body was
   material, since He said, "Handle Me and see that it is I, for a spirit
   has not flesh and bones, as you see I have." Still further to confirm
   the faith of the disciples and to show them that their Lord had a real
   body--and not the mere form of one--He gave them evidence which
   appealed to their

   common sense. He said "Have you any food here? And they gave Him a
   piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in
   their presence." This was an exceedingly convincing proof of His
   unquestionable Resurrection! In very deed and fact, and not in vision
   and phantom, the Man who had died upon the Cross stood among them!

   Let us just think of this and rejoice! This Resurrection of our Lord
   Jesus is a matter of certainty, for, if you spirit this away, you have
   done away with the Gospel altogether! If He is not risen from the dead,
   then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain! You are yet in
   your sins! Justification receives its seal in the Resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead--not in His appearing as a phantom, but in His
   being loosed from death and raised to a glorious life! This is God's
   mark of the acceptance of the work of the great Substitute and of the
   justification of all for whom His atoning work was performed.

   Note well that this is also our grand hope concerning those who are
   asleep. You have buried them forever if Christ was not raised from the
   dead! They have passed out of your sight and they shall never again
   have fellowship with you unless Jesus rose again from the dead! The
   Apostle makes the resurrection of all who are in Christ to hinge upon
   the Resurrection of Christ. I do not feel it necessary, when I talk
   with the bereaved, to comfort them at all concerning those that are
   asleep in Christ, as to their souls--we know that they are forever with
   the Lord and are supremely blessed and, therefore, we need no further
   comfort. The only matter upon which we need consolation is that poor
   body which once we loved so well, but which now we must leave in the
   cold clay. The resurrection comes in as a final undoing of all that
   death has done. "They shall come again from the land of the enemy."
   Jesus says, "Your dead men shall live, together with My dead body shall
   they arise." If we question the Resurrection of Christ, then is the
   whole of our faith questioned and those who have fallen asleep in
   Christ have perished! And we are left just where others were before
   Christ brought this Divine Truth of God to light. Only as we are sure
   of the Resurrection of Jesus can we cry, "O death, where is your sting?
   O grave, where is your victory?"

   II. Secondly, will you follow me while I very briefly set forth OUR
   LORD'S CHARACTER WHEN RISEN FROM

   THE DEAD?

   What is He, now that He has conquered death and all that belongs to it?
   What is He, now that He shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore?
   He is much the same as He used to be! Indeed, He is altogether what He
   was, for He is "the same yesterday, today and forever."

   Notice, first, that in this appearance of Christ we are taught that He
   is still anxious to create peace in the hearts of His people. No sooner
   did He make Himself visible than He said, "Peace be unto you." Beloved,
   your risen Lord wants you to be happy! When He was here on earth, He
   said, "Let not your hearts be troubled." He says the same to you today.
   He takes no delight in the distresses of His people. He would have His
   joy to be in them, that their joy may be full. He bids you rejoice in
   Him always. He whispers to you, this morning, as you sit in the pew,
   "Peace be unto you." He has not lost His tender care over the least of
   the flock--He would have each one led by the still waters and made to
   lie down in green pastures.

   Note, again, that He has not lost His habit of chiding unbelief and
   encouraging faith, for as soon as He has risen and speaks with His
   disciples, He asks them, "Why are you troubled? And why do thoughts
   arise in your hearts?" He loves you to believe in Him and be at rest.
   Find if you can, Beloved, one occasion in which Jesus inculcated doubt,
   or bade men dwell in uncertainty! The apostles of unbelief are
   everywhere, today, and they imagine that they are doing God a service
   by spreading what they call, "honest doubt." This is death to all joy!
   Poison to all peace! The Savior did not do so! He would have them take
   extraordinary measures to get rid of their doubt. "Handle Me," He says.
   It was going a long way to say that, but He would sooner be handled
   than His people should doubt! Ordinarily it might not be proper for
   them to touch Him. Had He not said to the women, "Touch Me not"? But
   what may not be allowable, ordinarily, becomes proper when necessity
   demands it. The removal of their doubt as to our Lord's Resurrection
   necessitated that they should handle Him and, therefore, He bids them
   do so.

   O Beloved, you that are troubled and vexed with thoughts and,
   therefore, get no comfort out of your religion because of your
   mistrust--your Lord would have you come very near to Him--and put His
   Gospel to any test which will satisfy you. He cannot bear you to doubt!
   He appeals tenderly, saying, "O you of little faith, why do you doubt?"
   He would at this moment still encourage you to taste and see that the
   Lord is good. He would have you believe in the sub-

   stantial reality of His religion and handle Him and see! Trust Him
   largely and simply, as a child trusts its mother and knows no fear!

   Notice, next, that when the Savior had risen from the dead and a
   measure of His Glory was upon Him, He was still most condescendingly
   familiar with His people. He showed them His hands and His feet and He
   said, "Handle Me and see." When He was on earth, before His passion, He
   was most free with His disciples--no pretense of dignity kept Him apart
   from them. He was their Master and Lord--and yet He washed their feet!
   He was the Son of the Highest, but He was among them as One who serves!
   He said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me." He is the same
   today--

   "His sacred name a common word

   On earth He loves to hear;

   There is no majesty in Him

   Which love may not come near." Though He reigns in the highest heavens,
   His delights are still with the sons of men! He will still permit us to
   sit at His feet, or even to lean our head upon His bosom. Jesus will
   listen as we pour out our griefs. He will regard our cry when we are
   not pleading about a sword in our bones, but only concerning a thorn in
   our flesh. Jesus is still the Brother born for adversity. He still
   manifests Himself to us as He does not unto the world. Is not this
   clear and also very pleasant to see, as we study this interview?

   The next thing is that the risen Lord was still wonderfully patient,
   even as He had always been. He bore with their folly and infirmity,
   for, "while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered," He did not
   chide them. He discerned between one unbelief and another and He judged
   that the unbelief which grew out of wonder was not so blamable as that
   former unbelief which denied credible evidence. Instead of rebuke, He
   gives confirmation. He says, "Have you any food here?" And He takes a
   piece of broiled fish and some honeycomb and eats it. Not that He
   needed food. His body could receive food, but it did not require it.
   Eating was His own sweet way of showing them that if He could, He would
   solve all their questions. He would do anything in His great patience
   that they might be cured of their mistrust! Just so today, Beloved,
   Jesus does not chide you, but He invites you to believe Him. He invites
   you, therefore, to sup with Him and eat bread at His table. "He will
   not always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever," but in His
   great mercy He will use another tone and encourage you to trust Him.
   Can you hold back? Oh, please, do not do so!

   Observe that our Savior, though He was risen from the dead and,
   therefore, in a measure, in His Glory, entered into the fullest
   fellowship with His own. Peter tells us that they did eat and drink
   with Him. I do not notice, in this narrative, that He drank with them,
   but He certainly ate of such food as they had, and this was a clear
   token of His fellowship with them. In all ages eating and drinking with
   one another has been the most expressive token of communion and so the
   Savior seems to say to us, today, "I have eaten with you, My people,
   since I have quit the grave. I have eaten with you through the 11 who
   represented you. I have eaten and I will still eat with you, till we
   sit down together at the marriage supper of the Lamb. If any man opens
   unto Me, I will come into Him and will sup with Him and he with Me."
   Yes, the Lord Jesus is still wonderfully near to us and He waits to
   grant us the highest forms of fellowship which can be known this side
   the gate of pearl! In this let our spirits quietly rejoice.

   Let me call your attention to the fact that when Jesus had risen from
   the dead, He was just as tender of Scripture as He was before His
   decease. I have dwelt for two Sunday mornings [Sermons #1955--Jesus
   Declining the Legions and #1956--On the Cross After Death] upon the
   wonderful way in which our Lord always magnified the Scriptures. And
   here, as if to crown all, He told them that, "all things must be
   fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets,
   and in the Psalms concerning Me. And He opened their understanding that
   they might understand the Scriptures and said unto them, Thus it is
   written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the
   dead." Find Jesus where you may, He is the antagonist of those who
   would lessen the authority of Holy Scripture!

   "It is written" is His weapon against Satan, His argument against
   wicked men! The learned at this hour scoff at the Book and accuse of
   Bibliolatry those of us who reverence the Divine Word! But in this they
   derive no assistance from the teaching or example of Jesus. Not a word
   derogatory of Scripture ever fell from the lips of Jesus Christ--He
   always manifested the most reverent regard for every jot and tittle of
   the Inspired Volume. Since our Savior, not only before His death, but
   after it, took care, thus, to commend the Scriptures to us, let us
   avoid with all our hearts all teaching in which Holy Scripture is put
   into the background! Still the Bible and the Bible, alone, should be
   and shall be the religion of Protestants--and we will not budge an inch
   from that standpoint, God helping us!

   Once again, our Savior, after He had risen from the dead, showed that
   He was anxious for the salvation of men, for it was at this interview
   that He breathed upon the Apostles and bade them receive the Holy
   Spirit, to fit them to go forth and preach the Gospel to every
   creature! The missionary spirit is the spirit of Christ--not only the
   spirit of Him that died to save, but the spirit of Him who has finished
   His work and has gone to His rest. Let us cultivate that spirit, if we
   would be like the Jesus who has risen from the dead!

   III. I can stay no longer, because I would draw your attention, in the
   third place, to the light which is thrown by this incident upon THE
   NATURE OF OUR OWN RESURRECTION.

   First, I gather from this text that our nature, our whole humanity,
   will be perfected at the day of the appearing of our Lord and Savior
   Jesus Christ, when the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we that
   may then be alive shall be changed. Jesus has redeemed not only our
   souls, but our bodies! "Know you not that your bodies are the temples
   of the Holy Spirit?" When the Lord shall deliver His captive people out
   of the land of the enemy, He will not leave a bone of one of them in
   the adversary's power. The dominion of death shall be utterly broken.
   Our entire nature shall be redeemed unto the living God in the day of
   our resurrection! After death, until that day, we shall be disembodied
   spirits, but in the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body, we
   shall attain our full inheritance! We are looking forward to a complete
   restoration. At this time the body is dead because of sin and,
   therefore, it suffers pain and tends to decay, but the spirit is life
   because of righteousness. In our resurrection, however, the body shall
   also be quickened and the resurrection shall be to the body what
   regeneration has been to the soul! Thus shall our humanity be
   completely delivered from the consequences of the Fall. Perfect manhood
   is that which Jesus restores from sin and the grave--and this shall be
   ours in the day of His appearing.

   I gather next that in our resurrection our nature will be full of
   peace. Jesus Christ would not have said, "Peace be unto you," if there
   had not been a deep peace within Himself. He was calm and undisturbed.
   There was much peace about His whole life, but after His Resurrection,
   His peace becomes very conspicuous. There is no striving with scribes
   and Pharisees; there is no battling with anybody after our Lord is
   risen! A French author has written of our Lord's Forty Days on earth
   after the Resurrection under the title of, "The Life of Jesus Christ in
   Glory." Though rather misleading at first, the title is not so
   inaccurate as it appears, for His work was done and His warfare was
   accomplished--and our Lord's life here was the beginning of His Glory.
   Such shall be our life--we shall be flooded with eternal peace and
   shall never again be tossed about with trouble, sorrow, distress or
   persecution! An infinite serenity shall keep our body, soul and spirit
   throughout eternity.

   When we rise again our nature will find its home amid the communion of
   saints. When the Lord Jesus Christ had risen again, His first resort
   was the room where His disciples were gathered. His first evening was
   spent among the objects of His love. Even so, wherever we are, we shall
   seek and find communion with the saints. I joyfully expect to meet many
   of you in Heaven--to know you and commune with you. I would not like to
   float about in the future state without a personality in the midst of a
   company of undefined and unknown beings. That would be no Heaven to me!
   No, Brothers and Sisters, we shall soon perceive who our comrades are
   and we shall rejoice in them and in our Lord. There could be no
   communion among unknown entities. You cannot have fellowship with
   people whom you do not recognize and, therefore, it seems to me most
   clear that we shall, in the future state, have fellowship through
   recognition--and our heavenly resurrection bodies shall help the
   recognition and share in the fellowship. As the risen Christ wends His
   way to the upper room of the eleven, so will you, by force of holy
   gravitation, find your way to the place where all the servants of God
   shall gather at the last. Then shall we be truly at home and go no more
   out forever.

   Furthermore, I see that in that day our bodies will admirably serve our
   spirits. For look at our Lord's body. Now that He is risen from the
   dead, He desires to convince His disciples and His body becomes at once
   the means of His argument, the evidence of His statement! His flesh and
   bones were text and sermon for Him. "Handle Me," He says, "and see."
   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, whatever we may have to do in eternity, we
   shall not be hindered by our bodies as we now are! Flesh and blood
   hamper us, but "flesh and bones" shall help us! I need to speak,
   sometimes, but my head aches, or my throat is choked, or my legs refuse
   to bear me up--but it is not so in the resurrection from the dead! A
   thousand infirmities in this earthly life compass us about, but our
   risen body shall be helpful to our regenerated nature! It is only a
   natural body now, fit for our soul, but hereafter it shall be a
   spiritual body, adapted to all the desires and wishes of the
   Heaven-born

   spirit--and no longer shall we have to cry out, "The spirit, indeed, is
   willing, but the flesh is weak." We shall find in the risen body a
   power such as the spirit shall wish to employ for the noblest purposes.
   Will not this be wonderful?

   In that day, Beloved, when we shall rise again from the dead, we shall
   remember the past. Do you not notice how the risen Savior says, "These
   are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you." He had
   not forgotten His former state. I think Dr. Watts is right when he says
   that we shall, "with transporting joys recount the labors of our feet."
   It is rather a small subject and probably we shall far more delight to
   dwell on the labors of our Redeemer's hands and feet--but still, we
   shall remember all the ways whereby the Lord our God led us--and we
   shall talk to one another concerning them. In Heaven we shall remember
   our happy Sabbaths here below, when our hearts burned within us while
   Jesus, Himself, drew near. Since Jesus speaks after He has risen of the
   things that He said while He was with His disciples, we perceive that
   the river of death is not like the fabled Lethe, which caused all who
   drank thereof to forget their past. We shall arise with a multitude of
   hallowed memories enriching our minds! Death will not be oblivion to
   us, for it was not so to Jesus. Rather shall we meditate on mercies
   experienced and, by discoursing on them, we shall make known to
   principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God!

   Observe that our Lord, after He had risen from the dead, was still full
   of the spirit of service and, therefore, He called others out to go and
   preach the Gospel--and He gave them the Spirit of God to help them.
   When you and I are risen from the dead, we shall rise full of the
   spirit of service! What engagements we may have throughout eternity we
   are not told because we have enough to do to fulfill our engagements
   now, but assuredly we shall be honored with errands of mercy and tasks
   of love fitted for our heavenly being. and I doubt not it shall be one
   of our greatest delights, while seeing the Lord's face, to serve Him
   with all our perfected powers! He will use us in the grand economy of
   future manifestations of His Divine Glory. Possibly we may be to other
   dispensations what the angels have been to this. Be that as it may, we
   shall find a part of our bliss and joy in constantly serving Him who
   has raised us from the dead!

   There I leave the subject, wishing that I could have handled it much
   better. Think it over when you are quiet at home and add this thought
   to it, that you have a share in all that is contained in resurrection.
   May the Holy Spirit give you a personal grip of this vital Truth of
   God! You, yourself, shall rise from the dead--therefore, be not afraid
   to die!

   If any of my Hearers have no share in our Lord's Resurrection, I am
   truly sorry for them. O my Friend, what you are losing! If you have no
   share in the living Lord, may God have mercy upon you! If you have no
   share in Christ's rising from the dead, then you will not be raised up
   in the likeness of His glorified body! If you do not attain to that
   resurrection from among the dead, then you must abide in death, with no
   prospect but that of a certain fearful looking for of judgment and of
   fiery indignation. Oh, look to Jesus, the Savior! Only as you look to
   Him can there be a happy future for you. God help you to do so at once,
   for His dear name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Watchword For Today--"Stand Fast"

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 17, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For our citizenship is in Heaven, from where, also, we look for the
   Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it
   may be fashioned like unto His glorious body according to the working
   whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Therefore,
   my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, standfast
   in the Lord my dearly beloved." Philippians 3:20,21; 4:1.

   EVERY doctrine of the Word of God has its practical bearing. As each
   tree bears seed after its kind, so does every Truth of God bring forth
   practical virtues. Hence you find the Apostle Paul very full of
   "therefore"--his therefores being the conclusions drawn from certain
   statements of Divine Truth. I marvel that our excellent translators
   should have divided the argument from the conclusion by making a new
   chapter where there is least reason for it.

   Last Lord's Day I spoke with you concerning the most sure and certain
   Resurrection of our Lord Jesus [#1958-- The First Appearance of the
   Risen Lord to the Eleven]--now there is a practical force in that Truth
   of God which constitutes part of what is meant by, "the power of His
   Resurrection." Since the Lord has risen and will surely come a second
   time--and will raise the bodies of His people at His coming--there is
   something to wait for and a grand reason for steadfastness while thus
   waiting. We are looking for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus
   Christ from Heaven and that He shall "fashion anew the body of our
   humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His Glory."
   Therefore let us stand fast in the position which will secure us this
   honor. Let us keep our posts until the coming of the great Captain
   shall release the sentinels. The glorious resurrection will abundantly
   repay us for all the toil and travail we may have to undergo in the
   battle for the Lord. The Glory to be revealed even now casts a light
   upon our path and causes sunshine within our hearts! The hope of this
   happiness makes us even now strong in the Lord and in the power of His
   might.

   Paul was deeply anxious that those in whom he had been the means of
   kindling the heavenly hope might be preserved faithful until the coming
   of Christ. He trembled lest any of them should seem to draw back and
   prove traitors to their Lord. He dreaded lest he should lose what he
   hoped he had gained, by their turning aside from the faith. Hence he
   beseeches them to "stand fast." He expressed in the sixth verse of the
   first chapter his conviction that He who had begun a good work in them
   would perform it, but his intense love made him exhort them, saying,
   "Stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." By such exhortations,
   final perseverance is promoted and secured.

   Paul has fought bravely and, in the case of the Philippian converts, he
   believes that he has secured the victory, but he fears lest it should
   yet be lost. He reminds me of the death of that British hero, Wolfe,
   who, on the heights of Quebec, received a mortal wound. It was just at
   the moment when the enemy fled and when he knew that they were running,
   a smile was on his face--and he cried, "Hold me up. Let not my brave
   soldiers see me drop. The day is ours. Oh, do keep it!" His sole
   anxiety was to make the victory sure! Thus warriors die and thus Paul
   lived. His very soul seems to cry, "We have won the day. Oh, do keep
   it!"

   O my beloved Hearers, I believe that many of you are "in the Lord," but
   I entreat you to "stand fast in the Lord." In your case, also, the day
   is won, but oh, do keep it! There is the pith of all I have to say to
   you this morning--may God the Holy Spirit write it on your hearts!
   Having done all things well up to now, I entreat you to obey the
   injunction of Jude, to, "keep yourselves in the love of God," and to
   join with me in adoring Him who alone is able to keep us from falling
   and to present us faultless before His Presence with exceedingly great
   joy. Unto Him be glory forever! Amen.

   In leading out your thoughts I will keep to the following order--

   First, it seems to me from the text that the Apostle perceived that
   these Philippian Christians were in their right place--they were, "in
   the Lord," and in such a position that he could safely bid them, "stand
   fast" in it. Secondly, he longed for them that they should keep their
   right place--"Stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." And then,
   thirdly, he urged the best motives for their keeping their place. These
   motives are contained in the first two verses of our text, upon which
   we will enlarge further on.

   I. Paul joyfully perceived that his BELOVED CONVERTS WERE IN THEIR
   RIGHT PLACE. It is a very important thing, indeed, that we should begin
   well. The start is not everything, but it is a great deal. It has been
   said by the old proverb, that, "Well begun is half done," and it is
   certainly so in the things of God. It is vitally important to enter in
   at the strait gate--to start on the heavenly journey from the right
   point. I have no doubt that many slips and falls and apostasies among
   professors are due to the fact that they were not right at first--the
   foundation was always upon the sand and when the house came down, at
   last, it was no more than might have been expected. A flaw in the
   foundation is pretty sure to be followed by a crack in the
   superstructure! See to it that you lay a good foundation. It is better
   to have no repentance than a repentance which needs to be repented of!
   It is better to have no faith than a false faith! It is better to make
   no profession of religion than to make an untruthful one! God give us
   Grace that we may not make a mistake in learning the alphabet of
   godliness, or else in all our learning we shall blunder on and increase
   in error. We should learn early the difference between Grace and merit,
   between the purpose of God and the will of man, between trust in God
   and confidence in the flesh. If we do not start aright, the further we
   go, the further we shall be from our desired end and the more
   thoroughly in the wrong shall we find ourselves. Yes, it is of prime
   importance that our new birth and our first love should be genuine
   beyond all question.

   The only position, however, in which we can begin aright is to be, "in
   the Lord." This is to begin as we may safely go on. This is the
   essential point. It is a very good thing for Christians to be in the
   Church, but if you are in the Church before you are in the Lord, you
   are out of place! It is a good thing to be engaged in holy work, but if
   you are in holy work before you are in the Lord, you will have no heart
   for it, neither will the Lord accept it! It is not essential that you
   should be in this Church or in that Church--but it is essential that
   you should be, "in the Lord!" It is not essential that you should be in
   the Sunday school, nor in the Working Meeting, nor in the Tract
   Society--but it is essential to the last degree that you should be in
   the Lord! The Apostle rejoiced over those that were converted at
   Philippi because he knew that they were in the Lord. They were where he
   wished them to remain and, therefore, he said, "Stand fast in the
   Lord."

   What is it to be, "in the Lord"? Well, Brothers and Sisters, we are in
   the Lord vitally and evidently when we fly to the Lord Jesus by
   repentance and faith and make Him to be our refuge and hiding place. Is
   it so with you? Have you fled out of self? Are you trusting in the
   Lord, alone? Have you come to Calvary and beheld your Savior? As the
   doves build their nests in the rocks, have you thus made your home in
   Jesus? There is no shelter for a guilty soul but in His wounded side!
   Have you come there? Are you in Him? Then stay there. You will never
   have a better refuge! In fact, there is no other. No other name is
   given under Heaven among men whereby we must be saved. I cannot tell
   you to stand fast in the Lord, unless you are there--hence my first
   enquiry is--Are you in Christ? Is He your only confidence? In His life,
   His death and His Resurrection do you find the grounds of your hope? Is
   He, Himself, all your salvation and all your desire? If so, stand fast
   in Him.

   Next, these people, in addition to having fled to Christ for refuge,
   were now in Christ as to their daily life. They had heard Him say,
   "Abide in Me" and, therefore, they remained in the daily enjoyment of
   Him, in reliance upon Him, in obedience to Him, and in the earnest
   copying of His example. They were Christians! That is to say, persons
   upon whom was named the name of Christ. They were endeavoring to
   realize the power of His death and Resurrection as a sanctifying
   influence, killing their sins and fostering their virtues. They were
   laboring to reproduce His image in themselves so that they might bring
   glory to His name. Their lives were spent within the circle of their
   Savior's influence. Are you so, my dear Friends? Then stand fast! You
   will never find a nobler example! You will never be saturated with a
   more Divine spirit than that of Christ Jesus your Lord! Whether we eat
   or drink, or whatever we do, let us do all in the name of the Lord
   Jesus and so live in Him.

   These Philippians had, moreover, realized that they were in Christ by a
   real and vital union with Him. They had come to feel, not like
   separated individualities, copying a model, but as members of a body
   made like their Head. By a living, loving, lasting union, they were
   joined to Christ as their Covenant Head. They could say, "Who shall
   separate us from

   the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord?" Do you know what
   it is to feel that the life which is in you is first in Christ and
   still flows from Him, even as the life of the branch is mainly in the
   stem? "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." This is to be in
   Christ! Are you in Him in this sense? Forgive my pressing the question.
   If you answer me in the affirmative, I shall then entreat you to "stand
   fast" in Him. It is in Him and in Him, only, that spiritual life is to
   be sustained, even as only from Him can it be received! To be engrafted
   into Christ is salvation--but to abide in Christ is the full enjoyment
   of it! True union to Christ is eternal life. Paul, therefore, rejoiced
   over these Philippians because they were joined unto the Lord in one
   spirit!

   This expression is very short, but very full. "In Christ." Does it not
   mean that we are in Christ as the birds are in the air which buoys them
   up and enables them to fly? Are we not in Christ as the fish are in the
   sea? Our Lord has become our element--vital and all surrounding! In Him
   we live, move and have our being. He is in us and we are in Him. We are
   filled with all the fullness of God because all fullness dwells in
   Christ and we dwell in Him. Christ to us is all. He is in all and He is
   All in All! Jesus to us is everything in everything. Without Him we can
   do nothing and we are nothing! Thus are we emphatically in Him. If you
   have reached this point, "stand fast" in it! If you dwell in the secret
   place of the tabernacles of the Most high, abide under the shadow of
   the Almighty! Do you sit at His table and eat of His dainties? Then
   prolong the visit and think not of removal. Say in your soul--

   "Here would I find a settled rest,

   While others go and come;

   No more a stranger, or a guest,

   But like a child at home."

   Has Jesus brought you into His green pastures? Then lie down in them.
   Go no further, for you will never fare better. Stay with your Lord,
   however long the night, for only in Him have you hope of morning!

   You see, then, that these people were where they should be--in the
   Lord--and this was the reason why the Apostle took such delight in
   them. Kindly read the first verse of the fourth chapter and see how he
   loves them and joys over them. He heaps up titles of love! Some dip
   their morsel in vinegar, but Paul's words were saturated with honey.
   Here we not only have sweet words, but they mean something--his love
   was real and fervent! The very heart of Paul is written out large in
   this verse--"Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my
   joy and crown, stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved."

   Because they were in Christ, first of all they were Paul's Brothers and
   Sisters. This was a new relationship, not earthly, but heavenly. What
   did this Jew from Tarsus know about the Philippians? Many of them were
   Gentiles. Time was when he would have called them dogs and despised
   them as the uncircumcised. But now he says, "My brethren." That poor
   word has become very hackneyed. We talk of brethren without
   particularly much of brotherly love, but true Brothers and Sisters have
   a love for one another which is very unselfish and admirable--and so
   there is between real Christians a brotherhood which they will neither
   disown, nor dissemble, nor forget! It is said of our Lord, "For this
   cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." And surely they need
   never be ashamed to call one another brethren! Paul, at any rate, looks
   at the jailor, that jailor who had set his feet in the stocks--and he
   looks at the jailor's family, at Lydia and many others--in fact, at the
   whole company that he had gathered at Philippi and he salutes them
   lovingly as, "My brethren." Their names were written in the same family
   register because they were in Christ and, therefore, had one Father in
   Heaven!

   Next, the Apostle calls them, "my dearly beloved." The verse almost
   begins with this word and it quite finishes with it. The repetition
   makes it mean, "My doubly dear ones." Such is the love which every true
   servant of Christ will have for those who have been begotten to the
   faith of Christ by his means. Oh, yes, if you are in Christ, His
   ministers must love you! How could there be a lack of affection in our
   hearts towards you, since we have been the means of bringing you to
   Jesus? Without cant or display we call you our "dearly Beloved."

   Then the Apostle calls them his "longed for," that is, his most desired
   ones. He first desired to see them converted. After that he desired to
   see them baptized. Then he desired to see them exhibiting all the
   Graces of Christians. When he saw holiness in them, he desired to visit
   them and commune with them. Their constant kindness created in him a
   strong desire to speak with them face to face. He loved them and
   desired their company because they were in Christ! So he speaks of them
   as those for whom he longed. His delight was in thinking of them and in
   hoping to visit them. Then he adds, "My joy and crown." Paul had been
   the means of their salvation and when he thought of that blessed
   result, he never regretted

   all that he had suffered--his persecutions among the Gentiles seemed
   light, indeed, since these priceless souls were his reward! Though he
   was nothing but a poor prisoner of Christ, yet he talks in right royal
   style--they are his crown.

   They were his stephanos, or crown given as a reward for his life-race.
   This, among the Greeks, was usually a wreath of flowers placed around
   the victor's brow. Paul's crown would never fade. He writes as he felt
   the amaranth around his temples--even now he looks upon the Philippians
   as his chaplet of honor! They were his joy and his crown! He
   anticipated, I do not doubt, that throughout eternity it would be a
   part of his Heaven to see them amid their blessedness and to know that
   he helped to bring them to that felicity by leading them to Christ! O
   Beloved, it is, indeed, our highest joy that we have not run in vain,
   neither labored in vain--you who have been snatched as "brands from the
   burning" and are now living to the praise of our Lord Jesus Christ--you
   are our prize, our crown, our joy!

   These converts were all this to Paul simply because they were "in
   Christ." They had begun well; they were where they should be and he,
   therefore, rejoiced in them.

   II. But secondly, it was for this reason that HE LONGED THAT THEY
   SHOULD STAY THERE. He entreated

   them to stand fast. "So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." The
   beginning of religion is not the whole of it. You must not suppose that
   the sum of godliness is contained within the experience of a day or
   two, or a week, or a few months, or even a few years. Precious are the
   feelings which attend conversion, but dream not that repentance, faith
   and so forth are for a season and then all is done with! I am afraid
   there are some who secretly say, "Everything is now complete. I have
   experienced the necessary change, I have been to see the Elders and the
   Pastor. I have been baptized and received into the Church--now all is
   right forever."

   That is a false view of your condition! In conversion you have started
   in the race, but you must run to the end of the course. In your
   confession of Christ you have carried your tools into the vineyard, but
   the day's work now begins. Remember, "He that shall endure unto the
   end, the same shall be saved." Godliness is a life-long business. The
   working out of the salvation which the Lord, Himself, works in you is
   not a matter of certain hours, or of a limited period of life.
   Salvation is unfolded throughout all our sojourn here. We continue to
   repent and to believe--and even the process of our conversion continues
   as we are changed more and more into the image of our Lord. Final
   perseverance is the necessary evidence of genuine conversion!

   In proportion as we rejoice over converts, we feel an intense
   bitterness when any disappoint us and turn out to be merely temporary
   camp-followers. We sigh over the seed which sprang up so speedily, but
   which withers so soon because it has neither root nor depth of earth.
   We were ready to say--"Ring the bells of Heaven"--but the bells of
   Heaven did not ring because these people talked about Christ and said
   they were in Christ, but it was all a delusion! After a while, for one
   reason or another, they went back. "They went out from us, but they
   were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have
   continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest
   that they were not all of us." Our Churches suffer most seriously from
   the great numbers who drop out of their ranks and either go back to the
   world, or else must be pursuing a very secret and solitary path in
   their way to Heaven, for we hear no more of them. Our joy is turned to
   disappointment; our crown of laurel becomes a circle of faded leaves
   and we are weary at the remembrance of it. With what earnestness,
   therefore, would we say to you who are beginning the race, "Continue in
   your course. We beseech you turn not aside, neither slacken your
   running till you have won the prize!"

   I heard an expression yesterday which pleased me much. I spoke about
   the difficulty of keeping on. "Yes," answered my friend, "and it is
   harder, still, to keep on keeping on." So it is. There is the pinch. I
   know lots of fellows who are wonders at the start. What a rush they
   make! But then there is no stay in them--they soon lose breath. The
   difference between the spurious and the real Christian lies in this
   staying power. The real Christian has a life within him which can never
   die--an incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever--but the
   spurious Christian begins after a fashion, but ends almost as soon as
   he begins! He is esteemed a saint, but turns out a hypocrite. He makes
   a fair show for a while, but soon he quits the way of holiness and
   makes his own damnation sure. God save you, dear Friends, from anything
   which looks like apostasy! Hence I would, with all my might, press upon
   you these two most weighty words--"Stand fast."

   I will put the exhortation thus--"Stand fast doctrinally." In this age
   all the ships in the waters are pulling up their anchors! They are
   drifting with the tide. They are driven about with every wind. It is
   your wisdom to put down more anchors. I have taken the precaution to
   cast four anchors out of the stern, as well as to see that the great
   bower anchor is in its proper place. I will not budge an inch from the
   old doctrine for any man! Now that the cyclone is triumphant over

   many a bowing wall and tottering fence, those who are built upon the
   One Foundation must prove its value by standing fast! We will listen to
   no teaching but that of the Lord Jesus! If you see a Truth to be in
   God's Word, grasp it by your faith--and if it is unpopular, grapple it
   to you as with hooks of steel! If you are despised as a fool for
   holding it, hold it the more! Like an oak, take deeper root, because
   the winds would tear you from your place. Defy reproach and ridicule
   and you have already vanquished it. Stand fast, like the British
   squares in the olden times. When fierce assaults were made upon them,
   every man seemed transformed to rock. We might have wandered from the
   ranks a little in more peaceful times, to look after the fascinating
   flowers which grow on every side of our march--but now we know that the
   enemy surrounds us--so we keep strictly to the line of march and
   tolerate no roaming. The watchword of the host of God just now
   is--"Stand fast!" Hold to the faith once delivered to the saints. Hold
   fast the form of sound words and deviate not one jot or tittle from
   them. Stand fast doctrinally!

   Practically, also, abide firm in the right, the true, the holy. This is
   of the utmost importance. The barriers are broken down--they would
   amalgamate Church and world--yes, even Church and stage. It is proposed
   to combine God and devil in one service! Christ and Belial are to
   perform on one stage! Surely now is the time when the lion shall eat
   straw like the ox and very dirty straw too. So they say. But I repeat
   to you this Word of God, "Come out from among them, and be you
   separate, and touch not the unclean thing." Write, "holiness unto the
   Lord," not only on your altars, but upon the bells of the horses! Let
   everything be done as before the living God. Do all things unto
   holiness and edification. Strive together to maintain the purity of the
   disciples of Christ! Take up your cross and go outside the camp bearing
   His reproach. If you have already stood apart in your decision for the
   Lord, continue to do so. Stand fast! In nothing be moved by the laxity
   of the age. In nothing be affected by the current of modern opinion.
   Say to yourself, "I will do as Christ bids me to the utmost of my
   ability. I will follow the Lamb wherever He goes." In these times of
   worldliness, impurity, self-indulgence and error, it becomes the
   Christian to gather up his skirts and keep his feet and his garments
   clean from the pollution which lies all around him. We must be more
   Puritan and precise than we have been. Oh, for Grace to stand fast!

   Mind also that you stand fast experimentally. Pray that your inward
   experience may be a close adhesion to your Master. Do not go astray
   from His Presence. Neither climb with those who dream of perfection in
   the flesh, nor grovel with those who doubt the possibility of present
   salvation. Take the Lord Jesus Christ to be your sole treasure and let
   your heart be always with Him. Stand fast in faith in His Atonement, in
   confidence in His Divinity, in assurance of His Second Advent. I pine
   to know within my soul the power of His Resurrection and to have
   unbroken fellowship with Him. In communion with the Father and the Son
   let us stand fast! He shall fare well whose heart and soul, affections
   and understanding are wrapped up in Christ Jesus and in no one else.
   Concerning your inward life, your secret prayer, your walk with God,
   here is the watchword of the day--"Stand fast."

   To put it very plainly, "Stand fast in the Lord," without wishing for
   another trust. Do not desire to have any hope but that which is in
   Christ. Do not entertain the proposition that you should unite another
   confidence to your confidence in the Lord. Have no hankering after any
   other fashion of faith except the faith of a sinner in his Savior. All
   hope but that which is set before us in the Gospel and brought to us by
   the Lord Jesus is a poisoned delicacy--highly colored, but by no means
   to be so much as tasted by those who have been fed upon the Bread of
   Heaven! What do we need more than Jesus? What way of salvation do we
   seek but that of Grace? What security but the precious blood? Stand
   fast and wish for no other rock of salvation save the Lord Jesus!

   Next, stand fast without wavering in our trust. Permit no doubt to
   worry you. Know that Jesus can save you and, what is more, know that He
   has saved you! So commit yourself to His hands that you are as sure of
   your salvation as of your existence! The blood of Jesus Christ cleans
   us from all sin this day--His righteousness covers us and His life
   quickens us into newness of life. Tolerate no doubt, mistrust,
   suspicion, or misgiving. Believe in Christ up to the hilt! As for
   myself, I will yield to be lost forever if Jesus does not save me! I
   will have no other string to my bow, no second door of hope, or way of
   retreat. I could risk a thousand souls on my Lord's Word and feel no
   risk. Stand fast, without wishing for another trust and without
   wavering in the trust you have.

   Moreover, stand fast without wandering into sin. You are tempted this
   way and that way--stand fast! Inward passions rise. Lusts of the flesh
   rebel. The devil hurls his fearful suggestions. The men of your own
   household tempt you.

   Stand fast! Only so will you be preserved from the torrents of
   iniquity. Keep close to the example and spirit of your Master and,
   having done all, still stand.

   As I have said, stand fast without wandering, so next I must say stand
   fast without wearying. You are a little tired. Never mind, take a
   little rest and brush up again. "Oh," you say, "this toil is so
   monotonous." Do it better and that will be a change. Your Savior
   endured His life and labor without this complaint, for zeal had eaten
   Him up. "Alas," you cry, "I cannot see results!" Never mind. Wait for
   results, even as the farmer waits for the precious fruits of the earth.
   "Oh, Sir, I plod along and make no progress." Never mind, you are a
   poor judge of your own success. Work on, for in due season you shall
   reap if you faint not. Practice perseverance. Remember that if you have
   the work of faith and the labor of love, you must complete the trio by
   adding the patience of hope. You cannot do without this last. "Be
   steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
   forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

   I am reminded of Sir Christopher Wren, when he cleared away old St.
   Paul's to make room for his splendid pile. He was compelled to use
   battering rams upon the massive walls. The workmen kept on battering
   and battering. An enormous force was brought to bear upon the walls for
   days and nights, but it did not appear to have made the least
   impression upon the ancient masonry. Yet the great architect knew what
   he was doing--he bade them keep on incessantly and the ram fell again
   and again upon the rocky wall till, at length, the whole mass was
   disintegrating and coming apart-- and then each stroke began to tell.
   At a blow it reeled! At another it quivered! At another it moved
   visibly. At another it fell over amid clouds of dust! These last
   strokes did the work!

   Do you think so? No, it was the combination of blows, the first as
   truly as the last! Keep on with the battering ram. I hope to keep on
   until I die. And, mark you, I may die and I may not see the errors of
   the hour totter to their fall, but I shall be perfectly content to
   sleep in Christ, for I have a sure expectation that this work will
   succeed in the end! I shall be happy to have done my share of the work,
   even if I personally see little apparent result. Lord, let Your work
   appear unto Your servants and we will be content that Your Glory should
   be reserved for our children. Stand fast, my Brothers and Sisters, in
   incessant labors, for the end is sure!

   And then, in addition to standing fast in that respect, stand fast
   without warping. Timber, when it is rather green, is apt to go this way
   or that. The spiritual weather is very bad, just now, for green
   wood--it is one day damp with superstition, and another day it is
   parched with skepticism. Rationalism and Ritualism are both at work. I
   pray that you may not warp! Keep straight; keep to the Truth of God,
   the whole Truth of God and nothing but the Truth, for in the Master's
   name we bid you, "Stand fast in the Lord."

   Stand fast, for there is great need. 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!

   Paul urged them to stand fast because even in his own case, spiritual
   life was a struggle. Even Paul said, "Not as though I had already
   attained." He was pressing forward. He was straining his whole energy
   by the power of the Holy Spirit. He did not expect to be carried to
   Heaven on a feather bed! He was warring and agonizing. You, Beloved,
   must do the same. What a grand example of perseverance did Paul set to
   us all! Nothing enticed him from his steadfastness. "None of these
   things move me," he said, "neither count I my life dear unto me." He
   has entered into his rest because the Lord his God helped him to stand
   fast, even to the end. I wish I had power to put this more earnestly,
   but my very soul goes forth with it. "Stand fast in the Lord, my dearly
   Beloved."

   III. Thirdly, THE APOSTLE URGED THE BEST MOTIVES FOR THEIR STANDING
   FAST.

   He says, "Stand fast because of your citizenship." Read the twentieth
   verse--"For our citizenship is in Heaven." Now, if you are what you
   profess to be, if you are in Christ, you are citizens of the New
   Jerusalem. Men ought to behave themselves according to their
   citizenship and not dishonor their city. When a man was a citizen of
   Athens, in the olden time, he felt it incumbent upon him to be brave.
   Xerxes said, "These Athenians are not ruled by kings: how will they
   fight?" "No," said one, "but every man respects the law and each man is
   ready to die for his country." Xerxes soon knew that the same obedience
   and respect of law ruled the Spartans and that these, because they were
   of Sparta, were all brave as lions!

   He sends word to Leonidas and his little troop to give up their arms.
   "Come and take them," was the courageous reply! The Persian king had
   myriads of soldiers with him, while Leonidas had only 300 Spartans at
   his side--yet they kept the pass and it cost the eastern despot many
   thousands of men to force a passage! The sons of Sparta died rather
   than de-

   sert their post! Every citizen of Sparta felt that he must stand
   fast--it was not for such a man as he to yield. I like the spirit of
   Bayard, that "knight without fear and without reproach." He knew not
   what fear meant. In his last battle, his spine was broken and he said
   to those around him, "Place me up against a tree, so that I may sit up
   and die with my face to the enemy." Yes, if our backs were broken, if
   we could no more bear the shield or use the sword, it would be
   incumbent upon us, as citizens of the New Jerusalem, to die with our
   faces towards the enemy! We must not yield! We dare not yield if we are
   of the city of the great King! The martyrs cry to us to stand fast! The
   cloud of witnesses bending from their thrones above beseech us to stand
   fast! Yes, all the hosts of the shining ones cry to us, "Stand fast!"
   Stand fast for God, the truth, holiness--and let no man take your
   crown.

   The next argument that Paul used was their outlook. "Our citizenship is
   in Heaven; from where, also, we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus
   Christ." Brethren, Jesus is coming! He is even now on the way. You have
   heard our tidings till you scarcely credit us, but the Word of God is
   true and it will surely be fulfilled before long. The Lord is coming,
   indeed! He promised to come to die and He kept His Word--He now
   promises to come to reign and you may be sure that He will keep His
   tryst with His people. He is coming! Ears of faith can hear the sound
   of His chariot wheels! Every moment of time, every event of Providence
   is bringing Him nearer. Blessed are those servants who shall not be
   sleeping when He comes, nor wandering from their posts of duty! Happy
   shall they be whom their Lord shall find faithfully watching and
   standing fast in that great day!

   To us, Beloved, He is coming, not as Judge and Destroyer, but as
   Savior. We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ! Now, if we do
   look for Him, let us "stand fast." There must be no going into sin, no
   forsaking the fellowship of the Church, no leaving the Truth, no trying
   to play fast and loose with godliness, no running with the hare and
   hunting with the hounds. Let us stand so fast in singleness of heart
   that whenever Jesus comes, we shall be able to say, "Welcome, welcome,
   Son of God!"

   Sometimes I wait through the weary years with great comfort. There was
   a ship, some time ago, outside a certain harbor. A heavy sea made the
   ship roll fearfully. A dense fog blotted out all buoys and lights. The
   captain never left the wheel. He could not tell his way into the harbor
   and no pilot could get out to him for a long time. Eager passengers
   urged him to be courageous and make a dash for the harbor. He said,
   "No. It is not my duty to run so great a risk. A pilot is required,
   here, and I will wait for one if I wait a week." The truest courage is
   that which can bear to be charged with cowardice! To wait is much wiser
   than when you cannot hear the foghorn and have no pilot and steam on
   and wreck your vessel on the rocks! Our prudent captain waited his time
   and, at last, he spied the pilot's boat coming to him over the boiling
   sea. When the pilot was at his work, the captain's anxious waiting was
   over. The Church is like that vessel-- she is pitched to and fro in the
   storm and the dark--and the Pilot has not yet come. The weather is very
   threatening. All around, the darkness hang like a pall. But Jesus will
   come, walking on the water, before long! He will bring us safely to the
   desired haven. Let us wait with patience. Stand fast! Stand fast! Jesus
   is coming and in Him is our sure hope!

   Further, there was another motive. There was an expectation. "He shall
   change our vile body," or rather, "body of our humiliation." Only think
   of it, dear Friends! No more headaches or heartaches, no more
   feebleness and fainting, no more inward tumor or consumption! The Lord
   shall transfigure this body of our humiliation into the likeness of the
   body of His Glory. Our frame is now made up of decaying substances--it
   is of the earth, earthy. "So to the dust, return we must." This body
   groans, suffers, becomes diseased and dies. Blessed be God, it shall be
   wonderfully changed and then there shall be no more death, neither
   sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain!

   The natural appetites of this body engender sad tendencies to sin and,
   in this respect, it is a "vile body." It shall not always be so! The
   great change will deliver it from all that is gross and carnal. It
   shall be pure as the Lord's body! Whatever the body of Christ is now,
   our body is to be like it. We spoke of it last Sunday, you know, when
   we heard Him say, "Handle Me." We are to have a real, corporeal body as
   He had, for substance and reality! And, like His body, it will be full
   of beauty, full of health and strength. It will enjoy peculiar
   immunities from evil and special adaptations for good. That is what is
   going to happen to me and to you! Therefore let us stand fast. Let us
   not willfully throw away our prospects of Glory and immortality. What?
   Relinquish resurrection? Relinquish Heaven? Relinquish likeness to the
   risen Lord? O God, save us from such a terrible piece of apostasy! Save
   us from such immeasurable folly! Suffer us not to turn our backs in the
   day of battle, since that would be to turn our backs from the crown of
   life that fades not away!

   Lastly, the Apostle urges us to stand fast because of our resources.
   Somebody may ask, "How can this body of ours be transformed and
   transfigured until it becomes like the body of Christ?" I cannot tell
   you anything about the process! It will all be accomplished in the
   twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. But I can tell you by what
   power it will be accomplished. The Omnipotent Lord will lay bare His
   arm and exercise His might, "according to the working whereby He is
   able even to subdue all things unto Himself." O Brothers and Sisters,
   we may well stand fast since we have infinite power at our backs! The
   Lord is with us with all His energy, even with His all-conquering
   strength which shall yet subdue all His foes! Do not let us imagine
   that any enemy can be too strong for Christ's arm. If He is able to
   subdue all things unto Himself, He can certainly bear us through all
   opposition. One glance of His eyes may wither all opposers, or, better
   still, one word from His lips may turn them into friends!

   The army of the Lord is strong in reserves. These reserves have never
   yet been fully called out. We, who are in the field, are only a small
   squadron holding the fort. But our Lord has at His back 10,000 times
   ten thousands who will carry war into the enemy's camp! When the
   Captain of our salvation comes to the front, He will bring His heavenly
   legions with Him. Our business is to watch until He appears upon the
   scene, for when He comes, His infinite resources will be put in
   marching order!

   I like that speech of Wellington, (who was so calm amid the roar of
   Waterloo), when an officer sent word, "Tell the Commander-in-Chief that
   he must move me, I cannot hold my position any longer, my numbers are
   so thinned." "Tell him," said the great general, "he must hold his
   place! Every Englishman today must die where he stands, or else win the
   victory." The officer read the command to stand and he did stand till
   the trumpet sounded victory! And so it is now. My Brothers and Sisters,
   we must die where we are rather than yield to the enemy! If Jesus
   tarries, we must not desert our posts. Wellington knew that the heads
   of the Prussian columns would soon be visible, coming in to ensure the
   victory-- and so by faith we can perceive the legions of our Lord
   approaching--in serried ranks His angels fly through the opening
   Heaven! The air is teeming with them! I hear their silver trumpets.
   Behold, He comes with clouds! When He comes, He will abundantly
   recompense all who stood fast amid the rage of battle. Let us sing,
   "Hold the fort, for I am coming!"
     __________________________________________________________________

The Servants and the Pounds

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 24, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a
   kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants and delivered
   to them ten pounds, and said to them, Do business till I come." Luke
   19:12,13.

   WE are told the reason for the Savior's delivering this parable at this
   particular time. He was going up to Jerusalem and the ignorant and
   enthusiastic crowd hoped that He might now set up a temporal
   sovereignty. "They thought that the Kingdom of God should immediately
   appear." Their minds were crowded with mistakes and the Savior would
   set them right upon this matter. To banish from their minds the idea of
   a Jewish empire in which every Hebrew would be a prince, our Lord told
   them this story--I use the word advisedly, for his parable was also a
   fact. He would show them that as yet they were not to be partakers in a
   kingdom, but were soon to be waiters for an absent Lord who had gone to
   receive a Kingdom and to return. In His absence, His disciples were to
   be in the position of servants put in trust with property while their
   Master was gone far away to receive a Kingdom and then to come again.
   He was now like a nobleman who may be one among many citizens, but He
   was going away to a court where He would be invested with royal
   authority-- and He would come back a King. They were to be put in trust
   with certain pounds till He should return.

   I confess I never thoroughly saw the meaning of this parable till I was
   directed by an eminent expositor to a passage in Josephus, which, if it
   is not the key of it, is a wonderfully close example of a class of
   facts which, no doubt, often occurred in the Roman empire in our
   Savior's day. Herod, you know, was king over Judea, but he was only a
   subordinate king under the Roman emperor. Caesar at Rome made and
   unmade kings at his pleasure. When Herod died, he was followed by his
   son, Archelaus, of whom we read in Matthew's account of our Lord's
   infancy that when Joseph heard that Archelaus was king in Judea in the
   place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. This Archelaus
   had no right to the throne till he obtained the sanction of Caesar and,
   therefore, he took a ship with certain attendants and went to Rome,
   which, in those days, was a far country, that he might receive the
   kingdom and return.

   While he was on the way, his citizens, who hated him, sent an embassage
   after him, so has the Revised Version correctly worded it--and this
   embassage bore this message to Caesar--"We will not that this man reign
   over us." The messengers represented to Caesar that Archelaus was not
   fit to be king of the Jews. Certain of the pleadings are recorded in
   Josephus and they show that barristers 1,900 years ago pleaded in much
   the same style as their brethren of today! The people were weary of the
   Herods and preferred anything to their cruel rule. They even asked that
   Judea might become a Roman province and be joined to Syria, rather than
   they should remain under the hated yoke of the Idumaean tyrants. It is
   evident that in the case of Archelaus his citizens hated him and said,
   "We will not have this man to reign over us." It pleased Caesar to
   divide the kingdom and to put Archelaus on the throne as ethnarch, or a
   ruler with less power than a king.

   When Archelaus returned, he took fierce revenge upon those who had
   opposed him and rewarded his faithful adherents most liberally. This
   story of what had been done 30 years before would, no doubt, rise up in
   the recollection of the people when Jesus spoke, for Archelaus had
   built a palace for himself very near to Jericho--and it may be that
   under the walls of that palace the Savior used the event as the basis
   of His parable. Those who lived in our Lord's day must have understood
   His allusions to current facts much better than we do who live 19
   centuries later. The Providence of God provided that observant Jew,
   Josephus, to store up much valuable information for us. Read the
   passage in his history and you will see that even the details tally
   with this parable. There is the story.

   The Savior, without excusing Archelaus or commending him in the least
   degree, simply makes his going to Rome an illustration. Here is a noble
   personage who is to be a king, but to obtain the throne he must journey
   to the distant court of a superior power. While he is going, his
   citizens, who hate him so, send an embassage to oppose his claims, for
   they will not have him for their king. However, he receives the kingdom
   and returns to rule it. When he does so, he rewards those who have been
   faithful to him and he punishes with overwhelming destruction those who
   have tried to prevent his reigning. There is the story--let me further
   interpret it.

   The Savior likens Himself to a nobleman. He was here on earth a Man
   among men and truly a Nobleman in the midst of His fellow citizens! It
   was His to become king, king of all the earth! Indeed, He is such by
   Nature and by right, but He must first go, by death, resurrection and
   ascension, away to the highest courts and there, from the great Lord of
   All, He must receive for Himself a Kingdom. It is written, "Ask of Me,
   and I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance." And therefore
   Jesus must plead His claims before the King and win His suit. The day
   is coming when He will return, clothed with glory and honor, to take
   unto Himself His great power and reign, for He must reign till all
   enemies are put under His feet. When He comes, His enemies will be
   destroyed and His faithful servants will be abundantly rewarded.

   Let us now draw near to this feast of Divine teaching! May the Spirit
   of God help us to gather practical lessons from this parable!

   I. First, I invite you to notice that THERE ARE HERE TWO SETS OF
   PERSONS. We see the enemies who would not have this man to reign over
   them and the servants who had to trade with his money. There are many
   divisions among men into nationalities, ranks, offices and characters,
   but, after all, the deep divisions will always be two--the enemies and
   the servants of Christ Jesus. You that are not servants, are enemies!
   You that are not enemies must take care that you are servants. I find
   no class of persons mentioned in the parable but these two and I feel
   certain that there are no others on the face of the earth. You are all
   either enemies or servants of Jesus Christ!

   Consider the enemies! The person hated was a nobleman. He was a man,
   but a noble man. What a Man is the Lord Jesus! Forgetting His Godhead
   for the moment, regard Him only as the Man, Christ Jesus, and what a
   Man! I need not dwell upon the nobility of His birth, of the seed of
   David. But I would remind you of the nobility of His Character, for
   that is where true nobility resides. In this respect, where is there
   nobility to be compared to His? Brothers, it would be difficult to find
   a second to the Man, Christ, within measurable distance of Him--even
   those who copy Him most nearly confess, regretfully, that in many
   things they fall short of His Glory. There was nothing petty, mean, or
   selfish about Jesus of Nazareth. He was altogether the noble Man!

   He deigned, for gracious purposes, to become a Citizen among others,
   for since we read of His being anointed above His fellows, it is
   implied that some were His fellows. He was a Man among men! He was of
   the society of carpenters! He was also free of the company of itinerant
   preachers. He associated with men of the sea, with men that handled the
   net and the oar. He went in and out among the peasantry and in His
   dress and style of living there was nothing to distinguish Him from the
   rest of the citizens. Truly, He was separate from them by His holier
   Character, but the separation was not caused by His unwillingness to
   come down to them, but by their inability to go up to Him!

   The citizens hated Him and they hated Him without cause. There is
   always some cause for dislike in us, but there was none in Him. In
   tone, or manner, or spirit, the best give some cause of offense--but in
   Him there was nothing which could excuse their hate--it was a wanton
   rejection of the fittest to reign.

   As He claimed to be the King of the Jews, they especially hated His
   royalty, saying, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." And
   again, "We have no king but Caesar." "He came unto His own and His own
   received Him not." Yet, my Brothers and Sisters, merely regarding Jesus
   as a Man, if we wanted a king, He ought to be elected by the universal
   suffrages of mankind--openly given by uplifted hands and joyful
   acclamations, Io triumphe! Mighty Conqueror, reign forever! Prince of
   the kings of the earth, lover of the sons of men, who did, for our
   sake, pour out Your precious blood, You deserve to be King of all! The
   most kingly of men should be king of men. Yet they hated His royal
   claims and this, also, without cause. Which of them had He oppressed?
   What revenue did He extort from the people? What Law of His was hard or
   cruel? In what case did He ever judge unrighteously? Yet His citizens
   hated Him!

   There is that same hate of Christ in the world today. Do any of you
   hate Him? "No," you say. Yet are not some of you who do not oppose Him,
   treating Him with greater contempt than if you did oppose Him? You pass
   Him by altogether! He is not in all your thoughts! You act as if He
   were not worthy, even, to be opposed--you make nothing of

   Him! He is not among the objects for which you live. Sometimes you may
   speak with a partial admiration of His Character, but earnest
   admiration leads to imitation. If Jesus is a Savior, what worse can you
   do to Him than to refuse to be saved by Him? I charge you indifferent
   ones with being, in the core of your hearts, His worst enemies! Oh that
   you would repent of this and turn to Him, for He is coming again and
   when He comes, He will say, "As for these, My enemies, slay them before
   My eyes." The expression is full of terror! To be slain before the eyes
   of injured love is doubly death! The Lord, by His Grace, deliver us
   from so dread a doom!

   The other set of persons in the parable were his servants--the original
   would justify the translation, his bondservants. Those who were not his
   enemies were his faithful servants. I suppose that the nobleman had
   bought them with his money, or that they had been born in his house, or
   that they had willingly bound themselves by indentures to him. When I
   said that these were only his slaves, you inwardly said, "Then you that
   believe in Jesus are His bond-servants." Spare us not even the harsher
   word, "slaves!" We were never free till we came under bonds to
   Jesus--and we grow in freedom as we yield to Him! Paul said, "I bear in
   my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," as if the hot iron of affliction
   had branded him with the name of Christ!

   Yes, we are the property of the Lord Jesus and not our own! We cannot,
   somehow, find words which will, in all their fullness express our
   belonging to Jesus--we wish to sink into Christ and to become as
   nothing for His sake. Truly He has called us friends, but we call
   ourselves His servants. We take a great delight in acknowledging Him as
   Master. like David, who said, "I am Your servant," and then again, "I
   am Your servant," and then again, "and the son of Your handmaid." He
   was born a servant, born of a mother who was also, herself, a servant.
   After all this, he added, "You have loosed my bonds." Servitude to
   Christ is perfect freedom and, in every respect, we have found it so!
   We never expect to know perfect freedom until He has brought every
   thought, every conception, imagination and desire into captivity to
   Himself! We have been bought with His money and we cost Him dearly. We
   have also been born in His house by a second birth and we are bound to
   Him by indentures which we have gladly signed and sealed--and are ready
   to sign and seal again--

   "High Heaven that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily
   hear! Till in life's latest hour we bow, And bless in death a bond so
   dear." Thus we are truly on the opposite side of His enemies, for we
   are willingly His servants!

   I have thus introduced to you the two classes. Before we go any
   further, may the Holy Spirit operate upon us to make us discern to
   which of these two we belong! If we are enemies, may we become servants
   from this time forth!

   II. We now advance a step further and notice THE ENGAGEMENTS OF THESE
   SERVANTS. Their lord was going away and he left his 10 servants in
   charge with a little capital with which they were to "do business," or
   trade for him till he returned. He did not tell them how long he would
   be away, perhaps he did not know, himself--I mean the king in the
   story--but even our Master says, "Of that day and hour knows no man,
   no, not the angels of Heaven." "I am going away," the nobleman said,
   "you are my servants and I leave you as my servants in the midst of my
   enemies. Be loyal to me and, to prove your faithfulness, continue to
   trade in my name. I shall entrust to each of you a very small sum of
   money, but it will keep you occupied and your trading on my account
   will be your daily acknowledgment that you are loyal to me, whatever
   others may be."

   Notice, first, that this was honorable work. They were not entrusted
   with large funds, but the amount was enough to serve as a test. It put
   them upon their honor. If they were really attached to their master,
   they would feel that he had placed a confidence in them which they must
   justify. Slaves are not always to be entrusted with money. In fact, the
   tendency of bondage has always been to take away from men the quality
   of trustworthiness--our bondage to Christ has the opposite effect
   because it is no bondage at all! These servants of the master were
   treated in some respect as partners, they were to have fellowship with
   him in his property. They were his confidants and trustees. His eyes
   were not watching them, for he had gone into a far country and he
   trusted them to be a law unto themselves. They were not to render a
   daily account, but to be left alone until he returned.

   Now that is just how the Master has treated us! He has put us in trust
   with the Gospel and He relies upon our honor. He does not call us at
   once to an audit, for He is not here. I do not think that systems of
   Church government which involve a measure of the spy system are at all
   after our Lord's mind. If Christians are what they ought to be, they
   can be trusted--they are a law unto themselves. The Lord puts you not
   under certain rules and regulations so as to ordain that

   you shall give a tenth, though I wish you did give that much at least.
   He does not say, "You shall subscribe so much at such a time and work
   in such a way." No--you are not under Law, but under Grace. If you love
   your Master, you will soon discover what to do for Him and you will do
   it with delight!

   The nobleman does not lay down rigid rules and order that at such an
   hour in the morning the servants must begin work--and that they must
   work on for so many hours. No. He says, "Take my pound and trade with
   it." Our version, "Do business till I come," is a lumbering Latin way
   of saying, "Trade with it till I come." And our Lord has put us on the
   same footing of confidence, appealing to our honor and love. He will
   not come and look after us today or tomorrow, though He will ultimately
   have a strict reckoning with us. Meanwhile He has gone, but He has left
   us here in the midst of His enemies--to show His enemies that He has
   some friends--and that He must be a good Master since even those who
   acknowledge themselves to be His vassals, rejoice to spend their whole
   lives in His service!

   It was work for which the nobleman gave them capital. He gave to each
   of them a pound. "Not much," you will say. No, he did not intend it to
   be much. They were not capable of managing very much. If he found them
   faithful in "a very little," he could then raise them to a higher
   responsibility. I do not read that any of them complained of the
   smallness of his capital, or wished to have it doubled.

   Brothers and Sisters, we need not ask for more talents--we have quite
   as many as we shall be able to answer for. Preachers need not seek for
   larger spheres--let them be faithful in those which they now occupy. A
   Brother recently said to me, "I cannot do much with a hundred hearers,"
   and I replied, "You will find it hard work to give in a good account
   for even a hundred people." I confess it very quietly, but I have often
   wished that I had a little congregation, that I might watch over every
   soul in it. But now I am doomed to an everlasting dissatisfaction with
   my work, for what am I among so many? I can only feel that I have not
   even begun to do the hundredth part of what needs to be done in such a
   Church as this!

   Each one had a pound in his hand and his lord only said, "Do business
   till I come." He did not expect them to do a wholesale business on so
   small a stock, but they were to trade as the market would allow. He did
   not expect them to make more than the pound would fairly bring in, for,
   after all, he was not "an austere man." "Take that pound," he said,
   "and do your best. I know the times are bad, for you have to trade
   among enemies. You could not, perhaps, manage to put out 20 pounds
   under such circumstances, but you can turn over a pound and use every
   shilling of it." Thus he gave them a sufficient capital for his
   purpose.

   My friend, have you that pound anywhere about you? "Alas," says one, "I
   have no abilities at all." How is that? Your Lord gave you a
   pound--what has become of it? You are one of His servants and if you
   are doing nothing, you are in an evil case and ought to be ashamed.
   What have you done with that pound? Put your hand in your pocket. It is
   not there. Is it in the napkin?--that napkin with which you ought to
   have wiped the sweat of labor from your brow? Have you got that pound?
   You say, "It is not much." The Master did not say it was much, on the
   contrary, He called it, "very little." But have you used that very
   little? This should go home to your consciences! You have been treated
   as confidential servants and yet you are not true to your Lord. Why is
   this?

   What they had to do with the pound was prescribed in general terms.
   They were to trade with it, not to play with it. I dare say they were
   inclined to argue, "Our master's cause is assailed, let us fight for
   him," yet he did not say, "fight," but trade! Peter drew his sword. Oh,
   yes, we are eager combatants, but slow merchants! Many manifest a
   defiant spirit and are never more satisfied than when they are in noise
   and strife. The servants in this parable were not to fight, but to
   trade, which is a much more cool-blooded and ignoble thing in common
   esteem. We may leave our Lord's enemies to Himself--He will end their
   rebellions one of these days. We are to follow a much lowlier line of
   things.

   No doubt certain of them might have thought that the pound would be
   useful to purchase them comforts, or even luxuries--one would buy a new
   coat and another would bring home a piece of furniture for his
   house--and others would solemnly say, "We have our families to think
   of." Yes, but their lord did not say so! The master said, "Do business
   till I come." They were neither to fight with it, nor hoard it, nor
   spend it, nor waste it, but to trade with it for him. The pound was not
   put into their hands for display. They were not to glory over others
   who had not so much as a penny to bless themselves with, for though
   they were little capitalists, that capital was their lord's!

   It is a pity when Graces or talents are boasted of as if they were our
   own. A tradesman who is prospering seldom has much money to show--it is
   all needed in his business. Sometimes he can scarcely put his hand upon
   a five-pound note

   because his cash is all absorbed--his golden grain is all sown in the
   field of his trade. Speaking for myself, I cannot find any room for
   glorying in myself, for if I have either Grace or strength, I certainly
   have none to spare! I have barely enough for the work in hand and not
   enough for the service in prospect. Our pound is not to be hung on our
   watch-chain, but to be traded with!

   Trading represents a life which may be called commonplace, but it is
   eminently practical--and it has an exceedingly practical effect upon
   the person engaged in it. This is owing in part to the fact that it is
   an occupation in which there is great scope for judgment. They were not
   tied down to a special kind of trade. The man who made his one pound
   into 10 chose the best form of business. He sought not that which was
   most pleasant, but that which was most profitable. So you are left,
   dear Friends, to choose your own line of service for your Master--only
   you must trade for Him and for Him everything must be done well. At the
   present time no trading pays better than the mission to the Congo, or
   to the hill-tribes of India--large dividends come, also, from dealings
   with the poorest of the poor in the slums and as much from widows and
   orphans who are in extreme destitution. When men have to lay down their
   lives for the Lord Jesus, after a life languished away with fever, the
   returns are amazing! Where the need is greatest, our Lord receives most
   glory. It is left to you to judge what you can do, how you can do it
   and where you will do it. Do that which will most surely win souls and
   that which will best establish your Lord's Kingdom. Exercise your very
   best judgment and get into that line of holy service in which you can
   bring in the largest revenue for your glorious Master.

   The work which the nobleman prescribed was one that would bring them
   out. The man who never succeeds in trade, do you know him? I know him.
   He complains that he has a small head and usually the complaint is
   founded on fact. He needs to follow a business in which the bread and
   butter will be brought to his door ready spread and even then, unless
   it is cut up into dice pieces on his plate, he will get no breakfast.
   The man that is to succeed in trade in these times must have
   confidence, look alive, keep his eyes open and be all there. Our times
   are hard, but not so hard as those described in the parable when the
   faithful servants were trading in the midst of traitors--they had need
   of sharp wits. Trade develops a man's perseverance, patience and
   courage. It tests honesty, truthfulness and firmness. It is a
   singularly excellent discipline for character.

   When this nobleman gave his servant the pound, it was that the servant
   might see what stuff he was made of. Trade with small capital means
   personal work and drudgery, long hours and few holidays--plenty of
   disappointment and small gains. It means working with might and main
   and doing the thing with all your heart and mind. In such a manner are
   we to serve Christ. The word, "trade," has a world of meaning in it. I
   cannot bring it out this morning, but there is no need, for the most of
   you know more about trade than I do and you can instruct yourselves.
   You are to trade for the Lord Jesus Christ in a higher and yet more
   emphatic sense than that in which you have traded for yourselves. With
   your physical strength, your mental faculties, your substance, your
   family--with everything--you are to bring glory to God and honor to the
   name of Jesus! It is to be your life-business to work for Jesus and
   with Jesus.

   Trading, if it is successfully carried on, is an engrossing concern,
   calling out the whole man. It is a continuous toil, a varied trial, a
   remarkable test, a valuable discipline--and this is why the nobleman
   put his bondsmen to it, that he might afterwards use them in still
   higher service. Brothers and Sisters, learn what is meant by trading
   and then carry on a spiritual trade with all your heart.

   At the same time, let us notice that it was work suitable to their
   capacity. Small as the capital was, it was enough for them, for they
   were no more than bondsmen, not of a high grade of rank or education.
   Their master gave them only a pound, which did not mean more than £3
   10s of our money. One could not get a large shop, or even a decent
   stock with that small amount. They could not complain that they were
   placed in a business which was too heavy for them to manage. They
   could, any of them, buy a few goods and hawk them. The Lord Jesus
   Christ does not ask you to do more than you can do. He does not break
   you down with cares beyond your capacity. We have not yet reached the
   limit of our pow-ers--we can yet do more. Jesus is no exacting master.
   It is only a false and lying servant who will call Him "an austere Man,
   reaping where He has not sowed." Nothing of the kind! He has given us a
   light business--our work for Him is suited to our limited powers and He
   is ready, by His Holy Spirit, to assist us. Let us use well our single
   pound. Let it be our ambition to make 10 of it, at the very least, and
   may the Lord graciously prosper our endeavors, that we may have large
   interest to present to Him when He shall come!

   Did you enquire as to how these men were to be supported? Their master
   did not tell them to live off his pound. No, they were his servants and
   so they lived under his roof--and he provided for all their needs. He
   had gone on a journey, but his establishment was not given up--the
   table was still spread and the children and the servants had bread
   enough and to spare. "Oh," says one, "that alters the case!" Just so,
   but it does not make it different from yours, or, if it does, I am
   sorry for you. Are you your own provider? Do you cry, "What shall I
   eat? What shall I drink?" Do you not know that all these things do the
   nations of the earth seek after? Whereas Jesus says, "Your heavenly
   Father knows that you have need of all these things." As I understand
   my life, I am to do my Lord's work and He is to provide for me. He may
   do this through my own industry, but still it is His work to do it--not
   mine! If the Providence of God is not sufficient to provide for us,
   then I am sure we cannot provide for ourselves! And if it is
   sufficient, we shall be wise to cast all our care on the Lord and live
   undividedly for His praise! Remember that text, "Seek you first the
   Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be
   added unto you." You, as a servant, are not to be entangled with
   carking cares about your own interests, but you are to give your whole
   thought and life to your Master's service. He will take care of you,
   now, and reward you when He shall come.

   III. Thirdly, to understand this parable, we must remember THE
   EXPECTANCY WHICH WAS ALWAYS TO INFLUENCE THEM. They were left as
   trusted servants till he should return, but that return was a main item
   in the matter.

   They were to believe that he would return and that he would return a
   king. The citizens did not believe it. They hoped that Caesar would
   refuse him the throne, but we are to be sure that our noble Master will
   receive the Kingdom. This rebel world does not believe that Jesus will
   ever be King. The other day we read of the "Eclipse of Christianity."
   Constantly we see His dominion assailed. They say that it is
   practically disproved by facts. Is it? Sirs, excuse me, I am
   desperately prejudiced, for I am His servant! I owe Him my life, my
   all! I am persuaded that He is and must be King of kings! I know Him so
   well that I am sure that He will prevail at the court to which He has
   gone. He is in very high favor there. The last time I saw the face of
   the great King, I obtained that favor through the use of His name. I
   receive anything I ask for when I mention His name and so I am sure
   that He is in wonderful high repute above. Why, His Father is the
   Sovereign! I am sure He will not deny the kingdom to His only-begotten
   Son! Jesus will come in His Kingdom--I am sure of it! Let us work in
   the full conviction that our absent Lord will soon be here, again, with
   a glorious diadem upon His brow. When He went away, He took with Him
   the scars of one who died a felon's death--and He will come again with
   them, but the nail prints will be no memorials of His shame--they will
   be as jewels to His hands!

   The nobleman's servants were to regard their absent master as already
   king and they were so to trade among his enemies that they should never
   compromise their own loyalty. They were of the king's party and of no
   other. It is a very awkward position to be in--to trade among people
   that are enemies to your king! You need, in such a case, to be wise as
   serpents and harmless as doves. This is precisely our position! We have
   to bring glory to God out of men who hate Him! We have to magnify our
   Lord among men who would, if they could, crucify Him again! We have to
   go in and out among them in such a manner that they can never say that
   we side with them in their rebellion, or wink at their disloyalty! We
   cannot be, "Hail fellow: well met!" with those whose life is a
   practical insult to the crown rights of King Jesus! We must, above all
   things, prove ourselves loyal to our absent Lord lest He appoint us our
   portion among His enemies.

   I find that the original would suggest to anyone carefully reading it,
   that they were to regard their master as already returning. This should
   be our view of our Lord's Advent--He is even now on His way here! No
   sooner had He risen from the grave than, practically, our Lord was
   coming back! Strange paradox! But His ascension into Heaven was, in a
   certain sense, part of His coming back to us, for the way for Him, from
   the Cross on earth to the crown of the whole earth, was via the New
   Jerusalem. He is coming, now, as fast as Wisdom judges it to be right.
   I am sure our Savior will not delay a moment beyond what is absolutely
   necessary, for He loves the Church which is His bride--and as her
   Bridegroom, He will not delay the long-expected hour of their
   meeting--never to part again. He is ready--it is the bride that needs
   to make herself ready! Jesus desires to come! His heart is responsive
   to our cry when we say, "Come quickly!" He will come sooner than we
   think. We are bound to feel that He is, at this moment, on the road,
   and we are to live as if He might arrive at any moment!

   We must trade on till our Lord has come. There must be no retiring from
   His business, even if we retire from our own. There must be no ceasing
   because we fancy we have done enough. Our rest will be when He comes!
   But till then, we must trade on.

   Let us labor as in His actual Presence. How would you act with Jesus at
   your elbow? Act just so. He sees us as clearly as if His bodily
   Presence were in our midst. Be awakened and inspired by the Redeemer's
   eyes. Thus will you live in this trial state after the best possible
   manner.

   IV. Now comes the sweet part of the subject. Note well THE SECRET
   DESIGN OF THE LORD. Did it ever strike you that this nobleman had a
   very kindly design towards his servants? Did this nobleman give these
   men one pound each with the sole design that they should make money for
   him? It would be absurd to think so! A few pounds would be no item to
   one who was made a king. No, no! It was as Mr. Bruce says, "He was not
   money-making, but character-making." His design was not to gain by
   them, but to educate them!

   First, their being entrusted with a pound each was a test. This
   nobleman said to himself, "When I am a king, I must have faithful
   servants in power around me. My going away gives me an opportunity of
   seeing what my servants are made of. I shall thus test their capacity
   and their industry, their honesty and their zeal. If they prove
   faithful over a few things, they will be fit to be trusted with greater
   matters." The test was only a pound and they could not make much
   mischief out of that, but it would be quite sufficient to try their
   capacity and fidelity, for he that is faithful in that which is least
   will be faithful, also, in much. They did not all endure the test, but
   by its means he revealed their characters.

   It was also a preparation of them for future service. He would lift
   them up from being servants to become rulers! They were, therefore, to
   be put in a place of measurable responsibility and to be made men of
   thereby. They were to be rulers over a very little--say a pound and
   that which came of it--and this would be an education for them. In the
   process of trading, they would be in training to rule. The best way to
   learn to be a master is to be first a servant! And the reason why some
   masters are hard and tyrannical is because they do not know the heart
   of a servant by experience. They know nothing of service and so they
   have not the wisdom, the generosity and the tenderness which masters
   should show towards servants. So this nobleman was wise--he was at the
   same time testing and training his men.

   Besides this, I think he was giving them a little anticipation of their
   future honors. He was about to make them rulers over cities and so he
   first made them rulers over pounds. They had been servants and taken
   orders from him every morning, but now they have no master to go to and
   must use their own discretion. They were, in effect, in a small sphere,
   made into little kings. In all that country the citizens had rebelled,
   but there was a little kingdom of the nobleman's own ser-vants--and
   these obeyed him and did their best to maintain his interest in their
   little way. They were already made free, placed in a measure of
   authority and made to know the sweets and the burdens of personal
   responsibility.

   Oh, you who work for God, when you are overseers of others for
   Him--when you win souls for Him and when you conquer adversaries in His
   name--you are already anticipating your eternal reward! We are
   fashioning our future position upon the anvil of our lives, for Heaven,
   though it is a state and a place prepared for us by the Lord Jesus,
   lies also mainly in character. The man is more the source of joy than
   the streets of gold in which he will walk. If you hide your pound and
   neglect your Master's service here, you are making for yourselves a dim
   and hazy future in that grand millennial reign of His! You that addict
   yourselves to your holy trade and consecrate yourselves entirely to
   your Lord shall have large honors when He comes to reign gloriously
   among His ancients!

   For see, when the nobleman came to the man who had earned 10 pounds, he
   gave him 10 cities. Think of that! There is no proportion between the
   poor service and the rich reward! A pound is rewarded with a city!
   Their master was not bound to pay them anything--they were his
   bond-servants but what he gave them was of his overflowing generosity!
   I do not think that he who brought five pounds was in the least blamed.
   He may have been just as diligent as the other, but he had less
   capacity. But how he must have opened his eyes when his master gave him
   five cities! Perhaps he wondered more than the first. Fancy if any one
   of us had been put to trade with a pound upon commission and had
   received five cities for reward! The money earned would not buy the
   smallest house and yet it brings in to the worker five cities! What
   surprise filled the heart of the recipient of such bounty! It never
   entered into his heart to envy the brother who had 10 cities, for the
   five were so vast a recompense. He must have been carried away with
   rapture with the prospect before him!

   Though there may be degrees of glory, the only difference will be in
   the capacity of the blessed to contain it. All the vessels will be
   full, but they will not be all equally large--the man of the 10 pounds
   will simply be a larger vessel, full to

   the brim--the man with the five will be less capacious, but quite as
   full, to his own glad amazement and joyful bewilderment! However, let
   us go in for winning the 10 pounds if we can! For our Lord's sake, let
   us trade in spiritual things with all our hearts.

   "But," says one, "where and what will these cities be?" It may be that
   all this will literally happen during the millennial period, but I do
   not know. When Christ shall come, the dead in Christ will rise first
   and we read that, "the rest of the dead lived not again till the
   thousand years were finished." There may be space during that era for
   all the special rewards of the Gospel dispensation. It may also be, but
   I do not know, and so I cannot tell you, that we are, in future
   dispensations, to fill unto other worlds much the same office as angels
   fill to ours. Jesus has made us kings and priests--and we are in
   training for our thrones. What if in this congregation I am learning to
   proclaim my Master's Glory to myriads of worlds! Possibly the preacher
   who is faithful here may yet be made to tell forth His Lord's Glory to
   constellations at a later time. What if one might stand upon a central
   star and preach Christ to worlds on worlds instead of preaching Him to
   these two galleries and to this area! Why not?

   At any rate, if I should ever gain a voice loud enough to be heard for
   millions of miles, I would speak none other than those glorious Truths
   of God which the Lord has revealed in Christ Jesus! If we are faithful
   here, we may expect our Master to entrust us with higher service
   hereafter! Only let us see to it that we are able to endure the test
   and that we profit by the training. As our account comes out in the
   very little, so will it be with us on the grand scale of eternity. This
   puts another face upon the work of this lower sphere. Rulers over 10
   cities! Rulers over five cities! Brothers and Sisters, you are not fit
   for such dignities if you cannot serve your Lord well in this world
   with the little He has entrusted to you. If you live wholly to Him
   here, you will be prepared for the glories unspeakable which await all
   consecrated souls. Let us go in for a devoted life at once! Time is so
   short and the things we deal with are comparatively so small! We are
   soon coming out of the eggshell of time--and when we break loose into
   eternity and see the vastness of the Divine purposes, we shall be
   altogether amazed at the service bestowed--which will be the reward of
   service done. O Lord, make us faithful! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

S. S.--or, the Sinner Saved

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after
   righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness
   which is of faith? But Israel, which followed after the law of
   righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why?
   Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of
   the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone; as it is written,
   Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense: and
   whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed." Romans 9:30-33.

   FOR several Sabbath mornings I have sought the comfort and edification
   of God's people, although I trust I have not, even in such discourses,
   overlooked the unconverted. How can we forget them while they are in
   such peril? At the same time, the main drift of the service has been
   for the people of God and it will not be wise to continue long in that
   line. We must not forget the lost sheep--it were better that we left
   the 99 than that we neglected the rambler. We must this morning,
   therefore, seek to go after that which is gone astray until we find it.
   Oh, that God the Holy Spirit would make every word to be full of His
   power! He can fill each sentence with a celestial dynamite, an
   irresistible energy which will blast the rocks of self-righteousness
   and make a way for the Gospel of the Grace of God through the
   impenetrable barriers of sin! For that end I am anxious that while I
   speak on God's behalf, the prayers of the faithful may bring down God's
   power and make the feeble voice of man to be the vehicle for the
   Omnipotence of God!

   It is very necessary to go over the elements often --the foundation
   Truths of the Gospel. Schools may rise to the classics, but they can
   never dispense with the spelling book. All over the country there must
   be the repetition of the alphabet and words of one syllable--or there
   will be no scholarship. I feel that it is necessary to give line upon
   line, precept upon precept, as to the first principles of the Gospel of
   our Lord Jesus Christ. Multitudes of persons are in bondage and will
   continue to be so until they hear a very clear and simple description
   of the way of salvation! This is the key of their liberty. You that
   know these first things must be willing to hear them often. Indeed, I
   find that you are the people that never grow tired of viewing that
   stone which God has laid in Zion for a foundation, for it never becomes
   a rock of offense to you. To you the repetitions of Jesus are more
   acceptable than the novelties of human invention. The system and method
   of salvation, therefore, will come before you, again, this morning. Oh,
   that to some it may seem to be heard for the first time, though they
   may with the outward ear have heard "the old, old story" a thousand
   times! Oh, that they may now understand it, grasp it, find the blessing
   of it and so rejoice in God their Savior!

   Paul had two facts before him. The first was that wherever he went
   preaching Jesus Christ, certain Gentiles believed the doctrine and
   straightway became justified persons, receiving forgiveness of sin and
   a change of heart at once. He had been in Ephesus and Thessalonica, in
   Corinth and in Rome--and at his preaching of the Word of Life, the
   heathen who were outside of the pale of true religious profession had
   believed in the Lord Jesus--and so had attained to righteousness and
   proved that they had done so by their righteous, pure, devout lives. On
   the other hand, there was the sad fact that whereas he had usually
   commenced his ministry in the synagogues and so had opened his
   commission by addressing the seed of Abraham to whom belonged the
   covenants of promise, yet they had almost everywhere rejected the
   Messiah and refused the Grace of the Gospel. At the same time, it was
   evident that they had missed the righteousness which they conceived
   they had obtained, for, as a nation, they were in bondage to
   superstitious prejudice and were fallen low, both as to morality and
   spirituality, insomuch that they were correctly described by the
   Prophet when he said, "Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
   we had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah."

   There were these two facts before the Apostle 's mind--the Gentiles,
   who had been far off, had attained to righteousness. And the
   Israelites, on the border of it, yet perished there and did not attain
   to the law of righteousness. To this he calls our attention and I shall
   ask you to look, first of all, at a wonder of Grace--"The Gentiles,
   which followed not after righteousness, have attained to
   righteousness." Secondly, I shall ask you to note a marvel of
   folly--"Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not
   attained to the law of righteousness." And when I have done that, I
   shall have to throw my whole strength into a discourse of affectionate
   concern about those of you who, as yet, have not attained unto the
   righteousness which is of faith. Oh that you may see yourselves and
   then see the Lord Jesus by the light of the Holy Spirit! Like the
   prodigal, may it be said of each one of you, "He came to himself," and
   then, "he arose, and came to his Father."

   I. First, I crave your earnest attention to A WONDER OF GRACE. Certain
   men had attained to righteousness. They had, so to speak, "put their
   hand upon righteousness." They had grasped the righteousness of faith
   which is the righteousness of God! They could say, "therefore, being
   justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ." These, without boasting, could declare that Jesus Christ was
   made of God unto them wisdom and righteousness. In them the
   righteousness of the Law of God was fulfilled. They were at peace, for
   the fruit of righteousness is peace. They were grateful, earnest,
   devoted, zealous--and they yielded their members as instruments of
   righteousness unto God. The Lord had covered them with the
   righteousness of Christ and had imputed into them the righteousness of
   His indwelling Spirit. Saintly men and saintly women were produced
   among those who once had used "curious arts" and enchant-ments--in
   those in whom sin abounded, Grace reigned through righteousness unto
   eternal life by Jesus Christ!

   There were people in the world whom God, the Judge of All, accepted as
   righteous. Now that, alone, is a great wonder, for we are all sinners
   by nature and by practice--and it is as great a marvel as the making of
   a world--that anyone of our race should attain to righteousness! Sit
   down, Christian, and rejoice in the righteousness which you have
   received by faith and you will be filled with amazement! The more you
   consider the righteousness which you have received in Christ Jesus by
   your faith in Him, the more you will cry out, "Oh the depths!" It is,
   indeed, a miracle of love that we, who by nature were under the curse,
   have now obtained the blessing of righteousness, as it is written, "For
   He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be
   made the righteousness of God in Him."

   The wonder grows when we consider that these persons who had attained
   to righteousness had come to it under great disadvantages, for they
   were Gentiles. The Gentiles were considered by the Jews to be off
   casts, outcasts and aliens from the commonwealth of Grace. They were
   given up to idolatry or to atheism--and the most degrading lusts were
   rife among them. They had gone very far from original righteousness. A
   true picture of the Gentile world in the days of Paul would have
   terribly dark colors in it--it would be injurious to morals to describe
   in public the details of the lives of the best of the heathen. If you
   speak of the manners of the common people, you must be prepared to hear
   of vices which crimson the cheek of modesty. There are virtues for
   which the heathen had no name and they practiced vices for which, thank
   God, you have no name! The Gentiles were filled with all
   unrighteousness and, therefore, they were ignorant of the requirements
   of the Law and of the holiness of God.

   The light which shone upon the seed of Israel had not yet dawned on
   them. There may have been, here and there, a chosen few like Cornelius
   the centurion, and others, who followed the light which is found in
   nature and in the human conscience--and so welcomed all that they
   learned from Israel--but, taken in the bulk, John fitly described the
   Gentiles when he said, "The whole world lies in wickedness." The
   strange thing is that such, originally, were those men who attained
   unto righteousness! The Gospel came into their streets and, at first,
   they heard it with opposition, saying, "What will this babbler say?"
   But their attention was attracted and they were willing to hear, again,
   the preacher concerning this matter! Conscience was awakened and soon
   they began to enquire, "What must we do to be saved? "Having no
   righteousness of their own and being convinced that they needed one,
   they fled at once to the righteousness which God has prepared in His
   dear Son for all who believe in Him--and multitudes believed and turned
   to God. Thus those who knew not the Lord became His obedient
   worshippers--and those who were far off were made near by faith!

   Are there not persons here whose condition is somewhat similar to that
   of the Gentiles? You are not religious. You are not members of godly
   families. Neither are you frequenters of our sanctuaries. But why
   shouldn't you, also, attain to righteousness by faith? Wonders of Grace
   are things which God delights in! Why should He not work such wonders
   in

   you? At any rate, while I preach, I am exercising faith concerning you,
   that you shall at once be brought to salvation and eternal life.

   The marvel of Grace in the case of these Gentiles was all the greater
   because, as the Apostle says, "They followed not after righteousness."
   They had originally felt no desire after righteousness before God. Some
   of them were thoughtful, just and generous towards men--but
   righteousness and holiness towards God was not a matter after which
   they labored. The Gentile mind ran more upon, "What shall we eat? What
   shall we drink?" than upon, "What is righteousness before God?" Gold or
   glory, power or pleasure were the objects for which they ran--they ran
   no race for the prize of holiness! They were ignorant of such matters
   as salvation, reconciliation with God, the inward life, sanctification
   and all the other mysteries and blessings of the Covenant and,
   therefore, they followed not after them. They were content, most of
   them, to live like the cattle that plowed their fields, or like the
   dogs that prowled through their streets--they followed the devices and
   desires of their own hearts. Yet when the Gospel burst in upon the
   midnight of their souls, they received its light with joy and accepted
   the good news from Heaven with much readiness of mind! They had not
   sought the Shepherd, but He had sought them and, laying them on His
   shoulders, He brought them to His fold. It was a wonderful thing that,
   though they did not follow after righteousness, yet they found it!

   They are like that Indian who, passing up the mountain side pursuing
   game, grasped a shrub to prevent his slipping and, as its roots gave
   way, they uncovered masses of pure silver--and thus the richest silver
   mine was discovered by a happy circumstance by one who looked not for
   it! These Gentiles discovered in Christ the righteousness which they
   needed, but which they had never dreamed of finding. This reminds us of
   our Lord's own parable--a man was plowing with oxen and, all of a
   sudden, the plowshare struck upon an unusual obstacle. He stopped the
   plow, turned up the soil and, low, he found a crock of gold! This
   "treasure hid in a field" at once won his heart and, for joy thereof,
   he sold all that he had and bought the field. Grace finds men who
   otherwise would never have found Grace! Oh, the glorious Grace of God
   which brings the righteousness of Christ full often to those who never
   sought it--to those who had no religiousness, nor even tendencies that
   way! Saul, the son of Kish, went to seek his father's donkeys and found
   the kingdom--and even thus have careless and worldly persons been made
   to know the Lord when it seemed highly improbable that they would ever
   do so! This is a great wonder for which all Heaven rings with
   hallelujahs to God!

   Observe that these unlikely persons did really believe and so attained
   to righteousness. When the Gospel came to them, they heard it with deep
   attention. There was a something about it which powerfully attracted
   them. You know who has said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men
   unto Me." This Divine charm drew them to consider the doctrine and when
   they came to understand it, they perceived that it suited their need as
   a shoe fits a foot. It revealed their secret needs and wounds, but it
   also provided for them and so, having considered the thing, they
   accepted with joy the blessings brought to them in the Gospel. They at
   once believed in the Lord Jesus! The thing was done suddenly, but it
   was well done. Their first hearing of the Gospel saved them. We read of
   one of them, that he had shut up the preacher in the prison and had
   gone to bed. But in the middle of the night an earthquake shook the
   prison--and that night he not only became a Believer, but he was
   baptized--and all his household! These Gentiles did not need hammering
   at so long as some ofyou do. They did not require the preacher to rack
   his brains to find fresh illustrations and arguments--and then labor in
   vain year after year! At the first summons they surrendered! They no
   sooner saw the Light of God than they rejoiced in it! They rose in one
   leap from depths of sin to heights of righteousness! Those who had been
   ringleaders in the service of the devil became zealots in the service
   of Jesus Christ! The change was as complete as it was startling--"they
   attained unto righteousness"--they were accepted before God as
   righteous men.

   The Apostle asks us, "What shall we say, then?" We say this--here is
   seen the sovereign appointment of the Lord. He will have mercy on whom
   He will have mercy! He will fulfill His promise to His Son, "Behold,
   You shall call a nation that You know not, and nations that knew not
   You shall run unto You because of the Lord, Your God, and for the Holy
   One of Israel: for He has glorified You." Here I see the Almighty Lord
   of all speaking to the darkness and saying, "Let there be light," and
   there is light! Here I see the Word of the Lord coming forth out of His
   mouth and accomplishing the thing whereto He sent it. The voice of the
   Lord which breaks the cedars of Lebanon also breaks the hard hearts of
   men-- "the voice of the Lord which makes the hinds to calve"--creates
   new life in the minds of the ungodly! The Gospel is full of power and
   it works according to the eternal purpose of God. The calling of the
   Gentiles in Paul's day is only one illustration of the frequent action
   of Sovereign Grace.

   This also is according to Divine prophecy. What said the Lord by His
   servant, Hosea? "I will call them My people, which were not My people
   and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that
   in the place where it was said unto them, You are not My people, there
   shall they be called the children of the living God." Thus spoke the
   Prophet and so it must be. The Lord has many more such chosen ones to
   call forth from their death in sin. I expect as I stand here that God's
   infinite power is about to save certain of you. I do not know to whom
   this Grace will be vouchsafed, but I know that the Word of the Lord
   will not return unto Him void. He may bless the least likely of you. He
   may call the man who now says, "I do not believe a word of it." Friend,
   you do not know what you will believe before this day is over! I trust
   that God's power is going forth to bring you within the bounds of
   salvation. It may be that some persecuting Saul of Tarsus will, at this
   hour, cry, "Lord what will You have me to do?" And, on the other hand,
   it may be that some young man who lacks only one thing will this day
   find it! So does God work in the majesty of His power, that persons who
   have not sought after righteousness, nevertheless are led to faith in
   Christ and by that faith they are immediately made righteous before
   God! This is what we have reason to expect, for many promises declare
   that it shall be so. Did not Isaiah boldly say, "I was found of them
   that sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after

   Me"?

   This is, in fact, the Gospel of the Grace of God. That God smiles upon
   worthy people and rewards their goodness is not the Gospel. The Gospel
   is that God has mercy upon the guilty and undeserving! The Gospel gives
   us this "faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
   Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It is not the Gospel that
   you will be saved who do your best and will, therefore, have some claim
   upon mercy. No, no! By such statements you sail upon quite another
   tack. The Gospel declares to you that though you have done your worst,
   the Lord will yet have mercy upon you if you believe in the Atonement
   of His dear Son! If you were turned upside down and shaken for a week,
   not even a dust of goodness would fall from some of you--and yet even
   you shall be made the children of God if you believe in Christ Jesus!
   Repent and be converted! Believe in Jesus and live!

   That the most guilty may yet attain to righteousness is the glorious
   Gospel of the blessed God which it is my delight to preach! Behold, I
   set before you an open door of Grace and beseech you to enter in just
   as you are. We come not to mend the garments of those of you who are
   already clothed, but to present the naked with the robe of Christ's
   righteousness! We come not here to search for your beauties, but to
   unveil your deformities, your wounds, bruises and putrefying sores--and
   then to point you to the Lord Jesus who can heal you--and cause the
   beauty of the Lord to rest upon you. We preach not merit, but mercy!
   Not human goodness, but Divine Grace! Not works of the Law, but wonders
   of love! This is the Gospel of which the salvation of the Gentiles was
   a blessed result.

   II. We see, in the second place, A MARVEL OF FOLLY--"Israel, which
   followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of
   righteousness." Multitudes have never yet found true righteousness. I
   fear that many of my present congregation are in the number. They are
   not righteous, though, perhaps they trust in themselves that they are.
   Their consciences are not at ease--they are conscious of serious
   shortcomings. They have not yet found a safe anchorage. I commend to
   their study the case of Israel.

   In Paul's day these people were, first of all, very advantageously
   placed. They were of the chosen race of Israel. They had been born, as
   it were, within the visible Church, circumcised and brought up to know
   the Law of Moses. And yet they had never attained to righteousness!
   Like Gideon's fleece, they were dry while the floor around was wet.
   There are those present who were nursed in the lap of piety--from their
   babyhood they heard the name of Jesus! They have scarcely been absent a
   single Sabbath from the courts of the Lord's House. They went from the
   Sunday school to the Bible class and it was hoped that they would go
   from there to the Church, but it has not proved so. Now that they have
   reached riper years, they are still hovering around the gates of mercy,
   but they have not entered upon the way of life. My Hearer, I am
   frightened for you and such as you. I tremble for you who are so good,
   so religious, so zealous and yet are not regenerate! You are the child
   of Nature finely dressed, but not the living child of Grace! You look
   somewhat like a Christian, but as you are not converted and have never
   become as a little child, you have not entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
   It is a misery of miseries that you should stand on such a vantage
   ground, as many of you do, and yet be lost! Shall it be so? Turn you,
   turn you, why will you die?

   It was not merely that they had many advantages, but these Israelites
   were earnest and zealous in following after the law of righteousness.
   Alas, many who have never forgotten a single outward rite or ceremony
   of the church and are al-

   ways zealous for taking the sacrament and regular attendance at their
   place of worship are, nevertheless, quite dead as to spiritual things!
   Some even kneel down every morning and night and repeat a prayer. They
   pay everybody they owe. They are always kind to their neighbors and
   they do not refuse their help to the subscription list! And yet they
   are quite out of the running. Some of you know that it is so! You dare
   not die as you are--in fact, you can hardly go on living as you now
   feel. Nobody could put a finger upon an open fault in you and yet you
   are like a rosy apple which is rotten at the core. You know it is so!
   At least you have a shrewd suspicion that all is not right between you
   and God. You have no peace, no joy--and when you hear others rejoicing
   in the Lord, you either think they are presumptuous, or else you envy
   them--as well you may!

   Thousands of people in England are perishing in the light, even as the
   heathen perish in the dark! Many are wrapping themselves up in their
   own righteousness and are as sure to be lost as if the nakedness of
   their sin could be seen by all men! I pray you, take heed to
   yourselves, you that follow after the law of righteousness. It is
   concerning such as you that the Apostle Paul had great heaviness and
   continual sorrow of heart. Remember, you may be in the visible Church
   and yet may be strangers to the Grace of God! You may be earnestly
   seeking righteousness in the wrong way--and this is a terrible thing.

   Notice that these people made a mistake at the very beginning--it may
   not seem a great one, but it was so in reality. Israel did not follow
   after righteousness, but after "the law of righteousness." They missed
   the spirit, which is righteousness, and followed after the mere letter
   of the Law. To be really righteous was not their aim, but to do
   righteousness was their utmost notion. They looked at, "You shall not
   kill," "You shall not commit adultery," "Remember the Sabbath day, to
   keep it holy" and so forth. But to love God with all their heart was
   not thought of and yet this is the essence of righteousness! They
   looked at the letter of the Law and were careful to pay tithe upon mint
   and anise and to attend to all sorts of small points and niceties--but
   to cleanse the heart and purify the motive did not occur to them. They
   thought of what a man does, but they forgot the importance of what a
   man is. Love to God and likeness to God were forgotten in a servile
   attempt to observe the letter of the Law.

   And so we see people everywhere, nowadays, consider what kind of dress
   a clergyman ought to wear on a certain day and which position he should
   occupy at the communion table! And what should be the decoration of the
   place of worship and what should be the proper music for the hymn and
   so forth. But to what purpose is all this? To be right in heart with
   God, to trust in His dear Son and to be renewed in His image is better
   than all rituals! Among ourselves there are certain people who are
   nothing if they are not orthodox--they make a man an offender for a
   word--and are never so happy as when they are up to their necks in
   controversy! In each case the external and the letter are preferred to
   the inward and the spiritual. O my dear Hearers, escape from this
   error! Be not so eager for the shell as to lose the kernel, so zealous
   for the form of godliness as to deny the power thereof!

   What was the reason why these zealous Israelites did not attain to
   righteousness? They went upon a wrong principle. The principle of these
   Israelites was that of works. They said within themselves, "We must
   keep the Law of God and in that way we shall be saved." In this way no
   man was ever saved, nor ever will be! Listen diligently to what I now
   say. The principle of salvation by our own works exalts man and you may
   be sure that it must be an error for that reason. On that principle you
   are your own Savior! Everything hinges upon what you do and what you
   feel--and Jesus Christ is nowhere. If you were to get to Heaven by this
   road, you would sing to your own praise and glory. This system puffs
   you up and makes you feel what an important person you are to deserve
   so much of God. It smells of that pride which the Lord abhors!

   While it thus lifts man up, it altogether ignores the great fact that
   you have already sinned. Are you going to be saved by your works? What
   about the past? If I am going to pay my way for the future, this will
   not discharge my old debts. What have you to say for your former sins
   and follies? Do you imagine that you can make up for wasted years by
   using the rest of life as you ought to do? If you do your best in the
   future, you will do no more than you are bound to do! This will not
   remove your old sins! Why, if you could start afresh as a new-born babe
   and keep God's Law perfectly throughout all time, yet the faults of the
   past would remain like indelible blots. Sin is sin and God will punish
   it! And all your future obedience can be no atonement for it.

   Note again that this principle of salvation by works, while it makes
   much of man, makes nothing of God. It shuts out both His justice and
   His mercy. Do you really know what you are? You think you are somebody
   and can merit something

   of God, but this is a delusion! I will tell you where you are. You are
   already convicted of rebellion! You are "condemned already." Nothing
   that you can do can reverse that condemnation which is already passed
   upon you! Your only hope lies in the royal prerogative of God, who can
   grant a free pardon if He pleases to do so. You can never deserve
   pardon--it must be an act of pure Grace! Nothing but the long-suffering
   of God at this moment keeps you out of Hell. Yes, I mean you who think
   so much of yourselves! I mean you who set yourselves down among the
   naturally good. I would gladly strip you of your finery and throw away
   the false jewelry with which you have decorated yourselves--for a
   self-righteous man's religion is nothing but a painted pageantry to go
   to Hell in! Oh, how I loathe to see the plumes and feathers of
   self-confidence which are an awful mockery--the lying ensigns of a
   false hope--flaunted by a soul that is on its way to sure damnation! O
   presuming souls, may God in His mercy make you see where you are! Let
   your cry be, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Until you have taken the
   sinner's place, you are in a false position and God will treat you as
   one of those liars who shall not tarry in His sight.

   Moreover, dear Friends, the system of salvation by works is impossible
   to you. You cannot perfectly keep the Law of God, for you are sold
   under sin. I remember when I resolved never to sin again. I sinned
   before I had finished my breakfast! It was all over for that day, so I
   thought I would begin the next day--and I did, but my failure was
   repeated. Who can get clean water from a polluted spring? You will
   never keep the Commandment without spot--it is so pure and you are so
   impure--it is so spiritual and you are so earthly. "There is not a just
   man upon earth that does good and sins

   not."

   But suppose you could outwardly keep the Law of God out of a sense of
   obligation to do so, yet the work is not done unless you, yourself, are
   made right with God. Your heart must love God as well as your hands
   serve Him. If you only obey Him from fear of Hell and hope of Heaven,
   what are you? Nothing but a mere hireling! This is not the filial
   nature of a child, whose service is all for love. As for myself, I
   serve God this day with my whole heart, but it is not from fear of
   Hell. My sins are forgiven me and there is no Hell for me. Neither do I
   serve the Lord because I hope for Heaven by doing so, but because I
   love Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. There is evidence of
   righteousness in this, but no claim of any. Mere obedience to the Lord,
   if there were no heart in it, would be a poor affair.

   We have many servants who regard their work as drudgery and though they
   do their duties, they do them with no regard for our interests. But the
   old-fashioned servants were of another kind. If you have any such, you
   will prize one of such above a thousand others! They love their master
   and they identify themselves with his interests. Old John did not need
   orders--he was a law to himself--he served from love. When his master
   spoke one day about their parting, he wanted to know where his master
   was going, for he had no idea of going, himself! He was part and parcel
   of the household and was worth his weight in diamonds. You may well
   say, "I would give my eyes to get such a servant as that." I dare say
   you would! Our Lord Jesus gave Himself that He might make such servants
   out of us. Mere work-mongering will never do this--it still leaves the
   man a self-seeker, a slave working under fear of the lash with no
   delight either in his master or in his work. O my Hearers, "you must be
   born again," or you cannot attain to righteousness! And there is no
   being born again on the principle of the works of the Law--that must be
   a gift of Grace--and it can only be given into that hand of faith which
   receives Christ Jesus the Lord!

   Once more, the full development of the unrighteousness of these zealous
   Israelites came when they stumbled at Christ. "They stumbled at that
   stumbling stone." Jesus Christ came among them and became to them a
   rock of offense. They seemed to stand upright until then--but when He
   came among them, down they went into actual rebellion against the Lord
   and His Anointed! Yes, your moralists are the great enemies of the
   Cross. They do not need an atonement--they can hardly endure the
   doctrine. "Washed in the blood?" They cannot bear the sound of the
   word--they need no washing. They have kept the Law of God and what do
   they lack? Jesus came to proclaim salvation by Grace, but these men
   spurn the idea of Grace. When Jesus told them of a certain creditor who
   frankly forgave those debtors who had nothing to pay, such parables
   were worthless to them, for they were not in debt to God, but quite the
   reverse!

   The reception of returning prodigals might make a pretty picture, but
   it had no relation to them. They were not sinners like the publican and
   they did not need to be taught, like the Samaritan woman, to look to
   Jesus for the living water. "He that believes on Me has everlasting
   life" was not a doctrine that they cared to hear. They could see and
   needed not to have their eyes opened! They were born free and were
   never in bondage to any man! In fact, they were the whole who had no
   need of a physician. They regarded the mission of Christ as an insult
   to their virtues and, therefore, they cru-

   cified Him. Self-righteousness is the enemy of the Cross--it does
   despite to the blood of Jesus. It sets itself up in rivalry with the
   Divine Sacrifice and, therefore, it rejects the Gospel and rails at
   imputed righteousness. "They followed after the law of righteousness,"
   but Christ, who was Righteousness itself, they would have nothing to do
   with. Their proud self-conceit thought itself above all need of Him!

   III. In the last place, I am to come to close-hand fighting. I must
   deliver A DISCOURSE OF AFFECTION. As I love you, I would have you saved
   at once. It is the first day of May. Londoners in the olden time used
   to go into the country on the First of May to wash their faces in the
   dew. Oh, that God would make His heavenly dew to wash your hearts this
   May morning! Oh, that you may enjoy the perfume of the Plant of renown
   at this hour! Some Gentiles have attained to righteousness by faith,
   why should not you? Believe in Jesus--and His righteousness is
   yours--to you, God imputes righteousness without works (Rom 4:6). Why
   do you not trust my Lord, my bleeding Lord, my risen Lord, my
   interceding Lord? There is no conceivable reason for doubting Him! Come
   and rely upon Him and righteousness is yours!

   Did I hear you say, "But_"? Away with your buts! Others have been just
   where you now are and they have believed in Jesus and have attained to
   righteousness--why should not you? Try it. Believe, I pray you, and
   God's righteousness is yours! Why should you not believe? Do I hear you
   say, "I cannot feel"? Did I say anything about feeling? Salvation by
   feelings is only another form of salvation by works and it is not to be
   thought of! Salvation is by Jesus Christ and it is received by faith,
   alone! It is bestowed as a free gift and it must be received as a free
   gift, or not at all. Trust Jesus to save you and you are saved! Believe
   Him and be happy. Take to yourself what is freely presented to you in
   the Gospel. If you can believe, you are saved! I cannot help quoting my
   Brother Hill's expression the other day--"He that believes on Me has
   everlasting life" (John 6:47). You know how he put it--"H.A. S. spells
   got it." So it does, it is a curious but a perfectly correct way of
   spelling it! If you take Christ to yourself, He will never be taken
   from you. Breathe the air and the air is yours! Receive Christ and
   Christ is yours and you have attained to righteousness!

   Next, see why it is that you have failed, up to now, to find rest. You
   have been earnest and sincere for a great many years and you have kept
   on hearing and reading and, after a fashion, you have even kept on
   praying. But all the while you have been on the wrong road! Suppose
   yonder young man should start with his bicycle to go to Brighton and he
   should travel due north? He will never get there. The faster he
   travels, the further he will go from the place! If you follow after
   righteousness by the works of the Law, the more you do, the further off
   you will be from the righteousness of God! It must be so.

   Hear a parable. Yonder is a river, deep and broad. You imagine that the
   proper way to cross it is to wade or swim through it. You will not hear
   of any other way. The king has built a bridge. It is open, free and
   without toll--the passage is as safe as it is plain. You refuse to be
   beholden to His Majesty. You mean to get across by your own exertions.
   Already you are wet and cold, but you mean to persevere. You are nearly
   up to your neck in the stream and the current is too strong for you.
   Come back, O foolish man, come back and cross the river by the bridge!
   The way of faith is so safe, so simple, so blessed--do try it! Have you
   not had enough of self-saving? After years of struggling, you are still
   standing still and have no more comfort--quit the struggle and rest in
   the Lord Jesus! Give up your self-confiding folly and confide in the
   Son of God, the bleeding Substitute for guilty men. May the blessed
   Spirit now sweetly help you to receive Jesus!

   Do you not see, my Friend, that in all your selfish trusting you are
   really fighting against your God? Jesus says, "Trust Me, I will save
   you." And you reply, "I prefer my own doings." Is not that a great
   insult to Jesus? Have you not attacked the great Father upon a tender
   point? May He not appoint His own way of saving you? He has chosen the
   way of Grace through faith. What arrogance to refuse that way! God
   gives without money and without price--why do you provoke Him with your
   fancied merits? You are flying in the face of the great God and,
   therefore, your very religion is a sin! Let me justify so strong a
   charge. Your very good works are evil works because you are doing them
   to set aside the gift of God by Jesus Christ! The Lord appoints Jesus
   to be your righteousness and you laboriously endeavor to manufacture a
   righteousness of your own! You reject the Sacrifice of Calvary in whom
   you are bid to trust! You virtually say that for you it is a needless
   thing, for you can reach Heaven by your own doings and feelings.

   O Sirs, if you could be saved by your own works and your proud hopes
   could be fulfilled, then the death of our Lord would be proved to be a
   gross mistake! What need of the Great Sacrifice if you can save
   yourself? The Cross is a superfluity if human merit can suffice. There
   was no need for the Father to put His Son to grief if, after all, men
   can work out a

   righteousness of their own. If works can save you, why did Jesus die?
   Do you see what you are driving at? Do you mean to trample under foot
   the blood of Jesus? I beseech you, abhor all notion of
   self-justification! Dash down the idol which would rival your Lord--

   "Cast your deadly 'doing'down, Down, at Jesus 'feet! Stand in Him, in
   Him alone, Gloriously complete!"

   "Well," says one, "you seem to know the ins and outs of a soul aiming
   at self-salvation." I do, for I long labored to climb up to Heaven upon
   the treadmill of my own works! At length I grew weary and gave myself
   up to Jesus, that He might bear me there in His arms. Will you not do
   the same?

   Now, my Hearer, it will be an awful thing for you to understand this
   way of Grace and yet to neglect it. How long am I to preach to some of
   you? How long am I to wear my heart out in crying, "Come to Jesus!
   Believe in Jesus!? If anybody had said 20 years ago that yonder
   seat-holder would still remain an unconverted man, he would have
   replied, "Impossible! I am near to the Kingdom; I am almost persuaded
   and before long I shall decide." Yes, you are persuaded on Sundays, but
   you forget all about it on Mondays--and all because faith is not
   exercised! You believe in faith, but you do not believe in Jesus! You
   know that Jesus could save you if you trusted Him, but you do not trust
   Him. Oh that this moment you would end this delay!

   To trust in Jesus is described in Scripture as looking. As the man
   bitten by the serpent looked to the serpent of brass hung high upon the
   pole--and as he looked, healing and life came to him--so if you look to
   Jesus, now, you will be saved! I see God's only-begotten Son, who has
   deigned to become Man for our sakes and to die in our place--and from
   the Cross I entreat Him to speak to you. Speak, O my Master! He does
   speak and these are His words--"Look unto Me and be you saved, all the
   ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Look, I pray
   you! Look and live!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Friend of God

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 8, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of
   Abraham My friend." Isaiah 41:8.

   "And he was called the Friend of God." James 2:23.

   ABRAHAM was called the Friend of God because he was so. The title only
   declares a fact. The Father of the faithful was, beyond all men, "the
   Friend of God," and the head of that chosen race of Believers whom
   Jesus calls His friends. The name is rightly given. We read that
   "whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
   And we may be much more sure that whatever name the Spirit of God has
   given to any man, that is his proper and right name.

   James says not only that this was Abraham's name, but that he was
   called by it. The name does not occur in his life as given in the Book
   of Genesis and it has been questioned whether it occurs anywhere else
   in Holy Scripture, for many have preferred to translate the word in
   Isaiah and in 2 Chronicles 20:7, as, "lover," or, "beloved," rather
   than, "friend." However this may be, it is quite certain that among the
   Jewish people, Abraham was frequently spoken of as, "the Friend of
   God." At this present moment, among the Arabs and other Muslims, the
   name of Abraham is not often mentioned, but they speak of him as Khalil
   Allah, or, the "Friend of God," or more briefly as El Khalil, "the
   Friend." Those tribes which boast of their descent from him through
   Ishmael, or through the sons of Keturah, greatly reverence the
   Patriarch and are known to speak of him under the name which the Holy
   Spirit here ascribes to him. It is a noble title, not to be equaled by
   all the names of greatness which have been bestowed by princes, even if
   they should all meet in one. Patents of nobility are mere vanity when
   laid side by side with this transcendent honor.

   I think I hear you say, "Yes, it was indeed a high degree to which
   Abraham reached--so high that we cannot attain unto it. It would be
   idle for us to dream of being accounted friends of God." My Brothers
   and Sisters, I entreat you, think not so! We, also, may be called
   friends of God--and the object of this morning's discourse will be to
   excite in you the desire to know this matchless friendship! Let me read
   to you the words of our blessed Lord in the 15th chapter of John-- "You
   are My friends if you do whatever I command you. Henceforth I call you
   not servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does, but I have
   called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father, I
   have made known unto you." It is, then, within reach! Jesus, Himself,
   invites us to live and act and be His friends!

   Surely, none of us will neglect any gracious attainment which lies
   within the region of the possible. None of us will be content with a
   scanty measure of Grace when we may have life more abundantly. I trust
   you are not so foolish as to say, "If I may but get to Heaven by the
   skin of my teeth, I shall not care about what I am on the road." This
   would be wicked talk and, if you speak thus, I am afraid you will never
   get to Heaven at all! He that is being prepared for Glory is always
   hungry after the largest measure of Grace. He who is born of God
   desires his Father's love while he is yet a child and has no idea of
   waiting for it till he comes of age and enters upon his estate. Let me
   have as much of Heaven, even now, as I can have! Yes, let me now be the
   friend of God!

   The other day there landed on the shores of France a boat full of
   people soaked with rain and saltwater. They had lost all their luggage
   and had nothing but what they stood upright in, but they were glad,
   indeed, to have been saved from a wreck. It was well that they landed
   at all! And when it is again my lot to cross to France, I trust I shall
   put my foot on shore in a better plight than that! I would prefer to
   cross the Channel in comfort and land with pleasure. There is

   all this difference between being "saved so as by fire" and having "an
   abundant entrance ministered unto us" into the Kingdom of God. Let us
   enjoy Heaven on the road to Heaven!

   Why not? Instead of being fished up as castaways, stranded upon the
   shores of mercy, let us take our passage on board the well-appointed
   Liner of Free Grace! Let us, if possible, go in the first cabin,
   enjoying all the comforts of the way and having fellowship with the
   great Captain of our Salvation. Why should we think it enough to be a
   mere stowaway? I would stir you up at this time, dear Friends, to
   aspire after the best gifts! Grow in Grace! Increase in love to God and
   in nearness of access to Him, that the Lord may at this good hour stoop
   down to us as our great Friend and then lift us up to be known as His
   friends!

   I have many things to say to you this morning and, therefore, I must
   speak upon each one with great brevity. I am half afraid that I may be
   driven to a brevity which will render me a little obscure. I ask you,
   first, to notice the title to be wondered at--"Friend of God." When we
   have meditated and marveled, I shall then speak to you under a second
   head-- the title vindicated--it was a fit and proper title for Abraham
   and we can see it to be so. Thirdly, I shall speak of the title sought
   after. May we all win it and wear it! After all this, I shall conclude
   with a few words upon the title used for practical purposes. May the
   Holy Spirit help me graciously at this hour!

   I. First, may we be Divinely instructed while we look at the name,
   "Friend of God," and regard it as A TITLE TO BE WONDERED AT.

   Admire and adore the condescending God who thus speaks of a man like
   ourselves and calls him His friend! The heavens are not pure in His
   heart and He charged His angels with folly--and yet He takes a man and
   sets him apart to be His friend! What is man, O Lord, that You are
   mindful of him? Or the Son of Man, that You visit him? Who among our
   sinful race can be worthy of the friendship of Jehovah? Only His Grace
   can make it possible for any man to walk with God in high
   companionship.

   In this case the august Friend displays His pure love, since He has
   nothing to gain. Surely God does not need friends. You and I need
   friendship. We cannot always lead a self-contained and solitary
   life--we are refreshed by the companionship, sympathy and advice of a
   like-minded comrade. We are very foolish if we commit ourselves to a
   host of acquaintances, but we are wise if we have found a faithful
   friend and know how to make use of him. Friendship is one of the
   sweetest joys of life! Many spirits might have failed beneath the
   bitterness of trial if they had not found a friend. No such necessity
   can be supposed of the all-sufficient God.

   We know how sweet it is to mingle the current of our life with that of
   some choice bosom friend. Can God have a friend? Can He also find it in
   His heart to unbosom Himself to another? Can the secret of Jehovah be
   with a frail creature? Does the Holy One desire to commune outside of
   Himself? It cannot be that He is solitary. He is, within Himself, a
   whole, not only of unity, but of tri-personality--Father, Son and Holy
   Spirit--and herein is fellowship enough! Yet, behold, in infinite
   condescension--the Lord deigns to seek the acquaintance of His own
   creature, the love of a man, the friendship of Abraham! I dare not go
   so far in speech as my thoughts would lead me--it is certainly a great
   marvel that the Creator of the heavens and the earth should look to Ur
   of the Chaldees for a man and should separate him to Himself, to tutor
   and train him till He made him His friend--an honor which even the
   cherubim and seraphim have never reached!

   Friendship cannot be all on one side. In this particular instance, it
   is intended that we should know that while God was Abraham's friend,
   this was not all, but Abraham was God's friend. He received and
   returned the friendship of God! From one point of view, Abraham was
   always the object of God's pity and mercy, but, by His Grace, the Lord
   also lifted him into another condition in which he became the object of
   the Lord's complacency and delight. God gave Abraham His heart and
   Abraham gave God his heart. They were knit together in love. To use
   expressive Scriptural words, the soul of Abraham was bound up in the
   bundle of life with the Lord, his God. Not only did the Lord speak to
   Abraham as He did to Moses, "face to face, as a man speaks unto his
   friend," but He continually treated Abraham as His friend and communed
   with him as such--

   "Stupendous Grace of the Most High! What has the Lord on worms
   bestowed, Called to the council of the sky And numbered with the
   friends of God!"

   Friendship creates a measure of equality between the persons concerned.
   I say not that absolute equality is at all necessary to friendship, for
   a great king may have a firm friend in one of the least of his
   subjects. But the tendency is towards an equalizing of the two
   friends--the one comes down gladly and the other rises up in sympathy.
   Friendship begets fellowship and this bridges over the dividing gulf.
   There can be no idea of equality between God, the Lord, and man the
   servant. Indeed, it is only as we see our true relation as servants
   that we can be friends. Did not Jesus say, "You are My friends if you
   do whatever I command you"? We must keep our place, or we shall not be
   friends. Yet see how the Lord comes down to Abraham and communes with
   him at his table while He lifts up Abraham to His own state, so that he
   sees the things of God, yes, even sees with gladness, the day of our
   Lord Jesus Christ! When we say of two men that they are friends, we put
   them down in the same list, but what condescension on the Lord's part
   to be on terms of friendship with a man!

   Again I say, no nobility is comparable to this. Parmenio was a great
   general, but all his fame in that direction is forgotten in the fact
   that he was known as the friend of Alexander. He had a great love for
   Alexander as a man, whereas others only cared for him as a conqueror
   and a monarch. And Alexander, perceiving this, placed great reliance
   upon Par-menio. Abraham loved God for God's sake and followed Him
   fully--and so the Lord made him His confidant and found pleasure in
   manifesting Himself to Abraham and in trusting to him His sacred
   Oracles. O Lord, how excellent is Your lovingkindness, that You should
   make a man Your friend!

   I also want you to note the singular excellence of Abraham. How could
   he have been God's friend had not Grace worked wonderfully in him? A
   man is known through his friends--you cannot help judging a person by
   his companions. Was it not a great venture for God to call any man His
   friend? We are led to judge the character of God by the character of
   the man whom He selects to be His friend. Yes, and though a man with
   like passions with us, and subject to weaknesses which the Holy Spirit
   has not hesitated to record, yet Abraham was a singularly admirable
   character! The Spirit of God produced in him a deep sincerity, a firm
   principle and a noble bearing. Although a plain man, dwelling in tents,
   the Father of the Faithful is always a right royal personage. A calm
   dignity surrounds him and the sons of Heth and the kings of Egypt feel
   its power.

   His character is well balanced. He is what is commonly called an
   all-around man. He walks before God and is perfect in his generation,
   so that God is not ashamed to be called his God. I might almost say of
   Abraham's general life that, like the Lord, he was light and in him was
   no darkness at all. Of course I only use the expression in the sense
   intended by our Savior, when He spoke of the whole body being full of
   light, "having no part dark" (Luke 11:36). Father Abraham is a man fit
   to be the head of the believing family! His quiet son, Isaac, is like a
   valley, above which his father rises like an Alp in the greater
   strength of his character. He is equally superior to his notable
   grandson, Jacob, great personality as Jacob is. There is a fuss, worry
   and worldly craft about Jacob which somewhat beclouds his undoubtedly
   great faith, but you do not see this in Abraham--he moves majestically
   along his course--shining like the sun in mid-Heaven, before whom even
   clouds are made into chariots of glory!

   I say not that Abraham was worthy to be called the Friend of God in the
   sense of merit, but I do say that the Grace of God had made him meet to
   be a partaker of fellowship with the God of Light. While he was
   justified by his faith, the Lord's calling him just was also justified
   by his works. James asks, "Was not Abraham, our father, justified by
   works when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar?" Indeed he
   was--by this great deed of obedience, Abraham proved to be in a right
   state before God! His justification was justified. God was just, even
   in a legal sense, in declaring such a man to be righteous, for
   righteous he evidently was. Oh that the sanctifying Spirit may prove in
   us the truth of our faith by the holiness of our works!

   Follow me while I note some of the points in which this Divine
   friendship showed itself. The Lord often visited Abraham. Friends are
   sure to visit one another. We read, "The Word of the Lord came unto
   Abram in a vision." "The Lord appeared unto Abram." And again, "The
   Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and He sat in the tent
   door, in the heat of the day." Three mysterious persons came to Abraham
   and he entertained them in his tent under the tree and provided a
   banquet for them. And Abraham waited at the table. Was he not honored
   above all men to entertain God, Himself? The Lord sojourned with the
   Patriarch as in a strange land and heard the prayers and praises of His
   servant day by day. On the other hand, Abraham was prompt to build an
   altar unto the Lord and, besides this, he had his chosen spot

   for private communion with God, for we read, "Abraham get up early in
   the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord." Often did the
   great Lord and His trustful servant draw near unto each other.

   In consequence of these visits of friendship paid to Abraham, secrets
   were disclosed. The Lord informed Abraham as to His design concerning
   the Canaanites who were ultimately to be destroyed, but their iniquity
   was not yet full. He revealed to him the birth of Isaac and His intent
   that the Covenant blessing should run in the line of the child born
   according to promise. And when He had determined to destroy Sodom and
   Gomorrah, the Lord said to Himself, "Shall I hide from Abraham that
   thing which I do?" I suppose it is but a gloss, but Philo quotes this
   text as from the Septuagint and puts it thus--"Shall I hide this thing
   from Abraham, My Friend?" The present copies of the Septuagint say,
   "Abraham, My servant," but the other reading is a very natural one. It
   was a special proof of Divine friendship that the Lord would not
   execute judgment till He had heard what the Patriarch might say upon
   it. Abraham, on his part, had no secrets, but laid bare his heart to
   the inspection of his Divine Friend. Visits were received, secrets were
   made known and thus friendship grew.

   More than that, compacts were entered into. On certain grand occasions
   we read, "The Lord made a Covenant with Abram." Once, with solemn
   sacrifice, a light passed between the divided portions of the victims.
   At another time it is written that God swore by Himself, saying,
   "Surely, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply
   you." The two friends grasped hands and pledged their good faith. Here
   was a faithful God and faithful Abraham bound in an immovable Covenant!
   God trusted Abraham, for He said, "I know him, that he will command his
   children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of
   the Lord." And Abraham knew his God and trusted Him without
   suspi-cion--and thus there was firm friendship between them.

   This friendship resulted in the bestowal of innumerable benefits. The
   life of Abraham was rich with mercies. We read, "And Abraham was old
   and well stricken in age: and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all
   things." Friends bless their friends, or at least wish they could do
   so. Abraham's Almighty Friend denied him no good thing. Abraham was
   rich, but his riches were blessed. We may say of him, "The gold of that
   land was good." He was singularly favored in all things to which he set
   his hands. Jacob, comparing himself with his grandfather, said, "Few
   and evil are the days of your servant." And his life was certainly
   acted out upon a far lower level than that of the first of the three
   great fathers of the chosen seed. The Lord is a Friend who can never
   know a limit in blessing His friends! Having loved His own, He loves
   them to the end. To Abraham, through the Grace of his Divine Friend,
   difficulties were blessings, trials were blessings and the sharpest
   test of all was the most ennobling blessing!

   Since Abraham was God's friend, God accepted his pleas and was moved by
   his influence. Friends always have an ear for friends. When Abraham
   pleaded with God for Sodom, the Lord patiently listened to his renewed
   pleading. How instructive is that story of the Patriarch's pleading for
   Sodom! How humbly he speaks!--"I have taken upon me to speak unto the
   Lord, even I that am but dust and ashes." Yet how boldly he pleads! He
   ventures to say, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" The
   strain of his pleading is worthy of special note. It was not an
   intercession for Sodom so much as an expostulation with God--friend
   with Friend. If we were pleading for London, we would naturally appeal
   to God's mercy, but Abraham takes the bolder course of pleading Divine
   Justice. In fact, his plea is not only for Sodom, but for God,
   Himself--"That be far from You to do after this manner, to slay the
   righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the
   wicked, that be far from You." As much as if he were more earnest to
   prevent the name of God from being dishonored by what might look like
   an injustice, than he was, even, for the saving of the guilty people!

   This was a bold stroke. He pleaded rather as a friend of God than as a
   friend of Sodom--and the Lord recognized to the fullest the force of
   his friendly appeal! Lot was rescued and Zoar was spared in answer to
   that prayer; just as Ishmael had been endowed with earthly blessings in
   response to the pleading, "O that Ishmael might live before You!" And
   just as the household of Abimelech had been healed in answer to
   Abraham's supplication.

   There was also between these friends a mutual love and delight. Abraham
   rejoiced in Jehovah! He was his shield and his exceedingly great
   reward. And the Lord, Himself, delighted to commune with Abraham. The
   serenity of the Patriarch's life was caused by his constant joy in God.
   I cannot now enter into this choice subject for lack of time.

   Observe, however, that this friendship was maintained with great
   constancy. The Lord never forsook Abraham. Even when the Patriarch
   erred, the Lord remembered and rescued him. He did not cast him off in
   old age. Until he was laid in the Cave of Machpelah, God was his God.
   Yes, and He is his God at this day, for did He not proclaim Himself to
   Moses as

   the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob? Abraham lives and God is
   still his God! Constancy is also seen on the human side of this
   renowned friendship--Abraham did not turn aside to worship any false
   God, neither did the Lord turn away from the man of His choice.

   More than that, the Lord kept His friendship to Abraham by favoring his
   posterity. That is what our first text tells us. The Lord styled
   Israel, even rebellious Israel, "The seed of Abraham, My friend." You
   know how David sought out the seed of Jonathan and did them good for
   Jonathan's sake. Even so does the Lord love Believers who are the seed
   of believing Abraham--and He still seeks out the children of Abraham,
   His friend, to do them good. In the latter days He shall save the
   literal Israel--the natural branches of the olive which, for a while,
   have been broken off, shall be grafted in again. God has not forgotten
   His friendship to their father, Abraham, and, therefore, He will return
   in love to Abraham's seed and again be their God.

   Thus I have glanced at sufficient facts to cause this title of, "The
   Friend of God," to be wondered at. You have all admired the friendship
   of Damon and Pythias. Behold here a greater marvel! The friendship of
   the Lord God with Abra-ham--a friendship in which Abraham gave more
   than his own life in proof of his fidelity--and the Great God still
   surpassed Him in faithfulness!

   II. And now let us notice THE TITLE VINDICATED. Abraham was the Friend
   of God in a truthful sense. There was great propriety and fullness of
   meaning in the name as applied to him.

   First, Abraham's trust in God was implicit. To show what I mean, I will
   bring before you the Patriarch, Job. Now Job was a grand
   Believer--under some aspects he has "attained to the first three"--but
   Job had a controversy with God and found it hard to think that the Lord
   dealt justly with him. He was able, despite all questions, to say,
   "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," but he was much tossed
   about and tumbled up and down in his soul--and those three friends of
   his suggested no end of doubts. Their philosophy worried him and Job
   was not so fully established in the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty as
   he might have been. Abraham had no such controversy--"he staggered
   not." David, too, was sometimes plagued with unbelief, so that he
   almost came to infidel conclusions. He was perplexed to know how it was
   that the wicked prospered while he, himself, was chastened every
   morning. He descended into the mists of the valley, but Abraham
   habitually walked the hilltops. Bathing his forehead in the sunlight of
   Jehovah's love, Abraham dwelt beyond all questions and mistrusts. O
   happy man, to know no skepticism but heroically to believe!

   There is a blessed ignorance which my soul covets. To know is not
   always gain. Fool that I am, I have too often eaten the fruit of the
   Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I wish that I could forget all that
   has ever been told me which suggests a doubt of my great Lord and His
   faithful Word. I will forget, if I can, all the thoughts of man, for
   they are vain--I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus
   Christ and Him crucified! Abraham possessed that higher knowledge which
   treads unbelief beneath its feet as unworthy even to be argued down! He
   was a perfect child towards God and, therefore, a complete man. Unless
   you are converted and become as little children, you shall in no way
   enter into friendship with God, for this is God's chief requirement in
   His friends--that they shall entertain no doubts of Him, but
   un-questioningly believe Him. Abraham "staggered not at the promise
   through unbelief," for he knew that what the Lord had promised He was
   also able to perform.

   Next, there was joined to this implicit trust a practical confidence as
   to the accomplishment of everything that God had promised. He went
   childless for many a day and the temptation came to him and, for a
   moment prevailed with him, that he must use human means to effect the
   Divine promise. But even then he did not doubt that the promise world
   be effected. His great mistake plainly showed that he believed the
   promise would be fulfilled--the fault lay in his interference with the
   Divine method of fulfillment! When he was commanded to slay his son, he
   never doubted that God would keep His promise--he reckoned that God was
   able to raise up Isaac from the dead, from which he also received him
   in a figure. Faith is to credit contradictions and to believe
   impossibilities when Jehovah's Word is to the front. If you and I can
   do this, then we can enter into friendship with God, but in no other
   way, for distrust is the death of friendship! If the Lord brings a man
   near to Himself, it is absolutely necessary that, at the very least,
   there should be perfect confidence on the man's part. "He that comes to
   God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of them that
   diligently seek Him." If you think God can lie, you cannot be His
   friend--you are dividing your interest from the Lord's interest and
   committing a breach of friendship when you distrust. Between man and
   man, confidence may be unduly placed, but to-

   wards God, you may carry it to the utmost and know no hesitancy.
   Believe without limit and then shall you enjoy fellowship with the
   Lord!

   Next to this, Abraham's obedience God was unquestioning. Whatever God
   bade him do, he did it promptly and thoroughly. When the Lord said to
   him, "Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your
   father's house, unto a land that I will show you," he went forth, not
   knowing where he went. And when the Lord bade him go to the unknown
   mountain and offer up his son for a burnt-offering, he rose early in
   the morning and through three days of sore travail he journeyed to the
   place where his faith must be tested. When both moral and parental
   instincts might have held him back, he went onward, feeling that it was
   not his to question when once the command was clear. Jehovah's will to
   him was law. Not everyone has yet learned that it is God who is the
   Author of all law and that it is His will which makes a certain course
   to be right--and the contrary of it to be wrong. He was God's servant
   and yet His friend and, therefore, he obeyed as seeing Him that is
   invisible and trusting Him whom he could not understand.

   Abraham's desire for God's glory was uppermost at all times. He did not
   what others would have done, because he feared the Lord. I think that
   Abraham comes out grandly when he had pursued the kings who had
   plundered the cities of the plain. He overcame them and recovered all
   their spoils. When Melchizedek met him as the priest of the Most High
   God, Abraham at once gave him tithes of all. But when the king of Sodom
   proposed that Abraham should keep all salvage that he had taken and
   only restore to him the persons who had been captured, it was grand of
   Abraham not to touch a particle of the prey, but to say, "I will not
   take from a thread even to a shoe lace. I will not take anything that
   is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich." He did not want
   that a petty prince, or, indeed, anybody, should boast of enriching
   Abraham! He trusted solely in his God and though he had a perfect right
   to have taken the spoils of war which were his by capture, yet he would
   not touch them lest the name of his God should be in the least
   dishonored.

   Abraham's communion with God was constant. O happy man, that dwelt on
   high while men were groveling at his feet! What bliss he knew in those
   morning communings with God! What peace he felt all day long in the
   tent and in the plain, since he walked before the Lord and was perfect
   towards Him! Whether with the Bedouin or with his own servants, you see
   the man of God rather than the sheik--and the friend of God rather than
   the prince. Oh, that you and I may be cleansed to such a pure, holy and
   noble life that we, too, may be rightly called the friends of God!

   III. Thirdly, dear Friends, you will have patience with me while I stir
   you up to regard this name as THE TITLE TO BE SOUGHT AFTER. Oh, that we
   may get to ourselves this good degree, this diploma, as, "Friend of
   God!"

   Do you wish to be a friend of God? Well, then, first you must be fully
   reconciled to Him. Of course you cannot remain His enemy and be His
   friend--that is clear enough. If you are pardoned through the sacrifice
   of Jesus. If you are justified by His righteousness. If you are
   regenerated by His Spirit, you are no longer God's enemy, but that will
   not entitle you to be called the Friend of God. It will entitle you to
   call God your Friend and your Helper, but you must go further than
   that, if you would be His friend. Love must be created in your heart!
   Gratitude must beget attachment and attachment must cause delight! You
   must rejoice in the Lord and maintain close communion with Him.

   To be friends, we must exercise a mutual choice--the God who has chosen
   you must be chosen by you. Most deliberately, heartily, resolutely and
   undividedly you must choose God to be your God and your Friend.
   Beloved, there can be no friendship between you and God without your
   own full consent, nor without your ardent desire. What do you say to
   this? If sin is pardoned, all ground of enmity is gone--but now Grace
   must come in to reign through righteousness unto eternal life--and
   bring you into a condition of tender love and fervent desire towards
   the Lord our God.

   But even then you have not gone far enough. If we are to be the friends
   of God, there must be a conformity of heart, will, design and character
   to God. Can two walk together except they are agreed? Will God accept
   as His friend one who despises holiness, who is careless in obedience,
   who has no interest in the purposes of Divine Love, no delight in the
   Gospel of Christ? Beloved, the Holy Spirit must make us like God or
   else we cannot be friends of God! We must love Jesus the Son, or we
   cannot love the Father! We cannot rise to the standard of friends of
   God if self is our ruling force. God is not selfish and He is not the
   friend of the selfish. Unless we love what God loves and hate what God
   hates, we cannot be His friends. Our lives must, in the main, run in
   parallel lines with the life of the gracious, holy and loving God, or
   else we shall be walking contrary to Him and He will walk contrary to
   us.

   If we have got as far as that, then the next thing will surely
   follow--there must be a continual communion. The friend of God must not
   spend a day without God and he must undertake no work apart from his
   God. Oh, to live with

   God and in God and for God and like God! You cannot be a friend of God
   if your communion with Him is occasional, fitful, distant, broken. If
   you only think of Him on Sundays or at sacraments, you cannot be His
   friend! Friends love each other's society--the friend of God must abide
   in God, walk with God--and then he shall dwell at ease. What do you say
   to this? Has the Grace of God made your feet like hinds' feet to stand
   on such high places? He can do it. Let us seek after the blessing.

   Brothers and Sisters, if we are to be the friends of God, we must be
   copartners with Him. He gives over to us all that He has--and
   friendship with God will necessitate that we give to Him all that we
   have. It has been well said that if God is ours, we cannot be poor
   because God has all and we have all in having God. On the other hand,
   the cause of God should not be poor if we can make it rich--and His
   work should never be in straits if we can find supplies. If we are,
   indeed, the Lord's friends, we count His cause our cause, His work our
   work--and we throw all that we have into a Joint Stock Bank with the
   Great All-in-All.

   Friendship, if it exists, will breed mutual delight. I cannot explain
   to you the joy that God has in His people--we shall know that,
   by-and-by, but He calls His Church His Hephzibah and He says, "My
   delight is in her." I believe our Lord takes infinite delight in a soul
   which He has new-created and which He has fashioned after His own
   likeness. He was glad to see man at the first and yet, afterwards, it
   saddened Him that He had made man. But the Lord is always glad to see
   the new-created man and He never repents that He has made him upon the
   face of the earth. The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him. I am
   sure if we are God's friends, our greatest joy is to draw near to God,
   even to God our exceeding joy. I have sometimes wished that I had
   nothing else to do but to dwell with God in prayer, praise and
   preaching. If it were not for the thousand worries and cares which come
   to me in connection with the lesser matters which arise out of the
   weaknesses of His Church and people, what a happy life mine would be!
   Indeed, I do not complain, but I only mean that holy service in
   constant fellowship with God is Heaven below.

   Alas, one has to come down from the Mount of the Transfiguration and
   meet the lunatic child and the quarrelsome scribes at the bottom of the
   hill! Our delight is in God. "Yes, my own God is He." He is my
   All-in-All. Whatever comes from Him is perfumed with myrrh and aloes
   and cassia. Even His very threats ring like music in the ears of them
   that love Him! There is nothing that He does but we will take delight
   in it. We come, at length, to love even the rod which He yields--the
   blows of such a faithful Friend are infinitely better than the kisses
   of our deceitful enemy. The cross which Jesus lays upon us is a light
   burden because we delight in Him. The God of Love has our love and He
   has become the light of our delight. He rejoices over us with singing
   and we rejoice before Him with the voice of melody.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, I do not mean to go any further, for we must
   not tell the secrets of love in the open streets. I see a curtain--a
   veil shrouding the Holy of Holiest--I dare not lift that veil. Into the
   Most Holy Place, ordinary worshippers cannot come. Neither can they
   look therein till the Lord anoints their eyes and purges their spirits.
   O Lord, reveal Yourself to the half-opened eyes of Your people! Within
   that curtain there are choice manifestations, secret witnesses and
   ravishments of supreme delight of which I must not speak because I feel
   towards these things as Paul felt concerning that which he saw and
   heard in Paradise! He said it would be unlawful for a man to utter
   them! Beloved, may you know these special joys by personal experience,
   even as he did who is called, "Friend of God!"

   IV. I have done when I have said a word or two upon the last point
   which is THE TITLE TO BE UTILIZED for practical purposes. The practical
   purposes are just these.

   First, here is a great encouragement to the people of God. See what
   possibilities lie before you. The other Sabbath morning I tried to say
   something about the future possibilities of saints, since he that was
   faithful with his pound was made a ruler over ten cities It does not
   yet appear what we shall be--we have not even the beginning of an idea
   of what we shall be in the next world if we are found faithful to our
   Master here, nor what the Glory will be that shall transfigure us in
   the day of the coming of Christ--and during the thousand years of His
   glorious reign on the earth.

   But I want you now to notice the prize of your high calling in this
   life. You may become the friends of God and may be so manifestly in
   league with Him that men may call you the friends of God. How few
   attain to this! Do you know one such person? Let your eyes travel over
   all the Christian people you know and tell me how many might be called
   the friends of God. I know one such man. I will not mention his name. I
   fear he may not be long on earth, for he is well

   stricken in age. He is a man who has trusted God, walked with God and
   been faithful to God and has, in consequence, been greatly honored of
   God to carry on a vast work of usefulness.

   I wish I might grow to be like he, but I feel a mere babe in his
   presence! He is a rare man. Why are there not more such? Because God's
   arm is shortened? No, but because our iniquities hide Him from us. We
   might be and we ought to be such men and women that those who know us
   at home and in business would discover us to be the friends of Jesus. I
   would like, as a preacher, to have it said of me that I maintained the
   Glory of my Lord and defended the doctrines of His Cross--and was the
   friend of the old Gospel while others were gadding after novelties. In
   some form or other we should aspire after this heavenly friendship. See
   the possibility that lies within your reach--and make it a reality at
   once!

   Next, here is solemn thought for those who would be friends of God. A
   man's friend must show himself friendly and behave with tender care for
   his friend. A little word from a friend will pain you much more than a
   fierce slander from an enemy. Remember how the Savior said, "It was not
   an enemy; then I could have borne it: but it was you, a man My equal,
   My acquaintance." "The Lord your God is a jealous God" and if He brings
   any of us so near to Him as to be His friends, then His jealousy burns
   like coals of juniper that have a most vehement flame! He will save
   you, Brothers and Sisters, despite a thousand imperfections, but He
   will not call you His friend unless you are exceedingly careful to
   please Him in all things.

   Shall we draw back from the honor because of the responsibility? No, we
   delight in the responsibility! We thirst to be well-pleasing to God.
   Though our God is a consuming fire, we aspire to dwell in Him! To our
   new nature this fire is its element! Even now we pray that it may
   refine us and consume all our dross and tin. We would gladly be
   baptized with the fire baptism. We wish nothing to be spared which
   ought to be consumed, or which can be consumed. We accept friendship
   with God on His own terms. I tremble while I speak. We are willing to
   bear anything which will make us one with God!

   The Spirit of God is the Spirit of judgment and the Spirit of
   burning--do you know what you ask when you pray to be filled with Him?
   I trust you will reply, "Be it what it may, I desire to feel that
   heavenly influence which can make me, forever, the friend of God."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Search For Faith

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 15, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the
   earth?" Luke 18:8.

   IT is absolutely certain that God will hear the prayers of His people.
   From beneath the altar, souls cry unto Him day and night to vindicate
   the cause of Christ, the cause of truth and righteousness--and to cast
   down His adversary--these shall be answered speedily. Here on earth,
   scant though the supplication may be, yet there is a remnant according
   to the election of Grace who cease not to importune the Almighty God to
   make bare His arm and display the majesty of His Word. Though for wise
   and gracious purposes the answer to those prayers may be delayed, yet
   it is absolutely certain. Shall not God avenge His own elect which cry
   day and night unto Him though He keeps their case long in hand?
   Assuredly He will, for those prayers are inspired by the Spirit who
   knows the mind of God! They are for the Glory of God and of His Christ
   and they are presented by our great High Priest! Long-suffering keeps
   back the advent and the judgment for a while, for the Lord is not
   willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
   But He will not forever delay the long-expected end! The Lord Jesus,
   Himself, gives us this personal assurance, "I tell you that He will
   avenge them speedily." No doubt remains when Jesus says, "I tell you."
   The Lord will come and, according to His own reckoning, He will come
   quickly. His reckoning is according to the chronology of Heaven and
   this, the heirs of Heaven ought gladly to accept--it is meet that even
   now we keep celestial time.

   Brothers and Sisters, let not your hearts fail you as to the ultimate
   issue of the present conflict. "The Lord shall reign forever and ever.
   Hallelujah!" He shall utterly abolish the idols. Antichrist shall be
   overthrown--like a millstone cast into the sea, it shall fall and be no
   more. The heathen shall be our Lord's inheritance and the uttermost
   parts of the earth shall be His possession. He must reign until all
   enemies shall be put under His feet. If the present contest should be
   continued, century after century, be not weary! It is only long to your
   impatience. It is a short work to God! So grand a volume of the book as
   this, which contains the history of redemption, may well require a long
   time for its unrolling--and to such poor readers as we are, the
   spelling of it out, word by word, may seem an endless task! But we
   shall yet come to its close and then we shall find that, like the Book
   of Psalms, it ends in hallelujahs.

   The matter to be questioned is not what God will do, but what men will
   do. Faithfulness is established in the very heavens--but what of
   faithfulness upon the earth? The part that God allots to us is that we
   believe His Word, for so shall we be established. It is the child's
   part to trust his father; it is the disciple's part to accept the
   teaching of his Master. Alas, how little there is of it at this moment!
   Knowing the feebleness of the faith of those around Him and foreseeing
   that future generations would partake of the same folly, the Savior
   gave utterance to this memorable question, "When the Son of Man comes,
   will He find faith on the earth?" God is faithful, but are men
   faithful? God is true, but do we believe Him? This is the point and it
   is upon this that I shall speak this morning as the Holy Spirit shall
   help me.

   I. I notice with regard to our text, first, that IT IS REMARKABLE IF WE
   CONSIDER THE PERSON MENTIONED AS SEARCHING FOR FAITH--"When the Son of
   Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"

   When Jesus comes, He will look for precious faith. He has more regard
   for faith than for anything else that earth can yield Him! Our
   returning Lord will care nothing for the treasures of the rich or the
   honors of the great. He will not look for the abilities we have
   manifested, nor the influence we have acquired--He will look for our
   faith! It is His Glory that He is "believed on in the world" and to
   that He will have respect. This is the jewel for which He is searching.
   This heavenly Merchant counts faith to be the pearl of great
   price--faith is precious to Jesus as well as to us.

   The Last Day will be occupied with a great scrutiny and that scrutiny
   will be made upon the essential point--where is there faith and where
   is there no faith? He that believes is saved. He that believes not is
   condemned. A search warrant will be issued for our houses and our
   hearts. And the enquiry will be--Where is your faith? Did you honor
   Christ by trusting His Word and His blood, or did you not? Did you
   glorify God by believing His Revelation and depending upon His promise,
   or did you not? The fact that our Lord at His coming will seek for
   faith should cause us to think very highly of faith. It is no mere act
   of the intellect--it is a Grace of the Holy Spirit which brings glory
   to God and produces obedience in the heart. Jesus looks for it because
   He is the proper object of it and it is by means of it that His great
   end in His First Advent is carried out. Dear Hearers, conceive for a
   minute that our Savior is searching for faith right now. "His eyes
   behold, His eyelids try the children of men." This is the gold He seeks
   after amid the quartz of our humanity. This is the objective of His
   royal quest--"Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?"

   When our Lord comes and looks for faith, He will do so in His most
   sympathetic Character. Our text asks not, "When the Son of God comes,"
   but, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" It
   is peculiarly as the Son of Man that Jesus will sit as a Refiner to
   discover whether we have true faith or not. He, also, as the Son of
   Man, displayed faith in God. In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is
   mentioned as one of the points in which He is made like unto His
   brethren, that He said, "I will put My trust in Him." The life of Jesus
   was a life of faith--faith which cried, "My God, My God," even when He
   was forsaken! His was, on a grander scale than ours, the battle of
   faith in the great Father waged against all the rebellions influences
   which were in array against Him. He knows what fierce temptations men
   experience, for He has felt the same. He knows how want tries the
   faithful and what faith is needed to be able to say, "Man shall not
   live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth
   of God shall man live."

   He knows how elevation tests the soul, for He once stood on the
   pinnacle of the Temple and heard the infernal whisper, "Cast Yourself
   down: for He shall give His angels charge over You." He knows what
   faith means in contradistinction to a false confidence which misreads
   the promise and forgets the precept altogether. He will not err in
   judgment and accept brass for gold! He knows what it is to be tempted
   with the proffer of honor and gain--"All these things will I give You,"
   said the fiend, "if You will fall down and worship me." He knows how
   faith puts all the glory of the world away with its one brave and
   prompt utterance, "Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall
   worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve."

   Beloved, when Jesus comes as the Son of Man, He will recognize our
   weaknesses, He will remember our trials! He will know the struggle of
   our hearts and the sorrow which an honest faith has cost us. He is best
   qualified to put the true price upon tried faith, self-denying faith,
   long-enduring faith. He will discern between the men who presume and
   the men who believe--the men who dote upon vain delusions and those who
   follow the plain path of God's own Word.

   Further, I would have you note well that the Son of Man is the most
   likely Person to discover faith if it is to be found. Not a grain of
   faith exists in all the world except that which He has, Himself,
   created! If you have faith, my Brother, my Sister, the Lord has dealt
   with you--this is the mark of His hand upon you! By faith He has
   brought you out of your death in sin and the natural darkness of your
   mind. "Your faith has saved you," for it is the candlestick which holds
   the candle by which the chamber of your heart is enlightened. Your God
   and Savior has put this faith in you! Now, if faith in every instance
   is our Lord's gift, He knows to whom He has given it. If it is the work
   of God, He knows where He has produced it, for He never forsakes the
   work of His own hands. If that faith is only as a grain of mustard seed
   and if it is hidden away in the most obscure corner of the earth, yet
   the loving Jesus spies it out, for He has an intimate concern in it
   since He is its Author and Finisher! Our Lord is also the Sustainer of
   faith, for faith is never independent of Him upon whom it relies. The
   greatest Believer would not believe for another moment unless Grace
   were constantly given him to keep the flame of faith burning. Beloved
   Friend, if you have had any experience of the inner life at all, you
   know that He that first made you live must keep you alive, or else you
   will go back to your natural death! Since faith from day to day feeds
   at the table of Jesus, then He knows where it is! It is well for us
   that we have One looking for faith who, on account of His having
   created and sustained it, will be at no loss to discern it!

   Besides, faith always looks to Christ. There is no faith in the world
   worth having, but what looks to Him and through Him to God for
   everything. On the other hand, Christ always looks to faith--there was
   never yet an eye of faith but what it met the eye of Christ! He
   delights in faith. It is His joy to be trusted. It is a great part of
   the reward of His death that the sons of men should come and shelter in
   Him. If faith looks to Christ and Christ looks to faith, He is sure to
   find it out

   when He comes--and that makes the text so very striking--"When the Son
   of Man comes, will He find faith on the

   earth?"

   The Son of Man will give a wise and generous judgment in the matter.
   Some brethren judge so harshly that they would tread out the sparks of
   faith, but it is never so with our gracious Lord. He does not quench
   the smoking flax, nor despise the most trembling faith. The question
   becomes most emphatic when it is put thus--the tender and gentle
   Savior, who never judges too severely, when He comes, shall even He
   find faith on the earth? What a sad and humbling question it is! He who
   is no morose critic but a kind interpreter of character. He who makes
   great allowances for feebleness. He that carries the lambs of faith in
   His bosom and gently leads the weak ones--when even He shall come to
   make a kindly search, will He be able to find faith on the earth?
   Unbelief is rampant, indeed, when He who is Omniscient can scarcely
   find a grain of faith amid the mass of doubt and denial! Ah me, that
   ever I should have to explain the question, "When the Son of Man comes,
   will He find faith on the earth?"

   Once more--I want to put this question into a striking light by
   dwelling on the time of the scrutiny. "When the Son of Man comes, will
   He find faith on the earth?" Look, Brothers and Sisters, the ages are
   accumulating proofs of the truth of Christianity--and the search takes
   place when this process has reached its climax. Whatever may be said
   about the present torrent of doubt, which no doubt is exceedingly
   strong, yet the reason for doubt grows weaker and weaker every year.
   Every mound of earth in the East contributes a fresh testimony to the
   accuracy of the Word of God. Stones are crying out against the
   incredulity of skeptics! Moreover, all the experiences of all the
   saints, year after year, are swelling the stream of testimony to the
   faithfulness of God! You that are growing gray in His service know how
   every year confirms your confidence in the eternal verities of your God
   and Savior. I know not how long this dispensation of long-suffering
   will last, but certainly the longer it continues, the more wantonly
   wicked does unbelief become! The more God reveals Himself to man in
   ways of Providence, the more base is it on man's part to belie His
   solemn witness. But yet, my Brothers and Sisters, at the winding up of
   all things, when Revelation shall have received its utmost
   confirmation--even then faith will be such a rarity on the earth that
   it is a question if the Lord, Himself, will find it! You have, perhaps,
   a notion that faith will go on increasing in the world--that the Church
   will grow purer and brighter--and that there will be a wonderful degree
   of faith among men in the day of our Lord's appearing. Our Savior does
   not tell us so--instead, He asks the question of our text about it!
   Even concerning the dawn of the golden age He asks, "When the Son of
   Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"

   I want you to notice the breadth of the region of search. He does not
   ask shall He find faith among philosophers. When had they any? He does
   not confine His scrutiny to an ordained ministry or a visible
   church--He takes a much wider sweep--"Shall He find faith on the
   earth?" As if He would search from throne to cottage, among the learned
   and among the ignorant, among public men and obscure individuals and,
   after all, it would be a question whether among them all--from the pole
   to the equator and again, from the equator to the other pole--He would
   find faith at all. Alas, poor Earth, to be so void of faith! Is there
   none in her vast continents, or on the lone islets of the sea? May it
   not be found in some of the countless ships upon the deep? What? Not
   upon the whole earth? Not with Jesus, Himself, to look for it?

   I have tried to set forth the question as distinctly as I can, that it
   may have due effect upon your minds. It sounds through the chambers of
   my soul like the death of many a grand hope and pleasant imagination.
   Lord, what is man, that centuries of mercy can scarcely produce a
   single fruit of faith among a whole world of the sons of Adam? When
   thousands of summers and autumns have come and gone, shall there be no
   harvest of faith upon the earth except for a few ears of corn, thin and
   withered by the east wind?

   II. Let us somewhat change the run of our thoughts. Having introduced
   the question as a remarkable one, we will next notice that IT IS
   EXCEEDINGLY INSTRUCTIVE IN CONNECTION WITH THE PARABLE OF WHICH IT IS
   PART. It is wrong to use the Bible as if it were a box full of separate
   links and not a chain of connected Truths of God. Some pick sentences
   out of it as a crow picks worms out of a plowed field! If you tear
   words from their connection, they may not express the mind of the
   Spirit at all. No book, whether written by God or man, will bear to be
   torn, limb from limb, without being horribly mutilated. Public speakers
   know the unfairness of this to themselves and Holy Scripture suffers
   even more. The connection settles the drift and directs us to the true
   meaning--a meaning which may be very different from that which it seems
   to bear when torn from its surroundings. Let us carefully note that
   this passage occurs in

   connection with the parable of the importunate widow pleading with the
   unjust judge and, therefore, it is to be interpreted in connection with
   it.

   Therefore it means, first of all--When the Son of Man comes, will He
   find upon the earth the faith which prays importunately as this widow
   did? Now the meaning is dawning upon us! We have many upon the earth
   who pray, but where are those whose continual praying is sure to
   prevail? I thank God that the Prayer Meetings of this Church are well
   sustained by praying men and women, but where are the Jacob-like
   wrestlers? I am afraid it cannot be said of many churches that their
   Prayer Meetings are at all what they should be, for among many, the
   gathering for prayer is despised and men say, "It is only a Prayer
   Meeting!" As if that were not the very crown and queen of all the
   assemblies of the Church, with the sole exception of that for the
   breaking of bread! Brethren, I will not judge with severity, but where
   are those who offer effectual, fervent, much-prevailing prayer? I know
   that there are many here who do not neglect private and family devotion
   and who pray constantly for the prosperity of the Church of Jesus
   Christ and for the salvation of souls. But even to you I put the
   question--If the Son of Man were now to come, how many would He find
   among us that pray with a distinct, vehement, irresistible importunity
   of faith?

   In the olden days there was a John Knox whose prayers were more
   terrible to the adversary than whole armies because he pleaded in
   faith--but where shall we find a Knox at this hour? Every age of
   revival has had its men mighty in prayer--where are ours? Where is the
   Elijah on the top of Carmel who will bring down the rain upon these
   parched fields? Where is the Church that will pray down a Pentecost? I
   will not decry my Brothers in the ministry, nor speak little of deacons
   and elders and other distinguished servants of my Lord--but still, my
   Brothers and Sisters--taking us all round, how few of us know what it
   is to pray the Heaven-overcoming prayer which is necessary for this
   crisis! How few of us go again and again--and again to God with tears,
   cries and heart-break--pleading as for our own lives for the increase
   of Zion and the saving of the ungodly! If the Son of Man comes, will He
   find much of such praying faith among our own churches? Ah me, that I
   should have to ask such a question--but I do ask it--hanging my head in
   shame!

   The importunate widow waited with strong resolve and never ceased
   through sullen doubt. If the judge had not yet heard her, she was sure
   he must hear her, for she had made up her mind that she would plead
   until he did! A waiting faith is rare. Men can believe for a time, but
   to hold out through the long darkness is another matter. Some soldiers
   are good at a rush, but they cannot form a square and stand fast hour
   after hour. When the Son of Man comes, will He find many who can
   believe in a delaying God and plead a long-dated promise--waiting, but
   never wearying? When we have a revival and everybody is crying,
   "Hosanna!" certain eager folk are sure to be in the front. But when the
   popular voice growls out its, "Crucify Him!" where are they? Where are
   even Peter, John and the rest of the disciples? Go, learn to plead on
   when no answer comes and to press on when repulsed--this is the test of
   faith.

   It is so easy to be a Believer when everybody believes! But to be a
   Believer when nobody believes and to be, none the less, a firm Believer
   because nobody believes with you--this is the mark of the man valiant
   for the Truth of God and loyal to Jesus. Brothers and Sisters, is it,
   after all, a matter of counting heads? Can you not dare to be in the
   right with two or three? Can you not be like rocks which defy the
   raging waves? Can you not let the billows of popular misbelief wash
   over you, break and crash--and break and crash in vain? If these things
   scare you, where is your faith? When the Son of Man comes, how many
   will He find on the earth whose faith stands not in men, but in the
   witness of God?

   The widow staked her all upon the result of her pleading with the
   judge. She had not two strings to her bow--she had but one resort in
   her trouble--the judge must hear her. She would lose her little
   property and her children would die of starvation if he did not hear
   her. He must hear her! About that she had no two opinions. What we need
   at the present moment is the man that believes God, believes the
   Gospel, believes Christ and does not care two pins about anything else!
   We need those who will stake reputation, hope and life, itself, upon
   the veracity of God and the certainty of the everlasting Gospel. To
   such, the Revelation of God is not one among many truths--it is the one
   and only saving Truth of God! Alas, we have, nowadays, to deal with
   foxes with holes to run to in case they are too closely hunted! Oh, to
   have done with all glory but glorying in the Cross! For my part, I am
   content to be a fool if the old Gospel is folly. What is more, I am
   content to be lost if faith in the atoning Sacrifice will not bring
   salvation! I am so sure about the whole matter, that if I were left
   alone in the world as the last Believer in the Doctrines of Grace, I
   would not think of abandoning them, nor even toning them down to win a
   convert. My all is staked on the veracity of God! "Let God be true, but
   every man a

   liar."

   "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth," such as
   He deserves at our hands? Do we believe in Jesus practically, in
   matter-of-fact style? Is our faith fact and not fiction? If we have the
   truth of faith, have we the degree of faith which we might have? Just
   think of this--"If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall
   say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall
   remove." What does this mean? Brethren, are we not off the rails? Do we
   even know what faith means? I begin, sometimes, to question whether we
   believe at all. What signs follow our believing? When we think what
   wonders faith could have done. When we consider what marvels our Lord
   might have worked among us if it had not been for our unbelief--are we
   not humiliated? Have we ever cut ourselves clear of the hamper of
   self-trustfulness? Have we ever launched out into the deep in clear
   reliance upon the eternal God? Have we ever quit the visible for the
   invisible? Have we clung to the naked promise of God and rested upon
   the bare arm of Omnipotence which, in and of itself, is more than
   sufficient for the fulfillment of every promise? O Lord, where are we?
   Where shall we find an oasis of faith amid this wilderness of doubt?
   Where shall we find an Abraham? Is not the question an instructive one
   when set in connection with the parable which teaches us the power of
   importunate prayer?

   III. In the next place, our text seems to me to be SUGGESTIVE IN VIEW
   OF ITS VERY FORM. It is put as a question--"When the Son of Man comes,
   will He find faith on the earth?" I think it warns us not to dogmatize
   about what the latter days will be. Jesus puts it as a question. Shall
   He find faith on the earth? If you say, "No," my dear Friend, I shall
   be very much inclined to take the other side and warmly plead the
   affirmative. I remember how Elijah said that he, only, was left, and
   yet the Lord had reserved unto Himself 7,000 men that had not bowed the
   knee to Baal. Nations that know not Christ shall run to Him and the
   kings of Sheba and Sheba shall offer gifts. I venture to hope that when
   the Son of Man comes He will find faith on the earth--but if you
   vehemently assert that it will be so, I shall be driven to advance the
   negative side with much apprehension that it may prove true! When our
   Lord was here before, He found little enough of faith. And He has
   distinctly told us that when He shall come the second time, men will be
   as they were in the days of Noah--"they did eat, they drank, they
   married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah
   entered into the ark." I am inclined to take neither side. Let it
   remain a question, as our Lord has put it!

   This question leads us to much holy fear as to the matter offaith. If
   our gracious Lord raises the question, the question ought to be raised.
   They say that some of us are old fogies because we are jealous for the
   Lord of Hosts. They say that we are nervous and fidgety and that our
   fears are the result of advancing age. Yes, at 53 I am supposed to be
   semi-imbecile with years! If I were of their way of thinking, I do not
   suppose that this would occur to them. We fall into a pessimism--I
   think that is the word they use--I do not know much about such terms.
   Surely the Savior was not nervous! None will dare to accuse Him of
   foolish anxiety! But yet He puts it, "When the Son of Man comes, will
   He find faith on the earth?" As far as my observation goes, it is a
   question which might suggest itself to the most hopeful persons at this
   time, for many processes are in vigorous action with tend to destroy
   faith. The Scriptures are being criticized with a familiarity which
   shocks all reverence and their very foundation is being assailed by
   persons who call themselves Christians! A chilling criticism has taken
   the place of a warm, childlike, loving confidence.

   As one has truly said, "We have now a temple without a sanctuary."
   Mystery is discarded that reason may reign. Men have eaten of the fruit
   of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil till they think themselves
   gods! Revealed Truth of God is not now a doctrine to be believed, but a
   proposition to be discussed! The loving woman at Jesus' feet is cast
   out to make room for the traitor kissing Christ's cheek! Like
   Belshazzar, our men of modern thought are drinking out of the vessels
   of Jehovah's sanctuary in honor of their own deities! The idea of
   child-like faith is laughed at and he is regarded as the most honest
   man that can doubt the most and pour most contempt upon the authority
   of the Divine Word of God! If this continues, we may well ask, "When
   the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" In some places
   the greatest fountain of infidelity is the Christian pulpit! If this is
   the case--and I am sure it is so--what must become of the churches and
   what must come to the outlying world? Will Jesus find faith in the
   earth when He comes?

   In addition to many processes which are in action to exterminate faith,
   are there not influences which dwarf and stunt it? Where do you find
   great faith? Where is the preaching or the teaching that is done in
   full faith in what is preached and taught? It is no use dogging other
   people--let us come home to ourselves. My Brothers and Sisters, where
   is our own faith? It seemed almost a novelty in the Church when it was
   stated long ago that Mr. George Mueller walked by faith in regard to
   temporal things. To feed children by faith in God was looked upon as a
   pious freak! We have come to a pretty pass, have we not, when God is
   not to be trusted about common things? Abraham walked with God about
   daily life but,

   nowadays, if you meet with a man who walks with God as to his business,
   trusts God as to every item and detail of his domestic affairs, persons
   look at him with a degree of suspicious amazement! They think he has
   Grace in his heart, but they also suspect that he has a bee in his
   bonnet, or he would not act in that sort of way! Oh yes, we have a
   fancied faith--but when it comes to the stern realities of life--where
   is our faith?

   My Brothers and Sisters, why are you so full of worldly care? Why are
   you so anxious, if you have faith in God? Why do you display, in
   worldly things, almost as much distrust as worldly men? Why this fear?
   This murmuring? This worry? O my Savior, if You were to come, we could
   not defend ourselves for our wretched mistrust, our foolish
   apprehension, our lack of loving reliance upon You! We do not trust You
   as You ought to be trusted! And if this is the case among those who are
   such great debtors to Your loving faithfulness, where will You find
   faith on earth? Where is that unstag-gering faith which betakes itself
   to prevailing prayer and so rises above the petty miseries of the hour
   and the fears of a threatening future?

   Do you not think that this, put in a question as it is, invites us to
   intense watchfulness over ourselves? Do you not think it should set us
   scrutinizing ourselves as our Lord will scrutinize us when He comes?
   You have been looking for a great many things in yourself, my Brothers
   and Sisters--let me entreat you to look to your faith. What if love
   grows cold! I am sorry for it but, after all, the frost must have begun
   in your faith. You are not so active as you used to be. That is to be
   greatly regretted, but the streams run low because the wellhead is not
   as full as it was known to be--your faith is failing. Oh that your soul
   were fed upon Divine realities! Oh that you had a vivid consciousness
   of the certainty of God's Presence and power! When faith is strong, all
   the other Graces are vigorous. The branches flourish when the root
   sucks up abundant nutriment--and when faith is in a healthy state, all
   the rest of the spiritual man will also be vigorous. Brothers and
   Sisters, guard well your faith!

   My fear is that when Christ comes, if He delays much longer, He will
   find many of us faint because of our long waiting and because of the
   disappointments which arise out of the slow spread of the Gospel. The
   nations continue in unbelief. O Lord, how long?! Because we have not
   accomplished all that we hoped to have done, we are apt to grow weary.
   Or perhaps when He comes, He will find us sleeping for sorrow, like the
   disciples in the garden when He came to them three times and found them
   very sleepy. We may get to feel so sad that the Gospel does not conquer
   all mankind that we may fall into a swoon of sadness, a torpor of
   despair and so be asleep when the Bridegroom comes! I fear, most of
   all, that when Jesus comes, He may find that the love of many has waxed
   cold because iniquity abounds. Warm-hearted saints keep each other
   warm, but cold is also contagious. When sin abounds, saints may be able
   to stand against it and yet it has a sad tendency to chill their faith.
   If the Master comes and finds us lukewarm, it will be a calamity,
   indeed! The question stirs a bitter anguish in my soul. I trust it also
   moves you.

   It is a question. I cannot answer it, but I open wide the doors of my
   heart to let it enter and try me. It acts like a fan in the Lord's hand
   to purge the floor. It sweeps away my self-confidence and leads me to
   watch and pray, that I enter not into the temptation of giving up my
   faith. I pray that we may stand fast when others slide, so that when
   the Lord comes, we may be found accepted of Him.

   IV. I will close with this remark--my text is very IMPRESSIVE IN
   RESPECT TO PERSONAL DUTY. "When the Son of Man comes, will He find
   faith on the earth?" Let faith have a home in our hearts even if it is
   denied a lodging everywhere else. If we do not trust our Lord and trust
   Him much more than we have ever done, we shall deserve His gravest
   displeasure. It will be a superfluity of naughtiness for us to doubt,
   for, to some of us, conversion was a clear, sharp and distinct fact.
   The change made in our characters was so manifest that the devil,
   himself, could not make us doubt it. We know that the misery we
   suffered under a sense of sin was no fiction and that the peace we
   received through faith in Jesus was no dream. Why do we doubt?

   Since conversion, some of us have been led in a strange way and every
   step of it has shown us that the Lord is good and true and ought to be
   trusted without stint. We have been sorely sick, full of pain, anguish
   and depression of spirit-- yet we have been upheld, sustained and
   brought through! In great labors we have been strengthened. In great
   undertakings we have been supported. Some of you have been very poor,
   or your business has been declining and emergencies have been
   frequent--and yet all these have proven the Truth of God. Do not these
   things make it the more incumbent upon you to trust Him? Others of you
   have suffered sad bereavements. You have lost, one after another, the
   props of your comfort. But when you have gone to God, He has heard your
   prayers and been better to you than father, husband, or friend!

   It is down in your diary in black and white that His mercy endures
   forever and you have said to yourself many times, "I shall never doubt
   again after this."

   Brothers and Sisters, it ought to be impossible for us to mistrust--and
   natural to confide! And yet I fear it is not so. If after all this
   watering, we grow so little faith, we may not wonder that our Lord
   asked, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"

   Some of us have been so familiar with dying beds--we have seen so many
   pass away in holy calm and even with transporting triumph--that for us
   to doubt is disrespect to the memories of the saints! For us to doubt
   would be treachery to the Lord who has favored ourselves, also, with
   visits of His love. We may doubt the dearest ones we have and that
   would be cruel--but we had better do that than cast any suspicion upon
   Him who has manifested Himself to us as He does not to the world! I
   speak not to you all, but I speak to those whom the Lord has specially
   favored, to whom He has revealed His secrets and made known His
   Covenant. For these to question His faithfulness is wickedness! What
   shall I say of His own elect, if they do not believe Him? If it were
   possible for you to quit your faith, you would crucify your Lord
   afresh! He must not be thus wounded in the house of His friends. Go, go
   where you will, O Unbelief, you shall not find willing lodgment in my
   heart! From my spirit you shall be banished as a detested traitor, for
   my Beloved is true and I will lean upon Him!

   I think I hear you say, "We are resolved upon it. We are called to have
   faith in our Lord, even if none else believe Him." Then look to it that
   you do not fail in these evil times. If you would keep your faith,
   settle it in your minds that the Holy Scriptures are inspired of the
   Holy Spirit and so are our Infallible rule of faith! If you give up
   that foundation, you cannot exhibit faith worthy of the name. It is as
   clear as the sun in the heavens that a childlike faith in God as He is
   revealed is not possible to the man who doubts the Revelation. You must
   accept the Revelation as Infallible or you cannot unquestioningly
   believe in the God therein revealed! If you once give up Inspiration,
   the foundations are removed and all building is laborious trifling. How
   are the promises the support of faith if they are questionable? God can
   only be known by His own light and if we cannot trust the Light of God,
   where are we?

   Next, settle it in your soul as to the Holy Spirit's dealings with
   yourself. He has renewed you in the spirit of your mind. At least I ask
   the question--Has He or has He not? You were converted by a Divine
   agency from your lost estate of sin and brought, by the same Divine
   agency, into newness of life--were you or were you not? Unless you are
   quite certain about this, it is not possible for you to rise to any
   height of faith. You must know that God has come into contact with your
   soul, or else what have you to believe?

   Next to that belief you must know your full pardon and sure
   justification through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ your
   Lord. Believe in the precious blood! Whatever else you doubt, believe
   in the merit of the great Sacrifice of Calvary. Rejoice in your own
   acceptance through the Sacrifice, seeing your whole faith rests
   therein! O Brothers and Sisters, our eternal hopes cannot be built on
   speculation--we need the Revelation of God! We cannot fight the battles
   of life with probabilities--we need certainties for such a conflict! If
   God has not revealed fixed Truths, you may go and think and dream--but
   if He has given us a clear Revelation, let us believe it and cease to
   imagine and invent! O Sirs, if you must speculate, risk your silver and
   your gold, but I beseech you to lay aside all idea of speculating in
   reference to your souls! I need absolute certainties and unquestionable
   verities to bear me up when death's cold flood is rising up to my
   loins! Divine Truths of God, as they are written in the Book and
   brought home to the heart by the Holy Spirit, are sure standing ground
   for that faith which Jesus looks for. He looks for it in vain when men
   no longer accept His work as undoubted fact.

   Again, if you would have strong faith, never relax your confidence in
   the efficacy of prayer. This is essential to my text, for the widow
   used no other weapon than prayer in her importunity with the judge. She
   would not have persevered as she did in her pleadings if she had not
   felt morally certain that in the long run she would prevail. Brothers
   and Sisters, believe that God hears your prayers and that He will
   answer them! As for me, I do not need any argument to prove the
   influence of prayer with God. I have tried it and do try it till it is
   no longer an experiment! The man that habitually eats bread knows that
   he is nourished by it--the man that habitually lives by prayer to God
   knows that God hears him! It would be absurd to offer him evidence for
   or against the statement. If a person were to argue with me that there
   was no sun in the heavens, I am afraid I should laugh outright.

   If anyone said that he did not believe me to be alive, I do not know in
   what way I could prove it to him. Would it be lawful to kick him, by
   way of argument? When a man says, "I do not believe in prayer," I
   answer, "What if you do not? You are the only loser." That God answers
   prayer is a living certainty to me and I can say no more and no less.
   If you do not believe in prayer, assuredly the Lord will not find in
   you the faith of which our text speaks. If you regard it as a pious
   exercise which refreshes the devout but has no power whatever with
   God--well then, if all are of your mind, the Son of Man will find no
   faith on the earth! Do not talk about believing--you know nothing of
   the matter!

   If you do believe, believe up to the hilt! Plunge into this sea of holy
   confidence in God and you shall find waters to swim in. He that
   believes what he believes shall see what he shall see. No man yet was
   ever found guilty of believing in God too much! Among the high
   intelligences of Heaven, no creature was ever censured for being too
   credulous when dealing with the Word of the Most High. Let us believe
   implicitly and explicitly. Let us believe without measure and without
   reserve. Let us hang our all upon the Truth of God. Let us also aspire
   to walk with God in the heavenlies and become the King's Remembrancers.
   Let us seek Grace to become importunate pleaders of a sort that cannot
   be denied, since their faith overcomes Heaven by prayer.

   Oh, that I might have in my Church many a prevailing Israel! Some here
   know what it is to be up early in the morning to besiege the Throne of
   Grace with all the power of believing prayer. How much I owe to these
   dear ones, eternity, alone, will declare! Oh, that we had many more
   intercessors who would bear sinners on their hearts day and night
   before the Lord and, like their Savior, would never rest till the Lord
   built up His Church! Alas, for the rarity of such conquering faith! I
   question whether there are not Christian people here who have never
   heard a certain text which I am about to quote--and I am sure there are
   others who will shudder when they hear it--"Thus says the Lord,
   concerning the work of My hands, command you Me."

   "Surely that cannot be Scripture!" cries one! But it is so. Turn to
   Isaiah 45:11 and read it both in the Authorized and the Revised
   Versions. Can a man command the Lord? YES! To believing men He puts
   Himself at their call! He bids them command His help and use it as they
   will. Oh that we could rise to this! Is there such faith among us? If
   there is not, may our Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, work it in us for His
   own Glory! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Why Is Faith So Feeble?

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 22, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said unto them, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have
   no faith?" Mark 4:40.

   LAST Lord's-Day morning our music was pitched upon a high key. We
   sought after great faith in the Master's name [Sermon #1963, Volume
   33--The Search for Faith.] It struck me that I might, perhaps, have
   discouraged some of the feebler sort and that, therefore, it would be
   right, this morning, to follow up that sermon by endeavoring to
   encourage those of weak faith to exercise it until it becomes
   stronger--and also to invite those who, as yet have no faith, to
   venture in the direction of childlike trust.

   With this brief introduction, let us come at once to our subject.

   I should not wonder if the disciples considered that they had much
   faith in Jesus, their Master and Lord. They had been with Him all day,
   listening to His teaching, believing it even when they did not
   understand it. They had afterwards gathered about Him in private to
   listen to His fuller explanations and they were thankful to be favored
   with those expositions in which their Lord became their private Tutor.
   I do not question that they, each one of them, esteemed himself a firm
   believer in Jesus. How could he tolerate a doubt? But, my Brothers and
   Sisters, we have, none of us, any idea how scanty our faith really is.
   When trial comes, the heap from the threshing floor becomes very small
   beneath the influence of the winnowing fan. After a day of calm service
   with Jesus, a storm came on and that storm tested their faith and left
   so little of it that Jesus said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How
   is it that you have no faith?" Remember that we have no more faith at
   any time than we have in the hour of trial. All that which will not
   bear to be tested is mere carnal confidence. Fair-weather faith is no
   faith--the only real faith in Jesus Christ is that which can trust Him
   when it cannot trace Him--and believe Him when it cannot see Him.

   This storm was a special trial to the disciples because it was so
   exceedingly severe. They had often been tossed upon that lake, but this
   time the elements were moved to an excessive tumult--the winds poured
   down in all their force and fury. The war of Nature raged around their
   devoted boat. When tribulation is heavier than usual, it is a serious
   test to faith. When we appear to be tried above the common measure of
   men, the weak ones are full of trembling and even the strong fall upon
   their knees and cry, "Lord, I believe! Help You my unbelief."

   The storm was the more trying because it came upon them when they were
   in the path of duty. Their Master had bid them cross the sea--they were
   not upon a holiday trip. They had not even followed the suggestion of a
   Brother who had said, "I go a-fishing," but they were steering under
   their great Captain's orders. They were doing right and suffering
   trouble in consequence. This has often perplexed good men. I have heard
   a Believer say, "I prospered more before I was a Christian than I have
   since. Things went smoothly with me before I knew the Lord. How can
   these things be? The very fact of my endeavoring to do what is right
   and laboring to maintain my integrity has become the cause of my
   severest trial." This is no new thing upon the earth! The living child
   of God will have to swim against the stream. Not without fighting will
   he win his crown!

   Moreover, it was an item which helped to try their faith, that the
   storm assailed them when Jesus was in the ship. Had the Lord been
   absent, they could have understood it--but He was in the vessel with
   them! How could the sea be so boisterous with Christ in the vessel? If
   I am out of communion with Christ, I can understand why I am chastened.
   But if I am walking in conscious nearness and fellowship with Him and I
   am even then tried and perplexed, how can I account for it? Herein is
   the test of faith! "Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges
   every son whom He receives." This we forget and fancy that trials must
   mean anger, when, indeed, they may be tokens and tests of love!

   It may have seemed to them, also, that the storm was very untimely
   since there were with Jesus many other little ships--and all those
   boats were caught in the same storm. We are always anxious for those
   who come to hear the Gospel, lest anything should prejudice them
   against it. The disciples may have feared that such ill weather would
   drive away from Christ those hearers who might otherwise have become
   converts. If they met with a storm so soon after rowing close to Jesus,
   they might judge Him to be another Jonah and resolve to give the
   Galilean Preacher a wide berth next time. I know how I like to see fine
   weather at an open-air service and a continuance of it till the country
   people can get home. And I suspect that the disciples felt much the
   same. They did not wish their Lord to be looked upon as a stormy sea
   bird, or a man of evil omen--and you know that superstition was strong
   in those days. Had you and I been there, we would have said, "Gracious
   Lord, let us have a calm, that those who have come to You in their
   boats may get home in comfort. Cause this wonderful service by the sea
   to end pleasantly, that the next time You come this way, the people may
   gather in still larger numbers to hear You." Sometimes the strange
   occasion of the trial makes it harder to bear. Trial is never welcome
   and sometimes it is peculiarly disagreeable.

   See, my Brothers and Sisters, how these disciples came out of the
   tempest! They went into the trial well enough, but they were in an evil
   plight before long. We have seen a bird of glossy plumage, bearing half
   the colors of the rainbow on its breast, glorifying itself in the
   sunlight--and we have admired its beauty. But soon the heavens have
   poured down pitiless showers and we have seen our brave bird in quite
   another form. Dripping and draggled, he has sought ignominious shelter.
   You would hardly have known him to be the same creature, whose crowing
   challenged all his fellows! Truly his glory had departed. Such are we,
   as a rule, after severe trial. We make a fair show in the flesh till we
   are tried--and then our feathers cling around us and we droop and hide
   till our Master has to say to us--"Why are you so fearful? How is it
   that you have no faith?"

   These two questions of the Master we will use, this morning, with a
   view to spiritual profit--may the Spirit of God make it so! First, we
   shall view the text as the exclamation of pity-- "Why are you so
   fearful?" Secondly, we shall regard it as the censure of love-- "How is
   it that you have no faith?" And, thirdly, we shall consider it as the
   enquiry of wisdom-- "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no
   faith?" May our threefold meditation richly profit us all!

   I. We will first use the questions as THE EXCLAMATION OF PITY. The dear
   Master waking up from His sleep, calm as if it were a bright summer's
   morning, though it was the dead of night and the midst of a storm,
   looks upon them with wonder, finding them so strangely different from
   Himself. He asks, in all the calmness of His own brave spirit, "Why are
   you so fearful?" He pitied them and He pitied them, I think, for
   several reasons.

   First, that their fears had made them so unlike Himself. They were His
   servants and they should have been as their Master. They were learning
   of Him and they should have put in practice the lessons of His example.
   He was delightfully quiet and the contagion of His peace ought to have
   affected them. He was always restful in Himself and, therefore, He gave
   rest to those who came to Him--yet these were missing the blessing--and
   so He compassionately cried, "Why are you so fearful?" He marveled not
   that they were fearful in such a hurricane, but He was sorry that they
   were so fearful as to act as if they had no faith. They were little
   like Him as yet, although the great design of all His teaching was to
   make them like Himself. Our blessed Master must often look upon us,
   dear Friends, with much pity and grieve over us, that after being with
   Him so long--for some of us are getting gray in His service--we still
   fall so far short of His Glory! We are predestinated to be conformed to
   His image, but the process is a slow one. After copying His
   handwriting, our own writing is still greatly marred with crooks and
   turns. Each page of the copybook of life is marred with errors and
   blots and, therefore, the great Teacher pities His poor scholars. How
   is it that we are so fearful when Christ is so calm? Is this our
   imitation of Jesus? Our doubts, fears, alarms and mistrusts of God--are
   these such as a follower of Jesus should exhibit?

   He pitied them, next, because it made them so unlike themselves. They
   were men, but their fears unmanned them. They were fishermen, but you
   would have thought them mere landsmen if you observed their fears. Like
   frightened children, they cried, "Master, care You not that we perish?"
   They were by no means overly wise, but now they were at their wits'
   end. When you and I get fearful, how foolishly we think and speak and
   act! We could have done well enough if faith had steadied us, but
   unbelief makes us stagger and reel to and fro. We could have weathered
   the storm had we not given way upon the point of confidence in God.
   But, failing there, we became weak as water. How are the mighty fallen!
   Alas, the children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turn back
   in the day of battle! Those who once were patterns of

   courage become cowards when faith fails. Fathers in Israel act like
   babes in Grace when faith ebbs out! Our Lord is grieved for us when He
   sees us fall so low that instead of being like He, we are not even like
   ourselves!

   Jesus pitied them, again, because their fears made them so unhappy.
   Terror was depicted on their countenances. They were white as a sheet
   when they saw that the boat could not be baled, but was evidently
   filling and sinking. What caused their terror? Were they afraid of
   death? Their fears were causing them more pain than death, itself,
   could have cost them! We "feel a thousand deaths in fearing one." To
   die is nothing compared with fearing to die. All the agony of death
   lies in the foresight of it--death itself is the end of all agony!
   Death is not the storm, but the quietus of the disturbing elements!
   Through death souls enter into rest. The Apostles were made wretched by
   their fears. I know some Christian people who suffer greatly from the
   same cause. I know a man who lives where I live and stands in this
   pulpit where I stand, who has to confess his own faults this day, for
   he might enjoy unbroken peace were it not that in the care and labor of
   this great Church and all its various agencies, he looks to the
   difficulties and the necessities of the case--and to his own
   weak-ness--and then fears rush in. Beloved, we must not forever be thus
   childishly timorous. Let us strive after a courageous bearing. Let us
   crush the eggs of our woes while they lie in the nest of our unbelief.
   Our sorrows are mostly manufactured at home, beaten out upon the anvil
   of unbelief with the hammer of our foreboding. May the Lord pardon us!
   Jesus pities us that we should lacerate ourselves by our needless fears
   and miss the joy of a restful faith.

   Again, the Master felt pity for them because their fears made them so
   unkind. Does unbelief make the timid unkind? I am sure it does. The
   disciples were ungenerous to their sleeping Master. If they had only
   considered a little, they would have said, "No, do not wake Him! He has
   had so weary a day. The cares of the world rest on Him. He is a Man of
   Sorrows and acquainted with grief. If He can sleep, let Him sleep. Let
   us sooner suffer than disturb Him." If they must wake Him, might they
   not have addressed Him in fitter words? To say, "Master, care You not
   that we perish?" was fretful and wicked. It was enough to wound their
   Lord's tender heart to be thus spoken to. Our unbelief also has a
   tendency to make us unkind. We are not tender of others when we are
   disturbed about ourselves.

   Here let me digress to teach a lesson of pitying love. It is well to
   recognize that sour speeches often proceed from a sad heart. It is wise
   to view ungenerous language as one of the symptoms of disease and
   rather pity the sufferer than become irritated with the offensive
   speech. It is a pity to take much notice of what some sufferers say,
   for they will be sorry for it soon enough. If we knew the real reason
   for many a harsh word, our sympathy would prevent even momentary anger.
   Our Lord overlooked the petulance of the Apostles, for He did not say,
   "Why are you so unkind?" No, He enquired, "Why are you so fearful?" In
   every case let us cure unkindness with double love. I heard, yesterday,
   of a wise old Welsh minister of a generous spirit who was afflicted
   with a horrible deacon--and if a deacon is unkind, he can wound
   terribly. This deacon was most perverse and cruel--and tormented the
   old gentleman in all sorts of ways.

   At last the deacon fell sick, after having said certain dreadful things
   which were more bitter than even his usual gall and wormwood. The
   patient pastor soon went to see him and on the road he bought some of
   the best oranges and took them with him. "Brother Jones," he said, "I
   am sorry you are so ill. I have come to see you and I have brought you
   a few oranges." Brother Jones was very much astonished at this kind act
   and had not much to say on the matter. The minister gently talked on
   and said, "I think it would refresh you to eat one of these. I will
   peel you one." So he went on with peeling the orange and talked
   pleasantly with him. Then he divided the fruit very neatly and handed
   the sick man a nice tempting piece in the gentlest possible manner.

   The bitter-spirited man ate it and began to melt a little--the
   conversation became hearty and the prayer was pleasant. Brother Jones
   was getting better in more ways than one! An outsider, who knew all
   about Brother Jones and his ill-humor, could hardly believe that the
   minister had acted thus to one who had constantly opposed and slandered
   him so foully. And so he asked, "Did you really go and see that cruel
   old Jones?" "Oh yes," he said, "I went to see him. I was bound to do
   so." "And did you take him some oranges?" "Oh yes, I took him some
   oranges. I was glad to do so." "And did you sit down by his bedside and
   peel him an orange?" "Yes, I peeled him an orange and I was pleased to
   see him enjoy it, for I have learned, Brother, that when a man is
   afflicted with a very bad temper, an orange is a good thing for him to
   take. At any rate, it is a good thing for me to give."

   The lesson is--if you wish to cure a man of ill-feeling, be very kind
   to him. View unkind and petulant speeches as symptoms of a disease for
   which the best medicine is not a dose of bitters, but an orange! Yet,
   Beloved, if you have used such speeches, yourself, do not repeat them.
   Cease from being so fearful--that you may cease from being so
   ill-humored.

   Our blessed Master did not find fault with the unkindness of His
   disciples, but He went to the root of the evil by silencing their
   fears. He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you
   have no faith?"

   Here you perceive our Lord's pity. I wish I could speak the words as He
   spoke them--then you would wonder at their surprising tenderness!

   II. But now, secondly, these words were spoken, also, as THE CENSURE OF
   LOVE. They were intended to convey a measure of gentle rebuke to their
   mistrustful hearts.

   Their unbelief was grievous to the Lord Jesus. They ought to have
   believed Him and it was an injury to His perfect love that they should
   so readily mistrust Him, or even mistrust Him at all. How could they
   think that He would let them sink? He was in the vessel with them--did
   they suppose that, after all, He was a mere pretender to Deity and that
   the ship would go down with Him on board? Beloved, let us smite upon
   our breasts to think that we should ever have caused a pang of heart to
   that dear Lord who yielded up His life for our salvation! He must not
   be doubted any more--it is wanton cruelty! What if I call it "a
   superfluity of naughtiness" to doubt Him whose life and death are
   crowded with Infallible proofs of His unchanging love to us?

   Our Lord questioned His Apostles thus, not only because their unbelief
   grieved Him, but because it was most unreasonable. The most
   unreasonable thing in the world is to doubt God! Faith is pure reason.
   That may seem a strange paradox, but it is literally true--nothing is
   so reasonable as to believe the Word of God--who cannot err or lie.

   The fears of the tempest-tossed disciples were unreasonable because
   they were contrary to their own belief. They believed that Jesus was
   sent of God upon a glorious mission--how could that mission be
   accomplished if He was drowned? If they sank in the sea, He must sink,
   too, for they were embarked in the same boat. Ought not the faith they
   had in His Divine mission to have kept them hopeful even in the worst
   moment of the storm? My Brothers and Sisters, be not inconsistent with
   what you believe. Do not deny your own creed, however slender it may
   be, for that is irrational!

   Moreover, their fears were opposed to their own experience--they had
   seen their Lord work miracles--and miracles for them, too. They had
   already beheld abundant proofs of His power, Godhead and of His care on
   their behalf. Is not this true of us, also? Has the Lord ever failed
   us? Has He not helped us to this day? Are you going to fly in the teeth
   of all your past experience? Is all that you have ever believed of God
   a fiction? Have you been under a gross delusion up to this day? You
   that are advanced in years, how can you doubt? With so many Ebenezers
   to look back upon, you ought to rise above all fear.

   Their fears were altogether inconsistent with their observation. They
   had seen Jesus heal the sick and feed the multitudes. I am not quite
   sure how many of His miracles had already been worked before them, but
   certainly enough for their observation to compel them to believe that
   He was able to save them from death. How, then, could they doubt? But
   have not we, also, seen enough of the finger of God to be confident in
   the day of trouble? If we believe not, we dare not lay the blame upon
   the lack of evidence. To mistrust is irrational because it is contrary
   to all the experience of our hearts and the observation of our eyes.

   Moreover, their unbelief was contrary to their common sense. Some
   people make a great deal of common sense and well they may, for it is
   the most uncommon of all the senses! Was it reasonable for these men to
   think that He, who could foresee the future, would take them on board a
   ship when He foreknew that a storm would wreck them? Would so kind a
   Leader have taken them to sea to drown them? Was it reasonable to think
   that He who was so favored of God would be left to perish? Would He
   have gone to sleep if they had really been in danger? Was it reasonable
   to believe that the King of Israel was about to be drowned, even He
   whom they knew to be the Light of the world? Our unbelief, my Brethren,
   seldom deserves to be reasoned with! Our fears are often intensely
   silly and when we get over them and look back upon them, we are full of
   shame that we should have been so foolish. Our Lord kindly censured
   their unbelief because it was unreasonable.

   In very truth their unbelief deserved censure because it sprang from
   low views of the Lord Jesus. When they, afterwards ,saw what wonders He
   worked upon the deep, they said one to another, "What manner of Man is
   this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!" Should they not have
   known that beforehand? If they had remembered it, would they have been
   so overwhelmed with fear? Oh that we thought more of Jesus! We cannot
   think too much of Him. If we took Him to be what He really is--if we
   regarded Him as most truly God--we would rest in Him and say farewell
   to suspicions and complaints. If Jesus were greater in our esteem, our
   lives would be far grander!

   Jesus censured His friends because He foresaw that such unbelief as
   theirs would make them unfit for their future lives. That ship was the
   symbol of the Church of Christ and the crew of the ship were the
   Apostles of Christ. The storm represented, in parable, the persecutions
   which the Church would have to endure, and they, if they were cast down
   as cowards in a storm on the paltry lake of Galilee, would be proving
   themselves altogether unfit for those more tremendous spiritual storms
   which, in later years, tossed the Church and mingled earth and Hell in
   dire confusion. Peter and James and John and the rest of them were to
   steer the ship of the Church of God through seas of blood and to stand
   at the helm in the midst of hurricanes of error. And, therefore,
   fearfulness was a sad evil because it would render them unfit for their
   solemn task. Jesus might have said to them, "If you have run with the
   footmen and they have wearied you, what will you do when you contend
   with horses? If these winds and waves have been too much for you, what
   will you do when you wrestle with principalities and powers and
   spiritual wickednesses in high places? If natural causes destroy your
   peace, how will spiritual influences distract you?"

   Brothers and Sisters, our present trials may be a training ground for
   more serious conflicts. We do not know what we have yet to endure! The
   adversities of today are a preparatory school for the higher learning.
   If we do not play the man now, what shall we do, by-and-by? If because
   of some little domestic discomfort we are ready to give up, what shall
   we do in the swellings of Jordan? If a little toil oppresses us, what
   shall we do when the death sweat trickles from our brow? My Christian
   Brothers, let us attentively hear our Lord as He lovingly rebukes us!
   Let us shake off our fears and resolve that by His Grace we will have
   no more of them, but will trust and not be afraid. Oh, for calm hope
   and a childlike repose on the love which cannot fail! I have hurried
   over ground where I might profitably have tarried because I want to
   have an earnest word with you upon the third point.

   III. We may now regard these words as ENQUIRY OF WISDOM. It is always
   good to probe a sorrow to the bottom if there is any hope of finding
   out its cause and putting it away. If you are in fear, you may rise
   above it by removing its cause. If there is clearly no reason for fear,
   you will cease to fear--but if there is a cause for fearfulness, you
   can deal with it. My utterances will be as short as telegrams--please
   enlarge on them at your leisure.

   "How is it that you have no faith?" This is the enquiry. Is it lack of
   knowledge? If the disciples had known Jesus better, they would have had
   no fear, but would have exhibited firm faith. Is it so with any of you?
   Are you badly taught in the Gospel? Do you as yet know only half the
   doctrines? Have you a cloudy view of the Covenant of Grace and of the
   great salvation which is wrapped up in the Person of your Lord? If it
   is so, your quickest way to faith will be to read your Bible more, to
   study it with greater attention and to hear the Gospel more often. Come
   out to week-night services and commune more with Christ in private.
   Spend three, four, five times the amount of time you now do in
   devotions and so draw nearer to your Lord, entreating the Holy Spirit
   to lead you into all the Truths of God. If you kill your fears and
   strengthen your faith, you will have invested your time admirably in
   acquiring more knowledge. Remember the words-- "Acquaint yourself with
   God and be at peace: for thereby good shall come unto you." Learn more
   of Jesus and when you know Him better, the main causes of your fear
   will be removed.

   Next, is it lack of thought? Did these good people know and yet forget?
   Did they fail to consider? Were they superficial in their thinking? Is
   that the reason why you, also, are so fearful and have so little faith?
   Are you a skimmer and not a digger? Are you content with the surface
   soil when nuggets of gold lie just below? Is it so? Do you think too
   little of the invisible and the eternal? Are your thoughts incessantly
   occupied with business--and is God thus shut out? Are you always using
   the muckrake of greed and never using the telescope of faith? Are the
   abiding treasures covered up and buried amidst the seeming and shadowy
   things of time and sense? If so, mend your ways, my Brothers and
   Sisters! Mend them at once! Have more thought, more prayer--much more
   prayer, more praise--much more praise, more meditation, more calm
   investigation of your own heart and more acquaintance with the things
   of God. Do you not think that you often might find the remedy for your
   fears in the direction of holy intimacy with unseen realities? Be these
   more true to you and the troubles of this life will sink into their
   proper places as light afflictions which are but for a moment!

   The enquiry as to why we are so fearful may be helped by another
   question--is it that our trials take us by surprise? Perhaps the
   disciples reckoned that everything must be right since they had Christ
   on board. Let us not indulge such a notion! Never let any affliction
   surprise you, for your Lord has told you, "In the world you shall have
   tribulation." If your children die, do not be surprised--shall mortal
   parents bring forth immortal offspring? If your riches disappear, do
   not be surprised--they always had wings--what wonder if they fly! If
   any other adversity happens to you, be not sur-

   prised, for, "man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." The
   Lord has told you before it comes to pass, so that when it is come to
   pass, you may believe. Reckon upon tribulation and then you will not be
   overtaken by surprise, nor fret as though some strange thing had
   happened to you!

   Why were they so full of fear? Was it lack of simplicity of confidence?
   Did they trust in their good boat, or feel that they were safe because
   of their seamanship? Perhaps not, but I am sure that we, too, often
   mingle reliance upon self, or upon some other arm of flesh with our
   reliance upon our Lord. Good, easy men, we whisper to ourselves, "We
   can manage." Oh, yes, we have had trouble before and we are persons of
   experience and shrewdness and, therefore, we can see our way. Brethren,
   we are never so weak as when we feel strongest--and never so foolish as
   when we dream that we are wise! When you are "up to the mark," you will
   soon be down to the mark. When our confidence is partly in God and
   partly in ourselves, our overthrow is not far off! That angel who stood
   with one foot upon the sea and the other upon the earth would have been
   drowned if he had not been an angel! As you are not an angel, take care
   that you put both feet upon the terra firma of Divine Strength and
   Truth! If you trust in yourself in the least degree, one link of the
   chain is too weak to bear you and it is of no avail that the other
   links are strong. Is this the reason why you are so fearful, that your
   faith is alloyed with self-confidence?

   Again, was it absorption in their trial which led to their excessive
   fearfulness? If they had described their case, they would, no doubt,
   have dwelt upon the darkness, the hideous "darkness which might be
   felt." They would have bid us listen to the howling of the winds and
   their terrific screams, like the neighing of wild horses maddened in
   fight! Mark how the wind descends in cataracts from the hills and
   forces the boat under water! And this, again, is resented by the sea
   which hurls the frail vessel aloft and tosses it to and fro with watery
   hands, as though it were a juggler's ball. The storm was very fierce
   and the boat was very frail. Look how it is spun round and round in the
   whirlwind! Suppose we had urged them to be trustful and quiet--might
   they not have answered that we were not in their predicament, or we
   would not find it quite so easy to be calm?

   "Ah!" says one, "I have a wife and family at home who depend upon my
   fishing. How can I be calm when I think of them as widow and orphans? A
   man cannot afford to be drowned who has a household depending on him!
   It is all very well for you to talk, but you do not know what it is to
   be drenched to the skin and near to death." Well, Brother, perhaps we
   do not. But this we do know, that when we fix our thoughts solely and
   alone on the winds and the waves and the wives and all that, it is then
   that we are troubled! If we could put the most important thought first,
   it would be different. The thought which covers all is that Jesus is
   with us! The winds blow, but Jesus is on board! The waves rage, but
   Jesus is on board! These poor sailors will not perish, for Jesus is on
   board! If they could have kept this cheering fact to the front, they
   would have banished their alarms and, like their Lord, they would have
   been grandly calm! Instead of that, their brooding upon the present
   trial was too much for their faith and they became childishly fearful.

   Have I yet hit the nail on the head? If you have not found out the
   cause of your fearfulness I must leave you to look for it
   yourselves--and I trust you may discover it and destroy it at once. We
   must not continue to be of little faith! We must glorify our Lord by a
   believing confidence in Him, such as neither storm of sorrow nor
   tempest of temptation can shake.

   I shall conclude by carrying this enquiry into another region for
   another purpose. In this congregation there are a considerable number
   of friends who are not yet Believers in Jesus Christ and I want to know
   from them, this morning, why they have no faith? I entreat them to help
   me in the enquiry, Why it is that they are still so fearful, still so
   undecided? My dear Friend, you will soon need faith, for you will have
   to die. Whether you live in Christ or not, you will have to die--and
   dying is hard work to those who have no Savior! Perhaps before another
   Sabbath you may be in the swellings of Jordan--and what will you do if
   you have no faith in Christ? Do you say that you desire to have faith?
   I am glad to hear it, but I should like to press this matter home and
   to ascertain whether this desire is earnest, thorough, and hearty.

   Do you know what it is that you desire? Are you in earnest to be saved?
   I do not mean, are you in earnest to escape from Hell? That I should
   think is very likely if you are in your senses--but are you in earnest
   to escape from sin? Do you want to be saved from the power of evil? Do
   you desire to be made good, obedient, true and pure in life? If you do,
   then I would remind you that faith in Jesus is the only way of
   salvation and I would eagerly press upon you to desire immediate faith.
   Yes, I would urge you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all your
   heart, now!

   "I want to believe," you say. Well, then, what is to hinder you? If you
   cannot sit still in your seat and make yourself believe all at once,
   yet there are ways to that end. If I were told that the King of Tartary
   was dead and it was a matter of interest to me, I do not know whether I
   would be able to believe it or not because I do not know anything about
   the King of Tartary, nor even whether there is such a person! If I
   wanted to believe the news, I would get the newspaper and read about it
   and I dare say I should either believe it or disbelieve it within the
   next ten minutes. Knowledge and evidence lead up to faith! It is just
   the same with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the gift of God
   and the work of the Holy Spirit, but it comes to us in a certain
   manner. Consider a minute. Consider who the Savior is. He is God and
   Man. He came down to earth on purpose to save sinners. Do you not think
   that this Divine Person can save you? Is He not able? Do you not think
   that this loving Man will receive you? Is He not willing to save? Well,
   then, trust Him!

   Next, consider what Jesus did. He lived a life of labor and sorrow on
   earth--and He died on the Cross to make atonement for sin. Stand and
   look at Him as crucified for men. "He Himself bore our sins in His own
   body on the tree." The greatest source of faith is the contemplation of
   the Cross of Christ! Look to His agonies and say to yourself, "I can
   believe that by the merit of such a wondrous death, endured by such a
   Person as this, God can justly forgive sin." Believe, then, for
   yourself, and see your own sins put away by the death of Christ!

   Will you also consider what Jesus Christ is doing now? He has risen
   from the dead! He has gone up into Heaven! He is making intercession
   for transgressors--even for such persons as you are! Trust Him, then!
   Trust Jesus because of what He is, what He has done and what He is
   doing for sinners. Remember that this is the whole of the business, as
   far as you are concerned. You are to accept what the Lord Jesus
   presents to you. Accept Him. Yes, take Him to be your own! Look here. I
   turn to this friend behind me and I say, "Will you take my hand?" [The
   preacher suited the action to the word and his hand was readily grasped
   by one of the deacons.] Look! He takes it freely. Jesus Christ is as
   free to every sinner that feels his need of Him as my hand was to my
   friend. He took my hand at once without question--will you not take
   Jesus? Take Him now! If you take Him, He is yours forever. Take His
   hand and He will not withdraw it from your grasp! Oh that you would cry
   out, Lord I accept You!

   Have you any doubts about the truth of the Gospel? If so, I want to
   know what you think of us who preach to you. Do we deceive you? What do
   you think of your mother's confidence in Christ--is she also deceived?
   Those dear friends of yours who died so happy in the Lord--were they
   all deceivers or deceived? No. You know that the Word of God is true!
   Then believe it! Believe it for yourselves and it will be as true to
   you as it has been true to us. You cannot, I am sure, deny the
   Scriptures. You dare not say that the Gospel is a forgery--it bears its
   own proof upon its forefront! Salvation by the Substitution of our Lord
   is so grand an idea that no one could have invented it! It is
   self-evidently a Divine fact. That God can be just and yet pass by our
   sins is a marvel past the conception of men--it could only have come
   from the heart of God! Believe it, then! Accept it as being free and
   trust yourself to it. May the Spirit of God lead you so to do!

   If you are not believing in Christ, I would like to know why not! Is it
   that you are believing in yourself? If so, give up such folly! You
   cannot trust yourself and trust Christ, too--away with all notion of
   such a conjunction! Hang up self-confidence on a gallows high as that
   whereon Haman was suspended, for it is an abominable thing!

   Perhaps it is your great sin that leads you to despair of pardon. There
   is no occasion for such unbelief, for God is abundant in mercy and the
   blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin! If you have great sin,
   remember that there is a great Savior. He that came to save us is the
   Son of God and He laid down His life for us! And, therefore, He can
   save to the uttermost! Instead of doubting, I pray you to glorify God
   by believing in the greatness of His salvation.

   It was a pleasure to me, in years past, to enjoy the friendship of Mr.
   Brownlow North. Before conversion, he was a thorough man of the world
   and, I suppose, about as frivolous and dissipated as men of his station
   and character often are. After his conversion, he began to preach the
   Gospel with great fervor--and certain of his old companions were full
   of spite against him--probably considering him to be a hypocrite. One
   day when he was about to address a large congregation, a stranger
   passed him a letter, saying, "Read this before you preach." The letter
   contained a statement of certain irregularities of conduct committed by
   Brownlow North and it ended with words to this effect, "How dare you,
   being conscious of the truth of all the above, pray and speak to the
   people, this evening, when you are such a vile sinner?"

   The preacher put the letter into his pocket, entered the pulpit and,
   after prayer and praise, commenced his address to a very crowded
   congregation. But before speaking on his text, he produced the letter
   and informed the people of its contents. And then he added, "All that
   is here said is true and it is a correct picture of the degraded sinner
   that I once was.

   And oh, how wonderful must the Grace of God be that could quicken and
   raise me up from such a death in trespasses and sins and make me what I
   appear before you tonight--a vessel of mercy--one who knows that all
   his past sins have been cleansed away through the atoning blood of the
   Lamb of God! It is of His redeeming love that I have now to tell you
   and to entreat any here who are not yet reconciled to God, to come this
   night in faith to Jesus, that He may take their sins away and heal
   them."

   Thus, instead of closing the preacher's mouth by this letter, the
   enemy's attempt only opened the hearts of the people and the Word of
   God was preached and heard with power! Oh that you, my dear Hearers,
   would believe the Lord Jesus to be a real Savior of real sinners and
   come to Him with all your sins about you! Do not hope because you think
   yourselves pure, but come to Jesus because you are impure and need to
   be cleansed by Him! Cast yourselves at His dear feet at once! Take The
   Sinner's Friend to be your Friend because you are a sinner! Let the
   Savior be your Savior because you need saving! God bless you, for
   Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Thoughts Of Peace and Our Expected End

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 29, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord,
   thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."
   Jeremiah 29:11.

   I HAVE already explained to you, while expounding the 24th and 29th
   chapters of this Prophet, that these words were written by Jeremiah in
   a letter to the captives in Babylon. A considerable part of the people
   of Israel were carried away by Nebuchadnezzar into a far country. They
   were exhorted by the Prophet to build houses, form families and to
   abide peaceably there till the Lord should lead them back at the end of
   70 years. But at that time there was a general uneasy feeling among the
   Jews and other subjected nations who did not rest quietly under the
   iron yoke of Babylon. They were plotting and planning continual
   rebellions and certain false prophets in Babylon worked with them,
   stirring up the spirit of revolt among the exiles. Jeremiah, on the
   other hand, assured them that they had been sent of God into the land
   of the Chaldeans for good, bade them seek the peace of the city wherein
   they now dwelt and promised them that, in due time, the Lord would
   again plant them in their own land.

   A people in such a position as the Jews in Babylon were in danger in
   two ways--either to be buoyed up with false hopes and so to fall into
   foolish expectations, or to fall into despair and have no hope at
   all--and so become a sullen and degraded race who would be unfit for
   restoration and unable to play the part which God ordained for them in
   the history of mankind. The Prophet had the double duty of putting down
   their false hopes and sustaining their right expectations. He,
   therefore, plainly warned them against expecting more than God had
   promised and he awakened them to look for the fulfillment of what He
   had promised. Read the 10th verse, and note that pleasant expression,
   "and perform My good word unto you."

   At the present time, the Church has need of both admonitions!
   Expectations which are not warranted are being raised in many quarters
   and are leading to serious delusions. We hear men crying, "Lo here!"
   and, "Lo there!" This wonder and that marvel are cried up. It would
   seem that the age of miracles has returned to certain hot heads. Take
   no heed of all this! Go not beyond the record. On the other hand, we
   need to be urged to believe our Lord implicitly and to hold on to His
   Word with a strong, hearty, realizing faith--being assured that while
   God will not do what we propose to Him, yet He will do what He has
   promised. False prophets will be left in the lurch, but the Word of the
   Lord will stand.

   This morning my desire shall be to comfort any of God's people who are
   in a state of perplexity and thus are carried away captive. I would
   assure them of the Lord's kindness to them and urge them to trust and
   not be afraid. God's thoughts towards them are good, though their
   trials may be grievous.

   The text puts me upon two tracks. First, let us consider the Lords
   thoughts towards His people. "I know the thoughts that I think toward
   you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an
   expected end." Secondly, let us consider the Believer's proper attitude
   towards his Lord. What should we think of our gracious God who thus
   unveils His heart to us?

   I. First, then, dear Friends, CONSIDER THE LORD'S THOUGHTS TOWARDS HIS
   PEOPLE.

   It is noteworthy, first of all, that He does think of them and towards
   them. Observe that this Scripture says not, "I know the thoughts that I
   have thought toward you." That would be a happy remembrance, for the
   thoughts of God concerning His people are more ancient than the
   everlasting hills! There never was a time when God did not think upon
   His people for good. He says, "I have loved you with an everlasting
   love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you." But the point
   here brought forward is that He still thinks of them. It would be
   possible for you to have thought out a

   plan of kindness towards a friend--and you might have so arranged it
   that it would henceforth be a natural fountain of good to him without
   your thinking any more about it. But that is not after the method of
   God! His eyes and His hands are continually towards His people. It is
   true He did so think of us that He has arranged everything about us and
   provided for every need and against every danger, but He has not ceased
   to think of us. His infinite mind, whose thoughts are as high above our
   thoughts as the heavens are above the earth, continues to exercise
   itself about us. "I am poor and needy," says David, "yet the Lord
   thinks upon me." We love to be thought of by our friends. Indeed,
   thought enters into the essence of love. Delight yourselves this
   morning, O you who believe your God, in this heavenly fact, that the
   Lord thinks upon you at this moment! "The Lord has been mindful of us,"
   and He is still mindful of us.

   The Lord not only thinks of you, but towards you. His thoughts are all
   drifting your way. This is the way the south wind of His thoughts of
   peace is moving--it is towards you. The Lord never forgets His own, for
   He has engraved them upon the palms of His hands. Never at any moment
   does Jehovah turn His thoughts from His beloved, even though He has the
   whole universe to rule. He says of His Church, "I the Lord do keep it;
   I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night
   and day."

   This Truth of God, although it is easily spoken, is not readily
   comprehended in the fullness of its joy. Nor is it always believed as
   it should be. These people in captivity were likely to fear that their
   God had forgotten them and, therefore, the Lord repeats His words in
   this place and speaks of thoughts and thinking three times. His words
   are so repeated as to seem almost redundant, out of a desire to make
   His people feel absolutely sure that not only did He act towards them,
   but that He still has thoughts towards them. To the banished, this
   would be a grand consolation. The Lord thought of them when they walked
   the strange streets of "the golden city" and heard a language which
   they understood not. He thought of them when they were buffeted as
   aliens by those who marched in the proudest pomp and danced in cruel
   derision to the sound of their viols. The Lord thought of His exiles
   when their sole solace was solitude by the brink of the Babylonian
   canals where, among the willows, they remembered Zion.

   All that the Lord was doing towards them was done thoughtfully. His
   thoughts of peace and not of evil towards them had suggested their
   captivity and the continuance of it for 70 years. If any of you are in
   trouble and sorrow today, do not doubt that this is sent you according
   to the thoughtful purpose of the Lord. It is in this fixed intent and
   thought-fulness that the real character of an action lies. A person may
   happen to do you a good turn, but if you are sure that he did it by
   accident, or with no more thought than that wherewith a passing
   stranger throws a penny to a beggar, you are not impressed with
   gratitude. But when the action of your friend is the result of earnest
   deliberation and you see that he acts in the most tender regard to your
   welfare, you are far more thankful! Traces of anxiety to do you good
   are very pleasant. Have I not heard persons say, "It was so kind and so
   thoughtful of him!"? Do you not notice that men value kindly thoughts
   and set great store by tender consideration?

   Remember, then, that there is never a thoughtless action on the part of
   God. His mind goes with His hands. His heart is in His acts. He thinks
   so much of His people that the very hairs of their heads are all
   numbered! He thinks not only of the great thing, but of the little
   things which are incidental to the great thing, as the hairs are to the
   head. Every affliction is timed and measured and every comfort is sent
   with a loving thoughtfulness which makes it precious in a sevenfold
   degree. O Believer, the great thoughtfulness of the Divine mind is
   exercised towards you, the chosen of the Lord! Never has anything
   happened to you as the result of a remorseless fate, but all your
   circumstances have been ordered in wisdom by a living, thoughtful,
   loving Lord!

   Brothers and Sisters, if I said no more you might go on your way
   rejoicing! Remember that the infinite God has thoughts of peace towards
   you--and your own thoughts will be thoughts of peace all the day.

   To go a step further, let us next note that the thoughts of God are
   only perfectly known to Himself. It would be a mere truism for God to
   say, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you." Even a man usually
   knows his own thoughts, but the meaning is this--when you do not know
   the thoughts that I have towards you, yet I know them! Brethren, when
   we cannot know the thoughts of the Lord because they are too high for
   our conception, or too deep for our understanding, yet the Lord knows
   them! Our heavenly Father knows what He is doing--when His ways towards
   us appear to be involved and complicated and we cannot disentangle the
   threads of the skein, yet the Lord sees all things clearly and knows
   the thoughts that He thinks towards us. He never misses His way, nor
   becomes embarrassed.

   We dare not profess to understand the ways of God to man--they are past
   finding out. Providence is a great deep. Its breadth exceeds the range
   of our vision and its depth baffles our most profound thought. "Your
   way, O Lord, is in the sea, and Your path in the great waters, and Your
   footsteps are not known." When we are overwhelmed with wonder at what
   we see, we are humbled by the reminder, "Lo, these are parts of His
   ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him!" "Truly no man knows
   the things of God, but the Spirit of God." God alone understands
   Himself and His thoughts! We stand by a powerful machine and we see the
   wheels moving this way and that, but we do not understand its working.
   What does it matter? He who made the engine and controls it, perfectly
   understands it--and this is practically the main concern, for it does
   not matter whether we understand the engine or not--it will work its
   purpose if he who has the control of it is at home with all its bands
   and wheels.

   Despite our ignorance, nothing can go wrong while the Lord, in infinite
   knowledge, rules over all. The child playing on the deck does not
   understand the tremendous engine whose beat is the throbbing heart of
   the stately Atlantic liner, but all is safe, for the engineer, the
   captain and the pilot are in their places and well know what is being
   done! Let not the child trouble itself about things too great for it.
   And you leave the discovery of doubtful causes to Him whose
   understanding is infinite--and be you still and know that Jehovah is
   God! Unbelief misinterprets the ways of God. Hasty judgment jumps at
   wrong conclusions about them. But the Lord knows His own thoughts. We
   are doubtful where we ought to be sure and we are sure where we have no
   ground for certainty--thus we are always in the wrong. How should it be
   otherwise with us, since vain man would be wise and yet he is born like
   a wild ass's colt? We are hard to tame and to teach! But as for the
   Lord, "His way is perfect."--

   "His thoughts are high, His lo ve is wise,

   His wounds a cure intend.

   And though He does not always smile,

   He loves unto the end."

   Let us go a step further--The Lord would have us know that His thoughts
   toward us are settled and definite. This is part of the intent of the
   words, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord."
   Sometimes a man may hardly know his own thoughts because he has
   scarcely made up his mind. There are several subjects now upon the
   public mind concerning which it is wise to say little or nothing
   because it is not easy to decide about them. Upon a certain matter, one
   asks you this question and another asks you another question. And it is
   possible that you have so carefully weighed and measured the arguments
   both pro and con that you cannot come to a conclusion either way! Your
   thoughts differ from day to day and, therefore, you do not yet know
   them.

   You need not be ashamed of this--it shows that you have a just sense of
   your own imperfect knowledge. A fool soon makes up his mind because
   there is so very little of it! But a wise man waits and considers. The
   case is far otherwise with the only wise God. The Lord is not a man
   that He should need to hesitate! His infinite mind is made up and He
   knows His thoughts. With the Lord there is neither question nor
   debate--"He is in one mind and none can turn Him." His purpose is
   settled and He adheres to it. He is resolved to reward them that
   diligently seek Him and to honor those that trust in Him! He is
   resolved to remember His Covenant forever and to keep His promises to
   those who believe Him. His thought is that the people whom He has
   formed for Himself shall show forth His praise. The Lord knows them
   that are His. He knows whom He gave to His Son and He knows that these
   shall be His jewels forever and ever.

   Beloved, when you do not know your own mind, God knows His mind. Though
   you believe not, He abides faithful. When you are in the gloom, He is
   light and in Him is no darkness at all. Your way may be closed, but His
   way is open. God knows all when you know nothing at all! When Moses
   came out of Egypt, he had no plan as to the march of Israel. He knew
   that he had to lead the children of Israel to the promised land, but
   that was all. He probably hoped to take them by the shortest route to
   Palestine. Their journey was far otherwise, but it was all prearranged
   by the Divine mind! It was by no error that the tribes were told to
   turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. The Lord
   knew that Pharaoh would say, "They are entangled in the land, the
   wilderness has shut them in." There was no going back, for the
   Egyptians were there--and no going forward, for the Red Sea was
   there--but the Lord had the way mapped out in His own mind. He was not
   taken by surprise when the enemy said, "I will pursue, I will overtake,
   I will divide the spoil," since for this purpose had He raised Pharaoh
   up, that He might show forth His power in him!

   The passage of the Red Sea was no hurried expedient--Jehovah knew what
   He would do. When our blessed Lord was surrounded by the hungry crowd,
   He asked His disciples, "How many loaves have you?" But "Jesus knew
   what He

   would do." He had His thoughts and He knew them! "Known unto God are
   all His works from the beginning of the world." "Many, O Lord my God,
   are Your wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts which
   are toward us." You have said, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do
   all My pleasure"--and it is even so! Brothers and Sisters, you do not
   know what is to be done, but the Lord knows for you. O body of Christ,
   let your Head think for you! O servant of Christ, let your Master think
   for you. "I know," says God "the thoughts that I think toward you."

   Now we have advanced some distance into the meaning of our text and we
   are prepared to go a step further, namely, that God's thoughts toward
   His people are always thoughts ofpeace. He is at peace with them
   through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. He regards them in Christ
   with perfect complacency. The Spirit of God speaks peace to their
   troubled conscience and works in them the spirit of adoption and
   desires after holiness--thus the holy God is able to commune with them
   and have thoughts of peace toward them. The Lord delights in them! He
   seeks their peace, He creates their peace, He sustains their peace and
   thus all His thoughts toward them are peace! Note well the negative,
   which is expressly inserted. It is very sweet to my own heart. It might
   have appeared enough to say, "My thoughts are thoughts of peace." Yes,
   it would be quite sufficient when all things are bright with us, but
   those words, "and not of evil," are admirably adapted to keep off the
   goblins of the night, the vampires of suspicion which fly in the
   darkness! When under affliction we are sorely depressed--and when
   conscience perceives that there are reasons why the Lord should contend
   with us, then the enemy whispers, "The Lord has evil thoughts toward
   you and will cast you off forever." No, Beloved, His thoughts are not
   of evil. Though the Lord hates your sin, He does not hate you. Though
   He is the enemy of your follies, He is your own firm Friend--yes, He is
   all the truer a friend because He fights against your faults.

   He would have you pure and holy, therefore does He bathe you in the
   rivers and baptize you in the fires. Not in anger does He afflict you,
   but in His dear Covenant Love. The hardest blow that He ever laid upon
   His child was inflicted by the hand of Love. You may rise from your bed
   in the morning to be chastised and before you fall asleep in the night
   you may smart under the rod--and yet be none the less, but all the
   more, the favorite of Heaven! Therefore, Beloved, lay hold upon the
   negative, "not of evil." God has no evil thought towards His chosen! He
   has no desire to grieve us, but to save us!

   There shall not a hair of your head perish, but yet that head may ache
   with weariness. It is for good and only for good that God thinks of us
   and deals with us. Oh, that we could settle this in our hearts and have
   done with dark forebodings! Though your way may now lie through dark
   ravines where the crags rise so steep above you as to shut out the
   light of day, yet press onward, for the way is safe! Follow the Lord,
   for where the road is rough, you will be less likely to slip than in
   more smooth and slippery places. If the way is steep, you will the
   sooner ascend on high--or if your way inclines downward, you will the
   sooner feel the necessary humiliation and the more readily cease from
   yourself--and cast yourself upon your Lord. Though I am not yet so old
   and gray-headed as many here present, yet one thing I know--that God
   has done unto me good, and not evil, all the days of my life--and I
   bear my public witness at this hour, that in very faithfulness He has
   afflicted me and not one good thing has failed of all that He has
   promised me!

   No, His thoughts are "not of evil." The next time the devil comes to
   you with a dark insinuation, tell him that the Lord's thoughts are "not
   of evil." Drive him away with that! When he hisses his foul
   suggestions, say, "Not of evil." God cannot have an evil thought
   towards His own elect! He that gave His own Son to die for us cannot
   think anything but good towards us!

   Once more and then we shall have fully compassed this text. The Lord's
   thoughts are all working towards "an expected end," or, as the Revised
   Version has it, "to give you hope in your latter end." Some read it, "a
   future and a hope." The renderings are instructive. God is working with
   a motive. All things are working together for one objective--the good
   of those who love God! We see only the beginning--God saw the end from
   the beginning. We spell the alphabet out, Alpha, Beta, Gamma--but God
   reads all, from Alpha to Omega, at once! He knows every letter of the
   Book of Providence! He sees not only what He is doing, but what will
   come of what He is doing! As to our present pain and grief, God saw not
   these things exclusively, but He saw the future joy and usefulness
   which will come of them. He regards not only the tearing up of the soil
   with the plow, but the clothing of that soil with the golden harvest.
   He sees the consequences of affliction and He accounts those painful
   incidents to be blessed which lead up to so much of happiness! Let us
   comfort ourselves with this.

   God meant in Babylon to prepare a people that should know Him, of whom
   He could say, "I will be their God and they shall be My people." At the
   end of 70 years, He would bring these people back to Jerusalem like a
   new race, who, whatever their faults might be, would never again fall
   into idolatry! He knew what He was driving at in their captivity and in
   our case the Lord is equally clear as to His purpose. We do not,
   ourselves, know, for, "it does not yet appear what we shall be." You
   have never seen the Great Artist's masterpiece--you have only seen the
   rough marble. You have marked the chippings that fall on the ground.
   You have felt the edge of His chisel, you know the weight of His hammer
   and you are full of the memory of these things, but oh, could you see
   that glorious image as it will be when He has put the finishing stroke
   to it, you would then understand the chisel, the hammer and the Worker
   better than you now do! O Brothers and Sisters, we would not know
   ourselves if we could see ourselves as we are to be when the Lord's
   purpose is accomplished upon us! We know that we shall be like He when
   we shall see Him as He is, but what is He like, "as He is"? What is
   that Glory of the Lord which is to be ours? We can picture Him in His
   humiliation, but what is He like in His Glory? He is the First-Born and
   we are to be conformed to Him! God is working, working, working always
   to that end, and so all His thoughts tend towards this expected end.

   Here I pause to make a practical application. I may be addressing some
   person here who is in great distress under conviction of sin. You
   despair because the Lord is bringing your sin to remembrance, but
   indeed, there is no cause--the Lord is sending you into captivity for a
   purpose. You are being shut up by the Law of God that you may be set at
   liberty by Christ! You are being stripped in order that you may be
   clothed! And you are being emptied that you may be filled! If you could
   see the end from the beginning, you would rejoice that you are made to
   know the burden of sin, for so shall you be driven to the Cross to find
   rest from your load! This sorrow shall be the death of your pride and
   self-righteousness. By this way the Lord is working out for you "a
   future and a hope." When clean divorced from self, you shall be wedded
   to Jesus and dowried with His salvation!

   I am probably also addressing many a child of God who is vexed in daily
   conflict with his inward corruption. Alas, we find the old man yet
   alive within us! The old nature in the Christian is no better than the
   old man in the sinner--it is the same carnal mind which is enmity
   against God--and is not reconciled, neither, indeed, can be. The new
   nature has a hard struggle to hold its own against this embodied death.
   We are, as it were, chained to a rotting carcass and we cry, "O
   wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" Now, do not despair
   because of this experience! It is better to mourn over imperfection
   than to be puffed up with the idle notion that there is no sin in you
   to be watched and conquered. Certain of the children of Israel remained
   with Zedekiah at Jerusalem and boasted of their position, but they were
   none the better for their pretensions. You have been carried away into
   captivity and you are sighing and crying because of indwelling sin--but
   the Lord's thoughts towards you are thoughts of peace and not of
   evil--and He will "give you an expected end." You will come to true
   holiness by this painful process and so shall you glorify God!

   I may also be addressing some child of God in very deep trouble.
   Everything goes wrong with you at home, in business and, perhaps, in
   the Church, too. Very well, you will never have to raise that question,
   "How is it that I am not chastened?" That will never trouble you!
   Chastening for the present is not joyous, but, nevertheless, afterward
   it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in them which are
   exercised thereby. Therefore gladly endure it. God's thoughts are
   towards you, for He is refining you--believe, also, that His thoughts
   are peaceable and that He designs your highest good.

   So far have I tried to justify the ways of God to men. May His own
   Spirit make you feel that the thoughts of the Lord are peace!

   II. In the second part of my discourse I would ask you to CONSIDER THE
   PROPER ATTITUDE OF GOD'S PEOPLE TOWARDS THEIR LORD. You will all agree
   with me when I say that our attitude should be that of submission. If
   God, in all that He does towards us, is acting with an objective and
   that objective a loving one, then let Him do what seems good to Him.
   Therefore let us have no quarrel with the God of Providence, but let us
   say, "Your will be done." Who would not yield to that which works his
   health, his wealth, his boundless happiness? "My son, despise not you
   the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him: for
   whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He
   receives."

   Next, let our position be one of great hopefulness, seeing the end of
   God, in all He does, is to give us "a future and a hope." We are not
   driven into growing darkness, but led into increasing light. There is
   always something to be hoped for

   in the Christian's life. Let us not look towards the future nor regard
   the present with any kind of dread. There is nothing for us to dread--

   "If sin is pardoned, I'm secure; Death has no sting beside;

   The Law ga ve sin its damning power, But Christ, my ransom, died."

   The death of Christ is the death of evil to the child of God! Let us
   trust and not be afraid. Let us not be content with sullenly making up
   our minds to stoical endurance. We must not only bear the will of the
   Lord, but rejoice in it! It is a blessed thing when we come to rejoice
   in tribulations and to glory in infirmities. It is fine music when we
   can sing,

   "Sweet affliction."

   "Hard work," says one. Yes, but it is worth the pains, for it secures
   perfect peace. If your will is brought to your circumstances and if,
   better still, your will is brought to delight in God's will, then the
   fangs of the serpent are extracted! The sorrow is sucked out of the
   sorrow by the lips of acquiescence. When you can say, "Not my will, but
   Yours be done," you shall have your will. There is always something
   "better on before" for those who believe in Jesus. You can be sure of
   that--

   "You fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread
   Are big with mercy and shall break With blessings on your head."

   Welcome clouds, if showers of mercy are to come of them! God forbid we
   should always have sunshine, for that would mean drought. Let the
   clouds come if they bring a blessed rain.

   Our relation to God should, next, be one of continual expectancy,
   especially expectancy of the fulfillment of His promises. I call your
   attention again to the 10th verse--"I will perform My good word toward
   you." I do so love that expression--we must have it for a text one of
   these days--"I will perform My good word toward you." His promises are
   good words! Good, indeed, and sweetly refreshing. When your hearts are
   faint, then is the promise emphatically good. Expect the Lord to be as
   good as His good Word!

   Brothers and Sisters, do not heap up to yourselves sorrow, as some do
   in these days, by expecting that which the Lord has not promised. I
   earnestly warn you against those who have been led by a fevered
   imagination to expect, first, perfection in the flesh and then
   perfection of the flesh--and then an actual immortality for the flesh.
   God will fulfill His promise, but He will not fulfill your misreading
   of it! I should not wonder if there should arise a race of people who
   will believe that they can live without eating, because it is said,
   "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out
   of the mouth of God shall man live." If healed without medicine, why
   not fed without food? What absolute need of any visible means when God
   can work without them? Those who think it necessary to lay aside all
   outward means in order to a true faith in God are on the way to any
   absurdity!

   Truly, if God had bid me live without eating, I would fast at His
   command and expect to live! But as He has not done so, I shall not
   presume! Faith that is not warranted by the Word of God is not faith,
   but folly! And folly is not the faith of God's elect! The Lord will
   perform His own Word, but He will not perform the delirious
   declarations of madmen. If it needs a million miracles to fulfill God's
   promises, they shall be forthcoming, but we are not anxious for
   miracles because our larger faith believes that the Lord can overrule
   the ordinary ways of Providence to perform His good word and bring us
   the expected end.

   Again, Beloved, our position towards God should be one of happy hope as
   to blessed ends being answered even now. In the 24th chapter we observe
   one of the ends of the Lord's sending His people into exile. I noticed
   in the fifth verse that the Lord said, "So will I acknowledge them that
   are carried away captive of Judah." Their sorrow would bring about the
   Lord's acknowledgment of them. Thus do we, Brothers and Sisters, bear
   in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Affliction is the seal of the
   Lord's election!

   I remember a story of Mr. Mack, who was a Baptist minister in
   Northamptonshire. In his youth he was a soldier and, calling on Robert
   Hall, when his regiment marched through Leicester, that great man
   became interested in him and procured his release from the army. When
   he went to preach in Glasgow, he sought out his aged mother whom he had
   not seen for many years. He knew his mother the moment he saw her, but
   the old lady did not recognize her son. It so hap-

   pened that when he was a child, his mother had accidentally wounded his
   wrist with a knife. To comfort him, she cried, "Never mind, my bonnie
   bairn, your mither will ken you by that when you are a man."

   When Mack's mother would not believe that a grave, fine-looking
   minister could be her own child, he turned up his sleeve and cried,
   "Mither, mither, dinna you ken that?" In a moment they were in each
   other's arms! Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord knows the spot of
   His children! He acknowledges them by the mark of correction! What God
   is doing to us in the way of trouble and trial is but His
   acknowledgment of us as true heirs and the marks of His rod shall be
   our proof that we are not bastards, but true sons! He knows the wounds
   He made when He was exercising His sacred surgery upon us. By this,
   also, shall you, yourself, be made to know that verily you are a piece
   of gold, or else you would not have been put into the furnace! This
   will be one "expected end" of the Lord towards us--let us rejoice in
   it!

   God's dealings with us work out our good in every way. The Lord said
   (Jer 24:5), "I have sent them out of this place into the land of the
   Chaldeans for their good." We know that, "All things work together for
   good to them that love God." Thus, from day to day the Lord gives us
   "an expected end."

   In the 12th verse of the chapter from which we have taken our text, we
   see that prayer is quickened by the Lord's work towards them. "Then
   shall you call upon Me." Our troubles drive us to our knees! If it had
   not been for Esau, Jacob had never wrestled at Jabbok. I hope we
   usually go to our closets of our own accord, but often we are whipped
   there. Many of the most earnest prayers that ever rise to Heaven come
   from us when we are in bondage under grief. Yes, yes, we must thank God
   that His trying ways with us have produced in us a prayerful spirit and
   a full conviction that we do not pray in vain.

   The Lord's end with us is also our sanctification. "And I will give
   them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be My
   people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with
   their whole heart." See the value of sanctified afflictions! God grant
   that from day to day we may feel the expected ends of His corrections!
   O that we may grow in Grace and may our Graces grow! May we increase in
   faith, hope, love, patience, courage and joy! Surely our knowledge
   ought to widen out, our consecration should be confirmed, our insight
   should be clearer, our outlook steadier! We ought, by all our
   experience, to become more Christ-like, better reflectors of the
   heavenly Light of God, more fit temples of the Holy Spirit! Therefore,
   let us be of good cheer and rejoice that from day to day we receive the
   end of our faith, the salvation of our souls and thus the Lord's end is
   being answered!

   But to close. We have kept the best wine until now. The thoughts of God
   towards us are that He will give us "an expected end." An end--there is
   good cheer in that! We do not wish to remain here forever. We would be
   diligent in running the race, but we long for the end of it! I should
   be satisfied to preach here throughout all eternity if I might always
   bring glory to God, but yet I am glad that there is to be an end of
   preaching and a season of pure praise. You, my Brothers, love the
   Lord's work, but still, you look forward to the time when you shall
   take your wages and have done. It is a comfort that there is an end.

   Blessed be God, it is an expected end. You ungodly people can only look
   forward to a dreaded end--an end of your foolish mirth, an end of your
   carelessness, an end of your boasting. You fear your end! But God will
   give His people an expected end. Suppose that end should be the coming
   of Christ! Oh, how we long for it! Oh that the Bridegroom would now
   appear! Oh that He would descend from Heaven with a shout and gather
   His chosen from the four winds of Heaven! "Even so, come quickly!" That
   is our expected end.

   If our Lord does not come and we must be taken home by death, we feel
   no alarm in looking forward to that expected end. One by one our dear
   friends go Home from this Church. As I have often told you, there is
   never a week without some of our number being taken up. Although I have
   visited a large number of dying Believers, I have never yet visited a
   member of this Church who has expressed the least fear in their dying
   moments, or the slightest dismay in the hour of departure. It makes me
   feel happy to see how the Brothers and Sisters die--they pass away as
   if they were going to a wedding rather than to a tomb--as if it were
   the most joyful thing that ever happened to them to have reached their
   expected end! Doubts are all driven away when you see how Believers
   die! Divine Grace is given them so that they surmount the weakness of
   the hour. The Lord Jesus in them triumphs over pain and death!

   Our venerable Brother and Elder, Mr. Court, who has just passed away at
   a great age, looked forward to his departure with peaceful hope. He
   used to speak of it as of a thing from which he had no shrinking. There
   was no discontent or murmuring about him--no feverish eagerness to quit
   the infirmities of this life--but, on the other hand, a happy fore-

   sight of his end and a joyful expectation of it. Some of the Lord's
   saints have not yet received dying Grace, but then they are not going
   to die yet. Brethren, saints are prepared to go before they go! Our
   Lord does not pluck His fruit unwisely. Foolish people may tear the
   green apples from the tree with a pull and a wrench--and bruise them as
   they throw them into the basket--but our Lord values His fruit and so
   He waits until it is quite ripe and then He gathers it tenderly. When
   He puts forth His hand, the fruit bows down to it and parts from the
   bough without a strain. When the Believer comes to die, it will not be
   to an end which he feared, but to an end which he expected.

   Brothers and Sisters, when death is past, then comes that expected end
   which shall never end! What will the first five minutes in Heaven be?
   There is a bigger question--what will thousands of years in Heaven be?
   What will myriads of ages be? My disembodied spirit will, at the first,
   be perfectly happy in the embraces of my Lord. But in due time the
   Resurrection Day will dawn and this body will rise again in full glory!
   Then there will be a re-marriage of soul and body--and we shall be
   perfected, even as our risen Lord. Oh, the glory of that expected end!

   What will it be when our completed manhood shall be introduced to the
   society of angels, to the presence of cherubim and seraphim? What will
   it be to see Him whom we have loved so long? What to hear Him say,
   "Come, you blessed of My Father"? What joy to sit at His right hand!
   Yesterday my heart was ravished with that text, "They cast their crowns
   before the Throne." If ever I am privileged to have a crown at all, how
   gladly will I lay it down at the feet of my Lord! Is not this your
   mind? How sweetly will we sing, Non nobis, Domine! "Not unto us, O
   Lord, but unto Your name give glory."

   Brothers and Sisters, what singing it will be when we shall be loosened
   from the deadening influence of the flesh! How will we praise when we
   have done with these tongues of clay which hamper us so much! I would
   speak greatly to my Lord's praise, but I fail. Strip me of this house
   of clay and I will sing as sweetly as any of the birds of Paradise that
   carol forever in the Tree of Life above! Do you not feel a longing to
   be up and away? Indulge those longings, for thus you will be drawn
   nearer to the understanding of the text--"to give you an expected end."
   All that you are suffering, all that you are enjoying, all that God
   sends you has this one design--to make you meet to be partakers of the
   inheritance of the saints in light!

   Ending this discourse, I would ask you to pledge that you will meet me
   where Glory dwells, in Emmanuel's land! We shall soon be with the
   angels. The Lord is thinking of us and He is expecting us Home. Our
   Lord Jesus is waiting for His wedding day which is His expected end.
   "My soul, wait you only upon God, for my expectation is from Him."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Death of Moses

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 5, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab,
   according to the Word of the Lord." Deuteronomy 34:5.

   WHAT an honorable title! Moses is distinguished as "the servant of
   Jehovah." He was this of choice, for he willed to be the servant of God
   rather than to be great in the land of the Pharaohs. Such he was most
   perseveringly throughout the whole of his life. Such he was most
   intensely, for he waited upon God for his directions, as a servant
   waits upon his master, and he endeavored to do all things according to
   the pattern which was shown him in the holy mountain. Though he was
   king in Jeshurun, he never acted on his own authority, but was the
   lowly instrument of the Divine will. Moses was faithful to God in all
   his house, as a servant. You neither see him overstepping his office
   nor neglecting it. His reverence for the Lord's name was deep, his
   devotion to the Lord's cause was complete and his confidence in the
   Lord's Word was constant. He was a true servant of God from the time
   when he was appointed at the burning bush until the hour when he
   surrendered his keys of office to his successor and climbed the
   appointed mountain to die. Oh that you and I may so live as to prove
   ourselves servants of God!

   Unto as many as have received Him, our Lord Jesus has given power to
   become the sons of God and this is our great joy! But as sons we aspire
   to serve our Father, even as His great first-born Son has done, who
   took upon Himself the form of a Servant that He might accomplish His
   Father's good pleasure for His Church. Let us with good will do service
   unto our Father who is in Heaven, seeing it is but our reasonable
   service that we should lay out ourselves for Him who has made us His
   sons and daughters. Redeemed from the slavery of sin, let us, as the
   Lord's freemen, cry unto Him henceforth, "O Lord, truly I am Your
   servant; I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid: You have
   loosed my bonds."

   But servant of God as Moses was, he must die. It is the common lot of
   men. Only two have passed out of this world into the abodes of Glory
   without fording the stream of death. Moses is not one of the two. Even
   had he crossed the Jordan into Canaan, he would, in due course, have
   died in the land. We might have expected that he would live on till the
   people were settled in Canaan, but it seemed right unto the Lord God
   that on account of his one slip he should die outside of the Promised
   Land, like the rest of the people. Only Caleb and Joshua, of all that
   generation who came out of Egypt, were permitted to possess the land
   towards which they had journeyed for 40 years!

   If that one offense lost Moses the privilege of entering the earthly
   Canaan, there may have been still more powerful reasons why he should
   not enter the heavenly Canaan without experiencing the change of death.
   He must not make a third with Enoch and Elijah, but he must die and be
   buried. Such will probably be our lot in due season. Brothers and
   Sisters, it may be that we shall not die--our Lord Jesus may come
   before we fall asleep--but if He does not come speedily, we shall find
   that it is appointed unto all men once to die. We shall pass from this
   world unto the Father by that common road which is beaten hard by the
   innumerable feet of mortal men. Since we must die, it is well to
   meditate upon the solemn future. Moses shall be our teacher in the are
   of dying. We will consider his decease in the hope that our fears may
   be removed and our desires may be excited. There is a Pisgah where we
   must yield up the ghost and be gathered to our fathers--may we climb to
   it as willingly as did Moses, the servant of God!

   The manner of Moses' death is exceedingly remarkable. I suppose that no
   subject presents a finer field for oratory than the sublime decease of
   the Prophet, but we have nothing to do with oratory--our objective is
   spiritual and practical profit. Poets might well expend their noblest
   powers in depicting this strange scene of the man of God alone on the
   mountain's brow, with the view of Canaan at his feet and himself in
   holy rapture passing away into the eternal state. We

   are not poets, but simple Believers, desiring to learn some holy lesson
   from the death of one who, though the greatest of men, knew no higher
   honor than to be the servant of the Lord! Oh that the Spirit of Grace
   and Truth who has come to us by Christ Jesus may help us find
   instruction in the death of him who brought the Law from the mouth of
   God to men!

   I. We are told in the text that, "Moses, the servant of the Lord, died
   there in the land of Moab, according to the Word of the Lord." This I
   shall read, first, as meaning that Moses died on Pisgah ACCORDING TO
   THE WARNING OF THE LORD.

   His death was long foreseen. Moses knew some time before that he must
   die without setting foot in Canaan. Read in the first chapter of
   Deuteronomy his own account of the sin of the people at Meribah and the
   Lord's sentence, then and there pronounced--"Surely there shall not one
   of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I swore
   to give unto your fathers, save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; he shall
   see it, and to him will I give the land that he has trodden upon, and
   to his children, because he has wholly followed the Lord." "Also," adds
   Moses, "the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying, You also
   shall not go in there.'

   His death outside of the Promised Land did not come upon him at all as
   a surprise. He had to see his sister, Miriam, first of the great trio,
   fall asleep and, next, he was called to go up to Mount Hor and disrobe
   his brother, Aaron, of his priestly garments which he placed upon
   Eleazar, his son. Moses also had to see the whole of the generation
   that came out of Egypt with him buried in the wilderness. The 90th
   Psalm is his and it is a sort of a Death March--fit hymn for a nation
   whose track was marked by countless graves. Because of unbelief "their
   carcasses fell in the wilderness." Only Caleb and Joshua remained, the
   sole survivors of the great host which crossed the Red Sea. The Great
   Lawgiver had thus abundant pledges of his own departure and he must
   have had, in his brother's death, a rehearsal of his own. Have not we,
   also, had many warnings? Are we ready?

   Concerning his death in the land of Moab, it is natural to remark that
   it was exceedingly disappointing. He had been, for 40 years, engaged in
   leading the people to the land of promise--must he die when that
   country was within a day's march? It was his life's work for which he
   had been prepared by 40 years in Egypt, where he became learned in all
   the wisdom of the Egyptians--and by another 40 years in the solitary
   wilderness where he kept sheep and held high fellowship with God. His
   third 40 years had been spent in freeing Israel from Egypt, training
   them to become a nation and conducting them to the land of
   promise--must he now expire before the nation entered in? What years
   his had been! What a life was that of Moses! How glorious was the man
   who had confronted Pharaoh and broken the pride of Egypt! How tried and
   troubled a man had he been while called to carry all that nation in his
   bosom and care for them as a shepherd cares for his sheep! His was a
   task that well-near broke him down and, had not the man Moses been made
   very meek by the indwelling Spirit of the Lord, and had he not also
   been graciously sustained by fellowship with God, his task had proven
   too heavy even for him.

   Yet, after all that toil in fashioning a nation, he must die before the
   long-expected conquest! It was a bitter disappointment when first the
   sentence pierced his heart. He had known one great disappointment
   before, for Stephen tells us, that when he smote the Egyptian, "he
   supposed his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand,
   would deliver them: but they understood not." Then, when his brethren
   had refused him, he fled into the land of Midian, a rejected leader, a
   patriot whose heroism had only brought forth from his countrymen the
   contemptuous question, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?" But
   this denial of entrance into Canaan was still a greater disappointment!
   To have toiled so long and to reap no harvest. To see the land, but not
   to enter it. To bring the tribes to the Jordan's brink--and then to die
   in Moab after all--it was a grievous disappointment. Brothers and
   Sisters, are we ready to say as to our most cherished hope, "Your will
   be done"? Are we holding our life's dearest purpose with a loose hand?
   It will be our wisdom to do so.

   Apparently it was a severe chastisement. His offense was but one, but
   it excluded him from Canaan. We have not time to describe in detail the
   sin of Moses. It would appear to have been a sin of unbelief occasioned
   by his feeling so intensely for and with the people. Moses was
   thoroughly knit to Israel. When they sinned, he interceded as for
   himself. When Jehovah made him the offer that He would make of him a
   great nation, he declined it solely from his love for Israel. He lived
   for the nation and for the nation he died. Remember how once he went so
   far as to say, "If not, blot me, I pray You, out of Your Book which You
   have written." In every way he was of the people, bone of their bone
   and flesh of their flesh. Israel was hidden in his heart and out of
   that master passion of sympathy with the people came the weakness
   which, at

   last, made him speak unadvisedly with his lips. They strove with God
   and though Moses never yielded a point to them in that wielded contest,
   yet their unbelief so far influenced him that he spoke in anger and
   said, "Hear now, you rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?"

   Then "the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, Because you believed Me not,
   to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you
   shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given
   them" (Num 20:12). Three times in the Book of Deuteronomy Moses tells
   the people, "The Lord was angry with me for your sakes." It was not so
   much that which Moses did personally which involved him in judgment,
   but he suffered because of his being mixed up with Israel! As the Lord
   had, before, spared the people for Moses' sake, it became necessary
   that, when he in any measure shared in their great sin of unbelief, he
   should be chastened for their sake as well as his own. His faith had
   saved them and now his unbelief, being backed by theirs, secures for
   him the sentence of exclusion from the land.

   My Brothers and Sisters, when I think of this severity of discipline
   towards so faithful a servant as Moses, I do exceedingly fear and
   quake! Truly, "the Lord our God is a jealous God." We are sure that He
   is never unjust. We are sure that He is never unduly severe. We do not,
   for a moment, impugn the righteousness or even the love of our God in
   this or any other act, but He is terrible out of His holy places. How
   true it is that He will be sanctified in them that come near to Him!
   Behold and wonder! That highly-favored servant, Moses, though always
   accepted in the economy of Grace, yet must he come under the rule of
   the house and feel the chastising hand if he transgresses! Hence the
   sentence of exclusion is passed. As he had once joined that unbelieving
   generation by manifesting a measure of hasty unbelief, he must now
   share their doom and die on Moab's side of Jordan. "Righteous are You,
   O Lord, and upright are Your judgments." Oh for Grace to behave
   ourselves aright in Your house! Lord, teach us Your statutes and keep
   us in Your way.

   Beloved, it seemed a great calamity that Moses must die when he did. He
   was an aged man as to years, but not as to condition. It is true he was
   120 years old, but his father and his grandfather and his great
   grandfather had all lived beyond that age--two of them reaching 127--so
   that he might naturally have expected a longer lease of life. This
   truly grand old man had not failed in any respect. His eyes were not
   dim, neither had his natural force abated and, therefore, he might have
   expected to live on. Besides, it seems a painful thing for a man to die
   while he was capable of so much work--when, indeed, he was more mature,
   more gracious, more wise than ever! The mental and spiritual powers of
   Moses were greater in the latter days of his life than ever before.
   Notice his wonderful song! Observe his marvelous address to the people!
   He was in the prime of his mental manhood! He had been tutored by a
   long experience, chastened by a marvelous discipline and elevated by a
   sublime communion with God--and yet he must die. How strange that when
   a man seems most fit to live, it is then that the mandate comes, "Get
   you up into the mountain and die"!

   Naturally speaking, it seemed a sad loss for the people of Israel. Who
   but Moses could rule them? Even he could scarcely control them! They
   were a heavy burden, even to his meekness--who else could so
   successfully act as king in Jeshurun? Without Moses to awe them, what
   will not these rebels do? It was a grave experiment to place a younger
   and an inferior man in the seat of power when the nation was entering
   upon its great campaign. It would need all the faith and discretion of
   Moses to conduct the conquest of the country and to divide their
   portions to the tribes. Yet so it must be--precious as his life was,
   the Word of God went forth, "Get you up into the top of Pisgah: for you
   shall not go over this Jordan." Even thus to the best and most useful
   must the summons come. Who would wish to forbid the Lord to call home
   His own when He wills?

   The sentence was not to be averted by prayer. Moses tells us that he
   besought the Lord at that time, "O Lord God, You have begun to show
   Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand: for what God is there
   in Heaven or in earth that can do according to Your works and according
   to Your might? I pray You, let me go over and see the good land that is
   beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon." This was altogether
   a very proper prayer. He did not plead his own services, but he urged
   the former mercies of the Lord. Surely this was good pleading and he
   might have hoped to prevail for himself, seeing he had formerly been
   heard for a whole nation. But no. This blessing must be denied him. The
   Lord said, "Let it suffice you; speak no more unto Me of this matter."
   Moses never again opened his lips upon the subject. He did not beseech
   the Lord thrice, as Paul did, in his hour of trouble, but seeing that
   the sentence was final, he bowed his head in holy consent.

   Brethren, he had often asked a greater thing than this of the Lord, his
   God! Once he had even dared to say, "I beseech You, show me Your
   Glory," and he was heard even in that high request. The Lord placed him
   in the cleft of the

   rock and made all His goodness pass before him. Yet now he begs for a
   comparatively small thing--and it is refused. What a mercy that it is
   in the small things of this life that our requests may be denied, but
   in the things which touch the Kingdom of the Lord, our prayer never
   returns empty! All Heaven is open to our bended knee, though for wise
   ends and purposes a Canaan on earth may be closed against us.
   All-sufficient Grace was given though the thorn was not removed--Moses,
   the servant of the Lord, died, but triumphed over death!

   When I thought of the trial of Moses in being shut out of the land, I
   found myself unable to read the chapter which lay open before me, for I
   was blinded by my tears. How shall any of us stand before a God so
   holy? Where Moses errs how shall we be faultless? Never servant more
   favored of his Lord and yet even he must undergo a disappointment so
   great as a rebuke for a single fault. The flower of his life is broken
   off from the stalk for one act of unbelief. To be exalted so near to
   God is to be involved in a great responsibility. A fierce light beats
   about the Throne of God. He that is the King's chosen, admitted to
   continual communion with Him, must stand in awe of Him. Well is it
   written, "Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling." An
   offense which might be passed over as a mere trifle in an ordinary
   subject would be very serious in a prince of the blood who had been
   favored with royal secrets and had been permitted to lean his head upon
   the bosom of the King.

   If we live near to God we cannot sin without incurring sharp rebukes.
   Even the common run of the elect must remember those Words of God, "You
   only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will
   punish you for all your iniquities." Much more must the elect out of
   the elect hear such a warning! God did, in effect, say to Moses, "You,
   only, have I chosen of all mankind to speak with Me face to face and,
   therefore, since you have failed in your faith after such communion
   with Me, it behooves Me, in very faithfulness and love towards you, to
   mark your failure with an evident token of displeasure." The discipline
   of saints is in this life. I doubt not but many a man's life has come
   to an end when he wished it to be continued and he has missed that
   which he has strived for because of an offense against the Lord
   committed in his earlier years. We had need walk carefully before our
   jealous God, who will not spare sin anywhere and, least of all, in His
   own beloved. His love to them never fails, but His hatred of their sin
   burns like coals of juniper. Foolish parents spare the rod, but our
   wise Father acts not so! Walk circumspectly, O you heirs of eternal
   life, for, "even our God is a consuming fire." The Lord give us to feel
   the sanctifying power of this passage in the story of the great
   Lawgiver!

   II. But now I have to conduct you to a second point of view. Moses, the
   man of God, died in the land of Moab "according to the Word of the
   Lord," that is, ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE APPOINTMENT.

   All the details of the death of Moses had been ordered of the Lord.
   Time, place and circumstances were arranged by God. So, Brothers and
   Sisters, it is appointed unto us where we shall die and when we shall
   die. We speak of certain persons as having "died by accident" and we
   sometimes bewail the deaths of Christian men as premature--but in the
   deepest sense it is not so! God has marked out for us the place where
   and the time when we must resign our breath. Let this suffice us. That
   which is of Divine appointment should be to our contentment. We do not
   believe in the Kismet of blind fate, but we believe in the
   predestination of Infinite Wisdom and, therefore, we say, "It is the
   Lord, let Him do what seems good to

   Him."

   Moses died according to the Divine appointment, that is also according
   to an appointment which is very general among God's people. He died
   without seeing the full result of his life-work. If you look down the
   list of the servants of God, you will find that the most of them die
   before the objective which they had in view is fully accomplished. It
   is true that we are immortal till our work is done, but then we usually
   think that our work is something other than it is. It never was the
   work of Moses to lead Israel into the Promised Land! It was his wish,
   but not his work. His work he saw, but his wish he saw not. Moses
   really did finish his own proper work, but the desire of his heart was
   to have seen the people settled in their land and this was not granted
   him. Thus David gathered together gold and silver with which to build
   the Temple, but he was not to build it. Solomon, his son, undertook the
   work.

   Even thus, great Reformers rise and speak the Truth of God and cause
   colossal systems of error to tremble, but they do not, themselves,
   utterly destroy those evils. Their successors continue the work. Most
   men have to sow that others may reap. The prayer of Moses is fulfilled
   to others as well as to himself--"Let Your work appear unto Your
   servants and Your Glory unto their children." We must not hope to
   engross all things. Let us be content to do our own part in laying

   the foundation upon which other men may build in due course. It is
   according to the Divine appointment which links us with each other that
   one plants and another waters, one brings out of Egypt and another
   leads into Canaan.

   And I may here notice that Moses thus "died according to the Word of
   the Lord" for a deep dispensational reason. It was not for Moses to
   give the people rest, for the Law of God gives no man rest and brings
   no man to Heaven. The Law may bring us to the borders of the promise,
   but only Joshua or Jesus can bring us into Grace and Truth. If Moses
   had given them Canaan, the allegory would have seemed to teach us that
   rest might be obtained by the Law of God, but as Moses must be laid
   asleep and buried by Divine hands, so must the Law cease to rule so
   that the Covenant of Grace may lead us into the fullness of peace--

   "Moses may lead to Jordan's flood,

   But there surrenders his command.

   Our Joshua must the waves divide,

   And bring us to the promised land.

   Trained by the Law, we learn our place,

   But gain the inheritance by Grace." Thus there was a mysterious reason
   why Moses should die in Moab, according to the eternal purpose of God.
   Not without such Divine decree shall any other of the servants of the
   Lord depart out of the camp of Israel. We also shall, in life and
   death, answer some gracious purpose of the Lord. Are we not glad to
   have it so? Yes, Lord, Your will be done! III. I have conducted you a
   little out of the dark, now, and the sky is clearing around us. In the
   third place, Moses

   died ACCORDING TO THE LOVING WISDOM OF THE LORD. It was a meet thing, a
   wise thing and a kind thing

   that Moses should not go over Jordan.

   First, by so doing he preserved his identity with the people for whom
   he had cared. For their sakes he had forsaken a princedom in Egypt and
   now, for their sakes, he loses a home in Palestine. He had suffered
   with them, "esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all
   the treasures of Egypt," and he had been with them in all that great
   and terrible wilderness, afflicted in all their affliction, bearing and
   carrying them in God's name all his days--was it not meet that he
   should at last die with them? He had been, all along, the mirror of
   self-denial--neither for himself, nor his brother, nor his son had he
   sought honor--he lived only for others and never for himself. And his
   death was agreeable with his whole life, for he leads others to the
   border of Canaan, but enters it not, himself. He sleeps with the older
   nation. He ends his career on this side of Jordan, like all the
   generation which he had numbered when they came out from under the iron
   hand of the Egyptian tyrant. It seemed fit that one so identified with
   the people should say, "Where you die, I will die." Are not we
   satisfied to take our lot with the holy men and women who already sleep
   in Jesus?

   Moreover, Moses might be well content to die then and there, since he
   was thus released from all further trial. Surely he had known enough of
   sorrow in connection with that rebellious nation! Forty years was
   enough for a pastorate over a people so fickle and perverse. Surely he
   must have blessed the hand that removed his shoulder from the burden!
   His was no life of luxury and ease, but of stern self-denial and
   perpetual provocation. What trial he endured! What self-restraint he
   exercised! What a lonely life he led! Are you surprised to hear me say
   that? With whom could he associate? Even Aaron, his brother, was a poor
   comrade for such a man! Remember how he failed Moses when that man of
   God was absent for 40 days upon the Mountain with God? It was Aaron
   that made the golden calf and this clearly proved his spiritual
   inferiority to Moses. The man of God had to watch even his brother who
   stood next to him! With whom could he take counsel? Who would talk with
   him as a friend? He dwelt apart and shone as a lone star.

   It is significant that he died alone, for so had he lived. Aaron had
   tender attendants to disrobe him. He who put the vestments on most
   fitly aided to take them off, but the crown which Moses wore, God,
   Himself, had set upon his brow and no human hand must remove it. Surely
   this burdened watcher of Israel must have been glad when his watch was
   over! Surely this lonely man, after 120 years of service, must have
   felt it a happy release to be admitted to the glorious society of
   Heaven! As Noah was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years and then
   entered into the ark, so Moses, after 120 years of service, enters into
   his rest. Is it not well? Do you grieve that the battle is fought and
   the victory is won forever? We, also, in our deaths, shall find the end
   of toil and labor--and the rest will be glorious!

   Remember, in the next place, that by his so dying he was relieved from
   a fresh strain upon him which would have been involved in the conquest
   of Canaan. He would have crossed the Jordan, not to enjoy the country,
   but to fight for it--was he not well out of so severe a struggle? You
   think of the clusters of Eshcol, but I am thinking of the sieges and
   the battles.

   Was it so very desirable to be there? Would Moses really have desired
   that dreadful fray? Was it not a gracious act on the part of the
   Commander-in-Chief to relieve from his command a veteran who had
   already served through 40 years of war? The Lord would not put upon
   Moses a burden so little agreeable to his age and to his turn of mind
   as that of executing the condemned Canaanites. Joshua was naturally a
   man of war--let him use the sword, for Moses was abler at the pen.
   Recollect that the people of Israel were no better when they reached
   Canaan than when they were in the wilderness--they suffered defeat
   through unbelief--and they missed much of their inheritance through
   self-indulgence. Moses had seen enough of them on one side Jordan,
   without being troubled with them on the other. The Lord, therefore,
   graciously took His servant off the active list, and promoted him to a
   higher sphere. Let us not be distressed by the fact that He will one
   day perform the like kindness to us in our turn.

   "But," you will say, "surely it might have been as well if Moses had
   lived to have seen Joshua win the country!" Would this have been
   desirable? Do active men find much delight in sitting still and seeing
   others take the lead? Moreover, had Moses lived, he would, before long,
   have felt those infirmities from which he had, for 120 years, been
   screened--is it so very desirable to survive one's powers and to be a
   tottering old man amidst constant battles? Peace suits age--age agrees
   not with war's alarms. Had Moses remained the leader of the people, he
   might have injured the glory of his former days. Have we not seen aged
   men survive their wisdom? Have not their friends wished that they had
   closed their career long before? Have we not seen pastors, once able
   and efficient, holding to their pulpits to the injury of the Churches
   they once edified? Oh that men would have wisdom enough not to undo, in
   their old age, what they have worked in their youth! Moses is removed
   before this evil can happen to him and it is well.

   "But," you say, "perhaps he might have been there to watch with joy the
   victories of Joshua." Is that always an easy thing to one who has been
   in the front rank, himself? At least it is not an unmixed
   privilege--there is a mixture of trial in the blessing. Moses did not
   "lag superfluous on the stage." He did not survive his work. Who wishes
   to do so? He passed away on the crest of the wave before any ebb had
   set in, or any weakness had been discoverable. He died so as to be
   missed. Israel wept for him and no man said that he had lived too long.
   That prayer of his, after all, was a mistake. What would have been the
   particular joy of merely treading the soil of Canaan? The land looked
   far more beautiful from Pis-gah than it would have done had he stood by
   Jericho. Assuredly, at the present day, you and I who have never seen
   Palestine, have a much more delightful idea of it than those who have
   endured its noonday heats and midnight frosts! Moses had more joy in
   gazing upon it from above than in actually warring among its hills.

   IV. I must hasten on to say that while the death of Moses thus exhibits
   the loving wisdom of God, the way in which he died abundantly displays
   THE GRACE OF GOD.

   After Moses had been well assured that he must die, you never hear a
   complaint of it, nor even a prayer against it. Remember that he,
   himself, wrote the story and it is charming to see how he recorded his
   own fault, his prayer to be allowed entrance into Canaan and its
   denial. Had he murmured, he would also have recorded this. He seems to
   me always to write about Moses as if he were somebody he had known--he
   is strictly impartial in his praise or blame of himself. He calls
   himself, "king in Jeshurun." He says that the man Moses was very meek
   and yet he records his outbursts of anger. No man was ever less
   self-conscious, or lived so little for himself as Moses did! Therefore,
   when once the Lord told him he must die, he acquiesced without a word.

   Most fitly the old man immediately called forth all his energies to
   finish his work. You will find in the 31st chapter of the Book of
   Numbers that he took in hand a war--"And the Lord spoke unto Moses,
   saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward
   shall you be gathered unto your people" (Num 31:1, 2). He would die
   warring with Israel's adversaries and obeying Israel's Lord. Certain
   ordinances to be observed in war he delivered to Eleazar and he
   supervised the division of the spoils. Fearing lest the tribes which
   had settled east of Jordan might excuse themselves from future labors,
   he stirred up Reuben and Gad, and gained from them a promise to go over
   armed with their brethren till the whole land was conquered.

   Furthermore, he prepared his manuscripts, not for the press, but to be
   put away in the Ark and to be preserved. He would have his testimony to
   future generations complete before his hand was paralyzed by death. He
   knew that he was to die, but he did not sit down and weep, nor sulk,
   nor give himself up to bitter forebodings of the hour of departure. He
   served his God with increased vigor and was more than ever alive as
   life neared its close. Then he preached his best ser-

   mon. What a wonderful sermon it was! How he poured out his heart in
   pleading with the people! The sermon over, he began to sing. The swan
   is fabled to sing but once and that just before it dies.

   So did Moses, at the last, give us that famous 90th Psalm, the song
   commencing, "Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O
   earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my
   speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb,
   and as the showers upon the grass. Because I will publish the name of
   the Lord: ascribe you greatness unto our God." Moses had no time for
   poetry while his whole strength was needed in his government, but now
   he is about to die, his frame of mind is ecstatic--prose will not
   content him, he must weave his thoughts into verse. In fine, all the
   faculties of his manhood were drawn out to their utmost in a final
   effort to glorify the Lord, his God. Brothers and Sisters, is not this
   a fine fruit of Grace? Oh that we may bear it!

   Then he gathered the tribes together and blessed them in prophetic
   words, pouring out his soul in benedictions. Having already cried to
   God about his successor, he laid his hands upon Joshua and charged him,
   encouraged him and bade the people help him in all his service.

   He did all that remained to be done and then went willingly to his
   end--

   "Sweet was the journey to the sky,

   The wondrous Prophet tried.

   'Climb up the mount,'says God, ' and die.'

   The Prophet climbed and died.

   Softly his fainting head he lay

   Upon his Maker's breast.

   His Maker kissed his soul away,

   And laid his flesh to rest."

   We, my Brothers, also expect to die. Let us not fear it, but let us
   awaken ourselves to labor more abundantly. Let us preach more boldly,
   let us sing more sweetly, let us pray more ardently. As flowers, before
   they shed their leaves, pour out all their perfumes, so let us pour out
   our souls unto the Lord! Let us live while we live! And dying, let us
   die unto the Lord! May our life-work close as the sun sets, looking
   greater when he sinks into the west than when he shines at full
   meridian height!

   V. Now let us conclude by noticing, in the last place, that Moses died,
   "according to the Word of the Lord," that is, ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE
   FAVOR.

   His death leaves nothing to regret and neither is any desirable thing
   lacking. Failing to pass over Jordan seems a mere pin's prick in
   presence of the honors which surrounded his departing hours. His death
   was the climax of his life. He now saw that he had fulfilled his
   destiny and was not as a pillar broken short. He was ordered to lead
   the people through the wilderness and he had done so. There they stood
   on the borders of their heritage--a people molded by his hands. By his
   instrumentality they were, so to speak, a regenerated race, far more
   fit than their fathers, to become a nation. The degrading results of
   long bondage had been shaken off in the free air of the desert. They
   were all young men, vigorous, hardy and ready for the fray. It is grand
   to pass away while there is nothing of infirmity yet seen, nothing left
   undone and nothing allowed to fail through too long persistence in
   office. We may say of Moses that he did--

   "His body with his charge lay down, And cease at once to work and
   live."

   Moreover, his successor was appointed and was just below in the plain.
   It was not his son, but it was his servant who had become his son at
   last. He did not leave his flock to be scattered, his building to be
   thrown down. Happy Moses, to see his Joshua! Happy Elijah, to see his
   Elisha! No trembling, for the Ark of the Lord mars such a departure.
   The succession of workers lies with the Master, not with the workers!
   We are to train men, "who can also teach others"--but our own special
   work we must leave with the Lord. Yet as Paul was glad for Timothy, so
   must Moses have rejoiced over Joshua and felt, in his appointment, a
   release from care.

   He died, moreover, in the best company possible. Some men expire most
   fitly in the presence of their children--their strength has laid in
   their domestic duties and affections and their children fitly close
   their eyes. But for the man, Moses, there was no true kindred. You hear
   that he married an Ethiopian woman, but you know nothing about her. You
   know that he had sons, but you do not hear a word about them except
   their names--their father was too engrossed in honoring his God to
   crave office for them! As we have seen, he lived as to men, alone, and
   as to men he died, alone. But God was

   with him and in the peculiarly near and dear society of God, he closed
   his life on the lone peak. If he suffered any weakness, no mortal eye
   beheld it. So far as his people were concerned, "he was not, for God
   took him." Pisgah was to him the vestibule of Heaven. God met him at
   the gates of Paradise!

   As he died, the sweetness of his last thought was indescribable. Before
   his strengthened eyes there lay the goodly land and Lebanon. The Lord
   showed him all the land of Gilead unto Daniel. Yonder is Carmel and
   beyond it he sees the gleam of the utmost sea. Through breaks of the
   mountains he sees Bethlehem and Jebus, which is Jerusalem. Then, like
   Abraham, he saw the Day of Christ--and by faith beheld the track of the
   Incarnate God! Your land, O Immanuel, appeared before him and he saw it
   in all its spiritual bearings. What a vision! Yet even this melted into
   a nobler view. As we have seen in our childhood by the light of the
   magic lantern one view dissolve into another, so did the lower scene
   gradually melt away into another--and the servant of the Lord found
   himself removed from the shadows which his eyes had seen into the
   realities which eyes cannot behold! He had gone from Canaan below to
   Canaan above--and from the vision of Jerusalem on earth to the joy of
   the City of Peace in Glory!

   The Rabbis say that our text means that Moses died at the mouth of God
   and that his soul was taken away by a kiss from the Lord's mouth. I do
   not know, but I have no doubt that there was more sweetness in the
   truth than even their legend could set forth! As a mother takes her
   child and kisses it and then lays it down to sleep in its own bed, so
   did the Lord kiss the soul of Moses away to be with Him forever--and
   then He hid the body of Moses we know not where. Whoever had such a
   burial as that of Moses? Angels contended over it, but Satan has failed
   to use it for his purposes. That body was not lost, for in due time it
   appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, talking with Jesus concerning
   the greatest event that ever transpired! Oh that we, also, may pass
   away amid the most joyful prospects! Heaven coming down to us as we go
   up to Heaven! May we also attain unto the resurrection from among the
   dead and be with our Lord in His

   Glory!

   Soon our turn shall come. [Brother Spurgeon was with His Master in less
   than five years.] Do we dread it? As we are favored to serve our Lord,
   we shall be favored to be called Home in due season. Let us always be
   ready. Yes, joyfully ready! When we are dying, we shall not see the
   land of Naphtali and Ephraim, but the Covenant--and the infinite
   provisions of its promises will be spread out before our soul, as
   Canaan at the feet of Moses! Wrapt in happy enjoyment of precious
   promises, we shall, with surprise, find ourselves ushered into the
   place where the promises are all fulfilled--

   "There shall we see His face,

   And never, never sin!

   But from the rivers of His Grace,

   Drink endless pleasures in."

   To the Believer it is not death to die! Since Jesus has died and risen
   again, the sting of death is gone--therefore let us prepare ourselves
   to climb where Moses stood and view the landscape! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Plain Gospel For Plain People

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 12, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden
   fromyou, neither is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that you should
   say, Who shall go up for us to Heaven and bringit unto us, that we may
   hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say,
   Who shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear
   it and do it? But the Word is very near unto you, in your mouth, and in
   your heart, that you may do it." Deuteronomy 30:11-14

   OUR Lord Jesus Christ, in John's Gospel, in the 46th verse of the fifth
   chapter, says, "Moses wrote of Me." Hence we may safely interpret much
   that Moses said, not only of the Law, but also of the Gospel. Indeed,
   the Law itself was given primarily to drive men to the Gospel. It was
   meant to show them the impossibility of salvation by their own works
   and so to shut them up to a salvation which is available even for
   sinners. The types of sacrifice and purification pointed to the method
   of pardon for the guilty by faith and acceptance for sinners by a
   righteousness not their own. This is certainly one of the passages in
   which Moses wrote of the Savior yet to come.

   We are not, however, left to conjecture this, for the Apostle Paul,
   under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has quoted this passage in the
   10th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. He has given us a sort of
   paraphrase of it, not quoting it with verbal exactness, but giving its
   sense--and then inserting his own interpretation of that sense--which
   interpretation, seeing that he spoke under the direct influence of the
   Spirit of God, may be accepted as decisive. The Spirit of God best knew
   what He meant by the Words which He spoke by Moses. Even if Moses,
   himself, may not altogether have meant the same, the Spirit's own
   meaning must stand. I believe, however, that Moses did intend that
   which Paul attributes to him and that he saw in the whole Revelation of
   God under the ancient dispensation, the spirit, the essential spirit of
   the Gospel which was more fully declared to us by our Lord Jesus
   Christ. In this instance he was not speaking of the Law as given upon
   Sinai, if we view it as a Covenant of Works. I showed you this by
   reading the first verse of the 29th chapter which is the preface to the
   passage now before us. There we read, "These are the words of the
   Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of
   Israel in the land of Moab, beside the Covenant which He made with them
   in Horeb." We must understand Moses to be speaking, now, of God's way
   of salvation as it is set forth in the types, sacrifices and ordinances
   of the Mosaic dispensation--which Paul calls, "the righteousness of
   faith." Paul interprets him as speaking of the Gospel, itself, and
   using these remarkable words concerning salvation by Grace!

   What is meant by these words is this--that the way of salvation is
   plain and clear--it is not concealed among the mysteries of Heaven. "It
   is not in Heaven, that you should say, Who shall go up for us to Heaven
   and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?" Neither is it
   wrapped up among the profundities of deep, unrevealed secrecy. "Neither
   is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall go over the sea
   for us and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?" But the
   way of salvation is brought home to us, given to us in a handy form and
   laid within grasp of our understanding--it is spoken to us in human
   language and brought within the compass of human emotions! We can speak
   it with our mouths and enjoy it with our hearts. It is a household
   treasure, not a foreign rarity! It is not so remote from us that only
   they can know it who travel far to make discoveries. Neither is it so
   sublimely difficult that only they can grasp it who have soared to
   Heaven and ransacked the secrets of the Book sealed with seven seals.
   It is brought to our doors like the manna and flows at our feet like
   the water from the Rock. It is, as Moses says, "very near to us." Yes,
   very near to each one who hears the Gospel, for Moses puts it in the
   singular--"It is very near unto you, in your mouth and in your heart,
   that you may do it."

   I. And so I begin my discourse, this morning, with this first head--THE
   WAY OF SALVATION IS PLAIN AND SIMPLE. You have neither to look skyward
   nor seaward to find it--here it is before you--as near as your tongue,
   inseparable from you as your heart! You have neither to rise to the
   sublime, nor sink to the profound--it lies before you an open secret.
   As says Moses in the last verse of the previous chapter--"The secret
   things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are
   revealed belong unto us and to our children forever."

   I think we might have expected this if we consider the Nature of God
   who has made this wonderful Revelation. When God speaks to a man with a
   view to his salvation, it is but natural that in His wisdom He should
   so speak as to be understood! It is not wisdom which leads teachers to
   become obscure--if they teach at all, they should adapt themselves to
   the disciple's capacity. No doubt some men have obtained a reputation
   for wisdom because they have not been understood, but this was
   fictitious and unworthy of true men. If they had possessed the highest
   wisdom, they would have aimed at making matters clear when their
   objective was to instruct. As a general rule, when a speaker is not
   clear to his hearers it is because the thought is not clear to himself.
   This can never be supposed of Him who knows all things and sees all
   things as they are. The only wise God abounds to us in all wisdom and
   prudence in His manner of imparting to us the knowledge of His will!
   Teaching, He does teach and explaining, He does clearly explain. There
   may be and there is, a sinful dullness in the minds of sinful men, but
   there is no such obscurity in the Revelation, itself, as to excuse men
   for this blindness. God, who is infinitely wise, would not give to us a
   Revelation upon the vital point of salvation and then leave it so much
   in the dark that it was impossible for common minds to comprehend it if
   they desired to do so! God adapts means to ends and does not allow men
   to miss Heaven from lack of plainness on His part!

   We expect a plain and simple Revelation because God has made a
   Revelation perfectly adapted for its end, upon which no improvement can
   be made. You must have noticed that when an invention first comes
   before the public eye, it is almost always complicated. And the reason
   for this lies in the fact that it is, as yet, in its infancy. As the
   invention is improved, it is simplified. Almost every alteration in a
   piece of machinery which goes towards its perfecting--goes, also,
   towards making it more simple and, at the last, when the invention is
   complete, it is singularly simple. That which comes from the mind of
   God, being perfect, goes directly towards its desired end! I admit that
   certain parts of the Divine Revelation are hard to be understood, but
   these are intended for our education, that we may exercise our minds
   and thoughts and may, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, thereby grow.

   But in the matter of salvation, where the life or death of a soul is
   concerned, it is necessary that the vision should be plain and our wise
   and gracious Lord has condescended to that necessity. In all that
   concerns repentance, faith and the vital matters of pardon and
   justification, there is no obscurity, but all is plain as a pikestaff!
   He that runs may read--and he that reads may run.

   You might have expected this from God because of His gracious
   condescension. When He deigns to speak with a trembling seeker, it is
   not after the manner of the incomprehensible doctor, but after the
   manner of a father with his child, desirous that his child should at
   once know his father's mind. He makes the way so plain that the
   wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein! He breaks down His
   great thoughts to our narrow capacities--He has compassion on the
   ignorant and He becomes the Teacher of babes. Truly the knowledge which
   the Lord our God imparts to us is, in itself, sublime, but His manner
   of teaching is gentle, for He comes with precept upon precept and line
   upon line, here a little and there a little. He does not come down to
   us half-way, but He stoops to men of low estate and while He hides
   these things from the wise and prudent, He reveals them unto babes.
   "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your

   sight."

   Remember, my Brothers and Sisters, that our great Lord always takes
   care that there shall be no provision made for the pride of men. The
   pride of intellect He hates as much as any other pride. No flesh shall
   glory in His Presence. He takes the proud in their own craftiness,
   while He lifts up the humble and the meek. Therefore, we may expect
   that He will speak in terms that shall be open to shepherds and
   fishermen, whom others call unlearned and ignorant men, lest the wise
   men of this world should exalt themselves over the humbler sort. It is
   no design of the Lord God Almighty that a class of self-constituted
   superior persons should monopolize the blessings of the Gospel through
   the Truths of Revelation being wrapt up in learned terms which the
   vulgar cannot understand!

   The various systems of idolatry endeavored to surround their false
   teaching with a mystic secrecy, but the Word of our God is a revealer
   of things hidden from the foundation of the earth. We may be sure that
   when God deals with men,

   He will do nothing which shall cause human wisdom to boast itself. None
   shall glory that, after all, their culture was the one thing necessary
   to make the Gospel of God effectual. Philosophy shall not pitch its
   tent in Immanuel's land and cry, "I am, and there is none beside me!"
   It is after the manner of God, who bows down to the humble and the
   contrite, that He should make His salvation the joy of the lowly. "Out
   of the mouths of babes and sucklings have You ordained strength because
   of Your enemies." Those who know the living God do not wonder as they
   read such words as these-- "For it is written, I will destroy the
   wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the
   prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer
   of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
   after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it
   pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

   We might also expect simplicity when we remember the design of the plan
   of salvation. God aims distinctly by the Gospel at the salvation of
   men. He bids us preach the Gospel to every creature. It has need to be
   a simple Gospel if it is to be preached to every creature! I thank God
   with all my heart that the sage is here put on a level with the child,
   for the Gospel must be received by him as a little child receives it!
   If the Grace of God is given to the least educated person in yonder
   village, he is as well able to receive the Gospel as the most profound
   scholar in the university. Would any of you wish to have it otherwise?
   Could you be so inhuman? Must the Gospel also be enclosed for an
   aristocracy? Must the cultured few be gratified at the expense of the
   ruin of the masses? God forbid! But it must be so unless the saving
   doctrine of the Gospel can be perceived by the untutored many. Every
   generous heart delights to think that "the poor have the Gospel
   preached unto them."

   Brothers and Sisters, to save the many, the Truth of God must be very
   simple and easy to be understood, for the many are busy with necessary
   labor. From morning to night their hands are going to earn the bread
   that perishes. Their thoughts must largely be taken up with their daily
   toil. I grant you that many are too much engrossed with the poor cares
   of common life, but still, to a large extent they will, by necessary
   occupations, be shut out from close study and steady thought--so they
   must have a salvation which can be grasped at once--and held without
   the strain of perpetual debate. If men cannot be saved without weeks
   and months of careful study, they will certainly be lost! As good have
   no salvation as one which is beyond ordinary comprehension! Our working
   men need a Gospel which can be heard and thought upon while they earn
   their daily bread. It should be clear as the sun and simple as A B C
   that they may see it and then hold it in their memories. Give me a
   Gospel which can be written in a line of a boy's copy book, or worked
   on a girl's sampler--a Gospel which the humblest cottager may learn,
   love and live upon!

   The mass of our fellow men are not only very busy, but from their
   poverty and other surroundings they never will attain to any high
   degree of education. We are thankful for all that is done by School
   Boards and other agencies, but these operate for the present world
   rather than for eternal and spiritual things. Men may learn all that
   books can teach them and not be a jot nearer the knowledge of heavenly
   Truths of God. Heavenly knowledge is of another sort and is open to
   those who gain no certificates and pass no standards. Those who truly
   know their Bibles and find, therein, the appointed Savior, have not
   reached that point by the learning of the schools! Yet we may say of
   each one of them, "Blessed are you; for flesh and blood has not
   revealed it unto you, but My Father which is in Heaven." The Word of
   Life is meant for men as sinners--not for men as philosophers--and,
   therefore, the message is made plain and clear.

   Moreover, we might expect the Gospel to be very plain because of the
   many feeble minds which otherwise would be unable to receive it.
   Remember the children. How glad we are that our boys and girls can know
   and receive the Savior who said, "Suffer little children to come unto
   Me and forbid them not"! If, in order to their salvation, our children
   must all be learned divines. If they must understand the discussions of
   our monthly and fortnightly reviews before they can know the Lord, they
   are, indeed, in an evil case. Then might we close our Sunday schools,
   being convinced that the children must perish, or at least must wait
   until they reach a riper age! Would you have it so? O Sirs, I am sure
   you would not! Rather would you help to gather in the lambs.

   Remember, also, that many return to feebleness of mind in their old
   age. How many who displayed considerable strength of intellect in
   middle life find their faculties failing them as their years multiply!
   We need a Gospel which an old man can grasp when sight and hearing are
   failing him, when the memory is weakened and the judgment is enfeebled.
   We need a Gospel which can be laid hold upon in second childhood,
   otherwise our venerable sires will miss the staff on which

   they have leaned so long--and other aged persons who have reached the
   11th hour without faith in Jesus must be abandoned in despair! Would
   you have it so? There is not one among us that would so desire it!

   Remember, once more, the many feeble intellects which are to be found
   on all hands--not imbecile, but still not intellectual. Not without
   thought and reason, but yet with an exceedingly narrow range of
   understanding. Shall these be shut out by a complicated, philosophical
   Gospel? We cannot think so! Rather do we bear testimony that we have
   known many persons strong in faith, giving glory to God and well
   instructed in Divine doctrine, although in the judgment of boastful
   wits they have been utterly despised! The Gospel of our salvation saves
   the feeble-minded as well as the clever! It reaches the slow and dull
   as well as the quick and bright. Is it not well it should be so? The
   Lord has given a Gospel which he may grasp who can scarcely grasp
   anything else! He has put before us a way of salvation in which
   trembling feet may safely tread and find no cause of stumbling! Our
   Gospel needs not that we soar upon wings of imagination up to the
   Heaven of sublimity, nor dive with profound research into the
   unfathomable sea of mystery! The Lord has brought it near us, put it
   into our mouths and laid it near our hearts that we who are of the
   common sort may take it to ourselves and enjoy its blessings.

   What do you think, my Friends, would become of the dying if the Gospel
   were intricate and complex? How would even the saints derive
   consolation in death from a labyrinth of mysteries? We are called, at
   times, to visit persons who are in their last hours--passing to
   judgment without God and without hope. It is a sorrowful business. It
   is always a cause of trembling with us, when we have to deal with the
   impenitent upon the borders of the eternal world. But we would never
   visit another sick bed if we had not a Gospel to take to such--a Gospel
   which can be made plain even to those whose minds are bewildered amid
   the shadows of the grave! We need a Gospel which a man may receive as
   he takes a draught of medicine, or, better still, as he takes a cup of
   cold water from the nurse at his bedside. We should expect that it
   should be very simple, therefore, and so we find it, from the design of
   the Gospel, to save the many and to save, even, the least intelligent
   of men!

   Furthermore, dear Friends, we see that it is so, if we look at its
   results. "For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise
   men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but
   God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;
   and 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." God's chosen are usually a people of honest
   and candid mind who are willing to believe rather than to dispute. The
   Holy Spirit has opened their hearts--He has not made them subtle and
   quibbling. He has not put them upon the key of perpetual doubting and
   coming at nothing, but He has tuned them to another note, namely, to
   incline their hearts and come unto the Lord Jesus and hear that their
   souls may live! Hence it follows that the mass of those who follow the
   Lord Jesus are not anxious to be numbered with the wise and the
   philosophical! They are content, rather, to be believers in Revelation
   than proficient in speculation. To us, the knowledge of Christ
   Crucified is the most excellent of the sciences, and the doctrine of
   the Cross is the loftiest of all philosophies! We had rather receive
   the Word of our Lord as little children than be held in repute as "men
   of thought."

   You shall find that those who have preached the Gospel with the most
   acceptance, whatever their natural gifts and abilities, have almost
   always been persons who have preferred to use great plainness of
   speech. They have felt the Gospel to be, in itself, so beautiful that
   to adorn it with meretricious ornament would be to dishonor it. They
   could say with Paul, "If our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are
   lost." "We use great plainness of speech." We are not as Moses, who put
   a veil over his face. True servants of God take away every veil that
   they can and labor to set forth Christ evidently crucified among the
   people. The more they have done this, the more has God been pleased to
   acknowledge their message to the conversion of souls.

   But, Beloved, I need not argue from what we expect or see. I bid you
   look to the Revelation itself and see if it is not near unto us. Even
   in the days of Moses, how plain some things were! It must have been
   plain to every Israelite that man is a sinner, otherwise why the
   sacrifice, why the purging and the cleansings? The whole Levitical
   economy proclaimed aloud that man has sinned--all the Ten Commandments
   thundered out this Truth of God! They could not avoid knowing it. It
   was also plain that salvation is by sacrifice. Not a day passed without
   its morning and evening lambs. All the year round there were special
   sacrifices by which the doctrine of Atonement by blood was clearly
   declared. It was written clear as a sunbeam, "without shedding of blood
   there is no remission." Plain enough, also, was the doctrine offaith,
   for

   each bringer of a sacrifice laid his hand upon the victim, confessing
   his sin and, by that act, he transferred his sin to the offering. Thus
   faith was typically described as that act by which we accept the
   Propitiation prepared of God and recognize the God-given Substitute.

   It was also clear to every Israelite that this cleansing was not the
   effect of the typical sacrifices themselves, otherwise they would not
   have been repeated year by year and day by day, for as Paul well puts
   it, the conscience being once purged, there would be no necessity for
   further sacrifice. The remembrance of sin was made over and over again
   to let Israel know that the visible sacrifices pointed to the real way
   of cleansing and were meant to set forth that blessed Lamb of God which
   takes away the sin of the world. In many ways the Jew was put off from
   resting in forms and ceremonies and was directed to the inner truth,
   the spiritual substance, which is Christ. Equally clear it must have
   been to every Israelite that the faith which brings the benefit of the
   great sacrifice is a practical and operative faith which affects the
   life and character. Continually were they exhorted to serve the Lord
   with their whole heart. They were exhorted to holiness and warned
   against transgression and taught to render hearty obedience to the
   Commandments of the Lord. So that, dim as the dispensation may be
   considered to have been as compared with the Gospel day, yet actually
   and positively it was sufficiently clear. Even then "the Word was near"
   to them, "in their mouth and in their heart."

   If I may say thus much of the Mosaic dispensation, I may boldly assert
   that in the Gospel of Christ the Truth of God is now made more
   abundantly manifest. Moses brought the moonlight, but in Jesus the sun
   has risen and we rejoice in His meridian beams! Brothers and Sisters,
   blessed are our eyes that we see and our ears that we hear things which
   Prophets and kings desired in vain to see and hear! Now our Lord speaks
   plainly and uses no proverb. In our streets we hear the Gospel and have
   no need to ride the sky or scour the sea to find it! This day we hear
   every man in his own tongue wherein was born the wonderful works of
   God!

   II. Secondly, THE WORD HAS COME VERY NEAR TO US. I want your earnest
   attention to this point. I beg

   those of you who are unconverted to hear with attention. To us all, the
   Gospel has come very near--to the inhabitants of these favored isles it
   is emphatically so. "The Word is very near unto you, in your mouth." It
   is a thing which you can speak of; you have talked about it; you still
   talk of it. It is "familiar in your mouths as household words." Most of
   you are able to speak it to others, for you learned it in your
   Catechisms, you repeated it to your Sunday school teachers. You sing it
   in your hymns; you read it in books, tracts and pamphlets and you write
   it in letters to your friends. I am glad that you have it upon your
   tongues--the more it is so, the better--but how near has it come? Oh,
   that your tongue may also be able to say, "I believe it. I accept Jesus
   as my Savior. I avow my faith before men!" Then will it be still
   nearer. Oh, that God the Holy Spirit may graciously lead you to do so!

   The Word of Life is not a thing unknowable and, consequently,
   unspeakable--it is a thing that can be spoken of by tongues like ours
   when we sit in the house or walk by the way. The great thought of God
   has come very near to us when it can be expressed in the speech of men.
   I dare humbly, but boldly, to speak of my own ministry and of you as my
   hearers, that the Word of God comes very near to you from this pulpit,
   for I have always aimed at the utmost plainness of speech and
   directness of address. There is not lack of plain speaking. The word is
   on your tongue.

   Moses also added, "and in your heart." By the heart, with the Hebrews,
   is not meant the affections, but the inward parts, including the
   understanding. My dear Hearers, you can understand the Gospel! That
   whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, is not a dark
   saying. Salvation by Grace through faith is a doctrine as plain as the
   nose on your face! That Jesus Christ gave Himself to die in the place
   of men, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have
   everlasting life, is a thing to be understood of the least educated
   under Heaven. Moreover, the doctrines of the Gospel are such that our
   inward nature bears witness to the truth of them. When we preach that
   men are sinners, your conscience says, "That is true." When we declare
   that there is salvation by sacrifice, your understanding agrees that
   this is a gracious mode by which God is just and the Justifier of him
   that believes.

   Even if you are not saved by it, you cannot help feeling that it is a
   system worthy of God, that He should save through the gift of His
   only-begotten Son as a Sacrifice for sin. If you believe it, this
   Gospel will appear so plainly true that every part of your nature will
   attest it. Many of us have accepted this way of salvation--we now love
   it and delight in it--and to us it seems the most simple and, at the
   same time, the most sublime system that could be conceived of. Our
   heart drinks it in as Gideon's fleece drank in the dew! Our souls live
   on it and in it as the fish lives in the sea. We rejoice in

   the Gospel as the flowers smile in the sun! How glad we are that we
   have not a Gospel wrapped up in hieroglyphics, or entombed in cold
   metaphysics! It has entered our hearts! It dwells within us and has
   become our bosom's Lord.

   There are no difficulties and obscurities about the Gospel except such
   as we, ourselves, create. What we think to be its darkness is really
   our blindness. If you do not believe the Gospel, why is it that you do
   not believe it? It is supported by the best of evidence and it is, in
   itself, evidently true. The reason for your unbelief lies partly in the
   natural tendency of the human heart towards legalism. Human nature
   cannot believe in Free Grace. It is accustomed to buying and selling
   and, therefore, it must bring a price in its hand--to have everything
   for nothing seems out of the question! The notion of a wage to be
   earned is natural enough, but that eternal life is the gift of God is
   not so readily perceived! Yet so it is. I have heard that a missionary
   trying to make an Oriental understand salvation by Grace set it out in
   many ways to him and failed until, at last, he cried, "Salvation is a
   backsheesh of the Almighty." Then the Eastern caught the idea. Eternal
   life is the free gift of God which He bestows on men not because of
   anything in them, or anything that they have done, or felt, or
   promised, but because of His own infinite bounty and the delight which
   He has in showing mercy! You cannot get the idea of Grace into a
   natural man's head--it requires a Divine surgical operation to open a
   way for this Truth of God into our mercenary minds. Yes, it requires
   that we be made anew before we will see it! That God freely forgives
   and that He loves men solely and only because He is Love, is a thought
   divinely simple, but our selfish prejudices refuse to accept it.

   In many instances it is pride that makes the Gospel appear so
   difficult. You cannot think that Jesus saves you and that all you have
   to do is to accept His finished salvation. Like Naaman, you would
   prefer to do some great thing. You want to be something, do you not?
   Human nature craves to have a little hand in salvation--to feel
   something, to groan a certain time, or despair to a certain length--but
   when the Gospel comes with the one message, "Believe and live," pride
   will not consent to be saved on such pauperizing terms! Yet so it is.
   Accept it and you have it! Stretch out your hand and take what God most
   freely gives! The Gospel, itself is plain enough to a heart humbled by
   Grace. When the scales of pride are removed from the eyes, we see well
   enough. Alas for the unbelief which grows out of this pride and out of
   our natural enmity against God! Man will believe anybody but his God.
   Any lie in the newspaper has legs with which to run round the
   world--but a grand Truth of God that leaps from the lips of Jehovah,
   Himself, is made to limp in the presence of ungodly men. Unregenerate
   men cannot and will not believe their God!

   This is also caused by the love of sin. Those who do not wish to give
   up their favorite sins pretend the Gospel is very difficult to
   understand, or quite impossible to accept--and so they excuse
   themselves for going on in their iniquity. After all, does any man
   really feel that it is right to throw the blame of his unbelief upon
   God? Do you dare to make the Gospel the cause of your ruin? Do you ask
   pity for yourself, as if you could not help being an enemy to God and a
   rejecter of His way of mercy? Do you murmur that you cannot see? Who
   has closed your eyes? There are none so blind as those who will not
   see--your blindness is willful. You do not understand--do you wish to
   understand? Nothing is so incomprehensible as that which we do not want
   to comprehend! If you do not desire to be reconciled to God, is it
   amazing that you dream that God is unwilling to be reconciled to you? O
   Soul, I beseech you, do not impute your damnation to your God who, in
   infinite goodness, has brought His Word so very near to you! Salvation
   is of the Lord, but damnation is only of man!

   There I leave the matter. I can bring you to the water, but I cannot
   make you drink. May God the Holy Spirit apply to your hearts and
   consciences the important Truth of God that, whether you enter it or
   not, "the Kingdom of God has come near unto you!" O Lord, grant that
   none of these, my Hearers, may put from them Your Word and count
   themselves unworthy of eternal life!

   III. I close with this, that THE DESIGN OF THIS SIMPLICITY AND NEARNESS
   OF THE GOSPEL IS THAT

   WE SHOULD RECEIVE IT. Observe how the text expressly words it--"The
   Word is very near unto you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you
   may do it." "That you may do it." You, who have your Bibles open, will
   note that the 12th verse finishes--"That we may hear it and do it." The
   13th verse also says, "That we may hear it and do it." That is twice;
   but when it comes to the third time, in the 14th verse, it is not,
   "That we may hear it and do it," but, "That we may do it." You have had
   enough of hearing, some of you--you have heard until your ears must
   almost ache with hearing! You begin now to say, "It is the old story,
   we are always hearing that and nothing else." Will you not go a step
   further and be no longer hearers only? "Now, then, do it."

   The Gospel is not sent to men to gratify their curiosity by letting
   them see how other people get to Heaven. Christ did not come to amuse
   us, but to redeem us! His Word is not written for our astonishment,
   but, "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
   the Son of God and, that believing, you may have life through His
   name." The Gospel always has a present, urgent, practical errand. It
   says to each man, "I have a message from God unto you." It cries,
   "Today!" and warns men not to harden their hearts.

   Observe, again, how the text puts its last address in the singular. You
   can hear it in the plural--"That we may hear it and do it"--but the
   actual doing is always in the singular--"Thatyou may do it." I cannot
   come round to everybody in the Tabernacle and take a seat by your side
   for a minute. But I wish I could do so and put my hand on every
   unconverted person and say, "The Word is very near unto you, in your
   mouth, and in your heart that you may do it."

   As the Word of the Lord is not sent to gratify curiosity, so it is also
   not sent to coolly inform you of a fact which you may lay by on the
   shelf for future use. God does not send you an anchor to hang up in
   your boathouse, but, as you are already at sea, he puts the anchor on
   board for present use. The Gospel is sent us as manna for today, to be
   eaten at once. It is to be our spending money as well as our treasure!

   Oh, my Hearer, as you are a dying man, I charge you to accept at once
   the present salvation, so that you may at once do what the Word of God
   requires of you!

   It is not even sent to you merely to make you orthodox in opinion as to
   religious matters, although many persons seem to think that this is the
   one thing necessary. Remember, that Hell for the orthodox will be quite
   as horrible as eternal ruin for the heterodox. It will be a dreadful
   thing to go to Hell with a sound head and a rotten heart! Alas, I fear
   that some of you will only increase your own misery as you increase
   your knowledge of the Truth of God because you do not practice what you
   know! God save us from dead knowledge and give us the gracious action
   which is the fruit of knowing--"That you may do it!"

   Oh, that I could forego language, now, and that my heart could speak in
   some mysterious inward fashion to your hearts! Oh, that the Holy Spirit
   would now incline each of you to serious personal attention to this
   matter! Oh, my Hearer, you have come here to listen to me, "that you
   may do it!" Oh, that it may be done!

   What is to be done? There are two things to be done. First, that you
   believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Take Him to be your
   Sacrifice--trust Him wholly and alone from this time forth as your
   Ransom from sin. Take Him to be your Lord as well as your Savior! Yield
   yourself up to Him as your Prophet, Priest and King. Let Jesus be your
   All in All and be you wholly His. The second thing is that you confess
   your Lord with your mouth. Avow yourself to be a Believer in Jesus and
   a follower of Him. Do this in His own way, for He has said, "He that
   believes, and is baptized, shall be saved." But let your confession be
   sincere--do not lie to the Lord! Confess that you are His follower
   because you are, indeed so and, from now on, all your life, bear His
   Cross and follow Him. This is what you are to do--yield yourself up to
   Him whom God has appointed to save His people from their sins.

   "But," says one, "I thought that there was a certain experience."
   Indeed there is an experience, but all true experience ends in this--in
   leading the heart to accept Christ as its Savior. "But I thought," says
   another, "that you would dwell at length upon the work of the Holy
   Spirit." I rejoice in that work and will tell you a great deal about it
   at another time--but the chief work of the Holy Spirit is to strip you
   of yourself and bring you to receive that simple Word of God which is
   the subject of this morning's discourse. "Well," says one, "I grant you
   that it is simple! I think it is even too simple." I know it! I know
   it! And because it is so simple, you, therefore, kick against it. What
   folly! Therefore you need the Holy Spirit to bring you to accept it.
   Sometimes you quarrel because it is too hard and next because it is too
   easy. This shows how hard and stubborn a thing is the will of man!
   Almighty Grace is required to bring you to accept your own salvation!
   To lead you to take Christ to be your Savior needs a miracle of Grace!
   Let Him save you, that is all--but this is too much for our proud
   self-confidence. Oh, strange resistance, proving the deep depravity of
   man's nature, that he will not yield even to this!

   Again I say, the difficulty is not in the Gospel, but in the man, whose
   evil heart will not receive the choicest gift of Heaven! If you are
   willing to have Christ, Christ is yours! The fact that you are willing
   to receive Him proves that He has come to you. Believe that He is yours
   and be at peace. If you will now bow before the Christ of God and take
   Him to be your Savior, you are saved! The simple act of trusting Jesus
   has brought your justification--and your open confession of Him in His
   own appointed way shall bring you a fuller realization of salvation. By
   coming out on the Lord's side, you

   shall gather strength to overcome the sins which now beset you and you
   shall be helped to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
   because God is working in you to will and to do of His own good
   pleasure.

   I will preach the Gospel once more and I have done. The Apostle Paul,
   thinking of what Moses said about going up to the sky or down to the
   sea to find the sacred secret, says in effect, "That is right, Moses.
   There was a necessity for someone to come down and an equal necessity
   for someone to go up--but that necessity exists no longer." The whole
   Gospel lies in this--there was One in Heaven at the right hand of the
   Father, very God of very God and, in order to save you, poor lost and
   ruined sinner, this adorable Son of God came down, down, down to the
   manger, to the Cross, to the grave, to the lowest parts of the
   earth--and down in grief, in rejection, in agony, in death. Because He
   came under the weight and curse of sin, He came down, indeed! Because
   Jesus has come down, thus, and borne the punishment of sin, he that
   believes in Him is justified. By that coming down of the Lord from
   Heaven, the sinner's sin is put away and the transgression of the
   Believer is forgiven. Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus
   bore your sins in His own body on the tree? Will you trust to that
   fact? YOU ARE SAVED! Doubt it not!

   So far this clears you of sin. But it was necessary that we should not
   merely be washed from sin--for that would leave us naked--but that we
   should be clothed with righteousness. To that end our Lord Jesus rose
   again and so came up from the depth. When our Redeemer had finished His
   going down and so had made an end of sin, He had yet to bring in
   everlasting righteousness--and so He returned by the way which He went.
   He rose from the tomb! He rose from Olivet! He rose until a cloud
   received Him out of His Apostles' sight! He rose through the upper
   regions of the air! He rose to the pearl gate! He rose to the Throne of
   God where He sits as One who has accomplished His service, expecting
   until His enemies are made His footstool! His Resurrection has brought
   to light our righteousness and has covered us with it, so that, at this
   moment, every man that believes in a risen Savior is robed in the royal
   robes of the righteousness of God! "If you believe in your heart that
   God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." O Brothers and
   Sisters, live because Jesus lives, rise because He has risen, sit in
   Heaven because He sits in Heaven!

   "He that believes is justified." So says the Scripture. Do you see
   this? I believe it, I believe it with my whole heart and, therefore, I
   confess it before this multitude with my mouth and I am saved! Will you
   believe and confess it? Oh, that the blessed Spirit may bring you to
   this, for this is the entrance into the way of eternal life! This is
   the dawn of a day which shall never die down into darkness! May the
   blessed Spirit bring you to this faith and this confession, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jubilee Joy--or, Believers Joyful In Their King

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 19, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Let the children of Zion bejoyful in their King." Psalm 149:2

   YOUR streets will ring with joyous acclamations when the Queen and
   court pass through them to the Abbey--and well they may! The jubilee of
   a good and great Queen is an event to be celebrated with enthusiasm.
   Our hearts are fully in accord with those who bless and praise God for
   His goodness to this country in giving us 50 years of the peaceful
   reign of Victoria.

   God save the Queen! None pronounce these words with a more emphatic
   meaning and fervor than we do this day. We not only do not grudge our
   fellow countrymen all the joy they have in their Queen, but we share
   with them to the fullest their loyalty and gratitude. Had we known what
   some countries have known of tyranny, war, or anarchy, we would have a
   much more vivid sense of the benefits bestowed upon us through the long
   and happy reign of our well-beloved Sovereign. Let us take care to
   blend a holy gratitude to God with our fervent patriotism. Be it ours
   to praise and bless the God who has sent us these favors! Wishing
   boundless blessings upon our earthly Queen, we ascribe all her
   prosperity and ours to that higher King from whom all blessings flow.
   Religion must always sanctify loyalty. It would be idolatrous to think
   of the human and forget the Divine. "Why should the heathen say, Where
   is now their God?"

   But, Brothers and Sisters, let us learn from the citizens of an earthly
   kingdom to rejoice in our heavenly King. Let us elevate our fervor into
   the higher sphere. There is another King, one Jesus and, as believers
   in Him, we are more truly citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem than of
   any city or country upon earth. Our Divine Lord has called out
   Believers from among the sons of men to make them a peculiar people, a
   nation set apart unto Himself. The text, under the term, "children of
   Zion," indicates all who fear God, put their trust in Him and yield
   joyful service to His crown. Are we "children of Zion?" Do we glory in
   the one living and true God? Are we loyal to His Anointed, whom He has
   set as King upon His holy hill of Zion? This is the question for each
   man's heart and conscience. We must be "born again" before we can be
   the happy subjects of the King of Kings, for He is King of a spiritual
   nation and by nature men are not spiritual. The carnal mind is enmity
   against God and to become His friends, we must receive new hearts and
   right spirits. We must be born into His kingdom by a heavenly birth, by
   the work of the Holy Spirit upon us! And the token of this new birth is
   a childlike faith in the Lord Jesus. Let us ask ourselves whether we
   have kissed the scepter of Jesus, the Anointed Son of God. Do we
   believe and trust in Him who is Prophet, Priest and King to His people?
   Is He our bosom's Lord, sole monarch of our hearts? If so, we are
   called upon by the words of the text to be joyful in our King!

   There have been kings in whom nobody could be joyful. They have been
   tyrannical, cruel, selfish--and their rule has oppressed their people.
   England has no such burden to bear. Under God, our forefathers
   delivered us from despotism and our Queen has faithfully observed those
   covenants which harmonize monarchy with liberty. For this may God be
   praised! Looking, however, to the higher sphere, we are joyful that
   Zion's King is of such a sort that His government is an un-mingled
   blessing. There are many gods whom the nations have set up over
   themselves, but in none of them can their votaries rejoice. The worship
   of these false deities is one of dread and terror--and their adoration
   is more fitly paid in dirges than in songs. Our God is known as, "the
   blessed God." He would have His people happy and, by His Grace, He
   makes them so! We rejoice in our King because our King makes us
   rejoice! He bids us "come before Him with thanksgiving and show
   ourselves glad in Him with Psalms." And we willingly do so because He
   is "our exceeding joy." Blessed religion, in which happiness has become
   a duty! Such is the Character of our God and King, that--

   "His Nature and His works unite

   To make His praises our delight." I pray that the Holy Spirit may shed
   abroad the perfume of the "oil ofjoy" this morning. May the beauties
   and glories of our King charm us into delightful praise! Away with care
   and sorrow! Away with doubt and despondency! Let us praise the Lord
   upon the loud cymbals! Let us praise Him upon the high-sounding
   cymbals! I pray the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to produce in us the
   fragrant spikenard of holy joy--and may that holy joy, like the
   precious ointment of the woman who loved much--be all poured upon the
   Person of our Lord and King!

   I. In order that we may carry out the exhortation of the text, LET US
   BEGIN BY FEELING THAT THE LORD JESUS IS OUR KING. Alas, many who should
   be of a better mind are forgetful of this Truth of God--they are not
   joyful in their King for they have not yet learned His sovereignty.

   Brothers and Sisters, Jesus must have the pre-eminence among men, since
   He is in Person and Character pre-eminent. Who among the sons of the
   mighty can be compared unto the Lord? When the princes of the earth are
   gathered in their glory, who among them can be named in the same day
   with the Prince of Peace? Jesus is the best, therefore is He the
   Chief--His Person and Character wear about them a superlative
   majesty--let every hand present a crown to Him. "He is the standard
   bearer among ten thousand and the altogether lovely." Since the Lord
   Jesus has no equal nor even rival, He is a born King--and were not men
   most blind and foolish, they would all salute Him with loyal homage.
   From every corner of the globe, if men were unfallen, there would arise
   the cry--

   "Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him Lord of All."

   Our King not merely has the power, but the right to reign--He is, in
   Himself, royal. As Saul, the first King of Israel, was head and
   shoulders above all other Israelites, so is our Lord and King higher
   than all others in an infinitely nobler sense, for in dignity of Nature
   and glory of Character He surpasses all! Let us distinctly recognize
   that Christ is infinitely above all others even of the saintliest,
   wisest and noblest. He is not one among many great teachers--He is,
   Himself, the Truth of God. He is not one star in a constellation, but
   the one Light from which all lights are kindled! As the sun, at his
   appearing, causes the stars to hide themselves for very shame, so does
   all excellence and honor veil before the superior brightness of our
   Lord Jesus! He alone can claim universal sovereignty by right of
   indisputable pre-eminence.

   When we have remembered that He is thus the best and noblest, let us
   remember that to each Believer He is a King to be obeyed. He said, "You
   call Me, Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am." It is easy to
   think of Christ as a Savior and yet to forget that He is Lord--but the
   thought is as evil as it is easy. The doctrine of Justification by
   Faith alone is a most important Truth of God--it is the vital essence
   of the Gospel--but it must never be dissociated from the fact that He
   who saves us must reign over us! When His blood cleanses us, His love
   rules us. He saves us from our sins, thus recovering us from our
   rebellions and revolts into a happy loyalty which finds its delight in
   obedience to the Divine will. Those who would have Jesus for their
   Redeemer must--

   "Know, nor of the terms complain, Where Jesus comes, He comes to reign!
   To reign and with no partial sway, Lusts must be slain that disobey."

   Do any of you accept the promises of our Lord and neglect His precepts?
   This is to sin against Him in a grievous manner! You proclaim
   yourselves rebels and yet wish to share in the pardon which He brings?
   Is not this to act the part of hypocrites? Is His Cross precious to
   you? How can it be if you turn your back on His crown? For once I will
   reverse a time-honored motto and say, "No crown, no Cross." Jesus will
   not be your Savior if you refuse to let Him be your Sovereign! You
   cannot have half of your Lord. He must be to you Christ--the Anointed
   King--or He will not be Jesus the gracious Savior. Do not attempt to
   divide your Lord's offices! The robe of Christ is without seam and if
   even the rough soldiers cried, "Let us not tear it," we earnestly beg
   you not to tear it. Let us accept sanctification as well as
   justification, righteousness as well as peace, the cleansing water as
   well as the pardoning blood!

   If we have a special joy in Jesus in any one capacity more than
   another, let us be joyful in Him as our King. It should be bliss to us
   to be subject to His holy rule! If there seems anything hard about His
   claim of absolute sovereignty over heart, lips and life, why, then, at
   the very outset we are disqualified from rejoicing in our King! Let us
   entreat His Spirit to bring us under the rule of Grace until we yield
   our members instruments of righteousness and every thought is

   brought into captivity to Jesus' love. O my Brothers and Sisters, it
   will be Heaven to us when Jesus reigns over our entire nature as Lord
   of All!

   Further, let us follow this thought into a region where it is much
   needed. Jesus is King in the midst of His Church. How often is this
   Truth of God overlooked! There are disputes about what ought to be
   believed and practiced in the Church of England and those disputes are
   settled by a court of law, or by reference to the Book of Common
   Prayer. No, Sirs, this is not according to the Kingdom of Heaven--we
   fear it reveals a sad disloyalty to King Jesus! Secular courts have no
   authority in the Kingdom of Jesus! In His realm, He is, Himself, the
   supreme Head and the Bible, alone, is the one law-book. Certain
   Christians are fond of deciding questions by the practice of the early
   Church, but we know no authority in the practice of any church when it
   quits the faith once and for all delivered to the saints! The acts of
   the Lord Jesus and His Apostles are precedents enough for us!

   Certain churches refer to the minutes of deceased leaders, or to the
   decisions of councils, or to the theological systems of eminent
   reformers--but all this is forgetfulness of the one supreme Authority.
   We have no king in the Church but Christ. The crown rights of Jesus
   must not so much as be questioned, or all loyal hearts are wounded. I
   wish that with sound of trumpet we could today, again, proclaim our
   King. There is but one Head of the Church and that Head is Jesus
   Christ! There is but one law-book in the Church and that is the Holy
   Scripture, inspired of the Spirit of God. There is but one supreme
   center of unity in the Church and that is the living God, of whom and
   by whom and through whom are all things! The divisions and schisms of
   this day are mainly due to those secondary authorities within the
   Church which have, to a sad degree, obscured the supreme authority of
   our Lord. Would to God we could come back once more to "one Lord," for
   then we should also come back to "one faith and one Baptism!" There can
   be no unity in the Church except in Jesus and in obedience to His
   undivided rule. It is only under the Lord's own King that the promise
   shall be fulfilled-- "And I will make them one nation in the land upon
   the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and
   they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into
   two kingdoms any more at all."

   The sovereignty of our Lord must be observed not only by the Church as
   a whole, but by each individual member of the Church. We must not go
   beyond our Lord's commands. We are not legislators, but subjects.
   Officers of the Church are administrators of Christ's Law under Him,
   but they must not be makers of laws, nor creators of doctrines, nor
   inventors of ceremonies. We may not amend His statutes--no, we may not
   cross a "t" nor dot an "i" apart from Him! Let this be sounded
   everywhere as with a trumpet--Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church,
   and sole King in the midst of His people! Distinctly recognize this, or
   you cannot rejoice in your King.

   Another Truth of God is also too much overlooked, namely, that Jesus
   Christ is Head over all things for His Church. His Kingdom rules over
   all. All power is given unto Him in Heaven and in earth. In truth, He
   is the blessed and only Potentate. The kings of the earth wear their
   crowns and sway their scepters by license from His Throne. Propose what
   they may, they shall only fulfill His secret purpose and will. Fear not
   because of the great ones of the earth, for you have as your Friend,
   One who is greater than all! You look at cabinets and you are
   distracted. You think of emperors and princes and you are bewildered as
   you observe the windings of their diplomatic devices. Be comforted!
   There is One whose counsel governs councils and whose Kingdom rules
   over kings! All things are committed unto Him by His Father and without
   Him shall not a dog move his tongue! The Father has given Him power
   over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as He has
   given Him. He has put all things under His feet. Clothed with honor and
   majesty, He waits till His enemies shall be made His footstool. To this
   thought I call your minds once again, that you may be encouraged amid
   the conflicts of the hour--"Fear not, little flock; for it is your
   Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom," even as this day He
   gives it to His Son.

   Jesus will be seen to be King in the day of His Second Advent. If you
   will listen and your ears have been opened, you may hear this day the
   trumpet which announces His speedy arrival. "Behold the Bridegroom
   comes; go you out to meet Him," is the voice of these latter days to a
   Church that slumbers! Both wise and foolish virgins sleep. The midnight
   starts at this clarion note--"He comes! He comes!" "He shall reign in
   Mount Zion before His ancients gloriously." Behold He comes as King to
   judge the earth in righteousness and His people with equity. "Then
   shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their
   Father." We are to look for this and to pray for this, saying every day
   in our prayers, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it
   is in Heaven; for Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
   forever and ever."

   O you saints, at this hour set your Lord on His throne! You have seen
   Him in His crimson vesture, bowing in the garden of His agony. You have
   seen Him "despised and rejected of men." You have seen Him on the tree
   of doom. Dry your eyes. He is no more the "Man of Sorrows," nor the
   "acquaintance of grief--Heaven adores Him, He has gone up to His Throne
   again amid the hosannas of the angels and the hallelujahs of the
   redeemed! Let us praise and adore Him this day. We sang, "Crown Him,
   crown Him," but we thought not of any visible pageantry--we can make no
   gallant show for Him! What if we could? What honor could our pomp
   confer on Him? He, in Himself, far transcends all the splendor that
   ever was devised of the intellect, or pictured by the imagination! But
   you can crown Him in your hearts today as King. Salute Him with the
   intense devotion of your souls. Render Him those deep-throated praises
   of which we read in this Psalm, if we note the margin--"Let the high
   praises of God be in their throats." My soul adores the Lord Jesus and
   blesses Him with all her strength in fullness of delight! Let the
   children of Zion fully recognize their King, that they may be joyful in
   Him!

   II. Secondly, LET US GO ON TO STUDY HIS ROYAL CHARACTER, that we may be
   helped to be joyful in Him. Was there ever such a Prince as our
   Emmanuel, if we think of His Person, His pedigree, His descent, His
   Nature? This King of ours is not only the flower and crown of manhood,
   but He is also very God of very God! He is God over all, blessed
   forever--the Son of the Highest! What a wondrous Nature is that of
   Jesus, our Lord! Perfect Manhood is, in itself, wonderful--we have
   never seen it and never shall see it till we are taken up to behold Him
   as He is. Perfect Humanity, as seen in the glorified Jesus, is the
   wonder of the skies! In the Character of Jesus there is neither
   deficiency nor redundancy--He is without spot and without lack. In Him
   is perfect humanity steeped in love! His life is love. He is Love! He
   lives as the Head of the New Covenant, as the Second Adam, the Father
   of the new-born race. Think of Him in that light and then link His
   humanity in your minds with His Godhead, without confusion of idea. In
   Jesus we do not see humanized Godhead, nor deified manhood, but He is
   distinctly God and distinctly Man, yet both of these are in one Person
   and must neither be confounded nor severed.

   Was there ever such a King? Among the shining ones, the brightest
   cannot be His comrade. "To which of the angels said He at any time, You
   are My Son; this day have I begotten You?" Though He is reckoned among
   men and is thus said to be "anointed with the oil of gladness above His
   fellows," yet to whom else but He could it have been said, "Your
   throne, O God, is forever and ever"? "When Jehovah brings in the
   First-Begotten unto the world, He says, Let all the angels of God
   worship Him." Think of your king in His Person and rejoice in Him! My
   words fail to express my inward joy in that Divine Lord who is not
   ashamed to call us brethren! I sit down at His dear pierced feet, now
   covered with eternal light, and I feel a sweet content, yes, an
   overflowing joy! I see a world of wonders meeting in my Lord--Heaven
   come down to earth and earth raised up to Heaven--and I am joyful in my
   King!

   We further follow our Lord joyfully as we think of His deeds of love to
   us. Well may we be joyful in our King, since His loving kindness to us
   has exceeded all bounds! The true splendor of kings lies not in what
   their people do for them, but in what they do for their people--and
   herein our Lord excels all the princes that ever lived! He took our
   nature and was born a Babe in Bethlehem. He did more than that, He
   lived among us and bore the brunt of poverty, hunger, home-lessness,
   contempt and treachery. He died for us! Having given up for us His last
   garment, for they stripped Him at the Cross, He then gave up Himself!
   With tenderness we can each say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me."
   How royal was His love when the Cross was its throne! What a crown was
   that which was made of thorns! What a scepter was that which was held
   in His pierced hand! I call this real kingship. All else is mere
   stage-play.

   O Sovereign Love! Incarnate in Jesus, you are imperial! Behold your
   King! Not only does He bleed beneath the lash of man, but He also bows
   beneath the bruises of His Father's justice and cries, "My God, My God,
   why have You forsaken Me?" I beseech you, O loyal hearts, by the
   bitterness of your King's agony, be joyful in Him! It He loved you so,
   can you refuse to rejoice in Him? He has poured out His heart for His
   people that He might redeem them unto Himself-- shall we not be glad in
   Him? Our acclamations shall all be given to Him who has proved His
   greatness and His goodness, not by a largess of gold, but by the gift
   of Himself!

   When He had given this supreme proof of love, He was not yet satisfied.
   Having slept in the grave a while, He awoke and left His sepulcher. But
   He did not leave His love--He arose to meet His followers and nerve
   them for future service. After a while, when He had manifested Himself
   to them in most familiar ways, He rose to Heaven, a cloud receiving Him
   out of their sight! Then He changed His place, but He did not change
   His love. Ah, no! He went into Heaven bearing the

   pledges of His affection in His hands, feet and side. He entered Glory
   to carry on His intercession within the veil. His royal life is now
   spent in pleading for transgressors! All His thoughts are of His
   people--all His power is for His people, all His glory is in His
   people! I pray you, think not of my Lord and King according to the
   measure of my faltering speech, but joy in Him according to that love
   of His which passes knowledge--

   "Love which will not let Him rest

   Till His people all are blest!

   Till they all for whom He died

   Live rejoicing at His side."

   Let us think a moment further of the glorious achievements of our King,
   that we may the more fully be joyful in Him. This King of ours has
   fought for us and won great victories on our account. Our King met the
   battalions of our sins in conflict. He encountered Satan, that
   tremendous foe. He fought hand to hand with Death itself! The shock of
   battle was terrible. The sun was darkened, the earth shook, even the
   dead arose from their sepulchers to behold the war. Our hero stood
   alone--"of the people there was none with Him"--yet He trampled down
   all our enemies as the treader of grapes crushes the clusters in the
   winepress. Thus He made an end of sin, broke the head of the old dragon
   and put Death, itself, to death and led our captivity captive! Behold
   He comes from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, traveling in the
   greatness of His strength, mighty to save! Shall we not salute Him with
   hosannas? Will we not be joyful in Him? Daughters of Jerusalem, will
   you not go forth to meet Him, even as the maidens of old went forth to
   meet young David when he returned with Goliath's head? Will you not,
   also, sing, "Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands"?
   Remember how Miriam and the virgins sounded their timbrels at the Red
   Sea and spoke saying, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
   gloriously!"? In like joyous manner sing unto the Lord, your King, and
   magnify His name!

   It should stir you to enthusiasm to think of the principles of His
   government, for they are fountains of peace and purity. Jesus founded
   His empire upon love and His own Self-Sacrifice is the corner stone of
   that Imperial fabric. His action is always love and His teaching is
   always love. As He loved us and gave Himself for us, so His golden rule
   is that we do to others as we would that they should do to us. This is
   sadly forgotten, even by some who call themselves Christians, but if
   this principle once took possession of men's minds, we should have no
   schemes of the poor to rob the rich and no greed on the part of the
   rich by which they grind down the poor! If our King were obeyed, man
   would no longer be man's worst enemy, but the bands of brotherhood
   would unite mankind in a league of mutual sympathy! If we heard our
   Lord say, "A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one
   another," and if we practiced that commandment, what a Kingdom of
   Heaven should we see upon the face of the earth! Let us trust and hope
   and pray that it may yet be so. Oh for the time when the Shepherd King
   shall judge the poor and needy and break in pieces the oppressor! "He
   shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water
   the earth." His blessed principles of truth and love should make His
   people joyful in Him.

   I think I might appeal to every Christian here and say, you have
   personal reasons for being joyful in your King. You love Him because He
   has first loved you. He has been wondrously condescending to all His
   saints and to us among them. Many a time has He appeared unto us and
   said, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." He has brought us
   into His banqueting house and His banner over us has been love. We
   ought to be joyful in Him for His love to others. But if not, we would
   be worse than brute beasts if we did not rejoice in Him for His love to
   ourselves. O my Brothers and Sisters, be joyful in Him! What do you
   know about any other king compared with what you know of King Jesus? On
   His bosom you have leaned and His secret is with you. He has kissed you
   with the kisses of His lips and His love is better than wine to you. He
   is your Husband. You are married unto Him and He calls you His
   Hephzibah and says, "My delight is in her." "The Lord takes pleasure in
   them that fear Him, in them that hope in His mercy." Therefore in such
   a condescending King, Brothers and Sisters, let the children of Zion
   rejoice!

   III. I shall not detain you long while I touch upon a third point--LET
   US MARK THE BENEFITS OF HIS

   REIGN which entitle Him to our highest regard this day.

   For, first, remember that the nation over which He reigns He has
   created. "Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him." There was no Israel
   till God made Israel, Israel--and there was no Church over which Christ
   could reign till He made His own Church. He is the Father of the age in
   which He is King, the Creator of His own empire! Most kings inherit
   what other swords have won, but Jesus, Himself, with His own blood, has
   purchased a Kingdom to Himself! Each one of us

   must acknowledge for himself--and all of us together unitedly--that He
   has made us and not we, ourselves. By His Sovereign Grace He has
   chosen, redeemed, called and sanctified us! Therefore will we be joyful
   in Him.

   Brethren, while our King has created His own Kingdom, He has also
   sanctified and sustained that Kingdom. That there is a Church in the
   world at all is due to Jesus. We had gone back to chaos and old night
   if it had not been that His light is never dim. He whose Sovereign Word
   said, "Let there be light," still bids the light abide in the Church to
   lighten those who come into the world. Yes, we each of us live through
   Him if we live unto God. He says, "Because I live, you shall live
   also." The Church as a corporate body would cease to be were He not its
   continual Life and Strength. Let the streams rejoice in the fountain,
   let the walls of the temple be joyful in the foundation! We ought to
   rejoice today in our King because it is He that has saved us and given
   us peace. In the days of Solomon, Israel had such peace that every man
   sat under his own vine and fig tree. But oh the peace our greater
   Solomon has given us! I was as restless, once, as those ever-flying
   birds which hover over the waters of the Golden Horn at Constantinople.
   They are never seen to rest and hence men call them, "lost souls." Such
   was I! I found no place for the soles of my feet till I knew the Lord
   Jesus. My soul was a dread battlefield of conflicting thoughts, a very
   Esdraelon trodden by innumerable hosts of doubts and fears! But when my
   King came, then the enemy fled and I found rest and joy! He is our
   peace. Jesus has given us the true Sabbath. Crown Him, then, as Prince
   of Peace, you once weary spirits who now joyfully abide in Him!

   But, Beloved, time fails me to speak of all the benefits our King has
   brought us. Is there anything that is necessary which He has not given?
   Is there anything that is good that He has withheld? Have we any
   virtue? Have we any praise? Then not unto us, not unto us, but unto His
   name be the glory! Nor is it alone in the past and in the present that
   we are debtors--we look forward to a future of obligations. He will
   keep us from all the power of the enemy. He will secure His Zion from
   invaders and fill her with the finest of wheat. Forever and ever will
   He preserve us and be our Guide even unto death. Again we say
   hallelujah, as we think how He loves unto the end!

   In due time He will remove our Zion and all its inhabitants to the land
   of cloudless day and unwithering flowers. A little while and we shall
   be translated to the place where there is no more death, neither sorrow
   nor sighing! Our King has great things in store for His Church. His
   best will be last and His last will be best. Glory dwells in Emmanuel's
   land! In Him we possess earth and Heaven, time and eternity. All things
   are ours in our King. All Heaven lies at our feet. O you chosen, lift
   up your eyes to the east and to the west, to the north and to the
   south--all this land is yours in Him who is your Lord and King! Know no
   boundary to your expectation, for such a King to a people so beloved
   will give a heritage which shall be forever--and the bliss thereof
   shall know no limit!

   IV. Very briefly, in the next place, LET US BE JOYFUL IN THE
   CONTINUANCE OF OUR REDEEMER'S

   REIGN. Fifty years is a long time for Her Majesty to have reigned. May
   her days yet be many! Fifty years, as we measure life, is a long space,
   but 50 years in the measurement of human history is far less--and 50
   years as compared with eternity is nothing! King Jesus has a Kingdom of
   which there shall be no end! This is our joy, that the ages past have
   not taken away from the length of His reign. So much the less has any
   king to reign as he has already reigned, but it is not so with Him, for
   still is the voice heard, even the same voice that made the Red Sea
   resound--"The Lord shall reign forever and ever, hallelujah!" Let us,
   this day, be right glad concerning our King, since He, only, has
   immortality and, therefore, He will live forever. He communicates that
   immortality to all His people and thus He is the undying King of an
   undying Kingdom! True, we shall pass through that river which is named
   Death, but it is a misnomer! Like the Jordan when Israel passed into
   Canaan, the Lord has rebuked it and it is dried up. We shall pass
   through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and that is all--and thus we
   shall reach a higher stage of being in which we shall be "forever with
   the Lord." Shall not those whom the King has made to live, be joyful
   that their King lives and reigns world without end?

   Brethren, the age of our King has not enfeebled Him. John, in vision,
   saw Him with His head and His hair "white like wool, as white as snow,"
   but to His well-beloved spouse, He is not gray with age, for she sings
   of Him, "His locks are bushy and black as a raven." He is as youthful
   and vigorous as ever! His age is eternity and eternity has not the
   fretting tooth of time. He is still the same Christ--as mighty in power
   as when He routed the hosts of Hell! Let us be joyful in our

   King.

   As to His kingdom, there is no fear of its failing. The gates of Hell
   shall not prevail against it. His kingdom is one and indivisible. And
   His Throne shall never be shaken. There is no dynasty to follow His
   dynasty; no successor to take up the crown of our Melchisedec! My
   immortal spirit rejoices in the hope of rendering endless homage to the
   eternal King. He

   lives and reigns and we shall find it the bliss of our endless life to
   serve Him day and night in His Temple! In prospect of such bliss, let
   us bestir ourselves to rejoice in our King with joy unspeakable and
   full of glory.

   V. Once more, being joyful in our King, LET US OBEY HIM WITH DELIGHT.
   Let us weave delights into our duties. When Moses' mother made the ark
   in which she placed her darling boy, she worked it in this holy
   fashion--she took a bulrush and a prayer and plaited them
   together--every bulrush had a fervent prayer twisted with it. And so
   the ark was made of the prayers of a mother and the rushes of the Nile.
   How could the child be otherwise than safe? Let us take into our hands
   a duty and a thanksgiving, a precept and a praise! Let us make up our
   whole life of the intertwisting of duty and delight. Let us be holy and
   happy! Let us turn obedience into gladness. That which otherwise were
   drudgery, we will exalt to a priestly sacrificing as we serve the Lord
   with gladness and rejoice before Him.

   What a joy it would be to me if this midsummer morning some of you who
   have never trusted in this King should begin to do so! This is a high
   day and a day of glad tidings--the trumpets of jubilee load the air
   with music. Our King will forgive your former rebellions if now you
   turn to Him. He proclaims, today, a general amnesty to all rebels! This
   day He grants a jail delivery to all prisoners of hope. You who have
   revolted may come back again--He will receive you graciously and love
   you freely. He sits upon His holy hill in Zion and He cries to you, "If
   you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land."
   "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, when His
   wrath is kindled but a little; blessed are all they that put their
   trust in Him."

   It would be a joy to me, on this the day of my birth [Brother Spurgeon
   was born June 19, 1834] if it might also be the birthday of many a
   precious soul among those who hear me. Why should it not be so? The
   King is among us--come and adore Him! You never had such a Master as He
   will be to you! He will make you happy in His love! Trust Him and live
   forever! Oh, that some young friends would listen to this call!

   Some of you have known Jesus many years and have been professors for a
   long time. Perhaps you are getting into rather a dull state of mind.
   All elder brothers have not a pleasing character--do not become like he
   in the parable who envied the returning prodigal. What a wretched
   temper he showed! He said, "Lo, these many years do I serve you,
   neither transgressed I at any time your commandment: and yet you never
   gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." "Oh," you say,
   "we are not in that state of mind." I am glad to hear it, but lest you
   should, in the future, fall into that state, I would advise you to
   often make merry with your friends. If that elder brother had, every
   now and then, held a grand merry-making with his friends, he would
   never have been able to make such a wretched speech! He was such a
   steady old plodder that he always kept to his work and never had a
   thought about rejoicing in his home and his father! Work without joy is
   not good for us. What the old proverb says concerning "all work and no
   play," is true of all service and no joy. I want the children of God to
   hold high festival at this time! Why should not we have our Jubilee as
   well as others? "Praise the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song and His
   praise in the congregation of the saints."

   You have heard machinery at times complaining wretchedly--it has gone
   on with horrible grating and creaking. It has set your teeth on edge!
   Fetch the oil can! We must cure this jarring. Every now and then we
   need a few drops of the oil of gladness to make the wheels of our work
   move pleasantly. Men of the world teach us the value of joyous song.
   How readily the anchor rises when the sailors unite in cheery cries!
   Soldiers, when weary on the march, find their spirits revived when the
   band strikes up a stirring tune. Let it be so today. I would have you
   praise God with the sound of the trumpet. Let the children of Zion be
   joyful in their King!

   "Ah, dear minister," you say, "you do not know what state of mind we
   are in! You do not know all our troubles, worries, frets and
   weaknesses." Do I not know? I have been in that same oven! I know the
   secrets of your prison house. Dear Brothers and Sisters, let us not rob
   our King of His revenue because all things are not quite to our mind.
   Are we going to blame our Lord for the chastisement which our own sins
   require? We are never right with God unless we feel at peace with Him,
   no, happy in Him! The right state of mind for a child is to be happy in
   his Father's love. It was well with Israel when "whatever the King did,
   pleased all the people." It is well with us when we love Jesus so that
   He may even do whatever He pleases with us and we will still exult in
   Him! May you come to this delightful state! The streams of our misery
   flow from the fountains of unhumbled self. When Jesus is so loved that
   His will is our will, then life on earth becomes like life in Heaven.
   Reign, O Lord, reign absolutely, for so we see our murmuring and
   complaining slain and these are the worst adversaries of our peace.

   It is time to finish and, therefore, I would invite all that love my
   Lord to proclaim a Jubilee for their Lord and King. Keep it after the
   best fashion. Endeavor to enlighten the world! Put candles in your
   windows. Illuminate all your streets. Let no sinner die in the dark.
   Publish the love of God to men. Light up your houses, all of you, with
   a holy cheerfulness and a clear confession of Christ. Hang out your
   flags of joy! You have them lying by and the moths are eating them.
   Bring them out! Give the streamers of your mirth to the breeze! Tell
   all around you what God has done for you. Do not be ashamed to
   acknowledge your indebtedness to the love of God in Christ Jesus. You
   very retiring people, may I invite you to come out of your shells? You
   that have been slothful and cold of late, I pray you shake yourselves
   from the dust. At this time, when the pulse of the world beats fast,
   let yours be quickened. Begin this day something new for Jesus. I wish
   the Church of God would think that Christ's Jubilee was, indeed, come,
   and so would kindle beacons upon every hill till all the nations beheld
   the great Light of God. Let the flame be seen across the sea! Let the
   whole earth be filled with His glory! "Arise, shine; for your light is
   come." May the Divine Spirit come upon all His people at this hour and
   move them to show their joy in their King by special deeds of love!

   Lastly, if our king were here and I were to say to Him, "How shall I
   close this sermon?" He would answer, "Tell them to honor Me by showing
   their love to the poor and needy." Our King is glorious in His gifts to
   men. I told you just now that the true splendor of a king lies in what
   he does for his people. I trust our Queen's Jubilee will be memorable
   for some illustrious deed of generosity. A great-hearted action is more
   worthy of acclamation than all the glitter of state! Some special gift
   to the poor and needy of this crowded city. Some truly royal
   mindfulness of the sick poor would be seasonable and commendable. I
   trust there will be no failure on this point, or some of us will feel
   that the pageant of the 21st is a vain show.

   It will be the best of Jubilees if the poor are largely thought of. Let
   them be thought of by all of us today! Let us give largely to the
   hospitals for Christ's sake! David, when he kept a high day, gave to
   every man a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine--and thus sent
   them all home full and happy. If this cannot be done for all the poor,
   let it be abundantly done for the sick by our collection for the
   hospitals. Beds are empty from lack of funds--shall they remain so? The
   sick poor are languishing--will you withhold your bounty? Children of
   Zion, honor your King by your generous gifts at this hour!
     __________________________________________________________________

Pleading Prayer

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Remember the Word unto Your servant upon which You have caused me to
   hope." Psalm 119:49.

   THE 119th Psalm is a very wonderful composition. Its expressions are
   many as the waves, but its testimony is one as the sea. It deals all
   along with the same subject and it consists, as you observe, of a vast
   number of verses, some of which are very similar to others. And yet
   throughout the 176 stanzas, the same thought is not repeated--there is
   always a shade of difference even when the color of the thought appears
   to be the same. Some have said that in it there is an absence of
   variety, but that is merely the observation of those who have not
   studied it. I have weighed each word and looked at each syllable with
   lengthened meditation--and I bear witness that this sacred song has no
   tautology in it, but is charmingly varied from beginning to end! Its
   variety is that of a kaleidoscope--from a few objects, a boundless
   variation is produced. In the kaleidoscope you look once and there is a
   strangely beautiful form. You shift the glass a very little and another
   shape, equally delicate and beautiful, is before your eyes. So it is
   here. What you see is the same and yet never the same--it is the same
   Truth of God, but it is always placed in a new light, put in a new
   connection, or in some way or other invested with freshness!

   I do not believe that any other subject but a heavenly one would have
   allowed of such a Psalm being written upon it, for the things of this
   world are soon spun out. Neither could such a handling have been given
   to the subject by any mind less than Divine--Inspiration, alone, can
   account for the fullness and freshness of this Psalm.

   The best compositions of men are soon exhausted. They are cisterns and
   not springing fountains. You enjoy them very much at the first
   acquaintance and you think you could hear them a hundred times over,
   but you could not--you soon find them wearisome. Very speedily a man
   eats too much honey. Even children, at last, are cloyed with sweets.
   All human books grow stale after a time--but with the Word of God the
   desire to know increases and the more you know of it the less you think
   you know! The Book grows upon you. As you dive into its depths, you
   have a growing perception of the infinity which remains unexplored. You
   are still sighing to know more of that which it is your bliss to know.

   This wonderful Psalm, from its great length, helps us to wonder at the
   immensity of Scripture. From its keeping to one subject it helps us to
   adore the unity of Scripture, for it is but one. Yet, from the many
   turns it gives to the same thought, it helps you to see the variety of
   Scripture. How manifold are the words and thoughts of God! In His Word,
   just as in creation, the wonders of His skill are manifold, indeed.

   I very greatly admire in this Psalm the singular amalgam that we have
   of testimony, of prayer and of praise. In one verse the Psalmist bears
   witness. In a second verse he praises. In a third verse he prays. It is
   an incense made up of many spices, but they are wonderfully compounded
   and worked together so as to form one perfect sweetness. You would not
   like to have one-third of the Psalm composed of prayer--marked up to
   the 60th verse, for instance, and then another part made up exclusively
   of praise and yet a third portion of unmixed testimony. It is best to
   have all these Divinely-sweet ingredients intermixed and worked into a
   sacred unity, as you have them in this thrice-hallowed Psalm. My text
   is a prayer, but there is testimony in it and there is a measure of
   praise in it, too. In this single text there is the same mixing up of
   sweet perfumes as there is in the whole Psalm! May God give us Grace to
   be in such a state of heart that we may enter into the prayer of the
   text! Wherein it bears grateful testimony, may we be able to join in
   that testimony! Wherein it praises God, may we also extol Him with all
   our hearts!

   There are only two things that I can attempt to speak about at this
   time. I cannot bring forth from so rich a casket all its treasures. The
   first is, the prayer--"Remember the Word unto Your servant, upon which
   You have caused me to

   hope." And, secondly, the plea of the prayer. It is a three-fold plea,
   as I think--it is Your word, I am Your servant and You have caused me
   to hope in it. Come, Holy Spirit and bless our meditation!

   I. First, then, THE PRAYER. David prays, "Remember the Word unto Your
   servant."

   "Remember." That prayer is spoken after the manner of men, for God
   cannot forget. It would be a very low conception of His Omniscience if
   we imagined that anything passed away from His knowledge. We see things
   as they come one after the other in a procession, but God is in a
   position from which He sees all at once. A man traveling through
   England sees a portion at a time, but he that looks at a map sees the
   whole country present before him then and there. God sees everything as
   now. Nothing is past, nothing is future to Him. He sees things that are
   not as though they were and the things that shall be as though they had
   been! God does not forget and, therefore, the text speaks only in a
   certain restricted sense and must be understood after the manner of
   men. Beloved, after what other manner could we speak? God has not
   taught us to speak after the manner of God! How could we? We are not
   Divine. There is a language above which Paul heard, of which he said
   that it was not lawful for a man to utter. Men must speak after the
   manner of men--and each sort of a man must speak after his own manner.

   Do not, therefore, let us censure a young Brother when he utters a
   prayer which is very natural from him, though it sounds strange to us.
   Let us not condemn him because his language is not strictly accurate,
   for though it may jar upon our ears, the Lord may be well pleased with
   it. You are intelligent, educated and a full-grown Christian--and the
   childish language of a beginner may jar upon your ears--but you must
   bear the jarring, for the Lord bears much more from you and others of
   His children. If the language is natural to the new convert and flows
   from his heart, he speaks after the manner and according to the manner
   of men, which manner is always faulty. You do no better if judged from
   God's point of view. We are far too apt to make men offenders for
   words. Certainly God might make the best of His servants offenders for
   the best of their words if He pleased.

   In such a case as this He might have caught up His servant David, and
   said sharply, "Remember? Do you say 'Remember' to Me? Do you imagine
   that I can forget? And do you take it upon yourself to speak unto the
   eternal God and say to Him, 'Remember'?" Yet there is no fault found
   with that prayer. On the contrary, it is a prayer that the Holy Spirit,
   Himself, inspired and the Holy Spirit has recorded it and put it in
   this Psalm as a pattern, that we may pray after the same fashion. I
   guarantee you that if our prayers were gauged according to the standard
   of language which is used by angels before the eternal Throne of God,
   they would seem very, very poor things, full of faulty expressions. But
   God does not measure them so, for though we speak after the manner of
   men, it is much to our comfort that God loves the manner of men, for it
   is the manner of His Only-Begotten Son! It is thus that Jesus spoke and
   the Lord, in our feeble tones, which in themselves might be open to
   censure, hears the language of the Son of Man and for His dear sake He
   does not condemn our speaking after the manner of men.

   He permits us so to speak, for He, Himself, knows how to read between
   the lines. He takes the meaning of our groans and tears--and when we
   fail to express ourselves suitably in words--He reads our hearts and
   accepts our secret meanings. I think I am warranted in making these
   remarks upon this expression of the prayer, "Remember the Word unto
   Your servant," and I hope they will furnish comfort to those of you who
   have very slender gifts of utterance when you approach the Mercy Seat.

   I do not, however, conceal from myself the fact that it is language
   which has some trace of unbelief in it. Perhaps no unbelief was in the
   Psalmist's heart at the time, but it is language fit for the lips of
   one who has not always been at all times a firm and unstaggering
   Believer. It looks as if the thought that the Lord might forget had
   crossed the pleader's soul. It looks as if, even though it had not been
   tolerated--for faith had cast it out--yet the suggestion had knocked at
   the door of the mind, saying, "My way is hid from the Lord and my
   judgment is passed over from my God." We do not say to another person,
   "Remember," unless there is at least the apprehension of the
   possibility of forgetfulness. David could not quite mean, when he came
   to think it over, that he really thought that God would forget, but we
   usually speak in haste when we speak in unbelief--and then we do not
   measure what we say.

   Unbelief is the hurry of the soul. A regenerate soul sitting still and
   correctly weighing the whole question between the eternal faithfulness
   of God and the passing troubles of life, cannot be long in coming to a
   confident conclusion. There is a hurry about our cares and
   anxieties--and in our hurry we are apt to rush to the foolish
   conclusion that the Lord may forget us. O poor worried child, if you
   are so foolish as to allow so absurd a fear to enter your bosom, your
   Father would

   sooner that you should express your apprehension to Him than hide it in
   your heart! A smothered fire is always dangerous. Rake it out! If you
   have the suspicion that you may be forgotten, pray right honestly,
   "Remember the Word unto Your servant." These prayers are placed in
   Scripture on purpose that they may be expressions of what we are half
   afraid to express. The dread is really there and God sees it--and He
   tutors us to give it vent. With groans that cannot be uttered, His
   Spirit helps us! But sometimes He helps us another way, namely, by
   helping us to utter those groans. He encourages us to express what at
   first we dared not utter. So we are helped to say, "Remember the Word,"
   though we blush to think that it ever should have occurred to us that
   God could forget!

   Let us look at the prayer again--"Remember the Word unto Your servant."
   The intention of him who prayed this prayer was to ask God to remember
   His Word by fulfilling it. That is the real meaning of it, as when a
   servant sometimes says, "I hope you will remember me." Yes, we will
   remember him, but that is not quite what he means. Those who speak thus
   hope that we will give them some token of remembrance--some practical
   proof that we remember them! So does this prayer mean, "Lord, let me
   not only be in Your thoughts, but let me be in Your acts! You have
   promised to supply my needs; remember me by supplying my needs. You
   have promised to forgive my sin; remember me by giving me a sense of
   pardon. You have promised to help Your servant and give me strength
   according to my day--remember Your Word by fulfilling Your Word and
   granting strength to me according as I have need of it."

   Now, Beloved, this is very legitimate praying. In fact, it is the very
   essence of prayer to put God in mind of what He has promised. You can
   never pray an inch beyond the tether of the promise with any assurance
   of being heard. For my own part, I always feel on sure ground with God
   when I can quote His own Words. I feel, then, that I may ask boldly and
   I need not put in, "If it is Your will," and those other reservations,
   because if His promise were not His will, He would not have spoken it.
   There is the promise in His Word and I know that He put it there as the
   index of what He intended to give and to do--and as an invitation to
   His child to plead with Him about those very things which He has so
   indicated and say to Him--"Now, Lord, do as You have said." Therefore I
   follow the line the Lord has marked out for me and I expect Him to do
   as He has said.

   It is a grand thing, when you are pleading with any man, to bring his
   own handwriting before him. You have, then, a hold upon him of the
   firmest kind. You have his promise in black and white and he cannot run
   back from that. The intent of God in giving us the promise, as it were,
   in black and white, in His own handwriting, is that He may be enquired
   of by us to do those very things which He has engaged Himself to do.
   Ungodly men cannot make out what prayer is. "Do you suppose," they say,
   "that you can change the will of God?" We reply to them--We never
   supposed anything of the kind, but we suppose that our prayer is the
   shadow of a coming blessing. As "coming events cast their shadows
   before them," so, when God is about to bless us, He moves us to pray
   for that very blessing! If it were possible to shut out the man's
   shadow, we could not expect the man to enter! And if it were possible
   to shut out prayer from our soul, we should feel, at the same time,
   that we had shut out the blessing.

   Our Lord is pleased to duplicate His mercies. The blessing itself is
   great, but it is an equal blessing to be made to pray for it! It
   frequently does a child more good to get a favor from his father than
   the favor itself brings him. If the father sets him some little task to
   do, if he says, "Now, my child, prove to me that this will be a good
   thing," the mental exercise, the pleading, the asking may be as useful
   in the child's education as the thing for which he asks. I say, again,
   our God doubles His blessings by making His servants pray for them!
   Prayer, then, is nothing more than this--my believ-ingly remembering
   that God has promised a certain blessing and then my reminding Him that
   He has promised it. It is not supposable that He will forget, but He
   would have me act towards Him as if He might forget in order that by
   such an exercise I, myself, may come to value the blessing and may be
   stirred up to importunity and fervor. The prayer is a right one when we
   say, "Remember the Word unto Your servant." It is, in fact, what God
   always intends prayer to be--a reminding our heavenly Father of His
   promises.

   Sometimes this word, "remember," is very fitly used, because it seems
   to the mind that God is likely to remember something else which would
   be to our loss. Suppose you and I have been walking contrary to
   God--and sometimes His people do walk contrary to Him--then the Lord
   may remember our sins and He may begin to deal with us in a way of
   chastisement and lay us very low. Then is the time to come in with this
   prayer--"Remember the Word unto Your servant."

   It is as much as to say, "Albeit that my sins clamor in Your ears and
   cry out that You should smite me, yet remember Your Word of promise, of
   pardon, of pity, of power--and let me live. I admit, my gracious Lord,
   that if You do listen to the voice of my actions, they proclaim me to
   be most ungrateful. If You do listen to my feebleness in prayer, it
   will accuse me of lack of earnestness and, therefore, You may be
   inclined to deny it to me. All my forgetfulnesses, shortcomings and
   transgressions cry out against me--if You hear these, my Lord, You may
   well reach for the rod and smite me again and again, but oh, be deaf to
   these voices and hear only the music of Your own Word!--

   'Not my sins, O Lord, remember,

   Not Your own avenger be!

   But, for Your great tender mercies, Savior,

   God, remember me!'

   Remember the Word, and forget my words. Remember the Word whereon You
   have caused me to hope and forget the things wherein I have caused You
   to be angry. I know You might well remember my sins, as You did the
   sins of Israel in the wilderness, and say, 'They shall not enter into
   My rest,' but I beseech You, do not! You might hear my provocations and
   my unbeliefs and say, 'You shall die in the wilderness,' but, O my God,
   as Moses pleaded Your Covenant with You, so do I plead with You, not
   for my sake, but for Your Word's sake! Not for my sake, but for Your
   promise' sake, and Your Covenant's sake! I beseech You, fail not Your
   servant, but bear with me, still, till You shall bring me into the rest
   which You have promised me."

   You see, then, the singular appropriateness of the expression, though
   at first it might seem to be a questionable one. "Remember the Word
   unto Your servant." Brothers and Sisters, the great mercy to us is that
   God has a very strong memory. Towards His people He has a memory so
   strong that He has said, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that
   she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may
   forget; yet will I not forget you." What a strong memory that is which
   is stronger than the memory of a mother towards the babe at her breast!
   Oh, blessed memory of God! "Yet will I not forget you. Behold, I have
   engraved you," He says, "upon the palms of My hands." There is no
   forgetting a thing that is written on the palms of your hands! You
   cannot do any work but you see it there! And God cannot do any work
   without seeing His children's names. He can do no work of judgment
   without seeing their names and, therefore, He spares His people. He can
   do no work of bounty but what their names are on His hands and,
   therefore, He says, "Surely, blessing I will bless you, and multiplying
   I will multiply you." His hands are branded with the names of His
   beloved and it is not possible that He can forget them! The Lord has a
   loving memory. He cannot forget His own. Think of Words like these--"I
   remember you, the love of your espousals." "O Israel, you shall not be
   forgotten of Me." "The Lord your God will not forsake you, nor forget
   the Covenant of your fathers which He swore unto them."

   And then, our God has a long memory. How many ages was it before Christ
   came and yet His coming was always on the Lord's mind! The fullness of
   time had not yet arrived and yet the Lord did not forget it, for no
   sooner did the clock strike than that very night--they did not wait
   till the morning--a multitude of the heavenly host recognized the sign
   and their praise flowed forth in a cataract of delightful song which
   filled the midnight air! They sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and
   on earth peace, good will toward men." Christ was born at the very
   moment when God decreed that He should be born. The weeks were ended,
   the dispensation closed and lo, He came! God has a very exact and
   punctual memory. Remember when Israel came out of Egypt--"the same day"
   did the Lord lead them forth! The Lord glories in the exactness of the
   hour. I know some persons who would never leave a bill unpaid for a day
   and, as for their rent, they are ready before twelve o'clock strikes
   and they say, "My landlord has never had to wait. I was always at the
   door to the very moment." You shall find that God, though He never is
   before His time, yet never is too late. He has a very exact memory--a
   memory about little things and about moments of time--and He keeps
   touch with His servants even to the jots and tittles of the Word which
   He has given.

   He has, Beloved, a very gracious memory towards His people because it
   is strong in certain matters, but in love He makes it very weak in
   other points. He says, "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember
   no more." He has forgotten their transgressions and cast all their sins
   into the depths of the sea! All the strength of the Lord's memory that
   might have gone in the direction of noting our evil deeds runs the
   other way! He is all the more powerful to remember us for good because
   He will never remember our evil as long as He lives. Beloved, the Lord
   thinks upon you to do you good. Speaking after the manner of men, He
   schemes, plots and plans to do His people good! He says that He will
   bless us with His whole heart and with His whole soul. That is a
   wonderful expression! Let me give you the precise text, "Yes, I will

   rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land
   assuredly with My whole heart and with my whole soul." Think of God
   blessing His people with His whole heart, rejoicing over them to do
   them good! "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous" and the heart
   of the Lord is occupied with the cases of His own people. Blessed be
   His dear name, we have very much to appeal to when we pray, "Remember
   the Word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope."

   II. The time flies too quickly and, therefore, let me mention, in the
   second place, THE PLEAS WHICH THE PALMIST USES. The first is, "Remember
   the Word." It is a blessed plea--the Word--for by the Word upon which
   God had caused His servant to hope is meant God's Word. He never makes
   His people to hope in anybody else's word. It is in the Lord's Word
   that the hope of His people finds support. Let us consider the power,
   the dignity, the glory of that Word. This is the greatest of all
   grounds of assurance!

   I have already said that you cannot have a greater hold upon a man than
   when you have his own word to plead. "Remember the Word." God is
   Sovereign. He has the right to do absolutely as He wills. "Who shall
   stay His hand, or say unto Him, What are You doing?" But God--let us
   speak with reverence--when He gives a promise, binds Himself with cords
   of His own making. He binds Himself down to such and such a course when
   He says that such and such a thing shall be. Therefore, when you grasp
   the promise, you get a hold on God. Wondrous fact! Marvelous that we
   should be able, as it were, to move the arm that moves the stars and to
   hold the King who holds the waters in the hollow of His hand! If You
   have His promise for it, God must give you the blessing--God can sooner
   cease to be than cease to be true. "He is not a man, that He should
   lie, neither the son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and
   shall He not do it?"

   There is nothing on earth, there is nothing in Heaven half so steadfast
   as the simple, naked Word of God. How mighty is this plea, when you
   present before the Lord His own sacred Word! It is a royal Word. We do
   not expect kings to play fast and loose with words. They say, "If honor
   were banished from all the rest of mankind, it ought still to find a
   refuge in the breast of kings." But what shall I say of, "the King
   eternal, immortal, invisible"? Will He lie? Do You suspect the one
   "Blessed and only Potentate," the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? How
   you insult His Majesty if you dream that He can falsify His solemn
   pledge and break His Word! "Where the word of a king is, there is
   power," because there is faithfulness at the back of it.

   But it is more than a royal Word, Brothers and Sisters. It is an
   irrevocable Word. Man has to eat his words, sometimes, and unsay his
   say. He would perform his engagement, but he cannot. It is not that he
   is unfaithful, but that he is unable. Now this is never so with God.
   His Word never returns to Him void. Go, find the snowflakes winging
   their way like white doves back to Heaven! Go, find the drops of rain
   rising upward like diamonds flung up from the hand of a mighty man to
   find a lodging place in the cloud from which they fell! Until the snow
   and the rain return to Heaven and mock the ground which they promised
   to bless, the Word of God shall never return to Him void! What He has
   promised shall be and what He has revealed shall surely be
   accomplished, for be sure of this--God has never spoken in secret, in a
   dark place of the earth, so as to revoke a single Word which He has
   spoken aforetime. He has never disannulled one of His ordinances, or
   cancelled one of His promises. The everlasting decree stands firm as
   the Throne of Jehovah and the promise is as unfailing as the decree.

   Not only is it an irrevocable Word, but it is an almighty Word.
   Recollect, Brethren, that by the Word of God were the heavens made and
   all the hosts of them! And it is by His Word that all things consist.
   You and I are most foolish when we want something more to rest upon
   than the Word of God. My great trouble in battling with anxious
   enquirers is that they demand needless evidences and cry out for marks
   and tokens. And I have to put it to them very plainly--"Then I suppose
   God is a liar and you will not believe Him unless He brings evidence to
   support His Word. You are obliged to run out of doors to find proof of
   what He says and you will not believe it unless you get that proof." It
   is too much so with us. I tell you, Sirs, that the bare Word of God is
   better than all the proofs, evidences, signs and marks that could be
   heaped together throughout eternity! And what is more, I will say that
   if all the marks, tokens, signs, evidences, promises and oaths of men
   all said, "No"--if God says, "Yes," His, "Yes," surpasses all the
   "Noes" and all the other denials that could possibly be gathered
   together!

   Our faith ought to give God credit for this, for the Lord God cannot be
   otherwise than true--we must not suppose such a thing! Unlimited faith
   is no more than God deserves. He cannot err or fail. "The heavens are
   not clean in His sight and His angels He charged with folly." And He
   charged them with it not without reason, for all things compared with

   Him are folly and the greatest of intellects are but fools compared
   with God! With Him there cannot possibly be a failure or a falsehood!
   Oh, that we had power to grasp His Word as it ought to be grasped! Our
   hope lies there.

   Are you hungry tonight? Has it even come to this? And have you God's
   promise that you shall be fed? Then you shall be fed! You shall be fed.
   The devil comes to you and he says, "Yes, you may be fed, but you must
   do a wrong action in order to get the food." He speaks to the Son of
   God, again, and he says, "Command that these stones be made bread."
   Listen not to him, but believe God! Now is your time to glorify God. A
   faith that can believe over a hungry belly is faith, indeed! Yet it is
   only such a faith as is due to God. God will abundantly justify all the
   trust we repose in Him. Tell the devil, "Man shall not live by bread
   alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." There
   is nutriment in God's Word! There is everything in that Word of God!
   The creature owes its power to bless and nourish to the will of God.
   And if the creature is absent, the will of God can still achieve its
   purpose by His Word without the creature! I put this in a very strong
   light, but I am certain that I go no further than God's Word will
   warrant. Oh for Grace to plead the promise and to rest upon it!

   Beloved, when you are praying in time of trouble, what a blessed plea
   for you, "Lord, remember the Word! You have said in Your Word, 'When
   you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the
   rivers, they shall not overflow you."' He will remember it! You may
   forget the Word of the Lord, but He does not--and when you plead it,
   the answer of peace shall come to your soul--"I do earnestly remember
   you still." Though the Lord chastens you, yet He does not forget you.
   His chastisement is proof that He thinks of you. He will not set you as
   Admah, nor make you as Ze-boim, for everlasting love cannot forget the
   objects of its choice. He chooses us for His love and loves us for His
   choice. Therefore, plead well His Word.

   The second plea lies in the words, "Your servant." "Remember the Word
   unto Your servant." A man is bound to keep his word to anybody and
   everybody, but sometimes there may be special persons with whom a
   failure world be peculiarly dishonorable. Among the rest, a man must be
   true to his servant.

   Notice, first, "Remember the Word unto Your servant," means this,
   "Lord, it is Your Grace that has made me Your servant. I was once an
   outcast. I was once Your enemy. Lord, I did not come to You, but You
   did come to me. I did not seek employment at Your hands--I was too
   wicked for that, but You did seek me. It was Your Grace that made me
   Your servant. Now, Lord, have You brought me to be Your servant to put
   me to shame? You have done the greater thing for me, will You not do
   the less? To take me into Your service was great condescension on Your
   part--will You not grant me my rations? Will You not find me my livery?
   Will You not be gracious to me?" This is good pleading, is it not?

   Again, here is a further plea. A servant has a claim upon his master.
   We dare say it very reverently, that we have a claim upon God when we
   are His servants. Of course, that claim is only such as He allows and
   it is founded alone on Grace. But still it is a strong plea with our
   gracious Master. He was thought to be an evil man who left his servant
   to perish when he was sick. He could do no more work and so his cruel
   owner left him by the way to die. No good master would do that. Lord,
   will You do that with me? When I grow sick, will You forsake me? When I
   grow old, will You desert me? When I cannot speak in Your name any
   longer, will You disown me? When I cannot stand any longer by reason of
   feebleness, will You throw me on one side? When I lie gasping upon my
   death bed, will You say, "I have had his best days, but I will leave
   him now"? The supposition would be blasphemous! It cannot be. O my
   Brothers and Sisters, our God will not leave us! When the old man's
   heart cries, "O God, You have taught me from my youth and, up to now I
   have declared Your wondrous works! Now, also, when I am old and
   grey-headed, O God, forsake me not." The Lord answers, "Even to your
   old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made,
   and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." Our heavenly
   Lord is not like that Amalekite master who left his Egyptian servant in
   the field because he was ill. Let us not imagine such a thing!

   There is this further plea. If a man sets his servants such and such a
   work to do, is he not bound to find them the means of doing it? Only a
   cruel task-master compels men to make bricks and gives them no straw to
   mingle with the clay. We are not dealing with Pharaoh, remember--we are
   dealing with Jehovah who acts on quite another principle. Beloved, the
   Lord never sent any one of His soldiers to warfare at His own charges.
   How frequently, when my Master sends me to the front, I have to cry to
   Him, "Lord, grant me fresh supplies! Lord, send on the ammunition! I
   must have powder. I must have funds and Grace and guidance! Lord, send
   fresh men! Fill up the ranks as one after another falls on the

   field!"

   I find Him always ready with His reinforcements and His succors and His
   stores. There is no failure of commissariat with God. He takes good
   care of His fighting servants, His suffering servants, His plowing
   servants and His sowing servants--and so you would expect Him to do. A
   good master will not set his servant a hard task beyond his strength
   and then refuse to lift a hand to help him. That would be far from the
   God of infinite mercy. Now, dear Sister, you that have begun to teach
   in the Sunday school and feel that you are hardly equal to it, the Lord
   will help you. Go on. Do not give up. You that have been trying to
   preach in the villages, but who do not see any good coming of it and
   are half inclined to run away, stand to your guns. Cry to the Lord for
   more strength and He will help you. And let this be the plea, "Lord,
   remember the Word unto Your servant, for I am Your servant, Lord. I
   desire to be wholly Yours. I give myself to You-- body, soul and
   spirit. And my cry is, 'Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the
   horns of the altar.' I am Your servant. My ear is bored to the doorpost
   and I would never quit Your service, or labor for another."

   You remember what the old man-servant said, in the olden time, when his
   master angrily said, "We must part, John." "I hope not, Sir. Where are
   you going?" The servant had no intention to go anywhere! "Ah," said his
   master, "I do not intend to employ you any longer." The old servant is
   said to have answered, "Sir, if you have not a good servant, I know
   that I have a good master, and I do not mean to leave him. I cannot
   think of going away." It is a grand thing to feel that you are not
   going away from God--that you have such a good Master that you are
   going to cling to the posts of His door--and if He puts You out by the
   front door, You mean to come in at the back! Let the Lord do what He
   pleases, I am forever bound to belong to Him, only! Brother, resolve
   that if you cannot preach for your Lord, you will hear for Him! And if
   You cannot be a leader of the Church, you will be a follower,
   somewhere, but you will serve your Lord forever. This, then, is one of
   the pleas. "Remember the Word unto Your servant."

   The last plea I shall offer but a few words upon. "Upon which You have
   caused me to hope." Lord, I have been hoping on Your Word and I have
   acted upon that hope. I believe the Word to be true and I have pledged
   the truth of it. That is good pleading. A man has given me a bill--not
   a transaction I ever have anything to do with--but suppose such a
   thing. Suppose I go and discount it. I say, "My Friend, you must honor
   that bill because I have received the cash for it. Do not fail to meet
   it." It is as if we said to our God--"Lord, You have caused me to hope
   upon this promise of Yours. I have been raising present comfort upon
   the credit of it. I felt so sure that it would be fulfilled that I have
   taken it into the market and I have been living upon its proceeds by
   hoping on it." See how David went and discounted the promissory
   note--he encouraged himself by it. Turn to the verses which follow my
   text and you will see. "This is my comfort in my affliction: for Your
   Word has quickened me." He had been comforting himself by the promise.
   And if the promise failed, that comfort would turn out to be a sheer
   delusion. Will the Lord delude those who trust Him?

   Read the next verse--"The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet
   have I not declined from Your Law." I stuck to Your doctrine, Your
   precept, Your promise. I declared Your Word to be true--will You not
   keep it and so vindicate my confident assurance? "I remembered Your
   judgments of old, O Lord; and have comforted myself." I have thus
   already derived strength and establishment out of Your promises. Will
   You allow the enemy to tell me that I have deceived myself? Will You
   revoke Your declarations? It cannot be! What is more, "Your statutes
   have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." I have been singing
   Your promise over and over. I feel so sure of it that, before it has
   been fulfilled, I have been singing about it! Lord, shall I be made a
   fool of by having sung for nothing?

   Again, "I have remembered Your name, O Lord, in the night, and have
   kept Your Law." I rose in the night to bless You for Your promises. I
   sat up in my bed and clapped my hands with delight because You have
   given this promise and laid it home to my heart. Shall it not come
   true? Ah, Beloved! You may rest assured of this--Your faith never went
   beyond the goodness of Your God and it never will! If You believe great
   things of Him, He will do greater things than You believe! He will do
   exceeding abundantly above what You ask, or even think!

   This is wonderfully blessed pleading. "You have caused me to hope;
   therefore, O Lord, remember Your Word!" When I read how God kept His
   promise to His people of old, I said, "He will keep it to me." And when
   I remembered how He had kept other promises to me in past times, I
   said, "He will keep this, also." His former dealings have induced us to
   trust in Him. If He had not been so gracious to us on former occasions,
   we would never have expected to be heard this time. But His love in
   times past compels us to trust Him now. "Lord, You have caused me to
   hope: my hope is of Your creating, nourishing and perfecting. I am
   justified in hoping in You on this occasion from what You have done for
   me in days gone by. This hope of mine is the work of Your Holy Spirit
   in my soul. Can Your Holy Spirit make a poor

   soul hope for that which He will never receive? Can Your Holy Spirit
   tantalize me by exciting a hope which is never to be fulfilled? You
   have caused me to hope. It was Your Word and I was Your servant, and I
   believe Your Word, and Your Spirit helped me to go from faith to hope!
   And now, when the windows of hope are opened, will You not be pleased
   to send in a messenger of Grace and peace?" O needy child of God, go
   home and plead in this fashion and you shall not return empty!

   Have you come into a position from which there seems to be no escape?
   Do not ask to escape, but cry, "Remember the Word unto Your servant,
   upon which You have caused me to hope."

   You, poor sinner over yonder, that has never found Christ, think of
   this gracious Word, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out."
   Lay hold on that loving declaration and hope in it! And then say,
   "Lord, remember the Word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused
   me to hope." The Lord bless you all and give you a joyful hope in His
   sure promise, for His name's sake! Amen and amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Loving Persuasion

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 26, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Persuading them concerning Jesus." Acts 28:23.

   WHEREVER Paul is, he has but one errand and whenever Paul preaches, he
   has but one subject. Once at Athens, when he addressed the Areopagus,
   he seemed to wander a little from his main point and no special good
   followed, but this experience bound him all the faster to the Cross,
   for he afterwards said to the Corinthians, "I determined not to know
   anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The Cross of
   Christ was his one theme. He henceforth hammered on the head of this
   one nail. Whatever faculty, ability and power he had, he turned its
   whole current into this one channel and cried, "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." Brethren, we have not
   strength enough for a dozen things. We have not even strength enough
   for two. What little vigor we have, let us use it all in one
   direction--let us say, "For me to live is Christ." You could not have
   dropped into Paul's lodging at any time during the two years that he
   was at Rome before the emperor liberated him, without hearing him
   preach of the "things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. Every arrow
   in his quiver was aimed at the one target and he knew how to hit the
   white of it each time. "This one thing I do," he said. His motto
   was--All for Jesus, and for Jesus only.

   This one topic the Apostle brought forward in different ways. When
   addressing the chief men of the Jews in Rome, observe that he
   expounded, testified and persuaded. These three methods were necessary
   among the people of those days and they are the wisest that can be
   adopted to bring men to Christ even now. We must expound., set forth,
   explain, make clear the Gospel. We must tell men what the Word of God
   means in the plainest possible language, for they need to know what it
   is that the Revelation from Heaven has really declared. The more of
   true exposition the better! We must also testify. We must bear witness
   to the effect which the Gospel has had upon our heart and life. The
   telling out of our personal experience is a means of Grace to our
   hearers. Paul was known to describe his own conversion. He told the
   story of how the Lord appeared unto him on the way to Damascus and he
   did this so often that Luke and others, who were his companions, must
   have heard it several times. Indeed, it was a tale so worth the telling
   that none could weary of hearing it!

   Paul knew that personal witness-bearing has a great weight upon the
   minds of men and, therefore, he was not afraid of being accused of
   egotism, for he knew that he did not preach himself, but Christ Jesus
   the Lord--and the narrative of his conversion was not intended to honor
   himself at all, but to glorify that blessed Christ who out of Heaven
   had spoken to him and called him to be a chosen vessel to bear His Word
   to the Gentiles. There is much force in such a personal testimony. Oh,
   that you and I, after having explained the Gospel, may always be able
   to tell out something from our own experience which will prove it! Men
   love, when they hear of a medicine, to meet with a case of care and, in
   the same way, when they hear of religion, they desire to hear from
   persons like themselves what that religion has done for them. Brethren,
   we should speak of Jesus in a happy, grateful, earnest manner and
   commend him as a Savior to our fellow sinners. Yet this was not all,
   our Apostle was not satisfied simply to expound and testify--his heart
   was full of love to his countrymen and, therefore, he persuaded them.
   He entreated, he besought, he implored his hearers to turn to the Lord
   Jesus

   Christ!

   As Paul was speaking to Jews, he fetched the arguments of his
   persuasion from their own Holy Books. I have no doubt that he had
   spread out on the table before him the Books of Moses and the various
   rolls of the Prophets. To these he continually referred his Jewish
   friends. We cannot, this morning, go into that argument, neither is
   there need, for you are not Israelites and you are already well
   acquainted with that mode of argument. Paul must have been a master in
   that

   line of things. I think I hear him now explaining to them concerning
   Jesus as He appeared in Melchisidec--that was a wide subject! Hear him
   open up to them the justification of Abraham by faith and then the
   allegory of Sarah and Hagar and the two Covenants. I should have liked
   to have heard him speak of Isaac and Ishmael, and of Jacob and Esau and
   the electing love of God as seen in those memorable instances!

   With what rapture would Paul speak of the sacrifices, reminding them
   that, "without shedding of blood there is no remission," and pointing
   them to the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than that of
   Abel! How he would then open up to them the meaning of the daily
   offerings, the mystery of the Day of Atonement, the sacred teaching of
   the entering in of the High Priest within the veil! How earnestly would
   he remind his brethren that the continual repetition of the sacrifices
   was a sure evidence that they had not made the consciences of the
   offerers clean from a sense of sin, or they would have ceased to be
   offered! How heartily would he direct their minds to that one Sacrifice
   which Jesus presented once and for all when He bowed His head in death!
   I think I can hear him turning to that memorable passage in Isaiah
   which so much engaged the attention of the Ethiopian eunuch and,
   opening up to his audience the Person and suffering of the Lord Jesus
   who was led as a lamb to the slaughter for our sakes--and for us was
   stricken, smitten and afflicted.

   With such arguments, men who believed those Books to be Inspired ought
   to have been convinced! It is clear that Jesus of Nazareth is the
   Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. Had not their hearts been so
   gross, their eyes so blind and their ears so dull, they would have
   believed in Jesus! But as it was, many of the Jewish leaders went away
   in a pet, quarrelling with those who believed and angry with Paul. None
   are such bitter enemies of the Cross as those who, by a firm resolve,
   determine to be blind to its Glory and dead to its power.

   Thus Paul, you see, in his pleading, adapted himself to his audience.
   He had acquired the knack of being all things to all men that be might
   save some. In pleading with Israel, for whose salvation his heart's
   desire and prayer always rose to Heaven, he followed the wisest and
   most hopeful course. He argued from what they believed--he urged the
   Truths of God they already knew as a reason why they should admit
   another Truth or, rather, let me say he showed them that the Gospel of
   Jesus was involved and contained within those Truths of God which were
   assuredly accepted among them! He spent the whole day at this, but at
   this time I shall not pursue his line of reasoning because it is not
   needed among you-- you have need of persuasion of another sort.

   It would ill become me to beat the air, or exhibit before you a mimic
   combat with an absent adversary. No, my Friends, I have before me
   another sort of people whose condition needs another treatment. I long
   for your immediate conversion! With earnest prayer I have come here,
   seeking with tears and entreaties, to win men from destruction! Others
   have joined me in supplication and, therefore, I look to the Holy
   Spirit for His gracious work, that my hearers may be convicted of sin
   and led to Jesus!

   I. LET ME FIRST DESCRIBE THOSE WHO WE WOULD PERSUADE. I will so picture
   you that some of you will see yourselves as in a mirror. I shall not
   talk to a people far away, but to you who sit before me this day.

   I would persuade those persons who believe the Truth, notionally, and
   yet do not receive it in their hearts. It seems a strange thing that
   men should believe and yet not believe! This peculiar form of unbelief
   is current among us at this day. It is strange that men believe the
   Bible and even profess to believe it all--and yet they act as if it
   were all a dream! If we preach the Deity of Christ, it is an easy task,
   for they never thought of questioning it. If we proclaim the need of
   the Holy Spirit in regeneration, they are agreed, for they never
   doubted it. Whatever doctrine it is that we can prove by the Word of
   God, they bow before it! They are not guilty of skepticism. Alas, they
   hardly give the matter thought enough to observe any difficulties!
   Avoiding the whirlpool of questioning, they run upon the rock of
   indifference. Their belief holds the Truth as spices and linen preserve
   a mummy. The Gospel is to them a dead monarch, honorably interred in
   the sarcophagus of their reverence. It has no more power over them than
   if they disbelieved it! As a medicine retained upon the druggist's
   shelf has no effect upon the body, so is the Gospel stowed away in the
   minds of many so as to have no result in their lives!

   This is a sad misuse of Divine Revelation. It cannot have been sent to
   us to be without effect. O my Hearers, if you believe that Jesus is the
   Savior, why is He not your Savior? If you believe that repentance and
   faith bring salvation, why have you not repented and believed? If you
   believe that there is a God that hears prayer, why do you not pray? If
   you know that you must be born again, how is it you are content without
   the new birth? How is it that with regard to the hearing of the Word of
   God you come and you go, not once nor twice, but year after year and
   yet you are unmoved and

   unchanged? Age steals over some of you and finds you not an inch in
   advance of what you were in your youth! If you did not believe the Word
   of God, I could understand your conduct--but if you do believe it, why
   do you not receive it practically into your hearts?

   If you were awakened by a cry of fire! and you were sure that your own
   house was burning, I should expect to see you hurrying from the flame.
   I could understand you keeping to your bed if you were persuaded that
   the cry was the mere idle noise of boys in the street, but if you
   believed it to be a real alarm, I should be perplexed if I saw you
   seeking a little more sleep! If you were told that you had a disease
   which would soon bring you to your grave and that a certain physician
   could work a speedy cure--if you did not believe the report, I would
   expect that you would suffer in the patience of despair. But if you did
   believe in the reputation of the physician and in the cures which he
   had worked, I would not be able to understand you if you did not go to
   him and seek relief! O Sirs, how is it that you are willing to continue
   in sin when Jesus is able to save unto the uttermost? How strangely you
   act! Alas, human nature has become monstrous! It is false to its own
   instinct of self-preservation and acts in a suicidal manner! Oh that
   you were wise! If Jesus tells you the Truth of God, why do you not
   believe Him? If Jesus is Himself the Truth of God, why do you not
   receive Him? Why do you need persuading to a course so proper, so
   reasonable?

   Many need persuading who intend, soon, to practice what they have
   believed, but the time has not fully come. You have a resolve in your
   heart that before long you will turn to Christ, but the unhappy thing
   is that you have for many a day retained this resolve and it has grown
   moldy within your bosoms! When we met you as a child, you meant to love
   the Lord. When we conversed with you as young men and women you were
   very hopeful and your parents felt that their prayers would soon be
   heard. You seemed so thoughtful and impressible--and you had such good
   intentions--that we all reckoned upon your speedily being decided. You
   are much older, now, but you are not more advanced-- it is still, with
   you, all intentions and intentions! I wish there could be a time fixed
   in your mind when it should be either, "yes," or, "no." "How long halt
   you between two opinions?" How long shall Jesus be put off and the
   world be served?

   Some of you are not a whit more hopeful than you were 20 years ago. Let
   me recall the expression--you are a deal more hopeless, for you are
   becoming Gospel-hardened! Appeals which once pierced your hearts do not
   even wound you anymore. As water rolls down a marble slab and leaves
   nothing behind, so is it now with what you hear. The sword of the
   Spirit is as sharp as ever, but your heart has hardened like steel in
   the annealing. Oh, you that are forever resolving and resolving and yet
   abide where you are--you are the people whom at this time I would
   persuade to decision!

   Some have gone even further, for they are earnestly seeking salvation
   but they have chosen a wrong method of search which can only end in
   disappointment. I would gladly persuade them to leave off seeking the
   living among the dead! Salvation is by immediate trust in Jesus, but
   you need to feel up to a certain degree of anguish, or you need to
   change yourselves up to a certain point of excellence! In a word, you
   want to save yourselves, first, and then come to Jesus! You are trying
   to make the lantern shine before a candle is put in it. You want to
   renew your own nature and then come to Christ for a new heart--you are
   not content to come to Jesus as sinners! All will be done for you if
   you will but put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but this you fail
   to do.

   If I knew how to put the Gospel more plainly than I do, God knows I
   would not be slack to do so, but yet, with all the plainness of our
   preaching, our hearers still persist in going about after this and that
   hope of their own instead of at once accepting salvation by Jesus
   Christ. Oh, that you were so persuaded of the things concerning Jesus
   as to lay hold of them at once! You need to be led to see that
   salvation is all finished and that you have but to take it as a free
   gift! "Christ has died," and in that expression lies your life!
   Believing in Jesus, you have eternal life the moment you believe! You
   need to be persuaded to accept this as the present Truth of God--the
   most precious Truth of God you can ever hear! If you will receive it,
   happy will it be with you. But if you continue running here and there
   after salvation and neglecting the Lord Jesus, you shall perish in your
   sins! Why will you pursue the will-o'-the-wisp and shut your eyes to
   the Daystar? Why will you follow the mirage and leave the lone well in
   the desert whose sweet waters will forever remove your thirst? Oh, that
   you were rightly persuaded at this very moment!

   One other class I should like to deal with this morning--I would gladly
   persuade those who have tried a long time to do their best and, having
   never succeeded, are falling into a state of despair. Theirs is not a
   painful despair--I wish it were, but, alas, they have fallen into a
   lethargy, a paralysis of the mind with regard to heavenly things! "It
   is no good," they say, "I cannot get peace, I shall never find pardon.
   A child of God I cannot hope to be! I might as well expect to be a peer

   of the realm!" Therefore they sit down in sullen hopelessness. They
   mutter that if it is to be, it will be, and it is of no use caring.
   They are rendered insensible by the frostbite of their horrible idea of
   fate. Oh, that they had been warmed by the sunlight of belief in a
   gracious predestination! Men die by insensibility as surely as by
   passion. I fear that some of you will never awake until in Hell you
   lift up your eyes! I have had you laid on my heart and the thought of
   your danger presses me down into the cast at this time. I feel but
   little joy, even in these jubilee times, when I think about those of
   you who are so near to the Kingdom of God and yet are aliens from it!

   I must persuade you with all my heart to come to Jesus, for if you
   perish in the light, you will perish with a vengeance! If you go down
   to destruction from the borders of salvation, it will be sevenfold
   destruction! If you die with Jesus weeping over you, as He did over
   Jerusalem, you will die horribly! If you sink down to Hell with that
   Word of God in your ears, "How often would I have gathered you, as a
   hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not!" your
   sinking will be like that of a millstone in the sea! If you perish
   under a Gospel ministry, it were better for you that you had never been
   born!

   These are the people I long to persuade. O Divine Spirit, work through
   me at this time and let the eternal purposes of love be fulfilled! O my
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I entreat you, by the love of Jesus,
   strive together with me in your prayers for this blessing!

   II. Our second point shall be--LET US PERSUADE THEM. But are we right
   trying to persuade men? Are not human hearts too hard to be broken by
   so feeble a hammer as our persuasion? Yes, I most solemnly believe they
   are, but that is not the question. "What is the use of persuading them
   if you know that they will not be won by your persuasion in and of
   itself?" Well, Brethren, I feel safe in doing what Paul did. I will not
   stop to solve difficulties, but merely say, Paul persuaded and so will
   I. "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." "Oh,"
   says one, "we may persuade awakened sinners, but not dead sinners!" But
   I reply that Paul persuaded these chief men of the Jews, some of whom
   never believed in Jesus, for their hearts were gross and their eyes
   were blinded. Paul persuaded them, though they were judicially blind!
   He knew that they were living men and that they were possessed of
   reason, even though they had no Grace-- and so he appealed to what
   remained in them--and he persuaded them.

   Again I say, I will do what Paul did. But I know, as Paul also knew,
   that all the human persuasion in the world will fall short of the mark
   without Divine Power! I never dreamed that my persuasion was of the
   slightest avail without the Holy Spirit! If the Holy Spirit will cause
   the persuasion to reach the inward ear, then it will prevail, but no
   way else. If He will drive home the persuasion so that it touches the
   heart which is encased in the fat of worldly pleasure, indifference,
   prejudice and pride, then men will yield and men will be persuaded,
   indeed! And the Holly Spirit will do this! He has done it! He is doing
   it! He will do it and, therefore, we persuade! Brothers, why should we
   not expect the Holy Spirit to display His power? We have sought it with
   fervent prayer. The preacher comes on this platform neither without his
   own prayers, nor without your prayers and so we are persuaded that we
   shall have Divine help! Therefore, O Sinners, "as though God did
   beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to
   God"!

   Once more, in the name of God, I return to the work to which God has
   ordained me. I would persuade you concerning Jesus. To what shall I
   persuade you? My dear Hearers, I would persuade some of you to think of
   Christ, the Lord's Anointed--to think of Jesus, the Savior! I would
   have you read about Him and study His Person, work and Character. Turn
   to the four Evangelists and see what He was and what He did. Read
   carefully and reverently of the Inspired life of Jesus. Faith often
   comes to men when they are thinking about Christ. The Cross not only
   claims faith, but creates it! To sit and see the Son of God die on the
   Cross is the way to get faith. Some of you, perhaps, have been sitting
   still and trying to believe. That is a very absurd thing to do, for
   faith is not a first effort of the mind, but it follows upon other
   states. Know what is to be believed and why you are to believe it! Know
   who He is in whom you are to put your trust and why He deserves to be
   trusted! Shut yourselves up a bit--read the Bible carefully and then
   meditate and meditate and meditate! This is the way in which faith
   grows in the soul, even as plants spring from seed sown and watered.
   Faith comes by hearing or reading--the hearing or reading of the Word
   of God! "Incline your ears," says the Lord God, "and come unto Me: hear
   and your soul shall live." May I not persuade you to think seriously
   and often about the way of salvation by Jesus Christ?

   The next thing I would persuade you to is to trust in Him. Trust is the
   essence of saving faith. Faith is not merely believing facts, but
   trusting to a person. God has set forth Christ to be a Propitiation for
   sin--He becomes to me my Pro-

   pitiation when I trust Him. Can you not trust Jesus? Is He not worth
   trusting? Where else can you trust? The moment you trust in Him, you
   are saved! You know that--why not prove it true by personal faith? To
   trust is the meaning of that text, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
   you ends of the earth." There is life in the glance of trust! You are
   living men when you look to Christ, or trust Him.

   "But," you say, "I do not feel." Away with your "buts"! What have I
   said about your feelings? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved." "He that believes on Him has everlasting life."
   Salvation lies in the simple act of trusting in your Savior. Oh, that I
   could persuade you to trust! And when you have trusted Him, I need to
   persuade you concerning Jesus that you should avow that trust. The Lord
   puts it thus--"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Be
   baptized, therefore, in obedience to His command! Come out boldly and
   say, "I am on the Lord's side." Do not attempt to go sneaking to Heaven
   along some back lane--come into the King's Highway--take up your cross
   and follow Him. He that will not confess Him before men, Christ will
   not confess before His Father who is in Heaven! What is there to be
   ashamed of in Jesus? If Christ is your Savior, the very least thing you
   can do is to say, "I am His disciple," and openly declare yourself on
   His side. He puts it so--"He that with his heart believes, and with his
   mouth makes confession of Him, shall be saved." I would persuade you to
   an open confession--may God the Holy Spirit lead you at once to the
   doing of it!

   And if I were happy enough to persuade you so far, I would persuade you
   to obey Christ throughout life. "Whatever He says to you, do it." Seek
   to lead a holy, harmless, blameless life. Endeavor to avoid all sin.
   Endeavor to copy the Son of God throughout your whole course, making
   Him your Model and your Master, your Leader and your Lord. Some of you
   who have openly confessed Him still need to be persuaded to a closer
   obedience. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." The way of
   complete obedience is the way of happiness--and many professors miss
   the joy of their Lord--I am half afraid they will miss His acceptance
   at the last because they are not careful to walk in His ways and to
   glorify His holy name by a holy life. I would persuade you, then, to
   think of Christ, to trust in Christ, to confess Christ and to obey
   Christ.

   What shall be my arguments? I can summon battalions of them from Jesus
   Himself. He is the Son of God--therefore, trust Him. He loves with a
   supreme love--shall we not love Him who first loved us? He died! Oh, by
   His agony and bloody sweat, by His Cross and passion, I would persuade
   you to turn to Him! Every drop of blood of the great Substitute, every
   sigh and every cry of the Redeemer is an argument with men that they
   should not neglect His salvation, but should come and trust Him! He is
   risen and lives again--despise not the risen Savior--come and bow
   before Him who is proved to be the Son of God with power by His
   Resurrection from the dead! He has gone up into His Glory. He sits at
   the right hand of God--obey Him, then, for all power is given to Him in
   Heaven and in earth. He will shortly come and you and I (in how short a
   time!) will have to stand before His Judgment Seat. Believe not those
   who would bid you to trifle with a future state and think little of the
   judgment to come! O men and women, a short time will swallow us all up
   in the grave and we shall pass into another world--in little more than
   the twinkling of an eye we shall hear that last trumpet heralding the
   Judge! Then shall we hear the summons, "Come to judgment! Come to
   judgment! Come away!" Then I shall have to give an account of this
   morning's sermon. What a weight to have to preach to all of you and to
   have your blood laid at my door if I preach not faithfully to you! O
   God Most Merciful, grant to all of us that knowing Christ will come and
   come to judgment, we may lay this fact to heart and be persuaded to put
   our trust in Him who will otherwise pronounce upon us the sentence of
   eternal perdition!

   I may summon another battalion of arguments from your own state and
   need. O Sirs, you that are unconverted are yet in your sins, encrusted
   with years of gathered foulness! Your sins hang about you now like the
   white scales of leprosy-- they are on your brows and in your hearts.
   There is but One that can cleanse these defilements--it is Jesus! Why
   do you not fly to Him? Moreover, remember the sinfulness of your
   nature. You will go on to sin--your heart is deceitful above all things
   and desperately wicked! You will not cease from sinning. Jesus alone
   can give you a new heart and a right spirit. He is the one Physician
   able to cure your fatal disease. Will you not cry to Him, "Jesus,
   Emmanuel, heal me with a touch"? Will you refuse to be made whole? I
   pray you do not so!

   Even now you are conscious of a wearisome restlessness. You are not
   happy. You have forebodings of an awful future. You know you are not at
   peace. From all the gay and gallant sights you have seen this week
   [Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria] you have turned away sick at
   heart. You need something better and more substantial. Be assured there
   is

   no rest for you but in Christ! He says to you, "Come unto Me, all you
   that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Turn not
   away from the one and only rest of your souls, but this day accept Him!
   Take His yoke upon you and learn of Him--and you shall find rest unto
   your souls. As you love your souls, as you desire happiness here--as
   you desire blessedness hereafter--I beseech you to lay hold on eternal
   life in Jesus!

   If I needed more arguments, there are many quarters from which they
   would come at my bidding. I would try to find them in your hopes and
   fears. I do not know to whom I may be speaking now, but, my Friend,
   there is a glorious future before you if Christ becomes yours. Burdened
   Sinner, there is a peace which passes all understanding if you will
   look to Jesus! O distracted, tempest-tossed Soul, there is a haven of
   rest for you if you steer to Christ! I would gladly persuade you, now,
   to come to Him whose gift is Heaven below and then, Heaven above! I
   myself have tried Him. Blessed was the day in which I fell into His
   arms! O happy hour in which I looked to Him and was lightened! Truly,
   my face is not ashamed, nor is my tongue ashamed of my Lord, nor is my
   understanding ashamed to believe His Gospel, though all men should cast
   doubt upon it. I have no other hope under Heaven, no other joy in
   Heaven but my Savior and His Infallible Word. If you knew the comfort
   which my soul finds in Jesus, you could not desire a better. O you
   young people, I would especially say to you--come early to Jesus, for
   they that seek Him early shall find Him with supreme delight! You will
   come to die soon--here is the antidote of death. The strongest and
   youngest will, one day, have to go upstairs and gather up his feet in
   the bed. Oh, what a comfort and joy it gives you in that hour to have
   the Presence of your Lord! After death comes the forever and ever. What
   bliss to be "forever with the Lord"! That endless fellowship with Jesus
   means an immeasurable weight of glory. Surely these arguments ought to
   prevail with you. They will, if your reason is made reasonable.

   How ought I to plead with you when I have told you these arguments? I
   ought to plead with you in a manner far superior to that which I have
   yet reached. Alas, I cannot persuade you as I would. I think the
   preacher should feel a burning desire for his hearers' conversion and
   even an intense anguish of heart for the immediate salvation of those
   to whom he speaks. To this I have attained--I long for your salvation
   most vehemently. I would say anything and say it any way, if I could
   but win you to immediate faith in the Lord Jesus! The desire is so
   strong upon me that should I not succeed on this occasion, I will try
   again and if, unhappily, I should fail again, I will continue at the
   work as long as you live and I am able to reach you! O my Hearers, I
   cannot endure that you should die in your sins! I will go before God in
   secret and lay your case before Him and beg Him to interpose. We cannot
   let you be damned, my Hearers. It is too dreadful! We cannot stand by
   and see you lost! If you are so insane as to refuse the Savior, those
   who have sober judgments will still continue to pray for you and to
   weep in secret places because of your sins. If we cannot prevail with
   you for God, we will endeavor to prevail with God for you. I would have
   every person in this place act reasonably, righteously, truthfully,
   honestly to his own soul--and if he does, he will be persuaded this day
   to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and cast himself at His
   pierced feet!

   III. Now I have to speak a few words upon another subject, with the
   same objective. It is this--LET US LAMENT

   THE FACT THAT OUR PERSUASIONS FAIL IN CERTAIN CASES. Paul found it so
   and where this chief of Apostles

   was baffled, can I wonder if I fail? The sower went forth to sow. He
   was a model sower. The Master put him in His parable as a pattern--he
   could not have sown better seed, nor have sown it better--and yet some
   of his seed fell on stony places, some fell by the wayside, and yet a
   third fell among thorns. Only one portion of what he sowed appears to
   have fallen upon good soil.

   Let me speak to those of you who will, I fear, be our failures. I
   grieve to think there should be any such. It is a sad business, in the
   present, for a man to be living without Christ. We pity abject poverty,
   but this is worse than the worst poverty. We are sorry for the
   friendless, but none are so forlorn as those who have not Jesus for a
   Friend. No ignorance is so terrible as ignorance of the Savior; no
   blindness so deplorable as blindness towards the Lord Jesus. To live
   without Christ is not life, but a breathing death! You are in the
   heyday of your youth, perhaps, and think that you are enjoying
   pleasure, but, indeed, it is not worth the name! You are eating husks
   and missing the kernels. Your mirth is as the crackling of thorns under
   a pot--it flares and blazes up--but there is no heat in it! It dies
   down in a moment and leaves nothing but a few ashes. If I had to die
   like a dog I should still wish to live the life of a Christian! Faith
   is good for this life. There is more solid joy in five minutes'
   fellowship with Christ than in a thousand years of reveling in the
   palaces of kings.

   You are a loser in a thousand ways by remaining an hour without Christ!
   It is a wretched business to be God's enemy, to miss rest of heart and
   to be a stranger to the Holy Spirit.

   It is a wretched business to be now neglecting the great salvation, but
   this is not all--your present hardness of heart reveals a good deal as
   to your past life. If you will not be persuaded of the things
   concerning Jesus, it shows that your heart and conscience have been
   injured by years of willful resistance to the power of the Truth of
   God. You have been stopping up your ears and that is why you are so
   deaf. You have been sealing up your eyes, or you would not be so
   utterly blind. You have been hardening your heart against gracious
   appeals, or else you would not now be made of such hardened steel.
   Remember those years of broken Sabbaths and see what they have done for
   you--they have blinded and hardened you. Remember the neglected House
   of God and see how callous you have now become. Think of the times in
   which you have heard the Gospel and refused its tender warnings,
   instructions and invitations--and see what has come of those refusals.
   You are now well-nigh insensible. Oh, that black, black past!

   We are also fearful about you because your past and present foretell a
   future of continued and increasing blindness, deafness and
   insensibility. I fear for some of you that you have been judicially
   hardened by the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit and that you are also
   hardened by the terrible influence of Satan--and that you have also
   allowed the suicidal influence of self-will to sear your conscience as
   with a hot iron. You are such a trifler that it is hard to get a
   serious thought into your mind. You are so fickle that none of our
   hopes concerning you are ever realized. You are so superficial that it
   is difficult to make any deep impression upon you. You crush beneath
   your feet the eggs of better things--you stifle the good thoughts which
   sometimes are born within you. Holy teachings fall upon your mind as
   sparks which drop into a pool of water. You have almost come to a
   condition of mind in which you are like a man covered with armor from
   which the sharpest arrows glance off. O God, let it not be quite so, we
   beseech You, with anyone here!

   This is all the sadder because it suggests such tremendous sin and such
   overwhelming punishment. I cannot tell you what must be the doom of
   Sodom and Gomorrah, neither can you, yourselves, conceive its full
   horror. They gave themselves up unto unmentionable lusts until, at
   last, God was so provoked that He would bear it no longer and He
   resolved to destroy the filthy ones and the place which they had
   polluted. He pulled up the sluices of His wrath and cataracts of fire
   poured down from Heaven upon the unclean ones! Heaven sent down fire
   and brimstone instead of silver showers! Then were the sinners burned
   up all of a sudden and not a speck, either of the Sodomites or of their
   city, was left. This was an unparalleled instance of Divine Justice,
   for their sin had broken all bounds. What their doom will be in the Day
   of Judgement, I leave you to imagine--but remember these words and
   weigh them well--"It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in
   the Day of Judgment than for you."

   Dear boy that you were upon your mother's knee. Fair girl that you were
   in the Sunday school class, speaking so hopefully in your younger
   days--you will have to give an account for the delays which are ruining
   you! Hearer as you were and as you are this morning, listening
   respectfully to God's ambassador--if you refuse the monitions of
   Infinite Love, what will become of you? Those were not my lips,
   remember, which first spoke those dagger-like words--they fell from the
   lips of the Prince of Love who died for men! It is Christ, Himself, who
   said to those who heard His Word and saw His mighty works and yet
   refused to repent--"Woe unto you! It shall be more tolerable for Sodom
   and Gomorrah than for you."

   Yes, I have endeavored to persuade you and if I must labor in vain, I
   shall turn away with great reluctance, mourning that I may not be
   allowed to be a blessing to you. I quit you with lingering footstep and
   bow regretfully before the Lord, crying, "Who has believed my report;
   and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Why will you die? Why
   will you rush upon such a destruction? Oh, that you were wise!

   IV. But now, to change my strain, that we may not finish upon so sad a
   note, LET ME PERSEVERE IN PERSUADING OTHERS. Notice that the Apostle
   was not hindered in his work by sorrowing over those who rejected his
   persuasion, but he turned to others of whom he had better hope. Having
   spoken a solemn parting word, he said, "Be it known, therefore, unto
   you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and that they
   will hear it." To these Gentiles, for two years, Paul continued
   "preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern
   the Lord Jesus Christ." He kept to his work, but he changed his
   audience!

   We, also, will preach the Gospel to those who have not enjoyed
   Christian privileges. We preach Jesus to you who were not born of godly
   parents, nor brought up under Christian care. We preach Free Grace and
   dying love to you who

   up to now have not attended the House of Prayer, nor cared to hear the
   Word of everlasting life. If the moral refuse mercy, we declare it to
   the immoral! The Jews had been religious in profession, but as they
   refused Christ, our Apostle preached Him to the Gentile population in
   Rome, which in Paul's day was worse than London, if there can be worse!
   Rome was an infamous den of every villainy beneath the sky, but Paul,
   without hesitation, preached Christ to all the Romans that he could
   reach--to soldiers, to slaves, to Caesar's household and to runaways!
   He believed in the adaptation of the Gospel to the most degraded. With
   no weapon but the Cross, he attacked a city sunk in idolatry and vice!
   So we, also, when repulsed by you who think yourselves exceedingly
   respectable, turn with hope to those who have been drunks, swearers,
   thieves, harlots and the like! To the chief of sinners we present the
   great salvation! To you is the Word of this salvation sent. "Whoever
   will, let him take of the Water of Life freely." "Christ Jesus came
   into the world to save sinners." "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall
   be forgiven unto men."

   You far-off ones, that dwell out of the reach of the common means of
   Grace--the arm of mercy is stretched out to you! You who are not a
   people shall be made a people and she that was not beloved shall be
   called the Beloved of the Lord! Paul said of the Gentiles, "They will
   hear it," and we have the same confidence concerning many great
   transgressors. I thank God that those who never heard the Gospel before
   have heard it in this great house and have so heard it that they have
   at once yielded to its demands and accepted its provisions! Many who
   have been without hope, without God and without fear of eternal things,
   have heard the doctrine of free, rich, Sovereign Mercy and have turned
   at once from their sins and laid hold upon the hope set before them!

   Oh that more would come! They will come--"They will hear it." The
   Divine purpose is that the Lord will provoke the outwardly religious by
   saving those who make no pretense of godliness. Because you were
   invited to the feast and would not come, therefore the Master of the
   house, being angry, issues a wider invitation and gives the grand
   command, "Go out into the highways and hedges, and as many as you find
   compel them to come in." If you will not have salvation, others will!
   Christ shall not be disappointed! He shall not die in vain! His Spirit
   shall not strive without success! "A seed shall serve Him." Jesus shall
   have a people saved by His precious blood. I hope that many such are
   brought here this morning on purpose to be blessed. I hope they will
   leap forward to catch at the gracious message. Oh that some of them
   would cry out, "I believe, I trust, I rest in Jesus!"

   If it is so, go your way, God has saved you. If you believe that Jesus
   is the Christ, you are born of God. You have been worldly, sinful,
   abundantly wicked, but, if you will have Christ, now, have Him and
   welcome! If you are now drawn towards Him, come at once and linger not!
   "For the Scripture says, Whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed."
   May His sweet love persuade you in the things concerning Jesus! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Blood Shed For Many

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 3, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for
   the remission of sins." Matthew 26:28.

   THE Lord Jesus Christ was then alive, sitting at the table and yet,
   pointing to the cup filled with red wine, He said, "This is My blood,
   which is shed for many." This proves that He could not have intended
   that the wine was literally His blood. Surely it is no longer necessary
   to refute the gross and carnal dogma of transubstantiation which is
   obviously absurd! There sat the living Lord at the supper, with His
   blood in His veins and, therefore, the wine could not literally be His
   blood! Value the symbol, but to confound it with the thing symbolized
   would draw into the idolatrous worship of a piece of bread!

   Our Lord spoke of His blood as shed when as yet the nails had not
   pierced His hands and feet. And the spear had not broached His side. Is
   not this to be accounted for by the fact that our Lord was so taken up
   with the thought of our redemption by His death that He speaks of that
   as done which He was so resolved to do? Enjoying loving communion with
   His chosen disciples, He spoke freely. His heart did not study accuracy
   so much as feeling and so, in speech as in feeling, He antedated His
   great work of Atonement and spoke of it as done. To set forth the
   future intent of the blessed ordinance of the Lord's Supper He must, of
   necessity, treat His death as an accomplished fact. And His complete
   absorption in His work made it easy and natural for Him to do so. He
   ignores moods and tenses. "His work is before Him."

   By the use of such language, our Lord also shows us the abiding
   presence of the great Sacrifice as a power and an influence. He is the
   "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" and, therefore, He speaks
   of His blood as shed. In a few hours it would be literally poured
   forth, but long ages before, the Lord God had regarded it as done. In
   full confidence in the great Surety, that He would never draw back from
   the perfect fulfillment of His engagements, the Father saved multitudes
   in virtue of the future Sin-Offering! He communed with myriads of
   saints on the strength of the purification which would, in the fullness
   of time, be presented by the great High Priest. Could not the Father
   trust His Son? He did and by this act set us a great example of faith.
   God is, in very deed, the Father of the faithful, seeing that He,
   Himself, reposed the utmost confidence in Jesus! And because of what He
   would yet do in the pouring out of His soul unto death, He "opened the
   Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers." What, My soul? Can you not trust
   the Sacrifice, now that it has been presented? If the foresight of it
   was enough for God, is not the consummation of it enough for you?
   "Behold the Lamb of God," who even before He died was described as
   taking away the sin of the world! If this was so before He went to
   Calvary, how surely is it so now that He has said in verity and truth,
   "It is finished"!

   Dear Friends, I am going to preach to you again upon the cornerstone of
   the Gospel. How many times will this make, I wonder? The doctrine of
   Christ Crucified is always with me. As the Roman sentinel in Pompeii
   stood to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I stand to
   the truth of the Atonement though the Church is being buried beneath
   the boiling mud showers of modern heresy. Everything else can wait, but
   this one Truth of God must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder!
   Others may preach as they will, but as for this pulpit, it shall always
   resound with the Substitution of Christ. "God forbid that I should
   glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Some may continually
   preach Christ as an example and others may perpetually discourse upon
   His coming to Glory--we also preach both of these, but mainly we preach
   Christ Crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks
   foolishness--but to them that are saved Christ the Power of God and the
   Wisdom of God!

   You have before you a cup, filled with wine, which Jesus has just
   blessed and presented to His disciples. As you look into its rosy
   depths, hear Him speak of the cup as His blood, for thus He would teach
   us a solemn lesson!

   I. Note, first, THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. The
   vital importance of the great Truth of God of the death of Christ as a
   vicarious Sacrifice is set before us in this cup, which is the memorial
   of His blood shed for many.

   Blood represents suffering, but it goes further and suggests suffering
   unto death. "The blood is the life thereof" and when blood is too
   copiously shed, death is suggested. Remember that in the sacred Supper
   you have the bread as a separate emblem of the body and then the wine
   as a separate symbol of the blood--thus you have a clear picture of
   death, since the blood is separated from the flesh. "As often as you
   eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death." Both
   acts are essential.

   Upon the death of Christ you are invited to fix your attention and upon
   that only. In the suffering of our Lord unto death we see the boundless
   stretch of His love. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay
   down his life for his friends." Jesus could not be more loving to us
   than to yield Himself unto death, even the death of the Cross. O My
   Lord, in Your bloody sweat and in the piercing of Your hands and feet
   and side, I see the highest proof of Your love! Here I see that Jesus
   "loved me and gave Himself for me." Beloved, I beg you to consider
   often and lovingly the sufferings of your Redeemer unto the pouring out
   of His heart's blood. Go with Him to Gethsemane and then to the house
   of Caiaphas and Annas. And then to Pilate's hall and Herod's place of
   mockery! Behold your Lord beneath the cruel scourges and in the hands
   of the executioners upon the hill of shame. Forget not one of the
   sorrows which were mingled in the bitter cup of His crucifixion--its
   pain, its mockery, its shame. It was a death reserved for slaves and
   felons. To make its deep abysses absolutely bottomless, He was
   forsaken, even, of His God! Let the darkness of, "Eloi, Eloi, lama
   Sabachthani," bear down upon your spirit till, as you sink in awe, you
   also rise in love! He loved you better than He loved Himself! The cup
   means love, even to the shedding of His blood for you.

   It means something more. We have called our Lord, in our hymn, "Giver
   of life for life," and that is what this cup means. He gave up His life
   that we might live! He stood in our place and stead in the day of
   Jehovah's wrath, receiving into His bosom the fiery sword which was
   unsheathed for our destruction! The pouring out of His blood has made
   our peace with God. Jehovah made the soul of His Only-Begotten an
   offering for sin, that the guilty might be cleared. "He has made Him to
   be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
   of God in Him." That is what the wine in the cup means--it means the
   death of Jesus in our place. It means the blood poured out from the
   heart of the Incarnate God that we might have fellowship with God--the
   sin which divided us being expiated by His death.

   Our blessed Savior would have us hold His death in great reverence--it
   is to be our chief memory. Both the emblems of the Lord's Supper set
   forth the Savior's death. This peculiarly Christian ordinance teaches
   nothing if it does not teach this. Christ's death for men is the great
   doctrine of the Church. We profess ourselves partakers of the merit of
   His death when we come to this table. Our Lord's death is then
   remembered, shown, declared, testified and trusted in. Evidently the
   Lord Jesus means us to treat the fact of His death as a Truth of God to
   be made pre-eminently prominent--He would not have instituted an
   ordinance especially to remind us of the shedding of His blood if He
   had not regarded it as the forefront of His whole earthly career.

   The other ordinance of our holy faith also sets forth our Lord's death.
   Are we not, "Buried with Him by baptism into death?" Is not Baptism an
   emblem of His being immersed beneath the waves of sorrow and death?
   Baptism shows us that participation in Christ's suffering by which we
   begin to live--the Lord's Supper shows us that participation in
   Christ's suffering by which that life is sustained. Both institutions
   point to His death.

   Besides, Beloved, we know from Holy Scripture that this doctrine of the
   death of Christ is the very core of Christianity. Leave out the Cross
   and you have killed the religion of Jesus. Atonement by the blood of
   Jesus is not an arm of Christian truth--it is the heart of it! Even as
   the Lord said of the animal, "The blood is the life thereof," so is it
   true of the Gospel--the sacrificial death of Jesus is the vital point
   of our profession. I know nothing of Christianity without the blood of
   Christ. No teaching is healthy which throws the Cross into the
   background.

   The other day, when I was enquiring about the welfare of a certain
   congregation, my informant told me that there had been few additions to
   the church, although the minister was a man of ability and industry.
   Furthermore, he let me see the reason for failure, for he added, "I
   have attended there for several years and during all that time I do not
   remember hearing a sermon upon the Sacrifice of Christ. The Atonement
   is not denied, but it is left out." If this is so, what is to become of
   our churches? If the light of the Atonement is put under a bushel, the
   darkness will be dense. In omitting the

   Cross you have cut the Achilles tendon of the Church--it cannot move,
   nor even stand when this is gone. Holy work falls to the ground! It
   faints and dies when the blood of Jesus is taken away. The Cross must
   be put in the front more than ever by the faithful, because so many are
   unfaithful. Let us endeavor to make amends for the dishonor done to our
   Divine Master by those who deny or dishonor His vicarious Sacrifice.
   Let us abide steadfast in this faith while others waver! Let us preach
   Christ Crucified if all others forbear. Grace, mercy and peace be to
   all who exalt Christ Crucified!

   This remembrance of the death of Christ must be a constant remembrance.
   The Lord's Supper was meant to be a frequent feast of fellowship. It is
   a grievous mistake of the Church when the communion is held but once in
   the year, or once in a quarter of a year--and I cannot remember any
   Scripture which justifies once in the month. I should not feel
   satisfied without breaking bread on every Lord's Day. It has come to me
   even more often than once a week, for it has been my delight to break
   bread with many a little company of Christian friends. Whenever this
   Supper is celebrated, we declare that "Christ died for our sins
   according to the Scriptures." We cannot think of that death too often!
   Never was man blamed in Heaven for preaching Christ too much, no, not
   even on earth to the sons of God was the Cross ever too much spoken

   of!

   Outsiders may say, "This man harps only upon one string." Do you
   wonder? The carnal mind is enmity against God and it specially shows
   its hatred by railing at the Cross. Saintly ones find here, in the
   perpetual monotony of the Cross, a greater variety than in all other
   doctrines put together. Preach Christ, and Christ, and Christ, and
   Christ and nothing else but Christ--and opened ears shall find in your
   ministry a wondrous harmony of linked sweetnesses, a charming
   per-fectness of all manner of delicious voices! All good things lie
   within the compass of the Cross--its outstretched arms overshadow the
   whole world of thought--from the east even unto the west it sheds a
   hallowed influence. Meanwhile, its foot is planted deep in the eternal
   mysteries and its top pierces all earth-born clouds and rises to the
   Throne of the Most High. Christ is lifted up upon the Cross that He may
   draw all men unto Him. And if we desire to draw them, this must be our
   magnet.

   Beloved, the precious blood of Christ should be had by us in vivid
   remembrance. There is something to me most homely about that cup filled
   with the fruit of the vine. The bread of the Supper is the bread of our
   common meal and the wine is the usual attendant of feasts. That same
   pure blood of the grape which is set on our sacramental table I drink
   with my friends. Look at those ruby, ruddy drops, suggesting your
   Lord's own blood. I had not dared to invent the symbol, nor might any
   man of mortal mold have ventured on such a thing, lest he should seem
   to bring that august death down to our lowly level! But in infinite
   condescension Jesus, Himself, chooses the symbol and while by its
   materialism He sets forth the reality of the Sacrifice, by its
   commonness He shows how freely we may partake of it! He would not have
   us know Him after the flesh and forget the spiritual nature of His
   grief. And yet He would have us know that He was in a real body when He
   bled--and that He died a real death and became most truly fit for
   burial and, therefore, He symbolizes His blood, not by some airy fancy,
   or mystic sign--but by common wine in the cup! Thus would He reach us
   by our eyes and by our taste, using two gates of our nature which lead
   up to the castle of the heart, but are not often the King's roadway
   thereto. O blessed Master, do You arrange to teach us so forcibly? Then
   let us be impressed with the reality of the lesson and never treat Your
   passion as a thing of sentiment, nor make it a myth, nor view it as a
   dream of poetry. You shall be in death most real to us, even as is that
   cup of which we drink.

   The dear memorials of our Lord's blood-shedding are intended for a
   personal remembrance. There is no Lord's Supper except as the wine
   touches the lips and is received into the communicant's own self. All
   must partake. He says, "Drink you all of it." You cannot take the
   Lord's Supper by deputy or representative--you must each of you
   approach the table and personally eat and drink. Beloved, we must come
   into personal contact with the death of Christ. This is essential. We
   must, each one, say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." In His
   blood you must be personally washed. By His blood you must be
   personally reconciled to God. Through His blood you must personally
   have access to God and by His blood you must personally overcome the
   enemy of your souls. As the Israelite's own door must be smeared with
   the blood of the Paschal lamb, so must you individually partake of the
   true Sacrifice and know, each one for himself, the power of His
   redemption.

   As it is personal, it is a charming fact that it is a happy
   remembrance. Our remembrance of Christ is chastened with repentance,
   but it is also perfumed with faith. The Lord's Supper is no funeral
   meal, but a festival! Most fitly do we begin it with the giving of
   thanks and close it with a hymn. It is called by many the "Eucharist,"
   or the giving of thanks. It is

   not a fast, but a feast. My happiest moments are spent with the King at
   His table when His banner over me is love. The death of Christ is a
   wellspring of solemn joy. Before our great Sacrifice died, the best
   token of His death was the blood of bulls and of goats. See how the
   victims writhe in death! The sacrificial knife does terrible work at
   the foot of the altar. It is hard to stand by and see the creatures
   bleed. After our Lord's death was over, the blood of animals was not
   the type, but the blood of the grape. That which was terrible in
   prospect is joyous in remembrance! That which was blood in the shedding
   is wine in the receiving! It came from Him with a wound, but it comes
   to us with a blessing. His blood is our song in the house of our
   pilgrimage and it shall add the best music to our heavenly harmonies as
   we sing before the throne, "Unto Him that has loved us, and washed us
   from our sins in His own blood; to Him be glory forever and ever." If
   our Lord Jesus has made the memory of His love to be more sweet than
   wine, let us never turn from it as though it had become a distasteful
   theme. Let us find our choicest pleasures at the Cross!

   Once more, our Savior meant us to maintain the doctrine of His death
   and the shedding of His blood for the remission of sins, even to the
   end of time, for He made it to be of perpetual remembrance. We drink
   this cup "until He comes." If the Lord Jesus had foreseen with
   approbation the changes in religious thought which would be brought
   about by growing "culture," He would surely have arranged a change of
   symbols to suit the change of doctrines! Would He not have warned us
   that towards the end of the 19th Century men would become so
   "enlightened" that the faith of Christendom must of necessity take a
   new departure and, therefore, would He have appointed a change of
   sacramental memorials? But He has not warned us of the coming of those
   eminently great and wise men who have changed all things and abolished
   the old-fashioned Truths of God for which martyrs died!

   Brethren, I do not believe in the wisdom of these men and I abhor their
   changes, but had there been any ground for such changes, the Lord's
   Supper would not have been made of perpetual obligation. The perpetuity
   of ordinances indicates a perpetuity of doctrine! But hear the moderns
   talk--"The Apostles, the Fathers, the Puritans--they were excellent
   men, no doubt, but then, you see, they lived before the rising up of
   those wonderful scientific men who have enlightened us so much." Let me
   repeat what I have said. If we had come to a new point as to believing,
   should we not have come to a new point as to the ordinances in which
   those beliefs are embodied? I think so. The evident intent of Christ in
   giving us settled ordinances and especially in settling this one which
   so clearly commemorates His shedding of His blood, was that we might
   know that the truth of His Sacrifice is forever fixed and settled--and
   must unchangeably remain the essence of His Gospel!

   Neither 19 centuries, nor 19,000 centuries can make the slightest
   difference in this Truth of God, nor in the relative proportion of this
   Truth to other Truths of God so long as this dispensation lasts. Until
   He comes a second time without a sin offering unto salvation, the grand
   work of His first coming must be kept first and foremost in all our
   teaching, trusting and testifying! As in the southern hemisphere the
   cross is the mariner's guide, so, under all skies is the death of our
   Redeemer the polestar of our hope upon the sea of life. In life and in
   death we will glory in the Cross of Christ and never be ashamed of it,
   be we where we may!

   II. Secondly, note well THE CONNECTION OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST WITH THE
   COVENANT. Read the

   text again--"This is My blood of the new testament." The translation
   would be better, "This is My blood of the Covenant."

   What is this Covenant? The Covenant is that which I read to you just
   now in Jeremiah 31:33--"This shall be the Covenant that I will make
   with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put
   My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be
   their God, and they shall be My people." See also Jeremiah 32:40--"And
   I will make an everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not turn
   away from them, to do them good; but I will put My fear in their
   hearts; that they shall not depart from Me." Turn also to Ezekiel
   11:19--"I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony
   heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh." Look
   in the same prophecy at 36:26--"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." What a Magna
   Charta is this! The old Covenant says, "Keep the Law and live." The new
   Covenant is, "You shall live and I will lead you to keep My Law, for I
   will write it on your heart." Happy men who know their standing under
   this Covenant!

   What has the blood of Jesus Christ to do with this Covenant? It has
   everything to do with it, for the Covenant could never have been made,
   apart from the blood of Jesus! Atonement was taken for granted in the
   establishment of the Cove-

   nant. No one else could have stood as our Representative to fulfill our
   side of the Covenant, except the Lord Jesus Christ. And even He could
   only have performed that Covenant by shedding His blood. In that cup
   you see the emblem of the blood which made the Covenant possible.

   Moreover, the blood of Jesus makes the Covenant sure. His death has
   fulfilled man's side of the Covenant and God's part stands sure. The
   stipulation of the Covenant is fulfilled in Christ and now the tenor of
   it is pure promise. Note how the "shalls" and "wills" follow each other
   in quick succession. An arrangement of absolute Grace on God's part
   towards the undeserving sons of men is now in full action through the
   Sacrifice of Christ!

   This Covenant of Grace, when rightly understood, exerts a blessed
   influence over the minds of men conscious of sin. The chaplain of a
   jail, a dear Friend of mine, once told me of a surprising case of
   conversion in which a knowledge of the Covenant of Grace was the chief
   instrument of the Holy Spirit. My friend had under his charge a man
   most cunning and brutal. He was singularly repulsive, even in
   comparison with other convicts. He had been renowned for his daring and
   for the utter absence of all feeling when committing acts of violence.
   I think he had been called "the king of the garrott-ers." The chaplain
   had spoken to him several times, but had not succeeded, even, in
   getting an answer. The man was sullenly set against all instruction. At
   last he expressed a desire for a certain book, but as it was not in the
   library, the chaplain pointed to the Bible which was placed in his cell
   and said, "Did you ever read that Book?"

   He gave no answer, but looked at the good man as if he would kill him.
   The question was kindly repeated, with the assurance that he would find
   it well worth reading. "Sir," said the convict, "you would not ask me
   such a question if you knew who I was. What have I to do with a book of
   that sort?" He was told that his character was well known to the
   chaplain and that for this very reason he recommended the Bible as a
   book which would suit his case. "It would do me no good," he cried, "I
   am past all feeling." Doubling up his fist he struck the iron door of
   the cell and said, "My heart is as hard as that iron! There is nothing
   in any book that will ever touch me." "Well," said the chaplain, "You
   need a new heart. Did you ever read the Covenant of Grace?" To which
   the man answered sullenly by enquiring what he meant by such talk. The
   chaplain replied, "Listen to these words--'A new heart also will I give
   you, and a new spirit will I put within you.'" The words struck the man
   with amazement, as well they might!

   He asked to have the passage found for him in the Bible. He read the
   Words again and again and when the chaplain came back to him the next
   day, the wild beast was tamed. "Oh, Sir," he said, "if He gives me a
   new heart it will be a miracle of mercy and yet I think," he said, "He
   is going to work that miracle upon me, for the very hope of a new
   nature is beginning to touch me as I never was touched before." That
   man became gentle in manner, obedient to authority and childlike in
   spirit! Though my friend has nothing left of the sanguine hopes he once
   entertained of converted criminals, he yet believes that in this case
   no observer could have questioned the thorough nature of the work--and
   yet the only means was the Doctrine of the Covenant!

   My rebellious heart is not affected by the fact that God commands me to
   do this or that, but when He declares free and full forgiveness and
   goes on to promise love and favor and renewal of nature, I feel broken
   down! How can I rebel against One who does such wonders in me and
   designs such great things for me?--

   "Dissolved by His goodness, I fall to the ground And weep to the praise
   of the mercy I've found." How dear and precious this makes the blood of
   Christ, since it is the blood of the Everlasting Covenant! Coming under
   this blessed Covenant, we henceforth adore the fullness of that Grace
   which, at the cost of the most precious of all lives, has made this
   arrangement for unworthy men!

   You will perhaps say to me, "Why did our translators use the word,
   'testament' in our Authorized Version? "They were hardly so wise as
   usual in this instance, for, "covenant" is the better word of the two
   to set forth the original, but the idea of a testament is there also.
   The original may signify either or both. The word, "settlement," which
   has dropped out of use, nowadays, was often employed by our Calvinistic
   forefathers when they spoke of the everlasting arrangement of Grace.
   The word, "settlement," might take in both covenant and
   testament--there is a Covenant of Grace, but the Covenant stipulation
   being fulfilled by our Lord Jesus, the arrangement becomes virtually a
   testament through which, by the will of God, countless blessings are
   secured to the heirs of salvation. The blood of Jesus is the seal of
   the Covenant and transforms its blessings into bequests of love
   entailed upon Believers. The settlement or arrangement by which God can
   be just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly--and can deal with
   Believers, not on terms of Law, but on terms of pure

   Grace--is established by the Sacrifice of our Lord. O my Brothers and
   Sisters, as God's covenanted ones, drink of the cup with joy and renew
   your pledge with the Lord your God!

   III. A third point comes up in the text very manifestly--THE BLOOD HAS
   AN INTIMATE CONNECTION WITH REMISSION. The text says, "This is My blood
   of the new Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
   Jesus suffering, bleeding, dying, has procured for sinners the
   forgiveness of their sins!

   Of what sins? Of all sins of every sort and kind, however heinous,
   aggravated and multiplied! The blood of the Covenant takes every sin
   away, be it what it may. There was never a sin believingly confessed
   and taken to Christ that ever baffled His power to cleanse it! This
   Fountain has never been tried in vain. Murderers, thieves, liars,
   adulterers and what not, have come to Jesus by penitence and faith--and
   through the merit of His Sacrifice their sins have been put away.

   Of what nature is the remission? It is pardon, freely given, acting
   immediately and abiding forever, so that there is no fear of the guilt
   ever again being laid to the charge of the forgiven one! Through the
   precious blood our sins are blotted out, cast into the depths of the
   sea and removed as far from us as the east is from the west. Our sins
   cease to be--they are made an end of--they cannot be found against us
   any more forever. Yes, hear it, hear it, O wide earth! Let the glad
   news startle your darkest dens of infamy--there is absolute remission
   of sins! The precious blood of Christ cleanses from all sin! Yes, it
   turns the scarlet into a whiteness which exceeds that of the
   newly-fallen snow--a whiteness which never can be tarnished! Washed by
   Jesus, the blackest of sinners shall appear before the Judgment Seat of
   the all-seeing Judge without spot!

   How is it the blood of Jesus effects this? The secret lies in the
   vicarious or substitutionary character of our Lord's suffering and
   death. Because He stood in our place, the justice of God is vindicated
   and the threats of the Law are fulfilled. It is now just for God to
   pardon sin. Christ's bearing the penalty of human sin instead of men
   has made the moral government of God perfect in justice, has laid a
   basis for peace of conscience and has rendered sin immeasurably
   hateful, though its punishment does not fall upon the Believer. This is
   the great secret, this is the heavenly news, the Gospel of
   salvation--that through the blood of Jesus sin is justly put away! Oh,
   how my very soul loves this Truth of God! Therefore do I speak it in
   unmistakable terms.

   And for what end is this remission of sins secured? My Brothers and
   Sisters, if there were no other end for the remission of sins but its
   own self, it would be a noble purpose and it would be worth preaching
   every day of our lives! But it does not end here. We are mistaken if we
   think that the pardon of sins is God's ultimatum. No, no! It is but a
   beginning, a means to a further purpose. He forgives our sins with the
   design of curing our sinfulness. We are pardoned that we may become
   holy! God forgives the sin that He may purify the sinner. If He had not
   aimed at your holiness, there had not been so imperative a necessity
   for an Atonement--but to impress you with the guilt of sin, to make you
   feel the evil which sin has worked, to let you know your obligation to
   Divine Love--the Lord has not forgiven you without a Sacrifice. Ah,
   what a Sacrifice! He aims at the death of your sinfulness, that you may
   henceforth love Him, serve Him and crucify the lusts which crucified
   your Lord. The Lord aims at working in you the likeness of His dear
   Son! Jesus has saved you by His self-sacrificing obedience to Justice,
   that you may yield your whole soul to God and be willing to die for the
   upholding of the Kingdom of Love and Truth.

   The death of Christ for you pledges you to be dead to sin, that by His
   Resurrection from the dead you may rise into newness of life and so
   become like your Lord. Pardon by blood aims at this. Do you catch the
   thought? If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God's intent is to
   make you like the Firstborn among many brethren and to work in you
   everything that is comely and of good report. But this is not all--He
   has a further design to bring you into everlasting fellowship with
   Himself. He is sanctifying you that you may behold His face and that
   you may be fit to be a comrade of His only-begotten Son throughout
   eternity! You are to be the choice and dear companion of the Lord of
   Love. He has a throne for you, a mansion and a crown for you--and an
   immortality of such inconceivable glory and blessedness that if you did
   but form even a distant conception of it, no golden apple of earth
   would turn you aside from pursuing the prize of your high calling! Oh,
   to be forever with the Lord! Forever to behold His face! I fail to
   reach the height of this great argument! See, my Brothers and Sisters,
   to what the blood of your Lord destines you! O my Soul, bless God for
   that one cup which reminds you of the great Sacrifice and prophesies to
   you your glory at the right hand of God forever!

   IV. I cannot forget to notice, in closing, THE CONNECTION OF THE BLOOD
   WITH MEN. We are told in the

   text that this blood is shed "for many for the remission of sins." In
   that large word, "many," let us exceedingly rejoice.

   Christ's blood was not shed for only the handful of Apostles. There
   were but eleven of them who really partook of the blood symbolized by
   the cup. The Savior does not say, "This is My blood which is shed for
   you, the favored eleven," but "shed for many." Jesus did not die only
   for the clergy! I recollect in Martin Luther's life that he saw, in one
   of the Roman churches, a picture of the Pope, the cardinals, bishops,
   priests, monks and friars all on board a ship. They were all safe,
   every one of them. As for the laity, poor wretches, they were
   struggling in the sea and many of them drowning! Only those were saved
   to whom the good men in the ship were so kind as to hand out a rope or
   a plank. That is not our Lord's teaching! His blood is shed "for many,"
   and not for the few. He is not the Christ of a caste, or a class, but
   the Christ of all conditions of men. His blood is shed for many
   sinners, that their sins may be remitted.

   Those in the upper room were all Jews, but the Lord Jesus Christ said
   to them, "This blood is shed for many," to let them see that He did not
   die only for the seed of Abraham, but for all races of men that dwell
   upon the face of the earth. "Shed for many." His eyes, I doubt not,
   glanced at these far-off islands and at the vast lands beyond the
   western sea. He thought of Africa, India and the land of Sinim. A
   multitude that no man can number gladdened the far-seeing and
   foreseeing eyes of the Redeemer! He spoke with joyful emphasis when He
   said, "shed for many for the remission of sins." Believe in the
   immeasurable results of Redemption! Whenever we are making arrangements
   for the preaching of this precious blood, let us make them on a large
   scale. The mansion of love should be built for a large family. Let us
   not sing--

   "We are a garden walled around Pray keep the walls most tight and
   sound," But let us expect to see large numbers brought within the
   sacred enclosure! We must yet break forth on the right hand and on the
   left. The masses must be compelled to come in! This blood is shed for
   many.

   A group of half-a-dozen converts makes us very glad and so it should,
   but oh, to have half-a-dozen thousand at once! Why not? This blood is
   shed "for many." Let us cast the great net into the sea. You young men,
   preach the Gospel in the streets of this crowded city, for it is meant
   for many! You who go from door to door, do not think you can be too
   hopeful, since your Savior's blood is shed for many and Christ's,
   "many," is a very great many! It is shed for all who ever shall believe
   in Him--shed for you, Sinner, if you will now trust Him! Only confess
   your sin and trust Christ--and be assured that Jesus died in your
   place! It is shed for many so that no man or woman born shall ever
   trust Christ in vain, or find the Atonement insufficient for him. Oh,
   for a large-hearted faith, so that by holy effort we may lengthen our
   cords and strengthen our stakes, expecting to see the household of our
   Lord become exceedingly numerous! He shall see of the travail of His
   soul and shall be satisfied! By His righteousness shall He justify
   many, for He shall bear their iniquities! Dwell on that word, "many,"
   and let it nerve you for far-reaching labors.

   V. Now note THE CONNECTION OF THE BLOOD WITH OURSELVES. Dear Hearer,
   are you among the many?

   Why are you not? May His Grace bring you to trust in Him and you may
   not doubt that you are among the many. "Ah," you say, "that is what I
   am listening for! How can I partake in the effect of this Sacrifice?"
   Do you see that wine cup which I set before you just now? How are you
   to enjoy that wine which fills the cup? Its ruddy drops--how are they
   to be yours? The matter is very simple. I think I see you take the
   chalice in your hand and raise it to your mouth. You drink and the deed
   is done! This is no mystery. Bread and wine are ours by eating and
   drinking. Christ is ours by our receiving Him. The merit of His
   precious blood becomes ours by that simple childlike faith which
   accepts Jesus to be our All. We say, "Here it is. I believe in it. I
   take it. I accept it as my own." It is yours. No man can take from you
   that which you have eaten and drunk. Christ is yours forever if you
   receive Him into your heart.

   If you have any question as to whether you have drunk, I will tell you
   how to solve it--drink again! If you have been eating and you have
   really forgotten whether you have eaten or not--such things do occur to
   busy men who eat but lit-tle--if, I say, you would be sure that you
   have eaten, eat again! If you will be assured that you have believed in
   Jesus, believe again! Whenever you have any doubt about whether Christ
   is yours, take Him again! I like to begin again. Often I find the best
   way of going forward is to go back to my first faith in Jesus and, as a
   sinner, renew my confidence in my Savior. "Oh," says the devil, "you
   are a preacher of the Gospel, but you do not know it yourself." At one
   time I used to argue with the accuser, but he is not worth it and it is
   by no means profitable to one's own heart. We cannot convert or
   convince the devil--it is better to refer him to our Lord. When he
   tells me I am not a saint, I answer, "Well, what am I, then? "A
   sinner," he says. "Well, so are you!" "Ah," he says, "You will be
   lost!" "No," say I, "that is why I shall not be

   lost, since Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and I,
   therefore, trust in Him to save me." This is what Martin Luther calls
   cutting the devil's head off with his own sword and it is the best
   course you can follow!

   You say, "If I take Christ to myself as a man takes a cup and drinks
   the contents, am I saved?" Yes, you are. "How am I to know it?" Know it
   because God says so! "He that believes in Him has everlasting life." If
   I did not feel a pulse of that life, (as I did not at first), I,
   nevertheless would believe that I had it simply on the strength of the
   Divine Assurance. Since my conversion I have felt the pulsing of a life
   more strong and forcible than the life of the most vigorous youth that
   ever ran without weariness--but there are times when it is not so. Just
   now I feel the heavenly life joyously leaping within me, but when I do
   not feel it, I fall back on this--God has said, "He that believes in
   Him has everlasting life." God's Words against all my feelings! I may
   get into a fainting fit and my circumstances may operate upon my heart
   as this hot weather operates upon my body and make me feel dull and
   sleepy, but this cannot make the Word of God of no effect! I go back to
   the Book and believe the bare Word of the Lord, "He that believes in
   Him has everlasting life." That is enough for me! I believe and,
   therefore, I live! Our inward experience is fine corroborative
   evidence, but God's testimony is the best foundation our confidence can
   have!

   I recollect a story told of William Dawson whom our Wesleyan friends
   used to call Billy Dawson, one of the best preachers that ever entered
   a pulpit. He once gave out as his text, "Through this Man is preached
   unto you the forgiveness of sins." When he had given out his text he
   dropped down to the bottom of the pulpit, so that nothing could be seen
   of him--only there was a voice heard saying, "Not the man in the
   pulpit, he is out of sight, but the Man in the Book! The Man described
   in the Book is the Man through whom is preached unto you the
   forgiveness of sins."

   I put myself and you and everybody else out of sight, and I preach to
   you the remission of sins through Jesus only! I would sing with the
   children, "Nothing but the blood of Jesus." Shut your eyes to all
   things but the Cross. Jesus died and rose again--and went to
   Heaven--and all your hope must go with Him! Come, my Hearer, take Jesus
   by a distinct act of faith this morning! May God the Holy Spirit grant
   you Grace to do so and then you may go on your way rejoicing! So be it
   in the name of Jesus!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Bit of History for Old and Young

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 10, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham
   and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this
   day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."
   Genesis 48:15,16.

   JOSEPH was one by himself. In Jacob's family he was like a swan in a
   duck's nest--he seemed to be of a different race from the rest, even
   from his childhood. He was the son of old age, the son of the elders,
   that is, a child who was old when he was young, in thoughtfulness and
   devotion. He reached an early ripeness which did not end in early
   decay. In consequence of this, Joseph was one by himself in the
   peculiarity of his trials. Through his brothers' hatred of him, he was
   made to suffer greatly and, at last, was sold into slavery and
   underwent trials in Egypt of the severest kind. "The archers have
   sorely grieved him and shot at him, and hated him." But, Brothers and
   Sisters, see the recompense, for he had blessings which were altogether
   his own. "His bow abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made
   strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." He was as
   distinguished by the favor of God as by the disfavor of his brothers.

   When Jacob is old and about to die, Joseph receives from him a blessing
   all to himself, in addition to that which he received with his
   brothers. In the 49th chapter we read, "Gather yourselves together, and
   hear, you sons of Jacob: and hearken unto Israel, your father." And
   they did so and received as a family such blessings as their father's
   prophetic eyes foresaw. But before this, "by faith, Jacob blessed the
   two sons of Joseph" at a private interview especially granted to them.
   Had not his tribulations abounded, his consolations would not so have
   abounded! Do you seem, yourself, my Friend, to be marked out for
   peculiar sorrows? Do the arrows of affliction make your life their
   target and are you chastened above all other men? Do not be regretful,
   for the arrows are winged by Covenant Love which designs, by their
   wounds, are to prepare you for a special work which will lead up to a
   special benediction from your Father who is in Heaven!

   The day will come when you will be grateful for every smart you now
   endure--yes, grateful for that bitter pang of unkindness from your
   brothers, though now it tortures your heart. The abundance of the
   Revelation of God is usually joined with a thorn in the flesh either
   before or after it. Notwithstanding your grief, there shall yet be born
   to you, as to Joseph, a Manasseh, for God shall make you forget all
   your toil, and an Ephraim, for God shall make you fruitful in the land
   of your affliction. You shall be blessed above all others! "Even by the
   God of your father, who shall help you; and by the Almighty, who shall
   bless you with blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that
   lies under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: the blessings of
   your father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto
   the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of
   Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his
   brethren."

   Surely it is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth--his
   shoulders shall be the better able to bear the government when God
   shall lay it upon them! Instructed by affliction, the man shall become
   a father to his people and a comforter to the afflicted.

   Our text tells us that Jacob blessed Joseph and we perceive that he
   blessed him through blessing his children which leads us to the next
   remark, that no more choice favor could fall upon ourselves than to see
   our children favored of the Lord. Joseph is doubly blessed by seeing
   Ephraim and Manasseh blessed. Dear young people, to whom I now speak,
   your fathers can say, "We have no greater joy than this, that our
   children walk in the Truth of God." If any of you who are unconverted
   knew the deep searching of heart of your parents about you, I think you
   would not long be careless and indifferent about Divine things. And if
   you could conceive the flashes of heavenly joy that would light up your
   parents'

   hearts if they saw you saved in the Lord, it would be an inducement to
   you to consider your ways and turn unto the Lord with full purpose of
   heart. God, Himself, next to giving to His chosen the Covenant of
   Grace, can do them no greater earthly kindness than to call their
   children, by His Grace, into the same Covenant! Will you not think of
   this?

   Those of us who are parents are bound to do our best that our children
   may be partakers with us of the Divine inheritance. As Joseph took
   Ephraim and Manasseh to see their aged grandfather, let us bring our
   children where blessings may be expected. Let us be careful of the
   company into which we take our sons and daughters. Let us never conduct
   them where they may receive harm rather than benefit. Carefully,
   lovingly, wisely--using no undue severity--let us guide them into
   likely places for the Divine benediction and encourage them to seek the
   blessing for themselves by the fact that their parents are seeking it
   for them. The father who will not seize every opportunity of getting a
   blessing for his Eph-raim and Manasseh is not likely to see the lads
   seeking the blessing for themselves. Especially should this care be
   taken by parents who are growing rich--whose offspring will be tempted
   by this very fact to seek grander society than the poor people of God
   can afford them.

   I doubt not that these two sons of Egypt's prime minister were exposed
   to exceedingly great temptations. As the sons of a very wealthy and
   distinguished parent, their tastes might lie in an Egyptian direction.
   I believe that they were, nevertheless, greatly swayed to the right
   side and led to worship the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,
   by the zeal of their father, Joseph, and by the recollection of the
   benediction of their dying grandfather. There is no trace of their
   having inclined to the religion of the king and the nobles of
   Egypt--they adhered to the faith of their father. Oh that all the
   descendants of Puritan fathers might be steadfast to the pure Truth of
   God in these evil days!

   Furthermore, observe that if we want to bless young people, one of the
   likeliest means of doing so will be our personal testimony to the
   goodness of God. Young men and women usually feel great interest in
   their fathers' life story--if it is a worthy one--and what they hear
   from them of their personal experience of the goodness of God will
   abide with them. We all read biographies and we value the results of
   experience which we find there, but the biographies of our own
   relatives are peculiarly treasured. And when these biographies are not
   read, but spoken, what wonderful force they have! I remember in my
   younger days hearing a minister, blind with age, speak at the communion
   table and bear witness to us young people who had just joined the
   Church, that it was well for us that we had come to put our trust in a
   faithful God. And, as the good man, with great feebleness and yet with
   great earnestness, said to us that he had never regretted that he had
   given his heart to Christ as a boy, I felt my heart leap within me with
   delight that I had such a God to be my God!

   His testimony was such as a younger man could not have borne--he might
   have spoken more fluently, but the weight of those 80 years at the back
   of it made the old man eloquent to my young heart! We who are growing
   gray in our Master's service ought not to be backward to speak well of
   His name. Why, my Brother, you will not be able to do so much good in
   Heaven as you can on earth, for they all know about it up there--but
   men here need our witness to the God whom we have tried and proved! Let
   us make occasions in which we may speak well of the Lord, even the God
   who has fed us all our life and redeemed us from all evil. This is one
   of the best ways in which to bless the lads. The benediction of Jacob
   was intertwined with his biography--the blessing which he had, himself,
   enjoyed, he wished for them--and as he invoked it, he helped to secure
   it by his personal testimony.

   One thing further. I want you to note that Jacob, in desiring to bless
   his grandsons, introduced them to God. He speaks of "God before whom my
   fathers did walk: God who blessed me all my life long." This is the
   great distinction between man and man! There are two races--he that
   fears God and he that fears Him not. The religion of this present age,
   such as it is, has a wrong direction in its course. It seeks after what
   is called "the enthusiasm of humanity," but what we need, far more, is
   enthusiasm for God! We shall never go right unless God is first, midst
   and last. I despair for benevolence when it is not based upon devotion.
   We shall not long have love to man if we do not first and chiefly
   cultivate love to God. What our boys need in starting in life is a
   God--if we have nothing else to give them, they have enough if they
   have God! What our girls need in quitting the nurture of home is God's
   love in their hearts--and whether they have fortunes or not, is a small
   matter! In fellowship with God lies the essence of true human life!
   Life in God, life by the knowledge of the Most High, life through the
   Redeeming Angel--this is life, indeed!

   Jacob died as one who had been delivered from all evil, yes, even the
   evil of old age. His eyes were dim, but that did not matter, for his
   faith was clear. I love to think that we are going where our vision of
   God will not be through the eyes, but through the spiritual
   perceptions. These were brighter in Jacob in his old age than ever
   before. His faith and love,

   which are the earthly forms of those perceptions, were apprehending God
   in a more forcible manner than ever and, therefore, signified little
   that the eyes which he would need no longer were failing him. We cannot
   say that he was in decay, after all, for he was losing what he only
   needed in this world of shadows--and was gaining fitness for the higher
   state! His gracious faculties grew as his bodily faculties declined
   and, therefore, he felt that his life was ending in a fullness of
   blessing such as he wished for the children of his dearest son. How
   ardently do I wish the same blessing for all the young people before
   me! The Lord God Almighty bless you! When your earth-born faculties
   fail you, may heavenly Graces more than supply their place!

   All this is introduction, so now we must come at once and plunge into
   the discourse! And I will be brief upon each point of it. Jacob's
   testimony, wherewith he blessed the sons of Joseph, has in it four
   points.

   I. First, HE SPEAKS OF ANCESTRAL MERCIES. He begins with that "God,
   before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk." As with a pencil he
   sketches the lives of Abraham and Isaac. He does not fill in with
   coloring, but the outline is perfect--you see the two men in their
   whole career in those few words--"God, before whom my fathers Abraham
   and Isaac did walk."

   They were men who recognized God and worshipped Him beyond all others
   of their age. God was to them a real existence. They spoke with God and
   God spoke with them. They were friends of God and enjoyed familiar
   acquaintance with him. No agnosticism blinded their understandings and
   deadened their hearts. They were worshippers of the one living and true
   God. Happy children who have such fathers! Happier children who are
   like such fathers!

   They not only recognized God, but they acknowledged Him in daily life.
   I take the expression, "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac
   did walk," to mean that He was their God in common life. They not only
   knelt before God when they prayed, but they walked before Him in
   everything. When they went forth from their tents and when they
   returned from their flocks, they walked before God. They were never
   away from His service, or without His Presence. He was their dwelling
   place. Whether they sojourned under an oak or dwelt by a well. Whether
   they entertained strangers or walked in the field to meditate, they
   lived and moved in God. This is the kind of life for you and for
   me--whether we live in a great house or in a poor cottage, if we walk
   before God we shall lead a happy and a noble life--whether that life is
   public or obscure. Oh that our young people would firmly believe this!

   They walked before God, that is, they obeyed His commands. His call
   they heard, His bidding they followed. Abraham left country and kindred
   to go to an unknown land which God would show him. Yes, more, he took
   his son, whom he greatly loved, and stood prepared to sacrifice him at
   God's command! Isaac also yielded himself up to be slain, if so Jehovah
   willed. To them the will of the Lord was paramount--He was Law and Life
   to them, for they loved and feared Him. They were prompt to hear the
   behests of God and rose up early to fulfill them. They acted as in the
   immediate Presence of the All-Seeing.

   To the fullest they trusted Him. In this sense they always saw Him. We
   sometimes talk about tracing Him. We cannot trace Him except as we
   trust Him! And because they trusted, they traced Him. Notwithstanding
   all the danger and difficulty of their pilgrim state, they dwelt in
   perfect security in an enemy's land, for the Lord had said, "Touch not
   My anointed and do My Prophets no harm." They were serene and tranquil
   because they walked before God, knowing Him to be their Friend--and
   that He was their shield and their exceedingly great reward. For
   temporal things they had no anxiety, for they lived upon the
   All-Sufficient God. Therefore these two men, Abraham and Isaac, though
   much tried, led peaceful lives--they conversed with Heaven while they
   sojourned on earth.

   They enjoyed the favor of God, for this, also, is intended by walking
   before Him. His face was towards them--they sunned themselves in His
   smile. God's love was their true treasure. We read that God had blessed
   Abraham in all things and of Isaac we hear even the Philistines say,
   "We saw certainly that the Lord was with you." God was their wealth,
   their strength, their exceeding joy! I say again, happy sons who have
   such ancestors! Happier, still, if they follow in their track!

   So Jacob spoke of Abraham and Isaac and so can some of us speak of
   those who went before us. Those of us who can look back upon godly
   ancestors now in Heaven must feel that many ties bind us to follow the
   same course of life. Had they transgressed against the Lord, our duty
   would have called us to quit the ways of the family, even as Abraham
   left his kindred who dwelt on the other side of the flood. But as their
   way was right, we are doubly called to follow it because it is the good
   old way and the way our godly fathers trod.

   There is a charm about that which was prized by our fathers. Heirlooms
   are treasured and the best heirloom in a family is the knowledge of
   God. When I spoke, the other day, with a Christian Brother, he seemed
   right happy to tell me that he sprang from a family which came from
   Holland during the persecution of the Duke of Alva. And I felt a
   brotherhood with him in claiming a like descent. I dare say our fathers
   were poor weavers, but I had far rather be descended from one who
   suffered for the faith than bear the blood of all the emperors within
   my veins! There should be a sacredness to you young people in the faith
   for which your ancestors suffered. Choose not the society of Egypt and
   its wealth and honors, but keep to the stock of Israel and claim the
   inheritance of Jacob as Ephraim and Manasseh did. Let it not be said
   that as your family increased in riches, it departed from the living
   God. Shall the goodness of God be perverted into a reason for apostasy?

   The way of holiness in which your fathers went is a fitting way for you
   and it is seemly that you maintain the godly traditions of your house.
   In the old times they expected sons to follow the secular calling of
   their fathers and although that may be regarded as an old-world
   mistake, yet it is well when sons and daughters receive the same
   spiritual call as their parents. Grace is not tied to families, yet the
   Lord delights to bless to a thousand generations! Very far are we from
   believing that the new birth is of blood, or of the will of the flesh,
   or of the will of man. The will of God reigns here supreme and
   absolute--but yet there is a sweet fitness in the passing on of holy
   loyalty from grandfather to father and from father to son. I like to
   feel that I serve God "from my fathers." I feel that it is right and
   comely that I should be found preaching out of my whole soul the same
   doctrine which my grandfather and my father preached--and equally fit
   that my sons should be found, as they are, preaching no other Gospel
   than that which we have received--"Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
   today and forever!"

   I say again, if our fathers were wrong, we ought boldly to dissent from
   them and obey God rather than man, but where they are right we are
   bound to follow them! I stood, last Wednesday in a sort of dream as I
   gazed upon my much-beloved grandfather's place of sepulcher. I was
   encouraged by seeing the record of his 54 years of service in the midst
   of one church and people and I rejoiced that, could he rise from the
   dead, he would find his grandson preaching that same old-fashioned and
   much-despised Calvinistic doctrine of the Grace of God which was his
   joy in life and his comfort in death!

   A godly ancestry casts responsibility upon young people. These Ephraims
   and Manassehs perceive that their fathers knew the Lord and the
   question arises, Why should they not know Him? O my beloved young
   Friends, the God of your fathers will be found of you and be your God!
   The prayers of your fathers have gone before you--let them be followed
   by your own. Be hopeful of being heard at that Mercy Seat where they
   found Grace to help in every time of need. They died in the hope that
   you would fill their places--shall not their hopes become facts? Do I
   speak to some who have godly parents in Heaven and yet they are,
   themselves, pursuing the ways of sin or of worldliness? Registered upon
   that file are your mother's prayers. I trust they will yet be heard.
   Even now they stand like a hedge about you, making it hard work for you
   to go to Hell! Will you force your way to Hell over a father's grave?
   Will you, by a desperate effort, push aside your pleading mother's form
   and pursue your dreadful road to ruin? If so, you will involve
   yourselves in tremendous guilt. I beseech you, hear the tender voice of
   love which now invites you to be blest!

   A godly ancestry should invest a man's case with great hopefulness. May
   he not argue, "If God blessed my ancestors, why should He not bless me?
   If they sought mercy and found it, why should not I? My father and my
   mother were not perfect any more than I am, but they had faith in God
   and He accepted them and helped them. If I have faith in God, He will
   accept me and be faithful to me. They were saved as sinners trusting in
   the blood of Jesus and why should not I?" I beseech you, put this
   argument to the test and you will find it holds good.

   II. Thus we have seen Jacob seeking to bless his seed by bearing
   testimony to the blessings which God had bestowed upon his house. Now
   he comes to deal with PERSONAL MERCIES. The old man's voice faltered as
   he said, "The God which fed me all my life long." The translation would
   be better if it ran, "The God which shepherded me all my life

   long."

   He spoke of the Lord as his Shepherd. Jacob had been a shepherd and,
   therefore, he knew what shepherding included--the figure is full of
   meaning. There had been a good deal of Jacob about Jacob and he had
   tried to shepherd himself. Poor sheep that he was, while under his own
   guidance he had been caught in many thorns and had wandered in many
   wildernesses. Because he would be so much a shepherd to himself, he had
   been hard put to it. But over all, despite

   his willfulness, the shepherding of the Covenant God had been exercised
   towards him and he acknowledged it. O dear saints of God, you to whom
   years are being multiplied, give praise to your God for having been
   your Shepherd! You delight in the 23rd Psalm--sing it sometimes with
   variations by using the past tense--"The Lord has been my Shepherd and
   I have known no need. He has made me to lie down in green pastures; He
   has led me beside the still waters. Yes, though I have walked through
   the valley of the shadow of death in times of great darkness, yet I
   have feared no evil: for He has been with me, His rod and His staff
   have comforted me." Bear your witness to the shepherding of God, for
   this may lead others to become the sheep of His pasture.

   This shepherding had been perfect. Our version rightly says that the
   Lord had fed Jacob all his life long. Take that sense of it and you who
   have a daily struggle for subsistence will see much beauty in it. Jacob
   had a large family and yet they were fed. Some of you say, "It is all
   very well of you to talk of Providence when you have few to provide
   for." I answer, it is better, still, to talk of Providence where a
   large household requires large provision! Remember Jacob had 13
   children, yet his God provided them bread to eat and clothes to put on.
   None of that large company were left to starve. You think, perhaps,
   that Jacob was a man of large estate. He was not so when he began life.
   He was only a working man--a shepherd. When he left his father's house
   he had no attendants with camels and tents. I suppose he carried his
   little bit of provision in a handkerchief and when he laid down that
   night to sleep, with a stone for his pillow, the hedges for curtains,
   the heavens for his canopy, and the earth for his bed, he had no fear
   of being robbed.

   God was with him, but apart from that, he had nothing to begin life
   with but his own hands. Whatever he received from his father Isaac
   afterwards, he had at first to fight his own way--but he knew no lack
   either at the beginning or at the end, for he could speak of the great
   Elohim as, "the God which fed me all my life long." Hundreds of us can
   say the same! I remember one who came to be wealthy who used to show me
   with great pleasure the tree axle of the truck in which he used to
   wheel his goods through the streets when he began in business--I liked
   to see him mindful of his original. Mind you do not go and say, "See
   how I have got on by my own talents and industry!" Talk not so proudly,
   but say, "God has fed me." Mercies are all the sweeter when seen to
   come from the hand of God.

   But besides being fed, Jacob had been led, even as sheep are guided by
   the shepherd who goes before them. His journeys, for that period, had
   been unusually long, perilous and frequent. He had fled from home to
   Padanaram. After long years he had come back to Canaan and had met his
   brother, Esau. And after that, in his old age he had journeyed into
   Egypt. To go to California or New Zealand in these times is nothing at
   all compared to those journeys in Jacob's day! But he says, "God has
   shepherded me all my life long" and he means that the great changes of
   his life had been wisely ordered. At home and in exile, in Canaan and
   in Goshen, God had been a shepherd to him. He sees the good hand of God
   upon him in all his wanderings, until he now finds himself sitting up
   on his bed and blessing Joseph through his sons.

   I am glad that he went into detail with these young men, for they
   needed to be confirmed in their fidelity to God. They were in a
   perilous condition, for they had the entree of the rank and fashion of
   Egypt and were tempted to forsake the poor family of the Hebrews. Some
   of you young fellows begin where your fathers left off and, having the
   means of self-indulgence, you are apt to follow the fashions and
   frivolities of the period. Oh that the Holy Spirit may make you feel
   that you need God with you with wealth as much as your fathers needed
   God without wealth! You may yet come to beggary with all your
   inheritance if you cast off the fear of the Lord and fall into sin. You
   who begin life with nothing but your own brains and hands, trusting in
   your father's God, shall yet have to sing as your fathers sang, "the
   God which fed me all my life long."

   Young men and young women beginning life, I charge you seek first the
   Kingdom of God and His righteousness! It is not life to live without
   God--you miss the kernel, the cream, the crown of life if you miss the
   Presence of God! Life is but a bubble blown up of toil and trouble
   without God! Life ends in blighted hope if you have not hope in God.
   But with God you are as a sheep with a Shepherd--cared for, guided,
   guarded, fed, led--and your end shall be peace without end!

   III. Thirdly, bear with me while I follow Jacob in his word upon
   REDEEMING MERCIES. "The Angel which redeemed me from all evil." There
   was to Jacob a mysterious Person who was God and yet the Angel or
   Messenger of God. He puts this Angel side by side with Elohim, for this
   Angel was God. Yet was He his Redeemer. He saw Him doing the office of
   the next-of-kin--though God, He was his Kinsman and, as his Kinsman,
   effected redemption for him! Jacob's faith enabled him, like Job, to
   know that his Redeemer lives. He saw that this Covenant Messenger had
   redeemed him from all evil and he magnified the name of the Lord who
   revealed Himself in this Angel!

   When Jacob was in his sorest straits, this Redeeming Angel always
   interposed. He fell into an evil state through the influence of his
   mother and he did Esau serious wrong. He fled for his life and at that
   time there was a great gulf between him and God. Then that Angel came
   in and bridged the gulf with a ladder by which he might rise to God.
   The Kinsman, God, came in and showed Jacob how the abyss might be
   crossed, so that he might return to his God. When he was away in
   Padanaram, he began to sink very low while chaffering with churlish
   Laban. Then, again, the Angel came and said, "Get you out from this
   land and return unto the land of your kindred." The Redeeming Angel
   held back wrathful La-ban--and when Esau came to meet him in hot anger,
   the Angel specially appeared to Jacob. The Angel wrestled, as a Man,
   with Jacob to get Jacob out of Jacob and raise him into Israel! How
   marvelous was the redemption which was worked for him that night at
   Jabbok! Jacob came forth from the conflict limping, but he walked
   before the Lord far better than before! That same mysterious Person had
   bid him go down into Egypt with the promise that He would go down with
   him. It was the Angel of God's Presence who held His shield over Jacob
   and preserved him from all evil.

   Brothers and Sisters, let us also tell of the redeeming mercies of the
   Lord Jesus towards us! He redeemed us on the bloody tree, but He has
   also redeemed us from our death in sin. Do you remember the place and
   time when Jesus first met with you? Perhaps not. But blessed be the
   Redeeming Angel that quickened me into spiritual life! I recall the
   place and time with pleasure! He redeemed us, also, from despair when,
   under a sense of sin, we could not dare to hope. He came to us and
   showed us our healing in His wounds and our life in His death.
   Afterwards, when our corruptions began to rise and we had a hard battle
   to believe that such sinners were, indeed, saved, the Redeeming Angel
   confirmed our faith and gave us inward strength. Do we not well
   remember when He said unto us, "I have loved you with an everlasting
   love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you"? I want you to
   look back and remember the times when you were sick and this Redeeming
   Angel so sweetly visited you that you were half afraid to get well, for
   fear you should lose His Pres-ence--your bed had become a throne to
   you!

   You remember, too, when that pinch came in business, so that you could
   not see how to provide things honest in the sight of all men. Then
   Jesus revealed His love and bade you think of the lilies and the ravens
   which neither spin nor sow and yet are clothed majestically and fare
   sumptuously! Many a time has the Lord delivered you because He
   delighted in you. When you were likely to fall into sin. When you were
   very wrong in spirit, He beheld you in pity and restored your soul.
   Though you were so lukewarm that He was ready to spue you out of His
   mouth, yet He knocked at your door and when you admitted Him, He came
   in and supped with you--and your soul was soon on fire with love to
   Him! He restored your soul and the love of your espousals came back to
   you. Blessed Redeemer, how graciously do You deliver! Oh that we more
   often thought of the interpositions of the loving Christ! He did not
   only redeem us when He died, but He still redeems us by His living
   power! This is the sum of our life--the Angel of the Covenant has
   delivered us day by day, is delivering us and will deliver us to the
   end! Do you wonder that we commend Him to our offspring and desire to
   commit them to His loving care? Young Friends who know not the Savior,
   I would gladly lead you to this Guardian Angel, this God-like Man who
   will save you from all evil from this day forth and forevermore!

   IV. Now comes the last point--I do not know if anyone has gone to sleep
   in this close atmosphere, but if so, let him kindly wake up, for I have
   something to say which will interest him. Jacob has spoken of ancestral
   mercies, personal mercies and redeeming mercies--and now he deals with
   FUTURE MERCIES as he cries--"Bless the lads." He began with blessing
   Joseph and he finishes with blessing his lads. O dear Friends, if God
   has blessed you, I know you will want Him to bless others! There is the
   stream of mercy, deep, broad and clear--you have drunk of it and are
   refreshed, but it is as full as ever! It will flow on, will it not? You
   do not suppose that you and I have dammed up the stream so as to keep
   it to ourselves! No, it is too strong--too full a stream for that! It
   will flow on from age to age. God will bless others as He has blessed
   us. Unbelief whispers that the true Church will die out. Do not believe
   it! Christ will live and His Church will live with Him till the heavens
   are no more. Has He not said, "Because I live, you shall live also?"
   "Oh," you say, "but we shall not see such holy men in the next
   generation as in past ages." Why not? I hope the next age will see far
   better men than any of those who are with us at this time! Pray that it
   may be so. Instead of the fathers, may there be the children and may
   these be princes before the Lord!

   The stream of Divine Grace will flow on. Oh, that it may take our sons
   and daughters in its course! "Bless the lads." Sunday school teachers,
   is not that a good prayer for you? Pray the Lord to bless the lads and
   the lasses, because He has

   blessed you. There is the stream--it must flow somewhere--pray, "Lord,
   make it flow to my family and to my class." For Your mercy's sake,
   gracious Lord, "bless the lads."

   We need not say in what precise form or way the blessing shall come.
   Let us leave it in all its breadth of inconceivable benediction. May
   the Lord bless our youth as only He can do it! And if He causes them to
   fear and trust Him, He will be blessing all of us and blessing ages to
   come. Upon these Ephraims and Manassehs will depend the work of the
   Lord in the years to come. Therefore, with emphasis we pray, "Bless the
   lads." All for us, we are content to work on, saying, "Let Your work
   appear unto Your servants." But our anxious desire is that our children
   may reap the result of our labors and, therefore, we add, "and Your
   glory unto their children."

   In closing, I wish to bear a personal testimony by narrating an
   incident in my own life. I have been preaching in Essex this week and I
   took the opportunity to visit the place where my grandfather preached
   so long--and where I spent my earliest days. Last Wednesday was to me a
   day in which I walked like a man in a dream! Everybody seemed bound to
   recall some event or other of my childhood. What a story of Divine Love
   and Mercy did it bring before my mind! Among other things, I sat down
   in a place that must always be sacred to me. There stood in my
   grandfather's manse garden two arbors made of yew trees, cut into
   sugar-loaf fashion. Though the old manse has given way to a new one and
   the old chapel is also gone, yet the yew trees flourish as before.

   I sat down in the right hand arbor and I thought of what had happened
   there many years ago. When I was a young child staying with my
   grandfather, there came to preach in the village Mr. Knill who had been
   a missionary at St. Petersburg and a mighty preacher of the Gospel. He
   came to preach for the London Missionary Society and arrived on the
   Saturday at the manse. He was a great soul-winner and he soon spied out
   the boy. He said to me, "Where do you sleep? for I want to call you up
   in the morning." I showed him my little room. At six o'clock he called
   me up and we went into that arbor. There, in the sweetest way, he told
   me of the love of Jesus and of the blessedness of trusting in Him and
   loving Him in our childhood. With many a story he preached Christ to me
   and told me how good God had been to him.

   And then he prayed that I might know the Lord and serve Him. He knelt
   down in that arbor and prayed for me with his arms about my neck. He
   did not seem content unless I kept with him in the interval between the
   services and he heard my childish talk with patient love. On Monday
   morning he did as on the Sabbath and again on Tuesday. Three times he
   taught me and prayed with me and before he had to leave, my grandfather
   had come back from the place where he had gone to preach--and all the
   family were gathered to morning prayer. Then, in the presence of them
   all, Mr. Knill took me on his knee and said, "This child will one day
   preach the Gospel and he will preach it to great multitudes. I am
   persuaded that he will preach in the chapel of Rowland Hill, where, (I
   think he said), I am now the minister."

   He spoke very solemnly, and called upon all present to witness what he
   said. Then he gave me sixpence as a reward if I would learn the hymn--

   "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."

   I was made to promise that when I preached in Rowland Hill's Chapel
   that hymn should be sung. Think of that as a promise from a child!
   Would it ever be other than an idle dream? Years flew by. After I had
   begun, for some little time, to preach in London, Dr. Alexander
   Fletcher had to give the annual sermon to children in Surrey Chapel,
   but as he was taken ill, I was asked, in a hurry, to preach to the
   children. "Yes," I said, "I will, if the children will sing, 'God moves
   in a mysterious way.' I have made a promise long ago that so that
   should be sung."

   And so it was--I preached in Rowland Hill's Chapel and the hymn was
   sung! My emotions on that occasion I cannot describe. Still that was
   not the chapel which Mr. Knill intended! All unsought by me, the
   minister at Wotton-Under-Edge, which was Mr. Hill's summer residence,
   invited me to preach there. I went on the condition that the
   congregation should sing, "God moves in a mysterious way"--which was
   also done. After that I went to preach for Mr. Richard Knill, himself,
   who was then at Chester. What a meeting we had! Mark this! He was
   preaching in the theater! His preaching in a theater took away from me
   all fear about preaching in secular buildings and set me free for the
   campaigns in Exeter Hall and the Surrey Music Hall. How much this had
   to do with other theater services you know--

   "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform."

   After more than 40 years of the Lord's loving kindness, I sat again in
   that arbor! No doubt it is a mere trifle for outsiders to hear, but to
   me it was an overwhelming moment. The present minister of Stambourne
   Meeting House and the

   members of his family, including his son and his grandchildren, were in
   the garden and I could not help calling them together around that arbor
   while I praised the Lord for His goodness. One irresistible impulse was
   upon me--it was to pray God to bless those lads that stood around me!
   Do you not see how the memory begat the prayer? I wanted them to
   remember, when they grew up, my testimony of God's goodness to me--and
   for that same reason I tell it to you young people who are around me
   this morning!

   God has blessed me all my life long and redeemed me from all evil--and
   I pray that He may be your God. You that have godly parents, I would
   specially address. I beseech you to follow in their footsteps, that you
   may one day speak of the Lord as they were able to do in their day.
   Remember that special promise, "I love them that love Me and those that
   seek Me early shall find Me." May the Holy Spirit lead you to seek Him
   this day and you shall live to praise His name as Jacob did!
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Nearness To Us

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 17, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Though He is not far from each one of us." Acts 17:27.

   WHEN man disobeyed his God he died spiritually and that death consisted
   in the separation of his soul from God. From that moment man began to
   think that God was far away and this has since been his religion in all
   ages. Either he has said, "There is no God," or he has believed the
   visible creation to be God, which is much the same as having no God. Or
   else he has thought God to be some far-away, mysterious Being who takes
   no notice of man. Even after obtaining a better conception of God, he
   has thought Him hard to find and hard to be entreated of. Because his
   own heart is far from God, he imagines that God's heart is far from
   him. But it is not so. The living God is not far from any one of us,
   for, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

   The nearness of God to man is a teaching of Revelation. Look back to
   the record of the Garden of Eden and see an early evidence of God's
   nearness to man. Adam, having transgressed, hid himself among the trees
   of the garden, but in his hiding place God sought him and the Voice of
   the Lord God was heard, walking among the trees of the garden and
   saying, "Adam, where are you?" Man will not seek God, but God seeks
   man! Though man's voice is not, "Where is my God?" yet God's voice is,
   "Adam, where are you?" All through history God has been familiar with
   man. He has spoken to him in divers ways, but principally through
   chosen men. One after another He has raised up Prophets and by their
   warning voices He has pleaded with men and invited them to seek His
   face. His own voice might have caused dismay and distance and so He has
   used human voices, that He might come nearer to the heart. All the
   history of the chosen nation, as we read it in the Old Testament,
   reveals the nearness of Jehovah. Whatever we read upon the page, we
   know that within, above, or behind it, the Lord is near, even when He
   seems to have hidden Himself. In these latter days, the Lord has come
   still nearer to us, for He has spoken to us by His Son. The Son of God
   became the Friend of sinners--could He come nearer than that? The Word
   was made flesh and dwelt among men and men beheld His Glory. Bone of
   our bone and flesh of our flesh is the Christ and yet He is very God of
   very God. In Him God is next-of-kin to man and manhood is brought near
   to the Eternal Throne. Christ Jesus is God and Man in one Person and
   thus the closest union is formed between God and man. Verily, verily,
   the Lord God is not far from each one of us in His own dear Son!

   Today, though Jesus has gone up on high, the Spirit of God abides in
   the midst of the Church and thus, again, the Lord is near. The
   Comforter is still at work. The Convincer still presses upon man's
   conscience sin, righteousness and judgment to come. Still does the Holy
   Spirit work with the Word of God, directing His ministers so to speak
   that their hearers shall perceive a personality and pointedness in the
   Word delivered. Oh, you that hear the Gospel, be sure of this, that the
   Kingdom of God has come near to you in a very special sense! I may say
   of you with an emphasis, "He is not far from any of you and you are not
   far from the Kingdom of God."

   That God is near by His Omnipresence and by His gracious dealings with
   men is the clear teaching of the inspired volume. To the enlightened
   mind, God is evidently seen to be near in the works of Nature. Whose
   voice was it that we heard last night thundering overhead? Who
   fashioned the drops of rain that refreshed the fields? Who breathed the
   gentle breeze which cooled and cheered the drooping flowers? Who has
   sent us this day so clear, so calm, so bright, "the bridal of the earth
   and sky"? Who is creating for us our harvests and preparing food for
   man and beast? It is God that does this, doing it in ways beyond our
   comprehension, yet doing it before our eyes! There is no other force in
   the universe save that which is derived from God. There is no other
   life except the life which has leaped from the eternal Self-Existence.
   God is in ALL! Above us in the stars He shines, but He also works in
   the grass beneath our feet. Each dewdrop gleams

   His glory and every grain of dust bears His impress. He is within us,
   keeping our hearts in motion--and around us, giving to the air we
   breathe its power to sustain life.

   So also is the Lord very near in Providence. Albeit that this godless
   age seeks to banish God, yet is He present in the transactions of every
   day. All things come from Him, both the little and the great. He
   ordains, rules, or over-rules. Pestilence and famine, earthquake and
   hurricane are His heavier treads--and days and nights, harvests and
   springtides are His gentler footsteps. The events of history, whether
   on a large or small scale, betray an evident design and arrangement.
   All things work together with singular accuracy and punctuality to
   accomplish a lofty purpose. It is the fashion, nowadays, to say that
   these are coincidences. It is a pretty word for boys to play with! Some
   of us observe God's Providences and we are never without a Providence
   to observe. We see the hand of God in daily life and we are glad to do
   so, though we are laughed at as poor fools. Those who can see may well
   be content to bear the jests of the blind! In my own personal
   experience I have met with numbers of singular and special tokens of
   God's working in Providence, some of which I would scarce dare to tell
   because they might seem incredible. I remember preaching at Halifax, in
   a huge timber building which was erected for the purpose. During the
   previous day the snow fell heavily and it lay deep upon the ground.
   Nevertheless, the people came in their thousands and thronged the
   enormous edifice. And gratefully do I remember how they went away to
   their homes in safety. They had no sooner cleared the building to the
   last man, than it fell in one gigantic ruin! Why had it not fallen when
   the crowds were there? In my joy that no one was harmed I thought that
   God was there, and I praised His holy name. Was that a piece of
   superstition?

   Take another instance. I was one day in great perplexity upon a certain
   matter of great importance to the cause of God. I laid it before God in
   prayer, but still I did not see my way--I could get no direction or
   guidance. Having to preach in North London, a friend kindly drove me to
   the spot and afterwards I asked Him to take me to the house of one of
   our people whom I wished to see. I scarcely noticed my way, till at
   last I found myself in a street unknown to me. I then said, "You are
   surely going wrong." "No," He said, "I am right enough." He was making
   for the private house of the person I had named, but I knew that he
   would, at that time, be at his office in the City and I had intended to
   go there after him. We were on the wrong track and so the horse's head
   was turned down a side street unknown to me. And as we passed along it,
   I saw the only man in all the world who could assist me out of my
   difficulty. How he came to be there I could not tell! How I came to be
   there I have already told you. Strangely had the Lord guided me and the
   information guided the affair to a happy issue. God was near me. Mere
   coincidences, they tell me! Mere coincidences!

   Let me tell a true story. The other day I met with a series of similar
   "mere coincidences." I set out by railway to a certain town and the
   train went on till we came to a junction and I was bid to change. By a
   strange coincidence another train had drawn up and was going in the
   direction I desired. I had only time to cross a platform and take my
   place and off it went. A few miles further I again heard a voice,
   saying, "change here!" I changed a second time and by another
   coincidence a train was just starting for my destination. When I
   reached the end of my railway journey, another coincidence was in store
   for me, for a well-known friend was waiting with his carriage and he
   took me to his house, where, by another coincidence, a dinner was
   ready. At the dinner there happened to be a dish upon the table
   intended for a person who did not eat meat. Was not this a special
   coincidence for me? I went to the chapel to preach and I found it
   crowded with people anxious to hear--another coincidence, of course!

   Somebody cries, "You talk nonsense! It was all arranged!" I confess I
   thought so. I am glad that you acknowledge the arranging hand, but,
   pardon me, I saw an arranging hand in the other cases, also, and I
   think it was as clear in the other cases as in this! To the story of my
   journey you find a clue in a previous arrangement--and in the history
   of nations and in the story of each human life I also find a clue in
   the Presence of a Divine mind which arranges all things! When human
   arrangement explains a series of events, you admit it without
   question--why not admit Divine arrangement since it equally well
   explains the great occurrences of history? Do you object? I fear it is
   that you resolve not to believe in the one case, while in the other,
   having no theory to maintain, you follow your natural common sense.

   God is so near us that He hears the prayers of His people and orders
   events in correspondence to those prayers. Do you doubt this? Do you
   tell me that the many answers to prayer which we joyfully narrate are
   mere coincidences? I have hardly patience to answer you. Yet let me
   tell you of some strange incidents which happened to me yesterday. In
   the morning, when I came into my study, I needed to break my fast. I
   had scarcely wished it before my breakfast was on the table. During the
   day I wished for a glass of water. In a few moments it stood by my
   side. I required someone to take a

   telegram to the post office for me. Lo! Presto! A suitable messenger
   appeared. Was this magic? The evening came on and I desired to have the
   lamps lighted and the curtains drawn. In a few seconds my desire was
   accomplished. Were these matters "mere coincidences"? "No," cries one,
   "you rang the bell."

   Now, come to think of it, someone did pull at a handle--but I saw no
   bell! Yet you assure me that the ringing of a bell accounts for it all!
   I will not argue the point with you. Only when I yield to you, I want
   you also to yield to me when I tell you that we pray to the Lord our
   God and that we receive answers to our prayers! Our daily experience is
   that prayer is answered by the Lord our God, for He is near to fulfill
   His promises and to grant the petitions of them that put their trust in
   Him. You believe in the power of the bell and we believe in the power
   of prayer! Our speaking to the living God is as much a fact and a
   reality to us as the ringing of a bell to you! Why, then, do you heap
   scorn upon us? Why do you snuff us out with your big talk about
   coincidences? Scoff away! We shall not pray any the less so long as in
   our experience we find the Lord so swift to hear, so bountiful to
   bless! The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God," but even he
   is not so much a fool as he who, believing that there is a God, will
   not allow that He is near enough to hear and answer prayer! Oh, that my
   Hearers who doubt the nearness of God would cry to Him and see if He
   would not be found of them!

   Beloved, the fact is that God is everywhere. He is so present in all
   places that He is specially near to each person. His circumference is
   nowhere, but His center is everywhere! God is as much with you as if
   there were no other person in the world. His being near to you does not
   make Him far off from another. This Truth of God is high and we cannot
   attain to it, but it is none the less sure. God is near each one of us,
   observing us with exactness, perceiving the secret intents of our
   hearts. He is near us, feeling for us and thinking of us. He is near us
   in active energy, ready to interpose and help us. He is near us in all
   places and at all times. By night and by day He surrounds us. At this
   moment, "surely God is in this place." Know it and be filled with awe!
   I pray that before the service is over you may know it by feeling the
   power of His Grace. In answer to prayer, may the Lord's Presence and
   Power be with the words which I shall try to speak to you, though I
   speak in great feebleness.

   First, I am going to address myself for a little to those who only feel
   after Him, but as yet have not perceived Him. And then I shall speak to
   those who have found Him and who know by a sweet experience how near He
   is to His chosen.

   I. TO THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE FEELING AFTER GOD I speak in deep
   earnestness. Like blind men who grope for the wall, you stretch out
   your hands to feel after Him. Rejoice, for He is not far from you!

   What then? How impious is sin when seen in this light! You have
   transgressed the commands of the great King in the King's Presence.
   When you blasphemed Him, you thought little of Him--but you spoke into
   His ear. When you ridiculed His ways and His people, you did it to His
   face. You insulted your Creator while His eyes were fixed on you. Did
   you dream that you were in the outskirts of His dominion, far off from
   His Throne? And did you, therefore, take liberty to offend? O Sir, you
   were mistaken! You rebelled in His courts! He heard your evil words; He
   noted your unrighteous acts. Think of this, you that have never sought
   mercy at His hands--from your childhood until now you have lived under
   His close inspection! You have, perhaps, seen those hives which permit
   you, through a glass, to see all that the bees are doing. You have
   watched them busy in their cells. All the world is but a hive of this
   sort to the mind of God. You could not read the designs and intents of
   the bees, but the Lord has read your thoughts and imaginations. Would
   some of you have sinned as you have done if you had realized the Divine
   Presence? Would you have dared to go to such lengths as you have gone,
   if you had seen Him as He has seen you? "Hush," they say, when they are
   speaking evil of any person, "here he comes." Why did you not, "hush,"
   since God was there? Servants who have wasted their master's time will
   hurry up when they see that he is near--how is it that you have not
   only loitered, but done mischief while your Master has been looking the
   other way? How impious is that sin which is done despite the Presence
   and observation of God!

   Next, note how profane is indifference! To be indifferent to God when
   God is near in the Glory of His majesty and the riches of His love, is
   a sign of great hardness of heart. God is near, supplying you with
   breath, keeping you in life and yet you care not! Holy men have
   trembled with awe in His Presence and you have trifled! How is this? If
   He had gone on a journey and you had forgotten Him, there might be some
   little excuse--but with the Lord close to you, how could you ignore
   Him? Can I call this less than sheer profanity? If an angel in the
   Presence of the Most High refused to adore. If a spirit before His
   burning Throne maintained a sullen silence, we should count it
   unmistakable sedition! What is it in your case? What shall I say to
   those who, here, in the Presence of God, have lived 10, 20, 30, 40, or
   50 years and yet have

   never given their Lord a serious thought? Do you so lightly esteem your
   Maker? Is He not worth a thought? Will you neither bow your knee in
   homage, nor lift up your voice in thankfulness? O men and women, why do
   you act so unjustly, so ungratefully? What has God done that you should
   slight Him? How can you excuse yourselves, that you live and move in
   Him, and yet have no more care for Him than if there were no such
   Being?

   Furthermore, if God is so near, this shows the evident impossibility of
   deceiving Him. God is not mocked! Do you think that if you will go to
   God's House that will avail you, though you go not to God? Do you
   imagine that to repeat certain gracious words will suffice, though your
   heart is wandering on the mountains of vanity? Have you thought that to
   make a religious profession will be enough? And that God will be so
   duped as to think you are His servant and His child if you take upon
   yourself the names which belong to such relationships? Do you think
   that He can be deceived when He is near you, around you and within you?
   Your heart is as open to Him as your Bible is open before you--and He
   reads you as you read the plainest print. How, then, can you deceive
   Him? Beware, I beseech you, of having any dealings with God but those
   which are in downright honesty! We must be true to the core before the
   All-Seeing One. A lie to our fellow men is meanness, but a lie to God
   is madness! What do you mean, you pretender to godliness, if your heart
   is not right with God? Do you think to play tricks with the only wise
   God? Can you cheat the eyes before which all things are naked and open?
   He besets you behind and before and lays His hand upon you--He
   possesses your reins and searches your heart! Be plain and sincere with
   Him lest He smite you as He smote Ananias and Sapphira! Oh, that the
   words of Hagar in the wilderness would rise from every heart--"You God
   see me"! That God is as near to us as we are to ourselves should make
   us greatly ashamed if, in any way whatever, we seem to be what, in the
   depths of our being, we are not.

   But, listen, this shows us how vain is all hope of escape from God!
   What if a man says there is no God? God is all the same. What if a man
   forgets God and, therefore, ceases to tremble? There is as much cause
   for trembling as ever and somewhat more. What if a man is able
   throughout life to shut his eyes to his lost estate and, at last, dies
   without bands in his death--what of that? He cannot escape the
   Judgment, he cannot flee from the far-reaching arms of Justice. The
   Lord's impartial sentence will find him out though he plunge into
   depths of darkness or make his bed in Hell! It was once said of the
   whole world that it was nothing better than a prison for the man that
   had offended Caesar--and I may say of the great universe, however wide
   it is, that it is but a narrow cell for the man who has offended God!
   Where can you flee, my Hearer? Where can you hide? Neither mountains
   nor abysses can conceal you from those eyes of fire! If you had but
   half a grain of sense, you would fall at the feet of your pursuer and
   invoke His mercy! Confess your wickedness and beg for pardon! Quit your
   sin and be reconciled to your Judge through the death of His Son--then
   those eyes shall be suns of light to you, whereas now they are as
   flames of fire!

   This is the solemn side of the matter and I confess it is dark as the
   pillar of cloud when it turned its blackness on the Egyptians. Oh, this
   God! This God who is not far from us! What shall we do? We have
   provoked Him! He is angry with the wicked every day! His great
   long-suffering holds back the strokes of His Justice, but they must
   come, one day, for He will by no means spare the guilty! Oh, my ungodly
   Hearer, you have sinned and you are sinning in the Presence of your
   God! I beseech you, think of this! You have been indifferent and you
   are still indifferent in the Presence of One who with a thought can
   wither you--and with a word can send you where hope can never come! Be
   warned, I pray you. May God bless this solemn warning to your soul's
   awakening!

   There is a bright side to this great Truth of the Divine nearness. If
   God is not far from each one of us, then how hopeful is our seeking of
   Him! If I seek God and He is not far from me, I shall surely find Him!
   I have not to climb to Heaven nor to dive into the abyss, for He is
   near! Oh, for faith to perceive Him! Where I sit, or stand, I may come
   to Him. If I seek Him, He is seeking me for certain, or else I would
   never have sought Him! When the sinner seeks God and God seeks the
   sinner, they will soon meet. Is it not written, "If you seek Him, He
   will be found of you"? "Seek you the Lord while He may be found, call
   you upon Him while He is near." Omnipresence yields good cheer to those
   who are panting for their

   God.

   How perceptible must repentance be! If God is near you, He sees that
   tear which just now scalded your cheek. He marks that sigh. He sees
   that heaving of the breast. He knows that trouble of the soul. He sees
   that restlessness. When I stand by a person who labors under emotion,
   it is not long before I sympathize with him--I cannot help it. God is
   much more tender-hearted than we are and, like a father pities his
   children, so He pities them that fear Him. If your heart is breaking,
   your God perceives it. If you are bewailing your sin, He hears it and
   cries, "How can I give you up?" The sight

   of your tears has melted Him! The hearing of your sighs has moved His
   compassion! Doubt not this--you cannot have Him near and yet have Him
   callous, for His name is Love. He heard you and He pitied you when
   yesterday in your chamber you were in an agony of shame and fear. He
   sees you at this moment in your loneliness and dire distress. A
   fugitive and a vagabond you may be, but yet the Lord is near!

   Since the Lord is near to us, how quick will He be to perceive our
   faith! If you, this morning, glance an eye to the Cross, the Lord will
   see your eyes looking that way. He sees the feeble as well as the
   strong. If you have but a grain of mustard seed of faith He will at
   once discern it! When the messenger of the Church cannot perceive it
   and before the minister can detect it, God has seen faith! Do you
   believe that Jesus is the Christ? Do you trust yourself with Him? God
   has accepted your faith and He has said, "There is now, therefore, no
   condemnation." If He were far off, your faith might be unnoticed, but
   being close at hand He sees the first glimmer of light within your
   mind. Though your trust is of the feeblest kind, He accepts it and
   protects it.

   If God is so near you, poor Soul, how readily He can reveal Himself to
   you! I know how sadly you are urged to despair and yet, before that
   clock has finished the half-hour, your despair may vanish. There is
   nothing between you and your Savior but your unbelief. Let unbelief go
   and you shall see Jesus to your heart's joy! A prisoner was taken out
   to die and as he rode along in the death cart his heart was heavy at
   the thought of death. None of all the throng could cheer him. The
   gallows were in sight and this blotted out the sun for him. But lo, his
   prince came riding up in hot haste bearing a free pardon! Then the man
   opened his eyes and, as though he had risen from the dead, he returned
   to happy consciousness. The sight of his prince had chased all gloom
   away! He declared that he had never seen a fairer countenance in all
   his days--and when he read his pardon, he vowed that no poetry should
   ever be dearer to his heart than those few lines of Sovereign Grace!

   Friends, I remember well when I was in that death cart and Jesus came
   to me with pardon! Death and Hell were before me, but I rejoiced
   exceedingly when I saw the nail prints in His hands and feet and the
   wound in His side! When He said, "Your sins, which are many, are all
   forgiven you," I thought I never saw such loveliness and never heard
   such music in all my days! No, it was not mere thought--I am sure my
   judgment was right. Eternity, itself, shall never disclose anything to
   me more sweet! My pardoning Lord has no peer nor rival. Oh, what a
   Christ is He who appeared to me, a guilty, condemned sinner, on the way
   to Hell! Blessed be His name! He bore on the tree my curse, shame and
   death--and I am free! This is the manifestation which I desire for each
   of you! And, since Jesus is near, how readily can He grant you the
   blessing!

   If the Lord is near, there is no reason why He should not grant pardon
   right now to all of you who seek it! Before the words I speak have
   reached your ears, God, in the Person of His Son, may manifest Himself
   to you and make your heart leap for joy! Do it, O Lord Jesus! Grant a
   vision of Yourself, good Lord! Grant it now and You shall have the
   praise! God often reveals Himself by men to men--why should He not
   speak to you through this sermon of mine? God often reveals Himself to
   men by the Scriptures. A precious text laid home to an aching heart
   will soon give it peace. Why, be of good cheer, my Hearers! God is near
   you and, therefore, hope is near you! Believe in Jesus and He will give
   you rest. He waits to be gracious! He looks out for objects of mercy.
   Be of good cheer, for Jesus of Nazareth passes by. Even at this hour He
   is near.

   II. The time is too short, therefore I must turn at once to God's
   people and speak to THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE FOUND THE LORD. Brothers and
   Sisters, you need not that I seek out choice words when I speak to you.
   You are soldiers and you only need short sentences, such as captains
   give to the ranks. I say to you, redeemed by precious blood and made
   sensitive to the all-surrounding God, note how strictly God observes
   us! Let us walk in His sight! Let us live in His presence. I charge
   you, remember that the Lord your God is a jealous God. Under such
   weighty obligations to Him and bound to Him by such marvelous ties of
   love, live--live obediently, live intensely, live with concentration of
   heart, mind and strength--live wholly unto Him! Being always in His
   sight, set Him always before you. Be your life such as life should be
   in the fierce light that beats about the Throne of Deity. Oh, our poor
   lives! Our empty lives! God fill them and elevate them! May He help us
   to rise out of our dead selves by a sense of His living Presence. If
   God's nearness does not make us cry to Him to make men of us, what
   will? O You who are so divinely near, draw our lives into Your life!

   If God is not far from us, let us see how readily He hears our prayers!
   I am sometimes startled at the power of a feeble prayer to win a speedy
   answer. "Startled," you will ask, "why are you startled? For it is
   written, 'Before they call, I will

   answer and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'" Yes, it is so
   written, but we do not always apprehend the fact. When the promise
   comes speedily to pass, have you never felt your flesh creep with a
   solemn awe in the Presence of God, who has so remarkably drawn near at
   the voice of prayer? You turn aside from your business but a minute and
   pray-- and you come back calm and composed. This is the finger of God!
   You do not leave the counter, but simply dart a glance heavenward and
   the thing you sought for is bestowed upon you. Is it not often so, my
   Beloved? You know it is! Is it not easily accounted for by the fact
   that God is at your right hand, ready to be gracious? There is no need
   in every case to break the continuity of business and to get away from
   the concerns of this life, for the Lord is in the shop and in the barn,
   as well as in the closet! You are in the midst of a throng of wicked
   men, but God is there, too, if His Providence has called you into such
   company. The pressure of incessant occupation racks your mind, but it
   would be less if you felt that God is there to help and guide.

   How simple is communion with the Lord when we know that He is near us!
   When you seek quietude for meditation, do you think it amazing that you
   enter speedily into communion with God? Is He not waiting for you? If
   you go into the field with Isaac, God is there! Resort, therefore, to
   communion with God without doubt of obtaining it. Speak, for He
   hears--listen, for He speaks! Pray without ceasing because God is near
   without ceasing. Pour out your heart before Him, for He is always near
   to mark your heart's outpourings. It makes life a blessed thing when we
   remember that we spend it with God. We dwell in Him. It is not as if we
   were visitors and had to make calls on God now and then, but He is our
   dwelling place! We have not to seek Him as though He had hidden Himself
   away, for He is the Sun whose Presence fills our life with strength and
   comfort! He is in us and, therefore, with us. Therefore let us pray,
   praise and hold sweet communion with Him.

   Further, dear Brothers and Sisters, if God is so near us, how securely
   are we defended! A Christian lady not long ago dreamed a dream which
   was not a dream, but fact. She saw herself as surrounded with
   God--encircled above, beneath and all around, as with a blaze of light!
   Brilliance inconceivable made a pavilion for her and while she stood in
   the midst of the Glory, she saw all her cares, her troubles, her
   temptations and her sins wandering about outside the wall of light,
   unable to reach her. Unless that light itself should open and make a
   way for them, she was serenely secure, although she could see the
   perils which otherwise would destroy her. Is not the Lord a wall of
   fire round about us and the Glory in the midst? Is it not written, "He
   that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the
   shadow of the Almighty"? Evil shall not come near to him who is near to
   God. Go where we may, a more than royal guard surrounds us, for the
   Lord of Hosts is with us. Blind eyes, blind eyes, you see not the
   Infinite Protector! If our eyes were anointed, we would see the
   mountain full of horses of fire and chariots of fire round about us!
   No, better than horses, though they are of fire--we would see the
   Omnipotent God to be our shield and buckler! I want you, dear people of
   God, to feel that you are never in real danger because never far from
   God. How can he be in peril whom the Lord keeps both night and day?

   To the living God we look for life when threatened by the powers of
   death. You have a little fish in your hand--it will soon die if it
   remains there. It is newly taken from the stream--make haste to restore
   it to its element and it will speedily recover. In the river it will
   find all it needs! Even so, in God we have all we need. In God we dwell
   in all-sufficiency and in perfect peace. As the dove in the dovecote,
   the coney in the rock and the chick beneath the hen, so do we dwell in
   God. Who is he that can harm us, since God is near?

   If the Lord is thus near us, how speedily He can renew our Graces!
   Alas, our souls too often need restoring but, blessed be His name, He
   is at hand to renew our life. I confess with shame that I have felt
   dull and dead and heavy, and I thought it was the weather, or my bodily
   weakness, or some other matter. But whatever was the cause, I have only
   found one cure. As in a moment, quicker than the twinkling of an eye, I
   have been lifted into life, love, light and energy--I have awakened in
   the night with all the bells of my soul ringing out peals of praise! I
   have said to myself, "What a strange creature I am! Now I can rejoice
   in my God. Now I can pray with holy prevalence. Now I can leap as a
   hart." Then I have wished to rush into the pulpit and preach straight
   away. I was all death, before, and the Lord made me all life!

   Is not this to be expected since God is near to hear our moans? He
   speaks and it is done! "His Word runs very swiftly." By the exercise of
   faith, the Lord enables us to overcome the body. Plato used to say that
   by thought, the soul could get out of the body. I am not philosopher
   enough to know whether this is true or not. Indeed, I never tried to
   quit my body, for I am afraid I might not find my way back again! But
   this I know, that by the spiritual life, the spirit can rise above the
   body. Some grievous ache, some bitter pain has made you feel as if you
   did not care to live and yet, a flash of

   sacred joy has gone through you and you have laughed at the pain and
   have even been quickened by it! Pain is a rough barebacked steed which
   throws every common rider, but when he comes who is taught by the
   Spirit, he leaps upon it, rides it and outstrips the wind! How many a
   grand thought has been the child of pain! Now, if God is with us, we
   see how such a thing can be. Never despair while the living God is
   near! Believe in the Living One and, touching the hem of His garment,
   the virtue of His life shall stream into your dying heart--"He that
   believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

   I hear people sometimes talk about "the higher life." Happy is that man
   who obtained the highest life when he first believed in Jesus Christ!
   The Divine Life is neither lower nor higher, but there are increasing
   degrees of its strength. These are all reachable, for God is near to
   help us. If God is near us, Brothers and Sisters, infinite resources
   are near us. We need not be unbelieving. We need not be sorrowful. We
   need not be afraid. We need not be the captives of sin--we are able to
   overcome it by the Divine help. We can master ourselves, for God is
   near us to give us the victory.

   I do not think that any of you should go away today, saying, "I feel so
   dull, so stupid, so unspiritual." God is not far from any one of us and
   His Presence should remove these complaints. What does Jesus say? "I am
   the Resurrection, and the Life." You looked for a miracle. Behold your
   Lord! He is the miracle. Receive Him and you have the Resurrection and
   the Life! What, though you are in the grave, sheeted and bound--if
   Jesus is at the mouth of the sepulcher, at His bidding you shall quit
   the abode of death! Have hope, O Lazarus! For though you are dead and
   stinking, yet the Christ who calls you, gives you life! Never, child of
   God, never think that you cannot be filled with life and power! That
   cry of, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" is heard by
   your present God and He gives you the victory through Jesus Christ!

   Let me say once more, if God is so near us, there is no reason why we
   should not speedily enjoy a manifestation of His Glory. Moses keeps the
   flock of Jethro. Poor comrades, those woolly sheep! He has led them to
   the back side of the desert. Poor region, it scarcely yields a blade of
   grass for sheep and nothing for man. What can one expect in a howling
   wilderness? Stop--yonder is a bush! But what of that? No grapes or figs
   can be gathered there. A bird may rest in a bush, but not a man. Turn
   aside, O Moses, for God can make that bush to be the Throne of Deity!
   The commonplace can be made celestial, the despicable, Divine. Though
   today, dear Heart, in all your trouble and deadness of heart you will
   go to a home which is no home, yet since God is there, He can appear to
   you in anything and everything! He can make the bush of your trouble to
   become the embodiment of His Glory. He can manifest Himself to you as
   He does not to the world. Time was, they say, when God could be found
   under a tree, by the brook, near the town wall and even in a furnace
   and a lion's den--but men do not see Him, now, even in temples! Whose
   fault is this? It is the fault of our dull eyes and duller hearts! God
   is as near as always. I see Him in this House of Prayer. I pray that
   you may see Him and then the spot whereon you now are will become holy
   ground to you throughout the rest of your life! In your quiet room this
   afternoon, there is no reason why a door should not be opened in
   Heaven. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." He
   shows His Glory to the meek and lowly. The recognized Presence of God
   will make an attic as glorious as the Mount of Transfiguration! When
   Jesus is to us, Emanuel, God With Us, we see Him in His Glory, for this
   is to see Him as

   He is!

   This Truth of the Presence of God makes me feel happy with regard to
   this, my much beloved Church. I often fear lest we should not have
   conversions. I have feared, lest coldness of heart should take hold of
   myself and you. And then this has been my comfort--the Lord is not far
   from any of us and, therefore, He can use us and work conversions in
   our midst! Brothers and Sisters, He can incline the outsiders to come
   and hear the Word--and when they hear it, He can bless them, for He is
   not far from them!

   I read in the Life of John Wesley a story of Methodists meeting in a
   barn and how certain of the villagers, who were afraid to break through
   the door, resolved to place one inside who would open the door to them
   during the service, that they might disturb the congregation. This
   person went in before service began and concealed himself in a sack in
   a corner of the barn. When the Methodists began to sing, he liked the
   tune so well that he would not get out of the sack till he had heard it
   through. Then followed a prayer and during that prayer God worked on
   the man in the sack, so that he began to cry for mercy! The good people
   looked around and were astonished to find a sinner in a sack seeking
   his Savior! The door was not opened to the mob, after all, for he who
   intended to do so was converted! It does not matter why the people come
   to hear the Gospel--God can bless them in any case. If Christ is
   preached, men will be saved, even if they come to disturb.

   "Sir," said one to me, "I had been to bargain about a pair of ducks on
   Sunday morning and I passed by the door, and I thought I would just
   look in. Then and there the Lord met with me and those ducks were
   forgotten, for I found a Savior!" God is not far from any and in answer
   to believing prayer He can deal with men and turn their hearts to
   Himself. Therefore, work on! Go round with your tracts this afternoon.
   God is not far away from those houses. Stand in the street corner and
   preach--God is not far away from those who pass by. Go to your Sunday
   school class, for God is not far from any of the children. Work with
   cheerful hope, for the Lord is near you!

   This Presence of God which cheers in life, also sustains in death. He
   is not far from any one of us when all the world flies far away. This
   morning the end came suddenly to our friend, Mr. Murphy. He hoped to
   preach this morning, but he is doing better work! His congregation is
   gathered expecting their pastor--may they find the Master with them,
   though the servant is gone! If God is always near, what does it matter
   whether we die or live? We would like to have our friends gathered
   about our bed to bid them farewell but, perhaps, it will not be so. It
   is of small moment, after all, since our God will be near! Our best
   Friend will be there! Our Father will be there, for our God will be
   there!

   Go your way and make no bargain as to whether you live or die--only
   plead that promise, "Certainly I will be with you." God is with us now
   and soon we shall be with Him. Until the day breaks and the shadows
   flee away, abide with us, O Lord! Amen and amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Suffering Savior's Sympathy

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to
   succor them that are tempted." Hebrews 2:18.

   WE are told by the Apostle in the fifth chapter that one special
   requisite in a High Priest was that he have compassion upon men. "For
   every High Priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things
   pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for
   sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out
   of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." You
   see, God did not choose angels to be made High Priests because, however
   benevolent they might be in their wishes, they could not be
   sympathetic. They could not understand the peculiar needs and trials of
   the men with whom they had to deal. Ministers who of God are made to be
   a flame of fire could scarcely commune familiarly with those who
   confess themselves to be as dust and ashes! But the High Priest was one
   of themselves. However dignified his office, he was still a man. He was
   one of whom we read that he could lose his wife, that he could lose his
   sons. He had to eat and to drink, to be sick and to suffer just as the
   rest of the people did. And all this was necessary that he might be
   able to enter into their feelings and represent those feelings before
   God and that he might, when speaking to them for God, not speak as a
   superior, looking down upon them, but as one who sat by their side, "a
   brother born for adversity," bone of their bone and flesh of their
   flesh.

   Now this is peculiarly so in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is
   sympathetic above all. There is none so tender as He. He has learnt it
   by His sufferings, but He proves it by His continual condescension
   towards His suffering people. My Brothers, we that preach the Gospel,
   you that teach it in the Sunday school--you will always find your
   greatest power to lie in love. There is more eloquence in love than in
   all the words that the most clever rhetorician can ever put together.
   We win upon men not so much by poetry and by artistic wording of
   sentences, as by the pouring out of a heart's love that makes them feel
   that we would save them, that we would bless them, that we would,
   because we belong to them, regard them as brethren and play a brother's
   part and lay ourselves out to benefit them. Now, as it should be in the
   under-shepherds, so is it in that Great Shepherd of the sheep. He
   abounds in tenderness and though He has every other quality to make up
   a perfect High Priest--though He is complete and in nothing
   lacking--yet if I must mention one thing in which He far outshines us
   all, but in which we should all try to imitate Him, it would be in His
   tender sympathy to those who are ignorant and out of the way and to all
   those who are suffering and sorely distressed.

   It is in the spirit of brotherly sympathy that I would endeavor to
   preach on this occasion as the Good Spirit shall help me. May I ask my
   Brothers and Sisters whose hearts are full ofjoy at this hour to be
   praying for others who have not that joy and to be helping me in my
   endeavor to speak words of consolation to them? May the Holy Spirit, in
   answer to your prayers, make every sentence to be as wine and oil to
   the wounds of those who are left half dead in the King's highway! We
   have not to look far for "them who are tempted," for they are all
   around us, and deserve the thoughtful regard of each one of us. Do not
   overlook them, my more happy Brothers and Sisters, "considering
   yourself, lest you, also, be tempted."

   In my text I think I see two things very clearly. Jesus suffering--"He
   Himself has suffered being tempted." Jesus succoring--"He is able to
   succor them that are tempted." And then I think I see a third thing
   most certainly there, namely, Jesus sought after because in the word
   which is translated, "succor," there is a latent meaning of crying. He
   is able to hear the cry of them that are tempted. It is a word that
   signifies a mother's quickness to answer her child's cry and Jesus is
   able to answer our cry, therefore we ought to lift up that cry when our
   soul is in distress. It shall be the best thing seen in this Tabernacle
   tonight if the third thing be seen, namely, Jesus sought after by every
   weary, heavy-laden spirit. Why should it not be? Come, Holy Spirit, and
   create in each mourner the spirit of prayer and the Grace of
   supplication!

   I. First, then, and to begin, here is JESUS SUFFERING.

   I call your attention, first, to the feeling that is here
   expressed--"in that He Himself has suffered being tempted." Many
   persons are tempted, but do not suffer in being tempted. When ungodly
   men are tempted, the bait is to their taste and they swallow it
   greedily. Temptation is a pleasure to them. Indeed, they sometimes
   tempt the devil to tempt them! They are drawn aside of their own lusts
   and enticed so that temptation, instead of being suffering to them,
   becomes a horrible source of pleasure. But good men suffer when they
   are tempted and the better they are, the more they suffer. I know some
   children of God to whom temptation is their constant misery day and
   night. If it took the form of external affliction, they would bravely
   bear it, but it takes the shape of evil suggestions and profane
   insinuations which leap into their minds without their will and though
   they hate them with their whole heart. These suggestions continue to
   annoy some dear saints whom I know, not only daily, but nightly, and
   month after month. These thoughts beset them as a man may be surrounded
   by swarms of gnats or flies from which they cannot get away. Such
   Brothers and Sisters are tempted and they suffer being tempted. Our
   Lord Jesus Christ enters into this trying experience very fully because
   His suffering through being tempted must have been much greater than
   any suffering that the purest-hearted Believer can know, seeing that He
   is more pure than any one of us.

   It was a trying thing to the Blessed Christ even to dwell here among
   men. He behaved Himself with most condescending familiarity, but He
   must have been greatly sickened and saddened by what He saw in this
   world of sinners. They were no fit company for Him, for their views of
   things and His were as different as possible--they had no points of
   agreement in character with Him. They were as much company for Him as a
   patient may be to a surgeon. No, not as much as an imbecile may be to
   his teacher, or as a madman to his keeper--they could not come much
   closer until His Grace changed and renewed them. Our Lord and Master
   had such a delicate sensitiveness of soul with regard to holiness that
   the sight of sin must have torn Him as a naked man would be torn by
   thorns, thistles and briers. There was no callousness about His Nature.
   He had not made Himself familiar with sin by the practice of it, as
   many have done--neither had He so associated with those who indulge in
   evil as to become, Himself, lenient towards it.

   We inherit the customs of our ancestors and do not raise questions
   about that which has been commonly done. We begin at an evil point and
   start from a wrong point in morals, but it was not so with our Lord. He
   had no original, or inherited, or birth sin--neither did He learn evil
   in His upbringing. We also commit sin through a comparative ignorance
   of its evil, but He knew the horror of it. He felt within His soul the
   shame, the wrong, the inherent baseness of sin against a holy Law and a
   loving God. His infinite knowledge helped Him to understand and measure
   the heinousness and Hell-desert of it and, therefore, to be in contact
   with it must have been a perpetual sorrow to Him. He suffered in being
   placed where He could be tempted.

   When sin actually assailed Him, and He was tempted to prove His Sonship
   by working a miracle to feed Himself, thus anticipating His Father's
   Providence by a hasty act of self-seeking, how He must have loathed the
   suggestion! When Satan bade Him presumptuously cast Himself down from
   the Temple's pinnacle, how He must have smarted at the horrible
   proposal! When the tempter hissed into His ear that abominable offer,
   "All these things will I give You, if You will fall down and worship
   me"--it must have grieved the holy heart of Jesus most intensely! He
   could not yield to temptation, but He did suffer from it. He did not
   suffer from it morally, He was too pure for that, but He did suffer
   from it mentally because of His purity. His mind was grieved, vexed and
   troubled by the temptation that He had to bear. We specially see this
   when we find Him in the Garden. There He showed His grief when He
   sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. In many
   other ways He endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself,
   such multiplied temptations, that it is said and truly said by the Holy
   Spirit in this verse, that He "suffered" being tempted.

   Now, then, you poor creatures who can scarcely lift up your heads
   because of shame as you tremble at the memory of your own thoughts,
   come here and meet with One who suffered being tempted! He knows how
   you are hunted by Hell-dogs, go where you may. He knows that you cannot
   escape the presence of the tempter and from His own experience He
   enters into your feelings to the fullest. He gives you a flood of
   sympathy in these deep distresses of your spirit, as you fight against
   Apollyon and agonize against temptation, for He suffered being
   tempted--

   "Exposed to wounds most deep and sore The great Redeemer stood While
   Satan's fiery darts He bore And did resist to blood."

   Let us meditate for a while upon the fact that our Lord was tempted,
   tempted up to the suffering point. I must not omit to mention the
   particular use here made by the Spirit of that word, "Himself." It is
   not only in that He suffered being tempted, but you see that He Himself
   has suffered being tempted. That word is sometimes used to make
   passages emphatic. "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the
   tree." We read again and again of Jesus Christ Himself, as if to show
   that the matters referred to were really, truly, personally, actually
   His. He Himself has suffered. All that there was in Him, that made up
   Himself, suffered being tempted. Survey this fact carefully. Our Lord
   was tempted by His circumstances, just as you are. Yes, more than many
   of you are, for He felt the woes of poverty and poverty, at times,
   carried to the extreme. "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have
   nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head."

   You are sometimes tempted with the thought that you will be out of
   house and home before long. Where will you find a nightly shelter?
   Jesus can sympathize with you. He also was weary with incessant labors.
   "Being wearied, He sat thus on the well." Weariness has its
   temptations. He that is weary is hardly in the condition to judge
   rightly of things. When we are weary, we are apt to be impatient,
   complaining, hasty. If you are weary and can scarcely keep your eyelids
   from dropping down, remember before you quite yield to fatigue that
   your Lord was weary, too. Once, "they took Him even as He was, into the
   ship"--and I think it must mean that He was too weary to go into the
   ship, Himself, so that they took Him in His absolute exhaustion and
   gently laid Him down, in the back part of the ship, placing His head
   upon a pillow. Do not blame yourself for feeling tired in the House of
   Prayer, if, after long watching or hard working you feel more fit for
   sleep than for a sermon!

   I shall not blame you, certainly, for I remember how little my Lord
   blamed the disciples when they fell asleep in the Garden during His
   agony. He said, "The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is
   weak." And He never would have thought of so tender an excuse for their
   untender slumbers if His own flesh had not, also, been weak when He,
   too, was weary. So you see that the Lord knows from His own
   circumstances what are the temptations of poverty and of weariness. He
   Himself was hungry. He Himself said, "I thirst." Everything round about
   Him contributed to fulfill the tale of His trials. He Himself was,
   above us all, "a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief."

   And then He Himself suffered from temptations arising from men. He
   endured sadly much from good men. It would seem that even His beloved
   mother tried Him. His mother was with His brothers and sisters when we
   read that they were outside, desiring to speak with Him. Was it not at
   that time that they desired to take Him, for they said, "He is beside
   Himself"? The men of His own kindred thought that surely He was a
   distraught man who ought to be put under restraint! "Neither did His
   brethren believe in Him."

   His disciples, though He loved them so intensely, yet each one tried
   Him. Even John, the dearest of them all, must ask for places at the
   right and the left hand of His Throne for himself and his brother,
   James! Even Peter, "took Him and rebuked Him." All the disciples were
   much of Peter's mind when He described Himself as about to be crucified
   and slain. Their spirit was often so worldly, so selfish, so foolish as
   to greatly grieve their Lord and Leader. While He was the Servant of
   all, they were seeking who should have the pre-eminence! While He was
   seeking the lost, they were for calling fire from Heaven upon rebels!
   They spoke unadvisedly with their lips and committed their Master by
   their words. And you know how, worst of all, He had to complain in
   utmost bitterness of spirit, "He who eats bread with Me has lifted up
   his heel against Me." So that from the circle of His own favored ones
   He gathered more thorns than roses! He received wounds in the house of
   His friends, even as you may have done. Herein you see His power to
   exhibit sympathy with us. He suffered just as we do. He "suffered being
   tempted" even by the failures of those whom He loved--

   "If wounded love my bosom swells Deceived by those I prized so well, He
   shall His pitying aid besto w Who felt on earth severer woe; At once
   betrayed, denied, or fled By those who shared His daily bread."

   As for His enemies, need I speak about them? Did they not all tempt
   Him? Herodians and Sadducees--the openly skeptical! Pharisees and
   Scribes--the professedly religious, were equally His fierce foes! Those
   to whom He was a benefactor took up stones to stone Him and Jerusalem,
   over which He had wept, cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," and would
   not rest till He was slain! Ah, Lord! We have, none of us, such foes as
   You had! However cruel our adversaries, they are not so numerous or so
   fierce as Yours. Besides, they have some cause to hate us, but of Your
   enemies it is true

   that they hated You without a cause. They could bring no true charge
   against Him and, therefore, they forged the cruel-est of falsehoods
   until their reproaches broke His heart! So you see how He was tempted
   and how He suffered.

   Moreover, it is a very amazing fact--one could scarcely have imagined
   it--but the record is most clear. He was tempted of the devil--Jesus
   was tempted of the devil! He in whom all evil is personified dared to
   stand foot to foot in single duel with Him in whom all goodness is
   concentrated! The infernal fiend dared to face the Incarnate God! God
   in our mortal flesh encountered the devil in the wilderness of
   temptation. How could the fiend have ventured to assail our Lord? Truly
   Lucifer was lifted up to the extreme of pride when He dared thus to
   confront his Lord. But Christ was tempted of the devil early in His
   public career and again, near its close, He exclaimed, "This is your
   hour and the power of darkness." He seemed to hear the dragon's wings
   as they beat the midnight air and He cried, "The prince of this world
   comes." Calmly He added, "And has nothing in Me." Yet His heart grew
   chill in the hideous presence of the great adversary.

   It was nothing less than an agony in Gethsemane--a painful wrestling
   between Jesus and the powers of darkness. You that are tempted of the
   devil. You that are troubled by mysterious whispers in your ear. You
   that, when you sing or pray, have a blasphemy suggested to you. You
   that even in your dreams start with horror at the thoughts that cross
   your minds, be comforted, for your Lord knows all about temptation!
   Some of you do not understand this and I hope you never may. But I am
   speaking with a purpose to others to whom this is a life's gloom. To
   you, I say, you can enter into fellowship with your Lord in His being
   tempted of the devil--that which is incomprehensible to others is plain
   enough to you. Be of good cheer, for in this respect your Lord Himself
   has suffered being tempted--

   "If anything should tempt my soul to stray

   From heavenly wisdom's narrow way.

   To fly the good I would pursue,

   Or do the sin I would not do.

   Still He, who felt temptation's power,

   Shall guard me in that dangerous hour." Once again--our Lord knew those
   temptations which arise out of being deserted by God. There come times
   to certain of us when our soul is cast down within us, when faith
   becomes feeble and joy languishes because the light of the Divine
   Countenance is withdrawn. We cannot find our God. We enter into the
   language of Job, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might
   come even to His seat." We cry with David, "My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears
   have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me,
   Where is your God?" Nothing chills the marrow like an eclipse of the
   great Sun whose Presence makes our day! If the Lord withdraws from us,
   then the strong helpers faint--

   "He frowns and darkness veils the moon!

   The fainting sun grows dim at noon!

   The pillars of Heaven's starry roof

   Tremble and start at His reproof." In this great temptation our Lord
   has suffered His full share. He cried, "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani."
   There was condensed into that dying cry an infinity of anguish such as
   we cannot conceive! Some of us know what the surface of this Black Sea
   is like, but we have never descended into its utmost depths as He did.
   And, if we have done so, this is our comfort--that HE has been there!
   He has been to the very bottom of it! He has suffered being tempted
   even by that heaviest of all the trials which ever fall upon the sons
   of God. There is the fact.

   I desire to go a step farther, to comfort you upon the fruit of all
   this, for though our Lord thus suffered being tempted, He suffered not
   in vain, for He was made perfect through His sufferings and fitted for
   His solemn office of High Priest to His people. From that fact I want
   you to gather fruit, because our heavenly Father means to also bless
   you. We cannot comfort others if we have never been comforted
   ourselves. I have heard--and I am sure that it is so--that there is no
   comforter for a widow like one who has lost her husband. Those who have
   had no children and have never lost a child, may talk very kindly, but
   they cannot enter into a mother's broken heart as she bows over yonder
   little coffin. If you have never known what temptations mean, you make
   poor work when attempting to succor the tempted! Our Lord obtained a
   blessing from suffering temptation and you may do the same.

   Brother, the Lord means to make of you a man that shall be used like
   Barnabas to be a "son of consolation." He means to make a mother in
   Israel of you, my dear Sister, that when you meet with others who are
   sorely cast down, you may know how to drop in a sweet word by which
   they shall be comforted. I think you will one day say, "It was worth
   while to go through that sorrow to be enabled to administer relief to
   that wounded heart." Will you not comfort others when you are
   delivered? I am sure you will! You will be ready and expert in the
   sacred surgery of consolation. Therefore, be content to suffer being
   tempted and look for the comfortable fruit which all this shall produce
   in you.

   So you have seen the feeling, the fact and the fruit. Now, what are the
   inferences to be drawn from this part of the subject? I must be short
   with them.

   I want you that are tempted to draw the following inferences from the
   suffering and temptation of the Lord Jesus-- First, that temptation to
   sin is no sin. It is no sin to be tempted, for in Him was no sin and
   yet He was tempted. "He suffered being tempted," but there was no sin
   in that because there was no sin in Himself. You may be horribly
   tempted and yet no blame whatever may attach to you, for it is no fault
   of yours that you are tempted. You need not repent of that which has no
   sin in it. If you yield to the temptation, therein is sin--but the mere
   fact that you are tempted, however horrible the temptation, is no sin
   of yours.

   And, in the next place, temptation does not show any displeasure on
   God's part. He permitted His only-begotten Son to be tempted--He was
   always the Son of His love and yet He was tried. "This is My beloved
   Son," said He at His baptism and yet the next hour that Son was led of
   the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil! It does not
   even show displeasure on God's part that He permits you to be tempted.
   On the contrary, it may be consistent with the clearest manifestations
   of Divine favor.

   And again, temptation really implies no doubt of your being a son of
   God for the Son of God was tempted, even the unquestioned Son of the
   Highest! The prime model and paragon of sonship, Christ, Himself, was
   tempted. Then why not you? Temptation is a mark of sonship rather than
   any reflection thereupon.

   Note, next, that temptation need not lead to any evil consequences in
   any case. It did not, in your Lord's case, lead up to sin. The Lord
   Jesus was as innocent in temptation and after temptation as before
   it--and so may we be through His Grace. It is written by the beloved
   John concerning the man that is born of God, that "He keeps himself and
   that wicked one touches him not."

   Moreover, do not make it any cause of complaint that you are tempted.
   If your Lord was tempted, shall the disciple be above his Master, or
   the servant above his Lord? If the Perfect One must endure temptation,
   why not you? Accept it, therefore, at the Lord's hands and do not think
   it to be a disgrace or a dishonor. It did not disgrace or dishonor your
   Lord and temptation will not disgrace or dishonor you. The Lord, who
   sends it, sends also with it a way of escape--and it will be to your
   honor and profit to escape by that way.

   Far from your hearts be the idea that any temptation should lead you to
   despair. Jesus did not despair. Jesus triumphed and so shall you! And,
   therefore, He cries, "In the world you shall have tribulation: but be
   of good cheer, I have overcome the world." You are a member of His body
   and when the Head wins the victory, the whole body shares the triumph!
   "Because I live," He said, "you shall live, also," and so you
   shall--even in the poisonous atmosphere of temptation you shall be in
   health. They of old overcame through the blood of the Lamb and you
   shall do the same. Therefore comfort one another with these words, "He
   Himself has suffered being tempted," for you who have His life in you
   shall first suffer with Him and then reign with Him.

   That is the first part of our discourse and it is rich with comfort, if
   the Spirit of God shall but apply it to the tempted heart. I feel such
   a poor bungler--I have ointment and soft linen wherewith to bind on the
   healing ointment--but perhaps I have put it on too tightly, or too
   loosely, and if so, I may fail. O Divine Comforter, undertake the work!
   It needs the pierced hands to fitly apply the sacred liniment.

   II. But now I come, secondly and briefly, to notice JESUS SUCCORING.
   Jesus suffering is preparatory to Jesus succoring. Observe, then, "He
   is able to succor them that are tempted." In this we note His pity,
   that He should give Himself up to this business of succoring them that
   are tempted. Have you a tempted friend living in your house? If so, you
   have a daily cross to carry, for when we try to comfort mourners we
   often become cast down, ourselves, and the temptation is for us to get
   rid of them, or stay out of their way. Has it ever occurred to any
   friend here to say, "That good Brother, who sits in the pew near me, is
   rather a burden to me. I have spoken to him several times, but he is so
   unhappy that he

   drags me down. I go out of another door now to get out of his way"? So
   might your Lord have done to the unhappy and to you if He had not been
   your Lord, but He is full of pity that He seeks out those that are cast
   down! He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. He lays
   Himself out to succor them that are tempted and, therefore, He does not
   hide Himself from them, nor pass them by on the other side.

   What an example is this for us! He devotes Himself to this Divine
   business of comforting all such as mourn. He is Lord of All, yet makes
   Himself the servant of the weakest! Whatever He may do with the
   strongest, He succors "them that are tempted." He does not throw up the
   business in disgust. He does not grow cross or angry with them because
   they are so foolish as to give way to idle fears. He does not tell them
   that it is all their nerves and that they are stupid and silly and
   ought to shake themselves out of such nonsense. I have often heard
   people talk in that fashion and I have half wished that they had felt a
   little twinge of depression, themselves, just to put them into a more
   tender humor. The Lord Jesus never overdrives a lame sheep, but He sets
   the bone and carries the sheep on His shoulders, so tenderly
   compassionate is He. Here is His pity.

   The text, however, treats also of His fitness. He is just the very
   Person to succor them that are tempted. I have already been showing you
   this. He has the right, acquired by His suffering, to enter in among
   sufferers and deal with them. He is free of the company of mourners--

   "When our heads are bowed with woe, When our bitter tears overflow,
   When we mourn the lost, the dear-- Then the Son of Man is near. You our
   throbbing flesh ha ve worn. You our mortal griefs have borne. You have
   shed the human tear, Son of Man, to mourners dear." He has the right to
   succor them that are tempted, for they are His own, since He has bought
   them with His blood. The feeble, the weak, the trembling, the
   desponding are His care, committed to Him by God. He said, "Fear not,
   little flock," which shows that His flock is little and timid. He says,
   "Fear not, little flock," because they have great tendency to fear and
   because He does not like to see them thus troubled. He has bought them
   and so He has the right to succor them and preserve them to the end.

   But He also has the disposition to succor them. He obtained that tender
   temper through suffering, by being Himself tempted. The man that has
   seen affliction, when he is blessed of God, has the disposition to
   cheer those that are afflicted. I have heard speak of a lady who was
   out in the snow one night and was so very cold that she cried out, "Oh,
   those poor people that have such a little money, how little fuel they
   have and how pinched they must be! I will send a hundredweight of coals
   to 20 families, at least." But I have heard say that when she reached
   her own parlor, there was a fine fire burning and she sat there with
   her feet on the fender and enjoyed an excellent tea. She then said to
   herself, "Well, it is not very cold, after all. I do not think that I
   shall send those coals. At any rate, not for the present." The sufferer
   thinks of the sufferer, even as the poor help the poor. The Divine
   wonder is that this Lord of ours, "though He was rich, yet for our
   sakes became poor," now takes a delight in succoring the poor! Having
   been tempted, He helps the tempted! His own trials make Him desire to
   bless those who are tried.

   And then He has the special ability. "He is able to succor them that
   are tempted." I know certain good Brothers and Sisters whom I am very
   pleased to see and I am very happy in their company when I am perfectly
   well. But I do not enjoy their presence when I am ill. Thank you, no! I
   would rather not have their visits multiplied when I am not well. They
   walk heavily across the room. They have a way of leaving doors open, or
   banging them. And when they talk, they talk so loudly and roughly that
   the poor head aches and the sick man is worried. The things they say,
   though they are meant to be kind, are the sort of remarks that pour
   vinegar into your wounds! They do not understand the condition of a
   sufferer and so they say all their words the wrong way upwards. If
   Christians are to be comforters, they must learn the art of comforting
   by being themselves tried! They cannot learn it otherwise.

   Our Blessed Master, having lived a life of suffering, understands the
   condition of a sufferer so well that He knows how to make a bed for
   him. "What a strange thing to say!" cries one of my audience. Not at
   all. David says, "You will make all his bed in his sickness." He would
   not have said that if the Lord did not know how to make a bed! There is
   a

   dainty way of beating up a pillow and a peculiar art in shaking up a
   bed when the sick man is lifted out of it. Yes, and there is a way of
   putting on every piece of covering so as to make it a comfort. By this
   figure we are taught that the Lord Jesus Christ knows how to deal with
   us in the weakness and pain of our affliction. He has become so good a
   Nurse, so Divine a Physician, so tender a Sympathizer because He has
   passed through our sorrows. "In all our affliction He was afflicted."
   "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."--

   "He knows what sore temptations mean For He has felt the same." He has
   a fitness for dealing with tempted ones.

   Let me spend a minute or two in telling you His methods of succoring
   them that are tempted. He does it in many ways and perhaps there may be
   many here who know more about those ways than I do.

   Usually He succors the tempted by giving them a sense of His sympathy.
   They say, "Yes, my Lord is here. He feels for me." That is, in itself,
   a succor of no mean order. Sometimes He succors them by suggesting to
   them precious Truths of God which are the sweet antidote for the poison
   of sorrow. There is in the Bible a remedy exactly fitted for your grief
   if you could only find it.

   Sometimes you lose the key of a drawer and you must have it opened and,
   therefore, you send for the locksmith and he comes in with a great
   bunch of keys. Somewhere among them he has a key that will open your
   drawer. The Bible contains keys that will open the iron gates of your
   trouble and give you freedom from your sorrow. The point is to find out
   the right promise--and the Spirit of God often helps us in that matter
   by bringing the Words of the Lord Jesus to our remembrance. We had
   never known the richness of the Word of God if it had not been that in
   our varied distresses the Lord has shown us how He foresaw all and
   provided for all in the Covenant of promise.

   Sometimes the Lord succors His people by inwardly strengthening them.
   "Oh," one has said, "I am under a heavy trouble, but I do not know how
   it is I can bear it much better than I thought I could." Yes, through
   Divine Grace, a secret Divine energy is poured into the soul. We are
   treated, as Mr. Bunyan puts it, by secret supplies of Grace imparted in
   a hidden manner. We are like yonder fire. One is throwing water on it
   and yet it burns on. Behind the wall another is secretly pouring oil on
   the fire so that it will keep burning.

   I have known the Lord bless His people by making them very weak. The
   next best thing to being strong in the Lord is to be extremely weak in
   yourself. They go together, but sometimes they are divided in
   experience. It is grand to feel, "I will not struggle any more. I will
   give up and lie passive in the Lord's hands." Oh, it is the sweetest
   feeling, I think, outside Heaven! You may think it strange for me to
   say so, but I believe that as in the center of a cyclone there is a
   little spot where there is perfect calm--and as it is said that in the
   center of the greatest fire that ever burned there is a spot where no
   fire is raging--so there is in a deep sense of yielding up to God in
   the very center of your pain, grief, misery and your depression--a
   place of perfect repose when you have once yielded yourself fully up to
   God. I know this to be true, even though I may not be understood.

   In these ways He that was tempted, Himself, succors those who are
   tempted.

   III. I will close by thinking of JESUS SOUGHT AFTER. Let us seek Him!
   Come, you weary, heavy-laden ones, come to Him who is able to succor
   you! Do not stay away until you are a little comforted, but come in
   your despair. Do not wait until you have a little more faith, but come
   just as you are and say to Him, "Dear Lord, You have felt all this and
   I lie down at Your dear feet! Do help me, I beseech You!" Let these few
   thoughts help to bring you now, in prayer and trust and hope, to the
   feet of this Great High Priest.

   First, where else can you go? Who can help a soul like you? Come to
   Him, then! Men are nothing--miserable comforters are they all. The
   cisterns are all broken--come to the Fountain. Come to my Lord! Every
   other door is shut, but yet you may not despair, for He says, "Behold I
   set before you an open door."

   Where better can you go? Do you need to find a friend able to help you?
   Do you really need a comrade that can be a brother to you? To whom
   should you go but unto your own Lord, the sympathizing Son of Man? To
   whom better can you go? Do you say that you are downcast? Do you tell
   me you are afraid you are no child of God? Never mind about that! Come
   as a sinner if you cannot come as a saint! Do you mourn that you have
   no good thoughts? Come and confess your bad ones! Do you lament that
   you are not broken-hearted over sin as you ought to be? Come, then, to
   be brokenhearted! Do you mourn that you are unspeakably bad? Then come
   at your worst! It is never a good thing if you need a

   surgeon, to say, "My bone is broken, but I shall not have it set until
   it begins to mend." Poor foolish thing! Go while it is broken! O
   perishing sinner! Cry to the Savior. Ask Him to save you now. Are you,
   of all men, the worst? Then go to Him who is the best! Remember He
   never casts anyone out. Never yet! Not one! I have declared this
   everywhere and I have said, "If Jesus Christ casts any one of you out
   when you come to Him, pray let me know, for I do not want to go up and
   down the country telling lies." Again I give the challenge! If my Lord
   does cast out one poor soul that comes to Him, let me know it and I
   will give up preaching! I would not have the face to come forward and
   preach Christ after that, for He, Himself, has said it, "Him that comes
   to Me, I will in no wise cast out," and He would be a false Christ if
   He acted contrary to His Word! He cannot cast you out! Why should He?
   "Oh, but then I am so bad." So much the less likely is He to refuse
   you, for there is the more room for His Grace.

   "I am lost," said Mr. Whitefield's brother to the Countess of
   Huntingdon. "I am delighted to hear it," said the Countess. "Oh," he
   cried, "what a dreadful thing to say!" "No," she said, "'for the Son of
   Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.' Therefore I know
   He is come to save you." O Sinner, it would be unreasonable to despair!
   The more broken you are, the more ruined you are, the more vile you are
   in your own esteem, so much the more room is there for the display of
   infinite mercy and power!

   Come, then, just as you are, saint or sinner, whoever you may be! Have
   done with yourself, your good self and your bad self, too, and say, "If
   I perish I will trust in Jesus." Trust in Jesus and you cannot perish.
   If you perish believing in Jesus, I must perish with you. I am in the
   same boat with you. You may be a very seasick passenger and I may be an
   able-bodied seaman, but if you are drowned, I shall be, for I cannot
   swim any more than you can. I depend upon the seaworthiness of this
   vessel of Free Grace in which we are embarked--and we must either reach
   the Fair Havens together, or sink together. You and I, poor broken-down
   one, oh, will we not sing when we get safely to land? Will we not sing?
   If we once get to Heaven, will we not sing aloud and clash the
   high-sounding cymbals with all our might? I will contend with you as to
   which shall praise God the most! You say that you will. I say that I
   shall! Will we not vie with each other and with all the blood-redeemed
   ones, sing hallelujah to God and the Lamb? If ever such sinners as you
   and I get inside the gates of Heaven, we will give forth such outcries
   of holy joy and gladness as never came from angels' throats, but can
   only come from the lips of sinners bought with blood

   The Lord, who succors the tempted, Himself, bless and comfort you!
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Covenanter

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 31, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His Co
   venant and His testimonies." Psalm 25:10.

   THIS Psalm is intensely earnest. "Unto You, O Lord, do I lift up my
   soul." The sentences are ingots of gold. Every word is exceedingly
   weighty with sense and sincerity. I take it that one reason for this
   weight is the fact that David was in affliction. He says, "I am
   desolate and afflicted. Look upon my affliction and my pain." Pain is a
   great disenchanter. Flowery speeches suit the summer tide of our
   health, but we find them not in the winter of our grief. Pain kills
   fine phrases as a mighty frost kills butterflies and moths. You can
   play with religion until you are laid low and then it becomes serious
   work. The romance of religion is one thing--the reality of it is
   another. It would be a great blessing to some if they were shriveled
   with a little pain, otherwise they will grow unbearable in their pride.
   The frog drinks and drinks--and thinks he will soon swell into an
   ox--one single bitter drop is mingled with the stream and he is back
   into a frog again. It is often the best thing that can happen to us
   that we should be reduced to our true selves and not be left to strut
   about as noble somebodies. May our meditations this morning be solid
   and leave on our minds no savor of unreality!

   Mixed also with David's suffering was a sense of sin. Read verse
   eleven, "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is
   great." And again, in verse eighteen, "Forgive all my sins." No man
   need have a worse trouble than conviction of sin. A thorn in the flesh
   is nothing to a thorn in the conscience. A sense of sin is another
   great disenchanter. This bursts the bubbles of conceit by thousands.
   When the heart is awakened and sin is laid bare by the Spirit of God,
   so that we are truly humbled by it, life ceases to be sport and an
   awful earnestness pervades our being. To carry burning coals in the
   bosom is nothing compared with bearing sin in an awakened conscience.
   There is no cheating your soul when sin lies hard on it and no attempt
   is then made at dealing with God in a dishonest manner. But, crushed
   into the dust, we pine for a real atonement and a real faith in it--and
   the true seal of the Spirit to make our pardon sure. When sin is truly
   felt, we come before the great Father, not with mimic sorrow, but with
   downright soul-weeping and heartbreaking. We cry to Him, "God, be
   merciful to me a sinner!" If we feel either of these two things, pain
   or sin--and who among us can hope to be without them at all
   times?--then we shall see the solemn side of life and look for those
   sure consolations by which we may be sustained. I hope that our subject
   of discourse today may help in that direction.

   One other thing is notable about David in writing this Psalm--whatever
   his trouble might be and however deep his sense of sin--he always
   looked Godward. He cries, "Unto You, O Lord, do I lift up my soul."
   "Remember me for Your goodness' sake, O Lord." In our text his mind
   dwells upon "the paths of the Lord." The ungodly fly away from God when
   He chastens them, but the saints kiss the chastening rod. The child of
   God goes home when it grows dark. We seek our healing from the hand
   which has wounded us! Which way do you look in a storm? If the Lord is
   now your haven, you shall fly to Him in the last dread storm, for that
   way your eyes have turned these many years. If you look for everything
   from God, you are looking out of the right window. When your eyes look
   toward the great sea of Divine All-Sufficiency, you shall not look in
   vain. You may have to come again seven times before you see your
   deliverance and when you see it, it may seem no bigger than a man's
   hand, but you shall not be ashamed in the end. I trust this mark and
   evidence of a child of God is upon many of you this morning and if it
   is, you are among the Lord's host whom I would call to the battle! With
   your eyes looking right on and your eyelids straight before you, come
   with me to the rallying-place of the Lord of Hosts!

   In my text I see two things worth talking about. The first is, the
   spiritual covenanter--"such as keep His Covenant and His testimonies."
   And, secondly, here is his notable experience--"all the paths of the
   Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His Covenant."

   I. Observe in the text the footprint of THE SPIRITUAL COVENANTER. You
   have all heard of the old Covenanters of Scotland. Their decision of
   mind and force of character--their theory of government for the kingdom
   of Scotland was quaintly unpractical--but it grew out of true and deep
   fear of the Lord. The Old Testament spirit in them was not enough
   tinctured with the meekness of the Lord Jesus, or they would not have
   touched the weapons of steel, but in this mistake they were very far
   from being alone. In my bedroom I have hung up the picture of an old
   Covenanter. He sits in a wild glen with his Bible open before him on a
   huge stone. He leans on his great broadsword and his horse stands
   quietly at his side. Evidently he smells the battle afar off and is
   preparing for it by drinking in some mighty promise. As you look into
   the old man's face you can almost hear him saying to himself, "For the
   crown of Christ and the Covenant, I would gladly lay down my life this
   day."

   They did lay down their lives, too, right gloriously, and Scotland owes
   to her covenanting fathers far more than she knows. It was a grand day,
   that in which they spread the Solemn League and the Covenant upon the
   tombstones of the old Kirk yard in Edinburgh--and all sorts of men came
   forward to set their names to it! Glorious was that roll of worthies.
   There were the lords of the covenant and the common men of the
   covenant--and some pricked a vein and dipped the pen into their blood,
   that they might write their names with the very fluid of their hearts!
   All over England there were men who entered into a like Solemn League
   and Covenant and met together to worship God according to their right
   and not according to human order-books. They were resolved upon this
   one thing--that Rome should not come back to place and power while they
   could lift a hand against her--neither should any other power in throne
   or Parliament prevent the free exercise of their consciences for
   Christ's cause and Covenant!

   These stern old men, with their stiff notions, have gone. And what have
   we in their places? Indifference and frivolity! We have no Roundheads
   and Puritans, but then we do have scientific dress-making and we play
   lawn tennis! We have no contentions for the faith, but then our
   amusements occupy all our time! This wonderful 19th Century has become
   a child and put away manly things. Self-contained men--men in whom is
   the true grit--are now few and far between as compared with the old
   covenanting days!

   But I want to speak this morning, not of the old covenanters, but of
   those who at this day keep the Covenant of the Lord. Would to God we
   had among us great companies of "such as keep His Covenant and remember
   His Commandments to do them"! The true covenanter is one who has found
   God and, therein, has made the greatest discovery that was ever made.
   He has discovered not only a God, but the living and true God--and he
   is resolved to be on living terms with Him for time and for eternity!
   He will henceforth never shut his eyes to God, for his longing is to
   see more and more of Him. He is determined to be right with God, for he
   feels that if he were right with all his fellow creatures and
   everything about them, yet if he were wrong with God, he would be out
   of order in the main point. He has settled in his own soul that he will
   know the Lord, be right with Him, at peace with Him, yes, and in league
   with Him! It is not natural for men to thus cling to God and seek after
   Him--but it has become natural to this man--so that he hungers and
   thirsts for the living God. By this very fact the man is ennobled! He
   is lifted up above the brutes that perish. A man capable of the idea of
   covenant with God and taken up with a passion for it, must surely be
   born from above! There must be a Divine Nature within him, or he would
   not be drawn towards the Divine One above him. It is even so--the
   Spirit of God has been working here!

   Already, too, this man has discovered another Covenant, whose ruins lay
   between him and God and block the road. Turning to his Bible, the
   Believer discovers that we were, from the first, under covenant towards
   God. He reads of the first Covenant, the Covenant with our first
   father, Adam, which was broken by his disobedience, whose fatal breach
   has brought upon us unnumbered losses and woes. This Covenant the
   Believer has not ignored, for he has felt his share in its failure and
   come under the condemnation of it. His very desire to be right with God
   has brought home to him the judgment of the Law. He has smarted under
   the lash of it. He has seen the Lord arrayed in robes of justice
   avenging the quarrel of His Covenant and he has said to himself, "What
   shall I do? The Law is holy and the Commandment holy and just and good.
   But I am carnal, sold under sin."

   Brothers and Sisters, we are condemned under the first Covenant, not
   only by the act of our representative, but also through our personal
   endorsement of his rebellion by our own actual sin. That Covenant,
   which should have been a Covenant of life, has become a Covenant of
   death to us. You know what I mean, for I speak to many who know, by
   deep personal experience, what it is to be the prisoners of the
   Covenant, shut up in soul despair and numbered for destruction. You
   could not keep the Law--you felt you could not, though you wished you
   could--the future was against you. As for former violations of the Law,
   you could make no amends for them--the past was against you. Even then
   your inward corruptions were gnawing at your heart like the worm that
   never dies and the horseleech that is never satisfied--the present was
   against you. Yet despite all this, you still followed after the Lord
   and could not live without Him!

   This covenanter of whom I speak is one who has, through Divine
   enlightenment, perceived a better Covenant and sure salvation therein.
   He has seen in the Lord Jesus a Second Adam, greater than the first,
   and he has heard the glorious Lord exclaim, "I have given Him as a
   Covenant for the people." He has seen Jesus pledged unto God to make
   good the breaches of the broken Covenant! The Believer has seen the Son
   of God arrayed in blood-stained garments coming from Geth-semane. He
   has seen Him answering at the bar for the broken Law, scourged with the
   chastisement of our peace and bound with the bands of our condemnation.
   I say the Believer has seen the beloved Surety of the New Covenant
   meeting the Law's demands at Calvary, surrendering His hands to be
   nailed for our sins, His feet to be fastened up for our wanderings and
   His heart to be pierced for our wantonness!

   O my Soul, have you not seen your Lord bareheaded amid the tempest of
   Divine wrath for sin? Have you not heard Him cry, "My God, My God, why
   have You forsaken Me"? If so, you have seen how, out of the old
   Covenant, the new was born, like life from between the ribs of death!
   Our soul has stood in the midst of the horrible tempest, half-blinded
   by the lightning and deafened by the thunder. At last there has been a
   tear in the black mantle and a shower of wondrous love has followed the
   black tempest--and a Voice has been heard, sweeter than the harps of
   angels, saying, "It is finished." Thus have the Lord's covenanted ones
   come forth from under the old Covenant into a Covenant of Grace, in
   which peace and joy abound! Now are we in happy league with God! Now we
   would think and feel and act in harmony with God! Our covenant with Him
   shall compass all our life--we are His and He is ours. "The Lord is my
   portion, says my soul" and, on the other hand, "The Lord's portion is
   His people." Henceforth we would have no life except for the living
   God! He is our ambition and our expectation, our end and our way, our
   desire and our delight! He rejoices over us to do us good and we
   rejoice ourselves in Him and seek His Glory.

   The spiritual covenanter has the Covenant with God written on the
   tablets of his heart. I have known Believers, when first converted,
   follow a hint given them by Dr. Doddridge in his, "Rise and Progress of
   Religion," where he draws up a covenant which he invites the reader to
   sign. Some have executed a deed with great solemnity and have also
   observed the day of its signature from year to year. Very proper, no
   doubt, to some natures, but I fear that to the more timid and
   conscientious, such covenants are apt to cause bondage. When they find
   that they have not, in all things, lived up to their own pledges, they
   are apt to cut themselves off from all part and lot in the matter--this
   is the Covenant of Works and not of Grace! It is a covenant on paper
   and not the Covenant written upon the heart and mind. The true
   covenanter wills the will of God. It is not merely that God commands
   him to do right, but he longs to do it. God's Law is his love. That
   which is pleasing to God is pleasing to His people because their hearts
   are made like His own. The Divine likeness is restored by the Spirit of
   Grace and, therefore, the will of the Lord is written out upon the
   new-born nature. Holiness is the passion of a true Believer. He
   consents and assents to the Law, that it is good, and the Divine Life
   within him delights itself in the Law of the Lord. This is the surest
   sort of Covenant--this Divine writing in the nature, according to that
   gracious promise--"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit
   will I put within you." "I will put My Law in their inward parts and
   write it in their hearts." O happy man whose covenant with God is the
   Covenant of his own desire, who wills and wishes and longs and labors
   to yield himself fully and wholly unto the Law of his God!

   This covenanting man does not regard himself any more as one by
   himself, for he is joined unto the Lord and has entered into the
   closest fellowship with Him. None can separate him from God--the union
   is vital and complete. He has thrown his little all into God's great
   all and taken God's great all unto himself to be his heritage forever!
   And now, therefore, he is in God and God in him. You ask me what it is
   which thus binds the man to God? I answer--he feels that he is joined
   unto the Lord for many reasons and among the best because the Lord has
   chosen him to be His own. He is old-fashioned enough to believe that
   God has a choice in the salvation of men and he perceives, because
   faith has been

   granted him, that the Lord has evidently chosen him unto salvation. He
   often cries, "Why me? Why me?" and yet knowing that those whom the Lord
   calls by Grace, He first predestinated thereto, he is not ashamed to
   believe in his election!

   Now the man that believes that God has chosen him--that is the man to
   enter into covenant with God and to keep that covenant! He that is
   chosen of God chooses God and chooses Him because he is chosen. The
   vows of God are upon him. Such amazing Grace compels him to a
   consecrated life.

   Moreover, in addition to the choice of God, this covenanter sees a
   blood-mark upon his body, soul and spirit. The redemption made on the
   Cross, whatever its other bearings, is seen by the Believer to be
   specially for him. He cries, "For me the bloody sweat! For me the
   spitting and the scourging! For me the nails and the spear! Truly I am
   not my own, I am bought with a price." This blood-bought man feels that
   he cannot be as other men are--he must subscribe with his hand unto the
   God of Jacob and acknowledge and confess that he belongs only to the
   Lord. Others may be their own lords, but as for us, we have been
   redeemed, not with corruptible things as with silver and gold, but with
   the precious blood of the Son of God! O Sirs, if you know your election
   and your redemption, you must and will dedicate yourselves unto the
   Lord by a covenant which cannot be broken! If the choice of the Father
   and the redemption of the Son do not supply us with a potent force
   towards holiness, what can do so? Well may we be the covenanted ones of
   God when we are thus distinguished.

   Besides, the covenanting Believer feels that he has been the subject of
   a special call. Whatever God may have done with others, he knows that
   He has dealt specially with him in a way of Grace and mercy. The Lord
   has said to him, "I have called you by your name; you are Mine." A
   Voice has called him from his kindred and from his father's house as
   surely as Abraham was called. The Lord, Himself, has brought him out of
   darkness into marvelous light. Whatever the Gospel may be to the
   congregation at large, it has been the power of God to him, for in it
   he has felt the touch of a Hand unfelt before and heard the sound of a
   Voice unheard in all the days gone by. Omnipotent Grace has awakened
   the echoes of his soul. "When You said, Seek you My face; my heart said
   unto You, Your face, Lord, will I seek." This special and effectual
   call is another mighty reason for entering into league and covenant
   with God. By that Omnipotent call, O Lord, I render up myself to You.
   Let the world do as it wills, we cannot account for its folly, but as
   for us and our house, we will serve the Lord. Our bonds of amity with
   the world are broken--let it do and say what it will--but to the Lord
   are we bound forever by that same power which has fetched us out of our
   former slavery. What with election, redemption and calling, what more
   can we say?

   Yes, I can say something more, for this true covenanter feels that he
   is now united to God in Christ Jesus. Matchless doctrine, unity with
   God through Jesus Christ! No man knows all the name and nature of the
   man quickened of the Spirit. You cannot tell from where he comes, nor
   where he goes. We talk of aristocrats, but Believers are the
   aristocrats of Heaven and earth! We often hear the words, "royalty,"
   and, "blood royal"--the blood royal of the universe is in the man that
   believes in Jesus! He has made us unto our God, kings and priests. By
   virtue of our union with Christ, we are one with God and partakers of
   the Divine Nature. The day shall come when all the gewgaws and
   trappings of courts shall be laid aside as faded tawdriness--and then
   the true dignity and honor of the twice-born, the quickened by the Holy
   Spirit, shall be truly seen. To be members of the body of Christ--this
   means glory, indeed! To be married unto the King's Son, even to the
   Lord Jesus--this means such bliss as angels cannot reach! Do you wonder
   that because of such immeasurable privilege we make a sure covenant
   with God?

   There are three or four things I would say briefly about this true
   covenanter--the Lord make each one of us to be of his stamp! You may
   know him by his attachment to the Lord Jesus, who is the sum,
   substance, surety and seal of the Covenant. You may also know him by
   his zeal for the Gospel through which the Covenant is revealed to the
   sons of men. He will not hear anything which is not according to the
   old Gospel, for he counts another Gospel to be a pestilent evil. He is
   very fond of the word, "Grace," and with the thing itself he is
   altogether enamored. The man that is in covenant with God cannot bear
   the idea of human merit--he loathes it--it raises his indignation. Have
   I not known some Christian people come out from hearing certain sermons
   with their souls on fire with holy wrath? I feel, in casting my eyes
   over many modern writings, as if I had breathed poisonous gas and was
   likely to die. We cannot endure the smell of sacramen-tarianism,
   priestism and human righteousness! Others may feed on philosophical
   morality, but nothing but the Grace of God will do for us! Cats and
   dogs may feed on any rubbish, but men of God must live on the Grace of
   God and nothing

   else! Our keeping the Covenant and the testimonies binds us to a firm
   adherence to the Inspired Gospel and the Grace of God which is the
   Glory of it.

   He who is, indeed, in covenant with God is known by his continual
   regard to the life, walk, and triumph offaith. He has faith and by that
   faith he lives and grows. He is and has and does all things by
   faith--and you cannot tempt him away from that faith wherein he stands.
   Carnal sense and fleshly feeling are not able to tempt him from
   believing. The highest enjoyment proffered by a fancied perfection
   cannot charm him from standing by faith. "No," he says, "I must trust,
   or else it is all over with me. My element is faith and, as a fish out
   of water dies, so do I die and all my covenanting with God dies, too,
   unless I cling by faith to the promise of a faithful God." Though all
   men should live by sight and feeling, yet will not the true covenanter
   quit the hallowed way of faith in the Lord!

   This covenanting man will also be known by his stern resolve to
   preserve the Gospel in its purity and hand it on to others. When the
   Truth of God was made known to Abraham, it was committed to him and to
   his descendants as a sacred deposit of which they were to be the
   guardians and trustees. It was theirs to keep that lamp burning by
   which the rest of the elect would, in due time, would be saved from
   darkness. At this hour the eternal Truths of the Gospel of our Lord
   Jesus Christ are given over to certain chosen men and women to be
   preserved by them till the coming of the Lord. This keeping is to be
   accompanied with a constant proclamation, so that the Truth of God may
   spread as well as live, and may go on conquering and to conquer. O you
   who are the covenanted ones of God, let not His Gospel suffer damage!

   I charge you that love the Lord to bind the Gospel about you more
   firmly than ever. Bear aloft the standard of our grand army. The
   blood-stained colors of the Cross--bear them to the front--spread them
   to every wind and uplift them on every hill! And if you cannot spread
   the Truth and are shut up to defend it, then do so even to the death!
   Wrap the colors about your heart! Be wrapped in them as in your shroud
   if you cannot live bearing them as your flag! A true covenanter says,
   "Sooner death than false of faith." The crown of our Lord Jesus shall
   never suffer loss. We will do everything for Jesus! We will, for His
   sake, bear reproach and for His sake labor to win souls unto God. We
   vow that He shall be glorified in our mortal bodies and that by some
   means His great name shall be made known to the ends of the earth. O my
   comrades! I am revived by the very thought of you. God has yet His
   faithful covenanters who have not bowed the knee to Baal, to whom the
   Lord is God and King forever and ever!

   II. Under our second head let us now study THE COVENANTER'S NOTABLE
   EXPERIENCE. The text says, "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and
   truth unto such as keep His Covenant and His testimonies."

   Observe, first, that the Lord makes many approaches to covenanting men.
   He does not leave them alone, but He comes to them and manifests
   Himself to them. By the expression, "All the paths of the Lord," I
   learn that the Lord has many ways of drawing near to His chosen. Not in
   the public highways of Grace, only, does He meet those with whom He is
   on terms of peace, but in many private and secret paths. In a grass
   field, a path is made by constant treading, and God makes paths to His
   people by continually drawing near unto their souls and communing with
   them. The Lord has many paths, for He comes to them from different
   points of the compass, according as their experience requires. He
   sometimes uses this way and sometimes another, that He may commune with
   us. He will never leave His covenanted ones alone for long. Often does
   He say, "Gather My saints together unto Me, those that have made a
   covenant with Me by sacrifice."

   I like the word, "paths," as we have it in our English version, for it
   seems to say that the Lord has walks of His own. He makes ways for
   Himself and comes along them quietly, taking His people at unawares. On
   a sudden He whispers a Word of heavenly promise and then is away again.
   But He is not long gone--He makes another path and comes to us with new
   unction and fresh revealings. His visits to us have been many and
   gracious. O my Hearer, if you will give yourself to God, God will give
   Himself to you! Young man, I invite you to the grand destiny of one
   that shall henceforth live with God, to whom God shall manifest
   Himself. Will not this be a distinguished honor? Do not think it
   unattainable! God may be reached--if you will consecrate yourself to
   Him this day by a Covenant of Salt through Jesus Christ the
   Ever-Blessed Sacrifice--you shall know the visitations of the Almighty!
   You shall, like Enoch, walk with God!

   Believe me, I speak truth and soberness. Between this place and the
   pearly gates, the Lord will come unto you, yes, He will take up His
   abode with you. When you cannot get to Him, He will come to you, for He
   is a great path maker. His ways are in the sea and He leaps over the
   mountains. He has a desire to the work of His hands and that desire
   will break through stone walls to reach you! What a life is that to
   which the Lord makes innumerable paths! Happy shall He be who shall
   attain to it!

   Note, next, that all the dealings of God with His people are in a way
   of mercy. "All the paths of the Lord are mercy." This is well, for the
   best of the saints will always need mercy. Those who keep His Covenant
   are still kept by His mercy. When they grow in Grace and come to be
   fully developed Christians, they still need mercy for their sins, their
   weaknesses, their necessities. The Lord exercises mercy to the most
   highly instructed Believer as well as to the babe in Grace--mercy to
   the most useful worker as much as to the most weary sufferer. Thank God
   that His mercy towards us is forever!

   That mercy will always be "tender mercy," abiding mercy and abounding
   mercy. His mercy is constant as the day, fresh as the hour, new every
   morning. Mercy covers all. In every gift of Providence and in every way
   of predestination, mercy may be seen. It would be greatly to our
   advantage to think more of the mercy of God to us. So much of His mercy
   comes and goes without our noticing it! Shame that the Lord should thus
   be deprived of the revenues of His praise!

   In Hebrews I find the word here used is, "wheel tracks," such ruts as
   wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink
   up to the axles. God's ways are, at times, like heavy wagon tracks and
   they cut deep into our souls--yet they are, all of them, mercy. Whether
   our days trip along like the angels mounting on Jacob's ladder to
   Heaven, or grind along like the wagons which Joseph sent for Jacob,
   they are, in each case, ordered in mercy! I stand by the happy memories
   of a tried past, as in summer weather I walk down a green lane and as I
   look at the deep ruts which God's Providence made long ago. I see
   flowers of mercies growing in them. All the crushing and the crashing
   was in goodness. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the
   days of my life! Yes, "all the days of my life"--the dark and cloudy,
   the stormy and the wintry--as surely as in "the days of Heaven upon the
   earth." Brothers and Sisters, we may sing a song of unmingled mercy!
   The paths of God have been to us nothing else but mercy. Mercy, mercy,
   mercy! "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever."

   The Psalmist says, "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth."
   That is to say, God has always shown the Truth of His Word. He has
   never been false to His pledges. He has done according to His Word.
   Moreover, the blessings which God has promised have always turned out
   to be as He represented them. We have followed no cunningly devised
   fables. The blessings of Grace are not fancies or frenzies,
   exaggerations or mere sentiments. The Lord has never fallen short of
   His promise. He has never kept His Word to the ear and broken it to the
   heart. All the ways of God have not only been merciful and true, but
   they have been essential "mercy and truth." We have had truth of mercy;
   verity of mercy; substantial, solid, essential mercy. I have found no
   delusion in trusting in God. I may have been a dreamer in some things,
   but when I have lived unto God I have then exercised the shrewdest
   common sense and have walked after the rule of prudence.

   It is no vain thing to serve God--the vanity lies on the other side. I
   know that many of you think that Christian experience leans to the
   region of sentiment, if not of imagination--but, indeed, it is not so!
   The surest fact in a Believer's life is God's nearness to him, care for
   him, love to him. Other things are shadows or shinings which come and
   go, but the goodness of God is the substance, the truth, the reality of
   life. How I wish I could persuade you of this! But, alas, the carnal
   mind will not receive spiritual things! I may bear witness of that
   which I taste and handle, but you will not believe me. Divine Spirit,
   come and open blinded eyes!

   To this rule there is no exception--"All the paths of the Lord are
   mercy and truth unto such as keep His Covenant." They say there is no
   rule without an exception, but there is an exception to that rule. All
   God's dealings with His people are gracious and faithful. Sometimes the
   ways of God are full of Truth and mercy manifestly--they have been so
   to me in many a notable instance. I hope I do not trouble you too often
   with personal experiences. I do not narrate them out of egotism, but
   because it seems to me that every Christian should add his own personal
   testimony to the heap of evidence which proves the Truths of our God.
   If I tell you about John Newton, you answer, "He is dead," but if I
   tell you of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he stands before you!

   Some 10 days ago I was called to bear a baptism of pain. I had a night
   of anguish and the pangs ceased not in the morning. How gladly would I
   escape from these acute attacks, but it seems I may not hope it! I felt
   worn down and spent. Far on in the morning my ever-thoughtful secretary
   came by my bedside and cheered me greatly by the news that the letters
   brought tidings of considerable help to the various enterprises. In
   fact, there was far more coming in than is at all usual at this season!
   A legacy was reported of £500 for the Orphanage and £500 for the
   College. Another will was mentioned in which the Orphanage was made
   residuary legatee. Living friends had also sent large sums as by a kind
   of concert of liberality! They did not know that their poor friend was
   going to be very ill that morning, but their Lord knew, and He moved
   them to take away every care from His servant. It seemed to me as if my
   Lord said to me, "Now, you are

   not going to fret and worry while you are ill. You shall have no
   temptation to do so, for I will send you so much help for all My work
   that you shall not dare to be cast down."

   Truly in this the paths of the Lord to me were mercy and truth! Many
   and many a time have I been lost in wonder at the Lord's mercy to His
   unworthy servant. I bow my head and bless the name of the Lord and cry,
   "Why this to me?" Ah, Brothers and Sisters! One can bear rheumatism or
   gout when mercy flows in as a flood! "Shall we receive good at the
   hands of the Lord and shall we not receive evil?" Seeing it all comes
   from the same hands, we should receive it with equal cheerfulness. Now
   will I suffer with patience and endure with tranquility, for the Lord
   has dealt graciously and tenderly with His servant! I have often found
   His consolations abound in proportion to my tribulations, insomuch that
   I am on the look-out for the mercy when I begin to feel the smart, even
   as a child looks for the sweet when he finds himself called upon to
   take medicine. Those more closely around about me say, "Now that you
   have a bad time of personal suffering, you will see the Lord doing
   wonderfully for you"--and they are not disappointed. Indeed, I serve a
   good Master--I can speak well of Him at all times--and specially do I
   find Him kind when the weather is rough around His pilgrim child!

   Have you not found it so in your way? Come, dear Friends, you cannot
   speak this morning, for one is enough for a public assembly, but you
   can speak when you have had your dinners and your children are round
   about you. Tell them how gracious God has been to you in your times of
   trouble. Utter exceedingly the memory of His great goodness!

   Mark you, when we cannot see it, the Lord is just as merciful in His
   ways to us. We may not expect to be indulged and pampered by being made
   to see the mercy of God, like silly children that will be in a pet and
   a fume unless their father stuffs their mouths with sweetmeats and
   their hands with toys. God is as good when He denies as when He grants!
   And though we often see the marvelous tenderness of our God, it is not
   necessary that we should see it to make it true. Our God is wise as a
   father and tender as a mother--and when we cannot comprehend His
   methods, we still believe in His love. This is not credulity, but a
   confidence to which the Lord is fully entitled! There can be no doubt
   about it, that "all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such
   as keep His Covenant."

   I hear some say, "These things do not happen to me. I find myself
   struggling, alone, and full of sorrow." Do you keep the Covenant? Some
   of you professing Christian people live just any way and not by
   Covenant rule. You do not live to God. You do not keep His Covenant.
   You do not observe His testimonies. You are not living consecrated
   lives! Therefore, if you do not enjoy His mercy and His truth, do not
   blame the Lord! The text says that all His paths are mercy and truth
   "unto such as keep His Covenant." Remember the saying and do not expect
   the blessing apart from it. O child of God, be more careful to keep the
   way of the Lord--more concentrated in heart in seeking His Glory--and
   you shall see the loving kindness and the tender mercy of the Lord to
   you. God bless this feeble testimony of mine to all who are assembled
   here this morning!

   I have this much to add to it--What a bliss it is to have entered upon
   the spiritual life and to be in covenant with God! If there were no
   mercy joined to it of a Providential character, it would nevertheless
   be the grandest thing that ever could happen to any of us to be living
   onto God. I call all short of this death and I know no other name for
   it. What solidity we have in godliness! It puts eternal rock beneath
   our feet. There are fascinating things in life about which you are
   almost afraid to enquire, for fear they should not prove to be what
   they seem. All earthborn joys are of this kind--their charms are on the
   surface, their beauty is skin deep. But in regard to the life
   consecrated to God by His Covenant and then enriched by His mercy--you
   may pry, dig, search--and the more you do so, the more you will be
   positive that now you are in the land of realities! Though we do not
   see, yet we perceive with a perception clearer than sight--and we shall
   so perceive through life! And when they fling back those golden gates
   and we peer into the spirit land, then shall we value, most of all, the
   life which observes the Covenant of God and is surrounded with mercy
   and truth!

   What a wondrous thing the life of a consecrated man will seem to be
   when it shall be viewed in its completeness in the light of the eternal
   Throne of God! Then will the embroidery of love be seen in its beauty
   and the fabric of life will be acknowledged to be worthy of a God.
   Things not seen as yet will be seen, then--and things known in part
   will be seen in all their bearings! I suppose that one of the
   engagements of Heaven will be to observe how kindly our God has dealt
   with us upon the road. At any rate, when we come to the Glory Land, we
   shall only reckon that to have been true life which was spent in
   communion with God. Link us with God and we live--divide us from Him
   and we are dead!

   I hear worldlings mutter--"What is the man thinking? We know nothing
   and care nothing about being in covenant with God." Truly you despise
   the life I set before you, but it is your own way of life which most
   deserves scorn, O you

   who live for gain or pleasure! I will sketch you with the pencil of the
   Truth of God. It is a country scene and it passed under my own eyes but
   a few hours ago. I sat by the river, at a point where abundant springs
   poured forth new streams. It was a brook, wide but shallow, and the
   pure water glided along refreshingly under the overhanging boughs.
   Little children were there, wading into the stream and enjoying its
   cool waters. One of them was a true representative of your wealthy
   merchants. He went fishing with a bright green glass bottle and his
   ventures were successful. Again and again I heard his voice ring out
   most joyously and impressively, "Look! Look! Here! Here! Such a big
   'un! I have caught such a big 'un!" It was by no means a whale which he
   had taken, but a fish which might be half-an-inch long. How he exulted!
   "Such a big 'un!" To him the affairs of nations were as nothing
   compared with the great spoil which he had taken. That is the gentleman
   upon the Exchange who has made that successful speculation! For the
   next few days he will astonish everybody as they hear that it was "such
   a big 'un!" Earth, Heaven and Hell--time and eternity--may all accept
   the go-by, now that the glass bottle contains its prey! I confess I was
   not carried away with admiration for the child's fortune, neither did I
   envy him the fullness of his satisfaction.

   His brother, not far off, varied my picture for me. He was less richly
   endowed and yet he had a very serviceable tin can with which he fished
   most diligently. Soon I heard his voice pitched in another key--"Nasty
   little things! They won't come here! I can't catch 'em! They're good
   for nothing! I won't try any more." Then the impetuous genius threw his
   tin can with a splash into the water--and his enterprise was ended.
   That is the gentleman whose company has been wound up, or whose goods
   will not command a market. Things will not come his way. He cannot get
   on. He has made a failure of it and is in the Gazette. All society is
   out of order, or he would have been sure to succeed. He is sick of it
   all for the present. You smile at my boys! O worldlings, these are
   yourselves! You are those children--and your ambitions are their
   stories--

   "O happy man that lives on high, While men lie groveling here."

   Without God you are paddling in the brooklet of life, fishing for
   minnows! If you get a grip of God, because He has laid hold on you, O
   Man, there is then a soul in you! Then have you come to be allied with
   angels and akin to seraphim! Apart from God you subside into shameful
   littleness. O Lord Jesus pity those who forget You! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Lessons from the Christ of Patmos

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 7, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth went a
   sharp two-edged sword: and His Countenance was as the sun shines in its
   strength." Revelation 1:16.

   WE have carefully read John's description of the manner in which his
   Lord and Master revealed His Glory to him. The figure is colossal and I
   had almost said inconceivable. It would be quite impossible to draw a
   picture from the Apostle's words. If any artist were to try to set it
   forth with His pencil, the figure would be singularly grotesque and
   strangely unlike the idea which John intended to convey. How could
   anyone picture the voice like the noise of many waters? Or depict the
   feet as if they burned in a furnace? To make the portrait technically
   accurate would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, and the
   draftsman would surely lose the spiritual ideal in endeavoring to give
   it shape. The fact is that the details of this celestial vision are
   deeply instructive, but there is no impression left upon the mind by it
   as a whole--I mean no impression which a man could translate to his
   fellow. Probably the seer of Patmos was, himself, unable to form an
   idea of what he saw--we know that he fainted at the amazing sight. He
   was utterly overwhelmed and though he wrote under Divine command, he
   wrote of things beyond himself and beyond all human minds.

   The impression produced by one part of the vision inevitably
   obliterates that of other parts. Take, for instance, the expression,
   "His eyes are as a flame of fire." Can you get the idea? Then add to it
   the further one--"His Countenance," which, of course, includes the
   eyes, "is as the sun shines in its strength." You lose the brightness
   of the flames of fire in the superior glory of the sun--the eyes
   disappear as separate objects when the full countenance is seen in its
   overwhelming glory!

   The vision is spiritual and you can take each point in detail and learn
   from it, but it presents to us no resemblance such as can be drawn upon
   canvas--it is, as a whole, beyond the grasp of imagination. John might
   almost have said, after all he had seen, "I saw no similitude," for,
   what he did see, albeit it was a gathering up of rich and rare
   similitudes, could not be made into a single image which could be
   represented to the eyes or to the mind. In this I greatly rejoice, for
   in it I perceive the prudence of the only wise God, our Savior.

   The tendency of the human mind is to idolatry. When we do not seek
   after another god, we are still tempted to worship the true God under
   some visible, tangible form--and this is directly opposed to the Divine
   will. The leaning of our evil heart is towards some form, symbol, or
   imagery which we judge may help our thought and intensify our worship.
   All this comes of evil and leads to evil! Remember the stern command of
   God, never to be altered, "You shall not make unto you any engraved
   image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is
   in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you
   shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord
   your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
   the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;
   and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My
   commandments."

   God is a Spirit, therefore He is not to be drawn and we are not to use
   anything as a help towards our conception of Him, for it will be a
   hindrance, not a help. That which can be seen or touched is to be kept
   out of our worship of the invisible God, for there is really nothing to
   which we can liken Him--the very attempt at making a likeness in
   reference to Him is profanity! I know the common excuse, that men do
   not worship the image, but that by its means they are helped to worship
   God, but this is exactly what the Second Commandment forbids! Carnal
   objects are not helps to spiritual wor-ship--they are snares to the
   mind and lead the heart away from God!

   I feel my soul horrified and my blood boiling with indignation when I
   see in what are called Protestant Churches, not only a material altar,
   which is treated with honor, but upon it a cross to which idolatrous
   reverence is evidently paid by those who bow as they pass before it. It
   is very usual, nowadays, to see, also, the Agnus Dei, or a small figure
   of a lamb and this, like the figure of a calf among the Israelites, is
   viewed with devotion! Why, we are not only going back to Popery, we are
   reverting to Paganism! I do not care what shape your image takes,
   whether it is a cross, a crucifix, or an Angus Dei--if it is anything
   to be seen or handled, it is strictly forbidden in the worship of God!

   Had the portrait of our Lord been a suitable subject for reverence--and
   I can conceive of nothing for which greater claim can be put in--we
   should have had His likeness preserved to us by the special care of the
   good Spirit who is always mindful of the edification of saints. But we
   have neither painting nor statuary of any authority, nor, indeed, any
   which can be supposed to depict His matchless form! If this best of
   images is denied us, let us not tolerate the idols of human invention.
   The hammers of iconoclasts might find good work in breaking those
   images in pieces which now pollute our churches! Take these things
   away! They are not becoming in the House of God! They do not help us
   towards spiritual worship, but they become grievous offenses to a
   jealous God who counts such worship a spiritual adultery by which His
   own worship is defiled!

   Do not doubt that the Jews in the wilderness, when they made what Moses
   calls a calf, really intended to pay Divine honors to the image of a
   bull! They had learned in Egypt that the bull was the most venerable of
   all symbols of Deity--it is the embodiment of strength and, therefore,
   it appeared fit to represent the power of God. They said in effect--"We
   will adore the unseen power of God under the image of the useful and
   powerful ox." And so they made an image of an ox out of their most
   precious things and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, which brought
   you up out of Egypt." Moses did not treat this ritualism with respect,
   but with indignation! He calls the ox a calf, for it was newly born and
   but little in stature. He called it, in grim ridicule, "a calf," and
   therein he set us an example, for objects of idolatrous worship should
   be treated by us with scorn, lest in any degree we partake in the crime
   of idolatry! We must keep ourselves from idols.

   When the Philistines called their god the God of Flies, the Jews
   ridiculed him as the God of Dung, thus showing their abhorrence of the
   imaginary deity. I do not blame our Reforming and Puritan fathers that
   they used names of ridicule and contempt for those things which
   Romanism has degraded into idols, for even the most sacred things lose
   all sa-credness when elevated into objects of adoration, whatever may
   be the motive which leads to so great a crime! I may admire the
   sincerity which kisses the wounds of the crucifix, but I must, none the
   less, abhor the idolatry of the deed and feel a horror of the image!
   Did not Hezekiah break in pieces even the bronze serpent when it became
   an object of worship? He called it Nehushtan, that is, a mere bit of
   brass. If ever there was a piece of brass which deserved religious
   regard from men it was that bronze serpent by which so many had been
   healed! When used aright, it was God's channel of blessing, but when
   idolized it was broken in pieces as so much old metal. I feel glad,
   therefore, that even when the Lord Christ revealed Himself so specially
   to the mind of John, it was in a spiritual and symbolic manner--and the
   wonderful similitudes used were of such a character that it is not
   possible to construct from them a figure which could be set up for
   purposes of worship.

   My Brothers and Sisters, though we pay no homage to an outward and
   visible revelation, yet to Him who thus revealed Himself we ascribe all
   honor, glory, majesty, power and dominion, forever and ever! Unto Him
   whom as yet our eyes cannot see. Unto Him who dwells in unapproachable
   light, very God of very God, even Christ Jesus our Savior, we pay the
   homage of our full and grateful hearts, not only now, but world without
   end!

   Having thus removed your minds from any gross and carnal notion that
   our Lord is actually what this vision describes, I beg you to note that
   the spiritual teaching is all the more to be sought out and treasured
   up. I invite you to consider three of those similitudes by which the
   Lord Christ is set before us in this Divine Revelation. They stand in
   very significant relationship, one to the other. "He had in His right
   hand seven stars: and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword:
   and His Countenance was as the sun shines in its strength." These are
   not only in one verse by the will of the translators, but they were
   intimately connected in the mind of John and were intended to come to
   us together, blended and united.

   I. Learn from the first sentence THE POSITION OF INSTRUMENTALITY IN
   REFERENCE TO OUR LORD JESUS--"He had in His right hand seven stars."
   The stars are said to be the angels, or messengers, or, as many
   conceive,

   the ministers whom God used as messengers to the Churches and from the
   Churches to the outlying world. The word may mean the entire
   instructive and enlightening gift of the Church, whether found in one
   person or in many. God has ordained that there shall be men anointed of
   His Spirit, who shall, beyond others, be the means of conversion and
   edifica-tion--and these are as stars in the sky of the Church.

   Note well that instrumentality is of temporary use and is intended for
   the time of darkness. Churches themselves are "golden candlesticks" and
   candlesticks answer their purpose best at night. When the sun is up and
   the full day has come, do we need lamps? No, the Church militant has
   her reason for existence upon earth in the fact of the surrounding
   darkness! The ministers of the Gospel, what are they? Necessary to
   Christ? By no means, for the sun does not need the stars! They are
   necessary to the present darkness with which they are to struggle, as
   burning and shining lights until the Lord, Himself, shall shine forth
   in His Glory! The Lord will use instruments till He, Himself, appears,
   but even those whom He calls, "stars," are only the transient apparatus
   of a passing night.

   This should make us think very humbly of ourselves, for, dear Brothers,
   this illustrates our weakness. Were we lights of the first magnitude,
   the darkness would no longer remain. O stars, you by whom God shines! O
   stars with your sparkling and far-reaching light, making glad the eyes
   of the benighted! What poor things you are, after all! For with all
   your shining, it still remains night! Lamps of God though you are, you
   do but relieve the gloom which you cannot remove. If ministers were all
   they might be, there would soon be an end of them--but the fact of
   their continued necessity proves their weakness! O you that serve God
   best, remember that if you served Him better, the day would soon come
   when no man would say to his fellow, "Know the Lord," for they all
   should know Him, from the least to the greatest!

   Consider, then, that instrumentality at its best, when used in blessed
   unity as a Church, is no more than a lamp, or candle--and what can this
   do as compared with our Lord who shines as the sun? Instrumentality,
   when specially selected, enlightened and upheld, is but as a star--and
   what can a star do? Yes, what can the whole host of stars do towards
   turning night into day? This is a good beginning for our consideration
   of instrumentality, since we are apt to grow proud--and this may teach
   us humility. Whatever honor God may be pleased to put upon His servants
   by calling them stars, it is evident that they are only needed because
   it is night--and that they are far too feeble to cope with that night,
   to turn its darkness into light.

   Still, instrumentality is honorably spoken of by Him whose judgment is
   supremely wise. The Lord Jesus does not despise the agency which He
   employs. Those whose testimony He blesses for the salvation of men are
   compared to stars.

   Stars are guides and so are the Lord's true ministers. Some stars in
   yonder sky have done measureless service to wanderers over the
   trackless deep and to those who have lost themselves in the labyrinths
   of the forest. That polestar has conducted many a slave to liberty!
   Happy have been the influences of the stars upon the hopeless who,
   being lost, have laid themselves down to die! Blessed are those men
   who, shining with the Light of God, have turned many to righteousness--
   shall they not shine as the stars forever and ever? Are there not
   preachers of the Word who have stood like that famous star "over the
   place where the young Child was"? They have first led strangers to
   Jesus and then have remained in faithful love, shining over the place
   where the Lord abides. We preach Christ Crucified--God forbid that we
   should preach anything else! We point to Jesus, saying always, "Behold
   the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world." Ours is,
   indeed, an honorable office, to guide wandering feet into the way of
   peace. Honored is the least in all our ministry if he may do this.

   A certain star, the morning star, is also the herald of the day. All
   eyes are glad to see the morning star, because they know that the sun
   is always near it. Happy messenger of God who has the sound of His
   Master's feet behind him! There have been men and, thank God there are
   such still, through whom God shines with rich promise of eternal
   day--their ministry heralds the coming of Christ to the heart! They
   preach so clearly of Him, that He is set forth evidently crucified in
   our assemblies! They hide themselves in their Lord. They have nothing
   to lift up but Christ. They bring nothing before men's minds but
   Christ. Their only theme is Christ in His First Coming cleansing His
   people from their sins--and Christ in His Second Coming bringing them
   home to His Glory! Of such men it may be said, "He made the stars,
   also," for those are God-made ministers, whose whole witness is for the
   Glory of Christ Jesus!

   It is an honorable comparison that the instruments of God's good
   pleasure have put upon them in being compared to stars, for the stars
   are the comfort and solace of the night. Well do men sing, "Beautiful
   star," for, amid the surrounding gloom, the twinkling light is a thing
   of beauty and a joy forever. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the
   feet of him

   that brings glad tidings!" We do not rightly value the considerable
   amount of light which comes to the earth through the stars, and were
   they quite removed, we should soon find the thick darkness of night to
   be greatly intensified. It might even become like the darkness of Egypt
   that might be felt. In the same way we are apt to undervalue regular
   ministries which do not amaze us by any uncommon brilliance. We could
   not afford to lose these stars, however feeble their light. Let us
   thank God for the many ministries, gentle and obscure, which,
   nevertheless, keep the dense darkness from being utterly impenetrable.
   Thank God for all the agencies by which He works. He compares His
   faithful servants to stars--be sure that you think them heavenly
   bodies, bearing celestial light, shining from above. They are not so
   small as some think them--and they are not forgotten of Him who calls
   them all by their names and leads them out.

   Instrumentality is honorably placed, for we see the stars in the right
   hand of Him who is the First and the Last. God's ministers are stars,
   but not stars up yonder in the sky--they are stars held in the right
   hand of their great Lord! Oh, what a position is this! God's true
   servants are in the highest place! His right hand made them. None can
   make stars but the Maker of all things. It is God who makes ministers
   of Christ and gives them light with which to shine! Because of this,
   they are honorable in His esteem and He places them in His right hand.
   Whatever some may think of faithful preachers, the Lord makes them the
   men of His right hand. They may be despised by those who oppose the
   Word, but they need not be ashamed, for while the right hand of God is
   their position, they are more honorable than the princes and kings of
   the earth! Dear servants of God who are serving your Lord in great
   obscurity, twinkling feebly and thinking that no one notices you,
   receiving no honor from men--never mind, for if the Lord God has given
   you light, you are precious in His esteem and He sets you not only at
   His right hand, but in it! You are where seraphim might wish to be!

   See, also, how true instrumentality is graciously sustained. The chosen
   servants of the Lord are under special protection, for they shine in
   Christ's right hand. This is where the ministers of Christ need to be,
   for they stand in the front of the battle and are in double danger.
   Their office has its temptations and even their success has its perils.
   If you win souls for God, the devil will have a grudge against you. If
   you preach the Word of God with power, all the hosts of evil will
   sharpen their arrows and point their shafts at you. The stars of the
   Churches have need to be in Christ's hand, for all the fiends of Hell
   will puff at them. If they could make a star fall, how greatly would
   they rejoice! Glory be to Him who keeps them all. "For that He is
   strong in power; not one fails."

   Our Lord Jesus holds the seven stars in His right hand. Does not this
   teach us the entire dependence of each one of us upon Him? Other stars
   may shine in their own natural spheres, but Christ's stars can only
   shine as He, by the constant outgoing of His strength, holds them up,
   holds them out and holds them fast! They would cease to be stars if
   they were not in the Lord's hand. O my Friends who are working for the
   Lord in Church, or Mission Hall, or Sunday school-- place no reliance
   upon yourselves! Do not let your confidence lean upon your own natural
   abilities, or acquired knowledge, or garnered experience! Let your
   dependence be only upon that right hand which holds you up! The hand of
   the glorified Savior is worth depending upon. Behold an arm that never
   can be paralyzed! A hand that can never grow weary! Rely not on
   yourself in any measure or degree, but only upon that right hand of
   power and skill which will hold you up even to the end.

   See, then, Beloved, the special security of true instrumentality, for
   who can extinguish a star whose sphere is the right hand of God? I see
   the devil puffing against these stars until his cheeks are fit to
   burst, but he does not even make them flicker--what can harm those whom
   Jesus keeps? You know how some fine preachers have gone out in
   darkness, smoldering like candlewicks, filling the whole chamber of the
   Church with a nauseous smell--and if professed ministers become unholy
   or untruthful, their end is sad for themselves and mischievous for all
   who are around them. May God save His Church from the smoking flax of
   dying ministries! Blessed are they who, trusting in God, shine and
   shine on in His keeping. "Yes, they shall be held up." Did He not
   ordain for them a lamp which shall never be extinguished? Has He not
   put them where they must be safe?

   Instrumentality of the right kind is wisely directed for it is in the
   Lord's hand. This generation, like children playing in the marketplace,
   is not content with the moods and ways of the Lord's servants, but
   Wisdom is justified of her children. The Lord sends by whom He will
   send! In wisdom and prudence He both kindles His stars and removes
   them. He arranges their places and their magnitude, their rising and
   their setting. "All His saints are in Your hand," O Lord Christ, but
   specially those through whom You speak with men! As the judges in
   Israel came and went at the bidding of Infinite Wisdom, even so is it
   among the chosen ministers of the Lord Jesus.

   Perhaps you think I am making too much of this subject, but I have no
   such desire. My design is very practical. The Churches should pray that
   their risen Lord would give them more stars and that He would uphold
   the stars that are already given, for there is unquestionably a very
   close connection between the prosperity of the Churches and these
   stars. Whether it should be so or not is not the question, but the fact
   is unquestionable--very much depends upon the minister. If you have a
   warm-hearted, loving, zealous preacher of the Gospel, you find, before
   long, earnest, hearty, godly, working people gathered about him. But
   where there is death in the minister--coldness, lukewarmness, need of
   zeal and need of holiness--what do you see? Do not the pews reflect the
   dreary condition of the pulpit? Is it not so, that like shepherd like
   sheep? We act and react upon each other! Brothers and Sisters, pray for
   us! It is my solemn conviction that one great need of the Church at the
   present time is a more faithful ministry. We need fewer fireworks and
   more stars!

   One man whom God has given is worth a thousand that a college has made.
   When God takes a man and says, "Go and preach in the power with which I
   have endowed you," that man will accomplish what a host of learned and
   well-trained men would not dare to attempt. Why have we not more mighty
   preachers of the Word? Because we do not pray for them! Some of our
   ministers are half afraid that such men should come, for fear they
   should find themselves outshone. What better gifts can Christ give the
   Church with His own right hand than pastors and evangelists? The Church
   will never make any great advance until once more God sends here and
   there and in 50 places, men with burning hearts and with trumpet voices
   to proclaim the Truth of God, the whole Truth of God and nothing but
   the Truth of God! We need men that will not yield to the current of the
   times, nor care one jot about it, but will hold their own and hold
   their Master's Word against all comers because the Lord of Hosts is
   with them and the Spirit of God rests upon them!

   I would have you at this time realize the Christ with the seven stars
   in His hand and I would have you pray, "Lord, fill Your hand with stars
   again. Light up the darkness of this period with flaming preachers of
   Your Word to the praise of the glory of your Grace." So much about the
   position of instrumentality. Follow me now to kindred themes.

   II. And now, in the second place, I want you to notice with great care
   THE PLACE OF REAL POWER. Note the second of the three sentences--"And
   out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." The sword-power, the
   war-strength of the Church, does not lie in her ministers. The battle
   and the victory are not with them, but with their Lord. I have put them
   in their proper place--I have told you that they are stars and I have
   reminded you of their usefulness-- but the next symbol prevents your
   regarding them as forces to be relied on. We read, "Out of His mouth
   went a sharp two-edged sword." Not out of the stars, but out of our
   Lord's mouth goes the strength which wins the day!

   The true power of the Church lies in Christ personally. You may have
   all the stars that ever made bright the milky way with their combined
   sheen, but there is no power in them to kill evil, or conquer sin! The
   stars of the Church shine because God makes them shine. Their shining
   is not their own--it is borrowed light with which they are radiant. The
   power that overcomes evil, wounds the hard heart, pierces the
   conscience and kills reigning sin is of the Lord alone. "Out of His
   mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." Glory not, therefore, in men, for
   power belongs unto God. Boast not in the talent nor in the experience
   of the man of God, for he can neither kill nor make alive. The power of
   a Church is the Presence of her Lord! He has not deposited power in
   men. He retains it in Himself and from Himself we must seek it. Behold
   the infinite resources of the Church--all power is in Jesus--and Jesus
   is with His people!

   The power lies in Christ's Word-- "Out of His mouth went a sharp
   two-edged sword." Beloved, the power that wins souls is the Word of
   God, not my explanation of it, nor yours. It is not my amplification of
   it, nor yours. It is not my illustration of it, nor yours. The power is
   not in the stars, but in the Word which made the stars! God's Word is
   the source of all things. Therefore reckon that every sermon is a
   wasted sermon which is not Christ's Word! Believe that all theology is
   rotten rubbish which is not the Word of the Lord! Do not be satisfied
   with going to a place of worship and hearing an eloquent discourse
   unless the sum and substance of it is the Word of the Lord! My Brothers
   and Sisters, whether you teach children or their parents, do not think
   you have done any good unless you have taught the Word of the Lord. For
   saving purposes we must have the Lord's Word and nothing else! It is
   not your word, O you most devoted soul-winners! It is not your word, O
   you most impassioned evangelists! It is not your word, O you most
   plaintive persuaders! It is the Word of the Lord and that, alone, which
   will abide and subdue all things to itself. The voice of the Lord
   breaks the cedars of Lebanon--we can do all things with it! We can do
   nothing without it!

   And notice again, that it is not only His Word, but it is His Word as
   He, Himself, speaks it. Does Christ, then, still speak the Word in the
   Church? Yes! It is not the Truth of God in the Bible, alone, which
   saves--it is that Truth taken by

   the Holy Spirit and vivified and laid home to the heart. It is not the
   letter of the Word which Jesus spoke 1,800 years ago which works
   wonders, but it is that same Word as He now delivers it into our ear
   and heart by His own living, loving, heart-subduing voice! I may speak
   Christ's Words in vain, but He speaks to purpose. The sword in Peter's
   hand cuts off an ear, but the sword in Christ's mouth slays sin and
   subdues men to Himself! You have heard a sermon full of precious Truths
   of God and yet it has done you no good. At another time you have heard
   the same Truth and it has overwhelmed you by its hallowed power! What
   was this difference? Is it not that in one case it was God's Word out
   of the preacher's mouth and in the other case it was God's Word out of
   His own mouth? Yes, every Word of God is a keen sword to slay sin when
   Jesus speaks it!

   My soul melts in repentance when my Beloved speaks to me. Nothing can
   stand against the Word of Jesus! He speaks and it is done! O my
   Brothers and Sisters, I have no faith in my own preaching, but I have
   all faith in my Lord's speaking. His Word shall not return unto Him
   void. Out of His mouth no syllable shall come in vain. I charge you,
   look away from us, the twinkling stars, to our Lord, whose month is the
   conquering force of His Church!

   The Word of God is, in itself, adapted to the Divine end, for it is
   sharp and two-edged. And when it is spoken by the Lord, its adaptation
   is seen. The Gospel is very sharp when the Spirit of God lays it home.
   No doctrine of men has such piercing power. Take care, O preacher, that
   you do not blunt the Word, or try to cover over its edge, for that
   would be treason to the Lord who made it to be sharp and cutting! There
   is much about the true Gospel which offends and it should be our desire
   never to tamper with it, or to tone it down, lest we become enemies to
   the Lord's Truth. Truth which is meant to offend human pride must be
   stated in its own way, even though seen to produce anger and annoy
   self-righteousness. Doctrine which is cutting and killing must not be
   concealed or softened down. "He that has My Word, let him speak my Word
   faithfully, says the Lord."

   People are disturbed and troubled by the real Gospel--under a false
   gospel they can sleep into destruction. Bring out the sword--it is made
   to wound--let it exercise its salutary sharpness. The Gospel has two
   edges, so that none may play with it. When they think to run their
   fingers along the back of it, they will find themselves cut to the
   bone! Whether we regard its threats or its promises, it cuts at sin.
   Whether we move it up or down, it makes great gashes in that which
   ought to be wounded and killed. Let us, therefore, know that the power
   of the Church does not lie anywhere but in the Word as Jesus, Himself,
   speaks it. Let us keep to His own pure, unadulterated, unblunted
   Word--and let us pray Him to send it forth with power out of His own
   mouth into the hearts and consciences of men.

   III. May the Holy Spirit fasten this on your memories! I must now
   conduct you to the third point which is a very wonderful matter--THE
   SOURCE OF TRUE GLORY. The source of true Glory in a Church lies in her
   enjoying the Countenance of her Lord. "His Countenance was as the sun
   shines in its strength." When Jesus is pleased with the Church, she
   enjoys noonday prosperity!

   Brethren, endeavor to realize the idea of Christ's countenance shining
   as the sun. Let me then remind you of our former themes. Where are the
   seven stars? They are still in His hand, but I defy you to see them,
   for when the sun is once up, where are the stars? Ah, dear young
   people! When you first hear a minister preach with Divine power, he is
   everything to you! God enables him to bring light to your darkness and,
   for a season, you rejoice in his light. When you get further on in the
   road and come to see the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, in the Divine
   Glory of His blessed Person, then you will not glory either in Paul, or
   Apollos, or Cephas, but you will glory in only Jesus! The stars are
   still twinkling, but you cannot observe them when the sun shines in
   noontide splendor and so the human instrument is as useful as ever, but
   when Christ Himself is fully seen, the instrument takes a place far
   lower down. We are grateful for the stars--they have had blessed uses
   for our good--but we cannot mention them in the same day with the Sun!
   Now that we have seen the Lord, we value His servants, none the less,
   but they are still servants and only servants--and He is Lord of All.
   An hour with Jesus is better than a year with all the Apostles!
   Personal communion with Jesus is far more powerful for our good than
   the best preaching in the world!

   If you catch the idea of our Lord's Countenance being "as the sun
   shines in its strength," let me ask you where is the sharp two-edged
   sword which came forth out of His mouth? You have not forgotten it, but
   at the same time it would be hard to discern it upon the face of the
   sun. When we enjoy Christ, Himself, we do not think the less of His
   Word! But it seems to be absorbed in Himself. He Himself becomes to us
   the Logos, the Word. Even the Gospel, itself, glorious as it is, bears
   no other glory than that which we behold in the face of Jesus Christ.
   This is the Glory which excels. This is the

   Glory before which dispensations, economies and systems of Truth appear
   to be mere reflections of that which is embodied and epitomized in Him!
   To see the face of our Lord and enjoy His love is to stand, like
   Milton's angel, in the sun!

   I must hurry over places where I am tempted to linger. To the saints,
   the Glory of Christ lies in Himself--His own Countenance is the center
   of Glory. Consider the work which He has finished and the reward with
   which His Father has glorified Him. Consider His Divine Nature and the
   perfect Manhood which He has taken into union with it. Consider all His
   infinite perfections, but especially His love, His boundless,
   changeless love to His people. This is the sun which makes our day and
   fills us all with joy and gladness! What do we need more than His
   loving favor? I would to God that we were henceforth shut up to His
   praises and were bound to see no beauties but those of our Lord. To
   think that He should love you--that He should so love you as to die for
   you--and that having died for you He should go up unto the Father for
   you and fill all things for you and reign in everlasting splendor for
   you; why, all this is a surpassing glory of love! If you once know that
   His Countenance is towards you, then will you see such a Gory in His
   Grace and favor as you have never before imagined! Once behold the
   splendor of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and you will need
   neither candle nor star--for the Glory of God in the face of Christ
   Jesus will be as seven suns to you!

   Notice that the favor of Christ, if it is enjoyed by a Church, is
   effectual for all purposes. Why do we crave for stars when the sun
   shines? In the absence of human instrumentality, the Lord Jesus will
   more than suffice. Even for those purposes for which the sword goes out
   of His mouth, the Lord's Countenance is enough. A sunstroke is as
   effectual for overcoming as the stroke of a sword. Let Christ shine in
   the Church and He will destroy His enemies with the brightness of His
   Glory! Let Him shine in the Church and you will have all the warmth,
   joy and delight that a Church can desire. Let Him shine in the Church
   and you will have all the life, growth, sweetness, mellowness and
   perfectness that even the Garden of the Lord can yield. If our Lord is
   with us, delighting Himself in us and countenancing our endeavors, we
   shall, as a Church, prosper better than if we had the endowments of the
   State, the approbation of the wise and the patronage of the great!

   To make the Church of God the grandest instrumentality conceivable, all
   that is needed is that she shall please her Lord in all things and,
   therefore, shall walk in the light of His Countenance. "Lord, lift up
   the light of Your Countenance upon us." "Cause Your face to shine and
   we shall be saved." "Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound:
   they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Your Countenance." What a
   light it is! In the sun's beams we find the most necessary and
   indispensable gifts--and in our Lord Jesus we find all things for time
   and for eternity! When the Sun of Righteousness arises, He brings
   healing in His wings. Then we are made strong, so that we go forth and
   grow up like calves of the stall. Let the Lord show us His face and we
   have reached the height of our desires.

   Yet note well that the brightness of our Lord cannot be measured,
   neither could His Glory be endured of mortal men if once it were fully
   revealed. "His Countenance was as the sun shines in its strength." John
   therefore could not gaze upon that Countenance, but fell at His Lord's
   feet as dead! It would be a dangerous thing for you to stand still and
   attempt to gaze upon the sun. To turn a telescope full upon the sun and
   place your eye to the glass would be the extreme of folly! Our eye must
   be shielded, or it cannot look on the sun. And, Beloved, if the Lord
   Jesus were to manifest Himself to us as He really is, in all His
   unveiled majesty, we should die with excess of joy! If He were to turn
   the whole stream of His love into our hearts, our frail bodies would be
   unable to bear the blissful excitement which would follow upon such a
   heavenly discovery. You know something of Him and you are pining to
   know more--and well you may--for your life lies that way. But still, He
   must always be the best judge of how much He shall reveal, for, "He
   knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust."

   He holds Himself in reserve until we are prepared to receive the
   amazing bliss of His glorious manifestation. Perhaps even in eternity
   He will have to hide Himself somewhat, for there is in Him such
   greatness that our littleness would fail before Him were His Glory all
   revealed. Oh, cry to Him to show Himself to you, but still do not
   marvel if He answers you, "You cannot see My face and live." That holy
   man, Mr. Walsh, when the Lord revealed Himself to him, was obliged to
   cry, "Hold, Lord! Remember I am but an earthen vessel and if I have
   more of this delight I must die." One said he would like to die of that
   disease--and I am very much of his mind. They say, "See Naples and
   die." But to improve on it, another said, "See Naples and live." And
   truly this is the better sight of the two!

   I would gladly see my Lord so as to live to His praise. Oh, for such a
   vision as should shape my life, my thought, my whole being, till I
   became like my Lord! Oh, to see Him so as to be changed into His image
   from glory unto glory! Per-

   haps some of us may even die in this sweet fashion, by the Lord's
   letting in of His Glory upon our souls in such a torrent that we shall
   be washed away into the bottomless sea of infinite delight! He may be
   pleased to pull up the sluice gates and let the sea of Glory in upon
   the marshy places of our dying hours. The little river of our life goes
   rippling down towards the sea and in our closing hour its stream runs
   low--just then the tide from the shoreless sea comes up the river to
   meet the stream--and then the riverbed is filled by the fullness of the
   ocean. You shall realize that parable when heart and flesh are
   failing--and the Lord comes in to be your Portion forever!

   Yet once again, Brothers and Sisters--if Christ's face is so bright,
   then we know where to trace all the light and all the glory that we
   have ever seen or known. Is there any beauty in the landscape? It is
   the sun that makes it beautiful. Is there any brightness in any object
   round about us? It is the sun that makes it bright. If it were dark,
   you would behold no scenery and observe no beauty. Darkness is the
   grave of beauty--and the absence of Jesus would be the end of all human
   virtue. Is there any sweetness, excellence, holiness, goodness, Grace,
   about anything on earth? It comes only from Jesus! Attribute it to Him,
   then, and bless His name!

   Rejoice also, you that behold His face and live in communion with Him,
   for your faces, also, will shine. You may look at yonder seven stars
   very long before you are made to reflect their light, but, dear
   Friends, if you see Jesus and abide in the light of His Countenance
   habitually, your faces, your characters, your lives, will grow
   resplendent, even without your knowing it! We read that Moses knew not
   that his face shone--all saw it but himself. The sons of men will
   wonder where you have been to have gathered such brightness. I know
   some few men and women who seem to carry about with them the fragrance
   of the ivory palaces--there is a perfume about their words, their
   actions and their very selves.

   All nostrils do not enjoy the aroma of holiness, but the heart of the
   spiritual man is refreshed thereby. One cries, "From where came this
   perfume? Oh, that I had it! Oh, that such fragrance were shed abroad in
   my life!" I have heard that in the old times, when they would attract
   doves to a certain pigeon house, they took certain birds and smeared
   their wings with a costly perfume and sent them forth. Other pigeons
   were so delighted with their sweetness that they followed them to the
   dovecotes. Oh, that you and I may be so sweetened by dwelling near to
   Christ that others may come with us to see Jesus and His love! At any
   rate, may we so look on the Well-Beloved that our own faces may shine
   and others, beholding our brightness, shall glorify our Father which is
   in Heaven!

   God bless you, Beloved. I wish we were in a better frame of mind for
   hearing and preaching. Truly this great heat and my own painful
   infirmity remind me of our Lord's words, "The spirit, indeed, is
   willing, but the flesh is weak." Nevertheless, may our Lord reveal
   Himself to us according to the greatness of His compassion. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Blind Beggar of the Temple and His Wonderful Cure

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 14, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When He had
   thus spoken, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and
   He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him,
   Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He
   went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing." John 9:5, 6, 7.

   OUR Savior had been dealing with the Jews and the Pharisees who had
   bitterly opposed and even taken up stones to cast at Him. He felt much
   more at home when He could fix His eyes upon poor necessitous beings
   and bless them with healing and salvation. It is the lot of some of us
   to be often in controversy with the carnal professors of the present
   day-- and it is a great relief to us to get away from them and their
   stones--and find out individual sinners and preach to them, in the name
   of God, the Gospel which spiritually opens the eyes of the blind!

   At the gate of the Temple sat a blind beggar who must have been a
   notable character, for he was possessed of remarkable shrewdness and
   mother wit. From having long been there, he must have been well known
   to all who regularly frequented the Temple and to the wider circle of
   those who came from far to the great yearly gatherings. This man could
   not see Jesus, but, what was better, Jesus could see him. We read in
   the opening of the chapter--"As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was
   blind from his birth." Many other blind men there were in Israel, but
   Jesus saw this man with a special eye. I think I see the Savior
   standing still and looking at him, taking stock of him, listening to
   his quaint speeches, noting what kind of man he is and exhibiting
   special interest in him.

   This morning there is one in the Tabernacle who cannot see Jesus, for
   he has no spiritual eyes, but I am convinced that my Master is now
   looking at him, searching him from head to foot and reading him with
   discerning eyes. He is considering what He will make of him, by-and-by,
   for He has the great and gracious intent that He will take this sinner,
   who is spiritually like the blind beggar, and enlighten him and give
   him to behold His Glory! I suppose that the blind beggar of the Temple
   hardly valued sight, for he had been blind from his birth. Those who
   have seen must greatly miss the light of day, but those who have never
   possessed sight at all can hardly have an idea of what that sense must
   be and, therefore, it cannot be so great a deprivation to them.

   The person I am searching for at this time has no idea of the joy of
   true religion for he has no sense of spiritual life and light. He has
   never seen as yet and, therefore, he does not know his own misery in
   being blind. He has been blind from birth and, in all probability, he
   is content to be so, for he does not know the delight which waits upon
   Heaven-illumined eyes! Spiritual things to him are an unknown region,
   of which he has no conception. He is here, at this time, yet he is not
   looking for salvation, nor desiring it. But Jesus knows the value of
   sight! He knows the glories which heavenly light would bring home to
   the mind and He will not be narrowed in His action by human ignorance,
   but will dispense His bounty according to His own mind which is large
   as the boundless sea!

   This beggar did not pray for sight. At least it is not recorded that he
   did so. He was a beggar--it was his trade to beg. But among all his
   petitions, he did not ask for sight. Yet Jesus gave him sight! Know you
   not that glorious declaration of Free Grace, "I am found of them that
   sought me not"? Is it not a wonderful thing that Jesus often comes to
   those who sought Him not? He comes all of a sudden to them in the
   Sovereignty of His infinite compassion and, before they have begun to
   pray for the blessing, He has bestowed it upon them! His free love
   precedes their desires for it! When they wake up to a consciousness of
   the value of salvation, they find themselves in possession of it--and
   so their first prayers are mingled with praises! I am persuaded that
   there are some before me now who are like the man born blind--they do

   not know what they need. They are not yet aware of the value of the
   blessing and, consequently, they have not sought it. But today they are
   going to receive it!

   There was this circumstance in favor of the blind beggar, that he was
   in the way where Jesus was likely to go, for he was at the Temple gate.
   My Friend, you, too, are on hopeful ground at this time, for you are
   found in the place where my Lord has often been and where He is very
   likely to come again! We have prayed Him into this House hundreds of
   times and we have done so this morning! He has been glorified in this
   Tabernacle and His friends have so welcomed Him that here He delights
   to come! Oh that as Jesus passes by, He may stand still and look on you
   with eyes of infinite mercy!

   What was our Lord doing? Truth to tell, He was under a Divine
   compulsion. He said, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me." He
   was looking out for material to work upon--material in which the works
   of God should be made manifest. Here was the very man, prepared for
   Christ as clay is prepared for the modeler. Let him receive his sight
   and all Jerusalem would see the work of the Lord! And even dwellers in
   far-off lands would hear of it! This blind beggar was the very person
   the Savior was looking for. My Master walks up and down these aisles
   and He finds a great many who can see, or who think they can. These He
   passes by, for, "the whole need not a physician." But as He goes along
   He comes, at last, to a poor dark creature, hopelessly, helplessly
   blind from his birth--and He stops and says, "This is the man. There is
   room for a miracle here." It is even so, O Lord! In those empty
   sockets, or in those withered eyeballs, there is space for healing
   power to exhibit itself! In that hard heart and stubborn will there is
   room for renewing Grace! The necessities of the sinner are the
   opportunities of the Savior and you, poor, guilty, lost and ruined
   sinner--you are the raw material for Christ's Grace to work upon! You
   are the very man His forgiving love is looking for!

   You who cannot see spiritual things, you who scarcely know what
   heavenly sight can mean and hardly have a desire to know. You are the
   very person in whom there is elbow room for Omnipotent Grace--space and
   scope for the matchless skill of our Savior's love! My Lord stops and
   looks at you. "This will do," He says. "This is the kind of man I want.
   Here I can work out My mission and life-purpose. I am the Light of the
   world and with this darkness I will deal, removing it at once." O Lord
   Jesus, You are in the highest Heaven now and yet You hear Your
   servants' prayers from this poor earth! Come into this tabernacle and
   repeat the wonders of Your love! We do not ask You to open the natural
   eyes of the blind, but we ask You to give spiritual sight to the inly
   blind, understanding to the erring and salvation to the lost! Prove
   Yourself to be the Son of the Highest by saying, "Let there be light."
   These poor blind ones do not pray to You, but we ask Grace for them!
   And surely Your own heart prompts You to answer us! Come at this hour
   and bless them, to the praise of the glory of Your Grace!

   This case of the blind beggar is eminently instructive and, therefore,
   let us get at it at once in the hope that while we are considering the
   model case, we may see it repeated in spiritual form in our midst. Holy
   Spirit, bless our discourse to that end!

   I. First, in this man's healing and in the salvation of every chosen
   soul, we shall see THE GREAT HEALER CONSPICUOUS. If anyone among us
   shall ever be saved, the Savior will be made great thereby. If we are
   pardoned, we shall not be honored by the forgiveness, but the royal
   hand which signed and sealed the pardon shall be greatly extolled. If
   our eyes are opened, we shall not be made famous for sight, but He that
   opened our eyes will be made illustrious by the cure. It was thus in
   this case--and rightly so.

   To begin with, in this man's mind, as soon as ever he received sight,
   "a Man that was named Jesus" came to the forefront. Jesus was to him
   the most important Person in existence! All that he knew of Him, at
   first, was that He was a Man that was named Jesus. And under that
   Character Jesus filled the whole horizon of his vision. He was more to
   him than those learned Pharisees, or than all his neighbors put
   together! Jesus was exceeding great, for He had opened his eyes.
   By-and-by, fixing his mind upon that figure, he saw more in it and he
   declared, "He is a Prophet." He boldly said this when he was running
   great risks by doing so. To their faces, he told the carping Pharisees,
   "He is a Prophet." A little further on he came to this, that he
   believed Him to be the Son of God and worshipped Him.

   Now, my dear Friend, if you are saved by Jesus, your star must set, but
   the star of Jesus must rise and increase in brilliance till it becomes
   no more a star, but a sun, making your day and flooding your whole soul
   with light! If we are saved, Christ Jesus must and will have the glory
   of it. None on earth or in Heaven can rival Jesus in the esteem of
   souls brought from darkness to light--He is everybody to them. Do you
   dislike this? Do you need a share of the spoils, a fragment of

   the glory? Go your way and be blind, for your condition can never be
   altered while you refuse to honor the Savior. He that opens a man's
   eyes deserves grateful praises forevermore.

   After this man had received sight, his testimony was all of Jesus. It
   was Jesus that spat, it was Jesus that made the clay, it was Jesus that
   anointed his eyes. So will it be in your mind with the Gospel of your
   salvation--it will be "Jesus only." It is Jesus who became the Surety
   of the Covenant, Jesus who became the atoning Sacrifice. Jesus is the
   Priest, the Interposer, the Mediator, the Redeemer! We know Jesus as
   Alpha and Jesus as Omega. He is the First and He is the Last. In your
   salvation there will be no mistake about it and no mixture in it--you
   will have nothing to say about man, or man's merit, or man's will--but
   on the head which once was wounded with the thorns, you will put all
   your crowns. Jesus did it, did it all and He must be praised!

   It is to be noted that the authority of Jesus issued the saving
   command. "Go, wash." These were not the words of Peter, or James, or
   John, but the words of Jesus and, therefore, the man obeyed them. The
   Gospel message, "Believe and live," is not obeyed till you perceive
   that it is proclaimed by the supreme authority of King Jesus, the
   Savior. O Sirs, He that bids you believe is that same Lord who can and
   will give you healing through your obedience to His command. Trust
   because He bids you! The warrant of the Gospel is the authority of
   Christ. Obey His command and you have obtained His salvation! The
   success of the Gospel command is produced by Him that spoke it. It is
   effectual because it comes forth from His mouth. "Where the word of a
   king is, there is power" and the Gospel is the Word of the great King
   and, therefore, those who listen to it find it to be the power of God
   unto salvation!

   This man, when he had received sight, attributed it most distinctly and
   undividedly to Jesus. He said expressly, "He has opened my eyes."
   Whenever he delivered his testimony, whether to his neighbors or to the
   Pharisees, there was no uncertain sound about it--he had been
   enlightened by Jesus--and by Jesus alone. And to Him he gave all the
   glory-- and he was right in doing so!

   Come, then, lend me your ears. Oh, you who would find light this
   morning, give me your thoughts at this moment! Endeavor to realize that
   Jesus Christ is a living and acting Person. He is not dead! He has
   risen long ago. Being alive and exalted to the highest heavens, He is
   clothed with infinite power and majesty and is mighty to save. In a
   spiritual way, He is still among us, working according to His gracious
   Nature. To us He is not an absent Christ, nor a sleeping Christ, but He
   is still doing what He did when He was on earth--only He now works in
   the spiritual, whereas once He worked in the physical world. He is now
   present to save, present to open the eyes of the spiritually blind,
   present to bless you to whom I speak!

   Understand that He is looking upon you at this moment. Standing in
   front of you, His shadow is now falling upon you. He is considering
   your case. Are you praying? He is listening. Has it scarcely got so far
   as a prayer? Is it but a desire? He is reading that desire. As it
   passes like a shadow across the camera of your soul, He is thinking of
   you. At this moment He is able to say the Word that shall take the film
   from your eyes and let in the everlasting Light of Grace. Do you
   believe this? If so, then cry to Him--"Lord, grant me to receive my
   sight." He will hear you! Perhaps while I am speaking He will send the
   Light of God. To your intense delight you shall find yourself in a new
   world. Escaping from darkness, you shall enter into His marvelous
   Light!

   Realize, further, that the great change that you need in order to
   salvation is beyond all mortal power. You cannot effect it yourself,
   nor can all "the help of men and angels joined" effect it for you. It
   is even beyond your own conception. As a carnal man, you do not know
   what spiritual things are and you cannot fashion an idea of them. A
   dead man cannot know what life is. Truly, if he could live again, he
   would have some knowledge of life derived from his former life, but as
   to you, it would be all novel and strange, for you have never lived
   unto God. You cannot conceive what heavenly sight is, for you were born
   blind. May the Lord do a new thing in you at this moment and bring you
   into a new Heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness!

   Remember that you must have this miracle worked upon you. If the blind
   man had remained blind, he might have continued a tolerably happy
   beggar. He seems to have had very considerable mental resources and he
   might have made his way in the world as well as others of the begging
   confraternity. But you cannot be happy or safe unless the Lord Jesus
   opens your eyes. There remains for you nothing but the blackness of
   darkness, forever, unless light from Heaven visits you. You must have
   Christ or die! Here is the blessedness of it, that at this moment He is
   still in the midst of us, able to save to the uttermost and willing,
   now, to repeat the miracles of His mercy to those who will trust in Him
   to do so. I

   think I can almost hear the prayer struggling in your bosom. Silent and
   unclothed in words, it sits on your lips. Let it speak! Say, "Lord,
   open my eyes this day." He will do it! Blessed be His name! He has come
   on purpose to open the eyes

   of the blind!

   II. Having spoken upon the great Healer, as He stands conspicuous in
   the miracle, I would now conduct your thoughts, in the second place, to
   THE SPECIAL MEANS OBSERVABLE in the miracle. Jesus could have healed
   this man without means, or He could have healed Him by other means, but
   He chose to work the cure in a manner which to all ages will remain a
   grand sermon, an instructive parable of Grace. He spat on the ground
   and made clay of the spittle--and He anointed the eyes of the blind man
   with the clay. This is a picture of the Gospel.

   It meets with many modern criticisms. In the first place, the mode of
   cure seems very eccentric. Spat and made clay with the spittle and the
   dust! Very amazing! Very odd! Thus odd and singular is the Gospel in
   the judgment of the worldly-wise. "Why," says one, "it seems such a
   strange thing that we are to be saved by believing." Men think it so
   odd that 50 other ways are straightway invented! Though the new methods
   are, not one of them, worth describing, yet everybody seems to think
   that the old-fashioned way of, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" might
   have been greatly improved upon. The way of justification by faith is
   peculiarly open to criticism and is about the last that this wise world
   would have selected!

   Yet, eccentric as it may seem for Christ to heal with spittle and dust,
   it was the best and wisest way for His purpose. Suppose, instead, He
   had put His hands into His pocket and had taken out a gold or ivory
   box--and out of this box He had taken a little crystal bottle? Suppose
   He had taken out the stopper and then had poured a drop on each of
   those blind eyes--and they had been opened? What would have been the
   result? Everybody would have said, "what a wonderful medicine! I wonder
   what it was! How was it compounded? Who wrote the prescription? Perhaps
   He found the charm in the writings of Solomon and so He learned to
   distil the matchless drops." Thus you see the attention would have been
   fixed on the means used--and the cure would have been ascribed to the
   medicine rather than to God! Our Savior used no such rare oils or
   choice spirits, but simply spat and made clay of the spittle, for He
   knew that nobody would say, "The spittle did it," or, "It was the clay
   that did it."

   No, if our Lord seems to be eccentric in the choice of means, yet is He
   eminently prudent. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus--and there is but
   one--is the wisdom of God, however singular it may seem in the judgment
   of the worldly wise! It may be thought strange, but it is the sum of
   all wisdom and those who try it, find it to be so. It would be
   impossible to improve upon it. Its adaptation to man's case is
   marvelous--its suitability to its design is matchless! It blesses man
   while it gives all glory to God. No one makes the Gospel a rival to
   Christ, but in every case, by the Gospel, the power which blesses men
   is manifested as the power of God!

   In the next place, the means may appear to some, offensive to the
   taste. Oh, I think I see some of the fine gentry! How they turn up
   their noses as they read, "He spat"! "He spat on the ground and made
   clay of the spittle"! It turns the stomachs of those delicate ones! So
   is it with the Gospel. The Agags who go delicately do not like it. How
   the men of "culture" sneer at the Gospel for which our fathers died!
   Hear how they decry the ever-blessed Word of our salvation. They say
   that it is only fit for old women and idiots--and such fossils of the
   past ages as the preacher who is now addressing you! We are all fools
   except these men of progress and our Gospel is disgusting to them. Yes,
   but stop a minute and disgust may cease. In the miracle before us, the
   means made use of was spit--but from whose mouth? It was the mouth of
   Jesus, which is most sweet! No fragrant perfume made of the rarest
   spices can ever equal the spit of that Divine mouth of

   His!

   And clay? What if it is clay? Clay made by the spittle of the mouth of
   the Son of God is more precious than "the terrible crystal," or the
   rarest powders of the merchant! Thus is it with my Master's Gospel--it
   is offensive to those who are proud of themselves. It is offensive to
   carnal reason, to the idiotic self-complacency of those who,
   considering themselves to be wise, have become otherwise. But to you
   that believe, He is precious! How precious? No tongue can tell--

   "What if we trace the globe around, And search from Britain to Japan?
   There shall be no religion found So just to God, so safe for man." The
   Gospel is still to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks
   foolishness. But unto us who are saved, it is "Christ the power of God
   and the wisdom of God."

   It is further objected that the Lord healed this man in such a
   commonplace way! To spit and make clay of the spittle, why, anybody
   could do that! Why not have used an imposing ceremony? Why not practice
   an eclectic method? If it had been one of the doctors of the age, he
   would have made a great performance of it. His prescription would have
   been a treat for learned men. Did you ever read Culpepper's, "Herbal"?
   I hope you have never taken any of the medicine which that learned
   herbalist prescribes. In one mess, you will find a dozen articles, each
   one of them monstrous, and in many a prescription you will find a score
   or more of herbs most curiously compounded. Such were the prescriptions
   of still earlier times. If they did no good, they did at least bewilder
   the patient! And now, today, what is the new Gospel that is proposed to
   us? It is the Gospel of "culture." Culture! This, of course, is the
   monopoly of our superiors. It is only to be enjoyed by very refined
   persons who have been to college and who carry inside of them a whole
   university--library and all!

   The Gospel, which is made to be plain enough for wayfaring men, is, for
   that reason, despised. That Jesus Christ came into the world to save
   sinners is too commonplace a teaching. That He bore our sins in His own
   body on the tree is rejected as an outrageous dogma, unfit for this
   intelligent age! Oh yes, we know the men and their contemptuous leer.
   Yet commonplace as our Lord's medicine was, it was unique. All the
   philosophers of Greece and all the wise and rich men of Rome could not
   have compounded another dram of this healing application! Only the
   Christ possessed that matchless spit--only His fingers could make that
   special clay. Even thus, if the Gospel should seem commonplace, it is
   to be remembered that there is not another like it!

   Tell me, you that are wise, can you find anything that will bear
   comparison with it? Christ in the sinner's place-- made sin for us that
   we might be made the righteousness of God in Him--can you match this?
   Jesus redeeming His people from the slavery of sin. You may call it a
   mercantile Atonement, if you please, and grow black in the face in your
   rage at the substitutionary Sacrifice, but you cannot equal it! The
   more abundant your ridicule of the Gospel, the more shall we cling to
   it, and the better shall we love it! For the very spittle of Christ's
   mouth is dearer to us than the deepest thoughts of your most profound
   philosophers!

   I think I hear another objector say that the remedy was quite
   inadequate. Clay made out of spittle would be positively inert and
   could exercise no healing power upon blind eyes. Just so, we are
   prepared to hear all this. The clay alone has no efficacy, but when
   Jesus uses it, it will answer His purpose. The man, after he had washed
   the clay into the pool, came seeing. The Gospel may appear as if it
   could not renew the heart and save from evil. To believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ seems an unlikely means of producing holiness. Men ask,
   "What can evangelical preaching do to put down sin?" We point to those
   who were once dead in sin, who are made alive by faith--and thus we
   prove the efficacy of the Gospel by facts. "Oh," they say, "can faith
   transform the character? Can belief subdue the will? Can trust conduct
   the mind to a high and elevated life?" It does so! And though in theory
   it appears inadequate, yet as a matter offact, it has made men into new
   creatures and has turned sinners into saints!

   Another wise gentleman judges that clay upon the eyes would even be
   injurious. "To stick clay over a man's eyes would not make him see--it
   would add another impediment to the light." So have I even heard it
   said that to preach salvation by faith is against good morals and may
   even encourage men in evil! Blind bats as they are, can they not see
   that the case is the very reverse? How frequently by the Gospel are
   harlots made chaste, thieves made honest, drunks made sober? By this
   very Gospel of faith which they say is against good morals the best of
   morals are produced! Why, in the next breath they denounce Believers as
   Puritans, too precise and religious by half! Nothing creates so many
   good works as that Gospel which tells us that salvation is not of
   works, but of the Grace of God!

   Another objector declares that our Lord's way of cure was opposed to
   the Law of God. Here is this "Man named Jesus" actually making clay or
   brick-earth on the Sabbath! Was not this a shocking infringement of the
   Law of God? It is insinuated that our Gospel of faith in Jesus makes
   men think lightly of the Law. We preach against the idea of merit and
   we say that good works cannot save men and, therefore, we are charged
   with lowering the dignity of the Law! This is not true, for our Gospel
   establishes the Law and fosters true obedience. When the Savior said,
   "Go, wash," and the blind man went and washed, the Lord Jesus had
   taught him obedience, even the best kind of it--namely, the obedience
   offaith. Even so, though we are apparently in conflict with the Law
   when we declare that by the works of the Law shall no flesh living be
   justified, yet we establish the Law--for faith brings with it the
   principle and mainspring of obedience. To trust God is the very essence
   of obedience. He that believes in Jesus has taken the first step in the
   great lesson of obeying God in

   all things. To see how Jesus suffered the Law's penalty and how He
   honored the Law for us, is to see that which makes the Law most
   glorious in our esteem.

   So, I would say in leaving this point--Do not quibble at the Gospel. We
   sometimes tell servants that it is never wise to quarrel with their
   bread and butter. I would earnestly say to every anxious spirit--Do not
   quarrel with the Gospel of salvation. If you are in a right state of
   mind as to your condition, I am sure you will not. When I found the
   Lord, I was driven into such a corner that whatever salvation might
   have been, I would have had it on God's terms without a question! If
   you are the man that I am looking for. If you need to receive spiritual
   sight, you will make no conditions with Jesus! You will not ask for a
   perfumed ointment for your eyes, but you will gladly accept an
   anointing with clay from your Savior's hands. Whatever the Lord
   prescribes as the way of salvation, you will joyfully accept. In that
   cheerful acceptance lies a great part of the salvation, itself, for
   your will is now at one with God.

   Let us pray the Holy Spirit to reveal to our hearts the Gospel and to
   make us love it, receive it and prove its power! III. I would now lead
   you a step further. THE PLAIN COMMAND IS MOST NOTEWORTHY. Our Lord said
   to His patient, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." The man could not
   see, but he could hear. Salvation comes to us, not by sight of
   ceremonies, but by hearing the Word of God! The ears are the best
   friends the sinner has remaining to him. It is by Ear-Gate that the
   Prince Immanuel comes riding into Mansoul in triumph. "Hear, and your
   soul shall live."

   The command was exceedingly specific--"Go, wash in the pool of Siloam."
   So is the Gospel exceedingly specific-- "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ and you shall be saved." It is not--Do this or that work, but
   believe! It is not-- Believe in a priest, or in any human being, but in
   Jesus. If this man had said, "I will wash in Jordan, for it was there
   that Naaman lost his leprosy," his washing would have been useless. It
   was a little, insignificant affair, that pool of Siloam, whose waters
   flowed softly--why must he go there? He did not ask for reasons, but he
   at once obeyed and, in obeying, he found the blessing. My Hearer, you
   have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! There
   are not 20 things to be done, but only this one. The very longest form
   of the Gospel runs thus--"He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved"--the faith is to be openly confessed by obedience to the Lord's
   prescribed Baptism. But the first matter is the faith. "He that
   believes on Him has everlasting life." This is very specific! You can
   make no mistake in the matter.

   It was also intensely simple. "Go, wash in the pool." Go to the pool
   and wash the clay into it. Any boy can wash his eyes. The task was
   simplicity itself. So is the Gospel as plain as a pikestaff! You have
   not to perform 20 genuflections or standing up and sitting down--each
   one peculiar--nor have you to go to school to learn a dozen languages,
   each one more difficult than the other! No, the saving deed is one and
   simple--"Believe and live." Trust, trust Christ! Rely upon Him, rest in
   Him. Accept His work upon the Cross as the atonement for your sin, His
   righteousness as your acceptance before God, His Person as the delight
   of your soul!

   But the command was also distinctly personal. "Go, wash." He might not
   send a neighbor or a friend. His parents could not go for him. It would
   have been idle for him to have said, "I will pray about it." No, he
   must go and wash in the pool himself. So, too, the sinner must,
   himself, believe in Jesus. Hear me, dear Friend! Only your own faith
   will answer the purpose--your own eyes need opening and, therefore, you
   must yourself go and wash in the pool in obedience to Jesus. You must
   personally believe unto eternal life. You get into the notion, some of
   you, that you may sit still and hope that God will save you. I have no
   authority to encourage you in such a rebellious inactivity! Jesus bids
   you go and wash! How dare you sit still? When the father comes to
   receive his prodigal child, he finds him on the road. He was yet a
   great way off when his father saw him, but his face was turned in the
   right direction and he was making the best of his way to the father's
   house. Our Father says to you, "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from
   the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Up with you, Man! Up with
   you! The pool of Siloam will not come to you--you must go to it! The
   waters will not leap out of their bed and wash your eyes, but you must
   stoop to them and wash in the pool until the clay is gone and you see.
   It is a very personal direction--mind that you treat it so.

   It was a direction which involved obedience to Christ. Why must I go
   there and wash there? Because He tells you. If you want Jesus to save
   you, you must do as He bids you. You must take Jesus to be your Lord if
   you take Him to be your Savior. Dear Heart, yield to Jesus Christ this
   morning! Never servant had such a Master! You may well bow down and
   kiss those dear feet which were nailed to the Cross for you. Yield
   yourselves to the rule of Jesus at once. The act of faith is the more
   acceptable because it is the heart's obedience to Jesus. Submit to Him
   by faith, I beseech you.

   The command was for the time present. Jesus did not say, "Go, wash in
   the pool tomorrow, or in a month's time." If the beggar had been blind
   inwardly as well as outwardly, he might have said, "My blindness brings
   me money. I will make a little more as a blind beggar and then I will
   have my eyes opened." He valued sight too much to delay. Had he
   delayed, he would have remained blind till Doomsday! If any of you
   think it would be inconvenient to be converted at once, I have no hope
   for you. I can preach to you no salvation but a present one! He who
   will not be saved today, will not be likely to be saved at all. Go,
   blind beggar, go and be blind forever unless you will have sight today.
   It may be "now or never" with you. Today is the day of salvation!
   Tomorrow is but the devil's net. You will be hopelessly lost if you
   continue to delay!

   The command in the blind man's case was very noteworthy--"Go, wash."
   And so is the spiritual command which is its parallel--"Believe in the
   Lord Jesus." O Souls, hear the Word of God which bids you trust the
   Savior. He cries, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth." Oh, may God help you to do so at this very instant! Will you
   not? Blessed Spirit, lead them to do so, for Jesus' sake!

   IV. I come, in the close of the discourse, to invite you to see THE
   DELIGHTFUL RESULT CERTIFIED. I think I

   see this man, attended by his neighbors, going to Siloam. They had seen
   Jesus place the clay upon the man's eyes and they had heard Him say,
   "Go to Siloam." They volunteer to go and act as guides to the blind.
   Curiosity inspires them. He reaches the pool. He goes down the steps.
   He is close to the water. He stoops his head. He washes his eyes. What
   will come of it? The clay is gone, but what else has happened? Suddenly
   the man lifts up his face and cries, "I see! I see!" What a shout went
   up from them all. "What a wonder! What a marvel! Hosanna! Blessed be
   God!" The man cries, "It is true, I have washed and I can see!"

   This man could see at once. He washed and his blindness was gone!
   Eternal life is received in a moment. It does not take the tick of a
   clock to justify a sinner. O Soul, the moment you believe, you have
   passed from death to life! Quick as a flash of lightning the effectual
   change is worked, the eternal life enters and casts out death. Oh, that
   the Lord would work salvation now! This man could see at once. We read
   of another blind man, that he first saw men as trees walking and only
   after a time saw every man clearly. But this man saw clearly at once!
   Oh that you who hear me this day would believe and live at once!

   This man knew that he could see. He had no question about that, for he
   said, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."
   Possibly some of you have been decent people all your lives and yet you
   do not know whether you are saved or not. This is poor religion. Cold
   comfort! Saved and not know it? Surely it must be as lean a salvation
   as that man's breakfast when he did not know whether he had eaten it or
   not. The salvation which comes of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is
   conscious salvation. Your eyes shall be so opened that you shall no
   longer question whether you can see. He could see and he knew that he
   could see. Oh, that you would believe in Jesus, and know that you have
   believed and are saved! Oh, that you might get into a new world and
   enter upon a new state of things altogether! May that which was totally
   unknown to you before be made known to you at this hour by Almighty
   Grace!

   And other people perceived that he could see. They could not understand
   it. Some said, "This is he," but others would only say, "It is like
   he." A man with opened eyes is very different from the same man when he
   is blind. If we were to take any friend we know who has no eyes and
   suddenly eyes were to be placed in his countenance, we should probably
   find his expression so altered that we should hardly think him the same
   person and, therefore, the cautious neighbors only said, "He is like
   he." Yet they were all of them sure he could see! None of the Pharisees
   said to him, "Are you sure you can see?" Those twinkling eyes of his,
   so full of fun and wit--and sarcasm--were proofs most plain that he
   could see. Ah, your friends at home will know that you are converted if
   it is really so! They will hardly need telling--they will find it out.
   The very way you eat your dinner will show it. It will! You eat it with
   gratitude and seek a blessing on it!

   The way you will go to bed will show it. I remember a poor man who was
   converted, but he was dreadfully afraid of his wife--not the only man
   in the world that is in that fear--and therefore he was fearful that
   she would ridicule him if he knelt to pray. He crept upstairs in his
   stockings that he might not be heard, but might have a few minutes'
   prayer before she knew he was there. His scheme broke down. His wife
   soon found him out. Genuine conversion is no more to be hidden than a
   candle in a dark room! You cannot hide a cough. If a man has a cough,
   he must cough--and if a man has Grace in his heart, he will show Grace
   in his life. Why should we wish to hide it? Oh, may the Lord give you
   such an eye-opening this day that friends and relatives shall know that
   your eyes have been opened!

   Observe that the restored one never lost his sight again. This man did
   not become blind again. Christ's cures are not temporary. I have heard
   of many cases of late of people who have been exceedingly happy because
   they fancied that they were perfectly restored. The cure lasted a week
   and then they were as bad as ever. Fancy can do great things for a
   season--but Christ's cures last forever. Never an eye that Christ
   opened ever went blind again! We believe in being born again, but not
   in becoming unborn. I know that whatever the Lord does shall be
   forever. O my Friends, I have nothing to preach but eternal salvation!
   Come to Christ and He will work in you an effectual cure. Trust Him
   wholly, for in Him there is everlasting life!

   This man, when he received sight, was willing to lose everything in
   consequence. The Jews cast him out of the synagogue, but when Jesus
   found him, the man did not fret about the Jews. I think I can see his
   face when Jesus found him-- how happy he was as he worshipped his
   Benefactor! "Poor soul, poor soul, you have been cast out of the
   synagogue!" "Oh," he says, "don't pity me. They may cast me out of 50
   synagogues now that Christ has found me! What care I for synagogues now
   that I have found the Messiah? When I was in the synagogue I was a
   blind man and now I am out of the synagogue, but I have my sight!" When
   you become a Christian the world will hate you and revile you, but what
   of that? Some will have no more to do with you. This may be the best
   turn they can do you!

   We had a lady of title in our membership once--and a very gracious
   Sister she was. I had some little fear about her at first, lest the
   great ones should draw her away from the Truth of God. Soon after her
   Baptism, she remarked that a certain noble family had given her the
   cold shoulder--and others who were very intimate had ceased to call.
   She took it as a matter of course and only remarked that it made her
   own course all the more easy, for she had not, now, the pain of hearing
   their ungodly conversation, nor even the responsibility of severing the
   connection! The world has done its best for the child of God when it
   has cast him out! Its excommunications are better than its
   communications! The outside of the world's house is the safest side of
   it for us. That we love the Brethren and that the world hates us are
   two good evidences of Grace for which a man may be grateful. "Let us go
   forth unto Christ outside the camp, bearing His reproach."

   What a wonderful thing the Lord Jesus had done for this man and what a
   wonderful thing He is prepared to do for all who trust Him! It had been
   a work of creation. The man's eyes were no eyes, Jesus created sight in
   them! To heal a limb is one thing, but to make an eye, or to enable
   that which was only the mere fashion of an eye to become an organ of
   perception is a greater thing by far. To save a soul is a work of
   creation. We are created anew in Christ Jesus. It was also a work of
   resurrection. Those eyes had been dead and now the Lord Jesus raised
   them from the dead!

   The Lord God Almighty can work creation at this moment. He can produce
   resurrection this day! And why should He not? This day we commemorate
   both of these Divine works. This first day of the week was the
   beginning of the creation of God. It is also the day in which our Lord
   rose from the dead, as the first fruits of them that slept. This Lord's
   Day commemorates the beginning of creation and of resurrection. Let us
   pray the Almighty Lord to manifest among us the works of God this day!
   O Lord, regenerate, illuminate, pardon and save those who are here
   present--and thus glorify Your Son! Amen and amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Untitled Sermon

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 21, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in
   Christ. In whom you also trusted, after you heard the Word of truth,
   the Gospel of your salvation." Ephesians 1:12,13.

   IT appears from the preceding verse that the predestinating purpose of
   God deals not only with salvation as a whole, but with the details of
   it--it includes faith as well as salvation which comes of faith. "Being
   predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things
   after the counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of
   His glory, who first trusted in Christ." The trust is appointed as well
   as the justification--the means as well as the end. We are not ordained
   to be saved apart from faith, but those who are predestinated to
   eternal life are ordained to receive it through faith in Christ Jesus.
   What God has joined together let no man put asunder.

   Beloved Friends, I would have you notice in this verse the remarkable
   object which is set before us as the grand design of predestinating
   Grace. Observe the singular expression of the Apostle--"That we should
   be to the praise of His glory." Observe that He does not say, that we
   should sing to the praise of our glorious God, though we will do that.
   Nor that we should suffer to His praise, though we would not refuse to
   do that. Nor that we should work to His praise, though by Grace we will
   do that--but--"that we should be to the praise of His glory." The very
   being of a Believer is to the praise and glory of God! It is written,
   "Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of
   God." But this is still more comprehensive--you are to be to His
   glory--your very existence is to praise Him. Your being, which is now
   turned into well-being, is to glorify the God of Grace! When in the
   quiet of the garden I have looked upon the lilies standing erect in
   their marvelous beauty and I have realized our Master's words, that
   Solomon in all His glory was not arrayed like one of these, shall I
   have said to myself, "What do these do to the glory of God?" Quickly my
   heart has answered, "They exist to show forth the glory of their
   Creator!" By merely standing where they are, they yield praise to the
   Lord--their very being is worship! Even those flowers which are born to
   blush unseen of men do not bloom in vain. They do not waste their
   sweetness, though they pour it on the desert air, for God is in the
   lone places and beholds with joy His own handiwork. God is glorified by
   the being of that which He makes and especially by the being of that
   which He has a second time created by the power of His Grace, according
   to His purpose through faith! Is it not enough result of being if we
   are to His praise?

   Beloved, see the importance of that trust which is so constant an item
   in the purpose of God when He causes us to be to the praise of His
   glory. Unless we have trusted in Christ, we are not living to the
   praise of God. But when we have come, by faith, into the place wherein
   we ought to stand, then is our very being unto the praise of His glory!
   In Christ our very existence glorifies God and it is faith which
   consciously places us in Christ. Concerning that trust, or, if you
   will, for the original bears that translation--that hope which is so
   essential to the fulfillment of the purpose of God-- concerning that
   trust I am about to speak this morning. May the praise of His glory be
   promoted by what I am enabled to say!

   I. Our first point will be THAT TRUST IN CHRIST IS THE CONSTANT MARK OF
   THE SAVED. "That we should be to the praise of His glory who first
   trusted in Christ, in whom you also trusted." I care not whether you
   read it, "trusted," or, "hoped," the idea will still be the same. Trust
   in Christ, or hope in Christ, is the distinguishing token of God's
   people.

   It was the mark of the Apostles. It was necessary to an Apostle that he
   should have seen the Lord, for he was to bear personal witness to that
   which he had seen with his eyes and looked upon and handled. But this
   alone was not sufficient,

   for many saw the Lord and remained in unbelief, enemies of the Cross of
   Christ. These could not have been Apostles since they did not trust in
   Jesus. The Apostles were those who, with an inner as well as an outer
   eye, had seen the Lord and had trusted themselves wholly to Him as
   their Leader, Master, Teacher and Savior. There were no Apostles worthy
   to be called Apostles who did not trust in Christ. Truly Judas bore the
   name, but his Lord said of him, "One of you is a devil." He who is sent
   of Christ as His witness, first trusts in Christ.

   This was also the mark of the first converts, the chosen from among the
   Jews. These had the honor to be the elder born--these who first trusted
   in Christ. Some of them had the advantage of having trusted in Him
   before His actual advent, for they were looking for the hope of Israel
   and earnestly expecting the coming of the Messiah. Before our Lord
   appeared at the waters of Jordan and was pointed out by John the
   Baptist as, "the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world,"
   there were hearts that believed in Him and eyes that looked for Him.
   Still, whether they were Jewish Believers, looking for His advent, or
   not, this was the mark of their being truly saved--that they trusted in
   Jesus when He was revealed as the Anointed of the Lord. The best
   instructed Jew could not find eternal salvation apart from his putting
   his trust in Jesus Christ the Son of God.

   Now, dear Friends, this was the mark of those who were first saved by
   the great Redeemer and I want you to notice how the Holy Spirit sets
   them in a class by themselves. He makes a distinction between those who
   first trusted and those who trusted afterwards because it is a
   noteworthy honor to have been among the first that trusted Christ. It
   is a privilege to be led by Jesus, to trust Him first in order of time
   by beginning in your earliest youth. Happy are those who enter the
   Lord's vineyard amid the dews of the morning, for these redeem years of
   time from the bitter servitude of sin and turn them to blessed account
   in the delightful service of the Lord Jesus. Such are usually
   distinguished in the Church--early piety makes eminent piety--early
   consecration often leads to abounding usefulness. The Lord evidently
   delights to be found in a high degree of those who seek Him early. They
   come to Him, first, and He remembers the kindness of their youth and
   the promptness with which they obeyed His call.

   It is also a great privilege to be called first out of a family or a
   neighborhood. Perhaps some of you live where there are none who believe
   in Christ. May the Lord grant you this high favor to be the leader of
   your household and your district as a Believer! May the shower of Grace
   fall first on you and then bless all those who are round about you!
   Possibly in your family you do not know of one who has passed from
   death to life--may you be the first fruits out of spiritual death! I
   have often observed that where God begins with a family, He goes on
   with a family. He makes one or two to be the first fruits and then He
   considers the lump as also holy and goes on to bless the rest of the
   household. Even in nations I scarcely remember a nation or people that
   has ever received Christ which has been quite left without His blessing
   throughout after centuries--the fire which the first live coals had
   kindled has never absolutely been quenched. Therefore, I admire the
   gray fathers of the past, the pioneers of the army of the Lord.

   Paul mentions with respect those who were in Christ before he was and
   so should we honor those who led the way for us by first trusting in
   Christ. I greatly esteem in my own mind those first Believers who were
   not borne in by the throng of others, but went forward alone. I compare
   them to the first navigators upon an untried sea--the men who first
   sailed out of sight of shore, greatly venturing. To be first in
   perceiving that Jesus of Nazareth was the Anointed of the Lord was no
   mean thing, for none of the princes of this world had any idea of that
   great fact. These were, in truth, the "men of light and leading," the
   foremost minds of their age, though they were peasants and fishermen!
   These were the first swallows heralding a glorious summer tide. These
   were the first songbirds waking the morning to behold the newly-risen
   sun. It is a patent of nobility to be numbered with these!

   I would put a holy ambition into the hearts of those who are young and
   others who belong to ungodly families, suggesting to them that they
   should be among their households those "who first trust in Christ." In
   the history of your tribe you will have an honored place as the first
   who brought salvation to your house. But, whether you are first or
   last, if you are saved at all it will be through trust in Christ! Come
   young, come old, you will still be saved only by trusting Christ. Come
   as the leader of your family, or come as the last left out in the
   cold--you will still have to come by a simple trust and reliance upon
   the Lord Jesus Christ! This is the one and only way of salvation.

   Now, as this was the mark of the elder born, the text goes on to tell
   us that it was the mark of the younger born--"In whom you also trusted,
   after that you heard the Word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation."
   The Ephesians did not see the Christ, they never listened to the
   melodious tones of His voice, nor looked into His beloved
   Countenance--they were

   converted by hearing the report of Him. They were brought into
   salvation afterwards, but still it came to the same thing--they
   received the same precious faith with those who, in former days, had
   obtained eternal life. Those to whom I now speak trusted in Christ
   after they had heard the Word of truth. Note the expression. It is the
   Word of the truth--the most important and vital of all truths--the
   Truth of God. Nothing but the Truth of God can truly renew the heart.
   Falsehood works to evil--only the Truth of God works towards
   righteousness. We heard the Word of the God of Truth and it came to us
   as the Word of God--it came with the force of truth, carrying
   conviction with it--and it came as the Word of God, exercising a Divine
   power over our nature and, hence it was that we came to trust in
   Christ. My unconverted Hearer, if you desire to have faith in Christ,
   listen to the Truth of God and to the Truth of God, only! Shut your
   ears to error and hold yourselves only ready to hear the glorious
   Gospel of the blessed God. "Faith comes by hearing," but that hearing
   must be the hearing of the Word of God. It is by the hearing of the
   Word of the Truth of God that men come to trust in Christ, but trust in
   Christ they must, or they will perish! He is the sole Rock on which we
   must rest--the one Foundation laid for us to build upon.

   The Apostle also says to these Ephesians, "You heard the Gospel of your
   salvation." O delightful word! The Gospel, the glad tidings! The glad
   tidings of salvation! Yes, more, the glad tidings of your salvation!
   The Gospel brings to us a personal deliverance. We heard Christ
   preached and we saw that He had salvation for us. Another man's Savior
   brings us little joy, but salvation for ourselves is good news, indeed!
   Joyful was the day when my heart said, "Blessed be God, I need
   salvation and it is joyful tidings to me that there is an atoning
   Sacrifice by which my sin is put away! I can be reconciled to God
   through the death of His Son and in Christ Jesus I can be accepted and
   beloved of the Lord." By such reflections we were led to a simple and
   hearty trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That trust is the broad arrow of
   the King, set upon all His royal possessions. Where that trust is
   found, that soul is God's possession! Where it is lacking, that soul
   still lies in the arms of the Wicked One. This trust, of which some
   make so little, is, nevertheless, the distinguishing and the
   discriminating mark by which we must discern between him that fears God
   and him that fears Him not.

   Note, before I leave this portion of the subject, that trust in Christ
   is of the same nature in all Believers. It is not the same in degree,
   nor in constancy, nor in energy, but it is the same faith. "You
   received like precious faith," said Peter. Paul's faith and your faith
   are the same faith if your faith is true faith. The faith of Abraham
   and the faith of a little child who has newly believed in Jesus are the
   same faith. A diamond is a diamond whatever its size may be and so,
   little faith and great faith are of the same essence! Whether it is a
   grain of mustard seed or a mountain-moving faith, it is still faith of
   the operation of God, faith in the same Object and faith working to the
   same end. Therefore John, speaking to his converts, prays, "That you
   may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the
   Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." If you are a Believer, you have
   a right to the same fellowship with God as the Apostle had. You have
   the same perfect cleansing by the precious blood. You have the same
   adoption, the same regeneration, you stand in the same place of love
   and acceptance--you shall be blessed with the same blessings on
   earth--and you shall enter into the same joy at the right hand of God.
   See, then, dear Friends, that trust in Christ is the invariable and the
   Infallible mark of the saved ones!

   II. Secondly, THIS TRUST IS NO EMPTY NOTION. The trust in Christ which
   saves the soul is no idle sentiment,

   but a strong, vital, active principle, having a diving and conquering
   power within it. It is of the operation of the Spirit of God and,
   therefore, it is a living and incorruptible seed which lives and abides
   forever.

   True trust in Christ is an entire reliance upon Him. This day, if you
   trust Christ, you rest the whole weight and stress of your soul's
   affairs upon Him. Looking at your sin and your sinfulness; looking at
   the past, the present and the future; looking at death and at judgment,
   you deliberately believe that Christ is equal to every emergency and
   you cast yourself entirely and without reserve upon Him to save
   you--and to keep you saved forever! No other trust is worth a pin
   except this! It must be an absolute severance from all reliance upon
   your past merit, or upon your present resolutions, or upon your future
   expectations of what you shall be or shall do. You must have done with
   all other trust if Christ is your confidence. Your motto must be,
   "Jesus only." In this lifeboat you must swim to Glory, but all others
   you must cast away. Another reliance would be as a weight about your
   loins to sink you in the sea of despair. O my Hearer, have you such a
   simple, unadulterated trust as this?

   A saving trust leads us to accept Christ in all His offices. He is to
   us not only Priest to put away our sin, but Prophet to remove our
   ignorance and King to subdue our rebellions. If as Priest He purges the
   conscience, as Prophet He must

   direct the intellect and as King He must rule the life. We must yield
   our will to Christ's will that henceforth every thought may be brought
   into captivity to His holy sway. There is no whole-hearted trust in
   Christ unless Christ is taken as a whole! You cannot have half a Christ
   and be saved, for half Christ is no Christ! You must take Him as He is
   revealed in Scripture--Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of men,
   very God of very God, the faithful and true Witness, your Guide, your
   Lord, your Husband, your everything! Do you trust Him so? If not, you
   have not trusted Him at all! This is the trust which brings salvation
   with it--an entire reliance upon an entire Savior so far as you know
   Him.

   This trust includes obedience to Him--we have not trusted Him at all
   unless we are prepared to accept His commands as the rule of our lives.
   The ship is on fire; the bales of cotton are pouring forth a black,
   horrible smoke; passengers and crew are in extreme danger, but a
   capable captain is in command and he says to those around him, "If you
   will behave yourselves, I think I shall be able to effect the escape of
   you all." Now, if they trust in the captain they will do precisely as
   he orders. No sailor or engineer will refuse to work the pumps, or to
   prepare the boats. Neither will any passenger disobey a rule. In
   proportion to their confidence in their leader will be the alacrity
   with which they obey him at once. They believe his orders to be wise
   and so they keep to then. Neither their fear, nor their rashness will
   lead them to rush to and fro contrary to his bidding if they have a
   firm trust in him. When the boats are lowered and are bought, one by
   one, to the ship's side, those who are to fill them wait till their
   turns come--in firm reliance upon the captain's impartiality and
   prudence they will get into the boats or they will wait on board--for
   they consider that his orders are dictated by a better judgment than
   their own. So far as each man and each woman firmly believes in the
   superior officer, discipline will be maintained. Do you not see this?

   Obedience is the necessary outcome of true and real faith and there is
   no trust where there is no obedience. Some of you fancy that you are to
   trust Christ and then do what you like! You believe a lie, for such is
   not the teaching of God's Word! The faith which saves is a faith which
   obeys. Learn this from the sermon of last Sabbath morning [The Blind
   Beggar of the Temple and His Wonderful Cure--Sermon #1977.] Jesus
   becomes the Physician of the blind man and puts clay on his eyes. And
   then He bids him go and wash in the pool of Siloam and he shall see. If
   he had refused to go and wash, he would not have received sight. Do not
   tell me you have trusted for sight--you cannot have done so unless you
   go and wash in the appointed pool. We must follow Christ's directions
   if we would receive Christ's promises. Trust in Christ implies a
   yielding up of all that we have and all that we are into Christ's
   hands. We must be to Him as the wax to the seal, or the clay to the
   potter. There must be an unreserved submission to His supremacy. O you
   seeking Sinner, will you submit to this? Are you full of self-will and
   pride? Then these must be taken from you! If you heartily accept the
   Lord Jesus as your Lord and King, you have the faith which saves. But
   if not, what faith have you that is worth having?

   Trust in Christ leads to an open following of Him. Trust is not lame,
   but it walks in the footsteps of him it relies upon. If the Lord's way
   is the way of the Cross, you will, nevertheless, follow it because you
   will know it to be the right way, since He leads therein. He that is
   ashamed to confess Christ has good reason to fear that he is not
   trusting Him. How can I be trusting Him of whom I am ashamed? If I am
   not on His side in the great battle of life, how can I say that He is
   my confidence? He declares that he that is not with Him is against Him.
   How can I trust Him and yet be against Him? If I refuse to have my name
   recorded on the muster-roll of His army below, how dare I hope that it
   is written in the Lamb's Book of Life above? If I refuse to accept
   Jesus as my Captain, how can I claim Him as my Savior? A hearty trust
   in Christ involves an honest confession of Him. "He that believes and
   is baptized shall be saved." "He that with his heart believes, and with
   his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be saved." Thus the matter is
   put in Scripture. Will you come out, then? Will you come out on His
   side? If you will, then you have saving trust. If you will truly, fully
   and wholly decide for Christ and live for Christ, then you have the
   trust which is the mark of His elect!

   This trust will lead a man to labor to suffer for Christ as need
   occurs. The true truster considers it to be real gain to lose for
   Jesus. He reckons that toil unrewarded of men is the best rewarded form
   of labor when it is accepted of the Lord. It is enough wage to be
   permitted to serve the Lord Christ! This is faith--this which counts
   all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
   Jesus. Faith is that which has respect unto a future recompense when
   the Lord shall come in His Kingdom, but looks not for honor among men
   or any other form of reward here below. True trust cleaves to Christ
   when the many turn aside, for it knows that He has the Living Word and
   none upon earth beside. My Hearer, if you have a real trust in Christ,
   you will follow His teachings though all the world should run madly
   after new opinions! You will stand by His Truth though you are called a
   fool for your steadfastness and you will not be ashamed though no

   one should keep you in countenance. If you are trusting in Christ, you
   will spend your life for Him and reckon it to be the best way of using
   your existence. God grant us to have more and more of this trust!

   That trust which lives on men's lips and never affects their hearts is
   a deadly delusion. He that says, "I believe," and then never lives
   according to that belief, is a deceiver and will find himself deceived
   if he looks for salvation in such a faith. That presumptuous trust
   which indulges in sin and boasts of forgiveness in Christ is, in
   itself, an aggravation of a sinful life and will involve its possessor
   in increased condemnation. Hang up on the gallows of infamy that evil
   confidence which is in league with unholiness! The conceit of safety
   while we love sin is a mockery of God's salvation--the base counterfeit
   of the coin of Heaven! Only God gives the faith which works by love and
   purifies the soul--all other faith is spurious and ruinous.

   True trust rejoices in the hope which Christ inspires. It looks for His
   coming and His Glory, His reign and His Heaven. It is full of
   hope--that living, lively, life-giving hope which sustains the heart!
   This trust has a window of hope through which light comes into the
   heart in the darkest hours. It lives and triumphs in the future through
   trusting the promise of Christ Jesus.

   If we have such trust as this, we shall constantly meet with something
   whereon to exercise it. God never leaves true trust without work to do.
   It is not a presentation sword to be worn only on high days and
   holidays, neither is it like the old armor in the Tower of London, hung
   up to be looked at. No, true trust is for everyday wear and use--and
   between here and Heaven it will be tested in every conceivable way!
   That sword will snap if it is not a true Jerusalem blade and that armor
   will be pierced if it is not of proof, able to endure the battleaxe of
   fierce temptation. In a thousand fields our trust will be tried before
   we shall be able to sheathe the sword and enjoy the triumph! It is in
   this way that trust in Christ is made by our God to work to the praise
   of the glory of His Grace. Trust in Christ brings to God greater glory
   than anything else we can produce.

   "What shall we do," said one, "that we may work the work of God?"
   Meaning thereby a God-like work, a work so great as to bear a heavenly
   name. Jesus answered, "This is the work of God, that you believe on
   Jesus Christ whom He has sent." Dear Friend over yonder, you cannot
   build a row of almshouses to the glory of God, but you can trust Christ
   with all your heart to the Glory of God! You cannot stand up and
   deliver an eloquent oration to God's praise, but you can, by Divine
   Grace, pursue a life of faith and thus praise Him! You cannot be a hero
   in fight and turn to flight the armies of the alien, but by trust in
   Jesus, exercised in prevailing prayer, you can win great victories to
   the praise of His glory! Walk humbly with your God! In patience possess
   your souls and with an unstaggering faith embrace the promises--and you
   shall be found in that cloud of witnesses who are ennobled of God Most
   High! The Lord grant us, then, to have this trust which is more than
   mere notion or sentiment--but a Divine principle created by the Holy
   Spirit.

   III. Thirdly, THIS TRUST IN CHRIST IS HIS DUE. There came to me the
   other day a young man who wished to

   speak with me about his soul troubles and he began thus, "Dear Sir, I
   cannot trust Christ." To which I answered, "Have you found out
   something new in His Character? Has He ceased to be trustworthy? Pray
   let me know all about it, for it is a serious matter to me. I have
   trusted Him with everything I have for time and for eternity--and if He
   is not fit to be trusted, I am in terrible shape." He looked at me and
   he said, "I will not say that again, Sir, I see I have made a mistake.
   Truly the Lord Jesus is in every way trustworthy." "Well, then," I
   said, "Why cannot you trust Him?" I left Him with that unanswerable
   question. A man is certainly able to trust one whom he regards as
   trustworthy! My young friend saw that at once and asked me further.
   "But may I trust Christ to save me? Am I permitted to trust my soul
   with Him?" I said to him, "Is not this the command of the
   Gospel--Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved? And
   are you not warned that if you do not believe in Him you will be
   damned? How can we doubt that we are permitted to do that which is
   commanded us of the Lord? I am to preach the Gospel to every
   creature--and this is the Gospel--'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved!"'

   He said, "So, then, if I trust Christ, He will save me?" And I replied,
   "Certainly He will! He is the Savior of all them that put their trust
   in Him. He says, 'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.' It
   is written, 'He that believes on Him has everlasting life.' He that
   trusts in Jesus is saved." He thanked me and, saying that he had found
   out the secret, he went on his way rejoicing! I told Him the Gospel; he
   received it and he entered into rest. I hope I may be equally
   successful with my Hearers at this time. May the Holy Spirit work with
   me in this case, also! I have been talking about faith and I trust I
   have not darkened counsel by words without knowledge. It is simplicity,
   itself, but we are exceedingly apt to

   becloud it. To trust Christ is to find salvation! He that sincerely
   relies upon Jesus is saved! Now, concerning this trust, I say that this
   is our Lord's due.

   Observe, first, that we are bound to trust Him from His very name. His
   name is, "Christ," that is, the "Anointed." God has sent Him. God has
   commissioned Him. God has equipped Him. He is the Anointed of God--dare
   I distrust Him? An Ambassador from Heaven, with the Divine warrant at
   His back, known to speak in the name of the Lord God, how dare I say I
   have no confidence in Him? By the glorious name of Christ I claim for
   Him that you who seek salvation should trust Him implicitly and trust
   Him at once!

   Remember, next, His glorious Person. He who is set forth as the Object
   of saving trust is none other than the Son of God! In His Godhead and
   in His Humanity, yes, in His undivided Person, He claims your trust.
   Can you not trust Him that made Heaven and earth, without whom was not
   anything made that was made? Can His power fail you? Can His wisdom
   mislead you? Can His mind change toward you? Can He be unfaithful? The
   Son of the Highest--can you not trust Him? Away with the impertinence
   of mistrust! Can you doubt the Holy and the True? Dare you doubt the
   Lamb of God? Be not so foolhardy as thus to defy the Incarnate Son of
   God and treat Him as though He could deceive you!

   Next, trust Him because of His matchless Character. Have you ever heard
   of such another as the Christ of God? Among the sons, no one is like
   He--

   "All hail, Emmanuel, all Divine, In You, Your Father's glories shine!
   You brightest, sweetest, fairest One That eyes have seen or angels
   known."

   He is all goodness, the fullness of love and the pattern of tenderness.
   He is always true and always faithful. By that blessed Character which
   He bears, which I am sure you would not, for a moment, question--a
   Character which even infidels have been forced to admire--I pray you
   trust Him! Let it not be a question with you, "How can I trust Him?"
   Say, rather, "How can I distrust Him?" What reason can you have for
   doubt? What excuse for mistrust?

   Remember next, His work and especially His death. Here is immovable
   ground for my claim that you should trust Him. Jesus loved men so as to
   die for them--how can we doubt His love? I do not know how it is with
   you, but I lose the power to doubt when I realize Christ Crucified.
   That crown of thorns hedges my mind around and shuts out mistrust. His
   five wounds kill my suspicions and my fears. A crucified Savior is the
   life of faith and the death of unbelief. Can you stand and view the
   flowing of the Savior's precious blood upon the tree of doom and not
   trust Him? What more can He do to prove His sincerity than to die for
   us? His life is the mirror of love, but in His death the sun shines on
   it with a blaze of Glory so that we cannot steadily look into its
   brightness! Behold how He loved us! Oh, believe in the Crucified
   Christ, for this is no more than His right and due!

   Besides, He lives and He has gone up into Glory with the same purpose
   of Grace upon His heart. When men change their places, they often
   change their minds. But He that loved us when He was despised and
   rejected, loves us now that He is highly exalted. He is not like the
   chief butler who forgot in the palace the promise which he made in the
   prison. The love of Calvary is with the Lamb in the midst of the Throne
   of God! On earth He bleeds, in Heaven He pleads. You Sinners, come and
   trust the ever-living Christ, for He makes intercession for
   transgressors! I stand here this morning and I say to all of you in
   this house, that I claim your confidence in the Lord Jesus! I do not
   humbly ask for it as a beggar asks for alms--I demand, for the Christ
   of God--that you put your trust in Him! God has set Him forth to be a
   Propitiation for sin, that through faith in His blood everyone that
   believes in Him should be saved. I demand your trust in the name of
   God! Christ deserves it at your hands and you cannot refuse it without
   doing Him a gross injustice!

   I beseech you, do not make God a liar, yet, according to the Apostle
   John, "He that believes not has made Him a liar because he believes not
   in the Son of God." If Christ were here this morning, standing on this
   platform, and you saw His pierced hands and the wound in His side, you
   would be ready to fall down and worship Him! You can worship Him
   better, still, by trusting Him in His absence! "Blessed are they which
   have not seen and yet have believed." Trust is among the most sublime
   forms of adoration. A childlike, tearful, broken-hearted, sincere trust
   in Christ is a hallelujah unto His name. If you would crown Him, you
   need not go far for a coronet--your trust is the best diadem you can
   bring Him!

   Trust Him, then, at this moment, and thus bow at His feet with cherubim
   and seraphim. But again I say, do not insult Him by saying that you
   cannot trust Him. I should think it hard if any of my acquaintances
   said to me, "Sir, I cannot trust you." It would be a cruel cut. I would
   enquire of him, "What have I done to merit this? When have I been
   untrue?"

   It would be too unkind a stab if it came from one whom I had aimed to
   benefit. Do not crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open
   shame!

   O my Hearers, I have chosen an old theme this morning and I have been
   studiously simple in my style, for my heart longs to bring you to trust
   in Jesus! I have no desire to be thought a fine preacher--I want to
   save your souls! This trust is the vital point--do not slight it. Oh
   that you would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! If you believe in your
   heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved! This
   is the way of salvation and it is very plain. God help you to run in
   it! Lay aside pride and self-confidence--and trust wholly in Jesus--and
   this will be better than all tears, despairs, resolves and efforts!
   Fall back into the arms of redeeming love. Lean your whole weight on
   Jesus. Take your soul to Christ as you take your money to your
   banker--and leave it in His hands. He will keep it until that day when,
   at His appearing, you shall appear with Him in Glory!

   IV. I close by noticing, in the fourth place, what I have already
   insisted upon, that THIS TRUST IS, IN EVERY CASE, THE INSTRUMENT OF
   SALVATION.

   Trust is selected by God as the instrument of salvation and it is not
   selected arbitrarily, but with great wisdom and prudence. When a man
   trusts Christ, by his trust he is brought into mental and spiritual
   contact with Christ--and there is a more hopeful influence about that
   contact than in anything which a man will resolve to do or ever perform
   in his own strength. It is a grand thing for a man to be elevated above
   self-confidence and brought to rely upon such an One as the Son of God.
   Thus he is made to feel that he must look to such an One greater and
   better than himself--and he is brought to acknowledge that he is a
   feeble and dependent creature. I think I see in this consideration an
   adaptation in faith to be the means chosen of God in the matter of
   salvation.

   Moreover, faith is no doubt selected by God to be the means of
   salvation because it never robs God of His Glory. If you and I are to
   be saved, we shall be saved by God and by His Grace, alone! Now, if the
   appointed way of salvation leaves something for us to do in order that
   we may be saved by God, we shall, in all probability, attribute our
   salvation to that something and forget the Lord. If we are bid to
   trust, there will be no temptation in that direction, for we cannot
   rely upon our trust since its very essence lies in depending upon
   Christ, alone. Trust ascribes salvation to Him who saves. Faith never
   seeks honor for herself--she is a self-denying Grace. Christ says,
   "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." And by this saying, He crowns
   faith and He does so because faith crowns Him.

   Trust, again, is selected as the instrument of salvation because it has
   wonderful power over the heart of God. Marvelous is the influence of
   trust. I have in the past illustrated this to you by the power which
   faith has over us mortal men. I will venture to tell you an old story
   which you have heard from me before. I cannot remember anything better
   and you must bear with the repetition. I once lived where my neighbor's
   garden was only divided from me by a very imperfect hedge. He kept a
   dog, and his dog was a shockingly bad gardener and did not improve my
   beds. So one evening, while I walking alone, I saw this dog doing
   mischief and, being a long way off, I threw a stick at him, with some
   earnest advice as to his going home. This dog, instead of going home,
   picked up my stick and came to me with it in is mouth, wagging his
   tail. He dropped the stick at my feet and looked up at me most kindly.
   What could I do but pat him and call him a good dog--and regret that I
   had ever spoken roughly to him? Why, it brings tears into my eyes as I
   talk about it! The dog mastered me by his trust in me! The illustration
   is to the point. If you will trust God as that dog trusted me, you will
   overcome! God will be held by your trust in such a way that He could
   not smite you, but must accept you for Jesus' sake! If you do trust
   Him, you have the key of His heart, the key of His house, the key of
   His Heaven! If you can trust your God in Jesus Christ, you have become
   a son of God! I see a philosophy in the choice of faith--do not you?

   But then faith operates, also, to salvation by the effect it has on the
   character. When I doubt God, then I follow my own judgment and do what
   I please. But when I trust Him wholly and know Him to be my Father and
   my Friend, then I naturally yield my will to Him--not as a matter of
   constraint, but with great joy! And is it not a wonderful thing that
   this simple trust turns the whole current of our life and changes the
   entire color and complexion of our thought? Wisely is it ordained to be
   the instrument of salvation, since it touches the mainspring of our
   being and makes that which was erratic and rebellious become orderly
   and obedient!

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, trust saves us, because it grasps the
   promises of God and pleads them. It says to God, "You have promised
   this, therefore I pray You do as You have said." The God of Truth
   cannot lie and, therefore, He must keep His Word. Trust pleads the
   Sacrifice of Jesus and says--"Lord, the blood of Your Son was shed for
   the remis-

   sion of sins, therefore, I pray You let my sins be remitted. You have
   said that You have laid on Him the iniquity of us all. I pray You let
   me be unburdened of my load because You have laid it on Him." Trust
   must save, for it has all the promises of the Covenant at its back and
   the Christ of the Covenant at its side, exhibiting His own precious
   blood! How can trust but save the soul when God declares it shall do
   so?

   In our most honest hours we are driven to faith for our comfort. If in
   our prosperity our eyes wander to other confi-dences--in our distress
   they come back to Christ and His Cross. When the head is aching, the
   heart is throbbing and the death-sweat lies on the brow, none of us
   dare look to works, or feelings, or sacraments! We cry--

   "Hold You Your Cross before my failing eyes." The wounds of Jesus are
   the ultimate hope of the forlorn! When the soul is about to quit the
   body, the most eminent preacher, the most earnest worker, the most
   devout thinker asks that he may see Jesus and be washed in His blood
   and covered with His righteousness. I dare not trust all the heaped up
   merits of all the saints, but I dare trust the Lord Jesus Christ!
   Sinner as I am, I am assured of salvation through the sinner's Savior.
   If I had as many souls in this one body as there are souls in this
   House of Prayer, I dare trust them all with Christ! If all the sins
   ever committed by all the men that ever lived since time began were all
   heaped upon my one guilty head--I dare trust Jesus Christ to cleanse me
   from them

   all!

   O come, dear Hearts, and trust my Lord! He cannot fail you! According
   to your faith be it unto you. You shall be able to live graciously and
   to die calmly if your trust settles itself upon Jesus, the Christ, the
   Anointed of the Lord! Before the harvest is past and the summer is
   ended, trust Christ and live! O Holy Spirit, by Your secret workings
   upon the heart, lead all these thousands to trust in the Lord Jesus!
   Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him!
     __________________________________________________________________

Three Sights Worth Seeing

   Delivered on Thursday Evening, March 24th, 1887, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [1]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye
   received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as
   the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which
   effectually worketh also in you that believe. For ye brethren, became
   followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus for
   ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they
   have of the Jews."— 1 Thessalonians 2:13-14.

   PAUL seems very much at home when he is writing to the church at
   Thessalonica. In his letters to that favored people he unveils his
   inmost feelings. He is rather apt to do so when he feels himself quite
   at ease: for Paul is by no means a man shut up within himself, who is
   never at home to any one. When he is battling with an ungrateful people
   he keeps himself to sharp words and strong arguments; but when he is
   writing to a loving, attached, affectionate church, he lets them have
   the key of his heart, and he lays bare before them his secret emotions.
   I feel as if we were interviewing Paul to-night—as if we were all
   sitting in a room with him, and Silas, and Timothy, and were hearing
   their private conversation. We are come to a round-table conference
   with them, and we are listening to their talk about the ministry which
   God had committed to them. Even in these two verses we hear of how
   these holy preachers loved the gospel, told out the gospel, and saw
   that gospel take hold of their hearers' hearts.

   They were not obliged to be reticent about their own conduct, or their
   experience with the Thessalonian friends: they were able to tell the
   story of their transactions with the church of Thessalonica from the
   very beginning. It is a happy thing to be the pastor of a church where
   one may near his heart upon his sleeve. In certain positions prudence
   demands that we keep ourselves to ourselves until we know more of the
   character of those who surround us. This is by no means pleasant;
   indeed it is a painful thing to go through life like a man in armor,
   who scarcely dares to move a single plate of steel, lest somebody
   should wound him in an unguarded place. One is glad to know that on the
   face of this earth there is a church where the minister feels himself
   as much at home as a brother among brethren, and as safe as a father
   among his sons, since he is not afraid of being misunderstood. It is my
   joy that for many years I have found such a place of peace, so that I
   can say with the Shunammite, "I dwell among mine own people." To return
   to our text: we find the apostle at home, telling out his thoughts in
   the freest manner. Indeed, he seems to me to show us three sights of
   the most interesting kind, which it will be pleasing and profitable for
   us to consider with care. I shall try to spear; upon these three
   things, one after the other.

   The first is, ministers giving thanks. "For this cause also thank we
   God without ceasing." Then we have the cause of it, which brings up a
   second beautiful sight, namely, hearers receiving the word. Paul speaks
   of them thus: "When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us,
   we received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word
   of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." In these
   words we find a window into the heart of the Thessalonian Christians
   and what we see is like a cabinet of jewels. Then we have a third thing
   which is exceedingly interesting, namely, new converts exhibiting the
   family likeness, turning out to be very like the believers of older
   churches. Born many miles away from Judaea, with a sea dividing them
   from the first country where the gospel was preached, yet these
   Thessalonian Gentiles, when converted, looked wonderfully like the
   converts from among the Jews—"For ye, brethren, became followers of the
   churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have
   suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the
   Jews."

   I. To begin, then: we are asked out to a little social party. We are
   placed in a corner of a cosy room where we have license and favor to
   gaze upon MINISTERS GIVING THANKS.

   Paul, Silas, and Timothy make up a little meeting. No doubt the Lord is
   with them, for they form what he has made a quorum. They are within the
   number to which the promise is made: "Where two or three are gathered
   together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." These three
   godly ministers are holding what, if I use a Greek word, I may call a
   holy eucharistical service—a service of thanksgiving. "For this cause
   also thank we God without ceasing." It is a pleasant sight to see
   anybody thanking God; for the air is heavy with the hum of murmuring,
   and the roads are dusty with complaints and lamentations. It is a
   delightful vision to see hard-working, earnest ministers of Christ met
   together and occupying their time with thanksgiving; for many waste
   their hours in speculations, doubtings, and discussions. Let us turn
   aside and look into their smiling faces! It will do us good to see who
   these good men were, and how they came to be in this thankful
   condition.

   And, first, I would remark that this thankfulness of theirs followed
   upon sore travail. It is of no use for you to say, "I shall thank God
   for a harvest," if you neither plough nor sow. You will have no harvest
   without labor and patience. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy";
   but if there be no sowing and no tears there is no promise of any kind
   of reaping. I have known young preachers envy those who have had many
   converts, and I do not wonder that they should; but if they themselves
   desire to be greatly useful and successful, they must go the same way
   to work that others have done. In the cause and kingdom of Christ,
   although the race is not to the swift, it certainly is not to the
   sluggish; and although salvation is not of him that willeth nor of him
   that runneth, it certainly is not of him that does not will and does
   not run. We may sit and sigh as long as we like, but we shall see no
   result from lethargy. Dead bees make no honey either in the land of
   grace or of nature. Neither is anything wrought by merely tucking up
   your sleeves, and making a brave show. We may plot and we may plan, we
   may propose and we may expect, but expectations and proposals will fall
   to the ground like apple-blossoms that have never knit unless we stir
   ourselves up in the name of God, and throw all the strength we have
   into the work of faith and labor of love. We shall fail unless we cry
   for much more strength than nature will yield us. With a vehemence that
   will not take a denial, we must plead with the Lord until we prevail;
   for in this matter "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
   violent take it by force." Yes, Paul, and Silas, and Timothy, you would
   not be sitting together thanking God, if you had not for many a day put
   your shoulders to the wheel. If you had not labored night and day, if
   you had not exercised much labor and travail, and been willing to
   impart to the people, not only the gospel, but even your own lives
   also, you would never have rejoiced to ether in the way you have
   described. Ministers giving thanks to God are ministers who have
   worked.

   And this work of theirs had been backed by holy living, for the apostle
   is bold to declare, "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and
   justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe."
   Brethren, we shall not win success unless we hunt for it by careful
   lives. You wish to see your Sunday-school class converted. You are
   anxious to be blest on your tract-district. You want to see that little
   mission-hall crowded, and souls converted. Begin by looking to your own
   life. As the man is, depend upon it, so will his life-work be. There
   will not come out of any one of us that which is not in us. You must
   fill the pitcher, or you cannot go round and fill the cups of those who
   thirstily ask you for water. That which you would in part of grace or
   life must be in yourself first; and when God has wrought it in you,
   then it shall be yours to work out. The water of life must be placed in
   you to be a well of living water, springing up, and then the word shall
   be fulfilled in you—"Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
   water." Personal piety is the back-bone of success in the service of
   God. Be you sure of that. Our mistakes and blunders in the work itself
   usually originate in faults in the closet, faults in the family, faults
   in our own souls. If we were better, our works would be better. If we
   walk contrary to God, he will walk contrary to us.

   We cannot be too careful of our conduct if we aspire to be used of the
   Lord. Though the Lord is jealous of all his servants, he is especially
   jealous of those whom he honors in service. "Be ye clean, that bear the
   vessels of the Lord." That which he might have passed over in one of
   his common servants he will not wink at in those whom he largely
   blesses. Therefore, dear friends, let us remember that rejoicing
   servants of God must be holy servants of God. They shall not give
   thanks for the purity of their people unless they have set a holy
   example themselves. This renders all work for Christ a very solemn
   thing. May we always think it so, and never go to it in a trifling
   spirit, but with many cries to the Holy One of Israel that he would
   make and keep us clean and bright as vessels fit for the Master's use!

   You see, dear friends, that these three brethren, who met together, and
   were thanking God, were men who had worked, and men who had lived
   holily; but further notice that, when they congratulated each other,
   this mode of expressing their joy by thankfulness prevented their
   falling into anything like self-laudation. Neither Paul, nor Silas, nor
   Timothy, had anything whereof to glory, and they did not meet together
   either for self-glorification, or for mutual admiration. They glorified
   God, and thanked him without ceasing. Let us copy the example of these
   holy men. Brother, be much in thanking the Lord. If you have had one
   soul converted by your teaching, thank God. If in your class in the
   Sabbath-school, or if in your own family at home, you have had one
   conversion, thank God. I am afraid that we fail in thankfulness. We
   pray for blessings, and forget to praise for them. We are not grateful
   enough. I was chiding myself last Tuesday. I think that I selected
   twenty-eight persons whom I could venture to propose for church
   fellowship out of many who came. What a number it was! I felt when the
   day was over very weary with the blessed service, and then I chided
   myself that I had permitted weariness to come in when I should rather
   have been praising and blessing God. I could not help my weakness, and
   yet I thought my gratitude ought to have borne me above it. Oh, I
   recollect the day when I would have given my eyes—ay, given my head—for
   twenty-eight converts! I feel that I would sacrifice my all for such a
   blessing even now. To think that God should send so many in one week,
   and give me evidence that there are plenty more to follow! Was not this
   a delight? They keep on coming to confess Christ in great numbers
   still. We ought to be very joyful for this. The whole church should
   bless God for so many, and pray for more. If it were one soul saved by
   twenty years' work, we ought to feel that we could dance for joy, and
   count the service to be as nothing; but hundreds added to the church
   should carry us up to the third heaven of delight. As Jacob forgot all
   his toils when at last he could call the beloved Rachel his own, so
   should we count nothing hard, laborious, or trying, so long as souls
   are saved. Oh, to bring souls to God! Whenever we think of it, or see
   it done, let us say, like these three holy men, "For this cause also
   thank we God without ceasing."

   Notice that this thankfulness was of a social kind. "Thank we God."
   They all joined in it. Why, it there is a soul saved anywhere, we ought
   all to thank God for it! I hope that over at Walworth Road this week
   there may be some brought to Christ by their special meetings; and if
   they are so brought, glory be to God. What does it matter which church
   they join? We hear of God blessing Mr. Moody or somebody else right
   away in America. Glory be to God for it! The success of any church is
   our success. It is all in the family. Let us praise God for it. But
   some are accustomed to look with a rather jealous eye at God's blessing
   other denominations, or other preachers. Let us fight against this
   spirit. O brethren, those of us who have had the most of God's
   blessing, what a mercy it would be if we were cut out altogether by
   better and more useful men! Let our star cease to shine if brighter
   stars will but shine, and more souls see the blessed light, Do not
   those of you whom God has blessed feel that you would gladly get out of
   the way, and leave a clear road for somebody else, if the Lord would
   use them more than you? If you do not feel so, I am afraid that the
   Master will put you out of the way because you are not completely
   absorbed in his glory. When we are up to the neck in consecration, we
   are willing to be made nothing of, if God can be glorified thereby.
   While we cannot be content to see Christ glorified by others and
   ourselves laid on the shelf, there is a little bit of self left; and we
   must try to get rid of it.

   At any rate, let us rejoice with those that do rejoice, and triumph in
   the success of our brethren. Be it ours to make joint-stock in praising
   God for all that he works by us all! What a sweet thing it would be if
   we oftener met together when God blessed us, and said, "For this cause
   thank we God"! We ought all to join in the hallelujahs of the church
   over souls saved by grace. We must not waste our time in allotting the
   success to this man, and to that man. Let us at once give all the glory
   to God. One cries, "It was Timothy that did it." "Oh, no!" says
   another, "Silas is the man that brought me to Christ." "Ah!" says
   another, "but I like to hear Paul. He is the masterpreacher. That young
   Timothy—why, he is nothing, and Silas is nowhere by the side of Paul."
   Such comparisons are odious. This kind of talk is evil; for all God's
   servants belong to you all, and you must get all the good you can out
   of them; but to compare and to contrast them is to trifle. Let
   ministers discourage such vain talk among their people by their hearty
   love to each other. It is good for God's servants to get together, and
   to make a common heap of their spoils, and send up a joint thanksgiving
   for the joint results of their joint labor. "For this cause thank we
   God without ceasing." Yes, and we do, my brethren! I can see some here
   to-night who I know join with me in thanksgiving, as I join heartily
   with them whenever I think of them. I will bless and praise God for his
   exceeding mercy in saving souls by them, and by me, and by all his
   workers.

   One thing more is to be noticed: this was a continual thanksgiving day;
   for the apostle says, "For this cause also thank we God without
   ceasing." Our gratitude to God should be as lasting as life, as
   constant as the bounty to which it bears witness. Our American friends
   have one Thanksgiving Day in the year, but it was Thanksgiving Day all
   the year round with Paul and Silas and Timothy when they thought of the
   Thessalonians. They felt as it they never could leave off thanking God
   for the Thessalonians, for they knew by sad experience that all
   churches were not of the same happy kind. There were those Corinthians,
   for ever quarrelling and thus grieving the apostle. "Never mind," he
   says, "we will thank God for the Thessalonians." Oh, but there are
   those Galatians! They have gone off the line, bewitched by Judaizing
   teachers. They have wandered into "modern thought," and left the old
   orthodox faith. "Yes," says the apostle, "those Galatians are a burden
   to me; but, then, blessed be God for the Thessalonians." So I think we
   ought to bless God for those that are kept, and for those that are
   true, and for those that are faithful; and when our harp is made to
   hang upon the willows because of part of the work which is barren and
   unfruitful, yet let us not cease to praise and bless the Lord our God
   for that part of the work which prospers. Let us magnify him for those
   that are brought to know his name. "For this cause also thank we God
   without ceasing because ye received the word of God."

   This spirit of thanksgiving tends to make us stronger and stronger for
   labor in days to come. Yes, let us sing unto the Lord instead of
   sighing unto ourselves! Let us not rob him of his revenue of praise
   even in our most desponding moments. "Although my house be not so with
   God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all
   things and sure." What if Satan does not appear to fall from heaven?
   What if the devils do not seem to be subject unto us? Yet let us rather
   rejoice because our names are written in heaven. O child of God, fall
   back upon what the Lord has done, and this shall make you encounter
   every difficulty with a brave heart! What the Lord has done is but a
   token of what he is going to do. Let us hold the fort, and look out for
   better times. Never let us dream of fainting or retreating. Do not say,
   "I will give it up because of the Galatians." No, but go at it again
   because of the Thessalonians. Do not say, "I am worried and wearied
   with the Corinthians." No, but with your heart full of joy, persevere
   in your Master's service, because many Thessalonians have received the
   word, not as the word of man, but as the word of God. Hallelujah, there
   is still something to sing about! Bring out the trumpets: we are not
   yet silenced, nor shall we be while the Lord liveth. The walls of
   Jericho will be more likely to fall before our trumpets than our
   tremblings.

   So I have painted for you an ancient interior—you can see those three
   good men singing together to the praise of God as they think of their
   Thessalonian converts.

   Ah, my hearers, you could make some of us very happy! If you gave your
   hearts to the Lord, how you would cheer and comfort us! And some of you
   that do love the Lord would do us a world of good if you would come and
   tell us what the Lord has done for your souls. If you have been
   blessed, do not hide it. If you do, you will rob us of our wages, for
   our wages come to us very much through our knowing that God has blessed
   our ministry. Think of this, and treat us fairly and kindly, even as we
   have sought your good. I, for one, have had such weary times of
   wolf-hunting that I should be heartily glad to have the quiet joy of
   watching the young lambs, and noting the growth of the sheep.

   Now we leave the ministers, and think of the people.

   II. The second sight which we have to look at is, HEARERS RECEIVING THE
   WORD. Let us keep close to the text. "When ye received the word of God
   which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it
   is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you
   that believe."

   Notice, first, these people received the word of God. They were willing
   to hear it; they were anxious to hear it; they heard it, and they were
   attentive in the hearing of it. They lent a willing ear and a ready
   mind. They did not cavil, and dispute, and question, but they received
   the word of God. Happy preacher who has such people to deal with!—If we
   have them not, let us work on till we gather them. Whether they will
   hear or whether they will forbear, let us tell the people our Lord's
   message. But if God favors us with receptive hearers, let us be instant
   in season and out of season. A good bit of soil like that ought to be
   most diligently ploughed and sown. Thank God, there are, I trust, many
   here who have received the word of God so far, that they are willing to
   learn, and anxious to know its meaning, and to feel its power! Among
   you our labor is lightened by hope, and cheered with expectation.

   But next, these people had doubly received the word of God; at least,
   the word is twice mentioned in our version. "When ye received the word
   of God which ye heard of us, ye received it." In the Greek those are
   two different words altogether. The second "received" might, perhaps,
   better be read, "accepted." I do not think that I should be straining a
   point if I read it, "Ye welcomed it." They first received it by eagerly
   hearing it. They wanted to know what it was all about: they were
   attentive to it, and wanted to understand it. When they had heard it
   they rejoiced, and said, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, this is the very thing we
   want!" They embraced it. That word will do—they embraced it. They put
   their arms around it, and would not let it go. They were hospitable to
   the gospel, and said, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord: come and live
   in our hearts!" They assented and they consented to the word of the
   Lord. They first appreciated the gospel, and then they apprehended it
   by faith. They were like the man that was hungry in a foreign land, and
   he could not make the people quite understand; but as soon as ever they
   brought an article of food which he liked he fell to directly, and made
   them comprehend that he would be glad of more of that sort of thing. By
   his hearty reception of what they brought, the hungry man said plainly,
   "Bring some more of that." So we have a people about us, thank God,
   that are looking out for the gospel! They are always willing to hear it
   if men will but preach it; and when they do get it they mean business,
   and feed upon the word with hearty appetite. How glad I am to feed men
   that will eat! It is a pleasure indeed. The spiritually hungry welcome
   heavenly food; they take it into themselves, and receive it as the
   bread their soul craves after. Oh, what a mercy it is when sermons are
   preached which feed souls, and souls hear so as to feed thereon! It is
   a happy day when a full Christ and empty sinners meet. Now, I am
   persuaded, dear friends, that if any of you do not know the
   gospel—really do not know it—and yet are heavy of spirit and cannot
   rest, and are unhappy, it will be a very blessed thing for you to find
   out what the gospel is. I am pretty sure that many of you are in such a
   condition that as soon as you really know that the doctrine proclaimed
   to you is God's gospel, you will receive it into your very souls, and
   say, "There is none like it. That is the very thing we have been
   looking after all our lives." I think I hear one of you say, "I have
   been hunting after this for years. I did not know that there was
   anything like it, but it suits me to a turn. It fits me as a key fits a
   lock: it enters every ward of the lock of my soul as if it were made
   for me." Brethren, I bear witness that when I received the gospel of
   Jesus Christ, it seemed to me as if Jesus Christ had made the gospel on
   purpose for me, and for me only. If there had been nobody else in the
   world, and Jesus had made a gospel for me only, it could not have been
   more adapted for me. His gospel exactly suited that poor sinner who, on
   one snowy morning, looked to him and was lightened. My dear hearer, you
   will find Jesus the very Savior for you. "But I am an out-of-the-way
   sinner," cries one. Have you never heard of him who can have compassion
   on the ignorant, and on those that are out of the way? What a wonderful
   text that is for you—you out-of-the-way ones! He can have compassion on
   those that are out of the way. There is a remedy in the gospel for your
   disease. For the particular shape your malady has taken the Lord has a
   special eye. His Son, Jesus, has a plaster suited for your peculiar
   sore, a medicine adapted to your peculiar need. May the Holy Spirit
   bring you to receive it as these Thessalonians did!

   And then, if I may trouble you to look at the text again, you will
   notice that the word "it" is in italics; and so is the word "as." Let
   me read the text again: "When ye received the word of God which ye
   heard of us, ye received not the word of men." You see I have left out
   the "it" and the "as" because they are not really there, though they
   are correctly added by the translators as giving the meaning of the
   apostle. Verbally they are not in the text. I take the sentence out of
   its connection, and say that these Thessalonians received not the word
   of men. And I like them for that. Oh, but there were very learned men
   in those days! When Paul was on the earth, and a little before his day,
   some of the greatest natural minds that ever existed were in Greece
   teaching the people. Yet the Thessalonians were in such a state that
   they received not the word of men. They did not hearken to Plato, or
   accept Socrates, for there was a something about them which made them
   hunger for more than the philosophers could bring them. God's elect are
   of that mind. You may know the Lord's sheep by the fact that "a
   stranger will they not follow: for they know not the voice of
   strangers." They will not receive the word of man; it is too light, too
   chaffy, too frothy for them. You may put it before them in the
   daintiest guise, illustrate it with poetry, and prove it by the
   fictions of science, but they cannot feed on such wind. They receive
   not the word of men; they will not have it; they want something more
   substantial.

   To come back to our translation: they received not the gospel as the
   word of men. In these days there are some who receive the gospel, but
   they receive it as the word of men. This is their spirit—"Yes, I know
   that such is the view that is held by Mr. Black; but there is another
   view held by Dr. White; and another view is upheld by Professor Gray.
   All these different 'views' are supposed to be very much upon a par."
   Beloved friends, this is not our way; there is the truth of God, and
   there is a lie; and I want you always to feel that there is a solemn
   difference between the true and the false, and that no lie is of the
   truth. "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are
   of God." If one says, "Yes," and the other says, "No," it cannot be
   that they are both true. Salvation is of grace, or else of works: it
   cannot be of both. Salvation is the work of God or else of man: it
   cannot be a joint-stock-company affair. There is truth, and there is
   error; and these are opposite the one to the other. Do not indulge
   yourselves in the folly with which so many are duped—that truth may be
   error, and error may be truth; that black is white, and white is black,
   and that there is a whity-brown that goes in between, which is,
   perhaps, the best of the whole lot.

   There is an essential difference between man's word and God's word, and
   it is fatal to mistake the one for the other. If you receive even the
   gospel as the word of man you cannot get the blessing out of it; for
   the sweetness of the gospel lies in the confidence of our heart that
   this is the word of God. You fall back upon Holy Scripture in the grief
   of an aching heart; but you cannot rest, however soft the pillow of the
   promise may seem to be, till you can surely say, "I know that it is of
   God." If you have even the shadow of a doubt about it, comfort oozes
   out. The life of comfort flies before doubt, even as love is said to
   fly out at the window when want comes in at the door. Prick the
   heart—ay, with but a needle's point—and life will go; and prick the
   heart of faith—ay, even with the smallest doubt, and the life of joy is
   gone! The joy of faith, and the strength of faith, yea, and the life of
   faith, are gone when you distrust the word of the Lord!

   Are we then infallible? No, but the Book is. Do we infallibly
   understand the Book? No, but the Spirit of God will teach us what he
   himself means; and of those truths which he teaches us we get so firm a
   grip that we say, "No, no; I am never going to argue about this any
   more! This is proved to my heart and soul beyond all further question.
   It is woven into my experience. It has stamped itself on my
   consciousness. It has done that for me which no lie could do. This is
   the revelation of God, and I will die sooner than I will ever, by any
   action of mine, permit a doubt to be cast upon it." Brethren, do you
   accept the word of God as infallible? Thus have I learned the gospel of
   Christ. Have you learned it in this fashion? Then you have received the
   gospel aright, but not else.

   To receive the gospel as the word of man is not to receive the gospel;
   but to receive it as a revelation from God, true, sure, infallible, so
   as to risk your whole soul on it, and to feel that there is no
   risk—this is to receive the gospel in truth. After this manner we
   receive it with the deepest reverence; not as a thing that I am to
   judge, but as that which judges me; not as a matter of opinion, but as
   a sure truth with which I must make my opinion agree. It makes all the
   difference whether we rule the truth or the truth rules us. The
   reverent obedience of the understanding to the word of the Lord is a
   great part of sanctification.

   To receive the gospel as the word of God is to receive it with strong
   assurance. Other things may be true, but this must be true. Other
   things may be questioned, but this must be implicitly believed. This
   gospel of Jesus Christ is of God as surely as you live, and you have
   not received it at all if you do not know it to be the word of God.

   It is to receive it with obedience, because it comes with authority: to
   say, "This I must yield to. Other truths I may be master of, but this
   is master of me. Other truths I may or may not hold—they may not be of
   sufficient importance for me to bow before them; but this truth has God
   himself enshrined within it, and therefore I cannot be disobedient to
   the heavenly vision." With man's statements we are men, but before
   God's truth we are converted into little children. Is this so with you?

   This gospel, if it is received as the word of God, comes with power.
   Ay, do not let us be misunderstood; the power we mean is by no means a
   common thing! It is not the force of persuasion, nor the energy of
   rhetoric; it is divine power—the finger of God. There is still in the
   world a miraculous force—the divine energy of the Holy Ghost. It does
   not give us to speak with tongues, neither do we hear it in rushing,
   mighty wind; but it is as unmistakable to those who have it as if it
   did come with such extraordinary signs. Sometimes a truth has been
   borne in upon my soul—and I doubt not you can say the same—with an
   inward evidence which is beyond all argument for force and certainty.
   Though it is not logic, we are more sure than if conquered by
   reasoning. We prefer it to the demonstrations of mathematics so far as
   our own assurance is concerned. In my own case, I could not see, but I
   did more than see: my inner soul without eyes beheld the essential
   principle of truth. I did not touch it, and yet my inner soul handled
   it, tasted it, fed on it. It went into the secret spring,-head and
   well-spring of my being, and became one of its first principles. If any
   man said that the Lord Jesus was not able to save, and that his gospel
   was not true, I snapped my fingers at him. I could not stop to answer
   him, because he seemed to be wilfully denying self-evident fact, and
   there is no answering such folly. For a man to tell me that the gospel
   is not true, when the Spirit seals it on my heart, is all in vain. He
   might as well tell me that there was no light when I stood gazing on a
   landscape in the brightness of the sun, or assure me that there was no
   such thing as air when the strong north wind was on my cheeks. He might
   as well tell me that there was no nutriment in food when I had just
   lost my hunger, and felt refreshed by what I had eaten. There are some
   things that we have no patience to argue about, we have done with
   discussion concerning them.

   If you do not know spiritual things, ask God to let you know them. But
   you are out of court as a witness: you cannot prove a negative, nor can
   your negative disprove our positive. We cannot argue with you who are
   dead in sin, and have not received as yet spiritual senses. What can
   you know? Why should we dispute with the blind concerning colors? How
   can we discuss music with the deaf?

   "Oh," says one, "but I do not believe in your spiritual experience!" I
   did not say you did; on the contrary, I expected you not to believe in
   it. But what does that prove? Why, only that you have no spiritual
   perception! That you have not perceived spiritual things is true; but
   it is no proof that there are none to perceive. The whole case is like
   that of the Irishman who tried to upset evidence by non-evidence. Four
   witnesses saw him commit a murder. He pleaded that he was not guilty,
   and wished to establish his innocence by producing forty persons who
   did not see him do it. Of what use would that have been? So, if forty
   people declare that there is no power of the Holy Ghost going with the
   word, this only proves that the forty people do not know what others do
   know. If there are four of us that do know it—well, we shall not cease
   our witness. We receive God's word as the word of God, because it comes
   to us with that power which effectually worketh in them that believe.
   It works in us a horror of sin, a detestation of self-confidence, and
   an aspiration after holy and heavenly things. It works in us love to
   God and good-will to men. It works in us aspirations after the divine.
   It works in us victory over evil from day to day; and while it does
   that, the proof of it is within us. The witness and seal of the truth
   of the gospel are within our own character and being and we cannot
   therefore give up our confidence. People who have come to this pass
   make glad their ministers. Paul, Silas, and Timothy are all happy men
   when surrounded by hearers who have received the gospel in all its
   divine authority and power.

   III. Now my time has gone, otherwise my third point would have been a
   very interesting one. These three men are rejoicing in CONVERTS WHO ARE
   EXHIBITING A FAMILY LIKENESS.

   I only call your attention to the fact that the apostle says, "Ye,
   brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are
   in Christ Jesus." Here are people converted in Judaea, and they are of
   a strongly Jewish type; quite another set of people over at
   Thessalonica become converted to Christ, and though they are thoroughly
   of the Greek type, they are very like the converts in Judaea. They know
   nothing about the law of Moses, they have been heathens, worshipping
   idols; and yet, when they are converted, the strange thing is, that
   they are exceedingly like those Jews over yonder, to whom idolatry was
   an abomination. Greek believers are like Hebrew believers. They have
   never spoken to one another, and nobody has been there to tell them the
   peculiarities of Christians, and yet a family likeness is distinctly
   visible. Were you never startled with this, that if, in the preaching
   of the gospel to-day, we were to bring to the Lord Jesus a person of
   high rank, and another of the very lowest extraction, they have the
   same experience, and upon the greatest of subjects they talk in the
   same way? "Oh, but," you say, "they pick up certain phrases." No, no!
   They differ in speech: the likeness is in heart and character. I
   frequently meet with converts who have not attended this place of
   worship more than half-a-dozen times, but they have been converted, and
   when they come to tell the story of their inner life you would suppose
   that they had been born and bred among us, and had learned all our
   ways; for, though they do not use the phrases which we use, yet they
   say the same things. The fact is, we are all alike lost and ruined, and
   we are born again in the same way, and we find the Savior in the same
   way, and we rejoice in him when we do find him after much the same
   fashion, and express ourselves very much after the same style.
   Believers differ in many things, and yet they are alike in the main
   things. There are no two exactly alike in all the family of God, and
   yet the likeness to the Elder Brother is to be seen more or less in
   each one.

   It is to me one of the evidences of the truth and divine nature of the
   work of grace in the heart, that if you take a Hottentot in his kraal,
   and he is converted, and you take a university man, who has won all the
   degrees of learning, and he is converted, yet you would not know Sambo
   from the Doctor when they begin to talk about the things of God. The
   Hottentot's English may be broken, but his theology is sound. The
   uneducated man's words may limp, but his heart will leap. Ruin,
   redemption, and regeneration are the chief subjects in every case. When
   I am talking sometimes with young converts, and they put their
   statements oddly and ignorantly, I am reminded of Father Taylor, when
   he was getting old. The old man sometimes lost the thread of his
   discourse, and whenever he did so, he used to say, "There, I cannot
   find the end of that sentence, but I am bound for the kingdom!
   Brethren, I am bound for the kingdom!" Off he went to something else;
   for though he could not complete the paragraph he was bound for the
   kingdom. Some brethren and sisters cannot see to the end of their own
   experience, but they are bound for the kingdom. They cannot put this
   and that together to make it ship-shape: but you can see that they are
   bound for the kingdom. There is the same tear of repentance, the same
   glance of faith, the same thrill of joy, the same song of confidence:
   each one according to his measure enjoys the same life, if he is indeed
   bound for the kingdom. The babe is like the man, and the man reminds
   you of the babe. We are one spirit in Christ Jesus.

   I will not enlarge, except to say that it makes us sing for joy when we
   can see in ourselves a likeness to the children of God. We, too,
   resemble the early saints in our experiences. Opposition and
   tribulation come to us in our measure as they did to them. There are
   the same afflictions, the same persecutions, the same trials, wherever
   the work of Christ goes on; but there is the same mighty God to carry
   on the work of grace, and the same promises of grace to be fulfilled to
   every believer.

   Dear friends, are you believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are,
   joy and rejoice with me; but if you are not, oh, how I wish you were!
   Whatever comforts of life you enjoy, you are missing the only thing
   that makes life worth having. If you are not yet resting on Christ
   Jesus, you have not yet found out the kernel of the nut. You are boring
   away at the hard shell of life, and unless you turn to Christ you will
   die worrying and wearying over the shell, and you will never taste the
   sweet kernel. If you did but know our Lord Jesus, if you did but trust
   him, if you did but find salvation in him, then you would find that if
   earth cannot be heaven, it can become marvellously like it. The earnest
   of our everlasting inheritance may be enjoyed even here. Would God you
   would seek my Lord and Master, for if you seek him he will be found of
   you! What a pleasure it would be if every one at this time would
   receive the gospel as the word of God! Spirit of God, grant that it may
   be so, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— 1 Thessalonians 1.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—433, 483, 331.
     __________________________________________________________________

Folly of Unbelief

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, August 28th, 1887, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [2]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that
   the prophets have spoken."— Luke 24:25.

   THE TWO DISCIPLES who walked to Emmaus and conversed together, and were
   sad, were true believers. We may not judge men by their occasional
   feelings. The possession of gladness is no clear evidence of grace; and
   the existence of depression is no sure sign of insincerity. The
   brightest eyes that look for heaven have sometimes been holden so that
   they could not see their heart's true joy. Be not cast down, my
   brethren and sisters, if occasionally the tears of sadness bathe your
   cheeks. Jesus may be drawing near to you, and yet you may be troubled
   by mysteries of grief.

   The Lord Jesus Christ came to the two disciples, and took a walk of
   some seven miles with them to remove their sadness; for it is not the
   will of our Lord that his people should be cast down. The Savior does
   himself that which he commanded the ancient prophet to do. "Comfort ye,
   comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to
   Jerusalem." Thus he spake and thus he acts. He was pleased when he went
   away to send us another Comforter, because he wishes us to abound in
   comfort; but that promise proves that he was, and is, himself a
   Comforter. Do not dream, when in sadness, that your Lord has deserted
   you; rather reckon that for this very reason he will come to you. As
   her babe's cry quickens the mother's footsteps to come to it more
   speedily, So shall your griefs hasten the visits of your Lord. He hears
   your groanings; he sees your tears—are they not in his bottle? He will
   come to you as the God of all consolation.

   Observe that, when the Savior did come to these mourning ones, he acted
   very wisely towards them. He did not at once begin by saying, "I know
   why you are sad." No; he waited for them to speak, and in his patience
   drew forth from them the items and particulars of their trouble. You
   that deal with mourners, learn hence the way of wisdom. Do not talk too
   much yourselves. Let the swelling heart relieve itself. Jeremiah
   derives a measure of help from his own lamentations: even Job feels a
   little the better from pouring out his complaint. Those griefs which
   are silent run very deep, and drown the soul in misery. It is good to
   let sorrow have a tongue where sympathy hath an ear. Allow those who
   are seeking the Lord to tell you their difficulties: do not discourse
   much with them till they have done so. You will be the better able to
   deal with them, and they will be the better prepared to receive your
   words of cheer. Often, by facing the disease of sorrow the cure is half
   effected; for many doubts and fears vanish when described. Mystery
   gives a tooth to misery, and when that mystery is extracted by a clear
   description, the sharpness of the woe is over. Learn, then, ye who
   would be comforters, to let mourners hold forth their wound before you
   pour in the oil and wine.

   Learn also a sacred lesson, O ye mourners! It is well for you, when you
   are pouring out your griefs, that you do so before the Lord. These two
   troubled wayfarers, though they knew it not, were telling their sorrow
   to him who best of all could help them to bear it. You may tell your
   friends, if you will, and it will be some relief to you; but if you
   seek the throne of grace, and make the Redeemer your chief confidant,
   your relief will be sure. Get you alone; shut to the door; bow there
   apart from the disciples, and say, "Jesus, Master, I would tell thee
   that which saddens me! Thou great High Priest, who wast compassed with
   infirmities, thou wilt understand me better than my nearest friend, and
   I would place myself beneath thy care!" How great the privilege that we
   have access with boldness to the ear and heart of Jesus our Lord!

   Again, learn another point of wisdom. When our Lord had heard their
   statement of distress he might immediately have comforted them: a word
   would have done it. Did he not say "Mary," and did she not at once turn
   and say, "Rabboni" with ecstatic delight? He went more wisely to work
   than to administer hurried consolation: he rather rebuked than
   encouraged them. He began by saying, "O foolish men, and slow of heart
   to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!" Observe that I quote
   the Revised Version, for the Authorized is too harsh. Our Lord did not
   call them fools, but foolish persons. The difference is rather in the
   manner than in the sense. He chided them; gently, but still wisely. He
   let them know that their unbelief was blameworthy, and he called them
   foolish for indulging it. O beloved brother, if thy Master chide thee,
   do not doubt his love! If, when thou goest to him in grief, he answers
   thee roughly, it is his love scarcely disguised, which thus seeks thy
   truest welfare. If thou believe in thy Lord, thou wilt reply, "Master,
   say on." If he call thee foolish, thou wilt wonder that he does not say
   something worse of thee; and in any case thou wilt trust him after the
   manner of Job when he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in
   him."

   Especially observe that our Savior's rebuke was aimed at their
   unbelief. Unbelief, which we so often excuse, and for which we almost
   claim pity, is not treated by our Lord as a trifle. It is for this that
   he calls them foolish; it is about this that he chides the slowness of
   their hearts. Do not let us readily excuse ourselves for mistrust of
   God. If we ever doubt our gracious Lord, let us feel ourselves to be
   verily guilty. Regard unbelief as a fault rather than a weakness. Brace
   yourselves to seek a braver and more constant faith than you have
   reached as yet. Why should we go on blundering, and misjudging, and
   therefore fretting when a little consideration will set us right, and
   at the same time cause us to honor our Lord, and to be ourselves filled
   with joy and peace through believing?

   I am going to handle this rebuke as God the Holy Spirit shall help me;
   first addressing it to the true believer, and secondly, to the seeker.
   I shall have to bring forth some bitter things which will act as a
   tonic, but by giving tone to your system, they will, in the end, remove
   your fears better than sweeter matters would have done. Hear then our
   Lord say, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the
   prophets have spoken!"

   In speaking to believers, I would have them observe that our Lord
   rebuked their unbelief under two heads: first, as being folly, and
   secondly, as arising from slowness of heart.

   First, then, UNBELIEF IS FOLLY. Not to believe all that the prophets
   have spoken, and not to draw comfort out of it, is great folly. Folly!
   Note the word. "O fools! O foolish men!" It is folly such as makes the
   tender Jesus cry out.

   It is folly because it arises from want of thought and consideration.
   Not to think is folly. To give way to sadness, when a little thought
   would prevent it, is foolishness. Is it not? If these two disciples had
   sat down and said, "Now the prophets have said concerning the Messias
   that he shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and thus was it with
   our Master," they would have been confirmed in their confidence that
   Jesus was the Messiah. If they had said, "The prophet David wrote,
   'They pierced my hands and my feet,'" they would have recognized in
   this their crucified Lord. And if then they had turned to the other
   passages of the prophets in which they speak of Messiah's future glory,
   they would have been refreshed with hope. In the Scriptures they would
   have found types, and figures, and plain words, in which the death and
   the rising again, the shame and the glory of Christ are linked
   together, and his cross is made the road to his throne. Had they
   compared the testimony of the holy women with the prophecies of the Old
   Testament, they would have obtained ground of hope. The women reported
   that the body was no longer in the tomb, and that they had seen a
   vision of angels, who said that he was alive; two apostles went to the
   sepulcher, and gave in a like report; and this tallied with the Lord's
   own words, in which he made Jonah his type, because he came up from the
   deep on the third day. But they forgot the Scriptures; they did not
   think of that great source of hope. Their eyes were dimmed with tears,
   so that they did not see what was plain before them. How many a
   precious text have you and I read again and again without perceiving
   its joyful meaning, because our minds have been clouded with
   despondency! We take the telescope, and try to look into heavenly
   things, and we breathe upon the glass with the hot breath of our
   anxiety till we cannot see anything; and then we conclude that there is
   nothing to be seen. Do you not think, beloved, you that are depressed
   and sorrowing to-day, that if you thought more of the promises revealed
   in God's Word, you would soon see things differently, and would rise
   out of your downcast condition? You put your Bibles away, and read
   nothing but the roll of your troubles. There are no handkerchiefs for
   the tears of saints like those which are folded up within the golden
   box of God's Word. He who inspired this volume is "The Comforter"; will
   you not apply to him in your dark hours? O you, whose melancholy arises
   from forgetfulness of the words of your heavenly Father, of the tender
   Savior, and of the divine Spirit, I beseech you be more considerate!
   Think of God's providence, his unchanging love, his power, his
   faithfulness, his mercy. Think of the promises, and as you handle them
   by thought, they will exhale a sweet perfume which will delight you.
   Holy thought will charm you out of your griefs. But what folly it is
   that, for want of thought, we should bow our heads like the bulrush,
   when, like the sunflower, we might look at the light till we became
   little suns ourselves!

   Unbelief is folly because it is inconsistent with our own professions.
   The two disciples professed that they believed in the prophets; and I
   have no doubt that they did do so. They were devout Jews who accepted
   the Holy Books as divinely inspired, and therefore infallible; and yet
   now they were acting as if they did not believe in the prophets at all.
   Are we not often found guilty of like inconsistency? O brethren, it is
   one thing to say, "I believe the Bible," but it is quite another thing
   to act upon that belief! We have more of seeming faith than of real
   faith. That Book is true, and every promise in it is true, and I know
   and believe that it is so; and yet, when I come to the test, how much
   of faith evaporates, and how sadly my fluttering heart proves that my
   belief was more in fancy than in fact! There is more infidelity in the
   best believer than he dreams of. We think we believe in the gross; and
   yet, when it comes to the detail, and we have to deal with this promise
   and with that as a matter of fact in every-day life, we have to light a
   candle, and sweep the house, to find our faith. What folly this is! If
   the Word of the Lord be true, it is true, and we ought to act upon it;
   if it be not true, why do we profess to believe it? That which is
   unquestionably true will bear all the strain and pressure which life
   and its trials may put upon it, and it is for us to act upon this
   belief. Brethren, it ill becomes us to play at believing; let us have
   our wits about us, and make serious business of that which is not sent
   to delude us, but soundly to instruct us. The Word of the Lord is in
   harmony with his providence; and as we believe him as to the one, we
   must trust him as to the other. We may safely rest the weight of our
   body and soul, our present and future, upon the sure promise of a
   faithful God; and we are bound by our profession to do so. It is folly
   to call ourselves believers in the Bible, and then to doubt and
   distrust.

   Folly, again, is clearly seen in unbelieving sadness, because the
   evidence which should cheer us is so clear. In the case of the brethren
   going to Emmaus they had solid ground for hope. They speak, to my mind,
   a little cavalierly of the holy women as "certain women." Yet there
   were no better disciples in the world than those women. They were
   surely the best of the chosen company—Mary and the Magdalene. Even the
   testimonies of Peter and John, the very chief of the apostles, are not
   sufficiently valued, for they speak of "certain of them which were with
   us." I say not they speak disrespectfully; but there is a slurring of
   their witness by casting a doubt upon it. Concerning these godly women
   they leave an impression on my mind as if they had said, "Women will
   talk, and these women said that they had seen a vision of angels, which
   said that he was alive." It is rehearsed as hearsay of a hearsay: they
   said that they had seen those who had said. If they had been pushed to
   the point, the two disciples would not have allowed that the Magdalene
   and the other women, or Peter, or John, were unworthy of credence; and
   yet they were by their sadness acting as if the witnesses were
   mistaken. If those who were at the empty sepulcher were to be believed,
   why did they doubt? The evidence which they themselves detail, though
   we have it only in brief in this place, was conclusive evidence that
   Christ had left the tomb; and yet they doubted it. Now, dear friends,
   you and I have had superabundant evidence of the faithfulness of God,
   and if we are unbelieving, we are unreasonable and foolish. At least, I
   stand here to confess that whenever I doubt my God it is on my part a
   superfluity of naughtiness. I have never had any reason to distrust
   him. These many years that I have trusted in him he has never failed me
   once. Experienced Christians, how can you waver in your confidence? If
   we disbelieve, is it not folly? If the Savior does not call us fools,
   we are forced to call ourselves so.

   We could not suppose that the promise, covenant, and oath of God could
   fail. The supposition cannot be tolerated for an instant. Thousands of
   souls are resting everything upon the faithfulness of God, and desire
   no other security; but if God be unfaithful, what will become of them?
   If the foundations be removed, what can the righteous do? Then they
   that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished; or, even if they be in
   heaven, what security have they there, if God can change? I feel quite
   safe on board the ship of the covenant, for all the saints are floating
   in this one vessel. If God fails, then we all fail together, and there
   is an end of faith, and hope, and all things. Wherefore, let us not be
   so foolish as to sin against the light of clear truth. Let us believe
   what we have known, and tasted, and handled. Let past experience anchor
   us firmly as to future circumstances.

   Unbelief is folly, because it very often arises out of our being in
   such a hurry. They said, "Beside all this, this is the third day." I
   know that they had expected great things on that third day, and were
   justified in expecting them; but still, the day was not yet over, and
   they were in as great a fever as if it was past a month ago. Although
   the Savior had said that he would rise on the third day, he had not
   said that he would appear to them all on the third day. He told them to
   go into Galilee, and there they should see him; but that meeting had
   not yet come. "He that believeth shall not make haste;" but they that
   do not believe are always restless. Well is it written, "Ye have need
   of patience." God's promises will be kept to the moment, but they will
   not all be fulfilled to-day. Divine promises are some of them bills
   which are payable so many days after sight; and because they are not
   paid at sight we doubt whether they are good bills. Is this reasonable?
   Are we not foolish to doubt the sure handwriting of a God that cannot
   lie? Because the Lord has not carried out your interpretation of his
   promise in the way of your own dictation, therefore you question his
   truthfulness! If the vision tarry, wilt thou not wait for it? It will
   come in its own appointed time, wouldst thou have it hurried on for
   thee? What next? Shall the sun and moon be quickened in their pace to
   suit thy rashness? Must God himself alter his purposes at thy bidding?
   Truly, things have come to a pretty pass! Art thou man or God? If thou
   be a man, wait God's time, and in thy patience possess thy soul. If
   thou do not, but, like a fretful child, must have everything now, or
   else cry and fight, thou deserves the rod, and well may the Lord say to
   thee, "O foolish one!"

   Yet, again, I think we may well be accused of folly whenever we doubt,
   because we make ourselves suffer needlessly. There are enough bitter
   wells in this wilderness without our digging more. There are enough
   real causes of sorrow without our inventing imaginary ones. I believe
   that the sharpest griefs in the world are those that men make for
   themselves. No asp ever stung Cleopatra so terribly as that which she
   held to her breast herself. Certain of our friends spend all their days
   in stitching away to make themselves garments of sackcloth. I have seen
   the cobbler with his lapstone cobbling up a trouble, and he has done
   his work so well that the shoe has pinched his foot for many a day. It
   seems a pity, does it not? Yet, brethren and sisters, we have those
   about us who are great adepts at self-worrying. When you were boys, I
   do not suppose you ever went into the woods to find a stick for your
   father to beat you with; but you have done so again and again since you
   have been men; and the more is the pity that you should be so foolish.
   If these two travelers had considered and believed, they would have
   known that Christ was risen from the dead; and as they walked along to
   Emmaus, if indeed they had ever taken that walk at all, their faces
   would have brightened at the prospect of soon seeing him they loved so
   well.

   I want you to notice yet further that it was folly, but it was nothing
   more. I feel so thankful to our Lord for using that word. Though we
   ought to condemn our own unbelief with all our hearts, yet our Savior
   is full of tenderness, and so freely forgives, that he looks upon our
   fault as folly, and not as wilful wickedness. He does not take our
   doubt as an affront, but he calls it folly. He knows that it is true of
   his children, as it is of ours, that folly is bound up in the heart of
   a child. He puts that down to childish folly which he might have called
   by a harsher name. I am sure that any dear, obedient child will feel
   thankful if his father calls his fault by the lighter name of folly,
   because it will prove that he loves him, and will endeavor to teach him
   better. It was not wicked rebellion; there was no enmity in it. They
   loved their Lord, though they feared he had not risen from the dead. I
   do not want you to draw undue comfort from this gentle word, but yet I
   would have you lose none of the cheer it is meant to convey. You that
   are vexed at your own doubts are not to come to the conclusion that the
   Lord utterly rejects you. He discriminates between the folly of a child
   and the wickedness of a rebel: he knows what is in your heart, and
   knows that you are his. You are like a ship that is well anchored, and
   though the tide is rushing in, and makes your vessel roll from side to
   side, so that you yourself stagger, yet the vessel is not loosed from
   its moorings, neither are you in any danger. Your faith is fixed on
   Christ, and this anchor holds you; though you are tossed about a
   little, you will suffer no shipwreck because of sin, but much
   sea-sickness because of folly. So much concerning unbelieving sadness
   as folly.

   In the second place, our Lord rebuked them for SLOWNESS OF HEART TO
   BELIEVE.

   This is an evil greatly to be fought against, but it is by no means a
   rare sin among the people of God. Let me try and bring home the charge
   made by our Lord against the two disciples, since I fear it applies to
   us as much as to them. Our hearts are full often sluggish in believing;
   at least, mine is so, and I suppose we are much alike.

   First, we are slow in heart to believe our God, for we are much more
   ready to believe others than to believe him. I am often amazed with the
   credulity of good people whom I had credited with more sense. Credulity
   towards man and incredulity towards God are singular things to find in
   the same person. We cannot help seeing in the daily papers how easily
   people are duped. Get up a prospectus, and a list of names as
   directors, including a titled pauper, and you can bring in money by
   waggon-loads. The confidence trick can still be successfully performed.
   One impostor lived for months by calling at the door of guileless old
   people in almshouses, and telling them that a cousin in America had
   died, and left them a fortune, but it was essential that fees should be
   paid at the government offices, and then the legacy would at once be
   handed over. Times and times the money has been scraped together, the
   rogue has gone his way, and no more has been heard of the cousin in
   America. There are so many simpletons about that rogues reap harvests
   all the months of the year. And yet the God of truth is doubted! Yet
   the incorruptible Word is mistrusted! This makes our slowness of heart
   in believing God all the more sad a sign of our inward depravity of
   nature. We can believe, for we believe in man. In the course of our
   lives we are fools enough to believe in men to our cost; in fact, it is
   not easy to rise out of this snare: and yet we are slow at heart to
   believe our God. Oh, my brethren, can we excuse ourselves? The Lord
   forgive and cleanse us! Let us henceforth accept every syllable of
   God's Word as infallible, while we turn our unbelief towards man and
   his philosophies and infidelities!

   Is it not clear that we are slow of heart to believe, since we judge
   this of others when they are mistrustful? When we see our brethren in
   trial desponding and distrusting, we are very apt to think them
   needlessly dull, and sinfully slow to grasp the promise; and yet, if we
   come into the like case, we are by no means better than they. That
   which we censure we commit. The beam is in our own eye as well as the
   mote in our brother's eye. You have come home from visiting a friend
   who was distressed at heart, and you have said, "I cannot make her out,
   I have put the promises before her, but she is so foolish that she
   refuses to be comforted." Yes, and from this learn what you may be!
   Within a month's time, you may be sinking in the same mire. An evil
   heart of unbelief is to be found in many a breast where its existence
   is least suspected. But if we see the folly of others, will we not
   confess our own? Dare we commit what we condemn? Did you ever say of
   Job, "It was a pity that after all his patience, he spoke so bitterly,
   and cursed the day of his birth"? I wonder how many of us would have
   been any better than Job. I dare not hope that I should have been
   worthy to unloose the ratchets of his shoes. If I had been bereaved as
   he was, and tortured with like burning boils, and, worst of all,
   irritated by critics with their cruel candour and malignant sympathy,
   could not have behaved so grandly as he did. Let us not severely judge
   others. They ought to believe, of course; they ought to be more
   cheerful; they ought not to let their burdens crush them so completely:
   but when we also are tempted shall we be so very much superior? I fear
   not. Let us see ourselves in the weakness of our brethren, and confess
   that the Savior's words are true: we are "slow of heart to believe."

   There is another point in which we are very slow of heart to believe,
   namely, that we do believe, and yet do not believe. We must be very
   slow of heart when we say "Yes, I believe that promise," and yet we do
   not expect it to be fulfilled. We are quick of mind to believe
   mentally, but we are slow of heart to believe practically. The very
   heart of our believing is slow. Our dear friend, Mr. George Muller,
   whom may God long preserve, says that one of his objects in journeying
   about, at his advanced age, from church to church, is to try and lead
   God's people to real faith in the promises of God. He says, "As for
   fifty-seven years I have seen how very little real trust in the living
   God there is (generally speaking), even amongst true Christians, I have
   sought, in these my missionary tours particularly, to strengthen their
   faith; because, in the course of my pastoral labors, the blessed
   results of real confidence in God on the one hand have come to my
   knowledge, and the misery of distrusting him on the other." Mr.
   Muller's object is a very desirable one; but what fools we must be that
   this should be necessary! There are plenty of people who believe God
   after a superfine kind of fashion up there on the edge of the moon, or
   "at the back of the north wind"; but they do not believe the Lord in
   their shops, and on their beds, and in their kitchens: they cannot
   believe as to bread, and cheese, and house-rent, and raiment. They talk
   about believing in the Lord for eternity, but for this day and next
   week they are full of fear. True faith is every-day faith. The faith of
   the patriarchs was a faith which dwelt in tents, and fed sheep. We want
   a faith which will endure the wear and tear of life—a practical,
   realizing faith, which trusts in God from hour to hour. Oh, to be
   delivered from shams, and windbags, and to believe God as a woman
   believes her husband, or a child believes its father! I hear of writers
   of "the realistic school": we want believers of the realistic order. We
   need faith in which there are backbone and grit. We are sham believers,
   and so we lead sham lives. The promises of God speak to us as Jesus
   spake to his disciples when he rose from the dead: each one cries
   "Handle me, and see." God's words are not chaff, but wheat; not wind,
   but bread. We are slow of heart because, while we think we are
   believing all that God saith to us, it often turns out that our
   believing is all a puff.

   These two disciples must have been slow of heart to believe, again,
   because they had enjoyed so much excellent teaching, and they ought to
   have been solid believers. They had been for years with Jesus Christ
   himself as a tutor, and yet they had not learned the elements of simple
   faith. "Oh," say you, "they were very slow!" Are not you the same? How
   many years have you been with Jesus? Perhaps for even thirty years. He
   has himself taught you, has he not? Let me remind some of you of the
   remarkable events of your lives. What wonderful providences you have
   seen! What singular deliverances you have experienced! What divine
   upholdings you have enjoyed! what heavenly consolations you have
   received! If you doubt the Savior, you may well be called "slow of
   heart to believe." After what you have experienced, my brother, the
   shadow of a doubt should never fall upon you! Have you not said many
   times, in the flush of your gratitude for some signal favor, "There, I
   can never doubt my Lord again"? You were foolish when you made that
   boastful observation; but you are more foolish still for running back
   from it. You have passed through the Red Sea, and with your timbrel in
   your hand you have sung unto the Lord; and yet, perhaps, after a short
   march, you have tasted the bitter waters of Marah, and opened your
   mouth in murmuring. God only is wise, and we are fools. He alone hath
   understanding, and we are "slow of heart."

   Once more, these two disciples were very slow of heart to believe,
   because there is so much in the Word which ought to have convinced
   them. See how the Savior puts it—"Slow of heart to believe all that the
   prophets have spoken." What a mighty "all" that is! Brethren, are you
   half aware of the treasure hidden in the field of Scripture? Are you as
   familiar with your Bibles as you should be? If so, you will join with
   me in speaking of Scripture as having almost a redundance of
   confirmatory testimony. There is rock enough here for us to build upon.
   We have here, not only precept upon precept, but promise upon promise,
   and all these confirmed by pledge, and oath, and covenant of the Lord
   God Almighty. The teaching of Scripture is so full, so varied, so
   convincing, that we are, indeed, slow of heart if our faith is not firm
   and immovable. Brethren, a want of familiarity with the Word of God is
   very often the seed-plot of our doubts! Half our fears arise from
   neglect of the Bible. Our spirits sink for want of the heavenly food
   stored up in the inspired Volume. God forbid that you should fly to
   light literature to give your mind a fillip! Go to the solid literature
   of the promises, and be established with food more suitable for an
   immortal soul. Like Luther, say, "Come, let us sing a psalm, and drive
   away the devil." There is no enchantment for the casting out of evil
   spirits like a resort to the divine Word. When you see more of what God
   has revealed, you will rise out of your doubts and fears, and your
   slowness of heart to believe will depart from you.

   Before I leave this point, I beg you to notice that the Savior does not
   say that they were "hard of heart," but "slow of heart." I like to
   notice that. When he is most severe, he is still tenderly
   discriminating. "Slow of heart" we are, but there is no enmity in our
   heart towards him. It is slowness, and that is bad enough, but our Lord
   graciously helps our pace. Our face is in the right direction, and our
   feet are going the right way; but we are slow in heart, and lame in
   faith. As David spared Mephibosheth, and admitted him to his table,
   though lame in both his feet, so the Lord loves us, and communes with
   us, slow of heart though we are. It is bad to have a slow heart, very
   bad; but it would be much worse to have an unrenewed heart. With all
   our doubts and fears, we have no longer a heart of stone, but we have a
   heart of flesh, which mourns because of its sinful unbelief. The Lord
   knows the difference between the sin of hating the truth and the folly
   of doubting it. Strive against this slowness of heart, but still let
   not Satan come in as an accuser, and condemn you as though you were not
   a child of God at all.

   So there I leave it. There is the Master's gentle rebuke not meant to
   discourage you, but to encourage you. He calls you foolish in order
   that you may be so no longer. Believe, and this shall be your wisdom.

   Will the Lord's people kindly pray for me while I now speak to the
   unconverted? Ask that I may have God-speed while I try and speak to
   those who are seeking the Lord, and have not yet believed in him. I
   want to say to them just this: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to
   believe!" Some of you are really seeking the Lord, but you say that you
   cannot believe, though you long to believe. You are not like the
   spider, whose motto is, "I get everything out of myself." You do not
   hope to spin salvation out of your own bowels, but you own that
   salvation must be through faith in Christ. So far so good: but how is
   it that you do not at once believe? You say you cannot. How is it that
   you cannot believe in Jesus? He commands you to believe in him, and
   promises that you shall be saved. Trust him, and you shall live as
   surely as his Word is true.

   Listen! This unbelief proves you to be foolish, and slow of heart, for
   there are other parts of his Word which you easily believe. If there is
   a threatening or a condemnation, you believe it. If there is a text
   that speaks of judgment to come, you believe it. You have a quick eye
   for anything which reads hard and looks dismal. Have I not seen you
   reading the Word, and stopping at a passage, and saying, "Alas! this
   makes my case hopeless. I have sinned the sin that is unto death"? You
   believe in more than God has said, for you read your own thoughts into
   God's Word, and make it say more than it means. You are ready enough to
   take in the hard things, but the gracious promises of the loving Christ
   you will not believe. How can you justify this? How foolish you are!
   The promises are in the same Book as the threatenings, and if you
   believe the one, believe the other. Certainly, the cheering words come
   from the same inspiration as the depressing ones: if you believe that
   which looks dark, believe that which looks bright.

   Next, you are very foolish, because your objections against believing
   are altogether poor and puerile. I should think I have heard hundreds
   of them in my time, but out of all the objections raised by troubled
   souls against believing in Jesus, there is not one worthy of serious
   discussion. One man cannot believe in Jesus because he does not feel
   humble enough; as if that affected Christ's power to save. If he felt
   more humbled, then he could believe in Jesus. Would not that be just
   believing in himself, and trusting in his own humility instead of
   trusting in Christ? One man cannot believe in Christ because he is not
   like a certain great saint. Does he expect that he is to be like a
   great saint when he first comes to Christ? Has not Christ come to save
   sinners? Another says he cannot believe because he has not felt the
   terrors of the law and the dread of hell. Does he think that his
   terrors are to save him? Would his dreads and horrors help Christ to
   save him? Would he not be trusting his terrors, and not Christ? The
   Lord Jesus says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the
   earth." The gospel is to be preached to every creature, and every
   creature that believes it shall be saved: but these people back out of
   it, and begin hammering out reasons for their own destruction. A sadly
   suicidal business this! Let the devil invent reasons for my not being
   saved: it is not a business which can bring me any form of good.
   Nothing can stand against the promise of God: he commands me to believe
   on his Son Jesus, and I do believe, and I am saved, and shall be saved,
   despite all the objections which may be raised by carnal reason.

   Though you find it so hard to believe Christ, you have found it very
   easy to believe in yourself. Not long ago you were everybody, and now
   you cannot believe that Christ is everybody. You thought you were very
   good; you were wonderfully easy in your own mind when you ought to have
   been afraid. What! Was it easy to believe your poor self, and can you
   not believe the faithful word of a good and gracious Savior who says
   that if you trust him you shall be saved?

   Moreover, you are very apt now to believe Satan if he comes and says
   that the Bible is not true, or that Jesus will not accept you, or that
   you have sinned beyond hope, or that the grace of God cannot save you.
   Of course, you believe the father of lies, and you go mourning and
   moping, when you might at once go singing and dancing if you would
   believe your Savior. Jesus bids you trust and live, and Satan says it
   is of no use your trusting; you believe Satan, and treat your Lord as
   if he had intended to deceive you. "O fools, and slow of heart!"

   Then you know how ready you are, you seekers, to stop short of Christ.
   If you hear a sermon and get a little melted, and go home and pray a
   bit, you get quite easy and say, "Now I am on the road." Why, your
   meltings and your prayings are not the road to heaven: Jesus says, "I
   am the way." You are not on the way till you get to him. You have been
   in gracious company, and singing holy hymns; you feel quite good, and
   are highly pleased with yourselves. What right have you to be restful
   even for a moment? How dare you linger till you have reached the city
   of refuge, which is Jesus Christ? Till you believe in Christ you have
   no right to a single moment's peace, or hope, or joy; and yet you do
   get a sort of peace and a kind of hope, which are only sparks of your
   own kindling which will die out in blackness. Because you are content
   to trust in something short of Christ, I say to you—Why not rest in
   Jesus? O fools, and slow of heart! Refuges of lies you fly to, but the
   true refuge of the finished work of Jesus Christ you do not accept? Why
   is this?

   And then some of you are foolish and slow of heart because you make
   such foolish demands upon God. You would believe if you could hear a
   voice, if you could dream a dream, if some strange thing were to happen
   in your family. What! Is God to be tied to your fancies, that you will
   not believe him unless he does this and that extravagant thing? If he
   chooses to bring some to himself by extraordinary means, must he do the
   same with you, or else you prefer to be cast into hell? Surely you are
   mad. Who are you that you are to dictate to the Lord, and say he shall
   do this, or that, or else you will refuse to believe him? And so you
   will trample on the blood of Jesus, and turn our back upon the kingdom
   of heaven, unless an angel is sent to you, or you hear a voice from
   heaven! O fools, and slow of heart, to make these irrational demands
   upon the ever-blessed God!

   You are foolish and slow of heart because, to a great extent, you
   ignore the Word of God and its suitability to your case. If a soul in
   distress will take down the Bible, and turn it over, he need not look
   long before he will light upon a passage which describes himself as the
   object of mercy. "The whole need not a physician, but they that are
   sick; I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
   Does not that fit you? "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye
   upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the
   unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he
   will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly
   pardon." Does not that fit you? "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
   are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Does not that apply to you?
   Why, if you will but look through the Word, you shall find passages so
   pertinent to your condition that, as a key fits a lock, they will seem
   made for you! Those two disciples did not, for a while, see how the
   prophets met the case of the crucified and risen Christ; but as they
   did see it, their hearts burned within them. As you also see how God
   has provided for your condition in his Word, in his covenant, in his
   Son, your sadness will flee away.

   I close with this one word of warning to those of you who are
   distressed in heart, and are falling into the habit of looking for
   reasons why you should not believe in Christ. I do pray you to leave
   off this silly practice. Before this evil becomes chronic with you,
   quit it as a deadly thing. People can reason themselves down, but they
   cannot reason themselves up again. If thou seest a door open, in God's
   name hasten in, for one of these days thou mayest be so blind as never
   to see an open door again. Seize this opportunity, and while Christ
   stands and says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,"
   come along with you. If you sit down to argue against Christ, he may
   allow your conclusions to stand to your own destruction. Those who are
   so foolish as to find twenty unhallowed reasons to-day will be foolish
   enough to find two hundred such reasons next year. A man may act the
   cripple till he grows hopelessly lame. Mind what you are at. You may
   lock a door, and open it again for many a year; but one of these days
   you may so hamper the lock that it will not open again. Oh, that you
   may at once believe in Jesus Christ unto eternal life!

   I have come to this pass myself—if I perish, I will perish believing in
   Jesus. If I must be lost, I will be lost clinging to his cross. Can any
   man be lost there? No, "fools and slow of heart "though we may be, we
   know that none shall perish who come to Christ, for that would greatly
   dishonor the Savior's name. God bless you! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Luke 24:13-35.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—676, PSALM 42 (Ver. I ). 191.
     __________________________________________________________________

God the Wonder-Worker

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, September 4th, 1887, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [3]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "To him who along doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for
   ever."— Psalm 136:4.

   BELOVED, WHEN WE GET into God's world of wonders, we have range enough.
   Which way shall I turn? On what subject shall I speak? If I turn to
   nature, it teems with wonders. Altering a little the language of
   Coleridge I would say, "All true science begins with wonder, and ends
   with wonder, and the space between is filled up with admiration. If we
   turn to Providence, the history of the nations, the history of the
   church, what centuries of wonders pass before us! It is said that wise
   men only wonder once, and that is always; fools never wonder, because
   they are fools. The story of the church is a constellation of miracles.
   I cannot venture upon themes so vast as Creation and Providence. Shall
   we turn to the works of Grace, the wonders of Redemption? If we
   consider the glory of grace surrounding the cross, which is the wonder
   of wonders, we are upon a boundless ocean. Here is sea-room indeed; we
   are at no loss for a subject, but we are lost in the subject. Now are
   we where the height, and depth, and length, and breadth are each
   immeasurable. It was said of Dr. Barrow that he was an unfair preacher,
   because he exhausted every subject he touched, and left nothing for
   anyone else to say. I would like Dr. Barrow to try my text, and I am
   sure for once he would have to vary his style. He would only be able to
   suggest to us what might be said by ten thousand preachers all occupied
   ten thousand years upon the one theme.

   "To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for
   ever." I feel inclined to bow the knee instead of opening the mouth,
   and to ask you rather to meditate in the silence of your hearts than to
   listen to my scanty speech. Happily, the text assists me; for it
   suggests that I narrow my theme to the consideration of wonders of
   mercy; and that I then narrow it again to present wonders of mercy; for
   the text is in the present tense—"To him who alone doeth great
   wonders"; that is to say, is doing them now. Only, then, of marvels of
   mercy shall I speak at this time, and I shall endeavor, as far as
   possible, to direct your thoughts to present wonders of mercy. I say,
   as far as possible; for it must needs be that we link with the present
   both the past and the future, because they are all of one, and God
   lives in all the tenses at once.

   I. Our first head shall be this—GOD IS WORKING WONDERS OF MERCY NOW.
   "To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for
   ever." It is enduring now, and is in the present tense for ever.

   Wonders are things out of the common, unusual things, extraordinary
   things. Usually they are unexpected; we wonder at them partly because
   they are novel and surprising. They take us aback; they are things
   which we looked not for. When they come they astonish us, and put us
   both in a muse and in a maze. We look, and look, and look, and cannot
   believe our eyes; we hear, and hear, and scarce believe our ears. Great
   wonders, even when we grow accustomed to them, still continue to excite
   admiration, and frequently they cause us to praise the worker of them,
   as it is written, "Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done marvellous
   things."

   I believe that to-day God is doing great wonders in saving great
   sinners. It is a wonder that God should touch a sinner at all, yea,
   that he should even look at him. A sinner is such an evil thing, his
   sin is so vile, so foul, that holiness cannot take any pleasure in him.
   He who fails to obey his Maker is creation's blank, creation's blot,
   and it is a wonder that his Creator should think of him with patience.
   But that God should call the sinner with the voice of love, and bid him
   return and find favor is a wonder. That when he does not return at the
   gracious bidding the Lord should draw him with bands of love, is more
   wonderful still. The Lord takes more trouble with a sinner than it cost
   him to make a world: he could complete the globe in six days, but it
   often takes many years to bring a sinner to repentance, and to perfect
   his salvation. The aboundings of divine wisdom, and prudence, and
   longsuffering, and patience are needed to work salvation. The Lord,
   travailing with compassion, goes about to compass the salvation of the
   greatly erring one. He is still doing great wonders in changing
   depraved natures, breaking hard hearts, subduing obstinate wills,
   enlightening darkened judgments, and winning rebellious minds.
   Spiritual miracles Jesus is working still; and of this fact many of us
   are instances in our own persons, and also eye-witnesses of the like
   wonders wrought on others. Blessed be God: we still see with wonder
   sinners saved by the marvellous grace of God. The riches of his mercy
   are still displayed in the salvation of the lost.

   Nor less may the wonders of the Lord be seen in the preservation of
   those who believe on his name. A true believer's life is a mystery to
   himself and to others. Concerning the wind, thou canst not tell whence
   it cometh, nor whither it goeth, "so is everyone that is born of the
   Spirit." We are men wondered at. Do you not wonder, my brother, that
   you are still a Christian? Faith is so contrary to nature, that its
   existence in the heart is like a spark burning in the sea. Faith is so
   much attacked, especially in this evil day, that it is like a candle
   kept alight in a cyclone. Yet you have not drawn back unto perdition!
   Still, though faint, you are pursuing. Truly if you had been mindful of
   the country from which you came out, you have had many opportunities to
   return. Satan's chariots and his horses have waited upon you with many
   invitations to ride back into the land of your former slavery if you
   had a mind to go. Alas! the evil heart of unbelief has lusted for the
   leeks and garlic and onions many a time. Kept alive with death so near,
   you are a standing wonder to your own self. What great things the Lord
   has done for you! How he has led you, instructed you, helped you,
   comforted you! All these as I mention them will wake up many admiring
   memories, and cause you to cry: "The Lord hath done great things for
   us, whereof we are glad."

   To me, also, it is a great wonder that God should use any of us, we
   seem so unfit for his holy purposes. Can he write with such a pen as I
   am upon the fleshy tablets of men's hearts? What! can he paint a fair
   picture of holiness in the characters of my hearers with so poor a
   brush as I am? Then indeed he doeth great wonders. That which God does
   by our instrumentality at any time, if, indeed, it be for his glory,
   should fill us with astonishment. When Saul, who formerly persecuted
   the saints, saw saints made under his ministry, he was drawn out in
   wondering adoration as he wrote, "Unto me, who am less than the least
   of all saints, is this grace given."

   The Lord God does wonders still by maintaining his church and the cause
   of truth in the midst of the world. Read through history, and you meet
   with periods when the light seemed quenched; but then suddenly it
   burned up with superior lustre. Remember the Reformation, an I the
   revival of the last century. When spiritual life seemed almost extinct,
   there came times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. It will
   be the same at this dark hour. All the devils in hell can never quench
   the light of the truth. They may do all they can in union with all the
   wise men of the world to put down the old gospel of the cross; but even
   though they should slay it and bury it, it would rise again. When the
   voices which have been lifted up against the gospel shall have been
   silenced for ever, the Word of the Lord shall sound forth to the ends
   of the earth. God is still doing great wonders in the maintenance of
   his despised gospel, and in the keeping alive of those spiritual
   doctrines which the carnal mind hates as much to-day as it ever did.

   Now, dear brethren, why may we expect the Lord still to do wonders? I
   answer, first, because his word raises our expectations. Surely the
   Lord will not cease to work wonders, and descend to the common-place,
   for this Book talks of great things and marvellous things. Does he not
   say concerning his great grace, "As the heavens are higher than the
   earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
   thoughts"? Have we not many passages of Scripture which run in this
   wise—"Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow"?
   The universe is challenged by the question, "Who is a God like unto
   thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the
   remnant of his heritage?" Hear our Lord speak and invite the laboring
   and heavy laden to his rest. Hear him declare that "All manner of sin
   and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Hear how his apostles
   declare that "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all
   sin." Paul, that chief of sinners, sets himself forth as the type and
   pattern according to which God will work in the after ages. This
   inspired Book does not promise us small things. It is not pitched in a
   low key. Concerning the multitudes that will be saved in the latter
   days, it speaks in grand terms, saying, "Nations that knew not thee
   shall run unto thee." We have so much to this effect that I will not
   stay to quote the passages; only of this we are sure, that one day we
   shall hear the glorious shout, "Halelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent
   reigneth." Any one who is familiar with Holy Scripture will expect that
   God will continue to work wonders in the realm of grace.

   But, beloved, we have something more than words. God has evidently made
   preparations for doing great things. When he made the covenant of grace
   to be the very soul and center of all his acts, when he put it first,
   and last, and midst, he did not intend little things. Jehovah does not
   swear by himself about trifles, nor lift his hand to heaven concerning
   small matters. The very existence of the everlasting covenant is the
   sure prophecy of grace on a grand scale, grace magnified to the
   astonishment of all intelligent beings. When the glorious Son of the
   Highest came from heaven, and veiled his Godhead in human flesh, he had
   designs of a majestic character. An incarnate God forbodes great grace
   to our humanity. And when as God and man, in one person, our Lord Jesus
   suffered shame, and shifting, and scourging, and condemnation, and
   bowed himself at last to death, the result of all his passion cannot
   mean the salvation of a few, or a questionable salvation for many. It
   must foretell a sure salvation for a multitude of great sinners.
   Stupendous guilt is intended to be washed away by the blood of so
   divine a sacrifice. If our Lord Jesus Christ is to receive a reward
   commensurate with his accomplished work, we may safely look for things
   which shall amaze the world. Such a feast as I see spread within the
   royal halls of grace is not intended for a handful of guests. When oxen
   and fatlings are killed, to provide such abundant meat the host must
   have an eye to vast numbers of guests of voracious appetite. The
   provision of grace in Christ Jesus is so abundant that it must be meant
   for a wonderful assembly of needy souls. Come ye, and try the freeness
   and fullness of Christ, and see if ye be refused.

   Furthermore, when I reflect that the Holy Ghost has come down from
   heaven, and that he has never quitted us, but abides with his church to
   carry out the purposes of grace by convincing men of sin, and
   glorifying Christ, I am encouraged to look for great things. The Holy
   Ghost is not here in vain. He intends to do great things. If the
   biggest blasphemer out of hell were reported to be saved to-day, I
   should not find it difficult to believe the news. If, in this house,
   there should be one who has denied the Deity of our Lord, and has cast
   off all fear of God, and consequently has plunged into the worst forms
   of sin, I can readily hope that the Lord may pass by all his
   transgressions, and make him one of his most earnest servants. It would
   be a wonder, it may seem to be an impossibility; but this is no reason
   why it should not be done. God has made preparation for producing this
   kind of wonder. Faith is led confidently to expect what reason would
   never suggest.

   When I see, in addition to the covenant, the Christ, and the Holy
   Ghost, all the preparations of the Lord's effectual power for the
   coming of the Lord, for his glorious reign upon the earth, and for the
   eternal glorification of the redeemed, I am assured in my own soul that
   the Lord is working upon a wonderful scale, whether we see it or not.
   Between now and the consummation of all things, wonders are to be
   common. The pathway of grace shall blaze with splendor. I invite you to
   enlarge your hope concerning him who alone "doeth great wonders: for
   his mercy endureth for ever."

   Dear friends, we are not left to promises and preparations. Our faith
   is continually refreshed by new facts. I have the great happiness of
   frequently seeing very extraordinary instances of God's grace among
   sinful men. I will not relate even one of them, but my memory is stored
   with them. Often my eyes are filled with tears when I grip the hand of
   a convert who but a little while ago was a blasphemer and injurious, a
   Sabbath breaker, a drunkard, and sunk in every form of uncleanness.
   When I see such a man converted, renewed and made holy, because the
   Lord has met with him and revealed himself to him through the preaching
   of the word, my eyes are filled with tears of wondering joy. When I
   find that such a poor testimony as I am able to bear is made by God's
   grace effectual to work a total change of nature, I am overwhelmed with
   wondering and grateful emotions. To see the Lord lift wretches from the
   dunghill and set them among the princes of his people causes us to hold
   up our hands in joyful astonishment, and ascribe all praise "To him who
   alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever."

   The joy is that you and I assembled here this morning either are, or
   may be, personal instances of the wonder-working power of God. O my
   hearer, if thou wilt now in thy great sin accept great mercy thou
   mayest have it! If thou wilt come with all thy evil habits binding
   thee, and ask to be set free from them, the great Redeemer will break
   those manacles from thy wrists, and give thee a glorious liberty. Is
   not our Lord named Jesus because he shall save his people from their
   sins? If thou be the greatest sinner out of the bottomless pit, if thou
   wilt look to Christ upon the cross, and trust in him alone, thou shalt
   be born again, thou shalt pass from death unto life, and thy many sins
   shall be forgiven thee. Some of us are always wondering every day why
   the Lord loved us, why he bought us, why he sought us, and why he
   continues to acknowledge us; and our heart's desire is that all of you
   who come to this house of prayer may become similar wonders of divine
   grace. The Lord grant that the wonders may begin this morning. We are
   assured that among us upon whom the ends of the earth have come, "the
   Lord doeth great wonders." Did I hear anyone say, "Truly, if I were
   converted it would be a wonder"? Yes, you are excellent raw material
   for God to work upon in the creation of a wonder. Did I hear another
   say, "A person is here this morning who, if he were saved, would be a
   wonder indeed"? Pray for him, then. Pray at once, distinctly, for him,
   in the glad hope that he will be another wonder. The God of infinite
   mercy looks out for room for his grace to work in, and space for
   almighty love to display its power. Your necessity, feebleness, and
   emptiness, are the space in which infinite mercy finds elbow-room for
   its energy. He "who alone doeth great wonders," looks for the greatly
   guilty and the greatly needy, that in them he may reveal his grace. Oh,
   that my heart were enlarged, and my mouth were opened fitly, to
   encourage you who think you are beyond the bounds of divine mercy! Oh,
   think not that the grace of God can never come to you! The Lord
   delighteth in mercy. He loves to do that which is unexpected by the
   heart of man. He delights in surprising men with his grace, and getting
   to himself renown by his love. He will, for his own name's sake, do
   great wonders of mercy. Because no reason can be found in men
   themselves, the Lord resolves to find it in himself; and therefore he
   lavishes his grace that his glory may be wondered at, both in heaven
   and in earth.

   II. I pass on to another phase of the same thought; for upon this one
   thought I mean to harp at this time, so that this one note shall linger
   in your ears for many a day. Our first head has been that God is
   working wonders of mercy; our second point is that THESE WONDERS ARE
   STILL GREAT. "To him who alone doeth great wonders."

   We have heard of wonders that were not great, for they were not even
   true. The magicians of Egypt withstood Moses with their enchantments,
   and false prophets have much relied upon tricks and deceptions.
   Antichrist to this day is prone to use lying wonders. But God's wonders
   are real, they are truly wonderful, and are not mere presences. Neither
   nature, nor providence, nor grace, lends any countenance to mere
   outside appearance: the deeper you go in God's wonders, the more
   wonderful they are. That which the Lord doeth is peculiarly his own.
   Even as the magicians said, "This is the finger of God," and ceased
   from their conjuring. They had touched upon the inimitable, and were
   forced to pause.

   Many apparent wonders can be explained, and, henceforth, the wonder is
   gone. Certain nations wonder at an eclipse, which to the astronomer is
   a very simple affair. Now, you cannot explain away election,
   redemption, regeneration, and the pardon of sin: these great wonders of
   almighty love are all the greater the more you know of them. Many
   wonders, also, are diminished by familiarity. Well do I remember as a
   child being taken to see the first train drawn by a steam-engine to our
   town: I greatly wondered; but I have now ceased to wonder at such an
   ordinary sight. I remember a viaduct, which to my juvenile mind was
   stupendous; I have seen it since, and it is by no means one of the
   wonders of the world. The wonders of grace are such, that the more you
   see them the more your wonder grows. In these cases it is ignorance
   which does not wonder; but knowledge marvels exceedingly. Those who are
   most familiar with the Lord think the most of him and of his grace. The
   wonders of divine grace are so great that they can never be eclipsed by
   any greater marvels. No one will ever tell us a more marvellous story
   than the life and death of our Lord for sinful men. In the gift of
   Jesus Christ the infinite God has outdone all his previous acts. This
   is the greatest wonder that ever angels heard of; they desire still to
   look into it. This is in words and sense the climax of all
   miracles—"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
   that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life." When you and I have, for millions and millions of years,
   realized what divine mercy means, my conviction is that we shall wonder
   more at the Lord's grace than we do now. Salvation is an exceeding
   great wonder, like the great mountains, or the great sea. The
   lovingkindness of the Lord is immeasurable. "Now," cries some one, "you
   speak about wonders; if I were to be converted it would not only be a
   wonder, but a great wonder." That is why I expect it, for the Lord
   still takes pleasure in performing great wonders. "Oh, but I am such a
   devil in sin! I have gone to the brink of hell. It is impossible that I
   should be forgiven." That is why I expect to see such pardons given.
   Unconquerable mercy will, I trues, take up the challenge of your sin.
   The Lord is at home with great things. You and I are often overbalanced
   with small affairs; but the Lord's element is greatness. See him making
   worlds, striking them off like sparks from the anvil of his creating
   power! Miracles are commonplaces with God. His is essential and
   unrivalled greatness. "The nations are as a drop of a bucket: he taketh
   up the isles as a very little thing." The Lord grants great forgiveness
   to great sinners, and takes pleasure to work great transformations in
   those who were sodden through and through with sin.

   Why doth God work great wonders of grace? I answer, because he is great
   and greatly wonderful. He acts according to his nature when he doeth
   great wonders. He is so wonderful a God that no one has ever formed an
   adequate conception of him. We do not understand God, nor can we
   comprehend him. We know that there is such an one, and we love and
   praise him; but to say that we understand God as a man is understood of
   his fellow, would be very far from the truth. Ten thousand minds,
   educated to the highest, and even filled with the Holy Ghost, if they
   could unite their largest ideas, could not compass the infinite
   Jehovah. You have filled so many little cups with the waters of the
   sea, but you are as far off as ever from having taken up the great
   deep. It is but natural that the Infinite One should do great wonders.
   The Lord is inconceivably great, and therefore we are unable to imagine
   a limit to what he may do in a direction so much his own as that of
   mercy, since God is love. Assuredly, to be great in everything is after
   the manner of the great Lord: he doth greatly pardon, greatly renew,
   greatly love, greatly bless, greatly glorify. Oh, that we would believe
   him to be great, then should we with Mary sing, "My soul doth magnify
   the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior."

   Do not despondingly imagine that God will allow his wonders to dwindle
   down as the world grows old. "Oh," say you, "he did great wonders in
   the olden times, but he is not of that mind now." Is that your God? My
   God is the same: he fainteth not, neither is weary. He still doeth
   great wonders. Jehovah who divided the Red Sea is our God for ever and
   ever: he could divide the Atlantic if he willed it, and would do so if
   it were needful for the fulfillment of his gracious purposes. The God
   who fed his people in the wilderness may not cause manna to fall from
   heaven to-day; but he will none the less give food unto his people.
   "Thy place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks; thy bread shall
   be given thee, and thy waters shall be sure." The Lord can do as much
   to-day as he did in the elder ages; yea, we may look for greater things
   than these. I do not believe that God's music is now marked with
   diminuendo, but I see crescendo on the score: it grows in volume and in
   force as the ages roll along. The Lord leads on our wondering minds
   from height to height, and reveals to us more and more the glory of his
   power.

   This leads me to believe that the Lord Jesus will yet save greater
   sinners than he ever did save, if such sinners there be. Our Lord
   celebrated his entrance into Paradise by the salvation of a thief, and
   soon after his resurrection he restored Peter. He will always be saving
   thieves, and restoring backsliders. He went after Saul of Tarsus, who
   was both a persecutor and a blasphemer; and he means always to be
   saving sinners of that kind. That Philippian gaoler, converted at the
   dead of night, is but a specimen of the sort of hard, rough, cruel
   brutes that he will still subdue by his mighty grace. The Lord will go
   on to save great sinners, for he has put his hand to the plough of
   grace, and he will not look back.

   "Jesus reigns on Zion's hill,
   He receives poor sinners still."

   The very guiltiest, and most hardened, and most daring of rebels are
   welcome to come to Jesus and look to him and live. How pleased I am to
   preach this gospel! Oh, that I could preach it better! I expect the
   Lord to go on saving great sinners by these words of mine, and this
   shall be to the praise of the glory of his grace.

   We may expect the Lord to forgive great sins, such as murders,
   adulteries, robberies, blasphemies, and sins unmentionable. Mercy gets
   to itself renown when it annihilates giant sins: then we sing of Sihon,
   king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, overthrown by the Lord,
   whose mercy endureth for ever. His mercy is not an atom less than it
   used to be, for it endureth for ever. The ocean of to-day is as full as
   when Jonah went down into its deeps; the sun of to-day is as bright as
   when it shone on Lot entering Zoar; and the grace of God is as full, as
   broad, as deep, as omnipotent, as when our Savior dwelt among men, and
   said to one and another, "Thy sins be forgiven thee."

   The Lord is also doing great wonders in displaying great condescensions
   to those who believe on his Son Jesus Christ. It would be a great
   wonder if the Lord should meet with us to-day and make our hearts leap
   for joy: but, unworthy as we are, he is ready to do so. It would be a
   great wonder if he were to restore our backslidings, and heal the bones
   which are broken by our sins; but he waits to act as our soul's
   surgeon. It would be a great wonder if he were to enter in and sup with
   us, and we with him; but he even now knocks at the door of our hearts
   with that design. The Lord's bosom may still be leaned upon; we may
   still lean on our Beloved; he will still kiss us with the kisses of his
   mouth. The Lord still dwells with the humble and contrite; for this
   great wonder of condescension still delights him.

   The Lord is working great wonders of delivering grace. Are any of you
   in great trouble or great danger? The Lord that delivered David out of
   the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, and from the hand
   of the uncircumcised Philistine, will deliver you also with a great
   deliverance. He that saved Daniel in the den of lions, and brought him
   out unharmed, even he that walked with the holy children in the burning
   fiery furnace, is the same God still. He can, he will, he doth deliver.
   You shall see his great wonders if you will but trust in him. You that
   are tossed about and sorely pained with the present state of the Church
   of God, you may look for wonders of grace. I expect our Lord to do
   great wonders at this time by sending us great revivals of religion, or
   in some other way making bare his holy arm. What shall withstand him if
   he doth but arouse himself! In former ages the light has burned very
   low, and then the Lord has trimmed the lamp. The Lord has spoken, and
   great has been the multitudes of them that have published his word.
   Then "kings of armies did flee; and she that tarried at home divided
   the spoil." It shall be so still. Oh, thou that doest great wonders,
   fight for thyself this day, and make the adversaries of thy truth to
   melt away. Let us pray for the visitations of the Holy Spirit; but
   never let us give way to doubt, even for a moment. "Therefore will not
   we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
   carried into the midst of the sea. The Lord of hosts is with us; the
   God of Jacob is our refuge." Now we have got some good way into our
   text—"To him that doeth great wonders" be glory for ever and ever.

   III. The third point is this—THESE GREAT WONDERS ARE WROUGHT BY GOD
   ALONE. He alone doeth great wonders. Lay emphasis heavily upon the word
   "alone."

   My brethren, there are deeds of kindness which you could not expect any
   one else to do. The most forgiving of human spirits can never pardon as
   God does. You, poor sinner, have been measuring God's corn with your
   bushel, and therefore you conclude that he cannot forgive you; but his
   longsuffering and grace are greater than yours. If you had offended
   others as you have offended God, you might safely come to the
   conclusion that forgiveness would be out of the question, but the Lord
   in mercy far outruns all others. None can forgive and forget as the
   Lord does. It was never heard of, that one could pass over such
   offenses and rebellions as God doth freely blot out. The Lord can do,
   and is daily doing, such acts of love and mercy as would be looked for
   in vain among men and angels. Believe that God is more able to forgive
   than you are able to believe. Have you written it down among your sadly
   sure conclusions that you are certain to be lost? The God of all grace
   delights to contradict our despairs. He will disannul your covenant
   with death, and deliver the lawful captive from the hand of the
   destroyer. He will interpose in an unheard-of manner. He saith,
   "Behold, I will do a new thing." He will do that which we looked not
   for, and thus make us own that he alone doeth great wonders. God's
   grace is unique. To whom will ye liken him? In this he is seen to be
   God alone. None can approach him, so as to be mentioned in the same
   day. He does for us exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or even
   think. Ah, poor desponding soul! you had a dream. Did you not dream
   that you were a child again, and could begin life once more? You woke
   up, and cried, "Ah me! this will never be true. I wish it were." It can
   be true. The Lord can make you again to become a little child by being
   born again. It is hard, I know, for you to believe it; but nothing
   ought to be hard to believe concerning the God whose mercy endureth for
   ever. He alone, himself, and by himself, can perform prodigies of love.

   When it is said that he does these great wonders "alone," it means that
   he does them when nobody can help him. My friend, you cannot do
   anything: you are now reduced to utter impotence, under a sense of sin.
   You fear that you cannot even believe, or feel; but the Lord is
   all-sufficient, and he alone doeth great wonders. He can do all for
   you, and work all in you. What strange creatures we are! We feel that
   we must try to help God. What folly is this! O poor creature of a day,
   didst thou help him to make the world? Where wast thou when the
   mountains were brought forth? O feeble creature, what canst thou do?
   Canst thou help him in providence? He asks no aid from thee. I have
   known some poor souls complain that they cannot feel their nothingness;
   and they fancy that if they felt their nothingness, Christ could then
   save them. This is odd, is it not? Here is a man who must needs help
   God by his nothingness! Out of the way with you! You do but block the
   road. Stand aside, and let grace work! What canst thou do? Do you
   reply, "I must believe and repent?" I know you must, but "True

   Every grace that bring) us nigh,
   Without money,
   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   Jesus Christ comes to save you just as you are, and his salvation comes
   to you where you are. When they make railways in England they usually
   carry them sufficiently far from a town to give work to an omnibus.
   Seldom does the station stand near the house where one wants to go. The
   railway to heaven is of another sort: it comes to your door. Jesus
   comes where you are, and meets your actual condition. Though you lie at
   death's door, Christ comes as the resurrection and the life. Though you
   pine in the vestibule of hell, almighty mercy comes to free you from
   condemnation. In your spiritual helplessness and hopelessness, Jesus
   comes to you, saying, "Trust me now to be all in all to you." Praise
   him who alone, without your puny aid, or the aid of priest, or the aid
   of mortifications and penances, can remove your sins, and make you pure
   and Holy. His own arm brings salvation to those who trust him, and he
   alone doeth great wonders.

   When the Lord uses means in the salvation of a soul, he takes care that
   nobody shall praise the means or ascribe the salvation to the agent. He
   has many ways with his most useful servants of making them keep their
   places; and you will notice that as soon as ever any one of them begins
   to grow rather large in his own esteem, he is usually met with weakness
   and barrenness. We must, brethren, keep self out of the way. We must
   put ourselves absolutely into God's hands, that he may use us in the
   winning of souls, and then we must send the great I down, down, down,
   till it is buried out of all remembrance. They tell us that when you go
   fishing it is wise to stand back and keep yourself out of sight as much
   as possible. The fish that see you will not take the bait. The Lord
   will not do great wonders in company, but alone. His servants must not
   set up to be masters, or they will be sternly rebuked. On the throne of
   grace God will brook no rival. If we are to see Jesus increase, we must
   decrease. If Christ goes up, self goes down. The Lord saith, "My glory
   will I not give to another." We shall be made to forget the minister,
   and every other worker, and recognize the fact that the Lord alone
   doeth great wonders.

   O brethren, when I think of what the Lord has done for some of us by
   forgiving and saving us, how his glorious name rises and fills the
   whole heaven! God is not to be compared with any: they vanish as he
   appears. The Father is everything; he alone doeth great wonders when he
   receives the returning prodigal. The Son of God who bore our sins in
   his own body on the tree is everything to us, and he alone is the
   Wonderful. When we shall see him it will be as the Lamb in the midst of
   the throne. We shall give no praise for our salvation to any, but
   himself and that divine Spirit who regenerates us. Beloved, we rely on
   no influences of any sort save that almighty influence which proceeds
   from the Holy Ghost. "He alone doeth great wonders."

   This should be a great comfort to those of you who are not yet saved.
   If I were in your condition I would try to catch at the text this
   morning. God himself is able to save. Trust Jesus and live.

   Here also is comfort for children of God who are exercised concerning
   the state of the churches. Be encouraged, for the Lord who alone doeth
   great wonders is equal to the emergency. Perhaps he will strip us still
   more: perhaps he will take away every able man that now preaches the
   gospel; and when our Calvins and Luthers and Zwingles are all dead,
   then, may be, he alone will do great wonders. Be it so, if so it
   pleaseth him; for he must have all the glory. The extremity of the
   church shall be the opportunity of God. But, man of God, rest thou sure
   that his everlasting purposes will stand, and his divine covenant of
   mercy will endure for ever.

   IV. I close with my last head—upon which I will speak briefly. Beloved,
   if you know anything about these wonders, these great wonders, these
   wonders in which God stands alone, then remember that FOR THESE WONDERS
   HE IS TO HE IS TO BE PRAISED. This verse is an ascription of praise.
   "To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for
   ever." It means—to him be thanks and praise and power and honor and
   majesty for ever and ever. Oh, that we could fill the universe with
   praise!

   Wonder is a sort of praise; it is the chaos out of which a world of
   praise is to be made. Sit thou still and silently meditate on the
   greatness and goodness of God until thou art overcome with admiration,
   and then thou wilt adore. Our wonderment should always blossom into
   thanks. Holy wonder is like sweet incense, but love must set it on a
   blaze with a burning coal of gratitude. "O give thanks unto the Lord,
   for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."

   If you will begin to praise the Lord for his great wonders of mercy, I
   will tell you what will happen to you. First, we shall find his nature
   revealed to us. "O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good." We shall
   begin to see the essential goodness of God, and then we shall the
   better understand the manifestations of it as seen in ten thousand
   ways. This is something to learn. We learn through the habit of praise
   to know in a measure what God is.

   Next, while praising for his wonders, thou wilt learn to adore his
   Godhead. "Give thanks unto the God of gods." It is a grand thing to be
   deeply impressed that God is God. Hath he not said, "Be still, and know
   that I am God"? We do not know what God is, but we know that he is God;
   we cannot comprehend him, but we apprehend this much—that he is God. It
   is the greatest thought a man can ever think when he thinks that God is
   God. I would have thee praise him until thou knowest that he is God;
   for thou wilt treat him as he should be treated when thou dost
   distinctly recognize the glory of his Deity.

   If thou wilt keep on praising him for his wonders, thou wilt come to
   know of somewhat of his sovereignty. "O give thanks unto the Lord of
   lords," for he rules over all things, both in heaven and in earth, and
   in all deep places. I reverently adore and heartily love the doctrine
   of the sovereignty of God. Those words which are terrible to the
   ungodly are sweet to him who knows the love of God—"I will have mercy
   on whom I will have mercy; I will have compassion on whom I will have
   compassion." We can trust our God with unlimited power, and with the
   right to do whatever he wills, and it is a part of our worship that we
   should never question whatever he may do. "It is the Lord; let him do
   what seemeth him good."

   Still, when thou praises God for the wonders he has wrought for thee,
   and for others, let the climax of thy praise be this, that "His mercy
   endureth for ever." Magnify with all thy faculties of mind and heart;
   with memory, and hope, and fear, and every emotion of which thou art
   capable, the changeless mercy of God. He is ever merciful, or full of
   mercy. He always will be so. Thou hast a God of immutable goodness,
   rejoice in him at all times, and under all aspects. When thou thinkest
   upon his terrible justice, doubt not his mercy. Pharaoh is cast into
   the Red Sea, but Jehovah's mercy endureth. He slays mighty kings, but
   "his mercy endureth for ever." Ay, when thou seest hell engulf the
   impenitent, and thou thinkest with solemn awe of the dread punishment
   necessary to sin, rest assured that this alters not the fact that God
   is love, and that "his mercy endureth for ever." There must be no
   collision in thy thoughts between his justice and his mercy: they are
   both divine, and they both endure for ever. Do thou say "Hallelujah!"
   even when thou seest his wrath. Accepting his mercy in Jesus, praise
   him; resting in that mercy, praise him; hoping in that mercy, that it
   will follow thee all the days of thy life, praise him. By-and-by,
   brothers and sisters, we shall know more of his eternal mercy, and then
   we shall praise him in loftier strains. Shall we ever need a sweeter
   song than this—"To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy
   endureth for ever"? As we shall hear the harpers harping with their
   harps, and see the holy ones casting their crowns before him on the
   glassy sea, shall we not chant this great Hallel—"To him who alone
   doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever"? The Lord bless
   you ever! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Psalm 136.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—(Song I.), 117, 136 (Song II).
     __________________________________________________________________

Love at Its Utmost

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, September 11th, 1887, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [4]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my
   love."— John 15:9.

   IN THE LOVE of Christ we find our best joy. The pastures of the Great
   Shepherd are wide, but the sweetest grasses grow close to his pierced
   feet. The love of Jesus is the center of salvation; it is as the sun in
   the midst of the heavens of grace. I trust that while I lead your
   meditations this morning towards this golden theme you will be able to
   enter in spirit into the heart and soul of it. Paul said, when he spake
   of marriage, "Behold, I show you a mystery: but I speak concerning
   Christ and the church." There is always much that is mysterious here,
   but it is ever the mystery of love. You believe in this love; you know
   it; you have tasted it; and, therefore, I speak to an audience that
   will appreciate the subject, however faulty may be my handling of it.

   Oh, for a higher experience! May the Lord at this hour conduct us into
   his banqueting-house, and rejoice us with his love, which is better
   than wine! Many of us will bring to the feast a keen appetite: this is
   all we can contribute, and even that is a gift of love. Oh, that we may
   have a quick eye to see the beauties of the Lord, and a discerning
   heart to perceive how his love to us enhances all his charms!

   The love of Christ to his people is the sweetest, fullest, and most
   profitable theme that a preacher can bring before his people, and it is
   always a suitable and seasonable subject, whatever the condition of the
   congregation may be. But we greatly need the aid of the Holy Spirit to
   prepare our minds for the enjoyment of this truth. It is one thing to
   hear the outward sound of love, it is another thing to feel an inward
   sense of it. It is pleasant to hear the rippling of the brook; but if
   you are dying of thirst that silver music will not refresh you if you
   are unable to drink of the stream. Come, Holy Spirit, come! We beseech
   thee, take of the things of Christ, and glorify him by revealing them
   to our inmost souls!

   I. We will plunge into the subject at once. Here is our first
   exhortation: LET US UNQUESTIONINGLY BELIEVE THAT JESUS LOVES US. That
   is to say, if we are indeed in him, he loves us infinitely. Our Lord is
   speaking here, not of his general love of benevolence, but of that
   peculiar and special affection which he bears to his own, of whom he
   says, "I have chosen you out of the world." If we are in him, as the
   branches are in the vine, and if we prove the reality of that union by
   bringing forth the fruits of grace to his glory, then we are the
   objects of the Savior's peculiar love. He speaks to us as a church, and
   to each one personally, and says, "As the Father hath loved me, so have
   I loved you." O my hearer, does he speak thus to thee? Hast thou taken
   hold of Christ by faith? Has he saved thee? Is thy life derived from
   him? Is he thy hope, thy joy, thine all? If this be so, then doubt not
   that he speaks to thee with his own lips as well as out of this book of
   record. As truly as if he stood at thy side and grasped thy hand, and
   spoke, with his eyes looking into thine eyes with tenderness of love,
   he saith to thee, "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you:
   continue ye in my love."

   That he truly loves us, we may confidently believe; for he himself is
   at pains to assure us of it in so many words. He does not leave it to
   an inference, although the inference might be safely drawn from the ten
   thousand love-deeds of his life and death; but he deliberately declares
   his love: "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." Do you
   doubt his words?—words spoken in the solemn night of his agony, and
   registered in the volume of inspiration? Does not your heart respond to
   him, as he says, "I have loved you"? Do you not answer, "Ay, Lord, it
   is true indeed! There is little need for thee to tell me this with thy
   lips, for thou hast assured me of it by thy wounds. I know that thou
   lovest me. Oh, that I loved thee better in return!"

   As if to confirm us in our belief beyond all wavering, and to lead out
   our hearts to behold the largeness of his affection, he quotes a
   parallel to his love of the most extraordinary kind. He looks not to
   the loves of earth, but to the greatest love of heaven, and says, "As
   the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." Beloved, you do not,
   dare not, could not, doubt the love of the Father to his Son. It is one
   of those unquestionable truths about which you never dreamed of holding
   an argument. Our Lord would have us place his love to us in the same
   category with the Father's love to himself. We are to be as confident
   of the one as of the other. What a wonderful certainty is conveyed to
   us by this token! The Father regards with boundless love the Son, with
   whom he is in essential union, since they are one God; and as surely as
   this is the case, so surely does Jesus love the people whom he has
   taken into marriage union with himself for ever. Doubt not: it will be
   a sort of blasphemy to doubt after such a pledge as this. Think of it,
   and let your assurance become doubly sure.

   Behold the course and proof of our Redeemer's love! He chose us in
   love. The reason of his choice was love. Remember how he puts it in the
   seventh chapter of Deuteronomy. God there speaks of his choice of
   Israel: "Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy
   God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all
   people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his
   love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any
   people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord
   loved you." He loved you because he loved you. Election is based upon
   affection, and that affection is its own fountain. The whole system of
   divine love springs from the love of God, and from nothing else. Jesus
   loves us because he is love. If I must add anything to that statement,
   it will suffice me to quote the Well-beloved's own words: when he
   thanked the Father that he had hid these things from the wise and
   prudent, and revealed them unto babes, he said, "Even so, Father: for
   so it seemed good in thy sight." O believer, Jesus loved thee before
   the world began, and all because he would love thee. He loved thee in
   order that he might manifest his love to thee. He loved thee in order
   that thou mightest be conformed unto his image, that he might be the
   firstborn among many brethren, and that thus we might share his nature
   and his character and his Father's love, and so draw nearer and nearer
   to him in ever-growing fellowship of affection. See the love which is
   its own cause spending its own self, and by its own efficacy working
   out its gracious purposes, every one of which is as full of love as the
   love which designed it.

   Having thus chosen us for love, so great was the love of our Lord that
   he became man for love of us. He "counted it not robbery to be equal
   with God," but became man that he might carry out his purposes of love
   to us. It is written, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and
   shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh," and this
   has its highest exemplification in Christ, who quitted his Father that
   he might become one flesh with his church. He took our nature, that so
   he might be able to do for us, and suffer for us, what else he could
   not have done and suffered. By thus talking upon himself our nature he
   established a nearer union and a sweeter fellowship with his beloved
   church than could otherwise have existed. If he had never become the
   babe of Bethlehem, and the man of Nazareth, how could he have been made
   in all points like unto his brethren? Think what that love must have
   been which brought the Lord of glory from the highest heaven to become
   the Man of sorrows for our sakes!

   become a man for us, we remember that Jesus died because of love.
   "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
   his friends." That laying down of life in our Lord's case was specially
   a proof of love, for he died voluntarily; there was no necessity upon
   him, as upon us, to die. Other men, if they died for us, would but pay
   the debt of nature a little before its time; but Jesus died who needed
   not to die, so far as he himself was concerned. He died also amid
   circumstances of pain, and shame, and desertion, which made that death
   peculiarly bitter. The death of the cross is to us the highest proof of
   our Savior's infinite love to us. He must die the death of a felon,
   between two thieves, utterly friendless, the object of general
   ridicule; and this he must do as bearing our sins in his own body. All
   this makes us sag, "Behold how he loved us!" O beloved! can we doubt
   Christ's love, since he laid down his life, "the just for the unjust,
   to bring us to God"?

   It was because of this love, remember, dear child of God, that the Lord
   made thee live. I cannot quote at full length that memorable passage in
   the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel; but there you have our condition
   represented as that of a deserted infant cast out to die, unwashed,
   unswaddled, bleeding itself to death in filth and misery; and it is
   written that when the Lord passed by, he said unto that infant, "Live."
   Even thus did he speak to us, and we lived, and rose out of our misery.
   He declares that the time when he thus passed by was "a time of love."
   Shall I not touch your hearts when I remind you of the Lord's time of
   love to you? Remember your cast-out condition, your helpless distress,
   your hopeless ruin. You lay between the very jaws of death, and no one
   eye pitied you; you did not even pity yourself. Jesus looked on you
   long before you looked to him. He spoke to you before you spoke to him.
   He said, "Live!" and you did live, but before that you were dead in
   trespasses and sins. Then he washed, clothed, beautified, and adopted
   you. He made a wretched foundling to be joint-heir with himself. O
   love! matchless love! We owe our spiritual life to love, and therefore
   as long as we live we will praise the Lover of our souls!

   Inasmuch as we are by nature at a distance from God, we needed to be
   brought nigh. We have been brought near to him by love. Jeremiah hath a
   famous passage—"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I
   have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness
   have I drawn thee." Do you remember when the bands of a man were
   fastened around you, and you felt the cords of love drawing more and
   more forcibly? You could not tell why you were so singularly inclined
   to better things, but it was so. In yourself you were at first lifeless
   as a log; but soon you began to feel a yielding, yes, and an
   inclination, and at last that stubborn will relented, and new desires
   took the place of former aversions. Then you ran in the way in which
   you were drawn: your will had at last been made truly free, so that you
   delighted in the will of God. Love did all this. Love was more than
   conqueror; for it did not vanquish the enemy by force, but turned him
   into a grateful friend. By the recollection of those drawings which
   have not ceased even now, let us believe in the love of Jesus. Do you
   not feel him drawing you even as you sit in this house of prayer? Then
   under a present sense of his love, cry out "The love of Christ
   constraineth us." I charge you, have no doubt about the love of your
   divine Lord which even now is working within you.

   Time would fail me if I were to go into all the fruits of the love of
   Christ to you. For love he has forgiven you! Have you ever forgotten
   the blotting out of your iniquities by that hand of love? For love he
   has fed you day by day with the best of spiritual meat. "Ye are
   complete in him." All your wants his love has supplied: there are shoes
   for your pilgrimage, armor for your warfare, strength for your labor,
   rest for your weariness, comfort for your sorrow. No good thing does
   his love withhold. You have an inward satisfaction in Christ which all
   the world could not produce. Moreover, he has led you through this
   wilderness life in safety to this day. In dark and devious roads he has
   been near you; his rod and his staff have comforted you. You have not
   gone astray, and that not because there was not the spirit of straying
   in you, but because the great Shepherd has kept you in his paths. How
   often has he succoured you, and delivered you! How graciously has he
   helped your weakness, enlightened your darkness, allayed your fears,
   renewed your hope, and, above all, preserved you from sin! As I look
   back upon my own life, I am filled with adoring thankfulness. I know
   that the retrospect which each one of you is looking upon is very much
   the same. Surely, goodness and mercy have brightened all the days of
   our lives. Each day has been so wonderful, that if we had only lived
   that one day, we should have had cause to praise the Lord for ever and
   ever. When all the days are "threaded on time's string," what a
   bracelet of mercies they make! What shall I say of my Lord's love? If I
   liken it for height to the mountains, I see Alps piled on Alps. "Thy
   mercy, O God, is in the heavens." If I liken it for depth to the sea, I
   am again lost in the comparison; I can only cry, "O the depths!" As to
   counting the gifts of his love, if we think of them, they are more in
   number than the sands of the sea. Let us not doubt his love, for that
   would be wanton cruelty; but sitting down in stillness of mind let our
   hearts quietly beat time to this one sentence: He loveth me—He loveth
   me. More surely than parent or child, or husband or wife, or the best
   tried friend, Jesus loves his blood-bought ones! O my soul, he loves
   thee! Be thou always ravished with his love.

   Yet must I not quite close the list till I remind you that you are now
   this very day in union with him. You are laid on him and cemented to
   him as a stone is built upon the foundation. You are also joined to him
   vitally as the branch is to the stem, and as the member to the body.
   You are, moreover, joined to him by living, loving, lasting union, as
   the bride is united to the bridegroom. You are identical with your
   covenant Head to-day in the purposes of God. God hath dealt with him as
   though he had sinned your sin, and now he deals with you as though you
   had brought his righteousness. In the purposes of God you are wrapped
   up with the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein is love! The future of Jesus is
   to be your future; you are to be with him where he is. When Luther was
   in his worst troubles a friend came in to see him, and he noticed that
   he had written upon the wall in big letters the word, "Vivit!" He
   enquired of Luther what he meant by "vivit"? Luther answered, "Jesus
   lives; and if he did not live I would not care to live an hour." Yes,
   our life is bound up with that of Jesus. We are not called upon to live
   of ourselves, that would be death; but we have life and all things in
   union with him. This is love indeed, which rests not till it is one
   with its object. O you unconverted ones, how can you live apart from
   Christ? To live one hour apart from Christ is to live in infinite
   peril, since in that hour you may die, and pass beyond the realms of
   hope.

   O beloved, you that love him are one with him by an infinite and
   indestructible union! "Who shall separate us from the love of God,
   which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" This eternal oneness is the
   security both of grace and glory to us. Certain of our dear brethren
   and sisters have lately gone up the shining road. We might envy them if
   we did not know that even here we have the Lord's love to cheer us. Let
   us love Jesus for his love to our brethren; for now they share his
   throne, lie in his bosom, and are indulged with a vision of his glory.
   We also are on our way to the wedding-feast; let us keep our lamps
   burning. Comfort yourselves with the divine hope of everlasting joy.
   His love which came to us from heaven to earth will bear us up from
   earth to heaven. Heart cannot conceive what love has laid up for those
   whom it has chosen.

   II. But I cannot proceed further after this fashion; I must now exhibit
   my theme in another light. LET US MEDITATE CONTINUALLY UPON THE LOVE OF
   CHRIST. I would help your meditations by giving a few hints. Do not
   think that I am preaching, but consider that you are alone in your
   chamber, and that I am speaking through a telephone to you. Let me
   vanish, and let Jesus stand before you.

   Meditate upon the love of Christ to you. It is a love ancient and
   venerable, tried and proved. He loved you when you were not; he loved
   you when you were, but were not what you should be. He has loved you
   into spiritual being; he has loved you so as to keep you in that being.
   He loved you so as to suffer and to die, and he loves you so as to
   permit you to suffer for his sake. He has loved you so well as to bear
   with your ill manners, your shortcomings, and your transgressions, your
   coldness, your backsliding, your lack of prayer, your hardness of heart
   your little love to your brethren, and all the other sins of which I
   will not now accuse you, for it is a time of love. He has loved you
   right on without pausing or slackening. Some of you have known his love
   these twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years; yes, some of you even more
   than that. It is no new thing with us to sing, "Jesus loves me." All
   this while he has never failed us once, nor done us an ill turn. The
   kindest husband that ever lived may sometimes be faulty, but this
   husband of our souls overfloweth with divine affection every day, and
   all the day. We could not find fault or flaw in his love, if we were to
   try. Doubtless, in the future we shall have to make continued trial of
   his love, but we are sure it will endure every test. We may have rough
   ways to traverse, but he will tread them with us, and we shall lean
   upon our Beloved. We may be very sick and faint, but he hath borne our
   sicknesses, and will sympathize with us. He hath said, and we believe
   it, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." His promise is
   "Certainly I will be with thee. Even to your old age I am he; and even
   to hoar hairs will I carry you." The longer we live the more abundant
   evidence shall we receive of that love of Christ, which at this moment
   is assuredly ours. At this moment we believe in this love as implicitly
   as yonder babe believes in its mother's love, and stretches out its
   little hands to be embraced in those dear arms. Is it not so, dear
   friends? Do you not lean on the bosom of your Lord, without a shadow of
   mistrust, and do you not there find your fears all laid asleep? What
   love is this!

   Remember also in your meditation, that his love to you has been most
   free. It was unbought, and even unsought. In Hosea it is written, "I
   will love them freely". and surely, if ever there was a case in which
   that verse was transparently true, it is in my case. Was it not so in
   yours? What was there in you that could have won his love? If he could
   see any beauty in me, it must have been first in his own eyes. They say
   that love is blind; and certainly, though our heavenly bridegroom is
   not blind, yet he was somewhat kinder still; for he saw our deformities
   of sin and folly, and yet he loved us notwithstanding, all. He saw our
   iniquities, and then he cast them into the depths of the sea. Jesus,
   lover of my soul, thou lovest me, and that love is free indeed! How
   couldst thou be enamoured of such an one as I am? It could only be
   because thou lovest those who most need thy love, and can least repay
   it. Inasmuch as it is even so, what shall I do but admire and adore?
   Brethren, let us muse and meditate, and pray, and praise, and wonder,
   and worship him whom, having not seen, we love. Let us love him because
   he first loved us. Beholding the generous upbringing of a love which we
   could not deserve and would not seek, let us freely love in return.

   This love of our Lord's, so free, so full, so forceful, was and is most
   amazing. We shall never bear better or more surprising news than this,
   that Jesus loves us. Nothing more surprising ever came to me than to
   Iearn "he loved me, and gave himself for me." Others may, perhaps, see
   what is wrought by the Lord's grace in us, and this may make them the
   less astonished at the Lord's love towards us; but we know ourselves,
   and see our blemishes as well as our beauties, and hence we know that
   there is nothing lovable in us by nature. When we see our Lord's beauty
   we see nothing but deformity in ourselves. The more we perceive his
   love the more do we abhor ourselves because of our own want of love to
   him, and because of the defilements into which we have fallen. We are
   amazed at our sin, and more amazed at his love. We shall go on reading
   in the golden Book of Christ's love throughout all eternity, and the
   longer we study it the more we shall be astonished that ever the Holy
   and the Glorious and the Ever-blessed should have espoused in love such
   insignificant, polluted, and fickle-hearted creatures as we are.

   The love of Jesus is love most practical. Christ loves not in word
   only, but in deed and in truth. There is a greater force to my mind in
   Christ's deeds of love than in all the words which even he could have
   uttered. His deeds emphasize his words. Words cannot to the full
   express the mind of love: language filters from the lips, while feeling
   gushes from the heart. Jesus has written out his love in living
   characters. O Master! never man spake like thee, and yet that was thy
   most eloquent discourse when thou didst say but little, but didst
   stretch thy hands to the cross, that they might be nailed there. Then
   didst thou pour out thy heart, not in oratory, but in blood and water.
   Jesus has given to us his crown, his garments, his body, his soul, his
   life, himself. Said I not well that his is practical love? It is love
   full of tenderness, rich in bounty, lavish in thoughtfulness, firm in
   constancy, strong as death, mightier than the grave.

   Think, again, that it was personal love. The Lord Jesus Christ loves
   each one of his people as much as if he had not one more. All the heart
   of Christ goes out to each one of us. The great sun shines today on
   this round earth, and while it pours its limitless flood of light on
   all, that one tiny daisy, as it bathes in the brightness, is able to
   say, "The sun is all mine." Though there be myriads of flowers in the
   meadows and the gardens, yet this one flower may freely possess all
   that the sun can give, or rather all that the little flower can
   receive, as much as if it were the only flower that blooms. So Jesus is
   to me, to you, to each one of us, all our own; neither lose we anything
   by the fact that he is all the own of so many millions. Nay, we gain by
   his being thus possessed by so many brethren, for we find our bliss
   repeated in the happiness of all whom Jesus loves as he loves us. In
   the text we read, "so have I loved you." Mark how the two personal
   pronouns "I" and "you" stand with nothing but "love" between. The Lord
   Jesus, his own self, delighted in us, even in us who are not worthy to
   be named in the same day with him. Glory be to his holy name for ever!

   The pith of our text lies in this, that to make us know a little of how
   much he loves us, our Lord has paralleled his love to us with the
   Father's love to him. What kind of love was that? Here we get into deep
   waters. Each thought is an abyss. We know that the Father loved the Son
   without beginning, even from eternity. It is not conceivable that there
   ever was a period when the Father did not love his Son: neither is it
   conceivable by those who read this Book of the Lord aright that there
   ever could have been a time when Jesus did not love his people. This
   love constrained him in the council chamber of eternity to become the
   surety of the covenant for those his Father gave him. In that time
   before time began, the Lord's love went forth; for his goings forth
   were of old, from everlasting. Not when we began to love him, nor even
   when we began to be, did the love of our redeeming Lord commence its
   divine history; but from of old, or ever the earth was. Some of you
   dote upon antiquities; but this to me is the most precious of all
   ancient things—the everlasting love of Jesus.

   We also feel sure that the Father loves the Son without end. There
   cannot come an hour when the Father will banish the Son from his heart.
   Till then Jesus will never cast off his people. The unchanging Christ
   of God will never cease to love his redeemed; for the Father will never
   cease to love him. Hath he not said, "I have graven thee upon the palms
   of my hands. The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but
   my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of
   my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee"?

   Beloved, we must not fail to note the intimacy of this love, for Jesus
   said, "I and my Father are one." Even such is his love to us; it is
   intimate in character; for Jesus saith, "I in them, and thou in me,
   that they may be made perfect in one." Jesus has made himself one with
   his people. He loves them with a marvellous intimacy, so that in loving
   them he loves himself, for he has made them to be "members of his body,
   of his flesh, and of his bones." I go further: our Lord loved us better
   than he loved himself, for they truly said of him, "He saved others;
   himself he could not save." His mighty love made him to be a sacrifice
   for his people, that he might redeem them from under the curse of the
   law.

   It is a love, in fact, immeasurable; there is no bound to it. The
   Father must love the Son inconceivably. As God himself is
   incomprehensible, so is the love of the Divine Persons to each other.
   Jesus also loves his chosen without limit. He loves unto the end with a
   love which has no end. We can only become conscious of a limited
   portion of that love, but it is not limited in itself. To this ocean
   there is neither shore nor bottom. Jesus loves omnipotently,
   everlastingly, and infinitely.

   His love is also immutable, like that of his Father to him. Change is
   unknown to the heart of Jesus. He cannot love us more, and he will not
   love us less. I spoke of the ocean just now, but it was a faulty
   emblem, for it ebbs and flows, while our Lord's love is ever at the
   full.

   Now the point I want to bring you to is this—remember that the Father's
   intimate and infinite and unchanging love to his Son did not prevent
   his Son from being "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief"; did
   not prevent his having to say, "I have not where to lay my head"; did
   not prevent his bloody sweat in Gethsemane. "Though he were a Son, yet
   learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." Even he had to
   cry, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me," and to add,
   "nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Think you that you will
   be excused the bitter cup? You in your prayers have said, "My Father,
   if thou lovest me let me not be poor, let me not be bereaved, let me
   not be laid aside, let me not be evil spoken of." You know not what you
   ask. You pray against promotion when you pray against affliction. It
   was needful for the greater glory of the Mediator, in his complex
   person as God and Man, that he should greatly suffer and give himself a
   ransom for many, and therefore the love of the Father did not withhold
   the wormwood and the gall. And now for other purposes known to the wise
   heart of Jesus it is needful that you, his disciple, should be made to
   drink of his cup, and to be baptized with his baptism, and he will not
   deny you the privilege. You must be made a partaker of Christ's
   sufferings, that you may the better have fellowship with him in the
   highest form of his glory. Wherefore, believe that Christ loves thee
   when he afflicts thee, that he loves thee when he declines to remove
   the cup of trembling from thy lips. Thou wouldst decline the high
   honors he intends thee, but his love forbids the heavy loss. If we are
   to reign with him we must first suffer with him, and so his love urges
   us on to the suffering out of a high regard for our eternal welfare. O
   thou that art shrinking from the cross, art thou willing to forego the
   crown? Surely thou art not so foolish. Wherefore, be sure that these
   griefs are needful for thee, that thy soul may be enlarged and enabled
   to contain more of delight and of bliss in Christ Jesus thy Lord
   throughout eternity. To spare thee that pin's prick to-day would be to
   make thee a loser throughout the endless ages; wherefore, lift up thy
   finger to the needle and be ready to endure the sharp point for an
   instant, seeing it is the trifling penalty of thy rank as a follower of
   the Crucified. "These light afflictions, which are but for a moment,
   work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"; why,
   then, do we draw back from them?

   God grant us grace to meditate much upon this love of Jesus Christ to
   us paralleled only by the Father's love to him; and meditating, may we
   become content to have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings, that
   we may partake in his glory!

   III. Bear with me while I come, in the third place, to say, LET US
   EXPERIENCE AND ADMIRE THE POWER WHICH THIS LOVE HAS OVER us. I asked
   you to forget me just now, and to regard me as a mere telephone; but
   now I desire to retire altogether, that Jesus only may rule in your
   mind and heart in the fullness of his power. What can be more powerful
   than this love? What can be operative in so many ways and in such
   varied methods? Happy is the man who is evermore under the spell of its
   power!

   The love of Christ received into the heart acts as a catholicon. The
   old doctors searched for many a day to find a universal remedy. They
   sought in vain; yet here we have it. Christ is all medicine for all
   ailments; but he is vastly more than that. He heals and he fills; he
   fills and he beautifies; he beautifies and he confirms; he confirms and
   he perfects. So wondrously does his love work on men. Let the love of
   Christ be believed in and felt in your hearts, and it will humble you.
   Proud self goes out when sweet love comes in: the flesh dies through
   the power of that love on which the spirit lives. Can I be proud when
   my Beloved unveils to me his love which passeth knowledge? Impossible!
   Nay, I feel ready to sink into the ground when I see his glories: "My
   soul melted while my Beloved spake." Brethren the love of Christ is
   such a torrent that when it floods the soul it carries self before it.

   Love has also a melting influence. The hammer of the law breaks, but
   the heart, when thus broken, is like a broken flint, every bit of which
   is still flint. When the love of Jesus performs its office, it
   dissolves us, turning the flint into flesh. An old divine says that
   when the law creates repentance the tears are hard as hailstones in the
   sinner's eyes, and I believe it is so; but when the gospel makes us
   repent, our weeping is as the dew of the morning. What a blessed
   softness grace produces! How tender is the heart which Jesus touches
   with his pierced hand!

   This love of Christ, how consoling it is to mourning hearts! This is
   the best candle for one who is lying in bed in the dark. Oh, ye
   Much-afraids and Despondencies, who are hardly able to enjoy my subject
   this morning, I would fain uplift and cheer you by this sweet love; for
   indeed it is a balm for you. Do not turn away from this heavenly
   cordial. Do not try to doubt: you can scarcely do so when you think of
   our Redeemer's love? What! Desponding? when thy Beloved gives thee the
   kisses of his lips, and says, "I have loved thee with an everlasting
   love"? If his presence doth not cheer thee, surely heaven itself would
   not make thee glad; for what is heaven but the full enjoyment of his
   love?

   The love of Jesus has a cleansing and sanctifying power. To kill the
   love of sin live in the love of Christ. He whom Christ loves hates sin.
   We begin to say within ourselves—What shall I quit for Christ? What
   shall I do for Christ? The love of Jesus shed abroad in the soul hath a
   sanctifying savor: it perfumes the heart with holiness. His love is as
   a fire of odoriferous woods; it consumes sin, and gives forth a
   fragrance of virtue. No furnace ever purifies our heart like the love
   of Jesus, which burns like coals of juniper. The way of love is the
   road to perfectness. Jonathan will not offend the David whom he loves.
   A heart enamoured of the holy Jesus will be very jealous lest it grieve
   him by sin.

   A sweet sense of Christ's love also strengthens us. Love is strong as
   death, and it makes us strong for the duties of life. Those holy women
   in Scotland tied to stakes to be drowned by the incoming tide, what
   made them so brave in their confession of loyalty to Jesus? What but a
   sense of his love to them? Feeble men and women were cast to the lions
   in the Roman amphitheatre; did you ever hear that they cowered before
   the-wild beasts, or asked mercy of the cruel crowd that sat around, and
   gazed on their agonies? Ah, no! Christ's soldiers never quail; and if
   you ask the secret of their courage, it is that he loves them, and they
   cannot but be bold for his dear sake.

   This it is, too, that makes us tender to others and compassionate for
   this poor, ruined world. If any of you want to love the souls of men,
   learn how Christ loved you. You will love the vilest for his sake. If
   you would have eyes wherewith to weep over this sinful city, see how
   Jesus wept for you. If you would be prompt at all times to help the
   needy and succor the afflicted, keep close to the side of your gentle,
   tender, compassionate Lord, and as you feel his love to you, you will
   feel pity for others.

   It is this that inflames men with a true zeal for God and for the good
   of men. Some hardly know what it is to be zealous; but there are a few
   saints yet remaining who are like pillars of flame from morning till
   night. We have some among us; my fear is lest they consume themselves
   and are gone before others have caught the flame. Would you know the
   secret of that holy flame which sits upon some apostolic men? The love
   of Jesus is that heavenly fire: they burn with love as they think of
   him whose love made him a whole-burnt offering for them.

   This love fills believers with delight. If you would be always happy,
   sustain your mirth upon the spiced wine of his pomegranate. He loveth
   me; he loveth me, O joyous thought! Such an assurance creates a
   Paradise in a prison, and a heaven in heaviness.

   Now I invite you, in conclusion, dear friends, to enter into this love
   of Christ by personal enjoyment. Wade into this river of the water of
   life. Do I hear you cry, "It is up to the ankles"? Go deeper, brother!
   "It is up to the knees." Go deeper, brother! Think more of divine love;
   value it more; live upon it more; trust it more! "Sir, it is up to my
   loins." Go deeper, brother! Thank God when it begins to lift you from
   your feet and bear you up above all earthly things. When you cannot
   touch the bottom rejoice. When you must needs swim, be happy to cast
   yourself upon the blessed flood. Drown you it cannot: these are not
   waters to sink in, but "waters to swim in." Be you as a bird in the
   air, a fish in the stream, an angel in heaven; let the love of Christ
   be your element: to you let love and live be the same word. You cannot
   think too much of Christ's love. The wise man saith, "Eat not too much
   honey"; but you cannot enjoy too much of the love of Christ. Get
   absorbed into it; be swallowed up in it till it is "no more I but
   Christ that liveth in me."

   And when thou art once immersed in this love, continue in it. Christ
   does not love you to-day and cast you away to-morrow. Shall your faith
   be inconstant when his faithfulness is so abiding? How is it that you
   to-day are so happy in the Lord, and to-morrow will be so dreary? Are
   you up on Sunday and down on Monday? Is your God only the God of the
   Sabbath, and not of the whole week? What! is Christ a Sunday Christ,
   and not a Monday Christ? and is his love a Sabbath theme, and not an
   inspiration for Tuesdays and Wednesdays? Beloved, this must not be.
   Why, it is a childish thing—I retract the word as dishonoring to dear
   children—it is a foolish thing to be warm with this love to-day, and
   then to be cold to-morrow. Surely near such a fire we ought to be
   always warm. Abide in his love. Jesus Christ would have his people
   remain in a high, happy, holy, heavenly condition. Do you say you think
   it is impossible? I do not agree with you. Enoch walked with God for
   many a year, till at last he walked away with God. Try after continued
   communion. Too often we get up to the top of the hill, and slide down
   again like boys at play. Come, come: this will never do. Let us keep up
   to the height which we reach. If I climb to the top of a hill I am by
   no means able to boast, for at once I see another hill beyond, which I
   had not before perceived. I aspire to climb that new summit, and I
   doubt not that if I attain it, I shall there spy another; and so on
   till the end. It is never ours to write the word "finality." Higher and
   holier is still our watch word. But why must we come down into the
   marshes again? What can be the good of rushing out of the sunshine of
   Christ's love into the fogs of distrust? Whereunto we have attained,
   let us abide in it, and seek grace to go on to something more. Does not
   our Lord intend this when he says, "Continue ye in my love"? "Oh,"
   saith one, "you set us a hard task." No, brother, I have set before you
   a pleasant privilege, but I admit that you will not reach it by your
   own power, and as you are in yourself. But I am not talking to you as
   you are in yourself. I am talking to you as you are in Christ; and as
   you are in Christ all power is given unto you. Exercise that power.
   Henceforth instead of singing a song which breaks up into verses with
   groans between, let us chant a Psalm that goes right straight on, and
   has in every verse the joyous stanza, "His mercy endureth for ever." My
   Beloved is mine and I am his, and till the day break and the shadows
   flee away my soul shall feast upon his love, and joy and rejoice in
   him. God help you to do this for his name's sake! Oh, unconverted
   hearers, do you not wish to taste our joys? Come as you are, and trust
   in Jesus, and they shall be yours. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— John 15.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—916, 798, 792.
     __________________________________________________________________

How Hearts Are Softened

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplications: then they will look
   upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one
   mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one
   that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day shall there be a
   great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the
   valley of Megiddo." Zechariah 12:10,11.

   HARDNESS of heart is a great and grievous evil. It exists not only in
   the outside world, but in many who frequent the courts of the Lord's
   House. Beneath the robes of religion many carry a heart of stone. It is
   more than possible to come to Baptism and the sacred Supper, to come
   constantly to the hearing of the Word and even, as a matter of form, to
   attend to private religious duties--and yet still have an unrenewed
   heart--a heart within which no spiritual life palpitates and no
   spiritual feeling exists. Nothing good can come out of a stony
   heart--it is barren as a rock. To be unfeeling is to be unfruitful.
   Prayer without desire; praise without emotion; preaching without
   earnestness--what are all these? Like the marble images of life, they
   are cold and dead! Insensibility is a deadly sign. Frequently it is the
   next stage to destruction. Pharaoh's hard heart was a prophecy that his
   pride would meet a terrible overthrow. The hammer of vengeance is not
   far off when the heart becomes harder than an adamant stone.

   Many and great are the advantages connected with softness of spirit.
   Tenderness of heart is one of the marks of a gracious person. Spiritual
   sensibility puts life and feeling into all Christian duties. He that
   prays feelingly, prays, indeed. He that praises God with humble
   gratitude, praises Him most acceptably and he that preaches with a
   loving heart has the essentials of true eloquence. An inward, living
   tenderness, which trembles at God's Word, is of great price in the
   sight of

   God.

   You are in this matter agreed with me--at least I know that some of you
   are thoroughly thus minded, for you are longing to be made tender and
   contrite. Certain of you who are truly softened by Divine Grace are
   very prone to accuse yourselves of being stony-hearted. We are poor
   judges of our own condition and in this matter many make mistakes. Mark
   this--the man who grieves because he does not grieve is often the man
   who grieves most! He that feels that he does not feel is probably the
   most feeling man of us all! I suspect that hardness is almost gone when
   it is mourned over. He who can feel his insensibility is not
   insensible. Those who mourn that their heart is a heart of stone, if
   they were to look calmly at the matter, might perceive that it is not
   all stone, or else there would not be a mourning because of hardness!
   But, whether this is so or not, I address myself to all of you whose
   prayer is for godly sorrow for sin.

   It is written in the Covenant of Grace, "I will take away the stony
   heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." I pray
   that this may be fulfilled in you even now. The object of this sermon
   is to show how this tenderness is to be obtained and how an evangelical
   sorrow for sin can be produced in the heart and maintained there. I
   would set forth the simple method by which the inward nature can be
   made living, feeling and tender, full of warm emotions, fervent
   breathings and intense affections towards the Lord Jesus Christ. While
   I speak, I beseech you to pray--"Create in me a tender heart, O Lord,
   and renew within me a contrite spirit."

   It will be instructive to keep to the words of the text. This passage
   is peculiarly suited to our purpose and it will add authority to that
   which we teach. Observe that holy tenderness arises out of a Divine
   operation--"I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplications." Secondly, it is
   actually worked by the look of faith--"Then they will look upon Me whom
   they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him." And, thirdly, the
   tenderness which comes in this way leads to mourning for sin of an
   intense kind--"They shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son,
   and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for
   his first-born. In that day shall there be a great mourning in
   Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo."

   I. First, note that THE HOLY TENDERNESS WHICH MAKES MEN MOURN FOR SIN
   ARISES OUT OF A DIVINE OPERATION. It is not in fallen man to renew his
   own heart! Can the adamant turn itself to wax, or the granite soften
   itself to clay? Only He that stretches out the heavens and lays the
   foundation of the earth can form and reform the spirit of man within
   him. The power to make the rock of our nature flow with rivers of
   repentance is not in the rock itself.

   The power lies in the Omnipotent Spirit of God and it is an omen for
   good that He delights to exercise this power. The Spirit of God is
   prompt to give life and feeling. He moved of old upon the face of the
   waters and, by His power, order came out of confusion. That same Spirit
   at this time broods over our souls and reduces the chaos of our natural
   state to light and life and obedience. There lies the hope of our
   ruined nature. Jehovah who made us can make us over again! Our case is
   not beyond His power. Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is the Spirit
   of the Lord straitened? He can change the nether millstone into a mass
   of feeling and dissolve the northern iron and the steel into a flood of
   tears. When He deals with the human mind by His secret and mysterious
   operations, He fills it with new life, perception and emotion. "God
   makes my heart soft," said Job, and in the best sense this is true. The
   Holy Spirit makes us like wax and we become impressible to His sacred
   seal. Remember, you that are hard of heart, that your hope lies this
   way--God Himself, who melts the icebergs of the northern sea, must make
   your soul yield up its hardness in the Presence of His love. Nothing
   short of the work of God within you can effect this. "You must be born
   again." And that new birth must be from above! The Spirit of God must
   work regeneration in you. He is able, of these stones, to raise up
   children unto Abraham. But until He works, you are dead and insensible.
   Even now I perceive the goings forth of His power--He is moving you to
   desire His Divine working and, in that gracious desire, the work has
   already begun!

   Note next, that as this tenderness comes of the Spirit of God, so it
   also comes by His working in full co-operation with the Father and with
   the Son. In our text we have all the three Persons of the Divine
   Trinity. We hear the Father say, "I will pour on the house of David the
   Spirit of grace." And that Spirit, when poured out, leads men to look
   to Him whom they pierced, even to the Incarnate Son of God. Thus the
   Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, fulfils the
   purpose of the Father by revealing the Son, and thus the heart of man
   is reached. The Divine Father sends forth the Holy Spirit and He bears
   witness to the Son of God--and so men come to mourn for sin. We believe
   in the three Persons of the blessed God and yet we are equally clear
   that God is One. We see the divers operations of these three Divine
   Persons, but we perceive that they are all of One and work to the same
   end, namely, that Grace may reign by delivering us from our natural
   impenitence and by causing us to sorrow because we have sinned.

   The Holy Spirit works not without the Father and the Son, but proves
   Himself to be in full union with both by His operations upon the soul
   of man. Do not think, therefore, when you feel the Holy Spirit melting
   you, that the Father will refuse you--it is He that sent the Holy
   Spirit to deal with you! Imagine not that you can feel repentance for
   sin and bow in sorrow at the Savior's feet--and that Jesus will reject
   you--for it is He who sent the Spirit of Grace to bring you to
   repentance and make you mourn because of the ill which you have done.
   The glorious One God, who made the heavens and the earth, is dealing
   with your heart if the Holy Spirit is now working in you as "the Spirit
   of grace and of supplications."

   This operation is an unseen secret work. You cannot perceive the work
   of the Spirit by the senses of the flesh--it is spiritually discerned.
   When the Spirit of God was poured out at Pentecost, there were divers
   signs attendant thereupon, such as rushing mighty wind and cloven
   tongues as it were fire--but these were outward signs only--the Spirit,
   Himself, is inward and secret. The Spirit is as the wind, invisible
   except by its effects. The Holy Spirit comes as the dew which in soft
   silence refreshes the tender herb. Not with sound of trumpet or
   observation of man does the Spirit perform His gracious deeds. His
   working is one of the secrets and mysteries which no man can explain to
   his fellow. He that feels the movement of the Holy Spirit knows that a
   singular work is going on within him, but what it is, or who it is that
   works it, he knows not. Do not, therefore, expect to be informed when
   the Spirit is upon you! Marvel not if it should so happen that He is
   dealing with you now, though you know it not, "For God speaks once, yes
   twice, yet man perceives it not." The operations of the Holy Spirit are
   consciously perceived by the human heart, but they are not always
   attributed to their right cause. Many a man, to use the words of our
   hymn--

   "Wonders to feel his own hardness depart."

   He does not know how his new tenderness has been produced. He finds
   himself anxious to hear and understand the Gospel--and he feels that
   the Gospel affects him as it never did before--but he does not perceive
   those "invisible" cords of love which are drawing him towards his
   Savior. Before long he will cry, "This is the finger of God!" But as
   yet he perceives not the Divine cause. It is well set forth by Mr.
   Bunyan in his parable of the fire which burned, though a man tried to
   quench it. There was one behind the wall who secretly poured oil upon
   the fire! He himself was unperceived, but the fire burned because of
   what he poured on it. You can see the flames, but you cannot see the
   hidden one who ministers the fuel. The Spirit of God may work in you,
   my dear Hearer, this morning, but it will not be with special token of
   marvel, or voice, or vision. Not with earthquake, nor wind, nor fire
   will He come, but with "a still small voice." He may deal with many of
   you at once and yet none may see it in his neighbor! I expect that He
   will work upon many at this time, for much prayer has been put up that
   the Lord Jesus may be glorified in our midst.

   But the secret operation of the Spirit is known by its effects, for it
   is sweetly productive. We read in the text of "the Spirit of grace and
   of supplications," which must mean that the Spirit produces
   graciousness and prayerfulness in the soul upon which He works. The man
   is now willing to receive the Grace or free favor of God--he ceases to
   be proud-- and becomes gracious. He is put into a condition in which
   God's Grace can deal with him. As long as you are self-righteous, God
   cannot deal with you in the way of favor--you are upon wrong ground,
   for you are making claims which He cannot possibly allow. Mercy and
   merit can no more blend than fire and water! You must be willing to
   receive as a free favor what God will never give you if you claim it by
   right. When you are made conscious of sin, then forgiveness can be
   granted. When you are malleable under the hammer of God's Word, then
   will He work His work of love upon you. When you lay your own
   righteousness aside and take up the cry, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner," then shall you go to your house justified! It needs the Spirit
   of Grace to give us Grace to receive Grace. We are so graceless that we
   will not even accept Grace till God gives us "Grace for Grace"--Grace
   to accept Grace. Blessed is the hour when the Spirit of God comes to us
   as the Spirit of Grace and works in us that graciousness which makes us
   value and seek after the free Grace of God in its further forms. Grace,
   itself, clears out a space in the heart for Grace to enter and carry on
   its work.

   It is also said that the Lord will pour out "the spirit of
   supplications." This is the creation of desires and longings which
   express themselves in prayer. When the Holy Spirit works savingly upon
   the heart, then the man begins to approach the Mercy Seat with frequent
   and fervent supplications. The words may be broken and confused, but
   what are words? Sighs, tears, heaving of the breast and upward glances
   of the eyes--these are true prayers--and are very prevalent with God.
   Brothers and Sisters, we poor preachers cannot make men pray! We can
   produce a Book of Common Prayer and read it to them--and get them to
   utter the responses--but we cannot make them pray by this means. The
   Spirit of God is still needed. The child may be taught a form of prayer
   at its mother's knees and he may repeat it daily till he is old--and
   yet he may never have prayed in all those years! Only the Spirit of God
   can produce the smallest atom of prayer! I tell you, there was never a
   prayer on earth that God could accept, but what first came down from
   Heaven by the operation of the Spirit of God upon the soul. But here is
   the point--have you this "Spirit of supplications" this morning? Are
   you groaning, crying, sighing--"Lord, save, or I perish! Give me
   Christ, or else I die"? Well then, I trust you have come under the
   sacred outpouring promised in the text--"I will pour on the house of
   David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of Grace and of
   supplications."

   All this leads on towards the tenderness which begets mourning for sin.
   Again, I say, this is the point from which help must come for the
   sinner. You that have been striving to feel and yet cannot feel--and do
   not feel--you should look to the strong for strength and to the living
   for life! He, who in the day of man's creation, breathed into the
   nostrils of man the breath of life, so that he became a living soul,
   can infuse the new life into you and give you, with it, all the feeling
   which is natural thereto. Think much of the Holy Spirit, for He can
   make you live in the truest sense. It is God's to give you a tender
   heart, not yours to create it within yourself. Do not attempt, first,
   to renew your heart, and then to come to Christ for salvation--for this
   renewal of heart is salvation! Come you as you are, confessing all your
   hardness, your wickedness, your willful obduracy and obstinacy--confess
   it all--and then put yourself into the hands of the Spirit, who can
   remove your hardness at the same time that Divine Grace removes your
   guilt!

   The Holy Spirit can make your heart as tender as the apple of the eye
   and cause your conscience to be as sensitive as a raw wound which feels
   the slightest touch. God grant us Grace to deal with Him about these
   things and not to be look-

   ing to ourselves. As well hope to extract juice from the stones of the
   seashore, as spiritual feeling from the carnal mind! He who can make
   the dry bones live and He, alone, can make the hardened mourn over sin.

   II. But now I come to the core and center of our subject--THIS
   TENDERNESS OF HEART AND MOURNING

   FOR SIN IS ACTUALLY WORKED BY A FAITH-LOOK AT THE PIERCED SON OF GOD.
   True sorrow for sin

   comes not without the Spirit of God, but even the Spirit of God,
   Himself, does not work it except by leading us to look to Jesus the
   Crucified. There is no true mourning for sin until the eyes have seen
   Christ. It is a beautiful remark of an old Divine, that eyes are made
   for at least two things. First, to look with and next, to weep with.
   The eyes which look to the Pierced One are the eyes which weep for Him.
   O Soul, when you come to look where all eyes should look, even to Him
   who was pierced, then your eyes begin to weep for that for which all
   eyes should weep--even the sin which slew your Savior! There is no
   saving repentance except within sight of the Cross. That repentance of
   sin which omits Christ is a repentance which will have to be repented
   of. If such sorrow may be called repentance at all, it is only as wild
   grapes are yet called grapes, though they have in them none of the
   qualities and virtues of the clusters of the true vine. Evangelical
   repentance is acceptable repentance--but that only--and the essence of
   evangelical repentance is that it looks to Him whom it pierced by its
   sin. Sorrow for sin without faith in Christ is the hard bone without
   the marrow--it kills, but never blesses. It is a tempest of the soul
   with thunder and lightning, but no rain. God save us from remorse! It
   works death.

   Mark you, wherever the Holy Spirit does really come, He always leads
   the soul to look to Christ. Never yet did a man receive the Spirit of
   God unto salvation, unless he received Him to the bringing of him to
   look to Christ and mourn for sin. Faith and repentance are born
   together, live together and thrive together. Let no man put asunder
   what God has joined together. No man can repent of sin without
   believing in Jesus, nor believe in Jesus without repenting of sin.
   Look, then, lovingly to Him that bled upon the Cross for you, for in
   that look you shall find pardon and receive softening. How wonderful
   that all our evils should be remedied by that one sole
   prescription--"Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth"! Yet none will look until the Spirit of God inclines them so to
   do. And He works on none to their salvation unless they yield to His
   influences and turn their eyes to Jesus.

   Note well that this look to the Pierced One is peculiarly dear to God.
   Observe the change of the pronoun in the middle of the verse--"They
   shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for
   Him." The Me and the Him refer to the same Person. I lay no special
   stress upon this and I do not attempt to prove any doctrine from it,
   but certainly it is remarkable that when we read this verse with
   defined views as to the Oneness of Christ with God--and the union of
   God and Man in one Person in the Lord Jesus--we find the pronouns
   perfectly correct and understand why there should be, "Me," in one
   case, and, "Him," in another. If you adopt any other theory, then the
   passage would seem to be a jumble of words. It is instructive to note
   that the Lord, instead of saying, "They shall look upon Him whom they
   have pierced," cannot keep Himself in the third person, but bursts upon
   the scene in His own individuality!

   Either you have, here, the Father regarding Himself as pierced in His
   Son, or the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, speaking in the spirit of
   prophecy of Himself and personally noting those looks of faith and
   penitence which are fixed upon His sacred Person. He has such a delight
   in those looks of believing sorrow, that He mentions them as having
   personally beheld them--"They shall look upon Me whom they have
   pierced." Nothing pleases Jesus more than the faith-looks of His
   people. In every stage of their history, the glances of Believers' eyes
   are very precious to Him. "You have ravished My heart, My sister, My
   spouse; you have ravished My heart with one of your eyes," says the
   Bridegroom in the heavenly Canticle. Surely the first glance of a
   tearful, penitent eye to Christ is very dear to Him. He says, "I have
   seen him and observed him." Nobody sees our look of faith but Himself
   and it is not necessary that anyone else should see it--is it not a
   matter between our own soul and our Lord?

   He foresaw that look and in this verse uttered a prophecy concerning
   it. And He looks back upon it with pleasure, keeping it before His mind
   as a part of His satisfaction for the travail of His soul. The looks of
   faith and the tears of repentance are precious jewels to our Lord
   Jesus. He rejoices so much when one sinner repents that the angels see
   His joy. O dear Hearts, if this morning, in those pews, you believingly
   look to Christ, accepting Him as God's salvation, then is the promise
   fulfilled before the eyes of Him who spoke it and said, "They shall
   look on Me whom they have pierced." He will be glad of your faith--He
   invites it, He accepts it, He rewards it! "They looked unto Him and
   were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed." Looking unto Jesus
   we receive joy and we give Him joy. As He delights in mercy, so He
   delights

   in those who come to Him and accept His mercy. He was lifted on the
   Cross to be looked at. He was nailed there that He might be a perpetual
   spectacle and His heart was pierced that we might see the blood and
   water--which are our double cure.

   The look which blesses us so as to produce tenderness of heart is a
   look to Jesus as the Pierced One. On this I want to dwell for a season.
   It is not looking to Jesus as only God which affects the heart, but
   looking to this same Lord and God as crucified for us. We see the Lord
   pierced and then the piercing of our own heart begins. When the Lord
   reveals Jesus to us, we begin to have our sins revealed. We see who it
   was that was pierced and this deeply stirs our sorrow. Come, dear
   Souls, let us go together to the Cross for a little while and note who
   it was that there received the spear-thrust of the Roman soldier. Look
   at His side and mark that fearful gash which has broached His heart and
   set the double flood in motion. The centurion said, "Truly, this was
   the Son of God." He who by Nature is God over all, "without whom was
   not anything made that was made," took upon Himself our Nature and
   became a Man like ourselves, save that He was without taint of sin.
   Being found in fashion as a Man, He became obedient unto death, even
   the death of the Cross. It is He that died! He who only has immortality
   condescended to die! He was all glory and power--and yet He died! He
   was all tenderness and Grace--and yet He died! Infinite Goodness was
   hung upon a tree! Boundless bounty was pierced with a spear!

   This tragedy exceeds all others! However dark man's ingratitude may
   seem in other cases, it is blackest here! However horrible his spite
   against virtue, that spite is most cruel here! Here Hell has outdone
   all its former villainy, crying, "This is the heir; let us kill Him."
   God dwelt among us and man would have none of Him. So far as man could
   pierce his God and slay his God, he went about to commit the hideous
   crime, for man slew the Lord Christ and pierced Him with a spear--and
   therein showed what he would do with the Eternal, Himself, if he could
   come at Him. Man is, at heart, a deicide! He would be glad if there
   were no God. He says in his heart, "No God" and, if his hand could go
   as far as his heart, God would not exist another hour! This it is which
   invests the piercing of our Lord with such intensity of sin--it meant
   the piercing of God.

   But why? Why is the good God thus persecuted? By the loving kindness of
   the Lord Jesus, by the glory of His Person and by the perfection of His
   Character, I beseech you be amazed and ashamed that He should be
   pierced! This is no common death! This murder is no ordinary crime. O
   Man, He that was pierced with the spear was your God! On the Cross
   behold your Maker, your Benefactor, your best Friend!--

   "Alas, and did my Savior bleed?

   And did my Sa vior die?

   Would He devote that sacred head

   For such a worm as I?"

   Look steadily at the Pierced One and note the suffering which is
   covered by the word, "pierced." Our Lord suffered greatly and
   grievously. I cannot, in one discourse, rehearse the story of His
   sorrows; the griefs of His life of poverty and persecution; the griefs
   of Gethsemane and the bloody sweat; the griefs of His desertion, denial
   and betrayal; the griefs of Pilate's Hall, the scourging, the spitting
   and the mockery; the griefs of the Cross with its dishonor and agony.
   The sufferings of our Lord's body were only the body of His
   sufferings--

   "It was not the insulting voice of scorn

   So deeply wrung His heart.

   The piercing nail, the pointed thorn,

   Caused not the saddest smart--

   But every struggling sigh betrayed

   A heavier grief within,

   How on His burdened soul was laid

   The weight of human sin."

   Our Lord was made a curse for us! The penalty for sin, or that which
   was equivalent thereto, He endured. "He Himself bore our sins in His
   own body on the tree." "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and
   with His stripes we are healed." Brothers and Sisters, the sufferings
   of Jesus ought to melt our hearts! I mourn this morning that I do not
   mourn as I should! I accuse myself of that hardness of heart which I
   condemn, since I can tell you this story without breaking down! My
   Lord's griefs are untellable! Behold and see if there was ever sorrow
   like His sorrow! Here we lean over a dread

   abyss and look down into fathomless gulfs. Now we are upon great waters
   where deep calls unto deep. If you will steadfastly consider Jesus
   pierced for our sins and all that is meant thereby, your hearts must
   relent. Sooner or later the Cross will bring out all the feeling of
   which you are capable and give you capacity for more! When the Holy
   Spirit puts the Cross into the heart, the heart is dissolved in
   tenderness. Crux in corde, as the old preachers used to say--this is
   the source of godly sorrow. The hardness of the heart dies when we see
   Jesus die in woe so great.

   It behooves us further to note who it was that pierced Him--"They shall
   look on Me whom they have pierced." The, "they," in each case, relates
   to the same persons. We slew the Savior, even we, who look to Him and
   live! If a man were condemned and put to death, you might enquire who
   it was that slew him. And you might be told that it was the judge who
   condemned him, but that would not be all the truth. Another might blame
   the jury who brought in the verdict of guilty, or the executioner who
   actually hanged him. But when you go to the root of the matter, you
   would find that it was the man's crime which was the real blameworthy
   cause of his death. In the Savior's case, sin was the cause of His
   death. Transgression pierced Him! But whose transgression? Whose? It
   was not His own, for He knew no sin, neither was guile found on His
   lips. Pilate said, "I find no fault in this Man."

   Brothers and Sisters, the Messiah was cut off, but not for Himself! Our
   sins slew the Savior. He suffered because there was no other way of
   vindicating the justice of God and allowing us to escape! The sword
   which otherwise had smitten us was awakened against the Lord's
   Shepherd, against the Man that was Jehovah's Fellow! Truly may we
   sing--

   "Twas for my sins my dearest Lord

   Hung on the cursed tree!

   And groaned away a dying life

   For you, my soul, for thee!

   Oh, how I hate those lusts of mine

   That crucified my God--

   Those sins that pierced and nailed His flesh

   Fast to the fatal wood!

   Oh, if my soul were formed for woe

   How would I vent my sighs!

   Repentance should like rivers flow

   From both my streaming eyes." If this does not break and melt our
   hearts, let us note why He came into a position in which He could be
   pierced by our sins. It was love, mighty love, nothing else but love
   which led Him to the Cross. No other charge can ever be laid at His
   door but this, that He was "found guilty of excess of love." He put
   Himself in the way of piercing because He was resolved to save us. He
   loved us better than He loved Himself! And shall we hear of this and
   think of this and consider this--and remain unmoved? Are we worse than
   brutes? Has all that is human quit our humanity? If God the Holy Spirit
   is now at work, a sight of Christ will surely melt our heart of stone!

   Furthermore, notice that looking to the Pierced One causes mourning in
   every case. All hearts yield to this. Under the power of the Holy
   Spirit, this works efficaciously of itself. Nothing else is needed.
   "They shall look upon Me" and, "they shall mourn." Faith in Christ is
   sufficient for the production of acceptable and deep repentance! This,
   and this only, without mortifications and penances.

   Let me also say to you, Beloved, that the more you look at Jesus
   crucified, the more you will mourn for sin. Growing thought will bring
   growing tenderness. I would have you look much at the Pierced One, that
   you may hate sin much. Books which set forth the passion of our Lord
   and hymns which sing of His Cross have always been most dear to saintly
   minds because of their holy influence upon the heart and conscience.
   Live at Calvary, Beloved, for there you will live at your best. Live at
   Calvary and love at Calvary till live and love become the same thing! I
   would say look to the Pierced One till your own heart is pierced! An
   old Divine says, "Look at the Cross until all that is on the Cross is
   in your heart." He further says--Look at Jesus until He looks at you.
   Steadily view His suffering Person until He seems to turn His head and
   look at you, as He did at Peter when he went out and wept bitterly. See
   Jesus till you see yourself--mourn for Him till you mourn for your sin.

   The whole of this subject leads me to observe that the conversion of
   the Jews will come from a sight of the crucified Messiah. I conclude
   from this text that Israel will be brought to know the Lord, not by a
   vision of Christ in His Glory,

   but by a sight of Christ in His humiliation. "They shall look upon Me
   whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him." But I also conclude
   that this holds good of all mankind. By the preaching of Christ
   Crucified will their hearts be broken! The Cross is God's hammer of
   Love with which He smites the hearts of men with irresistible blows.
   Men tell us we should preach Christ as an example. We do preach Him as
   an example and rejoice to do so--but we can never allow that view of
   our Lord to overshadow our preaching of Him as a Sacrifice for sin! He
   suffered in the place of guilty men-- this is the Gospel! Whatever
   others may preach, "we preach Christ Crucified." We will always bear
   the Cross in the forefront! The Substitution of Christ for the sinner
   is the essence of the Gospel. We do not keep back the doctrine of the
   Second Advent but, first and foremost, we preach the Pierced One, for
   this it is that shall lead to evangelical repentance, when the Spirit
   of Grace is poured out!

   O Brothers, whatever else you preach, or do not preach, preach Christ
   Crucified! Jesus Christ my Lord as crucified is my main topic and shall
   be till I die! I trust you feel a pleasure in thinking of the Lord
   Jesus in any Character in which He is revealed, but yet the Cross is
   that whereon He is most lifted up--and this is the chief attraction for
   sinful men. Though it is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the
   Greeks foolishness, it is still the power of God unto salvation to
   everyone who believes!

   III. My time is nearly over and, therefore, I must only for a minute
   touch upon the surface of my third subject--THE SIGHT OF CHRIST
   CRUCIFIED WILL PRODUCE A MOURNING FOR SIN OF A VERY THOROUGH CHARACTER.
   It will be immediate. If the Spirit of God grants us an inward sight of
   Christ, we shall bleed inwardly at once! The sentences are fast joined
   together--"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they
   shall mourn." How rapidly the Spirit of God often works! "His word runs
   very swiftly." With a single blow of Grace, the bars of iron are
   broken. Saul of Tarsus was foaming at the mouth with rage against Jesus
   of Nazareth and His disciples, but a flash and a word changed him. "Why
   do you persecute Me?" showed him the pierced Lord and, "Lord, what will
   You have me to do?" was his speedy answer! One glimpse at Christ will
   make yonder stubborn sinner bow the knee. Look on him, Lord!

   This mourning, according to our text, is refined and pure. They shall
   mourn for Him. They shall be in bitterness for Him. They sorrow for
   Jesus rather than for themselves. Sin is not mentioned in these verses
   and yet the sorrow is all concerning sin. The grief for sin, itself, is
   overborne and compassed about by the greater grief occasioned by the
   sad results of sin upon the Person of the Pierced One. Sin is grieved
   over as it is against the Lord--even as David cries, "Against You, You
   only, have I sinned." The mourning of a penitent is not because of
   Hell--if there were no Hell, he would mourn just as much! His grief is
   not for what sin might cost himself, but for what it has cost the
   Substitute! He bemoans himself thus, "Oh, how could I have pierced Him!
   How could I have wounded the Beloved? Lover of my soul, how could I
   have pierced You?" True penitents smite upon their breasts as they
   behold their Savior bleeding on the tree! This is the sense of sin
   which is the mark of God's electing love--the token of the effectual
   calling of His Grace.

   In this mourning there is a touching tenderness--"They shall be in
   bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born."
   It is not a son lamenting for a father, for there the grief might be as
   much for the loss of the father's care and help as for the father,
   himself. But in the case of a father mourning his young son, the father
   is not supposed to lose anything but his boy--his grief is for the
   child, himself. Mourning for a son is caused by a peculiarly pure and
   unmixed love. Some of that which is of the earth, earthy, may enter
   into the mourning for a wife--but for his son--a father laments with a
   love which none may question. For an only son, the mourning is bitter,
   indeed! And for a first-born it is as gall and wormwood. The Israelite
   was specially sensitive concerning the death of his offspring. To lose
   his first-born was as when a nation loses its prince. To lose his only
   son was to quench the light of the house.

   The old man mourns, "I am as good as dead. I am blotted out of the book
   of the living, for I now have no son to bear my name! The lamp has gone
   out in my tent, for my son, my only son, my first-born, has gone down
   to the gates of the grave!" The case was hopeless for the future--none
   remained to continue his family among those who sit in the gate-- and
   the old man tore his clothes and wept bitterly. It is a bitter mourning
   which we have when we see Jesus slain by our sins. Were it not for the
   consequences which Grace has caused to flow from it, our sorrow would
   be hopeless and helpless, for we feel that in killing Jesus we have
   destroyed our best, our only hope--our one and only joy. His death was
   the hiding of the sun and the shaking of the earth--and we feel it to
   be so within our own souls. All that is worth having is gone when Jesus
   is gone. When God's only Son, His First-Born, dies, we sympathize with
   the great Father and feel ourselves bereaved of our chief joy, our
   hope, our delight.

   This sorrow is intense. The word, "bitterness," is used twice. Sorrow
   at the foot of the Cross is sorrow, indeed, sorrow upon sorrow, grief
   upon grief! Then we have bitterness and bitterness, bitterness upon
   bitterness, the bitterness of bitterness. Thank God it is a healthy
   tonic--he that has tasted this bitterness may say, "Surely the
   bitterness of death is

   past."

   And this kind of mourning is very extraordinary. The Prophet could not
   recollect any mourning which he had ever heard of that was like it,
   except the lamentation of the people for the death of Josiah. Then all
   Judah mourned and Jeremiah wrote sad dirges--and other Prophets and
   poets poured forth their lamentations. Everywhere throughout the land
   there went up an exceedingly great and bitter cry, for the good king
   had fallen and there were no princes of like mind to follow him. Alas,
   poor nation! It was your last bright hour which saw him ride to the
   battle! In his death your star has set! In the valley of Hadad Rimmon
   the mourning began, but it spread through all the land. The fatal fight
   of Megiddo was wailed by every woman in Jerusalem! Bravely had Josiah
   kept his word and sought to repel the Egyptian invader--but the hour of
   Judah's punishment was come and Josiah died. A mourning as sincere and
   deep comes to us when we perceive that Jesus died for us! Blessed be
   His name--the joy that comes of it when we see sin put away by His
   death turns all the sorrow into joy.

   This mourning is personal grief--every man repents apart and every
   woman apart. It is a private, personal grief. It is not produced by the
   contagion of example, but by the conviction of the individual
   conscience. Such sorrow is only to be assuaged by Jesus Christ,
   Himself, when He is revealed as the Salvation of God.

   Brothers and Sisters, I am conscious that I have not preached as I
   ought to have preached this morning. I have been mastered by my
   subject. I can sit down, alone, and picture my Divine Master on the
   Cross. I delight to do so. It is my comfort to meditate on Him. I see
   Him hanging on the tree and I carefully survey Him, from His head
   encircled with the thorns down to His blessed feet, made by the nails
   to be fountains of crimson blood. I have wept behind the Cross at the
   marks of the dread scourging which He bore. And then, coming to the
   front, I have gazed upon His pierced hands and lingered long before
   that opened side. Then I feel as if I could die of a pleasing grief and
   mournful joy! Oh, how I then love and adore! But here before this
   crowd, I am a mere lisper of words--words which fall far below the
   height of this great argument. Ah me! Ah me! Who among the sons of men
   could fitly tell you of His unknown agonies, His piercing anguish, His
   distraction and heart-break? Who can fully interpret that awful cry of,
   "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani? My God, My God, why have You forsaken
   Me?" Alone, I can hide my face and bow my head. But here, what can I
   do? O Lord, what can Your servant do?--

   "Words are but air and tongues but clay, And Your compassions are
   Divine.'" I cannot tell of Love's bleeding, Love's agony, Love's death!
   If the Holy Spirit will graciously come at this time and put me and my
   words altogether aside--and set my Lord before you, evidently crucified
   among you--then I shall be content and you will go home thoughtful,
   tender, hating sin and, therefore, more deeply happy, more serenely
   glad than ever before! The Lord grant it for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Man, Whose Breath Is In His Nostrils

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Cease you from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for of what
   account is he?" Isaiah 2:22.

   MAN, especially since the Fall, is a very unspiritual creature. His
   disposition is animal. He is made up, as the old writers used to say,
   of soul and soil. Alas, the soil terribly soils his soul! "My soul
   cleaves to the dust" might be the confession of every man in one sense
   or another. We bear the image of the first Adam, who was of the earth,
   earthy--and earthy enough are we.

   One consequence of the prevailing materialism of our corrupt nature is
   our craving for something tangible, audible, visible, as the object of
   our confidence. We need something which can be touched, heard, seen, or
   felt--we cannot be content with that which appeals only to the soul or
   the spirit. It seems as if man is so unspiritual that he cannot believe
   in a spiritual God and yet, any other than a spiritual God is an
   absurdity! Man cannot see God, therefore he will not trust in Him. He
   cannot hear His voice, therefore he will not attend to the movement of
   the Holy Spirit upon his soul. Humanity is carnal, sold under sin,
   infected with idolatry--and this fact remains true, in a measure, even
   of the regenerate. Their old nature is not other than it was, save that
   it is held in check by the new nature. So long as sin remains in
   us--and this will be so long as we are in this body--our tendency will
   be to be weary of God, who is a Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit
   and in truth. We seek after something to worship, something to love,
   something to rely upon which is so near akin to the coarser part of our
   nature that we may commune with it through the senses. It is sad that
   it should be so, but it has always been so throughout the history of
   man--and sad traces of it are to be seen, even, in the history of God's
   own Church.

   Man is by nature an idolater. Under the most favorable circumstances he
   flies to his idols, even as the dog seeks after carrion, or the vulture
   hastens to its prey. The Lord's people, Israel, were delivered out of
   Egypt with a high hand and with an outstretched arm. And by many signs
   and tokens, God's Presence among them was abundantly certified. This
   was a noble beginning. The circumstances which afterwards surrounded
   them were especially helpful. They were placed in the wilderness where,
   if they lived at all, they must live through the special protection and
   provision of God, for they reaped no harvests and they gathered into no
   barns. The bread they ate fell from Heaven! The water they drank came
   from a Rock which had been smitten by command of God through the rod of
   Moses. All day long they were sheltered from the burning sun by a
   canopy of clouds. And at night the canvas city was made bright with
   that same canopy turned into a flame of fire! They were alone in the
   wilderness and apart--shut out from the rest of the world--surrounded,
   as it were, by the Lord, Himself, who was a wall of fire round about
   them and the Glory in their midst.

   Nothing could have been more favorable for faith in God. Yet they must
   have a god that they can see! "Make us gods to go before us," they
   cried with such furious clamor that Aaron yielded to their evil desires
   and made them the image of an ox. Behold the people of God, whom He had
   brought out of Egypt, bowing before the image of an ox that eats
   grass--an image which Moses, in sarcasm, styled a calf! They turned the
   Glory of the invisible God into that of a brute beast and said--"These
   are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of
   Egypt." Then they degraded themselves and laid their manhood prostrate
   on the ground in adoration of the image of a bull. How is humanity
   fallen!

   For century after century this was always the tendency of Israel, the
   most spiritual race of men upon the face of the earth. This race,
   educated by miracle and instructed by Revelation, continually went
   aside after the gods of the heathen! Abraham, among his own descendants
   after the flesh, had few who were like he in his high spiritual faith.
   The world of spiritual realities seems to be too bright, too holy for
   the best of such gross and carnal beings as we are.

   The people of Isaiah's day were like the rest of their race--they
   showed their unspiritualness and their inability to walk in the light
   of the Lord by making their own wealth their chief confidence. We read
   at verse seven--"Their land is also full of silver and gold, neither is
   there any end of their treasures." And then it is added, "Their land is
   also full of idols." Alas, this idolatry of wealth is common among
   God's people even at this day! "Give us this day our daily bread" is a
   prayer which falls far short of the general desires even of Christian
   people! Our demands are for luxuries--and plenty of them. Many would be
   coming down very terribly in the world if they had to receive from
   hand-to-mouth fashion-- day by day their daily bread! Yet the Lord
   Jesus has put these words into our mouth. The Providence of God is, to
   some professing Christians, a mere dream--they cannot rest till they
   have something more substantial to rely upon than the care of Heaven.
   You think I am sarcastic? Is it not true? See how your professed
   Believers hunger to make sure of the main chance--as eagerly as the
   merest worldlings, they scrape and they hoard! I have not a word to say
   against that Scriptural prudence which bids us, like the ant, lay by in
   store for wintry times. But I speak of the hunger to be rich and of the
   selfish expenditure which entirely forgets that our substance is to be
   used for the Glory of God, and that we are only stewards. I ask again,
   do not many slave, hoard and grasp as if there were no promise in the
   Scriptures of temporal provision from God's own right hand--and no
   exhortation to lay up our treasures in Heaven? Are we liars? Do we say
   that all that we are and have is the Lord's--and do we, after saying
   this, live for ourselves as if there were no redemption and no
   hereafter? That there should be need for the preacher to raise such
   questions is an indication that there is a common tendency to worship
   wealth, or at least to regard it as a substantial support.

   Nations also, like the Israelite people, are apt to idolize power. Yes,
   even power in the form of brute force. We read--"Their land is also
   full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots." Cavalry
   and war chariots were as much in repute in that age on land as
   ironclads are at this day upon the sea! And Israel trusted to these.
   Jehovah was the guardian of His people, the Lord of Hosts is His name.
   He, alone, was a match for Egypt and Babylon, but the kings of Israel
   and Judah did not think so! They could not feel secure without great
   armies. They must multiply their horses and their chariots. They forgot
   that "a horse is a vain thing for safety"--they knew not that only in
   the Lord is the salvation of His people.

   The same feeling crops up among God's people at this day. We pine for
   visible power--it may be physical or men-tal--as the case requires, but
   we thirst to have it available, embodied in some human form. We cannot
   rest upon God, alone, and feel that when we are weak we are strong. The
   Lord takes no pleasure in the strength of the horse nor in the legs of
   a man, but His people often do. Eloquence, cleverness, intellect--these
   are still the idols which the Church dotes upon! She has not yet
   understood the words, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,
   says the Lord." Still we make too much of the instrument and too little
   of the Divine Worker! Still is there more expected from music,
   architecture and oratory, than from the simple Gospel and the attendant
   working of the Holy Spirit! How can men be brought to trust in the
   invisible God! Alas, it is still true, "Their land is also full of
   idols: the mean man bows down and the great man humbles himself." O
   Church of God, how long will it be before you believe your God?

   These people, in the heat of their idolatry, set up many idols. They
   made anything into a god. He that was so impoverished that he could not
   make a god of silver, would make an idol out of a tree which would not
   rot--and having carved and gilded it--he prostrated himself before it!
   To what a height of folly has a man come when he can do this? You tell
   me that this idolatry is confined to heathen countries--alas, it is not
   so--idolatry is common even here! "Little children, keep yourselves
   from idols," is a text that still needs to be preached from--yes, to be
   preached in Christian congregations, for idols will intrude themselves
   into the sanctuary of the Lord! The forms and shapes of modern idols
   are many and crafty. We see no elephant-headed deity such as is the
   fear of the Hindus, and no absurd fetish such as the African
   dreads--but more dangerous because more subtle and secret--forms of
   idolatry are allowed to remain in our midst! Oh that the Lord would
   fulfill in His people the Word, "The idols He shall utterly abolish"!

   May we not easily make idols of ourselves? Almost before we are aware
   of it, we may be thus debased. What more degrading than for a man to
   worship himself? We read of some whose god is their belly--this is the
   grosser part of self. What heathen ever worshipped his own belly? Yet
   we all too much trust in ourselves at times--what is this but idolatry?
   Do we not seek ourselves in a measure--is not this idolatry? Do we not
   reverence our own achievements and attain-ments--in what does this
   differ from idolatry? Many gods and many lords have men made unto
   themselves. Like a child that must have a toy, man must have a visible
   trust and confidence. For this purpose, "he has sought out many inven-

   tions." He will even worship reptiles of the river and plants of the
   garden rather than be without a visible deity! Alas, poor foolish
   creature!

   I need not enlarge upon this. You all know how true it is that, one way
   or another, man gets away from the spiritual life which would make God
   everything to him. And he wanders into the sensual region where he
   either finds another god, or else allows some symbol or priest to stand
   between him and God. Our nature is so twisted and biased through sin
   that we seem to be under the witchery of idolatry!

   As I have already said, there is nothing more absurd in the history of
   human nature than the fact that man is apt to trust in man. To worship
   something superior to myself is bad enough if it is not God--but to
   begin to put my dependence upon a man like myself or upon myself and so
   to allow man, who at the best is a sorry creature--to take the place of
   God is, indeed, a wantonness of evil! Do you wonder that God has
   pronounced a curse upon this provoking folly, this insult to His Divine
   Majesty? Hear the words of this anathema--"Cursed be the man that
   trusts in man and makes flesh his arm." The sin is none the less
   accursed because of its commonness. That which God blesses is blest,
   indeed, and that which He curses is cursed with an emphasis!

   Concerning that sin so common and so accursed I have to speak at this
   time. May the Lord bless the word that we may be kept from the
   transgression! Here is the text--"Cease you from man, whose breath is
   in his nostrils: for of what account is he?"

   We will handle the text thus--First, What is man? Answer--"His breath
   is in his nostrils." Secondly, What is to be our relation to man?
   "Cease you from man." And thirdly, Why should we cease from him? It is
   answered by another question, "For of what account is he?" This puts
   the question--What is there in him or about him that renders him a
   proper object of reverence or confidence? May the Holy Spirit send us a
   profitable meditation!

   I. Our first enquiry is, WHAT IS MAN? This question is asked many times
   in Scripture and it has been frequently answered with a copiousness of
   instruction. David even asks of Heaven, "Lord, what is man?" I will
   not, however, go over all that wide expanse of thought which the Bible
   puts before us, but simply answer the enquiry from the point of view of
   our text.

   What is man? He is assuredly a very feeble creature. He must be weak,
   for, "his breath is in his nostrils." We measure the strength of a
   chain by its weakest link. If other links are strong, yet if one is
   ready to snap, we judge that the whole chain is far from strong and is
   not to be depended upon. See, then, how weak man is, for he is
   weakness, itself, in a vital point! He has bones that may be hard and
   durable. And he has many a strong sinew, tough and wiry, as we
   sometimes say. But there is a weak point about him which is found in a
   matter on which his life depends, namely, his breath! And what is our
   breath? A vapor which we scarcely see--a thing so unsubstantial that
   when we have it, we scarcely see it-- and yet when we lose it, life is
   gone from us! Our earthly existence depends upon our breath and that
   breath is mere wind!

   How feeble must that creature be whose vitality rests on a foundation
   so airy and unsubstantial as mere breath! A vapor is not more fleeting!
   We talk of strong men. Is any man strong? We speak of the strength of
   our constitutions-- how is that strong which depends upon a puff of
   air? It is a marvel that so frail a life is not sooner ended. That we
   live is miraculous! That we die is but natural. Readily enough may that
   house fall which is built, not on sand, but on air! Dr. Watts has well
   said--

   "Our life contains a thousand springs And fails if one is gone! Strange
   that a harp of a thousand strings Should keep in tune so long!"

   Dust we are and that dust hastens to dissolve--and so to return to the
   kindred dust of the earth. Under our feet are our graves and above us
   are the stars which will soon look down upon our silent tombs. The
   trees cast their leaves, but they grow green, again. We shed our life's
   glories once and they return no more! Thus the trees outlive us and
   beneath their shade we are reminded that man is far more frail than the
   tree which he fells with the axe. Yes, the very grass which he mows
   outlives the mower! Man is a mere shadow--we have scarcely time to say
   that we are before we are not! Are we not foolish if we place our
   reliance upon such a feeble creature--so weak that his breath, his
   unsubstantial breath--is essential to his life? Who are you, O man,
   that trusts in man? If you have half a grain of wisdom left, how can
   you quit the ever-living God and put your reliance upon a poor creature
   who is as the grass--that today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven?
   Go, rest on a reed, or ride on a moth, or build on a bubble--but rely
   not on a man!

   Moreover, man is a frail creature, for his strength must be measured by
   his fleeting breath, and that breath is in his nostrils. It seems as
   though his life in his breath stood at the gates, ready to be gone,
   since it is in his nostrils. The text says not that his breath is in
   his lungs, deep, hidden below, but in his nostrils--at the door--in the
   most exposed part of the face. It is at two open portals which can
   never be shut--as if it meant to secure an easy exit at any moment.
   Brothers and Sisters, there are 10,000 gates to death! One man is
   choked by a grape. Another dies through sleeping in a newly whitewashed
   room. One receives death as he passes by a reeking sewer. Another finds
   it in the best kept house, or by a chill taken on a walk. Those who
   study neither to eat nor to drink anything unwholesome, nor go into
   quarters where the arrows of death are flying, yet pass away all of a
   sudden--falling from their couch into a coffin--from their seat into
   the sepulcher!

   The other day one of our own Brothers sat down in his chair to sleep a
   moment, but it was his last sleep. Another stumbled in his own room,
   never again to rise! These men were apparently in good health. Life is
   never sure for an instant. How can we place our trust in a creature
   which is so soon gone? Shall we make the insect of an hour the object
   of our fond affection and our chief dependence? How can we be so
   foolish as to trust our treasure in a purse made of such a spider's
   web? The vault should be fit for the treasure--do you mean to trust
   your soul's confidence to a man who shall die--that may die in an hour?
   I asked, What is man? But before the question is answered, I have to
   ask, "Where is he?" He is gone like a watch in the night! How can we
   make a dying man the object of a living trust? "Cease you from man,
   whose breath is in his nostrils."

   Man is a weak and frail creature--he is also a dying creature. Need I
   further enlarge upon this? To our sorrow, many of us know that it is
   so. Some of you had fathers of your flesh, but they passed away and you
   were fatherless before you could earn your bread. Had not God preserved
   the orphan, you had been miserable, indeed. Some of you once leaned
   upon a manly arm and looked up into the smiling face of a husband. But
   the dear one has been laid in a grave wet with floods of tears--it is
   well for you that your Maker dies not. There are those here who once
   enjoyed dear friendships-- these seemed essential to your lives--but
   ruthless Death has torn Jonathan away from David. It has come closer
   and stolen the child from its mother and the wife from the husband. Man
   is always dying while he lives. Oh, set not all your love, or much of
   your confidence, or any of your worship upon a creature that will soon
   be worms' meat!

   Contemplate the dead! What do you think, now, of your idol? You who
   could sit down by the hour together and revel in the sight and company
   of your beloved object, what think you now of that which you doted on?
   If you could see it uncovered after a few days you would say, "Deliver
   me from this noisome smell, this horrible corruption, this dreadful
   mass of decay!" How could you ever be so vain and foolish and bereft of
   reason as to make a thing that comes to this, your trust and
   confidence? The Prophet asks, "Who are you, that you should be afraid
   of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as
   grass; and forgets the Lord your Maker, who has stretched forth the
   heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth?" In this he rebukes our
   fears, but equally rebukes our carnal trusts.

   But I think that the text also reminds us that man is a very fickle
   creature. His breath is in his "nostrils." That is where he wears his
   life and this hints to us that he is sadly changeable. As his breath is
   affected by his health, so is he changed. Today he loves and tomorrow
   he hates! He promises fair, but he forgets his words! He swears that he
   will be faithful unto death, but soon he betrays the confidence reposed
   in him. No dependence can be wisely placed in him. O man! O woman!
   Change is written on your brow! The lapse of years alters you! Yes, the
   flight of days and hours suffices to transform you! We may better trust
   the winds and waves than you!

   David said in his haste, "All men are liars." That may not be quite
   true and may bear the mark of hasty judgement, but it is a rough-hewn
   truth which is far more accurate than flattering compliments. David
   might have deliberated and then have said very much the same thing with
   great certainty. In some senses the broad verdict is correct as it
   stands, for if we make an arm of flesh our trust, to whomever that arm
   belongs, we shall find that we have rested on a broken reed! In the
   time of our calamity, when we most need help, we shall find that mortal
   assistance is either gone through falsehood, or is incompetent through
   feebleness. Then shall we know the curse of trusting in man, whose
   breath is in his nostrils!

   Who will stand by us when we are slandered? Does not winter make all
   the swallows take to their wings? Who can help us when the soul is in
   despair? O my Brothers and Sisters, who can help us when our spirit is
   wounded, when the arrows of grief pierce our heart? Who can help us
   when we come to die? When the mysteries of eternity darken around us

   and we quit the light of day, what friend or fond one can be at our
   side as we enter the unknown land? There are certain points of life in
   which every man must tread a lonely pathway. We then need God--and if
   we have made a god of any man, what shall we do? Ah me, what reason we
   have to look to Him who is always the same! Remember how He says, "I am
   the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed."

   If you read the chapter through, you will also find that man is a
   trembling creature, a cowardly creature, a creature who, indeed, if he
   were not cowardly, yet has abundant reason to fear. Read from the 19th
   verse--"They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves
   of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty,
   when He arises to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall
   cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each
   one, for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into
   the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear
   of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake
   terribly the earth."

   Think of the days of Divine wrath and especially of the last dread day
   of Judgement--and of the dismay which will then seize upon many of the
   proud and the great! Are you going to make these your confidants? Are
   you going to give up Christ for the sake of the smile of these who will
   wail in terror when He comes? Is it so, that for the sake of some young
   man or woman who loves not God--and one day must quail before the
   coming Judge--you will let your Lord and Savior go? It is concerning
   such a temptation as this that the text thunders at you--"Cease you
   from man, whose breath is in his nostrils," who will fear and fly and
   lose his breath in very dread at the appearing of the Lord. Cease to
   regard these as the fond objects of your love and trust, lest the curse
   of God should lie upon your soul throughout eternity! O my Hearers,
   hearken to this!

   So much concerning what man is, according to our text. Is it not a
   powerful argument against placing man where only God should be?

   II. Secondly, WHAT IS TO BE OUR RELATION TO MAN, or what does the text
   mean when it says, "Cease you from man"?

   It implies, does it not, that we very probably already have too much to
   do with this poor creature, man? We cannot "cease" from that with which
   we have nothing to do! The text implies that in all probability we have
   catered into connections with man which will need changing. We may even
   require to reverse our present conduct, break up unions, cancel
   alliances and alter the whole tenor of our conduct.

   "Cease you from man" means, first, cease to idolize him in your love.
   Do any of you idolize any living person? Answer honestly. It is very
   common to idolize children. A mother who had lost her babe fretted and
   rebelled about it. She happened to be in a meeting of the Society of
   Friends and there was nothing spoken that morning except this word by
   one female friend who was moved, I doubt not, by the Spirit of God to
   say, "Verily, I perceive that children are idols." She did not know the
   condition of that mourner's mind, but it was the right word and she to
   whom God applied it knew how true it was! She submitted her rebellious
   will and, at once, was comforted! Cease you from these little men and
   women, for, though you prize them so, they are of the race from which
   you are to cease! Cease you from them, for their breath is in their
   nostrils and, indeed, it is but feebly there in childhood. A proper and
   right love of children should be cultivated, but to carry this beyond
   its due measure is to grieve the Spirit of God. If you make idols of
   children, you have done the worst you can for them, whether they live
   or die. Cease from such folly!

   I will not go into the many instances in which men have been idolized
   politically, or idolized by a blind following of their teaching. You
   can idolize a minister, you can idolize a poet, you can idolize a
   patron--but in so doing, you break the first and greatest of the
   commandments--and you anger the Most High. He declares Himself to be a
   jealous God and He will not yield His Throne to another. Upon any who
   are thus erring, let me press the text home--"Cease you from man, whose
   breath is in his nostrils: for of what account is he?"

   Next, "Cease you from man"--cease to idolize him in your trust. There
   is a measure of confidence that we may place in good and gracious men,
   for they are worthy of it. But a blind confidence in any man is
   altogether evil. I care not who he may be, you cannot read his
   heart--and some of the greatest deceptions that have ever been worked
   in this world have been accomplished by persons who seemed to be
   self-evidently honest and sincere. I remember conversing with a person
   who was concerned in one of the great speculations which brought loss
   and ruin to many--and as I looked into his honest face and heard his
   open-hearted talk, I said to myself--"This is not a man who is capable
   of robbery. He is a plain, blunt, farmer-like sort of man who might
   even be the victim of the confidence trick."

   I afterwards learned that this is the usual style of the man who puffs
   a company, or betrays a trust. Of course, if a man looks like a thief,
   you button up your pockets and smile if he invites you to take shares!
   But you are off your guard when the man appears to be the embodiment of
   simple honesty. The woman in the omnibus who picks your pocket looks
   like the last person to be capable of such a thing--and this is why she
   is able to do it. Transfer this knowledge to other matters and it may
   save you sorrow. If you get to trusting anybody with a blind confidence
   beyond what you ought to give and, especially, if you trust your soul
   with any priest or preacher, whoever he may be, you are a fool and your
   folly may turn out to be an everlasting mischief which can never be
   undone! Hear this and learn what God would teach you-- "Cease you from
   man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for of what account is he?" Do
   not idolize man by laying yourself at his feet, or following him in the
   dark, for it will not only be, in itself, a folly, but it will bring
   you under the curse of my text.

   Cease to idolize any man by giving him undue honor. There is an honor
   to be paid to all, for the Apostle says, "Honor all men." A measure of
   courtesy and respect is to be paid to every person--and peculiarly to
   those whose offices demand it--therefore is it written, "Honor the
   king." Some, also, by their character, deserve much respect from their
   fellow men and I trust we shall never refuse "honor to whom honor is
   due." But there is a limit to this, or we shall become sycophants and
   slaves and, what is worse, idolaters! It grieves one to see how certain
   persons dare not even think, much less speak, till they have asked how
   other people think. In some congregations there are weak people who do
   not know whether they have liked the sermon till they have asked a
   certain venerable critic to whom they act as echoes! The bulk of people
   are like a flock of sheep--there is a gap--and if one sheep goes
   through, all will follow.

   If the ringleader should happen to be an infidel or a new-theology man,
   so much the worse! If he should happen to be orthodox, it is much
   better in some ways, but then it is a pity that people should follow
   the Truth of God in so thoughtless a manner. Public opinion is a poor
   substitute for conscience and is no substitute at all for righteousness
   and truth! Because the general opinion bids you bow down before this
   man or that, will you do so? Will you forget God, conscience, right,
   truth--and ask another man to tell you when you may breathe? God's
   people should scorn such groveling! If the Son shall make you free, you
   will be free, indeed. Jesus loves that the soldiers in His host should
   acknowledge His su-premacy--but once acknowledging Him as Lord, He
   would have them feel that no man or set of men shall draw them away
   from His Word, either in doctrine or in precept. Worship is for God
   only! Render it to Him and, "Cease from man, whose breath is in his
   nostrils."

   Equally does the text bid us cease from the fear of man. Oh, how many
   are kept from doing right through some man or some woman, wealthy
   relative, or influential friend! Are there not men in workshops who
   join with others in their ribaldry because they are afraid to speak out
   lest they should be laughed at and marked as hypocrites? Are there not
   persons in well-to-do circles who must attend a certain place of
   worship because all the respectable people go there? No matter which
   way conscience would take them, they are bound to follow the
   fashion--the fear of men is upon them. They do not want to be despised
   and remarked upon. But, my dear Friends, if any of you are doing wrong
   under fear of men, do not excuse yourselves, but at once obey the Word
   of God which says, "Cease you from man, whose breath is in his
   nostrils." Who are you that you should set man before God? Is not this
   a grievous presumption? The fear of God ought so to be before your eyes
   that the fear of man will not weigh with you in the least. "I fear
   man," said one, "but I fear God infinitely more"--this was near the
   mark. Our Lord said, "Fear not him that can kill the body, but
   afterwards has no more that he can do; but fear Him who can cast both
   body and soul into Hell; yes, I say unto you, Fear Him." Dismiss the
   cowardly fear which would make you false to your convictions in any
   degree! And thus, "cease from man."

   Once more, cease from being worried about men. We ought to do all we
   can for our fellow men to set them right and keep them right, both by
   teaching and by example. But certain folks think that everything must
   go according to their wishes--and if we cannot see eye to eye with
   them--they worry themselves and us! This is not right and that is not
   right and, indeed, nothing is right but what is hammered on their
   anvil. Let us please our neighbor for his good, for edifica-tion--but
   let us not become men-pleasers, nor grieve inordinately because
   unreasonable persons are not satisfied with us. To our own Master we
   stand or fall! And interfering brethren must be so good as to remember
   that we are not their servants, but we serve the Lord Christ.

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, let us not be unduly cast down if we
   cannot set everybody right. Truly, the body politic, common society and
   especially the Church, may cause us great anxiety. But be still, the
   Lord reigns--and we are

   not to let ourselves die of grief. After all, our Lord does not expect
   us to rectify everything, for He only requires of us what He enables us
   to do. We are not magistrates, nor dictators--and when we have done our
   best and kept our own garments clean, and given earnest warning and
   cried unto God by reason of the evil of the times--then this Word comes
   in, "Cease you from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for of what
   account is he?"

   "But they say." What do they say? Let them say! It will not hurt you if
   you can only gird up the loins of your mind and cease from man. "Oh,
   but they have accused me of this and that." Is it true? "No, Sir, it is
   not true. And that is why it grieves me." That is why it should not
   grieve you! If it were true, it ought to trouble you, but if it is not
   true, let it alone! If an enemy has said anything against your
   character, it will not always be worth while to answer him. Silence has
   both dignity and argument in it. Nine times out of 10, if a boy makes a
   blot in his copybook and borrows a knife to take it out, he makes the
   mess 10 times worse and, as in your case, there is no blot, after all.
   You need not make one by attempting to remove what is not there. All
   the dirt that falls upon a good man will brush off when it is dry--but
   let him wait till it is dry--and not dirty his hands with wet mud.
   "Cease you from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."

   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let us think more of God and less of
   man! Come, let the Lord our God fill the whole horizon of our thoughts.
   Let our love go forth to Him. Let us delight ourselves in Him. Let us
   trust in Him that lives forever, in Him whose promise never fails, in
   Him who will be with us in life, in death and through eternity! Oh that
   we lived more in the society of Jesus, more in the sight of God! Let
   man go behind our back and Satan, too. We cannot spend our lives in
   seeking the smiles of men, for pleasing God is the one objective we
   pursue. Our hands, our heads and our hearts--and all that we have and
   are--find full occupation for the Lord and, therefore, we must, "Cease
   from man."

   Cease you from man because you have come to know the best of men, who
   is more than man, even the Lord Jesus Christ! And He has so fully
   become the beloved of your souls, that none can compare with Him. Rest
   in Christ as to your sins--and cease from priests! Rest, also, in the
   great Father as to your Providential cares--why rest in men when He
   cares for you? Rest in the Holy Spirit as to your spiritual needs--why
   do you need to depend on man? Yes, throw yourself wholly and entirely
   upon the God All-Sufficient--El Shaddai, as Scripture calls Him. Some
   read it, "The Many-Breasted God," who is able to supply from Himself
   all the needs of His creatures. He will do for us exceedingly
   abundantly above all that we ask or even think! "O rest in the Lord,
   and wait patiently for Him," and cease you from man!

   That was a wise and tender word of our Savior to the woman who had
   washed His feet. He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven you." And
   then, as they began to quibble at her and talk about the expense and
   the waste of the ointment, He added to her, "Your faith has saved you;
   go in peace"--as much as to say, "They are going to have a discussion
   about you, but you go out of earshot of it. They are going to criticize
   what you have done. Do not tarry to hear them, but go home. I have
   accepted you. Let that be enough for you--never mind them. You do not
   need to know their opinions."

   Oftentimes to a child of God it is the best advice that can be
   given--"Go in peace." Certain doubters are about to argue. Let them
   argue to themselves, but you go in peace! Why do you need to know the
   last new doubt? Would you like to taste the last new poison? "Prove all
   things," but when it has been proved to be evil, have done with it. You
   do not need to hear that which can only tend to stagger your faith and
   defile your conscience! You have heard enough of that stuff already--go
   in peace. When men begin to quibble at Christ and the Doctrines of
   Grace, cease from them! Steal away to Jesus in private prayer. Five
   minutes' communion with your Lord will be worth five years of this idle
   talk! Go in peace and, "Cease from man, whose breath is in his
   nostrils."

   Do you hear that professor declare that there is no God? And another
   that there is no Providence? And another that there is no atoning
   Sacrifice--and another that there is no hereafter? Now that we know
   that a mad dog is about, let us keep out of his way! It does not matter
   who he is--we have nothing to do with him. When a thief meets me, I
   need not stay to say, "Good night" to him. Cease you from such a man,
   for the very breath of his nostrils breathes death to that which is
   good!

   III. We finish with that last question--WHY ARE WE TO CEASE FROM MAN?
   The answer is, because he is nothing to be accounted of. Begin, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, by ceasing from yourselves. Every man must cease
   from himself, first, and then he must cease from all men as his hope
   and his trust because neither ourselves nor others are worthy of such
   confidence. "For of what account is he?" If his breath is in his
   nostrils, see how short his life is--"Of what account is he?" If his
   breath is in his nostrils, see how weak he is--"Of what account is he?"
   If his breath is in his nostrils, see how fickle he is--"Of what
   account is he?"

   What figure shall I put down for man? Some men would wish to have
   themselves written down at a very high figure, but a cipher is quite
   sufficient! Write man at nothing and you are somewhat above the mark.
   "For of what account is he?" Compared with God, man is less than
   nothing and vanity! Reckon him so and act upon the reckoning. If there
   were no men on the face of the earth, how would you live? If only God
   filled all your thoughts and all your heart, how would you live? Live
   just so! Then if there are a trillion men upon the face of the
   globe--or more--they will not sway you. If the city teems with them and
   if the forum is disturbed with their noise--and if they ride up to the
   capitol in triumph--what of it? We have ceased from them and we shall
   never have cause to regret it, for they will be no loss to us! If we
   try to reckon up what the loss might be if we lost their aid, it comes
   to nothing, "For of what account is he?" Cease from them and go
   straight on in the path of faith and duty, resting in God and believing
   in Him. Care nothing for the vanity of vanities, but trust in the
   Verity of verities, even God, Himself!

   This is a special subject and someone will ask, "Can such a text as
   this be useful for the ungodly?" Yes, it hits the nail on the head!
   Some of you have been trying to save yourselves. "Cease you from man."
   You have been looking to your feelings. You have been looking to your
   works. You have been looking to this and that of your own--cease you
   altogether from that evil man--yourself "For of what account is he?"
   Some of you have kept back from Christ because you have made much of
   this poor nobody that is crushed before the moth--this worm of the
   earth--this mere vapor! Now, rise above your dead selves and think more
   of God! Believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of them that
   diligently seek Him--and may His Holy Spirit help you, now, to come and
   commit your souls into the hands of the risen Redeemer, even He who is
   able to save you and keep you to the end! God so help you, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Child Of Light Walking In Darkness

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 25, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Who amongyou fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His servant? Who
   walks in darkness and has no Light? Let him trust in the name of the
   Lord, and rely upon his God." Isaiah 50:10.

   SEE how the Lord inquires of His people? In every congregation He asks
   this question--"Who among you fears the Lord?" These are the wheat upon
   the threshing floor. As to the thoughtless, "What is the chaff to the
   wheat? says the Lord." The Lord's heart is towards the hearts that fear
   Him and He makes enquiry concerning them because He loves them, cares
   for them and helps them in their day of trouble.

   Observe how clearly the Lord describes His own people. The description
   is brief, but remarkably full--"Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys
   the voice of His servant?" Holy reverence within the heart and careful
   obedience manifested in the life--these are the two Infallible marks of
   the true man of God. He fears his God and, therefore, he obeys that
   heavenly messenger whom God has sent. No servant of God except One has
   such authority over us that we are bound to obey Him in all
   things--that Servus servorum, that Servant of servants--who was also
   Rex regum, the King of kings! It is the mark of the child of God that
   he has a holy awe of the Father and that he pays gracious obedience to
   the Son of God. The Lord knows them that are His and from that perfect
   knowledge He draws this short but sufficient outline of the character
   of His own. May holy fear and constant obedience be in us and abound!

   Note that the Lord not only makes an enquiry of these people, but He
   takes note of their condition. He is not indifferent to their state.
   When they walk in darkness, He is with them. And when they have no
   light, He still beholds them. The Lord is very sensitive to the sorrows
   of His chosen and very quick to help them. When He finds them walking
   in darkness, He graciously counsels and advises them, so that He may
   most effectually help them. Thus says the gracious Lord to the
   benighted one--"Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon
   his God." That same God who says of His vineyard, "I the Lord do keep
   it; I will water it every moment lest any hurt it. I will keep it night
   and day," also spies out His children in the dark and, looking upon
   them with an eye of tender love, He directs their course. This is the
   Word of Wisdom by which He directs each one of them through the
   darkness--"Let Him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon his
   God."

   To come at once to the text without further preface, I shall notice,
   first, what is this condition in which some of God's people are found?
   They walk in darkness and have no light. Secondly, what is there to
   trust to when a man is in such a condition? All is dark and there is no
   light--and he is then bid to trust. What is there to trust to? Thirdly,
   why should we thus trust? What is the warrant for trusting at such a
   time? And fourthly, what will come of such a trust? If a man really
   exhibits confidence in God when he has no light, what will be the end
   of his confidence?

   I. First, then, WHAT IS THIS CONDITION INTO WHICH A CHILD OF GOD MAY
   COME? The person described is one that fears the Lord and obeys the
   voice of His servant, yet "walks in darkness, and has no light."

   To many who know nothing of Christian experience, this condition might
   seem to be a surprising one. Shall the child of light walk in darkness?
   The normal condition of a child of God is to walk in the light, as God
   is in the light, and to have fellowship with Him. How comes he, then,
   to have no light? He that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has passed
   from darkness to light and he shall never come into condemnation--how,
   then, does he come into darkness? In the darkness of sin and ignorance
   we no longer walk, but with the darkness of trouble and perplexity we
   are sometimes surrounded.

   The Lord is our Light and our Salvation and, therefore, we do not walk
   in that darkness wherein the Prince of Darkness rules supreme. But yet,
   at times we are in the gloom of sadness and we see no light of
   consolation. It is not al-

   ways so. Many Christian people go on year after year in uninterrupted
   sunshine--and I do not see why we should not all look upon continued
   joy in the Lord as possible to ourselves. Why should not our peace flow
   on like an ever-widening river? Those of you who are always bright,
   need not be afraid of your gladness. O Lord, we are now and then in the
   dark, but we do not wish others to be so! Spiritual darkness of any
   sort is to be avoided and not desired and yet, surprising as it may
   seem to be, it is a fact that some of the best of God's people
   frequently walk in darkness! Yes, some of them are wrapt in a sevenfold
   gloom at times and, to them, neither sun, nor moon, nor stars appear.

   As the pastor of a large Church, I have to observe a great variety of
   experiences and I note that some whom I greatly love and esteem, who
   are, in my judgement, among the very choicest of God's people,
   nevertheless, travel most of the way to Heaven by night. They do not
   rejoice in the light of God's Countenance, though they trust in the
   shadow of His wings. They are on the way to eternal light and yet they
   walk in darkness! Heirs of a measureless estate of bliss, they are now
   without the small change and spending money of comfort which would make
   their present existence delightful. It is idle to attempt to judge a
   man's real character before God by his present state of feeling. You
   may be full of mirth and yet it may be the crackling of thorns under a
   pot, which is noisy for the time, but is soon over.

   On the other hand, you may be bowed down with sorrow, and yet it may
   only be that "light affliction which is but for a moment," which works
   out, for you, "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." We
   should have thought, judging after the manner of men, that the good
   were always happy, as one of our children's songs so positively
   declares. When first brought home to the great Father, we thought that
   henceforth it would be all music and dancing and fatted calf, world
   without end! But it is not so--we have heard the elder brother's
   ungenerous voice since then--and we have found out many things which we
   wish we could forget. We dreamed that the year would be summer
   throughout all its months--the time of the singing of birds was
   come--and we reckoned that it was to continue through the year. Alas,
   the birds have ceased their songs and the swallows are pluming their
   wings to depart! And in a few days we shall be walking among the
   falling leaves and preparing our winter garments with which to meet the
   biting frosts. We have not found perfect bliss beneath the moon.

   If, instead ofjudging by the sight of our eyes, we had turned to the
   records of the family of God, we would long ago have been made aware of
   our ideal Heaven below. It is written, "Whom the Lord loves, He
   chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." Between the head of
   the way and the Celestial City, the road is rough and the nights are
   long. They that go on pilgrimage tell us of the Delectable Mountains
   and they dilate upon the glittering hilltops of glory which they have
   seen from afar when gazing from Mount Clear--but they also warn us of
   the Hill Difficulty and especially of the Valley of the Shadow of
   Death--through which all those must force their way who are resolved to
   go on pilgrimage to the City of God. Be not, therefore, surprised as
   though some strange thing had happened to you, if you find yourself in
   darkness, for this text warns you of what you may expect. We may fear
   God and carefully obey His ser-vant--and yet we may be out after dark
   and find the streets of daily life as foggy and obscure for us as for
   others!

   This condition is a severe test of Grace. Now we shall see how far the
   man's courage is of the right sort. Darkness is an evil that our soul
   does not love and, by it, all our faculties are tried. If you are in
   your own house in the dark, it does not matter, though children do not
   like to be put to bed in the dark even in their own little room. But if
   you are on a journey and you come to a wild moor, or a vast forest, or
   to terrible mountains, it appalls you to find that the sun is setting
   and that you will be abroad in the dark. Darkness has a terrible power
   of causing fear--its mystery is an influence creating dread. It is not
   what we see that we dread so much as that which we do not see and,
   therefore, exaggerate!

   When darkness lowers down upon the Believer's mind, it is a great trial
   to his heart. He cries, "Where am I? How did I come here? If I am a
   child of God, why am I thus? Did I really repent and obtain light so as
   to escape the darkness of sin? If so, why am I conscious of this thick
   gloom? Did I really joy in Christ and think I had received the
   Atonement? Why, then, has the sun of my joy gone down so hopelessly?
   Where are, now, the loving kindnesses of the Lord?" The good man begins
   to question himself as to every point of his profession, for in the
   dark he cannot even judge himself. What is worse, he sometimes
   questions the Truth of God which he has received and doubts the very
   ground on which his feet are resting! Satan will come in with vile
   insinuations questioning everything, even as he questioned God's Word
   when he ruined our race in the Garden.

   It is possible, at such times, even to question the existence of the
   God we love, though we still cling to Him with desperate resolve! We
   undergo a life and death struggle while we hold on to the Divine
   Truths. We are, at times, sorely put

   to it and scarcely know what to do. Like the mariners with whom Paul
   sailed, we cast four anchors out of the stern and look for the day. Oh,
   that we could be certain that we are the Lord's! Oh, that we could
   apprehend the sure promises of the Lord and our portion in them! For a
   while the darkness is all around us and we perceive no candle of the
   Lord, or spark of experimental light with which to break the gloom.
   This darkness is very trying to faith, trying to love, trying to hope,
   trying to patience, trying to every Grace of the spiritual man. Blessed
   is the man who can endure this test!

   While it is thus trying, it is also very sorrowful. It is a pleasant
   thing for the eyes to behold the sun and a painful thing to be without
   it. We are in heaviness at such times. The darkness which is spoken of
   in the text includes Providential trial of many sorts. At the present
   moment, many of God's people are in the dark in reference to their
   temporal circumstances. Business used to prosper and things went well
   with them, but everything runs the other way at this season. They were
   not ambitious to accumulate great riches--they were perfectly satisfied
   if they had bread to eat and raiment to put on--but now even this seems
   to be denied them. They are out of work, or business is gradually dying
   out and their means of support will soon disappear. This is a new trial
   for those who have had abundance and, naturally, it makes them walk in
   darkness. Oh, you that have a superfluity of this world's goods, you
   little know the darkness which comes over the hearts of God's servants
   when they are not able to provide things honest in the sight of all
   men--and are afraid that the Lord's name will be evilly spoken of
   because they cannot meet their engagements! When parents look at their
   dear children and wonder where the next meal of bread will come from,
   times are dark, indeed! Still, mark you, this is not the darkness-- the
   darkness which might be felt. Many of God's people, by reason of a
   strong faith, are happier in their adversity than they were in their
   prosperity. I have known them ride on the crest of the wave which
   threatened to wreck them. They have also rejoiced in tribulations,
   finding that in them the Lord blesses them with special favor.

   The real darkness has come when our evidences of Grace are no longer
   visible and Conscience pronounces an adverse verdict. As the Psalmist
   says, "We see not our signs." The marks of Grace are hidden.
   Self-examination fails to reveal to the conscience the Infallible marks
   of the Holy Spirit's work within the soul--and then the child of God
   feels that he is in an evil case. While I know I am the son of God, I
   am undismayed--but when my sonship is in doubt, I am distressed,
   indeed. If a clear sense of God's love is also withdrawn from the soul,
   darkness follows. He that used to rejoice in that love which passes
   knowledge now feels his heart to be as hard as a stone, without tender
   emotion and almost without living desire. To be dull and dead--stupid
   and unfeeling--is sad, indeed, to one who, before, could dance for joy.

   To have the life and energy of Grace decline is a grievous
   matter--better to see the flock cut off from the fold than Grace from
   the heart! At such times the Holy Spirit seems to suspend His
   comforting and quickening operations--and in that case the outward
   means are of small avail. We read the Bible and we are not cheered by
   the promises. We attend public services and the silver bells of the
   sanctuary seem to have lost their music. The rain does not fill the
   pools and when the cisterns are empty, what is the good of them? The
   Holy Spirit is leaving us for a while that we may know what poor things
   we are apart from Him--and how useless are ordinances without His
   Divine Presence in them? At such times Satan is sure, coward as he is,
   to avail himself of his opportunity. When he finds us in the dark lane,
   he falls upon us like a cutthroat. When the Lord is manifestly with us,
   he sulks off, but when he sees that darkness is round about us, he
   seeks to drive us from our faith.

   "This is your hour," said Christ, "and the power of darkness"--and we
   have had to say the same. Satan makes earnest use of his hour and it is
   no fault of his that we do not die in the dark and utterly perish from
   the way. Let it be clearly known that some of us who can, this day,
   speak with fully assured confidence, have, in days gone by, been sorely
   shaken and have cried unto the Lord out of the low dungeon! Every
   particle of the faith which I have, this day, in the Lord, my God, has
   passed through fire and through water. This flaming torch of confidence
   which burns before you this day was lighted for me when I was in
   darkness! Though we joy before the Lord as with the joy of harvest, yet
   we look back upon the time when we went forth weeping, bearing precious
   seed! All are not equally made to sorrow, but many of us are familiar
   with the wine of astonishment. Surely, at some time or other, all the
   children of God walk in darkness!

   Perhaps the worst feature of this darkness is that it is so
   bewildering. You have to walk and yet your way is hidden from your
   eyes. This is hard work. God will help His children, will He not? Yes,
   that He will, but we cannot see how! We look upward and see no
   twinkling star--downward--and do not even find a glowworm. Surely we
   shall see a candle in some window! But no, we are lost in a dark
   forest. Have we not, somewhere about us, a match that we can strike? We
   fumble for it. We find it--it is damp--we have no light! The question
   that now chills the heart is--How can God de-

   liver me? We do not see how He can make a way of escape. What
   simpletons we are to fancy that if we do not see a way of deliverance
   God does not see one, either! If you have ever steamed up the Rhine,
   you have looked before you and it has looked as if you could go no
   further--the river seemed to be a lake--great mountains and vast rocks
   blocked up all further advance. Suddenly there has been a turn in the
   stream and, at once a broad highway has been before you, inviting you
   to enter the heart of the country! Perhaps in Providence you are in one
   of those parts of the river of life where no progress appears possible.
   You are quite blocked up and this causes you darkness of mind. Cease
   from this unbelieving bewilderment! Rest in the Lord and wait patiently
   for Him--and He shall give you your heart's desire.

   Worse, still, is that bewilderment which comes upon us in the darkness
   as to what we ourselves ought to do. Men of God know, as a broad
   principle, that they are to do right, but the question is, what is
   right? Which of many courses should I take? We beg the Lord to make our
   path straight, but we cannot discover the road. We look for a signpost
   which we had seen long ago, but it is gone! We hasten to a friend, but
   he is as much perplexed as we are. This suspense is the hardest part of
   the ordeal. Not to see our way--no, not to see a foothold for the next
   step is a specially trying position! If we knew what to do, or of what
   to prepare for, we would gird our loins for the occasion. But knowing
   nothing, we are shut up and cannot go forth.

   Yet you notice in the text that this does not absolve us from daily
   duty. The text says, "Who walks in darkness and has no light." The walk
   has to be continued, though the light has departed! When it is quite
   dark, it is safe to sit down till the day dawns. If I cannot sleep, at
   any rate I can quietly rest till the sun is up. He that believes shall
   not make haste-- and in the dark it is best to tarry till the day dawns
   and the shadows flee away. That was a grand word which the Lord gave to
   Moses, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." But what if you
   cannot stand still? What if you may not remain where you are? Something
   has to be done--and done at once--and thus you are compelled to walk
   on, though you cannot see an inch before you. What but a Divine faith
   can do this? Here lies the stress of the difficulty--inaction might be
   simple, but activity in the dark--this must be the Lord's doing and we
   must cry to Him to work this work in us!

   But enough of this. I have given you a picture which some of you will
   recognize as a portrait of yourselves. Personally I have often passed
   through this dark valley--there is a bog on the right hand and a deep
   gulf on the left--and all along the murky way, the howling of the dogs
   of Hell and the hissing of evil spirits are never out of one's ears!
   And, worst of all, the whispers of the fiend make you think his vile
   suggestions to be your own thoughts. The sword in the hand becomes
   useless, for in the dark you do not know where to strike. No weapon
   remains except that of All-Prayer. To walk on all through the night and
   not to see a step before you is anxious work--and yet thousands of
   God's pilgrims who are now yonder among the shining ones, praising and
   blessing His holy name--have traversed this dreadful road. Lord, help
   us when we, also, penetrate its blackness!

   II. But now, secondly, I am going to turn to a practical part of this
   matter--WHAT IS THERE TO TRUST TO WHEN YOU ARE IN SUCH A CONDITION AS
   THAT? What is there to trust to? Well, says the text, "Let him trust in
   the name of the Lord," or, as it should be read, "in the name of
   Jehovah."

   What is there to trust in the name of Jehovah? It is, "I Am," and
   signifies His existence! This is a fine foundation for trust! Your
   friend is dead, but Jehovah is still living as the "I AM." Those who
   could have succored you have forsaken you, but He says, "I am with
   you." Trust in Him, for He Is and always will be. He says to you, "Be
   still and know that I

   am God."

   The name of the Lord contains within it, Immutability. The Lord calls
   Himself, "I am that I am"--the unchanging God! Remember how He said, "I
   am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not
   consumed"? When you cannot see an inch before you, trust in Him that
   is, that was and is to come. He is our dwelling place in all
   generations. He is the "same yesterday, today and forever" and,
   therefore, our confidence in Him should not abate. Here is a Rock under
   your feet. If you trust in an unchanging God, whose love, faithfulness
   and power cannot be diminished, however dark your way may be, then you
   have a glorious object for your faith to rest upon!

   But we understand by the name, the revealed Character of God. When you
   cannot see your way, then open this Book and try to find out what sort
   of God it is in whom you trust. See what He did in the ages past. See
   what He has promised to do in all time present. Behold His infinite
   love in the gift of His dear Son. Think of all the immeasurable
   blessings which He has prepared for them that love Him, which He has
   laid up for the golden age. As you remember what the Lord

   is and how He deals with His people, you will find light springing up
   in the midst of the thick darkness! What a joy it must have been to
   Moses when God proclaimed before him the name of the Lord! Moses had
   asked to see God's Glory and we read, "The Lord passed by before him:
   and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious,
   long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
   thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." As you study
   the glorious Character of the Lord God, whose mercy endures forever, I
   think you will find your spirit rising above the floods of your trouble
   and floating joyously upon the waters, even as the ark of Noah, in the
   day of the deluge! The name of the Lord is a strong tower. "They that
   know Your name will put their trust in You."

   By "the name of the Lord" is also meant His dear Son, for it is in
   Jesus Christ that Jehovah has proclaimed His name. Jesus says, "He that
   has seen Me has seen the Father." When it is dark around you and within
   you, then get to your Savior and think of Him--and all His sorrow and
   His victory. Picture Him before your eyes bleeding His life away upon
   the Cross for you, offering Himself up a glorious Sacrifice to put away
   your sin. And as you hear His cries and perceive the flowing of His
   blood, you will gain comfort and joy such as will turn your darkness
   into day!

   It is also good, dear Friends, when you are thinking of the name of the
   Lord, to remember that to you it signifies what you have seen of God in
   your own experience. This is His memorial or name to you. A grand thing
   it is, when at present you have no consolation, to recollect the
   consolation you enjoyed in years gone by. Oh, the days when He did help
   us, when His arm was made bare on our behalf! I remember that
   morning--you remember it, too--when the Lord brought you up out of the
   horrible pit. You said, "Blessed be His glorious name! What a
   deliverance I have had! I shall never doubt Him again!" O poor stupid,
   you are now doubting Him! But why? Do you not think that if you would
   revive those songs of the Red Sea, when you sang, "Sing unto the Lord,
   for He has triumphed gloriously," you would, today, be ashamed to doubt
   the Lord? Did not Israel pass through the sea on foot, even in the
   darkness of the night, when Pharaoh could not see his way? The Lord
   God, Himself, in the pillar of fire was the light of His people! But
   apart from that, they had no other light. And it is so with you--all
   other light is gone, but Jehovah is with you, therefore be not afraid--

   "His love in time past forbids us to think He'll leave us at last in
   trouble to sink. Each sweet Ebenezer we have in review Confirms His
   good pleasure to help us quite through." "Let him trust in the name of
   the Lord."

   But, furthermore, the text says, "Let him rely upon his God." Let him
   lean upon his God; make God his stay, his prop, his rest. This is a
   variation from the former sentence. He was to trust in the name of
   Jehovah, but now he is to rely upon "his God." You have taken God to be
   your God, have you not? If so, He has also taken you to be His own.
   There is a covenant between you--rely on that covenant. Treat it as a
   valid covenant in full force. Surely you are not dealing with a liar!
   That Covenant of the Lord which was sealed and ratified by an
   oath--surely you do not think little of it? Well, now, lean wholly and
   fully upon Him who is your Covenant God.

   Brothers and Sisters, I am often brought to this pass, that I say to
   myself--"Lord, if these Scriptures are not, indeed, a Revelation of God
   and Inspired, then it is all over with me, for I have no other hope."
   But if this Book is a faithful record of what God has said to me--and I
   am sure it is--then I cannot too confidently rest in what He has here
   recorded! I will prove the truth of His Gospel. I will rely upon His
   promise with all my might. I have never yet hung a weight upon God's
   promise too heavy for it to bear! I have never trusted God in prayer
   with a confidence beyond what I have known Him to justify. Up to now we
   have used innumerable tests and superabundant proofs--and we find the
   old Book to be true! As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified
   seven times, so have we found the promises and the Covenant of God!
   Therefore I say to you, in the language of the text, if you walk in
   darkness and have no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon
   your God.

   III. Thirdly and with great brevity, WHY SHOULD WE TRUST GOD AT SUCH
   TIMES? If the Lord has taken away the light and is trying us so
   severely, why should we trust Him now? I answer, if you do not trust
   Him now, you will have cause to suspect whether you ever trusted Him at
   all. When your children were about you and you were healthy, honored
   and prospering, you said, "I have faith in God." Was it faith if it
   departs from you, now that your children are buried, your home is
   desolate--and you are sick, old and poor? Was it faith in God at all?
   Was it not a cheerfulness which arose out of your surroundings? If you
   cannot bear to be stripped as Job was, have you the same precious faith
   as that

   man of God? Fair weather faith is a poor imitation of the real Grace! I
   entreat you to play the man and say, "Though He slays me, yet will I
   trust in Him," for if you cannot do so, your strength is small and your
   faith is questionable.

   You are now bound to trust in the Lord in the time of darkness because
   His promises were made for dark times. When a shipwright builds a
   vessel, does he build it to keep it upon the stocks? No, he builds it
   for the sea and the storm. When he was making it, he thought of
   tempests and hurricanes--if he did not, he was a poor ship builder.
   When God made you a Believer, He meant to try you--and when He gave you
   the promises and bade you trust them--He gave such promises as are
   suitable for times of tempest and tossing. Do you think God makes shams
   like some that have made belts for swimming which were good to exhibit
   in a shop, but of no use in the sea? We have all heard of swords which
   were useless in war and even of shoes which were made to sell, but were
   never meant to walk in! God's shoes are of iron and brass--and you can
   walk to Heaven in them without their ever wearing out! And His
   lifebelts, you may swim a thousand Atlantics in them and there will be
   no fear of your sinking! His Word of promise is meant to be tried and
   proved. O man, I beseech you, do not treat God's promises as if they
   were curiosities for a museum, but use them as everyday sources of
   comfort! Trust the Lord whenever your time of need comes.

   Besides, notice that here a permit is especially issued for you to
   allow you to trust in God in darkness. Thus says the Lord, "Let him
   trust." Satan says he shall not trust, but the Lord says, "Let him
   trust," and if the Lord gives us permission to trust, we will not
   suffer the world, the flesh, or the devil to keep us back from our
   privilege! "Let him trust" is our Divine warrant for reposing on the
   Lord--and we mean to use it! This is the password which lets us through
   the gates of the promise into the royal chamber of rest!

   More than this, I understand this verse to be a command to trust in the
   name of the Lord. It is an order to trust in our God up to the hilt,
   for it bids us rely ourselves upon our God. We are not fitfully to
   trust and then to fear--but to come to a reliance upon God, even as
   ships enter a haven, cast their anchors and then stay there till the
   tempest is past. Let us say, "This is my last dependence. This is my
   reliance and here I will remain forever." O Brothers and Sisters, we
   often act very foolishly, for we try to get a reliance upon ourselves!
   Did you ever hear of a captain of a vessel driven about by rough winds
   who needed anchorage and tried to find it on board his vessel? He
   desires to place his anchor somewhere on board the ship where it will
   prove a holdfast--he hangs it at the prow, but still the ship drives!
   He exhibits the anchor upon deck, but that does not hold the vessel! At
   last he puts it down into the hold, but with no better success.

   Why, man alive, anchors do not hold as long as they are on board a
   ship! They must be thrown into the deep and then they will get a grip
   of the bottom of the sea--and hold the vessel against wind and tide. As
   long as ever you have confidence in yourselves, you are like a man who
   keeps his anchor on board his boat--and you will never come to a
   resting place. Over with your faith into the great deeps of eternal
   love and power--and trust in the infinitely Faithful One! Then shall
   you be glad because your heart is quiet. Rely upon your God because He
   commands you to do so. Do not dare to hesitate!

   Look, Sirs, if you do not rely upon God in the dark, it would seem as
   if, after all, you did not trust God, but were trusting to the light,
   or were relying on your own eyesight! Too often we think we believe,
   but all the while we are miles off from believing. Unless we trust only
   in God, and in God wholly, we do not trust Him at all! Faith is the
   opposite of sight. When a man sees, he has no need of faith. Blessed is
   he to whom God, Himself, is all the Light he needs.

   Remember one thing more, that you and I, in times of darkness, may well
   trust in God that He will not fail us, for our blessed Lord and Master
   was not spared the blackest midnight that ever fell on human mind. He,
   too, cried out, "What shall I say?" Distraction seized upon His mind,
   also, and He was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. Do you expect
   that you shall be treated better than the Head of the house, the
   "first-born among many brethren"? If He trusted in God and was
   delivered, do the same and you shall follow in His footsteps into the
   brightness of the light, even as you have followed those footsteps into
   the blackness and the darkness!

   IV. So I finish with this last point--WHAT WILL COME OF IT IF WE TRUST
   IN GOD IN THE DARK? Now,

   whether you are saint or sinner, I want you to lend me your ears for a
   minute or two while I try to show what will come of trusting in God
   when you have nothing else to trust.

   In the first place, such a faith will glorify God. It does not glorify
   God to trust Him when you have a thousand other props and assistances.
   No, we glorify Him when we trust His bare arm. It honors God when, in
   darkness, despondency and despair we can bravely say, "Still I believe
   Him. I take hold upon His strength in the midst of my feebleness. If I
   per-

   ish, I perish. But I know He will not let me perish trusting in Him."
   The cherubim and seraphim glorify God with their endless songs, but not
   more than a poor downcast soul can do when, in its distress, it casts
   itself only on God. See what you can do! Will not this argument move
   you to trust, to trust even now, when all things seem to go awry? Some
   of you can sincerely say, "We would gladly do or suffer anything to
   glorify God." Well, do this--believe in the Lord and in Jesus Christ,
   whom He has sent!

   In the next place, it is true that very likely through this darkness of
   yours, you will be humbled. Walking in darkness and seeing no light,
   you will form a very low idea of yourself and this will be a choice
   blessing. We undervalue humility, but it is one of the most golden of
   the Graces. Perhaps some of us need humbling more than any other
   operation of the Holy Spirit. I believe that those who despond and
   despair are all the happier when humility has had her perfect work upon
   them. We are so great! So big! That letter, "I"--there seems to be a
   kind of sarcasm in the form of it--it is such a straight, unbending
   letter, it never bows its knee or its back! Perhaps our darkness is
   sent to us to make our pride stoop towards the ground while it gropes
   its way. Deliverance from pride will be a lasting gain to us! O my
   Friend, you are getting good by the painful process which reveals to
   you your littleness! Do not fret because you now see your folly, your
   helplessness, your emptiness--all this will be a mine of wealth to you.

   Next to that, if you can trust God in your trial, you will prove and
   enjoy the power of prayer. The man that has never needed to pray cannot
   tell whether there is anything in prayer or not. You that have always
   had your bread every morning scarcely know the value of that request,
   "Give us this day our daily bread." But there are poor people here at
   this hour to whom that petition is peculiarly sweet. He that has prayed
   for his breakfast values the Providence which sent it. If you were
   never in your life in any sort of trial, what do you know you about
   prayer? Why, then, do you speak lightly of that which you understand
   not? He that has carried his need to the Lord--a great and urgent need
   which could not have been supplied by all the world besides--he, I say,
   who has gone with that need to his heavenly Father and pleaded the
   promise and obtained a heavenly reply, he is the man who can witness
   that, verily, there is a God that hears prayer!

   Those philosophers that sneer at prayer, what do they know about it?
   They are strangers to prayer and, therefore, unable to judge its power.
   Suppose a dozen of them should swear that they have prayed and that God
   has not heard their prayers? We would believe it and we would also come
   to the conclusion that prayers from men of their order ought not to be
   heard! Surely, he that comes to God must believe that He is! And these
   gentlemen will not even accept that point as certain. But when we pray
   and the Lord hears us, can any form of argument disprove a fact? A fact
   will stand against all reasoning--it is an unyielding rock against
   which the waves of skepticism hurl themselves in vain! Brothers and
   Sisters, it is the prayer in the dark which brings us most light when
   we perceive that it is surely heard! How could you pray, O man, if you
   had all your desires fulfilled without making request unto God? If you
   had nothing to pray for, how could you prove the efficacy of prayer? If
   you are so wise, good and great that you can do without God, go and do
   without Him if you dare! But the poor and needy will still be glad to
   cry unto Him. May God empty you and drive you in agony to your
   knees--then shall you be able to test whether He is a God that hears
   prayer or not!

   If in your darkness you will go to God and trust Him, you will become
   an established Christian. Yours will not be that timid bulrush faith
   which bows before every wind--you will be rooted and grounded in
   assurance of faith. These trials of yours will help to root you fast in
   the good soil of confidence in God. In days to come you will bless God
   for the clouds and the darkness, since through them your tried faith
   grew into strong faith--and your strong faith ripened into full
   assurance! Doubtless faith will make our nights the fruitful mothers of
   brighter days.

   And let me close by saying, that by-and-by--and perhaps much sooner
   than we think--we shall come out into greater light than we have as yet
   hoped for. Perhaps half-a-mile ahead you will find light springing up,
   even light which has long ago been sown for the righteous. Your weeping
   is nearly over--joy comes in the morning. You shall sit down and say,
   "I did not think the day would break so soon, but now the sun is up I
   perceive that even in the night I have been preserved from a thousand
   dangers--and I have passed safely where none but the Lord, Himself,
   could have held me up."

   Brothers and Sisters, let us even now sing unto the Lord a new song,
   for He has done marvelous things! He has led the blind by a way that
   they knew not. He has given us treasures of darkness. He has turned our
   mourning into dancing. He has made us glad in His name! Praise to Him
   forever, yes, praise forevermore!

   How loudly some of us will sing when once we get to Heaven! When we
   leap ashore upon the golden strand, how we will magnify that Omnipotent
   Love which kept us from 10,000 devouring waves! Surely in the heavenly
   choirs certain

   voices reach to higher notes than all others, for they have known the
   heights and depths of Divine Love. There will be a fullness, roundness
   and sweetness of tone about certain voices which shall make them
   notable among the celestials, even as Heman and Asaph, and Ethan were
   notable among the sweet singers of Israel in the Temple below. Who are
   these and from where did they come? Surely the one answer will be,
   "These are they that came out of great tribulation and have washed
   their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

   Therefore be of good cheer, O you people of God who walk in darkness,
   for you will have a full reward!

   And you poor troubled ones who have, as yet, no hope--and are afraid
   that God has cast you away forever--come and rest in Jesus Christ this
   morning! Trust in Jesus and defy the darkness and the devil who rules
   over it. As soon as you dare to trust in Christ Jesus our Lord, your
   salvation is secured! Do but trust--and your Savior is bound to answer
   to your trust--and make it good by saving you! The Lord bless you for
   Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Child Of Light Walking In Light

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 2, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we
   lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the Light, as He is in the
   Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus
   Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:6, 7.

   THE Apostle warns us against saying more than we have made our own by
   experience. He hints at the solemn difference between empty profession
   and gracious reality. To have fellowship with God is a great
   matter--but merely to say that we have fellowship with Him is a totally
   different thing. John warns us that if we say that which our characters
   do not support, we lie. He leaves it just so, without a word of
   softening or excuse. Between saying and being--between saying and
   doing--there may be all the difference in the world. There is a
   tendency among men, if there is a good experience, to say that they
   possess it; if there is a high privilege of Grace, to say that they are
   enjoying it. What a folly this is! It is akin to madness! To unsound
   minds, a precious original suggests a desire to fashion an imitation.
   To the untruthful mind, the genuine is an invitation to be the
   counterfeit. Let us be upon our guard that we do not flatter ourselves
   into saying more than is true. Let us not stretch our arm beyond our
   sleeve, nor boast beyond our line. Every profession will be tried with
   fire--let us, therefore, see to it that we put in no claim which will
   not endure the severest test.

   There were certain in John's day who said, "We have fellowship with
   God." How they had come by it they did not explain. Perhaps they
   claimed to have reached it by philosophical speculation, by exact
   reasoning, or by long-continued meditation. Whatever the road, they
   said that they had reached the City of God and were in communion with
   the Great Being. John saw that they walked in darkness, rejecting the
   Light of Divine Revelation from above and the pure Light of the Holy
   Spirit within. He also saw that they, themselves, were not true, and
   that their lives were not pure and, therefore, he warned them that they
   were speaking and acting a lie. Their life was a lie, for they were not
   walking in the truth. And their profession that they had fellowship
   with God was another lie, for God can have no fellowship with
   falsehood. "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all" and,
   therefore, He cannot hold any communion with darkness.

   John draws the lines very tightly and judges with unflinching
   fidelity--he is not inclined to the boasted charity of
   latitudinarianism, but he curtly dismisses false claims with that plain
   word, "lie." The disciple whom Jesus loved spoke like the Son of
   Thunder that he was when he had to deal with shams. It is the part of
   true love to be honest and to expose that which would be injurious to
   those it loves. He who will gloss over a falsehood loves but in word,
   only. Learn, then, that if men boast of fellowship with God and do not
   receive the Revelation of His Word, they lie, and know not the

   Truth of God.

   Let us now speak of the real thing, the fellowship with God which comes
   of walking in the Light of God. The Christian life is described as
   walking, which implies activity. Christian life feeds upon
   contemplation, but it displays itself in action. Fellowship with God
   necessitates action, since to be with God, we must "walk with God." The
   living God is not inactive, motionless, aimless. "My Father," says
   Jesus, "works hitherto, and I work." Chiefly in the character of active
   workers or in that of willing sufferers we must maintain fellowship
   with God. Walking implies activity, but it must be of a continuous
   kind. Neither this step, nor that, nor the next, can make a walk. We
   must be moving onward and onward and remain in that exercise, or we
   cease from walking. Holy walking includes perseverance in obedience and
   continuance in service. Not he that begins, but he that continues is
   the true Christian. Final perseverance enters into the very essence of
   the Believer's life--the true pilgrims of Zion go from strength to
   strength.

   From strength to strength, did I say? This suggests that walking
   implies progress. He that takes one step and another step, but still
   stands where he was, has not walked! There is such a thing as the
   goose-step and I am afraid many Christians are wonderfully familiar
   with it--they are where they used to be--and are half inclined to
   congratulate themselves upon that fact, since they might have
   backslidden! They have not advanced in the heavenly pilgrimage--so how
   can they be said to walk? My Hearer, is your life a walk with God and
   towards God? If so, our subject has to do with you. May the Spirit of
   all Grace lead us into the heart of it!

   The things we shall consider this morning will arise out of the text in
   the following order--First, the light of our walk. "If we walk in the
   Light, as He is in the Light." Secondly, the communion of our walk. "We
   have fellowship with one another." Thirdly, the glory of that
   communion. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
   sin."

   I. Consider, first, THE LIGHT OF OUR WALK. True Believers do not walk
   in darkness. They have found the road and they see it before them. They
   know whom they have believed and why they have believed--and so they go
   forward intelligently. How unhappy are those who are sure of nothing
   but a groping for the way--and wander in endless circles of hope and
   fear! True Believers walk onward because the Light of God shows them
   their path and makes them sure of safety and progress. What is meant by
   walking in the Light? It is somewhat singular that last Sunday morning
   our subject was, "The Child of Light Walking in Darkness." [Sermon
   #1985.] That darkness is very different from the darkness with which we
   deal this morning. Children of Light may, for a time, walk in the
   darkness of sorrow, but from the darkness of untruthfulness, ignorance,
   sin and unbelief they have been delivered! In these respects the
   darkness is past and the true Light of God now shines. Moral darkness
   is contrary to their new-born nature--they cannot endure it. We must
   distinguish between things that differ, between the darkness of sorrow
   and the darkness of sin. A metaphor may be used for many purposes--and
   that of darkness has a wide range of meaning.

   What is this light, then, in which the Christian walks? I answer,
   first, it is the Light of Grace. In our natural state we are in
   darkness and under the dominion of the Prince of Darkness. The Apostle
   says of us Gentiles, "Having the understanding darkened, being
   alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
   because of the blindness of their heart." When the Grace of God comes,
   the Day-Spring from on high visits us. The Holy Spirit brings us out
   from under the dominion of the old nature by creating within us a new
   life. And He brings us out from under the tyranny of the Prince of
   Darkness by opening our eyes to see and our minds to understand
   celestial Truths of God. The opening of our blind eyes and the pouring
   in of the Light of Truth are from the Lord. This is a work in which He
   is as fully seen in the glory of His Godhead as when in the natural
   creation He said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

   The entrance of God's Word into the mind by the power of the Holy
   Spirit gives us light as to ourselves, our sin and our danger. With
   this comes light as to the way of salvation through Jesus Christ and
   light as to the mind of God concerning our sanctification. True
   knowledge takes the place of ignorance and a desire for purity becomes
   supreme over the love of sin. Paul says, "You were sometime darkness,
   but now are you light in the Lord." We accept the Revelation of God in
   the Inspired Book--by the attending witness of the Holy Spirit it
   becomes a Revelation of God to our own hearts and thus all our
   position--our past, present and future--is set in a new light. With the
   driving out of our natural darkness old things pass away and, with the
   coming in of the Divine Light, all things become new. Blessed is that
   man to whom the Eternal Light has come by the effectual working of the
   Spirit of God who brings to us the Light of God wherein we see God,
   Christ and life everlasting! This is the secret beginning of all our
   light--"God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
   shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
   of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

   The result of this Light of God is seen in various ways. It causes deep
   sorrow in the beginning, for its first discoveries are grievous to the
   conscience. Light is painful to eyes long accustomed to darkness. But
   soon the Light brings great joy, for the soul perceives deliverance
   from the evils which it mourned. Thus the Light of God and gladness in
   the end go together, as it is written, "Light is sown for the
   righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Always, in each
   condition, you observe conspicuously that the Light of Grace is seen as
   the light of sincerity. Until Grace comes into our souls we have no
   heart for the things of God. We may be fussily religious so far as to
   be attentive to every outward form of worship, but there is no
   heart-work, no light of the Truth of God in all our devotion. But when
   once the Divine Light comes in, then we become intensely real in our
   dealings with God. Hypocrisy and pretence fly before sincere belief and

   feeling. "Lord, have mercy upon us miserable sinners," no longer passes
   our lips flippantly and thoughtlessly, but we are, indeed, miserable on
   account of sin!

   When we seek for mercy we mean it, and do not play at confession and
   repentance. Our eyes look to God and our whole body is full of the
   Light of God--we see what we are doing and awake ourselves to do it in
   earnest. We know what we are praying about and there is no question as
   to the deep sincerity of our cries and tears. We desire with the whole
   force of our nature to find pardon and acceptance through the precious
   blood of Christ. We do not merely say that we desire salvation and
   eternal life, but we feel that we must have them and cannot be denied!
   We cease from playing fast and loose with God. We no longer hesitate
   between two opinions, but one thing we seek after, desiring it of the
   Lord--we would be right with God in all respects. The man that is
   walking in the Light of God is thoroughly sincere. The shadows of
   pretence have been chased away--he is downright earnest in all that he
   does.

   O my Hearers, many of you have never come so far as this, though this,
   alone, is not far! By being in a place of worship you show an outward
   respect to Divine things, but are you worshipping God? Did you worship
   Him just now in the prayer and in the praise? You are listening to me
   while I talk of the highest things that ever occupied the human mind,
   but do you long to be a partaker of these things? Do you hunger and
   thirst after righteousness? Those who are walking in the Light of God
   are free from pretence and are living in real earnest--is it so with
   you? Contentment with unreality is a sign of dwelling in darkness!
   Careful keeping up of shams, diligent puffing out of wind-bags and
   constant creation of make-believes--all this is of the night and its
   dreams! But to be what you seem to be, to be true in all the phases of
   your life--this is surely seen in those who walk in the Light of God!
   What can God have to do with shams? What cares He for empty
   professions? Everything must be true which is to come under His eyes.

   Next to sincerity I regard a willingness to know and to be known as an
   early result of walking in the Light of God. The ungodly come not to
   the Light, lest their deeds should be reproved. There are matters about
   which they desire no Light, but rather say, "Depart from us, we desire
   not the knowledge of Your ways." Where ignorance affords them a present
   peace, they count it folly to be wise. Alas, it is too commonly the
   case that men have no inclination to obtain a knowledge which might
   involve humiliation, repentance and a retracing of steps. "Let well
   enough alone," they cry. How many will say, "Well, we have been
   Christians after our own way for a good many years--why need we
   question ourselves?" They look upon a faithful preacher with
   suspicion--he comes a deal too close to home. When he begins to deal
   with the heart and conscience, they look at him as if he were a dog
   hunting about for a rat! Truly the emblem is not so very unlike, for
   wherever there is a self-satisfaction which is afraid of the Light of
   God, we suspect that the rat of hypocrisy is not far off!

   Beloved, we must not rest content with anything which will not bear the
   light of day. A religion which we will not submit to the test of
   self-examination cannot be worth much. No one is afraid to have a
   genuine sovereign submitted to any test--it is the coiner who is
   afraid. "Look!" says a man, "I hold a certain creed. My grandmother
   held it. It has come down to me as an heirloom. You invite me to
   examine that creed by the Word of God, but I would rather not. I am not
   disposed to learn anything which might cause me to change. If you speak
   too strongly, I shall go and hear somebody else, for I cannot bear to
   be disturbed." This is a foolish prejudice, is it not? Yes, and it may
   prove the man's ruin! This is the kind of thing that makes a man go out
   angrily from a sermon and say, "I will not listen to that man again! He
   is too personal and too severe."

   No, Friend, can anyone who loves your soul be too severe? Do you wish
   to be flattered? Do you not know that plain-dealing is more precious
   than rubies? Would you not say to your physician, "Put me under the
   severest examination and let me know the truth"? Would you pay him a
   fee that he might deceive you? As to your soul, do you not desire to
   know the very worst of your case? If you would rather be comfortable
   than be safe, then you and I are not of one mind, for I want to walk in
   the Light of God, free from deception, knowing truly and thoroughly my
   own place before the heart-searching God. I would rather not cry,
   "Peace, peace," where there is no peace. The comfort which grows out of
   delusion I do not desire. Brothers and Sisters, we must build on the
   Truth of God and nothing else but the Truth of God!

   When men walk in the Light of God, they cease to take things for
   granted, and look below the surface. Certain things have been labeled
   with the mark of truth and have passed current. But men who are in the
   Light of God disregard the labels and look at the goods, themselves. We
   cannot afford to risk our souls on hearsays--we need personal
   knowledge. For one, I desire a salvation which will bear the test of
   the closest examination. I would be saved in such a way that I am
   neither afraid of conscience, nor of death, nor of the Judgment Seat of
   God! I would be saved in the Light of God. I

   would be known and read of all men and I would know, even as I am
   known. We wish to conceal nothing. We can conceal nothing, "for all
   things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."
   We would lay bare our bosoms and sincerely cry, "Search me, O God, and
   know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there is any
   wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

   A still surer evidence of Grace is the mind's perception of revealed
   Truth and its obedience to it. Then has true light shone on a man's
   walk when he perceives the Truth revealed by the Holy Spirit in sacred
   Scripture--and receives it into his heart with a child-like spirit. He
   that receives Christ, also receives Christ's Words and the doctrine
   which we believe is by no means a matter of indifference. Whatever may
   be said, Brothers and Sisters, we have received a Revelation from God
   which we know to be "the faith once for all delivered to the saints."
   The Lord God has broken through the veil of silence and has manifested
   Himself to the sons of men! Through the darkness of their minds, the
   carnal cannot see what God has revealed, neither will they believe His
   Truth. The Truth of God is spiritual and the natural man is carnal and,
   therefore, the natural wan will not receive the teaching which comes
   from God. By this test shall you know whether the true Light of God is
   shining upon you--Do you believe what God has revealed in His Word? Or
   are you your own teacher--maker of your own faith? He cannot be a
   disciple who does not learn, but invents. Do you hear the teaching of
   the Lord Jesus and believe it? I repeat it--you must not only say that
   you believe it--but you must, indeed, and without a doubt, believe the
   things which God has revealed. By this shall you know whether you are a
   child of Light, or a child of darkness. Are the Doctrines of Grace
   essential Truths of God with you? Whatever God has said about sin,
   righteousness, judgment to come--are you ready to accept it at once?
   Whatever He has revealed concerning Himself, His Son, His Holy Spirit,
   the Cross, life, death, Hell and the eternal future--do you believe it
   unfeignedly? This is to walk in the Light of God! All other teaching is
   darkness.

   How many correct and amend--and so betray the Gospel! They take the
   garment of the Truth of God and dip it in the blood of their own
   thought till it is so stained that they might almost say unto God,
   Himself, "Do You know whether this is Your Son's coat or not?" If you
   are one of those who would twist the Scriptures and force your own
   meaning on them, you are not in the Light! If you would make them mean
   other than what God intended them to mean, you are in the darkness,
   however learned a philosopher you may be! He only is in the Light of
   God who distrusts his own wisdom and bows before the Wisdom which comes
   from above! If you will sit at Jesus' feet like a child--and hear His
   Words and learn of Him--then has the true Light of God shone upon you,
   for He is the Light that lights every man that comes into the world.
   The Holy Spirit comes not to help us to think out a system of belief of
   our own, but to lead us into all the Truths of God by taking of the
   things of Christ and showing them to us.

   Brothers and Sisters, there is a Truth and there is a lie, and no lie
   is of the Truth! Can light commune with darkness, or truth with
   falsehood? I make no claim of implicit faith for what I say. God forbid
   that I should ever become so presumptuous, for that were a sort of
   blasphemy! But I claim implicit faith for what God says. Believing the
   Gospel to be the Revelation of God, I claim for it implicit faith!
   Believing the Lord Jesus to be an Infallible Teacher, I claim immediate
   faith in all that He has said! If this implicit faith is refused, it is
   because there is no Light of God in you! To walk in the Light of God is
   to know, to love and to live the Truth of God! To walk in the Light of
   God is to receive our instruction from God! To me, the end of all
   controversy is, "Thus says the Lord." Only let me know that the Lord
   has said this or that, and though the Revelation should seem impossible
   to believe, and though it should come into conflict with all my
   previous notions, I will bow before it without a question! "The Lord
   has said it," stands to us instead of all reason, argument and
   evidence! Yes, we believe God in the teeth of supposed evidence and
   reason, saying, "Let God be true, but every man a liar." God will not
   have fellowship with us if we reject His Light--but on the ground of
   absolute Truth He can and will meet us. If we come unto the Light and
   believe His witness to the Truth, then are we where God can walk with
   us and where the precious blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all
   sin.

   This, beloved Brothers and Sisters, leads to a transparency and
   simplicity of character. Walking in the Light of God produces
   Israelites, indeed, in whom is no guile! Those who are full of deceit
   and craftiness upon any subject are not walking in the Light of God.
   God will not have fellowship with any whose minds are crooked and
   deceitful. Some persons are so warped that nothing is straight to
   them--their minds seem to see things crookedly--long practice in
   un-truthfulness has given them an evil bias. This is not the case with
   the man in whom the Light of Grace is shining. The man who does in
   reality what he seems to do. The man who says what he means and means
   what he says. The man who is

   truthful, artless and sincere in all his general dealings both before
   God and man--he it is whose conduct leads us to hope that the Light of
   Grace shines within!

   This is very evident in the man's cessation from all guile towards
   himself. Remember how David pronounces him blessed "in whose spirit
   there is no guile." He knew painfully what it was to be full of guile.
   Look at him! He has gone astray most grievously. His mind is in the
   dark. What does David do? There is a foul sin committed--he tries to
   make himself believe that it is not so very horrible--he labors to
   hoodwink his conscience! His sin is likely to be seen and he tries to
   cover it. He brings back Bathsheba's husband. When Uriah declines to go
   to his house, he must be made drunk. The design has failed. David is
   afraid, but he is not penitent. On the contrary, he hastens to still
   greater crime! Uriah is in the wars and there he is wantonly exposed to
   death and is slain in battle! His death is ascribed to the fortune of
   war. David did not see that it was murder, for he was not walking in
   the Light of God. He was still in darkness and, therefore, he kept all
   this while acting a deceitful part with his God and his own conscience.
   His conduct could not bear the Light and so his one idea was to keep it
   out.

   How changed was all this after Nathan had said to him, "You are the
   man"! When the light of heavenly conviction had penetrated the night of
   his soul, he made no more excuses, He practiced no more subterfuges. He
   stood in the Light, ashamed and confounded. Amazed at the sight of his
   sin, he abandoned all idea of covering it and fled at once to the mercy
   of God crying, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving
   kindness." In the sobbing and sighing of the 51st Psalm he lays bare
   his heart and in the most plain terms, he cries, "Deliver me from the
   guilt of blood shed, O God, God of my salvation." He is in the Light of
   God now, for deceit has gone and now God can speak comfortably to
   him--and wash him and make him whiter than snow!

   The man who is walking in the Light, as God is in the Light, is full of
   abhorrence of sin. Sin is practical falsehood. It is moral darkness.
   The man that abhors evil and injustice. The man that would do good if
   it cost him his earthly all. The man that would not do wrong though the
   world should be his reward for doing it--this is the man that walks in
   the Light of God--and he is the man that shall have fellowship with God
   and a sense of cleansing from sin. We cannot attach too great
   importance to the condition of our minds in reference to sin, for if we
   wink at it, or take pleasure in it, or persistently practice it, we are
   abiding in the darkness--and we are under the wrath of God. John says,
   "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is
   righteous, even as He is righteous." Forget not this practical Truth of

   God!

   I fear I have scarcely brought out the fullness of the meaning. They
   that are in the Light will know what I mean. Those who are in darkness
   cannot imagine what life in the Light of God must be.

   II. I come, secondly, to THE COMMUNION OF OUR WALK. Those who are in
   the Light shall not be alone. God

   Himself will be with them and be their God. The words, "we have
   fellowship with one another," constitute a wonderfully condescending
   expression. John would not have dared to coin such an expression--it
   must have been minted for him by the Spirit from above. Think of God
   and His people having mutual communion! What honor! What joy is this!
   Thus is the mischief of the Fall removed and Paradise is restored!

   God in the Light and man in the Light have much in common. Now are they
   abiding in one element, for they are dwelling in one Light. Now are
   they both concerned about the same thing and their aims are
   undivided--God loves Truth and so do those who are renewed in heart. It
   has come to pass that the great Lord and His enlightened ones see
   things in the same Light. God, with His great vision, beholds more than
   we can, yet He does not see more than the Truth. And we, with our
   narrow perceptions, see the Truth and we cannot tolerate falsehood. Now
   we can speak with God, seeing we speak Truth, and He can converse with
   us, seeing we are ready to hear the Truth. In prayer and praise we are
   no longer false and, therefore, the Lord can hear us! His Word also
   falls upon an honest mind and so its meaning is perceived. Now we can
   also act together--the great God and His poor feeble children are
   striving together for truth and righteousness! Our poor little work He
   might overlook if He were not so good, but being infinitely
   condescending, He works through us whenever He sees that our work is
   done in truth. If our works were works of darkness, He could not
   co-operate with us. But now that we walk and work in His Light, He is
   able to make us laborers together with Himself.

   Now we partake with God in sympathy, having a fellow-feeling with Him.
   Does the great Father mourn His prodigal child? So do we mourn over
   sinners! Do we see Jesus weeping over Jerusalem? So do we mourn for the
   perishing who will not be saved! Again, as God rejoices over sinners
   that repent, so do we rejoice in sympathy with Him. By coming

   into the Light of love as well as into the Light of knowledge we have
   received power to enter into sympathy with God. Is not this a very
   wonderful thing? But it is as clear and true as it is wonderful! We
   would gladly bring the whole world into the Light of God! We daily
   pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done." Our will has grown to be
   like God's will, according to its measure, seeing we have come into the
   same Light as that in which God dwells.

   Do you know, dear Brothers and Sisters, by experience, what it is to be
   honestly dealing with eternal things, to be no longer playing, toying
   and counterfeiting, but to be in real and blessed earnest with God and
   spiritual facts? Then you have come into fellowship with the great God,
   for He is in earnest and in Him there is no trifling nor make-believe!
   He is acting with intense reality, acting with His whole heart in His
   contention against sin, His desire for the glory of His Son, His
   purpose for the salvation of His people.

   III. But now I come, in the third place, to that which strikes me most
   in the text, and it is this--THE GLORY OF THIS COMMUNION--"We have
   fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." Here am I a poor creature reading this text.
   I find that it is possible for men to walk in fellowship with the great
   and ever-blessed God! I rejoice to learn this and my heart responds,
   "If there is any fellowship with God to be known, I will know it. If I
   can be reconciled to God and be at friendship with Him, I desire it
   beyond everything. But how can these things be? I see that a great
   stone lies at the door. I cannot get out of my prison to begin this
   walk because this great stone of sin shuts me in."

   Then the Lord comes in and He says, "I saw that this hindrance was in
   your road and so, in this very verse, I have shown you how I have taken
   it away." Precious words! The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us
   from all sin. I gather from the way in which this sentence grows out of
   the text that this very thing which looks as if it were the death of
   all communion with God, is made, by Infinite Grace, to be a wide and
   open channel of communion with Him! This stone is rolled away from the
   door of the sepulcher and the angel of communion sits down upon it as
   on a throne. God justifies His people in broad daylight--in a way which
   defies inspection--and then, by the very method of clearing away their
   sin, He enters into the nearest and dearest fellowship with them!

   To begin with, here is sin! What an evil thing it is! How our soul
   hates it! It is uncleanness to us--a loathsome and abominable evil. You
   that are in the Light know how every beam of light makes you see more
   of the heinousness, blackness and accursed nature of sin. Even to feel
   a tendency towards it in your members makes you groan out, "O wretched
   man that I am! Who shall deliver me?" Listen! You are having fellowship
   with God in this. In Him is no sin, but in Him is great abhorrence of
   sin! If you hate sin, God hates it, also, and herein you are agreed.
   The very thought of iniquity, uncleanness, or falsehood is abhorred of
   God. His holy Nature detests it and in proportion as you feel the same
   loathing and detestation, you have fellowship with God. This comes to
   you by walking in the Light, as God is in the Light. "Horror has taken
   hold upon me," says David, "because of the wicked that forsake Your
   Law." David was as much in fellowship with God in that horror of sin as
   he was another day when he could speak of God as his exceeding joy and
   rejoice in the mercy which endures forever! Yes, Beloved, our horror
   for sin drives us into fellowship with the great Father in that
   loathing of sin which made Him hide His face from His Only-Begotten
   because the sin of man had been made to meet upon Him!

   Let us go a step further. Sin, being once perceived, the next step is
   that it should be gotten rid of. "Ah," you say, "I wish I could be
   cleansed from it; cleansed from all of it, but how can this be? It is
   not possible for me to purge away my sin." I thought I heard you
   singing just now--

   "Could my tears forever flow.

   Could my zeal no respite show.

   All for sin could not atone--

   You must save, and You alone." This, also, is God's thought about
   sin--He knows how hard it is to remove its pollution. He saw that
   nothing of ours could remove the horrible blot. Brethren, I know for a
   fact that all the waters of all the seas might be used to wash my
   scarlet sin and yet they could not wash out the fatal stain. Not even
   the fires of Hell could burn out the defilement of sin! In this
   persuasion we have fellowship with the pure and holy God who saw that
   there was no means of removing sin but one--He must deliver up His own
   Son to death--or the sin of man could never be purged away. The
   Sacrifice of the Only-Begotten is the unique hope of sinners. The
   laying of our iniquity upon Him who deigned to be the great Scapegoat
   of His people, is the only means for the taking away of the sins of the
   world! That inward persuasion of the impossibility

   of the purgation of sin by any doings or feelings of our own--and the
   consequent perception that only in Christ lies the help of men--has
   brought us through the Light of Truth to walk in fellowship with the
   thrice holy God!

   Now go a step further. The glorious Son of God condescends to become
   the Atonement for sin. He is taken to the tree. Our sins are made to
   meet upon His blessed head and there He dies--the Just for the unjust!
   He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
   in Him. Standing by the tree of doom, we look up to that blessed Savior
   with all-absorbing admiration and love. We admire Him as the
   masterpiece of Divine Wisdom, Grace, Power and Truth-- and, admiring,
   we love Him--we pledge ourselves to Him. Herein we have entered into
   fellowship with the great Father, indeed, and without a doubt, for the
   Father infinitely loves His Son! He greatly delights in Him. No thought
   of Christ that the most rapturous enthusiast ever had can reach half
   way to God's thoughts of Christ. See how holy Bernard seems to go into
   a delirium of love when he talks about his Divine Master! O Bernard,
   you cannot tell how the Father loves Jesus; how He delights in His
   Sacrifice; how He takes pleasure in His exaltation!

   In the putting away of sin by the blood of Jesus, the Father has an
   infinite content and so have we. Beloved, we rejoice in the Divine
   satisfaction for sin--it is a well of Divine delight to us. This
   satisfaction is not accomplished by anything being hushed up and
   concealed, but, walking in the Light, as God is in the Light, we have
   fellowship with God in the one glorious Sacrifice! Suppose I could
   persuade myself that sin is a trifle? I would not be walking in the
   Light and I would have no fellowship with God. Suppose I said, "Pooh,
   pooh. Sin can easily be forgiven! I am sure it requires no atonement"?
   I would not be walking in the Light and I would have no fellowship with
   God! Suppose I said, "Though Jesus died, His death was only the close
   of His life and no special reference need be made to it as a Sacrifice
   for sin"? I would not be walking in the Light of God and I would have
   no fellowship with God.

   A step further. Beloved, many of us have come to Jesus Christ by faith.
   We have looked to Him and have accepted Him as our Savior cleansing us
   from all sin. Joy, joy, joy forever--the brightest day that ever dawned
   on us was that day when we saw all our sins numbered on our blessed
   Scapegoat and carried away into the wilderness of forgetfulness! When
   God saw the blood of old, He passed over Israel, for His justice was
   satisfied. And it is so with Jesus. How glad and content we are to see
   how Jesus finished transgression, made an end of sin and brought in
   everlasting righteousness! Brothers and Sisters, the death of Jesus is
   a cleansing from sin which will bear the Light of God--it is no hole
   and corner business, no winking at evil, no suspension of law--no
   making out that sin is no sin! No, the debt is acknowledged, and what
   is far better, it is paid! The guilty are punished in their
   Substitute--and in Him are thus justly set free!

   We shall all appear before the Judgment Seat and I am glad it is so,
   for the stain of our sin is so effectually removed by the blood of
   Jesus that we are clean every whit--and even the eyes of Divine Justice
   will see no spot in us! We rejoice in perfect whiteness, for the Lord
   has made us whiter than snow. Yes, we have fellowship with God in this
   cleansing, for God accepts us in the Beloved. God who made Him to be
   the Lord, our Righteousness--God Himself justifies us in His Son! He
   will, in the Last Great Day, make the whole universe a witness to the
   righteousness of the salvation of Believers. All intelligences shall
   see that in Christ all who are in Him are truly justified and most
   justly saved! How the Lord God and His people will have fellowship in
   their common joy in the work and Person of Jesus, as they see the
   perfection of it, and the way in which all sin is removed by it! Our
   salvation in Christ is, in the Light of God, in the most eminent
   degree--it will bear the full, fierce light of Sinai to be turned upon
   it--"yet no flaw will be found in it." This is wonderful! This is
   glorious! Do you wonder that God is well pleased in Him! And are not we
   well pleased? Blessed be His name! Do you not see how we thus have
   fellowship with one another? Oh, that I had strength to set forth
   before you the thoughts which fill my soul!

   Brothers and Sisters, we are now at one with God in His master purpose.
   Was it not in His heart to create beings with whom He might have
   fellowship? He made the heavens and the earth. He made the angels. He
   made all things--but He could find no companionship in all these
   things. Our Lord, like Adam, found no help-meet for Himself in any of
   the creatures He had made. He desired to produce and bring to Himself
   an order of beings who could be glorified without danger of pride. Who
   could think and feel as the First-Born would do. In fact, would become
   the friends of the Son of God! How were these creatures to be produced?
   Not by an immediate fiat of creation. Angels He could speak into being
   by a word. But in the constitution of these beings there would need to
   be an experience and a discipline to fit them for their lofty position.
   Their model was to be the Son of Jehovah's love. He was to be the
   First-Born among many brethren. It was necessary for these creatures to
   know sin and yet to hate it more fully than if they had never known
   it--to know

   the love of God--and to be forever bound by it to an unsinning
   obedience which would fill them with boundless happiness.

   Behold the process by which this new creation, this new order of
   creatures should come forth! Consider the processes by which the Fall,
   the Incarnation, the Cross, and the new birth work out the sacred
   result! When you have read the past in this light, then gaze into the
   future. Now we see how throughout eternity we shall walk in the Light,
   as God is in the Light, and have fellowship with one
   another--fellowship culminating in Jesus Christ the Only-Begotten--and
   the cleansing from all sin by His blood. The blood-washed are to be the
   friends of God, with whom He shall speak face to face, as He speaks
   with no angel or seraph! With these He will dwell and He will be their
   God, and they shall be His people. And in them and through them He will
   make known the glories of His Son to wondering worlds. This great
   purpose has been worked out to a considerable extent by the Lord's
   having already made us to walk in the Light, as He is in the Light, and
   by washing us in the precious blood. But it does not even yet appear
   what we shall be. This much we practically seek after--therefore we
   live for Christ! Therefore our chief glory is the Cross! Therefore our
   ideal of glory for ourselves is to see Jesus glorified! The torrents
   have swept us away! We are no longer bound to this earth! We are borne
   along by the irresistible force of Eternal Love! God has achieved His
   purpose in our blood-washed souls--walking in the Light of God, we are
   now in harmony with His master purpose and we cry--"Father, glorify
   Your Son!"

   I am done, but oh, I wish that all your hearts were brought into the
   Light of God at this moment! Oh, that you would quit the dark ways of
   self-righteousness, carelessness, thoughtlessness and sin--and come
   into the Light of Truth! Oh, that the Light may come to you as to Saul
   of Tarsus and at once transform you! May the Spirit of God bring you to
   know God and His Son Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Behold the Lamb of God"

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 16, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold! The
   Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John 1:29.

   JOHN the Baptist's one business was to bear witness to Christ. He was
   the morning star which heralds the rising sun. When the Sun appeared,
   he had no more reason for shining. You cannot account for John except
   by Jesus--the one reason for John's existence is Jesus. I wish it might
   be so with us. May we be able to say, "For me to live is Christ." May
   our life be such that it cannot be understood apart from Jesus--take
   Him away and our whole character would become an inexplicable mystery!
   I am afraid that some professors could be easily interpreted apart from
   Christ--perhaps could be better accounted for if there were no Christ.
   But if we are like John, true witnesses to Jesus, we shall find in
   Jesus the conscious purpose of our being and His Glory will be the clue
   to all the windings of our lives. For this purpose were we born and for
   this end have we come into the world, that we may bear witness to the
   Lord Jesus Christ! Search and look, my Brothers and Sisters, whether it
   has been so with you.

   When our Lord was thus set forth by John, it is well to note the
   special character under which He was declared. John knew much of the
   Lord Jesus and could have pictured Him in many lights and characters.
   He might especially have pointed Him out as the great moral example,
   the Founder of a higher form of life, the great Teacher of holiness and
   love. Yet this did not strike the Baptist as the head and front of our
   Lord's Character, but he proclaimed Him as One who had come into the
   world to be the great Sacrifice for sin. Lifting up his hand and
   pointing to Jesus, he cried, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away
   the sin of the world." He did not say, "Behold the great Exemplar"--no
   doubt he would have said that in due season. He did not even say,
   "Behold the King and Leader of a new dispensation"--that fact he, by no
   means, would have denied, but would have gloried in it. Still, the
   first point that he dwells upon, and that which wins his enthusiasm is,
   "Behold the Lamb of God." John the Baptist views Him as the
   Propitiation for sin and so he cries, "Behold the Lamb of God, who
   takes away the sin of the world."

   My Brothers and Sisters, we may depend upon it that this must be a very
   practical Truth of God, for John was preeminently practical. What is
   the sum and substance of his teaching but, "Repent. Bring forth fruits
   meet for repentance. The axe is laid unto the root of the trees"? He
   has a word for everybody that comes--even the Roman soldiers are told
   to be content with their rations. John is no theorist or quibbler about
   dogma. He deals with life and character and demands works meet for
   repentance. Yet he makes a great point of our Lord's being the
   Sacrifice for sin. This, indeed, is the text of his life-sermon! Rest
   assured that there is something wonderfully practical about that Truth
   of God! And those who becloud it under the notion of being practical
   are laying aside the best instrument of doing good to men. For the
   reformation of manners and the overthrow of evil, and the setting up of
   the Kingdom of Righteousness throughout the world, there is no Truth of
   God like that which reveals Jesus as the Sacrifice provided by God for
   removing the sin of men!

   The stern Baptist, the true Elijah who grappled hard with sin and laid
   the sword of repentance to its throat, saw that nothing could be done
   unless he pointed out the Lamb of God, by whom the world's sin is taken
   away. When repentance is the sermon, Jesus must be the text and the
   substance of the discourse! He puts life, power, energy into what
   otherwise would be a dead moral essay. O you who would save men from
   sin, take care that you preach the great Sacrifice for sin! It is clear
   that this doctrine has to do with repentance, for the Apostle of
   repentance introduced it--he whose first word was, "Repent," brought
   forward Jesus as the great Sin-Bearer, for he saw what I wish all would
   see, that there is a very intimate connection between the creation,
   growth and purity of repentance and the sin-bearing of our Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   Brothers, the fact is, the more we have to do with penitent sinners,
   the more we feel the need of a sin-bearer. O you that have never sinned
   and are wrapped up in your own self-righteousness, you imagine that you
   can enter Heaven by your own works! The bearing of sin by the Lamb of
   God does not seem to you at all necessary, but if you once dwelt, as
   John did, in the midst of a burdened people who came lamenting and
   confessing their sins, you would feel that nothing could bring them
   into reconciliation with God but faith in the appointed Atonement.
   "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," is the
   text which evangelists love because without it they cannot face the
   troubled ones who throng around them!

   My Brothers, in proportion as you wisely love your fellow men you will
   prize the Sacrifice for sin. Your practical dealing with a perishing
   people will make you prize the Savior. Oh, what would I do if I were
   sent to preach to this vast throng and had no sin-offering to declare
   to you! Might I not break my heart before a task so useless, so cruel,
   as to have to denounce sin and yet to have no pardon to declare and,
   consequently, no hope? Now that I can tell of One who bore in His own
   body on the tree the transgression, iniquity and sin of men, I find my
   task a solemn one, but certainly not hopeless, nor even dreary! Happy,
   indeed, am I to be permitted to set forth so blessed a salvation!
   Blessed are the lips which are allowed to cry, "Behold the Lamb of God,
   who takes away the sin of the world." You see, then, that the practical
   character of John's mission made him all the more at home in setting
   forth the sacrificial Character of our Lord.

   If John the Baptist had not felt that the Character of our Lord, as a
   Sin-Offering, was the chief matter, he might have fitly pointed Him out
   as an example at the time when he delivered the words of our text. The
   Savior had not yet revealed to anyone the fact and meaning of His
   future death. His Passion was as yet a thing in the dim future, while
   His life was just blossoming out into public observation. He had newly
   left the holy quiet of the parental roof at Nazareth and the charm of
   early holiness was on Him. Should not the world now mark Him, that His
   example might be known throughout its entire length? In His retirement,
   His conduct had been such that the austere and devout Baptist had
   noticed it--and had felt bound to acknowledge that his younger relative
   was a worthier Person than himself, saying, "I have need to be baptized
   by You." But John does not seem, when he beholds the Lord after His
   baptism, to think of His godly life already commenced, nor of that holy
   life which he could foresee in Him. Rather he fastens his eyes upon the
   sacrificial Character of that wondrous Personage and dwells on that,
   alone, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God." Brothers, that age needed an
   example as badly as ours does, but it needed a Savior still more--and
   John sees first that which is first!

   Let me add that the time was doubly opportune for dwelling upon our
   Lord's example, since He had just returned from His famous temptation
   in the wilderness, wherein He had rehearsed His life-struggles. You
   cannot, in reading the narrative, piece in the 40 days' temptation in
   the wilderness anywhere else but just here. We read that our Savior,
   after His Baptism, was led up immediately into the wilderness, to be
   tempted of the devil. Tempted He was, but He yielded in no point. In
   the threefold battle He vanquished the power of darkness at every
   point, and now, armed for the fray, in mail which He had tried and
   proven, the Champion stood before John! And it would not have been
   singular had the man of God cried out, "Behold the Perfect One, in whom
   the prince of this world has no place. Copy His supreme example!" But
   no, the great Baptist's eyes rest not on that--the blood and wounds of
   the Passion are before his mind's eye and beyond all else he sees the
   sacrificial Character of the wondrous Being who now stands in the midst
   of the throng. The fact that He is the appointed Victim for human sin
   enwraps the whole soul of the preacher and he cries, "Behold the Lamb
   of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

   Brothers and Sisters, I desire to be in the same case with John the
   Baptist. I would have my thoughts of Christ concentrated upon His
   atoning death henceforth and evermore! During the little time in which
   I may be spared to lift up my voice in this wilderness, I would bear
   witness to the Lamb of God! The years may be short in which I may guide
   this flock, but around the Cross shall be to me, forevermore, the place
   of green pastures--and from the Sacrifice of our Lord shall flow the
   still waters. Many others are dealing with other aspects of our Lord's
   work. Some, I doubt not, faithfully, and others with evil intent. I may
   very well leave them to do their best or their worst, for at least one
   may be allowed to be baptized for the Crucified, separated unto the
   Cross, dedicated to the Atonement by blood. I know no Atonement but
   Substitution, no Substitute but Christ. "Surely He has borne our griefs
   and carried our sorrows." To the declaration of that fact I set myself
   apart to life's end.

   I. To come still closer to our text, I would have you notice, in the
   first place, that JOHN SET FORTH CHRIST AS A SACRIFICE WITH EVIDENT
   PERSONAL PERCEPTION OF THE FACT. When a man says, "Behold!" he sees
   some-

   thing himself. He sees that something with clearness and he desires you
   to see it and, therefore, he cries, "Behold! Behold!" John had, from
   his birth, been ordained to be the herald of the Christ. But he
   evidently did not know who the Lamb of God might be. As a babe, he
   leaped in the womb when he came near to the mother of our Lord. But yet
   he did not know Jesus as the Lamb of God. He says, "I knew Him not."

   Some suppose that John and Jesus had never met during their early
   years, but I find it hard to believe. I see quite another meaning here.
   John knew Jesus, but did not know Him as the Sin-Bearer. I think he
   must have known the life of the Holy Child, his near relative, while He
   grew in favor both with God and man, but he had not yet seen upon Him
   the attesting seal which marked Him as the Son of God. John admired the
   Lord's Character very much, insomuch that when He came to be baptized
   by him, John said, "I have need to be baptized by You." Yet John says,
   "I knew Him not." He knew Him as one of high and holy character, but as
   yet he saw not the token which the Lord God had secretly given to his
   servant--for he saw not the Spirit of God descending and resting upon
   Him. John shrewdly suspected that Jesus was the Son of the Highest, of
   whom he was the forerunner, but a witness must not follow his own
   surmises, however correct they may be! John, as the Lord's servant, did
   not dare to know anything of his own unguided judgement--he waited for
   the secret sign. Certain preachers tell their people anything they
   invent out of their wonderful brains, but the true servant of God has
   no business to put forth his own thoughts or opinions--he must wait for
   a word from God. The message should come straight from the
   Master--"Thus says the Lord." John, though he saw about this wondrous
   Jesus such marvelous traits of Character that he was sure He was much
   greater than himself, yet says, "I knew Him not." He would know nothing
   but as it was revealed to him by the Lord God who sent him.

   But when, at last, he received that personal token when he plunged our
   blessed Master into the waters of the Jor-dan--and saw the heavens
   opened and the Dove descend--and heard the Voice saying, "This is My
   beloved Son," then he knew Him and was, therefore, sure. When he
   afterwards spoke, he did not say, "I think this is the Lamb of God,"
   or, "I am under the impression that this is the Son of God." No, he
   boldly cried, "Behold Him! See for yourselves. This is the Lamb of God!
   I speak with the accent of conviction! Nothing can shake me. The Master
   has given the sign and, therefore, I bear confident witness. Behold the
   Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

   From then on, to John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ was more than
   He appeared to be to any others. To those who looked at the Savior, He
   would have seemed to be a plain, humble Jew, with nothing particular to
   mark Him out, except it were the gentleness of His demeanor and a
   certain heavenliness of carriage. But to the Baptist, He was now before
   all and above all! When a person was to be baptized, he confessed his
   sins to John. But when Jesus came with no sins of His own to confess,
   did He whisper in John's ear, "I bear the sin of the world"? I think He
   did, but in any case, this was true to the Baptist's mind--and to him,
   Jesus was the matchless Sacrifice, the one Atonement for human sin.

   This was an extraordinary Truth of God to John. It took a miracle of
   Grace to make a Jew see, "The Lamb, who takes away the sin of the
   world." The Jew thought that the Sacrifice of God must be only for His
   chosen people--but John saw beyond all bounds of nationality and
   restrictions of race--and clearly perceived in Jesus "the Lamb of God,
   who takes away the sin of the world." Remember that John was of a
   priestly race--he was familiar with lambs for sacrifice. But as a
   priest, he never saw a lamb for sacrifice in a place far off from the
   consecrated shrine. There was only one altar and that was at
   Jerusalem--and there the lamb of sacrifice must be--not by Jordan's
   lonely stream. Yet John saw, in a place never dedicated in any peculiar
   manner to the service of God, the one great Sacrifice standing in the
   midst of the people. "Behold," he says, "this is the Lamb of God." See
   how well the Lord had taught him and how fully he had broken away from
   natural prejudices!

   Beloved, I pray that each one of us may know, for himself, Jesus as the
   Sacrifice for sin. You were brought up as children to believe that
   Jesus is the Lamb of God, but all Revelation in the Book must again be
   revealed to the heart, or it will not be really known and perceived.
   For the life of the Truth of God to enter into our life it must become
   a matter, not of head-creed only, but of heart-belief. That Jesus is
   the Substitutionary Sacrifice, the Propitiation for our sins, the
   Expiation for our iniquity, must be taught us by the Holy Spirit. I can
   truly declare among you that I do not preach this doctrine of vicarious
   Sacrifice as one among many theories, but as the saving fact of my
   experience! I must preach this or nothing! I know nothing among you
   save Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, because I have neither hope nor
   comfort outside of the great atoning Sacrifice. He was made sin for us,
   even He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
   in Him. "He was made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is
   everyone that hangs on a tree."

   Pray that each one of God's people may have a clear knowledge of Christ
   as the sin-bearing Lamb and have it written on his individual
   consciousness, for then nothing will shake him out of it. When men find
   their own deliverance from sin and their own peace with God flowing out
   of the atoning Sacrifice, this great Truth of God becomes a part of
   their inward experience and it can never be torn from them. O my
   Brothers and Sisters, when the great Sacrifice has saved you, you will
   never be able to doubt it! You will sooner doubt your own existence
   than doubt this blessed fact, that He bore our sin in His own body on
   the tree, and that through Him we are reconciled unto God! It was a
   matter with John of personal perception.

   II. Let us advance a little. JOHN SET FORTH OUR LORD AS EMPHATICALLY
   THE SACRIFICE--"Behold the Lamb of God." This is more than John would
   have said of all the lambs that he had ever heard or read of since the
   first appointment of sacrifice. He remembered the firstling of the
   flock which Abel offered and the sacrifice of a sweet savor which Noah
   presented. He knew the sacrifices of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was
   familiar with the lamb of the Paschal Supper and those of Israel's high
   festivals. He remembered the thousands of offerings that had been
   presented by David and by Solomon, and by other kings in the great
   national acts of worship. But passing them all by as if they were all
   mere shadows, he points his finger to the Man, Christ Jesus, and he
   says of Him, "This is THE Lamb of God."

   In this I think the Baptist comprehended everything that went before.
   There was the daily lamb of which I read to you in the commencement of
   the service, from Exodus 29. There had been slain before the Lord a
   lamb every morning, and a lamb every evening, all the year round
   throughout the centuries of Israel's history. Always and ever the
   continual sacrifice of the lamb was the symbol of Jehovah's dwelling
   with His people. But John puts his finger down upon a single Sacrifice
   and says, "This is the Lamb." All the other daily lambs had been but
   prefigurations of this! "Behold the Lamb."

   Let me also call your attention to another wonderful lamb, the Paschal
   lamb, slain on the night when Israel went up out of Egypt, when each
   Hebrew smeared the lintel and side-posts of his door with blood--and
   the sight of that blood sufficed for the deliverance of the family,
   according to the Word of Jehovah, "When I see the blood, I will pass
   over you." These Passover lambs were many and sacred to every Jewish
   mind! But John passes them all over and says, "Behold the

   Lamb of God."

   Do you not think he also had in his mind the lamb spoken of by Isaiah,
   the great evangelical Prophet? Had he not in his memory that famous
   passage, "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter"? John the Baptist
   cries, "This is He of whom the Prophet spoke, Behold the Lamb of God."

   Yes, and if John's eyes had been turned to the future as well as to the
   past, so that he could have looked down the centuries and shared the
   visions of the Seer of Patmos, he would have seen the Lamb in the midst
   of the Throne, and have heard the song unto Him that was slain! But
   after seeing all the visions of the coming Glory of the Lamb, he would
   still have kept his finger pointed towards the blessed Christ of God,
   standing among the people, and would have said, "Behold the Lamb." All
   that you read of sacrifice and sin-bearing in the Old or the New
   Testament. All that you have ever heard, or ever shall hear, of the
   putting away of sin, if it is true, is all centered in this line,
   "Behold the Lamb." It is a great thing when we can focus our testimony
   upon a single point! Let every servant of God do so and bear his
   witness that there is none other name given among men whereby we must
   be saved! There is no other purgation for sin in the whole universe
   save that great Sacrifice which takes away the sin of the world!

   III. We will go a step further again--JOHN, IN DESCRIBING OUR LORD
   JESUS IN HIS SACRIFICIAL CHARACTER, WAS VERY EXPLICIT IN DECLARING HIM
   TO BE THE SACRIFICE OF GOD. He says: "Behold the Lamb of God." These
   words contain a great depth of meaning. "The Lamb of God." Did not the
   Baptist thus recall the day when Abraham walked with Isaac towards the
   mount that God had told him of? "And Isaac said to his father, My
   Father, behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt
   offering? And Abraham answered, My Son, God will provide Himself a lamb
   for the burnt offering." John, standing centuries after, seems to say,
   "Now is the saying of the Father of the faithful fulfilled! Behold how
   God provides! Behold the Lamb of God."

   Under the old Jewish dispensation, if a man sinned, he said to himself,
   "I must go and find a lamb." And he went out to his own flock, or else
   to his neighbor's and he bought a lamb. That was his lamb which he
   brought for his own trespass. But you and I have not to go and find a
   lamb--God has already provided a Lamb--and we have only to accept the
   Lamb of God. And is it not a wonderful thing, that He, Himself, against
   whom all sin was leveled, provided the Sacrifice for sin? Behold the
   sin of man and the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Father's best Beloved, His
   choice One, His only One and

   yet He delivered Him up for us all--and God's Son became God's Lamb! O
   my Father, my Father, do I sin and do You find the Sacrifice? But if a
   Sacrifice must be found by the Father, why was it found so near His
   heart? He could find the Sacrifice for sin nowhere but in His own
   bosom. He had but one Son, His Only-Begotten--and "God so loved the
   world, that He gave His only-begotten Son." Jehovah gave His only Son
   to be a Sacrifice! Let Heaven and earth be filled with astonishment!

   Beloved, if you think of it, who else could have provided a Sacrifice
   for the sin of the world? None will pretend to such ability. And when
   God, Himself, provided a Sacrifice, what other could He have found but
   His co-equal Son? Who else could render the honor which was due to the
   broken Law? Who else could offer to Divine Justice the vindication
   which it demanded? Justice must be violated, or else man must perish
   forever--there remained no way of escape from this dilemma until the
   Son of the Highest condescended to become a Sacrifice and put away sin
   by His own death. So, you see, the Lord must, Himself, provide the
   Sacrifice--and that Sacrifice must be His only-begotten Son.

   I do not think I can preach more, for a faintness has come over me, nor
   is there need for more if you will but chew the cud of this one
   precious Truth of God-- Jesus is the Lamb which God provided and He is
   the Lamb which God Himself presented at the altar. Yet I must rouse
   myself to say a little more. Who was it that sacrificed the Lamb of
   God? Who was the priest on that dread day? Who was it that bruised Him?
   Who put Him to grief? Who caused Him the direst pang of all when He
   cried, "Why have You forsaken Me?"

   Was it not the Father, Himself? This was one point in the hardness of
   Abraham's test--"Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love,
   and offer him for a sacrifice." He must, himself, officiate at the
   sacrifice! This, the great Father did! He is the Lamb, the Lamb of God.
   And now, today, the bright side of this Truth remains. He is the Lamb
   that God always accepts, must accept, glories to accept! Bring you but
   Jesus with you and you have brought God an acceptable Sacrifice! You
   cannot fail to be forgiven when you come pleading the name of Jesus. If
   you should bring the fattest of your flock and the choicest of your
   herd, you might hear God say, "I will not accept your sacrifice"! But
   when you bring God's own Sacrifice, He cannot reject you! You are
   accepted in the Beloved! There is such acceptance of Christ with God
   that it overlaps your unacceptableness. It covers your sin. It covers
   you--it makes you to be dear to the heart

   of God!

   Thus far have we come with this blessed text, even unto "waters to swim
   in." "Behold the Lamb of God."

   IV. Lend me your ears a little longer while, in the fourth place, I
   show you that JOHN SET FORTH THIS

   BLESSED SAVIOR AS BEARING AND BEARING AWAY OUR SIN. You that have the
   Revised Version will please

   notice that the Revisers follow the Authorized Version in the body of
   the translation and say, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
   of the world," but they have done wisely by putting in the margin,
   "bears the sin." Both meanings are here. In order to the bearing away
   of sin, there must first be the bearing of it. The Lord Jesus both took
   sin and took it away.

   Dwell for a minute on the first fact, that sin was actually laid on
   Christ. I saw the other day, among the abominations of the Stygian Bog,
   across which I have been compelled to gaze of late, such a foul
   teaching as this--that the transference of sin is immoral. Yet is not
   Scripture full of it? "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us
   all." Sin was borne by Christ--yes, actually borne by Him. "He Himself
   bore our sins in His own body on the tree." They may make what they
   like of it. I am not going to explain or apologize, but I say without
   hesitation that the sin of the world was laid upon Christ--and He bore
   it--and bore it away! The heaviest thing in the universe is sin! The
   earth has been known to open beneath the unbearable load of it. Neither
   angels nor men can stand under the load of sin--it sinks them lower
   than the lowest Hell! When sin was laid upon the Lamb of God, He bore
   it--but He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, and He was
   exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. To have borne up the weight of
   the world would have been nothing compared with bearing the sin of the
   world.

   The best of all is, however, that our Lord did not only bear the load,
   but He took it away. "He takes away the sin of the world." The sin
   which was laid upon Christ did not remain there! He took it away--it
   remains no more. We read in Scripture many things about sin, as that
   God forgives it, blots it out, forgets it, casts it into the sea, puts
   it behind His back and a great many other expressive figures--but this
   is, in some respects, the best of them--He takes it away! Blessed be
   His name! My Hearer, if you believe in Jesus, you need not ask, "Where
   is my sin?" Jesus took it away! By bearing it, He bore it away. It is
   gone, gone forever--it is utterly abolished. "The day comes when the
   sins of Jacob shall

   be sought for, and they shall not be found; yes they shall not be, says
   the Lord." Our glory is that by the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross,
   sin was made an end of. He finished transgressions, made an end of sin
   and brought in everlasting righteousness! This is a Gospel worth
   believing, worth living for, worth dying for! Let all teaching be
   accursed that comes in opposition to it! This is Heaven to a soul whose
   sins are dragging it down to Hell--sin can be forgiven, for Jesus is
   "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." What a sight is
   this to see! Those eyes can never again be sore that have once seen sin
   put away by Jesus!

   V. I must, however, call your attention to another point which is that
   JOHN REPRESENTS OUR LORD AS REMOVING SIN CONTINUALLY. "Behold the Lamb
   of God who takes away the sin of the world." Behold the sin of the
   world as one huge mass and Jesus deals with it as a whole and takes it
   away. John does not speak in the past tense nor in the future, but He
   speaks in the present--"He takes away the sin of the world." Our
   Savior's atoning Sacrifice, though it was but once offered, is
   perpetual in its effect. He must die at a certain point of time and
   there were reasons why His death should have taken place at the
   particular moment when it did. Yet time does not enter into the essence
   of it. The Sacrifice might have been offered a million years ago and,
   as the Lamb of God, He would still take away sin. Or the actual
   Sacrifice might further have been postponed, if Infinite Wisdom had so
   chosen, and yet the Lamb of God would now have taken away sin.

   The date of His death is not the question--His Sacrifice is effectual
   before and after the event. Our Savior was the Lamb slain before the
   foundation of the world, in the purpose, Covenant and thought of God.
   His Sacrifice saved Adam, Noah, Moses, David and all the elect before
   the name of Calvary had become illustrious. Before He died, He stood
   before John the Baptist as taking away the sin of the world! And now,
   today, though His death is a matter of 1800 years ago, He still "takes
   away the sin of the world." In His Person He was always the Sin-Bearer
   and through His death He puts sin away forever. By one Sacrifice He has
   forever put away sin! His eternal merits forever remain a sweet savor
   unto the Lord God and forever remove the foul offense of human
   transgression. As the Great Purifier, He continually takes away and
   will continue to take away the sin of the world!

   Blessed be God, I have, today, a Savior as fresh and full of power as
   if He had been crucified this very morning for my sin! He is now as
   able to save me as if He were at this hour on the Cross! Those dear
   wounds of His, in effect, perpetually bleed--in His case, the print of
   the nails is the token of an inexhaustible fountain of merit which is
   always flowing forth for the removal of my guilt, eternally
   efficacious, ceaselessly sin-cleansing. This is where we rest! It is
   the most grand fact in the history of all ages that Jesus takes away
   the sin of the world. We do not know what happened before this solar
   system was created and we do not need to know. We cannot prophesy what
   is going to happen when yon sun and moon and stars shall disappear like
   transient sparks from the anvil of power. But there never will be any
   new fact which can equal this first of the Truths of God--that the Son
   of God assumed human nature and, in that Nature, bore sin and bore it
   away. This is the Truth to be looked at beyond all others--"Behold the
   Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the

   world."

   Although I am too weak to preach to you as I desire, I feel great joy
   for myself in looking to the Sin-Bearer who has taken away my sin. How
   I wish that all of you felt the same! This is the pith and the marrow
   of my theology. But you must take the Lamb of God for yourselves--you
   must know Him for yourselves--you must believe in Him for yourselves
   and He will surely take away that sin which now burdens you. He will
   take it right away, so that it shall never burden you again. He will
   blot it out--it shall cease to be! You shall be no more under
   condemnation, but shall be free from it forever! God help you to know
   Jesus, of whom I speak to you!

   VI. The last point is this--JOHN WITNESSED TO THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF
   THE DIVINE SACRIFICE--

   "Who takes away the sin of the world." No other in all the world can
   take away sin but the Lamb of God. There is no sin which He cannot take
   away. There is no limit to the value of His great Sacrifice--He takes
   away the sin of the world. There is no other sin-bearer, no other
   atonement, no other satisfaction. No "purgatory" in the present nor in
   the future can take away sin! No supposed remedial pains in Hell are
   possible--neither lapse of years, nor bitterness of regret can take
   away sin! Jesus takes away the sin of the world and beside Him there is
   no other!

   Mark you, "He takes away the sin of the world'--all manner of sin that
   was ever done in the world, by all sorts of men, of all races, in all
   places! He removes sins of long duration, of aggravated criminality, of
   crying heinousness--any sin that can be compassed within the bounds of
   the world--Christ takes away! O repenting sinner, though your sins

   should be as many as the hairs of your head and each one as black as
   the midnight of Tophet, yet Christ takes away each sin! Though you
   should have cursed God and slain your fellow men, yet such sin as this
   comes within the range of "the sin of the world." Even as another text
   puts it, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son,
   that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life," so is this text to be understood! Jesus so takes away the sin of
   the world that whoever believes in Him shall no longer be guilty of
   sin, but shall be forgiven and be justified before

   God!

   Do you hear this? There is nothing in this text to shut any man out of
   mercy! Behold, I set before you an open door. There is everything in my
   text to induce every one of you who is conscious of guilt to come to
   the Lord Jesus and accept Him as your Substitute and Sacrifice. Christ
   shall take away no man's sin that does not believe in Him. Christ has
   so taken away sin that whoever believes in Him shall live. If you will
   come, now, and lay your hand on this Divine Sacrifice, you shall find
   it All-Sufficient, whatever the nature of your guilt may be. O
   delightful Gospel! How sweet to preach it!

   I have done when I have said this. John the Baptist appears to me to
   have relieved his mind by the utterance of my text. He was full of
   weariness because of the scribes and Pharisees, doctors and doubters
   who had been warring around him. He had been put on the defensive and
   had been harried with innumerable questions. First one and then
   another-- this question and that question. And now John ends the wordy
   duel by pointing to One whose Presence was joy to his heart! There
   stands the Savior and John stops his argument and cries, "There He is!
   Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

   It is to me a supreme joy to turn aside from those who becloud the
   everlasting Gospel--to leap out of the midst of controversy and to cry
   to you with exultation--Jesus is the Son of God! He is the Sacrifice
   for sin! He takes it away! Believe on Him and live! There is more joy
   in one sermon than in years of disputation. Oh, that everyone in this
   congregation might believe in Jesus and live! What a refreshment it is
   to the preacher's mind to get to his message at last, to get away from
   the bamboozlement of those who confound plain Truth, and to come to
   matter-of-fact dealing with eternal salvation. There, let them question
   and quibble--the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us
   from all sin!

   With what certainty the Baptist speaks! He does not, for a moment,
   hesitate, or speak with cautious reserve. No debate disturbs the
   foundation of his confidence. Before his eyes he evidently sees the
   Sin-Bearer and he bids others see Him as he sees Him. To him no doubt
   remains, for he had seen the heavens opened above the head of
   Jesus--and he had heard the voice of God, Himself, saying, "This is My
   beloved Son." Dear Friends, the marks which prove our Lord Jesus to be
   the vicarious Sacrifice for sin are as clear to me as ever they were to
   John the Baptist! I dogmatize because I feel more than sure as to my
   Lord's being the great Sacrifice for sin! I could not doubt this
   doctrine if I were to try to do so. My hope, my joy, my very being
   hinge on my Lord's Substitution. This truth is woven into the warp and
   woof of my being. Jesus suffered in my place!

   A leader in the religious world tells us that we have not yet obtained
   a satisfactory theory of the Atonement. Let him speak for himself!
   Thousands of us know what we believe and know what Jesus did for us!
   Where has the man lived? What comfort in life and death is there for
   one who cannot see clearly this first of Truths? I thank God I have a
   definition of the Atonement which is to me most clear, sure and full of
   comfort! Here it is--"He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the
   tree." I can live by that and I can die by that. I am sick to death of
   the ever-repeated cant about, "theory of the Atonement." I have no
   theory, for I believe in the Atonement, itself! God keep us steadfast
   in the faith once delivered to the saints and our consolation will
   abound.

   And yet, once more, there seems to be a deep anxiety on John's part in
   the words of my text. He says, "Behold the Lamb of God." And he does so
   for the sake of those around him. We do not desire others to believe
   with us because we need them to keep us in countenance. John was not a
   man cut out of brown paper, in the same shape as thousands of
   others--he was an original, self-contained individual. He knew how to
   see the Lamb of God for himself, whether other people did or did not
   see Him. When I preach to you the doctrine of the vicarious Sacrifice,
   it is not because I am unable to believe this Truth, alone. Long ago I
   ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil
   world. I have faith in the Lord Jesus for myself, a faith burned into
   me as with a hot iron. I thank God what I believe I shall believe, even
   if I believe it alone! If I am the last man to glory in the
   Substitution of the Lord Jesus, I shall count myself honored to bear
   His Cross alone.

   But there is great love to his fellows in the heart of every man who
   has seen the Lord Jesus Christ as bearing sin. That great deed of love
   makes the beholder feel that he would have all men look and live. Were
   you ever half-starved and did you find bread? Then I know you pitied
   your famishing brother. Our very instincts lead us to spread the
   blessing which we have received. Even dogs would do that. A poor dog
   had his broken leg healed at the hospital and not many weeks after, he
   brought another lame dog to the same house of mercy. We also long to
   see men come to Christ because we have had our broken hearts healed by
   His tender hands. We love because He first loved us! Brothers and
   Sisters, I was ready to perish under a sense of sin! I was all but
   damned! I felt the wrath of God surging in my soul like a sea of fire!
   I found no relief or comfort. Even the Word of God did not cheer me.
   They told me of believing in Jesus, but till I learned that this Jesus
   was God's great appointed Sacrifice for sin, I saw nothing in Him to
   cheer me. When I learned that He had borne the penalty and satisfied
   Justice, then I found out the glorious secret and my conscience was at
   rest! Conscience within us reflects, as in a mirror, the facts of the
   case as God sees them.

   God causes an awakened conscience to require that which His justice
   requires. The demand of the conscience is the echo of the demand of the
   Divine Government. Conscience requires Atonement because the necessity
   of the case and the nature of God require it. When I learned that there
   was such an Atonement provided, oh, then I rested most sweetly! I wish
   you all did! You that have no atoning sacrifice to plead, how can you
   bear the weight of your sins? What will you do with them when the
   death-damp is on your brows? You for whom, according to your own creed,
   no debt was paid, no penalty endured--how will you answer Justice in
   her great and terrible day? Believers look to Jesus as discharging all
   their debt and they are not afraid of the day of account! But where
   will you look? Oh, what will you do?

   Do not remain without faith in Him who stood in the sinner's place! His
   work is exactly what your mind needs, to give it peace. The
   satisfaction of Jesus will give your mind satisfaction, but nothing
   else will. Conscience, like the horseleech, cries, "Give, give," and it
   will never cease its cravings till it meets with Christ, whose one full
   satisfaction will content it forever. "Behold the Lamb of God." I shall
   meet you all in the Day of Judgment and I tremble not to do so, for I
   have told you all the Truth of God so far as I know it. If you reject
   the Sacrifice for sin, I cannot help it! But, I beseech you, receive it
   and find that the Lamb of God has taken away your sin! Go in peace. The
   Lord go with you. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Blood of Sprinkling and the Children

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 23, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them,
   Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the
   Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the
   blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side
   posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out
   at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass
   through to smite the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood upon the
   lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door,
   and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite
   you. And you shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to
   your sons forever And it shall come to pass, when you come to the land
   which the Lord will give you, according as He has promised, that you
   shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children
   shall say unto you, What mean you by this service? that you shall say,
   It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passo ver, who passed over the houses
   of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and
   delivered our houses." Exodus 12:21-27.

   I WANTED, dear Friends, earnestly wanted, to continue the subject of
   last Lord's-Day morning, for I felt it important that we should bear
   again and again our witness to the doctrine of the vicarious Sacrifice
   of Jesus Christ our Lord. But, at the same time, I promised that I
   would endeavor to keep "the feast of the children" and have a sermon
   which should be specially addressed to Sunday school teachers. I could
   not preach a school sermon at the appointed time, so as to open your
   children's week, but thought a discourse might come in, none the less
   suitably, if I brought up the rear by closing your meetings. How am I
   to fulfill both my purposes? I think the subject before us will enable
   me to do so. We shall preach of the sprinkled blood and of Jesus, the
   great Sacrifice for sin--and then we shall press upon all who know the
   value of the great Redemption that they teach the young in their
   earliest days what is meant by the death of Jesus and salvation through
   His blood.

   The Paschal lamb was a special type of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are
   not left to gather this from the general fact that all the ancient
   sacrifices were shadows of the one true and real Substance--we are
   assured in the New Testament that "Christ our Passover is sacrificed
   for us" (1 Cor 5:7). As the Paschal lamb must be without blemish, so
   was our Lord, and its killing and roasting with fire were typical of
   His death and sufferings. Even as to time our Lord fulfilled the type,
   for the time of His Crucifixion was the Passover. As the impression
   answers to the seal, so does the Sacrifice of our Lord correspond with
   all the items of the ceremonial Passover. We see Him "drawn out" from
   among men and led as a lamb to the slaughter. We see His blood shed and
   sprinkled. We see Him roasted in the fire of anguish. By faith we eat
   of Him and flavor the feast with the bitter herbs of penitence. We see
   Jesus and salvation where the carnal eye sees only a slaughtered lamb
   and a people saved from death.

   The Spirit of God in the ceremonial Passover lays special emphasis upon
   the sprinkling of the blood. That which men so greatly oppose, He as
   diligently sets forth as the head and front of Revelation. The blood of
   the chosen lamb was caught in a basin and not spilled upon the ground
   in wastefulness, for the blood of Christ is most precious. Into this
   bowl of blood a bunch of hyssop was dipped. The sprays of that little
   shrub would hold the crimson drops, so that they could be easily
   sprinkled. Then the father of the family went outside and struck with
   this hyssop the lintel and the two side posts of the door--and so the
   house was marked with three crimson streaks. No blood was put upon the
   threshold. Woe

   unto the man that tramples upon the blood of Christ and treats it as an
   unholy thing! Alas, I fear that many are doing so at this hour, not
   only among the outside world, but among those who profess and call
   themselves Christians.

   I shall endeavor to bring forward two things. First, the importance
   attached to the sprinkled blood and, secondly, the institution
   connected with it, namely, that the children should be instructed in
   the meaning of sacrifice, so that they also may teach their children
   and keep afire the memory of the Lord's great deliverance.

   I. First--THE IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO THE BLOOD OF SACRIFICE is here
   made very plain. Pains are taken to make the sacrifice observable, yes,
   to force it upon the notice of all the people!

   I note, first, that it became and remained the national mark. If you
   had traversed the streets of Memphis or Rameses on the night of the
   Passover, you could have told who were Israelites and who were
   Egyptians by one conspicuous token. There was no need to listen under
   the window to hear the speech of the people within the house, nor to
   wait till any came into the street so that you could observe their
   attire. This one thing, alone, would be a sufficient guide--the
   Israelite had the blood mark upon his doorway--the Egyptian had it not.
   Mark you, this is still the great point of difference between the
   children of God and the children of the Wicked One. There are, in
   truth, but two denominations upon this earth-- the Church and the
   world--those who are justified in Christ Jesus and those who are
   condemned in their sins. This shall stand for a never-failing sign of
   the "Israelite, indeed." He has come to the blood of sprinkling, which
   speaks better things than that of Abel. He that believes in the Son of
   God as the one accepted Sacrifice for sin, has salvation and he that
   believes not in Him will die in his sins.

   The true Israel are trusting in the Sacrifice once offered for sin--it
   is their rest, their comfort, their hope. As for those who are not
   trusting in the atoning Sacrifice, they have rejected the counsel of
   God against themselves, and thus have declared their true character and
   condition. Jesus said, "You believe not because you are not of My
   sheep, as I said unto you"--and lack of faith in that shedding of
   blood, without which there is no remission of sin--is the damning mark
   of one who is a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel. Let us make no
   question about it--"Whoever goes onward and abides not in the teaching
   of Christ, has not God." (See 2 John 9 in the Revised Version). He that
   will not accept the Propitiation which God has set forth must bear his
   own iniquity! Nothing more just and yet nothing more terrible can
   happen to such a man than that his iniquity should not be purged by
   sacrifice nor offering forever. I care not what your supposed
   righteousness may be, nor how you think to commend yourselves to
   God--if you reject His Son, He will reject you! If you come before God
   without the atoning blood, you have neither part nor lot in the matter
   of the Covenant inheritance and you are not numbered among the people
   of God! The Sacrifice is the national mark of the spiritual Israel and
   he that has it not is an alien--he shall have no inheritance among them
   that are sanctified--neither shall he behold the Lord in Glory.

   Secondly, as this was the national mark, it was also the saving token.
   That night the Angel of Death spread His wings on the blast and as He
   flew down the streets of Egypt He smote high and low, the first-born of
   princes and the first-born of beasts, so that in every house and in
   every stall there was one dead. Where He saw the blood-mark He entered
   not to smite, but everywhere else the vengeance of the Lord fell on the
   rebellious. The words are very remarkable--"The Lord will pass over the
   door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to
   smite you." What holds back the sword? Nothing but the bloodstain on
   the door! The lamb has been slain and they have sprinkled their houses
   with the blood and, therefore, they are secure. The sons of Jacob were
   not richer, nor wiser, nor stronger, nor more skilled than the sons of
   Ham--but they were redeemed by the blood and, therefore, they lived,
   while those who knew not the redeeming token died. When Jericho fell
   down, the one house that stood was that which had the scarlet line in
   the window-- and when the Lord visits for sin--the man that shall
   escape is he who knows Jesus, "in whom we have redemption through His
   blood, the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of His Grace."

   I call your very special attention, however, to the words that are used
   in the 23rd verse--"The Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians;
   and when He sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts,
   the Lord will pass over the door." What an instructive expression!
   "When He sees the blood." It is a very comforting thing for you and for
   me to behold the Atonement, for thus we gain peace and enter into rest.
   But, after all, the grand reason of our salvation is that the Lord
   Himself looks upon the Atonement and is well pleased for His
   righteousness' sake. In the 13th verse we hear the Lord, Himself,
   say--"When I see the blood I will pass over you." Think of the holy
   eyes of God being turned to Him that takes away the sin of the
   world--and so fixed on Him that He passes over us! He is of purer eyes
   than to behold iniquity,

   but He looks upon the face of His Anointed and forgives the sin. He
   accepts us with our Sacrifice. Well does our hymn-writer pray--

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

   It is not our sight of the sprinkled blood which is the basis of
   salvation, but God's sight of it! God's acceptance of Christ is the
   sure guarantee of the salvation of those who accept His Sacrifice.
   Beloved, when your eyes of faith are dim; when your eyeballs swim in a
   flood of tears; when the darkness of sorrow hides much from your
   vision, then Jehovah sees the blood of His Son and spares you! In the
   thick darkness, when you cannot see at all, the Lord God never fails to
   see in Jesus that with which He is well pleased and with which His Law
   is honored. He will not suffer the destroyer to come near you to harm
   you, because He sees in Christ that which vindicates His justice and
   establishes the necessary rule of Law. The blood is the saving mark! At
   this moment this is the pressing question for each one in the company
   gathered in this house--Do you trust the Divine Propitiation or do you
   not? Bring to me what you will to prove your own personal excellence. I
   believe in no virtue which insults the Savior's blood which alone
   cleanses us from all sin! Rather, confess your multiplied
   transgressions and shortcomings--and then take heart and hope--for
   there is forgiveness large and free for the very chief of sinners
   through Him who has made peace by the blood of His Cross!

   O my Hearer, guilty and self-condemned, if you will now come and trust
   in Jesus Christ, your sins, which are many, shall be all forgiven you
   and you shall love so much in return that the whole bent and bias of
   your mind shall be turned from sin to gracious obedience! The Atonement
   applied to the conscience saves from despair and then, acting upon the
   heart, it saves from the love of evil. But the Atonement is the saving
   sign! The blood on the lintel and on the two side posts secured the
   house of the poorest Israelite. But the proudest Egyptian, yes, even
   Pharaoh on the throne, could not escape the destroyer's sword. Believe
   and live! Reject the Atonement and perish!

   Note, next, that the mark of the blood was rendered as conspicuous as
   possible. The Israelites, though they ate the Paschal lamb in the quiet
   of their own families, yet made no secret of the sacrifice. They did
   not make the distinctive mark upon the wall of some inner chamber, or
   in some place where they could cover it with hangings, that no man
   might perceive it. No, they smote the upper part of the doorway and the
   two side posts of the door so that all who passed by the house must see
   that it was marked in a peculiar manner--and marked with blood! The
   Lord's people were not ashamed to have the blood thus put in the
   forefront of every dwelling--and those that are saved by the great
   Sacrifice are not to treat the doctrine of Substitution as a
   hole-and-corner creed, to be secretly held, but not openly avowed. The
   death of Jesus in our place is not a redemption of which we are ashamed
   to speak in any place! Call it old-fashioned and out of date--our
   critics may--but we are not ashamed to publish it to the four winds of
   Heaven and to avow our confidence in it! He that is ashamed of Christ
   in this generation, of him will Christ be ashamed when He comes in the
   Glory of His Father and all His holy angels with Him!

   There is a theology abroad in the world which admits the death of
   Christ to a certain indefinable place in its system, but that place is
   very much in the rear. I claim for the Atonement the front and the
   center--the Lamb must be in the midst of the throne! Atonement is not a
   mystery to be scarcely spoken of, or if spoken of at all, to be
   whispered. No, no, it is a sublime simplicity, a fact for a child to
   know, a truth for the common people to rejoice in! We must preach
   Christ Crucified whatever else we do not preach! Brothers and Sisters,
   I do not think you ought to hear a minister preach three sermons
   without learning the doctrine of Atonement! I give wide latitude when I
   say this, for I would desire never to preach at all without setting
   forth salvation by faith in the blood of Jesus! Across my pulpit and my
   tabernacle shall be the mark of the blood--it will disgust the
   enemy--but it will delight the faithful! Substitution seems to me to be
   the soul of the Gospel, the life of the Gospel, the essence of the
   Gospel! Therefore must it be always in the front.

   Jesus, as the Lamb of God, is the Alpha, and we must keep Him first and
   before all others. I charge you, Christian people, do not make this a
   secondary doctrine! Keep your perspective right and have this always in
   the foreground. Other Truths of God are valuable and may most worthily
   be placed in the distance, but this is always to be in the foreground.
   The center of Christianity is the Cross and the meaning of the Cross is
   Substitution--

   "We may not know, we cannot tell, What pains our Jesus bore, But we
   believe it was for us He hung and suffered there."

   The great Sacrifice is the place of gathering for the chosen seed--we
   meet at the Cross, even as every family in Israel met around the table
   whereon was placed the lamb--and met within a house which was marked
   with blood. Instead of looking upon the vicarious Sacrifice as placed
   somewhere in the remote distance, we find in it the center of the
   Church. No, more--it is the vital, all-essential center, that to remove
   it is to tear out the heart of the Church! A congregation which has
   rejected the Sacrifice of Christ is not a church, but an assembly of
   unbelievers! Of the Church I may truly say, "The blood is the life
   thereof." Like the doctrine of Justification by Faith, the doctrine of
   a vicarious Sacrifice is the article of standing or falling to each
   Church--Atonement by the substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ means
   spiritual life-- and the rejection of it is the reverse. Therefore we
   must never be ashamed of this all-important Truth of God, but make it
   as conspicuous as possible. "For the preaching of the Cross is to them
   that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of
   God."

   Further, the sprinkled blood was not only most conspicuous, but it was
   made very dear to the people, themselves, by the fact that they trusted
   in it in the most implicit manner. After the doorposts had been
   smeared, the people went inside their houses and shut the door, never
   to open it again till the morning. They were busy inside--there was the
   roasting of the lamb, the preparing of the bitter herbs, the girding of
   their loins, the getting ready for their march and so forth-- but this
   was done without fear of danger, though they knew that the destroyer
   was abroad. The command of the Lord was, "None of you shall go out at
   the door of his house until the morning." What is going on in the
   street? You must not go to see. The midnight hour has come. Did you not
   hear it? Hark, that dreadful cry! Again a piercing shriek! What is it?
   The anxious mother asks, "What can it be?" "There was a great cry in
   Egypt." The Israelites must not heed that cry so as to break the Divine
   Word which shut them in for a little moment till the tempest was
   passed.

   Perhaps persons of doubtful mind, during that dread night, may have
   said, "Something awful is happening. Hear those cries! Listen to the
   tramping of the people in the streets, as they hurry to and fro! It may
   be there is a conspiracy to slay us in the dead of night." "None of you
   shall go out at the door of his house until the morning" was sufficient
   for all who truly believed! They were safe and they knew it, and so,
   like the chicks beneath the wings of the hen, they rested in safety.
   Beloved, let us do the same! Let us honor the precious blood of Christ
   not only by speaking of it boldly to others, but by a calm and happy
   trust in it for ourselves. In full assurance let us rest. Do you
   believe that Jesus died for you? Then be at peace! Let no man's heart
   fail him, now that he knows that Jesus died for our sins according to
   the Scriptures. Let the Cross be the pillar of our confidence, unmoved
   and immovable. Do not be agitated about what has been or what is to
   be--we are housed in safety in Christ Jesus both from the sins of the
   past and the dangers of the future! All is well, since love's atoning
   work is done! In holy peacefulness let us proceed with our household
   work, purging out the old leaven and keeping the feast. And let no fear
   or doubt disturb us for an instant.

   We pity those who die without Christ, but we cannot quit our Lord under
   the pretence of saving them--that would be folly. I know there are
   terrible cries outside in the streets--who has not heard them? Oh, that
   the people would but shelter beneath the blood-mark! It pierces our
   heart to think of the doom of the ungodly when they perish in their
   sins. But, as Noah did not quit the ark, nor Israel leave her abode, so
   our hope is not larger than the Cross will warrant. All who shelter
   beneath the blood of the Atonement are secure! But as for those who
   reject this great salvation, how shall they escape? There are great and
   sad mysteries in this long night, but in the morning we shall know as
   much of God's dealings with men as it will be good for us to know.
   Meanwhile, let us labor to bring our fellows within the pale of safety,
   but yet let us be, ourselves, peaceful, composed, restful and joyful.
   "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
   Jesus." "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
   through our Lord Jesus Christ." "And not only so, but we also joy in
   God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the
   Atonement."

   Possess your souls in patience. Oh, rest in the Lord and wait patiently
   for Him! Feed upon the Lamb, for His flesh is meat, indeed. That same
   Jesus who has preserved your life from destruction will be the
   sustenance of that life evermore. Be happy beneath the saving
   blood-mark! Make a feast of your Passover. Though there is death
   outside, let your joy within be undisturbed.

   I cannot stay long on any one point and, therefore, notice, next, that
   the Paschal blood shedding was to be had in perpetual remembrance. "You
   shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons
   forever." As long as Israel remained a people, they were to keep the
   Passover--as long as there is a Christian upon earth, the sacrificial
   death of the

   Lord Jesus must be kept in memory! No progress of years or advance of
   thought could take away the memory of the Paschal sacrifice from
   Israel. Truly it was a night to be remembered when the Lord brought out
   His people from under the iron yoke of Egypt. It was such a wonderful
   deliverance, as to the plagues which preceded it and the miracle at the
   Red Sea which followed it, that no event could possibly excel it in
   interest and glory! It was such a triumph of God's power over the pride
   of Pharaoh and such a manifestation of God's love to His own people,
   that they were not merely to be glad for one night, nor for one year,
   nor even for a century--they were to remember it forever!

   Might there not come a time when Israel would have achieved further
   history? Might not some grander event eclipse the glory of Egypt's
   overthrow? Never! The death of Egypt's first-born and the song of Moses
   at the Red Sea must remain forever woven into the tapestry of Hebrew
   history. Evermore did Jehovah say, "I am the Lord your God, which have
   brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
   Beloved, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be declared and
   showed by us until He comes. No Truth of God can ever be discovered
   which can put His sacrificial death into the shade. Whatever shall
   occur, even though He comes in the clouds of Heaven, yet our song shall
   be forever, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His
   own blood."

   Amid the splendor of His endless reign He shall be "the Lamb in the
   midst of the Throne." Christ, as the Sacrifice for sin, shall always be
   the subject of our hallelujahs--"For You were slain." Certain
   vainglorious minds are advancing-- advancing from the Rock to the
   abyss! They are making progress from truth to lies. They are thinking,
   but their thoughts are not God's thoughts, neither are their ways His
   ways. They are leaving the Gospel! They are going away from Christ and
   they know not where. In denying the substitutionary Sacrifice, they are
   denying the only hope of man! As for us, we hear the Lord saying to us,
   "You shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons
   forever"--and so we will! "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and
   forever," is our boast and Glory! Let others wander where they will, we
   abide with Him who bore our sins in His own body on the tree.

   Notice next, dear Friends, that when the people came into the land
   where no Egyptian ever entered, they were still to remember the
   Passover. "It shall come to pass, when you have come to the land which
   the Lord will give you, according as He has promised, that you shall
   keep this service." In the land that flowed with milk and honey there
   was still to be the memorial of the sprinkled blood! Our Lord Jesus is
   not for the first day of our repentance, only, but for all the days of
   our lives--we remember Him as well at our highest spiritual joys as in
   our deepest spiritual griefs. The Paschal lamb is for Canaan, as well
   as for Egypt, and the Sacrifice for sin is for our full assurance as
   well as for our trembling hope. You and I will never attain to such a
   state of Grace that we can do without the blood which cleanses from
   sin! If we should ever reach perfection, then would Christ be even more
   precious than He is today, or, if we did not find Him so, we might be
   sure that our pretended attainment was a wretched delusion! If we walk
   in the Light as God is in the Light, and have constant fellowship with
   Him, yet still the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
   sin!

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, I want you to notice carefully that
   this sprinkling of the blood was to be an all-pervading memory. Catch
   this thought--the children of Israel could not go out of their
   houses--and they could not come in, without the remembrance of the
   sprinkled blood. It was over their heads--they must come under it. It
   was on the right hand and on the left--they must be surrounded by it.
   They might almost say of it, "Where shall we go from Your Presence?"
   Whether they looked on their own doors, or on those of their neighbors,
   there was the same threefold streak, and it was there both by day and
   by night. Nor was this all. When two of Israel married and the
   foundation of a family was laid, there was another memorial. The young
   husband and wife had the joy of looking upon their first-born child and
   then they called to mind that the Lord had said, "Sanctify to Me all
   the first-born." As an Israelite, he explained this to his son and
   said, "By strength of hand, the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from
   the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly
   let us go, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt,
   both the firstborn of man and the first-born of beast! Therefore I
   sacrifice to the Lord all that opens the matrix, being males, but all
   the first-born of my children I redeem."

   The commencement of every family that made up the Israelite nation was
   thus a time of special remembrance of the sprinkling of the blood, for
   then the redemption money must be paid, and thus an acknowledgment made
   that they were the Lord's, having been bought with a price. In many
   ways and everywhere present, the people were reminded of the need of
   sacrifice! To the thoughtful, every going down of the sun reminded them
   of the night to be remembered, while the beginning of each year in the
   month Abib brought home to them the fact that the beginning of their
   nation dated from the

   time of the killing of the lamb. The Lord took means to keep this
   matter before the people, for they were wayward and seemed bent upon
   forgetting--even like this present age.

   In the 13th chapter, in verse 9, we read, "It shall be for a sign unto
   you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes." And again,
   in verse 16, we read, "And it shall be for a token upon your hand, and
   for frontlets between your eyes: for by strength of hand the Lord
   brought us forth out of Egypt." By this is meant that they were, from
   then on, to do everything with regard to redemption--and they were from
   then on to see everything in connection with redemption. Redemption by
   blood was to consecrate each man's hand so that he could not use it for
   evil, but must employ it for the Lord. He could not take his food, or
   his tools in his hand, without remembrance of the sprinkled blood which
   had made his food and his labor a blessing. All his acts were to be
   under the influence of atoning blood! Oh, what service you and I would
   render if it were always redeemed labor that we gave! If we went to our
   Sunday school class, for instance, feeling, "I am bought with a price,"
   and if we preached with redeemed lips the Gospel of our own salvation,
   how livingly and lovingly we would speak! What an effect this would
   have on our lives!

   You would not dare, some of you, to do what you now do if you
   remembered that Jesus died for you! Many a thing which you have left
   undone would at once be minded if you had a clearer consciousness of
   redeeming love. The Jews became superstitious and were content with the
   letter of their law--and so they wrote out certain verses upon little
   strips of parchment called "tephillin," which they enclosed in a
   box--and then strapped upon their wrists. The true meaning of the
   passage did not lie in any such childish action--it taught them that
   they were to labor and to act with holy hands, as men under
   overwhelming obligations to the Lord's redeeming Grace. Redemption is
   to be our impulse for holy service, our check when we are tempted to
   sin. They were also to wear the memory of the Passover as frontlets
   between their eyes, and you know how certain Jews actually wore
   phylacteries upon their foreheads! That could be no more than the mere
   shell of the thing! The essence of the command was that they were to
   look on everything in reference to redemption by blood!

   Brothers and Sisters, we should view everything in this world by the
   light of redemption--and then we shall view it aright. It makes a
   wonderful change whether you view Providence from the standpoint of
   human merit or from the foot of the Cross. We see nothing truly till
   Jesus is our light! Everything is seen in its reality when you look
   through the glass, the ruby glass of the atoning Sacrifice. Use this
   telescope of the Cross and you shall see far and clear. Look at sinners
   through the Cross! Look at saints through the Cross! Look at sin
   through the Cross! Look at the world's joys and sorrows through the
   Cross! Look at Heaven and Hell through the Cross! See how conspicuous
   the blood of the Passover was meant to be and then learn from all this
   to make much of the Sacrifice of Jesus, yes, to make everything of it,
   for Christ is

   All. th th

   One thing more--we read in Deuteronomy, in the 6th chapter, and the 8th
   verse, concerning the Commandments of the Lord, as follows--"And you
   shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as
   frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the posts of
   your house, and on your gates." See, then, that the Law of God is to be
   written hard by the memorials of the blood. In Switzerland, in the
   Protestant villages, you have seen texts of Scripture upon the
   doorposts. I half wish we had that custom in England. How much of
   Gospel might be preached to wayfarers if texts of Scripture were over
   Christian people's doors! It might be ridiculed as Pharisaical, but we
   could get over that. Few are liable to that charge in these days
   through being too religious. I like to see texts of Scripture in our
   houses, in all the rooms, on the cornices and on the walls. But outside
   on the door--what a capital advertisement the Gospel might get at a
   cheap rate! But note that when the Jew wrote upon His doorposts a
   promise, or a precept, or a doctrine, he had to write upon a surface
   stained with blood! And when the next year's Passover came round he had
   to sprinkle the blood with the hyssop right over the writing.

   It seems to me so delightful to think of the Law of God in connection
   with that atoning Sacrifice which has magnified it and made it
   honorable. God's commands come to me as a redeemed man. His promises
   are to me as a blood-bought man. His teaching instructs me as one for
   whom Atonement has been made. The Law in the hand of Christ is not a
   sword to slay us, but a jewel to enrich us! All the Truths of God taken
   in connection with the Cross are greatly enhanced in value! Holy
   Scripture, itself, becomes dearer to a sevenfold degree when we see
   that it comes to us as the redeemed of the Lord--and bears upon its
   every page marks of those dear hands which were nailed to the tree for
   us.

   Beloved, you now see how everything was done that could well be thought
   of to bring the blood of the Paschal lamb into a high position in the
   esteem of the people whom the Lord brought out of Egypt. And you and I
   must do everything we can think of to bring forward and keep before men
   forever the precious doctrine of the atoning Sacrifice of Christ! He
   was made sin for us though He knew no sin, that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him.

   II. And now I will spend a short time in reminding you of THE
   INSTITUTION THAT WAS CONNECTED WITH

   THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE PASSOVER. "It shall come to pass, when your
   children shall say unto you, What

   mean you by this service? that you shall say, It is the sacrifice of
   the Lord's Passover."

   Inquiry should be excited in the minds of our children. Oh, that we
   could get them to ask questions about the things of God! Some of them
   enquire very early, but others of them seem diseased with much the same
   indifference as older folks. With both orders of mind we have to deal.
   It is well to explain to children the ordinance of the Lord's Supper,
   for this shows forth the death of Christ in symbol. I regret that
   children do not more often see this ordinance. Baptism and the Lord's
   Supper should both be placed in view of the rising generation, that
   they may then ask us, "What mean you by

   this?"

   Now, the Lord's Supper is a perennial Gospel sermon and it turns mainly
   upon the Sacrifice for sin. You may banish the doctrine of the
   Atonement from the pulpit, but it will always live in the Church
   through the Lord's Supper. You cannot explain that broken bread and
   that cup filled with the fruit of the vine without reference to our
   Lord's atoning death! You cannot explain "the communion of the body of
   Christ" without bringing in, in some form or other, the death of Jesus
   in our place! Let your little ones, then, see the Lord's Supper, and
   let them be told most clearly what it sets forth. And if not the Lord's
   Supper--for that is not the thing, itself, but only the shadow of the
   glorious fact--dwell much and often in their presence upon the
   sufferings and death of our Redeemer. Let them think of Gethsemane,
   Gabbatha and Golgotha--and let them learn to sing in plaintive tones of
   Him who laid down His life for us. Tell them who it was that suffered,
   and why. Yes, though the hymn is hardly to my taste in some of its
   expressions, I would have the children sing--

   "There is a green hill far away, Without a city wall." And I would have
   them learn such lines as these--

   "He knew how wicked we had been,

   And knew that God must punish sin--

   So out of pity Jesus said,

   He'd bear the punishment instead." And when attention is excited upon
   the best of themes, let us be ready to explain the great transaction by
   which God is just and yet sinners are justified. Children can well
   understand the doctrine of the expiatory Sacrifice--it was meant to be
   a Gospel for the youngest. The Gospel of Substitution is a simplicity,
   though it is a mystery. We ought not to be content until our little
   ones know and trust in their finished Sacrifice. This is essential
   knowledge and the key to all other spiritual teaching. May our dear
   children know the Cross and they will have begun well. With all their
   getting may they get an understanding of this and they will have the
   foundation rightly laid.

   This will necessitate your teaching the child his need of a Savior. You
   must not hold back from this necessary task. Do not flatter the child
   with delusive rubbish about his nature being good and needing to be
   developed. Tell him he must be born again! Don't bolster him up with
   the fancy of his own innocence, but show him his sin! Mention the
   childish sins to which he is prone and pray the Holy Spirit to work
   conviction in his heart and conscience. Deal with the young in much the
   same way as you would with the old. Be thorough and honest with them.
   Flimsy religion is neither good for young nor old. These boys and girls
   need pardon through the precious blood as surely as any of us. Do not
   hesitate to tell the child his ruin--otherwise he will not desire the
   remedy. Tell him, also, of the punishment for sin and warn him of its
   terror. Be tender, but be true. Do not hide from the youthful sinner
   the Truth of God, however terrible it may be! Now that he has come to
   years of responsibility, if he believes not in Christ, it will go ill
   with him at the Last Great Day. Set before him the Judgment Seat and
   remind him that he will have to give an account of things done in the
   body. Labor to awake the conscience and pray God the Holy Spirit to
   work by you till the heart becomes tender and the mind perceives the
   need of the great salvation.

   Children need to learn the doctrine of the Cross that they may find
   immediate salvation. I thank God that in our Sunday school we believe
   in the salvation of children as children! How very many has it been my
   joy to see of boys and girls who have come forward to confess their
   faith in Christ! And I again wish to say that the best converts, the
   clearest converts, the most intelligent converts we have ever had have
   been the young ones! And, instead of there being any deficiency in
   their knowledge of the Word of God and the Doctrines of Grace, we have
   usually found them to have a very delightful acquaintance with the
   great cardinal Truths of Christ. Many of these dear children have been
   able to speak of the things of God with great pleasure of heart and
   force of understanding. Go on, dear teachers, and believe that God will
   save your children! Be not content to sow principles in their minds
   which may possibly develop in later years, but be working for immediate
   conversion! Expect fruit in your children while they are children! Pray
   for them that they may not run into the world and fall into the evils
   of outward sin--and then come back with broken bones to the Good
   Shepherd. Pray that they may, by God's rich Grace, be kept from the
   paths of the Wicked One and grow up in the fold of Christ--first as
   lambs of His flock--and then as sheep of His hand.

   One thing I am sure of, and that is that if we teach the children the
   Doctrine of the Atonement in the most unmistakable terms, we shall be
   doing ourselves good. I sometimes hope that God will revive His Church
   and restore her to her ancient faith by a gracious work among children.
   If He would bring into our Churches a large influx of young people, how
   it would tend to quicken the sluggish blood of the supine and sleepy!
   Child Christians tend to keep the house alive. Oh, for more of them! If
   the Lord will but help us to teach the children, we shall be teaching
   ourselves. There is no way of learning like teaching--and you do not
   know a thing till you can teach it to another. You do not thoroughly
   know any Truth of God till you can put it before a child so that he can
   see it. In trying to make a little child understand the Doctrine of the
   Atonement you will get clearer views of it yourselves and, therefore, I
   commend the holy exercise to you.

   What a mercy it will be if our children are thoroughly grounded in the
   doctrine of redemption by Christ! If they are warned against the false
   gospels of this evil age, and if they are taught to rest on the eternal
   Rock of Christ's finished work, we may hope to have a generation
   following us which will maintain the faith and will be better than
   their fathers! Your Sunday schools are admirable, but what is their
   purpose if you do not teach the Gospel in them? You get children
   together and keep them quiet for an hour-and-a-half, and then send them
   home--but what is the good of it? It may bring some quiet to their
   fathers and mothers and that is, perhaps, why they send them to the
   school. But all the real good lies in what is taught the children! The
   most fundamental Truth of God should be made most prominent--and what
   is this but the Cross? Some talk to children about being good boys and
   girls and so on. That is to say, they preach the Law to the children,
   though they would preach the Gospel to grown-up people!

   Is this honest? Is this wise? Children need the Gospel, the whole
   Gospel, the unadulterated Gospel! They ought to have it and, if they
   are taught of the Spirit of God, they are as capable of receiving it as
   persons of ripe years. Teach the little ones that Jesus died, the Just
   for the unjust, to bring us to God! Very, very confidently do I leave
   this work in the hands of the teachers of this school. I never knew a
   nobler body of Christian men and women, for they are as earnest in
   their attachment to the old Gospel as they are eager for the winning of
   souls. Be encouraged, my Brothers and Sisters-- the God who has saved
   so many of your children is going to save many, many more of them! And
   we shall have great joy in this Tabernacle as we see hundreds brought
   to Christ. God grant it, for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"He Comes With Clouds"

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they
   also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail
   because of Him. Even so, Amen." Revelation 1:7.

   IN reading the chapter we observed how the beloved John saluted the
   seven Churches in Asia with, "Grace and peace be unto you." Blessed men
   scatter blessings. When the benediction of God rests on us, we pour out
   benedictions upon others.

   From benediction, John's gracious heart rose into adoration of the
   great King of Saints. As our hymn puts it, "The holy to the holiest
   leads." They that are good at blessing men will be quick at blessing
   God.

   It is a wonderful doxology which John has given us--"Unto Him that
   loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us
   kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion
   forever and ever. Amen." I like the Revised Version for its
   alliteration in this case, although I cannot prefer it for other
   reasons. It runs thus: "Unto Him that loves us, and loosed us from our
   sins by His blood." Truly our Redeemer has loosed us from sin, but the
   mention of His blood suggests washing rather than loosing. We can keep
   the alliteration and yet retain the meaning of cleansing if we read the
   passage, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us." Loved us and washed
   us--carry those two words home with you--let them lie upon your tongue
   to sweeten your breath for prayer and praise. "Unto Him that loved us,
   and washed us, be glory and dominion forever and ever."

   Then John tells of the dignity which the Lord has put upon us in making
   us kings and priests. And from this he ascribes royalty and dominion
   unto the Lord, Himself. John had been extolling the Great King, whom he
   calls, "The Prince of the kings of the earth." Such, indeed, He was and
   is and is to be! When John had touched upon that royalty which is
   natural to our Divine Lord and that dominion which has come to Him by
   conquest--and by the gift of the Father as the reward of all His
   travail--he then went on to note that He has "made us kings." Our
   Lord's royalty He diffuses among His redeemed! We praise Him because He
   is, in Himself, a King and next, because He is a king-maker, the
   fountain of honor and majesty! He has not only enough of royalty for
   Himself, but He hands a measure of His dignity to His people. He makes
   kings out of such common stuff as He finds in us poor sinners! Shall we
   not adore Him for this? Shall we not cast our crowns at His feet? He
   gave our crowns to us--shall we not give them to Him? "To Him be glory
   and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

   King by Your Divine Nature! King by filial right! King-maker, lifting
   up the beggar from the dunghill to set him among princes! King of kings
   by the unanimous love of all Your crowned ones! You are He whom Your
   brethren shall praise! Reign forever and ever! Unto You be hosannas of
   welcome and hallelujahs of praise! Lord of the earth and Heaven, let
   all things that are, or ever shall be, render unto You all glory in the
   highest degree! Brothers and Sisters, do not your souls take fire as
   you think of the praises of Immanuel? Gladly would I fill the universe
   with His praise! Oh for a thousand tongues to sing the glories of the
   Lord Jesus! If the Spirit who dictated the words of John has taken
   possession of our spirits, we shall find adoration to be our highest
   delight. Never are we so near to Heaven as when we are absorbed in the
   worship of Jesus, our Lord and God! Oh, that I could now adore Him as I
   shall do when, delivered from this encumbering body, my soul shall
   behold Him in the fullness of His Glory!

   It would seem from the chapter that the adoration of John was increased
   by his expectation of the Lord's Second Coming, for He cries, "Behold,
   He comes with clouds!" His adoration awoke his expectation, which all
   the while was lying in his soul as an element of that vehement heat of
   reverent love which he poured forth in his doxology. "Behold, He

   comes," he said, and thus he revealed one source of his reverence.
   "Behold, He comes," he said, and this exclamation was the result of his
   reverence. He adored until his faith realized his Lord and became a
   second and nobler sight!

   I think, too, that his reverence was deepened and his adoration was
   rendered more fervent by his conviction of the speediness of is Lord's
   coming. "Behold, He comes," or is coming--he means to assert that He is
   even now on His way! As workmen are moved to be more diligent in
   service when they hear their master's steps, so, doubtless, saints are
   quickened in their devotion when they are conscious that He whom they
   worship is drawing near. He has gone away to the Father for a while and
   so He has left us alone in this world--but He has said, "I will come
   again and receive you unto Myself--and we are confident that He will
   keep His word! Sweet is the remembrance of that loving promise. That
   assurance is pouring its savor into John's heart while he is adoring
   and it becomes inevitable, as well as most meet and proper, that his
   doxology should, at its close, introduce him to the Lord, Himself, and
   cause him to cry out, "Behold, He comes!" Having worshipped among the
   pure in heart, he sees the Lord. Having adored the King, he sees Him
   assume the Judgement Seat and appear in the clouds of Heaven! When once
   we enter upon heavenly things, we know not how far we can go, nor how
   high we can climb! John, who began with blessing the Churches, now
   beholds His Lord!

   May the Holy Spirit help us reverently to think of the wondrous coming
   of our blessed Lord, when He shall appear to the delight of His people
   and the dismay of the ungodly!

   There are three things in the text. They will seem commonplace to some
   of you and, indeed, they are the commonplace of our divine faith--and
   yet nothing can be of greater importance! The first is, our Lord Jesus
   comes--"Behold He comes with clouds." The second is, our Lord Jesus
   Christ's coming will be seen of all-- "Every eye shall see Him, and
   they also which pierced Him." And, in the third place, this coming will
   cause great sorrow--"All kindreds of the earth shall wail because of
   Him."

   I. May the Holy Spirit help us while, in the first place, we remember
   that OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST COMES!

   This announcement is thought worthy of a note of admiration. As the
   Latins would say, there is an "Ecce" placed here--"Behold, He comes!"
   As in the old books, the printers put hands in the margin pointing to
   special passages, such is this, "behold!" It is a Nota Bene calling
   upon us to note well what we are reading. Here is something which we
   are to hold and behold. We now hear a voice crying, "Come and see!" The
   Holy Spirit never uses superfluous words, nor redundant notes of
   exclamation--when He cries, "Behold!"--it is because there is reason
   for deep and lasting attention. Will you turn away when He bids you
   pause and ponder, linger and look? Oh, you that have been beholding
   vanity, come and behold the fact that Jesus comes! You that have been
   beholding this and beholding that--and thinking of nothing worthy of
   your thoughts, forget these passing sights and spectacles--and, for
   once, behold a scene which has no parallel!

   It is not a monarch in her jubilee, but the King of kings in His Glory!
   That same Jesus who went up from Olivet into Heaven is coming, again,
   to earth in like manner as His disciples saw Him go up into Heaven!
   Come and behold this great sight! If ever there was a thing in the
   world worth looking at, it is this. Behold and see if there was ever
   Glory like His Glory! Hearken to the midnight cry, "Behold, the
   Bridegroom comes!" It has practically to do with you. "Go you forth to
   meet Him." This voice is to you, O sons of men! Do not carelessly turn
   aside, for the Lord God, Himself, demands your attention--He commands
   you to "Behold!" Will you be blind when God bids you behold? Will you
   shut your eyes when your Savior cries, "Behold"? When the finger of
   Inspiration points the way, will not your eyes follow where it directs
   you? "Behold, He comes!" O my Hearers, look here, I beseech you!

   If we read the words of our text carefully, this, "Behold," shows us,
   first, that this coming is to be vividly realized. I think I see John.
   He is in the spirit, but all of a sudden he seems startled into a
   keener and more solemn attention. His mind is more awake than usual,
   though he was always a man of bright eyes that saw afar. We always
   liken him to the eagle for the height of his flight and the keenness of
   his vision. Yet all of a sudden, even he seems startled with a more
   astounding vision! He cries out, "Behold! Behold!" He has caught sight
   of His Lord! He says not, "He will come by-and-by," but, "I can see
   Him! He is coming!" He has evidently realized the Second Advent. He has
   so conceived of the Second Coming of the Lord that it has become a
   matter of fact to Him--a matter to be spoken of and even to be written
   down! "Behold, He comes!"

   Have you and I ever realized the coming of Christ so fully as this?
   Perhaps we believe that He will come. I should hope that we all do
   that. If we believe that the Lord Jesus has come the first time, we
   believe also that He will come the second time, but are these equally
   assured Truths of God to us? Perhaps we have vividly realized the first
   appearing--

   from Bethlehem to Golgotha and from Calvary to Olivet we have traced
   the Lord, understanding that blessed cry, "Behold the Lamb of God, who
   takes away the sin of the world!" Yes, the Word was made flesh and
   dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the
   Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth. But have we, with
   equal firmness, grasped the thought that He comes, again, without a
   sin-offering unto salvation? Do we now say to each other, as we meet in
   happy fellowship, "Yes, our Lord comes"? It should be to us not only a
   prophecy assuredly believed among us, but a scene pictured in our souls
   and anticipated in our hearts!

   My imagination has often set forth that dread scene--but better still,
   my faith has realized it! I have heard the chariot wheels of the Lord's
   approach and I have endeavored to set my house in order for His
   reception. I have felt the shadow of that great cloud which shall
   attend Him, dampening the ardor of my worldliness. I hear, even now, in
   spirit, the sound of the last trumpet, whose tremendous blast startles
   my soul to serious action and puts force into my life. Would God that I
   lived more completely under the influence of that august event!

   Brothers and Sisters, to this realization I invite you. I wish that we
   could go together in this until, as we went out of the house we said to
   one another, "Behold, He comes!" One said to his companion, after the
   Lord had risen, "The Lord has risen, indeed." I want you, tonight, to
   feel just as certain that the Lord is coming, indeed, and I would have
   you say as much to one another! We are sure that He will come and that
   He is on the way, but the benefit of a more vivid realization would be
   incalculable.

   This coming is to be zealously proclaimed, for John does not merely
   calmly say, "He comes," but he vigorously cries, "Behold, He comes!"
   Just as the herald of a king prefaces his message by a trumpet blast
   that calls attention, so John cries, "Behold!" As the old town crier
   was known to say, "O yes! O yes! O yes!" or to use some other striking
   formula by which he called upon men to note his announcement, so John
   stands in the midst of us and cries, "Behold, He comes!" He calls
   attention by that emphatic word, "Behold!" It is no ordinary message
   that he brings and he would not have us treat his word as a commonplace
   saying. He throws his heart into the announcement! He proclaims it
   loudly. He proclaims it solemnly and He proclaims it with
   authority--"Behold, He comes!"

   Brethren, no Truth of God ought to be more frequently proclaimed, next
   to the First Coming of the Lord, than His Second Coming--and you cannot
   thoroughly set forth all the ends and bearings of the First Advent if
   you forget the Second. At the Lord's Supper, there is no discerning the
   Lord's body unless you discern His First Coming--but there is no
   drinking of His cup to its fullness, unless you hear Him say, "Until I
   come." You must look forward as well as backward! So must it be with
   all our ministries--they must look to Him on the Cross and on the
   Throne. We must vividly realize that He, who has once come, is coming
   again, or else our testimony will be marred and one-sided. We shall
   make lame work of preaching and teaching if we leave out either advent.

   And next, it is to be unquestionably asserted. "Behold, He comes!" It
   is not, "Perhaps He will come," nor, "Perhaps He may yet appear."
   "Behold, He comes," should be dogmatically asserted as an absolute
   certainty which has been realized by the heart of the man who proclaims
   it. "Behold, He comes!" All the Prophets say that He will come. From
   Enoch down to the last that spoke by Inspiration, they declare, "The
   Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints." You shall not find one
   who has spoken by the authority of God who does not, either directly or
   by implication, assert the coming of the Son of Man when the multitudes
   born of woman shall be summoned to His bar to receive the recompense of
   their deeds! All the promises are travailing with this prognostication,
   "Behold, He comes!" We have His own word for it and this makes
   assurance doubly sure. He has told us that He will come again. He often
   assured His disciples that if He went away from them, He would come
   again to them--and He left us the Lord's Supper as a parting token to
   be observed until He comes. As often as we break bread, we are reminded
   of the fact that though it is a most blessed ordinance, yet it is a
   temporary one and will cease to be celebrated when our absent Lord is
   once again present with us!

   What, dear Brothers and Sisters, is there to hinder Christ from coming?
   When I have studied and thought over this word, "Behold, He comes,"
   yes, I have said to myself, indeed, He does--who shall hold Him back?
   His heart is with His Church on earth. In the place where He fought the
   battle, He desires to celebrate the victory! His delights are with the
   sons of men! All His saints are waiting for the day of His appearing
   and He is waiting, also. The very earth in her sorrow and her groaning
   travails for His coming which is to be her redemption! The creation is
   made subject to vanity for a little while, but when the Lord shall come
   again, the creation, itself, shall also be delivered from the bondage
   of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God!

   We might question whether He would come a second time if He had not
   already come the first time, but if He came to Bethlehem, be assured
   that His feet shall yet stand upon Olivet! If He came to die, doubt not
   that He will come to reign! If He came to be despised and rejected of
   men, why should we doubt that He will come to be admired in all them
   that believe? His sure coming is to be unquestionably asserted.

   Dear Friends, this fact that He will come again is to be taught as
   demanding our immediate interest. "Behold, He comes with clouds."
   Behold, look at it! Meditate on it. It is worth thinking of. It
   concerns yourself. Study it again and again. "He comes!" He will so
   soon be here that it is put in the present tense--"He comes!" That
   shaking of the earth; that blotting out of sun and moon; that fleeing
   of Heaven and earth before His face--all these are so nearly here that
   John describes them as accomplished! "Behold, He comes!"

   There is this sense lying in the background--that He is already on the
   way. All that He is doing in Providence and Grace is a preparation for
   His coming. All the events of human history; all the great decisions of
   His august majesty whereby He rules all things--all these are tending
   towards the day of His appearing! Do not think that He delays His
   coming and then, all of a sudden, He will rush here in hot haste. He
   has arranged for it to take place as soon as Wisdom allows. We know not
   what may make the present delay imperative, but the Lord knows and that
   suffices. You grow uneasy because nearly 2,000 years have passed since
   His Ascension and Jesus has not yet come. But you do not know what had
   to be arranged and how far the lapse of time was absolutely necessary
   for the Lord's designs. Those are no little matters which have filled
   up the great pause--the intervening centuries have teemed with wonders!
   A thousand things may have been necessary in Heaven, itself, before the
   consummation of all things could be arrived at.

   When our Lord comes, it shall be seen that He came as quickly as He
   could, speaking after the manner of His Infinite Wisdom for He cannot
   behave Himself otherwise than wisely, perfectly, divinely. He cannot be
   moved by fear or passion so as to act hastily as you and I too often
   do. He dwells in the leisure of eternity and in the serenity of
   Omnipotence. He has not to measure out days, months and years--or to
   accomplish so much in such a space or else leave His lifework undone.
   But according to the power of an endless life, He proceeds steadily on
   and to Him a thousand years are but as one day! Therefore be assured
   that the Lord is even now coming! He is making everything tend that
   way. All things are working towards that grand climax. At this moment
   and every moment since He went away, the Lord Jesus has been coming
   back. "Behold, He comes!" He is on the way! He is nearer every hour!

   And we are told that His coming will be attended by a peculiar sign.
   "Behold, He comes with clouds." We shall have no need to question
   whether it is the Son of Man who has come, or whether He is, indeed,
   come. This is to be no secret matter--His coming will be as manifest as
   yonder clouds! In the wilderness, the Presence of Jehovah was known by
   a visible pillar of cloud by day and an equally visible pillar of fire
   by night. That pillar of cloud was the sure token that the Lord was in
   His Holy Place, dwelling between the cherubim. Such is the token of the
   coming of the Lord Christ--

   "Every eye the cloud shall scan, Ensign of the Son of Man."

   So it is written, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in
   Heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
   shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and
   great glory." I cannot quote, at this time, all those many passages of
   Scripture in which it is indicated that our Lord will come either
   sitting upon a cloud, or, "with the clouds," or, "with the clouds of
   Heaven," but such expressions are abundant.

   Is it not to show that His coming will be majestic? He makes the clouds
   His chariots. He comes with hosts of attendants and these of a nobler
   sort than earthly monarchs can summon to do them homage. With clouds of
   angels, cherubim and seraphim and all the armies of Heaven He comes!
   With all the forces of nature, thundercloud and blackness of tempest,
   the Lord of All makes His triumphant entrance to judge the world! The
   clouds are the dust of His feet in that dread day of battle when He
   shall ease Him of His adversaries, shaking them out of the earth with
   His thunder and consuming them with the devouring flame of His
   lightning! All Heaven shall gather with its utmost pomp to the great
   appearing of the Lord and all the terrible grandeur of nature shall
   then be seen at its fullest. Not as the Man of Sorrows, despised and
   rejected of men, shall Jesus come, but as Jehovah came upon Sinai in
   the midst of thick clouds and a terrible darkness, so shall He come,
   whose coming shall be the Final Judgment!

   The clouds are meant to set forth the might, as well as the majesty, of
   His coming. "Ascribe you strength unto God: His excellency is over
   Israel, and His strength is in the clouds." This was the royal token
   given by Daniel, the Prophet, in

   his seventh chapter, at the 13th verse, "I saw in the night visions
   and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of Heaven."
   Not less than Divine is the Glory of the Son of God who once had not
   where to lay His head! The most sublime objects in nature shall most
   fitly minister to the manifest Glory of the returning King of men!
   "Behold, He comes," not with the swaddling bands of His Infancy, the
   weariness of His Manhood, the shame of His death, but with all the
   glorious tapestry of Heaven's high chambers! The hanging of the Divine
   Throne Room shall aid His state.

   The clouds, also, denote the terror of His coming to the ungodly. His
   saints shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds, to meet the
   Lord in the air. But to those that shall remain on earth, the clouds
   shall turn their blackness and horror of darkness. Then shall the
   impenitent behold this dread vision--the Son of Man coming in the
   clouds of Heaven. The clouds shall fill them with dread and the dread
   shall be abundantly justified, for those clouds are big with vengeance
   and shall burst in judgment on their heads! His Great White Throne,
   though it is bright and lustrous with hope to His people, will, with
   its very brightness and whiteness of immaculate justice, strike dead
   the hopes of all those who trusted that they might live in sin and yet
   go unpunished! "Behold, He comes! He comes with clouds."

   I am in happy circumstances, tonight, because my subject requires no
   effort of imagination from me. To indulge fancy on such a theme would
   be a wretched profanation of so sublime a subject which, in its own
   simplicity, should come home to all hearts. Think clearly for a moment,
   till the meaning becomes real to you. Jesus Christ is coming, coming in
   unknown splendor! When He comes, He will be enthroned far above the
   attacks of His enemies, the persecutions of the godless and the sneers
   of skeptics. He is coming in the clouds of Heaven and we shall be among
   the witnesses of His appearing! Let us dwell upon this Truth of God!

   II. Our second observation is this--OUR LORD'S COMING WILL BE SEEN BY
   ALL. "Behold, He comes with

   clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him."

   I gather from this expression, first, that it will be a literal
   appearing and an actual sight. If the Second Advent were to be a
   spiritual manifestation, to be perceived by the minds of men, the
   phraseology would be, "Every mind shall perceive Him." But it is not
   so--we read, "Every eye shall see Him." Now, the mind can behold the
   spiritual, but the eye can only see that which is distinctly material
   and visible. The Lord Jesus Christ will not come spiritually, for in
   that sense He is always here--He will come really and substantially,
   for every eye shall see Him--even those unspiritual eyes which gazed on
   Him with hate and pierced Him! Go not away and dream and say to
   yourself, "Oh, there is some spiritual meaning about all this." Do not
   destroy the teaching of the Holy Spirit by the idea that there will be
   a spiritual manifestation of the Christ of God and that a literal
   appearing is out of the question! That would be altering the record.
   The Lord Jesus shall come to earth a second time as literally as He has
   come a first time! The same Christ who ate a piece of a broiled fish
   and of a honeycomb after He had risen from the dead--the same who
   said--"Handle Me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you
   see I have"--this same Jesus, with a material body, is to come in the
   clouds of Heaven! In the same manner as He went up, He shall come down!
   He shall be literally seen. The words cannot be honestly read in any
   other way.

   "Every eye shall see Him." Yes, I do literally expect to see my Lord
   Jesus with these eyes of mine, even as that saint expected who long ago
   fell asleep, believing that though the worms devoured his body, yet in
   his flesh he would see God, whom his eyes should see for himself and
   not another! There will be a real resurrection of the body, though the
   moderns doubt it--such a resurrection that we shall see Jesus with our
   own eyes! We shall not find ourselves in a shadowy, dreamy land of
   floating fictions where we may perceive, but cannot see. We shall not
   be airy nothings--mysterious, vague, im-palpable--but we shall
   literally see our glorious Lord, whose appearing will be no phantom
   show, or shadow dance! Never day more real than the Day of Judgement!
   Never sight more true than the Son of Man upon the Throne of His Glory!
   Will you take this statement home, that you may feel the force of it?
   We are getting too far away from facts, nowadays, and too much into the
   realm of myths and notions. "Every eye shall see Him"--in this there
   shall be no delusion!

   Note well that He is to be seen of all kinds of living men. Every eye
   shall see Him--the king and the peasant, the most learned and the most
   ignorant. Those that were blind, before, shall see when He appears. I
   remember a man born blind who loved our Lord most intensely and he was
   known to glory in this, that his eyes had been reserved for his Lord.
   He said, "The first whom I shall ever see will be the Lord Jesus
   Christ! The first sight that greets my newly-opened eyes will

   be the Son of Man in His Glory!" There is great comfort in this to all
   who are now unable to behold the sun. Since "every eye shall see Him,"
   you, also, shall see the King in His beauty!

   Small pleasure is this to eyes that are full of filthiness and
   pride--you care not for this sight--and yet you must see it whether you
   please or do not please! You have up to now shut your eyes to good
   things, but when Jesus comes you will see Him! All that dwell upon the
   face of the earth, if not at the same moment, yet with the same
   certainty, shall behold the once crucified Lord! They will not be able
   to hide themselves, nor to hide Him from their eyes! They will dread
   the sight, but it will come upon them, even as the sun shines on the
   thief who delights in the darkness. They will be obliged to acknowledge
   in dismay that they behold the Son of Man--they will be so overwhelmed
   with the sight that there will be no denying it!

   He will be seen of those who have been long since dead. What a sight
   that will be for Judas and for Pilate--and for Caiaphas and for Herod!
   What a sight it will be for those who, in their lifetime, said that
   there was no Savior and no need of one--or that Jesus was a mere man
   and that His blood was not a propitiation for sin! Those that scoffed
   and reviled Him have long since died, but they shall all rise
   again--and rise to this heritage among the rest--that they shall see
   Him, whom they blasphemed, sitting in the clouds of Heaven! Prisoners
   are troubled at the sight of the judge. The trumpet of assize brings no
   music to the ears of criminals. But you must hear it, O impenitent
   Sinner! Even in your grave, you must hear the voice of the Son of
   God--and live and come forth from the tomb to receive the things done
   in your body--whether they were good or bad! Death cannot hide you, nor
   the vault conceal you, nor rottenness and corruption deliver you. You
   are bound to see, in your body, the Lord who will judge both you and
   your companions!

   It is mentioned here that He will especially be seen by those that
   pierced Him. In this is included all the company that nailed Him to the
   tree, with those that took the spear and made the gash in His side.
   Indeed, all that had a hand in His cruel Crucifixion. It includes all
   of these, but it comprehends many more. "They also who pierced Him" are
   by no means a few. Who have pierced Him? Why those who once professed
   to love Him and have gone back to the world! Those who once ran well,
   "What hindered them?" And now they use their tongues to speak against
   the Christ whom once they professed to love! They, also, have pierced
   Him whose inconsistent lives have brought dishonor upon the sacred name
   of Jesus. They, also, have pierced Him who refused His love, stifled
   their consciences and refused His rebukes. Alas, that so many of you
   should be piercing Him, now, by your base neglect of His salvation!

   They that went every Sunday to hear of Him and that remained hearers,
   only, destroying their own souls rather than yield to His infinite
   love--these pierced His tender heart. Dear Hearers, I wish I could
   plead effectually with you, tonight, so that you would not continue any
   longer among the number of those that pierced Him! If you will look at
   Jesus, now, and mourn for your sin, He will put your sin away--and then
   you will not be ashamed to see Him in that day! Even though you pierced
   Him, you will be able to sing, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us
   from our sins in His own blood." But, remember, if you persevere in
   piercing Him and fighting against Him, you will still have to see Him
   in that day--to your terror and despair! He will be seen by you and by
   me, however evil we may behave. And what horror will that sight cost
   us!

   I felt unfit to preach to you tonight, but last Lord's Day I said that
   I would preach tonight if I could possibly manage it. It seemed barely
   possible, but I could not do less than keep my word--and I also longed
   to be with you, for your sakes--for perhaps there may not remain many
   more occasions on which I shall be permitted to preach the Gospel among
   you. I am often ill--who knows how soon I shall come to my end? I would
   use all that remains to me of physical strength and Providential
   opportunity. We never know how soon we may be cut off and then we are
   gone forever from the opportunity of benefiting our fellow men. It were
   a pity to be taken away with one opportunity of doing good unused. So
   would I earnestly plead with you under the shadow of this great Truth
   of God--I would urge you to make ready since we shall both behold the
   Lord in the day of His appearing!

   Yes, I shall stand in that great throng. You, also, will be there. How
   will you feel? You are not accustomed, perhaps, to attend a place of
   worship, but you will be there and the spot will be very solemn to you.
   You may absent yourself from the assemblies of the saints, but you will
   not be able to absent yourself from the gathering of that day! You will
   be there, one in that great multitude, and you will see Jesus the Lord
   as truly as if you were the only person before Him and He will look
   upon you as certainly as if you were the only one that was summoned to
   His bar!

   Will you kindly think of all this as I close this second head? Silently
   repeat to yourself the words, "Every eye shall see Him, and they also
   that pierced Him."

   III. And now I must close with the third head which is a painful one,
   but needs to be enlarged upon--HIS COMING WILL CAUSE GREAT SORROW. What
   does the text say about His coming?

   "All kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." "All kindreds of
   the earth." Then this sorrow will be very general. You thought,
   perhaps, that when Christ came, He would come to a glad world,
   welcoming Him with song and music. You thought that there might be a
   few ungodly persons who would be destroyed with the breath of His
   mouth, but that the bulk of mankind would receive Him with delight. See
   how different--"All kindreds of the earth," that is, all sorts of men
   that belong to the earth! All earth-born men. Men out of all nations
   and kindreds and tongues shall weep and wail and gnash their teeth at
   His coming! O Sirs, this is a sad outlook! We have no smooth things to
   prophesy. What do you think of this?

   And, next, this sorrow will be very great. They shall "wail." I cannot
   put into English the full meaning of that most expressive word. Sound
   it at length and it conveys its own meaning. It is as when men wring
   their hands and burst out into a loud cry. Or as when Eastern women, in
   their anguish, tear their garments and lift up their voices with the
   most mournful notes. All the kindreds of the earth shall wail--wail as
   a mother laments over her dead child--wail as a man might wail who
   found himself hopelessly imprisoned and doomed to die! Such will be the
   hopeless grief of all the kindreds of the earth at the sight of Christ
   in the clouds! If they remain impenitent, they shall not be able to be
   silent--they shall not be able to repress or conceal their anguish.
   They shall wail or openly give vent to their horror! What a sound that
   will be which will go up before high Heaven when Jesus sits upon the
   cloud and, in the fullness of His power, summons them to judgment! Then
   "they shall wail because of Him."

   Will your voice be heard in that wailing? Will your heart be breaking
   in that general dismay? How will you escape? If you are one of the
   kindreds of the earth and remain impenitent, you will wail with the
   rest of them! Unless you now fly to Christ and hide yourself in Him and
   so become one of the kindred of Heaven--one of His chosen and
   blood-washed ones who shall praise His name for washing them from their
   sins--unless you do this, there will be wailing at the Judgment Seat of
   Christ and you will be in it!

   Then it is quite clear that men will not be universally converted when
   Christ comes because, if they were so, they would not wail. Then they
   would lift up the cry, "Welcome, welcome, Son of God!" The coming of
   Christ would be as the hymn puts it--

   "Hark, those bursts of acclamation! Hark, those loud triumphant chords!
   Jesus takes the highest station Oh, whatjoy the sight affords!"

   These acclamations come from His people. But according to the text, the
   multitude of mankind will weep and wail and, therefore, they will not
   be among His people. Do not, therefore, look for salvation to some
   coming day, but believe in Jesus now and find in Him your Savior at
   once! If you joy in Him, now, you shall much more rejoice in Him in
   that day, but if you will have cause to wail at His coming, it will be
   well to wail at once.

   Note one more Truth of God. It is quite certain that when Jesus comes
   in those latter days, men will not be expecting great things of Him.
   You know the talk they have, nowadays, about "a larger hope." Today
   they deceive the people with the idle dream of repentance and
   restoration after death--a fiction unsupported by the least tittle of
   Scripture. If these kindreds of the earth expected that when Christ
   would come they would all die out and cease to be, they would rejoice
   that, thereby, they escaped the wrath of God! Would not each unbeliever
   say, "It were a consummation devoutly to be wished"? If they thought
   that at His coming there would be a universal restoration and a general
   jail delivery of souls long shut up in prison, would they wail? If
   Jesus could be supposed to come to proclaim a general restoration, they
   would not wail, but shout for joy!

   Ah, no! It is because His coming to the impenitent is black with blank
   despair that they will wail because of Him! If His First Coming does
   not give you eternal life, His Second Coming will not! If you do not
   hide in His wounds when He comes as your Savior, there will be no
   hiding place for you when He comes as your Judge! They will weep and
   wail because, having rejected the Lord Jesus, they have turned their
   backs on the last possibility of hope!

   Why do they wail because of Him? Will it not be because they will see
   Him in His Glory and they will recollect that they slighted and
   despised Him? They will see Him come to judge them and they will
   remember that once He stood at their door with mercy in His hands and
   said, "Open to Me," but they would not admit Him. They refused His
   blood! They refused His righteousness! They trifled with His sacred
   name and now they must give an account for this wickedness. They put
   Him away in scorn and now, when He comes, they find that they can
   trifle with Him no longer. The days of child's play and of foolish
   delays are over--and now they have solemnly to give in their life's
   account. See, the books are opened! They are covered with dismay as
   they remember their sins and know that they are written down by a
   faithful pen. They must give an account--and unwashed and unforgiven
   they cannot render that account without knowing that the sentence will
   be, "Depart, you cursed." This is why they weep and wail because of
   Him!

   O Souls, my natural love of ease makes me wish that I could preach
   pleasant things to you, but they are not in my commission. I need
   scarcely wish, however, to preach a soft gospel, for so many are
   already doing it to your cost! As I love your immortal souls, I dare
   not flatter you. As I shall have to answer for it in the Last Great
   Day, I must tell you the truth--

   "You sinners seek His face Whose wrath you cannot bear."

   Seek the mercy of God tonight! I have come here in pain to implore you
   to be reconciled to God! "Kiss the Son lest He be angry and you perish
   from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all
   they that put their trust in

   Him."

   But if you will not have my Lord Jesus, He comes all the same for that.
   He is on the road, now, and when He comes you will wail because of Him!
   Oh that you would make Him your Friend and then meet Him with joy! Why
   will you die? He gives life to all those who trust Him. Believe and
   live!

   God save your souls tonight and He shall have the Glory. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         A Sermon for the Time Present

   A Sermon

   (No. 1990)

   Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, October 30th, 1887, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At [5]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion,
   Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is
   mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest
   in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. I will gather them
   that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom
   the reproach of it was a burden."--Zephaniah 3:16-18.

   HOLY SCRIPTURE is wonderfully full and abiding in its inner sense. It
   is a springing well, whereat you may draw, and draw again; for as you
   draw, it springs up for ever new and fresh. It is a well of water
   springing up everlastingly. The fulfillment of a divine promise is not
   the exhaustion of it. When a man gives you a promise, and he keeps it,
   there is an end of the promise; but it is not so with God. When he
   keeps his word to the full, he has but begun: he is prepared to keep
   it, and keep it, and keep it for ever and ever. What would you say of a
   man who had wheat upon his barn floor, and threshed it until he had
   beaten out the last golden grain; but the next day he went and threshed
   again, and brought back as much as the day before; and on the day
   after, again taking his flail, he went to the same threshing, and again
   brought back his measure as full as at the first, and so on for all the
   days of the year? Would it not seem to you as a fairy tale? It would
   certainly be a surprising miracle. But what should we say if,
   throughout a long life, this miracle could be prolonged.? Yet we have
   continued to thresh the promises ever since faith was given us, and we
   have carried away our full portion every day. What shall we say of the
   glorious fact that the saints in all generations, from the first day
   until now, have done the same; and of that equal truth, that as long as
   there is a needy soul upon earth, there will be upon the threshing
   floor of the promises the same abundance of the finest of the wheat as
   when the first man filled his measure and returned rejoicing? I will
   not dwell upon the specific application of the text before us: I do not
   doubt that it was specially fulfilled as it was intended; and if there
   still remains some special piece of history to which this passage
   alludes, it will again be fulfilled in due time; but this I know, that
   those who have lived between whiles have found this promise true to
   them. Children of God have used these promises under all sorts of
   circumstances, and have derived the utmost comfort from them; and this
   morning I feel as if the text had been newly written for the present
   occasion, for it is in every syllable most suitable to the immediate
   crisis. If the Lord had fixed his eye upon the condition of his church
   just now, and had written this passage only for this year of grace
   1887, it could scarcely have been more adapted to the occasion. Our
   business shall be to show this; but I would aim at much more. Let our
   prayer be that we, may enjoy this marvellous portion of the sacred
   word, and take intense delight in it. As God rests in his love, so may
   we rest in it this morning; and as he joys over us with singing, so may
   we break forth into joyous psalms to the God of our salvation.

   I am going to begin with the last verse of the text, and work my way
   upwards. The first; head is, a trying day for God's people. They are
   sorrowful because a cloud is upon their solemn assembly, and the
   reproach thereof is a burden. Secondly, we will note a glorious ground
   of consolation. We read in the seventeenth verse, "The Lord thy God in
   the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee
   with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with
   singing." And, thirdly, here is a brave conduct suggested thereby: "In
   that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let
   not thine hands be slack."

   I. Beginning at the eighteenth verse, we notice A TRYING DAY FOR GOD'S
   PEOPLE. The solemn assembly had fallen under reproach. The solemn
   assemblies of Israel were her glory: her great days of festival and
   sacrifice were the gladness of the land. To the faithful their holy
   days were their holidays. But a reproach had fallen upon the solemn
   assembly, and I believe it is so now at this present moment. It is a,
   sad affliction when in our solemn assemblies the brilliance of the
   gospel light is dimmed by error. The clearness of the testimony is
   spoiled when doubtful voices are scattered among the people, and those
   who ought to preach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
   truth, are telling out for doctrines the imaginations of men, and the
   inventions of the age. Instead of revelation, we have philosophy,
   falsely so-called; instead of divine infallibility, we have surmises
   and larger hopes. The gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the same
   yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is taught as the production of
   progress, a growth, a thing to be amended and corrected year by year.
   It is an ill day, both for the church and the world, when the trumpet
   does not give a certain sound; for who shall prepare himself for the
   battle?

   If added to this we should see creeping over the solemn assembly of the
   church a lifelessness, an indifference, and a lack of spiritual power,
   it is painful to a high degree. When the vitality of religion is
   despised, and gatherings for prayer are neglected, what are we coming
   to? The present period of church history is well portrayed by the
   church of Laodicea, which was neither cold nor hot, and therefore to be
   spewed out of Christ's mouth. That church gloried that she was rich and
   increased in goods, and had need of nothing, while all the while her
   Lord was outside, knocking at the door, a door closed against him. That
   passage is constantly applied to the unconverted, with whom it has
   nothing to do: it has to do with a lukewarm church, with a church that
   thought itself to be in an eminently prosperous condition, while her
   living Lord, in the doctrine of his atoning sacrifice, was denied an
   entrance. Oh, if he had found admission--and he was eager to find
   it--she would soon have flung away her imaginary wealth, and he would
   have given her gold tried in the furnace, and white raiment with which
   she might be clothed. Alas! she is content without her Lord, for she
   has education, oratory, science, and a thousand other baubles. Zion's
   solemn assembly is under a cloud indeed, when the teaching of Jesus and
   his apostles is of small account with her.

   If in addition to this, worldly conformity spreads in the church, so
   that the vain amusements of the world are shared in by the saints, then
   is there reason enough for lamentation, even as Jeremiah cried: "How is
   the gold become dim!" Her Nazarites, who were purer than snow and
   whiter than milk, have become blacker than a coal. "All our enemies
   have opened their mouths against us." If no longer there is a clear
   distinction between the church and the world, but professed followers
   of Jesus have joined hands with unbelievers, then may we mourn indeed!
   Woe worth the day! An ill time has happened to the church and to the
   world also. We may expect great judgments, for the Lord will surely be
   avenged on such a people as this. Know ye not of old that when the sons
   of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they were
   joined unto them, then the flood came and swept them all away? I need
   not pursue this subject further, lest our burdens take from us the time
   which is demanded for consolation.

   It appears from the text that there were some to whom the reproach was
   a burden. They could not make sport of sin. True, there were many who
   said that the evil did not exist at all, and others who declared that
   it was not present in any great degree. Yes, and more hardened spirits
   declared that what was considered to be a reproach was really a thing
   to be boasted of, the very glory of the century. Thus they huffed the
   matter, and made the mourning of the conscientious to be a theme for
   jest. But there was a remnant to whom the reproach of it was a burden;
   these could not bear to see such a calamity. To these the Lord God will
   have respect, as he said by the prophet:--"Go through the midst of the
   city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads
   of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done
   in the midst thereof." The many drank wine in bowls and anointed
   themselves with their chief ointments, but they were not grieved for
   the affliction of Joseph (Amos 6:6); but these were pressed in spirit
   and bore the cross, counting the reproach of Christ greater riches than
   all the treasures of Egypt. God's people cannot bear that Christ's
   atoning sacrifice should be dishonored; they cannot endure that his
   truth should be trodden as mire in the streets. To true believers
   prosperity means the Holy Ghost blessing the word to the conversion of
   sinners and the building up of saints; and if they do not see this,
   they hang their harps upon the willows. True lovers of Jesus fast when
   the Bridegroom is not with his church: their glow is in his glory, and
   in nothing else. The wife of Phinehas, the son of Eli, cried out in her
   dying agony, "The glory has departed," and the reason that she gave was
   once because of the death of her husband and his father, but twice
   because "the ark of God is taken." For this she named her new-born
   child Ichabod--. "The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God
   is taken." The bitterest pain of this godly woman was for the church,
   and for the honor of our God. So it is with God's true people: they lay
   it much to heart that the truth is rejected.

   This burdened spirit, is a token of true love to God: those who love
   the Lord Jesus are wounded in his woundings, and vexed with the vexings
   of his Spirit. When Christ is dishonored his disciples are dishonored.
   Those who have a tender heart towards the church can say with Paul,
   "Who is offended, and I burn not?" The sins of the church of God are
   the sorrows of all living members of it. This also marks a healthy
   sensibility, a vital spirituality. Those who are unspiritual care
   nothing for truth or grace: they look to finances, and numbers, and
   respectability. Utterly carnal men care for none of these things; and
   so long as the political aims of Dissenters are progressing, and there
   is an advance in social position, it is enough for them. But men whose
   spirits are of God would sooner see the faithful persecuted than see
   them desert the truth, sooner see churches in the depths of poverty
   full of holy zeal than rich churches dead in worldliness. Spiritual men
   care for the church even when she is in an evil case, and cast down by
   her adversaries: "thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor
   the dust thereof." The house of the Lord is to many of us our own
   house, his family is our family. Unless the Lord Jesus be extolled, and
   his gospel conquer, we feel that our own personal interests are
   blighted, and we ourselves are in disgrace. It is no small thing to us:
   it is our life.

   Thus have I dwelt upon the fact that it is an ill day for God's people
   when the solemn assembly is defiled: the reproach thereof is a burden
   to those who are truly citizens of the New Jerusalem, and because of
   this they are seen to be sorrowful. The Lord here says, "I will gather
   them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly." They may well be
   sorrowful when such a burden is laid on their hearts. Moreover, they
   see in a hundred ways the ill effect of the evil which they deplore.
   Many are lame and halting; this is hinted at in the promise of the
   nineteenth verse: "I will save her that halteth." Pilgrims on the road
   to Zion were made to limp on the road because the prophets were "light
   and treacherous persons." When the pure gospel is not preached, God's
   people are robbed of the strength which they need in their
   life-journey. If you take away the bread, the children hunger. If you
   give the flock poisonous pastures, or fields which are barren as the
   desert, they pine and they become lame in their daily following of the
   shepherd. The doctrinal soon affects the practical. I know many of the
   people of God living in different parts of this country to whom the
   Sabbath is very little of a day of rest, for they hear no truth in
   which rest is to be found, but they are worried and wearied with
   novelties which neither glorify God nor benefit the souls of men. In
   many a place the sheep look up and are not fed. This causes much
   disquietude and breeds doubts and questionings, and thus strength is
   turned to weakness, and the work of faith, the labor of love, and the
   patience of hope are all kept in a halting state. This is a grievous
   evil, and it is all around us. Then, alas! many are "driven out," of
   whom the nineteenth verse says, "I will gather her that was driven
   out." By false doctrine many are made to wander from the fold. Hopeful
   ones are made to stray from the path of life, and sinners are left in
   their natural distance from God. The truth which would convince men of
   sin is not preached, while other truths which would lead seekers into
   peace are beclouded, and souls are left in needless sorrow. When the
   doctrines of grace and the glorious atoning sacrifice are not set
   clearly before men's minds, so that they may feel their power, all
   sorts of evils follow. It is terrible to me that this dreadful blight
   should come upon our churches; for the hesitating are driven to
   destruction, the weak are staggered, and even the strong are perplexed.
   The false teachers of these days would, if it were possible, deceive
   the very elect. This makes our hearts very sorrowful. How can we help
   it?

   Yet, beloved, all the time that the people of God are in this evil
   case, they are not without hope; for close upon all this comes the
   promise of the Lord to restore his wandering ones. We have the sense
   twice over: "I will get them praise and fame in every land where they
   have been put to shame." "I will make you a name and a praise among all
   people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes,
   saith the Lord. "The adversaries cannot silence the eternal testimony.
   They hanged our Lord himself upon a tree; they took down his body and
   buried it in a tomb in the rock; and they set their seal upon the stone
   which they rolled at the mouth of the sepulcher. Surely now there was
   an end of the Christ and his cause. Boast not, ye priests and
   Pharisees! Vain the watch, the stone, the seal! When the appointed time
   had come, the living Christ came forth. He could not be holden by the
   cords of death. How idle their dreams! "He that sitteth in the heavens
   shall laugh: the Lord doth have them in derision." Beloved, the
   reproach will yet be rolled away from the solemn assembly: the truth of
   God will yet again be proclaimed as with trumpet tongue, the Spirit of
   God will revive his church, and converts as many as the sheaves of the
   harvest shall yet be gathered in. How will the faithful rejoice! Those
   who were burdened and sorrowful shall then put on their garments of joy
   and beauty. Then shall the ransomed of the Lord return with songs and
   everlasting joy upon their heads. The conflict is not doubtful. The end
   of the battle is sure and certain. Methinks I even now hear the shout,
   "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

   II. Secondly, let us think of something which shines like a star amid
   the darkness. The second verse of the text presents A GLORIOUS GROUND
   OF CONSOLATION. Here is a rich text indeed. This passage is like a
   great sea, while I am as a little child making pools in the sand which
   skirts its boundless flood. A series of discourses might well be
   founded on this one verse: I mean the seventeenth.

   Our great consolation in the worst times lies in our God. The very name
   of our covenant God--"the Lord thy God"--is full of good cheer. That
   word, "the Lord," is really JEHOVAH, the self-existent One, the
   unchangeable One, the ever-living God, who cannot change or be moved
   from his everlasting purpose. Children of God, whatever you have not
   got, you have a God in whom you may greatly glory. Having God you have
   more than all things, for all things come of him; and if all things
   were blotted out, he could restore all things simply by his will. He
   speaketh, and it is done; he commandeth, and it stands fast. Blessed is
   the man that hath the God of Jacob for his trust, and whose hope
   Jehovah is. In the Lord Jehovah we have righteousness and strength; let
   us trust in him for ever. Let the times roll on, they cannot affect our
   God. Let troubles rush upon us like a tempest, but they shall not come
   nigh unto us now that he is our defense. Jehovah, the God of his
   church, is also the God of each individual member of it, and each one
   may therefore rejoice in him. Jehovah is as much your God, my brother,
   as if no other person in the universe could use that covenant
   expression. O believer, the Lord God is altogether and wholly your God!
   All his wisdom, all his foresight, all his power, all his
   immutability--all himself is yours. As for the church of God, when she
   is in her lowest estate she is still established and endowed in the
   best possible sense--established by the divine decree, and endowed by
   the possession of God all-sufficient. The gates of hell shall not
   prevail against her. Let us exult in our possession. Poor as we are, we
   are infinitely rich in having God; weak as we are, there is no limit to
   our strength, since the Almighty Jehovah is ours. "If God be for us,
   who can be against us?" If God be ours, what more can we need? Lift up
   thy heart, thou sorrowful one, and be of good cheer. If God be thy God,
   thou hast all thou canst desire: wrapped up within his glorious name we
   find all things for time and eternity, for earth and heaven. Therefore
   in the name of Jehovah we will set up our banners, and march onward to
   the battle. He is our God by his own purpose, covenant, and oath; and
   this day he is our God by our own choice of him, by our union with
   Christ Jesus, by our experience of his goodness, and by that spirit of
   adoption whereby we cry "Abba, Father."

   To strengthen this consolation, we notice next, that this God is in the
   midst of us. He is not a long way off, to be sought with difficulty, if
   haply we may find him. The Lord is a God nigh at hand, and ready to
   deliver his people. Is it not delightful to think that we cry not to
   God across the ocean, for he is here? We look not up to him from afar,
   as though he dwelt beyond the stars, neither do we think of him as
   hidden in the fathomless abyss; but the Lord is very near. Our God is
   "Jehovah in the midst of thee." Since that bright night in which a babe
   was born at Bethlehem, and unto us a Son was given, we know God as
   "Emmanuel, God with us." God is in our nature, and therefore very near
   unto us. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Though his
   bodily presence is gone, yet we hare his spiritual presence with us
   evermore; for he saith, "Lo, I am with you alway." He walketh among the
   golden candlesticks. We have also the immediate presence of God the
   Holy Spirit. He is in the midst of the church to enlighten, convince,
   quicken, endow, comfort, and clothe with spiritual power. The Lord
   still works in the minds of men for the accomplishment of his purposes
   of grace. Let us think of this when we are going forth to Christian
   service: "The Lord of hosts is with us." When you call your class
   together in the Sabbath school, say to your Lord, "If thy presence go
   not with me, carry me not up hence." Ah, friends! if we have God with
   us, we can bear to be deserted by men. What a word that is, "Where two
   or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
   them!" Shall not the army shout when the King himself is in their
   ranks! Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered! When he is with us
   they that hate him must flee before him. Be it our concern so to live
   that we may never grieve away the Spirit of God. Beloved, there is such
   abundant consolation in the fact of the presence of God with us, that
   if we could only feel the power of it at this moment, we should enter
   into rest, and our heaven would begin below.

   Let us go a step further, and note that our consolation is largely to
   be found in the fact that this God in the midst of us is full of power
   to save. "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will
   save." That is to say, "Jehovah, thy God, is mighty to save." His arm
   is not shortened, he is still "a just God and a Saviour." Nor is he
   merely able to save, but he will display that ability; "he will save."
   Come, my brother, we see around us this and that to discourage us; let
   us, like David, encourage ourselves in the Lord our God. We may very
   well forget all difficulties, since the God who is in the midst of us
   is mighty to save. Let us pray, then, that he will save; that he will
   save his own church from lukewarmness and from deady error; that he
   will save her from her worldliness and formalism; save her from
   unconverted ministers and ungodly members. Let us lift up our eyes and
   behold the power which is ready to save; and let us go on to pray that
   the Lord may save the unconverted by thousands and millions. Oh, that
   we might see a great revival of religion! This is what we want before
   all things. This would smite the enemy upon the cheek-bone, and break
   the teeth of the adversary. If tens of thousands of souls were
   immediately saved by the sovereign grace of God, what a rebuke it would
   be to those who deny the faith! Oh, for times such as our fathers saw
   when first Whitefield and his helpers began to preach the life-giving
   word! When one sweet voice was heard clear and loud, all the birds of
   paradise began to sing in concert with him, and the morning of a
   glorious day was heralded. Oh, if that were to happen again, I should
   feel like Simeon when he embraced the heavenly babe! Then would the
   virgin daughter of Zion shake her head at the foe, and laugh him to
   scorn. It may happen; yea, if we are importunate in prayer it must
   happen: "God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear
   him." Let us not seek power of rhetoric, much less of wealth; but let
   us look for the power which saves. This is the one thing I crave. Oh,
   that God would save souls! I say to myself, after being badgered and
   worried through the week by the men of modern thought: "I will go my
   way and preach Christ's gospel, and win souls." One lifting up of Jesus
   Christ crucified is more to me than all the cavillings of the men who
   are wise above what is written. Converts are our unanswerable
   arguments. "Happy is the man," saith the Psalm, "that hath his quiver
   full of them: they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." Blessed
   is the man who has many spiritual children born to God under his
   ministry; for his converts are his defense. Beholding the man who was
   healed standing with Peter and John, they could say nothing against
   them. If souls are saved by the gospel, the gospel is proved in the
   surest manner. Let us care more about conversions than about
   organizations. If souls are brought into union with Christ, we may let
   other unions go.

   We go yet further, and we come to great deeps: behold God's joy in his
   people. "He will rejoice over thee with joy." Think of this! Jehovah,
   the living God, is described as brooding over his church with pleasure.
   He looks upon souls redeemed by the blood of his dear Son, quickened by
   his Holy Spirit, and his heart is glad. Even the infinite heart of God
   is filled with an extraordinary joy at the sight of his chosen. His
   delight is in his church, his Hephzibah. I can understand a minister
   rejoicing over a soul that he has brought to Christ; I can also
   understand believers rejoicing to see others saved from sin and hell;
   but what shall I say of the infinitely-happy and eternally-blessed God
   finding, as it were, a new joy in souls redeemed? This is another of
   those great wonders which cluster around the work of divine grace! "He
   will rejoice over thee with joy." Oh, you are trembling for the ark of
   the Lord; the Lord is not trembling, but rejoicing. Faulty as the
   church is, the Lord rejoices in her. While we mourn, as well we may,
   yet we do not sorrow as those that are without hope; for God does not
   sorrow, his heart is glad, and he is said to rejoice with joy--a highly
   emphatic expression. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him,
   imperfect though they be. He sees them as they are to be, and so he
   rejoices over them, even when they cannot rejoice in themselves. When
   your face is blurred with tears, your eyes red with weeping, and your
   heart heavy with sorrow for sin, the great Father is rejoicing over
   you. The prodigal son wept in his Father's bosom, but the Father
   rejoiced over his son. We are questioning, doubting, sorrowing,
   trembling; and all the while he who sees the end from the beginning
   knows what will come out of the present disquietude, and therefore
   rejoices. Let us rise in faith to share the joy of God. Let no man's
   heart fail him because of the taunts of the enemy. Rather let the
   chosen of God rouse themselves to courage, and participate in that joy
   of God which never ceaseth, even though the solemn assembly has become
   a reproach. Shall we not rejoice in him when he, in his boundless
   condescension, deigns to rejoice in us? Whoever despairs for the cause,
   he does not; wherefore let us be of good courage.

   It is added, "He will rest in his love." I do not know any Scripture
   which is more full of wonderful meaning than this. "He shall rest in
   his love," as if our God had in his people found satisfaction. He comes
   to an anchorage: he has reached his desire. As when a Jacob, full of
   love to Rachel, has at length ended the years of his service, and is
   married to his well-beloved, and his heart is at rest; so is it spoken
   in parable of the Lord our God. Jesus sees of the travail of his soul
   when his people are won to him; he has been baptized with his baptism
   for his church, and he is no longer straitened, for his desire is
   fulfilled. The Lord is content with his eternal choice, content with
   his loving purposes, satisfied with the love which went forth from
   everlasting. He is well pleased in Jesus--well pleased with all the
   glorious purposes which are connected with his dear Son, and with those
   who are in him. He has a calm content in the people of his choice, as
   he sees them in Christ. This is a good ground for our having a deep
   satisfaction of heart also. We are not what we would be; but then we
   are not what we shall be. We advance slowly; but then we advance
   surely. The end is secured by omnipotent grace. It is right that we
   should be discontented with ourselves, yet this holy restlessness
   should not rob us of our perfect peace in Christ Jesus. If the Lord
   hath rest in us, shall we not have rest in him? If he rests in his
   love, cannot we rest in it?

   My heart is comforted as I plainly see in these words love unchanging,
   love abiding, love eternal: "he will rest in his love." Jehovah changes
   not. Being married to his people, "he hateth putting away."
   Immutability is written on his heart. The turtle-dove, when he has once
   chosen his mate, remains faithful throughout life, and if the beloved
   dies, he will, in many cases, pine away with grief for her, for his
   life is wrapped up in hers. Even so our Lord hath made his choice of
   his beloved, and he will never change it: he died for his church, and
   so long as he lives he will remember his own love, and what it cost
   him: "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
   Jesus our Lord?" "He will rest in his love."

   The love of God to us is undisturbed: "The peace of God, which passeth
   all understanding," dwells with his love: he is not disquieted about
   it, but peacefully loves, and is never moved. The calm of God is
   wonderful to contemplate: his infallible knowledge and infinite power
   put him beyond fear or question. He sees no cause of alarm as to his
   redeemed, nor as to the cause of truth and the reign of righteousness.
   As to his true church, he knows that she is right, or that he will make
   her right. She is being transformed into the image of Jesus, and he
   rests in the full assurance that the image will ere long be complete.
   He can carry out his own purposes in his own way and time. He can see
   the harvest as well as the sowing; therefore he doth "rest in his
   love." You have seen a mother wash her child, and as she washes its
   face the child perhaps is crying, for it does not for the present enjoy
   the cleansing operation. Does the mother share the child's grief? Does
   she also cry? Oh, no! she rejoices over her babe, and rests in her
   love, knowing that the light affliction of the little one will work its
   real good. Often our griefs are no deeper than the cry of a child
   because of the soap in its eyes. While the church is being washed with
   tribulations and persecutions, God is resting in his love. You and I
   are wearying, but God is resting.

   "He shall rest in his love." The Hebrew of this line is, "He shall be
   silent in his love." His happiness in his love is so great, that he
   does not express it, but keeps a happy silence. His is a joy too deep
   for words. No language can express the joy of God in his love; and
   therefore he uses no words. Silence in this case is infinitely
   expressive. One of the old commentators says, "He is deaf and dumb in
   his love," as if he heard no voice of accusation against his chosen,
   and would not speak a word of upbraiding to her. Remember the silence
   of Jesus, and expound this text thereby.

   Sometimes also the Lord does not speak to his people: we cannot get a
   cheering word from him; and then we sigh for a promise, and long for a
   visit of his love; but if he be thus silent, let us know that, he is
   only silent in his love. It is not the silence of wrath, but of love.
   His love is not changed, even though he does not comfort us.

   "His thoughts are high, his love is wise,

   His wounds a cure intend;

   And though he does not always smile,

   He loves unto the end."

   When he does not answer our prayers with his hand, he yet hears them
   with his heart. Denials are only another form of the same love which
   grants our petitions. He loves us, and sometimes shows that love better
   by not giving us what we ask than he could do if he spoke the sweetest
   promise which the ear has ever heard. I prize this sentence: "He shall
   rest in his love." My God, thou art perfectly content with thy church
   after all, because thou knowest what she is to be. Thou seest how fair
   she will be when she comes forth from the washing, having put on her
   beautiful garments. Lo, the sun goes down, and we mortals dread the
   endless darkness; but thou, great God, seest the morning, and thou
   knowest that in the hours of darkness dews will fall which shall
   refresh thy garden. Ours is the measure of an hour, and thine the
   judgment of eternity, therefore we will correct our short-sighted
   judgment by thine infallible knowledge, and rest with thee.

   The last word is, however, the most wonderful of all: "He will joy over
   thee with singing." Think of the great Jehovah singing! Can you imagine
   it? Is it possible to conceive of the Deity breaking into a song:
   Father, Son and Holy Ghost together singing over the redeemed? God is
   so happy in the love which he bears to his people that he breaks the
   eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God
   chanting a hymn of joy. Among Orientals a certain song is sung by the
   bridegroom when he receives his bride: it is intended to declare his
   joy in her, and in the fact that his marriage has come. Here, by the
   pen of inspiration, the God of love is pictured as married to his
   church, and so rejoicing in her that he rejoices over her with singing.
   If God sings, shall not we sing? He did not sing when he made the
   world. No; he looked upon it, and simply said that it was good. The
   angels sang, the sons of God shouted for joy: creation was very
   wonderful to them, but it was not much to God, who could have made
   thousands of worlds by his mere will. Creation could not make him sing;
   and I do not even know that Providence ever brought a note of joy from
   him, for he could arrange a thousand kingdoms of providence with ease.
   But when it came to redemption, that cost him dear. Here he spent;
   eternal thought, and drew up a covenant with infinite wisdom. Here he
   gave his Only-begotten Son, and put him to grief to ransom his beloved
   ones. When all was done, and the Lord saw what became of it in the
   salvation of his redeemed, then he rejoiced after a divine manner. What
   must the joy be which recompenses Gethsemane and Calvary! Here we are
   among the Atlantic waves. The Lord God receives an accession to the
   infinity of his joy in the thought of his redeemed people. "He shall
   rejoice over thee with singing." I tremble while I speak of such
   themes, lest I should say a word that should dishonor the matchless
   mystery; but still we are glad to note what is written, and we are
   bound to take comfort from it. Let us have sympathy with the joy of the
   Lord, for this will be our strength.

   III. I close with a brief word upon THE BRAVE CONDUCT SUGGESTED
   THEREBY. Let us not sorrow under the burdens which we bear, but rejoice
   in God, the great Burden-bearer, upon whom this day we roll our load.
   Here it is--"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not;
   and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack."

   There are three things for God's people to do. The first is, to be
   happy. Read verse fourteen--" Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, Israel;
   be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, daughter of Jerusalem." Any man
   can sing when his cup is full of delights; the believer alone has songs
   when waters of a bitter cup are wrung out to him. Any sparrow can chirp
   in the daylight; it is only the nightingale that can sing in the dark.
   Children of God, whenever the enemies seem to prevail over you,
   whenever the serried ranks of the foe appear sure of victory, then
   begin to sing. Your victory will come with your song. It is a very
   puzzling thing to the devil to hear saints sing when he sets his foot
   on them. He cannot make it out: the more he oppresses them, the more
   they rejoice. Let us resolve to be all the merrier when the enemy
   dreams that we are utterly routed. The more opposition, the more we
   will rejoice in the Lord: the more discouragement, the more confidence.
   Splendid was the courage of Alexander when they told him that there
   were hundreds of thousands of Persians. "Yet," he said, "one butcher
   fears not myriads of sheep." "Ah!" said another, "when the Persians
   draw their bows, their arrows are so numerous that they darken the
   sun." "It will be fine to fight in the shade." cried the hero. friends,
   we know whom we have believed, and we are sure of triumph! Let us not
   think for a single second, if the odds against us are ten thousand to
   one, that this is a hardship; rather let us wish that they were a
   million to one, that the glory of the Lord might be all the greater in
   the conquest which is sure. When Athanasius was told that everybody was
   denying the Deity of Christ, then he said, "I, Athanasius, against the
   world": Athanasius contra mundum became a proverbial expression.
   Brethren, it is a splendid thing to be quite alone in the warfare of
   the Lord. Suppose we had half-a-dozen with us. Six men are not much
   increase to strength, and possibly they may be a cause of weakness, by
   needing to be looked after. If you are quite alone, so much the better:
   there is the more room for God. When desertions have cleaned the place
   out, and left you no friend, now every corner can be filled with Deity.
   As long as there is so much that is visible to rely upon, and so much
   to hope in, there is so much the less room for simple trust in God: but
   now our song is of the Lord alone; "for great is the Holy One of Israel
   in the midst of thee."

   The next duty is fearlessness: "Fear thou not." What! not a little? No,
   "Fear thou not." But surely I may show some measure of trembling? No,
   "Fear thou not." Tie that knot tight about the throat of unbelief.
   "Fear thou not": neither this day, nor any day of thy life. When fear
   comes in, drive it away; give it no space. If God rests in his love,
   and if God sings, what canst thou have to do with fear? Have you never
   known passengers on board ship, when the weather was rough, comforted
   by the calm behavior of the captain? One simple-minded soul said to his
   friend, "I am sure there is no cause for fear, for I heard the captain
   whistling." Surely, if the captain is at ease, and with him is all the
   responsibility, the passenger may be still more at peace. If the Lord
   Jesus at the helm is singing, let us not be fearing. Let us have done
   with every timorous accent. rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for
   him. "Your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he
   will come and save you."

   Lastly, let us be zealous: "Let not thine hands be slack." Now is the
   time when every Christian should do more for God than ever. Let us plan
   great things for God, and let us expect great things from God. "Let not
   thine hands be slack." Now is the hour for redoubled prayers and
   labors. Since the adversaries are busy, let us be busy also. If they
   think they shall make a full end of us, let us resolve to make a full
   end of their falsehoods and delusions. I think every Christian man
   should answer the challenge of the adversaries of Christ by working
   double tides, by giving more of his substance to the cause of God, by
   living more for the glory of God, by being more exact in his obedience,
   more earnest in his efforts, and more importunate in his prayers. "Let
   not thine hands be slack" in any one part of holy service. Fear is a
   dreadful breeder of idleness; but courage teaches us indomitable
   perseverance. Let us go on in God's name. I would stir up the members
   of this church, and all my brethren, to intense zeal for God and the
   souls of men. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
   unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye
   know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

   Would God that all were on Christ's side out of this great assembly!
   Oh, that you would come to Jesus, and trust him, and then live for him
   in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation! The Lord be with
   us. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Zephaniah 3.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--46, 731, 18.

   Now Ready. Price Twopence.

   MR. SPURGEON'S Three Articles on "THE DOWN GRADE"

   REPRINTED FROM "THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL."

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     __________________________________________________________________

"Sitting By"

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 13, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And it came to pass on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there
   were Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by." Luke 5:17.

   A CONGREGATION is a strange aggregate--it is like the gatherings of a
   net, or the collections of a dredge. If it is a very large one, it is
   especially remarkable. What strange varieties of creatures meet in the
   Noah's ark of a crowded House of Prayer! If anybody could write the
   histories of all gathered here, the result would be a library of
   singular stories.

   You, my dear Friends, who usually worship here, have probably no idea
   of the strange medley of nations, ranks, professions, conditions and
   religions which are represented in one of the great congregations of
   this Tabernacle. I am often myself greatly startled when I come across
   the tracks of people quite unknown to me, except by the newspapers, who
   have mingled in these vast assemblies. I could not have imagined that
   they would ever have entered a place where the Gospel is preached! It
   is noteworthy that God always selects our congregations for us--and His
   arrangements are always wise. I have frequently said to myself, "I
   shall have a picked congregation tonight," and in some instances this
   has been very singularly the case. Persons have come here who had,
   themselves, no thought of coming, till some special matter drew
   them--and then the Word of God spoken has been so manifestly suited to
   their case that it made them marvel! If they had sent notice of their
   coming and the preacher had known all about them, he might not have
   ventured to be quite so personal, for he has unwittingly entered into
   minute details and secret items which, knowingly, he would never have
   revealed! The Lord who knows what is done in the closet, knows how to
   direct His ministering servant so that he shall speak to the point and
   speak to the heart.

   In the present congregation we have a large company of people who have
   long known the Lord and have, for years, rejoiced in His name. We have
   another company of persons who do not know the Lord savingly, but yet
   are well acquainted with the Gospel and are not far from the Kingdom of
   God. They are almost persuaded. They tarry in the border land. Oh, that
   they would cross the frontier and become dwellers in Immanuel's Land!
   We have also among us some who are far removed from Divine life--a
   people about whom we have little or no hope. Yet it is from among these
   that we reap the richest spoils for Christ, for He has compassion on
   the ignorant and on those that are out-of-the-way. I am fond of that
   word, "out-of-the-way." The Lord save all of you who are out-of-the-way
   ones!

   In every congregation we have a fourth class who would decline to be
   classed at all--they may be said to be here and not here! They are
   spectators rather than hearers. Like the gentlemen mentioned in our
   text, they are "sitting by." They are too respectable to be numbered
   with the vulgar crowd. No, no--they are only callers, sitting by. They
   would not like to have it supposed that they are regular hearers, much
   less converts--they are "sitting by." They are not repenting. They are
   not believing. They are not entering into the Truth of God at all. But,
   they are, "sitting by." They have come to look on, take notes and make
   remarks. They are on the outskirts of the battle, but they are not
   combatants at all--they are "sitting by"--where they hope they are out
   the range of gunshot!

   It is about these who are "sitting by "that I shall now speak, for I am
   afraid they are becoming by far too easy in the seats which they have
   chosen. They are sitting as God's people sit and yet they are not truly
   among them, but only, "sitting by." They are a very irritating and
   disappointing part of our assemblies, but, at the same time, there they
   are and we would not turn them out if we could! We are glad to have
   these persons to quarry from, for who knows but that out of

   them, God, in infinite mercy, may select individuals who will never
   again "sit by," but who will be heart and soul with Christ and His
   people--and even become leaders of the host of God?

   Let me freely speak to you concerning certain of those who sat by. They
   were by no means to be despised, for some of them were eminent persons.
   They were Pharisees, members of the separate sect, who kept themselves
   to themselves, and were punctilious about the externals of religion.
   Very superior, indeed, were these Pharisees--and you could see by their
   faces that they felt themselves to be persons of importance. With these
   were doctors of the Law of God, the learned men who had studied the
   Scriptures very carefully, counted the words of each Holy Book and
   found out the middle letter of it. These doctors of the Law had come to
   hear the unlettered peasant from Nazareth, concerning whom they had a
   very strong, but by no means favorable opinion. They had heard about
   Him and they condescended to give Him a hearing, half blushing at their
   own modesty in doing so. Not, of course, that He could teach them
   anything--they were merely, "sitting by," and nothing more. We do not
   see many of these great folk among our crowds and, perhaps, there are
   none such here on this occasion, but we cannot be sure. I do not much
   care to know whether the learned and profound are here, but they do
   come among us at times, though it is only to sit by. I will say no more
   about these remarkable people just now, for many others come into
   congregations merely to sit by. They have not come with any wish to
   learn, or understand, or feel, or be saved--they are only "sitting by."

   I. Let our first head answer the enquiry--WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE DOING?
   They were "sitting by." There is a good deal in this. First, they were
   indulging their curiosity. They had come out of every town of Galilee,
   Judea and Jerusalem to know what this stir was all about. They had
   heard the great fame of Christ for working miracles and this drew them
   into the throng which continually surrounded Him. Besides, the crowd,
   itself, drew them. Why was there such a large company? What could it be
   all about? They would like to know for the sake of curiosity. They
   would, for once, hear the Man, that they might be able to say that they
   had heard Him--but they were not going to be influenced by what they
   heard--they would hear Him as outsiders, "sitting by." They were
   curious, but not anxious.

   As a rule, very little comes of this kind of attendance at places of
   worship. And yet, I had sooner people come from this motive than not at
   all! Curiosity may be the stepping-stone to something better, but, in
   itself, what good is there in it? Persons on the Sunday go to St.
   Paul's, to Westminster Abbey, to the Tabernacle, to this place and to
   that--and they suppose that they are worshipping God--whereas they
   might just as well have gone to see a show! In fact, it is going to a
   show and nothing more as far as their motive is concerned! Do not
   flatter yourselves--if you go to places of worship merely to look about
   you or to hear music, you are not worshipping God! If you come to this
   great house to gratify your own fancy, you are no more worshipping God
   than you would be if you walked in the fields! You are only, in a very
   poor and groveling sense, "sitting by."

   Many come into our assemblies and sit by in this respect--that they are
   altogether indifferent. I do not suppose that these scribes and
   Pharisees were quite good enough to be altogether indifferent--they
   leaned the wrong way and were bitterly opposed. Too many act as if they
   said, "I come to hear a noted preacher, but what his doctrine may be I
   neither know nor care." They do not enquire, "What is this doctrine of
   the Fall? What is this depravity of heart? What is this work of the
   Spirit? What is this vicarious Sacrifice?" They do not care to know
   whether they are concerned in anything that is spoken of. Nor do they
   ask, "What is this new birth, this translation from darkness to Light,
   this sanctification of nature?" They hear a theological term and
   dismiss it as no concern of theirs. They do not want to know too much.
   This atoning Sacrifice--they hear so much about it. This shedding of
   the precious blood of Jesus. This putting away of sin by the Sacrifice
   of Jesus--they will not lend an ear to this saving mystery--but treat
   it as a matter of little or no consequence. It is nothing to them that
   Jesus should die!

   O dear Sirs, it ought to be something to you! If there is anything
   worth enquiring into, it is your own state before God, your position as
   to eternal things, your condition at this moment in reference to
   sin--whether it stains you scarlet, or whether you have been washed
   from it in the fountain which Christ has opened! If there is anything
   worthy of a man's enquiry, it is the matter which concerns his own soul
   for eternity! Would God you would no longer be found, "sitting by," but
   would in earnest feel, "There is something here for me. Perhaps for me
   there is a peace which I have never known, a joy which I have never
   imagined. I will see for myself. Perhaps for me there is a Heaven of
   which I have, up to now, despised. I will make a searching enquiry and
   see whether it is so or not." May that be your resolve and may you no
   longer be among those who sit by in stolid indifference!

   The scribes and Pharisees were sitting by in another and a worse,
   sense, for they were there to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, and
   either find faults, or invent them. I see them take out their notebooks
   to jot down a Word the Savior said which they thought could be twisted.
   How they nudged one another as He said something which sounded unusual
   and bold! Oh, could they but catch Him! When, at last, He said to the
   sick man, "Your sins are forgiven you," I think I see their eyes flash
   with malignant fire! "Now we have got Him! Now we have got Him! This
   Man blasphemes!" They hoped He had now said more than He could stand to
   and they asked in triumph, "Who can forgive sins but God only?" They
   were, "sitting by," watching the Savior as a cat watches a mouse! How
   eagerly they spring upon Him!

   My Hearers, this was a wretched business, was it not? It is a very poor
   business to go to the House of God to criticize a fellow mortal who is
   sincerely trying to do us good. It will not, in the present case,
   affect the preacher much, for his skin is hardened and he feels not the
   tiny strokes of ordinary censure. In no case can ungenerous criticisms
   do any good. But the pity of it is that when we earnestly desire to
   show you the way of salvation, some of you should hinder us by petty
   observations upon a faulty mannerism, a slight blunder, a
   mispronunciation of a word, or an inaccurate accent! Alas, what small
   things put the eternal Truth of God on one side! I do not know and I
   would not like to say if I did know, what petty trifles people will
   carry away and talk of, after we have been solemnly pleading with them
   about Heaven, Hell, the Judgement Day and the wrath to come--and the
   way to escape from it! Was it Carlyle who spoke of the cricket as
   chirping amid the crack of doom?

   I am apt to think that many people are like that cricket--they go on
   with their idle chitchat when Christ, Himself, is set before them on
   the Cross. Assuredly this is poor work! I am hungry. I come to a
   banquet, but, instead of feasting upon the food, I begin to criticize
   the dress of the waiters, abuse the arrangements of the banqueting hall
   and vilify the provisions! I shall go home as hungry as I came and who
   will be blamed for it? The best criticism that you can possibly give of
   your friend's entertainment is to be hearty in partaking of it! The
   greatest honor that we can do to Christ Jesus is to feed upon Him, to
   receive Him, to trust Him, to live upon Him! Merely to complain and to
   question will bring no good to the most clever of you. How can it? It
   is a pitiful waste of time for yourself and a trial of temper to
   others. Yet there are many who, like the scribes and Pharisees, are in
   this manner, "sitting by."

   Now, I do not care to go farther into these different forms of "sitting
   by," but no doubt some kindly admire, but do not profit. Hundreds of
   people are "sitting by" who are attentive hearers and warm friends--and
   yet have no part nor lot in the matter. They have been more or less
   regular attendants at this House of Prayer for, say 12, 14, 15, 20
   years--and yet they are not one whit the better! Some go from public
   worship to the public house--and yet they would not neglect church or
   chapel on any account! Many are no better at home for all they have
   heard--their wives are sorrowful witnesses to that fact. Why, some of
   you have been prayed for time out of mind and you have been preached at
   as well, but still, you are, "sitting by." I cannot make out why you
   come so constantly and yet profit so little! It would seem to all who
   knew you a very odd thing if you were seen loafing about a certain shop
   for an hour and a half one day in the week for 20 years and yet you
   never bought a pennyworth of goods! Why do you hang about the Gospel
   shop and yet purchase nothing? On your own showing you are a fool! I do
   not like using a hard word, still, it is used in Scripture for such as
   you are. He who believes a thing to be so important that he spends one
   day in the week in hearing about it, and yet does not think it
   important enough to accept it as a gift, stultifies himself by his own
   actions! How will you answer for it at the Last Great Day when the
   Judge shall say, "You believed enough to go and hear about salvation.
   Why did you not believe enough to accept it? You believed enough to
   quarrel for it. You would stand up for the doctrine of the Gospel-- and
   yet you, yourself, perished in your sin." What answer will you give,
   you that are "sitting by"? You will have to give some answer, what will
   it be? Oh, that you would use a little commonsense about your souls and
   would quit the seat of the foolish for the stool of the penitent--and
   no more be of those who are "sitting by!"

   II. Secondly, let us enquire WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHILE THESE PERSONS
   WERE "SITTING BY"? They had entered the room where Jesus was preaching,
   where crowds were listening, where miracles of mercy were being worked.
   They were criticizing, carping and quibbling--but what was happening to
   them all the while?

   Well, first, they were incurring responsibility. Sirs, you cannot hear
   the Gospel and refuse it, and yet remain as you were! You are either
   better or worse after hearing the Gospel. It is made to you either a
   savor of life unto life, or else of death unto death! Remember, it will
   be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgement, than
   for Bethsaida and Chorazin, who had heard the Gospel. The refusal of
   the Gospel is a crowning crime--there is no sin like

   it! Does not the Word of God say so? This is no gloomy talk of mine.
   The Lord Jesus taught that the men of Nineveh would condemn the men of
   Jerusalem because they heeded warning and Jerusalem did not. Oh, you
   that have heard the Gospel so long, and have been "sitting by" all the
   while, what a mountain of guilt rests upon you! How shall you escape?
   What must become of you after such base ingratitude?

   Besides that, they were gathering hardness of heart. Every hour that
   you listen to the Gospel--and bar your heart against it--you are less
   and less likely to admit it. The bolt that is rusted is hard to move
   back from its place. The path that has long been trodden by daily
   traffic has become hard, as though it were paved with stone--hearts
   that have often been traversed by the Gospel become like iron beneath
   its tread. I fear your consciences have grown hardened by the traffic
   of the Gospel. I know that it is so with many. The Lord forgive them!
   If I could have a congregation that never heard the Gospel before, I
   should feel more hopeful than I do when I speak to you who have heard
   it for years. What is now likely to affect you? What fresh arguments
   can I bring? I can tell you some new story, perhaps, but what of that?
   You have had too many stories already! It is not so easy a matter to
   retain your attention, now, as it once was--the voice has grown
   familiar and the manner is stale to you. Can I hope that I shall now
   reach the hearts at which I have shot so many arrows which have all
   missed the mark? O God, have mercy upon those who have been "sitting
   by" so long!

   Once again, let me remind you that those who were "sitting by" were
   obstructing Christ all that they could. There is a something--every
   preacher has felt it--there is a something in a congregation itself
   which affects the preacher, even as he affects the congregation. I soon
   feel when godly men are praying for me and crying, "O Lord, help him to
   preach!" I cannot tell you how it is, but so it is, that some
   congregations freeze me and others set me on fire. When the doctors of
   the Law and the Pharisees are, "sitting by," they drag us down and we
   cannot do many mighty works. If my eye catches the glance of one of
   these ice men. If I perceive his wretched indifference and detect his
   half-concealed sneer, I am weakened by it. I fancy I hear such folks
   saying, "We care nothing for what you say. We do not belong to those
   whom you can influence. We are clad in mail against your weapons." This
   chills one to the marrow.

   Now, this is the tendency of your conduct if you are "sitting by"--you
   chill the preacher--and in chilling the preacher you do boundless
   mischief to the congregation. Don't you know that it was said, even of
   Jesus, "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief?
   Even He, as Man, was, in a measure, dependent upon those who surrounded
   Him! When He saw their faith, He healed the sick of the palsy! And at
   another time, when He saw their unbelief, He looked round with
   indignation! It is a terrible fact that certain of you may be so acting
   as to hinder the salvation of others by your indifference to the sacred
   message! I believe that this is eminently the case with you that are
   very good people in all but the one thing necessary--you do not fear
   God and your very goodness works for evil! The example of a rank and
   rotten profligate will not influence certain minds, for they are
   disgusted by its grossness and driven to seek something better. But
   when young men see an excellent person like you, so moral and amiable,
   without religion, they gather from your example that godliness is not
   absolutely necessary and take license to do without it! Thus, you who
   are "sitting by" may be a curse when you little suspect it--you may be
   encouraging others in the attempt to live without the Savior!

   Yet let me not finish this head without repeating the remark that we
   are glad to have these people, "sitting by," rather than not coming at
   all! Being in the way, the Lord may meet with them. If you go where
   shots are flying, you may be wounded one of these days. Better to come
   and hear the Gospel from a low motive than not to come at all! Remember
   Hugh Latimer's quaint story when he urged all his hearers to go and
   hear the Gospel? He even praised that sleepless woman who had been
   taking sleeping medicine, but found that there was no drug strong
   enough to make her sleep till, at last, she said, "If you would take me
   to the parish church I know that I could go to sleep, for I have slept
   there every Sunday for many years." She was taken to that place of rest
   and was soon at peace! "Well, well," said Latimer, "she had better come
   for sleep than not come at all." And so I say--even if you come here to
   sleep, the Lord may awake you to seek and find the Savior! Still it is
   a wretched business--this, "sitting by."

   III. Next, let us enquire WHAT WAS THE REASON THESE PEOPLE WERE
   "SITTING BY"? Why did they come to hear Jesus and yet did not become a
   part of the really attentive congregation, but were hovering round the
   skirts of it and, "sitting by"? I would not needlessly offend any of
   those who have come here at this time, but let me quietly say a few
   things which may be applicable to them.

   In the first place, in the case of the scribes it was self-conceit
   which made them sit by. They were divided from the common throng by a
   sense of superiority. They said, "What have we to do with hearing Jesus
   of Nazareth and His message concerning the pardon of sin?" "Why," they
   said, "we are highly educated people and do not need to listen to so
   plain a preacher. His salvation we do not need, for we are not lost."
   Jesus, Himself, said, "They that are whole need not a physician; but
   they that are sick," thus indicating that it was their good idea of
   themselves which kept them back from Him. That is the reason why so
   many sit by--in their own opinion they are quite as good as the best
   and are not in need of any great change. They are most respectable
   people and they believe that they are also upright and generous.

   There went a man out of this place one evening who was spoken to by one
   of our friends who happened to know him in trade and had him in good
   repute. "What? Have you been to hear our minister tonight?" The good
   man answered, "Yes, I am sorry to say I have." "But," said our friend,
   "why are you sorry?" "Why," he said, "he has turned me inside out and
   spoiled my idea of myself! When I went into the Tabernacle I thought I
   was the best man in Newington, but now I feel that my righteousness is
   worthless." "Oh," said the friend, "that is all right, you will come
   again, I am sure. The Word of God has come home to you and shown you
   the truth--you will get comfort soon." That friend did come again and
   he is here tonight--he takes pleasure in that very Truth of God which
   turned him inside out! And he comes on purpose that the Word of the
   Lord may search him and try him--and be to him as a refiner's fire! He
   that is most afraid to be turned inside out is the man who most needs
   to undergo that process!

   Alas, many will not let the Word of God search them! They say within
   themselves, "That is good, very good. But it is not for me." Such are
   those that sit by. They sit in a corner, out of the wind of the
   winnowing fan. Do you not see them draw themselves up and look very
   solemnly at other people, as if they would say to their neighbor,
   "There, you take that home! That doctrine is good for you sinners, but
   the preacher has no reference to me."

   These people were "sitting by" because there was, in them, no sense of
   personal need, no perception of their own nakedness which only Christ
   can cover, no sense of inward hunger which only Jesus can remove. They
   did not need a Savior for themselves, though quite willing to hear Him
   preached to others. They did not require mercy for themselves, though
   pleased that sinners should hear of it. They could see and, therefore,
   needed not that their eyes should be opened. They had all things and
   had no poverty to plead. So it always will be in the preaching of the
   Word--those will hear it with gladness who perceive that they need what
   it presents to them--but others will take no interest in it. Conscious
   need inclines the ear to hear--and until the Spirit of God works this
   in us, we shall be deaf as posts to the voice of love--and continue
   "sitting by."

   There was also about these people a mass of prejudice. Their
   conservative tendency kept them aloof. Carried a certain distance, this
   tendency is good, but it may turn a man into a pillar of salt and
   prevent his fleeing for his life. Having drunk the old wine, these
   immovable people do not desire new because they feel sure that the old
   is better. Yet if the old wine is sour or musty and the new wine is
   sweet and good, it is a pity to prefer the bad to the good! The old
   intoxicating wine of salvation by human merit, or by ceremonies, is, by
   many, preferred to our Lord's own new wine of the Kingdom, namely
   Justification by His righteousness through faith. "Believe and live" is
   set aside for, "the man that does these things shall live by them."
   They prefer Sinai to Calvary, their own filthy rags to the Lord's
   perfect robe of righteousness! They stick to the Old Covenant, which is
   taken away, and cannot endure the Everlasting Covenant of Grace. The
   prejudice of proud human nature is hard to overcome--men are not
   willing to search the Scriptures and see whether they are right or
   not--they stick to their inherited falsehoods.

   Many are "sitting by" because of resolute unbelief and determined
   self-confidence. O Friends, it is born in us by nature to believe in
   ourselves! What is that but clear idolatry? It is not till we are born
   again that we come to believe in Jesus Christ and so to trust in the
   living God and receive a living hope! May the Lord deliver us from that
   old, good-for-nothing confidence in self, confidence in works,
   confidence in outward ceremonies, confidence in the flesh! Oh, that we
   might pour the old and musty wine on the ground--and taste of the new
   wine, crushed from the cluster by the dying Son of God--the new wine of
   salvation by Grace, through faith, unto the glory of God! Would God
   that those who are "sitting by" on account of their vainglorious
   prejudices, may be brought into the marriage feast of Grace and made
   willing to wear the wedding garment and honor Him who has prepared it!
   Prejudice is the ruin of thousands! They might be made to see if they
   did not think that they already saw! They might be happy in the Lord if
   their groundless conceit did not make them to be "sitting by."

   IV. WHAT SHALL WE SAY OF THESE SITTERS-BY? Just a word by way of
   forming an estimate of them and then I will have done with them. Oh,
   that the Lord, Himself, might deal with them by His Holy Spirit! These
   sitters-by, these people who do not go in for the Truth of God and
   faith of the Gospel, but hear it, play with it, talk about it and then
   have done with it--what shall I say of them?

   Why, first, they seem to me to be wonderfully out of place when you
   think of the Lord who was preaching. How could they be indifferent in
   His Presence? He was at a white heat and they were blocks of ice. He
   was all energy and they were "sitting by." He spending and being
   spent--and they "sitting by." He engaged all night in prayer with His
   Divine Father and now, coming forth clothed with Divine Power to
   heal--and they, "sitting by." Pretending to be doctors and teachers of
   the people and, therefore, under great responsibility, they were yet
   content to be, "sitting by," when Jesus was pouring out His soul! O
   Sirs, none of us ought to be indifferent in the Presence of the Christ
   of God! He is clad with zeal as with a cloak--how can we be lukewarm?
   He laid down His life for the sheep--how can we live for self? He still
   lives for His people and holds not His peace, but by His incessant
   pleading He proves His everlasting interest in our cause --for us to
   be, "sitting by," is horrible ingratitude! Men who have received great
   salvation, "sitting by," while the Savior dies? Or even men who are in
   danger of sinking at once to Hell carelessly, "sitting by," when the
   gate of mercy is set open before them by the pierced hand of Jesus? Oh,
   it is sadly strange! Lord, teach this foolish generation wisdom! Let
   them not still be, "sitting by"!

   It was equally incongruous with the condition of the rest of the
   congregation. Look, there is such a crowd around the Lord Jesus that
   they are trying to bring in a man who is sick of the palsy, but they
   cannot get him near. Nobody will make way--they are all so eager to
   hear and to get a blessing! At last they take the palsied man to the
   roof--they actually break up the tiling! They lower the man down with
   ropes over the heads of the people! Yes, right in among the learned
   lawyers and the proud Pharisees! The pieces of the tiles are falling
   everywhere! The dust is on the doctors and divines! Look how eager, how
   earnest, how impetuous the people are! And yet these gentlemen
   Pharisees and lawyers are, "sitting by" with cold indifference!

   Look at them taking out their notebooks to jot down an expression with
   which they may find fault! See how they coolly observe little points in
   what is done! They are not moved--not they! A man is about to be healed
   who has long been paralyzed--and they treat it as if it were an
   interesting case in the hospital--around which a company of medical
   students gather, as to a show. How can they act in this way? Are they
   made of stone or iron? One would think common humanity might affect
   them--but no, they will not enter into anything that Jesus says or
   does--they are merely, "sitting

   by."

   It will be an awful thing for some of you to be cast away forever--and
   then to remember that you sat next to people that were saved--sat next
   them at the very time when they heard unto eternal life! How will you
   bear to know that these people were saved by that powerful sermon which
   drove even you to your knees, but you shook off the impression, grew
   careless and again continued in your sin? This reflection will sting
   you as does a serpent when you are past hope and are driven forever
   from the Presence of God. This will be as the worm that never
   dies--when you say to yourself--"I was present when Jesus, by His
   Grace, renewed men's hearts. I was present when my companion heard,
   believed and was saved, but I willfully refused to hear and turned away
   from the only Savior." What shall I say to yonder husband who will have
   to remember that she who in this world lay in his bosom, wept for him,
   told him that she had found a Savior and begged him to think of his
   immortal soul and turn unto the Lord? You will remember how you steeled
   your heart against the blessed influence and refused the holy tears of
   one you loved so well!

   Or is it so, that your darling child came home from the Sunday school
   weeping on account of sin and you, the mother who ought to have thanked
   God for blessing your offspring, ridiculed your child's repentance?
   This is, "sitting by," in a most horrible way--"sitting by" to scoff
   and oppose! While others are saved--you are "sitting by." Why, if I
   were sick of the palsy, tonight. If I were lying here and I saw the
   Master healing you who were sick, I think I should at least cry out as
   best I could, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on me!" I exhort any of you
   who are unconverted to take these words out of my mouth and with your
   whole heart use them in prayer. Cry, "Lord have mercy upon me! Christ
   have mercy upon me!"

   V. I had much more to add upon this point, but time admonishes me. Let
   me in a few sentences speak to some WHO SHOULD NOT BE AMONG THOSE WHO
   ARE "SITTING BY." You that feel your soul-sickness will not be of that

   number. You feel your guilt--you feel your need of Christ. You are
   broken down--then do not, for a moment, sit by! Rise, He calls you!
   Press through the crowd to Jesus! Believe in Him and live! May His
   Spirit lead you to do so at once!

   Before I found the Savior, I visited nearly every place of worship in
   the town where I lived, but I did not find full salvation at any one of
   them. I believe that it was through my own ignorance. In the little
   Primitive Methodist chapel, when I heard Christ preached and was bid to
   look, alone, to Him, I found rest unto my soul! But the reason why I
   found Him was because His Grace had made me know that I needed Him. I
   do not suppose that the sermon which was made useful to me had anything
   in it more remarkable than other Gospel sermons. The special point was
   that the Lord had prepared me to receive the Gospel message. They say
   that the water of the Nile is very sweet. We have heard some of our
   countrymen assert that a very little of it was too much for them and
   that they never wished to drink of it again. There is no use in
   disputing about tastes, but surely, people might agree upon the quality
   of water! Yet some praise this Nile water to the skies and others call
   it muddy stuff. The reason why the water of the Nile is so sweet to
   Egyptians is that their climate is dry and the people are thirsty--and
   other water is scarce. Under a burning sun, a drink of water is very
   refreshing. To the soul that is thirsty after mercy and reconciliation
   and eternal life, every promise of the Lord is delightful! Nothing puts
   such a savor and flavor into the Gospel as that work of the Holy
   Spirit, by which we are made to feel our great need of it!

   Oh, if you have not found Christ--you that are seeking Him--go to every
   place where Christ is preached till you find Him! If you do not get the
   heavenly blessing in one place, go to another! Do not stop where there
   is no blessing merely because it is your regular place of assembly. You
   need bread and if one baker has not got it, go to another! Seek after
   the Savior as men dig for gold or search for diamonds.

   I have heard of a man who had long attended one of the Churches in
   Scotland, but as he did not get any good, he went off to listen to
   certain irregular preaching and there he found peace with God. The old
   minister warned him of his wickedness in being away from the Church and
   said, in Scotch, what I must put into English, "Donald, you should not
   have gone to hear that man! He is not of the old Church." "Well," said
   Donald, "but I needed a blessing and I felt I must go anywhere to get
   it." "Well," said the minister, "Donald, you should have waited at the
   pool, like the man in the Gospels, till the water was stirred." "Well,
   Sir," said the man, "but you see that man saw that the water was
   sometimes stirred and though he did not get in, himself, yet he knew
   that others stepped in and were healed. And that encouraged him to wait
   a little longer, in the hope that his turn might yet come. But I have
   lain at your pool these 40 years and I never saw the water stirred,
   neither did anybody get healed in it. And so I thought it was time for
   me to look somewhere

   else."

   Indeed it was! We cannot afford to be lost for the sake of churches or
   chapels. O my Hearer, seek the Lord with all your heart! And seek Him
   on and on till you find Him! Do not be a mere sitter-by any longer, but
   obey the call which bids you draw near. Be not content to sit in any
   pretended House of Prayer where prayer is not heard and souls are never
   saved. Do not let down your bucket into any more dry wells. Go where
   Jesus is! Traverse all the denominations and stay not till you can say,
   "I have found Jesus." If He is not preached in one place, hasten to
   another. Keep your ears and your hearts open. "Seek you the Lord while
   He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." Do not fall into the
   habit of going to a place because you always went there and always mean
   to go there. Why, some of you have almost grown to your seats and are
   as wooden as that which bears you up! O mere sitter-by, I implore you,
   do not remain in this wretched case! May your cry to the Lord be, at
   this moment--

   "Give me Christ, or else I die!" May God help you to make your hearing
   a reality, your sitting under the Gospel a true reception of it!

   You that are in great sorrow I do not think it possible that you can be
   altogether sitters-by! You have been disappointed in love. You have met
   with a world of trouble, or else you have been the round of amusements
   and have seen no end of gaiety--but you are sick of it--and weary of
   the world and of yourself. You feel that you might as well try to fill
   your belly with wind as fill your soul with the world's amusements--and
   you have come here jaded and nauseated. Your heart is laboring and
   heavy laden and you pine for rest. Come and try my Master! He invites
   you. He entreats you to come. He cries to you, "Come unto Me, all you
   that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He means
   what He says. You have labored enough for the world, and its wages are
   not worth having. Come now to Him whose gift is eternal life! May His
   Holy Spirit lead you to come at once and delay no longer! You are one
   of those that cannot afford to be, "sitting by," for sin curses you,
   death threatens you and eternal wrath pursues you! I know how it will
   be with you

   unless Grace prevents--you will go home and the sermon will be
   over--and the many of you will still be sitters-by, for you will shake
   off conviction and still be careless. Remember, I have warned you. Will
   you despise the warning?

   A poor fallen woman is here at this time, worn out with her crimes.
   Does she desire to know the Savior? Let her confess her sin and forsake
   it--then she will not be "sitting by." There is a broken-hearted youth
   here who begins to reap the wild oats he has sown. Will he sit by? Does
   he wish to know how his heart can be changed, his sin forgiven, his
   soul comforted? Let him arise and go to his Father--and no longer be
   "sitting by."

   And so I close with a full and free Gospel call! Come and welcome, you
   that gladly would come to Jesus. Come just now, with all your sins
   about you, and behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
   world! If you want to know what it is to come to Him, know that it is
   to trust Him. Go to your chamber, and look up and say, "Jesus, I cannot
   see You; but You are wherever there is a broken heart. Behold, I seek
   You; reveal Yourself to me. I trust You to forgive me and to renew me."

   Jesus will not refuse you, for He casts out none that come to Him. I
   said, "Go home," but I will alter that. Keep your seats and seek Him
   where you are and as you are! Before you leave this place, commit
   yourselves into those dear hands which were pierced for the guilty and
   are always ready to grasp a sinner. As the pearl fisher is happy when
   he finds a handful of pearls, so is Jesus happy when He lays hold on
   poor sinners and takes them to be His own! Commit your souls to His
   keeping. Wholly trust Him! Trust him only! Trust him now! Today, escape
   for your lives and find refuge in the Rock of Ages! Jesus cries, "Look
   unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." O Lord, lead all
   these sinners to look to Jesus by Your Holy Spirit for Your mercy's
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Song for the Free--Hope for the Bound

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke
   their chains in pieces. Oh that men would praise the Lord for His
   goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He
   has broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in two." Psalm
   107:14-16.

   MY anxious, prayerful desire this morning is that some who have been in
   the condition described in the text may come out of it into full
   redemption. They have been too long in prison and now the silver
   trumpet sounds--liberty to the captives! Jesus has come into the world
   to break the gate of brass and to cut the bars of iron in two. Oh, that
   my prayer might be heard for those who are in bondage! I trust that
   some of those who are now immured in the dungeon of despondency will
   say, "Amen," to my prayer and, if they are praying inside and we are
   praying outside--and the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, comes to open the
   prison doors, then there will be a Jubilee before long.

   This passage, of course, literally alludes to prisoners held in durance
   by their fellow men. What a sad world man has made of this earth! With
   superfluity of evil, man has multiplied his Bastilles! As if there were
   not misery enough to the free, he invents cells and chains! One's blood
   boils when standing in those living graves in which tyrants have buried
   their victims out of sight and hearing! Could the most fierce of wild
   beasts display such cruelty to their kind as men have shown to men? By
   the horrors of such imprisonments, one must estimate the joy of being
   set free. To God it is a glory that, in the order of His Providence, He
   often provides a way of escape for the oppressed. Cruel dynasties have
   been overthrown, tyrants have been hurled from their thrones and then
   enlargement has come to those who were shut up. Liberated ones should,
   indeed, "praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works
   to the children of men."

   But the various scenes in this Psalm were intended to describe
   spiritual conditions. The second verse is a key to the whole song--"Let
   the redeemed of the Lord say so." The deliverance here intended is one
   which is brought to us by redemption--and comes by the way of the great
   Sacrifice on Calvary. We are redeemed with the precious blood of Him
   who surrendered His own liberty for our sakes and consented to be bound
   and crucified that He might set us free. My grateful heart seems to
   hear Him saying again, as He did in the Garden of Gethsemane, "If you
   seek Me, let these go their way." His consenting to be bound brought
   freedom to all those who put their trust in Him.

   I shall endeavor, as God shall help me, to speak of the text
   spiritually--and we will consider it under the heading of three
   questions. First, Who are the favored men of whom the text speaks?
   Secondly, How has this remarkable deliverance been worked. Thirdly,
   What shall be done about it? The text tells us how to act. "Oh that men
   would praise the Lord for His goodness!"

   I. First, let us ask, WHO ARE THESE FAVORED MEN?

   These favored persons were guilty men, as you will see by the
   context--"Because they rebelled against the words of God and despised
   the counsel of the Most High." Hear this, you sinful ones, and take
   heart! God has worked great wonders for a people whom it seemed
   impossible for Him to notice. If they came into prison through
   rebellion, you would expect Him to leave them there. Yet rebels are set
   free by an act of immeasurable Grace! The Redeemer has received gifts
   for men, "yes, also for the rebellious." These men were despisers of
   God's Word--was there a Gospel of freedom for them? Yes! It is for them
   that Jehovah, in abounding Grace, has worked miracles of mercy.

   The persons described by the Psalmist were guilty of overt acts. They
   were in actual rebellion against the commands of the Most High. Their
   rebellion was not a single hasty act--their entire lives were a
   continuance of their wicked revolt. From their childhood, they went
   astray. In their youth, they provoked the Lord, and in their manhood
   they disobeyed

   Him more and more. They were in open opposition to their Creator,
   Benefactor and Lord. I have no doubt that I am speaking to many who
   must admit that they have been actual and willful transgressors against
   the Lord of Love. They have turned unto Him their back, and not the
   face--they have not been servants, but rebels.

   The persons here spoken of were as evil in their hearts as in their
   lives, for they, "despised the counsel of the Most High." Perhaps they
   intellectually rejected the teaching of Holy Scripture and scorned to
   receive what the Lord revealed. They refused to yield their
   understandings to Infallible teaching and judged their own thoughts to
   be better than the thoughts of God. The counsel of the Most High,
   though marked by the sublimity of Him from whom it came, appeared to
   them to be less high than their own soaring theories and, therefore,
   they despised it. To some men, any doctrine is more acceptable than
   that of Scripture. They gladly hear what doubters say, but they will
   not hear what God the Lord shall speak. His counsel of instruction, His
   counsel of command, His counsel of promise--His whole counsel they cast
   away from them--and they take counsel of their own conceit!

   Now this actual and mental sin, when it is brought home to a man's
   awakened conscience, fills him with dismay. Because he has transgressed
   with hand and heart, the convicted sinner is in sore dismay. O my
   Hearer, are you in distress this day through your own fault? Do you
   wonder that you are in trouble? Did you expect to go in the way of evil
   and yet to be happy? Did you never hear those words, "There is no
   peace, says my God, unto the wicked"? Know you not that they are "like
   the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and
   dirt"? Now that you find yourself taken in the thorns of your own
   folly, are you at all surprised? The Scripture says, "Have you not
   procured this unto yourself?" Are not these the wages of sin? Thank God
   you have not yet received more than the earnest money of that terrible
   wage! But, depend upon it, sin is a hard paymaster! Sin and sorrow are
   wedded in the very nature of things and there is no dividing them. They
   that sow iniquity shall reap the same. Turn as it may, the river of
   wickedness at last falls into the sea of wrath! He that sins must smart
   unless a Savior can be found to be his Surety and to smart for him.

   So, then, these people who were set free were, by nature, guilty men
   who could not have deserved the Divine interposition. Hear this, you
   consciously guilty, you that are condemning yourselves and confessing
   your faults! This is good news for you, even for you! The Lord sets
   free the men whose own hands have forged their manacles. This is Free
   Grace, indeed! These marvels of delivering love were performed, not for
   the innocent in their misfortune, but for the guilty in their
   rebellion. "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

   Go a little further and you will notice that these persons were doomed
   men, for they "sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death." It means
   that they were in the condemned cell, waiting for execution. No light
   could come to them, for their condemnation was clear. No escape could
   be hoped for. Not a ray of hope came from any direction. In a short
   time they must be taken out to execution, so that the shadow of their
   death fell with its damp, dread, deadening influence upon their
   spirits. Do I address any such this morning? Ah, my Friend, I can
   sympathize with you as you sit here and feel that you are doomed! I,
   too, have felt that sentence of death within me! I knew myself to be
   "condemned already," because I had not believed on the Son of God. I
   recollect how those words, "condemned already," rang in my ears as I
   should think the bell of St. Sepulcher's used to sound in the ears of
   the condemned in Newgate, warning them that the time was come to go out
   upon the scaffold.

   When the shadow of eternal wrath falls upon the heart, nothing worse
   can be imagined, for the conscience bears sure witness that God is just
   when He judges, condemns and punishes. When a man feels the shadow of
   death upon him, infidel arguments are silenced, self-conceited defenses
   are banished and the heart consents to the justice of the Law of God
   which declares, "The soul that sins, it shall die." My Brothers and
   Sisters who remember being in this state of conscious condemnation will
   join me in praying for those who are now in that condition, for they
   need our pity and love. O my Hearers, condemned in your own
   consciences, take heart and hope, for you are the sort of people whom
   Jehovah, in His Grace, delights to set free! Those doomed ones were the
   men of whom our text sings, "He brought them out of darkness and the
   shadow of death." It is your condemned condition which needs free mercy
   and, behold, the Lord meets your need in His boundless Grace!

   To the doomed, the Lord God in Christ Jesus will give free pardon this
   morning! I speak with great confidence, for my trust is in the God of
   Love. The Lord is going to hear prayer for you sinners. You shall be
   brought from under the black cloud which now threatens you with
   overwhelming tempest--you shall come forth from the condemned cell, not
   to

   execution--but to absolution! Blessed be the name of the Lord! He
   passes by transgression and does it justly through the Atonement of His
   Son!

   But next, these persons were bound men, for they, "sat in darkness and
   in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron." Their
   afflictions were like iron, hard and cold, and such they could not
   break from. The iron entered into their souls. The rust cut the flesh
   and poisoned the blood. They were bound in a double sense--addiction
   within and iron without. It is a terrible thing when a man feels that
   he is lost and that he cannot get away from destruction. An evil habit
   has got him within its iron grasp and will not relax its hold. Even
   though he would, he cannot loosen himself from the thralldom of his
   sin. He has become a slave and there is no escape for him. "O my God!"
   he cries, "what can I do?" The more he strains, the more the iron seems
   to hold him. His attempts to be free from evil only prove to him how
   much enslaved he is. What an awful compound is described in the
   text--"affliction and iron"! The bondage is mental and physical, too.
   The enslaved spirit and the depraved flesh act and react upon each
   other and hold the poor struggling creature as in an iron net! He
   cannot break off his sins. He cannot rise to a better life.

   I know that some of you who are here at this time are in this case. You
   long to be delivered, but you are unable to cut the cords which hold
   you. You are greatly troubled, day after day, and cannot rest--and yet
   you get no farther. You are striving to find peace, but peace does not
   come. You are laboring after emancipation from evil habits, but the
   habits still hold you! Friend thus bound, to you I have to tell the
   glad news that Jesus Christ has come on purpose that He might proclaim
   the opening of the prisons to them that are bound! "He has broken the
   gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in two." God is able to
   liberate men from every bond of sin over which they mourn! Would you be
   free? He will open the door! There is no habit so inveterate, there is
   no passion so ferocious, but God can deliver you from it! If you will
   but trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, His Grace is a hammer that
   can break your chains! Let Jesus say, "Loosen him and let him go," and
   not even devils can detain you! Christ's warrant runs over the whole
   universe and, if He makes you free, you will be free, indeed!

   To advance another step, these persons were weary men, for we read of
   them, "He brought down their heart with labor." This does not happen to
   all in the same degree, but to some of us, this labor was exceedingly
   grinding and exhausting. Our hearts were lofty and needed bringing
   down--and the Lord used means to do it. With some, temporal
   circumstances go wrong--where everything used to prosper, everything
   appears to be under a blight. From abundance they descend to need.
   Perhaps the health also begins to give way and from being strong and
   hearty men they become sickly and feeble. How often this tames proud
   spirits! If it is not outward sorrow, it is within that they labor till
   their heart is brought low. They cannot rest and yet they try all
   earthly remedies for ease--they go to the theater, they sport with
   frivolous companions, they laugh, they dance, they plunge into
   vice--but they cannot shake off the burden of their sin!

   It will not be removed. As the giraffe, when the lion has leaped upon
   him, bears his enemy upon his shoulders and cannot dislodge him, even
   though he rushes across the wilderness like the wind, so the sinner is
   being devoured by his sin while he madly labors to shake it off. While
   the unconverted seek to rest themselves, they do but increase their
   weariness. They labor, yes, labor as in the very fire, but it is labor
   in vain! In vain do they hasten to every religions service and attend
   to every sacred ceremony! In vain do they try to mourn--how can they
   put feeling into a heart of stone? If they could, they would make their
   tears flow forever and their prayers forever rise, but, to their
   horror, they accomplish nothing! The whip of the Law sounds and they
   must get to their tasks, again--but the more they do, the more they are
   undone. Like one that, having fallen into a slough, sinks all the
   deeper into the mire through every struggle that he makes, so do they
   fall lower and lower by their efforts to rise!

   I understand those awful struggles of yours, so desperate and yet so
   unavailing. God is bringing down your heart with labor, but have you
   not had enough of this? Do you not remember that love word, "Come unto
   Me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest"?
   Sweet promise! Will you not believe it and avail yourselves of it? Will
   you not come to Jesus and take the rest which He gives? How I wish you
   would come this very day! I beseech the Holy Spirit to turn you to
   Jesus. The Lord has come forth with power to draw you and to bring you
   away from your weariness unto the sweet rest which remains for the
   people of God! Poor doves, fly no further! Return to your Noah! These
   of whom we speak at this time were as weary men as ever you can be, but
   Jesus gave them rest--why should He not give rest to you? Though bad,
   and banned, and bound, and burdened, there is yet hope, for the Lord
   can set you free!

   Again, these persons were downcast men--"they fell down, and there was
   none to help." "We cannot go on any longer," they said. "It is useless
   to exert ourselves. We cannot escape God's wrath and yet we cannot bear
   it. We are at our wits' end. There is no use in our trying to be
   better. We must give it up in despair." "They fell down." This shows
   that they were quite spent. The captive has been grinding at the mill
   till he cannot go another round. Even the lash cannot make him take
   another step--he falls in faintness--as though life had gone. So have
   we known men forced to acknowledge that they are, "without strength."
   This was always true, but they did not always feel it. Now they have
   come to this, that if Heaven could be had for one more effort--and Hell
   escaped for one more good work--yet they could not do it! They fall
   down and there they lie, a heap of helplessness, dead in trespasses and
   sins! Where is the boasted power of their free will?

   Now it is to you who have fallen down, even to you, that the word of
   this salvation is sent! The Lord Jesus delights to lift up those that
   lie at His feet. He is a great over-turner--"He has put down the mighty
   from their seats and exalted them of low degree." He that flies aloft
   on the eagle's wings of pride shall be brought low by the shafts of
   vengeance. But he that humbles himself to the dust shall be lifted up!
   He that has fallen down and lies in the dust at the feet of Jesus, lies
   on the doorstep of eternal life! The Lord will give power to the weak
   and increase strength to those who have no might. I rejoice when I hear
   any one of you acknowledge his weakness, since the Lord Jesus will now
   show forth His power in you!

   In fact, these persons were helpless men--"They fell down and there was
   none to help." What a word that is--"None to help"! The proverb says,
   "God helps those who help themselves." There is a sort of truth in it,
   but I venture to cover it with a far greater Truth of God--"God helps
   those that cannot help themselves." When there is none to help you,
   then God will help you. "There was none to help"--no priest, no
   minister, not even a praying wife, or a praying mother could do
   anything! The man felt that human helpers were of no use. His bed was
   shorter than that he should stretch himself upon it and his covering
   was narrower than that he should wrap himself up in it. Now he saw that
   there was no balm in Gilead, there was no physician there--and he
   looked to a higher place than Gilead for balm and medicine! The balm
   for such a wound as his must come from Heaven, for on earth there was
   "none to help." This is a fitting epitaph to be placed over the grave
   of self-righteousness! This also is the death-knell of priestcraft,
   birthright membership and sacra-mentarianism. The conscience sees that
   there is "none to help." Is this your case? Then you are the men and
   women in whom God will work the marvels of His Grace--and bring you out
   where you shall walk in light and peace!

   There was only one good point about these people--they did, at last,
   take to praying--"Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble." It
   was not much of a prayer to hear. It was too shrill to be musical. It
   was too painful to be pleasant. "They cried" like one in sore anguish.
   They cried like a child that has lost its mother. "They cried" like
   some poor wounded animal in great pain. Do you tell me that you cry,
   but that your cry is a very poor one? I know it and I am glad to hear
   you say so, for the less you think of your cry, the more God will think
   of it! Do you value yourself according to your prayers? Then your
   prayers have no value in them! When you think that your prayers are
   only broken words, hideous moans and wretched desires, then you begin
   to form a right estimate of them and thus you are on true ground where
   the Lord of Truth can meet you.

   "They cried." Was it any credit to them to cry? Why, no, it was what
   they were forced to do! They would not have cried to the Lord, even
   then, if they could have done anything else. They cried when their
   hearts had been brought so low that they fell down. It is a good fall
   when a man falls on his knees. O my dear Hearer, whatever else you do,
   or do not do, are you crying to God in secret for His Grace? Then, as
   surely as the Lord lives, you shall come out into liberty! A praying
   man shall never be sent to perdition. There is that about prayer which
   makes it a token for good, a pledge of blessings on the road, a door of
   hope in dark hours. Where is the man that cries? Where is the man that
   prays? That is the man of whom it shall be said, and of others like he,
   "The Lord brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and
   broke their chains in pieces."

   May the Lord bless the description which I have given, so that some of
   you may see yourselves as in a mirror and be encouraged to hope that
   the Lord will save you as He has saved others like you! If you see
   yourself in the text, take home the comfort of it and make use of it.
   Do not look at it and say, "This belongs to somebody else." You
   Brothers and Sisters in bondage; you self-despairing sinners--you are
   the ones for whom Christ went up to the Cross! If you saw a letter
   directed to yourself, would you not open it? I should think so! The
   other day a poor woman received in a letter a little help sent to her
   by a friend. She was in great distress and she went to that very friend
   begging for a few shillings. "Why,"

   said the other, "I sent you money yesterday, by an order in a letter!"
   "Dear, dear!" said the poor woman, "that must be the letter which I put
   behind the mirror!" Just so--and there are lots of people who put God's
   letters behind the mirror and fail to make use of the promise which is
   meant for them! Come, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, come and
   taste my Master's love, yes, take of it freely and be filled with
   heavenly rest!

   II. Secondly, may God's Spirit go with us while we answer the
   question--HOW HAS THIS DELIVERANCE BEEN WORKED? You that have been set
   free should tell how you were emancipated! Let me tell my story first.
   It was the best news I ever heard when it was told me that Jesus died
   in my place. I sat down in my misery, hopeless of salvation, ready to
   perish, till they told me that there was One who loved me and for love
   of me was content to yield His life for my deliverance! Wonder of
   wonders, He had actually borne the death penalty for me! They said that
   the Lord of Glory had become Man to save men and that if I trusted Him,
   I might know assuredly that He had suffered in my place and had blotted
   out my sins. I marveled much as I heard this, but I felt that no one
   could have invented news so strange! It surpassed all fiction, that the
   offended God should, Himself, take my nature and, in the Person of the
   Lord Jesus Christ should pay my debts, suffer for my sins and put those
   sins away!

   I heard the blessed tidings--there was some comfort even in hearing
   it--and I believed it and clutched at it as for life. Then did I begin
   to live! I believe that Truth of God today--all my hope lies there. If
   any of you wonder that I show zeal for the substitutionary Sacrifice of
   Christ, you may cease to ponder! Would not any one of you stand up for
   his wife and children? This Truth is more to me than wife and
   children--it is everything to me! I am a damned man for all eternity if
   Christ did not die for me! I will put it no more softly than that. If
   my Redeemer had not borne my sins in His own body on the tree, then I
   would have to bear them in my own body in the place of endless misery!
   I have no shade of a hope anywhere but in the Sacrifice of Jesus! I
   cannot, therefore, give up this Truth of God--I had sooner give up my
   life!

   I heard that the Son of God had suffered in my place that I might go
   free. I believed it and I said to myself, "Then I have no business to
   be sitting here in darkness and in the shadow of death." I shook myself
   from my lethargy. I arose and went out of my prison--and as I moved to
   go out, a light shone round about me and my fetters fell clanking to
   the ground! What glorious musical instruments they were! The very
   things that had galled me so long, now brought me joy! I found that the
   iron gate, which I thought could never be unlocked, opened to me of its
   own accord. I could not believe that it was true, it seemed too
   wonderful! I thought I must be dreaming. I very soon knew of a surety
   that it was I, myself--the cold night air blew down the street of my
   daily care and I said, "Oh, yes, I am still on earth and it is true!
   And I am free from despair and delivered from the curse!" This is how I
   came out to liberty--I believed in Jesus, my Redeemer. Today, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters here, hundreds of them, would, each one, tell the
   story in a different way, but it would come to the same thing.

   Follow me while we go a little into Scriptural detail and learn from
   David how the Lord sets free the captives.

   First, our deliverance was worked by the Lord Himself Listen--"HE
   brought them out of darkness." Write that, "HE," in capital letters,
   Mr. Printer! Have you in the house any specially large letters? If so,
   set up that word in the most prominent type you have--"HE brought them
   out of darkness." Read also the 16th verse--"HE has broken the gates of
   brass." Did the Lord send an angel to liberate us? No, HE came Himself
   in the Person of His dear Son! When the Lord Jesus Christ had paid our
   enormous debt, did He leave us to accept our quittance entirely of our
   own free will, apart from His Grace? Ah, no! The Holy Spirit came and
   made us willing in the day of His power! "HE." "HE." "HE" worked all
   the work for us and all our works in us! "HE brought them out of
   darkness and the shadow of death." "Oh that men would praise the Lord,
   for HE has broken the gates of brass." It is the Lord's doing! It is
   marvelous in our eyes. There is no salvation worth the having which has
   not the hand of the Godhead in it. It needs Father, Son and Holy Spirit
   to save a soul! None but the Trinity can deliver a captive soul from
   the chains of sin and death and Hell. Jehovah Himself saves us!

   Next, the Lord did it alone--"He has broken the gates of brass." Nobody
   else was there to aid in liberating the prisoner. When our Lord Jesus
   trod the winepress, He was alone. When the Spirit of God came to work
   in us eternal life, He worked alone. Instruments are condescendingly
   used to convey the Word of Life, but the life of the Word is wholly of
   God. As to the Divine Father, is it not true, of "His own will begat He
   us by the Word of Truth"? He is the Author of our spiritual life and
   He, alone. None can share the work of our salvation with Him and none
   can divide the Glory. Ho, you that are captives, are you looking for
   some man to help you? Remember, I pray you, that there is "none to
   help."

   "Salvation is of the Lord." Remember that verse, "Look unto Me and be
   you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none
   else." That is to say, there is no one else in the work of salvation
   except God! O Soul, if you have to do with Christ Jesus, you must have
   Him at the beginning; you must have Him in the middle; you must have
   Him in the end and you must have Him to fill up every nook and corner
   from the first to the last. He alone has done it!

   Note, too, that what He did was done by the Lord's own goodness, for
   the Psalmist says, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for His
   goodness!" His goodness took the form of mercy, as it is said in the
   first verse of this Psalm, "O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is
   good: for His mercy endures forever!" It must have been mercy, because
   those whom it blessed were as undeserving as they were miserable! They
   were guilty--guilty in action and guilty in thought--they had rebelled
   against the Words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. Yet
   He came and set them free! You and I are always needing to know before
   we give alms to beggars, "Are they deserving people?" God gives the
   alms of His Grace only to the undeserving! We respond to those who have
   a claim upon us--God remembers those who have no claim whatever upon
   Him! "Ah," says one, "but the people cried!" I know they did, but they
   did not even do that till He first of all brought down their heart with
   labor! Prayer is a gift from God as well as an appeal to God. Even
   prayer for mercy is not a cause, but a result! Divine Grace is at the
   back of prayer and at the base of prayer. These prisoners would not
   have prayed if God had not worked upon them and driven and drawn them
   to pray.--

   "No sinner can be beforehand with Thee. Your Grace is most so vereign,
   Most rich and most free."

   So it has been with others and, therefore, have I hope that it will be
   so with you, my beloved Hearers! In the greatness of His goodness I
   trust my Lord will come and save you. It is not your goodness, but His
   goodness, which is the cause of hope. It is not your merit, but His
   mercy is His motive for blessing you. How greatly do I rejoice to
   remember that the Lord delights in mercy! It is His joy to pardon sin
   and pass by the transgressions of the remnant of His people.

   Note, once again, that while we are describing this great deliverance,
   we cannot help seeing that the Lord effected it most completely. What
   did He do? Did He bring them out of darkness? That was to give them
   light. Yes, but a man that is chained is only a little better off for
   getting light, for then he can see his chains all the more! Notice what
   follows--"and out of the shadow of death"--so the Lord gave them life
   as well as light. That "shadow of death" is gone. It can no longer
   brood over their darkened spirits. Yes, but when a man has light and
   life, if he is still in bondage, his life may make him feel his bondage
   the more vividly--and his light may make him long the more for liberty.
   But it is added, "and he broke their chains in pieces," which means
   liberty. The Lord gave light, life and liberty--these three things. God
   does nothing by halves. He does not begin to save and then say, "I have
   done enough for you. I must stop midway." Dear Heart, if the Lord comes
   to your prison, He will not merely light a lamp in your dungeon, though
   that were something. He will not merely revive your spirit and give you
   more life, though that were something. But He will break your chains
   and bring you out into the liberty with which Christ makes men free! He
   will finish His emancipating work. Do it, Lord! Do it now! Help men to
   believe in Jesus at this moment!

   There is one more point which I want you to notice very carefully. When
   the Lord does this, he does this everlastingly. He "broke their chains
   in pieces." When a man was set free from prison in the old times when
   they used iron chains, the blacksmith came and took the chains off and
   then they were hung up on the walls. Have you never been in ancient
   prisons and seen the fetters and manacles hanging up ready for use?
   Yes, for use upon those who have already worn such jewelry--if they
   should come that way again! This is not the case, here, for He "broke
   their chains in pieces." Note this right well, O child of God! You were
   once shut up as with gates of brass and bars of iron--and the devil
   thinks that one of these days he will get you behind those gates again!
   But he never will, for the Lord "has broken the gates of brass." All
   the powers of darkness cannot shut us up with broken gates! Satan
   thinks he will imprison us again, but the bars of iron are cut in two!
   The means of our captivity are no longer available!

   My mind carries me to a certain scene and my eyes almost behold it.
   Behold Samson, the hero of Israel, shut in within the walls of Gaza.
   The Philistines boast, "Now will he be our captive." He slept till
   midnight and then he arose. He found that he was shut up within the
   city and so he went to the gate. That gate was barred and locked, but
   what difference does it make? Israel's champion bowed his great
   shoulders down to the gate--he took hold of both the posts, gave a
   tremendous heave--and in an instant tore up the whole construction from
   the earth in which it had been firmly placed!

   "He lifted the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and
   went away with them, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them
   up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron." See in this thing a
   symbol of what our Lord Jesus Christ did when He arose from the dead.
   He carried away all that which held us captive--posts and bar and all!
   "He led captivity captive."

   When our Lord had led us forth from our prison, He said to Himself,
   "They shall never be shut up again, for now I will make sure work of
   it," and therefore He broke the gates of brass, and cut the bars of
   iron in two. How then, can any child of God be shut up within the Gaza
   of sin again? How shall we be condemned when the Lord has put away our
   sin forever? No, the liberty received is everlasting liberty--we shall
   not see bondage any more. Oh, dear Souls, I want you to lay hold on
   this! You doomed and guilty! You downcast and wearied, there is
   everlasting salvation for you--not that which will save you today and
   will let you go back to your bondage tomorrow--but that which will make
   you the Lord's free men forever! If you believe that Jesus is the
   Christ. If you believe in Him to save you, you shall be saved! It is
   not said half-saved, but saved! "He that believes and is baptized shall
   be saved." That cannot admit that we should go to Hell. Jesus says, "I
   give unto My sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any man pluck them out of My hand." "He has broken the gates of
   brass, and cut the bars of iron in two." Lord, help some poor souls to
   sing this song today and receive, at this moment, everlasting
   salvation!

   III. I close with a practical question--WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS?
   If such people as we have described have been brought into liberty,
   what is to be done about it? I do not want to tell you what to do. I
   would have you do it by instinct. Gladly would I, like Miriam, take a
   timbrel and go first and bid all the sons and daughters of Israel
   follow me in this song--"Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
   gloriously. He has brought out His captives and set His people free."
   It naturally suggests itself to the liberated spirit to magnify the
   Lord. So the Psalmist put it, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for
   His goodness!"

   First, then, if the Lord has set any of you free--record it. See how
   David wrote it down. Write it in your diary. Write it so that friends
   may read it. Say, "The Lord has done great things for us."

   When you have recorded it, then praise God. Praise God with all your
   heart. Praise God, everyone of you! Praise God every day! When you have
   praised God, yourselves, then entreat others to join with you! The
   oratorio of God's praise needs a full choir. I remember, years ago, a
   bill connected with a religious service of a very pretentious
   character, and on this bill it promised that the Hallelujah Chorus
   should be sung before the sermon. The friend who led the singing for me
   at that time came in to me and asked if I could spare him. "See here,"
   he said, "a person has come from the service which has been advertised
   to say that they have nobody to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. The
   minister wants me to go down and do it." I answered, "Yes. By all means
   go! If you can sing the Hallelujah Chorus, alone, don't throw yourself
   away on me."

   Then we smiled and, at last, broke out into a laugh--it was too much
   for our gravity! Surely, for a man to think that he can sufficiently
   praise God, alone, is much like attempting to sing the Hallelujah
   Chorus as a solo! The Psalmist therefore utters that great, "Oh!" "Oh
   that men would praise the Lord!" I do not think he said, "men," for the
   word, "men," is in italics--the translators are accountable for it. He
   means, "Oh that angels! Oh that cherubim and seraphim would praise the
   Lord! Oh that all creatures that have breath would praise the Lord for
   His goodness!" Even that would not be enough--let the mountains and the
   hills break forth before Him into singing--and let all the trees of the
   forest clap their hands. Let the sea roar and the fullness, thereof,
   the world and they that dwell therein. With a great, "Oh!" With a
   mighty sigh over the holy business which was far too great for himself,
   David felt moved to call upon all others to praise the Lord!

   I close with that, my Brothers, my Sisters--you that have been saved,
   praise God! Praise Him with the blessings He has lavished on you. I
   described them in three ways. With your light praise Him--the more you
   know, the more you see, the more you understand--turn it all into
   praise. Next, with your life praise Him--with your physical life, with
   your mental life, with your spiritual life--with life of every sort,
   even unto eternal life, praise the Lord. Liberty has been given us--let
   our freedom praise Him. Be like that man who was made straight, who
   went out of the Temple, walking and leaping and praising God. God has
   made you free, feel free to praise Him! And if men will not give you
   leave to praise, take French leave. Yes, take heavenly leave and praise
   God anywhere and everywhere!

   Listen how they sing the songs of Bacchus and of Venus in the streets
   and even wake us up in the night--therefore why may we not sing God's
   praises in the same public fashion? We must praise Him! We will praise
   Him! We do praise Him! And we shall praise Him forever and ever!

   Praise Him with the heart He has changed, with the lips He has loosed,
   with the lives He has spared! A little while ago you could not speak a
   cheerful word, but now you can rejoice in God. Let those lips, from
   which He has taken the muzzle of dumb despair, be opened in His praise.
   Praise Him with all the talents He has lent you. If you have any power
   of thought, if you have any fluency of speech, praise Him! It you have
   any voice of song, praise Him. If you have health and strength, praise
   Him. Let every limb of your body praise Him--those members which were
   servants of sin, let them be instruments of righteousness unto God!
   Praise Him with your substance. Let your gold and silver, yes, and your
   bronze, praise Him! Praise Him with all that you have and with all that
   you are--and with all that you hope to be. Lay your all upon the altar.
   Make a whole burnt-offering of it. Praise Him with all the influence
   you have. If He has delivered you from the shadow of death, let your
   shadow, like that of Peter, become the instrument of God's healing
   power to others!

   Teach others to praise God. Influence them by your example. Fill your
   house with music from top to bottom-- perfume every room with the
   fragrance of living devotion! Make your houses belfries and be,
   yourselves, the bells forever ringing out the loud praises of the Lamb
   of God. He bore your sins--you bear His praises. He died for you,
   therefore live for Him! He has heard your prayers--let Him hear your
   praises! Let us together sing "hallelujah to God and the Lamb." Let us
   stand upon our feet and with one voice and heart let us sing--

   "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!"
     __________________________________________________________________

Driving the Vultures Away from the Sacrifice

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY NOVEMBER 27, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when the fowls came do wn upon the carcasses, Abram drove them
   away." Genesis 15:11.

   ABRAHAM, when he was childless, received the amazing promise that his
   seed should be as the stars of Heaven for number. This he believed and
   his faith in Jehovah "was counted unto him for righteousness." Surely
   there is more righteousness in trusting the Lord than in all the works
   of the flesh! Those who speak lightly of faith are of a different mind
   from the Lord, whose judgment is according to truth.

   For the confirmation of the Patriarch's faith, the Lord resolved to
   give to His servant a gracious visitation which should be regarded as
   the solemn making of a covenant--and also as a prophecy of the future
   history of the promised seed. Abram was bid to bring victims--a heifer,
   a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon. The language is
   peculiar-- "The Lord said unto him, Take Me an heifer of three years
   old." And then in the next verse we read, "And he took unto Him all
   these." Thus God and His servant each took part in the sacrifice--and
   so they set forth in symbol the communion which the Lord God has with
   His people in the Covenant of Grace, as they meet together in that one
   great Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, which is the soul and essence of all
   the outward offerings. It was an offering taken for God which the Lord
   accepted, but it was, also, an offering taken unto Himself by Abraham,
   who saw Christ's day--saw it, and was glad.

   The man of God obeyed the command of God with great exactness and
   deliberation, laying the pieces of the sacrifice in due order and then
   waiting upon God until He should be pleased to further reveal Himself.
   But what is this? The solemn service is disturbed by foul birds! The
   most intense devotion is liable to interruptions of the worst sort. In
   the East, if a camel falls dead in the desert, the air is almost
   immediately full of winged things. Vultures that had not been visible
   before, not so much as one of them, will suddenly appear, as if by
   magic, coming from every quarter and circling over the carcass.
   "Wherever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered together."

   These and smaller carnivorous birds are the scavengers of warm
   countries and do not long allow any flesh to remain uneaten. So,
   doubtless, when the victims presented by the Patriarch Abram were laid
   upon the altar, they spied the bodies from afar and hastened to the
   prey. It was nothing to the vultures, whether they were victims
   slaughtered for God, or creatures that had fallen dead on the plain,
   for true to their instinct, they discovered the carcasses and flew to
   them, even as Job said of the eagle, "Where the slain are, there is
   she." Flights of buzzards, kites and carrion crows began to make their
   appearance in the sky and they would have swooped down upon the
   sacrifices and defiled them, or borne them away piece-meal, if the
   Patriarch, who had presented the sacrifices, had not kept watch at the
   altar! This he did right earnestly and vigorously, so that we read in
   the text, "When the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove
   them away." When we meet with God, we must be serious and resolute in
   His worship--and if difficulties arise, we must encounter them with all
   our might--resolving that we will offer to God a sacrifice which shall
   not be torn in pieces by distracting influences.

   Observe that Abram, when he had done as God had told him, and had
   brought the victims and laid them in their places, did not go home in a
   hurry and say, "It is near sundown. Sarah will expect me in the tent."
   No, he remained by the sacrifice! He did not grudge the time, nor feel
   a sense of weariness. He loved the worship of God and, therefore,
   lingered at the altar till the sun was going down. Nothing is to be
   hurried in devotion! Never is haste more out of place than in Divine
   worship! The habit of quiet waiting upon God, of never being in a hurry
   to be gone, the willingness to give time and thought to the service of
   God is not so common as one could wish. But when a man is thoroughly
   devout and

   God's Spirit has spoken with him, he is not satisfied to merely give
   the allotted time to Divine service or to private devotion, he loathes
   to be gone! He would be the first in the House of the Lord and the last
   out of it. He can wait the Lord's leisure and not grow impatient, even
   if, hour after hour, the converse is not closed. The longer, the
   better, when God is near us. And if the blessing seems far away and it
   does not come all of a sudden, the gracious worshipper waits until it
   does come, for he would not go away without the benediction of the
   Lord!

   When we are serving the Lord, our holy anxiety must not abate till we
   are fairly through with the service. Abram had laid the victims on the
   altar, but as yet no fire from Heaven had consumed them and so he
   remained on the spot to see that all was well to the end. The servant
   of the Lord does not quit his place till he has seen the matter
   through. For fear that all should yet be spoiled, he sets himself to
   watch. When, therefore, the kites and carrion crows come down, the
   waiting Patriarch is there to meet them. Had he gone away in haste to
   attend to his ordinary duties, the sacrifice had been stolen, or
   polluted. But he waits and does well in waiting. My Soul, wait only
   upon God, even as a maid waits on her mistress! Watch and pray and
   watch still. "Blessed are all they that wait for Him."

   They that can be at leisure with God, who do not hurry over what they
   have to do and who feel that their time is God's time--these are the
   true sons of Abraham! If any worldly business would hurry them away,
   they will not permit it. They give men the cold shoulder rather than
   rob their Lord and, rob themselves, by hasty worship. Till their
   appointment with God is over, they are at no man's call. They cannot
   break up their interview with God, but must tarry and wait His utmost
   time. Lest anything unforeseen should happen and spoil their service,
   they will wait till the sun goes down, and even if sleep overtakes
   them, they will be where the Lord will meet with them in the
   night-watches if He so shall favor them. It is wise to never leave our
   devotions till God, Himself, has pronounced the dismissal by a
   benediction, has given the blessing to the fullest and so has bid His
   servants go in peace.

   I think that this staying of Abram to defend the sacrifice when the
   ravenous birds came down upon it may be used as a lesson to us in three
   respects. First, let us zealously guard the great Sacrifice of Christ.
   When the foul birds, which are so numerous, especially just now, come
   down upon the Sacrifice, let us drive them away! Secondly, let us guard
   that minor sacrifice, the grateful sacrifice of ourselves. When the
   birds of temptation come down upon it, let us drive them away. Thirdly,
   let us anxiously guard those separate sacrifices of devotion which come
   out of our dedicated lives. When anything comes down to disturb us in
   prayer or praise, let us resolve that we will drive it away. Oh that
   the Spirit of All Grace may bless this discourse to us, that we may
   thereby be excited to holy watchfulness!

   I. First, with regard to THE GREAT SACRIFICE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
   This has been and always will be the great object of attack by the
   enemies of God. One would have said, if one had not known human nature,
   that the doctrine of the Substitutionary Sacrifice, Christ dying in our
   place, would, of all events, have commanded the loving confidence of
   every human heart. It is so wonderful a system, this plan by which
   justice is vindicated and mercy is magnified, that one instinctively
   expects all men to reverently accept it. It would seem too grave a
   charge to bring against our apostate race that they would set to work
   to quibble at the Divine expedient--and so pick holes in their own
   salvation-- and try to contradict the kindest hope that God, Himself,
   could set before them!

   But so it has been. The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish
   foolishness! It is still to the Jews a stumbling block and to the
   Greeks, foolishness, though it is, indeed, the power of God and the
   wisdom of God. It has happened according to the Word of the Lord,
   "Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense."
   Therefore, dear Friends, all of you who by faith approach the Sacrifice
   of our Lord Jesus and who base your hopes of Heaven thereon, watch lest
   the vultures come down upon the Sacrifice--and be ready to drive them
   away!

   Note well that the sacrifice which Abraham guarded was of Divine
   ordination. Jehovah Himself had told him what creatures to kill, how to
   divide them and how to arrange the pieces upon the altar. Abram did
   nothing according to his own invention--he offered no will-worship--he
   did everything as it was prescribed to him. Because this sacrifice was
   Divinely appointed, he could not bear that kites and crows should peck
   at it and tear it at their pleasure. It is even so with the Sacrifice
   of our Lord Jesus Christ--my blood boils that so many men should dare
   to assail that which the Lord Jehovah has appointed! It was God who
   devised the plan! It was God who gave His Son out of His own bosom to
   die! It is God, Himself, who has commended that plan to our hearts and
   made us put our trust in His great Sacrifice! Oh, it brings the tears
   into our eyes and the blood into our cheeks, that any should trample on
   the precious blood and speak ill of the vicarious sufferings of Christ!

   Whoever the men may be, yes, though they were angels from Heaven, we
   could not have patience with them! We cannot help regarding those as
   worse than carrion crows who would desire to touch this most sublime,
   though simplest of all doctrines--that Jesus Christ bore our sins in
   His own body on the tree. They dare to say that it is immoral to
   suppose that our sin could be transferred to Christ, or His
   righteousness to us! Thus, to charge the essential act of Grace with
   immorality is to profane the Sacrifice of God and count the blood of
   Jesus an unholy thing! It is not for us to speak sweetly of those who
   deal so with Christ. If they are enemies of Christ, our Sacrifice, they
   cannot be friends of ours! We shake the dust from our feet against
   those who reject the doctrine of a Crucified Savior, slain in the
   sinner's place. They are no brethren of ours who reject the Lamb of God
   who takes away the sin of the world! We are anxious to drive off those
   who peck at our Lord's Substitutionary Sacrifice, because that
   Sacrifice is of Divine appointment.

   Next, we see a further reason for guarding the Sacrifice in the fact
   that it is of most solemn import. That sacrifice was so to Abram. It
   meant, you know, a covenant. The sacrifice, as Abram had presented it
   at God's appointing, was the token of his being brought into covenant
   relationship with God. Now, to my mind, it is one of the most
   delightful Truths of Scripture, though so much neglected, that God's
   people are in covenant with God, by a Covenant of Grace. An old Scotch
   theologian was known to say that he who understood the two Covenants,
   understood the whole science of theology--and I believe it is so. The
   very pith of the whole business lies in that broken Covenant of Works
   by which we are ruined--and in that Everlasting Covenant of Grace,
   ordered in all things and sure--by which we are saved. The blood of our
   Lord Jesus Christ is the "blood of the Everlasting Covenant," even as
   He says to us at the communion table, "This cup is the new Covenant in
   My blood." If you take His Sacrifice away, of course you take the
   Covenant away. Those who deny the vicarious Sacrifice have no faith in
   the Covenant--in fact, they never speak of such a thing, but place it
   among the obsolete terms which their forefathers used, but which they,
   themselves, have altogether renounced.

   The Covenant is gone from their teaching and when that is gone, my
   Brothers and Sisters, what is left? If the Covenant is forgotten, what
   remains to be our support when, like David, we come to our dying beds?
   Alas for us if we cannot then exclaim, "Although my house is not so
   with God; yet He has made with me an Everlasting Covenant, ordered in
   all things and sure"! We cannot let the vultures tear this Sacrifice,
   for it is to us the token of the Covenant--and if there is no Covenant
   of Grace, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain--and
   we are still under the curse of the broken Law. If you are still out of
   covenant with God, what hope, what safety, what peace, what joy is
   there for you? Away, you kites, who are hovering over the Sacrifice
   with evil intent! You may pretend to be harmless as doves, but we
   cannot allow you to profane the Covenant and peck at the Sacrifice.

   And next, we must guard this Sacrifice because there God most fully
   displays His Grace. It was at the place of the sacrifice which Abram
   had offered, that God was pleased to come and reveal Himself to the
   Patriarch as He had not done before. "And it came to pass that, when
   the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a
   burning lamp passed between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made
   a covenant with Abram." The place of sacrifice is the place of
   Revelation. Where the blood is shed, there Grace is manifested! If you
   would see God in the wilderness, you must go to the place where the
   sacrifices were offered, for the place of sacrifice was the place where
   God met His people. The Mercy Seat, where God displayed His Grace to
   men, was sprinkled with blood. It must always be so. God cannot meet
   with sinful men except in Him who is the one Mediator between God and
   man, whose Sacrifice has reconciled us unto Himself. "Without shedding
   of blood there is no remission" and without remission there is no
   fellowship. Therefore, as we love the mercy of God, we must contend for
   the Sacrifice of Christ, and we must not bear that it should be
   ignored, much less that it should be decried.

   True religion is gone when the vicarious work of Jesus is questioned.
   In the forefront of all preaching must be the Cross. "In this sign we
   conquer," as Constantine saw in his dream. There is no conquest over
   human hearts except by the story of the death of Jesus for the sins of
   men. Deprive us of the Sacrifice and behold an army which has lost both
   its banners and its weapons of war! The gates of hope are closed
   against the guilty when the Atonement is denied. The windows through
   which light should come to the penitent are sealed against a single
   beam of hope when once you take away the sacrificial death of Jesus
   Christ our Lord. Therefore will we drive away the ravenous birds as
   long as we have a hand to move. As we love the souls of men, we will
   spend our last breath in the defense of our Lord's Substitution. Can we
   bear to see man's last refuge taken away? God forbid! Away, you evil
   birds! The heroes of old chased the harpies from their feasts--much
   more would we drive you from the altar of our God!

   We will do this all the more because, as I have said to you before,
   this is the chief point of attack. Every doctrine of Revelation has
   been assailed, but the order of battle passed by the black prince at
   this hour runs as follows--"Fight neither with small nor great, save
   only with the Crucified King of Israel." If they can carry the bastion
   of Substitution. If they can throw down the great Truth of Atonement,
   then all the rest will go as a matter of course. The Cross taken away?
   Indeed, there is nothing left worth defending! If the Ark of the Lord
   is taken, what remains to Israel? Write Ichabod, for the glory has
   departed! Therefore let us gather up our strength, that we may
   vigorously chase the vultures from the altar of the living God.

   "How are we to do it?" one asks. Well, we can, all of us, help in this
   struggle. First, by a constant immovable faith in Jesus Christ our
   crucified Savior for ourselves. Oh, rest in Him, my Beloved! Rest more
   in His great Sacrifice every day-- rest more intelligently, more
   happily, more implicitly in that finished work of His which He has
   worked out for all His people. Looking unto Jesus; coming unto Jesus;
   resting in Jesus; following Jesus--let that be a complete description
   of your lives! Every day let your own heart be more united to the
   well-beloved Bridegroom. Love Him best of all as you see Him arrayed in
   wounds and bloody sweat. Are not these His choicest ornaments? I am
   sure your hearts are never so stirred with holy feeling as when you
   dwell at Calvary and behold the Surety of the Covenant dying for you!
   Think more and more of Him who loved you to the death and thereby
   redeemed you from the death which your own sins deserved! Sing a grave,
   sweet melody--

   "The ever-blessed Son of God Went up to Calvary for me! There paid my
   debt, there bore my load In His own body on the tree."

   Let your own confidence be strong and then very frequently make an open
   declaration of your faith in the atoning Sacrifice. I say "very
   frequently," for I think the oblation of our confession of Christ
   should be presented continually in these days. The more frequently we
   bring forward the Truth of the Atonement the better, when so many are
   covering it, quibbling at it, or contradicting it. Many of our
   Non-Conformist Churches are accustomed to have communion once a month
   and think that quite often enough--it may be so--but we delight to
   bring before the eyes of men on every first day of the week, the tokens
   of the Redeemer's Sacrifice. The tokens are not objects of
   superstitious reverence to us, but yet they are very dear, as sweetly
   reminding us of His body broken for our sake--and His blood poured
   forth for our redemption. As long as that ordinance is observed, there
   will be a memorial of Christ's death of the most instructive and
   impressive kind.

   But whether you can use the emblems or not, declare the Truth, itself.
   Let your conversation be full of Christ Crucified and if there is any
   question anywhere about this matter, take your stand and let all know
   that you have seen that Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the
   world! On this point there can be no difference among really regenerate
   men! This is one of the dividers of the chaff from the wheat. This
   great magnet will not draw to itself any but the metal which is akin to
   itself! Take care that there is no hesitancy about this Truth of God.
   When the birds come down upon the Sacrifice, let your childlike faith
   in Christ--and your clear statement of the Truth about Him--help to
   drive them away! Those who are not in love with the doctrine will not
   long court your company. To some of us it is felt to be a duty to make
   as bold a defense as we can of this imperishable Truth of God and we
   would, if we knew of still plainer words, use them constantly.

   "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."
   Stand fast, each man in his place, in the defense of this central Truth
   of our most blessed faith. And be prepared, for the sake of this, to
   endure all things from the adversary. Abram was an old man. A
   vulture--and especially a dozen vultures eager for their prey--are not
   easy to deal with. They are very ugly customers--they show no respect
   for the sacrifice--and certainly not for those who would prevent them
   from dishonoring the sacrifice. Angry and resolute, and free from every
   principle of reverence, nothing is finer play to them than to tear the
   great Sacrifice of God! If we come in their way, they will aim at our
   eyes and tear our faces and hands. Let them come on--we are prepared
   for their worst onslaughts! Be ready to endure anything for the sake of
   the doctrine of a Crucified Savior made sin for us though He knew no
   sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him--made a
   curse for us, as it is written-- "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a
   tree."

   The day shall come when he shall count himself most blessed who died
   for Christ and earned the ruby crown of those who spilt their blood for
   His dear sake. Let us emulate them by being willing to sacrifice
   character, friendship, position

   and all else, so that we may stand forth unquestionably clear upon this
   glorious Truth of God, this article by which a Church stands or falls!
   As Churches receive it, they stand! As they reject it, they are outside
   the pale of the true household of faith. "When the fowls came down upon
   the carcasses, Abram drove them away." To this work let us give
   ourselves till the sun goes down and we fall asleep to behold the
   vision of God!

   II. But now, coming, perhaps, closer home to some of you, let us apply
   this example of Abram to ourselves in the matter of THE GRATEFUL
   SACRIFICE OF OUR LIVES. It is our reasonable service that we present
   ourselves a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God by our Lord
   Jesus Christ--and we must guard our consecration against the
   temptations which will assail it.

   I am addressing tonight many of you who feel that you have entered into
   covenant with God by Jesus Christ. You are henceforth and forever
   Jehovah's covenanted ones and, in consequence of that covenant, through
   the Sacrifice of Christ, you have become the Lord's. Remember last
   Sunday night the text which finished, "And you became Mine"? There was
   a sweet ring about those words to my ears, "You became Mine." "You are
   not your own, you are bought with a price." You know the sneer about
   the "mercantile Atonement," but oh, I love the word, "bought," and, as
   if to make it more mercantile, still, the Holy Spirit has worded it
   even more plainly, "bought with a price." We take all those reproaches
   about the mercantile theory into our bosom and hide them there as
   greater riches than the treasures of philosophy! We are not ashamed of
   the Words of God, Himself. And now, Beloved, we confess that we belong
   wholly to Christ, from the crown of our head to the sole of our
   feet--body, soul and spirit, time, talent, thought, substance--all that
   we are and all that we have! We have been "bought with a price" and,
   therefore, we put in no claim to ourselves, for we belong absolutely to
   the Lord that bought us!

   Now, now the vultures will come! The carrion crows and kites will from
   afar behold this sacrifice and they will hasten to the prey. You do not
   see them tonight, perhaps. No, but the traveler does not see these evil
   fowls till, all of a sudden the sky seems dark with them! The horrid,
   hideous creatures come like lightning for rapidity, and they are hungry
   as death when they arrive on the scene! You that are consecrated to God
   may expect that though you do not see them, there are vultures looking
   down upon the sacrifice--and you must be prepared to drive them away.

   "What sort of vultures will there be?" asks one. Well, there will come
   doubts as to eternal things. There will be questions about your own
   wisdom in giving yourself up to God. I hope you have been strangers to
   such birds of prey, but some of us have not been--doubts as to whether
   there is a God to serve; doubts as to whether there is a Heaven, an
   eternal future, a blessed reward--doubts as to whether it is well to
   give up this world for the next, or not. Drive them away, Brothers and
   Sisters! Drive them away! When the birds come down upon the sacrifice,
   drive them away, as he did who had all the riches of Egypt offered to
   him, yet, "endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." This is what you
   and I must do--feel that it is but commonsense, sanctified commonsense,
   to be looking out for that which will endure forever--and to let these
   temporary things go, if it is necessary that they go--that we may win
   the crown that fades not away!

   Possibly there will come to some of you younger folks fond dreams of
   ambition. Now you are content to be a Christian and satisfied to mix
   with poor people in holy service. You are quite pleased at an
   opportunity of teaching in a Ragged School. Ah, but there may come a
   moment when Satan will show you the kingdoms of this world and he will
   say, "All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
   And you may feel as if the service of Christ was not, after all, very
   respectable. That you could do better in the world. Find choicer
   company, enter more select society. But drive, drive these carrion
   crows away my Brothers and Sisters--there cannot be anything comparable
   in the world to the service of God--there cannot be anything so worthy
   of your noblest manhood as to be truly the disciples of the Lord Jesus
   Christ! When these fowls come down upon the sacrifice, drive them away!

   Another wretched sort of black crows, however, assails men more
   frequently. They come in the form of the cares of life--the care of
   getting bread, the hardness of labor. Many a man has said, "Well now, I
   have many children and I work hard. And I am poor. Surely I must not
   seek, first, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." And straightway
   he begins to neglect the assembling of himself together with God's
   people. And then he thinks that he must spend a part of the Sabbath in
   labor. And times that he used to spend in prayer are given up to meaner
   employment. But oh, if ever a man ought to cling to Christ more than at
   any other time, it is when he is poor! You that are burdened with
   cares, you are the people who need Christ most of all! If a man lived
   in a palace and had no Christ to go to, I would call him a miserable
   being. But if you have to toil without the comforts of this life, so
   much the more reason that you should enjoy those eter-

   nal compensations which can help you to bear up in your struggle. Oh,
   let not, I pray you, the cares of this life take you from Christ! Live
   for Him! You cannot live without Him--do not try it! The heavier your
   difficulties, the more Grace you need. Cling all the more closely to
   your Lord when troubles come. When the birds come down upon the
   sacrifice-- those carking cares, wearinesses and troubles of
   life--drive them away!

   Perhaps I may be speaking to certain consecrated men and women who have
   met with other horridly filthy fowls. Of course, you never saw vultures
   in their native state. If you did see them once, you would never want
   to see them again-- they are such loathsome creatures. But there will
   come to godly men, sometimes, temptations to sin. The purest have been
   tempted to impurity. The most devout have been tempted to blaspheme.
   Men full of integrity have been tempted to dishonesty and the most
   truthful to falsehood. We cannot tell what we may be tempted to do. But
   here is our one business with these vultures--let as drive them away!
   You cannot help birds flying over your heads in the air, but do not let
   them alight and build their nests in your hair! Temptations will come,
   but do not entertain them. Drive them away! Give the vultures the
   quarter-staff--make these horrible creatures feel that you cannot and
   will not permit them to take up a lodging anywhere near you! Abram
   drove them away. He would have no parley with them. He threw his staff
   at them, shouted at them, struck at them and drove them away. God help
   us to do so with every foul temptation!

   But there is a nasty, sleepy kind of vulture, called idleness--one of
   the vultures that sit and sleep by the hour to-gether--and I think I
   have seen them around here, sometimes. This vulture comes to some good
   men who say they belong to Christ, but that question we must leave to
   their own consciences. It is a sleepy vulture and they say, "we think
   we have labored long enough." They used to be in the Sunday school when
   they were younger, but they are now weary of such constant toil. They
   used to be very earnest in the front rank, but now their position seems
   to be to sit in an arm-chair and watch the battle and see how other
   people fight. I have been slenderly cheered, lately, by a large number
   of Brothers and Sisters who have greatly sympathized with me--and
   helped me to fight the Lord's battles by bravely looking on.

   They remind me of Mr. Gough's story of Betty and the bear. She beat the
   bear with her broom with all her might-- and her brave husband, who had
   climbed a ladder into the loft--helped her grandly by bidding her hit
   the bear harder and harder, while he looked on! I hope I may yet
   receive worthier help than this! Let us all be up and doing and take
   our full share of the warfare. I exhort you, if the vulture of
   indolence comes your way, to drive it away! A nasty, dirty creature it
   is, after all, if it makes a man of God who is capable of Christian
   service to a high degree, sit still, fold his arms, and say, "There is
   nothing more for me to do."

   One vulture, too, that wants to be driven away, is that of measuring
   yourselves with other people. Some judge that they do all that is
   expected of them if they copy other people. Their guinea is always put
   underneath somebody else's guinea. If they gave 10, it would not be too
   much for them. But still, they are satisfied as long as they do as well
   as other people. Let us get out of this! If we are only going to be
   what other people are, we shall run great risks of being unprofitable
   servants. "Comparing themselves among themselves," says the Apostle,
   "they are not wise." I will neither stand in another man's shoes at the
   Day of Judgment, nor tonight, for, though I very frequently feel as
   though I were surer of any other man's salvation than my own, yet at no
   time would I dare to run the risk of changing with anyone, for I do
   know something about myself, but I know nothing of any other man's
   heart! Let no one make another man his measure and standard! I pray you
   not to do so, for if you do, it will be a vulture that will defile your
   sacrifice.

   The man who can live most completely to God shall be the happiest man
   even in this life. He whose heart's desire is only to spend and be
   spent for Christ shall find that he will win a peaceful state of
   heart--and this is a foreshadowing of Heaven. I mean not that we should
   seek to win this poor and paltry world, which God has purposely put
   under our feet, but I mean that the meek "inherit the earth" in the
   highest and truest sense. He shall have the most of real happiness who
   is willing to lose happiness and lose everything so that he may win
   Christ and be found in Him, not having his own righteousness, which is
   of the Law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. Therefore,
   when any of the ravenous fowls of evil come down upon your life's
   sacrifice, drive them away!

   III. And so I must close with only a few sentences upon this last
   point--GUARD ALL THE SACRIFICES OF YOUR DEVOTION. When the fowls come
   down upon your sacrifices of prayer, praise and meditation, drive them
   away! Have you noticed that if all day long there is not a knock at the
   door, there will be one if you retire to pray? It is wise to do as the
   Savior says, "Enter into your closet and when you have shut the door,
   pray to your Father that sees in secret." That shutting of the door
   means that we are to seek secrecy and to prevent interruption. A little
   boy, who was accus-

   tomed to spend time every day in prayer, went up into a hayloft and
   when he climbed into the hayloft, he always pulled the ladder up after
   him. Someone asked him why he did so. He answered, "As there is no
   door, I pull up the ladder."

   Oh, that we could always, in some way, cut the connection between our
   soul and the intruding things which lurk below! There is a story told
   of me and of some person, I never knew who it was, who desired to see
   me on a Saturday night when I had shut myself up to make ready for the
   Sabbath. He was very great and important and so the maid came to say
   that someone desired to see me. I bade her say that it was my rule to
   see no one at that time. Then he was more important and impressive,
   still, and said, "Tell Mr. Spurgeon that a servant of the Lord Jesus
   Christ desires to see him immediately." The frightened servant brought
   the message but the sender gained little by it, for my answer was,
   "Tell him I am busy with his Master and cannot see servants now."
   Sometimes you must use strong measures. Did not our Lord tell His
   messengers, on one occasion, to salute no man on the way? Courtesy must
   give place to devotion! It is incumbent on you that you should be alone
   with your Lord--and if intruders force an entrance--they must be sent
   about their business.

   Alas, if you send men and women away, evil birds will still not be so
   dismissed. Wandering thoughts and inward troubles--how shall these be
   chased away? That door must be well shut which keeps the devil out. He
   comes in at the smallest opening, for he is a serpent, and serpents get
   in where other creatures cannot. They have a wriggling way with them.
   Satan will twist himself into us when we hope we are beyond his reach.
   Drive him away, Brothers and Sisters! He will go if you resist him.
   "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." He will not stand fire if
   you are determined to have a shot at him. As to vain thoughts which
   harass and distract you, seriously determine that you will drive them
   away. All your thoughts of sorrow, dismiss them at the Mercy Seat. As
   for all business thoughts, do not entertain them. Say what Abraham said
   to the servants, "Abide here while I go and worship God yonder." Tell
   the world, "So far may you come, but no farther--I must, I will keep my
   sacrifice of praise and prayer before the Lord."

   Sir Thomas Abney had been accustomed to have family prayer at a certain
   time. He was made Lord Mayor of London. His hour of family prayer being
   sometime about the time of the banquet, he begged to be excused for a
   little, for he had an urgent engagement with a special Friend. He then
   went and called his family together to meet with God in prayer. Do the
   same if even a banquet should come down upon you--quit the table for
   the altar--and your guests for your God. When our time for prayer draws
   near, if all the 12 Apostles were to preach in our street, we ought not
   to give up our private prayer for the sake of hearing them all! When
   the birds come down upon the sacrifice, drive them away, however fine
   they may look! Drive off the golden eagles as well as the crows. This
   will require great watchfulness. Cast yourselves upon the power of the
   Holy Spirit. Only He can help us with our infirmities--much more with
   our distractions. Let us cry to Him, that His Divine overshadowing may
   be both shield and great reward to us while we attempt to draw near to
   God in private worship!

   Now, my dear Hearers, I will keep you no longer except to say
   this--those of you who came here tonight to hear the Word, I pray you
   do not go away without a blessing. Something or other has happened,
   perhaps, to distract you--drive it away! The Sacrifice of Christ is the
   thing you have to look to. Look unto the Lord Jesus and be saved! And
   if anything comes between you and His atoning death, drive it away!
   Come to Jesus! Why should it not be? It is the last time the preacher
   will be here on Thursday nights for a little while. Did he not ask for
   a closing and crowning blessing? It will be realized to the fullest if
   you are saved tonight! You can be saved. You shall be saved if you look
   to Jesus, the great Sin Offering! Give yourselves up to the Savior now,
   upon the spot.

   You that have believed in Jesus unto eternal life and have just begun
   the Divine life, it will not be long before you are beset with various
   temptations. Be prepared for those fowls, whose chief is the prince of
   the power of the air, and labor to drive them away! You think that
   since you are converted, it will be all plain sailing now. You make a
   mistake--it is now that the battle begins! Be prepared for conflict. I
   have no doubt Abram, being a sheik, carried a good staff with him. Be
   ready with a staff, borrowed from the good Shepherd, to drive away the
   temptations that are sure to assail young Believers!

   As for you dear old saints, you have offered your sacrifice and it is
   towards evening. The sun is going down--do not be surprised if you
   should feel a horror of great darkness, even at the last--but rest
   assured that the Lord will come and cheer your darkness with the vision
   of His Covenant Love. Drive those doubts away and those fears of death!
   You are going Home! Do not be afraid. Jesus is coming to meet you,
   therefore dismiss every fear! Stand by the sacrifice all day! Stand by
   the sacrifice when night comes on, birds or no birds! Stand by the
   sacrifice whether you see a vision of Glory or

   not. Stand by the sacrifice till you behold the Lamb on His Throne! One
   thing I have made up my mind to, whether I find present joy or present
   sorrow, present commendation or present censure--I will be faithful to
   my Lord and stand by the sacrifice until I die with one hand upon this
   Book, and another upon the horns of the altar! I would cry this night
   in the courts of the Lord's House, in the presence of all His people,
   "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the altar." I will
   be a sacrifice for Jesus because He is a Sacrifice for me! I count it
   all joy to preach Him and His Cross if I may but win souls and be found
   in Him at the last. The Lord bless you and be with you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, for Christ's sake!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Genesis 15. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--377, 670, 879.

   TO THE CHURCH AT THE TABERNACLE:

   BELOVED FRIENDS--I write you because my heart prompts me to do so and
   because many of you desire it. We have not been in hearty union for so
   many years without feeling a living interest in each other. This should
   be more largely the fruit of Church membership than it usually is. The
   idea of real brotherhood should be more tenderly and more practically
   realized. Let us, each one, labor after it and take a deep personal
   interest in our fellow members, especially in those who are poor, or
   ill, or young, or despondent, or under peculiar temptations and
   afflictions. Thus should we make up among ourselves a sort of mutual
   pastorate and should each gain as well as bestow a blessing.

   Because there is so much of this brotherly concern among you, I feel
   peace of heart while absent. But because there is not more of it, I
   would stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. We are all the
   children of one Father and redeemed with the precious blood of the same
   Savior. Let us, therefore, feel a natural instinct of unity and, from
   the force of the inner life, cleave to each other in love. We are
   likely to need more and more of that strength which comes from perfect
   unity of heart. Attacks will be made upon us by the forces of error and
   we must stand shoulder to shoulder, or rather heart to heart, in the
   hour of conflict. May the Lord Himself, by His Holy Spirit, enable us
   to do so!

   My release from public service was greatly needed, for I have felt
   great prostration since last I wrote you. By your loving prayers I
   shall be strengthened and enabled to use my rest for laying in new
   stores for future use. How much I desire that when I am again among you
   it may be in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Peace! I
   desire to be remembered to each one as truly as if I could grasp every
   hand and say, "God bless you," to each individual.

   Yours in Christ Jesus,

   November 17, 1887. C H. SPURGEON.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sweet Peace For Tried Believers

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY DECEMBER 4, 1887,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you might have peace. In
   the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have
   overcome the world." John 16:33.

   THIS most delightful passage occurs at the close of the last of our
   Savior's sermons before He went to the Father. Let us treasure it as we
   lay up a man's last words. Wonderfully full is that sermon--it is of a
   piece with His last prayer--and that rises above all other pleadings of
   men! This farewell discourse may occupy but a short space in Scripture,
   but the thoughts suggested by it are so many that I suppose that the
   world itself might hardly contain the books that might fairly be
   written upon it. It took our Lord but a moment to speak some of its
   sentences--it will take us a lifetime to fully understand them! Perhaps
   we never shall understand some of these gracious sayings till we have
   put away all childish things and shall have come to the fullness of the
   stature of men in Christ Jesus. We shall never see all the richness of
   the Grace of this sermon till we have risen beyond these mists and
   clouds into the clearer atmosphere of the unclouded skies. In that
   Happy Country, being ourselves raised to a nobler condition, we shall
   be better able to comprehend the deep things of God, concerning which
   our Savior spoke in His supreme discourse. Meanwhile, let us apply our
   heart and mind to the consideration of these last Words of the greatest
   of all Preachers, the dearest of all Teachers and, may the Spirit of
   our God open them up to us!

   Observe concerning the preaching of our Lord Jesus how eminently
   practical it is. You never find in the Master's speaking a single
   sentence spoken for what orators use to call, "effect." He never
   introduces a pretty bit here and there to let men see how poetical His
   mind could be. He never goes a little aside to introduce a something
   which was quite unnecessary to the display of the subject, but very
   necessary to the display of the orator. Nothing so little, so
   self-seeking, ever governs the mind of Jesus. Far from it! His soul
   goes with His subject and He has no second objective--He would convey
   His meaning to His hearers and His mind is concentrated on that aim. He
   keeps hard at it, steadily driving at His point and He always speaks
   with the one desire, that the Truth should go home to the heart and
   should be blessed to the hearer. Hence He adopted the method in this
   instance of summing up and doing what the old divines used to call
   "making the improvement" at the end, when the Truths of God which they
   had spoken was turned to practical account and the uses of the topic
   were enlarged upon. We might have found out, perhaps, by diligent
   study, what the practical drift of the Savior's discourse was, for it
   is never difficult for a spiritual mind to perceive His drift, but He
   meant not only that we might possibly see what He was aiming at, but
   that we should be sure of seeing it--and so He puts it into the
   plainest language and says, "These things have I spoken to you, that in
   Me you might have peace."

   If this was our Lord's objective, I do not doubt that He had fully
   accomplished it! All that He had said tended to produce peace in His
   disciples' hearts, but He knew that their minds were dark--that they
   had but slight capacity as yet, and so, in His infinite tenderness, He
   told then, as one might tell a child, what He intended His address to
   produce. We thank Him for this and herein would we endeavor to emulate
   Him. We hope that our friends will always bear with us when we try to
   be very plain and simple--and spend much of our strength in pointing
   out what is the practical bearing of the Truth which we are teaching.
   It will be better to be considered needlessly explicit than to miss the
   end we have in view.

   Let us greatly prize this conclusion of the Savior's ministry! It is
   all the more endeared to some of us by the fact that our Lord finished
   as He began. He is our peace. He came to bring it and He left it behind
   Him as He went away. Even before He had commenced His life-work, it was
   announced of Him that He came to bring "peace on earth, good will to-

   ward men." And before He is taken up, His last Words must necessarily
   be, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you." It was meet that
   He should close the service of His life wherein He had preached peace,
   by pronouncing this as His benediction. "These things have I spoken to
   you, that in Me you might have peace."

   In trying to handle this text, tonight, aiming at the same practical
   end as my Divine Lord and Master, I shall notice, first of all, the
   Believer in Christ, and in Christ he is at peace. Secondly, the
   Believer in the world, and in the world he has tribulation. And,
   thirdly, the Believer in the world and in Christ, and in that condition
   he has victory! "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." May the
   Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of peace, bless the word which I may
   now speak to you!

   I. First, you have THE BELIEVER IN CHRIST spoken of in reference to his
   peace. Jesus says--"That in Me you might have peace." It is worthy of
   careful consideration that in Jesus, Himself, there was always an
   abiding peace present. He had peace. If He had not, Himself, possessed
   peace, we could not have had peace in Him. But what a holy calm there
   was upon the spirit of our Divine Master! Read His life through and
   dwell upon any one, delightful characteristic, and you will find Him
   perfect. But if you study it carefully in order to remark upon His
   manliness, His self-possession, His calm and peaceful bearing in the
   midst of turmoil and provocation, you will find Him to be a master of
   the art of peace. Truly in patience He possessed His soul! Never man
   had more to disturb Him, but never man was less disturbed! He could not
   be turned aside from anything which He had resolved to do, for He set
   His face like a flint and, in the doing of it, He could not be excited
   or discouraged, for His spirit was not of this changing world. Men
   might oppose Him, but He endured great contradiction of sinners against
   Himself with marvelous long-suffering. When His eager and foolish
   disciples would push Him forward, or would hold Him back, He was moved
   neither in the one direction nor in the other by any of them. He
   steadfastly held to the even tenor of His way, His soul abiding in God,
   giving glory to God and resting in the eternal Power and Godhead which
   He knew to be always at His side. The background of the life of Christ
   is the Omnipresence of the Father. Wherever you see Him--if you see Him
   quite alone when every disciple has forsaken Him--you see this text
   expounded, "You will leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because
   the Father is with Me."

   Now this fact that He felt the Presence of the Father and did not
   occasionally speak to God, but dwelt with Him-- that He did not resort
   to God as a make-shift in time of trouble, but abode with God at all
   times and so kept His spirit above everything that would draw it
   down--this it was that filled Him with an unbroken peace. Even
   Gethsemane did not break that peace! Covered with the bloody sweat, He
   still cries, "Not as I will, but as You will." When His soul is
   exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, yet He knows where His Father
   is and He keeps His hold upon Him and maintains His intimacy with Him.
   He feels that one word from Him would presently bring more than 12
   legions of angels to His rescue. Such is the position of favor which He
   still occupies with God, even when the sin of man is laid upon Him!

   O Friends, Christ has peace enough and to spare! He is, Himself,
   personally, the deep well-spring of an endless peace and, therefore, we
   can understand why we always find peace in Him. One calm and quiet man
   has sometimes spread peace through what otherwise would have been
   terrified company. One Paul standing in the sinking ship saves all from
   ruin by the majesty of His immovable courage. And one Christ--such a
   Christ as ours--in the midst of a Church turns a horde of cowards into
   an army of heroes! His infinite peace breathes peace into our
   vacillating spirits. We rest because we see how He rests.

   Now, as the Master had peace in Himself, He had a strong desire that
   all His disciples should have peace. I was about to say that it was
   with our Lord, "the ruling passion strong in death." It was strong
   within Him when He was coming very near His passion and was about to go
   into Gethsemane--and then to Golgotha. Quietly He said, "These things
   have I spoken to you, that in Me you might have peace." Our Lord Jesus
   Christ delights to see His people firm, calm, happy! I do not think
   that He is so pleased to see them excited, although we have those
   around us who seem to think that great Grace can only display itself by
   raving and raging. The religion of the quiet Jesus was never intended
   to drive us to the verge of insanity. "He shall not strive, nor cry;
   neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets." His Holy Spirit
   is no raven or eagle, but a dove--His holy influences are powerful and,
   therefore, calm. Weakness hurries, rages, shouts--for it has need to do
   so. Strength moves with its own deliberate serenity and effects its
   purpose. To those who think that saints should be maniacs, Jesus says,
   "Peace! Peace!"

   On the other hand, we are quite certain that our Lord Jesus does not
   desire His disciples to be depressed. To some the fit color for piety
   seems to be gray, drab, or full mourning. But it is not so--the saints
   are arrayed in white linen, which

   is the emblem of gladness as well as of purity. The Savior does not
   wish His disciples to go through the world as through a twilight of
   sadness, whispering in fear because of judgments to come and
   suppressing all joy because of the evils with which they are
   surrounded. No, Brothers and Sisters, Jesus wishes us all to be happy
   in Himself, with a quiet peacefulness like His own. He was no laughing
   maker of merriment, but still He was serenely confident and He would
   have us keep to His pitch and be at peace. "These things have I spoken
   to you, that in Me you might have peace."

   We have a great end to serve. We have a grand life to live. We have a
   grand Helper ready to help us if we will but believe in Him! Therefore,
   we need not blow a trumpet before we begin and we need not make a fuss
   when we are in the midst of our service, nor need we lie down on the
   ground as if we were the most wretched of men because of our heavenly
   calling. No, but we may feel, "The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of
   Jacob is our refuge," and walk with God through life in that holy quiet
   which springs of conscious strength. Let us enjoy the calm of heart
   which comes of knowing that the reserves of God are infinite and that
   at any moment they can come to the front and deliver us should an
   emergency occur. Oh, that we could learn the art of peace from Christ!
   He desires that we should have it. Then we should not be so often up
   and so speedily down--today so brimming over and tomorrow so empty--one
   moment so fast and another so slow--unduly exhilarated at one moment
   and at the next so needlessly depressed. We ought not to be movable as
   waves, but fixed as stars! We ought not to be as thistledown, the sport
   of every wind, but as yonder granite peak which defies the storms of
   the ages! "These things have I spoken to you, that in Me you might have
   peace"--"peace"--oh, to get it and to keep it, through Jesus Christ our
   Lord!

   Thus I have noticed that He had peace and He wished us to have it.

   But now notice again that in order to their having peace He spoke to
   them certain words--"These things have I spoken to you, that in Me you
   might have peace." It will do you good, when you are at home, to read
   over the preceding chapter and note with diligence what the Lord Jesus
   said in order to give His disciples peace, for that same thing will
   give us peace. If you please, you may go back to the 15th chapter and
   even to the 14th, where you read--"Let not your heart be troubled."
   When you are at it, you may, if you like, go all through the Book,
   backward or forward, searching for peace as for a pearl--and you will
   not err, even then--for the great objective of all these Scriptures
   which, in the deepest sense, were all spoken by Jesus Christ, is that
   you may have peace! But especially let us dwell upon these particular
   words in this 16th chapter of John, for to these He chiefly alludes.

   Now, what did He say to them that they might have peace? One thing was
   that He foretold their trials. He said to them, "They shall put you out
   of the synagogues: yes, the time comes, that whoever kills you will
   think that he does God service." Learn, then, that one way for you to
   gain peace is to reflect upon that trial is promised you, that trial is
   in the Covenant, that persecution and the ill-will of an ungodly world
   are evils which you are bound to endure! They are guaranteed to you by
   the very fact of your being of the seed of the woman whose heel must be
   bruised--and they will come to you in your measure. Expect trials as
   you look for clouds and rain in the English climate. If this island is
   your dwelling place, you cannot look for the climate of India! Neither
   ought you to complain of winter and frost for these are a part of a
   Briton's inheritance. You must take the rough with the smooth.

   When exceedingly severe persecutions and afflictions happen to you,
   they will seem to the adversary to be evident tokens of perdition, but
   to you they will be evident tokens of the Truth of God's Word and of
   your being, yourself, a true lineal descendant of that persecuted
   Savior who told you, "If they persecute Me, they will also persecute
   you. The disciple is not above His Master, nor the servant above His
   Lord." Do, then, make yourself familiar with trial. Wonder when it does
   not come! And when it does come, say, "Ah, you are an old acquaintance
   of mine." There is such a thing as carrying your cross till you are so
   accustomed to it that you would be almost uneasy without it. You may
   bear a burden on your back so long that if that burden were taken away,
   you would miss it. The Lord has made some of His children fond of their
   cross. It was so with Rutherford. He said at last that he was half
   afraid lest his cross, which had become so sweet to him, might rival
   Christ, Himself! I never feel any fear of that myself, for pain is very
   much dreaded by my coward flesh, but I suppose that there are saints
   who have come to feel that the bitter is so beneficial that they would
   prefer its tonic to the sweetest cup that was ever mingled. It is an
   acquired taste, no doubt, but he that has it will be at peace about
   trouble. It shall help you greatly to attain peace if you expect rough
   treatment while you are a sojourner in this present evil world.

   The next thing He did to comfort them was that He told them why He was
   going away. It is often a choice blessing, when you have a great trial,
   to know why it is sent. That is a wise petition if not pressed too
   far--"Show me why You contend with me." The Savior was going because it
   was expedient for them that He should go. Does it not take away the
   sting of a trial when you know by faith that it is expedient that such
   and such a grief should happen to you? If it is expedient that the dear
   child should be taken from your arms--expedient that the business
   should not prosper--expedient that you, yourself, should be struck with
   a sickness which no faith will remove so that you bow to Divine Wisdom.
   The God who is better to you than all your fears, yes, better than your
   hopes, intends, perhaps, the affliction to remain with you until it
   lifts the latch of Heaven for you and lets you into your eternal rest!
   Now, when the Savior told them why He was going, the condescending
   information was meant to produce peace in their hearts. He has also
   told you why your trials are sent to you--they work your lasting good!
   Therefore rest concerning them.

   Further, to give them peace, the Savior went on to speak to them of the
   Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and what the Comforter would do. He
   enlarged upon that theme since it was so cheering. Beloved, if you want
   peace, think much of the Divine Comforter. You are not left alone. You
   are not left without the most tender sympathy of One who knows how to
   cheer the heaviest heart! You are not left without a Friend more able
   than all other friends to enter into your secret griefs and administer
   to you the most potent consolations. Think much of the Holy Spirit in
   His office as Comforter and the meditation will foster peace within
   your spirit. How ill we treat the Holy Spirit by our few and
   superficial thoughts of Him! Let us henceforth adore Him with deeper
   love and reverence.

   Then He told them about the power of prayer. He said, "Whatever you
   shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you." And again,
   "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you
   will, and it shall be done unto you." What a breath of peace cools the
   forehead of the man who remembers that he may pray and that prayer is
   heard in Heaven! There is a noise in the streets. There is a
   disturbance within doors--even your own heart is per-turbed--what then?
   Let us pray! The known remedy for unknown evils is prayer. Oh, the
   peace that comes from the Mercy Seat! You that are familiar with it
   will bear me witness that it is wonderful what storms it will quell,
   what cyclones it will quiet! Only pray and you are master of the
   situation! Like your Master, you may walk the waves of the sea when you
   have but the power in His name to speak to those waves and bid them be
   still! And He gives you that power when you draw near to Him in
   believing prayer!

   All this must have greatly tended to produce peace, but as if this
   might not be enough, our tender Lord let slip a precious Word that
   ought to give peace to all our minds--"The Father Himself loves you."
   The love of God the Father is a treasure-house of peace! The Father
   Himself--not moved by the importunities of His pleading Son, but
   Himself, of His own accord, loves you! O Father God, how have You
   sometimes been slandered, as though You were hesitant to love us and
   Your Son must necessarily persuade You! No, it is not so! God loved His
   people and, therefore, He sent His Son to redeem them. "He so loved the
   world that He gave His only begotten Son." Christ is not the cause of
   Divine Love, but the sweetest and best Fruit of it. "The Father Himself
   loves you." Therefore, be of good cheer, and let your peace be like a
   river!

   And then, dear Friends, He confirmed their faith in Himself. He so
   spoke to them that they, at last, said, "Now are we sure. By this we
   believe," and so on. This is the way to get peace! Peace comes by the
   way offaith. Those of you who are very fond of doubts, can, perhaps,
   tell me whether you ever derived any peace from them. Time is but
   ill-used when we pore over books which are calculated to shake our
   faith--as well eat food which is sure to make us ill! There are certain
   men who are always busy with the Scriptures to try and find
   difficulties in them--and if they cannot find them in the English
   version then, straightway, they will sooner have a new translation than
   miss their precious difficulty! This is as foolish as if we should
   refuse to eat our Christmas pudding because we could not find any
   stones in the plums, or any hard lumps in the sugar upon which to break
   our teeth! The great objective of some men seems to be to find in the
   Bible something which they cannot believe. For my part, I am delighted
   with what I do believe! They cultivate doubts while a wise man regards
   them as weeds, and burns them in a heap!

   The Lord knows there is sorrow enough in this world without laboring to
   make more. And I should like to ask all such critics and great
   discoverers whether they believe that their discoveries tend at all to
   the creation of peace in their own minds, or in the minds of others? I
   believe, and then I get peace. I believe and am sure--then is my peace
   like a river and my righteousness like the waves of the sea! Luther
   tells us how he found peace when one said to him, "I believe in the

   forgiveness of sins." Oh, if one did but believe what he professes to
   believe! I mean believed it fully! That way lies peace-- in believing
   up to the hilt. The child-like way of sitting at Jesus' feet and
   receiving His Words --this is the path of peace. All the outgrowth of
   quibbling and caviling may be summed up as thorns and briers, tearing
   the flesh and rending the spirit. These things had Christ spoken, that
   they might believe in Him, for well He knew that the victory which
   overcomes trial is faith and not doubt. Believing--not questioning, is
   the King's Highway!

   I must notice that our Master's wish that we might have peace was
   qualified by those two words, "in Me"--"That in Me you might have
   peace." Remember, then, you may not expect to derive peace from
   yourselves. You will turn that dunghill over a long while before you
   find the jewel of peace in it! Our Lord did not even intend that we
   should find peace in outward ordinances, or religious exercises. No
   doubt it is very quieting to read a chapter, or to attend a service, or
   to come to the Lord's Table--but it is not the Lord's intent that these
   should, of themselves, yield us peace. These are to be means to peace,
   but the peace must always be in Himself, in His own blessed Person! We
   must get to Him, for this is His wish, "that in Me you might have
   peace"--peace only in Him, but peace always in Him. Peace of the
   deepest, truest, most constant, most emphatic kind is only found in
   Jesus! Peace in all seasons, and in all difficulties. Peace
   forever--all this is in Him--and only in Him. Outside of Him it is all
   tossing to and fro, questions, fog, haze and fear. But in Him we dwell
   as in a sheepfold, where the sheep lie down and rest. In Him we are in
   a home where all is love and comfort. Brothers and Sisters, let us not
   wander from this sacred center of serene repose lest we wander from
   peace! It is this Man who shall be the peace, this Son of God who shall
   give us rest! Let us then come to Him at once in every case. Yes, let
   us always abide in Him. His wish is that His joy may be in us and,
   therefore, He says, "These things have I spoken to you, that in Me you
   might have peace."

   Thus have I said well-near enough to you upon this first point of the
   Believer in Christ and His peace.

   II. I have been a long while on that head so I need to be all the
   shorter on the second--THE BELIEVER IN THE WORLD finds himself like
   wheat under the flail, for so the text puts it, "In the world you will
   have tribulation."

   That is, first, you are not screened from any kind of trouble. You are
   in Christ and the Savior saves you from your sins, but He has not
   promised that you will have no sorrow. He has not promised to screen
   you from either poverty, or toil, or sickness, or slander, or any of
   the common ills of mankind. Some of the very best of His beloved have
   been enriched and indulged by being permitted to undergo much secret
   discipline of pain, sorrow and need. Your Lord, among the treasures
   that He gives you, grants a cross. You start back and say, "Not that,
   Lord!" but He answers, "Yes, this, My child. This and no other." The
   cross is the best piece of furniture in your house, though you have
   sometimes wished it was not there. It shall always work your good--it
   works it now. Some of the comforts allotted to you in Providence will
   be questionable in their effect upon you, by reason of your sinfulness
   and weakness. But the cross which the Lord appoints you has no result
   but your good! It is a bitter tree, apparently, but it is a healthful
   medicine. Take it, child of God! Plant it and let it grow--and its
   fruit shall be sweet. We are not guarded from tribulation, but we are
   promised it--and we are benefited by it.

   We are not favored by being promised the admiration of the ungodly. "In
   the world"--not merely in this present state, but in this ungodly
   world-- we shall have tribulation. Worldlings will not gather round you
   to admire your excellence and assist your piety. If they did, I should
   think that either the world had changed, or else it had made a mistake
   about you. Which of the two it is, I do not say. I do not think that it
   can be that the world has changed. Worldlings may like a Christian for
   certain externals. They may admire him for certain advantages they get
   from him. But as a Christian, they cannot love him. That is impossible!
   There is an enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the
   woman--and you had better understand that it is so because the serpent
   has not changed his nature--but is still a vile deceiver and destroyer!
   He still exhibits his glittering scales and speaks as craftily and
   flatteringly to us as he did to mother Eve and, perhaps, to you. He
   says that he loves you more than he can tell, only you are so
   unfriendly and suspicious that he has never been able to show his
   affection. Yes, he sees in you so much to admire that he wishes you
   were not quite so strait-laced, for then he could introduce you to his
   dear friends and children, for you would do them no end of good! Hit
   him across the head if you get an opportunity, for he means no good to
   you.

   Of all the devils in the world, I hate a roaring devil least, but a
   flattering devil is the worst devil that ever a man meets! When the
   world pretends to love, understand that it now hates you more cordially
   than ever and is carefully bait-

   ing its trap to catch you and ruin you! Beware of the Judas kiss with
   which the Christ was betrayed and with which you will be betrayed
   unless you are well upon your guard. In the world and from the world
   you will have tribulation!

   The text puts this in such a broad way that it gives a hint that in the
   world you will have tribulation often. Affliction is not with us
   always, but it is well to be always prepared for it. There are times in
   which we enjoy prosperity--some Christians enjoy much of it--and do not
   let them be much alarmed because they do so, for what the Lord's
   Providence sends us is not harmful, in itself, and is to be accepted
   without suspicion. I remember that a person came to me, once, and told
   me that she had prayed for affliction. I replied, "Dear Soul, dear
   Soul, do not be so foolish! You will have quite enough trouble without
   asking for it." If a child were to ask his father to let him be
   whipped, he would be a strange sort of child! And I should think he
   would not be likely to repeat the experiment if he had a practical man
   for a father! No, no, no! That is not our path of duty. If God spares
   us tribulation, let us be thankful to Him. But if He does not spare us,
   let us be equally thankful. This last is a hard lesson to learn, but we
   ought to learn it. We shall frequently endure tribulation, for we are
   born to it at our first birth, as the sparks fly upward. It is also
   certain that our second birth introduces us to a second set of
   tribulations. He sang a true song who gave us this verse--

   "'Poor and afflicted,' 'tis their lot. They know it and they murmur
   not. It would ill become them to refuse The state their Master deigned
   to choose." Again, in the world you will emphatically have tribulation.
   If anybody else has it, you will. And if nobody else has it, yet you
   will have it. You will have it, perhaps, where you least wish it or
   reckon on it. "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." "Any
   cross but the one I have," cried one. Surely it would not be a cross if
   you had the choosing of it, for it is of the essence of a cross that it
   should run counter to our liking! It must be something from which the
   flesh shrinks, which is not for the present, joyous, but grievous. So
   our Lord puts it, "In the world you will have tribulation." I wonder
   how many Christians here could say that they have not found it so. I
   think that the most of us--at least, all I know of--would say that the
   prophecy of our Lord has been abundantly verified. And must it not be
   so in the nature of things? Has not this world been a place of sorrow
   ever since Adam broke his Maker's command? Did not the mandate then go
   forth, "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you. Dust you
   are, and unto dust shall you return"?

   To a Christian man must not the world bring tribulation and anguish
   because it is a world which lies in the Wicked One? The Christian is
   not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. He is out of his
   element. He is an alien. He is a pilgrim. Can he expect the comforts of
   home while he tarries here? It is an uncongenial world to his spiritual
   nature. There is nothing in it to help him. This world is a foe to
   Grace--not a friend to it--and, therefore, the gracious man must have
   tribulation. If he is to be like his Lord, he certainly will have it.
   And if he is to be like the Lord's people, he will have it, for they
   are a line of cross-bearers. There is no exception to this rule if you
   take the whole of any Believer's life, though for a while certain
   favored men may seem to be the darlings of Providence. Job multiplied
   his riches and dwelt at ease with a hedge about him. He thought,
   perhaps, that he would have no tribulation to bear, but the flail
   seemed made of iron when at last it fell! So may the most prosperous
   have all the greater trial when the day of adversity arrives.

   Brethren, I was thinking, as I turned over this subject, that though
   there is tribulation in the world, we still get far too fond of the
   world. We are always trying to pluck handfuls of its flowers--and if
   its roses had no thorns we would bury ourselves in heaps of them! We
   would never quit the nest and learn to fly if the Lord did not stir up
   our nest even as does the eagle. We should want to tarry here forever
   and say, "Lo, this is my home," if it were not that an unkind world
   gives us aliens' treatment and forces us to feel that we are in exile
   here. One said to a great man, as he looked over his gardens, "These
   are the things that make it hard to die." As we are not to live here,
   but must soon be up and away to the better land where our life can far
   better develop, it is meet that in the world we should have
   tribulation, that we may turn our thoughts and our desires towards that
   dear City of our God where alone is our dwelling place! Thanks be unto
   God for the tribulation which weans our thoughts from earth and wins
   them for Heaven! And let all the people say,

   "Amen."

   III. But now, lastly, let us view THE BELIEVER IN THE WORLD AND IN
   CHRIST--and this means victory! I

   will occupy but a moment or two to say that if we dwell in Christ,
   though we also have to dwell in the world, yet we shall overcome the
   world.

   I call your special attention to the words of our Lord Jesus in the
   text-- "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Our Lord was, all
   that time, still in the world. Do you know where Christ was when He
   said that? Why, He was on the edge of Gethsemane! He was at the foot,
   so to speak, of Golgotha--where He was to die! He had not then borne
   the scourge and the Cross. But I dare not lay my hand upon my Master
   and say, "Good Lord, You have made a mistake. You have not yet
   overcome, for the worst part of the battle has not come to You." He
   knew what He said and made no error in saying it. Oh, but it was
   bravely spoken! The faith which abode in Him made Him say, "I have
   overcome." On the verge of the fight, He said, "I have overcome." John
   caught up this word when he, afterwards, said, "This is the victory
   which overcomes the world, even our faith," because it was by faith
   that our blessed Lord said at this moment, "I have overcome the world."
   He spoke in the Prescience of faith. He took for granted that He would
   overcome the world, for the Father was with Him!

   But up to that point it was assuredly true, as it was even to the end,
   that He had really overcome the world. Its blandishments He had
   overcome. Its temptations He had overcome. Its terrors He had overcome.
   Its errors He had overcome. Everything in the world that had assailed
   Him, He had put to the rout. He was tempted in all points like as we
   are, but He remained without sin. He had overcome everything that had
   come to attack His holiness, His patience, His self-sacrifice--He had
   been victor at every point!

   Now, here is a matter of joyful consideration--our Lord says, "Be of
   good cheer; I have overcome the world." But what cheer is there in
   that? Well, the cheer lies in the fact which He does not here state,
   but which He had stated before, namely, that He is one with us and we
   are one with Him. He does as good as say, "I have overcome the world
   and you are in Me, your Head. My overcoming of the world belongs to
   you. I, your Leader, have overcome the world for you. I have led the
   way in this dread fight and conquered the adversaries which you have
   now to fight with. And thus I have virtually won the battle before you
   begin it."--

   "Hell and your sins obstruct your course

   But Hell and sins are vanquished foes.

   Your Jesus nailed them to His Cross,

   And sang the triumph when He rose." "I have, Myself," says Jesus,
   "overcome for you that you may overcome in Me. Now, go to the fight, to
   rout the already worsted enemy, and triumph over a serpent whose head I
   have already broken."

   We derive, then, from the fact that Christ has overcome, the assurance
   that we shall overcome, since we are one with Him, members of His body
   and parts of Himself! O Brothers and Sisters, you must fight your way
   through. You cannot quit this conflict. You have to cut your way
   through a solid wall of difficulties--there is no other course! But you
   are going to do it. You will do it! A great commander commences a
   campaign. Does he desire that there shall be no battle? If so, how is
   it a war? How is he a soldier? He certainly can send home no reports of
   victory if there is no fighting. He can never come to be a great
   commander if he never distinguishes himself in the field. So let us
   consider that every battle-field to which God calls us is only another
   opportunity of victory and, Christ being with us, another certainty of
   victory! Onward, then, you Christian soldiers!--

   "Let your drooping hearts be glad; March in heavenly armor clad." Let
   not the brightness of your armor be stained by the rust of fear! You
   shall overcome as surely as your Lord has overcome. If you commit
   yourself to His keeping and abide in Him who is All in All to you, no
   defeat can possibly befall you.

   I have this last word to add. There may be some here who will say,
   "Look, look. These Christian people have plenty of trouble." That is
   quite true, but they are not the only ones to be pitied--"Many sorrows
   shall be to the wicked." Those who are not in Christ Jesus shall also
   find tribulation in this world, for thorns and thistles spring up more
   numerously in the field of the sluggard than anywhere else. The wicked
   shall find that there are special sorrows for them-- whips of scorpions
   for them, especially when they get farther on in life--and their
   youthful fires burn down to a black ash. Woe unto sinners when they
   have to reap the fruits of their evil deeds! O Sirs, I would not go
   through life without a Savior, as you do, no, not if I might be made an
   emperor! To have to fight this life-battle without Christ is sure
   defeat! What a discovery it will be when, having struggled through one
   life of sorrow, you shall find yourself beginning another life of
   greater sorrow which will never come to an end!

   It is an awful thing for a man to go from Hell to Hell--to make this
   world a Hell and then find another Hell in the next world! But it were
   a blessed thing to go through 50 hells to Heaven, if such a thing could
   be. It is glorious to struggle on through poverty, sickness,
   persecution and to hear, at last, the word, "Well done!" That will be
   glorious! Who aspires to it? God help each one of us to labor after it
   and give us strength to carry on the holy war and fight it through,
   even to the end!

   But if you are wrapping yourselves up in these poor joys, these
   wretched rags of earth--and are living to make money, or to get drink,
   or to enjoy yourselves in the hurtful luxuries of lust--God have mercy
   upon you and save you! Hear the Gospel, each one of you! "Believe on
   the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." The Lord lead you to do
   so, for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heart--a Gift for God

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY DECEMBER 11, 1887,
   DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My son, give Me your heart." Proverbs 23:26.

   THESE are the words of Solomon speaking in the name of Wisdom, which
   wisdom is but another name for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is made of
   God unto us Wisdom. If you ask, "What is the highest wisdom upon the
   earth?" it is to believe in Jesus Christ whom God has sent--to become
   His follower and disciple--to trust Him and imitate Him. It is God, in
   the Person of His dear Son, who says to each one of us, "My son, give
   Me your heart." Can we answer, "Lord, I have given You my heart"? Then
   we are His sons! Let us cry, "Abba, Father," and bless the Lord for the
   high privilege of being His children. "Behold, what manner of love the
   Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."

   I. Let us look at this precept, "My son, give Me your heart," and
   notice, first, that LOVE PROMPTS THIS REQUEST OF WISDOM.

   Only love seeks after love. If I desire the love of another, it can
   surely only be because I, myself, have love toward him. We care not to
   be loved by those whom we do not love. It were an embarrassment rather
   than an advantage to receive love from those to whom we would not
   return it. When God asks human love, it is because God is Love. As the
   sparks mount toward the sun, the central fire, so ought our love rise
   toward God, the central source of all pure and holy love. It is an
   instance of infinite condescension that God should say, "My son, give
   Me your heart." Notice the strange position in which it puts God and
   man. The usual position is for the creature to say to God, "Give
   me"--but here the Creator cries to feeble man, "Give Me." The Great
   Benefactor, Himself, becomes the Petitioner--stands at the door of His
   own creatures and asks, not for offerings, nor for words of praise, but
   for their hearts! Oh, it must be because of the great love of God that
   He condescends to put Himself into such a position. And if we were
   right-minded, our immediate response would be, "Do You seek my heart?
   Here it is, my Lord." But alas, few thus respond, and none do so except
   those who are, like David, men after God's own heart. When God says to
   such, "Seek you My face," they answer at once, "Your face, Lord, will
   we seek"--but this answer is prompted by Divine Grace. It can only be
   love that seeks love.

   Again, it can only be supreme Love which leads Wisdom to seek after the
   heart of such poor things as we are. The best saints are poor things
   and as for some of us who are not the best, what poor, poor things we
   are! How foolish! How slow to learn! Does Wisdom seek us for scholars?
   Then Wisdom must be of a most condescending kind. We are so guilty,
   too. We shall rather disgrace than honor the courts of Wisdom if she
   admits us to her school. Yet she says to each of us, "Give Me your
   heart. Come and learn of Me." Only Love can invite such scholars as we
   are! I am afraid we shall never do much to glorify God--we have but
   small parts to begin with, and our position is obscure. Yet,
   common-place people though we are, God says to each one of us, "My son,
   give Me your heart." Only infinite Love would come a-wooing to such
   wretched hearts as ours!

   For what has God to gain? Brothers and Sisters, if we did all give our
   hearts to Him, in what respect would He be the greater? If we gave Him
   all we have, would He be the richer? "The silver and the gold are
   Mine," He says, "and the cattle on a thousand hills. If I were hungry,
   I would not tell you." He is too great for us to make Him greater, too
   good for us to make Him better, too glorious for us to make Him more
   illustrious. When He comes a-wooing and cries, "Give Me your heart," it
   must be for our benefit and not for His own! Surely it is more blessed
   for us to give than for Him to receive! He can gain nothing--we gain
   everything by the gift. Yet He does gain a child and that is a sweet
   thought. Every-

   one that gives God His heart becomes God's child--and a father esteems
   his children to be treasures--and I reckon that God sets a higher value
   upon His children than upon all the works of His hand besides!

   We see the Great Father's likeness in the story of the returning
   prodigal. The father thought more of his returning son than of all that
   he possessed besides. "It was meet," said he "that we should make merry
   and be glad: for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again; and
   was lost, and is found." Oh, I tell you, you that do not know the Lord,
   that if you give your hearts to Him you will make Him glad! The Eternal
   Father will be glad to get back His lost son, to press to His bosom a
   heart warm with affection for Him, which heart before had been cold and
   stony towards Him. "My son, give Me your heart," He says, as if He
   longed for our love and could not bear to have children that had
   forgotten Him! Do you not hear Him speak? Speak, Spirit of God, and
   make each one hear You say, "My son, give Me your heart"!

   You who are sons of God already may take my text as a call to give God
   your heart anew, for--I do not know how it is--men are wonderfully
   scarce now and men with hearts are rare! If preachers had larger
   hearts, they would move more people to hear them. A sermon preached
   without love falls flat and dead. We have heard sermons, admirable in
   composition and excellent in doctrine, but like that palace which the
   Empress of Russia built upon the Neva of blocks of ice! Nothing more
   lustrous, nothing more sharply cut, nothing more charming, but oh, so
   cold, so very cold! Its very beauty a frost to the soul! "My son," says
   God to every preacher, "give Me your heart." O Minister, if you cannot
   speak with eloquent tongue, at least let your heart run over like
   burning lava from your lips! Let your heart be like a geyser, scalding
   all that come near you, permitting none to remain indifferent!

   You that teach in the school, you that work for God in any way, do it
   thoroughly well! "Give Me your heart, My son," says God. It is one of
   the first and last qualifications of a good workman for God that he
   should put his heart into his work. I have heard mistresses tell
   servants, when polishing tables, that elbow grease was a fine thing for
   such work. And so it is. Hard work is a splendid thing! It will make a
   way under a river, or through the Alps. Hard work will do almost
   everything--but in God's service it must not only be hard work, but hot
   work! The heart must be on fire! The heart must be set upon its design.
   See how a child cries! Though I am not fond of hearing it, yet I note
   that some children cry all over! When they want a thing, they cry from
   the tips of their toes to the last hair of their heads! That is the way
   to preach! And that is the way to pray! And that is the way to
   live--the whole man must be heartily engaged in holy work.

   Love prompts the request of Wisdom. God knows that in His service we
   shall be miserable unless our hearts are fully engaged. Whenever we
   feel that preaching is heavy work, or Sunday school teaching, after six
   days' labor, is tiresome, or going round a district with tracts is a
   terrible task--then we shall do nothing well! Put your heart into your
   service and all will be joyful--but no way else.

   II. Now, I turn my text another way. WISDOM PERSUADES US TO OBEY THIS
   LOVING REQUEST. To take

   our hearts and give them up to God is the wisest thing that we can do.
   If we have done it before, we had better do it over again and hand
   over, once more, the sacred deposit into those dear hands which will
   surely keep that which we commit to their guardian care. "My son, give
   Me your heart."

   Wisdom prompts us to do it, for, first, many others crave our hearts,
   and our hearts will surely go one way or the other. Let us see to it
   that they do not go where they will be ruined. I will not read you the
   next verse, but many a man has lost his heart and soul eternally by the
   lusts of the flesh. He has perished through "her that lies in wait as
   for a prey, and increases the transgressors among men." Happy is that
   young man whose heart is never defiled with vice! There is no way of
   being kept from impurity except by giving up the heart to the holy
   Lord. In a city like this, the most pure-minded are surrounded with
   innumerable temptations--and many there are that slip with their feet
   before they are aware of it, being carried away because they have not
   time to think before the temptation has cast them to the ground.
   "Therefore, My son," says Wisdom, "give Me your heart. Everybody will
   try to steal your heart, therefore leave it in My charge. Then you need
   not fear the fascinations of the strange woman, for I have your heart
   and I will keep it safe unto the day of My appearing." It is most wise
   to give Jesus our heart, for seducers will seek after it.

   There is another destroyer of souls. I will not say much about it, but
   I will just read you what the context says of it-- "Who has woe? Who
   has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has babbling? Who has wounds
   without cause? Who has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the
   wine. They that go to seek mixed wine. Look not you upon the wine when
   it is red, when it gives his color in the cup, when it moves itself
   aright. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.
   Your eyes shall behold strange women and your heart shall utter
   perverse things." Read carefully the rest of the

   chapter and then hear the voice of Wisdom say, "My son, if you would be
   kept from drunkenness and gluttony, from wantonness and chambering, and
   everything that the heart inclines to, give Me your heart."

   It is well to guard your heart with all the apparatus that wisdom can
   provide. It is totally well to abstain from that which becomes a snare
   to you, but, I charge you, do not rely upon abstinence, but give your
   heart to Jesus--for nothing short of true godliness will preserve you
   from sin so that you shall be presented faultless before His Presence
   with exceedingly great joy! As you would wish to preserve an
   unblemished character and be found honorable to the end, my son, I
   charge you, give your heart to Christ!

   Wisdom urges to immediate decision because it is well to have a heart
   at once occupied and taken up by Christ. It is an empty heart that the
   devil enters. You know how the boys always break the windows of empty
   houses, well, the devil throws stones wherever the heart is empty! If
   you can say to the devil when you are tempted, "You are too late; I
   have given my heart to Christ, I cannot listen to your overtures, I am
   affianced to the Savior by bonds of love that never can be broken,"
   what a blessed safeguard you have! I know of nothing that can so
   protect the young man in these perilous days as to be able to sing, "O
   God, my heart is fixed! My heart is fixed! Others may flit to and fro
   and seek something to light upon, but my heart is fixed upon You
   forever. I am unable to turn aside through Your sweet Grace." "My son,"
   says the text, "give Me your heart," that Christ may dwell there, that
   when Satan comes, the One who is stronger than the strong man armed may
   keep His house and drive the enemy back!

   Give Jesus your hearts, beloved Friends, for Wisdom bids you do it at
   once, because it will please God. Have you a friend to whom you wish to
   make a present? I know what you do--you try to find out what that
   friend would value, for you say, "I should like to give him what would
   please him." Do you want to give God something that is sure to please
   Him? You need not build a Church of matchless architecture--I do not
   know that God cares much about stones and wood. You need not wait till
   you will have amassed money to endow a row of almshouses. It is well to
   bless the poor, but Jesus said that one who gave two mites, which made
   a farthing, gave more than all the rich men who cast in of their wealth
   into the treasury. What would God my Father like me to give? He
   answers, "My son, give Me your heart." He will be pleased with that,
   for He, Himself, seeks the gift!

   If there are any here to whom this day is an anniversary of birth, or
   of marriage, or of some other joyful occasion, let them make a present
   to God and give Him their hearts! It is wonderful that He should word
   it so. "My son, give Me your heart." I should not have dared to say
   such a thing if He had not said it, but He does put it so. This will
   please Him better than a bull that has horns and hoofs, better than
   smoking incense in the silver censer, better than all you can contrive
   of art, or purchase by wealth, or design for beauty. "My son, give Me
   your heart."

   For notice, again, that if you do not give Him your heart, you cannot
   please Him at all. You may give God what you please, but without your
   heart it is all an abomination to Him! To pray without your heart is
   solemn mockery. To sing without your heart is an empty sound. To give,
   to teach, to work without your heart is all an insult to the Most High!
   You cannot do God any service till you give Him your heart! You must
   begin with this. Then shall your hand and purse give what they will and
   your tongue and brain shall give what they can, but first your
   heart--first your heart--your inmost self--your love--your affection.
   You must give Him your heart, or you give Him nothing!

   And does He not deserve it? I am not going to use that argument
   because, somehow, if you press a man to give a thing, at last it comes
   not to be a gift, but a tax. Our consecration to God must be
   unquestionable in its freeness. Religion is voluntary or else false. If
   I shall prove that your heart is God's due, why, then, you will not
   give, but rather pay as though it were a debt! So I will touch that
   string very gently, lest, in seeking to bring forth music, I snap the
   chord. I will put it thus--surely it were well to give a heart for a
   heart. There was One who came and took human nature on Him and wore a
   human heart within His bosom--and that human heart was pressed full
   sore with sorrow till, it is written, that He wept. It was pressed
   still more with anguish till, it is written, "He sweat, as it were,
   great drops of blood, falling to the ground." He was still further
   overwhelmed with grief, till at last He said, "Reproach has broken My
   heart, and I am full of heaviness." And then it is written, "One of the
   soldiers with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came there out
   blood and water." A heart was given for you--will you not give your
   heart? I say no more.

   I was about to say that I wished I could bring my Master here to stand
   on this platform, that you might see Him, but I know that faith comes
   by hearing, not by seeing! Yet would I set Him forth evidently
   crucified among you and for you.

   Oh, give Him, then, a heart for a heart, and yield yourself up to Him!
   Is there not a sweet whisper in your spirit that now says, "Yield your
   heart"? Listen to that still small voice and there shall be no need
   that I speak further.

   Believe me, beloved Friends, there is no getting wisdom except you give
   your heart to it. There is no understanding the science of Christ
   Crucified, which is the most excellent of all the sciences, without
   giving your heart to it. Some of you have been trying to be religious.
   You have been trying to be saved, but you have done it in an off-handed
   sort of style. "My son, give Me your heart." Wisdom suggests to you
   that you should do it, for unless your whole heart is thrown into it,
   you will never prosper in it. Certain men never get on in business.
   They do not like their trade and so they never prosper. And, certainly,
   in the matter of religion, no man can ever prosper if he does not love
   it--if his whole heart is not in it. Some people have just enough
   religion to make them miserable. If they had none, they would be able
   to enjoy the world, but they have too much religion to be able to enjoy
   the world, and yet not enough to enjoy the world to come! Oh, you poor
   betweenites--you that hang like Mohammed 's coffin between earth and
   Heaven! You that are like bats, neither birds nor beasts--you that are
   like a flying fish that tries to live in the air and water, too, and
   finds enemies in both elements! You that are neither this, nor that,
   nor the other--strangers in God's country and yet not able to make
   yourselves at home with the devil--I pity you!

   Oh, that I could give you a tug to get you to this side of the border
   land! My Master bids me compel you to come in, but what can I do except
   repeat the message of the text? "My son, give Me your heart." Do not be
   shilly-shallying any longer. Let your heart go one way or the other! If
   the devil is worth loving, give him your heart and serve him! But if
   Christ is worth loving, give Him your heart and have done with
   hesitation! Turn to Jesus once and for all! Oh, may His Spirit turn you
   and you shall be turned--and His name shall have the praise!

   III. And now I close with the third observation. LET US BE WISE ENOUGH
   AT ONCE TO ATTEND TO THIS

   ADMONITION OF WISDOM. Let us now give God our heart. "My son, give Me
   your heart."

   When? At once! There is no intimation that God would have us wait a
   little. I wish that those persons who only mean to wait a little would
   fix a time when they will leave off waiting. They are always going to
   be right tomorrow. Which day of the month is that? I have searched the
   calendar and cannot find it. I have heard that there is such a thing as
   the fool's calendar and that tomorrow is there--but then, you are not
   fools and do not keep such a calendar! Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,
   tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow--it is a raven's croak
   of evil omen! Today, today, today, today, today--that is the silver
   trumpet of salvation--and he that hears it shall live! God grant that
   we may not forever be crying out, "tomorrow," but at once give our
   hearts to Him!

   How? If we attend to this precept, we shall notice that it calls upon
   us to act freely. "My son, give Me your heart." You do not need to have
   it led in fetters. It might, as I have already said, prevent a thing
   from being a gift if you too pressingly proved that it was due. It is
   due, but God puts it, as it were, upon free will, for once, and leaves
   it to free agency. He says, "My son, give Me your heart. All that you
   have from Me comes as a gift of Free Grace--now freely give Me back
   your heart." Remember, wherever we speak about the power of Grace, we
   do not mean a physical force, but only such force as may be applied to
   free agents and to responsible beings. The Lord begs you not to want to
   be crushed and pounded into repentance, nor whipped and spurred to holy
   living. But, "My son, give Me your heart." I have heard that the
   richest juice of the grape is that which comes with the slightest
   pressure at the first touch. Oh, to give God our freest love! You know
   the old proverb that one volunteer is worth two pressed men? We shall
   all be pressed men in a certain sense, but yet it is written, "Your
   people shall be willing in the day of Your power." May you be willing
   at once!

   "My son, give Me your heart." It seems a pity that a man should have to
   live a long life of sin to learn that sin does not pay. It is a sad
   case when he comes to God with all his bones broken and enlists in the
   Divine army after he has spent all his youth in the service of the
   devil and has worn himself out. Christ will have him whenever he comes,
   but how much better it is, while yet you are in the days of your youth,
   to say, "Here, Lord, I give You my heart. Constrained by Your sweet
   love, I yield to You in the dawn of my being!"

   That is what the text means--give God your heart at once, and do it
   freely.

   Do it thoroughly. "My son, give Me your heart." You cannot give Christ
   a piece of a heart, for a heart that is halved is killed. A heart that
   has even a little bit taken off is a dead heart. The devil does not
   mind having half your heart. He is quite satisfied with that because he
   is like the woman to whom the child did not belong--he does not mind if
   it is cut in halves. The true mother of the child said, "Oh, spare the
   child! Do not divide it!" And so Christ, who is the true Lover of

   hearts, will not have the heart divided. If it must go one way and the
   wrong way, let it go that way! But if it will go the right way, He is
   ready to accept it, cleanse it and perfect it--only it must go all
   together and not be divided. "Give Me your heart."

   Did I hear somebody say, "I am willing to give God my heart"? Very
   well, then, let as look at it practically. Where is it now? You cannot
   give your heart up till you find out where it is. I knew a man who lost
   his heart. His wife had not got it and his children had not got it--and
   he did not seem as if he had got it himself. "That is odd," you say.
   Well, he used to starve himself. He scarcely had enough to eat. His
   clothes were threadbare. He starved all who were round him. He did not
   seem to have a heart. A poor woman owed him a little rent. Out she went
   into the street! He had no heart. A person had fallen back a little in
   the payment of money that he had lent him. The debtor's little children
   were crying for bread. The man did not care who cried from hunger, or
   what became of the children. He would have his money. He had lost his
   heart. I never could make out where it was till I went to his house,
   one day, and I saw a huge chest. I think they called it an iron
   safe--it stood behind the door of an inner room--and when he unlocked
   it with a heavy key, and the bolts were shot, and the inside was
   opened, there was a musty, fussy thing within it, as dry and dead as
   the kernel of a walnut seven years old. It was his heart! If you have
   locked up your heart in an iron safe, get it out! Get it out as quickly
   as you can! It is a horrible thing to pack up a heart in five-pound
   notes, or bury it under heaps of silver and gold. Hearts are never
   healthy when covered up with hard metal. Your gold and silver are
   cankered if your heart is bound up with them.

   I knew a young lady--I think I know several of that sort now--whose
   heart I could never see. I could not make out why she was so flighty,
   giddy, frothy, till I discovered that she had kept her heart in a
   wardrobe. A poor prison for an immortal soul, is it not? You had better
   fetch it out before the moth eats it as wool. When our garments become
   the idols of our hearts, we are such foolish things that we can hardly
   be said to have hearts at all! Even such foolish hearts as these, it
   were well to get out of the wardrobe and give to Christ.

   Where is your heart? I have known some leave it at the public house and
   some in places that I shall not mention, lest the cheek of modesty
   should crimson. But wherever your heart is, it is in the wrong place if
   it is not with Christ. Go, fetch it, Sir! Bring it here and give it
   into the hand of Him that bought it.

   But in what state is it? "Yes, there's the rub." For, as I told you
   that the miser's heart was musty and fussy, so men's hearts begin to
   smell of the places wherein they keep them. Some women's hearts are
   moldy and ragged through their keeping them in the wardrobe. Some men's
   hearts are cankered through keeping them among their gold. And some are
   rotten through and through, through keeping them steeped in vice! Where
   is the drunk's heart? In what state must it be? Foul and filthy. Still
   God says, "Give Me your heart." What? Such a thing as that? Yes, did I
   not tell you that when He asked for your heart, it was all for love of
   you and not for what He should get out of you? And what is such a heart
   as yours, my Friend, that has been in such a place and fallen into such
   a state? Still, give it to Him, for I will tell you what He will do--He
   will work wonders for your heart.

   You have heard of alchemists who took base metal, so they say, and
   transmuted it into gold? The Lord will do more than this. "Give Me your
   heart." Poor, filthy, defiled, polluted, depraved heart!--give it to
   Him! It is stony now, corrupted now. He will take it and in those
   sacred hands of Christ, that heart shall lie till, in its place you
   shall see a heart of flesh, pure, clean, heavenly! "Oh," you say, "I
   never could make out what to do with my hard heart." Give it, now, to
   Christ and He will change it! Yield it up to the sweet power of His
   infinite Grace and He will renew a right spirit within you! God help
   you to give Jesus your heart and to do it now!

   There is going to be a collection for the hospitals. Stop, you
   collectors, till I have said my last word. What are you going to give?
   I do not mind what you are going to put into the boxes, but I want to
   pass round an invisible plate for my Lord. I desire to pass it round to
   all of you--and please, will you say to yourself when you drop your
   money into the box, "I am going to drop my heart into the invisible
   collection and give it up to Jesus. It is all that I can do"?
   Collectors, pass round the boxes, and you, O Spirit of God, go from man
   to man and take possession of all hearts for Jesus our Lord! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Public Testimony--a Debt To God and Man

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then they said to one another, We are not doing right. This day is a
   day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light,
   some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and
   tell the king's household." 2 Kings 7:9.

   You are not surprised to find that, when those four lepers outside the
   gate of Samaria had made the great discovery that the Syrian camp was
   deserted, they first satisfied their own hunger and thirst. And quite
   right, too. Who would do otherwise? It is true that they were bound to
   go and tell other hungry ones, but they could do that with all the
   louder voice and they were the more sure of the truth they had to tell
   when they had first refreshed themselves. It might have been a
   delusion--they were prudent to test their discovery before they told
   it. Having refreshed and enriched themselves, they then thought of
   going to tell the besieged and starving citizens. I would advise every
   soul that has found Christ to imitate the lepers in this matter. Make
   sure that you have found the Savior. Eat and drink of Him; enrich
   yourself with Him and then go and publish the glad tidings. I shall not
   object to your going as early as possible, but still, I would prefer
   that you should not go to assure others until you are quite certain
   yourself. I would have you go with a personal witness, for this will be
   your chief power with others.

   If you run too soon and do not first taste and see that the Lord is
   good, you may say to others, "There is abundance in the camp," and they
   may reply, "Why have you not eaten of it, yourself?" Thus your
   testimony will be weakened, if not destroyed, and you will wish you had
   held your peace. It is better that you, first of all, delight yourself
   in fatness before you proclaim the fact of a festival. It is good that
   your faith should grasp the exceedingly great and precious promises,
   and then, when you run as a tidings-bearer, you will testify what you
   have seen. If any say to you, "Are you sure that it is true?" you will
   answer, "Yes, that I am, for I have tasted and handled of the good Word
   of Life." Personal enjoyments of true godliness assist us in our
   testimony for Truth and Grace.

   But the point I desire to bring out is this--if those lepers had stayed
   in the camp all night, if they had remained lying on the Syrian
   couches, singing, "Our willing souls would stay in such a place as
   this"--and if they had never gone at all to their compatriots, shut up
   and starving within the city walls, their conduct would have been
   brutal and inhuman! I am going to talk to some at this time, (I do not
   know how many of the sort may be here), who think that they have found
   the Savior, who believe that they are saved, who write themselves down
   as having truly enjoyed religion and who imagine that now their only
   business is to enjoy themselves. They delight to feed on the Word of
   God and to this I do not object at all. But then, if it is all feeding
   and nothing comes of it, I ask to what end are they fed? If the only
   result of our religion is the comfort of our poor little souls--if the
   beginning and the end of piety is contained within one's self--why, it
   is a strange thing to be in connection with the unselfish Jesus and to
   be the fruit of His gracious Spirit. Surely, Jesus did not come to save
   us that we might live unto ourselves! He came to save us from
   selfishness.

   I am afraid that some of my hearers have never yet confessed the work
   of God in their souls. They feel that, whereas they were once blind,
   now they see--but they have never declared what the Lord has done for
   their souls. Has all this work been done in a corner for their personal
   pleasure? I want to have a drive at them and at all others who have not
   yet considered that the objective of their receiving Grace from the
   Lord is that God may, through them, communicate Grace to others. No man
   lives unto himself! No man should attempt so to live.

   My subject will be this--first, to hide the great discovery of Grace is
   altogether wrong. In the second place, if we have made that discovery,
   we ought to declare it. And, thirdly, this declaration should be
   continually made. It should not be a

   matter of one solemn occasion, but our whole life should be a witness
   to the power and Grace which we have found in

   Christ!

   I. First, then, dear Friends, TO HIDE THE DISCOVERY OF DIVINE GRACE
   WOULD BE WRONG.

   Let me ask you to remember the connection of my text. God had come to
   the Syrian camp and had, by Himself, routed the whole Syrian host--they
   had, every man of them, fled. Though the starving citizens of Samaria
   did not know it, the Lord had made provision in abundance for all their
   hunger--and there it was--within a stone's throw of the city gates. The
   Lord had done it! His own right hand and His holy arm had gotten Him
   the victory and had provided for Israel's needs though they did not
   know it. These lepers found out the joyful facts and had utilized their
   discovery by entering into possession of the treasure--they were
   appointed to make known the joyful facts--and if they had concealed
   them, they would have been guilty men.

   For, first, their silence would have been contrary to the Divine
   purpose in leading them to make the discovery. Why were these four
   lepers led into the camp that they might learn that the Lord of Hosts
   had put the enemy to the rout? Why, mainly that they might go back and
   tell the rest of their countrymen! I fear that the doctrine of election
   has too often been preached in such a way that thoughtful minds have
   objected to it upon the ground of its tendency to selfishness. Men do
   not like the doctrine, anyway, but there is no use in putting it in a
   needlessly ugly shape. Election is a fact, but a fact which relates to
   other facts! The Lord calls out of the world a people, a peculiar
   people, whom He makes to be His own--but the ultimate end of the
   election of these men is that they may gather in others! As Israel was
   chosen to preserve the Light of God for the nations, so has the Lord
   chosen His believing people that they may bring in the other sheep
   which are not yet of the fold. We are not to get within four narrow
   walls and sit and sing--

   "We are a garden walled around, Chosen and made peculiar ground! A
   little spot enclosed by Grace Out of the world's wide wilderness.'"

   Or if we do so sing, we are not to bless ourselves over and over again
   as being the end and climax of the Lord's work and wisdom! No, but
   since we are a garden walled around, we are to bring forth fruit to Him
   who owns us. We are to be a nursery ground. I know a piece of ground
   upon which some millions of young fir trees were grown, which were
   afterwards planted out upon a range of Scotch hills. Such should our
   Churches be. Though comparable in our feebleness to a handful of corn
   upon the top of the mountains, we expect that the fruit thereof shall
   shake like Lebanon and they of the city shall flourish like grass of
   the earth! We are chosen unto salvation that afterwards we may go and
   be lights to those who sit in darkness--and spiritual helps to those
   that are ready to perish. These four men were allowed to see what God
   had done so that they might run home with the cheering news! If they
   had not gone to Samaria with the tidings, they would have been false to
   the Divine purpose. And so will you be, my Brother, if you continue to
   hold your tongue! So will you be, my Sister, if you never say, "The
   Lord has done great things for me, of which I am glad." Let the purpose
   of God, for which you ought to adore Him every day, be plenteously
   fulfilled in you, and let it be seen that He has chosen you to know
   Christ that you may make Him known to others!

   These people would not only have been false to the Divine purpose, but
   they would have failed to do well. They said, one to another, "We are
   not doing right." Did it ever strike some of you, dear Friends, that it
   is a very serious charge to bring against yourselves, "We are not doing
   right"? I am afraid that many are content because they can say, "We do
   not drink. We do not swear. We do not gamble. We do not lie." Who said
   you did? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves if you did any of those
   things. But is this enough? What are you actually doing? "To him that
   knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin." I have heard of
   perfect people, but I have not seen any. If it came to acts of positive
   commission of sin, I could possibly compare notes with such Brothers
   and Sisters, for I endeavor to be blameless, and I trust I am--but when
   I remember that sins of omission are really and truly sins, I bid
   "good-bye" to all notions of perfection, for my many shortcomings
   overwhelm me!

   No man has done all the good he could have done and ought to have done.
   If any man assures me that he has done all the good that might have
   been possible for him, I do not believe him. I will say no more, but
   let us labor to avoid sins of omission. Dear Friend, if you know the
   Lord and you have never confessed His name, then you are not doing
   right. If you have been in company and you have not spoken up for
   Christ, you are not doing right. If you have had opportunities of
   telling the Gospel, even to children, and you have not done so, you are
   not doing right. It is a heavy charge, after all,

   for a man's conscience to bring against him when it forces him to join
   with others in saying, "We are not doing right." That is the reason why
   the barren fig tree was cut down. He that kept the vineyard did not
   say, "Cut it down, it bears such sour fruit." It bore no fruit at all.
   There was the point--it cumbered the ground. Take heed, oh, take heed,
   of a religion which does not make you positively do right! If all that
   your religion does is to keep you from doing mischief, it has too small
   an effect to be the religion of Jesus Christ! He asks, "What do you
   more than others? Do not even publicans do so?" God help us, then, to
   make an open declaration of what His Spirit has secretly taught us!

   Besides this, had those lepers held their tongues, they would actually
   have been doing evil. Suppose that they had kept their secret for 24
   hours--many hundreds might have died of starvation within the walls of
   Samaria. Had they so perished, would not the lepers have been guilty of
   their blood? Do you not agree with that? May not neglect be as truly
   murder as a stab or a shot? If, in your street, a man shall perish
   through not knowing the Savior and you never made an effort to instruct
   him, how will you be guiltless at the Last Great Day? If there are any
   within your reach who sink down to perdition for lack of the knowledge
   of Christ--and you could have given them that knowledge--will your
   hands be free from blood in the day when the Great Inquest shall be
   held and God shall make inquisition for the blood of Christ? I put it
   to the consciences of many silent Christians who have never yet made
   known to others what God has made known to them--how can you be clear
   from guilt in this matter?

   Do not ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" for I shall have to give you a
   horrible answer if you do! I shall have to say, "No, Cain, you are not
   your brother's keeper, but you are your brother's killer." If, by your
   effort, you have not sought his good--by your neglect you have
   destroyed him! If I were able to swim and I saw any of you in a stream,
   and I merely looked at you, and greatly regretted that you should be so
   foolish as to tumble in, but never stretched out a hand to rescue you,
   your death would lie at my door! And I am sure it is so with those who
   talk about enjoying religion and yet keep it all to themselves and
   never rescue the perishing. These are stern Truths of God. Let them go
   home where they ought to go home, and may God the Holy Spirit bless
   them!

   Again, these lepers, if they had held their tongues, would have acted
   most unseasonably. Note how they put it themselves. They said, "We are
   not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we remain silent." O
   Brothers and Sisters, has Jesus washed your sins away and are you
   silent about it? I remember the day when I first found peace with God
   through the precious blood and I declare that I was forced to tell
   somebody about it! I could not have stifled the voice within me. What,
   my dear Brother? Are you saved in the Lord with an everlasting
   salvation and can you keep the blessing to yourself? Do you not wonder
   that all the timbers in your house do not groan at you and that the
   earth itself does not open her mouth to rebuke you? Can you be such an
   ungrateful wretch as to have tasted of amazing mercy and yet to have no
   word to say by way of confessing it? Come, Brother, come, Sister,
   overcome that retiring spirit of yours and cry--"I cannot help it! I am
   driven to it! I must and will bear witness that there is a Savior, and
   a great one." Personally, I cannot hold my tongue and never will while
   I can speak--

   "Ever since by faith I saw the stream, His flowing wounds supply.
   Redeeming lo ve has been my theme, And shall be tiil I die!"

   Oh, that God would stir up every silent Christian to speak out for his
   Lord! We have had enough of the dumb spirit! Oh, for the Spirit in the
   form of tongues of fire!

   One thing more--silence may be dangerous. What did these men say? "If
   we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us." That
   morning light is very close to some of you. If you tarry till tomorrow
   morning before you have spoken about Christ, some punishment may come
   upon you. I might put it farther off on a grander scale. There is a
   morning light which will soon be seen over yon gloomy hills of
   darkness--how soon, we cannot tell--but our Master has bid us to be
   always on the watch for it. In such an hour as we think not, He will
   come, and when He comes, it will be to reward His faithful servants.
   There is a text which speaks of our not being ashamed at His coming.
   What a wonderful text that is! What if He were to come tonight--would
   we not be ashamed? He may come before the unformed word has quit my
   lips or reached your ears--the shrill clarion of the archangel may
   startle the dead from their graves--and the Christ may be among us on
   His Great White Throne!

   Suppose He should come tonight, and you, who have thought that you knew
   Him and loved Him, should never have sought to win a soul for Him--how
   will you face Him? How will you answer your Lord, whom you have never
   acknowl-

   edged? You knew the way of salvation and you concealed it! You knew the
   balm for the wounds of sinners and you let them bleed to death! They
   were thirsty and you gave them no draught of Living Water. They were
   hungry and you gave them no Bread of Life. Sirs, I cannot venture to
   His Judgment Seat with such a blot upon my soul! Can you? Brother, can
   you? Sister, can you? What? Your own dear children--your own flesh and
   blood--have you never prayed with them, nor sought to bring them to
   Jesus? What? The servants of your house--have you never spoken of the
   Savior to them? Your wife, your husband, your old father, your brother,
   your sister--and you have never yet opened your lips to say, "Jesus has
   saved me; I wish you were saved, too"? You might have done as much as
   that! You have said bolder things than that to them about worldly
   matters. Oh, by the love of God, or even by a lower motive, by the love
   of your fellow men, burst your bands asunder and speak out for Christ!
   Or else, if your profession is true, you are not doing right, indeed,
   and I believe there is reason to question your religion.

   Thus much upon the first point--to hide the blessed discovery would
   have been wrong for the lepers--and it would be wrong for us.

   II. Secondly, if we have made the blessed discovery of Christ's
   gracious work in routing our enemies and providing for our needs--and
   if we have tasted of the fruit of that glorious victory, ourselves--WE
   OUGHT TO MAKE A VERY EXPLICIT AVOWAL OF THAT DISCOVERY. It ought to be
   confessed very solemnly and in the way which the Lord, Himself, has
   appointed. How can we better show forth all righteousness than by being
   buried with Christ in Baptism according to His command? We ought, also,
   to unite with the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and to co-operate
   therewith in holy service. This ought to be done very decidedly,
   because our lord requires it. Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ couples
   always, with faith, the confession of it. He that with his heart
   believes and with his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be saved.
   "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." We constantly find
   the two together. The faith that saves is not a sneaking faith, which
   tries to get to Heaven by keeping off the road and creeping along
   behind the hedge. The true faith comes into the middle of the road,
   feeling, "this is the King's Highway and I am not ashamed to be found
   in it." This is the faith which Jesus expects of you, the faith which
   cries, "I have lifted my hands unto the Lord, and I will not go back."

   Next, if you have found Christ, the man who was the means of leading
   you to Christ has a claim upon you that he should know of it. Oh, the
   joy of my heart, the other day, when I saw some 24 who were my
   spiritual children! I felt, then, that I was receiving large wages at
   the Master's hands. Many get good from the minister and yet they never
   let him know of it. This is not doing as they would be done by. It is
   rather like cheating us of the reward of our ministry. To know that God
   is blessing us is a great comfort and stimulus. Do not muzzle the mouth
   of the ox that treads out the corn!

   Next, I think the Church of God has a claim upon all of you who have
   discovered the great love of Jesus. Come and tell your fellow
   Christians! Tell the good news to the King's household! The Church of
   God is often greatly refreshed by the stories of new converts. I am
   afraid that we who get over 50 come, by degrees, to be rather
   old-fogeyfied, and it is a great blessing to us to hear the cries of
   the babes in Grace and to listen to the fresh and vivid testimony of
   new converts. It stirs our blood and quickens our souls and thus the
   Church of God is benefited. If some of you old folks had been at the
   Church Meeting the other Monday evening, and heard some five little
   children, one after the other, telling what the Lord had done for their
   souls, you would have agreed with me that you could not have done it so
   well yourselves! You may know more, but you could not have stated what
   you know so simply, so sweetly, so charmingly, as those dear children
   did! One of them was but nine years old, or younger, and yet she told
   of Free Grace and dying love as clearly as if she had been 80 or
   ninety. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings the Lord ordains
   strength! Some of you have known the Lord for many years and yet you
   have never confessed Him. How wrong it is of you! How much you injure
   the Church of your Master!

   Besides that, a decided testimony for Christ is due to the world. If a
   man is a soldier of the Cross and does not show his colors, all his
   comrades are losers by his lack of decision. There is nothing better
   for a man, when he is brought to Christ, than for him to decidedly
   express his faith and let those about him know that he is a new man.
   Unfurl your standard! Decision for Christ and holiness will save you
   from many dangers and ward off many temptations. Compromise creates a
   life of misery. I would sooner be a toad under a rock than be a
   Christian man who tries to conceal his Christianity! It is sometimes
   difficult, in this age, for a man to follow his conscience, for you are
   expected to run with a party. But I am of this mind--that I would
   sooner die than not live a free man. It is not life to have to ask
   another man's permission to think. If

   there is any misrepresentation, if there is any scorn, if there is any
   contempt for being a Christian, let me have my share of it, for a
   Christian I am, and I wish to be treated like the rest.

   If all Christians came out and declared what the Lord has done for
   their souls, the world would feel the power of Christianity and would
   not think of it as men now do, as though it were some petty
   superstition of which its own votaries were ashamed! If, indeed, you
   are soldiers of the Cross, bear your shields into the light of day and
   be not ashamed of your Captain! What can there be to make us blush in
   the service of such a Lord? Be ashamed of shame, and quit yourselves
   like men!

   Your open confession is due all round and it is specially due to
   yourself. It is due to your spiritual manhood that if the Lord has done
   anything for you, you should gratefully acknowledge it! It is also due
   to your love of others--and love of others is of the very essence of
   Christianity--that you should explicitly declare that you are on the
   Lord's side. What more shall I say? What more need I say? I would sound
   the trumpet and summon to our Lord's banner all who are good men and
   true.

   III. THIS DECLARATION SHOULD BE CONTINUALLY MADE. Here I speak of many
   who have confessed

   Christ publicly and are not ashamed of His name. Beloved, we ought
   always to make Christ known, not only by our once-made profession, but
   by frequently bearing witness in support of that profession! I wish
   that we did this more among God's own people. Miss Havergal very
   admirably says, "The King's household were the most unlikely people to
   need to be instructed in this good news." So it seems at first sight.

   But, secondly, the lepers were the most unlikely persons to instruct
   the King's household and yet they did so. You and I might
   say--Christian people do not require to be spoken to about our Lord and
   His work--they know more than we do. If they do require it, who are we,
   who are less than the least of all our Master's household, that we
   should presume to instruct them? Thus even humility might check our
   bearing testimony in certain companies! If you were in the midst of
   uninstructed people, to whom you could do good, you might feel bound to
   speak, but among Christians you are apt to be dumb. Have you not said
   to yourself, "I could not speak to that good old man. He is much better
   instructed in the faith than I am"? Meanwhile, what do you think the
   aforesaid good old man is saying? He says to himself, "He is a fine
   young man, but I could not speak to him, for he has so much more
   ability than I have." Thus you are both as mute as mice when you might
   be mutually edified!

   Worse, still, perhaps you begin talking upon worthless themes--you
   speak of the weather, or of the last wretched scandal, or of politics.
   Suppose we were to change all this and each one say, "I am a Christian
   and next time I meet a Brother Christian, whether he is my superior or
   not, I shall speak to him of our common Master"? If two children meet,
   they will do well to speak of father and mother. If one is a very
   little child, he may know but little about his father compared with the
   knowledge possessed by his big sister, but then he has kissed his
   father last and has, of late, enjoyed more caresses from his father
   than his grown-up sister has! The elder can tell more of Father's
   wisdom and goodness, but the younger has a more vivid sense of his
   tenderness and love--and so they can unite in fervent admiration.

   Why should Christian people so often meet and part without exchanging
   five words about the Lord Jesus? I am not condemning any of you. I am
   censuring myself more than anyone else. We do not bear enough testimony
   for our Lord! I am sure I felt quite taken aback the other day when a
   fireman said to me, "You believe that the Lord directs the way of His
   people, don't you, Sir?" I said, "That I do. Do you know anything about
   it?" "Why," he said, "yes. This morning I was praying the Lord to
   direct my way and you engaged me--and I felt that it was a good
   beginning for the day." We directly began talking about the things of
   God! That fireman ought not to have been the first to speak! As a
   minister of the Gospel, I ought to have had the first word. We have
   much to blame ourselves for in this respect. We hold our tongues
   because we do not know how a word might be received, but we might as
   well make the experiment. No harm could come of trying. Suppose you
   were to go into a place where persons were sick and dying and you had
   medicine about you which would heal them--would you not be anxious to
   give them some of it? Would you say nothing about it because you could
   not tell how it might be received? How could you know how it would be
   received except by making the offer? Tell poor souls about Jesus! Tell
   them how His Grace healed you and, perhaps, they will answer, "You are
   the very person I need. You have brought me the news I have longed to
   hear."

   There are districts in London, to my knowledge, especially in the
   suburbs, where, if a man knocks at the door and begins to say a word
   about Christ, the poor people answer, "No one ever calls upon us to do
   us any good. We are left to

   perish." It is shameful that it should be so, but so it is. Men live
   and men die in this Christian country as much lost to the knowledge of
   the Gospel as if they had lived in the Congo! If they lived in the
   Congo, we should all subscribe to send a missionary up the river to
   tell them of Jesus and His love--even at the risk of his dying of
   fever, we should send a missionary to them--and yet those who live next
   door to our homes, or are even in our employ, are left in ignorance of
   salvation! The woman that comes in to clean; the man who sweeps up the
   mud from the street--these may know no more of Christ than Hottentots
   and yet we do not speak about Christ to them. Is not this shocking? We
   have satisfied our own hunger and now we allow others to starve!

   If I could persuade any Brother here, or any Sister here, who has
   tasted that the Lord is gracious, to shake off sinful lethargy, I would
   have done good service. Dear Friends, do let us quit indifference and
   get to work for Jesus! It is not enough to me that I should, myself,
   preach the Gospel. I would gladly turn you all out to proclaim it. Oh,
   that the thousands here assembled would go through London proclaiming
   Christ! Eternity, alone, could reveal the result of such a crusade! I
   spoke from this pulpit, once, about young Christian men who were great
   hands at cricket, but could not bowl straight at a sinner's heart. A
   gentleman who was present that day, and heard me, said, "That is true
   about me. I am a Christian, but yet I am better known as a cricketer
   than as a worker." He began to serve his Lord with his whole heart and
   he is, at this day, in the front rank of usefulness! Oh, that I could
   win another such! The multitudes of London are dying in the dark! I
   beseech you, bring them all the light you have! Myriads are perishing
   all over this United Kingdom. Hasten to their rescue! The world, also,
   remains under the power of evil. I beseech you to reclaim it!

   "I do not know anything," says one. Then do not say what you don't
   know. "Oh!" cries another, "I hope I am a Christian." Tell others how
   you became a Believer and that will be the Gospel. You need not study a
   book and try to make a sermon with three heads and a tail--just go home
   and say to your biggest boy--"John, I want to tell you how your father
   found a Savior." Go home to that sweet little daughter of yours and
   say, "Dear Sarah, I want to tell you how Jesus loves me." Before the
   morning light you may have had the joy of seeing your dear children
   brought to the Savior if, this very evening, you talk to them out of
   the fullness of your heart!

   Only this I say to you--if you do not love my Master, then turn from
   your evil ways! If you have not trusted Jesus, trust Him at once and
   find salvation full and free! When you have found that salvation, then
   publish the tidings of it. By the love of Him that bled upon the
   Cross--by every drop of blood from His pierced heart, awaken yourselves
   to serve Him with all your might! Either with tongue or with pen, tell
   of the love of Jesus--

   "Tell it out among the heathen, That He reigns from the tree!"

   Sound it forth everywhere beneath yon arch of Heaven that Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners. And add, "He has saved me." God
   bless you!
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Longsuffering: An Appeal to the Conscience

   Delivered in the Autumn of 1886, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [6]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation."— 2 Peter
   3:15.

   JESUS IS WELL CALLED "our Lord," let us at the commencement adore him.
   Let us each one cry to him, "My Lord, and my God." It is a long, time
   since our Lord went up to heaven, and he said that he would come again.
   Evidently, some of those who best understood him misunderstood him, and
   thought that he would surely come again even in their lifetime. He said
   that he would come, and faithful ones in all ages have looked for him,
   and it is not possible that our Lord can have deceived us. Because he
   is so sweetly our Lord, our brethren have made sure that he will keep
   his word; and he will. But certain of them have gone beyond our Lord's
   promise, and have felt sure that they knew when he would come; and they
   have been bitterly disappointed because the hour which they fixed
   passed over, and he did not appear. This does not prove that he will
   not come. The day is certainly nearer, and every hour is hastening his
   coming. "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him."

   But why are his chariots so long in coming? Why does he delay? The
   world grows grey, not alone with age, but with iniquity; and yet the
   Deliverer comes not. We have waited for his footfall at the dead of
   night, and looked out for him through the gates of the morning, and
   expected him in the heat of the day, and reckoned that he might come
   ere yet another sun went down; but he is not here! He waits. He waits
   very, very long. Will he not come?

   Longsuffering is that which keeps him from coming. He is bearing with
   men. Not yet the thunderbolt! Not yet the riven heavens and the reeling
   earth! Not yet the great white throne, and the day of judgment; for he
   is very pitiful, and beareth long with men! Even to the cries of his
   own elect, who cry day and night unto him—he is not in haste to
   answer,-for he is very patient, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

   But his patience sometimes greatly puzzles us. We cannot make it out.
   Eighteen, nineteen centuries, and the world not converted! Nineteen
   centuries, and Satan still to the front, and all manner of iniquity
   still wounding this poor, bleeding world! What meaneth it? O Son of
   God, what meaneth it? Seed of the woman, when wilt thou appear with thy
   foot upon the serpent's head? We are puzzled at the longsuffering which
   causes so weary a delay.

   One of the reasons is that we have not much longsuffering ourselves. We
   think that we do well to be angry with the rebellious, and so we prove
   ourselves to be more like Jonah than Jesus. A few have learned to be
   patient and pitiful to the ungodly, but many more are of the mind of
   James and John, who would have called fire from heaven upon those who
   rejected the Savior. We are in such a hurry. We have not the eternal
   leisure of God. We have but to live, like ephemera, our little day, and
   therefore we are in hot haste to see all things accomplished ere the
   sun goes down. We are but leaves in the forest of existence; and if
   something is not done soon, and done quickly, we shall fade, and pass
   away amid unaccomplished hope; and so we are not patient. We are
   staggered when the Master tells us to forgive unto seventy times seven.
   When he forgives unto seventy times seven, and still waits, and still
   holds back his thunders, we are amazed, because our mind is not in
   harmony with the mind of the Infinitely-patient God.

   We are all the more puzzled, again, because the ungodly so sadly misuse
   this longsuffering of God as a reason for greater sin, and as a motive
   for denying that there is a God at all. Because he gives them space for
   repentance, they make it into space for iniquity; and because he will
   not deal out his judgments immediately, they say, "Where is the promise
   of his coming?"

   We have impatiently wished that he would break the silence. Have I not
   in my heart of hearts cried out, "O Lord, how long? Can this go on much
   longer? Canst thou bear it? Wilt thou not come with the iron rod,
   breaking thy foes before thy face, most mighty Son of God?" It is hard
   to have the days of blasphemy and rebuke multiplied upon us, and to
   hear the adversary say in every corner, "Where is now their God?" Yet,
   dear friends, we ought not to be affected by the hissing of these
   serpents. Surely we would not have our God change his purposes because
   of the foolish taunts of men. One said, "If there be a God, let him
   strike me dead"; but God did not smite him, and from this he argued
   that there was no God: from the same fact I argue that there is a God,
   and that this God is truly God; for, if he had been less than divine,
   he might have struck him dead; but, being infinitely patient, he bore
   with him still. Who was that speck that he should cause God to move
   hand or foot even to crush him? God is not easily moved, even by the
   blasphemies of the ungodly. He may be provoked one of these days, for
   longsuffering has its end, but for a while the Lord pauseth in pity,
   not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
   repentance.

   Beloved brethren, Gods longsuffering with a guilty world he may never
   explain to us. There are many things which we must not ask to have
   explained. We get into deep waters, and into terrible troubles, when we
   must have everything explained. For my part, I like to believe great
   truths which are beyond my reason. A religion without mysteries seems
   to me to be false on the face of it. If there be an Infinite God, it is
   not possible that poor I, with my finite mind, shall ever be able to
   understand everything about him. If the Lord chooses to tarry till
   thousands of years have passed away, yea, till millions of years have
   elapsed, yet let him do as he wills. Is he not infinitely wise and
   good; and who are we that we should put him to the question? Let him
   tarry his own time; only let us watch, and wait, for he will come, and
   they that wait for him shall have their reward.

   At this time I am going to speak a little upon this point. First, let
   us admire the longsuffering of God. And, secondly, let us make a right
   account of it by accounting it to be salvation.

   I. First, I would conduct your minds hurriedly over a few points that
   may help you to ADMIRE THE LONGSUFFERING OF GOD.

   Admire the longsuffering of God as to peculiar sins. Look, brethren,
   they make images of wood or stone, and they say, "these are God," and
   they set up these things in the place of him that made the heavens and
   the earth. How does he endure to see reasonable beings bowing down
   before idols, before fetishes, before the basest objects? How does he
   bear that men should even worship emblems of impurity, and say that
   these are God? How does he bear it—he that sitteth in the heavens, in
   whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways?

   Others, even in this country, blaspheme God. What an amount of
   profanity is poured out before God in this city! One can scarcely walk
   the streets to-day without hearing horrible language. An oath has often
   chilled me to the marrow—an oath which was not excused by any special
   circumstance, but rolled out of the man's mouth as a customary thing.
   We have to-day some among us that might match the devil in blasphemy,
   so foully do they talk. And oh, how is it that God bears it when they
   dare imprecate his curse upon their bodies and their souls? O Father,
   how dost thou bear it? How dost thou endure these profane persons, who
   insult thee to thy face?

   Besides, there are those who use fair speech, and yet blaspheme most
   intolerably. Men of education and of science are often worse than the
   common folk because they blaspheme with fearful deliberation, and
   solemnly speak against God, and against his Son, and against the
   precious blood, and against the Holy Ghost. How is it that the
   Thrice-holy One bears with them? Oh, wondrous longsuffering of a
   Gracious God!

   And then there are others who wallow in unmentionable impurity and
   uncleanness. No, I will not attempt any description, nor would I wish
   to take your thoughts to those things whereof men may blush to think,
   though they blush not to do them. The moon sees a world of foulness,
   fornication, and adultery: and yet, O God, thou bearest it! This great
   blot upon the face of the world, this huge city of London reeks in its
   filthiness, and yet thou holdest thy peace!

   And then, when I turn my thoughts another way, to the oppression of the
   poor, to the grinding down of those who, with the hardest labor, can
   scarcely earn bread enough to keep body and soul together, how does the
   Just God permit it? When I mark the oppression of man by man—for among
   wild beasts there is none that equals the cruelty of man to man—how
   doth the All-merciful bear it? Methinks the sword of the Lord must
   often rattle in its scabbard, and he must force it down, and say,
   "Sword of the Lord, rest and be quiet!"

   I will not go further, because the list is endless. The wonder is that
   a Gracious God should continue to bear all this! Think of the sin
   involved in false teaching. I stood one day at the foot of Pilate's
   staircase, in Rome, and saw the poor creatures go up and down, on their
   knees, on what they are taught was the very staircase on which the Lord
   Jesus Christ stood before Pilate. I noticed sundry priests looking on,
   and I felt morally certain that they knew it to be an imposture. I
   thought that if the Lord would lend me his thunderbolts about five
   minutes, I would make a wonderful clearance thereabouts: but he did
   nothing of the kind. God is not in haste as we are. Sometimes it does
   suggest itself to a hot spirit to wish for speedy dealing with
   iniquity: but the Lord is patient and pitiful.

   Especially notice, next, that this longsuffering of God is seen in
   peculiar persons. In certain persons sins are greater than the same
   sins would be in other people. They have been favored with a tender
   conscience, and with good instruction, so that when they sin they sin
   with a vengeance. I have known some who have stood at God's altar, and
   have gone forth from his temple to transgress; they have been Levites
   of his sanctuary, and yet first in villanies. Yet the Lord spares the
   traitors, and lets them live.

   It is wonderful that God should have such longsuffering when we look at
   the peculiar circumstances under which some men sin. Some men sin
   against God wilfully, when they have no temptation to it and can plead
   no necessity. If the poor man steals, we half forgive him; but some do
   so who have all that heart could wish. When the man driven to extremity
   has said the thing that was not true, we have half excused him; but
   some are wilful liars, with no gain or profit therein. Some sin for the
   sheer love of sin, not for the pleasure they gain by it, nor for the
   profit they hope from it, but for mere wantonness. Born of godly
   parents, trained as you were in the very school of godliness, made to
   know, as you do know in your own conscience, the Lord Jesus to be the
   Son of God, when you sin against him, there is a painful emphasis in
   your transgressions. I speak to some who may well wonder that they are
   yet alive after having sinned with such gross aggravations.

   Some manifest the longsuffering of God very wonderfully in the length
   of time in which they have been spared to sin. Many men are provoked by
   one offense, and think themselves miracles of patience if they forget
   it. But many have provoked God fifty, sixty, seventy, perhaps eighty
   years. You could not stand eighty minutes of provocation, and yet the
   Lord has put up with you throughout a lifetime. You tottered into this
   house to-night. You might have tottered more if you had remembered the
   weight of sin that creases to you. Yet the mercy of God spares you.
   Still, with outstretched arms, infinite mercy bids you come and receive
   at the hand of God your pardon bought with the blood of Jesus Christ.
   This longsuffering of God is marvellous.

   Remember that it would be easy on God's part to be rid of you. There is
   a text where he says, "Ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries." Some
   men bear because they cannot help it. They are obliged to submit; but
   God is not in that condition. One wish, and the sinner will never
   provoke him any more, nor refuse his mercy again. He will be gone out
   of the land of hope. Therefore, I say, the longsufffering of God is
   enhanced in its wonderfulness by the fact that he is under no necessity
   to exercise it except that which springs out of his own love.

   I beg all of you who are unconverted to think earnestly upon God's
   longsufffering to you in permitting you to be here, still to hear from
   the cross of Christ the invitation, "look unto me, and be ye saved, all
   the ends of the earth."

   II. Secondly, let us take THE RIGHT ACCOUNT OF THE LONGSUFFERING OF
   GOD. "Account that the longsufffering of our Lord is salvation." What
   does this mean?

   Does it not mean, first, as to the saving of the many? The Lord Jesus
   Christ is, as I believe, to have the pre-eminence. I think that he will
   have the pre-eminence in the number of souls that will be saved as
   compared with those that will be lost; and that can scarcely be
   effected except by a lapse of time in which many will be brought to
   Christ. I am not, however, going into any speculations. I look at it
   this way. As long as this old hulk keeps beating up against the rocks,
   as long as she does not quite go down into the sea of fire, it means
   man's salvation. It means, "Out with the lifeboat! Man the lifeboat,
   and let us take off from her all that we can, and bring them to shore."
   God calls upon us, until the world is utterly destroyed with fire, to
   go on saving men with all our might and main. Every year that passes is
   meant to be a year of salvation. We rightly call each year "the year of
   our Lord"; let us make it so by more and more earnest efforts for the
   bringing of sinners to the cross of Christ. I cannot think that the
   world is spared to increase its damnation. Christ came not to destroy
   the world, but that the world through him might be saved; and so, as
   every year rolls by, let us account it salvation, and spend and be
   spent in the hope that by any means we may save some.

   And if we can indulge a brighter hope still that the kingdom of Christ
   shall come, and that multitudes shall be converted, and that the earth
   shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea,
   so let it be. But ever let this be to the front—that this
   longsufffering of God means salvation, and at that we are to aim.

   So, dear friends, in the second place, the next meaning of this is to
   any of you who are unconverted. I want you to account that the
   longsuffering of God in sparing you means to you salvation. Why are you
   here to-night? Surely it is salvation. I met years ago a soldier who
   had ridden in the charge of Balaclava. He was one of the few that came
   back when the saddles were emptied right and left of him. I could not
   help getting into a corner, and saying to him, "Dear sir, do you not
   think that God has some design of love to you in sparing you when so
   many fell? Have you given your heart to him?" I felt that I had a right
   to say that. Perhaps I speak to some of you who were picked off a wreck
   years ago. Why was that? I hope it was that you might be saved. You
   have had a fever lately, and have hardly been out before. You have come
   hither to-night, still weakly, scarcely recovered. Why were you saved
   from that fever when others were cut down? Surely it must mean
   salvation. At any rate, the God who was so pitiful as to spare you, now
   says to you, "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee,
   and thou shalt glorify me." When Master Bunyan was a lad, he was so
   foolhardy that, when an adder rose against him, he took it in his hand,
   and plucked the sting out of its mouth, but he was not harmed. It was
   his turn to stand sentinel at the siege of Nottingham, and as he was
   going forth, another man offered to take his place. That man was shot,
   and Master Bunyan thus escaped. We should have had no "Pilgrim's
   Progress" if it had not been for that. Did not God preserve him on
   purpose that he might be saved? There are special interpositions of
   divine providence, by which God spares ungodly men, whom he might have
   cut down long ago as cumberers of the ground: should we not look upon
   these as having the intention that the barren tree may be cared for yet
   another year, if haply it may bring forth fruit? Some of you who are
   here tonight are wonders to yourselves that you are still in the land
   of the living—I pray you account the longsuffering of God to be
   salvation. See salvation in it. Be encouraged to look to Christ, and,
   looking to him, you shall find salvation, for "there is life in a look
   at the Crucified One." Account God's longsuffering to be salvation to
   you if to no one else.

   God's longsuffering is one of the great means by which he works for the
   salvation of his elect. He will not let them die till first they live
   to God. He will not suffer them to pass into eternity till first his
   infinite love has justified them through the righteousness of Christ.

   Thus I have said what I hope may be embraced by some here present.

   But I must finish. This text seems to me to have a bearing upon the
   people of God. Indeed, it is for them that it is written. "Account that
   the longsuffering of God is salvation."

   I must turn the text to give you really what lies in it. God hears the
   cry going up from his own elect, and it is written, "Shall not God
   avenge his own elect, though he bear long with them?" That long
   forbearance of God brings to his own people much of trouble, pain,
   sorrow, much of amazement and soul distress. Brother, you must learn to
   look upon that as salvation. I hear you say, "What mean you?" I mean
   this. The very fact that you are made to groan and cry by reason of
   God's longsuffering to guilty men gives you sympathy with Christ, and
   union with Christ, who endured such contradiction of sinners against
   himself. Reckon that in being brought into harmony, sympathy, oneness
   with Christ, through enduring the result of the divine longsuffering,
   you find salvation. It is salvation to a man to be put side by side
   with Christ. If you have to bear the jests and gibes of the ungodly—if
   God spares them, and permits them to persecute you, be glad of it, and
   reckon it as salvation, for now you are made partaker of Christ's
   sufferings. What more salvation do you desire?

   Remember, too, that when the ungodly persecute the righteous, they give
   them the mark of salvation, for of old it was so. He that was born
   after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit. If you
   were never reviled, if you were never slandered or traduced, who would
   know that you are a Christian? But when, through the longsuffering of
   God with the ungodly, you are made to suffer, account it to be a mark
   of your salvation. "Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your
   reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before
   you."

   Once more: reckon the longsuffering of God, when it permits the ungodly
   to slander and injure you, as salvation, because it tends to your
   salvation by driving you nearer to the Lord. It prevents your making
   your home in this world. It forces you to be a stranger and a
   foreigner. It compels you to go without the gate bearing Christ's
   reproach, and so, in this way, that which seemed so hard to bear brings
   salvation to you.

   Wherefore, comfort one another, dear children of God. Be not over
   cast-down and troubled because of your Lord's delaying his coming, for
   he will yet help you, and you shall be delivered.

   If the Lord has shown longsuffering to any of you, and yet you have
   never repented or turned to him, do so to-night. "The harvest is past,
   the summer is ended, and you are not saved." But, oh, that you might be
   saved ere this service ends! The leaves are falling from the trees
   thick and fast, and ere you fall from the tree of this mortal life,
   think of your God, and turn to him, and live. "Believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." May he snatch you from the
   burning! Amen, and amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— 2 Peter 3.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"—174, 529, 513.
     __________________________________________________________________

Not Bound Yet

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY DECEMBER 18, 1887,
   DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the
   Word of God is not bound." 2 Timothy 2:9.

   YOU will observe, if you read the preceding verse, which, indeed, it
   would be wrong to sever from the text, that the doctrine of the
   Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was the sheet anchor of Paul's
   comfort, as it was the great substance of his preaching. "Remember that
   Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according
   to my Gospel: wherein I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto
   bonds; but the Word of God is not bound." Perhaps we do not give
   sufficient prominence to the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead. Possibly, also, for this reason we do not fully
   grasp the idea of "the power of His Resurrection." Our Lord's death was
   not the close of His career--He still passed onward. From the Cross to
   the sepulcher was still forward. With weeping and mourning they laid
   Him in the tomb--surely that was the finis of His course. Ah, no, He
   passed into the grave, it is true, but He also passed through it! The
   grave had hitherto seemed a cul-de-sac--a blind alley from which there
   was no exit. All the footsteps pointed to entrance, but none to return.
   It looked like a dread abyss swallowing all and offering passageway to
   none.

   Look what our Lord Jesus has done! He has made a tunnel of it for all
   His redeemed to pass into the Kingdom of God--we enter at the grave to
   emerge in the resurrection into eternal life! In this lies part of the
   power of His Resurrection, that He has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to
   all Believers. It looked like an iron door or gate of death, but He has
   unhinged it, yes, He has taken it quite away. The grave was once "a
   charnel house to fence the relics of lost innocence," but it is so no
   longer--the imprisoning stone is rolled away! By passing through death,
   our Lord has made a thoroughfare for us. We take death and the grave in
   transit, now--they do not hinder our advance to Glory, immortality and
   eternal life! Our course is always onward, whatever may lie in the way!

   In the strength of that Truth of God, Paul, when he found himself in
   prison, expected to come out of it. When he saw great difficulties in
   the way to Heaven, he expected to go through those difficulties and to
   come out with gain at the further end thereof. This helped to cheer him
   in his darkest moments. His brave heart thus spoke within him and said,
   "What if I should be even dead and buried, I shall rise again! And if
   the Gospel should seem dead and buried, yet it will rise again! And if
   the particular cause which I am advocating in Rome should seem dead and
   buried, yet it must come to life again. I take courage from the great
   Truth of God that the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead according to
   my Gospel."

   Friends, I think we, too, may encourage ourselves in our hour of
   sorrow. From the tomb of our Lord, we may gather gems of comfort!
   Though He died, yet He is dead no longer! And though He was buried, yet
   the sepulcher could not hold Him--and that same victorious power which
   brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd
   of the sheep, will also bring all His sheep with Him in due
   time--though they, also, shall descend into the same darkness of the
   tomb--

   "Vain the stone, the watch, the seal Christ has burst the gates of
   Hell! Death in vain forbids His rise, Christ has opened Paradise. Lives
   again our glorious King! 'Where, O death, is now your sting?' Once He
   died our souls to save! 'Where's your victory, boasting grave?'

   Soar we now where Christ has led, Following our exalted Head; Made like
   He, like He we rise; Ours the cross, the grave, the skies."

   I like much this self-forgetting sentence of the Apostle, "I suffer
   trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not
   bound." He is shut up in the gloomy dungeon at Rome. No hideous cells
   could be worse than Roman dungeons usually were. No prison is a
   desirable place, but a Roman prison was a very vestibule of death. Paul
   is not only in prison, but in bonds! His right arm is chained to the
   left hand of a soldier. He cannot do anything except under the
   inspection of his enforced companion, who, kindly as he may be
   disposed, cannot be so closely bound to him without causing him much
   discomfort. One would not like to be chained to the best man that ever
   lived, but much less to a rough Roman soldier! Paul is in bonds as he
   writes. His fetters clank, but he makes light of them and finds more
   than sufficient comfort in the reflection, "I suffer as an evildoer,
   even unto bonds; but the Word of God is not bound."

   I am going to talk to you upon that point with as much brevity as I
   can. First, I call your attention to this grand Truth, that the Word of
   God is not bound--in what sense is this true? And, secondly, for what
   reasons is this true? And, thirdly, what other facts run parallel to
   this fact, that though the preacher is bound, yet the Word he preaches
   is not bound?

   I. First, then, IN WHAT SENSE IS IT TRUE that, "the Word of God is not
   bound"? Possibly a meditation upon this text may revive the spirits of
   some who are cast down. May the Holy Spirit, Himself, bless the subject
   to us!

   That the Word of God is not bound, is, at this time, true in many
   senses. And, first, it is not bound so that it cannot be preached. Paul
   could preach it even when in bonds and he did preach it, so that the
   Gospel was made known throughout Caesar's palace--and there were saints
   in the imperial household! Many came to and fro into the Praetorian
   guard-room and heard the Word from the mouth of the Apostle. You may be
   quite sure that he never neglected to make known the message of the
   Gospel to all that visited him in his prison, so that the Word of God
   was not bound, even, with respect to himself!

   And, dear Friends, whatever saddens us at this hour, we rejoice that
   the Word of God still finds a tongue and a voice with which to speak to
   the multitudes. That Word of God which, when there was nothing, spoke
   everything into existence, would still be able to speak for itself if
   not a single tongue voluntarily yielded itself to give forth speech for
   God! But, at the same time there are many tongues which gladly proclaim
   the glorious Grace of God, the Word of God is not bound by reason of
   the lack of men to make it known--the true Apostolic succession
   continues among us and, "Christ is preached." That everlasting Gospel
   will never be silenced! It will still be proclaimed to the ends of the
   earth and to the end of time. It shall never cease to bless the world
   so long as the sea pulses with tides and time is checkered with night
   and day--

   "Nor shall Your spreading Gospel rest,

   Till through the world Your truth has run;

   Till Christ has all the nations blest

   That see the light, or feel the sun." "The Word of God is not bound."
   Nineteen centuries after Paul, we still have an open Bible and a free
   pulpit. Blessed be God for this!

   There have been a great many attempts to bind the Word of God, but yet
   it has not been bound. The preachers of the holy faith of Christ have
   been hunted to death. They have "wandered about in sheepskins and
   goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented"--but, "the Word of God has
   not been bound." When Hamilton was burned in Scotland, there was such
   an impetus given to the Gospel through his burning that the adversaries
   of the Gospel were known to say, "Let us burn no more martyrs in
   public, for the smoke of Hamilton's burning has made many eyes to smart
   until they were opened." So, no doubt, it always was! Persecution is a
   red hand which scatters the white wheat far and wide. I need not remind
   you how the ashes of God's martyred servant, cast into a brook, were
   borne onward to a river and afterwards to the sea--and by the sea they
   were carried to every shore! The Word of God is not bound by the
   binding of the preachers, but it happens to the persecuted as to Israel
   in Egypt--"The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied."
   Probably the Church of God has never had better times, certainly she
   has never had happier times, than during periods of persecution! These
   were the days of her purity and, consequently, her glory. When she has
   been in the dark, God has been her

   light--and when she has been driven to and fro by the cruelties of
   men--then has she most effectually rested under the shadow of the
   Almighty!

   "The Word of God is not bound" so as to be no longer a living, working
   power among men. Sometimes the enemies of the Truth of God have thought
   that they had silenced the last witness and then there has been an
   unexpected outburst-- and the old faith has been to the front again.
   When in Scotland, under the reign of Moderates, the Gospel seemed to
   have died out, one earnest man, by Providence, fell in with a little
   book, Fisher's, "Marrow of Divinity." He was enlightened as to the pure
   Truth of God, began, at once, to preach it and found thousands to
   rejoice in it! That marrow has never been taken away from Scotland's
   bones ever since, nor can it, nor shall it, let the devil do what he
   may! A desperate and subtle attempt is now being made, but it will be
   assuredly foiled through the Wisdom of God. Yet, if it should come to
   this, that they should get rid of all the preachers of the Gospel--of
   the men who would thunder out God's Word like Boanerges, or speak it
   out in tender tones as Barnabas--if the last of the faithful testifiers
   were consigned to the tomb, God would be sure to raise up another
   generation to publish His Truth, so that the Word of God would not lack
   a spokesman in the midst of the earth! The devil's work is never
   done--one word from the Lord--and it is all undone in an instant!

   The enemies of the Gospel have also attempted to bind it by the burning
   of books. I have in my possession an early copy of Luther's sermons and
   I was told how very rare it was because, at first, the circulation was
   forbidden, and afterwards they were bought up and burned as soon as
   they were met with. And what did they do? They only put fire into
   Luther when they burned his sermons--they drove him to be more
   outspoken than he otherwise might have been--and so they helped the
   cause they thought to destroy! It is impossible that the Truth of God
   can die. It has about it the Immortality of God. It is utterly
   impossible that the Truth of the Gospel shall die, since it is wrapped
   up in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns forever!
   He must see of the travail of His soul and must be satisfied for all
   the scoffs and agonies He has endured. Neither will less content Him
   than a Kingdom in which all others shall be merged.

   "The Word of God is not bound." It will still be preached despite the
   scoffs of philosophers and the roaring of devils. Do not, therefore, at
   any time sit down in despair because of evil times, for the times are
   always evil in one respect or another! Do not imagine that the Truth of
   God will become extinct and that the simple Gospel will be forgotten.
   Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God's Word shall never pass away!
   If the Gospel which we hold is of men, it will be over-thrown--and let
   it be--let us see it die without regret! But if it is of God, none can
   overcome it and woe unto those who set themselves to do so! If these
   things are so, why are we so timorous? If our Gospel is, as some think,
   only man's voice, it shall die down into the eternal silences. But if
   it come from Heaven, it shall increase into the everlasting chorus of
   Heaven! Error shall be blown away like smoke from the chimney, or like
   March dust in the north wind--but God's own Word is as eternal as God
   Himself! As the sun is not blown out by the tempest, nor the moon
   quenched by the damp of the night, so is not the Gospel destroyed by
   the sophistries of perverse minds! Therefore, let us comfort one
   another with these words, "The Word of God is not bound." It will be
   preached till doomsday!

   Another sense must be remembered--the Word of God is not bound so that
   it cannot reach the heart. You may have, perhaps, dear Friend, some
   very obdurate relative about whose salvation you have very great
   concern. You have prayed long and have used the means within your reach
   perseveringly. You have also used extraordinary means and you have
   looked for an immediate result. But as yet the hard heart does not
   melt. As yet you see no tear of repentance and hear no cry of faith
   and, moreover, it may be that your friend refuses to go and hear the
   Gospel and appears to be more opposed to it than before! I see that you
   are beginning to be bound in spirit, for the hot tears force up your
   eyelids and scald their way down your cheeks while I mention the
   painful subject. You are hardly able to speak a good word, however much
   you desire it, for you have so often been repulsed. I think I hear you
   complaining to the Lord in prayer and saying--

   "But feeble my compassion proves, And can but weep where most it loves;
   Your own all-sa ving arm employ, And turn these drops of grief to joy."

   But oh, remember that "the Word of God is not bound!" God has ways of
   reaching the hardest hearts and melting them--and He can do it in a
   moment when such a work is least expected! He has ways of making His
   servants draw the bow at what to them is a venture, but to Him is an
   absolute certainty--and between the joints of the harness the shaft of
   conviction finds its way! Do not give anybody up in despair! While God
   is almighty, have hope for the chief of sinners! Hope on, hope always,
   even when your last argument seems to have failed and your last
   instruction has been refused. It is

   well that it should be so, that in the work of salvation God may have
   all the glory and you may learn to love Him and trust Him all the
   better in years to come. "The Word of God is not bound."

   Sometimes it happens to those whom we love that they are removed from
   the means of Grace, but even then the Word of God is not bound. We
   thought full surely, while we could take them to hear the minister whom
   God blessed to us, that they were within the reach of God's Grace. But
   now they have gone away and our spirit sinks. At this hour, perhaps,
   they are on the sea, or you have had a letter telling you that they
   live in a place remote from Gospel preaching. You sigh within your soul
   and think, "Oh, now they cannot be saved!" But the Word of God is not
   bound! Had we not, a little while ago, an instance of one whom we were
   praying for at a Prayer Meeting and that night, while we were praying,
   it was a moonlight night, and as he was walking the deck of the ship,
   the Lord met with him? When no tongue was able to reach him, the memory
   of what he had heard at home came over his soul and he was humbled
   before God!

   I was telling, just a little while ago, at our Prayer Meeting, a very
   singular instance of how, just lately, three or four sermons on Sunday
   evenings have been made most useful to a young friend. He was going
   away to Australia unconverted and without God. He went on board to
   depart and when the vessel steamed out of dock, it ran into another
   ship and he was obliged to wait and spend almost a month here while the
   vessel was being repaired. The Lord met with him on those Sunday nights
   and he has gone, now, leaving in his mother's heart the sweet
   persuasion that he has found his mother's God! The God of all Grace has
   ways of getting at human hearts when, to our thinking, every avenue is
   fast closed! He can reach the poor in the slums of London. He can reach
   the harlot in her chambers of iniquity. He can touch the most debauched
   man in town in his lordly mansion. There is not a soldier who has gone
   into the ranks for the sake of hiding away from God and indulging his
   passions, but what the Lord can conquer him! There is not a runaway
   thief but what the Lord can find him when the police cannot! He knows
   just where His fugitives are--His warrants are out against them and
   when the time comes, His Grace will arrest them--

   "Thus the eternal counsel ran, 'Almighty Grace, arrest that man'!" And
   he was arrested, though he never thought that he should be made to turn
   to God and seek eternal life. "The Word of God is not bound." It goes
   forth conquering and to conquer!

   But sometimes we are apt to think a case is more hopeless, still, when,
   in addition to natural depravity and the absence of the means of Grace,
   there springs up a skepticism, perhaps a downright derision of the Word
   of God and of things sacred. One is apt to think, then, "It is all over
   now. It is of no further use praying for such an one." I am not so sure
   that the case is any the worse for being openly declared and honestly
   described. Nothing is more deadly than absolute indifference and,
   sometimes, when a man begins to avow himself an infidel, it is only
   that his conscience is troubling him and he is obliged to take some
   drug with which to stifle it--no drug is more handy for his use than
   avowed infidelity. A profession of skepticism is often nothing more
   than the whistling of the boy as he goes through the churchyard and is
   afraid of ghosts and, therefore, "whistles hard to keep his courage
   up." They try to get rid of the thought of God because of that ghost of
   conscience which makes cowards of them all! They might have professed
   to be Believers if it had not become too barefaced an inconsistency to
   live as they do and yet acknowledge God.

   I think it would be a good rule for all Christians to immediately pray
   whenever they hear a man swear. Pray for that particular man and keep
   him in your mind's eye as far as you can, hoping that he may be
   converted to God. "The Word of God is not bound." Even blasphemy and
   infidelity yield to the conquering touch of Sovereign Grace. I knew a
   man who had lived a life of carelessness and indifference, with
   occasional outbursts of drunkenness and other vices. This man happened,
   one day, on Peckham Rye, to hear a preacher say that if any man would
   ask anything of God, He would give it to him. The assertion was much
   too broad and might have done harm, but this man accepted it as a test
   and resolved that he would ask and thus would see if there really was a
   God. On the Saturday morning of that week, when he was going early to
   his work, the thought came upon him, "Perhaps there is a God, after
   all." He was ready to swoon as the possibility struck him and then and
   there he offered the test petition, concerning a matter which concerned
   himself and his fellow workmen!

   His prayer was granted in a remarkable manner and he came, then, to be
   a believer in God! He is more than that, now, and has found his way to
   be a believer in all that God has spoken and has found peace through
   believing in Jesus Christ. It struck me as wonderful that this man, who
   never had any religious care at all, should, all of a sudden, be turned

   to serve the living God! The preacher at Peckham Rye never had a more
   unlikely hearer and yet he succeeded with him! Oh, pray for them! Pray
   for them till the doors of death enclose them, till the bolts of the
   gates of eternal destiny are driven home! Pray for them! Pray for them!
   Never cease to cry to God for those who go to the utmost extremity of
   sin, for though you cannot reach them, "the Word of God is not bound."
   It is not bound, then, as to the preaching of it, nor as to its power
   to reach the heart!

   Still further, it is not bound as to its power to comfort the soul. I
   have--perhaps you have in your measure--to deal with persons under
   conviction of sin; with others who are suffering through ill health, or
   mental decline; with some who groan under Satanic temptation and
   various forms of mental trial causing awful depression of spirits. We
   have spoken to certain of them many times without being able to bring
   them the Light of God and comfort. We put the Gospel very plainly to
   them and try to place it in different lights, hoping that somehow or
   other they may see hope. Alas, we are often unable to touch the wound
   of their spirit. And, oh, how they baffle us! How frequently have we
   had to cry out, "O God, help us!" We cannot comfort these poor people.
   The man in the iron cage, described by Bunyan, is repeated many times
   over in our observation. We bring the promises. We bring the doctrines.
   We bring our own experience to bear upon such persons, but their
   despair defies our consolation! The darkness is too dense for our poor
   rushlight to remove. The captive is too closely shut up in prison for
   us to set him free.

   But here is a blessed Truth of God--"The Word of God is not bound."
   By-and-by that blessed Word of God will break into the midnight
   darkness! Let us, therefore, continue to ply the afflicted with the
   Word of God, searching out its most cheering assurances and giving them
   full and free scope. Perhaps we put too much of our own explanation
   with the Lord's own Words--perhaps we have thought that clever
   illustrations were necessary--and so have overlaid the Truth of God
   with our poor imagination! When we have come to the end of our
   explanations and our illustrations, it may be that the Word which is
   not bound will come in and give liberty to the captives! Wonderful
   cases have we seen of persons driven to despair and ready to lay
   violent hands upon themselves, who have been raised up and set at
   joyful liberty by the Word of God, of itself, alone! Oh, that some may
   prove its Divine power tonight!

   One Scripture has set many at liberty--"Him that comes to Me I will in
   no wise cast out." Hear it, think of it, believe it and be at peace. I
   think a second passage has been fruitful above all other texts--"God so
   loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
   believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Let a
   man muse on that verse till he sees his fetters turn to cobwebs and his
   prison walls dissolve like dreams! You are bound, poor sinner, but the
   Word of God is not bound! You are bound, poor preacher, but the Word of
   God is not bound! You are bound, dear mother, dear father--bound up in
   your weakness and unable to do anything for your wayward child--but the
   Word of God is not bound! It wears no bonds but it is able to take them
   from all who groan under them.

   Thus I have given you several senses of the text. There is another one.
   The Word of God is not bound in the sense that it cannot be fulfilled.
   I now allude principally to the promises and prophecies of God's Word.
   If there is a promise of deliverance to you and you cannot see the way
   in which you are to be delivered, you may not, therefore, doubt the
   promise, for that would dishonor the Lord who spoke it. The Word of God
   is not bound! The Word of God will cleave its own way and reach its own
   destination. Who makes a path for the lightning? The lightning burns
   its own instant way. Who shall make a path for the Word of God? It will
   effect its own design. Jehovah speaks and it is done. He said to the
   primeval darkness, "Let there be light!" And there was light. Now, if
   God has given a promise to you, He will as readily fulfill His Word of
   promise to the least of His people, as He will make His own Word
   effective for His own designs in Nature, Providence, or Judgment. The
   Word of God is not bound!

   You are come, perhaps, to your last penny, but He has said, "I will
   never leave you, nor forsake you." You have come to your last grain of
   strength, but He faints not, neither is He weary, and He has said, "As
   your days, so shall your strength be." And so shall it be. Oh, that we
   could believe the promises of God! We do not half believe them,
   Brothers and Sisters. We have never yet pressed the best of the wine
   out of them because we have let them lie like uncrushed bunches of
   grapes! Truly they are beautiful to look upon, like the clusters of
   Eshcol, but that is not the way to know all that is in them. Oh, that
   we had but faith to tread them in the winepress, that the ruddy juice
   might run out and we might drink and be refreshed!

   Remember that God has promised nothing beyond His strength, nothing
   beyond His will. God carries out His promise to the full! He may
   sometimes exceed it, but He certainly never falls short of it.
   Therefore, let us be comforted

   tonight with the recollection that God's Word is free to effect its own
   accomplishment. His decree is Omnipotence resolving and His Providence
   is Omnipotence acting. "The Word of God is not bound."

   There is yet one other sense. "The Word of God is not bound" so that it
   cannot endure and prevail unto the end. I know that there are those who
   think it dead and, therefore, they are anxious to attend its funeral
   and bury it out of sight, while the new theology shall dance on its
   grave. They call us poor old fogies for believing in the old
   Gospel--and tell us to go home and order our coffins--and leave the
   world to these wiser men. They begin to crow as if their work of
   defeating us had been unquestionably done. We are out of date. We are
   dead. We are extinct! Perhaps so! Perhaps so! But we think they will be
   mistaken in their imagination, for the Word of God is not defeated,
   after all. And if it were--if it were bound like the Lord Jesus and
   were taken before priests and princes to be scourged and spit upon. And
   if it were crucified among thieves and taken down from the Cross and
   laid in the tomb. And if the grave were sealed and watched by mighty
   men, yet the story would not be ended! Because the Lord lives, it would
   live again and its Resurrection power would be testified in the midst
   of its adversaries! For this Gospel, on which we have rested our souls,
   and on which our fathers rested throughout their generations, this is
   not bound!

   Who is to bind it? With what will they bind it? Green willow branches,
   ropes and bars of brass cannot hold this greater than Samson! It shall
   snap them in pieces as twigs! There is no overcoming the free Gospel!
   They dreamed that they had bound it many times before and they cried in
   mockery, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson," but they have had to
   learn its might when least they expected it and so they shall yet
   again! Philosophy and heresy are in league and they gather their armies
   in haste. The Lord shall make them as the sheaves of the threshing
   floor. Therefore, let us be of good comfort, Brothers, and rest quite
   sure that, though we are beaten, the Word of God is not beaten! And
   though we are in a minority and our preaching at a discount, it does
   not matter--"The Word of God is not bound."

   II. For a moment or two I have further to enquire, WHAT ARE THE REASONS
   WHY THE WORD OF GOD IS

   NOT BOUND? It is not bound because it is the voice of the Almighty. If
   the Gospel is, indeed, the Gospel of God, and these Truths are
   Revelations of God, Omnipotence is in them! It is not possible that the
   Omnipotent Word can be bound. Who will attempt the deed? Go bit the
   tempest! Put a chain about the hurricane, control the winds and bridle
   the raging sea! And when you have done these, you are but at the
   beginning of your task--you cannot, even then, hinder the Omnipotence
   of God which finds a chariot for itself in the Word of God and rides
   forth conquering and to conquer!

   Moreover, the Holy Spirit puts forth His power in connection with the
   Word of God and, as He is Divine, He is unconquerable! He comes as a
   rushing, mighty wind--who can stop Him? He comes as fire--who can stand
   before His flaming vehemence? The Holy Spirit's being with the Gospel
   is the reason of its great power. It is not that Truth, alone, is
   mighty and will prevail, but that the Spirit of Truth works mightily by
   it and causes it to subdue the minds of men. If we had no Holy Spirit,
   what could we do? But as He has promised to take of the things of
   Christ, and to show them to His people, while He reproves the world of
   sin, of righteousness and of judgment, we know that "the Word of God is
   not bound." The Holy Spirit manifests His own Sovereign will, doing
   what He pleases, even as the wind blows where it wishes--and this is
   the surest proof that His Word "is not bound."

   If you needed another reason less strong than these two, I should say,
   "How can it be bound while it is so necessary to men?" There are
   certain things which, if men need, they will have. I have heard say
   that in the old Bread Riots, when men were actually starving for bread,
   no word had such a terribly threatening and alarming power about it as
   the word, "Bread!" when shouted by a starving crowd. I have read a
   description by one who once heard this cry--he said he had been
   startled at night by a cry of, "Fire!" but when he heard the cry of,
   "Bread! Bread!" from those that were hungry, it seemed to cut him like
   a sword. Whatever bread had been in his possession, he must, at once,
   have handed it out.

   So it is with the Gospel--when men are once aware of their need of it,
   there is no monopolizing it. None can make "a ring" or "a corner" over
   the precious commodity of heavenly Truth. Neither can anyone put this
   candle under a bushel so as to conceal its light. It cannot be hidden
   because there are so many that need it. They are pining, these myriads
   of London, these myriads all over the world--and though they hardly
   know it--yet there is a cry coming up forever from them for something
   which they can never find except in Christ! You may depend upon it--you
   cannot stop the Gospel being preached while there is this awful hunger
   after it in the souls of men. They must have it! You cannot cheat them
   into enduring a substitute for it.

   You may set up your altars and put up your gimcrackeries, but they
   won't have them instead of the Gospel! You may preach your speculations
   and tell them "modern thought" has done away with the old Gospel, but
   as soon as the Holy Spirit shows them their state by nature and their
   future danger, they sweep all this rubbish away! As the mower lays the
   grass in swaths to dry in the sun when he has passed up and down the
   field, so will the nations of the earth sweep away the green and
   flowery growths of human philosophy--and either give them to beasts to
   eat, or cast them into the oven! When men once know what they need,
   they will have it, despite priests or princes, scientists or skeptics.
   Oh, it must be so! This dire need of men must be met--the Word of the
   Lord cannot be bound.

   I have one thing else to tell you. The Word of God is not bound
   because, when once it gets into men's hearts, it works such an
   enthusiasm in them that you cannot bind it. You cannot silence lips
   which have been touched by a live coal from off the Altar of Christ!
   When the humblest woman gets to know the Gospel, you may say, "There,
   hold your tongue about it!" But you charge her in vain! She cannot but
   speak of what the Lord has done for her. The converted man must talk to
   his work mates about it. You may say, "It would be very irregular for
   you to hold a meeting. It would be out of all character for a mere
   working man to stand up on the village green." But he is very likely to
   do it. You let the man alone--he cannot help it!

   Look at the many that gathered together in the desert in the South of
   France in the old persecuting times! Why did they thus risk their
   lives? Why did they expose themselves to be ridden down by dragoons?
   They could not help it! They were eager for the Gospel! They were in
   danger of being broken on the wheel if they preached, or listened to
   preaching, but they could not help it--they must hear the Word of the
   Lord! The preacher said, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel."
   Their adversaries tortured them and sent them to the galleys. They
   threatened them with banishment and death, but all in vain. You had
   better let them go on, for you cannot stop them! In our own land there
   was no binding the Word of God, for those who knew it felt compelled to
   spread it.

   There is Master Bunyan. They have put him in prison and his family is
   nearly starving. They bring him up and they say, "You shall go out of
   prison, John, if you won't preach. Go home and tag your laces, that is
   what you have to do, and leave the Gospel alone. What have you got to
   do with that?" But honest John answers, "I cannot help it. If you let
   me out of prison today, I will preach again tomorrow, by the help of
   God. I will lie here till the moss grows on my eyelids, but I will
   never promise to cease preaching the Gospel." They could sooner bind
   the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion, than
   govern the movements of the Spirit of God in men! The love of Christ is
   such that when it once pours into a man's heart, it must run out at his
   lips in loving testimony! Has He not put rivers of Living Water into
   the midst of those who once drink of the life-giving stream? And they
   must speak of it, even till they die!

   III. Now I come to the close. ONE OR TWO OTHER FACTS RUN PARALLEL TO
   THE TEXT. Paul is bound, but the Word of God is not bound. Read it
   thus--the preacher has had a bad week. He is full of aches and pains.
   He feels ill, but the Word of God is not ill. Oh, what a blessing that
   is! We preach a healthy Gospel even though we are unhealthy ourselves.
   In this, let the invalid rejoice! Dear suffering worker, your work
   shall not suffer, for it is a sound Gospel which you preach, though
   you, yourself, are hampered by a poor, weak body!

   "What will become of the congregation when a certain minister dies?"
   Well, he will be dead, but the Word of God is not dead. God buries His
   workmen, but His work goes on. One light goes out, but another torch
   flames forth. Star by star sinks beneath the horizon, but another star
   appears on the other side to make glad the night. The Word of God is
   not dead when the preacher is dead!

   "Oh, but the worker is so feeble!" The Word of God is not feeble. "But
   the worker feels so stupid." But the Word of God is not stupid. "But
   the worker is so unfit." But the Word of God is not unfit. You see it
   all comes to this--the preacher is bound, but the Word of God is not
   bound! The worker is feeble, but the Word of God is not feeble! You are
   nothing and nobody, but the Word of God cannot be said to be nothing
   and nobody--it is everything and everybody-- it is girt about with All
   Power.

   But you bitterly and truthfully lament that Christian men are,
   nowadays, very devoid of zeal. "All hearts are cold in every place."
   The old fire burns low. But the Word of God is not cold, nor lukewarm,
   nor in any way losing its old fire! "Such and such a congregation is as
   frozen as the North Pole." Yes, but the Word of God is not frozen!
   Divine Truth is not turned into an iceberg. Do not fret yourself into
   despair as to the condition of the Church, since the Lord lives! Things
   are bad, indeed, without His power, but then in the dark hour the Glory
   of the Lord will shine out.

   "Yes," says one, "but I am disgusted with the cases I have lately met
   with of false brethren." Yes, but the Word of God is not false. "But
   they walk so inconsistently." I know they do, but the Word of God is
   not inconsistent. "But they say they have disproved the faith." Yes,
   they have disproved their own faith, but they have not disproved the
   Word of God for all that! The Word of God is not affected by the
   falsehood of men. "If we believe not, He abides faithful; He cannot
   deny Himself." And till He denies Himself we need not make much account
   of who else denies Him.

   "Oh, but," says one, "it is an awful thing to think of the spiritual
   ruin of so many that are round about us, who hear the Gospel and yet,
   after all, willfully refuse it, and die in their sins." Truly this is a
   grievous fact. They appear to be bound by their sins like beasts for
   the slaughter, but the Word of God is not bound or injured. It was said
   of old that it would be a sweet savor unto God in them that are saved,
   and in them that perish--in the one a savor of life unto life, and in
   the other a savor of death unto death.

   Is not the fact as the Lord, Himself, forewarned us? The ungodly reject
   the Gospel, but the Gospel has not, therefore, failed. O Sinners, you
   cannot overcome God's Word! You have defeated its influence of love
   upon yourselves, but it is not defeated, after all. If you will not
   come to Christ, others will--the Spirit of the Lord shall bring them.
   Christ shall see of the travail of His soul. If you turn away from His
   precious blood and refuse the redemption that He has worked, Christ
   shall not be disappointed as to the result of His passion. He shall see
   His seed and shall prolong His days. You may bite at the Gospel, but it
   shall be as when the viper in the fable gnawed at the file and
   destroyed his teeth. You may seek to put out the Gospel light, but you
   will be thrusting your hand into the fire and your own flesh shall be
   consumed!

   Do not try to war against the Gospel! Choose some other adversary than
   the Lord God Almighty and His invincible Gospel. I pray you, cease to
   fight against the Lord, for the Word of God is not bound! However much
   you may try to bind it, you shall find that it has its liberty and it
   will, in the next world, have liberty to accuse and to condemn if you
   will not now give it liberty to persuade and to save you! God bless
   you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Timothy 2. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--184, 766, 478.

   LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:

   BELOVED FRIENDS--I would not have written this week, only you desire
   it. I have suffered much from neuralgic pain, for the weather was wet
   and windy. Today a summer's sun is shining and we hope for better
   things.

   I rejoice to hear good news of the preachers who have favored me by
   filling the pulpit in my absence. May the blessing of the Lord rest
   upon the good Seed which they have sown and on the rest of the services
   which will take place before my return! I should like to be thoroughly
   well before I return, but that is not the case just now. Still, I am
   resting and hoping and, being out of the world's wars and fights, I
   have a better opportunity for recovering tone and energy.

   Receive my hearty Christian love and my sincere thanks for all you do
   to support the work and keep me from any anxiety about it. I am sure
   that the Lord, who has provided, will provide even to the end--and
   bring glory to His name by the doing of it.

   It is an easy matter to trust when you feel bright and joyous, but we
   honor the Lord most by believing in Him when we feel depressed and
   circumstances are saddening. God is to be trusted whatever the weather
   may be, inside or out. God's Truth will prevail, even if every Apostle
   should turn out to be a Judas and every prophet a Balaam.

   In confidence in the unchanging God, let us forever abide.

   Yours in the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

   Mentone, December 9th, 1887.
     __________________________________________________________________

Small Rain for Tender Herbs

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY DECEMBER 25, 1887,
   DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As the small rain upon the tender herb." Deuteronomy 32:2.

   THIS is the language of the great Prophet, Moses, "My doctrine shall
   drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain
   upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." We read of
   Moses that he was a Prophet mighty in word and deed--he combined with
   his incomparable teaching an unequalled degree of marvelous
   miracle-working. He was equally great as a law-giver and as an
   administrator. This double power was found in no other Prophet till our
   Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, came. The other Prophets were, many of
   them, mighty in deed, but not in word. And others were mighty in word,
   but not in deed. Samuel spoke mightily in the name of the Lord, but his
   miracles were few. Elijah was a great doer, but few of his words
   remain. The combination of the two was peculiar to Moses and,
   afterwards, to Him of whom Moses had said, "The Lord your God will
   raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren,
   like unto me; unto Him you shall hearken."

   Moses was mighty, indeed, no man could have been more so. He it was
   that broke the power of Egypt by the 10 great plagues and led forth the
   once-enslaved people through the Red Sea--and fed them 40 years with
   bread from Heaven-- and formed them into a nation. Heaven and earth and
   sea seemed to be obedient to Moses! God had girded him with such
   extraordinary power, yet I greatly question whether his power of word
   was not greater than his power of action. Although he was slow of
   speech, yet with Aaron as his spokesman, he faced the terrible Egyptian
   king and so vanquished him, that he dreaded the word of Moses more than
   all the armies of the nations! In the five volumes which Moses wrote,
   which are to this day accepted by us as lying at the base of
   Revelation, Moses proved his great capacity in word. He was a master
   with his pen--he neither failed in prose nor in poetry, in law nor in
   divinity, in history nor in prophecy. Inspiration from above was his
   strength--he spoke the very Word of God which he had heard when he was
   with Him on the holy mount.

   Yet we perceive that this might of word, which dwelt in Moses,
   displayed itself frequently in a mild and gentle utterance in the text.
   He declares that his doctrine should drop as rain and distil as dew and
   that it should be "as the small rain upon the tender herb." The highest
   power is consistent with the lowliest tenderness. He that is mightiest
   in word is mighty, not so much in thunder, earthquake and fire, as in a
   silent persuasiveness! God is often most present where there is least
   of apparent force. The still, small voice had God in it when it was
   written, "The Lord was not in the wind." It is a wonderful thing,
   however, this being "mighty in word." It is perfectly marvelous how God
   uses words to accomplish great things. Remember, it is by the Incarnate
   Word that we are saved at all. It is by the Inspired Word that you are
   made to know the will of God and it is through the words by which that
   Incarnate Word is preached unto man that God is pleased to communicate
   the inner life.

   Faith comes by hearing, but there could be no hearing if there were no
   spoken words. You may wisely covet the power to speak with the words
   which God's wisdom teaches, for thus you will be an immeasurable
   blessing to your fellow men. You may well treasure up those words in
   your memory, even if you have not the gift to tell them out to others,
   for they are the wealth of the soul. You may be content to repeat the
   language of the Book of God, the ipsissima verba, the very Words of
   Inspiration, if you cannot put together sentences of your own, for the
   pure Word of God is, by itself, the best thing a man can say! And to
   repeat a text is often better than to preach a sermon from it. We
   cannot too widely scatter the actual language of the Holy Spirit, for
   we cannot tell what work the Divine utterance may perform. Thank God
   that He uses words, for thus He comes very near to us. Ask Him to open
   your own lips, that you may show forth His

   praise! And if that is not granted you, then ask Him to open your ears,
   that His Words may sink into your souls and prove a savor of life unto
   life to you.

   I intend to make three observations upon my text. Moses says that his
   doctrine should be as the small rain upon the tender herb.

   I. Our first observation is, MOSES MEANT TO BE TENDER. Moses intended,
   in the sermon he was about to preach, to be exceedingly gentle. He
   would water minds as tender herbs and water them in the same fashion as
   the small rain does. He would not be a beating hail, nor even a
   down-pouring shower, but he would be, "as the small rain upon the
   tender herb." And this is the more remarkable because he was about to
   preach a doctrinal sermon. Does he not say, "My doctrine shall drop as
   the rain"? Time was when a doctrinal sermon seemed to be most
   appropriately preached with clenched fists! The very idea of a
   doctrinal sermon seemed to mean a fight--a sort of spiritual duel in
   which the good man was evidently bent upon demolishing somebody or
   other who held contrary views. I trust we are learning better and that
   we try, now, to let doctrine distil as rain and drop as dew--"as the
   small rain upon the tender herb."

   It is our duty at certain turning points of the road to contend
   earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, but we are to
   remember that our contentions are the contentions of love--and that it
   ill becomes the man who holds the Truth of a loving Savior to hold it
   in bitterness, or contend for it with rancor. You will possibly think
   that I have been guilty in this matter, but I cannot make such a
   confession to any large extent. I have felt no bitterness and, when I
   have spoken forcibly, I have yet restrained myself from harder things
   which I might truthfully have brought forth. Yet, I regret that I have
   been forced into controversy for which I have no taste, and in which I
   have no pleasure. I have been driven to it--I have never sought it. To
   spread the Gospel I should choose the gentler method. It is only to
   defend it that I have to draw the sword. Fight for the Truth of God,
   yes! Be willing to live or die for the Truth of God, but if you wish to
   spread it, you will do it best by letting it drop as rain and distil as
   dew, gently and tenderly, "as the small rain upon the tender herb."

   It is equally remarkable that this discourse of Moses was a sermon of
   rebuke. He rebuked the people and rebuked them, too, with no small
   degree of sternness, when he said, "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked: you
   grew fat, you are grown thick; then he forsook God which made him." He
   warned the people of their great sin and he did not hesitate to say,
   "They are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding
   in them." Yet he felt that he had rebuked with the utmost meekness and
   had still been as the soft dew and gentle rain. Ah, Brothers and
   Sisters, upbraiding must be done in tenderness! Rebukes given in an
   unkind spirit had better not be given at all.

   I passed by a preacher, one evening, who was addressing certain
   villagers in the most terrific strains. He was telling them, "The Lord
   is coming! The Lord is coming! You will all be destroyed!" There was
   plenty of sound, though I fear not an excess of sense--and there was a
   savor of delirious prophecy which went beyond the Scriptures into
   personal visions and figments of the man's own brain! I wondered what
   he hoped to do. The people were standing at their doors, smoking their
   pipes and taking it in as a curious kind of display. Perhaps better
   that he should rage like a sea in a storm than give the people no
   warning and yet I do not suppose any good could come of his shouts. Had
   he spoken gently to them, one by one, concerning faith in God--had he
   gone to their doors and spoken of the great love of Jesus Christ--
   perhaps there would have been some result. But one would not look for
   good fruit from the boisterous shouts of nonsense! And yet there are
   many who feel that if a man shouts and perspires, something must be
   effected.

   Wisdom does not learn her exercises among the athletes, but among calm
   scholars. We do not blacken peoples' eyes to make them see, nor bully
   them into peace, nor kick them into Heaven. To strive, cry, lift up and
   cause clamorous voices to be heard in the streets is not Christ's way!
   Not a syllable have we to say against zeal, even when it breaks over
   all bounds of propriety--but it is the zeal which we value--and not the
   outbursts by themselves! We question greatly whether too often physical
   force is not mistaken for spiritual power--and this is an error of a
   mischievous kind. We need, if we can, to draw our hearers with bands of
   love, not with cart ropes and with "cords of a man"--not such cords as
   we put about dogs and bulls.

   There must be in all rebukes an abounding gentleness, softness and holy
   sorrow. When Paul is writing a very strong condemnation, he says, "I
   now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of
   Christ." Jesus Christ denounces the doom of Jerusalem, but it is with a
   flood of tears. He cries, "Woe unto you, Chorazin!" but He feels a woe
   within His own soul while He is uttering woe to them! Dear Brothers, it
   is well to observe this--that though it was a

   doctrinal discourse, it was tender. And though Moses was preaching a
   rebuking discourse, it was still "as small rain upon the tender herb."

   Yet once more, in this discourse, this swan's song, this final
   deliverance of the great Judge in Israel, he was about to declare the
   wrath of God for here we read words like these--"A fire is kindled in
   My anger and shall burn unto the lowest Hell, and shall consume the
   earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the
   mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend My arrows upon
   them," and so on. Never stronger, sterner language! But even this was
   made to drop as the small rain. And if ever there is a time when the
   sluices should be pulled up and the floods of sympathy should flow, it
   is when we preach the wrath of God! I am certain that to preach the
   wrath of God with a hard heart, cold lips, tearless eyes and an
   unfeeling spirit is to harden men--not to benefit them. If we preach
   these terrors of the Lord persuasively, we have hit the nail on the
   head, for what does the Apostle say?--"Knowing, therefore, the terror
   of the Lord, we persuade men."

   Gently, as a nurse persuades a child, though in the background is the
   rod, we would woo men to Jesus till we win them! Though we tell them
   that they must have Christ or perish--they must believe in Him or be
   forever driven from His Presence into outer darkness, we do this
   because we love them--love them better than those who flatter them! We
   dare not keep back, for a moment, the fact that sin is a horrible evil
   and brings with it endless misery. Nor would we dare to soften a
   syllable of the heavy tidings which we have to bear from the Lord to
   the impenitent. Yet we have no joy in being the bearers of harsh
   news--it is the burden of the Lord to us. We wish we had permission to
   preach always upon cheering themes, as, indeed, we would gladly do if
   men would turn to Jesus and live! Yet, even now, when we beat the
   warning drum, we do not forget to interject frequent pauses between the
   alarming strokes, that Pity's gentle voice may take its turn in the
   winning of souls.

   I remember one servant of God who could not help interrupting the great
   New England minister by crying out, "Mr. Edwards, Mr. Edwards, is He
   not, after all, a God of mercy?" I hope I should never, under any
   circumstances, give occasion for such a question! Though the Lord is a
   God of vengeance upon such as refuse His Son and reject His Grace, yet
   is He abundant in mercy, tenderness and long-suffering! And He delights
   not in the death of any, but that they should turn unto Him and live!
   Therefore let us give space for Mercy to persuade while Justice
   threatens! The right spirit in which to preach the terrors of God is
   the spirit of the text. We are to make even our solemn warnings drop,
   "as the small rain upon the tender herb." Moses meant to be gentle.
   Though it was a doctrinal discourse, a searching and rebuking
   discourse--and a discourse full of the threats of God--yet he displayed
   in it his customary meekness.

   Now, beloved Friends, if Moses meant to be tender, how much more truly
   was Jesus tender! The representative of the Law aimed at
   tenderness--how much more the Incarnation of the Gospel! He who came
   with 10 broken Commands to threaten men was tender--how much more He
   who comes with five wounds and fountains of eternal pardon to persuade
   men! How winning is the meek and lowly Lamb or God! The moment we look
   to His life, we see that wondrous tenderness displayed in His doctrine,
   for His teaching was compassionate in manner. Somehow, I cannot imagine
   our Lord Jesus Christ preaching with tones and manners at all similar
   to certain of His professed followers who thunder at men with a
   vehemence devoid of sympathy! He did thunder in indignation, but the
   lightning of conviction was by far the more no-ticeable--and with the
   lightning there always came a shower of pity.

   The Sermon on the Mount, I have sometimes thought, was such as an
   inspired woman might fitly have preached! It is so full of heart and so
   exceedingly pitiful. For the most part, throughout His ministry, though
   masculine to the last degree, yet there is a softness, a pathos of
   love--as if in the Person of Christ we had both man and woman, as in
   the first Adam at the creation. Jesus is the Head of the race,
   completely combining, in His own Person, all the vigor of the man and
   all the affection of the woman. He is, as it were, both Father and
   Mother to the children of men, blending everything that is sweet in
   manhood and womanhood in one Individuality and showing it all in His
   style which is as forcible as a hero's energy in the day of battle--and
   yet as gentle as a nurse with her children.

   All the mannerisms of Christ are wooing. And, therefore, we read, "Then
   drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him."
   Hence we have Him saying, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
   and forbid them not." To Him the sick came by instinct as to a
   Physician peculiarly set for the healing of humanity! To Him the
   bereaved sisters, the widowed mothers and the outcast lepers ran with
   eager hope! Yes, to Him the wildest of maniacs yielded, feeling the
   irresistible spell of His love. Oh yes, our Lord's manner was
   gentleness, itself.

   Furthermore, His style of speech was compassionately considerate, even
   as the dew seems to consider the withered grass and the small rain to
   adapt itself to the tender herb. In His teaching He evidently thought
   of the feebler sort and suited Himself to those depressed by grief. You
   find no hard words thrown in to make the speaker seem wise. There are
   difficulties about His doctrine inherent to the nature of truth, but
   they are never aggravated by His style. I suppose nobody ever went to
   Him and said, "Rabbi, what did You mean by such-and-such a word?" They
   knew the meaning of the words, though not always did they catch the
   inner sense. Their misapprehension was never the fault of the words
   which He used. His use of the parabolic style was especially
   remarkable--He kept on saying the Kingdom of Heaven is like-- like
   this, like that. When He feeds the multitude, He never gives them
   indigestible food--His menu is always bread and fish--and likewise,
   when He preaches, there is no indigestible Truth.

   For the most part, in the early days of His preaching to the outside
   multitude, He gave them little more than moral truth, for that was all
   they were able to bear. It sometimes amuses me to see how certain
   "modern thought" men prove themselves to belong to the outside
   many--and not to the inner circle of disciples--for they take the
   Sermon on the Mount and extol it as the summit of the doctrine of
   Jesus, whereas it was only His discourse to the multitude and not such
   spiritual teaching as He gave to His Apostles when alone. There were
   gleams and specks of the Divinely-spiritual Truths of God flashing out
   of the moral Truth like flames from a fire, but for the most part He
   gave the crowd that which it could receive and not that which would
   have been above their heads.

   He crumbed the bread into the milk and gave the people a portion fit
   for their childhood. He fed them with milk, for they were not yet able
   to bear that strong meat which His servant Paul was afterwards
   permitted to bring forth in a lordly dish for the feeding and feasting
   of those who have had their senses exercised in spiritual things. The
   Lord was very careful as to the manner of His teaching and, as to the
   matter of His teaching, too, even to His chosen. "I have yet many
   things to say unto you," He said, "but you cannot bear them now." There
   was a gradual development in His teaching as He saw the minds of men
   were prepared to receive the Truth which He should speak--from which
   method of wisdom and prudence let His disciples learn a lesson!

   Furthermore, note well that the Truth which our Lord spoke had always a
   refreshing effect upon those that were spiritually alive. Our blessed
   Master's sermons were, "as the small rain upon the tender herb," not
   merely for the softness of their descent, but for the wondrous efficacy
   with which they came. His Words fell not as fire-flakes to destroy, nor
   as the dust from the wilderness to defile, but always as the warm
   shower to cherish. What a delight it must have been to have listened to
   the Lord!

   Oh, to hear Him preach just once! Ah, though He should rebuke me and do
   nothing else--yes, though He should thunder at me and do nothing
   else--how gladly would I listen to His voice and say, "Speak, Lord; for
   Your servant hears"! Surely this heart of mine would be more than glad
   to be as a fleece of wool, filled with the dew of His blessed doctrine!
   There must have been an unutterable sweetness, a delicious
   persuasiveness, a Divine power about the speaking of Jesus, for, "Never
   man spoke like this Man." His lips were as lilies, dropping
   sweet-smelling myrrh. Whatever He spoke was fragrant with infinite love
   and gentleness and, therefore, it revived the spirit of the contrite
   ones.

   So we learn that Moses meant to be tender and Jesus was tender. What
   else do we learn? Why, that all the servants of Jesus Christ ought to
   be tender, for, if Moses was so, much more should we be! I know there
   are many here tonight who are preachers of the Gospel. Dear Brothers,
   let us endeavor, with all our might, to be always considerate towards
   those whom we address! Let us think of them as tender herbs, for many
   are so in their weakness, sorrowfulness, instability and ignorance! I
   am persuaded that we fix too high a standard when we preach and assume
   that our people know a great deal more than they do. I am sure we
   frequently need to go over, again, the elements, the fundamentals, the
   simplest doctrines of the Gospel to our congregations, for, though
   there are some that are fathers for whom we are grateful, yet it is
   true, today, as it was in Paul's day, we have not many fathers--and we
   ought not to preach with an eye to the few fathers-- but with an eye to
   the many children!

   We shall do well if the babes in Grace are fed by us and to do this our
   preaching must be, "as the small rain upon the tender herb." We must
   try to the utmost of our ability to be very plain and simple, for many
   will not understand us even then. I was greatly pleased with a
   complaint brought against me the other day, to which I plead guilty and
   I expect I shall plead guilty to it for many a day to come. Someone
   said, "Mr. Spurgeon gives us meat, but there's no gristle--he cuts out
   all the bone." They wanted a bit or two of hard bone, just to try their
   teeth on. Alas, many have broken more than a

   tooth over the novel teaching of "modern thought!" Now, I have never
   been particularly earnest, when feeding my flock, to seek out the
   poisonous pastures just to see how much of injurious fodder they could
   bear without getting sick. No! I have had regard to those who are not
   yet able to discern the differences in spiritual things and, therefore,
   I have led them to those ancient pastures where the saints were content
   to feed in days gone by.

   I think we cannot be too simple, nor too plain, nor set out the
   precious things of God in too clear a light. The little ones of God
   have very great needs and must have our special care. These tender
   herbs are very apt to be dried up and, yet, being tender, they are not
   able to drink in a great shower all at once. When I have been
   traveling, especially in southern France and Italy, I have come upon
   places where the river has burst its banks and covered all the land
   with water--then, instead of blessing the fields, it has swept
   everything out of them, buried them in mud--and killed the crops. There
   is a great difference between irrigation and inundation! But some
   preachers forget this. A sermon may sometimes act in that fashion to
   some of God's dear tender ones--it may be a perfect deluge of doctrine,
   sweeping up by the roots those feeble plants which are not very deeply
   rooted in the faith. They shall not perish, but we must avoid
   everything which has a tendency to destroy even the least of them.

   We do well to give the tender herbs the Water of Life, little by
   little. It must be, "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a
   little and there a little," for God's children are like our children
   and need little and often, rather than much and seldom! There is a loaf
   of bread and there is the child--you need to get that loaf of bread
   into the child. Well, you must do it by degrees, or else you will never
   do it at all! You will choke the child if you attempt to insert too
   much at a time into his limited storeroom. Take the bread and break it
   down--and in due time he will appropriate that quarter loaf and a great
   many loaves besides, for little children have great appetites! God's
   children cannot, all of them, receive a mass of doctrine all at
   once--but they have a fine appetite and if you give them time, they
   will gradually appropriate, masticate and inwardly digest all the
   Truths of God so that they will be nourished and made to grow! Let
   every minister of Christ remember this and patiently instruct his
   hearers as they are able to bear it.

   And so, dear Friends, I will say one thing more upon this point, which
   is, let every Christian remember this, for every Christian is to try
   and bring souls to Christ. We are all to be teachers of the Gospel
   according to our ability-- and the way to do it is to be "as the small
   rain upon the tender herb." Perhaps, dear Friend, you say, "Well, I
   should be small rain, without any great effort, for I have not much in
   me." Just so, but yet that small rain has a way of its own by which it
   makes up for being so small. "How is that," you ask ? Why, by
   continuing to fall day after day! Any gardener will tell you that with
   many hours of small rain there is more done than in a short period with
   a drenching shower. Constant dropping penetrates, saturates and abides.
   Little deeds of kindness win love even more surely than one bounteous
   act. If you cannot say much of Gospel Truth at one time, keep on saying
   a little--and saying it often! If you cannot come out with a wagonload
   of grain for an army, feed the barn fowls with a handful at a time! If
   you cannot give the people fullness of doctrine like the profound
   teachers of former ages, you can at least tell what the Lord has taught
   you and then ask Him to teach you more!

   As you learn, teach! As you get, give! As you receive, distribute! Be
   as the small rain upon the tender herb. Do you not think that in trying
   to bring people to Christ, we sometimes try to do too much at once?
   Rome was not built in a day, nor will a parish be saved in a week! Men
   do not always receive all the Gospel the first time they hear it. To
   break hearts for Jesus is something like splitting wood--we need to
   work with wedges that are very small at one end--but increase in size
   as they are driven in. A few sentences spoken well and fitly may leave
   an impression where the attempt to, all at once, force religion upon a
   person may provoke resistance and do harm. Be content to drop a word or
   two to-day and another word or two tomorrow. Soon you may safely say
   twice as much and in a week's time you may hold a long and distinctly
   religious conversation! It may soon happen that where the door was
   rudely shut in your face, you will become a welcome visitor, but had
   you forced your way in at first, you would have effectually destroyed
   all future opportunity.

   There is a great deal in speaking at the right moment. We may show our
   wisdom in not doing and in not saying, as much as in doing and saying.
   Time is a great ingredient in success. To speak out of season will show
   our zeal, but not always our sense. We are to be instant out of season
   as well as in season, but this does not involve incessant talking. I
   commend to everyone who would be a winner of souls by personal effort
   the symbol of our text, "as the small rain upon the tender herb." The
   rain is seasonable and in accordance with its surroundings. The rain
   does not fall while a burning sun is scorching the plants, or it might
   kill them. Neither is it always falling, or it might injure them. Do
   not bring in

   your exhortations when they would be out of place and do not be
   incessantly talking even the best of the Truths of God, lest you weary
   with chatter those whom you desire to convince with argument. If you
   will wait upon the Lord for guidance, He will send you forth when you
   will be most useful, even as He does the rain. God will direct you as
   to time and place if you put yourself at His disposal!

   Thus have I spoken, perhaps, at too great a length, upon the first
   head-- Moses meant to be tender.

   II. The second head is MOSES HOPED TO BE PENETRATING--"as the small
   rain upon the tender herb." Now,

   small rain is meant to enter the herb so that it may drink in the
   nourishment and be truly refreshed. The rain is not to drench the herb
   and it is not to flood it--it is to feed it, to revive it, to refresh
   it. This was what Moses aimed at. Beloved, this is what all true
   preachers of Christ aim at! We long that the Word of God which we speak
   may enter into the soul of man, may be taken up into the innermost
   nature and may produce its own Divine result.

   Why is it some people never seem to take in the Word of God, "as the
   small rain upon the tender herb?" I suppose it is, first, because some
   of it may be above their understanding. If you hear a sermon and you do
   not understand at all what the good man is talking about, how can it
   benefit you? If the preacher uses the high-class pulpit-language of the
   day, which is not English, but a sort of English-Latin--produced rather
   by reading than by conversation with ordinary mortals--why then the
   hearer usually loses his time and the preacher his labor!

   One said to me, "If I went to such-and-such a place, I would not need
   my Bible, but I should need a dictionary, for otherwise I should not
   know what was meant." May that never be the case with us! When people
   cannot understand the meaning of our language, how can we expect that
   they can drink in the inner sense? I exhort any hearer here to whom it
   has not occurred that he must understand the sermon to be benefited by
   it, to seek out always, both in his hearing and in his reading, that
   kind of teaching which he can grip and grasp! He will rise to higher
   things by this means, but he cannot rise by that which never touches
   him. We cannot feed upon that which is high above and out of our sight.
   Ballooning in theology is all very fine, but it is of no use to poor
   souls down here below who cannot hope to be allowed a place in the car.
   Tender plants are not refreshed by water which is borne aloft into the
   clouds--they need it to come down to earth and moisten their leaves and
   roots! And if it does not come near them, how can they be refreshed by
   it? The fountains of Versailles are very grand, but for the little
   flowerpot in a London window, a cupful from a child's hand, poured near
   the root, will suffice.

   Many do not drink in the sacred Word of God because it seems to them
   too good to be true. This is limiting the goodness of God--God is so
   good that nothing can be too good to be looked for from Him. How many
   fail to grasp a promise because while they say it may be true in a
   sense, they do not receive it in the sense intended by the Spirit of
   God! They dwarf and diminish the sense and, in the process, they
   evaporate the real meaning and the Word of God becomes of no effect to
   them. In many an instance, the Gospel does no mighty works because of
   their unbelief. Depend upon it, God's Word is a great Word, for He is a
   great God--and the largest meaning we can find in it is more likely to
   be true than a smaller one.

   Many persons do not receive the Gospel promise to the full because they
   do not think it is true to them. Anybody else may be blessed in that
   way, but they cannot think it probable that they shall be! Though the
   Gospel is particularly directed to sinners, to such as "labor and are
   heavy-laden," and to such as need a Savior, yet these good folks think,
   "Surely Grace could never reach to me." Oh, how we lose our labor and
   fail to comfort men because of the unbelief which pretends to be the
   child of humility, but is really the offspring of pride! The small rain
   does not get at the tender herb because the herb shrinks from the
   silver drops which would cherish it.

   No doubt many miss the charming influences of heavenly Truths of God
   because they do not think enough. How often does the Word fail to
   enrich the heart because it is not thought over! The small rain does
   not get to the root of the tender herb, for time and opportunity are
   not allowed to it. O you that would profit by the ministry of the
   Gospel, take this for your golden rule--hear once, meditate twice, and
   pray three times! I prescribe to you, as a composition and compound of
   excellent virtue, that there should be at least twice as much
   meditating as there should be hearing! Is it not strange that people
   should think sermons worth hearing, but not worth meditating upon? It
   is as foolish as if a man thought a joint of meat worth buying, but not
   worth cooking, for meditation is, as it were, a sort of holy cookery by
   which the Truth of God is prepared to be food for the soul.

   Solomon says, "The slothful man roasts not that which he took in
   hunting" and, verily, there are many of that sort, who hunt after a
   sermon and when they have found it, they roast it not--they do not
   prepare it as a Truth of God should be prepared before it can be
   digested and become spiritual meat. Why get books if you never read, or
   clothes if you never dress, or carriages if you never ride? Yet any one
   of these things is more sensible than hearing sermons and never
   meditating upon them! Do not do so, dear Brothers and Sisters, I pray
   you!

   We are not members of the Society of Friends, although I hope we are
   friends and members of a society, but we should try and do after the
   service what they try to do during the service. Let us keep silence and
   let the Truth sink into us. We should be all the better if occasionally
   we were famished of words, for too often we are smothered with them. It
   would be profitable to have the supply of words stopped, that we might
   get below the language and look inward at the hidden sense, that we
   might reach the heart of the Truth and feel its energetic operation
   upon our heart and soul. We are too often like men who skim over the
   surface of the soil while there are nuggets of gold just out of sight,
   which we might readily secure if we would but stop and dig for them.
   You cannot hope to feel the efficacy of that which is preached, so that
   it shall be to you as the small rain upon the tender herb unless you
   thoughtfully consider it.

   And, once more, we ought to pray that when we hear the Word of God, we
   may be prepared to receive it. It is of great importance that we should
   open the doors of our soul to let the Gospel enter. Hospitality to
   Truth is charity to ourselves. Some people sit, while we are preaching,
   like men in armor and, though the Gospel bow is drawn with all our
   force, the arrow rattles on their mail. It is only now and then that,
   Divinely guided, the arrow finds out a joint in their harness. But the
   profitable way to hear is to come here without armor of prejudice, or
   stubbornness and lay yourself open to receive the arrow--then will it
   be "the arrow of the Lord's deliverance." Gideon's fleece became wet
   with the dew, for it was ready to receive it. Every bit of wool has an
   aptitude, a sponginess, to suck up dew--and the moisture of the
   atmosphere fell where it was welcome when it fell on that fleece! The
   fleece was a nest for the dewdrops to rest. So let it be with our
   spirits. I pray God to make it so.

   "The preparation of the heart in man is from the Lord." May He so
   prepare us that when the doctrine preached shall come to us as the
   small rain, it may not fall on stones and dead wood, but on growing
   herbs, which, though tender, will, nonetheless, gladly accept the
   blessed gift of Heaven and return thanks for it!

   III. I shall conclude with this third reflection, that MOSES HOPED TO
   SEE RESULTS. You may, perhaps, say that you do not see this in the
   text. Will you kindly look again? "As the small rain upon the tender
   herb." Now, observe, in looking about among mankind, that, whenever
   wise men expect any results from their labors, they always go to work
   in a manner suited and adapted to the end they have in view. If Moses
   means that his speech shall bless those whom he compares to tender
   herbs, he makes it like small rain. I see clearly that he seeks a
   result, for he adapts his means.

   There is a kind of trying to do good which I call the "hit-or-miss"
   style of doing it. Here you are going to do good--you do not consider
   what method of doing good you are best fitted for, but you aspire to
   preach and preach you do! Of course, you must give a sermon and a
   sermon you give. There is no consideration about the congregation and
   its special condition, nor the peculiar persons composing it, nor what
   Truth of God will be most likely to impress and benefit. Hit-or-miss,
   off you go!

   But when a man means to see results, he begins studying means and their
   adaptation to ends--and if he sees that his people are strong men and
   women and he wants to feed them, well, he does not bring out the milk
   jug, but he fetches out a dish of strong meat for them! You can see he
   means to feed his people, for he has great anxiety when preparing their
   spiritual meat. When a person wants to water plants and they are tender
   herbs, if he looks for results, he does not drench them--that would
   look as if he had no real objective, but simply went through a piece of
   routine. Moses meant what he was doing. Finding the people to be
   comparable to tender herbs, he adapted his speech to them and made it
   like the small rain.

   Now, what will be the result if we do the same? Why, Brothers, it will
   come to pass thus--there will be among us young converts like tender
   herbs, newly planted, and if we speak in tenderness and gentleness we
   shall see the results, for they will take root in the Truth and grow in
   it. Paul planted and then Apollos watered. Why did Apollos water?
   Because you must water plants after you have planted them, that they
   may the more readily strike into the earth. Happy shall you be, dear
   Friends, if you employ your greater experience in strengthening those
   whose new life is as yet feeble! You shall have loving honor as nursing
   fathers and your wise advice shall be, "as the small rain upon the
   tender herb," for you

   shall see the result in the young people taking hold of Christ and
   sucking out the precious nutriment stored away in the soil of the
   Covenant that they may grow thereby.

   Next, when a man's discourse is like small rain to the tender herb, he
   sees the weak and perishing one revive and lift up his head. The herb
   was withering at first. It lay down as you see a newly-planted thing
   do, faint and ready to die. But the small rain came and it seemed to
   say, "Thank you," and it looked up, lifted its head and recovered from
   its swoon. You will see a reviving effect produced upon faint hearts
   and desponding minds. You will be a comforter! You will cheer away the
   fears of many and make glad the timid and fearful. What a blessing it
   is--when you see that result--for there is so much the more joy in the
   world and God is so much the more glorified!

   When you water tender herbs and see them grow, you have a further
   reward. It is delightful to watch the development and increase of Grace
   in those who are under our care. This has been an exceedingly sweet
   pleasure to me. I quote my own instance because I have no doubt it is
   repeated in many of you. It has been a great delight to me to meet men
   serving God and preaching the Gospel gloriously who were once young
   converts and needed my fostering care. I know men, deacons of Churches,
   fathers in Israel, that I remember talking to 20 or 25 years ago, when
   they could not speak a word for Jesus, for they were not assured of
   their own salvation. I rejoice to see them leaders of the flock,
   whereas once they were poor, feeble lambs! I carried them in my bosom
   and now they might almost carry me. I am glad enough to learn from them
   and sit at their feet.

   It is a great thing for a father to see his boys grow into strong men,
   upon whom he may lean in his declining days. "Blessed is the man that
   has his quiver full of them"--they were the children of his youth and
   they are the comfort and joy of later days. You, dear Friends, in your
   own way, you shall comfort the youngsters who are just seeking the
   Savior and then, in later years, when you hear them preaching and see
   them outstripping you in gifts and in Graces, you will thank God that
   you were like the small rain to them when they were very tender herbs!

   Once more, we water plants that we may see them bring forth fruit and
   become fit for use. So shall we see those whom God blesses by our means
   become a joy to the Lord, Himself, yielding fruits of holiness,
   patience and obedience, such as Jesus Christ delights in. His joy is in
   His people. And when He can rejoice in them, their joy is full. Let us
   try to be little in our own esteem, that we may be as the small rain.
   Let us try to be a little useful, if we cannot reach to great things--
   the small rain is a great blessing. Let us try to be useful to little
   things. Let us look after tender herbs. Let us try to bring boys and
   girls to Jesus. Let us look after the tender plants of the Lord's right
   hand planting, those who are babes in Grace--the timid, trembling,
   half-hoping, half-fearing ones. Let us come down from the seventh
   Heaven to bless this fallen earth.

   We have been reading about the trumpets and the "star called
   Wormwood"--let us come down from those high matters to commonplace
   affairs. Let us quit clouds and skies--and condescend to men of low
   estate. Let us come down from communing with the philosophers of
   culture and the Apostles of a new theology--to the ordinary people who
   live around us and cannot comprehend these fine fictions! Let us come
   down to the streets and lanes and do what we can for the poor, the
   fallen, the ignorant. Let us go with Jesus in the gentleness and
   sweetness of His Divine compassion, to the little children in years and
   the babes in Grace. So shall we be like Moses! So shall we be, better
   still, like the Lamb of God, to whose name be glory forever and ever!

   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Number Two-thousand--Healing by the Stripes of Jesus

   A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 1, 1888,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "By His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.

   BEING one evening in Exeter Hall, I heard our late beloved Brother, Mr.
   Mackay, of Hull, make a speech in which he told us of a person who was
   under very deep concern of soul and felt that he could never rest till
   he found salvation. So, taking the Bible into his hands, he said to
   himself, "Eternal life is to be found somewhere in this Word of God;
   and if it is here, I will find it, for I will read the Book right
   through, praying to God over every page of it, so, perhaps, it may
   contain some saving message for me." He told us that the earnest seeker
   read on through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and so on--and though Christ
   is evidently there --he could not find Him in the types and symbols.
   Neither did the holy histories yield him comfort, nor the Book of Job.
   He passed through the Psalms, but did not find His Savior there. And
   the same was the case with the other books till he reached Isaiah. In
   this Prophet he read on till, near the end, and then, in the 53rd
   Chapter, these words caught his delighted attention, "By His stripes we
   are healed" "Now I have found it," he said. "Here is the healing that I
   need for my sin-sick soul and I see how it comes to me through the
   sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ! Blessed be His name, I am healed!"

   It was well that the seeker was wise enough to search the sacred
   volume. It was better, still, that in that volume there should be such
   a life-giving Word and that the Holy Spirit should reveal it to the
   seeker's heart. I said to myself, "That text will suit me well and,
   perhaps, a voice from God may speak through it, yet again, to some
   other awakened sinner." May He, who by these words spoke to the
   chamberlain of the Ethiopian queen who, also, was impressed with them
   while in the act of searching the Scripture, speak, also, to many who
   shall hear or read this sermon! Let us pray that it may be so! God is
   very gracious and He will hear our prayers.

   The object of my discourse is very simple. I would come to the text and
   I would come at you! May the Holy Spirit give me power to do both to
   the glory of God!

   I. In endeavoring to come to the full meaning of the text, I should
   remark, first, that GOD, IN INFINITE MERCY, HERE TREATS SIN AS A
   DISEASE. "By His stripes"--that is, the stripes of the Lord Jesus--"we
   are healed." Through the sufferings of our Lord, sin is pardoned and we
   are delivered from the power of evil--this is regarded as the healing
   of a deadly malady. The Lord, in this present life, treats sin as a
   disease. If He were to treat it once, as sin, and summon us to His bar
   to answer for it, we would, at once, sink beyond the reach of hope, for
   we could not answer His accusations, nor defend ourselves from His
   justice. In great mercy He looks upon us with pity and, for the time
   being, treats our ill manners as if they were diseases to be cured
   rather than rebellions to be punished. It is most gracious on His part
   to do so, for while sin is a disease, it is a great deal more!

   If our iniquities were the result of an unavoidable sickness, we might
   claim pity rather than censure. But we sin willfully, we choose evil,
   we transgress in heart and, therefore, we bear a moral responsibility
   which makes sin an infinite evil. Our sin is our crime rather than our
   calamity! However, God looks at it in another way, for a season, so
   that He may be able to deal with us on hopeful grounds--He looks at the
   sickness of sin and not, as yet, at the wickedness of sin. Nor is this
   without reason, for men who indulge in gross vices are often charitably
   judged by their fellows to be not only wholly wicked, but partly mad.
   Propensities to evil are usually associated with a greater or less
   degree of mental disease--perhaps, also, of physical disease. At any
   rate, sin is a spiritual malady of the worst kind.

   Sin is a disease, for it is not essential to manhood, nor an integral
   part of human nature as God created it. Man was never more fully and
   truly man than he was before he fell. And He who is especially called
   "the Son of Man "knew no sin,

   neither was guile found in His mouth, yet He was perfectly Man. Sin is
   abnormal--a sort of cancerous growth which ought not to be within the
   soul. Sin is disturbing to manhood--sin unmans a man. Sin is sadly
   destructive to man. It takes the crown from his head, the light from
   his mind and the joy from his heart. We may name many grievous diseases
   which are the destroyers of our race, but the greatest of these is sin!
   Sin, indeed, is the fatal egg from which all other sicknesses have been
   hatched. It is the fountain and source of all mortal maladies.

   It is a disease because it puts the whole system of the man out of
   order. It places the lower faculties in the higher place, for it makes
   the body master over the soul. The man should ride the horse, but in
   the sinner, the horse rides the man. The mind should keep the animal
   instincts and propensities in check, but in many men, the animal
   crushes the mental and the spiritual. For instance, how many live as if
   eating and drinking were the chief objects of existence? They live to
   eat, instead of eating to live! The faculties are thrown out of gear by
   sin so that they act fitfully and irregularly--you cannot depend upon
   any one of them keeping its place. The equilibrium of the life-forces
   is grievously disturbed. Even as a sickness of body is called a
   disorder, so is sin the disorder of the soul. Human nature is out of
   joint, out of health and man is no longer man--he is dead through sin
   even as he was warned of old, "in the day that you eat, thereof, you
   shall surely die." Man is marred, bruised, sick, paralyzed, polluted
   and rotten with disease--just in proportion as sin has shown its true
   character.

   Sin, like disease, operates to weaken man. The moral energy is broken
   down so as scarcely to exist in some men. The conscience labors under a
   fatal consumption and is gradually ruined by a decline. The
   understanding has been lamed by evil and the will is rendered feeble
   for good, though forcible for evil! The principle of integrity, the
   resolve of virtue in which a man's true strength really lies, is sapped
   and undermined by wrong-doing. Sin is like a secret flow of blood which
   robs the vital parts of their essential nourishment. How near to death,
   in some men, is even the power to discern between good and evil! The
   Apostle tells us that when we were yet without strength, in due time,
   Christ died for the ungodly--and this being without strength is the
   direct result of the sickness of sin which has weakened our whole
   manhood.

   Sin is a disease which, in some cases causes extreme pain and anguish,
   but in other instances deadens sensibility. It frequently happens that
   the more sinful a man is, the less he is conscious of it. It was
   remarked of a certain notorious criminal that many thought him innocent
   because, when he was charged with murder, he did not betray the least
   emotion. In that wretched self-possession there was, to my mind,
   presumptive proof of his great familiarity with crime--if an innocent
   person is charged with a great offense, the mere charge horrifies him!
   It is only by weighing all the circumstances and distinguishing between
   sin and shame that he recovers himself. He who can do the deed of shame
   does not blush when he is charged with it. The deeper a man goes in
   sin, the less does he admit that it is sin. Like a man who takes opium,
   he acquires the power to take larger and larger doses till that which
   would kill a hundred other men has but slight effect upon him! A man
   who readily lies is scarcely conscious of the moral degradation
   involved in being a liar, though he may think it shameful to be called
   one. It is one of the worst points of this disease of sin that it
   stupefies the understanding and causes a paralysis of the conscience.

   By-and-by, sin is sure to cause pain like other diseases which flesh is
   heir to--and when its awakening comes, what a start it gives!
   Conscience, one day, will awake and fill the guilty soul with alarm and
   distress, if not in this world, yet certainly in the next! Then will it
   be seen what an awful thing it is to offend against the Law of the
   Lord.

   Sin is a disease which pollutes a man. Certain diseases render a man
   horribly impure. God is the best judge of purity, for He is thrice-holy
   and He cannot endure sin. The Lord puts sin away from Him with
   abhorrence--and prepares a place where the finally-unclean shall be
   shut up by themselves. He will not dwell with them here, neither can
   they dwell with Him in Heaven. As men must put lepers apart by
   themselves, so Justice must put out of the heavenly world, everything
   which defiles. O my Hearer, shall the Lord be compelled to put you out
   of His Presence because you persist in wickedness?

   And this disease, which is so polluting, is, at the same time, most
   injurious to us from the fact that it prevents the higher enjoyment and
   employment of life. Men exist in sin, but they do not truly live. As
   the Scripture says, such an one is dead while he lives. While we
   continue in sin, we cannot serve God on earth, nor hope to enjoy Him,
   forever, above. We are incapable of communion with perfect spirits and
   with God, Himself--and the loss of this communion is the greatest of
   all evils! Sin deprives us of spiritual sight, hearing, feeling and
   taste and, thus, deprives us of those joys which turn existence into
   life. It brings upon us true death, so that we exist in ruins, deprived
   of all which can be called life.

   This disease is fatal. Is it not written, "The soul that sins, it shall
   die?" "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." There is no hope
   of eternal life for any man unless sin is put away. This disease never
   exhausts itself so as to be its own destroyer. Evil men wax worse and
   worse! In another world, as well as in this present state, character
   will, no doubt, go on to develop and ripen--and so the sinner will
   become more and more corrupt as the result of his spiritual death. O my
   Friends, if you refuse Christ, sin will be the death of your peace,
   your joy, your prospects, your hopes--and thus the death of all that is
   worth having! In the case of other diseases, nature may conquer the
   malady and you may be restored, but in this case, apart from Divine
   interposition, nothing lies before you but eternal death!

   God, therefore, treats sin as a disease because it is a disease! And I
   want you to feel that it is so, for then you will thank the Lord for
   thus dealing with you. Many of us have felt that sin is a disease and
   we have been healed of it. Oh, that others could see what an
   exceedingly evil thing it is to sin against the Lord! It is a
   contagious, defiling, incurable, mortal sickness!

   Perhaps somebody says, "Why do you raise these points? They fill us
   with unpleasant thoughts." I do it for the reason given by the engineer
   who built the great Menai Tubular Bridge. When it was being erected,
   some brother engineers said to him, "You raise all manner of
   difficulties." "Yes," he said, "I raise them that I may solve them." So
   do we at this time dilate upon the sad state of man by nature--that we
   may the better set forth the glorious remedy of which our text so
   sweetly speaks!

   II. God treats sin as a disease and HE HERE DECLARES THE REMEDY WHICH
   HE HAS PROVIDED--"By His stripes we are healed."

   I ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations, for a few
   minutes, while I bring before you the stripes of the Lord Jesus. The
   Lord resolved to restore us and, therefore, He sent His only-begotten
   Son, "Very God of very God," that He might descend into this world to
   take upon Himself our nature in order to our redemption. He lived as a
   Man among men and, in due time, after 30 years or more of service, the
   time came when He should do us the greatest service of all, namely,
   stand in our place and bear the chastisement of our peace. He went to
   Gethsemane and there, at the first taste of our bitter cup, He sweat
   great drops of blood. He went to Pilate's Hall and Herod's
   Judgement-Seat and there He drank draughts of pain and scorn in our
   place! Last of all, they took Him to the Cross and nailed Him there to
   die--to die in our place, "the Just for the unjust, to bring us to
   God."

   The word, "stripes," is used to set forth His sufferings, both of body
   and of soul. The whole of Christ was made a Sacrifice for us--His whole
   Manhood suffered. As to His body, it shared with His mind in a grief
   that never can be described! In the beginning of His passion, when He
   emphatically suffered instead of us, He was in agony. And from His
   bodily frame a bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the
   ground! It is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There have been one
   or two instances of it and they have been followed by almost immediate
   death--but our Savior lived--lived after an agony which, to anyone
   else, would have proven fatal. Before He could cleanse His face from
   this dreadful crimson, they hurried him to the High Priest's hall. In
   the dead of night they bound Him and led Him away.

   Soon they took Him to Pilate and to Herod. These scourged Him and their
   soldiers spat in His face and buffeted Him. They put a crown of thorns
   on His head. Scourging is one of the most awful tortures that can be
   inflicted by malice. It is to the eternal disgrace of Englishmen that
   they should have permitted the "cat" to be used upon the soldier--but
   to the Roman, cruelty was so natural that he made his common
   punishments worse than brutal! The Roman scourge is said to have been
   made of the sinews of oxen twisted into knots--and into these knots
   were inserted slivers of bone and hucklebones of sheep, so that every
   time the scourge fell upon the bare back, "the plowers made deep
   furrows." Our Savior was called upon to endure the fierce pain of the
   Roman scourge and this not as the finis of His punishment, but as a
   preliminary to crucifixion!

   To this they added buffeting and plucking of His facial hair. They
   spared Him no form of pain. In all His faintness, through bleeding and
   fasting, they made Him carry His Cross until another was forced, by the
   forethought of their cruelty, to bear it, lest their Victim should die
   on the road. They stripped Him, threw Him down and nailed Him to the
   wood. They pierced His hands and His feet. They lifted up the tree,
   with Him upon it, and then dashed it down into its place in the ground,
   so that all His limbs were dislocated, according to the lament of the
   22nd Psalm, "I am poured out like water and all My bones are out of
   joint." He hung in the burning sun till the fever dissolved His
   strength and He

   said, "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My
   strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaves to My jaws;
   and You have brought Me into the dust of death."

   There He hung, a spectacle to God and men! The weight of His body was
   first sustained by His feet, till the nails tore through the tender
   nerves--and then the painful load began to drag upon His hands and tear
   those sensitive parts of His frame. How small a wound in the hand has
   brought on lockjaw? How awful must have been the torment caused by that
   dragging iron tearing through the delicate parts of the hands and feet!
   Now were all manner of bodily pains centered in His tortured frame! All
   the while His enemies stood around, pointing at Him in scorn, thrusting
   out their tongues in mockery, jesting at His prayers and gloating over
   His sufferings! He cried, "I thirst," and then they gave Him vinegar
   mingled with gall!

   After a while He said, "It is finished." He had endured the utmost of
   appointed grief and had made full vindication to Divine Justice. Then,
   and not till then, He gave up the ghost. Holy men of old have enlarged
   most lovingly upon the bodily sufferings of our Lord and I have no
   hesitation in doing the same, trusting that trembling sinners may see
   salvation in these painful "stripes" of the Redeemer. To describe the
   outward sufferings of our Lord is not easy--I acknowledge that I have
   failed. But His soul-sufferings which were the soul of His sufferings,
   who can even conceive, much less express, what they were? At the very
   first I told you that He sweat great drops of blood. That was His heart
   driving out its life-floods to the surface through the terrible
   depression of spirit which was upon Him. He said, "My soul is
   exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death."

   The betrayal by Judas and the desertion of the 12 grieved our Lord, but
   the weight of our sin was the real pressure on His heart. Our guilt was
   the olive press which forced from Him the moisture of His life! No
   language can ever tell His agony in prospect of His passion--how
   little, then, can we conceive the passion, itself? When nailed to the
   Cross, He endured what no martyr ever suffered, for martyrs, when they
   have died, have been so sustained of God that they have rejoiced amid
   their pain, but our Redeemer was forsaken of His Father until He cried,
   "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That was the most bitter
   cry of all, the utmost depth of His unfathomable grief! Yet it was
   necessary that He should be deserted because God must turn His back on
   sin and, consequently, upon Him who was made sin for us! The soul of
   the great Substitute suffered a horror of misery instead of that horror
   of Hell into which sinners would have been plunged had He not taken
   their sin upon Himself and been made a curse for them. It is written,
   "Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree"--but who knows what that
   curse means?

   The remedy for your sins and mine is found in the substitutionary
   sufferings of the Lord Jesus and in these only! These "stripes" of the
   Lord Jesus Christ were on our behalf! Do you ask, "Is there anything
   for us to do, to remove the guilt of sin?" I answer--There is nothing
   whatever for you to do! By the stripes of Jesus we are healed! He has
   endured all those stripes and left not one of them for us to bear.

   "But must we not believe on Him?" Yes, certainly. If I say of a certain
   ointment that it heals, I do not deny that you need a bandage with
   which to apply it to the wound! Faith is the linen which binds the
   plaster of Christ's reconciliation to the sore of our sin. The linen
   does not heal--that is the work of the ointment! So faith does not
   heal--that is the work of the Atonement of Christ.

   Does an enquirer reply, "But surely I must do something, or suffer
   something"? I answer--You must put nothing with Jesus Christ, or you
   greatly dishonor Him! In order to your salvation, you must rely only
   upon the wounds of Jesus Christ and nothing else! The text does not
   say, "His stripes help to heal us," but, "By His stripes we are
   healed."

   "But we must repent," cries another! Assuredly we must and shall, for
   repentance is the first sign of healing! But the stripes of Jesus heal
   us--not our repentance. These stripes, when applied to the heart, work
   repentance in us--we hate sin because it made Jesus suffer.

   When you intelligently trust in Jesus as having suffered for you, then
   you discover the fact that God will never punish you for the same
   offense for which Jesus died. His justice will not permit Him to see
   the debt paid, first, by the Surety, and then, again, by the debtor!
   Justice cannot twice demand a recompense. If my bleeding Surety has
   borne my guilt, then I cannot bear it. Accepting Christ Jesus as
   suffering for me, I have accepted a complete discharge from judicial
   liability. I have been condemned in Christ and there is now, therefore,
   no condemnation to me anymore. This is the groundwork of the security
   of the sinner who believes in Jesus--he lives because Jesus died in his
   place--and he is acceptable before God because Jesus is accepted. The
   person for whom Jesus is an accepted Substitute must go free--none can
   touch

   him--he is clear! O my Hearer, will you have Jesus Christ to be your
   Substitute? If so, you are free. "He that believes on Him is not
   condemned." Thus, "by His stripes we are healed."

   III. I have tried to put before you the disease and the remedy. I now
   desire to notice the fact that THIS REMEDY IS IMMEDIATELY EFFECTIVE
   WHEREVER IT IS APPLIED. The stripes of Jesus do heal men--they have
   healed many of us. It does not look as if it could effect so great a
   cure, but the fact is undeniable. I often hear people say, "If you
   preach up this faith in Jesus Christ as saving men, they will be
   careless about holy living." I am as good a witness on that point as
   anybody, for I live every day in the midst of men who are trusting to
   the stripes of Jesus for their salvation--and I have seen no ill effect
   following from such a trust--I have seen the very reverse! I bear
   testimony that I have seen the very worst of men become the very best
   of men by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ! These stripes heal, in a
   surprising manner, the moral diseases of those who seemed past remedy.

   The character is healed. I have seen the drunk become sober, the harlot
   become chaste, the passionate man become gentle, the covetous man
   become liberal and the liar become truthful--simply by trusting in the
   sufferings of Jesus! If it did not make good men of them, it would not
   really do anything for them, for, after all, you must judge men by
   their fruits--and if the fruits are not changed--the tree is not
   changed. Character is everything--if the character is not set right,
   the man is not saved. But we say it, without fear of contradiction,
   that the atoning Sacrifice, applied to the heart, heals the disease of
   sin. If you doubt it, try it! He that believes in Jesus is sanctified
   as well as justified--by faith he becomes an altogether changed man.

   The conscience is healed of its smart. Sin crushed the man's soul. He
   was spiritless and joyless, but the moment he believed in Jesus, he
   leaped into the Light of God! Often you can see a change in the very
   look of the man's face--the cloud flies from the countenance when guilt
   goes from the conscience. Scores of times, when I have been talking
   with those bowed down with sin's burden, they have looked as though
   they were qualifying for an asylum through inward grief. But they have
   caught the thought, "Christ stood for me and if I trust in Him, I have
   the sign that He did so, and I am clear," and their faces have been lit
   up as with a glimpse of Heaven!

   Gratitude for such great mercy causes a change of thought towards God
   and so it heals the judgment and, by this means, the affections are
   turned in the right way and the heart is healed. Sin is no longer
   loved, but God is loved and holiness is desired. The whole man is
   healed and the whole life changed. Many of you know how light of heart
   faith in Jesus makes you--how the troubles of life lose their weight
   and the fear of death ceases to cause bondage. You rejoice in the Lord,
   for the blessed remedy of the stripes of Jesus is applied to your soul
   by faith in Him.

   The fact that, "by His stripes we are healed," is a matter in evidence.
   I shall take liberty to bear my own witness. If it were necessary, I
   could call thousands of persons, my daily acquaintances, who can say
   that by the stripes of Christ they were healed, but I must not,
   therefore, withhold my personal testimony. If I had suffered from a
   dreadful disease and a physician had given me a remedy which had healed
   me, I would not be ashamed to tell you all about it--I would quote my
   own case as an argument with you to try my physician. Years ago, when I
   was a youth, the burden of my sin was exceedingly heavy upon me. I had
   fallen into no gross vices and would not have been regarded by anyone
   as being especially a transgressor--but I regarded myself as such--and
   I had good reason for doing so. My conscience was sensitive because it
   was enlightened and I judged that, having had a godly father and a
   praying mother, and having been trained in the ways of piety, I had
   sinned much against the Light of God and, consequently, there was a
   greater degree of guilt in my sin than in that of others who were my
   youthful associates, but had not enjoyed my advantages.

   I could not enjoy the sports of youth because I felt that I had done
   violence to my conscience. I would seek my chamber and there, sit
   alone, read my Bible and pray for forgiveness. But peace did not come
   to me. Books such as Baxter's, "Call to the Unconverted," and
   Doddridge's, "Rise and Progress," I read over and over again. Early in
   the morning I would awake and read the most earnest religious books I
   could find, desiring to be eased of my burden of sin. I was not always
   thus dull, but at times my misery of soul was very great. The words of
   the weeping Prophet and of Job were such as suited my mournful case. I
   would have chosen death rather than life! I tried to do as well as I
   could and to behave myself, but, in my own judgement, I grew worse and
   worse. I felt more and more despondent.

   I attended every place of worship within my reach, but I heard nothing
   which gave me lasting comfort until, one day, I heard a simple preacher
   of the Gospel speak from the text, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all
   the ends of the earth." When he told me that all I had to do was to
   "look" to Jesus--to Jesus the Crucified One--I could hardly believe it!
   He

   went on and said, "Look, look, look!" He added, "There is a young man,
   under the left-hand gallery there, who is very miserable. He will have
   no peace until he looks to Jesus"--and then he cried--"Look! Look!
   Young man, look!" I did look and, in that moment, relief came to me and
   I felt such overflowing joy that I could have stood up and cried,
   "Hallelujah! Glory be to God! I am delivered from the burden of my
   sin!" Many days have passed since then, but my faith has held me up and
   compelled me to proclaim the story of Free Grace and dying Love. I can
   truly say--

   "Ever since by faith I saw the stream

   Your flowing wounds supply,

   Redeeming lo ve has been my theme,

   And shall be till I dee."

   I hope to sit up in my bed in my last hours and tell of the stripes
   that healed me! I hope some young men, yes, and old men before me, will
   at once try this remedy--it is good for all characters and all
   ages--"By His stripes we are healed." Thousands upon thousands of us
   have tried and proved this remedy! We speak what we know and testify
   what we have seen. God grant that men may receive our witness through
   the power of the Holy Spirit!

   I want a few minutes' talk with those who have not tried this marvelous
   heal-all. Let us come to close quarters. Friend, you are, by nature, in
   need of soul-healing as much as any of us. And one reason why you do
   not care about the remedy is because you do not believe that you are
   sick. I saw a peddler one day, as I was walking. He was selling
   walking-sticks. He followed me and offered me one of the sticks. I
   showed him mine--a far better one than any he had to sell-- and he
   withdrew at once. He could see that I was not likely to be a purchaser.
   I have often thought of that when I have been preaching--I show men the
   righteousness of the Lord Jesus, but they show me their own--and all
   hope of dealing with them is gone. Unless I can prove that their
   righteousness is worthless, they will not seek the righteousness which
   is of God by faith. Oh, that the Lord would show you your disease and
   then you would desire the remedy!

   It may be that you do not care to hear of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, my
   dear Friends! You will have to hear of him one of these days, either
   for your salvation or your condemnation! The Lord has the key of your
   heart and I trust He will give you a better mind and, whenever this
   shall happen, your memory will recall my simple discourse and you will
   say, "I do remember! Yes, I heard the preacher declare that there is
   healing in the wounds of Christ."

   I pray you do not put off seeking the Lord--that would be great
   presumption on your part and a sad provocation to Him. But, should you
   have put it off, I pray you do not let the devil tell you it is too
   late. It is never too late while life lasts. I have read in books that
   very few people are converted after they are 40 years of age. My solemn
   conviction is that there is but little truth in such a statement! I
   have seen as many people converted at one age as at another in
   proportion to the number of people who are living at that age. Any
   first Sunday in the month you may see the right-hand of fellowship
   given to from 30 to 80 people who have been brought in during the
   month--and if you take stock of them, there will be found to be a
   selection representing every age--from childhood up to old age! The
   precious blood of Jesus has power to heal long-rooted sin! It makes old
   hearts new! If you were a thousand years old, I would exhort you to
   believe in Jesus and I would be sure that His stripes would heal you!
   Your hair is nearly gone, old Friend, and furrows appear on your brow,
   but come along! You are rotting away with sin, but this medicine meets
   desperate cases! Poor, old, tottering pensioner, put your trust in
   Jesus, for by His stripes the old and the dying are healed!

   Now, my dear Hearers, you are, at this moment, either healed or not.
   You are either healed by Divine Grace, or you are still in your natural
   sickness. Will you be so kind to yourselves as to enquire which it is?
   Many say, "We know what we are." But certain, more thoughtful ones,
   reply, "We don't quite know." Friend, you ought to know and you should
   know! Suppose I asked a man, "Are you a bankrupt or not?" and he said,
   "I really have no time to look at my books and, therefore, I am not
   sure." I would suspect that he could not pay 20 shillings in the
   pound--wouldn't you? Whenever a man is afraid to look at his books, I
   suspect that he has something to be afraid of. So, whenever a person
   says, "I don't know my condition and I don't care to think much about
   it," you may pretty safely conclude that things are wrong with him.

   You ought to know whether you are saved or not. "I hope I am saved,"
   says one, "but I do not know the date of my conversion." That does not
   matter at all! It is a pleasant thing for a person to know his
   birthday, but when persons are not sure of the exact date of their
   birth, they do not, therefore, infer that they are not alive! If a
   person does not know when he was converted, that is no proof that he is
   not converted. The point is, do you trust Jesus Christ? Has that trust
   made a new man of you? Has your confidence in Christ made you feel that
   you have been forgiven? Has that made you

   love God for having forgiven you and has that love become the
   mainspring of your being so that out of love to God you delight to obey
   Him? Then you are healed! If you do not believe in Jesus, you can be
   sure that you are still unhealed-- and I pray you look at my text until
   you are led by Grace to say--"I am healed, for I have trusted in the
   stripes of Jesus."

   Suppose, for a moment, you are not healed--let me ask the question,
   "Why are you not?" You know the Gospel-- why are you not healed by
   Christ? "I don't know," says one. And, my dear Friend, I beseech you
   not to rest until you do know!

   "I can't get at it," somebody says. The other day a young girl was
   putting a button on her father's coat. She was sitting with her back to
   the window and she said, "Father, I can't see; I am in my own light."
   He said, "Ah, my daughter, that is where you have been all your life!"
   This is the position of some of you spiritually. You are in your own
   light--you think too much of yourselves! There is plenty of light in
   the Sun of Righteousness, but you get in the dark by putting self in
   the way of that Sun. Oh, that your self might be put away! I read a
   touching story the other day as to how one found peace. A young man had
   been, for some time, under a sense of sin, longing to find mercy, but
   he could not reach it. He was a telegraph clerk and, being in the
   office one morning, he had to receive and transmit a telegram. To his
   great surprise, he spelt out these words--"Behold the Lamb of God,
   which takes away the sin of the world." A gentleman out for a holiday
   was telegraphing a message in answer to a letter from a friend who was
   in trouble of soul.

   It was meant for another, but he that transmitted it received Eternal
   Life as the words came flashing into his soul!

   dear Friends, get out of your own light and, at once, "Behold the Lamb
   of God, which takes away the sin of the world"! I cannot telegraph the
   words to you, but I would put them before you so plainly and distinctly
   that everyone in trouble of soul may know that they are meant for him.
   There lies your hope--not in yourself, but in the Lamb of God! Behold
   him and as you behold him, your sin shall be put away and by His
   stripes you shall be healed!

   If, dear Friend, you are healed, this is my last word to you--then get
   out of diseased company. Get away from the companions that have
   infected you with sin! Come out from among them! Be you separate and
   touch not the unclean thing. If you are healed, praise the Healer and
   acknowledge what He has done for you! There were ten lepers healed, but
   only one returned to praise the healing hand. Do not be among the
   ungrateful nine. If you have found Christ, confess His name! Confess it
   in His own appointed way--"He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." When you have thus confessed Him, speak out for Him. Tell what
   Jesus has done for your soul and dedicate yourself to the holy purpose
   of proclaiming abroad the message by which you have been healed!

   1 met this week with something that pleased me--how one man, being
   healed, may be the means of blessing to another. Many years ago I
   preached a sermon in Exeter Hall which was printed and entitled,
   "Salvation to the Uttermost." A friend, who lives not very far from
   this place, was in the city of Para, in Brazil. There he heard of an
   Englishman in prison who had, in a state of drunkenness, committed a
   murder, for which he was confined for life. Our friend went to see him
   and found him deeply penitent, but quietly restful and happy in the
   Lord. He had felt the terrible wound of blood-guiltiness in his soul,
   but it had been healed and he felt the bliss of pardon. Here is the
   story of the poor man's conversion as I have it--

   "A young man, who had just completed his contract with the gas-works,
   was returning to England, but before doing so he called to see me and
   brought with him a parcel of books. When I opened it, I found that they
   were novels, but, being able to read, I was thankful for anything.
   After I had read several of the books, I found a sermon (No. 84),
   preached by C. H. Spurgeon, in Exeter Hall, on June 8th , 1856, from
   the words, 'Therefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost,'
   etc., (Heb. 7:25). In his discourse, Mr. Spurgeon referred to Palmer,
   who was then lying under sentence of death in Stafford Jail and, in
   order to bring home this text to his hearers, he said that if Palmer
   had committed many other murders, if he repents and seeks God's
   pardoning love in Christ, even he will be forgiven! I then felt that if
   Palmer could be forgiven, so might I. I sought and, blessed be God, I
   found! I am pardoned, I am free! I am a sinner saved by Grace! Though a
   murderer, I have not yet sinned 'beyond the uttermost,' blessed be His
   holy name!" It made me very happy to think that a poor condemned
   murderer could thus be converted. Surely there is hope for every hearer
   and reader of this sermon, however guilty he may be!

   If you know Christ, tell others about Him. You do not know what good
   there is in making Jesus known, even though all you can do is to give a
   tract, or repeat a verse. Dr. Valpy, the author of a great many class
   books, wrote the following simple lines as his confession of faith--

   "In peace let me resign my breath, And Your salvation see. My sins
   deserve eternal death, But Jesus died for me."

   Valpy is dead and gone, but he gave those lines to dear old Dr. Marsh,
   the Rector of Beckenham, who put them over his study mantel. The Earl
   of Roden came in and read them. "Will you give me a copy of those
   lines?" said the good earl. "I shall be glad," said Dr. Marsh, and he
   copied them. Lord Roden took them home and put them over his mantel.
   General Taylor, a Waterloo hero, came into the room and noticed them.
   He read them over and over again, while staying with Earl Roden, till
   his Lordship remarked, "I say, friend Taylor, I should think you know
   those lines by heart." He answered, "I do know them by heart. Indeed,
   my very heart has grasped their meaning." He was brought to Christ by
   that humble rhyme!

   General Taylor handed those lines to an officer in the army who was
   going out to the Crimean War. He came home to die. And when Dr. Marsh
   went to see him, the poor soul, in his weakness said, "Good Sir, do you
   know this verse which General Taylor gave to me? It brought me to my
   Savior, and I die in peace." To Dr. Marsh's, surprise, he repeated the
   lines--

   "In peace let me resign my breath, And Your salvation see. My sins
   deserve eternal death, But Jesus died for me."

   Only think of the good which four simple lines may do! Be encouraged,
   all of you who know the healing power of the wounds of Jesus! Spread
   this Truth of God by all means. Never mind how simple the language.
   Proclaim it! Proclaim it everywhere and in every way--even if you
   cannot do it in any other way than by copying a verse out of a
   hymnbook! Proclaim that by the stripes of Jesus we are healed! May God
   bless you, dear Friends! Pray for me that this sermon of mine, which is
   numbered, TWO-THOUSAND, may be a very fruitful one.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [7]15:11   [8]32:12   [9]48:15-16

   Exodus

   [10]12:21-27

   Leviticus

   [11]2:13

   Deuteronomy

   [12]30:11-14   [13]32:2   [14]34:5

   Judges

   [15]16:22

   2 Kings

   [16]7:9

   Psalms

   [17]25:10   [18]37:39   [19]46:1-3   [20]107:14-16   [21]119:49
   [22]136:4   [23]149:2

   Proverbs

   [24]15:19   [25]23:26

   Song of Solomon

   [26]4:12   [27]4:16   [28]5:1

   Isaiah

   [29]2:22   [30]41:8   [31]42:4   [32]50:10   [33]53:5   [34]62:11-12
   [35]63:1

   Jeremiah

   [36]29:11

   Micah

   [37]2:7   [38]2:12-13

   Zephaniah

   [39]3:16-18

   Zechariah

   [40]12:10-11

   Matthew

   [41]26:28   [42]26:53-54

   Mark

   [43]4:40   [44]12:6-9

   Luke

   [45]5:17   [46]18:8   [47]18:13   [48]19:12-13   [49]24:25
   [50]24:36-44

   John

   [51]1:29   [52]6:48   [53]9:5-7   [54]11:37   [55]15:9   [56]16:33
   [57]19:31-37

   Acts

   [58]17:27   [59]28:23

   Romans

   [60]9:30-33

   Ephesians

   [61]1:12-13

   Philippians

   [62]3:20-21   [63]4:1

   1 Thessalonians

   [64]2:13-14

   1 Timothy

   [65]6:12

   2 Timothy

   [66]2:9

   Hebrews

   [67]2:18

   2 Peter

   [68]3:15

   1 John

   [69]1:6-7

   Revelation

   [70]1:7   [71]1:16
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

   1. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   2. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   3. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   4. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   5. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   6. http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org/index.html
   7. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=15&scrV=11#lvi-p0.1
   8. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=32&scrV=12#i-p0.1
   9. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=48&scrV=15#xxxv-p0.1
  10. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=12&scrV=21#li-p0.1
  11. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Lev&scrCh=2&scrV=13#v-p0.1
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  14. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=34&scrV=5#xxix-p0.1
  15. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Judg&scrCh=16&scrV=22#ii-p0.1
  16. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=2Kgs&scrCh=7&scrV=9#lix-p0.1
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  19. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=46&scrV=1#xiii-p0.1
  20. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=107&scrV=14#lv-p0.1
  21. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=119&scrV=49#xxxii-p0.1
  22. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=136&scrV=4#xliv-p0.1
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  27. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Song&scrCh=4&scrV=16#iv-p0.1
  28. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Song&scrCh=5&scrV=1#vi-p0.1
  29. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=2&scrV=22#xlvii-p0.1
  30. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=41&scrV=8#xxv-p0.1
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  48. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons33/cache/sermons33.html3?scrBook=Luke&scrCh=19&scrV=12#xxiii-p0.1
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